Map of the Fortnight: Main Discussion Thread

Map of the Month 9: At A Fork In The Road - Entry Thread

(Topic for MotM 9 was inspired by an older suggestion from @Veranius - thanks to all who have put forward potential topics recently!)
Map of the Month 9: At A Fork In The Road

The Challenge

Make two maps showing different outcomes resulting from a single event (such as a battle or an election.)

So do both of the maps need to be alternate time lines? (...Meaning neither can be real life?)
 
I imagine it's like a The Grasshopper Lies Heavy scenario, where it's OTL but not quite so
Do you mean, for example, the difference is something that happens in the US Civil War, where one map has ”The Big Change” and the other is pretty much OTL but with Puerto Rico as a state?
 
Do you mean, for example, the difference is something that happens in the US Civil War, where one map has ”The Big Change” and the other is pretty much OTL but with Puerto Rico as a state?
"The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" is kind of a DBWI situation - it's a second-order fictional work from The Man in the High Castle (set in an Axis victory world) depicting the world if the Allies had won instead. (It's been awhile, but I don't think it resembles OTL all that much - I think there's a American/British Cold War or something.)

Anyway, something like that would also be a valid approach for this challenge - same for two maps depicting different alternatives for an event that didn't happen OTL (for instance, Napoleon invades Britain - one map shows the invasion succeeding, the other shows it failing.)
 
"The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" is kind of a DBWI situation - it's a second-order fictional work from The Man in the High Castle (set in an Axis victory world) depicting the world if the Allies had won instead. (It's been awhile, but I don't think it resembles OTL all that much - I think there's a American/British Cold War or something.)

Anyway, something like that would also be a valid approach for this challenge - same for two maps depicting different alternatives for an event that didn't happen OTL (for instance, Napoleon invades Britain - one map shows the invasion succeeding, the other shows it failing.)
The example of Napoleon's invasion has me thinking I read the part of "single event" too strictly - I was trying to think of more... grounded, let's say, events. So like, instead of an invasion of Britain, it'd be more like if Trafalgar went differently. Not that I'm complaining, much to the contrary, this will certainly help choose a scenario.
 
The example of Napoleon's invasion has me thinking I read the part of "single event" too strictly - I was trying to think of more... grounded, let's say, events. So like, instead of an invasion of Britain, it'd be more like if Trafalgar went differently. Not that I'm complaining, much to the contrary, this will certainly help choose a scenario.
Yes, broad definition of "event" here - the key part is two maps. :)
 
I have to admit that I've been a bit positively shocked when the sea mammal that mustn't be named became a map here some rounds ago.
And this first (and hopefully not only) entry now in MotF 9 makes me feel the same again. And it fits so well to current international politics and shows a dilemma between political sovereignity and territorial integrity with a POD at Chernobyl, seven weeks after my birth date and the ramifications spanning my entire life. And this scenario reminds me of how the world could still be worse even if OTL currently looks like become worse and worse.

And as I'm at it, I'll re-issue one of my old proposals, especially after the Taliban came back and Roe v Wade is at stake:

Our Father's Father Says That Things Were Better Then
Make a map depicting an attempted or successful socio-economic or socio-cultural political backlash.

One note: The title of the challenge is from a line in the song Perfect World from Ace Of Base's album The Bridge. I'd call it my emotional centerpoint of the band's legacy.
Our father's father says that things were better then / How easy they forget / In every page in every book of history / A thousand tears were shed
 
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