New World Order

Though the pseudorganic silicaceous lithotechnology of previous eras is lost in the ruins of Teotihuacan, the mighty Aztec still dominate central Mesoamerica from their floating island city of Tenochtitlan. Embellishing on the frightful zoomorphic creations of the vanquished warrior Toltec, the Mexica have spawned a terrifying realm of living demigods where feathered serpent dragons--and countless less-describable abominations forged in imitation of myth and legend--produce and gather the blood required to feed the seething synthetic deities at the heart of the Empire.

In the Yucatan rainforest to the east, the Maya lords of Tikal wage a perpetual twilight guerrilla insurgency against the savage tlatoani with armies of fanatical warrior priests clad in insectile biomecha. Meanwhile, their coastal cousins have already begun an inexorable process of self-modification as they expand into the unexploited tropical marine realm of the Caribbean shallows with anemone- and coral-polyp-based biotechnology. Eventual merger or clash with the oceanic empires of Atlantis and Lemuria seems inevitable.

Further south, the Tawantinsuyo have spiderwebbed the Andes with living bridges of recombinant liana vines while the Inka lords, safe in their vast fungal fortresses high in the montane haze, partake of psychoactive telepathines derived from the jungle interior. From here they oversee an organic empire of monstrous plants encompassing the Amazon rainforest to the east and the desiccated Atacama Desert to the south, its barren wastes crisscrossed with a vast abandoned network of geoglyphic airfields established by the ancient Nazca, long-since departed for extrasolar worlds in gleaming antigravitic saucers of silver and gold...

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Intro crawl for my latest Star Wars fanfiction.  jk  This is one possible take on an alternate Meso-/South American "New World" dominated by hypertech supercivs. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with anything I've posted along similar lines in the past, or that I may in the future. The probability field is vast and cloudy as the translucent vegetable inspiration globe of the mighty Sapa Inka, full of potential but also vague in particulars; only a chosen few worldlines will ever see the light of day.

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On an even more melancholy note, the wildlife refuge at Steigerwald Lake, where I've taken so many pictures of beloved birds, reptiles, insects, and especially amphibians, burned to the ground this past weekend when some asshole carelessly tossed a smoldering cigarette butt out the window of their car. One hundred forty acres gone--it jumped the Dike Trail and burned right down to the Columbia River. I know I've said it before, many times, but HYOOMANS Y U SO STOOPID???