Updated map with fixed capitals

First map in a series called Whalefall, the plot is basically that in the mid 2020s the USA collapses hard, sparks a chain of events that drags most other nations into civil wars, and is reunited by communists, but only after fighting reduces almost all cities to rubble. In universe, the map in question is made by the International Socialist Federation, the successor to the UN. Most nations in it don't go through nearly as much as the FAC does, however. More details are in the map text.

  • HauntedBySpectacle [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    what's the story with the cities Camp Joy, Camp Spirit, and Camp Hope in the Kentucky / southern Ohio and Indiana area? the optimistic, military flavor feels like places founded/renamed during stuggle, maybe a Long March analogue through the Midwest or Appalachia?

    edit: wanted to add I like a lot of your choices for new toponyms, like Houston being changed to Bayouville so as not to be named for shithead settler Sam Houston and Indianapolis Columbus being named for Iroquois leader Hiawatha.

    • WIIHAPPYFEW [he/him, they/them]
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      2 years ago

      They were founded as refugee camps for people fleeing the failed invasion of the midwest by the cult in the south. Despite the very happy-sounding names, they have the worst living conditions in even a country as abysmal to live in as Anowara, with many people sleeping in troughs without even makeshift roofs.

      Edit: Indianapolis was renamed after Tecumseh, you’re thinking of Columbus.

    • HauntedBySpectacle [he/him, comrade/them]
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      2 years ago

      Nukes in the Southeast alone could make up a solid portion of that figure, that's absolutely catastrophic to have a Chernobyl-like environment the whole area from Miami to the edges of Missouri and West Virginia. there's about 57.46 million people currently living in that space from my rough calculation of adding state population totals. the borders of the exclusion zone naturally don't follow state borders exactly, but it only goes a little past their edges, so if you took, say, 60 million: easily half of that could die in an initial nuclear impact, and many more of starvation after.

    • WIIHAPPYFEW [he/him, they/them]
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      2 years ago

      Most of the country was being bombed with whatever explosives could be gathered by opposing forces for 5 years, and urban guerilla cells ravaged even cities far away from combat in the front lines.

      • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Are there any other examples of such dramatic depopulation from a civil war, especially in less than a decade? Feels extreme just for the sake of being extreme. So does 24 year life expectancy.

          • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
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            2 years ago

            Yeah, I'm seeing that got to 40% of the population fled or killed. But

            1. this is closer to 60%

            2. in a massively larger country

            3. with far more difficulty to leave, physically

        • WIIHAPPYFEW [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Paraguay in the 1870s wasn’t involved in a civil war, but it suffered a similiar level of devastation

    • WIIHAPPYFEW [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The capital placements in the uninhabitable states are purely ceremonial by this point, with plans to be resettled once it’s no longer deadly to live. I’m aware that I forgot to label Syracuse as Haudenosaunee’s capital as well, but I’m not sure of any other unlabeled cities. (Providence’s label is a bit off from where it’s supposed to be, though.)

        • WIIHAPPYFEW [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          If you mean why I made it: Whalefall is a planned series of short stories, maps, and media depicting America falling into civil war, eventually dragging the entire world into a conflict that ends with communists finally prevailing, but at the cost of the fighting affecting almost all of the world, especially in the former USA.

          If you mean why it was produced in universe: It’s part of a series of maps produced by the ISF for people affiliated to it who may be visiting various nations, which is why it has some details on hospitality within the nation.

  • Grimble [he/him,they/them]
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    2 years ago

    Oooooo this is my SHIT

    Idk something about genuinely detailed, plausible, thought-out scenarios where history is actually moved forward and the current hegemonies are shattered to be replaced with fresh new societies... it just gets me. I think we need so much more storytelling and media to explore that premise. This futures clearly bleak but I love how you managed to paint such a hopeful picture, too. The descriptions of life in what used to be America and the specific kind of hospitality its people have in this future give a great glimpse into the world. I also love how the flag looks like something genuinely new, born from a modern movement.

    I was working on a post-collapse/revolution map sort of like this a while back, so maybe I'll finish it and post it in this comm! It needs activity.