Oceania

Since the Event, the geography of Earth has changed the most within the Oceanic Region. The drastic rise in sea level has impacted Australia and many of the other island chains of the region, while New Zealand is now just a piece of the much larger Aotearoa — a massive island that rose like a monster from the sea in a cataclysm of earth and lava. Even through the upheaval, however, civilization managed to survive… even thrive. Australia is home to the people of The Dreaming, a shining example of civilization and a ray of hope for all of New Earth. The stability of their lives is fragile, however, thanks to the feral sect of L'na Wardens that dominate Aotearoa. All the while, refugees from the islands continuously arrive upon The Dreaming's shores with dark stories about alien and deadly things hunting in the deep waters.

The Dreaming (Click for population data)

Nowhere else on Earth will a traveler find a nation like The Dreaming. It is an egalitarian society where the former Australian Defense Force, Klik from a displaced node (VV41k-460ut), and Australian L'na are living and working together. The people of The Dreaming look past their differences in order to focus on the "big problem:" The Event, why the Three Worlds are now inexplicably joined, and what such a thing may mean to those worlds. Towards this end, The Dreaming drafted and ratified the "Canberra Protocol" — which has the ultimate goal of healing and rebuilding the Three Worlds by understanding and eradicating the Flux. Dreamers are nothing if not driven.

With the stationary Flux Front boiling over central Australia, all of the cities and communities of The Dreaming are on the eastern third of the continent. Much of the population is distributed throughout the area (with small, mixed communities being the norm), but Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Townsville are major hubs of activity for for the democratic nation. The standard of living in the Dreaming is very high — the highest outside the ASEAS city-states — as almost anything is possible through the combination of magic, mechano-wizardry, and technology. The benefits of living peacefully together have helped the Dreamers become the forward-thinking society that they are.

Aotearoa (Click for population data)

Aotearoa broods across the Tasman Sea from Australia. Whether through L'na magic or a natural weather phenomena, the coastline of the mysterious new land is almost always cloaked in fog. The island itself is teeming with life in a practically-undisturbed state — thanks to the L'na Wardens that reside there. They consider the entire island their protectorate, and they are very aggressive towards any outsider not in the presence of another Warden.

The truth is, the Wardens of Aotearoa are a splinter sect of the Wardens of Ai who blame the inhabitants of Earth for the Event and the current chaos. The Wardens of Aotearoa believe the only way to stop the incursions on Ai is to cleanse the Earth and return it to its primal state. Unfortunately for The Dreaming, they are the closest target; they have already suffered from numerous Warden attacks. Thankfully for their targets, however, the Wardens are severely limited in number — there aren't many L'na to begin with, and the Warden sect is not that popular. All of Ai, and therefore the L'na, is nonetheless changing in response to the Event… and no one knows what the future might bring.

The Northern Islands

Outside of The Dreaming and the Wardens, the other major power in the area used to be the Solomon League. The League was a loose collection of Churl pirate city-states on the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, and their ships plagued the waters north of Australia and Aotearoa. In defense of its people, however, The Dreaming recently engaged the League in the drawn out Solomon War that finally concluded with the catastrophic Battle of Maline Bay and the Great Typhoon seventeen years ago. The Typhoon broke the League, and since then the people of the islands have known a modicum of peace.

Stories are now coming from the northern islands, however, telling of something prowling in the deep waters… something that may have sinister intent. Fishing vessels and immigrant flotillas have simply disappeared, and some say they have seen monstrous things — neither Apoc, Klik, nor L'na — rise from the depths and come ashore in the dark of night.