Earth 07-075-1775 (sometimes referred to as Barzakh by its Islamic discoverer) is a post-Collapse Earth located in the Anglo-American Branch currently being monitored by the Observor Corp.
History[]
Though Britain was successful suppressing the Rebellion of 1775, it was unable to crush the revolutionary ideology in their North American colonies. Even after mass deportations to the west, the encouragement of German-speaking colonists to settle in North America, concessions to the French-speaking Canadians and the liberation of the blacks from servitude, rebellions were a constant threat. Though the British managed to expand their Dominion of North America across the continent, the cost of holding their vast empire down prevented them from expanding on other continents like Britain has been able to do on other Earths. France, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands created powerful overseas empires that rivaled the British juggernaut in North America. Russia, meanwhile, expanded across Asia, splitting India with France and taking much of northern China. The German and Italian states remained divided.
The empires learned how to prevent rebellions from observing the British. Thus rebellions in the home territories and colonial revolts were easily dealt with, thanks to the fact that massive retaliation was fully acceptable in this world. Such a state of affairs horrified a group of reformers in North America. Known as Neo-Agrarians, they preached a more primitive lifestyle away from the massive, smog-filled cities of their industrialized world. Forming communes in the rural areas of British North America, they absorbed much of the Amish and other primitive religious societies. They were known for their abhorrence of modern technology and often built walls around their communities to keep out the influence of outsiders. The Dominion government for their part ignored them since their adoption of non-violence and superb food production made them valuable allies.
Technology in this world took an odd direction. Steam was preferred over internal-combustion, though it was eventually replaced by electricity. During the Electric Age, a new weaponized electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) was invented, and was used in several wars. When the Collapse Theory began to take effect, the Final War broke out in 1979, which saw a massive use of EMPs that the Electric Age came to a crashing halt. Cities were cut off from food and supplies. Society collapsed as governments were unable to communicate farther than a few miles. Hungry townsfolk raided the countryside, often resorting to cannibalism.
It took only a few years for things to stabilize, but by then this Earth had changed dramatically. Billions had died and many survivors had been reduced to cannibalistic savages. A radical Islamist organization known as the Army of Islam had been established by a “prophet” who claimed to be Rashid ad-Din Sinan. The group managed to ride out the worse of Collapse and eventually built an Islamic empire that today has conquered large parts of Europe. In Russian China, a group of Chinese rebels who survived in their mountain fortresses, founded an ideology similar to communism (with a personality cult following the "People's Dynasty") and are spreading across much of East Asia. In North America, the Neo-Agrarians walled cities protected them from the starving townsfolk while their abandonment of non-violence in face of extinction allowed them to survive through the worst of the Collapse. Since then the various Neo-Agrarians have formed the Confederacy of God’s Children and are attempting to resettle much of North America.
All three groups are very anti-tech, keeping with the final rule of the Collapse Theory that any post-industrial world that does not discover the multiverse will revert to a perpetual pre-industrial society following a prolonged Collapse. The Observation Corp maintains a permanent presence on this world to continue study of this post-Collapse timeline.
Behind the Scenes[]
Earth 07-075-1775 is loosely based on Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson.