Meant to be in the style of a dull school wallchart.
In the 2020s, it was identified that dolphins were in fact human-level intelligences, held back only by the difficulty of establishing sedentary agriculture under the sea, and their lack of hands as manipulators. While most countries satisfied themselves with banning dolphins from sea life centres and a very stern UN treaty banning dolphin hunting, little else was done. In the 2020s, climate change began to ravage the planet rather badly, but Britain emerged relatively unscathed. Under a series of liberal governments, immigration was opened up and the aging population was undermined by tens of thousands of young refugees from countries like drowning Bangladesh, desertifying Spain and politically turbulent Poland. For a time, Britain boomed, and the growing population saw the seabed colonised with steel and concrete cities, farming algae and plankton to feed the industrious populace. Britain was the Warehouse of Europe, a continent otherwise torn by ethnic tension, climate change and turbulent economies.
Then the Great Storm occurred in 2032. Arising in the Atlantic, a colossal hurricane caused untold damage to Britain, overwhelming flood defences, ruining crops, entire cities were drenched in mud. For almost half a year, the island suffered, before a baking hot summer set in, further ruining food supplies. A bitterly cold winter left the nation's economy in tatters. And in that atmosphere, as Britain's bulging population chewed on bland plankton bars and shivered in chilly pre-fabs which clustered on the high ground, the Hard Ecologists took power. At first a National Government was formed, including a small Green contingent, but overtime, they absorbed members from other parties and a populist line of Hard Ecologism was pursued.
Massive reforms saw the country entirely remade. The British don't tend to do things by halves. But while most of the reforms carried out over the seven years of the Hard Ecologist government were overturned or watered down under the Anthropocentric Reaction, aside from the massive agricultural self-sufficiency projects, ecosystem recovery, and urban concentrations, the most obvious legacy of Hard Ecologism was 'First Contact' with dolphins. The Hard Ecologist government pursued 'delphine acculturation' with utter ruthlessness, seeking to absorb dolphins into the human polity as a stepping stone to full integration of the industrial state into the ecosystem.
The delphine acculturation saw the construction of sedentary settlements, the training of the few remaining captive dolphins in tool use, then their release into the wild to teach their brethren. At the end of seven years, scattered 'seaweed hamlets' existed at various positions around the British Isles. Under the Anthropocentric Reaction, delphine settlement and industry intensified. Seabed colonisation stepped up and commerce between humans and delphine became common. By the 2050s, a sophisticated network had been established between humans and delphine, and by the end of the decade delphines were participating in British democracy (such as it was).
The emergence of the multi-species polis was unique across the world, and Britain's extreme experience of Hard Ecologism was considered highly unusual, even alien. Nowhere else was delphine citizenship seriously pursued. From the 2050s to the 2070s, human-delphine relations became ever more complex, with the seabed cities of concrete becoming home to the seaweed constructs of delphines, the cities becoming mixed metropolitan hubs. 'Colonial' government was phased out in favour of proper democracy, and the first actual delphine MPs were elected in the 2060s, attending Parliament via holo-link. It seemed that a Wonder Age was just around the corner.
Then tragedy struck. When Britain's economy collapsed in the 2030s, those shaky economies in Europe collapsed, and while the Hard Ecologists restored something of Britain's prosperity, they made Britain somewhat autarkic, leaving Europe to suffer. The Anthropocentric Reaction saw an opening up, but Britain's strange multi-species state saw them alienated by an embittered and increasingly intolerant continent. On the opposite side of the globe, the Cybernetic Socialism of Gran Boliviana stood in stark contrast. A new Cold War began, as the reactionary Europa Federacy and her allies in Africa and the Middle East, aligned against Boliviana and the technocracies of East Asia and Latin America. The US remained isolationist, suffering from the Great Drought and the ever-enlarging Dustbowl, similar to the Australian Badland phenomenon.
The Third World War broke out in India between European backed Pakistan and Bolivianan backed India. The conflict quickly turned nuclear, and tensions went out of control. While Britain was technically a legally neutral country (a legacy of Hard Ecologism), they were an observer to the Bolivianan Conchord of Intellect. Britain's highly liberal social mores, and multi-species nation-state marked them out as one of the worst offenders of 'blaspheming nations' in the eyes of Europa. Under the Hard Ecologists, Britain's nuclear defences had been scrapped, and the governments following the Anthropocentric Reaction had failed to engage with quite how much they were detested on the Continent. The Europeans destroyed the major British cities with nuclear weapons and used chemical and biological weapons with abandon, declaring faith would save the worthy, and that those innocents who died would enjoy the fruits of Heaven, as justification for their atrocities.
WWIII was over in only a couple of years, but the conflict ended global civilisation as global communications systems collapsed as Europa detonated dozens of devices in the Van Allen belts as its dying breath. Technology was maintained but it would take decades before 21st century communications could be restored globally. It was worse for mainland Britain. The urban population pretty much died out, and the rural population either regressed to a primitive state due to isolation and lack of mobility, or were evacuated into the seabed cities.
But Europa had singularly failed to destroy Britain's undersea civilisation. The European ideology had held that delphine intelligence was a lie, and had aggressively backed whaling and dolphin slaughter, further encouraging delphine acculturation in Britain's waters. The Europeans believed that if the mainland was destroyed, the dolphins would naturally revert to an animal state. This was not the case.
It is now 2112, and the world teeters on the brink of a New Rennaisance. For some forty years, each continent has been left to its own devices, but a Chinese satellite has begun the process of reconnecting the world together. But unique across the globe is the Kingdom of Great Britain, the only majority non-human polity on Earth. While humans are the plurality, the various delphine species that live and work in British waters totalled up add up to be greater, just, than the human population. This is reflected in the House of Commons, located in the Irish Sea, off the coast of the Isle of Man, where a majority of MPs are delphine.
Technology in Britain has remained pretty much static in some fields, but in the field of biotechnology it has raced ahead in leaps and bounds, seeing the emergence of cities of genetically modified coral. Energy is mostly geothermal and tidal, and down here, electricity is transmitted by modified nerves rather than copper wires. Submarines are the most common method of travel. Cybernetics has also been advanced considerably, giving some delphines their own arms, but also enabling both humans and delphines to remain submerged for far greater lengths of time than normal. Delphine tribal culture has come to impact upon human culture and social conservatism has somewhat returned as the religious beliefs of the many delphine groups feedback into human society. Delphine language, which remains separate thanks to differing vocal chords and throats, has been standardised and is known as Delphine English. Some delphine words have been replicated in the English language proper. Nudity amongst humans is much more common, particularly in the shallow sea regions where it is warmer, and few bat an eyelid at a naked person walking down the street. Humans tend to shave themselves bald in Britain, partly for streamlining in the water, partly due to acculturation with delphines. A lot of people wear little more than jewellery and a few fabrics to conceal their genitals. Clean up operations are ongoing on the mainland, but the bulk of the population are comfortable in their underwater homes. Clashing with the more advanced aspects of technology, most communications are carried out via telegraphy or telephone exchange. The autarkic elements have carried on in the economy, and there is a certain fear of outsiders which has contributed to the rising social conservatism.
