Designing an open 2020 setting

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It occurred to me last night that "research" that might help would be to look at this as if it were a paranoid fantasy of 1972 as seen from 1968. This is really, really out there....

Funny you mention that, the seed of the idea was the 1975 novel Ecotopia, which posited that the west coast split off in 1980, and made it stick with the threat of "nuclear mines" planted in key Eastern cities. The action of the book is set in 1999, when the first American journalist is allowed across the demilitarized zone....

The 2020 setting is my attempt to update the idea and, if not make it more realistic, to add some more fishing line to better suspend disbelief.