Look to the West: Thread III, Volume IV (Tottenham Nil)!
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Thanks for the comments everyone!
*That is, the Scania they had prior to the Popular Wars in TTL, which is really only the western half of the OTL definition of Scania.
Good point, I had sort of pictured that they would keep those islands but forgot to actually put that in the text. I will edit it in a bit.
Denmark gets it back,* largely as a face-saving gesture--note that under the 'Arandite' model of the new Norden/Scandinavia, though the separate kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden are restored on paper, they function more like viceroyalties with a full customs union retained and thus the border isn't that meaningful anyway. The separation is effectively only so (a) the two pre-war Nordic kings can both keep a crown each and (b) to help bring in the support of some Swedish nobles who were lukewarm supporters of Congress Sweden for ideological reasons.
*That is, the Scania they had prior to the Popular Wars in TTL, which is really only the western half of the OTL definition of Scania.
At this point the Bohemian Wettin king is successfully playing off the Czechs and Sudeten Germans against each other in the Diet. Czech nationalism is going to be an issue eventually, but it hasn't really blown up yet (in the short run it was satiated by breaking away from the Hapsburgs after grievances over what happened there during the potato famine).
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Part #200: Indian Winter
“As I approach the end of my life I see many things anew. With no future in sight for myself, I look back on the past and I find it wanting. As I have said many times to those who would name me demagogue, I have never claimed to be some great trailblazing visionary. I am merely a human being who has grasped a simple truth, one which many before me have seen. All I hoped was to achieve more of a lasting impact than those great men and women, most of whose names are long forgotten. Not some futile martyrdom, but an eloquent expression of the idea of one human world at peace with itself that would have sufficient intrinsic power to outlive me.
“Perhaps I have succeeded in that goal—history will be my judge. But I have never said that I expected to see such a world come to fruition within my lifetime. Indeed, I have said explicitly that I did not expect it, that the world must change further before the human race is ready to grasp its destiny.
“It is with a bitter taste in my mouth as, with the benefit of hindsight, I see that this was nothing more than an excuse to absolve myself of responsibility. What I called realism was merely procrastinating pessimism. Let Societism be nothing more than an idle utopic notion discussed by gentlemen in smoke-filled clubs to fill the hours between meals, of no more immediate importance than the Second Coming. The Final Society would come when it came, and nothing could or should be done to hurry it along.
“But no—I see now that we cannot rely on the inevitable evolution of the human race towards Societist union. Perhaps indeed that would happen in the absence of outside interference, but such is not the world we live in. Those with a vested interest in maintaining a bitterly divided earth, be they the among the few, powerful rich or the weak but numerous poor, are constantly working to hold back that final step in the evolution of human society. Indeed, it is akin to attempting to study Señor Paley’s theories on an island populated by natives who selectively kill certain of its beasts—the natural mechanism is made dysfunctional by human intervention.
“Therefore the balance must be restored by equal and diametrically opposed human intervention. Those who have seen the truth of Societism can no longer stand aloof from the very Society they seek to see transformed—nay, to help transform! The forces of disunion and chaos are arrayed against us. In some areas of the world they are stronger, in others weaker—so it seems natural to conclude that Societism will win through in one part of the world before another. That first Society will face all the false nations rising to make war against it, but it can survive—it must survive—to see them fall and those they hold in bondage join that Society. The enemy’s disunion shall be their weakness: let the first Society stand aside as they grapple with one another in worthless wars, and then as they are exhausted, let the Society expand to liberate more peoples from the blindness of nationalism.
“And yes, by the sword if it prove necessary. Señor Quelding’s example—and what has been wrought in its name—weighs heavily upon me. I see now my absolute pacifism was naïve. The ends must justify the means or those ends will perish forever. There will be ways to prevent the plague of militarism from infecting the Society, and those ways can—they must—be found.
“So take heart. I may be leaving this bloodstained earth, I may never have seen the birth pangs of the Final Society—but be of good courage and you brave young men and women may live to see it, brought about by your own hand.”
*
From: “Global Trends: The Myth and the Reality” by Dr Alison Munro (1989)—
Modern historiography has attempted to draw all the geopolitical upheavals of the mid-nineteenth century into being merely fronts or aspects of the Great American War. In many if not most cases this is manifest nonsense and the product of an Americas-supremacist view born of the hindsight of the impact of Societism on the world, given both the land of its origin and the undoubtedly profound influence of the Great American War upon its founder. This is not to say that every event removed from the American continents is unconnected with the war, of course: one only has to look at the example of the Norfolk Incident in 1851. News of the war had finally reached Cygnia and the small number of Virginian slaveholders who had moved there after the Virginia Crisis acted, with the planter Thomson Arthur Mason launching an attempted coup in the aforementioned town of Norfolk where the Cygnian Legislative Council was meeting.[2] Mason hoped to bully the Council and Governor-General into declaring neutrality like old Virginia in what would be a largely symbolic gesture. In the end the coup failed, though with some bloodshed, slavery was abolished in Cygnia—ironically being retained through all subsequent years even after its brief re-legalisation in the ENA under Francis Bassett—and the remaining unrepentant slaveholders fled into the interior to escape the hangman’s noose. They vanished from history for years, though it is worth remembering that decades earlier the remaining unrepentant Jacobins of Fort Surcouf had preceded them on a similar madcap exile and had been followed by escaped slaves from the slaveholders. It would not be until 1905 that the explorer James Patmore encountered the ‘Extraordinary Jiqpin People’, who turned out to be a native society in which dark-skinned Indiens [Aborigines], many of whom clearly with some African blood, kept white slaves and periodically subjected them to a cleansing ritual which involved being locked inside what appeared to be a cargo-cult attempt to represent a phlogisticateur chamber. “What admixture can have taken place to produce this?” Patmore queried, but none can guess (though many have tried).
One conflict that has always stuck in the craw of such all-encompassing historiographic theories is the Great Indian Jihad. This really deserves its own treatment divorced from any American or European concerns (some historiographers have also tried to bundle it into the Popular Wars, absurdly). Even more so than the Chinese Riverine Wars, the Great Jihad was the single defining event for nineteenth-century Asia that affected lands far beyond India and set the scene for what was to come. Forty years later the Siamese would still be fighting Muslim rebels in Pahang inspired by half-garbled, much-recirculated tales of the faraway Mahdi. Even in the twentieth century, other groups of Mahdi-inspired rebels proved one of the greatest challenges for the Societist Combine in stretching the black flag over the former Meridian economic empire in the Nusantara. The global impact of the Great Jihad cannot be underestimated.
The ultimate cause of the Jihad was the Ottoman Time of Troubles and the uncertainty over the office of the caliphate due to multiple claimants to the Ottoman sultanate. The authority of the caliph had certainly been rather vague and theoretical in far lands like India, but it was also a firm foundation which had now been taken away. As with the decline of the Mughal Empire (before its limited resurrection as the Neo-Mughal Empire), Indian Muslim princes generally reacted by attempting to act as though the caliphate was still in place while carefully adjusting the liberties they could take accordingly. Just as the ruler of Haidarabad still called himself the Nizam, a title originally meaning deputy or regional governor to the Mughal Emperor, rather than claim a new title in the absence of that Emperor’s power, so too did no prince dream of claiming the caliphate for himself. But the uncertainty remained, and it provided an opportunity for other concerns that had long since lain beneath the surface. A truly comprehensive treatment of the Great Indian Jihad would fill several volumes, but a brief summary follows to illustrate the degree to which the conflict stands alone from the upheavals on other continents.
Faruq Kalam was born into a poor family on the outskirts of Delhi around 1820. Little is known of his early life, something which very much suits his followers, who have created great works of fiction purporting to be biographies that just happen to include all of the prophesised signs of the Koranic Mahdi. What is known is that he studied for some years in a madrassah before dropping out—according to his followers because of jealousy from the scholars and teachers that he far outclassed them; according to his enemies, because he was caught with an illicit supply of alcohol. Regardless, Kalam rose to power by a different and less official route, becoming a popular fiery street preacher who spoke of the decline of the Neo-Mughal Empire under the ageing Mohammed Shah II, a common refrain that had dogged the emperor since he had taken the throne. Originally most such complaints had been from Afghan romantics who yearned for the days of Ahmad Shah Durrani and called Mohammed Shah II soft and Indianised. The success of Mohammed Shah II and the Neo-Mughals in defeating their estranged brothers in the Durrani War[3] had shored up his position, however. Kalam’s complaint was instead that the empire and its emperor had become complacent, had been manipulated by the Ferengi traders to the south (an accurate accusation, as the Durrani War had indeed been manipulated by the Europeans to distract the Neo-Mughals from southern India) and ultimately were drifting from Islam, seduced by comfortable compromises. The fact that the Sikhs had won their independence during the Durrani War, and that the emperor and military leadership were thoroughly unenthusiastic about reopening that question, was a particular sore point.
Perhaps Kalam would have been nothing more than a footnote to history had he not been arrested and imprisoned by the Governor of Sindh in 1843. Mohammed Shah II perhaps would have known the dangers of such actions backfiring, if he knew his history. Two centuries before, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir had imprisoned the sixth Guru of the Sikhs, Hargobind, and had only succeeded in creating a powerful story that had inspired Sikhs for centuries afterwards.[4] After a month of imprisonment and rumours of a pending execution, Kalam’s followers stormed the fort of Pacco Qillo, slew the Governor and freed him at the cost of much bloodshed. Kalam emerged from captivity a changed man. He would never reveal his face again, keeping it permanently veiled. Some speculated that this was to hide signs of torture he had endured in prison: it is agreed that Kalam did bear a physical resemblance to the prophecies that said that the Mahdi would have a high forehead and a curved nose, and it is possible that the Governor had attempted to destroy this resemblance with torture. On the other hand, Kalam had never claimed the Mahdinate before his release, had never shown any sign of it in fact. More cynically others have suggested that the veiled man who led the Great Jihad was not in fact Kalam at all, that Kalam had died in jail and this impostor was a clever opportunist who capitalised on his army of loyal followers. (Perhaps the most far-fetched theory is that the impostor was somehow in fact the Governor of Sindh).
Kalam, if it truly was him, proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the foretold Muslim redeemer who would rule for nine years[5] and be the forerunner for the Second Coming of Jesus (or ’Isa). He was not the first to claim the title and he would certainly not be the last, but he had the largest impact on history.[6] In the short term he would overthrow the corrupt Neo-Mughal Empire and restore the rightly-guided early form of Islam to the world. Remarkably, his ragtag band of followers swelled and received sufficient influx of professional soldiers to become a formidable army—including many Arab and African mercenaries left jobless by the end of the Ottoman Time of Troubles and now inspired by his message and/or the possibility of plunder. They defeated the Neo-Mughal Army repeatedly throughout the mid-1840s and eventually, amid mutinies, they besieged Delhi and saw the death of Mohammed Shah II on the battlefield. (As said above, a full treatment of this could encompass multiple volumes, but this only seeks to be a short summary).
The Jihad could have petered out there, or continued in a different direction, but Mohammed Shah II’s son was nothing if not a perfect opportunist. Brazenly claiming he believed in the Mahdi’s message and that he had betrayed his father, he took the name Nadir Shah II and declared that he would command the empire in the Mahdi’s name and follow him wherever he went. Behind the scenes he delicately manipulated the most influential men in the Mahdi’s inner circle into deciding that that ‘wherever’ would be to places that did not damage the Neo-Mughal Empire any further. The jihadist army would not be wasted on a futile attack on the Sikhs, the Persians or the Kalatis: instead it would be aimed south at the much-hated Ferengi Christians and the Hindu heathens.
Nadir Shah II was broadly successful (just how much he was able to manipulate the Mahdi himself is unclear) and the jihadist army indeed went south. The Great Jihad was not a brief war, nor indeed even a series of wars such as the Jacobin and Popular Wars. It was a great social upheaval merely accompanied by a swathe of death and destruction. European-penned histories have naturally but myopically chosen to focus on the ravages of the Mahdists in the European and European-friendly parts of India, whether it be the Rape of Lucknow or the Burning of Bombay. Filmish and undoubtedly horrific though these incidents were, there is no getting away from the fact that perhaps the worst damage was that done to countless small nameless villages in the Maratha Confederacy, itself weakened from within by Portuguese machinations. Social historians have claimed that as much as a tenth of the population of Indore State, for example, was slain—a literal decimation.
What really ensured the lasting impact of the Jihad was that it inspired Muslims far from the core Neo-Mughal lands to revolt. The biggest and most successful of such revolts was of course in Haidarabad, where the Nizam was overthrown and executed by a revolution that was as much Jacobin or Populist in character as Islamic. Indeed, the initial post-Nizam government in Haidarabad city bore little resemblance to the Mahdi’s notion of an Islamic state, with relative tolerance for the Hindus: instead public anger was aimed at the British, who were widely suspected in having been involved in the death of a previous Nizam and had placed a pliable puppet on the throne.[7] It would not be until the jihadist armies reached Haidarabad that these two visions would be brought into conflict.
Less successful Islamic revolutions took place in Mysore and the French Carnatic—Mysore of course had had its Hindu Wodeyard dynasty put back in place of its previous Islamic one not so many years before, which had stoked a climate of resentment among some of the kingdom’s Muslim minority. The French had put down Islamic revolts before, notably over the pig fat incident at the end of the 1810s, and though long and bloody order was eventually restored. The French collaborated closely with the Portuguese, whose influence mostly extended through majority-Hindu lands and managed to avoid direct confrontation with the Mahdists. In the short run the Portuguese had the upper hand, but of course soon would come the Pânico de '46 and the Portuguese Revolution: in theory the Portuguese East India Company fell into Brazilian hands (which effectively meant Meridian ones, sooner or later) but in reality the Portuguese lands would be run largely in collaboration with the French. The India Board continued to operate.
It was arguably in British Bengal that the single most significant impact of the Jihad was felt. Bengal was (barely) majority Muslim and had a longterm anti-colonial grievance aimed at the British for numerous incidents, in particular the famine of generations before. But this anti-colonialism had a head in the form of Nurul Huq, a Muslim holy man himself—and one who starkly rejected the ‘heretical madness’ of the Mahdi. This was not to say that there were no Mahdists in Bengal, but the elderly Huq’s influence (and martyrdom at Mahdist hands in 1850) ensured that the majority would stand against Kalam. Mahdist armies reaches Bengal at the turn of the 1850s and pitched battles were fought in Oudh, Berar, and the Scindia and Holkar Dominions. British reinforcements reached the kingdom almost by accident under Commodore Cavendish and, astonishingly, were actually welcomed with relief by people of Calcutta who under other circumstances would have gladly seen the British flag burn away.[8]
When the dust eventually settled with the Mahdi’s much-debated death in 1852 (he did, indeed, reign for nine years), Bengal was changed forever. British (and American) troops had fought alongside both Hindu and Muslim natives as equals and they had fought to protect what they regarded as a shared homeland from an outside oppressor. Never again would Bengal regard itself as merely part of a larger whole: it had its own destiny. The Governing Council that Nurul Huq had fought hard for would become a government worth the name, with the Governor-General increasingly hands-off. With Bombay destroyed and eventually ceded by default to the Franco-Portuguese, with British influence removed from the Mahdi-ravaged state of Oudh, Bengal was a fortress of stability in a sea of chaos. Burma, stinging from the inconclusive outcome of the Pu’er Campaign against the Threefold Harmonious Accord,[9] drew closer to Bengal. The British East India Company survived, though subject to increasing American influence, but its raison d’être began to fade. True, its role as a stable place to do business was good for trade, but so much had been poured into the anti-Mahdist defences that the Company was running at a loss and would do for years, at a time when both Britain and the Empire of North America were scarcely in a mood to sink more funds into it. This would be the beginning of the eventual Privatisation of Bengal, though in the first round of stock sales (1860) only 40% of the shares in the Company would be sold on the open market, with the British and American governments retaining 30% each to ensure Hanoverian majority control.[10] Full privatisation of the East India Company would have to wait until the turn of the twentieth century. The French East India Company openly rejected such a practice, but the French government proved equally reluctant to pour more money into what was regarded as increasingly a sink rather than a source.
Thus the Mahdi’s revolt did succeed in an anti-colonial aim, not in directly throwing out Europeans but in effectively forcing them to consider India a losing proposition. Nonetheless the Mahdi does not deserve his sometimes-claimed heroic image as an anti-colonial or pan-Indian nationalist figure. He did not create a lasting coherent state apparatus as other conquerors had done. Though Nadir Shah II did his best to convert the Mahdi’s conquests into an expanded Neo-Mughal Empire, there were too many differences of opinion amidst the vast and distraught army of the Mahdi, and by the 1870s the Neo-Mughal Empire was probably worse off than before. The Maratha Confederacy was also devastated and new small states periodically emerged, rose and fell in the lawless environment, lacking even much of the Portuguese influence that had previously kept the peace. If the Mahdi discouraged the three Old Imperialist Powers of India—Britain, France and Portugal—from further incursion, the chaos he unleashed only made it easier for the New Imperialist Powers to take their place. There was little if any Russian, Chinese or Corean spoken in India when the Mahdi was born; a century later that would not be the case...
*
“Oh hell, I fear thy grasp now—it was all wrong, it was all a dreadful mistake, I wish with all my heart I could be back there, all those years ago, to put on the uniform of fair Spain once more but with no lie in my bearing. To avenge my father on those French bastards who forced him into collaboration and death! Forgive me my life, better than I had died and he had lived—no, better if I had never been born at all!”
*
“On this day of the fourteenth of March of the Year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred Fifty-Four, I accept the office of Governor of Carolina that the people of this great nation have seen fit to confer upon me and do solemnly declare to execute it to my utmost ability, so help me God.
“Almost six years ago I stood in a place far from here, in our great rightful capital that sadly still languishes under Yankee guns, and took this same oath there. Yet it is not the same oath, for then I was forbidden from describing Carolina as a nation, the truth that was staring every man in his face regardless of his provenance. Then, I was consumed with humility at the thought that I would be called upon to fill the enormous shoes of our great founding father John Alexander. Now, though I would still not dare to call myself his equal, I do not feel ashamed at the thought that my portrait may one day hang in the same gallery, second among the Governors of this nation. Let us not let the technical difficulties of the past occlude us from the realisation that though General Alexander did not live to see the formal independence of his homeland, he most assuredly deserves his place as the first of its leaders. He paved the way, a voice calling in the desert. It is up to us to carry on the work.
“I need not remind you that the road has been long and hard, and that it can scarcely be said to be over. Half our land remains under Yankee occupation. Though this government in Fredericksburg is certainly more reasonable than any we have known for decades, it is not the rightful government of our brothers and sisters in bondage. Perhaps if it had come to power before the madness of the last few years, things might have been different—but as my good friend Mr Adams has said, I think even without the peculiar unthinking hatred of certain northern groups, the Empire would have come apart eventually. Though there were great feats done in the old Empire’s name, things we can all be proud of, I do not believe that Carolina ever belonged in it. ’Twas an accident of history. The Empire was, first and foremost, an English creation, and our forefathers from Scotland and Ulster, different in character and ways, should never have been included. That disruption in the spirit of the Empire would exist even if the crime of leaving every Negro in Africa had been committed.
“But let us not look to the past. Let us look to the future. Know that we have powerful new friends and bright new opportunities. This is not the end of the story of Carolina, this is the beginning. The great Kingdom we have built on a foundation of our own blood shall endure unto the end of the earth, and here if nowhere else on earth, the proper relationship between the races shall forever be maintained...”
“This new development shall ensure that America shall forever enjoy an advantage in naval warfare”
“Excuse me, but when the right honourable gentleman says ‘forever’ is he using the Carolinian definition of ‘forever’, and so shall we be deprived of this advantage in twelve years’ time?” (Laughter followed by ‘Order’ from the Speaker)
*
“Blue, blue...all, they all have umlauts. Umlauts. Dot, dot. Dot, dot. DOT! DOT! Why no...days of the week. DAYS OF! THE WEEK! His family, his own family...days of THE WEEK! Carla, why Carla, where is she, where am I, I...who, the week, dot, dot. He loved, loved America, but, umlaut, but. I am...I am...A PELICAN. No, the sun is God.”
*
Crosstime Update Report by Dr David Wostyn: 05/11/2019 (OTL Calendar)
And with that I leave you with these extracts concerning the Great American War and its impact on the history of this world. I fear that I was unable to be as comprehensive as I would have liked under ideal circumstances—certainly for personal reasons I had hoped to cover the Second Riverine War in China, but that will have to wait for another day. Assuming such a day comes.
As you will have heard from Captain MacCauley, we believe we have located the facility where Captain Nuttall and his team are being held. It is an office of the English Security Directorate in the town of Croydon, which in this timeline is considered to still remain outside the somewhat smaller version of London and be located in Surrey. It has probably been chosen due to keeping these doubtless suspicious characters close enough to London for important figures to visit and give orders swiftly, but far enough away to be safe.
The handover of the prisoners from the National Gendarmery to the ESD appears, fortuitously, to be a recent one, and we can hope that Team Alpha have been caught up in bureaucratic limbo as the two organisations jockey for control in interservice rivalry. That is Captain MacCauley’s surmise, at least. I thank Dr Pataki for his input in suggesting that the Fifth of November might be a Heritage Point of Controversy Day, as indeed it is. Tonight there will be designated brawls between Protestants and Catholics (the latter’s numbers carefully swelled by foreign volunteers to ensure equal numbers) which should provide a neat distraction for our rescue attempt to-night.
I still have misgivings, of course. So much could go wrong. If nothing else, we could only confirm the suspicions of the security services of this timeline’s England that we are militaristic invaders. But I accept the argument that we have no choice: we cannot risk Team Alpha’s knowledge falling into their hands in an uncontrolled fashion. I still believe, however, that a civilised dialogue will be possible in the future if the rescue proceeds successfully and without bloodshed. I am aware that Captain Nuttall was sceptical about such a notion and recorded his thoughts as such, but we know and understand so much more about the driving forces for this timeline know. This country, this world, is certainly somewhat alien—but not so alien it is beyond our ability or desire to communicate with.
I am glad that we have managed to ascertain to the best of our knowledge that our opponents—I refuse to use the term ‘enemy’—are unable to detect Portals and do not appear to have extracted any information on them from Team Alpha. Our tests in triggering Portals in sensitive areas and then seeing if there is any response shows a conclusive negative result. We are very grateful to the Prime Minister for allowing us to trigger a Portal from Number Ten Downing Street to the Whitehall Forum. I do not believe that the security services of this timeline would deliberately allow such an incursion, even to lure us into a false sense of security, considering the potential threat. We did manage to return the cat, by the way, in case there were any continuing concerns about that breach. I did appreciate the joke of the tin of Kattomeat included in the last supply run, but we have enough radiation treatment pills now, even with the reinforcements—there is no need to send any more. I was quite clear that Captain Nuttall’s initial surmises were evidently exaggerated, and in part based on a misunderstanding (though perhaps an understandable one) of recent events in this timeline.
The reinforcements are settling in well. Lieutenant Black’s particular expertise on London is much appreciated and should prove vital for tonight’s operation. Sergeant Ellis has also typed up an excellent report on the local architecture which he will doubtless send when he returns from examining the roof of a nearby house whose denizen happens to be an attractive young lady. Lieutenant Tindale, while in an unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate a visitors’ party touring the New Palace of Westminster, has made a startling discovery, one which I am shocked that both Captain Nuttall and ourselves had failed to notice so far. But the media works quite differently in this timeline, with much less saturation of such things in terms of public posters and displays, and a lot is delivered directly to households via Motoscope and Motext, their versions of television and teletext respectively. I suppose this relates to the Diversitarian idea of every person believing their own unique version of the truth.
But I digress. The crucial point of Lieutenant Tindale’s discovery is that it suddenly makes everything clear. We came here expecting England to be an authoritarian, suspicious state, perhaps with a secret police like those of Eastern Europe under the Iron Curtain in our own timeline. We found it a fairly liberal nation with only slightly more visible security services than our own timeline’s Britain. So where did the sharp, militaristic response against Team Alpha come from? What made those security services paranoid and suspicious enough to launch a raid presumably triggered solely by the intercepts of what can only be garbled fragments of Alpha’s radio transmissions? Why were they so anxious to perceive a threat?
Well, Lieutenant Tindale has found out the reason why.
You see...the Olympics are on this year...”
[1] According to the official Combine version of events propagated by the Biblioteka Mundial, itself based on an account by Raúl Caraíbas. Much scepticism was attached to this even before opinion was polarised by the Black Scare: not simply because of the apparent abandonment of many of Sanchez’s principles on his deathbed but also because of the exact wording. Viennese School Societists, arguably a more bitter foe of the Combine than any Diversitarian, state that the ‘it can—it must’ phrasing was a recurring trope in Caraíbas’ writings which implies he fabricated at least parts of, and possibly the entirety of, the quotation. The misspelling of Quedling as ‘Quelding’ in the earliest versions has also been noted, and while Caraíbas claimed Sanchez had dictated the message to him, it seems questionable whether one could have been misheard as the other—whereas in the fabrication theory this would be justified as a simple mistake on Caraíbas’ part, not having heard the name or seen it written down recently. Most significant is the fact that the alleged Sanchez quote repeatedly uses the term 'Societist/Societism', which the real Sanchez is on record as disliking (rejecting any label for his ideas).
[2] At the time of this incident, the Council met for six months in the New Kentish capital of New London and then for the other six in the New Virginian capital of Norfolk (see part #154).
[3] See Part #87.
[4] Indeed (in OTL and TTL) Sikhs celebrate on the day of Diwali not because of its Hindu origins but because it is also the day that Guru Hargobind was released from prison in Gwalior.
[5] Different Islamic groups actually disagree on whether it is supposed to be 7, 9 or 19 years.
[6] By contrast probably the most influential Mahdi claimant in OTL is Muhammad Ahmad in late nineteenth-century Sudan, commonly known simply as ‘the’ Mahdi, who led the Mahdist War against the British.
[7] As described in Part #87.
[8] Cavendish had actually been attempting to reach California, as described in part #184.
[9] See Part #152.
[10] Using ‘Hanoverian’ to mean ‘Anglo-American’ or ‘English-speaking peoples’ as it is sometimes, confusingly, used in TTL.
[11] According to the version of events promoted by the Soviet Ministry of Information between 1960 and the implementation of the Iverson Protocol in 1978 (and unofficially circulated by conspiracy theorists since then). Most scholars consider this to be nothing more than crude propaganda and clearly born of the popular climate of vitriolic rage in Russia following the Sunrise War, albeit not exclusively directed at the Combine of course.
[12] According to an unofficial account taken from the diary of Sanchez’s housekeeper (discovered 1915), who gives the explanation that Sanchez was taking copious amounts of laudanum and possibly other drugs to dull the pain of his terminal condition (probably liver cancer). Scholars hotly debate whether the diary and account are genuine or a fabrication, while conspiracy theorists attempt to find some meaning in the ramblings (most infamously the eccentric actor Pierre Chaudet, who claimed that if recited backwards the nonsense becomes a demonic message). Regardless of its veracity or otherwise, the account is likely responsible for the appearance of the name ‘Fever Dream’ as a euphemism for Sanchez’s ideas.
.
“As I approach the end of my life I see many things anew. With no future in sight for myself, I look back on the past and I find it wanting. As I have said many times to those who would name me demagogue, I have never claimed to be some great trailblazing visionary. I am merely a human being who has grasped a simple truth, one which many before me have seen. All I hoped was to achieve more of a lasting impact than those great men and women, most of whose names are long forgotten. Not some futile martyrdom, but an eloquent expression of the idea of one human world at peace with itself that would have sufficient intrinsic power to outlive me.
“Perhaps I have succeeded in that goal—history will be my judge. But I have never said that I expected to see such a world come to fruition within my lifetime. Indeed, I have said explicitly that I did not expect it, that the world must change further before the human race is ready to grasp its destiny.
“It is with a bitter taste in my mouth as, with the benefit of hindsight, I see that this was nothing more than an excuse to absolve myself of responsibility. What I called realism was merely procrastinating pessimism. Let Societism be nothing more than an idle utopic notion discussed by gentlemen in smoke-filled clubs to fill the hours between meals, of no more immediate importance than the Second Coming. The Final Society would come when it came, and nothing could or should be done to hurry it along.
“But no—I see now that we cannot rely on the inevitable evolution of the human race towards Societist union. Perhaps indeed that would happen in the absence of outside interference, but such is not the world we live in. Those with a vested interest in maintaining a bitterly divided earth, be they the among the few, powerful rich or the weak but numerous poor, are constantly working to hold back that final step in the evolution of human society. Indeed, it is akin to attempting to study Señor Paley’s theories on an island populated by natives who selectively kill certain of its beasts—the natural mechanism is made dysfunctional by human intervention.
“Therefore the balance must be restored by equal and diametrically opposed human intervention. Those who have seen the truth of Societism can no longer stand aloof from the very Society they seek to see transformed—nay, to help transform! The forces of disunion and chaos are arrayed against us. In some areas of the world they are stronger, in others weaker—so it seems natural to conclude that Societism will win through in one part of the world before another. That first Society will face all the false nations rising to make war against it, but it can survive—it must survive—to see them fall and those they hold in bondage join that Society. The enemy’s disunion shall be their weakness: let the first Society stand aside as they grapple with one another in worthless wars, and then as they are exhausted, let the Society expand to liberate more peoples from the blindness of nationalism.
“And yes, by the sword if it prove necessary. Señor Quelding’s example—and what has been wrought in its name—weighs heavily upon me. I see now my absolute pacifism was naïve. The ends must justify the means or those ends will perish forever. There will be ways to prevent the plague of militarism from infecting the Society, and those ways can—they must—be found.
“So take heart. I may be leaving this bloodstained earth, I may never have seen the birth pangs of the Final Society—but be of good courage and you brave young men and women may live to see it, brought about by your own hand.”
– Last words of Pablo Rodrigo Sanchez y Ruiz (1797-1868)[1]
*
From: “Global Trends: The Myth and the Reality” by Dr Alison Munro (1989)—
Modern historiography has attempted to draw all the geopolitical upheavals of the mid-nineteenth century into being merely fronts or aspects of the Great American War. In many if not most cases this is manifest nonsense and the product of an Americas-supremacist view born of the hindsight of the impact of Societism on the world, given both the land of its origin and the undoubtedly profound influence of the Great American War upon its founder. This is not to say that every event removed from the American continents is unconnected with the war, of course: one only has to look at the example of the Norfolk Incident in 1851. News of the war had finally reached Cygnia and the small number of Virginian slaveholders who had moved there after the Virginia Crisis acted, with the planter Thomson Arthur Mason launching an attempted coup in the aforementioned town of Norfolk where the Cygnian Legislative Council was meeting.[2] Mason hoped to bully the Council and Governor-General into declaring neutrality like old Virginia in what would be a largely symbolic gesture. In the end the coup failed, though with some bloodshed, slavery was abolished in Cygnia—ironically being retained through all subsequent years even after its brief re-legalisation in the ENA under Francis Bassett—and the remaining unrepentant slaveholders fled into the interior to escape the hangman’s noose. They vanished from history for years, though it is worth remembering that decades earlier the remaining unrepentant Jacobins of Fort Surcouf had preceded them on a similar madcap exile and had been followed by escaped slaves from the slaveholders. It would not be until 1905 that the explorer James Patmore encountered the ‘Extraordinary Jiqpin People’, who turned out to be a native society in which dark-skinned Indiens [Aborigines], many of whom clearly with some African blood, kept white slaves and periodically subjected them to a cleansing ritual which involved being locked inside what appeared to be a cargo-cult attempt to represent a phlogisticateur chamber. “What admixture can have taken place to produce this?” Patmore queried, but none can guess (though many have tried).
One conflict that has always stuck in the craw of such all-encompassing historiographic theories is the Great Indian Jihad. This really deserves its own treatment divorced from any American or European concerns (some historiographers have also tried to bundle it into the Popular Wars, absurdly). Even more so than the Chinese Riverine Wars, the Great Jihad was the single defining event for nineteenth-century Asia that affected lands far beyond India and set the scene for what was to come. Forty years later the Siamese would still be fighting Muslim rebels in Pahang inspired by half-garbled, much-recirculated tales of the faraway Mahdi. Even in the twentieth century, other groups of Mahdi-inspired rebels proved one of the greatest challenges for the Societist Combine in stretching the black flag over the former Meridian economic empire in the Nusantara. The global impact of the Great Jihad cannot be underestimated.
The ultimate cause of the Jihad was the Ottoman Time of Troubles and the uncertainty over the office of the caliphate due to multiple claimants to the Ottoman sultanate. The authority of the caliph had certainly been rather vague and theoretical in far lands like India, but it was also a firm foundation which had now been taken away. As with the decline of the Mughal Empire (before its limited resurrection as the Neo-Mughal Empire), Indian Muslim princes generally reacted by attempting to act as though the caliphate was still in place while carefully adjusting the liberties they could take accordingly. Just as the ruler of Haidarabad still called himself the Nizam, a title originally meaning deputy or regional governor to the Mughal Emperor, rather than claim a new title in the absence of that Emperor’s power, so too did no prince dream of claiming the caliphate for himself. But the uncertainty remained, and it provided an opportunity for other concerns that had long since lain beneath the surface. A truly comprehensive treatment of the Great Indian Jihad would fill several volumes, but a brief summary follows to illustrate the degree to which the conflict stands alone from the upheavals on other continents.
Faruq Kalam was born into a poor family on the outskirts of Delhi around 1820. Little is known of his early life, something which very much suits his followers, who have created great works of fiction purporting to be biographies that just happen to include all of the prophesised signs of the Koranic Mahdi. What is known is that he studied for some years in a madrassah before dropping out—according to his followers because of jealousy from the scholars and teachers that he far outclassed them; according to his enemies, because he was caught with an illicit supply of alcohol. Regardless, Kalam rose to power by a different and less official route, becoming a popular fiery street preacher who spoke of the decline of the Neo-Mughal Empire under the ageing Mohammed Shah II, a common refrain that had dogged the emperor since he had taken the throne. Originally most such complaints had been from Afghan romantics who yearned for the days of Ahmad Shah Durrani and called Mohammed Shah II soft and Indianised. The success of Mohammed Shah II and the Neo-Mughals in defeating their estranged brothers in the Durrani War[3] had shored up his position, however. Kalam’s complaint was instead that the empire and its emperor had become complacent, had been manipulated by the Ferengi traders to the south (an accurate accusation, as the Durrani War had indeed been manipulated by the Europeans to distract the Neo-Mughals from southern India) and ultimately were drifting from Islam, seduced by comfortable compromises. The fact that the Sikhs had won their independence during the Durrani War, and that the emperor and military leadership were thoroughly unenthusiastic about reopening that question, was a particular sore point.
Perhaps Kalam would have been nothing more than a footnote to history had he not been arrested and imprisoned by the Governor of Sindh in 1843. Mohammed Shah II perhaps would have known the dangers of such actions backfiring, if he knew his history. Two centuries before, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir had imprisoned the sixth Guru of the Sikhs, Hargobind, and had only succeeded in creating a powerful story that had inspired Sikhs for centuries afterwards.[4] After a month of imprisonment and rumours of a pending execution, Kalam’s followers stormed the fort of Pacco Qillo, slew the Governor and freed him at the cost of much bloodshed. Kalam emerged from captivity a changed man. He would never reveal his face again, keeping it permanently veiled. Some speculated that this was to hide signs of torture he had endured in prison: it is agreed that Kalam did bear a physical resemblance to the prophecies that said that the Mahdi would have a high forehead and a curved nose, and it is possible that the Governor had attempted to destroy this resemblance with torture. On the other hand, Kalam had never claimed the Mahdinate before his release, had never shown any sign of it in fact. More cynically others have suggested that the veiled man who led the Great Jihad was not in fact Kalam at all, that Kalam had died in jail and this impostor was a clever opportunist who capitalised on his army of loyal followers. (Perhaps the most far-fetched theory is that the impostor was somehow in fact the Governor of Sindh).
Kalam, if it truly was him, proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the foretold Muslim redeemer who would rule for nine years[5] and be the forerunner for the Second Coming of Jesus (or ’Isa). He was not the first to claim the title and he would certainly not be the last, but he had the largest impact on history.[6] In the short term he would overthrow the corrupt Neo-Mughal Empire and restore the rightly-guided early form of Islam to the world. Remarkably, his ragtag band of followers swelled and received sufficient influx of professional soldiers to become a formidable army—including many Arab and African mercenaries left jobless by the end of the Ottoman Time of Troubles and now inspired by his message and/or the possibility of plunder. They defeated the Neo-Mughal Army repeatedly throughout the mid-1840s and eventually, amid mutinies, they besieged Delhi and saw the death of Mohammed Shah II on the battlefield. (As said above, a full treatment of this could encompass multiple volumes, but this only seeks to be a short summary).
The Jihad could have petered out there, or continued in a different direction, but Mohammed Shah II’s son was nothing if not a perfect opportunist. Brazenly claiming he believed in the Mahdi’s message and that he had betrayed his father, he took the name Nadir Shah II and declared that he would command the empire in the Mahdi’s name and follow him wherever he went. Behind the scenes he delicately manipulated the most influential men in the Mahdi’s inner circle into deciding that that ‘wherever’ would be to places that did not damage the Neo-Mughal Empire any further. The jihadist army would not be wasted on a futile attack on the Sikhs, the Persians or the Kalatis: instead it would be aimed south at the much-hated Ferengi Christians and the Hindu heathens.
Nadir Shah II was broadly successful (just how much he was able to manipulate the Mahdi himself is unclear) and the jihadist army indeed went south. The Great Jihad was not a brief war, nor indeed even a series of wars such as the Jacobin and Popular Wars. It was a great social upheaval merely accompanied by a swathe of death and destruction. European-penned histories have naturally but myopically chosen to focus on the ravages of the Mahdists in the European and European-friendly parts of India, whether it be the Rape of Lucknow or the Burning of Bombay. Filmish and undoubtedly horrific though these incidents were, there is no getting away from the fact that perhaps the worst damage was that done to countless small nameless villages in the Maratha Confederacy, itself weakened from within by Portuguese machinations. Social historians have claimed that as much as a tenth of the population of Indore State, for example, was slain—a literal decimation.
What really ensured the lasting impact of the Jihad was that it inspired Muslims far from the core Neo-Mughal lands to revolt. The biggest and most successful of such revolts was of course in Haidarabad, where the Nizam was overthrown and executed by a revolution that was as much Jacobin or Populist in character as Islamic. Indeed, the initial post-Nizam government in Haidarabad city bore little resemblance to the Mahdi’s notion of an Islamic state, with relative tolerance for the Hindus: instead public anger was aimed at the British, who were widely suspected in having been involved in the death of a previous Nizam and had placed a pliable puppet on the throne.[7] It would not be until the jihadist armies reached Haidarabad that these two visions would be brought into conflict.
Less successful Islamic revolutions took place in Mysore and the French Carnatic—Mysore of course had had its Hindu Wodeyard dynasty put back in place of its previous Islamic one not so many years before, which had stoked a climate of resentment among some of the kingdom’s Muslim minority. The French had put down Islamic revolts before, notably over the pig fat incident at the end of the 1810s, and though long and bloody order was eventually restored. The French collaborated closely with the Portuguese, whose influence mostly extended through majority-Hindu lands and managed to avoid direct confrontation with the Mahdists. In the short run the Portuguese had the upper hand, but of course soon would come the Pânico de '46 and the Portuguese Revolution: in theory the Portuguese East India Company fell into Brazilian hands (which effectively meant Meridian ones, sooner or later) but in reality the Portuguese lands would be run largely in collaboration with the French. The India Board continued to operate.
It was arguably in British Bengal that the single most significant impact of the Jihad was felt. Bengal was (barely) majority Muslim and had a longterm anti-colonial grievance aimed at the British for numerous incidents, in particular the famine of generations before. But this anti-colonialism had a head in the form of Nurul Huq, a Muslim holy man himself—and one who starkly rejected the ‘heretical madness’ of the Mahdi. This was not to say that there were no Mahdists in Bengal, but the elderly Huq’s influence (and martyrdom at Mahdist hands in 1850) ensured that the majority would stand against Kalam. Mahdist armies reaches Bengal at the turn of the 1850s and pitched battles were fought in Oudh, Berar, and the Scindia and Holkar Dominions. British reinforcements reached the kingdom almost by accident under Commodore Cavendish and, astonishingly, were actually welcomed with relief by people of Calcutta who under other circumstances would have gladly seen the British flag burn away.[8]
When the dust eventually settled with the Mahdi’s much-debated death in 1852 (he did, indeed, reign for nine years), Bengal was changed forever. British (and American) troops had fought alongside both Hindu and Muslim natives as equals and they had fought to protect what they regarded as a shared homeland from an outside oppressor. Never again would Bengal regard itself as merely part of a larger whole: it had its own destiny. The Governing Council that Nurul Huq had fought hard for would become a government worth the name, with the Governor-General increasingly hands-off. With Bombay destroyed and eventually ceded by default to the Franco-Portuguese, with British influence removed from the Mahdi-ravaged state of Oudh, Bengal was a fortress of stability in a sea of chaos. Burma, stinging from the inconclusive outcome of the Pu’er Campaign against the Threefold Harmonious Accord,[9] drew closer to Bengal. The British East India Company survived, though subject to increasing American influence, but its raison d’être began to fade. True, its role as a stable place to do business was good for trade, but so much had been poured into the anti-Mahdist defences that the Company was running at a loss and would do for years, at a time when both Britain and the Empire of North America were scarcely in a mood to sink more funds into it. This would be the beginning of the eventual Privatisation of Bengal, though in the first round of stock sales (1860) only 40% of the shares in the Company would be sold on the open market, with the British and American governments retaining 30% each to ensure Hanoverian majority control.[10] Full privatisation of the East India Company would have to wait until the turn of the twentieth century. The French East India Company openly rejected such a practice, but the French government proved equally reluctant to pour more money into what was regarded as increasingly a sink rather than a source.
Thus the Mahdi’s revolt did succeed in an anti-colonial aim, not in directly throwing out Europeans but in effectively forcing them to consider India a losing proposition. Nonetheless the Mahdi does not deserve his sometimes-claimed heroic image as an anti-colonial or pan-Indian nationalist figure. He did not create a lasting coherent state apparatus as other conquerors had done. Though Nadir Shah II did his best to convert the Mahdi’s conquests into an expanded Neo-Mughal Empire, there were too many differences of opinion amidst the vast and distraught army of the Mahdi, and by the 1870s the Neo-Mughal Empire was probably worse off than before. The Maratha Confederacy was also devastated and new small states periodically emerged, rose and fell in the lawless environment, lacking even much of the Portuguese influence that had previously kept the peace. If the Mahdi discouraged the three Old Imperialist Powers of India—Britain, France and Portugal—from further incursion, the chaos he unleashed only made it easier for the New Imperialist Powers to take their place. There was little if any Russian, Chinese or Corean spoken in India when the Mahdi was born; a century later that would not be the case...
*
“Oh hell, I fear thy grasp now—it was all wrong, it was all a dreadful mistake, I wish with all my heart I could be back there, all those years ago, to put on the uniform of fair Spain once more but with no lie in my bearing. To avenge my father on those French bastards who forced him into collaboration and death! Forgive me my life, better than I had died and he had lived—no, better if I had never been born at all!”
– Last words of Pablo Rodrigo Sanchez y Ruiz (1797-1868)[11]
*
“On this day of the fourteenth of March of the Year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred Fifty-Four, I accept the office of Governor of Carolina that the people of this great nation have seen fit to confer upon me and do solemnly declare to execute it to my utmost ability, so help me God.
“Almost six years ago I stood in a place far from here, in our great rightful capital that sadly still languishes under Yankee guns, and took this same oath there. Yet it is not the same oath, for then I was forbidden from describing Carolina as a nation, the truth that was staring every man in his face regardless of his provenance. Then, I was consumed with humility at the thought that I would be called upon to fill the enormous shoes of our great founding father John Alexander. Now, though I would still not dare to call myself his equal, I do not feel ashamed at the thought that my portrait may one day hang in the same gallery, second among the Governors of this nation. Let us not let the technical difficulties of the past occlude us from the realisation that though General Alexander did not live to see the formal independence of his homeland, he most assuredly deserves his place as the first of its leaders. He paved the way, a voice calling in the desert. It is up to us to carry on the work.
“I need not remind you that the road has been long and hard, and that it can scarcely be said to be over. Half our land remains under Yankee occupation. Though this government in Fredericksburg is certainly more reasonable than any we have known for decades, it is not the rightful government of our brothers and sisters in bondage. Perhaps if it had come to power before the madness of the last few years, things might have been different—but as my good friend Mr Adams has said, I think even without the peculiar unthinking hatred of certain northern groups, the Empire would have come apart eventually. Though there were great feats done in the old Empire’s name, things we can all be proud of, I do not believe that Carolina ever belonged in it. ’Twas an accident of history. The Empire was, first and foremost, an English creation, and our forefathers from Scotland and Ulster, different in character and ways, should never have been included. That disruption in the spirit of the Empire would exist even if the crime of leaving every Negro in Africa had been committed.
“But let us not look to the past. Let us look to the future. Know that we have powerful new friends and bright new opportunities. This is not the end of the story of Carolina, this is the beginning. The great Kingdom we have built on a foundation of our own blood shall endure unto the end of the earth, and here if nowhere else on earth, the proper relationship between the races shall forever be maintained...”
– Inauguration speech of Belteshazzar Wragg upon him winning a second term as Governor of Carolina (and the first of independent Carolina), 1854
“This new development shall ensure that America shall forever enjoy an advantage in naval warfare”
“Excuse me, but when the right honourable gentleman says ‘forever’ is he using the Carolinian definition of ‘forever’, and so shall we be deprived of this advantage in twelve years’ time?” (Laughter followed by ‘Order’ from the Speaker)
– Exchange between Jason Carey (Supremacist-Albany Prov. I), Secretary at War, and Michael Chamberlain (Liberal-Pulteney), an opposition backbencher, during a debate in the Continental Parliament on defence procurement, 1867
*
“Blue, blue...all, they all have umlauts. Umlauts. Dot, dot. Dot, dot. DOT! DOT! Why no...days of the week. DAYS OF! THE WEEK! His family, his own family...days of THE WEEK! Carla, why Carla, where is she, where am I, I...who, the week, dot, dot. He loved, loved America, but, umlaut, but. I am...I am...A PELICAN. No, the sun is God.”
– Last words of Pablo Rodrigo Sanchez y Ruiz (1797-1868)[12]
*
Crosstime Update Report by Dr David Wostyn: 05/11/2019 (OTL Calendar)
And with that I leave you with these extracts concerning the Great American War and its impact on the history of this world. I fear that I was unable to be as comprehensive as I would have liked under ideal circumstances—certainly for personal reasons I had hoped to cover the Second Riverine War in China, but that will have to wait for another day. Assuming such a day comes.
As you will have heard from Captain MacCauley, we believe we have located the facility where Captain Nuttall and his team are being held. It is an office of the English Security Directorate in the town of Croydon, which in this timeline is considered to still remain outside the somewhat smaller version of London and be located in Surrey. It has probably been chosen due to keeping these doubtless suspicious characters close enough to London for important figures to visit and give orders swiftly, but far enough away to be safe.
The handover of the prisoners from the National Gendarmery to the ESD appears, fortuitously, to be a recent one, and we can hope that Team Alpha have been caught up in bureaucratic limbo as the two organisations jockey for control in interservice rivalry. That is Captain MacCauley’s surmise, at least. I thank Dr Pataki for his input in suggesting that the Fifth of November might be a Heritage Point of Controversy Day, as indeed it is. Tonight there will be designated brawls between Protestants and Catholics (the latter’s numbers carefully swelled by foreign volunteers to ensure equal numbers) which should provide a neat distraction for our rescue attempt to-night.
I still have misgivings, of course. So much could go wrong. If nothing else, we could only confirm the suspicions of the security services of this timeline’s England that we are militaristic invaders. But I accept the argument that we have no choice: we cannot risk Team Alpha’s knowledge falling into their hands in an uncontrolled fashion. I still believe, however, that a civilised dialogue will be possible in the future if the rescue proceeds successfully and without bloodshed. I am aware that Captain Nuttall was sceptical about such a notion and recorded his thoughts as such, but we know and understand so much more about the driving forces for this timeline know. This country, this world, is certainly somewhat alien—but not so alien it is beyond our ability or desire to communicate with.
I am glad that we have managed to ascertain to the best of our knowledge that our opponents—I refuse to use the term ‘enemy’—are unable to detect Portals and do not appear to have extracted any information on them from Team Alpha. Our tests in triggering Portals in sensitive areas and then seeing if there is any response shows a conclusive negative result. We are very grateful to the Prime Minister for allowing us to trigger a Portal from Number Ten Downing Street to the Whitehall Forum. I do not believe that the security services of this timeline would deliberately allow such an incursion, even to lure us into a false sense of security, considering the potential threat. We did manage to return the cat, by the way, in case there were any continuing concerns about that breach. I did appreciate the joke of the tin of Kattomeat included in the last supply run, but we have enough radiation treatment pills now, even with the reinforcements—there is no need to send any more. I was quite clear that Captain Nuttall’s initial surmises were evidently exaggerated, and in part based on a misunderstanding (though perhaps an understandable one) of recent events in this timeline.
The reinforcements are settling in well. Lieutenant Black’s particular expertise on London is much appreciated and should prove vital for tonight’s operation. Sergeant Ellis has also typed up an excellent report on the local architecture which he will doubtless send when he returns from examining the roof of a nearby house whose denizen happens to be an attractive young lady. Lieutenant Tindale, while in an unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate a visitors’ party touring the New Palace of Westminster, has made a startling discovery, one which I am shocked that both Captain Nuttall and ourselves had failed to notice so far. But the media works quite differently in this timeline, with much less saturation of such things in terms of public posters and displays, and a lot is delivered directly to households via Motoscope and Motext, their versions of television and teletext respectively. I suppose this relates to the Diversitarian idea of every person believing their own unique version of the truth.
But I digress. The crucial point of Lieutenant Tindale’s discovery is that it suddenly makes everything clear. We came here expecting England to be an authoritarian, suspicious state, perhaps with a secret police like those of Eastern Europe under the Iron Curtain in our own timeline. We found it a fairly liberal nation with only slightly more visible security services than our own timeline’s Britain. So where did the sharp, militaristic response against Team Alpha come from? What made those security services paranoid and suspicious enough to launch a raid presumably triggered solely by the intercepts of what can only be garbled fragments of Alpha’s radio transmissions? Why were they so anxious to perceive a threat?
Well, Lieutenant Tindale has found out the reason why.
You see...the Olympics are on this year...”
[1] According to the official Combine version of events propagated by the Biblioteka Mundial, itself based on an account by Raúl Caraíbas. Much scepticism was attached to this even before opinion was polarised by the Black Scare: not simply because of the apparent abandonment of many of Sanchez’s principles on his deathbed but also because of the exact wording. Viennese School Societists, arguably a more bitter foe of the Combine than any Diversitarian, state that the ‘it can—it must’ phrasing was a recurring trope in Caraíbas’ writings which implies he fabricated at least parts of, and possibly the entirety of, the quotation. The misspelling of Quedling as ‘Quelding’ in the earliest versions has also been noted, and while Caraíbas claimed Sanchez had dictated the message to him, it seems questionable whether one could have been misheard as the other—whereas in the fabrication theory this would be justified as a simple mistake on Caraíbas’ part, not having heard the name or seen it written down recently. Most significant is the fact that the alleged Sanchez quote repeatedly uses the term 'Societist/Societism', which the real Sanchez is on record as disliking (rejecting any label for his ideas).
[2] At the time of this incident, the Council met for six months in the New Kentish capital of New London and then for the other six in the New Virginian capital of Norfolk (see part #154).
[3] See Part #87.
[4] Indeed (in OTL and TTL) Sikhs celebrate on the day of Diwali not because of its Hindu origins but because it is also the day that Guru Hargobind was released from prison in Gwalior.
[5] Different Islamic groups actually disagree on whether it is supposed to be 7, 9 or 19 years.
[6] By contrast probably the most influential Mahdi claimant in OTL is Muhammad Ahmad in late nineteenth-century Sudan, commonly known simply as ‘the’ Mahdi, who led the Mahdist War against the British.
[7] As described in Part #87.
[8] Cavendish had actually been attempting to reach California, as described in part #184.
[9] See Part #152.
[10] Using ‘Hanoverian’ to mean ‘Anglo-American’ or ‘English-speaking peoples’ as it is sometimes, confusingly, used in TTL.
[11] According to the version of events promoted by the Soviet Ministry of Information between 1960 and the implementation of the Iverson Protocol in 1978 (and unofficially circulated by conspiracy theorists since then). Most scholars consider this to be nothing more than crude propaganda and clearly born of the popular climate of vitriolic rage in Russia following the Sunrise War, albeit not exclusively directed at the Combine of course.
[12] According to an unofficial account taken from the diary of Sanchez’s housekeeper (discovered 1915), who gives the explanation that Sanchez was taking copious amounts of laudanum and possibly other drugs to dull the pain of his terminal condition (probably liver cancer). Scholars hotly debate whether the diary and account are genuine or a fabrication, while conspiracy theorists attempt to find some meaning in the ramblings (most infamously the eccentric actor Pierre Chaudet, who claimed that if recited backwards the nonsense becomes a demonic message). Regardless of its veracity or otherwise, the account is likely responsible for the appearance of the name ‘Fever Dream’ as a euphemism for Sanchez’s ideas.
THE END
OF VOLUME IV: COMETH THE HOUR...
LOOK TO THE WEST WILL CONTINUE
IN
VOLUME V: TO DREAM AGAIN
OF VOLUME IV: COMETH THE HOUR...
LOOK TO THE WEST WILL CONTINUE
IN
VOLUME V: TO DREAM AGAIN
.
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Love the far fetched theory about the Governor of Sindh, and the multiple accounts of Sanchez's last words. The cargo cult thing is also fascinating.
The cameos for the politibrits are fun, if somewhat alarming given the correlation between cameos here and bannings (though I suppose Thermopylae only disappeared and Doctor What's still around - who is Lieutenant McConnell again?). I'm guessing the Palace tour thing is a reference to your run-ins with security whilst Roem was giving one in September?
And of course, the Olympics (though I'm not quite sure why it would be that year, given it isn't divisible by 4 or a straightforward continuation from the ancient ones)....
Is the stuff about posters related to your comments about elections being invisible?
The cameos for the politibrits are fun, if somewhat alarming given the correlation between cameos here and bannings (though I suppose Thermopylae only disappeared and Doctor What's still around - who is Lieutenant McConnell again?). I'm guessing the Palace tour thing is a reference to your run-ins with security whilst Roem was giving one in September?
And of course, the Olympics (though I'm not quite sure why it would be that year, given it isn't divisible by 4 or a straightforward continuation from the ancient ones)....
Is the stuff about posters related to your comments about elections being invisible?
All hail the pelican ! All hail Thande !
Excellent update as always . So instead of the Sudan Mahdi , we have a man (possibly an imposter ) that burnt part of Northern India to the ground ? Given the multiple references to the Combine , neo-jihadist movements and a new form of imperialism , the next major war is going to be cataclysmic .
By the way , will there be new maps of Europe and America soon ? I must admit it's a bit difficult sometimes to know what belongs to whom in the last period (usually because it changes so much ) .
Excellent update as always . So instead of the Sudan Mahdi , we have a man (possibly an imposter ) that burnt part of Northern India to the ground ? Given the multiple references to the Combine , neo-jihadist movements and a new form of imperialism , the next major war is going to be cataclysmic .
By the way , will there be new maps of Europe and America soon ? I must admit it's a bit difficult sometimes to know what belongs to whom in the last period (usually because it changes so much ) .
Were the allusions to the far future always this frequent and ... well, informative? Careful with the foreshadowing, Thande. And well done.
This thread may be of some help.
This thread may be of some help.
Looks like Carolina is going to get bullied into behaving itself sometime in 1866, sure to be demoralizing for them. It is striking just how big the Combine is going to be; at the moment we know it is going to include Indonesia, most or all of South America, Spain and Carolina as well as Taiwan and the Philippines (unless the collapse of the UPSA is followed by a power grab among the other major powers).
teg
teg
Great update! I almost thought you had forgotten about the Great Jihad.
My guess is that it has something to do with a greater conflict, maybe even a world war (but with a cooler name of course
), and they moved the date or something.
So, Sunrise war, eh? Russia will have problems in Yapon, I suspect.
What else... A future Meridian trade empire in the East Indies, Russian, Chinese and Corean involvement in India and Austrian (maybe even 'whole-Danubian') Societist who are at odds with the Combine. I'm thinking of Yugoslavia with this one.
Edit: Do we know what happened with the Carribean?
And a question: Will this continue as normal or will you be taking a planned brake? This being an end of a chapter.
My guess is that it has something to do with a greater conflict, maybe even a world war (but with a cooler name of course
), and they moved the date or something.So, Sunrise war, eh? Russia will have problems in Yapon, I suspect.
What else... A future Meridian trade empire in the East Indies, Russian, Chinese and Corean involvement in India and Austrian (maybe even 'whole-Danubian') Societist who are at odds with the Combine. I'm thinking of Yugoslavia with this one.
Edit: Do we know what happened with the Carribean?
And a question: Will this continue as normal or will you be taking a planned brake? This being an end of a chapter.
Well in OTL they re only in years divisible by 4 because they happened to start in 1896. It's not implausible for them to start in a year ending in 1, 5 or 9 (whichever ends up with 2019 being an Olympic year, I CBA to work it out).
Speaking of the Olympics, and a thought regarding athletics distances, IIRC the only reason that they use 1500m is because of a compromise with the French (who used to use 500m tracks). Although actually, given that Thande is writing this it's probably moot because it's likely to still be the Mile.
But the reason it was in 1896 was because de Coubertin wanted to host the premiere in 1900 to coincide with both the Paris World's Fair, and the beginning of the new century. But others didn't want to wait as long (this was in 1893) and so it was agreed that the first new one would take place in Greece four years earlier.
It could end in a 3 or 7 as well (just saying).
Whatever the start date is, I think it would be one of some significance (even the FIFA World Cup was the centenary of the original host nation). A World's Fair type thing seems most likely to me, but another strong possibility might be the anniversary of Greek independence. Actually no, since if it is specifically revived by the Greeks the chances of it going on to be held in other places would seem to be pretty much nil.
EDIT: Hang on, wait, assuming Wostyn's using the halfway sensible date format, this is November, so the Olympics would be in 2020 (assuming it's the Summer Olympics, at least).
Good point, I didn't notice that (maybe I'm too used to US dates...)
Alex Richards
Donor
Fantastic update, and (sadly in this case) it appears once again that something you've been planning for ages happens in RL before you got to it.
Loving the hints and cameos there. I'll get started on that new America map forthwith.
Loving the hints and cameos there. I'll get started on that new America map forthwith.
Thande
Donor
Thanks for the kind words and comments everyone. I'm glad this is finished, it took long enough. I've been writing this TL far too long and work has gotten in the way. Still enjoying it though. (To give an indication of this--I had originally hoped to finish this volume in 2012 so the Olympics gag would still be topical. Not happening). I have managed some more bursts of activity of late so hopefully Volume V will pass a bit more rapidly (it doesn't help when I get interrupted and forget what was in the previous updates, I end up repeating myself--this will probably need a bit of editing down if I ever publish it).
By the way, if anyone's wondering where I got Sanchez's drug-addled ramblings from, parts of it are shout-outs but the majority is from an Ian McKellen lookalike loony who sat next to me on the bus last week. You can't say I don't make an effort to make this TL authentic.
I wondered if anyone would spot that--it's getting tiresome by this point! And I hope it doesn't continue, given the hint Wostyn gives after the mention of cat food (surprising nobody commented on that).
I'd love to see an America map although, as I said above, the immediate postwar situation won't last more than a few years in terms of internal organisation.
Oh dear, I hadn't even thought of the correlation. Yes, the Palace tour is a reference to that. Not all the team members & scientists are AH.commer cameos - McConnell and Pataki are just generic names.
Not intentionally but I might have been subconsciously thinking of that.
By the way, if anyone's wondering where I got Sanchez's drug-addled ramblings from, parts of it are shout-outs but the majority is from an Ian McKellen lookalike loony who sat next to me on the bus last week. You can't say I don't make an effort to make this TL authentic.
There will be a new map of Europe, but not of America as the immediate post-GAW situation will not last too long in terms of internal borders etc. (I don't think that's really a spoiler).
Divided up largely based on uti possidetis at the end of the GAW--see the map thread linked to above. The reply to Antoine is also relevant however.
A bit of a break to work on other projects and update the laconic TL on the wiki with the events from this volume, hopefully not too long - maybe resume after the general election in May.
Remember that until recently the Summer and Winter Olympics were hosted by the same country in the same year...
I wondered if anyone would spot that--it's getting tiresome by this point! And I hope it doesn't continue, given the hint Wostyn gives after the mention of cat food (surprising nobody commented on that).
I'd love to see an America map although, as I said above, the immediate postwar situation won't last more than a few years in terms of internal organisation.
Alex Richards
Donor
Well, the old one is massively out of date. I think as long as I get it done before Part V gets particularly updated I won't mind doing a small update for the new internal situation.
BTW, does anyone have a copy of the old Neapolitan map saved, the original link seems to have died.
Thande
Donor
Thanks - it is intended to bookend with the first regular update to this thread (part #151).Good ending for Volume IV, Thande!
Can you clarify which one you mean?
Alex Richards
Donor
The one Nugax (IIRC) made with all the confederations in different colours and looking like a bit like a tub of ice cream.
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