Asia
Asia suffered almost as badly during the crisis as the United States, as the tiny, overpopulated countries all sought to overtake others. Fortunately, as it was largely based on squabbles for land, nuclear weapons were only threatened, never used. The US, Russia, Iraq, Britain, they all backed one side or another in various battles, that often being the deciding factor in conflicts.
    It all began in the year 2000, when China and Japan both simultaneously invaded Taiwan. America and Britain were off in the Middle East quelling terrorists and fighting terrible battles, so there was no-one to tell the Japanese to stop building up their armed forces. The UN censured them, but no-one really took that seriously. Everyone needed their trade goods, no-one could do without Sony, Toyota and Toshiba. The Japanese army clashed with the Chinese for a full year over the tiny island, the conflict finally ending with victory going the same way as the first Sino-Japanese war, with a Japanese victory. As turmoil grew in the South East, Australia appealed to anyone who’d defend them – after seeing Taiwan overtaken, they knew they couldn’t count on the Americans who’d promised to fill that role. In stepped the Japanese, working with the Australians and accepting trade goods such as wool and lumber in return for setting up defence networks and training armies. This was helped along by overt aggressions from the Indonesians, Australia’s traditional South-East Asian military partners. Indonesia needed land and they conducted raids on Australian shipping. This was, of course, paid for by Japan. They needed lumber and this was how they were going to get it, from Australia’s famous hardwood forests that green groups had protected for years.
    By 2010, the area was still only in turmoil and tension, not outright war. Many conflicts had been fought – Papua New Guinea had been taken over by Indonesia, Thailand had tried to expand into Laos and Vietnam, succeeding in the former but failing miserably in the latter. Another Khmer Rouge leader appeared in Cambodia, crushing the weakened Thailand armies and moving into Thailand, before the Americans returned to the area, forcing borders to cease changing. They were unable to make the Cambodians return the land they had taken, only cease further aggression. Thus, an uneasy peace entered the region for the next five years – nations gearing up for war, as Singapore traded to all sides.
    It had to break sooner or later. In this case, it was the destruction of the main stabilising force, the presence of the Nimitz and Truman aircraft carriers – both were destroyed in violent fireballs within minutes of each other, lost with all hands on board, together with billions of dollars worth of aircraft and munitions. No-one ever really found out who was responsible, although a terrorist group in the United States, Sons of Peace, claimed responsibility, saying that they destroy the weapons of war in order to destroy war. The entire faction was wiped out in a SEAL strike three days later. No SEAL members were lost.
    In Asia, however, the loss of the two aircraft carriers spelled disaster. Suddenly Indonesia began to rear its head again, lunging southward towards Australia, past the grave of the Nimitz, which had been patrolling between the two nations. This brought Japanese forces into the fray, both Japanese and Australian forces rallying to defend the country. The Indonesians had numbers, however, and the war proved costly. Slowly the defenders were forced back, until Duke, the general in charge of the Australian forces, hit upon a plan. His men would fall back, while the Japanese would harry from the opposite flank. The Indonesians, eager to destroy one force, would follow the Australians. The Australians, however, would retreat into the dense tropical rainforest and take up the fight there. They had practiced with the Indonesians in the forests of Irian Jaya and they knew the Indonesians would feel they were the equals in jungle warfare. The Queensland rainforests, however, were entirely different territory. In the space of a weak, the entire Indonesian invasion force was crushed, only small elements making it out alive.
    Thus began the conflict that burned into one of the few active theaters of war. The Australians and Japanese moved into Indonesia, taking over their old aggressor’s territories one by one. Cambodia returned to Thailand, only to be beaten back by the built-up military force, and internal pressures from CIA-backed insurgents. Japan, however, stepped too far when it invaded Mainland China, beginning with Hong Kong. That move won them much support with ex-Hong Kong businessmen, but it brought the might of the Chinese army down upon them. Some of the army was involved in scuffles with Russia in the North and West, but much of it was still able to respond to the Japanese invasion. Although their aicraft were quickly shot down by Japanese fighters, they did possess next-generation anti-air missiles, able to be carried by individuals. Falling back to guerrilla tactics, they counterattacked the invading Japanese army at every opportunity. Slowly over the next three years, the technologically superior Japanese forces were ground away. They kept on, believing that they had defeated the bulk of the Chinese army. Of course, that bulk had only been lying in wait. As the main part of Japan’s forces moved to invade Beijing, they were met by hidden tank regiments, infantry and even many aircraft, backed up by the incredibly accurate anti-aircraft fire from the ground. Thus, an army without air superiority won for the first time ever.
    Japan was forced back, but China could not follow. Internal pressures mounted as revolutionaries assaulted the weakened army. In the wake of their victory, the rulers believed that the army could not possibly turn on them, and so they ordered it to open fire on demonstrators. This time, however, they refused, the general in charge saying that they refused to fight against what they had fought for so bitterly over the past three years.
 It was 2022 and China evaporated, breaking up into provinces. Russia took over many of the Northern and Western ones, but then they had to turn their attention elsewhere. Japan returned to its own borders, drawing inwards, leaving Indonesia to Australia alone. Japan then did something unprecedented – drawing every last military unit back into the country, it sealed its borders, giving all its citizens one week to return. Those who did not make it were permanently exiled. For 28 years, not a single soul has ever been reported to have entered or left Japan.
    Thailand consolidated its own borders, content with that, as Cambodia continued to struggle within. Cambodia broke down from central rule, no force being able to gain dominance. Slowly, over the next ten years, the rivals butted heads until they finally decided that no one group could gain control. Instead, they formed a loose coalition individual tribes – family groups, clans – which lived mostly peacefully with each other. They raided each other, argued, vied over territory, but none tried to gain dominance. With the quiet, however, many formed raiding parties to ride over Laos and Thailand, the two countries virtually identical anyway. The targets responded by consolidating into one rule, a monarchy. This was strong enough to resist the raiders, although they never managed to do more than stalemate.
    Then, economic breakdown came to Australia. As the government crumbled the States broke apart, many of them crumbling in turn, leaving lawless frontiers. Many Australians fled the country, moving into the territories that until recently had been newly-annexed, to settle in foreign lands. Many came to Singapore.
    Now, most of Asia is in something of a state of calm, with few conflicts ongoing – Siam versus the Cambodian raiders is unlikely to ever finish (see Siam for the details).

Singapore
Singapore really wasn’t overly-affected by the war, or the collapse. They kept trading, they kept dealing – of course, they had to make deals with people they otherwise wouldn’t have (more on that later). They stayed neutral throughout the entire affair – not even Indonesia had any inclination to attack them. Everyone needed a trading partner, and Singapore was the source of a lot of high technology at no moral cost, as they were no-one’s enemies. They did occasionally get into trouble for dealing to both sides of a conflict, as on country or another sent black ops teams in to sabotage factories, but the Singapore dollar bought a lot of mercenaries for retribution. Jason Lim, the Prime Minister for most of the time, has been honoured with every order known to the Singapore government for brokering the deals he managed to. He retired in 2040 with great ceremony, ushered into the halls of fame. His name is synonymous with statesmanship.

Siam
A true monarchy for the past 25 years, Thailand, now Siam, is only just beginning to settle into its new role... or really, an old one revisited. The first King of Siam, Hong, recently died, leaving his son too young to ascend the throne. The new King’s throne is being cared for by his mother, a woman about as honest as a monarch can get. The royal family and their supporters were the old business and cultural elite who formed a new church, founded by Hong and his wife, the current regent. They taught that divinity could not be truly understood and one could not worship God directly – first, one would need to worship beings and spirits more closely connected to earth. Thus, God’s vessels, including the King. They attributed the wars and strife directly to democracy, as the leader was not appointed by God, but by people, an affront to true divinity. They fomented the collapse of the old government and then formed the new Siam based on their beliefs.
    Their religion, called Hakat, is a strange mix between Christianity, Taoism and Buddhism, with touches of Shinto. Ancestors, spirits of nature (kami) and other beings are all worshipped, but the King is superior to them all, his mystical powers far exceeding any other earthly being, as he is in direct contact with God. God is never directly worshipped. Their belief that they act God’s will leads the family to great arrogance – they believed in the truth of their ways for 15 years before finally seeing them through. Schools teach only Hakat as a religion, all others are inferior and flawed. Propaganda and conditioning are started at a young age, and parents who preach against the monarchy are imprisioned, their children brought up by a loyal, richer family, in effect bribed to support the regime.
    Thus, there is the feeling that everything is right there. To those who are loyal, it is close to a utopia. The taxes are stiff, but relief is within the law to be granted. Unfortunately, it is under the authority of local lords, who get the final say.
    Besides the King and his family, there is the High Priest, and the Council of Elders. They act as the King’s advisors, the High Priest as the King’s private confessor. Even the Voice of God must confess his sins (yes, they have confessions). The King, however, is the final voice in everything. The land is ruled mostly feudally, with local lords administering law. Like in Medieval Europe, the local lords owe fealty and aid in warfare to their lieges.
    As for lands, they spread much of the way into China, covering XXXXXXX and completely surrounding Cambodia. They claim that Cambodia is part of their territory, but they don’t really have control there. They spread South over Malaysia, although they were repulsed from Singapore by its military. They have signed a treaty saying they will never do so again.
    Their outside relations are fairly cordial, although they keep all outsiders at a distance. They don’t let foreign culture into their borders, as they’re still in the process of conditioning all their citizens to following the royal family. They export food and hand-made goods, mostly, in addition to precious metals and some of the world’s last oil reserves. The main thing they buy from Singapore is electricity, via huge undersea lines from the island nation.

Japan
Not much is known about Japan at all. There are many expats, Japanese citizens or military personnel who didn’t make it back to the country in the week’s time, or didn’t want to go into exile from the rest of the world. There was quite a stampede for flights into the country, many people getting rides on disreputable pirate ships, never to actually reach their destinations. Since then, no news has come from inside the country – no-one has ever been confirmed to have entered or left and everyone who has tried to return, including citizens, have been killed by the Japanese military’s formidable defense technologies (certainly higher technology than during the war – they are rumoured to have lasers capable of completely destroying boats in a single shot). Of course, there are always rumours. Some say that they have been overtaken by their computers, others say everyone inside is dead. Some even say they were overtaken by aliens from the seas. Most are generally ridiculed – but the fact remains that the sealing of the borders is one of the great modern mysteries.

Australia
The frontier country of Asia, most of Australian has reverted to Wild West-style living, ex-military weapons carried openly, with no law to speak of aside from what is meted out by individuals and small gangs. Bandits roam free and the population is too sparse for real organised crime to spread. The cities are mostly unpopulated except by gangs, as when the government broke down, so did most of the infrastructure. Most of the residents make a living by trading goods from the cities for food, electricity and technology. The cities are also raided by people wishing to steal those goods. It’s a vast, lawless land, many of the residents having left for overseas. Ghost towns dot the landscape.

Indonesian Archipelago
This is where the people of different nationalities have set up their own little territories, loosely aligned under a central government made up of representatives from each ‘nation’. A true mix of ethnicities, each island has a slightly different mode of internal government, but all follow, albeit loosely in many cases, the decisions of the central government, housed in Jakarta.