Medieval America Co-op Project

Alright, so thanks to this thread I wanted to see if AH.com could do a good co-op project fleshing out the unfinished world described by Matthew White here. Some helpful ideas from another person about this universe can be located on there blog here.

The basic premise is that through some event, we'll just be handwaving it as ASBs to keep with the spirit of it, technology and culture the world over has regressed towards medieval style. The catch is, this is all based on the current state of the world. For example, America is largely of European descent and Christian but some things have changed. Also, unlike most nuclear war/disaster and rebuilding scenarios, most of the important cities of our time have retained their importance in this new world.

I'd sum up the world a little more, but I feel the blog does that best.

Now, as I commented in the other thread, it looks like Mr. White has described the culture of the Great Plains nomadic tribes pretty well, but has left mostof the other cultures blank and unexplained. Now, I fully expect to change some things(Scientologist California just doesn't make sense to me) but I'd like to stay fairly close to the idea of the original.

So, if you have any ideas for fleshing out this world, please post them here. Posting ideas about the cultures of regions, the evolution of languages, and the general lifestyle of people in this new Medieval America is the goal of this thread.

Also, if you want to branch out outside of America, that should be ok as well.
 
The Empire of Minnesota

The Empire of Minnesota rests in the frozen north, at the edge of civilization. It represents the last outpost of sedentary farming, before the American continent gives way to horse tribes of the Great Plains. From the imperial cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, based on the opposing shores of the Mighty Mississippi, the Minnesotans inhabit a vast empire of prairie, forest, and tundra. They represent the breadbasket of the North. Its peasants live in communal villages, dividing their time between cultivating the lands of their lords, and that of the village commons. Every year their harvests bring forth incredible surpluses of wheat, corn, sugar beets, and potatoes. Their bounty is carried by merchant barges down the Mississippi and across the great lakes. This prosperity has made their sprawling capital into one of the largest cities in the north. Yet despite its splendors, Minnesota remains predominately rural, with its only other cities of significance being the garrison city of Rochester, and in the far west trading outpost of Fargo. Fargo is a savage place, at the very end of the empires control. It is here where the northern end of silver road lies, and the Dakota tribes gather to trade fur and livestock for the luxuries’ of civilization. For all of its power, Minnesota always exists in a state of fear, for beyond them lies the endless hordes of the prairie. To its north rests the stalwart kingdom of superior, which tends the great mines of iron, and jealously guards the entryway to the great lakes. To the east is the Kingdom of Wisconsin, similar in culture and tongue but a fierce rival. The two nations wage frequent wars of the north woods, and trading rights along the upper Mississippi. To the south, are the Iowa who covet the southern prairies and cornfields.

The imperial court rests in Minneapolis. It is surrounded by the winter palaces of the greater nobility and merchant princes; most of which lie in the Hennepin district. This has granted the region a disproportionate amount of wealth and luxury. For here the elites compete for status and prestige. Minneapolis is home to grand taverns and theaters, the workshops of artists, and on its southern edge the legendary Market of America. St. Paul, though a sister city enjoys less prestige. It is here where most of the labors and craftsmen live. Its crowded bording houses of wood and brick are riff with disease, poverty, and discontent. However St. Paul is home to the theological colleges. It is here were the the best and brightest of Minnesota go for their education, and the city is teaming with riotous students. As important as the twin cities are, they lack a court of supervisors for the non-denominational church. This is a bitter point for the imperial family which finds its nation subject to the decrees of the judges in Madison, a fact long exploited by the Kings of Wisconsin.
 
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The Kingdom of Wisconsin

The Kingdom of Wisconsin is a shining example of the culture of the Great Lakes. Trading ports and merchants line every coast of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, and the merchant class thus commands great respect within the Kingdom. That said, the majority of the population is still quite rural, and farming is the single largest profession. Other important industries are the mines of copper and other valuable ores in the northern reaches of Wisconsin. Breweries are also important within the state, and Wisconsin remains a major exporter of the finest ales in the region, rivaled only by the State of Missory to the far south.

Just as it was in the glorious days of the Old Union, Madison remains a city renowned for higher learning and tolerance, though this does not extend to the rest of the King's domains. Here, the Non-denominational Church reaches its edge of influence, with the unusual situation of the district governing religious affairs of both Wisconsin and its rival Minnesota, a situation that Wisconsin exploits continuously.

Unfortunately, peace is not something that Wisconsinites are too familiar with. Dynastic conflicts with Michigan over the Superian lands have made relations tense, the Empire of Minnesota watches with covetous eyes and prepares for another war with their old rivals, all the while the strengthened tribes of Iowa raid the southern reaches of the Kingdom after their conquest of much of Illinois. Time will tell just what kind of future Wisconsin may look forward to, but it is unlikely that it will be a peaceful one.
 
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The Merchant Republic of Chicago

Built in a Swamp, the merchant republic of Chicago has long dominated the trade routes of Lake Michigan. The Daley family has long held the prestigious title of mayor, ruling their city-state with an iron fist and a silver tongue. Chicago’s prosperity is assured by its central location. It has long controlled the Midwest’s trade in grain and cattle. It is said to have the largest flour mills and slaughterhouses in the world. This has helped to build an enormous population, which finds employment in nearly every trade. Though the population is enormous, and the city is continually flooded with immigrants, much of the city is impoverished. These unfortunate souls dwell in the city’s south side which has been known as a haven for crime and corruption. That being said public bathhouses and sewers have helped keep disease in check. In the very heart of the city flanked by the palatial trading houses of the merchant and banking families rests the board of trade. It is here where the merchants collude, to set the price nearly every trading commodity for the coming season.

Though Chicago has many enemies, particularly amongst the princes of Wisconsin and Michigan, it has thus far been able to safeguard its independence. A small tax is collected off of every sale, and used for the purpose of civil defense. Fortresses ring the city, and spread its influence well beyond its literal borders. This region is known as Chicagoland, and it spreads well into Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Its made up of many middling towns and cities and it even includes the grim metropol of Gary. For all of its size, and power Chicagoland’s influence has been threatened in recent years. The kingdom of Wisconsin was re-annexed the trading city of Kenosha and advanced as far south as Waukegan. Meanwhile the Iowan hordes threaten the outskirts of Joliet and Naperville. This has forced the ruling family to call upon the “machine”.

Every neighborhood is expected to provide a division of militia for the cities’ defense. Made up of young tradesmen and laborers, they train every Sunday and compete with one another in yearly parades. In times of crisis, the city calls these divisions up and sends them out into battle. The city also maintains an enormous fleet of tall ships, which at any time are prepared for war along the great lakes. The merchant princes also contribute towards the hiring of professional mercenaries in times of war. This is often enough to overcome, the advances of rival nations.

While Chicago is a center of trade, education, and culture, its achievements in religion have been lacking. The city is often at odds with the Court of Superiors in Springfield, and has traditionally been loathe to give away its hard earned money in tithes. This has lead the Non-Denominational Church to excommunicate more than a few of its leading citizens.
 
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I hadn't thought of Chicago as an independent city-state, but it does make sense if you think about it. Their lack of support might be a good explanation for why Iowa managed to conquer so much of Illinois. Plus, I like the idea of its influence in places supposedly under kings.

Perhaps the Lakes have their own version of the Hansa or something?
 
I hadn't thought of Chicago as an independent city-state, but it does make sense if you think about it. Their lack of support might be a good explanation for why Iowa managed to conquer so much of Illinois. Plus, I like the idea of its influence in places supposedly under kings.

Perhaps the Lakes have their own version of the Hansa or something?

Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah I think a Hansa-esque Great Lakes region could work very well. Detroit could easily be this timeline's version of Copenhagen. Although I'd imagine that Michigan exists in a perpetual state of war with its neighbors over trading rights and territorial claims.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah I think a Hansa-esque Great Lakes region could work very well. Detroit could easily be this timeline's version of Copenhagen. Although I'd imagine that Michigan exists in a perpetual state of war with its neighbors over trading rights and territorial claims.
Yes, that seems likely. My guess is Michigan probably dominates the trade organization due to its location, especially if it still controls most of the upper peninsula as well. If Michigan controls it mostly, the other Kingdoms might actively oppose the organization. Nothing like a trade war to make things interesting. I can't help but imagine some privateers roaming the lakes in support of factions within the Lakes Trade, although that might just be my imagination pulling ahead of me.

I think I'll try and cook something up to explain the religious differences in the regions. While I'm not fond of Scientology as a major religion in California, having it as a shadowy religion for the elite(though it would probably shift from sci-fiesque to more traditional ideas) that, combined with the government format White provided about their absolute power, forments rebellion in the poorer serfs and peasants which is then used as a tool by ambitious nobles.
 
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Tom Kalbfus

Banned
From the other thread:

Yeah, I'd agree about the city states. Whatever caused this regression might have an effect(eg, nuclear collapse would mean while some cities are unlikely to regain their role) but from what I've seen of his idea the East Coast is more or less intact, if more primitive.

Largely, he seems to focus and flesh out the Plains and the Cowboy culture more than any of the other ones. Although he puts a little info towards the Eastern areas.

It would be interesting to figure out how the "states" have changed in the overall scheme of things. I can see Ohio being a powerful nation on its own, for example. And the New England Republics make me think of Italy, with the amount of wars and intrigue.

I finally found his page on Iowa, and it seems it's a nation founded by Cowboy tribes that eventually went native, so a Norman sort of thing. That seems plausible for them to fight their way in, but my regionalism demands I argue with the massive area they've claimed. I can picture them expanding into Western Illionois and southwestern Wisconsin fairly easily, though.

I liked the blog's assumption that the Applachians and Ozarks have become clan-dominated and much like Scotland, with some "lowland culture" in the major cities that remained. Makes for an interesting story telling idea.

I have my doubts about a full-fledged voodoo state in N'awlins, but it might be a drastically different version of that religion, which would make things interesting.

Finally, the scientology thing is just messed up. That's a parody I'm fairly certain, but it would be an interesting thing to try and flesh out and develop.

Should we start a thread on this?


I also agree about the South needs to be fleshed out more. I attributed the change to the mass mixing of White southerners with Black southerners, and combined with the trading they should be doing with the nearby Carribean states, I can picture some influence there. Probably not full fledged voodoo witchdoctor stuff though.

Not so sure about fantasy though.
I've been to the South, it isn't as black as the author suggests. Blacks are a minority there as they are most places in the USA, the only exception are the cities. If you mix blacks with whites what you get are whites with some black ancestry, and I don't think you'd retain much black culture, if most of those people look in a mirror and see a white person.

And how realistic is it to suppose that the races will mix like this and suddenly become a uniform single race gradiated by latitude? There are countries nearby in which blacks are the majority, I'm thinking of Haiti and Jamacia, those islands are within reach of a medeval coaster of the United States, or by a "Viking Longboat" I think there will be trade between the Carribean islands and the continent of North America, so we'll have a steady supply of blacks and latinos visiting the United States, and they won't all want to marry the nearest white person they see and mix their genes with them.

I think in a medeaval world the cities become much less important, what once was metropolises of millions will become cities of a few hundred thousand at most, more likely of a few tens of thousands in most cities. Cities are unhealthy places anyway in the middle ages. medeaval cities have poor sanitation, and they typically dump their sewage into a stream out in the middle of the street, the water supply is dirty and full of disease, most people would rather live in agrarian villages than in an unhealthy place such as a medeaval city.
 
Yes, that seems likely. My guess is Michigan probably dominates the trade organization due to its location, especially if it still controls most of the upper peninsula as well. If Michigan controls it mostly, the other Kingdoms might actively oppose the organization. Nothing like a trade war to make things interesting. I can't help but imagine some privateers roaming the lakes in support of factions within the Lakes Trade, although that might just be my imagination pulling ahead of me.

I'm not sure if this is addressed , but the breakdown in national authority would probably mean that the US and English Canada are considered part of the same culture, even the same "nation" in the cultural sense. So a Great Lakes trade consortium could well include cities on both sides of the Great Lakes, since there's no clear national boundary anymore.
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
Yes, that seems likely. My guess is Michigan probably dominates the trade organization due to its location, especially if it still controls most of the upper peninsula as well. If Michigan controls it mostly, the other Kingdoms might actively oppose the organization. Nothing like a trade war to make things interesting. I can't help but imagine some privateers roaming the lakes in support of factions within the Lakes Trade, although that might just be my imagination pulling ahead of me.

I think I'll try and cook something up to explain the religious differences in the regions. While I'm not fond of Scientology as a major religion in California, having it as a shadowy religion for the elite(though it would probably shift from sci-fiesque to more traditional ideas) that, combined with the government format White provided about their absolute power, forments rebellion in the poorer serfs and peasants which is then used as a tool by ambitious nobles.
I think something bad must have happened to the cities to make America Medeaval. People who lived in the cities at the time of the fall would be less likely to survive than people living in the countryside. What I think most likely happened is that the cities were destroyed, and the people living in the countryside surrounding the cities moved in an built new cities on top of the rubble piles that were the old cities. I don't know what sort of disaster could make us medeaval, but it would have to be something which distroyed all our cities which were our centers of culture and knowledge, it is much easier for me to think of a parallel world that is medeaval than a future world that regresses to medeaval, people would have to be pretty pathetic in order for them to forget to make a printing press, or how to make gunpowder.

My best guess is that we get taken over by a totalitarian police state where the government controls everything in the fashion of the Soviet Union, that government then proceeds to distroy all knowledge of gunmaking and keeps it a secret so it can control the population. Something like that which existed in George Orwell's 1984, might do the trick. They would have something like a Ministry of Truth which goes about "modifying the past" through altering historical records so they stay consistent with what the government is saying currently. This is a Statist Communistic system controlled by one single government that stays in power, and it does this for a few centuries, and in the process completely distroys all historical knowledge and people are afraid of "Big Brother" because there are citizens spying on citizens, children spying on their parents and telling the government all about it.

The last thing that happens is the government gets taken over by a radical environmental faction, which concludes that their are too many people living on Earth, and they go about the process of reducing human population through mass sterolization, or perhaps simply extermination, before this reaches a certain point there is a sudden rebellion destroying the government and all semblance of order, the cities were destroyed taking all modern knowledge with it, leaving only simple medeaval people who had to learn to do everything for themselves.
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
I'm not sure if this is addressed , but the breakdown in national authority would probably mean that the US and English Canada are considered part of the same culture, even the same "nation" in the cultural sense. So a Great Lakes trade consortium could well include cities on both sides of the Great Lakes, since there's no clear national boundary anymore.
If you believe in global warming, this means that the agricultural zone would move northword. Much of the same stuff that applied in the television series, life after people would also apply here. Some abandoned rubble piles that were once cities would be under water. Lots of empty ruins, and every once in a white, someone may unearth something like a machinegun that still works and cause untold amounts of trouble with it. I think a medeaval setting like this would have an awful amount of trouble staying medeval, what good are swords when you never know when someone might pull out a gun that's left over from a previous age? Something as simply as pikes can obliviate the armoured knight, and its hard to uninvent a simple idea as a long pole with a pointy end braced against the ground to impale a charging horse. Also a post appocalyptic United States would probably be a lot more "horsey" than the real middle ages were. In the middle ages a peasant might have ridden on a donkey while the finer members of society rode on horses, but out west practically everyone would own a horse, the saddles and bridles would probably remain fully modern in design and it would be hard to uninvent those as they are simple devices.
 
The ancient role playing game Aftermath offered an option where an experimental petrophage(?) was used to clean up an massive oil spill but went on to destroy the world's oil supply.

That might explain the problem while the months it took might explain the lack of nuclear weapons and such being used.
 

Hendryk

Banned
My best guess is that we get taken over by a totalitarian police state where the government controls everything in the fashion of the Soviet Union, that government then proceeds to distroy all knowledge of gunmaking and keeps it a secret so it can control the population. Something like that which existed in George Orwell's 1984, might do the trick. They would have something like a Ministry of Truth which goes about "modifying the past" through altering historical records so they stay consistent with what the government is saying currently. This is a Statist Communistic system controlled by one single government that stays in power, and it does this for a few centuries, and in the process completely distroys all historical knowledge and people are afraid of "Big Brother" because there are citizens spying on citizens, children spying on their parents and telling the government all about it.
Do you absolutely have to shoehorn your ideological prejudices into a perfectly good and politically neutral neo-medieval FH concept? Also, sorry to remind you of that inconvenient fact, but there's more to the world than just the US, and White made it clear that in his setting all of mankind had regressed to a premodern technological level.

Causing the downfall of civilization by (gasp) keeping the methods of gunmaking secret :rolleyes: That's a new one.

Okay, Tom Kalbfus's unhelpful digression notwithstanding, and leaving out the open question of how the world got there altogether, who'd fancy giving a general overview of mankind as a whole? Neo-medieval America isn't an autarchic place, there's a fair amount of contact and even cultural fusion with the Caribbean along the Gulf Coast, and it seems they get a trickle of trade from Eurasia on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Certain questions deserve asking. America has gone feudal, with independent polities emerging here and there; so what happened to modern nation-states in the rest of the world? Have medium-sized countries like, well, the European ones, managed to retain a functional central government, or have they reverted to feudalism as well? What about large countries? One can imagine China going back to a neo-imperial system, but what about India, Russia, Australia and Brazil? And what of places like the Middle East and Africa, where modern state structures are of questionable stability even in today's world? Etc...
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
Do you absolutely have to shoehorn your ideological prejudices into a perfectly good and politically neutral neo-medieval FH concept? Also, sorry to remind you of that inconvenient fact, but there's more to the world than just the US, and White made it clear that in his setting all of mankind had regressed to a premodern technological level.

Causing the downfall of civilization by (gasp) keeping the methods of gunmaking secret :rolleyes: That's a new one.

Okay, Tom Kalbfus's unhelpful digression notwithstanding, and leaving out the open question of how the world got there altogether, who'd fancy giving a general overview of mankind as a whole? Neo-medieval America isn't an autarchic place, there's a fair amount of contact and even cultural fusion with the Caribbean along the Gulf Coast, and it seems they get a trickle of trade from Eurasia on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Certain questions deserve asking. America has gone feudal, with independent polities emerging here and there; so what happened to modern nation-states in the rest of the world? Have medium-sized countries like, well, the European ones, managed to retain a functional central government, or have they reverted to feudalism as well? What about large countries? One can imagine China going back to a neo-imperial system, but what about India, Russia, Australia and Brazil? And what of places like the Middle East and Africa, where modern state structures are of questionable stability even in today's world? Etc...
The medeaval world is much smaller than the modern world, people in North America have probably forgotten about their cousins in Europe, medeaval ships didn't typically cross such oceans, so they wouldn't know what's going on there, as far as they know North America and perhaps South America is the entire world. As for ideological digressions, if you can't explain how the world got to be, you can't explain what's there. If you go to New York City, you find a medeaval town lying on top of what? A pile of rubble? How did the old city get reduced to a pile of rubble, and what's to prevent the city's residents from rummaging through the rubble and finding anacrhonisitc things such as guns, and gadgets and such, even if they are simply records, the simplest inventions will knock them right out of the middle ages, things like printing presses and patent offices, a buereu of records, a museum etc. A real medeaval setting does not lie on the ruins of an advanced technological civilization, and if it did, there would be consequences for that which can't be ignored. If we're going to project this into the future, we got to explain how it came to be, if we posit an alternate reality we don't, we just say technology never happened and find some other explaination as to how the cities got built.
 
I've been to the South, it isn't as black as the author suggests. Blacks are a minority there as they are most places in the USA, the only exception are the cities. If you mix blacks with whites what you get are whites with some black ancestry, and I don't think you'd retain much black culture, if most of those people look in a mirror and see a white person.
The thing is though, yes, blacks are a minority in the south but they're far more substantial of one down there. I don't think he meant that the New South is completely black, but more of a "brown" or mulatto persuasion. Add in the trade from the Carribbean, and you do probably get a "more black" race in the deep south.

I'm not sure if this is addressed , but the breakdown in national authority would probably mean that the US and English Canada are considered part of the same culture, even the same "nation" in the cultural sense. So a Great Lakes trade consortium could well include cities on both sides of the Great Lakes, since there's no clear national boundary anymore.
I agree. In fact, the Atlas website had the Non-denominational Church's influence extending into the Maritimes and lower Ontario, and since the ND Church is seen as the last remnants of the US I can imagine people thinking that at least that part of Canada was actually American. In fact, on White's map, Ontario uses Canada's maple leaf flag, so they might actually have taken the name of the entire nation for themselves. Also, the maps look like Vancouver's been absorbed by the Pacific Northwest Republics, so you're right there as well. The areas mainly seen as different are the prarie provinces which have shifted towards nomadic lifestyles, and Quebec for obvious reasons.

long snip.
Can we please not bring politics into this? I think we'll stick to the handwave method, because the how doesn't interest me. All I want to figure out is the results of this change.

Okay, Tom Kalbfus's unhelpful digression notwithstanding, and leaving out the open question of how the world got there altogether, who'd fancy giving a general overview of mankind as a whole? Neo-medieval America isn't an autarchic place, there's a fair amount of contact and even cultural fusion with the Caribbean along the Gulf Coast, and it seems they get a trickle of trade from Eurasia on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Certain questions deserve asking. America has gone feudal, with independent polities emerging here and there; so what happened to modern nation-states in the rest of the world? Have medium-sized countries like, well, the European ones, managed to retain a functional central government, or have they reverted to feudalism as well? What about large countries? One can imagine China going back to a neo-imperial system, but what about India, Russia, Australia and Brazil? And what of places like the Middle East and Africa, where modern state structures are of questionable stability even in today's world? Etc...
I can't say for much about Europe, but if we just returned to a more or less carbon copy of medieval europe that would simply be boring. Anybody want to take a shot at that? We know the Vatican has returned to a similar role to the one it had in the first medieval times, but seeing as it is the Vatican II doing this how much are things changing? Are they more willing to tolerate the other branches of Christianity or Islam? Does the EU mean anything by this point?

Australia's going to be interesting. Currently, it's highly urbanized and the best farming's in the Southeast. But again, I don't know how to translate life in Australia to the new Dark Ages. Though I can picture New Zealand and Australian culture mixing more. How do relations and contact with Polynesia and the rest of Oceania change? For some reason I'm picturing Singapore as kind of like Venice.

As for India, I can't picture it retaining one overarching government. Balkanization is most likely, but I don't know much about the area to figure out how those lines will form.

As for Africa...I got nothing.:eek:

Though the guy who wrote the blog had an interesting idea for South America. He mentioned that since the idea of gender equality isn't that strange to the new dark ages because of the past, a polity in South America, also due to the lack of really intensive effort for farming there, some women might not lay down their rights and instead take up a matriarchal society. Amazons in the Amazon.:cool:(The blog explained it better than me, and I'm not certain that this is anything more than a fantasy, but I felt it had to be said.)
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
You don't know much about the way medieval Italy looked, do you?
The Medeaval ages were more advanced than the Roman Period! Romans didn't have windmills, or stirrups for their horses, they may have had concrete and that was forgotten, the main difference between the Roman Empire and Middle Age Europe was the fact that the Romans were more organized and had a centralized government - that centralized government was what caused the Dark Ages by the way, they didn't know how to make an economy grow, all they could do was plunder what they conquered and their area of control got too big, the provinces could no longer support the center, and the center was a drag on the economy contributing very little and forcing up taxes with demonetarized the economy and forced the development of feudal relationships. Rome was a bad disease that Europe had to get over through the Dark and Middle Ages. Maybe a lot of frivolrous things such as the arts and literacy declined, but in practical stuff, the middle ages advanced going from Empire to local government and control.

People found little use for the Empire and the Emperor so they got rid of it, something similar probably happened here in North America, like Rome the government got too big and powerful, had too much control over people's daily lives, so they demolished the Federal State and established local control in the form of feudalism. Seems reasonable doesn't it?
 

Hendryk

Banned
People found little use for the Empire and the Emperor so they got rid of it, something similar probably happened here in North America, like Rome the government got too big and powerful, had too much control over people's daily lives, so they demolished the Federal State and established local control in the form of feudalism. Seems reasonable doesn't it?
I'm reminded of your claim that South Korea was created by freedom-loving Koreans seceding from the Communist North.
 

Tom Kalbfus

Banned
I'm reminded of your claim that South Korea was created by freedom-loving Koreans seceding from the Communist North.
Makes more sense than people in the North fighting to secede so they can live under a communist dictator that starves them to death, hate the freedom they do, yes yes!
Also its clear that North Korea did not want to exist as a nation seperate from the South, they wanted to include the South in their stupid dictatorship too, but what has this to do with Medieval America? I'm trying to make a contribution and all you do is make personal political attacks on my character. Maybe its you who can't get the politics out of his head. Its generally accepted that Communism doesn't work and can lead to a decline of civilization, but not with you its not. No assumption made in the Western World is safe with you, you have to dispute all the assumptions. For me the Soviet Union is just another example of a fallen Empire like Rome, where the State got too big.
 
Okay, Tom Kalbfus's unhelpful digression notwithstanding, and leaving out the open question of how the world got there altogether, who'd fancy giving a general overview of mankind as a whole? Neo-medieval America isn't an autarchic place, there's a fair amount of contact and even cultural fusion with the Caribbean along the Gulf Coast, and it seems they get a trickle of trade from Eurasia on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Certain questions deserve asking. America has gone feudal, with independent polities emerging here and there; so what happened to modern nation-states in the rest of the world? Have medium-sized countries like, well, the European ones, managed to retain a functional central government, or have they reverted to feudalism as well? What about large countries? One can imagine China going back to a neo-imperial system, but what about India, Russia, Australia and Brazil? And what of places like the Middle East and Africa, where modern state structures are of questionable stability even in today's world? Etc...

Yes, the world doesn't live in a vacuum. The only rule is their civilization cannot be more advanced than what was found in the early Renaissance. Feel free to restore previously taped veins of minerals, and other depleted resources, we generally want to avoid turning old cities into this worlds mines. . The overarching goal is primarily creating global neo-medievalism.
 
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