Timeline

The following is a simplified chronology of known historical World on Fire events.

AC minus 150

• A tectonic disaster caused by newly exposed and volatile cordium called the Calamity occurs around the Ring of Fire. All volcanoes on the Pacific Rim are set off, most notably the Yellowstone supervolcano. Very few artifacts are left behind from the old era and the entire world order is destroyed.
• Immediately following the Calamity begins the Long Cold, a temporary ice age. With volcanic clouds and ash blocking out the sun, crops and fauna begin to die off with the known exception of whales, which had to evolve to survive the new geothermal flareups in the Pacific Ocean. Millions who survived the initial Calamity die in this time period. Numerous geothermal hotspots around the world occur that people would go to that would provide both warmth and good soil to grow food.

AC minus 150-0

• Numerous landmasses and microislands are uplifted because of the Calamity. For centuries, many remain unmapped.
• The Mercenary Cabal, a secret group of warlords who manage global affairs over the next few centuries, is established.
• Infighting between cities and regions began on the North American continent begins. Right before the end of the Long Cold, United Cascadia is founded, mostly putting a stop to the fighting.
  • Brite Fortress is established by the newly formed Cascadian National Guard as a wall to prevent more battles from breaking out between regions throughout the next few decades.

AC 0

• The Long Cold officially ends, starting the After Calamity Era (AC). Most of the world order is restored and humanity begins rebuilding. Many "exclusion zones" are created around the Ring of Fire. Dangerous areas that aren't mapped very well due to geothermal flareups, the largest of these being the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone.
• The Ring of Fire continues its activity at the same time cordium is discovered as a valuable natural resource.
• Multiple smaller nations that aren't very geothermally sufficient begin referring to themselves as the Periphery.

AC 321

• The weapons firm Icarus Armories is established.

AC 332

• Surviving Calamity-era conglomerates and nation-states form the Pacific Federation, a superpower alliance comprising of Ulaanbaatar, Magadan, and multiple other nations that join later on.
  • The Federation Core States receive lots of criticism from international superpowers due to their geothermal monopoly.

AC 382

• Cascadia enters an association with the Federation. This increases its energy production by one third.

AC 392

• A cordium shipment in the Cascadian city of Solstitium is mishandled and set off, killing and displacing over thousands of inhabitants and creating the first artificial exclusion zone. The Cascadian National Guard quarantines the city.

AC 412-422

• Evelyn London and Peter Kennedy enroll in the Federation Air Academy. From there, their lives head a reverse direction; London becomes a high-achiever who enlists in the Cascadian Air Force only for her career to end with an unauthorized strike on a pirate camp that kills a Cascadian informant, while Kennedy wastes his education with little real flight training and is expelled.

AC 417

• Oceania withdraws its Federation membership after they strain its resources too far. The Federation is concurrently warned that the Mercenary Cabal is planning to use Oceania as the base of a new mercenary state to rival the Federation. These events set off the Oceanian War.
• The war, despite heavy Oceanian resistance, is won by the Federation, partly thanks to traitorous mercenaries such as Klara Rask and the Federation airship Zetec. The Mercenary Cabal is presumed destroyed at this point.
• Following the takeover of Oceania, many Periphery states begin aligning themselves with superpowers such as the Federation, though multiple retain their sovereignty, with the number rising over the years.
• The Federation hands over the Cabal's ACG-01 Chimera blueprints to Cascadia. Production begins to strongarm the country in the event of war with the Federation.

AC 422-432

• Evelyn London and Peter Kennedy escape to the Periphery as disgraces for several years. While London drowns her sorrows in drink, Kennedy flies for numerous air forces gaining as much flight experience as possible without much pay. They both come into contact with and, along with Monarch, join the Sicario Mercenary Corps and become part of Hitman Team.
• The Solana Communications Array is established in eastern Cascadia to fight connection problems in the country.

AC 428

• Cascadia's Salvemini Vineyards win the Federation's Wine and Dine Showdown at the Khan's Castle. They continue to win for four consecutive years.

AC 429

• The infamous '29 tax scandal; Federation billionaire Kyl Harkema establishes the Harkema Industrial Park in the Scarred Sea. Following the rig's liquidation, it is purchased by Icarus Armories despite Cascadian disapproval.

AC 431

December 9th

• The Creole Republic hires Sicario for a month-long contract, though their total airtime is limited.

AC 432

January 9th

• 1605 Jesta Island Chain time: Sicario initiates Operation Red Current to destroy the Burlok Privateers HQ and recover a stolen Federation cargo ship, the Meilynx. They are then given orders to bomb the cargo, which unwittingly triggers a large explosion that ignites a large part of the island, inciting the Meilynx Incident.
• The Cascadian Independence Force (CIF) starts a rebellion against the Federation in response to its continued conquests and refusal to allow Cascadia's secession, starting the Cascadian Conflict.
• Sicario's contract with the Creole Republic ends. They are invited to take part in the conflict on the CIF side. The Meilynx Incident is covered up as mishandling of cargo and the Burloks scapegoated for it.

February 1st

• The Federation locks down Cascadian airspace. As part of the nationwide comms blackout, they ground or divert every inbound flight.

February 2nd

• 1745 Fresnon Range time: Sicario flies west towards Cascadia to find new work. After being intercepted by a Federation patrol, Hitman Team and Gunsel Squadron are dispatched to take care of them, shooting down Blue Squadron and the airship Espadon. They make contact with J. Griffiths, who directs them to a provisional airstrip for restocking to more deployments.

February 4th

• 0812 Rowsdower AFB time: The CIF, supported by mercenaries and Sicario ground assets, reclaim Rowsdower Air Force Base from the Federation in Operation Carpet Dawn. Crosstalk Squadron attempts but fails to recapture the base, being shot down. For their major part in taking the base, Hitman Team is given first choice for personal quarters.

February 10th

• Federation forces wrest control of the Aleutian Islands.
• 1740 Salvemini Vineyards time: The Cascadian Army Wild Boar Regiment becomes stuck in a large Federation push in the Salvemini Vineyards. Reinforcements on Operation Water Stable successfully rescue Wild Boar and secure their route to Presidia

February 21st

• Fall of Presidia; the Federation begins occupying Presidia after sending the 1st Naval Battlegroup as reinforcements. In mere hours, the capital's urban facilities are lost, and the CIF is forced to retreat.

February 22nd

• 0730 Presidia time: The CIF successfully evacuates the majority of their forces from the city as part of Operation Red Coast, with help from Cascadian partisans. The partisans commence operations against the Federation.
• Crimson Team arrives a few days later.

March 4th

• 1730 Yellowstone Exclusion Zone time: CIF mercenaries begin a raid on Federation resource facilities across Cascadia to cripple Federation supplies and disrupt their frontlines.
• First contact between Crimson Team and Hitman Team over the Apodock Fracture; Hitman was the last major Sicario unit to pull out.
• Raids continue over the next few days and Crimson Team begins warning their allies about the mercenary threat, mainly Hitman.

March 7th

• CIF forces take back part of the Aleutian Islands.
• Remnants of the Cascadian Coast Guard seize a Federation battleship near the Burning Coast and christen it the Eminent Domain.
• 1230 Burning Coast time: A matter of hours later, Federation elements attempt to take it back or sink it. Sicario's Hitman Team, in Operation Sea Farer, prevents them.
  • Federation spy ship Cat-Eye, on a separate mission to track rumors of the Mercenary Cabal's survival, is sunk.
• Federation Regional Cascadian HQ tries to destroy the ship using cruise missiles. This also fails, and the Eminent Domain becomes the rebel flagship, soon intercepting Federation cargo ships and shelling coastal defenses.

March 21st

• Aleutian Islands back in CIF hands. The rebels also approach Exclusion Zone 3A.
• 0930 Briggs Range time: Rebel-aligned air units shoot down Federation transport aircraft across Cascadia in Operation Broken Chain, avoiding damage to civilian airliners. Hitman Team, over the Zhirov Air Corridor, also manages to shoot down Federation Intercept Specialists.
• The Federation receives criticism for its poor handling of civilians along with juggling its depleted supplies.

April

• Conrad Security purchases war damage insurance.

April 3rd

• 2200 Wensleydale Range time: Monarch is sent on a lone sortie to attack Federation air defenses in the Wensleydale Range's Chaohord Defense Region to secure a route for Sicario to the Solana Communications Array the following day.

April 4th

• 1630 Aitor Desert time: Sicario, in its largest deployment ever, flies a one-way trip to the Solana Communications Array to bring it down as part of Operation Blackout. With Ronin's infiltration in part, they are able to destroy the facility and temporarily occupy the neighboring airbase.
• Ronin acquires whatever intelligence they can find while buying time by lying about drill runs on the comms. Sicario's pilots either repair or replace aircraft within the given hour.
• Cascadian communications are fully restored, and the rebels begin an offensive campaign to liberate the homeland. In less than two weeks, they retake the Apodock Fracture and almost half of Yellowstone.
  • Federation HQ discharges and replaces Cascadian National Guard troops with non-natives, resulting in more defectors.

April 17th

• Cascadian patrol aircraft spot Federation transports in the Bering Strait evacuating battle-weary manpower.
• 1305 Bering Strait time: The Showdown over the Bering Strait, the largest air battle in recorded history; Both sides begin sending in their own aircraft, leading to a snowball effect where practically the entire Cascadian Air Force is deployed.
  • The CIF sends in the Eminent Domain to rescue downed pilots.
• Sicario arrives as rebel reinforcements; all rebel AWACS are out of commission by then. They proceed to shoot down a myriad amount of Federation forces, allowing their allies to reconsolidate.
  • Magadan's Federation Aviation Regiment is severely damaged by the battle, with only a dozen pilots returning to base.
• The transports are shot down by the rebels; Crystal Kingdom allows Crimson Team to fly towards the fight with survivors who had disengaged. Over half of the Peacekeepers are eventually lost, forcing a full Federation retreat.
• Monarch's fame/infamy as the "Crown" begins.
• Federation air supremacy is crushed, and they retreat while replacing their losses and preparing Task Force 1.

April 29th

• Many fishermen in the Scarred Sea report bursts of light from the Harkema Industrial Park.

May 7th

• CIF forces begin an invasion of Magadan.
• 0030 Scarred Sea time: Hitman Team and Ronin are sent to investigate Harkema Industrial Park in Operation Null Star.
• Klara Rask, working on the main platform, prepares the SP-34R for combat once trouble begins, intending to cover the work-in-progress PW-Mk.I's flight out of the area.
• Following the destruction of Federation-aligned defenses, Rask launches and engages Hitman, transmitting combat data in the meantime.
• Ronin destroys the main platform while extracting several scientists into custody via the Eminent Domain. However, what data they gathered was mostly unrelated to weapons development.
• Sicario continues supporting the offensive campaign.

May 13th

• 0700 Sawaiiki time: Operation Free Agent, the most number of airships lost in a single event; CIF mercenaries are sent to destroy Task Force 1 docked in Wai Mami Port, Sawaiiki. Entirety of rebel tanker fleet scrambled for the mission.
  • Due to the attack, the PW-Mk.I is flown out again to the Core States for completion.
• Because of TF-01's loss, the Federation loses all conventional means to defeat the rebels; Federation units depending on them fall apart to their enemy's advance.
• Sawaiiki units set up positions to engage the mercenaries, but are convinced to stand down to avoid escalating the conflict.
• Sawaiiki condemns the Federation's failure to protect their facilities, resulting in rising mutual tensions, culminating in Sawaiiki forbidding the Federation using its harbors.

May 23rd

• By this day, almost every geothermal facility and important position held by the Federation has been retaken by the CIF.
• Retreating Federation units set fire to the Grimwood Forest, one of their few remaining countryside holdings, to halt the rebel offensive and give time for their flight to Prospero and Presidia. The reformed Cascadian Firefighting Corps deals with these fires, but is bogged down by desperate Federation forces.

May 26th

• 1400 Grimwood Forest time: Reinforcements are sent to Grimwood Forest to support the firefighting and war efforts. Federation forces still remaining ultimately capitulate.
• The Federation halts all traffic coming out of Prospero, evacuating vital assets such as VIPs using seized civilian transports. They also shut down the city's geothermal monitoring station.
• The rebels are pushed out of Magadan and lose sizeable parts of northern Cascadia to a Federation counteroffensive. In the same timespan, they besiege Prospero with artillery fire, weakening its defenses.

June 2nd

• 1035 Prospero time: A large furball ensues above Prospero during Operation Anticipation as CIF forces led by head officer and Wild Boar Regiment CO Morgan Elizabeth attempts to convince defending forces to surrender. Many Federation troops including native loyalists heed his request.
• Crystal Kingdom officers and Federation Peacekeepers prepare a plan to level Prospero with cordium-tipped cruise missiles upon luring the rebels in, which they believe will devastate their morale and win them the war. One officer opposed to the plan is shot and killed by the Cascadian Peacekeeper Commander.
• A Federation mobile artillery battalion fires the missiles at Prospero. Rebel-aligned aircraft are unable to shoot them all down; the entire Wild Boar Regiment, including Elizabeth himself, is vaporized on the spot, resulting in a rout.
• Geologists discuss the fissures coming from Cascadia and learn of its real cause, then warn the continent of the impending disaster. Start of the Cascadian Calamity Event, which kills hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides.
• World powers vilify the Federation for its gross desecration of an entire continent. They plan to seize their assets, with the West African Concordat in particular looking into its cordium weaponry.
• All communications across Cascadia go down due to the sheer geothermal interference. Many bases including Rowsdower AFB fall victim to new geothermal hot zones, forcing staff migration to other installations and even converting civilian ones as new bases.
• 1400 Rowsdower AFB time: Hitman Team, returning from Prospero to Rowsdower to regroup with survivors, is engaged by Klara Rask and Master Goose Squadron, who have taken up the Federation's bounty on Hitman. All of the bounty hunters are shot down and killed, but Hitman's identities are exposed.
• Sicario's other survivors radio Hitman and prepare to leave just as J. Griffiths arrives. The exchange is initially full of enmity because of Sicario's desire to abandon the perceivably hopeless war, but Griffiths makes the Deal to keep them invested by promising Hitman amnesty and Sicario a later rejuvenation.
• Sicario Commander Arnold Frenken leaves Cascadia temporarily to recruit pilots from Periphery nations and anti-Federation powers. Sicario itself relocates to Highway 34 in the Aleutian Islands' Daner Valleys.

July 25th

• 1550 Audrerie Valley time: Two months after the initial reignition of the Calamity, the CIF, in a bid to regain war momentum, performs a raid in conjunction with partisans and other elements against the Federation-held Brite Fortress for Operation Blue Shelter.
• With most of the fortress neutralized, the Federation deploys two land battleships; both are destroyed, and the fortress is recaptured later.
• Similar attacks across the country force the Federation on another retreat.

August 2nd

• 1800 Prospero time: The CIF decides to recapture Prospero a second time for Operation Recall.
• Hitman Team takes out the few Federation patrols there to pave the way for army convoys. Crimson Team appears and engages them for one last time, being fully defeated with Crimson 1 being the sole confirmed survivor (at the time presumed dead). CIF troops secure Prospero and prepare for the final assault on their capital.

August 12th

• Earliest day of the Cascadian Conflict Ceasefire being in the works by both CIF and Federation sides.
• The entirety of CIF naval forces links up with the Eminent Domain to take down the 1st Naval Battlegroup, starting by intercepting the Federation naval supply line, in Operation Welder.
• In the midst of the battle, Woodward, captain of the Eminent Domain, attempts to get the Federation to surrender while they still can, only to receive radio silence; the battle continues.
• Arnold Frenken returns with numerous mercenaries to support the final push against the battlegroup's last wave.
• A blockade in the Pacific Ocean is formed, planned to last a month to starve Federation defenders.

August 23rd

• The war ceasefire becomes scheduled for this day, forcing the CIF to liberate Presidia immediately. The Second Battle of Presidia begins.
• 1600 Presidia time: CIF forces and allies converge on their capital, systematically wiping out every Federation unit including the last of their naval and aerial garrison. However, just as the rebels close in on their main headquarters, a ceasefire is called.
• A tense evacuation is conducted with cautious rebel forces overseeing it. However, Crimson 1, now flying the completed PW-Mk.I and supported by purported Federation accomplices, halts the ceasefire by attacking forces on both sides and bombing his own capital with cordium weapons, killing millions and causing a citywide tectonic collapse.
• 1800 Presidia time: With a clear shot at Monarch, the only remaining active force in the area and his nemesis for the entire war, a climactic duel begins between the two top aces. Despite his considerable technological superiority, Crimson 1 is ultimately shot down and killed, ending the Cascadian Conflict on a sour note.
• The few surviving rebels enact extreme prejudice on Federation soldiers still left in the burning capital, accusing them of being in league with Crimson 1.
• Following the end of the war, a series of uprisings take place by Periphery nations against the Federation, backed by Cascadia.
• The Federation's newer member states secede in response to the organization's atrocities, leaving the Core at its weakest point since the Federation's formation.
• Cascadia begins immediate rebuilding, accepting mercenaries into its sphere and forming foreign legions to expand its depleted military, also mass-producing the ACG-01 to become the backbone of the Cascadian Air Force. The aircraft was notably exclusively used by mercenaries throughout the conflict.
• The Cascadian government issues a search warrant for citizens to report sightings of Hitman Team, still at large as of present.