Welcome to my first official alternate history timeline. I would like to give a big shout out to RoyalPsycho for helping me with this and previous ideas that I’ve come up with. This timeline is a redesigned concept of a previous map he made for me.
In this timeline, the USA becomes much more expansionist than in our timeline. Thanks to a better starting position after the Revolutionary War and no War of 1812, the US is able to take control of the entire Pacific Northwest with little hassle outside of the indigenous tribes. Slightly different Mexican American and Spanish American Wars also help the US gain more land and influence in Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, resulting in an earlier end to isolationism.
Butterflies are created and Europe sees the effects. Continued American support of the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War sees Russia paying indemnity and ceding all of Outer Manchuria to Japan. World War I kicks off more or less on schedule and sees a near stalemate between the Entente and Central Powers. Russia falls out of the war due to revolution and, with both the US and Italy staying neutral, Germany manages to break the stalemate and overtake Paris. Britain requests an armistice after the fall of France and the war is over by 1918.
With the consecutive loss of several wars over the course of 15 years lingering in the minds of the people combined with the economic and social issues plaguing the nation, Russia falls to communism. The communism that rises is belligerent and expansionist. Over the next 20 years it builds up its industrial and military might and backs various communist revolutions and movements across mainland Europe. Amongst its more successful ventures is its involvement with the Second French Revolution, which finds the nation falling to communism in the mid-1930s. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, despite support from Germany, collapses around the same time and communist uprisings appear all across the former nation.
Seeing communism as a threat to the status quo that was created in the wake of the war, Britain and Germany ally together to fight communism in Europe. They ban all communist parties from all elections and trade with communist nations is either tariffed to the extreme or simply embargoed. The Spanish Civil War was a more direct example of the desire to keep communism away as they supported the Nationalists in their fight against the USSR and French-back Republicans. Despite the Fascist, military dictatorship that arose from the Nationalist victory, it was viewed as a better choice than the communist-supported government at the time.
In 1942, France and the USSR ally together and declare war on Germany with a desire to take back what was taken from them in addition to spreading communism across Europe. Britain, Spain and Italy ally with Germany and invade France. Within two years of the outbreak of World War II, France is completely crushed between the Allied powers and the attention is then turned to the east.
Meanwhile, Japan proceeds to start the Second Sino-Japanese War more or less on schedule. Despite their occupation of Manchuria, the war taxes their natural resource supply. In response to the US refusing to trade with them, Japan launches an attack against American military bases across the Pacific. This results in the US declaring war on Japan, and the Japanese Empire is defeated by 1944.
Despite its uninvolvement in the European conflict, the US is pulled further into WWII when Russia threatens it with war, demanding that it turn over all of eastern Asia to the USSR and remove itself from the continent. Before the US can give a response several military camps in Manchuria are attacked, and the US declares war on Russia. With the Germans invading from the west, the British from the south and the Americans from the east, Russia quickly finds itself on the defensive. But with their military and industrial power, they are successful in holding all three fronts in a brutal stalemate.
In January 1948, German, British and American scientists are successful in creating the first Atomic Bomb. Within a month, a bomb is dropped on the city of Novosibirsk, severing the Trans-Siberian Railway and cutting off supplies from getting to the eastern front, allowing the Americans to start pushing west. Despite this, the Russians battle on. A second bomb is dropped on St. Petersburg three weeks later, with a warning that unless Russia surrenders, Moscow will be next. Russia ignores the warnings and continues to fight. Nine days later, Moscow is wiped off the map. With the majority of its government eliminated, Russia surrenders three days later. With the surrender of Russia, the allies move in to occupy the nation. Any form of communism is immediately removed from local society. Red leaders are arrested and sentenced to life in prison or death row and a de facto republican government is put into place.
Since the end of WWII, political opinion around the world hasn’t changed much. In almost every country, communism of any form is considered evil and pro-communist movements are illegal, or at the very least considered taboo in a few small corners of the world. Any nation that has a form of government that even resembles communism, and even some forms of socialism, is either eliminated if determined to be communist or monitored extremely closely to ensure it doesn’t become communist.
But while the world was focusing on communism, other issues around the world were left to fend for themselves. The most notable of these was the Arab struggle for power in the Middle East. While the Emirate of Hejaz was successful in separating itself from the Ottoman Empire during WWI, its lack of support from the British afterwards left them weaker than they hoped. Their struggles with the House of Saud were particularly unpleasant. While they were successful in keeping them away from Mecca they were forced to recognize the Sauds as a sovereign state.
WWII brought on its own issues as France and Russia tried to stir up communist rebellions in the region, the most successful of which was in Syria. In the wake of the war, new theologies emerged, and the discovery of oil in the 1950s and 60s enhanced the fractures in the region. A Ba’athist government manages to rise to power in Hejaz and starts to expand itself. Ba’athism in Hejaz manages to influence nations both on and off the Arabian Peninsula. However, this is viewed as more of a theological movement than a socialist movement by the rest of the world and, thus, is left alone.
Wars between the Hejaz and Sauds start to create issues, and the spread of Islamic extremism creates more issues. Britain sees its empire start to fracture in northern Africa as Egypt demands its independence to the point of declaring war. Other regions of northern Africa and western India also see a major rise in radical Islamic movements, and tension between the Ottomans and the Hejaz are also pressed.
However, things come to a head when an independent Islamic terrorist organization launches a massive attack on America, Britain and the Ottomans in the early years of the 21st Century, resulting in the death of thousands of civilians. The Ottomans, believing that this was a threat of war by the Hejaz, immediately launch a counter attack, accusing the Hejaz of directly hiring and housing the terrorist organization. The Americans and British, both having personal grudges and stakes in Arabia, directly participate in the fight.
While the US and Britain focus on the organizations themselves, the Ottomans fight the Hejaz. But smaller terrorist attacks and attempts keep happening over the next several years. It takes five years for the Arabian War to come to an end with an Ottoman victory, and another four years for the US and Britain to successfully capture and eliminate the final head of the Islamic group that initiated the attacks. But despite the victories, Islamic extremism continues to be a problem that appears to have no end.
Of the three major world powers of this timeline, the USA is by far the largest, both militarily and economically. They are much more centralized than OTL thanks to a larger and more destructive Civil War, the Communist Scare and the Arabian War. Many of the southern states, especially the Latin ones, are rather impoverished compared to the north and west due to the effects of reconstruction after the Civil War. The fight for civil rights in the later half of the 20th century also proved difficult due to the much larger Latin population, who were just as opposed to granting blacks equal status as whites were. Legal equality is a reality in the 21st century, but there is still racial tension and it makes everything rather confusing (The rest of the world generally looks at it as a whites vs blacks vs Hispanics vs miscellaneous issue).
Despite racial tensions, American culture is much more cosmopolitan than OTL thanks to the assimilation of more Mexicans, their Asian protectorates and the Liberian dependency. Mexican and Japanese food and holidays are fairly commonplace throughout the US.
The most contentious issue with the US is its continued presence in Asia. Thanks to their fight with Russia, the US used Japan as a launching pad for their forces in eastern Russia and never really let go afterwards. Sixty years after the end of the war, and even after the end of the twenty-year occupation of Russia, the US still holds on to the Sakha Republic and maintains a military presence in Japan. The discovery of oil and vast mineral resources in the area in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s didn’t help matters either.
Japan is theoretically independent but is actually an economic and political dependent. Upon their return as a ‘self-governing nation’ in the 1950’s, they were allowed to continue governing Korea and Manchuria (jointly with the US of course), but at the expense of their traditional Japanese Diet. The governing system put in place was modeled after America’s own Senate. The monarchy remains but is now little more than a figurehead. Cultural exchange during and after its occupation has left Japan with a higher degree of westernization in its society but has also lead to the spread of Japanese culture across much of the US. They do have their own military, but it has been integrated into the American command structure.
The Commonwealth of Nations is the largest of the three major powers in terms of physical size. Thanks to American expansion and their fight with France, their empire has grown beyond what many could have imagined. With member and protectorate nations on every continent, they are the watchful eyes of the Coalition.
Great Britain is still the head of the Commonwealth, but its influence over its constituent members has diminished over time. Their history has seen them expand much differently than OTL. With America focusing more on expansion in their own continent, Britain was able to make a bigger presence for itself in South America. WWII also allowed it to regain control of its Indian and south-central Asia properties.
Britain itself is a rather strange place compared to OTL. Its society is more cosmopolitan despite their attempts at assimilating immigrants and their descendants. Despite the military issues they faced in the later half of the 20th century, they are much more liberal than OTL, but the Arabian War has affected that.
The expanse of its empire resulted in various reformations and federalization to help cut its obligations. The most prominent of these is the Indian Union. Created in the early 1950’s, their purpose was to give the locals more control over themselves and their ideals while still keeping them within the British sphere. This has helped them to become the most powerful member in the Commonwealth behind Britain. However, with the rise of Islam and other socioreligious and socioethnic issues, some wonder how much longer this union will last.
Germany is the smallest of the three major powers, but don’t let their size fool you. Their political influence across Europe and central Africa as the head of the Central Alliance has been immense. However, the nation has had to go through several political reforms to maintain its status and stand where it is today. The Kaiser is little more than a figurehead these days and most of the power is held by parliament.
Germany itself has become a world leader in technological and scientific advancements. It has allowed it to become one of the highest centers for the advancement of education and science and is home to some of the largest and well-known universities in the world. Its society is strongly Germanic and is the most conservative of the three powers; although saying they’re conservative is still a bit of a stretch.
Up until the early 1990’s, most of Germany’s colonial empire was run in a traditional colonial fashion. But with the rising costs and responsibility as populations and economies began to rise, the need for something better was needed. They spun off the regions that had the most desire to be independent first, and then focused on creating self-dependant and loyal governments in the rest. So far it seems to be working, but development in them is starting to stagnate a bit.
One region of the world that everyone has been focusing their attention on is Russia. The second half of the 20th century has been worse to them than the first half. Even after the largest and most ethnic regions were reunited in the late 1960’s, the nation never really recovered. A sizable chunk of the nation’s population is still impoverished, and many of the impoverished tend to live nomadic lives.
Many of the people have forgotten about communism, and the younger generations who never experienced it and were educated against it have helped to ensure that Russia will never go back to its old ways. The capitalist republican government that is now in place has evolved since its first creation and is now only a partial puppet government. Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk have all been rebuilt, but they’re not at the same level that they used to be.
After reunification in 1968, the Allies worked to help rebuild the nation by creating jobs for the people. Both white and blue color jobs came to the Russians but their economy has only just begun to recover and reach sustainable levels. They even have their own successful international automobile brand. But despite the increase in their economy, their population has remained relatively stagnate to the point that some nations have been sending them immigrants to help keep things moving. This has resulted in Russia gaining a massive influence of western society that is viewed as a good thing by some and a not-so-good thing by others.
Technologically, this world is slightly ahead of OTL. The lack of a cold war has allowed technology to develop much more liberally than OTL. The development and experimentation of nuclear weapons still happens in this timeline, but mainly as a way to keep the former communist nations at bay. However, with no cold war, and a few disastrous experiments (including one with a 50 megaton TNT equivalent blast) the three allies put all nuclear experiments on hold. Nuclear energy is still a thing, but the risks associated with it have resulted in facilities operating under strict regulations. The nations that do have nuclear weapons on hand only have a few, and no one has a “Red Button”.
Even though there was no cold war to prompt a race, humanity has still gone into space. The first satellite in orbit was German, Americans were the first humans in space and men walked on the moon by the early 1970s. Unlike OTL, space exploration has been continuously advancing. Britain, Germany and the US all have, or are in the process of building their own space stations. There are current working plans to build a permanent international base on the moon and future plans to send men to Mars.
In this timeline, the USA becomes much more expansionist than in our timeline. Thanks to a better starting position after the Revolutionary War and no War of 1812, the US is able to take control of the entire Pacific Northwest with little hassle outside of the indigenous tribes. Slightly different Mexican American and Spanish American Wars also help the US gain more land and influence in Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, resulting in an earlier end to isolationism.
Butterflies are created and Europe sees the effects. Continued American support of the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War sees Russia paying indemnity and ceding all of Outer Manchuria to Japan. World War I kicks off more or less on schedule and sees a near stalemate between the Entente and Central Powers. Russia falls out of the war due to revolution and, with both the US and Italy staying neutral, Germany manages to break the stalemate and overtake Paris. Britain requests an armistice after the fall of France and the war is over by 1918.
With the consecutive loss of several wars over the course of 15 years lingering in the minds of the people combined with the economic and social issues plaguing the nation, Russia falls to communism. The communism that rises is belligerent and expansionist. Over the next 20 years it builds up its industrial and military might and backs various communist revolutions and movements across mainland Europe. Amongst its more successful ventures is its involvement with the Second French Revolution, which finds the nation falling to communism in the mid-1930s. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, despite support from Germany, collapses around the same time and communist uprisings appear all across the former nation.
Seeing communism as a threat to the status quo that was created in the wake of the war, Britain and Germany ally together to fight communism in Europe. They ban all communist parties from all elections and trade with communist nations is either tariffed to the extreme or simply embargoed. The Spanish Civil War was a more direct example of the desire to keep communism away as they supported the Nationalists in their fight against the USSR and French-back Republicans. Despite the Fascist, military dictatorship that arose from the Nationalist victory, it was viewed as a better choice than the communist-supported government at the time.
In 1942, France and the USSR ally together and declare war on Germany with a desire to take back what was taken from them in addition to spreading communism across Europe. Britain, Spain and Italy ally with Germany and invade France. Within two years of the outbreak of World War II, France is completely crushed between the Allied powers and the attention is then turned to the east.
Meanwhile, Japan proceeds to start the Second Sino-Japanese War more or less on schedule. Despite their occupation of Manchuria, the war taxes their natural resource supply. In response to the US refusing to trade with them, Japan launches an attack against American military bases across the Pacific. This results in the US declaring war on Japan, and the Japanese Empire is defeated by 1944.
Despite its uninvolvement in the European conflict, the US is pulled further into WWII when Russia threatens it with war, demanding that it turn over all of eastern Asia to the USSR and remove itself from the continent. Before the US can give a response several military camps in Manchuria are attacked, and the US declares war on Russia. With the Germans invading from the west, the British from the south and the Americans from the east, Russia quickly finds itself on the defensive. But with their military and industrial power, they are successful in holding all three fronts in a brutal stalemate.
In January 1948, German, British and American scientists are successful in creating the first Atomic Bomb. Within a month, a bomb is dropped on the city of Novosibirsk, severing the Trans-Siberian Railway and cutting off supplies from getting to the eastern front, allowing the Americans to start pushing west. Despite this, the Russians battle on. A second bomb is dropped on St. Petersburg three weeks later, with a warning that unless Russia surrenders, Moscow will be next. Russia ignores the warnings and continues to fight. Nine days later, Moscow is wiped off the map. With the majority of its government eliminated, Russia surrenders three days later. With the surrender of Russia, the allies move in to occupy the nation. Any form of communism is immediately removed from local society. Red leaders are arrested and sentenced to life in prison or death row and a de facto republican government is put into place.
Since the end of WWII, political opinion around the world hasn’t changed much. In almost every country, communism of any form is considered evil and pro-communist movements are illegal, or at the very least considered taboo in a few small corners of the world. Any nation that has a form of government that even resembles communism, and even some forms of socialism, is either eliminated if determined to be communist or monitored extremely closely to ensure it doesn’t become communist.
But while the world was focusing on communism, other issues around the world were left to fend for themselves. The most notable of these was the Arab struggle for power in the Middle East. While the Emirate of Hejaz was successful in separating itself from the Ottoman Empire during WWI, its lack of support from the British afterwards left them weaker than they hoped. Their struggles with the House of Saud were particularly unpleasant. While they were successful in keeping them away from Mecca they were forced to recognize the Sauds as a sovereign state.
WWII brought on its own issues as France and Russia tried to stir up communist rebellions in the region, the most successful of which was in Syria. In the wake of the war, new theologies emerged, and the discovery of oil in the 1950s and 60s enhanced the fractures in the region. A Ba’athist government manages to rise to power in Hejaz and starts to expand itself. Ba’athism in Hejaz manages to influence nations both on and off the Arabian Peninsula. However, this is viewed as more of a theological movement than a socialist movement by the rest of the world and, thus, is left alone.
Wars between the Hejaz and Sauds start to create issues, and the spread of Islamic extremism creates more issues. Britain sees its empire start to fracture in northern Africa as Egypt demands its independence to the point of declaring war. Other regions of northern Africa and western India also see a major rise in radical Islamic movements, and tension between the Ottomans and the Hejaz are also pressed.
However, things come to a head when an independent Islamic terrorist organization launches a massive attack on America, Britain and the Ottomans in the early years of the 21st Century, resulting in the death of thousands of civilians. The Ottomans, believing that this was a threat of war by the Hejaz, immediately launch a counter attack, accusing the Hejaz of directly hiring and housing the terrorist organization. The Americans and British, both having personal grudges and stakes in Arabia, directly participate in the fight.
While the US and Britain focus on the organizations themselves, the Ottomans fight the Hejaz. But smaller terrorist attacks and attempts keep happening over the next several years. It takes five years for the Arabian War to come to an end with an Ottoman victory, and another four years for the US and Britain to successfully capture and eliminate the final head of the Islamic group that initiated the attacks. But despite the victories, Islamic extremism continues to be a problem that appears to have no end.
Of the three major world powers of this timeline, the USA is by far the largest, both militarily and economically. They are much more centralized than OTL thanks to a larger and more destructive Civil War, the Communist Scare and the Arabian War. Many of the southern states, especially the Latin ones, are rather impoverished compared to the north and west due to the effects of reconstruction after the Civil War. The fight for civil rights in the later half of the 20th century also proved difficult due to the much larger Latin population, who were just as opposed to granting blacks equal status as whites were. Legal equality is a reality in the 21st century, but there is still racial tension and it makes everything rather confusing (The rest of the world generally looks at it as a whites vs blacks vs Hispanics vs miscellaneous issue).
Despite racial tensions, American culture is much more cosmopolitan than OTL thanks to the assimilation of more Mexicans, their Asian protectorates and the Liberian dependency. Mexican and Japanese food and holidays are fairly commonplace throughout the US.
The most contentious issue with the US is its continued presence in Asia. Thanks to their fight with Russia, the US used Japan as a launching pad for their forces in eastern Russia and never really let go afterwards. Sixty years after the end of the war, and even after the end of the twenty-year occupation of Russia, the US still holds on to the Sakha Republic and maintains a military presence in Japan. The discovery of oil and vast mineral resources in the area in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s didn’t help matters either.
Japan is theoretically independent but is actually an economic and political dependent. Upon their return as a ‘self-governing nation’ in the 1950’s, they were allowed to continue governing Korea and Manchuria (jointly with the US of course), but at the expense of their traditional Japanese Diet. The governing system put in place was modeled after America’s own Senate. The monarchy remains but is now little more than a figurehead. Cultural exchange during and after its occupation has left Japan with a higher degree of westernization in its society but has also lead to the spread of Japanese culture across much of the US. They do have their own military, but it has been integrated into the American command structure.
The Commonwealth of Nations is the largest of the three major powers in terms of physical size. Thanks to American expansion and their fight with France, their empire has grown beyond what many could have imagined. With member and protectorate nations on every continent, they are the watchful eyes of the Coalition.
Great Britain is still the head of the Commonwealth, but its influence over its constituent members has diminished over time. Their history has seen them expand much differently than OTL. With America focusing more on expansion in their own continent, Britain was able to make a bigger presence for itself in South America. WWII also allowed it to regain control of its Indian and south-central Asia properties.
Britain itself is a rather strange place compared to OTL. Its society is more cosmopolitan despite their attempts at assimilating immigrants and their descendants. Despite the military issues they faced in the later half of the 20th century, they are much more liberal than OTL, but the Arabian War has affected that.
The expanse of its empire resulted in various reformations and federalization to help cut its obligations. The most prominent of these is the Indian Union. Created in the early 1950’s, their purpose was to give the locals more control over themselves and their ideals while still keeping them within the British sphere. This has helped them to become the most powerful member in the Commonwealth behind Britain. However, with the rise of Islam and other socioreligious and socioethnic issues, some wonder how much longer this union will last.
Germany is the smallest of the three major powers, but don’t let their size fool you. Their political influence across Europe and central Africa as the head of the Central Alliance has been immense. However, the nation has had to go through several political reforms to maintain its status and stand where it is today. The Kaiser is little more than a figurehead these days and most of the power is held by parliament.
Germany itself has become a world leader in technological and scientific advancements. It has allowed it to become one of the highest centers for the advancement of education and science and is home to some of the largest and well-known universities in the world. Its society is strongly Germanic and is the most conservative of the three powers; although saying they’re conservative is still a bit of a stretch.
Up until the early 1990’s, most of Germany’s colonial empire was run in a traditional colonial fashion. But with the rising costs and responsibility as populations and economies began to rise, the need for something better was needed. They spun off the regions that had the most desire to be independent first, and then focused on creating self-dependant and loyal governments in the rest. So far it seems to be working, but development in them is starting to stagnate a bit.
One region of the world that everyone has been focusing their attention on is Russia. The second half of the 20th century has been worse to them than the first half. Even after the largest and most ethnic regions were reunited in the late 1960’s, the nation never really recovered. A sizable chunk of the nation’s population is still impoverished, and many of the impoverished tend to live nomadic lives.
Many of the people have forgotten about communism, and the younger generations who never experienced it and were educated against it have helped to ensure that Russia will never go back to its old ways. The capitalist republican government that is now in place has evolved since its first creation and is now only a partial puppet government. Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk have all been rebuilt, but they’re not at the same level that they used to be.
After reunification in 1968, the Allies worked to help rebuild the nation by creating jobs for the people. Both white and blue color jobs came to the Russians but their economy has only just begun to recover and reach sustainable levels. They even have their own successful international automobile brand. But despite the increase in their economy, their population has remained relatively stagnate to the point that some nations have been sending them immigrants to help keep things moving. This has resulted in Russia gaining a massive influence of western society that is viewed as a good thing by some and a not-so-good thing by others.
Technologically, this world is slightly ahead of OTL. The lack of a cold war has allowed technology to develop much more liberally than OTL. The development and experimentation of nuclear weapons still happens in this timeline, but mainly as a way to keep the former communist nations at bay. However, with no cold war, and a few disastrous experiments (including one with a 50 megaton TNT equivalent blast) the three allies put all nuclear experiments on hold. Nuclear energy is still a thing, but the risks associated with it have resulted in facilities operating under strict regulations. The nations that do have nuclear weapons on hand only have a few, and no one has a “Red Button”.
Even though there was no cold war to prompt a race, humanity has still gone into space. The first satellite in orbit was German, Americans were the first humans in space and men walked on the moon by the early 1970s. Unlike OTL, space exploration has been continuously advancing. Britain, Germany and the US all have, or are in the process of building their own space stations. There are current working plans to build a permanent international base on the moon and future plans to send men to Mars.