Map Thread XIX

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The old map is almost done! Decided to merge some ideas from earlier works into this one, it's coming out quite well if I say so myself. I merge 90s-punk elements (strong Japan and Germany, collapsed Russia, democratic China) with new African nations, a new bipolar-ish world split between the "Red" (broadly populist-communitarian) and "Grey" (broadly neoliberal-technocrat) ideologies I mentioned earlier.

My favorite nation is the "Square of Doom" in Africa. It's actually a Hausa-Fulani superstate with Kanuris and Tauregs bandwagoning.

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I'm surprised that the Slave Rebellions and the Communists didn't simply link up
During the Mexican Revolution the urban anarchists in control of Mexico city managed to come to the conclusion that the peasant-based Zapatista anarchists were reactionary, so they sided with and fought for the actual counter-revolutionary faction. Never underestimate Leftist's ability to infight.
 
Frankly, it'd be a good deal more worrying if you liked the concept of a Saxonophile Khmer Rouge...

On the orthography, there are two possible explanations to choose from:

1) I was simply too lazy to look up the unicode for the letter thorn and the various dipthongs that are used in Saxon orthography; or
2) At some point in the 1940s, England went through the equivalent of the Fraktur-Antiqua dispute in Nazi Germany, with orthography ultimately being simplified for ease of use.

Which you select is entirely up to you.
Personally I was assuming, between linguistic winces, that they were errors by the Wyvern Party themselves. It's not like "Woden", and even Norse Odin, isn't mispronounced OTL.
 
Here's an alternate Cold War with six sides:

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I'm thinking the way this would come about would be:
1. An alternate Sino-Soviet Split where the People's Republic of China ends up forming the third side of the Cold War
2. An alliances of mostly democratic African states who don't trust the Americans, the Europeans, or the Soviets
3. Iran establishing its own bloc while the Cold War lasts longer
4. The Warsaw Pact disbands but it's replaced with another USSR-led pact (the Belgrade Pact, maybe?)
5. A Euro-American Split within NATO

And there'd be changes earlier on as well - Yugoslavia not going for the Marshall Plan and sticking with the Soviets, for instance. I have no idea how plausible this is, I just think it's an interesting concept
 
Personally I was assuming, between linguistic winces, that they were errors by the Wyvern Party themselves. It's not like "Woden", and even Norse Odin, isn't mispronounced OTL.

Any orthographical errors, I hasten to add, are entirely my own rather than those of the Wyvern Party, who no doubt have an excellent grasp on Anglo-Saxon morphology when they're not otherwise occupied slaughtering their countrymen.
 
3. Iran establishing its own bloc while the Cold War lasts longer
It seems a bit weird that Sunni countries would give in to a Shia aligned country. The divide between Shia states and Sunni states is as strong, even perhaps stronger, than in Renaissance Europe between Protestants and Catholics. They could try to invade a few countries, but they couldn't use rebellions, as there is no or very little base for a Shia theocracy among most of the Middle-Eastern countries.

Also this is not an error per se, but if the religious minority areas (sunda islands, papua, parts of borneo and bali and lombok, if I remember correctly, which makes 13% of the population) stay part of indonesia, there's room for genocide or forced conversion in this extreme indonesian government, same goes for Lebanon (which, before the civil wars, was mostly christian). Tchad is also very plural, in a 1993 religious census, muslims are 53% of the population, and christians 34% ...

Also the Moroccan kingdom, a Sufi kingdom, becoming a theocracy would make it even more insulated inside the muslim diplomatic community, as some of the muslim thinkers see the sufis as a heresy.

There are some very interesting ideas on this map, but the islamic bloc should in my humble opinion be reworked in some way. Also, keep in mind not everyone has to be aligned, there were many non aligned countries during our cold war
 
Greater Egypt 1914.

The Suez canal project fails spectacularly. The project leads to the death of over 50000 Egyptians, and without meaningful progress this nearly lead to a revolt which the Khedive narrowly avoided. Over budget and with little to show, many investors walk away from the project. Fast forward to over a decade later Ahmed 'Urabi tries to reform the country, but this leads to him clashing with much of the Egyptian elites who try and depose him with the help of the Khedive. He manages to win the war and deposes the Khedive, transforming the nation into the Kingdom of Egypt with the Ottoman emperor as head of state, but his powers limited by the new constitution.

Over the next 30 years Egypt modernises under the guidance of 'Urabi with help of the Germans. They are present at the Congress of Berlin during the scramble for Africa. Gaining land south of Sudan. Their alliance with Italy allowed to to partition Ethiopia gaining the source of the Blue Nile. Under the Egyptian heel many Africans have not fared well, from forced conversion of Christians and Jews in Ethiopia to outright genocide of Africans in the upper Nile to make room for Arab colonist, to the mass importation of Indian "guest workers" to work in the rice and rubber plantations in the southern tropics of the nation. Despite all this when 'Urabi died in 1911 he was hailed as one of Egypt's greatest sons having risen from the fellahin peasant class to the nations leader, he had preserved Egypt's independence from outside interference and modernised it to respectability and manged to succeed where those before him had failed by building the Suez canal in 1905.


Key:
Brown: Egypt
Red: Ottoman Empire
Blue: France
Grey: Germany
Green: Italy



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What exactly happened to Manchuria?
Basically, my idea with Manchuria was that the Soviets made it a satellite state after WW2 (they also managed to do the same with Japan's northern islands), partly in case the separatist states in the Russian Far East sided with America, and partly because the USSR wanted Manchuria's resources and access to warm water but didn't want to annex it outright. A while after the Sino-Soviet Split, the People's Republic of Manchuria had a civil war between the pro-Soviet regime and a pro-Chinese insurgency and the insurgents won
 
It seems a bit weird that Sunni countries would give in to a Shia aligned country. The divide between Shia states and Sunni states is as strong, even perhaps stronger, than in Renaissance Europe between Protestants and Catholics. They could try to invade a few countries, but they couldn't use rebellions, as there is no or very little base for a Shia theocracy among most of the Middle-Eastern countries.

Also this is not an error per se, but if the religious minority areas (sunda islands, papua, parts of borneo and bali and lombok, if I remember correctly, which makes 13% of the population) stay part of indonesia, there's room for genocide or forced conversion in this extreme indonesian government, same goes for Lebanon (which, before the civil wars, was mostly christian). Tchad is also very plural, in a 1993 religious census, muslims are 53% of the population, and christians 34% ...

Also the Moroccan kingdom, a Sufi kingdom, becoming a theocracy would make it even more insulated inside the muslim diplomatic community, as some of the muslim thinkers see the sufis as a heresy.

There are some very interesting ideas on this map, but the islamic bloc should in my humble opinion be reworked in some way. Also, keep in mind not everyone has to be aligned, there were many non aligned countries during our cold war
Thanks for the tips
 

I made some changes to this, based on @Mako-Tochan 's suggestions

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The most obvious change is that this alternate Cold War has seven sides now.

I split the Islamic Republics into two blocs: one group is aligned with Iran, either because they're Shia-majority countries, because they have Shia governments regardless of the majority, or just because they've decided that between Iran and the Saudis, Iran is the lesser of two evils; the other group are Sunni theocracies who would really like it if Egypt stopped being communist and became an Islamic republic instead. I also made Chad aligned with the Free African League instead of any of the Islamic states.

Saudi Arabia is unaligned because this way they can keep selling oil to the other blocs while most definitely not supporting the ILNAA on the side. Burma and Thailand are unaligned because they're painfully aware that three of the seven blocs are close enough to start a coup if they align with the wrong people, and each of those three blocs considers the other two "the wrong people." The other unaligned countries are unaligned either because they have poor relations with all the blocs, or because they have good relations with multiple opposing blocs, or because they're Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Mutually Assured Destruction is still a thing in this world - especially with rumours that Nigeria and the East African Union are working on their own nuclear weapons programs, which their governments will neither confirm nor deny - but it's a bit more complicated. Which blocs will attack which blocs depends entirely on who launches the first strike and who that first strike is against.
 
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@Dr. Doom : some interesting ideas there. Will there be an explanatory key when you are done? (And I do like the "Square of Doom.")

Thanks! And yeah, I'll do a key and annotations. Main thing I'm just fixing before that is some aesthetic and style stuff in Asia and Africa.

Ironically, the "Square of Doom" doesn't really bring any Doom, it's mostly an inward-focused and status-quo minded power.
 
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Just for you, @HeX:

It’s a Small World After All: New New York, New York


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A sister project to England, England, New New York, New York was a somewhat less ambitious project established in response to a New York tourism slump driven by rising crime rates.’ Plagued by cost overruns from the beginning, it ran into multiple controversies over the course of its lengthy and unhappy development process: a proposed “Salute to 9/11” was cancelled amid widespread outrage, the “Stonewall Experience” was shelved indefinitely in the face of protests from multiple activist groups, and the Staten Island site was invaded prior to its opening by “Occupy New New York, New York”, who were protesting the removal of Staten Islanders via abuse of eminent domain, working conditions in New New York, New York, and the use of numerous corporate partnerships for individual exhibits. This last issue was dealt with via the expedient of making the Occupy protestors salaried employees of the park and turning their camp into a tourist exhibit.

While never quite as successful as England, England, New New York, New York has usurped New York’s position as a tourist destination: 95% of visitors to New New York, New York never travel to Old New York during their vacation.
No Broadway. I am offended!
 
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