(3 minute read)

I'm trying to provide historical justification for my alternate history world – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – I say 'alternate history' but I really only designed an alternate present, and now have to fill in the history.

Overview

A tribal social structure existed all over the world – most of precolonial North America, the Tiv and Igbo, the Bedouin, the Celts, the Germanic tribes, the Eurasian nomads – many other cases, essentially universal – and what if that remained the social structure amid 21st century technology, instead of states being the predominant form?

Terran history: Crises weaken states

The Roman Empire was the most powerful state, and then it fell from The Crisis of the Third Century. Wikipedia says, "The Antonine Plague that preceded the Crisis of the Third Century sapped manpower from Roman armies and proved disastrous for the Roman economy.... From 249 to 262, the Plague of Cyprian devastated the Roman Empire to such a degree that some cities, such as the city of Alexandria, experienced a 62% decline in population." There were plagues and crop failures, and Rome fell, and tribal barbarians were also hit, but less strongly so, and ended up conquering Italy.

That's a map of 476, of the end of the crisis. Syagrius is a Roman remnant (a Romnant har har). Franks are on Roman Law. Apart from the Eastern Roman Empire, most other places are tribal confederacies. But straight after this map, Francia goes on an expansionist rampage, including the French conquest of Britain in 1066.

That's a map of 800 AD. See how Rome's children have reconquered a lot?

My worldbuilding goal is that the Celts, Goths, Suebi etc. are the guys who end up with good ships+good guns in the 1400s. That's the trick to winning the world: good ships+good guns in the 1400s.

Wikipedia on the Migration Period says: "The collapse of centralized control severely weakened the sense of Roman identity in the provinces....Ultimately, the Germanic groups in the Western Roman Empire were accommodated without "dispossessing or overturning indigenous society", and they maintained a structured and hierarchical (but attenuated) form of Roman administration..." [so my alternate history would have to hit Rome even harder than that] "...In contrast, in the east, Slavic tribes maintained a more "spartan and egalitarian" existence bound to the land "even in times when they took their part in plundering Roman provinces". Their organizational models were not Roman, and their leaders were not normally dependent on Roman gold for success" – the theme here is how adverse conditions, particularly plague and climate conditions that disrupt routine agriculture, give a competitive advantage to people who live a more resourceful, less civilised existence.

Much later, the Crisis of the late Middle Ages also followed a big plague, and it led to working class revolts. It's worth mentioning that the tribal areas of Europe, like the Basques and the Gaels, suffered less under the Black Death.

James C. Scott

Some themes in the work of James C. Scott

• His book Against the Grain argues as follows: grain-based agriculture is predictable, plannable, legible, so it leads to centralised power and centralised states. Hunter-foragers eat diverse unpredictable food and can't be taxed. The first states appeared in Mesopotamia when wheat was domesticated. It's not about abundance (forests are more abundant than wheat fields), it's about predictability/plannability/legibility-to-a-statist-bureaucracy. It follows that crop failures (e.g. caused by the dust of a volcanic eruption, or by solar cycles) would weaken states and shift the balance of power to Zomian-type peoples.

• His book The Art of Not Being Governed argues as follows: non-state societies are a phenomenon on the fringes, fleeing the evils of centralized states. And he often mentions epidemics as being one of the evils they flee. It follows that epidemics would weaken states and shift the balance of power to Zomian-type peoples.

The material effects of a plague

If I add another crisis like the 3rd century and the 14th century, say in the 1st century.... then Rome remains weaker, Rome only partly takes Gaul and Britain. When Rome falls in the mid 400s, the Franks and the Byzantines and other people who are on the Roman system do persist (same as Terra) but weaker. They are less successful in expanding up to 800. In 1066, they may take England, but reverse the outcome of the 1277-1283 England-Wales war (so Wales wins) and the 1296-1357 Scottish wars (Scotland wins).

Europe was able to really really pull ahead because it navigated both the Atlantic and the coast of Africa in the 1490s. It opened up the world to extractive exploitation. But what if instead, the Europeans who did this were on a mutual-aid mode of production? They open up the world to mutual aid, including martial.

Celts and Suebi from Europe's Western fringe are in conflict with Imperialist European enemies like the Franks and the Byzantines. They meet Mayan Tlaxcalan who are having a similar conflict with the Imperialist Aztecs. Together they ally and crush their enemies. This concludes the Middle Ages, the Modern Period then starts, but under a mutual-aid mode of production.

[Posted September 27th, edited into a better and more succinct version Sept 29th]

The world I have been describing – 1, 2, 3, 4 – is governed by democratic councils.

Small councils make local decisions. A bunch of those glom together into something more powerful but less intimate. For some decisions, this can even be global, an anarchist version of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Anarchist FAQ says "anarchists have very clear ideas on what to “replace” the state with (namely a federation of communes based on working class associations)."

So I had to worldbuild a system of confederated democratic groups.

Anarchist governance in my solarpunk world work like this –

Tribes. A Māori hapū. A Greek δῆμος. A Mapuche lof.

Think of this as being about 2500 to 4000 people, but don't worry about the number too much, it doesn't affect the democratic arithmetic if the tribe is bigger or smaller.

This is the smallest unit with official bureaucratic existence. Some have territory marked by boundary-stones or similar, others are totally nomadic, and some only have a rough idea of their territory. The tribe has its website. It has its code of law.

It might also have a totem of some sort that represents it. Maybe it is a standing stone covered in bronze. Customary Law of the Haya Tribe states: "Every clan has its totem". Of course, the most famous totems are the wooden poles of the Tlingit and Salish. The English word totem derives from the Algonquian word odoodem [oˈtuːtɛm] meaning "(his) kinship group".

Registering members is a special responsibility of the tribe, that will become important when we start looking at confederations. It's basically a big family with a roll book.

In Terra, the unit that tracks citizenship is faceless: the country/nation-state that issues passports and accepts or denies citizenship applications. In this world (which I am thinking of naming Mandala) membership is tracked by something much more like a family.

• It must keep track of births, marriages, deaths.
• Membership is by birth in >80% of cases
• This tribe is what recognises the marriage. Marriage brings one more person into the family.
• People can be adopted into the family, like becoming a naturalized citizen of a Terran nation-state.
• From the 1990s onwards, all this is tracked digitally.
• They must let neighbouring tribes audit their census. If they are accused of inflating their numbers for political power, a larger assembly rules on the matter. If found guilty, they lose all representation for five years.

Imagine yourself now. Take a deep breath of unpolluted air through your nostrils. You are wearing the traditional clothing of your ancestors. Your mind thinks in their ancestral tongue. You know that within a 5 minute walk, you have 200 friendly cousins ready to support you. You have your responsibilities to them too. But technology has made life not-too-hard. Imagine it.

Kinship rules vary from place to place, as anthropologists have written about. There are tribes all over the world, but no centralised rule for how they're run. They are sovereign and follow their own ways.

Restorative justice is seen all over the world: Somali xeer law that gives a payment called a mag to victims. Germanic Law gives a payment called wergeld.

The tribal assembly has the power to settle disputes among its members through such restorative justice. It can hold court, pass judgement. If the assembly did choose to put someone to death no authority could tell them no: no police or state stands above the tribe. But customary law is normally restorative and the punishment is transfer of property. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid discusses this. What about crimes that are not internal to one tribe? We're getting to that.

Confederacies of different sizes, and the decisions they have to make

• Groups of a few tens of thousands up to about 150,000 people – These correspond to the Māori 'iwi', the Mapuche 'aillarehue', the Greek 'πόλεις'. A group this size should have its own small hospital with a few hundred beds, and that hospital will need to be assigned resources. Library too. If it is by a bay, it will have an open ocean farm. It may manage a lake or a forest as a commons and will control the hunting season or fishing limits of the commons. It will cut deals with various guilds (see https://hexbear.net/post/596720) to supply it with WiFi, with bicycles, etc. in exchange for nice houses and good food.
• Groups of more than about 150,000 people but under a million – This might be a small city or a good-sized rural region. It will need a more complex, specialised hospital with an emergency ward, so it will have to assign resources to that. It might maintain a shipyard. A city of 750,000 people will have to run urban transport networks, shared bicycle schemes. Will also arrange contracts with guilds. It might arrange a barter-contract with another tribal unit: for example if this tribe lives on the coast, and 50 miles inland there is another tribe; we have too much fish, you lot have too much milk, let's arrange a barter contract for one year. How many kg of fish per litre of milk? That will have to be negotiated.
• Groups of millions of people – These include nations you have heard of: the Scots, the Serbs, the Danes, the Finns, the Dinka, Bosnians, Armenians, Moldovans. The Nilotic peoples have a total population of 8 million, including the Dinka (2 million), Nuer (1.8 million), and Maasai (1.2 million). Groups this size will also arrange contracts with guilds. Maintains important websites like wikis and maps. Organise sporting contests: who's the best high-jumper in Serbia? Organise seasonal festivals; tourists come from all over the world to these. A unit this big will need a train system and that will have to be managed and allocated resources. It will have to cut a deal with the microchip-fabrication guild to get a chip fab in their territory, make sure the citizens have electronics, and in return give the guildmasters perks like nice houses. Most assemblies pay the Electricians' Guild in nice food and nice homes, but this one over here is lucky: they have a copper mine on their land, so they swap copper for Electricians' services – the council is what negotiates this sort of contract. Owns and maintains a top-level hospital with every kind of medical specialist. Declare war.

Here's a screenshot from a pdf on FIFA's website –

So a million-man confederacy must staff and clean and maintain a 35-thousand seater stadium and so on. This is an example of how small population-groups run small humble facilities, big groups run big facilities. Same with small local libraries versus big libraries, etc.

• Groups of tens of millions of people – Now we are talking about the world's major ethnolinguistic groups. There are about 150-200 such in the world. Each such federation sends a team to the World Cup and the Olympics. Korea, Italy, France, Afghanistan, Australia, Taiwan, 'the Norsemen' as a whole, 'the Celts' as a whole, the Fula, Yoruba, Igbo, Amhara, Zulu. The Tokyo Metropolitan Area has a population of 41 million in Terra; in this world it's less (the world is less urbanised) but still around 27 million.

The major cultural zones of North America, e.g. the Plains Indians, each form confederacies of a few tens of millions –

Groups of near a billion people – These might run something as ambitious as a space program. Here are the main ones (though see below about fluidity) –

• Black Africa
• All the Arabs, Turks, and Semites together
• Pan-American
• The white race
• Hindu South Asia plus bits of West Asia
• Buddhist East Asia plus bits of Oceania
• Austronesia and Australia

Fluidity and fixity

The tribes, the ones of about 4000 people, those are fixed. You're not a member of one tribe today and a different one tomorrow.

But assemblies can be called to make decisions for any group, it need not be a standing organisation. Examples of fluid group-formation:

• A Blackfoot Indian volunteers for an assembly of the Americas one month, and then the next month an assembly of the world's nomads where they discuss issues that affect nomads.
• An Inuit from the north of north America volunteers for an assembly of the Americas one month, and then the next month a polar assembly where he meets with Siberians and they discuss doing a deal with a guild that builds seasonal thermal energy storage, a solarpunk technology for places with long cold winters.

☝️there's the circumpolar federation – they have things to talk about sometimes☝️

Now that's not to say the edges of the confederacy changes every issue. Rather, it means that the edges don't constrain people from forming whatever assembly they choose. Most the time, assemblies follow the same natural boundaries. For example the 150-200 groups of tens of millions of people mentioned above – those each meet as a matter of regularity.

Assemblies as courts. Different levels of dispute

A fight between two neighbours is settled by the tribe. They give their ruling.

A fight between two tribes is settled by a larger confederacy. The confederacy must be large enough to impose their ruling. Yet it wouldn't tend to be much bigger: no point involving people on the other side of the world. A Māori iwi might have about 80 hapū within it. If two of those are having a fight (maybe about land, maybe about revenge), the assembly of the iwi could give a ruling. The land belongs to this hapū not that one. Instead of blood revenge, you must transfer this list of goods to settle the matter. If the hapū rebel against the iwi's judgement, force may be used.

If it's a major war, like between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the World Assembly may be the ones to rule. This is analogous to the U.N. sending peacekeepers.

How assemblies work

• People volunteer to be members. A volunteer must be seconded, and thirded. Anyone with this becomes a candidate. Candidates' names are put into a random draw. (This excludes totally incompetent people. An objection to anarchism is "we need smart people ruling, not random people!" This system is some check that you must be a passably functional grown-up before you can be on the council.)
• Remember how tribes maintain a population-registry? The population under the assembly is counted up from these. Children are included in the count.
• 100 names are picked at random. One hundred is a nice number for deliberation, everyone gets speaking-time, not too noisome.
• A two-thirds majority can pass a decision.

Ensuring minority rights in the random draw

The population of France is 68,250,000, so 100 representatives are picked at random.

3.36% of Frenchies live in the Lyon Metropolitan Area.

In a perfectly fair draw, they'd usually get 3 seats. However, about 19.5% of the time, Lyon will end up with 0 or 1 seats (that's a binomial calculation to figure that out). That's a problem. What if some big decision gets made that affects them?

To avoid this, the people of Lyon (i.e. their city assembly), demands formal recognition from the French body. When it gets that recognition, it can overrule any draw that robs it of more than one seat.

Any population-group that constitutes 2.5% or more of a larger body has the right to demand this recognition.

A recognised cell must accept any draw that gives them ([the closest whole number to their proportion]-1). But they reject any draw where their seats are two below the median.

These rules are restrictive. It'll take about 3000 draws to get one within the bounds of acceptability for all of 30-40 cells. But doing 3000 random draws is something a computer can do in under one second.

The World Council

The World Council meets to decide things like –

• Should we allocate resources to eradicate mosquitoes? Let the council hear from various scientific experts about the pros, cons, likelihood of success, amount of required resources.

• Should we embark upon building a global vactrain network?

• Should we embark upon building a space elevator?

• Should we send a global peacekeeping force to stop Armenia and Azerbaijan from fighting?

The heading 'How assemblies work' describes how all assemblies work from the tribe to the continent-sized ones. However, for the World Council, there are two tweaks to the rules –

• Two meetings run in parallel. So 100 people meet, deliberate, and vote, and so do 100 more people over there. Two equal assemblies, and both must pass the motion.
• After the World Council has made its decision, that is then passed down to the continent-level assemblies. Each of these has veto power. Even a very populous Asia should not be able to dictate to Africa. The formal rule is: any assembly speaking for more than 10% of the world's population can veto a decision made by the World Assembly.

We know how the representatives are picked and how they vote, but who can PROPOSE a motion?

Popular vote: If a proposal goes out on the Internet, and 1% of the population of that unit sign it, the council must consider the proposal. e.g. the world has 8000 million people, so if 80 million people sign a petition saying 'fuck mosquitoes kill em all', the World Council must consider that. Or for a city of 1,000,000, the initiative would have to be signed by 10,000 people to get in front of the council.

Briefing is important

Stanford University run a Deliberative Democracy Lab to explore councils of citizens debating and deciding things. Their system is lame, and I'm about to tell you why. Here they had Meta (i.e. facebook) get a deliberative assembly together to discuss tech policy and it says "A distinguished Advisory Committee vetted the briefing materials for the deliberations and provided many of the experts for the plenary sessions."

Here's the problem. You get random assemblies of neutral, fair citizens, put them in a room to deliberate. Good start. Then you spoonfeed them propaganda materials from facebook inc. upon which to base their decision, that is undue influence from facebook inc.

The councils will need to hear from experts on medical systems, ecology, trains, etc. They deliberate and make informed decisions. Just like the way the assembly is picked and votes is democratic, the system for picking briefing materials must be equally democratic.

Who can brief the council?

Same deal: popular vote:

• People want an expert/group/intellectual to have the right to give briefing materials, so they vote for him to get part of the briefing. The briefing materials could be written or video. The person/group with the most votes is given a chunk of speaking time (I'm not sure, maybe 2 hours). Then the 2nd-most popular person, then the 3rd. This continues until the speaking time (I'm not sure, maybe 24 hours) is used up.

Here, btw, is where a powerful, influential person might gain political sway. The heavy use of sortilege blocks influential politicians from appearing in the system. But if you had an influential public intellectual like Noam Chomsky, everybody would vote for the council to have to listen to his brief.

This would often include guilds: like if its a medical issue obviously people want to hear from the medical experts and they medical guild should have no problem getting votes.

One week term-limits lmao

A paper describing traditional West African governance says "In general there were no officeholders; only representatives of groups" and that is my ideal here. You don't become a representative for a four-year term or a one-year term; you represent your people at ONE meeting. Then the lottery happens again for the next meeting. This prevents ego, keeps things nice and anarchist.

This is the most democratic, most anarchist thing I can think of. It's inspired a bit by Council Communism, a bit by Bookchin/Öcalan's democratic confederalism, a bit by traditional tribal systems, a bit by deliberative democracy, a bit by mathematics.

Long ago, the world lived in a relative peace. Guided by nature, the people lived off of the land, paying their respects to the gods that assisted them in their daily lives. Then, the Divine arrived. Its light blessed all, allowing for great prosperity in exchange for the Luminae people's devotion. Declaring the unified Holy Kingdom of Auran, the Divine maintained a more physical presence than the gods of nature that came before it. The Divine could be seen, could be talked to, and could be felt. It was by all means their leader, as well as the arbiter of their salvation, as they saw it.

30 years ago, the Auran Federation broke out into war. Now a nation ruled by a parliament and a president, corruption and exploitation had greatly expanded, especially in the magic-rich province of Iberia. As a result, the people of Iberia began the Iberian Revolution, overthrowing their provincial government. A declaration of independence was made official, and the revolutionaries formed the People's Republic of Iberia. Outraged at this aggression, the federation declared war on the new nation in order to reclaim it. The Iberians by all means should have lost. However, they re-discovered a long dormant power that hadn't been used since before the era of the Divine.

Earth magic is a classification applied to spells that use the caster as the source rather than a god or patron. It requires years of study, years that the Iberian revolutionaries had spent reading through ancient texts that were forbidden by the federation. They had waited to rebel until this magic was mastered, and it was exactly what balanced the scales. Earth magic was not only unaffected by the Divine like elemental magic, but could counter the power the Divine provided to its followers.

The war was still one that was devastating, on both sides. The Divine Church therefore had a decision to make. Keep the war going, or try to restore peace and become a mediator. So, they organized talks between both Iberia and Auran, and they came to a decision. Iberia would maintain all of their land, but not reach past their boundaries. Auran would cede the two provinces bordering Iberia to the church in exchange for an end to the war and the promise of a pacified Iberia. The church then took the provinces it had received and formed the Divine Caliphate, a church turned nation. After five years, the fighting had finally ended, and the war was officially over. A few things happened with this resolution, though. Things that would change the course of Luminae forever.

The Divine had strained itself during the war, giving greater powers and boons to the nation it had created all those years ago. As a result, it seemingly dissipated, fading out of physical existence like the gods of nature had done before it. The Earth magic the Iberians had used in the war also vanished, which was not at all expected. How could something they seemingly controlled just dissapear? The answer is still not known today, though the People's Republic has dedicated many resources to uncovering the reason for its disappearance. Other than these occurrences, the world moved on from the conflict. Auran and Iberia even began to trade with each other, seemingly putting behind them the wounds of conflict. Behind the facade was a bitterness, though. The ruling class of Auran didn't like having to pay full price for resources from the magic-rich lands, while Iberia never forgot the other provinces of people they left behind. As for the Caliphate? It maintained the Divine Church in the two nations, while also having the Caliphate act as a buffer between them. People of one nation could not reach the other without passing through the Caliphate, after all, and the church had managed to put themselves into quite a powerful position.

This brings the world to the present day, a day where people continued to live in a tense peace, a peace that would not continue for long...

It would be really cool if I could find out how to make a map, wouldn't it? Sure, I could use existing maps and put my nations over them, but wouldn't it be so much better if it was more original?

The world itself is something newer to me. I haven't really considered a fantasy setting, even though I love fantasy, though the idea of a conflict and world that goes into its politics is something I've wanted to do for a while. Nothing here is concrete or final, and I'm open to suggestions and feedback, but I needed to make sure I have some sort of groundwork, some sort of world that the story I want to tell can take place in. I also want the characters I'm writing to feel like they live in a world, in a context, and so making sure I don't end up with a Fire Emblem 7 kind of situation is pretty important to me. Let me know what you think! Should names be changed? What should the names of cities be within the countries? What should the Earth/Dark magic be called? I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.

The solarpunk tribal world is detailed here, here, and here.

I built the world because it's what I wanted to see in the late-20th to early-21st century. But it's weak on the question of how that came to be. So I thought some theory-experts might be able to mutual-aid me 😉

Why did this world come to be?

• Economically: A moneyless world where labour is organised by kinship obligations and local cultures are self-sufficient for the basics.

• Politically: Öcalan-style democratic confederalism: your local folkmoot or veche makes local decisions. They send representatives to the country-level popular assembly, they in turn send representatives to the continent-level popular assembly, and they in turn send representatives to the world-level popular assembly which does things like stops wars from escalating. Russian doll democracy.

Ok I think I've laid out the question well enough now: why did the economy become/remain moneyless and clannish, and why did democratic confederalism become powerful? And how can this be explained in terms of class struggle? Let me know if there's confusion and I'll edit.

Now, towards an answer –

• Actually a lot of the inspiration for it all came from Mutual Aid Among the Barbarians, and less so Mutual Aid in the Mediæval City: clans living together helping each other. Comrade K mentions "The Teutons, the Celts, the Scandinavians, the Slavonians, and others", and the chapter is largely about the Russian mir. So should I say they struggled against Roman/feudal systems and won, beating out manoralism that later became enclosure and capitalism?

• Another thing I could use: around 1100AD in America, Hiawatha creates the Great Law of Peace and the Iroquois Confederacy with five tribes and later added a 6th.... What if in the alternate history this confederated more and more tribes and became really huge? But that's not historical materialism.

• The first reply I ever got said, "I feel like, at first, you need to address a kind of Columbian Exchange"... but what if instead of crossing the Atlantic, they cross the Pacific?? So it's an exchange between say Chinese societies and ones like the Tlingit.

• I have lots of other little historical tidbits that could force to the tribal side of the dialectic: Pashtun with their jirga assemblies, Chechens as free and equal as wolves, the stateless Igbo, and many others.

Not to be confused with Deluge (Poland-Lithuania).

The Deluge of Elephants, also known as simply the Deluge, was the largest refugee crisis in human history. It resulted in a major economic crisis and health crisis in much of Europe as an estimated 72 million Usonians fleeing the Second US Civil War migrated to the region in the five-year period between 2037 and 2042, triggering multiple disease outbreaks that together killed approximately 4 million people. The name of the Deluge of Elephants is in reference to the "White Elephant Brigade", a derogatory term for the Usonian migrants, associated with European tabloids' assertion that the United States of America in the midst of its second civil war was also waging an economic war against Europe by sending refugees to the region as white elephants — "possessions which are difficult to dispose of, and whose cost of upkeep greatly outweighs their value".

Europeans' attitudes towards the Usonian refugees was at the beginning of the crisis known to be largely highly positive, even with the resulting material strain. However, attitudes towards the refugees soured as the crisis deepened, famously resulting in the trend of "Laser Troopers" who would assemble in large numbers to shine illicit laser pointers into the cockpits of airplanes carrying Usonian refugees. On the other hand, though the term "oh-ro" today has more positive connotations, it was originally used to mock Europeans seen as overly sympathetic to the Usonian refugees. The term "oh-ro", or "to sing oh-ro", was specifically originally in reference to the Dublin "Deaf Ears" incident of 2038, where a flash mob performed the Irish folk song "Óró! 'Sé do bheatha 'bhaile" to welcome a group of Usonian refugees at Dublin Airport who had, unbeknownst to the mob, been deafened by an uncontrolled decompression incident mid-flight.

The first amclub was founded at Saint-Louis Middle School in Liège in 2041 in response to widespread bullying of Usonian/American students; this is considered to be the recognized beginning of the Usonian-American split. Even today, Americans are still commonly distinguished by their relationship to the Deluge of Elephants: Americans whose families have continuously lived in Europe since prior to the Deluge are today known as Old Dogs, and the descendants of the Deluge-era refugees are known as the New Litter.

The Deluge of Elephants, its origins, and its impact are of much interest to scholars. Consensus holds that the bourgeois factions of the Second US Civil War intended for the relocation of settlers to Europe among other regions to be a temporary measure, such that they could return to settler life postbellum. The ultimate failure of this plan is attributed to the state of class conflict in Europe and the USA at the time, and to contradictory interests and changing dynamics within the bourgeoisie of either region. The exact details of this analysis remain hotly debated, however.

Scholars take particular interest in how the crisis was presented by liberal political parties and media in Europe, who were criticized for xenophobic statements, scapegoating, and opportunistically co-opting and distorting the language and rhetoric of leftists during the crisis. Scholars also take particular interest in how the crisis was exacerbated by capitalism, including government policies criticized as irresponsible or as wealth transfers to the bourgeoisie; and scholars continue to debate what the exact motives of the European and Usonian bourgeoisie were during the crisis, including the degree to which the crisis was engineered versus accidental.

The Deluge of Elephants and the resulting Usonian-American split resulted in a high level of class consciousness among Americans. This is widely considered to be a major part of the prelude to both the Locotian Revolution and the Socialist Revolution in Europe.

Most of the cultures in the non-colonial solarpunk universe – written about here, here, and here – are also in your crappy universe. The Merina, the Marra, the Māori are all there – but with more dignity, able to look anyone in the eye as an economic and cultural equal.

Yet technology has also created newer cultures not seen on Terra. These new groups couldn't but follow the only pattern they know: living in mutual aid groups self-sufficiently within the ecological limits.

One such neo-tribe is the Cloud Nomads. Sky Truckers. They emulate the traditional nomadic groups that surround them, but with the new addition of solar-powered airships.

Their ships are solar-powered, taking advantage of the higher solar irradiation found at high altitudes. The typical ship is similar in size to the LCAT60T airship in your universe. That means is has about 60 metric tonnes of lifting power. About 65% of this is for hauling cargo. The rest? That's home. Your home in the clouds. An airship might be home to about 22 people: their bedroom, bathroom, shared kitchen all lightly lifted by a helium-hydrogen mix.

Everything must be light. We love balsa wood. Some furniture is made using tensioned bits of fabric and rope. Light and airy. As a crew member, you are allowed 1000kg (less on some ships) for everything: that's your bed, your water ration, your body, everything. Better bring an e-reader.

We like silk, it's is a part of our lifestyle. From the year 2031 onwards, we start to use a lot of spider silk the biopunk guild has learned how to produce. We use it for clothing and rigging, and in the construction of our ships. Spiders are creatures of the sky.

Karl Marx said: "Trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient world only in its interstices, like the gods of Epicurus in the Intermundia, or like Jews in the pores of Polish society."

This world doesn't depend on trade much, yet there is some. Sky Truckers play an important rôle in that trade: bringing goods to spots that aren't easily reached by sea or other means. Other cultures are nearly totally self-sufficient. The Sky Truckers a little less so, they are Marx's intersticial tribe. They are self-sufficient for energy and water, but only half so for food. Cloudmen depend on landlubbers for some food, heavy industry, and of course for their ships to be built. Yet they harvest the food of the sky as much as they can: it would be unthinkable to not feed yourself.

Some cultures live by a sacred river that gives them life. The cultures of the Sahara manage their qanat through the generations. Skymen have no rivers or wells: they live on clouds. Their ships can unfurl a mesh net like the wings of some immense mechanical bat, and fly through a cloud, filling its tanks with the purest of water. (These tanks are only big enough to hold a few days' water: lightness is always on their mind.)

Eat the sky. Ancient Greeks ate lots of species of birds, including mallards, pigeons, blackbirds, larks, sparrows, and cranes.

You idiots hunted the passenger pigeon to extinction but our world did not. They're a reliable food source when our wanderings take us to North America.

We go to Africa in June-August and participate in the quelea hunt with nets deployed from our ships. For small birds, the trick is to remove the head and feet and then cook 'em whole; you can eat the bones 'n' all: just crunch it down! The stewing softens those small bones anyway.

There's also edible pollens in the air, and technology in later eras allowed these to be sucked up efficiently. A high pollen count is 10g per m³ which is really quite a lot of food if you think about it. This PDF says they "found the most pollen at 600 meters" – up in the realm of the Cloud Nomads.

This culture is the least 'permanent' of all cultures in the solarpunk world. Typically, people follow this lifestyle for a few years in their 20s and then go home. It is an exciting life because we travel to festivals bringing equipment in and out, travel to disaster zones delivering emergency aid. We are young, able-bodied people, good with knots and rigging, good with our hands.

The gliders in the cargo deck become lifeboats in the worst-case scenario, but normally they're used on hunting trips. I love to take my glider out from the bottom deck and hunt big game high in the sky. The Southern screamer is an "excellent flier and soarer" and has as much meat as 1½ chickens. (It is eaten somewhat in your dumb universe too.) The most coveted game is the whooper swan, the Canada Goose. Mallards are also pretty good. Radar helps us find game. Eating swans and pigeons might seem weird to you, but it wasn't to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, for example.

The pattern of nested mutual aid groups is universal. Among Bedawin down below on the ground, several 'bayt' form a 'goum'; among the Yolŋu, several 'Ḻikan' confederate into a 'Bäpurru'. Here in the sky, you and your shipmates help each other with cooking and loading/unloading cargo, while your fleetmates support you in other ways. A typical fleet has 28 or 29 airships, each averaging 22 souls. You probably don't have a doctor on your airship with you, but your fleet has a doctor. One ship has the shared Fabrication Workshop (pictured above). One ship has the nightclub.

We can cover 2000km in a day when we need to, or more if the wind favours us. A fleet can haul 1000-1100 metric tonnes (28-29 ships with 30-40 tonnes of cargo). When we show up, we can set up a festival in 72 hours, evacuate 4000 people from a disaster area. That is our power, that is our contribution to the wider world. In return, they provide us the things we can't get in the skies. This agreement is formalised at the highest levels of the democratic federal assemblies.

Our storytelling nights are rich with wild stories of UFOs, as well as tales of the roc and Pouākai. One guy in my fleet claims he has seen the 'jellyfish UAP' you might have heard about.

I've posted about this world before here and here.

It's an alternate history. Colonialism never happened in the first place. The world remained tribal, and traditional cultures remain strong. But 21st century tech develops. There is a lack of capitalism and exploitation.

I downloaded these pics from the multiversal interwebs:

Traditionally nomadic cultures – such as this Australian bushman – remain nomadic in the 21st century. But their lives are made easier by technology. Under capitalism, developing technology keeps some people poor but increases the wealth of a few. In the solarpunk, non-colonial world, people use tools like this off-road tricycle to make their traditional lifestyles easier.

North American cultures follow the still-great buffalo herds. They use offroad vehicles that run on gasified biomass they harvest as they go. These vehicles are no faster than a horse. That guy on the right? I guess he's a tourist from a traditional European country; he's visiting his friends. They'll speak the Esperanto-type language to each other.

This picture was taken in a subway station in Cahokia.

This is a typical sight in the northeast megaregion. This is what the longhouses of the Haudenosaunee people look like in the 21st century.

The fishing cultures of North Europe live within the ecological limits. Some fish are still wild-caught, providing 5-10% of the diet. Others are farmed in open ocean farms. Members of a large (town-sized or city-sized) tribal confederacy have the customary right to harvest from these waters, and manage the wild stock and the farms as a commons.

My post linked above discusses guilds. One guild that exists, alongside doctors, tailors, and microchip-fabricators, is the Soapwitch guild. They have knowledge of local wildflowers, oils, and that sort of thing. Their job is to provide soap, perfume, toothpaste etc. for free to members of their tribe (instead of Unilever and Colgate doing it for profit). It's their tribe's reciprocal obligation to give them food, shelter, protection, etc.

Not to be confused with Legacy Americans. For other uses, see American (disambiguation).

Americans (singular: American, IPA: /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kən/) are a heterogeneous ethnic group most heavily concentrated in Europe. They descend from the historical Usonian diaspora. Americans first started to be commonly distinguished from Usonians during the Deluge of Elephants in the time of the Second US Civil War; this distinction, often called the Usonian-American split, was solidified by the formation of the American representative organization Amicon and the publication of its manifesto Amdec in the year 2049.

Americans commonly speak English, Spanish, and French, or derived languages, often freely blending these with each other and with the local languages of areas where they live; many Americans are denaskuloj as well. Deaf Americans most often have European American Sign Language (EASL, IPA: /ˈi.zəl/) as their first language, a divergent and variable form of American Sign Language with partial intelligibility with Locotian American Sign Language (LASL, IPA: /ˈleɪ.zəl/). EASL is designated as one of the three federal working languages of the European Federation alongside Esperanto and Interslavic.

Prior to the Usonian-American split, "American" was a historical name of Usonians. The word comes from "America", the colonial name of Abya Yala, which had come to be used totum pro parte to refer to the United States of America. Modern Americans chose to use the name "American" for themselves in part as an attempt to skunk the term in reference to Abya Yala and the USA. Following the decolonization of Abya Yala, however, a name debate has ignited among Americans on the appropriateness of continuing to use a colonial name referencing Amerigo Vespucci. No replacement name has caught on, however.

The American flag is based on the Usonian flag. It depicts nine horizontal stripes of red and white, with a sky blue canton bearing a large red star. The nine stripes reference the nine regional amicons of Europe whose representatives drafted and signed Amdec; while the red star represents the "new lodestar" of socialism. In its original context, as the Usonian flag's white stars represented a "new constellation" of the constituent states of the United States of America, the American flag's replacement of these white stars with a single red star was intended to symbolize Amdec's assertion that Americans "[did] not belong to any state of the USA", and that the USA was an illegitimate and illegal occupation regime. A common practice among Americans known as "scrifting" the flag symbolizes that American identity is based in interpersonal connections rather than claims to land.

In the modern day, the red star is often said to symbolize the role that Americans played in the Locotian Revolution and in the Socialist Revolution in Europe.

Americans are generally divided into the "Old Dogs" and the "New Litter" according to their relationship to the Deluge of Elephants. Other terms or phrases often used by Americans include "retour", "oh-ro", "ami", "see single" and "em and en?".

I've had this idea for a while now of a Universe where Earth is destroyed but the Cold War Continues on Humanity's new home, based on the Verse from Firefly. An early point of divergence is the Survival of Salvador Allende and the success of CyberSyn.
No one is exactly sure the cause of the End of the Earth, only that for the two decades proceeding Humanity's exodus the planet was wracked by increasingly devastating volcanic and seismic activity. In the 80's scientist across the globe began looking for a place to flee, to save even a fraction of humanity from the intensifying devastation. The System was discovered during this period, a massive compound Solar System consisting of 5 giant suns orbited by a dozen proto-stars each in turn orbited by nearly a hundred planets and twice as many moons. News of this discovery led to the race to send Humans to The System. Three projects began development under NATO, The Warsaw Pact, and The Non-Aligned Movement. These massive vessels were built over nearly a decade a assembled in Orbit. An agreement was made to limit the number of original colonists of each ship to 10,000, with more ships to come in the future. No more would ever come. The technology of the time meant the journey to The System would take about 57 years to complete. Generations would be born and die aboard the ships, never to see The System. The worlds that each ship finally touched down on were inhospitable worlds with only the ingredients for one day supporting life. The original shelter of mankind in The System was made of deorbited pieces of their original ships, the hab blocks, reactors, hydroponics and more forming the original Arcologies on the worlds. Here the long work of Terra forming began. For the next 300 years Humanity explored and expanded across The System. the new home worlds of Unity (NATO now known as the Union of Planets), Rebirth (NAM now known as the Rebirth Accord) and Cradle (Warsaw Pact now known as the New Peoples Republic) were turned into Shirtsleeve worlds requiring no survival gear. Each faction began colonizing other planets and moons in The System, while each of the large asteroid belts surrounding the home worlds became home to large "belter' communities. Each faction maintained contact with Earth despite the decades their messenger probes took to reach Earth. Conditions on Earth continued degrading with more and more sporadic communication until 280 years after arrival the last probes to ever arrive from Earth spoke of Apocalypse and Upheaval. This began the "No-Contact" Era becoming year zero of the standard calendar. Around 70 NC each faction had made contact with the other two. While originally met with celebrations on many of the worlds of The System, this would be the beginning of the competition and strife in The System.

Thank you for reading my Infodump , if you have any questions or comments they are welcome.

In many ways the world of Muzhchina LA Mushina is about domination and subservience, both on a national level and on a gender level. But what I haven't talked about a lot here is the interpersonal level and the lives of those who inhabit this world.

Helene Batova is a slightly above average Burgunian who suffers under their political system. She's obviously very proud, but also cold to those around her. She thinks of herself as very mature yet often acts rashly, like when Pierre was grating on her with his enthusiasm for aviation. Deep down she did not really believe Andre's accusations against him, yet she cut off all contacts with him anyways. As she matures she constantly believes herself to have finally become a responsible adult, yet constantly learns that she's still far from grown.

In what has to be one of the least kinky aspects of MLM she eventually keeps Andre, now her lover, on a leash, as if to secure her control over him. She is only fooling herself and doing a poor job of it; Andre's power over her and the abuse he inflicts gradually breaks her in the years following her disconnection with Pierre. She could move to the Orenland occupation areas to find a life where she would be respected for her sex, yet her blind nationalism without being able to see through class relations chains her to Burgune. Even so she eventually manages to build her prototype of an aircraft, but ends up crushing both of her legs on her test flight due to sabotage that was aimed at Pierre, no less. Even when he takes care of her during her recovery, she can't find it within herself to love him because of what she's driven between them herself.

In contrast Zhigao is a much happier woman, from Xibei, which is basically China. While her entire family is dead, and she's heavily injured when she barely escapes to Burgune with the skin on her back, she's happy. According to her philosophy, as long as she's done the best she could, then there's no reason for her to lament her fate. And she still has plenty of loved ones to cling to: Fang Zheng (her boyfriend, still in Xibei and alive due to smoothened relations between the NPA and monarchy), and Pierre as well as his friends. Of course, she's a very sloppy person in her daily life, though determined (seen through the handkerchief she sewed with Zheng's name that Pierre finds while she's semi-conscious off the train), and she semi-secretly desires to be taken care of. And the young men and women she organizes with are truly her friends who would (and did, when she first was ordered to escape to Burgune due to her age) die for her, while many of Helene's 'friends' are quick to abandon her, if not outright manipulative.

At least during the first half of MLM, the culture within the NPA is much more open, with outright revolutionary factors flourishing, while Burgune is a typical conservative monarchy with a heavily oppressive society, weak to outsiders but harsh to its own citizens. Just through these two women alone, it's easy to see how big of an influence where you've grown affects the characters.

The living memory of Saerdastia is one of war and revolution, cataclysm and plague and famine, great upheavals, genocide, unrest, and incredible wonders unlike any seen by prior generations. The youth of today, those born after the establishment of the Age of Peace, do not recall the cruelty and folly of the nobles, their short-sighted and petty ambitions, the horrors of the great wars that followed, the hunger, the chaos, the rage, the despair. They are told to remember those who paid the price of mortal ambition, and who paved the way for the time of plenty and stability they know now, but it's different, remembering, rather than simply seeing it in a mirror.

The simple times before, messy though they were, were slow-paced and predictable. The rich hoarded their riches, wars were waged, crops were grown, trade and commerce flowed, all the various mortal races found ways to coexist even as they clashed. All know the legends of the ancient times, the elves who enslaved everyone with their ordered magics and machines that performed wonders on command. They're told of the rebellion, when the primitives rose up as one and chased the elves into their cities, who hid behind their glowing shields and never came out again. The elves are gone, and so are their glowing shields, but their cities remain, and the wreckage of their machines besides. It was a humble alchemist's assistant who first saw the potential in something as simple as a child's toy, a floating pentad of crystal spheres arranged within the empty space of a simple wire cradle. A curiosity his master had acquired in a card game. The balls would clack together, the force of the first transferring to the last, setting up a physical chain reaction that reversed this and then repeated it, all without the spheres losing their levitational force.

His master disregarded this, the story goes; he was in pursuit of the philosopher's stone, after all. A much more noble pursuit. The apprentice grew frustrated, and fled in the night, stealing the cradle toy and a number of other elven artifacts and lab equipment besides. He studied the crystals, made of aerynite, a curious alchemical substance known for its odd magical storage properties, but it was, like the toy, largely seen as a curiosity, too fickle for much practical use.

The elves clearly knew better. He studied its properties, figured out how to align their structures in the way the elves had, and eventually, he found a way to control the storage, release, and transformation of the essences within. Inside of a year he had a functional levitation engine, and knew how to build more. Knowledge of his devices spread, and he grew rich, and richer still selling his findings to others, allowing this technology to proliferate. Other techniques arose from experimenting with the crystal's properties, and those of the elven machines.

Alchemists and magi were able to reverse engineer many of the elves' incredible wonders: crystalline aerynite-infused "sprites" that levitated matter and manipulated essence to perform a variety of tasks, programmed by elven command glyphs; humanoid golems and flying mechanical scarab spies they could slot into to manipulate from afar; magic mirrors capable of showing flat images and eventually three-dimensional illusions near-indistinguishable from the real thing, and crystal needles that stored these images and sounds; greater and more powerful levitation engines capable of carrying massive airships; scrying devices that could see through solid matter; speaking stones that carried voices instantaneously over great distances; energetic shrouds like bubbles that could be adjusted to hinder or halt light, sound, or matter; weapons like lightning casters and fire sprayers, ice bombs, gravitational reversers, flensing rays that strip away matter layer by layer, cutting beams, and other horrible things barely understood but all-too-eagerly wielded by would-be conquerers and religious crusaders.

The result was predictable: widespread war and upheaval. Kingdoms smashed into each other, consolidated, slaughtered one another, and eventually the noble class started to shrink. Knights were torn to shreds by new weaponry, and martial prowess gave way to conscripted peasants with lightning scepters and flensing cannons in hand, often as dangerous to themselves as the enemy.

Society rapidly evolved in its wake. Mages grew wise to the rules of science and experimentation, constantly seeking an edge over enemy kingdoms. New theories of economic function and development, ways to exploit natural resources, manufacturing, labor exploitation, and exciting new social theories to justify slavery and ethnic cleansing. The most notorious innovator was a necromancer lord so vile his name was struck from history books, and all needle recordings of his experiments on living prisoners, corpses, and undead (mindless and otherwise) are classified and kept out of circulation. Still, he revolutionized medicine, introduced cell theory and germ theory, and discovered methods of limb replacement and rapid healing that are still used to this day. He also developed the method of breaking the Holy Church's anti-undeath protection that they bestowed upon their loyal soldiers, which was instrumental in shattering the loyalty of their ranks and ending their multi-front genocidal holy war. Too late to save the hobgoblins, or most of the orcs and goblins, but it was enough for the dwarven corporate lord to sweep in and wipe them out to seize their mines and treasuries.

The abuses heaped upon the lower classes reached a breaking point. Bit by bit, a revolutionary coalition formed among defectors from various armies. Conditions deteriorated for decades before finally, those who would eventually become known as the Keepers of the Peace gained a pivotal edge when they seized control of the Thunderhead fleet of ships; nightmarish iron-clad flying vessels covered in rods and prongs that manipulate lightning, mobile hurricanes capable of leveling cities with enough concentrated power. This gave them the edge needed for lesser cells to successfully revolt and begin the Great Purge, hunting down any of noble blood and those who served them willingly, eventually fully wiping out all the nobles. Victory was bittersweet; the continent lie in ruins. Farmland was destroyed and unusable far and wide. The druids had gathered their strength and summoned a massive intelligent bed of brambles, which strangled the city of a king who had cut down a sacred forest, tearing out and devouring the minds of those who choked to death on its thorns. The brambles grew massive and they remained hostile to any who would approach, blaming all for the horrors inflicted on nature. A massive maelstrom of never-ending lightning tore apart anything that tried to approach the northern sea. The Necromancer left behind the Deadlands, a peninsula that is all that remains of his self-destructed kingdom. Anything dead there rises up and tries to kill the closest living thing it can sense. The walls keep people out and the land and skies are regularly cleansed, but most people don't want to think about how the borders are still growing by a half-inch or so every year. Nomadic peoples fled to the cities; races that once had bitter blood feuds were forced into close quarters, the peace kept by the revolutionaries who'd killed the nobles and now struggled to keep order in the wake of the wars.

The wars wiped out half the population. Famine and plague and banditry wiped out half of those who remained. In the end, it was the magi who saved everyone, and thus bought their absolution for their part in destroying the known world. Time manipulation was another weapon that had been used in the war, but they created a system of machinery that was able to simulate a closed loop of cultivation at rapid speeds. In this way they were able to rapidly grow at first only mushrooms, but soon enough actual staple crops and eventually even fruit and spices and simple, small animals for meat. The famine was done with practically overnight, and rebuilding began. The Maelstrom and Deadlands are being contained, the repopulation and rebuilding efforts have been ongoing for several decades now. Various societies are adjusting to the aftermath.

The Demodocians (bat people) who fled underground are emerging again, the Dzeturi (bug people) have ceased their extreme isolationism and settled their own internal turmoil enough to function, trade, and slowly restart immigration. The orcs and goblins have joined together as a single nation with widespread and disparate holdings, and pride themselves on having many children. But many orcs and goblins live among the humans and dwarves and halflings and kobolds, who tend to keep to the walled city-states, working in factories or time farms. The druids expand the brambles and accept refugees, and maintain an easy truce with the Keepers by securing lands to restore to their natural state, a process that will take centuries. The Keepers recruit from all walks of life but tend to draw heavily from orcish, human, and dwarven stock. Orcs, humans, goblins, and halflings regularly mix families together, something almost unheard of in prior generations. But nowadays, everyone knows all too well that everyone is simply a Mortal; everyone dies. They've seen it. And they try to impress this upon their children and grandchildren, but among Mortals, old habits die hard. Wealth begins to accumulate, cruelties are tolerated, racial divisions fettered with sputtering feuds over wealth ignite despite laws mandating an end to racial war. The world is messy, as it always was, but at least there's no nobles now. It's a brave new world, there's capital to be made and opportunities to seize. There's no way people will repeat old mistakes.

so i had a dream where a group and i were magically summoning like, liquid stone and by-hand forming it into walls--this is clearly half-baked and inefficient--so how would YOU make or enhance construction processes using magic, sci-fi technology, or fictional materials?

Once you learn how to understand and apply historical materialism and break out of capitalist canards like the myth of barter, it becomes much easier to come up with the things that make societies feel evolving, nuanced, and alive: internal struggles, subcultures and countercultures, political movements, economic bases, social mores and customs. That, plus having a variety of real-world examples to draw from to avoid falling into the trap of capitalist realism.

This one takes place in Burgune, which I don't think I've written about here, but you'll enjoy the expanded lore and story (I hope) anyways.

Pavel Arkhangelsky was born on February 13, 2006 in a hospital somewhere in Japan. His parents lived in the Soviet Union before its collapse. Afterwards, they moved to Japan due to programs that paid relatively well for their technical expertise in engineering. He was enrolled in a local high school, where he met Sayori, who was somewhat sympathetic to his cause. Indoctrination was wasted on him as he had learned Soviet patriotism from his parents from a young age.

Despite his best efforts, Pavel was never more than an average student, in part due to his alienation from his classmates who were complete slaves to capitalist ideology. For his first year, Sayori was his only friend. Though he attempted to join a socialist club, it was full of demsocs and he left angrily.

The following year he was invited by Sayori into the newly-formed literature club, which, under his guidance, became a sort of hub for socialist activities. This culminated in his invitation to Hope's Peak Academy as the Ultimate Marxist Leninist.

Unaware of what was going on at the time, he was thrust into the Killing Game. Though thrown off his footing at first, he was able to gain the trust of the remaining students and used his limited knowledge to construct simple devices such as molotovs and even a rudimentary cannon. Eventually, he was able to escape Hope's Peak Academy.

In March of 2029, when the duties of reorganizing post-verzwieflungkrieg society was at last completed, he married Sayori in Leningrad. Three years following, they had their eldest child, Kiril. Seven years following, another child, again a son named Milorad.

In terms of personality, on the chart thingy I made the fuck up, he can best be described as warm/passion. He obviously cares about his friends, and also excels at political agitation.

After watching the darwin 4 documentary over the weekend I decided skewers were cool and decided to add a variant of them to my story.

So, canonically, the entirety of Silen (the continent Lindsen is located on) was created by Komi(me), and humans were later introduced. Thus, the animals that live there have quite different anatomies from what we're used to. These include the massive flying organisms known as 1/1/17/4. Now this family is quite diverse, and actually consists of two major lineages, 1/1/17/4/1 and its derivatives, as well as 1/1/17/4/2.

1/1/17/4/1 is the older of the two. Organisms of this group have two large jet pods on their backs, while their bodies are torpedo-shaped, with a large mouth that can expand to swallow prey. Teeth are present inside the throat, to aid in crushing it. Juices are digested in the stomach. Most waste is immediately expelled to reduce weight, while nutrients enter the blood. Several large blood vessels flow past the jet pods to cool off, also heating the air inside slightly.

In two organs beneath the jet pods, glucose and fat are metabolized into methane. Upon entering the jet pods, air first goes through several tightly compacted swirls to increase pressure, then into a combustion chamber which expanding muscles can compress. Methane is added here, and electrical pulses from ignition nerves ignite the mixture. A sphincter opens shortly following a compression to allow the heated air to release.

Most members of the 1/1/17/4/1 family have not lost their hind fins. They have instead evolved into two triangular fins that sit directly behind the jet pods, possible directing the flow of air. A single large tail that resembles a boat's rudder is located at the end of the organism and has colorful patterns that may aid it in finding mates. The two wings resemble elongated triangles. The eyes sit close to the lower jaw, and transparent eyelids can cover them when prey is being attacked.

While superficially similar, 1/1/17/4/2 is quite a different family. For one, its jet pods are located at the base of the wings. It lacks stabilizers, as its fins have migrated to where its lower jaw once was to form a sharp, flexible organ resembling a limb crossed with a jaw that can impale prey. It is smaller and faster than its cousins in 1/1/17/4/1, as its smaller size (though it's still very big, it has a wingspan of 6 meters and a length of roughly 3) ensures it can have a faster metabolism.

These two species have been regarded as pests due to their hunting of herds of livestock. In the past, little could be done about them due to the lacking of any weapons that would be effective against their speed. However, developments in firearms have caused a considerable decline in their numbers. If the living jets are to remain in Silen's skies, action must be taken to protect them.

Although, frankly, given all the shit that's going on in Silen, I wouldn't blame them if preserving these species are pretty low on their list of priorities.

Me and my friends have a huge world building project, the whole scope of it would be impossible to explain without several hundred screenshots of discord convos and pictures of notebooks. To summarize everyone is responsible for a fictional country and can make stories about it and how the nations interact with each other. Obviously my country was communist, I called it 'Antegria' (before playing Papers, Please and being like ). I was getting bored of being a good country, so I had my country get couped and became a theocratic empire, and transition to a capitalist economy. This had pretty devastating effects on the people, and very many became poor. One bit of the story I wanted to make is a majority of class-conscious communists in the government, military, and general population fleeing persecution (the junta was killing suspected communists) to another communist country, the Communist Union of Benteria (which is kinda like if west germany and the DDR were both communist, and then unified). The government were very sympathetic to the fleeing communists and gave them a large empty bit of land to make a semi-autonomous commune. Over time, the commune grew enough to the point where 15-16,000 people occupied it, and they started to make a plan to take over the empire in a cuban revolution-esque plan. So a large force travels to a very rural part of the old country, and brings food and healthcare to the farmers and miners, who desperately need it as the austerity and privatisation had put a lot of them out of jobs (many had jobs in nearby cities, as the gov. ran high-speed trains between cities, but when the new government privatised the rail industries, it became prohibitively expensive to travel by train). By doing this across many rural areas they grow slightly in numbers and declare a few rural towns to be Antegria proper, and the junta's new government to be fraudulent. Is this in any way realistic or practical? Or really a way that a revolution could even happen?

This is something tangential I've developed for my science-fantasy world with intelligent animals. For context: In this world, different taxonomic governments represent groups of related species. You have the Felines, Vulpines, Rodents, Avians, etc. Each of them technically belong to a different State but frequently intermingle and live in the same area, and taxonomic governments tend to also have territory/land associated with them where they primarily control the area, but other animals can and very much do still live there. Taxonomic governments have jurisdiction of the species within their scope no matter where they live, and are the ones responsible for having an ID system that works both within their own taxon and with other taxonomic governments and other official organizations.

Instead of making everyone carry ID cards or passports, which would be cumbersome for four-legged or winged animals to use, I envisioned a DNA-based ID system. The tech for this is definitely in the Star Trek levels of sci-fi, but it's basically a flat surface that you press your paw, wing, or other body part firmly onto, and a mechanism below produces a mild energy beam through your fur and skin which interacts with DNA in your cells and gives returns based on the specific sequence, and it's a safe, non-invasive DNA sequencer that can get a full read of your genetic code in seconds. The DNA scanner also checks for things like active metabolism and DNA synthesis and are generally configured to not even attempt to scan non-living cells, so you can't do something like use someone else's severed paw to make the system think you're them.

But since your full DNA sequences can be, for one, several gigabytes long and not conducive to things like printing onto certificates and migration papers or even just sending over the network to other agencies, and also contain actual information about things like your species, sex, family history and a bunch of sensitive stuff that you wouldn't want just anyone having access to, they typically take a cryptographic hash of the DNA and use that as an identifier for an individual animal. Kind of like how humans might have something like a social security number, animals in this world have a DNA Hash that governments use to identify them. Whenever a government agency in our world asks you to show some kind of ID like a driver's license, passport, health card, etc, they just have to scan their DNA and their information is automatically pulled from the right agency, using the hash to look it up. Even things like crossing international borders (of friendly nations) can be done with just a single biometric scan with no passport or ID card required. Basically, if you're animal in this world, the various government agencies around you refer to you as something like "8ed254569e8ddccea1784f569609aa32ced2691e2d22e99583ebd426cac76bd8" which is derived from your DNA sequence, and since you can't change your DNA, the same hash algorithm will always produce the same identifier, but better for privacy since it's impossible to reverse the algorithm and derive the original DNA sequence from the hash, and in theory only your own taxonomic government would have your full DNA sequence stored away on a server somewhere. Also extremely hard to falsify since it's literally identifying your body and not a card or anything that can be replaced.

What do you think? Does a system like this make sense? Are there glaring logistical or security issues that I'm not seeing? (Beyond just having a non-invasive and rapid DNA sequencing system in the first place, but that's what sci-fi handwaving is for.) Do you think a system like this is actually superior compared to physical ID media?

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1575977

A well-done article. I never knew about this writer. More research should be done on him.

I should also check out his work sometime.

For context, I have a science-fantasy world with intelligent, non-anthro animals trying to live in peace with each other. A major problem is of course what the carnivores eat, and their solution is something called Dietary Enzyme Supplements, which carnivores take in order to supply artificial, carefully engineered digestive enzymes that allow them to digest plant matter and directly synthesize essential nutrients that would otherwise only be found in meat inside their own digestive tracts. It's something that works really well for its intended purpose and that they're really proud of, and I talk more about their history with solving the predation problem here if you're interested.

For the species, taxa, and factions that have committed to banning predation and having predator and prey live in harmony, dietary enzyme supplements are typically freely available and a guaranteed right under their constitution, along with plant based food in general. Dietary enzymes are ubiquitous and work really well for their intended purpose, and represent the very bleeding edge of their chemistry and nutrition science prowess.

The most advanced dietary enzymes, those intended for obligate carnivores like cats, contain trace amounts of a special quasi-element called Intium as part of how they work, which is also a really powerful substance that power most of their super advanced sci-fi tech. However, due to how versatile and powerful it is, Intium is also extremely dangerous if misused, so it is heavily regulated by the government, and the only real "consumer" product that contains it are those obligate carnivore dietary enzymes. The next most accessible source is hovercraft fuel and the internal components of hovercraft engines, both of which are prohibitively expensive and require an aviation related license to purchase, while dietary enzymes are both free at the point of access and anyone can just go into a grocery store and take them without anyone else batting an eye.

The vast majority of animals that need dietary enzymes do not abuse their free access to them, since there's no benefit in taking more than the required dose and they're just flavourless pills that most animals don't just stuff their faces with. However, this is where amateur chemistry enthusiasts come in, after a post on a science forum showing how to extract Intium from ATDP, which are the dietary enzyme supplements most commonly used by Felines. The process is pretty simple, basically just burn the pills at a very high temperature and in a high oxygen environment to convert the proteins and other support chemicals into carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc, and you're left with a solid residue of mostly Intium oxide, which can then be further processed into pure Intium. This is technically legal since the government doesn't regulate what exactly you do with dietary enzymes once you have it, but the problem is that ATDP, while free to use, still has a high production cost, and only contain minuscule amounts of Intium. A domestic cat for example typically takes one pill of ATDP per week, with the enzymes attaching to the lining of their digestive tracts to prevent the still perfectly functional enzymes from being expelled out the other end after one cycle of digestion and being wasted. However, an unlicensed chemist smelting pills to extract Intium can go through literally thousands of pills in a few hours, and those pills are paid for almost entirely by Feline tax revenue so neither the Feline government nor the Feline population in general are happy about this. Of course the safety risks of working with Intium apply as well, including pretty severe explosion risks, but the amounts they extract are so small that it's hardly a public safety hazard so much as a public burden as they destroy tens of thousands dollars worth of dietary enzymes just to extract ten dollars worth of Intium. The Intium is not the expensive part of those pills, the expensive parts are the carefully engineered and synthesized proteins that surround the Intium. After a few incidents of particularly brazen and entitled animals (who notably weren't even carnivores and had no biological need for dietary enzymes, certainly not the super advanced obligate carnivore versions that contain Intium) cleared out multiple grocery store shelves for their Intium extraction hustle and went viral on their internet, attracting intense public shaming with both predator and prey calling them selfish and misusing public resources, they realized that it was a massive problem and a policy change was needed to ensure fair access to this extremely important resource.

The most obvious and immediately effective solution is just to implement some kind of rationing system, where instead of a shelf filled with boxes of dietary enzymes that any animal can take, they move them behind the pharmacy counter and require ID to obtain, where they'll check both whether you're actually a species that requires the enzyme and also use a centralized database that tracks how much you're taking per month. However, again, only a tiny minority of animals abuse the free access to dietary enzymes to do things they really shouldn't be doing anyway, so it would feel like a massive burden for the rest of the carnivore populations who literally depend on access to dietary enzymes to survive in a society where predation is banned. It would also preclude things like animals who don't need dietary enzymes getting them for their carnivore friends since they were going to the store anyway, or even things like losing your box of dietary enzymes and potentially getting denied replacements if they only allow animals to obtain them at the specific dosages they need, nor would they be able to stock up some dietary enzymes in their own nests and dens in case of supply chain issues. Not to mention the costs associated with implementing and maintaining such a rationing system which will also be passed onto the general public, potentially siphoning funds away from other public projects like housing and transportation, or just having less money to make more dietary enzymes. Free and easy access to both plant based food and dietary enzymes have been such staples in their society that they really don't to abandon it just because a few animals don't follow the rules, so they're looking for an alternative that lets them have their dietary enzymes and eat it too.

What do you think? Is their only hope to just start rationing dietary enzymes? If you were a policy maker in this world, how would you address this issue? This world is supposed to be socialist so I'd love a socialist (or leftist in general) perspective on this!

Unlike Lindsen, the southern Menora kingdoms were never whole. Wedged between the southern coast and the Raimat river, they have historically been separate, albeit sharing cultures. However, an Orenland state has established a Commission in its southeast peninsula, and although it expands less aggressively than the analogous Lindsen Commission, it is still a threat to the unity of the nation.

In the eastern area between the two forks of the Raimat river is eastern Menora, which has modernized in part due to influence from the Menora Commission, with beret hats becoming a staple of the local industrialist leaders, be they populist or centralist. To the west, more traditional rulers guard their kingdoms from dangerous and radical schools of thought that may bring upheaval to their feudal orders.

In the southwest, Emilio Colella rules in the Sidenian Kingdom, occupying roughly a third of western Menora. His coastal kingdom holds significant economical influence as well as having access to plentiful resources.

Rocco Pignatoro is slightly further north, with his Subaldena bordering Lindsen's Aldenland, being only a river apart. A rather traditional though large kingdom slightly smaller than the Sidenian Kingdom. It is more technologically backwards due to being essentially locked from the outside world. But will the turmoil in the continent force it to embrace change?

Matteo Landolfi rules the Dosenti State in the eastern portion of Menora, in the middle of the section with a small port. It borders the Menora Commission directly and as a result has greatly benefited from the technology leaking from the advanced Commission. But will Melinda Whitfield tolerate this one-sided flow of precious Orenland advantage?

Salvatore Scanga is in even more dire straights, with most of his republic close to the Commission border. He clings on for now, intensifying construction of fortifications he hopes will delay the inevitable onslaught, but is he only erecting dirt walls in the unstoppable path of fate?

Melinda Whitfield controls the Merona Commission, where lighter policy has resulted in significantly less unrest than her Lindsen counterparts. But this has resulted in less progress towards true matriarchy than her superiors would desire, and as the years drag on they may lose their patience entirely.

Finally, the industrial populist state of the Vensorian Council, a small and often overlooked country in the north of eastern Menora, is ruled precariously by Belani Insoro, with power split between the two main industrial populist parties, the VRC and the VRGP. But the industrial centralist VNPA lurks in the shadows as promised reforms fail to bring about substantial improvements in life, even as various proletarian populist movements hinder various projects. Most disturbing of all, the establishment of Albert Stahler's Worker's State in the northern border has resulted in a diffusion of proletarian centralist thought. Who knows what the future will entail...

All of these countries may have never been a part of something greater, yet advances in communication and nationalism has created something new in the people. And perhaps someday, their dream will be fulfilled, and all of Menora will be one.

If you asked any soldier or student in any warlord state in Lindsen what the cause of the Orenland invasion, you would get different answers. From a citizen of the state of Aldenburg, that they come to upend Lindsen's traditions and impose unnatural matriarchy upon its citizens. From the Worker's State, that they are capitalists seeking resources to exploit, no longer satisfied with what they can find on their own soil. From a businessman in Gorsenya, they are here to rob Lindsen of economic activity.. All these answers are true to an extent.

Due to sea monsters, the two continents only connected very recently, when an Orenland steamship fitted with a reinforced hull reached the eastern coast of the southern Lohne strip, belonging to Lindsen at the time. From the point of view of the invaders, this was an excellent opportunity to expand its raw resource base, as well as to relieve social tensions. At home, despite numerous attempts at suppression, strikes and other such disloyal behaviors were rising, while others complained that even in industrialized times men were still legally property, and even going to suggest that industrial populism was not very populist after all.

The invasion was over in months. Superior artillery as well as tanks and aircraft, which were nonexistent in the backwards states of Lindsen, Burgune, and the fragmented southern kingdoms, easily destroyed their armies. Peace was made with Burgune, while an uneasy stalemate was achieved with the southern Menora kingdoms. No such luck in Lindsen, which was defeated thoroughly and turned into a puppet. For a year or so, things were looking up, with a large region to extract resources and more jobs to soothe unruly elements at home.

Unfortunately, the people of Lindsen did not make things easy for the invaders. In two years the Commission's territory was history and it only retained a fertile but small section of the Lohne strip. Masses were angry as austerity measures had come down to nothing, with none of the promised riches from war going into the pockets of working women. Industrialists were similarly angered by the lack of promised profit.

With this background as well as the spread of proletarianism, both centralist and populist, across all the nations of Orenland, several massive civil wars broke out in which various smaller states were seized by proletarian forces around eight years after initial invasion. The governments of several larger states, including Orenland proper, hastily mobilized to combat the red menace. While they were successful in containing the proletarian revolutions, it left them militarily and economically hollowed, and allowed for the Lindsen states to develop without fragmentation intervention. While the two federations were defeated two years later, it was a half-measure at best and little measures were imposed to contain them.

Thirteen years after the initial invasion, the situation had stabilized somewhat, with the propaganda machine working to indoctrinate a new generation against dangerous proletarian sentiments that would snuff out, it was hoped, the revolutionary flame once and for all. But Albert Stahler of the South Lindsen Worker's State and his growing country seem to think otherwise, and the time may come again where a second conflict with Lindsen will leave Orenland too weakened to fight, even against threats within its own borders. The fate of a continent and the entire matriarchy painstakingly built in the Commission, as well as its Menora section, lies on the actions of these warlords with their own dreams for their nation.

May the One save Orenland, for no one else can.