That reminds me of the World Health Organization in Project Itoh's novel "Harmony," where the WHO functions in the super-state role that the UN typically occupies in science fiction. Government is run by 'admedistrations.' The author, Itoh, was dying from terminal cancer when he wrote it, and poured everything he hated about Japanese healthcare into it.
An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
- Start date
- Status
That reminds me of the World Health Organization in Project Itoh's novel "Harmony," where the WHO functions in the super-state role that the UN typically occupies in science fiction. Government is run by 'admedistrations.' The author, Itoh, was dying from terminal cancer when he wrote it, and poured everything he hated about Japanese healthcare into it.
Does anyone remember the title of the cyberpunk novel which had something like that? A mad scientist had invented a drug which put human aging on pause for a year per dose and broke down too quickly once metabolized to be extracted and reverse-engineered, kept the formula to themselves and effectively blackmailed the entirety of civilization for regular doses to get appointed emperor.
There have been ideologies whose plans for the future are basically a combination of pyramid scheme and 'God'll change the rules before the consequences kick in' before. The 'it doesn't matter if we pollute and expend all natural resources now since the Rapture is coming' crowd for one. So basically a theocracy with roko's basilisk as an actual religion isn't entirely new.
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tehskyman
Banned
EBR Approved
United States and Cities of America
As I awaited my contact, I looked over San Francisco Bay, sipping on a maté I had bought from a cafe nearby. The American dollars that I had in my wallet were accepted, though the cashier had given me a strange glance when I handed them over to her. It seemed she wasn't used to seeing Andrew Jackson on the bill. Like in so many other incarnations of the city, San Francisco was at the heart of a bustling metropolis, one of many within the United States . Apartments and dense row houses climbed the hills north and south of the bay and in a somewhat unique twist, the Golden Gate Bridge had a Twin to the west.
After quite some time, and my growing impatience, my contact, Councillor Julian Nowak from the Democratic Urbanist Party finally arrived. A swarthy older man with graying brown hair, he apologized profusely for the delay and after ordering a coffee for himself, and offering some food, to which I politely declined, we began the interview.
"So where do you want me to begin? Do you want to you how this all works or how we got here?" I asked for the history first and Wang began.
"Well it all started at the very beginning. When the founding fathers started this country, the largest city in the country only had 33000 people. And as brilliant as they were, our founding fathers could not have seen the future when they wrote the constitution. All they knew was an agrarian society, not this world of technology and megapoli. So over time, the old congress became more and more deadlocked. Cities and the hinterlands had different needs, and subsequently began to vote for different parties. Cities want no guns, the hinterlands needed theirs. Cities needed higher taxes to support the infrastructure that kept things moving. Rural areas are largely self sufficient. The polarized nature of our politics became so toxic and so unworkable that nothing could get done. Can you imagine the corn fields of Iowa having the same needs as this city?"
He gestured to the city around us. I shook my head politely.
"That's how this began. People began to realize that basic fact. America was actually 2 separate nations, sharing the same state and the same system of government. At the very least we needed two separate systems. Some even advocated for progressive states to leave America. This was just hiding the true conflict though, between rural and urban. Of course at the very beginning, this was just a crazy idea, floating around the back-pages of the internet. But then, someone posted it on their blog. That blog post got picked up by a bigger newssite and went viral, 'Bi-Federalism: Solving the America's Political Deadlock'. That same year, someone from the old Democratic party ran on it in their primary campaign. They didn't get very far, dropped out before the first big elections but the idea just kept growing. And within 10 years, we had politicians from across the country calling for a new Constitutional Convention. It grew so quickly because people recognized the fundamental fact of the matter, as a country we were stronger together, but couldn't live with each other. There were a couple of attempts to get everyone to the table. As you can imagine many were opposed, and some are still opposed to this day, but 16 years after that blog post was written, a new Convention was convened. It took alot of wrangling, and negotiations and it was tough with the media on your back all the time but after 3 years, we came out with a brand new constitution."
So what exactly did the new constitution do?
"Well most importantly, it reaffirmed the most important freedoms that Americans would enjoy"
Did that include the right to bear arms?
"No. The cities would never agree to it and the states could just put it in their own constitution. Well, after that, we reorganized the federal government. The House of Representatives would become two separate houses, each one responsible for their respective parts of America. The House of Representatives for the States and the House of Councilors for Federal Cities. Every state and federal city could vote for two senators, and everyone could vote for the President. A couple of departments would be managed by the Senate but most of the bureaucracy was delegated to the two Houses. Anything affecting the entire country had to be approved by all 3 houses of Congress, otherwise it only had to pass in one of the lower houses."
Was that it?
"Yes. That's the beauty of the new Constitution. It recognizes the fundamental differences between urban and rural and lets each decide how to best govern itself. We redrew the borders of course, had to decide where a Federal City ended and the State began. Honestly that took the longest, if it wasn't for redrawing the borders, the convention would've been over in 6 months! Some of the smaller, more liberal states decided to join us and that’s how we ended with 40 States and 40 Federal Cities . That was another sticking point, the cities and the states wanted there to be an equal amount lest one side have an advantage over the other in the Senate. We spent alot of time wrangling on how to get down to 40 cities. Unfortunately had to pair some up."
He went on to describe how the new houses functioned. Federal Cities were represented in House of Councillors, headed by the Chief Councilor. The House of Councilors has 870 seats, where half are allotted by district and the other half by percentage of the total vote across all the cities. Functionally it acted similarly to many of the other parliaments I have encountered throughout the multiverse. The States stuck with the old system, where both the House of Representatives and Senate (only rural Senators though) had to approve of a bill.
So has it worked?
"Look for yourself Mr Chana. In the 20's and 30's, the Federal government, under two rural administrations, was actively fighting the cities. Denying us funding, ignoring critical issues in favor of online spats. That's not to mention how much 45 and 46 cut us off from the world. America's cities thrived on that trade and those years were really hard on us. Now that the cities have decoupled, we've finally been able to push the measures that were deadlocked for so long, rejoin the rest of the world and ignore the petty squabbles between the States. The cities have implemented the economic and environmental policies that allow our citizens to have the highest quality of life in the world! Decoupling ourselves from the hinterlands lets us leave those red-hats behind, perhaps one day they will rejoin us in the 21st century. And it's not as if the States didn't want this either. They despised the cities and still do to this day. You should see the garbage that passes for news in the interior. Of course some want to keep us back, slow progress, reunite with the hinterlands, that we could somehow work with the States now. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the Cities have moved further forward, the States have further regressed."
I slowly drew the interview to a close and bid the Councilor goodbye, it was getting late, the sun setting over the Pacific. The next morning, I took an autotaxi to the Altamont pass, near the border between San Francisco and the State of California. There I met my second interviewee, Ms Elena Silvia, Floor Leader in the House of Councillors for the American Unionist Party. From my research, the American Unionists were the only major party to run in both Federal Cities and the States. She was waiting for me in a pavilion at the top of a hill. Below us Interstate 580 wound through the Altamont hills, connecting the San Joaquin valley to my right and San Francisco Bay to my left. Above our heads, wind turbines turned slowly in the morning breeze.
"Do you know why I have chosen this location Mr Chana?"
I shook my head.
"This is as far as I can go. Do you see that fence? That's the border between the State of California and the Federal City of San Francisco. I was born in Livermore ... "
She pointed to a suburb of San Francisco to my left. The tops of its skyscrapers and apartment blocks glittered in the morning sun.
"... but since my parents were not pre-decoupling citizens or State citizens, the States do not recognize my citizenship and I require an internal visa to go any further. Why? Because we've broken this country. The States and the Cities share nothing except a weak and ineffectual Federal Government. Even the Departments that the Federal government retains are duplicated and overshadowed by their lower house equivalents."
So there were in effect two separate governments.
"Yes Mr Chana. Some would have you believe that we are still one country. That may have been the case in the beginning but no more. When we have internal borders, with separate citizenships, separate laws and even separate currencies, we are no longer a united nation. But our issues and challenges are still those of one nation."
I asked her to elaborate.
"Does the ash from Mt St Helens see borders? Can the rising seas tell the difference between the City of Miami and the State of Florida? No Mr Chana. When Hurricane Valerie devastated the Texas coast and the City of Houston it was impossible to organize a relief team to provide aid on time. Our convoys from Dallas and San Antonio were held up for days as we wrangled with the Texas Governor. Thousands died needlessly both in and outside of Houston because of our internal borders. Look down there Mr Chana, do you see the traffic on I-580"
I looked down and saw trucks backed up for miles on both sides of what was presumably an internal border crossing.
"That's what happens when you put up a fence across an artery of a nation. And that scene is repeated across the country on every interstate out of the cities. Just because our politicians decided to break up the country so they could win super majorities every single cycle doesn't mean that the realities of a single nation ceased to exist. The grain that is grown in the Central Valley isn't going to turn itself into bread. Factories in Chicago cannot will their raw materials into existence. And the States make it incredibly difficult to transport goods across their territory. They don't keep the interstates in good condition and the border crossings make everything a hassle."
Does that affect landlocked cities?
"100% Mr Chana. And if we hadn't build easement highways and federal ports it would have been even worse. In some cases where the states haven't even allowed that, cities have had to build new industrial zones to produce industrial and consumer goods. Those aren't perfect and people experience shortages quite often, especially in the suburban slums. "
Councilor Nowak told me that citizens of the Federal Cities had the highest quality of life in the world.
"That's only technically correct, because "our citizens" don't live in the slums. They're filled with migrants from the States. There simply isn't enough opportunity for them out in the countryside so those poor souls go to Chicago or Memphis or Minneapolis or Kansas City or Raleigh looking for jobs in the factories. Half the time they walk! And we pick them up at a border crossing and stuff them into an apartment block if they're lucky. In some places, we don't have enough building materials and they join the millions we've abandoned in the suburbs. I grew up around those people. Their parents looking for work in this city and abandoned by the government. It's unacceptable what has happened to them. It's also unacceptable what has happened in the States too. The other parties in the House of Representatives is so focused on the 'purity and sanctity of the nation' they cannot be bothered to manage the economy! ”
So what were the American Unionists were going to about it?
"Well Mr Chana, through persuasion and the ballot box of course. The old parties sought to divide the country for their own political gain using their media mouthpieces to agitate against the other side. We're doing the opposite. We're uniting people in both Cities and States and getting the word out. We're getting those migrants the citizenship that they have a right to. We're bringing to light the problems that the internal borders cause. You simply cannot run a country this way. And the other parties refuse to see this. The American Unionist party is the only party that fields candidates in all 3 houses of Congress. We're going to take back the Senate and the Lower Houses from separationists. We'll get one of our own into the Presidency who'll put patriots onto the Supreme Court. With Congress and the Supreme Court in our control, the federal government can claw back its power and make this country whole again."
United States and Cities of America
As I awaited my contact, I looked over San Francisco Bay, sipping on a maté I had bought from a cafe nearby. The American dollars that I had in my wallet were accepted, though the cashier had given me a strange glance when I handed them over to her. It seemed she wasn't used to seeing Andrew Jackson on the bill. Like in so many other incarnations of the city, San Francisco was at the heart of a bustling metropolis, one of many within the United States . Apartments and dense row houses climbed the hills north and south of the bay and in a somewhat unique twist, the Golden Gate Bridge had a Twin to the west.
After quite some time, and my growing impatience, my contact, Councillor Julian Nowak from the Democratic Urbanist Party finally arrived. A swarthy older man with graying brown hair, he apologized profusely for the delay and after ordering a coffee for himself, and offering some food, to which I politely declined, we began the interview.
"So where do you want me to begin? Do you want to you how this all works or how we got here?" I asked for the history first and Wang began.
"Well it all started at the very beginning. When the founding fathers started this country, the largest city in the country only had 33000 people. And as brilliant as they were, our founding fathers could not have seen the future when they wrote the constitution. All they knew was an agrarian society, not this world of technology and megapoli. So over time, the old congress became more and more deadlocked. Cities and the hinterlands had different needs, and subsequently began to vote for different parties. Cities want no guns, the hinterlands needed theirs. Cities needed higher taxes to support the infrastructure that kept things moving. Rural areas are largely self sufficient. The polarized nature of our politics became so toxic and so unworkable that nothing could get done. Can you imagine the corn fields of Iowa having the same needs as this city?"
He gestured to the city around us. I shook my head politely.
"That's how this began. People began to realize that basic fact. America was actually 2 separate nations, sharing the same state and the same system of government. At the very least we needed two separate systems. Some even advocated for progressive states to leave America. This was just hiding the true conflict though, between rural and urban. Of course at the very beginning, this was just a crazy idea, floating around the back-pages of the internet. But then, someone posted it on their blog. That blog post got picked up by a bigger newssite and went viral, 'Bi-Federalism: Solving the America's Political Deadlock'. That same year, someone from the old Democratic party ran on it in their primary campaign. They didn't get very far, dropped out before the first big elections but the idea just kept growing. And within 10 years, we had politicians from across the country calling for a new Constitutional Convention. It grew so quickly because people recognized the fundamental fact of the matter, as a country we were stronger together, but couldn't live with each other. There were a couple of attempts to get everyone to the table. As you can imagine many were opposed, and some are still opposed to this day, but 16 years after that blog post was written, a new Convention was convened. It took alot of wrangling, and negotiations and it was tough with the media on your back all the time but after 3 years, we came out with a brand new constitution."
So what exactly did the new constitution do?
"Well most importantly, it reaffirmed the most important freedoms that Americans would enjoy"
Did that include the right to bear arms?
"No. The cities would never agree to it and the states could just put it in their own constitution. Well, after that, we reorganized the federal government. The House of Representatives would become two separate houses, each one responsible for their respective parts of America. The House of Representatives for the States and the House of Councilors for Federal Cities. Every state and federal city could vote for two senators, and everyone could vote for the President. A couple of departments would be managed by the Senate but most of the bureaucracy was delegated to the two Houses. Anything affecting the entire country had to be approved by all 3 houses of Congress, otherwise it only had to pass in one of the lower houses."
Was that it?
"Yes. That's the beauty of the new Constitution. It recognizes the fundamental differences between urban and rural and lets each decide how to best govern itself. We redrew the borders of course, had to decide where a Federal City ended and the State began. Honestly that took the longest, if it wasn't for redrawing the borders, the convention would've been over in 6 months! Some of the smaller, more liberal states decided to join us and that’s how we ended with 40 States and 40 Federal Cities . That was another sticking point, the cities and the states wanted there to be an equal amount lest one side have an advantage over the other in the Senate. We spent alot of time wrangling on how to get down to 40 cities. Unfortunately had to pair some up."
He went on to describe how the new houses functioned. Federal Cities were represented in House of Councillors, headed by the Chief Councilor. The House of Councilors has 870 seats, where half are allotted by district and the other half by percentage of the total vote across all the cities. Functionally it acted similarly to many of the other parliaments I have encountered throughout the multiverse. The States stuck with the old system, where both the House of Representatives and Senate (only rural Senators though) had to approve of a bill.
So has it worked?
"Look for yourself Mr Chana. In the 20's and 30's, the Federal government, under two rural administrations, was actively fighting the cities. Denying us funding, ignoring critical issues in favor of online spats. That's not to mention how much 45 and 46 cut us off from the world. America's cities thrived on that trade and those years were really hard on us. Now that the cities have decoupled, we've finally been able to push the measures that were deadlocked for so long, rejoin the rest of the world and ignore the petty squabbles between the States. The cities have implemented the economic and environmental policies that allow our citizens to have the highest quality of life in the world! Decoupling ourselves from the hinterlands lets us leave those red-hats behind, perhaps one day they will rejoin us in the 21st century. And it's not as if the States didn't want this either. They despised the cities and still do to this day. You should see the garbage that passes for news in the interior. Of course some want to keep us back, slow progress, reunite with the hinterlands, that we could somehow work with the States now. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the Cities have moved further forward, the States have further regressed."
I slowly drew the interview to a close and bid the Councilor goodbye, it was getting late, the sun setting over the Pacific. The next morning, I took an autotaxi to the Altamont pass, near the border between San Francisco and the State of California. There I met my second interviewee, Ms Elena Silvia, Floor Leader in the House of Councillors for the American Unionist Party. From my research, the American Unionists were the only major party to run in both Federal Cities and the States. She was waiting for me in a pavilion at the top of a hill. Below us Interstate 580 wound through the Altamont hills, connecting the San Joaquin valley to my right and San Francisco Bay to my left. Above our heads, wind turbines turned slowly in the morning breeze.
"Do you know why I have chosen this location Mr Chana?"
I shook my head.
"This is as far as I can go. Do you see that fence? That's the border between the State of California and the Federal City of San Francisco. I was born in Livermore ... "
She pointed to a suburb of San Francisco to my left. The tops of its skyscrapers and apartment blocks glittered in the morning sun.
"... but since my parents were not pre-decoupling citizens or State citizens, the States do not recognize my citizenship and I require an internal visa to go any further. Why? Because we've broken this country. The States and the Cities share nothing except a weak and ineffectual Federal Government. Even the Departments that the Federal government retains are duplicated and overshadowed by their lower house equivalents."
So there were in effect two separate governments.
"Yes Mr Chana. Some would have you believe that we are still one country. That may have been the case in the beginning but no more. When we have internal borders, with separate citizenships, separate laws and even separate currencies, we are no longer a united nation. But our issues and challenges are still those of one nation."
I asked her to elaborate.
"Does the ash from Mt St Helens see borders? Can the rising seas tell the difference between the City of Miami and the State of Florida? No Mr Chana. When Hurricane Valerie devastated the Texas coast and the City of Houston it was impossible to organize a relief team to provide aid on time. Our convoys from Dallas and San Antonio were held up for days as we wrangled with the Texas Governor. Thousands died needlessly both in and outside of Houston because of our internal borders. Look down there Mr Chana, do you see the traffic on I-580"
I looked down and saw trucks backed up for miles on both sides of what was presumably an internal border crossing.
"That's what happens when you put up a fence across an artery of a nation. And that scene is repeated across the country on every interstate out of the cities. Just because our politicians decided to break up the country so they could win super majorities every single cycle doesn't mean that the realities of a single nation ceased to exist. The grain that is grown in the Central Valley isn't going to turn itself into bread. Factories in Chicago cannot will their raw materials into existence. And the States make it incredibly difficult to transport goods across their territory. They don't keep the interstates in good condition and the border crossings make everything a hassle."
Does that affect landlocked cities?
"100% Mr Chana. And if we hadn't build easement highways and federal ports it would have been even worse. In some cases where the states haven't even allowed that, cities have had to build new industrial zones to produce industrial and consumer goods. Those aren't perfect and people experience shortages quite often, especially in the suburban slums. "
Councilor Nowak told me that citizens of the Federal Cities had the highest quality of life in the world.
"That's only technically correct, because "our citizens" don't live in the slums. They're filled with migrants from the States. There simply isn't enough opportunity for them out in the countryside so those poor souls go to Chicago or Memphis or Minneapolis or Kansas City or Raleigh looking for jobs in the factories. Half the time they walk! And we pick them up at a border crossing and stuff them into an apartment block if they're lucky. In some places, we don't have enough building materials and they join the millions we've abandoned in the suburbs. I grew up around those people. Their parents looking for work in this city and abandoned by the government. It's unacceptable what has happened to them. It's also unacceptable what has happened in the States too. The other parties in the House of Representatives is so focused on the 'purity and sanctity of the nation' they cannot be bothered to manage the economy! ”
So what were the American Unionists were going to about it?
"Well Mr Chana, through persuasion and the ballot box of course. The old parties sought to divide the country for their own political gain using their media mouthpieces to agitate against the other side. We're doing the opposite. We're uniting people in both Cities and States and getting the word out. We're getting those migrants the citizenship that they have a right to. We're bringing to light the problems that the internal borders cause. You simply cannot run a country this way. And the other parties refuse to see this. The American Unionist party is the only party that fields candidates in all 3 houses of Congress. We're going to take back the Senate and the Lower Houses from separationists. We'll get one of our own into the Presidency who'll put patriots onto the Supreme Court. With Congress and the Supreme Court in our control, the federal government can claw back its power and make this country whole again."
Federal Cities
- Albuquerque
- Atlanta
- Chicago
- Cincinnati-Dayton
- Cleveland-Pittsburgh
- Dallas
- Denver
- Detroit-Toledo
- Houston
- Kansas City
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles-San Diego
- Louisville-Indianapolis (connected by easement highway 65), also connected by easement interstate to Chicago and Cincinnati
- Memphis
- Miami
- Milwaukee
- Minneapolis
- Nashville
- New Orleans
- New York City
- Philadelphia
- Phoenix
- Portland
- Raleigh-Charlotte
- Salt Lake City
- San Antonio-Austin
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- St Louis
- Tampa Bay-Orlando
- Chesapeake
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Hawaii
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- Puerto Rico
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Jefferson (Eastern Washington & Eastern Oregon)
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- New York State
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
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What does the American Unionist Party stand for outside of reuniting the country and recentralizing the government? Any foreign policy stances they have?
tehskyman
Banned
Well, both Lower Houses have their own Foreign policies/ State departments, though they aren't called the State Department. More like the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Relations Office.
The States are fairly isolationist. They don't have many ports and generally keep to themselves. The Cities are global looking. They are focused on other coastal nations, the Andean nations, west Africa, the Caribbean.
The primary issue of the AU party is reunification. The Cities have largely kept America in the race against other great powers. The primary issue now is that the Cities are experiencing constraints on their growth because of the internal borders. It's probably cheaper and easier to ship something from NYC to San Francisco through the Panama Canal, than through the States at current moment. The Interstates haven't been well maintained and even though many Federal Cities have grown in size and density, there's still no national passenger rail network.
dcd
Banned
True,but the literal INGSOC regime would be interesting...
There's already Kaisserreich and Man in the High Castle,after all.
Or better yet,how about the West Germany from The Man with the Iron Heart?
Kitiem3000
Donor
It still sounds like a workable idea if you get rid of the internal borders. Though I shudder to think how minority rights are faring outside the cities.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Do cities invest in social welfare, while rural areas remain wedded to free-market economics?
tehskyman
Banned
Yes, the cities have a degree of social welfare, far greater than governmental welfare schemes in the States, though religious/private charity makes up some of the gap. Neither the cities or the states remain fully wedded to free-market economics, both have powerful megacorporations which dominate the business environment.
Some cities are more socialist than others. Some of the Midwestern cities like Cleveland, Detroit and St Louis are very socialist largely because the global system has bypassed them in favor of coastal cities like NYC, Boston, Seattle, Houston. Surrounded by the States with air travel being the only convenient way to other cities (and flooded with the young people of the States who emigrate in search of work) the midwestern cities have had to build brand new industrial zones because there isn't a cheap and reliable way to get them from anywhere else.
Maybe I should edit the post to reflect this
Bookmark1995
Banned
This system doesn't seem particularly stable. Instead of a unified market, you have major cities and hinterlands at each others throats, which threatens economic stability.
tehskyman
Banned
Yea thats what happens when you divide a country between it's urban and rural sections and put up a fence.
Government by the North Star
My cover of @robbiej's EEUSG entry, the Dominion of the Latter Song. He actually made this map, I just shifted it to my format and I added some of the PoDs. He also provided the write up. Yes, if you make the map ahead of time, it will get bumped up on my to do list.
- The PoD is 1211, when the Song break the tributary relationship with the Jin at the onset of the Mongol invasion and end up becoming allies with the Mongols.
- Much of the world has picked up its own versions of the tributary system and the great powers maintain their own tributaries (even while paying tribute to China). Those tributaries may be tributaries to China as well.
- By using their status as parts of the Chinese tributary system, many trading nations and entrepots in Asia, East Africa and the Middle East were able to punch well above their weight economically and have maintained that power into the modern day. That blob of tributaries in East Africa are all clients of Mogadishu.
- Many of the great powers of the world are Chinese tributaries even while expanding local empires at China's expense. Paying a nominal tribute to China periodically gives a greater access to Chinese markets and those of the Chinese tributary network, so they go along with it for economic reasons.
- Much of the world follows similar modes of government, culture and fashion to China, Chinese media is consumed all over the world and Mandarin is the most common second language to learn. There's not necessarily a connection between being a Sinicized government and being a tributary of China.
- Most of the colonizing nations of the world were in East Asia or North and West Africa. Mali colonized much of what is now Brazil. China preferred to wield soft power over the native states, so there are still native American empires which survive to the modern day. The Aztecs, for example, maintain a tributary empire of its own (and refuses to let its tributaries pay tribute to anyone else).
- By the same token, the exploitation of Africa was done by co-opting local native states. There are a few African great powers, including Mali.
- Europe is generally poorer than Asia but is becoming more wealthy and with rising living standards. England modernized (or "Sinicized") in the mid 19th century and proceeded on its own campaign of empire building in France, Ireland and Scandinavia - today, it still owns Scotland, Iceland and Greenland, and much of France is English clients, with strong mercantile tendencies across the rest of western Europe.
- Chinese living standards are close to the OTL modern first world in the cities, but get much worse in rural areas. Parts of the Chinese tributary network actually have slightly higher standards of living than China does.
- There are three Romes:
- The Holy Roman Popular Republic, formerly the HRE. The HRE was large, centralized, very poor despite large resource deposits and moving towards Sinicization when it was overthrown by a populist revolution as an explicit reaction against both feudalism and Sinicization. The HRPR has mellowed out somewhat since and adopted elements of bureaucratic rule, but has spread power and clients across Europe and Africa.
- The Roman Republic, formed in the early 20th century as a nationalist union of Italian states, is the first real democracy in the world (in a modern liberal model, but is very corrupt and tends towards kleptocracy). Democracy is seen as a bit of a weird European thing in China, though it has its adherents.
- The the Roman Empire, in Constantinople, is a poor Sinicized autocracy, though foreign investment has put it on the upswing and it is beginning to throw its weight around.
- The four "Lion Nations" are European countries which are rapidly becoming more prosperous thanks to leveraging foreign investment in cheap labor. They include the Roman Empire, Ireland, Novgorod and West Scandinavia (east Scandinavia being a HRPR puppet and massively regressive and corrupt).
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tehskyman
Banned
I've appended and edited my post somewhat, thinking about the issues that the American Unionist Party would stand for.
I think in general the American Unionist party emerged from several parties, all of which were concerned with the inequality and inefficiencies that arise from America's internal borders. These would be the status of minorities in the States, and the status of internal migrants in the cities.
Over time, they have fought for greater integrations within America by as a first step, creating more corridors for railways and highways to allow the federal cities to be better connected. The American Unionist party has also fought for greater river rights to allow trade between cities along the Mississippi. This need grew as States became less and less cooperative with the Cities and implemented more border checks.
I would say that the American Unionist party has been firmly opposed to any semblance of separate nationdom. This includes citizenships for States and City dwellers. Of course officially everyone's an American citizen but the States and Cities maintain separate databases and both sides have refused to integrate their data. Federal Reserve bills are still legal tender but the Cities have generally switched to electronic payments so in the Cities some Unionist politicians make a show of only paying in cash.
Within the States, the Unionists fight to preserve the old federal civil rights protections and to make the states more open to the cities. They also advocate for bringing the States quality of life and standards up to the Cities. This probably means things like whenever the Cities introduce new environmental regulations, they push for those standards within the House of representatives. This does make them viewed with suspicion among certain far-right parts of the States who view the decoupling like cutting off an infected arm and oppose the "decadence and modernity" of the cities.
Lately, the AU party has become more radicalized in favor of ending the bi-federal system and reintegrating. This is in response to natural disasters that the Cities have had to deal with where the response from the States has been less than helpful. I think that other parties advocating for full independence from the States has also spurred this on.
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Is the state in Cilicia an Armenian-run state of some sort descended from Cilician Armenia?
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