Video Game / Extremis Ultimis

The Death of Democracy

The year is 2023. Ever since the fallout of the 2008 recession, the world has been headed off a cliff. The EU is hampered by political infighting and the after-effects of Brexit. The UK has burned through multiple Prime Ministers as conditions get worse and worse. Putin’s Russia prepares a revanchist crusade into Eastern Europe. China schemes to become the new global hegemony, while its economy threatens to fall apart. And the US, in a downward spiral ever since 9/11, is wracked by political polarization that nobody, especially not President Tulsi Gabbard, can seem to fix.

Wait, what?

Extremis Ultimis is a mod for Hearts of Iron IV in which imagines a alternate timeline modern day scenario in which almost every event after World War II goes horribly wrong. Failure of establishment politics worldwide and country-wide disasters causes massive disillusionment of the people worldwide, and in turn they look towards ideological radicalism any way they can to change their current politics for better or for worse.

The mod is still currently a demo where you can find their subreddit page and discord server from these links here. Subreddit Page and Discord Server.

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This Game Mod provides examples of:

• Alien Space Bats: Gleefully employed. Most notably, the SDI program panned out in EU, leading to MAD being replaced with extensive use of tactical nuclear weapons. And that's even before getting into the "Extrahistorical Forces", essentially future timelines manipulating past events to ensure their own existence comes to fruition.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Among the National Totalitarian and Annihilationist sub-ideologies, Left Managerialism and Monumentalism wish to use democratic processes to carry out their otherwise extreme agendas. This has led to them being mocked as "naive" and "utopian" by their more extremist counterparts, but some sympathies from otherwise moderate people who've grown disillusioned with mainstream politics.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Besides the very obvious Nazis and fascists in Ethnic Nationalism, the three Extremis Ultimis-specific ideologies all have at least some sub-ideologies with more than a few elements related to Nazism and fascism;
  • For National Totalitarianism, sub-ideologies to its far-right have open roots with fascistic ideologies - most notably, "Neoreaction" (created by Curtis Yarvin, and heavily based on the "Dark Enlightenment" movement he founded IRL) explicitly says society should be ruled by a Trichotomy of Ethnic Nationalists, Anarcho-Capitalists and Theocrats, and Totalitarian Monarchism also borrows elements from Neo-Fascism (specifically Bruce Roberts promoting the suppposed exceptionalism of the British people).
  • For Annihilationism, the founding sub-ideology of Radical Greenism is explicitly stated to have been a right-wing split from moderate-left environmentalists, and proposes Population Control measures in reaction to supposed "overbreeding" of foreigners or the domestic poor. Neo-Luddism follows the eugenecist through-line by advocating for the culling of queer people, disabled people and "politically correct types", Neo-Darwinism follows it even further by stating that humanity can only be saved from "degeneracy" by having the "strong" conquer and brutalize the "weak", and Nuclearism is a far-right variant of Posadism, which advocates for a global nuclear war to have an ultra-Spartanist society of hierarchy and Social Darwinism to thrive in the post-nuclear apocalypse.
  • For National-Separatism, the most explicitly fascist-coded sub-ideology within it is National Anarchism, formed by the far-right Troy Southgate, which seeks to keep the concepts of nation and race at the core of an otherwise stateless society.
• Apocalyptic Log: The random events that fire during the American collapse. Showing such lovely things as riots breaking out over food, water treatment facilities failing, and entire neighborhoods freezing to death due to power grid failure.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Under Haddock's Republican Union of America, he creates a "Republican" order by establishing a 1984-style regime as an absolute dictatorship where nothing escapes his watch.
• Bigfoot Sasquatchand Yeti: In occult mode, the CSA can prove their existence via rare event.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Downplayed and Zig-Zagged. The Lion of Socialism, his Lion Rebellion, and to a lesser extent the other anarchists of the American Collapse do end up committing questionable acts and are willing to commit to bloody warfare to unite the Former United States, but they can make their dream Anarchist Free Territory free from state oppression with completely worker-owned industries. That is, if the Military Committee doesn't gain enough influence to sway the Lion of Socialism away from turning the Free Territory into a stateless bandit junta.
• Butterfly of Doom: The first divergence in the Extremis Ultimis timeline is George Orwell being mortally wounded during the Spanish Civil War, and only being able to sketch out the worldbuilding notes to Nineteen Eighty-Four before dying. While initially minor, the near-miss of the USSR launching an ultimately thwarted nuclear strike would later lead to B. F. Skinner forming the basis of the "National Totalitarian" ideology by combining Orwell's notes with his own theories of "Radical Behaviorism", which would ultimately lead to some of the most openly dystopian ideologies in human history being theorized, and now set to be enacted in the wake of the American Collapse...
• Capitalism Is Bad: One of the core conceits of the mod was how the 2008 Recession, due to several factors making it worse than OTL, ultimately became a 21st century Great Depression. This has resulted in many of the radical factions rising to power by drawing in those ruined by the economic downturn, laying the blame at the feet of the corporations who they claim held more power over the state than the supposedly elected government.
• Civil War: Multiple instances.
  • Yemen, Libya, and Central Africa at the start of the game.
  • Eventually United States will break apart into warlords vying for control.
  • Russia, China and Ukraine will all break apart after giant individual disasters that turn their countries upside down.
• Commie Land:
  • China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos all still are ruled under Marxist-Leninist type of regimes as in OTL. Kampuchea also stays under Communist rule instead of turning back into a Constitutional Monarchy.
  • IOTL, Slovakia had a Hardline Stalinist coup as Soviet Order collapsed — similar to the 1991 Soviet Coup — which, IOTL, failed. In this timeline in Slovakia it seems to have succeeded instead..
  • Colombia, rather than Venezuela, is a Bolivarian Republic.
  • The newly formed Free Union of America ruling the Pacific Coast under a Marxist-Leninist regime.
• Commie Nazis: Besides various Ethnic Nationalist leaders and even sub-ideologies occasionally drawing upon leftist policies and symbolism (and vice-versa with ostensibly socialist nations and sub-ideologies having nationalistic or even supremacist overtones), the "National Totalitarianism" Ideology usually promotes a blend of authoritarian left and authoritarian right political practices. The "Parasocialism" and "Ultra-Maoism" subideologies best exemplify this fusion, as both have been disavowed by mainstream Marxists and socialists as simply being fascists who've deluded themselves into thinking themselves socialists.
• Crapsack World: The 2008 recession was a 21st century version of the Great Depression. Environmental damage is even worse. The Overton window is broken beyond repair. The world of Extremis Ultimis is one hell of a crap sack. But the player can still improve things.
• Darker and Edgier: The very essence of the mod. The world of Extremis Ultimis is one of decay, disorder, and madness.
• Democracy Is Bad: One of the main ideas brought up in the mod. Many of the tragedies and disasters that occurred throughout the Cold War and after it are attributed to Democratic regimes. Whether they directly caused them or not is unimportant for those who have suffered under crisis after crisis. Anything that goes against the status-quo of Democracy is embraced by anyone who despises the system ranging Totalitarians to Anarchists.
• Divided States of America: America ends up collapsing into over 30 warlords due to decades of American atrocities and incompetence from the Federal Government. These warlords vie for power by going to war against each other to unite America or simply attempt to keep their small territory independent.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: The "National Totalitarianism" Ideology, which fuses elements of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and several radical political theorists, such as B. F. Skinner (who forms the original "Totalitarianism" subideology based on his "Radical Behaviorism" philosophy), Curtis Yarvin's "Neoreaction", and Nick Land's "Accelerationism". The commonalities between the NatTot Subideologies is having a hyper-authoritarian state to control the masses, ostensibly to prevent humanity from destroying itself through "misguided" faith in democratic government.
• Eco-Terrorist: What a great majority of the "Annihilationist" subideologies have some crossover with, with the original subideology of "Radical Greenism" being based on the writings of Paul R. Ehrlich, and especially his 1968 book The Population Bomb. Other subideologies include Neo-Luddism, which is directly inspired by The Unabomber's writings.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Extrahistorical Forces, which are potential future timelines that subtly manipulate the world in attempts to bring themselves into existence. The player is one of these.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Quite literally anyone who follows any authoritarian ideology up to and including National Totalitarianism when faced against the Annihilationists. One seeks to take power, the other (in most cases) seeks the extinction of humanity.
• The Klan: Literally, as they rebel against the Confederate States due to their support for liberal democracy looking for a white supremacist ethnostate looking towards making Blacks and other minorities second-class citizens or even slaves.
• A Nuclear Error: Both the mod and its lore contain multiple examples of this trope.
  • Gen. Douglas Macarthur deploys nuclear weapons during the Korean War without prior authorization, resulting in the wider use of tactical nuclear weaponry in warfare.
  • In 1983, the USSR accidentally launches a nuclear counter strike after Stanislav Petrov relays faulty information to his superiors. Before the mistake is realized, 6 missiles are in the air...which are shot down by the USA's SDI systems, narrowly averting a nuclear holocaust. This incident did spark 'World War Three', a wet fart of a conflict consisting of clashes along the East/West German border that petered out into a white peace.
• Magical Realism: In Occult Mode (which is the canon mode). Supernatural events occur, but take a back seat to the grounded reality of industrial warfare.
• No True Scotsman: Quite a sub-ideologies have been denounced by the broader ideologies they draw inspiration from, which becomes more sharply pronounced in the more extremist ideologies. For some particular examples;
  • Anarcho-Capitalism, Anarcho-Monarchism, and National Anarchism are all classified as National Separatists due to the broader Anarchist movement denouncing their upholding of hierarchical concepts of capitalism, nobility and nationality/race.
  • Posadism is the only Annihilationist movement rooted in socialism instead of environmentalism, but is effectively exiled from properly socialist ideologies due to calling for the world to be destroyed in a nuclear war.
  • Left Managerialism and Monumentalism are widely mocked by the broader National Totalitarian and Annihilationist movements they hail from, due to their promotion of democratic consensus in their otherwise extreme policies causing more hardline sub-ideologies to dismiss them as naively utopian.
  • Catastrophism is denounced by the vast majority of Annihilationists, as it wants to make climate change WORSE so that the planet can wipe humanity out with natural disasters (compared to most Annihilationists wanting to impose Population Control to PREVENT an ecological collapse).
  • Increasingly extreme National Totalitarian sub-ideologies have a habit of being denounced by their direct influences for going overboard in terms of extreme authoritarianism, even if they're supposedly fellow NatTots; Curtis Yarvin's "Neoreaction" is denounced by the Left Managerialists for removing the democratic concessions they've put into their system, Michael Koch's "Parasocialism" is denounced by mainstream Marxists and socialists as deluded fascists believing themselves to be socialists, "Anarcho-Totalitarianism" is denounced by the Parasocialist Koch and National Anarchist Troy Southgate as being too extreme while fusing both of their respective ideologies, and "Haddockism" is denounced by Nick Land despite borrowing elements from his ideas of Accelerationism, with Land outright telling Haddock he should "should commit ego death himself".
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Nuclearists, a sub-ideology of Annihilationism, have the main goal of developing enough nuclear weapons to eventually launch them and cause the extinction of Humanity. The economic law "The Final War" can only be accessed by either them or another Annihilationist and, contrary to the other economic laws, only says "This is the final war of humanity"
  • The Annihilationist ideology is broadly this, to varying degrees between its subideologies. Some of those subideologies (such as "Radical Greenism", "Anarcho-Primitivism", and "Neo-Luddism") "just" want to reduce humanity down to "manageable numbers", or perhaps impose an upper limit to its technology and industrialization, to prevent an Overpopulation Crisis-induced ecological collapse. Others like "Rapturism" want to bring about a religious doomsday, and "Catastrophism" actively wants to make global warming even worse so that nature can destroy humanity in 'revenge'.
• Post-Peak Oil: Happened in 2018.
• Poe's Law: Eric Blair died before finishing 1984, leaving a half-finished manuscript that’s more a collection of worldbuilding notes than a narrative. After it was rediscovered in the early 80s, several academics (notably B.F Skinner and James Burnham) began formulating the ideology of National Totalitarianism based on its contents.
• Power Armor: An entire tech tree for it!
• President Evil: In the backstory, Dick Cheney was this, by subtly aiding the 9/11 Attacks so that President George W. Bush dies in the Twin Towers attack, and then making the War On Terror a nakedly exploitative War for Fun and Profit, without even the pretense of "winning hearts and minds". He then tried to have the various whistle-blowers about the realities of the war assassinated, before ultimately still being impeached by Congress for hundreds of war crimes.
• Take a Third Option: The one commonality between the National Seperatist sub-ideologies is that they all have ideas to separate the concepts of nation from the state, and otherwise don't fit into the other ideological groups.
• The Social Darwinist: Followers of Neo-Darwinism, a subideology of Annihilationism, believe that the human species has become overpopulated, with the only solution being to bring humanity back to a preindustrial state where the law of natural selection rules and the weak are expected to die.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Having an entire ideology under "Ethnic Nationalism" - and among the many bizarre and horrific warlords rising up around the world, Nazis, such as the terrorist Atomwaffen Division, are few but eclectic.
• Ultraterrestrials: In occult mode. They're entities from a parallel dimension that overlaps with our own, and occasionally enter our universe by taking on the form of whatever supernatural beings are in the local culture (such as fairies, angels, or aliens).