Map Thread XIX

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HeX

HeX

Somebody-Someone said:
Futurism is proto-fascism.
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I mean, yes and no. OTL Italian Futurism certainly supported fascism, and some of that came from the Futurist desire to industrialize the archaic southern half of Italy. But there were, in fact, many socialists, communists, and anarchists involved in the movement, though they tended to go one way while the fascists went the other. American Futurism (which absorbed Art Deco here as well) took a more technocratic/democratic turn ITTL (considering fascism was an established and separate ideology in TTL's US and the third major faction in the SACW), and European Futurism is more influenced by socialism/communism with elements of fascism.

So in regard to real life you're mostly correct, but TTL went differently.
 

dreadnought jenkins

Eparkhos said:
Note: Proper nouns are according to the orthography codified during the Oragunian Empire (2284-2586)

KINGDOM OF CULUMBIA
The Last Bastion of Catholicism in the Greater Pacific
View attachment 562005
Culumbia in 2800 AD (788 PC)
View attachment 562006
Arms of the Kingdom under Marc II, and the Clawsen dynasty at large
(Goldun Eegl wit rain-streecd fethers, wyt wayst, crown upon hed an arcd banur acros fraym on wyt feeld)
​
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The very fact that you actually included Kamloops (and other parts of BC outside of Vancouver) into your feudal future pacific northwest gets all the likes from me. And you didn't make Kamloops part of the Okanagan gets double points from me. I especially like your corruption of the central interior.

My one suggestion if you feel like corrupting Kamloops' name, as you did with Kelowna's, is to make it some variation of "the Loops" (an occasional nickname for Kamloops) into "Daloops" or something along those lines.
 
Library of Alexandria

Library of Alexandria

HeX said:
I mean, yes and no. OTL Italian Futurism certainly supported fascism, and some of that came from the Futurist desire to industrialize the archaic southern half of Italy. But there were, in fact, many socialists, communists, and anarchists involved in the movement, though they tended to go one way while the fascists went the other. American Futurism (which absorbed Art Deco here as well) took a more technocratic/democratic turn ITTL (considering fascism was an established and separate ideology in TTL's US and the third major faction in the SACW), and European Futurism is more influenced by socialism/communism with elements of fascism.

So in regard to real life you're mostly correct, but TTL went differently.
Click to expand...
Hm. I'd like to see more of this timeline. Could we see some maps in the uh... opposite side of the past? The oncoming days?
 

Neptune

I've got a lot of ideas for this map, but have yet to incorporate all of them into a proper write-up, much less organize them into a coherent whole. Though most of it may be self-contradictory, here's what I've managed to bang out so far:

The idea behind this started as "what if the Nazis were able to carve out their Lebensraum but weren't able to hold it?" and evolved into a Poland-wank. ITTL, Poland joined the Anti-Comintern Pact and - together with Berlin and Rome - formed a sizeable European bloc that secured Mitteleuropa for Axis interests. ITTL, WWII began with a German invasion of Belgium, backed up by an Italian feint into Savoy. These two invasions, however, experienced significant resistance from the French, who retreated to Africa to fight another day after bleeding the Germans as much as they could. The escalating time pressures against the Axis convinced Hitler that an attack on the Soviet Union was the next step, and an invasion duly commenced, beefed up by Polish intelligence assets in the East. The Germans were able to take Moscow, before swinging south to take the Caucasus, but their victories were not to last, for the Soviets were to prove more resilient than expected.

As Barbarossa stalled, the Allies launched an invasion of Italy, bribed the Iberians into attacking Occitania and ignited a massive revolt in occupied France. The Poles, seeing the writing on the wall, initiated covert discussions with the Allies in which they played the West against the Soviets, and, as German troops fled east across the Rhine, elements of the Wehrmacht stormed major political and military installations in eastern Germany in a surprise attack. With the aid of the Poles, they were able to retain control over the Eastern Front, while orchestrating a fighting retreat in the West.

Strong China, weak Soviets - undeclared shooting war between Chinese and USA prompts US to prop Japan up.

American might used to obtain British Pacifica to threaten China, hem them in. Extension of American flexing with respect to Spain and Portugal, who choose decolonization.

America's flexing pisses off the Brits, who manage in a matter of years to offend the entire world. Subsequent tumble is humiliating; rise of Ingsoc.

Ingsoc - Communist Bloc - Syndicalist Association of the Southern Cone - American Bloc - Japan - Tehran Treaty - Africa + Western European Empires - Warsaw Pact

Eastern Europe:
  • The POD in this timeline is the rise of a slavishly collaborationist, nakedly self-interested and overwhelmingly venal Polish government that decides that the Nazis are the lesser of two evils and bets that it will be able to play Berlin and Moscow against one another in such a way that it ultimately profits. German bribes to Polish leaders also help to sway them in favour of siding with Berlin.
  • The Poles support the Nazis from the get-go, with the support including but not limited to:
    • Joining the Anti-Comintern Pact and, later, the Tripartite Pact
    • Conceding Danzig (and, later, the Polish Corridor) to Germany
    • Relinquishing all territories formerly owned by the Second Reich to Germany
    • Acknowledging German economic dominance
    • Participating actively in the Holocaust and all other acts of disenfranchisement against its various minorities
    • Reserving certain plots of land for the settlement of ethnic Germans within Polish territory
    • Exporting Polish “guest workers”
  • Without Poland, no Nazi-Soviet Pact is necessary. Nevertheless, a general war still breaks out in Europe following a German demand to pursue a “revisal” of the Treaty of Versailles. The Germans launch an invasion of Belgium, knocking France out of the war as OTL, but this fight is more hard-fought. No collaborationist government rises, and the Germans are forced to occupy all of France on their lonesome. A “Free France” rises in Algeria, strengthening French control over their colonies.
  • Using Poland as a spring-board, the Germans proceed to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union in conjunction with the other Axis powers. Thanks to additional resources (since the Germans didn’t need to occupy Poland), Barbarossa gets further than it did OTL, as does Generalplan Ost. The Soviet Union is even more severely beaten down, and Moscow is taken.
  • The Western Allies end up contributing more to the defeat of the Germans, though the Soviets eventually do end up turning the tide as well. The Iberians are pressured into joining the war following heavy casualties.
  • At this point, the Axis advance into the Soviet Union has been hard at work depopulating the region, although Soviet resistance is still fierce. With the tide turning in the west, the Poles convince the Germans to focus more on the west, resulting in Berlin “temporarily” handing Warsaw the reins to Barbarossa as well as authority over all non-German, non-Italian Axis forces in the east. Additionally, Hitler saw Germany's main foe as the British and the Americans, with the Soviets as a second-tier adversary. Here, with the Western Allies committing more to the fight and with a capable ally (buffer state) to the east, that remains the case.
  • A freakishly capable Polish general organizes Axis resistance to the Soviets, stalling them in place long enough for the Allies to invade Germany proper. The Poles send overtures to the Western Allies, blaming the Germans and Italians and claiming that Eastern Europe “was forced into war”. The Allies are, of course, doubtful, but at this point they’ll take whatever they can get, and they don’t want to face the third-most potent Axis power in the field. Poland eventually backs this up by formally invading Germany and capturing scores of German and Italian troops.
  • The United States nukes Berlin, proclaims its support for the Poles, and a ceasefire is signed between the Polish (who have now assumed the right to speak for the entirety of the non-German, non-Italian Axis powers) and Soviets. Stalin has been locked out of Europe.
  • The Germans are forced to choose between the Western Allies, who are their enemies, and the Poles, who are traitors. Those in OTL East Germany (plus those territories east of the Oder-Neisse line), who fear Western retaliation for the Holocaust, surrender to the Poles (whose collaborationism extended to enthusiastic participation in the Shoah).
  • The post-war settlement involves a thoroughgoing denazification of the whole of Germany, though Polish denazification is noticeably lukewarm. American protection extends throughout the Polish sphere, though this is contingent on certain reforms.
    • Polish influence is recognized in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, East Germany, Bohemia, the Baltic Union and Ukraine. The Polish annexation of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, chunks of Ukraine and Slovakia is also acknowledged.
    • The Poles are permitted to have a say in the internal affairs of Austria in exchange for withdrawing.
    • The Poles are to withdraw from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in exchange for Warsaw not being nuked.
  • Polish denazification transitions to the following tenets, according to the following priorities:
    • Monarchist, with Piłsudski being retroactively crowned as King of Poland, and his descendants being raised to the royal dignity.
      • Habsburgs crowned in Bohemia, Hungary and Austria
      • A Hohenzollern King in Prussia
      • German monarchs in the Baltic and Ukraine
    • Catholic - a major sticking point re: Romania and Ukraine.
  • The existence of an openly pro-monarchical, right-wing regime in Europe results in:
    • The peaceful transition of Spain to post-Francoist monarchy
    • The continuation of monarchy in Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria
    • The existence of a strong pro-monarchic party in Portugal, Italy and Greece
  • However, the Greek and Italian monarchs are still deposed due to their association with national disaster.
  • In order to counter Polish pretensions, a bloc of Orthodox countries is set up. Yugoslavia establishes this bloc, allying with Bulgaria, with Greece as an observer, and tears Romania away. However, the Poles sponsor a tit-for-tat escalation on the part of the Croats, prompting the USA to step in and organize the peaceful partition of Yugoslavia into two separate countries, one Catholic, one Orthodox. The Muslims, of course, are guaranteed against attacks from both ends and granted reservations set aside for their use and overseen by responsible government. Croatia, however, rejects the imposition of monarchy.
  • As far as the world knows, the Jews disappeared east, conscripted into Germany’s armies as cannon fodder. Most of them were released from their obligation to the Nazis after the end of the war and they were subsequently integrated into eastern European society at large. And yet… and yet… and yet. No Jew, not one, has emigrated from the lands and territories held by the Warsaw Pact in decades.
  • The Warsaw Pact is bound to Poland because they all committed horrific crimes against the Jews, the evidence of which lies within Warsaw’s famous archives. It’s blackmail on a massive scale.
Western Europe:
  • A considerably weakened British Empire is forced to yield Ulster to Ireland, prompting a Partition-esque avalanche of refugees flooding from there back into Great Britain proper. These refugees radicalize the metropole, leading it to fight a losing battle against the forces of decolonization while also holding on to its settler colonies far tighter. In the end, it loses both its settler colonies and its other colonies.
  • In Africa, the British fought a desperate rearguard action against nationalists, with its European allies denying them much-needed aid. The South Africans eventually aided the British in exchange for the divestment of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Their aid, however, only allowed the British to hold on in East Africa for a bit longer before eventually being pushed out.
  • In the Americas, the British West Indies (and Bermuda, and Belize) were torn from London in the opening salvo of Washington D.C.’s war against colonialism, with Guyana obtaining independence with American aid.
  • Concurrently, the British were fighting in India, which they prioritized as their main theatre. It was in India that the White Dominions gave up on London, exhausted by the constant sacrifices demanded from Ottawa, Canberra and Wellington. The expulsion of the British from India spelled the end.
  • The British held on in the Middle East for the longest, but once it was over, Cyprus, Malta and Gibraltar rose up near-simultaneously, evicting them from the Mediterranean.
  • British territories elsewhere were confiscated by the United States once they lost patience, kicking London while it was down, prompting the rise to power of a fascist movement more violent than anything the Nazis had hitherto produced - the ideology of English Socialism.
  • On the contrary, the much higher death toll in France forces Paris to come to terms with its colonies. Spain and Portugal, with a more activist USA leaning on them, decolonize as well. Greater American involvement in WWII also brings the Netherlands and Belgium around, and decolonization is deliberate, carefully planned-out and stable, with many sideways glances at the British disaster.
  • The considerably higher death toll for the US forces Washington D.C. to subsidize decolonization, functioning more as a first-among-equals rather than as a guarantor and hegemon (if you ignore the Western Hemisphere), organizing and not dictating.
Communist Asia:
  • Soviet weakness plus empire-building in Turkestan prompts the emergence of a pro-independence lobby which subsequently launches a “war of liberation” almost immediately after the attainment of peace in Europe. The Imperial State of Turkestan (modelled consciously on Iran) is established shortly after.
  • The Soviets cling to their Caucasian possessions ever-more zealously thereafter, with the Crimean peninsula bristling with weapons. In a much less commanding position than OTL, their overseas operations are limited to attempting to instigate Communist revolutions in the Middle East.
  • They are soon overtaken by the victory of Mao’s Communists in the Chinese Civil War, who take advantage of Soviet weakness (and the recent death of Stalin, and the fierce power struggle among his successors, and…) to seize control of the torch of global revolution. A succession of Chinese leaders pressed the advantage, seizing economic control of swathes of Soviet Manchuria, and seized British Hong Kong when London proved incapable of holding on to it.
  • Chinese economic development advanced through programmes of swift, rational industrialization, sans Mao’s excesses. No market liberalization occurred, and China focused on the exportation of revolution across Asia. Chinese forces supported Kim il-Sung’s North Korea, which was somewhat late to the party, with Pyongyang almost becoming a border city. Chinese troops flooded south, into Indochina, and with the flimsiest of pretenses invaded British Bengal as well.
  • While the USA strongly condemned British moves to retain its African empire, after the fall of Hong Kong it became obvious that the Chinese sought to obtain nothing less than domination over Asia. The Americans subsequently switched tactics from universal moral condemnation of heavy-handed British police actions across the Empire to tacitly supporting anti-Communist parties in the former British Empire, complementing its pre-existing policy of supporting anti-Communist post-colonial states across the world.
  • The sudden emergence of India as the next battlefield in the War against Communism induces the US to convince France and Portugal to maintain their overseas territories in India. These territories function as industrialized enclaves, selling vast quantities of material goods to the Indians to fight against Communism.
Tehran Treaty + Mid-East:
  • While Turkestan and Persia had some affinity with the Polish sphere, they did not make any significant efforts to build a consensus and focused on countering Communism in their immediate neighbourhood. These efforts involved the provision of aid to a bevy of states to the east. The USA provided military and economic aid to the Tehran Treaty, using them as a means to project power along the Himalayas.
  • Essentially, the Tehran Treaty is a revival of the old Persian empire of centuries past, wherein Persian culture exerted a strong influence on the Muslim states of the Indian subcontinent.
  • A slight slant to German policy, aided by Polish obedience, prevents Jewish migration to Palestine in the record-breaking numbers that they obtained historically. As a result, the Jewish insurgency lost much of its strength and Arab resistance to Jewish settlement only intensified. By playing the Arabs off against the Jews, the British were able to maintain control of the Middle East for a much greater period of time, even when India and their other African colonies had slipped from their grasp.
intermarium.png
 
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Selvetrica

Selvetrica

Hello all, I recently participated in the B_Munro Cover Project. Where on discord we all voted to pick one of B_Munro's maps and make a modern cover in our own image. We decided on Agent of Byzantium . This is the map we all received.
AgentByzant2.png


To start my process I actually came up with the title first while listening to some music. After that, I began to come up with some general ideas I wanted to play with.

  • Since in this TL Muhammad became a Christian I wanted him to start his own branch of Christianity. Since he existed in the book I figured the alternate TL wouldn't change his ideals to much, so while this branch is not Islam, it might carry some similar themes and practices.​
  • With the Jurchen shown to be migrating I needed some big threat that would cause them to get out of dodge. I decided to go with a Korean Dynasty that allowed a larger presence in the North, sending a cascade of migrations across the Steppes.​
  • The Byzantium as an Ottoman analogue. Pretty cliche but I had to stick with this idea since I love the title to much.​
Overall this was a fun little project that kept me busy for a month while working on it. Hope you enjoy it.

de0gfnw-566c38ef-ca3b-40f7-aecc-83e831360cff.png
 
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Library of Alexandria

Library of Alexandria

Selvetrica said:
Hello all, I recently participated in the B_Munro Cover Project. Where on discord we all voted to pick one of B_Munro's maps and make a modern cover in our own image. We decided on Agent of Byzantium . This is the map we all received.

To start my process I actually came up with the title first while listening to some music. After that, I began to come up with some general ideas I wanted to play with.

  • Since in this TL Muhammad became a Christian I wanted him to start his own branch of Christianity. Since he existed in the book I figured the alternate TL wouldn't change his ideals to much, so while this branch is not Islam, it might carry some similar themes and practices.​
  • With the Jurchen shown to be migrating I needed some big threat that would cause them to get out of dodge. I decided to go with a Korean Dynasty that allowed a larger presence in the North, sending a cascade of migrations across the Steppes.​
  • The Byzantium as an Ottoman analogue. Pretty cliche but I had to stick with this idea since I love the title to much.​
Overall this was a fun little project that kept me busy for a month while working on it. Hope you enjoy it.
Click to expand...
It's HAPPENING!!!!!
 

qazse

Gone Fishin'
I'm honestly not sure where to put this, as it isn't really an alternate history map but a future history map. It was made for a scenario based on the video game EndWar.
united states.png
 

B_Munro

HeX said:
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Future
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Nice! Pharaonic Egypt seems a bit too out there, though, unless this is one of those realities where there's still a sizable secret contingent of worshipers of the Old Gods with Mummy-summoning powers. :)
 
XFE

XFE

My submission for the Telephone Map Game-Edition 5

THE BLEEDING HEART OF AFRICA

gekKgn2.png

"The Third World War was, to say the very least, a bloody affair for Africa and her inhabitants.

Nuclear weapons, rendered obsolete by the start of the World War, would be unleashed upon 5 African metropolises in the form of covert bombings, most devastating of which was the destruction of Kinshasa, home to 12 Million Central Africans, Africa's third-largest city, and the jewel in the crown of the Central African Democratic Republic, Africa's most successful socialist democracy. Nuclear waste flowed down the Congo river to be deposited in the Atlantic Ocean, wrecking thousands of cities, village communities and fishery resources along its path. For all the Cold War's horrors, large scale Soviet and American investment had at least sown the seeds for decades of unparalleled economic development in the 21st Century. With the stroke of a pen, much of the continent's good progress was wiped away by this final clash between the neo-imperialist powers. The CADR saw the first African famine of the 21st Century, followed by reverberations in Nigeria and East Africa. Despite the best efforts of Zimbabwean farmers throughout the 2050s, the CADR entered a famine-induced danse macabre: in the 2060s alone, the country saw 16 different Presidents, 4 military coups, and even an attempted rebranding to its former name of Zaire. The CADR had fallen so far that geopolitical earthquakes in the continent went ahead without CADR involvement: revolution in Nigeria, the unification of Ngozi, the Somali-Ethiopian War...so divided was the CADR, it could not lift a finger in response.

It is useful to view this period of turmoil through the lens of the split in the international socialist movement. Since the Sino-Soviet rift a century prior, there had been a small but ever-growing rift between agrarian, Chinese socialism and industrial, Soviet socialism. The ruling Congolese Party of Labour (PCT) was of the Soviet variety: socially progressive, urban-centered, authoritarian. And yet, with the destruction of Kinshasa, the PCT's support base collapsed, paving the way for the contentious election of President Kangelu Mundela, a noted Maoist. The collapse of the American titan let the Soviet and Chinese giants to turn upon each other. The once prosperous CADR was the first of the inter-socialist proxy wars.

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship, politicians that once swore African unity against the vile American imperialist now turned upon each other. Katanga was first to go--it's provincial government had long hoarded Zimbabwean food imports for natives of the Southwestern province, capitalizing upon a long-standing regionalist movement to justify her actions. In 2068, Katanga finally declared independence, applying for membership in COMECON. President Mundela would not stand for this threat to Central African unity. Mobilizing the CADR army, and with support from Brazil in the 2069 COMECON conference, CADR forces entered Lubumbashi and began a massacre of the Katangan peoples. Zimbabwean grain was requisitioned, brought back to Debatsville, where they would now feed Congolese civilians.

Outraged Soviet allies in East Africa and Ngozi threatened action: Mundela ignored them. At that point, there was only one way this could go...

The Central African conflict has entered it's 9th year. 19 million, equivalent to the population of Moscow have fled the nation; a total of 3 separatist movements pick away at CADR partitomy; all 7 socialist great powers have picked their favourites; and the heart of Africa bleeds."
 

B_Munro

Selvetrica said:
Hello all, I recently participated in the B_Munro Cover Project. Where on discord we all voted to pick one of B_Munro's maps and make a modern cover in our own image. We decided on Agent of Byzantium . This is the map we all received.
Click to expand...

Excellent! Imaginative, tons of detail - I am quite flattered that my crappy old map inspired all this. (It does do a little violence to the original story, in that Mohammed was well remembered as a writer of hymns - not as a religious heretic!)
 
mikroraptor

mikroraptor

My entry for the Telephone map game, edition 5:
SPOILER_Telefon_v3l.png

The Great war was by no means a victory for the Central Powers. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed into civil wars, which were further fueled by arbitrary political divisions by the Entente.
Germany fared better than the rest. Although the Kaiser was forced to abdicate, her colonies carved up between Britain and France, and Alsace-Lorraine was lost, very little territory was taken from metropolitan Germany, and most importantly, sole responsibility for the war was placed on the weakened Austrian states.
During the war, Germany had carved out an independent "Kingdom of Poland" from Russia. Postwar, Poland, Lithuania, and most of Germany's eastern European puppets were allowed to remain independent democracies, as a buffer against Communism.
This Poland was tiny, torn apart by war, and economically destitute. Its fragile democracy suffered from two Socialist revolutions, one Ukrainian secession movement, and a near military coup, all within five years of its founding. Then, the great depression hit. Having started in America in the 1930s, it would have profound impact on Europe. In France, a revanchist communist revolution swept over the country.
In Poland, the far right took advantage of the situation, blaming the current financial collapse on the Russians, the Germans, the Jews, and any other scapegoats they could think of. This led to the National Union Party taking power in 1934.
By the end of 1935, the Party had absolute control over the state, and began to employ people in massive military factories and infrastructure projects. The Germans were concerned with the militarization, but according to the Versailles treaty, could do nothing about it.
Meanwhile, Poland built up allies, as other dissatisfied Eastern European nations, as well as the rump Turkey, joined their faction. In 1936, Lithuania was annexed. In 1937, Czechoslovakia was partitioned by Poland, with Austria and Hungary snatching up the leftovers. By 1938, a secret alliance between Poland-Lithuania and the French commune had been made, and on August 1st, the Poles invaded Germany.
This map shows the Intermarium, as the Polish alliance was called, at its height
 
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