World War III (Sanctuary Stars)
World War III, or, the Last Earth War (Standard Apollonian: Terceira Guerra Mundial, Última Guerra da Terra) was a conflict fought on Earth in the late 21st century CEC. The war was brief, beginning and ending in 2088 CEC, and it marked the end of the domination of Earth-based nation-states in the epoch of modern human space civilization.
The Colonization of Luna has often been used by historians to mark the beginning of human space civilization: this occurred in the late 2030s CEC. Climate deterioration on Earth coupled with rising proportions of global poverty in providing capital incentive to move resource extraction and industrial processing off-world, where economic production could be insulated from environmental and social risk factors. The most powerful nation-states of Earth first jump-started industry on Luna before pivoting to lucrative asteroid capture and refinement. Attempts at fostering cooperative self-regulation among these nation-states were futile, and in 2083 CEC their diplomats failed to reach even a tentative agreement on the subject of space colonization and claims recognition.
In August 2088 CEC the 16 Psyche incident saw a three-way confrontation between American, Chinese, and Russian military vessels end in their collective destruction. Although there were elements within the governments of these countries urging restraint, the incident directly resulted in a three-way declaration of war between America and its allies, Russia, and China. It remains undetermined which country fired the first nuclear weapons, but at minimum, all three participated in the exchange of nuclear strikes. The conflict lasted barely a month. By the beginning of September, the governments of the belligerent countries lacked any further ability to command or govern.
The situation on Luna remained tense throughout the conflict, but the managerial staff and security apparatuses that had been established there remained unwilling to heed the directive to fight that had been given by their Earth-based governments. There had been isolated skirmishes across the moon, but for the most part, the majority of individuals in Lunar leadership positions were highly educated or were well connected with other administrators of different nationalities. While there had been systemic failure among the Earth nation-states in establishing a demilitarized spaceflight network between Earth and the Asteroid Belt, military investments on Luna were rare and typically focused on defence from orbit-based attacks. As a consequence, the outbreak of open hostilities had minimal impact on Luna, and efforts to draw Lunar installations into the fighting proved fruitless.
In the aftermath of the conflict, a great deal of the Earth was rendered uninhabitable and an estimated three billion people had been killed in the nuclear exchanges and their direct fallout. Disruptions to the global environment as well as to the world exchange of goods sowed extreme disruption in those countries which had remained neutral in the conflict. Roughly half of the Earth's population of nine billion would be killed directly or indirectly due to the conflict. In order to more effectively coordinate a survival effort between themselves, the disparate administrations of Lunar facilities met at Shackleton Station in November 2088 to begin negotiations culminating in the establishment of LunaGov in 2091. The immediate predecessor to the Earth-Lunar Union, LunaGov served as an important element in relief efforts for surviving Earth populations; it quickly became the only competent governing body left to human civilization.