Map Thread IX
- Thread starter Vexacus
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Yes, because having a country which is long dead and in the wrong place is so much better.that's Burgundian purple
The colour could be used for ATL East France as well. I think thats the intention here.Yes, because having a country which is long dead and in the wrong place is so much better.
Here's a sequel to my last map. A questionable election led to riots in the UK. The harsh Sclamp down led to protests in Canada and the US that panic prone governments caused to spiral out of control. With the West destabilising the Soviets decided it was time to go on the offensive, but found their people and armies to be less willing to get nuked for the cause (the American nukes were still firmly under government control), and a significant Mutiny has spiralled into a civil war. A year later the Soviet government holds most of the territory, but there is serious unrest in their territory. China and NK are invading South Korea. Japan and Taiwan came to blows over US pacific territories. India is eyeing Pakistan, but will wait for things to get worse their while running about in Africa. South Africa dropped some nukes and so the Apartheid survives for now, but how long is anyone's guess. Germany is looking hungry.
That's The French Republicans rebellion (20 something years late) while your right about Prussia, that's the Greater Prussian Empire, there trying to unite the German states, those lines are claims
Stronger Poland then OTL, no cutting up of Poland
^^^^^^^
Basiccly, France is in Civil War.
With a POD around the American Revolution? That would be 1776 at the earliest, so just after the First Partition and well after the Partitions became unavoidable? You may want to consider an earlier POD. Also, how did the French get back Louisiana without first beating the Spanish? Did they fight a war?
The American Revolution Occurs 4 Years after the First Partition, 40 Years after the alliance of Austria-Prussia-Russia that let it happen, and Almost 200 Years after the first events that caused the partitions to happen.
That's just the border that the British and Americans set at the end of the American War of Independence. Presumably because it included the major state lines of the period. Of course nobody seems to have considered that both the DSA and USA would expand all the way to the Pacific at the time.
teg
Yeah, they fought the Spanish in a war between 1795 and 1800, winning Louisanna
I said it was completly ASB when I posted the map I think, just trying to make a interesting (albeit ASB) alternate world.
Krall
Banned
These are excellent, Kaiphranos! I'd like it if you could provide some description of the history behind each map, but they're great all the same!
Kaiphranos
Donor
Thanks! It's not my timeline, so I might not be the best one for that, but a rough thumbnail synopsis would go something like this: Malê (Brazilian Muslim) exiles return to Africa in the 1840's and found a short-lived republic based on a mixture of French Enlightenment and traditional Muslim ideals. Wacky hijinks ensue, with consequences on three continents and counting...
Nice maps indeed, K.
Ok, this is a take on GURPS Alternate Earths Shikaku-Mon, with the Japanese-wank a bit toned down (160 million people in New Zealand? Seriously?).
It is a world somewhat more technologically advanced than our own, with immersive VR, moon bases, cybernetic implants and successful proof-of-concept fusion power (if not as yet regular power plants). It is also a more conservative and authoritarian world than our own, with most of the globe under the thumb of one or more of the four Great Powers. Pollution is worse and global warming more advanced than our world, and due to earlier improvements in health care than OTL and a slower move to the demographic transition (it’s a more conservative and sexist world, and there are a lot more Catholics) it is more populous, with some 10 billion to our 7. Four great power blocks divide the world, and nuclear war remains a threat, although at least the Powers have (forcefully at times) suppressed nuclear proliferation.
The Empire of Sweden and the Germanies, although founded by the Vasas, soon became German-dominated (in this world’s popular nationalist thinking, Scandinavians and Germans form one, Germanic people, and Sweden is another “Germany.”) but remains “Sweden” to many dumb foreigners. Since the 1930s, it has been dominated by the Synarchists, an absolutist movement which claims that the external “capitalist” or “socialist’ (OTL terms: no Marx here) trappings of a society are far less important than the ideas in its people’s heads: in what resembles “meme theory”, ideas are tremendously important, and getting the right ideas into people’s heads. As a result, having the wrong ideas is very illegal, and messing with the well-scrubbed memes of other citizens is highly illegal, leading to a trip to the high Arctic *Gulags. Economics, being considered a sort of cut-and-try engineering rather than The Answer to It All, are rather more flexible than that of, say, OTL Communists.
Theoretically, a society in which there is a universal conviction in shared Constructive Principles will work like a well-oiled machine: unfortunately, what exactly these are remains the subject of debate, and the Party Line can change with alarming speed; people have long become skilled at pretending that *Sweden has always been at war with EastAsia, so to speak. Universal equality is one of the more persistent principles, and everyone wears the same overalls (admittedly fairly snazzy and futuristic ones). Currently the economy is hobbled by a fossilized bureaucracy, and sags under the weight of a massive military budget: building the nuclear pulse ships to gain a position in orbital space and incidentally put a finger in France’s eye didn’t help. Currently, the popular attitude is one of deep cynicism, given the rather dubious relationship between the leadership and the principles they espouse.
Due to a more tolerant Portugal, Brazil became a greater magnet for immigration, and far exceeded our Brazil in population: it is the world’s most vigorous capitalist power. Unfortunately, it also suffered from weak and corrupt government and enormous disparities of wealth: eventually, popular unrest (Synarchist-type movements looking for a strong government create an “ordered” society competing with *populist movements seeking to diminish inequities of wealth and power) reached near civil war conditions in 2002, leading to the megacorporations to step in with their extensive private military forces in a brutal decapitation strike against the revolutionary groups. The government has been essentially forced into a partnership with the corporate powers – and not as the senior partner, either. The corporations exist as almost independent feudal lords within Brazil, and now have the assistance of the regular armed forces in keeping the revolutionary movement hobbled.
On the other hand, the corporation have enough trouble running their own fiefs without running the entire country, so it is possible that the corporations may at some point make an effort to reform the government to the point where it can handle its “watchman” job again. Society is highly tolerant (a majority of the world’s Jews live in Brazil) if, given the virtually anarcho-capitalist situation prevailing, rather well armed.
France, if less populous than other, huger powers, is the world’s leader in high tech and space technology, and the only nation to have a base of the Moon, although in recent decades they have shared the cost with other European states within the trade/military defense/chowder and marching society known as the International Confederation of Milan or more simply the French System. While Brazil is anarchic capitalism and Sweden is totalitarian, France is a constitutional monarchy, if a bit oligarchic. (There was no French revolution in this TL, and France generally went from rule by rich corrupt nobility to rich corrupt commoners without any great Republican interruptions.) Its nuclear arsenal on Earth and in orbit is supplemented by mass-drivers on the Moon, ala Heinlein.
France and its System partners have grown closer to Russia, France’s old ally from the stalemated Pyrrhic War of 1927-1932 as a strengthening Russia has grown bolder, and both are working to build up China as a an ally against Japan and a potentially very profitable (and huge) market. There is considerable talk nowadays re a “Renewed Coalition” of France, Russia and China, echoing the old French-Russian-Brazilian Coalition of the Pyrrhic War.
Of its allies in Europe, the Italian state is the most culturally vigorous and independent-minded. It’s continued occupation of the Congo Basin area (most of Africa was decolonized by the early 90s) has ruffled feathers in racially tolerant Brazil and Latin America, as well as in France (they like to think of themselves as racially tolerant) but the Italians aren’t ready to give up on all those luscious raw materials, and anyway, the Africans are better off than they would be under Japanese rule, right?
Japan, which never closed itself off and eventually converted to Catholicism, is the world’s largest empire by far, and a hardening of racial attitudes among Japanese fearing being swamped by their subjects has made it by 2012 a brutal tyranny for non-Japanese (if not as bad as the Syndicalist regime). The emperor, as in Brazil, is a pure figurehead, and power emerges from constant quiet negotiation between the immense bureaucracy, the fearsome security and military apparatus, and the fabulously rich extended family clans which run most of the great corporate empires. After the loss of China in the 70’s, the Empire relaxed its tariff walls and largely autarchic economic system: through sheer size, its state-backed corporate giants have been bludgeoning more sophisticated but far smaller European (and to a lesser extent, Brazilian) corporations for international market share. Japan’s military is enormous, but nearly ¾ of it is non-Japanese “security” troops used to maintain control over the various conquered people, with Muslim troops in Buddhist areas, Hindu ones in Muslim ones, etc (learning the language of the locals is energetically discouraged). Such forces are less well armed than the core Japanese ones, and lack air power, so they can always be bombed into submission if they ever revolt.
China’s successful breakaway has not brought any great hope to other subject peoples, it did after all take nearly a century of struggle, pretty much destroyed traditional Chinese society, and ended with China ruled by fanatics that essentially burned their national house down around themselves (with no concern for fellow Chinese casualties) to drive the Japanese out. When the Japanese left, they metaphorically slashed the tires and smashed the windows and poured sugar in the engine, and furthermore imposed an “anti-terrorism” blockade of China that essentially cut off all outside trade and human entry save through the sands of Turkestan. The Chinese people are, understandably, still a bit pissy over the whole thing.
African decolonization largely ended by the early 90s, and the independent countries are in no better shape to handle independence than OTL at decolonization, in some ways worse off in that the global leadership doesn’t really care if they founder or not (the *Swedes think sub-Saharan Africa is culturally too backward to create a true Synarchist society, so there isn’t much of an ideological competition there). Major powers are just as happy to overthrow or support local dictators in the interest of access to raw materials as any big power during the OTL Cold War, but see no reason to offer “aid money” without a serious quid pro quo.
The leadership of Shikaku-mon is finally waking up to the threats of pollution and global warming (eventually even the rich and powerful get annoyed with the Killer Smogs in the big cities and acid rain destroying their private forests and parks and garbage floating ashore on their private beaches) but environmental action generally come from the top down rather than from the masses: Shikaku-Mon is not a world that is big on popular movements, respect for hierarchy and elitism being the norm among global leadership. (The Japanese are still in denial re global warming, while the *Swedes, given their chilly climate, aren’t particularly alarmed by the prospect of warming weather).
Given the historical emphasis on control of ideas and memes deriving from Synarchism, said elites are very good at spin and information control, and generally don’t consider the opinions of the masses as being worth much: after all, they are so easily manipulated by disinformation and propaganda, how could they be trusted with a real say in things? There are exceptions and some of the smaller republics are more democratic, notably the Virginians – but on the other hand they are big on obeying orders and discipline.
Global tensions are high: economic warfare threatens between Japan and French Europe, the “renewed coalition” worries both Japanese and *Swedes, and people worry about what will happen if things really go pear-shaped in the Swedish-German empire. And will corporate-dominated Brazil have anything like a real foreign policy? Apocalyptic religiosity is on the rise, as many see signs of the End Times…
Bruce
Ok, this is a take on GURPS Alternate Earths Shikaku-Mon, with the Japanese-wank a bit toned down (160 million people in New Zealand? Seriously?).
It is a world somewhat more technologically advanced than our own, with immersive VR, moon bases, cybernetic implants and successful proof-of-concept fusion power (if not as yet regular power plants). It is also a more conservative and authoritarian world than our own, with most of the globe under the thumb of one or more of the four Great Powers. Pollution is worse and global warming more advanced than our world, and due to earlier improvements in health care than OTL and a slower move to the demographic transition (it’s a more conservative and sexist world, and there are a lot more Catholics) it is more populous, with some 10 billion to our 7. Four great power blocks divide the world, and nuclear war remains a threat, although at least the Powers have (forcefully at times) suppressed nuclear proliferation.
The Empire of Sweden and the Germanies, although founded by the Vasas, soon became German-dominated (in this world’s popular nationalist thinking, Scandinavians and Germans form one, Germanic people, and Sweden is another “Germany.”) but remains “Sweden” to many dumb foreigners. Since the 1930s, it has been dominated by the Synarchists, an absolutist movement which claims that the external “capitalist” or “socialist’ (OTL terms: no Marx here) trappings of a society are far less important than the ideas in its people’s heads: in what resembles “meme theory”, ideas are tremendously important, and getting the right ideas into people’s heads. As a result, having the wrong ideas is very illegal, and messing with the well-scrubbed memes of other citizens is highly illegal, leading to a trip to the high Arctic *Gulags. Economics, being considered a sort of cut-and-try engineering rather than The Answer to It All, are rather more flexible than that of, say, OTL Communists.
Theoretically, a society in which there is a universal conviction in shared Constructive Principles will work like a well-oiled machine: unfortunately, what exactly these are remains the subject of debate, and the Party Line can change with alarming speed; people have long become skilled at pretending that *Sweden has always been at war with EastAsia, so to speak. Universal equality is one of the more persistent principles, and everyone wears the same overalls (admittedly fairly snazzy and futuristic ones). Currently the economy is hobbled by a fossilized bureaucracy, and sags under the weight of a massive military budget: building the nuclear pulse ships to gain a position in orbital space and incidentally put a finger in France’s eye didn’t help. Currently, the popular attitude is one of deep cynicism, given the rather dubious relationship between the leadership and the principles they espouse.
Due to a more tolerant Portugal, Brazil became a greater magnet for immigration, and far exceeded our Brazil in population: it is the world’s most vigorous capitalist power. Unfortunately, it also suffered from weak and corrupt government and enormous disparities of wealth: eventually, popular unrest (Synarchist-type movements looking for a strong government create an “ordered” society competing with *populist movements seeking to diminish inequities of wealth and power) reached near civil war conditions in 2002, leading to the megacorporations to step in with their extensive private military forces in a brutal decapitation strike against the revolutionary groups. The government has been essentially forced into a partnership with the corporate powers – and not as the senior partner, either. The corporations exist as almost independent feudal lords within Brazil, and now have the assistance of the regular armed forces in keeping the revolutionary movement hobbled.
On the other hand, the corporation have enough trouble running their own fiefs without running the entire country, so it is possible that the corporations may at some point make an effort to reform the government to the point where it can handle its “watchman” job again. Society is highly tolerant (a majority of the world’s Jews live in Brazil) if, given the virtually anarcho-capitalist situation prevailing, rather well armed.
France, if less populous than other, huger powers, is the world’s leader in high tech and space technology, and the only nation to have a base of the Moon, although in recent decades they have shared the cost with other European states within the trade/military defense/chowder and marching society known as the International Confederation of Milan or more simply the French System. While Brazil is anarchic capitalism and Sweden is totalitarian, France is a constitutional monarchy, if a bit oligarchic. (There was no French revolution in this TL, and France generally went from rule by rich corrupt nobility to rich corrupt commoners without any great Republican interruptions.) Its nuclear arsenal on Earth and in orbit is supplemented by mass-drivers on the Moon, ala Heinlein.
France and its System partners have grown closer to Russia, France’s old ally from the stalemated Pyrrhic War of 1927-1932 as a strengthening Russia has grown bolder, and both are working to build up China as a an ally against Japan and a potentially very profitable (and huge) market. There is considerable talk nowadays re a “Renewed Coalition” of France, Russia and China, echoing the old French-Russian-Brazilian Coalition of the Pyrrhic War.
Of its allies in Europe, the Italian state is the most culturally vigorous and independent-minded. It’s continued occupation of the Congo Basin area (most of Africa was decolonized by the early 90s) has ruffled feathers in racially tolerant Brazil and Latin America, as well as in France (they like to think of themselves as racially tolerant) but the Italians aren’t ready to give up on all those luscious raw materials, and anyway, the Africans are better off than they would be under Japanese rule, right?
Japan, which never closed itself off and eventually converted to Catholicism, is the world’s largest empire by far, and a hardening of racial attitudes among Japanese fearing being swamped by their subjects has made it by 2012 a brutal tyranny for non-Japanese (if not as bad as the Syndicalist regime). The emperor, as in Brazil, is a pure figurehead, and power emerges from constant quiet negotiation between the immense bureaucracy, the fearsome security and military apparatus, and the fabulously rich extended family clans which run most of the great corporate empires. After the loss of China in the 70’s, the Empire relaxed its tariff walls and largely autarchic economic system: through sheer size, its state-backed corporate giants have been bludgeoning more sophisticated but far smaller European (and to a lesser extent, Brazilian) corporations for international market share. Japan’s military is enormous, but nearly ¾ of it is non-Japanese “security” troops used to maintain control over the various conquered people, with Muslim troops in Buddhist areas, Hindu ones in Muslim ones, etc (learning the language of the locals is energetically discouraged). Such forces are less well armed than the core Japanese ones, and lack air power, so they can always be bombed into submission if they ever revolt.
China’s successful breakaway has not brought any great hope to other subject peoples, it did after all take nearly a century of struggle, pretty much destroyed traditional Chinese society, and ended with China ruled by fanatics that essentially burned their national house down around themselves (with no concern for fellow Chinese casualties) to drive the Japanese out. When the Japanese left, they metaphorically slashed the tires and smashed the windows and poured sugar in the engine, and furthermore imposed an “anti-terrorism” blockade of China that essentially cut off all outside trade and human entry save through the sands of Turkestan. The Chinese people are, understandably, still a bit pissy over the whole thing.
African decolonization largely ended by the early 90s, and the independent countries are in no better shape to handle independence than OTL at decolonization, in some ways worse off in that the global leadership doesn’t really care if they founder or not (the *Swedes think sub-Saharan Africa is culturally too backward to create a true Synarchist society, so there isn’t much of an ideological competition there). Major powers are just as happy to overthrow or support local dictators in the interest of access to raw materials as any big power during the OTL Cold War, but see no reason to offer “aid money” without a serious quid pro quo.
The leadership of Shikaku-mon is finally waking up to the threats of pollution and global warming (eventually even the rich and powerful get annoyed with the Killer Smogs in the big cities and acid rain destroying their private forests and parks and garbage floating ashore on their private beaches) but environmental action generally come from the top down rather than from the masses: Shikaku-Mon is not a world that is big on popular movements, respect for hierarchy and elitism being the norm among global leadership. (The Japanese are still in denial re global warming, while the *Swedes, given their chilly climate, aren’t particularly alarmed by the prospect of warming weather).
Given the historical emphasis on control of ideas and memes deriving from Synarchism, said elites are very good at spin and information control, and generally don’t consider the opinions of the masses as being worth much: after all, they are so easily manipulated by disinformation and propaganda, how could they be trusted with a real say in things? There are exceptions and some of the smaller republics are more democratic, notably the Virginians – but on the other hand they are big on obeying orders and discipline.
Global tensions are high: economic warfare threatens between Japan and French Europe, the “renewed coalition” worries both Japanese and *Swedes, and people worry about what will happen if things really go pear-shaped in the Swedish-German empire. And will corporate-dominated Brazil have anything like a real foreign policy? Apocalyptic religiosity is on the rise, as many see signs of the End Times…
Bruce
Kaiphranos
Donor
its not munroist if there arent two 16s
Or in this case, a missing note for 17 (Hawaii)...
In any case, good stuff--though I can't quite tell, are the "Swedish" territories in North America directly controlled, or satellites like Britain?
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