Also does anyone know a good idea for a dystopia after WWI/II or during it? I'm trying to think of ideas and a good pod might be the Paris commune staying alive longer. That, or, in the same PoD as Asia like America, with the USA being china, Cuba being Taiwan, and (I guess) Mexico being India and southeast Asia the Caribbean?
Map Thread XIX
- Thread starter water123
- Start date
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Thanks for reply.
Monaco is more like a British naval base.
As Aaland is for Germany.
Montenegro is an Italian protectorate and Corfu was annexed by Albania, another protectorate.
Hungary, for now, opted to separate Bosnia from Croatia, in a future Update, when Croatian fidelity to Budapest shall start to fade, partition of Bosnia will be reason for this TL Balkan.
Probably Belgium should be dark Grey as Poland, so there the reason why was not annexed by Luxembourg.
You may have misunderstood. I already know many of those things, but when I was talking about borders in Hungary I was partially talking in relation to those involving Bukovina and Galicia-Lodomeria. When I tal about Belgium, I am talking about the parts annexed to Germany, not the remaining purple parts. I also feel like Slovenia would not get its only place with those borders. Maybe they would get Carniola, get the Austrians wouldn't desperate the parts of Styria and Carinthia you give them. The Prussians didn't even give the Grand Duchy of Posen autonomy when they were required by treaties that gave them the land, or so I think it was. They expanded even more into Poland and giving Slavs too much autonomy would be bad for business, so to speak. Actually, is Hungary having Galicia Lodomeria mostly so the Habsburgs have a nice sized empire or partially to keep the Ukrainians and Poles from expanding?
I decided to make a series of maps for my interpretation of two fictional nations in the DC Universe: Kasnia and Vlatava
In my headcanons, Kasnia was founded by Jovan Nenad, who in DC's timeline actually succeeded in creating an independent state. As for Vlatava, the legend claims that the Kingdom of the Vlatva was destroyed by Germanic tribes but its people found a new home on the shores of the Black Sea - and the historical consensus in the DCU is that while there are no records of a Kingdom of the Vlatva, there is evidence that when Great Moravia collapsed, an alliance of pagan warriors briefly controlled lands around the Vlatva, later became mercenaries for the Roman Empire, and eventually settled in an area on the shores of the Black Sea
The first map is shortly before WW1. Kasnia is an autonomous area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Vlatava doesn't technically exist, although the Vlatavans (of mixed Slavic, Turkish, and Romanian descent) certainly do
The next map is shortly after WW1, when the Kingdom of Kasnia became independent, with a Kasnian Hapsburg on the throne. Kasnia won't hold onto all of that land for long, but it's what one of the Post-War treaties gave them. Meanwhile, the Republic of Vlatava took the opportunity to break away during the chaos following WW1 and the start of the Russian Civil War. Two years later it became the Kingdom of Vlatava, with a distant cousin of King Nikola III of Kasnia placed on the throne.
Map 3 is sometime before WW2. North Vlatava is under Soviet occupation while in South Vlatava the government is barely functioning. In Kasnia, the parliament is controlled by fascists and Nikola IV is one of the their most vocal supporters. The Kasnian fascists have made their plan clear: retake the land they lost to the Serbs and the Romanians by any means necessary, and eradicate the so-called "nekasnijci" - the state newspapers' umbrella term for the ethnic and religious minorities in Kasnia.
This map shows Kasnia during WW2. Kasnia and its puppets are coloured differently from their neighbours to distinguish them from other Nazi puppet governments, but at this point Nikola IV's government is effectively under Nazi control anyway. Vlatava doesn't exist at this point, but the resistance is fighting back and refuses to surrender.
Once the tide of the war turns, there's an uprising in Jovanograd, Kasnia's capital. The fascist government is overthrown and Nikola IV is forced to abdicate, and later executed for war crimes alongside the rest of the fascist government's officials. Kasnia managed to avoid a communist regime after the war, as there was already a new government in place, headed by Gustav V (a cousin of Nikola who'd been imprisoned for protesting against the fascist government before the war), and the Allies supported the new constitutional monarchy. Meanwhile, Vlatava's monarchy remains a government in exile while the country is now part of the Soviet Union as the Vlatavan SSR.
Since WW2, Kasnia's borders haven't changed much. Most of the country now has a Kasniak majority, although ethnic and religious minorities are still present. Unfortunately, since 1997 the country's been torn apart by a civil war, between the nationalist Army of the Republic of Kasnia, the monarchist government, and smaller factions such as the socialists, and former leaders of Kasnia's own civil rights movement (former, because you can't have much of a civil rights movement when your country is in the middle of a civil war). Meanwhile, Vlatava is actually relatively stable, with very few tensions between the Turkic Gagauzians in the west and the Slavic Budjatsians in the east.
(Technically, Themyscira should be on these as well - as an archipelago in the Black Sea - but at this point ITTL it's still hidden from the rest of the world and nobody knows it exists)
Thoughts?
In my headcanons, Kasnia was founded by Jovan Nenad, who in DC's timeline actually succeeded in creating an independent state. As for Vlatava, the legend claims that the Kingdom of the Vlatva was destroyed by Germanic tribes but its people found a new home on the shores of the Black Sea - and the historical consensus in the DCU is that while there are no records of a Kingdom of the Vlatva, there is evidence that when Great Moravia collapsed, an alliance of pagan warriors briefly controlled lands around the Vlatva, later became mercenaries for the Roman Empire, and eventually settled in an area on the shores of the Black Sea
The first map is shortly before WW1. Kasnia is an autonomous area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Vlatava doesn't technically exist, although the Vlatavans (of mixed Slavic, Turkish, and Romanian descent) certainly do
The next map is shortly after WW1, when the Kingdom of Kasnia became independent, with a Kasnian Hapsburg on the throne. Kasnia won't hold onto all of that land for long, but it's what one of the Post-War treaties gave them. Meanwhile, the Republic of Vlatava took the opportunity to break away during the chaos following WW1 and the start of the Russian Civil War. Two years later it became the Kingdom of Vlatava, with a distant cousin of King Nikola III of Kasnia placed on the throne.
Map 3 is sometime before WW2. North Vlatava is under Soviet occupation while in South Vlatava the government is barely functioning. In Kasnia, the parliament is controlled by fascists and Nikola IV is one of the their most vocal supporters. The Kasnian fascists have made their plan clear: retake the land they lost to the Serbs and the Romanians by any means necessary, and eradicate the so-called "nekasnijci" - the state newspapers' umbrella term for the ethnic and religious minorities in Kasnia.
This map shows Kasnia during WW2. Kasnia and its puppets are coloured differently from their neighbours to distinguish them from other Nazi puppet governments, but at this point Nikola IV's government is effectively under Nazi control anyway. Vlatava doesn't exist at this point, but the resistance is fighting back and refuses to surrender.
Once the tide of the war turns, there's an uprising in Jovanograd, Kasnia's capital. The fascist government is overthrown and Nikola IV is forced to abdicate, and later executed for war crimes alongside the rest of the fascist government's officials. Kasnia managed to avoid a communist regime after the war, as there was already a new government in place, headed by Gustav V (a cousin of Nikola who'd been imprisoned for protesting against the fascist government before the war), and the Allies supported the new constitutional monarchy. Meanwhile, Vlatava's monarchy remains a government in exile while the country is now part of the Soviet Union as the Vlatavan SSR.
Since WW2, Kasnia's borders haven't changed much. Most of the country now has a Kasniak majority, although ethnic and religious minorities are still present. Unfortunately, since 1997 the country's been torn apart by a civil war, between the nationalist Army of the Republic of Kasnia, the monarchist government, and smaller factions such as the socialists, and former leaders of Kasnia's own civil rights movement (former, because you can't have much of a civil rights movement when your country is in the middle of a civil war). Meanwhile, Vlatava is actually relatively stable, with very few tensions between the Turkic Gagauzians in the west and the Slavic Budjatsians in the east.
(Technically, Themyscira should be on these as well - as an archipelago in the Black Sea - but at this point ITTL it's still hidden from the rest of the world and nobody knows it exists)
Thoughts?
Attachments
Map of the results of the 2016 presidential election. Red indicates states won by the Democratic nominee, former First Lady and Arkansas Senator Hillary Clinton, blue indicates states won by the Republican nominee, incumbent President and former Governor of Texas Jeb Bush, and green indicates states won by the Labor nominee, Ohio Senator Tim Ryan. Since the electoral college had been abolished during the Reagan administration (specifically in 1979), who won which state really didn't have an impact on the election, but people still keep track of it for posterity.
Theres an election map thread that I feel like is more suited to maps like these. I'm usually not a big stickler on rules but for a while in another map thread there was a slew of "election maps" that were just repainted US/UK/Germany maps and it was kind of obnoxious.
I have understood: the German occupied Belgium should be dark grey, and probably Belgium should (and probably shall) be dissolved.
I post only pics, flags and maps (I'm too lazy to write a full TL), So something went lost.
However: Austria-Hungary double monarchy was divided in Austria and Hungary, with Germany taking all Austrian lands except was taken by Italians.
Galicia was given to Hungary exactly to not empowered neither Poland (more an occupied land) or Ukraine.
For Slovenia i follow the borders between Cisletania and Transletania.
I hope to have understood correctly.
The Mediterranean islands ISOT to 117 AD discussion a while back got me thinking about how that would work out and seemed to be a minor enough task that I could take on trying to map it. In the past, any attempt I made at mapping would inevitably end up with my lost in the weeds of relatively unimportant details and I tried to be a bit less of a perfectionist this time around. It didn't quite work out - I still spent way too much time going over small details - but I managed to finish, making this the second map I've completed. The only qualm I have is with the pixel font I downloaded for GIMP; I'm definitely choosing a different font for my next map.
This map is meant to capture the world 100 years after the ISOT. The destruction, confusion, tragedy, and unprecedented technological development that follows ISOTs can be found in all the affected regions of this new Mediterranean order but, by and large, this world has weathered the storm quite well and the possibility of a better tomorrow looms large on the horizon. That having been said, tensions exist between uptimers, downtimers, and everybody in-between, and though cooler heads prevailed in the early years of the crisis, new ideologies are springing up: nationalism, metanationalism, protonationalism, regressivism, neoimperialism... under a charismatic new generation of leaders, living free of the fear of starvation and death that faced their grandparents, these ideas have the potential to be the death knell for Mediterranean unity and stir the waters of the world's most active sea once more. If nothing else, the democracies of the sea have an active (if at times turbulent) body politic, one that brings its citizens to reflect on their nations' pasts and look to the future in earnest...
Mediterranean Community
The Mediterranean Community, commonly referred to as simply the CM, is the spiritual successor to either the EU or the Roman Empire, depending on who you ask. Despite the initial chaos following the ISOT, the affected nations were able to quickly establish lines of communication, naval coordination, disaster relief, and eventually common markets owing to the fact that the affected islands, with the exception of Djerba, a few Turkish islands, and an Albanian monastery, all belonged to the European Union. Continued faith in the value of the Euro managed to hold until the Palermo Conference, with representatives from each of the affected countries (bar Cyprus), was held in order to better understand what the priorities of the islands should be regarding mutual survival, development, and relations with the inhabitants of mainland Eurasia and Africa. The conference was not universally a success; news continued to trickle in regarding the developing Cypriot Civil War, the Siege of Veneto had the Italian delegates foaming at the mouth for repercussions, and the Turkish delegates raised hell every opportunity they received in their demands for continued Turkish independence and rights to Anatolia. The conference would fail to reach satisfactory conclusions for any of these issues but would succeed in creating the Islands Group; a supranational body designed to coordinate mutual resource allocation for each island's survival and transparency in foreign policy until a unified uptimer agenda regarding the outside world could be organized and implemented. The Islands Group would go through several iterations until it would finally become the Mediterranean Community, a union comprised of uptimer and downtimer nations alike with a unified currency (though a shaky one), democratically elected legislature (for citizens), and development agenda ("empire-building in the guise of aid", cry CM critics). Though eventually complete integration is hoped for by many, the diversity of its constituent nations, both in culture and national priorities, remains a very persistent obstacle.
Espanya
The Baleares were essentially all that remained of Spain following the ISOT. Though the economies were heavily reliant on tourism (and inundated with tourists) at the time of the change, local agriculture and the arrival of confused fishing boats from the Spanish coast allowed the local governments on the islands to survive with minimal deaths from chaos and starvation until connection could be made with Sicily. The democratic council model of governance proved useful against the challenges faced by the sudden loss of the central government and would be exported to the growing settlements on the coast of the Iberian peninsula and North Africa. Despite its small size, Espanya's bilingual society, relaxed attitude toward politics, and success in downtimer relations and mainland development has given the small country a reputation of perseverance and success that rivals that of the Tunisian Project.
Francia
Food, electrical, and infrastructural aid from Sardinia helped Corsica to keep anarchy from breaking out on the island. Ironically, the resulting closeness to Italy caused a cultural shift whereby Corsicans would emphasize their history as a part of France as part of their independence. Though starting off with a much smaller population than Italy, Corsica has taken on the mantle of France's successor. This is not to say that the French identity and the Corsican identity no longer conflict; particularly in the development zones, the linguistic divide has proved self-perpetuating; Gallic and Germanic tribes have taken more readily to French as a language of communication while the Roman administrative class and integrated tribes have shown more fondness toward Corsican. This continuing divide is perhaps the most pressing internal issue facing Francian society today, particularly as the mainland citizen population grows ever closer to the island one.
Despite this, the outward pressures facing Francia are enough to keep the nation united. Though differences persist, Corsicans and French understand that they face the difficulties of the times together and as one nation, though the character of that nation is at times unclear. More ominous is the outward threat presented by the growing power of Britannia as the island nation's meddling in the affairs of Armorican tribes becomes evident...
Italia
With a population of over 7 million at the time of the event, Italy quickly found herself in the dominant role of post-ISOT organization and rebuilding. Of equal significance, the question of what was to be done with Rome found itself in Italian hands. Records show that initial visits were rather peaceful, with Italians managing to procure translators sufficiently able to mimic Classical Latin to communicate with representatives of the Senate and with Romans recognizing that the strange people inhabiting the islands, though certainly not Roman, were not ordinary barbarians either. This all changed with the Siege of Veneto. Before sense could be made of the situation, Roman garrisons in what would eventually be Veneto would find themselves in conflict with the local governments of some Italian islands in the Adriatic Sea, both sides believing that some hostile power had invaded and occupied Roman/Italian territory. Though considerably more advanced technologically, the isolated nature of the Italian islands resulted in their eventual surrender to Roman forces when food supplies began running low. The subsequent Roman occupation saw the enslavement of some Italian citizens, an action which prompted Italy, supported by Greece, to threaten military action against Rome and demand certain concessions. Thus began the First Roman-Mediterranean War. Though Rome would survive this war, it would not survive the conflicts to come, as the pressure from newly dominant Christianity, repeated humiliation at the hands of its new neighbors, and inability to adapt to the technological shock would eventually cause the empire to crumble and fall into chaos.
Italia today remains the premier power in the Mediterranean Community, though it is significantly more decentralized than its counterparts. Where Hellas managed to unite its constituent islands in governance and structure, Sicily and Sardinia, by virtue of their great population and different locations, are all but independent in their internal affairs. This is not to say that relations are bad between the two; foreign policy and development initiatives are pursued in tandem, there are no barriers to trade, and an Italian identity persists alongside the powerful regional identities of the islands. Stereotypes, sports rivalries, and cultural difference exist, but these are understood locally to be sources of Italia's strength. A popular political cartoon caricature of the relationship is often used to help foreigners understand how Italians understand their country. In it, a handsome man and a beautiful woman hold each other and gaze at each other lovingly. "Saccente" says the man (Sicily) lovingly. "Bruto" the woman (Sardinia) replies, with adoration in kind.
Malta, Croatia, Cyprus, and Ifriqiya
When the Turkish islands were brought under the control of the Greek government and the prospect of an independent Turkish nation looking increasingly unlikely, the question of what would happen to the smaller island nations inevitably came under scrutiny. Though the level of independence each enjoys is varied, each have persisted in their own way.
The continued existence of Malta seemed the most unlikely following the ISOT, being unable to sustain its population initially and faced with a massive exodus soon after Italian ships reached the island. Despite these conditions, Malta managed to secure independence as a state and the uniqueness of the Maltese language combined with the linguistic variety of Maltese society were revealed to give Maltese citizens an advantage in learning and recording downtimer languages. Though heavily reliant on Italia and Hellas for its survival, Maltese today can be found at the fore of many diplomatic missions establishing relations with downtimer tribes and coordinating development and integration plans
Whether Croatia is an independent country or an autonomous region of Italia is an awkward question that most care not to ask out of politeness. Though Italia took the role of protecting the Croatian islands and ensuring autonomy for the Croatian people, few on the islands took much personal interest in resettling the mainland, preferring to stay on their comparatively developed islands. A close referendum saw Croatia vote in favor of providing docking rights to Italian ships and material support to Italian development efforts at home and abroad, in lieu of pursuing their own development program - a tax by any other name.
Cyprus exploded into civil war shortly after the ISOT, with the Turks and Greeks on the island coming to blows against one another over increasingly limited resources. Ultimately, the Turks in North Cyprus were forced off the island, resulting in massive casualties. The rather fascistic emergency government would eventually cave to pressure from an angry Hellas to democratize and provide sanctuary to Turks that sought to relocate to the island. Though tensions remain, divisions between the two communities have largely been papered over as the economic conditions on the island began to improve.
By far one of the strangest states to come out of the ISOT, Ifriqiya is considered one of the greatest diplomatic successes of the Mediterranean Community. The only nation born out of a union between uptimer and downtimer nations, Ifriqiya is the product of a Tunisia fearing for its (and by extension, any Islamic state's) chances of survival and an Africa province that experienced a renaissance of Punic culture after an Italian embargo forced independence from Rome and new technology prompted dramatic changes in society. Africa province saw cooperation with the Mediterranean states as vital to its survival and prosperity and after a series of conferences and negotiations, the creation of a secular union state between Carthage and the Tunisian remnants, aided by development aid from Italia in exchange for development and extraction rights around certain oil wells, came to pass. At the moment, the Tunisian government is based in Djerba and the Punic one in Carthage, though a city is being constructed on what-would-become Tunis that will serve as the capital of the future state. Sweet, sweet Italian money is helping to construct schools where students are taught both Arabic and Punic and the construction of further wells over the oil-rich Sahara, access to a new and increasingly vital resource, ensures that the future looks bright for the young Dual Republic of Ifriqiya.
Hellas
The second-most populated state to come out of the ISOT, and with much more developed land, Hellas is the Byzantium to Italia's Rome. In the chaotic yet formative early years, Hellas and Italia seemed on a collision course toward bitter rivalry, as nationalistic Greek parties made the argument that the ISOT was a gift from God to take the mantle of the old Byzantine Empire and fulfill Greece's destiny as Mediterranean hegemon. While this argument seemed compelling to some at first, a string of embarrassments and debacles as Greek nationalists and fascists tried to make contact with proto-Greeks made this argument begin to seem silly and fantastical. The failure of the nationalists' narratives and the harsh reality of uptimer isolation in this new world helped carry SYRIZA back into power in the first elections after the ISOT, on a platform of Mediterranean cooperation and pragmatic caution toward interfering in downtimer areas.
Today, Hellas is the backbone of uptimer development and diplomacy in the east. Though tensions with Italia are sometimes heated (no one has forgotten the Dacian Debacle), cooperation and friendship are strong, with Hellas mostly content to leave Italia in the leadership role in interactions with Roma and post-Roman states in the west while Hellas continues assisting Aigyptos in integrating into the Mediterranean economy and enforces the Closed Gate policy of slow detente with Parthia.
--
This writeup started looking rather long and I was a bit worried that it would take forever if I tried to write out a description of every single state or every single policy initiative of the Mediterranean Community, so I'm cutting it short here. That said, I have thought out a lot more details about the map (again, I have a bit of a perfectionist streak when it comes to worldbuilding) so feel free to ask me any questions you might have! I'd love to answer them!
This map is meant to capture the world 100 years after the ISOT. The destruction, confusion, tragedy, and unprecedented technological development that follows ISOTs can be found in all the affected regions of this new Mediterranean order but, by and large, this world has weathered the storm quite well and the possibility of a better tomorrow looms large on the horizon. That having been said, tensions exist between uptimers, downtimers, and everybody in-between, and though cooler heads prevailed in the early years of the crisis, new ideologies are springing up: nationalism, metanationalism, protonationalism, regressivism, neoimperialism... under a charismatic new generation of leaders, living free of the fear of starvation and death that faced their grandparents, these ideas have the potential to be the death knell for Mediterranean unity and stir the waters of the world's most active sea once more. If nothing else, the democracies of the sea have an active (if at times turbulent) body politic, one that brings its citizens to reflect on their nations' pasts and look to the future in earnest...
Mediterranean Community
The Mediterranean Community, commonly referred to as simply the CM, is the spiritual successor to either the EU or the Roman Empire, depending on who you ask. Despite the initial chaos following the ISOT, the affected nations were able to quickly establish lines of communication, naval coordination, disaster relief, and eventually common markets owing to the fact that the affected islands, with the exception of Djerba, a few Turkish islands, and an Albanian monastery, all belonged to the European Union. Continued faith in the value of the Euro managed to hold until the Palermo Conference, with representatives from each of the affected countries (bar Cyprus), was held in order to better understand what the priorities of the islands should be regarding mutual survival, development, and relations with the inhabitants of mainland Eurasia and Africa. The conference was not universally a success; news continued to trickle in regarding the developing Cypriot Civil War, the Siege of Veneto had the Italian delegates foaming at the mouth for repercussions, and the Turkish delegates raised hell every opportunity they received in their demands for continued Turkish independence and rights to Anatolia. The conference would fail to reach satisfactory conclusions for any of these issues but would succeed in creating the Islands Group; a supranational body designed to coordinate mutual resource allocation for each island's survival and transparency in foreign policy until a unified uptimer agenda regarding the outside world could be organized and implemented. The Islands Group would go through several iterations until it would finally become the Mediterranean Community, a union comprised of uptimer and downtimer nations alike with a unified currency (though a shaky one), democratically elected legislature (for citizens), and development agenda ("empire-building in the guise of aid", cry CM critics). Though eventually complete integration is hoped for by many, the diversity of its constituent nations, both in culture and national priorities, remains a very persistent obstacle.
Espanya
The Baleares were essentially all that remained of Spain following the ISOT. Though the economies were heavily reliant on tourism (and inundated with tourists) at the time of the change, local agriculture and the arrival of confused fishing boats from the Spanish coast allowed the local governments on the islands to survive with minimal deaths from chaos and starvation until connection could be made with Sicily. The democratic council model of governance proved useful against the challenges faced by the sudden loss of the central government and would be exported to the growing settlements on the coast of the Iberian peninsula and North Africa. Despite its small size, Espanya's bilingual society, relaxed attitude toward politics, and success in downtimer relations and mainland development has given the small country a reputation of perseverance and success that rivals that of the Tunisian Project.
Francia
Food, electrical, and infrastructural aid from Sardinia helped Corsica to keep anarchy from breaking out on the island. Ironically, the resulting closeness to Italy caused a cultural shift whereby Corsicans would emphasize their history as a part of France as part of their independence. Though starting off with a much smaller population than Italy, Corsica has taken on the mantle of France's successor. This is not to say that the French identity and the Corsican identity no longer conflict; particularly in the development zones, the linguistic divide has proved self-perpetuating; Gallic and Germanic tribes have taken more readily to French as a language of communication while the Roman administrative class and integrated tribes have shown more fondness toward Corsican. This continuing divide is perhaps the most pressing internal issue facing Francian society today, particularly as the mainland citizen population grows ever closer to the island one.
Despite this, the outward pressures facing Francia are enough to keep the nation united. Though differences persist, Corsicans and French understand that they face the difficulties of the times together and as one nation, though the character of that nation is at times unclear. More ominous is the outward threat presented by the growing power of Britannia as the island nation's meddling in the affairs of Armorican tribes becomes evident...
Italia
With a population of over 7 million at the time of the event, Italy quickly found herself in the dominant role of post-ISOT organization and rebuilding. Of equal significance, the question of what was to be done with Rome found itself in Italian hands. Records show that initial visits were rather peaceful, with Italians managing to procure translators sufficiently able to mimic Classical Latin to communicate with representatives of the Senate and with Romans recognizing that the strange people inhabiting the islands, though certainly not Roman, were not ordinary barbarians either. This all changed with the Siege of Veneto. Before sense could be made of the situation, Roman garrisons in what would eventually be Veneto would find themselves in conflict with the local governments of some Italian islands in the Adriatic Sea, both sides believing that some hostile power had invaded and occupied Roman/Italian territory. Though considerably more advanced technologically, the isolated nature of the Italian islands resulted in their eventual surrender to Roman forces when food supplies began running low. The subsequent Roman occupation saw the enslavement of some Italian citizens, an action which prompted Italy, supported by Greece, to threaten military action against Rome and demand certain concessions. Thus began the First Roman-Mediterranean War. Though Rome would survive this war, it would not survive the conflicts to come, as the pressure from newly dominant Christianity, repeated humiliation at the hands of its new neighbors, and inability to adapt to the technological shock would eventually cause the empire to crumble and fall into chaos.
Italia today remains the premier power in the Mediterranean Community, though it is significantly more decentralized than its counterparts. Where Hellas managed to unite its constituent islands in governance and structure, Sicily and Sardinia, by virtue of their great population and different locations, are all but independent in their internal affairs. This is not to say that relations are bad between the two; foreign policy and development initiatives are pursued in tandem, there are no barriers to trade, and an Italian identity persists alongside the powerful regional identities of the islands. Stereotypes, sports rivalries, and cultural difference exist, but these are understood locally to be sources of Italia's strength. A popular political cartoon caricature of the relationship is often used to help foreigners understand how Italians understand their country. In it, a handsome man and a beautiful woman hold each other and gaze at each other lovingly. "Saccente" says the man (Sicily) lovingly. "Bruto" the woman (Sardinia) replies, with adoration in kind.
Malta, Croatia, Cyprus, and Ifriqiya
When the Turkish islands were brought under the control of the Greek government and the prospect of an independent Turkish nation looking increasingly unlikely, the question of what would happen to the smaller island nations inevitably came under scrutiny. Though the level of independence each enjoys is varied, each have persisted in their own way.
The continued existence of Malta seemed the most unlikely following the ISOT, being unable to sustain its population initially and faced with a massive exodus soon after Italian ships reached the island. Despite these conditions, Malta managed to secure independence as a state and the uniqueness of the Maltese language combined with the linguistic variety of Maltese society were revealed to give Maltese citizens an advantage in learning and recording downtimer languages. Though heavily reliant on Italia and Hellas for its survival, Maltese today can be found at the fore of many diplomatic missions establishing relations with downtimer tribes and coordinating development and integration plans
Whether Croatia is an independent country or an autonomous region of Italia is an awkward question that most care not to ask out of politeness. Though Italia took the role of protecting the Croatian islands and ensuring autonomy for the Croatian people, few on the islands took much personal interest in resettling the mainland, preferring to stay on their comparatively developed islands. A close referendum saw Croatia vote in favor of providing docking rights to Italian ships and material support to Italian development efforts at home and abroad, in lieu of pursuing their own development program - a tax by any other name.
Cyprus exploded into civil war shortly after the ISOT, with the Turks and Greeks on the island coming to blows against one another over increasingly limited resources. Ultimately, the Turks in North Cyprus were forced off the island, resulting in massive casualties. The rather fascistic emergency government would eventually cave to pressure from an angry Hellas to democratize and provide sanctuary to Turks that sought to relocate to the island. Though tensions remain, divisions between the two communities have largely been papered over as the economic conditions on the island began to improve.
By far one of the strangest states to come out of the ISOT, Ifriqiya is considered one of the greatest diplomatic successes of the Mediterranean Community. The only nation born out of a union between uptimer and downtimer nations, Ifriqiya is the product of a Tunisia fearing for its (and by extension, any Islamic state's) chances of survival and an Africa province that experienced a renaissance of Punic culture after an Italian embargo forced independence from Rome and new technology prompted dramatic changes in society. Africa province saw cooperation with the Mediterranean states as vital to its survival and prosperity and after a series of conferences and negotiations, the creation of a secular union state between Carthage and the Tunisian remnants, aided by development aid from Italia in exchange for development and extraction rights around certain oil wells, came to pass. At the moment, the Tunisian government is based in Djerba and the Punic one in Carthage, though a city is being constructed on what-would-become Tunis that will serve as the capital of the future state. Sweet, sweet Italian money is helping to construct schools where students are taught both Arabic and Punic and the construction of further wells over the oil-rich Sahara, access to a new and increasingly vital resource, ensures that the future looks bright for the young Dual Republic of Ifriqiya.
Hellas
The second-most populated state to come out of the ISOT, and with much more developed land, Hellas is the Byzantium to Italia's Rome. In the chaotic yet formative early years, Hellas and Italia seemed on a collision course toward bitter rivalry, as nationalistic Greek parties made the argument that the ISOT was a gift from God to take the mantle of the old Byzantine Empire and fulfill Greece's destiny as Mediterranean hegemon. While this argument seemed compelling to some at first, a string of embarrassments and debacles as Greek nationalists and fascists tried to make contact with proto-Greeks made this argument begin to seem silly and fantastical. The failure of the nationalists' narratives and the harsh reality of uptimer isolation in this new world helped carry SYRIZA back into power in the first elections after the ISOT, on a platform of Mediterranean cooperation and pragmatic caution toward interfering in downtimer areas.
Today, Hellas is the backbone of uptimer development and diplomacy in the east. Though tensions with Italia are sometimes heated (no one has forgotten the Dacian Debacle), cooperation and friendship are strong, with Hellas mostly content to leave Italia in the leadership role in interactions with Roma and post-Roman states in the west while Hellas continues assisting Aigyptos in integrating into the Mediterranean economy and enforces the Closed Gate policy of slow detente with Parthia.
--
This writeup started looking rather long and I was a bit worried that it would take forever if I tried to write out a description of every single state or every single policy initiative of the Mediterranean Community, so I'm cutting it short here. That said, I have thought out a lot more details about the map (again, I have a bit of a perfectionist streak when it comes to worldbuilding) so feel free to ask me any questions you might have! I'd love to answer them!
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How in the world did Britannia became enough of a rising power to challenge uptime states? Did uptime British forces from Akrotiri and Dhekelia return to uplift and rule the natives? What are diplomatic relations like between Britannia and the CM, and what are their political goals in interfering with the Armoricans?
I assume "Siege of Veneto" means Venice in particular. How did the Roman forces react when they arrive at the city after the surrender? Did uptimer explanations failed to sway them against choosing enslavement?
What's the red-brown outline around the Italian mainland, and the lighter brown lines in the middle of Sicily? Is there anything left of Roman political institutions, or has some kind of Italian colonial administration been put in place? Has the Eternal City itself been uplifted with uptime infrastructure by this point?
Peloponnese is technically an island these days due to the Corinth canal, but I assume that only the official Greek Islands (Crete and everything smaller) came back during the ISOT?
What was the Parthian reaction to the ISOT? Had they try to invade Hellas, only to be pushed back? Relations must still be rather frosty if a detente policy is in place.
What's the general situation with each of these polities? What are relations like between the Roman remnants and Italia?
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FasterThanRaito
Kicked
Great map, detailed scenario...
But a bit chauvinistic regarding locals and their eager adoption of uptimer language/identity. Even with the military, economic, and cultural superiority of Rome, most roman regions maintained their local identities and languages for centuries without assimilating into anything like a nationality that most countries have today.
How does this scenario make that any different?
At least you bothered to mention Gauls and Germans, but it is strange that there is no mention of any other native population, not in Spain, Greece, North Africa. And no, Punics do not count, as they were a small ruling class, not the people who actually lived there - who absolutely had their own language and identity which they kept throughout the roman period until long after its fall.
Here's a CSA victory map in 1939, so original and inspired.
The actual pod is pretty nebulous, What actually matters is that the CSA pulled out a successful victory in the war that allowed them to keep the border states(WV notwithstanding) but also relatively late in the game so that resentment by the CSA military towards the civilian government starts to show. This is really hard to find an actual pod to do it with so I just kept it vague.
Of course, a decade or so later, things go down the shitter for Dixie and the US/Britain intervenes to both protect the new balance of power in Britain's case and take back what was lost in America's case. The Treaty of Toronto signed in 1875, lets the US annex the New Mexico and Arizona Territory, much of northern Missouri, and a part of Kentucky while the Confederacy has to release Texas as an "fully sovereign and independent" state as well as releasing the Indian Territory which in the coming decades, becomes defacto a 'Native Homeland' as the United States deports thousands of native Americans to the territory itself.
The CSA undergoes a severe economic recession and deep anger against the government intensifies culminating in the August Coup of 1876 by several confederate Generals including James Longstreet, John Hunt Morgan, and PGT Beauregard being the most prominent and public faces of the new military junta. Not everyone in the CSA is peachy keen with this and South Carolina erupts in a short-lived rebellion that is ultimately crushed by the Junta. the Triumvirate's main goals are to stabilize the confederate economy, establish strong foreign alliances, and perhaps most importantly for them, make the confederate military the permanent centerpiece of the nation. the Junta manages to achieve 2/3 goals at least over the course of over the next decade, beefing up the confederate army and dragging the CSA out of the economic hole, but that was achieved mainly through the "Abolition" of slavery in name only to secure British investment.
The CSA has invested so heavily into the military that the main legacy of the Junta is creating the reputation for the CSA military as being the "Poor Man's Prussia" with the army being now the main nucleus of Southern Nationalism. With this army, the CSA engages in two main wars; the Texan war, and the Spanish-Confederate War, winning both and annexing Cuba while turning Puerto Rico into a friendly independent country and Texas to become a satellite state.
I also added a 3-way Mexican Civil War since I felt the map needed more stuff going on.
The actual pod is pretty nebulous, What actually matters is that the CSA pulled out a successful victory in the war that allowed them to keep the border states(WV notwithstanding) but also relatively late in the game so that resentment by the CSA military towards the civilian government starts to show. This is really hard to find an actual pod to do it with so I just kept it vague.
Of course, a decade or so later, things go down the shitter for Dixie and the US/Britain intervenes to both protect the new balance of power in Britain's case and take back what was lost in America's case. The Treaty of Toronto signed in 1875, lets the US annex the New Mexico and Arizona Territory, much of northern Missouri, and a part of Kentucky while the Confederacy has to release Texas as an "fully sovereign and independent" state as well as releasing the Indian Territory which in the coming decades, becomes defacto a 'Native Homeland' as the United States deports thousands of native Americans to the territory itself.
The CSA undergoes a severe economic recession and deep anger against the government intensifies culminating in the August Coup of 1876 by several confederate Generals including James Longstreet, John Hunt Morgan, and PGT Beauregard being the most prominent and public faces of the new military junta. Not everyone in the CSA is peachy keen with this and South Carolina erupts in a short-lived rebellion that is ultimately crushed by the Junta. the Triumvirate's main goals are to stabilize the confederate economy, establish strong foreign alliances, and perhaps most importantly for them, make the confederate military the permanent centerpiece of the nation. the Junta manages to achieve 2/3 goals at least over the course of over the next decade, beefing up the confederate army and dragging the CSA out of the economic hole, but that was achieved mainly through the "Abolition" of slavery in name only to secure British investment.
The CSA has invested so heavily into the military that the main legacy of the Junta is creating the reputation for the CSA military as being the "Poor Man's Prussia" with the army being now the main nucleus of Southern Nationalism. With this army, the CSA engages in two main wars; the Texan war, and the Spanish-Confederate War, winning both and annexing Cuba while turning Puerto Rico into a friendly independent country and Texas to become a satellite state.
I also added a 3-way Mexican Civil War since I felt the map needed more stuff going on.
Ronald Reagan wasn't president in 1979. Jimmy Carter was. Reagan was elected in November of 1980 and inaugurated January 20, 1981. I'd suggest you change the president it was changed under (Reagan to Carter), though, because I can see America in the 1970s looking at the Electoral College after the dueling shitstorms of Nixon and Carter's presidencies and thinking, "Dang, this thing never works! We should get rid of it!" Meanwhile, no one's going to really support abolishing the Electoral College in the 1980s, when Reagan won both elections in landslide victories and America saw the EC as doing its job perfectly. Even better, have Gerald Ford win the popular vote in '76, but Carter clinches the electoral votes and is elected president. When all the crap like the Energy Crisis and Iranian Hostage Crisis break out, America will only have the Electoral College to blame.
I dunno: too many similarities to the "Gate of Worlds" map?
A map for Harry Turtledove's Through Darkest Europe, a role-reversal world where the Islamic world is the first world and the Christian countries are the backwards third world states with religious terrorism issues. Basically it diverges from the 1100s on, with a more science-friendly intellectual tradition and eventually a scientific revolution arising in the Muslim world, while Christian theologians, notably Thomas Aquinas, coming down firmly on the side of investigation of the natural world being a dangerous distraction from concentrating on the next world. Turtledove in his bumbling way apparently imagines the New World as mostly Islamicized native American states and no Christians, but the advantages in length of Atlantic coastline, importance of north European sea-going trade, and abundance of wood and other supplies aren't just going to go away because Europe misses out on the scientific revolution, and it takes a while for a scientific revolution to translate into actual industrial and organizational advantages, so I'm giving Europeans some American turf. (There have been other European colonial efforts, but failed ones.) My "Maghrebi colonization of the new world" is to some extent inspired by that of greater *Morocco in Sregan's Cradle World scenario.
Europe is overpopulated, struggling to modernize, and plagued with religious unrest as extreme factions in the Church (the Catholic Church is still united. Barely) react violently against rulers too friendly to Muslims or too eager to promote "scientific" thinking ("practical engineering" is OK, but distinguishing them is a matter of angels and pinheads). Divine right monarchy is the predominant mode of government, but in some places strongmen with no real dynastic claims have taken over from weak princes and monarchs. The Grand Duke of Italy is a man of that ilk (if still grooming their own son to take over) and is struggling to make Italy a modern, genuinely united nation. It's not going well, and terrorists are coming out of the woodwork. (Britain, with a long-ruling royal house with some decent propaganda, and a historical dislike of priests, is doing better, thanks in part to North Sea oil - something they have already fought one war with the Danes in determining boundaries). There's less in the way of violent outside interventions, at least: Europe lacks OTL middle East's deep pools of oil, and with it's long tradition of a military class and locally sourced soldiers rather than slave armies, Europeans aren't half bad at the war thing, when they can afford modern hardware, at least.
Outside Europe, the world is a bit more peaceful than OTL: there haven't been any world wars, with the best known "big war" of the last century being the Sultanate of Delhi trying to conquer the whole subcontinent and all the minor neighboring states, under the rule of a Wazir/Prime minister turned dictator and sidelining the Sultan, a la Mussolini, but murdering millions of Tamils for the sin of being Hindu Dravidians, a la Hitler (Turtledove has to have his parallels: the dictator even started as a chicken farmer, a la Himmler). It's a generally richer world:Christian Europe and the Christian parts of the Americas (The Sunset Lands) are generally poorer or a lot poorer than the OTL areas, but the Muslim parts of what is OTL Latin America are in most cases richer, in some much richer than OTL: the middle east is first-world, Africa and India vary from richer to much richer, China is somewhat if not spectacularly richer, and Indonesia and the Philippines are quite a lot richer. Technology is a bit behind OTL, mostly in the electronics field: the universal explosion of information and hand held data cornucopias have not yet arrived.
A map for Harry Turtledove's Through Darkest Europe, a role-reversal world where the Islamic world is the first world and the Christian countries are the backwards third world states with religious terrorism issues. Basically it diverges from the 1100s on, with a more science-friendly intellectual tradition and eventually a scientific revolution arising in the Muslim world, while Christian theologians, notably Thomas Aquinas, coming down firmly on the side of investigation of the natural world being a dangerous distraction from concentrating on the next world. Turtledove in his bumbling way apparently imagines the New World as mostly Islamicized native American states and no Christians, but the advantages in length of Atlantic coastline, importance of north European sea-going trade, and abundance of wood and other supplies aren't just going to go away because Europe misses out on the scientific revolution, and it takes a while for a scientific revolution to translate into actual industrial and organizational advantages, so I'm giving Europeans some American turf. (There have been other European colonial efforts, but failed ones.) My "Maghrebi colonization of the new world" is to some extent inspired by that of greater *Morocco in Sregan's Cradle World scenario.
Europe is overpopulated, struggling to modernize, and plagued with religious unrest as extreme factions in the Church (the Catholic Church is still united. Barely) react violently against rulers too friendly to Muslims or too eager to promote "scientific" thinking ("practical engineering" is OK, but distinguishing them is a matter of angels and pinheads). Divine right monarchy is the predominant mode of government, but in some places strongmen with no real dynastic claims have taken over from weak princes and monarchs. The Grand Duke of Italy is a man of that ilk (if still grooming their own son to take over) and is struggling to make Italy a modern, genuinely united nation. It's not going well, and terrorists are coming out of the woodwork. (Britain, with a long-ruling royal house with some decent propaganda, and a historical dislike of priests, is doing better, thanks in part to North Sea oil - something they have already fought one war with the Danes in determining boundaries). There's less in the way of violent outside interventions, at least: Europe lacks OTL middle East's deep pools of oil, and with it's long tradition of a military class and locally sourced soldiers rather than slave armies, Europeans aren't half bad at the war thing, when they can afford modern hardware, at least.
Outside Europe, the world is a bit more peaceful than OTL: there haven't been any world wars, with the best known "big war" of the last century being the Sultanate of Delhi trying to conquer the whole subcontinent and all the minor neighboring states, under the rule of a Wazir/Prime minister turned dictator and sidelining the Sultan, a la Mussolini, but murdering millions of Tamils for the sin of being Hindu Dravidians, a la Hitler (Turtledove has to have his parallels: the dictator even started as a chicken farmer, a la Himmler). It's a generally richer world:Christian Europe and the Christian parts of the Americas (The Sunset Lands) are generally poorer or a lot poorer than the OTL areas, but the Muslim parts of what is OTL Latin America are in most cases richer, in some much richer than OTL: the middle east is first-world, Africa and India vary from richer to much richer, China is somewhat if not spectacularly richer, and Indonesia and the Philippines are quite a lot richer. Technology is a bit behind OTL, mostly in the electronics field: the universal explosion of information and hand held data cornucopias have not yet arrived.
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Thanks for the comments! The answer is that I thought the Roman Empire was too expansive and the uptimer states too small to prevent a particularly innovative Napoleon-esque figure from rising. I decided to make this at the fringes of the empire somewhere and Britannia seemed sufficiently separated from the empire and with enough room to expand for things to develop as such. When the governor of Britannia proved uncooperative with uptimers when contact was finally made, a timely uprising-cum-regime-change by Catonius Aemilius Lucanus Britannicus was initially seen as a welcome development by the uptimer states. Catonius, however, made his uprising not because he sought better relations with the uptimer states, but because he felt the changing of the winds and saw a greater opportunity for power by slowly adopting and applying the technology and techniques of the uptimers.
The British forces in Cyprus were in no place to rule the natives but the uprising of Catonius does answer the other three questions. Catonius had connections to Celts that resented Roman rule from the Celtic roots of his mother and had maneuvered his way into a position of power by virtue of the position of his father, making him well-poised to take advantage of the chaos when Britannia was cut off from Rome. Relations between Catonius' Britain and the CM were initially cordial, a centralizing downtimer polity being a welcome development for the CM at the time. The dealings in Armorica, however, have recently revealed to the CM just how Britannia operates. CM maps of the region from 5 years ago would have drawn Armorica as a divided region but one where the various tribal nations were firmly under the influence of Francia. What was recently realized is that Catonius was something of a diplomatic genius and developed a system of foreign influence that sees continuation under Catonius II, where significant Britannian families secure alliances by marriage with tribes/nations of interest. Those connections are then leveraged to prompt the CM into providing information regarding some aspect of techonological development. The CM has been very careful to keep uptimer knowledge under lock-and-key following a series of tragedies regarding downtimer massacres/uptimer warlords/what have you and aid has been distributed on a need-to-know basis. Polities in which Britannia has influence have, for the past ~20 years, been selectively presenting significant problems to try and prompt the CM into providing aid that Britannia can then reverse engineer and apply to their growing state apparatus. A CM investigation into the Armorican problem has recently uncovered some of these networks. This is about to drive the CM-Britannia relationship from one of strange bedfellows to one of competing foreign powers.
Venice in particular, yes, but the rest of the islands in Veneto were significant as well. Roman forces reacted with surprise but the threat to security was clear. The strange architecture and machinery in the cities were objects of fascination and securing the area became the highest priority. Second priority became sussing out who could explain what made these cities and towns work, and how they got this way. People who seemed valuable to this end were left happily to their devices and treated quite nicely by the occupying forces. In many ways, this was the foundation of Latin-Italian diplomacy. Those who were not, however, were sent to the garrisons to be processed and many found themselves enslaved. Their explanations often didn't translate very well and many still didn't really understand what was happening. The emergency Italian government found this naturally unacceptable and the government in Rome failed to understand that these people and the people from Sardinia were one and the same. War could perhaps have been avoided but diplomacy was insufficiently fast to compensate for the emotional impact of pictures of Italians in chains coming out of the Veneto region, and cooler heads failed to prevail.
That is the Republic of Roma. Italians and Romans alike bristle at the mention of colonialism (for different reasons) but the reality is that when Palermo says "jump", Roma has been in the air since yesterday. The Senate persists, but there is no more Emperor at this point. Conflict between Italia and Roma has been substantial, despite the similarities between the two, and though this TL is in general optimistic, this remains one of its great failings.
Italia misjudged the difference in ability between the two states very early on, and the end of the Second Roman-Mediterranean War saw the Roman Empire begin to break apart at the seams. This war was waged roughly 25 years after the ISOT and though its objectives were obtained (Papacy established in Rome, Christian holy sites protected, Christians ("and Muslims!" cried the Tunisian delegation) provided with basic human rights/protections, free travel for uptimer citizens, uptimer naval jurisdiction over the Mediterranean and joint control over certain advantageous ports) the impacts of Westphalian states waging conventional war against a non-Westphalian ancient empire began to become clear. The Third Roman-Mediterranean War was more a period of anarchy than anything, the aftermath of which saw the creation of the Mediterranean Mutual Development Zones, colored dark on the map. Italia weighed integrating Roma proper into its structure but at this point Rome and its surrounding regions had grown substantially, and Rome had already been a larger city than any uptimer city. This, combined with post-war guilt drove Italia to recognize the reconstructed Republic of Roma as a new state and member of the Mediterranean Community, whose responsibility for integration would fall to Italia. The possibility for Roman-Italian unity remains on the table, though no one expects it to happen anytime soon.
The lines inside Sicily indicate the Sicilian government. Similar lines exist inside Sardinia too (I maybe should have used a different color). Internal politics and legal systems are largely independent of the other major island, so "Italia" as a unified concept rests on Sardinia and Sicily continuing to get along. The metaphor presented in the write-up is designed to present how things currently stand between them (a happy marriage) though that's not to say this will always be the case. Should the situation change, the fallout will be tremendous. Think of it as a well-guarded and maintained timebomb.
The Peloponnese came back in the originally proposed scenario so I decided to include that in this scenario. This has helped Hellas to stay on par with Italia. Despite this, the provisional capital has been moved to Heraklion (for safety and closeness to the important countries) and the current Hellenic plan is to eventually move the capital to Byzantion (for prestige and unity).
The first thing Parthia saw was the weakening of Rome. The second thing they saw (Second Roman-Mediterranean War) was their opportunity to advance into Roman territory with impunity. At this point, they finally made contact with the states that they had only heard rumors about beforehand. Early attempts were made at cooperation with the Parthians and for a while, it seemed as though some status quo would be achieved with the Parthian border somewhere in central Anatolia. Two events changed this. First, boats coming out of Syrian ports at Parthian direction revealed the economic and political complications presented by having a new, fully downtimer power in control of part of the Mediterranean. Second, the Burning of Jerusalem pissed off uptimer Christians and Muslims alike to a degree that Parthia could never have predicted. This was perhaps the single most unifying event between the uptimer powers since the beginning of the ISOT. The developing uptimer militaries were authorized to use all means at their disposal to "close the circle" and enact what became known as the Closed Gate policy. The Kingdom of Yehuda, bowing first to the Romans and then the Parthians has judged the uptimers the lesser of three evils, though they're not really sure why. This is not to say the position is stable; the Closed Gate policy has inspired a variety of uptimer neo-Nazi terrorist attacks in Yehuda (robbing the Parthian "Aryans" of their rightful victory against the degenerate Jewish kingdom) but this has been matched with investment from uptimer countries, throwing a silver lining around a rather strange and undesirable situation. CM-Parthia relations are rather frosty, though current CM government is in a remorseful phase and is currently trying to make things somewhat right. Parthia recognizes that the CM isn't trying to invade further and is mostly just trying to get a handle on how uptimer tech works.
The lighter colors of various CM influenced regions indicate these polities and suggest their relationship with the CM. Dacia, for instance, likes Italia a whole lot and has benefited from the close relationship cultivated with the uptimer state. Moesia on the other hand, does not like Dacia very much, and has decided they like Hellas as a result. Italia and Hellas are so far fine with this and are generally on each other's side when negotiating conflicts between the two. Following the chaos of Roman collapse, the governors of Lusitania and Hispania Tarraconensis have been intrigued by the concept of Espanya and have decided they liked the rather relaxed model of federation advanced by the Espanyan government in Palma de Mallorca. It's different for each polity as the conditions facing each are rather variable but the common condition is recognition of the CM and cooperation with the development plans.
It gets a bit more complicated with the downtimer CM members. Aigyptos, though very cooperative with Hellas, has not hesitated to introduce uptimer technology down the Nile to accelerate their domination of the frankincense and myrrh trades. Nabatiyya had charted a course through desert to create a trade route with Parthia (uptimer CM members are not aware of this yet). These actions threaten to break the CM policy of cautious isolation and strategies are being developed to deal with this and create a sustainable policy with the outside world. Currently, somber conferences are being held in Puerto Norte and Puerto Sur (very close to Gibraltar and Tingis respectively) regarding what should be done about America, particularly in the case that Britannia turns its attention west.
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Thanks very much!
I was going for less chauvinistic and more, 'realistic regarding the sheer difference in power'. I imagined that the uptimer states would be reluctant to engage in rampant colonialism, given not only their past but also the historical significance of the areas in which they're interfering. That having been said, I imagine that that would encourage a sort of conquest on its own, though always on a humanitarian mission, at least in name. That's why Paris is a part of Francia proper already, why Espanya and Italia are interested in areas where they had historical power, but the relatively rich Africa, Egypt, and northern Arabia are allowed more free reign and free association. The local differences and independent identities are still there. I tried to show that to an extent in the write-up, such as with the Corsican-French divide in Francian territories and I tried to magnify those local differences or minimize them as made sense regarding how recently the territories had been integrated into the Roman Empire and how thoroughly romanized society had been by that point.
The fact of the matter is, native populations can't put up a fight against the CM if the CM decides their territories are interesting. Rome has been crippled but the power wielded within the region has been expanded dramatically. Tunisia for example, one of the weakest members of the CM, expressed an interest in establishing a cooperative relationship with Africa province. Elites that spoke Punic, a language already quite similar to Arabic, expressed a similar desire for political favor and primarily Maltese translators found that all quite easy to relate between the respective sides. There was no political room for anyone else to disagree; even if some other group, say African Romans among the ruling class, saw fit to organize a rebellion, the Punic group in Africa would have complained to Tunisia, Tunisia would have appealed to the rest of the CM for help, and the rest of the CM would have put down something nearly indistinguishable from a barbarian rebellion. All for their own good, of course. Just wait until those African Romans see electric streetlamps, or radio towers, or even mass-produced porcelain products. And so on, and so forth. This isn't to say that the CM is entirely an imperial force, simply that they're waving around a broadsword where some situations require a scalpel.
I don't think I mentioned Germans, but I have put some thought forward regarding proto-Germans and proto-Slavs. Their migration patterns have changed and the CM is developing strategies for any future Great Migration. There's a good chance the tribal Development Zone to the east of Francia is mostly comprised of what would have been the Franks; the Francians, already up to their teeth trying to create a laïcité-esque identity between the Gauls, Romans, and uptimers in their territory refuse to call the territory anything other than Lombardia.
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