World War III: The Plague Years

A Desperate Act (2067)
As World War III reached its twelve year mark in 2067, the Holy Islamic Empire (HIE), which years earlier had betrayed the Hegemony and declared holy war on the entire world, found itself on the verge of collapse. In desperation, the Godking ordered the release of the deadly and fearsome HAVA (Human Arbor Viral Agent) Virus, or the Green Death, a genetically altered form of Ebola, built to have deadlier features and be more contagious.

It was a contingency plan created by the HIE much earlier in the war, meant to be used only as a last resort against their enemies.

Millions of enemy POWs were infected with the virus, and given back to their rightful nations under the cover of being a sign of goodwill. Immediately, it spread like wildfire, killing millions of people in a few short weeks.

The Second Great Lockdown (2067-2068)
Every nation across the world immediately went into quarantine, a move that mimicked the First Great Lockdown in 2020; thus, it was dubbed the Second Great Lockdown. Despite quicker response time, the virus managed to spread unimpeded, halting all war effort against the HIE. Social distancing guidelines set to prevent spread and saves lives failed.

The virus was nearly undetectable in the body of its hosts upon infection, making testing impossible. Along with that, the mortality rate was exceptionally high for most diseases, with 75% mortality. And with no vaccine, over 100 million people died before 2068 even began. It was then seen that the virus could spell the end for humanity itself.

Disaster protocols to fight the disease became more extreme, as hospitals began terminated infected patients and burning their bodies; it did not work, and millions more died across the following months.

Even the HIE was forced to employ these protocols as the virus quickly turned against the HIE, killing millions of them as well.

Symptoms
The HAVA Virus was a disease that in the first five days of infection shows no symptoms, but was incredibly contagious, and can spread through person-to-person contact; however, it mainly traveled around through being airborne. When the five days were up, systems would show, as purple blotches would appear on the skin, along with a dry cough, cold sores, irregular bowel movement, profuse bleeding out of every orifice, and yellowing of the eyes. In two-weeks, the victims crashes, most likely sucomming to death's awful grip. Should they survive, the disease remains in the system, being left with a much better immune system than average.

Scorched Earth Protocol (2068-2070)
In the race to discover some kind solution to sufficiently combat the virus, it was discovered that it incubated in trees, a baffling discovery that explained much of the spread, as when performing photosynthesis, the trees. Humanity, in a controversial move, burned them down. From 2068-2070, the Allies and Hegemony would pass various Scorched Earth Protocols. Indiscriminately, the nations of the world firebombed every forest, destroying the last vestiges of the untouched natural world.

The only areas spared were the far off regions of Siberia and jungles of Central Africa, which were thinly populated reaches of the world that both the CFR and HIE saw no point in destroying it, as those regions were predominantly Christian, and actively being purged of population for the past decade.

Air quality was heavily was heavily decreased, and entire species of animals and plants were driven to complete extinction by the end, but the Green Death was stopped, at the horrible cost of 1.5 billion human lives. However, despite horrendous losses, the war would go on.

The HIE's gambit to turn the tide of its bad luck had failed, and only gone on to add more lives to the already long list of casualties in the war, a war that was far from over.