Pangaea

## Overview

The country is Pangaea is large enough to be considered a continent rather than an island, but only just. Truthfully, few citizens of Pangaea really think about its size; entirely aside from the bullet trains, which through a combination of magic and advanced technology can travel from one side of the country to the other within an hour, there’s nothing to compare it to. As far as anyone knows - and as far as most anyone cares - Pangaea is the sole bastion of human civilization. Nothing but empty ocean exists beyond its coasts, and to go more than a half mile out into them is suicide. The oceans are dangerous; no one who’s ever gone out any further than that has ever come back. Truthfully, no one’s entirely certain anyone has gone out further than that; there are stories, but they smack of urban legend.

Pangaea doesn’t actually have a countrywide government; each city is its own governing body. However, the capital city of Babel has the most clout, and the most powerful families from each city have family roots in Babel; as such, the capital tends to set policy and the other cities fall into line. Likewise, the country has a standing military, but it isn’t one which operates on a national level. (There are no outside threats to defend from or attack, after all.) The military operates out of bases within each city, funded by wealthy families rather than a central government, and usually only operates within their own city to quell any disturbances of the peace that the privatized police forces (who manage more day-to-day troubles) aren’t equipped to handle. Usually, such disturbances are uprisings of the disenfranchised against the wealthy, which is one of the reasons a standing military is considered a wise investment. As such, these uprisings are always crushed, and one’s attitude toward the military - as courageous servants of the greater good or men who murder the weak for pay - is usually delineated by class. Feelings toward the police are similar, if slightly less extreme. The police are essentially a gang in uniform funded by rich families to protect their interests, and pay little attention to any injustices against people who aren’t paying them to care.

How long have things been this way? Always, or so anyone you ask will tell you. Pangaea is a strange country in that it has no recorded history - or, if it does, it’s not publicly accessible. Pangaea’s establishment some 700 years ago is a known and celebrated fact, and everything since then is freely detailed - but nothing about how or why Pangaea came to be, or what existed before, is ever mentioned or referenced. Fairy tales and origin myths occasionally reference it, but they’re all clearly fantastical. Taking too much of an interest in such ancient history is intensely frowned upon, considered almost deviant. There is vague, nationwide awareness that some sort of tragedy happened back then, and that not only is it pointless to speculate on it, but incredibly crass. Perhaps more importantly, anyone who’s truly invested themselves into finding out more has disappeared - perhaps to investigate, or perhaps for other reasons.

Few people ever navigate Pangaea without the use of the bullet trains; it’s strongly discouraged, and considered borderline illegal. The bullet trains take your ID, of course, so it’s assumed anyone who attempts a slower method of travel is trying to do so for criminal purposes. With how quickly one can go from watching the sun rise over the sea at one end of the country to having an early brunch on the coast of the other, one can almost be tricked into thinking Pangaea is stiflingly small. This is, however, demonstrably untrue.

There are a remarkable number of cities on Pangaea; anyone doubting the size of the country can gauge how large it must be to house them all and still have room for any space between them. What’s more, each city is intensely unique in its cultural identity. Many are recognizable cultures from Earth - Japanese, French, Italian, the American South - and have the architectural styles to match...although many of these cultures have evolved somewhat from their roots, both in response to the existence of magic and highly advanced technology, and simply from their being in a different world with other things to influence them. And some cities are based on cultures that have no earthly equivalent at all. If you ask, however, you’re unlikely to be able to find out what culture did influence it; the culture of each city originated there, of course, and they’re very proud of it. What other source could there ever have been?

(It’s not recommended to insist otherwise. Outsiders sometimes do, and the reactions are never pleasant ones.)