alternatehistory.com

So I play an online game called Qpawn were you take the role of a nation's leader and roleplay him or her. It has about 50 members and actually focuses on things like diplomacy which the big nation sims simply cannot. Anyway we are currently about to start a new 'twist round' or a game in an alternate history. This is the current suggestion (though with multiple POD) for that alternate history and I was just looking for some suggestions or feedback.

Two points of Convergance. Both around the same time

1861,

Asia: The Manchu Green Standard Army is destroyed by Taiping foces at the battle of Nanjing. the leader of the Taiping Rebelion, Hong, signs a ceasefire with the Chinese government settling borders after threatening to sack Beijing.

1863
America: The Union is defeated decisevly at Gettysburg and Britain recognises the CSA. The USA has no choice but to sign a peace treaty though through skilled negotiation, the CSA returns largely to it's original borders.

History soon after that doesn't change so much, other then Spain holding Cuba as the Spanish American War never happened.

Until, that is, 1914. The war breaks out as usual for the same reasons, however, the French lose Verdun and the Romanians and Italians do much better then anticipated against the Austro Hungarians (though initially they suffer stalemates like the westernn front). The French army hits breaking point and when the Russian Revolution happens the CSA agree to send forces to help Britain (but nobody else). The USA stays largely neutral, though sells weapons to the axis powers originally.

Essentially the war ends with the Balkans breaking up into five small states. Germany never surrenders but instead negotiates a seperate peace deal with the UK, Italy, Romania and the CSA in a spectacular stub of the French who make the mistake of snubbing British Pirme Minister Churchill during the conference, despite British and Confederate troops being more or less the only thing keeping the Germans from Paris. France is forced to sign a humiliating treaty with the Germans whereby they are made to pay war reperations and accept responsibility for starting the war.

1918-1933 The Russian and Chinese civil wars break out and several tribal leaders are able to band together and carve an increasingly sized nation in Russian Central Asia (consting of all the 'stans' above Afghanistan called the Central Asian Khanate, Mongolia declares independence and with the support of Japanese advisors is able to annex Sinjiang,(it is able to do this because the KMT strongholds in the south of course are unter Taiping control in game) In the fourties, it then joins with Tibet to form a Buddhist State with the Dalai Lahma as titular Head of State, but Bogdn Kahn as defacto head. Persia is able to reclaim Azerbaijan from the Russians and capture Red army leader Josph Stalin in the process.

1923 the Soviet Union is declared.

Over a period of twenty years the French angered and humiliated by both their enemies and their allies look out for new friends, they find them in the form of the USSR and over a period of years their nations grow closer.

1925 Leon trotsky is elected Chairman of the CPSU and becomes defacto Head of State of the USSR.

1925 onwards. Britain and Japan become increasingly concerned as to the behavior of the USSR in regards to 'the international revolution'. It seems to be no secret that Lenin is funding revolutionaries abroad.

What is dubbed the second great game is played by the great powers in the Balkans in the four states left by the war (Greater Macedonia. Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia) with sides supporting their relative powers. The Soviets support a revolution in Serbia and is alledged to be behind funding rebels in the other states. When the British accuse the Soviet Union of doing so and send troops to their ally Macedonia, the French surprise the British by sending troops to Serbia, (something the Russians are unable to feasably do) to stop the expected Anglo-Macedon invasion. Italy supports Croatia and the Romanians guarantee Bosnian sovereignety. leaving the whole region in an ultra tense state.

This tension is repeated the world over. The Japanese send waepons to Siam to reinforce their WW1 caputre of Laos and then both states simultaniously support Khmer and Vietnamese independence movements.

the Soviets and French directly support communist guerillas in the spanish civil war who are subsequently beaten by the CSA and German backed Franco.

In the late thrities the UKs troops are becoming increasingly spread. The Indians fight a war of independence which the British are unable to combat, reataining only Burma. With the British surrender in 1939, they leave one last gift for the Indians by leaving all their weapons in the hands of the Prince of Hyderbad who is able to be the only princely state to resist the subsequent Indian invasions of the Princely States. Muslim regions in the north are assited and join the Afghan states lead by a descendent of the Duranni Empire, much of North west India is captured dwhen the Indian War of Independence seamlessly merges into a civil war which ends with a Sikh Military Junta running the country.

Once again in 1940 war breaks out again in the Balkans and once again sparks a wider war. Serbia seeing the west occupied elsewhere invades Bosnia and Croatia in a fit of Slavic unity prompting Romania to invade Serbia which in turn sets off a system of alliances that causes the USSR and France to jump to Serbia's aids, Macedonia and Britain to jump to Romania's aid and Italy to counter invade croatia. Spain whose economy is destroyed uses the war as an excuse and invades Portugal and the Soviet Union and France invade Germany itself soon after. However, for every bit that Stalin's army was incompetent and poorly equipped Trotsky's army is well led and well trained, if not well equiped and they are able to make headway against the Kaiser's army. That is until Japan, in an effort to assert it's dominance, lands troops at Vladivostok and invades the Philippines, cutting off vital US supplies prompting the USA to come out of it's century long isolation to send troops to liberate the Japanese expansion.

The war lasts three years, the Soviet Union is eventually pushed back and once again seeing Britain honour it's 800 year defensive pact with Portugal, the CSA honours it's century long debt to the British and sends fighter planes and men to fight in the battle of Britain, a failed French invasion which resulted in a brief occupation of Scotland by France.

Eventually, the war is fought to a French surrender and the German army is able to push the Red army well into Russia (Remember, because there was no Stalin, Russia doesn't have industrial capacity that won it the real war). However, rembering Lenin's actions in the first world war, Trotsky is able to eventually negotiate a peace deal. The irony of the whole affair was, that at the end of the war, the world looked pretty much the same as it did at the end. The Soviet Union was forced to cede Vladivostok to Japan and France was occupied by the British for some time.

However, the one outcome of the war that perhaps all the European and Asian nations that provoked it probably didn't predict was that it awoke a sleeping bear. the Americans managed to push back the Japanese from the Philippines, but then they refused to leave. the oil and minerls that were so vital to US industry, it was decided by the government, could not be put at risk again.

In 1947 the Chinese civil war ended with Chairman Mao in charge of all of modern china.

1950-1953 Chairman Mao and Trotsky invaded Korea to support rebels there, however, a fearce resistance by the Japanese and Koreans and eventually the unlikely allies of the USA who feared a 'domino effect' in Asia threatening their Philippine colony resulted in a partitioning of Korea between te communsit North under mildly crazy leader Kim il-Sung and and the capitalist South under charismatic yet foreign emplaced King Jin-tae.

1951 the British decide after a prolongued insurgancy in Palestine to grant independence to their Arab territories. A jewish pressure group demands Churchill hands over Palestine to the jews so they may have it as a homeland. Churchill is reported to laugh it off asking them 'in which crazy world do you expect that would actually happen'.

One person that is not impressed with the british plan, however, is King Hong of the Taiping who has been sending men to live in Palestine for years choosing only his most west asian looking men to carry out the task he funds and instigates a Christian rebelion in the region onlyhelp once they have gained ground. Of course the newly independent arab states were in little position to combat Hong's small but well trained special forces. hong insisted he would not let his families lands fall back into the hands of the muslims. (I'm not even making this up, RL Hong, this chaps grandfather, claimed he was the brother of Jesus and conquered half of China based on this belief).

The media dubbed the action the last crusade and not an insignificant ammount of western Christians, including many comitted orthadox and Catholics expelled from Serbia by the communist government. The Pope, however, never condoned or sanctioned the crusade, indeed he said very little about it at all.

By 1965, most of Africa had become independent from the UK, with France giving up it's colonies after WW2 and Portugal surrendering them to Britain after the Spanish invaded. In the place of colonialism were drawn several large nations, French West Africa consisted of Mauritania, Algeria and French Morocco, a pan arab nation arose where Jordan Egypt, the Sudan and Syria used to be. Libya finally united with Chad and an Islamic State appeared covering niger and Nigeria and occupying several christian states to it's west, an occupation opposed by the Ghanain empire, a smaller but moderately rich nation by African standards. South Africa controls Portugal's colonies by mandate as well as Namibia and Rhodesia.
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