Diamond
March 1st, 2004, 11:33 PM
What POD and subsequent events could lead to the world pictured below, circa 2076 AD? This is for a story idea I'm working on; I have some ideas about the way I want things to end up, but the events which led up to it are totally up in the air. Please, try to avoid ASBs. :)
Here's what is known about the ATL:
-The POD is NO EARLIER than 1850.
-Large-scale nuclear exchanges took place in the 1930s between a US-led democratic coalition and a fascist German-Russian-Indian alliance. The nukes used were roughly equivalent to OTL late 1950s tech.
-By 1980, most of the world was again approaching a level similar to what had existed at the turn of the century. Fascist and/or semi-feudal governments rule over a population scarcely half of what it was 50 years previously.
-In circa 2010, advances in biochemistry led to a renewed arms race, this time with engineered plagues instead of nukes. Over the next 60+ years, several of these man-made viruses have escaped, causing vast die-offs and anarchy, though not on the scale of the nuclear wars of the 1930s.
-In 2076, there are 8 Great Powers, several lesser powers, and several semi-independent client states. Every major government and most of the lesser ones, are corporate-run neo-feudal/fascist states. Each Great Power has off-world colonies, mainly on the Moon and in Earth-orbit; most of them were created as sterile agricultural and/or manufacturing sites to escape the pollution of Earth.
-Technology levels are surprisingly high: limited human cloning, primitive cybernetics and AI, and fairly rapid interplanetary travel are all common in the Great Powers.
-Roughly half of the world's landmass is unclaimed; it is mostly empty, contaminated wasteland, inhabited by rebels and the dregs of society. These areas are only cursorily watched by the world's nations and are known as Non-Policed Zones (NPZ's).
Here's what is known about the ATL:
-The POD is NO EARLIER than 1850.
-Large-scale nuclear exchanges took place in the 1930s between a US-led democratic coalition and a fascist German-Russian-Indian alliance. The nukes used were roughly equivalent to OTL late 1950s tech.
-By 1980, most of the world was again approaching a level similar to what had existed at the turn of the century. Fascist and/or semi-feudal governments rule over a population scarcely half of what it was 50 years previously.
-In circa 2010, advances in biochemistry led to a renewed arms race, this time with engineered plagues instead of nukes. Over the next 60+ years, several of these man-made viruses have escaped, causing vast die-offs and anarchy, though not on the scale of the nuclear wars of the 1930s.
-In 2076, there are 8 Great Powers, several lesser powers, and several semi-independent client states. Every major government and most of the lesser ones, are corporate-run neo-feudal/fascist states. Each Great Power has off-world colonies, mainly on the Moon and in Earth-orbit; most of them were created as sterile agricultural and/or manufacturing sites to escape the pollution of Earth.
-Technology levels are surprisingly high: limited human cloning, primitive cybernetics and AI, and fairly rapid interplanetary travel are all common in the Great Powers.
-Roughly half of the world's landmass is unclaimed; it is mostly empty, contaminated wasteland, inhabited by rebels and the dregs of society. These areas are only cursorily watched by the world's nations and are known as Non-Policed Zones (NPZ's).