Another one inspired by brainstorming on

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It has been a century since the start of the Second World War, and the Third Reich is still the colossus of Eurasia. The hard-won victory, which saw the British Empire humiliated early in the war and ended with the destruction of the Soviet Union, is being celebrated throughout the Reich. But the Reich is not the creature that Hitler forged, Goering mismanaged, and Speer repaired. It is a fractured nation, more at odds with itself than its hostile neighbors.

The Führer still rules the Reich, of course, but he is as powerful as his predecessors in the First Reich. Führers are old Nazi Party officials, who have served the Reich well and so are rewarded with high office, but ever since the madness of Hitler and Goering showed the flaws in the autocratic model, the Führer has had its powers reduced considerably. Yes, the Führer can still declare war, still chooses the Gauleiters, governors and generals that rule much of the Reich day in and day out, and he has the power to countermand any order, but in practice these powers are no longer used. It is not uncommon for a Führer to have no idea what is done in his name.

The most autonomous portion of the Third Reich is the SS. Since the end of the war, the SS evolved from a paramilitary force serving the Nazi Party to a state within a state. This was Himmler's design from the beginning, and he declined the office of Führer to build his own nation. This has paid off, and over the past century the SS has secured exclusive control over many parts of the Reich. Only the purest specimens of the master race may become members of the SS and live in these rich lands (unless they are slaves), which has led to the unfortunate side effect of inbreeding as the rest of the Reich becomes too "impure" for the SS. The SS have fought de facto wars with the rest of the Reich before, often with the pretense of saving Hitler's dream, but they have lost every time and had their lands reduced.

The Wehrmacht controls other territories, mostly in the conquered East and in Africa. These were military districts in the past, to be passed on to civilian control, but the chaotic nature of the Third Reich's government gave the Wehrmacht an incentive to hold onto these territories themselves. While the Wehrmacht as whole is still beholden to the orders from Germania, within these military districts they are the only authority, superseded only when high-ranking government or Party officials visit; even this is not often, as the Wehrmacht enjoys its de facto independence. Although branding itself as the humane alternative to the SS, the serfdom the Wehrmacht has imposed upon the peoples they conquered is horrific. At least the Wehrmacht is less willing to perform "purification killings" and human experimentation.

The lands of Germany proper has been divided among various factions. Branches of the Nazi Party have become autonomous governments, particularly in areas that the Nazis enjoyed the greatest support in. Here, the Party is the government, with no official political offices existing separate from those of the Party. In other areas, the Nazis have lost direct control. Prussia and Austria have come under the control of monarchies; the former under the descendants of Hermann Goering, the latter under Habsburgs who pledged their support to local strongmen and managed to seize control in the 1990s. Prussia and Austria have become de facto independent states, obeying none but the Führer himself. In other regions, governors who merely pay lip service to the ideals of National Socialism, and never attend Party meetings, reign supreme, their authority only challenged when the occasional emissary from Germania issues a directive.

To the south, the Italian Empire is a strange case. The monarchy was ousted in the 1960s after the king foolishly attempted to oust Mussolini from power. Mussolini merely ascended to the throne of Italy himself, and proclaimed himself a new Caesar. After Mussolini's death, and a new Duce was elected by the National Fascist Party, the Italian throne went with it. However, this new Duce was Mussolini's son, and so it soon became clear that the position of Duce, King of Italy, and Emperor of the Italian Empire, would become hereditary. This has proven to be the case, and now Mussolini's great-great grandson rules from Rome.

Gran Colombia is Germany's major ally in the Americas, particularly after its wars of conquest in the late 1940s, but is far milder than the Reich. Although still a one-party state under the control of the Conservative Party of Colombia, the position of Eternal President has become far more limited in recent decades. The Conservative Party may be the only legal party, but inter-party elections are fiercely contested and give the Colombian people genuine choices. Even the secret police have to abide by strict standards of fairness and judicial review, and basic rights are respected in fact, if not protected by law.

The great enemy of the Third Reich is the United Nations, what is left of the humiliated Allied Powers of World War II. Originally starting as an emergency alliance with extraordinary powers "for the duration of the emergency," the United Nations has become a de facto authoritarian superstate. The government watches everywhere for "fascist" and "far-right" agitators, and those deemed insufficiently committed to the UN war effort are put away in internment camps. The entire civilian population of Great Britain has been moved to Canada and Australia, and replaced with UN troops ready at a moment's notice to launch a suicidal invasion into Europe. Even the states that are not technically members of the UN proper, but are part of the alliance, are bound by treaty and domestic law to send their armies to aid the liberation of Europe. The UN's major allies, the Soviet Union and Free France, are paranoid garrison states ruled by the descendants of the old generals. These societies are itching to destroy the Third Reich and take revenge for their ancestors, to the point that mothers pray to God or Saint Stalin that their sons may engage in glorious combat against the Reich.

In the east, the despotic states of China and India have turned inward, ready to defend themselves against the Axis and the Allies to the last man. The Chinese, whose ruling Communist Party triumphed over the Nationalists over decades of grueling civil war, do not trust the ideologically abhorrent (and pro-Nationalist) Germans or the ideologically abhorrent (and pro-Nationalist) UN. A new Great Wall has been built around China, this time made of pillboxes, trenches, bunkers, tank traps, minefields and razor wire. Factories have been built deep in the mountains to protect them from strategic bombers and nuclear bombs, where the Chinese people are expected to hold out as the Axis and Allies destroy one another. India has taken much the same approach, despising the Allies for attempting to keep India in the war even after the surrender of Japan. India has united its people under a manufactured Indian national identity, one that conveniently preaches that the government New Delhi can do no wrong.