Map Thread XIX

Status
Not open for further replies.
Are planetary/future maps allowed?

neppergang.png


This is my first entry in my timeline, that diverges in 1987. The first noticeable impact is a much more violent collapse of the soviet union, which leads to longer war on terror and socialist revolution in the US, and eventually leads to the current year, 2320. This is a sort of pilot for the scenario, and any feedback would be appreciated.

As with all of humanity's firsts, the first colonization of Neptune was a formal, neutral affair. When the Dehli Axis flagship locked into the gas giant's Lagrange point, it was, like all other touchdowns, a broadcast for all mankind to see and celebrate as a victory for the whole species. However, by the 22nd century, space was no longer a distant frontier, and the formality of discovery was strung paper-thin over the true nature of the historic landing. Neptune, or Varuna as it also known as in the modern day, was reached by humanity at time of great tension. The monoliths of India and Africa were locked in cold war, which unlike the two preceding it, was happening on a system-wide scale. Each nation was deadlocked in a massive game of economic warfare and expansion, and a lagging economy could spell doom for either country. At the time, India was lagging in growth compared to the African federation, who's network of allies had the upper hand in the inner system and Jovians. Looking for resources to continue it's exponential expansion, India looked to Neptune and it's near inexhaustible supply of Helium-3.

Varuna was in many ways a complete gamble on the part of the Dehli axis. It was after all, a complete hellscape. Storms ravaged the surface, and leviathan pressures rendered the lower atmosphere essentially inaccessible. Exploiting the bounties of Neptune required a type of ingenuity that was revolutionary and afraid of nothing. As it turned out, this kind of ingenuity was in fact impossible for humans to achieve... alone. AI, as it turns out, could run extremely efficiently in the extreme cold of Neptune, and could research cheaper productions of the materials required to exploit Neptune faster than humans, if at that point only theoratically. India, however, was at the time desperate enough to be OK with entirely theoretical concepts, and imported AI with extreme computational power en masse from Saturn and the Belt, and put them directly into floating server farms in the Neptunian Atmosphere. The first settlers of Varuna were mainly scientists and engineers from across the across the axis, ranging from India, Japan, Hellena, Thailand, and KauKau.

As a decade passed, Dehli's gamble seemed to have paid off. The research-minds of the server farm cities began to produce designs for reliably cheap and durable material to survive the atmosphere of Neptune, as well as unexpected innovations like drills capable of delving deep into the hellish pressure of the planet to extract minerals. Armed with the bare necessities, civilization marched downwards into the depths of the stormy planet. Fueled by the massive profits from helium-3, and to a lesser extent metals, the small platform cities that barely touched the outer atmosphere quickly balooned outwards and descended, becoming monolithic chandelier shaped arcology-complexes descending down for many miles into the perpetual storms, hosting hundreds of millions of sophonts. Most of these sophonts however, were not biological.

At around the same time as Varuna's grand expansion, mind uploading technology underwent an exponential increase in efficiency, allowing the practical conversion of biological life into synthetic life. Varuna, already extreme pro-technology due to the influence of AI and the technologies created by them, adopted mind uploading practices with a fervent zeal. People placed their digitized minds in new, wholly mechanical bodies, becoming some of the first true converted androids in the system. These androids still reproduced biologically, but only the brain would grow from this process, and it would be immediately uploaded after the 9-month development period. In short, Varuna was among the first places to be affected by the great shift, the mass transition of humanity from biological to wholly synthetic life. These androids formed about 95% of the human population on Varuna, and were the main cause of the massive population boom.

After the end of the cold war, both India and Africa lay in ruin, and Varuna, already extremely autonomous, seceded formally and formed it's own constitution, based on Republican AI Delegation, where the citizens would elect AI subroutines to contribute input to the master AI administering the country. While in the modern day Varuna is no longer the only polity on Neptune, it is by far the most powerful, and hold the most sway in the decisions of the Neptunian council. It's no surprise that they are powerful: they operate Neptune's most lucrative gas and metal extraction operations, as a well a Lagrange point and a respectable amount of orbital habitats to boot.

Areas:

- The Varuna Metropole is the oldest and largest of the chandelier continents, the name for the continent-sized conglomeration of chandelier arcologies floating through Neptune, linked by nanotube tunnels. It is home to about 4.5 Billion sophonts, and is the site of most of the gas extraction operations. People (or more acurately, androids) here are mostly of Indian descent, though there are sizable amounts of Japanese, Chinese, and Siberians, and other smaller groups. AI are also abundant, living in server farms in the middle portions of the chandeliers. The metropole is famous for the unique and awe-inspiring skyline of it's chandelier-arcologies, and hosts many historical and cultural sites of great importance to Neptune and the rest of the outer system.

- The Illya subpole was founded by Hellena, and contains mainly androids of Greek Martian descent. The people here are known for their music, films, and other entertainment exports, which are popular across the outer system.

- The Namgin subpole was founded by Thailand, and mainly contains androids of Thai descent, though it has a significant Maori population as well. It is well known for it's vast virtual spaces, which run can run extremely complicated simulations.

- The Akatsuki subpole was founded by Japan, and mainly contains androids of Japanese descent. It is the center of research in the outer system, on account of it having the oldest and most efficient research-minds.

- The Sunyam and Celvam mining strips are simply automated metal extraction zones, with a chandelier arcology near each region hosting it's administrators. From tethered platforms, 3 Kilometer-long drills dive deep into the atmosphere and eventually the mantle, to extract material. Watching the drills dive and come back up is actually quite a popular tourist attraction, though the locals don't quite understand what the big deal is.


- The Balā-1 orbiter cluster is a catch-all be all term for all of Varuna's off-planet assets, mainly just a collection of orbital habs in association with the polity as well as it's lagrange station. The cluster noticeably has a much higher proportion of biological life compared to the rest of the federation.



The flag has 3 shades of blue, representing the vast atmosphere of Neptune that Varuna spans. The central circle with the chandelier design represents the Varuna Metropole, and the two dots on the left and right represent the smaller subpoles. The Upper node represents the orbital assets, and the bottom diamond represents the nation's drilling assets/vast wealth.
 
Last edited:
So for AIFF, since both the republicans and democrats are not existing after the civil war, I need some names for the 3 main parties. Here's their ideologies:
Socially left, fiscally right, think TR's progressives, but more involved with equality.

Conservatives, but less racist, more wanting status quo.

extreme Socialist, to the point that they're holding onto the edge, although there's large minorities of Demsocs and Anarchists.
Would not (Liberal) Progressives, Conservatives, and Socialists do?
 
The Continental Alliance and Economic System as Envisioned by Emperor Napoleon II
View attachment 523588
I'm planning on eventually creating a timeline where Napoleon II lives and goes on to take his father's throne restoring the Glory of the French Empire. Vive le Empereur! Vive la France! This map is kinda rough draft and a sort of test of my map-making abilities. I used an EUIV map as a basemap. What do you guys think, any feedback/constructive cricism is welcome.

Here's the basic pod I'm thinking of. Napoleon I dies a Leipzig leading his armies in the defense of France making him out to be a hero with historians of ttl postulating that had Napoleon not been taken out by a stray enemy bullet, France likely would have won the battle. Napoleon II is legally the next Emperor for the coming days, but the collapse of the Empire at the seams with the advancing armies of the Coalition, sees the French Senate depose the young Emperor with Louis XVIII being given the throne of France. Here there's no Hundred Days Campaign and as a result France is much stronger than otl without the war indemnity and demands of the war causing further strain on the economy and depletion of France's manpower. France also kept its 1791 territories before the Revolution which gives access to more resources from the Rhineland which helps it in terms of industrialization.

Napoleon II fled with his mother the Empress Maria Theresa and was stuck in Austria, trapped in a golden cage in Vienna that was built by his Habsburg relatives to keep him from returning to France. Napoleon II however earned a military post in the Austrian army in Austrian Tyrol where he was able to get in contact with his other Bonparte Cousins: Napoleon-Louis and Louis-Napoleon (otl's Napoleon III). In 1830 a worse July Revolution ends up with the French Royal family and the Orleanists are driven from France with Second Republic being proclaimed in Paris and central France. Though this government isn't recognized by the French elites, the general French people in the countryside, and the French army, though without the Royal family, they are unable to coordinate a response against them. Napoleon II emerges as a hero presenting himself as the one man capable of restoring order to France. Napoleon II appeals to both French conservatives and liberals where he marches on Paris and deposes the French Commune style Second French Republic. Napoleon began consolidating his power rapidly after taking power with him forming a new political coalition that allowed him to reinstate the Constitution of 1812 with some modifications for the current political realities of the era, though functionally the Emperor retained his powers as a Revolutionary Autocrat much like his father before him.

Spain retains most of its colonies unlike in otl with Gran Columbia only being able to successfully break-away from Spain after fighting Spain to a stalemate under the leadership of General Bolivar. In ttl the Liberal Trienium isn't establish since the revolt of Raphael de Riego doesn't take place. The large 19 battalion army gathered by King Ferdinand VII goes to La Plata where they coordinate with the remaining Royalist holdouts to attain victory.

In 1830 the Belgian Revolution had taken place with a new free state of Belgium being proclaimed. Napoleon tried to work out a solution with the British where France would annex Wallonia in accordance with the modified Talleyrand plan. However the British fear of Napoleon becoming like his father caused these negotiations to fall through. However the Dutch army soon invaded the short-lived Kingdom of Belgium where they were met by French Troops. The treaty of Flanders between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the French Empire saw the partition of Belgium with the Francophone Wallonia going to France while the Flemish speaking regions of Belgium were re-absorbed into the Netherlands. While this arrangement angered the British, they still weren't ready willing to go to war over this as France still didn't have the port of Antwerp.

In 1833 the Carlist Wars broke out in Spain against the ascension the titular Queen Isabella II. Her uncle the Infante Don Carlos citing Salic Law of the House of Bourbon proclaims himself the rightful King of Spain. Much of the liberals in Spain side with Isabella II who hope to liberalize the country under her regency, as she's just a child. However Carlos appeals to the clergy, conservatives, and traditionalists who were alienated by anti-clerical stance of the liberals. Carlos also enjoyed wider support from the peasants of Catalonia and Navarre who saw their autonomy under Ferdinand VII reduced. The problem with the Carlist Faction is that both Britain and Portugal supported Isabella and recognized her as the rightful ruler. The colonies who were under more conservative rulers like Viceroy Augustin d'Iturbide sided with Don Carlos who stylized himself as Carlos VI de Bourbon. France however was officially neutral in the conflict, but due to Britain angering it with it opposition to annexing Wallonia, France secretly began supporting Don Carlos by smuggling weapons and financial aid across the Pyrenees Mountains and into the Carlists' hands. It was with this support that the Carlists took over Spain triumphantly and instituted a Reactionary Neo-Absolutist Government with the help of Zumalacárregui who became the power behind the throne.

Napoleon II begins establishing closer relations with Spain who was grateful for the support. Portugal however becomes fierce rivals with Spain thanks to its opposition to Don Carlos. In ttl Pedro I of Brazil takes the throne of Portugal as Pedro IV and I which paves the way for the Lusophone Commonwealth. Spain and France become more economically intertwined with French investment going to Spain as per Napoleon II's directive. The partnership and eventual alliance between the Revolutionary Second French Empire and the Legitmist Neo-Absolutist Carlist Spain made for strange bedfellows in the trying times that was the long 19th century.

In 1848 Nationalist Revolutions and Rebellion broke out in the Austrian Empire in Italy and in Hungary. The Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont worked to move against the Austrian Empire proclaiming its intent to create a unified Italian Kingdom. Hungary with its own growing nationalist movements soon declared its own independence from the Austrian Crown. Napoleon II who was apprehensive about moving against his Habsburg cousins, was forced to intervene when a similar Revolutionary movement in Italy proclaimed a Roman Republic in 1849 which saw the expulsion of the Pope where he fled to France. The shock of the center of the Catholic World falling to Revolutionaries elicited feelings of mass outrage from the Catholic peasantry and conservatives in both Spain and France. This motivated the Emperor to invade Italy with his intent being to restore the Pope to power. In a move similar to what occurred between the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne, the Pope pronounced Napoleon II as the Defender of the Faith and the lawful King of Italy a title which Napoleon II was invested with by his father as an infant. The Kingdom of Sardinia soon shocked by the declaration began a war against the French in a border skirmish at the French Alpine border. This saw Napoleon's armies steamroll the small Savoyard Kingdom with Napoleon taking all of Northern Italy under his rule thanks to the Habsburg withdrawal of troops to fight the Hungarians. Napoleon II then struck a deal with the Pope where he unified Italy into a Confederation nominally headed by the Pope but under the secular control and protection of the French Empire. With the assassination of King Ferdinand II of Two-Sicilies, the Kingdom experienced unrest with numerous peasant revolts. Napoleon then invaded and added the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily as constituent states of his Italian Confederation.

With Austria being unable to defeat the Hungarians, Archduchess Sophie appealed to her Napoleon II who was Napoleon's aunt by marriage to help save the Austrian Empire. Napoleon then began his army's march into Austria after securing the recognition of the Confederation of Italy by the Austrian Court. Napoleon then personally led his forces at the battle of Buda in 1850 where he crushed the Hungarian Army and restored Austrian control of their rebellious Kingdom. Though with the appeal to bringing in outside force, Hungary was alienated from Austria which saw Kaiser Franz-Joseph assassinated by a Hungarian Nationalist. This saw the more liberal Maximilan take the throne. While Maximilian was liberal, he began to become more conservative after he was shaken by the death of his brother, and modeled his government after the Imperial French style of a Constitutionally Absolute Monarchy with a show Parliament being created as an advisory body. Maximilian in revenge for his brother's death cracked down hard on the Hungarian Magnates where he stripped many of them of their property and lands which was redistributed among the peasantry and loyal nobility. Maximilian also worked to partner with the various local minorities within Hungary to counter the movements of Hungarian nationalism. Though because of the weakened nature the Empire, Austria became dependent on France with Maximlian signing a mutual treaty of friendship and various economic and trade agreements that opened up the Austrian economy to French markets which had the effect of tying Austria to Napoleon II much like Carlist Spain.

Spain also supports the Confederacy in ttl who manages to defeat the Union and gain diplomatic recognition as an independent state.

In 1848 Germany unified at the Frankfurt Convention with King Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia deciding to accept the Crown from the gutter to create his own state that would stay as a counterbalance to the revived Imperial France. Napoleon II forced to contend with a large power on his doorstep began to focus on expanding his own colonial Empire in Africa to avoid another coalition forming against him. Britain soon begins favoring this German Empire as a counterbalance against the French Empire. Russia however begins to feel threatened by this large power on its doorstep.

In the Balkans, the Ottomans in ttl are able to crush the Greek revolts which delay the independence movements in the Balkans by another decade. However civil war soon breaks out with Russia partnering with France and Austria to partition the Ottomans. Muhammed Ali with French support, breaks free from Ottoman control and France supports them by moving forces into Ottoman Tunisia and Tripoli and annexing them as part of the French Empire. Austria gains dominion over the Western Balkans with the creation of the Federal Kingdom of Ilyria in a personal union with the Austrian Empire. Russia on the other-hand annexes Molodvia into its Empire while establishing a client state in Bulgaria along with Kingdoms in Armenia and Georgia as allied states. As French, Austrian, and Russian forces close in on Constantinople, Greek Revolutionaries begin an uprising, and greet the allied army as liberators. However to avoid Russia having too much control, a neutral Kingdom of Greece is established with it holding Constantinople. A Romanov Prince is given its throne who is married to one of Napoleon II's daughters.

This upset to the Balance of powers triggers what would be known as the Great War, or the War of the Seventh Coalition in France. Due to Spain and France signing a secret mutual defense pact, Spain then invades Gibraltar and attack Portugal. Portugal, the UK, the German Empire, declare war on the Holy League (Austria, Russia, Carlist Spain, and Imperial France). tensions between the Union and the Confederacy also leads to a war between them breaking out as another phase in the Great War with Britain and Spain backing their respective proxies in the Americas. Gran-Columbia also joined in on the fighting to threaten Spain's dominion in Spanish America.

However the War in Europe is a decisive victory for the Holy League which sees Austria regain Silesia. France which had steadily been industrializing and rearming the Grand Armee since 1830 under Napoleon II's steadfast leadership, crushed the fledgling German Empire with French troops marching all the way to Berlin. France then broke up Germany and restored the Confederation of the Rhine. Prussia being blamed as the catalyst for the war was dismantled by Napoleon with it only consisting of Eastern Prussia and the territories of the Electorate of Brandenburg. Its rulers were forcibly demoted in their position of Kings and Kaiser to becoming mere Grand Dukes of Brandenburg-Prussia. Saxony received all its old lands including the ones lost to Frederick II. Napoleon also restored the Bonaparte Kingdom of Westphalia and created and independent Romanov Duchy of Pomerania to add further insult to injury to the Prussians. Posen was released as a separate Grand Duchy and was ruled in a Personal Union with the King of Saxony hearkening back to Napoleon I's Grand Duchy of Warsaw. However this separate Polish state would open old tensions between Imperial France and Russia over the issue of Poland that would see the Russian Empire drift further from France in the coming decades after the war.

The War in the Americas saw a general stalemate emerge once again between the Confederacy and Union which signed a peace treaty. Gran-Columbia which was rife with corruption and only intact due to the support from Brazil and a fear of re-annexation into Spain saw its armies collapse in the face of the rejuvenated Spanish Army. The rule of Carlos V's son Carlos VI saw Spain make gradual reforms of the military, economic, and political system. He allowed for more autonomy/federalization of the colonies which helped Spain gain the favor of the Colonial elites. The Kingdom of the Netherlands stayed neutral and made enormous profits by using its strategic position to sell weapons to both sides of the conflict.

What do you guys think of this brief outline for this tl?


Have you tried searching map resources? If you need help with your cards I am ready to help you.
For the chronology I find it very interesting except the Talleyrand map which I find unrealistic (even if it really existed). The question of language was not so strong at the beginning of the 19th century. We see the beginnings of it only in Germany and Italy.
Otherwise very interested in your chronology, continue your work. :)
 
So, some of you might remember the World-Raj. My little effort to Raj-ify the whole world after being a bit unimpressed with how simple most interpretations were. It decidedly ran out of steam a while back due to a combination of real life matters and wanting to revise the earliest bits of it.

9ebfa7a509fb8a748c61497ac95a0ac3.gif

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RETURN OF THE WORLD-RAJ
 
@mienoguy Great work on the Varuna map! I think this sounds like a very realistic scenario. I definitely agree that the "great shift" toward cyborgization and diversification of body types will accelerate in the next few centuries or millenia. I suspect that "superficially baseline" will be a popular option for the forseeable future. When forced to choose between looking like a traditional human being and having the powers of every superhero combined, many people will aim for both, to the extent that that can be done.
 
The German Democratic Republic (known commonly as East Germany) is a one-party Communist state forged from the former Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. Established in 1949, the GDR is a founding member of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance composed of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe such as neighboring Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the fellow German-speaking Austrian Socialist Republic. With a population of over 23* million and the widely agreed second strongest army in the Eastern Bloc, the GDR is unsurprisingly one of the top contributors of materials, weapons, advisors, and supplies to Soviet sponsored movements throughout the Third World.

*Many of otl's eastern expellees were resettled in the Soviet zone of occupation. The inhabitants of farther Pomerania, Neumark, and westernmost Silesia, as seen on the map, were never expelled to begin with.

DDR, 1955.png
 

Ryan

Donor
I was bored so I worldafied the CK2 a Game of Thrones mod base map, limited to Westeros because I'm not a masochist. I included before and after Aegon's conquest, with the after including the New Gift already transferred to the Nights Watch.

westeros_worlda_before.png
westeros_worlda_after.png
 
The German Democratic Republic (known commonly as East Germany) is a one-party Communist state forged from the former Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. Established in 1949, the GDR is a founding member of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance composed of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe such as neighboring Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the fellow German-speaking Austrian Socialist Republic. With a population of over 23* million and the widely agreed second strongest army in the Eastern Bloc, the GDR is unsurprisingly one of the top contributors of materials, weapons, advisors, and supplies to Soviet sponsored movements throughout the Third World.

*Many of otl's eastern expellees were resettled in the Soviet zone of occupation. The inhabitants of farther Pomerania, Neumark, and westernmost Silesia, as seen on the map, were never expelled to begin with.

View attachment 524127
Even if all of East Prussia is given to them, Poland is still in a really bad place.
 
Even if all of East Prussia is given to them, Poland is still in a really bad place.

It's not as bad as you might think. A somewhat more generous border in the Galician region and the whole of East Prussia, and the most industrialized parts of Silesia (including all of Wroclaw despite lying on both sides of the Oder) still go to Poland here. Neumark and Pomerania were pretty rural and underdeveloped relative to Silesia anyway.
 
- Mongols vs. Rome -
mongolRome - копия.png

Sorry for the clickbait name :) there are no Mongols.

...until finally, in 312 A.D. Spurius Martinus announced the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, and proclaimed himself the first Roman Emperor. This, coupled with the adoption of Christianity [1] as a state religion 20 years ago, allowed Rome to enter its golden imperial era. For several decades, northern Gaul was finally conquered, the rebels in Syria and Africa were calmed down, and Egypt was finally annexed. The Mediterranean Sea has become the inland sea of Rome, the greatest empire on Earth.
From the Sunset of the Republic by Paul Enx, Hispanic Federation, 2002.

...the birth of the future World's Terror was marked by a thunderstorm, which lasted 8 days. Young Mulkhal-Khan was the eldest son of the leader of the Merkit Empire's vassal tribe; from the childhood father was preparing him to avenge the humiliation that the Merkits forced his people to experience. After taking power, Mulkhal-Khan fulfilled his destiny and destroyed the Empire, and became the ruler of its vast expanses instead. The Great Khan and his successors did not stop and expanded the empire even further, conquering Central Asia, northern China and the mysterious India, the mighty Persian empire and even the legendary Rome. Unfortunately, the squabbles between his many great-grandchildren tore his giant empire into small pieces...
From a treatise of Kong Jin-Sang on the brief history of the Tahar Empire [2], Koguryo, 1680.

What you offer is impossible. The Roman Empire in 1199 couldn't stop the Tahar invasion, because in fact it controlled only a small area in Italy. Despite the fact that historians still rank various foederaties, warlords, and Germans as part of the empire, in truth, none of them was subordinated to Rome; they acted as an independent state, recognizing only the nominal Emperor's power. To save Rome from the Tahars, you need to find an earlier point of divergence. Probably the Herculius dynasty stays in power? Or Hermina doesn't die and stops the fragmentation of the empire? You need more researching.
Emperor-of-Hesperides's answer in the "Can Rome defeat the Tahars at the Battle of Marcianopolis?" topic, web.parallelworlds, 2201.

Today, on June 14, 1380 AD, a young khan Bartu, after a week-long siege, captured Rome and proclaimed himself Emperor-khan of the revived Roman Empire. Indeed, a very interesting event in the history of both Europe and the entire world. Bartu, who ruled his ulus in Pannonia, was so imbued with the Roman culture; he even had a whole army of Roman historians and translators at court who translated him stories about the great Roman commanders and their victories. Khan himself even liked to walk around his palace in robes similar to imperial ones. It's not surprising that, having matured, Bartu sent his troops to Rome in order to recreate his beloved empire, which at that moment lay in ruins. Thus was born the Second Roman Empire, or as its enemies called it, the Roman Khanate.
Actually, it’s quite interesting how history does not allow the Eternal City to die, constantly saving it from certain death. Thanks to this, the Roman legacy is alive to this day.

From the radio-show Endless History with Bede Libo, New Rome, Mediterranean Union, 2080.

...despite the fact that this film is a classic and loved by many, someone has to say that it's absolutely unrealistic. The actor Faust Clod played a Roman slave, who leads the slaves' rebellion against the powerful Songhai Empire. Nevertheless, I must say that there have never been and never could be such incidents in history. Modern historical research suggests that the slaveholding colonial empires of Africa took slaves from all over Africa, including the post-Roman states of northern Africa, but the Romans were too smart to send them to hard work on plantations or in mines, as it showed in film. Africans made the Romans their teachers or servants of the house, and often even placed them as overseers for other slaves on plantations...
From a review on the film The King of Slaves from the "BoredComedian", 2198.

The Golden Fleet sailed from Roman Hispania in 1520 in search of Roman colonies in the far west. The then Emperor-khan decided to return all the lands of the former Roman Empire and, together with the failed invasions in northern Africa and Anatolia, ordered the construction of a fleet to cross the ocean. The history of the Golden Fleet is very sorrowful. Most of the ships were destroyed and scattered in terrible storms, the crews, consisting mainly of Tahars and Hispanic Germans, were ready to raise a riot at any time. Finally, having arrived at the shores of Augustia [3], they found only destroyed and empty ports. Rising north, they found the Roman villages, completely mixed with the indigenous Hesperidians and vaguely remembering the existence of their homeland. The Tahar army conquered these villages, but did not dare (and could not) to return with such news. Thus the Usul of the Golden Fleet was founded, which greatly affected the history of northern Hesperides.
From The Complete History of Northern Hesperides, author unknown, 1967.

...the world of TL-34 or Gracchus-2 is also notable for an event called the Second Great Migration or the how locals call it the "Finnish Ripple". It was provoked by the fast-growing brutal Red Sky Empire, which originates from the "five civilized tribes" defending the western borders of the Kogurye China. One of the khans armed his army with Korean gunpowder to the eyeballs, got out of the control and set off to the west to build his own empire. Needless to say, this world has a huge shortage of gunpowder, so the nomadic army armed with guns has become a death machine. On the other side of Siberia, the Finno-Ugric peoples located on the trade routes between the local alternate Novgorod, called Ozersk, and the wealthy states of Central Asia experienced a kind of national upsurge. When the Red Sky Empire came to their lands, the Finno-Ugrians did not fight, but followed the advice of a local prophet, or a wise ruler (sources diverge), and moved in huge numbers in all directions in search of the promised better life. These waves had disastrous consequences, forever changing the situation in the regions they came...
The report of the CP-69 "Multiversal irony" research group about the TL-34 world.

[1] Despite the fact that the POD is before Christ, Jesus was still born (he is the son of God after all). Although, the then version of Christianity is as similar to OTL Christianity as Islam is to Catholicism.
[2] Mulkhal-Khan was a representative of the original Tatar tribe that was massacred by Genghis Khan in OTL, but due to historical confusion about the name of the Tatars, I decided to give them a slightly different name.
[3] OTL Florida.

my DeviantArt
 
Last edited:
Are planetary/future maps allowed?

View attachment 524099

This is my first entry in my timeline, that diverges in 1987. The first noticeable impact is a much more violent collapse of the soviet union, which leads to longer war on terror and socialist revolution in the US, and eventually leads to the current year, 2320. This is a sort of pilot for the scenario, and any feedback would be appreciated.

As with all of humanity's firsts, the first colonization of Neptune was a formal, neutral affair. When the Dehli Axis flagship locked into the gas giant's Lagrange point, it was, like all other touchdowns, a broadcast for all mankind to see and celebrate as a victory for the whole species. However, by the 22nd century, space was no longer a distant frontier, and the formality of discovery was strung paper-thin over the true nature of the historic landing. Neptune, or Varuna as it also known as in the modern day, was reached by humanity at time of great tension. The monoliths of India and Africa were locked in cold war, which unlike the two preceding it, was happening on a system-wide scale. Each nation was deadlocked in a massive game of economic warfare and expansion, and a lagging economy could spell doom for either country. At the time, India was lagging in growth compared to the African federation, who's network of allies had the upper hand in the inner system and Jovians. Looking for resources to continue it's exponential expansion, India looked to Neptune and it's near inexhaustible supply of Helium-3.

Varuna was in many ways a complete gamble on the part of the Dehli axis. It was after all, a complete hellscape. Storms ravaged the surface, and leviathan pressures rendered the lower atmosphere essentially inaccessible. Exploiting the bounties of Neptune required a type of ingenuity that was revolutionary and afraid of nothing. As it turned out, this kind of ingenuity was in fact impossible for humans to achieve... alone. AI, as it turns out, could run extremely efficiently in the extreme cold of Neptune, and could research cheaper productions of the materials required to exploit Neptune faster than humans, if at that point only theoratically. India, however, was at the time desperate enough to be OK with entirely theoretical concepts, and imported AI with extreme computational power en masse from Saturn and the Belt, and put them directly into floating server farms in the Neptunian Atmosphere. The first settlers of Varuna were mainly scientists and engineers from across the across the axis, ranging from India, Japan, Hellena, Thailand, and KauKau.

As a decade passed, Dehli's gamble seemed to have paid off. The research-minds of the server farm cities began to produce designs for reliably cheap and durable material to survive the atmosphere of Neptune, as well as unexpected innovations like drills capable of delving deep into the hellish pressure of the planet to extract minerals. Armed with the bare necessities, civilization marched downwards into the depths of the stormy planet. Fueled by the massive profits from helium-3, and to a lesser extent metals, the small platform cities that barely touched the outer atmosphere quickly balooned outwards and descended, becoming monolithic chandelier shaped arcology-complexes descending down for many miles into the perpetual storms, hosting hundreds of millions of sophonts. Most of these sophonts however, were not biological.

At around the same time as Varuna's grand expansion, mind uploading technology underwent an exponential increase in efficiency, allowing the practical conversion of biological life into synthetic life. Varuna, already extreme pro-technology due to the influence of AI and the technologies created by them, adopted mind uploading practices with a fervent zeal. People placed their digitized minds in new, wholly mechanical bodies, becoming some of the first true converted androids in the system. These androids still reproduced biologically, but only the brain would grow from this process, and it would be immediately uploaded after the 9-month development period. In short, Varuna was among the first places to be affected by the great shift, the mass transition of humanity from biological to wholly synthetic life. These androids formed about 95% of the human population on Varuna, and were the main cause of the massive population boom.

After the end of the cold war, both India and Africa lay in ruin, and Varuna, already extremely autonomous, seceded formally and formed it's own constitution, based on Republican AI Delegation, where the citizens would elect AI subroutines to contribute input to the master AI administering the country. While in the modern day Varuna is no longer the only polity on Neptune, it is by far the most powerful, and hold the most sway in the decisions of the Neptunian council. It's no surprise that they are powerful: they operate Neptune's most lucrative gas and metal extraction operations, as a well a Lagrange point and a respectable amount of orbital habitats to boot.

Areas:

- The Varuna Metropole is the oldest and largest of the chandelier continents, the name for the continent-sized conglomeration of chandelier arcologies floating through Neptune, linked by nanotube tunnels. It is home to about 4.5 Billion sophonts, and is the site of most of the gas extraction operations. People (or more acurately, androids) here are mostly of Indian descent, though there are sizable amounts of Japanese, Chinese, and Siberians, and other smaller groups. AI are also abundant, living in server farms in the middle portions of the chandeliers. The metropole is famous for the unique and awe-inspiring skyline of it's chandelier-arcologies, and hosts many historical and cultural sites of great importance to Neptune and the rest of the outer system.

- The Illya subpole was founded by Hellena, and contains mainly androids of Greek Martian descent. The people here are known for their music, films, and other entertainment exports, which are popular across the outer system.

- The Namgin subpole was founded by Thailand, and mainly contains androids of Thai descent, though it has a significant Maori population as well. It is well known for it's vast virtual spaces, which run can run extremely complicated simulations.

- The Akatsuki subpole was founded by Japan, and mainly contains androids of Japanese descent. It is the center of research in the outer system, on account of it having the oldest and most efficient research-minds.

- The Sunyam and Celvam mining strips are simply automated metal extraction zones, with a chandelier arcology near each region hosting it's administrators. From tethered platforms, 3 Kilometer-long drills dive deep into the atmosphere and eventually the mantle, to extract material. Watching the drills dive and come back up is actually quite a popular tourist attraction, though the locals don't quite understand what the big deal is.


- The Balā-1 orbiter cluster is a catch-all be all term for all of Varuna's off-planet assets, mainly just a collection of orbital habs in association with the polity as well as it's lagrange station. The cluster noticeably has a much higher proportion of biological life compared to the rest of the federation.



The flag has 3 shades of blue, representing the vast atmosphere of Neptune that Varuna spans. The central circle with the chandelier design represents the Varuna Metropole, and the two dots on the left and right represent the smaller subpoles. The Upper node represents the orbital assets, and the bottom diamond represents the nation's drilling assets/vast wealth.
If they're uploaded, they're not Artificial Intelligences. They would just be Uploads, if referring to once-humans that copied their consciousness into a computer system. Otherwise awesome, reminds me of Orion's Arm. Any Archailects or lesser Toposophics ITTL?
 
The Western Abyss
Point of divergence: in around 1300 AD, there's an earthquake that blocks off the strait of Gibraltar. (Okay, this is a bit ASB, but still).
No longer having any water flowing in from the Atlantic, the Mediterranean slowly starts to dry up...
Fastforward seven hundred years, and here's where you end up.
Europe, in the year 2000.

Major Powers of Europe
10) The Caliphate of Rum (a.k.a. Turkey). United the Turkish tribes of Anatolia, and went on to take over the Balkans and the Italian peninsula as the sea slowly dried up. Despite its location, Rum is a very different beast to what one would expect in this region IOTL, for it is a much drier and less densely populated area. No longer a main trade hub, Rum is more akin to Central Asia in climate now, where the Turks' ancestors had come from. The deep lakes of the former Mediterranean basin can only even be visited in the winters, for in summers it is too warm for human habitation. The population is predominantly Sunni Muslim and Turkish-speaking- while its people are descended from a variety of places, such as the Greeks and Italians, Arabs from North Africa who had migrated north as their homelands dried up, and others moving throughout the Caliphate, they generally all ended up assimilating into the Turkish populace.
11) The Roman Empire. The strongest European Christian power to remain in existence, the Roman Empire received a lot of immigrants from the Mediterranean region (predominantly Italy) as the lands there dried up. The Italians and Slavs from the south easily settled into German lands which had been depopulated by the Black Death of the 1350s. Has been the subject of multiple attempts at conquest by Rum to the south; it's slowly progressing technologically, but nothing like Europe's progress IOTL.
18) The Wu Dynasty (or Western Wu). An Chinese dynasty which had briefly stretched all the way from the Pearl River to the Volga in the 1700s, it soon fell apart due to its large size, but by that point the Volga River region had had enough Chinese settlers that the Wu Emperor fled from Nanjing to Sarai as he saw his empire disintegrating. Slowly reviving itself and strengthening, the Wu now have a Baltic port and are demonstrating their power more and more. An interesting hybrid culture has developed here, as the Chinese settlers of the Volga (or A-de Shui) interact with Slavs, Tatars, etc, and the culture is increasingly different to that of China proper.

Medium Powers
5) The Kingdom of France. Having lost its south to Aragonese jihadis, and increasingly irrelevant in comparison to the Roman Empire, France is sliding down towards minor power status.
6) The Kingdom of Aragon. Now has a Muslim king, but its population is still mostly Christian. It's a bridge between the Christian and Muslim worlds.
8) The Kingdom of Spain. Castile and Portugal united; it's now locked in an endless sort-of cold war with Cordoba, back and forth and back and forth...
9) The Caliphate of Cordoba. The city of Cordoba was recaptured in the 1300s by the Marinid sultan, who subsequently claimed the title of Caliph; the lands of al-Andalus were repopulated by Arabs and Berbers of North Africa who found their homelands increasingly uninhabitable.
15) The Kingdom of Prussia. Descended from the Teutonic order.
17) The Kingdom of Poland. Sandwiched between three great powers, trade passes through Poland a lot.
19) The Kazakh Horde. Central Asia keeps shifting hands between various different states following the Wu's loss of control of the region.
21) The Armenian Empire. Founded by a Muslim Armenian emperor, it has successfully challenged the Turks' dominance of the region.
22) The Sultanate of Egypt. It's not very powerful, but at least it controls the holy cities.
23) The Persian Empire. Cycles between various dynasties, but has steadily remained fairly powerful.

Minor Powers
1. Iceland; 2. Ireland; 3. Scotland; 4. England; 7. Navarre; 12. Denmark; 13. Sweden; 14. Finland; 16. Russia; 20. Georgia.

View attachment 524082

As of 2000, the evaporation of the Mediterranean is finally complete, but as the world enters its third millennium, change is on the horizon. Malian explorers have reported discovering an new continent to the West, although in fact it had been discovered on the other side by the Japanese hundreds of years prior, and the island of Hokkaido (Vancouver Island IOTL) is fairly well-settled by the Japanese.

In Egypt, the Sultan is raising the question of whether it would be at all viable to cut a canal from the Red Sea through Suez, in order to refill the Mediterranean Sea... such a policy would be unpopular, but this Sultan is rather eccentric and seems to be very interested in the idea...

And in a striking contrast to Europe's stagnation in technological progress, on the Indian subcontinent an Industrial Revolution is brewing...

One thing is for certain, the next millennium will look very different to the last.

I like the idea maybe I will make my own attempts at the same idea. Some general thoughts, the Adriatic Valley will get water frontier the Alps and other mountain ranges around it, at the same time it will trap humidity, I think it will end up like a massive extension of the Po Valley. It would likely be the center of the Ottoman Empire with a pretty massive population (the Po valley have a massive population density) which would likely be mostly rice farmers. We could very well see the Ottomans end up being a Romance speaking Empire.

The Black Sea will become a freshwater lake, the result will be greater rainfall around it, but also colder winters and summers we will likely see the Eurasian steppes being pushed East by the European forests, swamps and farmland, but also a wetter Anatolia. The Greeks will likely be forced down from the highland to settle around the great river running from the Black Sea to the salty lakes at the bottom of the “Great Death Valley”.

The Tyrrhenian Lowland will be dry Scrubland with fertile river valleys with water coming from the Italian mountain range. In many way it’s cut off from the rest of the Ottoman Empire, and they’re unlikely to be able to keep control. It’s more likely that Aragon would move into the region.

Maghreb are likely to stay as fertile as in OTL, the mountains still trap moisture coming from the remnants of the Mediterranean , Libya on the other hand is a complete wasteland.

With the POD at 1300, I think it’s more likely that the lack of the Gibraltar strait would lead to Iberia conquer Morocco than the other way around.
 
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top