| This is a reality from the Steve Jackson Games forums and not part of the GURPS canon. |
Global Warming[]
It was only in retrospect that the global temperature rise was cited as beginning in 1900. Bumper harvests came to Russia & Canada, but wilted in the tropics. Grigori Rasputin claimed magical credit for Russia’s bounty, to great favor Tsar Nicolaus II’s court. But the delusional Tsar personally led Russia’s intervention in the Balkan revolts in 1909, and died in its failure. The court fell to revolution, and Imperial Germany sent in troops to “secure order,” with its authority eventually extending to the Urals. A French attack on Alsace-Lorraine was rebuffed, and Paris fell to chaos.
Trouble in France soon extended throughout the Continent, and into the colonies. Canadian scientist Brendan Mackenzie made public in 1911 that global temperatures were rising, and it started a global panic. First went tropical states like in Latin America, then the colonies from Africa to southern Asia. A few places just held on, such as southern Africa and northern India, while boats of refugees went to Europe and America.
And Canada. While Europe and the U.S. were paralyzed, Canada was able to manage. The warming temperatures made new land habitable. Those wrecked by crop failures along the Mediterranean, Eastern Europeans fleeing Germans, sinking Caribbean islanders, even Asians escaping chaos - all found a home in Canada.
But in the rest of the world, populists raged against the refugees, even as governments couldn’t stop them. It was Italy that first sank a refugee ship in 1919, but the Americans took to it most. Some wealthy refugees were able to buy their way out, and a few other states were more accommodating - Copenhagen moved the entire population of the Danish Virgin Islands to a warming Greenland.
Meanwhile, Japan had followed up its victory in 1905 by seizing all of Far East Russia as the nation fell, later sweeping into Peking and stretching into Mongolia & Siberia. Between the reaches of Tokyo and Berlin, there was “empty Siberia,” with Europeans from the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and various south Asians heading to the steppes. It was only in the thirties that things calmed down to the ‘new normal.’ Canada is strong and outgoing, keeping alive impotent Britain and Western Europe, while the U.S. is divided between a rebounding north and crippled south (troops & racial tensions in Dixie; The New Mexico Desert stretches from Los Angeles to Dallas). Imperial Germany rules central and eastern Europe, and the Japanese Empire exploits Chinese & Korean labor. In between are buffer states, from Russian-speaking Arctic republics to nomad kingdoms west of the Himalayas. The southern hemisphere has pockets of civilization, from booming Argentina & New Zealand to rump Australia & Brazil to white-run southern Africa. And the great mass in the middle? Abandoned and unknown, save reports of giant deserts and depopulated jungles, with humanity reverting to tribalism & warlords. Cults stretch from the Holy Land to Mecca and along the Nile. A native-run rump of the British Raj in the Hindu Kush still tries to rule the subcontinent. Tibet is a mysterious Buddhist theocracy that somehow manages to flourish.
Temperatures stopped rising in 1925, and the last quarter-century has seen mostly peace in this new world. Canada is responsible from the Pacific to the Rhine. The Alaskan Commonwealth is as independent from Washington as Ottawa is from London. The Scandinavian Union reaches from Greenland to Karelia. There is slow, steady growth in Imperial Germany, but scarier expansion from Imperial Japan, and potential war between the two in buffer Siberia. The ‘Southern States’ are exploring Antarctica, and have reconnected with the ‘Northern Powers’, while the tropics remain a mystery.
Outtime Operations[]
But Homeline is interested in the climate. Infinity, the U.N., Homeline governments and companies all want to see global warming ‘in action.’ Yet it isn’t as expected. Northern hemisphere temperatures rose more than southern. Projected sea level rises are only in the tropics (The Netherlands is not completely underwater, even as Florida is). Wildlife has not died off, but shifted & adapted - there are unknown new jungles giving off oxygen. Even Canada’s rise seems unlikely, as the new soil shouldn’t be this rich. And then there’s why it all happened. Canuck scientists believe that the sun’s output rose, starting a positive feedback of increased CO2 and ozone depletion. But this is just a theory, and no one knows why it stopped. Homeline tries to investigate, but this timeline takes its climate research seriously - military secrets are less protected than weather data. Infinity is also looking out for Taft-3 radiation - Robert Taft serves as V.P. under an ailing President. Meanwhile, Centrum has an edge on the timeline, as its agents infiltrate the scientific establishment of Canada and others. Infinity worries about Germany and Japan not only exploiting their under-peoples, but slowly careening towards war, even as Homeline examines the unique syncretic cultures of central Asia. But the primary interest is in Canada. Homeline Ottawa wants to make Canuck Canada a model protectorate, despite Centran influence and climate chaos, and it’s hard for Infinity to disagree (Canada is the home of The Pile…).