The Years of Silence and Magic: SSSS Year 90

Here's something to make up for my prolonged inactivity, which I've spent the past couple weeks working on on-and-off during my free time. This one being a map cover of the post-apocalyptic webcomic Stand Still, Stay Silent by Swedish-Finnish writer Minna Sundberg. Set 90 years after a harrowing pandemic that may or may not be unnatural swept the globe, it mainly follows an expeditionary team full of Nordics in their adventures and daily lives as they explore the "Silent World." Unlike many post-apocalyptic works, however, it's decidedly lighter in tone but no less serious (usually), has shades of slice-of-life, places more focus on the more positive aspects of the humanity and has a fantastical flair that is deeply based on Norse and Finnish mythologies. All while showing beautiful artwork, well-written characters and a plot that doesn't mince words while also playing it light where it counts.

Granted, the webcomic is primarily concerned with Scandinavia, with little to work on regarding what happened to the rest of the world. As such, setting aside a few creative liberties in depicting the Nordic Council nations, much of it is made through guesswork, conjecture and plain speculation, though I make a point to keep things as consistent and in-spirit as possible. And to further justify how a map like this would exist in-verse, it's framed as if it's intended for operatives from an interdimensional "agency" that explores various alternate universes, akin to 's Agency.

That being said, I also took inspiration from the fanwork First Contact for the Federation of Canada. The "Persephone" referenced in the map's text as well as the Greeks' depiction meanwhile are a nod to 's works. The "Many Folded Lord" and the references to Cornwall are similarly a reference to the setting of 's stories. Lastly, the flag used to represent the U.K. in Exile is derived from the Alternate History Wiki. 

And yes, the colors and tones are meant to evoke the official maps featured in the webcomic.

As a precaution, this is not a political or ideological work. This is a work of fiction. And all that aside, I really hope that you enjoy viewing and reading this as much as I have making it!

----

90 years have passed since humanity nearly faced oblivion.

The end of the Old World didn't play out the way many expected or imagined. It began with the discovery of a boat of indeterminate origin off the Spanish coast, so it goes. The 11 illegal refugees found onboard all carried an unknown disease known since then as the Rash Illness, or simply "the Rash." Seemingly bearing similarities to certain strains of influenza, the virus was found to be infectious for both humans and wildlife, capable of spreading as an airborne pathogen, and manifest as titular rashes on those infected. Within about two days following the find, however, isolated cases from around the world began to emerge - and spread.

At first, press releases from the various health bodies and national agencies claimed that the worst the Rash could do was cause victims to be "bedridden for a week" or so, which could cripple whole economies if enough of the workforce was affected. Indeed, even when the first few began dying, it seemed like a cure was imminent. But few in the public realized just how severe the disease actually was, let alone how widespread the contagion had become. The very efforts made to contain what was evidently a global outbreak proved ineffectual. Some even began to suspect that various governments and organizations had not only known more of the Rash than what they were letting on, but that they'd been aware of it well before the now-infamous boat. Whatever the truth, it didn't change the reality of what followed. As days turned to weeks and then months, the "Great Illness," as the pandemic's come to be known, wrought havoc across the globe in various ways. Communications, global trade and the very foundations of the modern world fell apart, whole societies in many cases crumbling into chaos, more often than not out of being overwhelmed. The virus itself not only proved to have a high mortality rate, but also bore a strange capability of transforming its victims' generic and molecular structure in ways that could be called unnatural. Thus, those infected who didn't die suffered an even worse fate as mutated monstrosities. Eventually billions of people died, as even those who had a natural immunity weren't exempt from the turmoil or from the creatures spawned by the contagion. A long shadow had swept over what's since been called the "Silent World." Still the survivors endured, their descendants facing a planet forever changed.

Iceland was the very first country to close its borders entirely - having done so within the two days following that fateful discovery - and in more than a few respects showed a recurring trend. What had been dismissed initially as an unorthodox financial policy if not an excessive gesture in a supposedly globalized world proved incredibly crucial to the island nation's survival. It came at great cost for nothing and no one could go in or out, the Coast Guard soon given the grim task of warding off foreigners and shooting on sight any refugees who kept entering Icelandic waters. As the Great Illness ran its course and contact was established with what remained of the Nordic countries however, a society-wide sentiment had taken root: that it's for the best to keep to themselves and to let the world be, so that they would be spared from the madness and in time, all would be well again. That much proved true enough, and then some. By Year 90, Icelanders comprise the largest proportion of their "Known World's" population, host the Nordic Council and had long returned to the Aesir, seeing the Norse Gods of old rather than the Hvítakristr or "White Christ" as their true saviors even while forsaking the Old World. 

While conditions were and in a sense still are less rosy elsewhere in Scandinavia, the other countries of the Nordic Council persevered, each retaining their sovereignty and respective governments, the latter at least on paper. Sweden held out in the inland valleys and various strategic enclaves, in time asserting itself as a technological and cultural hub, all while refusing in either Christian or pagan creeds in favor of believing in the strength of one's own hand. Norwegians meanwhile survived in the fjords and rural coasts, soon reverting to their seafaring, "Viking" traditions and like their Icelandic counterparts, returned to worshipping the Aesir. While the Finns found sanctuary during the Great Illness deep in their land's interior, their descendants still living amidst the forests and lakes and rediscovering the gods of their ancient forefathers. Denmark, however suffered the worst, most of its territory reduced to the secure, if bountiful island of Bornholm as the country was all but overrun by the Rash despite closing its borders early on. Yet despite having like the Swedes forsaken faith for total secularism, the Danes remain obsessed with the past and no matter how many failed experiments or military expeditions, stubborn in the hopes of one day reclaiming the homeland from the Silent World. In addition, as a consequence of the survivors largely being from rural areas or from more isolated territories, the overwhelming majority are Scandinavian Europeans ethnically and culturally native to their respective nations.

All things considered though, the Nordics at large have done well for themselves several decades on. Although society across the Known World has over time coalesced around three "professions" - peasants, academics and the military - and has taken on a decidedly more traditionalist bent, trends of social mobility, egalitarianism and equality continue on in altered form to help maintain a semblance of modernity; decades of hardship and the necessity of maintaining a constant armed presence close to home has made the sizable presence of women in the national forces a relative non-issue. Painstaking progress has also been made not just in "cleansing" their surroundings - with the Swedes making the most headway in "reclaiming" lost land and the Norwegians having gained a reputation as master hunters - but also in curtailing the Rash. Bolstering the proportion of the populace that's immune across the Nordic nations remains a major success though still a high priority, with Iceland pursuing the Dagrenning genetic donor programme to compensate for its low immunity rates, a motion that perhaps in another age could be perceived as eugenics. While the Nordic Council has since welcomed the Faroese and the last remnant of Estonia into the fold, resettlement has even occurred in a few places, most notably the Shetlands by Norway. This is to say nothing of their self-sufficiency, the return of trade and industry and how a sense of normalcy, however tenuous or changed from the Old World, has returned. Let alone how years of peace and a common cause against the Rash have fostered a sense of solidarity. Still, barring exceptions like the Danes, the old mindset remains ironclad. Until the gods deem otherwise or the medical researchers finally give the all-clear, whichever comes first, few have little incentive to explore, let alone reclaim the Silent World from what nearly doomed humanity.
 
The Known World though is only one of other such Known Worlds scattered throughout the globe. Few in one Known World if at all are even aware of the others' existence; barring a few exceptions, each one tends to view itself as the last of mankind. And while the experience of the Great Illness varies significantly depending on where one's from - in some cases, far more chaotic and destructive than in Scandinavia - there are still parallels and similarities to be found in what became of mankind elsewhere.

Realizing the severity of the Rash, Britain was among the earliest to enact an emergency evacuation and redoubt plan independently of their European peers across the Channel. But though the plan proved difficult to organize in practice as the Great Illness spread, it was successful in allowing a sizable element of the Royal Navy - with them whole flotillas of evacuees and the remaining Windsors - to escape in a bold exodus through the now-dangerous seas to Oceania. Despite the hardships and struggles, the "United Kingdom in Exile" continues to persevere as an unifying presence among the loyalist Australians of Tasmania, European New Zealanders, Aotearoa's Maori, and the British exiles' descendants; while its claims of being the last beacon of Anglicanism are nothing to scoff at, freedom of religion has allowed the Maori's old customs to flourish like never before. In contrast, those left behind in the Isles huddled around the remaining castles and safe zones. These survivors, believing themselves forsaken by both the Crown and the Christian God, found solace with a new generation of druids and a resurgent Welsh culture. The Union of Albion was the result, slowly spreading its creeds and cleansing Britannia in the hopes of undoing what's seen as a long-dormant mistake.

Most of Continental Europe, meanwhile, was almost entirely wiped out. The European Union and various short-lived "emergency regimes" later on resorted to increasingly desperate efforts to hold back the Rash and monsters it spawned, including scorched earth policies and even mustard gas. Amidst the wastes and wildlands marking the Silent World though, a handful of European countries have survived. Some held out fiercely from myriad island bastions, as was the case of Portugal, Corsica and the "Italian League" of Sardinia and Sicily. Meanwhile deep in the interior, the few mountainous sanctuaries that have lasted through the generations - whether out of relative isolation like Andorra or through excessively stringent measures even more draconian than Iceland's - have become bright lights in the darkness that's the fallen Continent. Of all the heirs to the Old World however, the seafaring Greeks are the most peculiar. Through persistence, ruthless determination, sacrifice and as some would argue sheer luck - the death and devastation elsewhere ironically providing their own lethal barriers - the islands, shelters and outposts around the Aegean Sea weathered through the Great Illness and have since coalesced into a potent confederation; even with the growing contest between the Orthodox faithful and those turning back to the Olympians as their saviors as well as the more distant Russians, the Hellenic domains continue to keep Western civilization at least in their corner of the world alight.

Across the Atlantic, the U.S. and Canadian Governments, having learned of the potential damage, attempted to discreetly establish a network of sanctuaries and quarantine zones in the early days of the Rash, with various contingencies put in place. Death, panic and chaos still ensued however, as not even the best laid plans could have anticipated just what the disease was capable of. Nonetheless, the contingencies worked, at least to a point. While the "Federal Government" based in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado holds itself to be the legitimate United States of America and is arguably the strongest one with the claim, it is something shared by two other thriving American factions: the Alaskan Union and Pennsylvania-Delmarva, each established by what remained of the old bureaucracy and U.S. Military. After several decades however, the "Three Americas" are diverging from each other in experience and even culture while nominally claiming the same heritage, be the congressional debates about Mormons and their growing influence, the growth of the Anabaptists' Deitsch dialect as a prominent language or some of the Alaskan territories "going native." This is to say nothing of the neglected Appalachian survivors that had "seceded" from the Union like their Southern ancestors had done - forging Columbia in the process - or of the Native Americans who had forged own destinies against the Silent World independently. In contrast, the trials and tribulations of what's since become the Federation of Canada are more muted if no less harrowing, yet still its constituent members carry on living as good lives as their forefathers hoped, given the circumstances.

A few other major powers from the Old World have similarly refused to perish outright, though with very different outcomes. Where once there was one Russia, what had been the "Yekaterinburg Safe Zone" and "Provisional Crimea" have long become the domains of two Tsars of all the Russias, claiming descent from either of the Romanovs of old or the military commanders that had kept their countrymen from the demons beyond. Israel and Palestine, which had sealed themselves in anticipation of the Great Illness have endured as beacons of sanity alongside the Kurds, though the legacy of both the Rash and local nuclear exchanges have made further cleansings in the Middle East much more difficult. From Taiwan and Hainan, the Chinese look once more to reclaim the Mandate of Heaven, unaware of the People's Republic that lives on still from Tibet, however changed it's become from the days when Beijing was the capital. Even the remnants of Argentina, which had coalesced around what had been called Y Wladfa, had nigh miraculously pulled through, its increasingly Welsh-influenced leadership still holding a rivalry with the Falklands. But more peculiar still is the fate of Japan. Among the first alongside Iceland to completely seal its borders -albeit not as successful, most infamously with the Fall of Tokyo - the Japanese had since further married their rekindled traditions - in the case of those in Hokkaido, renewed kinship with the Ainu - with Western-tinged modernity to uphold their dignity even in self-imposed isolation, still united in the figurehead that is their Emperor in Kyoto.

Neither of these myriad Known Worlds though could really be said to, technology or knowledge-wise, "have it better" than the pre-Rash era, though one can't fault them for making do with what's on hand. Though air travel is virtually non-existent, barring perhaps the odd experimental airship or museum-piece aircraft in the "Three Americas," motorized transportation - primarily of the battery and steam-powered varieties - isn't unheard of in more advanced countries; be it in Sweden or Quebec, the use of heavily armored railroads has played a key role in connecting otherwise isolated national settlements, further facilitating cleansing operations and rekindle economic development. Although what intricate electronics and digital systems that still remain are exclusively for government or military use only, many particularly in more developed states enjoy stable electricity and something of working infrastructure - including basic telephone and radio - to maintain standards of living akin to the late 19th-early 20th Centuries in the old reckoning. Even many of the more "backward" lands retain the means and know-how to produce - or at least maintain - firearms and flamethrowers, with technologically adept ones even maintaining weapons clearly derived from tanks and warships. This is not even getting to the medical progress made by various scientists in better understanding, let alone combating the Rash or the survival of academia at all. Conversely however, a number of strains and fields of knowledge are on the verge of being forgotten or even rewritten; it's not uncommon in some countries where history prior to the Great Illness has grown more distorted. Contrary to the old fears, this has less to do with malice or celebrating ignorance so much as it's out of a lack of resources and access to them, the loss of practical necessity for certain careers and/or some prevailing stigma associated with the Old World. Indeed, in the case of the Nordics they had gone so far as to mark their Years from when the pestilence first made itself felt, with others adopting similar calendars. And barring exceptions like the stubborn Danes who still claim that valuable treasure can still be salvaged from the ruins beyond, most remain content with the status quo at least in this respect. 

Religion meanwhile has taken rather peculiar turns over the generations. The events surrounding the Rash's spread had shaken the faith of whole populations, especially when it seemed like their deities never answered their prayers. Some lands renounced belief altogether, finding solace in hard work and human will alone overcoming the odds. Yet many others have since rediscovered and turned back - or as some would phrase it, reverted - to the creeds and traditions of their ancestors, seeing the pantheons and spirits that had seemingly been swept aside by the missionaries of old or otherwise ignored over the passing of time as having spared them from the worst of the global nightmare. Know that this is an age when the atheist walks alongside the druid, priestess and shaman. That isn't to say the myriad adherents of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have faded from memory, however. Far from it. Christianity endures still, be it among the Orthodox Churches, the "Sedevacantist" Catholics still awaiting a new pope, the various Protestant groups - from the Baptists of Columbia and the rustic ways of the Amish to the Neo-Anglicanism of the U.K. in Exile - or the resurgent Mormons. To say nothing of the throngs of Jews and Muslims still holding on to their covenants, or the Revelationists and other similarly "apocalyptic" sects believing that the End Times are nigh. To thus say that the "Post-Religionist" secularists, Abrahamics and those following the old gods don't always get along is an understatement, but disputes over doctrine or theology are perhaps the least of society's concerns.

Rather, it concerns the other legacy of the Great Illness: the return of magic. In the years following the Old World's fall, stories and accounts spread of individuals either attuned with unseen spiritual forces or otherwise blessed/chosen/empowered by their gods. These "mages" as such people tend to be called are thus said to exhibit abilities considered to be beyond explanation. The finer details vary considerably, depending much on location, culture, the particular faith - by proxy the mage's patron gods and/or goddesses - and the traditions invoked, right down to gender; for the likes of Iceland and Norway, there are even academies dedicated for the study and training of magecraft. But in general, mages are said to be capable of seeing or communicating with spirits, having nigh-prophetic visions, controlling the elements to some degree and casting spells, though primarily of the protective kind. Their duties - sanctioned or unspoken - remain consistent, namely to protect their countrymen from what lurks in the Silent World, though some like the Finnish mages go so far as to help guide the spirits of the dead, including those mutated by the virus. Not everyone is convinced, however, even after all this time. As with the existence of spirits or the inexplicable immunity of cats, secularists and Abrahamics alike - barring some of the more esoteric sects - view practitioners of magecraft as at best quaint eccentrics with traditionalist interpretations of tangible phenomena, at worst deluded and superstitious frauds if not outright heretics that could imperil human civilization. But as any decent mage would retort, their role is as important as those trained to use a gun or laboratory equipment. Especially given what lies beyond the Known Worlds.

For the Silent World itself is in many ways a new terra incognita, where the ancient adage "here be dragons" isn't an idle warning. Though few people now could say with much confidence what lies beyond, there's still just enough in the way of certainty to get a rough portrait. One is likely to find the seemingly empty husks of the Old World, crumbling and rusting away with each passing year. Empty, that is, save for the creatures that lurk amidst the lost cities, charred countrysides and long-weathered bones. The monstrosities wrought by prolonged exposure to the Rash are known by many names: beasts, trolls, giants, demons, youkai, leviathans. All of these had at one point or another been animals that lived on the land and in the seas, to say nothing of the infected humans morphed against their will by the disease. Indeed, it is said by some mages that at least some of these monsters still bear consciousness and that their very essence if not the Rash itself is not entirely of this world. Regardless, they're also a major reason why even after generations, cleansing operations remain constant affairs, especially when even sea travel or simply living along coasts can be imperiled if enough seaborne spawn so much as slip through the myriad patrols. Not even communications are spared, not when certain strains of those beings can interfere with radio signals, further isolating the various embers of humanity.

And yet there's an air of change as of late that's breaking through the long silence. Even in countries that had long resolved to let the world be, more are growing curious in finding out just what is out there, even if the actual resolve remains almost nonexistent. Still, a number of efforts have emerged that could spark a new, if much more dangerous Age of Exploration. In the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik in particular, the authorities of the Nordic Council had given their approval for an official expeditionary team, albeit begrudgingly. Comprised of mostly young mavericks and professionals from across Scandinavia, with a few mages to boot, they're to make do with whatever resources their sanctioned, if somewhat limited funding will allow. Their task: explore the long-abandoned remains of their forefathers' lands and gather as many useful relics and knowledge from the Old World as possible, especially if it could aid in fighting off the Rash once and for all.

All while staying alive. The Silent World is fraught with peril, to put it lightly. As the "First Rule for survival outside the safe areas" memorized by all Nordics can attest:

"If you come across

a Beast, a Troll or a Giant,

do not run or call for help

but stand still and stay silent.

It might go away."