NORTHERN EUROPE

The Scandinavian Kingdom

The capital is Oslo. The role of Copenhagen in international trade is great, although the city has been propped up upon different support structures since sea-level went up 1,5 meters from what it was in 1990´s. The industrial center of the Kingdom is Lillehammer. Population has risen to 13 million.

The straits of former Denmark are entirely under the control of the Kingdom. They have widened a lot after the former sandbanks were submerged and a reasonable toll fee is collected from every vessel going through them. This has caused disagreement with the Greater Finland and the Baltic countries. The Kingdom is at the moment strongly ruled by queen Emily the First. The 50 year old Queen leads her country with a strong and safe hand towards the unknown. She has three children with her consort Philip and the oldest of them, Ernst, will rule the Kingdom after his mother unless she otherwise wishes.

The Scandinavian Kingdom has extremely strict policy towards refugees and it tries to maintain its vanishing natural resources as long as possible. 99% of the population are caucasians and a rising racial hate is felt towards foreigners. The countrys economy is in a fairly good shape and the level of education one of the highest in the world. The Kingdom announces that in the future it will invest in steadfast development and space technology. A couple of its high quality bigger companies, for example SeaOil, Håkan Corporation and Matrix have a trustworthy reputation around the world. As early as the year 2005 the Scandinavian countries established good relations wit La Fleur de Lisle i.e. the eastern part of Canada. A tight co-operation produced good results and both parties benefitted greatly from the commercial relations. The two leading fish-producers of the world, Norway and La Fleur de Lisle made a mutual agreement for keeping the price of fish at a certain level and agreed together on the market areas of each. Norway marketed fish to the rest of Europe and La Fleur de Lisle to Canada. Both parties also exported different products to each-others markets. This fruitful agreement enriched both parties.

In the year 2035 Norway and Denmark united and thus formed the Scandinavian Kingdom. The countre developed into a stron producer of energy since Norway still held the oil reserves of the North Sea and Denmark still invested into developing functional windpower. The Queen of Denmark, Emily I, had assumed the office in the year 2016 and she had driven through in the government a law that changed the duties of the Queen radically from the figurehead position of the 20th century. The Queen changed the constitution to be more like the constitution of the beginning of the 19th century and took back the power that had long rested with the government. This decision of the Queen Emily was found to be good and the Scandinavian Kingdom lived an era of glory in the 2020´s.

In the 2030´s the North Sea oil reserves began to be depleated and in the 2040´s there appeared signs of the Gulf Stream taking a new direction. This would be catastrophic to the fishing industry of the Kingdom because the changing water temperatures would most propably also change the fish populations. The signs of gradual changes have already been found and many environmental researchers are worried about this. In addition Scandinavia is plagued by a worsening drug problem and despite strict control measures the drugs produced in Southern Europe cause continuing strife in politics. The Queen has been asked to stricten the penal code, but like the leading politicians in the country, she wants to maintain the picture of a clean and healthy Kingdom and shuts her eyes from reality.

The Scandinavian kingdom has so much invested in the developement of industry and has been so worried about the future sources of energy after the natural gas reserves have been depleted, that the cultural life of the country has become more or less decadent. Universities for Art have been closed down since the 2020´s fiercely and subsidies have been cut with a hard hand. In fact people who don´t one way or other work with energy production are despised a bit. Especially working with something as useless as art is considered unpatriotic, and because of the Queens strict policy the greater part of artists in the Kingdom have packed their bags and moved elsewhere. The religion in the Kingdom is Christianity, about 90% of the population is Lutherean or Evangelical Lutherean. The rest are either followers of Nature Religions or Jahveanism, but in the last years Zen-Buddhism has gained a following among certain parts of the population.

The good quality base rock of Scandinavia has enabled the area to receive big amounts of high-radiation nuclear waste to for storage. This decision has already resulted in a couple of close calls, for example when a train transporting nuclear waste crashed near Oslo. So far major catastrophes have been avoided even though for example in the Lofot-island area there have been discovered unexplained radiation and deaths of seabirds.

Finland

Finland is at the moment the strongest Scandinavian influence in the world. There are about 9 million inhabitants in the Greater Finland after most of Swedish population emigrated to the Moon when the countries united. The forest resources of Finland are still heavily used and due to a certain kind of forestry the have not been depleated as much as those of some other countries. The main exports in addition to refined wood products are top electronics and space technology. Finland is a forerunner of communication connections and especially after the combining of two major companies, Nokia and Ericsson, to a one big company the countrys part in space communications is irreplaceable. In addition to that the Finnish megacompany of Valmet is largely in charge of the production of engines for spaceships and -shuttles.

The president of Finland is Minna Jokelainen, who was elected to the office by vote in 2044. She has a doctorate in political science from year 2035. The structure of society has for the main parts stayed the same as before although the number of members of Parliament was raised to 300 after Sweden united with Finland in the year 2022. The percentage of women in the Parliament is about 60% and they form the majority of students at most universities. There has also been some supplantment of men in the upper management. A whole new profession, self-esteem specialized psychologists for men, has been born and offers help to men whose pride is too strong to allow them to let women from the kitche to working life. On the other hand mens answer to the hardening competition is to get educated as specialists in several fields. Women for their part reach greater results in areas formerely unfamiliar to them, for instance high mechanics.

The life expectancy of Finnish citizens has risen steadily and a child born in the year 2050 has a life expectancy of 95 years for a girl and 87 for a boy. The normal number of children in a family is two and the usually the aim is to educate both as highly as possible. Social security has somewhat weakened and industry is subsidied more than before. Therefore Turku is a major industrial city specializen in ship-building. There are several large docks in Turku, where many different kinds of vessels are built for export mainly into Japan and China. The significance of Tampere has risen a lot in teh 2000´s because the Tampere Space Research Center is situated there. The population of the city has doubled. Helsinki is still the capital, very internationl and these days ravaged by crime. The first target for all the Mafia crossing the eastern border is always Helsinki, after which they gravitate to other cities. The underworld of Helsinki gets major-sized weapons from the eastern Mafia and the so Called FinnishMafia propably originated in Helsinki. The influence of this organization can already be seen in the smaller towns surrounding Helsinki. The FinnishMafia is not yet as well organized as its eastern big brother, but it is estimated that in the nest few years it will sort itself out and then enlarge explosively. Helsinki functions as the main commercial centre, but its importance is on a downwards curve as commerce is shifting to Stockholm bit by bit. Stockholm is in the process of developing and a after the main population of Sweden emigrated to the Moon it has become a trendy city where everyone wants to move into. The importance of Finland started to increase in the year 2022, when Sinebrykoff and the German company of Tuborg united into a one huge mega-brewery.

The 2003 war of Greenland showed the Finnish fighting-competence to other countries and commerce- and defencealliance with La Fleur de Lisle in the year 2004 made it easier and easier to establish foreign relations. For years Finland developed its commercial relations independently, for instance with Japan and China, and achieved a certain international credibility in the area of communication technology.

In the year 2022 violence and racial riots erupted in Sweden. The situation seemed threatening and the country was drifting towards a civil war. The opponents were the original Swedes versus immigrants. In this tough situation Sweden asked Finland to help and Finland occupied Sweden "just in case." This was followed by a huge wave of Swedish emigration to the Moon, where the help of ZPG with transportation was irreplaceable. After prolonged negotiations the Moon was granted a limited autonomy.

In the year 2024 Finland and the Scandinavian Kingdom ordained a mutual immigration law that was the tightest in the world. The aim was to prevent a repeat of the Swedish incident. The World Government did not agree, but Scandinavian reputation from the Greenland war kept the objections fairly quiet. However the attitudes of the Finns became racist because of this law and especially in the Ostrobothnia there are very few foreign residents as a result of harrasment and discrimination. In Finland it is harder and harder for a foreigner to get a job, to say nothing of social security. In practise only those foreigners who already have good positions and can show that they bring funds with them are let in the country at all.

For the whole of 2030´s Finland developed, in addition to its industry, also its reputation as a trustworthy partner in trande using publicity actively in achieving this. Thus Finland managed to achieve some kind of reputation of trustworthiness but the slow depletion of evergreen forests as the result of global warming presented a new problem to the industry. Because the paper made from deciduous trees was inferior in quality there developed a couple of minor scandals in Central Europe when the paper fell apart just like that. Great Britain severed its commercial relations with Finland for two years. Finland however saved itself by cutting down what was left of the forests of Sweden and thus without interrupting its commerce gained time to develop new production methods for more durable paper.

In the year 2043 Russia, as a result of a war with China, sold Carelia back to Finland with a quite low price. The forests of Carelia came in time to fill an urgent need.

In the year 2045 Ecploration I, a result of Scandinavian-Canadian co-operation, was launched into space and a couple of Finnish mechanics caused a well known scandal with their unique humor.