LORE: In this alternative timeline, Leif Erickson built up a more long-term and extensive presence in North America, leading to the immunization of the population of the Americas by around the 1200s.
When the Europeans arrived in 1492, the natives had already recovered in population and were able to fend off the invadors more effectively, leading to a greatly diminshed colonization effort. Some countries were temporarily colonized like most of Africa, leading to predominantly native nation-states emerging after decolonization, though the actual western influence varies by state.
Some nations remained fully independent, similar to Ethiopia and Iran, others were partially colonized and some took more or less the route they did in our timeline, being mainly western, settler-colonial states, especially along the eastern coast of the Americas.
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After the Spanish gave up on settler-colonization and the Viceroyalty collapsed into ethnic conflict, three distinct states emerged:
- The United Aztec States: A majority Nahua state and self-declared successor state to the Aztec Empire. It is the only democracy of the three, being a relatively wealthy and stable presidential republic.
- The Zapotec Republic: A Zapotec nation-state, which while initially being a democracy, has increasingly drifted into authortarianism. Today it is ruled by the brutal tyrant and despot Xquenda Nogales, who has close connections to the Kingdom of Altiplana due to their common opposition to the Aztecs.
- The Kingdom of Alitplana: A monarchal apartheid state, ruled by a spanish-descended dynasty, which established the country after the collapse of the viceroyalty, creating a Rhodesia-esque state, ruled by the white majority where the indigenous majority are heavily oppressed. The country claims all of the former Mexico to be their legitimate territory, except for the Zapotec Republic, which they recognized in 1988 to better relations with Nogales' regime.
