Hoover-4

Current Year: 1951 Hoover-4 is a universe where the globally-felt Great Depression of the 1930’s never quite ended and instead has extended through the 40’s and into the early 1950’s. Unlike other parallels such as High Castle, the extension of the Great Depression here is not uniquely American or even limited to western nations. Though the degree of severity can vary from country to country, the entire world is still in the grip of low productivity, meager wages, massively reduced international trade and disastrously high unemployment by the Current Year of 1951.

Though the effects of the Great Depression were one of the many factors that brought Adolf Hitler to power in our universe and allowed him to re-galvanize the country through militarization, the effects of the Depression in this universe have been so severe that even Hitler’s rise has been short-circuited. This is a world where WWII has been essentially bypassed simply due to the ubiquitous economic and military weakness among the various nations. As the grim financial prospects of this world drag past their second continuous decade, desperation and discontent is swelling in the masses as they look to potential solutions in more radical thinking. Crime is at an all-time high, and several nations are on the border of anarchy. Communist movements are cropping up in various locations and clashing with equally dogmatic grassroots Fascist initiatives. With the global economic downturn failing to alleviate, the disenfranchised working class of the world may soon come to a point where push comes to shove.