Even with the mandala, the states of the world have become more fragmented. In many states theocrats no longer hold the highest governing positions, but still exert great control over mercantile interests. Priests often invoke the Dusseldorf Convention to stymie the development of plastics that would challenge their arcane knowledge.

The states that didn't sign the Dusseldorf Convention have yet to produce any qualitative leaps in plastics technology. The Nipponese sections of the mandala indicate that Nippon has been investing heavily in super-intelligent plastics. The Theocracy of Golgoth has been experimenting using moneran hive-intelligences to bend space-time. Africans have been the first to develop bioluminescent organisms on a large scale, and can work or enjoy leisure throughout the night.

The global infrastructure buckled under the strains of WWII, aborting a nascent industrial revolution. As trade has waned, the global mercantile interests have been replaced by guilds, in which technicians develop increasingly specialized plastics. The guilds search the extensive records of the mandala, compiling the techniques and data that have accumulated there over millenia.

In plastics development, the brute force of the past has come to be replaced by more elegant solutions. Plastics are designed for quality, rather than quantity. Although plastics technology is spread unevenly, some of it has become very advanced.

The Yezidi Empire has developed neural parasite riders that can be swapped in and out a host plastic. This "managed intelligence" gives a wider array of functions to a single plastic organism.

The Banner Nations have been the first state to use forms of combustion beyond simply burning wood or candles. They have begun developing biomass facilities in which refined gasses are pumped into cities to heat and light them.

The Sarai Khanate has come up with small organisms which can quickly perform repetitive task without fatigue.

In Macronesia, a cottage industry of redesigning existing plastics in miniature form now provides livelihood for millions.

The status of the Shashi has deteriorated. The camps of the theocracies were kept operational and turned into factory farms. In Taoist and Vedic states, Shashi have been relegated to an underclass, young adults suffering the death penalty for any minor infractions. Shashi are trained as Calxs to be given predictive and extremely difficult computational tasks. Among the Banner Nations and the Carribean Shashi are a slave caste. The Theocracy of Golgoth keeps Shashi as pets, painlessly killing them as they approach middle age and recycling them into mana. Among the Indian Nations, the Shashi, like all outsiders, are excluded from native society; Shashi are respected as dangerous prey and enjoy some of the status reserved for powerful animal totems.