#1 -Bartoum -
The world is dominated economically (but not at all militarily), by the League of Vinland (when searching for a name, this nation’s founders decided to let the Swedes have their way). The LoV, is a gargantuan, Holy-Roman Empire-like, league that spans from the Artic down to the Rio Bravo. Its member states elect a king who rules for life and send members to Parliament. Its capital is in ‘Bartoum’ (hence the world’s name), a city roughly OTL Saint Louis. Most of the member states of the league are European in origin, but a few are native. The Auodinosani (Iroquois), Shalagee (Cherokee), Pueblo, and Dakota are the biggest native states. Most of the Eastern seaboard directly east of the Mississippi and ‘Upper Canada’ were at one time British, the St. Lawrence River and the area to the west of the Mississippi were mostly settled by the French, and Florida and the South-West were conquered by Spain. The Swedes and Dutch were able to establish pockets here and there (Dutch Long Island, Swedish Newfoundland, the Dutch part of Florida, to name a few). Alyeska was Russian. The west coast (mainly OTL California) is fairly diverse; initially the Spanish sparsely settled the area, then the Russians colonized it, then the Chinese took it, then the Japanese, and then finally the Russians again. Frantsiskagrad is a fairly orderly and overly-policed place (in stark contrast to many of the other big cities of Vinland).
Outside of Vinland, the globe is dominated by several powers (none as isolationist politically as Vinland). An Orthodox Christian Clerical Fascist Russian state exists, and is busy threatening most of the rest of the world with its atomic weapons (though for whatever reason, the rest of the world really isn’t listening). The Czar in St. Petersburg (still semi-important) is growing increasingly worried as the Chinese Empire (long a Russian ally) is asserting its independence. Japan, Sinkiang, Mongolia, and Turkestan (united and cut off into its own clerical-fascist Muslim dictatorship) are all protectorates of Russia. Standing against the Russians are few other powers. The British Empire, though now greatly weakened, is growing in power. It still has its grasp on New Holland (Australia), New Wales (New Zealand), the Cape, and some bits of coastline in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and South America. France, still holding onto the coastal parts of Algeria, is also a middle power. The Hindustani Alliance (the founders thought India was too European, and Bharat was too Northern for the Southern Indians) is like OTL China; quickly growing and on the rise. India achieved its independence after a long and bloody war. Rather than having mass uprisings, or peaceful protests however, Hindustan achieved independence by having the Princely states rebel. Today, the Maratha Empire dominates most of Hindustan, while Nepal and Hyderabad are also enlarged. The other members are the Kingdoms of Travancore, Punjab, and Bengal.
#2 - C.S.A. -
This world, is a terrible Confederate dominated globe. In the war of 1832, the Britain was able to stake out its claims on the Oregon territory, as well as Michigan and Maine. To make up for lost territory, in the Mexican-American War, the U.S. took more territory. A radical Anti-slavery party won the U.S. presidential election in 1848, and the South seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The North was not as industrialized as in 1861, and Washington D.C. was quickly captured (Maryland, along with Missouri, Kentucky, and Southern California all joined the C.S.A.). Britain joined on the C.S.A.’s side, Mexico on the U.S.A’s. When the war finally ended in 1857, the C.S.A. controlled all of the U.S. (except for the parts Britain took) and Mexico. Today, the war is called ‘the Second American Revolution’.
Nowadays, the Confederacy controls all of Latin America. Although the Old world colonial powers have decolonized, the Confederacy has worked hard to incorporate the nations of Latin America into its system (they’ve lessened the restrictions on how white you have to be to be free considerably, but full-blooded blacks and Asians are still enslaved). Although most of the North was fairly ‘Southernized’, New England was spun off as a permanently disarmed state (it gets along well with Switzerland). The C.S.A. finally allowed women to vote in the ‘90s, and misogyny is still big. The government isn’t quite a democracy, but it’s no longer an autocracy. These days it’s more of an authoritarian Plutocracy. Religion is also important here: Christianity is the only legal religion (or was until Islam was legalized in the ‘60s) in most of the nation. Deseret and Long Island are the Mormon and Jewish reservations, respectively (mostly allowed to run themselves, most residents are not allowed to leave with receiving the proper paperwork).
World War I happened much the same way (the initial powder-keg was in Africa, rather than the Balkans).
The Rest of the world is also pretty nasty. Russia still went communist, though it’s considerably weaker (and smaller) than the OTL USSR. It was dominated by alternate Mensheviks and although it went through a bit of a Stalinist faze it is edging toward being moderate. Its revolutionary allies in South-East Asia and Africa are less moderate though. On terrible terms with the Confederacy, is the Holy Domain of China (HDC), a neo-legalist/Confucian/Buddhist/fascist/Asian supremacist/incredibly Anti-Western government that overthrew the European-supported Emperor and kicked out the Communists in the mid 1910s. China is truly authoritarian, and the first Regent of the HDC is still worshipped essentially as a God.
Saudi Arabia and an enlarged Afghanistan are both Islamic theocratic monarchies, and allied to the C.S.A.
Absent a true global police man, the former British Empire has partially stuck together in a military alliance much like NATO. Though still mostly democratic, the states of the Commonwealth are a bit militarily paranoid and socially conservative. Increasingly, the Commonwealth is being led by Canada, Australia, and India (currently sliding from Democracy into a Right-wing Hindu movement).
#3-Georgia- A world in which the British were able to prevent Georgia from rebelling along with the other colonies. With territory both north and south of the new U.S., the British were able to retake some strips of lands on either side in the war of 1799. Georgia was hugely angry about slavery, and revolted with U.S. help during the Napoleonic wars. Despite the U.S. help, Georgia remained an independent nation.
Flash forward to 2013. Georgia is a totalitarian authoritarian racialist regime, that survived (until recently) by keeping its head down. It was one the last states to abolish slavery (in the 1950s), though in practice it continues. Recently, given its economic troubles, it has turned to nuke-waving in order to survive. It contains roughly the OTL territories of Mississippi and Alabama, without their southern coastlines, and parts of South Carolina. The states of the Former U.S.A. broke up into an alternate civil war, and the most stable is Carolina.
Dominating much of the North American continent, is Canada (which includes the Louisiana territories, and everything west of them). Canada and Georgia are in a bit of a nuclear stand off. A mildly fascist (yet not officially racist, though racism persists) France (which successfully conquered Germany, and puppetized it in the mid 20th century) is another major power, and iffy ally of Georgia, but also of Canada (think China-North Korea-America). Much of Africa is still under the French boot. Russia, is only now reuniting after a very long civil war, under a shaky republic allied to Canada. India and Brazil are growing economic powerhouses. China is smaller and a lot poorer than OTL.
#4-Czardom- Starting in the 1600s, the Russian Czars were more expansive into Europe, and one Czar was as successful as Napoleon, and pushed the border of the empire up to the Rhine, in the early 1800s. A (hugely one-sided) nuclear war allowed Russia to push all the way to the Atlantic in 1932. Currently, the Eastern hemisphere is dominated by Russia. Russia expanded east almost as quickly as OTL, and directly incorporated China, the Balkans, Persia, Korea, and Scandinavia. South-East Asia, is united under the Burmese, who are the only strong Russian allies (rather than merely puppets), while India, the Middle East, and Africa are tiny vassals of that Russia liberated from Western European nations. Russian language, religion, and culture has been successfully imposed on almost all of the Eastern hemisphere. Russia is a wacky police state, ruled currently by Czar Ivan XVIII. The Protestants were crushed, and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were reunited (with a new papacy that controls the city of Warsaw).
North America, north of the Nueces, is dominated by the weaker, second superpower. The American World Order (or A.W.O.), has a weird all-seeing eye on its flag, and is country run by a secretive elite. Its English speaking, and descended from the British colonies in North America. Freemasons, and several other secret societies run the place, these days more in the open. The government has violently suppressed the many Catho-Orthodixics loyal to the Pope in Warsaw. Sometimes it suppresses religion in general, preferring its own scientific rationality, but then again there are plenty of citizens that are Deists, Protestants, Cathars, or follow one of the several growing new religions. The government is even more totalitarian than Russia, on account of its weaker power, and on account of the fact that it seems the Cold War is tilting further in Russia’s favor. Citizens are monitored near constantly by the government. Rebellions of Pro-Russian religious types are mildly frequent. Although it has theoretically democratic insitutions, the ruling class exists separate from most people. In Mexico and Peru, the Pro-A.W.O. governments have a racialist flair. A.W.O.’s last allies in Eurasia, Nihhon and Britain, are Technocratic Socialist Spiritualist governments. The only neutral nations are New Holland (Australia), New Frisia (New Zealand), Iceland, and the ABC Group (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia).
Technology is stuck in the atomic era, despite nuclear weapons having been around for about a century. The Cold war goes on.
#5-Posthuman- Here, the world is at 3,000,000 A.D.. In 3,000 B.C., a new Ice Age started up, and by 500 A.D. all traces of civilizations had eroded back to hunter-gatherer status. Mass migrations occurred as the northernmost and southernmost areas of land became uninhabitable. 20% of all species went extinct, but humanity survived, eventually splitting into separate species.
When aliens arrived, they discovered three different species, one originated in the Americas, another in Afroeurasia, and the third in Australia. The first two have human intelligence, while the third is slightly less creative (lacking much in the way of art or religion, when compared with the other two), but equally logical. By the time of the aliens, all three had migrated to all of the continents, and civilization in Eurasia was at roughly an 1800 level of technology. Humanity rapidly mimicked Alien technology and advanced to interstellar empires. Today, a mighty empire that controls *Australia and most South America, is at peace with an empire that controls almost all of *Africa, plus the *Middle East and Western *India. A third, weaker power, is a China that is a Tibetan plateau that is inhabited almost solely by extraterrestrials (the settlers liked the high dry climate, and killed the three native human species that lived there).
#6-Slowdown- Here, Eurasia only discovered the Americas in 1949. Before that time, the Industrial revolution was held off, and much in the way of science was prevented. The Moors reconquered and pillaged Spain before it could sail west, and then went on to pillage the Italian peninsula as well. The English Kings successfully united the British Isles with France, and the German Emperors kept their realms together. Byzantium lasted a lot longer (until 1803), due to a weaker Middle East. Europe was torn apart in a 130-year long war between England and Germany (ironically not nearly as devastating as our World Wars). Russia remains backwards, but continues expanding east. It’s lost a lot of territory to the Germans, and increasingly is becoming easternized as Turks and Tartars (Christianized) make up greater share of the population. In China, the Qing remained in power up until a Dynastic revolution in 1910. Japan did come out of isolation at roughly the same time as OTL however, and established colonies in the Philippines and Indonesia, and still went on to try (unsuccessfully) to conquer China. At least it got Korea. In the wake of the downfall of the Catholic Church, and the retreat of the Muslims back into Africa a century ago, Italy has been united as one of the world’s few major republics (the other ones are Greece, and the *Indonesia city-states), and has its capital in Venice (which held out against the Moors for a while).
The Industrial revolution is only now starting up. Feudalism ended in Eurasia, but harsh opposition to secularists, heathens, and other races did not. Nationalism still rose. Other ideologies, have yet to do so though. The equivalent of the French Revolution, in Germany, is just one major famine away. The telegraph, radio, and photograph have existed for nearly a century, but are still rare. Guns and Cannons took longer to arrive, but were in Western Europe by the early 1700s.
Without Europeans, the Aztecs still collapsed, and were replaced a Zapotec Empire that outdid the Aztecs at everything (and ended cannibalism and Human sacrifice), and ended up conquering all but one of the Mayan states as well. It has 30% literacy, and is more populous than all of Europe (or was until European diseases started arriving a decade ago, and have since killed off 18% of the population). Its religion is now technically monotheistic, but to the average masses the different forms of god seem like different gods. In South America, the Inca have limited contact with the Zapotec, and have partially embraced Zapotec writing, though now the Inca are in a civil war.
In Africa, the Islamic Agande Empire has formed and united most of Sub-Saharan West Africa. Increasingly, it’s allied with England which seeks to liberate Iberia from Morocco (the Agande’s capital was once burned to the ground by Morocco, so their old enemies). Zanzibar is sub-saharan Africa’s other big power. Egypt and Persia, the two biggest powers of the middle-east, have seen better days, and are rife with internal corruption and revolt. A messianic religious movement in Persia seeks to overthrow the sultan.
India is united under a new empire and new religion: something similar to Sikhism which is a synthesis of Islam and Hinduism, or weird offshoot of Islam (depending on your opinion). The Holy Empire of Bharat is energetically trying to spread its new religion to the mighty Emirate of Afghanistan (which rules all of Central Asia up to Russia, and fights with China over Eastern Turkestan). Tropical South-East Asia is divided between the Empires of Burma, Siam, and Viet. Indonesia is now balkanized into a thousand tiny Islamic states (all republics, interestingly), that have begun to settle Australia. Some of the Indonesia city-states have fallen prey to Japanese adventurers, so the rest are uniting against the Japanese. Indonesian explorers have made it as far as Hawaii (whose King is energetically trying to get his subjects to adopt Islam).
The few centuries should be interesting…..
