In Character InfoThe world is a scarier place than it used to be; it is smaller and more deadly. The advent of the nuclear age leaves the entire world under the shadow of the Sword of Damocles, and there is the heightened terror that some dictator, demagogue or madman might decide to press the button and start a conflict that would destroy all. The big players eye each other warily and jockey for improved strategic position, trying to deny each other assets and contain each other's power, but it is an indirect process of using proxies, spies and playing diplomatic games. The World Conclave is proposed as an idealistic attempt to mediate disputes that has become, in the eyes of many, a joke, or a pawn of one power or another. Nonetheless, the first meeting is about to start, in 1946.
Very rarely do they actually agree on anything, but when they do it is often a measure to keep smaller countries from becoming rivals. The World Conclave has yet to hold its first meeting, but the Executive Chamber is already created, and has strong veto powers over what the General Assembly comes up with.
Meanwhile, smaller countries are caught in the wake of the movements of greater powers. As one era ends and another begins, these smaller nations often find themselves still formally as colonies of the mother countries, not yet sovereign. They have to liberate themselves somehow, and are presented with choices; revolt or negotiation. They are often the battlegrounds of the era, where ideological conflict by proxy between factions supported by the main superpowers tear these smaller countries apart. Nationalists, communists, royalists, colonists, natives, theocrats, terrorists, guerrillas, rebels...the works, supported by this power or that, with the partners giving lip service to the values of their patrons, or worse, perhaps holding with the often-extreme ideologies.
