Despite finding victory in the Weltkrieg, the German Empire was in dire straits. Its allies, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, were on the eve of total collapse from internal tensions. Communists throughout Europe were emboldened by Vladimir Lenin's successful revolution, seeing in Germany the ultimate form of imperialism. The Americans and British had been humilliated, and would do everything in their power to accelerate the collapse of Europe's superpower. There were not enough troops, funding, supplies, ships or bureaucrats to assert control over the half of the globe that Germany now controlled, paralysing its government. In the war, over five million German soldiers had perished. And finally, the Generals' Conspiracy, by which the far-right radicals of the Deutsches Heer had wrested control over the German government, and a genocide was likely imminent. The opposition SPD mobilised, seeing no alternative but a bloody revolution, declaring the German government corrupted of its purpose and illegitimate on the 18th of October of 1919. Kaiser Willhelm II was petitioned to join the revolutionaries in opposing Ludendorff and Hindenburg, but he refused, citing these two figures as being central in Germany's victory. In response, the SPD declared the creation of the Weimar Democratic Authority in Thuringia, joined by a number of pro-democratic army commanders and militias. A new conflict for the soul of Europe had begun, the Velvet Revolution.

To prevent massive bloodshed the likes of the thirty years' war, Kaiser Willhelm II ordered the majority of the Weltkrieg's soldiers discharged and demobilised, while remaining Deutsches Heer units would perform security in the Empire's colonies and puppet states. However, the massive influx of unemployed young men trained for war inflated the burgeoning militia problem. Internal security forces were unable to keep the situation under control either. Militias at the time could be more or less divided into the following categories.

• Far-Right Militias such as the National Socialist Sturmabteilung (later replaced by the Schutzstaffel) were staunch supporters of the junta, wishing to go through with the Septemberprogramm conspiracy at its full capacity. They were usually made up of Weltkrieg veterans, Prussian and Bavarian nobility as well as senior Deutsches Heer commanders. Bavaria eventually became their centre of operations with the election of an NSDAP state government.
• Right-Wing Militias such as the monarchist DVNP's Der Stahlhelm were also supporters of the junta, but not explicitly of the Septemberprogramm conspiracy. They were usually made up of middle class citizens and Weltkrieg veterans.
• Centrist Militias such as Zentrum's Iron Front, who were opposed to the junta, but also to violent revolution. These militias acted as peacekeepers throughout the conflict, engaging both left-wing and right-wing radicals, and acting as an ad-hoc police force.
• Left-Wing Militias such as the SPD's own Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, which aimed to depose the junta through direct action, and establish either a radically constitutional monarchy or a social-democratic republic. They were supported by working-class and middle-class Germans, as well as many younger NCOs and officers of the Deutsches Heer.
• Far-Left Militias such as the KPD's Roter Frontkämpferbund which aimed at the complete overthrow of the German regime and the establishment of a communist state, inspired by Vladimir Lenin's USSR. They were supported by labourers and trade unionists.

While most of the Velvet Revolution was a low-intensity conflict characterised by street fights, skirmishes and assassinations, it did come close to a civil war on what was known as the Black March. The 13th of March of 1920, generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg announced the dissolution of the Reichstag and the creation of an interim government with full executive powers. In response, the Ruhr Red Army rose up in arms, occupying much of Germany's most important industrial centre. Kaiser Willhelm II ordered the dissolution of the KPD and the dishonourable discharging of both Ludendorff and Hindenburg from their military posts, an order which simply did not go through, weakening public perception of the monarchy even further. Fighting erupted throughout the country for two weeks, in which over 34,000 Germans died. It was only when Germany's political parties (excluding the NSDAP, DVNP and KPD) met together at Weimar to discuss the crisis, proclaiming the Internal Peace Act (which ordered the Deutsches Heer to perform internal security duties), that order was restored.

On the 17th of December, 1923, these parties met once more to put an end to the overall internal conflict. This time, every political party in Germany (except the KPD) was present, as well as a number of Kaiser Willhelm II's representatives. They decided to transform Germany into a constitutional monarchy, purge the Deutsches Heer's political power, ban the KPD, and disarm most political paramilitaries (limiting the number of party security forces that any group could have). The Freikorps were to be formalised as part of the nation's overall defence strategy, much like America's apolitical paramilitary groups. On the 13th of January, 1924, the German Constitution of 1924 was enacted, ending both the Velvet Revolution and German despotism.

The 120-PM-43, also known as the SAMOVAR, is a late-war version of the Soviet 120-PM-38 heavy mortar, which was a descendant of the French Brandt design like its German cousin. Its weight of almost 300kg was not a very big problem as the Soviet Army was very heavily motorised by the late war. It is still the standard heavy mortar of said army, and has been sold en-masse to its Oceanykan allies.

Norman Wright as it is usually called is an Oceanykan shipbuilding company founded in the Irish-prisoner penal colony of Brisbane, near the city of Oygkriz. Their close relationship to the Ferozen peoples have tarnished their international reputation, as assimilation to their customs means Norman Wright has zero problems in dealing with pirates and genocidal maniacs. Less ethical nations do accept their trade deals. They very openly sabotage and attack the facilities of the Adelaide Steamship Company, and in turn their facilities sometimes mysteriously explode.

A historic decision was made in the halls of the United Nations on December 3rd, 1962. Two weeks prior The Holy State of Sadatand had publicly executed 20,000 Shiites in Baghdad by gassing them with sarin gas, with the act being photographed by a stranded British reporter who valiantly smuggled the pictures out. Despite the world powers still processing and solving the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was unanimously decided that the United States Security Council and its allies would intervene in this conflict against Sadatland.

The first foreign nation to intervene was unsurprisingly The Republic of Zioniam, which following the capture of Jordan found Sadat's troops directly at its borders. Neither chemical strikes, aerial bombardment nor Soviet tanks were able to faze the veteran and well-equipped Israeli troops in the battlefield, at least not enough to immediately route them as the Regular Arab Army had done. Sadat's strategic genius came to light once more when pre-planned Palestinian insurrections sprang up across Zioniam, paralysing their government and armed forces enough to deal a number of defeats. Sadat's troops pushed well into Jerusalem until the Anglo-Swedish Task Force began to arrive, restoring initiative. A scant week afterwards the newly formed OPA Marine Corps conducted an amphibious invasion upon occupied Latakia, beginning the brutal Battle of Latakia. The arrival of enormous amounts of German and American troops allowed United Nations forces to push back the invaders. For its part, Moscow and its allies put a number of troops in the ground across Turkey and performed a brutal bombing campaign for which the Salafists were not ready.

As it became clear that United Nations troops would decisively defeat his forces in battle, Sadat ordered them to play dirty and for the infidels to pay for every inch. Innovative forms of slaughter and terrorism were brought to light by his perverse genius; pre-planted cells began performing terrorist attacks across Europe, massed chemical strikes were used against UN troop concentrations, UAK civilians were used as human shields, the mass-fielding of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) began, oil fields were burned to obscure the sky against UN airstrikes, soldiers were issued suicide vests to prevent capture or promote suicidal bravery, captured troops were butchered and strung and child soldiers were mobilised to demolish the morale of UN troops which were forced to kill them.

In the occupied zones of what was once the United Arab Kingdoms, hell broke loose. Desperate Sadati troops intensified "anti-partisan operations", as well as religious cleansings and political persecution. They retreated from their fighting positions in an orderly fashion, leaving behind enormous amounts of traps and wilfully contaminating as much of the land with chemical agents as they could. Most marshes, lakes and oasis of what the lower half of Iraq was once remain uninhabitable thanks to neurotoxic contamination.

This conflict came to an end as Sadat's army began to crumble from the war effort. A lone missile of the German A9 design blasted out from Arabia and hit Avignon with a cluster payload of sarin bomblets, prompting one of France's worst internal health crises since World War II. It was revealed that Sadatland possessed at the very least 30 of these weapons, aimed at Europe's most populated population centres, each of which was impossible to intercept. This prompted the United Nations to agree to an armistice and push not a metre into the pre-war Sadati border. However, the land they stood on, now known as The South Arab Security Zone, became a hellscape of chemical residue and burning oil fields. It was the latter which really seeped into the minds of the public, as sandstorms and oil fires painted vast swathes of the desert black and brought a ghastly image upon the troops in their last engagements. Such was the morale impact of this strategy that the entire conflict became known as the Black Sand War.

Throughout the conflict large amounts of oil were burned, production in the Middle East practically stopped, and even as the war ended Sadat limited production, causing the Oil Crisis. Furthermore, the beast of Salafi Jihadism has breached containment within Arabia, ushering an era of fundamentalism extremism in the Middle East.

The mermaid is an English name for a mythological creature which roams Earth's oceans, but has been confirmed to originate from Oceanyka's shores. They are vicious killers that swim with their head hidden in the water, exposing only their bare fins and torso. The latter looks like a woman's, but the head and tail resemble a predatory creature. They are believed to be related to their ground-dwelling counterpart, the Nymphy.