Central Asia - Deceptive Splendor (2153 - 76 C.E.)

A commission done for the TEARS OF ORION setting: [link]

When the Central Asian Development League turned into the UNION OF SAMARKAND in a festive ceremony from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day 2153 C.E. heads of state from all around the world attended the celebrations of the birth of a new superstate and global economic heavyweight. Fireworks exploded unceasingly in the clear night sky above the beautifully combined modern skyline and ancient monuments of Samarkand, proclaiming a new age of peace and prosperity for all of Central Asia.

But reality has the bad habit of not conforming to one's hopes. In the north-west a resurgent Russia made itself felt. Across the Caspian Sea the rulers of Baku constantly contested the Union's oil and gas claims along the official borders throughout the inland sea. The inclusion of the Kingdom of Afghanistan brought new customers and a new market, but it also dragged the men and women in Samarkand's marble halls into the endless tribal conflicts and broiling territorial disputes with Balochistan and a newly strengthened Pakistan. In the east the Union's support or Uighur independence and cultural self-determination positioned the Chinese Dragon against them.

And inside, slowly and deliberately played by the diminuitive Minister of Information Bega Amjut Serak whom history almost exclusively remembers under the name he lateron took for himself, the Union began to change...

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2nd map in a 3-parter series of maps.
Part 1 can be found here [link].