Super Weapons and an End to the War
All of the factions became desperate, no one side seemed to hold the advantage for more than a few weeks. It has been said that desperate times lead to desperate measures, this was one of those times.

The first act of desperation came in the fourth year of the war when the Space Revolutinary Army, which was starting to "loose its footing", sent an emptied colony cylinder to plunge into Earth, the affects were catastopic. In retaliation both the Earth Federation and the Alliance built their own super weapons. (The Federation constructed a "solar ray" while the Alliance set up a lazer that could be redirected by satelites on the moon.) Zeon and ZAFT also built their own giant lazers, while the New Federation constructed newtype-use Gundams equped with satelite cannons. As the war dragged into it's fifth year the doomsday button became too tempting and one-by-one, each side played their trump card. All of the factions suffered huge losses, many places on Earth had become wastelands and many colonies were completely destroyed. And then the war ended, as if each side had become sick of the entire thing. As the Earth factions returned to their home planet, they left the colonies to fend for themseleves. Rumors spread that the remaining Side 4 colonies were taken over by a Fascist military called the Crossbone Vanguard, but the Earth forces were unconcerned. When January finally came, the old calender was tossed aside, and that January 1 was also the first day of the AM (AfterMath) calender.

After AM 1
The debris around Earth made it harder to contact the colonies until those on Earth either gave up or lost interest. Earth began efforts to reconstruct, but the Governments were in shambles. Even the support of the relatively untouched ORB wasn't enough to totally set things right. Still, humans seem to always manage to adapt and in some respects civilization returned. The Factions left on Earth still occaisionally bicker, but all out war has not been declared since the First Space War.

The first generation of this new calender had their own challenge, surviving in this dangerous world. It was probably out of the need to survive that the Freelancers first appeared. Doing anything for some cash, Freelancers pilot old ships and mobile suits from the war. The factions have a generally negative perception of them, but that wasn't and isn't enough to stop them. By AM 19, the Freelancers are still common, some work for survival and others for a thrill.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 24, 2005 01:31 AM: Message edited by: Nick Izumi ]</font>