Due to the discovery of new oil wells in China and advances in oil refining, world petroleum reserves are estimated to last another fifty years.
In 2028, Chinese scientists perfect a cheap method of desalinization of sea water. Fresh water becomes abundant.
Permanent space stations are constructed up by the EAEC (2016), Argentina (2018), U.S./Canada/CARICOM (2020), the ASEAN (2021), and Mitsubishi (2028). The EAEC facility, Hong Kong Station, rapidly becomes the largest manmade artifact in space, with a permanent crew of over 150. In 2023 the Soviets pull out of the joint U.S./Soviet space program, leaving the U.S. to foot the bill of their aging and increasingly costly station. Production of advanced zero-g industrial and medical commodities begin to make most space stations profitable.
A number of breakthroughs occur in fusion research in the 2010's. In 2025, the world's first commercial fusion reactor goes on line in Kagoshima. By 2030 there are working plants in Shanghai, Wuhan, Jinzhou, Seoul, Nong Khai (Thailand), Manila, Semarang (Java), Auckland, Minsk, Abu Dhabi, Fresno, and Maracaibo (Venezuela).
Newly developed underwater construction techniques see the birth of "aquacities", cities built on and below the sea on the continental shelves. By 2030, over 6 million Bengalis are living in aquacities, and smaller sea populations exist in the Lesser Antilles, the Azores, Tokyo Bay, the Tigris/Euphrates Bay, Polynesia, Mauritius, and San Francisco.
In the 2010's the Soviet Union plans a lunar landing mission, but it is cancelled due to budgetary problems. Moon landings achieved by the EAEC in 2022 and 2028. The 2028 expedition has 16 members and stays for 3 months. Water and useful minerals are discovered on the moon, and there are proposals to begin lunar mining.
In 2020, the Exxon oil-eating bacteria is rediscovered. It quickly goes into commercial use for cleaning up oil spills. However, despite drastic security, in the late 2020's the bacteria gets into the hands of terrorists, who threaten to release it into oil wells. A few cases of oil-well sabotage occur, but increased security on drilling operations foils most attempts.
A cure for AIDS is discovered in 2018. Though expensive, it wipes out the disease in most countries. Unfortunately, in 2023 a mutant HIV strain develops which is much more contagious and can be transmitted by touch. This new strain sweeps through poor, non-industrial countries in Africa and the Indian subcontinent, killing 20-30% of the population of these lands during the remainder of the decade.
Gene therapy leads to the successful treatment of most genetic diseases and the prevention of genetic birth defects. Cloning of major body parts (skin, muscle tissue, bone, intestines) is available for transplants.
Killer bees spread throughout North America. Hundreds die in Louisiana. In 2022, Donald Trump is attacked and killed by a swarm in Connecticut.
Global warming continues. Temperatures rise 2 to 3 degrees Celsius in most areas. Sea level rises another 5 meters by 2030. Massive dike building and water pumps save most inhabited areas in industrial nations, but millions of square miles of land, including most of Bangladesh, are almost completely flooded. Desertification is critical and drought conditions prevail throughout much of North America, Africa, the Mediterranean basin, Argentina and southern Brazil, Australia, and central Asia.
Continued advances in hydroponics and genetically altered plants mean that food production is no longer a problem as long as you have fresh water available to grow it. Water, unfortunately, is in increasingly short supply. Food rationing instituted in much of Europe and the Far East. Africa suffers from continuing outright famine. Food shortages are mitigated somewhat in the 2020's by growing use of genetically modified kelp farms, especially in the Caribbean, Brazil, Madagascar, the Azores, Bangladesh, Japan and the South Pacific.
During these decades, many former third world nations become fully industrialized members of the global economy. Industrialization is greatest in Latin America (assisted by North America and financed by oil profits) and Southeast Asia (financed by Japan, Korea and China). North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia (much of the latter former Soviet republics) still lag behind in industry, though the Middle East makes up for it with oil and tourist revenues. Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, robbed of the European financial and technical assistance they once enjoyed, not only remain backwards countries but even begin to regress as overpopulation, famine, disease, and general apathy from the rest of the world provoke the gradual disintegration of their already shaky social and economic systems.
By 2020, world population stabilizes at about 7 billion as birth rates drop dramatically in newly industrialized nations in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and death rates increase in Africa and India. Only China still has a significant level of population growth, much of which is alleviated by massive emigration to New Guinea, Australia and South Pacific islands.
Small scale magnetic train systems become common and greatly reduce smog. In the 2010's, migration toward the cities maxes out at 74% urbanization and then begins to slowly reverse as cities begin to decentralize.
Global integration of computers allows access of most citizens to supercomputers and major databases; the first steps are made toward a world computer net and the true global village. However, increasing economic and cultural rivalry between the Americans and the Asians begins to grow. Americans see the EAEC as an atheist dictatorship bent on world domination, while the Asians see the OAS as a mob of insane religious fanatics bent on world domination.
Automation spreads dramatically. By 2030, more than half of world industry is automated. Unemployment increases, and large-scale welfare systems are instituted, even in the laissez-faire economy of the Americas. There is a growing gap between the highly educated technocrats who control the economy (and usually the government), and the growing masses of urban poor living off the public dole. Departments of "Public Activities," "Entertainment and Recreation," and "Community Organization" become major agencies in most governments, large bureaucracies set up to keep the population content by media control, propaganda and channeling energy into civic projects, organized sports, carefully supervised rallies, and other activities. Despite this, there is a slow but steady growth of rioting and urban terrorism.
Major steps forward in global arms talks. The U.N. Rules of War Convention Documents of 2016 are signed by all nations of the world. The Documents outlaw all biological and chemical warfare, ban all nuclear weapons in space, and guarantee severe sanctions against any nation which uses nuclear weapons in a first strike, up to and including full nuclear retaliation by all neutral parties. Nuclear stockpiles are reduced by most nuclear-capable nations, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, the ASEAN, Australia and Fiji.
In 2019, the OAS institutes Project Rainforest, a planned reforestation of the Amazon basin (now nearly 70% gone). Billions of dollars and man-hours are spent refertilizing and replanting.
South and Central America become fully industrialized through the efforts of oil revenues and North American assistance. Americans enjoy the highest per capita income in the world.
In 2024, the Pope officially moves his residence to the Vatican II in San Salvador. The Pope becomes a major figure in American politics, an unofficial advisor to national leaders and a good friend of Dan Quayle.
Religions continue to diversify, merge and change wildly in the Americas. Traditional political parties decline and are replaced by churches, who back their own candidates for elected office. Major religious/political parties in the Americas include the Catholic Church, Limboism, Dianetics, the Mormon Church, the Reformed United Christian Fundamentalist Party, Presleyterianism, Gaeanism, and Rastafarians.
Economic unification of the Americas achieved in 2018. Political unification achieved in 2028. The new supranational government is known as the American Countries Coalition (ACC), and is roughly based on the U.S. model of a federal government uniting many states. Dan Quayle is elected the ACC's first president in a landslide victory.
In 2021, a U.S. Supreme Court decision gives churches the right to enforce their strictures on their own members. This right is upheld in the constitution of the ACC. Organized religion is greatly strengthened.
Yugoslavia collapses into three warring nations of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. In 2015, the coastal lands split off into the independent state of Dalmatia, supported by Italy.
Despite their secession from the USE, Spain and Portugal retain their economic and political ties and form the Iberian Federal State in 2013. They are closely allied with Italy.
By 2010, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are the only members of the USE, its capital in Brussels. Throughout most of the next two decades, the USE government is continuously divided by political factions and the country fights a series of on-and-off wars with Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Iberia and Italy. Civil war breaks out in 2026 when the French majority attempt to move the capital to Paris and make French the official language of the USE; French Moslems, the Dutch, and the Flemish rebel against the government.
Germany becomes more and more expansionist and fights a series of wars with Poland and Czechoslovakia, each time gaining more territory. German leaders foresee a union of all German-speaking peoples, a plan rejected by the governments of Switzerland and Austria. A pacifist movement in Bavaria blames the war-like mentality on the East Germans and calls for the redivision of Germany. In 2024, the states of southwestern Germany cede and readopt the old constitution of West Germany. A long war breaks out between the secessionists (backed by Switzerland, Austria, and later the USE) and the rest of Germany.
Great Britain and Ireland's war over Northern Ireland finally comes to an end in 2011 when Great Britain withdraws its troops and is forced to relinquish all claims to Northern Ireland. The next two decades see the rise of a separatist movement among the Northern Irish of Protestant/English descent calling for a return to British rule. A group known as the ERA (English Revolutionary Army) uses bombings and other terrorist tactics to press its demands. The Irish government fails to contain the violence.
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland amalgamate into the Scandinavian League in the 2010's. Denmark, caught up in Germany's wars, applies for membership but is rejected.
Great Britain becomes increasingly isolated diplomatically, eschewing close ties with the continental Europe. They rely mostly on trade with the Americas, the Nordic League, and the Middle East.
The Soviet Union, now consisting only of Russia, White Russia, the Ukraine, and the vast tracts of Siberia, becomes semi-isolationist. The government concentrates on expanding its high-tech industry and academic communities. Investments are put into utilizing the untapped resources of Siberia and the far eastern Soviet Union.
Greece and Turkey fight a series of five wars over Cyprus and the Aegean islands. Greece easily wins the last two wars while Turkey is preoccupied with rebellions in the east.
Eastern Europe, its economy in shreds, suffers numerous wars, border clashes, trade embargoes, and insurrections. Few governments last longer than a few years. Ethnic strife, especially against the Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics, is common. Hungary and Romania are constantly at odds over the Hungarian minority in Romania, causing a major war from 2013 to 2015.
The Islamic People's Party wins a bare majority in the Italian Parliament in 2022 and forms a new government. Italian Christians start riots in the streets which are put down forcibly by the police. By 2023 there is an effective undeclared civil war between Moslems and Christians in the major cities of Italy. The Vatican is put under siege by Islamic militia. In 2024, in an agreement negotiated by the Islamic government, the Pope leaves Rome and the Vatican City is turned over to the Italian Parliament.
In 2027 there is a pro-German coup in Vienna which merges the country into Germany. The new government is accepted by most people in the lowlands, but rejected by the Alpine provinces, causing civil war. The Swiss army intervenes and defends the Alpine provinces which formally join the Swiss Confederation in 2029.
Nationalist uprisings of Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The Turkish Armenians are supported by former-Soviet Armenia. The Azerbaijanis, both those originally from Iran and those in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan are disillusioned with the Iranian government and attempt a separatist movement. In 2021 Turkey concedes and gives over its northeastern provinces to Armenia, more than tripling the smaller nation's size. Iran loses territory to a new Azerbaijan state in 2023 and 2024, including much of Kurdistan. The Kurds soon turn to fighting the Azerbaijanis.
The former Soviet republics of central Asia, bereft of technological and financial aid from Russia, remain semi-industrialized but quiet backwaters in world affairs. Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise and the southern borders are closed to prevent the spread of AIDS from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, further isolating the nations from world events.
The Arabian peninsula states continue to diversify economically into light industry and tourism, led by Saudi Arabia. The world's largest Disneyland (1044 square miles) is built just south of Mecca. It is commonly known as "Dislam". The tourist industry, one of the few which is not rapidly automating, causes a labor shortage which is filled by immigrants from Africa.
Peace finally settles over the Middle East. While no comprehensive peace treaty is signed between Israel and the Arab nations until 2026, there is no fighting for twenty years before that.
In 2016, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt mold a concerted plan to deal with desertification, sharing resources and expertise. Refugees from the flooded Nile Delta are settled in other nations. Food rationing remains in effect for most of the period.
Many African nations turn to the militant South African philosophy to control famine, disease, collapsing economies and desperate citizens. New police states in Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Togo, Ghana, Mozambique and Zaire are supported by arms from South Africa. In 2021 Nigeria invades Niger in an attempt to control the flood of Nigerien refugees into their nation. Other nations bordering the southern Sahara soon follow suit and Niger, Chad, Sudan, and southern Ethiopia are carved up by their southern neighbors. Millions die in fighting or from starvation. In many areas national governments cease to exist for most purposes.
Madagascar and Mauritius, with support from the Arabian states, invest heavily in sea harvesting. Kelp beds in Mauritius and fishing fleets from the Horn of Africa to Antarctica soon make the two nations the largest food exporters in the world, selling mostly to the Middle East and China.
In the early 2010's Burma, Bangladesh and Vietnam all join the EAEC. In 2016 the ASEAN signs a number of military and economic treaties with the EAEC, further increasing ties between the two alliances and making them one in all but name. Massive aid from Japan and Korea pours into southeast Asia.
China continues to liberalize, though retaining a strong central government with tight controls on the mixed socialist/capitalist economy. In 2020 they join the EAEC as a full member.
Reporters reveal that Pakistan has at least a hundred medium-range nuclear missiles aimed at India. A diplomatic crisis occurs in which brinkmanship almost brings the two nations to nuclear war, but eventually negotiations ease the tensions.
AIDS continues to sweep through south-central Asia. India is especially hard hit and is on the verge of social collapse. The Prime Minister declares that AIDS is a western conspiracy against the third world. Pan-Asian philosophy spreads into India with distinctive anti-Western overtones.
China, attempting to reduce its excess population, encourages emigration of its citizens. New Guinea and the South Pacific islands, suffering from labor shortages in the rapidly expanding sea farming industries, gladly accept millions of Chinese immigrants. Millions more emigrate illegally into Australia. Australia places strict limitations on all Asian immigrants, limiting their economic options, confining them in shantytown "immigrant reservations" along the north coast, and treating them as second class members of society. Many Asian commentators compare the new Australian laws to the old South African system of apartheid.
The EAEC moves toward political union. In 2023 they rename themselves the Pan-Asian Union. Political unification to be complete by 2030. The new supranational government is built along semi-democratic lines, but is clearly dominated by the rising class of Asian technocrats. A new accord on human rights is signed and the Union promises to become a shining light among world nations. A major push is made toward space colonization.
In 2023 a counter-revolution removes the hardline Islamic fundamentalists from control of Indonesia. The nation has fallen far behind the rest of the region and immediately applies for membership in both the EAEC and the OEC; they are accepted into both.
The Pan-Asian Union signs treaties of friendship and assistance with India, Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan in 2027. The Pan-Asians clearly state that they desire to encompass south central Asia within the Union. Pan-Asia also begins to invest heavily in the Middle East with the same intent, though the Middle Eastern governments are careful to keep the Pan-Asians at some distance.
Attempting to take advantage of the world shortage of fresh water, Australia embarks on an ambitious project to export icebergs from Antarctica. In 2016 New Zealand companies follow suit with a smaller project of their own. Progress is slow, but the huge investments necessary are just beginning to show a profit in 2029 when cheap desalinization becomes available to the world and the Australian economy crashes dramatically, exacerbated by the financial failure of the Australian sponsored 2028 Pan-Asian games in Antarctica.
In 2030 the Pan-Asian Parliament is officially inaugurated into office. In a series of popular movements, the people of the ASEAN, India, Pakistan and Kashmir all vote to join the Pan-Asian Union.
In 2028, Chinese scientists perfect a cheap method of desalinization of sea water. Fresh water becomes abundant.
Permanent space stations are constructed up by the EAEC (2016), Argentina (2018), U.S./Canada/CARICOM (2020), the ASEAN (2021), and Mitsubishi (2028). The EAEC facility, Hong Kong Station, rapidly becomes the largest manmade artifact in space, with a permanent crew of over 150. In 2023 the Soviets pull out of the joint U.S./Soviet space program, leaving the U.S. to foot the bill of their aging and increasingly costly station. Production of advanced zero-g industrial and medical commodities begin to make most space stations profitable.
A number of breakthroughs occur in fusion research in the 2010's. In 2025, the world's first commercial fusion reactor goes on line in Kagoshima. By 2030 there are working plants in Shanghai, Wuhan, Jinzhou, Seoul, Nong Khai (Thailand), Manila, Semarang (Java), Auckland, Minsk, Abu Dhabi, Fresno, and Maracaibo (Venezuela).
Newly developed underwater construction techniques see the birth of "aquacities", cities built on and below the sea on the continental shelves. By 2030, over 6 million Bengalis are living in aquacities, and smaller sea populations exist in the Lesser Antilles, the Azores, Tokyo Bay, the Tigris/Euphrates Bay, Polynesia, Mauritius, and San Francisco.
In the 2010's the Soviet Union plans a lunar landing mission, but it is cancelled due to budgetary problems. Moon landings achieved by the EAEC in 2022 and 2028. The 2028 expedition has 16 members and stays for 3 months. Water and useful minerals are discovered on the moon, and there are proposals to begin lunar mining.
In 2020, the Exxon oil-eating bacteria is rediscovered. It quickly goes into commercial use for cleaning up oil spills. However, despite drastic security, in the late 2020's the bacteria gets into the hands of terrorists, who threaten to release it into oil wells. A few cases of oil-well sabotage occur, but increased security on drilling operations foils most attempts.
A cure for AIDS is discovered in 2018. Though expensive, it wipes out the disease in most countries. Unfortunately, in 2023 a mutant HIV strain develops which is much more contagious and can be transmitted by touch. This new strain sweeps through poor, non-industrial countries in Africa and the Indian subcontinent, killing 20-30% of the population of these lands during the remainder of the decade.
Gene therapy leads to the successful treatment of most genetic diseases and the prevention of genetic birth defects. Cloning of major body parts (skin, muscle tissue, bone, intestines) is available for transplants.
Killer bees spread throughout North America. Hundreds die in Louisiana. In 2022, Donald Trump is attacked and killed by a swarm in Connecticut.
Global warming continues. Temperatures rise 2 to 3 degrees Celsius in most areas. Sea level rises another 5 meters by 2030. Massive dike building and water pumps save most inhabited areas in industrial nations, but millions of square miles of land, including most of Bangladesh, are almost completely flooded. Desertification is critical and drought conditions prevail throughout much of North America, Africa, the Mediterranean basin, Argentina and southern Brazil, Australia, and central Asia.
Continued advances in hydroponics and genetically altered plants mean that food production is no longer a problem as long as you have fresh water available to grow it. Water, unfortunately, is in increasingly short supply. Food rationing instituted in much of Europe and the Far East. Africa suffers from continuing outright famine. Food shortages are mitigated somewhat in the 2020's by growing use of genetically modified kelp farms, especially in the Caribbean, Brazil, Madagascar, the Azores, Bangladesh, Japan and the South Pacific.
During these decades, many former third world nations become fully industrialized members of the global economy. Industrialization is greatest in Latin America (assisted by North America and financed by oil profits) and Southeast Asia (financed by Japan, Korea and China). North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia (much of the latter former Soviet republics) still lag behind in industry, though the Middle East makes up for it with oil and tourist revenues. Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, robbed of the European financial and technical assistance they once enjoyed, not only remain backwards countries but even begin to regress as overpopulation, famine, disease, and general apathy from the rest of the world provoke the gradual disintegration of their already shaky social and economic systems.
By 2020, world population stabilizes at about 7 billion as birth rates drop dramatically in newly industrialized nations in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and death rates increase in Africa and India. Only China still has a significant level of population growth, much of which is alleviated by massive emigration to New Guinea, Australia and South Pacific islands.
Small scale magnetic train systems become common and greatly reduce smog. In the 2010's, migration toward the cities maxes out at 74% urbanization and then begins to slowly reverse as cities begin to decentralize.
Global integration of computers allows access of most citizens to supercomputers and major databases; the first steps are made toward a world computer net and the true global village. However, increasing economic and cultural rivalry between the Americans and the Asians begins to grow. Americans see the EAEC as an atheist dictatorship bent on world domination, while the Asians see the OAS as a mob of insane religious fanatics bent on world domination.
Automation spreads dramatically. By 2030, more than half of world industry is automated. Unemployment increases, and large-scale welfare systems are instituted, even in the laissez-faire economy of the Americas. There is a growing gap between the highly educated technocrats who control the economy (and usually the government), and the growing masses of urban poor living off the public dole. Departments of "Public Activities," "Entertainment and Recreation," and "Community Organization" become major agencies in most governments, large bureaucracies set up to keep the population content by media control, propaganda and channeling energy into civic projects, organized sports, carefully supervised rallies, and other activities. Despite this, there is a slow but steady growth of rioting and urban terrorism.
Major steps forward in global arms talks. The U.N. Rules of War Convention Documents of 2016 are signed by all nations of the world. The Documents outlaw all biological and chemical warfare, ban all nuclear weapons in space, and guarantee severe sanctions against any nation which uses nuclear weapons in a first strike, up to and including full nuclear retaliation by all neutral parties. Nuclear stockpiles are reduced by most nuclear-capable nations, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Israel, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, the ASEAN, Australia and Fiji.
In 2019, the OAS institutes Project Rainforest, a planned reforestation of the Amazon basin (now nearly 70% gone). Billions of dollars and man-hours are spent refertilizing and replanting.
South and Central America become fully industrialized through the efforts of oil revenues and North American assistance. Americans enjoy the highest per capita income in the world.
In 2024, the Pope officially moves his residence to the Vatican II in San Salvador. The Pope becomes a major figure in American politics, an unofficial advisor to national leaders and a good friend of Dan Quayle.
Religions continue to diversify, merge and change wildly in the Americas. Traditional political parties decline and are replaced by churches, who back their own candidates for elected office. Major religious/political parties in the Americas include the Catholic Church, Limboism, Dianetics, the Mormon Church, the Reformed United Christian Fundamentalist Party, Presleyterianism, Gaeanism, and Rastafarians.
Economic unification of the Americas achieved in 2018. Political unification achieved in 2028. The new supranational government is known as the American Countries Coalition (ACC), and is roughly based on the U.S. model of a federal government uniting many states. Dan Quayle is elected the ACC's first president in a landslide victory.
In 2021, a U.S. Supreme Court decision gives churches the right to enforce their strictures on their own members. This right is upheld in the constitution of the ACC. Organized religion is greatly strengthened.
Yugoslavia collapses into three warring nations of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. In 2015, the coastal lands split off into the independent state of Dalmatia, supported by Italy.
Despite their secession from the USE, Spain and Portugal retain their economic and political ties and form the Iberian Federal State in 2013. They are closely allied with Italy.
By 2010, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are the only members of the USE, its capital in Brussels. Throughout most of the next two decades, the USE government is continuously divided by political factions and the country fights a series of on-and-off wars with Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Iberia and Italy. Civil war breaks out in 2026 when the French majority attempt to move the capital to Paris and make French the official language of the USE; French Moslems, the Dutch, and the Flemish rebel against the government.
Germany becomes more and more expansionist and fights a series of wars with Poland and Czechoslovakia, each time gaining more territory. German leaders foresee a union of all German-speaking peoples, a plan rejected by the governments of Switzerland and Austria. A pacifist movement in Bavaria blames the war-like mentality on the East Germans and calls for the redivision of Germany. In 2024, the states of southwestern Germany cede and readopt the old constitution of West Germany. A long war breaks out between the secessionists (backed by Switzerland, Austria, and later the USE) and the rest of Germany.
Great Britain and Ireland's war over Northern Ireland finally comes to an end in 2011 when Great Britain withdraws its troops and is forced to relinquish all claims to Northern Ireland. The next two decades see the rise of a separatist movement among the Northern Irish of Protestant/English descent calling for a return to British rule. A group known as the ERA (English Revolutionary Army) uses bombings and other terrorist tactics to press its demands. The Irish government fails to contain the violence.
Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland amalgamate into the Scandinavian League in the 2010's. Denmark, caught up in Germany's wars, applies for membership but is rejected.
Great Britain becomes increasingly isolated diplomatically, eschewing close ties with the continental Europe. They rely mostly on trade with the Americas, the Nordic League, and the Middle East.
The Soviet Union, now consisting only of Russia, White Russia, the Ukraine, and the vast tracts of Siberia, becomes semi-isolationist. The government concentrates on expanding its high-tech industry and academic communities. Investments are put into utilizing the untapped resources of Siberia and the far eastern Soviet Union.
Greece and Turkey fight a series of five wars over Cyprus and the Aegean islands. Greece easily wins the last two wars while Turkey is preoccupied with rebellions in the east.
Eastern Europe, its economy in shreds, suffers numerous wars, border clashes, trade embargoes, and insurrections. Few governments last longer than a few years. Ethnic strife, especially against the Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics, is common. Hungary and Romania are constantly at odds over the Hungarian minority in Romania, causing a major war from 2013 to 2015.
The Islamic People's Party wins a bare majority in the Italian Parliament in 2022 and forms a new government. Italian Christians start riots in the streets which are put down forcibly by the police. By 2023 there is an effective undeclared civil war between Moslems and Christians in the major cities of Italy. The Vatican is put under siege by Islamic militia. In 2024, in an agreement negotiated by the Islamic government, the Pope leaves Rome and the Vatican City is turned over to the Italian Parliament.
In 2027 there is a pro-German coup in Vienna which merges the country into Germany. The new government is accepted by most people in the lowlands, but rejected by the Alpine provinces, causing civil war. The Swiss army intervenes and defends the Alpine provinces which formally join the Swiss Confederation in 2029.
Nationalist uprisings of Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The Turkish Armenians are supported by former-Soviet Armenia. The Azerbaijanis, both those originally from Iran and those in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan are disillusioned with the Iranian government and attempt a separatist movement. In 2021 Turkey concedes and gives over its northeastern provinces to Armenia, more than tripling the smaller nation's size. Iran loses territory to a new Azerbaijan state in 2023 and 2024, including much of Kurdistan. The Kurds soon turn to fighting the Azerbaijanis.
The former Soviet republics of central Asia, bereft of technological and financial aid from Russia, remain semi-industrialized but quiet backwaters in world affairs. Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise and the southern borders are closed to prevent the spread of AIDS from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, further isolating the nations from world events.
The Arabian peninsula states continue to diversify economically into light industry and tourism, led by Saudi Arabia. The world's largest Disneyland (1044 square miles) is built just south of Mecca. It is commonly known as "Dislam". The tourist industry, one of the few which is not rapidly automating, causes a labor shortage which is filled by immigrants from Africa.
Peace finally settles over the Middle East. While no comprehensive peace treaty is signed between Israel and the Arab nations until 2026, there is no fighting for twenty years before that.
In 2016, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt mold a concerted plan to deal with desertification, sharing resources and expertise. Refugees from the flooded Nile Delta are settled in other nations. Food rationing remains in effect for most of the period.
Many African nations turn to the militant South African philosophy to control famine, disease, collapsing economies and desperate citizens. New police states in Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Togo, Ghana, Mozambique and Zaire are supported by arms from South Africa. In 2021 Nigeria invades Niger in an attempt to control the flood of Nigerien refugees into their nation. Other nations bordering the southern Sahara soon follow suit and Niger, Chad, Sudan, and southern Ethiopia are carved up by their southern neighbors. Millions die in fighting or from starvation. In many areas national governments cease to exist for most purposes.
Madagascar and Mauritius, with support from the Arabian states, invest heavily in sea harvesting. Kelp beds in Mauritius and fishing fleets from the Horn of Africa to Antarctica soon make the two nations the largest food exporters in the world, selling mostly to the Middle East and China.
In the early 2010's Burma, Bangladesh and Vietnam all join the EAEC. In 2016 the ASEAN signs a number of military and economic treaties with the EAEC, further increasing ties between the two alliances and making them one in all but name. Massive aid from Japan and Korea pours into southeast Asia.
China continues to liberalize, though retaining a strong central government with tight controls on the mixed socialist/capitalist economy. In 2020 they join the EAEC as a full member.
Reporters reveal that Pakistan has at least a hundred medium-range nuclear missiles aimed at India. A diplomatic crisis occurs in which brinkmanship almost brings the two nations to nuclear war, but eventually negotiations ease the tensions.
AIDS continues to sweep through south-central Asia. India is especially hard hit and is on the verge of social collapse. The Prime Minister declares that AIDS is a western conspiracy against the third world. Pan-Asian philosophy spreads into India with distinctive anti-Western overtones.
China, attempting to reduce its excess population, encourages emigration of its citizens. New Guinea and the South Pacific islands, suffering from labor shortages in the rapidly expanding sea farming industries, gladly accept millions of Chinese immigrants. Millions more emigrate illegally into Australia. Australia places strict limitations on all Asian immigrants, limiting their economic options, confining them in shantytown "immigrant reservations" along the north coast, and treating them as second class members of society. Many Asian commentators compare the new Australian laws to the old South African system of apartheid.
The EAEC moves toward political union. In 2023 they rename themselves the Pan-Asian Union. Political unification to be complete by 2030. The new supranational government is built along semi-democratic lines, but is clearly dominated by the rising class of Asian technocrats. A new accord on human rights is signed and the Union promises to become a shining light among world nations. A major push is made toward space colonization.
In 2023 a counter-revolution removes the hardline Islamic fundamentalists from control of Indonesia. The nation has fallen far behind the rest of the region and immediately applies for membership in both the EAEC and the OEC; they are accepted into both.
The Pan-Asian Union signs treaties of friendship and assistance with India, Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan in 2027. The Pan-Asians clearly state that they desire to encompass south central Asia within the Union. Pan-Asia also begins to invest heavily in the Middle East with the same intent, though the Middle Eastern governments are careful to keep the Pan-Asians at some distance.
Attempting to take advantage of the world shortage of fresh water, Australia embarks on an ambitious project to export icebergs from Antarctica. In 2016 New Zealand companies follow suit with a smaller project of their own. Progress is slow, but the huge investments necessary are just beginning to show a profit in 2029 when cheap desalinization becomes available to the world and the Australian economy crashes dramatically, exacerbated by the financial failure of the Australian sponsored 2028 Pan-Asian games in Antarctica.
In 2030 the Pan-Asian Parliament is officially inaugurated into office. In a series of popular movements, the people of the ASEAN, India, Pakistan and Kashmir all vote to join the Pan-Asian Union.
