SkunkyArt | RvBOMally — Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

I kept the Christian States around as a federation separate from the United States. After all, it would seem rather strange for the game to refer to Georgia being a location within the Christian States if the Christian States were just a militia group, and we know it doesn't take up the entire United States because the United States is explicitly mentioned as a warring party in the Battle of Baffin Bay. So, I went with what I think is the obvious intent of the SMAC writers: a theocratic South. However, I kept the Christian States to the Baptist portions only. I also don't think it's as racist as one would think, but rather it uses Baptist Christianity as the core of its identity and as a unifying force between whites and blacks. This doesn't make them pleasant people; I imagine many of the leaders act as fanatical as Sister Godwinson does in-game.

There was never a War on Terror, but there were more wars between Middle Eastern states. The wars take on a far more religious nature, culminating in the nuclear war between Iran and Israel. This later allowed the Christian States to launch the Crusader Conflicts, which further destabilized the region and led to the UN stepping in after the Christian States retreated. There are some nasty remnants of those wars; a Greater Armenia that's basically a Deus Vult version of ISIS, and actual Islamic counterparts of the same.

I interpret the Battle of Baffin Bay being between the Americans and the Canadians. The British are in no state to be fighting wars, and while Russia is plausible, I thought Canada would be more interesting. It also allows me to have some crazy greens and ethnonationalists.

The United States is far more decentralized, with many state governments taking supremacy once again.

I interpret much of Latin America breaking down, and Santiago is actually relatively sane, given that she was let aboard the Unity. There are a lot of Heinlein-esque militarists running the show, particularly in South America; Santiago didn't get her philosophy from nowhere. The militarists, ranging from "service guarantees citizenship" democracies to the same old juntas to armies with countries, tend to be more stable than the average warlord state, which is basically feudalism with FNs and AKs.

The West Indies Co-Propsperity Sphere is trying to evoke Japan, which it sees as a positive model for modernization. Historical revisionism!

Russia is described as having undergone a period of nationalist revival in the GURPS book. This disappoints me because I wanted a twisted version of the optimism people had for the New Russia. However, I interpret a pseudo-Putin era ending when Russia succeeds in becoming a global pariah and being replaced with technocrats who, while not as insane as Zakharov, are still pretty unethical when it comes to the whole 'SCIENCE!' thing. I imagine they're trying to restructure Russian society in a more "rational" way to face the threats of the future. This includes weird crap like Soylent Green.

A left-wing coup is described as having destroyed the British monarchy in 2029, so I imagine that Britain's non-membership in the EU and Scotland's secession have nothing to do with men named Farage and Salmond. I have outright communists in power in England (and France), while deep greens like Skye have taken control of Scotland.

Speaking of deep greens, this is the new political force that's out to sweep the world. Made all the more popular by rampant environmental destruction, the greens either want to accelerate tech development to reverse the damage (Scotland, Cascadia), want to regress technology (Newfoundland, New Zealand), or think Pol Pot didn't go far enough and want to reduce the global population to a sustainable level of several million (Borneo).

Germany leads the rump European Federation. No migrant crisis for the EF; ITTL, the Germans closed the borders on the notion that automation is the way of the future and the German economy cannot sustain large numbers of refugees, let alone economic migrants. Germany is suffering from low birth rates but did succeed in automating a lot of its economy. There are fears that the Germans are developing an AI that is smarter than any human and would pull a Skynet.

The Crimson Succession took down the Golden Emperor. The Crimsons aren't communists, although they think Mao was a cool guy and that the days of the People's Republic were better than the neo-monarchist chaos of the Golden Emperor (who ran off to Central Asia and is planning a comeback; good luck). The Crimsons look back to all of Chinese history (except the immediate bad old days) as eras of glory, so they happily mix communist and imperial imagery. They are trying to become an economic powerhouse once again, although with most of the world dying, they can't really go with the "sell cheap crap" route. They're trying high technology. They're also not crazy hivers; they think Yang is a nut and are happy that he's getting on a ship far away from them.

Africa is doing the best of all the continents. Sub-Saharan Africa, at least. The East African Federation has benefited from the increasing cost of rare earth minerals and, later on the need for its equatorial launch sites for moving raw materials down from space. This is how Morgan, Inc. made all of its money - Morgan was TTL's Elon Musk and succeeded in bringing the first asteroids from the belt into Near Earth Orbit, where they were tethered to space stations and the valuable raw materials moved down. Of course, Morgan also made some cash selling weapons and buying up entire parts of countries in exchange for generous bail outs.

The UN is a federating force, but with most of the OTL permanent members of the Security Council out, it's India and friends. India, Brazil, Japan and Germany all got permanent seats, although Germany left down the line. Japan and Brazil do not want to join if it means being subordinate to India, which is the only deal being offered by India (a popular vote? I wonder who would benefit from that.). India did get hit during the Twelve Minute War with Pakistan, but the reason it was twelve minutes was because while India got its hair mussed, Pakistan got annihilated. Unlike Lal, the UN leadership is very corrupt and cynical about the entire thing, which is one prime motivator for Lal to get onto the Unity. The UN leaders aren't concerned at all with the destruction of Earth, and are instead content to live the high life until death consumes them all.