As a consequence of an alien ship, now called Revelator, crashing into the war-torn Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the year 1985, the world changed. Among those changes was the discovery of new technology which was reverse-engineered. One technological achievement that came from this copying of alien technology was the invention of Walgears.
Short for "Walking Gear", a Walgear is a machine that became a weapons platform. Walgears started out as four-legged vehicles piloted by four human pilots that can jump but evolved into having one human pilot and having two legs and two arms, making these Walgears having the image of man and moving like a human being. Such a concept was once restricted to science-fiction stories but for the world that came about from the crash-landing of Revelator in 1985 and a Third World War that lasted from 1989 to 1991 that ended the Soviet Union and divided most of the world into supernational unions, such machines became a reality, especially for warfare.
This short story anthology shows how Walgears have been used ever since they became a weapons platform. When one armed faction started to use Walgears in war, other armed factions sought to do so as well. This new world was made because of Revelator's appearance and other than this consequence, the image of war changed as well because it came to be dominated by a new generation of warriors who rode on Walgears into battle like in the days of men riding horses into battle.