Map Thread XV
- Thread starter rvbomally
- Start date
- Status
Well, it was basically the only one in Europe for centuries traiding with Asia and Africa besides for the Italians. And even then, the Italians did it by paying the Ottomans for transit rights.
A Guangdong-Guangxi state centered in Guangzhou seems viable, maybe as a British sphere of influence or a Hong Kong on steroid overdose.
I intend this to be more of a 1950s POD, so no influence zones, the data I provided is OTL 2016 China statistics. But yeah a Guangdong-Guangxi state minus the Hakka and Min ethnic parts seems good.A Guangdong-Guangxi state centered in Guangzhou seems viable, maybe as a British sphere of influence or a Hong Kong on steroid overdose.
Just don't forget to put Hainan and Northeast Guangdong around Teochew in the Min state. Also the Guangxi coast & cities for Canton if you're going full dialect in Southern China.
Korea having the changbai Mountains (damn you autocorrect) would also work if balkanization is your thing. A Han OPM in Urmqi & other Xinjiang cities too.
As one of this board's Qingophiles, I'd recommend attaching everything West of Chahar in Inner Mongolia, Liaoning or even Beijing (OK maybe not Beijing
) to Manchuria.You might also want to look into Yunnan's linguistic and ethnic divisions. That or carve out a huge Dali/Pingnanguo in Yunnan-Guizhou.
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Ok... my first real map in years. I was working on my Independent Tibet project but was running into a problem regarding Africa. So this one became an obsession of mine for a week. Deviantart link.
001. His Kingdom Come
I was raised in a conservative Christian home that treated the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins as an inevitable future happening (and most likely within our lifetimes). Since I've grown up, traveled the world, became a secular person with Buddhist leanings, I have come to realize Left Behind for what it is: Biblical Fanfiction.
That said, this is a Skeptic's take on the world of "Left Behind:"
In 1991, after years of research in the Amazon Rainforest, Israeli scientist Chaim Rosenzweig synthesizes a compound, Edenium and puts it into industrial level production. Edenium, acting as a fertilizer, makes virtually any soil arable. The compound is intensely guarded as a state secret. The compound makes Israel one of the region's most productive centers of agricultural growth and development, exporting food to markets around the world. In 1993, Chaim Rosenzweig is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1994, jealous and eager to use Edenium on the Siberian tundra, negotiations between Israel and the young Russian Federation break down, and a short invasion, entirely air based, takes place, and is quickly destroyed and rebuffed before the UN can step in establish peace between the two countries.
And then in 1995, it happens. A third of the world's population vanishes into thin air. "The Rapture," as it's come to be called in both Christian and secular circles, seems to be indiscriminate: taking people seemingly at random. Though the Christians of the world point to it as the rapture: the coming of the end of days.
The trauma that grips the world seems to spiral out of control until a former Romanian President and new UN Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia comes to power. He is young, handsome, eloquent, and highly intelligent. He's certainly no saint, as mysterious bank leaks slowly come to light, but the world is so eager for a strong, calm, steady hand, that they quickly coalesce around Carpathia and his easy answer of some sort of quantum interaction regarding lightning and nuclear weapons.
What follows is a series of world-wide disarmament treaties. The sticking point being, of course, Israel. "How can we stand in peace if Israel exists?" says everyone, still. Carpathia, who happens to share connections to Rosenzweig through mysteriously dead bankers, negotiates personally with the Israeli chemist and the UN Security Council and together signs a seven-year treaty consisting of unrestricted access to Edenium, followed by preferential trade agreements, and a percentage of agricultural revenues from countries that take part in the opportunity.
Slowly, this unrestricted growth of the UN, and the shift to unified global finances under the dollar begins to tank the economy of the global north to the benefit of the global south. The UN - now renamed the Global Community - sees its largest successes in Africa. It puts its Israeli treaty to work re-fertilizing the Sahel, federalizing west African states, and stabilizing the Congo and Great Lakes Region (funny how LaHaya and Jenkins never mentioned the massive civil war happening in Africa at the time of their writing about unchecked growth of the UN contemporary with the largest buildup of UN Peacekeepers in all history).
This leads to GC-Skeptics led by Far Right movements in the global north. The United States is at the forefront of this movement, and makes allies, most notably in Egypt and the United Kingdom. Their goal - blitz the GC, secure remaining armories and weaponry facilities in the GC and key allies, transfer Edenium factories and rights to Washington, London, and Cairo - fails spectacularly. Informants to Carpathia tipped him off about the war (it was Carpathia's old banks who funded Far Right movements in the US and UK) and he struck at the Allies only minutes before the blitz was scheduled. The UK is torn apart, the US is weakened: all non contiguous islands are stripped from her sovreignty, and the overseas bases outlined in the old Lend-Lease act are transferred to Sarajevo (the administrative capital of the GC).
Israel, China, and Russia are all too happy to feed the beast at the expense of the Atlantic Allies. Carpathia's uncheck world dominance feeds into his personality cult (he's The Nicolae, only he looks more like Brad Pitt and less like a sun-dried tomato), his narcissism, and his eccentricity. It culminates during a victory celebration with Carpathia's assasination. An even he survives, but loses all touch with reality. He expands the centralization of his government, and begins a bizarre series of actions, from issuing global identity cards (that religious extremists are SO eager to publish numerology books about) to legitimately creepy ceremonies blasphemously slaughtering a pig on the steps of the rebuilt Temple of Jerusalem, to moving the capital of the Community to Babylon, to the detriment of archeologists as well as policy-making experts, the powers benefitting from the Global Community (mostly Africa, followed by Russia and China) are willing to indulge his bizarre obsession with the Middle East so long as they keep the supply of Edenium flowing.
And a good thing it exists, too. Edenium helps, but a long series of natural disasters (global flooding, earthquakes, two asteroid impacts, nuclear winter, volcanic eruptions, bizarre infestations of previously unknown insects and plagues) did their best to cause global institutions to collapse as best they could. Only the steady hand of local administrators and the human desire for order amidst chaos keeeps the world on the brink of collapse.
But don't get excited, it's still the apocalypse.
World War III is over, but Christian Extremism is still seeing a meteoric rise in all nations. Massive rebellions cause the United States, still reeling over their loss in the war, to declare martial law. Russia and China basically end up abandoning vast tracks of their central Asian possessions. The breaking point occurs when Israel elects a Far Right Christian government into the Knesset. The new government immediately withdraws from the GC, rescinds the Edenium Treaty, and declares the "Great Crusade" against "the demon realm of the anti-christ," (the Global Community). Carpathia assembles an army to rival pre-Barbarossa Wermacht and then assaults Israel. The war lasts for three days. Victory for the GC seems apparent, until the Angelic Host, the Army of Righteousness attacks Carpathia and his army from the rear, slaughtering millions.
The Angelic Host, believed by its supporters to be divine, is led by a man calling himself "Jesus Christ." Here on earth, it can be traced from Christian rebels and exiles escaping the United States and Canada, crossing into Russia, and gathering support and steam from countries as they went. They crossed inner Asia on a mystical and certainly troublesome journey, picking up abandoned weaponry, and old supplies. When they arrived in Israel, they were millions strong.
World War IV over, Carpathia and his lieutenants are captured, judged by King Jesus to be guilty of idolatry, and banished to an eternity in the lake of fire. King Jesus establishes the "Kingdom of Jerusalem" set to last for a millenium until the last of the Earth falls to the Angelic Host, and the dragon is released from hell one last time.
The world that is left behind in 2002, Seven Years after the Rapture and the signing of the Edenium Treaty, is not familiar in any way. The population has been cut down by 2/3. Roving gangs of religious extremists, including former navy captains who've taken their ships and gone pirate, roam the earth. Loyal only to themselves, they serve as a roving possible Jerusalemite navy.
King Jesus, for being a delusional mystic leading an army of religious extremists, proves to be a capable and peaceful ruler. He stood on the steps of the temple after the Trial of the Antichrist, and recited the entire Old Testament, New Testament, and (to the surprise of many) the Qur'an. And then he... promptly shut up. They would be the last words King Jesus would ever speak, leaving the day-to-day running of the Kingdom to his Council of Twelve, representing the twelve major schools of religious thought in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, inflated and constantly changing via immigration. Mostly in the form of Mormon, Watchtower Society, and Evangelical immigrants to the Kingdom.
Jerusalem, for all its dark history, is reborn with culture and theological development. Turns out having hundreds of languages, cultures, and ideas isn't such a bad thing in one city.
Not everything is fine and dandy, though. Russia and China have collapsed into civil wars rivalling the worst moments of the Twentieth Century. Pro-Jerusalemite rebellions and violent factions supporting Jerusalemite annexation plague every habitable continent, and global inequality is at an all-time high.
The Global Community, shed of the insane Carpathia, is actually stronger for it. The new Potentate (quietly renamed to Secretary-General) is a South African economist who is more interested in the steady, guiding, hand rather than an active, aggressive force obssessed with pet projects.
Everything slowly stabilizes until 2063. King Jesus, sacred, holy, beloved by the people, is gray and frail. He can't die. He's immortal. He said his reign would last a thousand years. Yet it's impossible to hide the developing arthritis, his snow-white hair, and the stroke he barely survived a decade earlier. It's impossible not to notice. And yet... the future has never seemed to uncertain.
001. His Kingdom Come
I was raised in a conservative Christian home that treated the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins as an inevitable future happening (and most likely within our lifetimes). Since I've grown up, traveled the world, became a secular person with Buddhist leanings, I have come to realize Left Behind for what it is: Biblical Fanfiction.
That said, this is a Skeptic's take on the world of "Left Behind:"
In 1991, after years of research in the Amazon Rainforest, Israeli scientist Chaim Rosenzweig synthesizes a compound, Edenium and puts it into industrial level production. Edenium, acting as a fertilizer, makes virtually any soil arable. The compound is intensely guarded as a state secret. The compound makes Israel one of the region's most productive centers of agricultural growth and development, exporting food to markets around the world. In 1993, Chaim Rosenzweig is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1994, jealous and eager to use Edenium on the Siberian tundra, negotiations between Israel and the young Russian Federation break down, and a short invasion, entirely air based, takes place, and is quickly destroyed and rebuffed before the UN can step in establish peace between the two countries.
And then in 1995, it happens. A third of the world's population vanishes into thin air. "The Rapture," as it's come to be called in both Christian and secular circles, seems to be indiscriminate: taking people seemingly at random. Though the Christians of the world point to it as the rapture: the coming of the end of days.
The trauma that grips the world seems to spiral out of control until a former Romanian President and new UN Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia comes to power. He is young, handsome, eloquent, and highly intelligent. He's certainly no saint, as mysterious bank leaks slowly come to light, but the world is so eager for a strong, calm, steady hand, that they quickly coalesce around Carpathia and his easy answer of some sort of quantum interaction regarding lightning and nuclear weapons.
What follows is a series of world-wide disarmament treaties. The sticking point being, of course, Israel. "How can we stand in peace if Israel exists?" says everyone, still. Carpathia, who happens to share connections to Rosenzweig through mysteriously dead bankers, negotiates personally with the Israeli chemist and the UN Security Council and together signs a seven-year treaty consisting of unrestricted access to Edenium, followed by preferential trade agreements, and a percentage of agricultural revenues from countries that take part in the opportunity.
Slowly, this unrestricted growth of the UN, and the shift to unified global finances under the dollar begins to tank the economy of the global north to the benefit of the global south. The UN - now renamed the Global Community - sees its largest successes in Africa. It puts its Israeli treaty to work re-fertilizing the Sahel, federalizing west African states, and stabilizing the Congo and Great Lakes Region (funny how LaHaya and Jenkins never mentioned the massive civil war happening in Africa at the time of their writing about unchecked growth of the UN contemporary with the largest buildup of UN Peacekeepers in all history).
This leads to GC-Skeptics led by Far Right movements in the global north. The United States is at the forefront of this movement, and makes allies, most notably in Egypt and the United Kingdom. Their goal - blitz the GC, secure remaining armories and weaponry facilities in the GC and key allies, transfer Edenium factories and rights to Washington, London, and Cairo - fails spectacularly. Informants to Carpathia tipped him off about the war (it was Carpathia's old banks who funded Far Right movements in the US and UK) and he struck at the Allies only minutes before the blitz was scheduled. The UK is torn apart, the US is weakened: all non contiguous islands are stripped from her sovreignty, and the overseas bases outlined in the old Lend-Lease act are transferred to Sarajevo (the administrative capital of the GC).
Israel, China, and Russia are all too happy to feed the beast at the expense of the Atlantic Allies. Carpathia's uncheck world dominance feeds into his personality cult (he's The Nicolae, only he looks more like Brad Pitt and less like a sun-dried tomato), his narcissism, and his eccentricity. It culminates during a victory celebration with Carpathia's assasination. An even he survives, but loses all touch with reality. He expands the centralization of his government, and begins a bizarre series of actions, from issuing global identity cards (that religious extremists are SO eager to publish numerology books about) to legitimately creepy ceremonies blasphemously slaughtering a pig on the steps of the rebuilt Temple of Jerusalem, to moving the capital of the Community to Babylon, to the detriment of archeologists as well as policy-making experts, the powers benefitting from the Global Community (mostly Africa, followed by Russia and China) are willing to indulge his bizarre obsession with the Middle East so long as they keep the supply of Edenium flowing.
And a good thing it exists, too. Edenium helps, but a long series of natural disasters (global flooding, earthquakes, two asteroid impacts, nuclear winter, volcanic eruptions, bizarre infestations of previously unknown insects and plagues) did their best to cause global institutions to collapse as best they could. Only the steady hand of local administrators and the human desire for order amidst chaos keeeps the world on the brink of collapse.
But don't get excited, it's still the apocalypse.
World War III is over, but Christian Extremism is still seeing a meteoric rise in all nations. Massive rebellions cause the United States, still reeling over their loss in the war, to declare martial law. Russia and China basically end up abandoning vast tracks of their central Asian possessions. The breaking point occurs when Israel elects a Far Right Christian government into the Knesset. The new government immediately withdraws from the GC, rescinds the Edenium Treaty, and declares the "Great Crusade" against "the demon realm of the anti-christ," (the Global Community). Carpathia assembles an army to rival pre-Barbarossa Wermacht and then assaults Israel. The war lasts for three days. Victory for the GC seems apparent, until the Angelic Host, the Army of Righteousness attacks Carpathia and his army from the rear, slaughtering millions.
The Angelic Host, believed by its supporters to be divine, is led by a man calling himself "Jesus Christ." Here on earth, it can be traced from Christian rebels and exiles escaping the United States and Canada, crossing into Russia, and gathering support and steam from countries as they went. They crossed inner Asia on a mystical and certainly troublesome journey, picking up abandoned weaponry, and old supplies. When they arrived in Israel, they were millions strong.
World War IV over, Carpathia and his lieutenants are captured, judged by King Jesus to be guilty of idolatry, and banished to an eternity in the lake of fire. King Jesus establishes the "Kingdom of Jerusalem" set to last for a millenium until the last of the Earth falls to the Angelic Host, and the dragon is released from hell one last time.
The world that is left behind in 2002, Seven Years after the Rapture and the signing of the Edenium Treaty, is not familiar in any way. The population has been cut down by 2/3. Roving gangs of religious extremists, including former navy captains who've taken their ships and gone pirate, roam the earth. Loyal only to themselves, they serve as a roving possible Jerusalemite navy.
King Jesus, for being a delusional mystic leading an army of religious extremists, proves to be a capable and peaceful ruler. He stood on the steps of the temple after the Trial of the Antichrist, and recited the entire Old Testament, New Testament, and (to the surprise of many) the Qur'an. And then he... promptly shut up. They would be the last words King Jesus would ever speak, leaving the day-to-day running of the Kingdom to his Council of Twelve, representing the twelve major schools of religious thought in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, inflated and constantly changing via immigration. Mostly in the form of Mormon, Watchtower Society, and Evangelical immigrants to the Kingdom.
Jerusalem, for all its dark history, is reborn with culture and theological development. Turns out having hundreds of languages, cultures, and ideas isn't such a bad thing in one city.
Not everything is fine and dandy, though. Russia and China have collapsed into civil wars rivalling the worst moments of the Twentieth Century. Pro-Jerusalemite rebellions and violent factions supporting Jerusalemite annexation plague every habitable continent, and global inequality is at an all-time high.
The Global Community, shed of the insane Carpathia, is actually stronger for it. The new Potentate (quietly renamed to Secretary-General) is a South African economist who is more interested in the steady, guiding, hand rather than an active, aggressive force obssessed with pet projects.
Everything slowly stabilizes until 2063. King Jesus, sacred, holy, beloved by the people, is gray and frail. He can't die. He's immortal. He said his reign would last a thousand years. Yet it's impossible to hide the developing arthritis, his snow-white hair, and the stroke he barely survived a decade earlier. It's impossible not to notice. And yet... the future has never seemed to uncertain.
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I see there's a number 10 Point of Interest near New Zealand, but there's no number ten in the Notes Box. Probably just an oversight, so what happens to NZ?
I see there's a number 10 Point of Interest near New Zealand, but there's no number ten in the Notes Box. Probably just an oversight, so what happens to NZ?
Shit. Can't believe I missed that. I wrote it down, and the resizing of the box must have cut it off. Here's what I wrote, "
10. New Zealand is looking at being a major player in the GC, and is serving as a small but necessary pressure release valve to Australia’s refugee crisis."
It's this strange strip of land between the Netherlands and France, it might be a country but I'm not sure.
I would think the Council of 12 would just find some willing person of the right build, and then use plastic surgery to make them look like "Jesus".
Ok... my first real map in years. I was working on my Independent Tibet project but was running into a problem regarding Africa. So this one became an obsession of mine for a week. Deviantart link.
Not bad.
What would have happened if the blitz was a total success and the GC had been the ones to lose and the US and Big Four the big winners?
How is the GC as of right now? I mean culture, ideas and what their plan overall is with Carpathia gone and what happened in World War 4.
Switching to larger maps is always a hassle, especially when you have to redraw all the borders! Anyways, here's my Gothic Empire TL in 500AD. It can be read here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-gothic-empire.411687/
My first map! The World, 2100. (EDIT: Just noticed I overlooked something. Please pretend the border between BC and Canada is coloured like an external border, not an internal one!)
I may have left out some things below since I stupidly neglected to take notes as I was making the map. So, if you notice something unexplained, please do ask! The colour scheme is a mixture of TACOS, TOASTER and whatever the basemap was (I just know it was neither of those two because some colours didn't match up) - and then I made a whole bunch of countries grey because they just weren't important and I didn't like how busy all the colours made the map look.
I may have left out some things below since I stupidly neglected to take notes as I was making the map. So, if you notice something unexplained, please do ask! The colour scheme is a mixture of TACOS, TOASTER and whatever the basemap was (I just know it was neither of those two because some colours didn't match up) - and then I made a whole bunch of countries grey because they just weren't important and I didn't like how busy all the colours made the map look.
Europe & Eastern North America
The European Federation (EF) - In 2067, the remaining members of the EU, which had indeed become an "ever-closer union" had referenda on whether or not to unify into a single sovereign entity. Most countries agreed; those that didn't simply ended up not joining the EF, but maintain treaties with the EF that effectively resemble what our current EEA is like - a single market with free movement of people, goods and services, only without all the formalised structures, and with policies included in the actual treaties rather than set by EU bodies; thus, if the EF wants to change something, it needs to renegotiate its treaties with each country.
At its foundation, there was some reshuffling of territory in the EF in order to improve representation and safeguard diversity. Thus, despite being founded by 15 nations, he EF consists of 18 States; as well as a number of Territories (thanks to Denmark, France, Portugal and the Netherlands), and 5 Federal Municipalities. The States are: Austria, the Basque Country, Bavaria, Belgium, Brittany, Catalonia, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Mediterranea (consisting of Sicily, Sardinia and Malta), the Netherlands, Occitania, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The 5 Federal Municipalities are:
- Brussels, the seat of the executive
- The Hague, the seat of the criminal judiciary and law enforcement
- Luxembourg, the seat of the civil & constitutional judiciary and the civil service
- Strasbourg, the seat of the legislature
- Frankfurt, the seat of the European Central Bank and European Investment Bank (yes, it's moved)
The difference between States and Federal Municipalities is that States indirectly elect, through their legislatures, voting members to the European Senate. Federal Municipalities in contrast directly elect observer members to the Senate, who can neither vote nor ordinarily speak, unless called to do so by the Senate.
Both States and Federal Municipalities directly elect voting members to the European Assembly. Also, the Federal Municipalities do not get a vote in the Presidential elections. One benefit, however, is that, as the levying of Value-Added Tax is reserved to the States, there is no VAT in the Federal Municipalities, making their citizens better off (and helping the local economy by attracting shopping tourism).
In matters that require approval by referendum in each state (either by all states as in the case of constitutional alterations, or a simple majority in the case of major non-constitutional reforms), citizens in the FMs get to vote as part of their surrounding country (so, Brusselers in Belgium, Frankfurters in Germany, etc.) What about Luxembourg? Luxembourg is a special case - for this purpose, and this purpose only, it actually behaves as though it were a state in its own right.
Territories get the worst deal. Unlike FMs, they do collect VAT, although this is set by the federal government below the federally-set minimum for states, so they still benefit to some extent from lower retail prices. However, crucially, they don't elect any voting reps to any federal legislature. They elect two observers each to the Assembly, and their (directly-elected) Governors are ex officio observers in the Senate (though they usually don't attend unless called or there is something particularly relevant going on, since it would be a bit ludicrous to have Governors commuting between e.g. the Caribbean and Strasbourg all the time). They do, however, have their own legislatures, although these have fewer remits than State legislatures (for instance, they don't control education policy - education in the Territories is managed federally).
The EF's working languages are French and German. In the 2095 census, 70% of EF citizens reported having at least conversational ability in one of the two, while only 18% reported having conversational ability in English.
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The North Atlantic Union (NAU) is a multinational organisation somewhat similar to the OTL EU. It consists of:
- The Kingdom of Norway
- The Kingdom of Sweden
- The United Republics of Ireland and Scotland
- The Republic of Iceland
- The Republic of Finland
- The Republic of Nova Scotia
- The Commonwealth of Newfoundland and Labrador
- Quebec
- The Atlantic Federation (that's the New England-cum-PA,NY,NB blob)
There is no unified currency in the NAU. However, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador and the Atlantic Federation share a currency (the Atlantic dollar), while Norway, Sweden and Iceland share a separate currency (the Nordic crown) that is pegged to the Atlantic dollar. Thus, the two currencies are generally accepted in each other's stead, though as they are not legal tender in the other currency's respective area some businesses do refuse them, particularly smaller businesses and businesses in rural areas.
Larger businesses, and even smaller ones in large cities and border areas, will also accept other NAU currencies; so it is possible to some extent to get by in e.g. Labrador with Quebec francs or in Scotland with Nordic crowns, but often the exchange rates at which businesses accept these currencies are less favourable than the exchange rate offered by at NAPS (North Atlantic Postal Service) bureaux de change.
The United Republics of Ireland and Scotland, colloquially known as the "Moyle Republics" after the Straits of Moyle, are a union of Scotland and Ireland that happened in 2028 in the aftermath of Brexit and Scottish Independence. It has some similarities to the OTL UK, in that there remains distinct Scots law and Irish law. It is unlike the OTL UK in that there is both a Union Parliament, that alternates between meeting in Dublin for one parliament and then in Edinburgh the next, and a local parliament each for Ireland and Scotland.
The Union has competence over criminal law, law enforcement and prisons, defence, the civil service, the diplomatic service, foreign affairs, utilities, business & financial law, immigration, national security, telecoms and monetary policy. Everything else remains in the remit of the individual republics. However, of note is that the republics have no independent income streams apart from public corporations owned by them, investments and estate liquidation. All tax and customs revenue goes to the Union, which then reallocates a portion, scaled by population, to the two republics.
They share a currency, the Moyle pound, which has two distinct mints (one for each republic), and four banks in each country have a right to print notes (by permission of the Union's Joint Monetary Policy Commission), one being the central bank of each republic (though functionally, due to the JMPC, the two central banks effectively operate as one bank). This means that each bank note exists in 8 different current iterations, and each coin in 2, which often surprises tourists.
Language policy is interesting in Moyle. The official languages of the Union are English and Moyle Gaelic (Gaedhlig na Maoile), an auxiliary language somewhat similar to Nynorsk in philosophy that attempts to minimise the gaps between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The teaching of this language and its use in administration and the public sphere has been hugely successful especially when compared to prior efforts to promote Irish and Scottish Gaelic in the individual countries, and has had a knock-on effect on the individual Gaelic languages. Of course, part of this is no doubt due to the decline of English as an international auxiliary language that went hand in hand with the decline of England and NATO and the ascendancy of the BRICS nations against the US.
In the 2091 census, 73.2% of the population said they had at least some ability in Moyle Gaelic - contrasted with 16.1% of Scots who have some ability in Scottish Gaelic and 27.3% of Irish people who have some ability in Irish. Whilst there are no Moyle Gaelic-medium schools and it is taught exclusively as a second language beginning in secondary school, it is highly mutually intelligible with both local varieties, and thus those who learn Irish or Scottish Gaelic can pick it up very quickly and easily and use it to communicate with one another.
Moyle Gaelic has also found acceptance in Nova Scotia, and an increasing amount of bilateral business between Nova Scotia and Moyle is conducted through the medium of Moyle Gaelic.
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The Kingdom of England (to which also belongs a tiny part of Northern Ireland consisting essentially of the counties that voted for Brexit) is ridden with problems. Since it left the single market in 2019 (and wasn't re-admitted even when the single-market was being renegotiated in the 2060s when the EF formed), its financial services industry gradually withered, and subsequently it has ridiculously high unemployment and emigration, practically no welfare, a decrepit healthcare system, and essentially the only reason it hasn't turned completely into OTL Moldova is thanks to foreign aid from the US, the UK[ANZ] (see below), and to a limited extent the Moyle Republics. Somehow it's held on to most of its dependencies, except the ones that anyone actually wanted (*cough* Argentina *cough*). The Armed Forces are actually the largest employer in England, mainly because part of the deal with getting US foreign aid is that England's Armed Forces are basically like a free supplement to the US Armed Forces whenever they feel like having them around.
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The Populist Bloc is an informal alliance generally considered to consist of the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Russian and Hellenic Empires. Needless to say, the dominant power is Russia.
The European Wars of the 2050s are responsible for a lot of the border changes you can see. They were largely proxy wars fought in Eastern Europe between the EU and Russia and its allies. The 2061 Treaty of Warsaw fixed the borders in their current state (except that of course all the EF countries were still independent; Poland was in the EU, and Romania had not yet had its populist revolution). The Greek conquests were mainly a result of Turkey finally being kicked out of NATO in 2031 after ISIS had been defeated (before NATO itself was disbanded in 2039, the same year the EU states merged their armed forces into a single EU Defence Force)
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Albania, Switzerland, Vatican, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Andorra all kinda just sit there not doing much. Y'know, as normal.
The European Federation (EF) - In 2067, the remaining members of the EU, which had indeed become an "ever-closer union" had referenda on whether or not to unify into a single sovereign entity. Most countries agreed; those that didn't simply ended up not joining the EF, but maintain treaties with the EF that effectively resemble what our current EEA is like - a single market with free movement of people, goods and services, only without all the formalised structures, and with policies included in the actual treaties rather than set by EU bodies; thus, if the EF wants to change something, it needs to renegotiate its treaties with each country.
At its foundation, there was some reshuffling of territory in the EF in order to improve representation and safeguard diversity. Thus, despite being founded by 15 nations, he EF consists of 18 States; as well as a number of Territories (thanks to Denmark, France, Portugal and the Netherlands), and 5 Federal Municipalities. The States are: Austria, the Basque Country, Bavaria, Belgium, Brittany, Catalonia, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Mediterranea (consisting of Sicily, Sardinia and Malta), the Netherlands, Occitania, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The 5 Federal Municipalities are:
- Brussels, the seat of the executive
- The Hague, the seat of the criminal judiciary and law enforcement
- Luxembourg, the seat of the civil & constitutional judiciary and the civil service
- Strasbourg, the seat of the legislature
- Frankfurt, the seat of the European Central Bank and European Investment Bank (yes, it's moved)
The difference between States and Federal Municipalities is that States indirectly elect, through their legislatures, voting members to the European Senate. Federal Municipalities in contrast directly elect observer members to the Senate, who can neither vote nor ordinarily speak, unless called to do so by the Senate.
Both States and Federal Municipalities directly elect voting members to the European Assembly. Also, the Federal Municipalities do not get a vote in the Presidential elections. One benefit, however, is that, as the levying of Value-Added Tax is reserved to the States, there is no VAT in the Federal Municipalities, making their citizens better off (and helping the local economy by attracting shopping tourism).
In matters that require approval by referendum in each state (either by all states as in the case of constitutional alterations, or a simple majority in the case of major non-constitutional reforms), citizens in the FMs get to vote as part of their surrounding country (so, Brusselers in Belgium, Frankfurters in Germany, etc.) What about Luxembourg? Luxembourg is a special case - for this purpose, and this purpose only, it actually behaves as though it were a state in its own right.
Territories get the worst deal. Unlike FMs, they do collect VAT, although this is set by the federal government below the federally-set minimum for states, so they still benefit to some extent from lower retail prices. However, crucially, they don't elect any voting reps to any federal legislature. They elect two observers each to the Assembly, and their (directly-elected) Governors are ex officio observers in the Senate (though they usually don't attend unless called or there is something particularly relevant going on, since it would be a bit ludicrous to have Governors commuting between e.g. the Caribbean and Strasbourg all the time). They do, however, have their own legislatures, although these have fewer remits than State legislatures (for instance, they don't control education policy - education in the Territories is managed federally).
The EF's working languages are French and German. In the 2095 census, 70% of EF citizens reported having at least conversational ability in one of the two, while only 18% reported having conversational ability in English.
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The North Atlantic Union (NAU) is a multinational organisation somewhat similar to the OTL EU. It consists of:
- The Kingdom of Norway
- The Kingdom of Sweden
- The United Republics of Ireland and Scotland
- The Republic of Iceland
- The Republic of Finland
- The Republic of Nova Scotia
- The Commonwealth of Newfoundland and Labrador
- Quebec
- The Atlantic Federation (that's the New England-cum-PA,NY,NB blob)
There is no unified currency in the NAU. However, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador and the Atlantic Federation share a currency (the Atlantic dollar), while Norway, Sweden and Iceland share a separate currency (the Nordic crown) that is pegged to the Atlantic dollar. Thus, the two currencies are generally accepted in each other's stead, though as they are not legal tender in the other currency's respective area some businesses do refuse them, particularly smaller businesses and businesses in rural areas.
Larger businesses, and even smaller ones in large cities and border areas, will also accept other NAU currencies; so it is possible to some extent to get by in e.g. Labrador with Quebec francs or in Scotland with Nordic crowns, but often the exchange rates at which businesses accept these currencies are less favourable than the exchange rate offered by at NAPS (North Atlantic Postal Service) bureaux de change.
The United Republics of Ireland and Scotland, colloquially known as the "Moyle Republics" after the Straits of Moyle, are a union of Scotland and Ireland that happened in 2028 in the aftermath of Brexit and Scottish Independence. It has some similarities to the OTL UK, in that there remains distinct Scots law and Irish law. It is unlike the OTL UK in that there is both a Union Parliament, that alternates between meeting in Dublin for one parliament and then in Edinburgh the next, and a local parliament each for Ireland and Scotland.
The Union has competence over criminal law, law enforcement and prisons, defence, the civil service, the diplomatic service, foreign affairs, utilities, business & financial law, immigration, national security, telecoms and monetary policy. Everything else remains in the remit of the individual republics. However, of note is that the republics have no independent income streams apart from public corporations owned by them, investments and estate liquidation. All tax and customs revenue goes to the Union, which then reallocates a portion, scaled by population, to the two republics.
They share a currency, the Moyle pound, which has two distinct mints (one for each republic), and four banks in each country have a right to print notes (by permission of the Union's Joint Monetary Policy Commission), one being the central bank of each republic (though functionally, due to the JMPC, the two central banks effectively operate as one bank). This means that each bank note exists in 8 different current iterations, and each coin in 2, which often surprises tourists.
Language policy is interesting in Moyle. The official languages of the Union are English and Moyle Gaelic (Gaedhlig na Maoile), an auxiliary language somewhat similar to Nynorsk in philosophy that attempts to minimise the gaps between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The teaching of this language and its use in administration and the public sphere has been hugely successful especially when compared to prior efforts to promote Irish and Scottish Gaelic in the individual countries, and has had a knock-on effect on the individual Gaelic languages. Of course, part of this is no doubt due to the decline of English as an international auxiliary language that went hand in hand with the decline of England and NATO and the ascendancy of the BRICS nations against the US.
In the 2091 census, 73.2% of the population said they had at least some ability in Moyle Gaelic - contrasted with 16.1% of Scots who have some ability in Scottish Gaelic and 27.3% of Irish people who have some ability in Irish. Whilst there are no Moyle Gaelic-medium schools and it is taught exclusively as a second language beginning in secondary school, it is highly mutually intelligible with both local varieties, and thus those who learn Irish or Scottish Gaelic can pick it up very quickly and easily and use it to communicate with one another.
Moyle Gaelic has also found acceptance in Nova Scotia, and an increasing amount of bilateral business between Nova Scotia and Moyle is conducted through the medium of Moyle Gaelic.
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The Kingdom of England (to which also belongs a tiny part of Northern Ireland consisting essentially of the counties that voted for Brexit) is ridden with problems. Since it left the single market in 2019 (and wasn't re-admitted even when the single-market was being renegotiated in the 2060s when the EF formed), its financial services industry gradually withered, and subsequently it has ridiculously high unemployment and emigration, practically no welfare, a decrepit healthcare system, and essentially the only reason it hasn't turned completely into OTL Moldova is thanks to foreign aid from the US, the UK[ANZ] (see below), and to a limited extent the Moyle Republics. Somehow it's held on to most of its dependencies, except the ones that anyone actually wanted (*cough* Argentina *cough*). The Armed Forces are actually the largest employer in England, mainly because part of the deal with getting US foreign aid is that England's Armed Forces are basically like a free supplement to the US Armed Forces whenever they feel like having them around.
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The Populist Bloc is an informal alliance generally considered to consist of the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Russian and Hellenic Empires. Needless to say, the dominant power is Russia.
The European Wars of the 2050s are responsible for a lot of the border changes you can see. They were largely proxy wars fought in Eastern Europe between the EU and Russia and its allies. The 2061 Treaty of Warsaw fixed the borders in their current state (except that of course all the EF countries were still independent; Poland was in the EU, and Romania had not yet had its populist revolution). The Greek conquests were mainly a result of Turkey finally being kicked out of NATO in 2031 after ISIS had been defeated (before NATO itself was disbanded in 2039, the same year the EU states merged their armed forces into a single EU Defence Force)
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Albania, Switzerland, Vatican, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Andorra all kinda just sit there not doing much. Y'know, as normal.
Rest of America
The United States suffered a few secessions in the 2040s in heavily liberal areas annoyed at several decades of not being able to swing the vote even to a moderate candidate. Since the secessions were heavily backed up by the UN, there wasn't much the US could do, and most citizens of the remaining US had a hostile kind of "good riddance" feeling about it anyway, more than anything else. At the same time, though the US managed to take advantage of Mexico's weakness and take back access to the Pacific after the California Republic formed. Also, in 2082, annoyed at constant disruptions and unrest in Panama suspected to be backed by China and Brazil, they went and invaded the place and incorporated it as a Territory. Miscellanea: When Idaho and Washington merged, the resulting state was renamed Jefferson. The current President is Barron Trump Jr.
The California Republic, British Columbia and Canada work closely together, as NAFTA was finally dissolved in the 2050s after about a 20 years of being fairly dysfunctional anyway due to the US's erratic foreign policy towards Mexico.
Vancouver Island remains a territory of Canada.
The Federation of Gran Colombia is a result of the member states feeling threatened by an overpowerful Brazil and an increasingly jingoist, populist Argentina. After they invaded part of Guyana in 2070, it and Suriname petitioned to become part of the European Territory of Guiana, and were admitted.
The United States suffered a few secessions in the 2040s in heavily liberal areas annoyed at several decades of not being able to swing the vote even to a moderate candidate. Since the secessions were heavily backed up by the UN, there wasn't much the US could do, and most citizens of the remaining US had a hostile kind of "good riddance" feeling about it anyway, more than anything else. At the same time, though the US managed to take advantage of Mexico's weakness and take back access to the Pacific after the California Republic formed. Also, in 2082, annoyed at constant disruptions and unrest in Panama suspected to be backed by China and Brazil, they went and invaded the place and incorporated it as a Territory. Miscellanea: When Idaho and Washington merged, the resulting state was renamed Jefferson. The current President is Barron Trump Jr.
The California Republic, British Columbia and Canada work closely together, as NAFTA was finally dissolved in the 2050s after about a 20 years of being fairly dysfunctional anyway due to the US's erratic foreign policy towards Mexico.
Vancouver Island remains a territory of Canada.
The Federation of Gran Colombia is a result of the member states feeling threatened by an overpowerful Brazil and an increasingly jingoist, populist Argentina. After they invaded part of Guyana in 2070, it and Suriname petitioned to become part of the European Territory of Guiana, and were admitted.
Middle East
Kurdistan became a thing due to the negotiations after the defeat of ISIS, when everybody was sick of the crap Turkey had been pulling under Erdogan and his successor anyway, and felt like the Peshmergas deserved a wee reward for their efforts.
The Saudi Arabian Conflict of 2087-89 was the culmination of a long and arduous shift in US foreign policy that historians consider to have begun with President Donald Trump's rhetoric nearly a century earlier. The US and its allies (i.e. mostly England and the EF) had decreased arms sales and eventually stopped them completely, and in 2086 Saudi Arabia finally decided to sanction the US and EF by withholding oil. This turned out to be a colossally bad idea, because contrary to all expectations Russia and China, instead of just laughing at the weakened US and EF, decided to make some money out of the situation and increase their exports, the result of which was that US and EF oil supplies remained essentially the same.
So, Saudi Arabia had managed to royally piss them off without actually weakening them. Unsurprisingly, tired of Saudi Arabia's...well, existence, really, they entered a coalition with the Kingdom of Jordan and just went in and took over. Since Saudi Arabia still had a large if somewhat outdated stockpile of arms, this was a particularly bloody conflict for Jordan, which unlike the US and EF lacked drones. Jordan was left to take over the West of the country, which largely prevented what would have been the catastrophic fallout of Western powers casually rolling into Mecca and Medina - this was the primary reason Jordan was enticed into the coalition. And thus, Saudi Arabia remains occupied to this day. There's a lot of terrorism, and a lot of totally disproportionate retaliation on part of the US with the EF turning a bit of a blind eye because they feel they have more important shit to deal with.
One significant effect of this whole event is that, since Israel abjectly refused to participate despite being asked to supply equipment, it lost its long-standing favour with America and ceased receiving any US aid. As a result, Palestine has been able to somewhat reassert itself with assistance from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, with illegal settlers being mostly displaced back into legal Israeli territory despite at this point having been there for generations. On the upside, though, this development has actually resulted in a drastic decrease of terrorist attacks against Israel, vindicating advocates of the two-state solution.
Kurdistan became a thing due to the negotiations after the defeat of ISIS, when everybody was sick of the crap Turkey had been pulling under Erdogan and his successor anyway, and felt like the Peshmergas deserved a wee reward for their efforts.
The Saudi Arabian Conflict of 2087-89 was the culmination of a long and arduous shift in US foreign policy that historians consider to have begun with President Donald Trump's rhetoric nearly a century earlier. The US and its allies (i.e. mostly England and the EF) had decreased arms sales and eventually stopped them completely, and in 2086 Saudi Arabia finally decided to sanction the US and EF by withholding oil. This turned out to be a colossally bad idea, because contrary to all expectations Russia and China, instead of just laughing at the weakened US and EF, decided to make some money out of the situation and increase their exports, the result of which was that US and EF oil supplies remained essentially the same.
So, Saudi Arabia had managed to royally piss them off without actually weakening them. Unsurprisingly, tired of Saudi Arabia's...well, existence, really, they entered a coalition with the Kingdom of Jordan and just went in and took over. Since Saudi Arabia still had a large if somewhat outdated stockpile of arms, this was a particularly bloody conflict for Jordan, which unlike the US and EF lacked drones. Jordan was left to take over the West of the country, which largely prevented what would have been the catastrophic fallout of Western powers casually rolling into Mecca and Medina - this was the primary reason Jordan was enticed into the coalition. And thus, Saudi Arabia remains occupied to this day. There's a lot of terrorism, and a lot of totally disproportionate retaliation on part of the US with the EF turning a bit of a blind eye because they feel they have more important shit to deal with.
One significant effect of this whole event is that, since Israel abjectly refused to participate despite being asked to supply equipment, it lost its long-standing favour with America and ceased receiving any US aid. As a result, Palestine has been able to somewhat reassert itself with assistance from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, with illegal settlers being mostly displaced back into legal Israeli territory despite at this point having been there for generations. On the upside, though, this development has actually resulted in a drastic decrease of terrorist attacks against Israel, vindicating advocates of the two-state solution.
Far East
Not much has happened here, probably mainly because I don't know much about the Far East other than China. A lot of border conflicts have been resolved through treaties thanks to people voluntarily migrating in convenient ways that made the conflicts a lot less worth bothering about. Since the US eventually stopped caring about Taiwan despite an initial rise in posturing in the late 2010s and 2020s, the PRC decided to go roflstomp it in 2033 to pre-empt the Taiwanese government's overtures to Japan for a defence pact.
Oh, and North Korea descended into chaos in the 2070s when the Kim line went extinct after none of them really bothered reproducing due to growing paranoia about children usurping them in combination with, y'know, contraception being a thing. The South took advantage and lo, Korea is unified.
Not much has happened here, probably mainly because I don't know much about the Far East other than China. A lot of border conflicts have been resolved through treaties thanks to people voluntarily migrating in convenient ways that made the conflicts a lot less worth bothering about. Since the US eventually stopped caring about Taiwan despite an initial rise in posturing in the late 2010s and 2020s, the PRC decided to go roflstomp it in 2033 to pre-empt the Taiwanese government's overtures to Japan for a defence pact.
Oh, and North Korea descended into chaos in the 2070s when the Kim line went extinct after none of them really bothered reproducing due to growing paranoia about children usurping them in combination with, y'know, contraception being a thing. The South took advantage and lo, Korea is unified.
Africa
Much like with the Far East, this is an area I don't really care much about, so what happened here is basically mainly aesthetic, rather than having much in the way of plot.
The border gore in the Egypt/Sudan/South Sudan area got resolved in the 2040s, an era of random magnanimity between these nations - nobody really knows where it came from, or why it ended in the 2050s.
Ethiopia went and invaded some stuff mainly because (1) they could and (2) nobody was paying attention.
West Sahara somehow managed to finally assert itself against Morocco and got UN recognition.
Somaliland decided to stop trying to bother with the chaos in the South and just stick to its guns (or rather, the refreshing scarcity thereof), and also managed to get itself recognised by the UN. The South remains Somalia in name and no man's land in practice.
Much like with the Far East, this is an area I don't really care much about, so what happened here is basically mainly aesthetic, rather than having much in the way of plot.
The border gore in the Egypt/Sudan/South Sudan area got resolved in the 2040s, an era of random magnanimity between these nations - nobody really knows where it came from, or why it ended in the 2050s.
Ethiopia went and invaded some stuff mainly because (1) they could and (2) nobody was paying attention.
West Sahara somehow managed to finally assert itself against Morocco and got UN recognition.
Somaliland decided to stop trying to bother with the chaos in the South and just stick to its guns (or rather, the refreshing scarcity thereof), and also managed to get itself recognised by the UN. The South remains Somalia in name and no man's land in practice.
Oceania
After a lot of convergent political evolution, and in light of the perceived threat from China and Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand unified into the United Kingdom of Australia and New Zealand (commonly known as the United Kingdom or UK, just to mess with school kids studying any history between 1707 and 2019) with the English monarch at the helm, and remain closely allied to England.
After a lot of convergent political evolution, and in light of the perceived threat from China and Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand unified into the United Kingdom of Australia and New Zealand (commonly known as the United Kingdom or UK, just to mess with school kids studying any history between 1707 and 2019) with the English monarch at the helm, and remain closely allied to England.
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If "diocese" is retained as an imperial term, do episcopal sees end up getting called something different, or do people just deal with the ambiguity?
Very cool concept. I would think there would be some US successor states in the east, as well: the ashfall isn't going to reach the Olde South, and there's fairly decent climates in the SE US area even in an ice age: http://freegeographytools.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/nam13kyr.gif
(The poor Russians, I agree, are screwed: it's all desert, semi-desert, extreme desert, taiga-tundra and boreal forest even if they try to move south. )
Chinese/Indian switch? Interesting. What are the Copts like?
(Quibble; with a POD several centuries BC, Christianity is arguably butterflied, but I can let it pass: Islam, though, after nearly a millenium? No: a new Monotheism arising in the middle east isn't too improbable, but being just like OTL is unlikely. Call it *Islam or Fislam or Bizlam or something.
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