That doesn't make any sense. How did communism become so popular in Pakistan? Most likely in this situation that Pakistan collapses after a nuclear war with India (a cliche I really hate) a military dictatorship would happen, not a communist revolution.
Map Thread XV
- Thread starter rvbomally
- Start date
- Status
That doesn't make any sense. How did communism become so popular in Pakistan? Most likely in this situation that Pakistan collapses after a nuclear war with India (a cliche I really hate) a military dictatorship would happen, not a communist revolution.
Upvoteanthology
Donor
That's true, I didn't know that was the case. I hope someone else is able to do it, then.
How is it a bad cliche? Pakistan is a state with serious issues as is. A nuclear war would almost certainly plunge them into chaos, and a nuclear war with India is far from improbable.
Yes thats true. Although @empty was never very active as far as i know so he/she might be back any time, they might be gone for good.
It's more probably than an Axis victory, and we see a lot of those too.
I am flying this weekend, (Toronto to Vancouver to Whitehorse) so I will be stuck in a chair for over 7 hours and could probably put together the list then if I have inflight internet access.That's true, I didn't know that was the case. I hope someone else is able to do it, then.
Here is last years list:
But it was really just Map Thread XIV I think because we used to go through one map thread a year.
Looks like the threshold is 30 likes. Pun Intended
Definitely an ASB scenario.
The point of divergence is a successful Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529. Forging an alliance with Lutherans and Germans opposed to the Habsburgs, the Ottomans conquer all of the eastern Habsburg lands. Hungary is soon subjugated and the Turks slowly move towards their goal of Rome. Rome falls to the Turks in 1595 and Sultan Mehmed IV declares himself head of a reformed, third Roman Empire. Muslim religious leaders soon adopt the view that Rome is a caliphate, and most Muslims within its borders support it. The Ottomans/Romans continue to expand and manage to conquer all France by 1675 and Persia by 1715. The rump Holy Roman Empire (officially called the German Empire after 1595) existed until 1752 when it was dissolved in favor of a new alliance, the League of Jena. The League is comprised of staunchly Protestant states united in their opposition to Catholicism as a greater evil than Islam.
Rome remains stable over 300 years after its declaration. That said, it has been technologically stagnant for the last half century and suffers from internal corruption and lack of any meaningful progress in solving infrastructure’s decay. Turkish is the language of administration throughout the empire, and has even begun to replace Arabic as the language of Islam. Much of the empire is thoroughly Sunni, though Christians still populate much of France, the Alps, and Austria while the Shia make up a majority in the Persian vilayets.
With Rome in the hands of the Turks, the Pope attempted to flee to Toledo. However, the Pope at the time died in a storm at sea and a bitter dispute between factions claiming allegiance to a Pope in Canterbury and one in Toledo began. This split has remained to the present day. Doctrine-wise, the competing Catholic churches have very little in the way of differences though the Pope in Toledo has very little political power of his own as the countries that follow him are all aligned politically.
It would be hard to pin down a single state as the premier Christian one as Rome is for the Muslims. Hispania, a union of the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal under an imperial Habsburg Crown is very strong. Its colonies in the Americas are loyal and relatively developed compared to OTL. The Spanish military is perhaps the best in the world, having fought numerous wars to keep the Turks north of the Pyrenees and east of the Straits of Gibraltar. New Castile, the other major Toledo Catholic power, is a former Hispanian colony. The Hispanians split the Viceroyalty of New Castile (South America) off from the Empire proper under a brother of the current Emperor. New Castile has since developed a life of its own, amassing quite an empire in the Pacific. However, both nations are run as sister kingdoms, cooperating heavily and having divided the world into spheres of influence so as not to come into conflict.
As in OTL, the Habsburgs have split into two branches. After the fall of the Austrian branch, they were invited to take control of the Low Countries by their Spanish cousins. Like the Spanish branch, the Dutch branch has retained power (though they are technically the House of Habsburg-Tudor) but, unlike them, the Dutch branch now follows the Pope in Canterbury. A family of Canterbury Catholics ruling over a mixed population of Canterburians, Toledans, Martinists (a form of Protestantism), and Lutherans sounds at first glance like a recipe for instability, but the Kingdom of Dutchland has colonies throughout the world and is a first-rate mercantile power. Like Hispania, Dutchland spun off the heavily-populated, agrarian colonies of OTL New England as an independent, but cooperative state. A state largely populated by Dutch settlers, almost all Canterbury Catholics and Martinists, New Holland was hard to govern (pesky colonials wanting the same privileges as metropolitans!) and, to avoid any sort of revolution, it was cut off from Dutchland. New Holland has, since independence, drifted apart from their former masters. Heavily populated and content to remain distant from world affairs, New Holland is a bit of a wildcard.
Poland-Lithuania was forced, by the fall of Hungary and collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, to be the preemeninant Christian power in Eastern Europe. The elective monarchy was replaced in favaor of a hereditary one. Eventually, the ruling Jagiellon dynasty took the thrones of Bohemia and Sweden and have held power there since their ascension. The current empire is colloquially reerred to as the Polish-Swedish Empire, as Krakow and Stockholm are the two seats of power in the empire. The Polish sphere includes puppet states in Norway, Saxony, Estonia, and Novgorod while maintaining considerable influence in both the Kingdom of Sibir (Catholic but still Tatar) and Wschoziemi. However, Poland-Sweden remains the only major Christian power without overseas colonies because the constant threat of war with the Turks makes any military expenditures outside Europe untenable. Despite this, there is a significant Italian émigré community in Warsaw and Krakow, many of whom are involved in international trade.
Britain was relatively unaffected by the Ottoman conquest of Rome and subsequent domination of Europe. England eventually conquered its islandic neighbors and began to establish colonies in the New World, Africa, and Asia. England was forced to absorb more than a handful of refugees from the mainland, most notably French and Swiss Protestants. Later, Protestants (most of whom had continental ancestry) settled along the Cartier River in southern Africa. In 1850, administration of the colony was handed over to local authorities. There is some concern at the theocratic, secretive tendencies of the Archduchy of New Belgia. In 1801, citing historic affiliation and fear of the non-Canturburian Hispanians, the Kingdom of Aquitaine (a bit of a French successor state, still ruled by the House of Orleans) petitioned for English protection, which it received. Succeeding Kings and Parliaments have often debated the viability of and English protectorate on the continent and wonder if Aquitaine is worth the pounds poured into its defense. England is powerful, but tries to remain above the squabbles of the rest of the world (but will not hesitate to fight a colonial war if the safety of some port or province is threatened).
While Protestants attempted to force the Danish monarchy into the League of Jena and the Ottoman sphere, devout Catholic members of the ruling house managed to forge alliances with the Hispanians and Polish to keep Denmark Catholic and free. For nearly one-hundred years after the cataclysmic Dano-Turkish War, Hispanian-backed and Polish-backed Hohenzollerns fought each other for control in a political/religious proxy war. Interestingly, the second phase of the war, from 1715-19 saw both sides backing a Toledo Catholic Hohenzollerns. Spain won in 1722, and retained tight control over Denmark until fairly recently.
West Africa is a jumble of colonies of various European states and Rome, while the Sahel is the battleground for wars between colonial powers and their native allies. East Africa managed to avoid being gobbled up by foreign powers, and the Swahili statelets and Sultanate of Mogadishu are considered respectable trading partners by Indian Ocean merchants. Ethiopia, suffered a worse fate, and, from its exile on Lake Nyanza, it has fought a religious war to liberate its homeland from the Romans. The front lines in the Ethiopian Highlands have bogged down recently, and it seems possible the Romans will simply withdraw from the occupied provinces.
Though Rome claims to be the premier Islamic state, not all Muslims follow the commands of the Sultan Mahmud VI. The most powerful among these Islamic powers is the Combined Hosts of the Celestial Jihad. The Combined Hosts appeared on the world stage roughly twelve years ago. Its origins lie in the Siberian plains, where Khazak, Tatar, Chinese, Polish, English, and New Spanish merchants and missionaries have long vied for influence. Though guns and churches proliferated from the Bering Strait to the Urals, no large organized states existed. In the Christian Year AD 1908 a meteor hit the earth in the Tunguska River, coinciding with the prophecy of an imam in the region (there is some dispute over the validity of the prophecy). The imam quickly became a venerated figure, and found himself at the center of a holy army that believed him to be a prophet, possibly one to equal Mohammed. Soon, this Ali (a surname is not known) was referred to as the “Simian Imam” (similarly, the impact, believed to be a meteor is called the Simian Fist) because of the sign of the Chinese year the impact occurred in, and his armies have conquered far and wide. The imam himself, now a priest-king, sits on a throne in a city located at the center of the impact while his armies are led by loyal deputies. The momentum of these conquerors has fizzled out in recent years as various hosts have come in contact with well-armed Polish and New Spanish troops. Theologians in Rome and Baghdad currently debate whether the Simian Imam and his followers are truly Muslims or followers of a new religion.
To the south of the Celestial Jihad is China, which has seen better days. As with OTL, China has been beat up by European states and their merchants. The current emperor is a modernizer, but faces a conservative bureaucracy and his attempts to update infrastructure has been foiled by that group in collaboration with the military. There is talk within the Three Beijing Brigades of deposing the Nun Dynasty and placing a new one on the throne. In areas along the Huang He and Yangtze where New Spanish merchants exert control, there is active resistance supported by hardliner military elements. China has good reason for fearing Europe, as the Emperor of Japan has his policies dictated by the Admiral of the New Spanish West Pacific Fleet and Bishop of Kyoto and the various Vietnamese kings have been deposed by the Dutchlanders. Only the Siamese have effectively held out European influence. The Third Uthong Dynasty has chosen gradual modernization, offending neither traditionalists nor reformists.
Much of India has suffered the same fate as East Asia, becoming protectorates of crown colonies of various European kings. The English Hindooland Company achieved dominance of the mountainous west, profiting from agreements with the Turks to secure the passes while the southern half of the subcontinent fell into the hands of a mixture of powers. Levels of Europeanization vary throughout the colonies ranging from New Cork north of Goa, where most of the population is of Irish descent to Savanur, where a Hindu king reigns. Though the Afghans and various rebels provide opposition to the colonizers, the principal opponents are the Rajput Empire. The Rajput Empire is dominated by the caste that holds that name, who provide military leadership and who forged the empire after serving as mercenaries.
The islands of OTL Indonesia were colonized early and are a jumble of protectorates and crown colonies. Nunesia (Australia) is a primarily settler colony. The New Spanish east was established primarily to search for gold. The English settled second in the quest for gold while the Dutchlanders came last and dropped convicts and a fair number of religious dissenters.
Technologically, this timeline is about ten to twenty years behind OTL, though airships are still rather popular. Europe, the Americas, and parts of Africa are all equally developed.
Third Rome
The point of divergence is a successful Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529. Forging an alliance with Lutherans and Germans opposed to the Habsburgs, the Ottomans conquer all of the eastern Habsburg lands. Hungary is soon subjugated and the Turks slowly move towards their goal of Rome. Rome falls to the Turks in 1595 and Sultan Mehmed IV declares himself head of a reformed, third Roman Empire. Muslim religious leaders soon adopt the view that Rome is a caliphate, and most Muslims within its borders support it. The Ottomans/Romans continue to expand and manage to conquer all France by 1675 and Persia by 1715. The rump Holy Roman Empire (officially called the German Empire after 1595) existed until 1752 when it was dissolved in favor of a new alliance, the League of Jena. The League is comprised of staunchly Protestant states united in their opposition to Catholicism as a greater evil than Islam.
Rome remains stable over 300 years after its declaration. That said, it has been technologically stagnant for the last half century and suffers from internal corruption and lack of any meaningful progress in solving infrastructure’s decay. Turkish is the language of administration throughout the empire, and has even begun to replace Arabic as the language of Islam. Much of the empire is thoroughly Sunni, though Christians still populate much of France, the Alps, and Austria while the Shia make up a majority in the Persian vilayets.
With Rome in the hands of the Turks, the Pope attempted to flee to Toledo. However, the Pope at the time died in a storm at sea and a bitter dispute between factions claiming allegiance to a Pope in Canterbury and one in Toledo began. This split has remained to the present day. Doctrine-wise, the competing Catholic churches have very little in the way of differences though the Pope in Toledo has very little political power of his own as the countries that follow him are all aligned politically.
It would be hard to pin down a single state as the premier Christian one as Rome is for the Muslims. Hispania, a union of the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal under an imperial Habsburg Crown is very strong. Its colonies in the Americas are loyal and relatively developed compared to OTL. The Spanish military is perhaps the best in the world, having fought numerous wars to keep the Turks north of the Pyrenees and east of the Straits of Gibraltar. New Castile, the other major Toledo Catholic power, is a former Hispanian colony. The Hispanians split the Viceroyalty of New Castile (South America) off from the Empire proper under a brother of the current Emperor. New Castile has since developed a life of its own, amassing quite an empire in the Pacific. However, both nations are run as sister kingdoms, cooperating heavily and having divided the world into spheres of influence so as not to come into conflict.
As in OTL, the Habsburgs have split into two branches. After the fall of the Austrian branch, they were invited to take control of the Low Countries by their Spanish cousins. Like the Spanish branch, the Dutch branch has retained power (though they are technically the House of Habsburg-Tudor) but, unlike them, the Dutch branch now follows the Pope in Canterbury. A family of Canterbury Catholics ruling over a mixed population of Canterburians, Toledans, Martinists (a form of Protestantism), and Lutherans sounds at first glance like a recipe for instability, but the Kingdom of Dutchland has colonies throughout the world and is a first-rate mercantile power. Like Hispania, Dutchland spun off the heavily-populated, agrarian colonies of OTL New England as an independent, but cooperative state. A state largely populated by Dutch settlers, almost all Canterbury Catholics and Martinists, New Holland was hard to govern (pesky colonials wanting the same privileges as metropolitans!) and, to avoid any sort of revolution, it was cut off from Dutchland. New Holland has, since independence, drifted apart from their former masters. Heavily populated and content to remain distant from world affairs, New Holland is a bit of a wildcard.
Poland-Lithuania was forced, by the fall of Hungary and collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, to be the preemeninant Christian power in Eastern Europe. The elective monarchy was replaced in favaor of a hereditary one. Eventually, the ruling Jagiellon dynasty took the thrones of Bohemia and Sweden and have held power there since their ascension. The current empire is colloquially reerred to as the Polish-Swedish Empire, as Krakow and Stockholm are the two seats of power in the empire. The Polish sphere includes puppet states in Norway, Saxony, Estonia, and Novgorod while maintaining considerable influence in both the Kingdom of Sibir (Catholic but still Tatar) and Wschoziemi. However, Poland-Sweden remains the only major Christian power without overseas colonies because the constant threat of war with the Turks makes any military expenditures outside Europe untenable. Despite this, there is a significant Italian émigré community in Warsaw and Krakow, many of whom are involved in international trade.
Britain was relatively unaffected by the Ottoman conquest of Rome and subsequent domination of Europe. England eventually conquered its islandic neighbors and began to establish colonies in the New World, Africa, and Asia. England was forced to absorb more than a handful of refugees from the mainland, most notably French and Swiss Protestants. Later, Protestants (most of whom had continental ancestry) settled along the Cartier River in southern Africa. In 1850, administration of the colony was handed over to local authorities. There is some concern at the theocratic, secretive tendencies of the Archduchy of New Belgia. In 1801, citing historic affiliation and fear of the non-Canturburian Hispanians, the Kingdom of Aquitaine (a bit of a French successor state, still ruled by the House of Orleans) petitioned for English protection, which it received. Succeeding Kings and Parliaments have often debated the viability of and English protectorate on the continent and wonder if Aquitaine is worth the pounds poured into its defense. England is powerful, but tries to remain above the squabbles of the rest of the world (but will not hesitate to fight a colonial war if the safety of some port or province is threatened).
While Protestants attempted to force the Danish monarchy into the League of Jena and the Ottoman sphere, devout Catholic members of the ruling house managed to forge alliances with the Hispanians and Polish to keep Denmark Catholic and free. For nearly one-hundred years after the cataclysmic Dano-Turkish War, Hispanian-backed and Polish-backed Hohenzollerns fought each other for control in a political/religious proxy war. Interestingly, the second phase of the war, from 1715-19 saw both sides backing a Toledo Catholic Hohenzollerns. Spain won in 1722, and retained tight control over Denmark until fairly recently.
West Africa is a jumble of colonies of various European states and Rome, while the Sahel is the battleground for wars between colonial powers and their native allies. East Africa managed to avoid being gobbled up by foreign powers, and the Swahili statelets and Sultanate of Mogadishu are considered respectable trading partners by Indian Ocean merchants. Ethiopia, suffered a worse fate, and, from its exile on Lake Nyanza, it has fought a religious war to liberate its homeland from the Romans. The front lines in the Ethiopian Highlands have bogged down recently, and it seems possible the Romans will simply withdraw from the occupied provinces.
Though Rome claims to be the premier Islamic state, not all Muslims follow the commands of the Sultan Mahmud VI. The most powerful among these Islamic powers is the Combined Hosts of the Celestial Jihad. The Combined Hosts appeared on the world stage roughly twelve years ago. Its origins lie in the Siberian plains, where Khazak, Tatar, Chinese, Polish, English, and New Spanish merchants and missionaries have long vied for influence. Though guns and churches proliferated from the Bering Strait to the Urals, no large organized states existed. In the Christian Year AD 1908 a meteor hit the earth in the Tunguska River, coinciding with the prophecy of an imam in the region (there is some dispute over the validity of the prophecy). The imam quickly became a venerated figure, and found himself at the center of a holy army that believed him to be a prophet, possibly one to equal Mohammed. Soon, this Ali (a surname is not known) was referred to as the “Simian Imam” (similarly, the impact, believed to be a meteor is called the Simian Fist) because of the sign of the Chinese year the impact occurred in, and his armies have conquered far and wide. The imam himself, now a priest-king, sits on a throne in a city located at the center of the impact while his armies are led by loyal deputies. The momentum of these conquerors has fizzled out in recent years as various hosts have come in contact with well-armed Polish and New Spanish troops. Theologians in Rome and Baghdad currently debate whether the Simian Imam and his followers are truly Muslims or followers of a new religion.
To the south of the Celestial Jihad is China, which has seen better days. As with OTL, China has been beat up by European states and their merchants. The current emperor is a modernizer, but faces a conservative bureaucracy and his attempts to update infrastructure has been foiled by that group in collaboration with the military. There is talk within the Three Beijing Brigades of deposing the Nun Dynasty and placing a new one on the throne. In areas along the Huang He and Yangtze where New Spanish merchants exert control, there is active resistance supported by hardliner military elements. China has good reason for fearing Europe, as the Emperor of Japan has his policies dictated by the Admiral of the New Spanish West Pacific Fleet and Bishop of Kyoto and the various Vietnamese kings have been deposed by the Dutchlanders. Only the Siamese have effectively held out European influence. The Third Uthong Dynasty has chosen gradual modernization, offending neither traditionalists nor reformists.
Much of India has suffered the same fate as East Asia, becoming protectorates of crown colonies of various European kings. The English Hindooland Company achieved dominance of the mountainous west, profiting from agreements with the Turks to secure the passes while the southern half of the subcontinent fell into the hands of a mixture of powers. Levels of Europeanization vary throughout the colonies ranging from New Cork north of Goa, where most of the population is of Irish descent to Savanur, where a Hindu king reigns. Though the Afghans and various rebels provide opposition to the colonizers, the principal opponents are the Rajput Empire. The Rajput Empire is dominated by the caste that holds that name, who provide military leadership and who forged the empire after serving as mercenaries.
The islands of OTL Indonesia were colonized early and are a jumble of protectorates and crown colonies. Nunesia (Australia) is a primarily settler colony. The New Spanish east was established primarily to search for gold. The English settled second in the quest for gold while the Dutchlanders came last and dropped convicts and a fair number of religious dissenters.
Technologically, this timeline is about ten to twenty years behind OTL, though airships are still rather popular. Europe, the Americas, and parts of Africa are all equally developed.
Fell to a democratic revolution in the 90's after a military coup failed that basically resulted in the country splitting into two with the Rumeli part firmly within NATO and the Anatolian half more of a non-aligned nation that sometimes lean towards the Soviets; that and Kurdistan splitting off in the process and both sides couldn't be bothered to get it back.
Some people in Pakistan go tired of all the instability going on before and after the war with India and the latter state really relied them up (NATO trying to back the remnant government really didn't help). Mind you India got damaged in the process too, but that's another story for another time.
Honestly one of the best maps I've seen for a while, and a great concept.
A fun one! Although frankly I find Italy falling to Islam more likely than a Muslim leader literally calling himself "the monkey Imam."
fashbasher
Banned
Y'all loved my prior attempt at rationalizing and mapping an insane Internet conspiracy theory, so I tried another. This time from the other way around: the US is good or at least neutral, and is fighting for civilization against a terrifying foe. (Note the thin strip of neutral ground separating it from the turquoise menace)
(Potential ASB warning. Note: the African-American reference in c refers to Nation of Islam and Afrocentric types, not blacks or AAs as a group. ed note: Isaac should be Isaan in the legend.)
Last edited:
fashbasher
Banned
Yeah, but I thought the idea of ISIS somehow radicalizing indigenous Latin Americans and the like was interesting so I tried to map it as best I could.
Definitely an ASB scenario.
Third Rome
The point of divergence is a successful Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529. Forging an alliance with Lutherans and Germans opposed to the Habsburgs, the Ottomans conquer all of the eastern Habsburg lands. Hungary is soon subjugated and the Turks slowly move towards their goal of Rome. Rome falls to the Turks in 1595 and Sultan Mehmed IV declares himself head of a reformed, third Roman Empire. Muslim religious leaders soon adopt the view that Rome is a caliphate, and most Muslims within its borders support it. The Ottomans/Romans continue to expand and manage to conquer all France by 1675 and Persia by 1715. The rump Holy Roman Empire (officially called the German Empire after 1595) existed until 1752 when it was dissolved in favor of a new alliance, the League of Jena. The League is comprised of staunchly Protestant states united in their opposition to Catholicism as a greater evil than Islam.
Rome remains stable over 300 years after its declaration. That said, it has been technologically stagnant for the last half century and suffers from internal corruption and lack of any meaningful progress in solving infrastructure’s decay. Turkish is the language of administration throughout the empire, and has even begun to replace Arabic as the language of Islam. Much of the empire is thoroughly Sunni, though Christians still populate much of France, the Alps, and Austria while the Shia make up a majority in the Persian vilayets.
With Rome in the hands of the Turks, the Pope attempted to flee to Toledo. However, the Pope at the time died in a storm at sea and a bitter dispute between factions claiming allegiance to a Pope in Canterbury and one in Toledo began. This split has remained to the present day. Doctrine-wise, the competing Catholic churches have very little in the way of differences though the Pope in Toledo has very little political power of his own as the countries that follow him are all aligned politically.
It would be hard to pin down a single state as the premier Christian one as Rome is for the Muslims. Hispania, a union of the kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal under an imperial Habsburg Crown is very strong. Its colonies in the Americas are loyal and relatively developed compared to OTL. The Spanish military is perhaps the best in the world, having fought numerous wars to keep the Turks north of the Pyrenees and east of the Straits of Gibraltar. New Castile, the other major Toledo Catholic power, is a former Hispanian colony. The Hispanians split the Viceroyalty of New Castile (South America) off from the Empire proper under a brother of the current Emperor. New Castile has since developed a life of its own, amassing quite an empire in the Pacific. However, both nations are run as sister kingdoms, cooperating heavily and having divided the world into spheres of influence so as not to come into conflict.
As in OTL, the Habsburgs have split into two branches. After the fall of the Austrian branch, they were invited to take control of the Low Countries by their Spanish cousins. Like the Spanish branch, the Dutch branch has retained power (though they are technically the House of Habsburg-Tudor) but, unlike them, the Dutch branch now follows the Pope in Canterbury. A family of Canterbury Catholics ruling over a mixed population of Canterburians, Toledans, Martinists (a form of Protestantism), and Lutherans sounds at first glance like a recipe for instability, but the Kingdom of Dutchland has colonies throughout the world and is a first-rate mercantile power. Like Hispania, Dutchland spun off the heavily-populated, agrarian colonies of OTL New England as an independent, but cooperative state. A state largely populated by Dutch settlers, almost all Canterbury Catholics and Martinists, New Holland was hard to govern (pesky colonials wanting the same privileges as metropolitans!) and, to avoid any sort of revolution, it was cut off from Dutchland. New Holland has, since independence, drifted apart from their former masters. Heavily populated and content to remain distant from world affairs, New Holland is a bit of a wildcard.
Poland-Lithuania was forced, by the fall of Hungary and collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, to be the preemeninant Christian power in Eastern Europe. The elective monarchy was replaced in favaor of a hereditary one. Eventually, the ruling Jagiellon dynasty took the thrones of Bohemia and Sweden and have held power there since their ascension. The current empire is colloquially reerred to as the Polish-Swedish Empire, as Krakow and Stockholm are the two seats of power in the empire. The Polish sphere includes puppet states in Norway, Saxony, Estonia, and Novgorod while maintaining considerable influence in both the Kingdom of Sibir (Catholic but still Tatar) and Wschoziemi. However, Poland-Sweden remains the only major Christian power without overseas colonies because the constant threat of war with the Turks makes any military expenditures outside Europe untenable. Despite this, there is a significant Italian émigré community in Warsaw and Krakow, many of whom are involved in international trade.
Britain was relatively unaffected by the Ottoman conquest of Rome and subsequent domination of Europe. England eventually conquered its islandic neighbors and began to establish colonies in the New World, Africa, and Asia. England was forced to absorb more than a handful of refugees from the mainland, most notably French and Swiss Protestants. Later, Protestants (most of whom had continental ancestry) settled along the Cartier River in southern Africa. In 1850, administration of the colony was handed over to local authorities. There is some concern at the theocratic, secretive tendencies of the Archduchy of New Belgia. In 1801, citing historic affiliation and fear of the non-Canturburian Hispanians, the Kingdom of Aquitaine (a bit of a French successor state, still ruled by the House of Orleans) petitioned for English protection, which it received. Succeeding Kings and Parliaments have often debated the viability of and English protectorate on the continent and wonder if Aquitaine is worth the pounds poured into its defense. England is powerful, but tries to remain above the squabbles of the rest of the world (but will not hesitate to fight a colonial war if the safety of some port or province is threatened).
While Protestants attempted to force the Danish monarchy into the League of Jena and the Ottoman sphere, devout Catholic members of the ruling house managed to forge alliances with the Hispanians and Polish to keep Denmark Catholic and free. For nearly one-hundred years after the cataclysmic Dano-Turkish War, Hispanian-backed and Polish-backed Hohenzollerns fought each other for control in a political/religious proxy war. Interestingly, the second phase of the war, from 1715-19 saw both sides backing a Toledo Catholic Hohenzollerns. Spain won in 1722, and retained tight control over Denmark until fairly recently.
West Africa is a jumble of colonies of various European states and Rome, while the Sahel is the battleground for wars between colonial powers and their native allies. East Africa managed to avoid being gobbled up by foreign powers, and the Swahili statelets and Sultanate of Mogadishu are considered respectable trading partners by Indian Ocean merchants. Ethiopia, suffered a worse fate, and, from its exile on Lake Nyanza, it has fought a religious war to liberate its homeland from the Romans. The front lines in the Ethiopian Highlands have bogged down recently, and it seems possible the Romans will simply withdraw from the occupied provinces.
Though Rome claims to be the premier Islamic state, not all Muslims follow the commands of the Sultan Mahmud VI. The most powerful among these Islamic powers is the Combined Hosts of the Celestial Jihad. The Combined Hosts appeared on the world stage roughly twelve years ago. Its origins lie in the Siberian plains, where Khazak, Tatar, Chinese, Polish, English, and New Spanish merchants and missionaries have long vied for influence. Though guns and churches proliferated from the Bering Strait to the Urals, no large organized states existed. In the Christian Year AD 1908 a meteor hit the earth in the Tunguska River, coinciding with the prophecy of an imam in the region (there is some dispute over the validity of the prophecy). The imam quickly became a venerated figure, and found himself at the center of a holy army that believed him to be a prophet, possibly one to equal Mohammed. Soon, this Ali (a surname is not known) was referred to as the “Simian Imam” (similarly, the impact, believed to be a meteor is called the Simian Fist) because of the sign of the Chinese year the impact occurred in, and his armies have conquered far and wide. The imam himself, now a priest-king, sits on a throne in a city located at the center of the impact while his armies are led by loyal deputies. The momentum of these conquerors has fizzled out in recent years as various hosts have come in contact with well-armed Polish and New Spanish troops. Theologians in Rome and Baghdad currently debate whether the Simian Imam and his followers are truly Muslims or followers of a new religion.
To the south of the Celestial Jihad is China, which has seen better days. As with OTL, China has been beat up by European states and their merchants. The current emperor is a modernizer, but faces a conservative bureaucracy and his attempts to update infrastructure has been foiled by that group in collaboration with the military. There is talk within the Three Beijing Brigades of deposing the Nun Dynasty and placing a new one on the throne. In areas along the Huang He and Yangtze where New Spanish merchants exert control, there is active resistance supported by hardliner military elements. China has good reason for fearing Europe, as the Emperor of Japan has his policies dictated by the Admiral of the New Spanish West Pacific Fleet and Bishop of Kyoto and the various Vietnamese kings have been deposed by the Dutchlanders. Only the Siamese have effectively held out European influence. The Third Uthong Dynasty has chosen gradual modernization, offending neither traditionalists nor reformists.
Much of India has suffered the same fate as East Asia, becoming protectorates of crown colonies of various European kings. The English Hindooland Company achieved dominance of the mountainous west, profiting from agreements with the Turks to secure the passes while the southern half of the subcontinent fell into the hands of a mixture of powers. Levels of Europeanization vary throughout the colonies ranging from New Cork north of Goa, where most of the population is of Irish descent to Savanur, where a Hindu king reigns. Though the Afghans and various rebels provide opposition to the colonizers, the principal opponents are the Rajput Empire. The Rajput Empire is dominated by the caste that holds that name, who provide military leadership and who forged the empire after serving as mercenaries.
The islands of OTL Indonesia were colonized early and are a jumble of protectorates and crown colonies. Nunesia (Australia) is a primarily settler colony. The New Spanish east was established primarily to search for gold. The English settled second in the quest for gold while the Dutchlanders came last and dropped convicts and a fair number of religious dissenters.
Technologically, this timeline is about ten to twenty years behind OTL, though airships are still rather popular. Europe, the Americas, and parts of Africa are all equally developed.
One of the greatest Ottomanwanks, but definitely the greatest Tunguska-wank I have ever seen! And I would say that a new religion is involved - Simianism?
Y'all loved my prior attempt at rationalizing and mapping an insane Internet conspiracy theory, so I tried another. This time from the other way around: the US is good or at least neutral, and is fighting for civilization against a terrifying foe. (Note the thin strip of neutral ground separating it from the turquoise menace)
(Potential ASB warning. Note: the African-American reference in c refers to Nation of Islam and Afrocentric types, not blacks or AAs as a group.)
What's up with the thick cloggy borders ? Also, in central North America, one of the borders appeared to be broken.
Amazing scenario, but I've got a few questions:
What's going on in Japan? Is that new Castille?
How centralized is the Ottoman state?
How far can the Ottomans project their power?
How big is China's Hui population and what role does it play?
fashbasher
Banned
I'm using a free Mac app called Paintbrush. The border in central North America wasn't supposed to be there so I erased it.
A tip: Microsoft Paint or any other similar app, like Paint.NET, is very good for Worlda maps. They allow you to place borders pixel by pixel and make nice, thin, clean, borders, in contrast to your blotchy and imprecise ones. It makes maps much better.
Otherwise, very nice map off of a cool concept. A write-up would be lovely.
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