The Decline of the Ix (OOC)

Ixnay & The Levantias (OOC) was a proposal and general assessment by Jakee of the world of Ixnay as it existed in 2016-17. The proposal, which relates to the history of the world and the Occident, sought to explain the disparity between the Occident and elsewhere, and also why the ongoing colonization of what was Punth (now Crona in what would evolve into The Deluge) was happening in the 21st century as opposed to earlier. It also attempts to tackle why Ixnay at that time had many authoritarian rather than democratic regimes. Together with Ixnay & The Levantias (OOC), it makes up the "big ideas" of the late 2010s, and it was heavily debated and considered for at least two to three years. While this understanding of world history was ultimately not adopted, it was influential in crafting the current model of world history and generally influenced all tastemakers in Ixnay at that time.

The Decline of The Ix

A general lore development program to explain why Ixnay is so full of dictatorships

The Ideological development of the west up to ~2010 IC:

In practically every way, except for a few individual exceptions in some of the nations of the IxWest, politics and the concept of political ideology developed and thrived around the same periods. There are recognizable periods of liberalism, recognizable equivalent people to Karl Marx, etc. Even as it further approached the divergence, like in the 60s through the 80s, there should be at least some level of ideological/socio-political recognizability. Like in real life, some kind of liberal democracy, however much restrained as to fit the region’s culture, becomes the norm in most of the civilized world, and those liberal democracies all, for the most part, emerge around the same time. Monarchs’ powers are curbed almost universally in the world, outside of [personal exceptions here]. Republicanism becomes a respected political position in the late 19th century as the old monarchies fade, etc. No where near as radical and rapid as IRL, but it still happens, unlike in the previous version where things are the way they’ve always been and have never changed because of Imperial Decrees by PC.

Colonization up to ~1960 IC:

Colonization as well develops in a somewhat similar manner as it did IRL. Colonization comes in two waves, the first being one driven entirely by settler colonies in the arctic and Crona, and the second beginning in the early 19th century and ending up with the establishment of Western control of most of Punth north of the canal. Decolonization happens some time during the aftermath of the Great War, as the debts incurred by such a large war force all of the major belligerents to give up their financial responsibilities to their former colonies. There are some holdouts like the Portuguese, Spanish, and French colonies IRL, but most of Punth is evacuated rapidly. This rapid decolonization leaving it in the chaos it is in currently (western re-intervention aside) in.

Illiberal regression after the crisis point of 201x:

Immediately after the Great War, the Ixwest enters a transitional period similar to that after the fall of the USSR, but slowed greatly. The democracies in the post-authoritarian world remain relatively stable with a worldwide kind of Marshall Plan of some kind (excluding Punth). Laissez faire economics develop throughout most of the world, allowing the beginning seeds of the monopolistic hegemonies of firms like QSI and its Levantian competitors. The world expands in a very similar manner to the way it did up until 2008, just stretched over fifty to sixty years. Then, around ~2010 to 2016 IC, some kind of catastrophic event (economic collapse, disease, threat of war leading to economic collapse) causes the tide to completely roll back to an older state of affairs. The world does not technologically regress, as the catastrophic event is not totalizing. It would be compared to something like the Great Depression or 2008, except not necessarily economic in nature. The shock of this catastrophic event causes the liberal democracies and free societies of Ixnay to regress back into dictatorship and despotism. In some places, the democracies are weakened to the point of being susceptible to the introduction of a dictatorial regime later (the regime in Heku staying, but weakened to the point that Panther can swoop in a few years after the start of the crisis.) Through extreme measures, the world normalizes to a point, accepting the new authoritarian landscape as the status quo. This acceptance allows economies and cultures to stabilize and expand unhealthily, leading to the already canonical great depression of 2024.

Colonialism after the great crisis:

In order to fill the gaps left by the depression of 2024, the West again turned to its resource-rich former colonies in Punth. Rather than going the indirect route of western monopolies IRL in establishing economic protectorates over African states, the Western powers of Ixnay go in directly, re-establishing colonial administrations there, as the cultural legacy of colonialism isn’t as colored by postwar Marxism as it was IRL. These missions are somewhat successful, as infrastructure projects such as the Canal and resource extraction from colonies help boost the world’s economies out of the hole of Depression.