The Union Forever: A TL
- Thread starter Mac Gregor
- Start date
Congralutions @Mac Gregor , you are at once an accomplished writer (both on AH.com and in real life), lawyer, spouse, and father.
I wish you total and comprehensive success in your future endeavors.
Cheers! And thanks for a timeline that enlivened all of us!
I wish you total and comprehensive success in your future endeavors.
Cheers! And thanks for a timeline that enlivened all of us!
Congrats on all the good news @Mac Gregor , I will eagerly await your return.
Thanks for all the kind words guys! TimTurner, while I’m not a lawyer I appreciate your motion of support. Merry Christmas everyone.
Thank you for the great TL, MacGregor! Do you mind posting the entire TL in the finished TL section?
So I’ve been doing this very slowly as a lot of the old sections need some editing. I won’t be finishing it anytime soon but will do it one of theses days. Sorry.
2026: Foreign and Domestic Developments
Hey everyone, not saying this TL is back but with the corona virus going on I thought we could all use a pick me up. Enjoy!
2026
Foreign and Domestic Developments
Americans celebrating their national semiquincentennial in Philadelphia
In a hospital in Kobe, Japan a button cell battery was removed by a tiny surgical drone after being swallowed by 17-month-old Murakami Eisuke. The procedure was credited as a breakthrough in treating similar accidents which kill or injure hundreds of children annually. Once inserted, the drone’s ice covering melts and it uses a small magnet to attach to the foreign object. An external magnetic field is then used to steer the battery outside of the body.
A number of border clashes were reported between troops loyal to the democratic government in Lagos and Usman Bankole’s regime to the north in the State of Islamic Nigeria. Despite intermittent fighting, the peace continued to hold. Elsewhere on the continent, Angola and Mozambique were formally admitted into the Coalition for a Democratic Africa. In the Congo, Léon Mihambo reconsolidate his hold on power and even managed to secure an impressive reconstruction loan from the Technocratic Union.
Researchers with the Technate of China’s Directorate of Health continued experimentation with human gene editing. In March, scientists announced a breakthrough in altering single-nucleotide polymorphism in eight children that made them significantly less susceptible to a variety of diseases including sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. Many ethicists and religious leaders in the West decried this development as a crime against nature.
In Los Angeles the Hutagaol family opened Entoteria, a restaurant specializing in dishes containing insects. Considered a curiosity by some gourmets and gross by many in the public, Entoteria proved popular enough with health and environmentally conscious customers for two more restaurants to open by the end of the year. Some pointed to Entotoeria’s success as a visible manifestation of the recent growth in highly efficient insect farming, though the overwhelming majority of insect food stock was processed into animal and fish feed.
On the moon, a joint venture by Germany’s Imperial Space and Aeronautics Commission, the Russian Empire’s Aviation and Space Bureau, and a number of private space companies successfully used electrolysis to extract certain valuable metals form lunar regolith. This and other recent advances applying in situ resource utilization promised to greatly expand moon based industries over the coming years.
On July 4th, the United States celebrated its Semiquincentennial. America commemorated 250 years of independence with a host of parades and observances throughout the country. An unabashedly patriotic XXVIII Summer Olympics were held in Philadelphia.
In the summer, a severe heatwave swept through much of the northern hemisphere. Record draughts occurred in many countries especially on the Indian subcontinent. Particularly hard hit was Hyderabad where the Nizam’s cabinet struggled to provide relief. While the government attempted to deflect attention to the drought’s likely cause global warming, the nation’s inhabitants, known as Mulki “countrymen”, focused their anger at the state’s Muslim monarchy, which was increasingly viewed as foreign and archaic despite attempts by Nizam Asaf Jah IX to modernize and include Hindus.
During a well-publicized address commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the first Martian landing, President Desmond Parker declared that America would establish a permanent presence on Mars by 2036. Many thought of this announcement as an attempt to upstage China which went on to launch its first manned mission to the Red Planet in November.
In the fall, the Association of European States started operating a massive new particle accelerator, the Dieffenbach Supercollider (DSC). The project cost billions of German marks and upon completion became the largest machine in the world. Scientists around the globe hoped that the DSC would lead to impressive breakthroughs in particle physics in the near future.
As is common in midterm elections, the balance of power in the United States Congress shifted away from the sitting president’s party with the Democrats capturing the Senate and reducing the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The new Senate Majority Leader, Harry Molina of Nebraska, became a leading critic of President Parker’s policies claiming they were “infeasible by a Congress honor bound to abide by the balanced budget provisions of the 18th Amendment.”
Virtual copies of particular objects, known as digital twins, were increasingly used for modeling and predicative analysis. Once only employed for expensive technically complex individual items such as aircraft engines or nuclear reactors, digital twins are now used by computers to track maintenance and run system simulations for everything from kitchen appliances to autonomous taxis and human hearts.
In December, the Seychelles achieved dominion status in the Commonwealth of Nations, ending over two centuries of British colonial rule. With just over 100,000 citizens, the archipelago, long reliant on European tourism, sought to position itself as a conduit between Africa and the nations of the Middle East and the growing economic heft of the Community of South Asian States.
Flag of the Seychelles Commonwealth
2026
Foreign and Domestic Developments
Americans celebrating their national semiquincentennial in Philadelphia
In a hospital in Kobe, Japan a button cell battery was removed by a tiny surgical drone after being swallowed by 17-month-old Murakami Eisuke. The procedure was credited as a breakthrough in treating similar accidents which kill or injure hundreds of children annually. Once inserted, the drone’s ice covering melts and it uses a small magnet to attach to the foreign object. An external magnetic field is then used to steer the battery outside of the body.
A number of border clashes were reported between troops loyal to the democratic government in Lagos and Usman Bankole’s regime to the north in the State of Islamic Nigeria. Despite intermittent fighting, the peace continued to hold. Elsewhere on the continent, Angola and Mozambique were formally admitted into the Coalition for a Democratic Africa. In the Congo, Léon Mihambo reconsolidate his hold on power and even managed to secure an impressive reconstruction loan from the Technocratic Union.
Researchers with the Technate of China’s Directorate of Health continued experimentation with human gene editing. In March, scientists announced a breakthrough in altering single-nucleotide polymorphism in eight children that made them significantly less susceptible to a variety of diseases including sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. Many ethicists and religious leaders in the West decried this development as a crime against nature.
In Los Angeles the Hutagaol family opened Entoteria, a restaurant specializing in dishes containing insects. Considered a curiosity by some gourmets and gross by many in the public, Entoteria proved popular enough with health and environmentally conscious customers for two more restaurants to open by the end of the year. Some pointed to Entotoeria’s success as a visible manifestation of the recent growth in highly efficient insect farming, though the overwhelming majority of insect food stock was processed into animal and fish feed.
On the moon, a joint venture by Germany’s Imperial Space and Aeronautics Commission, the Russian Empire’s Aviation and Space Bureau, and a number of private space companies successfully used electrolysis to extract certain valuable metals form lunar regolith. This and other recent advances applying in situ resource utilization promised to greatly expand moon based industries over the coming years.
On July 4th, the United States celebrated its Semiquincentennial. America commemorated 250 years of independence with a host of parades and observances throughout the country. An unabashedly patriotic XXVIII Summer Olympics were held in Philadelphia.
In the summer, a severe heatwave swept through much of the northern hemisphere. Record draughts occurred in many countries especially on the Indian subcontinent. Particularly hard hit was Hyderabad where the Nizam’s cabinet struggled to provide relief. While the government attempted to deflect attention to the drought’s likely cause global warming, the nation’s inhabitants, known as Mulki “countrymen”, focused their anger at the state’s Muslim monarchy, which was increasingly viewed as foreign and archaic despite attempts by Nizam Asaf Jah IX to modernize and include Hindus.
During a well-publicized address commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the first Martian landing, President Desmond Parker declared that America would establish a permanent presence on Mars by 2036. Many thought of this announcement as an attempt to upstage China which went on to launch its first manned mission to the Red Planet in November.
In the fall, the Association of European States started operating a massive new particle accelerator, the Dieffenbach Supercollider (DSC). The project cost billions of German marks and upon completion became the largest machine in the world. Scientists around the globe hoped that the DSC would lead to impressive breakthroughs in particle physics in the near future.
As is common in midterm elections, the balance of power in the United States Congress shifted away from the sitting president’s party with the Democrats capturing the Senate and reducing the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The new Senate Majority Leader, Harry Molina of Nebraska, became a leading critic of President Parker’s policies claiming they were “infeasible by a Congress honor bound to abide by the balanced budget provisions of the 18th Amendment.”
Virtual copies of particular objects, known as digital twins, were increasingly used for modeling and predicative analysis. Once only employed for expensive technically complex individual items such as aircraft engines or nuclear reactors, digital twins are now used by computers to track maintenance and run system simulations for everything from kitchen appliances to autonomous taxis and human hearts.
In December, the Seychelles achieved dominion status in the Commonwealth of Nations, ending over two centuries of British colonial rule. With just over 100,000 citizens, the archipelago, long reliant on European tourism, sought to position itself as a conduit between Africa and the nations of the Middle East and the growing economic heft of the Community of South Asian States.
Flag of the Seychelles Commonwealth
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Honestly this was good to see alive again.
It ties very well with The Highwaymen singing American Remains for some reason.
It ties very well with The Highwaymen singing American Remains for some reason.
Hello! I discovered TUF a few weeks ago and just finished it today, it’s very impressively well thought-out! I also have a question about it that I don’t think has been addressed yet—how did personal computing develop? Are laptops or smartphones as widespread as OTL, or are things like smartwatches or AR glasses more common? I’m not sure if this timeline is dead or just temporarily inactive, but if it‘s the latter, I look forward to seeing the future of this timeline!
Greetings! Glad you enjoyed the timeline and thanks for the support. Personal computing did indeed develop in the timeline. As you probably came across in your reading in 1972 Janssen Computing Machines unveiled the JCM Innovator-72 considered the first practical home computer. 11 years later JCM came out with the Nebula-83 which put a computer in millions of American homes. Later in the '80s JCM ceded leadership in personal computers to Vantage Industries whose Portal Master was much more conducive to logging on to the globtrix. Laptops (known as commuter computers ITTL) are developed by several manufacturers in the 1990s. In 2023, Avant, a subsidiary of California Electric, greatly expanded the availability of wearable computers such as bracelets, watches, belts, etc. Augmented and Virtual Reality also exists and are expanding fields as the world approaches the 2030s.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has any questions.
Happy Juneteenth y'all!
The seafloor is quite deep in the middle, the currents and conditions are strong and treacherous, and there's an active fault line thrown in for good measure. This article does a good job of explaining the myriad issues: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/prog...2018631183/tunnel-vision-on-bridge-to-nowhere.
Now, this _is_ an alternate timeline, but I don't see where tech is advanced enough to make this physically possible by 2020, let alone 2001. There are some pretty hard limits on engineering projects like this and being ahead in areas like spaceflight won't really get you much progress on them unfortunately.
Also, I don't see how NZ would be different enough to justify it economically.
Thanks for asking 😃
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Good points. Anyone else care to comment? Would an Archimedes Bridge be more practical?
A bridge like that of which Greece built in 2004 might work. But no tunnel.
Rio–Antirrio Bridge - Wikipedia
A bridge like that of which Greece built in 2004 might work. But no tunnel.
Rio–Antirrio Bridge - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
it would have to be much longer to go across the Cook strait
It could be done, if the will and money exist for it.
Whether that exists is your call.
For what its worth technology does seem a bit more advanced than IRL 2000. So that's a plus for such a bridge being able to be built.