Inferno 2.0 By QuantumBranching Watch

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A commission by TenaciousVulpine, for the world of Dr. Who's "Inferno" circa 1974, shortly before the surface of the planet is rendered molten by uncontrolled and uncontrollable release of Stahlman's gas from beneath the Earth's crust. Kudos to The Gunslinger on Alternatehistory.com, which inspired the GEACPS in this map.



This is a world where various forms of right-wing authoritarianism has become the dominant mode of government, with the Russian Whites winning out in the Civil War, the US going Technocratic in the Great Depression and Britain going Fascist (they don't call it that, "Fascism" is an _Italian_ thing) and eventually liquidating the Royals. Japan never invaded China proper but simply played off the factions of a more fragmented Kuomintang against eachother and managed to establish it's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere on a more voluntary basis.



Adolph Hitler arose as OTL, but the better relations between Fascist Britain and White Russia meant that he never got a chance to overrun Europe: he ran out of Cunning Plans at a critical point and was taken down by Britain, Russia, and Italy. Germany was broken up into smaller states, but it is slowly reforming as a loose federation under British protection, which is souring British-Russian relations.



There was something of a British-Russian-American-Japanese cold war by the late 1950s, all powers having developed atomic weapons and their own spheres of interest, but the fear of nuclear destruction eventually led to the formation of an international "super cabinet" called the Conclave to prevent another world war from breaking out. The British alliance system, the American Confederation (the US, after a "rational, scientific" reformation, which really wasn't) and Japan with the GEACPS tend to dominate: India is still relatively weak militarily and economically, and Russia has lagged behind of late (the legacy of Stalin, who went into right-wing rather than left-wing politics in this world: Russia is good at repression but also frightfully corrupt and a mismanaged economy).



Conclave members all accept the need for unity to prevent atomic war in the face of unrest and an increasingly unmanageable colonial and ex-colonial world, but that doesn't mean they _like_ each other, and a certain amount of competition and points-scoring goes on all the time (Japan and the North Americans particularly dislike eachother).



It's a more authoritarian and repressive world than OTL (admittedly, much of Japanese-dominated Asia is better off than the Mao-dominated China of our 1974), with even democratic neutrals in Europe such as Switzerland and the Low Countries tending to be dominated by reactionary, right-wing parties. (At least in part due to the intolerance of the major powers for left wing democracy.). On the (small) positive side, the air is generally a bit cleaner and less radioactive than OTL 1974: both British and Russian forms of authoritarianism have a pro-wilderness streak, and no major power is as insanely unconcerned about putting crap into the environment as OTL's USSR. The nuclear arms race didn't run out of control as long as OTL, and underground nuclear testing was universally adopted early on.



The existence of Free Africa (a result of the French, in one of their revolutionary periods, dumping much of their Empire, and a cash-strapped Britain dropping some of their more troublesome colonies) is a bit of a thorn in the sides of the major powers, along with Australia's stubborn support of old-fashioned democracy: although, lacking superpower protectors, the independent Africans and Arabs generally stick to rhetorical denunciations of Conclave colonial and semi-colonial practices, they still form, like Haiti to slave states in the 1800s, an ideological threat by simply existing. Talk arises now and again about bringing Free Africa firmly under Conclave control, but this would be bloody, expensive, and nobody can agree as to who gets what bit.



Fortunately, the Africans and others struggling against repression will not need to struggle much longer. Britain's power comes from being the leader of a coalition rather than individual national size and population like Russia or the American Confederation or even India (heck, Japan alone is rather a lot more populous than GB) and that coalition is always at risk of fraying. It's leadership plans to leap ahead with the White Heat of Technology, with alien tech it has kept secret, and with an unlimited new power source draw from beneath the planetary crust. And what of those who warn of uncertain risks? Well, if they get too annoying there are always the camps or the simple bullet to the back of the head.



In some ways this world is more technologically advanced than OTL, notably in space travel, thanks to the capture of three alien space ships in Wales, 1959. As part of the formation of the Conclave, a united space program was formed, and the latest ships, equipped with antigravity and atomic drives, can reach the Moon in hours and Mars in weeks: the shaky little bases thereupon will have very little time to become self-sufficient, if any humans are to survive at all.



Edit: some small changes made. Can YOU spot them?

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Published : Jan 5, 2017