HOME | DD

Description

I have wanted to make a superhero themed one shot for a while, and here's the result, i hope people like it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Superheroes have plagued humanity’s imagination in all kinds of timelines, people who, thanks to their extraordinary abilities, are able to help those who need it are unsurprisingly very popular. Sadly, most timelines and alternate worlds would lack them, but in the few in which they did appear, they certainly changed much how the world would function

Unlike on other timelines with their presence, superheroes only began to appear in recorded in the 1910’s just after Halley Comet passed by earth. During the first few years, supers, as were ended up become named, were barely present, and comparatively weak that what would come after. The Great War would come and go roughly like OTL, with mayhap a few more casualties overall.

The real influence of the Super’s arrival on earth wouldn’t be felt till the 20’s, with their existence being used to justify various eugenics and fascistic movements, who would come to power in Hungary, Italy, Spain, Japan and others countries.

The Nazis would specially research on what caused some people to become supers and which factors didn’t, however this research didn’t go anywhere (or was possibly burned down for contradicting their views). But their other branch of experimentation, the Übersmench program “succeeded”.

By 1942 three German children were gifted incredible strength (able to effortlessly lift a tank), regeneration (able to recover lost limbs in hours, as long as they didn’t die) and intelligences (easily solving complex projects), however this project was costly, costing hundreds of thousands of lives for over a single one, 2 of the individuals (called Heydrich and Adolf) also being imperfect versions, who grew imposing tumors in various parts of their body that had to be cut off to survive didn’t help on it not being the most successful of endeavors.

Around this time, the Allies would organize their own supers into a special strike unit, who had as an objective to destroy the laboratory where the übersmench were produced, these were led by “Titanium” a former soldier from Alabama, who had the power to become solid, while still living, metal. The operation was successful, and alongside the soviet heroine “Motherland” (who could control plants at will) killing Heydrich the same day it meant that the allies had their first victory in years.

The war would go on for 3 more years, and eventually Germany’s surrender would come quite unexpectedly, Klaus, the perfect übersmench to whom the fuhrership had fallen after Hitler’s suicide, would commit upon himself the same fate after finding out one of his grandparents was a pole, which allowed saner heads to take control and do an unconditional surrender. In the Pacific it ended much like OTL, as eastern super was still very rare in number, so two atomic bombs did the job quite well, though in the future that would come to bite the Americans in the ass eventually.

Upon the defeat of the Nazis however, a new rival for the west would arrive in the form of its old ally; the Soviet Union.

Many years have gone on by since the start of the Cold War, wars have been fought, albeit indirectly, research in all fields of science has been carried out, and perhaps most importantly, more (and more powerful) supers are being born by the day, roughly there is slightly more than a million people with significant powers, and those who possess the capability to obtain them, or have them but too weak to be useful can be counted to be at least 5% of the human population, something which is expected to increase in the coming years.

In the fields of sciences, most technology on 2000 can be considered clearly superior to that of timeline 0 by 2020, specially in development of space travels (with no few mars colonies being active) and perhaps more importantly, in the field of quantum computers and true AIs, this is al, thanks not only to super geniuses, but also for the discovery of various quasi fantastical materials. Advancements in the fields of medicine, genetic engineering and nanotechnology have also been carried out, but those are still very experimental, and as a result they aren’t especially reliable.

On more esoteric discoveries, it became public knowledge that magic was real, and in 2 different varieties available to humans even, the first, known as “evocation” is based on calling various gods, demons, or other such entities, to ask them to borrow a portion of their powers to complete a task, while powerful, it has the problem of whoever gave the blessing, can retire them at any moment, and a lot of the time, especially if the entity in question is a demon, they make demands that if not fulfilled, the evoker will lose its life. The other main form of magic is known as enchanting, it’s significantly weaker, and it’s quite taxing on the user’s stamina, but unlike evocation it is done by the user’s own magical capabilities, which allows them to control the unseen forces in the universe to do their will. In average the Enchanters are weaker than the evoker, but some powerful superheroes or supervillains have through the years proven this notion not to be always right.

And needless to mention that alien species have been proven to exist, and in fact that they are quite numerous, Earth being somewhat lucky that their neighbors of mars (octopi like creatures) being mostly at a stone to bronze age technology as of yet and that space powers haven’t yet notice earth’s activities outside of small groups of pirates.

If we were to talk about the nations of the world, the first that comes to mind would surely be the United States of America, ever since the second world war it can be easily considered the most powerful of nations on Earth, and that title, while contested by the Soviet Union, doesn’t seem to go anywhere as of yet.

That doesn’t mean its recent history hasn’t been tumultuous or without problems, soon after the end of the Second World War in 1946 a similar Civil Rights Movements to that of OTL would begin, with now people with superpowers on both sides, this unsurprisingly made it more violent, which only became worse as the war hero “Titanium” sided with the segregationists, and local black superpowered individuals did the same with those who were against that barbarous practice. Multiple riots, terrorist attacks, lynching, and other atrocities were committed till eventually, after much violence, a civil rights act was passed on 1970, but military occupation of the south to prevent further atrocities and retaliations are still present to this day.

Speaking of military occupation, that has been the fate of much of North America South of the Border, as the previous Banana Republic put in place could be easily thrown out of government if they weren’t assisted properly by the US own super forces (having the 2nd greatest number per capita of supers allows you to commit in projects like this). Similar Interventions to other part of the Americas outside the US sphere are usually prevented by the presence of Soviet troops to prevent that.

One cannot speak nowadays of the US without mentioning 3 relevant, but very different, types of organizations. First of all are the mega corps, most of them of the military technology kind of dealer, thought they have diversified enough that their origins barely matter, they control more than half the US economy, as well as most workers under it, all while trying to reduce the salary of them as much as humanly possible. It’s main areas of Effect are the Megalopolis of the East and West Coast, though they have been unable to penetrate much in New England. To say that they control the US would be an exaggeration, but not a particularly big one, as the republican party is entirely in their pockets, as well as not few of the democrats, with no party wishing to do much to reduce their power. Due to this, various criminal gangs have appeared through the US, from the mafias of Chicago to the Cartels of San Diego, they employ many super powered individuals and while they also fight to make the best profit possible, they understand that they need as much help from the local population as possible, so they govern mostly with a with a softer hand. Finally, to fight both the criminal gangs and fix whatever mess the mega corps cause, there are the Superhero Associations, there are many through the nation, some particularly populated states have even more than 1 per state. While originally created by civilians to fight crime, nowadays they can greatly vary, they all still fight super villains, true, but others behave more to first responder, social workers, and even in some cases as local political parties. Outside the last part, other nations have also allowed similar organizations to exist.

Finally one cannot talk about the US without mentioning it’s massive military, ever since the end of WW2, it’s budget and size has done nothing but balloon (both to add new technologies and superpowered individuals), in fact it has been divided into 2 branches, the Military Command of Western Europe, and the Military Command of Eastern Asia, with the later in particular behaving almost as its own nation, with it’s own laws, intelligence agency and even currency.

US politics have been a mess these last years, however the 2000 elections seem to be shaping to be the most important in possibly the country’s entire history, as the first super is running to become president against both Democrats and Republicans, time will tell if he succeeds.

The British Monarchy didn’t come out of WW2 unscathed, for starters the nation was heavily bombed by the Nazis during the war, but more importantly were the entities they made deals with to maximize their number of supers, those were the Fey, the last remnants of old Britain, in exchange of giving magical talents to many Special Forces Agents, the monarchy promised many riches, lands, and perhaps most importantly, sacrifices. The British Government never intended to repay the Fey, they though that once the war ended and the combined might of the allies was put into place, the armies of Titania would be useless, they were wrong. When it became obvious that the treaty wouldn’t be followed, the Fey stroke first, turning all super humans they granted power into flesh puppet that destroyed the nation they once served. Nowadays the entire Island of Great Britain is the realm of the Fey, the humans there are free, but forced to live like animals, without even being allowed the mastery of fire, the few lucky ones are those abducted as babies, as those became the personal servants of the Fey nobility and in some cased both them and their descendants are teached some rudimentary magic for everyday use, if one is liked enough by their otherworldly master, they could even be granted eternal youth, though that’s rare.

The British Monarchy would survive the taking of Britain by the Fey, fleeing to Canada, unlike most it’s subjects, and nowadays the Commonwealth of Nations has federalized and serves as a minor partner to the US, as its has territory on the majority of Continents except Europe. Despite it’s small position, it can pride itself by being one of the few countries with bases on the Moon and Mars (though the later not permanent).

As mentioned before, the USA main rival at the world’s stage is the Soviet Union. Much has changed since the days of Stalin, after his death, the soviet Apparatus tried to purge many known dissidents, which included the heroine Motherland, needless to say, she didn’t take this well, and soon thereafter she became the leader through a coup.

Motherland was never that much interested in politics but considering the other option was letting someone she considered to be a sociopath to be in charge, she ended up taking the role, and since her superpowers have given her a really long life, she still rules it, even if much of the legislative and executive powers have been given to elected parliaments.

The Soviet Union has been doing it’s fair share of research, of course in armament, but due to the damaged WW2 to the population much of it has been on civilian fields, medicine is good enough to do a full body transplant (as in, putting someone’s brain into someone else body), as well as create literal Brains in Jars who are still as alive as when they had a normal body, though they are somewhat more snarky as a norm. Agriculture is by far the most advanced field in Soviet Science, beforehand, Motherland’s powers made the fields in which she lived grow quicker and more plentiful, but modern genetic engineering of wheat, maize, rice and other plants makes even a small farm able to supply entire cities, cities which nowadays are being rebuilt to include vertical farms in its design, to be self-sufficient in case of any surprise attack.

In terms of internal politics, as mentioned prior the SU has transformed into a much more democratic form, Motherland is still the head of state, but she plans to be the last, as she has delegated most formal tasks to the Duma, the Duma is made of elected individuals from the various parts of the union, they don’t have to necessarily be communist, but social pressure is enough to prevent not leftist to participate in them.

While more democratic, the Soviet Union is not less imperialistic than it was before, its leaderships hope to annex its allies in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, all while continuing to fund rebels and aligned regimes in Asia South America and Asia, in that aspect it is barely different to the United States.

Finally, it would be good to mention it’s space program, it isn’t as developed as say, their agricultural tech, but it was the first space programs and as such, while it lack as many colonies as the US, it is one of the few nations with a permanent population on Earth, the Moon AND Mars.

A third block (though it cannot really be called that), belongs to the Western European Economic Community, which is more of a loose alliance between France, Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium Denmark and Italy due to economic interest than anything else, though efforts to slowly federalize and create a united western European Army are being undertaken due to combat the Influence of the Cult of the Cloven One, though the Sicilian Mafia under the “Know it-all”, who controls practically the entire country of Italy (he can read minds and predict the future a few seconds onward), is doing everything in his vast power and influence to prevent that, as an unified Europe may actually be a threat to his power base. Something that all members of the alliance share is a great xenophobia towards Slavic peoples, whiith Czechia even making great propaganda programs to prove that “we are actually Germanic guys”.

Outside what’s considered the developed world, we have Asia, Africa and South America, For Africa specifically recent history has been quite tumultuous, after decolonization, which happened both faster and more chaotic than OTL, the continent became almost pure chaos, outside the neo colonial Francophonie (which is just a colonial state but worse), and South Africa, most other nations tend to be either dictatorships by supers or weak democracies, exceptions exist, like Botswana, but they are pretty rare.

The first independent state in Africa worth talking is the United Empire of Arab Nations, do not let the name fool you, for his ruler is neither an Arab, nor an Emperor. It’s a pharaoh from the time of the ice age, kept alive in his underground pyramid with fool magic, in his time he was a vicious and cruel ruler, and now he came back to reunite his old empire, that stretched from Ethiopia to Tunisia. Despite all of that Ur-Rah actually a very good ruler, 10 thousand years of meditation in his pyramid meant that his outlook on well, everything, changed quite a lot, so while he still used obviously evil aesthetics, his empire is actually quite a good place to live, and he even converted to Islam as he has fallen in love with Arab culture, people around the world wouldn’t mind him that much if he still wasn’t set in conquering his old empire, as he doesn’t understand much modern diplomacy.

The Francophonie, as explained before, is a neo colonial construct, made up of former French West Africa, now united into a weak federation, too weakened by internal strife, foreign exploitation and in some areas breakdown of society to really fight against the many super powered warlords.

East Africa broke apart soon after the British left, not in small part cause they did everything in their power to prevent the natives from building a functioning administrative infrastructure, nowadays it’s divides in 2 blocks, the cannibalistic Empire of Scotland, ruled by a cult lead by Idi Amin, who gain supernatural powers from the consumption of flesh, the native peoples of the Great Lakes regions live in the poorest of conditions, as the cult conducts nightly raid for meat and to kill dissidents. The other Half is under the protection of Flood, a water based superheroine, that when not fighting the Scottish forces, spends his time fighting forest-fires, giving drinking water to civilians and reducing desertification as much as she can, small cults about her are starting to appear in the region, though she is a Muslim so she tries not to associate with them too much.

In the Area of Equatorial Africa and the Congo river, nature itself is becoming a danger to humankind, on the Sahel, the Baboon King is marshaling many great uplifted armies, as normal baboons either get hunted into extinction or made into intelligent creatures by the king. On the Congo, on the other hand, a man known only as “the Yateveo” someone able to control, and modify at a genetic level, all plant life, a power which he is using to destroy all human life in the area for reasons as of yet unknown.

South America would remain much more stable when compared to Africa or Asia, some communist revolutions here and there would take place, as well as counter revolutions, but in the 60’s the unthinkable would come to pass; the Reich returned.

Many Nazis had fled to Argentina following the end of WW2, most of them knew that they had to keep a low profile if the wanted to keep themselves alive. However, amongst the German community a loud, and imposing voice would come to be known, it was Adolf (who proclaimed himself Adolf the II of Germania), the last of the Übersmench program, who in the decades since the war had turned his regenerative abilities into a blessing rather than a curse. He managed to convince other hidden Nazi cells around the world, to come there, and slowly they started arming themselves, eventually they became able to overpower the Argentinian Military, and couped the government, and understanding that their neighbors weren’t just going to sat and watch, realized a blitzkrieg against Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, obviously they failed to conquer all of South America, but they were in such a position that their neighbors were forced to make a peace that allowed the 4th Reich to continue existing, not only as a nation, but as the rulers of the entire Southern Cone. The Reich works the way you would expect it to be, there is a strict racial hierarchy, only Germans and their descendants are at the top, the many minorities have either been forcefully thrown into reservations, or killed, the military is the organism of most influence in the government, and there is a great deal of economic corporatism. It must also be mentioned that while on the map it seems strong, the nation is quite far from being the Aryan superpower it claims, the entire world is choking its economy through blockades, and while a direct invasion isn’t happening, many supers have gone to Argentina to initiate insurrections, with a big degree of success.

North of the Reich is the South American Socialist Alliance, formed by Brazil, the Andine People’s republic and Paraguay. They have an overall tendency towards authoritarism, but they have remained democracies to this very day and have industrialized to European levels (the ands being ruled by a super genius certainly helps)

The Alliance was formed following the Reich invasion of the Southern Cone, but it’s history stretches many years back, when the mental prodigy Manuel Cedeño managed to outmaneuver, with only 17, the politics of Bolivia and launch a coup, when the neighboring Perú launched an invasion to oppose it, the Peruvian armies were defeated, though mostly because of soviet military help. The Andes Republic would focus on improving its internal economy, and when Brazil had a civil war, they invaded to help the socialist side, around this time the Germans rose up, and as you can imagine this became a mess, Paraguay only recently joined the alliance, after a revolution toppled its government.

Beyond the Americas and Africa, Asia is a continent of differences, life in cities in not that different from that of Europe, in most cases the main difference would be in architecture styles, however the rural areas are significantly much poorer, as well as more densely populated.

On the middle East, the entire region is a battleground, the most peaceful region being Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, on a military alliance to prevent any warlord, military dictator, or megacorp to get an idea to attack the area with more supers per capita. Beyond this small area however, there is much chaos in the region, the Arab republic of Syria and Iraq has long fallen because of factionalism and nowadays their weak remains are being attacked both by its own population, many of whom have fallen to various forms of radical Islam, as well as foreign agents, both from the Pharaoh on the west and various mercenaries paid by mega corps on Dubai. A Turkish military intervention up north hasn’t helped matter either. To the South, Saudi Arabia has been mutilated and divided, for starters, there was a succession crisis that meant the throne was empty till many claimants arose from the Saudi princes, secondly, many regions, specially Shia and Bedouin ones, rose in rebellion, and finally the straw that broke the camel’s back would be the creation of new oil extracting techniques by various American super geniuses, that basically destroyed Saudi economy, as their main resource was now worthless. Yemen didn’t end up much better, being broken into 3 portions, and now the Ibadi from Oman are the only truly stable, thought their ever-increasing Hindu population may end up being a problem in the future.

Speaking of Hindus, India isn’t in an exactly pristine state. The British would abandon India almost as quickly as they did to Africa in the future, so chaos, and war soon engulfed the subcontinent. The Soviets quickly intervened taking Pakistan and parts of Western India, however the rest remained ripe for the taking fo various warlords, and as time went on, to those warlords, foreign corporations, military interventions and homegrown democracies, revolutionaries and cults got thrown into the mix, creating a recipe for unmitigated disaster.

If I was to start somewhere, the Indian north would be the best fit, beyond the People’s Republics of Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Khalistan, lies the Iron Forge. This state, if it can even be called that, is a madman’s dream, it’s founder, a former British officer during colonial years known as John Davies, barely cares about matters of government, delegating this job usually local officials, however in the Delhi Industrial district he is almost a god, as he can control machinery itself, Davies lacks any great dream, in fact his expansion only happened when other nations started being a threat to the Forge’s existence, otherwise he is just happy to make himself the biggest man alive, selling everything from regular guns to the most advanced of jets and tanks to the highest bidder, and usually to both sides of the conflict. His domain keeps itself afloat by having the monopoly in all matter’s military, such a high wealth naturally attracting mercenaries, superhuman or otherwise, helps things as well.

South of the forge lie many impressive warlords, usually of superhero origins, but by far the most infamous is the cult of Ganesa, ruled by a woman able to transform into any animal, thought she usually prefer a very oversized elephant to any other species. She also claims to be an avatar of Ganesa and as such the one who must remove the obstacles that are dividing India (The obstacles, of course, being anyone who opposes here). The lands under the cult can be considered and exaggeration of all of India’s flaws, the caste system has made more monolithic that it has even during the British years, much of the populations live in rural areas lacking modern medicine and hygiene, and xenophobia to other ethnic of religious groups is sadly quite common.

The southernmost nation, while on paper the strongest, is actually the weakest, a remain of the Indian republican government, it has found itself being invades by both NATO and the Warsaw pact, as well as mega corporations, millions of refugees flee each year, usually to Oman or the northern neighbors.

While we could go on for long about the many different unique warlords of India, talking about the most recent arrival seems like a nice way to end this section, the Iron Knight, originally, he was a time traveler who came to this era to prevent a coming apocalyptic event, however soon upon arrival he would face discrimination, fear and more, till eventually he snapped and became a brutal insurgent leader, who kill any village who makes even the slightest opposition to his reign of terror.

Outside India proper, but still in the subcontinent, lies the self-proclaimed “Second Coming”, the foul domains of a former Christian religious fanatic who upon discovering his abilities to return from the death, claimed to be the second coming of Jesus Christ, something of course denied by all Christian denominations, whatever the case, some people do believe him, and since because of his abilities (that are complimented with super strength and regeneration) he is a one man army, he soon took control of Burma, where he would impose his warped and abnormal vision of Christianity.

Outside Laos, Thailand, and North Vietnam, South Eastern Asia is the domains of the Military Command of Eastern Asia, as mentioned before, it is the branch of the US whose destiny lies in the burning jungles of The East, though actual war has long since been over. Nowadays their main operations consist on battling the Kaiju (blame the atomic bombs for that) that usually appear in the coasts of Japan, Korea and Southern China, as well as recruiting any child who shows sign of being a super. Since those of Asia usually have extra sensorial perception, they can be quite useful for reading enemy minds as well as overall intelligence missions, though their battlefield roles are also quite impressive in the case of the most powerful ones, of course for this to be true they must be properly subjected to daily propaganda, which doesn’t always succeed in breaking the child’s spirit, so a lot of the villains the Military Command fights are of their own doing.

That’s not to say the nations in which the Military command are totally dependent of them, though, in fact the fact that they don’t need to spend much in terms of military means that they have experienced unseen economic grow since the 50’s, that only now has started to stagnate. Of Special importance are the Chinese Republic and the Empire of Japan, both competing over economic dominance of East Asia, with South Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia being secondary players in the region (still being dictatorships certainly doesn’t help their economies). Indonesia, on the other hand, has long since trying to throw back the Yankee occupiers, many guerrillas (with no few superhumans alongside the,) are active in its jungles and the local garrisons have had to throw a coup to prevent pro-independence parties to win national elections.

As of January 2000, a new wave of economic instability has hit the world and with that a new wave of crime is to be expected, but most important is the cause of such instability, the SETI has received the first signals of the first advanced alien civilization not only noticing earth’s existence, but also sending a gigantic fleet on earth’s direction.

Description

I have wanted to make a superhero themed one shot for a while, and here's the result, i hope people like it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Superheroes have plagued humanity’s imagination in all kinds of timelines, people who, thanks to their extraordinary abilities, are able to help those who need it are unsurprisingly very popular. Sadly, most timelines and alternate worlds would lack them, but in the few in which they did appear, they certainly changed much how the world would function

Unlike on other timelines with their presence, superheroes only began to appear in recorded in the 1910’s just after Halley Comet passed by earth. During the first few years, supers, as were ended up become named, were barely present, and comparatively weak that what would come after. The Great War would come and go roughly like OTL, with mayhap a few more casualties overall.

The real influence of the Super’s arrival on earth wouldn’t be felt till the 20’s, with their existence being used to justify various eugenics and fascistic movements, who would come to power in Hungary, Italy, Spain, Japan and others countries.

The Nazis would specially research on what caused some people to become supers and which factors didn’t, however this research didn’t go anywhere (or was possibly burned down for contradicting their views). But their other branch of experimentation, the Übersmench program “succeeded”.

By 1942 three German children were gifted incredible strength (able to effortlessly lift a tank), regeneration (able to recover lost limbs in hours, as long as they didn’t die) and intelligences (easily solving complex projects), however this project was costly, costing hundreds of thousands of lives for over a single one, 2 of the individuals (called Heydrich and Adolf) also being imperfect versions, who grew imposing tumors in various parts of their body that had to be cut off to survive didn’t help on it not being the most successful of endeavors.

Around this time, the Allies would organize their own supers into a special strike unit, who had as an objective to destroy the laboratory where the übersmench were produced, these were led by “Titanium” a former soldier from Alabama, who had the power to become solid, while still living, metal. The operation was successful, and alongside the soviet heroine “Motherland” (who could control plants at will) killing Heydrich the same day it meant that the allies had their first victory in years.

The war would go on for 3 more years, and eventually Germany’s surrender would come quite unexpectedly, Klaus, the perfect übersmench to whom the fuhrership had fallen after Hitler’s suicide, would commit upon himself the same fate after finding out one of his grandparents was a pole, which allowed saner heads to take control and do an unconditional surrender. In the Pacific it ended much like OTL, as eastern super was still very rare in number, so two atomic bombs did the job quite well, though in the future that would come to bite the Americans in the ass eventually.

Upon the defeat of the Nazis however, a new rival for the west would arrive in the form of its old ally; the Soviet Union.

Many years have gone on by since the start of the Cold War, wars have been fought, albeit indirectly, research in all fields of science has been carried out, and perhaps most importantly, more (and more powerful) supers are being born by the day, roughly there is slightly more than a million people with significant powers, and those who possess the capability to obtain them, or have them but too weak to be useful can be counted to be at least 5% of the human population, something which is expected to increase in the coming years.

In the fields of sciences, most technology on 2000 can be considered clearly superior to that of timeline 0 by 2020, specially in development of space travels (with no few mars colonies being active) and perhaps more importantly, in the field of quantum computers and true AIs, this is al, thanks not only to super geniuses, but also for the discovery of various quasi fantastical materials. Advancements in the fields of medicine, genetic engineering and nanotechnology have also been carried out, but those are still very experimental, and as a result they aren’t especially reliable.

On more esoteric discoveries, it became public knowledge that magic was real, and in 2 different varieties available to humans even, the first, known as “evocation” is based on calling various gods, demons, or other such entities, to ask them to borrow a portion of their powers to complete a task, while powerful, it has the problem of whoever gave the blessing, can retire them at any moment, and a lot of the time, especially if the entity in question is a demon, they make demands that if not fulfilled, the evoker will lose its life. The other main form of magic is known as enchanting, it’s significantly weaker, and it’s quite taxing on the user’s stamina, but unlike evocation it is done by the user’s own magical capabilities, which allows them to control the unseen forces in the universe to do their will. In average the Enchanters are weaker than the evoker, but some powerful superheroes or supervillains have through the years proven this notion not to be always right.

And needless to mention that alien species have been proven to exist, and in fact that they are quite numerous, Earth being somewhat lucky that their neighbors of mars (octopi like creatures) being mostly at a stone to bronze age technology as of yet and that space powers haven’t yet notice earth’s activities outside of small groups of pirates.

If we were to talk about the nations of the world, the first that comes to mind would surely be the United States of America, ever since the second world war it can be easily considered the most powerful of nations on Earth, and that title, while contested by the Soviet Union, doesn’t seem to go anywhere as of yet.

That doesn’t mean its recent history hasn’t been tumultuous or without problems, soon after the end of the Second World War in 1946 a similar Civil Rights Movements to that of OTL would begin, with now people with superpowers on both sides, this unsurprisingly made it more violent, which only became worse as the war hero “Titanium” sided with the segregationists, and local black superpowered individuals did the same with those who were against that barbarous practice. Multiple riots, terrorist attacks, lynching, and other atrocities were committed till eventually, after much violence, a civil rights act was passed on 1970, but military occupation of the south to prevent further atrocities and retaliations are still present to this day.

Speaking of military occupation, that has been the fate of much of North America South of the Border, as the previous Banana Republic put in place could be easily thrown out of government if they weren’t assisted properly by the US own super forces (having the 2nd greatest number per capita of supers allows you to commit in projects like this). Similar Interventions to other part of the Americas outside the US sphere are usually prevented by the presence of Soviet troops to prevent that.

One cannot speak nowadays of the US without mentioning 3 relevant, but very different, types of organizations. First of all are the mega corps, most of them of the military technology kind of dealer, thought they have diversified enough that their origins barely matter, they control more than half the US economy, as well as most workers under it, all while trying to reduce the salary of them as much as humanly possible. It’s main areas of Effect are the Megalopolis of the East and West Coast, though they have been unable to penetrate much in New England. To say that they control the US would be an exaggeration, but not a particularly big one, as the republican party is entirely in their pockets, as well as not few of the democrats, with no party wishing to do much to reduce their power. Due to this, various criminal gangs have appeared through the US, from the mafias of Chicago to the Cartels of San Diego, they employ many super powered individuals and while they also fight to make the best profit possible, they understand that they need as much help from the local population as possible, so they govern mostly with a with a softer hand. Finally, to fight both the criminal gangs and fix whatever mess the mega corps cause, there are the Superhero Associations, there are many through the nation, some particularly populated states have even more than 1 per state. While originally created by civilians to fight crime, nowadays they can greatly vary, they all still fight super villains, true, but others behave more to first responder, social workers, and even in some cases as local political parties. Outside the last part, other nations have also allowed similar organizations to exist.

Finally one cannot talk about the US without mentioning it’s massive military, ever since the end of WW2, it’s budget and size has done nothing but balloon (both to add new technologies and superpowered individuals), in fact it has been divided into 2 branches, the Military Command of Western Europe, and the Military Command of Eastern Asia, with the later in particular behaving almost as its own nation, with it’s own laws, intelligence agency and even currency.

US politics have been a mess these last years, however the 2000 elections seem to be shaping to be the most important in possibly the country’s entire history, as the first super is running to become president against both Democrats and Republicans, time will tell if he succeeds.

The British Monarchy didn’t come out of WW2 unscathed, for starters the nation was heavily bombed by the Nazis during the war, but more importantly were the entities they made deals with to maximize their number of supers, those were the Fey, the last remnants of old Britain, in exchange of giving magical talents to many Special Forces Agents, the monarchy promised many riches, lands, and perhaps most importantly, sacrifices. The British Government never intended to repay the Fey, they though that once the war ended and the combined might of the allies was put into place, the armies of Titania would be useless, they were wrong. When it became obvious that the treaty wouldn’t be followed, the Fey stroke first, turning all super humans they granted power into flesh puppet that destroyed the nation they once served. Nowadays the entire Island of Great Britain is the realm of the Fey, the humans there are free, but forced to live like animals, without even being allowed the mastery of fire, the few lucky ones are those abducted as babies, as those became the personal servants of the Fey nobility and in some cased both them and their descendants are teached some rudimentary magic for everyday use, if one is liked enough by their otherworldly master, they could even be granted eternal youth, though that’s rare.

The British Monarchy would survive the taking of Britain by the Fey, fleeing to Canada, unlike most it’s subjects, and nowadays the Commonwealth of Nations has federalized and serves as a minor partner to the US, as its has territory on the majority of Continents except Europe. Despite it’s small position, it can pride itself by being one of the few countries with bases on the Moon and Mars (though the later not permanent).

As mentioned before, the USA main rival at the world’s stage is the Soviet Union. Much has changed since the days of Stalin, after his death, the soviet Apparatus tried to purge many known dissidents, which included the heroine Motherland, needless to say, she didn’t take this well, and soon thereafter she became the leader through a coup.

Motherland was never that much interested in politics but considering the other option was letting someone she considered to be a sociopath to be in charge, she ended up taking the role, and since her superpowers have given her a really long life, she still rules it, even if much of the legislative and executive powers have been given to elected parliaments.

The Soviet Union has been doing it’s fair share of research, of course in armament, but due to the damaged WW2 to the population much of it has been on civilian fields, medicine is good enough to do a full body transplant (as in, putting someone’s brain into someone else body), as well as create literal Brains in Jars who are still as alive as when they had a normal body, though they are somewhat more snarky as a norm. Agriculture is by far the most advanced field in Soviet Science, beforehand, Motherland’s powers made the fields in which she lived grow quicker and more plentiful, but modern genetic engineering of wheat, maize, rice and other plants makes even a small farm able to supply entire cities, cities which nowadays are being rebuilt to include vertical farms in its design, to be self-sufficient in case of any surprise attack.

In terms of internal politics, as mentioned prior the SU has transformed into a much more democratic form, Motherland is still the head of state, but she plans to be the last, as she has delegated most formal tasks to the Duma, the Duma is made of elected individuals from the various parts of the union, they don’t have to necessarily be communist, but social pressure is enough to prevent not leftist to participate in them.

While more democratic, the Soviet Union is not less imperialistic than it was before, its leaderships hope to annex its allies in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, all while continuing to fund rebels and aligned regimes in Asia South America and Asia, in that aspect it is barely different to the United States.

Finally, it would be good to mention it’s space program, it isn’t as developed as say, their agricultural tech, but it was the first space programs and as such, while it lack as many colonies as the US, it is one of the few nations with a permanent population on Earth, the Moon AND Mars.

A third block (though it cannot really be called that), belongs to the Western European Economic Community, which is more of a loose alliance between France, Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium Denmark and Italy due to economic interest than anything else, though efforts to slowly federalize and create a united western European Army are being undertaken due to combat the Influence of the Cult of the Cloven One, though the Sicilian Mafia under the “Know it-all”, who controls practically the entire country of Italy (he can read minds and predict the future a few seconds onward), is doing everything in his vast power and influence to prevent that, as an unified Europe may actually be a threat to his power base. Something that all members of the alliance share is a great xenophobia towards Slavic peoples, whiith Czechia even making great propaganda programs to prove that “we are actually Germanic guys”.

Outside what’s considered the developed world, we have Asia, Africa and South America, For Africa specifically recent history has been quite tumultuous, after decolonization, which happened both faster and more chaotic than OTL, the continent became almost pure chaos, outside the neo colonial Francophonie (which is just a colonial state but worse), and South Africa, most other nations tend to be either dictatorships by supers or weak democracies, exceptions exist, like Botswana, but they are pretty rare.

The first independent state in Africa worth talking is the United Empire of Arab Nations, do not let the name fool you, for his ruler is neither an Arab, nor an Emperor. It’s a pharaoh from the time of the ice age, kept alive in his underground pyramid with fool magic, in his time he was a vicious and cruel ruler, and now he came back to reunite his old empire, that stretched from Ethiopia to Tunisia. Despite all of that Ur-Rah actually a very good ruler, 10 thousand years of meditation in his pyramid meant that his outlook on well, everything, changed quite a lot, so while he still used obviously evil aesthetics, his empire is actually quite a good place to live, and he even converted to Islam as he has fallen in love with Arab culture, people around the world wouldn’t mind him that much if he still wasn’t set in conquering his old empire, as he doesn’t understand much modern diplomacy.

The Francophonie, as explained before, is a neo colonial construct, made up of former French West Africa, now united into a weak federation, too weakened by internal strife, foreign exploitation and in some areas breakdown of society to really fight against the many super powered warlords.

East Africa broke apart soon after the British left, not in small part cause they did everything in their power to prevent the natives from building a functioning administrative infrastructure, nowadays it’s divides in 2 blocks, the cannibalistic Empire of Scotland, ruled by a cult lead by Idi Amin, who gain supernatural powers from the consumption of flesh, the native peoples of the Great Lakes regions live in the poorest of conditions, as the cult conducts nightly raid for meat and to kill dissidents. The other Half is under the protection of Flood, a water based superheroine, that when not fighting the Scottish forces, spends his time fighting forest-fires, giving drinking water to civilians and reducing desertification as much as she can, small cults about her are starting to appear in the region, though she is a Muslim so she tries not to associate with them too much.

In the Area of Equatorial Africa and the Congo river, nature itself is becoming a danger to humankind, on the Sahel, the Baboon King is marshaling many great uplifted armies, as normal baboons either get hunted into extinction or made into intelligent creatures by the king. On the Congo, on the other hand, a man known only as “the Yateveo” someone able to control, and modify at a genetic level, all plant life, a power which he is using to destroy all human life in the area for reasons as of yet unknown.

South America would remain much more stable when compared to Africa or Asia, some communist revolutions here and there would take place, as well as counter revolutions, but in the 60’s the unthinkable would come to pass; the Reich returned.

Many Nazis had fled to Argentina following the end of WW2, most of them knew that they had to keep a low profile if the wanted to keep themselves alive. However, amongst the German community a loud, and imposing voice would come to be known, it was Adolf (who proclaimed himself Adolf the II of Germania), the last of the Übersmench program, who in the decades since the war had turned his regenerative abilities into a blessing rather than a curse. He managed to convince other hidden Nazi cells around the world, to come there, and slowly they started arming themselves, eventually they became able to overpower the Argentinian Military, and couped the government, and understanding that their neighbors weren’t just going to sat and watch, realized a blitzkrieg against Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, obviously they failed to conquer all of South America, but they were in such a position that their neighbors were forced to make a peace that allowed the 4th Reich to continue existing, not only as a nation, but as the rulers of the entire Southern Cone. The Reich works the way you would expect it to be, there is a strict racial hierarchy, only Germans and their descendants are at the top, the many minorities have either been forcefully thrown into reservations, or killed, the military is the organism of most influence in the government, and there is a great deal of economic corporatism. It must also be mentioned that while on the map it seems strong, the nation is quite far from being the Aryan superpower it claims, the entire world is choking its economy through blockades, and while a direct invasion isn’t happening, many supers have gone to Argentina to initiate insurrections, with a big degree of success.

North of the Reich is the South American Socialist Alliance, formed by Brazil, the Andine People’s republic and Paraguay. They have an overall tendency towards authoritarism, but they have remained democracies to this very day and have industrialized to European levels (the ands being ruled by a super genius certainly helps)

The Alliance was formed following the Reich invasion of the Southern Cone, but it’s history stretches many years back, when the mental prodigy Manuel Cedeño managed to outmaneuver, with only 17, the politics of Bolivia and launch a coup, when the neighboring Perú launched an invasion to oppose it, the Peruvian armies were defeated, though mostly because of soviet military help. The Andes Republic would focus on improving its internal economy, and when Brazil had a civil war, they invaded to help the socialist side, around this time the Germans rose up, and as you can imagine this became a mess, Paraguay only recently joined the alliance, after a revolution toppled its government.

Beyond the Americas and Africa, Asia is a continent of differences, life in cities in not that different from that of Europe, in most cases the main difference would be in architecture styles, however the rural areas are significantly much poorer, as well as more densely populated.

On the middle East, the entire region is a battleground, the most peaceful region being Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, on a military alliance to prevent any warlord, military dictator, or megacorp to get an idea to attack the area with more supers per capita. Beyond this small area however, there is much chaos in the region, the Arab republic of Syria and Iraq has long fallen because of factionalism and nowadays their weak remains are being attacked both by its own population, many of whom have fallen to various forms of radical Islam, as well as foreign agents, both from the Pharaoh on the west and various mercenaries paid by mega corps on Dubai. A Turkish military intervention up north hasn’t helped matter either. To the South, Saudi Arabia has been mutilated and divided, for starters, there was a succession crisis that meant the throne was empty till many claimants arose from the Saudi princes, secondly, many regions, specially Shia and Bedouin ones, rose in rebellion, and finally the straw that broke the camel’s back would be the creation of new oil extracting techniques by various American super geniuses, that basically destroyed Saudi economy, as their main resource was now worthless. Yemen didn’t end up much better, being broken into 3 portions, and now the Ibadi from Oman are the only truly stable, thought their ever-increasing Hindu population may end up being a problem in the future.

Speaking of Hindus, India isn’t in an exactly pristine state. The British would abandon India almost as quickly as they did to Africa in the future, so chaos, and war soon engulfed the subcontinent. The Soviets quickly intervened taking Pakistan and parts of Western India, however the rest remained ripe for the taking fo various warlords, and as time went on, to those warlords, foreign corporations, military interventions and homegrown democracies, revolutionaries and cults got thrown into the mix, creating a recipe for unmitigated disaster.

If I was to start somewhere, the Indian north would be the best fit, beyond the People’s Republics of Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Khalistan, lies the Iron Forge. This state, if it can even be called that, is a madman’s dream, it’s founder, a former British officer during colonial years known as John Davies, barely cares about matters of government, delegating this job usually local officials, however in the Delhi Industrial district he is almost a god, as he can control machinery itself, Davies lacks any great dream, in fact his expansion only happened when other nations started being a threat to the Forge’s existence, otherwise he is just happy to make himself the biggest man alive, selling everything from regular guns to the most advanced of jets and tanks to the highest bidder, and usually to both sides of the conflict. His domain keeps itself afloat by having the monopoly in all matter’s military, such a high wealth naturally attracting mercenaries, superhuman or otherwise, helps things as well.

South of the forge lie many impressive warlords, usually of superhero origins, but by far the most infamous is the cult of Ganesa, ruled by a woman able to transform into any animal, thought she usually prefer a very oversized elephant to any other species. She also claims to be an avatar of Ganesa and as such the one who must remove the obstacles that are dividing India (The obstacles, of course, being anyone who opposes here). The lands under the cult can be considered and exaggeration of all of India’s flaws, the caste system has made more monolithic that it has even during the British years, much of the populations live in rural areas lacking modern medicine and hygiene, and xenophobia to other ethnic of religious groups is sadly quite common.

The southernmost nation, while on paper the strongest, is actually the weakest, a remain of the Indian republican government, it has found itself being invades by both NATO and the Warsaw pact, as well as mega corporations, millions of refugees flee each year, usually to Oman or the northern neighbors.

While we could go on for long about the many different unique warlords of India, talking about the most recent arrival seems like a nice way to end this section, the Iron Knight, originally, he was a time traveler who came to this era to prevent a coming apocalyptic event, however soon upon arrival he would face discrimination, fear and more, till eventually he snapped and became a brutal insurgent leader, who kill any village who makes even the slightest opposition to his reign of terror.

Outside India proper, but still in the subcontinent, lies the self-proclaimed “Second Coming”, the foul domains of a former Christian religious fanatic who upon discovering his abilities to return from the death, claimed to be the second coming of Jesus Christ, something of course denied by all Christian denominations, whatever the case, some people do believe him, and since because of his abilities (that are complimented with super strength and regeneration) he is a one man army, he soon took control of Burma, where he would impose his warped and abnormal vision of Christianity.

Outside Laos, Thailand, and North Vietnam, South Eastern Asia is the domains of the Military Command of Eastern Asia, as mentioned before, it is the branch of the US whose destiny lies in the burning jungles of The East, though actual war has long since been over. Nowadays their main operations consist on battling the Kaiju (blame the atomic bombs for that) that usually appear in the coasts of Japan, Korea and Southern China, as well as recruiting any child who shows sign of being a super. Since those of Asia usually have extra sensorial perception, they can be quite useful for reading enemy minds as well as overall intelligence missions, though their battlefield roles are also quite impressive in the case of the most powerful ones, of course for this to be true they must be properly subjected to daily propaganda, which doesn’t always succeed in breaking the child’s spirit, so a lot of the villains the Military Command fights are of their own doing.

That’s not to say the nations in which the Military command are totally dependent of them, though, in fact the fact that they don’t need to spend much in terms of military means that they have experienced unseen economic grow since the 50’s, that only now has started to stagnate. Of Special importance are the Chinese Republic and the Empire of Japan, both competing over economic dominance of East Asia, with South Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia being secondary players in the region (still being dictatorships certainly doesn’t help their economies). Indonesia, on the other hand, has long since trying to throw back the Yankee occupiers, many guerrillas (with no few superhumans alongside the,) are active in its jungles and the local garrisons have had to throw a coup to prevent pro-independence parties to win national elections.

As of January 2000, a new wave of economic instability has hit the world and with that a new wave of crime is to be expected, but most important is the cause of such instability, the SETI has received the first signals of the first advanced alien civilization not only noticing earth’s existence, but also sending a gigantic fleet on earth’s direction.