Create a Victorian era Dystopia

I forgot about this tid bit. Irishmen attacking Canada for 5 years, operating out of the United States (which may be turning a blind eye), and dividing the opinion of the Irish-Canadian community. There are possibilities there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_raids

I also remembered this. I don't see how the conspiracy would actually work, but there'd be some interesting results from attempting it (pissing countries off, creating British sections of local populations as left overs from a failed effort, etc)

At his death he was considered one of the wealthiest men in the world. In his first will, written in 1877 before he had accumulated his wealth, Rhodes wanted to create a secret society that would bring the whole world under British rule.[6] The exact wording from this will is:
To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.[45]
 
Wasn't that OTL, as already mentioned? After all, most of the Earth was in oppressive imperialist chains for the benefit of a handful, and the remainder was either malruled or finishing off its ethnic cleansing.... And even the Long Depression. Hard to do better dystopia wise.

Well, except Jared's TL.
 
Wasn't that OTL, as already mentioned? After all, most of the Earth was in oppressive imperialist chains for the benefit of a handful, and the remainder was either malruled or finishing off its ethnic cleansing.... And even the Long Depression. Hard to do better dystopia wise.

Well, except Jared's TL.
These go to eleven.
 
Alongside my previous idea of a Confederacy which itself breaks apart, a complicating element there is the prospect of not just the US reabsorbing region by region, state by state those seceded areas, but when the Confederacy balkanizes, European powers like Britain and France can make those states and nations client states and occupied areas.
 
Alongside my previous idea of a Confederacy which itself breaks apart, a complicating element there is the prospect of not just the US reabsorbing region by region, state by state those seceded areas, but when the Confederacy balkanizes, European powers like Britain and France can make those states and nations client states and occupied areas.
To add on, here is a scenario.:

  • CSA secedes.
  • CSA gets provinces from Mexico.
  • CSA attempts massive irrigation projects in west and some in east.
  • CSA goes bankrupt, and can no longer support the prject so slaves revolt.
  • CSA adopts pound.
  • CSA breaks apart into Bourgois Republics, Democracys, Slave Republics, and various Republics all supported by different foreign powers.
  • World War One occurs with minimal US and Former CS involvement.
  • Massive war in the South.
  • US intervenes in the chaos and attempts to recapture all of the south.
  • Foreign powers begin to put more support in for theit puppet states.
Now, the South is a jumble of small states, with interventionist forces in all areas. Leaving the foreign occupied citys is dangerous, as bands of soldiers lurk there. Also, much of the old canal system is dangerous, with them being malarial infected wastelands.
 
Instead of the CSA, have it be the slaves THEMSELVES who rebel agianst the United States, resulting in Northerners being drafted by the US Army under president Buchanan fighting a bitter war to re-enslave people they believe should be free to begin with.
 
Instead of the CSA, have it be the slaves THEMSELVES who rebel agianst the United States, resulting in Northerners being drafted by the US Army under president Buchanan fighting a bitter war to re-enslave people they believe should be free to begin with.

The difficulty is how to get a massive, national slave rebellion. Slaves in America were not, at least by the period you're talking about (and the period where there'd be the greatest slave revolt), freshly captured men and women taken from their homes after wars, or at least with recent memory of their parents or grandparents being free people, and having education and some moral decency from their masters. That's the Spartacus angle. American slaves were part of an institutional system where they were kept dumb, enslaved based solely on race, overseen and beaten and kept down for fear of possible rebellion, and where they were bred like cattle to be shipped around and bred some more. The issue is how does a group of people their masters have purposely seen do not have roots and organization and education manage to organize together and strategize and lead a massive revolution.
 
Ideas:
- A socialist revolution overtakes the Kaiser and makes Germany into a Socialist state
- France seeing the weakness of the overthrown Germany and the unpredictable threat to its borders, invades the German empire
- They decide to go through Belgium as the best avenue of invasion, Britain at this point intervenes over the Treaty of London and blockades France
- At some point the Civil War breaks out in America and during the civil war a flu hits the armies on both sides, millions die, and the remaining soldiers try to make their ways to their home states, the state begin to rely less on the federal authority until the government is treated as non-existent, only the states remain (it isn't my area of expertise but perhaps something like the HRE?), Canada and Mexico catch the same bug but aren't facing the same internal concerns
- Germany collapses into warlordism, and the Austro-Hungarians are the first to manage to take any real gains, the French side is met by too much resistance from the British to make real gains
- Austria-Hungary faces the risk of being kicked out of Bosnia with extensive help from the Ottomans and Russia (as it stands now, France and Austria-Hungary vs Ottomans, Russia, and Britain).
- Italy sees something they can benefit from and joins Britain/Russia/Ottomans for Austro-Hungarian territories
- Irish Republicans see their chance earlier than OTL and during large rebellion they proclaim the Irish Republic, the UK feels good about its ability to defend itself and they seek to defeat the Republicans, they invade Ireland with massive success but guerrilla warfare makes holding Ireland costly
- France partitions Germany with Austria-Hungary, Austria-Hungary is making large gains on the Ottoman borders, is slowly losing ground to Italy, and Russia joins the war with its large army but is not handling well against a modern army
- The Ottoman Empire faces rebellion in its core and a democratic government asks for peace with Austria-Hungary, they get it but lose territory, money, and are under stress from their disparate regions
- The Islamic Republic collapses and different nations rise up
- Italian forces are slowly retreating now that the Austria-Hungarians can turn some attention to them
- Irish rebellion is stamped out and the British army attempts to make a landing in France, it fails miserably under poor planning and about a quarter of the forces escape without a lot of their equipment
- Germany rebels and a large area becomes a dictatorship and attempts to reassert dominance in the annexed but not completely occupied territories of Germany
- Austria signs for peace with Italy along their old borders, Italy gets out of the game having failed its primary objective, under so much stress already Russia also gives up and turns for home, Austria-Hungary now controls all of its old territories, much of Germany, and most of the Balkans
- The fight now essentially boils down to Britain vs France/Austria-Hungary but Austria-Hungary is almost completely focused on Germany and consolidation at this point
- Germany eventually gets its territory back but is extremely unstable, it is a dictatorship and after a settlement the British leave France partially crippled

In conclusion, the North America is in various levels of anarchy or local government, Britain lost a large part of its army and is facing a crumbling empire close and far from home, France signed an agreement that leaves it barely above the state of the Weimar Republic at its worst point, Germany is a dictatorship with strong ties with Britain, Russia and Italy are both worse off and facing issues of their people having their pride hurt expect fascist rebellions under another name soon, Austria-Hungary is consolidating massive territorial gains that it should know it cannot manage and is probably going to fall apart under the next big internal challenge, the former Ottoman territories have become several nations all unstable, the entire western world is basically in full collapse because France decided to invade socialist Germany. Most republics that we saw OTL are still born and honestly no matter where you are you felt some of the damage.

Yes I like ASB how did you know?:D
 
What about the possibility of John Wilkes Booth escaping into the South successfully, or managing to evade the law for a longer period of time?
 
Top