After capitulation of Oceanyka's forces in New Caledonia during June 1961, the presidency of Cestlep found itself in a crisis. Having failed to protect part of the Federation due to indecision, Thomas Badfellow (both president of the Cestlep city-state and the Oceanykan Council) was lynched by an angry mob during July. His teenage nephew succeeded the post years before planned, displaying enormous incompetence at governance. The turning point for the government came when an angry mob successfully stormed Petersburg Armoury, a federal army depot, and captured its supplies. Riled up by the Cestlep opposition, a "chaotic revolt" began on the streets of Cestlep. All hope was lost when in September of 1961 the German Expedition on Farenday crippled the north's pirates, while the Council sat doing nothing. By the first days of October, Clark Badfellow had been dragged out of his presidential residency and butchered by a mob. Alan Redfort, leader of the Oceanykan People's Party, declared a revolution to restore order to the Federation. The OPP proved a formidable organiser, which was able to quickly levy an army of commoners and gain the loyalty of what used to be the Federal Army. Its main objectives were to better organise Oceanyka as a nation, to make sure the humiliations of Farenday and New Caledonia would never again occur without consequences. During most of 1961 and 1962, the Council's constituent members were "convinced" to side with the new regime and numerous military expeditions by the new "Oceanykan People's Army" drove loyalists of the previous regime and reactionaries into the country's backwaters.
The Crimson Era (named as such for the red imagery used by OPP-aligned revolutionaries) has been short, but has had a rough history. It is dead in the middle of the greatest conflict between superpowers in human history, the Cold War. Redfort's OPP has decided to side with the East; China and the Soviet Union are his allies. This is a complete turn-around from the western-influenced Badfellow foreign policy, bound to have consequences and opposition from the old guard. Furthermore, the beginning of several national projects such as the Red Navy, the Oceanykan People's Army, the great works of Melbourne and the Bass Strait Complex threaten the council member's autonomy and independence. The country's political scene is tense, horrors unseen since the Civil War could easily return, made a hundred times worse due to the Atomic Age's deadly technological advances. Should Oceanyka become too centralised, the Germans' temptation to activate their "Weißenacht Protokoll" could become overwhelming. Even without this internal situation, Oceanyka faces the possibility of Earth's most teeth-clenchingly tense rivalry between East and West becoming World War Three, one the country may not survive. In the shadows, a battle is continuously fought to hold back Oceanyka's darkest secrets, which if ignored too long in favour of grander affairs could roll over the world's status quo like a dark tide.
These are the mid-1960s; this is the story of the people that lived, fought and died in it.