History Of The Orbital Wars

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Description	This massive book claims to cover the Orbital Wars. It's missing a lot of the markings you'd normally expect from a book, but has a small "Metroplex University Press" label on the back, so maybe it's a small run. It could actually be interesting. You've seen a few movies set during the Orbital Wars, usually focusing on giant battles and heroic sacrifice.
Type	Usable (Not consumed on use)
Requires	1 Energy
Use	See Below
Multi	(text)

Sources

Buy from the Student Selling Books choice encounter for 40 credits

Uses

You flip open the book. Well, best to start at the beginning.

The book starts, as so many textbooks do, by discussing terms. It delves into the origin of the name "Orbital War" and promises lots more discussion later about the distinctions between the first and second war.

It turns out that, despite what the endless library of Orbital War movies may say to the contrary, none of the battles in either Orbital War were actually fought in space. You feel a little betrayed.

From what you can gather, it sounds like a rather petty disagreement over orbital rights and satellite placement. Presumably the rest of the book will explain how that became the bloodbath you've heard about.

Then next time:

You flip open the book to the next section. Each of them is pretty massive, but it shouldn't be long before you've devoured the whole thing.

Here you go. This'd be the section about how things went to pot in the first place.

It might just be the author's viewpoint, but the whole thing seems like a colossal screwup. Different nation-states started a fairly reasonable discussion about satellite placement and it just degenerated, with nebulous orbital rights becoming a symbol of dominance.

As the section winds down, more and more countries seem to get pulled in, including dozens you've never heard of. Maybe they get wiped out in the next section.

Then next:

You flip open the book to the next section. Each of them is pretty massive, but it shouldn't be long before you've devoured the whole thing.

Compared to the other sections, the middle one is almost a picture book. Unfortunately, it's mostly pictures of burnt out cities and bloated carcasses.

It does a good job driving home the horrors of war, really. That said, you still have no idea what happened other than everyone slaughtering everyone else in the name of various countries you've never heard of.

Or if you've already read the next page

Compared to the other sections, the middle one is almost a picture book. Unfortunately, it's mostly pictures of burnt out cities and bloated carcasses.

It does a good job driving home the horrors of war, but it leaves a sour taste in your mouth knowing that the next section is all the corps riding in to solve everyone's problems. It's hard to imagine the corps' war was any more just, but the author doesn't seem interested in entertaining that notion.

Then next:

You flip open the book to the next section. Each of them is pretty massive, but it shouldn't be long before you've devoured the whole thing.

This section covers the Second Orbital War. It seems… sparse, somehow. Doublechecking the timelines, the second war lasted almost three times as long as the first, but is sped through in fewer than half the pages.

Despite the limited space, the author spends a lot of time explaining how the corps joined together to stop the nations' excesses. A few color spreads of drones fighting each other drives the point home that the atrocities of the first war were left behind.

On the other hand, you never heard any of the vets in Southside giving the corps much credit.

Or, if you've discovered the mysterious drone signature, last paragraph replaced by:

On the other hand, you've been deep in the code of some of those drones and know that they were released over a decade after the end of the Orbital Wars.

Then Finally:

You flip the book open to the last section. You're a bit curious to see how it all connects back to now… if it does at all.

The last section covers the aftermath of the wars. All in all, it sounds pretty one-sided.

At the very least, orbital rights, which the whole thing was supposed to be about, got signed over almost entirely to the corps. A few countries essentially get bought out by their debtors, which explains why you've never heard of them.

The whole thing ends with several pages that basically boil down to "thank goodness the corps took over everything," which is a bit sickening.

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Then: