Map Thread XVII

[Ernak]

I have an idea for a map concept that is swishing inside my mind for a while. What if Pink Diamond from the Steven Universe world rebelled and founded her own state isolated from the rest of the world?

The dark pink is the Anthrian Zones, for the humans. Over time, she moderated on the humans after *several* revolts and insurrections, and in HY 1680 grants them autonomy, and does a UK-style devolution. I heard from the series that the 'shattering' of PD was 000 years ago, so she had to deal with these humans, who were in serfdom for over 48000 years. The Hot Pink is the Kindergarten Zones, to create new "Crystallians". Those are gems who sided with her. This has been a controversy since it's opening up in 1934, as it was known to cause extreme environmental damage, rendering several species extinct in the last decade, and causing the League to consider sanctions on the country if it continues. Also 29.2% of the population are hybrids from the thousands of years of interbreeding, who have formed a stable population and didn't end up being a genetic trait. They are the most disenfranchised due to their impure status by both populations. The Humans still make a majority 41% of the population but are financially, and socially inferior to the Crystallians due to the Apartheid-like laws to ensure their survival. This has made the country unstable recently with the rise of ideologies such as communism, fascism, the birth of the internet, new weapons, support by various special interest groups, and the birth of Anthropocentrism, or Human-Nationalism. The ideology espouses human unity and resistance to the enemy, along with segregation of the species as humanity is too pure to be with the foreigners, and a land redistribution as the 'rocks' are the foreigners and must leave. This has lead to the government being deadlocked between the Moderates, who want a equal society under the Diamond, the Unionists, who advocate the fusion of peoples, the Traditionalists, who argue for the status quo, and the Anthrists, who favor human supremacy. There is a more radical Anthrist group the National-Anthrists, who favor Nazi style racialism. The National Congress, which is to be proportional between the three groups is facing deadlock, and the Diamond is considering enacting the Law for Control, an article that can return the government to a more absolute system until the situation is handled. Any attempt is met with riots, as the Revolutions were to create a constitutional monarchy, and not to return to a Diamondist State. A Diamondist State is a strict caste system where the Diamond is supreme over all. think an absolute monarchy....on steroids. Many Humans oppose it and a return would mean a loss of their rights, and have lead human riots. There are counter riots by the Crystallians, and the Hybrids are demonstrating for an abolishment of the Diamond and for a republic, yet the Crystallians are still trying to break out of "Diamondist Syndrome" where they show loyalty and devotion to the diamond to a North Korea level of devotion, despite the Diamond herself advocating for independence programs and self-sufficiency of all. The country will have a new election for the Grand Governor and war will be ensured if something doesn't change. The Diamond might hae to do desperate things, but will she save, or doom this country she built?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Um, sorry to burst your bubble, @Ernak, but that was five thousand years ago, not fifty thousand.

Otherwise, interesting.

 

[Ernak]

Um, sorry to burst your bubble, @Ernak, but that was five thousand years ago, not fifty thousand.

Otherwise, interesting.

Oh, I head from one episode that it was 50,000 years ago for the Gem War.

 

[Caucus-Ruso-Persian]

ALRIGHT! SORRY FOR THE DELAY! School was really tying me down, I live in NY and the snow was starting to get screwy, so my school picked up the workload
This is part 1 of a 2 or potentially 3 map series, which is basically going to capture the eastern bloc from all sides of the planet, Asia will be next, this is based on that rough draft I did a few weeks back.
A lot of stuff to talk about so I will go in order of the numbering I did on the map!
1. Balkans
A.As the war was nearing it's end, and as I was writing this timeline, it became apparent to me that even as much of a boost as I gave the soviets, it would still not be enough for them to secure the Island of Morea as well as Crete before the British did, therefore we are going to see a lot of similarities to Asia, such as northern socialist soviet puppet states (e.g. Northern Greece), and southern Western influenced states (e.g. Southern Greece) There is no DMZ because both Crete and Morea, as well as the other southern smaller Greek Islands are separated by water.
B.Yugoslavia is forcibly collapsed by Stalin, in this timeline, mind you, Stalin is a lot more successful in general, to begin with, he loses almost 10 million less men than in OTL's USSR, meanwhile the soviets control so much more of Europe, this has caused Stalin to become somewhat more aggressive and confident with Soviet ability because of his luck in this TL. Tito was beginning to come at odds with Stalin, much like IOTL, however due to Stalin's aggression, this brings out Tito's "split" with Stalin almost a two whole years earlier than in OTL (which was in 1948), Stalin having hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops across the Yugoslavian territory decides to split the state up into smaller socialist territories. Soon after Stalin offers Tito a position in the Federal People's Republic of Croatia, due to Tito being of Croatian descent, Tito accepts, and after being humiliated by Stalin, is much less rebellious. Stalin splitting up Yugoslavia leads to a policy of "Separationism" which is created in this TL (I will describe it more under 5.)
C.Stalin did not want to be bothered with integrating Romania into the USSR, but rathered to force the Romanian coast to be handed over to his Ukrainian SSR, in order to gain more Black Sea access and warm water ports, as well as assert further dominance over the Balkans as a whole
D.Shortly after confining Tito to Croatia, Stalin sends extra soviet troops into Croatia to keep watch over Tito, as it is the only state in the Balkans which may potentially attempt to defy him
2. Anatolia
A. Stalin, similar to Iran in both this TL and OTL, attempts to occupy large portions of Turkey a few months prior to them joining the war, temporarily allowing Stalin to station troops along the far east of Anatolia, and secure the trading ports of Constantinople/Istanbul, as well as Trebizond. The Turkish government is increasing tensions with the USSR, Stalin is attempting to force the allies into a peace deal which allows him to keep at least Trebizond and European Marmara.
B. Stalin is also pushing for a restoration of Armenia and Georgia's 1919 borders with the Turks, however of course the land will be Soviet controlled due to the states being SSR's
3. Persia
A. Similar to OTL, Stalin pushes into Northern Iran to occupy a lot of the country and press propaganda, influence, and potentially spark a revolution to establish a future socialist state. Except in this TL, More of Iran is under Soviet occupation, and the Iran Crisis of 1946 will potentially be delayed to about as late as 1948, due to the fact that the west will have to also deal with Holland, Greece, and Turkey, not to mention what will come of Asia in the next few years
4. Former Nazi Germany/ Northern-Central Europe
A. Stalin, controlling so much more in this TL, does not feel the need to listen to FDR, nor does FDR have the same ability to levy the same ideas he had about Poland, therefore Stalin immediately makes Poland an SSR and does not give the Polish the southern half of East Prussia, or Silesia & Pomerania.
B. All of East Prussia becomes Kaliningrad, and directly apart of the Russian SFSR
C. Poland is admitted into the union for three reasons primarily, 1. the location of this TL's Iron Curtain, it is all the way by the Rhine, there is enough buffer space, 2. FDR's lack of influence over Stalin, and 3. Seperationism, once again, i will describe the idea of the policy, but I will save it for section 5
D. Germany is split between the allies along occupational lines, in TTL, Stalin gets roughly all the way to the Rhine, therefore the other allies can only propose Stalin equally divides Germany, however Stalin's troops are the ones that occupy the majority of Germany that the moment, not theirs, in the end Germany is split along occupational lines, just as Stalin wanted.
E. The Netherlands are split into North and South, simply because the Soviets occupied the north before allied troops reached the north, the allies are currently planning on either joining the southern Netherlands with Belgium, or attempting to have Stalin hand over the north, which is unlikely due to the fact the Soviets control the geographic majority of Holland, as well as their desire for the south. The Rhine River serves as it's own DMZ.
5. Separation-ism and Internal Soviet Borders
A. If you have read this far, thank you, the idea of Separation-ism is that the USSR can continue to expand the Union and admit member states, so long as a higher number of Soviet satellites are created, in order to gain more socialist nations to enter the United Nations and hold more seats in the UN. In Yugoslavia, Stalin changed one UN Socialist member nation, into 5 Socialist member nations, that leaves more leg-room to be expansionist, thus leading to Stalin taking Poland and Finland into the USSR
B. Now, regarding internal borders, the entire Soviet Congress deems it more necessary for the Russian SFSR to centralize more of its power in the Union, now that the Union has continued to grow since the 1920's, and has dramatically increased with the addition of Finland and Poland. The first major move made by the Soviets was the integration of the Kazakh SSR into the Russian SFSR, after such a move was made, after any of these border changes were made, the USSR would put down rebels and send political prisoners to the gulags, remember, Stalin has an extra 10 million men left over from ww2 in TTL.
C. After the Kazakh's, the Belorussians were integrated next in order to solidify Russian legitimacy over its control of Kaliningrad, and once again to centralize the Union
D. After two integrations, the Soviets would then hand Abkhazia, greater Abkhazia actually, from the Georgians to the Russians, Stalin would also take a large bite out of the Azeri SSR, thus Russia can centralize itself fully in the Caucasus
E. In Europe, Stalin shaves off the southern and eastern edges of the Baltic states, takes northwestern Poland (the bit that was in between this TL's Kaliningrad and former Belarus), and then to finish it off, the Russian SFSR takes control of the northern most parts of Ukraine, and then integrates all of Ukraine to the east of the Dnieper River, Including Crimea, as stated before, the state will forcibly put down any potential revolutions, and Stalin still has that 'expendable 10 million surplus' of troops. However, Stalin still allows the Ukrainian SSR to control Kiev, for good reasons.

 

[Calthrina950]

Here is a random map which I created some time ago, of an alternate world as of the end of the eighteenth century. The map is relatively ASB, so I pose a few questions: Can anyone guess what happened for such a map to be? That is, what events led to the creation of the countries, colonies, etc. depicted on the map? And what would the situation of the world in this timeline be?

Link can also be found here: http://fiction.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_World,_1798.png.​

 

[Historyman 14]

View attachment 378194
ALRIGHT! SORRY FOR THE DELAY! School was really tying me down, I live in NY and the snow was starting to get screwy, so my school picked up the workload
This is part 1 of a 2 or potentially 3 map series, which is basically going to capture the eastern bloc from all sides of the planet, Asia will be next, this is based on that rough draft I did a few weeks back.
A lot of stuff to talk about so I will go in order of the numbering I did on the map!
.

First off, Stalin NEVER wanted to annex Poland, even going back to 1920. It would be too costly and it would diminished the ethnic Russian majority in the USSR. I can't see him ALT turning Poland into a SSR. It would also alienate too many Poles, and ruined relations even worst then there would be in ATL. Stalin never wanted to annex Finland, or turn it into a SSR. OTL Finland would work fine.

No way in hell would the West allow Moscow to control Constantinople/Istanbul. The Red Navy was SHIT and laughable, and could never take them. And Stalin would know better then to risk war over them.

I am skeptical of a Red Greece, but from that, we would see Italy be a even bigger member of NATO with a great big naval buildup. (Same for a MAJOR buildup in Royalists/Free Greece.) Turkey builds up a massive army.

The Red Army would get its ass torn apart by the Yugoslavian Partisans. Chances are a Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia would have been unsuccessful, it's an enormous amount of land and the Yugoslavs have a strong core of experienced partisan fighters who they can call up to make the Red Army's life miserable. And then there NATO/West aid and support showing up sooner, or later. Substantive military aid would be on the way.

The Rhineland will become one big DMZ state.

 

[Max Sinister]

We probably had this already, but hey: http://brilliantmaps.com/united-states-austria/

 

[Kaiser_Jaeger]

Alternate Western Europe. It is in the same universe as the Arabia map I posted a little while ago. The whole TL is basically just a bunch of ideas that were floating around my head. Up next: Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

As before, questions are welcomed and advice is appreciated.

With Spain and Germany, the darker lines indicate the constituent kingdoms the lighter borders inside the kingdoms are the provinces.

 

[BippyTheGuy]

I was looking at the XKCD map cover I did back in October and I noticed that I forgot to nix the Twelve-Mile Circle. There's no way I'd've been able to let slide.

 

[DrakonFin]

Stalin never wanted to annex Finland, or turn it into a SSR. OTL Finland would work fine.

Stalin did want to annex Finland in 1939-40. A good argument could be made for 1944 as well. The thing is that despite being a decisive leader, he also had a pragmatic streak. He could understand when to sacrifice lesser objectives if sacrificing them is in the interest of making it possible to achieve more important objectives elsewhere. Conquering Finland was a minor, peripheral objective, increasingly so towards the end of WWII, and in both 1940 and 1944 there were bigger fish to fry. Understanding that Stalin could appreciate the concept of "not throwing good money after the bad" and that he sometimes could see the woods instead of fixating on the trees (much better so than Hitler did, for example) through his relationship with Finland is, IMO, an important object lesson about his personality.

 

[Clandango]

A very simple map showing a potential near future for the Caribbean island of Montserrat. The small British overseas territory was devastated by volcanic eruptions back in 1997 which destroyed large portions of the island, including the historic capital of Plymouth. There's currently a new capital being build at Little Bay, with Port Diana being a popular name suggestion. Currently however the town of Brades serves as the provisional capital.

As part of the rebuilding effort the parish borders get redrawn in order to reflect the new population distribution on the island. The exclusion zone in the south, partially reduced after some land was resettled, becomes the Territory of Saint Patrick. Due to the heavy damages still visible on that portion of the island there are only a handful of small inhabited homesteads which are incredibly hard to capture on a map. Over all Saint Patrick only houses about 1.5 percent of the population of Montserrat.

Oooh. Will the southern portions become agriculturally successful? Also, just realized you were not doing an alternate map so much as a future one. Imagine my surprise to go to the island's Wikipedia page and find Exclusion Zone in red letters over the southern portion of the map. Ahhh, and for your map do they do Saint int he Region name and St. in the city names to better differentiate things?

I was looking at the XKCD map cover I did back in October and I noticed that I forgot to nix the Twelve-Mile Circle. There's no way I'd've been able to let slide.

And you mustn't forget the Southwick Jog. And is Long Island independent (besides for Queens and Brooklyn) or is it part of New Jersey?

 

[B_Munro]

We probably had this already, but hey: http://brilliantmaps.com/united-states-austria/

I've seen similar, and my immediate thought is always" "suuuure, the Hungarians will go along with that!"

(To be fair, I doubt the, say, Czech nationalists would have been happy either. Everyone back then was very insistent on having their whole loaf).

 

[Clandango]

I've seen similar, and my immediate thought is always" "suuuure, the Hungarians will go along with that!"

(To be fair, I doubt the, say, Czech nationalists would have been happy either. Everyone back then was very insistent on having their whole loaf).

I don't see what issue the Hungarians should have with their capital being part of, or surrounded by, a German autonomous province.

 

[Clandango]

Alternate Western Europe. It is in the same universe as the Arabia map I posted a little while ago. The whole TL is basically just a bunch of ideas that were floating around my head. Up next: Eastern Europe and Scandinavia

As before, questions are welcomed and advice is appreciated.

With Spain and Germany, the darker lines indicate the constituent kingdoms the lighter borders inside the kingdoms are the provinces.

Advice? Perhaps not split the Asturias between the Basque and Galicians. The Kingdom of Asturias was one of the main combatants in the Reconquista and the Castilians no doubt are fond of them. You also still have the border Belgium and the Netherlands up at one point, making the mainland area of Zeeland look like an island. Might also want to combine Belgian and Dutch Brabant and Limburg. What's is he POD for this? Also, about a third of Brittany here was almost exclusively French speaking, and I don't believe that Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Scots, Scots Gaelic, Manx, and Breton are mutual intelligible. And what is that little nub South of Posen? A splitting of Silesia? And I think the Austrians might jam Austrian Silesia into the Sudenteland, just to make a point. Ahh, and the borders of Saxony is not consistently colored. And it would be extremely unwise for the Prussians to swallow up Thuringia, and odd they would leave one or two areas alone. The Thuringia leadership came from an old Saxon branch, and the Saxe Coburg liens were connected with most royal houses. Ahhh, and Celtic Channel Islands? I don't see that happening. You also have Eupen Malmedy as French here, where they would have been German in this sort of scenario. Most likely. I think you can also keep Walloonia as one province. You also show the Crown of Aragon containing Murcia.

 

[Bob Hope]

One idea that I've had but never put in the effort to flesh out (or check for butterflies/plausibility for that matter) is to have the Mongols defeat a weaker Mamluk Empire and expand into Egypt and perhaps even further into Africa. The end of Mongol occupation results in a split once again between Upper and Lower Egypt, with the dynasty at the mouth of the nile focused around trade with the Mediterranean and downriver whereas Upper Egypt adapts Mongolian horse culture to camels and in time, groups of camel cossacks dominate and expand into portions of the Sahara, raiding and dominating trade routes. This state develops into a sort of North African alt-Russia, determined to expand and consolidate its position, with the mouth of the Nile and Sinai serving as an alt-Ukraine, the coast of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa serving as an alt-Baltic, and the states of the Maghreb serving as a sort of alt-Central Asia. Not sure how doable or desirable an idea this sounds to you; I got the idea when trying to think of other locations a Russian-esque state might develop. The big problem with the scenario that I'm wrestling with is that the incentive to expand into the Sahara is much weaker than the incentive to expand into Siberia.

Well the Mamluks were successful because they so closely resembled the Mongols due to the influence of the slaves purchased to form them. Baibars was born a Cuman near the Volga and Ural rivers. This means you can use horse rather than camel for expansion down the Nile and you could always use the "kinship" of the Mamluks as the butterfly point- have them joining rather than opposing the Mongols.
The desire to expand into the Sahara could come from the abundance of Gold in West Africa, check out Musa Mansa http://www.blackpast.org/gah/musa-mansa-1280-1337.

 

[Bob Hope]

View attachment 377625 because this site won't let me upload the full worldmap with or without topography because 'the file is too big', i present a wip west coast of america from a map i've been working on instead of the other one i've posted
a fallout-inspired worldmap, but 200 years after regular bombings, not nukes.
View attachment 377627have europe too

Love the America map, do you have your maps collected anywhere? Deviantart maybe?

 

[Historyman 14]

Stalin did want to annex Finland in 1939-40. A good argument could be made for 1944 as well. The thing is that despite being a decisive leader, he also had a pragmatic streak. He could understand when to sacrifice lesser objectives if sacrificing them is in the interest of making it possible to achieve more important objectives elsewhere. Conquering Finland was a minor, peripheral objective, increasingly so towards the end of WWII, and in both 1940 and 1944 there were bigger fish to fry. Understanding that that Stalin could appreciate the concept of "not throwing good money after the bad" and that he sometimes could see the woods instead of fixating on the trees (much better so than Hitler did, for example) through his relationship with Finland is, IMO, an important object lesson about his personality.

Hm. I see. Either way, Sweden would give up its neutrality and rush into NATO's waiting arms.

 

[DrakonFin]

Hm. I see. Either way, Sweden would give up its neutrality and rush into NATO's waiting arms.

Or, then, retreat further into "real" neutrality. I tend to think that "Soviet Finland means *NATO Sweden" is seen as something of a truism on this forum, and in thinking that people seem to forget over a century of Swedish neutrality by the 1930s. Neutrality was traditional, and it had served Sweden well by 1945. There would be people opposing joining a foreign alliance in Sweden, and then the USSR would have several ways to intimidate Sweden about not joining *NATO if the Red Army is sitting just across the Gulf of Bothnia in Finland, with Soviet air and naval bases on the Finnish coast and even in the Ålands. There would definitely be more Soviet influence in Swedish internal politics than IOTL and the far left/pro-Soviet left in Sweden would have a stronger voice. This would be bound to have an effect on Swedish internal policies, just like many other knock-on effects of Finland going Soviet would have.

It would be, under the circumstances, easy for the domestic left to make the argument that if Sweden joins *NATO, it would become the first battleground if and when a general east-west war happens - but if it stays neutral, it would help in avoiding escalation in the Baltic Sea area and Scandinavia. Even if worst comes to worst, the "pro-neutralist" would argue, with prudent policies a neutral Sweden might be able to avoid having to join the war, just like in WWII. I could see there being pushing and pulling factors for both joining NATO and staying neutral in the Swedish internal and foreign politics, then - a *NATO Sweden in that situation is not a foregone conclusion, IMHO, but also dependent on various particular political and military developments in that timeline.

 

[Calthrina950]

Here is a random map which I created some time ago, of an alternate world as of the end of the eighteenth century. The map is relatively ASB, so I pose a few questions: Can anyone guess what happened for such a map to be? That is, what events led to the creation of the countries, colonies, etc. depicted on the map? And what would the situation of the world in this timeline be?

Link can also be found here: http://fiction.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_World,_1798.png.​

Replicating this post to bring attention to my questions.

 

[ariyarathna]

Love the America map, do you have your maps collected anywhere? Deviantart maybe?

i have a deviantart but it's for personal art, a mapping account probably wouldn't hurt me