MapReflex

1542

Fifty years since the event, and it still feels like the apocalypse across the Atlantic world.

The Rains in Africa are not blessed. Across the Sahara, flash-flooding and hurricanes batter the inhabitants. The temperate climes are forcing a northward march of many animal species in southern and central Africa. Peoples all across subsaharan Africa have begun migrating, and chaotic warfare has begun engulfing the plains.

In Europe, the Turk marches into Europe with sword in hand and death in his loins. A venereal disease has followed the Turk from their conquest of South America, which rots the mind and leaves haggard corpses walking about Eastern Europe. Ottoman slavers brave as far as Iceland for raiding and pillaging, with the Aragonese coast being particularly targeted. The Englishman and Venetian have thrown in their lot with the Mohammadans, and Austria has been trying to convince Poland, Spain, and France to back a crusade against the Sublime Porte.

The Western Venetians are also making deals with their Muslim neighbors in the Mamluk Sultanate to defeat a Spanish fleet looking to conquer the Caribbean islands of Crete and Cyprus. The Egyptians and Venetians have made contact with the Aztecs, and though the Aztec promptly has a civil war brought on by plague, no Cortez stepped up to conquer the Mexican valley, and instead the Venetians and Egyptians traded weapons and glass for foodstuffs and lumber. The Spanish, though busy conquering North Africa in the search for Prester John, have sent Villalobo to the Southern tip of Africa, and after establishing La Ciudad Australia, he has begun to set his sights on the Pacific Ocean.

 

1592

The Ottoman Empire is ascendant.

The Peace of Aeaea has confirmed the new order of Europe: The Alps serve to divide Christendom from Dar al-Islam. The Siege of Vienna came and went, with the Ottomans marching through the Gates and sending the Hapsburg court fleeing for Italy. Large piles of silver enticed the cooperation of the local merchant class in Italy as well of that of several minor nobles and the Duke of Bavaria. After the Venetians negotiated a surrender, all roads led to Rome for the Ottomans. The unstoppable tide of the Sultan crashed upon the gates to Rome and a seven nation army couldn't hold it back. The Papacy fled to Avignon, and though Catholic Church of Rome is autocephalus, The Ottomans keep the clergy under much tighter control than their Eastern Orthodox cousins. Spanish efforts to retake the Italian Peninsula have been bloody and futile. The Spanish invasion of 1574 was such a military disaster, the Spanish, against the wishes of the Pope in Avignon and signed peace on the Venetian island of Aeaea[1]. The Hapsburgs and France refused to sign, but were unable to launch serious counter attacks through the well-defended Alpine passes (on numerous occasions, the Turks blasted the side of a mountain to bring down avalanches upon their foes). Despite infrequent rebellions, the economic prosperity and pro-merchant policies have softened the Christian resistance to Muslim rule from the populace.

In the Andes, the mit'a system has worked wonders for the Ottomans, with various Andean suzerain states paying tribute in potatoes and silver. Conversion to Islam was achieved quickly when Ottoman medical doctors were able to save the life of the Sapu Inca, though actual Islamization of the populace took time and did involve violence. Horses and camels have aided the expansion of the Ottomans and their Quechua allies through South America. The desire for slaves has incentivized the Mapuche and other tribes in the periphery to start slave raids against their neighbors.

In the Indian Ocean, swords have clashed with the Siamese in the Straits of Malacca, the Portuguese in the southern seas, and the Mughals in Gujarat. Ottoman efforts to keep the Iberian powers marginal in the Indian Ocean has been relatively successful, with the Spanish and Portuguese struggling to gain a foothold in the Moluccas.

Spain and Portugal have divided the known world between them, with Spain taking the Pacific and North Atlantic, Portugal taking the Indian and South Atlantic.

The North Atlantic Ring stretches from San Lorenzo[2] in the north to the African colonies, and across the sea to the holdings in Atlantis[3], primarily a market driven by slaves, salt, tobacco, and gold. Tobacco is grown along the African coast, while Conquistadors move into the Sahara to gain a monopoly over the gold and salt trade. Slaves are secured from across the empire, particularly in Africa where a reverse devshirme ensures a constant supply of young men to serve the Spanish king. The Egyptian-West Venetian alliance has held firm, and with the creation of the pirate state of Quizquayya[4] has served to hamper Spanish expansion in the Caribbean. The Aztec interregnum has finally ended, but the king is (rightfully) distrustful of the foreigners, and has tried to consolidate the state and turn the imported technologies against the invaders.

The South Atlantic ring is less complete, but is more reliant on slavery, with the Portuguese taking African slaves across the Atlantic world, even going to the Indian ocean and selling them in Muscat and Aden. The Kingdom of Kongo, recovering from a period of civil war and famine, has been preying on refugees traveling north to escape the cold, and has been expanding into the disappearing rainforest. Viseu y Beja [5] are profitable tobacco islands, and their population is growing quickly.

The Indian Ocean Ring is much less secure than OTL, with the Ottomans outright controlling most of the Atlantean coasts and being active participants in the rest of the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese are much more reliant on their Indian colonies, and have been reminded every so often by local powers that they are guests.

The Pacific Ring is steadily becoming more important to the Spanish as the years role on. The depopulation of the southern cone of Africa has allowed Spanish settlement of the area around Australija[6] and Puerta de Esperanza[7], and the Spanish have looted and occupied the Swahili coast city states, slowly draining them of timber and slaves. The Spanish finally found their Prester John in Ethiopia, and have worked to turn them into the Christian force on the continent. Between generous supplies of weapons and Jesuit missionaries, the Spanish and Ethiopians have become fast friends. The Yope in Mexico have also come around to Spanish aide, and the Aztecs are keeping their eyes firm on Acapulco, waiting to see if the Spanish bring something they cant afford to miss. The Spanish have several small islands in the Western Pacific, from Macau to Juyguio[8]. The Spanish encountered the Tu'i Tonga, and have been plotting with the King to expand the empire (under a Catholic banner, of course).



[1] Barbados, currently between Italy and Trinidad. Venetian-owned, most of the Arawak people suffered from plagues brought by the Italians
[2] Anticosti Island, used as a base for Basque whalers to trade with the local natives
[3] South America
[4] Hispaniola - many pirates of the Barbary Coast fled after the Spanish invasion and smuggled their families with them. In Quizquayya, they founded a representative government, and have been slowly incorporating more Taino as they convert increasingly to Islam.
[5] The Falklands - they've acquired a more temperate climate
[6] Port Elizabeth - the mountains are significantly less inviting, and Xhosa people have gathered at this location to survive off of fishing and seal-hunting. The Spanish established a fort and converted these survivors to Catholicism
[7] Maputo - originally a great base to conduct raids on the Swahili city states, it experienced a gold-rush, and many young sailors from across the Atlantic world have flocked to Puerta de Esperanza for a hope of getting rich quick
[8] Waigeo, a port for reaching the Moluccas, but far enough away as to not attract attention from the local navies

 

Nazi-but-not-Japanese Victory subversion map

Nazi Germany rots into a corporatocracy, and large German companies begin to temper the more exterminationist tendencies in the early 1950s (this is not to say they are gone, people will be worked to death in concentration camps, and state-sponsored sterilization and eradication of certain groups is still there...it just can't interfere with the bottom-line). A middle class consumer economic omdel has emerged from the transition from kleptocracy to corporatocracy. The new guard of the Nazi Party are copying previous settler colonialist tactics: They have transitioned from native enslaved Slavic labor to enslaved labor from European minorities (Basque, Lapps, Turks, Albanians) ala Spain replacing natives with enslaved African labor; Germania has been using America style land grants to encourage immigration of their ideal person (Boers and English get kicked out of South Africa Algeria style, and have settled in Ukraine); And the Germans have a Teutonic Institute dedicated to preserving German cultural heritage, and instilling it into all Aryans, German or otherwise. By the setting of the map, the Russians west of the Urals are regarded much as the Indians are in OTL US: "Gee golly, what a tragedy, but Germania is the best nation on Earth, so it was worth it. There are too few Slavs to give them their land back, so they should be quiet and happy that things aren't like they used to be". Slavic labor is certainly used by big Agro-corps, but the Nazi higher ups want to crackdown whenever they can.

After the war neuters Great Britain, America assumes the mantle of Leader of the World* for a brief time, funding the Soviet Union's continued guerilla war against Nazi Germany and propping up anti-Nazi Regimes in the Middle East. The War in the Pacific goes similar to our world, with less involvement from the Soviet Union and greater support from the Commonwealth (who are much more independent, to the point quite a few are without monarch entirely). Japan is not apocalyptically genocided off the face of the Earth, and for the most part become integral puppets in the American Pacific Not-an-Empire. However, by the time of the Map, the American Empire is been plagued by a demographic slowdown, economic malaise, and political ineptitude. President Walter Hardeen has been flexing his muscles, seizing Musandam from Oman, and even launching attacks on the communications infrastructure.

USSR becomes Latin America, except Islamists and Nationalists replace drug cartels and American interests. Nation of Islam ...

UK Japan, pretty eager to join the fascists when it offers a way to restore national pride and economic stability also empire

Turkey deGaulles around for a while.

Italy leaves the Eastern European Pact

China is China

North Ireland is a technological hub (it's been especially peaceful after all the Catholics got sent East). Ireland is a poorly run semi-industrial state with a Catholic fanaticism that scares even Spain.

Britain is forced by expenses to withdraw from much of India, leaving a bunch of Indian monarchies facing a Pan-India insurgency. Maybe Palestine-Israel analogue?

Maybe Angola is Israel Palestine, with South Cone Africa being the various Baathists and monarchies that litter otl ME history

When I forget this WIP and never finish like most of the files of my computer...

 

MOTF 181 World

The Zwin channel is not silted up, and Bruges remains an important port city just as the Age of Exploration kicks off. One of the many effects is the continued dominance of Italian and Hanseatic merchants in England, forestalling a shift towards becoming a core economy. England becomes a late bloomer and a peripheral European economy to the Continent.

The English reformation is more haphazard, with Catholic monarchs (those Italian banks have decent sway over the crown) going after *Lutherans and Grindalists (OTL Puritans). Expulsions and civil conflict sediment royal control over the countryside, with nice Catholics being given emptied tracts of land to work sheep. Of course, when the merchants began pushing for enclosure, the Catholic Church was not about it. The English monarch converts to a *Anglican religion, and another bloody war is fought, with intervention from Spain in favor of the Catholics. With a Spain friendly England, the economy continues to be peripheral to Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, with wool, fish, and soap exports as their major products. Catholic property rights are respected, and the rise of private markets delayed yet further.

Rather than produce colonies of their own, the English surplus population tends to head to Dutch or Spanish colonies, some going into Russia. As wood dwindles in England, the Hanseatic League begins to import wood from abroad, particularly the from Swedish, who dampen the need for coal. Spanish North America also provides a significant portion of revenue.

England begins focusing on Africa, with the profitable slave trade, making claims to the continent which are unable to be fulfilled realistically. The riches made on the slave trade allow the native merchant class to finally break into a monopoly, around two centuries late. Social pressure slowly builds, and the Parliament greedily eyes Church lands, though not without controversy. The elite start Scotland style Land clearances, reinforcing the division of the elite from the laymen and making a constant stream of English diaspora even bigger, with communities all around the globe.

The European powers support a counterrevolution when the *labor movement begins making inroads on political power. England to this day remains a minor power, subject to a still heavily externalized economy, as well as authoritarian leanings.

In the rest of the World,

• France continues its dalliance with the Islamic world, and France extends its power from Mesopotamia to Canada, claiming the title of the Third Rome.
• Bengal industrialized, with a large Bengali diaspora and a strong labor movement which essentially voted to eliminate their monarchy and replace it with a republic-like system. Industrialization spreads across India, with merchant families often using industrialization to bypass royal authority. Industrialization is exported to Europe by Dutch and Portuguese merchants in India, and Western Europe industrializes. Indian powers began pursuing empire similarly to Europeans, with East Africa and Southeast Asia becoming organized around the Indian core.
• Spain and Portugal's American empire won independence and is in similar straits as otl Latin America. Quebec is the largest nation in North America, and has a significantly more Latin American approach to Indians. Though it is still a settler colonialist state, the instability of its borders has pressured them into decent relations with border tribes, who could at a time decide the balance of a conflict. Other tribes weren't as lucky. New Netherlands is just as messed up as everyone else.
• Africa has been spared a lot of the torture of OTL, and many states (thanks to the new tech of the Indians) could resist the Europeans indefinitely.
• China had another Warring States period instead of the Qing Empire, with the Northern Zhu dynasty taking the mandate. They took a long ass time, and a couple of humiliations by the French and Bengalese to get on the path to industrialization. They're isolationist, working on making sure these new technologies will not destroy the fabric of society
• Indian states are much more progressive than Europe socially, and the Middle East has a better track record on women and LGBT issues as of late. The Dutch and Romanians are the exception to the rule of rigid social conservatism.
• Australia is split between a Dutch enterprise, Bengali colonials, a former Spanish colony, and a French power.
• New Zealand remains very Maori, though South Americans and Chinese worry them.

So the What If becomes importantly: What would England look like as a colonial superpower?

 

British North America

Dominions

• Dominion of Mississippi
• Dominion of New England
• Dominion of Columbia
• Dominion of Maryland

Colonies

• Jamaica
• Mosquito Coast
• British West Indies
• Belize
• Bermuda
• St. Rupertsland
• Florida & The Bahamas
• Guyana

Associated States

• Fredonia/Sasquinnitvnv
• Haudenosaunee
• Quebec
• Tsalagiland
• Yucatan Republic
• Creek Republic
• Anishnabye
• Seminolia
• Choctaw
• Tuxtlan
• Chickasaw
• Lakota
• Blackfoot Reserve
• Shoshoneland