The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, and Estland sounds like something from my Estophilic scrapings
Map Thread XVII
- Thread starter Upvoteanthology
- Start date
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Okay, so, first UK doesn't control estonia, I was just in a big lack of colors so I reused the UK color for Estonia x3
The French conditions about who rules what in Alsace were harsh for germany :
Elsass-Lothringen is considered as a French region and a German Land at the same time, but in case of war between the two states it will automatically switch to France.
The French majority in the Strasbourg Parliement keeps French influence stronger than Germany.
Only the French army is allowed in Alsace.
French Government can take decisions for the Parliement concerning foreign affairs, German Government can't.
The French conditions about who rules what in Alsace were harsh for germany :
Elsass-Lothringen is considered as a French region and a German Land at the same time, but in case of war between the two states it will automatically switch to France.
The French majority in the Strasbourg Parliement keeps French influence stronger than Germany.
Only the French army is allowed in Alsace.
French Government can take decisions for the Parliement concerning foreign affairs, German Government can't.
The Federation of Middle East belongs to everyone, in a pre-Israel Lebanon style OTL, in opposition to the Kingdom of Irak next to it, which is heavily conservative. But it has a significant Jew population due to Jerusalem, and several important members of the government are Jews.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of The Soviet Union don't see what you're talking about, those territories have always been rightfully Russian, nobody has threatened Georgia >.>
Is there still a large Jewish community in Irak? Like say historically in Baghdad?
Well I'm not a specialist but I guess they would more likely cross the border in order to be in a friendlier place ...
Sorry but that doesn't sound plausible, especially with a post-Munich POD
Mostly because after Czechoslovakia invasion Hitler's words had as much value as a half-penny but also because of the Maginot line, a good (and very fortified) portion of it ran through Alsace-Lorraine in order to protect it.
But, ironically, with a POD during the first world war, this could actually work. The German dont collapse but realise that the game is over so they negociate a ''Free Alsace-Lorraine'' as a buffer zone. If France is weak enough and its allies tired, they could pull this off. And a continued German empire avoid problem like HINO (Hitler in name only).
He said the French were allowed to keep their troops in Alsace Lorraine, so it probably mean they keep control of the Maginot line.
710-1000
710: The Persian Empire continues to expand, gradually pushing the Byzantines from their position of power. The Franks have consolidated into the Frankish Empire, which threatens the power of the Gothic kingdoms. In Central Asia, the Khazars have formed into a regional power. Byzantium has put aside its conflict with Africa, seeing common cause in the face of Persian conquest.
723 (whatever the map says to the contrary): The African colonies on the coast of the Ostrogothic Kingdom trade with the Latin Empire across the Mediterranean, and Africa has claimed a colony in Sardinia. Africa has lost its protectorates in Nubia, and Axum distances itself from the empire. In the east, the Byzantine Empire has been crushed by Persia. The Byzantines retreated to the Bosporus, where they hold Constantinople as the easternmost stronghold of the empire. They then consolidated themselves as the Latin Empire, claiming renewed descent from Rome. In central Asia, the leaders of the Khazars have converted to Judaism. In the British Isles, the Empire of Britannia is in rapid decline as the more provincial English drive them from the isles.
843: In western Europe, the Frankish Empire has split apart into three kingdoms. In the west is the Kingdom of France, in the middle the Kingdom of Burgundy, and in the east the Kingdom of Germany. The Kingdom of Navarre has formed in the southwest of France, and France has made a vassal of the Duchy of Aragon. The Kingdom of Asturias formed from the Vandal Kingdom, and the retreating Ostrogothic Kingdom of Hispania. The Visigothic Kingdom has vanished entirely, having lost its core territory to the Burgundians. While the Persians continue to expand toward India their control of Arabia dwindles. The Latin Empire risks destruction by the Bulgarian Empire, which assails them from the north.
1000: At the beginning of the new millennium, the world is unrecognizable to the old. The Khazars have streamed down from Central Asia, obliterating the Persian Empire and installing satraps to rule over their conquered land. Their expansion has largely spared Anatolia, which has become an independent Grecian state with its capital at Ankara. In India, independent states exist in Kashmir, but Baluchistan has been effectively converted to an occupied tributary state by the Khazars. India is dominated by small princely states. In the far east, the Song Dynasty has conquered parts of Indochina. In Europe, Germany has disintegrated, leaving a collection of nominally united states. The Magyars have settled in the Carpathian basin, and the beginnings of a Polish kingdom are in place.
710: The Persian Empire continues to expand, gradually pushing the Byzantines from their position of power. The Franks have consolidated into the Frankish Empire, which threatens the power of the Gothic kingdoms. In Central Asia, the Khazars have formed into a regional power. Byzantium has put aside its conflict with Africa, seeing common cause in the face of Persian conquest.
723 (whatever the map says to the contrary): The African colonies on the coast of the Ostrogothic Kingdom trade with the Latin Empire across the Mediterranean, and Africa has claimed a colony in Sardinia. Africa has lost its protectorates in Nubia, and Axum distances itself from the empire. In the east, the Byzantine Empire has been crushed by Persia. The Byzantines retreated to the Bosporus, where they hold Constantinople as the easternmost stronghold of the empire. They then consolidated themselves as the Latin Empire, claiming renewed descent from Rome. In central Asia, the leaders of the Khazars have converted to Judaism. In the British Isles, the Empire of Britannia is in rapid decline as the more provincial English drive them from the isles.
843: In western Europe, the Frankish Empire has split apart into three kingdoms. In the west is the Kingdom of France, in the middle the Kingdom of Burgundy, and in the east the Kingdom of Germany. The Kingdom of Navarre has formed in the southwest of France, and France has made a vassal of the Duchy of Aragon. The Kingdom of Asturias formed from the Vandal Kingdom, and the retreating Ostrogothic Kingdom of Hispania. The Visigothic Kingdom has vanished entirely, having lost its core territory to the Burgundians. While the Persians continue to expand toward India their control of Arabia dwindles. The Latin Empire risks destruction by the Bulgarian Empire, which assails them from the north.
1000: At the beginning of the new millennium, the world is unrecognizable to the old. The Khazars have streamed down from Central Asia, obliterating the Persian Empire and installing satraps to rule over their conquered land. Their expansion has largely spared Anatolia, which has become an independent Grecian state with its capital at Ankara. In India, independent states exist in Kashmir, but Baluchistan has been effectively converted to an occupied tributary state by the Khazars. India is dominated by small princely states. In the far east, the Song Dynasty has conquered parts of Indochina. In Europe, Germany has disintegrated, leaving a collection of nominally united states. The Magyars have settled in the Carpathian basin, and the beginnings of a Polish kingdom are in place.
I was playing EU4, started in 1444 as Muscovy, now I'm in the 1700's as Russia, and I got really inspired to do a map of the middle east, north Africa, and western Europe, based on my game! Be on the look out for it!
The first non-native country to make a settlement in each of the United States.
(Source: reddit.com)
fresherbrine:
5/24/2017 Al Jazeera: Africa is not poor, we are stealing its wealth
by Nick Dearden
A continuation of this map, a commission for @Mr_Fanboy
Over half a century has passed.The long Communist tide has gone out, although it still clings to life in Africa. The more compact Soviet block of this TL, less overextended in Europe and facing a somewhat less intense cold war vs. a more internally divided “west”, held together nearly a decade longer, only to fall apart in a distinctly more messy fashion than OTL . Not as bad as it could have been, admittedly: only one atomic bomb used, and then more as a stern warning than anything else. The tens of millions of dead in the War of Chinese Unification had been something of a bracing example.
(Decades of mutual destabilization efforts and unending proxy war in Tibet finally boiled over in the 70s and nearly triggering global atomic Armageddon. The technologically more advanced (and US backed) Guomindang ROC won, if battered and mauled in the process).
Although ultimately forced into retreat by the US in central Africa, France’s considerable success at standing up to the American “mega-power” with very little Soviet support for a decade burnished French credentials as a anti-Capitalist power, and French communism was somewhat better at technological innovation than the USSR and rather less brutal (at least compared to Stalin’s regime). France and the Francophone Federation reached something of a peak of influence and prestige under First Minister Foucault (1971-1989), who many considered the real deal “philosopher-king.” Unfortunately, fundamental problems became impossible to paper over after his death, not just an economy lagging behind the Capitalist Nations, but the fundamental difficultly in going from a federation ultimately dominated by French white people to one necessarily dominated, by sheer numbers, by French-speaking black and brown people. In the end, France was not color blind enough, and most of the Francophone Federation broke off rather acrimoniously from France in the late 90s.
France would slowly transition from a state in which only Socialist parties were legal to a political system open to all over the next two decades. The degree to which the political landscape has changed is exemplified by the 2016 election of the Federal Liberal candidate, Michel Houellebecq, who has been pushing a “so Classical Liberal it hurts” program, although not without resistance.
China has recovered from the War of Unification and is growing fast, but remains a rather authoritarian, corrupt and xenophobic republic (oddly similar to OTL’s PRC, if not quite so richly dickish) and has fallen out a bit with the US, especially since the US has grown closer to Japan: China plans to become Number One Country in the 21st century, and aren’t shy about letting the US know it. Manchuria – now independent from the USSR and with a small nuclear arsenal of its own – is China’s most important “unfinished business.” There have been two referendums, but in both cases Manchurian union with China fell through – besides a lot of Russians, Ukrainians, Central Asians, etc., many Han Chinese Manchurians are (or are the children of) the Party loyalists of the former People’s Republic which fled vengeful ROC troops as their state collapsed in the War of Unification. The ROC is getting impatient with peaceful efforts at reunification, and is beginning to fund the more fanatical pro-union elements in Manchuria.
European union, compromised from the start by the greater than OTL cooperation with the Nazi program, failed to gel, and an incipient EEC broke up into northern and southern halves, with the worst impact being in Italy, where the dividing line went right through the country as Padania broke from the “backwards, corrupt, fascistic” South (they tried to get Tuscany to come with, but they remained loyal to Rome). The Mediterranean Union is fairly loose but pretty open to new members, with a growing Islamic membership, while the North European Federation is a more closely joined block but also more exclusive. The central Balkans are something of an economic colony, but Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, and Serbian applications to join are moving forward with glacial slowness, not helped by the fact that the Hungarians have a bit of a vendetta with the Romanians and the Croats cordially despise the Serbs. And as for the Ukraine, the Russian Unitary Republic breathes fire every time someone raises the notion of it entering into a NEF alliance other than purely economic.
Although the British Commonwealth was a bit more unified than OTL in the 1960s, it was still shedding colonies like bad dandruff and the opportunity for a federal union of the White dominions had passed: the UK looked instead to Europe, where Brits thought they could still be Top Dog, with France out of the game and Germany divided. In effect, the predecessor of the NEF was the British-dominated North Sea Trade Union, and although German Unification in the 2000s rather upset the apple cart, the UK can still think of itself as an equal partner. The non-equal and non-“Germanic” partners – Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the rest – feel a bit overlooked and “second-class” within the Federation, and Poland does its best to rally smaller nations to its leadership within it. Poland pushes the hardest for expansion to the SE (and never mind the fact they’ve been keeping Lithuania out over some ridiculous border dispute or other).
India as OTL tried to create a “neutral block” aside from the clashing super/semi-super powers, with the important difference that it’s still plugging away at it. China has not been cooperative, making it clear from the start that it did not want to join a “losers league.” Relations remain poor with Pakistan, the Hindu ruler of Kashmir having played the same dirty trick as OTL.
The Arab World outside of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf mostly went Socialist (even Shi’a dominated Iraq went sort of “Islamo-socialist”), and as OTL Egypt was the chief standard bearer of Arab secular nationalism, and at one time incorporated, at least in theory, Syria, South Yemen, and New Palestine, which was happy to join up with anyone promising liberation of their homeland. As it turned out, even a smaller and somewhat less populous Israel was still capable of kicking a lot of Arab booty, and the canal and Sinai remain under Israeli control. Egypt has managed to maintain its secular traditions, though: it’s done a better job of modernization and industrialization than OTL (the east Libyan oil helped), and while still a poor country it does not have quite the air of near-failed-state desperation OTL Egypt has.
To the east, Iran has bounced back, and has re-embraced its Shi’a faith while remaining a democracy (It’s a bit like most OTL US Baptists: they talk a good game, but really don’t want to create a genuinely theocratic state. Admittedly, it’s rather less comfortable for religious minorities) and has created a regional “Shia block” which is increasingly in conflict with a nervous Saudi Arabia. There are rumors that the House of Saud is looking into the possibility of obtaining nuclear weapons.
(Saudi Arabia is still a most dickish nation.)
The African People’s Union is the last standard bearer of Communism, at least in part because it is still backwards enough to be still growing through added inputs rather than increased productivity, although it still allows a lot of small-scale market activity. Its secular nature is currently being challenged by a new breed of “Islamic socialists” inspired by what the Iraqis were doing in the 70s and 80s and also to some extent by Iran today. Relations have turned cold with former ally Algeria, which has largely dropped the socialism thing and has accused the African People’s Union of trying to stir up its Tuareg population in hope of detaching its southeastern provinces. In the 2010s, the Union radically revised its internal organization to create a federal structure based on “organic ethno-religious groupings” which hasn’t done so much to actually reduce ethnic tensions as to create a vast new set of pork [1]-producing administrative positions.
Apartheid South Africa lasted somewhat longer (those Algerian Pied Noirs had to go somewhere, and Canada and New Caledonia didn’t have enough room), but things eventually melted down into positively Yugoslavian/Lebanese unpleasantness, not just black against whites but different black factions among each other, Zulus against almost everyone, and Asians of various sorts trying to avoid attracting attention. The international community finally agreed on intervention (with the decline of French Communism, the collapse of Soviet Communism, and the destruction of North Chinese Communism, there wasn’t anyone to back a Marxist revolution), and have done their best to try and reconstruct a functioning country, but like OTL Bosnia, it’s a rather shaky and artificial product, and dependent on a heavy foreign troop presence to maintain order.
(There is still a United Nations in this world, it being a notion Roosevelt and the New Deal crowd were hot for. It is neither more nor less ineffectual than in OTL).
The US is less closely tied to Europe than OTL, (“bunch of commies and fascists”) and has become less so since the fall of the USSR, although there remain some mutual defense treaties. The US instead looks more across the Pacific (Latin America was even more of a US punching bag than OTL, and relations remain somewhat sour to the South), and has formed an economic block with Canada and Japan. (Japan in this world recovered more slowly after the war, but avoided the fantastic economic inflation and subsequent crash and long slump of OTL, and remains a high-tech leader rather more widely than OTL, although it still is suffering from a baby bust. It’s also more politically lively, with an essentially 2 ½ party system and parliamentary meetings of almost Taiwanese energy.)
It’s hard to say whether US racial relations are more messed up than OTL (stay tuned for the next two elections), but they are definitely in some ways pricklier than OTL before 2017. The US may have avoided Vietnam, but that just shifted its interventionist focus elsewhere, starting with the long, bloody Congolese conflict, which the US won on points but sent ripples of violence across the continent. Other interventions took place in Liberia, Angola, and Nilotia, in Central America, and in Argentina. The whole “shooting loads of black people and setting up friendly dictators afterwards” thing ended up radicalizing a lot of black US soldiers, and militant (and heavily armed) black nationalism in the US was well beyond the OTL Black Panthers. Things stopped short of actual race war (for one thing, too many black community leaders were aware they would _lose_), but a lot of armed black “protection societies”, some of them beneficial, others essentially local mafias, exist across the US, and a number of black-majority areas have negotiated official “municipal” status which allows them to raise their own, locally recruited security services. (Some have called it the “New Vilayet” system in reference to the religious communities of the Ottoman Empire, although most blacks, as OTL, are not Muslims). On the positive side, the OTL drug wars never really got off the ground, but on the downside there is a constant low-level clashing between the government trying to enforce its authority evenly throughout its territory and “African autonomists.” (Not that all black people support the situation, of course: many call for peaceful, Gandhian methods of dealing with oppression, or peaceful dialogue. The Latino community is also split: they are finally becoming part of the mainstream after a more difficult ride than OTL, and many want to disassociate themselves from the black “resistance.” The Native American community is _quite_ supportive, on the other hand).
In spite of racial tensions, the US is doing alright economically, better than OTL, although some areas lag. (White Flight is an even bigger thing than OTL, and the northern plains, Rockies, and even New England states are more populous than OTL). The place is a bit more redistributionist and Big Projects-in-a-New-Deal-Mode sort of way than OTL (although the attempts to rebuild the Appalachians as a hub of green manufacturing and energy production are turning into something of a multi-billion dollar boondoggle), with a more Libertarian right (the Religious Right exists, but it is less devoted to balls-to-the-wall Capitalism than OTL) and a drug culture only weakly tied in people’s minds with either black people or smelly bearded protestors.
Technology is roughly OTL, although there is less of a space presence, at least aspirationally: the Space Race never really got going, and while landers and crawlers have reached the Moon and Mars, humans haven’t got beyond geosynchronous orbit. There is some interest in Mars: if space travel ever goes long-range humans in can, there is quite a bit of support for skipping the relatively dead Moon entirely. Social media has not yet become big, and a lot of people still think the Internet is a Good Thing.
[1] Metaphorically speaking: with the loss of various outlying member states, the Union is now solidly Muslim majority.
Over half a century has passed.The long Communist tide has gone out, although it still clings to life in Africa. The more compact Soviet block of this TL, less overextended in Europe and facing a somewhat less intense cold war vs. a more internally divided “west”, held together nearly a decade longer, only to fall apart in a distinctly more messy fashion than OTL . Not as bad as it could have been, admittedly: only one atomic bomb used, and then more as a stern warning than anything else. The tens of millions of dead in the War of Chinese Unification had been something of a bracing example.
(Decades of mutual destabilization efforts and unending proxy war in Tibet finally boiled over in the 70s and nearly triggering global atomic Armageddon. The technologically more advanced (and US backed) Guomindang ROC won, if battered and mauled in the process).
Although ultimately forced into retreat by the US in central Africa, France’s considerable success at standing up to the American “mega-power” with very little Soviet support for a decade burnished French credentials as a anti-Capitalist power, and French communism was somewhat better at technological innovation than the USSR and rather less brutal (at least compared to Stalin’s regime). France and the Francophone Federation reached something of a peak of influence and prestige under First Minister Foucault (1971-1989), who many considered the real deal “philosopher-king.” Unfortunately, fundamental problems became impossible to paper over after his death, not just an economy lagging behind the Capitalist Nations, but the fundamental difficultly in going from a federation ultimately dominated by French white people to one necessarily dominated, by sheer numbers, by French-speaking black and brown people. In the end, France was not color blind enough, and most of the Francophone Federation broke off rather acrimoniously from France in the late 90s.
France would slowly transition from a state in which only Socialist parties were legal to a political system open to all over the next two decades. The degree to which the political landscape has changed is exemplified by the 2016 election of the Federal Liberal candidate, Michel Houellebecq, who has been pushing a “so Classical Liberal it hurts” program, although not without resistance.
China has recovered from the War of Unification and is growing fast, but remains a rather authoritarian, corrupt and xenophobic republic (oddly similar to OTL’s PRC, if not quite so richly dickish) and has fallen out a bit with the US, especially since the US has grown closer to Japan: China plans to become Number One Country in the 21st century, and aren’t shy about letting the US know it. Manchuria – now independent from the USSR and with a small nuclear arsenal of its own – is China’s most important “unfinished business.” There have been two referendums, but in both cases Manchurian union with China fell through – besides a lot of Russians, Ukrainians, Central Asians, etc., many Han Chinese Manchurians are (or are the children of) the Party loyalists of the former People’s Republic which fled vengeful ROC troops as their state collapsed in the War of Unification. The ROC is getting impatient with peaceful efforts at reunification, and is beginning to fund the more fanatical pro-union elements in Manchuria.
European union, compromised from the start by the greater than OTL cooperation with the Nazi program, failed to gel, and an incipient EEC broke up into northern and southern halves, with the worst impact being in Italy, where the dividing line went right through the country as Padania broke from the “backwards, corrupt, fascistic” South (they tried to get Tuscany to come with, but they remained loyal to Rome). The Mediterranean Union is fairly loose but pretty open to new members, with a growing Islamic membership, while the North European Federation is a more closely joined block but also more exclusive. The central Balkans are something of an economic colony, but Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, and Serbian applications to join are moving forward with glacial slowness, not helped by the fact that the Hungarians have a bit of a vendetta with the Romanians and the Croats cordially despise the Serbs. And as for the Ukraine, the Russian Unitary Republic breathes fire every time someone raises the notion of it entering into a NEF alliance other than purely economic.
Although the British Commonwealth was a bit more unified than OTL in the 1960s, it was still shedding colonies like bad dandruff and the opportunity for a federal union of the White dominions had passed: the UK looked instead to Europe, where Brits thought they could still be Top Dog, with France out of the game and Germany divided. In effect, the predecessor of the NEF was the British-dominated North Sea Trade Union, and although German Unification in the 2000s rather upset the apple cart, the UK can still think of itself as an equal partner. The non-equal and non-“Germanic” partners – Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the rest – feel a bit overlooked and “second-class” within the Federation, and Poland does its best to rally smaller nations to its leadership within it. Poland pushes the hardest for expansion to the SE (and never mind the fact they’ve been keeping Lithuania out over some ridiculous border dispute or other).
India as OTL tried to create a “neutral block” aside from the clashing super/semi-super powers, with the important difference that it’s still plugging away at it. China has not been cooperative, making it clear from the start that it did not want to join a “losers league.” Relations remain poor with Pakistan, the Hindu ruler of Kashmir having played the same dirty trick as OTL.
The Arab World outside of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf mostly went Socialist (even Shi’a dominated Iraq went sort of “Islamo-socialist”), and as OTL Egypt was the chief standard bearer of Arab secular nationalism, and at one time incorporated, at least in theory, Syria, South Yemen, and New Palestine, which was happy to join up with anyone promising liberation of their homeland. As it turned out, even a smaller and somewhat less populous Israel was still capable of kicking a lot of Arab booty, and the canal and Sinai remain under Israeli control. Egypt has managed to maintain its secular traditions, though: it’s done a better job of modernization and industrialization than OTL (the east Libyan oil helped), and while still a poor country it does not have quite the air of near-failed-state desperation OTL Egypt has.
To the east, Iran has bounced back, and has re-embraced its Shi’a faith while remaining a democracy (It’s a bit like most OTL US Baptists: they talk a good game, but really don’t want to create a genuinely theocratic state. Admittedly, it’s rather less comfortable for religious minorities) and has created a regional “Shia block” which is increasingly in conflict with a nervous Saudi Arabia. There are rumors that the House of Saud is looking into the possibility of obtaining nuclear weapons.
(Saudi Arabia is still a most dickish nation.)
The African People’s Union is the last standard bearer of Communism, at least in part because it is still backwards enough to be still growing through added inputs rather than increased productivity, although it still allows a lot of small-scale market activity. Its secular nature is currently being challenged by a new breed of “Islamic socialists” inspired by what the Iraqis were doing in the 70s and 80s and also to some extent by Iran today. Relations have turned cold with former ally Algeria, which has largely dropped the socialism thing and has accused the African People’s Union of trying to stir up its Tuareg population in hope of detaching its southeastern provinces. In the 2010s, the Union radically revised its internal organization to create a federal structure based on “organic ethno-religious groupings” which hasn’t done so much to actually reduce ethnic tensions as to create a vast new set of pork [1]-producing administrative positions.
Apartheid South Africa lasted somewhat longer (those Algerian Pied Noirs had to go somewhere, and Canada and New Caledonia didn’t have enough room), but things eventually melted down into positively Yugoslavian/Lebanese unpleasantness, not just black against whites but different black factions among each other, Zulus against almost everyone, and Asians of various sorts trying to avoid attracting attention. The international community finally agreed on intervention (with the decline of French Communism, the collapse of Soviet Communism, and the destruction of North Chinese Communism, there wasn’t anyone to back a Marxist revolution), and have done their best to try and reconstruct a functioning country, but like OTL Bosnia, it’s a rather shaky and artificial product, and dependent on a heavy foreign troop presence to maintain order.
(There is still a United Nations in this world, it being a notion Roosevelt and the New Deal crowd were hot for. It is neither more nor less ineffectual than in OTL).
The US is less closely tied to Europe than OTL, (“bunch of commies and fascists”) and has become less so since the fall of the USSR, although there remain some mutual defense treaties. The US instead looks more across the Pacific (Latin America was even more of a US punching bag than OTL, and relations remain somewhat sour to the South), and has formed an economic block with Canada and Japan. (Japan in this world recovered more slowly after the war, but avoided the fantastic economic inflation and subsequent crash and long slump of OTL, and remains a high-tech leader rather more widely than OTL, although it still is suffering from a baby bust. It’s also more politically lively, with an essentially 2 ½ party system and parliamentary meetings of almost Taiwanese energy.)
It’s hard to say whether US racial relations are more messed up than OTL (stay tuned for the next two elections), but they are definitely in some ways pricklier than OTL before 2017. The US may have avoided Vietnam, but that just shifted its interventionist focus elsewhere, starting with the long, bloody Congolese conflict, which the US won on points but sent ripples of violence across the continent. Other interventions took place in Liberia, Angola, and Nilotia, in Central America, and in Argentina. The whole “shooting loads of black people and setting up friendly dictators afterwards” thing ended up radicalizing a lot of black US soldiers, and militant (and heavily armed) black nationalism in the US was well beyond the OTL Black Panthers. Things stopped short of actual race war (for one thing, too many black community leaders were aware they would _lose_), but a lot of armed black “protection societies”, some of them beneficial, others essentially local mafias, exist across the US, and a number of black-majority areas have negotiated official “municipal” status which allows them to raise their own, locally recruited security services. (Some have called it the “New Vilayet” system in reference to the religious communities of the Ottoman Empire, although most blacks, as OTL, are not Muslims). On the positive side, the OTL drug wars never really got off the ground, but on the downside there is a constant low-level clashing between the government trying to enforce its authority evenly throughout its territory and “African autonomists.” (Not that all black people support the situation, of course: many call for peaceful, Gandhian methods of dealing with oppression, or peaceful dialogue. The Latino community is also split: they are finally becoming part of the mainstream after a more difficult ride than OTL, and many want to disassociate themselves from the black “resistance.” The Native American community is _quite_ supportive, on the other hand).
In spite of racial tensions, the US is doing alright economically, better than OTL, although some areas lag. (White Flight is an even bigger thing than OTL, and the northern plains, Rockies, and even New England states are more populous than OTL). The place is a bit more redistributionist and Big Projects-in-a-New-Deal-Mode sort of way than OTL (although the attempts to rebuild the Appalachians as a hub of green manufacturing and energy production are turning into something of a multi-billion dollar boondoggle), with a more Libertarian right (the Religious Right exists, but it is less devoted to balls-to-the-wall Capitalism than OTL) and a drug culture only weakly tied in people’s minds with either black people or smelly bearded protestors.
Technology is roughly OTL, although there is less of a space presence, at least aspirationally: the Space Race never really got going, and while landers and crawlers have reached the Moon and Mars, humans haven’t got beyond geosynchronous orbit. There is some interest in Mars: if space travel ever goes long-range humans in can, there is quite a bit of support for skipping the relatively dead Moon entirely. Social media has not yet become big, and a lot of people still think the Internet is a Good Thing.
[1] Metaphorically speaking: with the loss of various outlying member states, the Union is now solidly Muslim majority.
Mercator's 1569 map, re-projected to Kav-7, then overlaid with a modern alti-bathy-metry map.
draft work... still.
https://ashtagon.deviantart.com/art/Mercator-1569-k7c-draft-729978221
(click through for hi-res version)
draft work... still.
https://ashtagon.deviantart.com/art/Mercator-1569-k7c-draft-729978221
(click through for hi-res version)
- Status