UCS Clarification Conference

[Chris S]

As for how dominion shades work, I recommend we set up a consistent scheme, but basically my idea is to adjust Luminosity and Saturation down to make them washed-out (but dark, not pale) versions of the home country colour.

I remember once either you or someone else posting a little colour scheme proposal with 4 colours:
Britain and direct colonies,
countries in personal union/dominions,
protectorates/protected states
and princely states


But as it was, weren't princely states really just protected states?


And then by convention we've had territories (such as Northern Territory and the Northwest Territories) also being shaded differently.

Also by convention we have sometimes had occupation being shown as a slightly lighter shade than the occupying power's colour even though originally I think the occupation was shown in the same colour for simplification and following the Centennia Historical Atlas convention....but perhaps, (ONLY if possible of course) we should have two occupation conventions:

- occupation with the intention to annex (e.g. British troops landing in Haiti during the Haitian Revolution and Britain declaring a colony of Saint Dominque with the clear intention that had they won western Hispaniola would have become a British colony...or Japanese occupation of large parts of the Pacific and eastern Asia during World War II)

- occupation without the intention to annex (e.g. Soviet occupation of Romania towards the end of World War II, American occupation of Cuba from 1906 to 1909)


So in all we could have the following colours/conventions:

- Power and it's colonies and occupation with intent to annex
- Personal Union with Power/Dominion of Power (in the case of say the Netherlands and Britain in the 1690s they would each keep their colour but maybe have the other's personal union colour either in outline or in diagonal stripes?)
- Protectorates and Protected States (including Princely States)
- Territories within a federal system, including within a dominion
- Occupation without intent to annex

- De jure situation or claim by outlining of power's direct colour with other colour filled within

- De facto situation or influence (other than protectorates and protected states which have a legal basis) by outlining in independent colour but with power's colour filled within

 

[NothingNow]

A more formalized documentation needs to be made of the UCS. One of a text format to accompany the image document itself. In it should be recorded the hexadecimal values of each UCS color, to help ensure quality. (and that way we can record alot less information in alot less space).

I'll say this: Hexadecimal values are Essential for Mac users like myself, since nothing on the mac seems to include an "Inkdroper" function.

 

[KingByng]

I don't think that's necessarily relevant to Canada and Australia though. I tend to put the change around about 1964, arbitrary I know but basically you have to think about 'at what point does Britain get in a war and the dominions don't automatically jump in alongside her?'

So why not put the change with the Statute of Westminster? This means from 1931 Canada gets the orange colour and from 1942 Australia gets the green. It's the de facto independence date for each country, no?

 

[Chris S]

I don't think that's necessarily relevant to Canada and Australia though. I tend to put the change around about 1964, arbitrary I know but basically you have to think about 'at what point does Britain get in a war and the dominions don't automatically jump in alongside her?'

Well it would be relevant to Canada and Australia since at any point from 1950 onwards they could have become republics (i.e. broken the personal union) without leaving the Commonwealth as Ireland had to in 1948. From that point on the personal union connection was sufficiently weakened that it wouldn't be consistent to show it for Canada and Australia and yet have India with a separate colour since prior to that time being in personal union with Britain effectively meant being a dominion and being in the Commonwealth, afterwards the link between those 3 states of being was broken.

 

[Chris S]

So why not put the change with the Statute of Westminster? This means from 1931 Canada gets the orange colour and from 1942 Australia gets the green. It's the de facto independence date for each country, no?

Except a country in personal union is already technically independent. The Netherlands were never a British colony, nor was Britain a Dutch colony in the 1690s when Willy the III was King and Stadholder. The Statute of Westminster just affirmed and provided a legal basis for the Commonwealth personal unions at that point. The London Declaration in 1950 then broke the link between being a Dominion and Commonwealth membership.

 

[Chris S]

Would'nt it make sense to switch the colors the Dominions are basically fully idependent, even if it's only de facto?

In which case I suppose the switch would be betwen the late 40's and late 50's.

Yep, 1950.

 

[Chris S]

I was suggesting we broaden Romul's convention so we can just stripe Russia to make the Soviet Union or China to make Communist China rather than using separate colours for them. It's useful to have the option for when you need to represent two separate Chinese regimes (as in OTL) or a civil war.....

You mean like this?

I originally attempted to go for the whole map and have the USSR and China being striped, but....well...it would take a LONG time (in fact I gave up whilst doing just part of the European USSR). In fact if you attempt it you will quickly realize that the striped method for the main communist countries of the USSR and PRC has many problems:

1. It takes too long.

2. It makes it much harder to edit maps.

3. It will become very difficult to show the situations during the Civil Wars.

 

[Iori]

I'd like to add it's incredibly unaesthetic.

 

[Agemennon]

In terms of successor states/dominions/released states:

We have pre-defined colors for most of these, but in terms of ATLs:

Canadian color should be reserved for the primary British Released/Dominion State in NA in ATL (including super-Britwanks, 13 colonies stay with the Empire), while the USA color is the primary British successor-state color. The CSA color would be the primary American successor-state color.

 

[Thande]

I'm just trying to avoid the problem we've faced over whether bloodred means 'commie/other radical Russia' or 'chief Communist state'. For example, Bruce Munro has just posted a map where there is a Soviet Russia and an Imperial Russia existing side by side, but the chief Commie state is in Austria. So who gets the bloodred, Soviet Russia or Commie Austria?

I accept that the striping is a cumbersome way to deal with it, but what other options do we have?

 

[Dr. No]

I got another idea on the communism issue:

Any communist country should have a red main color and an outlining in its national colors (if homegrown; blank white is always OK) or its hegemon's national colors. A hegemon would also additionally get stripes in its national colors to differentiate it from its satellites.

The typical Warsaw Pact state would therefore be red with a golden crust, the USSR itself would also get additional golden stripes to avoid ANY misunderstandings. No, Central Europe is just satellites, no bloody russification happened!

The typical Titoist Yugoslavia that's typically surrounded by Soviet satellites may either be blank white (because we know) or blank white with red stripes, denoting its lighter and more neutral stance.

I'd be flexible when it comes to non-Eurasian communist regimes. If you're purely ideologic, red with neutral homegrown outlines is your best friend. If you want to avoid the impression that Moscow or Beijing can keep the regime in place by force, you may also just use red stripes if it wouldn't make the map all too messy.

 

[Thande]

I got another idea on the communism issue:

Any communist country should have a red main color and an outlining in its national colors (if homegrown; blank white is always OK) or its hegemon's national colors. A hegemon would also additionally get stripes in its national colors to differentiate it from its satellites.

The typical Warsaw Pact state would therefore be red with a golden crust, the USSR itself would also get additional golden stripes to avoid ANY misunderstandings. No, Central Europe is just satellites, no bloody russification happened!

The typical Titoist Yugoslavia that's typically surrounded by Soviet satellites may either be blank white (because we know) or blank white with red stripes, denoting its lighter and more neutral stance.

I'd be flexible when it comes to non-Eurasian communist regimes. If you're purely ideologic, red with neutral homegrown outlines is your best friend. If you want to avoid the impression that Moscow or Beijing can keep the regime in place by force, you may also just use red stripes if it wouldn't make the map all too messy.

That's an elegant system, but it seems a bit too complicated...

 

[_tscar]

I'm interested to see how this turns out, but I'd like to say that the striped style for communist countries is very ugly. I don't think we really need to indicate whether a country is communist or not except for rare examples like the Soviet Union which was a completely different entity from Russia altogether.

 

[Iori]

The question arises;

Apart from the major powers, why do countries even need colors denoting their communist?

 

[mowque]

I'm interested to see how this turns out, but I'd like to say that the striped style for communist countries is very ugly. I don't think we really need to indicate whether a country is communist or not except for rare examples like the Soviet Union which was a completely different entity from Russia altogether.

The question arises;

Apart from the major powers, why do countries even need colors denoting their communist?

I am no mapmaker but these voices make sense to me.

Note: I appericate your people's work in trying to clarify the UCS.

 

[Dr. No]

The question arises;

Apart from the major powers, why do countries even need colors denoting their communist?

It depends, my friends, it depends.

That's an elegant system, but it seems a bit too complicated...

Usage would vary greatly. Personally I'd be fed up with redding any country in Africa or Latin America just because they were communist. Other countries on the other hand are of bigger concern, and might have more of an important neighbourhood.

 

[Sachyriel]

Meh. I'm just gonna keep using the one I've been using for a couple years. Not too many colours, and not too few.

EDIT: Jesus Christ, I've been here for over five years. Wow.

Congrats, I like how you came to that realization in this thread randomly.

On topic: UCS is ridiculous, I secede from your nation and invade it to prevent my own destruction!

 

[Ofaloaf]

I'm just trying to avoid the problem we've faced over whether bloodred means 'commie/other radical Russia' or 'chief Communist state'. For example, Bruce Munro has just posted a map where there is a Soviet Russia and an Imperial Russia existing side by side, but the chief Commie state is in Austria. So who gets the bloodred, Soviet Russia or Commie Austria?

Soviet Russia. Red is for Soviet Russia, not Commieanywhereland. Austria gets its usual color and the author gets to explain that- shock and horror!- the arbitrary color used in the map doesn't always reflect ideology.

If there's a map with an Imperial Russia and a Communist Germany/Brazil/Sokoto Caliphate in it, no one should get Soviet Red. The point of all this was to help organize and more easily identify countries in some cohesive ATL system, right? Ideology does not matter. The Soviets get their red color and the Chinese get their split because they had:

• Two governments existing side-by-side
• Overseas territories

IMO, a map that has the US painted red and an Imperial Russia still in place isn't going by UCS standards any more.

 

[Chris S]

The question arises;

Apart from the major powers, why do countries even need colors denoting their communist?

Well in the case of the USSR it would be for:

1. It's significance (often pops up on OTL maps and it makes it easier to show the civil war and for alternate history scenarios where the Whites manage to pull a Taiwan the colour differentiation would be necessary).

2. The fact that technically the USSR is not Russia, but rather that Russia was a part of the USSR.

For China it would be mainly for differentiating the ROC in Taiwan from the PRC on the mainland. Rather like how nobody uses the same UCS colour for East Germany and for West Germany and tend not to use the same colour for the two Koreas.


Had Nationalists just thrown in the towel and let the PRC conquer Taiwan then we probably wouldn't need these colours to differentiate for our timeline maps.

 

[Iori]

Well in the case of the USSR it would be for:

1. It's significance (often pops up on OTL maps and it makes it easier to show the civil war and for alternate history scenarios where the Whites manage to pull a Taiwan the colour differentiation would be necessary).

2. The fact that technically the USSR is not Russia, but rather that Russia was a part of the USSR.

For China it would be mainly for differentiating the ROC in Taiwan from the PRC on the mainland. Rather like how nobody uses the same UCS colour for East Germany and for West Germany and tend not to use the same colour for the two Koreas.


Had Nationalists just thrown in the towel and let the PRC conquer Taiwan then we probably wouldn't need these colours to differentiate for our timeline maps.

Oh I get, and support seperate colors for Russia/USSR and China, but I meant like say Angola or Vietnam or any other non-power.