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YNot1989 — 2066: Fault Lines

Published: 2013-11-16 19:06:44 +0000 UTC; Views: 32732; Favourites: 147; Downloads: 1339
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Description

More than Ten Years since the end of the Third World War, the United States enjoys an era of unprecedented prosperity, but it seems peace remains a goal that can never be reached. The Flood has finally come to an end, with the Earth Working Group's construction, or rather reconstruction, of a series of ancient rivers and lakes in the Sahara, and the refreezing of the polar caps via the Mars Solar Reflectors (now being deployed across the system to provide much needed sunlight to the Titan and Triton colonies), but the new water bodies and return to a cold north appear to have caused more wars than they stopped. 


The First Nations of the arctic circle originally left Canada on fairly good terms; Canada would gain access to arctic oil supplies without having to destroy their own natural beauty, and the First Nations got the independence and prosperity they had longed for. But with the refreezing of the polar caps, and the death of the oil industry thanks to space based energy sources, these prosperous nations were turned back into bankrupt tundras. To survive the First Nations allied to invade Canada's northern territories which were still warm enough to support some agriculture and industry (thanks in part to the Earth Working Group's "Rewilding" of the subarctic). The Arctic Nations had long prepared to defend their valuable oil supplies and funded a military buildup before the Refreeze. Canada and Quebec quickly found themselves being invaded by the First Nations. For the better part of a decade the US had occupied Cascadia and the Yukon in the hope to prevent any hostilities between the First Nations and the Canadians, and had no desire to face another invading power to their northern border. In 2065 the US entered the war with the Canadians and Quebecios. With America's entrance into the First Nations War, Canada had hoped that victory would be assured, but one year on, the United States's commitment is clearly marginal at best, as they fight mainly to keep the war from reaching American interests. This may change as the current Administration faces an impatient public in the 2066 midterms, but for now the American presidency has no desire to make its dominance of the former Anglosphere any more formal than necessary. 


Meanwhile in Africa the new freshwater rivers and lakes have spurred an economic boom as agriculture in the Sahara now becomes the new reality. Once marginalized peoples have used this opportunity to gain independence, often at the expense of nations that were already weakened during the Flood. The Turks provide a degree stability at their immediate periphery, but beyond that the chaos is too extreme for anyone to attempt to restore order. Despite this, the economies of the Sahara are blossoming with the land, and investors from Southern Europe are riding the coat-tails of this growth, saving themselves from Northern Europe's fate. Where Germany and France were once the economic engines of the Eurozone, they are now sad reminders of the death of the Eurocentric world. There was hope that Britain and Ireland would be repopulated after the flood, but with London looking like a drained reef, and more than a generation of Britains having known nothing but a life in the United States and Canada, it seems that whatever remains of these once great civilizations will soon be formal American territories.


While chaos reigns in the forgotten corners of the Earth, in space prosperity and peace live side by side. The wealth of the Outer Planets has grown with the demand for energy on Earth, and the construction of the Ecuador, Indonesian, and East African Space Elevators have opened Earth to more goods from the colonies than ever. Mars will be fit for permanent human habitation within 15 years, and Venus now supports the beginnings of an ocean. The Moon remains the refinery of the Solar System, as gasses from Jupiter and Saturn flow down system for a hungry society. Most of these resources flow thoughout the colonies and never make it to Earth due to the limited global infrastructure (by Colonial standards). The first warp drive capable probe, the Prometheus, has proven faster than light travel is possible, and in 2063 mankind took the next step with the launch of the Enterprise (because what else were they going to call it?) Warp Drive will not be fit for transporting the large masses that come with colonization, that task falls to the great O'Neil ships being built in the Belt and Jupiter to colonize Mars when the time comes. 


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Comments: 106

A-Cynical-Idealist [2015-10-09 17:44:40 +0000 UTC]

How did Eurasia fair in the postwar decades? I've read later maps (China and India Balkanize while unemployment skyrockets), but I was wondering if you had a description on a case-by-case basis. Specifically: Japan, Turkey, Iran, Arabia, Poland, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia/Indonesia

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YNot1989 In reply to A-Cynical-Idealist [2015-10-09 22:10:31 +0000 UTC]

Japan: Things don't look to bad right after the war. The Earth Working Group has rebuilt most of Tokyo (in a way that let's people live there like humans instead of the glorified ant colony that city is today), but eventually demographics take a huge dump on the country and their economy tanks HARD in the early 70s. A lot of Japanese people decide to pick up and leave for Mars, but by the 2090s Japan is doing relatively well among Eurasian nations because of their relatively small population. By the early 22nd Century they're a restive power, once again deep in the American center of gravity, and have finally joined the rest of humanity on issues like gender equality, gay rights, and immigrant rights.

Turkey: Did better after the war than before it... for a while. Once the 70s rolled around Turkey found themselves fighting a lot of small wars along their border with upstart nations in Central Asia and Africa who were doing better since the creation of the new seas/lakes, and no longer relied on Turkish economic assistance. Eventually their empire went belly up, but they held onto the Bosporus, and remain a fairly important trading power.

Iran: Same story as Turkey.

Arabia: "And then things got worse."

Poland: Drifted apart from the US after the War, bitter over being kicked out of space with all the other nations. Animosity wasn't formalized into a Cold War until Mexico started to make their play in the 2090s. Up until that point they remained the only vibrant economic power in Europe, eventually surpassing Germany as its top exporter. BUT its economy has largely stagnated as space-imports undercut their own exports.

Korea: Same basic story as Japan.

Indonesia: "And then things got worse."

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A-Cynical-Idealist In reply to YNot1989 [2015-10-12 05:33:22 +0000 UTC]

And how about the parts of Eurasia rarely mentioned in your narratives particularly India, Central Asia, and the former Russian Federation, and Russia proper?

Secondly, I've listened to lectures by some Stratfor analysts and I know this scenario is partially based on the Next 100 Years. Many of these lectures predict that Brazil's growth is heavily dependent upon China's due to their export relationship, which in this scenario is very spastic and generally prone to decline. If that's true, then Brazil shouldn't remain a global power too far into the 21st century even with its own mineral richness and technological preeminence in South America. What's your opinion on this with respect to the SR timeline?

Lastly, what are the preeminent powers in Africa at this point in the timeline (post-WWIII and pre-MexAm Cold War)? In the prewar period, it sounded like Turkey neutered Egypt, so the natural choices seem to be Algeria, the East African Fed, and South Africa. The U.S. has an interest in keeping Africa divided for its own strategic interests, so is it military involved in any way?

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YNot1989 In reply to A-Cynical-Idealist [2015-10-12 23:07:13 +0000 UTC]

Rirstly:

India almost went to pieces like China did in the 2030s, but their reforms were largely over by then and their society was coherent enough to avoid disaster, though there was a degree of fragmentation, the core survived. Also, the Indian coastline didn't experience the kind of mass destruction China's did, so they held most of their populated areas. India didn't reunify after the war though, the areas that broke off were mostly Muslim and to be honest India was kinda glad to be rid of them. They continued to develop as the century progressed, and their large population made them a major source of labor trading... and then their economy took a nose dive in the 2070s as robotics made their population redundant. They have probably recovered the least with the reforms of the 2080s that their government put in place (like many others), and fragmented over the course of the century.

Central Asia, has one bright spot in their history: the growth of the Aral Sea back into a proper body of water fed a farming boom, but the Earth Working Group didn't get a chance to stick around long enough to build the river systems needed to give the region the tools to become a coherent state someday... partly because the US government specifically wanted Eurasia to remain divided against itself so no single power could come about. So much like the Russians... and then things got worse. When the Third Mexican War was over the US offered to create new river networks and provide economic assistance, but most of their governments still don't trust the US.

Russia was repaired somewhat after the war into a semi-coherent state. The arctic became unihabitable again with the Refreeze, and so they got their arctic territories (minus Karelia) back. They're still trapped behind the Urals though. Their economy never really got good, their population continued to decline, without Siberia they didn't have the wealth of natural resources that propelled them to power. Their economy actually handled the population problems of the 2070s onward fairly well. The rest of former Russia is used by one power or another for resources, and they usually play nice about overland shipping lanes.

Secondly:

There's no such thing as an ending in geopolitics. A country can go through a 20 year slump and come back in a big way. That's what happened to Brazil. After China's demise they retreated inward, suffering through the climate crisis worse than most, but post WWIII they experienced an economic revival, partly thanks to a growing middle class and a long overdue infusion of labor from Africa. The US typically supported Argentina to counter Brazilian ambitions in the region.

Lastly:

The wealthiest nation in Africa is the Congo. Thanks to American aide the Congo river is the primary shipping rout of raw resources from the Uganda tower to the Atlantic, and its own natural resources and land area fuel a strong export driven economy. Next is Egypt, who has the largest military on the continent and still serves as a critical trade nation thanks to its proximity to the Red Sea. Then there's Mombossa, which is the primary Indian Ocean trade port for the Ughanda tower. Then Ughanda itself, and of course South Africa. Those are your top 5. Number six jumps around between the various nations of the Sahara Lakes. For a long time the East African Federation was in the Number 2 spot.

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heoinkang [2015-10-06 08:18:22 +0000 UTC]

My country is unified though I dont know who is the main, south or north

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JasonkarrMauer [2015-07-18 18:56:17 +0000 UTC]

Seem to love keeping the US together, whilst crippling the UK XD

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SE-Roger [2015-05-26 01:06:03 +0000 UTC]

so when they first came into the un-flooded New-Orleans, New York, and Tokyo, what was is like for them?

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YNot1989 In reply to SE-Roger [2015-05-26 18:11:10 +0000 UTC]

They looked like drained reefs, with buildings slumped over and in some cases dragged out to see with the silt of the mouth of the river, eroded by the decades. New York was actually in pretty good shape. Between the sea walls that saved most of the city and Manhattan being a big chunk of rock. 

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SE-Roger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-05-26 20:09:03 +0000 UTC]

ok. so when/if they rebuilt it they tore everything down. did NY's subways becomes a underground reefs?

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YNot1989 In reply to SE-Roger [2015-05-27 02:58:48 +0000 UTC]

The Subways were drained shortly after they flooded. Critical infrastructure was largely salvaged in New York. Miami, New Orleans, Tokyo, etc. had to be largely rebuilt from the ground up.

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SE-Roger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-05-27 10:12:37 +0000 UTC]

ok.

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TheTexasRanger [2014-12-17 15:39:53 +0000 UTC]

I know what the purpose of space elevators are but how are they built to be able to stand tall through several layers of the atmosphere?

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YNot1989 In reply to TheTexasRanger [2014-12-18 03:32:21 +0000 UTC]

They don't stand, they're under tension. A large counterweight station (originally an asteroid, but they've become large port-cities as time passed) keeps the elevator's strands under constant tension. The tower is really more like four or more cables in close proximity to provide support for the huge elevator car/building.

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TheTexasRanger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-02-08 20:52:59 +0000 UTC]

I just realized that Sierra Lione is a part of Liberia. What happened to push those 2 countries together?

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YNot1989 In reply to TheTexasRanger [2015-02-08 22:22:33 +0000 UTC]

Climate change and a couple of small wars.

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TheTexasRanger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-02-09 21:36:43 +0000 UTC]

How difficult would it be to make space elevators with today's technology.

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YNot1989 In reply to TheTexasRanger [2015-02-09 22:10:51 +0000 UTC]

Damn near impossible on Earth, the moon's another story due to its low gravity. But without Nanotubes or Graphene sheets, you can't build one on this rock.

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TheTexasRanger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-02-14 15:25:26 +0000 UTC]

How'd Hungary get land in Croatia and Serbia? I thought the Hungarian ethnic groups were in Slovakia and Romania.

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YNot1989 In reply to TheTexasRanger [2015-02-14 15:30:04 +0000 UTC]

There are Hungarians in Norther Serbia, and Croatia's territory was take for military necessity.

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TheTexasRanger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-04-02 18:35:21 +0000 UTC]

So what's the status of Newfoundland and the Maritime provinces at this point? Becuase in this map they look to be part of the US but on the wiki page you showed me it has them being admitted as states along with the other Canadian provinces and what's put as Newfoundlands previous entity is the province of Newfoundland not the independent country you said it had become earlier in the century.

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YNot1989 In reply to TheTexasRanger [2015-04-02 19:18:18 +0000 UTC]

Whoops! That was a mistake on the wikia. Newfoundland and the Maritimes joined the Union after it became a little impractical to remain part of Canada, what with the first nations AND Quebec basically cutting off access to the rest of Canada (and these regions being essentially colonized by British and Irish refugees, lost some of their identity as Canadians. They did so much as secede from Canada as they approached the Canadian government and requested that they approach the US to set up a plebiscite for them to vote to either join the US, stay with Canada or become and independent country (they actually tried that before WWIII, well the Labrador region did, anyway, but it was never really recognized by anyone, and its typically remembered as one of those moments from history where we all gloss over how a whole country essentially got drunk and did something really stupid). The US and Canada agreed that if they chose to join the US there would be a transition period where they would still be treated as a Canadian territory (not a province), BUT they would have time to set up any changes in legal institutions before going over to the US. The main driving force behind joining the Union were the children of British refugees, who had family and friends stateside and were already pushing for the idea of a Pan-Anglo America (which was a lot less racist than it sounds). 

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TheTexasRanger In reply to YNot1989 [2015-04-02 20:15:46 +0000 UTC]

So they were admitted as states at a separate time than the rest of Canada?

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YNot1989 In reply to TheTexasRanger [2015-04-03 00:18:43 +0000 UTC]

Yep. Before the First Nations War broke out.

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Coloanas [2014-12-17 08:36:45 +0000 UTC]

Is this based of Friedman's work, or your own?

First of all, Greenland will not go to US. 
There is a little chance of  Inner Mongolia going to Mongolia and China's other autonomous regions becoming independent (people already tried, but didn't suceed, considering a majority of the autonomous region's populations are still Han Chinese. 
If anything, US will NOT be a superpower no longer, while the world will see economic collapse in developed countries due to lower fertility rates and more dependency ratios. Most of the world's wealth will start to shift to Asia's and Africa's developing and newly industrializing nations. Also, you made Brazil and Argentina play nice with the rest of the continent. 

In my opinion, the world's superpowers will be either China or India, or perhaps, (if they merge together) ASEAN (Association of South East Asian nations). 

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YNot1989 In reply to Coloanas [2014-12-18 03:34:55 +0000 UTC]

I'd bother rebutting that first paragraph, but I've done it so much that it no longer provides any mental stimulation. Suffice to say you're wrong and I'm right.

As for China or India ever being superpowers (or merging, which is about the stupidest thing I've ever heard given their history), I don't doubt that they'll be important regional powers, but the era of superpowers has past and we're back to one dominant power and several smaller regional powers balanced off of each-other. 

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Coloanas In reply to YNot1989 [2014-12-18 03:52:14 +0000 UTC]

So you're saying this is a multipolar world. But I still doubt America will retain its superpower status. 

Also I said ASEAN not India or China, might merge. 

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YNot1989 In reply to Coloanas [2014-12-18 05:43:25 +0000 UTC]

No, this is a world with America at the top and a number of alliance systems crafted to suit its needs, many of which intentionally designed to play off of each-other. Why do you think America is formally allied with India AND Pakistan.

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Coloanas In reply to YNot1989 [2014-12-18 06:59:40 +0000 UTC]

I see.

But if America still has a global influence its has a superpower status, which its unlikely for it to retain for two centuries. It's either a multipolar world, with two or more superpowers, or a unipolar world, with China or India, being superpowers. 

Or is America a regional power in this scenario?

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Coloanas In reply to Coloanas [2014-12-19 03:35:38 +0000 UTC]

GLOBAL WARMING CANNOT HAPPEN OVER A FEW DECADES. IT IS PREDICTED ALTHOUGH THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WILL RISE BY TWO DEGREES CENTIGRADE, THE SEA LEVEL WILL ONLY RISE BY 1.45 FEET. 

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CivPlayer In reply to Coloanas [2015-01-22 04:29:05 +0000 UTC]

Holy crap, this is actually the first half-way logical thing I've seen you write down that you didn't pull out of your ass!  Congrats.

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theone1super In reply to CivPlayer [2015-07-12 21:31:56 +0000 UTC]

damn! nice1 CivPlayer!

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CivPlayer In reply to theone1super [2015-07-14 18:43:35 +0000 UTC]

Thanks!  Got tired of Coloanas' crap a while back, happy he doesn't comment on these pages anymore.

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Waffle-Republic [2014-09-06 20:21:49 +0000 UTC]

Looks awesome

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microwavedreams [2014-01-11 05:26:43 +0000 UTC]

Why is it that in your take on the Friedman scenario you portray a collapse of the Saudi Kingdom, while in this timeline you show the Arabian Peninsula to be a unified entity?

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YNot1989 In reply to microwavedreams [2014-01-11 16:51:26 +0000 UTC]

Not unified, simply undesired. Arabia is little more than a collection of city states with no real central leadership.

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microwavedreams In reply to YNot1989 [2014-01-12 21:04:15 +0000 UTC]

Interesting! Can you give a historical example of something like this?

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YNot1989 In reply to microwavedreams [2014-01-13 20:34:49 +0000 UTC]

Arabia prior to the discovery of oil in the Persian Guld.

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FanartGalaxy [2013-12-26 00:26:36 +0000 UTC]

Hey dude, i make maps too, so i was wondering what program you used for these... thanks

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YNot1989 In reply to FanartGalaxy [2013-12-26 04:52:17 +0000 UTC]

GIMP

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microwavedreams [2013-12-23 01:57:23 +0000 UTC]

Can you give an estimate to the US and world GDP at this time?

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YNot1989 In reply to microwavedreams [2013-12-31 03:20:11 +0000 UTC]

In present day dollars about 30 trillion.

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Zifker [2013-12-07 18:22:09 +0000 UTC]

What interest could the US have in supporting Canada against the First Nations if NATO is gone and fossil fuels are obsolete?

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YNot1989 In reply to Zifker [2013-12-08 21:47:45 +0000 UTC]

NATO is gone, but the US and Canada still have close ties with one another due to their mutual border and long history of military and economic cooperation. Canada is a known quantity, and given the United States's treatment of their native populations, there was a nagging fear that should Canada fall, they could face insurrection by natives in the Western states.

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TheElevatedDeviant [2013-12-07 04:47:59 +0000 UTC]

Australia and New Zealand appear to be doing fine as always!

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YNot1989 In reply to TheElevatedDeviant [2013-12-07 16:56:56 +0000 UTC]

They're being resettled and dedesertification in Australia is estimated to take decades.

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TheElevatedDeviant In reply to YNot1989 [2013-12-08 04:22:57 +0000 UTC]

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microwavedreams [2013-11-30 03:48:33 +0000 UTC]

How is Brazil doing? The other BRICs dont seem to have fared too well, however Brazil hasn't lost territory or collapsed. Just a disclaimer; my near daily stream of questions stems not from skepticism, but from a genuine interest and admiration in the timeline you have created. Keep it up!  

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YNot1989 In reply to microwavedreams [2013-11-30 05:29:33 +0000 UTC]

Brazil is a major regional power, the South American equivalent of Germany or France as they are today (where as Germany and France are now comparable to Brazil today). The Americans have been supporting Argentina to check the Brazilians who have been setting up a Brazil led Lusosphere.

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microwavedreams [2013-11-29 04:20:16 +0000 UTC]

What are the 5 largest economies? I'm assuming US is number one followed by Japan, but after that? Poland? Brazil? Turkey? 

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YNot1989 In reply to microwavedreams [2013-11-29 05:33:26 +0000 UTC]

The United States, Japan, China, Poland, Mexico.

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