Shattered World

In February 2009, a terrorist faction destroyed 95% of the world's oil drills in a well organized strike. A new source of fuel
was needed, fast. A months after that disaster, world's scientists formed the Fuel Emergency Research Union (FERU), in 7
months, it made the first prototype of the Fuel Synthesis Tool, it was capable of synthesizing both gasoline and diesel from
practically anything that was liquid(although, some liquids lost more volume in the conversion than others). All countries
that could afford it, bought the blueprints of the device and started building them, countries that couldn't afford it, loaned
large amounts of money from wealthier countries and also bought the blueprints. Among the loaners, were most Asian
countries, including China.

In January 2011, the former FERU had made several major breakthroughs and was claiming that in 2 more years, if the
funding is continued, they'll be able to build a ship capable of colonizing planets orbiting other stars. Even planets that
don't have a breathable atmosphere. And indeed, they had invented life-support devices capable of holding an earthlike
atmosphere inside an area the size of a small city and hydroponics farms that had three times the output of normal farms
the same size. Many countries that had troule with food (including having to import too much food) bought the blueprints
for the hydroponic farms. All of those countries still had the large debt from buying the fuel synthsizers.

Then, in December 2011 world was decimated by nuclear exchange. What exactly happened is still unclear, and noone will
probably ever know for sure. As far as any info runs, there was a military coup in China, caused by economic collapse due
to the large national debt. Two weeks after the coup, before any real news of it even broke out, China and North Korea
launched a nuclear strike against the United States. The US responed and China and North Korea were both nuked hard,
but the damage had been done already: The US Provisional Government collapsed due to internal tension in early 2012,
the USA fell apart into city-states, skirmishes began between the new nations and what was left of North America was
engulfed in war.

Russia, foreseeing the collapse of the provisional government, nuked the larger cities and military outposts in Europe,
Canada and Japan, effectively destroying 90% of what was left of NATO. European nations retaliated with hidden biological
and chemical weapons. It wasn't enough to wipe out Russia on the scale that Europe was, but it was enough for the
ethnic and political minorities in Russia hope of success in starting a massive resistance movement to the almost
dictatorial government. The Russian army could no longer invade Europe, because it had to stamp out the internal
resistance movements.

Then, from April 2012 to January 2013, there were no notable changes, but then, the Three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania, that had avoided getting nuked (by being too small targets to waste the effort) along with the slightly
damaged Finland formed the Baltic Union. The Baltic Union declared it had nuclear weapons and demaned the resignation of the Russian government, Union controlled demilitarization and a free democratic election of a Temporary Parliament.
The Old Russian Goverment figured they were bluffing and refused the demands. The result was, that Moscow was
nuked, engulfing Russia in Civil War also. Two months after that, one of the Marshals (Marshal Laakso) of the Baltic Union
attempted a military coup and engulfed the Baltic union also in civil war, although, thankfully, the nuclear arsenal
was neutralized before anyone could use them.

In March, 2013, it became obvious that there was a nuclear winter coming, and the nations in the Middle East and Africa
started fighting each other over the resources, trying to ensure their nation survives the nuclear winter as comfortably as
possible. And the same happened a while later in the Pacific, when indonesia invades Australia, but when the war isn't as
successful as expected, falls into civil war aswell.

And up until now, nothing of more of note has happened. And well, it seems life is settling down in the world. It's 2015, life
is still quite a struggle to survive, the nuclear winter is in full blow, the temperature around the equator never rises above
+10C, the temperature in here, what's left of the Baltic Union, never rises above -15C. Although, here, life isn't so bad, we
got the oil-shale power stations back working, the mines are running again, although our town doesn't control the mines,
we have heating too, so it's not too cold indoors. Although, it still is quite of a mystery what's going on in the outside
world. Our Mayor is quite paranoid about another army walking in, but who can blame him, he's given orders to build
defenses around the town and especially around the power station and the roads coming in; those are coming along 'bout
as well as you could expect, they'll do if a dozen scavagers with a few jeeps come along. This town of Narva is sitting right
next to what used to be the Russian border, but we haven't seen anyone coming from there for more than eight months,
and those coming were refugees, not invaders. Last time we saw anyone coming from the other direction, from Estonia,
was about a month ago, maybe a bit more. All in all, it's nice to be here, from what I've heard, it's a lot worse elsewhere.
Very few places have power and as far as I know, we're the only ones who have a reliable power source and also the only
ones who can spare it for heating the buildings in the town.

Unfortunately, we only have a good AM reciever, no transmitters, so we can't respond to any AM broadcasts. FM doesn't
have a range longer than a 100 km. So the garbled broadcasts from europe and russia are mostly the only news we get
from the outside world. Other than the occasional travellers and refugees.

As for currency, well, usually, inside the borders of one country, its original currecy is accepted as the standard, but if you
want to go abroad, you'll have to trade items. Although, some larger places still have running currecy exchange stations,
including our own town. However, those guys usually have pretty predatory rates, for example, our own station wants
two euros for a dollar and two dollars for a euro.

So, what else, Hmm. I could give you a list of cities that are known to be still intact.
Europe:

Leeds; UK; random radio broadcasts heard claiming to be from Leeds
Manchester; UK; In ruins, but rumored to be resettled
Calais; France; confirmed radio broadcasts, noone here speaks that much french, so no further info
Frankfurt-am-Main; Germany; Rumors from travellers say a smaller nuke hit the industrial district, but the city has sent out radio broadcasts after the russian nukes, so something must be intact
Wrocław; Poland; Radio broadcasts heard, but noone here speaks polish enough to know more about them

Helsinki; Finland; Got some damage during the Laakso coup, but otherwise known to be certainly intact
Võnnu (Cesis); Latvia; The only Latvian town that's broadcasting on the AM frequencies.
Kaunas; Lithuania; Heard some broadcasts, but again, we have noone to translate
Vilnius; Lithuania; Was broadcasting up until a month or two ago, probably the transmitter there got damaged somehow

Tallinn; Estonia; Same as Helsinki. A few months ago, a convoy from Tallinn came to ask if we had any parts of the power plants we could trade with them. They traded enough parts to put all of Tallinn on emergency power(that is, enough to keep the hospitals and water pumps/purifiers running), as long as they can keep convoys going between the mines in Kohtla-Nõmme
Kohtla-Nõmme; Estonia, A mining town, we buy all our oil-shale from there (not that there's anywhere else to get it)
Kärdla; Estonia; Travellers from Tallinn say there's a plane coming from there sometimes, but as fuel is low, the plane is quite a rare sight.

There's also some very questionable rumors about the americas:
Boston; USA; rumored to be intact, wild tales about some form of nuke shield
Halifax; Canada; rumored to be intact thanks to the Russian nuke malfunctioning
Mexico City; Mexico; rumored to be intact but deserted due to lack of food/water
Lima; Peru; rumored to be intact

Oh, and also some cities that are known to be in ruins:
The former USA (messages from before the US Provisional Government collapsed):
New York; leveled by nukes, nothing left
Seattle; hit by a small nuke, partially intact, but deserted due to radiation
San Francisco; leveled
Los Angeles; also leveled

Europe
London; struck hard, something is rumored to be still standing, but the city itself is abandoned
Paris; gone
Berlin; gone
Warsaw; hit with a Russian biological weapon, city intact, but completely abandoned
St. Petersburg; hit by the European biological weapons, abandoned
Moscow, leveled by 3 of our nukes, maybe the underground facilities like he subway are intact

Some things that happened before the nuclear exchange.