The New Renaissance By RvBOMally Watch

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This was one I drafted up last year, intended to be a full science fiction timeline. That idea eventually evolved into Sunshine, but that has a different premise altogether. This has a "Western Europe and America are Rome" deal, with America being a surviving Byzantine Empire, and the modern setting being a new Renaissance. Thematically, the setting and technology is based on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, so there's lot of neo-Renaissance imagery, particularly in Europe. The tech focuses on cybernetic enhancements and AI, while most tech development in the past has been focused on space travel. Everything else has more or less stagnated until the New Renaissance; just prior to the setting, computers were not much different than they were in the 21st century. Railguns and lasers have only just become miniaturized enough for infantry use. Nuclear fission is starting to be phased out, finally, in favor of nuclear fusion. Global warming happened in the 25th century, but only after a period of global cooling. This has actually benefited some regions, such as Siberia and Canada, which are now mostly arable.



Europe, the former core of the West, has been transformed by several migrant waves over several centuries from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. This has caused a lot of war and instability, but rather than supplanting the old cultures, these new migrant waves have mixed with the pre-existing cultures. Modern Almanya is neither German nor Turkish nor Indian, but it did have a Turkish-majority government once upon a time. Religiously, these European states have local religions that are a mish-mash of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, New Age religions, and wacky scientific theories. There are some "pure European" states, like the pagan Germanic Volksrepublik, and most of Eastern Europe is still Slavic and Eastern Orthodox.



Africa and the Middle East were depopulated by various wars, droughts, famines and plagues, which sent the populations northward. However, populations have been going up again ever since the African Union succeeded in greening the Sahara, turning Africa into the breadbasket of the Solar System. The African Union is roughly like the Holy Roman Empire: it was originally intended to be the new power in the Old World, but unification never panned out, and religious division between the neo-Islamic north and the pagan-Christian south kept the African Union from truly gelling. The African Union states continuously war with one another, just like the Europeans, but these wars are never major engagements unless they involve outer powers.



The Indian Ocean Alliance is one of the more powerful blocs on Earth, analogous to France during the Renaissance. They often involve themselves in African and European affairs, sometimes occupying large swathes of territory and then getting booted out by their rivals. India has reunified after centuries of disunity, and is under a rather autocratic, absolutist system. A monotheistic religion based on Mormonism[1] has become the dominant religion in India and its sphere, although Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians still exist as minorities. India possesses the largest oceangoing navy on Earth, but they do not have much in space.



China, likewise, has been divided for centuries, and has only recently been reunited by the Sheng Dynasty. The fall of the People's Republic of China was violent, involving the use of nuclear weapons, and that war and the immediate aftermath killed a quarter of China's population. This led to a brief period where China was once again under foreign domination, this time a federation of Central Asian states[2], before that broke apart and China was reunited under a Han dynasty. China is a relatively backwards, insular state, having gone back to its largely agrarian roots. That being said, they are studying the technology of the New Renaissance intently. Religiously, China is mostly "Confucian Christian," which is a misnomer because it's a mix of Chinese traditional religion, Confucianism, Christianity, and Falun Gong beliefs.



Latin America was once under the Brazilian-dominated South American Union, but that union is now a thing of the past. South America is still heavily Catholic, although they follow their own American Catholic Church, having abandoned the Church in Rome centuries ago. Latin America is perhaps the most religious region on Earth, and Catholic fundamentalism is common, comparable to modern Iran.



Unlike the actual Renaissance, the American Empire lives on, although mostly on Mars. There was no one event that transformed America into an empire; it was a slow transition to autocratic rule by deep state and military leaders, who took advantage of periods of social and political unrest to usurp more power. The days where America was the sole hegemon of the New World are long over, and America on Earth has been reduced to its power centers in Canada. The Americans have been subjected to several wars against China, Mexico, and the South American alliances, and have lost the previous ones.



The American Empire lives on in Mars, which is the only body in the Solar System permanently inhabited by humans. The Lunar colonies were devastated by a global war there, and lack of proper radiation shielding meant that the survivors died off genetically. Resettlement efforts are underway. Mars, on the other hand, has been terraformed by the Americans and is perfectly habitable without vacsuits. The only issue is gravity, which means that most Americans on Mars can never visit Earth unless they are rich enough to visit the territories. This is quickly changing, as cybernetic enhancements become more common. Mars is also home to the Pan-European Combine, a "second try" at the European Union, and is mostly French, British and German. The American Empire on Mars is mostly American, Latin American and Japanese.



[1] Founded by a Mormon church that went rogue, this religion started out as an apocalyptic cult which believed that Jesus was going to return and give all of the faithful their own universe, where they could rule as gods, but first they must become enlightened on Earth through various reincarnations. This religion is highly syncretic; Joseph Smith, Muhammad and Buddha are believed to be the incarnations of Christ, sent to Earth to lead humanity to enlightenment.

[2] Using the last petrochemical reserves on Earth, they were naturally Mad Max-style nomads.

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Published : Apr 7, 2017