Alderaanfreude – n. The secret joy one feels when a foe’s homeland is utterly destroyed immediately after their deceitful attempt to secure it. It’s an obscure niche game culture term which achieved popular use in Canada as cruel political taunt after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine in 2022, ancestral homeland of then reviled Canadian Liberal Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland. The ensuing dissolution of NATO in 2025 is thought to have directly led to the Russian annexation of the Canadian Arctic in 2029. (The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba thereafter flirted with U.S. statehood but, their interests were out-bid by Russia at the close of the decade and now form the southern end of its larger Arctic “Gazprom” region.) Though Chrystia Freeland was no longer in office by the time Putin’s war ended (she was exiled in Brazil), it was widely believed that her party’s proxy war pursuit of NATO hegemony directly led to the Canadian economic collapse which preceded its end. Amongst former Canadians, her name is today synonymous with a specific type of reverse Midas touch failure.
After the U.S. annexation of Ontario (today called the non-vote territories of North and South Madison) at the end of the war, the geographic bisection of Canada led to the creation of two international “free-market” territories. Cascadia in the West formed with remaining southern Yukon regions and the former province of British Columbia. Much of it remains a tourism-rich protected eco-region. The Atlantica territory in the East was created in the unification of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island with an “energy corridor” portion of southern New Brunswick. (Once a lush tourism destination the island of PEI today serves as the world’s second largest open air for-profit prison with inmates from 104 different countries contained by the automated systems of the Dergavel sea wall.) The former province of Newfoundland regained what was seen as its long overdue independence in 2034 and remains today a neutral nation, though Russia retains the region of Labrador.
In 2035 an independent neutral Québec, with aid from its Californian petitioner, signed the “Accord Patriot” in historic Montpelier Vermont to become the 51st State and the third richest U.S. energy producer after Texas and California. (The northern portion of New Brunswick occupied by the U.S. during the war was added to the State of Québec prior to its official statehood. It is largely credited for introducing the official bilingualism compromise which helped francophones of Québec preserve their language and accept their new American identity.) In 2046, Québécois-American astronaut Gisèlle Nguyen-Lemesurier was elected first Director of United Mars Colony and officially declared the Martian citizenship of over 385 000 permanent residents. In her first speech to Earth she credited the peaceful collaboration of post-war U.S., China and Russia for their exceptional human achievement. The final word of her speech was -“…merci.”.
