Howling:51st century Earth political structure

In "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", Magnus Greel comes from the year 5000, where he was the Minister of Justice of the Supreme Alliance on Earth, and started a war with the rival Icelandic Alliance. Why is Earth divided into opposing national alliances at this stage in its history? Other stories set before that timeframe have presented Earth as being united under a global goverment. What could've happened to make it revert to such an archaic mode of politics? 82.2.136.93 21:14, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

There are some hidden assumptions in your question, such as the use of the word "archaic." I won't attempt to justify the change in the governance of the Earth, but notice that in 100 AD, much of Europe and the Near East under one government, the Roman Empire. A thousand years later, there were dozens, if not hundreds of effectively independent states. How did it happen? Try reading THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Bear in mind that there were no repeated invasions of Daleks of the Roman Empire, no solar flares that rendered it uninhabitable and the technological changes that occurred were, to modern eyes, fairly subtle -- things like the stirrup and the horse collar. As someone who likes to read history, I find your question enormously complicated and subject to single explanation under about ten million words. Boblipton 21:32, August 11, 2011 (UTC)