Weird War at the Earth's Core

Or, 'Fire in the Symmes Hole!', an alternate history wargame campaign setting

One of the things I like best in wargaming is building a fictional world based on your miniature collection and the battles you’ve fought. When I started wargaming in the mid-90s, this style of narrative gaming prevailed both in the stores and on the early web. In fact, my first website on Geocities was a Warhammer 40k site dedicated to my own army lists and unit histories. Back then, it was common to combine the official ‘fluff’ of whatever game you started with and whatever other properties you like, plus a heaping scoop of your own notions, and whatever cool things unexpectedly emerged from your battles. These days? Not so much. It’s depressing to see how far creativity and individual initiative has declined in supposedly ‘creative’ hobbies in only 30 years.

Anyway, here is the draft timeline for the setting I use in my Weird WW2 wargames. First, though, an explanation on why I thought this was necessary.

In early 2021, I started buying Warlord Games’ Konflikt ‘47 miniatures, initially intending to use them for 40k-style sci-fi games, but rather quickly getting into the Weird WW2 idea for which they were originally intended. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get past the idea that the Axis could keep fighting into 1947, given their extreme disadvantage in terms of industry and fuel. Even having dieselpunk sci-fi tech doesn’t offer you a big advantage if you can’t actually build enough to equip your forces with it. Besides, the US, British, and Soviets all had weird tech, too. The officially published history struggled with this, as well. The war just seemed to drag on interminably, with a lot of words used to tell the tale of a lot of nothing happening on the frontline. Thus, I needed the Axis — Germany, in particular — to start the war in a stronger position, with more land and (especially) more oil. The answer for this was simple: Germany wins WWI. And the simplest, historically plausible way for the Central Powers to win WWI is for the US to remain neutral. And the most entertaining way I could think to explain the failure of progressive, imperialist elements from arising in the US was to posit a Confederate victory in the Civil War.

Because I wanted to accentuate the ‘weirdness’ of the setting, I decided the Germans should be getting most of their oil from their Antarctic colony of Neuschwabenland. But Vril-powered Haunebu II saucers launching out of polar glacier airbases wasn’t enough; there had to be dinosaurs. Luckily, an Antarctic colony would border the south polar Symmes Hole to the hollow earth, and that place is just brimming with extinct animals and lost civilizations. And even more fortuitously, there already existed, in the canonical Burroughsian literature, a German explorer capable of establishing the German colony.

Now that I knew what my end goal was, I could draw upon a wealth of pulp adventure literature and fringe history, from Goddess of Atvatabar and The Poison Belt to Morning of the Magicians.

Without further ado, here is the timeline:

Pre-1850s

The explosive interest in spiritualism and psychical research throughout Europe and the United States heralds the emergence (or, perhaps, a return) of otherworldly powers. While fraud is prodigious, genuine manifestations are rare, restricted to a few people in a thousand. These Talents, so-called, demonstrate abilities both more varied and considerably more impressive than the early ‘table knockers.’ 

1850s

The Crimean War begins and ends as in our world, with the remarkable difference of being the first recorded war where parahuman (i.e. superpowered) soldiers participated. The French Cadre Extraordinaire, while having minimal strategic impact, captured the imagination of the world and would be emulated by all the major powers in the decades to come.

1860-70s

Parahuman commandos make major contributions in the US CIvil War, which ends in 1862 in favor of the Confederate States via a peace settlement mediated by Great Britain and France. Peace and southern independence were a fait accompli after the Union Army of the Potomac was destroyed in detail at the Battle of Glendale. For the next 15 years, the US and CS will teeter on the brink of war over their unresolved western border, access to the Pacific, and the peril of European intervention in North America. The Franco-Confederate breach of 1875 and the subsequent collapse of Maximilian’s government and Confederate acquisition of Pacific ports through the annexation of Chihuahua and Sonora provinces calmed tensions. The 1877 ‘Brothers Treaty’ peacefully resolved the border question and established separate spheres of influence for each country: the US in the Pacific and the CS in the Caribbean and Latin America.

The British Empire musters its most militarily useful Talents into special formations called Her Majesty’s Odic Auxiliary, better known as the Odd Fellows.

1880s-1900

The USA and CSA conclude a secret agreement to confront Spain, using the Cuban insurrection as a pretext. A short and victorious war is waged against Spain, with the Confederates seizing Cuba and Puerto Rico while the US seized the Philippines and the Spanish East Indies. Both countries wage a brutal, decade-long war to incorporate their conquests into their territory.

The Brazilian Empire is overthrown and, a short while later, reestablished by the  successful Revolta da Armada. 

Atvatabar Expedition: The polar expedition by Mr. Lexington White of the United States inadvertently ends up in the Hollow Earth, discovering and conquering the inner world empire of Atvatabar. Though no one on the surface would learn of it for a decade, this episode establishes the basis for US claims in Pellucidar. 

1900-1912

The British, German, and Italian dispute with Venezuela ends with a German landing and establishment of a government more amenable to European interests. The new government grants a permanent lease to Germany for a naval base near Maracaibo. The affair provokes public outrage in both the US and CS against both England and Germany. As a result, the Americans court the restored Brazilian empire to form a new world bloc against European encroachment on the Americas.

A Siberian monk of the Great Schema prophesies the Japanese attack on Russia’s far eastern territory. Ignored by the war ministry but taken seriously by the Tsar, the better prepared and more alert Russians successfully spoiled the intended surprise attack on Port Arthur. Though Japan still has the better of most of the later engagements, Russia is able to limit the Japanese advance to Korea. 

As a result of this intelligence victory, the Okhrana (Tsarist Secret Police) are tasked with hoarding all Talent and supernatural war means they can find, though their paranoia leads to a focus on internal suppression and a lack of cooperation with the military. The so-called Ararat Entity, a Fallen Angel dubbed ‘Our Stepmother’ is brought into Russia.

First and Second Pellucidar Expedition: News of the White Expedition reaches the US and Europe. David Innes and Abner Perry are successful in reaching the Inner World via a borehole, utilizing hybrid Atvatabarese technology and good old American pluck. Tales of their ensuing uprising against the reptilian Mahars and abortive attempt at establishing the human Empire of Pellucidar rock the world. 

Norwegian Hollow Earth Expedition: Olaf Jasnen, a Norwegian sailor, in a similar manner to the American White expedition, navigates to the Inner World via the North Polar entrance. Jansen becomes the first person to circumnavigate the inner world from pole to pole, but he is unable to establish a permanent colony.

Challenger’s ‘Lost World’ Expedition: Professor Challenger’s expedition to “Maple White Land” in Brazil discovers yet another entry point to the Hollow Earth in the Amazon, returning with photographic and zoological samples. Challenger proposes his theory that the Hollow Earth is accessible by means of static ‘verges’ at various points on the globe, not just via polar openings.

1913 The Poison Belt Disaster

For 12 hours on August 27, the earth passes through a belt of poisonous aether. Most humans are simply rendered temporarily unconscious, but the inevitable industrial and transportation accidents and the panic and civil disorder that followed cause over a million deaths. Unfortunately, the natural origins of this event were not recognized until long afterward, and each of the Great Powers responded as if it were a surprise poison gas attack by their enemies. This misperception is unfortunately amplified as orbital dynamics and the apparent greater resilience among certain racial groups meant some nations and colonies suffered worse than their neighbors. War in European colonies swiftly develops into a general conflagration in Europe as the treaty system is invoked. The Great War begins.

1913-1916 The Great War

The Great War embroils all of the European colonial empires in a largely futile affair. The Central Powers make strong gains against Russia, but the Western front remains relatively static. Witnessing the European meatgrinder, neither the US or the CS see any benefit in joining a war in which they have no natural allies, and both pursue a policy of strict neutrality. Thus the German campaign of unconditional submarine warfare slowly strangles the western allies. Widespread mutinies in the Russian and French armies in 1916 cripple their armies in the field and threaten wider revolution. The disorder spread to Italy, with rumors that a new government will make a return to the old Triple Alliance. With its own population on the verge of starvation and the seemingly inevitable collapse of allied governments, Britain proposes a ceasefire. 

A brokered peace with a status quo antebellum in Western Europe is established the following year,  but significant colonial concessions are made to the Central Powers and Germany achieves huge territorial gains at the expense of Russia. Despite a nominal victory of the Central Powers, however, they too are severely weakened, and millions of destitute Europeans face starvation over the winter.

In 1919, US vehicle manufacturer Reade Industries attempts to patent a bipedal walking machine for lumbering and excavation, but the patent is rejected since it was based on “prior art” taken from Atvatabarese striders and ancient Volkite robots unearthed in the midwest. Industrial and recreational walkers will spread around the world in the next decade, and play an important role in the completion of the joint US/CS Panama Canal the next year.

1917-1930 Famine, Subversion, and the Aerial Terror

The Great Famine of 1917-1918 leads to several years of civil war and revolutionary terror that scars all of Europe. The French army mutinies develop into general strikes and Communist uprisings in the cities, plunging the country into a decade of civil war. The Italian kingdom collapses in 1918 following a wave of revolutionary terror in the south and Sicily and the emergence of the synarchist movement that rose to counter it, aiming to restore the civil authority of the Pope.

The Germans, eager to keep their eastern possessions from sliding into anarchy, restored the Romanovs to the throne, installing the former Grand Duke Michael as regent for young Alexei, and helped crush the Bolshevik uprising. However, communist separatists continue to hold Transcaucasia, protected against Tsarist, German, and Turkish assaults by the aegis of Natasha Radomyslskaya’s Revolutionary Air Force. The Bloody “Angel of the Revolution” waged her Aerial Terror against the Imperial capitals, razing much of Moscow, Petrograd, and Constantinople before her zeppelin was finally shot down by Manfred von Richtofen.

Victory in war brought no solace for either the Habsburgs or the Ottomans as German hegemony and the centrifugal forces of nationalism tore both empires apart. After the war, Germany’s position to both powers made it very clear that they were junior and dispensible partners in any future alliance. Emperor Franz Ferdinand’s hope of counterbalancing German power with an alliance at first with the French and thence with Italy were thwarted by political developments in each country. Austria and Hungary formally separated in 1919 and much of their war gains in the Balkans and south of the Alps were relinquished out of necessity. Ottoman failures to pacify the Arabs and the Transcaucasian Communists opened the door for Ataturk’s military coup in 1920-21 and the dissolution of the empire.

 By 1928, India was in full rebellion against the British, the nationalists, supported surreptitiously by the Germans and led by occult directives of the Man with Green Gloves, would soon secure control over most of the sub-continent. Two staggering losses in a decade lead to a soft coup in Britain, with the crown reduced to a purely ceremonial institution in the grip of revanchist republican nationalists. 

George Challenger presents his “world echidna” theory and seemingly demonstrates it in his inimitable fashion by harpooning a huge subterranean organism on Hengist Down. Concluding that the world cannot, in fact, be hollow, and suggesting that the so-called Inner World in fact exists on some coincident plane, supporting his ‘verge’ theory. 

The US government discovers the Deep One city of Y'ha-nthlei off the coast of Massachusetts. According to the research of the US Secret Survey, the Deep Ones are the fourth non-human civilization known to have inhabited the continent, but unlike the others, they are still extant and actively infiltrating human settlements. An inconclusive raid is made on the submarine city.

Oliver Heaviside’s radio experiments demonstrate both the existence of the eponymous Heaviside Layer and additional anomalous transmissions. These are hypothesized to be from an intelligent entity or entities, but it will take several years to decipher them.

German roboticist C.A. Rotwang creates the first (modern) automatons based on the pioneering work of American inventor Alfred Moxon and secrets gleaned from the Heaviside transmissions.

In 1930, the Kaiserreich and Japan sign a treaty of alliance. This “Imperial Axis” is soon joined by Bulgaria, Greece, the Indian Raj and Holy Russia.

Japan and Germany jointly secure rights to restart the abandoned French canal through Nicaragua. This move, combined with the establishment of the German naval bases in Martinique and Venezuela and the pro-German government in Argentina, greatly aggravates tensions between the Imperial Axis and the American-Brazilian alliance. 

1931-1940 The World on the Brink, Again

 Though the German Empire was in the ascent through the 1920s, internal tumult and the staggering cost of its interventions throw the future of the realm into uncertainty. By the mid-1930s, the ailing Kaiser is reduced to a puppet of the new order of military technocrats, industrialists, and shadowy Volkish movements like the Vril Gesellschaft. 

The Communists achieve victory in France and Sicily, while the Papal States are reestablished in northern Italy, and the Spanish right finally subdue the communists. The Holy See, Spain, Austria, and Hungary form the Intermarium as a bulwark against both the communists and the increasingly occult-driven German Empire.

Guglielmo Marconi’s experiments on the “immortality of sound” and his attempt to record the last spoken words of Jesus Christ inadvertently lead to the deciphering of the Heaviside Layer Transmissions. This state secret is soon discovered by German and English spies.

Maria Orsic, the visionary psychic and mistress of the Vril Society, reveals that the Vril race, which originally dwelled in the Hollow Earth and transmigrated to the astral realm, is sending these Heaviside layer transmissions to aid the Germanic civilization in their forthcoming war to reestablish the ancient order on earth. While the German military develops new weaponry based on the Vril instructions, the Vril Society sends its own expedition to the Hollow Earth via the supposed Antarctic opening. 

After claiming the Neuschwabenland territory in Antarctica, one of the expedition members, Wilhelm von Horst, discovers a route to the Inner World and reemerges several years later with copious intelligence and a detailed map of what will become German Pellucidar.

Oil drilling operations off the Texas coast recover a buried and still functioning Yaktavian Bell. The unexpected activation of the Bell creates a rash of mutants and talents with extraordinary, never before seen powers across the Gulf Coast. For a while, the Confederacy and Mexico became the “new world capital of superbeings.”

The German Empire concludes a secret pact with the Deep Ones of Ahu-Y'hloa off the coast of Cornwall in preparation for a future war with England.

Oil is discovered in the German Neuschwabenland territory and extensive development begins.

The White regime in Atvatabar is overthrown by Atvatabarese tradtionalists, said to have been farmed by Japanese agents. Before being killed, King Lexington II appeals to the United States to make Atvatabar a protectorate. Both the US and Japan intervene in Atvatabar.

The CS invades Nicaragua to halt the construction of the canal. German warships are mobilized to attack the Panama Canal, while Japan attacks the US-controlled Philippines, Marshall Islands, and Guam. US and Brazilian troops in the Hollow Earth launch a surprise attack on German Pellucidar. 

German Puppet Tsar Michael is overthrown and the long-thought dead Alexei Nicholaevich is installed on the throne of Holy Russia. The German intervention fails and the Russians ally with the Intermarium.