Description
This is a cover of an old map by Diamond which can be found here .
The POD of this world is in 1473, when Charles the Bold was crowned a king at Trier. From that point on, Burgundy's fortunes rose while France and Germany were outshone by the rising Burgundian power.
- The general trend of history here is similar to OTL. Industrializing European powers expanded across the globe and formed colonial empires. However, they faced stronger opposition from native powers that had technology on par with the Europeans.
- The major European powers of this world are Burgundy, the Quinquecoronal Monarchy, and Scandinavia. Burgundy has become an industrial powerhouse and the Rhine Valley is filled to the brim with factories. The ruling class of Burgundy speaks a form of French heavily influenced by German and the Franconian dialects, and they are opposed by their subjects in other parts of France and Catalonia.
- The rise of Burgundy threw a wrench into European affairs and surprisingly, the Ottomans were beneficiaries of this. From the 15th to 18th centuries, they marched towards the Danube, but also launched amphibious campaigns and conquered much of Italy and were responsible for the Great Revival, the destruction of Christian Spain. Unfortunately, the Ottomans grew too large and in the 19th century they exploded into several pieces.
- In general, Islam has fared better in this world, with all of North Africa and swaths of Asia remaining independent from Europe during the age of colonialism. Most notably, TTLs China saw the ascendance of the western-based Liang Dynasty to the throne during the 18th century. The Liang were Hui Muslims, and set about converting parts of China after their rise. Though successful in the north, much of the south and China's puppet state of Japan remained non-Muslim and as of 1950, much of the country is in revolt against the Liang government.
- India has remained mostly out of European hands, with only the Burgundians having any significant presence there at present. One of the great powers of the subcontinent is the Gorkhali Empire, which has its roots in the militaristic Gorkha Kingdom. The Gorkhas conquered all of Bengal and up the Ganges and have a strong military that is feared by all of their neighbors.
- One of the by-products of Ottoman expansion was the flight of the Pope from Rome to Sens, where he became something of a puppet of the Kings of Burgundy. Since those days, Western Christendom has splintered into two rival papacies as well as a Nordic Church.
- The new world was discovered at about the same time as OTL by an Iberian explorer. In this world the two continents are known as Elcania (north) and New Pyrenaea (south, named for the ATL name of the Iberian Peninsula) In the 18th and 19th centuries the colonial powers experienced the Transatlantic Upheavals, in which colonial viceroys and grandees declared themselves independent. This has created a number of indpeendent monarchies across the two continents. The largest of these states is Elcania, a former Burgundian colony that is now a large, independent empire that has even acquired African colonies. Interestingly, given Elcania's Atlantic focus, everal native states have survived on the continent. Elcania is rivaled only by Vespuccia, the last remnant of the old Portuguese Empire, which was defeated by the Ottomans in the 18th century and fled to the New World. Both of these states are large, industrial, and modern powers to be reckoned with.
- This world still takes religious differences more seriously than OTL, and while nations are unlikely to declare war over religion alone, religious differences are major sticking points here. Technology is a bit behind OTL, especially in military fields where the lack of world wars so far have made some advances unncessary. Airships exist while tanks are more or less experimental.