SkunkyArt | RvBOMally — Polandball World 2299

The Nordic neural network is not the only one in the world, and hardly the biggest by territory covered or people serviced. Separate neural networks exist on the Atlantic Coast, a Pan-Pacific network connects East Asia with North America, and the heart of the East African Federation is under its own network. Countless local networks also exist. Given the nature of these networks, most within are firmly in the transhumanist bloc; the Nordic neutrality in the conflict is an aberration. However, there are vocal anti-transhumanist (or simply anti-cold war) dissidents within these networks, believing that there is a core difference between connecting one’s mind to machinery, and altering one’s body on a genetic level.

China’s invasion of Taiwan in 2023 did not lead to a Sino-American War, but it did lead to full Japanese militarization, the crystallization of an anti-China alliance in Asia, and China becoming an economic pariah state. Still, it enjoyed considerable influence in some parts of Asia, the Middle East, and particularly East Africa. After the 2040s, the CCP fell and this led to the establishment of a new Chinese republic. Initially a weak democracy, the Chinese republic gradually slid into right-wing ethnocentric authoritarianism. It remains a regional power, predominantly concerned with its eastern flank, which remains hostile. Although not ideologically bioconservative – the Chinese still use artificial wombs to maintain their population – they have taken the bioconservative side because their Korean and Japanese rivals have taken the transhumanist side.

The DPRK fell right after the CCP, leading to a “relief” invasion by the South and the implementation of a reunification plan. The Union of Korea, as it calls itself, is still defined by its rich south and poor north, with the south being more transhuman and the north being more bioconservative.

India did not have a good 2030s and 2040s, after successive failed regimes – including a momentary Maoist one – led to it being dominated by China before the CCP itself fell. The “new India” is a right-wing dictatorship, but one with very Hindu nationalist leanings.

The East African Federation was initially a Chinese-backed project to create a customs union in East Africa, but has since become so much more. Eastern Africa became the richest, most technologically developed part of the continent, although one that is now suffering from overreach as it might have admitted too many members too quickly. East Africa now has to deal with its newer members’ economic and social problems, problems that the population in the core states feel should not be their responsibility. Although a federated democracy, East Africa retains more of the CCP’s surveillance and censorship apparatus than most other democracies would be comfortable with.

Angola weathered the storm that hit much of western Africa better than others, and soon became an agricultural and later industrial powerhouse. Angola became a natural benefactor for African states which did not want to become part of the East African sphere.

Political unrest from famines and climate change led to the fall, rise and fall of different North African and Middle Eastern governments. However, unlike the Middle East, the Sahel gradually unified under a single state, with Turkish assistance. Although relatively poor and more dependent on agricultural imports than ever, the Sahel leverages its control over the southern Mediterranean as much as it could.

The fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran represented the fall of the last obstacle to Turkish dominance of the Middle East, with the fall of Saudi Arabia a few decades before representing the first fall. Outside of the Turkish sphere, the Middle East is rather poor and ignored by most of the world.

The United States of America retreated from the world stage after its failure to assist Taiwan, and because domestic problems have been more pressing. It has been in a “cold civil war” for nearly two centuries, stemming from a left-right political divide in the early 21st century. Rapid swings from far right and far left in the federal government led to states forming “nullification compacts” with one another: these states agreed to only enforce the federal laws they agreed with, and agreed to support one another if the federal government attempted to enforce said laws themselves. With the federal government weakening thanks to general economic problems, and unwilling to start a hot civil war by attacking state forces, these nullification compacts succeeded in creating de facto independent countries within the United States. Although still legally part of the United States, these compacts have their own infrastructure, legal systems, and even border control. The cold civil war took on a new dimension of federal vs. compact, and then transhuman vs. bioconservative. With compacts and the federal government taking sides in this new conflict, the cold civil war may not remain cold for long.

Argentina has emerged as the leader of South America after the fall of Brazil’s far right government, and leads a very green South American Union. The Amazon has become part of an SAU conservation zone, where all industrial and agricultural development is forbidden, and this law is enforced by lethal drones.