The Global Defense Initiave began as a secret alliance of first world countries under the UN umbrella. GDI's mission: To contain Tiberium, reverse its spread and fight the sinister Brotherhood of Nod.
Over time, power and sovergienity have been gradually seceded to GDI and the identities of the member nations have faded. In 2046 process has reached its final stages: while their are still technically individual member nations, the reality is that GDI has become a unified political and military super state.
In each of these little Greek city-states, there were actors and poets and musicians and playwrights. Who weren’t like: I may be big in Melos, but I’m not big till I’ve made it in Athens. Eventually that did change; but centralization spelled the death of the Greek cities, later of the Hellenistic world, and in the end all of antiquity. In some ways the Mediterranean has never recovered from the rise of the Roman Empire.
From whose barbarian-haunted ruin sprang another polycentric order: old Europe. Along came the printing press, the telegraph, the railroad, the jet and the Internet, hot war and cold war—and now, even the Continent’s old languages are beginning to fade.
If culturally and politically unifying the Mediterranean, once a thriving decentralized network of politically and culturally independent city-states, created a polymillennial continental disaster—what will unifying the planet do? What has it already done?
