To understand the world we find ourselves in, you must first understand where we have come from. The world was plunged into chaos when a sinister secret cabal known only as the Sovereign Order declared the world its dominion and began to enslave and exterminate the rest of the population through the use of an army of mindless clones combined with having most of the world's leadership among its ranks. However though the combined efforts of resistance efforts everywhere, the Order eventually saw its demise. That's a story for different day however. In the end, among the heroes of this war were the brilliant Madison Lawrence and the charismatic Jack Burns.
Lawrence was a Lieutenant in the British Army before the Declaration. She lead a mutiny against her commanding officer as they were ordered to fight an unarmed rebellion. She faced certain execution but was rescued by those she'd spared before that could happen. Throughout the war, she lead several successful efforts against the Order and was instrumental in the destruction of the Order's lodge which resulted in the death of much of the Order's inner circle and effectively spelled the end of the Order as a global power.
Burns' past isn't well known. He's rumored to have been a mercenary or a CIA operative before the Declaration but his only response to the question is that what people come up with is far more interesting than the reality. He's a full-blooded fighter though, having been apart of a daring raid on the infamous Camp 9. He and handful of fighters cracked open the camp and held off the garrison and reinforcements while the camp's occupants escaped. He was the only one to survive the raid. He went on to lead several other daring but not as costly raids earning a big name for himself. He was an important part of the Order's defeat at their lodge.
In the end, the Global Liberation Front, a global resistance coalition, was left with a world in ruins. Lawrence saw the problem as a matter of logistics and pushed the creation of a body with policing power to create secure population centers safe from the Order's remnants and assist in the reconstruction of infrastructure - what would become known as the Aegis Initiative. The initiative set up what would become known as "safe zones" that were protected areas policed by Initiative peacekeepers.
Burns saw this as a threat. He believed that Aegis was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He raised his voice to denounce it as another Sovereign Order, one that would finish the job - military control over the world's resources and population. He pushed for the Front to stay as it was, a collective of nomadic resistance groups that scavenge and salvage resources from the old civilization. He believed that by creating organized governments and militaristic policing bodies that it repeat the mistakes of the past.
This difference of opinion turned violent when the St. Louis safe zone, known for a high amount of corruption in its peacekeeping forces, erupted in revolt and raided by outside aggressors that beheaded the safe zone's local leadership. While he initially denounced it as "brutal", Burns was eventually linked to assisting in the revolt and giving sensitive information on the safe zone's defenses to the aggressors allowing them to orchestrate the raid. While arrested, he was sprung and his supporters organized themselves under a new banner - Manticore. They are determined to bring an end to the Aegis Initiative.
So here we are. While the real solution likely lies somewhere in the shades of grey, blood has been shed and lines have been drawn, which side will you stand on?
