Evan Bonnett

World Sketch – Earth 2200

A world shockingly not implausible.

The Earth of the turn of the 23rd century has a tri-polar global power arrangement. The traditional balance of power has been upset by the decline of oil; this was an eventuality everyone knew was coming but no one did anything about. The tremendous growth of China and India, among other places, created a supply shortage worse than anyone predicted. The subsequent and fairly sudden loss of petroleum as an affordable and, later, existent energy source led to international economic collapse and opened the door for a new international paradigm.

The first immediate result after this collapse was a shift in the Middle East. Having lost oil both as a revenue source and as a cause for intervention by outside states, the region had newfound drive towards two goals: the first was a more appropriate political reorganization and the second was scientific resurgence. The Peoples’ Islamic Republics (the plural in the title was retained to emphasis the union of many, though the term ‘Republic’ was used purely as a rhetorical device) was eventually created to fill the void the collapse of oil created. This is a communist state based on the principles of Islamic communism as formed during the middle 21^st century. This form of communism is not at all Marxist, Maoist, or Leninist, but is based on the religion of Islam particularly emphasizing Islam’s pillars of community and community assistance.

There is not an oppressive state. Various levels of religious leaders largely carry out the roles of a government. These leaders are answerable in turn to a religious Caliph-like leader who is elected among the local leaders. Redistribution of wealth is accomplished through this system but in actuality much of the redistribution occurs peacefully and cooperatively among individual citizens. There is an overwhelming sense of Islamic community and duty.

Removal of outside influence on the region meant that Islamic leaders, who had been plotting during the decline of oil and its resultant further occupation by the rest of the world, could plan the geographical layout of their region according to their wishes and not those of any colonial power. The leaders realized that there did indeed exist the possibility of a united Arab world similar to that of the Ottoman Empire. Warring tribes, religious sects, and nations all could exist more peacefully as one large unit than as smaller competing components provided they see the greater good in such a system. The fall of oil and their modern economic life created that vision. The boundaries initially were within the Middle East, in former Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Armenia, parts of Turkey, and Egypt. As economic collapse spread so did the impetus for others to join the only society whose people did not suffer horribly. The boundaries quickly expanded to include most of southeastern Europe (Balkans, Greece), Spain, the rest of the –stan countries, northern Africa, and the Indian Ocean African nations.

This expansion did not occur because of conquering but rather because of the scientific renaissance taking place in the Islamic Republics. The state was essentially repeating its position relative to Europe during the European Dark Ages. A secure life within a carrying religious commune-state and the sheer scientific innovation taking place attracted many people and their countries.

Law in the Islamic Republics consists of Islamic Law and is highly punishing, because crimes are seen as not against any individual or the state but against the holy society and God. Personal possessions, private education, social mobility, and free enterprise are all both not allowed and unnecessary. Women are not considered to be the equal of men and have no say in the sciences or minimal role of government (economic and social planning). Religious dissenters are not allowed and are forcibly exiled to states too weak to effectively stop their arrival such as those in southern Africa, Russia, or elsewhere. International trade is not allowed by individuals but the government can and does trade (often in scientific knowledge) to gain resources.

The emphasis placed on science advocated by religion in the Islamic Republics clashed head to head with the much more recent promotion of science in another of the world’s superpowers, the Anglican Kingdom.

Just prior to the decline in oil, Great Britain had begun to seriously invest itself in scientific discovery. This began as a governmental program to help bring Britain back to the forefront of the world and it succeeded at just the right time. They developed a system of fusion power for which people long had hoped. This meant that during the end of the heyday of oil, the British were largely unaffected and were the only group to not be. They did not keep this for themselves and quickly profited from their discovery, particularly from their Commonwealth countries and with the United States. The collapse of these economies first meant more British investment and then direct British control through forfeitures of property and other economic means.

The areas under their control were not entirely adverse to the situation and the rise of the Islamic Republics led many to wonder why the Anglo-American world shouldn’t unite? Whereas one hundred years prior to this time it would have been under American auspices, now all joined in the British system. The British recognized the central role they could have in this and offered representation to all members in a Westminster style democracy, retaining the monarchy that had lasted 1100 years. The Kingdom of Anglia, or the Anglican Kingdom, was formed. Eventually this expanded to include most of the Western world, including most of the former early 21^st European Union (France, as to be expected, opted out) as well as Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the eastern United States. The latter five retained special privileges as former dominions and English-speaking peoples. The latter five also retained greater self-rule partly out of tradition and partly out of proximity.

The societal structure of the Anglican Kingdom is recognizable to any Anglo-American person from the 21^st century, and retains a highly American influence on the importance of military power, as well as private property, common law, and a basic welfare state. The religion is a state-sponsored modern version of the Church of England and while dissent is allowed, the more extreme Christian dissenters mostly migrated to the countries west of the Mississippi in the former United States. The Church places a heavily emphasis on the value of science and encourages its study, though this study is usually much more militaristic in its aims than that of the Islamic Republics.

The necessary expansion into space in order to gain the appropriate solar radiation for fusion power has led to a space race mostly between the Anglicans and the Asian Federation.

The Asian Confederation is the last of the three powers to develop and is a basically a supernational state along the same lines as the European Union of the middle 21^st century. The member states include Japan, Vietnam, a united Korea, China, and the Pacific Rim countries. This superstate is highly commercial and the world’s trade leader but does no real scientific research or development on its own, instead buying it mainly from the Islamic Republics. The Islamic state, however, has issues with the Asian Confederation’s official stance of consumer atheism. This state is also very militaristic and has also expanded into space where it competes with the Anglicans to control the necessary areas for fusion power, a technology the independent Asian countries stole from the British, developed with the help of the Islamic Republics, and used to promote the joining of the Asian powers. China was particularly hard hit by the decline of oil which it in part caused and so was influential in attempting the area’s resurgence.

Policy is driven by the Confederated Congress in Beijing and the member states have less and less autonomy to determine their own futures.

The basic world situation is thus that there are three superpowers, each drastically different and each searching for its place in a new world order. Other nations do, of course exist, and can be influential figures regarding trade and alliances, but the three superpowers, only two of whom are really interested in expansion and conflict, drive the international scene.
This scene has expanded into a space race for resources to drive the power that made the Anglicans so powerful. The main source of conflict at the turn of the 23^rd century is that struggle in near outer space for control of prime radiation collection points and the supply routes back to Earth.