Summa Bellum

Summa Bellum (Latin for "total war"), is a setting which takes place in the modern day, but has numerous divergences and additions to the course of history at select points in time. The world is divided into nine superpowers which are the sole nations of Earth. Each nation's creation was the result or action of one other nation, but all started with one. Since the Third World War (1958-1972), the world has been in a state of total military readiness, each nation waiting for the perfect reason to strike at their hated enemy.

Democratic Federation
The Democratic Federation is the paramount nation in the world, and with the exception of Greenland, controls the entirety of the Western Hemisphere. Formed in 1962 as the American Defense Alliance, the alliance was established as a temporary alliance of nations to fight the Soviet Union and the Zanj Empire during WWIII. However, as the war continued, the economies, industries, and militaries of the constitute nations grew interlinked and depedent upon one another, and many of the member nations' populations already knew enough of their neighbors' language to travel freely and easily in the ADA.

By the war's end in 1972, it was determined that the ADA was far too successful to immediately disbanded, and the alliance was rebranded as the Democratic Federation of American Nations, or more simply, the Democratic Federation. The federation has remained the most powerful force on Earth, though it did as did all the other nations, suffer an embarassing and humilating defeat during the Second Invasion of Zanj in 1969. Despite this, it has recovered, and serves as "the beakon of freedom and justice" everywhere, though one's view of freedom and justice is heavily based on opinion. While women and minorities have only just gained equal rights, immigrants, homosexuals, communists, socialists, non-Christians, and liberals are all pariahs in the federation. Conservatism has remained a potent force in the organization despite the progression of a unified American nation Regardless, few are complaining given the fates they could endure living in one of the other superpowers..

European Union
The European Union, also jokingly known as "the little brother of democracy", is a large nation which controls all of non-Soviet Europe. Formed right after World War II, the EU was established as a guard against Soviet expansion and American interference. Many Europeans believed that the Zanj threat of the second world war was too great of a threat for any one nation to combat, and saught to establish a union that would defend all of Europe from Zanji retribution. During the Third World War, the Europeans were only loosely allied, and only regarded the union as a stop-gap measure simply to deter their enemies from invading the continent.

However, since the Soviet Invasion of Europe, the union has been strengthened by a bond of brotherhood that could deflect and endure any blows it recieved. Since the end of the conflict, the European Union has been widely regarded as the second-most powerful nation in the world, and annexed Israel at the nation's request for protection from Zanj and the Muslim nations. The union is quickly being replaced by the Zanj Empire which seeks to devour it. While slightly more liberal than the Democratic Federation, it is still rather xenophobic, bordering the Soviet Union which desires to spread the communist ideal into Europe, and the genocidial Zanj Empire which seeks to completely decimate the European population. A commonly held belief is the the European Union has only survived solely because of the reason it possesses the military might to do so.