10.) Communaute Globale – an aggressively democratic, revolutionary-republican world where the French revolution did rather better (although the original POD substantially pre-dates 1789). Rich and high-tech, it also suffers from sharp political divisions and a tradition of revolutionary violence. The world is dominated by the “Communaute Globale”, an alliance of democracies headed by the United States of Europe, a French-led socialist-democratic confederation stretching from Portugal and still Gaelic-speaking Ireland to the Polish-Russian border, descending from a successful democratic uprising against a Napoleon-equivalent.
Other member states include much of Latin America, some territories in Africa, Australia-NZ, as OTL settled by the British, and, of course, almost all of America north of the Rio Grande. There is no US in Communaute N. America: there is a Greater New England stretching through upstate NY to Wisconsin and Illinois, an independent New Netherlands in OTL southern NY and New Jersey (remember that early POD), an independent Confederacy (here known as Virginia), an independent Greater Texas including much of the West, a French Kingdom of Canada including much of the Northern Plains, and a Spanglish-speaking independent California, not to mention more generously proportioned Indian reservations than OTL. The Pacific NW belongs to the Japanese.
Hostile to the Communaute is the Japanese-Russian alliance: the Japanese Empire is authoritarian, as is the Russian Empire, and although they fought a couple wars in the early 20th century, they are currently allied in the face of the hostility of the democracies to their regulated societies. Japan rules Formosa and NW America including Alaska (Korea was spun off as a mostly independent state under the enlightened despotism of Prince Sato in the 90’s, as a sop to Korean nationalism), while Russia holds roughly the territory of OTL USSR before WWII: between them they have managed to keep China fragmented into a number of warlord states, puppets of one or the other. Russia also holds Mongolia, northern Iran, and Chinese Turkestan.
India (here “Hindustan”: the Muslim NW separated as OTL) is a federation rather looser than OTL’s India, with a number of largely independent princedoms, tribal territories, free cities, etc, but is also rather richer. Due to the problems of getting all of its ducks in a row, India is a strict neutral in foreign affairs. Africa is post-colonial and divided into rather more states than OTL, as is the area of OTL Indonesia and Malaysia. The states into which Europe is divided are mostly smallish republics rather than big ethnic nations (the Federal French Union, which includes the OTL Rhineland, the Walloon parts of Belgium, Catalonia, and part of NW Italy, is an exception, as is the Kingdom of the Netherlands). Scotland and Wales are loosely part of a federal Britain, a republic since the 1907 revolution. The left-wing Republic of Brazil, OTOH, is bigger than OTL, including Argentina and Uruguay.
Although Japan only took light damage, New England and Virginia still haven’t entirely recovered from the Short War of ’67, which involved nuclear weapons and led to the current international regulation of their use and production (which the Communaute nations and the Autocracies are always accusing each other of violating). Political turbulence and violence are common in many places: rump Boer South Africa is plagued by racial strife, the Chinese dictatorships are always having problems, and ethnic and political violence are common in much of Africa. Violent protests, strikes, civil disobedience, etc. are rather more prevalent in the developed democracies than OTL, and “professional stirrer up of shit” is a job description stated with pride. Visitors from other TLs are likely to find the locals rather scarily intense. (Especially the Brazilians)
The Middle East, alas, is a bit of a mess: although not pestered by Israelis, the Arabs are as almost as conflicted about modernity as OTL, and the Autocracies and the Democracies contend for influence. Efforts to unify the Arab lands have generally ended in tears, the last squabble as to which Arab state was to provide the core around which Pan-Arabia would coalesce having ended in a (fortunately quite small-scale) exchange of nuclear weapons. The leader of the Islamic Republic of Egypt is the most internationally well-known Arab politician of this TL – and he’s as whacky as OTL 1980s Ghadaffi.
Technology is quite advanced, and biotech – gene therapy, engineered super-plants, etc. – is well ahead of OTL. Aerospace is also advanced: there are factories and power satellites in orbit, along with some fairly nasty (non-nuclear) orbital weapons which help keep another major war from breaking out. Art is often wildly innovative, and a faith in progress is still largely unsullied in this world. There are also innovations in religion – the revolutionary “cult of the supreme being” of OTL in this world developed into a genuine form of pantheistic religion, and has over fifty million followers (and really bugs the hell out of the numerous and vocal atheists of this world, even more so than the mainstream Christians).
11.) Prime – a civilized, sort-of-Edwardian TL, dominated by a massive British Empire including most of N. America, Africa, India, the Middle East, Japan, etc. Computers run on gears, electronics use vacuum tubes, airships are plentiful, and everyone travels by train. On the other hand, they also have nuclear power, cheap universal electrical public transportation, much more use of solar power than OTL, and advanced medical gene therapy and genetic engineering of food plants. (Babbage was more successful than OTL, and there has been a sort of low-tech “internet” – mechanical computers, telegraph lines, and home teletype – since the 1890s).
Constitutional monarchy is the norm in this world, as is a fussy, old-fashioned attitude that at its best manifests itself as a deep concern for professionalism and warm hospitality, but at its worst can be stiflingly elitist and stuffy. There is little censorship, but no TV studio of importance would have the poor taste to put on what passes for entertainment on OTL television – let alone the strong meat of Marketplace or Roman Republic earth. Keeping up Appearances is very important. Another notable thing about local thinking is an emphasis on style – the notion of “form subordinate to function” is a blasphemy followed only by the crazy Integralists of the Italian dictatorship.
Population world-wide is rather lower than OTL, only about 2.2 billion – effective contraception has been around for quite a while, and British America (~Canada + US east of the Rockies) has only about 120 million people. Indeed, most of the world’s nations have equivalents of the UK “Bureau of Population”, which through subtle propaganda and incentives prevents economically destructive population declines. (North America also includes Arcadia, a mostly French state in OTL Northern Quebec and the land part of OTL Newfoundland).
The world is generally peaceful, although a recent conflict between the empires of Siam and Vietnam over what is Laos OTL was only resolved by international negotiation after a bloody conflict. Mexico, including Central America, California and the Rocky Mountain SW, is more mestizo and Indian than OTL, and has an emperor. OTL Alaska and the Pacific NW is a Russian republic, independent of the Rodinia since the 30’s. South America is mostly republics, and more politically fragmented than OTL: a former plethora of dictatorships have generally turned democratic thanks to Imperial carrots and sticks (the Empire has most of their economies in its pocket). Germany, ruled over by the Habsburgs (also rulers of Hungary), is placid and socialist. (Well, most of Germany. Prussia, a separate state, suffers from considerable tension between Germans and the Poles which make up 40% of the population).
Russia, after an unstable period of coups and military rule, is a shaky constitutional monarchy. France is also still a monarchy, while the Empire of China is perhaps the second most powerful political union on the planet, but is largely uninterested in events taking place outside its bailiwick and international affairs outside of trade. Around 70% of non-Chinese mankind is either part of the British Empire, allied with it, or economically intermeshed with it. A few small African states were never directly incorporated into the Empire, but have been effectively part of it since the late 1800s. Most of the Middle East has been absorbed into the Imperial system, and the Wahabii are just a kooky cult stirring up trouble in the desert interior of the Kingdom of Arabia. Indonesia, oddly, was Italian up until the 1980s.
There have been no major world wars in the last century, aside from a messy 1922 inter-German conflict which ended Prussian influence in Germany proper. Women’s rights are approximately OTL in Europe and N. America, but male and female dress are quite conservative, pre-1920s generally speaking, although it is socially acceptable to wear (loose) trousers for women in professions which make skirts inconvenient. Language is florid, economics are liberal (in the old-fashioned sense) – which is compensated for by an organized working class which in the Empire runs its own massive private insurance program. Environmentalism is a Big Deal, with most countries moving away from polluting fuel sources since the 1960s and energetic efforts to maintain unspoiled wilderness since the early 1900s: even street lights are designed to shine as much of their light down as possible, to minimize star-obscuring city glare. Television is only just starting to catch on, but radio theatre has been popular since the 1930s, and movies have been around almost as long.
12.) Holy Alliance – a world in which the democratic revolutions were crushed and Czarist Russia dominates the world and extends to the Rhine. Some parts of Europe are outside their control (Switzerland is still neutral, and has nice hotels), but everyone, even the British, are very, very polite to the Czar. The Czar rules Saxony, Prussia, and Sweden as well as the territories the OTL Russian Empire, along with Persia and much of the Balkans including Istanbul: is the recognized Holy Roman Emperor: and holds extensive colonial domains and puppet regimes in Africa, India, and the Pacific. (Australia is Russian). The absolutist French, Austrian and Spanish monarchies are also close “little buddies” of the Czarist regime. Of course, Russian dominance had been greatly enhanced by their being first to develop an atomic weapon, in 1956 – and the Russians have made sure to maintain a monopoly. In a particularly egregious case of bullying, the present Czarina’s grandfather “restored” the unity of the Church, compelling the rejoining the Catholic and Orthodox churches. (Protestantism has been more of a problem, since there is no Protestant Pope to bully).
The Czarist Empire is a fairly nasty and autocratic place, in which torture is a normal part of police work (and master torturers are actually celebrities: many of them sign their work). It is considered a sign of weakness if the police don’t shoot protestors. A majority of Russian peasants are still serfs, although now the property of the Czar rather than individual nobles, and rented out to giant nobleman-owned agricultural combines. Hereditary nobility is the political norm. Women do not have the vote – but then, almost nobody does. Oddly, it’s a quite technologically advanced world, with a Russian colonization of Mars under way and human cloning recently perfected, in spite of the fact that most Russian peasants have a standard of living little better than OTL mid-1920s. Healthcare, however, is fairly modern: official policy is to encourage reproduction, to allow flooding border areas with Russians – OTL Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Xianjing, central Asia, and the Baltic States all have solid Russian majorities. Art and architecture tend towards the elaborate and baroque: military uniforms are rather fabulous.
It’s not entirely an evil place, either – the Russian nobility is very racially tolerant, and willing to welcome wealthy Asians or non-Slav Europeans into their ranks, as long as they at least pretend to be Orthodox (and, of course, are male). Ethnic nationalism is considered a noxious idea, and “Russian” is a flexible enough concept to accommodate Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Germans, and even (non-Muslim) Turks and Tatars. Jews are second-class citizens, but a far more confident Czarist regime sees no reason to organize Pogroms. There is also a fair amount of noblesse oblige, and serious efforts are made to avoid famine, relieve victims of natural disasters, etc. (Admittedly, some of the methods involved aren’t very much welcomed by the “beneficiaries”, such as the habit of forcibly moving masses of peasants from overpopulated areas to the frontiers or to colonies far from the Rodina-mat. )
Not that the rest of the world is particularly pleasant. Britain still maintains at least the forms of parliamentary democracy, but censorship is fierce, property qualifications for the vote remain, and the numerous secret police ruthlessly persecute anything which looks like “socialism” among the working classes. (Marx and Engels have their intellectual equivalents in this world: they ended their careers dangling at the end of ropes or “shot while trying to escape”). Austria and Spain are worse, while in France the secret police, closely tied to their Russian counterparts, are considered generally more powerful than the rather easygoing French monarchs.
There is no US: the US revolution was crushed and its leaders hanged. Said colonies successfully revolted on the third try, though (round two had to so with slavery), while the British were busy being defeated by the Russians in the Persian War of 1922-1927, and had to be squashed again by a Russian-led coalition in the 1930s. (The Russians “generously” restored the area to the British). The area of the OTL US is currently divided up between French (Quebec), Russian (Pacific NW and a number of east coast bases and enclaves), British direct rule (California –nabbed from the Spanish in the 19th century -, New England/Jersey/coastal NY area), Mexican/Spanish (the SW, Florida, Louisiana), the Principality of Pennsylvania (ruled by the British Heir Apparent, OTLs Prince of Wales) and two weak, corrupt English-speaking Dukedoms run by local aristocrats centered in the slave-holding (now serf-holding, if rather consistently black serfs) SE. A large part of the center of the continent is given over to Native American reservations: the Czars have often fancied themselves as the protectors of weak and primitive peoples.
Spanish America also followed a path of devolution, but it’s highly conservative elites were less revolt-prone, and so managed to get to where nowadays they are only very theoretically ruled from Spain, being divided into a number of Kingdoms run by a local aristocracy, while Brazil has become the tail that wags the Imperial dog. (Spain still directly rules some outlying areas – Texas, Cuba, and a few other bits). Over the last quarter century, the Americas have become increasingly economically independent of Europe, and don’t pay much attention to the latest rumblings from St. Petersburg: this Has Been Noted, but as long as the Americas remain aristocrat-dominated, the Czar probably won’t add to the huge complications already on his plate. (Religious terrorism, among those who violently disapprove of the re-unification of the Church, is on the rise again).
The Russians sensibly decided that swallowing China whole might be a bit much, so although the Czar rules Manchuria and Korea and Japan, China proper is still ruled by its own emperor, albeit a puppet kept on his throne by close to a million Czarist troops, and Russian missionaries walk carefully. What parts of Africa and Asia are not ruled by the Russians is ruled by the British, the French, and the Spaniards: the Netherlands, having failed to suppress the loud pro-democratic voices in their press and literature, and given refuge to various persons not approved of by the autocracies, ended up under a joint Austrian-Russian thumb, with their colonial possessions carved up. The various states making up the fragmented remnants of the former Ottoman Empire in Asia retain a sort of tenuous independence, as puppets of one power or another (although Russia has annexed Jerusalem and the surrounding area, even the Czar lacks the gall to establish a governor in the Holy Places of Islam).
The ideal of a pure aristocracy of birth ruling the world is more honored in the breach than in reality, since once a merchant or industrialist of lowly birth reaches a certain level of wealth, he is expected to make some princely contributions to the Czarist state and be granted a patent of nobility (if he does not, he can probably expect a visit from the secret police: being rich, powerful, and not a member of the nobility is a status that cannot be allowed for long – one way or another). In other countries things are even more slipshod – in the various principalities of English-speaking North America, the titles established by the conquerors are largely ignored, and the place is full of wealthy oligarchs who don’t even bother to conceal their lowly origin, while in England there is still an actual Parliament, although made (just) tolerable by the fact that it is for Wealthy People Only and is currently packed with regime loyalists. Things are currently a bit unstable: the Czar and his two sons were blown to a fine pink mist by German nationalist terrorists (low on the Okhrana’s priority list up till then) and the Czarina’s position is shaky, especially given her reputation for liberal (say, OTL UK around 1815) thinking.
Bruce
. Been wanting to see more of these. Are you going to post the Maps here aswell?