alternatehistory.com
Centrum Beta
Well... I am calling this as being the most controversial map so far created. I present to you... Centrum Beta, an echo of Centrum's timeline before the war.
Centrum's history is at times at odds with what would be plausible, and somewhere between OTL USA luck, and Drakas authorial fiat protection. However there are a few things known. It also doesn't help that 6 centuries of history is crammed into a few paragraphs.
One, the Anglo-French Union was the one uncontested superpower of the globe. Two, a larger Mongol threat forced the Anglo-French (aka Angevin Kingdom) to look elsewhere to expand, and innovate in terms of military doctrine to survive. Three, phenomenal tech progress caused likely by an earlier scientific Revolution. So as a result I came to these themes behind Centrum Beta
Anglo-French Empire (Or Angevin Empire) has the luck of the United States. This one is just based on history that the Angevins simply never faced a threat that they couldn't either outfox, or outmanuever or crush. In Spain they likely fomented dissent and assumed the Crown of Andalusia, pushing out the Muslims.
Mongol Invictus Apparently the Mongol Empire plowed straight through Central Europe and was on the borders of the Angevin Empire before they turned around. I'm thinking that unlike in OTL, Kublai Khan, and one of his relatives kept India afloat for a while longer than OTL. The Chinese Empire under the Ming/Yuan Dynasty, embarked on Zheng He adventures alongside military campaigns. India subdued Persia, and along side the Ayyubids were the chief empires of Islam. The Western Mongol Empire crumbled and was easy pickings for whoever fought them, allowing the AF Kingdom to become the AF Union with a set up similar to the Commonwealth of Nations of the 1920s, and an active monarchy.
No Gods, Only Man Religion is not mentioned in the Centrum section except as being just tradition. Either some form of Atheism starts in the 13th century, likely around a center of learning like Urbino or Paris. One thought I had was that the Angevins and the Vatican had an investiture crisis, and in the end the Angevins just siezed the churches (somehow). Combined with an early scientific revolution this would get Centrum to hit the industrial age in the 15th century rather than the 19th. Given how contentious Italy was in OTL, I think the crisis had more to do with proto-capitalist Angevin companies, fighting Venice and Genoa, and the Vatican getting involved because of their prodding. The AF Kingdom wasn't going to let religion be brought into a trade war.
TerraNova genocide? While it would go against what modern Centrum stands for, the Angevins weren't exactly sad or even try to stop that the Native American populations were being slaughtered by disease. In fact since they industrialized at around the same time as American contact I suspect, they even developed the IFV as a means of crossing the great plains. This also illustrates that Centrum has had a low population for a very long time (Mongol Success, North American epidemics, Black Death). With the Angevin Empire being the most advanced power, they had a settler rush to get people out of Europe, and practice "freelance Imperialism" in the "Western Continents" or assimilation zones in Africa.
Asiatic Enemies As much I am sure the AFU would like to believe they were in command of the world in 1902, they probably weren't totally. What little details exist show that bioweapons were unleashed in response to China and India, and that "a few dozen" AFU cities were hit with nukes. I think what happened is this... The Angevins were a century or more ahead of everyone in tech, they had nearly 5 continents under their control, and actively assimilating large populations or engaging in "freelance imperialism". Thanks to freelance Imperialism that the AF Union followed, corporations and companies were the tip of the AF spear so to speak, and operated with impunity where they could. The Opium Wars or event like those happen all the time, and unless the nation and the AF Union work out a commerce accord, those wars continue to happen, until either the nation breaks or the corporations just assimilate until it becomes a part of the Union proper.
China under Kublai Khan, and Ming Imperial policy, sees China becomes the leading power besides the AF Union. While the AF Union was expanding in the Americas, China got Indonesia and East Africa. Unfortunately China just wasn't advanced enough. How would ironclads fight battleships? How would Battleships fight submersibles? How would Carrier groups stop a nuke in Beijing? The crisis that likely caused the 1902 crisis was a terrorist strike backed by China, utterly furious over AF companies running roughshod over their territory and people. They stole some nukes from an AF convoy, negotiated with Poland for rocket design, slip a few nukes in trading ships leaving Calcutta for AF ports, ICBM the rest...
Corner an enemy and they will do something desperate. Nuclear Weapons were used by the Angevins to make artificial Saharan lakes and other projects, someone stole them. China and India conspired and used one of the few vectors that the Anglo-French wouldn't see coming... Space. My theory is that since the Anglo-French were just so far ahead tech wise, had the Americas, Europe and most of Africa resources, with a low population, they didn't see much point in going to space. Easier to just lay a few more dozen transatlantic cables, what could a satellite do that a high altitude plane couldn't? A missile strike by Chinese and Indian ICBMs were completely unexpected. Got the AF traders to run from Chinese spheres of influence, they didn't think they had nukes much less willing to use them in war. The immediate aftermath was that shattering London and 41 other metropoles broke the Anglo-French Union, into a thousand squabbling pieces. Bioweapons were unleashed by some noble in Italy, that wound up mutating and killing billions. The only reason that Australia survived was that their navy got pulled away early, and never returned. That's how the "Centrum Military Conglomerate" becomes "Centrum"
Overall, the Anglo-French Union were the only power on the globe at least from their view, the Celestial Kingdom, Chaghatai and others were all non-voting members in the Union, before 1902 the Union had UN levels of membership, with a level of integration among voting members far exceeding the EU. Although the AFU had a military, it's private military groups made up a good portion of the armed forces on the planet. The population of the planet is hovering just over 1.2 billion people, with the AFU being 2nd. This is why Centrum is so weirded out by Homeline, they are bizarrely over-populated in their view. Whereas by Homeline standards Centrum Beta is underpopulated for 1895, but even more so when you realize they are TL7 not TL5 like 1895 Homeline.
Centrum's history is at times at odds with what would be plausible, and somewhere between OTL USA luck, and Drakas authorial fiat protection. However there are a few things known. It also doesn't help that 6 centuries of history is crammed into a few paragraphs.
One, the Anglo-French Union was the one uncontested superpower of the globe. Two, a larger Mongol threat forced the Anglo-French (aka Angevin Kingdom) to look elsewhere to expand, and innovate in terms of military doctrine to survive. Three, phenomenal tech progress caused likely by an earlier scientific Revolution. So as a result I came to these themes behind Centrum Beta
Anglo-French Empire (Or Angevin Empire) has the luck of the United States. This one is just based on history that the Angevins simply never faced a threat that they couldn't either outfox, or outmanuever or crush. In Spain they likely fomented dissent and assumed the Crown of Andalusia, pushing out the Muslims.
Mongol Invictus Apparently the Mongol Empire plowed straight through Central Europe and was on the borders of the Angevin Empire before they turned around. I'm thinking that unlike in OTL, Kublai Khan, and one of his relatives kept India afloat for a while longer than OTL. The Chinese Empire under the Ming/Yuan Dynasty, embarked on Zheng He adventures alongside military campaigns. India subdued Persia, and along side the Ayyubids were the chief empires of Islam. The Western Mongol Empire crumbled and was easy pickings for whoever fought them, allowing the AF Kingdom to become the AF Union with a set up similar to the Commonwealth of Nations of the 1920s, and an active monarchy.
No Gods, Only Man Religion is not mentioned in the Centrum section except as being just tradition. Either some form of Atheism starts in the 13th century, likely around a center of learning like Urbino or Paris. One thought I had was that the Angevins and the Vatican had an investiture crisis, and in the end the Angevins just siezed the churches (somehow). Combined with an early scientific revolution this would get Centrum to hit the industrial age in the 15th century rather than the 19th. Given how contentious Italy was in OTL, I think the crisis had more to do with proto-capitalist Angevin companies, fighting Venice and Genoa, and the Vatican getting involved because of their prodding. The AF Kingdom wasn't going to let religion be brought into a trade war.
TerraNova genocide? While it would go against what modern Centrum stands for, the Angevins weren't exactly sad or even try to stop that the Native American populations were being slaughtered by disease. In fact since they industrialized at around the same time as American contact I suspect, they even developed the IFV as a means of crossing the great plains. This also illustrates that Centrum has had a low population for a very long time (Mongol Success, North American epidemics, Black Death). With the Angevin Empire being the most advanced power, they had a settler rush to get people out of Europe, and practice "freelance Imperialism" in the "Western Continents" or assimilation zones in Africa.
Asiatic Enemies As much I am sure the AFU would like to believe they were in command of the world in 1902, they probably weren't totally. What little details exist show that bioweapons were unleashed in response to China and India, and that "a few dozen" AFU cities were hit with nukes. I think what happened is this... The Angevins were a century or more ahead of everyone in tech, they had nearly 5 continents under their control, and actively assimilating large populations or engaging in "freelance imperialism". Thanks to freelance Imperialism that the AF Union followed, corporations and companies were the tip of the AF spear so to speak, and operated with impunity where they could. The Opium Wars or event like those happen all the time, and unless the nation and the AF Union work out a commerce accord, those wars continue to happen, until either the nation breaks or the corporations just assimilate until it becomes a part of the Union proper.
China under Kublai Khan, and Ming Imperial policy, sees China becomes the leading power besides the AF Union. While the AF Union was expanding in the Americas, China got Indonesia and East Africa. Unfortunately China just wasn't advanced enough. How would ironclads fight battleships? How would Battleships fight submersibles? How would Carrier groups stop a nuke in Beijing? The crisis that likely caused the 1902 crisis was a terrorist strike backed by China, utterly furious over AF companies running roughshod over their territory and people. They stole some nukes from an AF convoy, negotiated with Poland for rocket design, slip a few nukes in trading ships leaving Calcutta for AF ports, ICBM the rest...
Corner an enemy and they will do something desperate. Nuclear Weapons were used by the Angevins to make artificial Saharan lakes and other projects, someone stole them. China and India conspired and used one of the few vectors that the Anglo-French wouldn't see coming... Space. My theory is that since the Anglo-French were just so far ahead tech wise, had the Americas, Europe and most of Africa resources, with a low population, they didn't see much point in going to space. Easier to just lay a few more dozen transatlantic cables, what could a satellite do that a high altitude plane couldn't? A missile strike by Chinese and Indian ICBMs were completely unexpected. Got the AF traders to run from Chinese spheres of influence, they didn't think they had nukes much less willing to use them in war. The immediate aftermath was that shattering London and 41 other metropoles broke the Anglo-French Union, into a thousand squabbling pieces. Bioweapons were unleashed by some noble in Italy, that wound up mutating and killing billions. The only reason that Australia survived was that their navy got pulled away early, and never returned. That's how the "Centrum Military Conglomerate" becomes "Centrum"
Overall, the Anglo-French Union were the only power on the globe at least from their view, the Celestial Kingdom, Chaghatai and others were all non-voting members in the Union, before 1902 the Union had UN levels of membership, with a level of integration among voting members far exceeding the EU. Although the AFU had a military, it's private military groups made up a good portion of the armed forces on the planet. The population of the planet is hovering just over 1.2 billion people, with the AFU being 2nd. This is why Centrum is so weirded out by Homeline, they are bizarrely over-populated in their view. Whereas by Homeline standards Centrum Beta is underpopulated for 1895, but even more so when you realize they are TL7 not TL5 like 1895 Homeline.
- Prometheus_2300
- Word Count: 1.2k