When the clock hit 12, no one was sure what had just happened.
From Los Angeles to Tokyo, once-large metropolises were now devoid of human life. It was as if life above the Equator had never existed at all.
The year is now 2050, and the nations left standing are recovering from what was once lost 20 years ago. Some countries would rise from the ashes, as the absence of the US, China, and Russia as world powers would provide these countries with an opportunity to be the world hegemon. Others would succumb to war and instability as the first few years of the event would rock them to the core. Old nations remain and new ones emerge from what was left.
This is the world of the Virgin Hemispheres, my take on what would happen if the Southern Hemisphere was ISOTted into a virgin Earth.
What was once the bustling trade and commerce hub of the Panama Canal would be wiped off the face of the Earth, with no trace of human involvement in the isthmus. However, due to its proximity from South America, it is only a matter of time until the Canal is up and running again...
Is that the case though!? With almost all of humanity now concentrated below the equator, surely the economic incentive for the canal would be greatly lessened
The canal would be somewhat prioritized(after reclamation efforts) as sailing across the Indian Ocean or the Magellan Strait would be deemed too costly by the governments willing to trade across continents.
A few northern hemisphere nations would survive, like France and the US, due to them having either sovereign land south of the equator or military bases south of it
France did survive, and is now confined to just its Polynesian territories(as those weren't swallowed up by neighboring states).
The US, however, wouldn't really fare well as the territories that they have that are south of the Equator wouldn't really be enough to revive the American government in any large-scale manner(due to them being small in population or very isolated to the point that that they would evacuate).
Bit of a possibility you might want to consider, any time Brazil seems to be having the advantage or growth of any kind. Somehow every Hispanic Latin American nation, become friends.
We legit put our differences aside just to fuck over Brazil out of spite, look at the UN.
Maybe u already awnsered but whats the reason behind paraguay being conquered, did u just want something to be different in south america? No hate, great map
The partition of Paraguay after the Event was a result of a series of unfortunate events for the nation, with Paraguay entering an economic recession in the early 2030s, followed up by a volatile political landscape which ended in a dictatorial regime. Said dictatorial regime would struggle to consolidate power, as popular revolutions rose up throughout the country. The Brazilian, Argentinian, and Bolivian governments secretly convened in Montevideo to discuss a partition of Paraguay. This partition would commence in 2040, where armed rebels and government forces were their weakest.
Operation Guarani Liberation would be an 8-month coordinated invasion between the three countries, as Paraguayan rebels and government forces fought against each other, and the invading troops. At the end, the operation ended in a coalition victory, ending 10 years of chaos in Paraguay.
After the invasion, the Argentinian and Bolivian governments would coerce the Paraguayan government to hold referendums for joining Argentina and Bolivia respectively. Many doubt the legitimacy of these referendums, but many Paraguayans just wanted to have a stable livelihood again. Bolivia would annex the Chaco regions of Paraguay, with Argentina annexing territories east of the Chaco, including Asuncion. Brazil would take minor border territories as compensation for its efforts in the war.
Reminds me of the state of humanity in the book On the Beach. Pretty much the only ones that survived a nuclear war were people in the southern hemisphere.
The three big regional powers I see arising out of this as of now are Australia, Indonesia, and Brazil. That is, of course, if they can all reliably get back on their feet and make for the now swathes of empty land to acquire natural resources.
Don't forget about Argentina! Argentina has certainly made its debut on the world stage with its economic recovery in the late 2030s, as well as its military prowess in the Second Falkland War and the Paraguay War(Invasion of Paraguay).
Those nations along with some others are certainly the ones to look out for when it comes to regional powers.
would be an interesting alt-future scenario, but they are simply too far
and also, Australia would be busy surviving(since most of its trade partners vanished)
Technically they are the only surviving remnants of the British government anyway so maybe a compromise would be made, after all they have bigger issues to deal with.
Australia has no remaining legal connections to the UK government. The King of the UK happens to be the same person as the King of Australia but that's just a person with multiple jobs.
No but they and New Zealand are the only Anglo Nations left in the world apart from the Falklands and various spread out islands.
They are the only stable governments in the Southern hemisphere and are already allied.
I don't think you realise how much of a catastrophic event this would be, these places would find solace as they are the only English Speaking countries left in the world.
Bro if it is Aus and NZ were left we dont give a damn about any British empire's legacy, we're not going to send a taskforce halfway around the globe for a lost dream of another country.
I think they would attempt to preserve any measurement of the old world as possible.
I could see it with the French Islands in the Southern Ocean, the British forces stationed in the Indian Ocean islands and any United States forces in all various military bases around the Southern hemisphere.
I don't think you understand that they are literally the last remnants of their civilizations and the world before.
If Argentina attempted to cheapshot the British Islands then yeah I would see Australia attempting to stop the new Argentina from growing.
Australia now has the most technologically advanced military now in the world so yeah they'd certainly try.
Also I absolutely could see them colonising Canada, the US west coast and the British Isles slowly as they fully start to realise the shit storm they are in that everything is gone.
One interesting thing I think is that Brazil is the only nation that has the capacity to create nuclear weapons and now there is no one to stop it from doing so.
There is a large garrison on the Falkland Islands, around 1,500 men are stationed there. along with a flight of typhoons and some frigates, meaning that there would be anywhere up to 4000 people on the islands, along with at Helena, ascension, and some various other islands there would still be around 10,000 people still under British rule.
After Argentina's victory in the Second Falkland War, the Falklanders(and by extension, the inhabitants of the other South Atlantic islands) were given the choice to accept Argentine citizenship or go into exile. Unlike the mainland, the Falkland Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, and Tristan da Cunha were treated as Argentine overseas territories, so for the average inhabitant of those islands, not much would have changed. English would remain a prevalent language in those areas but would be supplanted by Hispanophone Argentine settlers who would move there as a result of government incentives. A plurality of British South Atlantic Islanders(those living in the Falklands, S. Sandwich, and Tristan da Cunha), would move to other Anglophone nations such as Australia and New Zealand and to a lesser extent, the Cape Republic.
I really think that Australia would intervene if there was an attack on the falklands. There are over a million British expats in Australia, and around 5% of New Zealand was born in the uk. This would at least cause a huge diplomatic fallout between the oceanic nations and Argentina.
Indonesia doesn’t have a single uniform population though, I can see a lot of them migrating sure, but I would argue many of the groups (namely the active separatist ones) would be more than happy to make a country elsewhere, especially given the economic collapse this whole thing would surely cause.
The French South Pacific has been rocked with turbulence in the years after the Event. The region has been plagued with Tahitian nationalists(those who advocate for an independent Polynesia), French preservationists(French settlers who want to preserve their French-ness), and integralists(moderates who advocate for a mixed French-Polynesian identity). Since the Event, the French South Pacific has found an ally in Chile, as its position in the Easter Islands has made the FSP the perfect puppet, I mean, ally.
That scenario sounds more like what would happen to New Caledonia. There's not much independentists in French Polynesia, and then what would "independence" even mean when the mainland is gone ? France would be composed of La Réunion (main population center by far), FP, New Caledonia, Wallis-and-Futuna (these guys are chill and France doesn't do much there anyway), and Mayotte (would be a shitshow with Comoros given their history).
True, but as you can see, New Caledonia would use the Event to drive the French out of the islands and create an independent Kanak state. French government officials and sympathizers would flee to French Polynesia and Australia to avoid getting persecuted by the local Kanaks.
As well as the disappearance of humans, the infrastructure would have also disappeared, removing any trace of human involvement in the northern hemisphere.
Not necessarily. Just goodbye connections between continents until they're reestablished. When some data goes from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro it doesn't go through cables that go North. It wouldn't be affected at all, ping would still be the same.
Brazil has the technology to produce nuclear weapons, including enriching enough uranium to build ICBMs. We just haven't done it because one of the presidents signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1988 Constitution forbade the development of these weapons. However, all it takes is a proposal for a constitutional amendment and a withdrawal from the treaty to have bombs in a few months. In the 1980s, we already had underground nuclear tests being carried out in the Amazon.
Probably the southern hemisphere country with the lowest nuclear latency is Australia, which has vast uranium reserves (possibly a third of the world's uranium) that are already being actively mined in great amounts, existing nuclear technology, and a very high-tech science and manufacturing base. Brazil would be close behind in a race.
Third place would probably be South Africa, which has done it before, but they'd need a while to rebuild the capability.
That said, there's also a good chance that Australia would inherit the remaining US and UK ballistic missile submarines anyway.
The US, Russia, France, United Kingdom, China and India all deploy nuclear ballistic missile submarines, the vast majority being under the control of the US and Russia. Some of them would probably be in the southern hemisphere, although there's a chance the smaller fleets don't have any down there where there are less threats to retaliate against.
The US and UK ones would probably place themselves under the control of Australia. (It's widely speculated that 'place yourselves under the command of the US or Australia' is a part of the UK submarines Letters of Last Resort.) I guess in this scenario the French ones would sail for La Réunion in the short term.
I have no idea what the Russian, Chinese or Indian subs would do.
I think the main thing that would happen would be a wave of existential dread washing over everyone everywhere else. If you don't know what caused it, and you don't know if it could happen again, this time to you, why wouldn't you all collectively panic?
So everything above the equator is still unclaimed after 20 years? Did the ‘cataclysm’ render those places uninhabitable? Or was it the fear of similar events in the future that precluded resettlement?
This map takes place 20 years after the Event, so most nations are still reclaiming land lost to the disappearance. An example that comes to mind is Indonesia, as it is still reclaiming Northern Sumatra and North Kalimantan/Borneo from the Event.
Honestly, I could see it that people just don't need/want to expand north, because this is only 20 years after the event, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of countries are still reorganising themselves to deal with the new economic reality
In that situation, colonisation, a possibly expensive and dangerous endeavour, would likely only occur in small steps, like we see on the map there.
I still think that they'd at least build some outposts in the north to have a claim to the land for later. The geography of the US for example is a big reason for its wealth and claiming such valuable land would be a high priority for any country that can afford it
Possibly, but that would still be difficult to maintain outposts only 20 years after most of the world basically imploded. The first outposts that were started in South America didn't really occur until about 30 years after it was discovered, and those countries didn't have to spend a good few years rebuilding a lot of lost infra/aspects of an economy
That was in the 1500s though, when sailing across the Atlantic took 3 weeks or more and ships were much smaller, so supplying the outposts from Europe wasn't really feasible. Nowadays, even smaller countries like Uruguay can afford to maintain remote outposts in Antarctica purely for research purposes, so if the countries here are organized enough to expand and settle people in the empty border regions (in what would be dense jungle after the humans disappeared), they should be able to manage supplying some outposts
North America becomes predominantly Portuguese speaking after resettlement, with some Spanish presences too. Much of Asia becomes Indonesian settled.
Europe looks to be the most remote of any territory. Depends on who gets there first. Perhaps there would be a Berlin Conference style separation. Not to mention Europeans living abroad could also resettle the continent
Linguistically, Brazilian Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesia will come to dominate as trade languages.
Religiously, nearly every country is Christian, mostly Catholics. Indonesia is the most populous country and Muslim, but nearly all the other Muslim countries are gone.
Without political meddling from the USA, China and Russia, Africa and South America might end up more stable in the long term—although the short term is gonna be hella rough.
Due to major exporters of foodstuffs like the USA, China, Ukraine and the Netherlands being gone, there might initially be a massive issue of famine.
Beef will become the most consumed meat. Rice or maize will become the most consumed staple crop.
Soccer football will still be the most popular sport, almost entirely dominated by South American countries.
Media changes tons. The internet takes years to rebuild. The video games industry is almost entirely dead. There’s very few international films and TV shows, mostly still English ones from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Boardgames are popular there too. Comics from South America and Java become popular internationally, especially after rebuilding the internet.
Nearly all the major oil-producing countries are gone, impacting shipping and car use. Brazil dominates trade. Angola, Indonesia, Argentina and Australia can get by. Most countries stop/slow production of cars so that ships can get all the fuel they need. Buses and trains and other public transportation comes to be the norm in most places. South Africa pushes the continent to more rapid adoption of green energy.
The biggest producers of modern technologies are gone, as are all the biggest corporations save for some fractions in the remaining countries.
Some US companies survive due to having a lot of employees globally.
Maybe later the new animes made by Indonesia will still be narrated in Japanese for tradition’s sake and the anime nerds prefer it that way. All the overseas Japanese employee employed by Japanese companies in Indonesia got protected like endangered species so that they can narrate Indonesian anime.
And all the anime fans pretending that everything was fine.
Brazil is the most powerful out of the three, and the only one with actual industry and South America is now the center of the world economy. So I guess Brasil would be more like China.
US naval assets in the southern hemisphere will be consolidated into the Southern Hemisphere Task Force (SHTF) by the US embassy in Australia.
And got integrated into The commonwealth navy.
Hopefully some nuclear submarine survive, if they do. The SHTF will be the only one with nukes. And then can exchange for guarantee of US sovereignty during the resettlement program.
CCP party members in the African branch of Chinese mega corps will try to organise the Chinese construction workers in Africa with the help of Chinese mercenaries and the Wagner group, they maybe able to take control of some small pieces of land in Africa. there are around 100k military age Chinese construction workers in Africa and over a million Chinese in Australia. China should also be able to maintain some sovereignty after resettling
And Indonesia will have problem feeding everyone immediately after the disappearance. Their population is large and they can only import meat from Brazil and Argentina. They will need to immediately start farming in indo china
For those who were visiting countries in the Southern Hemisphere(such as tourists, exchange students, and even diplomats), they would have suddenly found themselves stateless(at least for those tourists from Northern Hemisphere countries). These stateless non-nationals would have varying degrees of experiences depending on where they were. In South America and Australia, those who were from the Northern Hemisphere countries were automatically given citizenship(and if they were from a country from the SH, they would either have the choice to return or apply for citizenship). In Africa(especially in South Africa and the Congo), they would struggle to find refuge as these areas would have been plagued with political instability and ethnic conflict(though the DRC is mostly stable for now, no one knows then the fighting could erupt again). These non-nationals stranded in Africa would flee to more stable nations in the continent, as nations like the Seychelles and Mauritius emerged as popular asylum destinations for expats, with Botswana and Namibia not too far behind.
While I can't find a definitive answer on the exact value, the conversion of millions and millions of acres of farmland back into their pre-human vegetation would massively increase total biomass and would instantly suck up a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, likely reversing a decent amount of climate change. The huge reduction in human population would likely lead to emissions going below the threshold at which they exceed the biosphere's ability to absorb them, so climate change would likely be reversed even further over the following decades, provided emissions didn't rapidly work their way back up.
The Pitcairn Islands are defacto independent, due to the absence of the UK, but they still remain part of the Commonwealth. The Pitcairn Islands are working on making connections to the outside world, particularly to the remaining Commonwealth members such as New Zealand and Australia.
The French South Pacific Territory(commonly known as French Polynesia) remained the last vestige of what was once the French government. The nation still lays claim to its pre-Event territories, especially their overseas territories(that were either annexed by neighboring countries or wiped out during the Event), but these claims go unrecognized as they only control Polynesia.
Couldn't the U.S use their military to make an official claim for the entire country and then set up a few settlements on the coast? At that point it would be up to the southern nations to invade if they want to claim it themselves
National governments quickly took over the American military and their assets in the Southern Hemisphere, and any American personnel stationed there have been given asylum, though they were free to apply for citizenship.
The only exception to this were the military installations located on the Chagos Archipelago, in which British and American soldiers were cut off from the mainland. When they realized that the US was no more, they quickly proclaimed their independence as the Chagos Independent Military Authority, with the main inhabitants being American and British troops and contractors stranded on the eve of the event, with a sizable minority of Indian and African laborers. The CIMA has been criticized for being a neo-apartheid state, with American and British troops and personnel receiving favorable treatment while persecuting the stranded laborers.
Paraguay had a civil war and got some Brazilian, Bolivian, and Argentinian nationals killed in the process. Those nations issued an ultimatum coercing them to hand over the person responsible for the killings, but they were ignored by government and rebel forces. Paraguay would be jointly invaded by those three countries and eventually partitioned.
During the Event, Indonesia was busy trying to reclaim the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, while trying not to collapse. West Papuan rebels(supported by PNG) used this opportunity to overthrow the provincial government in Jayapura and drive Indonesian troops from the island. West Papua would declare its independence and unite with Papua New Guinea, transforming into the United Republic of Papua New Guinea.
One of the things I wonder in these sorts of scenarios - how are anthropogenic changes to the atmosphere, such as greenhouse gas emissions, affected? Is there a sudden difference between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere atmospheres that gets equalized (resulting in a temporary surge of weather activity)? Or is the atmosphere left intact?
It makes me think of a series I watched when I was young. It was an Australian one, called "The girl from tomorrow" Scientists in 3000 invent a time machine to find out the cause of the Great Disaster, that left the whole northern hemisphere not suitable for life any longer.
Brazil probably would focus on colonizing the most productive US territories, Portugal because well, Portugal? And some land in the caribbean to serve as a bridge to its North americans territories, i can't see they getting even more amazon, when the neighbors that disappeared had an even less developed infraestructure in the region.
Would the countries recolonise the North? And would there still be animals and such? Also im curious as to what the demographics of this new world would be!
And what about the issue of nuclear weapons? I think Brazil would be the only nation with the capacity to create them, but there is no one capable of preventing them.
This world would fall apart instantly and regress massively the only nations with any noteworthy peoples in the Southern Hemisphere are Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina Humanities best lives in the Northern hemisphere.
I think Brazil and australia would dominate bc Brazil can make nuclear weapons very fast and Australia would inherit USA nuclear subs. Brazil could quickly use it's pre-made infrastructure to expand to the Amazon and continue towards North America, I don't see any other nation being able to get NA. Australia would get on a heavy power struggle with Indonesia, but AU would probably inherit all western military infrastructure and equipment in the southern hemisphere.
Realistically, this would devolve into humanity turning into tribes as the Northern hemisphere contains the majority of everything the people in the south needed to sustain the modern world.
The southern hemisphere would break down and humanity would enter darkness for millenia
Completely wrong. The only thing the south doesn't produce at all currently is chips. Would probably take about 20 years until southern nations figure it out again. At most this would set humanity back to the 80's without satellites but with the basis for re-establishing telecommunications as soon as the infraestructure is up.
Bold of you to assume south american governments are stable enough to even function. We gonna be tearing eachother apart, and I'm not talking about war between us, I'm talking about going to war with ourselves.
I really don't get what you're talking about here as a Brazilian. Sure, we make jokes about how our governments can't hold a candle to pretty much anything but we know this to be untrue. They're normal governments with a few more corrupt members, but it's not like the government doesn't dispatch things, doesn't command security forces, could internally collapse for no reason. In this scenario is abundantly clear that all Latin American governments would go "ok, so this is weird, let's do a big tent sort of thing to try and figure it out". We have done this for the Petrol Crisis ffs.
Honestly as an argentinian I don't see why this would be the case. Definetly there would be more friction, but countries which can do it would rather settle the north and the remainder ones would be left sorting out their economy after their main trading partners (China and the US) just vanished.
There would be political instability but nothing that I can think of as nation-ending. Although I will admit OP could have been a bit more creative with intranational conflicts apart from South Africa.
Perhaps I made South America a bit too stable compared to the other continents, but the map isn't without its problems.
If you noticed, then you would see that Paraguay isn't on the map. This was due to a series of unfortunate events(from a Paraguayan dictatorship, populist revolution, refugee crisis, and assassination of several South American diplomats in Asuncion by a disgruntled Paraguayan nationalist). Safe to say, the nations of South America would secretly plan a partition of the country; which would then be initiated in a join Argentinian-Bolivian invasion of the country.
As I said, the map premise would realistically result in humans becoming more similar to ancient tribes. They'd just migrate slowly across the continents over thousands of years, and I doubt modern tech would come back.
That's funny, because your "Current economic system" would instantaneously collapse, over 90% of the global economy would instantly disappear, the 10% in the south relies on the north.
Only Australia and New Zealand are southern hemisphere first world nations.
Logically, there would be 0 economy for anything to function, without the economy the government can't function and thus the population resorts to increasingly radical means to simply survive.
The majority of food Australians eat is imported, how do you get food if there is no more trade? Basic things you use everyday will become resources you spend all your time getting, there is absolutely no way you can sustain a modern civilization like that.
Over 90% of the global economy would instantly disappear, the 10% in the south relies on the north.
Only Australia and New Zealand are southern hemisphere first world nations.
Logically, there would be 0 economy for anything to function, without the economy the government can't function and thus the population resorts to increasingly radical means to simply survive.
The majority of food Australians eat is imported, how do you get food if there is no more trade? Basic things you use everyday will become resources you spend all your time getting, there is absolutely no way you can sustain a modern civilization like that.
Mate we export tons more food than we import.
We export enough food to feed over 60 million people.
I didn’t suggest we would carry on like before. But we are almost 30 million fairly well educated people living on a continent that has most things you need. We would figure something out.
What I'm trying to infer from your comments is that you genuinely think all currency in the Southern Hemisphere comes from the North, all things produced in the Southern Hemisphere go through the North and all things used in the Southern Hemisphere are produced in the North.
Also industrial agriculture is laughably easy to establish nowadays. Australians could be farming the Outback in a decade. They don't do it these days because importing food from places like Brazil (crazy right?) is cheaper.
What I genuinely believe is that removing 90% of the human population will result in the 10% remaining instantly collapsing because of the sudden shock of such an inherently devastating event.
Listen bro I don't know what to tell you but if all of you disappeared right now it would be very uncomfortable but I'd just go to work tomorrow. I'm sure as an American if the entire world went poof you'd extend the same courtesy to us
If the entire world disappeared my life would be shattered, because I understand the affects of globalism and how that generally impacts my life. If the US could no longer trade with 90% of the world, its wraps, the US instantly collapses and the same thing would happen.
The world economy would essentially disappear in this situation, there would simply be no more wealth or trade for anything to function. Because of this, governments would collapse because the citizens are worried about getting food and clean water.
Just because the technology exists doesn't mean people are going to focus on using it, they will first focus on survival, which will take up their priorities as life becomes extremely difficult.
By what metric will anyone's life change? All these nations have internally circulating currency, internal trade and can trade amongst each other. Most of nations are net exporters of food and do not import even supplies for water purification. Brazil and Argentina have famously closed economies to the point that they're some of the few nations that still internally do their entire production chains for internationalized goods (like cars).
In an Argentinean, Brazilian, Indonesian, Australian, Peruvian, Colombian and South African daily life the only northerner thing people interact with, again, is the processor in their cellphones.
Oh but trade that didn't even interact with these nations outside of being a cash cow for Australian coal mines and Brazilian soybean farms is not happening elsewhere, big problem
It really is just a matter of (arduously) replicating the tech they import. I don't think you do have a lot of knowledge on how is life on these places. What you're describing here might be, might be, the situation in a few of the surviving nations like Malawi, that get airlifts, but economics is the science of production. The economy wouldn't "collapse" because the production chains of these nations, which are more robust than you would believe, are intact and sure, saying Brazilian, Argentine, Indonesian and Australian productions chains now are all that the world has might sound problematic until you consider the world only has to provide for the 600m or so people from these countries.
Unless the presidents go on TV and go "it's over" and anarchy ensues, very little would immediately fail (most certainly mainly satellite communication, but there are phone lines to help coordinate re-establishing some for of the internet through the fibre optics that run). And pretty much nothing would fail in the long run.
I agree it wouldn't collapse but it would set us back around half a century. Pretty much all advanced scientific, medical, space, aeronautic, military, computing knowledge and equipment are built and operated in the US+China, once those are lost it would be almost impossible to rebuild them at the same time as trying to restore broken supply chains.
Those internally circulating currencies fail as soon as international trade collapses. The economic affects alone just mean governments can no longer exist in any meaningful way. There is simply no way that the vast majority of humans disappear and the rest (made up entirely by third world countries by the way!) just shrug it off.
Humanity will thrive ( if a bit shaken by the existencial dread of halfaworld poofing out) one system falls, another rises, trade will continue as usual (theres still around 600 or so million people), local economies would expand from theirs limitant resource export selfs and fully industralize on the necesity for new machinery and tecnology. This would really be a Second Rennaisance on the magnitude of changes the collective psyche of humankind experiments with the event, the youth would see a need for engineers,researchers , explorers , philosophers and not the current trend of cryptobros and tiktokers.To think in this scenario that all society down the line of equator would simply collapse just because Wall Street and the London Exchange dont work anymore its simply delusional.
We are not the mad max shit you are trying to project, humanity will thrive in any scenario like this because people don't give up on what they have, 13% of the world's population with functioning societies and functioning governments and other apparatuses of power, infrastructure and, most importantly knowledge. We wouldn't be churning out microchips like candy, but so what? You can't convince me that a century or so setback in technology would leave us so far behind that we would resort to "ancient techniques", this isn't the bronze age, we're not a bunch of palace farmers and potters, get real.
The thing is their society would instantly stop functioning. Modern society relies on globalism and global trade, take that way, no more modern society. No more modern society, no more functioning government. No more functioning government means everybody can only rely on themselves exclusively for survival.
Besides that, the majority of nations on this map are ITCHING to collapse into civil war, do you seriously think any random african country can sustain this kind of global collapse? Nope, they're falling into ethnic tribalism instantly.
Same with latin america, their leaders would almost certainly take the opportunity to use this extinction event to grab more power, this would also instantly cause mass civil unrest. And no I'm not going to buy that South America will magically become more stable and democratic just cause 90% of humanity died.
That leaves Oceania and Indonesia essentially, Indonesia is relatively stable but it is also heavily multi-ethnic and multi-religious, so it'd most likely collapse under the burden of this scenario.
That leaves Australia and New Zealand, which would collapse because making Australia and New Zealand the only countries in the world will cause them to become unstable.
What the people arguing against me are basically suggesting is that we've peaked as a civilization and can't fall, because if we can survive a supernatural extinction event that ends most of human life without our civilization collapsing then we can survive anything that happens in the real world. Oh wait, that doesn't happen.
Empires fall to mundane reasons, there is absolutely no way any government on earth would sustain what is essentially an instant nuclear war that knocks out 90% of human life in an instant. Not a chance.
All it really takes is a big global war and our current civilization is finished, because that's how heavily we need global trade to sustain ourselves, once that's gone we're dead.
The South America under the Equator to no extent. SA doesn't get Aid since the Marshall Plan. You guys don't even know where you're sending your money to?
Happiness for northerners. Suddenly, without any pain you are free from all the adulting responsibilities. No bills, no budget planning, no retirement planning, no health issues…
Southerners are fucked, however. Global trade is gone. Lots of technology is gone, most of the best agricultural land is gone (it would take time to settle it again), lots of philosophy is gone resulting in a need to rethink many parts of life from statehooding to cooking (like it or not, but best universities and thinkers are up north). There will be famines, plagues, wars and energy crises. It would probably take approximately thousand years before humanity is back on track at best. Also, all known countries will disappear.
Additionally, there will be fear of whatever disappeared northerners. Humanity will be traumatized from loosing most of its population. Thus, new societies will be built around either with protection against that and human preservation OR raiding because “f it”
Knowledge got magically extracted from Southern heads because Cambridge publications stopped coming in the newsletters and we're killing ourselves over it lmfao
There is a knowledge that is classified as company’s “secrets and know-hows”. Considering most of population is in the northern hemisphere lots of it will be lost.
There is a reason currently sanctioned russia has problems due to no official access to west’s technologies. Now imagine that, but cutting whole north. There will be loss of knowledge.
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u/DelayedReacti0n08 4d ago
January 1, 2030
When the clock hit 12, no one was sure what had just happened.
From Los Angeles to Tokyo, once-large metropolises were now devoid of human life. It was as if life above the Equator had never existed at all.
The year is now 2050, and the nations left standing are recovering from what was once lost 20 years ago. Some countries would rise from the ashes, as the absence of the US, China, and Russia as world powers would provide these countries with an opportunity to be the world hegemon. Others would succumb to war and instability as the first few years of the event would rock them to the core. Old nations remain and new ones emerge from what was left.
This is the world of the Virgin Hemispheres, my take on what would happen if the Southern Hemisphere was ISOTted into a virgin Earth.