The EO completes the headwater diversion project, redirecting roughly 34% of downstream flow to EO extraction territory. Regional agricultural collapse follows.
Whoever controls the headwaters controls the water for Iraq, Syria and the western Iranian plateau, roughly sixty million people and the PCU's primary northern agricultural zone. The EO finished its diversion in 2058 and took about a third of the downstream flow. The agricultural collapse that followed is why the Shatter Belt's recruits joined.