11 Danubias
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So while I was working on my already well-known World of Nightrise project, finishing maps, making character sprites and continuing to write on the Master TL, this kind-of "alternatehistory.com meme" popped up and everyone did them (spamming the discord with it).
So one day a discord member approached me and asked "why don't you make one of these too with your Danubia from Nightrise?"
I decided "why not?" and started doing it. However, this will be a bit different from the usual kind of these "memes", which look at different timelines for a certain area (like Brazil) without these being in relation to each other. This list of maps (with the exception of #1 and #11) will all be based on a "what if things happened differently
in the Nightrise timeline?", exploring the possibilities from the PoD 1852 onwards on.
Additionally, please note that these will be composed in a highly speculative way ("One of the reasons probably is [...]","This likely is caused") since these second PoDs usually involve different decisions by fictional characters, so they are more theoretical assumptions than the actual, IRL-possible PoDs discussed in the normal type of this meme.
#1 -
The Danube Monarchy ("
The Danube Monarchy in the Prime Timeline") - [Current Year on graphic:
1972]
PoD Date: 1855
PoD Reason:
Two men from an OTL-like world are unwillingly summoned into this timeline.
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The Danube Monarchy as we (will ^^') know it from the Prime Timeline, the main Timeline of the
World of Nightrise Universe.
The demihuman revolts which had started since the original PoD in 1852 weren't in an optimal state anymore, but this is radically changed when two German university graudees are unwillingly thrown back in time to serve as "end solution" assistants against the demihuman revolts but immediately change sides and help a local Carniolan (Slovenian) revolt to topple the Habsburg government in Vienna.
Seeing that the freedom of the awakened demihuman races could only secured through a state like Austria, or through a power that could ensure peace on the continent, and seeing themselves confronted with the legacy of creating a united German state under a responsible doctrine that keeps the atrocities and lost souls of their OTL-like timeline in mind, they decide to take on the fight against the increasinly anti-demihuman stanced German rival Prussia and eventually manage to defeat the originally more powerful German state by playing its own cards against it. The main actor of the two, Friedrich Grünewald, who had become the sort-of "despotic" 'New Kaiser' of Austria, builds up strong ties to the demihuman-led state of Congress Poland and eventually marries its queen, Valéria Malinowski, forming a strong tie between the German and Polish People, as well as the minority ethnicities.
After unifying Central Europe in the borders we know today, and fighting a second war with Russian from 1868 until 1871, the country ends up victorious in the Great Victory Congress of 1872.
Seeing themselves as a finished country, they enter a neutralistic, isolationist policy of non-intervention and non-bloc foreign policy which roughly keeps being successful until 1912 when the 30-year lease of Shantung (shandong) ends and the country sparks a crisis with the increasingly anti euro-colonial powers of China and Japan, as the country keeps its possession on the two port cities Tsingtau and Wilhelmshafen (Weihaiwei).
During the time of the Great War (1919-1925, however technologically more comparable to WW2), the country stays neutral due to the difficult relationships with the increasingly anti-demihuman Imperial alliance and the demihuman-integral but anti-european Asian powers. This, however, changes in 1924 when France (member of the Imperial alliance) stages a terrorist attack "by the Chinese" in order to get the powerful Danubian Empire on their side, only to watch themselves fall within weeks after Danubia had noticed the false flag and had declared war on them (which to modern day - 1972 - is the only time the danube monarchy had declared an offensive war against any other country since 1872).
Following the defeat of the Imperial alliance, the two Spheres (German and Asian) spheres come close to each other again, forming the Eurasia-spanning Duosphere which remains the main sphere of power and civilization to this day.
#2 -
Danube Confederation (Donaubund) ("
Eden upon Danube") - [
1970]
PoD Date: 1857/1858
PoD Reason:
Instead of dealing with the Unification of Germany and other issues, the Austrian Empire and it's south german puppet states decide to stay with themselves and create a danube-based Federation.
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After the South German Confederacy was created in 1856, the two new leaders of the revolt, Friedrich Grünewald (the new Kaiser) and Peter Eisenacher (the 'Advisor' of the Kaiser and the Chancellor as well), stood at a a crossway: Either risk the current status and try to unify Germany by toppling Prussia, or concentrate on integrating the current areas and make the country's legality based on its erection of a demihuman society than on nationality as well.
While in the Prime Timeline, the two decide to topple Prussia, in this timeline, they decide the former - a relatively small but highly developed and demihuman-integral "Danube Monarchy" - A Country, no, an Eden upon Danube.
This country would likely assert a similar policy of neutralistic isolationism, trying to be a greater Switzerland. Prussia and Austria eventually cease their hostilities and enter a cooperative relationship as their spheres of influence are now fixed and Austria doesn't try to cripple Prussia anymore, which now has set its sails towards the world, the sea, rivaling the Republic of Britain (which originally went down the weimar route in 1867) and the French Empire.
However, while being culturally and technologically still quite influent, the Danube Confederacy plays a far lesser role in world politics and a friendly relationship between (East) Asia and Europe is never established, resulting in a cold war between the more expansionist Japan (Sino-Japanese friendship and an EU-esque Asian alliance like in the PTL never was a thing in this TL) and the Euroamerican Civilization.
#3 -
Kingdom of Slovenia ("
Following the roots") - [
1970]
PoD Date: 1855/1856
PoD Reason:
The objective of the Carniolan revolt never changes into conquering all of Austria but continues to aim at the creation of a unified Slovene state.
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When the Carniolan revolt, the revolt in whose area the two travelers unwillingly "spawned" in, was still in its early months, it actually had another objective in addition to the liberation and end of prosecution of demihumans: the Unification of all Slovene lands into the area which had already been a subject in
1848.
While in the Prime Timeline, Grünewald and Eisenacher are able to convince the council of the revolt to reassign their objective towards annexing all of Austria because that would give them a better strategic position against outside threats, it is decided that they should only concentrate on unifying the "Slovene Lands" (a state that would ultimatively be German-Slovene-Croat trilingual due to its ethnic composition) and equip it with more modern tech, creating a small, culturally unified [German and Slovene cultures were considered to be extremely similar, and still are sometimes considered so to this day iOTL] and geographical-technologically impenetrable country which could play the planned "second switzerland" role even better than the Danube Confederacy could do.
The small but technologically OP country fights off several attempts by states like Italy, Germany, Hungary or Yugoslavia to snatch some of their territory and becomes a second haven of international organizations, Political/Racial refugees (often from Germany) and scientific research/institutions, much like Switzerland. The rest of Europe is plunged into chaos a few times due to the Imperialistic ambitions of a Prussian Germany trying to bond the formerly Russian territories that had declared independence on its side.
In fact, this timeline ends up quite similar to Kaiserreich. (
I honestly can't say how a denihuman world would look like without the danube monarchy so i guess it would be actually quite similar to what would happen if germany went the same route as OTL but won the ww1 equivalents because of a weakened Russia, an annexed German-Austria and country-hopping in eastern europe)
#4 -
Greater German Empire ("
Fuck time paradoxons, we're already in one") - [
1900]
PoD Date: 1855-1857
PoD Reason:
The radical ideas of Grünewald and Eisenacher are never deradicalized, creating a progress-maniacal country with two maniacs at its top
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Now this one is an interesting one.
What happens here is that the radical ideas which Grünewald and Eisenacher (the latter being quite a fan of nuclear power and weapons, and the one responsible for the Norwegian-Swedish Technocracy in the PTL) had as a result of their knowledge of future technology (kinda a William Walker syndrome) are never deradicalized like they are in the PTL.
This never leads to the creation of the Security Council which aims at keeping technological progress at reasonable speed or any other institution and principle known in the PTL - because the two decide to go full maniac. A heavy effort is done into getting Austria/the German State onto the "level of technology" the Mirror Timeline Federal Republic of Germany had in 2025, which leads to nuclear weaponry use during the battle of Russia (1870), in which the Russian Empire, a vast land power, is destroyed in a world-shocking 2-3 weeks.
The new elephant in the room, which by now had abandoned almost all of its original principles of freedom and liberation, makes the russian empire as the main initiator of anti-demihuman pogroms responsible for the deaths of all demihumans killed in pogroms, collectively slaughtering all east slavs which they deem as accomplices of the russian killing machine.
This ending of the demihuman wars looks, feels and also acts like a nazi victory scenario in which the east slavic people are slaughtered like flies, sometimes even by gathering city populations on a large field and wiping them out through a nuclear explosion.
You can also see on the map that a ton of nuclear tests have been made in the north and east of european 'russia'. Additionally, you can only see germany's puppets on this map but not its sphere of influence (which basically spans the whole world).
[
I in no way advocate for actual genocide of this kind or any other kind, and I don't support any actions done by the maniac versions of my story's main characters in this scenario. This is simply just a kind-of overly extreme depiction of how a maniacal and paranoid dictator would look like]
#5 -
Autark Community of the Danube Monarchy ("
The new government is strict. So strict, they close the country. No one can leave, and no one can come in.") - [
1970]
PoD Date: 1926
PoD Reason:
The autark policies which were only partially introduced in the PTL are wholly introduced, abandoning all colonies
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So this is an idea which I already had before while thinking about Danubia's "balance" and its post-1925 history.
In the PTL, the Government introduces several autarkic policies that aim to make several industrial sectors like energy production, food production and providing transportation, water and other basic living services entirely self sufficient in the case of total isolation by its surrounding countries. The aim was to make the backbone of the country independent from outside influences to avoid political blackmail.
In this TL, the government decides to go a little bit further, completing the autark system and making all motherland+european puppet economies self-sufficient in all/almost all aspects, and releasing all of its colonies in order to deplete supply line threats. The goal of the government in this TL is to isolate the Danube Monarchy into its own little microcosm, minimizing outside interaction (though not prohibiting it like in the GDR or North Korea OTL). The Only non-autark province remaining in Danubian hands is the mediterranean reichsland, which faces heavy depopulation (due to the fact that the DM won't be able to protect it in case of war) and increasing black market.
#6 -
Council Republics of Middle Europe (Räterepubliken Mitteleuropas) ("
Workers around the world, unite!/Die rote Donau") - [
1917]
PoD Date: 1852-ish
PoD Reason:
Grünewald and Eisenacher never arrive in the Nightrise timeline (or remain unsuccessful/died) and a communist uprising unites Germany instead.
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This is yet another interesting scenario since it actually is an in-canon alternatehistory book (like MITHC's 'the grasshopper lies heavy' or Kaiserreich's 'Führerreich') called "Die rote Donau" (the red danube) which is why the flag of this country has a swastika, as the creator of this book simply butchered the pandemonium symbol (seen in #1, #2 and #8) of the Carniolan uprising and changing it into "something different".
The timeline of this book is written "quite coincidentally" similar to the USSR's early pre-1960 history, as a Hungarian madman communist (equivalent to stalin) takes over the newly created communist state, which begins to conquer more and more territories in eastern europe to spread the Ideology around the world.
The map shows the state of the country at the outbreak of the Second World War (The Räterepublik sees the Uprising wars as the first "World [influencing] War") 1917, in which the country will conquer most of europe and stage attempts to create a socialist world republic.
[What else would you expect from a book written by a communist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!]
#7 -
Republic of Germany ("
The Democratic way always is the right way") - [
2000]
PoD Date: 1858/1862
PoD Reason:
The Zürichplan, a territorial plan for Germany which was abandoned in 1858 is kept; A full democracy is established in Germany in 1862 instead of a Danube Empire.
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So this timeline has more or less two PoDs that make it differ from the PTL. One of these is that the Zürichplan, a “plan for the territorial reorganization of Central Europe for the Unification of Germany”, which aimed at uniting Germany under a “mere” Greater German Solution and annexing the German/Italian Parts of Switzerland instead of the Greater Austrian/Mitteleuropa solution we know from the PTL.
This is likely caused by Valéria Malinowski moving to Austria and thus rendering the original purpose of the Polish state’s existence useless, which leads Austria into not entering an alliance with “Poland” and then accepting the Zürichplan as proper solution.
The second PoD/significant change is in 1862 when it is decided that the German State should become a Federal Democracy instead of the current monarchical system, giving the Grünewald-Malinowski family the opportunity to leave politics and withdraw themselves to Schönbrunn residence, leading an industrial manufacturing company instead. [
This is actually a quite interesting idea :thinking:]
The reason for this is likely because the Culturally quite homogeneous German Empire could be run via a democracy in contrast to the PTL where it was decided that the monarchy was necessary to hold the multi-ethnic danube monarchy together until a basic understanding/acceptance of Danubia was reached (which at this point made the Monarchy an integral part of the Danubian identity).
The Republic of Germany follows its 1848 ideals and embraces the idea of liberal nationalism in europe, supporting national unification movements in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe. Even though the country fought France and took Alsace-Lorraine, it is able to establish an okay relationship with its western neighbor, though its largest ally is probably the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland.
#8 -
German State & Malinowski Dynasty in-exile (Kingdom of Taipeh) ("
Vienna has fallen") - [
1939]
PoD Date: 1936-1937
PoD Reason:
A Nationalist/seperatist revolt somehow topples the Danubian monarchy and government and plunges the former Reichsbund/Danubian Territories into chaos.
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This actually is the timeline which I am stepping in the dark with the most because in the current version of Nightrise there never was such a “terrorist” organization that intended the whole destruction of the DM, especially not at that time, and I also don’t really intend to implement one.
However, I’ve thought about what measurements the Grünewald-Malinowski Family would’ve had made in case such a scenario happens, which is why I included it in here.
The Danubian government is infiltrated by a terrorist organization in the late 1930s (technologically equivalent to OTL 70s) and is subject of a terrorist coup which involves a series of terrorist attacks comparable to the OTL 9/11 attacks: The Kaiserreich tower [
a more neo-baroque/neo-renaissance version of the Empire State Building built in 1907], its surrounding government buildings and Schönbrunn palace, the residence of the Malinowski since 1855, are destroyed and a military/nationalist coup takes control of the region. While the royal family unexpectedly survives the attacks, they are forced to retreat and eventually have to flee to Switzerland, then being transferred to the Malinowski-loyal puppet state of Taipeh which offered them their government. Since this day, the Malinowski govern the Kingdom of Taipeh and regain a shaky but existent control over the Malaynesian Colonies with help of ally Japan.
The Mainland is subject to a heavy-loss civil war in which different "national states" try to gain most of their ethnic pocket exclaves and are in itself deeply divided over how to proceed. The Polish-German(-Slovenian) friendship established gives the German (, Slovenian) and Polish national states an advantage over the other factions but that is more of a drop in the bucket within the huge mess inside the former Reichsbund territories.
#9 -
German Confederation/former German-Polish Commonwealth ("
I never thought France was this strong") - [
1922]
PoD Date: 1857-1858ish
PoD Reason:
Only a commonwealth status between Germany and Poland is arranged, making the country weaker and lose to the French in a second war.
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Yet another "false" decision made by Friedrich Grünewald. The PoD works in a way as that Grünewald and Valéria Malinowski never enter an intimate relationship, for a whatever minor [
butterfly] reason,
causing their Austrio-Polish Alliance to be purely political, which ends up in the creation of a decentralized and somewhat incompetent/conflicted German-Polish Commonwealth.
As you can see on the "faded lines" which display the former extention of the German-Polish Commonwealth, the GPC had annexed some territories in France/the BeNeLux and Switzerland, infuriating France which followingly weaponizes itself in a frenzy of revenge, and also seeking allies with similar grudges against the new state. They find them in Denmark (who had lost to prussia a few times and seeked to regain Schleswig-Holstein), Italy (Irredenta) and Russia (hoping to regain the more industrialized areas of Congress Poland).
The result is a France and Russia-influenced Rump State called the German Confederation, which is decentralized to a point where it nearly isn't even a state anymore, and which also has authority over the "too irrelevant/closely related" Republics of Bohemia and Batavia.
#10 -
German Empire (Hohenzollern dynasty) ("
Those silly Austrians. Not even their despot Kaiser could scratch on Preußens Gloria.") - [
1915]
PoD Date: 1858
PoD Reason:
Austria Loses to Prussia. The unbelievable.
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This is yet another one of these "dumb decision" Timelines. In most of the other Timelines (and especially in the PTL) we see a revolutionary Austria led by an unwilling time traveler steamrolling both Prussia and Russia with an actually competent and somewhat OP Austrian Army, but what if the unthinkable happened: They fucked up stuff during their fights with Prussia.
Some decision made different butterflies away the somewhat "luck" the Austrians had when defeating the major Prussian army, and instead, they lose the main battle and lose ,province over province, their territories.
This is the case in this timeline in which, despite the united efforts of Poland and Austria, Prussia is not defeated and instead is able to make the two countries capitulate. This causes the loss of the two most promising demihuman revolts to an increasingly anti-demihuman "Army with a State", with the revolt leaders either being killed, going underground or being pressured into a small rump austria as a result.
Prussia, now holding a(n almost [
if they stay alive]) completely decapitated Austrian Empire and Poland in its hands, Is able to expand much more than it did in OTL 1866, being able to unite all of Germany under its banner, including Confederal [
the areas inside the former German Confederation 1815-1856] Austria and its napoleonic
South Prussia and
New East Prussia.
Prussia is able to defeat Russia, a relatively weak state at the time due to the awakening chaos [
Russia was practically in civil war] and as a result reannexes old Prussian Order lands and adds a few eastern european states to its collection of puppets. During the 1870s and 1880s, the German Empire asserts much influence on colonial politics and eventually even annexes Belgium in a colonial war, much to the dissatisfaction of France, which would become increasingly hostile to Germany, which is now [
in 1915] facing an international crisis that would lead to the first Great War.
#11 -
Federal Republic of Germany (Mirror Timeline) ("
This thing is...weird.") - [
2025]
PoD Date: 1852/1992
PoD Reason:
No awakening happens in th first place; Kaliningrad is bought by Germany in 1992.
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This is kinda a bonus round because it's inherently different from all the others as there is no magical awakening from 1852 onwards, which is the main PoD of the World of Nightrise universe.
This is the Federal Republic of Germany from Nightrise's Mirror Timeline, which is the timeline the two time travelers are from. It essentially is OTL just with a few "artistical freedom" timeline changes post-1990s that involve Kaliningrad being bought in 1992 after Gorbachev had offered it to the German State, which was declined OTL. Additionally, as a result of the missing Baltic port, Russia is more "aggressive" in the Crimean crisis and manages to annex a large part of eastern Ukraine, which later on joins the EU in 2019. The Map is set in 2025 and the changes made to it are essentially just to show that is isn't OTL and any real life similarities within the PTL or the MTL are "purely coincidental/artistical" since it technically is a non-OTL alternate timeline.
Edit: Now that I read through it I think I made it too timeline-focused, not describing how it's like in these countries... ugh I could've made this better...
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So this is yet another World of Nightrise map series. I know you gus probably either are already extremely bored by the scenario or want to kill me for not posting it already, and I'm really sorry that you're hearing nothing about me or the Nightrise project on here even though it has been in development for well over 1-2 years, but I am pleased to say that it is nearing completion and I'm planning to release it soon. Currently I'm planning to release it either on September 28th (might be too close) or on November 5th when my Atumn holidays end. Of course, if I end up getting it done earlier, I'll be happy to release it right away but we'll see how things go.
