The Rise of Redding Proctor Stephens

As of 2333, Redding Proctor Stephens remains the largest and most powerful commercial company in the history of Earth. The company currently occupies all North America while exerting masterly dominance over Southern America. Only the Russian Asian Confederacy represents true danger to the power of RPS. The headquarters of RPS lies in the centre of New York, a towering black glass reinforced skyscraper with just as many levels underground. John Redding himself occupies the top five floors personally.

 

The history of RPS began with John Redding. The founder and all powerful master of the company was merely seventeen years old when World War Three began. Of Anglo/German descent, his family had just moved to Germany in 2245. Redding’s father, George Redding, was a defence contractor and functioning alcoholic. Redding and his younger brother, Peter, suffered badly at the hands of their abusive father. He always tried his best to shield his younger brother from the beatings, while his mum endured even worse. When WW3 began, Germany was on the front lines as the outer small countries of Eastern Europe fell in a matter of hours with drone and aerial strikes decimating poorly maintained defences. Living in Berlin, the Redding family watched WW3 unfold first-hand. As the German government discussed peace options with the Confederacy, Redding’s father was summoned to the front lines to shore up aerial defence batteries – he was a network specialist.

 

Suspecting the worse, Joanne Redding began packing up what she could from their small apartment. It was then announced on Sept 3rd, 2245, that the United States would consider Germany a war enemy if it made peace with the Confederacy. The Western Democratic Alliance finally united behind the United States. Eastern Germany was decimated in less than a week, with millions of dead. Joanne Redding took her two sons and raced West towards France. John Redding hot-wired an old hatchback car, something he would later tell many times. Millions of refugees flooded westwards towards France and Britain. Eventually reaching France, there was chaos at the ports to Britain and America. Britain had a new experimental X-Defense anti-air system in place that had proved devastatingly effective against Confederacy drones, missiles, fighters and bombers. This system was now being rushed into production on both coasts of the United States. During the confusion at the French ports, Redding became separated from his mother and brother, never seeing the former again.

 

John Redding made it to Britain, at the age of eighteen, and was immediately sent to work in the military factories as both Britain and France began to hold the line. Intellectually gifted, he quickly caught the attention of the government and was fast-tracked to the new War Academy on the industrial supply course. With the Western world on a full war footing, the American president and de-facto head of the WDA proclaimed there would be no peace treaty, this was the war to decide the future of human civilisation for all. Advanced American patriot missile systems began arriving, shoring up the French border. Once the Confederacy could not reign supreme over the skies of Europe and Japan, a temporary stalemate began for two years.

 

During this time, John Redding accelerated himself through the academic war schools as the British government initiated mass nationalisation of most industries. Redding was put in charge of advanced material industry – critical to this new futuristic war -  and he set about mobilising the resources available to both Britain and Ireland. Capacity and supply improved 300% in his first two years. By the age of twenty-five, Redding was commanding key industries across Britain and soon the WDA as a whole. He and a few others the same age were seen as new brilliant blood, marshalling the economy with ruthlessness on a scale never seen before.

 

The war resumed with full force in 2249 with a nuclear strike against Japan. Japan itself was destroyed, with an estimated forty million killed in one day. Japan had been in the middle of a civil war for over a decade, and could not recover. The American president was appalled and announced to the world there would be a retaliatory strike at some point in the future. He also demanded India and the Southern American countries join the war effort for freedom. South America refused, but privately supplied vast amounts of basic supply resources to the WDA. It was during this time, in 2250, that John Redding met Damien Black – a biologist with interests across many subjects. His brilliant mind made him an equal match for Redding, but in the beginning, they got on famously. Redding brought together Black and others their age in a  group that became known as the Brilliant Eight. The public became enamoured with these young men and women who dreamt big and were determined to win the war for democracy. The three primary commanders of the WDA – the American and French presidents and the British prime minister granted them extraordinary power across industry and science for the war effort. Redding was promoted to Minister for Industry across the alliance.

 

The first dark turn in Redding’s life began with Damien Black, seen as Redding’s deputy now. Black developed a new chemical agent that could neuter entire populations. An airborne weapon, he had been working on it since his early teenage years. Redding set up a lab and arranged the manufacturing of the agent in small quantities. It proved 100% successful on test subjects, and the WDA leaders authorised a small test on Madagascar. Three months later, results had confirmed the entire test population had been sterilised.

 

WDA command ordered full throttle development and enhancement of the weapon, giving Redding even more power. By 2251, French land forces were retreating to Paris as the Confederacy commenced with operation Blackout. A two-pronged attack on the Eastern front of France – they hacked the air defence systems, disabling everything for eight hours. It wasn’t long, but enough to create chaos and flood Eastern France with this new type of speed-war. The French president, visiting troops on the front, was killed in action and the French government began to crumble. As Confederacy forces raced towards Paris and the English channel, the alliance declared France lost and began a mass evacuation of the country. Eventually six million arrived in England with a further two million sailing towards America.  Most of them would never make it, being killed in the open submarine warfare of the Atlantic Ocean. The British government destroyed the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France.

 

Britain by 2251 had already been operating within the max limits of food sustainability, and with a population of one hundred million, the island was creaking under its own weight. The alliance began a mass food shipment programme to the country, with British and American submarines pulled from other parts of the world to create a golden corridor of safety between Britain and America for safe sea travel. They had learned hard lessons from the previous world war.

 

Redding had instructed the Brilliant Eight to theorise and develop new ways for submarine hunting warfare a few years earlier, seeing that Britain’s main weakness that had affected it in every other war could come back to haunt it – island status. The Brilliant Eight developed a new submarine coating that reduced WDA submarines radar signature to that of a goldfish. The tide turned, and the golden corridor was established within one year. Simultaneously, Redding mobilised the industry under his command to mass produce advanced hunter-killer submarines, cutting production time by 60%. Black also pushed for deeper development into chemical weapons that could neutralise the enemy in the event of total annihilation by the Confederacy, with Redding initially agreeing. Differences between Redding and Black soon erupted though, with Redding preferring options that could be done quietly and humanely. Black didn’t see himself bound by such morals and sought about seeking the most brutal and effective killing compounds that could be spread over a mass area.

 

This argument became the vital difference between Redding and Black, with the group of eight split on the subject as well. Then, two incidents occurred that would change Redding forever. The first being that his mother and brother had been found in a detention camp in the south of France. With Redding becoming a war celebrating for the alliance due to his sheer brilliance, they were eventually spotted by Confederacy guards. Redding arranged their release in a prisoner exchange, using his power with WDA command to make it happen. The exchange was to happen in a Western occupied French port. The exchange failed, for reasons Redding would never find out, and both his mother and brother were shot.

 

The second incident, also occurring in 2254, was the annihilation of Australia. The Confederacy denied knowledge of this event, instead proclaiming a dissident hacking group or the WDA themselves had orchestrated the attack to boost support at home due to the rising calls for peace in the Western nations. 2254 was the year Redding developed a deep dark hatred for the Confederacy, and Black was able to use this newfound feeling to push for even darker counterattacks. Redding, using his power as Minister for Industry, unleashed the cash taps for Black and gave him whatever was required. Concurrently, Redding rushed through new aerial defences for Britain and mainland North America.

 

December 2254 saw India strike against the Confederacy, finally entering the war. The official line was that it was in retaliation for the sinking of two civilian ships in the Indian Ocean, but WDA intelligence was doubtful this happened. Unfortunately, the Indian economy was already in a perilous state due to the global conflict. The country fractured, and a new civil war began. The Confederacy quickly took advantage of this, and Chinese troops subjugated large parts of the country quickly.

 

By 2257, an upgrade to Star Wars II was activated for the Western hemisphere, severely reducing the chance of nuclear missile attacks by the Confederacy. Redding and Black now called for a tactical nuclear “castration” of Confederacy high command in Moscow and Beijing. They quickly garnered favour with WDA command and preparations were made. Redding personally oversaw, with WDA military command, industrial planning and targeting of key cities. The Brilliant Eight were now moved to a sprawling underground complex in the Nevada desert for protection. From here, they would command the war, with Redding having direct access to the American president. It was in December 2257 that Redding came to a startling discovery. He and everyone else in the Brilliant Eight came to the conclusion that the planet was teetering on a nuclear winter, and their planned nuclear strike could push them into one.

 

Damien Black was furious, contesting the results and arguing that the Confederacy had such an extreme numerical advantage that they risked defeat. He predicted the technological edge of the WDA was already being worn down by the sheer numbers of the Confederacy. Cheap missile swarms launched from China had already destroyed two aircraft carrier fleets in 2255 and 2256, and the aerial defence system in Britain was under constant daily attack. The Brilliant Eight for the first time openly argued with each other, with an even split with those loyal to both Redding and Black.

 

Redding took things a step further, speaking directly with WDA command and warning them of the problems the planet now faced. He argued, and succeeded, in convincing command to share the data with the Confederacy. For three months, there was a cessation of hostilities beginning in April 2257. Redding used this time to consolidate his power with the American president, becoming his chief advisor. Over the past two years, with the WDA losing ground to the Confederacy across the globe, public support for the alliance government had been dropping month by month. The fall of France, Japan, Australia and then India was now frightening western populations into believing that the Confederacy was unbeatable.

 

Redding argued it was necessary for the democratic governments to be more autocratic if they were to take on the determined might of the Confederacy. The British prime minister fought vehemently against this, arguing that they were fighting for democracy. The American president believed oppositely and wanted a more autocratic approach to the war. Redding advised that Britain would fall, it was only a matter of time and therefore he should begin acting as sole commander of the WDA. Redding moved permanently to Washington in September 2257, and this represented the first step in him moving away from industrial management and research and into the corridors of executive power. Redding quickly gained hold over the US president, supplanting the vice president.

 

In Jan 2258, the second Battle of Britain began. A massive missile attack flooded the new aerial defences along the entire south coast of England, and after three days gaps began to appear. The Confederacy pushed forward, penetrating through these small holes and landing strike teams trained to create chaos. At the same time, six nuclear power plants were attacked and destroyed, with the British government then declaring a state of emergency. The invasion of Britain was bloody, with the American president authorising a full evacuation of the civilian population – completely unfeasible. Redding overseen a mass procurement of barges and other ships that civilians could be “bulk packed” into and sent across the North Atlantic through the golden corridor.  The year of 2258 saw three American and two British carrier strike groups fight a war of attrition in the British Isles and North Sea. The Confederacy opened a second front in the North of Scotland, dropping a tactical nuclear missile at Scapa Flow – the main British naval base in the UK along with Devonport since 2069.

 

During this time, a young Director Hawk watched in London as WDA jets raced up the Thames, engaging Confederacy counterparts as the sky above London turned blood red. The British prime minister and senior government figures were all slaughtered together during the Siege of London. The siege became a historical event in the war, nine million civilians were killed as the carpet bombing went to street warfare. The second Battle of Britain as a whole lasted from Jan 2258 until May 2259 when the WDA fully retreated from the British Isles.

 

In October 2259, Redding and Black weaponized a highly toxic chemical agent – RX46A - deadly to human and organic life forms with the special attribute of being able to contaminate all water and soil tables for a century. They had been perfecting it since the Battle of Britain began, and Black had worked behind the scenes to have it ready in case Britain fell. Redding, who had been taking a harsher world view the longer the war went on, agreed with Black for its use and promoted the idea to the American president.

 

On the 18th January 2260, WDA bombers released RX46A bombs across the British Isles, killing three million Confederacy troops and rendering the islands uninhabitable for a century. Redding took the fall of the UK terribly hard, and wanted to exact vengeance on the Confederacy as a whole. He predicted, with reasonable accuracy, that with the Confederacy now controlling mainland Europe and India, they would soon be able to match the technological might of the WDA. He pressed the American president hard, and succeeded, in carpeting Western Europe with RX46A over a six-month period. The Confederacy went into full retreat to Eastern Europe, and Western Europe was taken over by local warlords for the next hundred years, living in constant danger with RX46A.