(1984) What do you think the world outside of Airstirp One is really like?

[A Piece of History]

One of 1984's prevailing themes is the manipulation of information to serve a sinister purpose. In the narrative, we see things from the perspective of the residents of Airstrip One. Through them, we 'learn' that their country, Oceania, is at war with one country and allied to another one. (Eastasia and/or Eurasia). We 'learn', that Oceania encompasses much of the Western world, including the US and the former British Empire.

But I've seen at least two theories sprout up as to what the world outside of AO is really like.

• Oceania rules the entire world and is waging a fake war against itself to increase it's control over the population to the point of creating a fake enemy (Goldstein, Eurasia, Eastasia, take your pick) to keep the narrative going.
• Oceania's territory only consists of the United Kingdom and as a result, Airstrip One. Oceania's empire only exists in propaganda and Oceania, in reality, is isolated from the rest of the world.

I don't know what to believe. Orwell deliberately kept the details of the outside world vague and confined to Oceanian propaganda, so that we are unsure of what the real world is really like, which plays into the aforementioned themes of manipulation of information. I really can't pick either one, since they both make the theme even more omnipresent. Either way, the novel is lying to us about the state of the world. Hell, they could both be true since some of the information about the other two nations and the war comes from Goldstein's book, which SPOILER ALERT, is outright stated to have been written by O'Brien and other members of the Inner Party, though this again may be a lie. (I just realized that believing both of the aforementioned theories to be true is doublethink. Crazy).

So, what do you think the world outside of Airstrip One is really like? Don't hesitate to chime in with your own theories.

 

[Dave Howery]

I always had the rough idea that all three nations were the same... totalitarian, all-controlling, and using the media and fake wars to control the masses. Basically, there's no wars anywhere, just three Big Brother states keeping a merciless control over it's swathe of the world...

 

[Historyman 14]

I think to remember is Big Brother...is an Big Fat liar.

Its very easily to see Oceania is just an insane England totally cutoff from the rest of the world, and the Forever War is an means of controlling the population.

 

[HIM Dogson]

Oceania's world is the world of Kaiserreich. The Reichspakt won in Europe but Mosley held on; the alliance between Germany and Tsarist Russia makes up Eurasia. The Co-Prosperity Sphere, meanwhile, is Eastasia. The rest of Oceania is a Fourth Internationale led by Browder, who tolerates Mosley because he might be insane, but at least he isn't a monarchist. In reality the only "forever war" going on is a guerrilla war against the IRA, a war that the USSA is propping Oceania up in. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

 

[chankljp]

I have a headcanon in which the world of 1984 is actually a GRIMDARK novelisation/deconstrcution of the strategy board game "Risk".

Just think about it: Endless war, ever shifting territories, allies becoming enemies and back again, civilian casualties and damage to the infrastructure not being a factor that is ever taken into consideration, all powerful heads of state who are 'removed' from the world that they control, etc...

So who is Big Brother? Well, you are! Whenever you roll the dice and send another chess piece to attack Australia yet again for the 100th time.

 

[Historyman 14]

I have a headcanon in which the world of 1984 is actually a GRIMDARK novelisation/deconstrcution of the strategy board game "Risk".

Just think about it: Endless war, ever shifting territories, allies becoming enemies and back again, civilian casualties and damage to the infrastructure not being a factor that is ever taken into consideration, all powerful heads of state who are 'removed' from the world that they control, etc...

So who is Big Brother? Well, you are! Whenever you roll the dice and send another chess piece to attack Australia yet again for the 100th time.

Risk holds a very special place in my heart. So your idea of 1984 is a 40k style novelisation/deconstrcution of it all...

I find both disturbing yet fascinating.

 

[Worffan101]

Oceania's world is the world of Kaiserreich. The Reichspakt won in Europe but Mosley held on; the alliance between Germany and Tsarist Russia makes up Eurasia. The Co-Prosperity Sphere, meanwhile, is Eastasia. The rest of Oceania is a Fourth Internationale led by Browder, who tolerates Mosley because he might be insane, but at least he isn't a monarchist. In reality the only "forever war" going on is a guerrilla war against the IRA, a war that the USSA is propping Oceania up in. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

I had an idea for something similar, but it was more, Red Americas and east Asia, broadly pro-German Europe through most of Africa and parts of Asia, and Mosley got cut off for being too egregious of a dick for the American public and his successors are now ruling an insane North Korea-esque dictatorship but nobody can agree on who controls Britain after they get taken out so America and Germany just bicker and squabble over the mess in a protracted Cold War while Britain goes to hell.

 

[Odinson]

I have a headcanon in which the world of 1984 is actually a GRIMDARK novelisation/deconstrcution of the strategy board game "Risk".

I'm not going to lie, I think I just found my absolute favorite post on the site.

And it honestly does make sense. Heck, my last game of risk had me with the UK, Iceland, North America and Japan vs my buddy with his "pax Europa".

 

[Marius Mazzini]

I've been developing a compromise theory that reconciles the two-namely that the "Big Three" of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia exist but that they are all isolated totalitarian states that feed lies of world power. This theory was piqued by reading about the Japanese novel Battle Royale sometime ago and noticing that the totalitarian regime ruling Japan in that TL styles itself the "Republic of Greater East Asia" despite seemingly controlling only the Home Islands of Japan. It wouldn't be a stretch to have these two regimes co-exist in the same world, both espousing suspiciously similar ideologies of "Ingsoc" and "Death Worship". Since both are located on island chains, it would be relatively easy for them to isolate contact and information from the outside world. This brings us to Eurasia whose 1984 boundaries doesn't give them an island chain power base, so their most likely location would be Siberia presumably evolving from a Soviet remnant state after the USSR underwent civil war and/or balkanization with its large geographic expanses giving the same isolation that waters do for the other two powers.

These self-styled countries of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia may be the result of convergent evolution encouraging them to imitate each other rather emanating from a single original ideology-Oceania being the product of a very authoritarian and autarkhic socialist revolution in a world where Mosley remained in the Labour Party, Eurasia presumably evolving from High Stalinism, and Eastasia as the result of the Kodoha faction in the Japanese military triumphing (keep in mind that many features of OTL's North Korean regime were copied from Imperial Japan). The three states would informally cooperate with one another and amass large stockpiles of NBC weapons in order to keep the rest of the world at bay, while pretending to megastates at war with each other to their populations based on the same principles by which Newspeak exists-namely that the possibility of thoughtcrime can be rendered impossible by creating a world in which such ideologies as democracy have no influence and everyone adheres to Ingsoc/Neo-Bolshevism/Death Worship. The supposed wars for resources in the Middle East and Africa are real, albeit the Threeists backing local warlords and guerrilla movements against those backed by other states in order to secure key natural resources such as oil and uranium. Moreover, regular exchanges of political prisoners occur between these states in order to furnish victims for the morale boosting war propaganda newsreels and offer up POWs for the regular hangings of enemy "war criminals"...

Thoughts?

 

[rvbomally]

My pet theory is that Oceania is just Airstrip One. The rest of the world is far worse.

 

[FlyingSquirrel]

I've been developing a compromise theory that reconciles the two-namely that the "Big Three" of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia exist but that they are all isolated totalitarian states that feed lies of world power. This theory was piqued by reading about the Japanese novel Battle Royale sometime ago and noticing that the totalitarian regime ruling Japan in that TL styles itself the "Republic of Greater East Asia" despite seemingly controlling only the Home Islands of Japan. It wouldn't be a stretch to have these two regimes co-exist in the same world, both espousing suspiciously similar ideologies of "Ingsoc" and "Death Worship".

I've sometimes thought along these lines as well - the other two states exist, but neither they nor Oceania are truly "superstates" controlling most of the northern hemisphere. Instead, they're simply leftovers of pre-war countries/alliances after a nuclear war wiped out a lot of the world population, destroyed much of the infrastructure that had made global communication and commerce efficent, and rendered various areas uninhabitable. There are occasional skirmishes between the three that account for the "rocket bombs" and the capture of POWs, but the large-scale engagements over territory in Africa and other non-aligned areas are not really happening.

This would probably mean that South America, as well as whatever parts of Africa had been decolonized or abandoned by the European powers before the missiles started flying, are where the hope for the future lies. One might wonder why none of the African or South American powers have managed to puncture the illusions maintained by Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, but perhaps they still pose a nuclear threat and other countries are wary of challenging them if they can be contained instead.

 

[TheReal_McChicken]

I've been developing a compromise theory that reconciles the two-namely that the "Big Three" of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia exist but that they are all isolated totalitarian states that feed lies of world power. This theory was piqued by reading about the Japanese novel Battle Royale sometime ago and noticing that the totalitarian regime ruling Japan in that TL styles itself the "Republic of Greater East Asia" despite seemingly controlling only the Home Islands of Japan. It wouldn't be a stretch to have these two regimes co-exist in the same world, both espousing suspiciously similar ideologies of "Ingsoc" and "Death Worship".

Holy shit it makes perfect sense that Battle Royale could take place in Eastasia. If making kids fight to brutal death is not "death worship" then i dont know what is.

 

[H.Flashman(VC)]

I don't know what to believe. Orwell deliberately kept the details of the outside world vague and confined to Oceanian propaganda, so that we are unsure of what the real world is really like, which plays into the aforementioned themes of manipulation of information.

I still think the narative in the Goldstein book is mostly right about the real world of 1984. My main argument is that the situation as described agrees with the predictions that Orwell made himself in the 1945 essay "You and the Atomic Bomb" Based on the words of Truman that the Manhattan Project was extremely difficult and expensive, he predicts that there will be a limited number of countries that can build atomic bombs and they will start to dominate the others even more than they did in the past.
The remark of O'Brian is a double bluff (or think ). If you lie so much, it doesn't matter if you sometimes tell the truth, because it won't be recognised as such. There's nothing in this society to confirm or debunk anything.