It's probably been asked before, but what's everyone's headcanon ending for Kaiserreich?
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg
- Thread starter RiverDelta
- Start date
My personal headcanon is a three-way Cold War between a Totalist-dominated Third Internationale, a restored Russian Empire, and MacArthur's USA.
Cold War between a (non-MacArthur) US-lead democratic block and the Reichspakt.
Based off of my favorite USA playthrough were the Feds won the civil war, conquered Canada after they refused to return New England/Alaska, then decided that since Reichspakt and Internationale had supported the AUS/CSA, the US needed to wipe Syndicalism and Monarchism out in order to ensure the world was Safe for Democracy™, starting with the Americas.
Entente vs. Reichpakt Cold War with a Federalist USA (the Garner scenario I discussed before) joining (and taking over) the Entente, Britain reclaimed, France divided North and South between the Kingdom and the Republic, Divided Paris, Carlist Spain, Republican Brazil having hegemony in South America, rump Russian Republic joining the Entente, and Japan stripped of much of it's overseas empire by the United States, but not occupied (long story). China in the south is still engaged in a Civil War between the resurgent Rightist KMT (most of the power coming from the Yunnan and Liangiang cliques) backed by the United States and the resurgent German backed Qing/Zhili Clique in the north.
Basically liberalism (in the classical sense of the word: nationalism and democracy/republicanism) vs Aristocratic Reactionaries. Should be good fun.
Basically liberalism (in the classical sense of the word: nationalism and democracy/republicanism) vs Aristocratic Reactionaries. Should be good fun.
Democratic/non-Totalist Internationale controlling most of the world after 15 years of conflict (all under the umbrella of the Second Weltkrieg, including the 2ACW, Chinese Unification War, and anti-colonial insurgencies) that leaves them and the few capitalists (the Nordics minus Finland, battered authoritarian Russia, Sinn Fein Ireland just trying to get by, tall South Africa aka apartheid North Korea) unable and very unwilling to fight on.
Of course, this doesn’t lead to peace on Earth, or even concord within the TI: Britain and Iberia are concerned about France and Italy’s revanchist land grabs, the American Commonwealth (Wobbly-run, of course) has a bunch of really racist communes in various regions it wants to crack down on plus the specter of the Klan, China is a newly-forged confederation of republics under the left-KMT and liberal Liangguang Federalists, and their status in the Internationale is a contentious issue at home, and of course beyond you’ve got vengeful authoritarians and South Africa steadily sliding further into the racist deep end.
This background is also my XCOM alt-canon.
Of course, this doesn’t lead to peace on Earth, or even concord within the TI: Britain and Iberia are concerned about France and Italy’s revanchist land grabs, the American Commonwealth (Wobbly-run, of course) has a bunch of really racist communes in various regions it wants to crack down on plus the specter of the Klan, China is a newly-forged confederation of republics under the left-KMT and liberal Liangguang Federalists, and their status in the Internationale is a contentious issue at home, and of course beyond you’ve got vengeful authoritarians and South Africa steadily sliding further into the racist deep end.
This background is also my XCOM alt-canon.
This is what I think is a fairly plausible 1955 post-KR scenario, I kind of like its structure myself.
Comrade Nord's Commonwealth of America leads the remnants of the Internationale (Mosley got couped by Lawrence and Blair in '47 or so and they restored democracy in Britain, Valois fell flat on his ass in France* but Germany couldn't pull off alt-Sealion because the Reds took Canada and NatFrance dissolved into anticolonial revolt) in a Kalterkrieg against a battered and weakened but functional Reichspakt consisting of a socdem Danubia as second fiddle to liberal Germany. Savinkov declared himself Vozhd and attacked the Reichspakt in the middle of the Second Weltkrieg, but got forced back, and was couped by dissenting military officers when the Commonwealth and the Japanese both invaded (the former through socialist Iran and the latter through Transamur), Russia is basically divided between a Japanese-puppet Far Eastern Republic, a Red Central Asia that's basically Iranian puppets, a messy Caucasus, a chaotic Don-Kuban mess, and a very grudgingly German-aligned rump. China is mostly reassembled, largely because the Americans helped Red India with Lend-Lease and in the spirit of Fraternal Socialist Brotherhood the Indochinese and Indians let the Commonwealth base troops there to support the United Provinces of China in the later phases of the Japanese "intervention" in the messy Chinese civil war. Germany developed the Bomb first, in '47, America got it two years later, the Chinese civil war was over by '51 because without Japanese support the remaining Japan-backed cliques folded and Hirohito and his advisers (not to mention the civilian government, such as it was) could do the math on what was by this point an unstoppable military juggernaut that controlled America from the Rio Grande and California to Quebec and Labrador.
Needless to say, when the Commonwealth "requested" that the "status of American citizens in Hawaii and other Pacific insular territories" be "re-analyzed and re-considered", the Japanese made a big show of "handing back" those islands that the Commonwealth still claimed. Something about the fleet of fleet carriers that could each carry three times the aircraft of the best IJN carriers and were faster to boot just happening to visit Pearl Harbor. This was of course quite embarrassing, and the increasingly unstable situation in Korea even more so, but the Japanese government was committed to No Further Retreats after the humiliation, and so the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere endures, consisting of Japan, the bits of Korea Japan controls, the Philippines (the Reds drew the line at demanding concessions there, memories of Howling Jake Smith were still fresh for the older members of the IWW government, and the Reds were operating on a shoestring budget at this point due to the obscene size of the Commonwealth military, so the idea of a prolonged occupation was popular with absolutely nobody, and besides, the Filipinos weren't exactly struggling under a Japanese jackboot like Korea was), Insulindia, and the Far Eastern Republic.
Kim Il-Sung and Syngman Rhee are ironically best friends and share a passionate hatred of all things Japanese.
Natpop rule continues in Australia under the Guard, while George Windsor still rules from New Zealand, the last remnant of the once-mighty British Empire. His Fecklessness, who fled Ottawa in panic as the Reds surged north and mass desertions plagued the rickety Canadian military, had the decency to vanish from the public eye (possibly assisted by certain members of his government, but that's just a rumor). Australia is a pit, and neither the Germans nor the Americans like them, but German East Asia (or what's left of it anyway) is officially on the independence track now, and the Reds don't have a convenient base to strike from. So for now, Australia labors under the burden of insane nationalism and hypermilitarist totalitarianism.
America itself is still dealing with the aftermath of the Civil War, but the Reds had won by late '38 thanks to massively superior industrial might, Reed winning the '36 election (so the Pacific states were at least willing to consider not shooting the Reds on sight), and MacArthur being much better at PR than he was at actually fighting a war. Comrade Flynn successfully won the emergency election to replace Reed, who retired as part of an ultimately successful bid to reintegrate the Pacific states, and immediately engaged in a truly immense national rebuilding initiative. By '55, America is somewhat behind OTL America economically, but the addition of Canadian territory and resources (the Canadians are technically supposed to hold a referendum in a decade or so about independence, but since half the population of Canada is either a Yankee or married to a Yankee now, nobody seriously thinks that it'll go through) helped the rebound, as did the addition of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Frances (a mix of Jews from NatFrance, Jews and dissidents from Valois's regime, and ordinary Frenchmen who didn't appreciate the German puppetry post-war), have led to an accelerating growth rate (that the Commonwealth is aggressively Keynesian on government economic policy doesn't hurt), and it'll probably catch up to OTL America by the mid-'60s, despite the massive military commitments.
Mexico is surprised to be good buddies with America, but hey, whatever, it's good for the people.
Integralist Brazil is not a very nice place, but at least they're genuinely committed to the pan-Brazilian identity thing. Despite the totalitarianism and all. America is considering correcting that latter problem in a decade or so.
Chile and Argentina basically run most of the rest of South America from the Cone; most of the non-Brazilian nations are shaky democracies (Uruguay kept their heads down and stayed out of it with everything intact, Paraguay just had to Paraguay and is now a puppet dictatorship with red paint slapped on, and Bolivia went from insane Latino-supremacists to insane neo-Inca communist nuts and the people are too busy trying to keep their families alive and intact to really care all that much). Mexico being Red basically ensured that Centroamerica became a thing, and Panama accepted a sweetheart deal from America to open the canal to all and embrace neutrality for a few million bucks. (In truth, they would've settled for a token sum, but hey, why argue with a good thing?)
Cuba is under an insane "authentically Cuban identity"-obsessed nationalist regime. The socialists are having a bit of trouble here, both because of Germany grudgingly supporting the regime with guns and because the socialists are as a reaction to the regime explicitly against national identity as a concept, which just confuses the hell out of people. A young revolutionary wannabe called Fidel is trying to come up with doublethink to solve this issue, with little success.
China is a mess, but slowly consolidating, albeit without Mongolia (for now--Ungern-Sternberg the God of War is biding his time but he's a lunatic so that's unlikely to last), Xinjiang (ALL GLORY TO UNGERN KHAN), or Tibet (a fort with a country attached). The Emperor was politely asked to leave China as nobody wanted a royalist/legitimist faction screwing things up after the Japanese pulled out to focus on the death-spiral that is Korea. Then more forcefully. Finally he was just put on a boat and told to find some other country that would be more receptive to maladjusted would-be living gods.
He nearly drowned himself at several points, but the Empress essentially bullied him out of it to vent her frustration. Eventually the Captain of the freighter Puyi had been put on dropped him and the Empress off in San Francisco and told them to fuck off.
Joining a labor union has been the most transcendent experience of the Emperor's life. Everybody at the American Home Appliance Workers (chapter 131, North Los Angeles) plant marvels at the glee with which China Hank tucks in to his cafeteria sludge-that's-officially-chili. A decent enough guy, China Hank, if a bit simple, you know. Had to be taught how to tie his shoes and forgets to close doors behind him. He'd forget his head if it weren't attached to his neck! Used to be a bit of a bastard and a suck-up, but these days he's just that weird guy everybody knows.
The former Empress cried on the street because she had no skills, nothing to do, and would rather pluck her own eyebrows off than spend another minute dealing with her hapless idiot husband. A few passers-by took pity on her, and got her a room at a flophouse. She eventually took up seamstress work at a laundromat in Sacramento, in an attempt to reach the Commonwealth capital of Chicago that got sidetracked, met a nice man who'd fought in the Civil War and lost a hand, and settled down.
Northern Africa is a patchwork. NatFrance and Mittelafrika both imploded, and you betcha that Egypt took over, with a network of puppets and pals across the Sahara and Sahel and pals in Somalia keeping the Ethiopians down (Sudan and the southern tip are...still not fully reconciled with Cairo, but it could be worse). Egypt and Germany are currently at odds over the coup that ousted the legendarily corrupt and misogynistic King, who managed to be such a lecherous, greedy, kleptomaniacal, sexist bastard that even most of the conservative clerics condemned him. But he took German bribes to not make an issue of the Canal, so...yeah. Berlin wants Assurances. Cairo says the Canal is rightful Egyptian property. It gets worse in the Middle East; Nationalists in the Levant want the Egyptians out (and sometimes each other; the Christians hate the Jews and Muslims and Druze, the Muslims hate the Christians and Druze and are ambivalent to the Jews because technically the Jews and Christians are People of the Book and therefore to be protected but those Jesus-loving bastards have been right pricks to the Muslims recently, the Jews hate the Samaritans, the Samaritans claim that they're the real Jews and the others followed the wrong high priest way back when or something like that so screw them, NOBODY likes the Alawites except the Alawites, and the Druze hate the Muslims and Christians like nobody's business and would rather the Jews found someplace else to live). Yemen and the Saudis are at odds. Muscat wants payback for Yemen nabbing Dhofar. Et cetera et cetera et cetera...
Kurdistan is pretty peaceful, though. At this point they're so tired of being looked down on by their neighbors as backwards Koran-thumpers that they're collectively seriously toying with becoming radical revolutionary anarchists to make the already-pretty-radical Iran look conservative, just to spit in the faces of all those sneering wife-beating-Kurd jokes. (Did you know Saladin, the great Arab hero, was actually a Kurd? Well, the Kurds will remind you. Over. And over. And over)
Turkey wants payback but is surrounded by unfriendly neighbors and has settled on degenerating into surly irrelevance.
The Balkans and SE Europe are a mix. Bulgaria is still lording it over the other Balkan states, who hate Bulgaria right back, but now the Reichspakt is strong enough to effectively enforce Bulgarian hegemony. The bribes help. Romania had a coup after Codreneau's pogroms got too embarrassing, they have no love lost with the Hungarians. Greece changes governments about once a year, an unsustainable situation if ever there was one.
Subsaharan Africa is a patchwork. East Africa and Sudwestafrika are holding on with German aid, but the latter is barely worth the effort and the former is dealing with a brutal revolt in "Revolutionary Pan-African Identitarian Kirenya". The feuding petty dictatorships that populate most of the rest of the region following Hermann Göring's painful and humiliating demise are the primary battleground of the Kalterkrieg, as Internationale and Reichspakt spies and agents battle for control in backrooms.
South Africa is currently well into year 3 of its third major civil war in two decades, and this time white rule seems to be doomed. A pity that the Zulu nationalists and Xhosa nationalists can't agree on anything other than "Whitey bad", which is unfortunate considering that the Zulus and Xhosa speak rather similar languages and have rather similar customs.
Spain and Portugal have mostly recovered from the mistake that was Pan-Iberia, though Portugal is stroppy about its colonies bolting and Spain is getting used to having all the separatists...be separate.
Revolutionary Catalonia lives on in the memories of Catalans, but for now they toe the German line. For now.
Finland threw out the useless King, narrowly avoided an ultranationalist coup, and got a coalition government that embarked on the quite reasonable policy of "fortify the Russian border by any means necessary". Finland is nominally a Pakt member but trades under the table with the Internationale. Germany looks the other way, sometimes you need that token open port.
Simo Häyhä is still the single most deadly sniper ever, and world famous. Internationale propaganda says that his alleged confirmed kills are exaggerated. The opposite is in fact true.
The Nordic Federation is a thing, but the days of the Nordic nations being major powers are still in the past. Norwexit is always being threatened but not yet being acted upon.
Quisling was still shot, but this time it was for being a dick and invading the Swedes and failing.
Overall, it's a world slightly more torn up than OTL, but one looking upwards more. Both major alliances are led by democracies, although neither bloc is 100% democratic. The Second Weltkrieg period lasted longer than OTL WW2 and covered much more of the world, but there were fewer intentional genocides and civilian casualties were proportionally lower than OTL.
The great tragedy here is that nearly all the major players are basically chill, but they;re at odds for dumb reasons.
Comrade Nord's Commonwealth of America leads the remnants of the Internationale (Mosley got couped by Lawrence and Blair in '47 or so and they restored democracy in Britain, Valois fell flat on his ass in France* but Germany couldn't pull off alt-Sealion because the Reds took Canada and NatFrance dissolved into anticolonial revolt) in a Kalterkrieg against a battered and weakened but functional Reichspakt consisting of a socdem Danubia as second fiddle to liberal Germany. Savinkov declared himself Vozhd and attacked the Reichspakt in the middle of the Second Weltkrieg, but got forced back, and was couped by dissenting military officers when the Commonwealth and the Japanese both invaded (the former through socialist Iran and the latter through Transamur), Russia is basically divided between a Japanese-puppet Far Eastern Republic, a Red Central Asia that's basically Iranian puppets, a messy Caucasus, a chaotic Don-Kuban mess, and a very grudgingly German-aligned rump. China is mostly reassembled, largely because the Americans helped Red India with Lend-Lease and in the spirit of Fraternal Socialist Brotherhood the Indochinese and Indians let the Commonwealth base troops there to support the United Provinces of China in the later phases of the Japanese "intervention" in the messy Chinese civil war. Germany developed the Bomb first, in '47, America got it two years later, the Chinese civil war was over by '51 because without Japanese support the remaining Japan-backed cliques folded and Hirohito and his advisers (not to mention the civilian government, such as it was) could do the math on what was by this point an unstoppable military juggernaut that controlled America from the Rio Grande and California to Quebec and Labrador.
Needless to say, when the Commonwealth "requested" that the "status of American citizens in Hawaii and other Pacific insular territories" be "re-analyzed and re-considered", the Japanese made a big show of "handing back" those islands that the Commonwealth still claimed. Something about the fleet of fleet carriers that could each carry three times the aircraft of the best IJN carriers and were faster to boot just happening to visit Pearl Harbor. This was of course quite embarrassing, and the increasingly unstable situation in Korea even more so, but the Japanese government was committed to No Further Retreats after the humiliation, and so the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere endures, consisting of Japan, the bits of Korea Japan controls, the Philippines (the Reds drew the line at demanding concessions there, memories of Howling Jake Smith were still fresh for the older members of the IWW government, and the Reds were operating on a shoestring budget at this point due to the obscene size of the Commonwealth military, so the idea of a prolonged occupation was popular with absolutely nobody, and besides, the Filipinos weren't exactly struggling under a Japanese jackboot like Korea was), Insulindia, and the Far Eastern Republic.
Kim Il-Sung and Syngman Rhee are ironically best friends and share a passionate hatred of all things Japanese.
Natpop rule continues in Australia under the Guard, while George Windsor still rules from New Zealand, the last remnant of the once-mighty British Empire. His Fecklessness, who fled Ottawa in panic as the Reds surged north and mass desertions plagued the rickety Canadian military, had the decency to vanish from the public eye (possibly assisted by certain members of his government, but that's just a rumor). Australia is a pit, and neither the Germans nor the Americans like them, but German East Asia (or what's left of it anyway) is officially on the independence track now, and the Reds don't have a convenient base to strike from. So for now, Australia labors under the burden of insane nationalism and hypermilitarist totalitarianism.
America itself is still dealing with the aftermath of the Civil War, but the Reds had won by late '38 thanks to massively superior industrial might, Reed winning the '36 election (so the Pacific states were at least willing to consider not shooting the Reds on sight), and MacArthur being much better at PR than he was at actually fighting a war. Comrade Flynn successfully won the emergency election to replace Reed, who retired as part of an ultimately successful bid to reintegrate the Pacific states, and immediately engaged in a truly immense national rebuilding initiative. By '55, America is somewhat behind OTL America economically, but the addition of Canadian territory and resources (the Canadians are technically supposed to hold a referendum in a decade or so about independence, but since half the population of Canada is either a Yankee or married to a Yankee now, nobody seriously thinks that it'll go through) helped the rebound, as did the addition of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Frances (a mix of Jews from NatFrance, Jews and dissidents from Valois's regime, and ordinary Frenchmen who didn't appreciate the German puppetry post-war), have led to an accelerating growth rate (that the Commonwealth is aggressively Keynesian on government economic policy doesn't hurt), and it'll probably catch up to OTL America by the mid-'60s, despite the massive military commitments.
Mexico is surprised to be good buddies with America, but hey, whatever, it's good for the people.
Integralist Brazil is not a very nice place, but at least they're genuinely committed to the pan-Brazilian identity thing. Despite the totalitarianism and all. America is considering correcting that latter problem in a decade or so.
Chile and Argentina basically run most of the rest of South America from the Cone; most of the non-Brazilian nations are shaky democracies (Uruguay kept their heads down and stayed out of it with everything intact, Paraguay just had to Paraguay and is now a puppet dictatorship with red paint slapped on, and Bolivia went from insane Latino-supremacists to insane neo-Inca communist nuts and the people are too busy trying to keep their families alive and intact to really care all that much). Mexico being Red basically ensured that Centroamerica became a thing, and Panama accepted a sweetheart deal from America to open the canal to all and embrace neutrality for a few million bucks. (In truth, they would've settled for a token sum, but hey, why argue with a good thing?)
Cuba is under an insane "authentically Cuban identity"-obsessed nationalist regime. The socialists are having a bit of trouble here, both because of Germany grudgingly supporting the regime with guns and because the socialists are as a reaction to the regime explicitly against national identity as a concept, which just confuses the hell out of people. A young revolutionary wannabe called Fidel is trying to come up with doublethink to solve this issue, with little success.
China is a mess, but slowly consolidating, albeit without Mongolia (for now--Ungern-Sternberg the God of War is biding his time but he's a lunatic so that's unlikely to last), Xinjiang (ALL GLORY TO UNGERN KHAN), or Tibet (a fort with a country attached). The Emperor was politely asked to leave China as nobody wanted a royalist/legitimist faction screwing things up after the Japanese pulled out to focus on the death-spiral that is Korea. Then more forcefully. Finally he was just put on a boat and told to find some other country that would be more receptive to maladjusted would-be living gods.
He nearly drowned himself at several points, but the Empress essentially bullied him out of it to vent her frustration. Eventually the Captain of the freighter Puyi had been put on dropped him and the Empress off in San Francisco and told them to fuck off.
Joining a labor union has been the most transcendent experience of the Emperor's life. Everybody at the American Home Appliance Workers (chapter 131, North Los Angeles) plant marvels at the glee with which China Hank tucks in to his cafeteria sludge-that's-officially-chili. A decent enough guy, China Hank, if a bit simple, you know. Had to be taught how to tie his shoes and forgets to close doors behind him. He'd forget his head if it weren't attached to his neck! Used to be a bit of a bastard and a suck-up, but these days he's just that weird guy everybody knows.
The former Empress cried on the street because she had no skills, nothing to do, and would rather pluck her own eyebrows off than spend another minute dealing with her hapless idiot husband. A few passers-by took pity on her, and got her a room at a flophouse. She eventually took up seamstress work at a laundromat in Sacramento, in an attempt to reach the Commonwealth capital of Chicago that got sidetracked, met a nice man who'd fought in the Civil War and lost a hand, and settled down.
Northern Africa is a patchwork. NatFrance and Mittelafrika both imploded, and you betcha that Egypt took over, with a network of puppets and pals across the Sahara and Sahel and pals in Somalia keeping the Ethiopians down (Sudan and the southern tip are...still not fully reconciled with Cairo, but it could be worse). Egypt and Germany are currently at odds over the coup that ousted the legendarily corrupt and misogynistic King, who managed to be such a lecherous, greedy, kleptomaniacal, sexist bastard that even most of the conservative clerics condemned him. But he took German bribes to not make an issue of the Canal, so...yeah. Berlin wants Assurances. Cairo says the Canal is rightful Egyptian property. It gets worse in the Middle East; Nationalists in the Levant want the Egyptians out (and sometimes each other; the Christians hate the Jews and Muslims and Druze, the Muslims hate the Christians and Druze and are ambivalent to the Jews because technically the Jews and Christians are People of the Book and therefore to be protected but those Jesus-loving bastards have been right pricks to the Muslims recently, the Jews hate the Samaritans, the Samaritans claim that they're the real Jews and the others followed the wrong high priest way back when or something like that so screw them, NOBODY likes the Alawites except the Alawites, and the Druze hate the Muslims and Christians like nobody's business and would rather the Jews found someplace else to live). Yemen and the Saudis are at odds. Muscat wants payback for Yemen nabbing Dhofar. Et cetera et cetera et cetera...
Kurdistan is pretty peaceful, though. At this point they're so tired of being looked down on by their neighbors as backwards Koran-thumpers that they're collectively seriously toying with becoming radical revolutionary anarchists to make the already-pretty-radical Iran look conservative, just to spit in the faces of all those sneering wife-beating-Kurd jokes. (Did you know Saladin, the great Arab hero, was actually a Kurd? Well, the Kurds will remind you. Over. And over. And over)
Turkey wants payback but is surrounded by unfriendly neighbors and has settled on degenerating into surly irrelevance.
The Balkans and SE Europe are a mix. Bulgaria is still lording it over the other Balkan states, who hate Bulgaria right back, but now the Reichspakt is strong enough to effectively enforce Bulgarian hegemony. The bribes help. Romania had a coup after Codreneau's pogroms got too embarrassing, they have no love lost with the Hungarians. Greece changes governments about once a year, an unsustainable situation if ever there was one.
Subsaharan Africa is a patchwork. East Africa and Sudwestafrika are holding on with German aid, but the latter is barely worth the effort and the former is dealing with a brutal revolt in "Revolutionary Pan-African Identitarian Kirenya". The feuding petty dictatorships that populate most of the rest of the region following Hermann Göring's painful and humiliating demise are the primary battleground of the Kalterkrieg, as Internationale and Reichspakt spies and agents battle for control in backrooms.
South Africa is currently well into year 3 of its third major civil war in two decades, and this time white rule seems to be doomed. A pity that the Zulu nationalists and Xhosa nationalists can't agree on anything other than "Whitey bad", which is unfortunate considering that the Zulus and Xhosa speak rather similar languages and have rather similar customs.
Spain and Portugal have mostly recovered from the mistake that was Pan-Iberia, though Portugal is stroppy about its colonies bolting and Spain is getting used to having all the separatists...be separate.
Revolutionary Catalonia lives on in the memories of Catalans, but for now they toe the German line. For now.
Finland threw out the useless King, narrowly avoided an ultranationalist coup, and got a coalition government that embarked on the quite reasonable policy of "fortify the Russian border by any means necessary". Finland is nominally a Pakt member but trades under the table with the Internationale. Germany looks the other way, sometimes you need that token open port.
Simo Häyhä is still the single most deadly sniper ever, and world famous. Internationale propaganda says that his alleged confirmed kills are exaggerated. The opposite is in fact true.
The Nordic Federation is a thing, but the days of the Nordic nations being major powers are still in the past. Norwexit is always being threatened but not yet being acted upon.
Quisling was still shot, but this time it was for being a dick and invading the Swedes and failing.
Overall, it's a world slightly more torn up than OTL, but one looking upwards more. Both major alliances are led by democracies, although neither bloc is 100% democratic. The Second Weltkrieg period lasted longer than OTL WW2 and covered much more of the world, but there were fewer intentional genocides and civilian casualties were proportionally lower than OTL.
The great tragedy here is that nearly all the major players are basically chill, but they;re at odds for dumb reasons.
Vince
Monthly Donor
I posted this last year. This was pre-0.7.
It has been 25 years since the end of the Second Great War. Germany, despite what is told in its history books and propaganda about being unbeatable, under the SPD and Kaiser Wilhelm II won the Second Weltkrieg but it was a close-run thing. The French Commune, relying on an officer's initiative, broke through Belguim into the Rhineland. The Germans under Guderian and Rommel utilized a new tactic, blitzkrieg, to cut off and destroy two of France's best armies. It took another two years but Germany ground the French and Italian Syndicates to dust. France was Italianized into multiple countries after their defeat. The SRI was reverted back to duchies. The Savoyards jumped ship to the Germans to regain its Piedmontese territories. It took another year of British and German dogfights and sending most of their navies to the bottom of the Channel to sign a second Peace with Honor. Both sides were too exhausted to continue.
Germany now rules much of Europe under the Europarat. Whether for protection or the economic opportunities much of Europe joined them. From Kiev to Madrid a common currency and trade unite much of Europe. Despite calling itself the greatest country in the world Germany still has it's problems. The Syndicates in Britain still stand unbroken, Austria-Hungry continues to muddle along in the Dual Monarchy causing instability on its southern border and Germany still doesn't have a native oil supply to exploit.
The Balkans has remained surprisingly calm after Bulgaria's defeat by the Belgrade Pact.
The United States collapsed into civil war after McArthur took over the government. The Combined Syndicates of America emerged from the ashes victorious. During the Weltkrieg the CSA attacked the Entente quickly overrunning Canada and the West Indies Federation. Along with the Syndicates in Mexico, Brazil and the Union of Britain the Atlantic Syndicate Alliance (also referred to as the Fourth Internationale) was formed. All of the Western Hemisphere is now under this banner. The last real holdout, Argentina, fell in the Plantain War and is now a Brazilian proxy. The C.S.A. has rebuilt itself into a Superpower and its alliance is one that is not to be taken lightly.
The Entente disbanded after Canada's fall. The Alliance was too weak and scattered to survive losing it's strongest member.
German MiddleAfrica now exists as the Konföderation von Afrika. Goering's illegal practices in the territory were brought to light and he was brought back to Germany in chains. Paul von Lettow Vorbeck convinced the Kaiser to appoint a reformist to make Africa a productive and stable land for Germany. The Konföderation began as the main MiddleAfrica territory and the various British/African states as autonomous states. All the states have representatives in the Konföderation's parliament in Dar Es Salaam. All of sub-Saharan Africa is under the Konföderation's flag after Madagascar was ceded by Germany to save money, Liberia joined after seeking protection and South Africa after the South Rhodesian Crisis saw the Afrikaners toppled when they tried to invade Northern Rhodesia (The free blacks were funneling arms to their brothers under Apartheid). Despite forces that might cause it troubles (The South African Germans are blatantly stirring up White Supremacist movements) it's economy and standard of living continues to grow. It remains one of the few bright spots in the world.
The French Empire resorts to more and more desperate means to keep control in Algeria but there simply isn't enough Frenchmen. It doesn't help many of the Pied-noirs are giving up and emigrating back to Europe.
To everyone's surprise, the Ottomans held together and began reforming. When the Arabian Block declared war it bottled up the Egyptians at the canal and defeated each of its foes methodically one by one. The empire today, buoyed by oil sales to Germany, is no longer the Sick Man of Europe. Indeed the Germans are buying so much oil from them that the Ottomans joke they will be the ones holding German debt. It should be noted the Sultan keeps quietly suggesting to Germany the status of the Suez canal needs to be "revised".
Russia held together after Kerensky's assassination. Under Czar Dmitri stability was restored and the army rebuilt. Central Asia was retaken, Sternberg was put down like a rabid dog while the Caucasus and Transamur were annexed after Russia threatened Germany and Japan whilst they were busy fighting each other. Despite these successes, Russia is not content. It still wants its remaining territories from the Europarat and to become a truly great power again. The Russian bear will ally with anyone who will help them achieve it. They remain a wildcard in the geopolitical world.
The Japanese took advantage of the overextended Germans to overrun their Asian islands, overthrow the Qing and conquer the AOG. Nothing appeared to stop them from taking all of Asia. Then they invaded Indochina as a springboard to take Malaysia and the Viet Cong put the Imperial Army through a meat grinder. The Japanese would have eventually won in time. However, in one of the greatest ironies of the war, Von Mucke lead his navy and smashed the Japanese Navy in the Battle of the South China Sea sinking three carriers and heavily damaging another. Without supplies, the Japanese army surrendered and Japan was forced to stop and consolidate. Today the Japanese have become a victim of its own success. while The Japanese-controlled Fengtian government now controls all of Coastal China it seethes over Japanese control of its economy and government. Worse still China is growing to the point where it will soon match the Japanese and could feasibly throw off its control. The Russians, Germans and Americans are gleefully funneling all the arms it can to the Chinese.
Deutsche-Ostatain absorbed the remnants of the AOG and is developing economically more into a proper state. It's slowly giving the natives a bigger say like it's African brother. It helps Singapore is a very lucrative city to base a country on. Relations with Indochina are cordial. Having a common enemy in Siam let's them paper over their past conflict.
India remains divided. The three factions can barely deal with internal issues let alone fight each other. The Agrarians in the Commune are too pacifist, the Princely Federation is fighting amongst itself and the Raj is still overcoming the collapse of the Entente and trying to hold together on its own.
Australia is an armed camp waiting for an invasion that will never come. Edward VIII, who still claims all his titles to other countries to the howls of laughter from the rest of the world, rules from his last dominion. The King-Emperor is slowly losing his grip on reality and rants daily of the Japanese, American or Germans hordes coming to destroy him that only exist in his imagination.
The world has settled into a multi-polar cold war. The Germans and Americans seek to increase their spheres of influence across the world, the Japanese struggle to maintain their hold on the Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Russians sharpen their knives waiting for opportunities. Who wins this latest conflict is anyone's guess
Up to 1950: Germany goes fully democratic under the SocDems. CSA wins the civil war and creates the Socialist Republic of America. Russia goes NatPop, but Kornilov causes a second civil war. Russia later allies itself with the Qing. The Reichspakt, the Donau-Adriabund and the Entente fight the Totalist Internationale in Europe, the CoF and the SRI fall, but so does Canada. Germany is also ousted from Asia by an increasingly corporatist Japan (MarLib), while Russians and the Qing unify much of China and also fight Japan. The Princely Federation falls apart when Osman proclaims himself the Kaisar-i-Hind, the war between India and Bharat ends in a stalemate. Meanwhile, in South America, the Argentine Commune, Socialist Chile and Syndicalist Bolivia fight the Brazilian Empire, an Entente member, which is partitioned after the SRA's intervention. Australasian Guard coups the democratic government and proclaim the resident Prince George to be King George VI. A four-way cold war develops between Germany, the SRA, Russia-Qing and Japan.
1950: https://i.imgur.com/YdYq15N.png
Up to the present day: Both the SRA and Germany are able to democraticize their allies/puppets, or they cut them loose (Totalist Britain). Germany dissolves Mittelafrika and is even able to set up the Kaiserbund with a few of the countries. Japan collapses, goes Totalist (basically Juche and has Juche anime), and Russia and China fill the power vacuum left behind them. Germany and the SRA somewhat make up because of the threat of Russia and China - "the Third Mongol Empire". The UoB flips to National Populism (horseshoe theory ftw) and allies with Russia. South African blacks overthrow Boers and establish Totalist black nationalist Azania, while whites either flee to the Cape republic (NatPops) or the Republic of Rhodesia (black and white democrats and capitalists). Australasia is still under the rule of the Guard and has officially renamed itself "the British Empire". A (mostly) reunified India allies with Persia and they form the Axis (with actual Aryans!).
2018: https://i.imgur.com/AH33iV8.png
1950: https://i.imgur.com/YdYq15N.png
Up to the present day: Both the SRA and Germany are able to democraticize their allies/puppets, or they cut them loose (Totalist Britain). Germany dissolves Mittelafrika and is even able to set up the Kaiserbund with a few of the countries. Japan collapses, goes Totalist (basically Juche and has Juche anime), and Russia and China fill the power vacuum left behind them. Germany and the SRA somewhat make up because of the threat of Russia and China - "the Third Mongol Empire". The UoB flips to National Populism (horseshoe theory ftw) and allies with Russia. South African blacks overthrow Boers and establish Totalist black nationalist Azania, while whites either flee to the Cape republic (NatPops) or the Republic of Rhodesia (black and white democrats and capitalists). Australasia is still under the rule of the Guard and has officially renamed itself "the British Empire". A (mostly) reunified India allies with Persia and they form the Axis (with actual Aryans!).
2018: https://i.imgur.com/AH33iV8.png
Oh right I was going to explain Totalist France. Basically, as much as I like Comrade Makhno, IMO it's more likely that post-WK France becomes an insane ultranationalist totalitarian regime. So Valois, basically.
Kornilov is in power when the CW breaks out. He dies as it's happening, then Savinkov takes power.
I've mentioned it earlier that I have no one headcanon ending. But to have a distinctly boring example...
The year is 1964, and MacArthur, the Caesar of America, is dead. The world holds its breath to see what follows. Will the American junta consolidate under another general? Will MacArthur's US fall into anarchy as the growing issues can no longer be papered over by the dictator's iron fist, and if so, what will happen to its nuclear arsenal, the source of the wary peace? Might the Pacific States of America, the Reichspakt and World League-recognised government of the United States of America, expand its controlled territory, or might New England, the Entente-recognised government of the USA, be the main beneficiary? If New England and the PSA share a border, could reunification be in the cards, and if so, where will the resulting government lean?
The Reichspakt is the single most powerful alliance in the world. The German victory in Europe in the Second World War (and the consolidation of German democracy led by the SPD), and the formation of the Danubian Federation out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, led to the gradual transformation of Mitteleuropa into a European Union, a common political entity covering most of non-Russian Europe. With the most or second most powerful of the American claimant governments (the PSA has a smaller population and industry than MacArthur's USA, but a much more loyal citizenry, more modern industry and a more functional government) and the re-united India under the Indian Federation (the reformed democratic successor to the old Princely Federation) on-board, the reformed and victorious Ottoman Empire controlling much of the world's oil reserves, and many former German colonies such as the Confederation of Central Africa remaining allies, the modern Reichspakt sees itself as a guarantor of peace and democracy.
The United Provinces of China and the Russian Republic share their situation as two democratic federations holding to a general neutral stance, but within the global system, that emerged from the chaotic 30s and 40s. In truth, both have become reasonably friendly with the Reichspakt, but formal membership is not sought by any party.
To say that Japan's flirt with National Populism backfired is an understatement. Its empire torn away by rebellion and cut off after then-German East Asia, the Indian Federation and the PSA defeated the IJN and imposed a blockade, with Russia threatening further intervention after reclaiming Transamur, the failure of its delusional peace offers set off a series of coups and counter-coups before a Japanese military government endorsed by the Emperor was able to last long enough to sign a surrender. Currently a shaky Syndicalist regime, the People's Empire of Japan seems unable to decide what it is.
The Entente is a rogue alliance against the world order, but perhaps that may change soon. The Exile generation is dying off, its influence fading on Australasian, Canadian and West Indies politics and the thought that the Empire is fine and all but maybe it doesn't need Britain reclaimed after all is growing in popularity, and New England has always had a strain that sought unity with the PSA, one that may be bolstered by what happens to the American Stratocracy.
South and Central America had some very lucky decades for democracy.
The World League (Weltbund) was established in 1956 on the initiative of the European Union. Intended as a global forum for peaceful diplomacy and international cooperation, the offer of permanent League Council membership (the others being the Common Seat of the European Union, the United States of America (PSA government) and the Indian Federation) brought China and Russia into the project, and today roughly 90% of the world's nations hold League membership, the most prominent hold-outs being the nations of the Entente.
The year is 1964, and MacArthur, the Caesar of America, is dead. The world holds its breath to see what follows. Will the American junta consolidate under another general? Will MacArthur's US fall into anarchy as the growing issues can no longer be papered over by the dictator's iron fist, and if so, what will happen to its nuclear arsenal, the source of the wary peace? Might the Pacific States of America, the Reichspakt and World League-recognised government of the United States of America, expand its controlled territory, or might New England, the Entente-recognised government of the USA, be the main beneficiary? If New England and the PSA share a border, could reunification be in the cards, and if so, where will the resulting government lean?
The Reichspakt is the single most powerful alliance in the world. The German victory in Europe in the Second World War (and the consolidation of German democracy led by the SPD), and the formation of the Danubian Federation out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, led to the gradual transformation of Mitteleuropa into a European Union, a common political entity covering most of non-Russian Europe. With the most or second most powerful of the American claimant governments (the PSA has a smaller population and industry than MacArthur's USA, but a much more loyal citizenry, more modern industry and a more functional government) and the re-united India under the Indian Federation (the reformed democratic successor to the old Princely Federation) on-board, the reformed and victorious Ottoman Empire controlling much of the world's oil reserves, and many former German colonies such as the Confederation of Central Africa remaining allies, the modern Reichspakt sees itself as a guarantor of peace and democracy.
The United Provinces of China and the Russian Republic share their situation as two democratic federations holding to a general neutral stance, but within the global system, that emerged from the chaotic 30s and 40s. In truth, both have become reasonably friendly with the Reichspakt, but formal membership is not sought by any party.
To say that Japan's flirt with National Populism backfired is an understatement. Its empire torn away by rebellion and cut off after then-German East Asia, the Indian Federation and the PSA defeated the IJN and imposed a blockade, with Russia threatening further intervention after reclaiming Transamur, the failure of its delusional peace offers set off a series of coups and counter-coups before a Japanese military government endorsed by the Emperor was able to last long enough to sign a surrender. Currently a shaky Syndicalist regime, the People's Empire of Japan seems unable to decide what it is.
The Entente is a rogue alliance against the world order, but perhaps that may change soon. The Exile generation is dying off, its influence fading on Australasian, Canadian and West Indies politics and the thought that the Empire is fine and all but maybe it doesn't need Britain reclaimed after all is growing in popularity, and New England has always had a strain that sought unity with the PSA, one that may be bolstered by what happens to the American Stratocracy.
South and Central America had some very lucky decades for democracy.
The World League (Weltbund) was established in 1956 on the initiative of the European Union. Intended as a global forum for peaceful diplomacy and international cooperation, the offer of permanent League Council membership (the others being the Common Seat of the European Union, the United States of America (PSA government) and the Indian Federation) brought China and Russia into the project, and today roughly 90% of the world's nations hold League membership, the most prominent hold-outs being the nations of the Entente.
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Rolled ones where Germany rolled twenties. The three members in 1936 all went Totalist (Sorelian in the Commune's case), and none of the other Syndicalist nations around in the world joined. WW2 was the Reichspakt-Internationale war, and by the end of it German and allied forces had occupied Britain, France and the SRI (a republic was set up in Britain, the French Republic-in-Africa was enticed to defect to the Reichspakt by handing over France and Italy was united under the Italian Empire).
Was Britian too authoritarian to just not be given the same deal as France?
No, Canada is democratic, but the Empire in Exile was involved with other conflicts with the Reichspakt, which led those negotiations to failure (eg. it is impossible in KR at the moment and I prefer to not have too many things that are impossible in KR happen within the normal KR timeframe).
