Map Thread XX
- Thread starter Balkanized U.S.A
- Start date
- Status
Case in point. There was an entire civil war over how at odds the concepts were.
Wow! These awful eugenicists are, in my eyes, one of the most horrifying settings posted in the map thread in a good while. It really speaks to the horror of the setting that the eugenics is seen as outright good, but the restriction on how many children can have plus the polygamy are considered necessary evils by the Angevines.
Er, good job...!
Brilliant map! If I may interject: the Starks doesn't need to gain legitimacy and restoring the Boltons may be a way to lose it, not gain it. Sansa was an important and respected leader of the North during the Second Long Night, Roose Bolton was a damn traitor and Ramsay was one of the most monstrous men the North ever saw. Giving the Dreadfort to House Thenn would make more sense. For the Beyond, Jon never actually claimed the name of Stark or Targaryen, picking a new fancy House name when exiled among the Free Folk seems a bit out of character. Why would the wildlings follow a Lord? He may be the King beyond the Wall, and his sons could be important figures in the Beyond if you say the Free Folk start to confederate, but noble-household type of relations seems a bit not free-folksy. Maybe if he have a lot of progeny some of them could find the right group of loyal people and try something like that? Maybe instead of picking one of the names you pitched you could have multiple Jon Snow's descendants trying something like that and picking those various names for each.
Well firstly the Boltons weren’t entirely without allies, and they had plenty of men. And the Boltons are one of the North’s oldest houses. The smallfolk respect such traditions, and Sansa can’t just kill every Bolton loyalist. The idea is that she originally gave it to House Poole, but Jeyne discovers she is pregnant, and in this proposal does not abort it, but instead gives birth and names the boy Theon. Some argue that he is a Bolton, but is effectively a Poole in upbringing and matrilineal line. He could stay Theon Poole, but given some people still remember the kind, charismatic, music-playing totally-not-a-Rhaegar-analogy that was Domeric Bolton, there is a chance to redeem the Bolton name and appease the traditionalist Sansa is sure to upset. I might keep him Theon Poole though.
And I have Jon marrying Val in this timeline. So his children aren’t lords, just badasses raised by badasses, and any one of them is a contender for King or Queen-Beyond-the-Wall, a position that has stayed as an elected figurehead/military commander as the Free Folk work together in a loose confederation to resettle their old lands and even push into the newly thawing frontier, which has many dangerous creatures and even Southron bandits/unrecognized colonizers.
None of the Free Folk see them as a House. But they continue to act as emissaries for the Free Folk to the Night’s Watch and the North, who do recognize bloodties, and so whenever they visit the Gift of even Winterfell, they have some degree of acknowledgment as nobility. My idea isn’t that they necessarily chose their name or even their sigil, but instead there are those in the North unhappy with Sansa’s rule and believe it should have been Jon Snow who rules as King in the North and maybe, as his secret remains a rumor but widely known, even ruling on the Iron Throne. Basically they are being made into pretenders by some of Sansa’s enemies. An unofficial styling when they arrive as “Lord/Lady Whitefyre of the Beyond,” a gift of banners bearing a House sigil to fly when they go anywhere south of the Wall, invitations by name to negotiate trade with the Free Folk only to mostly talk about how vila Sansa is and how great their father would have been as King, etc.
Davido
Banned
Well the Bolton's didn't have a lot of allies..Being an old House doesn't have anything with destroying a House and the small folk, could care less who rules them.. They care more for being left alone,than any Lord ruling over them. I don't see how feasible it is having House Bolton considering the crimes and infamy associated with that House..
deviantArt page here.
One of the first maps I ever completed was a tribute to George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four. At the time, I felt so proud of it and felt it was the best map I had made up to that point (which it probably was), but as the years have passed I've gradually made it over from the ground up, one small piece at a time. I think I've been able to really flesh this scenario out in a way I never did originally, and I finally feel like it's polished enough to post online. This world is not realistic. It isn't setting out to be a hard study of history or the butterfly effect. Despite history diverging apart from our own centuries ago, many modern figures and nations still appear in similar roles. This is mainly for two reasons: First, to be more in line with the book, which mentions figures like Stalin or ideologies like bolshevism. Secondly, I've just found it keeps a timeline more interesting when recognizable figures come and go through a story, instead of completely made up names that mean nothing to a reader.
The Social Congress of Oceania is by far the largest of the three major blocs that dominate the world. In fact, it's the largest state to have ever existed. However, it is still only the third most populous nation, and much of its theoretical power has been tied up by internal concerns, leaving it to be a smaller player in the world stage than its appearance on a map might suggest. It was born form the ashes of the old United States, a former country which quickly grew from 17 disparate colonies to an expansionistic empire in its own right. By the turn of the 20th century, the USA had engulfed much of the North American continent and littered South America and the Pacific with an array of protectorates, commonwealths, autonomous territories, overseas states, and native reserves. The bloated republic found itself ripe for the growth of new revolutionary ideas. Colonial subjects resented having to answer to Washington, citizens resented their own exploitation at the hands of wealthy corporations, and even some of the business leaders of the time chafed under the many internal barriers to trade and byzantine bureaucracy that had developed.
All of these factors came to a head in the Presidential election of 1932. Large portions of the country were still dealing with the effects of the Great Depression and many of its colonial holdings were in open revolt. A radical governor named Hiram Armstrong had gained populist support in his home state of Winnipeg through his "Share Our Wealth" program, and drew national attention by embracing the newly widespread radio technology to have weekly fireside talks with his constituents. Many of his followers saw Armstrong as a gentle but stern big brother figure, an image he would come to embrace over the years. Armstrong had nearly won the Democratic nomination for President in 1928, but felt he had been cheated by backdoor politics and formed his own party, the Farmer-Labor Union, as a result. The new FPU also organized a new force it called the Minutemen, which put the large swaths of unemployed men in his state to work distributing food, fighting with local police forces who tried to evict farmers from their land, and after a failed assassination attempt in 1930 they formed a solid core of Armstrong's personal body guards.
Armstrong's first act as President was to push through a bill to pay out early pensions to America's large swathes of Great War veterans who were now living in homeless camps around the capital. When congress voted the bill down, many of those veterans, who were dubbed the 'bonus army' at the time, stormed the capitol building in protest. Armstrong allowed his security forces to step down and allow the veterans in, and in fact many of his own Minutemen were included in the mob. He instead offered immediate pardons to everyone involved, negotiated the freedom of the congressmen held hostage, and saw to it that an even more generous veteran relief bill was put forward by his political allies in the legislature. This time the bill was passed. When the Supreme Court attempted to strike down some of his executive orders as unconstitutional, Armstrong responded by packing its ranks with his own allies. Since he couldn't legally remove any of the judges himself, simply diluted their votes by increasing the Court to over 20 members. Congress, now afraid to be seen as roadblocks to Armstrong's social aid programs, approved nearly all of his nominees.
The biggest moment in Armstrong's presidency came in 1935, when the so-called 'business plot' was uncovered. Large amounts of bombs and weapons had been brought to Washington and hidden in secret cashes across the city. The plan was to kill Armstrong and his Minutemen who now policed the city and install an emergency government to prevent the President from turning himself into a dictator. Armstrong did not immediately expose the plot once he learned of it, but instead waited for when Congress was next called into session. Many of its members were surprised by the sudden appearance of Armstrong's Minutemen surrounding the building. The President had a camera team brought in to film the floor proceedings for the first time. Millions around the nation watched as one by one, prominent congressmen were named off a long list of conspirators and lead out of the chamber by the Minutemen. In the following months, 68 politicians and over 150 business leaders had been implicated and publicly tried. Of these, 12 people would be publicly executed for treason, 3 found innocent, and the rest made to give statements denouncing Armstrong's remaining opposition before serving light sentences. Some businessmen, such as Henry Ford, fled the country, were automatically declared guilty in absentia, and had their companies nationalized by the government.
Now that his grip on government affairs was secure, Armstrong proceeded in his 'rationalization' program, which promised to restore law and order in America's colonies and give the people living there new self-determination and rights as full citizens. The United States had effectively dissolved, and was soon replaced by the Social Congress of America. The empire was reorganized into 11 republics: North America, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Peru, Chile, West Africa, the Philippines, Quebec, Iceland, and Rio de la Plata. Each would be able to govern their own internal affairs and were themselves composed of states that would all have representation in the overarching American Congress, which would handle defense, foreign policy, and administer federal projects. Portuguese South America, which had been under military occupation for the last 40 years, would eventually be admitted as the two new republics of Brazil and Amazon. Each of these republics would also each have a single representative in the Executive Council, of which Chairman Armstrong would be the first amongst equals.
For the rest of the world, the 1930s saw the rise of the Axis Powers and the start of World War Two. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill found himself in a difficult position as King Edward VIII refused to abdicate and was believed to have sympathies for the fascist powers they were at war with, and provided little support for Churchill's government. After the fall of France and Hitler's invasion of Russia, Britain made the infamous "Deal with the Devils" to align itself with the USSR and America. Despite nominally fighting on the same side, however, British intelligence rarely cooperated with its socialist allies, and when America suggested merging their respective research teams for atomic weapons, Britain politely but firmly declined. Many Americans began to feel bitter about what they saw as British stubbornness leading to avoidable deaths in the battlefield.
After years of fighting, the Axis was eventually ground down, but the war was not quite over yet. Soviet forces had marched to the Rhine and showed no sign of slowing down. American forces, who were still locked up in the Atlantic after the failed Normandy landings, showed no interest in stopping them. Instead, Chairman Armstrong redirected his focus to his former British allies and began a surprise offensive directly on the isles. Now that the fascist powers were gone, the only obstacle to world liberation (or domination) was the old imperial powers of Europe. American forces left mainland Europe to its Soviet allies and began the process of dismantling the crumbling British Empire and bringing its peoples into the Global Revolution. Many portions of the old French Empire were also occupied, most notably its colonies in Asia. Over the following decade 7 new republics were added to the Congress of Oceania, as it was now renamed: Britain, South Africa, Rhodesia, the Pacific, Angola, Australasia, and Indochina, while Iceland was folded back into the republic of North America.
A new balance of power began to settle in afterwards. Soviet-Oceanian relations degraded after the deaths of Armstrong and Stalin, leading to the two superpowers to denounce the other as revisionist and counterrevolutionary. The Sino-Soviet split also set the stage for a third base of power, as China began to industrialize and become more assertive on the world stage. India and China found themselves drawn together by a mutual distrust of the Soviets directly to their north, and a need for defense from the Oceanians coming over the oceans to their south. The Shanghai Pact was signed in 1974, leading to a new era of cooperation between the two nations as India defeated the Oceanian forces along its Malabar coast, and the People's Liberation Army marched through Indochina in full force to push the Oceanian's out, before themselves being pushed out by the Vietnamese. Chairman Nixon started a limited nuclear exchange across Asia before settling into an uneasy peace of low-level proxy wars that has continued to the modern day.
All of these factors came to a head in the Presidential election of 1932. Large portions of the country were still dealing with the effects of the Great Depression and many of its colonial holdings were in open revolt. A radical governor named Hiram Armstrong had gained populist support in his home state of Winnipeg through his "Share Our Wealth" program, and drew national attention by embracing the newly widespread radio technology to have weekly fireside talks with his constituents. Many of his followers saw Armstrong as a gentle but stern big brother figure, an image he would come to embrace over the years. Armstrong had nearly won the Democratic nomination for President in 1928, but felt he had been cheated by backdoor politics and formed his own party, the Farmer-Labor Union, as a result. The new FPU also organized a new force it called the Minutemen, which put the large swaths of unemployed men in his state to work distributing food, fighting with local police forces who tried to evict farmers from their land, and after a failed assassination attempt in 1930 they formed a solid core of Armstrong's personal body guards.
Armstrong's first act as President was to push through a bill to pay out early pensions to America's large swathes of Great War veterans who were now living in homeless camps around the capital. When congress voted the bill down, many of those veterans, who were dubbed the 'bonus army' at the time, stormed the capitol building in protest. Armstrong allowed his security forces to step down and allow the veterans in, and in fact many of his own Minutemen were included in the mob. He instead offered immediate pardons to everyone involved, negotiated the freedom of the congressmen held hostage, and saw to it that an even more generous veteran relief bill was put forward by his political allies in the legislature. This time the bill was passed. When the Supreme Court attempted to strike down some of his executive orders as unconstitutional, Armstrong responded by packing its ranks with his own allies. Since he couldn't legally remove any of the judges himself, simply diluted their votes by increasing the Court to over 20 members. Congress, now afraid to be seen as roadblocks to Armstrong's social aid programs, approved nearly all of his nominees.
The biggest moment in Armstrong's presidency came in 1935, when the so-called 'business plot' was uncovered. Large amounts of bombs and weapons had been brought to Washington and hidden in secret cashes across the city. The plan was to kill Armstrong and his Minutemen who now policed the city and install an emergency government to prevent the President from turning himself into a dictator. Armstrong did not immediately expose the plot once he learned of it, but instead waited for when Congress was next called into session. Many of its members were surprised by the sudden appearance of Armstrong's Minutemen surrounding the building. The President had a camera team brought in to film the floor proceedings for the first time. Millions around the nation watched as one by one, prominent congressmen were named off a long list of conspirators and lead out of the chamber by the Minutemen. In the following months, 68 politicians and over 150 business leaders had been implicated and publicly tried. Of these, 12 people would be publicly executed for treason, 3 found innocent, and the rest made to give statements denouncing Armstrong's remaining opposition before serving light sentences. Some businessmen, such as Henry Ford, fled the country, were automatically declared guilty in absentia, and had their companies nationalized by the government.
Now that his grip on government affairs was secure, Armstrong proceeded in his 'rationalization' program, which promised to restore law and order in America's colonies and give the people living there new self-determination and rights as full citizens. The United States had effectively dissolved, and was soon replaced by the Social Congress of America. The empire was reorganized into 11 republics: North America, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Peru, Chile, West Africa, the Philippines, Quebec, Iceland, and Rio de la Plata. Each would be able to govern their own internal affairs and were themselves composed of states that would all have representation in the overarching American Congress, which would handle defense, foreign policy, and administer federal projects. Portuguese South America, which had been under military occupation for the last 40 years, would eventually be admitted as the two new republics of Brazil and Amazon. Each of these republics would also each have a single representative in the Executive Council, of which Chairman Armstrong would be the first amongst equals.
For the rest of the world, the 1930s saw the rise of the Axis Powers and the start of World War Two. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill found himself in a difficult position as King Edward VIII refused to abdicate and was believed to have sympathies for the fascist powers they were at war with, and provided little support for Churchill's government. After the fall of France and Hitler's invasion of Russia, Britain made the infamous "Deal with the Devils" to align itself with the USSR and America. Despite nominally fighting on the same side, however, British intelligence rarely cooperated with its socialist allies, and when America suggested merging their respective research teams for atomic weapons, Britain politely but firmly declined. Many Americans began to feel bitter about what they saw as British stubbornness leading to avoidable deaths in the battlefield.
After years of fighting, the Axis was eventually ground down, but the war was not quite over yet. Soviet forces had marched to the Rhine and showed no sign of slowing down. American forces, who were still locked up in the Atlantic after the failed Normandy landings, showed no interest in stopping them. Instead, Chairman Armstrong redirected his focus to his former British allies and began a surprise offensive directly on the isles. Now that the fascist powers were gone, the only obstacle to world liberation (or domination) was the old imperial powers of Europe. American forces left mainland Europe to its Soviet allies and began the process of dismantling the crumbling British Empire and bringing its peoples into the Global Revolution. Many portions of the old French Empire were also occupied, most notably its colonies in Asia. Over the following decade 7 new republics were added to the Congress of Oceania, as it was now renamed: Britain, South Africa, Rhodesia, the Pacific, Angola, Australasia, and Indochina, while Iceland was folded back into the republic of North America.
A new balance of power began to settle in afterwards. Soviet-Oceanian relations degraded after the deaths of Armstrong and Stalin, leading to the two superpowers to denounce the other as revisionist and counterrevolutionary. The Sino-Soviet split also set the stage for a third base of power, as China began to industrialize and become more assertive on the world stage. India and China found themselves drawn together by a mutual distrust of the Soviets directly to their north, and a need for defense from the Oceanians coming over the oceans to their south. The Shanghai Pact was signed in 1974, leading to a new era of cooperation between the two nations as India defeated the Oceanian forces along its Malabar coast, and the People's Liberation Army marched through Indochina in full force to push the Oceanian's out, before themselves being pushed out by the Vietnamese. Chairman Nixon started a limited nuclear exchange across Asia before settling into an uneasy peace of low-level proxy wars that has continued to the modern day.
Antarctica has been declared an international territory by the rest of the United Nations, but Oceania has set up prisoner colonies on the northern peninsula to try and protect its claims. Unfortunately the only real resource the frozen colonies can tap is an abundance of penguins.
Britain is still recovering from all the damage it took in the 20th century. The First Oceanian Invasion lead to a decades-long insurgency throughout the countryside, which only died down in the 1970s with the growth of a new generation of native bureaucrats were able to maintain control without the need for complete military occupation. Ironically, this new generation would become even more ultra-orthodox about the world revolution than their American occupiers ever were. 'English Socialism' became the dominant ideology, and when the rest of the Congress began to make small reforms it was the British who denounced the rest of Oceania for being revisionists. The Second Oceanian Invasion of the 1980s put an end to Chairman O'Brien's short-lived reign, but also left large sectors irradiated for the next few centuries.
Chad has become the least developed countries in the world. After Libya invaded and annexed its northern strip of land, Chad left the African Union in protest, which left it economically isolated from its all its neighbors. Some radical factions want to overthrow the government and petition to join Oceania, while others want to reform the caliphate and begin the global jihad again communism.
Free Britain is the remnant of the imperial government. Following the execution of King Edward VIII and much of the royal family, the crown found its way to his niece Elizabeth II, who remains in exile. Gibraltar, Malta, and the Cypriot outposts are all that remains of a globe-spanning empire. Free Britain has become known as "a navy with a state", as the Royal Navy has remained its strongest asset bottled up in the Mediterranean.
Haiti, officially an empire in its own right, tries to keep a low profile as the only independent country left in New World. The island nation still has ethnic tensions with its eastern counties, which is conquered for a third and final time in the 1860s, but this steadily decreases with each passing generation as the Spanish language is suppressed. Hispaniola has become a smuggler's paradise once again, but instead of housing buccaneers it's a rest stop for goods and people working their way in and out of Oceania. Haiti was also the final destination for Leon Trotsky, after he began to run afoul of Oceanian authorities in Mexico City. It's still unknown whether it was Oceanian or Soviet forces who tracked Trotsky down and assassinated him in Port-au-Prince, or if it was the Haitian government itself who wanted to get rid such a dangerous house guest who could be used to justify an invasion.
Iceland was an old colonial territory of America purchased from the Danish. It was mostly unaffected during the years of the revolution and became one of the founding republics in the Oceanian Congress. However, there was a lot of unrest during World War Two from the surge of American forces stationed there. The building resistance coupled with the island's small population compared to the other republics lead to its dissolution and absorption into the North American republic.
Korea has started to become a bigger regional player under Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang has offered to help mediate a mend to the old Sino-Soviet split, which would be bad news for Oceania.
Lake Armstrong is the largest manmade body of water in the world. Although it flooded thousands of acres of Alaskan wilderness, displaced hundreds of natives living in the region, and caused a huge increase in snowfall around the area, it has successfully become the main source of power for the northern territories. It was hoped that the development could help encourage settlers, but so far the main recipients are still the work camps spread across the North Slope.
The Mediterranean Union is the last major force of anti-communism left in the world. It began as a military alliance between Spain, Portugal, and Turkey, but has also grown to encompass Switzerland, Andorra, Sicily, the remnants of Britain in Gibraltar and Malta, and the remnants of France in north Africa. Spain's development of the atom bomb in 1971 is the largest deterrent the Union has left to keep the the reds away.
North America is the largest and most powerful of all the Oceanian republics. It contains 83 states, giving it the largest bloc within the Congress with exactly 33% of its seats. In theory all the republics are meant to be equal to one another, but North America is usually more equal than others.
Western Sahara was grabbed during the Spanish-American war of the last century, but America never did figure out what it wanted to do with it. Oceania has come to the same quandary, since the state has a very small population and not much industry or mineral wealth to speak of. For now it serves as Airstrip 5, a staging point for Oceanian military forced to someday liberate the rest of North Africa. The republic of West Africa has consistently been petitioning the Congress to take the state off its hands since it's such a large money sink, and hopes North America is interested in picking it up.
The West African Federation has actually been one of the few countries to have friendly relations with Oceania, especially under President Thomas Sankara. Despite its leftist leanings, it's happy to stay neutral in the ideological fights between the three superstates and instead focus on its rivalry with Nigeria within the African Union.
Britain is still recovering from all the damage it took in the 20th century. The First Oceanian Invasion lead to a decades-long insurgency throughout the countryside, which only died down in the 1970s with the growth of a new generation of native bureaucrats were able to maintain control without the need for complete military occupation. Ironically, this new generation would become even more ultra-orthodox about the world revolution than their American occupiers ever were. 'English Socialism' became the dominant ideology, and when the rest of the Congress began to make small reforms it was the British who denounced the rest of Oceania for being revisionists. The Second Oceanian Invasion of the 1980s put an end to Chairman O'Brien's short-lived reign, but also left large sectors irradiated for the next few centuries.
Chad has become the least developed countries in the world. After Libya invaded and annexed its northern strip of land, Chad left the African Union in protest, which left it economically isolated from its all its neighbors. Some radical factions want to overthrow the government and petition to join Oceania, while others want to reform the caliphate and begin the global jihad again communism.
Free Britain is the remnant of the imperial government. Following the execution of King Edward VIII and much of the royal family, the crown found its way to his niece Elizabeth II, who remains in exile. Gibraltar, Malta, and the Cypriot outposts are all that remains of a globe-spanning empire. Free Britain has become known as "a navy with a state", as the Royal Navy has remained its strongest asset bottled up in the Mediterranean.
Haiti, officially an empire in its own right, tries to keep a low profile as the only independent country left in New World. The island nation still has ethnic tensions with its eastern counties, which is conquered for a third and final time in the 1860s, but this steadily decreases with each passing generation as the Spanish language is suppressed. Hispaniola has become a smuggler's paradise once again, but instead of housing buccaneers it's a rest stop for goods and people working their way in and out of Oceania. Haiti was also the final destination for Leon Trotsky, after he began to run afoul of Oceanian authorities in Mexico City. It's still unknown whether it was Oceanian or Soviet forces who tracked Trotsky down and assassinated him in Port-au-Prince, or if it was the Haitian government itself who wanted to get rid such a dangerous house guest who could be used to justify an invasion.
Iceland was an old colonial territory of America purchased from the Danish. It was mostly unaffected during the years of the revolution and became one of the founding republics in the Oceanian Congress. However, there was a lot of unrest during World War Two from the surge of American forces stationed there. The building resistance coupled with the island's small population compared to the other republics lead to its dissolution and absorption into the North American republic.
Korea has started to become a bigger regional player under Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang has offered to help mediate a mend to the old Sino-Soviet split, which would be bad news for Oceania.
Lake Armstrong is the largest manmade body of water in the world. Although it flooded thousands of acres of Alaskan wilderness, displaced hundreds of natives living in the region, and caused a huge increase in snowfall around the area, it has successfully become the main source of power for the northern territories. It was hoped that the development could help encourage settlers, but so far the main recipients are still the work camps spread across the North Slope.
The Mediterranean Union is the last major force of anti-communism left in the world. It began as a military alliance between Spain, Portugal, and Turkey, but has also grown to encompass Switzerland, Andorra, Sicily, the remnants of Britain in Gibraltar and Malta, and the remnants of France in north Africa. Spain's development of the atom bomb in 1971 is the largest deterrent the Union has left to keep the the reds away.
North America is the largest and most powerful of all the Oceanian republics. It contains 83 states, giving it the largest bloc within the Congress with exactly 33% of its seats. In theory all the republics are meant to be equal to one another, but North America is usually more equal than others.
Western Sahara was grabbed during the Spanish-American war of the last century, but America never did figure out what it wanted to do with it. Oceania has come to the same quandary, since the state has a very small population and not much industry or mineral wealth to speak of. For now it serves as Airstrip 5, a staging point for Oceanian military forced to someday liberate the rest of North Africa. The republic of West Africa has consistently been petitioning the Congress to take the state off its hands since it's such a large money sink, and hopes North America is interested in picking it up.
The West African Federation has actually been one of the few countries to have friendly relations with Oceania, especially under President Thomas Sankara. Despite its leftist leanings, it's happy to stay neutral in the ideological fights between the three superstates and instead focus on its rivalry with Nigeria within the African Union.
Just a random scenario that came to mind. Timeline is vague and very impractical. Obviously, this kind of ethnic removal is not at all supported IRL.
POD is that Ibrahim Pasha was more successful in the Greek War of Independence, and was able to put down the rebellion before the European powers intervened. In the aftermath, he enacted the rumored “barbarization plan”, offering Greeks money to leave their lands, scattering them across the Ottoman Empire if they refused, and bringing in Egyptian peasants to settle the land. The project was only somewhat successful; Greek remained the plurality in the area up to the Great War, but Egyptians and Turks together were their equal. Still, it enabled the Ottoman Empire to hold onto Greece until its demise. Much of the Greek diaspora ended up settling in Alexandria, creating a large Greek minority there.
The Great War happens, and as in OTL, the Ottomans are on the losing side. The victorious powers carve up the Empire, including an independent Kingdom of Greece. Greeks across the former empire rejoiced, and prepared to return to their homeland… but the Egyptians there would not give up so easily. Mirroring the Turkish War of Independence, the new inhabitants of Greece fiercely defended their lands, with a not-insubstantial amount of help from the new Republic of Turkey. To everyone’s surprise, they were able to expel the King of Greece, who could only hold onto Crete and some islands. In his place, the new inhabitants proclaimed the Republic of al-Yunan.
Yunan managed to hold on and survive. In the Second Great War, it and Turkey proclaimed neutrality, and though the area was strategically important, they managed to hold onto it. Egypt, however, came to fall into the fascist bloc. They enjoyed success at first, conquering the Holy Land and Syria from the European powers that had colonized it. However, their fortunes turned, and the democratic forces started to drive them back. Suddenly, the Greeks in Alexandria saw an opportunity, and pounced on it, rising in rebellion. They caught the Egyptians totally off-guard, and made advances, but once the Egyptian army’s full attention was on them, they started to be driven back. Only the timely arrival of democratic forces saved them, and in the post-war conference, the Republic of Alexandria was carved out of Egypt.
In the coming years, Greeks would move to Alexandria, both from Yunan and the Kingdom of Greece, which grew increasingly dictatorial. Eventually, the king of Greece was overthrown, and a republic pronounced. Talks for a union of Greece and Alexandria are constant, but never seem to go anywhere. Both Yunan and Alexandria have become more homogenous, helped by some population transfers over the years, but still have a sizable minority of the other group (20-30%). The two have a bitter rivalry, though Egypt hates Alexandria even more. However, both of the nations-in-exile are relatively prosperous and promising candidates for the European Pact.
The Great War happens, and as in OTL, the Ottomans are on the losing side. The victorious powers carve up the Empire, including an independent Kingdom of Greece. Greeks across the former empire rejoiced, and prepared to return to their homeland… but the Egyptians there would not give up so easily. Mirroring the Turkish War of Independence, the new inhabitants of Greece fiercely defended their lands, with a not-insubstantial amount of help from the new Republic of Turkey. To everyone’s surprise, they were able to expel the King of Greece, who could only hold onto Crete and some islands. In his place, the new inhabitants proclaimed the Republic of al-Yunan.
Yunan managed to hold on and survive. In the Second Great War, it and Turkey proclaimed neutrality, and though the area was strategically important, they managed to hold onto it. Egypt, however, came to fall into the fascist bloc. They enjoyed success at first, conquering the Holy Land and Syria from the European powers that had colonized it. However, their fortunes turned, and the democratic forces started to drive them back. Suddenly, the Greeks in Alexandria saw an opportunity, and pounced on it, rising in rebellion. They caught the Egyptians totally off-guard, and made advances, but once the Egyptian army’s full attention was on them, they started to be driven back. Only the timely arrival of democratic forces saved them, and in the post-war conference, the Republic of Alexandria was carved out of Egypt.
In the coming years, Greeks would move to Alexandria, both from Yunan and the Kingdom of Greece, which grew increasingly dictatorial. Eventually, the king of Greece was overthrown, and a republic pronounced. Talks for a union of Greece and Alexandria are constant, but never seem to go anywhere. Both Yunan and Alexandria have become more homogenous, helped by some population transfers over the years, but still have a sizable minority of the other group (20-30%). The two have a bitter rivalry, though Egypt hates Alexandria even more. However, both of the nations-in-exile are relatively prosperous and promising candidates for the European Pact.
Beginning in the 1920's, Cuba's reputation as "the island of sun, sand, and sin" would develop. The postwar economic boom and the ballooning market for commodities such as sugar transformed Cuba from a backwater former Spanish colony into a highly-developed center for tourism and industry. Germany invested billions of marks into Cuba's infrastructure and agricultural sector. It was Berlin's intention to establish an unrivaled monopoly over the sugar market, by closely interlinking Cuba with the world economy and maximizing production. It was a successful strategy: Cuban sugar exports more than tripled within five years, and thanks to the price controls established by the Deutsches Zuckeramt (German Sugar Board), profits skyrocketed. This quickly led to the rise of a Havana-based elite of German sugar producers and landowners, which not only dominated local politics but also birthed Cuba's notorious leisure industry.
By 1924, 89 cents out of every dollar made in Cuba went into the pockets of the German sugar cartel. This overwhelming concentration of wealth led to the construction of hotels, beerhalls, dance rooms, cabarets, theaters, and other venues of entertainment. Most importantly, however, were the casinos and gambling houses. Officially illegal under German law, local authorities turned a blind eye as long as they got a share of the pot. It was here that the most famous gangsters of the time made their money. Meyer Lansky, Benjamin Siegel, Arnold Rothstein, and a number of other criminal bosses known as "the Jewish Cabal" based their operations in Havana, and acquired significant political power in the process, establishing Cuba's reputation as an exotic tropical paradise of crime and vice. Mobster violence became common, as was political corruption and the proliferation of indecent entertainment. By the late 1920's, the power of the Jewish Cabal reached its peak.
Last edited:
This scenario is so cool! I wonder what might happen with language, given Dutch and English are so closely related. Maybe a unique "Amerikaans" creole language might emerge from the linguistic border zone? Is Dutch-English bilingualism very widespread? Or only in certain parts of the country?Courtesy of u/jjpamsterdam from Reddit, a series of maps depicting the Confederation of American States (Confederatie van Amerikaanse Staaten): an American union formed between a Dutch-speaking north and an English-speaking south. More than a dozen maps and graphics have been made for this series; don't want to clutter the thread too much, though, so I've picked out four of the best maps. The rest are listed below, with both thread and direct image links.
- Alternate North American Independence: A Multilingual Confederation of American States (1792) - Map
- Languages and Ethnic Background (1792) - Map
- Flag Ideas - Flags: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
- Alternate War of 1812 - Political Map / War Map
- Territorial Development (1854) - Map
- Railroads and Population (1860) - Map / Population & Flags
- European Languages Spoken (1860) - Map
- Civil War (1861) - Maps & Writeup: 1 / 2 / 3
- Civil War (1862-1863) - Maps & Writeup: 1 / 2 / 3
- Map of New Netherland (Contemporary - Google Maps style) - Map
The First Anglo-Dutch War happens, just as OTL. After the end of the war the Self-Government in New Netherland, that was repealed at the start of this war, is re-established in 1654.
The British nations fall into civil unrest following Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658 as his son Richard is not competent enough to retain the power of the Lord Protector. Charles II doesn’t return to England in 1660.
Due to internal unrest in the British nations, the Second Anglo-Dutch War is more decisive. The Treaty of Breda looks a bit different and readjusts several colonial borders. This includes readjustments to the colonial borders in North America, setting the border at the Versche Rivier (Connecticut River), establishing the small colony of Connetikock with mixed English, Dutch and French settlers already present. The Dutch obviously hold on to New Netherlands and also gain recognition for their rule over the territory of New Sweden (Nieuw-Zweden). With a significant Lutheran Swedish (and Finnish) population there, the New Netherland administration decides to set up a separate colonial administration there, allowing for local autonomy, although the language of administration remains Dutch in both of these colonies.
The unrest in the British nations only ends after William of Orange becomes King of England, Ireland and Scotland in 1689. Mary II doesn’t die from Smallpox in 1694. Instead of several miscarriages William and Mary have several children. The Dutch and British remain politically aligned for the next century.
The French and Indian War still takes place, but this time pits the French against a joint Anglo-Dutch front in North America. Just as OTL, the superior navy cuts off the French from effectively reinforcing their troops in North America. Eventually the Anglo-Dutch alliance occupies New France. The territories south of the Ottawa river is handed over to the Dutch, the area north and east of that river is handed over to the British. The British create the new (mostly French-speaking) colony of Quebec. The Dutch set up a new colony of Merenland (“Land of Lakes”) in what is known as Southern Ontario OTL. The boundary between British and Dutch zones of influence further west is defined as the Ohio river, although neither side of the river is densely populated (by Europeans) at this point in time.
In the years following the French and Indian War, the British and Dutch governments want to share the cost burden with the American colonies, leading to growing unrest there. Much like OTL, the colonies are declared in rebellion and troops are dispatched to restore order. This takes place in both the British and Dutch colonies, although with different levels of intensity. The British colonial forces manage to hold on to most of the areas in New England and Quebec, but lose power over the southern colonies. The Dutch also lose control over most of their holdings in North America. By the early 1790s and due to the French Revolutionary Wars the British and Dutch can’t afford to continue the conflict in North America. The colonies of New Netherland, Connetikock, New Sweden, Merenland, Chesapeake (Virginia, plus what’s left of Maryland), North Carolina , South Carolina and Georgia are recognised as independent. Resistance to British rule continues in New England, but many supporters of independence start moving into the newly independent states to the south and west.
The Continental Coordination Council, which had previously led the war effort against the colonial powers, comes together in 1792 to agree on the Articles of Confederation, forming the Confederation of American States (Confederatie van Amerikaanse Staaten). The individual states retain internal autonomy, especially in terms of language (English or Dutch), their religious policy (Puritan, Reformed, Lutheran, etc.) and the economic model (pre-industrial or plantation-based). The area to the west is subject to overlapping claims from different states but is in practice largely administered as territory. Areas north of the Ohio river generally have Dutch-speaking administrations, whereas territories further south are English-speaking.
In a different version of the War of 1812, the Confederation of American States fights the British for control over North America. The British believe this to be a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. The Americans see it as the first time to truly assert their new sovereignty. The official casus belli is the impressment of New Englanders into British military service, despite the previous peace treaty granting them an exemption from this duty to the crown. The significant number of New Englander exiles living in the Confederation are also a factor, pushing their new home states for a liberation of the provinces that also rebelled against colonial rule but ultimately were retained by the British.
The war is quite similar to OTL, as the British simply lack the numbers in North America and have to rely heavily on Native American allies. On the flipside, the American militia forces are disorganised and can hardly sustain much of an offensive operation. Contrary to what New England exiles want to make, the American government believe the independence movement from Massachusetts to Maine is much weaker than in the late 18th century. Many New Englanders strongly opposed to the crown have already moved south and west. The reminder of the population is largely apolitical, with independentists not numerous enough for a major uprising. Additionally, the mostly Catholic Frenchmen in Quebec are also not too keen to become part of the strongly Protestant Confederation.
In the end, the war ends with a draw and no border changes. Both sides can claim symbolic victories. The British manage to seriously threaten the capital of the Confederation in Christina. The Americans can claim a major victory in the newly-acquired Louisiana towards the very end of the war. The main losers of the conflict are the Native Americans, whom Britain no longer regards as worthwhile allies, instead focusing their efforts on empire-building in other regions of the world.
In the years before and during the war, several new states were formed and admitted to the Confederation. This follows a decision by the Council of the Confederation to rescind all existing States’ claims on territories further west and allow emerging States there to apply for membership. The balance between English- and Dutch-speaking states as well as (some time later) between industrial- and plantation-based economies in these new states will lead to further conflict. For now, all new western States north of the Ohio river are Dutch-speaking and all States south of it are English-speaking.
Louisiana, the southernmost portion of the territory acquired from France, is also admitted with French being the official language there, but English becoming more prominent in practice with southern settlers moving in. For now it remains the Confederation's only officially French-speaking state.
Admitting Vermont - a state with a mixed population and many French and Dutch speakers in an officially English-speaking state - was solved by compromise. Vermont never formally decided on an official language. In practice this means that English, French and Dutch are used to different degrees throughout the State for now.
The language map illustrates the spread of European languages in the CAS, as of 1860. As in OTL, the issue of slavery is leading to a showdown between the Southern states, which rely on plantation-based economies, and the more industrialised North. The majority of immigration, mainly German, Polish and Irish at this point, went into the north and passed through Nieuw Amsterdam. This is reflected in the more “spotty” Dutch in the northern states, compared to the solid blue in the south. German immigrants in particular have an easy time picking up the new language, though, as it’s quite close to what they natively speak.
There has been some migration towards the western coast, mainly starting in western Mizoeri and following a few semi-established trails. The two new western states of Schuyler and Washington (located in OTL California) are a last-ditch effort to find a compromise in the slavery issue by extending the Ohio Line all the way to the Pacific, finally admitting Washington as a slave state and Schuyler as a free state in 1858. After being admitted as a state, the House and Senate of Washington immediately set forth to abolish slavery there, as the majority of voters there are opposed to the institution, despite there being very few slaves in the state at this point. They succeed in 1859, amending Washington’s constitution and leading to ever-worsening tension between free and slave states.
In this timeline, the additional issue of language adds to the difference in culture between the states. Although the division is not as clear, with English-speaking abolitionists in Vermont or Washington and Dutch-speaking proponents of slavery in Mizoeri or (parts of) Texas, the line can generally also be drawn according to the language.
I’d say, based on actual medieval Europe, that peasants weren’t nearly so apathetic. They aggrandized and deified their lords, especially in times of plenty, and could be leery of “foreign” lords who have no knowledge of the people there. The name does a lot, especially in Westerosi society, which is highly fixated on bloodties.
House Bolton’s crimes aren’t nearly as bad as the Freys. The Boltons were traitors, but so were the Karstarks technically, and every other House in rebellion. Meanwhile, the Freys were the ones who actually broke guest right. Additionally House Bolton is seemingly very small as Roose has no mentioned cousins or living siblings. Roose and Ramsay committed crimes, but they were the two remaining members of the House. House Targaryen certainly did worse when you look Aerys, and people still supported Daenerys and even Viserys. Tywin Lannister murdered two entire Houses for rebelling, drowning one in their crypt, and yet he’s still respect and House Lannister would never been judged as a whole for his actions.
Well I’ll think on it given everyone’s feedback. I might have an idea or two for improving it all.
Quantum Immortal
Banned
One thing you can consider, if you haven't already, that apparently in the North it was customary for usurpers of a chiefdom or lordship to take the old family name. Apparently the Starks in the novels isn't the same family as the original Starks, though they may well descend from them in a female line. Could be the same for Boltons, and all the others.
I was thrown by the name at first, but I have to say that (speaking as someone of Jewish descent myself) giving more prominence to Jewish organized crime is actually a pretty neat idea.
Davido
Banned
Westeros is not actual Medieval Europe. If you have read the books then you know a House's reputation is judged on the actions of it's members.. Tywin is not respected, he is feared those are different things and we see how his way of doing things led to his death.. Remind me again, which Westerosi Lord supported Dany and Viserys? The Bolton's crimes are much worse than the Freys, the Freys aren't the only one's to break guest right, something people are not quick to forget, Ramsay forcefully married and starved the Lady Hornwood, he hunted girls for sports in the Bolton lands, I don't see how the smallfolk would diefy and worship someone that regularly hunted their children for sport, we know of how Ramsay was conceived. If Roose and Ramsay are dead, House Bolton is finished, a hypothetical child would be better off not bearing that name..
soviet_killer
Banned
i mean, its not a restriction as much as a quota. You can have more or less than 6, if others have less or more, respectively. This whole thing is cause at one point I did a basic math, assuming that every 20 years the population grows, and assuming advanced medical tech that can mostly remove the dangers of child birth (we already have some of it IRL but I think we're not quite to the point where its as good as is in this timeline).
For citizenship, I think the first criterias were something along the lines of "European and White" and "speaks good Auld French + Renounced their old citizenship + fully integrated within the society".
A funny thing that I keep thinking about is how would the Angevines support polygamy, from a theistic POV. Given the rulers are a 1 male - 1 female pair, it'd be kinda hard to get your average Joe and Jeanne to share their marriage with 2 other girls. And you can't have 1:1 relationships since the population is calculated to be 1:3 ratio. On the other hand, the definition of a 'marriage' is sorta redefined in the Empire. Its pretty egalitarian, in that within the household everyone is of the same rank.
I got many (cursed) ideas for this timeline >.>
soviet_killer
Banned
1. Speak the Empire's language or one of the Accepted Languages (Auld French or French/Latin, respectively)
2. Be of "Angevine" stock (achievable starting from the late 2070s through genetic modifications for everyone, before that, basically be European with some Latin heritage)
3. Loyalty to the Empire (and occassionally, adherence to either the Cult of Venus or one of its localized branches. Easier for Christians in South America to fill this bit, what with the whole weird Catholic-Veneran mix of "Santa Irina")
4. (Not applicable after the 2050s) Serve in the Imperial Army for a minimum of 6 months. (Given the Empire was at war with practically all its neighbours till like the 2070s 6 months saw you go from boot camp to fighting child soldiers in Central Africa).
Firstly, you notice that upon Tywin’s death everything didn’t fall apart in the Westerlands. No one was rebelling or uprising because there was more than just fear of Tywin himself. We’re talking about the smallfolk here. Tywin’s schemes fell apart, his own dominion did not. We rarely ever get a view of the smallfolk period. Many want to be left alone, but several times characters are asked who they fight for and its clear that the wrong answer could mean a negative reaction.
And guest right is literally a sacred ancient tradition that is believed will bring divine retribution if broken. It’s a huge deal, especially to more superstitious smallfolk. Meanwhile, we don’t know how widely known Lady Hornwood’s cause of death is, and his hunts are a secret. Roose was very clear about keeping things “quiet” and hidden. He resents Ramsay whenever he is loud and lacking in discretion. The hunts occurred on noble land with only Ramsay and his Bastard Boys around, well and Reek being there too.
Also Roose maintains his right of firsts discretely. People fear him, but his reign has bee calm. He didn’t barge in and murder everyone openly, he went to the miller and hung him to be found later. And then the woman he raped turned out to be a real psycho and raised Ramsay to believe he deserved to be lord and never spoke of his conception.
Furthermore, the Boltons are old. Ancient, even, and have ruled the land for centuries. Far as we can tell, since they’re rebellion was out down, they have been decent rulers, with good harvests, large armies, and low crime. Roose is pretty sadistic but even his son was beloved as a gentle and compassionate man, and this wasn’t noted as highly anomalous, implying there have been good Boltons and bad over the years. Ramsay will likely have his bastard status used as a scapegoat too.
I just feel you’re overestimating that the status of a House that is thousands of years old can be so utterly destroyed as to have no loyalists alive at all within one lifetime.
House Blackfyre took their name from a sword so maybe House Longclaw?
- Status