I'd like to think I'm at least indirectly to credit for that, because I suggested the addition of a technocratic US color. But whatever. You've made an interesting scenario out of it, to be sure.
HowAboutThisForAName's Map Room
- Thread starter Isaac Beach
- Start date
Isaac Beach
Banned
So a relatively easy little POD detailing a British victory in the War of 1812, as opposed to the stalemate of OTL. I'm a touch fuzzy on the details, but a breakout in New England facilitated a peace agreement whereby the US ceded two thirds of Maine and Michigan to Canada. This would facilitate a few changes in the short and long term, prime among the latter being New English enmity for the rest of America and Canada declaring itself a Kingdom when it came to self governance whilst in the former it saw an overconfident British expedition rush into battle against Napoleon and get slaughtered by an exasperated but still masterful L'Empereur. This fumble prolongs the War of the Sixth Coalition for another year into late 1815 when the Siege of Paris ends with Bonnie's abdication; with terms.
France keeps Piedmont and Belgium, as well as the Frencher parts of Switzerland, but loses all other territories. With a different disposition of forces Prussia gains Hannover, made tenable to the British via suzerainty on the elevated Kingdom of Sardinia, a far nicer plot of land that wouldn't drag them into the various conflicts between the German Principalities and allowed them to lord of the Mediterranean. A reduced Poland also came out of it alive, due to less Russian involvement after repelling Napoleon, with the proviso that Prussia, Russia and Austria receive joint suzerainty and administrate it as they please so long as it is by consensus and not de facto or de jure annexation. The Portuguese Court handled the departure from Brazil better, leaving a junior branch on the throne there and thus keeping bonds between the metropole and Brazil strong.
In the long term -say, the 1850s- New England would successfully fight a war of succession, citing historical grievances, a moral objection to the widespread use of slavery and anger over tax subsidies used to keep the impoverished south afloat after the price of cotton crashed. Everything from Pennsylvania to (mini)Maine seceded as the Republic of New England, and quickly latched onto the British.
Austria lost it's transleithanian territories in the 1860s after it failed to account for Hungarian qualms when it inherited the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Hungarians demanded autonomy lest they be dominated by the now doubly-strong Cisleithanian Germans -Venice being completely incorporated into the Hapsburg realm didn't help either- and Vienna said no. There was a war, and Hungary seceded. This also facilitated the expansion of Polish territory.
Colonialism came out weaker, due to no massive French defeat seeing Paris attempt to regain it's prestige via oppressing black people and spurring other people to do the same. There were more puppets, proxies and protectorates as a result, often at the behest of private interests, and Africa retained more autonomy.
There haven't been any World Wars, but a few big brush ups and revolutions that set the tone for the 20th Century. Brazil invaded Peru, for example, and after a grueling eight year war subdued the republic after drawing Bolivia to it's aid. Ironically for their prior history this would put Brazil and later South America at the cutting edge of military technology. China had it's development forcibly fast tracked with aid from the British when Russia invaded and snatched everything from East Turkestan to Manchuria. A less developed Japan was invaded and partitioned between a less patient US, an even more expansionist Russia and a sympathetic China trying to save it's Sinic cousin. (Sino-Japanese relations are weird af ITTL) Probably the most dramatic of conflicts occurred internally; when poor whites, oppressed Latinos and enslaved blacks rose up in the 1910s to overthrow the slavocratic oligarchy that had ruled America for some seventy years. What arose was a strange, segregationist yet collectivist technocracy that would eventually adopt an internationalist approach to it's ideology, and successfully primed France and allied Prussia with a similar -albeit more peacefully occurring- civic philosophy.
The world is strange, with the prime difference being that collectivism won out against individualism. How this is administered is the main point of conflict between the various world powers; with the British employing a sort of two pronged philosophy called Consociationalism whereby their subjects' cultural autonomy is preserved but made secondary to the overriding imperial identity proliferated across their federation. This is enforced by an omnipresent bureaucracy dominated by Londoners so that the imperial identity is fairly 'English' in character. The Americans, by contrast, believe in the complete segregation of culture and race that instead operates on a basis of rational consensus, making theirs the more democratic of the two.
America has an eclectic collection of allies, the clerical royal fascists of the Hispanian Compact and the military-mercantilist complex of Prussia, the Wahhabi Arabs and perhaps most noticeably a France that seems to pride itself on it's revolutionary roots despite many scholars pointing out that the current state of affairs was brought about in a democratic way and that their history of revolution has usually been co-opted for some other nefarious means; or they would do if they hadn't been purged by the Republican Guard. They're also trying to get Hindustan on board, who discarded the British yoke in the 1920s for a fairly bland and ideologically utilitarian union, so far with little success.
The Imperial British Federation is a collection of increasingly frustrated Dominions who all would like more say as to the actual running of the Empire given it all seems to be run out of London, even with the Federation legislature. Aside this are an oligarchic and inflation prone New England, a bureaucratic-socialist* Sweden-Norway, a conservative league of Islamic kingdoms + Turkey, and the ideologically divergent Austria and China who are big on internal autonomy and the rights of ethnic minorities.
Then of course there's Russia, a surprisingly chipper autocracy with qualms regarding both blocs and that adores spooking both of them.
The world's rather in a state of relaxed Cold War; trade continues, but so does military build up. The possibility of war is a very real one as no one has yet invented the atom bomb, in part due a lack of World Wars, and technology as a whole is a few decades behind, looking about 1920s at the most. Ironically for a world where communism never arose, it is dominated by the people.
---
This was more an exercise to get back into the habit of making alternate history maps, as I've been focusing on future history and alternate planets. I get that the writeup's a bit implausible and maybe doesn't wholly make sense, but that's fine. I hope you enjoy it.
France keeps Piedmont and Belgium, as well as the Frencher parts of Switzerland, but loses all other territories. With a different disposition of forces Prussia gains Hannover, made tenable to the British via suzerainty on the elevated Kingdom of Sardinia, a far nicer plot of land that wouldn't drag them into the various conflicts between the German Principalities and allowed them to lord of the Mediterranean. A reduced Poland also came out of it alive, due to less Russian involvement after repelling Napoleon, with the proviso that Prussia, Russia and Austria receive joint suzerainty and administrate it as they please so long as it is by consensus and not de facto or de jure annexation. The Portuguese Court handled the departure from Brazil better, leaving a junior branch on the throne there and thus keeping bonds between the metropole and Brazil strong.
In the long term -say, the 1850s- New England would successfully fight a war of succession, citing historical grievances, a moral objection to the widespread use of slavery and anger over tax subsidies used to keep the impoverished south afloat after the price of cotton crashed. Everything from Pennsylvania to (mini)Maine seceded as the Republic of New England, and quickly latched onto the British.
Austria lost it's transleithanian territories in the 1860s after it failed to account for Hungarian qualms when it inherited the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Hungarians demanded autonomy lest they be dominated by the now doubly-strong Cisleithanian Germans -Venice being completely incorporated into the Hapsburg realm didn't help either- and Vienna said no. There was a war, and Hungary seceded. This also facilitated the expansion of Polish territory.
Colonialism came out weaker, due to no massive French defeat seeing Paris attempt to regain it's prestige via oppressing black people and spurring other people to do the same. There were more puppets, proxies and protectorates as a result, often at the behest of private interests, and Africa retained more autonomy.
There haven't been any World Wars, but a few big brush ups and revolutions that set the tone for the 20th Century. Brazil invaded Peru, for example, and after a grueling eight year war subdued the republic after drawing Bolivia to it's aid. Ironically for their prior history this would put Brazil and later South America at the cutting edge of military technology. China had it's development forcibly fast tracked with aid from the British when Russia invaded and snatched everything from East Turkestan to Manchuria. A less developed Japan was invaded and partitioned between a less patient US, an even more expansionist Russia and a sympathetic China trying to save it's Sinic cousin. (Sino-Japanese relations are weird af ITTL) Probably the most dramatic of conflicts occurred internally; when poor whites, oppressed Latinos and enslaved blacks rose up in the 1910s to overthrow the slavocratic oligarchy that had ruled America for some seventy years. What arose was a strange, segregationist yet collectivist technocracy that would eventually adopt an internationalist approach to it's ideology, and successfully primed France and allied Prussia with a similar -albeit more peacefully occurring- civic philosophy.
The world is strange, with the prime difference being that collectivism won out against individualism. How this is administered is the main point of conflict between the various world powers; with the British employing a sort of two pronged philosophy called Consociationalism whereby their subjects' cultural autonomy is preserved but made secondary to the overriding imperial identity proliferated across their federation. This is enforced by an omnipresent bureaucracy dominated by Londoners so that the imperial identity is fairly 'English' in character. The Americans, by contrast, believe in the complete segregation of culture and race that instead operates on a basis of rational consensus, making theirs the more democratic of the two.
America has an eclectic collection of allies, the clerical royal fascists of the Hispanian Compact and the military-mercantilist complex of Prussia, the Wahhabi Arabs and perhaps most noticeably a France that seems to pride itself on it's revolutionary roots despite many scholars pointing out that the current state of affairs was brought about in a democratic way and that their history of revolution has usually been co-opted for some other nefarious means; or they would do if they hadn't been purged by the Republican Guard. They're also trying to get Hindustan on board, who discarded the British yoke in the 1920s for a fairly bland and ideologically utilitarian union, so far with little success.
The Imperial British Federation is a collection of increasingly frustrated Dominions who all would like more say as to the actual running of the Empire given it all seems to be run out of London, even with the Federation legislature. Aside this are an oligarchic and inflation prone New England, a bureaucratic-socialist* Sweden-Norway, a conservative league of Islamic kingdoms + Turkey, and the ideologically divergent Austria and China who are big on internal autonomy and the rights of ethnic minorities.
Then of course there's Russia, a surprisingly chipper autocracy with qualms regarding both blocs and that adores spooking both of them.
The world's rather in a state of relaxed Cold War; trade continues, but so does military build up. The possibility of war is a very real one as no one has yet invented the atom bomb, in part due a lack of World Wars, and technology as a whole is a few decades behind, looking about 1920s at the most. Ironically for a world where communism never arose, it is dominated by the people.
---
This was more an exercise to get back into the habit of making alternate history maps, as I've been focusing on future history and alternate planets. I get that the writeup's a bit implausible and maybe doesn't wholly make sense, but that's fine. I hope you enjoy it.
Last edited:
Isaac Beach
Banned
Just a few WorldAs I've collected over time. I'll post the main ones I typically use. I only use paint to edit them, nothin' special, nyaha.
For most maps with a POD in the 1800s or 1900s I tend to use the 1914 base map. Has lots of lovely internal divisions.
For future history maps I use the 2015 base map, though I also have a couple of edited versions that I made which have a sea level rise if you'd like to see those.
And when I'm making wholly new worlds I use this blank but lined map, and just go full hog scrambling all over it.
And I also have a lot of other bits and bobs -in my bits and bobs folder- of alternate borders, maps of the planets of the solar system, notes and other such nonsense. If you need anything in particular there's a good chance I have it.
Thanks. I don't need anything in particular right now, but thanks for the offer.
Isaac Beach
Banned
Now here's a biggun I've been working on for quite some time now.
The New Baku System was discovered by legendary Bosnian explorer Lejna Čeliković. 'Twas not a grand system, with a pallid F-class star at it's center and a range of baked, small, terrestrial planets circumjacent, it came as something of a surprise when the colossal shade of what would go on to become Bijel obscured the stars; and more importantly comfortably in the habitable zone.
Bijel is covered in long plateau and translucent oceans, snow-speckled deserts and timid bush. It's wild life is archaic yet complex, with the tri-winged Kovit screwing through the air from branch to branch and the flat Jajast stalking flighty Krajl Bunker's across the plateau. In it's oceans enormous Dugačubi, six limbed crocodile-types the size of buses prey upon the lugubrious Ganado watering at the sea's edge. And of course, in the deserts, the crystalline sand worms[1] roam.
A member of the wealthy network of systems, the Arkān Crux, Bijel was a Class-B Frontier Planet, requiring a bare minimum of terraforming -though excess oxygen was pumped into the atmosphere, which incidentally made much of the wildlife quite manic- and so was advertised near immediately to potential settlers across the Stellar Shura. However, it failed to attract the same attention as Ibeji and Huanglong Systems, and settlers were but a trickle, instead settling in large numbers in the asteroid belt just beyond Bijel. Settlers who did arrive to the planet proper were a despondent sort, often refugees and runaways, pirates and criminals. Waaqite Pentecostals settled in the north of the planet after being driven from their home planet in the Mudéjar Crusade; the New Turks of Ergenekon who settled en masse in the south of the planet; the Mool-Gwishin Chaebol which had after two and a half eons of itinerant lifestyle spread across the extent of the Long Veldt in Bijel’s eastern hemisphere; and Mestri, the oft oppressed xenobic minority of the Shura’s many member states, came in droves to settler along the eastern coast of the Kamen Sea. But one ethnic group became synonymous with the system; the Balkansko.
Originally native to the Varuna System, a system dominated by 43 billion South Asians, the Balkansko were members that had piggybacked the initial settlement programs pioneered in the early days of the Indo-Intermarium friendship. And while the Poles and the Ukrainians and the Venetians benefited and were granted a high place in the interplanetary confederacy that was born from this program the Serbs and Montenegrin of the old ways, the Bosniaks, the Romanians abandoned by their Western Latin cousins, were oppressed and marginalised. And so twelve million from across four planets left the system on a trek that would take three years to settle on every plateau, valley and coast of Bijel. This wave, together with the other forlorn ethnicities, would become known as the Black Wave.
The long term effect of this can still be seen today, as the two largest polities; the Jamsheda Caliphate and the Vjetrovit Federation have a predominantly Bosniak and Serbo-Romanian aristocracy and upper class, respectively. These groups came to own the largest stretches of land, but at the time it meant little and the planet was infrastructurally abandoned. It was a planet of homesteads and clustered communities shooting at bandits and housing pirates. This of course would not last.
It was discovered, quite by accident when some Bosniaks were surveying for gas desposits, that the planet was rich with helium-3. This was an enormous discovery as helium-3 is essential to both interplanetary and interstellar travel, acting as a component in fusion drives. When word got out there was an utter goldrush of settlers -ironically, many from Varuna and Huanglong- and a planet of a mere 60 million exploded to 2 billion within a decade. Unfortunately for those settlers, those that had come before in the Black Wave and especially the Bosniaks, Serbo-Romanians, Turks and Mestri possessed the greatest swaths of helium-3 rich land and so became billionaires and suzerains overnight. That population continued to grow and as of 2525 stands at about 5 billion.
Whilst pushed out of the fertile Danagal Valley and the Divjak Peninsular the greatest deposits were beneath the Great Illiciv Desert and within the Long Veldt, as well as the Ugleden Plain, which surprise surprise were owned by the Vjetrovit Federation, Jamsheda Caliphate and Uglenist Federation of Aisyst.
Their sober history and resultant prosperity have shaped the planetary ideals of Bijel, the people that live there, and this can be seen in two of the primary features of civilisation; politics and religion.
Jamsheda Caliphate
Covering the breadth of the Great Illiciv Desert and touching the northern coasts of both the Kamen and Bezdan Seas, the Caliphate is an enormous, helium-3 rich behemoth of a state bent on gaining access to the warm water ports and space elevators at the planet’s equator. Ruled by an oligarchy of Bosniaks, Turks and Koreans, the majority of the country’s population is made up of ethnic Iranians and Indians in a reversal of the state of affairs in their original system, Varuna. Most of this population is clustered around the western and south-eastern edges of the Caliphate, with the central corridor and desert housing just 30 million across it’s entire breadth, as opposed to the total population of 900 million.
They are arguably the most powerful state militarily, proven by their recent blow to the Vjetrovit Federation and the carving off the buffer state, the Sultanate of Raf, on the north-eastern edge of the Long Veldt, giving them a better vantage point in any future conflicts with their long-standing rival. This is cause for concern, especially among the states of the Danagal Valley, which the Caliphate has intermittently claimed as their birthright.
They adhere to a specific form of Islam known as ‘Great Ijtihad’, which favours an individualist approach to faith and encourages innovation and economic independence, an ideological relic from when the planet was a poor frontier world.
Vjetrovit Federation
The Federation was founded by a collection of disparate communities across the whole extent of the Long Veldt in Bijel’s eastern hemisphere. This evolved into a loose confederation and from there, as numbers swelled and certain families grew in wealth and influence into a minarchist, corporatocratic federation where the most powerful chabeols held sway over the nation’s path. Known for its glimmering cities and seedy underworld, the Vjetrovit Federation is currently in a state of flux as it tries to lay blame and ascertain exactly what caused their defeat in the War on the Shelf; families are being purged and upstarts are trying to grip the reigns of the Federation.
Religiously they adhere to the homegrown Velchamatkaar, a synthesis of Abrahamic Orthodoxy, Prosperity Gospel and Theravada Buddhism that basically states that wealth is good, and brings personal enlightenment. As such it is very popular as it justifies the hyper-capitalistic society the Federation is built on, and the Federation has been known for many staple brands across the stars, probably the most blatant of which is Vjetev, a carbonated drink derived from masala chai, omnipresent across the Stellar Shura.
Ülgenist Federation of Aisyst
Rather similar to the Vjetrovit Federation, albeit on the grounds of commandries as opposed to family chaebols, Aisyst follows a more militarised form of minarchism known as Ülgenism. Ülgenism, in it’s most basic form, states that the commandry should hold a member’s utmost loyalty, followed by their family and then themselves. Advancing the commandry is the most noble thing one might do. As such Aisyst is a bit of a wild place, full of inter-commandry warfare and economic hostility. This, along with it’s cool climate in the south of the planet, means that it is rather less populous than some of it’s neighbours and given to radical shifts in foreign policy depending on which alliance of commandries is in charge. Still, they produce some of the planet’s finest guilds, including the infamous Leloch Guild.
Aamir Freehold
A bit of an anarchy, the Freehold is the result of many independentist ranchers, frontiersmen and communes not wishing to be under the thumb of an organised government being pushed out of the Danagal Valley. Here small communities and armoured compounds basically live self-sufficiently, trading and fixing roads and train-lines as need be, and have been a model for other anarchic communes across the Shura. They are very populous despite their lack of a centralised government, as the lack of taxation and huge market potential has attracted thousands of investors and businesses who more or less maintain their own personal fiefdoms in the cities across the veldt and nestled in the brushlands. They have no professional, armed force but can muster an impressive militia to repulse those border states that might try and establish suzerainty over border regions.
Danagal Defence League: Periyakaud Republic & Kingdom of Monara
The Danagal Defence League is an association of Indo-Indochinese descended states who coordinate on matters of currency, customs and defence. This is mostly to combat the great shadow cast by the Jamsheda Caliphate who has, at various points, threatened war and has masterminded several coups in neighbouring states to install puppet monarchies. This spurred the smaller states of the Danagal Valley to confederate in protest, and there has been something of a proxy war going on in the states between the DDL and Jamsheda.
The two most important and powerful members of the DDL are the Periyakaud Republic, widely considered the breadbasket of Bijel given their prime location in the centre of the fertile Danagal Valley, and the Kingdom of Monara, a Sri Lankan-cum-Burmese monarchy which possesses the western hemisphere’s only space elevator and what is widely considered the most professional and effective armed forces on the planet, as shown by the recent deposition of the neighbouring Kingdom of Ovaliq’s puppet monarchy in favour of a DDL-friendly republic. Everyone knows a war is coming between the DDL and Jamsheda, the question is simply when.
Caishen Association
The Chinese Universalist Community’s attempts to settle Bijel for its great helium-3 deposits was only partially successful, nabbing a somewhat rich vein in the south-west of the Long Veldt south of Vjetrovit. However, the bulk of Chinese settlers found themselves settling on the Divjak Peninsular, where they have since formed a tight knit alliance of Mandarin speaking states built on mining more mundane materials as iron, tungsten and diamonds and communications technology, as well as the handling of freight and interorbital transport for states that would rather not use the DDL’s or Vjetrovit’s space elevators. As such they’re wealthy and well rounded, but far from wielding the political weight they desire. In order to increase their clout, they have since entered into association with the Vjetrovit Federation, and CUC privateers harass Jamshedan shipping as it rounds the peninsular.
Mestri Conclaves
Hr’adjir and Pr’aid, the two states bordering the Kamen Sea, are dominated by the minority species the Mestri. These aliens, descended from trilaterally symmetrical pack animals, are as such natural communists and took well to the high gravity planet similar to their long-lost home world. They form a tight knit community built on the export of natural gas, helium-3 and metallic hydrgeon, and it’s cultivation into a metastable state. They also have a thriving coastal industry of chemosynthesising natural plastics and aquaculture wherein they produce exports not only of native fish species, but also those of Sol and their own species. All of this means that, despite the xenophobia of many a Human neighbour, they are forced to trade with the diverse economies of Hr’adjir and Pr’aid.
They follow their native religion, which has remained remarkably consistent across generations and failed to splinter, quite probably because of the homogenous and communistic nature of their species. The Great Breast of Syon, whose texts detail the mother goddess Syon’s guiding of the Mestri unto space when it became clear they had over-farmed their planet into oblivion, is generally accepted to have come into being to reinforce the construction of the generation ships that took the Mestri across the galaxy at sub-luminal speeds before they arrived in Sol and has many passages pertaining to equity and the greater good of Mestril society. However, it is felt there were more diversified religions on their home planet, as demonstrated by the few cults and minor religions found even aboard the generation ships that now hang above Jinxia.
[1] - I know it's a cliche, but it's such a good cliche. I may retcon them if I make a proper desert world, which I am thinking about given I recently learned that the Arabs called a particular star system 'The Swallower' and I'd love to play around with that.
Bijel: the Great White
The New Baku System was discovered by legendary Bosnian explorer Lejna Čeliković. 'Twas not a grand system, with a pallid F-class star at it's center and a range of baked, small, terrestrial planets circumjacent, it came as something of a surprise when the colossal shade of what would go on to become Bijel obscured the stars; and more importantly comfortably in the habitable zone.
Bijel is covered in long plateau and translucent oceans, snow-speckled deserts and timid bush. It's wild life is archaic yet complex, with the tri-winged Kovit screwing through the air from branch to branch and the flat Jajast stalking flighty Krajl Bunker's across the plateau. In it's oceans enormous Dugačubi, six limbed crocodile-types the size of buses prey upon the lugubrious Ganado watering at the sea's edge. And of course, in the deserts, the crystalline sand worms[1] roam.
A member of the wealthy network of systems, the Arkān Crux, Bijel was a Class-B Frontier Planet, requiring a bare minimum of terraforming -though excess oxygen was pumped into the atmosphere, which incidentally made much of the wildlife quite manic- and so was advertised near immediately to potential settlers across the Stellar Shura. However, it failed to attract the same attention as Ibeji and Huanglong Systems, and settlers were but a trickle, instead settling in large numbers in the asteroid belt just beyond Bijel. Settlers who did arrive to the planet proper were a despondent sort, often refugees and runaways, pirates and criminals. Waaqite Pentecostals settled in the north of the planet after being driven from their home planet in the Mudéjar Crusade; the New Turks of Ergenekon who settled en masse in the south of the planet; the Mool-Gwishin Chaebol which had after two and a half eons of itinerant lifestyle spread across the extent of the Long Veldt in Bijel’s eastern hemisphere; and Mestri, the oft oppressed xenobic minority of the Shura’s many member states, came in droves to settler along the eastern coast of the Kamen Sea. But one ethnic group became synonymous with the system; the Balkansko.
Originally native to the Varuna System, a system dominated by 43 billion South Asians, the Balkansko were members that had piggybacked the initial settlement programs pioneered in the early days of the Indo-Intermarium friendship. And while the Poles and the Ukrainians and the Venetians benefited and were granted a high place in the interplanetary confederacy that was born from this program the Serbs and Montenegrin of the old ways, the Bosniaks, the Romanians abandoned by their Western Latin cousins, were oppressed and marginalised. And so twelve million from across four planets left the system on a trek that would take three years to settle on every plateau, valley and coast of Bijel. This wave, together with the other forlorn ethnicities, would become known as the Black Wave.
The long term effect of this can still be seen today, as the two largest polities; the Jamsheda Caliphate and the Vjetrovit Federation have a predominantly Bosniak and Serbo-Romanian aristocracy and upper class, respectively. These groups came to own the largest stretches of land, but at the time it meant little and the planet was infrastructurally abandoned. It was a planet of homesteads and clustered communities shooting at bandits and housing pirates. This of course would not last.
It was discovered, quite by accident when some Bosniaks were surveying for gas desposits, that the planet was rich with helium-3. This was an enormous discovery as helium-3 is essential to both interplanetary and interstellar travel, acting as a component in fusion drives. When word got out there was an utter goldrush of settlers -ironically, many from Varuna and Huanglong- and a planet of a mere 60 million exploded to 2 billion within a decade. Unfortunately for those settlers, those that had come before in the Black Wave and especially the Bosniaks, Serbo-Romanians, Turks and Mestri possessed the greatest swaths of helium-3 rich land and so became billionaires and suzerains overnight. That population continued to grow and as of 2525 stands at about 5 billion.
Whilst pushed out of the fertile Danagal Valley and the Divjak Peninsular the greatest deposits were beneath the Great Illiciv Desert and within the Long Veldt, as well as the Ugleden Plain, which surprise surprise were owned by the Vjetrovit Federation, Jamsheda Caliphate and Uglenist Federation of Aisyst.
Their sober history and resultant prosperity have shaped the planetary ideals of Bijel, the people that live there, and this can be seen in two of the primary features of civilisation; politics and religion.
Jamsheda Caliphate
Covering the breadth of the Great Illiciv Desert and touching the northern coasts of both the Kamen and Bezdan Seas, the Caliphate is an enormous, helium-3 rich behemoth of a state bent on gaining access to the warm water ports and space elevators at the planet’s equator. Ruled by an oligarchy of Bosniaks, Turks and Koreans, the majority of the country’s population is made up of ethnic Iranians and Indians in a reversal of the state of affairs in their original system, Varuna. Most of this population is clustered around the western and south-eastern edges of the Caliphate, with the central corridor and desert housing just 30 million across it’s entire breadth, as opposed to the total population of 900 million.
They are arguably the most powerful state militarily, proven by their recent blow to the Vjetrovit Federation and the carving off the buffer state, the Sultanate of Raf, on the north-eastern edge of the Long Veldt, giving them a better vantage point in any future conflicts with their long-standing rival. This is cause for concern, especially among the states of the Danagal Valley, which the Caliphate has intermittently claimed as their birthright.
They adhere to a specific form of Islam known as ‘Great Ijtihad’, which favours an individualist approach to faith and encourages innovation and economic independence, an ideological relic from when the planet was a poor frontier world.
Vjetrovit Federation
The Federation was founded by a collection of disparate communities across the whole extent of the Long Veldt in Bijel’s eastern hemisphere. This evolved into a loose confederation and from there, as numbers swelled and certain families grew in wealth and influence into a minarchist, corporatocratic federation where the most powerful chabeols held sway over the nation’s path. Known for its glimmering cities and seedy underworld, the Vjetrovit Federation is currently in a state of flux as it tries to lay blame and ascertain exactly what caused their defeat in the War on the Shelf; families are being purged and upstarts are trying to grip the reigns of the Federation.
Religiously they adhere to the homegrown Velchamatkaar, a synthesis of Abrahamic Orthodoxy, Prosperity Gospel and Theravada Buddhism that basically states that wealth is good, and brings personal enlightenment. As such it is very popular as it justifies the hyper-capitalistic society the Federation is built on, and the Federation has been known for many staple brands across the stars, probably the most blatant of which is Vjetev, a carbonated drink derived from masala chai, omnipresent across the Stellar Shura.
Ülgenist Federation of Aisyst
Rather similar to the Vjetrovit Federation, albeit on the grounds of commandries as opposed to family chaebols, Aisyst follows a more militarised form of minarchism known as Ülgenism. Ülgenism, in it’s most basic form, states that the commandry should hold a member’s utmost loyalty, followed by their family and then themselves. Advancing the commandry is the most noble thing one might do. As such Aisyst is a bit of a wild place, full of inter-commandry warfare and economic hostility. This, along with it’s cool climate in the south of the planet, means that it is rather less populous than some of it’s neighbours and given to radical shifts in foreign policy depending on which alliance of commandries is in charge. Still, they produce some of the planet’s finest guilds, including the infamous Leloch Guild.
Aamir Freehold
A bit of an anarchy, the Freehold is the result of many independentist ranchers, frontiersmen and communes not wishing to be under the thumb of an organised government being pushed out of the Danagal Valley. Here small communities and armoured compounds basically live self-sufficiently, trading and fixing roads and train-lines as need be, and have been a model for other anarchic communes across the Shura. They are very populous despite their lack of a centralised government, as the lack of taxation and huge market potential has attracted thousands of investors and businesses who more or less maintain their own personal fiefdoms in the cities across the veldt and nestled in the brushlands. They have no professional, armed force but can muster an impressive militia to repulse those border states that might try and establish suzerainty over border regions.
Danagal Defence League: Periyakaud Republic & Kingdom of Monara
The Danagal Defence League is an association of Indo-Indochinese descended states who coordinate on matters of currency, customs and defence. This is mostly to combat the great shadow cast by the Jamsheda Caliphate who has, at various points, threatened war and has masterminded several coups in neighbouring states to install puppet monarchies. This spurred the smaller states of the Danagal Valley to confederate in protest, and there has been something of a proxy war going on in the states between the DDL and Jamsheda.
The two most important and powerful members of the DDL are the Periyakaud Republic, widely considered the breadbasket of Bijel given their prime location in the centre of the fertile Danagal Valley, and the Kingdom of Monara, a Sri Lankan-cum-Burmese monarchy which possesses the western hemisphere’s only space elevator and what is widely considered the most professional and effective armed forces on the planet, as shown by the recent deposition of the neighbouring Kingdom of Ovaliq’s puppet monarchy in favour of a DDL-friendly republic. Everyone knows a war is coming between the DDL and Jamsheda, the question is simply when.
Caishen Association
The Chinese Universalist Community’s attempts to settle Bijel for its great helium-3 deposits was only partially successful, nabbing a somewhat rich vein in the south-west of the Long Veldt south of Vjetrovit. However, the bulk of Chinese settlers found themselves settling on the Divjak Peninsular, where they have since formed a tight knit alliance of Mandarin speaking states built on mining more mundane materials as iron, tungsten and diamonds and communications technology, as well as the handling of freight and interorbital transport for states that would rather not use the DDL’s or Vjetrovit’s space elevators. As such they’re wealthy and well rounded, but far from wielding the political weight they desire. In order to increase their clout, they have since entered into association with the Vjetrovit Federation, and CUC privateers harass Jamshedan shipping as it rounds the peninsular.
Mestri Conclaves
Hr’adjir and Pr’aid, the two states bordering the Kamen Sea, are dominated by the minority species the Mestri. These aliens, descended from trilaterally symmetrical pack animals, are as such natural communists and took well to the high gravity planet similar to their long-lost home world. They form a tight knit community built on the export of natural gas, helium-3 and metallic hydrgeon, and it’s cultivation into a metastable state. They also have a thriving coastal industry of chemosynthesising natural plastics and aquaculture wherein they produce exports not only of native fish species, but also those of Sol and their own species. All of this means that, despite the xenophobia of many a Human neighbour, they are forced to trade with the diverse economies of Hr’adjir and Pr’aid.
They follow their native religion, which has remained remarkably consistent across generations and failed to splinter, quite probably because of the homogenous and communistic nature of their species. The Great Breast of Syon, whose texts detail the mother goddess Syon’s guiding of the Mestri unto space when it became clear they had over-farmed their planet into oblivion, is generally accepted to have come into being to reinforce the construction of the generation ships that took the Mestri across the galaxy at sub-luminal speeds before they arrived in Sol and has many passages pertaining to equity and the greater good of Mestril society. However, it is felt there were more diversified religions on their home planet, as demonstrated by the few cults and minor religions found even aboard the generation ships that now hang above Jinxia.
[1] - I know it's a cliche, but it's such a good cliche. I may retcon them if I make a proper desert world, which I am thinking about given I recently learned that the Arabs called a particular star system 'The Swallower' and I'd love to play around with that.
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Skallagrim
Banned
Your worldbuilding continues to be top-notch, @HowAboutThisForAName. I know it's a map thread, and there's no doubt that your maps are of excellent quality-- but in my opinion, the "flavour" you add through background information really sets your work apart. I know I've said that before, about The Water Passed Through His Shoes and the Stars Through His Soul, but it bears repeating. Perhaps it's to some small part just the simple fact that you include ideas and concepts that just happen to speak to me. I mean, the elements you include remind me of the bits I like best in Dune, the Vorkosigan Saga and Heinlein's various works. (So, essentially, my favourite science fiction, neatly wrapped in a bow.) But whereas (some of) those works always run the risk of being kind of dated, you also make it all seem modern.
Essentially, I wish there'd be more science fiction like what you're presenting here. Taking the "classic" ideas, and instead of rejecting them to be "edgy"--- updating them so they're relevent again.
In particular (no doubt due to my own interest in unorthodox political/social systems), I'm fascinated by the fact that both the Vjetrovit Federation and the Ülgenist Federation of Aisyst are presented as minarchist, but this gets turned upside down because they both seem collectivist in practice. Just... in a non-governmental way. It's families and commandries that become the "collective" bodies, instead. And while minarchism is often presented as an individualist system, the outcome is very collectivist, here. That strikes me as a realistic outcome. Though of course not the only outcome, since the Aamir Freehold plays its individualism straight. And seems like the kind of place where convinced anarchists of all stripes could find there place.
I'd love to read a war novel that explores how the Aamir Freehold would deal with an invasion and/or occupation attempt. A rifle behind every blade of grass, perchance? Or a crime novel in the seedy underworld of the Vjetrovit Federation, contrastic the elegant luxury of the elite with the less pleassant realities of the downtrodden masses. Something exploring the implications of an honest-to-God (more like honest-to-Ayn-Rand) capitalist religion would be fascinating, too.
What I'trying to say is: if writing isn't your interest, then these fascinating insights into other worlds are more than enough. But if you secretly want to write science fiction and are in any doubt about the merits of your work: allow me to assure you that I for one wouldd buy and read books set in worlds such as these.
Essentially, I wish there'd be more science fiction like what you're presenting here. Taking the "classic" ideas, and instead of rejecting them to be "edgy"--- updating them so they're relevent again.
In particular (no doubt due to my own interest in unorthodox political/social systems), I'm fascinated by the fact that both the Vjetrovit Federation and the Ülgenist Federation of Aisyst are presented as minarchist, but this gets turned upside down because they both seem collectivist in practice. Just... in a non-governmental way. It's families and commandries that become the "collective" bodies, instead. And while minarchism is often presented as an individualist system, the outcome is very collectivist, here. That strikes me as a realistic outcome. Though of course not the only outcome, since the Aamir Freehold plays its individualism straight. And seems like the kind of place where convinced anarchists of all stripes could find there place.
I'd love to read a war novel that explores how the Aamir Freehold would deal with an invasion and/or occupation attempt. A rifle behind every blade of grass, perchance? Or a crime novel in the seedy underworld of the Vjetrovit Federation, contrastic the elegant luxury of the elite with the less pleassant realities of the downtrodden masses. Something exploring the implications of an honest-to-God (more like honest-to-Ayn-Rand) capitalist religion would be fascinating, too.
What I'trying to say is: if writing isn't your interest, then these fascinating insights into other worlds are more than enough. But if you secretly want to write science fiction and are in any doubt about the merits of your work: allow me to assure you that I for one wouldd buy and read books set in worlds such as these.
Isaac Beach
Banned
Thank you greatly, though I'm not so sure about my exposition
. Bruce and Toix and many other map-makers are just as good a storyteller, if not better, than myself. Dune was certainly an inspiration, and whilst I've not read any of Heinlein's work aspects that I've read about have served to influence it; especially The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Not to mention Larry Niven, so I'm glad you saw there's a likeness to them whilst staying current.I'll admit I'm a bit optimistic about space, and all this new 'hard' scifi doesn't do it for me. Where's the expansive horizons that made space the final frontier?
It seemed logical. A truly minarchist society wouldn't function unless each individual or community was spaced out by hundreds of kilometers(which funnily enough is the case in the Kuiper Belt, ITTL), so loyalty to one's core family or community seemed the easiest way to push a hyper-capitalistic, minarchist society without tearing itself apart. It's a middle ground. The Freehold is rightly anarchist, and was inspired by some discussions by an Eastern European member of this site as to how many communities in their locale operate. If a road is broken, someone from the local town will go out and fix it; if they run out of something, someone will go out on the town's behalf and buy it in bulk, etc. I thought it was an interesting idea, and thought to apply it on a national scale though I couldn't see it working on a planetary basis.
Something like that, guerilla warfare and terrorism; the best thing -at least regarding warfare- about an anarchic society is that once someone takes your home over there's nothing stopping you from going behind their lines and setting off a dirty bomb. I'll write more on religion, though you'd be more likely to catch it on my Deviantart (link in my signature) than here unless I post something in the writer's forum. As to a full novel, I do write a lot and there'll be lots of short stories in this universe. But whether I can scrape together the focus and patience for an entire novel is a good question, and if it would take place on Bijel or another alternate world, or in the Sol System, I'm not so sure. In any event, it's a great confidence boost to hear that someone is so pleased with my work, and would be willing to read more of it. So thanks, I appreciate it a great deal.
Isaac Beach
Banned
So I wrote a story set in my scifi TL of which a few posts have been made here. I dunno if I should post it here or perhaps in the Writer's Forum or just leave a link here to the deviantart page instead. But if you want to read it, it's there, and I'm open to suggestions about what I should do with it.
So judging by Carolingian existing, this is the same setting as
Water Through His Shoes and Stars Through His Soul?
Isaac Beach
Banned
No, I just stole the Carolingians from WTHSSTHS and inserted it into this scifi TL because it worked in both instances and was too good an idea to use only once.
More like a spiritual successor.Well, you're right, it's a nifty idea.No, I just stole the Carolingians from WTHSSTHS and inserted it into this scifi TL because it worked in both instances and was too good an idea to use only once.
Isaac Beach
Banned
I don't really need to give this a writeup given there's a whole spiel on the image itself. But I will say that for those curious and unable to decipher the motto at the start; it's Carolingian for "Freedom, Fraternity, Religion and Guidance". Bit of a mouthful, but then again it would be when you're smashing together upwards of six major languages. I'll post this in the main map thread when it ticks over to the next page.
Amazing map! I have two questions:
1. How did Ireland come to have five independent/autonomous states?
2. What are Europe's current demographics (in detail)? Are there any areas that are still >90% European, or is everywhere extremely diverse? How did countries like Catalonia come to join the AU?
1. How did Ireland come to have five independent/autonomous states?
2. What are Europe's current demographics (in detail)? Are there any areas that are still >90% European, or is everywhere extremely diverse? How did countries like Catalonia come to join the AU?
Isaac Beach
Banned
Surprise, surprise, I've actually written down some notes for this. Well as they've had over 500 years to develop they're now a 'shadow nation', or a digital polity that handles state-qualifying amounts of capital. This is because the purpose of AH.com has now been monetised: researchers run sophisticated AI-aided systems deliberating on both future probabilities and analysing events in the past, and they even have a small R&D wing attempting to see if they can influence events already come to pass via the same alcubierre-based non-euclidean space that enables faster-than-light travel, though results have been inconclusive.
On the site itself it's much the same as at current though with many, many more people and some weird memetic religions and whatnot. For instance, there is much discussion and conflict between those that see Calbear's coup of 2020 as a necessary subsumption and those that hail Ian as their betrayed god. Oh and every year a dummy of Thande is set on fire as the natural evolution of the 'Blame Thande' movement.
Northern Ireland joined as an autonomous region after the break up of the UK in the mid 2000s. In the backlash to globalism -or perhaps the rebirth of regionalism- Irish monarchism of the traditional, Gaelic sort became very popular and was after a long period of build up formalised in the clan system; I had a long discussion with Todyo about it here. It's similar to how Kings and Sultans still technically rule in places like Nigeria or whatnot, but are still subordinate to the primary republican government.
Well the 'whitest' place is Sweden, who went a bit balls to the walls and kicked out all of their Somalis and Syrians -who incidentally live largely in Scotland, Poland and Malmo nowadays. That was quite early in the late 2000s but they never really recovered and have a bit of a racial purity thing going on, so they're like 95% Swedish speaking and white, though they rather like Siberians and other north-east Asians.
In Scotland itself the lowlands tend to be a mix of Scots, East Africans of various stripes and South Asians, as well as a very very large Polish minority. England-Wales is like, 30% 'white' mostly in rural Wales and Northern England but are still complimented by a great many Chinese, who moved into the countryside in bulk in a single wave in the 2200s. Manchester, Cardiff, Wrexham, London, Cambridge-on-Sea and Bristol (the 'primary' urban areas) are all heavily intermixed by an Indo-white creole predominates closely followed by Arabs and Blacks, and then followed by a large contingent of Dutch, Westralians -who piggy backed the Indians- and Argentinians (ironically). Ireland is mostly Gaelic speaking and yet has an even more mixed population as the flow point from the rest of the world into Europe; their biggest minorities are Chinese, Carolingians, New English, Iranians, Eastern Slavs, Mexicans and Indians, in that order.
In the Carolingian Republic itself certain areas are still overwhelmingly white; not from xenophobia but just from lack of immigration and an overwhelming birthrate of the natives; Brittany for example, as well as Bavaria, the Dutch Islands and Alpine Italy. Due to the culture large families are also the norm, meaning that the population has stabilised at about two thirds 'European', and where immigration from Africa and Asia is still common it's not nearly as necessary as at current given the AU is even more advanced than Europe itself ITTL, and they get just as many migrants from the Americas and the Australian republics, for example. The Intermarium originated as an ethno-religious union against Muslim immigration, but has since relaxed and while about three quarters are some time of white European the other quarter -on average- is dominated by Iranians and Indians.
Europe's a lot whiter than you'd expect; people have bigger families both due to renewed religious investment and a global culture dominated by Asians and Africans, who believe in large extended families. Aside this Africa and Asia are more advanced than Europe, so there's no point for them to immigrate there, so that source of ethnic diversity was lopped and saw great waves of generational migrants returning to their homelands throughout the 2100s. It's not because of racism, save Sweden, it's just the world is a lot more equitable and so there's no reason for there to be a constant stream of migrants and refugees into Europe. Most cities are fairly diverse, but that's true of everywhere, and in the Carolingian Republic 'European' religion and culture dominates just as in Uganda Ugandan culture dominates, and so on.
Catalonia joined the African Union because the European Union had broken down before they could join and Spain was looking increasingly radical. The African Union was looking to expand beyond the African continent, flex their newly wrought muscles so to speak, and the many new, small Mediterranean countries needed a bulwark against their more predatory neighbours. Things like religion helped, the largest Catholic population on Earth is in Africa, and 9 times out of 10 the Pope is African. The AU also has a few members in South America and Arabia and are trying to persuade Westralia to join.
Thanks! If you don't mind I've got a few more questions.
How has the internet evolved over 5 centuries? I don't expect technical details (although maybe I should) but some insight into how people interact with it and its place in society would be great.
I'd also like to learn more about Calbear's Coup. Why and how did it happen? What happened afterwards? Did Ian start another forum or just give up?
Is Thande-Blaming universal? And is there anyone who takes the following seriously?
Thande-blaming has been a national pastime in England for centuries. The earliest recorded incidence of Thande-blaming has been hesitantly dated to the 16th century, in the marginalia of the Macclesfield Psalter (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge): “Thyffe pleafes me notte. Itt ys Thandys fawlte.” Thande-blaming was certainly a popular sport in Elizabethan England, and figures heavily in popular literature of the time. The 1603 'bad' quarto of Hamlet, for example, records Laertes' dying words thus: ……………………………………..here I lie, Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd: I can no more: Thande! Thande is to blame. Jacobean Thande-blaming was a drunken and often violent pass-time, on which extensive bets were sometimes made, and it was banned by Cromwell as a 'Papist practice leading to decadence and unholy thought'. (Incidentally, Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost is often read as a closet Thande-blamer.) Underground “blame-easies” quickly sprang up, and the practice survived well into the eighteenth century, when the early Romantics brought it back into the public eye by controversially embracing the 'blame-Thande' ethos. The quantities of blame attached to Thande in this period were frankly excessive, even by modern standards, and were so much decried in polite society that Byron was forced to re-write the early draft of Manfred, in which Thande kills Manfred by stealth. By the nineteenth century, however, the practice had been thoroughly incorporated into polite society. Even Queen Victoria gave it her own spin by simply declaring Thande 'not amusing'. This period was really the zenith of Thande-blaming in Great Britain, and set the standard for future 'blamers (as they came to me known). W.G. Grace was the champion of Victorian 'blamers, and is justly regarded as the father of the modern profession. Thande-blaming today is, sadly, a neglected area of British culture. Woeful underfunding of modern blame societies and the advent of digital e-blaming have taken their toll, and 'blamers are now more active in the US, Canada and Australia than in the UK. Nonetheless a revival is underway, and new pockets of Thande-blaming are springing up all over the country (notably in Oxford, Reading, London and Cheshire). It surely cannot be too much to hope that blaming Thande will one day regain its place as the prince of British hobbies.
What does GC stand for, and is there a story behind the change from AD/CE?