Political Landscape of 134|D

World has been fractured into 3 or 4 Super-powers:

• Similar to Oceania, Eurasia, etc. in 1984.
• Possibility that different stories would take place in the very different societies - each of which adapted to the technologies in different ways.
• Western Super-Power
• Main stories take place here.
• Hugely materialistic and source of direct marketing culture.
• Huge Consumers.
• Communist Super-Power
• China/Russia/India
• Main producers as facilitated by hive mentality.
  
• Chip is full of government propaganda, allows the authorities to know the minds of the people for the purposes of directly suppressing them - essentially 1984-ish world.
• Islamic Super-Power
• The self-obsession of the Western World allowed Muslim immigrants in Europe to far out-reproduce the native population and so most of Europe and Africa became a Muslim caliphate (a la Mark Steyn's ideas in America Alone)
• The traditional societies violently reject scientific progress by going even further back into the stone ages.
• Motif --> Science moves things forward, Religion moves them back --> The scientific time travel allowed by the portals can only go forwards, but God/religion allow backward time travel which is really the more useful one for an individual.
  
• Terrorism (why would I mention terrorism right after Islam? Oh I don't know. This is stream of consciousness after all.)
• Target the chip and you disable people completely. If terrorists can disable peoples chips they essentially render an entire population helpless.
• Those who reject the technology evolve differently - especially if they don't socially integrate and mate with the Chipped population.
• Eventually there is a war between subspecies rather than religions and ideas. The stakes are who will continue humanity.