TL-191: After the End

Also, the "Frozen War" thing really got my attention. And a President who thinks he's the Messiah? Ouch. I wouldn't mind seeing the map of that ATL to this ATL. :)

I have a few ideas about this and I'll try to throw one together for it (and the other spec-fics) soon. Does anyone have an up-to-date map of TL-191 before Operation Blackbeard?
 
1990-1999:




January 1, 1990 onwards—US annual immigration rates dip between 1991 and 1995 due to the Tech Recession, although the overall numbers see a steady uptick as the economy recovers throughout the rest of the decade. The nations of East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America remain the largest sources of immigrants during the 1990s.

The member states of the German Economic Association emerge as new sources of immigrants during this time. Many come to the United States highly educated and highly skilled; most of these immigrants settle in the Mid-Atlantic States and the Northeast.

During the 1990s, millions of people continue to leave the South, due to the region’s persistently high unemployment rate, and the implosion of the South’s agricultural industry due to an extended draught, which devastates the region’s major cash crops during the first half of the decade. [1] Most leave for the large northern and western metropolitan areas. So many Southerners arrive in locales as varied as Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Tucson, and Winnipeg that they begin to form their own neighborhood enclaves. Thomas Harry Johnson somewhat derisively refers to these communities as “Dixielands,” in an opinion column written for the Denver Post in May of 1991.

By 1990, most of the wanted Confederate war criminals have either been captured or confirmed deceased by both the Remembrance Center and the OSS. Cassius Madison, while not giving up on finding those remaining war criminals who are still at large five decades since the Southern Holocaust, increasingly focuses his attention on preserving the memory what happened through the chronicling of survivors’ stories.

The United States enters into its second decade of its new “three party system”: US presidential elections become highly contentious, as the Democrats, Socialists, and Republicans fiercely compete for new voters. In spite of this intense competition, all three parties generally nominate centrist candidates who have the highest potential crossover appeal.

The Republican Party continues to build on President Reynolds’s successes in the 1980s; the party attempts to expand its appeal beyond its base in the Canadian states. The Republicans specifically focus on attempting to win new seats in the New England states (traditionally dominated by the Democrats), and in the Caribbean states (dominated by the Socialists).

For Washington, D.C. during this decade, foreign policy is directed towards expanding the network of US allies: chief among these initiatives is the project, supported both in Brazilian and US diplomatic circles, of creating a new intra-governmental forum for the nations of the Western Hemisphere. These negotiations, conducted through two presidential administrations, will finally bear fruit in 1999, with the establishment of the Council of the Western Hemisphere.

* * *

The Japanese Worker’s Republic enters a time of transition during the 1990s. As People’s Friend Sakamoto, now in his seventies, takes a less active role in the day to day management of the JWR, two factions emerge within the ruling structure of the Syndicalist Party to succeed him: one is led by Foreign Secretary Ono Noburu, who quietly promotes an agenda of reopening Japan’s economy and diplomatically reconciling, at the very least, with the JWR’s immediate neighbors.

Sports and Physical Fitness Secretary Himura Tamiko, a hardline ideologue who is against any attempts to reform the JWR’s economic and political structure, leads the other faction in this behind the scenes power struggle.

The conflict between Ono and Himura will explode into public in 1995, in the midst of natural disaster and growing social unrest.

* * *

In China, the slowdown of the world economy during the early 1990s affects the delicate political situation in that country. Finance Minister Xue Chen remains the strongest contender to succeed President Zhuang Lin, who shows no sign of willing to step down as he prepares to enter his third decade in office.

Due to the huge economic boom that has driven the Chinese economy since the end of the Fourth Pacific War, a large middle class has emerged as of 1990. Many members of this socio-economic group, especially the university students too young to remember the times before President Zhuang, increasingly chafe under the authoritarian rule of the Democratic Party of China.

Rural protests, from disposed farmers and (during the Tech Recession) unemployed laborers increase both in number and severity throughout the first half of the 1990s. International observers express concern that there could be massive civil unrest throughout China if the political situation remains unaddressed and unreformed for much longer. The political and social situation in the country will explode during the Succession Crisis in January of 1996.

* * *

The Ottoman Empire remains a tense place throughout most of the 1990s: although there are no major outbreaks of violence comparable to the Middle Eastern Tempests of the mid-1980s, few believe that violence is very far from the horizon. The hundreds of militias that emerged during the 1980s refuse to disarm; some continue to receive covert foreign assistance from abroad, principally from the Bharatis and the Russians.

The Tech Recession only continues to decrease the international price of oil, further dampening hopes for a full economic recovery for the empire. Abdul Hamid III, however, refuses to let these harsh economic realities distract from his vision of an empire made prosperous through a new round of Great Rebuilding-style mega projects.

The Golden Wolves, once a force to contend with in Ottoman politics, continue to fracture throughout the decade, until they are bolstered by the disastrous outcome of the Kashmir War.

During the 1990s, the Ottoman Empire begins to see the beginnings of a mass wave of emigration; many that leave are from the empire’s middle classes, afraid of a future outbreak of internal violence that will dwarf the clashes of the 1980s. Many leave for either the Empire of Brazil or the United States.

* * *

The Bharatis continue to work towards the day when they will recover Kashmir, and finally end all Ottoman and Pakistani influence in South Asia. New Delhi continues to rapidly modernize its military, with quiet German assistance. The air and naval technological arms race against Constantinople dominates strategic thinking amongst the Bharati military planners.

Relations with Pakistan continue to deteriorate as well, manifesting themselves in repeated border clashes on the frontier between Pakistani Kashmir and the Bharati state of Himachal Pradesh. Clashes also occur in the on the border separating Pakistan’s Sindh province and the Bharati states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. The Pakistanis support the constructing of several joint Ottoman-Pakistani naval installations on the Indian Ocean coast of that nation, while the Bharatis continue to militarize their side of the Bharati-Pakistani border.

The outside world proves to be generally helpless in trying to diffuse the escalating tensions between the Bharatis and the Ottomans, in spite of repeated Brazilian and US offers throughout the 1990s to mediate between the two powers. An OSS memo, updated annually throughout the DeFrancis and Gutierrez Administrations until the outbreak of the Kashmir War in 1997, makes it clear for the White House that the geopolitical situation in South Asia and East Africa resembles that of the European and North American rival power blocs in the years proceeding the First Great War.

In addition to modernizing their own military, Bharati military advisors are sent abroad to their East African allies—to Ethiopia, to Kenya, and to Uganda, to assist in the reequipping of their respective militaries.

Along with the Russians, the Bharatis continue their covert policies of deliberately flooding the Ottoman Empire, particularly the increasingly rebellious Ibadi and Shiite regions, with surplus weapons. This is a continuation of the Bharati Intra-Net’s quiet intelligence alliance with Russia’s COB.

The United States, both under President DeFrancis and President Gutierrez, continues to maintain its troop levels in Australia, Celebes, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and West Papua, while warning the Bharatis through diplomatic back channels that any attempt to force another international incident akin to the Malacca Crisis will not be tolerated.

The Austro-Hungarians and the Germans are concerned that an Ottoman defeat in any future war with Bharat could participate a collapse of that empire, and potentially spark an exodus of tens of millions of refugees. Both nations, due to their mutual experience in the protracted South African War, are wary of intervening in the event of a similar outbreak of violence in the Ottoman Empire.

* * *

Many worldwide cultural trends from the 1980s continue throughout the 1990s: Brazil Deco continues to remain popular throughout the first half of the decade (although many planned projects are delayed due to the Tech Recession), as do the films of Reines Kino, Stomp music, Surrealist fiction, Italian and Spanish-produced “Middle Easterns,” and Spec Fiction. Some cultural trends fail to continue in the new decade, such as the Anglo-French “Happy Wave,” which does not sell well during the Tech Recession.

The Space Opera genre continues to gain in popularity, spreading out of Austria-Hungary and the United States during the 1990s. Some of the best-remembered Space Operas of the 1990s include Sesto Montanari’s Italian musical crime movie Scum and Villainy (1992), Maicon Carvalho’s Brazilian musical Hands of Blue (1993), Gleb Utkin’s Russian Surrealist-influenced musical Trade Route Taxation (1996), and Janet Archibald’s Australian Mindbender-inspired musical filmNicky’s Hologram (1999).

During the 1990s, critics around the world note that with the continuing erosion of the long-post Second Great War social conformity in the European Community and the United States (along with the end of formal censorship in many of these parts of the world), many films, particularly the action, crime, and historical genres, have started to become more and more explicitly violent.

* * *

The International Health Organization continues its campaign to contain and eradicate Fleischer’s Syndrome during the 1990s, to varying degrees of success. The IHO is assisted by the public health campaigns launched around the world by different national governments warning their populations of the nature of this disease.

The IHO also focuses its efforts on detecting new viruses before they can wreck havoc in pandemics. During the 1990s, IHO doctors in China and Southeast Asia begin to sound the alarm on a new strain of bird flu that, if it were to cross over to affect humans, would have disastrous effects.

* * *

Even during the worst days of the Tech Recession, work continues in both the member states of the European Community and the United States on the development of a network that will connect combines from one region to another. Rooted in the theories of Austro-Hungarian engineer and intellectual Bernard Polgar, it is during the 1990s that this vision begins to take shape. The Siemens Aktiengesellschaft megacorporation in Germany and the US Defense Department’s Edison Bureau are the entities that set up much of the infrastructure necessary for the creation of what will be popularly known as the “Combo Net” by the late 1990s and early 2000s.

* * *

In the Space Chase, both the Liberty Space Agency and the European Space Combine continue the drive to explore (and eventually claim) the cosmos. The Europeans focus on laying the groundwork for their planned permanent outpost on the Moon, while the Americans and their allies continue to plan the first manned mission to Mars. The domestic US space program, under the auspices of the Department of Space and Exploration, continues to launch manned missions to the Moon throughout the decade. The European Space Combine begins a campaign in 1991 to systematically map the lunar surface, a process that will not be completed until 2002.

Both the LSA and the ESC begin to invest in space-borne telescopes and long-distance probes, in order to gain a better understanding of their immediate Galactic neighborhood.

As the Independence Movement continues to disintegrate, the Empire of Brazil begins to invest more and more in its domestic space program. The Brazilians begin to weigh the benefits of cooperating with either the CDS or EC space alliances: a decision will not be made in this regard until the early 2000s.

* * *

February 24, 1990—Reswan Baradost, a Kurdish deputy in the Ottoman Majils, addresses the legislative body to lay out his vision for an economic revival of the empire. Baradost, a respected statesman first elected to the Majils in the early 1970s, calls for measures to move the Ottoman economy away from its dependency on the price fluctuations of petroleum, coupled with concrete measures to solve the unemployment crisis through new infrastructure projects, particularly in housing.

Baradost specifically calls for the advent of a government project to revitalize the long ignored rural regions of the empire.

Privately, Baradost desires to build a “minorities caucus” in the Majils, to act as an umbrella group for those peoples now marginalized by Abdul Hamid III’s regime.

March 2, 1990 onwards—In a speech that many see as a reaction towards Baradost’s address, Abdul Hamid goes on state television to give his own plan for the empire’s economic revival. Claiming that the empire has more than enough revenue “…to build anything and everything necessary,” the Sultan calls for a second round of Great Rebuilding projects. These initiatives, he promises, will only benefit those with “proven loyalty” to the empire.

In spite of these grandiose promises, little ultimately comes of them. These plans are shelved due to the need to continue funding the arms race against the Bharatis; in any case Abdul Hamid III is loath to support any initiative that will benefit the minority groups within the empire, even indirectly.

June 20, 1990 onwards—An earthquake devastates a region of northwestern Persia centered not far from the city of Rasht, killing over 45,000 people. International assistance pours into the region, spearheaded by the Bharatis.

July 10, 1990 onwards—In Washington, D.C., a spokesman for the Environmental Bureau announces that the Bureau, in partnership with the State of Washington, will begin an effort to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Site. This process will not be completed until 2015.

November 6, 1990—In the US Midterm elections, there is little movement in favor of any of the three parties, with the Democrats continuing to control the House, and the Socialists continuing to control the Senate. The Republicans do regain several of their Canadian seats that they lost in the 1988 elections.

January 3, 1991—Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan quietly sign security guarantees with China, similar to the security agreement signed between China and Afghanistan in 1985.

February 20, 1991 onwards—In Munich, the first “German Surrealist” skyscraper is unveiled: the Frederick Wilhelm Center. The building, outwardly having a typically overly ornamental Braco façade, is better remembered for what it showcases inside. The walls and floors and sculpted into sharply lined rises, and colored in the most clashing shades. [2]

German Surrealism becomes a popular competitor to Braco architecture throughout Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Eastern European member states of the European Community. In Austria-Hungary and Poland, German Surrealist architecture proves to be the biggest competitor to the Raygun Baroque movement through the 1990s and into the 2000s.

April 3, 1991-October 1995 onwards—On April 3, 1991, news emerges that Persephone Inc., a major US Big Tech firm, has declared bankruptcy. This news sparks a major round of selling on Wall Street: the decline in trading is so acute that the day quickly becomes known as “Black Wednesday” throughout the press and later by historians.

Black Wednesday is the catalyst for what proves to be the most severe recession of the postwar years: in the United States, this this is a time of high unemployment and widespread failure in the burgeoning Big Tech field. In the United States, many conservative politicians and pundits blame the Department of Technology’s funding of Big Tech startups as the root cause of the “Tech Bubble” that developed over the course of the 1980s.

The “Tech Recession” spreads to much of the world throughout the first half of the 1990s. Unemployment skyrockets throughout locales as far apart as Australia the Empire of Brazil, the member states of the European Community, and the Russian Republic.

This economic downturn even affects the surging economies of Bharat and China, where the cautious business atmosphere of the early 1990s limits foreign investment. The Ottoman Empire, whose economy is still largely dependent on the high price of petroleum, suffers from the slowdown in the worldwide demand for their product; this is a facet that also exacerbates the effects of the Tech Recession in major oil producers such as the Italian Empire, Persia, the Portuguese Federation, and Venezuela.

Economists in the United States will not declare an end to the Tech Recession until October of 1995, when the national unemployment rate finally dips below ten percent.

Although many Big Tech firms in the European Community and the United States fold during this recession, some manage to weather the storm, most notably the corporations that come to be known as “The Big Three” in business circles: Robert Bolton’s Anglo-French Intrigue Corporation, the mammoth German Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, and the Serenity Company, a US firm founded by Upton Cantarella that specializes in making Combine games. The Big Three will continue to expand throughout the 1990s and 2000s, each competing fiercely for the best engineers and programmers. It will not be until the 2010s that new rival companies seriously threaten their collective dominance over the international Combine market.

March 1, 1991 onwards—In a referendum held in the Congo, the region of Tschad [OTL Chad and the Central African Republic] votes to seek independence as a separate nation on January 1, 1995—the date of the planned granting of independence to the Congo by Germany.

June 15, 1991—Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Philippines, killing 523 people, and forcing the closure of the joint-Filipino-CDS Talon Air Force Base.

July 31, 1991 onwards—After over a decade of silence, Alessandro Colombo’s book Chasing the Rainbow is published, to scathing reviews by the world’s press. Part travelogue, part polemic, and something of a novel, Colombo’s massive 1,400-page manuscript details the author’s decade-long travels all over the world, from New Mexico to the Bharati-Bengali border. Colombo describes enthusiastically his experiences with mind-altering drugs, and urges his readers to, “…join in, all for one and one for one!”

Although most reviewers doubt the veracity of a number of Colombo’s anecdotal stories (with Adeela Vivekananda acridly noting the Colombo claims to have been in the cities of Varanasi and Tehran at the same time), Chasing the Rainbow proves to be an international bestseller. The book will inspire, in the Empire of Brazil, in the European Community, Russia, and the United States, a new youth subculture based around hallucinogenic drugs and seemingly aimless travelling. Cultural historians will later consider Colombo’s book to have been one of the inspirations for the assorted Staccato subcultures that emerge throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

August 15, 1991 onwards—Staccato Culture is given its name in an opinion column written for the Boston Herald by critic Trevor Brooks, to describe the devotees of Alessandro Colombo’s books.

Like the many different Nihilist subcultures of the 1970s, “Staccato” is a term that is used (often inaccurately) to describe many different kinds of cultural movements throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, including Raygun Baroque architecture and auto designs, Fabrika Punk music, and American Fantasy fiction. Historians and cultural critics generally agree on labeling as “Staccato” the movements that emerge around the fiction and philosophy of Alessandro Colombo: these movements, in nations as far apart as Austria-Hungary, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, and the United States, promote the ideals of endless travelling, doing as one pleases, taking every kind of hallucinogenic drug, and on acquiring more and more material possessions. [3]

The European Nihilism from the 1970s influences some aspects of Staccato subculture, particularly in terms of gaudy clothing inspired by different periods of world history.

There are many critics of the Staccato subculture from across the political spectrum, with some even charging that there is no difference between Staccato and Nihilism; however, many historians also note that the Staccato subcultures seem to have emerged as a response to a similar sense of popular cynicism about international relations and economic realities: this will become especially pronounced in the aftermath of the Kashmir War, in 1999.

January, 1992-November 3, 1992—In the US presidential election, the economy emerges as the number one issue, in light of the ongoing Tech Recession. President Enos declines to seek reelection; the Socialists, led by Vice President Turnbull, are on the defensive throughout the campaign. The Democrats nominate Senator Thurston DeFrancis of California; a favorite of the party’s conservative wing, DeFrancis denounces the policies favored both by the Republicans and Socialists of providing federal funding to Big Tech startups, through the Department of Technology. Media pundits, even those favorable to the Democratic candidate, are critical of his virulently negative campaigning; Vice President Turnbull reciprocates these attacks throughout the course of the election.

The Republicans nominate Governor Patrick Gutierrez of New Mexico. Young and energetic, Gutierrez attempts to run on optimistic themes promising “a better government and direct help.” In spite of receiving favorable coverage (most of which compares him to former President Reynolds), Gutierrez’s own negatives are driven up by attacks from both the Democratic and Socialist candidates.

Once again, there are five debates held throughout September and October (along with three Vice Presidential debates). The polls remain close, and indicate that large segments of the electorate would remain unfavorable to whoever wins the election.

February 8-February 23, 1992—The twenty-sixth Winter Olympic Games are held in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

May 15-August 15, 1992 onwards—At the Prague International Exposition of Technology and Art, the first publically aired examples (both architectural and artistic) of “Raygun Baroque” are exhibited.

Raygun Baroque, itself inspired by Brazil Deco, the ongoing Space Chase, and the musical settings of Space Opera, is noted for, in the words of one critic, “….attempting to integrate the scientific zeitgeist into everyday life.” [4]

Not all critics are impressed; Adeela Vivekananda, covering the Exposition for the Times of Bharat, sarcastically remarks that Raygun Baroque seems as though, “….it is attempting to turn everyday places of residence and work into the liar of some mad scientist.” In spite of this kind of critique, Raygun Baroque gains steadily in popularity throughout the rest of the decade. By the 2000s, new homes and offices throughout Bharat, Brazil, China, the European Community, Russia, and the United States often incorporate Raygun Baroque motifs into their planning. In spite of its international scope by the dawn of the twenty-first century, Raygun Baroque will always remain strongly affiliated, by the general public and by artistic critics, with the cities of Budapest, Prague, and Vienna.

Raygun Baroque also proves a popular world design for automobiles, particularly those sold in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, and the United States.

July 4, 1992 onwards—The opening of the Irving Morrell Interstate Tunnel is celebrated both in Miami, Florida and Havana, Cuba. The floating tunnel, the first of its kind in the world, will lead to a massive annual influx of tourists to both Cuba and Florida, as intended by its designers. The opening of the Irving Morrell Tunnel proves to be an economic boon for the Caribbean states, which also benefit from the easier access by mainlanders to Cuba. It will help this region of the United States avoid the worst effects of the Tech Recession.

July 25-August 9, 1992 onwards—The twenty-fifth Olympic games are held in Santiago, Chile.

September 25, 1992—The Mangala oil field is discovered in the Bharati state of Rajasthan. [5]

September 30, 1992—German New Guinea is granted an Advisory Council.

November 3, 1992 onwards—In the US presidential elections, the Democrats win the presidency after a twelve-year absence. California Senator Thurston DeFrancis is elected over incumbent Vice President Alfred Turnbull, and Republican Governor Patrick Gutierrez of New Mexico. It is a narrow election; some Socialists blame the Republicans for siphoning off key votes in California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania to allow for the Democratic victory. Political observers are quick to note the impact that the Tech Recession has played in fueling a conservative backlash at the voting polls. The turnout was the lowest in fifty years.

Thurston DeFrancis, nephew of famous Space Man Terry DeFrancis II (the first American in Outer Space), is widely seen by political observers as the most conservative victor in a US presidential election since Calvin Coolidge sixty years previously. In his victory speech, DeFrancis promises to enact his platform of “restrained government, and tough defense.”

Although he comes in third place in both the electoral and popular vote, Patrick Gutierrez is widely praised by political observers for his charisma and for his detailed platform. Thomas Harry Johnson, in his first post-electoral column for the Denver Post, predicts that Gutierrez will keep running until he wins.

December 25, 1992 onwards—In a concert held in the Hollywood Bowl, the John Cardoso Orchestra plays the first “US Bossa nova” song, “Burning the Iceberg.” [6] Ever since the rapid rise to stardom of Brazilian singer Filipe Pires, Bossa nova rapidly becomes internationally popular. Like Brazil Deco architecture and artwork before it, Bossa nova music inspires national as far apart as Bharat, Mexico, Quebec, Russia, Spain, and the United States. Hollywood Stomp heavily influences the most popular kind of US Bossa nova during the 1990s.

February 1, 1993 onwards—In his inaugural address, President DeFrancis spends most of his speech denouncing the “failures” of his immediate predecessors, President Enos and President Reynolds (both of whom are in attendance at the event; they both become visibly offended during his speech). This inaugural speech is widely remembered for its negative response: the new president’s popularity declines by fifteen percent in the daily tracking polls.

In his first initiatives, President DeFrancis proposes sharply limiting the scope of the Department of Technology in its ability to fund potential startups; this initiative is rejected due to the almost universal opposition from the Socialists and the Republicans in Congress.

February 24-April 3, 1993—In a series of massive and peaceful demonstrations known subsequently by historians as the “Burmese Spring,” millions of Burmese civilians throughout the country gather in the streets of the major cities. The protesters blame the military regime, in power since the end of the Fourth Pacific War, for low economic growth, and are also angered by the regime’s massive corruption and violence towards dissidents. The protests only end when, under Bharati pressure, the junta announces on Burmese television that power will be transferred to a civilian government beginning in 1994.

March 25, 1993 onwards—On Eid al-Fitr, there are massive rounds of street preaching by unidentified speakers in Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. All of these speakers claim that the Ottoman Caliphate has lost its legitimacy, and that the ruling dynasty’s “flawed tolerance” of “outsiders in our midst” has brought economic and social ruin upon the empire.

These speakers are quickly arrested for disturbing the peace and sedition, but it proves to herald an alarming new trend: although the vast majority of Muslims in the Ottoman Empire reject this virulently hate-filled and xenophobic religious intolerance, there are those who come to join this disunited movement of religious purification; many of the Ottoman civilians who are attracted to this unnamed movement are the same people targeted successfully by the Golden Wolves, namely dispossessed young men from the countryside unable to find work in the major cities.

April 12, 1993 onwards—The Boston Herald breaks the news that Vice President Theodore Alonzo Kent is under investigation by the Justice Department’s Investigation Bureau, over charges that he accepted bribes from defense contractor James Benson during the presidential campaign. Kent, a former Governor of Missouri (and one of the last products of the now-defunct Pendergast machine), was widely viewed as a non-entity during the campaign. Now, he suddenly becomes an unexpected (and disliked) area of focus for the media and the public regarding the DeFrancis Administration. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Sinclair Donovan of Oregon, announces on May 7 that they will begin hearings over the summer to investigate this scandal.

The “Kent Scandal” devastates the DeFrancis Administration. Over the course of the summer of 1993, a number of witnesses, already talking to the Justice Department on their bribery case, come forward to testify before the Donovan Committee. The hearings shock the national television audience, and paint a picture of a Vice President who not only has accepted bribes from lobbyists, but who has actively sought them. The question remains on how much President DeFrancis knew about his Vice President’s conduct.

At first, the President denounces the hearings, accusing Congress of conducting a “witch hunt.” But over the course of the summer, DeFrancis refuses to discuss the scandal with the press.

April 24, 1993 onwards—Congress approves funding for the construction of the Southward Pipeline System (more popularly referred to as the “Sward System”), a network of pipelines and refineries designed to bring oil and natural gas from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. A small portion of the Southward pipeline network will be extended to the Texan city of Houston. [7]

Construction of this new network will be completed in the early 2009.

May 8, 1993 onwards—The European Space Combine successfully launches the Nicholas Copernicus Telescope into orbit. The Copernicus telescope will capture some of the most scientifically important (and ascetically astounding) images of the Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, and many other cosmic phenomena. [8]

May 31, 1993 onwards—Flora Madison’s Ghostlands is published. The novel is widely praised by critics and proves to be an international bestseller: Thomas Harry Johnson favorably compares the novel to Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. [9] The book follows one African-Confederate family from the end of the Second Mexican War to the end of the Second Great War, chronicling its struggle to survive in a land of visceral racism, revolutionary violence, economic hardship, and industrialized murder (with the family in question widely viewed as a fictionalized stand-in for Madison’s family). The book will later be produced as a 36-part miniseries from 2002 to 2005 on public television, to a massive critical and commercial success.

June 20, 1993—President DeFrancis signs into law the Tax Relief and Readjustment Act in a ceremony at the Oval Office. Passed by the Democrats with support from the conservative members of the Socialist Party, the new Act sharply reduces the tax rate for both the middle and upper income brackets. Critics of the act note that most of the beneficiaries of the new bill are the wealthiest Americans.

In the ceremony, the President reminds the press corps of his opposition to increasing funding for “make work” infrastructure projects.

August 7-November 7, 1993 onwards—At the Shanghai International Exposition of Trade and Technology, the Granite Mk. III is unveiled by the Intrigue Corporation. It will become the best-selling personal Combine of the decade. [10]

September 17, 1993 onwards—In an announcement that surprises few, President DeFrancis announces that Vice President Kent has tendered his resignation, effective immediately. DeFrancis states that Attorney General Thayer Konstam will be his nominee to replace Kent.

DeFrancis then announces, to the shock of the national audience, that he has issued a presidential pardon for the former Vice President for “…any and all misdemeanors he has been accused of.”

This concluding announcement sparks widespread national anger. Polls conducted in the aftermath of the president’s address show that many respondents feel that the President does not seem to care about conducting “good government.” Presidential historians generally agree that the DeFrancis administration never recovers from this press conference.

December 3, 1994 onwards—Unidentified gunmen, in an attack ultimately admitted to by the Golden Wolves, assassinate Reswan Baradost in Constantinople.

Baradost’s death is shattering to those within the empire who had hoped for a peaceful resolution to the prospect of preventing a return to the communal violence of the 1980s. It also proves to be the catalyst for the militarization of the empire’s vast Kurdish community, which begins to form a militia attached to the pan-Kurdish Mosul Democratic Party. The Mosul Action Front (MAF) will emerge as one of the most powerful warlord armies during the Ottoman Dissolution of the 2010s. During the 1990s and 2000s, the MAF will clash frequently with both the Golden Wolves, particularly in the city of Mosul itself.

January 17, 1994 onwards—An earthquake erupts in California’s San Fernando Valley, killing over fifty people and causing billions of dollars in damage to southern California, particularly to the city of Los Angeles. International assistance is quick to pour in to the region from America’s allies in the CDS.

In spite of his personal opposition to the Infrastructure Bank of the United States, President DeFrancis quickly signs off on several projects to improve the preparedness of the cities and towns of southern California in the event of future disasters. Several initiatives of this kind had already been approved of since the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

June 21-June 22, 1994 onwards—In Moscow, the first “Fabrika-Punk” music is preformed for a public audience by the band Plastic Barrels.

Fabrika-Punk is inspired both by traditional Russian folk music, Bossa nova, and Hollywood Stomp. The members of the Plastic Barrels dress in mock-uniforms from the time of the Second Great War and the Second Russian Revolution, inspiring a surge in popularity for “retro” clothing. [11]

Fabrika-Punk’s popularity in Russia clashes uneasily with the ongoing religious revival of the Rassvet. The leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church condemn Fabrika-Punk for its “mocking distractions”, while the behavior of many of the devotees of Fabrika-Punk is conducted with the deliberate aim of provoking a reaction from religious Russians (or else their elders).

Fabrika-Punk will gradually gain in worldwide popularity, although it will not be until the 2000s that this music inspires widespread devotion, in Brazil, the member states of the European Community, and the United States. Cultural historians will generally lump Fabrika-Punk in with the wider Staccato subculture.

July 14, 1994—In the United States, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second Great War (and the reunification of the nation) is commemorated in ceremonies across the country.

In the South, these ceremonies, like those of the US bicentennial in 1976, are generally somber, emphasizing the benefits that five decades of “healing reunification” has brought to the region.

July 16-July 22, 1994 onwards—Around the world, astronomers observe and record Comet Swinburne-Von Bernstorff [12] as it breaks apart and collides with Jupiter.

The impacts cause a major stir, especially within the corridors of the different national and international space agencies. Politicians throughout the world call for the construction of a network of observatories specifically to detect these kinds of celestial bodies. Many of these same political voices also use the event as a call increase funding for space exploration and colonization.

July 18, 1994 onwards—Two young Dolgan brothers discover the nearly intact frozen carcass of a wooly mammoth in the Taymyr Peninsula [13], in Siberia. Russian geneticists and paleontologists will move the body of the creature to a laboratory in Moscow in 1996 for further study; some scientists express hope that enough intact tissue can be recovered from the mammoth to one day clone a living animal: this will not occur until the second half of the twenty-first century.

August 21-September 6, 1994 onwards—In a summit in Bangkok, representatives from Cambodia and Vietnam sign an accord promising to draw down, respectively, ten percent of all soldiers stationed along the “Peace Zone” that separates the two nations. Quietly pushed (from the background) by both the Bharatis and Americans, the Bangkok Accords are hoped, by many observers, to be the first step towards the erasing of all remaining tensions between the two nations.

November 8, 1994—In the US midterm elections, the Republicans and Socialists both gain a large number of seats against the Democrats; the Republicans do surprisingly well in New England, finally winning House and Senate seats in that former Democratic bastion. The Socialists recapture the House of Representatives. Political observers credit President DeFrancis’s personal unpopularity, along with the ongoing recession for the Democratic losses. Some speculate the DeFrancis could become the first incumbent President to lose reelection since President La Follette in 1944.

December 10, 1994 onwards—The media organs of the Japanese Worker’s Republic announces the passing of People’s Friend Sakamoto: the founder of the JWR is buried in a public funeral in Tokyo, interned at a mausoleum built on the grounds of the former Imperial Palace.

Almost immediately, the struggle for power begins between the factions loyal to Foreign Secretary Ono Noburu and Sports and Physical Fitness Secretary Himura Tamiko. Although both are nominal leaders in a “Temporary Coalition” that rules over the JWR (consisting of all 25 Secretaries who manage the different units of the economy, police, and Syndicalist Party), the Temporary Coalition soon splits into two bitter camps, with neither faction capable of seizing total power without potentially sparking a civil conflict.

January 1, 1995—In a celebratory ceremony in Wilhelmsvile attended by hundreds of thousands, the Congolese Federation [The OTL Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of Congo] and the Republic of Tschad are simultaneously granted independence and membership in the German Economic Association.

In both nations, the Germans retain substantial economic and military concessions; in exchange, Berlin agrees to increase its annual assistance through the institutions of the DWV for educational, health, and infrastructure improvements.

January 17, 1995 onwards—A massive earthquake devastates the city of Kobe, killing 6,000 people. The government’s immediate response to the disaster is lacking; occurring during a period of leadership transition, the national government in Tokyo fails to immediately mobilize resources to deal with the catastrophe.

Within days of the disaster anger from the displaced residents of Kobe spills over into violent rioting. For five days, the city is effectively out of government hands, before soldiers from the People’s Militia and agents from the security services move in to restore order.

One long-term of effect of the Kobe earthquake is a surge in support for the Japanese Ecological Party; as the largest anti-government group in the Japanese Worker’s Republic, the Ecoists in Kobe were among those responsible for organizing protests against the inaction of the government. International observers speculate that another horrible disaster may spark a national uprising against the JWR’s regime.

For the time being, the Kobe earthquake and its aftermath serves to discredit Ono Noboru, who finds himself isolated in the Temporary Coalition, save for a few staunch allies. On March 9, 1995, the People’s Militia arrests Noboru and his allies; on the same day, they are found guilty of conspiring with “foreign, sinister elements” in attempting to overthrow the Syndicalist Party. On March 16, Noboru and his allies are deported to the Republic of Ezo. Himura Tamiko begins to consolidate her rule, although it will not be until May 1 that she formally accepts to mantle of People’s Friend.

February 2, 1995—In the Russian presidential elections, Vasily Rebikov manages an upset: for the first time since the establishment of the Russian Republic, the Socialists lose, to Rebikov’s Justice and Prosperity Party.

International political observers are quick to credit Rebikov’s victory to the improved electoral performance of Sarafima Orlova’s Russian Ecological Party, which gains an additional fifteen seats in the Duma at the expense of the Socialists. The Renewal Party also improves its electoral performance; Father Stanislav Krupin declares his eagerness to work closely with the conservative Rebikov government, leading some Russian journalists to speculate that Rebikov cut a secret deal with Krupin during the campaign.

In his concession speech, Stas Lagounov refrains from blaming either Orlova or Krupin for his loss. Instead, he admits his own complacency in failing to address Russia’s increased unemployment, and calls on the Socialists to work with Rebikov to solve the issue, “…for all our sakes.”

February 12, 1995—The deepwater Fluminense oil field is discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, off of the coast of Brazil. [14]

February 20, 1995—President DeFrancis meets with Berthold von Kuster, the newly appointed German Foreign Minister, at the Oval Office. Von Kuster presses the President to publically support the establishment of a new International Security Council, in part to contain the immediate threat of a Bharati-Ottoman War, and in part to end the possibility of any kind of major conflagration between nation-states.

DeFrancis is personally lukewarm to the idea of an ISC, but does express his support for some of Von Kuster’s other ideas, such as the establishment of a new international agency for refugees of armed conflict.

April 4, 1995 onwards—The Terrible Land of Iz is published for the first time in the United States, to massive financial success. Written by Linda Straubing, The Terrible Land of Iz proves the first novel of a genre labeled by critics as “American Fantasy.”

The setting for The Terrible Land of Iz, as well as the fourteen novels that follow in the series, is essentially a fantasy version of North America during the First and Second Great Wars. It borrows many elements from other genres as well, particularly from science fiction and Anglo-French Surrealist fiction.

Historians and literary critics alike both note the inspiration taken by Straubing in her story from a number of the works of turn-of-the century children’s book writer Lyman Frank Baum, particularly in the story’s graphic violence and cynical outlook on moral expediency. [15]

American Fantasy as a genre soon comes to encompass numerous written and cinematic works throughout the remainder of the 1990s, the 2000s, and the 2010s. Greg Bliss, taking a sabbatical from his spec fiction in the late 1990s, writes a novel of his own set in an American Fantasy world: Gat Ham [16], published in 1999.

May 1, 1995 onwards—Himura Tamiko is inaugurated as the second People’s Friend of the Japanese Worker’s Republic. Over the next six months, she begins a harsh crackdown on any sign of dissent against the Syndicalist Party; over the next three years, some two million people find themselves expelled from the JWR (and forced to seek refuge in the Republic of Ezo).

Facing severe problems caring for the sheer number of deportees who have arrived in Hokkaido over the last two decades, the Republic of Ezo turns to the International Refugee Organization for help; the IRO will provide critical assistance to the government of Ezo in feeding and sheltering the refugees, as well as in assisting them in helping those who wish to leave Hokkaido overcome the bureaucratic hurdles to leave for another nation.

Himura’s crackdowns do not diminish the activists of the Ecological Party of Japan, which experiences a surge in membership in the aftermath of the disastrous government response to the Kobe earthquake and Himura’s initial mass arrests.

July 18, 1995 onwards—The Soufrière Hills volcano erupts on the US-controlled island of Montseratt, killing fifteen people and destroying the city of Plymouth. The US Navy oversees an evacuation of the island; most of the island's residents are resettled on the island of Saint Kitts.

July 28-August 15, 1995 onwards—An outbreak of Ebola Congo occurs in the Congolese city of Kikwit [17], killing 295 people. Under orders from Congolese Chancellor Tobias Kasanda, the Congolese military places the city under martial law. Doctors from the International Health Organization are quickly moved into the area to battle against the disease.

August 31, 1995 onwards—The European Space Combine launches Gemini 1 [18], a probe meant to survey the Outer Solar System. The probe will complete its survey by the middle of the 2020s, and will continue to broadcast messages back to ESC command posts on Earth and the Moon for many decades after that.

September 30, 1995 onwards—In New York City, President DeFrancis, along with Austro-Hungarian State Chancellor Obrad Uzelac and German Chancellor Edsel Kunze, signs the Treaty of New York, establishing the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The IRO is intended by its signatories to assist those displaced by outbreaks of violence in returning to their homes, or in finding new ones in a signatory nation.

Over the next two years, the treaty is ratified by Austria-Hungary, Germany, the United States, the member states of the European Community and the Compact of Democratic States, as well as by Bharat, the Empire of Brazil, China, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. The IRO will face is first major test during the Kashmir War, from 1997 to 2000.

December 10, 1995—Southern Expediency is published. Written by Greg Bliss, this spec fic imagines a Staccato-type movement attempting to assert itself in a Confederacy that never started a war with the United States, yet is still ruled by the Freedom Party. [19]

January 18-April 4, 1996—President Zhuang Lin, in an effort to silence his growing number of domestic critics, expresses his support for an initiative in the National Assembly (proposed by his closest allies) to express a vote of confidence his continued rule. On January 18, 1996, President Zhuang gives a national televised address from the floor of the Assembly. In a speech meant both for the parliamentarians and China’s citizens, Zhuang states empathetically that he is fit to remain in office, and that his critics are, “…completely wrong in their slanderous accusations that I am out of touch. I am always in control!”

The speech sparks an immediate reaction throughout China—but not the one that Zhuang expected or desired. From late January through the spring of 1996, China is wracked by mass protests, as millions of people call both for their authoritarian president to resign, and for the implementation of free elections in the country. They also protest the ruling Democratic Party of China’s corruption and cronyism, and call for the opening up of major political offices to ordinary civilians.

A disparate group consisting of students, members of the middle class, and unemployed laborers lead these protests, while massive protests explode throughout the rural areas of China.

On February 9, President Zhuang’s desired Vote of Confidence is submitted to the National Assembly; to the shock of both the Chinese people and international leaders, the Assembly rejects the measure, a move unprecedented since the establishment of the Chinese Republic.

This outcome is personally devastating for President Zhuang, who then quietly begins negotiating his retirement with the leaders of the DPC. There little disagreement that he will be succeeded by Finance Minister Chen; what is up for debate is the timetable.

Finally, on April 4, 1996, after months of continuing protests and uncertainty in Chinese society if their president will even leave office, President Zhuang, in a televised address, announces his resignation from office: that same day, Finance Minister Xue Chen is sworn in as the second President of the Chinese Republic.

In a televised address of his own later that evening, President Chen promises a “new time” for China, and promises to immediately begin tackling the major issues of “political openness” and “quality of life.”

February 12-February 27, 1996—The twenty-seventh Winter Olympic Games are held in Calgary, Alberta.

April 3-22, 1996 onwards—An outbreak of Ebola Congo near the Congolese village of Ewo kills forty-two people. Congolese soldiers assist the IHO in quarantining the area. [20]

May 3, 1996 onwards—The premier of Fred Niall’s epic war film Pittsburgh. The movie, four and a half hours long, is a surprise hit at the box office, and eventually becomes the most profitable film in history, up to that point.

The success of Pittsburgh heralds the emergence of the “Endurance Films”: with the end of the Tech Recession, film studios throughout Bharat, Brazil, China, the European Community, Russia, and the United States begin to invest in films three, four, and even (in the case of Breno Fernandes’s 1999 Brazilian comic drama Big Rascals) five hours in length.

The Endurance Films of the late 1990s and 2000s cover a wide variety of genres, and vary in critical appreciation. Some, such as Trevor Brooks, view many of the Endurance films as little more than vehicles for a new generation of “egomaniacal cinefiles”, who also represent the moving away of close executive control over movies towards projects driven by directors themselves. [21]

July 10, 1996—In an announcement delayed two years due to the effects of the Tech Recession, a spokesman for Eagle Airways announces that the company will now expand its supersonic flights to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Beijing China, Mexico City, Mexico, and Constantinople, in the Ottoman Empire.

July 19-August 4, 1996 onwards—The twenty-sixth Olympic Games are held in Athens, Greece, in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the advent of the modern Olympiad.

September 15, 1996 onwards—Brazilian historian Thiago Amaral publishes The Age of Hatred. Amaral is the first historian to attempt to place all of the acts of political violence and political killing within a common framework.

Well received and a commercial bestseller, Amaral’s book will go through dozens of printings within its first decade of existence. Within the next few years, it will have to revised extensively in the aftermath of the Kashmir War.

November 5, 1996—In the US presidential elections, President DeFrancis, as expected by political observers and by the public at large, becomes the first sitting incumbent to lose a bid for reelection since 1944. Republican Governor Patrick Gutierrez of New Mexico becomes the third Republican in US history to win the White House, over Socialist Governor Jonathan Wyden of Minnesota and President DeFrancis. Gutierrez is also the first Hispanic candidate to be elected to the Oval Office.

January 1, 1997 onwards—In a New Years Day address to the National Assembly, President Xue announces his first major set of political reforms: the most notable one is the establishment of term limits for the Chinese presidency, similar to the Russian and US presidential term limits. Xue promises that should he win reelection in 2000, he will not seek another term in 2004 under the new rules.

Quietly, Xue manages to remove the legislation that limited the participation of opposition parties in Chinese politics. The Ecological Party of China is the largest beneficiary of these reforms, and will subsequently campaign in elections free of official harassment.

February 1, 1997 onwards—In his inaugural address, President Gutierrez promises that the United States, at the start of the New Millennium, will be, “…healthier, happier, and the single greatest hope for the world.”

Gutierrez focuses extensively on foreign policy in his address, calling for, “…a world in which nations no longer wage gruesome, fruitless destruction upon one another.” Most reporters assume that the President has directed these remarks at the Bharatis, the Ottomans, and the Pakistanis.

March 1-March 16, 1997 onwards—President Xue Chen hosts Vasily Rebikov and Patrick Gutierrez at a summit in the city of Tianjin. This is the first meeting of three PESA allies since the end of the Fourth Pacific War in 1970. President Xue argues to his Russian and US counterparts that with the Japanese Worker’s Republic successfully contained, the alliance should now be used to facilitate the removal of trade barriers between all three nations.

President Gutierrez is more receptive to the idea than his Russian counterpart; while he is in favor of maintaining strong bilateral relations with China, President Rebikov knows that there would be strong domestic resistance in the Russian Republic to removing all trade barriers, especially with national unemployment only just returning to its pre-Tech Recession levels.

Nonetheless, the Tianjin Summit is considered a success by its host. All three heads of state agree to meet in person for similar meetings every four years. Throughout the twenty-first century, international observers label these summits as part of the “Tianjin Process.” It will be sometime before the Americans, Chinese, and Russians finally agree on a timetable for the establishment of a trans-Pacific free trade zone, however.

February 28, 1997 onwards—An earthquake devastates the Persian city of Ardabil, killing over 1,000 people. Assistance pours into the region from around the world, particularly from Bharat and Russia; due to their abysmal diplomatic relations with Constantinople, little assistance arrives from the Ottoman Empire.

April 30, 1997 onwards—Ground is broken both in Folkstone, England and Calais, France on the Trans-Channel Tunnel. The railway link is financed in part by the British and French governments, and also enjoys funding from the European Community’s Transportation Development Bureau. The TCT will be completed in 2004. [22]

May 1, 1997—Germany grants independence the new nations of the Sahel Republic [OTL Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger], and Mauritania. Both nations are admitted into the German Economic Association.

May 10, 1997 onwards—An earthquake devastates Persia’s Khorasan Province, killing over 1,500 people. The Persians are forced to divert an entire division from the frontlines against the Ottomans to the region, in order to assist those displaced by the catastrophe.

September 9, 1997 onwards—The European Space Combine launches Gemini 2, a probe designed to survey just what lies at the edge of the Solar System. The probe will also complete a second survey of the planets of the Outer Solar system, by the end of the 2020s, and will begin a survey of the edge of the Solar System at that time. The United States, through both the USAIA and the Liberty Space Agency, will launch its own long-range probes during the early 2000s.

October 20-27, 1997 onwards—On October 20, a collision occurs in the Indian Ocean between a Bharati fishing boat and a Pakistani cargo ship. The respective distress calls of the two vessels quickly bring both Bharati and Pakistani rescue craft, along with Bharati and Pakistani naval vessels. In a confused message sent to their home base in Mumbai and relayed to New Delhi, the captain of one of the Bharati destroyers sent to the scene reports having come under fire.

The Indian Ocean Incident ends with both Bharati and Pakistani naval forces firing on each other; the Bharatis lose two destroyers and a minesweeper, while the Pakistanis lose two destroyers and a missile boat.

This clash proves to be the spark for the Kashmir War. On October 22, 1997, Prime Minister Saranjit Iyengar addresses the Lok Sabha, where he announces, to angry cheers from the assembled members that war has been declared on Pakistan. Iyengar warns, with barely concealed anger, the Ottomans to, “…stay out of this settlement of accounts.” Within hours, his Pakistani counterpart has reciprocated this declaration.

Land fighting immediately breaks out in Kashmir, as well as on the Bharati borders with Punjab and Sindh. Bharati warplanes launch massive attacks against Pakistani air bases, naval facilities, and supply depots, while Pakistani missiles begin to reign down on targets as far away as Mumbai and New Delhi.

True to the fears expressed earlier in the decade both by the OSS and other foreign intelligence agencies, the immediate war between Bharat and Pakistan quickly spirals into the widest ranging conflict since the Fourth Pacific War: on October 24, the Ottoman Majils, prodded into action by Sultan Abdul Hamid III, declares war on Bharat in support of Pakistan. The Ottomans are joined in their declaration of war by Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, and Somalia.

On October 26, the conflict expands to East Africa, where a fresh round of clashes between the Ethiopian and Somali soldiers on their disputed borders in the Ogaden Desert leads to mutual declarations of war from Addis Ababa and Mogadishu, followed by mutual promises of support from both Bharat (for the Ethiopians) and the Ottoman Empire (for the Somalis). The Ottoman peacekeeping troops in the Somali Republic now become the spearhead of a joint Ottoman-Somali force that forces the Ethiopians into a rapid retreat from the Ogaden Desert.

On October 27, in response to condemnations from the Persian government about the violent breakup of a Shi’ite-led antiwar demonstration in Basra, the Ottomans declare war on that nation, leading to massive firefights on the long Ottoman-Persian border.

During this time, there are calls both from the Empire of Brazil and the United States to immediately halt the fighting, with Brazilian Prime Minister Braulio Goncalves and Emperor Pedro VI both offering to host the warring sides in Salvação. These offers are ignored by the Bharatis and openly spurned by the Ottomans; Abdul Hamid III refers to the Brazilians, still erstwhile member of the Independence Movement, as, “…wretched traitors and cowardly Bharati agents.”

Not every member of the Chennai Pact joins the war, or necessarily agrees to fight on every front. Bengal, Borneo, Indonesia, and Malaysia refuse to enter the war against the Ottoman Empire (as Sultan Abdul Hamid III, in his role as Caliph of the Faithful, is technically the religious overlord of substantial majorities of their respective populations). Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, all of who still regard the Ottomans favorably for their diplomatic and military support during their struggles for independence during the Fourth Pacific War, also decline to participate in the Kashmir War (although Burma does declare war on Pakistan). The Bharatis are aided against the Pakistanis by Burma, Hyderabad, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

The Persians, while confrontational towards the Ottomans, refuse to join the Bharati war against Pakistan; this is due to the lack of any territorial dispute between Tehran and Islamabad (and due to their mutual fears of Baloch separatism).

Afghanistan remains neutral, although large numbers of Afghan “volunteers” fight through the conflict on the side of Pakistan.

In spite of international fears, the war does not spread to southern Africa, where tensions between the South African Confederation and KwaZulu-Natal remain unresolved. In the end, while the SAC does dispatch a small expeditionary force to assist the Bharatis and Kenyans against the Somali Republic, there is little appetite in the country for another war in that nation, little over a decade and a half since the end of the South African War.

November 1997-July 1998 onwards—The fighting between the Bharatis and Pakistanis in Kashmir grinds to a crawl. This region, heavily fortified since the initial deterioration of diplomatic relations between Bharat and Pakistan in the early 1970s, is the scene of gruesome fighting, with some international journalists comparing the combat in Kashmir with the European and North American trench warfare of the First Great War.

The fighting in the Middle East between the Ottomans and Persians also sees little movement in this first phase of the Kashmir War. The Ottomans successfully capture the Persian city of Khorramshahr, which falls on November 7; subsequently, supported by a heavy air-bombardment from Persia’s newest (German-supplied) bombers, the Persians regroup and recapture the city a week later: throughout most of the Kashmir War, most of the fighting between the Ottomans and Persians occurs in a stretch of territory including the Ottoman Basra Vilayet and the Persian province of Khuzestan.

This phase of the war also sees the destruction of the Ottoman Crescent Star Base, which is taken out of commission by Bharati submarine-based missiles in a raid conducted on December 29, 1997.

In East Africa, the Bharatis hastily dispatch an expeditionary force to the region to assist the Ethiopians, who have been driven back to the gates of the cities of Dire Dawa and Jijiga in the north, and Awasa in the south. On November 5, 1997, Kenya declares war on the Somali Republic in support of the Ethiopians, although little fighting actually occurs for the time being on the border between the two nations.

In the Indian Ocean, the Bharati Navy is successful in driving both the Ottomans and Pakistanis from being in a position to threaten their coast; this reflects the facts that the Bharati fleet is both larger and possesses more advanced naval craft, including aircraft carriers and submarines compared to its enemies.

The Kashmir War inspires outbreaks of domestic violence in both Bharat and the Ottoman Empire, as the conflict unleashes the tensions that have built up in both nations during the past two decades. In Bharat, anti-Muslim riots erupt in Gujarat in the fall and winter of 1997, claiming hundreds of lives before the authorities are able to stop these mob attacks.

In the Ottoman Empire, the authorities begin to preemptively crack down on the Ibadi and Shia communities, which result in violent anti-government protests in a band of territory stretching from Muscat to Basra. The Golden Wolves also begin to see a resurgence of activity; now led by Nuray Karga’s second-in-command retired Captain Rifat Macar, the Golden Wolves once again lead mob attacks against Christians, Ibadi Muslims, Jews, and Shi’ite Muslims. The worst Golden Wolves attacks are in the cities of Baghdad and Basra, where over the course of the fall and winter of 1997, thousands of Christians and Jews are systematically driven from their homes; some flee abroad, primarily through the Brazilian or US consulates. Most of these refugees flee west to the relatively calm western vilyats of the empire—the Christians to Izmir or Constantinople, the Jews to Ir Avraham or Jerusalem.

Surprisingly, there is little mob violence against the Christians and Jews in either the Sanjak of Jerusalem or the Vilyat of Beirut, where the Jewish and Christian militias are at their largest, and most heavily armed, respectively.

November 2, 1997 onwards—Supported by Abdul Hamid III, the Majils, now dominated by the Sultan’s political allies, passes a resolution that dissolves the Alliance for Peace and Friendship, one of the Independence Movement’s most important anchorages. This is widely seen as an initiative directed against the Brazilians for their neutrality in the Kashmir War.

This proves shocking to the Brazilians, who recall their ambassador in Constantinople for “consultation.” Historians will see this resolution as a major turning point in world history: it provides one of the major impetuses for the Brazilians’ turning away from their now all but defunct alliance with the Ottomans in favor of a new arrangement with the United States.

November 3-November 12, 1997—In Vienna, the Austro-Hungarian and German Foreign Ministers meet to discuss their position on the Kashmir War. Both nations call for a halt to the fighting, and offer to mediate between New Delhi, Islamabad, and Constantinople. As with the offers from the Brazilians, these offers are either ignored, or spurned by all three powers.

July 7, 1998 onwards—On July 7, the Bharatis launch a massive offensive into the Pakistani province of Sindh, in Operation Vijayangara. This offensive is aimed at the metropolis (and key naval base) of Karachi.

Defeating the Pakistani defenses, the Bharatis invest Karachi beginning on July 23. The Pakistanis, who had been misled by the Bharati Intra-Net that the target of Operation Vijayangara was the Kashmiri town of Kargil, rush soldiers from elsewhere in Sindh to stop the Bharati advance. However, it is of to no avail. In a campaign lasting from July 23 through August 2, 1998, Karachi is overrun by the Bharatis. The Battle of Karachi sees the worst urban fighting since the Fourth Pacific War, with millions of civilians fleeing the city even throughout the fighting. The International Refugee Organization begins to deploy staff to the region during the summer of 1998; since they are not at war with Pakistan, the Persians allow the IRO to establish ancillary refugee camps in their territory, provided that the refugees return to their homes after the war.

The Fall of Karachi proves to be the turning point of the war, with the Bharatis depriving the Ottoman navy of one of the their few bases that could threaten Bharat itself. News of this military debacle leads to an attempted coup d’état against Pakistan’s civilian government on August 5, which is brutally suppressed by loyalist troops.

In August of 1998, an Ibadi Muslim revolt erupts in the Ottoman Empire. Heavily armed with Bharati supplied weapons, the rebels take government forces by surprise, overrunning the major port of Muscat on August 10. Although government authorities quickly retake the city, the rebellion continues, as the economically desperate population now seems to see nothing left to lose in confronting Constantinople. The Ibadi Revolt proves devastating to the Ottoman War effort, forcing Constantinople to divert reserves away from the Persian front to suppressing the uprising; the guerilla war continues past the formal end to the conflict in February of 1999.

That same month, yet another Shi’ite uprising begins on the island of Bahrain, which is ruthlessly suppressed by Ottoman forces by the beginning of the September of 1998.

In East Africa, Kenyan soldiers, assisted by a small group of Bharati advisors, launch an invasion of the Somali Republic, capturing the cities of Kismayo and Garbahaareey on August 11 and August 14, respectively. This incursion forces the Ottomans and Somalis in Ethiopia to withdraw soldiers from the frontlines to halt the Kenyan threat towards Mogadishu.

This withdrawing of frontline troops allows the Ethiopian military to relieve the sieges of Awasa, Dire Dawa and Jijiga throughout August. By September 1, the Kenyans have driven Somali forces across the Jubba River, where their offensive halts after the taking of the Somali city of Bardera. Throughout this time, Bharati warships launch numerous bombardments of Mogadishu. Throughout September and October of 1998, Ethiopian troops force the remaining Ottoman and Somali forces out of the Ogaden Desert. On October 29, Ethiopian troops capture the city of Beledeyne.

Throughout the fall of 1998, the Bharatis, due to their greater numbers and more advanced equipment, continue to advanced deeper into Kashmir, capturing the key town of Kargil on September 22. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians in the disputed province flee west into Pakistan’s Punjab province. The IRO dispatches agents to the region to assist in housing and feeding the displaced; most of the IRO staff are American, or else from other states of the CDS.

In October, the Pakistanis launch an offensive to recapture Karachi, driving the Bharatis out of half of the metropolis before the Bharatis regroup and drive back the assault. It is after this failed offensive that Pakistan’s civilian government comes to realize that they will not be able to defeat Bharat militarily. Even as the fighting continues throughout the fall, Pakistani emissaries meet, through Swiss channels, in the city of Geneva with a Bharati delegation.

The Pakistani general staff gets wind of these meetings in December of 1998, and reacts angrily. Marshall Galal Khan, the leader of Pakistan’s military high command, resists calls for him to launch an immediate coup against the government. Khan isn’t opposed to seizing power for himself; however, he is also a realist on Pakistan’s deteriorating strategic situation. He also notes to his subordinates that in the event of Pakistan being forced to sign a peace treaty with their hated enemy, it would be better for Pakistan’s civilian government to be blamed for the failure to achieve victory.

In the Middle East, Persian troops reach a stalemate against the Ottomans after capturing the city of Basra and strategic port of Umm Qasr on October 14 and October 22 respectively. The Persians are exhausted by the fighting, and have little desire to overreach themselves against Constantinople.

Sultan Abdul Hamid III blames the ongoing Ibadi and Shi’ite unrest for the recent military setbacks, but refuses to consider seeking an end to the conflict. His generals advise him that if the war continues, the empire may see a wave of domestic violence that could topple the dynasty. During the fall of 1998, the Golden Wolves begin to expand their violent actions against non-Sunnis outside of their Mesopotamian base of operations.

In Egypt, pogroms, spearheaded by soldiers on leave from the Persian front, erupt during October and November of 1998. Like the riots of the 1980s that followed the end of the Russo-Kazakh War, these outbreaks of violence are primarily targeted against Coptic Christians and Jews, although Sufi Muslims are also attacked. Thousands of Christians and Jews flee Egypt in the fall of 1998 and the winter of 1999, mostly for the neighboring Italian Empire.

It is only in December of 1998, as Abdul Hamid III is forced to recognize that the war cannot continue much longer without the potential for the collapse of the empire, that Ottoman diplomats, through Swiss intermediaries, seek out their Bharati counterparts. On December 22, 1998, a truce goes into effect along the Persian-Ottoman frontlines. One week later, a similar truce goes into effect for the Bharatis and Pakistanis (as well as on the East African fronts). All parties now accept invitations by the Brazilian and US governments to attend a peace summit, to be held in January in San Jose, Costa Rica.

July 17, 1998 onwards—A massive earthquake and tsunami devastates German New Guinea [OTL Papua New Guinea], killing over 2,000 people. A massive volume of assistance for the devastated region flows into the area from both the Germans and from the nearby member states of the CDS.

November 3, 1998—In the US Midterm elections, the Socialists and the Republicans both gain seats at the expense of the Democrats. In this election, the Republicans make large gains in New England, particularly in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont—the latter two of which had once been staunch Democratic bastions.

The Republican attempt to replicate this success in the Caribbean states falters against the local strength of the local Socialist parties throughout the region. An exception to this trend is felt in Cuba, where the Republicans manage to make gains in that state’s legislature.

December, 1998 onwards—In a series of meets held between US and German diplomats, it is agreed by both sides that their respective nations will push for the establishment of an International Security Organization, to put an end to the massive regional wars that have broken out at least one per decade over the last twenty years.

January 27-February 20, 1999 onwards—A major peace conference is held in San Jose, Costa Rica, under joint-Brazilian-US auspices. The San Jose Conference is tense and difficult one. The Bharatis demand the entirety of Kashmir from Pakistan, and express a veiled desire to territorially dismember both the Ottoman Empire and Pakistan. Both the Ottoman and Pakistani delegations threaten to return to war if these maximalist demands are written into the peace accord.

In the end, the Bharatis do not go through with these threats, mainly due to the objections of their Persian ally, which fears the rise of separatist groups in their own country if a precedent is set at San Jose. In the end, the main clauses of the Treaty of San Jose include:

• Those areas of Kashmir currently occupied by Bharati troops will be annexed to Bharat. All Pakistani civilians who fled from the province during the war will be permitted to return to their homes, provided they accept Bharati citizenship. All Pakistani civilians from Kashmir who do not return to Kashmir will be financially compensated for their lost property.

• Bharati soldiers withdraw from all other areas of Pakistan currently under occupation.

• A swath of territory from the former Vilayet of Basra will be recognized as an independent state. The Republic of Basra [consisting of territory that includes the OTL Basra Vilayet and Kuwait] will be demilitarized entity

• Kenyan and Ethiopian troops will withdraw from the Somali Republic. The entirety of the territory between the Kenyan border and the Jubba River is declared a Peace Zone. Ethiopia will be permitted to use to the port of Kismayo to export its goods; a new set of roads will be built—through Bharati funding for this purpose.

• The Somali Republic will renounce all claims to the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. Ethiopia will renounce all territorial claims on Somali territory.

Observers are surprised at how little territory actually changes hands in the Treaty, but most accept that other than Kashmir, the Bharatis had no desire to incorporate hostile regions of Pakistan into their jurisdiction.

February, 1999 onwards—Long expected by international observers, there are massive outbreaks of violence in the Ottoman Empire, spearheaded primarily by the Golden Wolves, against the minority populations of the empire.

Unlike the 1980s, the violence is less one sided. Reacting to Golden Wolves attacks, the now heavily armed Mizrachi Jewish Shomrim militia, as well as the Maronite Christian Shields, prove to be a nasty surprise for would be mob attackers. Mob attacks even occur in Constantinople, where the Christians and Jews are not armed as in the Sanjak of Jerusalem or the Vilyat of Beirut.

There are widespread clashes throughout Mosul between the Golden Wolves and the Mosul Action Front. At the same time, in reaction to this newest round of violence, millions of Shi’ites begin to flee the Ottoman Empire for both Basra and Persia.

These first horrific outbreaks of civil disorder prove to be the beginning of something far worse; it marks the start of a period of effective anarchy throughout much of the Ottoman Empire, as even government troops, led by officers aligned with one militia or another (and often with the Golden Wolves) begin to desert their posts in favor of “restoring order” in their local communities, or in favor of protecting their homes from other regional militias.

Abdul Hamid III increasingly comes to be seen by outside observers, as well as by emigrant dissidents, as a figurehead for the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa (Special Organization) [23], the bureau and special forces unit under the auspices of the war department used to monitor and suppress local dissidents. Since the ascension of Abdul Hamid III to the throne in 1979, the Special Organization has increasingly become a stronghold of ultra-nationalists within the Ottoman government, and later of those in the Ottoman bureaucracy sympathetic to the Golden Wolves. Until the 2010s, the Special Organization will effectively drive the central government’s domestic policies, even as the domestic anarchy begins to spill over into warlordism.

This also marks the start of a massive wave of emigration from the Ottoman Empire, as millions begin to flee this civic breakdown. The Empire of Brazil and the United States receive the bulk of these refugees. Altogether, some five million people leave the Ottoman Empire by the beginning of the 2020s.

February 27, 1999 onwards—In an uprising long planned by the Pakistani general staff, Pakistan’s civilian government is overthrown in a coup d’état. Marshall Galal Khan is installed as the new Prime Minister. Khan himself will sign into law dozens of decrees to cement the military’s absolute control over Pakistani society. In his first televised address to the nation on the evening after seizing power, Khan promises the creation of a “hyper-military state” to “revitalize the Pakistani nation.” Khan goes on to state that, “…in [our] hyper-militaristic times, in the aftermath of the betrayal of the Pakistani people by the perfidious traitorous regime that has been removed [through] popular demand, there is no room for softness of any kind.” International observers now fear that Bharat and Pakistan will likely war against each other again in the immediate decades to come. The militarist dictatorship of Marshall Khan will last until 2014.

The new regime begins almost immediately to arrest any and all real or imagined dissidents. Advocates of democracy or religious tolerance are viciously purged from their jobs, or “disappeared” into prison. Pakistan’s minority populations, including Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus are also targeted for persecution by the Khan regime—blamed for the disastrous outcome of the Kashmir War. Over the next two years, some two million people flee Pakistan: most flee either to Afghanistan or Bharat, with smaller numbers leaving for either the Empire of Brazil or the United States. In spite of international condemnation of his government, Marshall Khan refuses to halt these policies. Pakistan rapidly becomes a pariah on the world stage.

March 20, 1999—Uzbekistan withdraws from the Independence Movement, and joins the Chennai Pact following a formal Bharati invitation.

May 1-May 24, 1999 onwards—In a spectacular ceremony in the Colombian city of Bogota, visiting heads of state from across North and South America inaugurate the Council of the Western Hemisphere.

The CWH, as intended by the leaders of the Empire of Brazil and the United States, is meant to serve as a diplomatic forum for the nations of the Western Hemisphere. It consists of a rotating 9-state Inner Council (with Brazil and the United States having permanent seats), and the Outer Council, which has the power to pass non-binding resolutions: numerous bodies within the Outer Council will serve as committees to discuss hemispheric economic, environmental, health, military, and scientific issues, among others. Both the Americans and Brazilians hope that this forum will provide the groundwork for further economic and political integration for the Western Hemisphere. At the first summit of the Council, held from May 1 to May 22, it is agreed by the visiting delegates and national ambassadors that the CWH will encourage the negotiation and implementation of a trans-continental free trade accord.

The Outer Council elects former Colombian President Eduardo Moreno as the first Secretary-President of the CWH.

June 1, 1999 onwards—The Liberty Space Agency launches the first components of the Thomas Edison into orbit, a space station intended to bolster scientific research in zero gravity conditions. It will be completed in 2010. [24]

June 29, 1999—Turkmenistan joins the Chennai Pact, and withdraws from the Independence Movement.

July 4, 1999 onwards—Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia are admitted into the Union. On this date, President Gutierrez announces that, as per the recommendations by the Defense Department, the Ryuku Islands and the Bonin Islands will be granted a civilian government beginning in 2004.

All of these new states will become strongholds of the Socialist Party.

September 22, 1999—Representatives from Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan sign the Treaty of Chongqing in that city. The agreement creates a new alliance: the Central Asian Security Accord (CASA) that formalizes the bilateral agreements agreed to over the last decade and a half by all three Central Asian nations with Beijing.

December 31, 1999—Around the world, millions of people welcome in both the New Year and the New Millennium. It is hoped throughout the world that the next century (and indeed, the next Millennium) will prove to be a peaceful and prosperous one.

* * *

[1] [This is similar to the heat wave in our world that ravaged parts of the United States in the summer of 1980.]

[2] [German Surrealist architecture is similar to the German Expressionist art and film sets in OTL. For an idea of what some of the interiors of German Surrealist buildings look like, see the sets from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and some of the sets from Tim Burton’s film Beetlejuice.]

[3] [For an idea of what the worldview looks like for many of the adherents to the assorted Staccato movements in TTL, imagine if the primary inspirations of the Hippie movement in our world had come from the writings of Ayn Rand and Hunter S. Thompson.]

[4] [The Raygun Baroque art, architecture, and automobiles in TTL shares many similarities with the Raygun Gothic.]

[5] [In our world the Mangala oil field was discovered in 1999.

[6] [ "Burnin' the Icebergis a jazz song that in our world was made famous by Jelly Roll Morton in 1929.]

[7] [The Southward Pipeline System in TTL is broadly similar to our world’s Keystone Pipeline System.]

[8] [The Copernicus Space Telescope in TTL is analogous to our world’s Hubble Space Telescope.]

[9] [ Ghostlands is analogous in style and structure to Vasily Grossman’s OTL novel Life and Fate which was completed in 1959 but not successfully published until 1980.]

[10] [This device is analogous to Apple’s OTL PowerBook 100.]

[11] [Many of the aesthetic sensibilities of Fabrika ("factory")-Punk are similar to the "Dieselpunk" styles from our world.]

[12] [This comet’s name in our world was Shoemaker-Levy 9.]

[13] [In our world these remains were discovered in 1997.]

[14] [In our world this oil field was discovered in 2007, and is known as the Carioca/Sugar Loaf Field.]

[15] [This is a strong contrast to our world, where L. Frank Baum was one of the first children’s book authors to move away from violence in children’s stories. For an idea of the setting of The Terrible Land of Iz imagine if George R.R. Martin had written The Wizard of Oz. The Terrible Land of Iz also includes elements from what someone in our world might recognize as having come from A Song of Ice and Fire, Jurassic Park, and Planet of the Apes. The overall plot of the series is similar to that of the film The Night of the Hunter.]

[16] [“Gat Ham” is one of the supposed origins for the name “Gotham.” The plot of the novel Gat Ham in TTL has elements, in the themes, plot, and the setting, that someone from OTL might recognize from The Wizard of Oz and The Dark Knight Returns.]

[17] [In our world there was a similar outbreak in this region in 1995 For more information on this town, please see here.]

[18] [The Gemini probes in TTL are similar in design and in intent to that of the Voyager probes in our world.]

[19] [Southern Expediency shares many elements of its plot with Nathanael West’s 1934 novel A Cool Million.]

[20] [In our world, there were outbreaks of Ebola in this region from 2002-2003, from 2003-2004, and in 2005. For more information of this region, see here.]

[21] Many of the Endurance Films of this time period in TTL share similarities to the films made during the New Hollywood period.]

[22] [In our world, the Channel Tunnel was built from 1988 to 1994.]

[23] [The Special Organization was (likely) founded in OTL in 1913; its members participated in the Armenian Genocide. In TTL, the Special Organization eventually developed into the Ottoman Empire’s domestic surveillance agency, among the other tasks assigned to it.]

[24] [This space station is similar in size and scope to that of the International Space Station in our world.]

~~~~~

Comments?
 
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Do we get to see an independent Kurdistan in this case? Also, would Austria-Hungary actually collapse in a similar manner to OTL Czechoslovakia or OTL Yugoslavia?
 
Hmmm, has the Intra-net been mentioned before? I don't believe I recall it.

On the other hand, does anyone else see the Ottoman Empire becoming this ATL's Sub-saharan civil war stereotype (loads of militias, war, and child soldiers, well, those haven't happened yet).

A-H looks really stable at present, but I'd put money on a collapse happening sometime during the alt.

Well, I guess Himura's victory means the JWR becomes this alt's North Korea.
 
A happy new year to you, David ! :)

And thank you for the update. :cool: I'll read it when I get up in the morning. ;)

Do we get to see an independent Kurdistan in this case? Also, would Austria-Hungary actually collapse in a similar manner to OTL Czechoslovakia or OTL Yugoslavia?

Czechoslovakia didn't collapse. It dissolved.
 
Great work, DBE. The Kashmir War was very exciting. Good to see three more states joining the union. Did you like the US flags I posted earlier in the thread?

Also, I nominated this for a Turtledove, though I'm unsure which category it falls under.
 
Very good work. I also enjoy seeing the tech developments including those of fighting disease.

How is research into fusion power going?
 
Republic of Basra? Interesting. Does common tension against the Sunnis see the Shia and other minorities ally?

MAP!
 
Republic of Basra? Interesting. Does common tension against the Sunnis see the Shia and other minorities ally?

MAP!

Someone say "map"? ;)

Lol, here's the world at the turn of the new millennium.

world JUN2000 globe TL191.png
 
And here's a List of Head's of State for the United States. :)

*Note: This list contains Presidents (those succeeding Seymour and Blaine) that are not part of the canon. If anyone feels like they have a better idea for Presidents #18, 19, 22, 25, 26, and 27, please let me know.

Presidents of the United States:
1. George Washington (I-VA): April 30th, 1789-March 4th, 1797
2. John Adams (F-MA): March 4th, 1797-March 4th, 1801
3. Thomas Jefferson (DR-VA): March 4th, 1801-March 4th, 1809
4. James Madison (DR-VA): March 4th, 1809-March 4th, 1817
5. James Monroe (DR-VA): March 4th, 1817-March 4th, 1825
6. John Quincy Adams (DR-MA): March 4th, 1825-March 4th, 1829

7. Andrew Jackson (D-TN): March 4th, 1829-March 4th, 1837
8. Martin Van Buren (D-NY): March 4th, 1837-March 4th, 1841

9. William Henry Harrison (W-OH): March 4th, 1841-April 4th, 1841[1]
10. John Tyler, Jr. (W-VA): April 4th, 1841-March 4th, 1845

11. James Knox Polk (D-TN): March 4th, 1845-March 4th, 1849
12. Zachary Taylor (W-LA): March 4th, 1849-July 9th, 1850
13. Millard Fillmore (W-NY): July 9th, 1850-March 4th, 1853

14. Franklin Pierce (D-NH): March 4th, 1853-March 4th, 1857
15. James Buchanan (D-PA): March 4th, 1857-March 4th, 1861

16. Abraham Lincoln (R-IL): March 4th, 1861-March 4th, 1865
17. Horatio Seymour (D-NY): March 4th, 1865-March 4th, 1869
18. George Hunt Pendleton (D-OH): March 4th, 1869-March 4th, 1873
19. James Asheton Bayard Jr. (D-DE): March 4th, 1873-March 4th, 1877
20. Samuel Jones Tilden (D-NY): March 4th. 1877-March 4th, 1881

21. James Gillespie Blaine (R-ME): March 4th, 1881-March 4th, 1885
22. Stephen Grover Cleveland (D-NY): March 4th, 1885-March 4th, 1889
23. Alfred Thayer Mahan (D-NY): March 4, 1889-March 4, 1897
24. Thomas Brackett Reed (D-ME): March 4th, 1897-December 7th, 1902[2]
25. Marcus Alonzo Hanna (D-OH): December 7th, 1902-February 15th, 1904
26. William McKinley Jr. (D-OH): February 15th, 1904-March 4th, 1909
27. Elihu Root (D-NY): March 4th, 1909-March 4th, 1913
28. Theodore Roosevelt (D-NY): March 4th, 1913-March 4th, 1921

29. Upton Sinclair, Jr. (S-NJ): March 4th, 1921-March 4th, 1929
30. Hosea Blackford (S-DA): March 4th, 1929-March 4th, 1933

31. Herbert Hoover (D-CA): February 1st, 1933-February 1st, 1937
32. Alfred Emanuel Smith Jr. (S-NY): February 1st, 1937-March 27th, 1942[3][4]
33. Charles W. La Follette (S-WI): March 27th, 1942-February 1st, 1945
34. Thomas Edmund Dewey (D-NY): February 1st, 1945-February 1st, 1953
35. Harry S. Truman (D-MO): February 1st, 1953-February 1st, 1961

36. Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (S-MN): February 1st, 1961-February 1st, 1973[5]
37. Joshua Blackford (D-NY): February 1st, 1973-February 1st, 1981[6]
38. Morgan Reynolds (R-BC): February 1st, 1981-February 1st, 1989
39. Leo Enos (S-MA): February 1st, 1989-February 1st, 1993
37. Thurston DeFrancis (D-CA): February 1st, 1993-February 1st, 1997
38. Patrick Gutierrez (R-NM): February 1st, 1997-[7]

Independent
Federalist
Democratic-Republican
Democrat
Whig
Republican
Socialist

[1] First President to die in office.
[2] Died in office.
[3] First Roman Catholic President.
[4] Assassinated
[5] Served more than two terms.
[6] First Jewish President.
[7] First Hispanic President.[/QUOTE]
 
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The Pakistani general staff gets wind of these meetings in December of 1998, and reacts angrily. Marshall Galal Khan, the leader of Pakistan’s military high command, resists calls for him to launch an immediate coup against the government. Khan isn’t opposed to seizing power for himself; however, he is also a realist on Pakistan’s deteriorating strategic situation. He also notes to his subordinates that in the event of Pakistan being forced to sign a peace treaty with their hated enemy, it would be better for Pakistan’s civilian government to be blamed for the failure to achieve victory.

Originally I thought this would be the start of a mini-Weimar/"stab in the back" legend, but I see later on that a military coup rather cut that short.

It also seems that TTL's Ottoman Empire will become their version of OTL Yugoslavia.
 

Abhakhazia

Banned
Great update DBE! I wondered if you'd get it in before the new year but you kept your word.
I have a question, are the Socialists demoralized at all by having been shut out of the White House since 1973? Also could we get some info on the situation in Texas in the 2000s update?
 
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