Virtual Wars

The Virtual Wars was a galaxy spanning conflict that threatened both the physical and virtual worlds. The end of the conflict resulted in the Federation of Stellar Systems becoming a puppet state under corporate control of Virtuoso. This left much of the galaxy in a lawless state as planetary governors struggled to maintain order.

Premise

The events leading up to the war were in the works for at least a century. The Federation reached a peak number of worlds settled but had struggled to maintain order as it became stretched thin. Many colonies began to secede in an attempt to form their own independent states, citing excessive taxes and corrupt government as the reason. However, these secessions severed major supply lines that were key to supporting the economy of major worlds such as Yeddo. As such, the Federation moved to regain control of these worlds. What started off as a series of attempts to control riots and localized violence soon escalated into a full-scale war.

The war was fought on multiple fronts. In the physical world, main targets included deep space servers to control the flow communication. A common space-based weapon was a simple tungsten rod that was launched at high velocities to destroy these server nodes and to bomb a location from orbit. However, the virtual world was just as dangerous if not more deadly. Virtual weapons could kill by causing avatars sensory overload and stopping the heart. Some of these battles could easily be mistaken as simulations or as games, but the consequences of losing were very real. On the cyberwarfare side, cryptoanalysts were concentrated on hacking into enemy controlled virtual worlds to gain an advantage. A jailbroken world or one with an exploitable bug could give one side of the war a major advantage.

Role of Virtuoso

Virtuoso, seeing the deadly conflict break out, saw its opportunity to rise in power. Throughout the war, Virtuoso gained influence by selling weapons to both sides and profiteering from the war. In addition to weapons, they also sold resurrection certifications that permitted the deceased to redownload their consciousness into new bodies. Essentially, death was a temporary setback and fallen soldiers could be brought back to life and continue the fighting. Virtuoso even enacted black ops missions to sabotage diplomatic measures and peace agreements to keep the war going for as long as possible, all while enacting a discrediting campaign against key politicians of the Federation.

Virtuoso, wanting to maintain a good public image, would cover up their actions after the war's end. They would claim that it was just anti-Virtuoso propaganda and publicly discredit those who would attempt to speak the truth. This was a slow process as they targeted school systems and other learning institutions in order to ensure that an entire generation would be raised believing Virtuoso to be the heroes of the war.

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