A Looser Union

[Mumby]

Right just a little tidying up from the aftermath of the Second Revolutionary Era.

First of all, Russia and Prussia. Prussia lost land in Germany but was reimbursed by Austria. Meanwhile, Russia was having a horrible civil war in which nationalists and republicans fought against the Czar. Prussia invaded Poland and the Baltic, giving the Russians time to crush the last resistance. However, several nationalist movements briefly succeeded and were only defeated with outside support. Both nations are authoritarian monarchies.

Second is Scandinavia. The blood and fire revolution took place only in Denmark-Norway, and Sweden invaded to restore order. They went on to sort out a few north German states. They then helped the Russians alongside the Prussians defeat the Russian revolutionaries. In return they received Finland. They then took this and the territories they had 'liberated' and united them into the United Kingdom of Scandinavia.

This will feed into the next update.

[Mumby]

The Second Revolutionary Era had punished Russia badly. They had lost territory, influence, popular support and money. Poland and a chunk of the Baltic had been lost to an eastward looking Prussia, Finland had been given as payment to Sweden, influence had been lost over Rumania and Bulgaria and the economy had been left in ruins by widespread destruction.

Slowly, though, Russia recovered. Settlers pushed into the east, the serfs being emancipated to make the process easier. But even so as homesteads and mines sprang up along the frontier, Russia found itself suffering from a severe labour shortage. At first, republican rebels served their punishment as virtual slaves on these enterprises but there weren't enough. The urban poor, the homeless, capital prisoners were taken into the east but there still weren't enough. As the economy grew, the hunger for a greater labour source became insatiable. Rumania and Bulgaria were brought back under Russian influence with little effort and their underclass sucked up to feed Russia's demand. But it was still not enough.

With little future in the West, and plenty of 'empty' land in Central Asia, Russia went on a great crusade in Central Asia demolishing many states that stood before them. Consolidating the land into protectorates, they also took Sinkiang and used the populace as slaves much as the Romans had treated conquered peoples. It should not be forgotten that the Russian thirst for more labour could only have been statiated with the aid of local slavers and cutthroat nobles who forgot their own people and nation in the cause of profit.

The return of Russia coincided with the return of the Ottomans. Together they divided Persia's once great empire leaving a weak rump. This fed into one of Britain's few areas of expansion in the mid 19th century when the moved into Balochistan to create a strong frontier against the vast Russian Empire.

[Mumby]

Of course, differences had been emerging between Britain and its former colonies since before the Revolution. But after the Logicians took power, the differences got bigger and more apparent.

The British were absorbing more and more elements from their colonies Cosmetic scarification from Africa, long hair and beards from Asia and Egypt, patterned and flowing robes from the Scots and Arabs, all sat alongside starched shirts, jackets and trousers. Tattoos and jewellery were more commonplace amongst the rulers of Britain. Tea houses were full of clouds of tobacco smoke from hookas, veils could be worn by either gender (ostensibly to blot out the foul smell of Britain's growing industrial cities) and even the English language was changing as cultural revivals in the Celtic parts of the UK brought Welsh and Gaelic words and as Britain's new migrant population added words of their own. The ancient divisions between the constituent parts of Britain (not Ireland) were breaking down and creating a more united single British identity. Many of these stylistic changes were led from the top and filtered down. Queen Charlotte died in 1860 and her son George ascended the throne steeped in the culture of Empire, having gone on the Grand Tour and being exposed to his eccentric grandfather to a sufficient extent that the French referred to him as George the Oriental. Religion was also changing. The Victorians had managed to start a critical decline in the popularity of the Church of England, and while most people would identify as Christians they had many differing ideas of what that was. Neo-pagans and converts to Eastern religions were also appearing, and there was a small undercurrent of Vodou adherents particularly in the dockyards of Glasgow and London. Atheism was far more mainstream, and there was a general distrust in organised religion. This fed into a certain immorality of the age. Brothels and gambling dens abounded, drugs remained unregulated, women were enjoying sex just as much as men, and orphan houses practically overflowed with the products of scandalous liaisons.

The Americans on the other hand remained far more 18th century in culture and values than the British. Powdered wigs remained fashionable, as did lace cravates and cuffs. Elements from French, Spanish and German culture had been absorbed (in that order) and showed itself in a taste amongst the aristocracy for face powder, extravagant moustachios and pseudo-military attire. The English language of America was little changed from what it had been in colonial times, with a few additions adapted from the French or German language for new occurences in the New World that English wasn't there for. Dutch and German pronunciation was also infiltrating the language as well as Spanish elements. Religion remained stolidly Christian and to a certain extent Protestant, though Catholicism was on the rise, having taken Lousiana by storm and was beginning to make its way into Virginia and the Northwest Ordinance. Anglicanism had been replaced by more Non-Conformist sects, but compared to Britain the old church was doing remarkably well. There was more trust in the established church to represent God. Atheism was virtually non-existent. Importantly, the Americans focussed upon their European, specifically English heritage. They saw the movement of non-whites into Britain as the dawn of Britain's barabarian era when London would be sacked by savage hordes and all Europe would fall into a new Dark Age, leaving only America to carry the light of European civilisation. The Americans compared to the British were staid, dull even. Sex outside of marriage was sternly looked down upon, even alcohol and tobacco were considered deeply unhealthy and race was a very important factor in any relationship.

Most importantly of all their was a clear ideological difference between Britain and America. Each were dominated by an aristocracy but their view of what the nature of an aristocracy was was very different. The British saw the aristocracy as having inherited nobility, as a breed of humanity born to rule and born to lead. Science could harness and enhance their natural abilities of leadership for the good of all. And all classes had their own part to play in the grand design. The Americans on the other hand simply saw aristocracy as an objective that anyone could achieve. And really, it was less focussed on the nobility and more focussed on the gentry. These social attitudes also fed into very different economic attitudes. The British saw their class system as a way of producing a new industrialised society fuelled by invention and science. The Americans saw their system as encouraging every man to become a yeoman farmer and establish their own homestead.

Clearly, father and son had changed to be almost unrecognisable due to their time apart. They were two distinct nations and cultures now.

[Mumby]

As the 1860s loomed, Dorada emerged from the doldrums it had fallen into since it had lost Patagonia. The people had elected a radical, Lopez de Gama, who promised to reinvigorate the stagnant economy and reignite Doradan patriotism. His solution? To Africa!

Dorada had long been influenced by the actions of the Americans. Class was relatively unimportant but race was and the Hispanics, Indians and Blacks had emerged into an American style caste system. The American pursuit of a new frontier in the form of American Guinea inspired de Gama to pursue Dorada's future on the Dark Continent. He chose (for Dorada at least) the easily accessible coast of Southwest Africa, where a border was fixed with the Iberians and the Dutch. De Gama could now secure his rule by shipping malcontents to hot dry Africa, and minerals could be transported back to Dorada where they could be turned into valuable commodities to be traded.

Mining and subsistence agriculture was the order of the day for Dorada's newest territory. But its coast became a tourist hotspot particularly for rich Dutchmen tired of seedy Kaapstad.

[Mumby]

Britain brought Hawaii into the fold of the North America Control in 1860, as a point of power projection into a French dominated Pacific. Importantly, the native royal household was maintained, and given special representation in the Control Capitol of York. This was the first of several such North American protectorates.

As an aside, the addition of Hawaii brought an influx of Polynesian migrants to the Oregon Colony. The introduction of breadfruit caused a population spike, and the Control government considered splitting the Colony.

[Mumby]

The Ottomans had come far since the overthrow of the Sultan-Caliphs and the creation of a Junto. The economy was modernised, roads had threaded across the ancient land, the military had been reformed. Nationalisms had been partially solved by laying the beginning of the future identity of Osmania by combining Arab and Turkish elements. The Republic was ripe for expansion.

They found their opportunity with the rise of the Russian Empire. As they surged through Central and Northern Asia to feed a hungry economy, their eyes turned hungrily to Persia. The Ottomans offered the Russians a deal. They would divide the country between them, and the Ottomans were give military support. The Shahdom collapsed before them, condemning the once mighty empire to decades of mediocrity.

It was now that the Republic's Junto re-classified themselves as the Osmanian Republic, and began combining Persian elements into their new national identity.

[Mumby]

Britain
Britain's attitude to its empire and to the people it colonised was the typical combination of calculating coldness and European sense of superiority that characterised the Logicians in general. While in practise they wanted the empire simply to improve British prestige and the economy, in theory it was part of a moral mission.
The Logicians detested superstition, and claimed that their rise in the 1850s was the beginning of the British purging such ancient inefficiencies. They claimed that Europe was on the verge of doing something similar. But African and Asian nations was stuck behind with no hope of rising from the mire of contemptible superstitions according to the Logicians. It was every right-thinking Britons duty to help these people cast off their shackles and see the light.
This was of course racially motivated. While racial divisions had theoretically been extirpated by logic, there was a belief in the superiority of British culture. Despite this, Britain absorbed more aesthetic elements from their colonies than any other European state. They imposed the British class system on their colonies, but this elevated upper class blacks and Asians above working class Britons. In its own round about way, the British were very liberal.
France
The French also sought to make money from their empire, and sought to cover their avaricious intentions with moral reasons. The reason which the Emperor and his advisors found was twofold. First, the spread of Catholic civilisation to the poor savages. Second, the liberation of the peasantry of Africa and replacing archaic feudalities with Napoleonic style Enlightened Monarchies. In racial terms, the French were more conservative than the British, but still encouraged a level of miscegenation believing that French blood would accelerate the civilising process. This lead to the creation of the Noires, the mixed race population that lived along the West African coast; the Colons, the French-Japanese population based around the French port-cities of that country that spread across Corea and Mandchuria; and the Orielaise, the mixed Native-French people which resulted from French marriages to the Araucanians of Patagonia in that sparsely populated country. There were many other combinations of French and colonial people, but the result of these unions usually became elevated above their less illustrious sire.
Iberia
The Iberians on the other hand were not in favour of racial mixing. The liberals who began the revolution which united Iberia had been displaced by conservatives when the revolution came to an end, recreating the monarchy and as the 19th century progressed Iberians took a more and more reactionary view of the world. While 'Iberian peoples' including Basques, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin Americans and a certain caste of Phillipino society had a relatively easy time of it, Africans, Jews, Asians and Native Americans found themselves once more pushed into second-class status. Mestizos in particular were looked down upon as the children of those who though nothing of dirtying their racial heritage and those who through greed and avarice sought high station through their part-Iberian children. The San people of Africa however were treated positively, their paler skin tone denoting superiority in the eyes of the Iberians. With marriages between Iberian colonists and the San, produced a large mixed population though pale enough to be allowed a vote. In the east, Arab and Asian populaces mixed with Iberians and produced another mixed race which was considered Iberian. Two states joined the union from Africa, but their legislatures severely cut down the franchise so only certain ethnicities could vote. A similar situation existed in the Phillipines where the Asian-Hispanic aristocracy was deemed to be Iberian enough to vote. This attitude lead to the Racial Categorisation Board, which would analyse and consider various races across the empire and ascertain whether they were sufficiently Iberian enough. This chilling attitude would come to dominate Iberia in a way few who originally sat on the Board could have envisaged.
America
America of course already had an institutionalised idea of race. But in American Guinea, African-Americans could rise to the near top of society. Especially in the Crazy Congo east of the main colonies. In the great cities of American Guinea, whites ruled the roost and more than a few enteprising Native Americans could be found in these cities, making big money off the rubber and ore flowing through the colonies. But black people ran the operation. African-Americans formed the middle and in the smaller towns the upper class. Native Africans were these men's serfs doing their labour to feed their industrial engine. But only in the Four Colonies did this system work effectively. East of that lay the vast Heart of Darkness, a disease filled swamp of aggressive tribes and wild animals but also a land where untold wealth lay in the trees and in the soil and where it was said ancient temples full of heathen treasure waited. In this atmosphere the Crazy Congo was born. Adventurers headed east to make their fortune and when they failed outlaw towns emerged. The Americans did not veil their designs with morals. They were there to make money and they were brutal about it. Lips and noses could be slit for poor work, hands cut off for insubordination, and worse fates than mere death awaited those who attempted to fight the coloniser. Little news of this cruelty reached ears back in the Union unfortunately.
Germania
The Germans attitude to its colonial empire was detached at best. As the Second Revolutionary had winded down, the Barbary Coast had exploded into warfare. A coalition of Mediterranean nations had emerged to crush the pirates and restore order. Italy and Iberia were obvious contenders. But Germania had only recently been formed and through the former Hapsburg domains in Italy now had quite a stake in the Mediterranean. The Emperor was convinced by war hawks in his council to aid in the destruction of the Corsairs. Germania received Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from the war. But since then, the Germans have been mostly concerned with Europe, trying to bring more of Germany into its sphere, and trying to compete in the Balkans. The Germanians take a view similar to the Iberians that Europeans are inately superior and Germans above them. While the Emirs of the two kingdoms have seats in the German Congress, they are hardly proportional to the nations populations. And they have seen a lot migration in recent years from the Slavic and Magyar domains of Germania, as Germanification begins to take its toll.
Scandinavia
When Sweden united the Scandinavian peoples, it is possible that they could have stayed at home and concentrated there. But they didn't. Using the wealth from loot plundered from the annexed nations, they bought out the British shares in their shared colony and began investment there and was soon running one of the only colonies in Africa which turned a profit. From there, they expanded their interests in Asia, dividing Siam between them, the Chinese, the Iberians and the British. The Scandinavian attitude was similar to the American. The colonies were there for profit and there was no need to hide that. The German states which had been absorbed by Scandinavia came them the population and ports to compete. But while the Americans often abused their colonial citizenry, the Scandinavians felt a colonial guilt about abusing their new subjects. Efforts were made to industrialised and build infrastructure for their colonies, as well as sending Finns and other troublesome ethnicities there to help Europeanise them.
Netherlands
The Dutch had great success in building their empire. From the East Indies, around the Cape, up to West Africa, west to Suriname and back to the Netherlands, the Dutch had built a string of pearls, a series of wealthy trading spots. The Dutch adopted the Iberian attitude to the empire, that their mission was a civilising one. But while they looked down on all non-Europeans, they did create a tiered ideal of race. Whites at the top, Hispanics, Pale Asians, and the San peoples beneath them, Blacks, Dark Asians and Native Americans at the bottom. While mixing between adjacent tiers was acceptable, a policy of apartness was considered most sensible. A sense of considering the colonies an extension of the Netherlands was also beginning. The Cape and Suriname were the only colonies during the 19th century to begin to make their way towards being a part of the Netherlands, West Africa and the East Indies being considered too uncivilised to be worth bothering with.
Italy
Italy also benefited from the collapse of the Ottoman vassals in North Africa. Tunis's emir agreed to submit to Italian rule, and after several different systems, the emirate was integrated into the republic as an autonomous kingdom like Sardinia. Immigration from this province soon changed the Italian attitude to Islam and Arabic-Moor culture in general. Racial mixing occurred and was even encouraged to try and integrate Tunis into Italy successfully. Unfortunately for Italy and the Tunisians, the Sicilian mafia began to make their presence felt in the province.
Dorada
Like Italy, Dorada only had one colony, and like Italy it was simply as an outlet for their nationalist expansionism. And in this sense, the Doradans had no real objective. They simply wished to dominate the land as if it it were Patagonia. Of course, the colony would be expensive and difficult to run considering distances and Dorada's own wealth. To make this cheaper, they co-opted the native tribes of Southwest Africa, giving them autonomy and supporting them in wars with one another in return for special trading rights. Slowly but surely, Dorada manipulated the tribes through a tiered system of patronage to make themselves more and more Doradan until the colony would one day operate itself as part of Dorada with little external managment. How successful this would be would yet to be seen.

[Libertad]

Originally Posted by Mumby

Britain
Britain's attitude to its empire and to the people it colonised was the typical combination of calculating coldness and European sense of superiority that characterised the Logicians in general. While in practise they wanted the empire simply to improve British prestige and the economy, in theory it was part of a moral mission.
The Logicians detested superstition, and claimed that their rise in the 1850s was the beginning of the British purging such ancient inefficiencies. They claimed that Europe was on the verge of doing something similar. But African and Asian nations was stuck behind with no hope of rising from the mire of contemptible superstitions according to the Logicians. It was every right-thinking Britons duty to help these people cast off their shackles and see the light.
This was of course racially motivated. While racial divisions had theoretically been extirpated by logic, there was a belief in the superiority of British culture. Despite this, Britain absorbed more aesthetic elements from their colonies than any other European state. They imposed the British class system on their colonies, but this elevated upper class blacks and Asians above working class Britons. In its own round about way, the British were very liberal.
France
The French also sought to make money from their empire, and sought to cover their avaricious intentions with moral reasons. The reason which the Emperor and his advisors found was twofold. First, the spread of Catholic civilisation to the poor savages. Second, the liberation of the peasantry of Africa and replacing archaic feudalities with Napoleonic style Enlightened Monarchies. In racial terms, the French were more conservative than the British, but still encouraged a level of miscegenation believing that French blood would accelerate the civilising process. This lead to the creation of the Noires, the mixed race population that lived along the West African coast; the Colons, the French-Japanese population based around the French port-cities of that country that spread across Corea and Mandchuria; and the Orielaise, the mixed Native-French people which resulted from French marriages to the Araucanians of Patagonia in that sparsely populated country. There were many other combinations of French and colonial people, but the result of these unions usually became elevated above their less illustrious sire.

Very very very interesting timeline sir. I'm subscribed to this in a while already.

You're giving a great inspiration for gradual racial integration for my timeline sir.

Keep up the good work.

[Mumby]

Originally Posted by Libertad

Very very very interesting timeline sir. I'm subscribed to this in a while already.

You're giving a great inspiration for gradual racial integration for my timeline sir.

Keep up the good work.

I get so few comments, I am extremely heartened by this one. I shall look at your TL good sir!

[Libertad]

Originally Posted by Mumby

I get so few comments, I am extremely heartened by this one. I shall look at your TL good sir!

Yeah so do I. But I got enough views though, there might just be silent readers, guests or members, I don't know so that's enough for me to continue making my TL. Hehehe.

This is good.

[Mumby]

Charles Marsh died in 1861, leaving an industrialising nation. China looked as if it were emerging from the doldrums foisted on it by the Qing. And now they looked outward.

While they had lost much of their exterior to European empires, the south was weak. Squabbling kingdoms still stuck in the mire and mediocrity of the feudal age. Marsh's successors would teach them the glory of Marshism. However, Iberia was taking a greater interest in Southeast Asia, as was Scandinavia. The Chinese agreed to divide the land between them, with the coastal regions mostly going to Scandinavia, with the exception of the bottom of the Peninsular which was to go to Britain, the eastern edge to Iberia and its claims to Viet Nam and Kampuchea, and the vast interior to China.

Unfortunately for China, the Siamese did not wish to enjoy the embrace of Jesus and Peasant's Liberation. Riots broke out, against radical imposition of China's Christian faith. While the Iberians used exported Phillipino nobles to rule their Southeast Asian domains, the Scandinavians placed a puppet ruler to reign in their stead, the Chinese tried to rule it as their own. Buudist fighters rose up first in Thailand, then spread out into China. Northern and western areas fell into chaos and religious war. Only Southern China had ever been a solidly Marshist pocket and much of the rebelling area had been put under military government. While eventually, the Holy Peoples Army managed to contain the rebellion to a few specific areas, the rebellion would bleed China's flower white. And it would give certain elements of the regime an excuse to pass emergency powers...

[Mumby]

Right, I've finished the second section of my prepared notes and other than a few details, I'm a little sketchy on how we are going to progress over the next half century. So if anyone wants to make suggestions, I'm willing to work them in. Christian Socialist China and the Kreshnapur Explosion were originally ideas of my brothers for example.

[Libertad]

Originally Posted by Mumby

While the Iberians used exported Phillipino nobles to rule their Southeast Asian domains.....

Really?? Nobles?? Are you talking about the "principalia" class that still doesn't exist as of the year of TTL?? At least that's the case in OTL??

[Libertad]

I'm fine with the explosion of Kreshnapur but why during the time that nitroglycerine was still not being invented? 1841? Sobrero only invented "pyroglycerine" six years later?! So it was invented early?

Some chemist with Victorian sympathies invented it?? And then used it in Kreshnapur? Well, that's terrorism! That's better for me.

[Mumby]

Originally Posted by Libertad

Really?? Nobles?? Are you talking about the "principalia" class that still doesn't exist as of the year of TTL?? At least that's the case in OTL??

Gahhhh. Nobles is a bad word to use in this case. But I believe a class of Hispanicised Filipinos existed before this date.

[Mumby]

Originally Posted by Libertad

I'm fine with the explosion of Kreshnapur but why during the time that nitroglycerine was still not being invented? 1841? Sobrero only invented "pyroglycerine" six years later?! So it was invented early?

Some chemist with Victorian sympathies invented it?? And then used it in Kreshnapur? Well, that's terrorism! That's better for me.

Oh. Um, I didn't really look up when nitroglycerine was invented. I'd read a similar update in Beedok's TL, and was inspired, my brother wanted a frightening terrorist attack on Singapore, I felt that Britain's shift away from hardcore Christian values had already begun, and so I blew it up. Sorry...

[Mumby]

It began with a private experiment by Robert Hughes, the famous politician. While his Christian outlook made him an opponent of the Logicians, putting him squarely in the camp of the Cross Block, the Rugby Programme would become one of Logician Britain's keystone policies and would radically alter the face of the empire.

The town of Rugby was founded in Upper Canada to test Hughes' idea of taking Britain's 'second sons', those aristocrats who would never inherit an estate, and giving them one in 'empty' colonial land, so as to end the culture of wasters and make the upper class a productive class. Its outstanding success set minds racing in Parliament. Most of the colonists from Britain consisted of economic refugees, and political dissidents. But the migration of Indian and African nobility across the Empire had shown that their movement precipitated a movement of large numbers of retainers. And in aristocracy empty colonies like Australia and North America, the strength of the Logicians was much weaker.

Hughes' programme was nationalised and a Commission established to record 'spares' in aristocratic families and offer them land in various colonies. It wasn't long before thousands across Britain were answering the call, and taking many thousands more retainers with them. It also allowed the Logicians to further centralise the empire, as a policy of Elective Vassals was established whereby while the aristocrats elected a titular overlord for the region they were in, who then appointed a Lieutenant Vassal to represent the aristocracy in the House of Lords. In this manner, most of the Empires aristocracy found itself represented in the halls of a newly expanded House of Lords in a refurbished and much larger Houses of Parliament, built in the Classical style

[Libertad]

Originally Posted by Mumby

Oh. Um, I didn't really look up when nitroglycerine was invented. I'd read a similar update in Beedok's TL, and was inspired, my brother wanted a frightening terrorist attack on Singapore, I felt that Britain's shift away from hardcore Christian values had already begun, and so I blew it up. Sorry...

Ahhh.... It's fine. Don't worry.

And again... the Rugby Programme... Just wow...

Think about it. I'm having this British USA and looking forward into establishing an aristocracy there; which I will do through having the Crown make nobles out of the current colonial upper class... and then this.... plus the idea of lieutenant vassals to represent them back in London.

Wow... You have a very great timeline really... though with some flaws which I'm willing to overlook based on my opinion. It's fine enough.

This is great.

[Mumby]

Originally Posted by Libertad

Ahhh.... It's fine. Don't worry.

And again... the Rugby Programme... Just wow...

Think about it. I'm having this British USA and looking forward into establishing an aristocracy there; which I will do through having the Crown make nobles out of the current colonial upper class... and then this.... plus the idea of lieutenant vassals to represent them back in London.

Wow... You have a very great timeline really... though with some flaws which I'm willing to overlook based on my opinion. It's fine enough.

This is great.

Best Day Ever!!

[Mumby]

At the start of the 19th century, there were only a few universities. Under the Logicians, the intake of new students became too much, and first new universities were built across Britain, and then across the Empire. While these institutions remained an upper-class place, dominated by the Imperial Nobility, they were highly prestigious and a wealthy middle class family would do anything to get their children in to a university. While it was the aristocrats who would become politicians, the middle classes would become the men who would use science to make Britain the most pre-eminent of nations even during its isolationist period. The British Institute of Technology was a mostly middle class university, and would produce many example of revolutionary technology of the 19th century, from the light bulb to the motor car to the telenunt [1].

But while the universities made Britain great, it also fed discontent. While most middle class graduates would be absorbed into the stratified layers of British Imperial Society, a few felt anger. They were the finest minds in the Empire. Why were they held back from the best institutions or political office because of the circumstances of their birth, or the colour of their skin? The biological sciences remained stunted in Britain as proof emerged that women, the lower classes and non-whites did not have lower levels of intelligence than upper class male whites, and then was swiftly shoved under the rug and the scientists responsible stripped of their degrees. A movement grew of disgraced scientists, aspirational lower class ideologues and hopeful women and immigrants, calling for an abolition of Britain's stratified society and a institution of true democracy across all of the Empire, in which all would be equal, and the wealth of the empire distributed 'from each according to his ability to each according to his need.'

The last line was a quote from Charles Marsh. Many of these thinkers were inspired by him and his example in China. While the revolution may have failed in some regions, they believed that with genuine welfare, and scientific thought, they could create a truly equal society. Their interest in welfare lead to their name. The Salutists.

[1] Telegraph