THE STAR-SPANGLED EXPANDED UNIVERSE OF
"WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?"
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Due to an almost constant output of little bits of fiction written by fans of WMIT Redux: The Union Forever, dare I say one of the darkest - yet really fun and intriguing - dystopias you'll ever read (I hope you agree, at least), I say it'd be neat to have a thread solely devoted to this additional content. Because a lot of it is really great and deserves attention!

The only rules are fan-content can't be any later than the most recent chapters (example: posting about 2018 when it's only 1905 in the timeline proper. Small exceptions are allowed, like the little songs a lot of people have been posting about "Patriot-Saints Day." But as a rule, no serious fiction should be set later than the year of the most current additions. Believe me, you'll never be able to predict what I have planned for that far horizon anyway. lol The other rule is by posting your content in this thread, I'm free to borrow ideas from it or use it as I see fit in the TL proper. I'll definitely give shout-outs and thank yous when I do!

So have fun! It's open to everyone. I'm especially looking forward to backstories for minor characters I've mentioned (example: "What was Wyatt Jenkins up to all those years between him becoming Field Marshal of the Union and his brother being the first to die during the Union invasion of the Green Mountain Republic?"). Other fun stuff could be companies and backstories for them (SPUD and Fire-Breather Cigarettes and such have to start somewhere). In general, I just want the universe of WMiT to expand and be made more real and breathing. I work a full-time management job, and I still churn out truckloads of work, but my imagination is fried some days. If I think your post in this thread is amazing, I will threadmark it and it will be considered canon for the TL! Feel free to post posters, uniforms, videos, and all sorts of pictures or relevant content here as well! I desperately need help finding more and more suitable illustrations.

I would also like to remind everyone there is a Wikia! http://what-madness-is-this.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

And a TVTropes! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/WhatMadnessIsThis

I have considered making an official WMiT Youtube channel and doing videos similar in style to Indie Nidel's The Great War series (although I could never be as cool as him by any means). But that requires cameras and editing programs I don't currently posses. In the meantime, here is the channel I uploaded some WMiT videos too a good while back but that are still fun: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5tKM5mudavi3-cvWJlCKJw

And here is the 2013 1.0 version of WMiT that is similar to Redux, but differs very heavily by the mid-1800s: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/what-madness-is-this-an-alternate-history.301192/ (thanks go to Zoidberg12 for compiling it).

Have fun, everyone! And thank you very much for reading and being such great fans of the TL. It's my baby and it really is encouraging to see so many people enjoy it. I'm blown away by all the positive comments. :) Happy holidays!
 
Here's something I wanted to write for a while:

The Rise of Normanism in the Confederation of the Carolinas

Following the Great American War, CoCaro was in an unusual place. On one hand, they finally reclaimed West Carolina from the Virginian "Aggressor Imperialists," and even gained Bermuda and part of Virginia proper. However, they now had to contend with the fact that the Yankee Goliath completely enveloped them, and hordes of revanchist AFC zealots could come crashing into them at any moment. Adding insult to injury, the Yankee Occupation had completely dashed Chancellor Polk's grand plan to build a new Confederation of the South. Furthermore, high racial tensions between whites and recently emancipated blacks as well as the economic calamity of the Great Disturbance had put Carolina on a knife's edge. The time was ripe for a new ideology to arise, one whose similarities to Marxism were noted by the outside world.....

In 1880, Zebulon Baird Vance, a lawyer, author, and Great American War veteran, published "The Book of Normans: Our Noble Heritage." In it, Vance claimed that the Old South was founded by descendants of the Norman conquerors of England, and that within many upper and middle class Carolinians was the blood of a real aristocracy. This race was held to be the true Master Race, the "whitest of the white men." The Scotch-Irish frontiersmen were deemed "honorary Normans" by Vance, as well as the Germanic peoples due to his admiration for their martial prowess and empire building. Right beneath them on this racial hierarchy were the Scandinavians, Irish, and modern French who were respected as "Superior Races" but not quite a Master Race. Further below were Slavs, Italians, Spainiards, Portuguese, "Balkaners," and Hispanics who were deemed "Civilized Races." The second lowest rung on the racial pyramid was comprised of North Africans, Arabs, Persians, and Asians of all stripes as the "Lesser Races" who nonetheless could be allowed to exist. Finally, at the very bottom, were the Africans, Native Americans, and Anglo-Saxons (who were defined as the original inhabitants of England and Wales who were held responsible for founding the RU) as the "Barbarous Races," who needed to be either ruthlessly dominated or destroyed. The Anglo-Saxon was held to be the worst of the three Barbarous Races because he "could feign a White civilization" making him incredibly dangerous.

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Zebulon Baird Vance
The Book of Normans was immensely popular, only being outsold in 1880 and 1881 by the Bible itself. It promised that Carolina would survive the economic crisis and the frightening direction the RU seemed to be taking as Custer rose to power, not by luck, but because her people were inherently better. Vance quickly capitalized on the success of his book, publishing a follow up entitled A New Empire of Liberty: How We Must Reunite the Norman Race into a Grand Confederation. Based on Chancellor Polk's secret plans for a Confederation of the South (which Vance was privy to as an officer) the book declared:

"If true liberty is to survive on this or any continent, the Old South must rise again! Not as separate nations, for we were divided previously, and this allowed the Yankee Devils to destroy our civilization easily. No, if freedom and liberty are not to perish on this Earth, the great Norman element on this continent must unite into a grand Confederacy of the South! Obviously, the burden of building and running such a Confederation would fall on the Carolinas, as we possess the purest Normanish and Scotch-Irish strains to be found anywhere in the modern world. Alas, we must lead our Fellow Norman Southroners much as Ancient Sparta lead the Peloponnesian League of its day. If we are manly enough to take up the burden, however, the glory of this new nation would be immense! Stretching from old Maryland in the North to Cuba in the South, from the Mississippi in the West to Jacksonland all the East-way in Africa, the Grand Confederation would stretch over 8,000 miles tip to tip! Hallelujah! Hark the Sound of Norman Men's Voices!"

A New Empire of Liberty
also proposed a new map of the Americas with the Confederation of the South being broken up into 13 states, comprising all of the Old South plus Cuba. Vance even went so far as to create a red, white, and blue flag for the proposed nation, as he was sure it would be used someday. The flag quickly caught on with a nascent political movement that Vance helped to co-found in 1883 with fellow Great American War veterans Nathan Bedford Forrest (Jacksonland's second Governor) and Joseph E Johnston, which they dubbed "The League of the South." The League had a structure remarkably similar to that of the Manifest Destiny Party and the AFC, with a paramilitary wing dubbed the "Redshirts" and a secret council comprised of Vance, Forrest, Johnston, and prominent Carolinian politicians and businessmen, who simply called themselves "The Redeemers." As the League began winning local elections, Redshirt mobs began attacking blacks and, when they could get away with it, Yankee citizens who were in the Confederation for whatever reason. When the national government began to crack down on the League's violence, riots began breaking out in Raleigh and Charleston. Meanwhile, Vance and his colleagues were debating whether or not to take the situation, and indeed the Carolinas, into their own hands.....

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The proposed flag of the "Confederation of the South," and the Banner of the League of the South

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Red Shirt Paramilitaries intimidating voters in a Wilmington municipal election

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League of the South supporters riot in Charleston

 
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Very interesting contribution you got there, @Murica1776! :) Now, I wonder how the RU, especially Custer, are going react to The Book of Normans, considering that it classifies Anglo-Saxons and Blacks as being below that of Irish and Slavs?
 
Very interesting contribution you got there, @Murica1776! :) Now, I wonder how the RU, especially Custer, are going react to The Book of Normans, considering that it classifies Anglo-Saxons and Blacks as being below that of Irish and Slavs?

In the short-run, it means the RU is definitely going to use CoCaro in more propaganda as "a totally perverted and fundamentally wrong nation that must be purified." Also, I imagine relations would become and remain extremely tense, and fairly quickly. In the longer run, when the Union and the Confederation likely go to war, it will basically become an apocalyptic ethnic cleansing/holy war on both sides. The Union will want to slaughter any Inferiors who have moved to CoCaro because of their kinder racial policy towards them, and fundamentally destroy Carolinian culture even among Betters. On the other side, Carolina will want to mow down as many Yankees as possible because they're racially inferior regardless of skin color. Not a pretty picture.

I'm already thinking of a new update for Carolina that will demonstrate the influence of Normanism on wider society. Since they're essentially a Southron version of the MDP and AFC, this could be very fun. Some elements I'm thinking of including:

  • Ancient Spartans/Athenians take on the role Rome plays in AFC ideology (ie Pinnacle Man style stuff) This results in a craze for all things Ancient Spartan and Athenian (especially Spartan) and possibly a system where "Service Guarantees Citizenship"
  • Possibly a new Fundamentalist style church that adopts Normanism as Biblical Truth, and adds more justification for the budding ideology
  • Alt-Strong Man Theory/Social Darwinism with more of an aristocratic as opposed to dictatorial tinge
  • Perhaps a Carolinian Goodyear who is hell-bent on preparing the nation for a war against the Yankee Menace
  • The Carolinians start making subtle moves to ally with Nordreich (the Germans are a Master Race for several reasons).
 
I would think Normanism would have a harder time gaining traction with Carolinians than the AFCC has done in the RU. The AFCC was created in a nation that had suffered a number of traumatic events including a corrupt election and a devastating war with Canada. It became accepted because it promised redemption and revenge to a defeated and brutalized people. Carolina OTOH had just won a war with the help of the RU; I can't see a lot of Carolinians accepting a homegrown version of the AFCC; especially since it glorifies a people who are French. People in the former Virginia and Gerogia, however, who had just suffered a massive defeat might be more receptive. I can see Normanism as TTL counterpart to OTL's Knights of the Golden Circle.
 
This is a very interesting concept indeed. I'm definitely thinking such a political movement might come to power in CoCaro and in an underground way in the Old South as well. Perhaps the White League receives funding from the Redshirts and it's part of a pan-Southron movement. I could see this devolving 90s Balkan-style very quickly. I definitely approve of an eventual ethnic cleansing war between the Union and CoCaro.

I don't see them adopting it as a religion though. Traditional Protestants likely escaped to CoCaro in the wake of the March on Philadelphia and CoCaro would be wise to treat them kindly as they will add to their already far-outnumbered population. Hmmmmm...

Keep up the good work!
 
Since Classic, I've had this idea of World War Z happening here, complete with the RU using Inferiors as part of a fucked up Redecker plan and perhaps going the way the PRC did in canon.
 
This is a very interesting concept indeed. I'm definitely thinking such a political movement might come to power in CoCaro and in an underground way in the Old South as well. Perhaps the White League receives funding from the Redshirts and it's part of a pan-Southron movement. I could see this devolving 90s Balkan-style very quickly. I definitely approve of an eventual ethnic cleansing war between the Union and CoCaro.

I don't see them adopting it as a religion though. Traditional Protestants likely escaped to CoCaro in the wake of the March on Philadelphia and CoCaro would be wise to treat them kindly as they will add to their already far-outnumbered population. Hmmmmm...

Keep up the good work!
I have to agree with Napo; Normanism works better as a Pan-Southron political movement. They can present themselves as champions of traditional Protestant religion against the crazed and twisted cult that is the AFCC.
Another idea is that they frame their story as an analogue of the English Civil War; they believe themselves to be the descendants of the noble Cavaliers against the Yankee Roundheads.
 
Murica, you might want to fix your flag. It has some extra room at the top and the bottom that the blue "x" doesn't cover.
 
I have to agree with Napo; Normanism works better as a Pan-Southron political movement. They can present themselves as champions of traditional Protestant religion against the crazed and twisted cult that is the AFCC.
Another idea is that they frame their story as an analogue of the English Civil War; they believe themselves to be the descendants of the noble Cavaliers against the Yankee Roundheads.

That's actually what all the Norman talk is about/where I got the idea. It's actually based on OTL beliefs from the antebellum South where many pro-slavery (and later pro-Confederate) thinkers claimed that the South was founded by the Anglo-Normans who were descendants of William the Conqueror and his knights, who then became the British aristocracy and the Cavaliers. They are now facing off the "slave race of Puritan Roundhead Anglo-Saxons" I'm pretty sure I mentioned that background in the little chapter I wrote. If not, I'll revise it to go into detail on that.

I definitely think that them championing traditional Protestant Christianity is the way to go for right now. The mention of a new religion was more just an idea I threw out there for fun. (Maybe after Carolina gets conquered it can arise in secret).

I'm also going to use this post to go into some detail on how I view the differences between the MDP and the League of the South/Normanism movement, and why it's arising.

Why is it rising?
  • The Confederation might have won one war, but they're terrified of the next. As the Americans keep finding ways to lose their minds, what with Custer, the MDP, Spiritual Marxism, and the Mexican War, I imagine that any Carolinian that doesn't have their head up their ass is utterly petrified of a Yankee invasion, one that will almost certainly succeed.
  • The economic crisis that caused the Great Disturbance is sure to hit Carolina as hard, if not harder than it hit the RU. Carolina still probably has a highly agrarian, albeit industrializing economy that depends on selling raw materials and foodstuff to foreign factories and workers. If they close down, then Carolinian crops are basically worthless. Might not hurt plantation owners as much (although they'll still get hurt) but your average farmer? He's screwed. Hungry mouths and desperate families make a nice foundation for people to believe insane bs.
  • The race issue. After the Yankees basically forced the Carolinas to free their slaves (something I'm sure they just loved) there's a whole can of worms open. Jacksonland helps because there's somewhere to ship some off too, but you can't get rid of a huge part of your population overnight. They'll need employment which increases competition for already struggling poor whites. Having been freed from slavery, they also might have "silly notions" about getting things like equal citizenship and respect, which is sure as hell not gonna happen. Since they're still getting treated like dirt, many blacks would look at the AFC as an attractive option. There you have fears of a fifth column which practically write themselves. Add in possible race riots and some lynchings, and you basically have a low-level race war.
  • The end result? Your average White Middle Class Carolinian Man is A) Petrified the Yankees are going to slaughter him and his family B) Thinking if the Yankees don't get to them, economic distress might make things like food and medicine unaffordable. Plus a crime wave from desperate poor folks doesn't help. Finally, C) Fearing that if he survives the economic collapse currently occurring, the black folks are going to kill him and his family, or aid the Yankees in doing so. That level of dislocation, distress, and paranoia is gonna make folks go along with some crazy ass stuff if they think it'll help em out of the crisis.
MDP vs. LOS
  • Obviously, no church affiliated with the LOS (although lots Protestant denominations will embrace them). The AFC on the other hand, gave birth to the MDP. Totally different relationship there.
  • The MDP started out as a mass movement fueled by again, the AFC. I envision the LOS as more of a "Party Vanguard" ideal, where maybe initially its a relatively small, but noticeable minority that is just incredibly loud and heavily armed. They seize some amount of power, but nothing like the MDP where it was just a revolution and boom, President Custer. There'll be something of a revolution after I revise the old chapter and start working on a new one, but Vance doesn't throw out the Chancellor or anything, just secures a new title for himself. Think more of Mussolini's March on Rome
  • Finally, I think the biggest difference between them is overall worldview. The RU is already a totalitarian, apocalyptic, Utopian society that believes it can prefect mankind via recreating the Pinnacle Man and bring about God's Kingdom on Earth. Part of this is because the RU's ideology is based on religion, and a theocracy is bound to be totalitarian. The Carolinas, when they finally fall under the control of the Normanist LOS more fully (think a Chancellor for Life) are never going to have those aspirations. Sure, they want to create a "Grand Confederation," but that's out of a reactionary desire to restore the Old South, not a utopian desire to save mankind. They don't necessarily desire to go crusading into the world, destroying the foreign heathens wherever they might be. They just want the might to keep them from their shores. In the end, I think a good comparison would be a 1930's Germany under a racialist, and revanchist, but not terribly ambitious military dictatorship vs. OTL's Nazis. The military dictatorship might hate certain groups of people and want certain lands back, but if they acquire those lands and aren't interfered with, they won't necessarily desire to go out and conquer the world or control every aspect of their citizens lives. The Nazis, well.... history kinda speaks to their ambitions, no?
I hope that gives everyone a rough idea of where my head is regarding this. Also, I apologize if me shooting out this incredibly long reply comes across as me being rude or upset. I'm not, but was rather just using the opportunity to share where my thoughts are going!
 
Here's my contribution to the expanded universe, @Napoleon53:

List of territories acquired by the Republican Union after the Great American War

From the Chesapeake Republic of Maryland
Burrland (FKA Maryland): Annapolis

From the Republic of Virginia
Virginia (FKA Columbiana): Richmond
Appalachia (FKA Westsylvania and Kentucky): Lewisburg (OTL Louisville, Kentucky)

From the Republic of Georgia
Peachtree* (including Savannah): Athens
Revere (FKA Bulloch): Elyton (OTL Birmingham, Alabama)
Florida (FKA East and West Florida): St. Augustine
Mississippi: Fort Lincoln (FKA Fort Davis; OTL Little Rock, Arkansas)
Lewisiana (FKA Louisiana): New Antioch (FKA New Orleans)
Bahamas: Nassau

From the Republic of Cuba
Cuba: Havana

From the Republic of Jamaica
Jamaica (including the Cayman Islands): Kingston

From the Democratic-Republic of Texas
Texas: Goodyear (FKA Ciudad Santa Anna; OTL Austin)

*= Not renamed back to Georgia as punishment for The Great American War as well as already being the name of a nation considered Inferior by the RU

Any questions and comments are greatly appreciated. :)
 
I have an idea for Greece but I’m not sure what we know about in this timeline

However I think I might do a piece about famed Australian outlaw

H.G Wells
 
The revised chapter! More Detail! More Pictures! More Madness!

The Rise of Normanism in the Confederation of the Carolinas

Following the Great American War, CoCaro was in an unusual place. On one hand, they finally reclaimed West Carolina from the Virginian "Aggressor Imperialists," and even gained Bermuda and part of Virginia proper. However, they now had to contend with the fact that the Yankee Goliath completely enveloped them, and hordes of revanchist AFC zealots could come crashing into them at any moment. Adding insult to injury, the Yankee Occupation had completely dashed Chancellor Polk's grand plan to build a new Confederation of the South. Furthermore, high racial tensions between whites and recently emancipated blacks as well as the economic calamity of the Great Disturbance had put Carolina on a knife's edge. The time was ripe for a new ideology to arise, one whose similarities to Marxism were noted by the outside world.....

In 1880, Zebulon Baird Vance, a lawyer, author, and Great American War veteran, published "The Book of Normans: Our Noble Heritage." In it, Vance claimed that the Old South was founded by descendants of the Cavaliers of the English Civil War, themselves descended from the Anglo-Norman aristocracy that was established by William the Conqueror, and that within many upper and middle class Carolinians was the blood of "fine ancient conquering stock." The Anglo-Norman Man was held up as the greatest thing to ever happen to mankind, as his "commitment to Liberty, dedication to True Protestantism, and resistance to dangerously radical ideas" made him the "last, best hope for Free Men on Earth." The talk of radical ideals and True Protestantism were some not so subtle attacks on the AFC, which Vance maintained to be a "crazed cult of Spiritualism, leader idolatry, nation worship, and buffoonery." As thousands of Protestant refugees flooded the Carolinas, many of them embraced Normanism whole-heartedly as its talk of hatred for, and protection against, the AFC was wildly popular with their congregations. Native Protestant preachers, particularly Presbyterians and Baptists, also began taking to Normanism as an ideology "fit for Real Christians." Vance himself would partially frame his view of the conflicts between the South and the RU through the lens of the English Civil War:

The history of conflict and violence between the Southron and the Yankee is no more, and no less, than a large-scale re-enactment of the English Civil War. The Southron, descended from sturdy, aristocratic Norman Cavalier stock, believes that all men are saved in Christ, but that Christ has no interest in running all the affairs of man for him. A man can be a Christian and still drink, gamble, and race horses. Such things are signs of the cultivation of a truly advanced, aristocratic society. Furthermore, the Anglo-Norman cares not how his neighbor worships God and Christ, so long as he is not a heathen, cultist, or atheist. The Yankee, descended from the fanatical, vicious Puritan Roundhead and their degenerate spiritual offspring that landed in Plymouth, is quite different. The Yankee believes that whatever religious fanaticism has enthralled him at the moment, be it Cromwellian, Puritan, or Fundamentalist, is the only, total truth, and that he must spread it to the ends of the Earth or die trying. The end result is a civilization in a perpetual state of nervous energy and crusading fervor that is doomed to act like the very cultist heathen pagans they despise! How else can one explain their attempts to revive Cromwellian beliefs, most blasphemously the banning of Christmas celebrations! We are two very different peoples who have been forced to live side by side, and the end result shall always be conflict.

cromwell-at-drogheda.jpg

A historical drawing of Cromwell's men committing atrocities in Ireland, used by Vance as proof of "Anglo-Saxon Fanaticism"

Vance also advanced a bizarre Marxist style racial hierarchy and history. According to "historical findings" and "scientific studies," the Anglo-Norman was the product of migrations made by "superior Classical race strains" that became mightier as they traveled, conquering their foes wherever they went. This Anglo-Norman race was held to be the true Master Race, the "whitest of the white men." The Scotch-Irish frontiersmen were deemed "honorary Normans" by Vance, as well as the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples due to his admiration for their martial prowess and empire building. Right beneath them on this racial hierarchy were the Irish, and modern French who were respected as "Superior Races" but not quite a Master Race. The French were allegedly put lower than the Anglo-Normans because they "were merely the evolved strains of old French peasants, not real aristocrats." Further below were Slavs, Italians, Spainiards, Portuguese, "Balkaners," and Hispanics who were deemed "Civilized Races." The second lowest rung on the racial pyramid was comprised of North Africans, Arabs, Persians, and Asians of all stripes as the "Lesser Races" who nonetheless could be allowed to exist. Finally, at the very bottom, were the Africans, Native Americans, and Anglo-Saxons (who were defined as the original inhabitants of England and Wales who were held responsible for founding the RU) as the "Barbarous Races," who needed to be either ruthlessly dominated or destroyed. The Anglo-Saxon was held to be the worst of the three Barbarous Races because he "could feign a White civilization" making him incredibly dangerous.

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Zebulon Baird Vance
His book couldn't have come at a better time. In the tail end of the 1870's and into the 1880's, CoCaro was a frightened, battered place. The euphoria of victory from the Great American War had worn off, and the nation very quickly realized that their Yankee "allies" were stark, raving mad. As news of Spiritual Marxism, the rise of the Manifest Destiny Party, Custer's Solidification of power, and later on the war in Mexico reached the Carolinas, the reaction was one of utter hysteria and panic. While the Europeans dismissed the Yankees as "crazed cultists" or an amusing diversion, the Carolinians understood that they were surrounded on all sides by expansionist, fascist, religious fanatics who could invade at their convenience. Lincoln cramming Emancipation down their throats only made things worse. The Confederation was stuck with a large population of free blacks, many of whom had AFC sympathies, and couldn't deport them to Jacksonland quickly enough. Even worse in the average Carolinian's view was their constant agitation for equal rights, citizenship, and an end to a de facto system of segregation installed to "keep the Negro where he belongs." Race riots broke out throughout the 1870s and early 1880s, sometimes initiated by blacks wanting rights (or agitating for the AFC), other times initiated by whites stirred up by rabble-rousing demagogues and newspapers. However, it was the economic collapse brought about by the Great Disturbance that really made Carolina feel the heat. The collapse of European economies devastated Carolina, who was still dependent on selling raw materials to Europe for income despite a drive towards industrialization. As their buyers went bankrupt, Carolinian mines and farms closed down in waves, especially those owned by small-time proprietors. The whole nation seemed to feel desperate, angry, hungry, paranoid and trapped.....

Zebulon Vance offered the people of the Carolinas hope. His book wasn't just a racist, anti-AFC screed, it was a lifeline of hope. In it, he stated that Carolina could never fall because of the "inherent blood strength" of its people. He also prescribed some rudimentary policies to help the nation, including limited land reform and an increased pace of deportation to Jacksonland. As a result, The Book of Normans was immensely popular, only being outsold in 1880 and 1881 by the Bible itself. It promised that Carolina would survive the economic crisis and the frightening direction the RU seemed to be taking as Custer rose to power, not by luck, but because her people were inherently better. Vance quickly capitalized on the success of his book, publishing a follow up entitled A New Empire of Liberty: How We Must Reunite the Norman Race into a Grand Confederation. Based on Chancellor Polk's secret plans for a Confederation of the South (which Vance was privy to as an officer) the book declared:

"If true liberty is to survive on this or any continent, the Old South must rise again! Not as separate nations, for we were divided previously, and this allowed the Yankee Devils to destroy our civilization easily. No, if freedom and liberty are not to perish on this Earth, the great Norman element on this continent must unite into a grand Confederacy of the South! Obviously, the burden of building and running such a Confederation would fall on the Carolinas, as we possess the purest Normanish and Scotch-Irish strains to be found anywhere in the modern world. Alas, we must lead our Fellow Norman Southroners much as Ancient Sparta lead the Peloponnesian League of its day. If we are manly enough to take up the burden, however, the glory of this new nation would be immense! Stretching from old Maryland in the North to Cuba in the South, from the Mississippi in the West to Jacksonland all the East-way in Africa, the Grand Confederation would stretch over 8,000 miles tip to tip! Hallelujah! Hark the Sound of Norman Men's Voices!"

A New Empire of Liberty
also proposed a new map of the Americas with the Confederation of the South being broken up into 13 states, comprising all of the Old South plus Cuba. Vance even went so far as to create a red, white, and blue flag for the proposed nation, as he was sure it would be used someday. The flag quickly caught on with a nascent political movement that Vance helped to co-found in 1883 with fellow Great American War veterans Nathan Bedford Forrest (Jacksonland's second Governor) and Joseph E Johnston, which they dubbed "The League of the South." The League had a structure remarkably similar to that of the Manifest Destiny Party and the AFC, with a paramilitary wing dubbed the "Redshirts" and a secret council comprised of Vance, Forrest, Johnston, and prominent Carolinian politicians and businessmen, who called themselves "The Knights of the Golden Circle." As the League began winning local elections, Redshirt mobs began attacking blacks and, when they could get away with it, Yankee citizens who were in the Confederation for whatever reason. When the national government began to crack down on the League's violence, riots began breaking out in Raleigh and Charleston. Meanwhile, Vance and his colleagues were debating whether or not to take the situation, and indeed the Carolinas, into their own hands.....

confederate-battle-flag.jpg

The proposed flag of the "Confederation of the South," and the Banner of the League of the South

Red%20Shirts.JPG

Red Shirt Paramilitaries intimidating voters in a Wilmington municipal election

Tompkins_square_riot_1874.jpg

League of the South supporters riot in Charleston
 
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@Napoleon53 , would you be offended if I wrote up a kind of...anti-WMIT here? Basically, instead of going totalitarian and xenophobic after the war with the British, the Union goes hyper-egalitarian? PoD being that the big social movement that takes over holds that the Union lost because it betrayed its roots and was insufficiently welcoming of the tired, poor, huddled masses of the world, and the Evil Royalist Boot was able to overcome the Glorious Republic, something like that?
 
Excellent stuff, Murica! I'm very much considering canonizing this. One question though: Wouldn't Scandinavian be included as a Norman, since Normans were originally Viking Norsemen?

@Napoleon53 , would you be offended if I wrote up a kind of...anti-WMIT here? Basically, instead of going totalitarian and xenophobic after the war with the British, the Union goes hyper-egalitarian? PoD being that the big social movement that takes over holds that the Union lost because it betrayed its roots and was insufficiently welcoming of the tired, poor, huddled masses of the world, and the Evil Royalist Boot was able to overcome the Glorious Republic, something like that?

Sure! Go ahead! I wouldn't say they would think they lost because they weren't welcoming though. The Union was no worse than OTL Yankeedom at the time of the Shatter of 1801, and by 1812 was only marginally more so anti-"Inferior." Goodyear and Burr really pushed the Union into xenophobia. The best way to make an anti-WMiT would be to have the South and Bonaparte actually hold the British back some in 1812, or at least to a point where they don't totally destroy New England. There would be no xenophobia worse than OTL in WMiT if the South and France actually held up their end of the alliance. This might lead to a golden age where an eventual North American Union forms in a few decades as ties mend and the Bonapartes decide to spread the enlightenment to the rest of Europe. Maybe England accepts a respectable treaty and gets to keep its colonies, but France allowed dominance on the continent of Europe proper. Britain and France are both anti-slavery, so eventually, perhaps in the 1880s or so, the South finally ends slavery. You might do well to kill off Meinrad Beutel as well, or make him like a great campaigner for civil liberties and respect for all the nations of Europe or something.
 
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METROPOLIS: CITY OF TOMORROW
Metropolis: City of Tomorrow

Following the Mexican War, the Republican Union had expanded its borders once more. Unlike the Great Plains, though, this new land had a more civilized people who could revolt against Philadelphia and would always harbor sentiment against their conquerors from the north. It was this reason that fueled the birth of the policy of Americanization. "Only Americanizing the land is possible", George McClellan said in 1886. "Peace shall not come until the land is absolutely dominated by the Pinnacle Man." Initially this policy was just the expansion of the Separate Worlds policy to Mexicans, forcing them into their own ghettos. However, this all changed with the New Years Riots of 1889, resulting in the death of 150 Yankee soldiers. After the uprising was crushed, Custer sent out Presidential Directive 764, the destruction of Mexico City.

"Mexico City must disappear from the face of the earth. Every building must be razed to the ground and every resident eliminated or removed."

- Presidential Directive 764, January 4, 1889
In 1889, Mexico City was entirely destroyed, destined to make way for the new city of Metropolis. An estimated 80% of the men living in Mexico City before the war were executed or deported. Those that remained, along with women and children, were forced to dismantle the city piece by piece, day and night, for the next two years. At the dawn of 1890, the city was mostly gone, it's monuments destroyed and heritage taken to museums throughout the Union. Of the 500,000 people who called the city home before the war, 400,000 had been either executed or pressed into work details outside of the city, while the remaining 100,000 were left huddled in camps hastily put up around the city or squatting in nearby Texcoco. By Patriot-Saints Day, three quarters of those remaining had been deported to other parts of the country.

With a relatively blank slate, hundreds of architects and engineers were summoned to the city of Metropolis, which at this point was just a military camp centered around McClellan Castle. A committee was formed, and given the task to start construction on a "City of Tomorrow" by 1892 and "ready by Crawford's Centennial", 1901. For the first few weeks, chaos ensured as a massive battle of egos took place, but by the Autumnal Equinox a clear hierarchy had been established in the committee and a plan, mainly created by architect Daniel Burnham and engineer Hermann Moos[1]. It was Moos' grand plan for refilling Lake Texcoco, to be renamed Lake Washington, along with the canals of old Tenochtitlan, that won over the ever ambitious Burnham, who quickly got everyone else to fall in line through various deals and compromises. Moos, a Jewish immigrant from the Rheinbund, drew inspiration from the canals of Amsterdam and Venice he had seen on his travels as a university student. Engineers worked with Moos to design the various dykes, dams, and canals in such a way as to prevent the city from flooding and to keep the lake pristine. Through 1891, the remaining 25,000 residents of Mexico City, along with the population of Texcoco, worked day and night to dig the canals and build the dykes. It's estimated that 1500 died during the construction of Lake Washington. There bodies were merely buried in shallow mass graves in the future lake bed, leading to the taboo nickname for the lake, the New Dead Sea. When Custer came to visit the city in 1892, the lake had begun to fill once more. At their pace, Burnham and Moos estimated that the city would be finished by 1900.

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Daniel Burnham (left) and Hermann Moos (Right), the fathers of Metropolis

Their estimate was correct, and construction was officially finished on May 28th, 1900, the 14th anniversary of the start of the Mexican War. At that point the remaining inferiors were cleared out. Hardly a trace of the old city remained, save for the street grid around McClellan Castle, which became the seat of the New Canaan state government. The Zocalo, the old city center, was now home to a giant central park designed by Frederick Olmsted, designer of New York City's Central Park. Once narrow streets and back alleys gave way to wide axial prospects[2] lined with trees and geometric street planning. It was a city of many firsts. Metropolis was the first city with a water treatment facility, the first American city with publicly-run bath houses inspired by the sento of Nippon, the first city with indoor toilets in every house, and the first American city with city planning laws. But these firsts paled in comparison to the first extensive phone network in the city. Every home had it's own telephone, free of charge, and phone booths were scattered around the city. What people did not know was that every phone in the city was connected to Metropolis' RUMP headquarters, where everyone's calls would be listened to. Hundreds of transcribers sat ready to write down any tidbit that could be of use. It was the first urban mass surveillance system in the world. Metropolis was home to the largest airfield in the world, and for a time, the largest building by volume in the world. Benedict Arnold University of Boston opened a second campus in Metropolis, aptly named the Benedict Arnold University of Metropolis, or BAUM. The city that Burnham and Moos had built was a city so grand it challenged Haussmann's renovations of Paris half a century prior as the most beautiful city in the world. Metropolis was truly a city to behold, just as Custer wanted. Now it was ready for it's second purpose: to outdo the 1889 Europan Exhibition, held in Paris France.

In 1901, the 100th anniversary of Crawford's Rebellion, Metropolis was presented to the world when it hosted the Centennial Exposition. Visitors from all over Europe and America came and gawked at the city Burnham and Moos had built. Due to the classical style of architecture and Moos' canals, Europeans dubbed the city the "Venice of the New World". However, the more popular nickname for Metropolis was the White City, first coined in the New York Times on July 1st. Attractions were spread around the city, but the focal point was at Lakefront Plaza, home of the Administration Building the original record holder for tallest building in Metropolis. It's eastern facade was flanked by a reflecting pool that lead straight up to the shore of Lake Washington. At the end of the reflecting pool was a 50-foot tall stature of the Angel of Destiny. After the Centennial Exhibition the building was renamed to the Palace of Patriots and served as the seat of the municipal government. On the southern edge of the reflecting pool was the Manufacturer's and Liberal Arts Hall, the largest building in the world at the time. During the exposition it held exhibits of the latest goods from companies across the Republican Union. Exhibits ranging from the more practical like the displays of guns by Colt and Colonel Pierce Munitions and the latest in manufactured clothing from Colonel Goodyear Enterprises to the outlandish displays like the Sweet Victory Fountain, the ice room, and even a house of tomorrow, exploring the home of 1950. After the expo, the hall was turned into the world's largest arcade[3]. On the northern edge of the Reflection Pool stood the Hall of Fine Art, housing various pieces of artwork from Yankee and Indian cultures, including sculptures taken from the ruins of Tenochtitlan, along with a concert hall where an orchestra would play daily. To the North of the Hall of Fine Art was the Hamlet of States, where the various state governments had pavilions to show the glory of America. However, none of the attractions on the lake front were the stand out attraction of the expo. That honor goes to the Sky Wheel[4] located in Central Park. Standing at a height of 264 feet, the Sky Wheel took passengers up in the air to give panoramic views of Metropolis. It was designed to be Metropolis' Aiglon Tower[5], and it was. The Sky Wheel was such a success that copy cats quickly popped up all over the world. However, despite the awe of the attractions and buildings, there was one glaring problem expo-goers noticed: the lack of people. Metropolis was supposed to house 150,000 people. However, by the opening of the fair, the city was estimated to only be home to 30,000 people. Most of the buildings constructed outside of the downtown core were just empty shells and entire neighborhoods had yet to be constructed. The Centennial Exposition filled the city. Thanks to national coverage, the city's population soared to 100,000 by 1906. By 1908, the city reached its population target of 150,000, 55% of whom were Jews.


The exposition was a huge success. Burnham and Moos were awarded Order of Patriotic Brethren medallions on the closing day of the Centennial Exposition by President Custer. Moos would settle down in Metropolis, teaching engineering at BAUM until his death in 1907. Daniel Burnham was awarded a contract to rebuild the city of Shicagwa after the Great Shicagwa Fire of 1902. His reconstruction plan, known as the Burnham Plan, lead to the creation of many of Shicagwa's famous landmarks such as Lakeshore Park, the Shicagwa Civic Center, home of the city government, and Shicagwa's famous Diplomat Row, home to many Diplomatic Missions[6] from around the world.

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The Palace of Patriots at Night

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Manufacturer's and Liberal Arts Hall, 1901

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Shicagwa Civic Center, 1910
1: known IOTL as Hermann Einstein, father of Albert Einstein
2: TTL's name for boulevard in American English
3: TTl's name for shopping malls. Arcade was the term used to describe early shopping malls IOTL, and the term sticks around ITTL.
4: TTL's name for the Ferris wheel. Will cover the history of the pleasure park (TTL's amusement parks) in a future update
5: The Eiffel Tower, named after the recently deceased Napoleon II ITTL
6: TTL's name for Consulates
 
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