Map Thread XXI

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Greater USA and British Empire, by Alex0505
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Despite some troubles with my computer (screen cracked, no computer for ~3 weeks) the next part of this project is complete! While I usually post these in series of 10, I decided to post these three for being, well, exceptionally large. Enjoy!
 
Russo-Ukrainian conflict, by NeonHydroxide
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Less than 80 years ago, Russia was considered the world's second great power and on track to become a Eurasian hegemon. It survived two brutal wars which stripped it of its most valuable and populous territory, three revolutions and two civil wars which devestated its remaining industrial heartland, and a smattering of coups and counter-coups which denied it the political stability it needed to recover.

Yet, by the early 1980s, there was still hope for Russia's future as a great power. The years of instability following the collapse of the Soviet Union gave way to a steady and somewhat liberal (if still overwhelmingly corrupt) government in Perm. New trade relations with China and the Central Asian states gave its economy a much-needed boost. Years of American support had rebuilt its army into an outwardly potent force. Most critically, the collapse of the German hegemony in eastern Europe paved the way to reunification with Moscow in 1981, giving the state new territories much richer and more developed than its Ural heartlands. Russia's leaders, symbolically re-situated in the former border city of Nizhny Novgorod, looked forwards to a new era where they could regain geopolitical influence by acting as a balancer between East and West.

But the government had made a critical mistake in assuming the ambivalent but open attitude in Berlin extended to its former puppet states in Eastern Europe. Especially in Kharkiv, East Europe's leaders saw the rapid collapse of the Muscovite state as a warning of the further expansion of Russian democratic influence into their own shaky regimes - and resolved to reverse it. In 1984, the Ukrainian army invaded Russia's Volga provinces under the thin cover of a Tatar insurgent army. In the months that followed, the Russian army performed shockingly poorly, taking large casualties and losing huge stocks of equipment in the face of the better-funded and more professional Ukrainian army. Eventually, under joint German and American pressure, the conflict was frozen through a peace agreement which left much of the southern Volga in Ukrainian hands.

Now, the largest Ukrainian mobilization in history has led Nizhny Novgorod and Washington to believe Kharkiv is on the brink of launching a full invasion to push Russia back behind the Volga for good. Despite eight years of investment and support from the West, the Russian army's problems with underfunding, corruption, and technological weakness are still rampant. The conflict, if it does come, will decide for good the fate of Russia's continued status as a great power.
 
After years of abuse and mistreatment, I've decided to give poor old Poland a break.

Welcome to a world where an entire nation's water supply was contaminated with Felix Felicis for hundreds of years.

Welcome to a world were Teutonic Cossacks patrol the Steppes, emancipated serfs cultivate the potato and the sugar beet, and an educated class of Yiddish clerks and administrators oversee the extraction, manufacture and trade of furs, salt, copper, gold, textiles and much, much more. English artisans supervise naval projects and German and Dutch stonemasons and architects dig canals and pave roads. French and Swiss master gunsmiths are employed in the armories of Tula and the Kama valley, producing the instruments of eastward expansion into the dangerous steppe.



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Imladris on Ural?))
 
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The world in 1400 BC, as of the latest turn of my map game Cradles of Civilization (part of the Historica series).

Link to the post (as well as links to other projects, now antiquated) can be found in the Factory, my test thread.
 
[No Particular Lore] - The Ethnic Map of the Ottoman Empire c. 2022
thoughts and comments?

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The Arabs seem to be given too much visible space, and you can barely see the Tauregs. Despite that, I imagine they actually live in the areas they are shown as having, while I doubt Arabs are elsewhere. I think the Ottomans might also not like it too seem like Arabs are or should be the dominant group in the empire, so showing Bedouins as their own group could help. I also don’t think Maronites are ethnically Arab, even if they speak the language these days. Maybe show Jews in Salonica? Might be they don’t actually have the numbers to make up a majority there or enough o be shown on the map. Kind of reminds me of US Census maps on religion actually, and how Mormons get such a vast area on the map partially as they get a lot of empty space filled in. Interesting you have Macedonia marked as Bulgarian. I suppose they still thought of them as the same Slavic people back then.
 
The Romanovs Jeverland: a Russian Warm-Water Port, in the stlye of u/Alagremm by u/notreallydavid
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The Jever territory is a small Russian Enclave surrounded entirely by German territory on the Jade bay that is host to the Romanov monarchy in exile. It is from this small strip of land the current Empress Catherine III, even after over 120 years of absence and 2 world wars, claims to be the rightful ruler of the vast territories of the former Russian Empire that today encompass 17 internationally recognized nations and several states of varying recognition. The Russian democratic government based in Moscow in turn raises no claim to the Jeverland and recognizes it as part of Germany, a policy first established by the Soviet Union who's allied government in East Germany considered the Jever to be part of it's territory. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the reunified German government makes no claim official to the enclave.

The Lordship of Jever has been in personal union with the Russian monarchy since Catherine the Great inherited the title to the land from her younger brother Friedrich August, last Prince of the House Anhalt-Zerbst and a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, who died without heir in 1793. Despite this new union with a great power, little of the eastern sovereign's presence was felt in the Jeverland, which continued to be administered by elected majors. This first period of Russian rule came to an abrupt end just 14 years later when Napoleon's armies swept through Europe and conquered the Lordship. It was first annexed to the newly established Dutch Kingdom and later the French Empire itself where it was incorporated into the Department of the Ems. Under French rule the coastal areas experienced a decade of relative prosperity as they were spared from direct fighting and the quiet beaches proved popular with smugglers attempting to circumvent the continental system imposed by Napoleon. The Corsican Emperor's rule was to be short lived too as in 1813, following the disastrous defeats in Russia and at Leipzig, the French garrison abandoned Jever without fight which was liberated soon after by column of Russian cossacks lead by Baron von Dorst. His image can still be seen today on the statue of Russian-German Friendship in Hohenkirchen.

During the Congress of Vienna Tsar Alexander, who had been greatly impressed by the enthusiasm the people of Jever showed towards him, upheld his claim to the territory. This second period of Russian rule proved to be much like the first, with the Jeverland ruling itself mostly autonomously and unaffected by Russian affairs for more than fifty years. This period of peace and quiet came to and end during the unification of Germany when the question of the status of Jever naturally arose and came to a violent head in 1872 when a pan-germanist revolt was suppressed by Russian soldiers. An international crisis could narrowly be averted when careful diplomacy by Bismark, who was intent on avoiding Russian-German hostilities at all costs, managed to preserve the status-quo. For the next thirty years this little changed in this arrangement, though any sentiment Jever accession to Germany was heavily censored and Russian military presence would become a constant of life in the Jever.

In 1905 disaster struck the Romanov Dynasty. Following a crushing defeat against the Japanese, decades of political repression and failure to reform the antiquated Russian state culminated in the January Revolution. Emperor Nicholas II and large parts of the Russian imperial family were forced to flee St. Petersburg after the assassination his brother, Grand Duke Sergei, in Moscow by revolutionaries and the defection of large parts of the military to the reformist congress. While initially dispersed among many cities in Europe and Asia, the Jever soon became a point of regrouping for imperial loyalists. With the financial support of their royal relatives in London and Berlin, intent of eventually restoring order to the Russian Revolutionary state, the Romanovs and their allies were able to establish colonial towns in the Jever. Surrounded by the large farmlands and swamps that had dominated the Jeverland for centuries before, these immigrant cities were a far shot from the glorious palaces of old St. Petersburg but did allow the Romanovs to retain an air of imperial legitimacy. While the Russian arrivals were initially seen with skepticism and hostility from the German locals the immense wealth and international status the Romanovs had managed to escape their homeland with proved to be quite persuasive.

The final collapse of the balance of power in Europe following the Russian Revolution came to a head in the First World War. While the Romanovs formally stayed neutral during the conflict, there existed several secret treaties with the German Empire regarding the reinstatement of the Emperor Nicholas II on the Russian throne as a loyal German ally, should the Russian Republic be defeated. With the Soviets taking power during the Second Russian Revolution in 1917 and the defeat of the Central Powers soon after in 1918 and these agreements never came to be implemented and the Romanovs remained as exiles in Jever. During the Interwar Period in the aftermath of the Soviet takeover a second large migration from the old Motherland to the Jever took place, this time not only restricted to nobility but peoples from all over the Russian state, including many Ukrainians and Tatars.

Following the Nazi takeover of Germany, the threat of annexation became very immediate and was eventually realized during the Second World War in 1940 when the German army crossed the border and occupied the territory in just three hours. While Emperor Alexei II managed to escape to London, many of the lordships Russian and Jewish inhabitants were interned or deported to concentration camps and killed. There were however also many anti-Soviet collaborators to be found in the Jever, among them even the Emperors Uncle, Grand Duke Michael. In the closing days of the Second World War the colonial cities were bombed several times by the Red Army, destroying much of the original imperial quarters built in 1910. The final demarcation lines left Jever outside of the Soviet sphere in Europe which once again allowed the Romanov Emperors to reestablish themselves in the enclave. While there was much debate about the fate of the Jeverland on the Allied side, its strategic position across the German war port of Bismarckhaven on the Jade Bay and the quickly deteriorating relations of the Western Allies with the Soviets eventually lead to its reestablishment. It remained as an officially unaligned nation, though undoubtedly on the Atlantic side of the Cold War.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has left the Jeverland in an interesting position. With the Romanovs and monarchism increasingly unpopular and its claims to the territories of the Russian Empire excluding the nation from international organizations. While democratization seems likely to happen in the near future the path this decision will lead Jever down to is uncertain, as there are camps calling for the establishment of an independent democratic nation, unification with Germany or even a reunification with the Russian Republic after more than a century of division.
The creator posted that on page 40 of this thread.
 
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The world in 1400 BC, as of the latest turn of my map game Cradles of Civilization (part of the Historica series).

Link to the post (as well as links to other projects, now antiquated) can be found in the Factory, my test thread.
Can I understand the various colours to represent cultural spheres? I.e. forest green is Sinitic?
 
Australia 1800 following Chinese settlement, by Sārthākā
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In the late 1400s, there were multiple Chinese (mainly Canton) stories about Chinese fishermen finding a vast deserted land to the south. What if these stories evolved into more, and the Chinese discovered Australia in the late 1400s, early 1500s? After the fall of the Ming, the Chinese colonies also switch allegiance to the Qing. A slow encroachment begins on the continent. During the Sengoku Jidai, multiple daimyos, hearing of this vast land (full of riches possibly) and invested into it to find new sources of wealth for war back home. After the Tokugawa united Japan, all of the domains in Australia came under direct rule of the Shogunate. In the early 1500s, there is also a tale of Newari Nepali men going to Bengal, buying several ships, and sailing into the great unknown, never to come back. They were known in Nepali legends as the Lost 30 Families. What if they landed on the western end of the continent? Chinese vaccination, and trade as well as earlier exposure allows some Aborigine groups to come out better, and soon they form their own centralized governments as well - modeled along Sinic, Newari and Japanese lines. In the late 1700s, the British and Dutch arrive on the colonization scene as well. As the 18th millennium of the Common Era begins, Australia is a diverse continent.

Thoughts and comments?
 
Can I understand the various colours to represent cultural spheres? I.e. forest green is Sinitic?
You can see the legend on the top left for that. These aren't cultural spheres; they're totally different species of Homo (as well as some from Pan). In one of the more recent turns, octopuses have been hinted to have gotten more intelligent than in OTL.

Denisovas (green) dominate the Americas, humans (red) dominate Africa and Europe (shared with borealians, descendants of neanderthals), H. hindustanis (a descendant of H. heidelbergensis) dominates the Middle East, and a few branches descended from the Denisova in Oceania to top it off.
 
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Fulton on Wheels:

An earlier railroad
In a world where beyond all odds, Lazare Hoche's expedition to Ireland succeeded, Robert Fulton had a major breakthrough on his travels to France-the rail road. Like in our timeline, Fulton showed the Emperor everything he knew about steam ships. But the little Corporal remained unimpressed. In order to win over NapoleonFulton showed Napoleon his rough ideas for a steam locomotive and a rail road. Napoleon, a master of military movement, realized the possibilities of such an idea and he spends as much as he's able to build these railroads all over Europe.

Russian troops marching westward in a doomed effort to defeat Napoleon on the battlefield find a Europe much more different from Russia than they'd imagine. Steam engines on wheels, constitutions, nationalism, etc. Less than a generation later, many of these same soldiers got a chance to take what they saw and implement it when they seized power in a coup not too dissimilar from OTL's Decembrist Uprising. This allowed for a more energetic colonization of Alaska and the Russian Far East, and a MUCH earlier Trans-Siberian Railway.
My MotF entry this round!
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