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A Map:



This is a scenario I’ve been bopping around with for a while. It was an attempt to make sort of a Khmer Rouge style regime in Europe, particularly Western Europe. It’s rather depressing, and not very well thought out. Honestly I’m more using it to make maps then anything. So I’m posting some stuff here for critique, but don’t take it too seriously.

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POD: German and Austria are united in the 19th century as a Grossdeutschland, but in doing so, the resultant state is hard to run and filled with conflicting factions. This has a number of spin off effects, but I don’t care about them, except that they prevent World War I and lead to a socialist revolution in Germany in the late 1910s. Which brings us to...

1920s: The German Occupation. Freaked out by the prospect of having a socialist country right on their doorstep, Britain, France, Russia, Italy all join in to try and prevent the Soicalist revolution in Germany (think Russian Civil War, but worse and the central conflict of the era). The Balkans decide that this is the perfect time to engage in a war, leading to French, Italian, and British intervention; Russia also intervenes and tries to take Constantinople and solidify it’s position as leader of Eastern Europe now that Germany is a mess, while Britain and France do not like this. So a conflict simialr to the Crimean war starts up at the same time as the occupation of Germany, turning central Europe into a three way war between Britain-France, Russia, and German socialists (the German civilians are the real losers). As you can imagine this turns very very nasty, with city fighting and chemical warfare becoming the order of the day.

There are a number of other spin off effects from this. Firstly, the world economy collapses now that Germany (one of the largest economies in the world) has gone kaput. It’s not as bad as the Great Depression, but still pretty terrible. The Occupation actually kills less soldiers from Britain then OTL WWI, but that’s hardly apparent to some one from ATL. A new gneeration of British soldiers come home radicalized from their experience in Germany. Also, technology and science are heavily retarded as thousands of Germans die that in OTL would have been inventors (for instance almost all of the inventors of Quantum mechanics are dead in this world). ATL becomes about 20 years behind technologically, in some parts 30 years.

After a few years of this, Britain decides it’s had enough. Britain and France have stalled Russia in the Balkans, and manage to negotiate a truce with Russia that’s kind of acceptable to the Western powers. Britain buggers out of Germany, leaving France, Russia and Italy, feeling quite pissed.

1930s: Britain topples from one coalition government to another, the former conservative parties are wildly unpopular (being blamed for the disastrous Occupation and economic troubles), while Socialism is sort of discredited from the German revolution. Also, Ireland was not separated from the Empire in ATL, and continues to be troublesome.

So, in 1935 the American economy collapses for similar reasons to OTL’s 1929 crash. Britain’s government topples, and the next few years are... unpleasant. In the end however there’s a semi-revolution (this is honestly the weakest part of my scenario so far) and a radical Socialist regime gets in power. Large portions of industry are nationalized, a much stronger welfare state is created and Britain retreats further into isolationism. There is still a king however, parliament sort of functions (even if the party is sometimes more important). There’s kind of a secret police going on, as part of the “permanent crisis.”

1940s and 1950s: Very sketchy. The important part is that during this period the Empire is dismantled by the socialist regime (slowly), Ireland is let go (in it’s entirety, the Unionists are displeased), and Britain continues to polarize. The economy sort of stabilizes during the 40s and early 50s, there is at least less starvation, and most people have rudimentary housing and health care. This is undone by an economic crisis in the later 50s. This causes the socialists to be elected out, they ignore this and instigate enormous voter fraud, and make it clear who is actually in charge.

In response to this, a huge number of radical right wing groups appear to oppose the current socialist regime. There’s also a fair current of left wing groups opposed to the socialist regime of varying ineffectiveness. The right wing groups are divided into a *Fascist groups, and a group of what I’ll call Aenglisc. The *fascists have a fairly large following, with browncoats, a party organization and newspapers and such, and are pretty typical strong government right wingers. They are viewed by the socialist regime as the greatest threat. the Aenglisc believe that the real problem of modern Britain is modern technology, and the fact that England is no longer as predominant (they have a lot of racist crap about the ancient Saxon race and sprinkle almost entirely misunderstood old English around everywhere, hence the name Aenglisc). They’re a pretty loose group, from *hippies to old codgers with shotguns who are just upset at any change. No one really takes them seriously, especially as their greatest intellectual is fantasy writer and Oxford Don J.R.R. Tolkien.

Right, that has to be explained. *Tolkien is quite different from OTL Tolkien. He never went to WWI, and instead went to Germany and fought socialists for three years, before losing one leg to a improvised explosive in Hamburg. He still becomes a professor of Old English at Oxford, but he’s much more radicalized then our Tolkien. *Tolkien views socialism as an existentialist threat to everything truly British, and is much less pacifist, probably more racist. He’s basically a dark mirror version of our Tolkien, where all of the unsavory things that can be read from his work are actually there. Obviously I don’t think OTL Tolkien was racist, or an evil person, to be clear. *Tolkien writes a book called “Sindor Tales” which is kind of like our Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion, but not so much. It becomes popular with the Aenglisc movement, and he’s taken up as one of their better writers and leaders. The Socialist government doesn’t move against him, because frankly they don’t think anything will come of it.

1960s: On the world stage, A revanchist *Technocratic Germany comes back, and is rather upset about the whole decade long occupation. Britain refuses to engage, and retreats into further oppression.

A man whose real name is Paul Sands, but prefers “William Sands,” founds a small organization of Aenglisch dissidents in Copenhagen (where a fair number have fled to) called the White Wyrm (playing off the story of the red and white dragon with Merlin). The group is very very small, but Sands quickly sets about organizing it, and managed to get back into Britain by 1966.

Things start to break down in Britain at this time, as there’s another economic shock. *Fascist and socialist militias actively engage in fights on the streets of London, martial law is declared in large parts of the country and the military mobilizes. The socialist government tries to rally the British by amping up conflict with Germany and France, and this fails. The White Wyrm manages to get back into Britain and set up cells in much of England. Tolkien holds a discussion and reading in Oxford in 1967, at which point he and Mr. Sands get into a heated debate about pacifism and the role of the Christianity in the “New England.” This devolves into a riot between pro Tolkien Aenglisc and anti-Tolkien Aenglisc, before the *Fascist militias and government forces show up, this becomes the infamous Tolkien Riots, with significant damage to Oxford. Tolkien dies during the riots, and the White Wyrm decisively breaks from most Aenglisc, rejects pacifism and Christianity (getting into weird occult stuff).

The Socialist government does not care about the White Wyrm as they’re very small and the *Fascists are much better organized. The WW also prefers to recruit in rural areas, away from the other groups, which helps it keep a low profile. The WW continues to buiild up strength, but undergoes an split in 1969 between the really radical bunch with Sands, and the less radical group who continue to use the name White Wyrm.

The White Wyrm has now stabilized in form and beliefs. They are groups of small cells, steeped in secrecy (the head group is known simply as the Wittengamot, and the leader is the Cyning, and their actual identities are hidden from the group), who are heavily armed and somewhat independent. They are anti-industrial, anti-technological, anti-Traditional Religion, racist towards non-English (which is ill defined), and live in a bizarre dreamworld whose goal is to forcibly create an idealized version of 17th century England, with little modern technology, through violence.

1970s: The 1970s are bad. Very bad.

IN 1972, Germany launches a pre-emptive strike on Britain, Russia and France, using recently developed nuclear weapons. London, Portsmouth, Clyde, Wight (naval bases), and a number of French cities are destroyed in the first wave by bombers. However the French have also invented nuclear weapons (the Germans thought they were a few months behind, and launched the strike to avoid this), and strike back although there are fewer. After a few desultory other attacks, the major world powers decide that NUKES ARE VERY BAD and get together to create peace. This is usually called the Three Day war for it’s duration.

By this time however Britain has descended into chaos. The Socialist regime collapses with London levelled. The *Fascists are also heavily damaged as they were centered in London. The Aenglisc and remaining *Fascists form a “Unity Government,” with the White Wyrm playing a major role. Most of the country recognizes the authority of the unity Government. Evacuations are declared around areas near the nuclear strikes to avoid radiation poisoning.

A few weeks later, the Aenglisc seize control in a secret coup. Enemy organizations are labelled “Foes on the English Nation,” and Aenglisc militias move out.

And that’s where I stop right now. There’s more, the Aenglisc are not very stable at all, and I’ll get to that soon.
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