The Techno Barbarian States and Technology today

During this long, 5,000-year-period of anarchy, fear and violence, Old Earth's once unified planetary government had completely broken down and been divided into dozens of warring states of so-called techno-barbarians. Continuous warfare raged across the surface of Terra for 2500 years, beginning in the late 27th Millennium. Little remained of the once sophisticated civilisation of Old Earth's glorious past as the center of a growing human interstellar civilisation marked by advanced science, high culture and wondrous technologies. Techno-barbarian warlords and their warrior hordes continuously fought over the planet, which had become little more than a massive battleground for their wars of attrition. They made use of chemical, biological and even thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction, and slowly transformed the cradle of Mankind into a battered, post-apocalyptic wasteland across most of its scarred surface.

Technology
An odd mix of surviving elements: quite a few lines of technological development have just petered out or been discarded as impractical. Others have been forgotten in the eras of chaos, and without any real R&D beyond “steal other people’s tech secrets”, have not been rediscovered. Artificial intelligence of any sort is verboten, due to memories of the war with the robots or “iron men” (Cleverbot would be ruthlessly exterminated). While fusion power and near-indestructible building materials and all sorts of genetically engineered plants and animals exist, the technology for antigravity propulsion has been lost, and with it pretty much all forms of air travel, ancient-type jet or propeller driven craft being considered too fragile or too poor in carrying capacity to be useful for military or mass transportation purposes: only a few nations field flying machines, and in most airplanes are at best toys for the rich. Colossal armored trains capable of carrying hundreds of thousands of people are the normal intercity transport. In combat, power armor is king: the loss of disintegrator tech means that good ol’ hand-to-hand fighting has come back into its own, since regular gunpowder and explosives aren’t able to crack a good suit of armor. Heavy artillery is needed, and given the high mobility of troops in power armor, these in turn need more troops in power armor to defend them. Some nations have the capacity to build powerful hand lasers, but even they take a while to cut through the kind of super-strong materials power armor is made of, and it’s hard to keep a laser focused when the target is advancing towards you in 50-foot bounds and wielding a 10-foot vibrating monomolecular blade capable of slicing an OTL tank into pieces like a sushi chef chopping veggies.

Admittedly most nations do not have the resources or industrial capacity to fully equip their hordes of troops with cutting edge power armor: most troops in the world have third-rate armor just capable of moving itself easily, and are equipped with weapons frequently more dangerous to themselves than better-armored opponents. But then in this world the term “cannon fodder” is used un-ironically, and if 50 low-level troops must be expended to get rid of one foreign elite, then so be it.

War vehicles tend to the massive and lumbering, motile forts bristling with artillery and guarded by armored troops like actual forts. High explosives, super-hot incendiaries to cook people inside their armor, and even low-yield nuclear weapons are all part of the normal battlefield experience: and then of course there are the ugly surprises. Most nations have stocks of ancient, no longer duplicable weapons, and often will bring some surprise doomsday weapon into play at a strategic moment. A few weapons have been discarded: the effects of long-term radiation induction weapons are so counterproductive, leaving vast areas unusable for many millennia, most notably in the early years of Brasilian expansion and the great war between Ursh and Afrique, that even the maddest of dictators has taken them off the table. But hive-city cracking atomic cannon, radiative “death zones”, bioengineered mountain-sized monsters, earthquake generators, etc., are all acceptable tools if the objectives are important enough. And then there is “magic.”

The following is a list of the known pre-Unification states that existed on Terra:

• Achaemenid Empire (Southwest Asia)
  The Achaemenid Empire was a techno-barbarian state situated in the Middle East in the area of the pre-1st Millennium Persian Empire, centred roughly in the ancient nation-state of Iran. The Achaemenid Empire is noted as being made up of "wealthy tribes" They where known for being uncontaminated by the inherited flaws and viral defects of other tribes caused by centuries of exposure to lingering radiation and biological warfare vectors. The Achaemenids possessed a superstitious belief in the mystical power of their ancestors; emblems of Dhul-Qarnayn, the greatest of the Achaemenid kings, were often used as charms against harm by the population.
  
  
• Albia (Albania) - Albia
  Sometimes called Old Albia, was a techno-barbarian state of Old Earth. Known in ancient times as Albion (Great Britain). Bordering Northern Atlan and known for its ancient warlike clans, the regions of Albia consisted of towering soot-blackened Castram-cities. Albia is known to have clashed frequently with the Panpacific Empire under the rule of the Unspeakable King. Albia) was an fierce enemy of Merika in ancient times, but is now a tightly controlled vassal, dependent for certain raw materials and foodstuffs (even the super-plants can only do so much with the climate, and Calbi synthetic food technology is not of the best), and providing extra warm bodies for Merika’s armies. It has an identity largely divorced from that of old Canada, which left only a few legends (such as the tale of the ever-filled pot of poutine), and only vaguely tied to a half-mythic English identity among certain subgroups. Most of the population is concentrated in a small number of particularly huge hive cities (the better for the Merikans to police them).
  
  
• Albyon (British Isles)
  Albyon was a polity on Old Earth during the Age of Strife, presumably located in what had once been the British Isles. Its ruler, the tyrannical Uilleam the Red.
  
  
• The Antarcticans (Antarctic)
  Live mostly underground, and grow or synthesize their food down below. They have dug out an incredible system of tunnels over the millennia, for obscure reasons far more than are needed: there are millions of miles of tunnel down there, the majority no longer used. Although loosely unified under a High King, the bonds between the Kingdoms are weak, and they fight frequent ritualized battles atop the ice. Their culture has few if any historical antecedents.
  
  
• Boeotia (Greece)
  Boeotia was an area of Terra Boeotia was known both for the presence of a relatively heavy concentration of industry within its borders and the existence of an ancient buried shrine to the gods of an earlier age.
  
  
• Britonnica (British Isles)
  Britonnica was a small island state located in what was once known as the British Isles.
  
  
• Caucasus Wastes (Caucasus Peninsula)
  The Caucasus Wastes was a techno-barbarian state located in the Caucasus Peninsula of Europe. Its ruler, known as the Ethnarch of the Caucasus Wastes.  The mutated eugenicist -Ruled the Caucasus Wastes. While few in number compared to the zealots of the Yndonesic Bloc or the savage warbands of Ursh, the Caucasus Ethnarchy's power was based on scores of relic-technologies and the terrible weapons in their possession which dated back to before the Age of Strife, while its military forces ranged from the armoured, gene-augmented "Ur-Khasis" troops, to narcotically-enslaved covens of psykers. The Ethnarchy's strongholds were concealed kilometres deep beneath the hollowed-out mountains of the Wastes and shielded from attack from above by near-impregnable power-filed webs. The strongholds, and known of only through ancient legend, in a hundred-kilometre-long string of vast, artificially-created caverns known as the Tempest Galleries for the incessant storms of flame and electromagnetic force which bled from the ancient and little-understood relic machineries.  Power and energy is not a problem here, but where does it come from. These making the nation one of the strongest on Terra.
  
  The carborundum-lined caverns of the Caucasus Tempest Galleries are forbidin. For within to the brave few that survived and escaped talked of a strange, imprisoned world as alien as anything. Vast kilometre-high spindle-machines turned over caged seas of molten metal drawn from the planet's core, spewing forth coronas of blinding lightning while suspended on silicate webs across which unfathomable and inhuman machines scuttled like spiders. In this airless furnace beyond mortal endurance. Perhaps the ravings of mad men. Such stories are not believed. In size and power, being products as they were of Mankind's ancient and technologically advanced past.      
  
  
• Freinc (France)
  Massive hives that span the entrie country surrounded by mutants in the alps and radio active wastelands.
  
  
• Gyptus (Egypt)
  Gyptus was a small techno-barbarian state located in the northeastern portion of the continent of Afrik (North Africa) in the territory of the ancient nation of Egypt.
  
  
• Himalazia (Himalayan Mountains)
  The great mountains of Himalazia gave way to impenetrable hive cites isolated and protected from most. The mountians are home to some of the most inhuman mutants imaginable.
  
  
• Hy Brasil (Brazil)
  Hy Brazil was a powerful techno-barbarian state centered in the former territory of ancient Brazil on the continent of Sud Merica (South America). Hy Brasil was considered the most powerful of all the Sud Merican cantons. Hy Brasil is ruled from the Planalto, a massive hive city cluster or conurbation. Its government is based in the hive city of Sao Paol. The hives of the Planalto draw their power from a series of massive plasma reactors buried in the heart of the main conurbation, whose heat exchange processes mean that the reactor district is caked in thick sheet-ice all year round, forming a gigantic frost park 30 kilometres square. This area was known as the "Winter Fields" and was used for recreation by local inhabitants. Although controlled by the Lord of Hy Brasil Dalmoth Kyn, the area also possessed a bicameral parliament. The parliament was divided into upper and lower chambers and was located at the Parliament House on the edge of the Winter Fields in Sao Paol. The building was described as "a splendid structure built from filaments of silvered steel and pylons of a pale stone." The military forces of Hy Brasil were known as "the Dracos" The Dracos were known to wear green scaled armour.
  
  
• Jermani (Germany)
  Jermani was a small techno-barbarian state composed of the territory of the ancient central European nation of Germany.
  
  
• Merica (North America) - Merica was a massive and powerful techno-barbarian state composed of the hive cities located on the Nord Merican continent (North America). It contained vast areas of radioactive wastelands. Merika, perhaps the world’s richest and most developed state, and the third most populous (second if its vassals to the north are counted), claims a continuity going back to the ancient Usah empire. It is true that a regional identity of sorts has continued throughout many millennia and multiple changes of world government, and during periods of disunity some sort of North American state has reemerged more than once, but by the late 29th millennium the USA exists as little more than a myth of good government, prosperity and freedom (freedom being imperfectly understood). Still, it is a powerful legend, and the colossal capital of New New Yawk (which has more people than the entire 2012 USA) was built where what was assumed to be the “statue of liberty” was uncovered during a mining operation. (The statue actually dates to the 21st millennium, is made of starship hull-metal, and was built closer to old Boston than old New York, but it did have a kinda sorta liberty theme, so there’s that). The Merikan government is essentially a military dictatorship, but the swarming billions are mostly left to live their lives without much interference from the central government (not that there aren’t plenty of petty local tyrants in the hive cities, but their power too is limited). Of course, much of the prosperity, and the fact that Ursh hasn’t dared attack in half a millennia, may have a lot to do with the fact that the most powerful Psycher in all of human history, the man who will be the God-Emperor of Mankind, is currently hiding out as a humble member of the government and manipulating things behind the scenes.
  
  
• Nordafrik Conclaves (North Africa)
  The Nordafrik Conclaves were comprised of the territory of much of the northern portion of the continent of Afrik (Africa) and thrived during the Age of Strife. The Chronicles of Ursh, an ancient volume dating back to the millennia before the Unification Wars, describes the long and brutal conflict fought between the Nordafrik Conclave and the state of Ursh (Central Asia). The Conclave was eventually defeated by their erstwhile rivals. The Chronicles also describe the use of the dark powers of the Warp being used by both opposing sides. North Afrik Conclaves bewitches and occasionally frightens outsiders, who hear many rumors of the strange powers and forces and powerful ancient machineries commanded by this nation. These rumors however inflame greed and ambition rather than provoke caution in Ursh, where the national sentiment is that the inevitable expansion of Ursh to global dominance has too long been delayed by a sickly and cowardly peace.
  
  
• Nordyc (Scandinavia)
  Nordyc was a techno-barbarian state located in the lands of what had once been Scandinavia.
  
  
• Orioc (Antarctica) - Orioc was a city-state of Old Earth. Buried in a hollowed-out mountain in Ancient Terra's ice-bound south, it stood throughout the darkness of Old Night, weathering the storms of strife for thousands of standard years. The people of Orioc believed they were the chosen of Ancient Terra's blighted children, and that they alone would outlast the anarchy that had broken so much else. This certainty came from their faith in protection from the spirits of death and life, an ancient pantheon of gods worshiped by the people of Orioc.
  
  
• Pan-Pacific Empire (East Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands) - The Pan-Pacific Empire was a techno-barbarian state composed of the Pacific Islands and what had once been the territories of parts of East Asia, Australia and the Japanese Islands that flourished during the Age of Strife. Narthan Dume, the Tyrant of the Pan-Pacific Empire, is described in ancient sources as being "half-mad/half-genius" and is considered the most infamous of all the tyrannical rulers who dominated Terra during this dark period.
  
  
• Urals/Terrawatt Clan (Ural Mountains)
  The Urals/Terrawatt Clan territory was a small techno-barbarian state located in the territories surrounding the Ural Mountains that flourished during the Age of Strife. Beneath Mount Narodnya was the greatest forge of the Urals, where the toiling forge-masters. are a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European and West Siberian plains.
  
  
• Ursh (Central Asia/Russia)
  Ursh was a techno-barbarian state that was located in the steppes of what had once been Russia and Central Asia. Ursh was the mightiest of the techno-barbarian empires on Terra. Though Ursh was a strong empire, it was not as technologically advanced as several of the other techno-barbarian states. For example, the acquisition of superior military machines from the Nordafrik Conclaves was the main reason cited in the Chronicles of Ursh for Ursh's decision to launch that infamous ancient war against its southern neighbour. Ursh was ruled by the despot and warlord named Kalagann at the time of the Unification Wars. Kalagann was described as being of cruel character, and commanding vast armies of techno-barbarians. Kalagann was known for wearing a distinctive Artificer suit of Power Armour known as the Armour of Pearl. Other high positions within the government of Ursh were all filled by military warlords including Lurtois, Sheng Khal (also known as Shang Khal) and Quallodon. Kalagann's infamous exploits were documented in the ancient manuscript called the Chronicles of Ursh, which would later be considered by Imperial scholars as a classic work of human literature that provided valuable insight into this pre-Unification state's rise and the wars of the Ursh against the Nordafrik Conclaves. The Chronicles of Ursh mentions the influence of "primordial gods" upon Kalagann and the Ursh. Also, the sorcerous powers of Kalagann mentioned in the Chronicles of Ursh formed the main part of Ursh's military power. As such, it is highly likely that the Chaos Gods were the true lords of Ursh, and Kalagann was merely one of their puppets, manipulated to do their bidding. Despite their influence and favour.
  
  Ursh is the largest and most populous nation on earth, incorporating lands that used to be India as well as much of interior China and north Asia. It is also a harsh totalitarianism somewhat mitigated, as the expression goes, by assassination. It freely dabbled in the dangerous powers of Chaos – and indeed it is hard to say to what extent its ruling classes have been corrupted by these forces. Obedience and discipline is all, from the highest general in a palace-mountain to the lowest pipe-scrub boy in the foulest sumps of the most hellish of hive cities.
  
  
• The Roma (Italy)
  The Roma were organised mercenary fliers who fought for the forces of Ursh. Highly-skilled pilots, they were said to never touch the earth beneath them. They were trained to carry out pinpoint aerial attacks, and were therefore of great value to the generals of Ursh.
     
  The Red Engines - Both the Red Engines and the Tupelov Lancers followed the command of the warlord Sheng Khal. The Red Engines were masters of the siege, and possessed siege engines able to raze whole fortresses or hive cities to the ground.
     
  The Tupelov Lancers - The Lancers are described as screaming berserkers. These warriors were trained for close-combat action.
     
  Oneirocriticks - The Oneirocriticks were the personal counsellors of the Ursh warlord Sheng Khal. Their name means "interpreters of dreams," in the ancient Urshian dialect of Low Gothic, but it is likely that they used some kind of Warp sorcery to guide Shang Khal in his actions.
     
  Wrathsingers - This specialised unit was likely comprised of practitioners of sorcery that bent the powers of the Warp to their will. They were able to use their psychic abilities or "magic" as the Chronicles of Ursh names their abilities, to change the environment to their advantage or to kill men from afar with their "spells."
  
  
• Yndonesic Bloc (Indonesia)
  The Yndonesic Bloc was a techno-barbarian state located in what was once Southeast Asia. The Yndonesic Bloc was ruled by a man named Cardinal Tang, the tyrannical "Ethnarch," during the closing years of the Age of Strife before the Unification. He wished to "return the world to a pre-technological age", burning "scientists, mathematicians and philosophers" who opposed his church's views. Tang imposed a genocidal policy that consisted of forced breeding between only "genetically compatible" citizens of the Bloc, combined with a eugenics program that aimed for the pursuit of racial hygiene through the use of compulsory sterilizations and the genocidal extermination of "undesirables." Those that defied these enforced edicts were punished brutally. They converted from a purely secular high-tech society to followers of a peculiar offspring of the ancient Christian faith. It eventually evolved into a militant theocracy: not strong enough to expand further in opposition to powerful neighbors, it has turned inwards, seeking to create a “pure” society through mental programming and a bit of eugenics. Even more hostile to a “scientific” mindset than is normal on this world. the Yndonesian Bloc has begun to slip behind the rest of the world in technology, although given the low level of contact with “infidels”, nobody has noticed yet. Like Antarctica and to some extent the Conclaves, its culture is uniquely its own and draws little from ancient models.