May | 2009 | Vast Worlds

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Tell me what you Think

Finally figured out how to get these working, so I thought I’d ask what people would like to see more of on the website.

New Inca had been building up its economy for a decade and a half and was just beginning to benefit from its copious amounts of natural resources, its low reliance on oil and vast ethanol production capabilities. That said they were still undeveloped compared to the rest of the world and had been investing heavily in their army and space based assets[1] so their standard of living was practically unchanged over the last fifteen years, though, there were the beginnings of industry being outsourced to New Inca’s new factories.

In the world stage many countries were still very sympathetic to the New Incan cause and saw it as an ally to encourage rather than a potential rival and the New Incan leaders were keen to reinforce this image. Their ongoing struggles with America had actually been rather beneficial to the nation with solidarity among the varied peoples of South America at an all time high and the government had been playing Americans as bad guys rather strongly at the time, especially with a possible invasion looming on the horizon.

In Summary:

New Inca had good access to resources though little way to exploit them.
It was the least effected by the resource crisis.
They had very little land to expand into.
There were huge tensions between the USA and new Inca, New Inca and this was only compounded by the proximity of their space elevators.[2]

The African Middle-Eastern Alliance

AMA could only loosely be described as a cohesive faction at this point, but a faction it was. It still received more aid than any other group of nations in the world and still had the lowest standards of living in the world. On the other hand it had more resources than any other faction and the infrastructure to exploit it. Interestingly enough AMA was attempting to lower its dependence on other nations[3] by forcibly ceasing foreign businesses and threatening export embargoes on scant oil reserves to eliminate debt.[4]

Despite of this AMA did not have the same kind of economic power as the Commonwealth or China though admittedly had the best ground biased military since it had not technically been out of a civil war since formation. In terms of politics the AMAn nation is ruled by a coalition of leaders who each control an individual territory[5] which haven’t changed their boundaries in decades. There is one chairman who rules based on influence and voting weight of individual rulers is based on personal influence and their territories importance. The system is reasonably stable except for the fact several different territories hate each other with a blind passion and hence having a very large territorial army is a good way of not getting blown back into the stone age, and later, gaining influence. Officially war is discouraged but it actually is simpler to let one ruler to fight another than to try and stop them using the whole faction’s resources, in the end it turns out the stronger region was more useful and efficient anyway.

In Summary:

AMA had access to some of the richest natural resource deposits and had the infrastructure to exploit them; on the other hand it had to defend these interests both from other nations and internal conflicts.
The AMAn military was second only to the USA and only in technological terms; however they, like the USA, did not have the resources to take and hold another faction.
Standards of living were low, as was education, but free movement between territories was allowed so they were slowly improving.
The Government was one of the more efficient at the territorial level though the amount of competition at the higher levels made controversial decisions impossible and the faction could be slow to react on large issues were multiple territories were required to cooperate.
The AMAn economy was rather fractured and underdeveloped and major corporations tended to avoid the central territories due to the continuing civil unrest though they had some major interests in South Africa and the dwindling oilfields of the Middle East.

[1] Mostly due to the threat of invasion by the US.

[2] The New Incan is located at the base of the Amazon and the US’s in Cape Kennedy and were controversial in that they were the only orbital facilities to be armed at this point. While this is disliked by the majority of counties it is generally agreed that they keep each other in check and so could not use their destructive power.

[3] Though doesn’t refuse their money.

[4] This has sparked great tension over the years, especially the rescinding of resources and during its brief life AMA has be threatened by the USA, China and Russia though none were ever willing to cooperate enough to mount a joint invasion. The USA almost invaded but then they realised they would be fighting an entire content and this one had access to both space based, and nuclear, weapons.

[5] The AMAns refused to call them States.

State of Affairs

I wrote this summary of the 2057 events about two years ago (2007), and technically it should be fairly rough. Somehow though, it’s managed to remain fairly close to my current thinking, which just goes to show how little I’ve thought about these events. Anyway 2057 is about six months before the Derelict, but well into the period of history widely known as Breaking Point.

Breaking Point was the beginning of the end for humanity. Population was at an all time high. Personal consumption varied massively between countries. Food was scarce, fossil fuels scarcer, and the heavy metals were just about exhausted. Fusion was technically functional, but no where near powerful enough to justify the expense, and the grand mining projects of the asteroid belt were twenty years away from paying off.

Whether or not the ensuing resource wars would have been the end of life as we know it is debatable. What is fairly certain though was that a war was coming, and as wouldn’t be an ideological war that could be diffused with clever words. It would be a war of survival, and everyone was motivated for their own countries best interests.

This lead to the formation of the last major blocs in the early fifties, the British Commonwealth and the African Middle-Eastern Alliance, which were basically resource protectorates, where an economically developed country would shelter a undeveloped, country in exchange for resources. For the Commonwealth this was India, Canada, Australia and Britain, and AMA, basically the continent of Africa[1]. The other factions were already in existence by this point, but came to the fore as the major powers[2] during this period.

United States

All counties can look back on a period of history and call it its darkest days and these are often said to be the USA’s. That said the United States weren’t actually in that bad a state, they are still the richest nation in the world though both China and The British Commonwealth were close and they were still one of the centres of innovation and investment. That however was just on the surface. Standards of education had dropped dramatically during the twentieth century and America was severely starved for resources being the smallest of all six empires. In addition a large amount of government control had been lost to corporate investment[3] and public opinion[4].

The ongoing resource crisis was a very large worry to America as, while their position as richest country was secure for the while, their dwindling resources and harsh import tariffs, pushed through by big business, would eventually force them out of any major discussions as their economy crumbled, and the government knew this. The US was therefore extremely concerned with expanding its territory and so preserving their way of life and was willing to use force if necessary. The mistrust of New Inca in the general populous made them the obvious target and before the Derelict arrived, it looked like that was where the war would break first.

In summary:

The USA was still very rich, mostly sponsoring technology and resource acquisition.
Their global presence was still quite powerful however international opinion of them was that an all time low.
Many space based companies had their headquarters in the USA and this left a residual sense of ownership in the general population.
The population is very religious and prone to believing what they are told by their government, this had led to problems in dealings with New Inca who many Americans believe to be heathens[5].
America has the largest concentration of pharmaceutical companies on the planet and its people are said to be some of the healthiest in the world, an image very much supported by the government.

[1] Countries not initially entering into the agreement were gradually absorbed over the remainder of the century, forcefully or otherwise.

[2] A few other blocs were in existence, such as the EU and Polynesia, these, while adequate to protect their interests, never had the pushing power to do much more than toe the line and so I do not include them here.

[3] Corporate investment was extremely valuable to the US in this period due to their disastrous relationships with other counties and subsequent trade boycotts. Most of the corporations in question were American home made as big business have avoided the US since the Americas war, exports because of this are at a record low but imports are sky high though for now a combination of high-tech goods and internal trade kept the USA solvent.

[4] Many people at this point were strongly religious and form many of their opinions of foreign countries biased on past propaganda. Hence there was severe animosity to the non-Christian counties such as New Inca and AMA, a historic dislike towards China and Russia and The British Commonwealth simply didn’t want to deal with them.

[5] Scarily, it had reached the point where the government started believing the propaganda.

Not my Week

Okay, so my computer re-broke itself last weekend, and I it was fixed Friday, I was running a fever all of Sunday, so sorry I’ve missed so many updates. See you all Wednesday.