Look to the West -- Thread II - Page 98

Thande · #**1941** February 7th, 2012, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Analytical Engine

There's still the matter of Second Dutch-Portuguese War, which Thande said will be mentioned in a later post. That and the colonial reorganisation of the Hanoverian Dominions (if it's still called that...), including the bits that are annexed to the ENA (and how that's been reorganised).

The Dutch-Portuguese thing is what is being covered now. The colonial reorganisation will probably be pushed back to Volume 3 as it's more to do with the travails of the ENA's new Radical-Neutral government and therefore more characteristic of the Democratic Experiment period following the Popular Wars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electric Monk

I've been following this in the completed Timeline subforum so as to enjoy it as fresh as possible without theoretical spoilers but I realized I should mention in the main thread how incredibly stunning this timeline is.

Seriously, I'm blown away by this counterfactual scenario. Heck, you alien or ASB, it's better than reality sometimes.

Thank you very much.

mowque · #**1942** February 7th, 2012, 01:27 PM

I always think I should start this, but then I see the page count...

Alex Richards · #**1943** February 7th, 2012, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mowque

I always think I should start this, but then I see the page count...

Try the version in Timelines and Scenarios. In only 2 pages it covers the entirity of the first thread and everything up to page 76 of this thread (but only 10 actual updates behind the current one). Invariably every update Thande posts will be followed by about a week of comments, usually spanning 3/4 pages.

Thande · #**1944** February 7th, 2012, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mowque

I always think I should start this, but then I see the page count...

Besides what Alex said, you can also go here to see the TL in a shorter summary form in the format "Date: Stuff happens". I haven't updated it for a while though, I'm going to try and bring it up to date after I've finished Volume 3 with Part #150.

Owain · #**1945** February 7th, 2012, 04:21 PM

Interesting. May I ask whether Thomas's native language is Welsh (unless he's from Pembrokeshire, which seems unlikely given his forename, it seems almost certain) and if so whether we'll have another one? (Lloyd George was the only one OTL)
And finally, why isn't it Llywelyn?

Nugax · #**1946** February 7th, 2012, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thande

Squares on the map--not a bad idea, I might look at it in future. As you can probably tell by how the focus of the TL has shifted a bit, I have become a bit of a politics junkie over the past two years, so making a good graphic way of depicting ENA elections (the one Nugax did for New England is cool, but a wee bit complex) would be useful not only for TTL, but also for depicting pre-1880s British elections from OTL, which used a similar system.

You have no one but yourself to blame using multimember constituencies and >2 political parties

. I have a number of ideas but the ENA is an unfortunately terrible shape to work with

.

Quote:

UPSA elections--well for presidential elections, which are the only ones I've been covering in detail, it doesn't matter because it's based on national popular vote. I would like to come up with electoral details for the Cortes elections, but to be honest I've never felt confident enough about coming up with a system that's (A) plausible considering the period in history the UPSA came into being, I don't know enough about what South American reformists might have thought about how to organise electoral systems, and (B) based on reasonable national subdivisions. Although the UPSA supposedly has a federal system ("United Provinces", it's in the name!) I've avoided giving too much details because I'm not sure exactly what those provinces would be. I remember I did have one submission by a South American member with his suggestions, but even then he fell into traps like putting cities on that weren't founded until years after the POD, so I didn't know how much to trust it. So yeah, I'm open to suggestions from anyone who knows more about South American history than I do.

I could give it a go, since I have a nice south america basemap now, the problem is that the PoD and secondary effects actually preceeds the bourbon reforms that drive any sort of provincal structure in the area. Prior to that you just had the Governorate of New Andalusia/Rio de la Plata which had fleeting and confusing subdivisions depending on the governor (with the exception of the Jesuit missions). You could argue pretty much anything based on the geography and old towns and have it be fine. You just need to decide what the overall political culture of the UPSA thinks is a good province (big? small? populous? something changable? something permanent?)

Vosem · #**1947** February 7th, 2012, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nugax

Since Thandw has approved it, this is the 1825 Election again:

I'd always thought this was a great system for mapping elections in the ENA.

Thande · #**1948** February 7th, 2012, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nugax

You have no one but yourself to blame using multimember constituencies and >2 political parties

. I have a number of ideas but the ENA is an unfortunately terrible shape to work with

.

Well me and historical plausibility, or perhaps the 'style' of the setting...one thing I really wanted to go for is "what would a relatively close analogue to the USA look like if it was set up by a more conservative-minded commission, based more closely on existing British practices (and without the contrarian nature to be different from Britain purely because we've just fought a war to be rid of them from OTL) but mitigated and rationalised by both the 'fresh start in the colonies' idea and the influence of British radicals trying to engineer testbeds for ideas that wouldn't be accepted at home yet. Couple that to the fact I wanted the irony that the ENA is known for being a multiparty system (as opposed to the USA being known for being a two-party system) and it's a mess to depict...

Quote:

I could give it a go, since I have a nice south america basemap now, the problem is that the PoD and secondary effects actually preceeds the bourbon reforms that drive any sort of provincal structure in the area. Prior to that you just had the Governorate of New Andalusia/Rio de la Plata which had fleeting and confusing subdivisions depending on the governor (with the exception of the Jesuit missions). You could argue pretty much anything based on the geography and old towns and have it be fine. You just need to decide what the overall political culture of the UPSA thinks is a good province (big? small? populous? something changable? something permanent?)

That's exactly what I mean--there are big, serious changes before anything like proper regional government was laid down in the region in OTL--in fact that's part of the whole reason why the people of Platinea were so ripe for revolution in the first place, the fact that the Spanish government in TTL neglected to form the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata they did in OTL. My thoughts on the provinces are: permanent boundaries, not shifting, and each one acts as a multi-member constituency with more or fewer deputies as the population shifts, like US states and the size of their House of Representatives delegations. However, I'm acutely aware that this "feels right" to me because I associate this kind of electoral structure with modern South America, so I have no idea if this I'm being biased here and it would be more plausible for the UPSA to use a different system.

Oh and thanks for posting your excellent diagram.

Thande · #**1949** February 7th, 2012, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Owain

Interesting. May I ask whether Thomas's native language is Welsh (unless he's from Pembrokeshire, which seems unlikely given his forename, it seems almost certain) and if so whether we'll have another one? (Lloyd George was the only one OTL)
And finally, why isn't it Llywelyn?

Yes, his native tongue is Welsh, and he speaks English fluently but with a noticeable accent. As for the spelling--I haven't seen it spelled the way you have it, that may be a more authentic Welsh spelling but it seems to be given as Llewelyn more often in English. Though you'd think if you're going to "anglicise" a name like that it's strange to change one letter and stop there

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vosem

I'd always thought this was a great system for mapping elections in the ENA.

Yeah, the style with the little 'mans' seems to be the one most often used for multi-member constituencies in OTL. At least it's easy to see that all the seats are equal in weight, whereas more geographically-tied ones (though I like them) run into the problem that big, sparsely populated rural constituencies look bigger and more important than small urban constituencies, and so you get cases like (to take the UK as an example) even the election of 1997 looks like a Conservative victory at first glance because of the sea of rural blue and the massive majority of Labour seats are small urban ones.

ArKhan · #**1950** February 8th, 2012, 04:20 PM

I have to say that the name "Democratic Experiment" is rather disturbing, as it implies failure.

Kaiphranos · #**1951** February 8th, 2012, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArKhan

I have to say that the name "Democratic Experiment" is rather disturbing, as it implies failure.

Maybe, but haven't we gotten hints that the word "democracy" has less positive connotations in this world?

Owain · #**1952** February 8th, 2012, 05:50 PM

[QUOTE=Thande;5616401]Though you'd think if you're going to "anglicise" a name like that it's strange to change one letter and stop there

QUOTE]
Other versions include Llewllyn, and in Shakespeare Fluellen.
Also, does friend of Thompson basically mean one of his supporters ( we'd probably say, I dunno, Thompsonite?)?

Thande · #**1953** February 8th, 2012, 06:46 PM

[QUOTE=Owain;5619646]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thande

Though you'd think if you're going to "anglicise" a name like that it's strange to change one letter and stop there

QUOTE]
Other versions include Llewllyn, and in Shakespeare Fluellen.
Also, does friend of Thompson basically mean one of his supporters ( we'd probably say, I dunno, Thompsonite?)?

Yeah, it was a common term used at the time--"the friends of Mr Pitt" and so on, and you see it used well into the 1850s as wel, interchangeably with "name-ites". Of course to us it's impossible to read it without seeing the same kind of sniggering innuendo as when the press pointedly described Liam Werrity as "a friend of Liam Fox" even though that wasn't intended...

Archangel · #**1954** February 9th, 2012, 01:23 AM

There's a risk that Portuguese Brazil really loses some provinces in the North.

fortyseven · #**1955** February 9th, 2012, 07:57 AM

The Adamantine Party is revealed!

Analytical Engine · #**1956** February 9th, 2012, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thande

The Dutch-Portuguese thing is what is being covered now. The colonial reorganisation will probably be pushed back to Volume 3 as it's more to do with the travails of the ENA's new Radical-Neutral government and therefore more characteristic of the Democratic Experiment period following the Popular Wars.

Ah, sorry.

Fair enough on the second point. You don't have to deal with it until you want to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thande

Yes, his native tongue is Welsh, and he speaks English fluently but with a noticeable accent. As for the spelling--I haven't seen it spelled the way you have it, that may be a more authentic Welsh spelling but it seems to be given as Llewelyn more often in English. Though you'd think if you're going to "anglicise" a name like that it's strange to change one letter and stop there

Some names translate directly (Dafydd to David, Rhys to Reese, etc), others simply anglicised their spellings, such as Llwyd* to Lloyd, and Llywelyn to Llewelyn. However, if it has two e's in it, chances are it's a surname rather than a first name - for example, the actor who played Q in the James Bond films.

*Gray

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archangel

There's a risk that Portuguese Brazil really loses some provinces in the North.

From one of Thande's spoilerific flags (check the flag thread), there does seem to be a hint of that. Also, there's no guarantee that every Dutch colony will accept their new "Belgian" overlords...

ArKhan · #**1957** February 10th, 2012, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thande

Yeah, it was a common term used at the time--"the friends of Mr Pitt" and so on, and you see it used well into the 1850s as wel, interchangeably with "name-ites". Of course to us it's impossible to read it without seeing the same kind of sniggering innuendo as when the press pointedly described Liam Werrity as "a friend of Liam Fox" even though that wasn't intended...

I don't get it. What innuendo?