Bump. I've discovered
a Gurps wiki and created
a page for the Chaos TL. This page contains some more background information in case someone wants to play a Gurps campaign set in TTL, with the Alternate Earths / Infinite Worlds background. Also, it gives a nice overview over the world in 1993/94 which you might have missed.
(Oh, and also note that I've clarified a bit about the early China after the Ming: It becomes an adoptive empire, but in the beginning, the general-turned-emperor downplays the empire bit deliberately when negotiating with - republican - Germany, going so far to call his China a republic.)
Here's the first part:
Phil R. Zimmermann: "If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."
This recently discovered Quantum 6 world has given both Homeline and Centrum probably more headaches than almost any other parallel. Although its point of divergence dates back very long - about 1200, when Mongol prince Temujin died - states and concepts developed sometimes in surprising parallels.
The centuries since then brought the rise and fall of an Anglo-Iberian, a Scandinavian, a French and three Chinese empires, seeing two world-spanning empires become predominant: Russia, and New Rome (founded by Alessandro Napoleoni). Then, the 20th century brought two World Wars, the split of said two great empires, the formation of a multi-continental German empire and a great number of new states, together with the advance of strong Socialist and Fascist movements. Although the new technocratic dictatorship in Germany tried to get everything under control, the political situation got more and more complicated with every year. The ever-faster changes brought by a further developed computer technology made the people feel even more that they lived in a world ruled by coincidence, and the researchers from Infinity Unlimited thought similarly, thus giving this timeline the name "Chaos".
Then, in the year 1993, everything has changed: A coup of hackers cooperating with the Artificial Intelligences they helped to create has united the world. While this seems quite similar to Centrum - a scientific-technical meritocracy that governs a whole planet - there are even more great differences: Other than Centrum, the new government encourages freedom and individuality and even goes so far that it publishes all its data openly for everybody.
History
Without Genghis Khan
The absence of the successful Mongolian hordes meant at first a great advantage for Russia, the Muslim world, and China. But while Imperial China and the Muslim states of Choresm and the Rum-Seljuks finally fell into stagnation (despite obvious successes, like the latter conquering Rome and Vienna, and the former discovering electricity), only Russia really took off. While still split into many principalities (which allowed the Teutonic Order to expand further), with a population never decimated by the Golden Horde, they pressed into Siberia earlier than IOTL, and settled it fully until the 16th century. Too far away to be controlled by the prince (and later czar) in Vladimir, they successfully fought for independence, which they got in 1632. The new country of Novorussia enjoyed a good relationship with China, from which it received a lot of influence. This helped the new state to reach a high sophistication in many ways, soon even overtaking the old country's.
Meanwhile in western Europe
Similar to OTL, two states became predominant: France, which battled England successfully in the three Aquitainian wars; and England, which formed a dynastic union with Castille and also took over Portugal and Scotland, forming the Quadruple Monarchy. Their competition culminated in the Great Occidental War (1523-47), triggered when king Henry V tried to become head of his own church. This distracting struggle allowed the Rum-Seljuks (who never splintered, which had allowed OTL's rise of the Ottomans) to conquer Austria, Naples and even Rome, after already having conquered Constantinople earlier. North Italy meanwhile had been divided up between Savoy, Venice and Florence (which would become important later), but Germany stayed splintered, weakened by a civil war and hadn't even a predominant state, like Hapsburg Austria in OTL (the Hapsburgs having lost to a more successful Swiss Confederation). But in the meantime, an important change had been brought to the world by a small state: Denmark.
The discovery of Atlantis
In 1381, the Danish prince Harald had discovered a great continent in the west, making landfall in OTL Newfoundland. Without the obvious riches of the Aztecs in sight, colonization went slower, but still happened. Denmark and England were first; France and Spain followed, and even the smaller powers of the Netherlands, Florence, Sweden, Poland and Braunschweig founded their own colonies. During the Occidental War, the Mexica and Tawantinsuyu were drawn into the European network of diplomatics, although they kept their independence; and the landless Scottish prince Alasdair used his fame gained in the New World to retake his country from England and founded a Celtic-Scandinavian empire, albeit shortlived.
To absolutism and its fall
After the council of Ghent in 1556, the great powers finally started to face the Seljuk threat. Slowly, the Muslims were driven back in Italy and on the Balcans, while North Africa was colonized piece by piece at the same time, and settled by Europeans. Later however, the Triple Monarchy of England-Castille-Portugal fell apart, leaving France as the only major power. The great French kings used the opportunity to have themselves elected Holy Roman Emperor several times, and expanded their influence especially in northern Italy and southern Germany. But resistance started to form. The new Stafford dynasty of England which had won the Civil War rebuilt the country and its colonial empire in South Atlantis, while the Swedish queen Kristina formed an alliance against all-to-mighty king Francois IV. The Anti-French War (1682-94) took France and its allies a notch down, dividing most of French North Atlantis between English Canada, and the German and Italian colonies, which would take off from then. After this great war, the struggle for influence in African and Asian colonial empires went on in the idealistic early 18th century, until the death of the last French king Charles X created a completely new situation.
The new republics
Since the king had no known issue, the General Estates were called to decide about the situation. After long searches in Atlantis for eventual heirs of the throne, the Estates came to the conclusion that France could do well without a king either. The new republic defeated first its inner opponents and then the various monarchist coalitions that had formed around Britain's reactionary kings. Germany and the Iberian peninsula were conquered and became satellite republics; but especially the latter would create nothing but problems for France.
Meanwhile, in the east the republic of Novorussia had expanded into both North Atlantis and Asia, and even absorbed the old mother country of Vladimir-Suzdal. Not wanting to stop there, they used the situation and eventually conquered Finland, Poland and Prussia.
And in Atlantis, after the death of the last king of Denmark-Braunschweig, the "schulzen" (mayors) of German-speaking Atlantis also decided to do it the French way and declared themselves independent, without blood having to be shed.
Rise of the New Rome
Over the centuries, Florence had grown to the medium power of Italy. Now, when republican France distracted the other European powers, the cunning king Gioacchino used the opportunity to pick up French and Spanish colonies in Africa and Atlantis, ostensibly "to protect them". Slowly, Italy became a grand power. Since the king was childless, he adopted his most abled general, Alessandro Napoleoni from Sardinia. The new ruler would bring Italy to the next level, when he added the rest of the Spanish colonies, the Inca lands and Egypt to his empire - for the kingdom Italy now became the New Roman Empire, with himself as the emperor and head of the Imperial Catholic church. Then, in alliance with Germany (which had meanwhile kicked out the French), he also defeated Britain and took their colony of Braseal. Germany would receive Argentine, which now received a lot of immigration, since German Atlantis had already reached the Great Mountains.
After the death of Alessandro, the short reign of Benedetto followed. But during his few years he managed to push Russia back in Europe, Atlantis and Asia, and appointed an even more capable successor, Ludovico. Said Ludovico found that the time had come to retake former Roman provinces in Europe too, after France had wasted its strength in eighty years of a guerilla war in Spain. In three wars, France was repeatedly humbled, and the Iberian peninsula formed into a number of satellite kingdoms. Also, he expanded New Rome's influence on the Indian subcontinent. Braseal which had become a penal colony for the empire proved to be uncontrollable however, so it was given independence.
The Red threat
Lacking a republican interregnum and a Glorious Revolution, the British kings were more powerful and reactionary than IOTL. When their perpetual wars only proved to empty Britain's coffers and lose its colonies, people got enough, revolted against king Philip and killed him. The royal family fled to New Albion (our New Zealand). The new republican government proved to be very shortlived when they decided to arm factory workers against a royalist uprising, which only lead to a second revolution and the proclamation of the first Socialist state, under the new boss Charles Pounder. The excesses of the revolution put fear in the hearts of businessmen everywhere, especially however in Germany, which now worked hard to suppress Socialist movements everywhere in Europe. For this purpose, they invaded Bohemia and Scandinavia and also France, which was divided between them and New Rome. The Socialists retaliated by attacking "monetarist" ships everywhere on the sea - piracy had returned.
World Wars and dictatorships
When the First World War broke out, the Russian and the New Roman Empires outweighed Germany in both land surface and population. However, when Canadian diplomacy brought in Nippon, China, Siam and Braseal as new allies, their advantage shrunk. And while their almost-monopoly on oil surely would have brought the decision in a latter war, Germany's access on coal and steel was more important then. Slowly the German armies proceeded in France, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Nile and Mississippi valleys; mass desertions among the French and uprisings of the Muslims forced the two big Empires to capitulate. After the breakdown of the New Roman Empire, Socialists came to power in both France and Iberia with British help. Soon, the revolutionary wave spread via the German occupation troops into the German home country. 1919, the northwestern Germany seperated together with the Scandinavian republic from the German Empire and joined the Socialist block. Since the war-tired German soldiers didn't want to shoot on their brothers, the German government had to accept the new reality. Atlantean chancellor Kleiber however used the situation to merge the three Germanies in Europe, Atlantis and Argentinien into a unified, truly world-spanning empire, before he died. Thus, the Germans became the first superpower - in a world they soon saw was incontrollable by them.
After the harsh peace Germany had imposed on them, Greater Italy and Russia both thirsted for revenge. In the former, the new movement of the "famiglia" (imagine a mixture of the fascists and the mafia) established a dictatorship with the only aim of a humiliation of Germany, while everything else had to take second priority, while in the latter the new woshdij (leader) Gridenkov had similar aims. Meanwhile, the Germans had to fight with colonial uprisings and a strong Socialist opposition, and changing governments and political scandals. When in 1931 the democratic politicians had proved unable to solve the empire's problems, the leaders of the military and the industry, plus the bureaucracy, decided at the conference of Paulskirchen to putsch and formed a new government, the Technocracy, which immediately started to prepare for World War Two, which came in 1941. Again, Germany prevailed, this time even (almost) without allies (China was busy holding down Nippon, which they had conquered between the wars), but they had to pay a high price. The war took an even higher death toll than the last one, and European Germany was actually occupied before Atlantean troops liberated it again. In the meantime, several million Germans (and Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians) were displaced to Russia and forced to work there - a dramatic experience, although it created some bounds between Germany and the other peoples. Also, the Technocracy could not prevent the Socialists taking over in post-war (core) Italy.
The Cold War
Germany had won the war with the help of a new weapon, the nuclear bomb. Before they could use their monopoly, the secret was stolen by Socialist spies, leading to a Cold War with them instead. Since then, the two blocks fought a war of influence in the "chaos" countries of Atlantis, Africa and western Asia, with no clear results. At the same time, they tried to surpass each other with space projects and research about nanotechnology and artificial intelligences. And religious movements like the Irish-Catholic church, the followers of Chandramoorthy and various Muslim groups also tried to get influence.
The deciding development came from another place, though. With time, the formerly good relationship between Germany and China had cooled down, when they clashed about some former colonies of Canada, Germany's closest ally. The final blow came in 1993 when a Nipponese terrorist group crashed an airplane on the Summer Palace in Shanghai, killing the emperor. His enraged son demanded Chinese troops being deployed on the Indies where the rest of the group was hiding, which Canada and Germany denied him. Their armies were alarmed, and when two nanoswarms clashed near Kamchatka, the world was close to an apocalypse.
The Streich (spoiler!)
A group of Logos - the hackers of Chaos - had discovered the secret information that the world was on the verge of an apocalypse. Not wanting to die, they used their AI programs to hack all the important databases in the world, in one single night. This was a scenario which already had been thought of in this timeline's fiction, and was called the Streich - German for prank, or hack. Old programs were dusted off, new scripts were written, passwords cracked, networks infiltrated, while the Logos were in contact (thanks to their brain-computer-interfaces) all the time. At the end, they were successful: The AIs and the nanoswarms were under their control, as were the computer networks. The New Veritist world republic was proclaimed. World War Three was over. It didn't really take long (about three hours), but the world would never be again as it was before.
Locales
The German Empire
Once a democratic republic, for some decades Germany was the technocracy. All about ruthless efficiency, the new government pursued a policy of strengthening the state (inside and outside), the military and the economy while being socially conservative. It was decidedly anti-Socialist, even moreso than the democratic Germany. In schools, science and technology were encouraged instead of classics and humanities, and boys were taught shooting. Critics of the system were suppressed with censorship and house arrest, the rest of the population kept quiet with consumerism and entertainment. In the later years, the rulers gradually retreated to a "deep state" existence and allowed democratic elections again.
Europe
Stretching from the Upper Rhine to Livonia, from the Baltic Sea to the Adria, European Germany inhabits 85 million citizens and 15 million foreigners (mostly Balcan people, Indians, black Africans and Arabs - Russians and Italians still hesitate to work in the country that destroyed their dreams of greatness). Next to it sit its close allies of Poland, Bohemia, Hungary and the Finnish-Estonian Republic, adding their 75 million citizens and 10 million foreigners to the block in central Europe. The technocratic regime has made sure in the last decades that they toe its line for all important issues; and the mixing of the populations in World War 2 and since then has certainly helped - nowadays members of these nations don't really count as foreigners anymore in Germany. In the schools of these states, German is taught along their mother tongues.
The old Germany suffered much from the loss of one third of its population, half its industry and later the moving of many influential people to German Atlantis. However, under the technocratic regime at least the industry has been rebuilt, mostly in Saxony and Bohemia, forming the new sprawl around the centers of Dresden and Prague, where about one fifth of the European Germans lives.
Since the European part of Germany is surrounded by the Socialist Block in the West and the Russian chaos in the East, half of the German army is stationed here and in the occupied areas of Romania, Croatia and the Ukraine. About 10 million Germans have been settled in these lands by the technocratic regime; today, many of them return because they fear rejection by the natives.
European Germany is split inside; while the Eastern and Central lands (including said non-German allies) mostly supported the anti-Socialist politics of the central government in Martinsburg, in the "front lands" of Swabia, Hesse and Eastphalia there's a strong minority resisting, and especially in Switzerland people are pretty stubborn and everything but helpful for the government.
Atlantis
In the area of roughly the northern half of OTL's continental USA live 175 million citizens and 35 million foreigners (most of them from Roman Atlantis). Since World War I, the areas of Texas and Montana (western Italia Nuova) are occupied by Germany, supposed to take in German settlers. Martinsburg at the Atlantic coast is the political capital (since 1919 of the whole German Empire) and the main contact point for Europe. Wildenhartburg (Chicago) is the industrial center of German Atlantis and was once an important place for the trade with Canada and Italia Nuova. Franzensburg, the most important harbour at the West Coast, is famous for its universities and research facilities (and its strong Logos' community that wrote some of their most important programs and manifests here).
Argentinien
The last part settled by Europeans, nowadays it has 85 million citizens and 12 million foreigners. Once enjoying the highest standard of living thanks to its natural riches in grain, beef, gold and gems, this part of the Empire somehow missed to keep up with the other parts and thus fell farther and farther back. Hence, it became a stronghold for Racists, Weber (Luddites), Socialists, radical Christians and other opponents of the Technocratic regime. Since these groups tend to neutralize each other, the government wasn't too impressed by this. Some more active and brighter people tried to make a success by bringing the fruits of the new century to its neighbor states like Peru, Aymaria and Braseal. The main exception is the city of Paradies (Rio de Janeiro), center of the German movie industry, and also very popular with the tourists.
The Chinese adoptive empire
The empire proper covers about the eastern half of OTL's China and inhabits 800 million subjects. (The population of China generally developed more smoothly - there weren't any catastrophes which took a toll on the population as the Taiping, World War 2 or Mao's Great Leap Forward as IOTL; on the other hand, an earlier prosperity brought the population growth to a halt, without force measures by the state.) This smaller China however is surrounded by official tributaries in all directions, among which Nippon (100 millions) and Corea (50 millions) are the most important ones. Even the states of southeastern Asia which were Indianized in the past now show a strong Chinese/Confucian influence. And further beyond the rim of tributaries, China has covert influence in the Russian and Indian Chaos, and in places with strong Chinese minorities - like most of the Canadian Commonwealth. China is the second superpower of Chaos, and about on the same level with Germany considering the strength of its army and the level of its science and technology. (Although China's population is greater, high education is broader in Germany, making them equal - yet.)
The adoptive emperors
The current "dynasty" is the third one different from OTL; before, there were the Hong (which united China after the Song fell) and the Ming (who introduced telegraphy to China, spawning a revolution of communication). After the Russian-Orthodox influenced "Society of Brotherly Love" had lead to much turmoil in the 19th century and the annexation of northern China to Novorussia, a Chinese general from Anhui reunited China another time. To get support for his rule, he styled the new China "a republic" when negotiating with Germany and "an adoptive empire" when talking to New Rome. While Germany was finally successful winning China as an ally for helping with industrializing the country, during World War I his successor managed to style himself officially emperor again.
Nippon
During the 1920s, China and Nippon clashed over the question what to do with Corea, which they had conquered together in the World War from Russia. At the end, it came to war, which China won with the help of their new weapon, the cruise missile. In 1930, the Nipponese government gave up. However, unrest never could be completely suppressed, and many Nipponese emigrated to other countries, continuing their fight against China from there.
Occupied until the end by Chinese troops, Nippon is one of the poorest and least developed countries in Asia, except for the Chaos areas. Mixed with their national pride, this creates a dangerous mix, feeding the terrorist movements. Another factor is the religious difference - China has kept the old religions, but Nippon was christianized by Spanish missionaries in the past. (This influence also caused some other changes - Nipponese in Chaos put the personal name before the family name, and honorifics like "San" are used similarly as Spanish "Don", before the name.) Actually, the tenno is head of the Nipponese Catholic church!
The Socialist Block
Set in western Europe (incl. Greece), the Block is home to 290 million comrades. The member nations have retained their independence, with the central government in Brussels caring for defense, (a bit of) diplomacy, espionage, propagating revolutions in the rest of the world, the currency, removing barriers between the nations exchange of ideas and some great prestige projects. Between the two World Wars, the French were said to have the most influence, but since their incorporation into the block, the Italians have become more prevalent, seeing socialism as the best way to get revenge against the Germans. The Block has its own space projects (not always successful) and strong research programs for artificial intelligence and nanotech, in some areas even surpassing the monetarist nations. One of their most important research facility is the famous "House of Tomorrow" in London. Still, the Block has problems with discontent people (although nowadays house arrest with electronic shackles is preferred to throwing them into prisons, or using them as forced labor), pollution, and the lack of some natural resources; gasoline is expensive, the industry and heating rely strongly on coal instead of oil and gas, and many articles like bananas are hard to get.
Note: "Communism" in Chaos is used only for the workers' utopia that is theoretically somewhen to be achieved. The usually used term, whether by friends or by enemies, is "Socialism".
Colorful Socialism
Very different from OTL, the Socialist Block never was steered from a single nation. Even when Britain was the only socialist state in the world, people in other countries tended to make up their own version of Socialism. In Britain, the organisations have the power - the unions of the factory workers, the old artisan guilds, the farmer's alliances, the army and, independently, the navy, including the Red Pirates. In France, the different socialist parties soon merged after coming to power, which gave them a lot of influence, even outside their own nations. The Iberian states are governed by a coalition of Socialists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, left republicans and some regional parties. The Scandinavian and Dutch Socialists are said to be especially idealistic and have many projects to improve the lot of the working class, like their education and fighting drugs. The German part under the OPK (Oberster Politischer Kommissar) has occupation troops from the other Socialist nations, to be able to defend against the Technocracy - and also, because the other nations don't trust the Germans completely, since the revolution wasn't successful in the whole country. Italy could draw on the talents of its political class and at the end even took over the inofficial leadership from France. Greece has built up a small pirate fleet in the Mediterranean, following the British example.
The Red Pirates
In the 19th century, after the monetarist nations had managed to produce industrial products on the level and beyond of Britain, which had been leading in the world until then, Britain started to suffer a trade deficit. Rather than admit that Socialism was a mistake, they turned to piracy. The navy, until then idle, and some fishermen manned ships and started to rob ships of other nations. Despite Germany and New Rome fighting back, the Red Piracy flourished and helped the state to survive through difficult times. After World War One, the crews were joined by various Scandinavians, Dutch, Germans, Frenchmen and Iberians, and the piracy expanded further, helped by the chaos created by New Rome's split-up. The pirates work together especially close with Aymaria and Tir Tairngire, and additionally have bribed enough officials in Africa and Roman Atlantis to get the support they need.
Since the 1930s, various Nipponese also have turned to politically motivated piracy. Based mostly in the Indies, they attack all Chinese (and sometimes other) ships they can find. The big difference, however: While the Socialists try to get ransom for people they catch (if they're rich) or convert them for their cause (if they're poor), the Nipponese will use their hostage to put the Chinese government under pressure; more radical groups simply kill all the Chinese they can find.
The Logo's world state (spoiler!)
The Logos rule a world population of about 5.5 billions - a bit lower than IOTL at the same time. The CR is now at 2, a great difference for the people who were used to CRs of 4 or 5. Most taxes and other dues were abolished, except those on speculative profits (a world state can do effective controls), nanofactories, legal drugs and pollution. Working week is down to 20 hours; people who live on welfare have to go to courses, though. Government, bureaucracy and the justice system still exists, but they have become "gläsern" (made of glass): All people can check easily what kind of data are stored about them.
Chaos
Chaos is the term mostly used for the equivalent of the Third World in the Chaos timeline. It implies that in this part of the world, borders of nations change every few years and governments every few months - hence, most people don't care to keep track. The term came up for the first time in a German-Atlantean newspaper in november 1914, mentioning the "southern chaos", referring to the many new nations founded in Roman Atlantis between German Atlantis and Argentinien after the breakup of New Rome, following the end of World War I. 1929, with the gradual independence for India, politicians started to speak of the "Indian chaos", and after World War II, in April 1947, German general and technocrat Pistor stated in the famous "Chaos speech" that most of the world had fallen into, well, chaos. Unless they have to topple a Socialist or otherwise especially Anti-German warlord, Germany doesn't care much about these countries, thinking that the "Chaos" is better left alone.
Atlantean Chaos
The remains of the New Roman empire in the new world. Three states are Italian-speaking (New Italy, reaching from OTL Virginia to the Rockies, and two states in the Andes), the rest has French or Spanish as their first language. Germany has occupied strategically important places, like some Caribbean islands and the Nicaragua canal. Since this area is Germany's backyard, the chaos is kept somewhat more under control than elsewhere, if only for self-interest. After the technocracy came to power, many German dissidents fled here.
Russian / Eastern European Chaos
After World War II, the Germans split the rest of Russia (which they hadn't occupied, like the area of OTL's Ukraine) into many small states and put a lot of puppet regimes in charge. They became markets for the German economy and helped Germany produce things the technocratic government needed. When they weren't necessary for Germany anymore, after nanotechnology took off, they fell completely into poverty and chaos. There are many radical groups around (Orthodox, Nationalist, also Socialist), but they were barely able to scratch the technocracy. The Balcan states are in a similar situation, and the fact that Germany needs access to the Mediterranean is the only factor that helps them. Of course, this means there are German occupation troops in these places too. Since World War II, China has increased its influence in the Russian lands more and more, to the point that Germany's becoming very concerned about this.
Near Eastern Chaos
OTL's Middle East isn't better off, on the contrary. While Persia, Choresm and the Rum-Seljuks were stable and great powers for many centuries, Russian expansionism has broken them, and during the World Wars they became battlefields from which they haven't recovered yet. The Arabian and Persian oil riches are mostly exploited by Germany, which has a strong military presence in the area. The Arabs ejected from Palestine and Syria after Judea conquered these areas had less financial and political support than in OTL and thus formed a helpless frustrated proletariat spread all over the area.
Indian Chaos
After some decades under New Rome, the Indian subcontinent was taken over by Germany, which wasn't that prepared for it. An independence movement soon started to form. Rather than allow a potential great power to form, the Germans used the "divide et impera" scheme and gave one part after another independence, starting with the Sikhs in 1929. Just as was to be expected, the new states competed and often fought each other, and Germany could retain a certain influence. In the last decades however, they started to notice that China was getting dangerously close to their former turf. And at the same time, the followers of the guru Chandramoorthy got more and more influential.
African Chaos
For a while Germany had almost all of Africa south of the Sahara in its sphere of influence; nowadays, only places with great natural resources (Katanga with its metals, Nigeria with its oil, Australia [OTL South Africa] with its vanadium, gold and diamonds, plus some other places) or strategical importance, like Egypt, are under direct control. The places with strong European settlement (Spaniards in Morocco, French in Algeria, Italians in Tunisia and Libya, Scandinavians in Australia - our South Africa) are somewhat stable oligarchies with simmering unrest among the natives, the rest are mostly corrupt dictatorships of all kinds. Notable are the states in West Africa which are strongly Portuguese-influenced, from the time when Portuguese refugees came to their ex-colonies and took native wives. Generally one can say that the whole situation is bad even compared to other Chaos areas.
Technology and Society
Science mainly diverged by the use of electricity - the Chinese used batteries for electroplating as early as in medieval times, the Russians invented the telegraph and started a revolution of communication in the 18th century, and during the 20th century, better computers allowed the development of a true AI, which of course accelerated progress even more. At the present, Tech Level is at 9, with computers even at 10.
Transportation
Germany, China and to some extent the Socialist Block have built "vactrains" in the last decades - maglev trains running through vacuumed tubes under the earth. Said vactrains can reach sheer unbelievable speeds of up to 10000 km/h, beating even airplanes. The Logo government now works on filling the gaps in the network (along the border between Germany and the former Block) and even have the ambitious plan to build a tunnel below the Atlantic, to connect Europe with Atlantis. The chaos was not so lucky and still has to rely on more old-fashioned trains, planes, cars and ships - or even worse.
Germany and China have sent men successfully to Mars, and both of them and the Socialist Block maintain a permanently manned space station. The Logos are VERY interested in this area and plan building a space elevator and an expedition to the planetoid belt, for a start...
Computers, Networks and AIs
Originally, computers were relatively simple mechanical machines, as in OTL. Thanks to the developments in electricity, better solutions (with relays instead of vacuum tubes) soon appeared however. The first computer networks (referred to as systems) were invented in the 1920s in Germany at the firm Werstand, and the other important nations soon copied it. After the second World War, Germany enforced the uniting of the national networks, forming the Weltsystem, the internet of Chaos. Various parts of Artificial Intelligence, like automatical translation and neural networks were invented; and in 1969, three students at Franzensburg found a way to unify different programs to form a true AI. With computers becoming better and better, artificial intelligences became more and more common - not without ramifications of the society. After the Streich, they're accepted as full citizens and help the Logos run the world.
The most common storage device at the moment is the data cube: Essentially three-dimensional chips (made when Moore's law hit the limit for two-dimensional chips), they have a size of about one cubic inch and a very smooth surface that gleams in all the colors of the rainbow.
Medicine and Genetics
Gene therapy is known, mastered and wide-spread. Cloning is known too, but hasn't enough practical purposes to be omnipresent. Cybernetics are also known, but aren't used except for making disabilities moot - with one great exception: The brain-computer-interface has created a society of people (mostly Logos) in the Weltsystem who're practically in permanent mental contact with each other. This technology was in fact the reason why the Streich became possible.
Nanotech
Nanotechnology started to develop during the 1970s and really took off in the following decade. 1977, the Chinese emperor founded the first university dedicated alone to nanotechnology. In 1981, the Socialist Block developed the "Zanzara" - artificial insects, which were mostly used to spy in Germany. Also, the three great powers started to build nanoswarms, most of which "stationed" along the border between Germany and the Socialist Block. With the result, that many people started to fear that one day, they would wreak havoc and turn all of Earth into Braunschleim (grey goo). In reality, the leaders didn't wish to destroy Earth, so nanoswarms were never used in a war. Only in 1986, Germany used nanoswarms to destroy the cocaine plantations in OTL Colombia. And 1989, a great fire in northern Scotland made Germany suspect that a nanotechnological experiment done by the Socialists had gone awry, and that they had to burn the whole area because they knew no other solution. Still, nanoswarms definitely were "the new nuke", and in fact they were the only reason why Germany and China agreed in 1989 to scrap all their nukes.
