A Brief History

A Brief History of the Union of Scandinavia and Antarctica

The European Union cracked under the pressure of reduced oil & natural gas imports and Climate Chaos, with all of the various financial, economic and social ramifications. It reformed into a smaller European Union with France, Benelux, Germany, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic Republics and Scandinavia (including Norway and Iceland).

Social stresses continued to mount with increased Climate Chaos, seas encroaching on coastal cities and limited resources and energy supplies. Islamic conversions soared in a Religious Revival. Christianity did not have the appeal or fervent supporters that Islam did as society was stressed in multiple dimensions. France became a majority Muslim nation by 2049 and strong Muslim minorities existed in most of the rest of the EU.

Meanwhile, the reformed EU became 96% energy independent as renewables, nuclear power and efficiency dominated what energy was available. In the rest of the world, including the United States, China, Japan, Brazil and India, central authority fractured as local interests overrode formerly "national" interests. Many millions were displaced by new permanent droughts and rising sea levels - faster than the IPCC had predicted. This devolved towards increasing anarchy and despotism while the shrunken EU managed to hold its societies together.

Sub-Saharan Africa leveraged it's remaining resources, including a surplus of food, in a depleted and hungry world. Using control of much of the world's remaining mineral resources and agricultural surpluses, sub-Saharan Africa combined into a handful of rising powers.

Then the Great Hunger came ! From 2057 to 2060, when major volcanic explosions in Iceland and then Indonesia combined with Climate Chaos, environmental degradation and depleted food inventories. For four agonizing years, around the world, there were fewer calories per capita than required for health and maintaining weight.

Scandinavia responded with rationing and overfishing it's previously well managed fisheries. Rationing allotted enough food for children and almost enough food to maintain weight for working adults. Suicide by the elderly was encouraged, while they were allotted a slow starvation diet. In much of the rest of the EU, the wealthy and well connected ate well enough, while famine ravaged the slums.

The stress of competing for food lead to the final breakdown of the EU and the further rise of Islam. France had a violent revolt that lead to millions of dead, fighting over both food and religion leading to the rise of the French Caliphate. The crop failures of 2057 and 2058 – the after effects of the two volcanic explosions – lead to war between France and Germany, with half of Belgium allying with France and the rest of Belgium and the Netherlands with Germany.

For mutual protection and aid, the Union of Scandinavia was founded. A federal union of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, Faeroe Islands and Estonia.

Nuclear weapons were avoided in the first year of war, but not the second. The Islamic Republic of France launched a first strike against military targets, avoiding major cities, with its superior arsenal – while shutting down it's nuclear reactors before hand. None-the-less, the industrial base of France was severely damaged in the counter strike. Massive flooding in the Netherlands killed millions and sent millions more flooding into higher ground.

The French blitzkrieg north stopped at the Kiel Canal, where a combined Scandinavian force “drew the line”. Rising sea levels were already changing the historic canal into a narrow strait connecting the Baltic and the North Sea, with the banks of the canal still above sea level in the middle. The Jihad then turned east till reaching the borders of Greater Russia.

The Four Horsemen rode across Germany and much of Europe as they did during the 30 Years War. Civil wars did as much in North America and China.

Comparable wars, civil disorder, famine and disease - newly emerged, newly created and ages old - erupted throughout most of the world. The infrastructure that had once supported almost 10 billion people collapsed. 

As the worst of this subsided, and rebuilding and reorganizing a shrunken and profoundly shaken population started, a truly massive solar flare hit the earth. Likely stronger than the 1859 Carrington solar flare, the solar flare fried much of the electrical supply, controls and computers around the world on December 25th and 26th, 2074. 

Some people alleged that orbital nuclear weapons were exploded in the glare of the sun, but this rumor was never confirmed and no coherent theory developed as to why any nuclear power would do this. Although one Doomsday cult claimed responsibility - claiming that they had infiltrated the USAF and launched three missiles in order to end the sins of the modern world.

The struggling industrial civilizations of the world were thrown into utter chaos as basic services like electricity, water, sewage, transportation and communication were disrupted without time to prepare or the ability to repair. 

A number of underground hydroelectric power plants were able to restart the next day, but without a grid to feed power into. In Scandinavia, with it's thousands of hydroelectric power plants, and a few other isolated spots around the world, there was sufficient technical expertise and social cohesion to restart the most basic services of industrial civilization. Most of the world plunged into the darkness, the darkness of a New Dark Age.

Meanwhile, the waters rose, and rose and rose.

Much of Denmark and Estonia were evacuated as they flooded. The Kola Peninsula was annexed when it became an island attached to Finland. Denmark and Estonia shrank significantly.  Colonies were started in Greenland first and then Antarctica as the ice sheets retreated there. 

The hostile, chaotic environment in Antarctica as the glaciers melted made settlement difficult there, but desperation drove the effort. 

In the aftermath of the Great Hunger, Australia continued to decline into chaos as drought swept the country, immigration to New Zealand and elsewhere was blocked. Meanwhile, the areas around the two Australian bases in Antarctica had initial success with cultivation of potatoes and a few other crops. Over 250,000 desperate Australians flooded in - far exceeding the carrying capacity of the still frigid land. Most starved or froze but a few survived.

More thoughtful and prepared settlement by Scandinavia followed in the 2080s on the other side of the continent, on the Palmer Peninsula and on the leeward (eastern) slopes of the Ellsworth Mountains. But even these isolated settlements were subject to hungry years and great difficulties in supplying the necessities of life. However, by 2125, a respectable base had been established - and the Climate Chaos moderated enough and warmed enough to allow a steady stream of settlers to arrive and survive - if not thrive.  And arrive they did, especially from Denmark as it flooded - except for a steadily shrinking Jutland Island.

After three centuries, the Climate stabilized and the population of Antarctica and Scandinavia grew - but well within sustainable limits.  West Antarctica and the Palmer Peninsula were settled first and much more densely. The ice melted there first, the Palmer Peninsula was generally more northerly than East Antarctica. Although West Antarctica and the Palmer Peninsula suffered from periodic deluges of  volcanic ash from the Mt Erubus area as the sudden loss of ice weight destabilized the crust.

As the glaciers retreated in Greenland (called Greonland), the reindeer rapidly moved in to feed on the new lichen. The glacier scoured rock had some dust that collected along what became creeks. In some places, grass naturally followed the course of these creeks up from the coast. In more cases, humans helped spread first the grass and nitrogen fixing lupines, then willows along the creek banks. Later, a variety of trees would be introduced - lodgepole pine, Siberian larch, Swiss & Siberian stone pine, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and the Icelandic birch.

The experience with retreating glaciers in Greonland was applied again to Antarctica.

The still hostile environment lead to the introduction of a hardy bovine hybrid, part European bison and part domestic cow, that could survive the winters unsheltered and could both browse in trees and graze on grass - the zubron. Later, the zubron would be introduced to the Antarctic forests.

Changes to the ionosphere due to exotic and long lived man made chemicals made traditional shortwave radio communication unworkable and traditional long distance radio communication was no longer possible.

AM radio still worked reliably for distances of a few hundred kilometers after nightfall, and occasionally for a few thousand kilometers.

Long wave radio communication, using Alexanderson antennas in southern Greonland, the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica, Ascension and St. Helena Islands, provided constant contact across the Union, North to South and from Greenland to Iceland and the island of Scandinavia. 

Long wave radio uses water to follow the curvature of the earth, not bouncing off the ionosphere. It can also use the earth's crust, but unevenly and not nearly as far.

As the rest of the world descended into the Great Dark Age, resources diminished and the population slowly dropped in Scandinavia. Ever more technology was abandoned by Scandinavia, but not forgotten. The Union simply did not have the resources to maintain all that once existed in 2041 - the high water mark of human technology.  A deliberate triage chose what technologies to retain and which to abandon, step by step on the way down to a generally 1940's level of technology - with some specific exceptions.

In the 2070s, both Greater Russia and the European Caliphate broke up into warlord dominated regions that would occasionally reunite and then fall apart for centuries. The Rus became more devoutly Orthodox Christians as refuge from the chaos of the world.

The Union of Scandinavia (and later the Union of Scandinavia & Antarctica) lost its religious tolerance and "converted" or exiled its Islamic population.  Meanwhile, they accepted several hundred thousand Israelis, secular and non-Orthodox religious, after Israel collapsed from internal conflicts and lack of resources.

The Union had friendly relations with the Rus and New China, and traded heavily with them - while keeping a more hostile stance towards the Islamic south.  Some trade and some raids, especially for food in bad years.

The melting glaciers of Greonland and Antarctica uncovered the only parts of the earth not yet exploited for minerals. New railroads and hydroelectric power served the new mines, forests and fields.

The Islamic Caliphates began to attack commerce between Scandinavia and Antarctica, so that years might pass between convoys between the two. Yet regular radio contact kept some cultural and political connection. 

Free access to the stored information about technology and occasional convoys with critical technology kept Antarctica nominally a part of the Union. The attitude grew that the Union was the last bastion of civilization against the barbarism and superstition that engulfed the rest of the world.  A world view that was not entirely true.

The Union was well aware of both the initial contact of Tau Ceti in 2024 and Star's Reach. A hope developed that Tau Ceti might provide some key technology or understanding that could materially help. So a listening post was set up in Iceland to monitor both Tau Ceti & Stars Reach - and later to directly communicate with Tau Ceti.

Communication with Tau Ceti became a symbol of the Union's superior civilization, a clear marker between itself and the barbarian world.  Stars Reach was rightly seen as a small island of the Old World - itself adrift in an ocean of barbarism in North America.

This story starts a few months after the Alien Invitation to join the 38 species Conversation was received in 2409. The first scene starts about 50 years before the time that Michael Greer's "Star Reach" begins. 

This history adds details, and deals with another part of Earth, but tries to stay true to the original.

If one has not read Greer's serialized novel, I would suggest reading the chapters since January 2013 at a minimum.

I am constructing the "bones" of this fan fiction, while trying to work through the personalities and drama - if I have the skill to do so.

Best Hopes,

Alan S. Drake