"Fight and be Right"
- Thread starter EdT
- Start date
Thande
Donor
Sectarianism in Scotland and Ireland, one suspects, is a force that would survive under any circumstances, and it's interesting to see the Syndicalists failing to try and stop it with naive means.
I wonder what their response to sectarianism in Ireland was, as that was even more a case of Protestants on top and Catholics underneath, especially given the Unionists' crackdown after the assassination of the Queen. One can only imagine what tensions stewed there in the following decades...
I wonder what their response to sectarianism in Ireland was, as that was even more a case of Protestants on top and Catholics underneath, especially given the Unionists' crackdown after the assassination of the Queen. One can only imagine what tensions stewed there in the following decades...
It is indeed- my proofreading can be lousy at times.
Yes to a certain extent, although it’s easy for the Federation to paint any Sectarianism as Blue counter-revolutionary activity.
Ireland will be pretty bad I imagine, particularly Ulster. As mentioned earlier, I assume we’ll be seeing a lot of Protestant resistance to the Federation in the province, which is awkward as that’s the most industrialised part of the Republic. Plus, we’ve got Churchill’s transplanted industrial towns in the south to consider. I think I mentioned a short-lived Ulster Free State in the middle of the Revolution as well, so presumably that would have not helped. Would love a local or an expert to give writing a vignette or news article from Ulster a go…
Oh, for all that the FWR has a very technocratic bent, there are plenty of radical thinkers thrown into the mix too- and while the Federation is busily trying to ‘solve’ sectarianism, it’s also trying very hard to create national identities for some of the more diverse Workers Republics like Nigeria and West Africa.
If he hadn’t already fled, of course- I can’t remember the exact figure I put on it, but hundreds of thousands of Britons fled during the Revolution. Your grandfather may be as likely to be overseeing a farm in Zambezia or mining gold in Yellowknife as he is to be rioting in Glasgow.
Glad you’ve got into it, there’s plenty to get your teeth into!
If Scotland is going so badly I can only dread what Calcutta and other such regions are ending up like.
I suspect Calcutta is going rather better, while India has plenty of gaping sectarian chasms I suspect the Revolution was rather more popular there than in Orange Glasgow.
I just started reading this excellent timeline, (I'm up to Chapter 5 right now) and needless to say, I love it! I've been intending on reading this for a while, and I'm glad I finally got around it to it. I can tell allot of research and effort put into this. Very interesting learning about British politics along the way, plus the trivia here and there is great as well. This is easily a favorite timeline of mine.
Not to mention, the artwork is fantastic, and I favorited allot of it on my deviant-art account. May I ask what program you used?
I've been intending on reading this for a while, and I'm glad I finally got around it to it. I can tell allot of research and effort put into this. Very interesting learning about British politics along the way, plus the trivia here and there is great as well. This is easily a favorite timeline of mine.Not to mention, the artwork is fantastic, and I favorited allot of it on my deviant-art account.
May I ask what program you used?I just started reading this excellent timeline, (I'm up to Chapter 5 right now) and needless to say, I love it!
Not to mention, the artwork is fantastic, and I favorited allot of it on my deviant-art account.
Glad you've enjoyed it- there's certainly a hell of a lot of material to wade through now! I see the artwork, maps, and so on as being an integral part of the TL really; really think it adds to the verisimilitude and helps the world of FaBR feel like a real place. Plus, it's a great way of making progress even when labouring under writer's block; at least I'm producing something.
All the artwork for the TL was done in Photoshop. A lot of it was just conventional photo-manipulation, with the difficult bit tracking down the base images in the first place- I was lucky in that a lot of a political cartoons of the time were hanging up around my office, so I could get photos quite easily and clean them up. The maps are all vectors traced over a variety of bases- it's time consuming but a nice way of ensuring you get a common look, and also giving you a lot of flexibility.
Your welcome, I'm up to chapter 16 right now.
Yes, I've been meaning to buy Photoshop for a while, and I hope to soon.
Some questions...
Are you going to write any more Benny Moss's "News Articles?" You wrote two more not part of The world of Fight and be Right so will there be any more?
Have you ever considered creating a sort of expanded universe thread for this timeline? You know, where fans can write their own stories in TTL's universe. I'm curious to see fans of TTL will create, plus I have a few ides of my own. Then again, it is all up to you.
What is this world like past-1940? Earlier in this thread you mentioned you mapped out until about 1970. What did you map out exactly? For one thing I have a feeling the FWR will fall by 1990.
One more thing, I made a UCS version of the FaBR map in 1940. I followed your map to a T, but the Pacific is were errors may lie, and quite a bit of it was speculation. I have 95% complete versions of 1895, 1905, 1915, 1925, 1932 and 1936 I plan to finish and post after I get your feedback on this one.
At some point, when I have the inclination and reinstall Publisher on my laptop, I’ll do another edition of “World of Fight and Be Right” with the stories that didn’t make the first one. I’m not immediately intending to add anything else to the TL- I’m occupied enough with The Bloody Man at the moment- but I won’t rule it out. At some point I will also sit down and do some proper work on the novel set in the FaBR universe that I’ve been intermittently working on.
Well, a lot of the content of the TL has come from my readers as it is- it would be a far less detailed and interesting setting if people hadn’t PMed me with their ideas and suggestions. I’m a little reluctant, however, to open things up completely. I have a fairly well-defined idea of the setting and of (for want of a better word) canon, and I would find it frustrating if people did things that went up against that. Plus, I think a little ambiguity is a good thing- I’m pleased, for example, that the FWR can equally be taken as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing depending on the reader’s point of view.
What I’d prefer, really, is for people to take the ideas and concepts featured in my TL and then deconstruct them. I’ve noticed that FaBR has influenced a few TLs on the board in various ways, which has been very gratifying. My TLs are aimed at challenging Alternative History tropes as much as historical preconceptions- FaBR is partly meant to deconstruct both the “Jingoistic British Empire TL” thing and the “non-Russian *USSR that inexplicably still uses the Hammer and Sickle” motifs, just as A Greater Britain was meant to demonstrate that you can do Oswald Mosley as PM without including any jackboots marching down Whitehall.
I’m sure my stuff has created some irritating assumptions or cosy orthodoxies about particular historical characters- it’d be great to see somebody point them out then rip them apart in a TL.
Just a couple of vague trends, nothing specific- although I do have an idea for a novel or novella set in the late 1940s or early 1950s ITTL, and so I know what will happen up to that point in the areas relevant to that. I carefully made no assumption about the survival or otherwise of the FWR- my main objective was to put myself into a position where it was interesting for readers to speculate without prejudging much myself.
Nice map! The Pacific looks pretty good, I’d be tempted to give the remaining FWR possessions in the region to either Australia or New Zealand however. Otherwise, spot on.
I've got the beginnings of a short story somewhere that I wrote in the present-day (ish) FaBR universe, I might finish it and send it to you, Ed, sometime - I wouldn't put it here publicly for the reasons you've stated, which are entirely reasonable. I seem to remember it was mostly tongue in cheek.
It's mostly already in the thread to be honest- we've speculated about the possibility of some sort of *Suez Crisis, the medium-term development of the FWR, how places like the Congo and East Africa are going to end up, and so on... Beyond that I don't really want to be drawn- I have a certain view in my head but the point of leaving things at 1940 is to invite speculation and debate rather than settle any questions definitively.
Please do! I'd be fascinated to read; not opposed to people contributing in the slightest, but I do like to exercise some editorial oversight first, if that makes sense...
By the way have you given any thought to the alternate demographics of Australiasia in this tl?
In OTL Australia and New Zealand both got pretty massive waves of British immigrants post-war , now in this tl you are obviously going to get refugee's in their place but the numbers could be anything from much lower to much higher.
In OTL Australia and New Zealand both got pretty massive waves of British immigrants post-war , now in this tl you are obviously going to get refugee's in their place but the numbers could be anything from much lower to much higher.
