It is a time of great unrest in Europe. A large portion of the population is connected by a loose confederation, which threatens to fall apart at any moment. This unstable situation is made worse by false news flooding the continent, shared and spread by new technology. There are too many standing armies, too many bank notes changing hands, too many disparities between rich and poor. One damaged but influential country uses propaganda and spycraft, while another wages a spiritual crusade. The most powerful country in the world, flush with the riches of the Americas, begins to behave more and more unpredictably. Alliances once thought firm and inevitable begin to tear, while religion and nationalism tears families and cities apart.
As familiar as this sounds, the year is not 2018; it is exactly four hundred years earlier, and one of the longest and most destructive wars in European history is about to erupt. Though it is rarely taught in American schools, and barely discussed even in the UK, this war caused the deaths of more people than any European conflict until World War I, including the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars, which together lasted nearly as long and used deadlier weapons.
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