You know what you're talking about, well done. This was indeed intended to subtly imply how the Societists metamorphosed from Flags Are Evil -> Plain Black Flag -> GREAT BIG HONKIN' CENTRAL SYMBOL.

Ah. I was thinking of it as a "take that" of sorts at the Hermanidad. Rather than having the central power be the hub for the client state spokes, all the nations — or their falsely divided unitary people, I suppose — are interconnected, each drawing strength from one another, and those connections cut across the symbolic "border lines" of the hub-and-spokes model.
 
And the flags of La Hermandad. That lozenge border on the bottom flag could use some refining, but you get the idea.

Note the recolouring of some of the flags to fit in line with Meridian norms.

So La Hermanad is less like a partnership of equals and more like the Warsaw Pact, with countries retaining some form of autonomy while the large power (UPSA/USSR) clearly dominates?
 

Thande

Donor
Ah. I was thinking of it as a "take that" of sorts at the Hermanidad. Rather than having the central power be the hub for the client state spokes, all the nations — or their falsely divided unitary people, I suppose — are interconnected, each drawing strength from one another, and those connections cut across the symbolic "border lines" of the hub-and-spokes model.

Very interesting point: the three lines of the Societist Eye are indeed intended to imply interconnectivity and drawing strength from each other--they are based on the old puzzle of how do you make three sticks hold up an egg (say) suspended over the rim of a glass, when it is possible to interlock them in this way and have each one held up by the other two.

By the way the 'hub' symbol on the Hermandad flag is borrowed from, of all things, the Provisional Government of Vietnam flag from OTL.

So La Hermanad is less like a partnership of equals and more like the Warsaw Pact, with countries retaining some form of autonomy while the large power (UPSA/USSR) clearly dominates?

It's like the Warsaw Pact in that it's more formalised through treaty etc., but in practice it's more like the relationship the USA had with Latin America (especially Central America) in the late nineteenth century.
 

Deleted member 67076

Poor Mexico, never gets to be a great power for long.
Just like how Brazil will always be country of the future. A future which will never come.

If I ever do a timeline set after 1500, I'm definitely considering a Mexico wank now.

I'm hoping Jared one day does that timeline he considered at one point (but did Lands of Red and Gold instead) whose point is to avert that.

Maximum Mexico would be a fun read.
 
It's like the Warsaw Pact in that it's more formalised through treaty etc., but in practice it's more like the relationship the USA had with Latin America (especially Central America) in the late nineteenth century.

What's the legal mechanism here? I can't imagine member states would appreciate a provision like "Hermanidad laws override members' laws" if the laws of the league can just be changed by executive order of the Meridian president. Is there some kind of "representative" legislature?

Maximum Mexico would be a fun read.

I have some ideas along those lines floating around for my mesquite domestication timeline, which I've been postponing indefinitely ever since my old computer's HD dive and took all my notes. Need to see if I can recover them somehow...
 
Nice flags!

I guess we're seeing the first stages of what will in the future become the Societist Combine.

I didn't expect the Cape republic to be a member though. This also kinda kills off the idea of 'Dutch-speaking' world which was mentioned waaaaaay back. I may be wrong though. (I hope I am.)

What about Formosa though? Are they allied with the UPSA?
 
Alright, in that case I will insert a sentence to that effect.

Thanks. :)

I didn't expect the Cape republic to be a member though. This also kinda kills off the idea of 'Dutch-speaking' world which was mentioned waaaaaay back. I may be wrong though. (I hope I am.)

How 'Dutch' are the Batavian and the Guyana republics at this point (mid-1860s) anyway?
Both were founded by exiled Dutch who are only a small minority in their new countries.
The elite of the Guyana Republic is supposedly already half-Spanish-speaking.

What about Formosa though? Are they allied with the UPSA?

Formosa is too independent minded to join La Hermandad.
Also, Feng China would object and unlike New Spain, it is a rising power.

Thande said:
In practice the new Republic of Formosa ended up being more of a Meridian puppet than a BEIC one, though it retained more of an independent streak than either would have liked. The declaration of a republic also irked the Feng leadership, even though they continued to appoint a governor for the island who was acknowledged in a perfunctory way.
 

Thande

Donor
What's the legal mechanism here? I can't imagine member states would appreciate a provision like "Hermanidad laws override members' laws" if the laws of the league can just be changed by executive order of the Meridian president. Is there some kind of "representative" legislature?
I don't think legislatures for these economic pacts were really a thing in nineteenth century thinking. The treaties the Hermandad are based on will basically not say much beyond 'free trade area' and 'mutual defence pact' - Meridian dominance is unofficial. Perhaps ironically one example that springs to mind is Argentina's relationship with the UK in the late 19th century: in theory there would be no legal way the UK could influence Argentine politics, but in practice Argentina was so wedded to the British trade system (and was dependent on Britain for railways etc.) that it could.
 
I would imagine the Meridians would say that they will no longer take part in Hermanidad treaties with any country where slavery is legal would be the theoretical mechanism, so technically it's them threatening to withdraw and start their own, but because of their dominance that would in practice be the "real" one?
 

Thande

Donor
I would imagine the Meridians would say that they will no longer take part in Hermanidad treaties with any country where slavery is legal would be the theoretical mechanism, so technically it's them threatening to withdraw and start their own, but because of their dominance that would in practice be the "real" one?

Yeah, basically they're adding 'you must comply with these 'Meridian Values' as a requirement for being in the Hermandad'. Carolina merely declaring itself no longer a part of the Hermandad would therefore be legal, just a pre-emptive move before they would be expelled for refusing to end slavery, but the Meridians use the fact that it was a coup government issuing the declaration to justify taking it as illegal and 'taking military action to restore the legitimate government'.
 
I'm hoping Jared one day does that timeline he considered at one point (but did Lands of Red and Gold instead) whose point is to avert that.

You rang? :D

Maximum Mexico is unfortunately one of those projects which is unlikely to see the light of day for several years, if ever. For a variety of reasons, I settled on LoRaG instead, such as having greater novelty, and knowing more about the geography and history of Australia than I ever did of Mexico. Plus, the language barrier (being an ignorant anglophone monoglot) meant that finding decent information on Mexico was a challenge.

Nowadays, I don't even want to think about the level of effort required to bring another DoD or LoRaG-scale epic timeline to fruition. Too many other things in my life. And anything less than that would not being doing justice to the idea.

My current ideas are for shorter projects, of which I have a couple in the works in between working on LoRaG chapters.

If I ever do a timeline set after 1500, I'm definitely considering a Mexico wank now.

I can certainly understand the sentiment, just that it's unlikely that I could put it into practice.
 

Thande

Donor
You rang? :D

Maximum Mexico is unfortunately one of those projects which is unlikely to see the light of day for several years, if ever. For a variety of reasons, I settled on LoRaG instead, such as having greater novelty, and knowing more about the geography and history of Australia than I ever did of Mexico. Plus, the language barrier (being an ignorant anglophone monoglot) meant that finding decent information on Mexico was a challenge.

Nowadays, I don't even want to think about the level of effort required to bring another DoD or LoRaG-scale epic timeline to fruition. Too many other things in my life. And anything less than that would not being doing justice to the idea.

My current ideas are for shorter projects, of which I have a couple in the works in between working on LoRaG chapters.

I think you made the right choice by doing LoRaG as it offers much more scope for interesting things and MM would have been too similar to DoD in the areas it covers - but I would be interested in seeing it one day. It does seem as though it need not be as epic in scope as those two if you don't cover the world outside North America in as much detail...
 
Yeah, LORAG is undoubtedly one of the most unique works on the forum and it would be a shame to have lost that.

But for everyone wanting a bit of Mexico-loving, Arkhangelsk has a pretty good TL starting with a PoD at independence- Mexico is very much replacing the US as the dominant power in North America there.
 

Thande

Donor
Hey, did the Empire of North America change its flag after Carolina left?

Yeah, I posted the new flags here. It mentions in the text of the preceding posts that some early versions took off the star on the cross for Carolina (or turned it upside down and/or black) but the version they settled on left it on because tradition > logic.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Yeah, I posted the new flags here. It mentions in the text of the preceding posts that some early versions took off the star on the cross for Carolina (or turned it upside down and/or black) but the version they settled on left it on because tradition > logic.

My apologize, I just saw that on the wiki. I'm kind of amused that they ENA has ditched the Union Jack over a century before Canada (let alone Australia).
 
My apologize, I just saw that on the wiki. I'm kind of amused that they ENA has ditched the Union Jack over a century before Canada (let alone Australia).

It makes sense, since *America/*the Americans were settled 175-ish years before English Canada and Australia and had all that time to build an identity pre-independence, and much more populated and politically autonomous before those areas at all stages of their history. Not to mention self-government in 1788 and de-jure independence in 1828 in TTL.
 

Thande

Donor
My apologize, I just saw that on the wiki. I'm kind of amused that they ENA has ditched the Union Jack over a century before Canada (let alone Australia).

Well, it helps that it's not just a case of breaking ties with the mother country, it's sparked by an argument in the 1840s over whether it should be changed to reflect the fact that Britain has changed its version, so that uncertainty helped fuel the later move to switch it (plus the whole Supremacist Liberal clean break with the past after the Patriots 'try to ignore the world has changed' attitude publicly failed).

You will note that the Confederations mostly changed the Union Jack canton to a miniature simplified version of the ENA flag itself, but New York didn't--which I mainly put in just because real life is never neat and in reality you never get every provincial or state flag fitting a consistent template pattern like you do in a lot of ATLs.
 
You know what you're talking about, well done. This was indeed intended to subtly imply how the Societists metamorphosed from Flags Are Evil -> Plain Black Flag -> GREAT BIG HONKIN' CENTRAL SYMBOL.

Very subtly. I confess I still don't see it.
 
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