Characters / Overheaven

Nations and people appearing in the world of Overheaven.

These pages are very much a work in progress.

• Exonesia
• Luna
• Mars
• Venus
• Jupiter
• The Rest of the Solar System
• Species

Earth

Humanity's homeworld. Earth is the focus of the E!22 and E!2150 updates. It's the center of human civilization up until 2150, when most of the population is wiped out in an asteroid impact. Afterwards, Earth slowly rises again, entering a new Metazoic Era.

• Doomed by Canon: All the nations of Earth, and most of the people, are going to perish when the Beijing Impact hits in 2150. But that doesn't mean their stories aren't worth recalling.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Up until Hell Day, very much so. Earth has the vast majority of the population, the technology and the industry (not to mention the biodiversity), and there are many things only it can produce.
  • Afterwards, it's firmly averted, with Earth in 2585 often being weaker than Luna or Mars owing to not being united.
• Earth That Was: Post-Impact Earth is a subversion, in that it's still there and inhabited, just depopulated and post-apocalyptic. People do, however, often refer to "Old Earth" when discussing history or cultural heritage.
• One World Order: Averted. In spite of the trend towards international cooperation spurred by the spread of the Overview Effect, the nations of Earth are often at odds. Even the Geo-Martian Conflicts don't necessarily get everyone on the same side - some nations, such as Australia, aided Mars.
• Planet Terra: Noted as an occasionally used alternate name. "Terran" is also the preferred demonym for Earth - "Earthling" is apparently considered offensive.
• Space Cold War: Becomes involved in one with Mars.
• United Nations Is a Superpower: Downplayed, but nonetheless in effect by 2150. The UN has assumed more responsibilities, and it maintains its own Space Force, but it's a long, long way from being a world government.
• World of Weirdness: Ryzov has stated that compared to Old Earth, Metazoic Earth will be "an alien planet."

Countries in italics only appear in E!2150.

North America

United States of America

• Arcology: The very first one, Seward's Success, is located in Alaska, and there are a number of others dotted about the country.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: America is teal on the E!22 map, and blue on E!2150.
• Domed Hometown: A popular choice for Southwestern communities looking to keep cool and/or enhance their aesthetic - including, perhaps inevitably, Roswell.
• Eagleland: Generally leaning towards Type 1. The USA is the number one world power throughout the 21st and 22nd centuries, and it remains free, democratic and prosperous. America is also a technological leader, and the colonization of space is almost invariably spearheaded by Americans.
  • That being said, the USA has been known to lean towards Mixed in some cases: the treatment of zoans there wasn't much better than in most other places for a while, and E!22 portrays the USA as being quite similar to OTL in many respects, including some of the negatives.
• Expanded States of America: By 2150, the USA has annexed half of Canada and all of northern Mexico, and it has states in orbit and on the Moon.
• Fictional Political Party: While the Reform Party was a real thing OTL, this timeline's version has little if anything to do with it.
• Fictional Province: A few new states have been created by 2150. California's been split in three, and Upstate New York has seceded from the Big Applesauce. Parts of Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota form a new state, Absaroka, while northern Idaho and eastern Washington now comprise the state of Lincoln. Chicago is also its own state.
• The Metric System Is Here to Stay: America made the switch to metric in the 70s and 80s.
• Our Presidents Are Different: The America section in E!22 begins with an overview of the ten presidents the USA has had since the POD.
  • Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic, 1963-1969) - More or less the same as OTL, except he facilitates America withdrawing from The Vietnam War earlier than OTL.
  • Robert F. Kennedy (Democratic, 1969-1977) - President Iron. Even after LBJ leaves him holding the bag re: Vietnam, RFK forges ahead with the Cold War, spearheading American colonization of the Moon and Mars.
  • John Glenn (Democratic, 1977-1981) - President Geek, deconstructed. Glenn is remembered as a great astronaut but a mediocre president, since he focused on space to the exclusion of domestic affairs.
  • Ronald Reagan (Republican, 1981-1989) - President Personable. Reagan is less conservative ITTL, opts not to back the Contras and helps successfully resolve the AIDS crisis, so he's remembered fairly positively. (Although he does wind up Stealing the Credit for the fruits of Glenn's space endeavors.)
  • George H.W. Bush (Republican, 1989-1993) - Seemingly much the same as OTL.
  • Donald Trump (Reform, 1993-2001) - A mild President Buffoon. Trump runs earlier and on a vaguely libertarian third-party ticket rather than courting the alt-right. His presidency is described as "random" and a mixed bag, but nostalgic nonetheless. He was known for strange public relations stunts, a riot by Flat-Earthers shortly before the election, dissolving NATO and having to address the discovery of alien life in the universe - but it was also his administration that mended fences with the Sovereign Union and won the Second Korean War.
  • Colin Powell (Republican, 2001-2009) - President Minority, as the first Black president. He had to deal with the metaphorical fallout of the South African Wars and the literal fallout of the Punjab War.
  • John Edwards (Democratic, 2009-2017) - President Focus Group, mostly remembered for "putting out fires and steering the ship straight."
  • Hillary Rodham (Republican, 2017-2021) - President Minority, as the first female president. Stated to be a controversial figure.
  • Andrew Yang (Reform, 2021-present) - President Minority, as the first Asian-American president. People are still divided on his big ideas, such as universal basic income.
• Orbital Bombardment: Something of a Signature Move for the US Space Force. The "Rods from God" get put to the test in Korea and Pakistan, to great effect.
• Regional Redecoration: Northern Alaska is now home to a new lake, Lake Kennedy, created by the building of a massive hydroelectric dam in the 1970s. (It was built by Robert F. Kennedy's administration, but named after John F. Kennedy.)
• Second American Civil War: Averted Trope in the current OVRHVN canon, though played straight in older versions.
• Star Scraper: America acquires a taste for building megastructures. The tallest building in the country in 2022 is the Houston Tower, which is 1500 meters tall and has a permanent population of 94,000 - enough that it's considered its own congressional district!
• Uplifted Animal: There's a lab in Iowa trying to uplift apes as of 2022, and another in Washington working on octopi. Both will succeed.
• War Refugees: The Indian-, Pakistani- and Bangladeshi-American population is a good bit larger ITTL, having been swelled by Pravasi immigration. Thanks to the Second Korean War, Korean-Americans are also a bit more common.
• Western Terrorists: A recurring problem with which the USA has to contend over the years.

Canada & Quebec

• Balkanize Me: Canada undergoes this not once, but twice - first when Quebec secedes in 1995, and then again when the Prairies join the US, thus leaving them in the thoroughly awkward position of controlling three regions (Ontario, the Arctic territories and the Maritimes) that aren't connected to each other by land.
• Butt-Monkey: See above.
• California Doubling: In-Universe. Vancouver remains a very popular filming location. In particular, it's the filming site for the Show Within a Show Freeman, about a neo-noir detective on Deimos. Apparently the Vancouver sets do a pretty convincing job of imitating Port Dread.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Brick red for Canada, and blue (teal in E!2150) for Quebec.
• Gender Flip: The Prime Minister of Canada in 2022 is apparently Justine Trudeau.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: IOTL, Chris Hadfield is Canada's most accomplished astronaut. ITTL, with space becoming a much bigger deal, his astronaut career has led to his being appointed Governor-General.
  • The famous Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise, known in our timeline for creating (among other things) a suit of armor that's supposedly impervious to grizzly bear attacks, is still active ITTL. He's doing well for himself in 2022, having survived the car crash that killed him OTL thanks to wearing one of his suits while driving. The technology boom has made him an Eccentric Millionaire and allowed him to upgrade to full-blown Powered Armor, and he's currently trying to put together suits (and recruits) for a scheme to colonize Io, of all places.

Mexico

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Both E!22 and E!2150 have Mexico in olive green.
• Chupacabra: Mexico is having a problem with these. (That being said, they're not cryptids - just really aggressive, fast-breeding gene-modded coyotes.)
• Irony: Mexico's northern states seceded in the 2040s and joined the USA a few years later, but this ended up actually helping Mexico in the long run, since it allowed Mexico City to focus its resources better with less territory to worry about.
• Mayincatec: Invoked for purely aesthetic purposes. E!2150 mentions that Mexico has seen a revival in Maya and Aztec-inspired architectural styles.
• South of the Border: Averted. The stereotypes are downplayed heavily, and while Mexico still has a wealth inequality problem, it's no longer a de facto one-party state and is generally in overall better shape than OTL. They've even gotten in on the Space Boom by exporting chili products to the colonies.

Cuba

• Commie Land: Not anymore. With the reformed Sovereign Union no longer on Fidel Castro's side, the Communist Party of Cuba falls to a Velvet Revolution, and Castro himself is forced into exile. (He dies of natural causes en route to Venus.)
• Culture Chop Suey: In addition to the existing Hispanic culture, post-Castro Cuba has taken on a decidedly Russo-American tint. In 2022, it's a common tourist destination for both Americans and Soviets, and thus a common arena for the two's Friendly Rivalry.

West Indies Federation

• The Federation: It's in the name. They're a fairly decentralized one, though.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The West Indies Federation stays together in OVRHVN. It eventually partially collapses, but still exists in 2150, just in a somewhat different form.
• Underwater City: The WIF is known for its undersea hotels.

Haiti

• Earn Your Happy Ending: Haiti is still the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere in OVRHVN's 2022, having still suffered the natural disasters and dictatorships they did OTL. However, they're on their way up - they've got satellite Internet and the HIV vaccine, and even a small space agency, which in 2022 successfully launches the country's very first satellite via an American spaceport. By 2150, Haiti is stated to be "finally doing great."

Dominican Republic

• Cyborg: The DR has become a center for cybernetics manufacture.
• Planet of Hats: The DR loves their baseball. That's Truth in Television, but ITTL, they've even got an underground league of baseball-playing cyborgs.

Central America

• Actual Pacifist: In OVRHVN as in reality, Costa Rica has no army. In 2022, with almost no poverty, not much crime and robots and algorithms to do police officers' jobs, they're starting to consider getting rid of their national police force as well.
• Butterfly of Doom: The USA decides not to back the Contras in Nicaragua, meaning that Contra-aligned drug dealers get caught more easily, meaning that there's a lot less cocaine floating around America in the 70s and 80s, meaning that the crack epidemic is by and large averted.
• Clones Are People, Too: Panama certainly thinks so. They were the first country to legalize human cloning and it remains a major industry there.
• Expanded States of America: Yep, they're down here too. The USA kept the Canal Zone in this timeline, but Panama still gets a sizable cut of the profits, and the Zone eventually rejoins Panama anyway in the 2030s.
• The Federation: In 2041, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras unite as the Central American Confederation. Nicaragua joins them in 2060.
• Fossil Revival: The shadowy DinoTek corporation sets up a facility in Panama with the goal of bringing back dinosaurs. They succeed, but most of the "Dinotekkers" end up departing for Venus in the 2060s after decades' worth of legal trouble and shady business practices catches up to them. Most of the dinosaurs are left behind, and the stretch of jungle in which DinoTek was raising them is converted into a national park.
• Spared by the Adaptation: It's noted that several Central American countries have benefited from less American meddling in the region. Nicaragua in particular has gotten rid of both the Contras and the Sandinistas and developed into a comfortable democracy by 2022.
• Tech Bro: The president of El Salvador in 2022 is depicted as one, being obsessed with things like NFTs and cryptocurrency. He attempts to set up an entire crypto-themed special economic zone on an island off the Salvadoran coast, but it's made clear in E!22 that "Cryptoland" isn't going to go well. E!2150 implies that it ended very badly.

Bermuda

• The Bermuda Triangle: While there's (probably) nothing paranormal happening there, the Triangle does have a lot of discarded rocket boosters lying around on the seafloor, thanks to all the launches happening in Florida.
• Solar Punk: Bermuda gets all its energy from solar panels and wind farms, and they have a Sabatier reactor which converts seawater into rocket fuel.

South America

Colombia/Gran Colombia

• Bullying a Dragon: In 1986, with the Space Boom in full swing, an American company is building a space center in Colombia, since it's closer to the equator. FARC attack the site, destroying two rockets and killing 122 workers, 30 of them Americans. The US sends in the Navy SEALs. Within a few years, the FARC leadership have been assassinated and the organization is so badly weakened that they're forced to stand down.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Gold. Following its reestablishment, Gran Colombia is likewise gold on the E!2150 map.
• Fantastic Drug: Downplayed Trope - Colombia's remaining drug dealers have gone into the business of genetically-modified coca.
• He's Back!: Gran Colombia is re-formed in 2085. Panama and Ecuador aren't interested, but Colombia and Venezuela do succeed in reuniting.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: There are still a few remnants of FARC hanging around, but they're nowhere near the threat they used to be, having been reduced to small-scale organized crime and, increasingly, Internet scams.
• Pirate: Albeit only in aesthetic. Isla de Providencia, a Caribbean island owned by Colombia where famous pirate Henry Morgan once operated, is now home to Spaceport Morgan, a minor spaceport with a piratical theme. The employees there dress as "pirate-astronaut cosplayers" and Talk Like a Pirate whilst informing visitors about the spaceport's services. It's a pretty silly gimmick, but it gives the locals good-paying jobs and turns an otherwise unremarkable spaceport into something of a tourist destination.
• Spared by the Adaptation: As a consequence of FARC's downfall, Colombia in 2022 is a peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy. The willingness of the USA to import sugarcane in this timeline, as opposed to the more protectionist policy taken OTL, also helps: with a larger market for sugarcane, Colombian farmers no longer fall back on growing coca, which means there's a great deal less cocaine about.

Venezuela

• Cult: Venezuela in 2022 is having something of a problem with UFO cultism, a movement which gained a fair amount of traction there thanks to one of its founders, Ignacio Laguna, accurately predicting that the oil industry would be Venezuela's ruin and then mysteriously disappearing. As absurd as the beliefs of the "Lagunistas" are, they're ruthless, and hinted to be evolving into Western Terrorists.
• Failed State: Not anymore, but they were considered one from 2011-2013, after the one-two punch of post-Punjab War nuclear winter and the rise of nuclear fusion causing the oil market to collapse destroyed the Venezuelan economy. Rioting and shortages were commonplace, and for a while even the government was too broke to do much about it. They eventually pulled themselves out of the chaos, but the economy remains reliant on oil.
• Foil: Colombia's less successful and less divergent from OTL neighbor. Ryzov notes that when the two reunite to form Gran Colombia, they're about on par with a reasonably successful European country like Italy - but Venezuela is southern Italy in that analogy.
• In Spite of a Nail: Yes, Hugo Chavez became a priest instead of a Marxist ITTL, but that doesn't necessarily mean Venezuela is better off than OTL. If anything, the state of the country is just as bad, but the reasons the country is the way it is are different.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In OVRHVN, Hugo Chavez never discovered the stash of leftist literature that got him into Marxism in OTL, because he was watching the Mars landing on TV that day instead. Two years later, while serving in the army, he brutally kills a leftist insurgent who had killed a friend of his, has a Heel Realization because of it and leaves the military. He undergoes a Turn to Religion and spends the rest of his life as a small-town parish priest (and a Good Shepherd at that), abstaining entirely from politics.
• Terminally Dependent Society: Ultimately, the reason for Venezuela's woes is simple: the basis of their economy is oil, and when demand for oil collapses, the Venezuelan economy collapses with it.

Guyane

• Meaningful Rename: French Guiana is no longer known by that name. Now, it's the Eurofed Province of Guyane.
• Shining City: Cayenne, the capital, and Kourou, home of the Guiana Space Center, are described as futuristic, well-planned metropolises powered entirely by green energy, with diverse populations and thriving economies built off the rocket industry.

Brazil

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The maps have Brazil in green, for obvious reasons.
• Everyone Has Standards: The main reason the Brazilian government hasn't cracked down on ZOFA is because "they don't want a diplomatic incident from shooting American college kids."
• In Harmony with Nature: A major goal of the Brazilian transhumanist movement. By 2150, Brazil has become extremely green, to the point where the rainforests have actually grown.
• Rightful King Returns: In 1993, both candidates in the Brazilian presidential election were so unpopular that a third of the country said they'd rather have the House of Braganza back. This never came to pass in Brazil itself, but it did ultimately lead to Brazil's Mars colony becoming a constitutional monarchy.
• The Rival: To Argentina. They had their own small-scale space race in The '70s. Argentina won.
• Solar Punk: Brazilian cities in 2150 have more greenspace than cityscape in some places. It's the most carbon-negative country on Earth.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Many Brazilian women used genetic treatments to temporarily turn their hair green in anticipation of the 2002 World Cup. Brazil won, and... celebration ensued. It turns out that conceiving a child whilst under the effects of a genetic treatment for hair color can cause the child to inherit that color, with the result that 20 years later, 11% of Brazil's population has naturally green hair.

ZOFA

• Gaia's Lament: What they're trying to prevent.
• Green Means Natural: Their flag is black with a green star.
• In Harmony with Nature: ZOFA is an environmentalist insurgent group whose stated goal is to protect the Amazon Rainforest from further devastation.
• La Résistance: The lore compares them to the Zapatistas.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A wide array of green activists (many of them college students) from the Brazilian coast, the USA and other countries, but also ex-FARC guerillas, misguided indigenous activists, Neo-Posadist nutjobs and local nihilists, all running a low-level insurgency in the Amazon, to mixed success.
• Took a Level in Badass: E!22 made them out to be somewhat pathetic, with their "Second Rainforest War" being a Sketchy Successor to the "First Rainforest War" fought (and lost) by the remnants of FARC in The '90s. But in E!2150, it's revealed that "the Zofa" and their descendants ended up waging so many Rainforest Wars throughout the 21st century that by 2114, not only were they still around, they won, founding a collection of autonomous territories covering the whole of the Amazon. The "Confederation of Amazonian Autonomous Zones" shares authority over their territory with Brazil, Peru and Gran Colombia, enforces sharp limits on development in the rainforest and even has its own UN seat.

Ecuador

• Benevolent A.I.: Starting in 2051, the Galapagos Islands are managed by an AI named Darw.in, whose personality is patterned after the man himself. He's responsible for making sure the unique ecosystem of the Galapagos remains intact, and he's proven quite proactive in doing so.
• Cargo Cult: An Ecuadorian space launch company accidentally dropped a discarded booster rocket into the rainforest, where an uncontacted tribe found it and may or may not now be worshipping it. The company tried to get the booster back, but after the locals responded by shooting arrows at their helicopter, it was decided to let them keep it.

Peru/Confederation of the Andes

• The Federation: Unified with Bolivia in 2039, forming the Confederation of the Andes.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Alberto Fujimori never became dictator of Peru ITTL. While attending college in America in 1969, he was hit by a car, fell in love with his nurse while recovering in the hospital, and stayed in America to marry her.

Bolivia

• Cloudcuckoolander: Bolivian president Evo Morales is known for some rather odd policies - building soccer stadiums in small towns that can't even fill them, his obsession with solar power (which he markets with allusions to Inca sun gods), his refusal to let Bolivia have anything to do with space and his decision to outlaw cybernetics in the country (he apparently thinks they're a plot to "copyright humanity's soul"). Also, he may or may not be helping fund ZOFA.

Chile

• For Want Of A Nail: Augusto Pinochet comes down with a stomachache and misses the meeting that would've let him in on the coup to overthrow Salvador Allende...
• In Spite of a Nail: ...but then he ends up as president of Chile anyway, through legitimately winning an election. Both his and Allende's tenures as president are remembered as, at best, So Okay, It's Average, but Pinochet was a lot more moderate ITTL and founded Chile's space program.
• Solar Punk: By 2150, the entire Southern Cone is powered by a massive field of self-replicating solar panels in Chile's Atacama Desert.
• Those Wacky Nazis: In 2022, Chile is noted to be home to a fringe Neo-Nazi cult that operates a training center for prospective Mars colonists, which they hope to use to establish a white supremacist state on Mars. This eventually becomes the colony of Agartha, which is deservedly wiped out in the early years of the Red-Blue War.

Paraguay

• Clone Jesus: The Raelian Church, a real-life New Age group, runs a firm specializing in human cloning ITTL (called Lazarus International), and sure enough, one of the historical figures they've tried to clone is Jesus. The clone, named Joshua, is born in 2005 and raised in a Jesuit compound in Paraguay to keep him safe. By 2022, he's 17 years old and preaches via Twitch to an audience mostly his own age. The Vatican's stance on him (which every other major Christian denomination agrees with) amounts to "he's not the real deal, he's not the Antichrist either, don't bother him." Scientific analysis indicates that he's probably not the historical Jesus, but his DNA is at least from the right part of the world. For Joshua's part, he himself doesn't know whether he really is Jesus or not, but he does believe that he has a duty to help the people who believe in him. He regularly speaks out in favor of tolerance, pacifism and other such things, and his streams have raised millions of dollars for charity.

Argentina/Cono Sur

• Argentina Is Nazi-Land: Averted (as per OTL), but people still make jokes about it. Some things never change.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Argentina is light blue. Cono Sur is shown in dark green.
• Cyborg: Home to a lot of them.
• The Federation: By 2150, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have united as Cono Sur ("Southern Cone").
• Fictional Currency: Cono Sur has its own currency, called the gaucho. Paraguay also uses it.
• Post-Cyberpunk: Argentina is referred to as the cyberprep to Brazil's solarpunk.
• Space Battle: Argentine special forces fight in the very first one, during The Falklands War. They manage to deorbit a British satellite and try to go after a Royal Space Force outpost, but are killed in the first gunfight in space. Out of courtesy, the British return the bodies to Argentina, before proceeding to deorbit all three of Argentina's satellites and capture their Space Station. As in OTL, the UK wins the war, and the Argentine junta falls.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Argentina's economy is in much better shape by 2022 in this timeline.

Uruguay

• In Harmony with Nature: Even in 2022, Uruguay is already carbon-neutral.
• Transhuman: Uruguay has very biolibertarian laws, allowing for many things (like cybernetics, human cloning, designer babies and sex changes) that are banned or heavily restricted in most of South America. Montevideo is thus the transhumanist capital of the continent in 2022.

Europe

European Federation

• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Gaddafi really should've known better than to fire those missiles at Europe. The Libyan War results in the European Defense Forces being massively increased and upgraded, allowing Eurofed to begin asserting itself as a true world power.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Dark blue.
• The Federation: It's in the name.
• Fossil Revival: Eurofed scientists have managed to bring back the aurochs.
• Goth: Berlin is home to a thriving goth scene. Many of them are cyborgs. Others are trying to gene-mod themselves into vampires, to mixed success. The vampires eventually resettle on Pluto in the 2090s.
• Rising Empire: In 2022, Eurofed is the world's third superpower, well on its way to competing with the USA and USSR. E!2150 establishes that they eventually stagnated, but managed to stay together.
• United Europe: United Western Europe, at least. More specifically, it consists of France, the Low Countries, Germany and Italy when it's founded in 1995. Austria joins in 2015, and Spain and Portugal join in 2035 but eventually leave in 2086.
• We Will Use WikiWords in the Future: The European Federation is almost exclusively referred to as Eurofed.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Believe it or not, airships are back in a big way in OVRHVN's 2022, thanks to the surplus of helium produced as a byproduct of commercial fusion. Eurofed is a leader in the design and building of airships, and there are many Eurofed companies using them for freight and travel.

Iberia

• Balkanize Me: Averted. Portugal held on to Cabo Verde, and the common speculative-future thread of Catalonia seceding from Spain never comes to pass.
• Cyborg: Spain is home to a community of cybernetic artists.
• Fossil Revival: It was in Spain that the Pyrenean ibex was successfully revived, becoming the first of many extinct species to be brought back via cloning. By 2022, the species' population has risen to almost a thousand.

Great Britain

• Balkanize Me: Scotland leaves the UK in 2030, but rejoins in 2050 after the monarchy comes to an end.
• City on the Water: Two of them, both considered Crown Dependencies of the UK.
  • In the English Channel, there's Sealand, which (after being accidentally diplomatically recognized in the 1970s) has grown into a thriving collection of 24 platforms and several underwater habs, with a population of almost 36,000. Its economy is based chiefly on tourism.
  • In the North Sea, there's Doggerland, which got its start as an offshore oil drilling base but has since grown into a series of settlements comprising a total population of over 200,000. After the advent of nuclear fusion reduced the demand for oil, they've shored up their economy with fishing and wind farming, among other things.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The UK is pink on E!22, while E!2150 has the FRGB in red.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Queen Elizabeth II lives three years longer ITTL, dying in 2026 at the age of 100.
• End of an Era: The UK abolishes the monarchy by popular referendum in 2045, transitioning into the Federal Republic of Great Britain.
• In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: The Zera movement, based in London, is trying to achieve this via Designer Babies. The new Zera ethnicity has light brown skin ("splitting the difference" to reduce racial prejudice), naturally white hair (to cut down on ageism) and red eyes ("something new and different"). It never really catches on on Earth, but it does catch on in the British colonies on Mars.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Quite a few examples:
  • Gordon Ramsay is prime minister in 2022.
  • Jeremy Corbyn moved to Venus at some point.
  • Princess Diana survived her car crash and "came back as a cyborg."
  • J.K. Rowling never writes Harry Potter, instead joining a convent in 1990.

Vatican City

• The Pope: Francis is in charge in 2022 as per OTL, and he's got a lot to talk about, much of it on the subject of Transhumanism (of which the Catholic Church does not approve, save for medical reasons).

San Marino

• Cyborg: San Marino's famous Crossbow Corps now includes several cyborgs.

Switzerland

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: White.
• Team Switzerland: The Trope Namer is as neutral as ever, avoiding joining Eurofed even after becoming completely surrounded by it. They haven't even made many inroads into space.

Scandinavia

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Norden is shown on the maps in cyan.
• Designer Babies: Once the technology for it becomes available, many people in Scandinavia start making minor tweaks to their children's genes. The movement eventually falls out of favor in the 2050s once it starts looking a little too much like eugenics for comfort.
• The Federation: Denmark, Norway and Sweden unify in 2000, forming the Nordic Union or Norden for short. Finland and Estland join them later on.
• Fossil Revival: An odd example - in 2022, Iceland is home to a small community of Neanderthals, cloned from frozen bodies found in Switzerland. They've proven to be just as intelligent as us and have taken to modern life remarkably well, all things considered.
• Land of One City: By 2150, almost the entire human population of Iceland lives in the giant arcology-megastructure that Reykjavik has been turned into.
• Meaningful Rename: Estonia changes its name to Estland in the course of pursuing closer ties with Scandinavia.

Visegrad League

• The Alliance: Between Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They originally wanted to help each other become prosperous enough to join Eurofed, but by the 2080s they decide to Start My Own and become The Federation instead.
• Balkanize Me: Averted in Czechoslovakia's case.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: They're turquoise on the E!2150 map.

Yugoslavia

• Balkanize Me: The most famous OTL example, but ITTL, the trope is (once again) averted. Yugoslavia manages to survive the end of the Cold War, thanks to cooler heads prevailing after Tito's death and working to foster a sense of Yugoslav cultural unity.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Yugoslavia succeeds in remaining together and avoiding all the struggles it went through OTL, and by 2150 the myriad ethnicities of the region are shown to be getting along just fine.
• Team Switzerland: As indeed was true OTL, Yugoslavia wasn't really on either side in the Cold War. This worked very much to their advantage - they managed to become the only communist country to get a share of Mars. By 2022, however, this trope has largely ceased to be the case, with Yugoslavia pursuing closer ties with Russia (whom they're on better terms with post-Cold War) and Japan (who helped them get their space program off the ground).

Romania and Bulgaria

• Rightful King Returns: Both of them restored their monarchies after overthrowing their communist regimes.
• Those Two Guys: Both E!22 and E!2150 address the two countries together, as they maintain close ties throughout the timeline and both underwent a similar historical trajectory: former communist nations that became constitutional monarchies in the 1990s, then became bastions of Orthodox Christianity in the late 21st century as Russia underwent a neo-pagan revival. They even wind up under the same royal family after the heirs to the two thrones get married in the 2070s.

Albania

• Curb-Stomp Battle: E!2150 reveals that in 2023 (so, only a few months after E!22), Albania launched an ill-advised invasion of its neighbors that saw them defeated by a multinational coalition in less than a week. The Hoxhaist regime was removed and replaced with a liberal democracy, which remains firmly in place as of 2150.
• Expy: Albania seems to be this timeline's North Korea, now that North Korea itself has fallen.
• Government in Exile: Albania hosts the Chinese Communist Party's government in exile after democracy is restored in China. Absolutely nobody except Albania actually recognizes Red China, however, and they're portrayed as something of an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. Their leader (this timeline's Xi Jinping) is described as being extremely depressed.
• Illegal Religion: All religion is illegal in Albania in 2022. Islam in particular is harshly persecuted against.
• Last of His Kind: By 2022, Albania is the very last Marxist dictatorship on Earth. They're not happy about it.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: The People’s Socialist Democratic Republic of Albania: Europe's last dictatorship.

Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics/Eurasian Confederation

• Balkanize Me: While the USSR remains together through the 20th century and most of the 21st, it does eventually peacefully split in two in the 2120s, with Central Asia (by then the economic center of the country) remaining as the USSR and the rest seceding to become the Eurasian Confederation.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Crimea is home to both the Pluton Complex, an astronomical observatory that sent a message into space for aliens to find back in The '60s, and a facility trying to uplift dolphins. People are already starting to suggest having the dolphins broadcast a message into space.
• Chummy Commies: Still socialist, but now a much nicer place to live. Russia also never invaded Afghanistan ITTL, and the Chernobyl disaster was narrowly averted.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Both maps have them in dark green. Eurasia is gold.
• Commie Land: Heavily downplayed since Gorbachev's reforms brought a peaceful end to the Cold War. The people who are more attached to the idea tend to leave for Venus, which is itself an example of the trope played straight.
• Cultural Chop Suey: Vladivostok is heavy on the Russo-Japanese fusion.
• Death by Adaptation: Leonid Brezhnev is assassinated in 1969, to be replaced by the reformer Alexei Kosygin.
• Different World, Different Movies: R-Pop - Russian pop music - is this world's equivalent of K-Pop.
• Domed Hometown: The Soviets have a number of Arctic arcologies using climate-controlled domes to keep warm. Virtually the entire city of Murmansk is now under a series of domes.
• Fictional Currency: The Soviet altyn.
• Fossil Revival: Yep, the Russians brought back the mammoths.
• Friendly Rivalry: In the post-Cold War era, the USA and USSR have settled into this. They still compete constantly, but now it's about much less impactful things, like the CIA and SVR each backing a YouTuber to see who can reach a million subscribers faster.^note For the record, China beat both of them.
• Meaningful Rename: Gorbachev's 1992 New Union Treaty, amongst its vast array of reforms, changes the name of the country from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: America and Russia become close allies in The '90s.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Alexei Navalny is President of the Sovereign Union in 2022, and his Prime Minister is Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vladimir Putin is CEO of an R-Pop label.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The Aral Sea has been restored to its former glory.

The Middle East

Turkey

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Red.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Turkey and Greece are on somewhat better terms in OVRHVN's 2022 than in OTL, thanks to more clearly defined maritime borders and a brief period in The '70s of having a common enemy in Bulgaria.
• Rising Empire: Turkey in 2022 is a regional power on the rise. However, much like with their ally Eurofed, it's shown in E!2150 that they never rose as high as people thought they might, but remained a very comfortable place to live.

Cyprus

• Cyborg: Cyprus is a major site for joint Greco-Turkish technological ventures, and it is thus home to a lot of cyborgs.
• Scienceville: The number one place in the Eastern Med for cybernetics research.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Thanks to Greece never coming under a military junta ITTL, Turkey never invades Cyprus.

Israel and Palestine/Federation of the Levant

• Good Counterpart: There is an organization named Hamas in Gaza in this universe, but they're a world-famous hip-hop collective who preach against oppression, bigotry and war.
• Holy City: Jerusalem, naturally.
• Literal Metaphor: Israel and Palestine have been building bridges both metaphorically and literally, with the construction of the "Salam Bridge," a 60-kilometer-long span linking the West Bank to Gaza through Israeli territory. It's administered as a codominium, jointly run by Israel and Palestine.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Thanks to there never being an Iranian Revolution and the more die-hard Zionists moving to Mars (among other factors), Israel and Palestine manage to make peace. Come the 21st century, they can almost be called allies.
  • By 2150, they've actually unified, forming the Federation of the Levant.
• Solar Punk: The whole country is powered by a set of enormous solar farms in the Negev Desert.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Israel and Palestine are no longer in conflict, and haven't been since The '80s.
• Start My Own: Disappointed by the peace deal with Palestine, the more hardline Zionists started moving to the Israeli colony on Mars. The Israeli government encouraged this, since it got them out of the way and thus made the peace process easier.

Jordan

• Souvenir Land: Home to the world's only Star Trek theme park.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Jordan was once considered something of The Runt at the End amongst the Arab nations, on account of not having much in the way of oil. After the rise of nuclear fusion and the ensuing collapse of the oil market, they're looking better every day while the rest of the Arabian Peninsula suffers.

Lebanon

• Good Counterpart: There is an organization named Hezbollah in Lebanon in this universe, but they're an atheist punk rock band.
• Prevent the War: Lebanon and Israel never went to war ITTL.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Abbas al-Musawi finds himself contemplating the complexity of the universe in The '70s (thanks to the Space Boom) and winds up becoming an atheist. He still founds Hezbollah, but it's a punk band with a penchant for the Religion Rant Song.

Former Saudi Arabia/One Arabia

• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The House of Saud turned on each other when things really started falling apart. Many of them simply took as much money as they could and fled to other countries or other planets. Most of the surviving Sauds who stayed in the peninsula ended up in Neom.
• Civil War: A combination of factors, most infamously the activation of the first nuclear fusion plants, causes the oil market to crash in 2011. The Arabian Peninsula as a whole and Saudi Arabia in particular, already destabilized by the post-Punjab War refugee crisis, proceed to collapse into civil war. By 2022, there's less shooting, but it's far from over - Saudi Arabia is in five or six pieces^note depending on whether or not you recognize Najran and has effectively ceased to exist as a national identity.
• Dangerous Deserter: During the civil war, the troops of the Saudi Army started deserting en masse, often going From Camouflage to Criminal in the process.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The entire Arabian Peninsula, plus Jordan and Mesopotamia, will eventually reunify peacefully under the name of "One Arabia," but not until the 22nd century.
• Middle Eastern Coalition: One Arabia is this trope to the core, albeit rather more democratic than many other examples.
• Regional Redecoration: By 2150, One Arabia has turned a good chunk of the Empty Quarter into a shallow lake, Lake Ubar.
• Terminally Dependent Society: When the demand for oil collapsed, the petro-states of the Arabian peninsula collapsed with it.
• Thirsty Desert: It is the Arabian Desert, after all, and the Desert Warfare of the Fusion Spring hasn't helped.

Neom

• City of Adventure: The State of Neom is centered on "The Line," a 170-kilometer linear city which in 2022 is home to nearly 1.4 million people and the last remnants of the House of Saud. It's incredibly high-tech, powered entirely by solar and wind and is also a nigh-Orwellian surveillance state which uses CCTV and predictive algorithms to track its citizenry and enforce a strange fusion of Islamic orthodoxy and right-wing libertarianism. Its military and police forces consist of robots and experimental cyborgs.
• He-Man Woman Hater: The Saudi royals don't care for women. This eventually leads them to... circumvent the need for them.
• Land of One City: The great majority of Neom's population lives in The Line.
• Puppet King: The House of Saud ceases to hold any political power in 2034.
• Vestigial Empire: All that remains of the House of Saud. They continue claiming to be the successor to Saudi Arabia, but are no longer recognized as such.

Hejaz

• Holy City: One of the reasons for their success is that they control Mecca. However, their actual capital is Jeddah.
• Odd Friendship: The first country to recognize Hejaz and start helping them was, of all nations, Turkey.
• The Republic: A bastion of (relatively) liberal democracy in the Crapsack World that is 2022 Arabia in OVRHVN. That being said, they are struggling to maintain their secular status.
• Token Good Teammate: The most democratic of the Arabian successor states, and by far the most tolerant.

East Arabia

• Culture Chop Suey: Arab/Indian. East Arabia has taken in so many refugees from India that they now have the largest Hindu population outside of Asia.
• God-Emperor: Whether President Dhuleep Ashtikar is actually trying to set himself up as one is unclear, but some of the refugees he's provided sanctuary to are definitely going all in on the Cult of Personality.
• Mysterious Past: It's not clear where Dhuleep Ashtikar came from or what he was up to prior to the Fusion Spring. One theory suggests he was a failed Bollywood actor, while others claim he's the Puppet King of a secret cabal of surviving Sauds.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: A democracy in theory, but in practice a dictatorship under President Ashtikar.
• Slave Liberation: How East Arabia got started.
• Villain with Good Publicity: President Ashtikar is quite the humanitarian, and seems to see it as his duty to use East Arabia to take in refugees who wouldn't be accepted elsewhere and at least try to care for them. Of course, he also uses his populace as cheap labor, and he's an authoritarian dictator who's clearly exploiting the UN's kindness for his own gain.
• War Refugees: East Arabia has made a point of taking in as many refugees from the Punjab War as it can.

Nejd

• Evil Luddite: The Emirate of Nejd has outlawed most modern technology within its borders, on pain of mutilation or death. Except the AK-47s, of course. They need those.
• The Fundamentalist: They're not exactly planning on compromising with regards to their primitivist interpretation of Islam.
• Hypocrite: Somehow, in spite of their militant primitivism, the Emirate has an official government account on Chirp, OVRHVN's version of Twitter. They use it for propaganda.
• Just Ignore It: Oil isn't as necessary as it used to be and can be gotten from safer places, and the Nejdis don't have the resources to invade Hejaz nor do they have the cash to bankroll terrorism. Thus, the international community has resolved to simply leave them alone.

Jabal Shammar

• He's Back!: The Shammar tribe hadn't been powerful for a long time, having been defeated by the Saudis, but the Fusion Spring gave them the chance they needed and they took it.
• Rightful King Returns: Their original plan was to find a new claimant to their pre-Saudi incarnation's Rashidi dynasty. By 2022, some in the government are starting to consider installing a Jordanian Hashemite instead.
• Voluntary Vassal: They're well aware that they're a buffer state for Jordan, and they don't seem all that fussed about it.

Najran

• Cloudcuckoolander: The "Najran Revolutionary Command" has some... odd beliefs, merging socialism, Shia militancy and UFO mysticism.
• Dirty Commies: One of the less pleasant states to claim to be socialist. Moscow is quietly helping them, but somewhat reluctantly.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: The Democracy Index submap on the E!22 map puts the Najran People's Republic at about a 3 out of 10.
• Puppet State: Of Yemen.

The Gulf States

• Historical Downgrade: Most of them get the short end of the stick ITTL.

Bahrain

• Expy: Described as having become a lot like OTL Iran, only in miniature and a bit less unpleasant. This timeline's Iran doesn't approve of their fundamentalism, but leaves them be because they're Shia.
• The Theocracy: The Sunni monarchy was overthrown and replaced with a Shia "Islamic Republic."

Qatar

• Arab Oil Sheikh: There's a fair few of these types hanging out in Qatar, since it's the only safe investment in the Persian Gulf. (That being said, it's natural gas, not oil, in which Qatar deals - that is in fact why they weathered the Fusion Spring.)
• Magnificent Bastard: The series of events which led to the founding of Aytan and every Japanese company pulling out of Qatar lead Ryzov to describe the Emir of Qatar as a "five-dimensional troll."

Aytan

• Building of Adventure: One building. 500 floors. 983,058 people. One partially recognized sovereign republic.
• City on the Water: Built on an artificial island.
• Land of One City: Try land of one building. The whole Free City of Aytan is contained within a single megastructure.
• The Republic: Somehow, Aytan is easily the most functional democracy on the peninsula. The E!22 Democracy Index submap puts them somewhere between an 8 and 9 out of 10 (on par with the First World) in a region where most countries don't get above a 4 and even Hejaz only manages about a 6.
• Star Scraper: It's 1050 meters tall (that's 3445 feet), and it was planned to be nearly twice that tall before construction stalled out.
• Team Switzerland: Aytan maintains a policy of strict neutrality, which thus far has worked in their favor.
• War Refugees: The Emir of Qatar gave it to the Pravasi so that it, and they, wouldn't be his problem anymore, with the result that Aytan has become an island of Indian and Pakistani culture on the Persian Gulf. The most commonly spoken languages in Aytan in 2022 are Hindi and Urdu, and they call their currency the rupee.

Former United Arab Emirates

• The Caligula: Dubai is ruled by a crazed Manchild of a warlord by the name of Kaleem el-Farid, who deals in drugs, guns and slaves. Having achieved his goal to Take Over the City, he now plans on expanding his realm, but his forces are too disorganized and Stupid Evil to get much done.
• Cult: Hindu death cults have taken control of some parts of the country. The largest is based out of an abandoned theme park.
• Failed State: The Fusion Spring turned the UAE into one, and the Republic of Magan which broke away from it still is one.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: From the economic center of the Gulf to the OVRHVN world's archetypal failed state.
• The Remnant: The Emirati military still controls Abu Dhabi and the surrounding regions, but it's only doing somewhat better than Magan.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: Magan is a major source of these types.
• Wretched Hive: The whole country in general, and Dubai in particular.

Kuwait

• Civil War: Had a brief one of its own, leading to the establishment of the "Supreme Political Council." Implied to be potentially heading towards a second.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the Fusion Spring came, the Kuwaiti ruling class simply packed up and skipped town, leaving their guards behind to fight over the scraps.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Pravasi refugees whom the SPC has employed in the factories are being treated like slaves, to the point where the local Sunni fundamentalists are the good guys by comparison and are attempting to organize a Slave Liberation.
• War Refugees: Over half the population is Pravasi. They're not considered citizens.

Yemen

• Spared by the Adaptation: Yemen is rather better off than OTL, having avoided its post-reunification civil war and transitioned to social democracy in much the same way the USSR has. There's a lot of room for improvement as far as democracy and human rights go, but it's one of the better places to be in Arabia.

Oman

• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Deconstructed. Oman seemingly avoided the Fusion Spring by not engaging with it at all and being too obscure to bother with... but that was because they'd already been working to transition away from oil as early as 1998.

Mesopotamia (formerly ARIS)

• Civil War: A two-year-long one broke out in what was then ARIS as part of the Fusion Spring. It only ended when Bashar al-Assad was all-but-forced by the USSR to resign the presidency and move to Venus, allowing the country to become a democracy.
• Dirty Commies: Iraq and Syria unified in The '60s under the left wing of the Ba'athists. They soon came under the dictatorship of Hafez al-Assad, and Bashar al-Assad after him. The Arab Republic of Iraq and Syria (ARIS for short) spent the Cold War as a perennial member of the international rogues' gallery, with a huge military and all sorts of strange WMDs. They were a Soviet ally, of course, but that ended when the Cold War did.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Mesopotamia is depicted in E!22 as being somewhat unstable, but E!2150 reveals that they eventually joined One Arabia.
• The Federation: After Assad is "convinced" to step down, ARIS becomes a democracy, the Mesopotamian Federation.
• Good Counterpart: There is an organization named ISIS in Iraq and Syria in this universe, but they're the Arab world's most renowned drag troupe.
• Meaningful Rename: From the Arab Republic of Iraq and Syria to the Mesopotamian Federation.
• Playing Both Sides: Mesopotamia is having this happen to them - all three of their political parties are getting money from the Turks.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Saddam Hussein was going to law school in Egypt when ARIS was formed, and he decided to stay in Egypt and finish his law degree. He never went into politics and enjoyed a long and successful career as a defense attorney before dying of NCOV-19 in 2020.
• The Rival: ARIS used to be this to Iran, having a space race with them in The '70s and attempting to copy their shift away from oil in The 2000s. They fell short on both counts.

Iran

• Athens and Sparta: Tehran is secular and liberal, while the countryside is religious and conservative. They don't get along any more than urban and rural America do.
• Death by Adaptation: Ruhollah Khomeini falls down the stairs and dies in 1974 whilst "pondering the impiety of colonizing the moon." He thus never gets the chance to start the Iranian Revolution.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Mohammed Reza Shah gets one. After spending a long night in 1967 talking over the implications of the alternate Outer Space Treaty with his wife, the Shah has an "intense dream" that prompts him to rethink his life. He subsequently works to shift Iran off of oil and onto nuclear, solar and wind. The end result is that Iran remains Pahlavi, remains a US ally and gets to exploit the Fusion Spring and the Punjab War to their advantage. They've even got a successful space program - Iranian Air Force ace Jalil Zandi became the first Muslim in space ITTL.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Iran was spared the revolution, the ensuing theocracy and the Iran-Iraq War. By 2022, they're more or less a first-world country. The Shah eventually becomes a Puppet King, but the Pahlavis handle it gracefully, becoming figurehead "national mascots" not unlike OTL's modern European royals. By 2150, Iran is still around and doing well for itself.

Africa

Morocco

• Literal Metaphor: Morocco "building bridges" with Spain and Portugal doesn't just mean pursuing a closer alliance with them, it also means building a literal bridge across the Straits of Gibraltar. Similar to Salam Bridge in Israel and Palestine, the Hercules Bridge is a Moroccan-Spanish condominium.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Morocco decided to simply back a pro-Rabat government in Western Sahara rather than launch a full occupation. This proved to be a wise move and has benefitted them just as much as it's benefitted the Sahrawi.

Western Sahara

• Company Town: Many of Western Sahara's lucrative phosphate mines are these. It's noted that they're actually pretty much entirely populated by Moroccans.
• Culture Chop Suey: As one of Africa's only Spanish-speaking countries, they import a lot of Spanish and Latin American culture.
• Didn't Think This Through: After the peace deal, Eurofed and the Sahrawi government tried to encourage the Polisario Front to disarm by setting up a bounty program: turn in your weapon, and you'd get paid for it. While many militants really did turn in their weapons, the government had to scrap the program after people created what amounted to a grassroots arms-dealing market to sell firearms to them. After the program ended, the Arms Dealers then simply sold their remaining stock to gangs.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The conflict in Western Sahara was successfully brought to an end ITTL, and the country is now a stable, if still quite poor, republic. Their economy is stated to be rapidly improving, thanks to Moroccan and Eurofed investment.

Tunisia

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Tan on both maps.
• Follow the Leader: In-Universe example. In The '70s, Tunisian leader Habib Bourguiba quietly reversed his less successful policies, essentially copying Anwar Sadat's reversal of Nasser's policies in Egypt. It worked - Tunisia in 2022 has a good standard of living and is North Africa's most competitive economy.
• Souvenir Land: Thanks to fans and enterprising Tunisians, the old Tatooine sets from A New Hope (which are in Tunisia) have been refurbished and turned into an impressive, if low-budget, Star Wars theme park. It's not actually licensed, but Lucasfilm can't shut them down.
• Regional Redecoration: They've invested heavily in creating new lakes to re-green the deserts. For the most part, it's working.

Algeria

• Civil War: While they didn't have the one in The '90s that they did OTL, they did have a short but bloody one during the Fusion Spring.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Orange.
• Full-Circle Revolution: The new ruling coalition after the civil war isn't that different from the old one, but they are at least doing better with the economy.
• Regional Redecoration: Algeria is also a major party to the joint African-Eurofed efforts to create new lakes in the Sahara. By 2150, they've succeeded, creating the massive Lake Chegga.

Libya/Tripolitania

• Actual Pacifist: Following a foiled coup attempt, the post-Gaddafi government of Libya has abolished its military.
• Culture Chop Suey: Picked up a lot of Italian and Greek influence in the latter half of the 21st century, in addition to the Arab majority.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: On the receiving end of one. Gaddafi fired a bunch of ballistic missiles at Eurofed, Eurofed invaded and the "Libyan War" lasted all of two months before the Gaddafi regime was utterly crushed. Gaddafi himself would be tried at The Hague and executed.
• Meaningful Rename: In E!2150, Libya is now called Tripolitania. It's also about one-fourth as large.
• Regime Change: What ultimately came of the Libyan War. Gaddafi out, constitutional monarchy (and Eurofed influence) in. All things considered, it didn't work out too badly.
• Regional Redecoration: Noticing a theme? E!2150 shows that a good chunk of (what was) Libya is occupied by Lake Mega-Fezzan.
• Rightful King Returns: After Gaddafi was deposed and a new democratic government was installed, it was decided to restore the Senussi dynasty as well.
• Stealing the Credit: The "Great Man-Made River," the world's largest irrigation project, was started by the Senussis in The '60s, then finished by Gaddafi, who took credit for it all. The new Senussis are now taking back said credit.
• Supervillain Lair: Gaddafi's secret "Star Gate," a base in the desert from which he planned to escape to Venus (he was captured before he could reach his rocket), is compared to a "Bond Villain Lair." It's now a museum.

Mauritania

• Land of One City: The great majority of the population lives in the capital of Nouakchott.
• Scavenged Punk: A variation. A lot of discarded rocket boosters fall in the Sahara, since there's not much there for them to hit, so many Mauritanians make a living hunting for boosters and scavenging useful scrap from them.

Mali

• Cult: UFO cults are a problem in Bamako, the Malian capital. Most of them believe specifically in aliens from Sirius, the cultural memory of which was supposedly preserved by the Dogon people of Mali.
• Desert Bandits: The local Tuaregs are known to harass the Eurofed-built railway across the north of the country.
• Scavenged Punk: Like Mauritania, Mali is also home to many scavengers searching the desert for fallen rocket boosters.

Upper Volta

• Death by Adaptation: Thomas Sankara dies in obscurity ITTL, and in his place, a different figure named Jean Barro takes charge of the country and leads it through The '80s.
• Meaningful Rename: Inverted, oddly enough - Upper Volta never changed its name to Burkina Faso ITTL.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Jean Barro turned out to be one of these. His regime saw literacy and vaccination programs, crackdowns on corruption, significant economic development and encouragement of foreign investment. He avoided consolidating too much power, so that the country could survive without him once it had to, and eventually he peacefully stepped down in 1996 to allow for free and fair elections.

Niger

• Historical Hero Upgrade: Nigerien military ruler Seyni Kountche proved a somewhat better leader for Niger ITTL.
• The Plan: The "Oklahoma Plan" to shift the Nigerien economy from subsistence farming to proper cattle ranching, based on how American ranching operated.
• Rancher: Home to a great many of these types. Niger undertook a major push to transition from subsistence farming to large-scale cattle ranching in The '90s, and it worked quite well thanks to careful planning and research into how ranching is done in America.

Chad

• Historical Hero Upgrade: Rather than the brutal dictator he was OTL, Hissene Habre ITTL proves to be something of a technocrat, doing much to improve Chad's economy and standard of living.
• Regional Redecoration: Hard at work expanding Lake Chad, eventually turning it into a full-blown inland sea called Lake Mega-Chad.

United Republics of the Sahara

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Yellow and gold.
• The Federation: A union of Morocco, Algeria, (part of) Libya, Chad, Niger, Upper Volta, Mali, Mauritania and Western Sahara.
• Regional Redecoration: Practically their hat. Lakes Chegga, Mega-Fezzan and Mega-Chad are all mostly their work, as are a number of smaller lakes and rivers. Most of the Sahara has been greened by the Republics' efforts.
• Solar Punk: The part of the Sahara that's still desert is occupied by absolutely titanic solar fields - one-fifth of all Earth's energy in 2150 is provided by the URS.
• Space-Filling Empire: The URS takes up the majority of North Africa.

Trees of Tenere

• The Metaverse: A set of giant server-trees dotted around the Sahara together support a massive virtual world which the Tuareg connect to via dataports on the back of their necks. They can cooperate with each other across long distances via Wi-Fi and achieve democratic consensus across the whole nation thanks to a Tenere-operated satellite in orbit.
• Wandering Culture: Tenere is a "meta-state" within the URS comprised of the Tuareg people, who spend most of their time traveling the Sahara as nomads. They plug in at the Trees to meet up and participate in democracy.

Egypt

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The exact shade of tan varies, but Egypt is consistently sand-colored.
• Egypt Is Still Ancient: Downplayed, but the general aesthetic does undergo a revival, and by 2150 worship of the ancient Egyptian pantheon is likewise back in style.
• Futuristic Pyramid: Cairo-3, a massive pyramidal megastructure built to serve as a new purpose-built capital for the country.
• New Neo City: Cairo-3.
• Regional Redecoration: One of the biggest investors in it. Not only has Egypt turned the Qattara Depression into a salt lake, they've created an entire new branch of the Nile.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Anwar Sadat's would-be assassins bungle the attempt, and Sadat enjoys a long and prosperous presidency. He purges the Muslim Brotherhood, preventing any coups, and he greatly improves Egypt's situation. Egypt weathers the Fusion Spring and is considered a fully developed nation by 2022.

Bir Tawil

• City of Adventure: Horizon City, the unique self-sufficient planned city in the desert that Bir Tawil is built around, is a Deconstruction, arguably even an In-Universe one - its founders wanted to create the "city of the future," but fell short of their goals and must now figure out how to get by in a world where their vision is no longer all that unusual.
• Clones Are People, Too: Bir Tawil has the largest human cloning clinic in Africa in 2022.
• Different World, Different Movies: Played with - Raid: Shadow Legends still exists, but was invented by Horizonites ITTL.
• Fictional Currency: The Horizon sol.
• Land of One City: Bir Tawil is pretty much just Horizon.
• Robot Republic: In 2092, Bir Tawil becomes the first fully automated country. The entire government and economy is run by AIs and a great many such "turingrades" subsequently move in.
• Scienceville: They wanted to be, anyhow, but fell somewhat short and had to find other angles.
• Start My Own: A bunch of techno-libertarians who claimed the unclaimed territory of Bir Tawil to found their own country in 1998.
• Transhuman: Both E!22 and E!2150 show that Bir Tawil is a transhumanist hotspot, albeit in different ways, and not nearly as much so as its founders hoped.
• Zeerust: They've got a bad case of it in 2022, but they eventually get over it.

Sudan/New Sudan

• Balkanize Me: Not only did South Sudan secede like it did OTL, Darfur is also independent as of 2022.
• Cool Car: New Sudan in 2150 has apparently become known for its car culture.
• Former Regime Personnel: The Janjaweed, remnants of Chadian partisans trained by the Gaddafi regime, joined up with the Sudanese government after the Libyan War and set about oppressing the people of Darfur. Post-balkanization, they've turned to organized crime and remain a headache for the Republic of Darfur.
• Liberty Over Prosperity: E!22 shows that both Darfur and South Sudan have had a hard time of things since gaining independence.
• Lysistrata Gambit: A nation-wide one of these, organized by British and Sudanese feminists, actually helped bring down the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir.
• New Neo City: Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur reunify in 2101 as the Federal Republic of New Sudan.
• Regime Change: The Commonwealth sent a task force to oust al-Bashir and put a stop to the Sudanese Civil War in 2002, installing a republic in the aftermath.
• Regional Redecoration: E!2150 places another new lake, Lake Ptolemy, in New Sudan, more specifically northern Darfur.

Somalia

• Spared by the Adaptation: One of the most noteworthy examples in the setting. Somalia completely avoided ever becoming a Failed State, resolving its internal conflicts by The '90s and prospering in the 21st century thanks to its long east coast being ideal for launching rockets. By 2022, the country is becoming something of a tourist destination for beach-minded Westerners and the only "Somali piracy" is the digital kind.

Ethiopia

• Balkanize Me: Averted. Ethiopia still controls Eritrea.
• Chummy Commies: They're still a socialist state and the Sovereign Union's main point of influence in Africa, but they've eased their ethnic tensions and the general standard of living is on the rise.

Djibouti

• Voluntary Vassal: The people of Djibouti eventually vote to be annexed by Somalia in the late 21st century.
• War Refugees: Took in a lot of Pravasi after the Punjab War.

Senegambia

• Balkanize Me: Another aversion. While Senegambia split into Senegal and The Gambia in our universe, in this one it stayed together.

St. Nicholas

• Culture Chop Suey: Russian-Gambian. By 2150, there's a name for it: "Afroslavic."
• Micro Monarchy: The idea, anyhow. That being said, it's very much a constitutional monarchy.
• The Remnant: The semi-autonomous community of St. Nicholas was founded at the mouth of the Gambia River by an eccentric Soviet businessman with the explicit intent to be this, reviving Tsarist Russia in a modern form. In spite of this, they're very fond of technology - crypto in 2022 and strange transhumanist experiments in 2150.

Liberia

• The Caligula: Charles Taylor is still President for Life of Liberia in 2022, and he's just barely managed to avoid becoming President Evil, but he's not any saner. He's become a Third-Person Person, claims to be in contact with aliens and makes an absolute fool of himself on Chirp.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Oddly enough, one of Charles Taylor's policies - instituting "right of return" for descendants of American slaves in hopes of attracting scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to Liberia - actually worked pretty well. Almost too well, to the point of indirectly leading to the formation of the Plasmid Coast.
• Prevent the War: The First Liberian Civil War still happens ITTL, but the Second Liberian Civil War is averted.

Plasmid Coast

• Amazing Technicolor Population: The Plasmid Coast has the most permissive biotech laws in the world, so it's not uncommon to encounter Plasmidis with strange skin colors, something considered to be rather on the fringe of human gene-modding.
• Bio-Augmentation: Their specialty.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Liberia had a civil war and Sierra Leone had two, and Liberia also had to contend with Charles Taylor, but eventually they both managed to evolve and unify into a prosperous nation.
• Foil: In a low-key way, to their neighbors in the Silicon Coast. Both are unions of two West African nations and both are considered major technological powers in 2150. However, the Plasmidi got where they are in large part thanks to American immigrants and have a culture based on biotech. The Silikoni, meanwhile, built their nation on homegrown industries and focus more on robotics and cybernetics.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: A consequence of being so bioliberal is that bio-terrorism is a serious concern.
• The Republic: Its full name is the Republic of the Plasmid Coast.

Silicon Coast

• Emperor Scientist: Downplayed, but the Silicon Coast's government is described as "quasi-technocratic."
• The Federation: Its full name is the Federation of the Silicon Coast.
• Post-Cyberpunk: Explicitly described as cyberprep in character.
• Took a Level in Badass: The "Silicon Coast Development Zone" first shows up in E!22 as a loose economic alliance between several West African countries - a successful one, but just as well known for being the source of TTL's equivalent of the 419 Scam as for the tech industries it's producing. In E!2150, the Silicon Coast is a country, a union of Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire, and it's very successful, full of cyberprep cities and grand arcologies.

Nigeria

• Balkanize Me: Nigeria split in half, northern Arewa from southern Nigeria, following its Civil War in the late 1960s, and reunified again in the late 2080s.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Brown in E!22 and cyan in E!2150.
• The Republic: A much more stable democracy ITTL, in part thanks to the split from Arewa.
• Took a Level in Badass: Nigeria is the world's 38th-best economy in 2022. In 2150, they're third-best, behind only India and America. They've also reabsorbed Arewa and annexed Benin and Togo. E!2150 notes that Nigeria is also the second-most populous country on Earth and that Greater Lagos is the world's largest city.

Arewa

• An Arm and a Leg / Disproportionate Retribution: A Running Gag in both E!22 and E!2150 concerns Arewa's fixation on a particular bit of Sharia law: the severing of a hand as a punishment for petty theft. Traditionally this was done with a sword, but in 2000 they switched to much "safer" surgical procedures and laser-cauterization. Then in 2016, the policy was changed, so that afterwards the offender was provided with a cheap cybernetic prosthetic imported from Eurofed. Over the decades, this too would be upgraded, first to locally sourced 3D-printed prosthetics and eventually to stem-cell cultures. However, the punishment itself stays on the books until Arewa rejoins Nigeria.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The fundamentalist regime in Arewa is ultimately undone by its own attempts to reconcile technology and dogma. In the mid-to-late 21st century, the Arewan government tries to spark a religious revival by using virtual reality to induce spiritual experiences. All this ends up doing is draw the most devout believers (i.e. the theocrats themselves) further and further into their virtual world and away from the common people, who for their part want a share of the prosperity Nigeria is enjoying. The theocracy's control thus collapses. When Arewa peacefully rejoins Nigeria in the late 2080s, its former rulers barely even notice, let alone care.
• The Theocracy: Sharia is the law in the Islamic Republic of Arewa, to the detriment of the country's human rights record, standard of living and literacy rate.

East African Federation

• Albinos Are Freaks: There's still a lot of superstition surrounding albino people in sub-Saharan Africa. Some East African albinos are moving to the Martian colonies, where the sun isn't as hard on their skin and the prejudice is largely absent.
• The Federation: Formed in 1982 by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. By 2150, Rwanda and Burundi have joined them.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Barack Obama became president of the EAF in this timeline and was evidently very successful, considering there's a space elevator named after him in E!2150.
• War Refugees: There's a major Pravasi minority in the EAF in 2022, referred to locally as the "Wahindi." They're not always welcome, but by 2150 they've been fully accepted.

Rwanda

• Point of Divergence: A random Tutsi goat herder in Rwanda stays up late watching a TV program about the alien lifeforms being discovered on Europa, and thus sleeps in late on the morning of April 6th, 1994. This means that his flock crosses the road that morning at an inopportune time, causing a van full of armed Hutu militants to swerve off the road, crash and explode, killing all its occupants. This is good, because those militants were on their way to the airport to shoot down a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. IOTL, that plane was shot down and sparked the Rwandan Genocide. ITTL, the genocide still happens, but because the plane was never shot down, it starts differently, happens more slowly and is stopped much sooner.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The Rwandan Genocide was much less severe in this timeline, thanks to a number of factors including a military intervention by East African and American forces. 100,000 Tutsi still die, but things progress more slowly and 600,000 lives are saved. Thus, Rwanda in 2022 is a fairly prosperous country with a very fast-growing economy.

Seychelles

• Bio-Augmentation: At least three foreign companies have bases in the Seychelles working to breed humans with gills.
• Scavenged Punk: All those rockets launched from the Somalian coast drop their boosters over the Indian Ocean, so there's a lot of salvage companies in the Seychelles making good money retrieving them.

Mauritius

• Fossil Revival: Perhaps inevitably, a company on Mauritius has brought back the dodo...
• So What Do We Do Now?: ...only to realize that they have no clue what to do with the birds.

Zaire/Union of the Congo

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: A pale olive green.
• The Federation: The Union of the Congo, which is Zaire, the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Empire and Cabinda after unifying sometime between E!22 and E!2150. They're a thriving electronic democracy with their capital at Kinbrazza, the fusion of the old Zairean and Congolese capitals of Kinshasa and Brazzaville (which, as per IRL, are right across the Congo River from each other).
• Gentle Gorilla: In 2150, an organization of gorilla uplifts known as the Walinzi wa Milima ("Guardians of the Mountains") can be found in the Congo, having devoted themselves to protecting the last of their wild ancestors.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: A Justified Trope in the case of Joseph-Desire Mobutu, the dictator of Zaire, who ITTL falls down a flight of stairs, hits his head and experiences a shift in his personality - thankfully, for the better. While he's still very much an autocrat, he's rather more of a Benevolent Dictator: taking notes from Singapore and South Korea, Mobutu worked to improve basic living standards and education as well as crack down on the worst excesses of government corruption. Since he also doesn't embezzle away much of Zaire's economy, the country is left in considerably better shape by the time he dies.
• Unexpected Character: Zaire was one for the Space Race. Thanks to their equatorial location (ideal for rocket launches) and timely investment from a German firm, they were able to carve out their own share of the profits of the 1980s Space Boom.

Republic of the Congo

• McNinja: The "Ninjas" are a militia founded in 1994 by one Marcel Ntoumi, who claims to be on a Mission from God to save the Congo by reforging the ancient ninja order of Japan. To that end, he's studied martial arts films and bootlegged anime, all the while gradually building a following amongst the disaffected Congolese youth. They pick up trash, beat up thieves and perform other such services to their communities, and they cultivate the pop-culture ninja aesthetic, complete with Ninja Run. As absurd as they are, the Ninjas could pose a genuine threat to the ruling regime: they really are a trained, combat-ready militia, and their ranks are 80,000 strong and growing.
• One-Steve Limit: The ROC is now the only country in Africa called "Congo," since the country that OTL became the DRC is still going by Zaire in OVRHVN.
• Permanent Elected Official: Denis Sassou Nguesso has been in charge of the Congo in one form or another since 1979, and has not been good for the country. That being said, his permanence is fast coming into question as of 2022: it's stated that he's only still in power thanks to his party being the only one allowed in government, and groups like the Ninjas are getting strong enough to challenge his paramilitaries.

Central African Empire

• Afrofuturism: The whole continent is playing it straight by 2150, but in 2022, the main place for it, at least in terms of aesthetics, is the Central African capital of Bangui, which intentionally tries to cultivate the trope with an eclectic style drawn from sources across Africa.
• The Empire: Albeit In Name Only.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Jean-Bedel Bokassa is somewhat less of a megalomaniac ITTL, and his coronation as Emperor is a rather more subdued affair. With a little help from Iran, the CAE transitions to a constitutional monarchy in 1998 once Bokassa abdicates and hands things over to his son. Bokassa II still reigns in 2022.

Gabon

• Abdicate the Throne: More of a President for Life than a king, but still an example. Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving president, had been succeeded by his son Ali Bongo Ondimba, but Ali surprised the world in 2016 by deciding to end the political dynasty and step down. This has allowed Gabon to make progress towards democratizing.
• Culture Chop Suey: By 2150, they're as French as they are African.

Equatorial Guinea

• Civil War: E!22 finds them in the middle of one. It isn't going well.
  • E!2150, meanwhile, references another that happened during the Time Skip: from 2098 to 2104, after the dictator Obiang died, the Obiang clone and the Obiang upload fought over who got to rule the country. Neither of them won - Gabon eventually got fed up and invaded the country, annexing it in what's stated to have been one of Africa's last wars.
• God-Emperor: Teodoro Obiang, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea who came to power in 1979, declared himself a god. Somehow, he's turned out to be an improvement over his predecessor Francisco Macias.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Equatorial Guinea's economy relied heavily on oil, but they weren't plunged into chaos by the events of 2011 like so many other petro-states were, purely because Obiang was hoarding so much of the oil money that the only person the Fusion Spring bothered was him.
• Last of His Kind: By the time Gabon annexes them in 2104, Equatorial Guinea is Africa's last (non-monarchic) dictatorship.

Sao Tome and Principe

• The Generic Guy: Not much worth noting has happened in Sao Tome and Principe, but Ryzov considers that a good thing...
• The Republic: ...since it means they're among the most stable, democratic and economically successful countries in Africa.

Angola

• Commie Land: As of 2022, averted. The MPLA won the civil war, but the Fusion Spring destroyed their hold on power and a new government is now in charge.
• Disconnected Side Area: The Cabinda exclave, separated from the rest of Angola by a strip of Zairean territory, is de facto independent from the rest of the country.
  • The Republic: While they lack international recognition, Cabinda is effectively a sovereign republic with its own elected government, its own military, its own currency and even its own social media presence. This last consists primarily of a Chirp account devoted to making fun of Angola.

Zambia/Zambezia

• The Federation: One of the new countries in E!2150 is Zambezia, a union of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: In OTL, Edward Nkoloso was a Zambian anti-colonial fighter and scientist who attempted to establish an "Afronaut Program" to send Zambians to space, but got nowhere with it and came off as something of a Cloudcuckoolander. In OVRHVN, however, he founds the Afronaut Program right at the start of the Space Boom, and thus sees much more success, even becoming director of the Zambian Space Agency. The Afronaut Program grew into a major training center for astronauts from throughout Africa, and by 2022 Zambia has a thriving space industry.
• Plant Person: Zambezia is home to some of the first "neurotrees," trees with human-level intelligence.

Malawi

• Everything Is 3D-Printed in the Future: The Malawians have figured out how to 3D-print cheap housing, which they've put to good use getting roofs over the heads of the population.

Mozambique and Madagascar

• Those Two Guys: These two countries have a long history of working together, and both E!22 and E!2150 discuss them together. In 2022, they collaborate on a "rocket loop" where reusable rockets are launched in Mozambique and land in Madagascar. By 2150, they retain their close space partnership and have made two separate attempts at political union. Neither lasted, but both ended amicably.

Botswana

• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Once a rising economic power in Sub-Saharan Africa, Botswana runs up against a demographic crisis in the late 21st century. By 2150, their thriving robotics industry has managed to compensate for the low birthrate, but the country is not what it once was.

Namibia

• Cyborg: Being a German-speaking country with very lax laws on transhumanism, Namibia has become home to a community of German cyborgs pursuing their craft. Their compounds are among the only places in the world (in 2022) where one can become a Full-Conversion Cyborg without having a serious medical condition to justify it.
• The Republic: Namibia has managed to avoid becoming a one-party state ITTL.
• Solar Punk: Namibia fills the barren Kalahari Desert with solar fields, which supply much of Southern Africa's energy by 2150. Even their flag has a sun on it.

Former South Africa/Asania

• Balkanize Me: The apartheid government's "Redekker Plan" culminated in an intentional example of the trope, splitting off the eastern half of the country as the black ethnostate of Mzansi. It didn't go well.
• Butterfly of Doom: For want of Nelson Mandela, and on account of a harebrained partition scheme by the apartheid regime, South Africa fell into a civil war that, through a series of geopolitical dominoes, caused the 6/15 attacks - and thus the Libyan War and the ascent of Eurofed to superpower status.
• Civil War: The apartheid government tried to partition the country, white Cape from black Mzansi, in 1997. Things fell apart pretty much instantly. The South African Wars raged from 1999 to 2004, producing many an atrocity, until Muammar Gaddafi's attempts to meddle in the conflict wound up sparking an international intervention and a coup in South Africa, bringing an end to the apartheid government's rule and enabling a peace treaty. However, Cape and Mzansi remained separate.
• Death by Adaptation: Nelson Mandela really did die in prison ITTL.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Asania, which starts as The Alliance between Mzansi and an atoning Cape, gradually evolves into a full political reunification by 2070. Come E!2150, the country is doing quite well for itself and the old racial tensions have, for the most part, faded away.

Cape Republic

• The Atoner: Following the coup that overthrew the National Party and ended the South African Wars, the Capians have come to regret their apartheid past and seek to put it behind them. It helps that many of the strongest supporters of apartheid have opted to start over on Mars.
• Land of One City: Described as "a Cape Town city-state with an especially large hinterland."
• The Republic: They try, at least.
• War Refugees: In part out of guilt, they've taken in a great many Pravasi, as well as Arab refugees from the Persian Gulf.

Mzansi

• The Federation: Their full name is the Mzansi Federation, and they're a democracy, albeit one dominated by the African National Congress.
• Please Select New City Name: The Mzansi capital is Tshwane, formerly known as Pretoria.

Lesotho

• The Good Kingdom: A constitutional monarchy with a highly-educated populace, a high standard of living and a thriving democratic tradition as of 2150.
• Solar Punk: They get their energy from hydropower, and supply Asania with a decent chunk of theirs as well.

Eswatini

• Foil: To their fellow southern African Micro Monarchy, Lesotho. Lesotho adjusted to the 22nd century gracefully, Eswatini... didn't.
• Last of His Kind: Not only the last absolute monarchy on Earth, but according to the Democracy Index submap on E!2150, by 2150 Eswatini is the last authoritarian state on Earth, period.
• Schizo Tech: Eswatini's relationship with the modern world in 2150 is an odd one. On the one hand, their military is entirely automated with combat robots, their vehicles are all self-driving and they have an advanced surveillance system. On the other, urbanism has been actively reversed, with most of Eswatini's population living an effectively pre-colonial lifestyle of subsistence farming. Their life expectancy is among the world's lowest, they refuse to use genetically augmented food (to their detriment) and social media is outright banned.

Asia

Mongolia

• Schizo Tech: Many Mongolians seek to get back in touch with the nomadic lifestyles of their ancestors. Thanks to modern technology, they can easily do this while retaining modern comforts like satellite Internet.
• Solar Punk: Mongolia's wide open steppes and deserts are ideal for wind and solar power, which they use to power both their own country and a sizable portion of China.

Federal Republic of China/Chinese Federation

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Brick red on the E!22 map, bright green in E!2150.
• Fictional Political Party: In the post-communist era, China develops a two-party system between the Chinese Democrats, the progressive former La Résistance eager to shed the CCP's legacy, and the New KMT, the more conservative, less pro-Western faction descended from one of the PRC's sanctioned opposition parties. The New KMT eventually wane, but the Chinese Democrats eventually split in two. One of their descendant parties, the New Democrats, nearly turn China into a one-party state again until they in turn are ousted (democratically) by the Greens.
• Human Popsicle: In hopes of solving its demographic problems, China institutes a program to cryo-freeze many of its seniors, promising to revive them in the future. Unfortunately, the cryogenic systems prove unsafe, and most of those frozen die, causing a major scandal in the 2040s.
• Little Bit Beastly: China is where some of the first "chimeras" (humans with animal traits, one of the groups that make up the zoans) were created.
• Meaningful Rename: Dropped the "People's" in favor of "Federal" upon ousting the Communist Party. Changed their name again to the Chinese Federation in 2101 upon getting a new constitution.
• MegaCorp: China didn't have much success in the Space Race and wasn't able to secure any good offworld territories, so the mysterious billionaire Liao Jiahao has set out to make up for past failures with his company, Tian Corp. Tian Corp has all but monopolized the Chinese National Space Agency, deploying missions to set up "Chinatown" colonies all across the Solar System, even as far afield as Ganymede.
• Only in Florida: China is known for politicians having fistfights in the legislature, strange social scandals and generally odd news stories. There's even a subreddit for it - r/MeanwhileInChina.
• Permanent Elected Official: Li Tai, of the New Democrats, runs the show as China's near-dictatorial president for 54 years, from 2046 to 2100. China became stagnant under his rule, and he was eventually ousted in a Dark Horse Victory by the Chinese Green Party, leading to the reformation of the FRC into the Chinese Federation.
• The Republic: Following the downfall of communism in The '90s, China has become the world's largest democracy, if a somewhat dysfunctional one. They later become The Federation.
• The Rival: To Japan in the Space Race. China lost, badly.
• Sketchy Successor: Deng Xiaoping dies in an accident in 1978, and rather than Jiang Zemin, his successor is Sun Luoyang, an unknown-IOTL figure who proves to be thoroughly incompetent. Sun's mismanagement of the Tiananmen protests and of the situation in Hong Kong ultimately leads to the fall of the CCP.
• Solar Punk: The Chinese Federation embraces it wholeheartedly, having been founded by the country's green party.
• Star Scraper: China's got a fair few megastructures of their own. Xtopia, Shanghai's answer to the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid, is 1.6 kilometers tall.
• Uterine Replicator: A popular technology in China, used in hopes of counteracting the country's declining birthrate.
• Velvet Revolution: It doesn't start that way (indeed, the Tiananmen Square Massacre is even worse ITTL), but the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party ends this way. On the 1997 anniversary of the massacre, 500,000 people march on the square again... and this time, the People's Liberation Army lets them in. The CCP is forced out of office, a new constitution is written and China becomes a democracy.

Hong Kong

• The Casino: Macau is also part of the Republic of Hong Kong, and as per OTL, it's full of casinos, since most Chinese provinces still don't allow gambling.
• Cyborg: At 2.77%, their cyborg population is one of the largest in the world in 2022.
• David Versus Goliath: Desperate for something to boost support for his regime at home, Sun Luoyang launches a Chinese invasion of Hong Kong in 1996. Thanks to Sun's incompetence and the world rallying behind the city-state, Hong Kong wins. The Hong Kong War is the last straw for China, and Sun Luoyang is shortly kicked out of office - as indeed is the entirety of the CCP.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: ...and the Commonwealth - and the world, for that matter - answered.
  "Koreans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, Americans, Brazilians, Iranians, Turks, Indians, Malaysians, Filipinos, Soviets, Germans, Greeks, Frenchmen, Italians, Swedes, Israelis and even volunteers who made the journey from the Lunar colonies, just to fight for Hong Kong. These ranged from grizzled military veterans, die-hard lifetime anti-communists and special forces operatives covertly acting on behalf of their government’s national interest, to middle-class waiters who quit their day jobs for an adventure."
• Merchant City: The FRC enthusiastically embraced the free market after ditching communism, but Hong Kong is even more free market than they are.
• New Neo City: Hong Kong's orbital colony is called Neo Hong Kong.
• Point of Divergence: For Hong Kong, it's China forgetting to ask for the city-state to be removed from the UN's list of "Non-Self-Governing Territories" in 1972. This and a different Falklands War lead to Hong Kong gaining independence from Britain ahead of schedule in 1984.

Korea

• Desperation Attack: With the USSR going liberal, China on the road to collapse and North Korea in the grip of a horrific famine, Kim Jong-il decides in 1993 that his last chance to save the DPRK (and his own hide) is to invade South Korea. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it backfires badly and gets him (and a lot of innocent Koreans) killed and the DPRK destroyed for good.
• The Federation: Post-reunification Korea is a democracy consisting of northern and southern "Republics" united under a single federal government.
• Meaningful Rename: The North and South fight the Second Korean War in The '90s, and the North loses, leading to the reunification of the peninsula as the Confederation of the Korean People.
  • Eventually, the reunification process is deemed complete, and in 2053 the country is reorganized and renamed again, becoming the United Republic of Korea.
• Russian Reversal: After the Second Korean War, the North is by far the worse off of the two halves of Korea, but demographic transition hits South Korea so hard that by 2100 it's the other way around.
• Space Battle: The first real test of the US Space Force is defending their orbital installations from North Korean attacks at the outset of the Second Korean War.
• Swords to Plowshares: After the war, weapons from both the Northern and Southern militaries are melted down and the metal used to build a peace monument.
• Underground City: North Korean civilians are sheltered in underground bunker complexes known as "vaults," each one capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people, to protect them and the North Korean government from American Orbital Bombardment.

Japan

• City on the Water: Japan has built several of these, such as Marine City and Okinotori, to serve as spaceports. As the Space Boom dies down, these cities go bust, but are later recolonized by the aquamorphs.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Yellow.
• Martial Pacifist: Japan becomes this in the Second Korean War after North Korean missile attacks force them to be Neutral No Longer. They send an Eagle Squadron to fight for the South, supply Korean hospitals with enormous amounts of donated blood and synthetic blood substitute (the latter being something they were Asia's only supplier of at the time) and send in medics and volunteers to help civilians. After the war, they keep it up - the JSDF participates in UN humanitarian aid missions all over Asia, especially in post-Punjab War India.
• Schizo Tech: A minor example serves as something of a running gag: Japan is a leader in robotics as of 2022, but the android secretaries still use the office fax machine.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The Japanese Lost Decade never happens ITTL, with the bubble of the Economic Miracle deflating rather than bursting.
• Star Scraper: There's quite a few megastructures in Japan, but the most iconic of all is the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid. Standing 2001 meters tall, this massive pyramidal structure built in the middle of Tokyo Bay is home to a permanent population of 942,560.
• War Refugees: Usually reluctant to allow large-scale immigration, Japan changed course after the Punjab War and accepted millions of Pravasi, who for the most part have made an effort to fit into Japanese culture while still retaining their own.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Animesque hair and eye colors are not at all unheard of in Japan - indeed, much of the technology was pioneered there.

Taiwan

• Bio-Augmentation: Taiwan is very bioliberal, making it a hotspot for these sorts of scientific endeavors in 2022. Rusudan, the gene-treatment capable of allowing one's children to be aquamorphs or "gill-babies" (humans capable of breathing underwater), was developed by Taiwanese scientists and is primarily sold there. Experiments into wholly artificial lifeforms are also being done there, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there's some chimeras there as well.
• Death by Adaptation: Chiang Kai-shek and his son both die sooner in this timeline.
• One-Steve Limit: The Chinese Republic of Taiwan no longer calls itself the Republic of China or makes claims to be The Remnant of same ITTL. The PRC agreed to recognize their independence in 1971 in exchange for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The Chinese eventually came to feel they'd gotten a bad deal, but then the Tiananmen Revolution happened and the whole thing was moot anyway. Taiwan eventually rejoins the Chinese Federation in the early 22nd century.

Vietnam

• Culture Chop Suey: After a Vietnam War that ended faster (and even more decisively in the North's favor), Vietnam and America have more or less made amends, with American (and Japanese) cultural influences becoming popular in the country.
• Dirty Commies: Vietnam in 2022 has opened up the economy to capitalism without making much in the way of political reforms, and is thus still quite authoritarian, albeit mostly harmless.
• Last of His Kind: By 2022, with the rest of the communist bloc reformed, ousted, fallen, never properly communist to begin with or Albania, Vietnam is arguably the last truly communist state on earth.

Laos

• In Name Only: Since the population are almost all subsistence farmers, the Lao People's Democratic Republic really isn't all that communist. Seizing the means of production doesn't mean a whole lot when the means of production consist mostly of water buffalo and wooden plows.

Cambodia

• Death by Adaptation: Saloth Sar, the man who in OTL became Pol Pot, dies of a snakebite in 1969. Without him, Cambodian history takes a very different course.
• Spared by the Adaptation: No Pol Pot and a shorter Vietnam War (meaning no US invasion of Cambodia) translates to the Khmer Rouge never coming to power. Cambodia isn't in great shape in this timeline's 2022, but it's in better shape than OTL.

Thailand

• Little Bit Beastly: The Thai biotech industry creates a lot of chimeras and treats them incredibly exploitatively.
• Uplifted Animal: The Thai government has a plan to uplift elephants, more to one-up India than anything else.
• Wretched Hive: Bangkok isn't a nice place. In addition to ordinary crime and villainy, it's a hotspot for highly unethical biotech that isn't legal anywhere else. Thailand in general is possibly the worst place in the world to be a chimera, as many of them are created there specifically to be used as, in effect, slaves - sometimes sex slaves.

Malaysia

• Flying Saucer: The Malaysian government has a whole ministry dedicated to investigating UFO reports. This is admittedly somewhat less silly in a world where aliens are known to be real (albeit not currently present), but it's still pretty silly. Some theorize the Malaysian government may have created it just as a roundabout way of advertising Malaysia to tourists.
• Uplifted Animal: There's an organization in Malaysia trying to uplift orangutans.

Singapore

• The City: Asia's most famous city-state not named Hong Kong.
• The Republic: Singapore has become rather more democratic ITTL.
• Souvenir Land: Singapore is home to the world's best "space park" in 2022, Space Adventures, which boasts all kinds of attractions relating to space exploration and the offworld colonies.
• Took a Level in Badass: Compared to OTL. Their economy is just as strong, they've purchased the neighboring Riau Islands from Indonesia and E!2150 shows that Singapore eventually becomes the capital of Federal ASEAN.

Brunei

• The Elites Jump Ship: When the Fusion Spring came, the Sultan of Brunei and his ministers simply took the money and ran to Singapore. He doesn't want to come back and most Bruneians would rather be annexed by Malaysia than have him back.
• Failed State: Post-Fusion Spring Brunei fell into utter anarchy, becoming in effect an open-air black market for drugs, guns and slaves. It finally got so bad that Malaysia invaded in 2016.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: The Sultan and his government had done absolutely nothing to prepare for the collapse of their oil-reliant economy.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: From Southeast Asia's second-most prosperous state, to its number one failed nation.
• Ironic Name: "Brunei Darussalam" means "Abode of Peace." That, it ain't.
• Micro Monarchy: They used to be. Key words: used to.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: Many of these came out of Brunei in the 2010s and caused headaches for everyone in the South China Sea.
• Voluntary Vassal: It's implied that the Bruneian people eventually willingly vote to be annexed by Malaysia.

Indonesia/Federal ASEAN

• Balkanize Me: Aceh, Yogyakarta, Bali and the Maluku Islands secede from Indonesia in the 2050s, whilst West Timor joins East Timor as part of Australia. Interestingly, this actually leads to Indonesia pushing for the federalization of ASEAN.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Blue. Federal ASEAN is orange.
• The Federation: Federal ASEAN is this - indeed, many of its citizens call it that as a colloquial name. In addition to Indonesia, it also includes Singapore (the capital), Malaysia and Thailand, plus many other countries that are members of ASEAN, but not part of the federation.
• Fossil Revival: There's a colony of cloned Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "Hobbits," on the Flores Islands. They're basically like us, only smaller, and they're developing a keen interest in space.
• Improvisational Ingenuity: After the Japanese brought in supplies by rocket to help tsunami-stricken areas in Indonesia in 2004, they found the used rockets to not be worth the trouble of recovery, so they removed the explosive parts and let the locals do with them as they saw fit, leading to this trope. One of the rockets is now a mosque.
• Money, Dear Boy: In-Universe. The Fusion Spring more or less killed Indonesia's coal industry, so the government sold the Riau Islands to Singapore simply because they needed the cash. Only the most rabid of Indonesian nationalists are upset about it, though.
• Space Elevator: There are three different space elevator projects in Indonesia in 2022, but all of them are caught up in political bickering. (Though they seem to have all gotten built by 2150.)

Philippines

• Death by Adaptation: Ferdinand Marcos and most of his immediate family die in a freak accident in 1974.
• No Transhumanism Allowed: There's a sizable bioconservative faction amonst the Filipinos, and it's becoming an increasingly large concern in the country.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Rodrigo Duterte becomes a Vigilante Man ITTL. He's convicted (in a hugely publicized trial) for the murder of 12 alleged drug dealers in 2006.
• Souvenir Land: Cebu is home to Robotica, a robot-themed amusement park featuring near-life-size replicas of famous anime Humongous Mecha, android likenesses of great Filipinos and robot-drawn rickshaws.
• Spared by the Adaptation: With the Marcos regime suddenly cut short, Marcos' successor repeals martial law and opens up the Philippines to American and Japanese investment, giving the Philippines its own share of the prosperity of the Space Boom. The Philippines eventually undergoes an economic miracle in The '90s, becoming arguably (depending on how you count Singapore) the strongest economy in Southeast Asia.

Spratly Islands International Zone

• Benevolent A.I.: The SIIZ is overseen by a turingrade AI named MEADES, who ensures that all the nations of the South China Sea are able to ply its waters, utilize its resources and build lots of island casinos.
• The Neutral Zone: The Spratlys, long a hotbed of territorial disputes, have been completely demilitarized by 2150. It's administered by the UN.

Union of India

• Apocalypse How: A fairly severe Class 0 in the form of the Punjab War, a conflict between India and Pakistan in 2009 which results in a localized nuclear war. Millions are killed in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities, and widespread panic and environmental devastation ensue when one missile hits a glacier and irradiates the Ganges for a while.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Purple.
• Cyborg: Many Indians in the post-nuclear years chose to become cyborgs in hopes of being slightly more protected from radiation.
• Dramatic Irony: Ironically enough, the sudden drop in population actually improves India's overall standard of living in the long run - more younger people make it into positions of power and more resources are freed up, leading to an economic miracle in the 2020s.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After a senseless nuclear war with Pakistan followed by a decade of chaos, suffering, terrorism, dubiously-ethical medical experimentation on a desperate populace and Necessarily Evil governance, by 2022 things are finally starting to look up for India, thanks in no small part to the leadership of President Shah Rukh Khan.
  • Come E!2150, it's shown that not only did India bounce back in a big way, they rose to become a full-on global superpower, the only country on Earth to truly equal the USA. India in 2150 is a center for science and business as well as a cultural powerhouse, and they've annexed Bangladesh and part of Pakistan as autonomous regions.
• Meaningful Rename: The Punjab War forces the Indian government to make enormous reforms, decentralizing somewhat in order to avoid outright collapse. As such, the country's name is changed: rather than the Republic, it's now the Union of India.
• Multinational Team: The UN had a multinational peacekeeping force in Punjab, trying to establish a ceasefire.
• Necessarily Evil: The so-called "Worst Generation" of leaders who take charge of post-nuclear India are described as being this, and all too aware of it. They see themselves as having done what they had to do to keep India alive and unified. They did succeed, and India did survive, but at a high price.
• New Neo City: Mumbai is rebuilt and its name changed to New Mumbai after the war. It also becomes the capital of the Union of India.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In 2022, India's new president is none other than Shah Rukh Khan. He's proven to be exactly the kind of positive influence the country needs.
• South Asian Terrorists: One of India's many post-nuclear woes is rebellious Naxalites. The states, given more leeway under the new Union government, put down the revolts rather ruthlessly.
• Tarot Motifs: India is The Hanged Man. The Hanged Man represents circumstances beyond one's control, but it also represents patience, resilience of character and the clarity needed to choose a new path after breaking free. India certainly didn't start the war, nor did they choose much of the hardship that ensued afterwards, but they've managed to survive despite everything, and by the 2020s it's becoming clear that India's best days are still ahead.
  "All that remains is patience, until the Hanged Man is free once more."

Pakistan

• Apocalypse Cult: Post-nuclear Pakistan sees an upsurge in Islamic doomsday cults, but most of these die off within a few years on account of being Too Dumb to Live regarding radiation.
• Apocalypse How: Pakistan is if anything hit even harder than India - not only do the international peacekeeping forces destroy their military bases via Orbital Bombardment, but India launches a nuclear retaliatory strike shortly afterwards.
• Balkanize Me: Several parts of Pakistan break away in the post-nuclear chaos. By 2022, most have been reabsorbed - but not all.
• Bittersweet Ending: By 2150, Pakistan is no longer independent - it's been partitioned between Afghanistan and India - but it is at least at peace and presumably fairly prosperous. Furthermore, the war prompted the signing of a near-total nuclear disarmament treaty and the creation of an "Interstellar Ark" in Lunar orbit which is intended to take a crew from all nations to colonize Alpha Centauri.
• The Coup: Formerly-obscure Pakistani Army major Masoud Noorani seizes control of the Pakistani government in one during the war, and proceeds to take the war nuclear.
• Dead Guy on Display: A high-tech version of the trope is what ultimately happens to Noorani. He's captured by the UN peacekeepers, turned over to India, tried and executed. The video of the execution remains on the front page of the Indian government's website to this day.
• Failed State: Pakistan spends The New '10s in a state of considerable chaos, and is only just starting to pull itself back together as of 2022.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The picture of Masoud Noorani in the lore documents shows him with glasses, and he's a nihilistic, dictatorial and fanatically nationalist Politically Incorrect Villain who starts a nuclear war.
• General Ripper: Noorani started out as just a major, but after The Coup, he embodies the trope.
• He's Back!: It came as something of a surprise to the world when, in 2019, after ten years of civil war, the Pakistani provisional government in orbit succeeded in reunifying the country.
• Meaningful Rename: Pre-war, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Post-war, The Federation of Pakistani Republics.
• Meet the New Boss: Accurate or not, this was many Pakistanis' attitude towards the establishment of the FPR - they've gotten used to fending for themselves, and they're not convinced that the new government will be any less neglectful or that Pakistan even should be brought back.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Downplayed. After a taskforce of British, American and Soviet troops dubbed the "Midnight Raiders" by the media succeeds in raiding Noorani's bunker and capturing the dictator, the Raiders seem set for a Bolivian Army Ending against Noorani's bodyguards... but then said bodyguards, despite a huge numerical advantage, surrender on the spot. As soon as Noorani's gaze left them, they weren't afraid of him anymore and lost the will to fight.
• Nuke 'em: India and Pakistan go to war in 2009, and thanks to a coup launched by mentally unstable Pakistani Army officer Masoud Noorani, the war ends up going nuclear. Pakistani nukes destroy or badly damage several Indian cities and irradiate the Ganges River for a while, whilst Indian nuclear retaliation (as well as non-nuclear Orbital Bombardment by the international taskforce that was trying to ensure nukes wouldn't be used) leaves Pakistan devastated. Thankfully, the destruction is largely confined to the Indian subcontinent - though it still ends up having an effect on the rest of the world, via a "minor" nuclear winter and producing so many refugees they effectively form a new demographic, the so-called Pravasi ("migrants").
• The Remnant: Pakistan's orbital colonies, along with an area centered on the new capital at Multan, form a provisional government during the Failed State period. They eventualy manage to reunify most of the country. (Though not all - Kashmir is ceded to India, and Pashtunistan is still (barely) independent as of 2022.)
• Silly Reason for War: The Punjab War was started by a prank call to the Pakistani government Gone Horribly Wrong.
• South Asian Terrorists: Many of them of the apocalyptic Islamist variety. One group actually downed an Indian space station during the Punjab War, killing tens of thousands.
• Tarot Motifs: Pakistan is Death. When upright, Death represents new beginnings, change, transition and letting go. When reversed, it represents inability to move forward, repetition of negative patterns, dependency and resistance to change. Pakistan spent the 2010s seemingly trapped in a cycle of violence and suffering, but with the help of their orbital colonies, they gradually managed to lift themselves out of it. Now, Pakistan is trying to pull itself back together and move on. Time will tell whether it manages to take, though, and many Pakistanis, having learned the hard way how to manage by themselves, are unconvinced that Pakistan can, or even should, be resurrected.
  "Because sometimes dead is better."
• Voluntary Vassal: Indeed, by 2150, the Pakistanis seem to have decided that dead is better - Pakistan no longer exists except in orbit, with its Earthly territories peacefully partitioned between India and Afghanistan.

Bangladesh

• Bittersweet Ending: Bangladesh eventually does heal and is shown to be doing well for itself by 2150 - but it's as an autonomous region of India, not as a sovereign state.
• Civil War: A brief one ensued during the Punjab War, when a Pakistan-backed Islamist government took over and was promptly deposed by opposition forces and the Indian Army. In 2022, as the situation in the country deteriorates, another one is likely around the corner.
• Failed State: Well on its way to being one.
• Fantastic Caste System: Bangladesh develops one based around access to clean water. There's the rich and the politically influential, who can afford to get clean water via condensers that pull humidity from the air. Then, there's everyone else, who are stuck with the irradiated Ganges. Access to water amongst the lower class is often controlled by organized crime.
• Irony: The biggest loser of the Punjab War was a country that didn't get nuked.
• Nanomachines: One of the few upsides of what's happening in Bangladesh is that it's led to some real breakthroughs in the field of radiation-clearing nanotech. The "Barex filter," which uses nanotech to filter radioactive ions out of water, is being mass-produced and distributed across Bangladesh (and Pakistan, for that matter) by the Union of India. Its inventor, a Japanese scientist, made the technology public domain so anyone could use it and got a Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
• Polluted Wasteland: A downplayed, but nonetheless quite severe example. Thanks to a Pakistani nuclear missile that hit a glacier, the Ganges River became irradiated for several years, and as of 2022 its mouth - i.e. Bangladesh - still is. With access to water sketchy at best, Bangladesh is in dire straits.
• Tarot Motifs: Bangladesh is The Tower. The Tower is perhaps the most negative card, representing chaos, destruction, and loss, and sure enough, Bangladesh, despite not actually being nuked, is the biggest loser of the Punjab War. The Ganges is still partly irradiated at its mouth in Bangladesh, leading to horrific social stratification based around access to water. An Islamist coup, short-lived though its rule was, did not help matters, and civil war is believed to be just around the corner. While the ongoing crisis is at least helping to drive innovation in the field of radiation-clearing, it will get worse - much worse - before it gets better.
  "This is life in the shadow of The Tower."
• Voluntary Vassal: Like Pakistan, Bangladesh is part of India by 2150.

Sri Lanka

• Culture Chop Suey: For reasons explained below, Sri Lanka has developed something of a Japanophile streak - notably, it is the only country outside Japan with a Gyaru Girl subculture.
• Odd Friendship: Sri Lanka's best ally on the world stage is, of all countries, Japan. The reason for this is a real-life Heartwarming Moment: in 1951, during the talks for the Treaty of San Francisco that ended the post-WWII occupation of Japan, many delegations wanted harsher punishments for Japan, but opinions started to change thanks to a speech in Japan's defense by the finance minister of Sri Lanka, then still British Ceylon. Japan and Sri Lanka have been friends ever since.
  • Androcles' Lion: Come the Space Boom, this alliance pays big dividends for Sri Lanka in the form of investment from the Japanese space industry.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: Averted Trope. The Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka really is a democratic republic.
• Prevent the War: The Sri Lankan Civil War is averted by timely political reforms.
• Scienceville: Several research parks, such as Colombo Science City and Kaduwela Research City, are built in Sri Lanka with Japanese investment.
• Tarot Motifs: Sri Lanka is The Sun. The Sun represents material happiness and contentment, and so Sri Lanka, largely insulated from events on the mainland, has managed to do rather well for itself. Sri Lanka had already been on good terms with Japan since even before the Point of Divergence (long story), and they thus benefitted from OVRHVN's Japan being even stronger economically than OTL. Political reforms to rectify anti-Tamil discrimination averted the Sri Lankan Civil War, and after the Punjab War, a great deal of investment and outsourcing that was previously geared at India instead went to Sri Lanka. Today, while India still has the greater GDP, Sri Lanka has the highest standard of living and the healthiest democracy in the subcontinent. All things considered, Sri Lanka's sun seems to be on the rise.

Nepal

• Tarot Motifs: Nepal is The Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune represents cyclical change, the inevitability of ups and downs, and the turning of karma with both its disorder and its opportunity. Nepal manages to avoid some of the worse events that befell it OTL - Prince Dipendra never murders his family like he did in our timeline, instead renouncing his claim to the throne to marry an Indian noblewoman, with whom he moves to Mars. Nepal is able to remain a monarchy and adopt a formal constitution, and this helps them weather the worst of the Punjab War and its aftermath. The Himalayas shield Nepal from the worst of the fallout, and the main issue for Nepal in the 2010s is a relatively minor refugee crisis. That, and the thorny issue of genetically-engineered human-chimpanzee hybrids, one of whom fights crime on the streets of Kathmandu for a time. However, Nepal does still have its fair share of troubles - they're not exactly an ideal democracy, and the Nepalese Civil War still happened from 1996 to 2006. Nepal's had its fair share of ups and downs, but they're in a good position to move forward.

Bhutan

• No Transhumanism Allowed: Even in 2150, the staunchly conservative and monastically Buddhist government of Bhutan won't allow so much as a GMO crop within their borders.
• Tarot Motifs: Bhutan, perhaps inevitably, is The Hermit. The Hermit represents wisdom, introspection and solitude. Isolated as it is, Bhutan managed to more or less completely dodge the war. They controversially kept their borders closed during the ensuing refugee crisis. Even in 2022, Bhutan's only meaningful interaction with the outside world is as the sole supplier of a rare strain of fungus that's useful in certain cancer treatments.

Afghanistan

• The Good Kingdom: Afghanistan develops into a successful and stable constitutional monarchy by 2022.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Afghanistan never gets invaded by the Soviet Union and never falls to Islamism. They thus grow into a healthy and prosperous nation by 2022.
• Tarot Motifs: Afghanistan is Temperance. Temperance represents balance, harmony and prudence. The Soviet Union, preoccupied as it was with Venus, never invaded Afghanistan ITTL. Thus, with the help of Iran, the Afghan monarchy is restored. The Islamists are eventually fought off, and rather than commit to Iran, Pakistan or the USSR over the others, Afghanistan settles into a comfortable neutrality. They fight in a minor capacity against Pakistan in the Punjab War anyway, even setting up a client state in the form of Pashtunistan. Afghanistan has been actively modernizing, welcoming outside culture and building up their own. The mullahs grumble, but hardly anyone's listening.
• Team Switzerland: Downplayed. Afghanistan settles into the role of what Ryzov calls "the happy neutral" - not necessarily on anyone's side, but happy to accept everyone's investment for their own benefit.

Pashtunistan

• The Apunkalypse: A trope which, alongside Apocalypse Anarchy, became a Discredited Trope In-Universe following the Punjab War... which makes it all the more ironic that Pashtunistan pretty much plays it straight.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Pashtuns are described like this. This makes the unlimited right to bear arms in Pashtunistan's constitution both understandable and a very bad thing.
• Puppet State: The main vector for Afghan influence in former Pakistan. The E!2150 map reveals that Afghanistan eventually went ahead and annexed the region.
• Tarot Motifs: Pashtunistan is The Fool. The Fool represents new beginnings, beginner's luck, and putting one's faith in the absurd. Only partially recognized by the rest of the world, Pashtunistan was carved out of northern Pakistan by Pashtun separatists backed by the Royal Afghan Army towards the end of the Punjab War. The country's constitution includes an explicitly unlimited right to bear arms, encouraging the Pashtuns to use military-grade weapons for the sake of settling vendettas and feuds. With nearly all the "country"'s elder statesmen having been killed by the fallout from nuked Islamabad, the area is in a state of Apocalypse Anarchy, save for the capital of Peshawar, where organized vigilante groups (possibly backed by Pakistan and India) are actively working to establish some semblance of law and sanity.
• Vigilante Man: Peshawar is home to many of these types, and they're the closest thing the ostensible Pashtun capital has to law and order. Pakistan and India may or may not be funding them.

Myanmar/Burma

• Civil War: Myanmar's been in one, between the Bamar-run government and the ethnic minorities in the outer parts of the country, since 1948.
• Meaningful Rename: Evidently the junta falls at some point, because by 2150 Myanmar's gone back to being called Burma.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: E!22 gives the Republic of the Union of Myanmar a Democracy Index ranking on par with Nejd.
• Playing Both Sides: China is doing this to the Burmese Civil War.
• Tarot Motifs: Myanmar is The Devil. The Devil represents selfish impulses, ambition, taboo and The Dark Side. As in OTL, Myanmar is engaged in a long-running civil war between the Bamar ethnic majority and the various minorities they discriminate against, and the Punjab War hasn't helped one bit. Buddhist militants have gained significant influence, there's a massive refugee/immigration crisis along the border with India, the country's human rights record is atrocious and it's an Open Secret that China is Playing Both Sides of the whole thing.
• Wretched Hive: Described as a "human rights black hole."

UN Trust Territory of Rakhine

• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: More or less the rationale Ryzov gives for why the UN set up a trust territory in Rakhine.
  "It seemed like the right thing to do. It probably was, and still is. But your best intentions can turn into your worst nightmare, and all it takes is poor execution of a good idea."
• The Neutral Zone: Established by the UN as a safe haven for refugees, particularly the oppressed Rohingya minority.
• Tarot Motifs: The UN Trust Territory of Rakhine is The World. The World represents wholeness, the big picture, emigration, assured success, and the end of a cycle about to start anew. The United Nations has set up a trust territory in a particularly chaotic region near the Myanmar/India border in the hopes of protecting the Rohingya and other persecuted minorities and refugees from genocide. Unfortunately, incompetent and corrupt governance has led to massive slums, human trafficking scandals and cholera outbreaks, among other troubles. In spite of this, it remains the best hope for many in it, and the "Rakhine Mandate" actually is succeeding in some of its goals: the refugees there remain reliably fed, effective vaccination regimens made the disease outbreaks much less severe than they could've been and many refugees are successfully moving out to safer countries such as Indonesia, Australia or the USA.
• Wretched Hive: Seeing as it's basically one giant refugee camp, conditions aren't great in Maungdaw - but they're very slowly getting better.

Australia & The Pacific

Australia

• A Day in the Limelight: Australia was one of two nations, the other being America, that got their own maps as part of the leadup to E!22.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Light green.
• Cult: There's UFO cults with compounds out in the Outback - thankfully they tend to keep to themselves. Aum Shinrikyo, who never committed their infamous sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway ITTL, is one of them.
• Cyborg: Perth developed a big cyborg scene in the 2000s and robotics is still a large part of the local culture.
• Emperor Scientist: A democratic variation - in 2022, the party in charge in Canberra is the Science Party, an outgrowth of Labor who are described as "techno-progressive."
• Fossil Revival: Thylacines have been brought back to Tasmania and are thriving there. Similar projects later resurrect various Australian megafauna.
• The Good Kingdom: In the course of the collapse of the British monarchy, one branch of the Windsors winds up reigning (though, of course, not ruling) in Australia, and stays there.
• Goth: Melbourne is the origin point of the Kara, a subculture of libertarian bio-hacker matriarchal spider-goths who are gene-modding themselves into Multi-Armed and Dangerous spider-people. They eventually start unnerving enough people in Australia that they move to Mars, where their talents (and fondness for bugs) are more appreciated.
• Insistent Terminology: Australia had nuclear bombs for a few decades starting in The '80s, but since the bombs were meant exclusively for their Orion Drive program, the government insisted on calling them "peaceful nuclear explosives." This was a topic of political humor for quite some time.
• Land Down Under: Averted - Australia is portrayed very realistically.
• Mundane Utility: Australia once used an American nuclear bomb to create a sizable crater on the western coast of the country, purely because they wanted a new deep-water harbor. Said harbor, Cape Keraudren, is now home to a thriving town of over 100,000 people who embrace the "nuclear" aesthetic with things like Mad Max cosplay festivals, even though the radiation's been at safe levels since the town was founded.
• New Neo City: Rabaul was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1994 and rebuilt as high-tech, geothermal-powered New Rabaul.
• Regional Redecoration: Lake Eyre has gotten a lot bigger by 2150.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Mel Gibson was Prime Minister of Australia from 2005 to 2010.
  • Another previous Aussie PM was Joh Bjelke-Petersen, in OTL a long-serving premier of Queensland, who ITTL made the jump from state to federal politics and had a successful tenure as leader of Australia.
• Scienceville: The Australian government sponsors the creation of these in an effort to compete with East Asia, resulting in places like Melbourne's "Genome Valley" (a major biotech hub which is where the Kara got their start), Solar City (a "city of the future" which eventually completely overtakes Alice Springs) and Silicon Polis (Australia's biggest center for robotics and cybernetics).
• Solar Punk: Australia gets its power from wind and solar, of which there's no shortage in the Outback.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Steve Irwin is still alive as of 2022 ITTL. He livestreams, continues his environmentalist work, narrates nature documentaries and has apparently been knighted at some point. He was the guest of honor when the Sydney Aquarium unveiled an exhibit of alien sea life brought back from Europa, and he even got to jump in and swim with the aliens. (He would've gone to Europa to see them in their natural habitat, but a trip that long was too much even for him.)
  • It's briefly implied at one point that Harold Holt may not have drowned ITTL.
  • East Timor was never occupied by Indonesia, and they decided to join Australia as a state, which has worked out quite well for them. Papua (both halves) has done likewise, which has similarly paid off.
• Took a Level in Badass: Australia benefitted hugely from the Space Boom. They've also grown in size, annexing East Timor and all of Papua, and Aussie culture is something that carries rather more influence in the rest of the world - and which Aussies themselves are less likely to cringe at.
  • By 2150, Australia remains quite powerful, even having two space elevators.
• War Refugees: There's an estimated five million Pravasi in Australia in 2022.

New Zealand/Aotearoa

• Fossil Revival: A New Zealander company has resurrected the moa. There's now a few hundred of the birds, some of which have even been provided to zoos.
• Killer Robot: Though designed to kill rodents, not people. The New Zealand government is concerned about protecting the flightless bird population from predators, you see.
• Meaningful Rename: When the British monarchy collapses, New Zealand wants to keep having a monarch, so they install Prince William and change their name to the Kingdom of Aotearoa. (Aotearoa being the Maori name for the islands.)
• Solar Punk: Tokelau, one of New Zealand's semi-independent "external territories," was the first country in the world to become completely solar-powered.
• Robot Dog: They've got them, and they use them to herd the genetically-modified sheep.

American Pacific Islands

• Animal Motifs: Kingman Reef, population 13,830, has adopted the shark as theirs. The atoll is full of kitschy shark-themed souvenir shops and the flag has a shark on it.
• Cyborg: Because of how many American Samoans serve in the US military, fully 20% of the territory's population are cyborgs of some description. It's in their veterans' benefits.
• Voluntary Vassal: Micronesia voted to become a US state in 1994. Guam and the Northern Marianas joined together to do likewise, becoming the state of Mariana. The trope was averted by American Samoa, which stayed a territory and eventually left to join independent Samoa.
• Wandering Culture: A small example. Hundreds of Samoans in 2022 find work as EVA techs, living nomadic lives in one-man pods orbiting Earth as they travel from station to station, doing odd jobs and fixing things. They periodically return to the islands to rest, visit family and swap stories.

Solomon Islands

• Mysterious Employer: The Solomon Islands Space Agency (despite the name, a private organization) is perhaps the most secretive player in the space industry. No one knows who's funding them, but they must have enough money to keep shipping things out to the remote islands and building launch infrastructure there. Their astronauts may or may not be teenage girls, and their payloads (which are extremely secret) are launched to the Outer Solar System. What happens to them when they get there is a mystery.

Nauru/Neo-Nauru

• New Neo City: "Old Nauru" is the island, which joins Australia in the mid-21st century. Neo-Nauru is the artificial island to its north.
• Space Elevator: Neo-Nauru is one.
• Terminally Dependent Society: Once the phosphate mines ran dry, the space industry (specifically Neo-Nauru) became Nauru's only real source of revenue.

Vanuatu

• Cargo Cult: Vanuatu has its own little slice of the Space Boom, in the form of the waters near the island being where a lot of capsules containing asteroid ores and other space-made goods are dropped down to Earth from orbit. The Ni-Vanuatu are fascinated with space as a result, to the point where some of their famous cargo cults have switched up their aesthetic to match, complete with mock launchpads and cardboard space helmets.

Fiji

• Spared by the Adaptation: Fiji didn't have nearly as many coups or as much in the way of ethnic tensions as OTL. In 2022, they've gotten quite rich thanks to the rocket-manufacturing industry.

Kiribati

• City on the Water: With climate change threatening the low-lying islands, the I-Kiribati are considering turning the whole country into seasteads. By 2150, not only have they done so, the country's population is running at about 45% aquamorph.

Eurofed Polynesia

• City on the Water: Tahiti, thanks to investment from Europe, is home to a number of seasteads, plus some fine examples of the Underwater City.

Pitcairn Island

• Psychic Powers: After the original population died out of natural causes, the island became home to a colony of espers, who appreciate its remoteness - nice and quiet for a telepath.

Antarctica

South Pole Neutral Zone/Antarctic Federation

• Arcology: Antarctic "cities" have to be arcologies, for obvious reasons. The people who live there often find themselves relating more to the offworld colonies than to the rest of Earth.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Antarctic Federation is grey.
• Emperor Scientist: A technocracy, where the most qualified scientists run the show.
• The Federation: In 2099, when the treaty system that created the SPNZ and made the national territories on the continent semi-independent finally expires, the SPNZ and the territories all unite, forming the Antarctic Federation, a technocratic republic which controls the whole continent.
• Mysterious Antarctica: Antarcticans love scary stories. There's no shortage of weird rumors about what's going on in the frozen wastes of the continent.
• The Neutral Zone: The South Pole, and Amundsen-Scott City upon it, was made one in 1999. In practice, the SPNZ is an independent country, complete with a seat at the UN.
• Scienceville: There's all kinds of strange and cutting-edge research going on in Antarctica.

The Seas & The Skies

Principality of Cloud 9/United Principalities of Cloud 9

• Actual Pacifist: A mile-wide flying sphere hovering a few thousand feet off the ground can't really not be ominous, so Cloud 9 takes pains to head off comparisons to the Death Star. They avoid flying over major cities, they have no military and no weapons above the level of tasers and truncheons are allowed on board.
• Anachronism Stew: The architectural and fashion styles of Cloud 9 are a bizarre mix of 80s/90s modernist and 1800s baroque and neoclassical. Of note is that the former was fast becoming Zeerust from the start - Cloud 9 was launched in 2007.
• Eccentric Millionaire: Kenji Oka, the Japanese mogul who commissioned Cloud 9, rules it as a self-styled Prince and insists upon an absurd 1800s-esque dress code for his functionaries and agents on the city.
• Floating Continent: An artificial example. Cloud 9 is a mile-wide geodesic sphere made of steel, aluminum and graphene which flies around like a hot air balloon and is home to over 67,000 people.
• Merchant City: Cloud 9 is very libertarian. It attracts artists and entrepreneurs from all over the world and does a brisk business as a mobile tourist destination, trading wherever it flies... though many of its startups are infamous for their In-Universe Vaporware.
• Mobile City: Cloud 9 and its fellow "aerospheres" never touch the ground, constantly flying all over Earth.
• Took a Level in Badass: E!22 made the Principality out to be somewhat ridiculous and noted that very few countries actually recognized its independence. E!2150 shows that the concept on which Cloud 9 is based eventually caught on, and that Cloud 9 itself evolved into the United Principalities of Cloud 9, consisting of nine aerospheres - Cloud 9, Magonia, Talaria, Sylphia, Daedalus, Pegasus, Caelus, Aether and St. Germain.

Free Republic of Atlantis

• Atlantis: Not really, but they are located about where it's usually said to be, so they went with the obvious name.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Cyan.
• Eccentric Millionaire: Founded by a consortium of them in 1997.
• Merchant City: While not outright Objectivist like Rapture (to which Ryzov frequently makes reference when discussing Atlantis), Atlantis is still quite libertarian and prides itself on free trade and minimal taxes.
• The Republic: One of the first electronic democracies.
• Team Switzerland: Given the fraught relationship between America and Eurofed in the post-NATO era, Atlantis, situated in between the two, has been very careful to remain strictly neutral.
• Underwater City: Consists primarily of these. By 2150, seasteads are also well-represented.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Quite a bit, actually, in the Atlanteans' opinion. Their 2025 Declaration of Sophont Rights made them the first country to grant equal rights to Uplifted Animals and other zoans. In 2150, Atlantis is one of the only Earth-bound states that's on good terms with ArkGenesis, seeing as they're home to a large population of sea-creature zoans who couldn't make the trip to orbit for obvious logistical reasons.

Freedom Ship

• Cool Boat: At 1800 meters long, Freedom Ship is the largest ship in the world at its construction in 2005 and it's still the largest ship in the world in 2150. It's a self-contained city of 80,000, large and sophisticated enough to require its own onboard rapid transit system.
• Little Bit Beastly: Freedom Ship's biotech regulations are all but nonexistent, resulting in a noteworthy (and surprisingly well-treated) chimera population even in 2022.
• Merchant City: Even more libertarian than Atlantis. They've actually carved out their own niche in the economies of the ports they visit.
• Mobile City: Freedom Ship is constantly circumnavigating the world.
• Spaceship Girl: By 2150, Freedom Ship is run by a distributed AI known as Liberty, whose avatar takes the form of an attractive Animesque woman. She handles virtually everything regarding the day-to-day running of the ship and acts as its de facto government.

Lemuria

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Virtually all Lemurians are aquamorphs and most of them have gray-blue to blue-green skin.
• City on the Water: Built in a shallow area atop a sandbank, Lemuria is the Indian Ocean's counterpart to Atlantis.
• Organic Technology: Their specialty is "biorock," a method of accreting minerals from seawater into coral-like structures. Lemurian cities aren't built - they're grown.

Neo-Maldives

• City on the Water: Consists primarily of these, with most of them also being arcologies.
• New Neo City: The Maldives were mostly flooded by rising sea levels, so they adapted and rebranded.
• Space Elevator: Has one, called Great Palm, which is the source of most of the country's revenue.

The Deepers

• Hidden Elf Village: Doesn't get much more hidden than a society of pressure-adapted aquamorphs at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Firm believers in this, though the setting itself seems to disagree. The Deepers want nothing to do with the surface world, which they believe is inevitably devolving into a wasteland of bigotry and environmental collapse. Their stated goal is to outlast it and inherit the earth.

Ocean Spiral

• City on the Water: The timeline's most successful example, an independent state with a population of 18 million by 2150. It's also partly an Underwater City.
• Human Subspecies: By 2150, the population is almost all aquamorphs.
• MegaCorp: Built by Shimizu.
• Star Scraper: An Underwater City example, oddly enough. Ocean Spiral extends three kilometers below the surface, all the way down to the Pacific seafloor.
• Took a Level in Badass: In E!22, Ocean Spiral is prospering, with a population of 455,000, but it's also still part of Japan and it's just the one megastructure. In E!2150, it's de facto independent, the population is 40 times larger and it consists of nine megastructures, the eight new ones having been built in the image of the original.

Green Island/Green Islands

• City on the Water: Designed to look like an enormous lilypad floating on the Pacific Ocean.
• MegaCorp: Another Shimizu megaproject.
• Solar Punk: An Invoked Trope on their part.
• Star Scraper: Every island has a kilometer-tall tower shaped like a funnel at its center, which contains all the (hydroponic) farms. The administrative district is at the top.
• Took a Level in Badass: From one island in 2022, to a whole archipelago in 2150, complete with their own Space Elevator.

Lomonosov Project

• Arcology: Completely self-contained and self-sufficient.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In their infobox on the E!22 map, the Lomonosov Project's list of dislikes is given as "world-ending meteors, NCOV-19, alien invaders, nuclear war, leaky pipes."
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Black.
• Crazy-Prepared: To quote E!22:
  "Alien invasion? Killer comets? Nukes? Bring it on."
• Crazy Survivalist: How the rest of the world sees them, but on the other hand...
• Fictional Currency: They've got their own internal currency, which they call the omega.
• Hidden Elf Village: The 30,000 inhabitants of the project plan to ride out any potential apocalypse on the Arctic seafloor. Until that day comes, they'd rather be left alone.
• Properly Paranoid: ...come Hell Day, all those years of doomsday prepping paid off in a big way.
• Underwater City: Beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean, no less.

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