The Last Great Game
Cameron Tindall
        Some historians class the wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 to be a single conflict,
separated by a peace that was such only in that there was a sharp decline in the demand for rifles
and cordite. No doubt in the future, in the comfort afforded by distance, someone may class the Last
War as simply a continuation of that same conflict. The Last War was, as its predecessors, called a
"world war" at its inception despite originating in Europe. It had similar diplomatic preludes:
ultimatums, backroom deals, appeasements, top hats. War broke, as before, without the Americans,
who came to the fight with anemic strength, and eventually delivered materiale beyond what was
thought possible. Judged as a member of this trio, the Last War is not at all remarkable, except in its
unprecedented fifteen-year length and its consequences: Whether through defeat, treaty, or
spontaneous, unprovoked surrender, every nation-state on Earth had come under Allied control on
Victory Day.
        And that came to mean something more than it had before. In the Postwar years, the Allied
governments, and eventually the occupied powers, unified their political system. The East River
location of the United Nations building in New York, redundant now in a world composed of one
state, one government, and one body politic, was renovated for the third time in its history and
rechristened Allied Congressional Headquarters. Armed with a united, if imposed, idea of
democracy, the world rebuilt. They voted and debated and stump-speeched their problems nearer
and nearer to extinction, though never extinguishing them entirely, nor really expecting to. One day,
after entire generations had lived and died without knowing anything but the Pax Socium, the Allied
Peace, a girl was born and grew up, and decided she wanted no part of it.