Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes V (Do Not Post Current Politics Here)

Status
Not open for further replies.
View attachment 541601

Note: for the 18th century conflict waged by the early United States against Great Britain, see American War of Independence

The American Revolutionary War (15 December 1919 - 8 October 1924) was a civil war waged primarily within the territory of the old continental United States between the communist Red Army (also called 'Spartacists', and by their enemies 'reds' and 'wobblies) and the National Army (also called 'loyalists', and by their enemies 'whites' and 'blacklegs') loyal to the rump United States government.

The origins of the war lay in long-simmering class, regional, and racial tensions stemming from the increasing immiseration of large sections of the United States, especially among working class, non-white, and immigrant populations. In the later years of the 19th century, industry and manufacturing became ever-more concentrated in a small number of great cartels, organized through the National Association of Manufacturers. The result was a vast gap between wealthy and poor and building labor unrest which spiked with the Rising of '94, tensions worsened in 1904, when Henry Clay Frick ascended to the presidency on an anti-union, anti-socialist platform, after a heavily contested election in which he and the socialist candidate, Clarence Darrow came within a few thousand votes of one another. The election was thrown to the House of Representatives, which elected Frick. He governed in increasingly autocratic style, packing congress with members of his Law and Justice Party, suppressing strikes and protests with the use of federal troops, and and ultimately suspending national elections of from 1910 through 1918. In 1910 he brought the country into the Great War with the American invasion of Mexico.

By 1918, the country had entered a severe recession, and the war was deeply unpopular. The collapse of the Russian front inspired mass protest in many belligerent nations, and in the United States 'peace and free elections' became the watchword of demonstrators and dissidents. Hoping to defuse tensions, Frick agreed to hold provisional congressional elections in the fall of 1919. The government had expected to emerge with at least a plurality, but the vote returned almost 70% for oppositional parties. When the Frick government attempted to prevent the seating of the 62nd congress, a number of strikes and armed revolts broke out across the nation, and were typically suppressed by federal troops. This is generally marked as the start of the war.

The disorganized insurgency against Frick's increasingly dictatorial regime soon coalesced behind the long-illegal but increasingly popular Industrial Workers of the World under long-time revolutionary William Haywood and the associated American Workingman's Social Democratic Party, whose prestige was greatly enhanced by association with the recent Russian Revolution and Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks. The rebels rapidly seized large swathes of the country, largely concentrated in the northern industrial belt, the midwest, and large urban centers.

The revolutionaries proclaimed an American Federative Soviet Republic in early 1920, and soon affiliated with Soviet Russia to form the International Federation of Soviet Republics. Meanwhile, the Frick regime formed a 'Government of National Union' which sought to concentrate all anti-communist parties and associations under the president's leadership.

Besides the two primary combatants, a number of secessionist and nationalist used the opportunities presented by the chaos of the war to assert independence from any central government.

The course of the war initially favored the National forces, which were professionally and materially far superior to that of the Reds. However, as Europe was engulfed in its own wave of revolutions and Franco-British support to Frick began to dry up, the tide turned in favor of the IFSR. Over the course of five years, the IFSR, which by now controlled all the major industrial centers of the country, and also large areas of the agriculturally critical midwest, strangled the Nationals in a war of attrition. In 1923, the Red Army captured New Orleans, cutting off the primary artery through which the Allies funneled arms and other matériel to Frick. The war is generally considered to have ended in October of 1924, when National general Douglas MacArthur surrendered to Ernest Hemingway at Pittsburgh. Many supporters of the Nationals fled the country, while those who stayed found themselves imprisoned or executed by the victorious Reds. However, guerrilla actions and sabotage continued for nearly a decade afterwards, primarily staged from Canada and Mexico.

The war is notable for the extreme brutality and terror employed by both sides, which left anywhere from an estimated 300,000 to 1,000,000 dead. The National government's white terror was primarily directed against known communists, organized labor, blacks, and recent immigrants suspected of radical sympathies. The red terror targeted property owners, pre-war policemen and military officers, government officials, and sometimes rival left-wing groups.

The American Revolutionary War and the concurrent Russian conflict, along with the European revolutions unfolding at the same time, are sometimes considered various theaters of a single 'International Civil War'. This interpretation is especially common in official soviet historiography. Indeed, the forces fighting in America and in Russia were technically under the unified command of the IFSR, and de jure part of the same Red Army. Global conditions prevented any but the broadest coordination between the leaders of the RSFSR and AFSR, but the precedent set for cooperation between the IFSR's various republics would be built upon in the inter-war years.

The end of the conflict found the IFSR a pariah state, thanks to its sponsorship of revolutionary movements in Europe, and its openly declared aim to 'overthrow world capitalism and liberate all colonial and semi-colonial peoples of the earth'. The next two decades would see a low-intensity Cold War between the IFSR and a growing coalition of European states headed by the United Kingdom (later also by France and Nazi Germany) which consisted primarily of proxy conflicts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and finally culminated in the eruption of the Second Great War in 1942.
Just want to say that I love this! Also Henry Frick was a badass IRL and it's pretty cool to see him be president here. This is a really cool scenario 👍
 
From my 'The Inevitable Revolution' TL

1587705180775.png
 

Deleted member 81475

JBesHN3.png


Mondalepunk

Vice President Walter Mondale announces a nigh unprecedented primary challenge to the increasingly unpopular President Carter, and without Chappaquiddick or any botched interviews with Roger Mudd hanging around his neck, he actually manages to win. He picks Carter friend and Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus as his running mate in an attempt at patching things up with a bitter Jimmy, but the damage is done and Reagan is expected to sweep just around every state, especially after he picks former South Carolina Governor Jim Edwards as his running mate in a blatant appeal to the south post-palace coup. Then someone blows the whistle on Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey having supposedly arranged a meeting with the Iranians via arms dealer and the vice president just about murders him for it at one mess of a debate.

Even so, nobody believes it when Fritz and Cece pull the thing off. It's going to be a strange four years for a party which has just lost the south for yet another generation.
 
JBesHN3.png


Mondalepunk

Vice President Walter Mondale announces a nigh unprecedented primary challenge to the increasingly unpopular President Carter, and without Chappaquiddick or any botched interviews with Roger Mudd hanging around his neck, he actually manages to win. He picks Carter friend and Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus as his running mate in an attempt at patching things up with a bitter Jimmy, but the damage is done and Reagan is expected to sweep just around every state, especially after he picks former South Carolina Governor Jim Edwards as his running mate in a blatant appeal to the south post-palace coup. Then someone blows the whistle on Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey having supposedly arranged a meeting with the Iranians via arms dealer and the vice president just about murders him for it at one mess of a debate.

Even so, nobody believes it when Fritz and Cece pull the thing off. It's going to be a strange four years for a party which has just lost the south for yet another generation.
Is the colors being switched a mistake or a part of the TL?
 
Here's another bit of significant Chinese cinema from the same TL as this.

*

1587769228573.png


Freedom (Chinese: 自由, pinyin: Ziyóu) is a 1999 Chinese documentary produced and directed by Wang Luxiang, who had directed the six-part documentary River Elegy eleven years prior. The film discussed the nature of democratic Chinese society since the Tiananmen Square Revolution, being released 10 years to the day after the announcement by then-President Zhao Ziyang of China’s new democratic constitution, on the 28th May 1999.

In the film, Wang sought to outline how he felt the issues with China’s society and culture which he originally criticized in River Elegy had and had not been addressed by national and provincial governments since then. He also conducted a large number of interviews with members of the public across China about their impression of the new system, and activists involved with political campaigns like Tibetan independence, trade union infrastructure, gay rights (at the time, homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized and was still classified as a mental illness) and civil rights movements to redress injustices towards non-Han ethnic groups.

What is often considered most impressive about the documentary, however, is the many senior contemporary politicians and figures involved with the student protests and the government who Wang secured interviews with, including former President Zhao Ziyang, then-current President Jiang Zemin, senior Kuomintang members such as Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, Progressive Party figures including Liu Xiaobo, Chai Ling and Huang Qi, Economic Liberal leader in the National Congress Li Keqiang, Communist leader Chen Kuiyan and Loyalist leader Luo Gan.

The documentary was widely praised by Chinese critics for its candidness and explicit acknowledgement by many subjects of the failings of the authoritarian regime, with Zhao Yan of Reference News noting that it ‘provides an incredibly important and insightful historical record of contemporary China’, and an editorial from Wenhui Bao describing it as ‘a sign that though China may still have many, many societal problems, it has come leaps and bounds in the past decade in that all of us as a society may freely acknowledge and try to redress them’ (perhaps an unsurprising position for a newspaper shut down three times during the dictatorial regime). It also won that year’s Hundred Flowers Award for Best Documentary.

In early 2000, the film entered the international film circuit, and won several awards for documentaries at Western film festivals as well as being praised by several international world leaders. Its legacy has been highly significant in discussions of democracy and political discourse in China, and it along with River Elegy was instrumental in Wang winning the first Golden Rooster Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005.
 
Last edited:
the idea of a dual-revolution in america and russia is very interesting tho

you should consider developing this tl

I am actually working on fleshing it out! I have a bit worked out, though not nearly the whole thing.

Just want to say that I love this! Also Henry Frick was a badass IRL and it's pretty cool to see him be president here. This is a really cool scenario 👍

Frick was certainly a tough bastard, if not the nicest guy on the block.
 
Cross-posting from my story.
For related races, see 2000 United States Elections
[wikibox]2000-general(real).png

The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. The Democratic ticket of businesswoman Anna Tachibana and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold defeated incumbent Republican President Jack Kemp and his running mate, Vice President Richard Lugar. It is considered one of the closest elections in US history. [2][3] Tachibana became the first female president, the first Asian-American president. the youngest president elected, and the first president with neither public service nor military experience. Russ Feingold became the first Jewish Vice President.

With former President Bill Clinton declining to run again and former Vice President Bob Kerrey being sidelined by scandal[4], the Democratic nomination was seen as wide-open.[5][6] Tachibana was widely regarded as a dark horse with little chance,[7] but would manage to upset a wide Democratic field. Primary opponent Russ Feingold was chosen as her running mate. President Kemp would defeat insurgent primary challenger, Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina with relative ease. Tachibana ran on an economically populist platform, attacking Kemp's economic policy, emphasizing her business experience, promising to create green jobs, increased health coverage, a national dividend, and immigration reform. Kemp ran on social and economic conservatism, and talks with the Soviet Union while attacking Tachibana's lack of political experience. The Reform Party nominated political commentator Pat Buchanan and economist Pat Choate. The Reform Party did significantly worse than it did in 1996, failing to gain at least 5 percent of the national vote.[8] 1996 nominee, former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm blamed the poor result on Buchanan's behavior during the campaign.[9] Meanwhile, both major-party candidates focused on domestic issues such as taxes, balancing the budget, the national debt, and Social Security. Foreign issues, such as maintaining stability after the Third Balkan War and nuclear talks with the Soviet Union were also debated. Kemp's handling of the economy faced criticism, especially after the Dot-com Panic and Enron Scandal[10][11][12] in August. Kemp attempted to paint Tachibana as being unexperienced, while she deflected by citing her business experience and attacking his tenure.

On election night, it was unclear who had won, with the of the state of Pennsylvania still undecided. After a week of recounts, Tachibana prevailed in Pennsylvania, winning its 23 electoral votes and the election. Tachibana would win Pennsylvania by 5,228 votes, or a margin of 0.11 percent.[13] Ultimately, she won the Electoral College by 291 electoral votes and the popular vote by about 0.1 percent. Tachibana's success was due to her strength in the Midwest and Northeast, while also flipping previously Republican Pacific states such as California, Oregon, and Washington.
 
JBesHN3.png


Mondalepunk

Vice President Walter Mondale announces a nigh unprecedented primary challenge to the increasingly unpopular President Carter, and without Chappaquiddick or any botched interviews with Roger Mudd hanging around his neck, he actually manages to win. He picks Carter friend and Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus as his running mate in an attempt at patching things up with a bitter Jimmy, but the damage is done and Reagan is expected to sweep just around every state, especially after he picks former South Carolina Governor Jim Edwards as his running mate in a blatant appeal to the south post-palace coup. Then someone blows the whistle on Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey having supposedly arranged a meeting with the Iranians via arms dealer and the vice president just about murders him for it at one mess of a debate.

Even so, nobody believes it when Fritz and Cece pull the thing off. It's going to be a strange four years for a party which has just lost the south for yet another generation.

The butterflies here - on the conservative movement and the rightward tack of the GOP during and since Reagan, are fascinating and extra ordinary! Really interesting box thank you!
 
Did a pair of wikiboxes for the election game History Has Its Eyes on Someone Else, which as of this moment reached the year 1808.

Born a slave and given the soul of a free man, Toussaint Louverture rose from a slave and a plantation coachman to one of the most important leaders of the Saint-Domingue Rebellion, the largest slave revolt since the War of Spartacus. A literate man and an extraordinarily capable general, admired by allies and feared by foes as "the man who makes an opening everywhere", his manifold leadership saved the gains of the first black insurrection of 1791 and repelled the French and the Spanish. A revolutionary spirit with an almost idiosyncratic story of life, Toussaint Louverture cooperated with the United States in the Uncivil War, expecting the island to be secured as an independent Black Republic - however, when the island of Hispaniola was given away to the Americans under the Treaty of Ghent, Toussaint Louverture left for the island's old metropole, vowing to never set foot on Hispaniola again until it became "rightful French territory". Toussaint quickly emerged as a minor celebrity in Sieyes' France, referred to as "le Spartacus noir" , and was elected to the Conservative Senate (though he was quite more to the left of Sieyes and his allies). He passed away in 1815 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.

zppbut.png


***​

The 1804 United States presidential election was the fifth quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, November 2, to Wednesday, December 5, 1804. The Federalist candidate, Vice President John Marshall, narrowly defeated Republican Robert R. Livingston of New York. It was the first presidential election conducted following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reformed procedures for electing presidents and vice presidents.

As President John Jay retired at the end of his fourth term, Marshall was narrowly nominated by his party's congressional caucus over Former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton of New York, who was subsequently nominated for Vice President. The Republican Party's congressional caucus saw Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Robert R. Livingston, the "most powerful Republican in Washington" at the time, beat out Congressman Levi Lincoln Sr. of Massachusetts for the presidential nomination. Congressman Matthew Lyon of Kentucky (previously Vermont), who was imprisoned during the Alien and Sedition Acts, became Livingston's running mate.

John Jay's fifteen year long Federalist administration had a mixed reception; while Jay's fourth term saw America decisively win the Uncivil War and secure a very favorable peace, many American voters - particularly in Pennsylvania and the rural South - were alienated by particularly unpopular Federalist laws, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Whiskey and Direct Taxes, which were ultimately dismantled by Congress in 1800. The Federalists were buoyed by a growing economy and considerable territorial gains in the Treaty of Ghent, and identified the Republicans with the violence of the French Revolution and the brutality of the Franco-Spanish army; the Republicans, for their part, denounced the Federalists over the Jay administration's infrigements on civil liberties, Anglophilia, and the brutal putdown of the Whiskey Protest in 1796.

In the end, John Marshall was elected President with 91 electoral votes as the Federalists swept New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Despite running a largely anemic campaign, the Livingston/Lyon ticket won 67 electoral votes and 7 states, with 5 electors in Virginia and 2 electors in Maryland voting for Livingston. The 1804 presidential election continued the trend of Republicans' share of the vote growing, with Republicans solidifying their holdings in the South and Pennsylvania and winning both houses of Congress.

qvv290.png
 
Last edited:
The Rising Sun Casts the Longest Shadows
Great Asian War
Sydney Raid
Third United Front


6C0CDD23-B445-4E3E-9145-2E939AC05690.png
64567E01-D69F-4902-963B-9E7662BC5C69.png


"The American strikes on the German Armies in the West undoubtedly hastened the end of WWII. and demonstrated the efficacy of nuclear weapons. The British had been forwarned, the Soviets knew thanks to their spy network, but the Japanese were caught totally off guard. What had previously been minor programs would overnight become of vital importance to the Empire." - Marcus Little, Manhatten, and What Followed


"The internal struggle between the Army and Navy in Japan long predated the Nuclear Arms race, but it undoubtedly hurt them both. The branches competed for both experts and material and only slowed the process. Had F-Go and Ni-Go been united Japanese Nuclear development may have been faster by a matter of years. It was the Army, buoyed by continued domination of the cabinet, that would reach the goal first. By 1957 the Navy's first successful test was little more than a footnote, notable more for its relative to Australia than who had built the bomb in question." - Grace Gold, Yellow Peril and Yellowcake: A History of the Australian Nuclear Program.

"The Other Powers have noted the utility of nuclear devices in military operations against enemy armies and as deterrence. It is unclear whether or not they have conceived of the possible applications in internal security." - Imperial Army Memo


FF9BED28-B2DF-45FA-B0A9-C5679ABE5F34.png


"1955 started on a high note for Japan. The Columbo Conference marked some degree of acceptance from the Western colonial powers, and detente with the Harriman Administration, provoked in part by their entrance into the nuclear club, was going well. But fighting on the fringes and in rural areas of China remained a concern, and events would prove even the coastal cities were not pacified.” - Phan Vân Trang, Cold War Nuclear Policy in East Asia.

“Wenzhou had always been apart from even the rest of China. Cut off by a mountainous region, the local language was neigh incomprehensible even to those from nearby areas. During the Japanese Invasions, it had been used a code language by resistance. It is no surprise than that efforts to make Japanese the sole language of the city’s schools, even as it was nominally ruled by Chinese officials, were met with fierce resistance. Yet the Japanese were caught off guard by the massive urban uprising.” - Claire Dubois, The Chinese Wars of Independence

“Due to the events that ended the rebellion and Japanese censorship during it, little is known of Wenzhou’s leadership or organization when it was in revolt. Some arms were supplied by the National Liberation Army, and the rebels did acknowledge Mao as head of National Resistance. A large percentage of the city did fight, enough to overwhelm the garrison, but the line between soldier and civilian is even blurrier than normal.” - Ronald Cooper, Mao

“A month of fighting had proven local collaborationist forces and even adjacent Imperial ones unable to take the city. Although reinforcements were sent, and bloody gains made, Wenzhou was proving a costly nut to crack. So it was to become an example.” - Yul Smith, China in the Cold War

D7D86A51-459C-4F18-9CA2-FA7A57053B2C.png


“Death tolls, like so much else about the uprising, are hard to determine. Japan, once the extent of the international backlash was clear, refused to make counts, and internal records are missing. So historians are left on their own to find their numbers.” - Henry Grant, Wenzhou Graves

“Within three days of the application of Ni-Go device the rebellion has gone. An expansion of the use of nuclear devices against insurgents should be strongly considered.” - Imperial Army Memo

“The only people who should be allowed to govern countries with nuclear weapons are mothers, those who are still breast-feeding their babies.” -Tsutomu Yamaguchi (OTL)
 
hbPMHHm.png

Aethernauts - The Thrid War of the Canadas

The beginnings of the Third War of the Canadas were fairly typical by the standard of the ever ongoing conflict between The Commonwealth and the American Empire: The Empire, wracked by scandal, turned to the old standby of waging war on it s long term rival to distract the public with battle and glory. However, the Third War of the Canadas would turn out to be so much more than just a “simple” war of “bread and Circuses”; coming at a crucial moment in the ongoing aetherial Scramble, the war would spread far from its terrestrial bounds, spreading into the stars itself, the deciding battle ultimately occurring far from the lands in question. The war would see the introduction of maturation of several new weapons, the development of new styles of warfare, and saw rapid growth in aetherial military power; most importantly, it revealed just how intertwined the world was becoming, as what should have been an isolated conflict between two powers almost triggered a global conflagration.

The lead up to Third War began in 1878, as the Empire was wracked by several scandals: The Bouchard-Daft Affair had just recently resulted in the resignation of Minister of Electricity, the Palensave Scandal had brought negative press to the ongoing Social Fitness Program, a series of crashes had brought the nations rail network into crisis, and there was in general doubt about the success of the Imperial Scientific Society; support for the Crockett Government was increasingly shaky, and even the popularity of Emperor Richard IV was suffering leading to rumours that the Stuart-Calvets may have been preparing to challenge for the throne. On top of all this, the “Great Celestial Expansion” had wracked up great debt, as the cost of the massive colonisation of Ganymede and Callisto quickly outstripped any of the meagre returns coming from the colonies.

Surrounded on all side by forces of instability, Richard IV and Prime Minister Crockett turned to a tired and true method: War. Their target was what was left of the Commonwealth Canadian Territories; in the wake of the Second War of the Canadas, the Commonwealth had peen pushed to the west of the Northern Rockies, occupying a strip on Pacific coast running between Russian Alyáska in the north and Japanese America in the south; the former territories west of the Rockies had been transformed into the Saskatchewan Protectorate, a nominally “independent” buffer state that was an imperial vassal in everything but name. Imperial business interests, who had near free reign in the protectorate an had been mercilessly exploiting its resources, had been pushing for years to drive the Commonwealth into the sea, while the Imperial Group, an prominent grouping of lectures and teachers from the Avalon Imperial War College, had been promoting the conquest of Commonwealth Canada as to completely surround Japanese America and another step closer to complete hegemony over the entirety of North America. The target seemed simple, offered new sources of resources and markets, served to further long term Imperial goals, would give the public something to cheer about and would be another blow to their long time enemy: in other words, it was perfect. Richard IV signed the order,and a quiet buildup of troops began immediately.

Unfortunately for the empire, after two hundred years of such events the Commonwealth was well aware of the signs; it was obvious the Empire would attack, and Canada seemed the perfect target. The Commonwealth Military began quiet perpetration immediately: Mountain passes were mined, new fortifications dug in, while additional troops and weapons were brought up from Australia. As well, Lord Protector Junius Duffery ordered Admiral of the Aether Hunter Marsden to draw up plans to wage wholesale war on the Empires atherial holdings; at the time, a campaign of such magnitude had never been attempted, but Marsden, at the helm of the largest fleet of atherial warcraft in history, felt confident in the ability of his forces. In the meantime, Prime Minister Roscoe Armstrong reached out to several potential allies, most successfully with the native Free Nations, a resistance group that had been operating in the Saskatchewan Protectorate, as well as planning a series of economic actions that could have had the potential to severely cripple the Empires economy.

War came, as predicted, the next year, as the Empire, supported by its “allies” the British Free State, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of Ireland, marched troops across the Rockies, while a fleet of ships sortied from Northern California. The land campaign had a varying amount of success: Imperial mountain units managed to force some of the passes in the south, with great casualties, while strikes further north were repelled. Limited to just a few passes through the mountains, the Imperial advanced slowed as supply lines were stretched, although they were still able to take the city of Port Fairfax; the naval campaign fared better, with the Imperial Pacific Fleet destroying the Commonwealth Canadian Squadron in detail.

The Commonwealths response was immediate, but not as expected: on the 23rd of July, a flight of Imperial registered Treasure Shells carrying precious metals from Ganymede were overtaken by a Commonwealth Atherial Navy bombnaught in deep ather between Mars and Jupiter and captured complete; on the same day, two more outbound Treasure Shells and an Imperial Navy cutter were intercepted and destroyed in orbit around the moon. The Commonwealths atherial campaign had begun.

The initial attacks were a surprise to Imperial High Command, who had expected a greater response from terrestrial forces, but were regarded as aside show to the main conflict on Earth; however, while the empire continued to win slow victories on the Earth, their losses in the aether rapidly grew. The battle on Earth was not going as easy as expected either: the Commonwealth had introduced several weapons they had developed for combat in the colonies, including armoured “Crawlers” that had originally been designed for service on Mars; the Crawlers, armed with cannons and machine guns, contributed significantly to the Commonwealth victory in the Battle of Jervis.

By the end of 1879, the Commonwealth moved from simple commerce raiding to active attacks on American colonial holdings; Commonwealth Colonial Service troops launched attacks on American water mines on the Northern Martian Ice Cap, while Commonwealth marines seized the American controlled minor world of New Scilly, itself a world sized of the Five Italies in a Imperial punitive campaign six years previously. The loses occurred by the Empire in the Atherial Front were increasingly disproportionate compared to the Commonwealth,and caused great argument in the war council: the Army argued that the aetherial battles were a side show, and that the Empire could achieve victory purely on Earth, while the Navy and Science board counted that the loss of the colonies would massively outstrip any gain made from conquering Canada. Eventually it was the Emperors intervention that altered the focus of the Imperial campaign from conquest of Canada to defence of the colonies; the massive colonisation project had been Richards brainchild, and were the cornerstone of his legacy,a swell as being important to the Imperial Scientific Society.

Unfortunately for the Empire, this shift in focus did little to alleviate their losses in the aether: while the Empire had focused almost exclusively on colonisation efforts, seizing huge tracts of the other worlds, the Commonwealth had focused on the development of its Aetherial Navy, seeing control of the ather as analogous as control of the seas. The Commonwealth Aetherial Navy outnumbered the Imperial Navy three to one in bombnaughts and close to five to one in cutters and other small craft; as well, the Atherial Navy's bombnaughts included 500 inch vessels such as the Voyager class, while the Imperial navy as limited to 300 inch craft capable of being lofted by civil stage-cannons. The massive disparity in forces caused great embarrassment to the Imperial Navy, who embarked on a crash program to develop and build a 500 inch stage-cannon in Panama to loft equivalent ships.

With the focus off the ground campaign, the battle on the coast slowed, while a new battle developed in the Saskatchewan Protectorate, as the Free Nation sparked native uprisings across the region. These uprisings threatened the Imperial supply lines, forcing them to pull back troops to police the territory. With their main supply lines threatened, the Empire attempted to negotiate with the Japanese Empire to utilise the rail lines running through Japanese America; when the Japanese refused, preferring to maintain their neutrality, an Imperial force, made up mostly of Irish and British regiments, attempted to seize the northernmost line to run supplied through to Port Fairfax; to this day, it is not know if the attack had been per-mediated, was conducted on the local units own volition, or was simply a mistake, but the results were all the same: Japan immediately declared war on the Empire, allying with the Commonwealth.

While the front on earth was expanding, the battle in the aether was starting to even out: the Imperial Navys crash construction program had seen a dozen new bombnaughts launched; while still on 300 inch, they served to even the numbers with the Commonwealth. Battles raged across the Jupiter system, both in the aether, as well as on the Jovian worlds. The Empire contracted the support of the Ghealach Brotherhood, a militant group of Martian Irish who had long been a thorn in the Commonwealths side, and set them to launching attacks throughout the red planet; at the same time, the Commonwealth made contact with the Free Sons of Ganymede, a rebel army made up of convict colonists, and instigated a rebellion in three of the Ganymede colonies. The rapid growth, the constant fighting in the colonies and the ongoing threat of Commonwealth commerce raiders had put a great strain on the Imperial economy, with collapse only being put off by continuous emergency measures.

While it appeared the Empire had been getting all the bad luck in the conflict, The Commonwealth was suffering too: while better prepared for an aetherial war, it still put a strain n it economy, while all the focus of effort left the door open to other forces to take advantage, first and foremost being the French and Austrians, who challenged to Glass Tax on Mars and attempted to tear down the customs line. The Ottomans and Brazil both took an opportunity to seize control of several minor worlds,as well as claim several Venusian floating islands, while Prussia actively countered Commonwealth attempts to completely control the Martian Ice Pack; this conflict would eventually lead to Prussia declaring war on The Commonwealth, allying with the Empire, which resulted in the Union of Germanic Kingdoms, concerned with Prussian aggression, allying with the Commonwealth; this would result in Prussia launching an attack on German holdings over Venus, which would inadvertently draw in the Spanish Republic, which sided in The Commonwealth, which resulted in the Empire launching an invasion of the Republic of the Floridas, a Spanish ally. After all this, the Korean Empire, sensing chance to strike while its greatest enemy, the Japanese,were distracted, also allied with the Empire, launching attacks on the Home Islands as well as against Japanese holdings on Mercury. Half the world was now at war.

By 1881 exhaustion was starting to show: the aether had been stalemated, the Commonwealths superior ships being counted by the Empires superior industrial capability, while the ground war, almost forgotten, had ground to a halt, the one new change when an attempt to flank the Commonwealth forces Fromm the north resulted in an Imperial force accidental attacking a Russian village, drawing the Union of All Russia into the war allied with the Commonwealth. A rebellion in the Quebec Protectorate, instigated by the French Empire, caused further setbacks, as more troops had to be recalled to put down the uprising.

Looking to break the stalemate any way possible, the Commonwealth turned to economic warfare; risking a major hit to the economy, the Commonwealth Government banned the sale of Mercury and Sulphuric acid to any business or outfit that might eventually sell on to powers “deemed hostile to the Commonwealth”; at the time, The Commonwealth produced seventy percent of they worlds mercury; essential to the mercury boilers that were used for generating power from the sun; and fifty percent of the worlds Sulphuric acid, used in the fuel cells and atherirte charges that powered many aethercraft. Through wholesale to a number of global firms, the Commonwealth was inadvertently providing the Empire with nearly two-thirds its annual requirement of the two materials, an oversight which had become apparent upon an in depth investigation of potential economic weapons. The embargo effectively halted the Empires military construction, and put server limits on its fleets, as their fuel supplies had to be carefully rationed.

The Commonwealth embargo was the major turning point of the war: with their enemies fleets trapped in port, the Commonwealth Aether Navy ranged far and wide, overwhelming the Imperial forces wherever they found them. Through a combination of combat and fuel shortages, the Imperial military presence around Jupiter was whittled away, until finally the flagship of the Imperial Jovian Fleet, HMS Enterprise, was destroyed by the Commonwealth bombnaught CNS Vampire, leaving the Jovian colonies completely at the the commonwealths mercy. Distraught at the possible loss of “his” colonies, Richard IV ordered his forces to cease operations, and instructed his government to sue for peace; the Armistice of Manila was signed four days latter, ending the war.

With the Commonwealth in undisputed control of Jupiter, it dictated the terms of peace: The Empire was to withdraw from Commonwealth Canada, and the Saskatchewan Protectorate was to be granted its actual independence; as well, the Ganymede colonies seized by the Free Sons of Ganymede were to be granted independence as a Commonwealth Protectorate. Japan demanded, and received, Oriacion Territory, expanding their American possessions southward, while the Russians only requested monetary remuneration for the destruction cause to their Alyáska territory; other nations would sign their own treaties. It wasn't all loss for the Empire: the failed rebellion in Quebec was all excuse the Empire needed to forcefully integrate the Protectorate into a full domain of the Empire, while their conquest of Florida was complete. These gains, however, were little comfort in the face of the colossal debt and loss of face the Empire had experienced: for the first time in sixty years, it had been defeated by its oldest enemy, and near overwhelmingly so.

The unpreparedness of the Imperial Navy to contest the aether, as well as the embarrassment the revelation their enemy had been supplying much of their most critical resources for years, were too much for the proud people of the Empire, who demanded someone be held accountable: Richard IV obliged them, firing Crockett and his entire government and effectively ending the Imperial Scientific Society. This attempt to deflect all the blame was ultimately not enough; he was dethroned two year later, challenged and replaced by Charles V of the Stuart-Calvets. With the end of the Imperial Scientific Society came great upheavals in Imperial society, as the new framework upon which their nation was being built was torn away and exposed, revealing dark horrors an unimaginable crimes that would almost lead to civil war; many of those closest to the the top, Richard IV included, were ultimately exiled.

The Commonwealth, on the other hand, exulted in its victory; it was now the undisputed power of the cosmos, with unmatched military force and economic power. Its tactics of aether control and intercept revolutionised war in the aether, and dircetly led to the start of the aether arms race; although it was top dog now, that position would be challenged by others, with France, Brazil and the Ottomans all waiting in the wings. Having shown the way, the Commonwealth would ultimately find it expensive to stay at the top, its victory ultimately trapping it in a seemingly never ending cycle of military and colonial expansion, as it desperately attempted to avoid befalling the same fate that had lead to their greatest victory over their oldest foe.
 
Last edited:
A Slightly Different Japan
सुकॊशि छिगॏ निहॊन

Japan Infobox.png

In this world Japan is very much almost identical to the one we know, but the only major difference is that instead of the Japanese inventing the writing scripts Hiragana and Katakana and using Kanji to show Chinese characters, they instead adopt the Devanagari script due to many Japanese Buddhist monks using it along with the writing script Siddham to write not only in Sanskrit but also Japanese as well.

This results in the Japanese adopting the Devanagari script, making their own identical version called Indogana, which is essentially both a abugida and a syllabary. Thus the Japanese language in this world is entirely different by appearance in writing, but still sounds the exact same when spoken by tongue. Only difference that separates it from the rest of the languages that use the Devanagari script is that Japanese books (mangas included) are still read from right to left, despite the fact Indogana is written from left to right horizontally (I mean it practically impossible to write Sanskrit (Devanagari script to be precise when writing Sanskrit) vertically from top to bottom), just like how Hindustani, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, and Punjabi are written or typed out as on a typewriter or keyboard.

That said with a Japan that uses Devanagari, this means that there is even a version for Ryukyuan languages like Okinawan and for the language Ainu.

In sense one could argue that in this world, Japan wanted to be more different from China and Korea when it came to writing. And bear in mind the Japanese in this world did used to use Chinese writing script during ancient times up until the 5th century AD, when Buddhist monks introduced Devanagari script to Japan.

Indogana Infobox.png

(Here in this alternate wikibox above, shows the vowels, consonants, and diacritics used in Indogana. As you can see is almost very identical to Devanagari script, with only a few vowels and consonants being different)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top