MotF 260: In God We Trust

NeonHydroxide

MotF 260: In God We Trust

The Challenge
Show the rise of a former colony or vassal to become a great power.

The Rules
The rise to power should involve some amount of improbable luck such that an observer could believe the country in question had divine favor - but a state ideology suggesting this is optional. Yes, this is almost identical to 253, but it's what the people voted for, so have at it.

If you're not sure whether your idea meets the criteria of this challenge, please comment in the main thread.

Entries will end for this round when the voting thread is posted on Monday, August 15.
Yes, you read that right - four weeks. However, the next challenge will be posted on Monday, August 1, so there will still be a new challenge every fortnight.

Discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread, you will be asked to delete the post and thrown to the sharks. Please stop.

Please continue to submit your suggestions for future contests here, submit to 259 (open until August 1), vote on the winners for 257 and 258, and vote for the next theme here.​
 
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The Tai-Pan

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NeonHydroxide

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A spiritual successor to this.

This map is a basic educational map produced in the early 14th century depicting the initial rise of the Kingdom of Alleghenia, which rose from humble beginnings as a Pennsylvanian march on the Ohio to control the entirety of the Great Lakes between the early 7th and late 9th centuries. These conquests are traditionally attributed to the particularly heroic deeds of a series of duke-kings starting with Anthony II, who came to the throne in 639 in the midst of the Third Crusade and led the kingdom first to victory over the pagans, then in a war of independence against Pennsylvania. (See the 10th century epic Man of the East and debates over its historicity for more information on the traditional historiography of this period)

Modern historians tend to attribute Anthony and his successors' rapid successes more broadly to the collapse of political unity in the Old Midwest following the destruction of the Indianian confederation under pressure from declining trade routes along the Mississippi and attacks both from the crusading Atlantic powers and the horselords of the Plains. Alleghenia's kings also benefited greatly from the redevelopment of advanced siege and shipbuilding technologies during the period against which the Midwestern statelets had little defense. By the reign of Anthony IV in the 720s, nearly all of the Great Lakes was already conquered and administered from the newly-reconstructed capital of Kleves.

Despite a destructive civil war in the 790s and a long, protracted conflict with the kings of Kentuckiana over control of the right bank of the Ohio, the Kingdom survived to dominate the Great Lakes for another three generations. In the late 800s, its western frontier was finally breached by the the horselords of the Nebraska, who rampaged as far east as Scioto district before being defeated by the eastern coalition on the now-famous fields of Mansfield.

Despite its relatively short lifespan, the Kingdom's march to the East had long-lasting economic and cultural consequences. By reconnecting the East, Great Lakes, and Mississippi basin after generations of religious conflict, it created a flourishing of trade and cultural exchange which long outlasted the period of political unity. In addition, although Canada-Ontario regained its independence with the collapse of the Kingdom, the decades spent in its sphere permanently reoriented its political and economic life away from Quebec and towards its southern and western neighbors.

Examples of Alleghenia-period architecture remain highly popular tourist attractions across the state's former territories. The series of castles constructed along the Mississippi in the late 700s are some of the oldest surviving structures in those regions, and, of course, the great royal bastions at Pittsburgh, Kleves, and Windsor remain some of the most famous medieval structures in Northern America.
 

PobreCesar

I'm having trouble inserting the image at full size, so I'll link my deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/mirinasiliye/art/Gather-Captives-like-the-Sand-926012032

In this world Africa, and not Europe is the cradle of modernity. The Great Powers essayed forth from that continent, bringing modernity to the rest of the world by gunboat. In the process a number of slaves were taken from the northern reaches of Europe, often sold to the Africans and their new world colonies by the Scandinavian empires. Naturally some Powers sought to establish colonies in that part of the world. Some of those colonies though, became ambitious... and were richly rewarded despite their bloody bankruptcy of morals...
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This world is very loosely based off of the world depicted in Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes, but it is (as you, noble reader, probably deduced) a parody of the Draka.

Edit: I would be remiss not to mention that I took inspiration for some parts of the larger world from works by from B_Munro, RvBomally, and CourageousLife
 
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