Aralesia
Who are these people stumbling into the light after a thousand years underground?
Those who call themselves the inheritors of the Earth.
Look for them and deliver a message for me:
While you were sleeping, the world moved on.
- Torrad III
The New World
Earth that was is gone, though a few survived its fall. Over miserable decades of impact winter, anarchy and nanomachine plagues, some sliver of humanity eeked out a marginal existence in the ashes of the golden age. It took whole centuries, but nascent civilizations emerged for a second time on the changed face of the world. One of them formed on the edge of the Aral Sea, where three princes laid the groundwork of an alliance of tribes that eventually rose above the chaos and anarchy of the post-apocalypse and transformed into a state. Now the greatest nation of the so-called techno-barbarians of Earth, they all strive to emulate its laws, stability and success.
Aralesia ows its survival as a state and unity to its utterly harsh environs in the Eurasian wastelands. Combatting the legecy of the Fall is a task beyond the common man. Early after the bombardments began, attempts were made to preserve Earth's biosphere and reverse climate damage through the widespread use of self-replicating nanomachinery. Its spectacular failure was only eclipsed in scope by the awesome lack of foresight that led to its uncontrolled release. The plague, as it became, acted in every capacity except the one for which it was intended, though never consistently. Creeping forests of semi-organic constructs have been slowly advancing across the landscape over the centuries, while the omnipresent machines have changed the face of life on Earth.
National Stats
Population:
Major Polis: 26
Advantages: (2)
Barbarian Allies - Earth is a world divided. No nation stands alone and the kings of Aralesia have always been gracious to those who answered their calls.
Second Amendment - The idea of being a helpless civilian is both alien and horrifying to Earth's post-apocalyptic denizens. Someone who can't even defend themselves is a disgrace or a failure.
Disadvantages: (2)
Ascended Barbarians - Welcome to the Post-Post-Apocalypse!
Barbarian Backyard - Sometimes one nation's prosperity comes at the cost of another's. Old hate runs deep.
Economy: (2)
Rank 2: 70+25 - It may have taken a couple hundred years, but civilization recovered far enough for the return of a complex manufacturing economy and bottlecaps were finally abolished as currency.
Infrastructure: (2)
Rank 2: 70+25 - Caches of industrial machinery and manufacturing stock were hidden away by savvy entrepreneurs when the Commonwealth Civil War only looked like it would drag on for a few years. Preserved, buried and forgotten about, who would have thought that they'd still pay dividends a thousand years later?
Growth: (2)
Rank 2 - 1 - There really are oases in the wastelands. They are few, and they've virtually all been found.
Military: (3)
Rank 3: 490+250 - In the old days you were doing great if you managed to patch a car together for your raiding parties, or for outrunning a killosaur in the wastes. The old days sucked. Now we have tanks for outrunning the killosaurs!
Military Support: (3)
Rank 3: 675+300 - My great-great-grandfather got stranded in the wastes when his crawler ran out of strontium and his suit didn't have enough juice to make it someplace with walls. When he made it back home without losing any men they gave him a medal. Now if your ride breaks down it's all your fault for not performing maint-er-nance! It's so not fair.
Military Quality: (5)
Rank 3 - The sarge says that people with the lowest situ-ational intelligence get killed fast. When I asked him what he meant he said I'm gonna die pretty. I dunno what he meant but I tried double-hard at shooting things because I ain't getting killed by some Burzan with a plasma rifle. Bugger's gonna need an army.
Superweapons: (5)
Rank 4 - The Sleepers don't care much for us. We take 'em in and show 'em around and they think we're below them. They started yelling at the artillery guys when they test-fired an ISL-665 we dug up and blew the glacier off a mountaintop. Shut right up when they did it twice.
Espionage: (4)
Rank 3 - Earth is a complicated mosaic of alliances, rivalry and grudges between the various bands of barbarians. It's always handy knowing who is trying to stab who.
General Advancement: (0)
Rank 0 - Zero.