Our Fair Country: The Commonwealth of New England

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]

I wanted to get together a roadmap not only for myself but for everyone else here as well. I also open this up for requests for people to request something to be added to the list, so please! Now is a great time to ask and I'll be sure to work on it and not miss it.

Short Term (March/April/May)
* Complete Canadian provinces (Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland)
* Complete most recent New England provincial elections (Long Island, Rhode Island, Plymouth, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Adirondack, New Hampshire, Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island)
* US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, USSR country wikiboxes
* MLB (Baseball), IBA (Basketball), Soccer in New England, New England college sports wikiboxes
* FIFA World Cups, country winners
* U.S. Political Party wikiboxes + short bio
* Columbia election wikibox
* New England military wikiboxes
* Terrorism in the world wikibox/write-up
* Soviet & German Civil War wikiboxes
* American-Japanese War wikibox
* Holidays in New England
* Cabinet of President Marco Rubio

Medium Term (May-July/ongoing)
* Detailed European map
* Weekly news updates(?) [South Africa news]
* New England General Elections between 1980 and 2001
* U.S. History (Mexican War, more on Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt)
* 2016 US Presidential Election wikipage
* List of British Prime Ministers since 1776
* Northern Ireland wikipage
* South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia) as well as the wars (incl. Commonwealth-Argentina War) wikiboxes
* Wikiboxes of all New England wars
* Commonwealth space programmes
* The Great Depression
* Olympic lists
* New England National Park Map

Long Term (2018-2019)
* New England flag referendum (series)
* Next New England General Election (series)
* All Commonwealth wikiboxes

Requests (Time unknown)
* BMATA route map
* Entertainer & Company wikiboxes
* TV show wikiboxes
* Google Maps of: Long Island Sound Link, Beverly MA, Boston Centre, & Newburyport MA

 

[CosmicAsh]

Well, the last one... almost kinda kept me on track! Time to try again!! Here's just an idea of what you all can expect from me moving forward!

March/April:
Western European Tour:

• Belgium
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• Portugal
• Germany
• Switzerland
• Austria
• Liechtenstein
• Andorra
• Monaco

List of countries by GDP/Population

April/May:
Central European Tour:

• Italy
• San Marino
• Czechia
• Croatia
• Yugoslavia
• Hungary
• Albania
• Greece
• Denmark
• Sweden
• Norway
• Finland
• Iceland

May/June:
Eastern European Tour:

• Bulgaria
• Turkey
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Lithuania
• Latvia
• Estonia
• Soviet Union

July:
We return to North America where I will hopefully get some news articles/boxes out about the ongoing situation in New England. This includes...

• Most recent provincial elections (Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Long Island, Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI)
• Wikiboxes of wars involving New England
• Early New England history
• Extensive work on the textbook

August/September/October:
South America/Latin America/Caribbean tour:

• Brazil
• Argentina
• Uruguay
• Paraguay
• Chile
• Bolivia
• Peru
• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Venezuela
• Guyana
• Caribbean nations
• Mexico
• Central America

November/December:
Pending! I have nothing planned this far out. Most likely going to be gap time in case I can't meet my proposed schedule above. I think I'll have an update on this in Julyish to see where we are and how we are going!

Since I have more free time now, I'm going to try and start peppering in more news articles every week to breathe the life back into the present day!

I also want to stress that the general "overview" I provide for each country is *NOT* meant to be exhaustive. I provide it only as a way for you, the viewer, to get a better and more clear understanding of where these countries came from and important details in this history. There are plenty of things I will of course expand upon more in the future! I've not intentions of slowing down and am only gearing up for more content. I've got a full notebook of notes, sketches, and ideas, and can't wait to bring them forth in 2019. Thank you so much to everyone who still reads and enjoys the timeline!! It's been one fun year, now let's keep this momentum going through 2019 and beyond! <3

 

[CosmicAsh]

After the success of the last contest, I am happy to announce Our Fair Summer Contest!
​

I had been thinking of the new contest shortly after the old one had ended, and I've finally come upon its replacement. It should be no secret that the first contest was simply a trial run, leading up to the bigger and grander Our Fair Summer Contest, which will become an annual event! Each event will be themed and of course, involve the world of Our Fair Country. With the intro behind us, let's get into the details...

Our Fair Summer Contest will last between June 11th, 2019 and August 31st, 2019. It will take place in two phases. Phase I will take place between June 11 and August 25th. During this phase, contestants will submit their works to me via the Our Fair Country thread, and will all be linked in this post, which will be threadmarked. At the end of this period, Phase II will begin. In this phase, everyone will get the chance to vote on the winner. The voting will take place between August 25th and August 31st, and it will be under Instant Run-Off Voting. I will announce the results on September 1st, and the Grand Prize will be awarded to the victor!

Some important things to note:
Submissions may be entered at anytime between the time of this post to 12:00 AM BST on August 26th, 2019. There will be no extensions granted.

And now... the rules!

Contest Rules:
The premise behind the 1st Annual Our Fair Summer Contest are simple. All entries must pertain to a scenario in which some elements are transferred through time and space to another element (also known as ISOT). There are no limits on this, so long as an ISOT is involved. This means that you can ISOT things from our present-day world (June 2019) into the Our Fair Country universe, and vice-versa. The OFC Commonwealth of Rhodesia could replace the IRL states of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Or, the OFC Germany from 1 June 1945 could be transplanted to our 1 June 1945.

For this contest, you are even allowed to ISOT elements of Our Fair Country into other timelines, and vice-versa. If you do not own the timeline in question, please ask permission from the original author! I will not accept an entry that involves an ISOT from/into another timeline if it does not have that author's permission!

The entries may be in any format. Text, map, wikiboxes, graphics, doesn't matter! I am open to anything and everything!

If there are any questions, please ask me here in this thread, in private messages, or my DMs on Discord or in any of the chats i'm in. I am happy to assist you in any way! This includes giving you more lore information that has not been publicly available. Good luck, and have fun!

Frequently Asked Questions:
Can we ISOT Individuals? Such as, tomorrow suddenly OFC's Prime Minister Andy Burnham is in Downing Street instead of Theresa May?
Yes! This is totally allowed, and encouraged!

Can parts of the Our Fair Country universe be ISOT'd? Like, can only half of New England, or a state of the United States, or even just a city in Germany be moved?
Yes they can! Like I said, there are no limits to what can or cannot happen.

Does the ISOT have to match the same time frame? For instance, does OFC's 2019 Germany have to be brought only to our IRL 2019?
No! Not at all! OFC's Germany in 2019 can be IOST'd to any point in time or space, which means if you wanted to bring OFC's Germany to 1914 you could, or 1989! Anything is possible!

Do I need to get permission from the authors of popular media, like The Avengers, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or the Potterverse to use in this contest?
Nope! Since it is highly unlikely you will get a response and it is a derivative fan work, you are fine to use any of these in this contest.

List of Submissions:
1: "Their Unfair Country" by Onerom
2: "Eagles of the Fair Country" by KanonenKartoffel

 

[CosmicAsh]

Sorry it's not much, but I had been doing a series on these and getting a few other things ready (as well as being busy IRL!) so I hope this can give everyone a snapshot into the current state of the Presidential Election!

 

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]

​

The 2018 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 August 2018 to elect all 725 members of the House of Commons. The Labour Party of Great Britain lost their overall majority of seats in the election, and for the first time in history a Labour government was dependent on Labour MPs elected from the semi-autonomous dependencies of Gibraltar and the Isle of Man to form a majority government. Most polls had been forecasting Labour to lose its overall majority, and for the Liberal Party to win a plurality of the seats. However, there was unprecedented Labour strength in North East England, Scotland, and Greater London. Labour captured 42.7% of the overall vote, followed closely by the Liberals who secured 42.1% of the vote.

The Conservative and Unionist Party saw continued success, marking the 5th election in a row since the resignation of former leader Ian Paisley that the party increased its representation in the House of Commons, capturing 34 seats, their largest share since the 1966 general election. The election also marked the first time the Liberal Party won seats in Northern Ireland since the 1979 general election. The Green Party of England and Wales saw a gain of four seats, almost doubling their pre-election total of five seats, with the victories concentrated in London and other urban centres in England. The Scottish National Party also re-entered Parliament after losing all four of their seats in the 2014 general election.

The election campaign centred on several issues, notably the continued health of the British Economy and Britain's place in the greater Commonwealth of Nations. Prime Minister Burnham and the Labour Party stood on a platform of a continued managed reduction in Britain's overall role in the Commonwealth, as well as supporting further reforms to the Commonwealth Constitution that would ensure it was more democratic, and remove much of the extra powers that were granted the principle states, namely the United Kingdom, Canada, New England, Australia, and New Zealand. The Liberals maintained their support for the continued status quo, and argued that Britain had a unique place in the world, one in which it could not shirk from, with Liberal leader David Mundell giving the highly acclaimed Commitment to the Commonwealth speech, which was considered by many to be one of the strongest embraces of the former Empire by any British political leader since Prime Minister Jo Grimond announced the Commonwealth intervention in South Africa in the 1960s.

In Scotland, the campaign continued to focus on electoral reform, with Labour and the Scottish National Party arguing for the redistricting of Scotland's constituencies, and the Liberals arguing against any type of partisan redistricting, insisting that politics must be kept out of the work that the Boundary Commission undertakes. Support for Scottish Devolution also polled its highest ever going into the general election, with roughly forty percent of Scotland's voters supporting the formation of a devolved government, and many commentators predicted that the SNP would pick up numerous seats based on this measure. However, the increase in the SNP vote came mainly at the expense of Labour's vote share, allowing the Liberals to capture 51 of Scotland's 68 seats.

The Conservative and Unionist Party campaigned for the first time on a unified manifesto, dropping the long-standing policy of producing one for the Conservative Party in England, and one for the Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. The election also saw the first Conservative candidates stand in Wales and Scotland for the first time in over fifty years. Much of this was attributed to Conservative leader Jacob Rees-Mogg's policy of disengagement from Northern Ireland, and focusing on rebuilding the party as a strong national party for all of the United Kingdom.

Additionally, the pro-Welsh devolution party Plaid Cymru won 7 seats, the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin won 6 seats, while the left-wing Irish nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party won 3 seats. 5 Independents and the Speaker of the House were also elected.

The election gained some notoriety, as the group Hong Kong in Westminster staged a mock election in Hong Kong for a hypothetical election of MPs to the House of Commons, and had a turnout of nearly five hundred thousand people, far more than the group or the Hong Kong government had anticipated. None of the top three parties support allowing Hong Kong to enter Parliament, despite the Labour Manifesto explicitly supporting granting MPs to Malta, the Suez, Trinidad, Barbados, Anguilla, Bermuda, and the South Atlantic Islands.

​

 

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]

Well, I am pretty sure I had not seen this day coming for quite some time, but here we are!

I've come to this decision after much thought and debate, and also with consultation of the folks who have assisted me along the way, that Our Fair Country is formally going to be coming to an end. I am sure many have noticed the sharp and complete drop-off of activity and updates recently, and much of this has been due to a reassessment of my plans for the timeline, and earlier conflicting lore problems. I have decided, instead of a massive retcon that would make the earlier one in 2019 seem pretty minor in comparison, that I will be sunsetting this timeline, and beginning a new one with a similar divergence point, but taking a far different approach to alternate history.

And so, it comes to this announcement that I am happy to announce the name of my new timeline, Ship of State, which will work in a more chronological manner. For Our Fair Country, I am remiss to say I did not plot out the exact sequence of events to bring us to the present-day, which is something I am remeding for Ship of State. The lore will be deeper and more richly explored, and many area of the world will be delved into deeper and a more well-balanced and researched manner. This change, of course, might not please everyone, and Our Fair Country might still get an update from time to time, but it will no longer be my main focus.

This being said, all future public updates on Ship of State can be found on the Our Fair Community Discord where I maintain a project channel there to discuss relevant areas of research and lore development, along with general question and answers about the timeline! I'd like to seriously thank everyone who has read along and contributed to Our Fair Country, and I hope to see everyone as I delve into my next project!

As a means of introducing everyone here to the new timeline, here is a snippet of what is to come from this project:

 

[CosmicAsh]

 

[CosmicAsh]