Cyberpunk Home of the Brave pt. 1

• CAUSES OF THE COLLAPSE •
Threatened by the growing power of
the European Economic Community.
the Gang of Four began to embark
on a suicidal course of covert aggression
later to be known as the "Quiet War" As EEC
power grew, U.S. "interference" in Europe
was less tolerated. Soon the EEC was the
world power, and the U.S. was playing second
fiddle, particularly in its overreaching international
policies.
One example of this came in 1992. As
the USSR staggered through the final
stages of glasnost, the NSC continued with
its outdated "Evil Empire" policies, blocking
all aid to the Soviets, and insuring that
its NATO allies did the same. Once the
EEC was firmly established as a power, one
of its first actions was to defy U.S. wishes
and send much-needed food and aid to the
Soviet states, over NSCobjections. The
result was that the Soviets accepted the
EuroDollar over U.S. currency and NATO
collapsed as the Soviets made peace with
Western Europe for the first time in over
forty years.
Infuriated by this loss of presige, and
also fearful that the Euros expandingspace
program (which had a prototype mass-driver
on the moon by New Year's 1993) would
give the ECC military superiority as well,
the NSA embarked on a headlong campaign
to undermine the structure of the EEC, using
tactics ranging from stock market fraud to the
attempted disruption of the first EEC-Soviet
military treaty talks.
In an attempt to appear solvent (and
to "show up" the economic power of the
ECC), the Gang of Four also began
manipulating the stock markets of
Europe and Asia by hacking directly into
the systems. These artificial currency and
stock manipulations allowed the Gang to
promote an illusion of American wealth,
but at a high cost; when this was discovered
by the EEC, the Euros simply leaked
the info to the world press. With the
implied security of the exchange rate
undermined, the system collapsed. In
later years, this disaster would be called
the Crash of '94. In reaction to the discovery
of this fraud, the majority of
developed countries immediately instituted
embargoes on United States trade.
These embargoes were crippling to
America, and only served to hasten the
Collapse.
The "Quiet War" was not the only
reason for the Collapse. When the Gang
of Four destroyed the SouthAm drug
trade( 1992 ),they also destroyed many of
the local economies as well. The drug
trade supported a large part of the Third
World; the drug lords bought weapons,
fielded troops, and provided millions of
jobs in places where there was no other
infrastructure. When these groups fragmented,
many people had no markets, no
trade, no money, and nothing to eat.
One by one, the governments of the
drug-producing countries were devastated,
executed, or overthrown. Although
parts of South America were
supported for a time by the Gang of Four
in its struggles to control the region, or
by the surviving cartels busily warring
with the Gang, the damage was done,
and a lot of powerful enemies made.
These groups allied with the EEC and its
corporate multinat organizations, which
provided the remaining SouthAm guerrillas
with weapons, food, vehicles and
advisors. The result was that money and
manpower desperately needed to rebuild
America was siphoned off to a drug war
America couldn't win.
The third and final cause of the Collapse
was environmental. As the biomes of
Earth were despoiled by Corporate greed
and shortsighted policies, acid rain and
changing climates began to make it harder
to grow crops, keep soil fertile, and irrigate
effectively. The effects were already evident,
and getting worse every year, culminating