Fear Nothing But God: A Graphical History

I was just wondering if there are any plans to keep this going? I thought it was such an original idea and it would be a shame to lose it...
 
I was just wondering if there are any plans to keep this going? I thought it was such an original idea and it would be a shame to lose it...

Hey! Yes there are! :D I'm about to drop a big update which should fill in some gaps and clue people into the modern day. Big apologies to anyone still interested for the multi-month silence; I've been too busy with real life and election games but had a burst of inspiration. I'd like to keep this thread updated far more regularly but worst case scenario there will be semi-regular updates as and when I can. It's still a world I'd love to expand and explore and one that's already really grown in the telling.
 
Lord Presidential Election of 1685 and General Election of 1686
The First Albionic Elections

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The First Lord Presidency

The election of a Lord-President was a complex affair. The title was chosen for various reasons, in large part due to the fact that “Lord Protector” remained firmly off the table in the wake of Cromwell’s controversial and dictatorial rule. "President" implied an administrative role rather than a military or executive one but that title alone was felt too common and too low ranking for the leader of a nation. "Billiard clubs have Presidents," John Locke is said to have remarked, "A Commonwealth must have something more." The compromise title of Lord President remained controversial for many years both due to its closeness to Cromwell's own and due to its rather dull nature. There were even some, albiet only radical diggers, who were disgusted that "Lord" was being used at all and called for "Consul" or "Primus" to reflect the arex legacy of rome. In the end, however, Lord President stuck.

The role of the Lord President was to preside over the affairs of the government and then and now is officially “Lord President of the Council of State”, though “Lord President of the Commonwealth” has since become an acceptable long length title as well. Sydney was always the only real candidate; as the undisputed leader of the military in the wake of General Scott’s death and with his personal commitment to parliamentary and arex government beyond a shadow of a doubt, his rather advanced age and strong aversion to centralised power went a long way to reassuring sceptics not only of Sydney’s suitability but of the role in general. The only dissenting votes were cast by royalist factions. A great many moderates and some Whigs proposed that the Netherlander Stadtholder, William of Orange, be elected King. His wife, Mary, had a claim to the English and Scottish thrones and William was a well verified protestant with a history of governing a commonwealth who seemed agreeble to terms. However, William was disadvantaged not only by the generally arex mood of the country but also by rising nationalist feelings which cemented the general mood against any foreign leadership. The fact that he had played no role in the revolution and the strong support generally exhibited for the arexists Locke and Sydney also meant his prestige was not great enough to be considered a top notch candidate. The third and final candidate to receive votes was Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver and briefly Lord Protector himself. He stood for the group now known as the Old Protectionists; mostly holdovers from the First Revolution who sought a return to the authoritarian, Purtian government of that age. Their odds were more than long and, distrusted by almost all, he would never gain the votes of more than a handful of MPs.


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In the end, Sydney trounced his foes and waltzed into office with the backing of over 400 MPs. William of Orange officially recognised Sydney as the victor and the arex government of the Commonwealth as legitimate. A largely hands off Lord President, Sydney would accidentally assist in establishing the Speaker as the primary office holder of the FC and spent the majority of his time leading the armies of the Commonwealth and appointing the new Council of State, rather than becoming directly involved in governing.


The First Speakership


The first parliamentary elections under the new Commonwealth government (note, until the integration of Ireland the following year, the nation was known simply as “the Commonwealth of England and Scotland”) had much in common with the elections that had previously taken place under the Stuart kings. Several hundred constituencies of varing sizes and shapes, elected on a limited roll with corruption and pocket boroughs not uncommon. The system was flawed but nonetheless provided a basis for Albic democracy then and now.

The “parties” or factions of the first parliament were diverse and complex. At times, the concept of a party was understood effectively as a form of corruption and they remained more complex “alignments”, following vague political tendencies and/or organising around certain high profile figures. For a long time modern academics grouped those elected simplistically into three camps; Whigs, who favoured an arex commonwealth, Moderates, who wanted to defend the position of parliament and supremacy of the Anglican church and Monarchists, who favoured a restoration of the Stuarts. Now, our understanding is more complex. The huge and complex “Whig” faction has been split up into various groups; the largest two being the more radical and reformist “Levellers” (though they would not adopt that name until shortly after the second Commonwealth General Election) who were organised around Locke, the more moderate and openly Anglican “Whigs”, and the revolutionary “Diggers” or “True Levellers”, organised around John Ayloffe, who favoured the immediate and adoption not only of a new political model but a radical restructuring of the social and economic structure of the nation. Other, more minor factions included the part-Scots interest, part-Campbell personality cult Kirkers and the Theocratic "Godlies".


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The informal “Leveller” faction won out in part due to the immense influence of Locke on Albic public life and in part due to the backing of the military which provided a legitimate boost by rallying public support and less legitimate support in the form of mild (perhaps accidental) intimidation of other factions. Having secured a majority, the faction elected Locke as Speaker and from this elevated position he began to assume further powers under the Speakership Act of 1686 and the Government Act of 1687, as well as the powers assigned to him within the Instrument of Government. With a system of government now needing to be created from the ground up, the Locke Administration formed a broad coalition and retained the pre-revolutionary Officers of State as the cornerstone of his new government. Locke appointed de-facto Whig leader Charles Montagu to be First Lord of the Treasury, thereby commanding the British economy and serving as Locke’s deputy. Of the new parliamentary factions only the theocratic “Godly” MPs and the pro-Stuart Restorationists were excluded. The Locke Government faced a slew of trials and tribulations but was broadly a success and established the office of Speaker along with dozens of other conventions which form the basis of government in the Fraternal Commonwealth today.

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Ah so a Speaker with political power, like how it goes in the United States. Will there be a neutral speaker-like position though?
 
Ah so a Speaker with political power, like how it goes in the United States. Will there be a neutral speaker-like position though?

On paper no, the Speaker has all their powers from OTL however in reality the Chairman of Ways and Means often fills in that role, sitting at the side of the Speaker and advising on procedure. It is convention that the Speaker defers to the Chairman on issues of conduct and procedure in the House and when the Speaker is absent because they're running the country (which is quite often) the Chairman sits in.
 
Of the new parliamentary factions only the theocratic “Godly” MPs and the pro-Stuart Restorationists were excluded.

Does this mean Digger involvement in the government? They're the faction I'd trust the most here. Though the Levellers don't look half bad for the era. The Diggers not being targeted and eliminated by the other factions is going to have consequences for the development of leftist ideas. I wonder if they'll last until modern capitalism becomes recognizable, in which case having such a long history will weight a lot on how opposition to it takes shape.

How is the Anglican church administered here, in the absence of an Anglican king? Is the Lord President head of the church? Or does the commonwealth nominate someone to handle it? Or is it entirely independent, in which case it could evolve to be a source of power in itself?
 
Does this mean Digger involvement in the government? They're the faction I'd trust the most here. Though the Levellers don't look half bad for the era. The Diggers not being targeted and eliminated by the other factions is going to have consequences for the development of leftist ideas. I wonder if they'll last until modern capitalism becomes recognizable, in which case having such a long history will weight a lot on how opposition to it takes shape.

How is the Anglican church administered here, in the absence of an Anglican king? Is the Lord President head of the church? Or does the commonwealth nominate someone to handle it? Or is it entirely independent, in which case it could evolve to be a source of power in itself?

Yes the Diggers are a part of government, albiet a somewhat rebellious one. The Levellers and Diggers are based in large part on their depiction in The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill (a real, OTL book) which is an excellent account of the English Civil War. The Levellers themselves are best understood as classical liberals meet rural populists and the Diggers, in their original form, are most well understood as a form of proto-Theo-Anarcho-Communists. Its easy to get carried away with modern comparisons and we shouldn't overestimate how progressive these groups are however. The best historical comparisons, I think, are that the levellers are not dissimilar to Jeffersonian Democrats without the Slavery and the Diggers are this taken to an extreme; something not unlike Thomas Paine if he was deeply religious, as contradictory as that might sound!

The Church has some real trials and tribulations in the wake of the revolution. A big thing about it is going to be revealed in the next update (coming later today!) and I'll fill in its history as we go but the TLDR is that for now, is that the de facto status of the Archbishop of Canterbury as "Primus inter pares" or first among equals is confirmed by the government and within a few decades the position has transformed. Whilst retaining the Archbishopric, the head of the Church also takes up the rarely used but OTL title of "Primate of All England" which becomes the primary and most commonly used title. The Fraternal Commonwealth ends up as a pluralistic rather than a secular body; with the Church of England retaining all its traditional powers in England, bar their seats in the now non-existant house of Lords, the Kirk still has power in Scotland and the Church of Ireland chugs along, though the Cork Treaties and Irish Bill of Rights give catholics the right to worship in Ireland (though explicitly not in England).
 
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Yes the Diggers are a part of government, albiet a somewhat rebellious one. The Levellers and Diggers are based in large part on their depiction in The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill (a real, OTL book) which is an excellent account of the English Civil War. The Levellers themselves are best understood as classical liberals meet rural populists and the Diggers, in their original form, are most well understood as a form of proto-Theo-Anarcho-Communists. Its easy to get carried away with modern comparisons and we shouldn't overestimate how progressive these groups are however. The best historical comparisons, I think, are that the levellers are not dissimilar to Jeffersonian Democrats without the Slavery and the Diggers are this taken to an extreme; something not unlike Thomas Paine if he was deeply religious, as contradictory as that might sound!

Yeah that's what I understood of their ideologies too. i wonder if we'll see more secular interpretations of them emerge with time, though.

The Church has some real trials and tribulations in the wake of the revolution. A big thing about it is going to be revealed in the next update (coming later today!) and I'll fill in its history as we go but the TLDR is that for now, is that the de facto status of the Archbishop of Canterbury as "Primus inter pares" or first among equals is confirmed by the government and within a few decades the position has transformed. Whilst retaining the Archbishopric, the head of the Church also takes up the rarely used but OTL title of "Primate of All England" which becomes the primary and most commonly used title. The Fraternal Commonwealth ends up as a pluralistic rather than a secular body; with the Church of England retaining all its traditional powers in England, bar their seats in the now non-existant house of Lords, the Kirk still has power in Scotland and the Church of Ireland chugs along, though the Cork Treaties and Irish Bill of Rights give catholics the right to worship in Ireland (though explicitly not in England).

So Anglican pope in Canterbury? x'D

Though it's probably closer to patriarchs than the pope, now that I think about it.
 
-snip- The Levellers themselves are best understood as classical liberals meet rural populists -snip-. The best historical comparisons, I think, are that the levellers are not dissimilar to Jeffersonian Democrats without the Slavery -snip-
Somehow this reminds me of Georgism. Even if they aren't I would imagine Georgist ideas about land would be rather popular.
 
Yeah that's what I understood of their ideologies too. i wonder if we'll see more secular interpretations of them emerge with time, though.



So Anglican pope in Canterbury? x'D

Though it's probably closer to patriarchs than the pope, now that I think about it.


You'll see how they develop shortly! :p No spoilers though.

And tbh, the Archbishop of Canterbury really isn't that far off from an Anglican Pope IOTL, just fallible and junior to the monarch. With no Monarch above the Church, the "Primate" will indeed start acting rather Popish and will cause all sorts of problems for the Commonwealth come the mid 18th century.

Somehow this reminds me of Georgism. Even if they aren't I would imagine Georgist ideas about land would be rather popular.

Ah interesting you said that! In my list of the ideologies that explains them in some depth, the one sentence summary of the Levellers is "Social Democracy/Left Liberalism with a heavy dose of Georgism", though there is another ITTL ideology that incorporates a lot of *Georgist ideas. That full summary should be up sometime soon, its mostly written I just need to make it look nice.
 
2016 Fraternal General Election
The 2016 Fraternal Commonwealth General Election

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The 2016 election saw continued tribulation in the Commonwealth’s party system. Though the formation of the Alliance Party in 2001 and continued uptick in Leveller vote share have led to a tightening of the party system to two major parties, the merger of several radical northern groups into the broad-tent reformist “Peoples’ and Nations’ Party” and the rise of the Polkyentist “Forward March!” have led to something of a revival of the minor parties. In additional to the 6 “Major Parties”, classified in the Commonwealth as any party to win more than 5% of the vote and thus hit the barrier needed for top up seats, a further 3 “Minor Parties” were able to win at least one constituency, up from 2 the previous election. The post-Digger “Peasant and Labourers Party” continued their decline, tumbling to only two seats from the previous five as their voters and membership continues to flood outward, into the radical faction of the Levellers or the far-west distributive wing of the Freelanders.

Elected by the Double Vote System employed since the early 20th century, voters were given a runoff vote for their local constituency and then a second vote for their favoured party in their Lieutenancy[1]. 600 seats are elected directly as local constituencies and the remaining 200 as “top up” seats, given to parties under represented in parliament, to ensure proportionality. [2] A party must win at least 5% of the vote to be eligible for top up seats but does not need to meet this threshold to see their constituency MPs elected.

Build up to the election was chaotic as a series of 6 speakers debates, two involving just the top two candidates, two involving representatives from all parties polling above 5% and two involving just the minor parties, saw a surprising amount of drama and political fallout with an angry outburst from incumbent speaker Dowdswell during the second “Major Party” debate resulting in a major collapse in her personal approval numbers. The ground war was energetic with the rapidly growing Freelanders storming the Commonwealth with their “Freer Land, Freer Albion” campaign employing a series of humourists and dramatists at both rallies and on binary motuspics[3] to great effect. The campaign was also noted for being much more personal as Dowdswell, Duffield, Dyffed and even minor party leader Grace Yamaguchi all invited journalists into their homes and opened up on their personal and family lives. This was a major break with convention, which held that the political and personal were to be distinct. Some have heralded this as a breakthrough for more human politics, others as a major tarnishing of tradition and potential start of a breakdown in political decorum. After all the ups and downs, national polling had the Levellers and Alliance neck and neck for first place, desperately seeking a plurality which would allow them to form a new government.


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The result came as a mild shock with the unpopular Alliance government tumbling from their near majority of 387 seats down to 252, falling behind the Levellers for the first time since 2004. The Levellers themselves rose to a respectable but far from historic plurality of 276 under the relatively young and inexperienced Duffield whose pivot towards Bioconservatism and progressivism has been widely seen as the main factor in the Leveller revival. Michael Dyffed, 9 year leader of the Freelander Party, continued to see success. Moderating the party’s nostalgic stance somewhat and opening discussions with the Levellers to form an official opposition coalition in 2013 were controversial moves at the time but both appeared to have paid off. Many politicians now argue that the “Two Party System” which dominated the first decade and a half of the 21st century has given way to a “Two-and-a-half Parties” or even a return to the full Multi-Party system of the 20th century.

As Albion turned from result counting to government formation, the incumbent the long touted “All Green” coalition finally bore fruit. The Levellers, despite being a long way west of their new partners in the Freelander party, were able to hammer out an agreement before the election campaign began, having sat together as the official opposition coalition since 2013. Having won a clear plurality, Leveller Leader Flora Duffield clinched the Speakership with Freelander leader Michael Dyffed taking the Deputy Speakers chair as well as the position of First Lord of Treasury. Other officers of state appointed included Levellers Stephen Fogleman as First Lord of the Foreign Office and Michelle Mann as Lord High Admiral and Lord with Freelander Dominic Kemp as Lord Advocate.

Before the 2010s the two green parties had often been at each others throats, not only due to a divide in ideology and social values but also over a seriously contested voter base. Leveller parties all over the world rely on an alliance of educated urban middle class and peasant labourers. With the later on the decline in recent years the party have branched out to appealing to some urban workers and bioconservatives. Freelanders have continued to garner support from rural communities, advocating traditional and bioconservative[4] farming as well as greater protections for farmers and peasants, combined with new laws to strengthen and “sanctify” Common Land Ownership. Other areas of disagreement emerge from PSP rights[5] and potential reforms of the disestablishmentarian laws passed by the last Leveller government, though in recent years the antidisestablishmentarian wing of the Freelanders has been on the decline.

Conversely, both parties have been moving closer together on the issue of bioconservatism, as traditional freelander anti-industrialism synthesises with Leveller humanism to form the modern bioconservative movement. Natural scientists report that unless we can prevent the average world temperature from rising more than 1 newton, large scale biodamage may be unavoidable. The only ecological divide between the two is on the value of further ecologies and “Agrotowns”, which the Freelanders dismiss as expensive and inferior to more standard forms of agricultural organisation. It is the increasing fear of environmental decay, as well as similar plans for constitution reform, which made the previously unlikely possible and, throughout the parliament, Duffield and Daffyd haved operated as a close pair.


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The Green Coalition promised to invest heavily in rural areas to bring their educational and welfare systems up to par with the cities, as well as to abolish the transport fees introduced by the Alliance government. They committed to continued Albionic support for opposition groups in Mississippi and Brasil and agreed on a separation of the Office of Agriculture into an Office of Rural Affairs and an Office of Bio-Development. The Coalition announced further reforms to the federal structure of the FC, creating a series of new Captaincies within England, Scotland and Eire. They also agreed to place punitive taxes on companies engaging in biodamaging practices, implement a higher budget for the Fraternal Health Authority and boost investment in all sectors of education, from kindie up through the Universariums. Outgoing Alliance leader Elizabeth Dowdswell called these plans “reactionary” and “unaffordable” but support was garnered from the Peoples’ and Nations’ Party and Forward March, the former supporting the government’s political reforms and the latter favouring the funding of higher education. Both agreed to support the Government’s first budget, though remained officially in opposition. The Alliance Party, forming the official opposition, held a leadership election shortly after the election which saw Éireann MP Adair Martin elected as party leader. Martin broke with recent convention and refused to form an opposition coalition, instead leaving the Alliance Party as the sole official opposition.


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[6]​

Since the election, the All Green Coalition has maintained a slight lead in national polling, though a percieved trend of isolationism and moderation has led to some criticisms from the Levellers’ west, as the “Digger” wing of the party and the newly founded, anthropicist Humanitarian Party called for more radical change. Nevertheless, Duffield’s administration seems stable and their near exclusive focus on internal reforms appears to be thawing as a recent trip by the Speaker to the Atlantic Commonwealths ahead of this years Atlantic Conference was warmly received both in Albion and in the new world.

With the 2019 elections just passed and Duffield's Levellers reelected to a plurality, negotiations on a new government continue.



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[1] Of the Home Nations, England, Scotland and Ireland are Lieutenancies whilst Wales is relegated to a lower ranked "Captaincy".
[2] The system is not too different from the AV+ System proposed for the UK in OTL
[3] Digital video
[4] Ecological or Green
[5] Patrocic, Sapphic and Panphillic (Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual/Pansexual respectively)
[6] A General note on Cabinet titles; the heads of Offices (rather than ministries) tend to be known as "Officers" or Councillors rather than ministers. Likewise there are few "Secretaries of State", instead as Parliamentary government and the old Royal administration are merged a lot closer than OTL, executive titles are based on the
Officers of State. "First Lords" are the highest ranked members of the cabinet with more junior ministries generally being Presidents or Chairmen of Boards. A more recent development is "Chiefs" who are less in charge of ministries and more individuals attending cabinet tasked with shaping government policy in certain areas, ala the "Tsars" sometimes appointed by British and American governments IOTL.
 
Very neat stuff regarding alternate elections, and I love all the alternate terminology, political issues, and ideologies! Would it be okay if we got a rundown of each of the FC’s political parties? Just because of how alien the ideologies are, I personally find it a bit hard to understand the stances of each group.
 
Trying to map the parties onto modern movements:
- the Levellers seem to be some kind of traditional center left party, that absorbed the left as it became more moderate, and thus has a Digger wing? Progressive and green values and some intervention in the economy, but probably only just
- the Freelanders seem to be a rural interests party that didn't end up coopted into a larger right wing party as it usually happens OTL, potentially because the commons evolved rather than being forcibly abolished and that gives them a stable base of support? They're probably socially conservative to some degree, hence the disagreement on PSP. No idea what disestablishment is.
- Alliance seem to be your bog standard fiscally conservative center right / neoliberals. Since they're not in power in the update, we have little information

We're left with three minor parties.
- The Tory revivalists are probably some right wing traditionalists? We don't hear anything about them so I'm just going with the name.
- Peoples and Nations seem to be a regionalist party of some sort? Probably supportive of devolution and reform of territorial administration. Not sure how they swing on social and economic issues yet.
- Forward March might be a sort of new leftwing movement? The Diggers drifting to the center and becoming the left wing of the Levellers probably leaves room for some sort of far left party.

[5] Patrocic, Sapphic and Panphillic (Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual/Pansexual respectively)

How are trans rights doing?
 
Very neat stuff regarding alternate elections, and I love all the alternate terminology, political issues, and ideologies! Would it be okay if we got a rundown of each of the FC’s political parties? Just because of how alien the ideologies are, I personally find it a bit hard to understand the stances of each group.

Ah I'm glad to you enjoy it; I love doing that sort of linguistic world building and having things develop in a more unique way. But obvious it is insanely confusing and thats a major concern for me writing it. I do realise I have slightly thrown people in at the deep end! Next thing will be a big ideology primer, I promise! Should be up within the week and should definitely make it all a little clearer. Hope this is still readable enough to be interesting :p I explain some stuff below!


Trying to map the parties onto modern movements:
- the Levellers seem to be some kind of traditional center left party, that absorbed the left as it became more moderate, and thus has a Digger wing? Progressive and green values and some intervention in the economy, but probably only just
- the Freelanders seem to be a rural interests party that didn't end up coopted into a larger right wing party as it usually happens OTL, potentially because the commons evolved rather than being forcibly abolished and that gives them a stable base of support? They're probably socially conservative to some degree, hence the disagreement on PSP. No idea what disestablishment is.
- Alliance seem to be your bog standard fiscally conservative center right / neoliberals. Since they're not in power in the update, we have little information

We're left with three minor parties.
- The Tory revivalists are probably some right wing traditionalists? We don't hear anything about them so I'm just going with the name.
- Peoples and Nations seem to be a regionalist party of some sort? Probably supportive of devolution and reform of territorial administration. Not sure how they swing on social and economic issues yet.
- Forward March might be a sort of new leftwing movement? The Diggers drifting to the center and becoming the left wing of the Levellers probably leaves room for some sort of far left party.


Levellers absorbing the Diggers is really something which happened earlier, in the mid-late 2000s and their moderate turn comes after, though they retain the voters. Leveller and Digger are the closest as labels one can get to "Social Democrat" and "Socialist" respectively. They're economically interventionist but they're more interested in cooperatives and localist solutions than OTL lefties, prefering options like workplace democracy or creating mutuals to outright nationalisation.

Freelanders are a little more complex than just rural interests; they're Cultivarists which is a combination of agricultural rights, social conservatism and the core of green politics. Traditionally, they're explicitly anti-urbanisation and outright thinks towns and cities are a negative thing to be opposed at all costs. In addition to holding environmentalism very close to their hearts, they're also keen believers in animal rights and laws protecting the rights of animals (though, it should be noted, few are vegetarians). Cultivarists emphasise the land as the ideal and support sustainability, naturalism,

Alliance are broad tent; centre-left to right. I'll explain more about them soonish but they're really an umbrella for three or four distinct ideologies which are able to agree on enough policy to hang together.

Forward March are a group of Pokolenists who are really weird so they'll definitely need explaining later but the simplest way to put it for now is lefty academic technocrats who believe in generations as the core division in politics, just as say OTL Marxism sees class as the core division.

I know this is all a bit vague and maybe still confusing but I'll have that ideologies sheet up asap and then hopefully it'll all make more sense!

How are trans rights doing?

Ah this I'll respond to in more depth because I realise that might have seemed exclusionary! Trans rights are chugging along very comfortably, several decades ahead of where they are IOTL. ITTL, Trans Rights Movements actually develop out of campaigns for gender equality. Starting in nations which already had either some cultural acceptance of trans people already (Sworn Virgins in the Balkans, mashoga and mabasha in East Africa, ect ect) and third genders such as Hijras in South Asia and, across the Pacific, the Mahu and Fa'afafine. With no imposition of western social norms to many of these countries, the traditional acceptance of these genders sticks. As a result, non-binary and trans people in these nations tended allied with cis women demanding equal rights under the banner of "All Rights for All Genders" when TTL's First Wave of Feminism (probably not called that) rolls round in the mid 19th century. This soon comes to include all trans and non-binary people. As the 20th century rolls around and Trans people become more acknowledged in the west and elsewhere (in part because of these movements) the movement spreads even further. All Gender and PSP groups often work together and universities, schools, organisations and political parties usually have AG-PSP alliances or umbrella organisations.

In English, the term "Two Spirit" is adopted as the standard ITTL word for transgender, primarily because of the heavy contact between English speakers and the Haudanonsaunee, leading to trans people in the Atlantic Commonwealths and then in the FC adopting the term. Should also note; I'm aware that the line between some of these traditional genders being trans or being a "third gender" is complex, I think ITTL that distinction won't exist and the whole concept of gender will be a little more fluid by the 20th century.

Now disclaimer; this is not to imply in anyway that I don't feel Trans people are fully a part of the LGBT movement; I just wanted to consider how gender as a concept might be treated differently, particularly in a world with much more varied social and religious values compared to our own.

So "PSP" rights are doing well, about as well as in our own timeline, but "All Gender" rights which includes both feminism and trans rights are about a half century ahead.
 
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Levellers absorbing the Diggers is really something which happened earlier, in the mid-late 2000s and their moderate turn comes after, though they retain the voters. Leveller and Digger are the closest as labels one can get to "Social Democrat" and "Socialist" respectively. They're economically interventionist but they're more interested in cooperatives and localist solutions than OTL lefties, prefering options like workplace democracy or creating mutuals to outright nationalisation.

That's great. The development of "state socialist" (as Marx and Engels put it, I believe) programs was a big loss for the left. Usually it just ends up being collectivization of the costs while the capitalists keep running with the profits and it forces government onto the workers in the same relation you had to your boss. I like it, though I'd be interested to hear about whether there's anyone interested in ending the whole capitalist thing entirely. It's a bit of a shame people can't separately vote for the left wing of the levellers or something more radical.

Forward March are a group of Pokolenists who are really weird so they'll definitely need explaining later but the simplest way to put it for now is lefty academic technocrats who believe in generations as the core division in politics, just as say OTL Marxism sees class as the core division.

Oh no, not the technocrats. Yeah that looks kinda sucky.

So "PSP" rights are doing well, about as well as in our own timeline, but "All Gender" rights which includes both feminism and trans rights are about a half century ahead.

That's great. The trans exclusive nature of second wave feminism really set us back a long way, especially in Britain. Interesting to have a less western movement and potentially tie itself to anti imperialism and cultivation of local values.

On the other hand, it's worth remembering that a lot of those third genders meshed with religious roles. For example, two spirits weren't really a gender identification as much as a societal role, I think? I imagine a lot of trans people just want to be the gender they identify as and stop talking about it, too.
 
That's great. The development of "state socialist" (as Marx and Engels put it, I believe) programs was a big loss for the left. Usually it just ends up being collectivization of the costs while the capitalists keep running with the profits and it forces government onto the workers in the same relation you had to your boss. I like it, though I'd be interested to hear about whether there's anyone interested in ending the whole capitalist thing entirely. It's a bit of a shame people can't separately vote for the left wing of the levellers or something more radical.

I'm a little biased as I lean "left-lib" myself but I think its an interesting way for the mainstream left to go. There's still an equivalent to statist socialism ITTL, they're just not seen as really that connected to Levellers/Diggers. There used to be a mainstream Digger Party (though rarely under that name) for many many years in Britain but the left had a rough time from ~1990 through to 2016 and so its been on the decline but, thats all changing. You might enjoy some developments when I return to Commonwealth politics in a while; the 2019 Election will see some quite dramatic reallignment.


That's great. The trans exclusive nature of second wave feminism really set us back a long way, especially in Britain. Interesting to have a less western movement and potentially tie itself to anti imperialism and cultivation of local values.

On the other hand, it's worth remembering that a lot of those third genders meshed with religious roles. For example, two spirits weren't really a gender identification as much as a societal role, I think? I imagine a lot of trans people just want to be the gender they identify as and stop talking about it, too.

Yeah I think the Albionic/British use of "Two Spirits" was effectively a misunderstanding of the American identity, seeing the gender as the core of it and running with that. Circa 2020, it won't be used much and the distinction between Cis and Trans will probably be unimportant. The fight for AG rights happened way back in the 60s and its largely a settled thing, that some people are trans is taken for granted.

I have to say this is an area of the world building still open to a decent amount of change, the main groundwork and the bit I've enjoyed writing is that core history of PSP and AG movements so input is very welcome! I really appreciate the questions and comments so far; helps me flesh things out and get my thoughts written down on issues which aren't fully in stone yet.
 
I'm a little biased as I lean "left-lib" myself but I think its an interesting way for the mainstream left to go. There's still an equivalent to statist socialism ITTL, they're just not seen as really that connected to Levellers/Diggers. There used to be a mainstream Digger Party (though rarely under that name) for many many years in Britain but the left had a rough time from ~1990 through to 2016 and so its been on the decline but, thats all changing. You might enjoy some developments when I return to Commonwealth politics in a while; the 2019 Election will see some quite dramatic reallignment.

If you want opinions on leftist politics, I'll be around. That's all I do x'D

Yeah I think the Albionic/British use of "Two Spirits" was effectively a misunderstanding of the American identity, seeing the gender as the core of it and running with that. Circa 2020, it won't be used much and the distinction between Cis and Trans will probably be unimportant. The fight for AG rights happened way back in the 60s and its largely a settled thing, that some people are trans is taken for granted.

I have to say this is an area of the world building still open to a decent amount of change, the main groundwork and the bit I've enjoyed writing is that core history of PSP and AG movements so input is very welcome! I really appreciate the questions and comments so far; helps me flesh things out and get my thoughts written down on issues which aren't fully in stone yet.

50 years isn't really that much time when you consider this is basically taking a wrecking ball to the societal conception of gender prevalent in our societies, and I expect, in any western one without a POD much farther back.

Though tying it to half the population's struggles is a good way to make it go smoother.
 
I was wondering what the general state of economic development and industrialisation is like TTL? I ask because the POD is early enough that you could butterfly away the Industrial Revolution and some of the parties you mention sound very agrarian-based, which indicated that perhaps the FC (and other's?) economies aren't as developed as OTL. GDP and HDI figures for the Atlantic Commonwealths indicate a lot of development but that might just be in relative terms...
 
I was wondering what the general state of economic development and industrialisation is like TTL? I ask because the POD is early enough that you could butterfly away the Industrial Revolution and some of the parties you mention sound very agrarian-based, which indicated that perhaps the FC (and other's?) economies aren't as developed as OTL. GDP and HDI figures for the Atlantic Commonwealths indicate a lot of development but that might just be in relative terms...

Good question! Levels of industrial/urban development are somewhat smaller than OTL, in large part because there were no sweeping European empires which helped to fuel these cities in the early days. Another implication of this diverged imperialism is that there are no nations in the new world focused heavily on importing food into Europe; IOTL British Agriculture suffered hugely in the late 19th/early 20th centuries because of imports from the US, Canada and Argentina. France, Britain, Portugal and Spain all drew heavily from their colonies and continue to import large amounts of food. This is buffeted by the fact that certain social trends haven't emerged, the Industrial Revolution was even less revolutionary than OTL and was a slow evolution over ~200 years and certain technologies haven't advanced. Notably, certain areas of chemistry particularly Agrochemistry are lagging. The Green Revolution of OTL was spurred in large part by famines and agricultural set ups largely caused by colonialism, notably in India, Mexico, Brazil and across Africa. Each of these regions has diverged heavily and so the issues have not emerged and many of the developments seem here have not come about until very recently IOTL and the "Third Agricultural Revolution" is occuring primarily in the 2000s and 2010s rather than 60s and 70s.

The second factor influencing the relative prominence of agriculture in western culture and politics is that the global economy is much "flatter"; the imbalance between the West and the Rest is much smaller than IOTL and there's no "third world" lacking a service sector. Countries are less specialised and global trade is much more limited, mainly happening within spheres (IE within the Commonwealths, between German states or the Central African powers around Kongo). Its worth remembering that, IOTL, more than a quarter of China work in agriculture, alongside >40% of India. ITTL, those numbers are effectively halved. As both India and China (Gurkanistan and Huaxia) are more developed and less export oriented than OTL. in fact importing large amounts of food themselves, many more people around the world work in agriculture. Countries are less likely to import or export food, much more likely to grow it themselves.

As of 2020, around ~12% of the Fraternal Commonwealth's citizens work in or adjacent to agriculture, though as a result many more live in "Agricultural Communities", entire towns and villages which revolve around these industries. If you're not a farmer, you serve food to farmers, teach farmer's kids, sell clothes to farmers, ect. The total number of "Rural/Agricultural Communities" varies between 18-35% of the country depending on definition of "town".
 
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I imagine this setup where rural areas in developed countries aren't as much of an afterthought as OTL means that they feel less disconnected from the mainstream, too? Their politics are probably more focused on seeing to their own interests than the modern lashing out of areas feeling left out.
 
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