Map Thread XIV
- Thread starter MorningDew
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A commission for Venusian Si.
This world begins to diverge in the early 1600s where due to some French and British actions the Spanish begin making a bit more of an effort to settle and establish some actual facts on the ground in their vast claims in America north of Mexico. Butterflies ensue, although the broad stream of history remains fairly close to OTL until the later 1700s. Britain still ends up Parliament-dominated, Russia still expands like a boss, China still has a Qin/Manchu dynasty, although it will not last as long as OTL.
Larger changes ensue as time passes. The alt-enlightenment develops a more pessimistic view of of human nature and the possibilities of democratic government. Spain takes the *Louisiana territory from France as in our TL, but is in a better position to make its control stick. Brandenburg-Prussia does OK but fails to be outright miraculous. An alt-American revolution takes place in British America, with a similar degree of territorial success, but it’s a more conservative and elitist revolution almost from the start, and the Confederation of Columbia only grows more oligarchic with the years, while the central government remaining weak and underfunded.
A French *Revolution eventually takes place, with mixed results; an Alt-Napoleon held on quite a bit longer, but Republican ideals failed to take root very deeply in France. (Partly because the alt-Napoleons didn’t really think much of them). An invasion of Spain did take place, with the Spanish royals fleeing to America in this world. The Panama-Red River Empire of New Spain looked impressive for a generation or so, but then bloody revolt broke out among Criolos and the Mestizo upper ranks resentful about being bossed around by a snooty diaspora of upper-crust Castilians. In the end only in El Norte did New Spain survive, thanks to an alliance with the British (a commercially very valuable alliance, for the Brits).
Colonialism expands, although a France lacking a Franco-Prussian war-shaped chip on its shoulder is less energetic about expanding into Africa, which in turn makes for a generally slowed and incomplete “scramble for Africa”, while in India French retention of some decent chunks of territory and a lack of a unified British Raj ensure a rather more diverse Indian subcontinent.
It remains a conservative world. As in Thande’s delightful the Unreformed Kingdom, the forces of reaction hold on much longer in Britain, and in other countries as well. There is no Karl Marx or Engels, and while Dark Satanic Mills of course provoke a reaction, anti-capitalist forces tend towards anarchism and ineffectuality, when they don’t tend towards religious apocalyptic thinking and ineffectuality. The extensive domains of the House of Habsburg-Wittelsbach industrialize, as do France, Prussia, Russia, Britain-Denmark, Columbia, New Spain, and (eventually) China, Korea and and Brazil. Coal and then oil are burned in vast quantities. Labor movement rise and are crushed or co-opted.
The slow conversion of the HRE (outside the…difficult Prussians) into a genuine empire under Autro-Bavarian leadership while they still retain extensive holdings beyond it proves destabilizing, or at least so the French and Russians say. Eventually the Great War ensues, and the HRE-Polish-Spanish-Swedish-Turkish alliance is defeated by the French-Russia-Brit/Danish-Portuguese-New Spanish one after a long war (the Austro-Bavarians still blame their loss on the Treacherous Magyars), which ends with Germania divisa in partes tres, and North Italy emerging as a pugnacious new minor Power.
Technological progress after the equivalent of the first big chemicals/electricity boom slows in a more conservative and oligarchic world (“what do those Undeserving Poor need with a higher education?”), which practically means the era of dirty heavy industry and Big Coal is extended globally, while the development of nuclear power is delayed (a slower nuclear arms race also means less incentive for governments to subsidize nuclear power). By 2020, technology levels have only reached roughly early OTL 1990s levels at best: there’s no internet, and cell phones are a New Thing. Global warming gets going earlier than OTL, and becomes distinctly notable by the late 1980s. Long and unpredictable droughts hit the Mediterranean and Latin America (rather more extensive northward than OTL) hard: the rump Ottoman Empire fell apart further as ecological disaster hammered at an already excessive population.
Gaeanism, also known as the New Harmony movement, got its first name (the Earth Mother) and basic socialistic/Green ideas from European thinkers, but it was in the less developed parts of the globe, places suffering from or recovering from colonialism, or suffering from the economic imperialism of the more developed states, where the bite of global capitalism was felt most keenly, that it became a real mass ideology, combining calls for social and economic equality, true democracy, and wise management of the planet and its life in a powerful brew. The first great revolution came in 1992 in India, where local mass mobilization had already pushed out British colonialism out of much of the North between 1950 and 1980. It was almost immediately followed by another such revolt in Haiti against the Francophone “colored” elite. Things didn’t get really alarming until the New Spain revolution of 2000, which for the first time saw a relatively major (if not quite top tier) “civilized” state go Green. New Spain also had a substantial nuclear arsenal. (The revolution and union of the Dutch and English speaking states of Australis under a Gaean regime was even more shocking, at least for northern Europeans: even properly white people could fall to the green madness!)
The Gaean revolution is egalitarian, or tries to be, in response to a racist world, where slavery lasted into the twentieth century and various forms of institutionalized racism much longer in various places: up until the recent breakout of revolution, the Confederation of Columbia retained Jim-Crow like segregation laws over most of the country. The Consensus Powers are somewhat better on women’s rights than they are on race: those major Consensus Powers that have meaningful voting have votes for women, and there are even female action heroines in the movies, although they are supposed to fight the forces of Badness wearing knee-length skirts or at least Chinese-type trousers of appropriate bagginess. Admittedly, the Pill remains illegal in Spain, Brazil and Russia…
From 2000 to 2020 a cold war of sorts has ensued. The normally competing and quarrelsome big powers of Europe and a few major powers elsewhere on the globe have joined forces in the Consensus Powers, with whatever small fry “coalition of the willing” they can put together, dedicated to prevent the further spread of Gaean Green and deal with the problems of Global Warming in a way that doesn’t require the overthrow of traditional elites or taxing the rich too heavily. They vary from outright autocracies and military juntas to formerly parliamentary but now very narrow coalition run “emergency regimes” to authoritarian democracies (voting limits, elite/business interest domination), but hang together out of a sense of “hang together or be hanged separately.”
The Gaeans/Greens/Harmony are an even more varied bunch, with distinctly different Latin/Indian/Islamic sub-varieties of Gaeanism, and a wide range of government organizations: although generally a lot more egalitarian than the Consensus Powers, due to the crisis situation and the need to keep Oligarchs and their enablers from coming back into power democracy is often limited to “correct parties” or is absent altogether, with New Spain being one of the more successful in retaining at least the fundamentals of democracy due to a strong pro-change consensus. The need for national scale efforts to move towards greener energy, fight desertification, move food and water from areas of surplus to scarcity, house refugees and deal with rising sea levels leads to a general support for large scale, intrusive government.
World population recently hit 9 billion. Things have gone quite bad in the Mediterranean, with the northern European shore kept from revolution by energetic intervention by the European major powers, and the southern shore essentially triaged, because Muslims. Forecasts are complicated by the still relatively primitive state of computer modeling, but what models do exist suggest things will soon get worse in Iran, Central Asia, parts of China , and the Monsoon so many depend upon may be becoming increasingly unstable. More radical methods may be called for, and the Consensus powers have to stop their “incremental progress” shit and become part of the solution NOW.
This makes the current civil war in the Confederation of Columbia important: if it goes Gaean, it will be another major industrial power going Green, and greatly increase the momentum of the movement: it will be a major setback if the forces of conservatism win. So both sides are sneaking aid over the border through New Spain and Borealia, but large scale intervention so far out because Columbia has nuclear weapons and a nuclear war might be triggered: this world doesn’t have quite so many nukes as OTL 1980s, but they’re more widely distributed. (Of course, not everyone thinks a nuclear war is all bad. A few of the more radical Gaeans actually think an all out nuclear war might be the salvation of the planet, eliminating industry and cutting back excess human population: while some in the Consensus Powers feel that they need to strike now while they still have a solid advantage in nuclear megatonnage.)
This world begins to diverge in the early 1600s where due to some French and British actions the Spanish begin making a bit more of an effort to settle and establish some actual facts on the ground in their vast claims in America north of Mexico. Butterflies ensue, although the broad stream of history remains fairly close to OTL until the later 1700s. Britain still ends up Parliament-dominated, Russia still expands like a boss, China still has a Qin/Manchu dynasty, although it will not last as long as OTL.
Larger changes ensue as time passes. The alt-enlightenment develops a more pessimistic view of of human nature and the possibilities of democratic government. Spain takes the *Louisiana territory from France as in our TL, but is in a better position to make its control stick. Brandenburg-Prussia does OK but fails to be outright miraculous. An alt-American revolution takes place in British America, with a similar degree of territorial success, but it’s a more conservative and elitist revolution almost from the start, and the Confederation of Columbia only grows more oligarchic with the years, while the central government remaining weak and underfunded.
A French *Revolution eventually takes place, with mixed results; an Alt-Napoleon held on quite a bit longer, but Republican ideals failed to take root very deeply in France. (Partly because the alt-Napoleons didn’t really think much of them). An invasion of Spain did take place, with the Spanish royals fleeing to America in this world. The Panama-Red River Empire of New Spain looked impressive for a generation or so, but then bloody revolt broke out among Criolos and the Mestizo upper ranks resentful about being bossed around by a snooty diaspora of upper-crust Castilians. In the end only in El Norte did New Spain survive, thanks to an alliance with the British (a commercially very valuable alliance, for the Brits).
Colonialism expands, although a France lacking a Franco-Prussian war-shaped chip on its shoulder is less energetic about expanding into Africa, which in turn makes for a generally slowed and incomplete “scramble for Africa”, while in India French retention of some decent chunks of territory and a lack of a unified British Raj ensure a rather more diverse Indian subcontinent.
It remains a conservative world. As in Thande’s delightful the Unreformed Kingdom, the forces of reaction hold on much longer in Britain, and in other countries as well. There is no Karl Marx or Engels, and while Dark Satanic Mills of course provoke a reaction, anti-capitalist forces tend towards anarchism and ineffectuality, when they don’t tend towards religious apocalyptic thinking and ineffectuality. The extensive domains of the House of Habsburg-Wittelsbach industrialize, as do France, Prussia, Russia, Britain-Denmark, Columbia, New Spain, and (eventually) China, Korea and and Brazil. Coal and then oil are burned in vast quantities. Labor movement rise and are crushed or co-opted.
The slow conversion of the HRE (outside the…difficult Prussians) into a genuine empire under Autro-Bavarian leadership while they still retain extensive holdings beyond it proves destabilizing, or at least so the French and Russians say. Eventually the Great War ensues, and the HRE-Polish-Spanish-Swedish-Turkish alliance is defeated by the French-Russia-Brit/Danish-Portuguese-New Spanish one after a long war (the Austro-Bavarians still blame their loss on the Treacherous Magyars), which ends with Germania divisa in partes tres, and North Italy emerging as a pugnacious new minor Power.
Technological progress after the equivalent of the first big chemicals/electricity boom slows in a more conservative and oligarchic world (“what do those Undeserving Poor need with a higher education?”), which practically means the era of dirty heavy industry and Big Coal is extended globally, while the development of nuclear power is delayed (a slower nuclear arms race also means less incentive for governments to subsidize nuclear power). By 2020, technology levels have only reached roughly early OTL 1990s levels at best: there’s no internet, and cell phones are a New Thing. Global warming gets going earlier than OTL, and becomes distinctly notable by the late 1980s. Long and unpredictable droughts hit the Mediterranean and Latin America (rather more extensive northward than OTL) hard: the rump Ottoman Empire fell apart further as ecological disaster hammered at an already excessive population.
Gaeanism, also known as the New Harmony movement, got its first name (the Earth Mother) and basic socialistic/Green ideas from European thinkers, but it was in the less developed parts of the globe, places suffering from or recovering from colonialism, or suffering from the economic imperialism of the more developed states, where the bite of global capitalism was felt most keenly, that it became a real mass ideology, combining calls for social and economic equality, true democracy, and wise management of the planet and its life in a powerful brew. The first great revolution came in 1992 in India, where local mass mobilization had already pushed out British colonialism out of much of the North between 1950 and 1980. It was almost immediately followed by another such revolt in Haiti against the Francophone “colored” elite. Things didn’t get really alarming until the New Spain revolution of 2000, which for the first time saw a relatively major (if not quite top tier) “civilized” state go Green. New Spain also had a substantial nuclear arsenal. (The revolution and union of the Dutch and English speaking states of Australis under a Gaean regime was even more shocking, at least for northern Europeans: even properly white people could fall to the green madness!)
The Gaean revolution is egalitarian, or tries to be, in response to a racist world, where slavery lasted into the twentieth century and various forms of institutionalized racism much longer in various places: up until the recent breakout of revolution, the Confederation of Columbia retained Jim-Crow like segregation laws over most of the country. The Consensus Powers are somewhat better on women’s rights than they are on race: those major Consensus Powers that have meaningful voting have votes for women, and there are even female action heroines in the movies, although they are supposed to fight the forces of Badness wearing knee-length skirts or at least Chinese-type trousers of appropriate bagginess. Admittedly, the Pill remains illegal in Spain, Brazil and Russia…
From 2000 to 2020 a cold war of sorts has ensued. The normally competing and quarrelsome big powers of Europe and a few major powers elsewhere on the globe have joined forces in the Consensus Powers, with whatever small fry “coalition of the willing” they can put together, dedicated to prevent the further spread of Gaean Green and deal with the problems of Global Warming in a way that doesn’t require the overthrow of traditional elites or taxing the rich too heavily. They vary from outright autocracies and military juntas to formerly parliamentary but now very narrow coalition run “emergency regimes” to authoritarian democracies (voting limits, elite/business interest domination), but hang together out of a sense of “hang together or be hanged separately.”
The Gaeans/Greens/Harmony are an even more varied bunch, with distinctly different Latin/Indian/Islamic sub-varieties of Gaeanism, and a wide range of government organizations: although generally a lot more egalitarian than the Consensus Powers, due to the crisis situation and the need to keep Oligarchs and their enablers from coming back into power democracy is often limited to “correct parties” or is absent altogether, with New Spain being one of the more successful in retaining at least the fundamentals of democracy due to a strong pro-change consensus. The need for national scale efforts to move towards greener energy, fight desertification, move food and water from areas of surplus to scarcity, house refugees and deal with rising sea levels leads to a general support for large scale, intrusive government.
World population recently hit 9 billion. Things have gone quite bad in the Mediterranean, with the northern European shore kept from revolution by energetic intervention by the European major powers, and the southern shore essentially triaged, because Muslims. Forecasts are complicated by the still relatively primitive state of computer modeling, but what models do exist suggest things will soon get worse in Iran, Central Asia, parts of China , and the Monsoon so many depend upon may be becoming increasingly unstable. More radical methods may be called for, and the Consensus powers have to stop their “incremental progress” shit and become part of the solution NOW.
This makes the current civil war in the Confederation of Columbia important: if it goes Gaean, it will be another major industrial power going Green, and greatly increase the momentum of the movement: it will be a major setback if the forces of conservatism win. So both sides are sneaking aid over the border through New Spain and Borealia, but large scale intervention so far out because Columbia has nuclear weapons and a nuclear war might be triggered: this world doesn’t have quite so many nukes as OTL 1980s, but they’re more widely distributed. (Of course, not everyone thinks a nuclear war is all bad. A few of the more radical Gaeans actually think an all out nuclear war might be the salvation of the planet, eliminating industry and cutting back excess human population: while some in the Consensus Powers feel that they need to strike now while they still have a solid advantage in nuclear megatonnage.)
WIP US state border map for my "Lincoln Dead in 1861", found here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=374779
I'm tempted to add in parts of Canada as US states, but I don't know enough about the formation of the Dominion of Canada to determine how much my POD and resulting events would affect it. Also tempted to add in a couple Caribbean Islands, but I'm not sure of how imperialistic the US would be in this timeline with a longer, bloodier Civil War.
So for now, this is what I am working with. The colors do not mean anything, and are there purely for artistic purposes:
I'm tempted to add in parts of Canada as US states, but I don't know enough about the formation of the Dominion of Canada to determine how much my POD and resulting events would affect it. Also tempted to add in a couple Caribbean Islands, but I'm not sure of how imperialistic the US would be in this timeline with a longer, bloodier Civil War.
So for now, this is what I am working with. The colors do not mean anything, and are there purely for artistic purposes:
I am not a huge fan of the particular borders you picked when you divided Texas (a north-south split based on the Colorado River basin was discussed IOTL) and that Wyoming and Sioux are going to be tiny in terms of population... But otherwise the scenario seems quite well-thought-out.
EDIT:
Also, inspired by some recent thinking of mine about the "Oceania is just Great Britain" theory for 1984, here's a relatively random map with that as the premise. Enjoy! PS: The year is 1970.
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Oceania is just Great Britain? Doubtful. It explicitly mentions in the book that North America, South America, and Australia are part of it. Nice looking map otherwise though.
As for my WIP map, I did some digging on proposals to split Texas, and you are absolutely correct Iserlohn. A split along the Colorado River Basin makes a lot more sense. With that in mind, here is a revised map:
As for my WIP map, I did some digging on proposals to split Texas, and you are absolutely correct Iserlohn. A split along the Colorado River Basin makes a lot more sense. With that in mind, here is a revised map:
Tallest Skil
Banned
Uh oh, someone didn’t understand the point of the book...
Why’d you split California? Or is your POD early enough that it happened before the war? If so, the south would be called Colorado.
The idea is that the whole picture of the world outside of Airstrip One/Great Britain is just an elaborate lie painted by the government to make the population think the whole war thing is real, and that in actuality it's just a North Korea-on-steroids tyrannical government that only controls the one island.
Ooh, you're on this forum too? Yes!
The borders are interesting, though I don't know enough about the subject to make accurate alternare borders, especially in scenarios where the US' territory is different. Nevertheless, good job!
That...actually makes a lot of sense. "1984" is my second favorite book of all time, second only to "Brave New World," so I cannot believe I never picked up on that possibility. Man, do I feel dense.
As for California, the POD is 1861 and Lincoln's assassination. Essentially, Confederate sympathizers in various states are emboldened by this assassination and, after the secession of Maryland, work to create secessionary movements in other states. West Virginia and Nickajack are pro-Union examples of this; Jackson, Osage, and South California are pro-Confederate examples of this. Really, this is all an excuse to create a different electoral map for the US and see how resulting changes to the House, Senate, and Presidency will affect US history.
Well, a big point of the book was that you couldn't really know if anything the media produced was real and if I recall correctly, Winston questions the existence of Eurasia and Eastasia along with the perpetual state of war. Questioning Oceania's existence is kind of implicit in questioning everything else.
Though why stop at Great Britain? I propose that Oceania is actually a rogue, dictatorial Cornwall.
Alex Richards
Donor
Nah, there's enough of London and the surroundings shown that it's definitely Britain.
Tallest Skil
Banned
Believe what? The least likely explanation is the one that The Party says is true. the second most likely is the one floated by the in-book book which says The Party controls the entire world. The most likely is that it's just a commie Britain.
Orwell wasn't going for plausible worldbuilding. Orwell was not a member of AH.com
Really, the story loses a lot of its impact if we assume the world outside Britain is doing okeedokee.
Amen, brother.
Really, the story loses a lot of its impact if we assume the world outside Britain is doing okeedokee.
Whenever a 1984 map is posted, the chances of "Oceania is just Great Britain" being mentioned approaches one.
Amen, brother.
There is a possibility that Oceania is one of the most civilized places on Earth, and the rest of the planet is a leather-clad post-atomic wasteland. The Party may be selectively erasing history and changing the language, but at least they still have history and language. Of course, that definitely wasn't what Orwell was going for, but it may be a good medium between "realism" and sticking to the theme.
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