05.11.2025
In very direct opposition to the post that comes after this, which is one I am very proud of to the extent that I took the time to meticulously transfer the entire paper onto this website, this one is going to be more laid back. I just wanted to briefly talk about this idea I've had for a while bouncing around in my head.
So, if you arent familiar, After the End, or ATE is a mod for the paradox game "Crusader Kings", beginning in the second installment and continuing into the third and current game. The scenario of the mod is that its 700 years in the future and the New World has fallen into a medieval situation after an unnamed global apocalypse - much like Europe in a post-Roman world. This is all that is needed to understand the basic idea behind my thought experiment.
So naturally I base my thing around the St Louis area, since I know it best. Realistically I think it would stretch from Springfield IL to Jefferson City MO, encompassing Paducah, Quincy, and the Illinois-Wabash border. Just to bloat the map to the size that the normal CK3 map is. I would want it to be highly detailed, with like a few East St Louis provinces, for scale.
All the titles would need to be demoted due to size, I think the largest title I would include would be the Papacy-surrogate in the form of The Cardinal of St. Louis, who would own their own neighborhood in the city and have the Empire tier for a theocracy. I think Senator as the empire-tier for Republic. I would use King and President because those can be petty, a little minor petty "king" of like, Alton. I would include the various ATE faiths, the ones that matter (Americanist), and some others, like some broad Protestant groups, a Secular religion, idk Muslim and Hindu too. I think Secularists would be a great way to represent education - like, the Secularist lord of St Louis Community College, Dean Himbart Gleek or something.
St. Louis doesnt have many ancient dynasties, but I would have to include the Desloges and the Busches and the Pulitzers - for fun I would include the Dierbergses and the Schnuckses - and the Kingdom-level titles would probably be the Counties of both Missouri and Illinois, Empire being actual broad regions like Little Egypt, New Rhineland, Gateway Metro, &c &c &c.
Ok that's all I really have mapped out, I am never going to make this btw because modding is much harder than HTML, but I just wanted to counter a serioused with a sillied.
I am happy to have that paper off my back now, I hope you do read it, I'll advertise it again during pride because I kind of wrote it to be a legitimate and academically viable tumblr post - if you couldn't tell.
Dont forget to bookmark so you dont lose me, thanks for reading! Stay golden.