Qiang Niang follows the story of protagonist Carrie, who has lost her combat memories, as she searches for herself and ultimately achieves her "Awakening." Between 2025 and 2030, a global world war caused the death of half the human population, and humanity lost control over the war's direction. To secure final victory, the conflict gradually transformed into a battle without human soldiers, similar to a game.
War now consists of satellite lasers, bomb drones, intelligent AI, and unmanned gun turrets and tanks—alongside a group of young maidens who fight using outdated firearms: the Gun Girls. Going back in time: to avoid capture by its own kind, an intelligent extraterrestrial life-form that came to Earth merged with the "Inorganic Compound" M4A1 stored in a nearby weapons dealer's warehouse. After being passed from person to person, the M4A1 eventually ended up in the hands of a youth living in a military compound in a certain city.
The youth took the M4A1 home, talked to her, showed her care and concern, and carefully wiped her clean—prompting the cosmic life-form to stir once more. To respond to the youth's emotions, the gun (the cosmic life-form) transformed into a beautiful young maiden. The youth named the gun-turned-human "Carrie." However, the major nations that learned of Carrie's existence began competing to seize her. The youth died protecting Carrie. Humans then started researching the Gun Girl Carrie. Barrett, Shasha, and others are the results of that research. Through studying Carrie, humanity's technology advanced remarkably, leading into the space age.
With supremacy over the cosmos at stake, war erupted between the world's great nations. A world war had officially begun.