Revisiting Kaiserreich's plausibility after rework.
- Thread starter Pauh the federalist
- Start date
Speaking as an American, I find the lead-up to the 2ACW marginally less plausible than the 2ACW. I can totally see an extended Depression causing America to fall apart, but some of the antics in the backstory like Senator Governor Long are a little implausible. Then again, stranger things have happened in the same period OTL.
I can personally magic away the Second American Civil War in terms of lore given the depression and the actions taken by a few key figures like MacArthur could maybe lead to something of a civil war (although the AUS itself as a concept is bizarre - I much prefer that ACW submod rework being done where its a splinter of various groups with some overlapping interests struggling to stay together in any way.), but the lore for the Russian Civil War is completely fucked. The October Revolution happens and everything, and White military forces are victorious but Kerensky returns and is just swept into power after proving entirely ineffective in 1917. Would be autocratic dictators just wait in the wings until 1936 when the President dies before they take action? Germany intervenes against the Soviet Union and all the generals who hate the Germans just as much as they hate the Soviets for "ruining Russia" just agree and leave the Reichspakt alone? Why does Trotsky disappear?? I get that it is literally the oldest lore in Kaiserreich, but it is badly in need of revision.
A lot of the buildup to the ACW doesn't make a ton of sense. Canada still owing war debts, why? The US never offered unsecured loans until after they joined the war, which never happened in Kaiserreich. If Britain or France defaulted on their loans, the US would just grab the collateral and that would be that. A great depression lasting for over a decade despite America not killing any sort of foreign trade and investment by going Hawley-Smoot on the whole world? Hell, for how positively the New Deal is generally regarded, unemployment rate wouldn't drop below 14% until 1941 OTL, which is approximately as long as the great depression in Kaiserreich lasted, and that didn't result in the US exploding.
I get why the ACW is there, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense from a lore perspective.
I get why the ACW is there, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense from a lore perspective.
Kerensky being leader at the start of KR could possibly make sense if it was established he’s been President for a significantly shorter time (like maybe around 1 or 2 years) and only became President because he was appointed to the position due to the death of the previous president.
I think everything, what the people IOTL thought possible, has at least some plausibility.
King Georg himself feared a red revolution. 1919 they send tanks to Glasgow, because they thought a strike would lead to a Soviet,
FDR saw Long and McArthur as the most dangerous men in America.
Italian politians feared and austrian general hoped, that Italy would fall apart..
Kerenskis Russia is as absurd and plausible like Weimar Germany.
King Georg himself feared a red revolution. 1919 they send tanks to Glasgow, because they thought a strike would lead to a Soviet,
FDR saw Long and McArthur as the most dangerous men in America.
Italian politians feared and austrian general hoped, that Italy would fall apart..
Kerenskis Russia is as absurd and plausible like Weimar Germany.
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I do think that Kerensky personally still leading Russia is implausible. Even with German backing.
and again, we live in a world where landlocked Hungary was led by an Admiral, so...
and again, we live in a world where landlocked Hungary was led by an Admiral, so...
Gotta always be on alert for Romanian Torpedo Boats on Lake Balaton
Don't forget the Yugoslavian submarines in the Danube.
Eh, I think the 2ACW is terribly unrealistic, but I also find the Commune of Britain equally unrealistic. At the end of the day, I don't think British socialists really ever rejected parliamentary democracy. The most extreme scenario I could imagine is something akin to Weimar Germany (with the monarch abdicating and the country run by someone like Ramsay McDonald).
It still basically is a parliamentary democracy, the only reason the British revolution happened is that dissatisfaction with the massive war for nothing and an increasingly dire economic situation, that wasn't properly addressed while the conservative government tried to play dirty to quash potential France-inspired socialist rebellion, flared up and the government response was too harsh, causing open rebellion.
The 2ACW is a bit of a stretch, but considering that this USA had 8 years of McAdoo/Palmer, there was no USSR to facilitate the moderate/Communist split in the US labor movement, and Herbert Hoover made things even worse by vetoing the first attempt at a relief package, I can see the sequence of events leading up to the starting situation and thus the civil war happening.
That then renders it even more unrealistic. Since there's no real reason to get the hostile government-in-exile with everyone vaguely conservative fleeing to Canada if you're staying an actual parliamentary democracy.
Basically, KR Britain has the kind of social upheaval reminiscent of Bolshevik Russia...caused by the rise of a democratic socialist government?
KR is at its heart a kind of silly syndiewank because the UoB (and US) lore was written by bourgeoisie Western socialists who go "wow, we'd like to be badass as the Soviets, but you know, without the nastiness," which reminds me of right-wingers who ignore all the deep problems with Imperial Germany when they go "well, the Nazis could have been cool if they just weren't so Holocausty, like the Kaiser!" All people who really don't have a strong grasp of what violent conflict pushes people to do. The biggest credulity stretching is the whole "yeah, we created peaceful democratic society by just discovering ONE WEIRD TRICK that makes all other socialists mad," which really just makes it look like the Devs are just assuming every other leftist in history were gibbering morons who adopted their ideologies for no reason. Most of the Syndie governments are just pretty unrealistic because it's displayed as so obviously successful compared to all other forms of government (including other leftist governments).
TBQF, something like the Union of Britain seems plausible, but I think you've got to more or less go the Weimar Route (monarchy collapses, replaced by Labour that crushes enemies to the left, and then after a Great Depression-style economic plunge, a relatively non-democratic leftist surges in the elections and launches a Hitler-style auto-coup from the left of Labour).
It's not the UoB but Canada that's unrealistic, then. Same with National France. But the early devs needed the Entente because HoI2 had a hard 3 alliances setup.
That's missing the point. Syndicalism is supposed to be democratic, arguably the most democratic faction in the game. It's not alt!Nazis.
That's missing the point. Syndicalism is supposed to be democratic, arguably the most democratic faction in the game. It's not alt!Nazis.
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Personally, I think the UOB's main issue is the name. I think it should be along the lines of "British Republic" with the republican flag, not the gory mess that is the current flag.
From what I've seen on the KR Discord server, the UoB uses the Union Jack because it represents the union between England and Scotland.
I just think we should make the canton the full flag honestly.
I mean, I live in a country that effectively revolted against one kind of parliamentarianism in favor of another, found that the latter form really sucked for running things, put in a presidential system after a bunch of delegates were literally locked in a room in the middle of summer until they could cook up a compromise, and then had to sell this to the people despite basically every single state hating at least one of the others for one reason or another.
Now we're the most powerful nation on the planet and have one of the most robust democratic systems there is--for chrissake, we survived 4-terms FDR, McCarthy, Nixon, Adams, Jackson, multiple former Generals who became President, and even James fucking Buchanan.
So I don't see the Union of Britain as being all that implausible. Unlikely? Perhaps. But not implausible.
The Entente really needs to be debuffed to represent what a complete and total mess it's likely to be even in Canada (and much more so in the other bits).
Actually, that's a really good way to frame my complaint. I actually 100% agree. It's not the UoB that's silly, it's Canada - namely that everyone who wasn't a leftist packed up and moved to Canada like it was British Taiwan.
What I objected to wasn't syndicalism being democratic - it was "lol why is everyone moving out to provide an enemy if it's democratic." So what I thought was silly were the syndicalists making huge changes that well, democratic societies can't do. And then other stupid shit like the UoB navy being funded entirely by voluntary donations because of libertarian socialism or something. Basically, they get to purge Britain of right-wingers like a totalitarian state could...while remaining a democracy?