The Reaction

The Reaction:
This a scenario expanding on a couple of entries in another map-game I participated in.

In this world a somewhat different Late 19th Century leads to even greater tension across the world and an even longer and more costly First World War that leads to a Revolution in Russia and Germany that sees Communist governments take power. A Second World War cements Communist control over Europe after the fairly liberal use of nuclear weapons and the subsequent turmoil that triggers the Great Reaction that sees the emergence of Communist and Anarchist groups across the world.

The dust eventually settles with a new world order in place.

The Communist International (some things never change) is the premier world power. Much of the world including the major powers were overrun by Communist forces or had their governments overthrown by home-grown revolutionaries. The International is a fairly loosely united entity but does have some coherency and only a few of the more powerful premiers have the keys to the collective nuclear arsenal. The Russian Peoples Republic was the first Communist power and was like OTL able to pull together its vast resource base and industrialise at the cost of only a few million lives and go on to dominate much of the new Communist World. During the Second World War the Russians were able to steal schematics for the British atomic bomb and were able to produce enough to paralyse the United States once the war spread to the Americas. The RPR is a brutal dictatorship with an extensive police state but the sheer scale of resources available has allowed for a higher standard of living than the OTL USSR.

The German Peoples Republic on the other hand has been far more progressive. A series of reforms and a more successful switch to a planned large scale economy (with a little small-scale capitalism to boost profits) have allowed it to see greater prosperity for a smaller resource base than Russia. Germany is far less orthodox in its Communism than Russia and has a more relaxed state but it is still rather authoritarian with a considerable security force, universal conscription and one of the keys to the nuclear arsenal which keeps the GPR invested in the International. Germany has been responsible for many of the new Communist states conquered during the Second World War and with the exception of the Romanians and the French they have managed to successfully pacify many of them.

The United Socialist States of America are the third major nation in the International. The decapitation of the US government saw turmoil in much of the USA. The military government that took control failed to maintain control and soon the socialist groups that sprung up across the nation eventually united and succeeded in taking control of much of the former United States and also overrun Canada (the Russians invaded Alaska). The USSA is the most liberal of the Communist nations and has the closest to a free market within them but the intertwining of remaining business with government is extensive and complex and the government (still under emergency powers) still has considerable power over the public compared to the USA. The USSA president is the third holder of the keys tot he nuclear arsenal. The USSA does have a history with the authoritarian RPR (the whole nuking thing didn’t help either) but they do get along with the Germans and are supporting the Chinese in their industrialisation.

The Peoples Republic of China is a smaller entity than OTL and far less industrialised but they on the way. This China avoided the travesty of the Cultural Revolution and a lot of old Chinese culture survives. The PRC follows an equivalent of the USSA model of Communism that intertwines corporations with government and have used this plan as their means of powering their economy. Despite using the USSA economic model in the rural portions of the PRC government control borders on military occupation levels as new means are taken to forcibly industrialise agriculture as much as possible. However the side effects of the industrialisation have been horrendous on the Chinese environment and many cities already suffer from thick smog.

Many other nations are Socialist governments (or claim to be) to some degree and are subordinate to the Big Three of the International. The other nations rely on the Big Three for nuclear protection (and economic subsidies) in order to remain in power. There are a number of Anarchist nations however that are considered too extreme by the standards of the Big Three to qualify for the International. They are often areas of extreme misery.

Opposing the Communist International is a very strange and belligerent power-bloc. The Anglophone Alliance. The Alliance is a collection of mostly fascist nations that were spared the Reaction and emerged reactionary, angry and assured of their supremacy through survival. They are mostly made up of former British colonies with a few prominent puppet states brought under their wing and their nuclear umbrella.

The official leader of the Alliance is the Empire of British Africa. During the Reaction in Britain with the majority of the government and the Royal Family murdered by revolutionaries a somewhat distant cousin in the Windsor family was able to escape with the remaining loyalist forces and arsenal and was later joined by thousands of refugees fleeing Europe. He eventually landed in Cape-town with Canada gone and Australia too turbulent. The military government in South Africa had already put down the poorly organised rebels and were all too eager to accept the reinforcements and a vestige of their old culture surviving in the turbulence of the Reaction. South Africa absorbed the other British colonies in Africa and annexed many of the other European colonies. They are a one party, white supremacist state with a violent policy of colonisation and exploitation of the black population.

British Africa is in constant competition with the Empire of Oceania. Australia suffered from a very violent Reaction phase and was close to collapse before the rise of a previously unknown general took control, defeated the rebels, united the nation and eventually declared himself Emperor. His grandson still rules today and has built up a significant empire in the Pacific. Oceania is also a white supremacist state that is still in the process of industrialising several of its regions and cleansing the jungles of several of their colonies of dissidents. Oceania like British Africa claims the heritage of the British Empire and between the two they divide and decide the policies of the Alliance. Unlike British Africa which pretends to keep the vestiges of democracy, Oceania is definitely an absolute monarchy with a new home-grown aristocracy and a cosmetic constitution that can easily be circumvented by the Emperor.

The rest of the Alliance is made up of various puppet states (vassals they call them) ruled over by either of the two powers. The Republic of Argentina is one of the most independent of the Alliance lesser states alongside Japan and has made use of their resource base. Argentina is far more industrialised compared to OTL. Japan on the other hand is far more militarised than OTL as well as more conservative and traditional. The Japanese are in the eyes of the Alliance 'honorary' Europeans and are often respected especially by the Oceanians for their culture and dedication to traditional values.

Several neutral nations do still exist, scattered here and there across the world. Many of them are unimportant but the most prominent is the United States of America, a rump state composed of California, parts of Oregon and Hawaii. The USA claims control of the entirety of the old USA and is fiercely nationalistic and is ruled by the remnants of the military government that ruled before the rise of the USSA.

This world is about as developed as OTL with a few areas of technology ahead (biotech, computers) and others behind (communications). The world is still under the threat of a nuclear war and neither side is willing to perform a détente so the number of weapons proliferates. Climate change is becoming a noticeable problem due to the terrible or non-existent environmental policies of the International and an effort is being made by the Alliance to find a solution (fascists have an attraction to nature). A noticeable shortage of resources is becoming apparent and as technology advances and as the fruits of the old Space Races become ever more apparent, the leaders of the two power-blocs look to outer space as a new source of resources and already rockets head into the sky, transporting crews to the brand new space-station docking pads (the new nuclear ships fill the atmosphere with so many disrupting particles, its safer to keep them out of the atmosphere) waiting in orbit to take them further out into the Solar System and then maybe one day beyond.