Hi all!

Once upon a long ago when I still worked for Target, I was involved on a project called 'Worlds at War -- Venus', a Venus source book for Warzone. Having resigned from my post, I'm no longer involved on the project. During my time, I even did a lot of writing during my spare time (yawp, I'm a total geek). One of the things I wrote was an introduction to early Venusian history. Since the manuscript was never handed over to Target, I thought it was a waste of effort to keep it for myself. So I thought: why not post it so other people may read it as well? And here it is. I hope you like it.

Cheers,
Thomas

Venus, the Blue Planet. Treacherously beautiful from space. Its surface scarred by volcanic chasms irrigated by the blood of mankind. Gigantic craters speak of desperate ages of many, cruel wars. Venus, the Shrouded Planet, where mankind in his darkest hour, all but crushed, united his forces under the guiding light of the First Cardinal, made his final stand and won. But at a terrible cost – that of his civilization. What man had so proudly built, had by the horrible war at best been reduced to smoking heaps of useless junk. What man had claimed from the Venusian jungles, the Venusian jungles had taken back - and then some. Where man had reigned supreme the jungle now reigned; hiding the remnants of a civilization lost, sheltering pockets of desperate, mutated humans, the Lost Ones, unaware that victory was theirs. The victorious forces of mankind founded a new civilization. Imitating the glory and splendor of the lost world, they would under the guiding light of the Brotherhood, once more prosper and Venus would again be the jewel in mankind's crown. But deep in the jungles bloody wars raged on. Never totally beaten, the creatures of Darkness settled in the ruins of the lost civilization. But the desperate Lost Ones fought for the ruins too, in their constant scrounge for caches of lost technology, their only lifeline in a hostile world. In the steaming swamps the corruption of the Dark Soul thrived and spread. It was from the deep, forbidding jungles that creatures unknown to man – worshipping Death, Agony, the final overthrow of man, and Apostles man has never heard of – rose. They have bided their time, and their time is now! Welcome to the Age of the Second Corporate Wars, or the Age of the Second Coming as the followers of Darkness prefer to call it. And welcome to Venus, the Shrouded Planet!

The Early Days

For eons man had looked towards the sun, to the Blue Planet. For eons he didn't have the resources nor the technology to do anything but look. As the cruel exploitation of Earth peaked, the resources were finally made available. Fueled by the a technology that solved a single problem but cause thousands more, the expansion into the Solar System begun. The unfortunate, the poor, and the weak were left behind. In the great arks, wicked manifestations of an uncaring elite, the powerful, those willing to serve, took off to settle new planets. They left behind a planet in chaos. Raped and plundered to finance the great leap into space. And uncaring they looked back at the cradle of civilization as the once prosperous, healthy planet turned dirty gray and were torn apart by nuclear wars.

It was an age of prosperity. The Homebuilders of Bauhaus toiled in the deep jungles and on the volcanic archipelagos of Venus. With colossal enthusiasm, blood and their lives they built a brave new world. A world of splendor, a paradise in the image of the Bauhaus forefathers. Their employees battled horrible creatures, and under awful conditions they built the enormous Venus estates. The land provided a bountiful harvest, and none starved. The corporation took care of the sick and cured every disease known to man. Plagues were unknown. Their factories produced enough goods to provide welfare to all of Bauhaus society. The surplus was large enough to allow export to the other corporations. Bauhaus' nobles looked at the new world and were happy with what they had created. It was the Bauhaus dream come true. They had reached a new level of civilization – the interplanetary civilization where all evil and suffering had been eradicated. They were content with themselves, and confident they finally had achieved perfection. But dark clouds could be seen in the far off distance.

Collapse

A host of Thinking Engines aided man to prosper. No human performed hard labor, the dangerous jobs. It was all taken care of by the Thinking Engines. Controlled by man to serve man, these marvelous pieces of equipment founded, together with the rest of man's technology, the basis for this recently acquired wealth. Suddenly, after centuries of prosper, the Thinking Engines failed. Then they turned on humanity, and everything that had been built collapsed. The interplanetary civilization was suddenly thrown to pieces. Factories which once had provided wealth to Venus, turned into literal death-traps, killing organic life on sight. Powerplants exploded, destroying many of the beautiful Venus cities. The lights that had once penetrated the pitch dark nights of the Bauhaus heartland were extinguished, throwing the planet into an endless night.

The Hindenburg, twin-tailed, plummeted from its heavenly home above Venus, bringing death and suffering in its wake. The space city's controlling Thinking Engines had collapsed – some said by divine wrath – and it veered out of orbit. A nest of the most vulgar commerce, the filthy corruption, infested with hedonism, the space city brought even more suffering in its death throes as it went crashing into the megacity of Mündburg. The impact sent ripples over the planet's surface. A gaping crater at the point of impact. As the dying installation burned, deadly fire rained over the city of Mündburg and its sprawls for days. Alongside its millions of depraved, pleasure seeking citizens, the Hindenburg took most of Mündburg's inhabitants with it to its fiery grave.

But Misery loves company.

From the Hindeburg's smoldering remnants a new horror arose dwarfing the fall of the sky city, rocking the entire planet on its foundations – new and deadly viruses. Scattered with the wind, the viruses brought terror over the planet's already troubled population. Far more devastating than the loss of the planet's power, the new, foul plagues decimated whole cities within a matter of days. New epidemics sprang up over the entire planet and spread like wildfire. In the deep Venusian jungles the steaming swamps of madness seemed perfect breeding grounds for this new pustulous threat. Modern hospitals deprived of both their power and technology, stood helplessly by as populations died of uncurable afflictions. Desperate efforts were made by the planet's cities to safeguard themselves from the unexplainable plagues. The sick were killed on sight. They were thrown alive into acidic pits. No measure was too harsh to defend oneself from the putrid rot. Still – millions died with no chance of help. And the greatest threat to humanity was yet to come.

Confusion was great. None knew what had happened. Most believed the other corporations had brought this horror onto Venus by acts of terrorism. A popular sentiment, supported by those Thinking Engines seemingly intact. It would take long before they realized the lights had been extinguished throughout the entire Solar System. Communications were broken. The Thinking Engines had turned on their former masters, and with their fall these pillars of civilization followed the collapse of the banking system's intricate electronic web, which was a hundred, maybe even a thousand, times more devastating than the debilities inflicted on the citizens by plague and machines gone riot. The foundations of society buckled and keeled over. The masses rioted blaming the nobility for the collapse. The nobility on their part blamed the other corporations, and the once so prosperous atmosphere of trade and commerce turned sour.

WAR

Misguided hate turned man on himself, and open hostility turned into open wars. Upon contact, each corporation realized the collapse hadn't just ruined them. Planets all over the Solar System had been struck by the darkness. Realization brought fear. Fear brought insecurity, and insecurity fueled even greater wars.

The dark clouds of war convened on Venus. In the deep jungles great wars were fought with small forces. Blood stained the treacherous marshes. Jungle streams ran red with human blood. The glades were littered with grinning, white skulls gleaming in the sun. Bodies decomposed rapidly in the extreme heat. The chattering of birds and peaceful humming of insects was replaced by screams, moaning, the sharp cracking of guns, and the odd muffled sound of explosions that made the earth quiver. The air reeked of ozone and death. Imperial's blood-thirsty warriors chased battle-weary Bauhaus troops from position to position. Capitol's valiant men fought the honor-bound Mishimese soldiery. All corporations fought each other. Fights that ran from city to city. All over the continents. No rest was to be found. Young men and women were torn from their families. Drafted into the Bauhaus military. Some shipped to far off planets where they would lay down their lives for the corporation, others served and died in the terrible wars that raged across the tormented Blue Planet. The Solar System was ablaze, and the wars seemed to never end.

On Venus many great and prosperous cities were leveled with the ground. Relentless battles raged the streets. Battles of attrition. House to house fighting. Fighting from floor to floor, and from room to room. During lulls, the survivors could hear their enemies moaning from their ad-hoc hospitals on the other side of the interior wall or the other side of the street. They could see the lights of bonfires as the enemy, like themselves, huddled together for some warmth in the dark nights. Soldier faces blank with expression. Minds devoid of any thoughts, knowing if they thought about the horrors they lived through they would go insane. The lulls were always shattered by surprise assaults. New bodies were added to the body count. New corpses decorated the burnt-out streets. Traitors were mutilated and hung from the lamp-post. And the dark, moon-less, Venus night was lit by funeral pyres from which thick, bilious smoke slowly crept towards the heavens in mock sacrifices to the Gods.

Eventually, the bloody wars turned into a stalemate. Too exhausted to continue, the corporations stopped fighting. Trenches were built. Fortifications were raised. Front-lines were drawn. Heated battles turned to cold war. The sides glared suspiciously at each other, knowing only too well the atrocities of the war and the immense losses it would cause if it was sparked again. An age of hostility and tension began. An age that would last for generations. It is from this age the Line of Demarcation, the disputed imaginary line fought over till this day, has its origin. Many of the great, now ruined, defense structures still seen from orbit, saw the light of day in this period. Like the Wall of Adrian, named after the great Bauhaus leader Adrian Kaiser, raised as a defense against the threatening barbarous Imperial hordes from the north. Parts of the wall still exist to this day, but a great portion of it has been lost to the expanding jungle. In the south, Bauhaus had lost great expanses of land to both Capitol and Mishima. Despite the loss of territories, Bauhaus was still the greatest corporation on Venus. Yet, the corporation has not till this day forgotten the losses from these wars, and still tries to get back what they regard as being rightfully theirs.

Far off on gray planet Luna, untouched by war, corporate leaders tried to solve the interplanetary crisis. They agreed on establishing a neutral organization; a neutral meeting grounds to solve their problems and prevent further shed of blood. The Cartel was founded and successfully managed to fend off wars for almost a century.

But still – the gravest threat to civilization was yet to come.

Nathaniel Durand

From the age of war and hostility a new power rose. A man preaching a whole new philosophy, and a whole new way of belief. He preached of a new beginning. His name was Nathaniel Durand. The people were starving for a hope, and hope was what Durand could give them. At first, as he emerged from the ruins of one of Venus' fallen megacities, he wasn't taken seriously by the corporations. His first solid base of followers were on the scarred blue planet, and Bauhaus, hardest hit by the First Corporate Wars, was the first corporation to openly follow the teachings of the Holy Father.

The Fall

For almost a century there was an atmosphere of mutual assured destruction between the megacorporations. Then the real horror fell on mankind like a scythe. It was a time of dread. Horrors of the previous wars haunted Venus. During the cease-fire the corporations had tried to restore lost glory. Ruined cities were tried rebuilt, some had to be abandoned. But from the old battlefields dead warriors rose, attacking mankind from no front-lines but from within. The old wars on Venus had paved the road for the Dark Legion to conquer all that was. The Undead Legionnaires rose from the graves in the cities, massing over the human defenders. Monsters never seen before fell from the skies to lead these new old warriors, called Undead Legionnaires, to victory. Advancing relentless, fearless on the human defenders, the Dark Legion conquered city after city. Estate after estate. The soil saturated by dark agents giving no rest to the dead. For each man lost, a new Legionnaire of darkness rose to fight with the Dark Legion. Terror spread through the retreating human forces, and the Dark Legion marched on relentlessly. But the marching Legionnaires were not alone. From deep within corporate society a new threat emerged. An enemy within. Corruptors started spreading the word of the Dark Soul all over the planet. With false promises of easy fortune, Corruptors mislead those hungry for wealth and power to aid the Dark Soul. On every social level, in every office and prefecture these first heretics undermined all efforts to resist the onslaught of Darkness. Their help was invaluable for the total annihilation of mankind, but their rewards were always ever pain and suffering in the ranks of the Dark Legion.

The corporations fought valiantly, but the dying of the light on Venus was inevitable. Two new entities had made their presence know. Heralded by trumpets of death and dark tidings, the skies blackened when two new Apostles appeared on Venus – Muawijhe and Semai. And the face of war was forever changed. The winds of madness swept the land, weakening the already weakened defenders. Not even sleep, the one safe haven for warriors in all previous wars, was left untouched. Muawijhe, the Apostle of Madness, Lord of Visions, invaded even sleep, and yet millions were driven insane by the lack of rest, adding to the ever increasing ranks of Muawihje's Screaming Legionnaires. Semai's creatures dwelled in every shadow. Turning sibling against sibling in the battle for humanity, he exploited every weakness in the human nature to bring their final downfall. The legions of Semai were never as numerous as those of his brothers, but the damages he brought on Venus' defenders were equal to, if not even greater, than that wreaked by his sibling's legions.

Then a second city in the skies, the revered Bismarck, the greatest military installation in the Solar System, Venus orbital defense, the Bauhaus Space Navy's pride and comfort, started altering itself. First it slaughtered its human controllers cold-heartedly. Filling the hull with the deadly chill of vacuumed space, lifeless bodies, twisted in their death throes, faces stark grimaces as the horrible experience deprived them of their sanity before death took their suffering away, floated from the lumbering hulk and were said to have filled the empty space around the Bismarck. The terrors of the space battles that commenced have been, blessed be the Light, lost to time. The Bismarck continued altering. The screeching, torturous sound of twisting metal that seemed to bore through the soul was lost to the vacuum of space, but through an unearthly power it seemed to resonance through the hull of every ship in the area, deafening every other communication, driving the space warriors insane. Then as it hung over the Blue Planet, the Bismarck's groaning silenced and everybody seeing it silenced, too. The once magnificent battle station had been twisted into a glaring, demonic face. Laughing in the face of man's dread, it ate many space ports and satellites. The Navy could do naught but stand by and watch as their greatest creation had turned on them and now annihilated their defense perimeters. When full, the altered Bismarck threw itself towards the surface of the planet, and once more a twin-tailed comet struck a megacity, leveling it with the ground.

From the crater a new Citadel added to the hundreds that had sprung up over the planet's surface almost over night. More horrible, more fearsome, more terrible, and far larger than any of the planet's other Citadels. Its high towers were in the image of the fiendish face of its Lord. Its Lord was Algeroth, Apostle of War, Lord of Dark Technology. In his face, nothing could prevail. He was humanity's ultimate foe.

The megacorporations had, with the loss of their perfect paradises, lost the last glint of faith. In the wake of the Dark Legion's conquering horrors, they had let go of the last glimmer of hope. It was an age of despair and terror. Man betrayed man. The last remnants of the once glorious civilizations was rendered a burning, twisted heap of sludge – the perfect breeding ground for the abominations of the prevailing Darkness. Cornered, man made his last, desperate stand in the jungles of Venus. Death was all around, and the skies were blackened by the murderous, toxic fumes from hundreds of Citadels. Like a scythe the Legion had descended on mankind and harvested death. From this cesspool of despair and terror Cardinal Durand I rose to unite mankind in the struggle for endtime.

But the final effort was more important than anybody ever knew. As the First Seal of Repulsion had been broken, many of the Brotherhood's seers had gone insane. But only the weak minded had lost their sanity by seeing Darkness unleashed. With the breaking of the First Seal, the true horrors of the Second Seal, that which bound the Heart of Darkness, were revealed. They were infinitely worse than any of the horrors yet known to mankind. Aided by his many seers, Cardinal Durand had managed to determine the location of this unholy shrine – the deep jungles of Venus. The race was on. He knew the Algeroth, the Dark Apostle of War, was aware of its presence on Venus, but realized the Lord of Dark Technology had no idea of its exact whereabouts either. Convened in front the Cardinal, an assembled board of corporate heads heard his pleads on Luna. He pleaded for them to bury their differences and gather their forces on Venus in a great crusade against Darkness. Carefully never to mention the existence of the Second Seal, the Cardinal guarded mankind from this terrible knowledge, for knowledge, he had learnt, would soon pass from man to the Dark cohorts. Long the corporations doubted, fearful of the loss of power to the Brotherhood, but finally they were swayed to aid the Cardinal and his devout followers.

On Venus, all human life was but extinct, only pockets of resistance made meek resistance to the enormous hordes of monsters. The Cardinal knew his primary objective had to be to secure the Second Seal. If it was broken all would be lost. If unleashed, the Heart of Darkness would have no need of the Corruptors, itself recruiting thousands of new followers in the time it would take a Corruptor to recruit a single one. With the Heart of the Great Darkness unbound, the Dark Soul would be free to move through the press of humanity as a corporeal entity. No longer would only those who doubted be swayed over to the Darkness, but only the few strongest, those most pure of heart, would be able to resist the temptations of the Dark Soul incarnate. Cardinal Durand and his most trusted men knew this. Unfortunately Algeroth himself had set eyes on the Second Seal, and the race started. Neither won. The Second Seal's precise location was never to be discovered as the two adversaries clashed in a massive battle in the Citadel of Alakhai. The news of a new threat, the Eye of Algeroth – a green, beautifully cut gem – made the Cardinal change his mind. The Eye would end all humanity if Algeroth was allowed to unleash its power. Durand could not let this happen. The Dark Apostle had to be stopped, even if it meant deviating from the original plan. There in the mightiest Citadel in the Solar System, the Cardinal led his bodyguard of most trusted warriors; his own Sacred Warriors, and regiments of Imperial's Blood Berets and Bauhaus' Venusian Rangers special forces assembled specifically for the crusade. Durand entered the Citadel with only a regiment of his most trusted warriors – a company of Blood Berets, a company of Venusian Rangers and his own Sacred Warriors. For a day and a night the Holy One fought the Dark One. Outside thousands fell as the forces of Light fought the forces of Darkness. Inside the Cardinal's men fought valiantly what seemed like a loosing battle to protect their leader. In the end, the Cardinal felled the demonic beast, but by then it was too late. He had himself suffered a fatal wound. With his last energy he struck a deal with the beaten Apostle, well knowing he could never kill it, merely banish it for a period. By using his last spiritual energy he cleansed the demonic lord's mind of any knowledge of the Second Seal. Then, in his death-throes, he banished Algeroth to the outer reaches of the known galaxy.

Restoration

Algeroth was beaten, and this victory, although tempered by the loss of Cardinal Durand, was to prove decisive. Bauhaus Supreme Marshal Toth, a holy man of great virtues (and the unknown brother of Nathaniel) was appointed Cardinal immediately upon emerging from the ruined Citadel carrying the dead Cardinal and his sword Lightbringer. Toth led mankind in the relentless war against Darkness. The Dark forces seemed to have lost aim, the sting of their attack was lost, and lead by Cardinal Toth Citadel after Citadel was cast down. Slowly they had turned the tide, and man seemed the victor. Soon there was no sign of the Dark Legion's presence, but in the deep jungles, in the blighted marshes, and deep in the depths of the Venusian seas the Darkness lived on. And in sheltered pockets deep in the Venusian jungles valiant defenders, unaware of mankind's victory, fought relentlessly on believing themselves to be the last defenders of mankind. Their contact with the outside world cut off by jungle and marauding bands of Dark Legionnaires, they still fight on till this day. But the war has taken its toll on the defenders; mutations and stigmata clearly evident on their bodies. Their technology being a mix between savage and high-tech, they fight for the ever decreasing caches of weaponry lost in the ruined remnants of the civilization that once was.