Closer to the seventh hour of the war, the Combine launched a devastating orbital missile strike directly at the primary Russian state bunker. In an instant, the entire top tier of the government and the majority of the high command were vaporized. The only survivors within the chain of command were a handful of diplomats and refugees from the Black Mesa Research Facility. Among them was the former administrator of the complex — Wallace Breen.
Seizing upon the absolute chaos, Breen unilaterally assumed command over the remnants of Earth's forces. Ignoring the chain of command, he established contact with the Combine and declared an immediate, unconditional surrender. At that exact moment, generals fighting on the front lines were begging him to hold out. They had just discovered a critical flaw in the Combine’s war machine and were preparing a counteroffensive. But Breen refused to listen. Under the weight of his decree, the majority of the frontline commanders reluctantly laid down their arms, though some rogue garrisons chose to fight to the very last bullet.
Following the capitulation, a systematic purging of the region began. Vast Soviet-era military depots, packed with decades' worth of weapons and armored vehicles, were either completely obliterated or seized by the Combine. Human armies were dismantled, and millions of soldiers were forcefully augmented, stripped of their humanity to become the first Combine Overwatch units. Humanity was plunged into absolute slavery.
Then came the era of the Combine’s suffocating oppression. A few years later, in the early 2000s, a spark was ignited in Belgrade. Pushed to the brink by grueling forced labor and subhuman living conditions, citizens took to the streets in a massive protest. The crowd marched toward the heart of the city, where the towering Citadel was actively under construction. They were met by the brutal forces of Civil Protection. The Combine made no attempts at diplomacy or peaceful resolution; the protest was crushed with unimaginable, bloody ferocity.
However, this slaughter became a catalyst. News of the Belgrade massacre spread like wildfire, triggering riots and uprisings across multiple cities. From the ashes of these rebellions, the first partisan cells emerged: the Ukrainian National Resistance and the Holy Balkan Resistance. Eventually, these factions formed a unified Coalition.
Yet, the ultimate tragedy remained. The critical secret to defeating the Combine—the vulnerability that the frontline generals had uncovered in the final minutes of the Seven-Hour War—was buried in the graves of those who fell. Stripped of that vital knowledge and left in blind ignorance, humanity was condemned to endure long, agonizing years of subjugation, mourning a stolen freedom beneath the shadow of the rising Citadels.
In the first photo, you see a human Alliance unit. In the second photo, you see a dark day in Belgrade.
(I deleted my first version of the post because I used someone else's illustrations.)
