Map Thread XIX

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North America in the world of Lincolnia

Linde = Grand Duché des Rocheuses
Norton = Empire of North America
Monterrey = Republica de Nuevo Leon​
 
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The 1980s Retrofuture map and key is done, guys!
Credits to Ksituan for Equal Earth Basemap and B_Munro for inspiration.

Retrofuture refers to a subgenre of alternate history where the goal is to project forward the trends, views, hopes, fears, and prognostications of a prior era. In this case, that era is the 1980s. Thus in 2050, Americans are still listening to hair metal and watching spiritual successors of Dallas and Dynasty, while living in suburban proto-fortresses and voting for parties that are libertarian to varying degrees. And of course, the era's geopolitical trends continued as well.

I realize it may come across as incongruous to refer to corrupt autocracies and apartheid states as part of the "Free World." I have kept the term because it reflects the Manichean outlook on geopolitics that was common in the late Cold War. A more nuanced view of the matter would have to wait for after the Soviet Union's end...and in this timeline, it never ended.

I will do the map's writeup once I know what people want me to expand upon and further discuss. So, what do you guys want to know more about?

MwE554B.png
 
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The 1980s Retrofuture map and key is done, guys!
Credits to Ksituan for Equal Earth Basemap and B_Munro for inspiration.

Retrofuture refers to a subgenre of alternate history where the goal is to project forward the trends, views, hopes, fears, and prognostications of a prior era. In this case, that era is the 1980s. Thus in 2050, Americans are still listening to hair metal and watching spiritual successors of Dallas and Dynasty, while living in suburban proto-fortresses and voting for parties that are libertarian to varying degrees. And of course, the era's geopolitical trends continued as well.

I realize it may come across as incongruous to refer to corrupt autocracies and apartheid states as part of the "Free World." I have kept the term because it reflects the Manichean outlook on geopolitics that was common in the late Cold War. A more nuanced view of the matter would have to wait for after the Soviet Union's end...and in this timeline, it never ended.

I will do the map's writeup once I know what people want me to expand upon and further discuss. So, what do you guys want to know more about?

MwE554B.png
How far along is Space Colonization and Automation/The Internet?Also have social issues(LGBT,Secularization,Etc.) changed much from the 80's?
 
How far along is Space Colonization and Automation/The Internet?Also have social issues(LGBT,Secularization,Etc.) changed much from the 80's?

Wow, 'll be sure to mention all of these in the full writeup!

Space Colonization is quite a bit more advanced than in OTL, spurred along by intractable, multipolar strategic competition. Manned space colonies are rare and small-scale, used primarily for scientific purposes. But there are sizable resource harvesting efforts going on on the Moon, and plans to go to Mars! Large commercial firms have sizable satellites as well.

Automation is roughly concordant with what it is in OTL, following the same technological trendline. There was an initial burst of it, but it started slowing down in the mid-2000s, after automation efforts achieved diminishing marginal returns.

The Internet is more advanced and more pervasive than it is in OTL. There's more bandwidth, websites are flashier and VR is a thing, more of life is simply lived online. That said, the internet is also used for cyberwarfare, espionage, hacking, etc. Additionally, there's a divide between the USA and USSR internet spheres, much as there is in OTL with USA vs. PRC.

LGBT Issues are less advanced than in our world. Unfortunately, projecting forward the trends of the 1980s means that HIV/AIDs is still a potent force, and in this timeline it mutated beyond the ability of ARVs to effectively manage. LGBT people are feared and stigmatized across society, though there are young bohemian circles that challenge this.

Secularization is...complicated. People are still outwardly religious, and Christianity is fairly strong and pervasive (as it was in OTL until the mid-Bush era.) However, it's not a major political force, and the Religious Right is far outdone by business coalitions and war hawks.
 
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Wow, 'll be sure to mention all of these in the full writeup!

Space Colonization is quite a bit more advanced than in OTL, spurred along by intractable, multipolar strategic competition. Manned space colonies are rare and small-scale, used primarily for scientific purposes. But there are sizable resource harvesting efforts going on on the Moon, and plans to go to Mars! Large commercial firms have sizable satellites as well.

Automation is roughly concordant with what it is in OTL, following the same technological trendline. There was an initial burst of it, but it started slowing down in the mid-2000s, after automation efforts achieved diminishing marginal returns.

The Internet is more advanced and more pervasive than it is in OTL. There's more bandwidth, websites are flashier and VR is a thing, more of life is simply lived online. That said, the internet is also used for cyberwarfare, espionage, hacking, etc. Additionally, there's a divide between the USA and USSR internet spheres, much as there is in OTL with USA vs. PRC.

LGBT Issues are less advanced than in our world. Unfortunately, projecting forward the trends of the 1980s means that HIV/AIDs is still a potent force, and in this timeline it mutated beyond the ability of ARVs to effectively manage. LGBT people are still feared and stigmatized across society, though there are young bohemian circles that challenge this.

Secularization is...complicated. People are still outwardly religious, and Christianity is fairly strong and pervasive (as it was in OTL until the mid-Bush era.) However, it's not a major political force, and the Religious Right is far outdone by business coalitions and war hawks.
This will be a fascinating World!
 
Hello everyone! This has been a project that I have been working on for quite awhile and is basically the ultimate Rojava-wank. Simply put, I thought the concept of a Communalist-dominated world in an alternate 21st Century would be fascinating and I'm really satisfied with the end result, both lore-wise and aesthetic-wise. Overall, I think this is one of my better works.

With that being said, this map obviously deals with current politics a bit due to the nature of the backstory, particularly the POD. I contacted @CalBear in advance regarding this issue and he said that I should try posting this scenario here first, but if any of the Mods think this scenario breaks the "no current politics" rule, I will happily move the write-up somewhere in Chat. With that being said, hopefully you enjoy "The Earth and Sky Tremble," and credit to @Zauberfloete for making the awesome raised sea level base map that I used!

~~

The Earth and Sky Tremble - Rojava V3.png

July 19th, 2113 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the completion of the Democratic Union Party's revolutionary constitution for the region of Rojava. This document and its subsequent ratification would completely revolutionize not just Syria, not just the Middle East, but the world, as out of the chaos of a war-torn failed state that had become little more than a proxy zone for the great powers of the 21st Century emerged the beginning of the reigning superpower of the 22nd Century. By the 2100s, gone is the War on Terror and the days of the Middle East being the playground of foreign regimes seeking to assert a sphere of influence in the midst of civil war. In the place of the post-colonial regimes that had squabbled over the Arab world since the fall of the long gone British and French empires, the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution unites the region through the federalism of social ecology. The legacy of Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Öcalan not only lives on into the 22nd Century, but it thrives as the dominant global force.

When the social ecologist revolution first emerged in what was then northeastern Syria during the midst of the Syrian Civil War, what began as little more than a Kurdish secessionist movement that adhered to libertarian socialist philosophy was by no means anticipated to be nearly as successful as it ultimately wound up being. The ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) of Rojava was often accused of being linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which the United States and Republic of Turkey regarded as a terrorist organization, therefore causing the military arms of Rojava to constantly face the potential threat of a Turkish military invasion from the north. An invasion by Turkey appeared very likely in 2016, however, any potential invasion was staved off when the United States reluctantly endorsed the Turkish proposal for a no-fly zone within the northern Aleppo Governorate, which was followed from support for the plan from fellow NATO member states. The establishment of the no-fly zone within northern Syria circa February 2016 did not, by any means, cause Turkey to drop hostilities towards Rojava forces, however, it did temporarily prevent Turkish military intervention for the time being, thus buying the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) time to better advance against ISIL. As a consequence, the SDF became the primary American ally in the war against the ISIL terrorist organization, and this was only reinforced as the Free Syrian Army faced defeat after defeat while the SDF pushed deeper into ISIL territory. Following the election of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the American presidency in 2016, American military forces were even more committed to backing the SDF in an attempt to string together a coalition of allied forces against fundamentalist groups within the War on Terror.

In a turn of fate, the Syrian Democratic Forces would ultimately emerge victorious in the Syrian Civil War. ISIL would lose its capital of Raqqa to the SDF on August 10th, 2017 following a battle spanning many months and would subsequently lose all of its remaining territory within Syria by the end of December 2018. Due to ISIL continuing to exist (despite losing all of its territory) and the Clinton administration's opposition to the Assad regime, the Syrian Democratic Forces continued to be backed by the United States against its opponents within the Syrian Civil War while Turkey, losing any chances of support from NATO, never got the chance to invade and defeat Rojava, knowing that doing so would effectively risk American retaliation. With American support for the SDF against the Assad regime becoming official in May 2019, the days of the Syrian Arab Republic soon became numbered, with Damascus falling to the SDF on November 4th, 2019 and the Syrian Arab Republic subsequently capitulating following the capture of Bashar Al-Assad four days later. From here, the political arms of the Syrian Democratic Forces would congregate in the internationally-patrolled city of Aleppo to form a constitutional committee, which was dominated by the interests of Rojava and saw the ratification of a constitution that overthrew the Syrian Arab Republic in favor of the Democratic Federation of Syria (DFS), a libertarian socialist state that adhered to the Communalist ideology of democratic confederalism in which Syria was organized around municipal governments predominantly managing the production and distribution of resources alongside collectivized workplaces. Furthermore Murray Bookchin's revolutionary ideals of social ecology were realized in the form of a constitution that recognized humanity's role as a part of the ecosystem, a role that must be fulfilled via a harmonious relationship between the two.

As the DFS gradually rebuilt itself under the leadership of its co-presidents, the status quo of Pax Americana began to be challenged as the world was thrust into a decade of uncertainty. The spread of the COVID-19 virus across the planet would destabilize numerous states to a degree not seen since the days of the Cold War. Many states struggled to combat the pandemic, and it would narrowly cost Hillary Clinton her re-election bid to Texas Senator Ted Cruz while President Hamilton Mourão of Brazil implemented draconian measures that pushed the nation towards authoritarianism. Once the pandemic began to recede with the development of a vaccine by March 2021, socialism was prevailing across the planet as said ideology had proven itself effective in combatting COVID-19. In Bolivia, the MAS-IPSP government of President Álvaro García Linera promoted mutual aid networks, particularly amongst labor unions, which laid the foundations for the nation's eventual transition towards a syndicalist economy while Indonesian anarcho-syndicalists did the same without government support. Both of these movements were strongly inspired by the Communalist ideology of Syria, which galvanized international support for radical socialism after the ratification of the DFS's constitution.

As for Syria's own handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Democratic Federation did surprisingly well despite lackluster infrastructure. Comprehensive aid programs promoted by the Communalist ideology and less of a need to worry about the economic consequences of the pandemic due to the nature of the Syrian economic system allowed for the DFS to ultimately come out okay from the pandemic with WHO support. In the end, Syria winds up helping neighboring communities of Arabs and Kurds alike via the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), which focused on establishing mutual aid networks in Turkish Kurdistan and Iraq throughout the pandemic, coming out as a strong force within both states as a consequence. After the end of the pandemic, the KCK would continue to thrive, as would similar organizations predominantly within Iraq that were backed by the DFS, which saw itself as the launching pad for Communalist movements throughout the Middle East. Fearing that the KCK and similar movements were effectively Syrian proxies, the Iraqi government would begin to mobilize military forces in regions where said movements were highly influential circa early 2022, which eventually caused a clash between the KCK and Iraqi armed forces to occur on April 5th, 2022. This subsequently caused the Democratic Federation of Syria to retaliate by declaring military action against Iraq, thus beginning the Mesopotamian War. Turkey, seeing an opportunity to finally defeat what its government still perceived as a terrorist regime, invaded northern Syria on behalf of Iraq, however, guerrilla warfare waged by movements aligned with Syria ultimately emerged victorious over both Iraq and Turkey, with the Mesopotamian War ending on September 2nd, 2025. Syria and Iraq were unified into the Democratic Federation of Mesopotamia-Kurdistan (DFMK), which was more or less just a larger Democratic Federation of Syria, while a chunk of Turkish Kurdistan was annexed into the DFMK.

As the Democratic Federation settled into a hope for peace and Iraq was integrated into the Communalist system, the surrounding Middle East began to militarize yet again. The days of the War on Terror were long gone by this point, however, in place of the internal conflicts that had plagued much of the region's history following the end of the Cold War, the Middle East and surrounding region found itself increasingly partitioned between spheres of influence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The proxy conflicts of the two states would eventually boil over into a direct military engagement that consumed the entirety of the Arab and West Asian world when, on December 3rd, 2029, an Iranian warship that was off course within the Persian Gulf was attacked by the Saudi air force, which thought the ship was attempting to encroach upon Saudi Arabian territory. Within the next handful of days, tensions between the two powers exploded and the First West Asian War had engulfed the Middle East and beyond. The United States, which was beginning to see the coming storm of climate change under the leadership of President Steve Bullock and was still recovering from the chaos of the Venezuelan Civil War, decided to stay out of the largest conflict the globe had ever seen since World War Two as the Saudis and Iranians waged vicious warfare against each other while the great powers stood idly by, remembering the scars of the War on Terror all too well.

The First West Asian War was often nicknamed World War Three, and for good reason. A conflict engulfing such a large region and so many spheres of influence had not been seen since World War Two as the majority of the Arab League marched off to the Persian Gulf while the Iranians and their proxy forces waged relentless guerrilla warfare as cyber weapons the likes of which the world had never before seen descended much of the Middle East into total darkness. The rebel cells and failed states had given the world only a taste of what 21st Century warfare would be like, but the First West Asian War was the real display of what was to come. Four gruesome years of a war of attrition came and went, and the people of the Arab world began to grow infuriated with the autocratic regimes that were sending their people to die in a meaningless war as the ecosystem declined and the true effects of climate change began to set in across the planet. This all culminated in the Arab Summer of 2033, in which mass protests against the regimes of Saudi Arabia and her allies consumed entire cities, with the vast majority of protesters adhering to libertarian socialism based off of the ideology of the DFMK, which had used the last few years resourcefully to expand its sphere of influence. As the governments of the UAE and Algeria were overthrown by Communalist revolutionaries and rebellions broke out throughout the Arab League, Saudi Arabia sued for peace with Iran on January 6th, 2034, thus ending the First West Asian War and beginning the Arab Revolutionary War.

As the Arab League was called to arms against the Arab Democratic Communalist Forces (ADCF), the DFMK mobilized for the first time in almost a decade against a foreign army and led the Arab Revolution into the heart of the reactionary Saudi Arabia as the Middle East and North Africa was engulfed in the defining revolutionary conflict of the 21st Century. The Arab Revolutionary War would be a long conflict that caught the attention of the world as international volunteer brigades arrived to fight on behalf of both factions. In the end, the ADCF not only emerged victorious over the Arab League, but had won over territory that extended beyond the Arab League member states, thus consolidating total control over North Africa and most of the Arabian Peninsula. The numerous revolutionary states established by the members of the ADCF would meet in Alexandria to ratify their federation into a single power following the capitulation of remaining Arab League forces circa March 2037 and, after weeks of negotiation, the constitution of the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution (DCAR) was ratified and a loose Communalist federation was established as the unifying force of the Arab world, the likes of which hadn't been seen since the days of the caliphates. With its capital situated in Baghdad, the DCAR, generally speaking adhered to a Communalist model of governance while mandating the implementation of social ecologist policies in regards to relations with the ecosystem. Aside from the confederal Communalist governing framework and the guarantee of certain rights and responsibilities of the national government, the constituent republics of the DCAR were more or less left up to their own domestic devices under the Democratic Confederation's constitution, but this nonetheless meant that the DCAR was now one of the most powerful states in the world and the undeniable force for the growing leftist force sweeping the globe.

As the DCAR consolidated control over its territory, leftist revolutions swept across much of the world. With the support of the Democratic Confederation, Communalist governments were established throughout Africa and Central Asia, whereas in the New World the Zapatistas led a coalition of libertarian socialist forces against an increasingly corrupt government and established the Union of Mexican Municipalities in 2042. Meanwhile, anarcho-syndicalism continued to rise within Indonesia, ultimately culminating in the Indonesian Revolution and the declaration of the Indonesian Syndicalist Confederation in 2046, thus propelling syndicalist philosophy into the spotlight of global leftism alongside Communalism. Due to the spread of revolutionary thought and movements in this time period, the 2040s became regarded as the Decade of Revolution by later generations, and is regarded by many as the beginning of the Democratic Confederation's dominance of the coming decades and the end of Pax Americana. As riots spread across the United States due to the effects of climate change beginning to hit (especially as 2050 approached), the US began to consolidate its authority domestically and massive withdrawals from the international community became commonplace. Eastern European states began to leave NATO during this time period, and the unification of the European Union as the European Federation in 2045 meant that Europe could more or less take care of itself militaristically, especially as Russian military authority began to decline amid growing internal instability. In 2051, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was dissolved and in 2053 the last American armed forces departed from the international stage by leaving the United Kingdom.

As climate change hit in full force in the 2050s, the already shaky global status quo was completely shattered. Socialist revolutions backed by both the DCAR and International Workers' Association were proliferated amidst the chaos, thus scaring Iran and Turkey to launch a pre-emptive strike on the Democratic Confederation, thus starting the Second West Asian War via the attack on Kuwait City on June 19th, 2055. Unlike the previous West Asian War, the second conflict would be much shorter due to the strength of the DCAR and its coalition of socialist allies that contributed to the war effort via proxy aid. After two years of combat, Iran, Turkey, and the former's puppet regimes were decisively defeated and socialist governments were either installed or states were flat-out annexed into the Democratic Confederation. All the while, ultranationalists nostalgic for the days of imperialism seized control in Tokyo and declared a second Empire of Japan, fascists took control of India and declared the Hindu State of India, while Russophobic national populists took control of Ukraine following a military coup in 2058 and declared the Ukrainian National Republic, which immediately set out on building up its own sphere of influence amid the chaos engulfing Eastern Europe during the Climate Crisis. Some states, either willingly or via force, would join Ukraine's reactionary Prometheist Union while other states fell into the growing Arabian sphere of influence, such as Greece and the Union of European Communes, a Communalist government established following a civil war within the European Federation in the late 2060s.

The 2070s would see the fall of Russia to warlordism following a military coup by a Putinist junta in 2076, that caused numerous oblasts in Siberia to either secede or form cliques of their own. This period would be when the Empire of Japan first began to expand as it invaded the sparsely populated cliques of Siberia and annexed them as colonies. All the while, the People's Republic of China, once thought to be the global superpower of the 21st Century, declined into its own period of warlordism as Beijing's grip on the PRC's province was gradually delegated to local bureaucrats. Fearing secession, the Politburo asked for the People's Liberation Army to step in two consolidate control over China yet again in 2082, however, this spectacularly backfired as local bureaucrats were only incentivized to further take control and become de facto warlords as the PLA invaded their provinces, thus sparking a Second Warring States Period. The Empire of Japan saw an opportunity to expand yet again by launching an invasion into Manchuria while managing to get Mongolia and the Republic of China to launch their own Japanese-backed invasions into China as parts of the growing Japanese sphere of influence that was consolidated into the Tokyo Pact mutual defense alliance in 2090. In the end, the PLA's attempt to centralize its authority over China failed and power over the vast state fell into the hands of warlords of varying degrees of loyalty to the PLA's Beijing Clique.

Both the DCAR and the Empire of Japan would face their greatest threats yet as the new global superpowers when the Hindu State of India launched an invasion of Iran in 2093 and later Thailand in 2094, thus sparking the Third West Asian War. The conflict was a decisive victory for the Arabian-Japanese coalition and India was partitioned into a Communalist west and nationalist east via the Treaty of Kabul in 2097, however, much of Southern Asia had been devastated by the bloodiest war of the 21st Century, in which entire power grids were annihilated and war crimes were committed by the totalitarian regime of New Delhi. To this day, the Indian Subcontinent remains fiercely divided between the opposing forces of Communalism in the west and nationalism in the east and a path to Indian reunification seems impossible for the near future. Meanwhile, the International Workers' Association waged war against an alliance led by the reactionary Brazil across South America from 2095 to 2100 that ultimately ended up partitioning the continent between a socialist sphere of influence, the puppet regimes of the United States of Venezuela (a dictatorship formed out of the American-backed regime installed in the 2020s that has taken a cultish fascination with Pax Americana and seeks to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine), and what remained of a fledgling Brazilian liberal democracy. Said Brazilian rump state was subsequently overthrown in 2102 and the Second Empire of Brazil was declared, however, this was shortly lived, as the internal states of Brazil began to resist centralized Imperial rule, resulting in the establishment of the Commonwealth of Brazil in 2107 as an economic and political union that resolved around the monarchy in Brasilia.

And that brings us to the present day of the 2110s, in which the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution reigns supreme as the global superpower. Japan has expanded across the Pacific Ocean via the recent Second Pacific War that resulted in the Japanese annexation of American Pacific territories, however, the world's second most powerful state may not be the biggest threat to the DCAR's global revolution. Instead, a coalition between the theocratic Christian Republic of Sudan, Democratic Republic of Zaire eccentric military junta, and corrupt East African Federation lies right on the southern border of the DCAR and has been amassing a military force on said border in order to protect its reign over Central Africa from the clutches of Alexandria. As drones still patrol the borders of East and West India, war could soon be coming to the increasingly prosperous yet increasingly tense continent of Africa instead. Nonetheless, despite the rise of reactionary powers across the planet, the rampage of warlords throughout Eurasia, and the invasion of Ukraine towards Moscow in an attempt to solidify longtime prometheist goals to tame the Russian Bear, the people of Arabia live in harmony with the ecosystem as their Communalist confederation flourishes in the 22nd Century. Vast municipalities modeled after the vision of Murray Bookchin are scattered from Morocco to Oman while space elevators deliver the people of the Democratic Confederation to colonies on Luna, Mars, and beyond. War may be on the horizon for the global power, which maintains de facto dominant authority through its web of socialist alliances, however, the people of the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution are not afraid. They have made the Earth and Sky tremble before, they can do it again. Perhaps this time, capitalism will succumb to the trembles of revolution once and for all, but only time will tell.
 
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Hello everyone! This has been a project that I have been working on for quite awhile and is basically the ultimate Rojava-wank. Simply put, I thought the concept of a Communalist-dominated world in an alternate 21st Century would be fascinating and I'm really satisfied with the end result, both lore-wise and aesthetic-wise. Overall, I think this is one of my better works.

With that being said, this map obviously deals with current politics a bit due to the nature of the backstory, particularly the POD. I contacted @CalBear in advance regarding this issue and he said that I should try posting this scenario here first, but if any of the Mods think this scenario breaks the "no current politics" rule, I will happily move the write-up somewhere in Chat. With that being said, hopefully you enjoy "The Earth and Sky Tremble," and credit to @Zauberfloete for making the awesome raised sea level base map that I used!

~~

July 19th, 2113 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the completion of the Democratic Union Party's revolutionary constitution for the region of Rojava. This document and its subsequent ratification would completely revolutionize not just Syria, not just the Middle East, but the world, as out of the chaos of a war-torn failed state that had become little more than a proxy zone for the great powers of the 21st Century emerged the beginning of the reigning superpower of the 22nd Century. By the 2100s, gone is the War on Terror and the days of the Middle East being the playground of foreign regimes seeking to assert a sphere of influence in the midst of civil war. In the place of the post-colonial regimes that had squabbled over the Arab world since the fall of the long gone British and French empires, the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution unites the region through the federalism of social ecology. The legacy of Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Öcalan not only lives on into the 22nd Century, but it thrives as the dominant global force.

When the social ecologist revolution first emerged in what was then northeastern Syria during the midst of the Syrian Civil War, what began as little more than a Kurdish secessionist movement that adhered to libertarian socialist philosophy was by no means anticipated to be nearly as successful as it ultimately wound up being. The ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) of Rojava was often accused of being linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which the United States and Republic of Turkey regarded as a terrorist organization, therefore causing the military arms of Rojava to constantly face the potential threat of a Turkish military invasion from the north. An invasion by Turkey appeared very likely in 2016, however, any potential invasion was staved off when the United States reluctantly endorsed the Turkish proposal for a no-fly zone within the northern Aleppo Governorate, which was followed from support for the plan from fellow NATO member states. The establishment of the no-fly zone within northern Syria circa February 2016 did not, by any means, cause Turkey to drop hostilities towards Rojava forces, however, it did temporarily prevent Turkish military intervention for the time being, thus buying the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) time to better advance against ISIL. As a consequence, the SDF became the primary American ally in the war against the ISIL terrorist organization, and this was only reinforced as the Free Syrian Army faced defeat after defeat while the SDF pushed deeper into ISIL territory. Following the election of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the American presidency in 2016, American military forces were even more committed to backing the SDF in an attempt to string together a coalition of allied forces against fundamentalist groups within the War on Terror.

In a turn of fate, the Syrian Democratic Forces would ultimately emerge victorious in the Syrian Civil War. ISIL would lose its capital of Raqqa to the SDF on August 10th, 2017 following a battle spanning many months and would subsequently lose all of its remaining territory within Syria by the end of December 2018. Due to ISIL continuing to exist (despite losing all of its territory) and the Clinton administration's opposition to the Assad regime, the Syrian Democratic Forces continued to be backed by the United States against its opponents within the Syrian Civil War while Turkey, losing any chances of support from NATO, never got the chance to invade and defeat Rojava, knowing that doing so would effectively risk American retaliation. With American support for the SDF against the Assad regime becoming official in May 2019, the days of the Syrian Arab Republic soon became numbered, with Damascus falling to the SDF on November 4th, 2019 and the Syrian Arab Republic subsequently capitulating following the capture of Bashar Al-Assad four days later. From here, the political arms of the Syrian Democratic Forces would congregate in the internationally-patrolled city of Aleppo to form a constitutional committee, which was dominated by the interests of Rojava and saw the ratification of a constitution that overthrew the Syrian Arab Republic in favor of the Democratic Federation of Syria (DFS), a libertarian socialist state that adhered to the Communalist ideology of democratic confederalism in which Syria was organized around municipal governments predominantly managing the production and distribution of resources alongside collectivized workplaces. Furthermore Murray Bookchin's revolutionary ideals of social ecology were realized in the form of a constitution that recognized humanity's role as a part of the ecosystem, a role that must be fulfilled via a harmonious relationship between the two.

As the DFS gradually rebuilt itself under the leadership of its co-presidents, the status quo of Pax Americana began to be challenged as the world was thrust into a decade of uncertainty. The spread of the COVID-19 virus across the planet would destabilize numerous states to a degree not seen since the days of the Cold War. Many states struggled to combat the pandemic, and it would narrowly cost Hillary Clinton her re-election bid to Texas Senator Ted Cruz while President Hamilton Mourão of Brazil implemented draconian measures that pushed the nation towards authoritarianism. Once the pandemic began to recede with the development of a vaccine by March 2021, socialism was prevailing across the planet as said ideology had proven itself effective in combatting COVID-19. In Bolivia, the MAS-IPSP government of President Álvaro García Linera promoted mutual aid networks, particularly amongst labor unions, which laid the foundations for the nation's eventual transition towards a syndicalist economy while Indonesian anarcho-syndicalists did the same without government support. Both of these movements were strongly inspired by the Communalist ideology of Syria, which galvanized international support for radical socialism after the ratification of the DFS's constitution.

As for Syria's own handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Democratic Federation did surprisingly well despite lackluster infrastructure. Comprehensive aid programs promoted by the Communalist ideology and less of a need to worry about the economic consequences of the pandemic due to the nature of the Syrian economic system allowed for the DFS to ultimately come out okay from the pandemic with WHO support. In the end, Syria winds up helping neighboring communities of Arabs and Kurds alike via the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), which focused on establishing mutual aid networks in Turkish Kurdistan and Iraq throughout the pandemic, coming out as a strong force within both states as a consequence. After the end of the pandemic, the KCK would continue to thrive, as would similar organizations predominantly within Iraq that were backed by the DFS, which saw itself as the launching pad for Communalist movements throughout the Middle East. Fearing that the KCK and similar movements were effectively Syrian proxies, the Iraqi government would begin to mobilize military forces in regions where said movements were highly influential circa early 2022, which eventually caused a clash between the KCK and Iraqi armed forces to occur on April 5th, 2022. This subsequently caused the Democratic Federation of Syria to retaliate by declaring military action against Iraq, thus beginning the Mesopotamian War. Turkey, seeing an opportunity to finally defeat what its government still perceived as a terrorist regime, invaded northern Syria on behalf of Iraq, however, guerrilla warfare waged by movements aligned with Syria ultimately emerged victorious over both Iraq and Turkey, with the Mesopotamian War ending on September 2nd, 2025. Syria and Iraq were unified into the Democratic Federation of Mesopotamia-Kurdistan (DFMK), which was more or less just a larger Democratic Federation of Syria, while a chunk of Turkish Kurdistan was annexed into the DFMK.

As the Democratic Federation settled into a hope for peace and Iraq was integrated into the Communalist system, the surrounding Middle East began to militarize yet again. The days of the War on Terror were long gone by this point, however, in place of the internal conflicts that had plagued much of the region's history following the end of the Cold War, the Middle East and surrounding region found itself increasingly partitioned between spheres of influence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The proxy conflicts of the two states would eventually boil over into a direct military engagement that consumed the entirety of the Arab and West Asian world when, on December 3rd, 2029, an Iranian warship that was off course within the Persian Gulf was attacked by the Saudi air force, which thought the ship was attempting to encroach upon Saudi Arabian territory. Within the next handful of days, tensions between the two powers exploded and the First West Asian War had engulfed the Middle East and beyond. The United States, which was beginning to see the coming storm of climate change under the leadership of President Steve Bullock and was still recovering from the chaos of the Venezuelan Civil War, decided to stay out of the largest conflict the globe had ever seen since World War Two as the Saudis and Iranians waged vicious warfare against each other while the great powers stood idly by, remembering the scars of the War on Terror all too well.

The First West Asian War was often nicknamed World War Three, and for good reason. A conflict engulfing such a large region and so many spheres of influence had not been seen since World War Two as the majority of the Arab League marched off to the Persian Gulf while the Iranians and their proxy forces waged relentless guerrilla warfare as cyber weapons the likes of which the world had never before seen descended much of the Middle East into total darkness. The rebel cells and failed states had given the world only a taste of what 21st Century warfare would be like, but the First West Asian War was the real display of what was to come. Four gruesome years of a war of attrition came and went, and the people of the Arab world began to grow infuriated with the autocratic regimes that were sending their people to die in a meaningless war as the ecosystem declined and the true effects of climate change began to set in across the planet. This all culminated in the Arab Summer of 2033, in which mass protests against the regimes of Saudi Arabia and her allies consumed entire cities, with the vast majority of protesters adhering to libertarian socialism based off of the ideology of the DFMK, which had used the last few years resourcefully to expand its sphere of influence. As the governments of the UAE and Algeria were overthrown by Communalist revolutionaries and rebellions broke out throughout the Arab League, Saudi Arabia sued for peace with Iran on January 6th, 2034, thus ending the First West Asian War and beginning the Arab Revolutionary War.

As the Arab League was called to arms against the Arab Democratic Communalist Forces (ADCF), the DFMK mobilized for the first time in almost a decade against a foreign army and led the Arab Revolution into the heart of the reactionary Saudi Arabia as the Middle East and North Africa was engulfed in the defining revolutionary conflict of the 21st Century. The Arab Revolutionary War would be a long conflict that caught the attention of the world as international volunteer brigades arrived to fight on behalf of both factions. In the end, the ADCF not only emerged victorious over the Arab League, but had won over territory that extended beyond the Arab League member states, thus consolidating total control over North Africa and most of the Arabian Peninsula. The numerous revolutionary states established by the members of the ADCF would meet in Alexandria to ratify their federation into a single power following the capitulation of remaining Arab League forces circa March 2037 and, after weeks of negotiation, the constitution of the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution (DCAR) was ratified and a loose Communalist federation was established as the unifying force of the Arab world, the likes of which hadn't been seen since the days of the caliphates. With its capital situated in Baghdad, the DCAR, generally speaking adhered to a Communalist model of governance while mandating the implementation of social ecologist policies in regards to relations with the ecosystem. Aside from the confederal Communalist governing framework and the guarantee of certain rights and responsibilities of the national government, the constituent republics of the DCAR were more or less left up to their own domestic devices under the Democratic Confederation's constitution, but this nonetheless meant that the DCAR was now one of the most powerful states in the world and the undeniable force for the growing leftist force sweeping the globe.

As the DCAR consolidated control over its territory, leftist revolutions swept across much of the world. With the support of the Democratic Confederation, Communalist governments were established throughout Africa and Central Asia, whereas in the New World the Zapatistas led a coalition of libertarian socialist forces against an increasingly corrupt government and established the Union of Mexican Municipalities in 2042. Meanwhile, anarcho-syndicalism continued to rise within Indonesia, ultimately culminating in the Indonesian Revolution and the declaration of the Indonesian Syndicalist Confederation in 2046, thus propelling syndicalist philosophy into the spotlight of global leftism alongside Communalism. Due to the spread of revolutionary thought and movements in this time period, the 2040s became regarded as the Decade of Revolution by later generations, and is regarded by many as the beginning of the Democratic Confederation's dominance of the coming decades and the end of Pax Americana. As riots spread across the United States due to the effects of climate change beginning to hit (especially as 2050 approached), the US began to consolidate its authority domestically and massive withdrawals from the international community became commonplace. Eastern European states began to leave NATO during this time period, and the unification of the European Union as the European Federation in 2045 meant that Europe could more or less take care of itself militaristically, especially as Russian military authority began to decline amid growing internal instability. In 2051, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was dissolved and in 2053 the last American armed forces departed from the international stage by leaving the United Kingdom.

As climate change hit in full force in the 2050s, the already shaky global status quo was completely shattered. Socialist revolutions backed by both the DCAR and International Workers' Association were proliferated amidst the chaos, thus scaring Iran and Turkey to launch a pre-emptive strike on the Democratic Confederation, thus starting the Second West Asian War via the attack on Kuwait City on June 19th, 2055. Unlike the previous West Asian War, the second conflict would be much shorter due to the strength of the DCAR and its coalition of socialist allies that contributed to the war effort via proxy aid. After two years of combat, Iran, Turkey, and the former's puppet regimes were decisively defeated and socialist governments were either installed or states were flat-out annexed into the Democratic Confederation. All the while, ultranationalists nostalgic for the days of imperialism seized control in Tokyo and declared a second Empire of Japan, fascists took control of India and declared the Hindu State of India, while Russophobic national populists took control of Ukraine following a military coup in 2058 and declared the Ukrainian National Republic, which immediately set out on building up its own sphere of influence amid the chaos engulfing Eastern Europe during the Climate Crisis. Some states, either willingly or via force, would join Ukraine's reactionary Prometheist Union while other states fell into the growing Arabian sphere of influence, such as Greece and the Union of European Communes, a Communalist government established following a civil war within the European Federation in the late 2060s.

The 2070s would see the fall of Russia to warlordism following a military coup by a Putinist junta in 2076, that caused numerous oblasts in Siberia to either secede or form cliques of their own. This period would be when the Empire of Japan first began to expand as it invaded the sparsely populated cliques of Siberia and annexed them as colonies. All the while, the People's Republic of China, once thought to be the global superpower of the 21st Century, declined into its own period of warlordism as Beijing's grip on the PRC's province was gradually delegated to local bureaucrats. Fearing secession, the Politburo asked for the People's Liberation Army to step in two consolidate control over China yet again in 2082, however, this spectacularly backfired as local bureaucrats were only incentivized to further take control and become de facto warlords as the PLA invaded their provinces, thus sparking a Second Warring States Period. The Empire of Japan saw an opportunity to expand yet again by launching an invasion into Manchuria while managing to get Mongolia and the Republic of China to launch their own Japanese-backed invasions into China as parts of the growing Japanese sphere of influence that was consolidated into the Tokyo Pact mutual defense alliance in 2090. In the end, the PLA's attempt to centralize its authority over China failed and power over the vast state fell into the hands of warlords of varying degrees of loyalty to the PLA's Beijing Clique.

Both the DCAR and the Empire of Japan would face their greatest threats yet as the new global superpowers when the Hindu State of India launched an invasion of Iran in 2093 and later Thailand in 2094, thus sparking the Third West Asian War. The conflict was a decisive victory for the Arabian-Japanese coalition and India was partitioned into a Communalist west and nationalist east via the Treaty of Kabul in 2097, however, much of Southern Asia had been devastated by the bloodiest war of the 21st Century, in which entire power grids were annihilated and war crimes were committed by the totalitarian regime of New Delhi. To this day, the Indian Subcontinent remains fiercely divided between the opposing forces of Communalism in the west and nationalism in the east and a path to Indian reunification seems impossible for the near future. Meanwhile, the International Workers' Association waged war against an alliance led by the reactionary Brazil across South America from 2095 to 2100 that ultimately ended up partitioning the continent between a socialist sphere of influence, the puppet regimes of the United States of Venezuela (a dictatorship formed out of the American-backed regime installed in the 2020s that has taken a cultish fascination with Pax Americana and seeks to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine), and what remained of a fledgling Brazilian liberal democracy. Said Brazilian rump state was subsequently overthrown in 2102 and the Second Empire of Brazil was declared, however, this was shortly lived, as the internal states of Brazil began to resist centralized Imperial rule, resulting in the establishment of the Commonwealth of Brazil in 2107 as an economic and political union that resolved around the monarchy in Brasilia.

And that brings us to the present day of the 2110s, in which the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution reigns supreme as the global superpower. Japan has expanded across the Pacific Ocean via the recent Second Pacific War that resulted in the Japanese annexation of American Pacific territories, however, the world's second most powerful state may not be the biggest threat to the DCAR's global revolution. Instead, a coalition between the theocratic Christian Republic of Sudan, Democratic Republic of Zaire eccentric military junta, and corrupt East African Federation lies right on the southern border of the DCAR and has been amassing a military force on said border in order to protect its reign over Central Africa from the clutches of Alexandria. As drones still patrol the borders of East and West India, war could soon be coming to the increasingly prosperous yet increasingly tense continent of Africa instead. Nonetheless, despite the rise of reactionary powers across the planet, the rampage of warlords throughout Eurasia, and the invasion of Ukraine towards Moscow in an attempt to solidify longtime prometheist goals to tame the Russian Bear, the people of Arabia live in harmony with the ecosystem as their Communalist confederation flourishes in the 22nd Century. Vast municipalities modeled after the vision of Murray Bookchin are scattered from Morocco to Oman while space elevators deliver the people of the Democratic Confederation to colonies on Luna, Mars, and beyond. War may be on the horizon for the global power, which maintains de facto dominant authority through its web of socialist alliances, however, the people of the Democratic Confederation of the Arab Revolution are not afraid. They have made the Earth and Sky tremble before, they can do it again. Perhaps this time, capitalism will succumb to the trembles of revolution once and for all, but only time will tell.

While that's a great, well-thought-out world, it seems kind of strange to refer to it as a Rojava-wank when Rojava doesn't exist (in fact, all of Kurdistan is part of an Arab state).
 
A question about these:
View attachment 542019View attachment 542020
ATL WW1 and
View attachment 542021View attachment 542022
TTLs WW2 maps.
About which ones do you think are better. The second ones are simpler and easier to read I think but the WW2 one has the problem of being far too simplified (and not all countries ITTL would agree with it since wars Socialists were involved in at the time are generally seen as fundamentally separate from WW2 and while the war against USA sometimes gets classified as part of WW2, USA is mostly seen as separate from the Entente). Another issue I can see is that it would be weird if I go with the second one for WW1 and the first one for WW2. Anyway, yeah I am asking for opinions.

Edit: I just realized that Madagascar in WW2 has been coloured wrong.
Maybe the second set, but with different shading to give nuance?

WW1 sides (no leaning neutrals).pngWW2 sides (new).png
This is the latest version for that.
 
oxbz.png

North America in the world of Lincolnia

Linde = Grand Duché des Rocheuses
Norton = Empire of North America
Monterrey = Republica de Nuevo Leon​
In French we say "République de Louisiane", the article "la" is superfluous in this case. Otherwise very interesting map, what is the POD ?
 
In French we say "République de Louisiane", the article "la" is superfluous in this case. Otherwise very interesting map, what is the POD ?

I know how French work since i'm French. Basically, the La is here in a similar way to the La in La Nouvelle-Orléans and it came to be attached to it too due to the city importance. Even if you are right about that part.
 
I know how French work since i'm French. Basically, the La is here in a similar way to the La in La Nouvelle-Orléans and it came to be attached to it too due to the city importance. Even if you are right about that part.
Kind of like "La République Tchèque" OTL? Is that what you mean?
 
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