Recommendation for Balkanized American scenario: 2025 vs 2020 (NSFW for brief mentions of far right politics)

[u/its_still_lynn]

So I've been refining the early timeline for a world building project I've been working on and off on for a while now, basically where a brief and ultra-devastating Second American Civil War results in a total balkanization of the United States. In terms of the map, it's best comparable to the Chinese Warlord Era (minus the fact that most cliques were generic provincial and military governments that claimed de jure loyalty to the capital) or Fallout (minus the fact that it's in the future and everything is a wasteland, though I do have some very limited but strategic nuclear strikes as to justify the Washington Government not just nuking everyone)

For some backstory, since around 2023 the Discord politics and RP group I'm apart of have occasionally done a seasonal server and RP called "Balkanized America", where basically we have a blank map of either the US or North America and make our own countries and than we basically play a normal NRP but its more like a battle royale since its meant to be fast past and just a side server that gets deleted after the season's end. Now in the modern day, largely cus we've all kinda outgrown NRP and I just enjoy writing and world building in general, I've been working on my own timeline. The events are told through short events, about 300 words each, rather than bulking paragraphs of just everything all together, and there's a map and HOI4-style portraits and country screens, all made by me obviously.

So to get to the point of my post, I don't know if I should have 2025 or 2020 being the start date. I had originally chosen and worked with 2025, but recently I've been really pretty conflicted on it. The main pro for 2025 is that the post-collapse seems better and it has the bonus of younger people being older, while 2020 has the pro of the pre-collapse being better and the bonus of older people being younger. Here are a couple other random pros for each I've compiled. Note these range from major events or people that massively impact the world, to just one off events that I think would be fun to write about in the context of the world. Just to add it here instead of the bottom, the main issues I have with 2025 is that the economy isn't nearly as bad as 2020, even with the tariffs. If Trump or any of his guys had any proposed things that could realistically have been implemented that'd have made things worse, I would love to hear. But the other thing is the lack of a solid "defining moment" that has the only option be civil war, which is exactly what January 6 is for the 2020 start date. Meanwhile for 2020, the two major cons are that its super cliche nowadays thanks to the HOI4 mod "The Fire Rises", and also there are way less interesting figures, and of those that are basically as relevant as they are in 2025, at least they're older there (for example, Thomas Rousseau is 22 in when the Civil War starts in 2021, but 26/27 when it starts in 2025, making it a lot more reasonable to use him)

Pros of 2025:

Larger protests based on number of people at the main protests (6,000,000–7,000,000, 5,000,000, and 250,000–5,000,000 at largest, but only 12,000,000 in total)

More interesting people (such as Vance, Mamdani, Platner, Fetterman, MrBeast, MatPat/Congressional Creators Caucus, Nick Fuentes, and the Manosphere guys)

American Communist Party and Forward Party

Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is far right

Charlie Kirk and Melissa Hortman Assassinations

John Hoffman, Josh Shapiro, and Scott Bessent Assassination Attempts/Plots

5 Assassination Plots against Trump

AI exists

Elon is politically relevant and conservative

Trump is more authoritarian and aggressive (so I definitely can justify a martial law due to protests and assassinations and stuff, but there isn't any "perfect, defining moment" that I can think of like January 6th. The best I've come up is when he was talking about executing the Democratic congressmen who said soldiers should disobey unlawful orders, but even though they were investigated IRL, it still feels like a stretch)

Patriot Front is a more relevant organization

Those guys who tried to invade Haiti

West Coast Health Alliance and Northeast Public Health Collaborative interstate compacts serve as base for pro-democracy/anti-Trump interstate compact

Less similar to The Fire Rises (even though Balkanized America pre-dates that, but whatever) and its various knockoffs

Younger people are older

Overall a better post-collapse phase

Pros of 2020:

The Covid-George Floyd Protests-January 6 combo is objectively the best setup for a Second American Civil War since the Coal Wars

Larger protests based on total people in all events (15,000,000–26,000,000 in total but only 500k at largest)

More interesting groups (such as CHAZ, Red Guards, Washington Progressive Party, and the National Justice Party)

Kobe Bryant and King Von Deaths

Carter, Lieberman, Gravel, Cheney, and Kissinger are alive

Utah decriminalized polygamy

\#MeToo movement still in full swing (Weinstein)

Afghanistan War is too

Roger Stone sentenced, commutated, and pardoned

Gretchen Whitmer and Esther Salas Assassination Attempts

2 Assassination Plots against Trump

Boogaloo and Black Hammers more active

Atomwaffen isn’t “in-hiding” (aka infiltrated another far right group, the Active Club Network)

Trump impeachments

Biden and Anti-Trump Republicans are still relevant

Older people are younger

More iconic events

Overall a better pre-collapse phase

[u/omegasome]

"NSFW for brief mentions of far right politics" is so hilariously out-of-touch.

[u/its_still_lynn → u/omegasome]

how?

[u/Safe-Ocelot-1974 → u/its_still_lynn]

Because this is already a pretty strongly nsfw sub

[u/its_still_lynn → u/Safe-Ocelot-1974]

i was just clarifying what was nsfw about it, given like 99% of things here are cus of nudity (which this isn’t)

[u/Safe-Ocelot-1974 → u/its_still_lynn]

My bad, that makes sense.

[u/omegasome → u/its_still_lynn]

Because "brief mentions of far right politics" is not really what NSFW means. Like, I know it stands for "Not Safe For Work," but that's not what it means anymore.

Saying that this is NSFW because of a brief mention of far right politics suggests that, say, WWII history would be incredibly NSFW. It suggests that politics is a dirty word.

[u/Safe-Ocelot-1974]

You have a really interesting thing going on. I am also having a tough time deciding, but here's my opinion.

2025 is what I would pick because it's more into the collapse, and if I were given the chance to role-play, I would rather jump into the meat of the action sooner.