Oceanyka, still known to some by its colonial name of Australia, is a land of contradictions, anarchic yet unified, lawless yet tightly bound by tradition, wild yet deeply scarred by the works of man. It is a confederation of tribes, villages, towns, kingdoms, empires, republics, dictatorships, city-states, and fortified outposts, where survival is not guaranteed and power is measured by the weight of bullets or gold. Beyond the crude palisades of frontier settlements, the sniper towers of urban sprawls, and the labyrinthine bunkers of underground bases, anarchy reigns, and only the strongest, or the most cunning, endure.

The continent's past is one of ceaseless war. Long before foreign boots ever touched its soil, the native Aboriginals and migrating Ferozen waged millennia of brutal conflict, a cycle of bloodshed that culminated in their mutual devastation. This left Oceanyka vulnerable to the ambitions of the British Empire, which bled its riches dry for nearly a century. But no empire lasts forever: a revolutionary inferno in the early 20th century shattered the Jewel of the Empire, birthing a confederation of all its disparate peoples, bound by a fragile yet defiant pact of independence.

Oceanyka’s alignment has never been stable. Initially a loose ally of the Western Bloc 🦅, its path was violently rewritten by the Oceanykan Revolution, which toppled the government and dragged the nation into the orbit of the Eastern Bloc ⚒️ under the iron-willed yet lenient leadership of President Alan Redfort. Yet, beneath the banners of revolution, old hatreds simmer, corporate armies and rogue warlords stake their claims, and the shadows of the bush conceal horrors beyond comprehension.

In Oceanyka, anyone can be anything, or die trying.

The United States of America is the leading superpower of the Western Bloc 🦅. It was established in 1776 through a revolution against British imperial rule, marking the birth of a republic rooted in Enlightenment ideals and settler colonial ambition. Its political foundations, radical for the 18th century, enabled the emergence of a dynamic capitalist economy and an expansive frontier society. Throughout the 19th century, the United States underwent rapid territorial, industrial, and demographic expansion, tempered only by its internal contradictions—chiefly the institution of slavery and sectional divides between North and South.

The American Civil War (1861–1865) proved undecisive. Immensely destructive and inconclusive, it failed to resolved the question of slavery, though it did result in industrial consolidation of the North. Freed from the constraints of an agrarian, slaveholding elite, the northern and western United States accelerated its growth, becoming by the turn of the century a leading economic and technological power. Waves of European immigration, the exploitation of natural resources, and the development of corporate capitalism helped transform it into a modern state capable of projecting influence far beyond its borders. It would not be until the Continuation War (1891-1893) that the continent would finally free itself of slavery, and that the United States would be together as one, with The Confederate States of America partially integrated into its own workings.

World War I marked the United States' first major intervention in European affairs, spearheaded by President Theodore Roosevelt. Initially welcomed as liberators by the Entente, American forces fought alongside the British and French with considerable enthusiasm. However, the collapse of France and the armistice imposed upon Britain by the victorious Central Powers left American ambitions checked, and the result was a pronounced retreat into isolationism. The economic turmoil of Great Depression further entrenched this posture, giving rise to a new inward-looking political consensus. During The Red Orchestra, the United States indirectly supported every rebellion and insurgency against the German Empire, as well as The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which promised to counter German imperialism in Europe. 

This stance proved unsustainable as the scales tipped, and it was now the Soviets which had isolated and surrounded Berlin with its own communist allies, even The Danubian Federation and particularly Neosocialist France. With the outbreak of World War II in Europe and the growing threat of Japanese expansionism in the Pacific, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration orchestrated a gradual re-engagement with global affairs. American support for the embattled Allies—initially through lend-lease and financial aid—transformed into full-scale mobilisation following the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As a founding member of the Allied Forces, the institution which later became the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)), the United States played a leading role in the European and Pacific theatres.

The Manhattan Program, spearheaded by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, resulted in the development of the first nuclear weapons. Their eventual deployment by both Germany and the Soviet Union marked a gruesome conclusion to the war and inaugurated the era of atomic diplomacy. Although the Allies emerged partially victorious, the subsequent division of the world into ideological blocs ensured that peace would remain fragile and contingent, and the world found itself thrown into the Cold War.

As of the mid-1960s, the United States stands at the apex of its power. It possesses the world’s most advanced navy and air force and maintains a global network of military and economic partnerships. While relations with The German Empire remain friendly but pragmatic, both powers heavily cooperate in resisting the encroachments of the Eastern Bloc ⚒️ led by The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and The People's Republic of China. Unlike Germany, which seeks to preserve its overseas empire, the United States espouses a more activist vision: a world order grounded in liberal democracy, open markets, and constitutional governance.

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, whose youth and eloquence have become emblematic of a new American era, leads the nation amidst considerable internal and external challenges. Despite increasing internal tensions, and the 1963 Dallas assassination attempt, he remains a popular and polarising figure, committed to civil rights reform at home and communist containment abroad. American culture, industry, and ideology continue to spread across the globe, and many observers argue that the decline of the European empires has paved the way for the American century to begin in earnest.

Russia has historically been an enigma. Born from the Kievan Rus that would later become Yurizlansia, their story is melancholic. Living in extremely rough conditions and later conquered by the Mongols; yet they pushed back their invaders and unified the Russian princes to form a new empire. This Russian Empire dominated all of eastern Europe for hundreds of years. However, the horrors of the Weltkrieg finally broke down the Tsar's power as Bolshevik revolutionaries executed the royal family and took control. Almost a decade of gruesome fighting followed, but in the end Vladimir Lenin's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was born as the first communist state on Earth. While Lenin died of a stroke, his successor Leon Trotsky continued to fight for the ideals of a world free from misery. With his political enemy Joseph Stalin executed after a terrible power struggle, Trotsky began a ruthless industrialisation program in order to gain the tools to create a world revolution. His plan was cut short by the second Weltkrieg, as the Germans crossed the border to the White Russia and the Baltics. The world's most miserable war in history has its reputation for a reason, and the Soviet Union suffered greatly with Trotsky dying midway through. In the end a nuclear exchange with Germany ended the bloodshed by armistice. Even from a state of near death, as Russia had done several times throughout history, the Soviet Union pulled itself back up into a position of world superpower. The war, however, had greatly reduced its territory and debilitated its capabilities, so the axis of communism moved eastwards, between it and the rapidly industrialising People's Republic of China.

By the mid-1960s the Soviet Union is led by Nikita Khrushchev, once an idealist and now a hardened politician. Khrushchev is hard and holds dear to the ideals of Trotsky to free the world, but does not rule with an iron fist. Quite the contrary, he has liberalised the Soviet Union to a great degree. Still, the oppressive spirit of the Soviet bureaucracy and intelligence apparataus will never be quelled completely.

My name is Andrés Lucero Peña, cavalry officer in the Mexican Army by profession, writer and worldbuilder by heart, and a man of many interests. I believe these interests, and the knowledge I have thereof derived from them, are what allowed me to develop Crimson Blues as a world beyond our own, a mixture between fantasy and reality. Crimson Blues hides in its lines many of my ideas, aspirations, ideologies, philosophies, critiques and parodies. It's up to you to find them!

However, it is undeniable that this project would have been impossible without the help of some, and the simple presence of others. Thereby I extend my most sincere thanks to them as follows:

From my personal life.

• I thank my parents, Froylán and Alma Luz, from whom I have derived an insatiable thirst for knowledge, art and the truth.
• I thank my childhood friends and my comrades in arms, with whom my life experiences have shaped me profoundly, particularly Fernando, my brother in all but blood.
• I thank Clio, the love of my life, once a Greek muse and now my own. She makes me whole as a self-proclaimed knight, for she is a dame in every sense of the word.
• I thank God for granting me the natural tools to develop this project, the same ones I use in my lifelong quest for liberty and peace for mankind.
• I thank the Mexican Army for giving me nourishment and shelter, for making me a tough man, and for teaching me the value of discipline and leadership.
• I thank my country, Mexico, for giving me a purpose and a path, as well as a profound cultural heritage, and endless inspiration. Oceanyka's soul is inherently Mexican.
• I thank the grand human race for my existence, and for giving my life an ultimate purpose as a cosmopolitan man.

From the great wealth of human knowledge.

• I thank the SCP Foundation's writers and wiki staff, whom I've admired for many years, and one of the main sources of inspiration for Crimson Blues.
• I thank H.P. Lovecraft who, despite being an extremely racist bastard, was the pioneer of eldritch horror, a genre in which Crimson Blues often dives.
• I thank Games Workshop, creators of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k, from whom I've derived a few tropes and occasionally referenced.
• I thank Paradox Interactive, who successfully psy-opped me into joining the Army, and made me obsessed with maps, history, economy and politics.
• I thank NationStates, in particular the Imperial Federation and the Coalition of Democratic Nations, the communities where Oceanyka and its world were born.
• I thank Bethesda Interactive and Obsidian Entertainment for the Fallout franchise. Much of Crimson Blues is heavily inspired by Fallout, as one might rather easily tell!

From the artists and corporations whose work I've used over the years.

• The SCP Foundation for the Paranormal Hazard icon.
• Ares Armaments Research Services for the Thorneycroft Carbine image.
• Katya Gudkina Chiu for the Locust Ant Queen image.
• Reddit user u/puckee21 for the Lich image.
• 2K Games for the Microfission Cell image, from The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.
• Stormovyk from Devianart for the original version of the Australian Emergency Committee trooper at the bottom of the page.
• Eggtat for the colorised picture of Tunku Abdul Rahman.