What "Eccentric" states could exist today?

Gukpard

Gukpard

There were some states in history that standed out like a sore thumb as being akin to a joke that went too far, either for being too much into roleplay of a long gone state, or by being too much into some ideology.

One example we have is Guatemala under Jorge Ubico Castaneda

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(yes I took it from a game but just because this was the only pic in colour of him I could find)
Jorge Ubico ruled guatemala from 1931 to 1944 and he basically brought Napoleonbooism to a level unseen before. First he abolished civilian positions in the government and built a stratocracy that had to be seen to be believed, going as far to give even the post office and the education system to the military. He then adopted napoleonic imagery, built napoleonic palaces around the country and he would compare himself to Napoleon all the time, going as far as being nicknamed "The little Napoleon of the tropics". This state might seem awesome, but the lack of democratic reforms made the people get fed up and he tried a crackdown that brought outrage and resulted in his overthrow.

Another example is the Arrow Cross regime in Hungary, for a very stupid reason. Basically the Arrow Cross party was unpopular and it was put in power after the nazi invasion of Hungary. A bit after they asked no one other than HERMAN GÖRING to travel to Hungary and be crowned as the King of Hungary (look it up). Göring thanked then and said that he would do that when the situation in the world changed since as you know the soviets were basically halfway into hungary at this point. Eventually Hungary was overrun and they were thankfully punished. Assuming the arrow cross party got in power under the right circunstances we could get Hermann "Train collector" Göring as Hermann I of Hungary.

Other state I can think is Integralist France under the action Francaise, since as far as I know they planned to build a catholic monarchy from the 13th century if they had come into power.

So, what eccentric states could have been created from 1901 onwards?
 

Arkenfolm

Gukpard said:
Jorge Ubico ruled guatemala from 1931 to 1944 and he basically brought Napoleonbooism to a level unseen before. First he abolished civilian positions in the government and built a stratocracy that had to be seen to be believed, going as far to give even the post office and the education system to the military. He then adopted napoleonic imagery, built napoleonic palaces around the country and he would compare himself to Napoleon all the time, going as far as being nicknamed "The little Napoleon of the tropics". This state might seem awesome, but the lack of democratic reforms made the people get fed up and he tried a crackdown that brought outrage and resulted in his overthrow.
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Ubico wasn't alone in terms of insane Central American dictators given his contemporary in El Salvador Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez was hardcore into theosophy and believed making all the lights in San Salvador blue would summon invisible doctors to cure a smallpox epidemic. He also believed he controlled a large invisible army, some of whom acted as intermediaries between him and the United States government. His beliefs in theosophy influenced the extreme statism that characterised his regime. An oft-repeated quote attributed to him is "It is a greater crime to kill an ant than a man, for when a man dies he becomes reincarnated, while an ant dies forever."

While Hernandez Martinez resigned and fled the country in 1944 following unrest both among the military and civilians (including a general strike), I suppose one can imagine another theosophy-inspired dictatorship in El Salvador, especially if it gains US backing.
 
tonycat77

tonycat77

Banned
Okinawa becomes independent after ww2, and it's lax tax laws and regulations makes it a Cuba/Macau on steroids, with Yakuza and triads fighting over casino neon lights.
 
tonycat77

tonycat77

Banned
tonycat77 said:
Okinawa becomes independent after ww2, and it's lax tax laws and regulations makes it a Cuba/Macau on steroids, with Yakuza and triads fighting over casino neon lights.
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In the same vein:
  1. Transnistria and Abkhazia and Chechnya get International recognition, let's say no Iraq war happens and the Yugoslav wars end in just a year due to NATO intervention, let's say in all cases, there's a large massacre that gets world opinion going, they all become Vice and Bald & bankrupt 's favorite spots
  2. Romania under ceasescu refuses to pay the international debt instead of extreme austerity, also the USSR doesn't collapses, by 1995, it's the North Korea of Europe, along with a large DMZ in the Hungarian border.
  3. North Ireland declares itself independent from both Ireland and UK, would be fun to imagine a AHC where the unionists and IRA unite against both Ireland and the UK
 
Whiteshore

Whiteshore

Arkenfolm said:
Ubico wasn't alone in terms of insane Central American dictators given his contemporary in El Salvador Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez was hardcore into theosophy and believed making all the lights in San Salvador blue would summon invisible doctors to cure a smallpox epidemic. He also believed he controlled a large invisible army, some of whom acted as intermediaries between him and the United States government. His beliefs in theosophy influenced the extreme statism that characterised his regime. An oft-repeated quote attributed to him is "It is a greater crime to kill an ant than a man, for when a man dies he becomes reincarnated, while an ant dies forever."

While Hernandez Martinez resigned and fled the country in 1944 following unrest both among the military and civilians (including a general strike), I suppose one can imagine another theosophy-inspired dictatorship in El Salvador, especially if it gains US backing.
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And, even if this kinda goes into current politics, to add to the eccentricity of El Salvador, the current President is really big into crypto currency as well, so we could theoretically have a theosophy-obsessed dictatorship which has an economic system built on crypto-currency.
 

overoceans

Social Credit(the quack economic theory, not the Chinese good-citizenship program) takes over some country, and implements the pure Douglas doctrine, like Aberhart in Alberta, only with no higher level of government to restrain the lunacy(wiki Banker's Toadies to see just how wacko it could get).

This would eventually have to morph into a dictatorship, since doctrinaire Social Credit would provoke a capitaist backlash that would collapse the economy and lead to major popular discontent. Though even with a dictatorship, it probably wouldn't last more than a decade.
 

New Cleo Genesis

Whiteshore said:
And, even if this kinda goes into current politics, to add to the eccentricity of El Salvador, the current President is really big into crypto currency as well, so we could theoretically have a theosophy-obsessed dictatorship which has an economic system built on crypto-currency.
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Beat me to it. Well, I could also mention Ambazonia, an unrecognized country in western Cameroon, which has a crypto-currency named AmbaCoin as its de jure currency.
 

Polish Eagle

This one would require a Before 1900 POD, but it's one I'm fond of:

Free City of Tri-Insula: NYC, Long Island, and Staten Island declare independence from the United States in 1861 and form their own Hanseatic-style city-state.

Other states that come to mind:

I can see a surviving Iranian monarchy embracing the Persian imagery even harder--they IOTL milked the Achaemenid meme for all it was worth. Maybe not quite to the point of sponsoring Zoroastrianism...but there might be some intellectuals in the country who do it.

There was also a "Canaanist" movement among Jews in Palestine to forge a new pre-Jewish identity. I can see an "Israeli Fascism" emerge that embraces ancient Canaanite imagery.
 
Whiteshore

Whiteshore

Polish Eagle said:
I can see a surviving Iranian monarchy embracing the Persian imagery even harder--they IOTL milked the Achaemenid meme for all it was worth. Maybe not quite to the point of sponsoring Zoroastrianism...but there might be some intellectuals in the country who do it.
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On a similar note, a Greece which won the Greco-Turkish War and went full Megali could go full Byzantine LARP, complete with a capital in Constantinople and heavily using Byzantine iconography.
 

Magnum

Whiteshore said:
On a similar note, a Greece which won the Greco-Turkish War and went full Megali could go full Byzantine LARP, complete with a capital in Constantinople and heavily using Byzantine iconography.
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Greek emissaries went to Britain OTL to see if the purported descendents of the Paleologoi supposedly living there were legit (they weren't)

They could have gone, under different circumstances, with the Cantacuzino family instead, and go full restoration
 
Neoteros

Neoteros

Polish Eagle said:
This one would require a Before 1900 POD, but it's one I'm fond of:

Free City of Tri-Insula: NYC, Long Island, and Staten Island declare independence from the United States in 1861 and form their own Hanseatic-style city-state.

Other states that come to mind:

I can see a surviving Iranian monarchy embracing the Persian imagery even harder--they IOTL milked the Achaemenid meme for all it was worth. Maybe not quite to the point of sponsoring Zoroastrianism...but there might be some intellectuals in the country who do it.

There was also a "Canaanist" movement among Jews in Palestine to forge a new pre-Jewish identity. I can see an "Israeli Fascism" emerge that embraces ancient Canaanite imagery.
Click to expand...

Speaking of weird US-based independent state ideas I'm quite fond of:

  • The Iroquois adopt European agricultural methods to such an extent they don't need to Lebensraum the Great Lakes to feed themselves, as they wanted to do IRL; since agriculture was a woman's job in the Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee would've turned into the closest thing there could be to a de facto matriarchy at that point in time - even though the nominal leaders of the Confederacy would've still been the male chiefs.
  • Garibaldi is made commander in chief of the Union's troops during the American Civil War, becoming the patron of several provisional freedmen's republics in the territories occupied by his troops - he was adamant about his stance on slavery, when he knocked at Lincoln's door and offered the President his services, but Lincoln refused. Sadly, given his track record in southern Italy, he would've probably resembled a South American caudillo.
 

Simreeve

tonycat77 said:
  1. North Ireland declares itself independent from both Ireland and UK, would be fun to imagine a AHC where the unionists and IRA unite against both Ireland and the UK
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To be honest, if the people of NI actually supported that move then a lot of people in Great Britain would be quite glad to see the place go its own way.

Neoteros said:
D'Annunzio sponsored the vaguely anarcho-communist Charter of Carnaro, and the Futurist Political Party of Marinetti had some... unique ideas, too.
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Also _
"There were rumours he removed his ribs to perform fellatio on himself; he claimed to have eaten the meat of children; there is drug use towards the end of his life as his health deteriorates. Some stories were false, of course, made up by D'Annunzio or reporters soaking up his life for their papers."
 
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