Fear Nothing But God: A Graphical History

[Nyvis]

So this was a ridiculous idea and something I'm never going to do again. it was far too time and labour intensive to be worth it but hottdamn, its finally done! Not sure how easy it is to read but should have at least a few interesting bits to it. I'm 100% sure there will be errors because its such a huge project but I hope people enjoy. Credit to the real Culture of the UK page on wikipedia for providing the base and skeleton of the work.

I do hope people enjoy and would love feedback but might take me a while to reply as this has totally burned me out! Hope you enjoy ​

Impressive!

At this point you may as well set up an actual wiki (I think there's free ones?), this way it'll handle variable screen and text sizes better.

 

[Dreadpool]

Beautiful set up, can't wait to see more!

Looks to me like Dr. Peter Blood and his pals won't get sent off to the West Indies, this time around...

 

[mymatedave10]

I hate to say it but Pantegral does have a very good point, if you could do something with this or even just give us a link where we can copy and paste the text I would deeply appreciate it, I really don't want all your astounding work to go to be hindered by this issue.

 

[Major Crimson]

Incredible work, @Major Crimson; reminds me of the famous New England wikipage. If there's one criticism I have to make, however, it would be the page formatting. Unfortunately, the font size and images are so small relative to the page width that it's almost impossible to read at normal zoom, while zooming in far enough to read means having to use the horizontal scroll bar to move the image back and forth after every sentence. The image resolution is also a bit low, enough to make the lettering appear blurry. But I assume that these minor issues should be easy enough to fix, since you should still have the source code?

Below is what the image looks like on a 4K screen, compared with an actual Wikipedia article.

Impressive!

At this point you may as well set up an actual wiki (I think there's free ones?), this way it'll handle variable screen and text sizes better.

I hate to say it but Pantegral does have a very good point, if you could do something with this or even just give us a link where we can copy and paste the text I would deeply appreciate it, I really don't want all your astounding work to go to be hindered by this issue.

This is an interesting point, I think the main issue with the text is hosting. I moved from Imgur to Google for this but I don't think that helped much.

As an experiment, is this easier to read:

If so its a problem with the image being too big to be hosted. If not its a bigger issue. I have/will consider the wiki thing though...

I do totally agree though! I might abandon wikipages as a longform medium and just do more standard textposts. Turning this into a text post would be pretty labour intensive but I'm defo up to sharing the source text. If people want to read it in a real wikipedia format, feel free to have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MutualBear/sandbox

 

[mymatedave10]

Thank you so much for the link, it’s much easier on my eyes 👍

 

[Ato]

Amazing.

I must say I am really enjoying the aesthetic of those puritan first names. "Let-the-red-blood-of-sin-flow" and "Not-a-shackle-remains" are just fantastic.

 

[mymatedave10]

Its damn near midnight and I’ve spent the last hour and a half reading via the wiki link you gave me and I’m barely a quarter of the way through.
You are a gloriously ridiculous genius madman for making this effort and its probably one of the best wikis I’ve ever read, but I had to thank you before going to sleep. Bravo.

 

[Luath]

This. Is. Glory.

 

[Major Crimson]

English food actually looks edible in this timeline.

Domesticated squirrels are also interesting. What's Modern Witchcraft like? Sort of similar to Wicca?

Squirrels are an OTL thing, popular among early American colonists and I thought it was fun to take it and run with it! And yeah modern witchcraft isn't something I've put a ton of work into but generally I imagine it as very similar to OTL wicca, likely with some influences from Asian and Middle Eastern sources; Kabbalah and Sufis.

And yeah! England finally not mocked worldwide for our cuisine is a fun little twist

Looks to me like Dr. Peter Blood and his pals won't get sent off to the West Indies, this time around...

Ah maybe a reverse! Stuartist convicts sent to the far carribean, or maybe Dr Blood is a heroic war fiction ITTL?

Thank you so much for the link, it’s much easier on my eyes 👍

No worries! I'm thinking about implimenting a permanent wiki system now, will start making some plans to get that in place.

Amazing.

I must say I am really enjoying the aesthetic of those puritan first names. "Let-the-red-blood-of-sin-flow" and "Not-a-shackle-remains" are just fantastic.

It's one of my favourite dumb bits of the TL, the puritan names. They're just a huge amount of fun to write. I plan on doing some narrative stuff at some point and it'll be great to play around with them then.

Its damn near midnight and I’ve spent the last hour and a half reading via the wiki link you gave me and I’m barely a quarter of the way through.
You are a gloriously ridiculous genius madman for making this effort and its probably one of the best wikis I’ve ever read, but I had to thank you before going to sleep. Bravo.

This. Is. Glory.

Hugely flattering praise, I'm so glad its bringing enjoyment and is of interest! FNBG is a real little passion project for me and I always worry the very irregular schedule will see interest die off but its great to see people are still interested and honestly this kind of feedback is far more than I ever expected. I hope I can continue to deliver interesting content in the future

 

[Luath]

I mean I’ve had a ‘Constitutional American Monarchy’ vs ‘Liberal Republican Britain’ in mind for some time. Though it’s nowhere near as creative or innovative as this.

 

[Rattigan]

I have so much to say on this - it's amazing - although I'm not anywhere near finished yet. Firstly, I just want to say this is amazing. Secondly, I love the sound of Starscout, even as someone who OTL isn't really into Star Trek

 

[Pantegral]

This is an interesting point, I think the main issue with the text is hosting. I moved from Imgur to Google for this but I don't think that helped much.

As an experiment, is this easier to read:

If so its a problem with the image being too big to be hosted. If not its a bigger issue. I have/will consider the wiki thing though...

Thanks for the prompt response, @Major Crimson. It's not the hosting; the test image you posted is exactly the same as the original. The issue is that you have to change your browser's zoom to a readable level before you take the screenshot, since images are static and not adjustable.

But to be fair, taking and uploading a screenshot as big as this turned out to be an absolute nightmare. The one Chrome add-on good enough to take a decent-resolution screenshot of your Sandbox article link, GoFullPage, split the image into four parts; I had to stitch them back together using Photoshop, then reduce both quality and resolution by 50%. And finding an image host afterwards was basically impossible: Imgur and ImgBB automatically reduced the resolution so much that the image's unreadable; MEGA, Dropbox and Google Drive are all incapable of previewing because the image's so large; and Google Photos flat-out refused to upload the image (I have no idea how you got Google to allow your original image to be previewed in the first place).

I spent an hour on this before I gave up finding a host capable of previewing; here's a Dropbox link to download my version, if you're interested. Ultimately, creating multiple Sandbox subpages on Wikipedia (one for each article) is far less work than trying to take and upload a full-page screenshot.

I do totally agree though! I might abandon wikipages as a longform medium and just do more standard textposts. Turning this into a text post would be pretty labour intensive but I'm defo up to sharing the source text. If people want to read it in a real wikipedia format, feel free to have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MutualBear/sandbox

Oh, please don't be discouraged on my account! The wikipage format is itself excellent worldbuilding - the article would have been less impactful had it been a standard text post, so don't worry about creating a text version; having the Sandbox link is more than enough.

 

[Major Crimson]

I mean I’ve had a ‘Constitutional American Monarchy’ vs ‘Liberal Republican Britain’ in mind for some time. Though it’s nowhere near as creative or innovative as this.

Would be interesting to see, this did start as just "What if the UK was like the US?" and it diverged from there.

I have so much to say on this - it's amazing - although I'm not anywhere near finished yet. Firstly, I just want to say this is amazing. Secondly, I love the sound of Starscout, even as someone who OTL isn't really into Star Trek

Thanks! Starscout was a cute thing to write and its honestly just my way of venting about problems with OTL Star Trek (Why is everyone American?) and it lets me reflect the more multi-national, cultural balance of the world ITTL.

Thanks for the prompt response, @Major Crimson. It's not the hosting; the test image you posted is exactly the same as the original. The issue is that you have to change your browser's zoom to a readable level before you take the screenshot, since images are static and not adjustable.

But to be fair, taking and uploading a screenshot as big as this turned out to be an absolute nightmare. The one Chrome add-on good enough to take a decent-resolution screenshot of your Sandbox article link, GoFullPage, split the image into four parts; I had to stitch them back together using Photoshop, then reduce both quality and resolution by 50%. And finding an image host afterwards was basically impossible: Imgur and ImgBB automatically reduced the resolution so much that the image's unreadable; MEGA, Dropbox and Google Drive are all incapable of previewing because the image's so large; and Google Photos flat-out refused to upload the image (I have no idea how you got Google to allow your original image to be previewed in the first place).

I spent an hour on this before I gave up finding a host capable of previewing; here's a Dropbox link to download my version, if you're interested. Ultimately, creating multiple Sandbox subpages on Wikipedia (one for each article) is far less work than trying to take and upload a full-page screenshot.

Oh, please don't be discouraged on my account! The wikipage format is itself excellent worldbuilding - the article would have been less impactful had it been a standard text post, so don't worry about creating a text version; having the Sandbox link is more than enough.

Interesting, I do greatly appreciate the legwork! I am thinking about/working on establishing my own MediaWiki page/site that will allow me to more easily and reliably host my own wiki posts. It's a tricky spot but hopefully future posts won't be so large and when they are I'll find a work around

---

Also weird disclaimer:

I just realised that I appear to have stolen the Black 20s as a term/concept from Thande's wonderful and seminal TL Look to the West. I've used it in a similar way as Thande, though the two situations are different in almost all the details. This wasn't deliberate and I'm honestly stumped that this happened, whether I heard about it, internalized it and then subconsciously integrated it into my own TL or if it was total coincidence? I lean towards the later but the whole situation is bizarre. I am 90% sure Thande used it first, however, and I know he plans a long way in advance so either way this is on me.

I genuinely hadn't realised that Thande had used the term until this moment (I don't think?) as I never got past about 1810 in LTTW. I've considered going back and redoing it but I think it's just too much to change so unless it becomes an issue/he requests it then I think I'm just gonna leave it with many apologies.

 

[Luath]

Would be interesting to see, this did start as just "What if the UK was like the US?" and it diverged from there.

Kinda, I've read Sobels 'For Want of Nail', and while fantastic, I do feel the whole 'British America is just Uber Canada' to be unrealistic and unimaginative. So I imagined a kind of variation upon Sobels work. Basically the rebellion is crushed and the former rebels flee to Spanish America and carve out a United States but not as we know it, as per the book. But rather than America immediately being reformed into 'Big Canada', an attempt is made to integrate the colonies into the UK, between the still prescient American Nationalism, debts leftover from the 7YW and the ARW, and George III 'unique' mental state, Revolution inevitable and eventually crosses the Atlantic. Its then fairly straight forward, the Royal family sets up in America, a secular republic takes hold in the British Isles, the USM contests the now 'Commonwealth of North America' for who gets to be the biggest bad in the West before it all ends in tears.

So an American constitutional monarchy with historic resentments on both sides of the Atlantic, you thought the cold war was fun? well try the 'Phoney War' for size then.

Or at least thats what I've gleamed from the hodgepodge of ideas that I'm scared to write down.

 

[Galahad]

Man, I wish I had this amount of dedication when it comes to writing my thesis.

 

[dakkafex]

Working my way through the page, I can only echo all the praise that's been said by others. There's an amazing amount of effort and dedication on display here, and it's a great example of the low-key immersion through language and usage that this work excels in.

Squirrels are an OTL thing, popular among early American colonists and I thought it was fun to take it and run with it!

Now I'm imagining domestic red and grey squirrels with the sorts of bizarre overdeveloped features that get selected for in fancy pigeons and purebred dogs and cats.

 

[Deleted member 77383]

I understand that there is no Cold War in this timeline, but wars had occurred that’s similar to the proxy wars of it? And how stable are the nations in North America? Some good and some bad?

 

[Silvius Silesius]

What exactly is the "Free Sahel"?