[Use your own words]
Rebirth of the phoenix: Russia, the Fourth Rome by MrImperatorRoma

"In this world, Ivan the Terrible does not kill his eldest son in a spit of rage, and unknowingly set in motion a great deal of things, the most immediate result being a significantly lessened Time of Troubles (though some aspects still occur, they are lessened). The Ruriks persists on and so-forth, and smooth sailing is achieved with a bit of luck and Poland-Lithuania screwing up a bit on their own in the meanwhile. Under more competent and stable leadership Russia transitions into a more ‘westernized’ power much earlier on, as its attention is thrown more west and south, growing at the expense of Polish, Turkish and Austrian success. 



Butterflies flap and continue flapping. From then on, Russia’s history sees earlier westernization, and a lot of sixes rolled in the 19th and 20th centuries with no meaningful superpower to oppose them, though they were not without challenge. Russia's mantle of 'Third Rome' became much more weighted, particularly after a brief period of holding Constantinople from the Turks in the 19th century (Russia would, later, be briefly humiliated by a coalition of European powers before bouncing back - alas the city would remain to elude them thereafter), and such a legacy continued well into the future. France continues to ascend as the European hegemon west of the Oder river, joining Spanish expansion into North America at the expense of the English who are mostly confined to Borealia[1], Reynes[2] and Cascadia and the creatively-named colony of New England. There was still an alt-30 Years’ War (called the Wars of Doctrine), a gradual rise in the European system over the rest of the world, an Enlightenment and the beginnings of industrial revolution in a comparable timeframe to OTL. Sans a French Revolution, or an American one; the collapse of the behemoth of Franco-Spanish colonial power in the Americas was put off well into the late-1800s when it coincided with rise of something very close to Marxism[3] and *socialist revolution both at home against the dual monarchy and on the plantations of the Carolinas and Mexico. The American Worker’s Commonwealth remained something of a pariah for much of the early 20th century before it jumped up to international boogeyman as it sported notions of world-wide revolution against the Autocrats and Theocrats across the ocean, ending in violent collapse in the mid-21st. Successor states continue to struggle.


A more religious world, the traditional faiths have shown no signs of falling out of favor anytime soon, although with the breath that humanity now reaches to, perhaps they won’t be able to keep up with the times anymore. The Islamic World is even more heavily dominated by Sunni numerical superiority over other sects, while the Catholic sphere is making inroads into North America again after a long break. Various sects and offshoots sprout up in Africa, as does a rise of agnosticism and syncretic faiths. A less-than-wholesome Cult of Humanity is gaining traction in the underbellies of the major cities of the world: the emergence of Neural Networking and VR is a gateway to enlightenment they claim. They have been banned in a number of large countries. China and, rather surprisingly, Western Europe, are seeing a decline of atheism in favor of things such as the Cult. Apocalyptic cults come and go: even decades after the Great Floods over the 2090s people still tend to cite the next Heat Wave as the Real End of Days, while once-isolated and 'self-primitivised' communities in the former northern wildernesses of Siberia, Borealia and and Scandinavia now have to greet their new neighbors who've just moved up from the Burning Hot in Summer equator zone. 



Republicanism and democracy failed to catch on as prolific as it did OTL, and has in various forms generally been confined to the Americas and scatterings across the Old World for a while, or mangled together with monarchy, theocracy, the military state, etc. into something unrecognizable. The technocracy, or its equivalent, has gained more traction, and is caught up by both what we would consider anarcho-syndicalist systems (the Vanguard State, less so), and leftist-monarchies. Monarchy itself persists in various forms, often working in conjunction with some parliament form, or cushioned on the administration side of things by AI and a high-tech government (Brazil is the prime example). The British Empire, for what little impact it has on this world’s history, nonetheless left a legacy of more liberally-minded states and systems that have been emulated and continue to exist today, particularly in Africa. Even France took some notes, laying the groundwork for the future European Continental Congress after a megalomaniac with dreams of conquest surged out of the fires the 1890 revolutions and reshuffled the map of Europe thrice.  


It’s been two decades since war consumed Europe and the Near East: between the European Continental Congressional Union under the warhawkish and revanchist Aile Party, and its Turanist allies against the combined might of the Second Russian Empire, the nascent Arab Ummah and various peoples of the ECCU chafing under very authoritarian French rule. While not as destructive as the Global Wars of the 21st century, or even the Second Orbital War, this iteration of conflict saw the most extreme bouts of violence and political upheaval in recent memory. The war had mostly begun over various states looking to secede from the Union, by force if necessary, and only expanded into a nearly global conflict when the Aile Party’s typical Russophobia was mixed with a bit of victory disease, while their Turanist allies surged into Egypt. The ECCU had the technological edge, one of the world’s strongest air forces, and positive fanaticism (at least, on the part of those west of the Rhine), and saw some early success as neither the Russians nor Arabs had fought a ‘proper’ war in almost a century. That is, to say, they merely needed another dose of doctrinal modernization, and at any rate most Russian armies at the time were busy staring down those of the Mughals across Central Asia when hostilities broke out west. Of course, the combined powers of the Arabs and Russians had the numerical and material advantage, and after progressively crushing the Franco-Turanist air forces the Allied militaries pushed the ECCU back over the Oder river and into its core regions. Defeat was exacerbated by the self-demilitarization of war-weary and Very protestant east German and Czech states (not helped by indiscriminate bombing missions by the ECCU air fleet). German nationalists rose up east of the Rhine, clashing with ECCU loyalists and Catholics, while the Scots and Northern England joined the Irish secessionists. To avoid defeat, the warhawks in Paris gave the green light for use of merely a dozen nuclear weapons on their own soil to slow down the Allied armies, but this merely spelled the end of a United Europa, and talks of a ceasefire followed.


Though it was brief, the costs of the war burned deep into Europe. The Aile Party was forced to accept the Allies’ terms of surrender. The ECCU was disbanded, instead replaced by the Federation of the Rhine, with illusions of being a more equal organization than the late Union (alas, some things never quite change, but it is kind of better than before). Russia and Arabia carved up Europe afterwards: Iberia was balkanized between them, while the Russians placed puppet monarchs on the thrones of Spain, East Germany, Italy, Hungary and quietly absorbed Poland, for all its troubles, as an “economic dependency.” The Irish, often the most ignored, merely asserted themselves as the new lead of the British Isles, the so-called Irish League actively scrubbing off any Anglo-Saxon lingering it can find for a more unified Celtic approach. Some are calling this the “Union of Greater Ireland and Northern England,” though Irish League was shorter to work with, despite the irony. England proper is less populated than you’d expect: between war, and before that the Great Flood leading to mass emigration, the population has finally finished bottoming out and is slowly but surely growing again. London and the South remain positively loyalist, under the rule descended from the old Emergency Government and physically, just as politically, connected to the mainland due to a much more impressive and extensive Chunnel. The British Diaspora community is quite significant in Newfoundland. Ten big craters straddle the border between the Federation and East Germany: reminders of the horrors of atomic weaponry and a call by pacifists everywhere to Never Again go that route. This has had no bearing on the status of orbital weaponry by the major powers, “more efficient, more precise” they say. Of course, they’re still dropping very heavy ordinance at high velocity regardless.


While borders were changed by meetings in small rooms in unaffected nations, the chaos on the ground took longer to simmer down. The Federation has not shown any signs of a governmental collapse anytime soon (and in fact, is making a comeback for itself), among other new states, although the English Liberation Army continues its terror bombings against the Irish in Liverpool, Manchester, etc., and a splinter group occasionally bombs subways and airfields across the border against the Feds. The Russian-picked Hungarian monarch was not long for this world, instead being hijacked by *fascist types angry about being stifled out of territorial goals in the War (Slovakia, Croatia, etc.), with the newly-christened Sovereign Union having shut the rest of the world out. Anarchists challenge them and flirt with Transylvanian independence groups to unite, while students take up the streets of Budapest in protest: Moscow would have intervened long ago, but fear escalating matters in the Cold War[3]. And, surely, Hungary won’t descend into civil war too, right?


We say "too" because Spain is already a hotbed of world tension and civil war. The Russian “stooge king” is of thin legitimacy (Spain under the ECCU operated under its own constitutional monarchy, and the Russians merely brought in a relative of the late king to stay in power without having to make many system changes). While not a particularly weak character nor incompetent, he merely inherited a lot of problems associated with the post-war order. The Free Spanish Army, comprised of veterans of the War and various nationalist militias, never accepted stand-down orders and have been actively clashing with Royalists and anarchist types alike for their vision of a free and independent Spain (and oh, do they not like Catalonia’s existence. Like, at all). The Society for Enlightenment, kind of a catch-all term for the alliance of republican and technocratic types that detest the monarchy and the FSA, is on its last legs now. Inspired by technocratic, efficient role models of Mughliyah and some African states, their cause began to shrivel up as the Islamic League began to cut support (certainly playing with fire by doing that in the Russian backyard). The Kingdom of God sprang up out of nowhere, although some point fingers at Paraguay. A state by Christians and for Christ, they’ve been siphoning off from the FSA’s ranks and intend to do-away with these powers that drag Spain down and away from God’s light. Bold pushes over the Portuguese border are surely not to bode well for them, given that falls into the Ummah’s sphere. Russian airstrikes and an expeditionary force of the Imperial Marines keep the monarchy afloat, though the continuing conflict has done no wonders for the refugee crisis in the western Mediterranean. Major media outlets fail to accurately report on the conflict, to the majority the threat posed by the KoG is overblown, while the SoE and FSA are misunderstood or just lumped incorrectly with the Royalists and KoG factions.


Admittedly things happen to be much nicer within the Second Empire. The world’s single most powerful nation, invested heavily across the Solar System as an economic powerhouse and owning a fair share of orbital assets; to call this a Russian century is a bit of an understatement considering just how far-reaching the Neudanzig Zone has become. “A Second Empire?” you ask? Call it old hat, but Russia’s track record with anything-but hadn’t lasted very long: a bit of a flirtation with democracy around the 20th century before a crisis and one ambitious Chancellor agreed to the dissolution of the Russian Federation in favor of ascending to the Imperial throne under the new and bold Zhidkov dynasty. Oh, there have and continue to be opponents to the move, but the change had seen the Russia state steer itself out of steep decline (there’s only so much success you can achieve before you get too big for your britches), and trading Siberian and Central Asia territory for massive and successful internal development programs has proven worth it. Education and employment are higher than ever, people are eating healthy again, the trains and trans-Siberian hyperways run on time; indeed, a positively centralized economy assisted in micromanagement by powerful supercomputers and even cyber-augmented individuals help keep the entire thing working like clockwork. Russian demographics also help make it capable for such a heavyweight to keep up with powers in Brazil, India, Arabia and China, although sheer scale and further penetration of the Final Frontier means it hasn't become very claustrophobic. Yet. There is a Duma parliament and all the standard fare one is to expect from any Imperial, and especially Russian, state that wants to make it past the 1920s – various degrees of internal autonomy too for ethnic groups, a whole construct that works more as a federation of things. Combined with a number of client states, off-Earth territories and close associates across Africa-Eurasia, this all makes up the Russian Federal Imperium.


What makes a lot of this possible is the Neudanzig Economic Cooperative, a massive global and inter-solar organization to further bind the world's economies, trade, military blocs, academic institutions, R&D, high-end networks and space travel into the Russian orbit (orbit both political as well as literal there). With thirty member states on Earth and several orbital habitats in partnership, NEC ensures that the era of the Second Empire may be a long and prosperous one. NEC continues to expand, primarily into North America, by giving outreach to various post-Commonwealth states on a continent that has generally lagged behind the world significantly, while also establishing a more permanent Russian presence there. Joining the NEC are Russia's allies in the East: Japan, a very corporate Korea, and some post-Russian Federation states (with a more Western and MidEast mindset, Moscow is not as miffed over such losses as one might expect). These form the Vladivostok Economic Opportunity Sphere, which alongside Bengal serve as a sub-bloc of the Affiliation of Ordered Nations against the rising Chinese power, both militarily as well as economically. There are critics, particularly the Islamic League and PanAmUN, who denounce the NEC and the wider Affiliation of Ordered Nations as a Russian economic extortion zone, and even a "Greater Russian Empire." Of course, Russia is an Empire, say the men in Moscow. At any rate, the NEC and Affiliation do meet acclaim in North America and Africa, as states that have typically lagged now start to feel out opportunities for better internal development as well as potential for opportunities in space.


There is, at the present time at least, a “Cold War” ongoing between the Affiliation and the Islamic League, often shortened to the just the “North” and “South” as much as we in OTL simplified the latter half of the 20th century into East and West. Less ideological (at least from the Russian perspective) and more geopolitical, economic and even religious. There may be other blocs unaligned or typically uninvolved states, but these two have emerged as the premiere powers of the day. Nuclear war is always a fear, although threats of world annihilation hang more in orbit and less on the ground. Weapons are more precise, but the devastation wrought would be nothing to scoff at, and anyway something like MAD had already been conceived to deter thoughts of one-sided Armageddon.


Significant opposition against the Affiliation and the Empire presents itself in the form of the Islamic League. Mughliyah, the Arab Ummah, the East African Federation, Malaysia and many others: the Islamic World is on the rise once more. Initially more of a military alliance than a wholesale economic and somewhat globalist bloc, today it has become something of a mirror to the Russian network, giving an alternative to that world-system in favor of something more noticeably equal among the member states: of course beyond the major Islamic members that notion is a farce. Still, the sheer success of it has often be dubbed as a “Second Golden Age” for Islam as the belt of primarily Islamic nations running from the Sahel to Malaysia have begun to leave the 22nd century slump and rise into the stars, literally. The GPSENS further proves this as the League and states all around the world have managed remarkable feats of terraforming and engineering: a half-dozen space elevators, the Green-ing of the Sahara and Damenland[5], the rebuilding of Turkei and post-ECCU states. An extensive and high-tech upgrade to infrastructure can be seen running from the Mali sub-states all the way into India, Mosul making OTL’s Dubai look small in comparison.


The Erudite Union of Mughliyah is a technocratic, state-heavy beast with some democratic trappings and home to billions of souls living in what someone might incorrectly identify as a “proto-ecumenopolis” (although not continent-wide, a chain of impressive urban infrastructure arcs and stretches through the north, center and west). Erudite, as the Union is run by a cadre of genetically-”perfected” individuals (called Clairvoyants) who, in parallel to how the Russians do things, manage everything via the great Neural Network. Plenty join, but it is less hivemind and more, say, Internet of the Mind: a place of free-flowing information and quick communication, transfer of ideas and so-forth. Lack of privacy is not an issue, personalization is still possible, as is censorship: there are some things the State and the Council would rather keep behind closed doors. It runs in synthesis with the high-tech attitudes of the state. Ultimately to just Join you’ll need the hardware, the innerworkings of the human mind we previously remained ignorant of are still a mystery. You’re not going to be telepathically reading minds just on your own. Even then, the Clairvoyants many times over pale numerically when compared to Normals, and so AI in various levels of intelligence are sprinkled onto the system to cushion things. Mughliyah, ironically, is one of the less “faithful” members of the League: in part, due to the historically large Hindu population, but also a general trend of agnosticism and atheism that has been sweeping them over since the Great Floods decades prior. A love of technology not helping matters.



A United Arab Ummah joins the Mughals in the so-called “CoDominium” of Islam: neo-legalists to the east, and the faithful to west. Arab unity is nothing new in the world, although the sheer scale of the current union is. After throwing the Turanists out, then-Egypt ascended to something of a new superpower on the global block by absorbing the northern Levant territories and netting profit out of the Sahara Reconstruction Project and the Omani Lakes. Much like the German Empire OTL, the rise of a united Arab people has shifted the old balance of power some, concerning a few of the traditional great powers, including even the Mughals. Unlike Mughliyah, the Arab Ummah is considerably more profound within both the League, GPSENS and the wider world. The Arabs are the more genuine rival to the Russian Empire and vice versa: active in space, leading the charge to develop Africa into the powerhouse of the world in cooperation with dozens of other countries, and with one of the world’s largest and most advanced armed forces. A “moralistic” democracy, the Ummah is still at its heart more of a somewhat left-libertarian federation rather than a unitary entity: less Sharia Law and more live-and-let live. The Sahara has been reorganized to include a number of new states and territories within the Ummah: for Arabs, Tuaregs, Maghrebi, and a few for foreign peoples. Essentially farmers republics, settled by migrants en-masse. All of this green and ideal agricultural real estate is made possible by the Saharan Seas. One area the Ummah seems to excel at is science and culture. Mostly to Africa, but the results show: Arabic is the lingua franca for a great deal of African states and businesses outside the Neudanzig zone, while media networks, international education, R&D and space exploration projects help further connect an already very busy African continent together with the Arab World. Colonies on the moon and orbital habitats (or “Plants”) further the reach of Cairo well into the final frontier.



The Swahili-and-some-Bantu Islamic Federation forms the third major arm of the League, and kind of takes a backseat to things; let the Arabs and Mughals police the world. A loose federation centered on the major East Coast cities, there have been three different attempts at this: first being the old kingdom of Kilwa, the second following the retreat of Europeans from Africa, and the current third having come up some 40 years ago after many intense and wide-reaching reforms to the state. It is much less oligarchic and more democratic nowadays, although the rural interior remains more autonomous that the center would like. Economically it’s a bustling place, and is hoping to keep the good going. The Federation has been using this success to take advantage of its geography: currently building another space elevator in conjunction with their neighbors in Jamhuuriyadda, while owning two of its own already (shared with the GPSENS of course). The Federation is one of the more active states in the solar system, keeping bases from Luna to Mars, and is mounting an expedition further beyond to kick the doors down on the Jovian moons, so-to-speak.


The rest of Africa’s been getting its shit together, and the 23rd century looks just as promising as the late 22nd was: a less enveloping history of European colonialism, and sans that legacy, more interest-at-home to rebuild and rediscover especially with far fewer regional conflicts to muddle that. Africa’s become something of the Europe of this world. No EU, but generally regarded as one of the more advanced places outside of the major blocs, even if it’s mostly divided between said blocs. States are more technocratic, progressive, and militarized. Besides that, many African nations are bound together by impressive infrastructure such as the space elevators, or the large rail lines and hyperways that crisscross the continent, and movement between borders is becoming a little more open nowadays. South Africa is mostly beyond its history of racial issues and wannabe-Draka phase (though decidedly more French ITTL demographically, and baroque in historical fetishism), having been torn down by revolution inspired by that in the Americas, and then mellowing out into a more advanced form of anarcho-syndicalism with various ethnic enclaves. They’re joined by Mutapa to the north, and Damenland (the state) and a coalition of aboriginal states[6] to the east in Damenland (the continent) in a somewhat recent venture to stick their feet through the atmospheric door to the wider Solar System. The West African Gaian Combine, for a long time merely an Arab partner in the Sahara Projects, is attracting a great deal of immigration and foreign investments, and is selling land out like crazy to would-be farmers to become the next breadbasket of the world. Guinea is Russia’s primary ally in the region, and has hobbled together a small sphere of Christian West African states around itself with varying degrees of cooperation with the wider Neudanzig Cooperative.


The Middle East has settled down from the Continental War, and is less worse for wear post-War than Europe: more stable, even the Kurds and Turks have managed to settle out things, by a lot of enforced population expulsions by the victorious powers. Iran heads a regional grouping of conservative states around the Caspian, forming a convenient buffer between the Russian and Islamic blocs. The Arabs feel a bit shafted out of Turanist territories in Mesopotamia and around the Gulf, but then-Egypt had made significant gains anyway. Palestine and specifically Jerusalem is something of an International Zone under Arab custodianship, free to all peoples and demilitarized. The ultranationalist and highly belligerent Turanist Union has been split asunder after the War, with the Central Asian parts divided between Iran and Russia, while the West has been spun off as another Arab vassal. The Turks are generally receptive to the new Arab leadership, owing a lot to something like the Marshall Plan to help rebuild their economy once more. Constantinople has been disputed, again, and remains as such: the Russians claim as their rightful territory by virtue of being both the Third and Fourth Rome, while the actual people living there say “No we are not going to learn Russian, thank you.” International tensions continue.


India has not changed much borders-wise in centuries: the greatly Hindu and nationalist neo-Vijayanagarans have made it long and clear to the Mughals that attempts to absorb will never work out, and vice-versa, and in recent days have been content to just sink into the VR-Neural Networking craze after doling out the big bucks for mass-fusion power. Bengal seceded from Mughliyah during the period of the Great Flood and the Troubles that followed: negligence from Delhi they cite, though the eastern provinces had always been a bit troublesome to wrangle in, Muslim or not. The push to move into the Russian sphere has been bold, indeed perhaps too bold: the border is more of a tripwire now than either side would have expected possible just a few decades ago, and some have argued that it may have excited China to join the Cold War under a new, third bloc.


And they aren’t wrong: China, in combination with the Federation of the Rhine, is looking to form itself into the third major economic and political sphere in the Solar System, and has created an “orbital partnership” with Europe and a number of other countries across the world, mostly in the Pacific. A bit of a balance upsetter  as after a century of general dormancy, China’s “unbelievable” rise in the world is concerning to both the Islamic and Russian spheres, and threatens to unhinge a few things in the status quo: China is looking to not just have a piece of the orbital action, but also to reintegrate Tibet, Xinjiang and the remainder of Manchuria into the Union, and even form a third commercial zone by swaying countries in the Americas to China’s worldview. And they have a lot of appeal too: far more democratic than either of the large blocs and less of an awful wealth gap presenting itself between lower, mid and upper classes, though admittedly this is a bit of a legacy from their days under a brief flirting with a form of anarcho-syndicalism (called the Peoples’ Federal Unity). That history goes back well into the 20th century. The Rhenish Federation (re: Greater France 3.0) plays the tail to China’s dog, but is not that far behind. While humiliated after the War, the Federation at least managed to keep its typical technological prowess with itself, which has proven beneficial for joint Sino-European solar ventures. There are several new stations planned to be placed in near-Earth orbit. Violence in nearby countries of course continues to remain a problem, with the Federation receiving the lion’s share of refugees out of Spain. Naturally this has led to some backlash against inviting them, and many Spanish exiles tend to look back on the defunt ECCU fondly now. European unity hasn’t been thrown entirely out the window yet, being a much wider concept for the victorious Allies to eradicate than, say, old-school warhawks (from the other guys, mind you), and some in Ireland, the Italian states and even the economically growing East German Principality begin to think of what could have been.


The Americas are wild. The fall of the Worker’s Commonwealth in the 2040s precipitated a brief period of violence from the Mojave to New England, and down as far south as Patagonia as new nations came to the fore, while dictators in previous client states struggled to hold down the masses now that Commonwealth support had dried up. The westernmost Workers’ Republic of Montoya, home to the largest concentration of Jews in the world (a more meaningful version of the USSR’s Jewish Autonomous Oblast from OTL), quickly became the center of a new, Western Zion, and has been attracting Jews from all over since. About as overly-armed per-pound (and person) and shaky with its neighbors as OTL Israel, but at least West Zion has good relations with Reynes, and even better domestic racial ones (Amerindians not any less shafted than they were OTL, they got along okay-ish with the Jews). More Anglophile republics further north were among the first to secede, and had a not-so-lovely period of ethnic cleansing of Francophiles and Spanish-speakers, and this was followed by counter-violence and a brief border war with Corazon (literally: heartland). At any rate, there are now several native republics in Borealia, if anything because with enough numbers they could fill out convenient buffer states - these First Nations are open to developing themselves further, whether that be with the Russians or Arabs. Newfoundland finds itself wanting to be further distanced from the rest of the continent more and more, and tends to act more buddy-buddy with its neighbors across the North Atlantic pond. Champlain had delved into horrid and poorly-planned ethnostate business, but thankfully the counter-movements within did succeed in stopping that without leading to an awful civil war, and now Champlain is one of the more democratic, progressive states in North America, even if that isn’t saying much as they are mostly based on the model of the old ECCU. There’s been talk of reconnecting with the Rhenish Federation, but conflicts in Carolina stall that, between Champlain moving in to “protect” the Francophile minority, and Corazon wishing to secure its pipelines (literal and figurative) to the Gulf, and hardly-subtle intentions of annexing it.


Corazon, Mexico, Bogata and even Peru have a neat little “fourth superpower” in the works; mostly the American equivalent of the Eurasian Union, but there’s no Putin. The Pan-American Union of Nations looks nice on paper, but tends to be laughably behind the rest of the world, technologically and in raw economic power, but also socially: generally viewed as Squares, and a more dated type of conservative atheistic-technocrats from a bygone age. They do own a space elevator and some Martian colonies, but they merely inherit the legacy of solar exploration that the old Commonwealth had championed, and with much more gusto. Corazon likes to view itself as the leader of PanAMUN, although Mexico is showing signs of something like the Chinese Miracle, and has the demographics to back that up, which Corazon tends to lack. Drugs are an issue, particularly further north, leading to talks of border closure in Newfoundland (none needed in New England, too many land mines on the border already). The Dialectic Order looms from behind its massive walls that encircle the area, patrolled by automated sentries. The one state of the old Commonwealth to never relinquish the old hardliner values: thanks to advances in Neural Networking, it now starts to look even worse than than its typical days as “North Korean Montana”, and no one’s been there is quite a while, as peaking over the border is grounds for being cut-down by said automated sentries. No one can be really bothered to ask what’s going on in there either; best to leave some things be. Speculation ranges from everyone having starved and their defenses remaining true to their orders still, to the Supreme Leader effectively leading a hivemind of his subjects, forever enslaved to his or her will. Fun stuff.


South America is more of that, but in an opposite direction: Brazil being closer to the Japan of this world, a sort of exaggeratedly high-tech place, where most decent and affordable car companies are from, and a producer of both good and sub-par animated series (the porn is, however, phenomenal). The cyberpunk/tech capital of the world naturally has all the amenities you’d expect, from dense urban areas to acrologies and high-speed trains or hyperways to move people around. Government and big business blur a lot, although the Amazon, everyone agreed, should probably be rebuilt (between human folly, and the Green Sahara messing up the remaining ecosystem). Brazil’s also stupidly overpopulated, and is generally one of the more enthused Solar powers, building more and more orbital habitats. Even then, like the Mughals there’s still plenty of potential in VR, but their urban sprawl was noted as a total mess in comparison. Acrologies, build more of those! Paraguay further south is… odd, to put it bluntly. The legacy of the Commonwealth’s efforts to eradicate religion have lead to a generally reactionary backlash in many of its southern clients, and post-Breakup that has remained, perhaps too much. The Paraguayans aren’t stuck there of course - it’s not strictly totalitarian, but those that Join tend to be subliminally bombarded with messages about not missing Mass, verses of the holy scriptures, and general propaganda by the Cult of Humanity, wherever they go. It’s nothing but bliss and work until the day you die. New Nederland is perhaps the least weird out of them all, only vaguely Dutch at this point due to things such as immigration and gradual demographic shifts: an alt-80 Years War can only keep changes that last so far (namely a half-hearted expulsion of many Dutchmen to the New World colonies). Even then, the Federation became something of a magnet for Dutch from the Netherlands following the Great Flood, and is joined by New Utrecht all the way over in Damenland as part of the Dutch Peoples Union.


Even with the Great Flood years ago, efforts to dredge up lost coastlines are still underbaked, although Bengal had invested so significantly in such a project that it does not intent to half-ass it. Likewise, China pursues its own reclamation projects. Human settlements stretch out into the seas and even the seafloors as people look for alternatives to sprawling over the land (save room for agriculture), and dozens of major oceanic settlements rest off the coasts of the more prominent nations, the largest of which tops itself at nearly 300,000 people, part of China’s more artificial alternative to land reclamation by just building a city over the sunken ones. They’re all a bit new, and tend to run as a tempting alternative to inter-solar expansion.


The Moon is of course heavily colonized at this point, and is hardly divided with any sense of organization or clarity between the major blocs and their habitats. Resources being rather limited, there was some need for cooperation between the habs, such as getting a functioning trans-Lunar maglev rail system to work, and the Lunar elevators have proven far more useful than initially believed. A bit of this has fostered some feelings of independence, although beyond the VR-happy and incredibly cyberized Lunar Network habs no one’s really made much effort to create, say, a Republic of the Moon or something: lack of finances and brittle settlements deter such thoughts. Mining on the moon has become more and more expansive over the years, especially given the significant ease of transporting the materials into orbit, and in turn out to build new orbital habitats. More and more people move there as the habitats dig further underground and develop (given the fragility of surface domes to space debris), and often a need to afford greater expansion is stymied by competition for funds from orbital habitats, or God-forbid those rednecks on Mars. Perhaps the most expensive venture by-far was the building of a network of O’Neill cylinder-type stations at the L4 Lagrange point by an international organization of private firms and businesses looking to set up some sort of idealized, utopian society that will be far-and-away from Earth if the Cold War ever went hot. Flashy, if a bit isolationist, they wouldn’t look too out of place in a Gundam setting. They do not, however, believe that simply being born in space is grounds for the establishment of some new kind of master race - no, those people are born into wealth, you see, just as they always have. Likewise space warfare and the vessels to wage it tend to be very boring as you might imagine in a more “realistic” future; no Zaku mobile suits or particle beams, although there are unmanned drone “fighters” that look like big cubes with thrusters and missiles attached. Mars is more of a frontier if anything, with the idea of terraforming it viewed as beyond daunting - certainly if the L4 Network is possible, then more *O’Neill cylinders are the prime alternative. That does not of course stop either the Russians, nor the Sino-European Cooperative from setting up something.

The Cold War is entering something of a detente. While China's rise may be concerning indeed among the typical superpowers, the constant expenditure of resources, manpower, time and overall pretty amazing human achievements into low-orbit, lunar, and even Martian space projects has seen something of a shift in national outlook. While war may blurt out every so often, the notion that all of this would be for naught simply due to geopolitics, religion or ideology tends to fall flat... no one, truly, would want to see it undone, if ever. As the process continues on our world continues to look smaller in comparison: nothing but a lot of Big Empty out there, and there's really room for everyone. 




[1] That overlaps with today’s Canada.

[2] California

[3] And later branches off into various sub-ideologies based on the initial premise. The Worker’s Commonwealth was, for its initial run, a Trotskyist wet dream.

[4] Why not the Shadow War? The Grand Chessboard? The Great Game? Well, sometimes you reach the ATL where some terms end up being used the same as OTL.

[5] TTL’s Australia

[6] With Damenland’s colonization being more multinational, the aboriginal peoples had a chance to survive. For one, thanks in part to no genocide against them by the colonizers. Compensated with land losses by the Damenland Sea Project with their own states right on the shores."