And yet another from the Alernate History Travel Guides Yahoo group.
– the US partially broke up in the 1830’s, and manifest Destiny went by the wayside, the model becoming "go west and set up your own state": the US nowadays extends no further than the Mississippi Delta, and in some places not that far. Michigan is nowadays the second most important state in North America, its 70 million inhabitants enjoying one of the worlds highest standards of living and the highest global rate of technological innovation. Texas is independent, while much of the former Louisiana Territory is a loose federation of small states, (“the Free states”) three of them Native American (two set up originally by Deseret as buffer states between them and the Gentiles). The Pacific NW is British. The Empire of Mexico held on to California.
There was no Canadian confederation in this world, just the British allied or controlled states of Cascadia, Upper Canada, the Maritimes Federation, Newfoundland, and the Arctic Territories and Native Dependencies, plus Quebec. There are a lot of French speakers in Michigan – while they were ruled from the UK, the Lower Canadian French disliked British efforts to Anglicize Quebec…
The Empire of Mexico is a major power in this world, extending south to Colombia and Ecuador of OTL (Venezuela is a French ally, Peru a Chilean one). It is also a racist state, in which native Indians and those with too much black or Indian blood are kept from political power. Work is currently underway to build a canal across Panama. Germany is divided into Prussian and Bavarian-Saxon led confederations, the second of which is a long-standing French ally. A more vigorous “back to Africa” movement backed by Michigan (and the US after slavery ended in the 1890s) led to the formation of a large black state run by American immigrants in Africa, incorporating OTL Liberia, Sierra Leone, Portuguese and French Guinea, and a chunk of the Ivory Coast: the disputes this caused with colonial powers led to a war with France and Portugal, with Michigan, the US, and the British backing the American settlers: this in turn expanded into a bloody and somewhat inconclusive general war that lasted until 1902.
Japan moved out of isolation rather later than OTL, but still managed to do well, making various well-timed conquests between 1935 and their grabbing of the Philippines during the Second Great War in 1979. Currently, they rule coastal China, Korea, Indochina, Hawaii and the Philippines. There is a considerable level of fear and dislike of the Japanese in this world: their intervention in China’s long civil war was horribly bloody, and the Chinese territories they hold have only recovered to slightly over half their pre-war population, while interior “highland” China is a profound crap-sack. Only the Australian-Thai alliance, which jointly maintains a protectorate over OTL Malaysia and Indonesia, seriously opposes Japanese rule in East Asia. (Thailand modernized relatively faster than OTL, and managed to grab much of Burma and took advantage of chaos to the north to push some ways into south China). The current Japanese Emperor is seen as a total boob, and intrigue seethes in the Imperial court.
Europe is still a bit of a mess as a result of a major war in the late 70s and early 80s, which led to the breakup of the Austrian and Ottoman Empires and the fragmentation of Spain, although the Empire of France (still under a Napoleon, although by now a thoroughly neutered one) has bounced back pretty well. France has colonial territories in Africa, allies in Bavaria, Italy, Egypt, Quebec, the Free States, South America, and Michigan, and is looking to create a unified western European economy.
Great Britain (less Ireland) still rules some chunks of Africa and has maintained a rough paramountacy in India by divide-and-rule, but the system is breaking down and it looks like things will go pear-shaped on the subcontinent pretty soon. Russia is a parliamentary monarchy, save for the theocratic rump regime in Siberia (broke away when they failed to take control of the government in the 50’s) which dominates the interior provinces of north China and Mongolia. Russian public opinion is split between those who call for the reunion of the Rodina and those who think Russia is well rid of several tens of millions of reactionary theocratic whackos.
Africa is divided between Dutch, French, Prussian, Portuguese and British colonies, and the independent states of slave-settled Libertaria, Mozambique and the Zulu Empire. The Zulus, thanks to a slower inland spread of the Dutch (no British rule to provoke a Boertrek), were able to consolidate their rule and pick up enough gunpowder weaponry by trade to avoid conquest, and spread inland to what OTL would be the Transvaal and Orange free state: the gold and diamonds are currently financing a crash-modernization program. Dutch South Africa is bounded by the Orange and Kei rivers, the Zulu jackpot having encouraged Prussian colonization of Namibia inland into the OTL Kalahari, and Portuguese expansion inland from Mozambique into OTL Zimbabwe. Mozambique has broken away from Portuguese rule with Zulu help, and the Libertarians are also stirring up trouble for colonial powers again, which may yet start another war.
South America is dominated by Brazil, Mexico, and the Empire of Chile, which in this world united with Argentina at an early period and holds a protectorate over Peru and Bolivia.
Technology is fairly backwards, roughly on a 1940s level: nobody has built a nuclear weapon yet, although a number of scientists are looking into the implications in Splitting The Atom. TV has yet to replace radio, although some experimental models are now on the market in a few regionally restricted areas. Computers are mainly mechanical, although developed rather further than such gadgets ever were OTL. Evolutionary theory, developed by a more reactionary man than Darwin, (Darwin's career as a naturalist butterflied away by events in the Americas) didn’t drop the notion that (White and maybe Asian) humans were a Special Creation until the 1970s, and the notion that man is just a superior ape (and the notion that blacks and Native Americans aren’t congenitally inferior and maybe soulless) is still rather unpopular in many countries.
Up until recently, outside lucky nations such as Texas or Mexico or Russia, oil was relatively more expensive than OTL, and rationed for military purposes in many countries: most cars are electric, and only the well-off could afford the upkeep on internal combustion vehicles. However, since the early 2000s, the exploitation of Iraqi and Persian oil has expanded explosively, and oil prices are plummeting, leading to a tremendous expansion of its uses. Most electricity is still from either from coal (pollution is pretty bad) or hydroelectric, although there is quite a bit more use of solar power than OTL 1940s.
Bruce
