https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/telephone-map-game-1st-edition.470573/ Telephone Map Game thread created.
Map Thread XIX
- Thread starter water123
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The idea was discussed here a few posts ago, that's why I'm posting it here.
Isaac Beach
Banned
Messy and Meticulous
“Cup of tea, Kommissar Bosanac?” Bosanac’s eyes flickered up from his tablet, regarding the cheery receptionist standing over him with mild ambivalence.
“Will they allow that in the archives? I’m a slow drinker.”
“Oh yes,” said the receptionist with a sharp nod, “all our microfilm is laminated so it’s no trouble, truly. How do you take it?”
“Ginger and fennel, but with milk.”
The receptionist cocked their head, “That’s delightfully queer, Kommissar. Right away.” They stepped away to see to it, but as Bosanac lowered his gaze (ignoring the commentary on the composition of his tea) there was a squeak of the receptionist’s shoes on the polished concrete floor and an awkward twist of their tabard as they doubled back. “Oh,” they added as though it had just occurred to them, though Bosanac presumed they’d received a neural communique, “Archivist Diefenbach has finished his prior engagements and will escort you shortly, Kommissar.”
“Thank you, I’m in no rush,” Bosanac replied with an inculcated smile. And indeed, he wasn’t, paging through the casework prepared by the Inspectorate’s myrmidons. It filled him with mirth to quantify their errors, spelling mistakes and misattributions of data (why would a central bank keep records on privately destroyed ships, anyway?). Little more could be expected of them, the overworked juniors they were, particularly these days. The case was telling of that; such an influential company as Europische Raumfahrtindustrie losing such a large ship as a Gudrun colony vessel? That was unheard of. The receptionist delivered his tea, and the Kommissar spied some measure of repellence on their face as they did so. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes; tea-based chauvinism was among the less respectable bigotries to hold these days, the Fennel Wars were nearly a hundred years ago.
True to his word, and though some time did elapse, the tea’s level barely dropped in its double-walled mug in the period it took for Diefenbach to emerge into the dim lobby. As a thoroughfare it had seen much traffic, and so Bosanac didn’t notice his entrance until he stood before him and extended a hand into his peripheral vision. “A pleasure to meet you, Kommissar.” Said Kommissar drew away from his tablet and surveyed the Archivist slowly and deliberately, from his gracile fingers to his immaculate shoes and up his attenuated body (taller than Bosanac and Bosanac wasn’t short) wrapped in an elaborate apron to meet a pair of small, judicious eyes topped by neat blonde hair. He looked young, younger than the receptionist, unexpected for a company of Raumfahrtindustrie’s respectability.
“And to you, Archivist,” he replied, simultaneously pushing off from the cushioned bench and clasping the man’s arm.
“You were here early, Kommissar.”
“You want your insurance money and the Inspectorate wants to know how you lost a ship of that size,” he prodded, and decidedly smirked, “It’s a high priority.” Diefenbach only chuckled but glanced near imperceptibly toward the lobby at large. After their clasp he motioned languidly to the lifts by the receptionist’s desk, where he’d emerged. “Quite. Right this way, Kommissar.”
With his tea in one hand and tablet in the other, Kommissar Bosanac followed Archivist Diefenbach past row upon row of gloomy shelving unit, each stocked with drawers that contained Europische Raumfahrtindustrie’s millions of microfilm files. Occasionally he’d catch the shade of a junior Archivist, inspecting a document with their handheld microscopes or wearily beholding the source of his echoing footsteps. Diefenbach’s steps were silent. The chamber was wide, tall, shadowy and seemingly endless, and a certain vertigo filled Bosanac as the disconcerting thought invaded and compounded in his mind.
Seeking to distract himself, he said, “How many files do you have?”
“On the Gudrun-04, or in general?” replied Diefenbach in a characteristically demure voice, not looking over his shoulder.
“Either, both.”
“Well, the Europische Raumfahrtindustrie Corporation has existed for over 400 years. We have files dating to that foundation,” he explained, “there are easily over ten billion individual files in this library alone. We like to be meticulous, especially in such a messy business.” He of course referred to the production of ships, the corporate scrimmage over asteroids and planets, the terraformation and settlement therein. Death, booms and busts, the great frontier; the Kommissar didn’t challenge the notion. “For the Gudrun-04 specifically? Well we’ve only just received them from our offices about Teegarden’s Star, that took a little over a decade, hence our belated compensation claim. They’re not as comprehensive as I’d personally like but for your investigation they ought to suffice.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” harrumphed Bosanac. The Archivist affected a laugh by exhaling sharply, before replying.
“If I may direct you ever so slightly, Kommissar, I’d begin with the free-form reports. They’re more accessible.”
“I’ll heed that advice, Archivist,” said Bosanac, “but I studied engineering, I can manage.”
“Quite.”
After an apparent eternity, the Archivist suddenly turned heel and disappeared down a row, so quickly that Bosanac nearly lost him in the sea of drawers. But the Kommissar rebounded and followed after the willowy man, sipping from his tea to abate his abruptly spiked nerves. They stopped at a drawer, the unmemorable number ‘000000064972960000’ printed on its top lip. Standing either side of it, Diefenbach pulled the drawer open to reveal an illuminated glass plate and a dense florilegium of folders. Diefenbach reached into his apron and proffered a microscope, but Bosanac waved him off, reaching into his coat pocket to produce his own.
“I brought my own, it’s Inspectorate-gear so it’ll work with your files,” he assured, and his escort nodded.
“Can I accommodate you further, Kommissar? Would you care for a stool, perhaps?”
“No thank you, I think when I stand.”
“I don’t doubt that,” said the Archivist, and Bosanac fixed him with a naked glower.
“However, if you could do me a favour and copy these files I won’t crowd your archives too long. I don’t have a warrant but it’s a phone call away so it’s in both our best interests.” The Archivist smiled at the temerarious threat, but clasped his hands together favorably.
“Right away, I’ll have them hand delivered to the Inspectorate,” Diefenbach stepped away and bowed shallowly. “Unfortunately, I have additional engagements to attend to, may I leave you to your investigation?”
“Not just yet,” said Bosanac, placing his tea and tablet on the drawer’s plate and leaning against the shelf, “I had a question or two.” Diefenbach visibly vacillated, rolling his bony shoulders, but nonetheless acceded. “I know what the Gudrun-04 was taking to Teegarden’s Star; colonists, equipment, machinery, specialists,” his fingers danced over the folders, “But what was it bringing back?” There was a silence, compounded by the depths of the murky archives, and Bosanac watched as his escort’s face warped into something inquisitorial, something accusative, before a trained serenity emerged. That was a tell.
“Silicon, by and large, as well as nickel, iron, xenon and a lot of subcrustal kimberlite for Sol’s luxury market. It was meant to have a skeleton crew of about 200 men on return,” he explained. It was Bosanac’s turn to glout, regarding the spindly Archivist with visible scepticism.
“Alright, Archivist, attend to your engagements,” he finally said, and turned to the files.
“And you to your investigation, Kommissar,” said Diefenbach, backing away before disappearing among the shelves. After perusing the folders Bosanac produced the free form reports, and carefully withdrew the first slip of microfilm. He sighed, sipped from his tea and bent over the glass plate, microscope to eye.
Messy and meticulous, indeed.
~
~
As is often the case when I'm writing a short story to substitute a description, this story didn't end particularly well, so I may expand on it in future. I can already see how. This is, funnily enough, a bit of a plagiarism of that one archival scene from Blade Runner 2049, except it won't climax with Sylvia Hoeks throttling
Also, a very large thanks to AmazingHoffman, who did the German translation for me. Phenomenal work and timely too.
Last edited:
THE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER
The American victory in the Canadian War, while in its day unprecedented and unexpected, makes perfect sense when viewing it from the lenses of 1976. Under the excellent leadership of President Alexander Hamilton, who had been in office since 1808 and remained so until 1824, winning four consecutive elections in a row, the country was united in its goal to take all of Canada. When war was declared in 1812, the nation did just that, and captured Montreal and Québec City with relative ease. Ottawa fell soon after, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, cut off from its last colonial holdings in North America, ceded all Canada to the Union. Hamilton, hungry for more, turned around and almost instantly declared war on Spain, whose empire was collapsing all around it. The Spanish-American War was just as easy as the Canadian War, and the U.S. annexed the Floridas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, all of New Spain from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, and the Philippines in one fell swoop.
All good things must come to an end, though, and Hamilton announced he would not be seeking a fifth term, though he certainly would have won one. In response, Southern hero Andrew Jackson was elected president. Jackson, however, didn't play by the South's rules, and when he began implementing Hamiltonian economic policies in force, South Carolina raised a huge stink. They seceded from the Union on April 16, 1826, and were followed by the rest of the Deep South, with Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri all refraining from doing so. The newly-independent states decided to band together to form the Confederation of American States, and essentially re-adopted the old Articles of Confederation, the only notable change being that slavery and segregation were integral parts of the new Southern government. Jackson was not happy about such a turn of events, and began mustering an army to put down the CAS. And so began the Civil War.
The war was, just as the Canadian and Spanish-American Wars before it, unsurprisingly swift and easy. Andrew Jackson and the United States Army utterly crushed the Confederation, all the while the Federalists back in Washington had a field day passing laws with no opposition. When the Stars and Stripes once more flew over Charleston, the CAS capital, the Confederation surrendered on July 4, 1830, to the President-Major General Andrew Jackson. In that moment, the Old South and its ways were confined to the trashbin of history. For the next few decades, during a period known as 'The Great Southron Healing,' the entire region was transformed. During the Civil War, Congress had passed sweeping reforms thanks to the rise of the Second American Enlightenment and Revolutionary Spirit. Slavery was no more, and racial equality was mandated at a federal level by a series of Constitutional amendments all Southern states had to ratify to rejoin the Union and have Northern troops leave the state. Not that this mattered very much--the South had undergone a rapid transformation during the Great Southron Healing, when the region emptied of its whites and was populated by a majority of blacks and Hispanics.
When America involved itself in the Second Brazilian Revolution of 1836, President Henry Clay was overjoyed when the Brazilians revealed their intense desire to become a part of the Union. The US handily agreed. But this acquisition was not enough to satisfy the public, who demanded their Manifest Destiny be fulfilled. In 1846, Clay bent to their wishes and declared war on Mexico. The war was through by Christmas. Seeing no sense in stopping, the American forces in Central America decided to keep on going, and steamrolled into Honduras and El Salvador. While on their campaign through Nicaragua, however, the unthinkable happened, and Major General Winfield Scott was shot dead. Luckily, chaos did not follow, for Brigadier General Robert E. Lee, Scott's right hand man, stepped up to the plate and easily filled Scott's shoes. Lee began leading the US Army in the summer of 1850, and took them to victory in conquering the rest of South America. They arrived in Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America, in 1860, after a decade of successful warfare. By this point, the Union had learned how to train birds of prey to strike down their enemies. Hawks and falcons were used, but bald eagles were particularly prefered. Legend has it, on July 4, 1858, as the Americans advanced on Buenos Aires, the last major city in the Western Hemisphere not held by the United States, Robert E. Lee called down a bolt of lightning from the sky to fry the city. Indeed, the scorch marks on much of the city's buildings are undeniably from an American Zeus smiting its foes.
With the West taken, Manifest Destiny called for setting sights on the east, the Fear East, specifically. In 1862, Commodore Matthew Perry and nearly the entirety of the United States Navy arrived on the doorstep of Japan. They demanded the isolated island nation submit to their might and be annexed into the Union as they had previously done with the Kingdom of Hawai'i, or be destroyed. The Shogun selected to be annexed.
Wars of glory and of Manifest Destiny came thick and fast after that. The US gladly annexed Korea, Formosa, and Manchuria, who had broken away from China proper during the chaos resulting from the Taiping Rebellion. At the World Congress in London in 1888, the rest of the unknown world was divided up between the major powers, with the United States of America holding a seat equal to Great Britain and France. Due to its presence in the region with Liberia, the Union was granted sovereignty over a large swath of West Africa. Similarly, due to the proximity of Formosa and the Philippines, the US took ahold of Indochina.
For the next few decades, America remained at peace with its neighbors, quietly looking inward and cutting through the miles and miles of red tape that came with controlling almost half of the world's land area. Then, conflict around the globe came to a head in 1912. Theodore Roosevelt had just been elected president as Europe devolved into all-out war, tearing the continent apart. The US joined up with Germany and the Danubian Union to take down Britain, France, Russia, and Scandinavia. At the negotiating table, America made off with Britain's holdings in the Pacific, including Australia, and South Africa, as well as Russian Alyaska and Scandinavian Greenland and Denmark.
Today, on the Bicentennial of the Founding of the United States, America stands tall as the most powerful nation on Earth. Its economy is more than triple that of the Republic of China, its nearest competitior. Its culture is widespread, well known from Siberia to the Congo Kingdom.
For all the Union has done, no one can quite define the world's most American moment. Was it when George Washington triumphed at Yorktown? When Alexander Hamilton fought valiantly at the Battle of Washington? Was it when Andrew Jackson triumphed over the South, standing on the top step of the South Carolina State Capitol? It was none of these. The greatest contender to the role was when President Theodore Roosevelt, at dawn of the Great War, delivered his famous "America the Invincible" speech to a crowd of half a million on the steps of the Capitol Building on the Fourth of July in 1916. As he spoke, a bald eagle soared down from on high and perched itself on Teddy's shoulder, as the President raised Old Glory into the air with his other hand.
--------------------------------
I've noticed a severe lack of 'Murica Maps on this fine Independence Day, so I figured I'd do my part and make this thread a little more red, white, and blue with this mess of an Ameriwank. This is an alternate alternate history, or a double-blind alternate history, written from the perspective of a twelve year old from my universe A More Perfect Union on his world's version of alternatehistory.com. Therefore, it's intentionally supposed to be completely bonkers and unimaginably America biased. The POD from AMPU is that the Canadian War, which was a very minor victory for the US (it's probably better to call it a stalemate) in the main TL, went infinitely better, and the Union annexed all of Canada in one go, before basically becoming Manifest Destiny incarnate.
wait a fucking minute how is a 12 year old using AH.comTHE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVERThe American victory in the Canadian War, while in its day unprecedented and unexpected, makes perfect sense when viewing it from the lenses of 1976. Under the excellent leadership of President Alexander Hamilton, who had been in office since 1808 and remained so until 1824, winning four consecutive elections in a row, the country was united in its goal to take all of Canada. When war was declared in 1812, the nation did just that, and captured Montreal and Québec City with relative ease. Ottawa fell soon after, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, cut off from its last colonial holdings in North America, ceded all Canada to the Union. Hamilton, hungry for more, turned around and almost instantly declared war on Spain, whose empire was collapsing all around it. The Spanish-American War was just as easy as the Canadian War, and the U.S. annexed the Floridas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, all of New Spain from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, and the Philippines in one fell swoop.
All good things must come to an end, though, and Hamilton announced he would not be seeking a fifth term, though he certainly would have won one. In response, Southern hero Andrew Jackson was elected president. Jackson, however, didn't play by the South's rules, and when he began implementing Hamiltonian economic policies in force, South Carolina raised a huge stink. They seceded from the Union on April 16, 1826, and were followed by the rest of the Deep South, with Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri all refraining from doing so. The newly-independent states decided to band together to form the Confederation of American States, and essentially re-adopted the old Articles of Confederation, the only notable change being that slavery and segregation were integral parts of the new Southern government. Jackson was not happy about such a turn of events, and began mustering an army to put down the CAS. And so began the Civil War.
The war was, just as the Canadian and Spanish-American Wars before it, unsurprisingly swift and easy. Andrew Jackson and the United States Army utterly crushed the Confederation, all the while the Federalists back in Washington had a field day passing laws with no opposition. When the Stars and Stripes once more flew over Charleston, the CAS capital, the Confederation surrendered on July 4, 1830, to the President-Major General Andrew Jackson. In that moment, the Old South and its ways were confined to the trashbin of history. For the next few decades, during a period known as 'The Great Southron Healing,' the entire region was transformed. During the Civil War, Congress had passed sweeping reforms thanks to the rise of the Second American Enlightenment and Revolutionary Spirit. Slavery was no more, and racial equality was mandated at a federal level by a series of Constitutional amendments all Southern states had to ratify to rejoin the Union and have Northern troops leave the state. Not that this mattered very much--the South had undergone a rapid transformation during the Great Southron Healing, when the region emptied of its whites and was populated by a majority of blacks and Hispanics.
When America involved itself in the Second Brazilian Revolution of 1836, President Henry Clay was overjoyed when the Brazilians revealed their intense desire to become a part of the Union. The US handily agreed. But this acquisition was not enough to satisfy the public, who demanded their Manifest Destiny be fulfilled. In 1846, Clay bent to their wishes and declared war on Mexico. The war was through by Christmas. Seeing no sense in stopping, the American forces in Central America decided to keep on going, and steamrolled into Honduras and El Salvador. While on their campaign through Nicaragua, however, the unthinkable happened, and Major General Winfield Scott was shot dead. Luckily, chaos did not follow, for Brigadier General Robert E. Lee, Scott's right hand man, stepped up to the plate and easily filled Scott's shoes. Lee began leading the US Army in the summer of 1850, and took them to victory in conquering the rest of South America. They arrived in Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America, in 1860, after a decade of successful warfare. By this point, the Union had learned how to train birds of prey to strike down their enemies. Hawks and falcons were used, but bald eagles were particularly prefered. Legend has it, on July 4, 1858, as the Americans advanced on Buenos Aires, the last major city in the Western Hemisphere not held by the United States, Robert E. Lee called down a bolt of lightning from the sky to fry the city. Indeed, the scorch marks on much of the city's buildings are undeniably from an American Zeus smiting its foes.
With the West taken, Manifest Destiny called for setting sights on the east, the Fear East, specifically. In 1862, Commodore Matthew Perry and nearly the entirety of the United States Navy arrived on the doorstep of Japan. They demanded the isolated island nation submit to their might and be annexed into the Union as they had previously done with the Kingdom of Hawai'i, or be destroyed. The Shogun selected to be annexed.
Wars of glory and of Manifest Destiny came thick and fast after that. The US gladly annexed Korea, Formosa, and Manchuria, who had broken away from China proper during the chaos resulting from the Taiping Rebellion. At the World Congress in London in 1888, the rest of the unknown world was divided up between the major powers, with the United States of America holding a seat equal to Great Britain and France. Due to its presence in the region with Liberia, the Union was granted sovereignty over a large swath of West Africa. Similarly, due to the proximity of Formosa and the Philippines, the US took ahold of Indochina.
For the next few decades, America remained at peace with its neighbors, quietly looking inward and cutting through the miles and miles of red tape that came with controlling almost half of the world's land area. Then, conflict around the globe came to a head in 1912. Theodore Roosevelt had just been elected president as Europe devolved into all-out war, tearing the continent apart. The US joined up with Germany and the Danubian Union to take down Britain, France, Russia, and Scandinavia. At the negotiating table, America made off with Britain's holdings in the Pacific, including Australia, and South Africa, as well as Russian Alyaska and Scandinavian Greenland and Denmark.
Today, on the Bicentennial of the Founding of the United States, America stands tall as the most powerful nation on Earth. Its economy is more than triple that of the Republic of China, its nearest competitior. Its culture is widespread, well known from Siberia to the Congo Kingdom.
For all the Union has done, no one can quite define the world's most American moment. Was it when George Washington triumphed at Yorktown? When Alexander Hamilton fought valiantly at the Battle of Washington? Was it when Andrew Jackson triumphed over the South, standing on the top step of the South Carolina State Capitol? It was none of these. The greatest contender to the role was when President Theodore Roosevelt, at dawn of the Great War, delivered his famous "America the Invincible" speech to a crowd of half a million on the steps of the Capitol Building on the Fourth of July in 1916. As he spoke, a bald eagle soared down from on high and perched itself on Teddy's shoulder, as the President raised Old Glory into the air with his other hand.
--------------------------------I've noticed a severe lack of 'Murica Maps on this fine Independence Day, so I figured I'd do my part and make this thread a little more red, white, and blue with this mess of an Ameriwank. This is an alternate alternate history, or a double-blind alternate history, written from the perspective of a twelve year old from my universe A More Perfect Union on his world's version of alternatehistory.com. Therefore, it's intentionally supposed to be completely bonkers and unimaginably America biased. The POD from AMPU is that the Canadian War, which was a very minor victory for the US (it's probably better to call it a stalemate) in the main TL, went infinitely better, and the Union annexed all of Canada in one go, before basically becoming Manifest Destiny incarnate.
Makes sense, it's the sort of thing I would have done with Germany when I was at that age.
I don't know why though, seeing as I'm Australian
Perhaps your twelve year old mind was confused at the difference between Australia and Austria.
I mean, considering my affinity for writing Danubias and Hapsburg Germanies, I don't think that ever went away.
I mean if they wanted to Gerrymander they'd take notes from your subdivisions
No but really how do you do it it's almost scary how intricate the borders are
I guess this would end the "Is America a Country or a Continent?" debate.
Alright, fine, a sixteen year old made the map (me), an interdimensional twelve year old made the scenario.
I agree completely. Maybe we should have a calendar or something similar with Independence or national celebration days in all the countries (or at least the most important players) for us to know when to coordinate to release wanks of said countries together.
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