The Last Heroes

[Asteroid 2U58339-S4]

I don't know about anyone else but I'm a sucker for a story about the UN! Love it!

 

[Macavity116]

Very nice! I'll get to know more about real UN history and the Stormbreaker universe, 2-in-1, count me in!

Absolutely, and trust me, this is going to be a fascinating ride. Remember a few months back, I claimed the UN once elected a real German Nazi to the top job by accident? That really happened. We'll get to it.

I don't know about anyone else but I'm a sucker for a story about the UN! Love it!

Oh yes, same here! I did way too much Model UN in high school and college. Over the years, my team represented Iraq, Japan, Mali, Ecuador, Palestine, Azerbaijan, and North Korea; and we were good at our work. We won awards from the National Model UN for our representation of the Palestine and the DPRK.

 

[Midnite Duke]

I would like to welcome @Asteroid 2U58339-S4 (first week, less than ten posts). Please do not be a stranger. The man, that is given most credit for the UN and received a Nobel Peace Prize for it, was US Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He is also the 1936 Democratic presidential candidate in @El Pip's The Butterfly Effect which is (or should be) the definitive history of the world post WW1. Thank you for the update.

 

[HistoryDude]

I like this idea. I'll also get to learn a bit about the UN's history, which I don't actually know much about...

 

[Macavity116]

The man, that is given most credit for the UN and received a Nobel Peace Prize for it, was US Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He is also the 1936 Democratic presidential candidate in @El Pip's The Butterfly Effect which is (or should be) the definitive history of the world post WW1. Thank you for the update.

President Franklin Roosevelt once referred to Hull as "The Father of the United Nations" for his role in writing the UN Charter in 1943. In honor of his work, Hull was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Roosevelt himself. No person has been Secretary of State longer than Cordell Hull.

I like this idea. I'll also get to learn a bit about the UN's history, which I don't actually know much about...

You've entered the domain of Macavity116, history nerd. Speaking of which...

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The 1950 Selection of the UN Secretary-General ​

The second Selection process of the UN leader happened against the backdrop of the Korean War and was a very controversial affair. To be fair, Trygve Lie was also proving to be a controversial Secretary-General.

During his administration, Secretary-General Lie supported the foundations of Israel and Indonesia, while simultaneously opposing Spain’s entry into the United Nations due to his opposition to Francisco Franco’s totalitarian government. It was also during his administration that the world saw a dramatic rise in tensions between the great powers. The Chinese Civil War concluded with a Communist Victory, yet the new Communist Government of China was refused a seat at the UN. Instead, the Chinese seat remained in the possession of the now defeated Kuomintang, who were in exile on the island of Taiwan. In response, the Soviet Union launched a boycott of the United Nations, refusing to attend any meetings or participate in any meaningful capacity.

When the armies of North Korea invaded the South, Lie worked tirelessly to gather support for the embattled Republic and was instrumental in the passage of Resolution 83, which encouraged UN member states to send military aid to South Korea. This large scale military deployment was the very first combat mission of the military force that would, over a century later, become the modern-day UN Army.

With the end of his five-year term just around the corner, Secretary-General Lie was embattled and drawing negative attention from both of the Global Superpowers. He angered both the US and Nationalist China by suggesting Communist China be given a seat in the General Assembly, and then he angered the Soviet Union by gathering an army to defend South Korea.

Facing the near-certainty of a Soviet veto, the 1950 Selection process began with tensions and anger running high. Secretary-General Lie wanted to receive a full re-election and a second 5-year term, but he made it known that if asked, he would be willing to serve for just two or three years instead. The United Kingdom was more than willing to accept this offer because they were expecting the Soviet Union to quit the UN altogether, which would break the longstanding deadlock in both the General Assembly and the Security Council.

Instead, the USSR nominated Polish Foreign minister Zygmunt Modzelewski for the top job and forced a vote on October 12, 1950. The vote was an abject failure, Modzelewski was rejected with one vote in favor, four against, and six abstentions. In response, the western powers called the question and forced the Security Council to vote on the re-election of Secretary-General Lie.

In this highly controversial vote, Secretary-General Lie received nine votes in favor, one abstention… and most important of all… a veto from the Soviet Union. This, according to the rules of the United Nations Charter, should have instantly ended his candidacy. In fact, here in the year 2086, a veto like this probably would have instantly removed him from office. But this isn’t what happened. Over the course of the next two weeks, over half a dozen candidates from Asia and Latin America were presented to the Security Council and all of them were either rejected or vetoed. And throughout this process, the United States continually attempted to extend Secretary-General Lie’s term. The US argued that allowing Lie to be removed from office was “tantamount to Soviet victory in the Korean War.”

With the Security Council dangerously close to being deadlocked, both the United States and the Soviet Union took their case to the General Assembly. The USSR tried to have the office of Secretary-General abolished and replaced with a Troika, a governing body made up of three men. This effort failed. The United States, in turn, asked the body to extend Lie’s term of office by just three years instead of the usual five.

On November 1st, 1950 the General Assembly voted to extend the Secretary-General’s current term of office rather than give him a new one. This would be the first and only time in history that the Veto of a Security Council member was totally disregarded, yet the damage was still done. Trygve Lie was now entitled remain in office until February 2, 1954.

Outraged, the Soviet Union declared that it would consider the office of Secretary-General to be vacant, refusing to acknowledge Lie’s leadership until his time as the UN leader was over.

 

[Von Acturus]

Ah, the Cold war, when two megalomaniac states held the entire human race hostage to their nuclear-backed petty politicking. Lie seems a good man (or as good as a politician can be) though.

 

[Macavity116]

Ah, the Cold war, when two megalomaniac states held the entire human race hostage to their nuclear-backed petty politicking. Lie seems a good man (or as good as a politician can be) though.

There's nothing like living in sheer terror of being blown sky-high at any conceivable moment to get the blood pumping.

---

The 1953 Selection of the UN Secretary-General​

Trygve Lie made history as the first Secretary-General of the UN, and his exit from the post was equally historic. Previously, Lie’s term had been extended until 1954. However, as the year 1952 began, the embattled leader was facing harsh criticism from both the Soviet Union and Communist China. To make matters worse, the Korean War had become a stalemate with neither side able to inflict a lethal blow on the other, and the Soviet Union was continuing to ignore the Secretary-General, pretending the office was vacant.

On November 10th, 1952, Secretary-General Lie announced his resignation in a speech to the General Assembly, saying: “I am quite sure that this is the time to leave without damage to the UN.” He concluded by expressing hope for his successor, whose first task would be to resolve the Korean War.

Because this resignation happened during a session of the General assembly, the Selection process was started immediately, however problems arose just as quickly. The Presidency of the Security Council rotates every two years, and by pure bad luck, the Presidency was currently being held by the Kuomintang of Nationalist China. (herafter referred to as Taiwan) The dispute over the China-Taiwan relationship put a serious damper on the process as the Soviet Union continued to boycott any UN meeting where Taiwan was present.

The campaigning for the top office was disrupted in the spring of 1953 as both of the Great Powers experienced changes in leadership within months of each other. In the United States, President Harry Truman was replaced by Dwight Eisenhower after an election. Meanwhile in the Soviet Union, the death of Communist Party leader Joseph Stalin triggered a power struggle that would not be resolved for several months.

Three Candidates emerged for the soon-to-be-vacant office of Secretary-General:

1. Lester Pearson, the Canadian diplomat, returned with a vengeance. This time he was being supported by the United Kingdom, who campaigned on his behalf aggressively. However, Pearson had moved up in the Canadian hierarchy since his previous campaign for the Secretary-Generalship. Now, Pearson was a powerful figure in Canadian politics and the vast majority of his countrymen assumed he was a shoe-in for the role of Prime Minister.
2. Carlos Romulo was a Pilipino who served as President of the UN General Assembly, and he was nominated by the United States. Romulo was one of the most famed citizens of the Philippines. A journalist and war veteran, Romulo co-founded the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and taught English at the University of the Philipenes. During World War 2, Romulo was an aide to General Douglas McArthur.
3. Stanislaw Skrzenszewski, a Polish diplomat, was put forward by the Soviet Union. A Doctor of philosophy, he fled the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and attempted to escape to the Soviet Union, only to be captured by the Soviets when they launched their own invasion a few days later. After the war, Skrzenszewski was heavily involved in the Liberation of Poland and became a high-ranking member of its new Communist government.

On March 13th 1953, the Security Council held its first round of voting. Romulo, Skrzenszewski, and Pearson were all defeated, receiving multiple vetoes from several of the P5. All three candidates were knocked out of the running.

The second round of voting occurred on March 17 with a new candidate. The Soviet Union nominated and Indian diplomat named Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, making her the first woman to be nominated for the Secretary-Generalship. However, Pandit’s candidacy collapsed on its first day, when Taiwan used its veto against her, owing to India’s support for Communist China. Pandit was rejected with a vote of 2 in favor, one against, and eight abstentions.

Following this sudden and crushing defeat, the Security Council deadlocked as all of the frontrunners had been eliminated from the contest. The P5 started searching for dark horse candidates, and near the end of March, the French found one: Dag Hammarskjöld. Dag was born into a noble family as the youngest son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, the Prime Minister of Sweden.

Studying economics at Uppsala University, Hammarskjöld was a successful public servant in the Swedish government, helping to alleviate the many problems his nation faced in the aftermath of World War 2. Hammarskjöld’s reputation as a brilliant economist made him appear to be free of controversy, something the Great Powers were very interested in at the time. Soviet Ambassador Valarian Zorin once said that Hammarskjöld was “harmless.” As soon as word got out that the Soviet Union was comfortable with Hammarskjöld as a candidate, the wheels of diplomacy began to spin.

Throughout the rest of the world, Dag Hammarskjöld was not very well known. In fact, he was such an unknown that when he was formally nominated for Secretary-General, the United States Government briefly panicked as they knew nothing about him.

Dag Hammarskjöld was not present when the Security Council voted on his candidacy, nor was he aware of the fact that he won the election by a vote of 10 to 0, with Taiwan abstaining. On April 1st, Dag received a phone call in the middle of the night informing him that he had become the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Dag replied:

“This April Fools Day joke is in extremely bad taste. It’s nonsense!”

And then he hung up the phone.

A few minutes later, Dag received a second call with the same news. For the second time, he dismissed the call as a prank and hung up. He eventually believed the reports when he received a torrent of calls for comment from journalists. Dag sent a telegram to the UN which said the following:

“With strong feeling personal insufficiency I hesitate to accept... but I do not feel I could refuse to assume the task imposed on me...”

On April 7th, the General Assembly voted to appoint Dag Hammarskjöld to the top job, and he was sworn in as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations in a vote of 57 in favor, one against, and one abstaining. His five-year term of office began on April 10th, and at the age of 47, he was the youngest person to ever become leader of the UN.

 

[Von Acturus]

“This April Fools Day joke is in extremely bad taste. It’s nonsense!"

Poor Dag, being elected to UN Secretary General shouldn't be one of these things that can be done without the affected person's knowledge and consent!
Though If I remember well he was a pretty good Secretary General.

 

[Macavity116]

​

Poor Dag, being elected to UN Secretary General shouldn't be one of these things that can be done without the affected person's knowledge and consent!

I always knew Sec-Gen is an unpopular job that few people actually want to have... but if you were to give me a nickel for every time someone was appointed to the post without their knowledge and consent, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird this has happened twice.

​

Though If I remember well he was a pretty good Secretary General.

Correct. Dag Hammarskjöld was such a competent diplomat and a highly regarded champion for peace that he is, to this very day, the only person to win a Nobel Peace Prize after his own death.

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The 1961 Selection of the UN Secretary-General
​

Dag Hammarskjöld was a very active and successful leader of the UN. History has come to regard him as an architect of the modern UN we know today. Secretary-General Hammarskjöld was first and foremost a peacekeeper. He established the United Nations Emergency Force, a primitive forerunner to the modern UN Army. The UNEF saw action in the Suez Canal crisis, while Hammarskjöld carried out his own kind of shuttle diplomacy. He travelled to China to secure the release of nearly a dozen US pilots who were shot down during the Korean War. Hammarskjöld was so successful in his work that when his term of office expired in 1957, he was re-elected unanimously by both the Security Council and the General Assembly.

Hammarskjöld also built up a very good reputation with the UN Secretariat. (the byzantine bureaucracy that keeps the organization functioning) Hammarskjöld ate in the cafeterias with the other workers at UN HQ and gave up his personal elevator for everyone to use. He also organized the addition of a meditation room in UN HQ, where anyone could go to engage in spiritual activates in peace and quiet, regardless of their religious beliefs. He also permitted the Vatican City to join the UN General Assembly as an observer.

In 1960, the newly independent Congo collapsed into civil war. Secretary-General Hammarskjöld responded to Congo’s calls for assistance by sending UNEF forces to the conflict zone. Hammarskjöld also sent himself. He made four trips to the Congo in order to personally oversee peacekeeping efforts and aid in cease-fire negotiations.

Tragically, on September 18th 1961, Secretary-General Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash. He was travelling through the war zone en-route to a cease-fire negotiation. The cause of the crash has never been determined. The Rhodesian government blames the crash on pilot error. Intelligence agencies all over the world, such as the CIA, MI6, and the KGB investigated the crash and came up with conflicting conclusions. US President Harry Truman claimed "they" shot down Hammarskjöld's plane, but he never specified who "they" were supposed to be.

Back then, the office of Deputy Secretary-General did not exist, so there was no line of succession. The Security Council was forced to convene and select a replacement.

For the second time, the Soviet Union attempted to replace the office of Secretary-General with a troika. (A governing council of three men) But the idea was once again shut down by the other Permanent Members. The United States and United Kingdom both argued that the General Assembly should be able to elect a replacement without input from the Security Council. When this plan was rejected, the United States submitted a plan for the President of the General Assembly to carry out the duties of the Secretary-General. The Soviet Union shot down this idea as well.

On September 29th 1961, Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin and US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson met for one-on-one negotiations. Over the course of a week, the two men hammered out an agreement that decided the final results of the Selection Process before a single candidate ever got their chance to speak.

Thant, often referred to honorifically as U Thant, was a diplomat who served in Burma’s first post-independence government. He also took part in the Bandung Conference that gave rise to the Non-Aligned Movement. Thant never expressed a desire to become Secretary-General, nor did any member of the Security Council nominate him. Following the weeklong meeting between the US and USSR, the Security Council selected Thant in a unanimous vote and recommended him to the General Assembly.

The General Assembly appointed Thant as Acting Secretary-General, making it clear that he was expected to finish out the remainder of Hammarskjöld’s term of office. Thant took office immediately with the expectation that his term would end on April 10th 1963.


On October 27th 1962, a representative from the United States Bureau of Strategic Emergency Command visited Secretary-General Thant and informed him about the discovery of a dormant Ethereal in the Elerium mine at Bannack, Montana.

24 hours later, Humanity was violently forced to enter the Galactic stage.

---

And now we divert from real history and return to the Stormbreaker timeline...

 

[Midnite Duke]

Your timeline starts before we meet the Nazi Austrian! Thank you for improving my UN knowledge.

 

[Von Acturus]

Thant never expressed a desire to become Secretary-General

I'm beguinning to see a trend here...

Also, when I read this sentence

On October 27th 1962, a representative from the United States Bureau of Strategic Emergency Command visited Secretary-General Thant and informed him about the discovery of a dormant Ethereal in the Elerium mine at Bannack, Montana.

It took me a good five seconds to realise we had left OTL history and entered Stormbreaker territory

 

[Macavity116]

Your timeline starts before we meet the Nazi Austrian! Thank you for improving my UN knowledge.

Have no fear, we'll be seeing Mr. Waldheim before long...

I'm [beginning] to see a trend here...

This is one of the rare cases where real life is stranger than fiction. Getting people to fill the office of Sec-Gen is actually really difficult here in the real world, especially in the early days.

It took me a good five seconds to [realize] we had left OTL history and entered Stormbreaker territory

Keep reading, we're about to blaze through the events of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

There are several video games I mashed up and merged together while making the Stormbreaker Universe, and this is the correct chronological order of those games (within my universe, anyway):

1. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
2. Homeworld
3. Homeworld: Cataclysm
4. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
5. Life is Strange
6. Homeworld 2
7. XCOM: Enemy Within
8. XCOM2: War of the Chosen
9. Stellaris

---

The 1963 Selection of the UN Secretary-General

​

The course of Human history took an unexpected turn on October 28th 1962. For 99.99% of the people on Earth, it was six months of sheer terror as news agencies reported on a full-scale war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Supposedly, the conflict had begun on the island of Cuba, following the USSR’s attempt to secretly place nuclear missiles on the island.

American soldiers landed on the shores of Cuba, battle was joined, and all bets were off.

Of course, over one hundred years later, we know the truth.

The world really was thrown into crisis in the early morning of October 28th… but it was a much different kind of war.

An extraterrestrial civilization called the Zudjari Empire launched their ill-fated invasion of Earth, starting with the disastrous Battle of Groom Range. Unfortunately, most of the details about the Zudjari War have been lost, due to the combined efforts of XCOM, the Council of Nations, and the now-defunct ADVENT Regime. One detail that is known, however, is that Secretary-General U Thant did not survive the conflict. While the exact circumstances of his demise are not known, we are certain that once the enemy disrupted Human command and control, XCOM Director Myron Faulke was able to seize control of UN Emergency Forces all over the world and mobilize them to fight the Zudjari invaders.

Secretary-General Thant disappears from the historical record sometime around November of 1962, which corresponds with the arrival of the Zudjari warlord Axis. The post of Secretary-General remained vacant until the end of the war. However, Director Faulke acted as a de-facto UN leader until the conflict was over.

Following the Battle of Site X and subsequent defeat of the invaders, the UN rebuilt and reestablished itself with the assistance of the newly founded Council of Nations. At some point between April and June of 1963, the Great Powers, the UN, and the Council of Nations all agreed to carry out a cover-up, successfully hiding the alien invasion from the entire world. The widespread death and destruction was blamed on an armed conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the two largest military alliances on Earth at the time.

Naturally, as the man who orchestrated the defeat of the Zudjari and saved the world, most leaders assumed that Myron Faulke would be the only logical choice for Secretary-General. Faulke himself lobbied the Security Council to amend the UN Charter, making the office of Secretary-General into a much more powerful one than before, with greater power and authority. Under the 1963 charter, the UN Secretary-General became a much more powerful executive with greater control over UNEF forces, which were subsequently rearranged to form the UN Peacekeepers, the next step on the road to creating AFUNE.

Myron Faulke almost certainly would have been selected as Secretary-General, but before anyone could nominate him for the post, Faulke abruptly declared himself President of the United States and took up residence at the White House in Washington. This naturally took him out of the running.

From here, the race for Secretary-General became very hectic. The re-establishment of the UN had forced the General Assembly to deal with an uncomfortable question that was lingering over the body ever since 1950:

When the General Assembly returned to New York City for its first post-war session, a delegation from the People’s Republic of China arrived and tried to take their seat, only to be denied entry because the Taiwanese delegation still claimed to be the rightful government of the Chinese mainland.

After holding on to the Chinese seat and veto for nearly twenty years, the General Assembly voted to eject Taiwan from the United Nations altogether, granting Taiwan’s permanent seat on the Security Council to Communist China. For all of the previous selections, the United States and Soviet Union had controlled the process from beginning to end. Now the introduction of a third-world non-aligned power upended the balance of the Security Council.

Ten candidates put in their names for the post of Secretary-General, and after the first two rounds of voting, all ten had either failed to get a majority of votes or had been vetoed. The People’s Republic of China was aggressively using its new veto power. During the first two rounds of voting, China vetoed an obscure and mostly unknown Austrian named Kurt Waldheim. Grateful for the cooperation, the governments of the United Kingdom and United States instructed their UN Ambassadors to stop Waldheim from becoming Secretary-General. This should have been an easy assignment, because the constant vetoes from China allowed Finnish dark horse Max Jakobson to become the frontrunner.

Kurt Waldheim was seen as an undesirable candidate by most of the Western Powers, yet he had the support of the Soviet Union. The US Department of State said that Waldheim “Lacked sufficient stature and drive to be taken seriously.” Considering that Waldheim was such an underwhelming candidate, it came as a surprise when he received eleven out of sixteen votes during the second round. He would have become Secretary-General then and there, but China continued to veto him with reliable regularity.

Going into the third round of voting on December 21, 1963, the delegations of the United States and United Kingdom were reassured by multiple sources that China was going to veto Waldheim a third time. Both delegations felt comfortable with abstaining from the vote and allowing China to continue with its flurry of vetoes. In fact, during this third round of voting, Carlos de Rozas, a candidate from Argentina, received twelve votes, the best showing so far. However, there was a miscalculation.

China did not use their veto power as everyone expected they would. Instead, China abstained from the third round of voting. With a final vote of eleven in favor, one against, and three abstentions… Kurt Waldheim became the fourth UN Secretary-General. Purely by accident.

 

[Von Acturus]

This is a lot to take in.... How did the earthlings repeal the alien invasion in six months? And how exactly did the cover up function, what did the XCOM and the Great Powers do to the people who had seen (if anyone had seen) the aliens?

And what is the purpose of the new Council of Nations?

Finally,

Kurt Waldheim became the fourth UN Secretary-General. Purely by accident.

Electing nazis by accident is not exactly good policy. I'm also a bit confused on what China was trying to do there. Was that how it happened in OTL?

 

[Macavity116]

How did the earthlings repeal the alien invasion in six months? And how exactly did the cover up function, what did the XCOM and the Great Powers do to the people who had seen (if anyone had seen) the aliens?

The Zudjari invasion suffered from being very poorly executed. In The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, it is made clear the alien starships are showing signs of serious disrepair. Alien weapons are poorly maintained and their troops are malnourished if not starving. Eventually, the Zudjari are revealed to be in a desperate state and their empire on the brink of total collapse, with Earth being their final hope for survival. The invaders were even further undermined by the actions of Shamash. She was an Ethereal enslaved by Origin, the Zudjari leader. Her resistance to Zudjari control allowed Asaru to finish the job through his Human hosts.

So, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified has 4 (yes, four!) possible endings. All the way back in The Stormbreakers, I specified which one is "canon" to my universe. Let's recap:

Here are all the possible ways the 1962 Invasion could have ended:

1. The Ethereal Asaru refuses to separate from William Carter. In response, Carter commits suicide, taking Asaru with him.
2. Asaru merges with Alan Weir, XCOM's chief scientist. Together, they seize control of the Mosaic network and force the Zudjari Army to stand down. Weir and Asaru force the Zudjari to rebuild and repair all of the Human settlements they damaged. Once completed, Weir allows the Zudjari to take their mothership and fly away. Any sites where evidence of the invasion remains are quietly erased from existence, with their destructions being blamed on natural disasters. Weir chooses to cure all people suffering from the Sleepwalker Virus. Anyone who knows the truth of the invasion is brought into XCOM and the Council of Nations, or else they are killed. The Ethereal then separates from Weir and disappears.
3. Asaru merges with Myron Faulke, Director of XCOM. Faulke uses the Mosaic network to seize control of the Zudjari Army; he forced them to dismantle and conceal all evidence of their invasion. Anything that could not be concealed by the burn teams was destroyed. Some invader technology was confiscated by the United States government and used to advance its own tech. Once the rebuilding is complete, Faulke used Mosaic to force the Zudjari to commit mass suicide, exterminating their species in a single moment. Then he allowed the Zudjari Mothership to fall out of orbit and crash into an unknown desert. He seized control of most news media outlets on Earth (with help from the Council of Nations) and used them to bury the truth. Anyone who could discredit the lie was made into a social paraiah or killed outright. Faulke treated the victims of the Sleepwalker Virus humanely and allowed them to die of natural causes. The Ethereal then separates from Faulke and disappears.
4. Asaru merges with Angela Weaver, field agent. Using Mosaic, Angela forced all members of the Zudjari species to turn on one another. Over a period of hours, the Zudjari executed each other in a murder-suicide on a scale the Galaxy has never seen before. "They didn't surrender, they died." By the time the sun set, the Zudjari were extinct. Weaver crashed the Zudjari Mothership into the ground where XCOM burn teams dismantled whatever remained of it. Weaver took extreme measures to ensure the cover-up: She used a significant number of nuclear weapons to destroy any sites where Zudjari evidence could not be erased by burn teams. She also ordered the execution of all Humans suffering from the Sleepwalker Virus, as well as any people who knew about the invasion but were not already part of XCOM. The surplus deaths were blamed on an outbreak of Influenza.

Each ending has a variation to it as well, depending on which ally the player chooses to sacrifice in the final mission, and whether or not the player chooses to execute William Carter. As far as the Stormbreaker Universe is concerned, the following ending is considered to be cannon:

• Asaru merges with Faulke
• William Carter is allowed to live.
• Angela Weaver dies.
• Alan Weir lives.

You can see this specific ending for yourself on my Youtube channel, where I re-created it in my copy of the game. The ending is split across two videos: The Last War and The Day the Sky Fell.

what is the purpose of the new Council of Nations?

The Council of Nations is a group of sixteen nations who support XCOM by providing it with money, weapons, scientists, engineers, soldiers, technology, and intelligence. The Council of Nations consists of the following members: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, India, China, Japan, and Australia.

It exists independently from the UN. In all of the XCOM games, the Council is represented by their shadowy spokesman. (voiced by Jon Bailey the famed "Epic Voice Guy", no less ) The Council changed sides after the Fall of Earth in 2015, choosing to join the ADVENT Coalition.

However their mysterious spokesman joined the newly created "Resistance Council" instead. He was offered a high-ranking position in the ADVENT government and accepted it. The Spokesman used his new power and authority in the occupation regime to funnel intel and money to the Resistance throughout the entirety of the war.

The mysterious "Shadow Man" who occasionally speaks to the New Stormbreakers in My Father's War, All Our Sins Remembered, and The Last Heroes is meant to be a reference to the Council Spokesman. However, as the author, I can assure you it is a different person.

Electing nazis by accident is not exactly good policy. I'm also a bit confused on what China was trying to do there. Was that how it happened in OTL?

I may have messed with the years a bit, but yes. This is pretty much how Waldheim came to power in real-life. US Ambassador George H. W. Bush asked his British counterpart Colin Crowe to speak to the Chinese delegation about coordinating their vetoes, but Crowe refused, saying it would arouse suspicion. They spoke to the Swedish and Finnish ambassadors instead, and they received assurances from Norway and Sweden that China would continue to veto Waldheim. Bush and Crowe were blindsided by China's sudden decision to abstain from the vote.

Afterward, Bush tried to contact Waldheim (who was in Austria) but the Austrian switchboard was jammed by diplomats beating him to the punch.


Source: Telegram From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State (Official website of the Historian of the US Department of State)

 

[Macavity116]

While I mostly referenced broad strokes, kept my descriptions vague and fudged the timeline, it should be noted that yes, Kurt Waldheim really was outed as an unpunished Nazi after he started serving as Secretary-General. He really did become President of Austria after his past was unearthed, and Waldheim was deemed persona non-grata throughout almost every nation on Earth.

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The 1981 Selection of the UN Secretary-General​

Under the leadership of Kurt Waldheim, the United Nations grew and expanded into much of the power and influence it has today. He opened several sessions of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Conference on Human Development, the Conference on the Law of the Sea, and the World Food Conference. Waldheim’s efforts to improve the quality of life and ease of trade and movement across the whole world have been viewed favorably by the current administration. In his 2077 speech to the UN Economic and Social Council, Secretary-General Pascal Etienne praised Waldheim’s leadership style and laid out his intentions to emulate Waldheim’s leadership style going forward.

Secretary-General Waldheim’s voice can be heard on the Voyager Golden Record. Voyager 1 is currently in the constellation Ophiuchus and is the center of a tourist attraction operated by the German Government. (as it was a German starship that found Voyager 1) Visitors can hear Waldheim’s message being played every six hours. Voyager 2’s position is currently unknown.

Waldheim assisted with the negotiated release of American hostages in Iran, and he also collaborated with the musician Paul McCartney to organize a series of concerts to help the people of Cambodia recover from the damage done by Pol Pot. Riding high on his success, Waldheim was re-elected not once, but twice, serving a full three terms as UN Secretary General. After fifteen years in office, Waldheim announced his intentions to seek a fourth term during the 1981 Selection process. China announced their intentions to use their veto power against him, but the rest of the world continued to support the Secretary-General Waldheim in preparation for a contested election.

However, something happened that upended the whole process. In early 1980, Secretary-General Waldheim published his own autobiography, detailing his own life before he became the UN leader. However, mere weeks after publication, a Japanese-American journalist uncovered evidence proving that Secretary-General Waldheim had falsified several aspects of his autobiography, most notably his military service record during World War Two. After a short investigation, it came to light that Waldheim had not only served in the German Army during the war, but he was also a supporter of the Nazi regime and spent the war working as a member of German Military Intelligence. Furthermore, Waldheim was implicated in Nazi war crimes such as slave labor and mass deportations. The Secretary-General became persona non grata throughout nearly the entire world.

With his reputation in ruins and several European governments seriously considering his arrest, Secretary-General Waldheim departed the United Nations as soon as his term ended. He returned to his home country of Austria and was almost immediately elected President.

The UN he left behind found itself caught in one of the most bitter leadership debates in decades. Tanzanian diplomat Salim Ahmed Salim emerged as the frontrunner, he was the President of both the UN General Assembly and the Global Non-Aligned Movement. Unfortunately, Salim had a falling out with US President Ronald Regan over the subject of South Africa’s Apartheid regime. As a result of this dispute, the US delegation committed itself to vetoing any and all attempts at electing Salim. Over the course of eleven votes, Salim received more than enough votes to become Secretary-General. However, each time he won the election, Salim was immediately vetoed by the United States. The Security Council was deadlocked.

Fortunately, the deadlock did not last long. In December, the Rotating Presidency of the Security Council shifted to Uganda. As soon as the Presidency shifted, the Ugandan delegation attempted to break the deadlock by asking all of the candidates to drop out of the race. One by one, all men and women who were seeking the office of Secretary-General withdrew their names from consideration until the field was empty. Then the Security Council started accepting new candidates.

Nine candidates threw their names into the contest, and all of them came from lesser developed third-world nations such as Panama, Guyana, the Philippines, and Peru. The Ugandan delegation came up with a novel solution to narrow the field that is still used in the Selection process to this day: The Security Council members were asked to vote in a secret ballot. Each member would write down whether they encouraged or discouraged a specific person from seeking the office of Secretary-General. Members of the P5 would vote on red ballots while everyone else would use white paper. If a “discourage” vote was written on red paper, it would be interpreted as a veto from the Permanent Five.

Sure enough, the secret ballot method broke the deadlock, as on the very first ballot, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan was vetoed out of the race, and mere minutes later, dark horse candidate Javier Pérez de Cuéllar won the ballot with eight out of sixteen votes in favor and none opposed. The Security Council quickly closed ranks around the new favorite and elected Javier, seemingly unaware of the fact that de Cuéllar was still in his hometown and was not campaigning for the office at all.

Javier de Cuéllar was a lifelong diplomat, serving his home nation of Peru in the Diplomatic Corps. He worked in several South American and European nations, often as a member of Embassy staff. In 1972, de Cuéllar was selected to represent Peru on the UN Security Council. That same year, Peru became the President of the Security Council, and de Cuéllar deftly led the body through a major crisis triggered by an armed conflict on the island of Cyprus. He oversaw the deployment of UN Peacekeepers to the region and attempted to defuse tensions between Greece and Turkey over the island.

During the crisis in Cyprus, Secretary-General Waldheim appointed de Cuéllar to be his personal representative to the region. De Cuéllar only stayed in this post for a few years before a new crisis began: The Soviet Union launched a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan. Once again, Secretary-General Waldheim appointed de Cuéllar to be his own personal representative in the region. Javier de Cuéllar spent a few months in Afghanistan attempting to facilitate peace talks, then returned to Peru. Shortly after arriving, de Cuéllar had to travel to New York City, where the General Assembly was voting on whether or not to make him the next Sec-Gen.

Javier de Cuéllar was sworn in as the 5th Secretary-General of the United Nations on January 1st 1982.

 

[Von Acturus]

seemingly unaware of the fact that de Cuéllar was still in his hometown and was not campaigning for the office at all.

Again! This is one of those cases in which real life is stranger than fiction...

Very informative update, as ever, I'll have to search more about Waldheim. An interesting figure, even if not in a good sense (how do you become president of Austria after being outed as a Nazi collaborator? That should be a big no no anywhere, but especially in Austria and Germany.).

 

[Macavity116]

Again! This is one of those cases in which real life is stranger than fiction...

Absolutely. This is part of the reason why I always make an effort to have the wars and conflicts in my stories draw parallels to real-life conflicts. In My Father's War, the Second Battle of Obama (where 3000 school-aged children were thrown into battle against the Spetsnaz) is perhaps my strongest example of this. In real life, Paraguay never fully recovered from sending thousands of its own children to fight the most elite Brazilian troops. (Battle of Acosta Ñu) It's a tragedy that needs to be remembered. Preserving it in fiction is just my way of doing that.

Very informative update, as ever, I'll have to search more about Waldheim. An interesting figure, even if not in a good sense (how do you become president of Austria after being outed as a Nazi collaborator? That should be a big no no anywhere, but especially in Austria and Germany.).

It's a fascinating topic. I strongly recommend you give yourself a crash course on Austrian Victim Theory. It's a (now defunct) political theory that permeated Austria during the allied occupation after World War II. It was used to excuse, justify, or outright ignore the role Austria played in causing the Holocaust. It was this ideology that allowed Waldheim to become Austria's ruler and hold onto power for a decade. Austrian Victim Theory was mostly abandoned in the early 2000's.



*A quick note before this history lesson starts: I want to apologize if it seems like my personal opinions leaked into this history lesson. My dad served as a UN Peacekeeper in the 1990's and he spent most of my early years wearing the blue helmet in a warzone. I've got some strong feelings about UN Peacekeeping missions from this time period.

---

The 1991 Selection of the UN Secretary-General
​

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar served two terms as Secretary-General, and under his administration, the UN was highly active around the world. Javier saw early success mediating the aftermath of a war between the United Kingdom and Argentina, but he also got dragged into multiple wars for independence in Croatia, Namibia, and Morocco.

The Secretary-General spent the majority of his two terms in office trying to stop smaller conflicts from exploding into a larger catastrophe. His work was made even more difficult by the stagnation and collapse of the Soviet Empire in the late 1980’s. The Warsaw Pact collapsed as Communist governments fell across Eastern Europe. By the end of the decade, the Soviet Union was the only communist state left in Europe.

On the heels of his early successes, de Cuéllar was re-elected without any opposition and transitioned smoothly into his second term of office.

Perhaps the highest point of Javier’s administration was his arbitration of the Rainbow Warrior incident. After the French military sank a Dutch civilian ship in the waters of New Zealand, Javier established new standards for international maritime law that would eventually be applied to starships here in the modern day. After two terms that can be considered successful on most fronts, the UN Security Council started searching for a successor. When no suitable candidate was found, the Security Council informally asked de Cuéllar to serve a third term, de Cuéllar flatly refused this request.

The early 1990's were a time of great change. The collapse of the Soviet sphere of influence, combined with rapid decolonization of Africa and Southeast Asia, caused the UN General Assembly to double in size as new member-states were added. For the first time, the nations of the Third World commanded a majority of seats in the General Assembly. Acting through the Non-Aligned Movement, these small nations acted collectively to force great changes. In accordance with the UN Charter, the Security Council could recommend a single candidate, but the General Assembly had final say on who got to be Secretary-General. Now with this compact in place, the Assembly could force the Security Council to recommend a candidate from a specific region.

The coalition instituted a new policy of "Regional Rotation." The Offices of Secretary-General, General Assembly President, and Security Council President would all rotate from one part of the world to the next, ensuring that every nation would eventually get the opportunity to assume a leadership role in the United Nations. For their first act, nations who were members of the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Union came together and agreed to vote against any Sec-Gen Candidate who was not born and raised in Africa.

With these new rules in place, over a dozen men and woman from the African continent were nominated for the top job. This could have been a chaotic and tense cycle, but the decision was made early on to re-use the straw poll system from 1981. As a result, the Selection process was smooth and trouble-free, which is a very rare occurrence in the history of the United Nations, and only added to the growing sense that the UN was entering a new era.

The Security Council held six straw polls over the course of six weeks to measure how much support each candidate had. Because the ballots were done in secret with colored paper, it was not possible to know which member of the P5 was threatening to issue a veto. This eliminated the possibility of veto duels that deadlocked many previous selections.

Over the course of six secret polls, three frontrunners emerged:

1. Bernard Chidzero: a Zimbabwean economist who played a great role in Zimbabwe's first years of independence
2. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian diplomat who rose to prominence as a member of Anwar el-Sadat's government.
3. Olusegun Obasanjo, a career soldier who briefly ruled Nigeria as part of a military junta.

Any candidate who was not from Africa was vetoed, including the Prime Ministers of Norway and Canada. By the fifth straw poll, Obasanjo had been eliminated from the race, and one week later, on the 21st of November, Boutros Boutros-Ghali was the clear winner with eleven out of fifteen votes.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a highly educated man born in Cairo, Egypt. He became a ranking member of the Arab Socialist Union in the mid 1970's before being appointed Minister of State by President Anwar el-Sadat. During his tenure as Minister of State, Boutros-Ghali was a key player in the Camp David Accords, a flawed but no less historic pair of agreements that eventually resulted in the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Anwar el Sadat was assassinated in 1981, and Boutros-Ghali remained in his post to serve under el-Sadat's eventual successor, Hosni Mubarak.

In 1990, while still serving as the Egyptian Minister of State, Boutros-Ghali secretly approved the sale of small arms and light weapons worth about 26 million US dollars to the Republic of Rwanda. This action was done in secret because at the time, the Hutu government of Rwanda was engaged in very public preparations for a genocidal civil war that could be seen and understood by even the most casual of observers. Some of these weapons were found in a cache by UN Peacekeepers shortly before this conflict began. However, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Security Council both ordered the Peacekeepers to stand down and forbade them from raiding the weapons cache.

The secret sale of weapons would not be discovered until the year 2000.

On the recommendation of the Security Council, the General Assembly elected Boutros-Ghali unanimously and he assumed office on January 1st, 1992. By then, the metaphorical dominoes were already falling, and the UN's optimistic "new era" would be short-lived...

 

[Midnite Duke]

For an organization that has gotten a semi-bad rep and a haphazard election process, the UN has had several outstanding leaders: Dag, Waldheim (just for UN, not before or after), de Cuellar. Did you skip U Thant or was he just so unnoteworthy that I do not remember? Thank you

 

[Macavity116]

Did you skip U Thant or was he just so unnoteworthy that I do not remember?

In the Stormbreaker Universe timeline, U Thant's premiership was pretty much cancelled out by the Zudjari Invasion of Earth in 1962, clearing the way for Waldheim to take over 5 years early. It's a real shame, because in real life, Thant was one of the more praiseworthy UN leaders.

 

[Von Acturus]

while still serving as the Egyptian Minister of State, Boutros-Ghali secretly approved the sale of small arms and light weapons worth about 26 million US dollars to the Republic of Rwanda [...] Some of these weapons were found in a cache by UN Peacekeepers shortly before this conflict began. However, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Security Council both ordered the Peacekeepers to stand down and forbade them from raiding the weapons cache.

I presume this also happened in real life. I read an article, I think in Le Monde Diplomatique, about the UN and French response to the Rwandan genocide, and the way many top officials and politicians were willing to risk the lives of the peacekeepers (not to mention allow millions of tutsis and moderate hutus to be exterminated) by continuing to sell arms and provide diplomatic coverage to a genocidal government while neglecting to even inform the peacekeepers of their dealings, and allowing the peacekeepers to become trapped in their bases with no outside support, very few weapons and heaps of helpless refugees seeking refuge with the government's death squads on their heels, is just despicable.