WI Draka were dark mirror to other countries?

[Marklin]

Lemme explain the title a bit more. When S.M. Stirling created the Domination, he created them as a dark mirror of the US. They formed similarly and have similar development, but the ideals the Draka adhere to are distinctly un-American. In a discord server, there was some discussion over what an alternate version of the Draka would be like if they did this, but with the British Empire rather than the United States, so now I ask, what if we expand that to a variety of other possible nations?

What if, say, we had a dark mirror of Russia formed in, say, Russian Alaska? Maybe it doesn't even have to be existing nations atm, what about an Anti-Confederacy created from yankees who fled to Canada? Or maybe an Anti-Canada that's dedicated to being as dickish as possible at the cost of what functionality (but being Draka, you know that wouldn't stop them), basically Canada becoming the SDF from COD IW.

Any other thoughts?

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I've recently discovered that a dark mirror Russia was created in a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, out of all mainstream authors.

Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969), is a story of incest that takes place within an alternate North America settled in part by Czarist Russia and that borrows from Dick's idea of "alternate-alternate" history (the world of Nabokov's hero is wracked by rumors of a "counter-earth" that apparently is ours). Some critics[who?] believe that the references to a counter-earth suggest that the world portrayed in Ada is a delusion in the mind of the hero (another favorite theme of Dick's novels[citation needed]). Strikingly, the characters in Ada seem to acknowledge their own world as the copy or negative version, calling it "Anti-Terra", while its mythical twin is the real "Terra". Like history, science has followed a divergent path on Anti-Terra: it boasts all the same technology as our world, but all based on water instead of electricity; e.g., when a character in Ada makes a long-distance call, all the toilets in the house flush at once to provide hydraulic power.

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The story takes place in the late nineteenth century on what appears to be an alternative history of Earth, which is there called Demonia or Antiterra. Antiterra has the same geography and a largely similar history to that of Earth; however, it is crucially different at various points. For example, the United States includes all of the Americas(which were discovered by African navigators). But it was also settled extensively by Russians, so that what we know as western Canada is a Russian-speaking province called "Estoty", and eastern Canada a French-speaking province called "Canady". Russian, English, and French are all in use in North America. The territory which belongs to Russia in our world, and much of Asia, is part of an empire called Tartary, while the word "Russia" is simply a "quaint synonym" for Estoty. The British Empire, which includes most or all of Europe and Africa, is ruled (in the nineteenth century) by a King Victor. A city named Manhattan takes the place of our universe's New York City. Aristocracy is still widespread, but some technology has advanced well into twentieth-century forms. Electricity, however, has been banned since almost the time of its discovery following an event referred to as "the L-disaster". Airplanes and cars exist, but television and telephones do not, their functions are served by similar devices powered by water. The setting is thus a complex mixture of Russia and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The belief in a "twin" world, Terra, is widespread on Antiterra as a sort of fringe religion or mass hallucination. (The name "Antiterra" may be a back-formation from this; the planet is "really" called "Demonia".) One of Van's early specialties as a psychologist is researching and working with people who believe that they are somehow in contact with Terra. Terra's alleged history, so far as he states it, appears to be that of our world: that is, the characters in the novel dream, or hallucinate, about the real world.

The central characters are all members of the North American aristocracy, of mostly Russian and Irish descent. Dementiy ("Demon") Veen is first cousins with Daniel Veen. They marry a pair of twin sisters, Aqua and Marina, respectively, who are also their second cousins. Demon and Aqua raise a son, Ivan (Van); Dan and Marina two daughters, Ada and Lucette. The story begins when Van, aged 14, spends a summer with his cousins, then 12 and 8. A rough idea of the years covered by each section is provided in brackets, below, however the narrator's thoughts often stray outside of the periods noted.

Though perhaps this is more like A Man in the High Castle than Draka.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

For something less high concept, here's my Oceanian - or perhaps Kraka - concept:

Oceania Draka?

Could we create a Draka type society in Australasia? The area has a lot of natural resources, but isn't contiguous, unlike Africa or North America. Basically I'm just taking S.M. Stirling's core concept of the Draka being "anti-America" and transporting it to a different place with Mediterranean...

www.alternatehistory.com

 

[Marklin]

I've recently discovered that a dark mirror Russia was created in a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, out of all mainstream authors.

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Though perhaps this is more like A Man in the High Castle than Draka.

For a Russian Draka
My idea was, in response to Alexander II's reforms, several more reactionary nobles decide to move to Russian Alaska, resulting in it not being sold to America. Eventually, it gains independence from Russia during WW1 after the Russian Revolution.

I don't know what they'd be called, but goin with the dark mirror idea, they'd be a twisted version of what everyone imagines Russia as being: A isolated hyper-reactionary state in the cold wilderness.

As for geopolitics, they are vaguely aligned with the west during the cold war due to their fervent anti-communism, but with the Cold War over, they have their own plans. Also, they helped more in the Pacific War and gained Hokkaido.

 

[Polish Eagle]

For a Russian Draka
My idea was, in response to Alexander II's reforms, several more reactionary nobles decide to move to Russian Alaska, resulting in it not being sold to America. Eventually, it gains independence from Russia during WW1 after the Russian Revolution.

I don't know what they'd be called, but goin with the dark mirror idea, they'd be a twisted version of what everyone imagines Russia as being: A isolated hyper-reactionary state in the cold wilderness.

As for geopolitics, they are vaguely aligned with the west during the cold war due to their fervent anti-communism, but with the Cold War over, they have their own plans. Also, they helped more in the Pacific War and gained Hokkaido.

So, they’d have serfdom along Drakan lines, but also a wanked Okhrana that could give the NKVD lessons and Katorgas that make Auschwitz-Birkenau look like a summer camp (but who would they kill?). The US and Canada would have regime-changed them, but for their miraculous (they claim it was because of St. Rasputin’s miracles) building of an atomic bomb before 1950. America’s North Korea, in other words.

 

[Marklin]

So, they’d have serfdom along Drakan lines, but also a wanked Okhrana that could give the NKVD lessons and Katorgas that make Auschwitz-Birkenau look like a summer camp (but who would they kill?). The US and Canada would have regime-changed them, but for their miraculous (they claim it was because of St. Rasputin’s miracles) building of an atomic bomb before 1950. America’s North Korea, in other words.

That and they also really don't like the Communists, so they're okay for the time being.

 

[Dune]

For a Russian Draka
My idea was, in response to Alexander II's reforms, several more reactionary nobles decide to move to Russian Alaska, resulting in it not being sold to America. Eventually, it gains independence from Russia during WW1 after the Russian Revolution.

I don't know what they'd be called, but goin with the dark mirror idea, they'd be a twisted version of what everyone imagines Russia as being: A isolated hyper-reactionary state in the cold wilderness.

As for geopolitics, they are vaguely aligned with the west during the cold war due to their fervent anti-communism, but with the Cold War over, they have their own plans. Also, they helped more in the Pacific War and gained Hokkaido.

That sounds a whole lot more interesting then the original series.

 

[Polish Eagle]

That and they also really don't like the Communists, so they're okay for the time being.

There's got to be a limit to how anti-communist there are, or else they'd have helped the Germans during Barbarossa (and promptly gotten steamrolled by the Canadian Army). OTOH, maybe they're also big on the pan-Slavism thing and really hate Germans (blaming them for the Westernizing influences in Muscovy since Peter I).

I guess the Japanese prop them up in Sakhalin as well rather than handing the northern part of the island to the Soviets in 1925, and the Alyiskans attack Japan some time during WWII to grab the rest of the island plus Hokkaido (supported in this endeavor by the US, which wants them as a buffer around the USSR). Which allows them to perform atrocities against the Japanese population of Hokkaido to complete the Draka parallel, and perhaps earning them the moniker of "snakes" for their betrayal of a benefactor. It's not like the OTL Tsarists were kind to the east Asian inhabitants of the Far East--before 1917, the Cossacks were known to hunt Koreans for sport around Vladivostok.

 

[LostInNewDelhi]

Dark Mirror San Marino, it's a medieval-style state but it's a mean no-good autocracy and rules all of Italy except for the original San Marino
Basically Fascism with condottieri fashion

 

[LNSS]

USA is kinda mirror-UK.

 

[danielb1]

One example of a Draka-esque Dark Mirror:

France wins the Seven Years' War/French and Indian War or at least retains its North American territories, but still (handwaves) have a French Revolution a couple of decades down the line and becomes/remains Republican. A remnant of the Ancien Régime establishes itself there and eventually becomes the dominant power in North America (no more and likely slightly less improbable than the Draka taking over all of Africa in Stirling's work). The two eventually become the dominant world powers, either alone or (a bit more realistically) as part of a network of alliances.

However, TTL's Republican France and "Louisiana" are driven by opposing values - Liberté, égalité, fraternité (at least inasmuch as that can describe an expansionist imperialist power) vs something like Dieu, patrie, famille (okay, that's based on a slogan from Portugal's Estado Novo regime mashed together with a similar Vichy French slogan, but close enough). France would be slightly "nicer" than OTL in some respects (much as Drakaverse's America had a more successful Reconstruction), while, Louisiana would be a slave-owning, theocratic, royalist, nationalist regime eventually reflecting elements of the Ancien Régime, the worst of French colonialism, the Dreyfuss affair, and Vichy France. In other words, a dark mirror.

 

[LNSS]

A Roman slave ships enroute to Britannia gets hijacked by the slaves, and ends up in America. There are a lot of slaves, enough to build a small town. 1200 years later they have built an Anti-Rome in the Caribbean.

 

[treefreak32]

I've recently discovered that a dark mirror Russia was created in a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, out of all mainstream authors.

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Though perhaps this is more like A Man in the High Castle than Draka.

Sounds really interesting. I've a long-standing theory that all "mainstream" or "literary" authors are just as geeky as we are, and this is further evidence.

For a Russian Draka
My idea was, in response to Alexander II's reforms, several more reactionary nobles decide to move to Russian Alaska, resulting in it not being sold to America. Eventually, it gains independence from Russia during WW1 after the Russian Revolution.

I don't know what they'd be called, but goin with the dark mirror idea, they'd be a twisted version of what everyone imagines Russia as being: A isolated hyper-reactionary state in the cold wilderness.

As for geopolitics, they are vaguely aligned with the west during the cold war due to their fervent anti-communism, but with the Cold War over, they have their own plans. Also, they helped more in the Pacific War and gained Hokkaido.

I think this could work. Would be interesting to have the Soviets be much more benevolent than they were OTL, as with how the US is slightly nicer in the Drakaverse books or something like Separated At Birth. Maybe someone other than Stalin takes over? Maybe Lenin doesn't even exist and the whole revolution is different?

 

[New Cleo Genesis]

I think this could work. Would be interesting to have the Soviets be much more benevolent than they were OTL, as with how the US is slightly nicer in the Drakaverse books or something like Separated At Birth. Maybe someone other than Stalin takes over? Maybe Lenin doesn't even exist and the whole revolution is different?

Georgi Plekhanov as the leader of the Russian revolutionaries, maybe?

 

[Jedi Dragon]

Maybe some of the Spanish nobility flee to their colonies during the Napoleonic Wars, and decide to stay. The loss of most of Latin America makes them paranoid, and they establish a highly repressive state in the Spanish Caribbean. They grab a few British and/or French islands during *World War 1, and maintain themselves as at least a regional power. Havana is the capital of a self-proclaimed Spanish monarchy that operates a Gestapo-level inquisition to suppress republican and socialist sentiments in the Caribbean, and maybe bits of the South American coast. They also operate as a borderline Catholic theocracy and look to the conquistadors as their inspiration. The U.S. doesn't crush them because they're busy with a more thorough Reconstruction, and their naval power is sufficient to keep other foreign powers away.

 

[treefreak32]

Maybe some of the Spanish nobility flee to their colonies during the Napoleonic Wars, and decide to stay. The loss of most of Latin America makes them paranoid, and they establish a highly repressive state in the Spanish Caribbean. They grab a few British and/or French islands during *World War 1, and maintain themselves as at least a regional power. Havana is the capital of a self-proclaimed Spanish monarchy that operates a Gestapo-level inquisition to suppress republican and socialist sentiments in the Caribbean, and maybe bits of the South American coast. They also operate as a borderline Catholic theocracy and look to the conquistadors as their inspiration. The U.S. doesn't crush them because they're busy with a more thorough Reconstruction, and their naval power is sufficient to keep other foreign powers away.

I had a similar notion of Spanish America becoming Latino Draka. Just as revenge for how they always get treated in "Big Evil Slavocratic USA" stories.

 

[Marklin]

I had a similar notion of Spanish America becoming Latino Draka. Just as revenge for how they always get treated in "Big Evil Slavocratic USA" stories.

So like the Federation from COD Ghosts, but more self aware?

 

[treefreak32]

So like the Federation from COD Ghosts, but more self aware?

Yeah, and also as an absolute monarchy with the general mentality of the Holy Britannian Empire from Code Geass.

 

[Jedi Dragon]

The question is what to call them. I thought they might just call themselves the Kingdom of Spain, claiming to be the legitimate government, but that sounds boring. Maybe True Spain, or the Holy Spanish Empire?

 

[Marklin]

The question is what to call them. I thought they might just call themselves the Kingdom of Spain, claiming to be the legitimate government, but that sounds boring. Maybe True Spain, or the Holy Spanish Empire?

I'd think it should be something like the Holy Latin Empire.

Also, maybe as a counterpart to the Draka's preference for impalement as a punishment, the Spaniards use burning at the stake as their go-to punishment. Also, Faith would be more important for them than Race I imagine. I can also foresee them picking up some influence from the native tribes like the Inca or Aztecs, sorta like the Pagan/Indian fads of the Draka, with military ranks and such being taken from the Aztecs perhaps.

If they have a world domination ideology like Canon Draka, it would definitely be religiously motivated. And if we give them ubertech like the Draka had, I'd go with either Biotech or Ancient-Aliens BS, probably discovered from the same spot where Indie took the Crystal Skulls.