"Socialism ought to come back"—francis fukuyama

The new millennium had heralded a new era in geopolitics.

The last decade had seen the demise of the USSR, the socialist juggernaut had been the victim of too many comprises too many delays, too many temporary solutions, too many deals with the devil, and too many old bitter men.

Its dying throes would shake the world as oligarchs and big men divided its still-writhing corpse, condemning millions even as others cheered for the death of the so-called last empire while all across the globe entire nations that had depended on Moscow now faced death and famine or kissing the ring of Washington while decades-long struggles were unmade by the loss of their patron.

The New Socialist Man was dead, and Homo economicus wasted no time in devouring his children as a whole system of debts, structural adjustments and international neocolonialism was now free to be unleashed on the entire world without mercy or restraint.

This was the age of the Pax Americana, as the Washington Consensus simply became the global norm, and the USA now stood as the world’s first true undisputed hyperpower; its dominance unquestioned by anyone that mattered as the center of world culture, science, and of course capital.

The Titan of Liberty soon developed an ego that fit its new stature, so arrogant and self-assured that it felt no hubris in declaring that its way was the natural way for all mankind, that there was no alternative, and that resistance was futile.

And reality seemed to vindicate it: Yugoslavia would die horribly and painfully, The ANC was forced to bend its neck like a good dog and drop all the nonsense about economic equality and even China had accepted the power of the market and its transition into liberal capitalism was inevitable.

Sure there were a few stubborn holdouts but they were isolated bastions and none of them mattered in the grand scheme of things, they would eventually bend the knee or be left behind by the march of progress and doomed to rot.

The September 11 attacks did little to change that perspective, they merely served to transform the cool self-assured confidence of America into bombastic jingoistic assertiveness as the awesome military might of a continental nation was turned on the mountain nation of Afghanistan, merely the first target in a crusade against a so-called Axis of Evil that would set the stage for decades of war, insurgency, and genocide in the Middle East while the rest of the world slowly slept walked its way into one global disaster after another as the world turned to an oven while no one cared to do anything save suck whole nations dry to raise profits just a little more with no end to the madness in sight

At least that is the course the world was headed on the night of December 14th. But as the new day came, it would quickly become clear that something had gone wrong.

Turkey was among the first to realize something was up when their borders became overwhelmed with hundreds of thousands of people nonchalantly trying to cross the borders, some clearly foreigners but others spoke Turkish while all presented documents for nations that did not exist. Spain, Iran, Ethiopia, and many African nations would experience the same thing along with seeing entire networks of rails and well-paved roads stop just at their borders, often with derailed trains and caravans of buses or trucks demanding to know what was going on.

British ships docking at Malta found themselves surrounded by patrol ships bearing a strange flag that none had seen before but was unmistakably Arab, a flag that Italians going to Sicily were seeing flying proudly on what was yesterday just another part of their country but now looked utterly alien and unrecognisable while menacing naval ships now roamed what had been their territorial waters.

The Suez Canal would become the scene of a kafkaesque comedy as hundreds of ships were blocked at the entrance, their paperwork and identification unrecognised by the confused authorities.

American army staff would initially panic as entire bases across the African horn and the Arab world went silent all of a sudden, and the CIA was thrown into disarray as much of its networks throughout the Middle East had seemingly vanished into thin air.

Planes making their way to or from the Arab World or Israel would find themselves confused by messages and signals from airports that did not exist, and confusion turned into fear as military planes appeared to escort them when they weren’t shot down outright

People across the world were suddenly unable to contact their loved ones through mobiles, entire companies suddenly were unable to reach any of their branches or assets.

In the Middle East itself, an entire nation was cut off from the world it knew, border towns now found themselves seeing unfamiliar sights and their neighbors seemingly gone, and millions of tourists, travelers, and nomads now found themselves cut off forever from the homes and countries they knew and loved and instead trapped in a world that was so radically different yet all too familiar at the same time while industries now faced the looming shock of being cut off from well-established exchange networks.

It would take hours before a clear picture emerged for the leaders of the world, and even longer for the global masses to know exactly what had transpired, the nations of the Arab World: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen along with the state of Israel, Malta and the island of Sicily had seemingly vanished from the world overnight, only to be replaced by a single United Arab Republic that had come from another world where the victory of the Third Reich ended in a world so ridden with disaster that Socialism emerged from the shadows to claim dominion over most of mankind.

By the act of some omnipotent entity the Post-Cold War Order was no more as the coming weeks, months and years would see the return of socialism to the world stage, smiling and bolder than ever before even as the world was once again set to be engulfed in war and strife as it adjusted to the new reality.

Not so long ago, the capitalists had seen fit to declare that History had ended…

| And it appears History took that personally |

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**A/N: Greetings folks, after a lot of interesting discussions on the TLM discord and my muse’s constant nagging I have decided to give in and do a TLM ISOT just for the fun of it.

Now there are a few things I should make clear:

**

1. **This TL is merely a side gig and the main TLM quest TL will have absolute priority in terms of updates **
2. This TL is further along than the main quest line but any information revealed in it about events pre-1988 should not be taken as canon for the main quest, any details about post-1988 events will be deliberately vague and subject to change.
3. **Omakes are encouraged. **

**With that out of the way, hope you enjoy this new mad world I have created. **