They have the Gadsden Purchase territory, which is something, and there's no reason to believe things are worse than OTL down south.
Map Thread XVIII
- Thread starter FesteringSpore
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They have the Gadsden Purchase territory, which is something, and there's no reason to believe things are worse than OTL down south.
Queens of Hyperborea
I had a dream about a map I made with a former Scandinavian colony in North America called the "Queendom of Hyperborea" as a major global power, with Ireland, a massive Bulgaria, eastern India, and China all also being major powers, and also gay rights had been accepted since medieval times thanks to a monk named "James" [1] distributing a different translation of the Bible across Europe. Naturally, as soon as I woke up, I decided to make that map a reality, because why not?
The approximate PoD is that an alternate translation of the Bible is made in the late 1200s by an English monk named James that completely removes or re-translates pretty much all of the homophobic parts (as well as some other alterations, such as taking Biblical passages like the part in Matthew 5:29-30 where Jesus says that any man who touches or looks at a woman inappropriately ought to chop off his hand and gouge out his eye far more literally) and calls itself a more accurate translation than any other in existence, with many across northern Europe adopting the "Jamesite" translation of the Bible over the next few decades. This causes a massive religious schism across Europe that sees the "Jamesites" win after several decades of warfare, with Jamesite Christianity completely overtaking Europe following massive, often almost implausible, military successes across the continent that lead the Jamesites to believe even more fervently that God is on their side. As Jamesite Christianity opposes killing people for their religion, the new Jamesite powers of Europe relocate everyone who refuses to convert to the eastern Balkans, where they end up creating the embittered and fiercely anti-Jamesite Empire of Bolgaria.
Despite these changes, the story from there onward bears notable similarities to OTL. A French explorer who was sailing around Africa to get to India landed in the New World [2] in 1406, resulting in the European powers scrambling to settle the newly-discovered continents, which would come to be known as North and South Braseal thanks to the Irish being the first to begin colonizing them. The smaller continent of Antichthon [3] was also settled by the Europeans during the wave of colonialism, though unlike the Braesals, which were settled by a variety of European powers, Antichthon was solely settled by the Irish and Germans. The Braesals would eventually be divided between Ireland, England, Spain, Portugal, France, Germania [4], and Scandinavia. However, not all of the Native Braesalans fell to European domination- the Inca, Navajo, and Apache all remained independent, though they did absorb some parts of European culture and the Apache ended up converting to Jamesite Christianity. After a series of holy wars across Europe and the Middle East throughout the late 1500s and early 1600s that saw Irish troops seizing the Holy Land and Irishizing [5] it, Ireland became the dominant power of Europe. In 1689, there was a general uprising in the Scandinavian colony of Hyperborea by a combination of disgruntled Native Braesalans who were dissatisfied with their treatment by the Scandinavian crown and the Scandinavian settlers themselves, who wanted more autonomy from Scandinavia and saw the Scandinavian king as a petty tyrant, and with Irish assistance the uprising succeeded. Subsequently, the Queendom of Hyperborea was declared, with General Kristina Eriksson, a major military leader in the rebellion [6], crowned as its first queen. In order to prevent the Native Braesalans (who formed a sizable minority of the new nation's population) from feeling as if they'd merely been placed under the domination of a group of different but equally uncaring Europeans, the new Queen Kristina I took a major Iroquois general as her wife, setting a precedent for a united Native Braesalan-Scandinavian-descended monarchy that would rule the country for the next several centuries.
As the new Queendom of Hyperborea began to establish itself as a nation, modelling itself off of the constitutional monarchy of Ireland, rebellious elements began bubbling across Europe, finally boiling over in Germania with the 1717 Democrats' Coup and resulting in the formation of the Germanian Republic. Germania went to war with Ireland in hopes of converting its former ally into a democratic state as well, but was defeated and forced to become a monarchy once more, with a cadet branch of the Irish monarchy placed in charge of Germania. The former Germanian democratic government fled to Germanian Antichthon and continued to claim the name of the Germanian Republic-in-exile, and went on to conquer the island of Falkland [7] as an "I'm still here, you know!" gesture that absolutely nobody paid any attention to. Meanwhile, Hyperborea purchased Germania's North Braesalan colonies, while the Germanian South Braesalan colonies were freed as the Kingdom of Australia. In the east, the Empire of Bolgaria, still clinging to its "Orthodox Christianity," rose as an unexpected great power in the aftermath of Germania's fall, proving its prowess as a great power by seizing much of the Balkans and largely taking Germania's place in the international community. In the English colony of Avalon, political philosopher Henry Emily envisioned the ideology of Athenianism in his revolutionary manifesto The Tenets of Athenianism, advocating for a democratic state based on the failed Germanian model and arguing that the people have the right to govern themselves without interference from a monarch. As the colonial powers continued to colonize the Braesals, they also divided Africa between them in the 1860 Amsterdam Agreement, with Hyperborea and Bolgaria also managing to seize a few parts of Africa. In response to the European colonization of India, Cathay began to rise as a great power in the east, unwilling to let itself fall under European domination too.
Tensions simmered as the various nations of the world began to fall into a new set of alliances, with a resurgent Germania, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and Cathay facing off against Ireland, England, France, and Hyperborea. The breaking point came in 1880, when a border incident in French India with Cathay sparked an all-out war that sent much of Eurasia spiraling into conflict. Scandinavia also joined the war on Germania's side, seeing it as a rising European power and wanting vengeance against Hyperborea. While the war in Europe went in Germania's favor for a while, and Athenianist revolts covertly funded by Germania across Hyperborea forced it to drop out of the war, Scandinavian naval blundering at the mouth of the Bolgar Sea [8] during a dual Germanian-Scandinavian strike against French-occupied Spanish Egypt brought Bolgaria into the war after a Bolgarian freight ship was accidentally sunk by the Scandinavian fleet. Bolgaria joined the war despite its lingering hatred of the Jamesites in hopes of gaining more territory in the Balkans and split Germania's attention between two fronts, and the war eventually ended in a ceasefire in 1889 as Hyperborea finally put down the last of the Athenianist rebels and reentered the war. The subsequent treaty resulted in little but the exchange of some token colonial territory and monetary reparations to the victors, making the war thoroughly not worth it in the end for any of the participants.
Simmering resentment against the governments that led them into an ultimately pointless war boiled among the disgruntled populace, leading to the cultural revolutions of the 1900s and 1910s across the western world [9], the overthrow of the Bolgarian king by the Edinstvo Party [10], forcing him into exile on the island of Crete, and the Cathay Revolution of 1919 that led to Cathay's previous isolationist, authoritarian government being overthrown by an alliance of peasants seduced by Athenianist thought and Jamesite missionaries that had settled in Cathay, forming the "Jamesite Athenianist" Universal Republic of Cathay. The tipping point came when Germania, too, experienced an Athenianist revolution in 1922, causing Ireland and France, already worried about the possibility of Athenianism spreading to their homelands, to invade Germania to stop the uprising. Bolgaria invaded Germania as well in hopes of grabbing land for its new empire, prompting Cathay to join the war on Germania's side both to help its fellow Athenianists and in hopes of annexing Bolgaria's far east territories. The Germanian revolution managed to take total control of Germania thanks to popular discontent with the dictatorship that had been imposed on them by Ireland and driven the nation into poverty, managing to spark sympathetic Athenianist revolts in France and Spain and forcing Ireland to sign a ceasefire before turning on Bolgaria. Once again, however, the oft-mocked incompetence of Scandinavia's navy caused the war to take a different direction: after a Hyperborean ship in the Atlantic was fired on by a Scandinavian convoy, Hyperborea entered the war as well, bringing its alliance of Braesalan states into the war with it, and even managed to convince Ireland to reenter the war. Germania surrendered to the joint Hyperborean-Bolgarian invasion in 1931 as they closed in on Amsterdam, while Cathay saw it was losing and quickly backed out of the war in exchange for some token territorial concessions. After the war, Europe was divided between Bolgarian-aligned Edinstvoist states (all of which were also forcibly converted to Orthodox Christianity by the occupying Bolgarians) and Irish- and Hyperborean-aligned constitutional monarchies, while Cathay fumed about its loss in the east. Cathay declared war on Bolgaria again in 1941, and Ireland and Hyperborea looked on with no small amount of schadenfreude as Cathay defeated Bolgaria, took the majority of its eastern territories, and forced it to disband the Edinstvoist dictatorships it had propped up in Asia, and it wasn't until a while later that they realized that Cathay might be coming for either of them next.
As it turned out, Cathay attacked Hyperborea first, bombing its naval bases in the occupied islands of Maui and resulting in a declaration of war by the Hyperborean queens, which was quickly followed by a declaration of war by Ireland, which feared that it would be next on the chopping block if Hyperborea was defeated. Bolgaria also joined the war against Cathay, desperate to reclaim its lost territories in the east and restore its damaged national honor. After years of grueling naval battles and clashes upon the coasts, Cathay had occupied the Irish colonies in Choson and Yamato and only lost a few parts of Central Asia to Bolgaria. Worried about morale on the home front, the Bolgarian-Irish-Hyperborean Alliance agreed to switch their focus to the south, take Formosa, and use it as a launchpad for an invasion of the mainland. Against all odds, the plan succeeded, with the Alliance overtaking much of southern Cathay. The subsequent development of mushroom bombs [11] by Ireland in 1953 led to the "shrooming" of Shanghai, resulting in the unconditional surrender of Cathay. In the peace treaty, Cathay was stripped of much of its territory and forced to renounce the Mandate of Heaven, and several coastal provinces remained under Alliance occupation for decades afterwards.
With Cathay out of the picture, the only rivals the former allies had were each other, and as Hyperborea and Bolgaria quickly got to work developing their own mushroom bombs, it became clear that a war would just result in mutual destruction. While Hyperborea backed out of its alliance with Ireland altogether and focused on expanding its sphere in the Braesals and Africa, Ireland and Bolgaria were quickly at each others' throats, starting proxy wars in Europe, Africa, and the Braesals in lieu of directly attacking each other. Hyperborea, meanwhile, experimented with Athenianist ideas, delegating increasingly more and more power to Parliament and the people. In contrast, Ireland became more repressive and hierarchical, while Bolgaria remained just as terrible as it had always been, slaughtering ethnic and religious minorities across the country en masse and imprisoning or killing anyone who dared speak out against the Edinstvo Party. The Irish Empire gradually fractured and fell apart from the 1980s to the 2000s, with the killing blow being a successful Athenianist movement that saw the peaceful overthrow of the monarchy and the first successful Athenianist state in Europe established in Ireland, followed quickly by similar movements across western Europe. However, Bolgaria wasn't doing so well either thanks to a series of increasingly incompetent leaders that let the majority of its sphere slip away and caused widespread poverty via economic mismanagement, leaving it a greatly reduced state and hardly even a notable power anymore. Despite all of the apocalyptic predictions of various international observers, the False War ended not with a bang, but a whimper.
It's 2019 now, and the world has changed significantly since the days of James the monk. With the fall of the old global order, the new one has risen, and it is ruled by Hyperborea. The Queendom of Hyperborea, ruled by Queen Kristina VII (though her position is much more ceremonial these days), is the undisputed global hegemon in the aftermath of the fall of the Irish and Bolgarian empires, and it has been promoting its neo-Athenianist brand of constitutional monarchism around the world, despite claims from Bolgaria and the rest of eastern Europe that Athenianism doesn't work in practice and just leads to the people being exploited by a corrupt government that cares only about being reelected without a strong monarchy to supervise it and prevent abuse of office. While Cathay has made a comeback, it is still clearly the junior partner in its newfound alliance with the Indian Federation, formerly France's Indian colonies and now a strong, unified state in its own right slowly beginning to rise in prestige and power. The Kingdom of Abyssinia has also begun constructing a bloc of Middle Eastern and eastern African Islamic states in the wake of Europe's departure from Africa, aided by the Republic of Egypt and the Arabian Confederation, which are its main allies/partners in crime. Edinstvoist Bolgaria and the Athenianist Republic of Antichthon are both rogue states, the former for its strict adherence to Orthodox Christianity and history of human rights abuses and the latter for its insane interpretation of Athenianism and history of human rights abuses, though the Athenianist Republic of Antichthon (or "East Antichthon," as it's commonly called) is moderating and has even agreed to stop deploying so many ships in the South Pacific out of Falkland. The Republic of New Cornwall, a former British colony in south Asia, has also recently become a rogue state thanks to the exposure of the English-descended ruling class's long and horrific record of mistreatment of the nation's Muslim population and outright genocide.
Culture has changed quite a bit. Society is still rather religious, but you won't be judged if you don't go to church- the general societal attitude is that you can be just as pious at work or at play as in the house of God. Thanks to the widespread cultural influence of Jamesite Christianity, LGBTQ+ rights are accepted unquestioningly across the majority of the world, save Bolgaria and some parts of eastern Europe. (As a side effect of this, most people will assume everybody else to be bisexual unless they state otherwise, in contrast to OTL's ubiquitous heteronormativity.) It's also resulted in the creation of what have been affectionately/sarcastically referred to as "religiously-mandated welfare states" in parts of the Braesals due to interpretations of the Bible that verge on what an observer from OTL would call socialism, or even communism. Scientific racism never really existed here, and thanks to Africa and Asia being rather more prosperous and less war-torn than OTL, any attempts to argue that the non-white areas of the world are "inherently backwards" will result in a snarky "then explain the major powers there, wise guy" in most circles.
Technology is at a late 2000s-early 2010s level for the most part, but computer technology is easily a decade ahead of OTL and medical technology and biotech are a few decades ahead. Technology is also better-distributed, and even the more backwards parts of the world have at the very least a teleopticon and CD [12] in every village.
[1] No last name, mind you- just "James."
[2] Somewhere close to OTL Fortaleza, in case you're wondering.
[3] OTL Australia.
[4] Not the same entity as OTL's Germany- think a Dutch-North German union formed by an alliance of a more expansionist Netherlands and several northern German states with a lot of cultural and linguistic hybridization.
[5] I know that's almost certainly not the right word, but I couldn't think of any better way to phrase it.
[6] Think of her like the Hyperborean George Washington, except not a slaveholder.
[7] OTL New Zealand.
[8] OTL Black Sea.
[9] Not exactly like OTL's Roaring Twenties, but close enough, because I was too lazy to come up with something more original.
[10] Think Mussolini-style fascism.
[11] Come on, I think it's obvious what these are.
[12] Television and computer, respectively. The latter came from a shortening of "computation device" to "CD."
Skallagrim
Banned
always love seeing settings with great queer rights. great map
When quoting a huge wall of text for a very short comment, could you please just quote the relevant bit, like so--
--or replace the quoted text with 'snip', like so--
--or just @ the person you are responding to, instead of quoting anything?
That is one ugly Nevada. And I have to say Desert seems ridiculously large, and I am surprised Rio Grande didn't keep as parts of the areas to the south. Anyways, why six stars for seven states? I also imagine St. Louis would get its own area, so it could concentrate on the Ohio, Missouri, and northern Mississippi Rivers.
Here's my quick take on a "Hail, Britannia"-style "no American Revolution" scenario: the British colonies consolidate, expand - though leaving significant Indian reserves under the guarantee of the crown - and eventually join together as the United Dominions of North America, while Anglo settlers with separatist and republican tendencies migrate to the northern territories of Mexico, rebel, and unite as the Republic of Fredonia.
OOC note: I don’t intend this as a serious scenario at all. Please take it as done from a totally different perspective and it is not indicative of my beliefs. I have noticed that this map (at least in its concept as a book written in a victorious Nazi world later discovered to be a real parallel world) is very similar to rvbomally's Deutschland Muss Sterben. I had seen his map previously, though did not refer to it through my work on Why We Fought, but will give him credit as it surely influenced me unconsciously. It interests me to see that while the concept of a world with an Allied victory is covered in both maps, his shows a much more centralized, united world.
This world is based off a work of fiction itself found in a world where the Axis won the Second World War and the Nazis covertly manipulated the inner workings of Japanese politics to cause the Empire to fall apart in the 1990s. Though it remained autocratic, after the total destruction of European Jewry by the turn of the millennium, the state began to liberalize. 2033 was the name of a propaganda novel written in the same year, with the main character, Hans Deutscher, meant to be an Aryan everyman, residing in the Free City of Hamburg. The novel chronicles his transformation from a misguided, politically apathetic middle-class factory worker to fascist revolutionary after stumbling across a copy of Mein Kampf in a staff lounge. Ultimately, the revolution started by Deutscher fails in a grisly massacre in which much of Hamburg’s population is carried off to rape or torture by the Imperial Guards of Bokassa’s France. Though obviously propaganda, the novel gained popularity in all quarters of German society and spawned several comic adaptations set in the same, detailed universe. And, while the universe of 2033 gained life as propaganda, it has lived on in stories written even by writers less blindly supportive of the Nazi regime.
Hitler’s Empire was supposed to last a thousand years but within twelve years it had been erased from the Earth, its cities bombed-out wrecks and its armies lying died from the plains of Russia to beaches of England. One hundred years down the line, 2033, the world is a vastly different place than it was when the National Socialists came to power in Germany. Many of the fears they had came true, with a new age of racial cooperation and intermarriage and the spread of communism across much of Eurasia. Germans themselves became personae non gratae after the defeat of the Nazi Empire. In their homeland, German culture has been all but erased by the new institutions created of the United Nations which has led to mass assimilation and even genocide brushed under the rug under the watchful gaze of the global order. The balance of power has shifted out from Europe, and the great powers of this century are America and the Soviet Union. Even states and their corresponding international organizations like France and Britain are mirror images of their former selves, where places like Algiers and Cape Town dictate the activities that take place in Paris and London. It is a weird world to one that lived in 1933, but most are not altogether unhappy, and though there are wealthy, tyrants, and paupers, most people are like those of any age and simply try to get by.
- A rift developed between the western and eastern Allies shortly after Berlin fell in November 1944. A period of conflict and mistrust followed, and though there were minor conflicts between forces supported by each bloc, the period could not accurately be described as a cold war or proxy war. While it is not entirely accurate to say the Eastern Bloc won out, years full of student protests and general strikes in Europe and the transformation of the old United States into the American Union created a sort of victory by dissolution, in which the powers opposing the Soviets simply were so changed from what they were in the 1940s. By the time of the numerous revolutions of the 1980s, the days of worldwide tensions were more or less over as both the Soviet Union and American Union are more or less content to rule within their borders and allow the other great powers free reign somewhere else in the world. There is still conflict, though most of it is fought in embassies and international forums, as the great powers all seek to carve out and defend their own spheres of influence.
- There was some cooperation between the victorious powers in the aftermath of the Axis defeat. Germany itself was totally dismantled with some border regions cut off and annexed to other states. In what was left, four new states were created: Israel, Central Europe, Hamburg, and Resettlemania. Most of the German core was occupied jointly and divided into four regions from north to south (named only 1,2,3, and 4) Much of German culture was outlawed, including a ban on the use of the language in writing after 1950 and verbal use in public after 1960. In the place of German, Esperanto would be introduced at the point of the gun. Numerous other things: traditional clothing, the iron cross, and statues of the Kaiser would be banned in a bid to destroy the German national identity forever. Resettlemania was carved out of southwestern Baden. Roma from across Europe were moved there en masse, and it was set aside for relocation of any future groups that might be persecuted. By 2033, all Germans have been expelled and cities that were once the bedrock of the Reich; Freiburg, Ravensburg were home to large African and Asian populations. Israel, a Jewish homeland, was created from Brandenburg. Jews from throughout Europe were strongly encouraged to emigrate there in the aftermath of the German Genocide. With immigrants from both east and west, Israel adopted a neutral economic model, a mix of both capitalism and communism that has worked quite well for it. Population exchanges have created a nearly entirely Jewish state. However, the Jews in Einsteinstadt (formerly Berlin) are not the only ones that lay claim to being the successor to the Kingdom of David. Utilizing a plan created by a joint Franco-Polish committee in the 1930s, the Germans forced the resettlement of a large number of Western European and German Jews to Madagascar shortly after the fall of France in 1940. However, only 3,000 families were moved to Madagascar before the program was discarded as wasteful and the Nazi Party set itself on the course of total annihilation of the Jews. The Island Jews (or Inzl Idn in Yiddish) remained in Madagascar and actually saw their numbers supplanted by a number of American Jews, many of them socialists or communists in the early 1940s, but after the foundation of Israel in 1947, immigration to Madagascar dropped to virtually zero. When Madagascar was returned to French authority in 1944, the returning authorities co-opted the Jews there as a ruling class. In the strife of 1969, Madagascar was granted independence as the independent Republic of New Israel. Despite being outnumbered nearly 4 to 1 by Malagasy’s, New Israel remains firmly in the control of a Jewish upper class. Both Resettlemania and Central Europe remain under international protection and are largely untouchable when it comes to foreign policy. The Israels, however, are not and though they have not ever been involved in a war, if they did become engaged in a military conflict it is unlikely the rest of the world would pile in to defeat its enemy.
- The era of the New Deal never ended as Franklin Roosevelt’s immense popularity allowed him to rule until 1949. The days of governance by politicians in America faded away as social planners, people like Rexford Tugwell, Harold Ickes, and Mary McLeod Bethune, grew in power. After the Second World War, in which the United States was handed a number of North American and Asian territories as compensation, it and the Soviet Union were left as the last two great powers in the world and sparred indirectly for a time. By the 1970s, the old United States was replaced and the American Union, a unitary state divided into numerous regions defined by cultural and economic ties, was born. And, in a move intended to show continuity with the old United States, the national anthem of the Union became ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, formerly the official song of the Democratic Party. North America’s first Chairman, Lyndon Johnson, flexed the Union’s muscle on the international scene by intervening to stop the attempted Objectivist takeover of the Congo in 1975. North American Marines and air forces halted the Objectivist offensive within a number of months and defeated them entirely by 1978. North American forces participated in a number of smaller incursions, but by the start of the 21st century had conquered all of its old sphere of influence in North America and seen South America divided between the Catholic Union and Andeana. Though the American military still is perhaps the strongest of the world and retains numerous bases across the globe and in space, it has withdrawn some of its presence from the world at large as it focuses on internal cohesion and raising its agricultural and industrial territories to maximum efficiency.
- Hitler expected the Soviet Union to crumble before the Wehrmacht but was taken totally by surprise when it gave stiff resistance to the June 1941 invasion. Despite early losses of territory almost to Moscow, the Soviets were able to regroup and rebuild their officer corps from scratch and launch counteroffensives in 1942. Though the Red Army became a nearly unstoppable juggernaut, it got itself into gear far too late to bring all of Europe into the Soviet fold. The Western Allies of the United States and Britain conquered Berlin and established capitalist states between the Rhine and Byelorussia dashing dreams of a communist, Eastern European empire. The Soviets did, however, manage to overrun Finland and proceed on into Nazi-occupied Norway and pro-German Sweden, all three of which were annexed at wars end. The Soviets were left feeling cheated by a peace they felt the capitalist allies gained more from and threw all their resources into China to help the Red Army of Mao Zedong. In 1952, the Soviets finally produced an atomic bomb of their own, giving much-needed confidence to invade Afghanistan the next year. Stalin passed away in 1959 and the period which followed saw a gradual retreat from the policies of terror that characterized Russia under his rule. Stalinism has largely fallen out of fashion and is seen as an aberration, a failed offshoot of true communism, that being the beliefs of Lenin. Attempts at facilitating a worldwide revolution have not gone as well as hoped in the years since Stalin’s death, but with the addition of Northern India and much of the Middle East to the communist bloc, the consensus is that communism is still on the up and someday the entire world will be ruled by the heirs of Marx and Lenin. Though ethnic Russians are still dominant on the federal level, the influence of non-Russians particularly from the wealthy Scandinavian, Manchurian, and Korean republics has increased vastly. Though there has never been a non-Russian General Secretary since Stalin in the 1950s, Norwegian Stig Ødegaard is widely discussed as a possible successor to the aging Zubrilin Grigorievich.
- Though France was nominally on the winning side of the Second World War, it experienced years of turmoil and doubt from the years of occupation. A semi-democratic Fourth French Republic lasted from 1945 to 1979 but was plagued by near-constant strikes, socialist activism, and insurgencies in the colonies that led to more than one abortive coup. In the end, the army installed an African junior officer, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, as head of state to appease the large non-white population while also instilling a sense of patriotism through his thoroughly patriotic views. In 1983, Bokassa declared himself Emperor of France and engaged in a campaign of mercilessly suppressing dissent throughout the colonies (which were spun off as independent realms within the newly-formed Francophone Union) In 2033, Bokassa II sits on the Golden Throne in Paris (Napoleon’s throne was dragged out of a museum and put in the newly-used Versailles) and though in theory, his power extends only into the lands of the French Empire, the National Assembly is more or less powerless and the House of Bokassa rules over much of Africa. The Francophone Union, intended as a way to divide power between the various states of the former French colonial empire, has more or less failed as it has become a way for France to remain dominant over ex-colonies in a less direct manner. France itself is by far the premier power within the Union, though states like Mali-Ghana and Indochina are considerable powers in their own right and flex their muscle on their neighbors.
- As the center of power moved southwards in the Empire, the royal family spent more and more time outside of the British Isles. Elizabeth II’s son eldest son and eventual successor, Edward, married a Sesotho Princess, Ntš'ebo, daughter of King Seeiso. In 1999, following the Hong Kong Crisis, he moved the capital to Cape Town. Much of the Empire had been given voting rights several decades before, and the combined votes of the African bloc was more than enough to overrule the protests of MPs from England (including the reactionary grandson of former Prime Minister Churchill) In 2033, Parliament still sits in Cape Town and MPs represent constituencies as far afield as Belfast, Nairobi, Zanzibar, and Rangoon and, with Africa’s industrialization, MPs from Britain proper are a clear minority while whites make up fewer than 25% of elected federal representatives. The House of Lords was abolished as anti-democratic (as it was nearly entirely British) in 2005 and replaced with a new Senate, with five Senators elected from each of the constituent regions of the United Kingdom. To stave off the total collapse of the British Empire, independence and membership in the Commonwealth of Nations was promoted as an alternative to independence through armed revolution. Though many of the newly independent states of the late 20th century subsequently left the Commonwealth, the ones that remained are closely connected to the United Kingdom. These states, like Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Tanzania are strong backers of the UK in international forums and, with their dependence on the British for many of their material goods, have little room to diverge from the dictates of Cape Town.
- Despite all the trouble they faced during the Second World War, the Slavs sure have done well. Yugoslavia (though a communist form) was rewarded in aftermath of the Second World War with portions of Greece and southern Austria. Through decades of hard work by Tito and his successors, the concept of Yugoslavia as a union of ethnic states was replaced by blurred distinctions between ethnoreligious groups. The culmination of the program of ‘Brisanje’ or erasure came in 1998, when the ethnic republics were abolished, and Yugoslavia was reconstituted as a unitary state. Absorbing Greece proved to be somewhat of an issue in the first few decades, but over three quarters of a century of indoctrination has hammered the idea into most of Achea that the ancient Hellenic civilization was the product of proto-Slavic migrations. Zapadoslavia, on the other hand, is a pro-Western Presidential republic and does not run nearly as smoothly as its south Slavic brother. The Poles, dominant within the union, are resented by Sorbs, Czechs, Slovaks, and Magyars (though comparatively few survived, owing to their collaboration with the Nazis) but so much of the military and economic power is concentrated in Warsaw (capital of the Polish Republic) that any dissent would be absolutely futile. Albania has remained free of its Slavic neighbors and was actually awarded portions of Italy with Albanian minorities. Heavy ethnic cleansing was required there before those regions became cooperative with Tirana. Though strongly totalitarian following the end of the Second World War and nearly entirely closed off from the outside world, Albania has liberalized since the death of Hoxha in 1991 and has recently attempted to encourage Western tourism along its Adriatic Coast where vast resorts have been constructed by armies of political prisoners.
- Italy was divided between a communist north and capitalist, pro-American south at the end of the Second World War. The Italian Peoples Republic, with Soviet backing, attacked the Federal Republic of Italy in May 1949. Only with significant effort from the United States and bombing raids from bases in France was the war won and a rather bizarre new border agreed upon. In the aftermath of the war, mafiosos from Sicily, the cousins of the machine politicians so powerful in America, came to power. At their height in the late 1950s and early 1960s, mob boss Santo Sorge was elected to two terms as President. Under mafia and mafia-aligned administrations, nearly every position, from Senator and Representative down to dog-catcher, was filled with a man on the payroll of the crime lords of Italy. Amid this period of corruption and social permissiveness, a movement began among country Catholics that slowly spread into the cities advocating for a form of Christian Democracy and a government that, though not religious, would follow the teachings of the Church. Though many were not entirely in support of Catholic Democracy, its various organizations became the primary opposition to the mafia government. Despite attempts by the mafia and government to abduct, torture, kill, and intimidate its opponents, the opposition slowly gained traction. Finally, in June 1983, days of peaceful protest in the streets of Palermo led to the capitulation of the government and institution of a new government.
- The Peaceful Revolution of June 1983 was followed by similar events in many Catholic countries. Salazar was toppled in Portugal, Médici in Brazil, and Videla in Argentina. Though initially loosely aligned but independent, in 1989, the Catholic Union (officially the Union of Catholic Republics) was created. A nominal theocracy, the Catholic Union functions as a federation in which the Pope and Church have little power over temporal affairs despite the legislature being entirely Catholic. Most of the inhabitants of the Union are satisfied. Rule from Rome and Buenos Aires (the Union has let the Pope stay in Rome while the Legislature is in the New World) is not always entirely convenient, but the government works smoothly, and basic needs are provided for. This is not true in some regions that were more recently colonies of European powers. Angola, Mozambique, and Timor are wracked by pro-independence revolts. Despite the seemingly inexhaustible resources of the Catholic Union, there is an increasing unwillingness to commit troops and materiel to these never-ending quagmires. Despite declining public interest in the continuation of the war, the government rightly fears the crisis of legitimacy that might follow granting independence to such large and resource-rich provinces.
- Though much of the Latin world transitioned peacefully from autocracy to Catholic Democracy, that trend was bucked in Spain. There, the post-Franco fascist regime slowly fell from favor, leading to a civil war of the same scope as the one in the 1930s. Republicans, socialists, fascist, and Catholic Democrats all fought in the streets while nearly every neighboring state sent interventionist expeditionary forces. Even Morocco, where the military was modernized nearly overnight thanks to the help of Patton Ali (formerly George Patton), who converted to Islam after being so impressed with that faith while spending time in Africa, sent forces to Spain. After nearly five years of war, a peace treaty was hammered out in Geneva in 1993. Spain was divided, with land along the periphery ceded to Britain, Morocco, the Catholic Union, and France. Most of Spain was constituted as the Fourth Spanish Republic, a multiparty democracy, while a Free City of Madrid under UN jurisdiction, and a Soviet satellite state in Catalonia were also created by the Geneva Accords.
- Though the Objectivist Individual Republic of Zaire has been gone for nearly half a century and its old capital of Stirnerville sits a bombed-out wreck in the flese jungle, much of central Africa still waits in its shadow. The tenets of Objectivism as extrapolated by Ayn Rand and followers like Leonard Peikoff still hold considerable appeal, even if the armies raised under its banner emblazoned with a titan were bombed into oblivion by the superior airpower of the American Union and hounded across the continent by angry Congolese. The American-backed Federal Republic of the Congo stretches the length of the titular river in a strange U-shape. Its cities are well developed in the American style, and a considerable middle class has sprung up since the defeat of the Objectivists in 1978. Relying upon the Congo for survival is the ethnically Bongondo Republic of Djolu created as a homeland for subsistence farmers following particularly grisly massacres by Objectivist forces in the region. Two other republics were also created following peace in the 1970s: Lusambo in the center, Kasai in the south, and Ituri in the northeast. Kasai fell into civil war and is currently administered jointly by the Congolese and British while Ituri proved economically unviable and relies almost entirely on treaties with the British in the Kenyan provinces. Katanga was spun off more or less to function as a British protectorate and remains so to the present and has become so vital that there is serious consideration of annexing it directly into the empire. The destruction wreaked by the Objectivists during the last days of the Independent Republic still can be seen in the lack of infrastructure through much of what used to the Belgian Congo. Though the Objectivist military was defeat, there are still adherents of that dangerous ideology and though infrequent, there is the odd youthful convert to individualism that will commit robbery or murder for their own ends. Though there are robust police forces in all these countries, Objectivist revolutionary groups look as if they will remain a problem for years to come.
- After being awarded Italian Somaliland, Emperor Haile Selassie reformed his domain into the constitutional, democratic United Ethiopian Kingdom. At the urging of the King, the Parliament of the UEK embarked upon a program of increasing agricultural productiveness and encouraging the growth of the mining sector. To facilitate an increasing need for technicians, Ethiopia’s population gradually became more educated. By 2000, nearly the entire population of the kingdom is literate and over 65% are Christian (though Protestantism and Catholicism make up a large proportion of that number) Though not the wealthiest, Ethiopia boasts a happy, educated population with a strong state. Though relatively peaceful, there is fear of the Arabs and in recent years Ethiopia has provided arms to the ethnically more similar peoples of Sudan to throw off governance from Cairo. In a testament to the success of the creation of a cohesive national identity within the UEK, Arab attempts to incite Ethiopian Muslims to revolt have largely fallen flat.
- Much of Africa is a mixed bag, a patchwork of varying levels of development and infrastructure. Though the Francophone Union and Commonwealth of Nations have no official standards for development that preclude membership, member states have significant access to in-organization aid. Corruption and urbancentric planning still plague these states, however. Most of Africa falls within these organizations or is part of a larger, trans-continental state. In West Africa, Liberia has carved out a sphere of influence among the post-colonial French states of the region. Though it has failed to adopt technocratic principles and remains a one-party dictatorship under the True Whig Party, historical ties between the United States and Liberia are remembered fondly in Roosevelt FZ. Old ethnic distinctions between Americo-Liberians and native Africans have blurred as intermarriage reaches an all-time high. Paris is clearly displeased with the growing Liberian influence in what they view as their backyard but have avoided direct conflict for fear of angering the North American Union. Both Nigeria and the Mali-Ghana Federation are considered rising powers within Africa and they have the potential to challenge the old, established states someday.
- Turkey stayed neutral in the Second World War until in 1942 when it was clear the Allies had the upper hand. Launching a campaign against Bulgaria, Turkey proved to have a rather poor quality military but kept up fighting until 1944 and was rewarded for its participation with the entirety of Bulgaria, Western Thrace, Crete, and the Ionian Islands. Turkey, alongside Yugoslavia, Zapadoslavia, and the Soviet Union was granted condominium over former Romania and forcibly moved the majority of the Slavic population of Bulgaria there. Romania has remained jointly occupied and with the lack of any semblance of order built by any of the occupying powers, remains more or less reliant on its neighbors to function. In 2033, Turkey remains a parliamentary democracy along the same lines as it was founded. The CHP remains the single strongest party and has not lost a national election since 1999. Though not explicitly authoritarian, the Turkish government verges on it and is clearly statist. Turkey’s southern neighbor is the Federation of Arab Republics (commonly referred to as the Arab Federation) The Arab Federation dates from the 1960s when it was founded by Egypt, Transjordan, and Syria. Since then, it has grown to encompass the former Saudi monarchy and Sudan. Like Turkey, it proclaims itself as a middle of the road mixed economy, but its clear bias in favor of Arab Muslims has led to a strong underground opposition against the ruling party that manifests itself in the form of left-wing revolts in the Arabian interior and risings by the non-Muslim Dinka and Nuer peoples in southern Sudan with material and ideological backing from the Ethiopian monarchy. The continued British control of the Suez (though it is technically only temporary) is a thorn in the side of the Arabs, who dream of the money they would receive from control of it. Since the move of the Monarchy and Parliament to Cape Town, the Arab Federation finds it increasingly hard to label the British presence as European Imperialism.
- Fearing its friendliness with the Germans in the Second World War, Iran was invaded by a joint Anglo-Soviet force in 1941. The Shah was deposed and replaced with a cousin with the country occupied to prevent any revolts favorable to the Germans. Despite verbal agreements promising they would withdraw after the cessation of hostilities with the Axis, the Soviets took until 1951 to leave. The Iranian Revolution of 1959 ended the absolute rule of the House Pahlavi and after a short civil war, a Soviet client state was established in the north while a rump monarchist state was carved out with British support in the south. Since 1960, the Persian Gulf has turned into a hotspot for conflict between Britain and the Soviet Union. Soviet wishes to gain a warm water port on the gulf clash with the ancestral British mistrust of the Soviets. Britain proper has no territory within the Persian Gulf, yet states like Kuwait and the Trucial Sheikhdoms are clear British client states that are home to numerous wings of RAF planes and serve as fueling stations for the Royal Navy. The Soviets rule over their Middle Eastern client states with an iron fist and it stations much of the Red Army there to ensure the oil fields of Iraq do not fall into capitalist hands.
- Despite pressure from both inside and outside the subcontinent for a partition of the Raj into smaller states, the entirety of British India was given independence as the Republic of India in 1947. The dream of a united, diverse India quickly proved untenable as tensions grew between Muslim and Hindu as well as the Indo-European north and Dravidian south. India’s first Prime Minister, Mohandas Gandhi, was gunned down in July 1950 by a Telegu speaker from Sri Lanka. Wholescale ethnic cleansing and civil war was only averted by the installation of strongman Subhas Chandra Bose (who fought alongside the Axis but was considered too popular to execute after his capture) whose military regime lasted until 1963 when he died suddenly. After Bose’s death, the cult of personality built in the last decade fell apart and the communist party, forced underground during the 1950s, exploded back onto the scene. Free elections failed and India collapsed into fighting between nearly a dozen different factions. In 1966, the Soviets crossed the border from the Afghan SSR in support of the Indian Communists and steamrolled south. Only the creation of a united front between the Dravidians, Muslim democrats in Bengal, and other minor factions was able to prevent total communist conquest of the subcontinent. By 1968, to prevent a disastrous counteroffensive against the exhausted and overextend communists, the Soviets deployed nuclear and chemical weapons to India and initiated the Wall of Fire project, the use of hundreds of atomic bombs detonated to create an impassable strip of wasteland between areas of Soviet and enemy control. The operation was massively successful and though hostilities did not officially end for another year, few major battles were fought after the creation of the Wall of Fire. South and east of the wall, independent non-communist states were established. The strongest of these is the Deccan Federation, a state that has drifted into technocracy and state atheism since its foundation. Much to the ire of the Marathis and Sinhalese, the Dravidian intellectual elite rules with an iron fist and oppresses the Indo-Aryan minority in retribution for the alleged millennia of imperialism. Despite a number of human rights abuses and lack of democracy, the Deccan Federation has close ties with the North Americans. To their northeast is the Islamic Republic of Bengal. Though founded on religious grounds, Bengal is fairly secular but is plagued with overcrowding in its cities that has led to a rash of other problems like plagues that spread beyond the borders of the country and devastate much of India. After 1969, the Soviets found the same issues that plagued the Republic of India affected their puppet regime, the Peoples Republic of India. Under orders from Moscow, the PRI was divided up into a number of more compact and homogenous puppet states that allowed for closer Soviet control. These states have, on the whole, remained impoverished backwaters. There are a host of other, smaller states in what used to be India, but most are little more than regional cliques of landowners and warlords that inaccurately lay claim to being worthy of Westphalian sovereignty. The Wall of Fire itself remains as potent as ever. Without protection, it is more or less impassable. Few live deep in the Wall but along the fringes, in areas of little contamination, bandits and guerillas hide out without fear of pursuit from Deccan or communist authorities. Radioactive winds passing through the Wall frequently deposit irradiated particles as far away as Australia and Africa and throughout India cancer rates are dozens of times higher than the worldwide average.
- Japan hoped to utilize the seemingly-eternal turmoil within China to conquer the entire country but was foiled by the creation of a United Front between the Nationalists and Communists that, with Allied aid, defeated the IJA and its continental client states. The coastally-based Nationalists were drained by the war, and, in its aftermath, with the help of Soviet Red Army forces from Europe, the Chinese Soviet Republic was expanded to all of the traditional lands of China, though fighting in the south against regionalists continued until the start of the 1960s. Nationalist holdouts in Taiwan attempted to continue the fight, but fearing invasion from the mainland, accepted annexation by the United States as a commonwealth to stave off communist conquest. The Chinese Soviet Republic survives despite a lack of serious industry and mass agriculture. Attempts by the Party to increase productivity have largely fizzled out and the country remains under the thumb of the USSR. Though every generation has its share of anti-Russian leaders, China has never been able to assert its independence as much as it wishes. Taiwan’s status as a Commonwealth of the United States was converted into a position as a constituent Republic of the North American Union in 1973 and hosts a large Air Force contingent and the Asiatic Fleet. The issue of turning over Hong Kong to an openly anti-British communist state was widely debated in Parliament in the years leading up to 1997. The Chinese Red Army was mobilized to take the city by force in 1996 and both sides remained on alert. In the end, Parliament voted not to honor the agreement as it was signed with the Qing Dynasty. Red Army forces encamped outside the city nearly attacked on July 1st, 1997, but cooler heads prevailed, and a treaty was signed to allow Chinese Soviet trade within the city. A similar treaty was signed between the Catholic Union and China that allowed Macau to stay as Union territory. Public opinion within China is divided as to whether or not Hong Kong and Macau are worth starting a world war over. The military generally believes it worthwhile to attack while the Party leadership, despite constant talk of restoring Chinese territorial integrity, fears the devastation a war with Britain and the Catholic Union might cause and is typically more dovish than the generals.
- Tibet managed to fight off the Chinese communists after their defeat of Japan and the pro-Axis Nationalists. Both Nepal and Bhutan managed to stay out of the boondoggle that was the Indian Republic and cooperated alongside Tibet to prevent the war from spilling over. Following a revival in Buddhism in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Buddhist Union, a cross between a military alliance, trade area, and early stages of a federation was formed. Tibet has come to dominate the Buddhist Union as the 16th Dalai Lama grows in popularity outside of Tibet. If any organization within the books is portrayed in a positive light (outside of the German neo-Nazi movement, of course) it is the Buddhist Union. The novel implies that the people of Tibet are of Nordic descent and that their country is one of the last refuges of peace and sanity in an increasingly crazy world.
- After the defeat of Germany, the Red Army, previously focused on Europe, streamed east. Within only two months of the fall of Berlin to American forces and the German surrender, Soviet forces had pushed Japanese forces out of the Far East and had landed in Sakhalin. Japan folded quickly as the Allies put their full weight on the home islands. The Soviets had the upper hand and a head start not being bogged down in the Pacific Islands and able to transport troops across Siberia. The red banner was raised over the ruins of the Palace Castle in March of 1945 and though the Emperor surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, fighting continued between scattered elements of the IJA that refused to accept any cessation of hostilities short of death. Within two years, several dozen Japanese military and political leaders were summarily executed, including many members of the zaibatsu that had helped push the Japanese warmachine. The Imperial Family managed to escape punishment for fear of throwing the islands into full-scale revolt, though records indicate that Soviet and American Military Governors Purkayev and MacArthur were personally in favor of trying the Emperor for crimes against humanity. The occupation period was a violent, dangerous affair in which Japanese frequently used suicide tactics on American and Soviet occupation forces. The outlying islands were stripped away and annexed to the US and USSR while the remainder of Honshu was divided between the pro-American Republic of Japan and Soviet-allied Democratic Republic of Japan. What was left of the Japanese population was cowed into submission by years of guerilla fighting and violent reprisals and somewhat brainwashed into believing the other side to be violent monsters. Much of the area that has become the Japanese SSR and Republic of West Pacifica was ethnically cleansed and is primarily inhabited by Ainu, Russians, and Anglo-Americans.
- French hopes of keeping Indochina after the Second World War slowly proved unrealistic as nationalist insurgents of all different stripes plagued colonial authorities. A near-rout at Qui Nhon in 1949 was only averted with the last-minute reinforcement of the French garrison by American nuclear forces. Atomics turned the tide of the war, and several well-placed bombings decapitated much of the Viet Minh’s resources. In 1955, France finally withdrew, leaving an Indochinese Federation in its wake. The Federation remained supportive of France and a member of the Francophone Union despite internal pro-Soviet factions. Another source of argument was the influence of Vietnam within the Federation, which many Laos and Khmers felt was outsized. It expanded somewhat during the 1970s, annexing the independent republic in Guangxi and Hainan. In 1983, Duong Van Minh, a popular general of Vietnamese descent, deposed the democratic government and installed himself as Emperor of Indochina. The Empire remains friendly with the House of Bokassa and though the Duongs are not the most brutal of rulers, their regime is autocratic and elections hold no meaning there. The Indochinese Empire and its considerable, atomic-armed military is without a doubt the second most powerful state in the Francophonie, second only to France itself.
- Like the French in Vietnam, the British and Dutch in the East Indies faced considerable resistance upon return to former colonies occupied by Japan during the Second World War. Malaya was handed off to the less-weary Americans (though Singapore, which had lay under siege from 1942 to 1944 remained British) while Indonesia was granted independence by the Dutch in 1951. A middle of the road strongman regime held power through the early 1990s and expanded Indonesia with the conquest of Sabah and Sarawak. In a process often compared to the rise of Catholic Democracy in Italy, Islamists took the streets in 1992 and deposed the authoritarian government of Indonesia and established the Indonesian Caliphate with anti-imperialism, religious rule, and jihad as its central tenets. Almost immediately, the new caliphate sought to raise the banners of Islam over new lands. The Indonesian-Australasian War was fought between those two states from 1994 to 2001. Indonesia absorbed a large swath of northern Australia and New Guinea that they promptly purged of all non-Muslims (virtually all of the pre-war population) while establishing a protectorate over the former province of Western Australia. Since their victory over Australasia, Indonesia has focused inwards, establishing a nearly-omnipresent security apparatus that controls all facets of daily life. Attempts to export Islamic extremism and theocracy have been largely unsuccessful except with the Rohingya Muslims and among disenchanted youth in the crowded slums of Bengal.
- Australasia achieved independence in the late 1940s comprised of all of Australia, New Zealand, and the mainland portion of British New Guinea. In 1962 it withdrew from the Commonwealth and became an independent republic, citing irreconcilable differences in philosophy, particularly regarding Aboriginal rights. The more racially tolerant New Zealand provinces were largely unhappy with this move but aside from the odd terrorist attack simply did nothing. Australasian policies to eradicate the Aboriginals through contraceptives and forced abortions picked up steam despite international outcry. Australasia was invaded by the Islamist regime in Indonesia in 1994 and, because of years of international embargo, had an outdated and underequipped military. The Indonesians were poorly equipped to fight an offensive war so the ensuing conflict was a slogfest across the Timor and Arafura Seas. Many atrocities occurred while both sides circumvented the Geneva Protocols and used biological, chemical, and atomic weapons liberally, something that has left many areas of what was both countries uninhabitable. Australasia was eventually felled by the larger Indonesian population, something manifested in the human-wave attacks at the critical Battle of Cairns in late 2000, and internal revolt. New Zealand, opposed to the anti-native policies of Australasia rose up in revolt as well as much of Western Australia. Peace was agreed to and a rump Australasian Federation survived in New South Wales, Victoria, the Capital Region, and New Zealand’s North Island. It has become more xenophobic and isolationist than ever before and prepares for a rematch with Indonesia in which it will be able to reclaim all Australia and turn the entirety of the East Indies into a glassy wasteland. Its two smaller neighbors are entirely different. The South Island of New Zealand revolted and reconstituted itself as the Republic of New Zealand and rejoined the Commonwealth. It is a liberal democracy with a multicultural streak as Maoris are guaranteed at least 33% of the seats in the national legislature. With Indonesian help, Western Australia was transformed into the Federal Republic of Tjupany (named after an ethnolinguistic group in the region as the name Australia was considered too tied to the old, racist regime). Much of the country is set aside as Aboriginal territory, where whites have been forced off the land. The national character of Tjupany is one of guilt for the years of conquest and discrimination against the Aboriginals. It remains, however, in the pocket of the Indonesians despite membership in the Commonwealth of Nations.
- Not all of America fell to what many in Andeana would call imperialist influences. While Africa and Asia were being decolonized and transitioning to indigenous rule, the intelligentsia of South America (particularly in the western rim) began to yearn for more independence from the United States as well as more equitable, democratic governments. While this movement gained traction among the mestizos, centuries of maltreatment of the native peoples of South America boiled over and mass pressure towards better conditions of natives began. The international Andean Liberation Front (FAL) was born in 1965 by delegates from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay. Their goal was to carve out a South American-based, anti-imperialist bloc opposed to being taken advantage of by either side in the current world conflict. The FAL slowly grew in popularity and through a series of elections, coups, and invasions realized its dream of a state and so was created the Plurinational Directorate of Andeana. The Directorate stresses the many sources of influence and race that mixed together in South America and has set its political system up in such a way that all ethnicities within the state have representation and their religions and languages are respected. Use of Aymara, Quechua, Guarani, Panoan, and Spanish at the national level while encouraging the preservation of smaller, localized languages has created some issues of communication, though the country is more or less unified in an anti-imperialism, catch-all pan-nationalist outlook. While it does not describe itself as communist, Andeana’s economy is mixed and tends towards government intervention and state-run corporations. As such, it has taken steps to align itself with the Soviet Union, justifying this on the grounds that it has different methods but ultimately aims for the liberation of workers of all races. Some of the more radical indigenous-descended bureaucrats in Andeana cite examples of Soviet oppression in the Central Asian and Afghan Republics in an attempt to distance their country from the USSR but have largely been unsuccessful. The United States and Andeana have frosty relations owing to the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine. Andean ties to the Soviets only serve to worsen those relations but the rivalry and closeness of the Americans does give the Andeans preferential treatment by Moscow.
- While the old South American states largely were integrated wholly into either the Catholic Union or Andeana, things occurred otherwise along the northern coast. A narrow FAL victory in the 1990 Presidential election led to a military coup that devolved into an all-out civil war. Andeana intervened in 1991 followed by the US in 1994. Violence spread to Venezuela, plunging it into war as well. The end result was an agreement to divide the two states, with most of Colombia falling into the Andean zone and Venezuela to the Americans. A rump Colombian government was recognized, but control over the Northern Andes has remained in the hands of warlord-generals, whose domains have largely been co-opted by the Andeans. Venezuela saw the establishment of a pro-North American regime, but due to its inability to govern through lack of a popular mandate, the North Americans have opted to occupy the southern half of that state. The United States also was able to get control of the British and Dutch portions of Guyana, and that region remains a productive, loyal Republic of North America. The former French colony of Guiana was granted independence and is a member of the Francophonie, but has found a friend in the North Americans and is slowly drifting into their sphere, much to the ire of Bokassa II and the National Assembly.
- Though claims to Antarctica are recorded as far back as the 16th century, serious exploration of the continent began at the end of the 19th century. The first permanent settlements were established by the Americans at the behest then-Secretary of Science and Exploration Richard Byrd in the early 1950s. This was followed by British and Soviet settlements by the Fourth International Polar Year in 1965. By the dawn of the 3rd millennium, numerous settlements existed in Antarctica and borders were drawn at the Campobello Conference (held at the Summer White House on Campobello Island) Though those borders are agreed upon by all powers with Antarctic presences, individual patrols often find themselves disoriented and have caused numerous diplomatic headaches.
- There is still some pushback to the international order as it has existed since the end of the Second World War. Led by groups like Werwolf, an underground resistance against Allied occupation took hold that has continued even after the armies of occupation had departed. Though the opposition is comprised of numerous groups that sometimes even feud among each other, they are all broadly united a wish to return the world to fascism and right-wing authoritarianism. Though never successful, there have been many instances of failed putsches and revolts in Germany and Japan and, in the former German states particularly, it is not entirely uncommon to find a non-German United Nations bureaucrat dead with a swastika carved into their body. There are considerable fears of a worldwide neo-fascist uprising that could topple the communist and technocratic nations of the world, but in actuality, the opposition is far too weak and scattered to ever make much of a difference outside of the odd assassination or bank robbery.
- In addition to fascism, another boogeyman to the international community is Objectivism. Though there is still tension between communist and non-communist nations, the consensus of the world has swung towards collectivism. In such a world, Objectivism, a hyperindividualistic ideology that stresses the importance of the individual above all others, represents a radical divergence from the norm. The willingness of Objectivist fighters to die performing acts that set them apart from the rest of the population and their total disregard of death is totally alien to much of the world. Though the internal contradictions inherent within Objectivism brought the only Objectivist state in history into a destructive, bloody end, it still retains some allure to youth unhappy with their lives in a world where the state often comes first. Objectivist terrorists have become something of a problem throughout the developed world and deadly terrorist attacks on public areas are increasing in frequency.
- Much to the ire of latter-day Nazis, the Freemasons still exist and their members are as prominent as ever. Many of the Roosevelts, who still have significant power within the American Union, are Masons, while the twin institutions of the True Whig Party and Masonic Order are the pillars on which Liberia rests. The Masons have, in recent decades, become patrons of exploration and have funded several expeditions to the Moon and intend to land a man on Mars by 2045. Much of this exploration is based out of the Cape Palmas Spaceport, privately owned by a consortium of wealthy Liberian Masons.
- With the execution of many top German scientists for their assistance or non-resistance to the Nazi regime, the Soviets were left as the only power with significant rocketry capabilities or the interest to pursue rockets for military uses. The Soviets were the first into space in the 1970s and were followed by the Americans and later the British, French, Catholics, and Andeans. There have been nearly a dozen manned missions to the moon and three American and Soviet missions to Mars as well as numerous remotely controlled landings on other celestial bodies as far away as Saturn. However, aside from several small manned space stations and a number of observation satellites, the worldwide consensus has been that space travel is far too time-consuming and expensive to ever be a serious endeavor. The problem of interstellar travel is largely a thing for pulp authors and hobbyist scientists with too much time on their hands.
- The atomic bomb was developed separately by both the Americans and Soviets in 1944 and 1952, respectively. It was first used by the Americans to level the critical Rhine crossing of Wesel in May of 1944. Nearly 14 more atomic bombs were used throughout the remainder of the war for strategic purposes. The use of atomic bombs to further the goals of American forces and soften Axis strongpoints in their path, but not the path of the Soviet armies, was a significant bone of contention throughout the remainder of the conflict and was much remembered afterwards by still-bitter Red Army officers. Atomics of all sizes, ranging from small, nearly handheld systems with 0.00003 megatons to plane-borne several megaton bombs, were used in the postwar era. In the aftermath international horror at the massive destruction wrought on India in the creation of the Wall of Fire and the levelling of the atomic playing field with the proliferation of atomics has led to the gradual drawdown in usage of atomic weapons since the 1980s. There is no international feeling of an arms race, but included in worldwide arsenals are enough megatons of firepower to blast the world dead many times over. Chemical and biological weapons are both banned internationally, but few actually follow the First and Second Geneva Protocols and keep nuclear, chemical, biological weapons on tap in case of emergency. There have been a number of instances of uses of these weapons in recent decades being covered up by the offending power.
ADDENDUM: A world exactly like that described within Why We Fought was discovered by UNBSTAE on June 4th, 2029, contradictions within the novel and later adaptations notwithstanding. Whether the author of this book simply had enormous luck in his guesswork or the victorious Third Reich of that world has spatio-temporal travel capabilities is unknown.
Made a map for a fictional world I created called Artenfal. This is the first base map I've created so there is bound to be some mistakes; If you do spot them please let me know.
Also, don't know if Fantasy maps are allowed to be posted in this thread, or if they aren't where a appropriate thread would be, so I thought I would post it here
Republic of Louisiana.
During the French revolution, Napoleons decides not to rebuild a French empire in America, thus Spain never cedes Louisiana. During the Haitian revolution many Whites flee to new Orleans. When the Spanish empire collapses, Louisiana declared independence. With Louisiana not being a top priority for Spain, as they try and reconquer their empire, New Orleans thrives this attracts immigrants and the British navy. As the number of immigrants grows, especially from their Anglo neighbour, fearing American conquest Louisiana puts in place strict Catholics only immigration policy. They also decide to get Britain to practically guarantee their independence by allowing them fleet basing rights in New Orleans for 50 years.
While this angers the Americans it has the desired outcome. This leads to massive Irish and Gaelic Scottish immigration due to Louisiana's generous land grants and the fact many of the arrivals had recently being cleared from their lands. Louisiana managed to strike a deal with the Mexicans, were in the Louisiana would provide financial aid for their independence war, in return for land. The Treaty of Mexico city saw their new border stretching from the gulf of Mexico to El Paso via the Rio grand, to the pacific ocean at 32.5 parallel north via a straight. Later on as tensions rose between Louisiana and the USA over their claims to Oregon, both decided to let King of the Netherlands decide their Borders. Which he diced was the 42nd parallel north from the pacific to the Mississippi river.
The discovery of Gold in California in 1848 later renamed Nouvelle-Acadia led to massive wave of immigrants coming all the way from France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland. Feeling they were longer under threat from Anglo's the Catholic only ban was lifted, a quirk of the law meant many Chinese immigrants would declare they had "recently converted" in order to enter Louisiana.
While slavery was legal in Louisiana, the British hunting of slave ships, coupled by the extraordinary growth of the nation via migration, which also led to good plantation land quickly being taken up by free white farmers led to the end pf the plantation system. But slavery persisted until 1881 mostly as domestic slaves, working at large manors and hotels, but laws passed during the 1850's meant that children where born free, slaves couldn't be sold only inherited and after the age of 50 a slave gained their freedom. By the 1870s many slave owners were freeing their slaves in their will. and on June 1st 1881 Slavery was banned releasing the last 2500 slaves in the nation.
Today, Louisiana in the most populated nation in the western hemisphere with nearly 250 million and the world second largest economy, after the Chinese Empire.
During the French revolution, Napoleons decides not to rebuild a French empire in America, thus Spain never cedes Louisiana. During the Haitian revolution many Whites flee to new Orleans. When the Spanish empire collapses, Louisiana declared independence. With Louisiana not being a top priority for Spain, as they try and reconquer their empire, New Orleans thrives this attracts immigrants and the British navy. As the number of immigrants grows, especially from their Anglo neighbour, fearing American conquest Louisiana puts in place strict Catholics only immigration policy. They also decide to get Britain to practically guarantee their independence by allowing them fleet basing rights in New Orleans for 50 years.
While this angers the Americans it has the desired outcome. This leads to massive Irish and Gaelic Scottish immigration due to Louisiana's generous land grants and the fact many of the arrivals had recently being cleared from their lands. Louisiana managed to strike a deal with the Mexicans, were in the Louisiana would provide financial aid for their independence war, in return for land. The Treaty of Mexico city saw their new border stretching from the gulf of Mexico to El Paso via the Rio grand, to the pacific ocean at 32.5 parallel north via a straight. Later on as tensions rose between Louisiana and the USA over their claims to Oregon, both decided to let King of the Netherlands decide their Borders. Which he diced was the 42nd parallel north from the pacific to the Mississippi river.
The discovery of Gold in California in 1848 later renamed Nouvelle-Acadia led to massive wave of immigrants coming all the way from France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland. Feeling they were longer under threat from Anglo's the Catholic only ban was lifted, a quirk of the law meant many Chinese immigrants would declare they had "recently converted" in order to enter Louisiana.
While slavery was legal in Louisiana, the British hunting of slave ships, coupled by the extraordinary growth of the nation via migration, which also led to good plantation land quickly being taken up by free white farmers led to the end pf the plantation system. But slavery persisted until 1881 mostly as domestic slaves, working at large manors and hotels, but laws passed during the 1850's meant that children where born free, slaves couldn't be sold only inherited and after the age of 50 a slave gained their freedom. By the 1870s many slave owners were freeing their slaves in their will. and on June 1st 1881 Slavery was banned releasing the last 2500 slaves in the nation.
Today, Louisiana in the most populated nation in the western hemisphere with nearly 250 million and the world second largest economy, after the Chinese Empire.
Not posting a map, but in the process of making one featuring organically formed countries in Africa. I'm in bit of a quandary regarding the Senufo speaking people: given that they're a little a less than 4 millions in OTL, what are the odds of them managing to not get carved up like Poland-Lithuania by their neighbors?
Neighbors in question:
Mandinka: 45 millions
Akan: 20 millions
Mossi: 8 millions + allies
Neighbors in question:
Mandinka: 45 millions
Akan: 20 millions
Mossi: 8 millions + allies
@Baconheimer there is just one think I really, really hate about this map: if I sometime in the future made my own "anti-nazi dystopia" scenario, it would be basically ripoff of yours
Anyway, Jean Napoleon Bokassa is glorious! I hope they served him his opponents during terribly opulent neo-baroque banquets. France was never so decadent!
Anyway, Jean Napoleon Bokassa is glorious! I hope they served him his opponents during terribly opulent neo-baroque banquets. France was never so decadent!
Oh, that one’s easy: because I counted wrong and didn’t realize it until just now.
If you have good memory you'll probably remember a map similar to this one. That's because it's from the same TL, but I re-worked the whole map, giving it a more aesthetic approach and all that, but it's essentially the same map and I feel I'm plagiarising myself and cheating on the people who liked the first map. Welp.
Yeah, I really like the idea but it originally comes from the timeline For All Time. You have it right on the ball. Versailles is back - but with food from dubious sources (political enemies?) and leopard fur has become popular as clothing.@Baconheimer there is just one think I really, really hate about this map: if I sometime in the future made my own "anti-nazi dystopia" scenario, it would be basically ripoff of yours
Anyway, Jean Napoleon Bokassa is glorious! I hope they served him his opponents during terribly opulent neo-baroque banquets. France was never so decadent!
A map I threw together over a weekend a while back but never published. It's OTL, but I'm considering using it in a Gaelic or early Scottish independence or autonomy TL if I ever get round to it. (Red line = majority Gaelic area to the east)
'Threw together'A map I threw together over a weekend a while back but never published. It's OTL, but I'm considering using it in a Gaelic or early Scottish independence or autonomy TL if I ever get round to it. (Red line = majority Gaelic area to the east)
Well I give up. Why bother when such genius exists in the world?
- Status