Map Thread XIV
- Thread starter MorningDew
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Novgorod and the "Ruso-Nivkh" chiefdoms somewhat puzzle me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nerchinsk
Given their non-innovative nature, it seems to me that inability to match Galactic technological advances would be more of a problem for the Race than the Force. Death Stars anyone?
(#ImWithNearlyStrangledGuy)
Over time they'll catch up though. This is star wars, with it's complete lack of tech advancement over thousands (tens of thousands?) or years. Didn't the Race advance a little bit in that time frame?
Izzat so? I will cheerfully admit that I am not too well up on the canon backstory for Star Wars, but they seem able to innovate militarily under pressure (droid armies, clone armies, Death Stars, large economy size Death Stars...
)I think they'd had droid armies and clone armies sporatically during those 10000 generations the Jedi and Republic were around for. A massive economy and infrastructure is definitely a thing though.Izzat so? I will cheerfully admit that I am not too well up on the canon backstory for Star Wars, but they seem able to innovate militarily under pressure (droid armies, clone armies, Death Stars, large economy size Death Stars...
Also with Disney throwing out the old canon it's kinda messy.
Dorozhand
Banned
This is part of a larger scenario I'm working on with a PoD in the 14th century. The history of the Ming Dynasty is only altered subtly beginning in its middle history. In short, the Republic of Novgorod is a major colonial power, a German sailor in Novgorodian employ made the first European voyage to the Americas in the 16th century, the powerful Buryaad and Yong empires have a firm hold on the overland trade routes to the east while the Americas and the Arctic Ocean provided routes around them to Chinese and Nihonese markets. The search for the Northwest Passage resulted in concentrated improvements on the Koch icebreaker design, culminating in reliable seasonal navigation of the Arctic and Novgorodian colonies in the northern periphery of East Asia, and Novgorod developing into a naval power rather than a land one. The Nivkh peoples in the region of Rusian trade and settlement have been strongly influenced by it, as has Eastern Shang.
Dorozhand
Banned
Thanks, the organization of Lai provinces comes admittedly from what I could dredge up on wikipedia in regards to Ming, Yuan, and Song era provinces as their circumstances apply to the situation Da Lai is in. Any extra info is much appreciated.
With victory in the Carnatic Wars, despite failures just about everywhere else, France was quite happy about progress in India. It had believed it had hit the golden goose, despite the failure to dislodge the British from Bengal and Bihar. France believed it could now bring the nation back to its prowess under the Sun King. But alas, it was not to be. France poured quite a large fraction of its treasury into conversion attempts that were doomed to fail; in addition, attempts to expand were successful in vassalizing a large portion of the continent, but costed a lot of money. This aggravated France's debt issues, and a succession of horrible finance ministers left the treasury in a worse and worse state. The spoils that were earned from India went primarily to the nobility; the rising bourgeoisie saw scarcely a penny. As such, France fell into revolution as the Third Estate of the Estates-General declared itself to be the rightful parliament, and then gave itself more and more power until its radical wing overthrew the monarchy and declared a republic under her feared red flag. Before the revolutionary republic was able to capture King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, they, along with a large portion of the nobility, fled to France's greatest colony.
Instantly, the French, or the Ferengi, as many Indians called them, saw many issues with India. Apart from how much of the continent was still free from French control, religion was the greatest issue. The majority of India was "pagan", and most of the rest was "Mohammedan". Catholics remained few. As such, proselytizing attempts were conducted; however, like many times in history, Hinduism proved nigh impossible to uproot and to many Frenchmen's horror, many Hindus began to consider Jesus an avatar of Vishnu! This "idolatry" was seen far worse than mere "paganism" and did much to diminish Catholic conversions in India.
The more important affair in India was the issue of expansion. Tipu Sultan, the Sultan of Mysore, was an honorary Jacobin and his state was invaded soon after Royalist forces began to consolide. Several treaties were signed that began to bind nations' economies directly to Royalist France. Indeed, the Ferengi Raj, or French Empire, had begun to grow very powerful, as they were able to go so far as to vassalize the Sikh Confederacy and the rump Mughal Empire! Almost immediately, in 1830, the "temporary" capital of the Kingdom of France was moved from Pondicherry to Delhi, the Mughals being forced to relocate to Agra. Slowly, the vassal states began to turn more French, and as the Estates-General began to grow in power, a few Rajahs and Shahs found that they were able to gain seats in the First Estate. Furthermore, race-mixing led to a Franco-Indian class acting as a connection between the "temporarily" exiled people, who were known as the sahib-log, and the wider Indian population. French fashions, not the plain anti-fashion prospering in Republican France but the old, opulent one of old France, began to grow among the growing Indian middle-class. However, this change went both ways. Indian clothing began to grow fashionable among the sahib-log and Royal French has increasingly diverged from its Republican counterpart; despite some resistance from the first generation, later generations found increasing disconnect from old France. Indeed, many in Republican France have used this as proof that the Royalists are "impure", though other Republicans see this as racist. It is, as are many topics, commonly discussed by the National Assembly.
As the Kingdom of France's splendid isolation from its European brethren continues, prosperity continues to grow, as it begins to rival that of the Viceroyalty of North America. Industrialization has seen native men work in factories as they are increasingly drawn to the ideals of Tyrinism. The franchise has begun to expand to include some natives, though they are by and large disenfranchised and liberal reforms continue to be a point of contention in the increasingly powerful Third Estate. Increasingly, the kingdoms are being ruled by Delhi as many have begun to choose the allure of (real or not) influencing government through the First Estate over being subservient. As such, King-Emperor Louis (or Lauis, as it's pronounced nowadays) XXI, Maharaja of Bharat and Padishah of Hindustan is confident in his nation's ability to stay strong.
Instantly, the French, or the Ferengi, as many Indians called them, saw many issues with India. Apart from how much of the continent was still free from French control, religion was the greatest issue. The majority of India was "pagan", and most of the rest was "Mohammedan". Catholics remained few. As such, proselytizing attempts were conducted; however, like many times in history, Hinduism proved nigh impossible to uproot and to many Frenchmen's horror, many Hindus began to consider Jesus an avatar of Vishnu! This "idolatry" was seen far worse than mere "paganism" and did much to diminish Catholic conversions in India.
The more important affair in India was the issue of expansion. Tipu Sultan, the Sultan of Mysore, was an honorary Jacobin and his state was invaded soon after Royalist forces began to consolide. Several treaties were signed that began to bind nations' economies directly to Royalist France. Indeed, the Ferengi Raj, or French Empire, had begun to grow very powerful, as they were able to go so far as to vassalize the Sikh Confederacy and the rump Mughal Empire! Almost immediately, in 1830, the "temporary" capital of the Kingdom of France was moved from Pondicherry to Delhi, the Mughals being forced to relocate to Agra. Slowly, the vassal states began to turn more French, and as the Estates-General began to grow in power, a few Rajahs and Shahs found that they were able to gain seats in the First Estate. Furthermore, race-mixing led to a Franco-Indian class acting as a connection between the "temporarily" exiled people, who were known as the sahib-log, and the wider Indian population. French fashions, not the plain anti-fashion prospering in Republican France but the old, opulent one of old France, began to grow among the growing Indian middle-class. However, this change went both ways. Indian clothing began to grow fashionable among the sahib-log and Royal French has increasingly diverged from its Republican counterpart; despite some resistance from the first generation, later generations found increasing disconnect from old France. Indeed, many in Republican France have used this as proof that the Royalists are "impure", though other Republicans see this as racist. It is, as are many topics, commonly discussed by the National Assembly.
As the Kingdom of France's splendid isolation from its European brethren continues, prosperity continues to grow, as it begins to rival that of the Viceroyalty of North America. Industrialization has seen native men work in factories as they are increasingly drawn to the ideals of Tyrinism. The franchise has begun to expand to include some natives, though they are by and large disenfranchised and liberal reforms continue to be a point of contention in the increasingly powerful Third Estate. Increasingly, the kingdoms are being ruled by Delhi as many have begun to choose the allure of (real or not) influencing government through the First Estate over being subservient. As such, King-Emperor Louis (or Lauis, as it's pronounced nowadays) XXI, Maharaja of Bharat and Padishah of Hindustan is confident in his nation's ability to stay strong.
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Map for new ASB scenario with writeup here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/asb-settings.158644/page-129#post-13244389
Dorozhand
Banned
Here's something. I've been working on it off and on for a while but I can never finish anything I start and coming up with interesting stuff for world maps has sort of eluded me lately. I can't remember half of what I'd planned for or meant by this since I lost the word document I had used. It seems rather out of date but it matches up understandably.
This part puzzles me.
They have the shorter Northeast Passage to reach these markets.
Nah, Liang Guang literally means "two Guangs", which was not really a good Chinese name for provinces, I suggest the ancient name "Guangnam" in Song dynasty, but actually the name is fine, considering the area during OTL 18th century was majorly Cantonese, and I do not expect much change on this in TTL.
Dorozhand
Banned
Politics. Novgorod had a tight hold on the northeast passage so that western Europeans began trying to find the northwest passage for a cheaper and less regulated route. The Rusians got the jump on them by finding and mastering the northwest passage themselves with the same technological advantages they used to master the northeast passage. Control over Patagonia came later with the forced opening of the Tawantinsuyu in the mid 18th century and the race for spheres of influence and control over the dying imperial state.
Dorozhand
Banned
Colonization of the Americas in general proceeded in a much more gradual fashion, without so much genocide and forced conversion. The wars of religion in Europe had largely been resolved by the time conquest and settlement really got underway, and given that many more European powers great and small have slices of the pie, and extensive contacts over a much longer time allowed native populations to partially bounce back, conquest had been much slower and less complete.
Through some horrifying combination of anachronistic personal unions, we get maximum (European) Polandwank.
Deleted member 97083
Maximum Polandwank with no Constantinople and no Mars colony?
The 1980s proved a remarkably stable era for most of the world. India was grount stronger and beginning to flex her economic influence, with nearly every product in 100 Yen stores and Canadian Dollar Stores have a little 'made in India' sticker on it. If not for Canada's massive resource shipments to hungry Asian nations (metaphorically hungry for mineral goods and timber, literally hungry for grain and beef) and returning shipments of mass produced goods across the Pacific the Indian Ocean would have been the dominant ocean of trade. The early 1980s saw the opening of the Honshu-Hokkaido tunnel, the mid-1980s the Hokkaido-Karafuto[Sakhalin] tunnel, and finally in 1989 the Karafuto-Mainland tunnel, at long last connecting Japan and Asia by rail. The success of these tunnels resulted in the rather prolonged Trans-Siberian High Speed Rail project, primarely a scheme out of Moscow (following the success of the various lines in the western portion of the Worker's Federation, especially the Petrograd-Moscow-Kiev route), though Novosibirsk would remain the eastern terminous of that network for the end of the 1980s.
Growth in China further fueled the rising economic power of Asia. As Eurasian Worker's Federation wages went up more and more industrial production moved to China (and Turkestan) as part of a planned effort amongst the Comintern to mimic patterns in the Manilla Community. Meanwhile Russians, Ukranians, and others, shifted increasingly to service work (a fair number would find themselves serving as management in Chinese or Central Asian factories though, a trend which led to significant intermarriage). Unfortunately the significant growth and increasing richness of the Socialist world began to strain the planning committees. A number of mistakes in Siberia mining companies that resulted in major overproduction of a few key resources led to a panic as planners tried to shift workers around then gradually snowballed into a Socialist recession. There wasn't true unemployment, but with oil prices dropping as British production recovered Moscow found itself with a significant cash shortfall resulting in a claw back of both wages and production of certain 'low profit' goods (those typically not exported) as an effort to balance out funds. Unfortunately most goods exported to Europe or the Manilla Pact were now produced in China not the Worker's Federation, and the shock was quite significant. To make matters worse the black market had been flourishing for some time and a drop in production led to a spike in violence as criminal groups used to skimming production now grew more desperate and fought with one another over limited supplies of items like toasters and radios. As the nation was sending cosmonauts to the moon they had protests over shoe shortages in Moscow. Some members of the governing committees discussed an economic liberalisation, others pushed for a massive increase in computer research, some wanted a hardline crackdown on protests. The largest group however pushed instead for political liberalisation. No longer would back room deals between various factions decide the future. 1987 saw the first General Election in the Worker's Federation, though in a mirror of Geneva Accord nations banning Communist parties the Worker's Federation banned Capitalist parties. The Communist Worker's Party won a plurality (a little over a quarter of the seats), the very moderate Social Democrats won roughly 1/5th of seats, the Technocratic Worker's Party and Anarchist Socialist Party each took about 1/6th of seats, and the remaining quarter was divided by a wide range of parties and independents. While the efforts at a planned economy still suffered from a computing shortfall the ability to pick who struggled with the task every 3 years certainly helped vent stress for the public. Socialist China would announce it's plan to hold similar elections in the year 2000 (or earlier if certain very ambitious targest were met).
The Bogata Compact had a similarly mixed decade. Economic growth returned with a vengeance. Various sections of the welfare net and environmental protection laws that had been put in place throughout the 1940s and 1950s found themselves repealed, given the blame for the stagnation of the 1960s and 1970s (obviously the highly oppressive government's and an anti-intellectualism trend in politics couldn't be to blame). New mines and factories sprung up across the country, and transfering most of the anti-guerilla activities to private security groups resulted in lower taxes (income shortfalls for these security groups were usually fixed by either pillaging or being sold land rights where plantations and sweat shops would be set up) both things which boosted the economy for the time. The various companies who's directors were high up in the Naco Party were able to take advantage of new laws, typically before the laws came into existance, quickly resulting in a number of smaller groups either being driven out of business or devoured by the emerging mega corporations. These mega corporations also found it easier to gain access to African markets, not being directly part of the Naco government. Conditions for Blacks also at first improved. Given opportunities to work in low safety standard factories or mines might not sound appealing, but it's worked throughout history, and for American Blacks who had often lived off a sort of grey market on the edge of society, robbed of any legal protections and often banned from holding anything more than transitory employment, it was very appealing. Whites mostly had less interest in such lines of work, resulting in the half abandoned cities in the north mostly filling with Black and Hispanic workers from the southern states, however as various agricultural subsidies began to lessen (a move which benefited the large mega corporations who ruled the new Naco party as it put small farmers into a situation where they had to sell their lands) not insignificant numbers of whites found themselves forced back into the cities and mining towns. Those who complained were labelled 'poor workers weakening the white race' (and frequently had rather questionable family trees discovered "proving" mixed heritage provided by the government to explain it). There were certain civil liberties reintroduced though, as large corporations wanted more freedom in advertising and to run PR moves for themselves via news networks certain freedom of speach restrictions were dissolved, travel grew easier domestically, and for many who still managed to work in agriculture, logging, or other 'clean and traditional' jobs life did improve.
Of course this drop in funding for anti-guerilla forces and rather poor effort at winning the hearts of Latin America may have reduced stress on Washington, but it made life for her Bogata Pact allies much harder. Various rebellions grew out of control and Brazil began to suffer serious economic strain maintaining troops in both Latin American and Central Africa. Some began to discuss adopting the Anarcho-Fascism policies as well, but with many of the American technocrats moving to Brazil that faction grew stronger and the anarcho-fascists began to be pushed from positions of power. Hints of a cooling in relations between Rio and Washington grew throughout the 1980s.
The shift in the US to a less militant stance was a major boon for Canada, especially as relations with Moscow also warmed. Military spending dropped and Canada now had a lot of money to spend. What on though? Why Canada's favourite thing to bankrupt itself with: rail infrastructure. Wanting to copy the success of Japanese bullet trains the St. Laurence Corridor and Calgary-Edmonton Corridor lines would be significant successes upon completion in 1983. By 1986 further lines started development, with the 1987 Trans-Canada Line theoretically connecting the East and West Coast with HSR (Newfoundland required ferry connections to the mainland, as did Vancouver Island, while Alaska Territory and the Yukon Province remained mostly cut off and Cook Territory[Chukotka] remained lacking in any real rail infrastructure, along with having few roads) the line proved a massive expense that when aligned with the Socialist Recession led to a prolonged stalling of the Canadian economy into the early 1990s. There was however still an improved sense of national unity by the project aided by a shift in royal succession.
King George VII had 4 children, the eldest girl (Princess Alice) was born in 1959, while the next three were sons born between 1962 and 1968. As such when the family had arrived in Canada to tour for the Centennial celebrations the daughter soon ecountered the Dutch crown prince Frederick William (the Dutch royal family spent most of their time in their Caribbean holdings, but were in Canada and especially Ottawa quite often and always visited the city for Canada Day each August). Frederick and Alice were roughly the same age, and the two young children became good friends during the month long tour by the House of Windsor (which the House of Orange followed in a move that deeply angered the socialist government in the Netherlands and also angered the young Labour government that was working to improve relations with said regime). The two would become pen pals, and travel across the Atlantic to visit the other as often as possible, to the increasing ire of the Labour prime ministers trying to mend relations with Amsterdam. As such when in 1978 a movement was put forward to reform the monarchy towards sexual equality it wound up with the left wing Labour party refusing reform while the Conservatives pushed the reform angle. In the end the motion failed to gain support in the UK and saw Australians muttering quietly, but in Canada the movement was very popular, Princess Alice's frequent trips to Canada had made her seen as the most Canadian member of the royal family. Then in 1983 she and Frederick married in Kingston Jamaica to the surprise of most apart from their immediate families (it had been known that the British Prime Minister would do everything possible to halt such a marriage). Prime Minister Elysse Riel (Canada's first female and first Metis PM) was quick to push through a change in Canadian succession laws for gender equality almost as soon as news of the marriage got out (there had been talk before the marriage to perhaps shift from the house of Windsor to the house of Orange as the latter spent much more time in Canada, a dynastic union made life much easier). While King George VII was still likely to be king for a couple more decades when the law was passed (being only 53 at the time) it still marked a step for increased Canadian inependence, and the young couple would only return to Europe for two brief vacations during the rest of the 1980s.
Dorozhand
Banned
OTL poland was more wanked than that. No direct annexation of the Ukraine or Prussia? And how about settlement eastwards to the Pacific, or a colonial empire, or Alsace-Lorraine?
Also, bollocks in advance to the notion that OTL is dead even. Countries that historically have had an inordinately lucky or unlucky existence can be described as having been wanked or screwed in OTL. Such recursive thought experiments are what Alternate History already plays with anyway. It's all relative.
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