The course of human history was forever altered in 1995 by two seemingly innocuous and unrelated
events.
The first was the impact of a small meteor near the river Tyber in Italy.
The second was the formation of a limited peacekeeping force to operate under the mandate
of the United Nations.
What few could have predicted, was that by the latter decades of the 21st century, an
alien substance present within the Tyber meteor would have spread unchecked across the globe,
threatening environmental catastrophe and the extinction of humanity.
Fewer still could have realized that this crisis would precipitate transforming the
United Nations Global Defense Initiative from a minor military formation, to mankind’s
first world government.
Founded by the member nations of the G7 with the support of Russia, India, Australia and
Brazil, the Global Defense Initiative was intended to encourage mutual cooperation and
ease rivalries left over from the Cold War.
Major holdouts included the People’s Republic of China, and portions of the Balkans and
Middle East, which had instead fallen under the influence of a quasi-terrorist organization
and supranational entity known as the Brotherhood of Nod.
Reducing the international influence of Nod and in particular, countering its destabilizing
efforts in the 3rd world, would be the major focus of the nascent GDI.
The earliest GDI personnel therefore constituted special forces drawn from previously classified
units, notably “Special Operations Group Echo” and “Black Ops 9”.
As the impact crater of the Tyber Meteor was investigated, the extraordinary properties
of an alien substance it carried that would come to be known as Tiberium were slowly understood.
Its uncontrollable spread across every region on Earth and the immense mineral wealth it
generated was of great concern to the United Nations.
On their order, the GDI moved to secure every Tiberium reserve to prevent its proliferation
by Nod or other terrorist organizations.
The global competition for Tiberium between the GDI and Nod quickly escalated into the
First Tiberium War.
In campaigns across Africa, and Southeast Europe, the two sides engaged each other directly,
and the GDI’s capabilities and responsibilities were regularly broadened to meet the demands
of the escalating conflict.
After three years of fighting and numerous public relations disasters engineered by Nod,
the Global Defense Initiative ultimately achieved victory, seemingly killing Nod’s mysterious
leader, a man known only as Kane, during the Battle of Sarajevo.
With the Brotherhood fractured and GDI agents controlling many of its splinter organizations,
the attention of the United Nations turned again towards Tiberium, which had spread uncontrollably
during the war.
Earth’s natural biosphere was slowly being transformed by the substance, with entire
regions now unrecognizable following contamination by even trace amounts of Tiberium.
Preoccupied with this looming ecological disaster, the Global Defense Initiative was unprepared
when resurgent Nod forces, reunited following the reappearance of Kane, launched a vast
offensive against GDI positions worldwide.
The Second Tiberium War would be a repeat of the first, with Nod again defeated and
Kane seemingly killed, but at the cost of further Tiberium contamination and the continued
deterioration of Earth’s environment.
Worse still, was information obtained during the war, which seemed to indicate that Tiberium
had been directed to Earth deliberately, by some outside, extraterrestrial power.
By the mid-21st century, Earth had been divided into three distinct zones indicating their
level of Tiberium contamination and ecological damage.
Ranked in severity from Blue, Yellow and Red, these zones redefined worldwide economic,
industrial, military and political power.
Traditional nation states buckled and collapsed under the immense societal pressure exerted
by the spread of Tiberium, forcing the Global Defense Initiative to assume more and more
authority, becoming a defacto worldwide superstate by 2047.
The Third Tiberium War began that same year, sparked by a nuclear attack on the space station
Philadelphia, which served as the GDI’s capital and the headquarters of its military
command structure.
Forced by slashed budgets to reduce its conventional military forces in the preceding years, the
GDI was initially overwhelmed and reliant on its orbiting Ion Cannons to hold back Nod’s
advance.
During one Ion Cannon Strike on rebuilt Nod facilities in Sarajevo, the GDI inadvertently
ignited a vast store of liquid Tiberium, clandestinely stored beneath the city by Kane.
The resultant explosion decimated large swathes of Eastern Europe and attracted the attention
of the alien Scrin, believed to have originally seeded Earth with Tiberium half a century
earlier.
While possessing highly advanced technology, the Scrin were seemingly unprepared for such
fierce resistance on Earth.
Despite tremendous losses and the continued machinations of Kane, both the extraterrestrial
invaders and the Brotherhood of Nod were defeated, driven offworld and underground respectively.
Despite its victories in the Tiberium Wars, the campaigns against Nod and the Scrin had
exhausted the GDI’s ability to reverse the worst effects of Tiberium.
The conflicts had only served to further provoke the spread of the extraterrestrial substance,
and hasten its effects on both Earth and mankind.
In 2062 the extinction of humanity was estimated to occur in no more than a decade, as even
the Blue Zones, the last centers of civilization, were gradually overtaken by Tiberium.
Driven to desperation, the leaders of the Global Defense Initiative agreed to the unthinkable,
an alliance with Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod to construct a worldwide Tiberium Control
Network.
Once completed, it was believed this network would not only stop the further spread of
Tiberum, but safely refine the deposits already on Earth into a source of limitless energy.
Divisions within both the GDI and Nod would threaten to disrupt the project before its
completion and cast both sides into a civil war, but despite these efforts, the Network
was completed and activated in 2077.
Kane and his followers vanished, while all across the Earth, Tiberium deposits recedeeded,
Blue Zones were restored, and the Global Defense Initiative left as the sole planetary superpower
on Earth.
The GDI’s unlikely evolution across its history means the organization has existed
in a variety of different forms.
When it was first established on October 12, 1995, it was limited to a single combined-arms
battlegroup operating under the authority of the United Nations and led by a single
Brigadier General.
By the end of the First Tiberium War, it had become something more akin to a unified worldwide
military, completely absorbing the former national armed forces it was initially intended
only to support.
The continued degradation of Earth’s environment and the collapse of the international system
forced the United Nations to repeatedly expand the GDI’s mandate, until it had achieved
the political, economic, scientific and military unification of Earth’s nations.
In this form, the GDI had transitioned from a multinational task force, to an emergency
military government.
Military institutions were merged with UN divisions to form a provisional executive
branch, headed first by the United Nations Security Council, and later by a Council of
Directors once the last remnants of the UN were dissolved.
While outwardly dedicated to protecting the civil liberties and political freedom of its
citizens, the GDI was forced by the Tiberium crisis to operate without an established legislative
branch or standardized judicial system.
Instead, the organization relied upon a unique form of martial law, with local military commanders
granted the authority to make both military and political decisions.
Highly militarized, the Global Defense Initiative embraces a doctrine focused on technological
sophistication, overwhelming force projection and a combined-arms approach.
Through the use of heavy tanks and mechanized walkers, GDI forces can break through enemy
formations while supported in the air by the legendary Orca series of VTOL aircraft.
The pinnacle of GDI military technology is the Ion Cannon, a spaced based weapon of mass
destruction capable of destroying targets with pinpoint accuracy.
As Scrin technology has been reverse-engineered, the Global Defense Initiative has increasingly
deployed stratospheric aircraft, the first step in what will likely become an orbital
navy.
Through the triumphs of its military forces has come the opportunity to finally restore
the liberty and freedom that the GDI fought so hard to defend.
The energy provided by the Tiberium Control Network and the disappearance of Kane has
the potential to propel mankind into a new golden age, one that takes it beyond the confines
of Earth and into a waiting galaxy.
But the GDI has learned at great cost never to fall into complacency.
Kane may have vanished, but he has done so many times before only to reappear once again.
The Scrin’s plans for Earth may have been defeated, but who can promise they are not
still out there, waiting for another chance to strike.
There remains the possibility that Earth was but a single target amongst countless billions,
and that when the Global Defense Initiative takes its first tentative steps into the wider
galaxy, it will find nothing but decimated worlds, seeded with Tiberium by the Scrin
or others, awaiting those with the will and power to command and conquer.
welcome back commander
Attention Institute Personnel!
We hope you’ve enjoyed our first episode back and the new Voice of the Institute!
To celebrate our long overdue return, I’m going to be streaming Command and Conquer
Remastered right now!
If you’d like to join in on the action, head over to our Twitch channel!
And if your watching this in the far future after Tiberium has ravaged the planet, you
can rewatch the stream over on the Templin Archives channel.
You’ll find links to both in the description.