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The USA adopts the three-telepath system with the same amendments as the British system.
A devastating earthquake kills twenty-five thousand people in Japan.
The Guardians of Democracy finally catch up with the Renegades at Albuquerque. In a pitched battle much of the town is destroyed, but over half of the Renegades are captured, and after being tried are imprisoned. The rest manage to escape and despite rumours surfacing from time to time are never seen again.
The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway begins, but is completely disrupted by the widespread nationalist unrest over the following years.
After a series of demands involving the liberation of women in France are ignored, The Amazon destroys the Panama Canal. Despite a worldwide manhunt by the French Imperial Guard she is never captured.
The Overman Legione becomes a General in the Italian Army.
After this incident public and legal pressure forces The International Council of Women to disband after some of its members express guarded support for The Amazon.
Explosions are reported along the English Channel in this and several succeeding years. No evidence or damage is ever found to explain them.
The forces of the anti-foreign Tonghak (Eastern Learning) movement, with the support of several Korean Overmen, occupy cities across Korea. Both China and Japan send expeditions into Korea. The Chinese forces are routed by the rebels but the Japanese superior military and Overman forces in the shape of the Emperors Guard defeat and disperse the rebels, occupying Korea 'to keep the peace'.
An unknown criminal is discovered while attempting to steal the British Crown Jewels, but despite being shot by a guard on duty manages to escape. On investigation the criminal is also discovered to have stolen many valuable items from places in Britain previously thought inaccessible to criminals (in later years many of these items turn up in private collections across the world after their owners deaths of old age). Despite no clues to the criminals identity ever being discovered no further crimes of this type occur.
Rioting occurs across several British coalfields. Troops are sent in to restore order and in the process several miners are killed, despite the presence of several members of the Royal Elite Guard.
Elizabeth Nietzsche is forced to leave Paraguay after the death of her husband and the near-failure of their Aryan colony.
China, objecting to Japans continued presence in Korea, and the loss of Korean independence, declares war on Japan. The Japanese Navy and Emperors Guard soon defeat the numerically superior Chinese, forcing them to recognise 'independent' Korea, pay war reparations and sign over Taiwan, the Pescadores Islands and the Liaotung Peninsula to Japan. Within days, however, Germany, Russia and France force Japan to restore the peninsula to China (in return for China paying Japan increased reparations).
New Zealand becomes the first nation to grant women electoral equality with men.
The Amazon steals money from sources across Europe and secretly develops various types of advanced weaponry. She then secretly recruits and trains an army of women, L'Armée pour Liberation de la Femme (The Womens Liberation Army) from the poorest areas of France, Germany and Spain under the guise of helping the poor. She also recruits six female Overmen (Tyche, Phoenix, Lupa, Daydream, Psyche and Lament) into a group which becomes known as Les Liberatrices (The Liberators). In 1898 they covertly move across France to the Pyrenees where they form the Amazon's army for the taking of what becomes Minerva.
Emily Armitage, the famous British music hall star, retires to Brighton after a very successful twelve-year career.
After years of unrest Italy goes to war with Abyssinia. The Overman Legione leads the Italian forces there.
Responding to reports from around the world of Overmen being killed as devils or worshipped as angels, Pope Leo XIII, in a Papal Brief, states that Overmen are merely human beings who for whatever reason have been endowed with powers beyond those of normal men, and that they should be judged as such and not taken as agents of the divine or diabolic.
A report that that the Overman James Vandaleur, known as Abyss, is kidnapping children and creating monsters in tunnels deep under London's Whitechapel leads to a raid there by the Royal Elite Guard. Despite the report being verified by the telepath Greymalkin they find nothing out of the ordinary.
US troops and the Guardians of Democracy are called out to stop the Pullman strike riots in Chicago, which involve at least one unionist Overman. To keep the US mail running trains are operated under military guard.
Anarchists attempt to assassinate the French President, but are stopped by the Imperial Guard.
A nationalist uprising occurs in the Ukraine and causes a chain reaction of other uprisings across the whole of Russia. Anarchy quickly follows as the Tsar quickly loses control. The German Army aided by the Kaisers Guard steps in to 'restore order' in European Russia, but they are obviously out to take as much of Russia as possible under their control. Britain, France and Japan step in to prevent the Germans from gaining power in Russia, and war breaks out in Europe and the Far East as nationalists resist the armies of the various powers. In the ensuing confusion the Ottoman Empire also moves into Russia in an attempt to take over the southern Islamic areas.
War rages in Europe and what was Russia, a stalemate of trenches soon building up around major cities, with large bodies of troops skirmishing with each other and supply columns in the countryside. By the end of the war the Russian army has disintegrated and only guerilla forces are left to fight for the various Russian factions. The various national Overman groups have a significant effect on the course of the war but by 1900 it has stagnated and a peace conference is called in Geneva. This divides up Russia between Germany, Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and Japan, as well as leaving five nominally independent states (Ural, Siberskaya, Tyumenskaya, Kotuy and Zayarsk) in central Russia. This war is fought with technology basically identical to that of WWI in the real world, including various types of poison gases, but with certain aspects, mainly aircraft and balloons (for both observation and use as gun platforms) being more heavily used, although aircraft prove no match for flying Overmen. By an unspoken agreement, the Overmen of the Great Powers are only used in combat with enemy forces in Russia itself, although several times Overmen fighting for the various Russian factions attack areas inside the borders of the Great Powers themselves.
During the course of the war, defences along both sides of the Franco-German border are massively increased and upgraded.
In order to defeat several very deep German thrusts into Russia from their holdings in China and the Far East, several Chinese ports are taken over by the British, French and Japanese for use as staging posts, and several supply corridors placed under effective Allied control.
The United States do not become involved in the war at any point, remaining aloof from what it sees as an essentially European conflict.
The Russian Royal Family attempts to flee to France via the Baltic. En route they are captured by the Kaisers Guard and held in Berlin until the end of the war. With the return of peace and the dividing of Russia they are put in place as puppet rulers of the German sector, with hostages held in Berlin.
French religious orders, monasteries and schools and dissolved and their property confiscated to aid the war effort. Shortly afterwards relations between France and the Vatican are broken off.
The Chilean Empire invades Argentina. Despite heavy resistance from the Argentines the Chilean forces make rapid progress as the Argentines have little defence against the Chilean chemical weapons.
Otto von Bismarck dies.
The first armoured tanks are introduced into the war by the Japanese and Germans almost simultaneously. The idea is quickly copied by most of the other nations involved in the war.
A previously unknown Turkish Overman calling himself Scimitar appears, fighting for the Ottoman Empire alongside their army in Russia.
The defeat of Legione and the Italian army by Abyssinian forces followed by a severe crisis in the Italian government goes almost unnoticed in the midst of WWI.
The Overman Lichtkranz (Corona), a member of the Kaisers Guard, becomes disillusioned with the German government after experiencing the war first-hand and attempts to leave. She is arrested by the rest of the Guard and tried for treason in a court-martial. After being found guilty she is sentenced to death, but on consideration her sentence is commuted to lifetime service in the Kaisers Guard. To prevent further escape attempts she is fitted with an explosive collar.
The Chilean army finally crushes the last pockets of Argentine resistance.
A gold rush starts as gold is discovered at Klondike Creek in Canada.
The Overman Cricket, a member of the Japanese Emperors Guard, is found to have been selling Japanese military secrets to the Russians. After his capture and a brief trial he is executed.
The term 'concentration camp' is coined by the British for the camps they construct to hold hostile Russians and Chinese. The idea quickly spreads among the other great powers and becomes very widely used throughout.the war.
An uprising of Cretans who want to leave the Ottoman Empire and join with Greece causes Greece to intervene on the side of the Cretans with the aid of an almost unheard-of Greek Overman known as The Olympian. The Ottoman Army, with the aid of the Overman Scimitar, who is called back from the Russian front, fights the Greeks both on Crete and on the Ottoman-Greek border. However, the Greeks, inspired by The Olympian, have the better army, and the Ottomans cannot call back enough men from the Russian front to give them the numerical superiority they need. This causes the Ottomans to give Crete its independence and sue for peace in 1899, when the stresses of fighting two wars on two different fronts become too much.
The first sub-machine guns are introduced, developed independently by Britain, Japan, the Amazon and Der Gehirn.
A series of incidents causes the United States to declare war on Spain. They quickly defeat the Spanish, the Guardians of Democracy playing quite a large part in the fighting, making Cuba independent (although occupied by US forces until 1901) and forcing Spain to cede Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the USA. The distraction of Spain by this war allows the Amazon the consolidate her position in the Pyrenees.
The Amazon, with Les Liberatrices and L'Armée pour Liberation de la Femme, carves out a Matriarchal state in the Pyrenees while the great powers are distracted by the war. This she calls Minerva and rules as a benevolent dictator with the capital at Andorra la Vella. Most members of Les Liberatrices and high ranking members of L'Armee pour Liberation de la Femme are given posts in the new Minervan government.
Shortly after the USA takes control of the Phillipines, Emilio Aguinaldo, who aided the US against Spain incites an insurrection against the Americans to free the Phillipines from outside control.
A tropical cyclone hits the southern USA killing hundreds.
The separation of the French church and state occurs.
A budding reform movement in China is crushed by the Chinese government after the Empress Dowager has the Emperor detained. The Allies aid in the stopping of the reform process in the interests of maintaining the stability of the country in the continuing war.
After several years of increasing anti-foreign feeling and many natural disasters an anti-foreign uprising begins in Shantung, staged by a group known as the I-ho ch'uan (who became known as the Boxers in the West). They are led by an Overman known as the Longwang (Dragon King), who in addition to his other powers is capable of imbuing his followers with superhuman toughness. Convinced of the Boxers invulnerability, the Empress gives her support to the uprising. At first, the Boxers make heavy inroads into the foreign forces in China, in addition causing furious destruction of all things foreign. However, the great powers soon call in their respective Overmen groups, and this combined with their greater firepower and technological advantage drives back and crushes the Boxers. The last group of Boxers, along with the Longwang die in a last stand in the city of Sian.
Due to Britain and France being distracted in the Far East Germany is able to consolidate its position in European Russia to such an extent as to be almost immovable.
The Chilean Empire takes over Paraguay in a short but decisive campaign. It is at around this time that people start to notice that El Libertador does not appear to be aging.
After incidents in which Overmen caused widespread damage to avoid capture and an almost certain death penalty for crimes they had committed, the US Supreme Court stops the use of the death penalty for Overman criminals, applying life sentences (usually under restraining drugs) instead. Widespread protests by civil rights groups about this preferential treatment of Overmen, backed up by widespread public support, soon mean that the Supreme Court extend the ban on the death penalty to all criminals.
The industrialisation of European Russia occurs as the Germans invest heavily in their new territories. The Japanese also industrialise some areas of their occupied territories, but in the main they merely ship resources from the occupied territories to Japan for use by native Japanese industry.
Sporadic terrorism, much of it led, at least initially, by Overmen who have fled to Ural, Siberskaya, Tyumenskaya, Kotuy or Zayarsk, or into hiding in the country, occurs throughout the occupied territories over this time. Most of the groups involved are suppressed by the military of the occupying nations, with the various Overman teams being called in when the situation demands it. Ural, Siberskaya, Tyumenskaya, Kotuy and Zayarsk all gain reputations as hotbeds of terrorist activity and suffer 'police actions' from the various occupying nations throughout this time.
As time goes by it becomes obvious that certain Overmen, such as English Rose and Greymalkin in the Royal Elite Guard, Lichtkranz in the Kaisers Guard and El Libertador in Chile are not aging. For a while intense scientific interest is focussed on them until it becomes obvious that whatever makes them immune to aging is far beyond the capabilities of present-day science to comprehend.