New Deal Coalition Retained III: A New World

Status
Not open for further replies.
Romania_Transylvania_and_Moldova_finished.png


Country Profiles - The Nations of the Dacian Subregion

The Principality of Transylvania - At the end of World War III, Transylvania's territory was under Romanian control and contained a substantial minority of ethnic Hungarians. With the signing of the Warsaw treaty that ended the war, a dispute arose between Romanian and Hungarian representatives on the question of ownership of Transylvania. Hungarian delegates, with the support of Poland and the Freyist bloc countries, claimed for Hungarian ownership of the northern half of the region, according to the boundaries outlined in the 1940 second Vienna award, while Romanian delegates supported the preservation of status quo in the region, as prevailed since the end of World War II. American representatives proposed to give independence to the entirety of Transylvania as a binational state as a compromise, a proposal that was reluctantly accepted by the Central European countries and by residents of the region.

Transylvania was created as a Habsburg-reigned principality under Otto von Habsburg, the former crown prince of Austria with heavy guidance from Freyist Germany. The first years in the country’s independent existence were troublesome as both Romanians and Hungarians felt disconnected to the nation-building process imposed on them by the world, which resulted in ethnic parties calling for dissolution causing parliamentary gridlock and low-level civic unrest between the two ethnicities of the country. The unrest between Romanians and Hungarians exploded in the 1995 ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș that resulted in a month-long period of nationwide violent clashes between both groups, sometimes supported by government officials. As the violent clashes threatened the neighboring nations and the royal family, a multinational force from the nations the Freyist block entered the nation to impose order in the torn country. For the next years, the country was managed directly by the royal family through neutral bureaucrats and moderate leaders from both sides. The Timișoara accords which brought to the switch from overt violence to hidden unrest was signed in 1998 and included the foundation of the Autonomous County of Szekelyland for the Hungarian minority within the northern region of the nation. The state's bi-national status is enhanced by the strengthening of bilingualism that is evident in the education system, signage, and city names. Most Transylvania cities have Romanian, Hungarian, and German names, due to the wide German influence of the Transylvanian Saxons which was reinforced by the royal family. Another significant pillar of the accords was maintaining open borders and cultural with both Romania and Hungary to maintain cultural unity between Hungarians and Romanians in the country and their brethren from neighboring countries.

Despite the positive effects of the accords on the nation and the end of overt violence, the effects of the ethnic divide in Transylvania can still be seen. The political system is still held stable and governed by the combination of a shaky alliance of moderates on both sides and single-issue parties and active monarchical rule, which often uses its authority to appoint ten percent of the Diet delegates in order to keep the government intact. The opposition to the existence of the nation creates strange bedfellows, as Hungarian and Romanian separatists collaborate within the opposition. The devolved administration of Szekelyland is being led by Hungarian separatists who support the dismantlement of the nation based on current autonomy lines. Romania and Hungary both expressed interest in the politics of Transylvania, and nationalist parties from both nations are maintaining close ties to their ethnic separatist counterparts within Transylvania.

Transylvania is a constitutional monarchy with a grand prince as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. The prime minister is the leader of the coalition in the Diet, the unicameral Transylvanian parliament. Szekelyland holds its own devolved assembly as well, with the first secretary being the leader of the coalition. The nation is a member of the Central European Customs Union.
The country’s economy is based on heavy industry and oil production and exports mainly to CECU nations. During the first years of the country’s existence, a large number of industries fled the country to more stable nations due to the cultural clashes that shut down the economy of the country, but the phenomenon faded away as the country had stabilized. Transylvania suffers from high levels of skilled and young emigration directed towards the ethnic home nations, as they see the situation at home unsuitable for finding high-paying job opportunities.


The Kingdom of Moldova - in the aftermath of the third world war, the historical region of Bessarabia, then encompassed within the Moldovan and Ukrainian SSRs, achieved independence as an independent kingdom, per the Warsaw treaty. Officially, Moldova is a kingdom per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, yet practically, the country has no king as the young nation has no history of royal reign other than the Romanian monarchy. The German government, who wished to impose a locally-based government rather than a foreign monarch in order to prevent the unification of the country with the culturally similar Romania, had to come up with a different idea: Instead of appointing a royal dynasty from the distant family of Michael I, king of Romania, the German authorities decided to appoint Yaroslav Guzun, a former Soviet-era war hero, as the temporary regent to the Moldovan throne until a royal family would be selected out of the local population.

Over the years, Guzun has emerged as a reasonable and effective ruler in the fields of rebuilding the country, establishing its global position, and creating a stable government structure. For this reason, the Germans and the CECU pleaded him not to end his term as regent and to stop the active search of a royal family.

Moldova holds a significant minority of Gagauz, a Turkish people. In the last stages of the third world war, several Gagauzian officials declared a Gagauzian republic within the nowadays Gagauzian Autonomous Raion, but their attempt failed as the allied armies stampeded through the region. However, Gagauzian separatism was a major political issue in the early years of the country's existence until 1996, when an agreement was signed between the central government in Chisinau and the separatists that allowed the Gagauz to establish devolved government and assembly.

De jure, Moldova is a constitutional monarchy, with a regent as the temporary head of state and a prime minister as the head of government but due to its special government structure and the prominence of the regent in the works of the government, it is considered by most political scientists as a flawed semi-presidential republic. Practically, the regent is treated like a king of the constitutional monarchy but acts as a president in a semi-presidential republic, with the notable exception of having a life-long term. The Moldovan parliament is unicameral and appoints the prime minister. For most of its existence, Moldovan politics are mostly run by Freyist or center-right parties which support the tight relationship with CECU and continued independence, while parties favoring union with Romania or left-wing parties that were created from rebellious elements of the CPSU remained in the opposition. Moldova is an observer member of the Central European Customs Union and maintains close relationships with both Romania and Ukraine, along with its main trade partners in CECU. The country’s economy is based on the exportation of agricultural products such as grains and potatoes and industrial commodities to various Central European nations.


The Kingdom of Romania - The Warsaw treaties were not generous to Romania. The hopes of general Vasile Milea and his clique for receiving generous treatment from the allies, including a restoration of the interwar borders, replaced with a bitter disappointment as Romania was forced to allow the independence of Transylvania while Moldova became independent, despite Romanian calls for setting the Romanian eastern border on the Dniester river. While Romania still kept access to the Black sea and regained Bukovina west of the Dniester, the sense of bitterness was still present. As per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, the Romanian monarchy was reinstalled and Michael I of house Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen assumed the throne, and the title of Dominator, once again, with heavy German guidance.

Since then, Romania was a notable country within CECU and the cultural hub of the Dacian sub-region. The nation maintains an impressive growth rate due to the steady influx of German investment and political stability maintained by king Michael I and his successor and distant cousin, Paul I, who ascended to the throne after the former’s abdication due to health reasons in 2016. Most of the country’s political spectrum adheres to a certain extent to Freyist principles such as constitutional monarchism, cultural conservatism, and national redemptionism, with various variants Freyist composing the main parties. The non-Freyist political field is mostly limited to the Western-European mold of Liberals and “unredeemed” left-wingers. Expansionism is a key issue in Romanian politics, as both neighboring nations of Transylvania and Moldova exist per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, and are consisted of Romanian majorities who harbor nationalist and irredentist sentiments.

The country’s economy is diverse and based on industrial growth, oil production, and agriculture. Notable Romanian firms are Automobile Dacia, based in the Ploiesti region and Enron Petrom, a subsidiary oil and natural gas company of Enron with oil rigs and decks across Romania and Transylvania.
 
I think his wife killed him to take power before WWIII. I'm not sure tho.
"Abroad in the remaining Warsaw Pact nations, the murders and purges continued. Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu was killed by his own wife Elena and rogue officers among the Securitate, who subsequently rooted out every possible moderate within the government (Romania was one of the few nations that still had them). Bulgaria, Slovakia, Occupied Poland, Albania, the Greek puppet state, all were purged by combinations of the KGB and zealous opportunists. In Yugoslavia, General and former Serbian party official Slobodan Milosevic was entrusted with it in a move that would soon backfire completely."

Yep, that's correct.
 
Officially, Moldova is a kingdom per the conditions of the Warsaw treaty, yet practically, the country has no king as the young nation has no history of royal reign other than the Romanian monarchy.

...Well, that's, uh, interesting.

No offense, but was monarchism forced upon Moldova by the Freyist bloc or what?
 
Last edited:
Yes, imposed monarchies became quite the norm in the German-influenced nations of Eastern Europe.

Is reintroducing monarchies in the modern world remotely practical? I read about a lot of TLs that seek to bring back the Hohenzollerns. But are there OTL examples of nations resurrecting their monarchies to achieve political stability?
 
Is reintroducing monarchies in the modern world remotely practical? I read about a lot of TLs that seek to bring back the Hohenzollerns. But are there OTL examples of nations resurrecting their monarchies to achieve political stability?

You have to take into account that political ideologies and trends are extremely different ITTL than ours. IOTL, Romanian and Bulgarian power was still held by mostly former Communist cadres, so it was impossible to try a Juan Carlos experiment. The Visegrad countries would have been a better possibility, only that all of them did not have a pre-war dinasty in power and I have a hard time seeing the Hungarians wanting the Habsburgs back on the throne.
 
Can someone cover more broadly the history of TTL European Economic Community before it's demise? Like the evolution of the European integration, Commission members and activities, European Parliament legislation, domains like Common Agricultural Policy etc.
Also, I'm curios, have elements of the EEC have been kept, like monthly reunions of European heads of governments, CAP, Fisheries Policy, The Council of Europe(separately)?
 
Regarding big city politics, is there one particular party that dominates in the big cities or does it depend city by city due to different minority population makeups by or being union membership being higher or lower depending on the city?
 
Regarding big city politics, is there one particular party that dominates in the big cities or does it depend city by city due to different minority population makeups by or being union membership being higher or lower depending on the city?
It depend city by city, and mostly determined by the factors you've counted
 
9/11/01:
---
Congressmen, especially House Representatives, Modi noticed, didn’t like it when recess was shortened for another week, though Modi found he was able to push through the change to the legislative schedule easier than he expected. Something like this was worth revealing right away, not for whenever recess ended. He had internally rehearsed his announcement, knowing that his words would make it into the history books. It would be one of the crowning moments of his career. For that reason, it was paramount that everything went to plan, to soften the blow for the American people, and to come off as morally right for having the will to ignore partisan lines and work for the good of the country.
Buckley News was showing one of Alex Jones’s press conferences. As usual, they started on schedule before slowly going off track, devolving into an impassioned rant against the forces of the establishment, which in Jones’s words “were against the president”. He laughed to himself as he entered the Capitol Building, though he remained worried that Jones would muck up the impeachment trial by trying to drag down the rest of the Republican leadership with Bundy. As he made it to the rostrum of the chamber, the House Clerk noted that he was sweating, but he pretended not to hear her say this. She would figure out why tomorrow when the order of business was to be read out. The current topic of discussion was an appropriations bill, though shortly before the order was given for the first representatives to take the floor, the Sergeant-at-arms entered into the room, with a solemn look on his face. “ATTENTION! There is now a lockdown on the premises. Entry into the building is restricted, and security is being escalated for our safety. Details are still unclear. Remain calm.” This was followed by a frantic message from the Delaware Senator Mike Castle who cam erunning down the hall from the senate chambers, who had a message to the same effect. “What the hell is going on here?”, Modi shouted. It was then that Mike Castle gave the dreaded news.

---
For all his faults with the president, Mayor Sanders agreed that as “America’s Mayor,” and the leader of what some described as “the country within a country” due to New York’s parochial nature, he would have to go to D.C. to meet with the President sometimes...even if he was a political rival. Why not do it on a nice fall day on a New Jersey Beach? It beat having to do a meeting in a stuffy office. The weather was nice, typical for a day in early September. The weather was just warm enough to be pleasant, and just cold enough to avoid the tourists. The roads were clear for both the president and the mayor, although he could see that the tourists instead had taken to watching the mayor’s motorcade for amusement. Bernie wanted to get down to business. As a man of the people he knew he shouldn't be wasting their time and money. Besides, nobody here voted for the Mayor of New York City, even if they could feel his power from there. Bundy, on the other hand, was probably going to have a gay old time back-slapping voters, shaking hands, and the like. The president was now running an hour late. They continued driving around New Jersey in relative safety, waiting for the word that the president was soon approaching. But while hearing the screaming and shouting of adulators, (or detractors) was fun, ‘da mayor’ wanted to focus. Suddenly his car phone rang.
It was occasions like this that convinced him it was necessary to have, even if it felt like a bourgeois luxury. Another luxury, knowing who the caller was ahead of time. His driver looked puzzled as he picked up the phone. “Sir, it's for you, from the Secret Service.” Mayor Sanders quickly took it off his hands.

“Yaas, what is it? I ain’t got time, don’t go out telling me that Ted’s rescheduled. The People’s valuable time is being wasted.”

The agent on the other side sighed, before telling him the news in a melancholy tone. “Sir, there won’t be a meeting today… The president… Well the president is dead. Sorry you had to find out this way.”

---

New York Post Extra Edition: President is slain!
Car Bomb destroys presidential motorcade, killing president, personal detail.
FBI have “a few cartels and mafia rings in mind” as nation mourns…

At 2:17 yesterday, the president’s motorcade was passing through the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, to a crowd of onlookers. The president had reportedly been on a trip to meet with local officials in New York City, including Mayor Sanders. Despite this, the still atmosphere of the day betrayed the events to come. At 2:18, an explosion rocked the streets of Hoboken. After the smoke cleared, the effect of the damage became obvious, the president's car had been reduced to its chassis. President Bundy was declared dead on the scene, along with two members of the Secret Service and his body man. Another Secret Service agent is in critical condition. News of his assassination comes only hours after reports that the president’s fixer, Theodore Nguema, died of an apparent suicide. The FBI have revealed a few key details that they believe will lead to the capture of the perpetrator, including a point in time between nightwatch shifts where there were key breaches in security, allowing outside access to the president’s motorcade to be breached. Those involved in shirking said duties will be censured, though it is thought that this breach in security was due to the security guards being relatively green and overworked. Moreover, the style of the attack and tools used follow the patterns used by the same mobs, cartels, and gangs that our fallen president devoted his life to eradicating.

A nation mourns as its dynamic president falls to the anarchic forces of evil he spent his life trying to vanquish. Vice President Meredith was only notified of the incident nearly half an hour after the incident, and shortly after the late president was declared dead. He was sworn in as president an hour later.
---
When James Meredith was notified that he was president of the United States, he almost didn’t believe what he heard. Despite receiving official confirmation of the late president’s death from a variety of media outlets, along with a pager communication from the Secret Service, the news of it still shocked him. The last time something like this happened was when Nixon died, almost four decades ago. While there were already whispers of a “Draft Meredith” campaign for the 2004 election, he expected to make a decision about whether to make a go for the presidency himself. He never expected the job to fall onto his lap.

At the time, he was supposed to have lunch with a corporate lobbyist, and while not the most lively activity, was still something that he did not want to be late for. Almost nothing would stop him, because showing up late would imply that he did not take things seriously. It was necessary to make a good impression for corporate leaders such as these, which were needed to assuage the fears of businessmen who felt that the current administration was too… populist for America to remain safe for businesses. He was right about to leave when an aide issued an alert that the Blair House (where he was staying temporarily while his official residence was under renovations), was under lockdown. Ten minutes later, he got the notification that the president had been killed, and had already been pronounced dead at the scene. President James Meredith, which he now was, then received the message that he was to be escorted to the White House to be inaugurated as president. Chief Justice Garza, in one of his first acts as Chief Justice, was already on the way to officiate the process.

---

Going over the damage:

Well...here we are.

James Meredith. President of the United States.

James Meredith. The President of the United States of America, leader of the most powerful nation on the planet.

Being called that would still take getting used to.

So would the absolute weight of responsibility thrust upon him. He would be the only president to have gained it because people committed conspiracy in his favor, and with his approval.

He began thinking to himself...“Was this a coup? Are we really any better than those putschists in the Soviet Union?”

He didn’t feel like they were any better than the damned Kryuchkov and Demichev. At least he didn’t start the deadliest war of human history though... They were probably somewhere in Mogadishu or whatever having the last laugh. [A/N: Both countries have a reputation similar to Argentina and Brazil TTL, harboring former communists. Popular conspiracy theories say that both leaders are still alive and well and have fled to either country with assumed names. Because a body was never found for either, this has taken on more life than “Hitler is alive in Argentina” theories.] Those damn Commies were probably living in secluded villas, living the rest of their lives in luxury. While Meredith was a prisoner in what was essentially a 200 year old dusty apartment complex.

Well, it was for the good of the country of course. Especially after seeing the evidence piling up against Bundy. He did it for the good of the Party of Lincoln..t.
The party?
...maybe he was just as bad as the Politburo...no..no... Meredith was an accidental President not a wannabe dictator. He didn't bother asking what his other conspirators had done and what or whether the mob was actually involved anyhow. He wouldn't have gotten a real answer. He and the people here [the cabinet] were doing it to preserve American democracy. Or at least protect it from a man that was secretly a homicidal maniac. And protect the country from the sheer chaos and massive blow to the national psyche if the news they elected him to the highest office in the land... He didn’t know how to address the members of the Cabinet, some of whom were not in the conspiracy. He could have said, “May God have mercy upon us all”, but he seemed to have said this so many times that it simply lost its meaning. The silence set the tone in itself. A couple of over-worked, sleep-deprived, 20-something aides were in the background carrying almost more than they could carry. They were bumbling into the Oval Office, dropping off evidence in the corner. The most damning evidence, however, was a burlap sack, one close to bursting its seams, which was dumped unceremoniously on the Resolute Desk. He opened it, and let the contents spill out over the desk.

“Gentlemen, these tapes, photos, and videos have been found in a now-abandoned cabin in the woods of Maryland. Almost a ten-minute drive from Camp David.”

Alex Jones spoke. He still had not the faintest idea of what was going on. Of all the members of Bundy’s inner circle, he offered no services to their conspiracy and was probably liable not to believe them. Outside of the campaign trail, he was little more than a yes-man and a foil to Bundy. He was a hell of a marketer...he probably should have been hawking supplements in his spare time, not helping to form federal policy. If he had been part of the conspiracy, he probably would have called them members of the “Deep State” that he sometimes rumbled about. He put a lot of faith in the president. The man admired Bundy for his attitude and policy, and importantly, felt like he truly listened to him and took his occasionally inane policy proposals seriously. No doubt, Jones probably had some influence on Bundy, and the president’s own tendency to see himself as a perpetual victim meant that he seemingly took Jones’s theories quite seriously. They couldn’t trust that he would not reveal their conspiracy before they could act, so he was briefed partially AFTER Bundy was confirmed dead.

“Mr. President, what is this? I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Your predecessor, President Bundy, God bless his soul, wasn’t at Camp David when he died. That madman killed him while he was touring New Jersey.”

Meredith rolled his eyes. “You still don’t understand, do you? You don’t know what Mr. Bundy was…” The other conspirators were motioning for him to finish his sentence and enlighten the others in the room about the truth. “...you didn’t know that the president was a mass murderer?”

The shock of those words rippled across the room, even for those that were in on the secret. Alex Jones himself was barely holding in his rage, his face turning red. “Why are you bringing up the president’s policies in Russia? He was fully in the right, those Ruskies were up to something! The president knew exactly what he was doing! If y’all are traitors I have no choice than to make you Deep State fu--”

“Enough!” James Meredith stood up suddenly, then turned to Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, who nodded somberly. He sighed. “No use beating around the bush. President Bundy killed at least a dozen women in cold blood, and spread across this desk are the ones that he took photos of. From his position of power, there may be dozens of such bodies... We found this in his cabin.”

Jones stooped down, examining the contents of the pile, and looking for examples of forgeries. To his dismay, they looked genuine. One magazine, seemingly a Japanese pornographic serial, caught his attention. Looking nervous, he quickly threw the magazine in the trash, mumbling to himself. Meredith heard the phrases “corrupting our youth” and “degenerate things and deviants”.

Come to think of it… A lot of the content on his desk seemed to be of pornographic material. A cursory look at the covers seemed to show women in dangerous positions, taken advantage of, and demeaned. Along with some strange fetish material, much of it seemed outright violent and gory. Jones had a point. He thought to himself. “What if Bundy was motivated to commit such heinous acts by the stuff he saw in these things?”

“There’s some moral crusader, James Dawson? Dobson? He’s been warning people about this on TV, but I never thought it would be...this serious. It may turn out to be worth checking out. We should try contacting him.”

“Y’all...better do that.” Jones was still poring through the evidence. His shoulders slumped, as he realized the man he had seen as the savior of America, the one who would clear out the corruption of the Beltway elite had been nothing more than a ruthless criminal and cold-blooded murderer. Defeated, the press secretary vacated the room.

“I’ll send in my resignation letter.” Jones said before exiting.

---

Later that night, while staying in a hotel room near the White House, the now-President Meredith was receiving consolations from a variety of world leaders. What a day it had been...He sighed to himself before putting aside his work to retire for the night. It was then when an aide stopped him to deliver him the news.

Alex Jones was dead.

This came as a great shock, and at the same time, an odd sense of dread. He sat back down in his chair, unsure of how to react. This was just another shock to top off a day full of shocks. It was fairly clear that he had killed himself out of despair of the revelations of Bundy’s secrets. Jones always saw himself as an adviser and a close friend of the president, and his official job was itself to defend the president and his actions.

“Well fuck it… Looks like I won’t be able to sleep tonight.” He returned to reading a well-worn novel on Nixon’s foreign policy. He mused over whether America would notice that it had once elected such a horrific man, before slowly dozing off to sleep anyway.

----

Meredith slept fitfully. While he felt he had done the right thing, his guilt was gnawing at him. He hadn’t slept well ever since the night Jones died. While the presidency was weighing on him, he still thought; did I act justly? He knew that opening the case to the public wasn’t a possibility from a political and self-interested perspective. He had already jumped down the rabbit hole.

However, he was still the president, and had a wealth of resources at his disposal, most notably the intelligence community, with whom he now had a special relationship. After he woke up, he read the Washington Times and noticed news about a local Jackpot winner whose wife and kids family had been killed by drug dealers while at Myrtle Beach only 6 months before and it gave him an idea that he wrote down on his notepad. He called up Trump to see if it was possible to set up a charity for the family of victims of violent crime. To Trump’s credit, he figured out almost right away what he was planning, adding that he was thinking of doing the same thing. They decided to coordinate a fund of millionaires and billionaires, including Mitt Romney and members of the Iacocca foundation, giving out sums to those who had suffered from violent crime. It would be the best, most surrepticious, way to comfort the families of suspected and confirmed victims of a certain, once very powerful but very evil, man.
 
Last edited:
Ding-dong, the bastard's dead! And so are a couple of other a-holes. Too bad it looks like the government's going to be taking Bundy's OTL "porn made me do it" excuse and running with it towards yet another right-wing crackdown.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top