History & Briefings – Tiberium Saga

The story of Tiberium is one of a planet gradually transformed by an alien substance, but also one of a conflict spanning decades: the struggle between the Global Defence Initiative (GDI) and the mysterious Brotherhood of Nod.

At the heart of this war lies one man: Kane, the charismatic leader of Nod, a prophet to some, a Terrorist to others. Having died several times, only to return each time, he pursues a goal whose true nature will only be revealed much later.

To understand this story, however, we must go back to a time long before the arrival of Tiberium.

An organisation older than the Bible

The exact origins of the Brotherhood of Nod remain shrouded in mystery.

According to its own members, the Brotherhood has existed for hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years. Traces of its existence are said to date back to antiquity, notably in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

For the Nod, its origins are said to be intimately linked to those of humanity itself: the Brotherhood of Nod claims to have emerged alongside the first oppressed.

For centuries, however, it remained in the shadows. Its members gradually infiltrated governments, businesses, the media and various centres of power.

Then came an event that would turn the course of human history on its head.

The arrival of Tiberium

In the 1990s, a meteorite shower struck the region of the Tiber in Italy.

Shortly afterwards, a strange form of extraterrestrial life appeared: Tiberium.

This substance possesses an extraordinary property. As it grows, it absorbs the minerals present in the soil and concentrates them into crystals that are extremely rich in precious metals.

For humanity, the discovery initially seemed like a miracle.

The extraction of Tiberium provided rapid access to vast quantities of resources. Dr Mobius, one of the first scientists to study it, named it Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus.

But enthusiasm soon gave way to concern.

Tiberium is highly toxic. Worse still, it spreads at a staggering rate, gradually contaminating the soil and disrupting ecosystems. Only particularly cold or dry environments seem capable of slowing its spread.

What initially appeared to be a new resource is gradually becoming a threat to the entire planet.

The Resurgence of the Brotherhood of Nod

The emergence of Tiberium also marks the return to the limelight of the Brotherhood of Nod.

After centuries spent in the shadows, it activates its networks embedded within governments, the media and corporations. Thanks to this influence and a particularly aggressive strategy, Nod quickly manages to gain control of a considerable proportion of the world’s Tiberium resources.

The Brotherhood of Nod now possesses economic and military power capable of rivalling that of many states.

Faced with a surge in attacks and Nod’s growing influence, on 12 October 1995 the United Nations formally established the Global Defence Initiative, more commonly known as GDI. Formerly known as Group Echo, this international military organisation is placed under the command of Brigadier Mark Sheppard.

Two powers now stand opposed to one another.

War becomes inevitable.

The First Tiberium War

The Brotherhood of Nod is extending its influence across many Third World countries, where it presents itself as an alternative to the traditional powers.

A series of terrorist attacks eventually leads to open conflict between Nod and the GDI.

But this war is not fought solely on the battlefield.

The Brotherhood also controls the flow of information. It uses the media to discredit the GDI’s operations and attempts to portray the international organisation as an uncontrollable military power.

The conflict thus becomes as much a political and media battle as it is a military one.

At its head, Kane gradually establishes himself as the face of the Brotherhood and its undisputed prophet.

The Fall of Sarajevo

The war reaches its climax in Sarajevo, where Nod has established its main Temple.

The GDI launches a massive offensive against the stronghold. Thanks to the use of its powerful orbital cannon, it finally manages to destroy the Temple and win the battle.

Kane is declared dead.

Deprived of its leader, the Brotherhood almost entirely disbanded.

But one detail troubled some GDI officials: Kane’s body was never found.

For many, the matter is closed. For the followers of Nod, it has only just begun. The Prophet’s successors continue to await his return, convinced that he will reappear when the time is right.

A Short-Lived Peace

The destruction of the Sarajevo Temple grants the world a few years’ respite.

The GDI continues its research into Tiberium whilst the visible traces of the Brotherhood of Nod are methodically erased.

However, Nod has not completely disappeared.

Its survivors have split into several factions, each attempting to preserve a part of Kane’s legacy.

In early 2030, GDI radars began to detect an alarming increase in activity from these groups.

Then came a transmission that no one thought they would ever see again.

Kane’s Return

Kane appears in a video message addressed to GDI leaders.

He is alive.

Analysis confirms that this is indeed the Brotherhood’s legendary leader, although some anomalies remain in the footage.

The news comes as a shock.

The man the GDI believed it had eliminated in Sarajevo is back, and with him, the Brotherhood of Nod is reborn.

A new war begins.

The Second Tiberium War

Nod swiftly launches a series of offensives across the globe.

For an organisation supposedly destroyed several years ago, the Brotherhood demonstrates a spectacular capacity for mobilisation. Its forces converge, in particular, on the former Temple in Sarajevo to recover the remains of a mysterious alien spacecraft.

The GDI soon finds itself in trouble.

From his headquarters on the Philadelphia space station, General Solomon attempts to understand Kane’s intentions.

Meanwhile, aboard the Kodiak, Cdr. Michael McNeil regains control of the site where the alien spacecraft crashed.

There he meets Umagaan, an influential mutant, and then helps to free Tratos, leader of a large mutant community.

An alliance is then formed between the mutants and the GDI.

This cooperation gradually enables the GDI to regain the upper hand.

Kane’s Second Death

The conflict ultimately leads the GDI forces to the new Temple of Nod, located in Cairo.

Cdr. McNeil personally confronts Kane and manages to kill him.

For the second time, the Prophet falls.

The GDI also recovers an alien artefact of considerable importance: the Tacitus.

No one yet fully understands what it contains, but its significance is to become central in the decades that follow.

Without Kane, Nod once again descends into chaos.

Slavik, the Prophet’s former right-hand man, seeks a way to reunite the Brotherhood of Nod. He therefore turns to CABAL, the artificial intelligence formerly used by Kane.

A Nod Commando unit retrieves the machine from a GDI site in Cairo and reactivates it.

At the same time, the GDI is seeking to exploit the Tacitus to find a solution to the mutations caused by Tiberium. The Kodiak is sent to retrieve the artefact and Kane’s archives.

But the ship crashes and all contact with the Philadelphia station is lost.

CABAL then reveals its true intentions.

The artificial intelligence’s primary aim is to recover the two fragments of the Tacitus. Once these are in its possession, it unleashes its armies of Cyborgs against the GDI and against Nod.

Faced with this common enemy, a situation once unimaginable becomes reality:the GDI and Nod join forces.

Slavik and General Cortez, acting commander of the GDI, coordinate their forces to launch a simultaneous attack on CABAL’s facilities.

The operation is a success.

The artificial intelligence’s central server is destroyed.

Following the fall of CABAL, the GDI recovers fragments of the Tacitus and discovers a vast database dedicated to Tiberium.

The Brotherhood, despite the loss of many of its leaders, paradoxically regains a degree of unity.

For the first time in a long while, peace seems possible.

But Tiberium continues to ravage the planet.

And in the Shades, Kane’s body lies in a tank.

The Prophet has not yet had his final say.

LEGIONS: CABAL’s heir

Kane has survived.

Still hidden from the eyes of the world, he is preparing a new rebirth of the Brotherhood.

To this end, he activates LEGION, an artificial intelligence designed as an improvement on CABAL.

LEGION is tasked with rebuilding Nod’s forces. In particular, it abducts Marcion, the new leader of the Black Hand, so that he may serve as the Brotherhood of Nod’s figurehead until Kane’s official return.

Whilst the world believes Nod to be weakened, Kane is thus patiently preparing the next stage of his plan.

2047: The Third Tiberium War

By 2047, the Earth has changed profoundly.

The GDI mainly controls the Blue Zones, territories that are relatively unspoilt and still habitable. The Yellow Zones, heavily affected by Tiberium, are largely left to the influence of Nod. As for the Red Zones, their level of contamination renders them virtually uninhabitable.

It is in this divided world that Kane makes his return once again.

With the help of Killian Qatar and LEGIONS, the Brotherhood strikes at the very heart of the GDI: a nuclear attack destroys the Philadelphia space station.

A large proportion of the GDI’s leaders and engineers perish in the blast.

The Third Tiberium War begins.

The mistake that changes the world

Nod steps up its offensives against the Blue Zones and, notably, recaptures its former Temple in Sarajevo.

The GDI counter-attacks and eventually lays siege to Temple Prime.

It is then that Edmond Boyle, recently promoted to head of the GDI, makes a catastrophic decision: he orders the use of the Ion Cannon against the Temple.

The strike destroys the target.

But beneath the complex lay a vast Tiberium Spike.

Its explosion caused a catastrophe that claimed thousands of lives.

And, crucially, just as Kane had predicted, it attracted the attention of an alien civilisation.

The Scrins arrived on Earth.

The Scrin Invasion

The newcomers prioritise attacks on the Blue Zones.

The GDI must now fight on several fronts, allowing Nod to regain the initiative in certain regions.

But the Scrins’ true objectives lie elsewhere.

The GDI gradually realises that their attacks on human populations are merely a diversion. In the Red Zones, the aliens are constructing immense structures whose purpose remains a mystery.Towers.

The GDI decides to destroy them before they can be activated.

The Tower of Rome

In Italy, the GDI destroys the Scrin Control Node.

Most of the Towers then collapse across the globe.

Only one remains intact: a gigantic structure located near Ground Zero, in Rome.

And against all expectations, the Nod fights to protect it.

GDI forces eventually defeat their adversaries using conventional weapons, without resorting to the prototype Tiberium bomb proposed by Boyle.

The Brotherhood appears to have been defeated once again.

The Scrins, for their part, leave the planet, vowing to return.

But the Tower is still there.

And Kane needs it.

The Resurrection of LEGION

LEGION mysteriously comes back to life.

Kane then entrusts it with a new mission: to locate the former CABAL facilities in Eastern Europe.

The artificial intelligence discovers a new generation of Cyborg Soldiers there: the Marked of Kane.

With their help, LEGION finally recovers the Tacitus.

Kane then merges the alien artefact with his artificial intelligence. LEGION succeeds where no human had ever managed: translating the Tacitus in its entirety.

For Kane, a path to the stars has just opened up.

An armed peace

The years pass, but the ecological situation on Earth becomes critical.

Tiberium contamination reaches such a level that Kane is forced to rethink his plans.

Instead of continuing to seek the destruction of the GDI, he proposes a partnership.

The two historic enemies then set about building the Tiberium Control Network, or TCN, a colossal system designed to contain Tiberium and enable its exploitation without further damaging the planet.

The GDI provides the necessary resources.

Kane provides the technology.

This unholy alliance, conceived by Father John W. E. Vladislav and Dr Johann Pascal, could save the Earth.

But even within Nod itself, not everyone is prepared to accept an alliance with the enemy.

The Incursion War

Gideon, a charismatic preacher from the Black Hand, regards cooperation with the GDI as a betrayal of the Brotherhood of Nod’s ideals.

He breaks with Kane and founds the Nod Separatists.

In 2062, Gideon went on the offensive.

His troops attacked the last remaining intact Blue Zones, including Paris, and organised raids against the TCN construction sites to prevent its completion.

The conflict, known as the Incursion War, lasted several years.

In 2073, the GDI finally defeated the Separatists.

The victory is, however, a bitter one: the damage inflicted on the Tiberium Control Network is such that it will take a further fifteen years to rebuild.

The Fourth Tiberium War

As the TCN finally nears completion, political tensions resurface.

Part of the population begins to question Kane’s true intentions.

Why is the leader of Nod so determined to complete the network?

At the same time, the GDI is accused of abandoning the people living in the Yellow Zones.

Anger is mounting.

Disillusioned citizens are joining Gideon’s Separatists, who were thought to have been all but wiped out.

The situation escalates to the point of triggering the Fourth Tiberium War.

The Last Implanted

Kane’s true objective then begins to emerge.

Threshold 19, the last Scrin Tower still standing on Earth, is in fact a crucial part of his plan.

Kane seeks to open the Portal it contains.

To ensure its activation, he has secretly embedded the necessary sequence within the bodies of several human volunteers: the Implanted.

Gideon realises the danger and sets about eliminating them methodically.

Even Dr Johann Pascal is killed.

In the end, only one Implanted remains: Commander Parker, a GDI Officer who, following an accident, received an ocular implant utilising technology derived from the Tacitus.

Parker is unaware, however, that his own body holds the final key to Kane’s plan.

Kane’s double

The situation becomes even more complex when Colonel Louise James, a GDI Officer, indirectly reveals her double-dealing.

Unbeknown to her superiors, she is working with Gédéon with the aim of bringing about Kane’s definitive downfall.

Parker thus finds himself caught in the middle of a conflict that is beyond his control.

Depending on which side he remains loyal to, his fate may take different forms. In particular, the Brotherhood may surgically transform him so that he becomes a true double of Kane.

Whichever path is taken, all forces ultimately converge on Threshold 19.

Gédéon is captured.

Louise James turns her weapon on Kane.

And Parker, despite himself, becomes the indispensable element in the fulfilment of a plan that has been in the making for decades.

The Ascension

Wounded during the final clashes, Parker collapses under a hail of gunfire.

But it is too late to stop Kane.

Threshold 19 is activated.

The Scrin portal finally opens.

After decades of wars, manipulation, deaths and resurrections, Kane achieves the goal he has pursued from the very beginning.

The Prophet of Nod steps through the portal.

He leaves Earth.

Left behind are the GDI, the Brotherhood, a planet profoundly transformed by Tiberium, and Parker, dying in his wife’s arms.

Thus ends Kane’s story on Earth.

But not necessarily his story.

For two questions remain unanswered.

What did Kane actually find on the other side of the Portal? And what has become of LEGION, now bereft of its Mastermind?

Two mysteries that continue to hang over the Tiberium universe.