SkunkyArt | RvBOMally — A Fractured World

There's one PoD, although a second unrelated change occurs afterward. The first is the Chinese sending the military in to act as peacekeepers in Hong Kong, which leads to more violent incidents and the city being locked down under martial law. The second is SARS-CoV-2 mutating to become much more lethal and infectious, killing people of all age ranges. The the Chinese absolutely failing to contain the disease, even though they still carry through with total lockdowns around the country. Thousands of people die all around China, and the Chinese people start to lose faith in the government. This leads to global economic recession, and an early attempt by the Chinese government to reopen the economy leads to a second, deadlier wave and more lockdowns. Unrest begins as the government shifts between quarantines and opening up the country, supply chains break down, and people become desperate to either avoid the disease or demand an end to the quarantine of the month.

The disease spreads around the world, causing outbreaks and forcing world governments to similarly respond with quarantines. This causes a worldwide recession, with the addition of the collapse of the price of oil, with no recovery in sight. Numerous politicians, including Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Angela Merkel, and scores of other political leaders, succumb to the disease. Other leaders disappear but claim to be leading from safe locations. Martial law is declared throughout the world, leading to resistance in the form of protests, which are shut down. Unemployment skyrockets as businesses fail all around the world. Thousands start dying, not from the disease, but because of medical supply shortages.

By June, millions of people have died from the pandemic. The disease spreads through the world’s militaries, forcing air forces to remain grounded and navies to remain at port. Piracy becomes rampant and ravages what remains of global shipping. Oil producing countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia stop producing and exporting oil, their governments hoarding it instead.

It still remains unclear how the war started in China, but the going theory is that local groups, with the support of the local police, in southern Chinese cities attempted to break the latest quarantine, under the belief that the survivors have developed immunity. This led to fighting between the weakened PLA and the police, with some local PLA units siding with the rebels. Fighting soon spread around the country, and destroyed what remained of Chinese production. Worldwide recession makes way for worldwide depression, as now there is no hope of reviving the global economy.

The CCP is defeated throughout most of China, although the various groups that rebelled against them had no clear ideology and so began to fight one another for power. An exception is the rebels in Guangdong, who fell under the umbrella of ideologically-motivated Hong Kongers who sought to establish a libertarian republic in the area. Eventually, a Second Republic of China succeeds in uniting most of old China under an idealistic blueprint inspired by the old Republic of China. This system quickly falls apart thanks to non-violent political infighting, leading to the establishment of another authoritarian government reminiscent of that of Chiang Kai-shek. The
Democratic Republic of China, sometimes known as the “Wu Republic” after the ancient Chinese kingdom where it is centered, is a cosmopolitan democracy not unlike the South China Confederation.

In the wake of China’s fall, India has become the dominant regional power, although its reach is nowhere near as global as China’s was. Other powers such as Vietnam and Japan have also risen up, the latter now having an official military.

The civil war in America has a clearer origin point: the cancelation of the November presidential elections and the declaration of nationwide martial law. This was deemed unacceptable by large groups on both the left and the right, particularly as signs pointed to the pandemic nearing its end. Protests against this declaration turned violent as protesters fought back against military police sent to break up the protests. Some states, disaffected by the federal response, actually sided with the protesters and declared their opposition to martial law, even if the governments supported quarantine measures.

As the Second American Civil War goes on, it takes on a partisan tone, with the military government eventually co-opting enough Republican politicians to get enough conservative groups on side. Quarantine measures end and the once politically-neutral emergency government becomes explicitly right-wing, removing remaining left-wing politicians in government. This government defeats left-wing forces on the East Coast, but fails to retake the West. After the war, more pragmatically-minded politicians purged the government of various “undesirable” allies it had during the war, ranging from neo-Nazis to libertarians, and consolidates power under a more “typical” right-wing authoritarian oligarchy. While military rule has officially ended, and power is now in the hands of a president with dictatorial power, the military remains powerful in politics. As this new government does not recognize an official end to the Second American Civil War, elections remain suspended and will likely be suspended in perpetuity. The United States government is reorganized with some “independent cities,” left-wing hubs during the war that are given some measure of autonomy and political freedom not seen elsewhere, although by 2039 this is starting to change.

California, Washington and Oregon secede under what is initially known as the Western Pact, later known as the Republic of Pacifica. It was initially led by a large, diverse group of young left-wing political and community leaders, who were then thinned out in a series of ideological purity conflicts until only the most pragmatic and ruthless remained. Although claiming to be freer and more democratic than its eastern neighbor, Pacifica has instituted a strict regime of censorship and ideological policing, using means ranging from social credit to “disappearances.”

The fall of the United States has led to two Latin American countries rising in rivalry with one another: the right-wing Brazil and the left-wing Mexico. Both considered authoritarian and corrupt, these two states have aligned themselves with the opposing halves of the old United States and have carved up the Americas between themselves. The Brazilians are promoting various forms of right-wing populist and Western chauvinist politics around the world, while the Mexicans are doing the same for socialism.

France and Germany also fall to civil war, particularly after the Germans and French attempted to stop the Russians from taking the Baltic states and failed. The French civil war, between the government and various “yellow vest” groups, ended with the government’s victory, but Germany was fractured between the centrist government in the west and far-right governments in the east and in Bavaria.

The United Kingdom’s division was peaceful, and while British volunteers fought in almost all the civil wars of the 2020s, the British Isles themselves were peaceful.

Russia has remained under Putin’s control until his death in 2037. The shaky coalition of oligarchs and Putin supporters is starting to break apart, especially as Russia’s weakening economy is unable to keep up with the new commitments it has picked up in the wake of the crisis of the 2020s. Much of the world despises Russia for its opportunistic attack in the Baltics when its enemies were unable to respond effectively, and this has led to Russia being isolated from much of the world and prevented from growing its economy through trade.

The Middle East was surprisingly peaceful, although there were a few coups and plenty of unrest throughout the region. The area has only become more of a chessboard between Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with the Turks and Saudis on the same side at the moment.

India is positioning itself as the new leader of the free world, making entreaties to the European Federation, which sees itself as the last light of the old world. Both are developed, free democracies.

The East African Union is a growing power, not unlike India at the beginning of the 2020s. It has a rather stable democratic government, although it is prone to political swings.