Doll Maker's Return, Part 1: Into the Firestorm
After realizing that the real-life world has generally taken a turn for the worse despite the promises of some of its leaders, I felt that now would be a good time to revisit my collection of X-Girl artworks. There is, however, one crucial difference: they will be placed in a completely different timeline that overwrites the previous one, and although I can still use the existing character designs, I will have to give them different names and backstories (or at least reassign them). Thus, the original CRASH/STAR timeline will henceforth no longer be canonical.
The new backstory is as follows: STORM (an acronym for Special Tactical Operations Response Mercenaries), a covert elite mercenary unit, was established in the aftermath of the Second World War in an attempt to prevent an armed conflict of that scale (or, worse yet, an even more destructive one) from ever happening again. For decades, they have succeeded in doing exactly that, but in that time they have since come to the conclusion that their forces cannot be everywhere in the world all at once, forcing them to decide who and what deserves their aid the most. Nevertheless, they maintain an idealistic outlook for the world as a whole. After the end of the Cold War, their operations were largely scaled back, but they continued operating in the shadows, unknown to much of the world.
Years later, after a long period of relative dormancy, STORM was forced to re-arm, this time to face a new threat: FIRE (an acronym for Free Independent Radical Extremists), another shadowy (but far more evil) organization, has been wreaking havoc across the globe, and even the best efforts of various nations have struggled to contain them. This time, the situation is so dire that, for the first time ever, STORM has received backing from many of the world's governments, in contrast to FIRE, which acts independently from governments (and often against them). To raise the stakes further, FIRE hired several disaffected ex-STORM personnel to bolster their capabilities, thus making them even more of a threat than before. To reinforce the contrast between FIRE and STORM, the former has a mostly cynical stance, unlike the latter's more idealistic approach; however, after several further years of operations, FIRE was defeated once and for all, leading to STORM losing its purpose and ultimately being disbanded soon after, with its personnel, materiel and technology transferred to a newly established independent organization called HOPE (Humanitarian Organization for Peacekeeping Enforcement), just in time to counter the actions of FEAR (Federation of Eurasian Authoritarian Regimes). Realizing that the future of the world is at stake once again, HOPE mobilizes once again to combat this new menace. This is the setting of Into the Firestorm: Reignited.
The original CRASH/STAR timeline cannot coexist with the new one, and this is why: although STORM and HOPE's top scientists conducted research into genetic enhancements for their agents, all of their experiments were unsuccessful, leading to the abandonment of the project. This was followed by the signing of the GEO (Genetically Engineered Organism) Treaty, which prohibited genetic modifications on humans and severely restricted their development and use on other lifeforms. Thus, HOPE agents are all ordinary human beings, albeit those who have been trained to be among the best in the world. And they need to be, considering how dangerous FEAR has become recently. Among HOPE's ranks are a specialist unit known as the Guardian Angels - an all-female squad trained in various forms of combat and intelligence, often deployed in situations too dangerous and/or difficult for HOPE's regular forces. They will be the subject of the next post in this series.
Note: HOPE received its name from the home planet (orbiting the Glory system) of the Terrans in the Infinite Space trilogy of sci-fi roguelikes. Similarly, FEAR was named as such because it represents the opposite of what HOPE stands for.
