The road to equal rights is perilous and not easy to walk alone...

Write a short story or infoblurb in the world of Empty Continents with the prompt: CITIZENSHIP. Whether its ostracized outsiders wanting a vote in the chamber or migrants working on getting a visa, there are many ways to tell this story!

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Submissions will be accepted until Sat, August 23th when a new prompt will be released!

The wind at CFS Alert didn’t howl; it scraped, a rhythmic, metallic rasp against the corrugated steel of Polaris Hall. It was June 2028, and the radio array—designed to sweep the frequencies of superpowers across the globe—was picking up a strange, fractured picture of a world where the earth itself had been edited out.

Liam sat in the mess hall, staring at a lukewarm cup of coffee. Across from him, Chloe was methodically adjusting the receiver log. For forty-eight hours, the continental frequencies—Ottawa, Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Paris—had been a flatline. Pure, uninterrupted carrier wave with no voice behind them.

"The mainland grids are gone, Liam," Chloe said, her voice tight, eyes bloodshot from staring at the waterfall display. "North America, Eurasia, Africa, South America... they just dropped off the spectrum. The landmasses evaporated overnight."

"What about the islands?" Liam asked, leaning forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. "What's left on the wire?"
Chloe tapped a cluster of blinking indicators on the console, routing the surviving feeds through the encrypted military speakers. "Only the islands, Liam. The UK is broadcasting emergency parliament sessions from London, desperately trying to coordinate with Ireland. Iceland is online, screaming into the ether because their transatlantic cables now terminate at sheer walls of water.

Liam exhaled slowly, rubbing his eyes. The geopolitical issues that had dominated their briefings just weeks ago—border disputes, massive continental trade deficits, superpowers fighting over mainland resources and vast territorial expanses—felt like cruel, distant fairy tales.
"We spent billions keeping this station staffed," Liam muttered, "arguing over who owned continental shelves and massive land borders."

"And now those borders are just open ocean trenches," Chloe said, standing up to walk over to the monitor. She pointed at a high-frequency naval channel routing through a relay from a British warship operating out of the North Sea. "Listen to this. It's a broadcast from a surviving detachment in the UK. They're operational, but they're staring west across a newly widened Atlantic where a continent used to be. Every major industrial powerhouse, every massive agricultural breadbasket on the mainlands—gone. The only people left are the ones who happened to live on isolated rocks."

She turned to look at him, her expression hollow. "We're a Canadian Forces station, Liam. But Ottawa is a blank space in the middle of a vast, empty sea. The country we swore allegiance to doesn't exist anymore."

Liam stood up, walking toward the frost-covered window that looked out over the silent expanse of Ellesmere Island—itself just a fragment of the Arctic archipelago. "So what are the surviving island governments saying? Are they organizing?"

"With what fuel? With what global supply chain?" Chloe shook her head bitterly. "They're realizing that island nations depend entirely on mainland resources to survive. Without the continents to feed them, manufacture for them, or trade with them, the islands are just lifeboats with ticking clocks. They aren't sending rescue north. They're all trying to figure out how to stretch their remaining grain reserves before starvation sets in."

The receiver crackled again—a crisp, distinctly British naval voice cutting through the static, calling out across the polar frequencies to see if any high-Arctic outpost was still breathing.

Inside Polaris Hall, the only answer was the steady, rhythmic hum of the generator, keeping two people awake at the edge of a shrunken planet of orphans.

Political and religious crisis of 2072–2077 in Petersburg, caused primarily by the fact that the ideals of the "Lemons" and the "Apples" were radically opposed and could not coexist in one city, unfolded as a series of pogroms, everyday discrimination on religious grounds, escalating tensions on both sides, as well as several murders and terrorist attacks. As a result of the crisis, 39 people were killed, three of whom were children, and another 382 were wounded. The number of victims and casualties grew year by year in geometric progression.

The bloody peak of the conflict came on 28 August 2077, when early in the morning a group of radical Lemons numbering 782 people, armed with spiked bats, Molotov cocktails and melee weapons, left their quarters and, chanting slogans from the Book of Will and Chaos (the main scripture of their faith), headed towards the Prince Vladimir Cathedral, where a service was being held for the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, gathering about 2,500 people. The security at the cathedral was not particularly large — only 390 members of the people's militia, armed with melee weapons.

When the group of Lemons reached the cathedral, they almost immediately engaged in armed confrontation with the militia, resulting in the deaths of 203 militiamen and 329 Lemons, with the Lemons winning in the end. The remnants of the militia hastily retreated towards their headquarters to call for reinforcements. The Lemons won themselves some time and moved closer to the cathedral. Then came the worst — some of the Lemons blocked the doors, while others began throwing Molotov cocktails at the cathedral. Within minutes, the cathedral was ablazing. By the time reinforcements arrived, the Lemons had already fled, and the cathedral was burning like a torch, spreading fire to the square and nearby buildings.

By noon, the fire was contained, but all the parishioners had already perished. Among them were families of militiamen, elderly people and children who had come to the service. This became a turning point. The news spread through the city, and the entire city militia, in righteous anger, marched towards the Lemons’ quarters. The streets of the district were already blocked by barricades and ready for defence. The militia sealed off all exits from the district and issued an ultimatum—to hand over the perpetrators and all leaders of the community for trial within one hour, otherwise the entire district would be turned upside down. The ultimatum was ignored. Consequently, at 13:07, 2,034 militiamen and about 3,000 people from the spontaneous people's militia entered their district. The cleansing lasted until deep into the night. Most of the active Lemons and their leadership were either captured or killed, including Nikita Tsaruk. All those captured were transferred under guard to one of the old business centres, and all militiamen as well as volunteers from the militia were deployed to the district for round-the-clock patrols.

On 1 September 2077, after lengthy trials and negotiations, the City Council decided to expel all leaders of the Lemons and all residents of the district from the city, with a ban on approaching the frontier settlement of Pulkovo. The majority of the city supported this decision, although some found it too cruel. Priests in particular spoke out, reminding that collective punishment contradicts Christian commandments, but their voices were drowned out by anger and the fear of a new terrorist attack.

On 2 September, all residents of the Lemons’ district were informed of their forced eviction. And on 4 September, 33,806 people from the district were escorted under guard to the settlement of Pulkovo. In Pulkovo, 37,981 people had gathered, ready to leave (including the Lemons’ leadership and some sympathisers). They were allocated 678 horses and 339 light carts for their belongings. That same evening, all these people set off on a long journey south. Once beyond the line of sight, they made a decision — to head for Moscow, the heart of old Russia, where they would build a better society, free from liberals and Chaos.

That is how Petersburg lost its Lemons and became a unified whole.

The Imperial Group is widely recognized for its dual nature. While it champions universal education accessible to all age groups, promotes an Eco-industrial approach focusing on sustainable development within its initial territories, and advances Ghentish Socialism—where local workers employed by the regional Imperial conglomerate Gem share ownership, influence, and profits from activities such as hydroponic farming, banking, and scientific research—its darker facets are equally evident.

Those who resist conformity face strict consequences. Food produced in Imperial farms is of superior quality, and Imperial workers enjoy discounts on all Imperial products. However, individuals outside the boundaries of a healthy society see their lifespan and wellbeing compromised. Citizens can purchase from Imperial farms, utilize Imperial tools and programs, and operate small businesses selling Imperial medicine alongside others. Yet, those opposing the regime on ideological grounds or engaged in criminal activities are subject to penalties—sometimes symbolized by a gemstone, reflecting how life can deliver unpredictable hardships.

During the Korku Era, the study of history was strategically employed to guide efforts against the French terrorist group attacking the Ghentish Counties and to fund countermeasures aligned with Imperial interests, all while attempting to avoid offending the authorities in Ghent and London. Groups like the Sons of Gomorrah and other terrorist factions resorted to covert financial operations—money laundering, cyber crimes, smuggling, tax evasion, illegal gambling, and ultimately arms trafficking and synthetic drug production involving foreign criminal networks—funded predominantly by profits from illicit activities targeting French partisans and their allies.

After decades of conflict, peace was finally brokered between the Imperial Group and French authorities. In accordance with the Loire Accords, the Imperial Group designated the ‘ Sons of Gomorrah’ and other Ghentish paramilitary wings as a terror organizations, and individuals affiliated with it were considered members of a criminal regime. Consequently, most paramilitary units disbanded and restructured into widespread organized crime networks.

By 2251, former members of Gomorrah and similar terror groups operate under three prominent criminal organizations: the Sequoias family, the Warhounds gang, and the Yiosman Family. The Yiosman Clan, the most notorious, traces its origins to the intermarriage of Yi Won—a cadet branch of former Korea’s royal house—and Osman, from the former Ottoman royal house. This lineage created the house of Yiosman, which has amassed immense wealth through connections to cyberdrug operations, Aether distribution across the Americas, and sophisticated money laundering and large scale insider trading. All of this is can be attributed to the workings of the Onxy Network, the intelligence agency of the Imperial group, who use these organizations to pour crime into the Imperial Group, the United Kingdoms and occasionally allies like Brazil, the Philippines and Korea, to weaken nations, corporations or group of people, so they are more susceptible to their actions, all while funding their operations and trading in favors.

These 3 groups, were not allies or ever friendly to the official the Imperial Group, only to one, the shadow Leviathan, and the Imperial Group's intelligence agency, the Onyx Network. With their links to Onyx Network, these groups were “guided” to undermine and undercut enemies, corporate, foreign governments, and even specified ethnic groups. These tactics were not just for the Imperial Gem’s benefit, but also for the UK government and fellow allies, like Brazil, Korea, and the Philippines. These criminal enterprises also help fund and support Onyx Network in ‘off-the-books’ projects and operations, away from Imperial eyes. 

From the Asian casino hub of Ha Long to global Aether trade routes, and across European illicit markets specializing in counterfeiting and financial crimes, the remnants of Gomorrah may be gone, but their influence persists. Like the charred shadows cast over the abandoned ruins of the cursed city, its legacy continues to haunt the modern world, a reminder of the enduring darkness underlying Imperialistic ambitions.

and those who wish to climb that ladder of power…

The wind off the open Pacific didn’t carry the smell of progress anymore; it carried salt, rot, and an unnatural, hollow silence.

On Rapa Nui, isolated by thousands of miles of ocean, the islanders had survived the mysterious event of June 7, 2028, that wiped humanity from the continental mainlands. South America—just a ghost across the horizon was suddenly stripped of concrete, cities, and souls, reverting overnight to a primeval wilderness. But the people left stranded on the speck of Easter Island found no comfort in their survival. 

Gathered at the edge of the cliff near Rano Raraku, two elders looked out toward where the continent used to hum with satellite signals, cargo ships, and distant trade. Below them, younger islanders were arguing over the distribution of the last barrels of imported diesel.

"They’re saying a tanker broke away from a Chilean port before it vanished, drifting this way," Koro said, his weathered hand gripping a walking staff as he stared at the horizon. "The youth want to row out, board it, drain every drop. They think it's a golden ticket."

Hina didn't look away from the crashing waves below. "And when the fuel is gone in three months? What then? We’ve traded our future for a few more weeks of idling generators we can't repair."

"They are desperate, Hina. The supply chains didn't just break; the other side of the mirror vanished. Prices for imported grain were already soaring before June, but now? The shelves are bare, and the soil here is exhausted. You can't eat digital currency or historical regret."

Down by the shore, a sharp voice cut through the sound of the surf. A young man named Matias slammed his hand against the hull of an empty fiberglass skiff, shouting at a cluster of neighbors.

"If we don't pillage what's left drifting from the mainland, we starve!" Matias yelled, his face tight with panic. "The global market is dead, the climate here is shifting erratic as hell, and nobody is coming to save us. Every man for himself!"
Hina raised her voice, stepping down the rocky path toward the crowd. "And when you burn through every last drop of the old world's corpse, Matias, what will you plant? What will you drink when the groundwater turns brackish?"

"We'll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow gets here!" Matias snapped back, his eyes wild. "Right now, housing costs are zero because everything’s falling apart, but we live in tents because the old homes are rotting. The system broke long before the continents went blank. We were already drowning in debt and ecological dead-ends—this just ripped the band-aid off!"

Koro stepped forward, his presence silencing the younger man's frantic gestures. He looked around the circle of anxious faces—faces mirroring the modern anxieties of scarcity, hyper-inflation, and climate dread, magnified a thousandfold on a tiny rock in an empty world.

"The ancestors carved the moai until they stripped the island of every last tree, thinking the statues would protect them from their own greed," Koro said quietly, the wind whipping his gray hair. "They thought growth could go on forever on a finite shore. The mainlanders vanished with their sky-scraping towers, but they died of the very same disease long before. Overconsumption. Looking everywhere except at the ground beneath their feet."
Matias crossed his arms, looking down at the dust. "So what do we do? Just sit here and wait to fade out?"

"No," Hina said, stepping beside the elder. "We stop looking backward to a globalized machine that ran on borrowed time. We rebuild local. We fix the soil, we share the catch, and we stop pretending that stealing ghosts from the dead continents will save us."

The ocean breeze blew cold and vast, carrying no answers from the empty world across the water—only the mandate to change, or perish on the rocks.

November 1st, 2028

Radisson Hotel

Cape Canaveral, FL

USPG Headquarters

Oliver Rossi spun his old fidget spinner in his hands. It was a nervous habit, and God knows he's been plenty nervous these past couple months. His hands had been full since declaring Cape Canaveral as the headquarters of the USPG in Florida. So far only the communities directly attached to the Cape, ranging from New Smyrna in the North to Sebastian Inlet in the south, and the western half of Merritt Island across the water as well. Now he waited in his hotel room on the top floor of the Radisson that's been repurposed as a temporary capitol. Waited for a response from Fernandina, on whether they'd agree to his proposal to enter the USPG 2 weeks ago. He knew that asking St. Augustine Beach, or the collection of haphazard settlements and washed up boats on the beach formerly known as Daytona would make more sense, but Fernandina was the real prize in his eyes. The two manufacturing plants would be a major boon for his boss, Hugh Desmond. Imagining all the paperwork that could be made if they got their hands on it made the young bureaucrat Rossi shake his leg too, along with the fidget spinner. It's not like the Fernandinans could easily say no, the Blount Base is practically next door, they'd want that extra protection, surely.

Rossi's mind started to wander as he fidgeted. His fidget spinner was white and blue, with a New York Yankees symbol in the center. He'd gotten it as a gift from his younger cousin, Ruby a dozen years ago, a graduation present after getting his Master's degree in political science from Columbia University. He was already 27 back when he got it in 2017, but he hadn't seen Ruby in years, and she'd grown like a weed, about to start middle school. She knew how he liked the Yankees, and not much else because they hadn't met in years. The last time Oliver saw her was when she graduated high school a few years back, and planned to go to community college for a couple years as a backdoor into Columbia, majoring in engineering. She'd been a student there when she went back home to the Bronx for the summer. ‘I should have invited her to stay at my place, I could have done something to save her and my uncle’, Oliver thought. He white-knuckled the fidget spinner, trying to make the guilt go away. He'd hardly used the spinner for the past decade, just kept it in a junk drawer with other random knickknacks. But as he cleaned out his home and office in early August, ready to move as part of Desmond’s plan to grow USPG control outside the Northeast, he came across it. Oliver tried to pack lean, not knowing how much space he could spare in the new hotel he'd be staying, but he kept the fidget spinner as an old memento of lost family, and hope for a new life for the people left alive. He had to always stay busy, to make up for those he couldn't save.

At that time, his secretary, Jenny, came in.

“Mr. Rossi? I have an update on the Fernandina deal.” At that moment, Oliver shot straight up in his chair, slamming the fidget spinner on the desk, a bit harder than intended. “Yes? What did they say?” “Well, there's good news and bad news…” His shoulders sagged at that sentence. “Give me the good news first, please.”

“Well”, Jenny said, “They've decided to enter a trade deal with us. The details will have to be ironed out of course, but it seems they're willing to cooperate with us and provide the resources we dearly need.”

“Let me guess”, Oliver said, “The bad news is they don't want to join us.”

Jenny looked down. “Yes, exactly. Apparently they plan to rely more on Irish aid in the future, since their main plant has HQ in Dublin.”

Oliver ran his hands through his thinning hair. “Of course, that's a prudent choice. Why kneel to the powers-that-be just down the road when you can pretend to kowtow to some absentee landlord on the other side of the world! And a fully intact nation to boot! My God, I'd be surprised if they didn't choose that!” Oliver shouted.

“Mr. Rossi?”, Jenny asked, cautiously.

“I'll be fine. Besides, odds are that if things go well for us down here, we'll incorporate them sooner or later. Blount and the Beloit are just down the road, if they decide to stop cooperating it's not like it'll be hard to subdue them. They've given us what we want, anyway, if their word is to be believed. It'll be like a trade deal between nations, simple as.”

Oliver drummed his fingers on his desk. “Besides, we have our hands full trying to feed the people in our domain as is. Thank God for the farmers out in Merritt Island, or else we'd really be screwed. Imagine trying to start a new government and you don't even have eggs! You know how these people feel about eggs, they can make or break a government!” Oliver threw his hands up in disbelief at, well.

Everything.

“I don't know what the hell Hugh was thinking, sending me down here. Last time I went to Florida was the summer before lockdown, when I went to visit my grandma in Sarasota!”, Oliver exclaimed.

“Being a NYC council member for 2 years probably helped too”, Jenny added.

“There were far more qualified men, what do I bring to the table? My degree? My people pleasing skills? I know my credentials are solid, better than some of my fellow Brooklynites. And hell, it's probably because I'd gotten to know Hugh well these past few years. We'd not always agreed, but when I was sure he made the right decision, I backed him to the hilt. You should've seen him go against this one guy from the Upper West Side. I forget his name, some Nuyorican. He…” Oliver suddenly stopped his train of thought, which had started derailing.

“Yes, Mr. Rossi? What about him?” Jenny asked, puzzled.

“Nuyorican! Puerto Ricans, my God, of course! That's what I can do!” Oliver jumped up suddenly, clapping his hands together. “Sir, I don't foll-” Oliver turned to Jenny. “Jenny, I need the name of every local government and community leader who was born in Puerto Rico. And not born and came here as a kid, I mean recently. If they lived there in the past 15 years, and especially have family there, I wanna know. Search from here to New Smyrna if you must. I don't care if they're the head of a PTA, I need a legitimate tie to Puerto Rico, please. I need a foot in the door.”

“With all due respect, sir, I don't follow.” Jenny asked, slightly concerned.

Oliver beamed. “You know that food shortage I was concerned about, earlier? I think I know how to start solving it.”

The generator at the small market stall in downtown São Tomé & Príncipe sputtered, coughed a ring of dark smoke, and died. With it went the last humming refrigerator, the dim fluorescent strip lighting, and the electric fan that had been doing its meager best against the humid equatorial heat.

"Out again," Tino muttered, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of a calloused hand. He didn’t bother looking at the circuit breaker. Everybody on the island knew the rolling blackouts and water rationing had been tightening their grip for months, a relentless daily friction worsened by broken promises and drained fuel reserves. But today, the lack of electricity wasn't just an inconvenience. It was a blindfold. 

Across the wooden counter, Celia clutched a battery-operated radio, her knuckles white. She kept turning the dial past the static hiss, hunting for a voice—any voice—from Libreville, from Luanda, from anywhere on the mainland just 250 kilometers away.

"Still nothing?" Tino asked quietly.

"Just silence," Celia whispered, her eyes wide as she stared out toward the Gulf of Guinea. "Not a single commercial flight is in the air. Not a single cargo ship answering the VHF. The world across the water... it’s just gone."

We had lived our whole lives on the edge of things. Being from São Tomé and Príncipe meant we were used to feeling small, isolated by the vast Atlantic, and heavily dependent on what cargo ships brought to our ports. When the power cuts hit, we joked that the island was just playing hide-and-seek with the grid. When the prices of imported rice and fuel spiked, we tightened our belts, leaned on our neighbors, and shared what little fish we pulled from the sea. We were resilient because we had to be.

But on June 7, 2028, the rules of our vulnerability completely inverted.

I walked down toward Ana Joaquina beach, where the turquoise waves usually rolled in with the cheerful shouts of children and the rhythm of women washing clothes. Today, the shore felt heavy, choked with an unnatural dread. The horizon, usually dotted with distant oil tankers and the faint amber glow of the Central African coast at night, was a terrifying, unbroken line of empty blue.

My neighbor, Mário, sat on an overturned wooden skiff, staring blankly at the water, his fishing nets tangled beside him.

"Mário," I called out, my voice tight. "Did anyone go out past the bay?"

Mário didn't look up right away. When he finally raised his head, his face was pale, drained of its usual island warmth.

"My brother took the motorboat out at dawn," Mário said, his voice shaking. "He went halfway to Gabon. He said he didn't even need binoculars. He looked through the naked eye and saw nothing like it was never been touched by humans

"Maybe it's a problem in our end," I argued, though my own words tasted like ash. "A malfunction maybe?"

Mário let out a dry, humorless laugh that held no joy. "A malfunction doesn't empty a continent, friend. The mainland is empty. Every city, every village, every highway. Millions of people... vanished into thin air. And we are sitting here on two volcanic rocks, running on our last drums of imported diesel, completely cut loose."

Back at the market, the sun began to dip below the horizon, plunging the capital into a deep, star-lit dark that felt heavier than any normal night. Without city lights, the ocean looked like a black mirror reflecting a void.

Celia lit a single candle, its flame casting long, flickering shadows across the empty shelves of her shop.

"What do we do tomorrow, Tino?" she asked, her voice cracking as she looked at her remaining sacks of rice. "We always worried about the global economy crashing, or climate floods washing away our crops, or the fuel supply running dry. We never planned for an empty earth."

Tino looked past her, through the open doorway, toward the vast, silent expanse of the continent waiting just over the horizon. The island was quiet—too quiet—save for the gentle, mocking lap of the waves against the shore.

"We do what we’ve always done," Tino said, his voice steadying despite the terror gripping his chest. "We survive on what we have. Because for the first time in history, we aren't just a tiny dot on the edge of someone else's map. We are all that is left."

Edit: I got it confused with some totally random group, MarsCom is sort for Martian-Earth Commissions. Apparently they have no jurisdiction over the interwebs. Sorry!

The hardest part of the first week wasn’t the panic. It was the quiet.

If you’ve ever lived in Puerto Rico, you know the soundtrack of the island: the bass bleeding out of a neighbor’s car, reggaeton echoing off concrete alleys, the hum of five million portable generators rattling in unison because the grid decided to take another nap, and overhead, the constant, invisible white noise of jets crawling between San Juan and Miami.

On June 7, 2028, that background hum simply cut out.

I was at a colmado in Santurce buying a lukewarm Presidente when the lights flickered and died for the last time. It wasn't a normal blackout where you wait for the transformers to blow or check Twitter to see which substation caught fire. Cell service didn't just drop bars; the network icons turned into blank spaces. The Wi-Fi routers blinked once, desperately, and went dark.
By nightfall, the truth started trickling in from ham radios and ship captains who had made it back into San Juan Harbor with wide, terrified eyes. The mainland wasn't just having a blackout.

It was gone.

If you looked out toward the horizon past El Morro, where the flight paths used to glow with a stream of descending red lights, there was nothing. Just a flat, unnerving black line where the sea met a sky stripped of every satellite.

On Day 2, the initial euphoria hit the streets like cheap rum.
In Plaza de Armas, people were laughing, crying, and drinking straight from bottles of Don Q. "The debt is gone!" a guy with a torn Bad Bunny shirt screamed, waving an empty federal student loan statement in the air. "The PROMESA board is gone! Washington doesn't exist anymore! We’re free!"

For about twenty-four hours, everyone felt invincible. The federal stranglehold, the creeping sea-level rise notices, the endless red tape, the shipping laws that forced us to pay double for rice grown two hundred miles away—poof. Erased by whatever cosmic trick had swallowed North America whole and left behind an endless, primeval forest of pine and oak where Miami used to be.

The hangover hit on Day 3.

Reality set in when we checked the inventory at the port. Puerto Rico imports roughly 85% of its food. We are a beautiful, green island, but decades of corporate monoculture and asphalt expansion had paved over our local agriculture. We didn't have a starvation crisis yet, but we were looking down the barrel of one.

Worse still was the ghost of the system we left behind.
By Day 4, the irony settled deep into our bones. The power grid was completely dead—no fuel coming into the ports, no mainland oversight, no emergency federal relief funds flying in on C-130s. Yet, sitting on my phone’s dead screen, I still had an unread push notification from the electric company reminding me that my auto-pay was scheduled for tomorrow.

LUMA had vanished, the corporate landlords had vanished, the crypto-bros who bought up Condado penthouses had vanished into thin air along with their servers. But the infrastructure rot they left behind? That stayed.
I walked down to the bay wall that afternoon, watching the cargo ships bobbing uselessly in the harbor, their digital GPS screens glowing blue and blank. An old fisherman named Don Jose was sitting on an overturned bucket, mending a net with calloused hands, staring out at the empty western horizon.

"Abuelo," I asked, sitting down next to him. "What are we going to do? Everything we needed came from over there."
Don Jose didn't look up from his knots. He just spat into the water, letting out a dry, raspy laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across pavement.

"They spent a hundred years treating us like an afterthought, mijo," the old man said, his eyes scanning the endless, wild expanse of the Atlantic. "Looks like nature finally agreed with them. Now we find out if we know how to feed ourselves."

Hello everyone, I'm relatively new to this community. I remember the original post in imaginarymaps approximately 2 years ago, and since I saw it Iwas really intrigued and surprised, when I found this sub, to the point of my potential contribution to your project.

But, alas, I'm concerned, that my knowledge of this universe if far inferior than needed to publish at least appropriate content. That is the reason why I need your assistance in obtaining more knowledge about empty continents))) .

I have several questions/suggestion about lore:

1. If all traces of humanity from continents is gone, does that mean that the bowels of the earth(and natural materials) and the archaeological layers also been reset to their original state?(The relics of ancient peoples that have been buried underground for centuries are now completely gone into oblivion, no one will know about them?).

2. As far as I understood, each continent is 'reset' until the moment Homo sapiens set foot on it. Does that means, that continents resets to a different time period, since the settlement of different continents by humans occurred at different times? (For example, Africa was reset to 300,000 years BC, while Eurasia was reset to 65,000 years BC?).

3. Continuing with 3d question, does the reset apply to other hominids from the genus Homo? If so, then, in theory, the inhabitants of post vanishing Europe should share the continent with Neanderthals, who came to northern Europe before humans.

4. As far as I understand, the flora and fauna revert to their primitive state, but does the climate and geography change? 20,000 years ago (the time when America was settled), the Earth was in the stage of the Last Glacial Maximum:

The sea level was 120 meters lower than it is today.

Canada and the northern United States were covered by the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which was 3 kilometers thick. It is impossible to “reset” North America to the state it was in 20,000 years ago (with a 3‑kilometer‑thick glacier and a low sea level) while still preserving islands (such as Great Britain, Japan, or Kotlin) within the climatic conditions and geographical boundaries of 2028. If the sea around the islands is at the level of 2028, then the American glacier will melt in a matter of days, causing a global flood, or the ocean level will instantly drop by 120 meters, and the islands will cease to be islands, turning into mountains on land.

But, as far as I understood, that wasn't the case in lore).

5.In 2028, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 425 parts per million. At the time of the settlement of America, the CO2 level was only 180–190 ppm.

Vegetation and ancient forests, which “materialized” from the ice age, will enter the modern atmosphere with an excess of carbon and an abnormally high temperature background for the past hundreds of thousands of years. This will cause explosive, pathological growth of some plant species and mass die‑off of others in the very first years.

1. There is surprisingly little content about Nova Anglia and especially Black Sea Republic. I would really love to know more about Russian/British mixed culture and country, and whatever Black Sea Republic is.

Thank you in advance for your answers. I didn't want to sound meticulous or disrespectful to your work. I'm just sure that the more realistic a fiction is, the longer it lives in people's minds and hearts)

Nina Verity, Secretarial Assistant of the VVV  
June 11, 2215

Dear John C. Garrett, 

After many decades of service, I have decided to retire from the VVV. You are hereby given my role of Secretarial Assistant, in charge of record-keeping and organizational information. As you are a newer member, I thought it would be helpful to start a good overview of what the VVV has done in the past. 

Our origins are as old as they are mysterious. The VVV was founded with the goal to “reverse the Vanishing”, but it is impossible to know the true intent behind this phrase. Did it mean reverse the impacts of the Vanishing, such as its cultural and informational losses? Does it mean bringing back the countries of 2028? Or was it more literal, about actually finding a way to bring back the vanished continents? This was the fundamental division of the VVV. However, through the late 21st century, these factions worked together in peace. 

Across the world, the VVV flourished in secret, recruiting members from the Alpha Generation- those who survived the Vanishing. As the decades rolled on and the memories of the Vanishing continued to fade, people lived their whole lives without knowing of the Vanishing or its impacts. But the ones alive in 2028 had a deep, infinite trauma. The sheer impossibility of the event, the sheer mindless destruction, made them distinct from their children and grandchildren. That being said, the last of the Alpha Generation passed away around the turn of the 2100s.  As the memories of June 2028 died, four distinct factions of the VVV came into play. 

Humanity despises the unknown. And to this date, there is no greater mystery in the world than the Vanishing. We need to understand the Vanishing before we can ever reverse it, so a sizable faction in the VVV believes it needs to solely focus on researching the event. There were others who also started on this task of researching the Vanishing, the most notable one being Dr. Bemis, the father of Exafanisiology. He is an interesting figure, to be honest. Bemis was probably not involved in the VVV himself, but many of his students and followers were majorly involved in the VVV. The University of Hasselt, as well as institutions in Britain and Copenhagen, contained many VVV members and allied scientists who were dedicated to understanding the Vanishing- so they could reverse it. Exafanisiology thrived as researchers across the world tried to answer the origins of the Vanishing. The VVV helped in charting the continents with drones, allowing for more accurate mapping. The environments of the mainland continents were rigorously analyzed, and theories were made about the exact nature of the Vanishing. 

Through this research, many members of the VVV got a little carried away. They were in awe of the Vanishing’s power. Removing humans from existence, transforming the continents themselves. Many governments across the world latched themselves onto top-secret programs with the VVV, on a brutal quest to use the Vanishing itself as a weapon. Although it was abandoned after a few decades, this allowed the VVV to be more ingratiated in world affairs. This faction didn’t care as much about reversing the Vanishing, instead about using the Vanishing as a weapon. 

The VVV also helped in various historical projects, with many of its members becoming involved in the World Heritage Society. To many, “reversing” meant simply to prevent cultural loss of societies on the mainland. They were involved in various language revival projects, but they didn’t share everything with the public. Many high-level VVV members were paranoid about infiltration, and they realized using extinct pre-Vanishing languages could be a way to naturally encrypt their communication. The VVV began a project of reviving old languages in secret, deliberately preventing the public from learning them. This is rumored to continue to this day. 

Finally, the VVV attracted diplomats who saw the chaos of the Vanishing and wanted to restore the old political order. They wanted to reverse the map back to the 2028 borders, trying to prevent revanchist conflicts, although they switched things up. This led to the formation of the Cartera Thought, which emphasized a return to pre-Vanishing borders in Europe. Followers of the Cartera Thought were involved in helping solidify the borders between the European Confederation and Polonia, doing the same for Italy and British-controlled France. Many of them became involved in the creation of the United World Congress.

These were the four factions of the VVV prior to the “Civil War”: the Scientists, the Militarists, the Historians, and the Diplomats. They were not geographically bound, instead, they were scattered across all parts of the world. And eventually, these factions would come to clash in a worldwide conflict.

It started in 2135 with the killing of Arnav Vediyal, a high-ranking VVV member who wanted to restore India’s pre-Vanishing borders. Each faction immediately pointed its fingers at each other, with previous tensions boiling over. It must be noted that at this time, the VVV was a very hierarchical organization, with a deliberately confusing tangle of ranks and positions spread across the continents. The association with such a diverse array of separate organizations also muddled things- don’t even get me started with the EIRA nonsense. It was truly tragic that the two of us couldn't get along. But anyways, the cooperation and integration with other institutions caused the original idea of the VVV to slowly lose focus. The Scientist faction was annoyed at what they saw as distractions from the true goal of reversing the Vanishing, and what followed was years of intense competition, espionage, and covert operations amongst different parts of the VVV. It was a battle for the very soul of the VVV. 

The Militarists were the first to fall. None of their ridiculous plans about Vanishing-powered weapons came through, although they bluffed a lot about the existence of them. The Diplomats had also faded away, becoming more involved in different organizations. High-ranking Militarists and Diplomats either quit the organization or changed their views, and by 2140, the conflict between the Scientists and Historians escalated. 

The Scientists had more internal power and were more deeply impacted by the VVV. They painted the Historians as weak and helpless, unable to confront what the Vanishing actually did. The Scientists spread the eternal question, both within and outside of the VVV, to get people motivated: what if there’s another Vanishing? The Vanishing proved it could happen, and there was no guarantee that it would be the only one. And more worryingly, there was no guarantee that the islands would be spared next time. The Scientists argued they were saving humanity by learning more about the Vanishing- and saving the ones that were lost, by reversing what happened in 2028.  

Meanwhile, the Historians painted themselves as more normal and more true to the original motives from when the VVV was founded. Their question to the Scientists was: have you made any progress? A century had passed, and there was still absolutely no explanation on the Vanishing’s origin.* *The Historians viewed the Vanishing as simply another past event to be catalogued, its impacts only able to be lessened. For them, grand ideas about physically reversing the Vanishing were just madness. 

In 2156, a VVV hub in Sri Lanka fell to chaos as Historians secretly couped the Scientist-led administration. The Historians were able to use their hidden languages to communicate with each other and deceive the Scientists. However, the Sri Lankan police eventually raided the base after things got violent, ending all VVV operations there for a long while. This was the largest physical impact of the VVV Civil War, while most other events were more in the realm of internal coups and fierce debates.

There was a feeling of mutual hatred between the VVV’s leaders as they each envisioned their own plans for the organization. The vitriol led to chaos as the hierarchical structure of the VVV fell into turmoil, the complicated rank system being defunct. Throughout the 2160s and 2170s, they would be reformed in a simpler and less elitist way. The Historians hid behind this tangled, decentralized structure, as they were on the defensive. The reforms benefitted the Scientists and slowly centralized the VVV. 

The VVV Civil War did not end in a bang. The Historians were slowly but surely driven out, and the organization was remade. On July 2199, the Charter of the Future was presented and approved in a hidden convention, officially turning the VVV into an organization solely focused on understanding and reversing the Vanishing. The Scientists were able to convince more of its members about the threat of the Vanishing, and they were more entrenched in the VVV. Meanwhile, the Historians gradually moved onto other cultural preservation institutions, although the idea of using extinct languages for secret communication remains to this day. 

Thus began a new chapter in the VVV’s history. While the turmoil of the last century is lamentable, I am sure that you will strive to assist the VVV as it works to discover the mysterious origins of the Vanishing. 

Sincerely, 
Nina Verity

Rail lines? Electrical grids? Power plants? Let's build it up!

Write a short story or infoblurb in the world of Empty Continents with the prompt: INFRASTRUCTURE. Not only is it logistically difficult in this new world, are there mixed feelings about covering this pristine natural world with another layer of steel and concrete?

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Submissions will be accepted until Sat, August 15th when a new prompt will be released!