Oceania Draka?

Could we create a Draka type society in Australasia? The area has a lot of natural resources, but isn't contiguous, unlike Africa or North America. Basically I'm just taking S.M. Stirling's core concept of the Draka being "anti-America" and transporting it to a different place with Mediterranean climate, natives to fight, and rich land to exploit.
 
Could we create a Draka type society in Australasia? The area has a lot of natural resources, but isn't contiguous, unlike Africa or North America. Basically I'm just taking S.M. Stirling's core concept of the Draka being "anti-America" and transporting it to a different place with Mediterranean climate, natives to fight, and rich land to exploit.

Not nearly as many natives, not nearly as disease-resistant.
 
Draka in Australia... a naval superpower, probably.

However, if Australian Draka took Indonesia, the problem of manpower and resources could be solved.

And then, India will be the next step...
 
Draka in Australia... a naval superpower, probably.

However, if Australian Draka took Indonesia, the problem of manpower and resources could be solved.

And then, India will be the next step...

It might make more sense for them to go after Japan… say, just before Commodore Perry shows up.
Assuming, of course, that the Draka-ASB alliance remains intact…:p
 
Well, an Australia centered Draka would be far less powerful, but actually more realistic than in South Africa. From what I've heard in the original the Draka just kinda take Africa and no one cares, which is something that is actually highly unlikely. Take that scenario and apply it to the South Pacific, and suddenly it all makes a lot more sense.
 
Yeah, they would naturally go up to the Dutch East Indies. Hell, maybe they convince the VOC to remain in power, absorbing themselves into Oceanian society.
 
It might make more sense for them to go after Japan… say, just before Commodore Perry shows up.
Assuming, of course, that the Draka-ASB alliance remains intact…:p

Yes, but i said India thinking Draka could control the Subcontinent after the Indian rebellion of 1857... And with an Asian Draka ( China and Japan surely will fall after) the World situation will be probably more grim than for an OTL African Draka...
 
An Australian based Draka would have a hard enough time conquering Indonesia that it might as well not even bother. But India and East Asia? That's impossible.
 
South Africa = Draka become a superpower because of the massive European immigration in early 19th century, right? So why not a massively colonized Australia couldn't expand soon as well?
 
South Africa = Draka become a superpower because of the massive European immigration in early 19th century, right? So why not a massively colonized Australia couldn't expand soon as well?

Resources, plus the original story isn't plausible to begin with.
 
I think in an effort to reduce ASB-ness maybe we could have a powerful Oceania (which in of itself is ASB) propping up friendly authoritarian governments in Japan, India, or elsewhere in Asia, instead of straight-up conquering it Draka style.
 
South Africa = Draka become a superpower because of the massive European immigration in early 19th century, right? So why not a massively colonized Australia couldn't expand soon as well?

The Draka's entire system relies on plantations. Australia does not have plantations.
 
The Draka's entire system relies on plantations. Australia does not have plantations.

aside from cotton, two other major crops were produced by plantation style agriculture... tobacco and sugar

Australia is one of the world's leading sugar cane producers, and also has significant cotton production as well. So in theory, there is no reason Australia could not have plantation type agriculture. Blackbirding (slavery by another name) was widespread in the late 19th Century in Oceania (for labor for phosphate mining on Pacific Islands and Chile). The elements are there.

As to resources, Australia has immense natural resources... "Australia has the world’s largest resources of recoverable brown coal, lead, rutile, zircon, nickel, tantalum, uranium and zinc, and ranks second in the world for bauxite, copper, gold, ilmenite and silver." from here
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/resources_sector.html

what Australia did not have in most of the 19th Century was a very large labor force. The other huge issue for Australia is the fact that a lot of the country is desert, and economic exploitation can be difficult and expensive (you have to haul water in).

The Draka timeline has problems, but if you hand wave the problems in the timeline and simply look at geography, Australia works as well as South Africa as a base for Draka expansion.
 
Maybe the Draka (who would be miles from the Drakensberg Mountains, but who would still call themselves the Draka, because they're the Draka, dammit!) would start by enslaving (or "enserfing") the Maori and the Pacific Islanders and work their way up to the Philippines and Hawaii.

(You won't believe this, but IOTL, the original plan for settling Australia called for the kidnapping of women from New Caledonia and adjacent islands, basically so the convicts could have sex with something besides each other. I don't know if this was a serious proposal or just Lord Sydney having a Polynesian sex slave fantasy, but apparently it didn't pass the colonial governor's laugh test.)
 
In 1834, the British abolished slavery in India, only to create a huge labor surplus of indentured workers, many of whom migrated from from the subcontinent to Guyana, the Polynesian islands, etc. Surely many could go to Austraka.

Alternatively, we could call them Oceanians, since that name comes with negative connotations as well.
 
Well, an Australia centered Draka would be far less powerful, but actually more realistic than in South Africa. From what I've heard in the original the Draka just kinda take Africa and no one cares, which is something that is actually highly unlikely. Take that scenario and apply it to the South Pacific, and suddenly it all makes a lot more sense.

Plenty of people cared about the Japs operating around those areas historically, I don't think region is so much of an issue at all times so much as it is European designs on them. It's hard to imagine a place considered more horrid and godforsaken than Africa from the European standpoint, but the South Pacific with its resources and favorable locations for trade in India and the rest of South Asia are going to get people paying attention if someone is setting up shop there. Eventually it will come to the point where someone, somewhere intervenes against the Draka, Stirling assumed that nobody would do this, he is wrong.
 
I think the problem with a Oceanic Draka (besides that the entire concept of the Draka is ASB), is the time for development. The first attempts to colonise north America were made in the 16th century and it took hundreds of years to become a true superpower. The cape colony was founded in the mid 17th century, so although the Draka had less time than the USA, they still had far more time than any Australian colony, which was founded in the late 18th century. It is realy hard to build an all conquering empire in Australia (which is mostly desert) in such a short time, certainly considering most European countries would be far too strong for it, probably including the Dutch in Indonesia, but certainly the British in India, the French in Indochina and the Chinese in China.
 
Yeah, to be honest I was thinking that the 'actual' Draka should get screwed in the scenario; there should be some event that evicts the Dutch and/or English from southern Africa, forcing them to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

And maybe we should dispense with the racial zeolotry of Draka, and have the white colonists teaming up with the Maori next door and conquering all the less warlike tribes in Australia.
 
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