//------------------------------//
// Lesson 2: An Age of Atoms 
// Story: The Teacher 
// by Flyingboat Boy 
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"I can see it in all your eyes. Every single one of you thinks that my species is petty. That we are ignorant. That we are capable of breaking out of our cycle of violence and war" He gave them all a sympathetic gaze, though many were put off as to how their teacher knew what they were thinking. Some avoided his gaze guiltily, "I don't blame many you. So many of you've grown up, or been taught, that friendship, love, unity, and peace are all miraculous and wonderful things. Perhaps that is true. And perhaps it's because you believe in that so adamantly, that you find it a necessity to want to fantasize that my species, so eerily similar to yours yet so different, can rise above such a destructive lifecycle"

His eyes sweep across the auditorium. The class was silent, some in embarrassment, others considering to themselves if what he said about them was true.

"You are not wrong. Humanity is petty. As demonstrated in the slides before we've fought wars and buried our sons and daughters for some of the most trivial things. Honor. Legacy. Traditions. Pride. Did you know that two countries fought over a bucket?  Or that one of the greatest wars in the world fought was a war between family members? When you consider such a...perculiarity  from our perspective as history's educated, you are not wrong nor should you be embarrassed to come such a conclusion"

There was a sigh relief from the students as they realized their teacher wasn't going to give them a hard time on their opinions. Some, like Gallus and Smolder, even had a hearty laugh over the idea of a 'bucket' war.

The lights dimmed once again and the projector fired up once more. Houston returned to shadows of the darkness, the students only having occasional glimpses of his figure.

"But even our pettiness had a limit. Over time we had slowly learned to gauge war, reflecting on its destruction not only on nation-states and human populations but the soul of humanity itself. Bit by bit, our dogmatic pursuit of instigating war died with every new war that began. But that was a minority. Their opinions, and hence change, couldn't come fast enough. People wouldn't listen" said Houston, "That was...until the atomic bomb"

Boom. More shots of atomic bombs going off. No matter how many times the students watched it, they always got a foreboding feeling coursing through their nerves. For some, it was the destruction. For others, it was the bright lights. For a lot of them, it was the distinctive mushroom cloud that hung over the skies ominously, like one of those massive monsters that acted like end bosses in comics.

"So what was the atomic bomb?" asked Houston rhetorically, "Simple yet not simple. A bomb yet a weapon much more than just a conventional bomb. What matters, however, is the impact that it made on humanity. Visceral impact, might I add. Driven by the science of nuclear theorem, which I can explain at a later date for some of our more...inquisitive students-"

The majority of the Young Six looked over to two creatures, in particular, Headmare Twilight and Ocellus. Yep. They pretty much called that it would be those two that had the most vested interest when Houston spoke of Nuclear Theory. 

They weren't the only ones. As there were a few others that had an interest. They just tried, badly, to feign neutrality. 

"The force of the atomic bomb, or nuclear bomb, was equivalent to the force of 20,000 tons of TNT detonating simultaneously. Some bombs could even reach numbers higher than that. And the damage from such a weapon? The results speak for themselves. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. The bombs designated Little Boy and Fat Man rendered those cities null. In an instant, two cities that took generations to build up were destroyed. And with it, 105,000 souls incinerated. A further 146,000 would die later, bringing the total death count up to 251,000 people killed by just two uses of the atomic bomb"

The numbers were truly staggering. So it was therefore expected that a wave of shock and even awe overcame the class. Many of them needed to repeat the numbers over and over again to even comprehend the scale of death that the teacher spoke of.

251,000 people. To the pony students in the room that was the equivalent to the entire populations of multiple cities, even Manehatten the most populated one, combined together. And for a weapon to be capable of killing that many creatures in an instant?

Simply horrifying. 

Every creature was silent, even Gallus and Smolder who usually interject something witty by now. All of them just stared with mixed emotions, ranging from grief to despair, at the devastated landscape shown on the projector. What they thought was once the site of a great city, now laid only ruin and rubble. Worse off, they could see the survivors of the atomic bomb, their stomachs lurching as they took in the wounds that clung to the human's body as they shambled mindlessly around the ruined city. Tumors, boils, rashes, and burn marks clung themselves to the bodies.

It was like a scene right out of Tartarus.

"Humanity fell silent. Some later cried. Some later cheered. But so many died for our realization to come to fruition. We had finally created a weapon that could usher destruction in not only cities on a mass scale, but also further our extinction as a species. A weapon that could bring the apocalypse." Houston spoke the next part with a hushed tone, forcing many of the students to listen eagerly to what he was saying, "And so we waited. And waited. And waited. Waited to live. Waited to die. Waited for an armageddon of our own making." 

They all knew what was going to happen. If what their teacher taught them so far was true, then the only plausible conclusion for such a war-driven species was evident. Still...though they knew the answer, many waited in anticipation for the answer to come from Houston's lips.

"Instead...something miraculous happened. Humanity banded together." Houston smiled at all of them as he took in the visible confusion on their faces, "The United Nations was formed; a global initiative to prevent wars through diplomacy and collective security. Europe, a hotbed of generational conflicts and strife, banded together to form the European Commonwealth, where European nations shared territories and an economy with one another. The Geneva Conventions were outlined, emphasizing human rights and the rules of war to prevent unnecessary suffering in war."

"It may be hard to believe it but it is true." Houston honed in on that as he noticed a few looks of uncertainty and skepticism from the students, "Humanity broke out of our cycle thanks to the atomic bomb, the very weapon we had created to destroy ourselves. Some say it was desired for self-preservation. Maybe it was because we truly had grown sick of war. The truth of intent from my perspective is this; M.A.D."

"M.A.D, or Mutually Assured Destruction, is a concept of thinking rooted in preventing the consistent use of atomic weapons in war. Say there are two sides with atomic weapons. Should one attack the other with their nukes, then it is almost assured that the attacker would be retaliated in return, often with nukes. Both sides are destroyed. Both sides lose everything. Mutually. Assured. Destruction."

Houston's explanation did make a lot of sense but at the same time, it got them thinking critically. Was constant fear of being destroyed truly a good way to prevent conflict? Surely there must be something better. Something like the United Nations and European Commonwealth looked like great places to start.

"No nation wanted to be the first to fire its nukes because it would have been a guaranteed death wish, not only for themselves but for the rest of the world. And so we lived in peace. Was it a peace ruled by fear and paranoia? Yes. But a peace nonetheless for a species with such an illustrious history of war such as ours. And from that peace, we lived."

The next image on the screen showed them amazing industrial structures that reach up to the skies. From massive funnels that belched enormous columns of white smoke, to the production lines in which shiny and strange trinkets of all shapes and sizes were being assembled by droves of human workers, every creature in the room watched with growing interest and amazement at the scene that was laid out for them.

"Humanity learned that our ability to create needed not to be aligned with our wars. Music and the arts were expressed. Food and freshwater became commonplace. Machinery and tools to improve the lives of people were mass-produced and sold in large bulks. The boundaries of medicine were constantly being broken every day. Consumerism dominated our lives and central to all of this, was atomic energy." A picture was shown depicting what every creature presumed was a family holding hands with a smiling symbol of atomic energy. Though it did look rather stupid, it was quite heartwarming to see the smiles on the human's faces, even though it was a picture, "Ironic isn't it that the symbol of our possible demise became the symbol of our hopes and optimism. People looked at atomic energy as not something to be feared but something that held untapped potential. The creation of the atomic bomb had unlocked the code to the nearly unlimited power of atomic energy, bring us out of the Industrial Age and into the Atomic Age. Therefore, it is only fitting that many of our creations had deep links and paid homage to this new form of energy. Nowhere was this more evident than in one of the world's superpowers, the United States of America" 

The globe on the screen shifted, changing to another continent on the other side of the world. As the landmass was highlighted blue to better illustrate the boundaries of the country, the students marveled at how massive it was.  It was as big as, if not bigger than even Equestria! And for this entire continent to be united under a single banner? Amazing.

"America. Land of the free and home of the brave. The bedrock of democracy, freedom and above all else, capitalism. Through capitalism, the American Dream was fostered. The modest suburban home, the white picket fences, and the ideal Nuclear Family consisting of the father, the mother, daughter, son, dog...and in due time, the robot butler"

Robots?!

What was shown next got a very noticeable reaction from the students, especially Gallus and Sandbar as well as a few other boys in the room who squealed in delight the moment Houston mentioned a robot. The *robot* shown was a strange floating machine that levitated from the ground through the use of a fire being fed to the tube on the bottom. Made of spotless steel that shone against the camera, there were "ooooh"s and "aah"s from every creature in the room as it used its many tools attached to its three limbs to do a variety of house chores.  Whether it be cooking for the American family, washing the dishes, gardening or even teaching a frustrated human boy his homework, none of them could doubt just how cool the machine was, nor how they themselves would use it had they had one for themselves.

"Through the gift of our technological prowess, we invented Artificial Intelligence or A.I. We created life and placed it in machines" The next show up was an amazing lineup of robots. The first one was the same three-eyed robot butler from before. Another one was the exact same machine but colored white instead. The final one was a large clunky robot with short and stubby arms and legs. Compared to the other two who had distinctive eyes, the final one's top was made of glass and showed the intricate machinery that buzzed and whirled inside, " We then marketed it. Sold it to the whims of people. But even then that wasn't enough. Companies that built them profited immensely but always competed with one another to create better machines that would meet the ever-growing demands of people. See here some examples..."

He motioned them to focus on the screen.

"The humble Protectron built by Rob-Co Industries, able to fulfill an enormous array of civilian roles ranging from personal assistants, law enforcement, construction work, and even emergency services such as firefighters and paramedics." The model of the Protectron changed shape and colors in conjunction with the roles that Houston stated. Some looked like recolors of the standard Protectron. Some had more unique features such as flashing lights and industrial claws.

There was a general chuckle as they watched a lone Protectron painted red struggled to put out a small fire with a hose. The robot would fly back pitifully as the force of the water from the hose knocked the poor machine back.

"In response General Atomics, the main competitor of Rob-Co, developed the Mr. Handy line to serve as robot servants in the Nuclear family concept, as you all saw before. They even developed a female version called the Miss Nanny. For those who prefer a...feminine touch to things." Students smiled as they watched a Miss Nanny robot rock a crying baby in its arms while humming a soothing tune.

The images changed. They saw the same box-like machines from before growing more and more outlandish in design the time lapsed. They saw massive machines within dimly-lit rooms, their minds only guessing at best what the flickering lights on the knobs meant. The sense of wonder only grew as they watched a human male place his arm through a massive device, switching the machine onto life as it attached to his arm.

"Many more things were developed in this time, of course, but these are just some of the amazing things that humanity created, proving we had a spark of ingenuity when we weren't killing one another. With every year that passed without a major war, more and more milestones and inventions were being achieved. We developed vehicles that could travel faster than sound. We shot satellites into space to connect people all over the globe. We built rockets and landed on the moon. Truly, it was the Golden Age of human civilization. Peace had brought prosperity and with it, every day the American dream became more and more like a reality."

There was an elated sense of hope and joy among the student body. Many of them talked to one another in hushed tones over everything that they just saw. They talked about the clothes, the Nuclear Family, but almost all of them unanimously chattered about the robots.

Ocellus barely listened as her friends went on and on about robots. There was a nagging feeling at the back of her mind, finding its way into her stomach and making her feel queasy. Unlike the rest of her friends, her mind kept coming back to the words that their teacher spoke of back at the beginning.

Tragedy.

Just how was this a story about tragedy then? Everything that he taught them so far seemed to end off really well, despite her own grievances over the atomic bomb.

No. There had to be something more. She could taste it just by noticing the presence of their teacher standing beside the projector. He tasted...dull, emotionless, and apathetic.

Just as Ocellus opened her mouth to warn her friends, she found to her great horror that human teacher had beaten her to the... what's that pony saying again? Punch?

"But alas, that was not how it was to be" Houston looked away from his class, staring out of the window while continuing to speak, fully aware of the confusion settling in on the student's faces, "Dreams are just that in the end. Dreams. Though pleasant, it often blinds us to the cruel reality we so often try so desperately to hide from. But one must eventually awake from it."

"And that was the same thing that happened to humanity" He turned back to them, allowing them to see the blank expression on his face, "In 2052, after 107 years of the long peace, humanity awoke from the 'American Dream' of our own creation. Years of decadent spending, consumerism, and consumption had led to shortages of every major resource in the world. The oil and petroleum to run our cars increased in prices to match the scarcity. Uranium for all the fancy gimmicks, robots, and trinkets we used, ran dry. Oil wells stopped pumping. Uranium mines were stripped clean. And desperation set in as the delusional luxurious lifestyle came crumbling down upon us."

From his spot in the dark, Houston noticed a single hoof sticking out from the crowd of jaw-dropped students, "Yes, you there!" 

He pointed over to the greenish-looking pony sitting among a crowd of students. To his surprise, the five creatures sitting around the male pony were completely different from the rest of the students in the auditorium.

"What is your name, boy?" asked Houston, quite interested to be receiving his first question of the lesson from a student.

"S-sandbar, sir!" replied the pony nervously. Houston could see the boy positively shaking as he kept his hoof up in the air, "I-I'm having trouble understanding how humanity consumed so much energy in the first place. Didn't you say at the beginning that atomic energy had almost unlimited power?"

The male pony quickly dropped his hoof, sweating and breathing profusely as if he'd just done a cross-country marathon. While his friends consoled him, a large portion of the class looked towards Houston, eager to see how he would respond.

"Very good question, kid." said Houston, a little pleased at the pony's courage to speak up, "You are right, I did say that we had a source of nearly limitless power. But even near-limitless has a limit. Humanity's fault was that we used that near limitless too quickly."

Houston raised a single finger. "The first is the population. At the time of 2052, the earth's population sat at eight billion people in total. That's right. Eight billion. Thanks to the lack of a major conflict and multiple advancements in the field of medicine, the standards of living increased. Childbirth rates increased and mortality rates decreased. The elderly lived longer. With all that growth in population, comes a great demand for resources to even compensate a suitable standard of living. The second is this device."

Houston reached into his pocket and pulled out a fist-sized object, one he then placed upon the podium up for all of them to see. It was a strange cylindrical object made of glass. The top of the machine was black and at the bottom, there were six spikes. Housed within the glass chamber, were little machines too foreign for any of them to understand.

"The vacuum tube. All, of our wondrous devices required constant flows of electricity to maintain themselves. The vacuum tubes were therefore built to serve this purpose, through a process known as Thermionic Emission. By heating the cathode metal at the top of the vacuum tube," He pointed to a small piece of wire that laid on the top, "electrons gained enough energy to jump a short distance once it reached a high enough temperature. By keeping this heat constant, the electron flow, hence the electricity, remains constant all throughout the complex machines we used."

"However, there are drawbacks to the use of vacuum tubes. For one, it was large and cumbersome. Second, it required exuberant amounts of energy to maintain the electron flow. And finally, it was often prone to failure. Now apply this concept to the machines that we built, all of which required the use of a vacuum tube. You saw the robots. You saw the hand-held computers that we attached to our wrists. Each one of them was necessarily large to accommodate for the massive sizes and energy consumption of the multiple vacuum tubes used at the same time. And finally, when vacuum tubes eventually broke down, the growing consumeristic nature of humans meant that they would often throw away the devices to buy new ones. Often better and more energy-consuming ones"

"That was consumerism at its best, and worst" explained Houston, "Now imagine combining that with the eight billion people on the earth that each wanted a hand in the 'American Dream'. I think each and every one of you doesn't need further explanation as to why humanity ran out of resources so quickly."

They didn't. They really didn't. Everything just added up and made sense together. There was nothing they could feel but dread and sadness as they comprehended the situation that humanity found themselves in.

Many of them looked at the small device that now sat on top of the podium. A single question all plagued their minds.

How could something that looked so innocent, cause a global strain on resources?

"S-so...what happened next?" asked a small filly, sitting near the back.

"Humanity returned to its nature." replied Houston grimly, "It was inevitable, really. We returned to war. To what would be known to history as the Resource War." 

The students watched in silent horror as footages of war played on the projector. Rows upon rows of cannons were fired. Droves of soldiers accompanied by large box-vehicles with trends met against another army on the other side of the desert. Buildings were lit alight, flames growing to the size of large trees.

And there were so many bodies. Lying everywhere.

Some students gasped and covered their mouths, feeling sick. Others shielded themselves with a hoof over their eyes, blocking out the scenes of carnage. The more steel-nerved students stared at the screen with gritted teeth and. 

"The Middle East had long been the heartland from which the world got the majority of its oil and uranium," said Houston. The images changes to land completely covered in sand. In the distance, the students saw massive structures extracting what looked like black sludge from the ground, "But as it's oil wells depleted, the neighboring European Commonwealth looked on with fears as the oil prices increased and their own reserves became dangerously low. As a result, in April of 2052, the European Commonwealth invaded the Middle-East with military action to secure the wells. It was a brutal war , one that ended in no victories for either side. For the Middle-East, they collapsed under small exchanges of atomic bombs between them and the Commonwealth, as well as the boot of the Commonwealth's better army. However, for their part, the Commonwealth fared little better. Ironically the wells they so vehemently fought for over the span of eight years were completely dried by the time they got their hands on it."

Some students gave defiant glares as they watched footage of Commonwealth soldiers waltz into an oil refinery, only to respond with shock as they realized the machines were empty. After all, it was kinda hard to feel sympathy for the Commonwealth, who were clearly the aggressors in this instance.

"When they realized that there was no oil for any of them, the European Commonwealth broke down. Nations plotted and backstabbed one another in a desperate bid for the last drops of oil in the land. One would think the UN would step in, but even then that was not possible. Desperation turned nations on nations and over time the UN, too, broke down as nations voluntarily left to fight each other without reprimand. Eventually, the UN faded away as another obsolete human experiment on the lofty ideals of global peace"

It could be said that the students were, if not a little, disappointed and disgusted with how things turned out. The UN and the European Commonwealth sounded like splendid concepts, but it soured their mouths a bit to see the humans turn on each other so easily over resources that could've easily been shared if they cared for one another instead of their machines more.

Their minds wander over to America. Was America doing better than the disastrous European continent? After all, surely the idyllic Nuclear families would never turn on one another, right?

Somehow in their hearts, they didn't believe themselves to say yes.

"Surprisingly, America did okay for itself. That's not to say that they didn't have their own shortages, they did. But unlike the rest of the world, America still had at least a few more years before they went completely dry. A long-term solution to the energy crisis was needed. And that solution came to fruition six years later. In the summer of 2066, America unveiled the first-ever, cold fusion power cell."

Houston placed another device on the podium next to the vacuum tube. The device was bright yellow with two ports at each end making it similar to a battery, although fatter and a lot thicker. To many of them, they already could tell that the device was a lot more advanced than the vacuum tube next to it.

"The fusion cell is the epitome of all our years delving into atomic science. We had finally found a way to miniaturize a small nuclear fusion reactor into a battery. It was expensive, true, but it had the potential to solve our reliance on fossil fuels. Soon America expanded int placing fusion reactors into cars, thereby breaking the consistent need for fossil fuels. However, the cars were extremely expensive so not all of America could convert to using fusion power in one go. Petrol and demands for it remained in circulation, but the thought was there. And that was what mattered at the end of the day. A small glimmer of hope." 

"But outside America thing were not so hopeful." continued Houston, "The rest of the world was burning. And the moment America unveiled their first fusion cell, that proved the final straw for the People's Republic of China."

The globe spun and revealed to them all another country just as big as the United States of America. Colored red to distinguish themselves from the American's blue, the students gaped in wonder at the size of the country. Yet again another marvel at the size of humanity.

"Long reliant on fossil fuels, the Chinese demanded that America share its fusion technology. America adamantly refused, as the two have long been political and ideological opponents." The students frowned. Many of them felt an equal measure of disdain and dismay at the selfish actions of the Americans. From their point of view, the human species was collectively facing a massive problem. Wouldn't it be more logical to work together, as they have all been taught?

"In the winter of 2066, a desperate China invades the U.S state of Alaska, hoping to seize the oil lines that held the last reserves of oil in the world. Thanks to a combination of surprise and human-wave tactics, the Chinese invaders swamped American defenses and made massive gains, capturing the vital city of Anchorage."

When they learned that Alaska was the last place in the world to hold oil, every student shuddered. Just how badly did humanity consume resources to the point that a single piece of territory was the last place in the world to have oil?

At the same time many of them could see things from the point of the desperate Chinese, even if they personally abhorred and condemned invading another country. Desperation had forced them to play their armies and the students couldn't help but feel that the Chinese had an almost justifiable motive for invading America. Still, many of them watched with anticipation to see how America would react.

"And so America went to war, once again igniting their industrial complex towards building weapons of war. In a display of that of creative human ingenuity, all manners of breakthroughs in the field of science were accomplished under the strain of war. Laser and prototype plasma weapons began to replace conventional firearms. The companies of Rob-Co and General Atomics militarized their creations; Rob-Co inventing the Assaultrons as well as the stocky Sentry Bots. General Atomics played their part by creating the Mr. Gutsy, armed with deadly 10mm submachine guns as well as even prototype plasma casters."

There was another line-up of impressive robots for all of them to gawk at. The first was a slim machine with a striking resemblance to a female human. On its arms were deadly rotating claws and mounted on its alien-looking head was what many of them presumed was a laser cannon. In many of their minds, they could tell that this was not a machine to be messed with.

In contrast to the sleek and agile looking Assualtron, the Sentry Bot looked like an absolute monster. Being much more massive in size compared to the Assualtron, the students gulped as they took note of the excessive armor plating, the ominous red eye that glared back at them from the screen, and the arguably terrifying tanks trend it's used for legs.

Then there was the Mr. Gusty. On the surface, the students couldn't see much difference between that robot and the Mr. Handy. Sure it may have looked different in terms of color, but how was this thing meant to fight in wars when its counterparts served as domestic workers.

Turns out it could fight very well, as they all saw in the next footage. It consisted of stock footage depicting a fight between American soldiers and Chinese soldiers on a snowy battlefield. In the distance, they could see the outlines of robots fighting for the American side, gasping in horror when they saw a Mr. Gusty decapitate a Chinese soldier with its buzz saw.

Their blood froze over just as much as the blood from the soldiers in the film stained the snow. It was a complete and utterly sickening bloodbath to watch, yet many of them found it hard to peel away from the screen, entranced by continual deaths of soldiers by the hundreds.

"But for all their robots, America stood at a stalemate with China. While America ruled the day with their weapons and their robots, China ruled the night with their own trump cards; stealth technology. The Chinese's specialization in stealth technology was years ahead of whatever the Americans could dream replicate. Stealth suits. Stealth submarines. All put to great effect in the assassination of officers, disruption of supply lines, even hit-and-run tactics."

They watched with amazement as a man dressed in armor as black as the night materialized from thin air to slit the throat of a sleeping soldier. He then disappeared, nobody none the wiser to a murder that took place in less than a minute.

Their minds, and their fears, wandered for a moment as they considered the potential of such a power.

"The war stretched on, straining resources on both sides until American scientists finally unveiled the weapon that would break the stalemate for America. Power armor. Though amazing in its own rights, it took a combination of combined-arms tactics to utilized the armor properly in pushing back the Chinese." 

Barely anycreature heard the last part as they were to busy gawking at the suits of power armor. Impressed gazes littered the room as all of them tried to comprehend the technological marvel that stood before them. Towering above the soldier that stood next to it and made of shiny metal, the suit radiated off a sense of honor and justice, the same way one would feel if they looked at gallant knights within a comic book. Just looking at the armor made them all feel a sense of ease and comfort, which was only heightened when they watched the footage of the power-armored soldiers enter the battlefield.

An entire squadron of them, like a tidal wave of metal, descended upon the group of Chinese soldiers, killing them left and right with rotating guns as big as they were, despite the fact that there were more Chinese soldiers then there were power-armored ones. Though slightly off-put by the excessive killing all of them, even Professor Fluttershy who at this point had been cowering in her seat, watch the scene with a small sense of awe.

"Finally, after eleven years of war, America pushed out the Chinese forces and retook the city of Anchorage. Within months, America had reclaimed the entire state of Alaska. By the tenth of January 2077, the war was officially over in Alaska."

To drive this point home, a scene was shown of a victorious power-armored soldier planting the American flag atop the roof of a bomb-struck building. To the sunrise in the distance, the Chinese forces could be seen retreating while robots, soldiers and power armored Americans pursued them relentlessly.

Some students smiled. If not for an American victory, then at least an end to the war.

"But the war was not over. Not by a long shot." Their hearts sank the moment Houston said those words as if he mockingly snuffed out their optimism. Just what did he mean by that?

"Almost immediately, soldiers were redeployed to the Chinese peninsula where, three years ago, America had landed soldiers into eastern china with the goal of easing tensions on the Anchorage Front. Now that Anchorage had been liberated, America could concentrate all its efforts into defeating China." When Houston noticed the shocked looks on the student's faces, he shot them all a surprised look, "Wait...you thought that this was a war of self-defense? I'm sorry to tell you this but the Sino-American War had long been forgotten as a war of self-defense. At this point, it was a war of desperation."

"Desperate nations went to war with desperate nations and as such, the desperation only intensified as the war consumed what scant resources America and China had left. Stressed and angry at the situation, more brutal and horrific actions began to surface from the American government and army, paling in comparison to the invasion of mainland China."

"Mexico and Canada, two of America's neighbors from the north and the south were forcibly annexed by America to secure its northern and southern borders, as well as to exploit what natural resources those countries still had. At home, the American government was rounding up people of Chinese descent, suspected communist sympathizers, and generally anyone remotely suspicious enough to be determined a threat to American interest, placing them into concentration camps. On the battlefield, the concepts of human rights and the rule of wars were thrown out the window, seeing as how there wasn't anyone left to speak up against it. Soldiers, spurred by years of propaganda, mutual hatred and paranoia of the enemy, took no prisoners even when they had long surrendered. The wounded were shot where they laid. Mass executions of innocent Chinese civilians became commonplace."

As if to hone in on his words, the following few footages were by far the hardest to watch for all of them. The battlefield that was shown was unlike any of the battlefields before, for every surface of the wintery land was covered with bodies. Be they of American or Chinese, none of the students could tell. All they could tell from the blankness in their eyes and the blood covering their snow-stained uniforms was that they were all universally dead.

There was a moan, something that all of them took notice of immediately. In the middle of the field of bodies, a lone arm stuck up into the air, pleading, crying for his mother. 

Their hearts clenched in grief as they watched the soldier do something that sounded so...so akin to a child. Innocent-like.

Their grief only intensified as they watched an Assualtron walk over to where the man laid, flipped him over with its rotating claws, before proceeding to melt his face off as it pinned him down. As the machine finished and the man's screams died down, all that was left of the man was the lower half of his body, the rest having been melted into a vibrant orange puddle.

The scene changed again, this time to a crowd of what looked like Chinese peasants, men, women, and children, being forced to dig a large trench by a group of American soldiers in power armor. The mysterious purpose of the trench was soon discovered as the American soldiers mercilessly fired on the crowd of peasants once they were done. Time seemed to slow for all of them as they watched the bodies stump in the trench before the dirt dug out before was once again thrown back in, hiding the bodies.

One more change. This time the footage was from within a city. In the distance they could see fires raging, black putrid smoke clouding the sky for miles. In front of them, two power-armored soldiers forced a man holding a sign to kneel. Students screamed as they watched one of the soldiers put a bullet in the man's head, splattering the concrete floor in front of him with red. What truly sickened them the most was how the soldiers laughed as the now headless body slumped forwards lifelessly.

Suddenly those gallant knights didn't feel so gallant anymore. 

The lights flickered back on so suddenly that many of them had to rub their eyes to get it to adjust again. As they did so, Houston returned to the podium and stood silently while he waited for the class to recover from their shock. Only when he saw that ample attention had been redirected onto him, did he begin to speak once more.

"War brought out the worst in all of us," said Houston quietly. "What you just saw was a fraction of the atrocities committed on the battlefield. Many accounts went undocumented, including those committed by the Chinese. We never got to collect information on their war crimes, for the war ended before we could. Ended in the worst way possible."

He began to speak softer, so much so that many students had to strain to hear what he said properly.

"It was destined to happen eventually. Anyone could see that the end was coming, if not by war than by our dwindling resources. As American forces closed in on the Chinese capital city of Beijing, the dragon gave its last breath to sink its teeth into the eagle. They retaliated. With everything that they had. Or rather what they had left at that point. Atomic bombs targetted directly at America."

Houston took a deep breath, calming himself down before speaking again.

"America returned with their own nukes, of course, regardless of their own soldiers fighting in China. After all, M.A.D had broken down and those with their hands on the nuclear buttons thought not of the ones they could've saved, but only those that they could take to the grave with them. Didn't matter if it was military bases or cities with innocent people. How could one possibly distinguish nor want to distinguish the difference when all one wants to do is kill at this point?"

Silence. Houston even had to hold up a hand to steady himself as he swallowed the tension building up on this throat.

"The Great War was our last greatest war. As China and America destroyed each other with nuclear fire, what countries remained outside, too, launched their atomic weapons. If not out of paranoia for nukes that may or may not be coming for them, then out of an opportunity to use it to settle old scores. In only two hours. The Old World died, consumed in the fires of the very weapons that defined it, and with it, America, China, and all the other petty and long-forgotten nations that condemned their people to die for a cause whose meaning faded too ago."

"But not all of humanity died out," said Houston softly, "The apocalypse had come and would remain. The landscape as we knew it was destroyed beyond belief. Over ninety percent of the world's population would perish instantaneously. Millions more would follow in the aftermath. Yet humanity lived. And will have to continue to live in the world that we've created."

He stopped again, this time to gaze at each and every one of them slowly. As he did so, shivers went their spines as the vacant look in his eyes made it all the more disturbing. 

"And so the torch of our civilization was passed to a new generation of humans. A generation born into a world without meaning. A world that hated them for the follies of their forefathers. A world choked by ash and bones of the long dead. It would, however, be from their hands using the tools of dead men, that new meaning is brought to our aptly named new home; The Wasteland."

His cryptic message aside, that was a pretty good indicator to the students that class was over. Two hours had flown by and not one of them had noticed, having been too invested in his lesson.

As they filed out of the room slowly, not one creature spoke about the things they had just witnessed. Nay, not even a single word was uttered among any of them.

There was just something weird about Houston, in general, that made them hold their tongues until they were sure they had left the auditorium. Even though he had his back to them as they left, the way he stared at the blackboard vacantly really gave them all a sickening feeling in their stomachs, akin to everything that's been taught to them so far.