By Tyler Wilde

The Command & Conquer universe, and especially Red Alert, is about as goofy as alternate history timelines go (for instance, Einstein goes back in time and shakes young Hitler’s hand, causing Hitler to vaporize). It’s made goofier with acting from folks like Ray Wise, Tim Curry, and J.K. Simmons, with lines like "I wouldn't give a wooden nickel about your legacy," which is how the US president responds to a Soviet puppet dictator as his forces approach the American coast. God that's dumb, and I love it. (Well, not the regressive Red Alert 3 as much, but as a whole.)

The story of Red Alert isn’t so much 'lore' as it is a sequence of improbable events, but when you take it all together—Red Alert is the prequel to the Tiberium series (and whatever issues that creates can be explained with diverging timelines)—there's a ton of stupid detail in C&C. Everything from units to buildings has a reason for existing and a backstory, some of which is found in the manuals. If you want to know what guns the GDI's minigunners use—the Cobretti AR-70 and the M16 Mk. II—you can find out. Where was Tiberium discovered? The Tiber river, of course, although Kane claims he found it before the scorned scientist Ignatio Mobius and named it after Tiberius Drusus. Seems like an odd coincidence that there are two reasons for it to be named Tiberium, but that’s C&C, eh?

There are also novels. I've never opened one (I'm not that invested in C&C) but I love how seriously these massively silly games take their own fiction. I’m a bit sad that C&C may be over at this point. EA cancelled the free-to-play game (I played an early version and it wasn’t very good), but is supposedly still doing something with the series—we’ll see. Otherwise I'll have to say "construction complete" with the saddest face I can possibly make.