OTL John Edwards would be annoyed that TTL him became president and still gets taken down by a sex scandal...
The Anglo-Saxon Social Model
- Thread starter Rattigan
- Start date
OTL John Edwards would be annoyed that TTL him became president and still gets taken down by a sex scandal...
Windows95
Banned
Whoa!
Will there be a cooperative space launching companies and skyhooks this decade in this timeline? Like NASA's HASTOL proposal in 2001.
Will creating a space economy solve the overproduction crisis?
The Maui Missions
Surface Details: The Maui Missions, 2001 - 2020s
Photograph of the surface of Callisto taken by the crew of the Maui VII, April 2019
The work of the Commonwealth Space Agency (“CSA”) had moved in fits and starts since the Megaroc Shock of 1953, with fallow periods being interspersed by bursts of frenetic development usually brought on by the intensification of superpower soft power conflict. By the turn of the 21st century, however, the CSA had no serious competition in space: the Soviets were progressively scaling back their funding commitments and the Americans, for the time, seemed happy to play the role of junior partner. The most recent Soviet space station had been scrapped in 2006 and the Americans had not built another one since the scrapping of the Space Station Liberty in 1998, instead sending astronauts to conduct research on CSA stations.
For their part, the CSA’s space operations were based around a single orbital space station, two off-world bases, a fleet of six ‘Space Shuttles’ and countless satellites and other disposable rockets. The single space station was, as of 1 January, the space station Gaia, although she was due to be scrapped during the year and the parts for the replacement station, Gaia II, were already being launched and prepared. In practice, Gaia was by this point a joint CSA-NASA operation and the Gaia II was being funded directly by both the Commonwealth and the US. Humanity’s two off-world bases, the Cook on the Moon and the Drake on Mars, were very much all-CSA affairs, however, and their internal workings were left far more opaque to the outside world.
From the 1990s onwards, almost all of the agency’s missions became covered by a shroud of secrecy that left many people unclear what it was that the CSA actually did. The first unmanned probes were sent to the asteroid belt in 2001 with the intention of prospecting and mining minerals but no usable material was returned to Earth until 2008 and, even then, it would be some time before they became economically relevant. While the existence of Drake and Cook promised a future of off-world colonies and exploration, by the second decade of the 20th century that had not yet eventuated: the bases remained populated largely by military and scientists and a full pregnancy and birth off-world had yet to be attempted. Indeed, the organisation came to only appear in the public eye at times of disaster or near-disaster, the most prominent one being an incident in 1995 when the astronaut Julie Payette was stranded on the surface of Mars and subsequently rescued, in the process becoming (by necessity) the first person to successfully grow crops outside of the Earth and its satellites.
At the beginning of the new millennium, however, mining operations in the Asteroid Belt were not the only project the CSA was pursuing. In fact, its most ambitious program, known as the Maui Program, was a plan to explore and land on one of the Jovian Moons. Using VASIMR engines, unmanned probes were sent to the moons in October 2001 and October 2004, resulting in Callisto being identified as the target. Two more unmanned probes conducted further exploration of the moon, leading to the identification of a landing site which was tested with the soft landing of the Maui V on the surface in January 2015.
The Maui VI, launched October 2014, performed the first manned orbit of Callisto and observed the landing site of the Maui V. With things moving smoothly, the Maui VII was chosen to be the first attempted manned landing on Callisto. The mission blasted off from the CSA base in Woomera in January 2018, carrying with it a team of six astronauts drawn from the UK, Canada, Pakistan, East Africa and the West Indies. The mission landed on Callisto in April 2019, with Timothy Peake being the first human to set foot on the surface. The team remained on Callisto for 30 days, operating drones on the moon’s surface and collecting samples for transportation back to Earth. The Maui VII returned via a stop-off at the Cook Base, eventually landing back on Earth in August 2020, after 32 months in space. The mission left behind them a reusable nuclear power plant and plans for future exploration of the Jovian system.
As with previous exploration breakthroughs, the landing of the Maui VII was both the culmination and a launching pad for future developments. Subsequent missions to Callisto conducted research on both that moon and Jupiter’s other moons (notably proving the thick ice model of Europa’s composition), with a permanent Maui base being planned for construction in the late 2020s.
Crew of the Maui VII:
Photograph of the surface of Callisto taken by the crew of the Maui VII, April 2019
The work of the Commonwealth Space Agency (“CSA”) had moved in fits and starts since the Megaroc Shock of 1953, with fallow periods being interspersed by bursts of frenetic development usually brought on by the intensification of superpower soft power conflict. By the turn of the 21st century, however, the CSA had no serious competition in space: the Soviets were progressively scaling back their funding commitments and the Americans, for the time, seemed happy to play the role of junior partner. The most recent Soviet space station had been scrapped in 2006 and the Americans had not built another one since the scrapping of the Space Station Liberty in 1998, instead sending astronauts to conduct research on CSA stations.
For their part, the CSA’s space operations were based around a single orbital space station, two off-world bases, a fleet of six ‘Space Shuttles’ and countless satellites and other disposable rockets. The single space station was, as of 1 January, the space station Gaia, although she was due to be scrapped during the year and the parts for the replacement station, Gaia II, were already being launched and prepared. In practice, Gaia was by this point a joint CSA-NASA operation and the Gaia II was being funded directly by both the Commonwealth and the US. Humanity’s two off-world bases, the Cook on the Moon and the Drake on Mars, were very much all-CSA affairs, however, and their internal workings were left far more opaque to the outside world.
From the 1990s onwards, almost all of the agency’s missions became covered by a shroud of secrecy that left many people unclear what it was that the CSA actually did. The first unmanned probes were sent to the asteroid belt in 2001 with the intention of prospecting and mining minerals but no usable material was returned to Earth until 2008 and, even then, it would be some time before they became economically relevant. While the existence of Drake and Cook promised a future of off-world colonies and exploration, by the second decade of the 20th century that had not yet eventuated: the bases remained populated largely by military and scientists and a full pregnancy and birth off-world had yet to be attempted. Indeed, the organisation came to only appear in the public eye at times of disaster or near-disaster, the most prominent one being an incident in 1995 when the astronaut Julie Payette was stranded on the surface of Mars and subsequently rescued, in the process becoming (by necessity) the first person to successfully grow crops outside of the Earth and its satellites.
At the beginning of the new millennium, however, mining operations in the Asteroid Belt were not the only project the CSA was pursuing. In fact, its most ambitious program, known as the Maui Program, was a plan to explore and land on one of the Jovian Moons. Using VASIMR engines, unmanned probes were sent to the moons in October 2001 and October 2004, resulting in Callisto being identified as the target. Two more unmanned probes conducted further exploration of the moon, leading to the identification of a landing site which was tested with the soft landing of the Maui V on the surface in January 2015.
The Maui VI, launched October 2014, performed the first manned orbit of Callisto and observed the landing site of the Maui V. With things moving smoothly, the Maui VII was chosen to be the first attempted manned landing on Callisto. The mission blasted off from the CSA base in Woomera in January 2018, carrying with it a team of six astronauts drawn from the UK, Canada, Pakistan, East Africa and the West Indies. The mission landed on Callisto in April 2019, with Timothy Peake being the first human to set foot on the surface. The team remained on Callisto for 30 days, operating drones on the moon’s surface and collecting samples for transportation back to Earth. The Maui VII returned via a stop-off at the Cook Base, eventually landing back on Earth in August 2020, after 32 months in space. The mission left behind them a reusable nuclear power plant and plans for future exploration of the Jovian system.
As with previous exploration breakthroughs, the landing of the Maui VII was both the culmination and a launching pad for future developments. Subsequent missions to Callisto conducted research on both that moon and Jupiter’s other moons (notably proving the thick ice model of Europa’s composition), with a permanent Maui base being planned for construction in the late 2020s.
Crew of the Maui VII:
- Camille Alleyne
- Saira Batool
- Charles Lutaaya
- Timothy Peake
- David Saint-Jacques
- Jenni Sidey
Thanks. I thought Alleyne might be too old for a 2018-20 mission (and I wasn't able to find a verified date of birth for Lutaaya but he doesn't look too old in his pictures...) but I reasoned that with a healthy and sporty society she'd probably be fine.
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Pakistan is a leading member of the Commonwealth, one of the 'Big Four' that, along with Canada, Australia and the UK, plays a leading role in the block. It's been a reliable democracy since its founding and its prime minister as of 2019 is Nawaz Sharif of the centre-right Liberal Party. In terms of a country to compare its living standards to (although this is an unreliable translation because different Commonwealth political cultures makes the actual lives people lead TTL pretty different but it's a decent general guide) it's probably somewhere around OTL South Korea or OTL UK. Although it's economy is counted within the Commonwealth's (this is to do with the whole Commonwealth having a single bancor account at the ICU, meaning that each member state can operate a trade deficit/surplus as long as the bloc as a whole is balanced) so this is hard to measure, it would be one of the world's ten largest economies on its own.
Egypt is a constitutional monarchy with elections contested between the centre-left Liberal Constitutional Party and the centre-right Wafd Party, with Hamdeen Sabahi of the Liberal Constitutionalists being in power as of 2019. In terms of living standards and political culture, its closest comparison OTL would be somewhere between one of the poorer EU countries like Romania and one of the more average Latin American countries like Peru or Ecuador. Changes in the African political situation (to be explained next update) mean that it's going to be one of the big emerging powers in the continent.
I mean if John Glen could return to space well into his seventies....
True. But there is a difference between going into orbit and spending 32 months in space on a trip to Jupiter. I appreciate that I'm basically poking holes in my own TL now so I'll shut up.
The authorities just haven't really discovered a non-scientific use for them yet. There was an idea that they might be used as military installations but as of yet that hasn’t really eventuated (officially at least). As things stand it’s not really an especially exciting project for potential settlers, especially considering the OTL rules about claiming parts of lunar territory are roughly the same TTL
Can I ask what the nature of the 'Establishment' is ITTL? Is the Royal Family organised more along the lines of a Dutch bicycle monarchy from OTL? And what about our public schools? I guess they don't have to service Russian oligarchs ITTL. I would hope 'the posh boys' (the ones currently and ironically posing as anti-elitists in OTL) would have far less influence in the Commonwealth here.
A fair question. One of the long-term results of the different way that the late-19th century shakes is that the landed and business aristocracy doesn't end up sorting itself purely into the Conservative Party, creating a kind of broad-based class compromise that means that there's substantial establishment buy-in when a technocratic, reforming Labour government eventually takes power in 1945. So there is an establishment of a kind but it's one built around a preference for technocratic welfarism (in simple terms a centre-left establishment rather than a centre-right one as in OTL). I guess a good illustration of this TTL is the way that the people who work at the SWF are technically civil servants but are also basically the most important private equity guys in the world and even the largest Commonwealth banks (Barings, Warburg and Rothschilds, roughly the equivalents of OTL J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, respectively) have to take their lead from them.
As regards the current crop of OTL anti-elite Etonians, Johnson is mostly a satirical columnist in the vein of Auberon Waugh. He did stand as a Conservative MP in the constituencies in 2005 but didn't win his seat and has been unsuccessful in getting himself on the party lists. In terms of his politics, he's mostly still doing the cosmopolitan conservative schtick that he did which he was London Mayor OTL.
The Royal Family is still around and still pretty popular around the Commonwealth as a symbol of unity (also, because retaining the monarchy is still a requirement for Commonwealth membership, there isn't a meaningful republican movement in any member state). The pomp of much of the OTL British monarchy has also been removed, although it's known as the 'hiking monarchy' because of Elizabeth II's love of hiking. Minor members of family are also reasonably often sent off to be governors general around the world when necessary.
Great African War (2014-2021)
Crucible of War: The Great African War and the Fate of Nations
The ins and outs of the African Wars of Independence are out of the scope of this work, deserving far more detailed treatment elsewhere. We will instead focus our attention to the Commonwealth’s role in the wider conflict, in particular its protection of its allies in the south, west and north of the continent. But first, let us consider the headlines facts of the conflict. The war is generally dated from August 2014, the start of the protests against the Tunisian royal government but in practice the fighting had not fully spread across the continent until midway through 2016. By this time the conflict was no longer just a story of protest and counter-protest but a strategic fight between hastily-organised standing armies. The war is generally held to have been ended by the Damascus Accords of 28 December 2021 but, again, “generally” is very much the operative word here. The Damascus Accords were vital in that representatives from every African country signed a piece of paper confirming the recognition of every other country and began the process of accession to the UN. But in truth the continent would be the home to sporadic protests and rebellions for some time, even if its borders were now stable. The conflict saw the widest and most dramatic geographical changes on any continent during the modern era: on 1 January 2014 Africa was home to 35 nations (if we include the French Departments of the Maghreb and Reunion); on 31 December 2021 it was home to 89.
Other than that, the casualty figures of the conflict make for grim reading. 6,577,000 people are estimated to have been killed on all sides, with another approximately 580,000 civilian casualties, although as many have noted, the distinction between civilian and military deaths was notional at many points and in many theatres during the conflict. In addition, nearly 13,000,000 people were displaced during the conflict, either as refugees (causing serious internal instability in Italy, Spain and Arabia) or internally. It was a grim and bloody conflict without parallel since the end of the World War.
Commonwealth interests in the conflict were focused on protecting allies and the territorial integrity of the two member states on the continent. Despite some concerns, there was relatively little internal unrest in either East Africa or Rhodesia, a testament to the half-century long process of nation building in both of those countries. (Although largely a forgotten figure nowadays, Garfield Todd’s two decades in power in Rhodesia, turning it from the road to becoming South Africa into a multi-racial democracy probably makes him one of the great democratic heroes of the 20th century.) Commonwealth ‘peacekeepers’ were also deployed, following both consultation with the other members of the Security Council and the requests of the local governments, in Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Katanga. However, Commonwealth forces worked hard to remain confined to these countries and did not venture over the border into the wider conflict.
The other theatre in which Commonwealth citizens, if not the military formally, were deeply engaged was the Sahara. Here, a series of Commonwealth military advisors and adventurers (others might say mercenaries but the difference is largely semantic) became deeply embedded in the struggles of the various Tuareg clans to create their own nation. A particularly prominent figure was Rory Stewart, who was intimately involved in the Tuareg rebellion almost from the moment of its beginning in late 2014. In 2019, he conducted a wide-ranging tour of the Commonwealth, raising money for the Tuaregs and attempting to push the Commonwealth into more active support. What Stewart’s precise relationship was with Commonwealth governmental and security forces remains unclear, with persistent rumours abounding of him being a Five Eyes agent. It is certainly true that, following the signing of the Damascus Accords, the Tuareg Republic of Azawad had notably friendly relations with the Commonwealth, with a number of contracts being signed allowing Tuareg-Commonwealth joint ventures to begin the construction of solar battery plants in the Sahara over the course of the 2020s.
In the south of Africa, there was remarkably little territorial change, certainly when compared to the rest of the continent. The former South African province of South West Africa (already independent since 2003) was further divided into the republics of Hereroland and Namibia in September 2020. In South Africa, a process of political polarisation resulted in the Bantu Nationalist Party of Julius Malema winning a narrow majority in parliamentary elections of 2019. Malema announced that the country would change its name to the Republic of Bantuland from 1 January 2020.
Elsewhere, the two countries which came out of the conflict relatively well were Ethiopia and Egypt. Ethiopia successfully helped Djibouti transition to a multi-party, if flawed, democracy and negotiated a customs union with Somalia and Djibouti, the culmination of a long-term aim of the Ethiopian diplomatic elite. Egypt lost territory during the conflict, with the non-Arab populations of Darfur and Sudan seceding. But the secessions happened with the minimum of armed conflict and Egyptian diplomats are regarded as having played a major role in bringing all the parties together at Damascus.
Political maps of Africa before the beginning of the protests against the Tunisian monarchy in August 2014 (left) and following the signing of the Damascus Accords in December 2021 (right)
It was far from a perfect map and it remained to be seen what the survivability of the peace would be. The commentator Timothy Garton Ash described the 89 delegations in Damascus as representing “not so much the 89 nation states on the continent as they were the 89 groups who could afford the transportation and accommodation costs.” In particular, the Republic of West Arabia existed as a strange diagonal between Morocco and Azawad, connecting the Arab communities on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts via a thin strip of the Sahara without natural borders. It existed mainly under the sufferance of Azawad and Morocco with the looming threat of a cryptic remark made by Arabian Prime Minister Khaled Khoja that the country would “protect our West Arabian cousins should the timing be right.”
Nonetheless, the borders as they now existed at least approximated the continent’s ethnic divisions and many post-colonial scholars argued that only now could the continent face the future fully independent.
The ins and outs of the African Wars of Independence are out of the scope of this work, deserving far more detailed treatment elsewhere. We will instead focus our attention to the Commonwealth’s role in the wider conflict, in particular its protection of its allies in the south, west and north of the continent. But first, let us consider the headlines facts of the conflict. The war is generally dated from August 2014, the start of the protests against the Tunisian royal government but in practice the fighting had not fully spread across the continent until midway through 2016. By this time the conflict was no longer just a story of protest and counter-protest but a strategic fight between hastily-organised standing armies. The war is generally held to have been ended by the Damascus Accords of 28 December 2021 but, again, “generally” is very much the operative word here. The Damascus Accords were vital in that representatives from every African country signed a piece of paper confirming the recognition of every other country and began the process of accession to the UN. But in truth the continent would be the home to sporadic protests and rebellions for some time, even if its borders were now stable. The conflict saw the widest and most dramatic geographical changes on any continent during the modern era: on 1 January 2014 Africa was home to 35 nations (if we include the French Departments of the Maghreb and Reunion); on 31 December 2021 it was home to 89.
Other than that, the casualty figures of the conflict make for grim reading. 6,577,000 people are estimated to have been killed on all sides, with another approximately 580,000 civilian casualties, although as many have noted, the distinction between civilian and military deaths was notional at many points and in many theatres during the conflict. In addition, nearly 13,000,000 people were displaced during the conflict, either as refugees (causing serious internal instability in Italy, Spain and Arabia) or internally. It was a grim and bloody conflict without parallel since the end of the World War.
Commonwealth interests in the conflict were focused on protecting allies and the territorial integrity of the two member states on the continent. Despite some concerns, there was relatively little internal unrest in either East Africa or Rhodesia, a testament to the half-century long process of nation building in both of those countries. (Although largely a forgotten figure nowadays, Garfield Todd’s two decades in power in Rhodesia, turning it from the road to becoming South Africa into a multi-racial democracy probably makes him one of the great democratic heroes of the 20th century.) Commonwealth ‘peacekeepers’ were also deployed, following both consultation with the other members of the Security Council and the requests of the local governments, in Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Katanga. However, Commonwealth forces worked hard to remain confined to these countries and did not venture over the border into the wider conflict.
The other theatre in which Commonwealth citizens, if not the military formally, were deeply engaged was the Sahara. Here, a series of Commonwealth military advisors and adventurers (others might say mercenaries but the difference is largely semantic) became deeply embedded in the struggles of the various Tuareg clans to create their own nation. A particularly prominent figure was Rory Stewart, who was intimately involved in the Tuareg rebellion almost from the moment of its beginning in late 2014. In 2019, he conducted a wide-ranging tour of the Commonwealth, raising money for the Tuaregs and attempting to push the Commonwealth into more active support. What Stewart’s precise relationship was with Commonwealth governmental and security forces remains unclear, with persistent rumours abounding of him being a Five Eyes agent. It is certainly true that, following the signing of the Damascus Accords, the Tuareg Republic of Azawad had notably friendly relations with the Commonwealth, with a number of contracts being signed allowing Tuareg-Commonwealth joint ventures to begin the construction of solar battery plants in the Sahara over the course of the 2020s.
In the south of Africa, there was remarkably little territorial change, certainly when compared to the rest of the continent. The former South African province of South West Africa (already independent since 2003) was further divided into the republics of Hereroland and Namibia in September 2020. In South Africa, a process of political polarisation resulted in the Bantu Nationalist Party of Julius Malema winning a narrow majority in parliamentary elections of 2019. Malema announced that the country would change its name to the Republic of Bantuland from 1 January 2020.
Elsewhere, the two countries which came out of the conflict relatively well were Ethiopia and Egypt. Ethiopia successfully helped Djibouti transition to a multi-party, if flawed, democracy and negotiated a customs union with Somalia and Djibouti, the culmination of a long-term aim of the Ethiopian diplomatic elite. Egypt lost territory during the conflict, with the non-Arab populations of Darfur and Sudan seceding. But the secessions happened with the minimum of armed conflict and Egyptian diplomats are regarded as having played a major role in bringing all the parties together at Damascus.
Political maps of Africa before the beginning of the protests against the Tunisian monarchy in August 2014 (left) and following the signing of the Damascus Accords in December 2021 (right)
It was far from a perfect map and it remained to be seen what the survivability of the peace would be. The commentator Timothy Garton Ash described the 89 delegations in Damascus as representing “not so much the 89 nation states on the continent as they were the 89 groups who could afford the transportation and accommodation costs.” In particular, the Republic of West Arabia existed as a strange diagonal between Morocco and Azawad, connecting the Arab communities on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts via a thin strip of the Sahara without natural borders. It existed mainly under the sufferance of Azawad and Morocco with the looming threat of a cryptic remark made by Arabian Prime Minister Khaled Khoja that the country would “protect our West Arabian cousins should the timing be right.”
Nonetheless, the borders as they now existed at least approximated the continent’s ethnic divisions and many post-colonial scholars argued that only now could the continent face the future fully independent.
If I were you, I would change this to the hacking monarchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(horse)
This is a simular consept to a hike, but ties in with the OTL Queen's love of horses?
That makes sense to me. Bit less 'ordinary person' than a hike, of course.