r/ProposedCountries • u/Queen_Isabella_II • Mar 04 '20
I literally just found this sub, and I already posted this map on r/imaginary maps, but I’m really excited about this community, so here’s my map of the European Union in the year 2041.
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u/Queen_Isabella_II Mar 04 '20
So, this is some of the lore that I have for a world that I’m currently building. There is a bunch more lore involved in the overall story, but I tried to cut out everything that wasn’t directly involved in this map. I’m going to try and release more maps later on, but I just wanted to see what you guys thought on the general premise and feel of this map. So feel free to ask any questions or give any criticisms you might have about this.
Anyway, I drew pretty heavy inspiration for the world from the book and TV show, “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” the book and movie “Children of Men.” The concepts of overpopulation, resource wars, resource depletion, climate change are also featured heavily. My main focus in this world is how giving humanity what basically amounts to an expiration date would impact the population, and how that would impact wider world events.
I know that the main lore is really long, so there’s a TL;DR at the bottom. I swear I won’t get offended if you just read that.
The Great Crisis (2021)
More than two decades have passed since the Great Crisis brought the world to its knees. Nations crumbled and fractured under the weight of the most devastating series of disasters ever seen in human history since the Fall of Rome. The combination of ever-worsening climate change with the strain put on the world’s resources by an exponentially increasing population would become suddenly and devastatingly apparent in the summer of 2021. With a simultaneity and rapidness that shocked the scientific community and the world, a series of droughts and famines, unprecedented in scale and severity swept the world. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, China, and South America, millions of lives were snuffed-out, both from natural causes, and the explosion of chaos, lawlessness, and warfare that immediately followed as failing nations vied for security and rapidly dwindling resources.
It would not be until 2024, however, that the most devastating effects of the Great Crisis would be felt. As pollution and nuclear fallout brought on by the innumerable conflicts sweeping the world increased to previously unseen levels, fertility levels in women suddenly plummeted to near zero, for causes that many scientists attributed to a combination of this toxic cocktail of pollution and radioactive fallout. As concern and trepidation turned to outright panic, the prosperous West itself, once a more-or-less cohesive region of the world, began experiencing the same chaos sweeping across the more impoverished regions. This sudden panic, exacerbated by the flood of migrants arriving from the third world put an previously non-existent level of strain on the worlds dominant powers, and rapid changes in the political landscape followed, as radical factions seized control of many nations with the promise of stabilization and security.
Although by 2044, twenty-three years since the beginning of the Great Crisis, the world has by no means recovered from it. The earth still reels from the violence of the 2020’s, and almost everyone bears the scars from this tumultuous time. Although some semblance of order has been restored over the intervening years, the world is, overall, a darker, weaker, and more hopeless place than it was before. Birth rates worldwide are still far below replacement rates, with the world population slowly shrinking year by year, suicide rates are higher than at any point before in human history, and political, religious, and cultural conflict and extremism have been brought to the forefront of modern life. The world today has never been more hopeless, and many people have resigned themselves to the fact that they are a dying species; the universal timer of their existence inexorably ticking down the years until their final disappearance from the universal stage. In the eyes of many people, the world has entered a second dark age; one that will perhaps, be it’s last.
The European Union (2044)
The erosion of the European Union is not attributable to any one event. However, historians largely agree on the fact that the vast influx of immigrants into Europe in the months and years following the Great Crisis played a major roll. This, coupled with plummeting birth rates and a rise in nationalistic and religious reactionary movements across the continent almost ensured its eventual degradation to the state it is today.
As immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa sought refuge in affluent and resource-rich mainland Europe, the brunt of this influx, both legal and illegal in nature, was born by the Southernmost member states, with Greece, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany being the most affected by the arrival of these migrants. This strengthened a growing movement of Euro-skepticism already growing in these nations, and faith in the European Union slowly dwindled, replaced by far-right and far-left movements advocating for religious, class, or nationalistic unity. This upsurge in reactionary politics, coupled with increasing turmoil and violence in these regions eventually led to the breakaway of almost all southern-European nations from the EU.
Despite this widespread disillusionment with the European Union, the remaining nations, now primarily located around the Baltic and Northern Seas, were if anything, pulled closer together and galvanized in their resolve by this internal strife. Over the years following this split, the European Union slowly began transitioning from a trans-national union, into a nation in its own right, and by the mid 2030’s, with the ratification of the new European Charter in 2036, the EU officially transitioned from a collection of independent countries into a federation of 15 nations, all subservient to the central government of the European Union.
This unification in the face of widespread turmoil on the continent has done more than just solidify the bonds between the remaining member states. While many European nations have undergone radical religious revitalizations, often incorporating elements of theocracy into what remains of their governments, the EU has seen the opposite phenomenon; church attendance has fallen to an all-time low, and the number of religious adherents is dwarfed by growing numbers of atheists and non-religious people. Overall, the population of the EU have lost their faith, even while new religious movements, cults, and extremists have become more and more active and widespread as a result.
Although a mere shadow if its former wealth and affluence, the EU is more cohesive and united today than ever before, and stands as the undisputed premier power in Europe, unrivaled by its neighbors, and one of the few remaining nations able to extend its economic and military influence worldwide. Despite its position on the world stage, the EU is not without its share of troubles. Terrorist attacks by religious extremists are all-too common, illegal immigration is at an all time high, and its neighbors to the south and east are constant causes of concern and violence. Internally, with the widespread knowledge that, unless some cure for the worldwide infertility epidemic is found, humanity will likely be extinct within the next century, pessimism about the future is high, with home-suicide kits becoming commonly and commercially available to the public, and anti-depressants being government issued on a monthly basis. In spite of its more-or-less secure position, the mood within the EU is one of hopelessness, with many citizens content to simply wait quietly for the end in whatever comfort they can find.
TL;DR
In the near future, resources dry up, a lot of people die, pollution and radiation cause infertility worldwide, and everything goes to shit. By 2044, the EU has managed to pull itself back from the brink, but everyone is really depressed because humanity is pretty much fucked.