HOME | DD

Description

Coal And Crowns:
A request by JOAOBATMAN22. In this world a few minor discoveries concerning clockwork and simple steam engines (someone had a flash of inspiration based on old records of Hero) sees a slow but sudden increase in technological innovation in the early 1700s. Investment is a little slower than OTL but by the later half of the mid-18th Century interested parties do emerge and a full blown industrial revolution takes off long before the close of the century.

With the Enlightenment not yet as intellectually influential as OTL by the time this revolution takes off, the relationship between the new technology and its impacts on society and the growing philosophical movement is not as pronounced as OTL. The two aren’t entirely divorced from one another and new sociological theories are developed but by the time things really get going for Enlightenment thinkers and their publications the new social dynamics from industrialisation and urbanisation had already started to settle and very different ideas of how a modern society should be run developed over the course of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Older institutions instead take up a lot of the intellectual slack in providing support for the people struggling to deal with the changing world, especially religious authorities.

Advances in technology would change the nature of the colonial empires as European nations improved communication and travel ties with their overseas possessions, annoying a lot of colonial authorities who didn’t like the increase in interference from their heartlands. People discontented with the state of industrialising Europe would also emigrate to the ‘emptier’ (so long as you don’t ask the natives) lands in the Americas.

Revolution does take off in the late 18th Century and early 19th Century but for very different reasons. Enlightenment eventually is married to technology but encourages reaction amongst the populaces of Europe, both those for and against technological progress. Most of these revolutions are, however, born of the marriage between progressive ideals and religion, often emphasising the exploitative and perceived godless nature of the ruling classes and the contrastingly charitable support of the (local) churches for the poor underclasses. These ideologies would suffer some cognitive dissonance in Catholic regions where their churches weren’t openly supportive but some reorganisation (of the church, not the ideology) made them more palatable to the new states that were emerging in this period. The later 19th Century would also see more secular and even rationalist revolutionary ideologies rise to prominence, upsetting the world order again as technology advanced and allowed new systems to become practical.

The centre of revolutionary fervour is in the German states and Hapsburg Empire and spreads from there, engulfing Italy, France and Poland – traditional Catholicism suffered quite horribly during this period. For the rest of the 19th and 20th Centuries these areas of Europe would remain the bastion of Christian influenced revolutionary ideology though it would take off quite happily in South America and Dutch South Africa. Rationalism, however, would ultimately rise in the Middle East through an Ottoman Empire that used their spare energy to modernise with the rest of Europe but overshot and ultimately inspired their own revolutionary movements to rise up against House of Osman and other Middle Eastern monarchies. From there rationalism and a form of technocracy would spread as a counter to both old absolutism and the traditionally Christian revolutionary thought.

Mechanised war obviously comes much earlier to this world, as does ideological conflict which comes to define much of the 19th and early 20th Century. Despite the technological boost compared to OTL it still takes quite a long time for nuclear fission to be discovered (theoretical physics still needed time to catch up to mechanical engineering) but that just allows for three rather nasty mechanised wars – two regional and one global – to take place. Unfortunately climate change also takes off much earlier as well. The artificial warming of the climate is noticed in the middle of the 20th Century but it still takes a very long time for any actual action to be taken. Sea level rise wasn’t too drastic (yet) but the disruption of global weather patterns finally made the crisis a reality that couldn’t be ignored.

By 2019 the world is on the brink of a much nastier collapse. Pollution and disruptive weather are already seriously impacting large portions of the planet, more fragile regimes are teetering over, areas of the globe are being practically abandoned and a scramble to secure reliable sources of natural resources is beginning to take off amongst the more powerful nations.

The Russians, modernising somewhat earlier with the rest of Europe and pushed east earlier by the revolutionary fervour sweeping everything to their west, have been one of the premier powers but the stability of their reactionary (read: semi-constitutional monarchy) imperial system is starting to hit its limits and more authoritarian measures are being taken to maintain order in their territories.

After building their empire as large as they could get away with the Russians were forced to reform themselves several times and then finally adopt a federated form to keep everything stable. By this point, whilst still absolutist, the Russian state has a truly complex constitution demarcating the rights of the federated regions and numerous imperial subjects (religious tolerance has been an important feature of the empire for a little over a generation now), defining the numerous layers of bureaucracy and protocol that need to be managed to make national policy and generally blocking the tsars from actually making decisions without putting a lot of redtape in front of them. By this point the bureaucracy and an oligarchic duma filled with aristocrats and the super rich make most actual decisions which still involves navigating the constitution.

Now, however, the crisis has seen the duma bypass political procedure to force a faster response to the climate problems and scramble for secure resources. Rioting is growing worse, especially as frustratingly apocalyptic religious extremist groups have risen up alongside other radicals. Some are reacting to the environmental crisis and various problems it is causing but others have actually risen up because of the government’s responses. The army has been deployed in many areas and communications have been suspended in regions experiencing unrest or extended climatological problems. Martial law and complete suspension of the federal model and its rights has yet to happen but the gulags have received a more diverse variety of prisoners that are being detained for causing trouble and ‘exacerbating national issues’.

The current tsar, a relatively progressive fellow who supports expanding renewable fuel sources, planting GM crops and other technological solutions, is worried about what news does make it to him. He has considered disregarding protocol and weighing in on the crisis to promote his preferred solutions and maybe calm things down before his empire passes a point of no return.

Britain, which was still one of the epicentres of this Industrial Revolution, is also struggling and due to its decentralised colonial empire it is having a much harder time dealing with its problems. Like Russia the British federalised their empire whilst largely trying to maintain an elitist political system and class-based social order with defined rights for the various constituents, classes and demographics of their empire. A social welfare system based around the state and the informal social support from the Church (and other religions that the federal imperial government has some level of consistent backing of) has helped keep things stable for the better part of the last two centuries but things all over are beginning to change.

In a bid to secure resources the UK has been trying to solidify the ties between their imperial possessions which has caused some backlash from the regional authorities of British Empire. Unrest is rising overseas as territories that have gotten quite used to their constitutional autonomies protest the intrusion in their lands, the nationalisation of various businesses and infrastructure and the expansion of federal authority. Many who would appreciate the rise in prominence of their territories are also not appreciating the imposition of federal authority over their resources.

Whilst one of the first nations to industrialise the British did fall behind several other powers and weren’t able to catch up in the fields of theoretical sciences until the later 20th Century. Their elitist and traditionalist culture was a drawback in these initiatives and took some time to adapt to the requirements for a modern research program. The government figured out a way to promote scientific inquiry and general public education without compromising their social network with ‘radical subversion’ in the 1910s. It has largely left the government oddly corporocratic -as most modern research is corporate backed, implicitly or explicitly and they therefore have quite a grip on technological distribution – but these royal companies are beholden to the state anyway so they’re generally tolerated and usually uphold British political values anyway. The ongoing rise of new intellectual movements who generally support what have traditionally been seen as revolutionary ideals is worrying though, especially where it pertains to the federated colonies.

The rest of the reactionary – or traditionalist, as they prefer to be called – bloc are going through problems as well: many of them quite similar. Ethiopia and the West African coastal kingdoms are all struggling with refugee problems as people from Somalia (for the former) and the northern Sahel (for the latter) move from desertifying lands into their territories. Siam is now entirely dependent on Britain and Burma and even then the financial black-hole that is their economy is failing and the repression they’re employing to quell rioters is really turning stomachs throughout the rest of the bloc. Brazil, having tired of their junior partner status to Britain in the early 20th Century, expanded its infrastructure and influence long ago and has been recognised as a great power since at least 1907. It too has exerted more influence over its incorporated colonial territories but is facing less of a backlash (in a relative sense) as they have done this many times before during their own development. Brazil’s own weather problems in the northeast of their heartland is accelerating these plans.

What has traditionally been described as the revolutionary bloc by the reactionary powers is not a united front like it is normally presented. The descendants of radical intellectualism and social revolution are technically divided between two dominant ideologies: theocentric-social-structuralism (theosoc) and rationalised-structuralism (rationalism).

The Sanctified Federation of European Republics – also known as Europa – still considers itself the most powerful nation on continental Europe and has been scrambling to combat the climate crisis in ways that some in the government consider almost questionable in their Christian moral certainty. Aside from a political hiccup in the 1890s and 1900s when the government tried to impose a single European language (mostly derived from German) Europa has styled itself as a multicultural nation united by theosoc democracy and the Neu European Church – which they have historically been much more forceful in imposing on people than a single reformed culture or language.

Like the rest of the world Europa is going through numerous problems. Whilst the weather changes haven’t been too bad, aside from heat waves and harsh snow storms being more common in summer and winter respectively the concerns are still pushing the central government to extreme measures. Both the secular and ecclesiastic councils have agreed to various green-tech initiatives and are promoting the expansion of infrastructure but the regional governments of the constituent republics are proving less cooperative, especially in areas that rely on traditionally dirtier industries. Worries over violations of state and regional rights are also breeding a political backlash that could cripple the crisis response just as its making way.

Europa’s theosoc system has seen a form of separation between church and state with two separate authorities that cooperate but function distinctly from one another handling their respective secular and religious matters. Frequent communication between the national government and the church does take place though as (officially) the former does turn to the other for spiritual recommendations when deciding policy. Local governments lack this separation with councils being directly involved with larger churches in communities (churches even serve as a means of keeping small villages and towns connected to the large municipal governing bodies) and dependent on them for certain civil services. This arrangement is still not as strict as it used to be in the earlier days of theosoc administration where things were borderline theocratic. Neu European Christianity is supportive of modern technological innovation – though still leery of stem-cell research and genetic modification – and rather adaptable, syncretising with other denominations and even most Muslims and Jews in their territory, producing some bizarre sub-denominations of their own.

The Christian Europasbund (yes it can get confusing) was formed to create a somewhat more formal union for the various theosoc nations of Europe. Whilst never a system of strict vassals the Europasbund generally took direction from Europa itself with few members being able to put up proper resistance. It has reformed in the last century into a more liberal economic bloc and even promotes a diversity of theosoc Christian denominations that differ from one another as well as several popular ‘Cult of the Supreme Being’ style faiths.

The former Spanish empire in the Americas largely submitted to theosoc based revolution over the course of the 19th Century and has left large portions of the continent as a loosely connected network of Catholic inspired theosoc states. The strongest of these Hispanic nations is currently the Holy Republic of Transplata, which managed to rally its resources and consolidate control over a large enough territory to assert itself and suppress its separatists. Transplatan theosoc Christianity holds many similarities to Catholic dogma but has nationalised itself and doesn’t listen to any decrees from the relocated Papacy. It is, however, a much more conservative version of the ideology, supporting much more inter-institutional connectivity between the government and church and opposition to certain technology, especially in the biological sciences. The teaching of evolution and modern geology (in regards to the Earth’s age) was even forbidden by the state until the 1980s.

Suidafrika is still theosoc despite numerous periods of instability. It initially was a borderline theocracy in its early days and remained so to promote national unity and cohesion in the face of British and Portuguese expansion in their portions of Africa as well as the growing native kingdoms as they expanded in turn. The current government is much more liberal but that is beginning to change as certain provinces suffer from increasingly extreme weather problems and people flee the north-west for the south and east. They are continuing the (mostly) post-racial ideals that have defined Suidafrika for over a century now – all men being God’s children, after all – but there are rumours of refugees from the north-west being granted priority for aid based on race.

The traditional primary representative of rationalism is the Reformed Rational State. Built from the Ottoman Empire and deliberately trying to avoid a national or cultural basis for their identity, the RRS has traditionally portrayed itself as the nation of the future, free of irrational, reactionary and regressive beliefs and ideas. The RRS spent a lot of its history as an authoritarian state as it worked to rebuild itself as a properly rational state, much of the work going into suppressing religious backlash. At times it even seemed on the verge of civil war but after nearly two centuries of existence it has reached a new balance with much of the population at least secular and strictly private about religion if not properly atheist. Since then the RRS has liberalised culturally though it still maintains its largely technocratic and exclusive governmental system and strictly regulated economy.

At present the RRS is mildly authoritarian with the government made up of people recruited by existing members. Students in school showing the intelligence and appropriate skills in mandatory tests will be monitored by branches of the government and then offered employment in the civil service. Regular examinations are needed to rise up the ranks of the government with an oligarchic council representing the highest branch. The military are treated with different standards and separated from the rest of the government due to them needing different kinds of leadership – the same going for the secret police – but both are watched closely for signs of attempted subversion.

The RRS is suffering quite badly from the climate upheaval as the majority of their territory is sensitive to changes in weather patterns. In addition to that many of the neighbouring states around them are just as vulnerable and the upheavals taking place there threaten to spread into the RRS itself. Religious unrest, a problem that flares up every generation or so, is becoming a problem again and the migration of people from desertifying provinces is adding to the problem. The government has responded with new programs building up the infrastructure, employing new technologies to increase the productivity of desalination plants, hydroponic farms and organic reprocessing to produce nutrient pastes for people. Several provinces have been placed under military control due to either unrest or depopulation as people flee to more stable or hospitable regions. Water rationing is a nation-wide norm.

The Rational State of China has vied with the RRS for ideological supremacy with the ‘Rationalist World’ and outpaced them economically long ago but has failed to keep up technologically. China is also less ideologically consistent, normally just employing the authoritarian, planned-society aspects of the ideology and preferring it for its anti-European connotations. China never suffered anything as extreme as OTL’s long period of humiliation but lost enough territory and prestige to have its own revolution in the 1910s. After a short period of chaos the rationalists were able to take control and secure their position before the colonial powers could move in and start carving out more chunks for themselves.

China has embraced the idea of regulating society from the top-down and still continues to do so though with a greater degree of adaptability to circumstances rising from the bottom-upwards. The government, whilst not strictly technocratic, does still put personnel through rigorous examinations to assess their position within the hierarchy: many involving ideological and national loyalty and commitment to the regime’s goals. A soft police state is in place for the rest of society, much of it now automated with an extensive network of surveillance equipment providing almost Orwellian levels of coverage. Much of the equipment is very well hidden and small in scale with the forbidding of any maintenance of buildings except by government contracted companies keeping the extent to which people’s homes are monitored a secret.

Most other rationalist states are undergoing large changes in order to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis. Many are trying to switch to more sustainable technologies whilst others have simply decided to set things up so that they can weather the worst disasters whilst maintaining their regimes. Some of the more extreme groups have decided to once again begin actively funding radical groups in the traditionalist and theosoc states to destabilise them and provoke uprisings that can be exploited to install rationalist governments in their place (Napon is the worst offender). With the world falling apart many rationalists believe that reactionary ideals must be abandoned for the good of the planet. Only a rationalised world state can be the proper custodian of the planet.

Realpolitik keeps a program of revolutionary fomentation from really being pursued by most of the ‘revolutionary’ world. The majority of theosoc and rationalist governments are aware that doing so would likely lead to more chaos, which they can’t deal with at the same time as the climate crisis. Many are also concerned that doing so would probably encourage radicals in their own nations as well.

Technologically this world is ahead of OTL but not in consistent stages of advancement. Theoretical sciences still took a long time to advance develop as the underlying theories and philosophies behind them were not developed until roughly the same time as their OTL equivalents with more observable mechanical sciences and engineering only receiving a boost in this TL. Chemistry caught up very quickly but physics remained primitive until well into the 19th and 20th Centuries and so achievements such as nuclear fission/fusion weren’t reached until the 1920s. The world was rather steampunk for quite a while with many odd accomplishments in making coal-burning steam-engines more efficient and advances in clockwork and spring-powered contraptions that still see some use in the present and are being explored once again as a potentially clean-burning source of energy (now if only we could reliably store kinetic, spring energy).

Fusion power is still not likely to be developed any time soon but more efficient reactors exist that are able to make more from their fuel source and are even able to recycle waste from older power plant models. Renewable fuel sources are also more advanced than OTL but still not productive enough to replace older methods of power generation. By this point most states have conceded to that fact that they still must rely on either nuclear or – more efficiently burned – fossil fuel sources.

Thanks to more advanced genetic engineering, designer drugs – both medical and recreational – are a thing, even in the traditionalist powers (the recreational ones tend to be safer in the long term than natural ones). GM crops are also much more advanced though they only recently started seeing mass use – mostly in areas in where agriculture is widely viable, most people don’t see the point of trying to forcibly make arid or especially unreliable farmland pick up the slack. Hydroponics and vat-grown nutrient pastes are also being expanded as options to feed a world that, thanks to the pro-natal policies of the theosoc and traditionalist powers, is currently running at about 10 billion people. Organic slurry, flavoured to make it more palatable, feeds the masses and has reduced starvation but ended up making the population boom worse as a result. Desalination is far ahead of OTL in terms of efficiency and is also being employed more and more to provide water in these times of less predictable weather.

Consumerism of the OTL variety was dropped a long time ago but economic growth is still considered a priority for most nations. Most focus now is on maximising the use of available resources and making sure everything is used as efficiently as possible. Long-lasting products are popular, environmental consequences like micro-plastic contamination be damned. Victorian attitudes towards pollution (what harm’s a little smog, really?) lasted right up until it became clear to the upper class that pleasant rural estates were going to suffer just like the dirty, smelly cities as pollution levels rose. Farms aren’t being rotted by acid rain on a dangerous scale yet but they remain the second largest concern after the weather problems. Acidification of the oceans also became a big deal after mass aquaculture to stop the overtaxing of fish stocks continued to provide poor yields. Desalination is also dumping too much salt back into coastal waters and an effective method other than dumping it somewhere else – preferably a landfill already poisoned by chemicals – hasn’t really been found.

Arcologies aren’t likely to be a thing for some time but mega-skyscrapers dominate most major city skylines and there are some prototype ‘town in one building’ construction projects underway. Most modern mega-skyscrapers employ a clinic specifically for their own use (theosoc and rationalist states supply them under their social welfare programs, others just contract them privately) and many rent out certain floors to retail. This gives hope to some people who think they might be able to centralise cities and cut down on urban sprawl. Air filters are standard for most buildings in cities these days and advanced air scrubbers are being erected around the world to reduce pollution – they’re just a nightmare to power right now.

Space travel was ahead of OTL with rocket technology actually being one of the fields to get a boost. More advanced chemical-burner engines allowed rockets to go further and be bigger for less fuel. There’s the foundations for a base on the Moon with potential to be finished but the global crisis has cut down on international cooperation and people aren’t as willing to put the money into it. A successful Mars landing (best out of three attempts) did take place before things got too bad: an Anglo-Russian affair that worked mostly because they threw the most resources at the project. Satellites are still sent up but so too are weaponised orbital platforms.

Probably one of the more concerning development has been a working anti-missile weapon. It’s still not reliable enough to completely negate the threat of nuclear strikes but it’s functional enough and every major power has finally gotten access to some kind defensive system. As the crisis ramps up, international cooperation breaks down and resource accessibility tightens up around the world... who knows what will happen.

Description

Coal And Crowns:
A request by JOAOBATMAN22. In this world a few minor discoveries concerning clockwork and simple steam engines (someone had a flash of inspiration based on old records of Hero) sees a slow but sudden increase in technological innovation in the early 1700s. Investment is a little slower than OTL but by the later half of the mid-18th Century interested parties do emerge and a full blown industrial revolution takes off long before the close of the century.

With the Enlightenment not yet as intellectually influential as OTL by the time this revolution takes off, the relationship between the new technology and its impacts on society and the growing philosophical movement is not as pronounced as OTL. The two aren’t entirely divorced from one another and new sociological theories are developed but by the time things really get going for Enlightenment thinkers and their publications the new social dynamics from industrialisation and urbanisation had already started to settle and very different ideas of how a modern society should be run developed over the course of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Older institutions instead take up a lot of the intellectual slack in providing support for the people struggling to deal with the changing world, especially religious authorities.

Advances in technology would change the nature of the colonial empires as European nations improved communication and travel ties with their overseas possessions, annoying a lot of colonial authorities who didn’t like the increase in interference from their heartlands. People discontented with the state of industrialising Europe would also emigrate to the ‘emptier’ (so long as you don’t ask the natives) lands in the Americas.

Revolution does take off in the late 18th Century and early 19th Century but for very different reasons. Enlightenment eventually is married to technology but encourages reaction amongst the populaces of Europe, both those for and against technological progress. Most of these revolutions are, however, born of the marriage between progressive ideals and religion, often emphasising the exploitative and perceived godless nature of the ruling classes and the contrastingly charitable support of the (local) churches for the poor underclasses. These ideologies would suffer some cognitive dissonance in Catholic regions where their churches weren’t openly supportive but some reorganisation (of the church, not the ideology) made them more palatable to the new states that were emerging in this period. The later 19th Century would also see more secular and even rationalist revolutionary ideologies rise to prominence, upsetting the world order again as technology advanced and allowed new systems to become practical.

The centre of revolutionary fervour is in the German states and Hapsburg Empire and spreads from there, engulfing Italy, France and Poland – traditional Catholicism suffered quite horribly during this period. For the rest of the 19th and 20th Centuries these areas of Europe would remain the bastion of Christian influenced revolutionary ideology though it would take off quite happily in South America and Dutch South Africa. Rationalism, however, would ultimately rise in the Middle East through an Ottoman Empire that used their spare energy to modernise with the rest of Europe but overshot and ultimately inspired their own revolutionary movements to rise up against House of Osman and other Middle Eastern monarchies. From there rationalism and a form of technocracy would spread as a counter to both old absolutism and the traditionally Christian revolutionary thought.

Mechanised war obviously comes much earlier to this world, as does ideological conflict which comes to define much of the 19th and early 20th Century. Despite the technological boost compared to OTL it still takes quite a long time for nuclear fission to be discovered (theoretical physics still needed time to catch up to mechanical engineering) but that just allows for three rather nasty mechanised wars – two regional and one global – to take place. Unfortunately climate change also takes off much earlier as well. The artificial warming of the climate is noticed in the middle of the 20th Century but it still takes a very long time for any actual action to be taken. Sea level rise wasn’t too drastic (yet) but the disruption of global weather patterns finally made the crisis a reality that couldn’t be ignored.

By 2019 the world is on the brink of a much nastier collapse. Pollution and disruptive weather are already seriously impacting large portions of the planet, more fragile regimes are teetering over, areas of the globe are being practically abandoned and a scramble to secure reliable sources of natural resources is beginning to take off amongst the more powerful nations.

The Russians, modernising somewhat earlier with the rest of Europe and pushed east earlier by the revolutionary fervour sweeping everything to their west, have been one of the premier powers but the stability of their reactionary (read: semi-constitutional monarchy) imperial system is starting to hit its limits and more authoritarian measures are being taken to maintain order in their territories.

After building their empire as large as they could get away with the Russians were forced to reform themselves several times and then finally adopt a federated form to keep everything stable. By this point, whilst still absolutist, the Russian state has a truly complex constitution demarcating the rights of the federated regions and numerous imperial subjects (religious tolerance has been an important feature of the empire for a little over a generation now), defining the numerous layers of bureaucracy and protocol that need to be managed to make national policy and generally blocking the tsars from actually making decisions without putting a lot of redtape in front of them. By this point the bureaucracy and an oligarchic duma filled with aristocrats and the super rich make most actual decisions which still involves navigating the constitution.

Now, however, the crisis has seen the duma bypass political procedure to force a faster response to the climate problems and scramble for secure resources. Rioting is growing worse, especially as frustratingly apocalyptic religious extremist groups have risen up alongside other radicals. Some are reacting to the environmental crisis and various problems it is causing but others have actually risen up because of the government’s responses. The army has been deployed in many areas and communications have been suspended in regions experiencing unrest or extended climatological problems. Martial law and complete suspension of the federal model and its rights has yet to happen but the gulags have received a more diverse variety of prisoners that are being detained for causing trouble and ‘exacerbating national issues’.

The current tsar, a relatively progressive fellow who supports expanding renewable fuel sources, planting GM crops and other technological solutions, is worried about what news does make it to him. He has considered disregarding protocol and weighing in on the crisis to promote his preferred solutions and maybe calm things down before his empire passes a point of no return.

Britain, which was still one of the epicentres of this Industrial Revolution, is also struggling and due to its decentralised colonial empire it is having a much harder time dealing with its problems. Like Russia the British federalised their empire whilst largely trying to maintain an elitist political system and class-based social order with defined rights for the various constituents, classes and demographics of their empire. A social welfare system based around the state and the informal social support from the Church (and other religions that the federal imperial government has some level of consistent backing of) has helped keep things stable for the better part of the last two centuries but things all over are beginning to change.

In a bid to secure resources the UK has been trying to solidify the ties between their imperial possessions which has caused some backlash from the regional authorities of British Empire. Unrest is rising overseas as territories that have gotten quite used to their constitutional autonomies protest the intrusion in their lands, the nationalisation of various businesses and infrastructure and the expansion of federal authority. Many who would appreciate the rise in prominence of their territories are also not appreciating the imposition of federal authority over their resources.

Whilst one of the first nations to industrialise the British did fall behind several other powers and weren’t able to catch up in the fields of theoretical sciences until the later 20th Century. Their elitist and traditionalist culture was a drawback in these initiatives and took some time to adapt to the requirements for a modern research program. The government figured out a way to promote scientific inquiry and general public education without compromising their social network with ‘radical subversion’ in the 1910s. It has largely left the government oddly corporocratic -as most modern research is corporate backed, implicitly or explicitly and they therefore have quite a grip on technological distribution – but these royal companies are beholden to the state anyway so they’re generally tolerated and usually uphold British political values anyway. The ongoing rise of new intellectual movements who generally support what have traditionally been seen as revolutionary ideals is worrying though, especially where it pertains to the federated colonies.

The rest of the reactionary – or traditionalist, as they prefer to be called – bloc are going through problems as well: many of them quite similar. Ethiopia and the West African coastal kingdoms are all struggling with refugee problems as people from Somalia (for the former) and the northern Sahel (for the latter) move from desertifying lands into their territories. Siam is now entirely dependent on Britain and Burma and even then the financial black-hole that is their economy is failing and the repression they’re employing to quell rioters is really turning stomachs throughout the rest of the bloc. Brazil, having tired of their junior partner status to Britain in the early 20th Century, expanded its infrastructure and influence long ago and has been recognised as a great power since at least 1907. It too has exerted more influence over its incorporated colonial territories but is facing less of a backlash (in a relative sense) as they have done this many times before during their own development. Brazil’s own weather problems in the northeast of their heartland is accelerating these plans.

What has traditionally been described as the revolutionary bloc by the reactionary powers is not a united front like it is normally presented. The descendants of radical intellectualism and social revolution are technically divided between two dominant ideologies: theocentric-social-structuralism (theosoc) and rationalised-structuralism (rationalism).

The Sanctified Federation of European Republics – also known as Europa – still considers itself the most powerful nation on continental Europe and has been scrambling to combat the climate crisis in ways that some in the government consider almost questionable in their Christian moral certainty. Aside from a political hiccup in the 1890s and 1900s when the government tried to impose a single European language (mostly derived from German) Europa has styled itself as a multicultural nation united by theosoc democracy and the Neu European Church – which they have historically been much more forceful in imposing on people than a single reformed culture or language.

Like the rest of the world Europa is going through numerous problems. Whilst the weather changes haven’t been too bad, aside from heat waves and harsh snow storms being more common in summer and winter respectively the concerns are still pushing the central government to extreme measures. Both the secular and ecclesiastic councils have agreed to various green-tech initiatives and are promoting the expansion of infrastructure but the regional governments of the constituent republics are proving less cooperative, especially in areas that rely on traditionally dirtier industries. Worries over violations of state and regional rights are also breeding a political backlash that could cripple the crisis response just as its making way.

Europa’s theosoc system has seen a form of separation between church and state with two separate authorities that cooperate but function distinctly from one another handling their respective secular and religious matters. Frequent communication between the national government and the church does take place though as (officially) the former does turn to the other for spiritual recommendations when deciding policy. Local governments lack this separation with councils being directly involved with larger churches in communities (churches even serve as a means of keeping small villages and towns connected to the large municipal governing bodies) and dependent on them for certain civil services. This arrangement is still not as strict as it used to be in the earlier days of theosoc administration where things were borderline theocratic. Neu European Christianity is supportive of modern technological innovation – though still leery of stem-cell research and genetic modification – and rather adaptable, syncretising with other denominations and even most Muslims and Jews in their territory, producing some bizarre sub-denominations of their own.

The Christian Europasbund (yes it can get confusing) was formed to create a somewhat more formal union for the various theosoc nations of Europe. Whilst never a system of strict vassals the Europasbund generally took direction from Europa itself with few members being able to put up proper resistance. It has reformed in the last century into a more liberal economic bloc and even promotes a diversity of theosoc Christian denominations that differ from one another as well as several popular ‘Cult of the Supreme Being’ style faiths.

The former Spanish empire in the Americas largely submitted to theosoc based revolution over the course of the 19th Century and has left large portions of the continent as a loosely connected network of Catholic inspired theosoc states. The strongest of these Hispanic nations is currently the Holy Republic of Transplata, which managed to rally its resources and consolidate control over a large enough territory to assert itself and suppress its separatists. Transplatan theosoc Christianity holds many similarities to Catholic dogma but has nationalised itself and doesn’t listen to any decrees from the relocated Papacy. It is, however, a much more conservative version of the ideology, supporting much more inter-institutional connectivity between the government and church and opposition to certain technology, especially in the biological sciences. The teaching of evolution and modern geology (in regards to the Earth’s age) was even forbidden by the state until the 1980s.

Suidafrika is still theosoc despite numerous periods of instability. It initially was a borderline theocracy in its early days and remained so to promote national unity and cohesion in the face of British and Portuguese expansion in their portions of Africa as well as the growing native kingdoms as they expanded in turn. The current government is much more liberal but that is beginning to change as certain provinces suffer from increasingly extreme weather problems and people flee the north-west for the south and east. They are continuing the (mostly) post-racial ideals that have defined Suidafrika for over a century now – all men being God’s children, after all – but there are rumours of refugees from the north-west being granted priority for aid based on race.

The traditional primary representative of rationalism is the Reformed Rational State. Built from the Ottoman Empire and deliberately trying to avoid a national or cultural basis for their identity, the RRS has traditionally portrayed itself as the nation of the future, free of irrational, reactionary and regressive beliefs and ideas. The RRS spent a lot of its history as an authoritarian state as it worked to rebuild itself as a properly rational state, much of the work going into suppressing religious backlash. At times it even seemed on the verge of civil war but after nearly two centuries of existence it has reached a new balance with much of the population at least secular and strictly private about religion if not properly atheist. Since then the RRS has liberalised culturally though it still maintains its largely technocratic and exclusive governmental system and strictly regulated economy.

At present the RRS is mildly authoritarian with the government made up of people recruited by existing members. Students in school showing the intelligence and appropriate skills in mandatory tests will be monitored by branches of the government and then offered employment in the civil service. Regular examinations are needed to rise up the ranks of the government with an oligarchic council representing the highest branch. The military are treated with different standards and separated from the rest of the government due to them needing different kinds of leadership – the same going for the secret police – but both are watched closely for signs of attempted subversion.

The RRS is suffering quite badly from the climate upheaval as the majority of their territory is sensitive to changes in weather patterns. In addition to that many of the neighbouring states around them are just as vulnerable and the upheavals taking place there threaten to spread into the RRS itself. Religious unrest, a problem that flares up every generation or so, is becoming a problem again and the migration of people from desertifying provinces is adding to the problem. The government has responded with new programs building up the infrastructure, employing new technologies to increase the productivity of desalination plants, hydroponic farms and organic reprocessing to produce nutrient pastes for people. Several provinces have been placed under military control due to either unrest or depopulation as people flee to more stable or hospitable regions. Water rationing is a nation-wide norm.

The Rational State of China has vied with the RRS for ideological supremacy with the ‘Rationalist World’ and outpaced them economically long ago but has failed to keep up technologically. China is also less ideologically consistent, normally just employing the authoritarian, planned-society aspects of the ideology and preferring it for its anti-European connotations. China never suffered anything as extreme as OTL’s long period of humiliation but lost enough territory and prestige to have its own revolution in the 1910s. After a short period of chaos the rationalists were able to take control and secure their position before the colonial powers could move in and start carving out more chunks for themselves.

China has embraced the idea of regulating society from the top-down and still continues to do so though with a greater degree of adaptability to circumstances rising from the bottom-upwards. The government, whilst not strictly technocratic, does still put personnel through rigorous examinations to assess their position within the hierarchy: many involving ideological and national loyalty and commitment to the regime’s goals. A soft police state is in place for the rest of society, much of it now automated with an extensive network of surveillance equipment providing almost Orwellian levels of coverage. Much of the equipment is very well hidden and small in scale with the forbidding of any maintenance of buildings except by government contracted companies keeping the extent to which people’s homes are monitored a secret.

Most other rationalist states are undergoing large changes in order to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis. Many are trying to switch to more sustainable technologies whilst others have simply decided to set things up so that they can weather the worst disasters whilst maintaining their regimes. Some of the more extreme groups have decided to once again begin actively funding radical groups in the traditionalist and theosoc states to destabilise them and provoke uprisings that can be exploited to install rationalist governments in their place (Napon is the worst offender). With the world falling apart many rationalists believe that reactionary ideals must be abandoned for the good of the planet. Only a rationalised world state can be the proper custodian of the planet.

Realpolitik keeps a program of revolutionary fomentation from really being pursued by most of the ‘revolutionary’ world. The majority of theosoc and rationalist governments are aware that doing so would likely lead to more chaos, which they can’t deal with at the same time as the climate crisis. Many are also concerned that doing so would probably encourage radicals in their own nations as well.

Technologically this world is ahead of OTL but not in consistent stages of advancement. Theoretical sciences still took a long time to advance develop as the underlying theories and philosophies behind them were not developed until roughly the same time as their OTL equivalents with more observable mechanical sciences and engineering only receiving a boost in this TL. Chemistry caught up very quickly but physics remained primitive until well into the 19th and 20th Centuries and so achievements such as nuclear fission/fusion weren’t reached until the 1920s. The world was rather steampunk for quite a while with many odd accomplishments in making coal-burning steam-engines more efficient and advances in clockwork and spring-powered contraptions that still see some use in the present and are being explored once again as a potentially clean-burning source of energy (now if only we could reliably store kinetic, spring energy).

Fusion power is still not likely to be developed any time soon but more efficient reactors exist that are able to make more from their fuel source and are even able to recycle waste from older power plant models. Renewable fuel sources are also more advanced than OTL but still not productive enough to replace older methods of power generation. By this point most states have conceded to that fact that they still must rely on either nuclear or – more efficiently burned – fossil fuel sources.

Thanks to more advanced genetic engineering, designer drugs – both medical and recreational – are a thing, even in the traditionalist powers (the recreational ones tend to be safer in the long term than natural ones). GM crops are also much more advanced though they only recently started seeing mass use – mostly in areas in where agriculture is widely viable, most people don’t see the point of trying to forcibly make arid or especially unreliable farmland pick up the slack. Hydroponics and vat-grown nutrient pastes are also being expanded as options to feed a world that, thanks to the pro-natal policies of the theosoc and traditionalist powers, is currently running at about 10 billion people. Organic slurry, flavoured to make it more palatable, feeds the masses and has reduced starvation but ended up making the population boom worse as a result. Desalination is far ahead of OTL in terms of efficiency and is also being employed more and more to provide water in these times of less predictable weather.

Consumerism of the OTL variety was dropped a long time ago but economic growth is still considered a priority for most nations. Most focus now is on maximising the use of available resources and making sure everything is used as efficiently as possible. Long-lasting products are popular, environmental consequences like micro-plastic contamination be damned. Victorian attitudes towards pollution (what harm’s a little smog, really?) lasted right up until it became clear to the upper class that pleasant rural estates were going to suffer just like the dirty, smelly cities as pollution levels rose. Farms aren’t being rotted by acid rain on a dangerous scale yet but they remain the second largest concern after the weather problems. Acidification of the oceans also became a big deal after mass aquaculture to stop the overtaxing of fish stocks continued to provide poor yields. Desalination is also dumping too much salt back into coastal waters and an effective method other than dumping it somewhere else – preferably a landfill already poisoned by chemicals – hasn’t really been found.

Arcologies aren’t likely to be a thing for some time but mega-skyscrapers dominate most major city skylines and there are some prototype ‘town in one building’ construction projects underway. Most modern mega-skyscrapers employ a clinic specifically for their own use (theosoc and rationalist states supply them under their social welfare programs, others just contract them privately) and many rent out certain floors to retail. This gives hope to some people who think they might be able to centralise cities and cut down on urban sprawl. Air filters are standard for most buildings in cities these days and advanced air scrubbers are being erected around the world to reduce pollution – they’re just a nightmare to power right now.

Space travel was ahead of OTL with rocket technology actually being one of the fields to get a boost. More advanced chemical-burner engines allowed rockets to go further and be bigger for less fuel. There’s the foundations for a base on the Moon with potential to be finished but the global crisis has cut down on international cooperation and people aren’t as willing to put the money into it. A successful Mars landing (best out of three attempts) did take place before things got too bad: an Anglo-Russian affair that worked mostly because they threw the most resources at the project. Satellites are still sent up but so too are weaponised orbital platforms.

Probably one of the more concerning development has been a working anti-missile weapon. It’s still not reliable enough to completely negate the threat of nuclear strikes but it’s functional enough and every major power has finally gotten access to some kind defensive system. As the crisis ramps up, international cooperation breaks down and resource accessibility tightens up around the world... who knows what will happen.