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Description

So, here’s a silly map I made of based off the Nickelodeon shows Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra depicting the world a decade and a half after Korra’s death. Since I have yet to read Turf Wars (getting the full book in late March) and Death of an Empire, this world probably has a divergent point following the season 4 finale of Legend of Korra.

The tl;dr is that Prince Wu’s disbanding of the Earth Kingdoms resulted in a big mess of separate countries, and Korra’s biggest two issues after the fall of Earth Empire was spirit weapon proliferation and the slow march of environmental degradation. While she eventually managed to smash down on the threat of spirit weapons (quite literally in many cases), Korra wasn’t quite able to deal with environmental degradation since it was such a long-term issue. Fast forward to 255 AG (After the Air Nomad Genocide), Korra died 15 years ago, the states of the world have taken advantage of an avatar’s absence, a spirit weapon arms race is gaining steam, and environmental degradation is becoming global in its consequence. Tensions between states are rising, fear is growing, and a young sandbender finds out that she’s the avatar in a world approaching the brink.

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

Prince Wu’s dissolution of the Earth Kingdoms was a bold choice, but ultimately flawed. Without an overarching confederation, various communities soon fell to the influence of more powerful states. Some nascent states came under influence of foreign powers, and some feared foreign powers and joined powerful Earth cities. And so, four great powers emerged from the ruins of the Earth Empire; the State of Ba Sing Se, the Omashu Confederation, the Zaofu Directive, and the Southern Earth Community.

Still, the world was kept in an uneasy peace due in no small part to the coordinated actions of Team Avatar and its allies. While there were plenty of smaller conflicts that kept her busy, nothing occurred during Avatar Korra’s reign that would rival her early years (then again, a once-in-10,000-years global spiritual catastrophe would probably be hard to rival). This did not mean that the Avatar could fully relax though; one of the most pressing issues was that once spirit weapon tech was discovered, it did not take long for the various states to try to develop and develop said weaponry.

On this, Avatar Korra took a harsh stance. In an ultimatum, she stated that any research or development of spirit weapon technology would incur her wrath. And as many states found out, from the URN to the SBSS, from the NWT to the Fire Nation, she stood by her word. Plenty of facilities and factories met their end when a pissed-off avatar blasted apart the buildings and burned what remained. It usually didn’t take more than a few attempts at development for the nations to get the picture and keep any research they did to purely theoretical levels.

But then Korra died in 240 AG and the threat to spirit weapon development died with her. Nations across the world conducted applied research into spirit weapons and in the spring of 242 AG the SBSS tested a spirit weapon of unimaginable power. Nations panicked, ignored calls to an international intervention, and began to build their very own spirit weapon arsenals. Now a total of 5 states[1] now have growing spirit arsenals, geopolitical tensions are beginning to skyrocket, and everyone is looking for an edge. The Earth nations are desperately searching within their populace for any sign that they have the new Avatar, but the White Lotus have become far more tight-lipped about who it could be. Still information has leaked out and various powers are working towards figuring out who it is.

The State of Ba Sing Se is an authoritarian state that is the product of the city’s bureaucracy deciding to secure their control after the dissolution of the Earth Empire. The northeastern portion of the continent was the first region to be stabilized by Kuvira and the populace had more favorable views regarding her policies. While the most extreme followers of Kuvirism were purged by the Dai Li, the bureau follows a softer version of her ideology (As an odd example, if Kuvira is Stalin, the bureau is Khrushchev). They have constantly tried to expand their control seeking to reverse the “Wu disaster” either by meddling with foreign politics or by outright invasion. Because of this aggressive stance, they have hostile relations with the United Republic of Nations and aren’t really friendly with anyone. The Northern Water Tribe tolerates the SBSS, but that’s it.

The Omashu Confederation is an alliance of various states that wanted to avoid being at the whims of foreign powers and rallied around the Kingdom of Omashu. The Confederation seeks its own independent strategy, which does cause it to rub several nations the wrong way, but the state is able to keep most relations cordial. It has a generally neutral rivalry with the URN, friendly relations with the Southern Earth Community and hostile relations with the Zaofu Directive. They frequently will try to play as the arbiter between other powers’ relations, especially regarding the URN and the SBSS. They also have become more assertive over their waters which has put them at odds with the Fire Nation.

The Zaofu Directive is a wealthy but corrupt state governed by the Head Patriarch Delun Beifong. While it once was controlled by the generally benevolent Suyin Beifong, she provided no changes to the government and the passage of power and eventually Baatar Jr. gained control and corrupted the nation[2]. Zaofu is now a hereditary monarchy by all but name, where the Beifongs reign supreme. The government is truly made of sand; Zaofu is the largest city and power within the nation, but many other communities would likely be happier by themselves. The state manages to keep together due to the vast sums of money gained from the state’s mineral wealth. While refined minerals are the main exports, the Zaofu Directive also exports out its metal bending teachings, which are well mixed with insane ideologies, and thousands of operatives that stow chaos across the world. Meanwhile Toph rolls in her grave.

On the other hand, Toph would probably be pleasantly surprised over Southern Earth Community. Much like the Omashu Confederation, the country can trace its origins to various communities rallying together to stand against foreign influence. The growing and prosperous city of Gaoling serves as the state’s administrative capital and the confederation trades with all and has friendly relations with pretty much everyone, although they’re close allies with Omashu. Still, they’re extremely nervous over the worsening global situation and have begun to enter negotiations with Omashu to try to get their hands on some spirit weapon tech in case Zaofu tries something.

The United Republic of Nations had a very rough few years between 170 and 174 AG, what with a nonbender revolution, an attack by a chaos spirit kaiju avatar, and an invasion and use of the world’s first spirit weapon. And as the decades went on, the URN’s big lesson was that they needed to increase their security and defenses. Now the URN is a bit of a paranoid surveillance state that possesses a large naval fleet and a high-tech army (they still hold elections though). They have no trust in the SBSS and spend an inordinate amount of time keeping their eyes on the country’s activities. Their relations with the Fire Nation have been getting more tense, as they increasingly get annoyed with how much the Fire Nation has been whining at them.

The massive boon that the Fire Nation received from the 100-Year War is finally over. As the first country to industrialize and the main benefactor of the catastrophic war, the Fire Nation received such an increase in wealth that it still had the largest GDP many decades following the war’s resolution. But now that boost has faded, and the Fire Nation is losing steam. The URN and the State of Ba Sing Se have surpassed the Fire Nation in most terms, and Omashu is rapidly catching up. Faced with an increasingly complex world, a panicky portion of the populace has rallied behind a firebrand (heh) man who has spoken against the monarchy and wants to bring back the days of old, when the Fire Nation was feared across the world. While the issue is currently a domestic problem, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes international.

The Air Nomads may be small, but their work in peacekeeping efforts mean that they have an outstated influence. But even they are in a crisis; their peacekeeping objectives are increasingly getting more difficult and the younger airbenders are feeling like the pacifist sayings are coming into conflict with reality. And after some intense researching, the youth have begun to rally behind the ideology of Stormbringer Gyalwa, who was from a time when the Air Nomads were not quite as peaceful. Indeed, well over 5,000 years ago, Gyalwa led the air nomads as a fierce leader who managed to conquer most of the Earth continent before getting stopped by that time’s avatar[3]. She championed adaption through decisiveness and believed that airbenders were supreme due to their extensive spiritual connection. These young new followers of Gyalwa are just as eager to project this image, although they’re still a bit uncoordinated. So far, an elderly Jinora has manage to keep this group as a minority and contained, but they’re becoming more radicalized.

The only bright spot is the water tribes. While the Northern Water Tribe’s landgrab of some northern Earth continent regions raised a few eyebrows, the water tribes have generally minded their own business. However, the heightening tensions have caused the water tribes to begin building further inland to reduce their vulnerability from attacks from the shore.

And then there are the nonpolitical threats, typified by Corrupted Zones. For over 200 years, civilization has been burning massive amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. And in the topsy-turvy Avatar World, the emissions from fossil fuel use don’t result in a buildup of heat-trapping gases, but instead leads to the release of ancient, malformed, and immobile spirits that sap life out of any area where they coalesce. The issue initially became apparent when Avatar Korra was in her 40s, and she quickly figured out just how existential the threat would become. During her remaining years, she constantly tried to bring the nations together to deal with this developing threat, but most states ignored the issue as it was an issue that would develop over decades or centuries instead of a few years. While Korra made some progress on fixing this issue, with her death almost all progress has been scrapped, and now thousands of square miles of land and sea are filling with these grotesque dark spirits. Animal death is becoming more common, and even more so the corrupted zones are beginning to cause refugee crises. But to deal with it would require ingenious thinking and a global effort, and both requirements are sorely lacking right now.

And so, our new avatar has a lot on her plate. Siman, a young sandbender who has a bad case of social anxiety and would rather be a nobody, is a bit over her head. For most of her life she had been living in relative isolation in the Si Wong Confederacy, but three years ago she was contacted by an earthbending teacher and has been mastering earthbending in Omashu. She recently learned how to lavabend and was initially quite happy. But that joy was thrown into confusion when some Zaofu operatives attempted to kidnap her. While she thwarted it, she found out that she’s the Avatar and she must master all four elements and bring balance to the world. Looks like it’ll be quite the challenge, but at least she has some friends and allies to back her up.

[1] Those states are the SBSS, the URN, the Fire Nation, the Omashu Confederation, and the Zaofu Directive.

[2] Suyin was far too forgiving of her blood relatives. Baatar Jr. was still a prick after the Earth Empire/URN war.

[3] Fun fanon fact, Gyalwa’s conquests actually helped set up the stage for the establishment of the Earth Kingdom by uniting all the states against one foe!

Description

So, here’s a silly map I made of based off the Nickelodeon shows Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra depicting the world a decade and a half after Korra’s death. Since I have yet to read Turf Wars (getting the full book in late March) and Death of an Empire, this world probably has a divergent point following the season 4 finale of Legend of Korra.

The tl;dr is that Prince Wu’s disbanding of the Earth Kingdoms resulted in a big mess of separate countries, and Korra’s biggest two issues after the fall of Earth Empire was spirit weapon proliferation and the slow march of environmental degradation. While she eventually managed to smash down on the threat of spirit weapons (quite literally in many cases), Korra wasn’t quite able to deal with environmental degradation since it was such a long-term issue. Fast forward to 255 AG (After the Air Nomad Genocide), Korra died 15 years ago, the states of the world have taken advantage of an avatar’s absence, a spirit weapon arms race is gaining steam, and environmental degradation is becoming global in its consequence. Tensions between states are rising, fear is growing, and a young sandbender finds out that she’s the avatar in a world approaching the brink.

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

Prince Wu’s dissolution of the Earth Kingdoms was a bold choice, but ultimately flawed. Without an overarching confederation, various communities soon fell to the influence of more powerful states. Some nascent states came under influence of foreign powers, and some feared foreign powers and joined powerful Earth cities. And so, four great powers emerged from the ruins of the Earth Empire; the State of Ba Sing Se, the Omashu Confederation, the Zaofu Directive, and the Southern Earth Community.

Still, the world was kept in an uneasy peace due in no small part to the coordinated actions of Team Avatar and its allies. While there were plenty of smaller conflicts that kept her busy, nothing occurred during Avatar Korra’s reign that would rival her early years (then again, a once-in-10,000-years global spiritual catastrophe would probably be hard to rival). This did not mean that the Avatar could fully relax though; one of the most pressing issues was that once spirit weapon tech was discovered, it did not take long for the various states to try to develop and develop said weaponry.

On this, Avatar Korra took a harsh stance. In an ultimatum, she stated that any research or development of spirit weapon technology would incur her wrath. And as many states found out, from the URN to the SBSS, from the NWT to the Fire Nation, she stood by her word. Plenty of facilities and factories met their end when a pissed-off avatar blasted apart the buildings and burned what remained. It usually didn’t take more than a few attempts at development for the nations to get the picture and keep any research they did to purely theoretical levels.

But then Korra died in 240 AG and the threat to spirit weapon development died with her. Nations across the world conducted applied research into spirit weapons and in the spring of 242 AG the SBSS tested a spirit weapon of unimaginable power. Nations panicked, ignored calls to an international intervention, and began to build their very own spirit weapon arsenals. Now a total of 5 states[1] now have growing spirit arsenals, geopolitical tensions are beginning to skyrocket, and everyone is looking for an edge. The Earth nations are desperately searching within their populace for any sign that they have the new Avatar, but the White Lotus have become far more tight-lipped about who it could be. Still information has leaked out and various powers are working towards figuring out who it is.

The State of Ba Sing Se is an authoritarian state that is the product of the city’s bureaucracy deciding to secure their control after the dissolution of the Earth Empire. The northeastern portion of the continent was the first region to be stabilized by Kuvira and the populace had more favorable views regarding her policies. While the most extreme followers of Kuvirism were purged by the Dai Li, the bureau follows a softer version of her ideology (As an odd example, if Kuvira is Stalin, the bureau is Khrushchev). They have constantly tried to expand their control seeking to reverse the “Wu disaster” either by meddling with foreign politics or by outright invasion. Because of this aggressive stance, they have hostile relations with the United Republic of Nations and aren’t really friendly with anyone. The Northern Water Tribe tolerates the SBSS, but that’s it.

The Omashu Confederation is an alliance of various states that wanted to avoid being at the whims of foreign powers and rallied around the Kingdom of Omashu. The Confederation seeks its own independent strategy, which does cause it to rub several nations the wrong way, but the state is able to keep most relations cordial. It has a generally neutral rivalry with the URN, friendly relations with the Southern Earth Community and hostile relations with the Zaofu Directive. They frequently will try to play as the arbiter between other powers’ relations, especially regarding the URN and the SBSS. They also have become more assertive over their waters which has put them at odds with the Fire Nation.

The Zaofu Directive is a wealthy but corrupt state governed by the Head Patriarch Delun Beifong. While it once was controlled by the generally benevolent Suyin Beifong, she provided no changes to the government and the passage of power and eventually Baatar Jr. gained control and corrupted the nation[2]. Zaofu is now a hereditary monarchy by all but name, where the Beifongs reign supreme. The government is truly made of sand; Zaofu is the largest city and power within the nation, but many other communities would likely be happier by themselves. The state manages to keep together due to the vast sums of money gained from the state’s mineral wealth. While refined minerals are the main exports, the Zaofu Directive also exports out its metal bending teachings, which are well mixed with insane ideologies, and thousands of operatives that stow chaos across the world. Meanwhile Toph rolls in her grave.

On the other hand, Toph would probably be pleasantly surprised over Southern Earth Community. Much like the Omashu Confederation, the country can trace its origins to various communities rallying together to stand against foreign influence. The growing and prosperous city of Gaoling serves as the state’s administrative capital and the confederation trades with all and has friendly relations with pretty much everyone, although they’re close allies with Omashu. Still, they’re extremely nervous over the worsening global situation and have begun to enter negotiations with Omashu to try to get their hands on some spirit weapon tech in case Zaofu tries something.

The United Republic of Nations had a very rough few years between 170 and 174 AG, what with a nonbender revolution, an attack by a chaos spirit kaiju avatar, and an invasion and use of the world’s first spirit weapon. And as the decades went on, the URN’s big lesson was that they needed to increase their security and defenses. Now the URN is a bit of a paranoid surveillance state that possesses a large naval fleet and a high-tech army (they still hold elections though). They have no trust in the SBSS and spend an inordinate amount of time keeping their eyes on the country’s activities. Their relations with the Fire Nation have been getting more tense, as they increasingly get annoyed with how much the Fire Nation has been whining at them.

The massive boon that the Fire Nation received from the 100-Year War is finally over. As the first country to industrialize and the main benefactor of the catastrophic war, the Fire Nation received such an increase in wealth that it still had the largest GDP many decades following the war’s resolution. But now that boost has faded, and the Fire Nation is losing steam. The URN and the State of Ba Sing Se have surpassed the Fire Nation in most terms, and Omashu is rapidly catching up. Faced with an increasingly complex world, a panicky portion of the populace has rallied behind a firebrand (heh) man who has spoken against the monarchy and wants to bring back the days of old, when the Fire Nation was feared across the world. While the issue is currently a domestic problem, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes international.

The Air Nomads may be small, but their work in peacekeeping efforts mean that they have an outstated influence. But even they are in a crisis; their peacekeeping objectives are increasingly getting more difficult and the younger airbenders are feeling like the pacifist sayings are coming into conflict with reality. And after some intense researching, the youth have begun to rally behind the ideology of Stormbringer Gyalwa, who was from a time when the Air Nomads were not quite as peaceful. Indeed, well over 5,000 years ago, Gyalwa led the air nomads as a fierce leader who managed to conquer most of the Earth continent before getting stopped by that time’s avatar[3]. She championed adaption through decisiveness and believed that airbenders were supreme due to their extensive spiritual connection. These young new followers of Gyalwa are just as eager to project this image, although they’re still a bit uncoordinated. So far, an elderly Jinora has manage to keep this group as a minority and contained, but they’re becoming more radicalized.

The only bright spot is the water tribes. While the Northern Water Tribe’s landgrab of some northern Earth continent regions raised a few eyebrows, the water tribes have generally minded their own business. However, the heightening tensions have caused the water tribes to begin building further inland to reduce their vulnerability from attacks from the shore.

And then there are the nonpolitical threats, typified by Corrupted Zones. For over 200 years, civilization has been burning massive amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. And in the topsy-turvy Avatar World, the emissions from fossil fuel use don’t result in a buildup of heat-trapping gases, but instead leads to the release of ancient, malformed, and immobile spirits that sap life out of any area where they coalesce. The issue initially became apparent when Avatar Korra was in her 40s, and she quickly figured out just how existential the threat would become. During her remaining years, she constantly tried to bring the nations together to deal with this developing threat, but most states ignored the issue as it was an issue that would develop over decades or centuries instead of a few years. While Korra made some progress on fixing this issue, with her death almost all progress has been scrapped, and now thousands of square miles of land and sea are filling with these grotesque dark spirits. Animal death is becoming more common, and even more so the corrupted zones are beginning to cause refugee crises. But to deal with it would require ingenious thinking and a global effort, and both requirements are sorely lacking right now.

And so, our new avatar has a lot on her plate. Siman, a young sandbender who has a bad case of social anxiety and would rather be a nobody, is a bit over her head. For most of her life she had been living in relative isolation in the Si Wong Confederacy, but three years ago she was contacted by an earthbending teacher and has been mastering earthbending in Omashu. She recently learned how to lavabend and was initially quite happy. But that joy was thrown into confusion when some Zaofu operatives attempted to kidnap her. While she thwarted it, she found out that she’s the Avatar and she must master all four elements and bring balance to the world. Looks like it’ll be quite the challenge, but at least she has some friends and allies to back her up.

[1] Those states are the SBSS, the URN, the Fire Nation, the Omashu Confederation, and the Zaofu Directive.

[2] Suyin was far too forgiving of her blood relatives. Baatar Jr. was still a prick after the Earth Empire/URN war.

[3] Fun fanon fact, Gyalwa’s conquests actually helped set up the stage for the establishment of the Earth Kingdom by uniting all the states against one foe!