Maps, Part IX

So, in the category of catching up on items long-neglected - I used to post my alternate history map work pretty frequently, but the last time I did so was in... 2013? I'm not as involved with this as I used to be, but I still have a few tucked away from over the past seven years. As a reminder, these are all works of fiction!

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Mansa Abubakari II of Mali (known as Manden in this world) manages to put his nautical interests to better use by sending expeditions up the coast of Africa instead of sailing off the edge of the world and never coming back. Under his successors, Manden merchants establish further trade links with North Africa, both by sea and across the Sahara. This strengthens the Genoese trading empire relative to OTL, as they happen to be the next link in that chain, but an analogue to the War of Chioggia leaves Genoa as the lesser partner in a Manden-Genoese alliance against the Ottomans and the Castilians. Meanwhile, Manden consolidates its hold over the western Sahel and the small states to its south. As the year 1500 dawns, a certain Genoese explorer has arrived in Niani to petition the Mansa for funds for an expedition to the west, hoping to find a new route to the Orient beyond Ottoman control...

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"Between the Bay and the Lakes: The Rise of the Susquehannock Confederacy"

From North American Military History Gazette, vol. 32, December 2008

"The rise of the Susquehannocks as a regional power was linked to their acquisition of European firearms, first from the Swedes in their short-lived colony in present-day New Jersey, and later from the Dutch. By taking advantage of this new technology, they were able to subdue their Delaware neighbors and fend off the colonial powers—when Maryland declared war on the Susquehannocks in the 1640’s, they were defeated by the natives and their Swedish allies…

"As the century progressed, the Susquehannocks were pushed into conflict with the Five Nations Confederacy, then the preeminent native power. The Five Nations were likewise equipped with European firearms, acquired through the fur trade. These had allowed them to subdue many of the neighboring tribes and thus expand their hunting grounds—the furs from which could then be traded to fuel further conquests. But crashing beaver populations forced them to venture ever further afield, and brought the Five Nations into conflict with tribes as far away as the Ohio Valley. In 1660, they turned their attention to the Susquehannock.

"The colony of Maryland had watched the Five Nations expansion with alarm, and in 1661 they made an alliance with their former foes the Susquehannocks, hoping that they would provide a buffer against the fierce northern tribes. This policy was a success—a northern invasion was beaten off in 1663, and two of the Five Nations, the Seneca and the Cayuga, were dealt major defeats in 1666. The war dragged on for several years more, as artillery supplied by their Maryland gave the Susquehannocks and edge over the Five Nations. By 1674, the tide had turned, and the Five Nations were clearly on the defensive. Some among the Maryland government suggested negotiating a peace, but others were in favor of continuing the war and ending the Five Nations threat permanently.*

"In the end, after negotiation with the Susquehannock chiefs, the war faction won out—in exchange for exclusive trading rights, the Marylanders would continue their support. In 1680, a peace was finally signed, stripping the Five Nations of their conquests over the previous decades. Indeed, they would be five nations no more—the remnants of the Seneca, Cayuga, and many of the Onondaga would be incorporated into a new Susquehannock Confederacy. The remaining nations would become clients of the French, who called them the Iroquois…

"Many of of the Five Nations’ former tributaries transferred their loyalty to the Susquehannocks as well, and so by 1680, the Susquehannock Confederacy stretched from the shores of the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes…"

*This is the POD: in our timeline, Maryland made peace, and in fact turned on their former allies, massacring their leadership…

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Three and a half billion years in the future, a matrioshka brain is running a simulation of the rise of one of its creator species, when a minor error causes a hyperspherical cross-section of the simulated world to be temporally transposed by 2^10 cycles...

2017. At first they thought it was a summer thunderstorm. The first thing everyone noticed was a great booming sound, like a clap of thunder but larger, as two masses of air at different temperatures and pressures were suddenly brought in contact with each other. Those who were outdoors could see a strange roiling in the sky, as clouds formed, joined, or dissipated. One or two people near the boundaries of the sphere saw features seem to vanish in an instant - trees, roads, telephone wires. Later, they were able to trace the boundaries of "The Zone" by finding objects which had been bisected by the transposition. Staff and campers at Box Canyon Ranch noticed as the power went out. But it was several days before anyone grasped the truth - that their little circle of northern New Mexico had been thrown back in time.

Once this hypothesis had been reached, a party from Box Canyon Ranch set out within a few days, following the Chama River down to the Rio Grande, then heading up into the hills where Santa Fe should be, to determine if it might be possible to make contact with American or even Spanish colonial authorities. They found nothing. A second party set out a few days later, headed west...

993. The strangers had come down from the high country to the east, Qoyanomtiwa's scouts had reported, though they did not dress like easterners. They were oddly pale, and most curious of all, some were being carried by elk without horns. No one seemed to have guided them, but somehow they had found their way to the Great House. Qoyanomtiwa pondered this, and at last he shrugged. "Let us go and meet these strangers," he said. "Maybe they are Pahana, maybe not. We shall put them to the test, and if they fail, we shall treat with them as with any other men or women."

2017. "It's not much like how I remember it," Rick said. "It's bigger, but smaller at the same time." It didn't even look much like the reconstruction in the National Geographic they'd found in the library--most of Chaco Canyon didn't seem to have been built yet. But there was Pueblo Bonito, sure enough, and not just the ruins Rick had visited last fall - the stone walls stood several stories high, and right now they seemed to be bustling with people.

"Look," said Carla. "Someone's coming out." Indeed, a group of several people was emerging from a doorway, though only one seemed to be carrying a weapon.

"Alright, let's not get any closer. Wait here for them."

993. Qoyanomtiwa surveyed the strangers. There were five of them, but the scouts were correct - each of them seemed to be seated on an elk of some sort. As he watched, the strangers climbed down off these elk, and stood. They did not seem to be carrying spears or other weapons that he could see, though who knew what powers they might have if they could command these beasts?

"Lomankwa, tell them to come no closer," he said to the shaman.

2017. Rick watched as one of the delegation drew out a small pouch of white powder, and sprinkled it in a line on the ground. "Let's leave the gifts here and back off a bit," he said, watching the shaman's gestures. Carla nodded, deposited the "gift package" they'd assembled at the Ranch, and stepped back a few paces.

993. "I think they might be offering a trade," said Macatoiniwa. "Remember the men from the south, five years ago, who brought the green birds and the shells?"

"Yes, I remember," Qoyanomtiwa replied. "In that case, let's see what they have to offer." They advanced to where the strangers had laid their bundle. A square of fine red cloth, wide as his arm, lay on the ground. On it were knives that glinted like the sun on water, plates and dishes with strange intricate designs, several garments of white cloth, jewelry of silver and turquoise, and a pile of shining disks the size of his hand. "These seem like fine goods," he said to Macatoiniwa. "Let's see if we can come to an arrangement..."

By the time the error was noticed, milliseconds later, several dozen processing cycles had passed. A new hybrid culture was blossoming across the affected area, as the ancestral Puebloans adopted and assimilated these strange newcomers. The area had already been headed for an era of rapid growth and development due to favorable climate conditions, but the new crops and livestock seemed likely to extend it further and faster. Already, trade networks were forming, east to the Mississippi Valley and south into Mexico.

A quorum was called to determine whether to end the counterfactual scenario or to let it continue...

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Snipped from a copy of The Economist in a nearby timeline:

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Paratemporal Institute Report

Despite Dr. Saunders' initial reaction, we do not believe that Artifact QM-176002a indicates an alternate geography on timeline Aleph-8644. Further evidence suggests that this timeline featured an Anglo-Saxon kingdom or state surviving into the 17th century or beyond, and taking part in an equivalent to the Age of Exploration. It is probable that the cartographer attempted to collate reports from multiple expeditions, suggested by the variety of dates given at points around the map. The inaccuracies most likely result from imperfect or incomplete information.

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BACKGROUND

The Ann Arbor Anomaly is best described a portal leading to central North America during the early Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous, approximately 100 million years ago. The portal is perfectly circular, usually around four feet in diameter, and is only visible and accessible from one side. The size of the portal fluctuates; when first observed it was only a few inches across, then expanded to approximately its present size over the course of three days. Since then it has varied between three and six feet in diameter, with no discernable pattern to the changes.

DISCOVERY

As the name suggests, the Anomaly is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where it seems to have appeared in a park on the night of November 12, 2019. It was discovered the next morning by Aidan McKinney, who was walking his dog in the park when he noticed a plume of vapor condensing out of what seemed to be a small hole in the air. Mr. McKinney notified some friends of his, who briefly ventured through to the other side. There they found a humid jungle environment with unfamiliar fauna, including some unmistakable dinosaurs. The group attempted to notify the authorities, but were initially disregarded until photographic and video evidence was provided and independent confirmation from other sources was received. A variety of experts from the nearby University of Michigan then took over the scene until federal authorities arrived to secure the anomaly.

EXPLORATION

In the two years since the appearance of the Anomaly, a number of expeditions have gone through to the far side, and a substantial facility has grown up on both sides of the portal. The main bottleneck has been the limited size of the portal, making it difficult to transport large equipment. Outside the facility on the far side, there are four zones:

Zone 1 is the immediate area around the anomaly, which has been thoroughly explored and mapped. Most of this zone is a humid rainforest, part of the drainage basin of the Cope River, which runs west to the Mowry Sea.

Zone 2 stretches about as far as the shores of the Atlantic and the Mowry. Most of this has been mapped by solar-powered drones, so major land features are known. Some manned expeditions have taken place, mostly cataloging the flora and fauna.

Zone 3 has been cursorily explored by the newest long-range drones, mostly mapping the shorelines as part of the effort to date the far side by comparing landmasses to geologic data.

Zone 4 is anything not yet surveyed; landforms in this region are based on geological conjecture only.

SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSIES

The cause of the anomaly is unknown. A popular theory is that the anomaly was somehow caused by the GLC particle accelerator in Japan, which had gone into operation only a few days previously. However, so far there is no evidence to support this, and activity at the GLC does not seem to correlate with observable behavior of the portal. The portal emits a unique radiation signature when contracting or expanding; based on this signature, physicists have detected two other possible anomalies (one in New Mexico and one in California), but both have been microscopic in scale and lasted only a few seconds.

There is also an ongoing debate over whether the far side is our direct past, or some type of alternate timeline. Efforts to plant an object on the far side that could be retrieved in the present have so far been unsuccessful.

The exact date on the far side is still being narrowed down based on astronomical and geological data. The current estimate, based on some new bathymetric survey data from the Mowry Sea, is 99.7 ± 0.3 million years before present.

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In the late sixth century, invading Angles had carved out two kingdoms along the coast of northern Britain - Bernicia in the north and Deira in the south. Around 593, a man named Æthelfrith became king of Bernicia, and began pushing inland more vigorously, particularly against the Brythonic kingdoms of Rheged and Gododdin. In 599, he married a daughter of king Ælla of Deira, sealing an alliance between the two Anglian kingdoms. In response, Mynyddog of Gododdin began building an alliance among the fractious Brythonic kingdoms, gathering warriors from among them and eventually launching a preemptive strike against Æthelfrith at Catraeth in 600. In our world, this effort failed, and Æthelfrith would go on to smash the Britons and take direct control of Deira. The combined kingdom would eventually come to be known as Northumbria.

In this world, things go a little differently - Æthelfrith is killed at Catraeth, and the Anglian alliance falls apart. There is infighting among the Bernicians, and the Britons are able to regain much of the lost territory, while Deira takes over some of the south. The prestige of the victory allows Gododdin to become the paramount kingdom among the northern Britons under Mynyddog and his successors. Now, twenty years after Æthelfrith's death, the Britons face two threats - Edwin of Deira, who has ties to the southern kingdom of Mercia, and wily old Áedán mac Gabráin, of the Gaelic kingdom of Dalriada, who has lately made common cause with the Pictish tribes of the north.

Imagination Maps

And possibly at some point I'll have a chance to post some pictures of troops...

A work in progress

Something I'm working on for a contest on alternatehistory.com:

A little context may be found here: Nok Steel

Maps, part VIII

It has been a long time since I've done one of these posts, but as it turns out, these days I have even less time for map-making than I do for miniatures-painting. However, here at last I have enough maps to make another collection worthwhile. As always, please don't mistake these for real history!

First up, a look at a world where a natural disaster devastates the early United States:

From A House Built Of Flotsam: Early American Government and the Great Wave by Brewster Rogers (2006):

"At approximately 7:00 on the morning of May 17, 1786, Captain Harrington of the British merchantman Nancy, bound for Calcutta, noted a pillar of clouds or dark smoke to the southwest, in the direction of La Palma Island, one of the westernmost of the Canaries. About half an hour later, the ship was caught by an enormous swell, described by Captain Harrington as 'larger than any man on board had ever seen, and arising from a calm sea.' Harrington and the crew of the Nancy had been among the few to observe the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, and among the first to encounter the resulting poseidonic wave [1]...

"In recent decades, geologists and oceanographers have identified the proximate cause of the Great Wave: a lateral collapse event occurring on the westernmost flank of the island, which sent almost 100 cubic miles of rock plunging into the Atlantic ocean. Like a tiny stone thrown into a still pond, the ripples spread outward--but in this case, the ripples were poseidonic waves up to fifty feet high...

"Much of Europe was shielded by the eastern Canaries, though areas of northern Spain, northwestern France, western England, and Ireland all experienced heavy damage. Areas of coastal West Africa were devastated as well. Still, it was across the Atlantic that the Great Wave would be felt most keenly...

"Based on reports from survivors, the first waves reached the south end of Nova Scotia at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time. Points south were contacted over the course of the next three hours, with parts of East Florida not being reached until almost noon. To observers at the time, contact must have seemed terribly capricious, with some areas shielded by some nigh-imperceptible quirk of the coastline, while others suffered even greater damage from waves funneled into bays and straits..."

"Boston was devastated... Much of Connecticut was shielded by Long Island, even as the Eastern Shore protected Baltimore and the Upper Chesapeake... New York City did not escape unscathed, but the damage could have been much worse. Philadelphia itself was spared, but Delaware Bay was choked with debris that took weeks to wash ashore. The Tidewater areas of Virginia, the most densely populated area of the state, was also the most badly damaged... All up and down the eastern seaboard, the same pattern of destruction was repeated. It was an event that could not help but leave a stamp upon a fledgling nation and its unwieldy government...

"Even before the Great Wave, there had been a growing dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation. In the aftermath of the disaster, as the helplessness of both the affected states and the Confederation government became clear, the 7th Confederation Congress, under the leadership of its President, John Hancock, began work on a new constitution--one which would vastly expand the powers of the central government..."

[1] TTL name for a tsunami--named for the Greek god of oceans and earthquakes.

Quick version: the Cumbre Vieja volcano goes off in 1786; a massive tsunami devastates the United States. The magnitude of death and destruction is enough to put a bit of a wrench into American demographics; while there is a general drive to settle further west, the country can't really support expansion on the scale of OTL--the U.S. may eventually cross the Mississippi, but probably won't reach the Pacific. The "Departments" are the result of an urge to consolidate and centralize--the states still technically exist, but the Departments end up being the main units of federalism. The capital is New York--parts of it, including Federal Hall, weren't too badly damaged, and nobody really felt like building a brand-new capital in some Potomac swamp when there was so much rebuilding to do...

 

Next, a quick look at a world where Constantinople Istanbul is known by another name entirely:

This map shows a few of the major tourist attractions in the Old City of Miklagard. Backstory is a little hazy, but at some point an unpopular Emperor gets deposed by the Varangian Guard, who end up running the Empire for a while through a series of puppets. While this state of affairs lasts only a few centuries, it does leave a lasting impression in the languages of northern and western Europe... and so, when rich Aenglisk-speaking tourists from the Westlands book their lyftship flights for a vacation on the Golden Horn, they arrive at Miklagard Lyfthofn. (Even if the terminal also has signs posted in Greek and Kypchak.)

A world where the Americas are discovered by a more northern route, showing some misconceptions of early cartographers:

From Maps Through The Ages, Cecille Frampton, 1973.

"Although settlement proved infeasible for the Norsemen, sporadic contact continued up through the end of the fifteenth century, when a number of explorers in more southerly countries began suggesting that the riches of the East might be more easily reached by sailing west, and that the rumored "Vine-land" might provide a convenient stopover point. As a result, many of the early navigators chose a more northerly route, and only gradually did the extent of the Hesperian continent become apparent. In fact, for a long time, North Hesperia was thought to be a part of Asia, as shown in this map from 1501, which optimistically places the "Great Cham of Tartary" somewhere in northern Mechicoe. See also the existence of a Southwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and Placidic Oceans--this may have been wishful thinking on the part of the cartographer, or it may have been based on second or third-hand accounts of trade routes across the Isthmus of Tecwanipec. Note that the Mayapan Peninsula, though misidentified as an island, is labeled as a source of spices, which may indicate that occasional trade was taking place between Europeans and native Hesperians at the time of the map's printing, or may be another misconception on the part of the creator, confusing Mayapan with the Spice Islands of the East. Information on the interior of the continent is similarly vague; for instance, the Great Lakes are shown as a single inland sea--source of the Mississippi and the Cabotto as well as the St. Brendan..."

 

And finally, a world where the Mongol Empire reached some places it never conquered in our world:

In our history, the Mongols under Genghis Khan reached the Indus River in 1221, in pursuit of the last Shah of Khwarezm, Jalal ad-Din. After his defeat, he sought asylum with the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. In our history, they turned him away, and after knocking around northwest India for a bit he returned to Persia, where he was eventually murdered.

But what if Iltumish, the Sultan of Delhi, had not turned him away? What if the Mongols had continued to pursue their old enemy to the walls of Delhi itself, and the city had been sacked by the implacable hordes of Genghis Khan?

In this world, Iltumish chooses to take in the exiled Jalal ad-Din, and offers great insult to the Mongol ambassadors who demand that he surrender his guest. Dorbei and Bala, the Mongol commanders in India, send word of this to Genghis, who dispatches the famous general Subutai to reinforce them. Subutai handles the Indian campaign with the brilliance which in our world he demonstrated in the invasion of Europe, and Delhi is sacked by the Mongols in 1224. Jalal ad-Din is captured and sent to Karakorum in chains, but dies along the way.

Genghis Khan dies roughly on schedule, and as in our world, his son Ogedei succeeds him. Subutai's assignment to India means that his expedition against the Rus which culminated in the battle of the Kalka River never took place. Without that initial expedition, the Mongols do not launch an invasion of Europe during Ogedei's reign, instead mopping up the remnants of the Delhi Sultanate despite the determined resistance of Iltumish's daughter Razia Sultana. Differences in Mongol internal politics become apparent around the death of Ogedei--Genghis' grandson Batu has spent his time at court rather than leading armies across Russia, and manages to outmaneuver his rival Guyuk to take the throne.

As in our world, the Mongol empire eventually falls apart under its own weight, but in this world, one of the successor states, under a line of Khans descended from Subutai's grandson Aju, reigns from Ordapur, a new royal district of Delhi built after the sack of 1224. The Delhi Khanate reaches its apex under Sartaq the Great--though a later Khan does reach the Coromandel coast, his conquests are achieved only at the cost of much of the north to a resurgent Rajput dynasty, and his gains in the south are recovered by the Pandya kingdom of Madura during the reign of his successor...

 

A long-awaited map

Some of my gentle readers may at times have been bewildered by the various fictional countries featured in the battles of Not Quite The Seven Years' War. For their benefit (and to aid my fellow heads of state in planning their future campaigns) I present the following map:

Cities, mountains, rivers, etc. will hopefully be added at a later date...

Maps, part VII

Haven't done one of these for a while; guess it's time for another! Remember, these are alternate history. Don't use them for your school reports.

First up, a map showing the empire of a more successful Queen Zenobia of Palmyra!

Aurelian gets killed a stray arrow, and the Crisis of the Third Century goes even worse for the Rome--the Goths have fun plundering everything that isn't nailed down, while the Empire fractures permanently into several successors--including Queen Zenobia's realm of Palmyra in the east, as Palmyrene cataphracts smash both Gothic raiders and the Italian emperor's half-hearted attempt at reconquest. The map shows the Palmyrene Empire at the time of Queen Zenobia's death in 310 A.D. (Technically the former Queen-Regent Zenobia, as her son Vaballathus came into his majority some years back.)

Next up: a world where horses were never domesticated, and the Bactrian camel is the riding animal of choice!

At some point in prehistory, Eurasian wild horses undergo a slight mutation, resulting in slight behavioral changes that render it unsuitable for domestication, much like its relative the zebra. Instead, the Bactrian camel takes the role of the primary riding animal throughout northern Eurasia, while its dromedary cousin plays a similar role in Africa and parts of the Middle East. (Oxen and donkeys are also used in various capacities.)

A certain number of butterflies are in effect here, but the majority of them do not become apparent until the Indo-European expansion of our world fails to occur on schedule. (Some Indo-European speaking groups do make their way into Europe, but their accomplishments are minimal compared to our world.) For the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and their neighbors, the broad strokes are much the same, though most recognizable individuals have been butterflied away, and any specialist would be able to point to a number of differences.

Around 2000 BCE, the Bactrian camel is domesticated, much as it was in our world--however, this gives the first adopters a comparatively greater advantage than they had in our world, as the Bactrian camel spreads across Eurasia. (Domestication of the dromedary occurs in a similar timeframe, but is outside the scope of this map.) As with the horse in our world, not all the Bactrian-riding cultures are closely related to the original developers, though many of them are. The introduction of domestic camels and the absence of horses will be the final element in setting this world on a divergent path--by 2012, pretty much no elements of language or ethnicity will be recognizable...

A map focused on New Guinea, because there aren't enough of those!

A PoD somewhere in the 18th century shakes up the balance of power in the East Indies--the Dutch lose some parts of what would have been Indonesia, but gain a piece of western Australia. Time passes; colonialism goes in and out of fashion. Radical ideologies reshape Europe and the rest of the world. Former colonies gain varying degrees of independence. An organization called the International League is formed to prevent the horrors of industrial war from revisiting the world. Over the decades, its mandate evolves until International League troops are being deployed in various troubled parts of the globe far from the centers of power. 

One of these is New Guinea, or as the natives call it, Papua--the Disunited Land. Never terribly profitable, various parts of the island kept getting swapped around between the colonial powers, and as a result not much infrastructure ended up getting built. As of forty years ago, New Guinea was still divided between three countries. The Dutch sector was the first to gain independence, as the Republiek van Nieuw-Guinea, followed soon after by former Portuguese Menesesia, which became the República da Menesesia. British Papua was granted independence about five years later as East Papua, just in time to be invaded by the newly unified "Provisional Republic of Papua," consisting of the first two. 

While East Papua was eventual overrun and incorporated into the PRP, the Provisional Republic fared poorly--only by sheer numbers had it won the day, and the new country was coming apart at the seams under the stress. Corruption was rampant. Many of the newly-appointed generals were running their territories effectively as independent fiefs, with some going so far as to broker deals with foreign mineral consortiums and arms manufacturers in order to maintain their power. Ethnic violence and sectional conflicts both boiled over, following a coup attempt, and East Papua made a bid to regain its independence. 

Currently, the entire island is nominally under the control of the Second Provisional Republic of Papua, but their control barely extends beyond artillery range of the capital. The East Papuan government has regained most of former British Papua, but their independence is still not recognized by much of the world. (With the exception of Australia, which prefers them to the PRP as far as neighbors go, and supports them with the occasional arms shipment.) The remainder of the island is a stew of warlords, Islamic radicals, leftist rebels, and stone-age tribes whose introduction to the wonders of modern technology has been the assault rifle. In recent years, pirates have begun to harass shipping through the region, and the International League has put up a cordon and dispatched peacekeeping forces to occupy several coastal cities in an effort to deal with this problem, but for the foreseeable future, Papua will continue to live up to its name...

Finally, a world locked in a cold war between Imperial Germany and... the Utopian States of America?

THE PAST:

Sometime in the 1820's, Robert Owen's life takes a slightly different term. While his views on human society remain much the same, he does not attempt to put his theory into practice with the "New Harmony" settlement--instead, he devotes his time to writing more books, including one called Towards An Improved Human Society which describes a world made up of so-called "townships" of a a few thousand people, each formed around some common trade or attribute, and how a greater society of these townships might be formed. Without the failure of New Harmony to discredit it, these views remain popular in certain intellectual circles; later writers build upon them to form the basis of what is known as the Utopian Movement.

In the United States, Utopian ideas stay mostly below the surface into the mid-19th century, as the country is busy with a civil war and a period of Reconstruction which both proceed much as in our own world. (Although Seward never ends up purchasing Alaska, for one thing.) However, the turbulent era of economic growth and experimentation followed by a severe depression leads to Utopian ideas gaining a wider audience, and a number of Owenite and similar communities  are founded throughout the country. A few of these prosper, and others emulate them. A second wave of Utopian philosophy and political thought develops during this period, and some Utopian communities remain even as the country recovers.

The US manages to avoid getting involved in this world's equivalent of World War I, which occurs in the 1890's and sees Britain and Germany defeat France and Russia. Unfortunately, it does not manage to avoid a second round of economic malaise, and in the aftermath of that, the Utopians emerge as a major political party for the first time. A perfect storm of charismatic leaders, clever politicking, and a few dirty tricks puts the Utopians in power by 1912, and pretty soon a few minor reforms have snowballed into a "Fifty Year Plan" to reshape the country along Utopian lines. Citizens are encouraged to join "phalansteries," the descendants of Owen's "townships"; eventually membership becomes mandatory, and the phalansteries evolve into economic and administrative units. After a dismal showing backing the Germans in the Second European War, the military is reformed along Utopian lines. Dissenters are assigned to "special education phalansteries"; some flee abroad instead. By the time the first generation of collectively-raised children comes to adulthood, America is an entirely different place.

In the meantime, Germany has been building a more conventional powerbase, balancing imperial authority with a modicum of constitutional reform, and harnessing growing industry with a system of powerful cartels. The Second European War saw revanchist elements in France and Russia defeated decisively;  the formation of the Eurobund established German economic and political leadership of the continent. Britain has remained acquiescent, more concerned with trying to hold its empire together than challenging German dominance.

THE PRESENT:

The success of the Utopians in America has inspired similar movements elsewhere; the details vary widely, and poor Robert Owen would be appalled by many of the results. Perhaps the largest is the "Peach Blossom Movement," which has reunified much of the country, formerly a mess of warlordism and European interference. Liberia's ties to the US have extended to the Utopian ideology; the Liberian variant is virulently anti-colonialist as well, much to the distress of the Eurobund, which is struggling to maintain its influence abroad. Britain's attempts to hold onto its empire have been largely unsuccessful: India was a spectacular and bloody failure; much of Africa was less spectacular but equally bloody, and the "white dominions" are largely autonomous these days--with the exception of Canada, which is extremely concerned about its southern neighbor. Russia has recently slipped the German leash--still annoyed by the loss of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics, it has been cozying up to the US.

Atomic weapons have been developed by both German and American scientists, but rocket technology lags significantly behind our world; vast fleets of jet bombers are still the delivery system of choice. In fact, technology in general lags behind our world--despite the propaganda, the US system does not work nearly as well as advertised, and a significant amount of its brainpower is devoted to working the bugs out of that system--and what with one thing and another, the Germans aren't much better off. Space travel is still out of the picture, but the Americans have been working on building a self-sufficient community in Antarctica to serve as a model for the next stage of Utopia... if no one ends the world first.

(Yes, I've been going through one of my "weird map projection" phases...)

Maps, part VI

Another set of maps today! The usual cautions apply--no, these maps do not depict actual events. Kids, don't cite me in your research papers. (Well, I guess you can cite me if you use proper MLA style or whatever if you really want to. But I don't recommend this as an accurate source for any history your teachers will recognize...)

This first map was a relatively non-serious look at how future archeologists might misinterpret the remains left by our civilization. I realized afterwards that I was probably subconsciously influenced by reading David Macauley's "Motel of the Mysteries" when I was younger, as well as the Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, which was full of maps labeled with mysterious "Baltic battle-axe cultures" and the like.

This next one was the result of a discussion on alternate scientific revolutions. It owes a certain amount of its original inspiration to Michael Flynn's "Quaestiones Super Caelo et Mundo," though I thought his ending was a bit overly optimistic. (And I ran with a different starting point--POD, or "point of departure," as the alternate history slang usually goes.)

1331. Somewhere in the Yunnan province, a medieval Chinese farmer notices a faint tickle on his left leg. He looks down and brushes off the flea before it can bite him.

On the other end of the great Eurasian landmass, the High Middle Ages are in full swing. Universities are springing up like mushrooms after rain, and scholars like Jean Buridan are examining and questioning the Aristotelean worldview that has held sway for centuries. In this world, the budding scientific revolution will not be cut short by the Black Death--instead it will come to full flower, some two centuries before that of our world. By the late 14th century, Buridan and his pupils have compiled the laws of motion, while later thinkers expand the borders of math and science in many directions--building on the works of the Calculators of Merton as well as translations of Arabic works on algebra, the calculus is developed. Others turn their talents to astronomy, chemistry, biology, and their work is shared across the continent by a marvelous new device--the printing press.

To an observer from our world, one of the most extraordinary elements of this "scholastic revolution" is its relationship with the Catholic church, which (without the social upheaval of the Black Death) proves itself (in general) to be willing to foster and adapt to these new ideas. Many of these new scientists are also churchmen and theologians as well. This world sees no Reformation or Counter-Reformation, and while from time to time there is political disunity in the Catholic world, there is no theological disunity--across the continent, thinkers remain connected by the bonds of reason, logic, and faith.

There have been setbacks too, naturally--plagues remained frequent occurrences until sanitation improved and the germ theory of disease was developed. Of course this was too late for the inhabitants of the Americas, but overall they still fared better than in our world. The New World was discovered by powers more interested in trade than conquest--the exception being Mexico, where military orders were established to stamp out human sacrifice. An Incan empire survives to this day, though considerably Christianized, as do a few other native states on both continents.

Despite the head start in science, this world is not outrageously far ahead of us in technology--the industrial revolution did not develop as quickly as the scientific one, and there is a rather Hellenic attitude, especially in Europe, that scientific learning is worthwhile for its own sake and that applying it to the real world is slightly vulgar. (Several rising powers, in Asia and elsewhere, have no such qualms--something that is starting to alarm political leaders.) The continued relationship with the church is rather interesting--an article titled "The implications of quantum superposition for the doctrine of transubstantiation" would raise few eyebrows in this world's academic journals, and this world's equivalent of the Hubble Space Telescope has permanent staff of monks.

These last two are a pair, as should be pretty obvious from looking at them. It all started when I got to wondering what might have prevented the rise of the Assyrian empire. Then I came across the Wikipedia article on the Cimmerians, and having just read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories within the past year or so, one thing led to another...

Know, O prince, that between the years when the darkness swept over Hatti and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Ares, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Urartu, Aram, Phoenicia, Phrygia, Israel with its dark-haired women and temples of holy mystery, Chaldea with its chivalry, Moab that bordered on the pastoral lands of Edom, Egypt with its shadow-guarded tombs, Media whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Assyria, reigning supreme over the dreaming east. Hither came the Cimmerians, black-haired, sullen-eyed, swords in hand, thieves, reavers, slayers, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under their horses' hooves...

The idea here is that Assyria gets caught up in a badly-timed civil war--I'm thinking the turtanu (general) Shamshi-ilu tries to overthrow Shalmaneser IV, but doesn't quite succeed--and in the process, a lot of Assyria's recently conquered territories make the most of a chance to regain independence. And now, with all parties weakened, the barbaric Cimmerians are licking their chops...

The failed rebellion of Shamsi-ilu spelled the end for the Assyrian Empire. The cities of northern Syria and Cilicia reasserted their independence under the loose leadership of the Neo-Hittite city of Carchemish, while the Urartians and Chaldeans both took the opportunity to regain recent losses. Still, the worst was yet to come. The loss of the conquered territories deprived both Shamsi-ilu and his opponent, Assyrian king Shalmaneser IV, of a valuable source of manpower. To compensate, both sides began hiring mercenaries, including many from the Cimmerian tribes of northern Anatolia. Following Shamsi-ilu's defeat, some of them returned home, but others remained in Assyrian service or settled in the northern parts of Assyrian territory. A few rose quickly in the ranks--the war had provided many opportunities for advancement, and foreigners in positions of power were nothing new. (In fact, Shamsi-ilu himself had come from the Aramean city of Til Barsib--though this did not keep the city from joining Carchemish and its other neighbors in rebellion.)

By the time of Shalmaneser's death in 773 BC, one of these Cimmerian mercenaries had risen to become a turtanu of the army, and others seem to have gained positions of power throughout the kingdom, particularly the increasingly volatile north, where presumably they remained in contact with their relatives beyond the frontier. Shalmaneser was succeeded by his brother Ashur-dan III, but Assyria's days were numbered. The Cimmerian turtanu Kanaran seized power in Nimrud, and Ashur-dan was forced to flee the city.

Kanaran's coup was the start of a new era in the Near East. Though much of the administrative structure of the old Assyrian empire was taken over intact, the new dynasty brought new vigor to many of its institutions, including the military. Kanaran carried on with the Assyrian tradition of yearly military campaigns, beginning with a series of expeditions to the north that brought most of the Cimmerian homeland under his sway, pushing west to the borders of the Phyrigian kingdom, and making tributaries of the Greek colonies along the coast of the Black Sea. Subsequent campaigns against Urartu and against some of the eastern members of the League have solidified his position with his Assyrian subjects.

To the west, the situation does not look good for the League of Carchemish--founded in the immediate aftermath of the revolt that threw out the Assyrians, ties between its diverse members had grown slack as Assyrian power waned. Now with a renewed threat from the north and east, the League also faces dissension within--a number of the southern, Aramaic, members have thrown their lot in with the rising star of Aram-Damascus, which has just completed a successful campaign against the unlikely alliance of Israel and Ammon, forcing the former to give ground in the north and reducing the latter to a vassal.

To the east, the Medes bide their time and Urartu licks its wounds. A much-reduced Assyrian successor state based out of Babylon has been forced to seek help from the Chaldeans, who are glad of a buffer state between them and the new northern menace as Kanaran I prepares for this year's campaigns...

Maps, part V

The same caveats hold here as with I-IV.  These maps are fictional, do not depict real history, and should not be used as resources, nor are they intended as a political statement about the inhabitants of any given piece of land, now or at any time in our past.


First up, a couple more maps of an alternate West Africa--actually the same setting as the last map in part IV. I had some fun playing around with somewhat different techniques on these:

Next up is actually a future history map, rather than alternate history, showing settlements on Mars. A few of the ideas here are actually ones I've had floating around for a couple of years; I was idly considering using them in the background of a roleplaying game at some point, but never got around to it.

Two centuries in the future, the Solar System is slowly being colonized as advances in superconductors allow ships to "sail" between planets, borne on the charged particles of the solar wind. Humanity has once again entered an age of exploration and colonization, and the great powers of Earth--national, supranational and corporate alike--strive to lay claim to the resources now within their reach.

Mars remains an uninviting place, despite the terraforming plans being laid out by the Long Run Foundation, but many of the great powers have planted a few token colonies--many of them having grown up around early scientific bases or research stations, others exploiting the planet's mineral resources. For some smaller groups, Mars offers  the chance to build a new society away from the prying eyes and laws of Earth. Many of these stake out claims in the "International Territory" or cut deals with the major powers--or simply squat on others' turf, gambling that no one will care enough to evict them.

But a few have come to the Red Planet against their will. Several decades ago, the European regime saw an opportunity to finally deal with some of their troublesome minorities--and so thousands of Basques and other "undesirable subnationals" were given the choice between increasing persecution on Earth or freedom on Mars. Those who chose Mars have done their best to forge a new nation for themselves, and recently have thrown off the yoke of the "Martian Resettlement Supervisory Council," proclaiming themselves the "Basque Republic of Mars."

The last one of this batch was inspired by reading up on the Samaritans, who still exist today as a tiny minority in the Levant. What if things had gone more favorably for them?

Cyrus the Great decides not to release the Jewish people from their Babylonian exile, and only a few end up returning to the land of Judah. Instead, over time the religious composition of the Levant shifts towards the Samaritans, a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group descended from the northern kingdom of Israel, with their own version of the Torah and their own holy site of Mount Gerizim.

The Achaemenid Empire dominated the Near East for several centuries, and at times exerted some measure of control over the Greek mainland. As a result, Magna Graecia saw a bit more immigration, and a Greek-speaking polity in Sicily was for several centuries the major rival of the rising Roman Republic for control of the Western Mediterranean before being overcome.

The Roman Republic of this world had little in common with that of ours, being in some ways both more and less Hellenized, but over time it acquired significant eastern territories from a variety of Achaemenid successors, including a largely Samaritan "Kingdom of Israel." The Samaritans got along somewhat better with their new overlords than the Jews did with the OTL Romans, and were not scattered across the Empire. Neither do they spawn any sort of spin-off interested in converting large numbers of Gentiles; Samaritanism remains strongly linked to its homeland and its holy places.

Fast-forward a couple of millennia. Rome is long since fallen, though its influence remains in many nations of the Mediterranean, even those overrun by Celts, Germans, and various nomadic peoples. The Near East was, for a long time, split between an Egypt-based Roman successor, and a resurgent Persia, with Israel usually falling under the sway of the former. But in recent centuries, the diverse states of western Europe have been experiencing a scientific and industrial revolution, while the empires of the Near East have fallen behind. Persia has retreated into a state of semi-isolation, while the last dynasty of Egypt has been overthrown: without them, the lands of the Levant have been splitting apart along ancient ethnic and religious faultlines, and a Samaritan state of Israel has emerged once more.

And in the unremarkable provincial town of Yerushalem dwell the last members of an obscure and dwindling sect known as "Ezraic Samaritans," or "Yehudim," of interest only to a few ethnologists...

And that's it for now! Time to go paint some chariots...

Maps, part IV

Yes, it's that time again!

I've been away from my painting table for the last couple of weeks, and now that I'm home there will probably be a brief delay until I get production started up again. Also, you may expect some Cossack-related griping in the near future.

In the meantime, here are a few more alternate history maps. Remember, these maps are fictional, do not depict real history, and should not be used as resources. Moreover, I do not intend them to make any political statement about the owners of any given piece of land, now or at any time in our past.

That being said, here's the first map: an "ironic reversal" of the Boer War.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a group of London merchants were granted permission from Queen Elizabeth I to form a company for trade with the East Indies--the predecessor of the British East India Company. In OTL, all three ships from their second expedition were lost at sea, but in this timeline, one survives, and on its return the captain advises his employers that a supply station should be built to facilitate future trade. It is several years before the company's backers can find the funds, but eventually they follow through on the captain's recommendation and the settlement of Goodhope is founded on the site of OTL Capetown.

The colony grows slowly but steadily, and bit by bit English settlers begin to push into the interior. Puritans and other nonconformists account for a disproportionate percentage of the new arrivals, and many of them move beyond the region of official government control. Relations with the native peoples are complicated and often devolve into violence. The city of Willemspoort is founded further east along the coast as a supply station for the Dutch, marking their first official presence in the region.

Despite their early advantage, the English eventually falter, and in the aftermath of one of the European wars they are stripped of many of their eastern colonies, including Goodhope and the outlying settlements, which are handed over to the Dutch. The unofficial farming and ranching settlements of the interior are left mostly to their own devices, although they begin to receive a steady influx of people from the coastal settlements who are dissatisfied with the new Dutch authorities. Known as "Rovers," many of them push east to the Limpopo or north and west across the Kalahari, provoking fresh conflicts with native tribes, particularly the Zulus. A series of independent English-speaking republics are formed across the interior of South Africa, not all of the recognized by the Dutch authorities in Goodhope. Dutch immigration to the so-called "Rover republics" is resented by the English-speakers, and tensions are only aggravated when gold and diamonds are discovered in the region. In early 1901, violence breaks out between Dutch settlers and English Rovers in one of the disputed regions. The Governor-General in Goodhope moves to assert Dutch authority, while the Rover leaders appeal to the Portuguese, who have tacitly lent their support...

Next up, alternate alliance systems in the 19th century lead to a different World War I:

Bismarck doesn't become a diplomat; he goes into law or something instead. Without him, Prussian politics proceed somewhat differently. There ends up being no conflict with Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein, but war still breaks out between Austria and Prussia in 1866. This war ends up going on longer than it did in OTL, without Bismarck's moderating influence, and some of Austria's allies in southern Germany are forcibly incorporated into the new German Federation. This, in turn, averts the Franco-Prussian War: the French are on their guard and the Prussians are busier holding together their new country. The French buddy up with the Austrians in a sort of new "Diplomatic Revolution," while the Germans build ties with Russia and Italy.  A Russo-Turkish war does occur, though along somewhat different lines than OTL--with Austria-Hungary more focused on the west and less well-inclined towards Russia, it doesn't end up taking over Bosnia, though Serbia and Rumania gain their official independence.

As described in the map text, a major war breaks out in 1900, between the Triple Alliance of Germany, Italy, and Russia and the Franco-Austrian Concert. The Ottomans and the British both end up joining the Concert, as the map colors suggest--the former to get back at Russia, the later partly because of the Great Game and partly due to worries about Germany. British intervention on the continent is limited to a few token forces, but the British navy has a grand old time against the Italians in the Mediterranean, and there's fighting against the Russians in Persia and Afghanistan as well as against the Germans in their couple of African colonies. (Almost anything is preferable to the trench warfare that engulfs much of the continent--it's pretty much like our WWI but without tanks and only a few primitive airplanes towards the end...)

And for the third one, it's back to Africa for a look at a rather dystopic Kingdom of Kongo:

The Kingdom of Kongo was one of the few nations that managed to avoid European colonialism; a series of smart and fortunate kings managed to play off the English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch against one another, while taking over several of Kongo's weaker neighbors.

Does this mean that Central Africa is a shiny, happy place in this timeline? Unfortunately not. Part of Kongo's strategy for retaining its independence was to be too valuable for any one European power to be allowed to seize, and so the kings of Kongo ended up paying for their freedom with all the resources at their disposal--gold, ivory, copper, diamonds, and even their own people, until the end of the slave trade. As the 19th and 20th centuries progressed, Kongo began to develop its own industries, and with the European nations distracted by wars at home, Kongo emerged as a regional power of its own. A timely declaration of war gave the Kongolese an opportunity to snap up some territories in the interior during the subsequent peace conference. These new territories, dubbed "special resource zones," are being ruthlessly exploited in an attempt to cement Kongo's status as an industrial power. Likewise, "Kongolese Catholicism" is being imposed at bayonet-point throughout the empire, with Muslims, followers of traditional religions, and Protestant converts and missionaries being targets for violence.

And here's a special bonus map! The story behind this one is not mine; instead, you can check it out here.