Map Thread XVI

[Deleted member 97083]

That's the symbol of the Fourth International, the primary platform of Trotskyists.

You learn something new every day a new communist symbol every day.

 

[Alex1guy]

That's the symbol of the Fourth International, the primary platform of Trotskyists.

It looks like a Communist version of 7up

"Soviet Soda, Taste the Revolution"

 

[B_Munro]

This is a map and write-up for the TV show Defiance, in the year 2046. Defiance is my favorite TV show, and it’s a damn shame it has such a pitiful internet presence. I had to create most of this map from memory, and most of this write-up as well. A lot of it is also fanon, to justify or expand. Or I’ve changed stuff to fix stuff that didn’t make sense to me.


History of the Votanis Collective

The omecs found themselves on the top of the food chain almost immediately once they became spacefaring and began interacting with the rest of the system. Large, superhuman (or superVotan in this case) monsters in a near-human shape, they gleefully conquered the castithans of the planet of Daribo and the irathients, sensoths and liberata of Irath.

Castithians seem a lot like the "Nordic" aliens of flying saucer mythos. If liberata are nitrogen-breathers, how do they coexist with oxygen-breathing irathients and sensoths on the same planet? (I mean, if it's an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere with each taking their bit, don't see why they'd need atmospheric planetforming here on earth).

*The liberata banking class was wiped out, its assets subsumed, within weeks of the foundation of the Collective, and modern day liberata often find themselves discriminated against, a relic of a small portion of their ancestors committing perceived crimes against the other races of Votanis.

So the Liberata are space-Jews?

*In 3502 BC, the indogene ruling class gathered together, and warned the races of Votanis that a coming supernova would destroy their system. It had been known that the twin suns of Votanis were unstable, but to think that such a knock-on effect was possible? They needed to run. Some of the wisest and most renowned indogenes implored the Votanis Collective to begin preparations for fleeing.
*They were ignored. The idea of spending all of society’s resources on building a fleet was unthinkable to bean counters, terrifying to average citizens, and there was always some denier who would provide a counter-argument. Nothing that could disprove what the ruling class had to say, but enough to muddy the waters.

Similarities to certain OTL events are entirely coincidental.

The failing faster-than-light drive stranded them on Earth, and the two irathients were forced to bury themselves beneath what we would know as the St. Louis area, so as to avoid detection.
*The ansible that made it back to Daribo only showed atmosphere levels, as well as several other matters, but they did not reveal the existence of humanity.

So this is all show canon? (Venus has potential? really?)

I don't think you need an FTL ship at all: a bigger and better version of our 2017 planet search methods probably could do the trick. (With the larger Jovians, we've detected planets out to 13,000 light years).

A sixth species, the gulanee, a race of energy beings (not the progenitors, a different one) living within one of Votanis’ gas giants, Gula, joined the Votanis Collective. Ten million of them would accompany the other races to Earth, in exchange for helping to provide additional power and longevity to the fleet with materials mined from Gula’s core.

Didn't most Gulanee stay because they thought they could survive the crisis?

*The world’s governments were the first to notice, and clamped down on the news hard. Rumors of the Arkfleet were public in conspiracy sites, but didn’t make news until much later. This gave the regimes of Earth time to prepare.

Not sure most democracies have the power to do this. A massive security system like the US, sure, but would the government of the Netherlands or Switzerland or Iceland have the same capability? As long as only a few high-powered observatories can detect them, the news could be contained, but once small-scale installations can do so...

*Many of the castithans who arrived on the Arkfleet were religious fanatics, converted to devout Rayetsuism by the destruction of Votanis, and there’s an increasing school of thought that calls for the extermination of the major human powers and outright conquest of at least the areas more easily xenoformed.

So what's Rayetsuism exactly?

*The xenoforming of small slices of land granted to the Votans for colonization is finished, and around thirty million Votans are living on Earth. Another thirty million died on the voyage to Earth, seventy million are awake on the Arkfleet, and the rest are still in cryosleep, nutrient paste being injected into their veins to keep them alive.

That sounds...wrong.

*There are numerous cases of war crimes on both sides. The EMC in North America, for instance, tested anti-irathient diseases on civilians while claiming they were vaccines.

Why use them on civilians when you have imprisoned maybe possibly terrorists to test them on?

The Votans smoked out resistance cells with localized xenoforming, effectively a hyper-advanced orbital chemical weapon.

Nanotech?

*Singularity bombs were not used very often, despite the wishes of many Votans. The way singularity bombs work is by creating a black hole-like effect in an area, that destroys the area, before breaking apart. Too many of these weapons can destroy a planet, so the Votanis Collective took care to use them sparingly.

Did the Votans have a way to neutralize atomic weapons, or just very good antimissile tech?

*Contemporary news reports would go something like this. “18:01 GMT: We are having difficulty keeping up with reports of geological destruction. The leveling of the Himalayas. Coastlines crumbling in South Florida. A mile-wide sinkhole outside Berlin. Record heat in Antarctica and snow in Tunisia.”
*These are largely mixed in terms of facts. Antarctica is not a tropical paradise, and Tunisia is not a wintry wonderland. Everest is no longer the tallest of Earth’s mountains, and has crumbled quite a bit, but the Himalayas still stand.

I imagine you're making the show a bit more realistic here.

*Side by side, humans and Votans cooperated to resettle this new, unknown Earth. The town of Defiance, built over the ruins of St. Louis, will be one of the many examples of this cooperation, and the end result...well, it’s complicated.

North America (The Modern Day)
*The predominant power on North America in 2046 is the New York Earth Republic, a power built around the American Northeast. While the main decisions are still largely made in Buffalo, New York is increasingly regaining its former prestige. The Republic of Columbia is a union of American and Canadian peoples, with around a million or two Votans on top of that. Columbia’s colloquial name amongst the fortress towns of the Storm Divide and the rest of North America is the E-Rep.

Now is that from New York city or New York State? NY city seems likely to have been pretty hard hit by funky climate effects, not to mention being an obvious military target during the Pale War.

*Mexico is solidly balkanized, and the Collective is trying to keep it that way.

Northern Mexico seems rather depopulated: was it a major combat front between the US/world alliance and the Votans?

*Firmly under the bootheel of the Votanis Collective.

No out of control terraforming efforts in Votanis territory? No local xenoforming engines under Ark control when Arkfall happened?

*Contrary to popular opinion in the United States, the European Union did not fracture because of human difference of opinion, they fractured because they were flattened by the Votans, and the various governments were more focused on keeping their own house in order than helping in a war across the continent.
It’s fairly bog standard, a more conservative version of Columbia.
*With the Øresund having been replaced by a massive land mass connecting Sweden and Denmark, the Commonwealth is forced to rely on the expanded Adriatic (the xenoforming really caused a collapse throughout Central Austria and the surrounding area) for its sea access. It has to keep in touch with its allies in the Low Countries and Aquitaine somehow.

Aquitaine? That wee little country in SW France?

*The Commonwealth’s biggest concern, however, is the

Rhone ark-brain. During Arkfall, the ship with the backup cryogenics for the travelling Votans crashed smack dab into the Rhone valley, and the cryogenics lashed out across that slice of Western Europe, turning it into a wintry hellscape virtually overnight.
*Freezing Frenchmen soon found that the unnatural and self-maintaining cold wasn’t their only problem. The ship’s ark-brain had been driven insane by the sudden rush of disparate and conflicting information during Arkfall, and using formerly dumb, automated servants called ‘Scrappers’ by the remaining English speaking population, enslaved most of the population, and was growing its population rapidly.

I'm a touch confused here: did the ice thaw out? If not, what are the human slaves eating?

*Then there’s the endless warfare in

Germany. While Schweinfurt is loyal enough to Lodz, it’s stuck in constant intervention in an area where the Pale Wars never ended. Germany was hit with enough radiation and chemical weapons to already make life hellish, but when you add that to the man-eating jungle that occupies most of the country, the remnant human and Votan warlords who barely know that the rest of the Pale Wars has ended..

Hard to see what's going on in the map: perhaps a closeup map (or two? )

Is that area in SW France and NW Italy a Votan state?

*Nowadays, the UK is a fairly authoritarian, isolationist state. It no longer has relations with the outside world, there are automated coldfire guns near most major ports, and Swedish sailors regularly complain of the fact that the British mined the Channel, forcing them to take the long way around.

That would seem to be a guarantee for a failed reconstruction and permanent impoverishment: the UK is not bountifully supplied with raw materials, and is going to be rather dependent on trade if it intends to grow its economy past 19th century standards. Or does Votan tech to some extent make up for that?

*Romania’s broken away from Lodz’ grasp, and has created its own little faction with Turkey and Tunisia, two other regional powers. The Antalya Accords largely keep to their own affairs (outside of the dick-waving contest in Bosnia) but Lodz is very worried about their increasing outreach to Sulos.

Might want a more distinctive color for Romania, make it stand out more from the Lodz block.

[

*The Koryazhma Earth Republic is the most successful of the European Russian successor states, and is doing its best to hold out until the Omsk Earth Republic can connect to it and subsume it.

I'd imagine there would be at least jeep-usuable (in dry weather) roads between the two: do the Russian wilds have a Mutant Monster or Warlord problem messing with communications?


[

*There are several surviving states in Lower Egypt. Egypt, a newborn nuclear power during the Pale Wars, was flattened by the Collective troops coming out of the Middle East, who had faced some of the most fanatical, yet not especially well organized, resistance. Most are under Turkish or Collective influence, or aren’t relevant enough to gain international attention.

I'm surprised the Votans didn't take out the Aswan dam - a Genocide Too Far? (I mean, it _looks_ like genocide: due to most of the population being along the Nile, conquering regimes have usually managed to maintain control of Egypt throughout most of its history: there's nowhere for rebels to run to. The facts that the Votans don't occupy the area and that there are no organized states large enough to see implies that there is, in fact, nobody to see.)

*The Votans have a very delicate British Raj-esque system in Africa, a system of protectorates, territories under military administration, core territories, and states that have openly declared independence peacefully while still technically being part of the Collective (it’s complicated), which sometimes erupts into open revolt.

What goes on in Northern Nigeria?

*Israel gave the Votanis Collective one hell of a kick in the nuts before the Votans broke them. A third of the Israelis were evacuated to the United States and Europe before the fall of the country, but most died from the radiation and focused xenoforming used against the country.

I imagine the surviving Jews, Israeli or otherwise, form a vocal part of the anti-Votan lobby in those areas.Speak of your second Holocausts...


[

*Iran’s about the same sort of government it is today, except more militarized. Most of its southern and western portions were shattered by encroaching Collective forces, and even today, most of its south is uninhabited and anarchic. There are existing Earth Republics in the west, which Yazd is trying to reincorporate. Both sides are willing, it’s just slow-going thanks to geographical realities.

Hmm: Iran was a _fairly_ unified country back when there were no railroads or roads worth a damn. If they want to rejoin, I'd think that those solidly Iranian two states south of the Caspian would be at worst "loosely incorporated provinces" rather than separate states at this point, unless those common borders we see on the map aren't really there.

*Afghanistan (“oh, I’m sorry, the Kabul Earth Republic”) just wants all of you to fuck off. The aliens went...wherever the fuck they went, and they’re tired of being used as a staging ground by their neighbors. They’re smart enough to not directly insult Lahore or Yazd or Omsk, but they no longer want to be an aircraft carrier for governments that once invaded and occupied them. (The War on Terror was a more worldwide effort on this Earth, a trial run for the EMC.)

I'm not entirely sold on that state's borders...I think I'll take a look-see as to what it looks like with OTL borders overlaid.

*The Kohalpur Earth Republic is the last remnant of the Indian government, and a blatant military dictatorship. They tried to have a mixed government, but there were...irreconcilable differences, and after a Hindu nationalist PM tried to force out the Muslims to improve food stocks for Hindus, they enacted a coup. Their attempts to regain territory have been rebuffed, and so the military has shrugged and moved on. They have a country to rebuild after all. *They’re the most naval-oriented of the four prominent members of the Astana Earth Republic (technically, Lahore, Kohalpur, Kabul, Yazd, Kathmandu, and Omsk are all one country. No one acts like that’s the case, of course.), and they’ve been reclaiming islands abandoned after the Pale Wars. They’re concerned about Collective expansion in the Indian Ocean.

Needs a little rewriting to make it clearer that the _military_ led a coup, not the Muslims, I think.

*The Lhasa Earth Republic doesn’t have long left in this world. The difficulty of access was an excuse ages ago, but now that infrastructure has been repaired? Chongqing will ‘ask’ for a ‘reunification’ any day.

The Lhasa Earth Republic should extend a bit further east, I think: Lhasa, which is north of Bhutan, is at best right around the eastern tip of the state as shown.

*China’s working to reclaim lost territory, but they’re losing the war thanks to overextended logistics and the fact that many outright don’t want Chongqing there. Unfortunately for those fortress towns, China doesn’t give a shit what they want. Unfortunately for China, there are thousands of these fortress towns- and their conscripts only have so much tolerance for fighting.

Could you clarify a little as to what goes on in the darker red and red striped areas respectively?

*The Harbin warlord state is the only one to have lasted this long, and is actively invading Chinese-claimed-and-technically-occupied territory.

Do they have nukes or something?

*Japan’s very fond of using exoskeletons in their military.

There's probably some sort of interdimensional rule about that.

*Laos was the only one of the Indochinese states to largely survive the war without too great a loss in infrastructure, and has assumed a role as the most powerful state in the region.

I'd imagine it probably benefited from it's relative insignificance: no military threat to the Votans, well down their "to do" list. And surrounded by Votan-soaks.

*The Spratlys, or rather, the landmass that rose from their location, are, as of present, unclaimed by any sovereign power.

Irony!

*No, Antarctica is not a tropical paradise. That was a lie Joshua Nolan told his daughter so she’d have something to hope for while living in a very shitty world.

Really, this world is lucky that some sort of runaway xenoforming unit didn't do an Evangelion on Antarctica and flood the world. Admittedly, at over 400 feet about sea level, St. Louis would be fine.

A formidable effort. Bravo!

 

[TheBatman]

It looks like a Communist version of 7up

"Soviet Soda, Taste the Revolution"

Somewhere in the world there exists a pop called Havana Banana, I'm not a fan of pop so I can't really comment on quality.

 

[sheevposter]

It looks like a Communist version of 7up

"Soviet Soda, Taste the Revolution"

Relevant

 

[Jcw3]

/quote]

Error with the quote here, could you fix this so I could better reply?

 

[B_Munro]

Error with the quote here, could you fix this so I could better reply?

I made a _load_ of errors: hopefully fixed.

Taking the dog on walk, back in 30 minutes tops.

 

[Jcw3]

Castithians seem a lot like the "Nordic" aliens of flying saucer mythos. If liberata are nitrogen-breathers, how do they coexist with oxygen-breathing irathients and sensoths on the same planet? (I mean, if it's an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere with each taking their bit, don't see why they'd need atmospheric planetforming here on earth).

I really have no idea how the mechanics of their biology works. I'm *assuming* that they live in a fairly similar atmosphere to Earth, because otherwise the near-human Votans (not the gulanee) wouldn't be able to survive in Defiance, and vice versa. Official canon is that Arkfall turned Earth into a mix of Daribo, Irath, and Earth, but I don't know how exactly it works, and since I'm more interested in the geopolitical aspect of it, I'm more willing to ignore/handwave biological details like that. Could be nitrogen is more involved in liberata breathing than with the others? That's something from the game, anyway, I think. I never played it.

So the Liberata are space-Jews?

Yeah, pretty much. That's canon, though. I find a bit silly.

Similarities to certain OTL events are entirely coincidental.

There were already similarities with canon, I just took them to their logical conclusion.

So this is all show canon? (Venus has potential? really?)

I don't think you need an FTL ship at all: a bigger and better version of our 2017 planet search methods probably could do the trick. (With the larger Jovians, we've detected planets out to 13,000 light years).

Sort of. The Kaziri was stranded in canon (big part of the first 2 seasons, IIRC), and the Votans didn't know that Earth was inhabited. I needed a reason why they didn't know Earth was inhabited, and ansibles seemed to do the trick. That, and how the Kaziri got there thousands of years before the rest of the Arkfleet. The canon omecs had FTL, and there had to be something leftover from the Votan-omec war, so voila.

The Votans had Earth on the shortlist of planets they could detect, but they weren't positively sure Earth was easily xenoformable, and they didn't want to risk hundreds of millions of lives on the chance, and they didn't want to ruin their chances of Votan survival by going 'well, it might be habitable'.

Didn't most Gulanee stay because they thought they could survive the crisis?

Most did, yes. Some didn't.

Not sure most democracies have the power to do this. A massive security system like the US, sure, but would the government of the Netherlands or Switzerland or Iceland have the same capability? As long as only a few high-powered observatories can detect them, the news could be contained, but once small-scale installations can do so...

The EMC did everything it could to discredit this information, or to nationalize telescopes where they could, or to shutter telescopes not under their control. This provided great fodder for conspiracists and those who are suspicious of governments in general, but the EMC actually managed, despite all odds, to keep the Votan fleet an equivalent to chemtrails or frog-gayifiers until the early 2010s.

So what's Rayetsuism exactly?

A monotheistic religion similar to Abrahamism. Mostly followed by castithans. Rayetsuism is another word for Shirivanawo, which English speakers find annoying to pronounce.

That sounds...wrong.

I think that's canon. I could just be imagining it.

Why use them on civilians when you have imprisoned maybe possibly terrorists to test them on?

They didn't have enough Votan prisoners of war to achieve meaningful results, and when you have a leadership that largely sees Votan lives as less than human lives, and a preponderance of irathient citizens...

Nanotech?

Sort of, yeah.

Did the Votans have a way to neutralize atomic weapons, or just very good antimissile tech?

Both, mostly the latter.

I imagine you're making the show a bit more realistic here.

I love Defiance, but it has its problems with realism.

Now is that from New York city or New York State? NY city seems likely to have been pretty hard hit by funky climate effects, not to mention being an obvious military target during the Pale War.

It was, on both counts. Columbia is trying to revitalize it for bragging rights, 'we're powerful enough to restore pre-war life!', that sort of thing.

Northern Mexico seems rather depopulated: was it a major combat front between the US/world alliance and the Votans?

Yes.

No out of control terraforming efforts in Votanis territory? No local xenoforming engines under Ark control when Arkfall happened?

There are plenty, but for my own sanity, the majority of the xenoforming devices were pointed at human-held territory, as a dead man's switch to be used in case the humans managed to destroy the Arks. When an act of sabotage/horrific accident destroyed the Arks in orbit, well...

I really didn't want to draw the whole world fucked up by Arkfall, so most of the changes in the world are on the interior.

Aquitaine? That wee little country in SW France?

Yes. It holds a good portion of the pre-Arkfall French military, and is more populated than you would think.

I'm a touch confused here: did the ice thaw out? If not, what are the human slaves eating?

Nutrient paste. Designed to be easily created in all environments. Usually flavorless, but can grow in almost any temperatures with just biomass of some sort and sunlight. There are no shortages of corpses in France, and still plenty of sunlight.

The ice is being maintained by cryogenic engines run amok.

Hard to see what's going on in the map: perhaps a closeup map (or two? )

Is that area in SW France and NW Italy a Votan state?

Probably a pretty good idea, actually. I might do a Q-Bam of the area. After the Worldwar/Defiance crossover, of course.

That's the territory held by the Rhone ark-brain. Technically a Votan (AI), so I put it down.

That would seem to be a guarantee for a failed reconstruction and permanent impoverishment: the UK is not bountifully supplied with raw materials, and is going to be rather dependent on trade if it intends to grow its economy past 19th century standards. Or does Votan tech to some extent make up for that?

Yes, on both counts. There's very much a stiff upper lip mentality, and most people are sort of forced to pretend that their quality of life hasn't changed that much, or else they'll face ostracization/imprisonment depending on how loud they are about it. By and large, there's still air conditioning and the like, but fuels are very, very strictly rationed, and there's barely ever publicly-owned cars on the road. Votan tech makes it better than it would have been, and the UK wasn't hit too hard by the Pale Wars, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Might want a more distinctive color for Romania, make it stand out more from the Lodz block.

I'll fix that should I ever do a sequel. Color schemes aren't my best point.

I'd imagine there would be at least jeep-usuable (in dry weather) roads between the two: do the Russian wilds have a Mutant Monster or Warlord problem messing with communications?

Yes. It's not as bad as in the Russian Wastes or in the Storm Divide, but Karyazhmo and Omsk have a lot of problems with raiders, mutated wildlife, and poor infrastructural conditions.

I'm surprised the Votans didn't take out the Aswan dam - a Genocide Too Far? (I mean, it _looks_ like genocide: due to most of the population being along the Nile, conquering regimes have usually managed to maintain control of Egypt throughout most of its history: there's nowhere for rebels to run to. The facts that the Votans don't occupy the area and that there are no organized states large enough to see implies that there is, in fact, nobody to see.)

There are communities there, they just haven't yet gotten beyond three-or-four villages level, and aren't tied at the hip to any major power, so they aren't on the map. Egypt gave the Votans a hell of a fight, and as a reward, it got to descend into post-apocalyptic anarchy.

What goes on in Northern Nigeria?

An Islamist authoritarian state desperately hoping Sulos has forgotten they existed. Think something along the lines of OTL Afghanistan, with the Taliban types largely replaced with more banal raiders.

I imagine the surviving Jews, Israeli or otherwise, form a vocal part of the anti-Votan lobby in those areas.Speak of your second Holocausts...

Definitely. Most focus their anger on the Collective, rather than Votans themselves. There was actually this really interesting character in Defiance, an irathient Jew raised by human parents. Cai didn't get enough screen time.

Hmm: Iran was a _fairly_ unified country back when there were no railroads or roads worth a damn. If they want to rejoin, I'd think that those solidly Iranian two states south of the Caspian would be at worst "loosely incorporated provinces" rather than separate states at this point, unless those common borders we see on the map aren't really there.

It's complicated. Yazd could enforce power within those borders if it needed to, and those borders are internationally recognized, but their actual degree of control over those areas is spottier than you'd think. They'd like to reunify, but they don't have the infrastructure yet to do so.

I'm not entirely sold on that state's borders...I think I'll take a look-see as to what it looks like with OTL borders overlaid.

That's fair. The borders are meant to be chaotic, in that they're the result of shifting borders from the largest war in history, where Afghanistan was largely used as a staging ground/resource bank anyone could withdraw from.

Needs a little rewriting to make it clearer that the _military_ led a coup, not the Muslims, I think.

Good idea. I'll edit that.

The Lhasa Earth Republic should extend a bit further east, I think: Lhasa, which is north of Bhutan, is at best right around the eastern tip of the state as shown.

Whoops. Thought Lhasa was further east. I'll fix that should I ever redo the map, but the LER might not exist in its current form in ten years, so it won't matter for the sequel.

Could you clarify a little as to what goes on in the darker red and red striped areas respectively?

General anarchic rebellion against any form of government.

Do they have nukes or something?

A few, but they haven't used them against fellow human states. They're just good at taking advantage of infrastructural and geographical realities, as well as Chongqing's split focus.

I'd imagine it probably benefited from it's relative insignificance: no military threat to the Votans, well down their "to do" list. And surrounded by Votan-soaks.

Definitely.

A formidable effort. Bravo!

Thank you very, very much.

 

[B_Munro]

A few, but they haven't used them against fellow human states. They're just good at taking advantage of infrastructural and geographical realities, as well as Chongqing's split focus.

I was thinking that Chongqing would just nuke them if they became too much of a nuisance, unless they had a deterrent of their own.

General anarchic rebellion against any form of government.

I asked Could you clarify a little as to what goes on in the darker red and red striped areas respectively?

If they're colored differently, I assume there are different local conditions?

There are communities there, they just haven't yet gotten beyond three-or-four villages level, and aren't tied at the hip to any major power, so they aren't on the map. Egypt gave the Votans a hell of a fight, and as a reward, it got to descend into post-apocalyptic anarchy.

Hmm. As I said, Egypt isn't that hard to unify, and I'd expect that 15 years after the war some warlord states would have sprung up large enough to show on the map - keeping things at the handful-of-villages level would seem to require either a universal equality in firepower or a universal lack of modern weapons - but no big deal.

That's the territory held by the Rhone ark-brain. Technically a Votan (AI), so I put it down.

Would you believe I forgot where the Rhone was? In my defense, the link you gave talked about the freezing of Notre Dame and Mt. St. Michel - in the north and west of France, not the southeast.

 

[Jcw3]

I was thinking that Chongqing would just nuke them if they became too much of a nuisance, unless they had a deterrent of their own.

They aren't that high on Chongqing's list of concerns. Invading claimed territory, sure. Technically so are about a dozen other countries of note. They're definitely on Chongqing's to-do list.

I asked Could you clarify a little as to what goes on in the darker red and red striped areas respectively?

If they're colored differently, I assume there are different local conditions?

Oh, wow, misinterpreted that question. The territories in China-territory color (there are three in total) are largely areas where Chongqing has recognized international control and to an extent, actual control. They aren't yet connected enough to the main territories to be considered part of the 'metropole', as it were. The northern 'temporary enhanced administration area' is under a great deal of pressure from fortress-towns sponsored by the Harbin warlord state, but those territories were largely deemed unreachable for the time being, so while there is a heavy degree of fighting up there, it's not that extreme. Did that help?

Hmm. As I said, Egypt isn't that hard to unify, and I'd expect that 15 years after the war some warlord states would have sprung up large enough to show on the map - keeping things at the handful-of-villages level would seem to require either a universal equality in firepower or a universal lack of modern weapons - but no big deal.

If I ever did a second iteration of this map, I'd fix that.

Would you believe I forgot where the Rhone was? In my defense, the link you gave talked about the freezing of Notre Dame and Mt. St. Michel - in the north and west of France, not the southeast.

I know. That's mostly an artifact of canon. I thought the description given on how the crashed cryogenics affected France was really neat, so I sort of reused it. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Isaac Beach]

A wee WIP of just something I've been doodling without too much thought. I think the basic premise is a more united HRE and a less united France, as well as a bit of an Ummayad wank.

 

[Neptune]

a bit of an Ummayad wank

a bit

hmmmm

 

[Isaac Beach]

hmmmm

Aw well I never wank the Muslims and never the African ones. I usually have a united Arabia but aside that, eh. Rectifying that, I guess, plus a Muslim Brazil sounds cool to me. Though I need a name for it, admittedly.

 

[B_Munro]

Go Qurṭubah!

WIP: 1980s retrofuture world. No, that's not Greater East Asia: the yellowish outline indicates members of the PacRim Association which are not Japan, Australia, or the USA. Orange stripes indicate corporation-dominated areas (Japan's government and it's megacorps are essentially synonymous).

 

[Arkenfolm]

Does anyone even live in that little bit of North Darfur in light green?

 

[Isaac Beach]

Does anyone even live in that little bit of North Darfur in light green?

Uh? Rude. My house is there. /jk

 

[KitFisto1997]

A wee WIP of just something I've been doodling without too much thought. I think the basic premise is a more united HRE and a less united France, as well as a bit of an Ummayad wank.

View attachment 344317

You might say it's an... UBERMYAD WANK!

 

[Clandango]

You might say it's an... UBERMYAD WANK!

You stop that.

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

Does anyone even live in that little bit of North Darfur in light green?

Light green usually indicates areas of little or no habitation (or at least no real state). It's probably terra nullis.

 

[AltFuture]

Basically a OTL, but with major change which will be a PoD.

USA becomes a American Union - political, militatary and economic alliance of 13 colonies. They're a fully independent countries. Union is weakier, but who knows - maybe local developmet will be more effective for the states?
American Union regulates disputes between states, owns a Northwest which are preparing for the division between states. Vermont is currently not yet joined AU, but considers to join.
Every state probably will make different political systems and get interesting concepts of the political parties.