Hmm, it would need to be an adjective, so Heartlander SFAR. Not sure if people would like being called Heartlanders (which would inevitably get shortened to Hearts)?
Thanks for the catch with the missing label. It's fixed now!
Map Thread XX
- Thread starter Balkanized U.S.A
- Start date
- Status
Thanks for the catch with the missing label. It's fixed now!
You could potentially call it SFAR of the Heartland, written as just SFAR Heartland, or SFAR Homeland if you're feeling a bit more jingoistic about it
For something like a year now, I've been working on a timeline in (relative) secret. I technically started working on it in 2016, but only now have I been working on it in earnest. Unlike "World Born at Tilsit," which was not plotted out anymore than a part ahead at time and, as a result, had shaky foundations, this timeline will be completed plotted out from the start to finish with the hopes that leads to a stronger foundation. However, I will admit that I do want to hint at some of the going-ons in the timeline, so I will give you this. Who knows, maybe if you guys ask hard enough, I might offer some loose insight into this world (that's not presented on the maps).
Last edited:
This was interesting. I would like to see more of this world.
isot thing i made of my home state (minnesota) to a virgin earth
the tan is not united, it is a sea of bordergore and independent farmer towns that i don't want to draw out
the lines in the tan are the big states influence over the farming towns
if you have any questions or want to know what the states are, dont hesitate to ask
the tan is not united, it is a sea of bordergore and independent farmer towns that i don't want to draw out
the lines in the tan are the big states influence over the farming towns
if you have any questions or want to know what the states are, dont hesitate to ask
soviet_killer
Banned
The All-Russian Committee on the Restoration of Order, Tradition, Culture and Racial Purity
in the lands of the former Russian Empire, the Russian people and dependencies, led by His Imperial Majesty,
By God, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russias, Tsar Andrei I of Romanov.
The war in Europe ended, not without a harsh price. The entirety of the Rhineland region is a radioactive wasteland, thanks to Operation Divine Punishment, which saw the large scale of nuclear warheads as support for the bogged down ground troops.
Russia restored itself, and like a phoenix, arose once more to dominate Europe. The Socialists in Germany, and then the Accelerationists in France, saw the might of the Imperial Army.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Any "USA"s of note? What's with the governments claiming the borders of other non-Minnesota states? Who's that in Chicago?
1. No USA's, not yet. Closest thing to a USA would be the North Star Republic, the dark green in the north.
2. The Wisconsin one was started by Wisconsonians that got stuck in the Twin Cities when the isot happened. They are determined to bring Wisconsin back to its former glory. (Honestly, idk why the dakota ones claim their states, maybe they were also formed by people from those states?)
3. The guys in Chicago are New Chicago. They were among the first to leave and try to see if the outside world was really gone. They set up a tiny outpost where Chicago used to be, and slowly grew from there. They claim to be the successors of "Chicago", and thus claim the metro area.
Definitely fairly middle-of-the-road for the category of hellworlds where the CSA survives, but the ultra-generic flags are a nice touch....
Taking a break from speculating on a planet with apes in to finish a map from the “in progress” limbo: an Ottoman-wank based on the AH/Time travel novel “Empire of Lies” by Raymond Khoury, in which an ISIS member stumbles across what’s essentially a Naked Time-Travel magic spell (I kid you not) and travels back in time (covered with tattoos of valuable information) to do a Guns of the South for the 17th century Ottoman Empire. He dies before he can really cement Islamic global dominance, having to skip ahead to the future to get a medical problem taken care of, and when returning in a hurry fails to take into account a ground level difference of roughly fifty feet.
So, science and technology get a boost from knowledge imported from the future, but then get set back by the destruction of much of Europe and the fact that the 17th century Ottoman empire is a tough place to get a full scientific-industrial revolution going, even if you don’t die a lot sooner than you expected. The result by the early 21st century is essentially a null result, with technology only a little more advanced than OTL if at all.
Those European powers with American colonies fled abroad, although Britain, which had a relatively relaxed history of dealing with the Ottomans, managed to pull off a “fully self-governing loyal vassal” agreement that made flight unnecessary, although they built up their colonies as a fallback. (Only for said colonies to revolt against the “corrupt and un-Christian rule of king George, that puppet of the Turk.” Well, you can’t win them all. The Ottomans took a long time to consolidate their rule over continental Europe, and never really got around to invading the Americas (there’s only so much on modern naval technology you can tattoo on one buttock), so things eventually stabilized with a cold war of sorts between the Americas and the Ottoman-dominated Old World (although once the European settlers in the Americas got to the point where they felt fairly safe from cross-Atlantic invasion, they promptly started fighting amongst themselves).
Today, a rather overextended Ottoman Empire is turning sharply in the direction of authoritarianism, the liberalizing and reforming rule of the former Sultan is being replaced by reaction and oppression under his conservative successor, with the support of religious hardliners and authoritarian types alarmed by popular agitation for greater regional self-rule and greater use of “consultation.” Things have not been improved by an economic pinch caused by a sharp decline in oil sales abroad, thanks to the Christian Republic of America’s successful technological push to entirely free themselves from foreign oil dependence through a mix of renewables, solar power, and atomic power. (Technology which they are gratuitously sharing with the Russians and even the heathen Chinese, although the Chinese don’t import a lot of oil anyway) The brutal repression is leading some Muslim nations to look askance at Ottoman dominance, and terrorism is on the rise within the Empire (although it’s hard for outside observers to tell what is actual resistance to the regime and what is false flag operations meant to blacken the reputation of dissenters).
All this is observed with much self-satisfaction by the Christian Republic, which has been predicting a return to “tyranny” on the part of the Ottomans for a while. And the Republic is a democracy - as long as you’re white and an evangelical protestant Christian. (Other sorts of protestants are tolerated. Catholics are denied the vote. Jews can damn well stay in Ottoman territory, and Muslims are Beyond the Pale).It’s also sort of on the racist side - slavery ended earlier than in our timeline, but black people still don’t have the vote unless they can demonstrate at least ¾ white ancestry [1] - they’re considered both genetically challenged and potential Moorish Sympathizers (most of black Africa is Muslim, and there are a lot of black Ottomans walking around like they were equal to white people).
The Dutch Union is the Christian Republic’s Protestant Little Buddy (less than half of American citizens think being Dutch Reformed means you’re hell-bound) if a bit dubious in their excessive tolerance of Jews and even polytheists. Relations with Brazil are at least correct, even if they’re dirty half-black Catholics: there’s still some ties from the old Portuguese-British alliance and they have no territorial disputes.
Relations with New Spain are, as always, terrible, although the government buys a lot of discounted cutting-edge weapons from the Christian Republic to help fight the Communalists, using Brazilian intermediaries for deniability. (Even in polite society, one is expected to spit when one mentions the CRA).
(A lot of that and what is on the map is speculative, since the book focuses mostly on Ottoman France and the 17th century past, and little detail is given about the rest of the world, although Russia and China still exist in some form as independent states, and the Christian Republic is roughly described).
[1] An innovation of a Christian-Technocratic president big on "rational" Race Science, and strongly opposed by the One Drop crowd.
So, science and technology get a boost from knowledge imported from the future, but then get set back by the destruction of much of Europe and the fact that the 17th century Ottoman empire is a tough place to get a full scientific-industrial revolution going, even if you don’t die a lot sooner than you expected. The result by the early 21st century is essentially a null result, with technology only a little more advanced than OTL if at all.
Those European powers with American colonies fled abroad, although Britain, which had a relatively relaxed history of dealing with the Ottomans, managed to pull off a “fully self-governing loyal vassal” agreement that made flight unnecessary, although they built up their colonies as a fallback. (Only for said colonies to revolt against the “corrupt and un-Christian rule of king George, that puppet of the Turk.” Well, you can’t win them all. The Ottomans took a long time to consolidate their rule over continental Europe, and never really got around to invading the Americas (there’s only so much on modern naval technology you can tattoo on one buttock), so things eventually stabilized with a cold war of sorts between the Americas and the Ottoman-dominated Old World (although once the European settlers in the Americas got to the point where they felt fairly safe from cross-Atlantic invasion, they promptly started fighting amongst themselves).
Today, a rather overextended Ottoman Empire is turning sharply in the direction of authoritarianism, the liberalizing and reforming rule of the former Sultan is being replaced by reaction and oppression under his conservative successor, with the support of religious hardliners and authoritarian types alarmed by popular agitation for greater regional self-rule and greater use of “consultation.” Things have not been improved by an economic pinch caused by a sharp decline in oil sales abroad, thanks to the Christian Republic of America’s successful technological push to entirely free themselves from foreign oil dependence through a mix of renewables, solar power, and atomic power. (Technology which they are gratuitously sharing with the Russians and even the heathen Chinese, although the Chinese don’t import a lot of oil anyway) The brutal repression is leading some Muslim nations to look askance at Ottoman dominance, and terrorism is on the rise within the Empire (although it’s hard for outside observers to tell what is actual resistance to the regime and what is false flag operations meant to blacken the reputation of dissenters).
All this is observed with much self-satisfaction by the Christian Republic, which has been predicting a return to “tyranny” on the part of the Ottomans for a while. And the Republic is a democracy - as long as you’re white and an evangelical protestant Christian. (Other sorts of protestants are tolerated. Catholics are denied the vote. Jews can damn well stay in Ottoman territory, and Muslims are Beyond the Pale).It’s also sort of on the racist side - slavery ended earlier than in our timeline, but black people still don’t have the vote unless they can demonstrate at least ¾ white ancestry [1] - they’re considered both genetically challenged and potential Moorish Sympathizers (most of black Africa is Muslim, and there are a lot of black Ottomans walking around like they were equal to white people).
The Dutch Union is the Christian Republic’s Protestant Little Buddy (less than half of American citizens think being Dutch Reformed means you’re hell-bound) if a bit dubious in their excessive tolerance of Jews and even polytheists. Relations with Brazil are at least correct, even if they’re dirty half-black Catholics: there’s still some ties from the old Portuguese-British alliance and they have no territorial disputes.
Relations with New Spain are, as always, terrible, although the government buys a lot of discounted cutting-edge weapons from the Christian Republic to help fight the Communalists, using Brazilian intermediaries for deniability. (Even in polite society, one is expected to spit when one mentions the CRA).
(A lot of that and what is on the map is speculative, since the book focuses mostly on Ottoman France and the 17th century past, and little detail is given about the rest of the world, although Russia and China still exist in some form as independent states, and the Christian Republic is roughly described).
[1] An innovation of a Christian-Technocratic president big on "rational" Race Science, and strongly opposed by the One Drop crowd.
Last edited:
The Great American War (roughly TTL's equivalent of the Civil War but a century later, combined with Mexican conflicts with Texas and Californian rebels) casts a long shadow over these borders, especially in the southeast. Kanawha (mega-West Virginia) is part of that - the fruit of a series of mining rebellions, both Anglo and among Black miners in penal colonies and leased operations, culminating in an eventually successful one in the opening months of the war. Ideologically social-democratic* and geopolitically fearful of revanchism, Kanawha is closely tied to the other states in the Southern American Community - the purple states, contrasting with the yellow of the Conference of Southern States.
Most of the SAC is made up of majority-Black** states carved out of the pre-war southern states - Fredonia in South Carolina less the Upcountry and Southern Georgia, the Mississippi Free State from Memphis to the Gulf, and the clunkily-named Republic of West Florida, Tombigbee, and Escambia in southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Other participants include Francophone Acadiana, a Texian protectorate of unclear racial categorization, East Florida, which was majority-Black at independence*** but has since seen a lot of Caribbean and Latin American migration that shifted the demographic balance substantially, and the aforementioned Kanawha. The SAC and its constituent states were founded for several reasons: the humanitarian crisis of leaving freedmen and -women in states that might be dominated by their former masters****, local independentist sentiments, and geopolitical concerns over Texian sea lanes between the Gulf and the Atlantic and revanchists being able to communicate or trade unrestricted with overseas interested parties.*****
Virginia was essentially forcibly made part of the American system, but has since grown more and not less integrated - quite aside from concerns over the military junta in Chesapeake, the scary reds in Kanawha, and revanchists in Jacksonia (renamed from Carolina in the '90s), the shipyards of Norfolk see more business with Virginia not part of a dysfunctional pariah state, Richmond is growing into something like OTL Atlanta, and even the conservative upper class dislikes the upjumped crackers of the CSS at least as much as the Americans and the SACers - they may be Yankees and Negroes, but at least they're people you can do business with.
*With Marx dead at the hands of August Willich, 'socialism' is a broader ideological movement. With that and Texas frantically shoveling settlers in to change their demographic balance and provide a buffer against the Comanche, utopian socialism is more successful and prevalent. With both of those things, 'social democracy' more or less means socialism that intends to govern a state rather than just exist within or in parallel to it, either parliamentarily or after a revolution.
**The de facto independence of the Southern States, which wanted to keep their labor force right where they were and retained slavery right up until the GAW, prevented the Great Migration - many Black people did migrate north or west, but not a very large amount.
***Fun fact: with Texian supersonic pilots wanting neither to spend fuel jagging south or risk jumpy aerospace-control gunners in Spanish Cuba, a corridor of majority-Black and relatively poor Northern Florida has been reserved for supersonic flight. This is vaguely a cause celebre among socially-conscious Texians, but unfortunately for Pilatka residents who might want to buy windows, there's not much movement on that.
****A substantial number of Black people were left behind by the shifting borders. To some extent this was unavoidable - there's not really any space large enough for a functional state in the South that doesn't have a lot of black people - but also, with economies still dependent on agriculture and the Venn diagram of 'places in the South suitable for agriculture' and 'places in the South that have largely Black residents' being a circle, the victorious powers didn't want to create an Anglo migrant crisis at the outset. The borders were deliberately drawn, though, so that if the situation got too bad in Alabama enterprising freedmen could easily cross the border for WFTE, and so on with other states.
*****Could a sufficiently motivated smuggler bribe port agents to look the other way as a shipping container full of mislabeled French military materiel makes its way through the Port of Wilmington, load it onto an eighteen-wheeler, drive fourteen hours to the Tennessee-Missouri border, bribe more guards at both sides of the bootheel to drive over thirty-five miles of bad road (probably closer to forty if you don't get lucky with the patrol schedule), then go south through Arkansas to the Winn County barn used as a warehouse for the All-Louisiana Anglo-Saxon People's Liberation Front? Yeah, probably. Do people actually do this? ...maybe. Also, cocaine is legal in Louisiana and Arkansas but illegal in all of the surrounding countries, and it still gets sold, so clearly there's some substantial smuggling activity afoot, though it's not clear whether it's through that route or up through Acadiana - or, indeed, smuggled by air.
Last edited:
Spring of Nations
The 1848 Revolutions of Europe raged against and quickly toppled the traditional monarchical institutions of the continent. Beginning on the Island of Sicily in January, it quickly spread to the streets of Paris who swiftly knocked down their King Louise Philippe and set up a provisional government. The news of the revolution in Paris quickly spread to the rest of Europe, the Austrian Emperor and Prussian King fled to Britain, the nobles of Ruthenia and Romania fled to Russia and the Pope fled to what was left of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In their wake they left a Europe for the working and middle class of Europe.The prime motivators for the revolts were a popular nationalistic opposition to the multi-ethnic empires of Austria and Prussia, disenfranchisement of the conservative rollbacks of the reformations made by Napoleon in parts of Europe and the wealth inequality between the upper classes and the middle and working classes. The revolutions were especially inspired by the wishes of the peoples of Germany, Italy, Romania, Poland and the South Slavs to live in united nation states.
The fresh German republics were quick to organize an All-German National Assembly in Frankfurt to organize a united German Federal Republic. Upon freeing themselves from the Russian, Ottoman and Austrian empires, the Romanian peoples united their three lands into a single country. The bickering of the Italian states over what a united Italy would look like led nowhere. To combat the conflict of interest between Austria and Prussia inside the German Republic they were forced to abandon all of their non-Germanic lands, the state of Hesse-Thuringia was also formed as a first step in the German mediatisation.
As the conservative monarchical powers of Great Britain and Russia loomed over the radical mainland, popular support of the Pan-European ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini soon arose all around republican Europe. He proposed a common Federation of European Republics to organize against any attempts by Russia or Britain to re-install the old kings and emperors.
Though the Federation of European Republics is a global powerhouse, it's internally divided. In France an increasingly disenfranchised peasant class gawk at the bickering of Liberals and Socialists in the capital. In Germany conflicts between Austria and Prussia keep on slowing down full centralization, and the mainly socialist Rhine Republic alienates the largely liberal politics of the other German republics. Territorial disputes over Alsace between the Germans and French, as well as French claims over Belgium, may in the future boil over into a civil war. The republics of the South Slavs, Poland and Ruthenia agitate for war with the Ottoman Empire and Russia to free their brethren, and the Schleswig-Holstein Question is still a point of contention between the Danes and Germans.
To answer the Note no.29:
In my copy of 1984, "Havaşeridi Bir".
Thought, I would expect Ottoman Turkish to be different. (Also, the term isn't really used for runways in Turkish. The term in use is "Post" or "Uçak Pisti".)
Polska my dear polska... o kurwa
Spring of NationsThe 1848 Revolutions of Europe raged against and quickly toppled the traditional monarchical institutions of the continent. Beginning on the Island of Sicily in January, it quickly spread to the streets of Paris who swiftly knocked down their King Louise Philippe and set up a provisional government. The news of the revolution in Paris quickly spread to the rest of Europe, the Austrian Emperor and Prussian King fled to Britain, the nobles of Ruthenia and Romania fled to Russia and the Pope fled to what was left of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In their wake they left a Europe for the working and middle class of Europe.
The prime motivators for the revolts were a popular nationalistic opposition to the multi-ethnic empires of Austria and Prussia, disenfranchisement of the conservative rollbacks of the reformations made by Napoleon in parts of Europe and the wealth inequality between the upper classes and the middle and working classes. The revolutions were especially inspired by the wishes of the peoples of Germany, Italy, Romania, Poland and the South Slavs to live in united nation states.
The fresh German republics were quick to organize an All-German National Assembly in Frankfurt to organize a united German Federal Republic. Upon freeing themselves from the Russian, Ottoman and Austrian empires, the Romanian peoples united their three lands into a single country. The bickering of the Italian states over what a united Italy would look like led nowhere. To combat the conflict of interest between Austria and Prussia inside the German Republic they were forced to abandon all of their non-Germanic lands, the state of Hesse-Thuringia was also formed as a first step in the German mediatisation.
As the conservative monarchical powers of Great Britain and Russia loomed over the radical mainland, popular support of the Pan-European ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini soon arose all around republican Europe. He proposed a common Federation of European Republics to organize against any attempts by Russia or Britain to re-install the old kings and emperors.
Though the Federation of European Republics is a global powerhouse, it's internally divided. In France an increasingly disenfranchised peasant class gawk at the bickering of Liberals and Socialists in the capital. In Germany conflicts between Austria and Prussia keep on slowing down full centralization, and the mainly socialist Rhine Republic alienates the largely liberal politics of the other German republics. Territorial disputes over Alsace between the Germans and French, as well as French claims over Belgium, may in the future boil over into a civil war. The republics of the South Slavs, Poland and Ruthenia agitate for war with the Ottoman Empire and Russia to free their brethren, and the Schleswig-Holstein Question is still a point of contention between the Danes and Germans.
As promised, here's a qbam of my idea. I also have a big wbam in the works, so that'll come eventually.
THE WESTERN CONTINENTS: TURTLE ISLAND, ANAHUAC, AND ABYA YALA
Point of Divergence: The cocoliztli epidemic arises before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas*. The plague spreads quickly along trade routes, but as a result, the adaptive immune system of Indigenous peoples is strengthened, better preparing them for incoming diseases.
ANAHUAC (Mexico)
In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrives on the shores of what he believes to be India. At the time, the Americas (they instead become known as Turtle Island, Anahuac, and Abya Yala) have a population of roughly 100 million, a fifth of the world’s population. Historically-speaking, Europeans were usually outpaced by the diseases they brought, therefore stumbling upon the smoking ruins of advanced civilizations. Where Europeans came with their diseases, Indigenous societies were wrought by plagues, which caused civil wars, which the Europeans took advantage of. This does not happen in this timeline.
While the Taíno, better prepared for Eurasian diseases, put up a greater fight, the Spaniards still conquer the Caribbean. As historically, the Spaniards enslave the Indigenous peoples there in mines and plantations, though a greater threat of rebellion means conditions are improved somewhat.
Eager for more gold, Hernan Cortés lands on the shores of the mainland. There, an empire led by the Mexica (Aztecs) are the fragile hegemon of the region. As historically, Cortés is almost defeated by the locals, but they are impressed by Spanish technology and horses and decide to ally with them against the Mexica. Together with the major rival of the Mexica, the Tlaxcaltec, Cortés marches toward Tenochtitlan. While a plague of smallpox spreads, it is much less lethal than historically.
Moctezuma II, King of the Mexica, receives the strange Spaniards. Cortés kidnaps him, holds him hostage, then murders him. Escaping the panicked city, the Spaniards join together with their allies and siege Tenochtitlan, sparking an all-out rebellion. Tenochtitlan is burned to the ground, but the Spaniards are greatly weakened from battles with the more numerous Mexica. With greater population and strength, the Tlaxcaltec are able to negotiate as the Spaniards’ superiors: in return for gold and permission to settle at Veracruz, the Spaniards will give the Tlaxcaltec their support and supplies of horses and guns. With this valuable aid, the Tlaxcaltec expand to be a regional hegemon over all Nahua people over the region. In their capital city, gilded with seized riches, the Tlaxcaltec leaders compete for political power and command of armies. Ambitious men seize power every few decades, though are soon checked by numerous rivals.
To the south, the Spaniards make an alliance with the largest of the many Maya city-states, Chichen Itza, with a similar framework as the Spanish-Tlaxcala deal: guns for goods. Chichen Itza expands through the Yucatan Peninsula over the next century, conquering its rivals and organizing an empire.
In Europe, less gold from the Americas and the spread of contagions from returning Spanish soldiers results in an unstable Spanish crown. Portugal and France press rivalrous claims to the Spanish throne; ultimately, Spanish colonies in the Caribbean are divided and the Treaty of Tordesillas is thrown out the window. Portugal looks for an ally of its own in Anahuac, finding one in Tzintzuntzan. While a tributary of the Tlaxcaltec, Tzintzuntzan has mastered bronze technology and quickly throws off its imperial overlords once equipped with guns. In a number of wars, Tzintzuntzan marches east and comes close to sacking the city of Tlaxcala, but is repelled. Lake Texcoco, once the populous core of the Aztec Empire, becomes a ruined borderland of walls and fortress between the two competing powers. The independent states of the region seek security through cooperation. Teotitlan and the Mixtec, surrounded by the Tlaxcaltec and their allies, pledge allegiance to Tzintzuntzan. The Emperor in Tzintzuntzan has entered negotiations with the Maya to the east, hoping to organize an alliance to crush the Tlaxcaltec once and for all.
In the Yucatan, France and Portugal support rivals to Chichen Itza. Faced by drought, the empire collapses, but is reformed as an equal league between the city-states. Each city has connections with Europeans, hosting merchants eager to sell weapons.
Meanwhile, the Protestant powers seek to make money in the Caribbean. England finds an ally in the growing Nicarao Kingdom, which competes for control of the isthmus with an empire to the south, the largest polity in the world.
ABYA YALA (South America)
Francisco Pizarro, inspired by the success of Cortés, marches into the lands of Abya Yala in the 1520s. There, he finds a much more unified Tawantinsuyu (Inca Empire). With smallpox much less effective, Sapa Inca Huayna Capac survived his infection. Pizarro makes an alliance with Atawallpa, an illegitimate son of the Sapa Inca who was passed over as heir, and attempts to assassinate Huayna Capac in a diplomatic meeting. However, Huayna Capac survives, the Spaniards are repelled and the Sapa Inca leads a campaign against the newcomers and his rebellious son. Cortés and Atawallpa are defeated in battle; while the latter is captured and imprisoned, the Spaniards are executed or enslaved, their weapons and horses taken.
While Tawantinsuyu has cold relations with the Europeans for some time, they reach an agreement by the late 1500s and begin trading. Equipped with Spanish arms, Tawantinsuyu is able to expand north to the Caribbean and south through Argentina*. There, the Mapuche are either annexed as tributaries or displaced further south, though continuously raid into the Empire. Portuguese merchants introduce horses and wheat to the area, while farmers from the dominant Quechua lands make the area a breadbasket of the Empire. The Southern Region, Qullasuyu, was once an equal quarter of the empire, but now has a much greater population. The nobles in charge there are eager to exercise their influence over the capital city of Cuzco, and have been whispering to the Portuguese about a plot to displace the pro-Spanish Sapa Inca.
Along the coast, Portugal makes an alliance with the Tupi peoples, aiding in the formation of a league. The non-Tupi find allies in the French and Dutch, but the Tupi League already has a leg up on its rivals. Proxy competition lasts for centuries. At the mouth of the Amazon river, the Marajo Kingdom, an advanced polity with many tributaries, lasts through smallpox epidemics and continues to project its power into the local area, though is rivaled by the Tapajo and Xingu confederacies upstream. Marajo finds an unlikely ally in Latvia, whose attempts to build fortresses in the Lesser Antilles are successful.
TURTLE ISLAND (North America)
Besides Hernando de Soto and Ponce de Leon, Turtle Island (North America) does not have much contact with Europeans over the 1500s. Smallpox, nevertheless, spreads, but Indigenous societies recover, being better equipped from previous epidemics. Horses spread as well, diffusing from the south. The natives of the Great Plains quickly take advantage; they’re better able to hunt buffalo and form vast confederations similar to the khanates of Central Asia. The Apache march south and conquer the Diné, Hualapai, and other societies in the deserts to the north of Tlaxcala. Coahuiltec is brought under the fold as a tributary, while the Comanche are restricted to east of the Rio Grande*. The Apache are limited by the Rocky Mountains and by the many principalities along the Pacific Coast, who form an alliance of convenience to repel the Apache. The Yokuts, taking control of the Apache’s left-behind herds, continue to harass the coastal states, however. To the south, along the California* peninsula, Tongva and Chochimi conduct trade with Tzintzuntzan and other states in Anahuac, quickly making lots of wealth.
Other nations also take advantage of the introduction of horses. The Shoshone and Blackfoot to the north form vast confederacies, while the Niukonska (Osage) and Oceti Sakowin (Sioux) elect a unified leader to stop the expansion of a grand centralized state based in the city of Cahokia*, the Empire of the Mississippi.
With the arrival of French merchants on the Mississippi, hoping to sell guns for fur and gold, the Mississippian Empire is able to absorb neighboring nations and craft a vast tributary empire. Downstream, the Tula, Caddo, and Choctaw confederacies, buckling under the rule of the Emperor in Cahokia, hope to curry favor among one of France’s allies to sell them guns. Some local leaders have begun to stockpile them and negotiate in secret with Niukonska and Oceti Sakowin. [Cahokia is generally thought to have collapsed 150 years before Europeans arrived. However, there’s no reason the polity centered at that city could not have been recovered, especially if European diseases are less lethal. This is especially likely if Cahokia was a religious center as well.]
In the Southeast of Turtle Island, a number of confederacies and kingdoms buckle for control. With the expansion of empires from the west and another from the north, they’ll have to overcome their political differences to avoid annexation as well.
Centered along the south of Lake Ontario, the five nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) have marched in all directions to defeat the rivalrous nations increasingly armed with French guns. Backed by the Dutch, who were leased land to form the city of New Amsterdam, the Haudenosaunee absorb nations as far south as the Shawnee and Powhatan into a tributary empire. The French, cut off from lucrative beaver fur, doubled sales to the Empire of Mississippi, hoping to displace the Haudenosaunee. Along the Wabash River, Haudenosaunee and Mississippi fight battle after battle with no clear victory in sight. Many are caught in the middle of the warring empires.
To the northeast, the Wabanaki and Massachusett have formed a wide-reaching confederacy to ward off Haudenosaunee intrusion. They’ve successfully played both the French and the English at Plymouth for superior trade deals. While a peace treaty exists with the Haudenosaunee, the expiration is soon approaching, and both armies are preparing for war.
CONCLUSION
Contact was not all-bad or all-good. Crops were exchanged, blocking famines. Diseases travelled back and forth between the Atlantic, though greater viruses travelled with the Europeans. The Europeans also brought valuable tools with them. Horses allowed for the people of the Great Plains to better hunt buffalo and to form vast states to secure their independence. However, conquerors also rode on horseback, defeating those who failed to take advantage of the new mode of transportation. The arrival of firearms and, to a lesser extent, steel played the biggest role in changing interstate relations. Guns only grew more accurate, while steel made many weapons ineffective through armor. Those who were able to purchase those technologies from Europeans were able to conquer their neighbors, forming vast gunpowder empires comparable to their contemporaries in Asia. Without guns, the Mexica Empire fell, while the soldiers of Tawantinsuyu, armed with muskets, formed one of the largest empires that ever was. With greater power came greater intrigue and greater war. The low-intensity flower and mourning wars were replaced with vast campaigns and standing armies.
While the Western continents are going through their own Warring States period, the arrival of the printing press has brought with it a boom in intellectual production. Mythologies and religions are in flow, philosophers publish treatises read for kilometers, and ideas from Eurasia are digested through Indigenous lenses. However, as industrial smoke rises over cities in Europe, those who’ve watched the competition in the West with greed and hunger slowly and surely draw their plans of conquest.
(Names followed by an * are different in this alternate history, but for convenience as referred to as in our timeline)
Last edited:
- Status