This is a world I have created for roleplaying and storywriting. The formal description is still a work in progress. I would love some feedback on this long writeup!
Millions of years after humanity disappeared from Earth, animals have evolved to take their place. Technology is rediscovered from the ruins of the former human civilization, societies form and fall. There is chaos at first as different species fight for the dominance over the natural world that humans once enjoyed, but also because it was in the law of nature. The closest to achieve this was not a single species however, but the Unified Territories, an alliance of many member species from across the food web. Charters were established to abandon the barbaric rules of nature, allowing once natural enemies to live in peace.
Basic Information
The Unified Territories covers just under half of the Earth’s land area, and controls at least one major splotch of land on every continent, and in every major biome. As the name suggests, it consists of land jointly owned by seven member taxonomic groups, which are in the order of joining, the vulpines (foxes), avians, rodents, dogs, mustelids (weasels, badgers, etc), leporids (rabbits). Feline territory is next door and is allied with the UT, but not formally apart of it.
Each taxonomic group has its own government, but must abide by two main treaties: the Interspecies Peace Agreement (ISPA), whose most famous term is the agreement to not eat or kill any other animal, UT citizens or otherwise, intelligent or otherwise; and the Unified Territories Charter (UTC), which is the actual treaty that signifies membership in the Unified Territories. Non-UT territories must sign the ISPA to engage in trade and formal relations with the Unified Territories, and the terms of the UTC require that joining territories sign and fully implement the ISPA before a request to join the UT is even considered.
Historical & Ideological Context
As animal societies evolved, different intelligent species began dividing up land area, forming boundaries and pushing out animals that were not allied with them. This resulted in areas ruled by animals belonging only one or two taxonomic groups. Alliances and rivalries quickly formed, followed by conflict, invasion, betrayal, annexation, and all the other trappings of emerging societies, rinsed and repeated for many a generation. All the while, technology and science is both being independently developed by the animals and unearthed from the ruins that the humans left behind.
This cascade of events arguably started when some groups of predator animals started to make alliances with what would have been their natural prey for their mutual benefit, which was often cooperation in battle, exchange of technology, or even trading of resources. While massively unpopular at first among both predators and prey, with time, the benefits of cooperation in a world with rapidly advancing technology would become more and more apparent, leading to wider acceptance of the practice. These alliances almost always included the stipulation that the predator animal would at least not eat the members the territory that allied with them, but sometimes the stipulation would extend to entire species or groups of species. In extraordionarily rare circumstances, predator animals would even agree to abandon eating animals altogether, in what can be thought of as a precursor to the Interspecies Peace Agreement. In these types of societies, predator animals gradually grew more accustomed to eating less meat, or even eating no meat at all, and began to see what once were prey species as allies that benefited them in ways other than being prey, maybe even collegues or friends. Some of these alliances became so strong that eventually borders between territories blurred and dissolved, and other species joined in the alliance, meaning even less animals that the predators were allowed to eat, but this supposed drawback faded in importance as the broader quality of life improved through the cooperative advancement of technology.
However, relationships between predators and prey at this point were such that if your species were in a formal alliance, they can’t eat you. If you weren’t, it was fair game. The threat of eating a prey species was often used as leverage by predators, basically comply with our demands or we’ll start hunting you again.
This hypocracy was pointed out by scholars and philosophers on both the predator and prey sides, but for a long time not much changed because of the mostly monarchist empires that dotted the world that left no room for questioning the king’s decisions. And even if there were, technology that can allow predator animals to subsist entirely on plant-based food simply did not exist yet. Some predator animals tried to get around the moral issues by eating only prey that have died of an unrelated cause, and this was quite controversial among prey species, with some figuring that it was better than living members of their species getting eaten, but others objected to the idea of the tomb of their beloved relatives being the belly of a predator (not the best material to make a casket with if you want to memorialize and preserve the departed). Nevertheless, access to freshly dead prey was mixed at best, and even if you swallowed the prey moments after they drew their last breath, the risk of food-borne infection was still much higher than live prey because most un-eaten prey animals died of disease, and this was still a pre-antibiotic era.
This is also when many species and taxonomic groups became one government, as it was advantageous to have a united, consistent front when negotiating or generally interacting with other species. Say you’re a mouse. You see a cat, you know what to expect because who they can and can’t hunt is strictly enforced by their empire, so if the empire promises they won’t eat you then you can be reasonably sure every cat won’t eat you. This makes you more likely to engage in trade with cats and generally benefit both parties. This idea of species and taxonomic governments survive to their modern age, but now serve the purpose of better representing common interests, needs, and opinions of similar animals, though even this is challenged and many believe that it’s better in the long term to change to a single government for all Unitist animals, and abandon drawn borders and territories as well. Debates about this in modern times is as spicy as back then when they were discussing the idea of “If you ally with us we won’t eat you,” with most believing that while a full dissolution of territories and separate taxonomic governments is inevitable as animals commingle more and more, but their society of predator and prey is simply not mature enough for this to happen tomorrow.
Meanwhile, technology for processing plant matter to be more compatible with carnivores, as well as attempts to synthesize nutrients only found in meat were happening at a breakneck pace. Starting with various methods of cooking and fermentation, but slowly progressing to proper bio- and organic chemistry as the field became ever more advanced. At a certain inflection point, when technology for this had advanced far enough to completely replace animal meat for some predator species (omnivores first, the tech to convert an obligate carnivore to plant based food came much later), a new ideology began to crop up: Unitism, based on the word unity, specifically the motto “Unity Among Animals.” The idea was that if your species was able to subsist entirely on plants, the eating your fellow animals was obsolete. That if, instead of worrying oneself with hunting or avoiding being hunted, if we all just came together and pooled our resources and knowledge, everyone taking care of everyone else and operating as a collective where things were jointly owned and animals’ needs were provided for, we can all but eliminate suffering and make life better for every animal: big or small, predator or prey, furred, scaled, or feathered. The flagship treaty developed under this new ideology is called the Interspecies Peace Agreement, which, among many other protections and rights granted, forbids any animal, species, taxon, or other entity signatory to it from eating prey, with no distinction between if you have an alliance with them or not, and the treaty explicitly states that you cannot rescind it once signed. This is the founding document for two of the three major world powers in the modern day.
This is contrasted with Trophism, which says to eat prey and take care of no one but yourself. Based on the word… trophism, which is a biology word that refers to the process of organisms deriving energy and nutrients. The super technical way of saying eating food basically.
History of the Unified Territories
Arguably the first organized movement to abandon the food chain was jumpstarted by a red fox by the name of Akko. He lived in a territory with multiple predator-prey alliances, and one of the more powerful territories at the time. In his young adult life, he studied politics in hopes of becoming a general for the territory leader, but in doing so, he began to see the political dynamic as one that was, quote, “built on hypocrisy, unfair distribution of power, and injustice”. He took exception to the notion of predator-prey alliances often being decided by heriditary territory leaders, sometimes “based on nothing but their personal preference”. He thought it hypocritical for predator animals to decide who to eat and not eat based purely on their territory’s political alignment, where were often unstable, and despised the fact that not preying upon a particular group was being used as a political bargaining tool. Furthermore, Akko saw a major problem in the ways that societies where very different animals coexist are set up. Smaller animals would often have an easier time affording living expenses, simply because the prices of food and other resources were consistent for everyone, but physically smaller animals required less resources. In response, tensions would still be present between even allied species, and descrimination would result. He also noted the inequalities stemming from class and lineage. In his many writings, speeches, and public demostrations, he advocated for a society where all intelligent animals had the same opportunities, and could live without fear that shifting politics would suddenly cause them to fall prey to their former allies. Akko referred his idea of animals living in harmony as “unity”, and reasoned that the only way to achieve this would be to unite all territories, pooling their resources and providing to individual animals not equally in amount, but equally in the sense of satisfying their needs and giving them the same opportunity to thrive. He also believed that animals should not only refrain from killing or eating allied animals, but all animals, as the endgame of his ideology is to create a world where every animal lives in unity with one another.
The Unity Revolution was the period of time between the rise in popularity of the ideas presented by Akko and the formation of the Unified Territories. It consisted of many species and territory specific revolutions of varying degrees of peacefulness. Of note is the fact that the felines played an especially antagonistic role in many of the revolutions as they resisted the movement. The times where it seemed that the Unity Revolution would fail were almost all caused or contributed to by the felines, so needless to say, it would have come as a great surprise to anyone living at the time if they learned that the felines are now also Unitist and allied with the UT. Despite pushback from multiple fronts, the Unity Revolution eventually succeeded, forming the Unified Territories first between the vulpines, avians and rodents, and eventually more taxonomic groups, comprising just over a majority of the worlds’s intelligent animal population.
Political Structure
As mentioned, each taxonomic group has its own separate government, which has the authority to make some taxonomy specific civil laws and regulations and provide taxonomy specific services with the most important one being healthcare. There are also regional governments for each geographic location that work with the taxonomic governments. However, most of the power is held by the UT central government that is comprised of all the taxonomic and regional governments collaborating with each other. The UT government, among other roles, owns all the land, controls most of the resources, and handles all taxonomy agnostic legislation, including criminal law and foreign policy. It also has the authority to overrule any taxonomic or regional government. Any citizens of species not apart of the seven taxonomies has no taxonomic government and only falls under the authority of the UT government and their regional government, but due to the UT’s heavy emphasis on equality, their lives are not much different than those who also have a taxonomic government. The purpose for the taxonomic governments are to efficiently address the needs of individual species, which can vary greatly due to their physiological differences. With the amount of diversity in the UT, it would simply be too much for a monolithic government to manage effectively. However, most of this occurs in the background, and most services are provided simply under the name of the Unified Territories itself.
The UT government’s main branch consists of the Unity Council, which consists of seats allocated both for each taxonomic group and by region, as well as representatives of non-native citizens. By design, every citizen receives equal representation through voting for council members as well as frequent referendoms and opinion polls.
Various ministries, such as the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Resources and the Ministry of Housing exist as part of the UT government, and are the entities that allow UT society to function.
Society
UT citizens have public ownership of everything in their lives as it is all government run, and there are no private companies. Again, this is in order to ensure equality between animals and to place the citizens first. Essential aspects of life like food, housing and healthcare are rationed to each animal based on their needs both as a memebr of a species and as an individual, while credits are given in exchange for working in a job, which can be exchanged for luxury or otherwise non-essential items. Healthcare is always free, as is education as long as the animal meets the admission requirements. This also means that animals can study to work in a field that they have a genuine interest for instead of simply working to cover their living expenses. Science and technology are very popular fields for this reason, allowing for rapid technological advancement.
The Unified Territories recently reached a milestone where they, by some metrics, surpassed the technological prowess of humanity during their golden age, but one wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at the surface of their society. There is a great emphasis on not making cities look too artificial, instead relying heavily on natural elements and the landscape itself, and even Central Valley, the capital city, looks more like a forest with technology and infrastructure peppered about as opposed to a human metropolis.