The ASB-PIC World

The collaborative world of the Affiliated States of Boreoamerica and the Pseudodemetrian Imperial Commonwealth has been slowly developing for several years. Beginning as False Dmitri's solo project focused on a single country, it now has about a dozen collaborators fleshing out different aspects of the world.

It began with the ASB, an alternate North America setting that False Dmitri began posting about here and there for a few months before creating a dedicated thread in 2011. Outlandish, yet strangely familiar; clearly based on a joke, yet taking itself rather seriously, the ASB developed as FD's unique project and began to draw attention.

False Dmitri added content to the ASB in a rambling, bottom-up sort of way, mostly working state by state and leaving a lot unsaid about the overall picture. In 2014, Turquoise Blue and Upvoteanthology stepped in with ideas for giving some structure to the setting. TB created a plan for the ASB's government and political system, and Upvote produced a general timeline for the ASB's early history. Their work turned the ASB from a solo to a collaborative world and provided a solid base for more development.

The next step was integrating another project, the The PIC, into the same world. The PIC was an unapologetic Russowank even more outlandish and jokey than the ASB, but it seemed to work. Upvoteanthology continued the exploration of the wider world with her creation of the Californian Union, and Venusian Si contributed ideas for Mexico. By the middle of 2016, the setting was growing into a complete collaborative world, and the pace of things has only picked up since then.

False Dmitri chose to call the setting the ASB to free him from the need to explain everything in terms of plausible divergence from a single point. World history is assumed to have been essentially the same as our timeline until c. 1600 AD, but from that point it starts to diverge widely. The British Civil Wars are assumed to have been much more destructive, reducing the ability of England to control and expand its colonies and paving the way for a more stable balance of power in North America. Russia, Poland, and Sweden achieved a lasting dynastic union in the second half of the 17th century, creating a new great power that the West had to contend with.

Despite these events, the space bats caused many events to be rather convergent with OTL. The French Revolution and rise of Napoleon came about in a broadly similar fashion to what happened in real life, but the power of Russia-Poland-Sweden led the Emperor to put more energy into colonial affairs than European adventures. The early twentieth century saw two major global wars centered on the balance of power between Russia and the West.

A defining feature of this world is the preponderance of large, rambling, often overlapping confederal structures. These confederations and alliances are at least as important as nation-states in the world order. Some of the structures involved are quite complex, so that the ASB contains one internal federation, the Dominion of New England, while the Union of Antillean States consists of three smaller federations plus a few additional islands. Many territories are known to be simultaneous members of more than one major bloc; for example, Christiana (Delaware and South Jersey) is part of both the ASB and the PIC, and Russian California is a PIC member as well as a state of the Californian Union. Some territories are both parts of a confederation and connected to a more traditional nation-state, as with some of the Californian states that remain theoretical states of Mexico, or the Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which are both a state of the ASB and an overseas collectivity of France.

• Affiliated States of Boreoamerica: a confederation of former English, French, Spanish, and other colonies with indigenous nations and several mixed states. It is located in eastern North America and the Caribbean.
• Pseudodemetrian Imperial Commonwealth: a commonwealth of the countries under the united crowns of Russia, Sweden, and Poland. It stretches from the western Baltic to the Pacific coasts of Asia and North America. It also includes some smaller territories in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean.
• Californian Union: Formed in western North America and explicitly modeled on the ASB, California has never functioned quite as well as its eastern neighbor. It is a mix of former colonies, territories of Mexico, indigenous states, and mixed or settler states.
• Union of Antillean States: Uniting most of the small islands of the Caribbean, the UAS in fact consists of three smaller federations: the Confederation of the West Indies, les Etats Associés des Caraïbes, and l'Alliance de Roseau.
• Confederation of West Africa: A core federation of local nations united with half a dozen European colonies, the CWA unites most of western Africa from the Sahel to Cameroon.
• Likely English Commonwealth of some kind linking England to its former colonies and dominions
• League of Peoples: The same, but uniting former Italian colonies

• Rupertsland: English dominion in the northernmost reaches of North America
• The Affiliated States of Boreoamerica
• Lakotah
• Puncah: A buffer state between the major powers, its character has not been worked out yet. It is likely in some kind of free association with the ASB and/or other federations. Located in western Nebraska and Wyoming.
• Omaha: Same as Puncah. Mainly consists of eastern Nebraska.
• Californian Union

• Mexico: Speaks both Spanish and Nahuatl, and Nahuatl has flourished especially in the northern Great Plains, which the country parceled out to many indigenous people as homesteads in the late 19th century.
• Federated States of Yucatan: Revolted and split from Mexico in the 19th century
• Free Republic of Cuzcatlan: More or less El Salvador, but more strongly tied to indigenous culture
• Chiapas
• Valiz (Belize)
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Nicaragua
• Costa Rica
• Puerto Rico
• Jamaica
• Union of Antillean States

• Dutch Suriname
• Republic of New Torarica: Jewish-dominated state in Suriname's interior
• Kingdom of New Providence: English dominion roughly occupying the space of OTL French Guiana
• New Tuscany / Nuova Toscana: Former Italian colony in the Guyanas whose precise borders are not decided yet
• Klein-Venedig: Possible former German colony to the west of New Tuscany
• Amazonian Confederation: small federal state on the Amazon, a union of former colonies that were established along the river
• New Holland: descendant of Dutch Brazil, occupying the coast froughly from Maceió to Belém
• Brazil
• Peru: Much larger than in OTL, including the territory of Bolivia and Ecuador and much of Chile
• Paraguay
• Argentina
• Unnamed former French penal colony in mid-latitude Chile
• Patagonia: conquered by France in the Napoleonic era
• Chiloé island
• New Cymru: Welsh-speaking state at the southern tip of the continent
• Falkland: colony of New England

• Kingdom of England: very broad powers have devolved to Ireland and, more recently, Wales.
• Scotland: independent republic since the late 17th century
• French Republic
• Netherlands
• Confederacy and Empire of Italy
• Portugal
• Spain
• Denmark, which still maintains suzerainty over Norway
• Switzerland: Probably.
• Bohemian Confederacy
• German Confederation: dominated by Austria
• PIC realms in Europe: Kingdom of Sweden, Imperial League of the German Coast, Kingdom of Poland, United Baltic Realm, Principality of Karelia, Principality of Ingria, Russian Empire, Principality of Transylvania, Tsardom of Bulgaria, Tsardom of Romania, Khanate of Crimea, Kingdom of Romania, Empire of Thrace, Heptanese Protectorate, Kingdom of Cyprus

• Chinese Empire
• Dzungaria: The genocide is butterflied away, and today the northern half of Xinjiang is an Oirat-speaking khanate closely aligned to the PIC, with Ürümqi as its capital.
• Kashgaria: the Dungan Revolt is successful, and today the southern half of Xinjiang is an Uyghur-speaking emirate under a descendant of Yaqub Beg.
• Tibetan Empire: kind of like a wealthier version of Bhutan. Historically was a British sphere of influence but today is independent; the Dalai Lama was invited back in Tibet in 1950, and today he wields an immense amount of influence over both Dzungaria and Tibet.
• Bhutan
• Japan
• PIC realms in Asia: Empire of Turkestan, Empire of Manchuria, Korean Empire, Empire of Ezo, Mongolia, Georgia, Circassia, Emirate of Mazandaran, Shahdom of Shirvan, Shahdom of Bactria, Kingdom of Armenia, Empire of Pontus

• False Dmitri - Founder, ASB state histories and cultures
• Turquoise Blue -ASB government, politics and political history
• Upvoteanthology -ASB history and architecture, Latin America, California Union, Confederation of West Africa, Suriname
• Venusian Si - Mesoamerican nations, ASB cultures and economics
• Pempelune - Union of Antillean States
• Doctor President - San Diego, Alta California, and other Californian states
• Tsochar - ASB culture, economics, population, technology, education, and pop culture
• Tyche - Worlda map
• Falkanner - ASB demographics
• FrankCesco - Nuova Toscana and Austroamerica
• Neoteros - Confederacy and Empire of Italy, China, Central Asia
• Gian - Bohemian Confederacy, Netherlands, 8k-BAMs
• Lord Grattan - Huronia's road sign, which then inspired its flag
• Undeadmuffin - Countryball comics set in the ASB world

Grand Unified Timeline focusing mostly on events within the ASB

Affiliated States of Boreoamerica thread

False Dmitri's website: Stores lots of information, especially about the ASB's government and profiles of individual states.