four super-power nations that dominate it) is a setting proceeding from a point of divergence in the early 16th century - the survival of Juan of Aragon, son of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, to ascend the throne of Spain as John III. Without the Spanish throne to inherit from John's sister Joanna of Castile, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was unable to fight France, the Ottoman Empire, and the Protestants of Europe as he did in our history. Combined with the redirection of Sebastian of Portugal's attentions from Inquisition and Crusade to missionary activity in Asia, especially Japan, the changes to world history are innumerable. The "current year" in Shikaku-Mon is 2015 (the same as "Homeline" Earth, setting for the "Infinity Patrol" reality, thus making it of particular interest to the IP). The Westernized and Christian Japanese Empire controls 40% of the globe but 65% of its inhabitants, most of whom are ethnically non-Japanese subjects held to be inferior peoples. The totalitarian "synarchist" Swedish Empire is similar to the Soviet Union; it controls much of the upper half of North America and exiles dissenters against the state to labor camps in the far north. The Empire of Brazil is a relatively progressive nation which dominates South America. The Kingdom of France is a scientifically and technologically advanced nation with a permanent settlement on the Moon. Shikaku-Mon can be said to partake of its own brand of cyberpunk themes. Ezcalli Ezcalli is dominated by the Tenochca (Aztec) Empire. In this world, Carthaginian explorers landed in South America in 580 B.C., two millennia before contact between the Old World and the New in our history. The early exchange of biota resulted in the decimation of the American peoples by Eurasian diseases, but the low technological disparity between the two continents at the time meant the newcomers could not take full advantage of this before new populations with resistance to the diseases developed. More importantly, the introduction of American animals and crops (especially the potato) gave peasant farmers a greater ability to feed themselves and prevented potentates from controlling their subjects through grain imports. This caused the nascent Roman Empire to fly apart in the 1st century CE, and the successor states were still squabbling a millennium later when the hordes of the Mongol Empire arrived. Europe and Asia are now covered with a half-dozen Mongol khanates (the