"Theocracy: Empires of Abomination"
is the latestnote addition to the already long list of dystopic timelines featured on AlternateHistory.com.
The premise of Theocracy is that in 2013, the Old Gods worshipped by mankind return... but humanity discovers (to its horror) that the "Old Gods" are in fact Eldritch Abominations hell-bent on enslaving, brutalising, and generally making life miserable for their human subjects. The humans fight back valiantly, but by 2056, most of the Earth is under control of the Old Gods, who turn their domains into horrifying Crapsack Worlds.
This work features examples of:
- The Alliance: The United Nations of Christendom. Also doubles as the Church Militant.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Odin turns his slice of Northern Europe into this.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: On one side we've got the United Nations of Christendom, who are generally authoritarian, have cults of personality around their leaders, and are disapproving of other religions... But on the other we have the abominations, who are petty dictators at best, but usually treat their subjects as disposable resources, and can cannibalize, murder or otherwise inflict campaigns of terror on them for the slightest provocation. Case in point: Odin sends a special forces team to kick down the door of a man who was late to work.
- Cosmic Horror Story: A rather straight example.
- Crapsack World: While most of the areas still controlled by humans aren't awful, pretty much anywhere under the thumb of an abomination is hell on Earth. Being assigned to the frontlines between fiefdoms is considered on par with a death sentence.
- Crossover Cosmology: Natch.
- Dark Is Evil: Odin. And the... thing... in Peshawar.
- Deal with the Devil: The African Union is more willing to make alliances of convenience with the less evil abominations, and is disliked because of this by the UNC.
- Eldritch Abomination: All of the Old Gods are this, but special mention goes to Czernobog, who appears as a "vast lake of necrotic flesh". The Abrahamic God is also implied to be something truly Lovecraftian.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: For a certain measure of good, anyway. A man living in Midgard becomes aware of the mind-searingly powerful Abrahamic God, so he attempts to perform a sacrifice to win favor, the way he might with an abomination. To his horror, he realizes the Abrahamic God doesn't care about such rituals.
- God Needs Prayer Badly: Gods need their followers' devotion to wield power. In fact, they returned because they were starving to death from a lack of worship.
- Tengrii in particular was summoned directly by the prayers of Mongolian Soldiers before a battle with a different abomination. Interestingly, Tengrii is among the most benevolent and hands-off of the abominations. note
- Knight Templar: To varying degrees across the UNC. Americans tend to be more secular, satisfied with a few "God bless America"s while the Anglican British frequently use hymns and prayers in their communications. Some of the servants of the abominations can be monomaniacally fanatical as well.
- Light Is Not Good: Zeus all the way. A sometimes-humanoid, sometimes-avian, sometimes-insectoid mass of feathers and flesh surrounding a core of lighting. When a gap appears in his feathers, it tends to blast anyone nearby with heat and radiation.
- Mordor: Russia gets turned into this, thanks to Czernobog.
- Sense Freak: The followers of Aphrodite are this.
