Fantastic. Any relationship to the "Stargirl" series that just came out (Stargirl being a proiminent member of the JSA)? Also, just ot add, for me the Golden Age of comics is simply spetacular. These characters had really diverse and original (and silly) origins, with some clear mythological character building. Asthetically, you can't beat Golden Age characters (such as the JSA) drawn by Alex Ross. |
Yeah I believe so, I've seen some infoboxes from other wiki-like sites here
It's very much up to you mate, I think you would do both of them well given the quality of your initial infobox. It just depends how much time you have to dedicate to it. Either way I look forward to seeing what you come up with!Looking for some feedback and information on what consumers on this part of the forum generally enjoy reading and looking at.
So, I'm considering making a timeline on my previous posting - List of Scotland's Prime Ministers - this TL would be based on the idea of Scotland and England's union ending following the Glorious Revolution. I would go through, in a chronological order, the elections of the Scottish Parliaments and their resulting Prime Ministers and administrations. What I'm wondering is what form what people enjoy seeing the election's wikiboxes take:
- Do people enjoy a more long stream version like I did with my theortical Virginia General Election wikibox
- Do people enjoy a shorter and more streamlined version like @CosmicAsh did in her incredible 'Our Fair Country' TL with the New England elections
- Or do people think a half-house between both is a better version.
Incase you can't see, I've put hyperlinks in the emboldened text to the example wikiboxes I was referring to in the text.
Thanks for any feedback
Verra neat; though it's Spectre, not Specter.
Huh, I missed this one.
Full-res map
Turkestan has twice been a single-export nation. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, when the country was under the rule of the British-aligned Kingdom, that good was cotton, the impoverished land partially making up for the loss of India in supplying British markets via Iran. The cotton trade provided just enough wealth to create a cadre of middle-class officers who would in 1967 depose the King and create a Republic which slowly but surely realigned towards Russia. With Russian influence came ambitious oilmen with experience drilling in Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus, who looked to make their fortune finding unknown reserves on the other side of the Caspian. Sure enough, by the mid 1970s massive oil and gas fields were being discovered in Khiva and Karakum provinces, by the mid 1980s production had started wholesale, and by the late 1980s Turkestan had finished the transition from impoverished cash crop economy to incredibly wealthy petrostate - although Russia and Iran had more than enough domestic energy production, the demands of the ballooning Chinese economy built gleaming cities in the middle of the desert and decadent palaces for the ruling clique and the Merv and Ashkabat noveau riche. For a golden decade and a half, Turkestan was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and a trendy destination for the savvy Russian or American investor who was willing to ignore the repression and inequality which guaranteed their returns.
In June 2004, an otherwise unremarkable corruption case in the Ferghana valley coincided with a dry spell which raised food prices across the country. In Andijan, this escalated to spontaneous ethnic riots between Turks and Tajiks, which after a brutal repression transitioned to broad-ranging protests against the ruling party, which was disproportionately comprised of the Persian-speaking and stereotypically better-off Tajiks. Russian pressure prevented a bloodbath, and the dictator fled, resulting in free elections which naturally resulted in a large majority of Turkish nationalist & Muslim democratic parties who immediately set about slowly degrading the status of the Tajik and Kirghiz minorities, while failing completely to substantially improve living conditions, decrease the rampant corruption, or put an end to the long-simmering Islamist and Uyghur nationalist movements who used the country as a safe base to launch attacks in China and India.
In the absence of true civil society or independent sources of political power outside of the gas companies, the new government made it exactly one election before collapsing. In the second round of the 2010 election, the main Turkic candidate from the incumbent party just barely edged out his Tajik rival. Opposition parties alleged fraud, and weeks of internationally-backed negotiation and recounting failed to arrive at a consensus. As the inauguration deadline loomed and the country hurtled towards chaos, a clique of ministers from the existing government declared an 'interim government' which would hold power until a legitimate winner was found. While potentially well-intentioned, this was taken well by no one, and led to both candidates setting up their own competing governments. The Tajiks struck first, gathering loyal military units and successfully seizing the capital of Tashkent, proclaiming a provisional government and kicking off what would be a long and bloody civil war.
One might not have expected an ethnic conflict in Turkestan to be so protracted - although Turks were in the majority, as a legacy of the old regime, the majority of the army leadership were Tajiks. Early observers did not anticipate the Turkic National Assembly which rallied in the ancient city of Bokhara to be very long-lived. But the threat of interrupted gas flows quickly brought international intervention. Russia was first to move in, first sending supplies and equipment to the Turks to keep them in the fight and allowing them to retake Tashkent, forcing the Tajik PGT south to Samarkand. Later, Russian forces moved in to the northern Caspian coast and border regions to protect its citizens' investments directly, setting up an local 'National Salvation Army' nominally loyal to but not under the command of the National Assembly. Soon, the war became a proxy for the cold war in the Middle East as Turkey saw an opportunity to seize the oil wealth of southeastern Turkestan by supporting a Turkmen nationalist rising, leading Iran to intervene to prop up the Tajiks. Later, as Uyghur nationalists overran much of the eastern part of the country, China poured wealth and equipment into Kirghiz separatist groups in the region, hoping to secure its border and take the first steps towards reconnecting its badly-needed pipelines to the Caspian.
Ten brutal years later. the war rages on, with no end in sight. Samarkand, after a brief collapse in late 2017, have rebounded as the Islamic Movement of Turkestan seized the Ferghana Valley, previously Tashkent's wealthiest tax and manpower base. China has poured more troops into Zhetsu province as their Kirghiz proxies falter, and Russia has responded with even more aid to their own NSA proxies, whose growing influence continues to worry Tashkent's Turkophiles. And, as fighting in the west has brought gas production down to its lowest levels since the 1980s, and as new estimates place the number of displaced people in the high 30 millions, officially surpassing the Second World War, Turkestan has found a third primary export - human misery.
A quick note: The PoD of this map is before the national identities of Central Asia were solidified. Anyone familiar with OTL terminology might therefore be confused by the groupings used in the description. If you are, read 'Turkic' as 'Uzbek', and 'Kirghiz' as 'Kazakh & Kyrgyz'.
