You have sorta provided a perfect placement with both the UK in this. And well, given the whole Russian thing as well, you have a perfect backdrop for why someone doing drastic.

Can you say more why the whole issue with russia started up that involved china? Or what sparked it/kept it going?

The other is what/why america was doing for getting involved? was it more to support one side, or to impose sactions on one or the other?
---TheStratovarian

YES! :D Sounds awesome! Let's see what else I can help with...

An event actually occurred in 1969 called the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict which resulted in two armies fighting each other for less than a year over claims to the border between the two.

Conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict
Map of the Soviet/Chinese Border:

A treaty was made in 1991 to set up the border dispute between the states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Sino-Soviet_Border_Agreement

Nearly 80 years later in 2048, several factors contributed to the start-up of more conflict in the region:

From China's side:
-- About a decade prior to the war, as part of an attempt to increase it's public image across the world, China completely removed the cap on the number of children a family could have. This was met with HUGE criticism, but the government was already years into working on a plan to provide for citizens who would be willing to work in other countries and support their home country financially and politically as part of a work-exchange program. This was an attempt to ease the burden on the Republic back home, but also use increased work opportunities in nearby countries as a chance to strengthen political ties to those countries who needed more labor. Russia was the most willing to do this as government leaders thought they could use the extra labor to help compete with the United States ongoing production powerhouse.

Before, the cap was up to two children but only if one of the parents was an only child:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

China was already suffering from overpopulation in relation to the amount of land and jobs available, and this was an effort along with multiple other agreements to try to get other countries to open up more trade to China, increase relations with countries in need of a willing workforce, and move political influence of Chinese citizens to other countries where they could influence the trade between their new country and China.

The plan was a complex one by the Chinese and saw some benefits years before the war started, but the increased political influence was met with criticism from a vast majority of Russian citizens who didn't want their jobs taken by foreign citizens, despite the fact that the country's rate of production and exports increased dramatically, putting it at odds with the United States production abilities. Import of goods to Russia and to China from nearby states increased and prices fluctuated, but mostly decreased between the two countries, while increasing somewhat in other places like Japan.

Japan asked the United States to work with them on agreements to attempt to counter-act this China/Russian agreement and strengthen their ties with one another, which were already in good standing thanks to tons of technological development and the constant good deals between countries to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Toyko Stock Exchange (TSE). Japan did not want China to succeed in their mission, while the United States was in a tough spot because they still had a huge debt to China financially as well as relying on them for overseas production. They needed to maintain good economic ties with both countries, but Then-US-President Hawkins (a conservative warhawk who was famous for engaging in more conflicts during his administration than almost any previous president. Term 2040-2048) went against advice from his own cabinet and chose to work with Japan openly about setting up an agreement to stop China's expansion of power. He was so open about hjs animosity with the Chinese government, that Chinese government officials openly despised the US President and greatly vocalized support for liberal presidential candidate Hensley in 2047 during the start of her presidential campaign, as she had promised to strengthen ties with China as part of her campaign promises. (For the record, she did attempt to do so while still dealing with the fact that Former President Hawkins actually sent American troops to the China/Russia Border as part of a deal to strengthen ties with Russia and hopefully push out Chinese influence before they got too much of a strangehold on Russia's economy. Russia double-played America later, but initially seemed like they'd be willing to work with them and in a strange turn of events, thanks to another Russian/Chinese Treaty, managed to hold a better relationship with Chinese officials after the end of the war than even America did (which is saying something).

Melody Noble of Technomancer industries was very keen on not making a political statement with her company's involvement. Melody had been tempted by both Russian and American government officials to use her company's technology to benefit both sides. Of course, Melody never seriously considered Russia, but was shocked they would even approach her. She managed to learn just enough from their side to see they had been trying to play her all along, as well as several other tech companies, so that their standing with the United States government would go down and the US would be less likely to give them government contracts to increase the tech level of American troops, thus hurting American forces who were actually helping the Russians against China as Russia thought that any American forces in the region needed to be kept in check and retained from becoming any more effective in their military might or else they could hold influence in the Russian region that the Russians did not want them to have.

Melody Noble decided to help the United States (which was pretty much a no-brainer for her) but chose to do so in a non-combat role, making prosthetics and technological creations for soldiers returning from war so their quality of life could be improved dramatically. The US government agreed to this after lengthy talks with Melody and high-ranking Technomancer company officials. It was during this time that two key things happened in the company:

(1) A hostile takeover was attempted by a high-ranking Technomancer official, who planned to undermine Noble in an effort to gain favor with the US Government so that the future of Technomancer would be in weapons development and automated war machines rather than life-assisting robotic companions, prosthetics and exosuit technology. Has they succeeded, the war would have escalated. This Technomancer official had friends in President Hawkins' government and tried to use their connections to set up Noble and her allies so they would be discredited and this Technomancer official would be put in-charge instead.

(2) Melody Noble's assistant and life partner Vinyl Scratch had not been created yet and would emerge for 4 more years. The first iteration of SYS-TER had also not come online and would not for many years to come. However, Melody Noble avoided several backstabbing attempts on her thanks to her core set of friends and most trustworthy Technomancer officials. And one of them had developed years early the start of what would become SYS-TER's operating system. Dubbed Project Liberty, the advanced Artificial Intelligence was linked to all digital information within the company related to its operation. It had such an efficient analytical ability when it came to coming up with new ideas that it started to detect the hostile takeover plans when they were just being formulated by the betraying Technomancer official. Melody and her company played it close to the chest for years, with only less than five aware of Liberty's capabilities and all trustworthy, until one died under mysterious circumstances, leading Melody and the remaining four to suspect foul play, until Liberty was able to prove it using evidence provided to it. The culprit was traced back to the Technomancer betrayer soon before they planned to initiate a scheme to discredit the remaining four.

Melody Noble and her confidants couldn't go to the local police or US government, because they didn't know who to trust. A returning veteran from war, Elias Guerrero, accidentally discovered Noble's plans to assist veterans with prosthetics when speaking to one of his friends who was one of the four remaining. A threat on one of their lives was made, and Guerrero assembled several of his former squadmates who'd come home from the war due to dishonorable discharges related to opposing the war efforts while overseas, in order to unite together to protect the remaining Noble Four while also using their sources to determine the cause of the assassination attempts. It turned out that the murder and the Technomancer betrayer were connected, so the squadmates found a way to turn the tables with the help of the Noble Four and Liberty...

...

:)

Cliffhanger :P

I plan on writing that too. :)

5347176 Very interesting. and thank you, this paints a lovely picture that works for where the geo-political climate is. And one towards how the corporate nature is generally aimed at. Both of these are very much helping to paint the geoscape in a very interesting light.

5347217

Yay! No problem. Every time you ask a question, the universe solidifies more in my mind. You've been helping me simply by asking all the questions I haven't got to answer yet :)

5347244 Haha. glad to be of help. And more wondering time?

What prompted the States economic boom enough to be a threat to russia in their desire to see it retank? Despite the debt to china, you are painting the picture that the states rebuilt up alot of production infrastructure to compete again on the global market?

The other thing i wanted to ask, is what was the UK doing during this time, and their new found economic prosperity. Also, what was it that prompted the UK as being willing to grant personhood to the pod pals, compared to the rest of the world at large?

Dealing with Russia and China......always a political headache