Another America: A Map and Graphic Setting
- Thread starter Keperry
- Start date
Who colonized New Zealand? Aotearoa is the native Maori name, so it gives no hints.
Perhaps they either weren’t fully colonized or whoever colonized them did so a lot less successfully then OTL. Africa also seems to have quite a few native-named countries.
Also I’m really curious about the POD considering we have such things as an independent Venice. I’m especially curious how Liberia still exists.
They opened one tomb too many.
Yep.
Britain, but as less of a settler colony and more of a protectorate, hence the greater Maori-ness.
That's accurate in the case of Aotearoa and for a lot of the African countries that were protectorates rather than fully colonized, others of the African countries with native names are former full colonies that just renamed themselves (in particular a lot more African countries consider themselves to be the nation-state of a particular ethnicity and renamed themselves accordingly).
Venice is considered the Second Republic of Venice since rather than the First Republic remaining independent it ended up as part of Austria as in OTL only to break free when the Austrian Empire collapsed and decided to style itself as a successor to / resumption of the old republic and emphasize a distinctive national identity rather than joining Italy like in OTL.
Liberia's history is basically similar to OTL although with mostly Virginia as the force behind it and somewhat more disjointed between different national and state level colonization projects resulting in it being a federation today (I'll admit that this is pretty egregious butterfly-murder but the whole concept of Liberia is too interesting for me to pass up). In addition originally British resettlements of freedmen joined in as Britain made it a protectorate through much of the colonial era, which is why Sierra Leone is part of it now.
So, all in all a somewhat better colonization period. Well, this seems like a fairly pleasant world, though there’s probably a few major authoritarian nations you haven’t mentioned. China for instance probably doesn’t have a pleasant history
Yeah I'm really still deciding which nations are or were authoritarian, communist, had civil wars, etc. Some thoughts:
-China spent much longer mired in warlordism and only pulled itself together in the last few decades (mostly, the Qing emperors in Beijing still claim to be the rightful rulers of all of China but the rest of the world only recognizes their authority over Manchuria), Shanghai still being internationalized is a thumb in its eye but it can't forcibly reclaim it without becoming an international pariah which is the last thing it needs at this fragile time
-Russia went communist and either still is (in which case some of its neighbors ought to be too), or, when communism fell it almost restored the monarchy and reunited with Alyeska but instead got taken over by ultra-nationalists who thought the tsars had become too weak and decadent
-Hungary at some point got taken over by ultra-nationalists (possibly in the aftermath of an anti-monarchist revolution) who started persecuting the ethnic minorities around the country's edges prompting its neighbors to invade to rescue them and/or conveniently take off pieces of Hungary for themselves
-Iraq is a Shia theocracy like OTL Iran that's fought wars with many of its neighbors
-Iranian (still under the shahs although it's more of a constitutional monarchy by now) occupation backing an unpopular puppet regime in Turkmenistan as a buffer against Russia and whoever else
-Hyderabad and possibly also Mysore had civil wars (aka Hindustani-Carnatic proxy wars) between the monarchy and ruling Muslim minority and left-wing Hindu/Dravidian nationalists who want to reunite with Carnatique (which as part of its nationalist agenda also invaded and occupied the Tamil regions of Ceylon)
-Ezo with some sort of apartheid system of Japanese ruling over Ainu
-Transvaal as a Dutch Rhodesia, the white minority refused to accept a transition to black majority rule and instead unilaterally declared independence from the Netherlands as a rogue apartheid state
-Acre at some point devolved into a Kurtz-esque horror show isolated in the middle of the jungle
-Yucatanian occupation of part or all of Santa Cruz (possibly leading to Cruzob exile occupation of part or all of Belize, Black September style) plus Cruzob-supported Maya nationalist insurgencies in Yucatan and Central America
By no means an exhaustive list of messed up countries in this world!
Map of Colonial Empires
Rough map of past colonizers. Important to bear in mind that it's anachronistic and not all of these places were colonies of the same empire at the same time (in particular most of the colonies in the Americas were independent by the time that most of Africa and Asia were colonized). In cases where a colony was held by multiple different empires, it's colored for the most influential one. Only holdings outside Europe are shown so many of the colonizers also held larger territories in Europe when they were colonizing. Lighter shades indicate protectorates, which had many different degrees of autonomy, and some of which (*cough* princely states in India *cough*) aren't shown.
Interesting. The fact that France was supporting a Chinese warlord state makes me even more concerned for the history of China in this world. Also shouldn’t the Russians be marked as having colonized like, most of Eastern Europe
I did specify that the map only shows holdings outside of Europe!
And yes, China's had a rough go of it, which has been much to the benefit of the European powers in letting them carve out spheres of influence; in fact since I accidentally left another layer visible you can see a new border with which I'm considering screwing them even more by splitting off Shanxi and Shaanxi as Communist China.
Who or what is Kurtz? Are you referring to some TV series or book?
So you do confirm that there were communist nations? What about (West) Germany and/or a French bloc being communist?
No Jewish Republic is a good idea - it was a completely arbitrary OTL Soviet decision. No significant amount of Jews lived here. Other cases are possible both ways. Tuvans, Ruthenians and Estonians have their own identities and history on that territories though.
Yep, from the book Heart of Darkness, and also the movie Apocalypse Now based on it.
There have definitely been communist countries, still working out which ones - West Germany being communist might be a good idea, originally I envisioned it as an 1848-ish liberal republic but it might work for it to have emerged via communist revolution against Prussia or something like that... France might have swung in the other direction to communism after going fascist, I don't know. One idea I had is that after the Russian Revolution, the Baltics became the United Baltic Duchy in the Prussian sphere of influence and dominated by the German aristocratic minority, subsequently there was a Russian-backed revolution by the native majority that ended up with a Baltic-ruled communist state aligned with Russia, and possibly a repelled Finnish invasion of Estonia... maybe Finland went communist too? Which countries may have been communist is definitely something I have to put more thought into.
Since I'm still working with the assumption that Russia went communist I do think it could still work for it to have arbitrarily resettled Jews in the Far East; I do admit it's pretty brutal butterfly murder but this whole TL is pretty fast and loose.
Unrelatedly I'm now thinking about putting a Francophone nation in Australia, specifically in South Australia and/or Tasmania... Terre-Napoleon was the name the OTL French gave the region, so maybe Napolia? Might also rename the country Australia to New Wales so that "Australia" just refers to the continent to be less confusing, but then there's confusion with Y Wladfa in Patagonia...
Since the Bonapartes escaped to Louisiana (I think), maybe Tasmania/Napolia could be a Louisianian colony?
Could be a good idea! The main issue I suppose would be that it probably wouldn't get much settlement at all while Louisiana is still focused on settling their own interior... I will also point out that I have not officially decided whether the Louisianan monarchy is Bonaparte or Bourbon and will put off making that decision until the last possible moment.
Anyway here's a possible new version of Australia:
(Yes I'm lazy and just used the OTL province borders, whaddya gonna do)
(Torn on whether to have Tasmania remain Diemensland or become part of Napolia, though I'm leaning towards the latter, since on the one hand it's always nice to have a greater diversity of countries but on the other hand I feel like Napolia isn't substantial enough without it and I do like the idea of it being French)