One Last System

"No one knows where exactly the war started. No one knew why it started either," I revealed the most annoying part about the bloodiest clot in human history that I knew of. "But my personal opinion is…"

I took a deep breath, sorting my thoughts out.

This topic was anything but simple to explain, especially to someone who never touched global politics before. As such, explaining it in a simple way required me to seriously consider my approach.

"Let me start with a little explanation. As you might've noticed, all of the former major conflicts were centered around the old continent. The situation changed only around the second world war when the rest of the world was starting to catch up. Yet, even then,  it was the old continent that remained the center of attention."

Mia snuggled up to my side, fixing her position when she sensed my story was approaching its most important part.

"After the second world war, save for some regional conflicts and wars, humanity as a whole experienced nearly a hundred years of peace. Something like that was unprecedented. This period of peace and massive economic growth…" I took a moment to think of a good example. "The last civilization that came close to achieving it was Roman Empire. And even they only managed to do it within their own empire."

My face darkened. A long wrinkle appeared on my forehead as I did my best to separate my own interpretation of the events from the things that were factually correct.

"This kind of peace and prosperity never happened before. But it was also this century of peace that allowed all the major players with huge potential to realize it, leading to a world with only seven superpowers around which all the other nations tried to play around."

"And those were…?" Mia asked, more to showcase that she was listening rather than out of real curiosity.

After all, for her, save for what she learned from my lecture, the names of the nations wouldn't mean anything.

"The old hegemon of the United States of America that laid the foundation for the century of prosperity. The raising power of the Chinese Dragon along with the exploding power of the Indian subcontinent."

"Those only make three, though," Mia pointed out.

"Because only those three are simple, unified powers," I quickly explained. "The fourth and fifth are respectively Union of the old continent and then the resource-rich Arabia. But as confusing as it might be, the last two weren't even countries, to begin with."

"Wait, didn't you say that countries are like sects… no, kingdoms and empires that I know of?" Mia pointed out, bringing back the comparison I made earlier to make it easier for her to understand my story.

"That's right," I stood by my words.

"Since they are the ones who control land, people, and wealth… who else could be involved?" Mia asked, confusion filling her face to the brim. "Some sort of an outsider?" she attempted to guess, turning her eyes up toward the ceiling of the room.

I've long established that the world was just a massive rock floating in space. Massive beyond any understanding but still limited in size.

"Did some sort of power appear in space?" Mia asked, putting some more details to her guess.

'I'm sure some conspiracy theorists would love to include space Nazis as the reason behind that war.' My lips quivered a little at the mere thought of such a ridiculous possibility.

"I'm happy that you are trying to guess, but this involves the part of the story I didn't really talk about. The last two powers were corporations. Basically, merchant families, that grew so powerful their means rose above and beyond those of a nation or a country."

A veil of darkness covered my face. I took a deep breath and moved a little on the bed, bringing my arm around Mia's back before hugging her to my chest.

"The first power arose from the old hegemon of America. They were the Black Rock company. They controlled roughly sixty percent of all the wealth within that hegemon while making sure hardly anyone paid them any mind."

"And the last power?" Mia asked, tensing up a little.

Even if she didn't know the full story yet, she could tell I was quickly approaching the end of the entire set-up, soon to reveal the beginning of it all.

"It's hard to actually say much about them. No one knew where they came from. There were no mentions of their organization at all, and they suddenly came out with technology that exceeded anything the rest of the world had. What's weird, however, was how they appeared in over fifty seemingly random places all over the world, all at the same time, all with the same intent."

I closed my eyes and relaxed my neck, allowing it to fall down on the simple, makeshift pillow.

It felt weird to talk about the absolute peak of human ingenuity while lying in a bed made out of several planks and some straws enclosed within a piece of cloth.

"Within two years, they all came together to create an organization only known by their acronym, LCA."

I took a break from the story in an extremely weird moment, seemingly in the middle of an explanation.

Mia didn't pressure me to speak, though. With her ear lying atop my chest, she could listen in to my heart. And pretty likely, from the changes to its rhythm, she understood the story reached its climax.

"I'm not sure if you paid attention, but there was only one place in the world that didn't groom its own superpower. Instead, despite the attempts of missionaries from all over the world and the extreme effort of its own people, it remained as a staging ground for petty conflicts between superpowers. That's why everyone was taken in by a surprise when a small skirmish between Black Rock affiliated mercenaries and LCA affiliated mercenaries became the spark that set the entire world on fire."