What's with all the chapters in the table of contents which don't have links?
An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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The Republic of Louisiana
République de Louisiane
República de Luisiana
République de Louisiane
República de Luisiana
New Orleans in the summer is humid, no matter where in the multiverse you are, and this summer it one of the hottest the Republic of Louisiana has ever seen. The air conditioning on the New Orleans Metro is hardly sufficient for the weather, and by the time I step out onto the campus of the National University of Louisiana I’m sweating bullets. My first meeting with Dr. Esteban Delacroix, an expert on political history.
The Republic of Louisiana was born out of the grandiose ambitions of one Aaron Burr. A former Vice President of the United States Burr’s domestic political hopes were destroyed by a combination of his feud with President Thomas Jefferson and his killing of Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. So he resolved to create his own nation in the west, which had at the time a tenuous connection with the government in Washington. Although Burr was unsuccessful in convincing states such as Ohio to join his cause, he found more success in Louisiana, recently purchased from the French. Provoking a crisis with the Spanish in Texas, Burr found an impetus to raise himself an Army and carve out his own country, promptly named “The Republic of Louisiana.” British warships would secure the young Republic’s independence. Everything South of Saint Louis was delivered to the new Republic, with its capital of New Orleans.
“Initially,” says Delacroix “The Republic was modeled after the American one with three balanced branches of government. But Burr saw plenty of success in his early years. As Spain’s new world holdings collapsed he was able to carve out much of the Gulf coast, and in 1812 he sided with the British in the Second Anglo-American War, which secured Louisiana’s northern and eastern flanks. With that kind of success, and a lack of Washington’s scruples, he quickly became de facto President for life.”
Burr’s rule was at times heavy handed, but generally ones of prosperity. The Founding Father died peacefully in 1836. However his successor, Harman Blennerhassett Jr, was a much crueler man and no patience for even cowed opposition. He was able to use the loyal military to dispense of Congress after a few years in power, but he alienated both the Spanish Speaking and Francophone portions of the nation. In 1849 an economic downturn and inspiration from Europe led to the downfall of the Blennerhassett regime. Barricades went up in all the major cities and in the countryside the largest slave revolt mainland North America had ever seen erupted. Unfortunately for the latter group, their success was short lived. Once Blennerhassett the white rebels made common cause with the remaining establishment, and crushed the insurrection.
“Having established themselves, the new government than had to decide upon its structure. The power of the states was strengthened, and since dividing the legislature had weakened its unity against Blennerhassett the new Congress man made unicameral. Due to the slave revolts, there was a need for executive, but obviously one man rule was unacceptable. Hence the triumvirate.” Delacroix explains.
Taking inspiration from the Romans, a three man committee was set up to replace the President. Although they were given ranked numbers, First, Second and Third, in practice they were all equal in authority. Two votes were required to pass a law coming out of the National Congress, the same to veto the bill. The signature of one could refer a bill to the Constitutional Court. Unanimity was required for cabinet appointments, declarations of war, and constitutional amendments. A somewhat cumbersome system, but one that has worked well enough for nearly two hundred years. A Triumvir would be replaced each year, but each with a different method of election.
The system of electing the Third Triumvirs is similar to how many Prime Ministers are elected. After their own triennial elections (elected proportionally since Constitutional reform in 1967) the National Congress elects someone as Third Triumvir, typically as the result of a great deal of coalition building and debate in the smoke filled rooms that at times dominate the Republic of Louisiana.
“Now, technically speaking the Third Triumvir isn’t...ah what’s the word? Beholden? No ‘responsible’ to the Congress, the way German Secretary is. He could ignore them if he wanted. But that would be the height of bad character. If the Congress votes to censure you, the only proper this to do is resign and let them select a replacement.” My next contact says with a deep drawl.
Edward Washington is a plump man, and drinks bourbon as we speak in his lavish office. As leader of the Congressional Conservatives, he is a likely candidate for Third Triumvir should the right emerge victorious in the next year’s congressional elections. Congress remains a powerful institution in Louisiana, with a tight grip on the budget and Byzantine rules. Members of Washington’s family have served in Congress since 1881, and he is very proud of this fact.
“The Romans, they had a word for the power of tradition, the informal rules that help life go smoother. ‘Mos maiorum.’ We have a bit of that here. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. You work things out with the Old Regulars instead of in the streets.” He says.
I ask if that doesn’t lead to stagnation and decay, keeping the old ways forever.
“I didn’t say things remain the same son, I just said you have to do things proper like. If change is needed, we’ll make it. See how we reformed the Second Triumvir elections after three years that Bobby White fiasco. We got ourselves a nice little two round system after that lunatic.”
The position of Second Triumvir is elected by nationwide popular vote. It used to be simply nationwide first past the post. In 1996, the Workingman’s Party’s candidate, Bobby White, one in a divided field and became Second Triumvir. He was the first member of the party to win high office, and the first black man. Although outnumbered he raised a constant ruckus during his three years in office. He referred laws he found suspect to the courts, and used every trick in the book to obstruct the government, in hopes of forcing some kind of reforms to the system that favored white insiders over everyone else. Naturally, when his term was up the powers that be united to boot him from office and amended the constitution to prevent a repeat performance.
“That boy was the worst damn thing that ever happened to this fine country.” Opines Washington.
My final interviewee would disagree quite strongly.
“Bobby was the only Triumvir to ever confront the race question head on,” says Joyce Jennings. “This country was the last in the world to abolish slavery, and blacks were not given the right to vote until the 1970s. Black voters still face extreme hurdles to voting and jobs, and have a much higher chance of being killed by the police or imprisoned unjustly than any other group.”
I’m meeting with Jennings, an activist lawyer working for the Workingman’s Party, in Nash Square, the beating heart of New Orleans. And she has a point. Louisiana prides itself on a harmonious relationship between its language groups, Hispanic, English, and Francophone, as opposed to the messy situations in Bohemia and Indochina. However the substantial black population of Louisiana does not fit easily into this dynamic, and remain far worse off than the rest of the country.
“Four of the seven states still have poll taxes, and discrimination based on race is still legal for private businesses.” Jennings explains. “Blacks make up just over a quarter of the population but remain second class citizens.”
Jennings is in the square (named after a slave owner) campaigning for candidates in the Orleans State Legislature, which has elections this year just like every other state in the republic. The states of Louisiana retain substantial autonomy in certain areas, such as education, transportation, and income taxes. The state legislatures also hold the power to elect the First Triumvir, much in the same way the US Senate used to be composed. Each state gets a vote, determined by the legislature, and the person with the most votes out of 7 will win.
“Every level of the process is filled to the brim with corruption and backstabbing. Orleans is the only state where we have a real chance to win a majority in the legislature.” Jennings explains. The Capital State is the only one ever to have elected a black governor.
I ask if that will help them select a Third Triumvir, she shakes her head
“We could be a swing vote if the other six states deadlock. But otherwise the Workingman’s Party is too small. It’s about building a local organization.”
I ask if there are any long term prospects for meaningful change. She gives a shrug.
“Maybe? I certainly hope so. But these days sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith.”
Interesting.
A united, independent, unstable Indochina? Interesting. Also, it sounds like the Czechs have a large state in this world.
From the map, it looks like Mexico is an influential power that is possible communist. I want to know more.
Could literally be OTL Czechia, with the ethnic tensions being between Czechs and Sudetenland Germans.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I read this while listening to Cajun music.
I like the idea of a Louisiana that evovled independently from the US. I wonder how colorful its culture is.
Although the racism leaves a lot to be desired.
I can sorta get how Louisiana absorbing Texas prevented the US from taking the Southwest, but what butterfly kept them from taking the Pacific Northwest?
God slapped down Hard In the 1812 Equivalent, and by the time they stumbled back to their feet Oregon was gone.
OTL-ish Czechoslovakia, with a political deadlock somewhat similar to Belgium.
Well, judging by the name at least, it seems that the Czechs are on top.
A bit yeah, although that’s more of alternate events in Europe (which I haven’t sketched out in detail, so don’t quiz me pls) resulting in an older name being spit out.
Every Man a King
A world map cover of @Whiteshore's EEUSG entry, the United States of America . Many thanks to him for providing almost all of this material, including much of the map borders and all of the text below.
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This is set in a scenario of Kaiserreich where Germany (led by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the NLP) and the Entente won the Second Weltkrieg (or at least the part against a Totalist Third International) but disagreements between the two (especially after Kurt Schumacher became Chancellor of Germany) led to the latter aligning themselves with Savinkov’s Russia (and their friends in a Qing Empire which underwent a Manchu Restoration and a Belgrade Pact which defeated Bulgaria) who had beaten Germany to a stalemate.
In response to this, Germany aligned itself with a United States of America where Huey Long won the 1936 Elections and the Second Civil War which followed (the Pacific States of America voluntarily rejoined Long’s government after tense negotiations owing to Huey Long being the legitimate winner of the 1936 elections) but never regained Alaska and New England from Canada with the former being annexed into Canada and the latter spun off into a Canadian puppet state. Despite Long being fairly authoritarian, a “one-party democracy” was set up by Sid McMath after Huey Long’s death where intra-party democracy thrives within the framework of the America First Party.
In addition to the United States of America, Germany and the Danubian Federation reach out to the United Provinces of China (or South China) and the Republic of India formed from the Azad Hind which defeated the remnants of the British Raj. While both had little love for German imperialism, shared opposition to the Entente-Russia alliance would lead to them aligning to Germany in the aftermath of the Second Weltkrieg (which was less of a single conflict and more of a series of interconnected conflicts).
This, along with the formation of the Republic of Great Britain (South Britain) and the coronation of Victoria Louise as the Queen of North France, would set the stage for the Silent War or the Kalterkrieg, which continues to shape world politics to this day with the liberal-democratic Alliance of Free Nations and the right-wing authoritarian Grand Alliance continuing to face each other for 70 years and while the Grand Alliance has seen the rise of the Qing Empire (North China) and the Empire of Brazil while the Republic of India and the United Provinces of China (South China) would become “rising powers” amongst the Alliance of Free Nations.
In Europe, the German Empire and the Danubian Federation stand as the leaders of the Europabund, an organization founded by Germany and its allies in the aftermath of the Second Weltkrieg and comprising most of Europe. German politics are split between a Zentrum-NLP coalition and the SPD with the ruling government being a Zentrum-NLP coalition government as Chancellor Nicholas Muller has just been reelected as Chancellor. Germany also maintains a sizable remnant of their colonial empire, controlling many small islands in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, Singapore, and Sudwestafrika and maintaining strong influence in many of their former colonies, even if the Congo, Ghana, and Nigeria were failures with the former two falling to socialist rebellions and the latter seeing Biafra break of.
In addition, Germany is considered by many to be the world’s main superpower with Germany having the world’s most advanced military and has a military presence of some sort on all seven continents of the world. The Kaiserliche Marine still rules the waves and while not as large as the Russian State’s Army, the Heer makes up for this with quality.
Danubia, Germany’s number 2 in maintaining peace and order in the Europabund, is a diverse federation forged by Emperor Karl I (the Blessed or the Great) after the defeat of the Hungarian rebellion in 1937 with their idea of National Personal Autonomy being a system which has been applied by many post-colonial federations to some degree or another. While clearly Germany’s number 2, it maintains a small sphere of influence with the Italian Republic/North Italy and Albania, despite their membership of the Europabund, being clearly closer to Vienna than to Berlin.
North France and South Britain have largely gotten over their Syndicalist past and are thriving democracies with Queen Victoria Louise I and her descendants having largely gotten past the initial mistrust over a German puppet monarchy and helping supervise the reconstruction of North France. Republican Britain (South Britain), led by the politicians who were part of the Provincial Parliament before the crackdown in 1932 by the Syndicalist Party of Great Britain, was able to reconstruct itself in an effective manner. While both countries have problems with their past with many in the country insisting that the average soldier was not guilty of war crimes and it was all the fault of some paramilitaries connected to the ruling party, both countries have become major linchpins in the German strategy against the Entente.
Meanwhile in Asia, the United Provinces of China (South China), forged in the fires of the Great Asian War (as the Asian portion of the Second Weltkrieg is called in China) as the Kuomintang was forced to reconcile with Chen Jiongming’s Public Interest Party, has become a major power in Asia with most of AFN-aligned Asia, including the Kingdom of Indonesia (a Dominion-esque dealie formed by the Dutch in the late 1940s), being looking to the Guangzhou-based United Provinces for leadership. Chen Jiongming’s federalist model, which had been successfully applied in China and has helped propel its economic growth since the 1950s and 60s, has proven to be a major inspiration for many postcolonial countries with Egypt, Iran, Thailand, and Ostafrika being major countries which have adopted the Federalist model along Chinese lines.
South Chinese politics are dominated by the Public Interest Party, the Kuomintang, China Democratic League, and Democratic Constitutionalist Party with President Melody Lam Tsam-yui of the Public Interest Party having just won elections as President of the United Provinces, defeating Luqiu Tianqiao (the candidate of the Kuomintang), Jiang Yingyue (the standard-bearer of the Democratic League), and Fang Fang (head of the Democratic Constitutionalists). President Lam has promised to continue the “Chinese Dream” that Chen Jiongming had to its full continuation as part of her policies as President of China and continue South China’s rise to become a superpower.
Meanwhile, the Republic of India, derived from the Azad Hind government under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1930s and 40s, continues having a “friendly rivalry” with the United Provinces of China, even as they stare at the remnant of the British Raj in Ceylon, with Vietnam and Burma being the main segments of the Republic of India’s sphere of influence. While not as dramatic as South China, India has still grown fairly quickly in recent decades and is amongst the largest economies in the world, even if wealth inequality and a concentration of wealth and political power in the areas of the former Azad Hind prior to the Indian Unification War persist.
Japan was initially fairly isolationist in the aftermath of their defeat in the Great Asian War until the 1980s when Prime Minister So Hidemitsu led the push for closer ties with the Asian continent. While his outreach was unpopular to many right-wing elements in Japanese society, it paved the way for a Japanese alignment with the Alliance of Free Nations and has led to Japanese reconciliation with Federalist South China.
Meanwhile, the Grand Alliance was formed from the Entente and the Russian State forming an alliance with one another as the Entente, radicalized by being driven out of their home countries by socialist revolutions, turned increasingly right-wing and authoritarian. However, what drove the alliance between the two blocs would be how post-war negotiations over Britain and France would break down with an alliance between the Entente and Russia following after the breakdown of negotiations between the two blocs.
The Grand Alliance (or informally, the Saratov Pact) is clearly led by the Russian State, forged by Boris Savinkov (named the “Horseman of the Apocalypse” by his cult of personality) and the National People’s Republican Party under Savinkov’s ideology of “National Populism”, based out of Savinkov’s personal beliefs of an authoritarian “peasants’ republic”. It was steered after his death in 1952 by a triumvirate of Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky, hero of the Reclamation War, Viktor Abakumov, and Mikhail Levitov. These three, with Levitov being the Vozhd of the Russian State after the three triumphed in a power struggle against Pavel Gorgulov, would steer Russia until their deaths. Despite Levitov becoming Vozhd, he was more of a “first amongst equals” than an absolute leader as the Supreme Privy Council gained more power at the expense of the Vozhd as he grew older. However, after their deaths, the next major leader of the Russian State would not be a strongman, but a strongwoman.
Tatiana Antonova was born to an aristocratic family dating back to the days of Peter the Great with her father, Mikhail Antonov, being an early supporter of Boris Savinkov and Foreign Minister of the Russian State during the 1940s. Following in her father’s footsteps, a young Tatiana Antonova would become a prominent diplomat and stateswoman, eventually rising to the position of Foreign Minister in the 1970s. After Mikhail Levitov’s death in 1982, a power struggle for the position of Vozhd would arise, a power struggle which Tatiana Antonova would come up on top.
While Tatiana would be Vozhd for only seven years, her policies would be pivotal in strengthening the Russian State with her policies of technocratic authoritarianism, a degree of economic liberalization, and some measure of detente with the AFN being pivotal in securing the Russian State’s position in the world. However, these policies, while certainly beneficial to the Russian State’s long-term survival, were opposed by hardliners who rallied around Ivan Wrangel and Peter Vasilevsky, who forced Tatiana Antonova out of power in the “Ides of March” in 1990.
Wrangel’s government would see an escalation of tensions with the AFN and would see a ratcheting up of oppression against dissidents, albeit not without repudiating the economic reforms that Tatiana Antonova had enacted. However, he would retire in 2000, becoming an elder statesman and anointing Marina Savitskaya, a woman he knew would continue his policies, as his successor.
While Savitskaya would undoubtedly do just that, her mishandling of the 2006 Italian Crisis and the reports that she was a notorious drug addict would lead to her being forced out by a palace coup. The palace coup would name Lana Dyomina-Antonova, daughter of Tatiana Antonova, as the Vozhd of the Russian State, a position she holds to this day with Cassandra Chilkevich and Pyotr Kamanenko as her main deputies as leaders of the Russian State, even as Lana plans to groom her daughter Svetlana, already involved heavily in the propaganda ministry of the Russian State, as her successor.
Under Lana Dyomina-Antonova’s rule, she has continued the reformist policies of her mother of technocratic authoritarianism, economic liberalization of some degree, and limited detente. However, while eschewing the brute force authoritarianism of previous leaders of the Russian State, she has focused on adopting a “social credit system”, a system where people would be judged based on their “social credit score” and treated accordingly.
While the Russian model has been applied in Romania, Serbia, and Greece and aspects of it have been adopted to some degree in the other members of the Russian bloc, most of Russia’s allies are more conventional right-wing authoritarians, particularly the former Entente powers.
While formally, Canada, North Britain, the West Indies, South Africa, and Australasia are Westminster-style constitutional monarchies, the reality is far different. Radicalization brought about by the revolutions and the vigilance for “crypto-Syndicalists” had resulted in them becoming right-wing authoritarian regimes ruling under a facade of democracy. Permanent coalitions of the right-wing political parties, electoral suppression, ballot-stuffing, opposition politicians being disqualified based on technicalities, and control of the media has resulted in them becoming essentially authoritarian one-party states, if more “authoritarian conservative” than the totalitarian dictatorship present in Russia.
In addition, civil liberties, despite being notionally still present and protected by law, have been disregarded for decades under what the government says are “emergency measures”. Anyone who complains loudly that the emergency has gone on for decades will get a quick knock from the police while the armed forces in these countries have strong political sway over the government and can bring down any government they don’t like.
Meanwhile, the Third French Empire, under the Bonapartes, despite being notionally a democracy, is essentially a military dictatorship, even if they, like the Canadians, are “merely” authoritarian conservatives. South France is amongst the most militarized countries in the world with not only trying to reclaim the north of the country on the minds of the South French leadership in Marseilles but also the fact that the government has not considered decolonization. This has resulted in a brutal colonial conflict against anti-colonial rebels which has been raging for decades and consumes a sizable portion of the South French economy.
However, the “rising stars” of the Grand Alliance are the Empire of Brazil and the Empire of the Great Qing. Both of these blocs are economically powerful and have seen rapid growth in recent decades with many seeing them as potential “superpowers of tomorrow”
The Empire of Brazil is under the ideology of Integralism, which pushes for a nation under an organic unity and defends social hierarchy and differentiation, instead pushing for class collaboration and corporatism. The Integralists argue that all nations have their own traditions which are to be protected and that their systems are to be protected by a government in line with these traditions. Under Integralist policies, the Empire of Brazil has pursued rural development and is surprisingly non-racialist, even if fiercely nationalistic.
Brazil leads an assortment of Integralist powers within the Grand Alliance with Portugal, the Two Sicilies, and Spain, along with friendly/sympathetic regimes within South America, being the major components of this Integralist sub-bloc.
The Empire of the Great Qing (North China) is guided by Yan Xishan Thought, the ideology of Yan Xishan, who supported the Manchu Restoration which overthrew the Zhili Clique and put in the “national coalition” of the Young China Party, representing the military, business interests, and nationalists, the Manchu Party, representing the traditional Manchu aristocrats, and the New China Empire Reform Association, which represents both the urban middle-class and rural farmers. These parties rotate power with the current leader of North China being from the Young China Party. The ideology of Yan Xishan Thought is considered to be highly syncretic, incorporating aspects of various ideologies into a single whole. However, the flexibility and syncretism of Yan Xishan Thought has allowed it to remain the ruling ideology of the Empire of the Great Qing even after Yan Xishan’s death with the three major parties all adopting Yan Xishan Thought and the main political disagreements being basically detailing how to best enact Yan Xishan Thought.
While North China is behind their Southern peers, the North Chinese are still fairly prosperous and wealthy with a sizable military and wealth and a friendly regime in Korea at their beck and call.
However, there are two prominent powers outside of the grasp of the Kalterkrieg. These are the Cairo Pact and the Santiago Accords.
The Cairo Pact was formed by the Kingdom of Egypt, which remains its leader to this day with Persia, Arabia, Kurdistan, Yemen, Oman, and Cyreanica as its other members. Despite their initial alignment with the Grand Alliance, the Cairo Pact has become a neutral bloc starting in the 1960s with the Cairo Pact being largely composed of shaky democracies.
Meanwhile, the Santiago Accord is Syndicalism’s last stand and is led by the Socialist Republic of Chile with the Balderomoists in Argentina and the socialist regime in Mexico being the other main components of this alliance. Despite this, the Santiago Accords largely keeps to itself outside of its support for the socialist regimes in the Congo and Ghana.
Technology in this world is far more advanced with technology being 15-20 years ahead of OTL owing to Germany remaining a world leader in the field of the sciences and China and India having their economic miracles earlier than OTL. In this world, Mars landings have been carried out, life-like virtual reality has been developed, and wearable gadgets are everywhere. In this world, the American Wayland Tech, Germany's Schneider Group (led by Helena Schneider) the Russian Nabatova Group (led by Stella Nabatova, a close ally of Vozhd Antonova), and South China's Bao Group led by Xun Liuxian being amongst the main tech companies in the world.
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There's a definite overdose of EG characters in that scenario, but I'm fine with it. I know that @Whiteshore is the one I should ask questions regarding this map, but nevertheless:
I wonder if Oleh Lyashko is a prominent NatPop politician in Russian Ukraine.
What caused the Hungarian rebellion, exactly?
I wonder if Oleh Lyashko is a prominent NatPop politician in Russian Ukraine.
What caused the Hungarian rebellion, exactly?
The Hungarians did not like the outcome of Ausgleich negotiations.
Gee, I wonder if any of them would be worthy competitors to the Persephone Foundation.
I've been thinking about making some sort of eco-corporarte nation, if that makes any sense. What basically happens is that something similar to the Morgenthau Plan forces a nation to deindustrialize. Foreign companies then take an interest to the new agarian country and proceed to transform it into a banana republic. Eventually, all of the nation's scant industry and infrastructure is built for the purpose of serving big business while the corporate-backed government refuses any attempts to reindustrialize any further.
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