trying to do some research on Pre-Collapse Earth. did Earth change after the Traveler’s arrival? like did countries or cultures change in any way?
The Traveler's arrival completely changed all humanity knew and thought about everything. Just the simple existence of the Traveler and its arrival to the solar system was enough to shatter pretty much every single concept of human knowledge and science, without even touching on its powers and paracausality.
It fundamentally changed humanity and how we relate to the world around us. Some believed we put too much trust in it. But overall, society changed due to the scientific and technological advancement that improved all human life at barely no cost.
This was the age of life, and governments did not, ever, use force against human beings. There were always alternatives. Every soul sacred. Every evil treatable.
Last Days on Kraken Mare is really good for a lot of information about the Golden Age and how many changes happened to society. It's a pretty consistent theme about the Golden Age how cultures mixed together, which can be seen in names of pretty much every character from the Golden Age. This can also be seen through the history of the Bray family (more about them in posts here and here).
Mia van der Venne is more than 200 years old. Change comes faster, these days, and you live to see more of it. Changes like Ismail being allowed to pray not in the real direction of Mecca but in the direction Mecca would be if it were transposed from Earth to Titan. Changes like the rise and fall and rise again of the Bray cult of personality. Like the new worlds the Traveler opens up to humanity.
... as it shows how religions had to change and adapt to humanity's new way of life and interplanetary travel. As noted here, and in the posts I linked above in relation to the Brays, Islam seems to have thrived in the Golden Age and survived the Collapse. Other religions that we know of that were doing fine in the Golden Age are Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, the latter having been confirmed to have survived the Collapse due to Lakshmi's comments here:
She playfully taps on all four of his hands. "I am named for an ancient goddess," she says, "with as many arms as you. In her hands are dharma, kama, artha, and moksha. Law, desire, meaning, and finally, liberation. Freedom from the war of death and rebirth."
War and general violence seems to have also been largely gone, as noted from the same lore tab:
"Are you threatening to shoot me?" Mia stares at the Exo woman in disbelief. She hasn't seen a gun in nearly 50 years, and now they are not only coming into her habitat, but they're also pointed at her.
Similar sentiments, about Golden Age being a time of peace, are mentioned a few other times as well.
There were the bad side-effects to this, obviously, most notably in the story of Clovis Bray and his company. Clovis Bray took the Traveler's gifts and the advancements of the Golden Age to an extreme that led him to commit incomprehensible atrocities for his own benefit. His entire journal is a good read, as well as confidential Bray Records lore book (though can be triggery with certain descriptions of medical stuff and violence).
Outside of just general idea about what the Earth was like during the Golden Age in regards to freedom from violence and wars, as well as obvious mixing between populations and cultures, we don't know many details about specific countries and how all of it worked. There are mentions of cities and areas, but not many details about the structure of countries and states.
The only one specifically described and mentioned several times is USA, consistently described as:
Nowhere outside the retro-nationalism of the North American Empire does any private organization have such sweeping, selfish authority over knowledge which should belong to the whole human commons—and at least the twin eagles are voluntary society, answerable to higher law! Clovis Bray reeks of the old unregulated capitalism.
"Some American you are," Mia teases him. David comes from the North American Empire, Earth's biggest voluntary retro-nationalist republic, full of people who love military pageantry and muscular aerospace displays.
I have a feeling Bungie has some strong opinions about the current state of the United States of America.
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