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United Commonwealth
The world diverged from ours when Richard Cromwell kept his position as Lord-Protector and thus ensuing long-term rule of the Commonwealth. A series of wars over the next century by the Stuarts to regain the throne (with French help) all failed but did result in increased religious tolerance and political rights by Richard’s successor making the Commonwealth by 1750 just as advanced and only slightly less free than OTL’s England. The American colonies never revolted in this timeline thanks to stronger religious bonds and in 1785 an American Parliament was created. Due to butterflies Russia modernized even faster than OTL. The wars of the 18th Century saw the Commonwealth established control over India and conquered Louisiana. In the early 19th Century the Commonwealth followed this by seizing all of Spain’s possessions in the Americas and still later on the Philippines. Due to all this expansion the Commonwealth grudgingly nominally tolerated Catholicism. In 1811 after the death of Lord-Protector William Cromwell without a heir the Lord-Protector no longer even became de facto hereditary with Parliament selecting one for life. In Germany Brandenburg rose to power and the Germanic Confederation was formed with Austria as a successor to the Holy Roman Empire which ended in 1845. The Confederation allied with France and some other states in an anti-Russian alliance while the Commonwealth remained neutral. In the 19th Century the Commonwealth (now the United Commonwealth of Great Britain, Ireland, and America), the Dutch, Portuguese, French, and Germans established colonial possessions in Africa while Russia conquered the Ottoman Empire and Persia and helped modernize China and established a puppet Han Chinese dynasty. After two stalemated wars in 1901-1904 and 1918-1920 the Third Pan-Terran War broke out in 1938 between the Franco-German alliance and the Russian Empire. This proved to be an incredibly bad move as the Russians steamrolled almost all of continental Europe. The French begged for Commonwealth support and they realizing that if the Russians were left alone they’d utterly dominate Eurasia threatened the Russians to halt their advance at the Rhine and made good their threat by testing the first fission bomb. The war thus came to an end at the Amsterdam Conference in 1942 and the very next year at the Lisbon Conference the Quadruple Alliance was formed between the Commonwealth, the Dutch, Portugal, and France. They were opposed by the Continental Alliance of Russia, China, and a collection of European states that stretched from Norway to Naples-Sicily. The next six decades saw an uneasy peace that lasts to the present day although as humanity expands to space the peace is eroding…
The United Commonwealth of Oceania as the Commonwealth has been styled since 1935 encompasses the British Isles, all of the Americas except Brazil and a few minor areas, Australia, the Philippines, India, much of Africa, and a “strategic reserve” in the Arabian peninsula. While London remains nominally the capital, its de facto capital is now Boston due to the Russian threat and about forty percent of the population of the British Isles has migrated to Commonwealth possessions in America and Australia. Cities are almost mind bogglingly large with Greater Boston containing thirty-five million people. The government is semi-democratic with franchise extended to all adults above twenty-one years of age who vote for the Regional Parliaments (the Isles, America, India, Africa, and Australia) and the United Parliament who loosely organized into “factions” get to propose laws for the Lord-Protector to act on or veto the Lord-Protector’s own acts and since 1850 or so the Lord-Protector has largely listened to Parliament. Speech and press are free to criticize the government but not reveal secrets or attack the basis of the system. In religion the Commonwealth is largely Calvinistic Protestant (a mixture of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Low Church Anglicans, and Baptists) fairly loosely organized there being no significant Free-Will movement in Protestantism and no John Wesley although Catholics (following the Pope in Rio de Janeiro after the Pope in Russian-occupied Rome announced a reunion with the Orthodox Church) and Hindus are large minorities in southern America and India respectively thanks to nominal religious freedom. However Catholics and Hindus are restricted from proselytizing and open ones rarely get high position in government. The Commonwealth especially the Americas and Australia are more heavily populated than our own world due to higher birth rates and heavy migration from Russian-occupied or threatened Europe. India is heavily industrialized and along with the Americas act as the factory and breadbasket of the Commonwealth. Moral laws are unsurprisingly strict and picturescreen programs are sermons, morally uplifting dramas, documentaries, and news. The Commonwealth is unconcerned for beautification and city architectures tend toward the WTC-center style skyscrapers (Boston being the proud home of the John Winthrop building of 3,500 feet and 250 stories). The Commonwealth dominates the Quadruple Alliance economically and member currencies pegged to the Pound and made open to Commonwealth goods through a free trade pact.
The lesser powers of the Quadruple Alliance are the Dutch Republic, Kingdom of France, and Kingdom of Portugal. The Dutch are somewhat freer than the Commonwealth and its main colonial possessions are South Africa (where the majority of the Dutch population and the de facto capital of Cape Town resides) and Indonesia (which is wary of its Chinese neighbor). The Portuguese have officially relocated their government to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and are the protector of Catholicism in the world. France is roughly as free as the Commonwealth and possesses a large chunk of northern Africa however that also is smack-dab next to Russian possessions so the majority of the French population has been forced to migrate to Commonwealth, Portuguese, or Dutch territories while the French government’s de facto capital is Santo Domingo.
The Russian Empire under Tsar Alexander IV is the dominant power in the Continental Alliance which stretches from the Rhine to the Rockies and from the Arctic to Abyssinia. It directly rules all of Eurasia including Scandinavia, Poland, the Middle East, Africa from Egypt to Ethiopia, central Asia (including OTL Xinjiang), Mongolia, and America down to about the Columbia River while its puppet Chinese Empire controls Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia down to about the Malay Peninsula and its puppet European states of the Germanic Confederation, the Italian Confederation, Kingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Romania, and others control most of continental Europe. The Empire is highly autocratic although it is meritocratic (to an extent) after Nicholas Dzynsky’s reforms in 1921-1933 which curbed the power of the nobility in favour of the Supreme Imperial Council. All speech and press are heavily controlled and the secret police psychologists are investigating methods by which to determine a person’s thoughts. Serfdom has been abolished for about century and a half now and Russia industrialized earlier. By 1900 Russia’s industrial capacity was exceeded only by that of the Commonwealth. It maintains a massive and modern army that equals the combined armies of the Quadruple Alliance without Russia’s allies thrown in. China’s population of almost two billion souls is under a system that mirrors Russia’s and is heavily industrialized and since 1961 exceeded Russia’s industrial capacity which worries St. Paul (OTL St. Petersburg). The various European states all mirror Russia’s system.
Technology despite the existence of a Puritan Commonwealth and an autocratic Russian empire is actually somewhat more advanced than OTL in hard sciences. Bases exist on the Moon and Mars and extensive orbital weapons systems are maintained by both sides to ensure MAD. The Quadruple Alliance uses nuclear fusion, wind, solar, and geothermal power due to its shortage of oil although the Continental Alliance which practically drowns in oil and coal has been lazy to advance. Passenger transportation is primarily by rail and using an automobile for long distance transportation is highly expensive. Computers are roughly equivalent although an Internet only exists in Quadruple Alliance territories. Biology is mixed with the theory of evolution grudgingly accepted by the Puritan and Eastern Orthodox Churches (although vocal groups in both denominations remain opposed to it) however stem-cell technology is nonexistent while “the Green Revolution” was even more widespread than OTL .


What do you think and could anyone please create a map?
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