the 2050s, worldwide
The Americas
The United States - no longer
the superpower, for one. militarily there's the New Chinese Republic. culturally there's Europe. economically there's India or Europe or China again.
The Big Five: Justice / New Democrat / National Liberal / Christian Democratic / United Libertarian. encapsulated by 2020s standards, they'd be the Squad, moderate Democrats, Blue Dogs, Christian Republicans, and what amounts to "saner Libertarians" — the far right has been annihilated following the American Troubles, and the far left is still there, though they aren't mainstream anymore. no dominant party.
Green USA: 2047 saw what many worldwide call the "Year of Fire", and living green is a concern for many Americans as they enter the 2nd half of the 21st century. included in the package is a stronger Green Party, often considered the sixth member of the Big Five.
Canada - leans left thanks to increasingly-worse climate change discrediting prairie conservatives who wanted to stick with fossil fuels. tons of Canadians go to Alaska or Russia for a summer vacation as wildfires and heat waves make staying in the country a pretty shitty idea during the summer.
Mexico - aside from the extreme heat, they're doing relatively fine. they're one of the major world powers, often working in tandem with the United States on global issues. they lean conservative. designer drugs have ensured the slow extinction of drug cartels in the area, though Mexico still faces problems with them by 2050.
Central America - they're also doing fine. they lean progressive.
Colombia / Venezuela - Venezuela is doing much better now under a proper democracy after a revolution and subsequent civil war in the 2030s. they lean conservative. Colombia leans progressive and has had similar difficulties with Mexico trying to control drugs.
Peru / Bolivia - having the Atacama Desert right beside sure made its neighboring countries terrified to lose their agriculture — and then along came Africa as a model for what to do. Peru and Bolivia lean progressive and conservative, respectively.
Brazil / Argentina - both dominate the continent, but only left-leaning Brazil is considered a MAJOR world power — right-leaning Argentina is considered secondary. Rio is a top tourist destination for most people in the winter, but the summer is unbearably hot, so most people flee to Argentina.
Africa
North Africa / Egypt - North Africa and the Sahel have resorted to desperate measures to try and stall the resuming growth of the Sahara Desert. irrigation, bioengineered plants, and tons of farming, to say the least. Egypt emerged out of a war with Ethiopia over the drying waters of the Nile in the 2030s, but they got that resolved after a few months.
East African Federation - originally the East African Community, the Federation was fully brought to fruition in the early 2030s after resolving some arguments. they're one of the world's major powerhouses in the field of tech and energy, and their scientists have been replicating, within the EAF, successes like Silicon Valley. they are largely centrist.
West Africa - also delaying the Sahara and trying their best at becoming a major power. they lean right.
Southern Africa - South Africa is doing fine after a brief period of instability in the early 2030s. they are also a major power now.
Europe & the Middle East
Western Europe - alright, let's see. France leans left. England leans right. Scotland and Ireland lean left. Germany left. Spain right. Portugal right. Italy left. roughly "federalized" into a loose confederation of states based off of their predecessor, the European Union.
Eastern Europe - no longer trapped beside an authoritarian superpower, they've taken their time to push their own culture to the rest of the world. they lean left.
Southern Europe - the Balkans aren't as messy anymore and lean all over the place. Serbia leans right. Romania leans left. Greece leans left. Bulgaria leans right. Bosnia leans right. Croatia leans left.
Scandinavia - well off. popular destination for climate refugees and vacation-lovers. lean left. unfortunately, glaciers have largely melted away.
Russia - also doing well under a New Russian Republic, currently led by a member of the Liberal Democratic (center to center right) Party. they have recovered from their post-Ukraine financial slump, and are also a major center for technological progress thanks to their newfound open-ness, a byproduct of the global democratization of the late 2030s. lean right.
Middle East - far better off. after repeated conflicts throughout the late 2020s to 2040s, Israel and Palestine (Israel by a centrist government, Palestine by a progressive government) are trying their hand at peace again. Saudi Arabia (leans right) is adjusting to renewable energy, but the consensus is that they'll get there. same for the UAE (leans center), with Dubai becoming a top tourist hotspot. Turkey leans left and is okay. Iran, now a proper republic, is centrist and is also better off than it was in the 2020s.
Asia & Oceania
East Asia - left-leaning New Chinese Republic, formed from the late 2030s to early 2040s after dissatisfaction with the PRC reached a peak. they still have Tibet and Xinjiang, but they're highly autonomous. Hong Kong is independent and so is Macau. Taiwan chose not to join. China is an economic superpower, and some say it'll surpass America in a decade or two. Korea is unified under a left-leaning democracy, and efforts are ongoing to restore the North. Japan leans left and is doing fine on its own as another global superpower. Siberia (part of Russia) has largely defrosted thanks to climate change, allowing for some opportunities for Russia to expand their cities into the area — they are careful not to disturb any long-lost viruses thawed out from former permafrost.
South Asia - right-leaning India and left-leaning Pakistan have largely gotten along with each other. the Maldives have sunk beneath the waves, their survivors fleeing to Australia or India. right-leaning Bangladesh is sometimes inundated with extreme monsoon seasons and strong hurricanes.
Southeast Asia - leans left, for the most part. Vietnam is a rising economic superpower, as is the Philippines. Laos and Cambodia are doing fine. Malaysia and Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste and Indonesia are also doing fine. a bunch of them are on the forefront of doing research to try and combat the worst of climate change.
Oceania - Australia leans left thanks to climate change and the expansion of the Outback. New Zealand leans right. not much else, other than Australia becoming one of the Southern Hemisphere's biggest economies. some Southern Pacific island nations have gone under the waves thanks to climate change, and their populations have fled to Australia, largely. talks are underway to build artificial islands and hopefully reclaim lost territory.
Other stuff
Music - oh God, a whole wealth of it. you have queer musicians like Zoe Ashcroft (b. 2024) with her widely popular "To The Stars" tour, the first intra-planetary tour to earn over $10,000,000. new genres like xeno-pop (based off of numerous radio-transmissions sent throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries in hopes of contacting aliens. no luck yet, though) and floodcore (based off of cultures heavily affected by climate-based flooding, like the Maldives or the South Pacific, etc.). 2055 saw the creation of "We Are The World @70" and the "Live Aid: One Earth" events, both of which went viral on social media within hours of their announcements. you should've seen Taylor Swift performing at the event.
Film - the 2050s see the rise of directors raised during the YouTube age, oftentimes inspired by YouTubers-turned-filmmakers like Markiplier. quite a few commentaries done on many major films during this era being inspired by various 2010s trends like creepypasta, viral memes, and the success of social media. quite a ton of queer people in both the cast and crew spaces, too. one specific trend, "body-view", involves using bionic enhancements (like eyes, though experimental directors have used hands, legs, etc.) to capture footage. quite a few famous franchises also arise during this time — everybody's surely heard of
Eagle Storm and
Vertical Limit before, or even have merch of
Eagle Storm III: Break of Dawn protagonist Casey McHewitt (Piper Rubio). also notable during this time are films from Africa, which gain a level of success comparable to Hollywood, European, or Indian films.
Television - cable TV, having declined slowly following the rise of streaming in the 2020s, is pretty much extinct by the 2050s. footage exists online of the last cable TV stations being shut down due to lack of viewership. all TV is typically on the Internet now, either on streaming or dedicated "digi-tel" websites that catalogue different broadcasts (i.e., the same purpose as old "channels") on numerous other websites. soap operas and sitcoms make a return following the success of hit period drama sitcom
Net and Us, about a group of Gen Z women as they traverse the 2020s and the Rethinking Era. let's throw in a Golden Girls reboot starring Samara Weaving, Daisy Ridley, Miranda Cosgrove, and Millie Bobby Brown because why not? of course, some reality shows are set in space. some singing competitions take in contestants from Earth, lunar colonies, and Martian colonies. some "broadcasters" are dedicated to showing cartoons (more akin to 1980s ones, not 2020s Internet made-for-kids content) 24/7, thus ending the "Saturday morning cartoon".
Sports - aside from the typical shit, you have the groundbreaking announcement by the IOC that they will be accepting candidates from both the Moon and Mars starting in the 2070s, though for very good reasons, they're supposed to spend some time — on the celestial body where the Olympics would take place — for a few months, to acclimate and practice on the new gravity. thus far, all venues have been on Earth, and there have been no talks about a non-Earth Olympics. maybe. just maybe. quite a few new sports also arise during this period pertaining to bionic/cybernetic enhancements.
Video Games - by this point, they're a mix of virtual, augmented, and "physical", though virtual is by far the best option most gamers have. multiple metaverses, each by different companies (Microsoft, Apple, Meta, etc.) exist, each with their own metaverse-exclusive experience. some even make use of novel technologies to immerse the viewer with feelings, smells, and even tastes.
Fashion - the largest current trends in fashion are influenced by celebrities, the Internet, but a huge noticeable influence is climate change. in areas prone to wildfires and heat waves, you have hoodies with built-in cooling technology. in areas that see spectacularly-cold winters, it's the opposite, and you can pick up sweaters with heaters inside of them. taller boots in areas prone to extreme flooding, and special fabric that traps moisture from the air in areas regularly hit by droughts.
Internet - meme culture remains the same, though of course the memes and their styles have changed. enshittification was halted in its tracks during the Rethinking Era, and the Internet is more "democratic" in a sense — controlled by the whim of its users. that's all I have to say about that.
Science & Tech - we're in space now, and it's become a refuge for a humanity also dealing with pent-up decades of delayed action against the climate crisis. right now, the best humanity has done is to completely switch over to renewable, try their best to capture carbon in the atmosphere, and hope for the best. generative AI research and propagation was regulated after a late-2020s agreement, and it has matured into a proper industry by 2050. artificial general intelligence is well-known, and a proper AGI chatbot (later on planned to have a physical body) is set to hit the market in a few years. genetic editing is commonplace with plants and animals (including humans, to a limited extent), and humanity is dipping its toes into manipulating atoms and subatomic particles. this has allowed them to discover 6 more elements by 2059. also, humanity has now gotten its first close-up images of an exoplanet via Breakthrough Starshot. not to mention the ongoing construction of a space elevator in the East African Federation. in short, we're pretty well-off.
