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As a christmas gift, here's my original Hapsburg World reuploaded.

It might not be one of my most plausible pieces, but I like it and got positive reception for it.

That said, i've got plans to do a remake someday.

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This is a map "inspired" by the following sources: Decades of Darkness, For want of a nail, A few GURPS AE/AE/infinite worlds settings(Shikaku-mon, Aeolus), some of Tony Jones's timelines(Monarchy and Puritan worlds and to a lesser extent gurkami Alam) and a few of B_Munro's maps/descriptions(The goat variations, Lilburne's world, ottomans pushed east and some of his AHTG inspired ones). This map is another one using my secondary color scheme. Unlike OTL, the world has two centers: Europe and China. The protestant reformation was delayed and weakened, England never rose and the ming voyages didn't stop.

The POD is that plague doesn't sweep through Iberia in 1252, which allows Alfonso III to continue reigning for another 20 years. Outside of some changes such as a more substantive council of constance(allowing (vatican-approved) translations of the bible into the local vernacular), Nichiren being exiled to the far northern island of hokkaido(Tip of the hat to Doug Muir's "Buddha on ice") and Spain expanding into Morocco the world doesn't diverge that much until the mid to late 15th century. The first really noticable divergences on a large scale are somewhat weaker pressures for a reformation, China's continuing it's voyages and a slightly earlier renaissance. Things got interesting when a flemish academic found copies of some of Hero's old schematics for his steam engine.

These interesting things consisted of a slow-motion early age of steam combined with a delayed reformation. A freer intellectual environment, combined with more contact with a china that. During the "Age of Steam" from 1449 to 1650, the west made some serious leaps technologically with resulting changes such as urbanization(going from 5-15% urban in the modern zones to 22-33% urban). By the time this era stalled out technologically, Europe and China had reached an over-engineered, highly ornate tech level around 1850 which would please steampunk and clockpunk fans(Even including hilariously impractical airships). However, this didn't affect the general flow of geopolitical history until decades later. The first geopolitical changes were minor things such as the spanish incursions into north africa sticking, no treaty of tordesillas was issues, England following up on Cabot's discoveries(was initially touch and go but "Lutheran" and later "Calvinist" heretics provided a pool of people to forcibly dump in Newfoundland and New Cornwall(Nova Scotia)). but the general flow of events was largely the same for a while. The fact that the Low Countries had an early advantage in that field ensured that the dutch were able to win independence and include all 17 low country provinces. Also, China under more open-minded emperors of first the ming and later the Ling dynasty continued trade misions but rejected colonization as too costly. However, European inventions such as the "Black Smoke" and the "Iron Horse" made their way to a China which spent a few centuries locked in conflict between the northern Ling and southern ming. Chinese medicine, art, architectural techniques and other things made their way westwards'. Japan still closed off as per OTL with the only difference being that the Tokugawa realm included a fifth northern island. The "Dissenter" heretics dumped in "New england" and the settleres southwards in more conventionally settled Virginia, Nua Eire or Maryland both developed seperate identities from England but never formed a single identity. France dumped many religious dissidents and other troublemakers in Canada and Louisiana(under a different Louis) and Spain used it's wealth gained from new world trade and the age of steam to create a slightly more ambitious empire(missions extending british colombia, plus spanish rule over Owahee). Russia got whipped around worse than OTL by Poland, Turkey and Sweden, leading it to modernize up to European levels. This quickly paid dividends as Turkey decayed which opened the way for Russian expansion southwards. In 1605, a new continent called "Terranova" was discovered, partitioned by France, the dutch and Portugal with borders that continue to 2011(not very valuable but looks good in maps). Dissenter churches remained confined to England's northern american colonies, The kingdom of Sweden, the kingdom of norway and the dutch Republic. These minor losses were more than counterbalanced by the councils of 1680, 1692 and 1707 which brought Orthodox Christendom back into the catholic fold, ending the Great Schism. There were minor wars but things stayed largely stable until the 1750s when life became ineresting geopolitically.

Despite the fact that it wasn't until the mid 19th century, that serious technological advance began again, the roots of this era go back to the destabilization created by the "10 years war" of 1749 to 1759. In this war England, Brandenburg-Saxony, Poland, Scotland face off with Spain, France, Austria, Russia. The Holy Roman Empire was given a limited degree of power over all of Germany with more centralization(think OTL's north german confederation). The United States had won it's independence and even taken Scotland's relatively minor colony of Mingulay(OTL Georgia) in the process. New england, too had won it's own independence, establishing itself as the third Dissenter nation. However, despite loud but very minimally influential idealists on both sides the closest the two nations came to unification was adopting constitutions that were carbon copies of one another. America was catholic and slave-holding while New England was free soil plus quite Dissenter. England, The "Sick Man of Europe" saw itself losing North America and Ireland, only leaving it with Jamesland in the Indian ocean along with a few caribbean islands as it's empire. This war reshaped the old order and paved the way for the future's changes.

There were three changes that happened in Europe. The first major change to happen was the collapse of Europe's empires in the Americas beginning in the 1780s. France had a war of succession which ended only after three out of the four princes involved were packed off to new thrones in Port-Au Prince, New Orleans and Montreal. Following England and France's precedents. Spain lost control of first the Three Sicilies in 1800 and then from 1820 to 1855, the of the Americas in multiple wars. Portugal saw the same thing happen at the same time that Spain imploded. German unification was another important change. First it began with Austria's smashing potential competition and forcing Germany into a tighter confederation. This took several small wars and local revolts to turn into a single state. Without the religious difference between north and south it went rather more smoothly. This came to an end when Emperor Michael, the turk-slayer went to Frankfurt and crowned himself German Emperor in August, 1822 following the Austro-Russian victory against turkey which freed several nations in the balkans, along with shattering the rump empire's middle eastern core into several pieces. Thirdly, there was Russia's expansion into former ottoman lands such as the Ukraine, the caucus plus the turkic central asian khanates. Russia's attempts to conquer Poland and take Finland from Sweden both ended in failure so the Tsars looked to the south. By 1830, Russian territory included much of central asia with rump pashtun, persian, Balochi, tadzhik and punjabi puppet states plus various trade concessons in the decaying Mirzabid Empire in India. Managing this large of an empire led to Russia independently developing a weak constitutionalism and federalism due to both boyars and a rising merchant class both wanting protection from absolutism and more of a free hand to loot russia's new empire.

New England and America continued to diverge. One nation focused on trade, manufactures and accidently discovering actual industrialization as a side effect while the other aggressively expanded without new england's pacifist voices stopping it. While New England industrialized first, America was not far behind as it's factories began turning out weapons of war to enable far conquests. America did landgrabs against Louisiana, Haiti and a smaller one against the Kingdom of Mexico taking half of Tejas, snapping up the "Republic of Florida"(florida panhandle, half of OTL missisipi/alabama), the oregon territory, a small piece of upper Cocania and some land in the great basin. Also, in a small preview of America's later action due to the actions of former, turned explorer general John Jefferson, her of the second Louisiana War the United States started being directly involved in the ruins of the Tokugawa Shogunate(President jefferson's Republic of Hakodate's request for annexation passed congress by one vote(These are the same warhawks who voted to seize Mexico's north that year) and got america embroiled in East Asia...). This is also the same period where America undertook it's sonderweg that began to divide America from the rest of the west -- New rationalistic thinkers weakened the power of the Church in society. Unlike our 19th century, there was no.

Early in spring 1845, the Second Ten Years war broke out following Jamesland's secession from England over tariff issues. The big players were Germany, America, France, Russia and Maz China versus Spain, Purtgal, Poland, The Dutch Republic, the "Republican Alliance" nations, New england and both of the southern chinese states. Even the Chinas were dragged into it, with the new Maz Dynasty versus the southern rump states of Ling and Ming. The "Sick Man of Europe" met it's end as England ended up the provinces of England and West England(Wales) within the Holy Roman Empire, America taking it's new world lands and Jamesland becoming free. The much-vaunted and world's largest largest Dutch Navy wasn't able to stop America from grabbing Formosa, Ceylon and the partition of most of the Portuguese Empire between america and France. Most importantly, America had established itself as at least a regional power now with overseas territories in Asia plus taking most of the former spanish empire(Santa Lucia and Peru got independence) and grabbing half of Mexico. Maz China, with American, Russian and German help steamrolled the other two chinese states(trading the Ming Province of Qionxi and giving America a free hand in the Japans in return for arms and military assistance). On a technical level, the war represented a visible change and an end to the stagnation that had characterized technology since the middle of the 17th century. The Iron Elephants and Airships that were used to bomb London or Mexico City or Hong Kong or break the defenses of cities such as New York City, Amsterdam, Edo represented a permanent shift in the nature of war.

Following the war, the world underwent a rapid change in many aspects. In the decades after 1845, the world's technology advanced at a speed greater than OTL due to pressures caused by the second ten years war, along with intellectuals near-simultaneously in Boston, Kaifeng and Amsterdam independently hitting on the scientific method. Where our world had Europe, and later the United States to power advancement this world had Europe, the new world, a modern china and Russia to push advancement. Most of the planet ended up partitioned between one European or american power or another as colonies due to there existing an even worse technological imbalance. The only exceptions were the Ottoman Empire, a couple of islamic states happening to sit on bad terrain and the himalayan kingdoms which made good buffer states between Russia and China. Even Latin America saw portions falling to the United States with a few states(New England, Argentina, New Granada, Bahia and parts of central America) forming an alliance to try forestalling further expansion. There was large amounts of immigration from the old world to the new -- Dissenter christians to New England, Catholics and people from the russian empire/former ottoman empire to the rest of the america and large numbers of korean/japanese/filipino/chinese indentured labor/contract laborers/serfs into the mainland United States.

The early 20th century was a time of great invention, prosperity and relatively less conflict than before. First in the War of '94, and then with the "Pan-american war", America entered the 20th century land-hungry, militaristic and expansionistic. The war of '94 ended in 1898 with Central America and New Granada fallen and now ended up American territories. This led to the Lusophone States and the rest of South America forming the "Alliance of the Americas" to try countering the United States. There was a minor european war from 1904-6 over african territories which ended with a few French and dutch territories in Africa ending up in German hands. Polish partition was debated in 1906, 1913 and 1921 but nothing came of it.

The 1930s saw preexisting moves away from trade liberalization coinciding with a speculative bust in 1922 created a depression that lasted several years. This produced reversal of various liberalizing trends and more authoritarian governments all across the world. Germany saw the "Young Junkers" use informal pressure to get a quite elderly but comparatively liberal-minded emperor to abdicate in favor of his more reactionary heir. In America, this lead to the quite conservative Democratic party taking over and establishing a de facto one party state that would last until the middle of the 1990s. the Americans quickly cooked up an incident to justify a new war against the Alliance of the Americas. Superior industry, economic organization made this war a clear American victory. The type of occupation varied with it ranging from Uruguay which was mild to the point where the locals even quickly recieved a territorial legislature to quite harsh with reprisals and mass slave camps in the former Republic of Montana. New England and Argentina got off with finlandization because both were white and populous enough to be problematic to fit in as citizens without altering citizen culture. Unlike after the War of '94, New England was to be... watched. Canada, which was neutral also took finlandization after rumblings from Terminus hinted that they'd be willing to install a more... pliable king in Montreal along with... renegotiating the Canadian-american border if Canada didn't cooperate. America quickly created the "League of the Americas" alliance in order to manage it's new puppet states and better keep an eye on New England and Argentina. Meanwhile, at the same time.

This world's introduction to real modern warfare came with the Global War(1940-46). The consistent sides were Russia versus Germany, France and the Italian league. America and China entered in at different times on different sides for different reasons. Faced with the stress of 8 years of warfare, combined with colonial revolt and increasing trouble at home, the great powers came together to draft a peace to end the war on mostly status quo ante-bellum lines. The changes were dismantling of the italian league, France being largely disarmed and the past 70 years of liberalizing reforms done by it's government rolled back. It was easy to form a consensus to ban gas warfare after this war, but explosive metal bombs were another matter with leaders arguing that it's just a big bomb. International institutions were made for the first time, with the new "League of Nations" having a bit more teeth than our United Nations.

Following the war, the world spent the 1950s cleaning up loose ends from the war. Firstly, there was the English revolt of '51, which was put down by nuking Cardiff and Wessex. Also done by Germany was the nuclear supression of France's attempts to rebuild it's military. Then by the Americans, there is their decision to wipe out 10 cities in New England after their president starts talking loudly about a need for a nuke program and budgeting for such. After these three incidents, there was enough outcry within the powers, from the vatican and within world opinion in order to have serious restrictons on nuke usage because of video footage of nukes being used on white people as opposed to during the global war when many were used to wreck other's colonies..

Once the loose ends were tied up prosperity began to flow as wartime restrictions were lifted and technological spinoffs were used in civilian capabilities. The spaceplanes and orbit-capable rockets that were used on the war were turned to bringing the powers to space. The second half of this period in the 70s and 80s saw the information era beginning. emergence of as well as the more underground, unregulated Comnet. Along with this new technological era, this was a time of decadent style, increasing sexual license and general rebellion. New England's decades-long national prohibition finally ended(which really only affected people living in the capital district since all the states's legislatures had yet to vote on ending it). Even more conservative portions of the west saw this trend happening. There was even a degree of liberalization in the west, with France turning Senegal into a full province and Germany allowing an independent English puppet state to reemerge.

Whether to start the "Nervous 90s" with Melinda's unilateral declaration of independence from France or the suppression of the "July Riots" or the return to democracy in the United States is hotly debated but the last decade and a half or so have been full of instability. Melinda declared independence from France after King Louis XXI announced a plan to transition to majority rule. Germany quickly took advantage of it to gain a new ally. America ended slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude and turned hundreds of millions of noncitizens into citizens overnight. The lack of unfree labor to man factories or farms, created a depression from 1994-01, which america has recovered from. France and the other european poweres besides Germany decided to start letting their colonies go in the late 1990s. Germany's economic model began hitting against limits of growth in the 2000s and stalled out. This is combined with a new wave of colonial unrest worse than anything seen before. The fact that France, Portugal, Savoy let their colonies go or the model of the United States of extending citizenship and full statehood to colonies only make matters worse. Germany saw the United States and other nations prosper while it goes down the tubes which has not helped matters.

Thankfully the last few years now have looking up again. Chancellor Nau hasn't threatened dropping big rocks on the infidel like his predecessor and the dutch have begun liberalization of colonial policy. The German economy is still a radioactive cinder, but at least it's merely dropping at depression rates instead of glitching up and essentially dropping dead like before. The "Nervous 90s" have made the rest of the planet look to the settlements on mars or orbit or the belt with hope -- even if the worst happened, at least humanity is out of the single planet trap. Also, the "Big Four" are working together better to handle things like the German crisis, global warming, the energy crisis, etc.

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There are four great powers in charge of the world. These powers collectively own the bulk of earth's habitable land area and rule over a clear majority of it's population. There is the west, the United States of America, Germany in Africa and the south, Russia in the north with China as the east. Despite their political and cultural differences there are three things in common for all four empires -- the existence of a common pan-imperial identity above the local identity as well, the ability to govern and satisfy the interests of many different peoples and governments that are at least partially constitutional.

This is a world where ethnic nationalism like what emerged in our world post 1789 never really emerged. Ideas along the lines of demanding self-determination based on ethnic lines are seen as rather gauche and short-sighted at best. In the minds of most of the ruling elites, only savages would insist on being ruled by themselves as opposed to members of more advanced cultures. Despite the western world's partial liberalization in some areas in the last few decades, there still isn't much tolerance for 'savage' cultures -- for example, France turns africans or Terranovans into dusky-hued frenchmen whether they like it or not.

Colonialism is alive and well in the traditional "Great white father" form, settler colonialism and in recent years direct annexation. This is a world where the big peace that reshaped the global order following the Great Warwas more like the peace of Vienna than the postwar decolonization of the real world with the victorious powers shuffling around the ownership of colonies instead of freeing them. One form of colonial policy is running them directly for the benefit of the metropole with forced labor, rigged economic regulations, etc. This way produces unrest and trouble, and is starting to be less popular. Another method is incorporating them into the nation like how America did with the Japans, or it's african colonies or France with Senegal/french terranova. This way works, but only the least racist empires do it. Dutch colonial policy is scattered and in between with local whites or in recent years christians getting dutch citizenship while majorities in most areas are still repressed(Africans are still legally equivelant to furniture in most the dutch empire). The one improvement over German policy is that the dutch invest in their colonies as opposed to just exploiting them. Settler colonies are places where the locals are relocated or killed and Europeans are brought in like German Ostafrika. Even many independent nations like Ashanti or Upper Volta are run as protectorates/mandates of France or Savoy. Essentially, this system works by combining advisors and government officialls appointed/sent by the nation holding the mandate with some elements of native home rule. The mandate system was proposed both as a path for eventual home rule, and as a way for poor nations to be modernized. Results tend to be mixed with the overall trend being one of increased control from the civilized nations instead of the promised freedom.

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Russia is "The empire on which the sun never sets", the largest state on earth. Centered in Tsargrad(real-world Samarkand) It extends from the steppe or taiga of eastern europe, through siberia's tundra, through central asian desert and even south into the lands of Hindustan. Russia can be summed up as vaguely tsarist, vaguely federal and oligarchic all around. The central government is weak on most things besides border control, national defense, sending missionaries, sending teachers for education and sending the army in for frontier defense or protecting missionaries. This means that the Governates, Krais, provinces, Uyezds, Free Cities, Oblasts and Grand Dutchies all enjoy quite a bit of autonomy and Russia's governmental organization is a baroque nightmare. This means that decisions on things like religious tolerance, voting rights or even the strength of the non-noble portion of the legislature is quite variable. This creates quite a patchwork with parts of Russia still being quite feudal while others are pretty modern and liberal even by OTL standards. However, the central government does have power to intervene in the most extreme cases, but the empire is large and the Tsar is far away. Also, unpopular governors can be sent on the next jet back to the capital tarred and feathered. The things which keep the empire together are the Grand Duma which meets five times a year and of course loyalty to the Tsar.

Russia's empire is very large and diverse, but largely russian-speaking and catholic these days. Russia is quite a tolerant nation if you are Roman Catholic and Russian-speaking. This extends even into the nobility. Tens of millions of Iranians, Punjabis, azerbaijanis, Hindis, etc ended up forcibly converted or being burned en masse. The converted ones ended up influencing the majority to a certain degree, though. You can find great curry in Moscow and Russian architecture is even more florid than in the real wold. Besides just conversion, many hindu or Muslim mosques/temples were turned into Russian Orthodox churches. The sikhs, Buddhists, Ba'hai and other religious non-hindu minorities in india haven't done too bad, though. These last few decades, even russian-speaking and at least publicly russified muslims or hindus can practice their faith quietly(If they try converting people OTOH...). A more confident Tsarist regime never felt a need to do pogroms but there is still a glass cieling for those jews who don't convert to orthodoxy. Tsar Ivan's Gurkhas are famous around the world. The pathans are still troublesome, even though they converted to orthodoxy over a century ago, though.

America is still a presidential federal republic and english-speaking. This is where the similarities to the America of the real world stop. Differences begin with colonization when, instead of Quakers the area of the future United States got a wave of irish. This irish-scots-irish-low catholic nation produced a much less moralizing, less evangelistic nation but it also produced a much less liberal and far more warlike nation. America met the world with less messianistic utopianism, but it also met it with far less charity. What this created was an empire able to conquer a clear majority of the Americas, as well as take overseas areas like the wreckage of post-Tokugawa Japan, Korea, even grab a few african colonies as slave ports and steal a few islands from the dutch(Formosa, Serendib). Europe's constant whining about "republicanism" has caused America to deliberately reject many of the west's norms and christianity. On the one hand, this means that open chattel slavery lasted into the 1990s, but on the other hand it means the country is well outside of TTL European norms re: sexual morals, women's rights, gay rights, etc. This has given the United States a reputation for being a land of perverts, heathans and hell-raisers. This is a nation with no real interest in christian mores or regulations; Satellite TV or Comnet pornography, bloodsports, sleazy "exposes", smuggling, "offshore banking", both synthetic or natural recreational intoxicants, media piracy are all American exports. The initial justification was ideologically focused(rejecting christian mores) but nowadays it's continued as a way for the government and corps to make large amounts of money. America's two big forms of christianity being Anglicanism and Catholicism was not very fertile soil for great awakenings. This stultifying religious enviroment has produced a non-religious majority combined with a visible minority of people who either retained the Shinto customs of their ancestors or non-Japanese americans who picked up shinto. America may be a sleazy nation prone to radical notions regarding women, religion or sodomites, but even Germans or Dutch admit they have snappy military uniforms. Black, brown and malay americans got equality and freedom in the 1990s, so civil rights is just as recent and as touchy as it was in the 1970s of OTL.

However, things are getting better in the United States -- the army is no longer busy at home like it was for much of the past two decades, the economy has gotten out of the doldrums of the 70s/80s or the bad years of the 90s and is seeing real growth. Also, the racial divide appears to be starting to heal with the recent election of a black president. The only positive side to the much longer period of slavery is that slight alterations in colonial history prevented the creation of a "color line" so instead of an ironclad racial caste system, it was (in theory) fluid like Latin America where money whitened. A downside of America's being a more imperialistic, less industrialized, more agricultural and retaining slavery far longer is that America's per capita GDP is around 1/3 of our world's America adjusted to factor in the technology and that inequality is comparable to the worse parts of real world latin america but since the end of the depression, America's economic future is looking up. America's future in other respects is also looking bright due to the United States being one of the more intellectually free nations compared to say Germany.

The rest of the americas is firmly under the heel of the United states in a single economic union, comparable to the 1980s EEC. The League of the Americas, since the early 1950s has include the Irish Kingdom and the Republic of Santa Lucia, a spanish-speaking state located in OTL Morocco. The brazilian monarchies are all unstable client states which have large American garrisons. Canada is a monarchy no richer than the United States and it has increasing unrest from "Armies of the People"(catholic leveller populists) in the metis regions. While america was busy dealing with unrest at home in the 80s and 90s New England and Argentina both have taken some minor steps to reduce economic dependence on the states and have elected a few anti-american leaders while unrest is happening in the backwards zone: This Has been noted. However, as long as the other nations in the americas toe the American line on overall foreign policy, doesn't put up trade barriers or attempt to get the bomb President Manning won't add to the list of complications on his plate by chastising the offending nations or sending in the marines

New England is a sullen and resentful vassal of the United States. They were forced into the League after the "Pan-American" war, and even attempted to strike out on their own which got New England... chastised. It took them only a decade or so to recover from losing 10 cities but it's leadership got the hint -- do not attempt to leave the League of The americas or build an independent nuclear deterrant. However, unlike the United States whose christians are catholic, New Englanders follow a Dissenter church. They do deliberate cultural efforts to not be mistaken for it's larger neighbor(austere dress, bland food, etc). This is a New England without it's irish, italian or other south european immigrants or any french influence.

Argentina is also part of the League of the Americas, under a constitutional monarchy and doing better than OTL. Argentina is a developed nation and much more populous with more of the country outside of Greater Buenos Aires being densely settled than OTL with large cities on the pampas.

Maz China is the third of the big powers. China never isolated itself like it did in OTL. This meant that China never experienced it's OTL period of stagnation followed by humiliation. China has been one of the great pwoers for centurieis. Also, it experieced more internal competition with first the rump southern Ming state and later conflicts between the ruling Ling Dynaty and the Maz from the north. Without our world's stagnation, China has continued to be one of the more technologically and politically advanced nations. China's government is an oligarchic federation based in large part on the Russian model. This means a government with varying levels of authoritarianism and political openness that averages out to be roughly on par with our china overall. However, this government stresses the confucian classics, has more pragmatic economic policies, a healthier birthrate and fancier uniforms. Despite a higher population, there is less pollution thanks to a strong government that's able to enforce these regulations plus strong public cleanliness regulations. Due to the higher population Many Chinese must supplement their diet with synthetics and vat-grown food but thankfully famine hasn't been a problem in a long time, and the quality of synthetics is improving. The architecture in China is either directly derived from traditional forms or is application of modern materials technology for traditional forms which produces results like giant black iron pagoda-like arcologies. .

China is one of the biggest beneficiaries from the overall trend of world power being moved from the decaying empires of continental europe, to the pan-continental empires of China, Russia and America. China may be still struggling with problems like massive social disparities, organized crime but it's a fully modernized nation. China is still pretty sexist but lacks the european-influenced prudery of the real world. Thanks to this, China has a bit of a sleazy reputation. A commonc disdain for western mores, along with convergance of geopolitical interests has ensured the existence of a "Special relationship" between Nanjing and Terminus.

Modern Germany is the fourth and last of the superpowers. This was once a world-spanning empire but by now it is a bitter and decaying rump with it's colonies now being net losses. Germany is a regimented, authoritarian society where bureaucratic monarchial centralism is the last word in politics and there is an extensive secret police, which besides just repressing dissent works to prevent "subversive" cultural influences from outside. Along with the secret police, there is an extensive police force meant to help enforce church law. American ska CDs or blue jeans or Chinese Manhua or even dissenter religious literature are items that the secret police hunts down. Serfdom may have been reformed a bit but it still exists, and in it's overseas colonies in india/africa open slavery persists. These days, the slaves are owned by giant corporate combines and work in factories instead of on farms. Same goes for the labor contracts of serfs. Corporations are naturally, given extensive leeway in disciplining their property/serfs and make the old private owners look nice(mass public torture is a common inducement to work harder). Germany's conduct in africa is atrocious to the point, where even though the United States had slavery until 1994, africans in German Ostafrika felt sneaking into the US states of Windhaven or Angola was a step up in terms of liberty. Germany is a society slowly declining, and with it is going the relevance of continental europe on the world stage. Germany may still be the world leader in chemicals, nuclear technology, rocketry but it is suffering increasing sclerosis at all levels. The fact that certain interpretations of Christian doctrine strongly oppose science does not help -- creationism is still taught as the truth in Germany(even the vatican facepalms at this). The emperor is an inbred idiot, the royal court is beyond decadent and the bureaucracies are operating at cross-purposes.. This is while the other three great powers are leapfrogging Germany economically and Europe becoming even more restive, Germany is sinking into decline. The massively subsidized and protected industries are becoming increasingly unproductive to the point where these days they produce little but pollution and worker unrest. Eventually, something would have to give...

Currently, world attention is focused on Germany because of it's ongoing internal trouble. The crisis of 2004, beginning with large-scale revolts in German africa quickly expanded into open revolt within Germany itself. The revolt was motivated by people tired of increasing economic stagnation, weird weather, people wanting national liberation, etc. Following the Great Revolt in 2001, The Meltdown of 2002-3, the brief stabilizaiton uinder Reichskanzler Haldweim(2003-2006) and the Time of Troubles(2006-9) after the army assasinated Emperor Josef and placed prince Michael on the throne, the general German mood is grim and fatalistic. The Army-Partei-Junker regime still has kept Germany's national borders intact through draconian controls. largely kept a lid on European revolt, kept it's population fed due to foreign aid and starving people in it's colonies but the economy is still a burning cinder. Radical economic reform is promised, but the bulk of the people are highly skeptical due to their memories of the limp efforts of the mid and late 1990s along with Reichskanzler Haldweim's flailing after solutions 2003-6. Reichskanzler Nau has proposed perhaps reducing the troop presence in other central/west european states in order to move them back home to enforce order. Emperor Michael and most of the notables in the German Diet have vetoed this up until now, but the last time it was proposed two months ago there was real discussion instead of just firing Nau the way his predecessor was. The chaos has produced 15 million german refugees in Poland, France, Russia, The Netherlands with millions of refugees from Germany's colonies being all over Africa and the indian states. On the upside, at least no nuclear weapons have been used yet.

Spain and England are Germany's remaining European allies who still remain as even once stalwart states like Savoy, Lombardy and even the papal states have left. Spain is like our world's Franco's spain, but it's getting quite creaky. Currently, the government of King Richardo is trying to do sweeping economic liberalization while keeping the lid on. Results are mixed, but at least it's not a disaster like the ongoing German crisis. England, on the other hand is a trouble spot for Germany, which isn't anything new in England's history since 1855. Even though, it was allowed it's independence in the 70s by a liberal-minded emperor, England's population, even the german-speaking majority(Well, more like an english-german pidgin in practice) has no love for the Hapsburg count sitting on the throne in London.

Outside of Europe, Germany's one remaining ally is the Republic of Melinda, a bilingual franco-portuguese state that is like a francophone rhodesia. Most blacks don't have the franchise, but in this world that is not unusual and at least in Melinda they take 'money whitens' more seriously than our Rhodesia ever did. It seceded from the Empire in 1998, after King Henri attempted to force the colonial legislature to make the franchise there race-blind, and thus allow any qualified property owner to vote as opposed to just white or "civilized" ones. Germany quickly moved to recognize Melinda and offer military aid...

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The closest thing to a 5th major power is the "Republican League", a dutch-led alliance of republics. The usual policy is to run the government on corporate lines -- No democracy, lots of indirect taxes/fees for revenue and an anarchocapitalist environment in many ways. These states usually go to even greater excesses than the monarchies in repression attempts at labor activism. The dutch government is rather less hardline on this than is the norm for many Republican Alliance member states. In fact, if you're white and have dutch citizenship you can vote, and since the reforms of the '90s and '00s, if you're either a colored or a Christian malay you now have the right to buy a franchise if you have the right income. If you're black? Forget it. Portugal and Venice act as the netherland's little buddies. In recent years, the Republican League, The "Italian Community", Poland and France have brought up the proposal of forming a "European Union" in order to form a more coherent anti-german power block, which would be attached to the League of The Americas in a hypothetical new "North Atlantic Treaty Organization". Every time this is brought up, Vienna waves the nuclear big stick

Italy remains a disunited mess of states. These states are either monarchies, oligarchic corporatistic republics, even a few relatively liberal states or a theocracy in the case of the Papal States. Helvetia and Neufchatel are relatively civilized and reasonable places by even OTL standards. The Italian monarchies tend to be on the relatively moderate and less excessively brutal side of things which has helped them avoid Germany's unrest. In particular, the Kingdom of the Three Sicilies's current king is very popular with his citizens due to his liberalizing reforms. The call for Italian unification is once again stronger than it has been in over a century. There are open protests in Florence or Milan about it, and the local governments are avoiding the political risk of supressing them, leaving that to Germany's troops In fact, much of Italy is part of an "Italian Community", an EEC-type alliance. Only Germany's waving the big stick has stalled out integration.

The Commonwealth of poland-Lithuania isb an anarchic, ultra-capitalist headless nobleman's oligarchy. This has produced just as much ecological devastation in Poland as OTL's eastern bloc recieved. You can buy anything in Warsaw if you had the money but if you do not have money you will accomplish nothing. Interestingly, the lack of governance hasn't produced freedom but instead dominance by Church, local magnates and megacorps, both local or foreign with a result of little liberty for the masses in practice.

Between Russia, Germany and the Ottoman lands lie a few neutral balkan states. Moldova, Wallachia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Serbia have all formed an alliance to protect their neutrality. All 3 are poor monarchies who often see interference in their politics from Germany or russia.

Both of the scandanavian states are neutral, relatively moderate monarchies and notable only for being three out of the four states with a Dissenter church as their state religion. Yes, their local parliaments are for rich people only and their lutheran churches have catholic-inspired inquisitors but compared to the openly non-democratic "Centralist" monarchies this is the world of light. Both have small colonial empires with Danish Tranquebar and Swedish Grain Coast being increasingly integrated into the homeland.

Scotland is under the stuarts(King Charles IX) and has a big diaspora. Also, without the highland clearances, it is richer and more populous.

Compared to the rest of Europe, France is very autonomous. France is still a monarchy under a different dynasty who replaced the Bourbons after the succession wars of the 1880s. The government is a typical European Monarchial Centralist state, but France tries to avoid being like Germany which means France's government is more benign and rather less racist. Outside of some bounds relating to heresy or sedition, it's (white) citizens are more free than most of europe.. Like New England, France recieved nuclear chastisement in the 1950s and recovered fast, with lots of aid from the League of the americas. In fact, in recent years german espionage agencies have discovered that America has smuggled enough nukes into France for it to be too risky to do a preemptive strike. They have since ceased the overflights of french territory and demands for tribute. France's resentment against Germany is from the 19th century, and has only been reinforced by succeeding losses in wars. The few German refugees who were stupid enough to go to France has been lynched and King Louis XXI has been silent on the issue which angers Germany's ambassadors.

The papal states still exists. It's access to Italy's historical information, combined with money flowing in from catholics has made it quite wealthy, even giving the Holy See a permanent non-voting seat on the International Association's high council. This ensures that the Holy See enjoys an influential position in politics or economics. The fact that the Holy See is more focused on worldy affairs and acts qulike a megacorporation quietly scandalizes many catholics. This is causing trouble for governments like Spain or Portugal or even Germany due the church acting as a second pillar of royal power. In catholic nations, the Church remains a powerful voice of conscience for society as a whole. It doesn't support granting political power to the masses, because this idea is virtually unthinkable here. But it protects the poor from grievous boppression - they may be overworked and bored, but they don't usually go hungry or get forced into concubinage against their will. The chuch also uses it's expanded powers to enforce a stricter public and private morality in many european nations than we have in the real world. This has ensured that despite the earlier advent of birth control, that in the average european naiton public morality on sex tends to resemble the victorian era in many ways minus the Victorian tolerance for prostitution.

The Ottoman empire still exists and by now is considered part of the 'civilized' world. The "Baghdad Pact" is an Ottoman-sponsored alliance of arab states that's as integrated as our European union. The continued existence of the Caliphate as a political institution has ensured that this worlds' version of wahabism is non-influential. Another factor making the islamic world less reactionary and anti-western is less western humiliation. Yes, the maghreb was europeanized, Russia conquered Iran and the turks pushed out of much of the balkans earlier but the petty humiliations against the arab world have been avoided..

Portions of west and central Africa saw decolonization in the 1990s and 2000s and are poor, but not absolute trainwrecks as in OTL. Think the gap between Europe and latin America. Incidently, they are all Roman Catholic. Both the Mahdiya of Soudan and the Emirate of Fodio managed to avoid colonization, and thus are muslim-majority monarchies. The state of Jamesland in real-world madagascar is an apartheid state originally settled by England in the 1600s.

Parts of India and south-east asia have also recieved decolonization. They are demographically different with Catholicism as opposed to buddhism being the biggest religion there. Even the himalayan states that avoided colonization are Chinese puppets.

Colonialism is alive and well in the traditional "Great white father" form, settler colonialism and in recent years direct annexation. This is a world where the big peace that reshaped the global order following the Great Warwas more like the peace of Vienna than the postwar decolonization of thbbbe real world with the victorious powers shuffling around the ownership of colonies instead of freeing them. One form of colonial policy is running them directly for the benefit of the metropole with forced labor, rigged economic regulations, etc. This way produces unrest and trouble, and is starting to be less popular. Another method is incorporating them into the nation like how America did with the Japans, or it's african colonies or France with Senegal/french terranova. This way works, but only the least racist empires do it. Dutch colonial policy is scattered and in between with local whites or in recent years christians getting dutch citizenship while majorities in most areas are still repressed. The one improvement over German policy is that the dutch invest in their colonies as opposed to just exploiting them. Settler colonies are places where the locals are relocated and Europeans are brought in like German Ostafrika. Even many independent nations like Ashanti or Upper Volta are run as protectorates/mandates of France or Savoy. Essentially, this system works by combining advisors and government officialls appointed/sent by the nation holding the mandate with some elements of native home rule. The mandate system was proposed both as a path for eventual home rule, and as a way for poor nations to be modernized. Results tend to be mixed with the overall trend being one of increased control from the civilized nations instead of the promised freedom.

Politically, this world tends to be rather backwards and authoritarian by real world standards. Nobody was able to get their "bright" ideas for revolutionary totalitarianism implemented anywhere, but the norm is for authoritarian monarchies, semi-constitutional monarchies or somewhat elitist republics. Essentially, this is a world where the ideological mutations of OTL post-1789 never really happened. What reforms and political evolution there are in this world either stem from tinkering with the old system, quasi-revivals of some roman ideas(Lots of republics use even more roman terminology) or 'borrowing' political theory from imperial china. There was no break with the past.. The norm is to have national security states and huge security organizations. All states have some kind of income or property qualification for the franchise and racial or religious qualifications are decently common. Only a few new world states, and portions of Russia don't actively attempt to repress or co-opt labor organization.

Compared to our world, most of the planet is rather more religious than OTL. Part of this is in reaction to the United States of America's amoral expansionist culture while the other part is less political change in some aspects due to a weaker enlightenment. For example, like our world's Europe many nations retain state churches but unlike our world, there is more genuine belief along with enforcement and educational support(lots of church-run schools). Alot of Europe along with European settled areas have religiosity on par with America's red states or even more devoutness. This has impacts on gender roles, attitudes towards homosexuality, treatment of religious minorities and the like. Also, this has weakened the development of (state) programs to help the poor with government roles in them tending to involve providing financial backing.

Unlike our world with secularism being prevelant, those societies which have official or unofficial acceptance of other religions tend more towards varying degrees of tolerance. Most of the time, it's other sects of christianity that get tolerated with more tolerant places tending to tolerate religious syncretism, popular cults and in some cases importing mystery religions(the 20th century's rise of Shinto in the United States is the biggest examples) from the empires. The closest thing to our world's western secularism is the United States which has been largely de-christianized due to popular shifts away from christian mores but lacks our world's drive for trying to formally seperate church and state -- catholic schools are still funded lavishly by the state and federal governments but these days with american-born teachers don't produce many catholics and nativity scenes in public places go with comment.

Besides the diferent intensity of religious feeling, there are differences in distribution of religion. For example, Orthodox Christianity is largely extinct due to the reunification with Rome. Then there is the conversion of much of central and south asia to Catholicism by Russia and other imperial powers. One of the bigger differences is the reformation being rather weaker with Dissenter Christians largely being confined to New England, the netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. The second really big difference is the islamic world's lacking wahabism and being more influenced by Sufism along with muslim populations in central or south asia or the east indies having long experiences of being clear religous minorities. As a result, Islam is overall more secular than OTL with much of the muslim world being on par with TTL's europe in terms of religiosity.

Unfortunately anti-semitism is alive and well in this world which had a weaker enlightenment combined with nothing like the mass death of OTL that made anti-semitism look bad. However, the Yiddish community of letters is doing well, converts to Christianity from judaism are accepted and the unpleasant biological or exterminationist focuses of alot of our world's anti-semitism never developed and there is hope for reform -- in the last decade in fact, movements to extend full civil rights to jewish citizens on a national level have popped up in places like the Kingdom of France or the United States(some frontier or otherwise outlier states like parts of the northwest coast already have relatively long-established legal equality for jewish citizens)

This is a world with a Sino-Western bipolarity as opposed to our world's monolithic western dominance. This is reflected with chinese genres finding their way into western media or the reverse, with there being people who have chinese last names living in the west or sinicized versions of western names in China. The other large difference is how florid, decadent and rococo the aesthetics of this world are. There was never anything like "modernist" architecture. Fashion tends towards the formal, courtly, colorful and unusual with even underlying trends being shaped(Hats survived in the modern west, and a mix of pseudo-science combined with altered cultural environments has lead to many nations favoring quite plump as the ideal for women). In recent years, a new wave of orientalism has made influences from Russian south asia or the muslim world start to pop up in fashion, style, food, movies, etc. There is a clear split between the christian west on one hand and China/The United States due to strict western obscenity/blasphemy legislation conflicting with alot of American or Chinese mores re: their media.

Compared to the real world, this world is more and less racist. It's rather less racist towards East asians and muslims due to those two cultural areas doing a better job of keeping up with the west(Ambassadors and tourists from Fodio or Soudan, were able to use "white" facilities in the mainland US even in the hardline phases of America's segregation era on grounds of being muslim and obviously "arabic" despite being as black as the ace of spades). On the other hand, africans, Indians and those of south-east asian descent have it rather worse than OTL. Even though the nastily biological-based forms of racism never caught on, arguments about "counter-adapted" cultures or nonwhite/non-chinese people having lower IQs have proven more durable and harder to disprove than OTL's racist arguments. The degree of racist mistreatment ranges from being serfs or slaves with tracking implants in Germany's colonies to simply being denied the vote like in the dutch empire to not being allowed to qualify for the franchise without jumping through severe hoops in Melinda. Without a holocaust anti-Semitism persists, but this world lacks the nastily exterminationist forms that developed OTL. In fact, in nations like France or the United States in the last decade, a movement has popped up for jewish civil rights.

Economically, this world is rather more prosperous and integrated than OTL overall due to high technology, combined with a lack of communist/fascist socioeconomic experimentation to set things back plus the "long 19th century" globalization continuing to the present. Part of the reason for this is the "World Chamber of Commerce", an organization of large megacorps that promotes economic liberalization, free trade, world peace(dead people don't buy widgets), ending various "Intellectual Property" protections(needing to buy rights to sell plans for widgets in random countries take up time and money) and investment in backwards lands(To get more customers for their widgets). Despite the increased prosperity, most of the world sees large gaps between rich and poor with the rich still tending to get away with worse than they would in the real world. A dark side of the increased globalization is that organized crime is more powerful than OTL with the largest criminal groups forming a secretive "Organization" to pool their resources.

Technologically, this world is well in advance of the real world with the world being decades ahead most areas. The need to help manage overseas affairs combined with the boosts in technological investment from three world wars and a wealthier world lead to an early internet split between the Comnet which is less centralized, harder to find specific computer's addresses on it and is less suited for using it to try spying on people than our internet and the "Respectable" networking services run by the governments and large megacorps(Contranet, Minitel, America Online, Reichnet and the like). There are cyberpunk-style computer criminals or spies. The mild cold war between the powers, combined with capitalist economics has produced colonies on luna, mars, orbit, ceres, asteroid bases and now a settlement on Venus. Mars in the early stages of an international terraforming project which will take until sometime in the mid or late 22nd century while Venus is up for debate on how to accomplish it.(The ambitious want to drop big rocks to make Venus have a day that's something resembling a reasonable length...) No resources have yet run out but many are scarcer due to the wealthier world and long age of steam, leading to lots of research in both materials science and alt-energy along with since the late 1970s asteroid mining. Wind power is used to it's max efficiency, nuclear power is used, OTEC and OMEC power are up and running, fusion is past break even but still not commercially viable. Medicine has been advanced due to a mix of more investment combined with traditional chinese medicine influencing western ones. This has produced things like the ability to tailer cures for people's cancers, vaccines for some viruses, lifespans that are able to be extended to 180-200 and cures for viral diseases. Overall, this is a world with a mindset towards technology more like that of the early 20th century. There is more tolerance of and willingness to accept risk.

Description
As a christmas gift, here's my original Hapsburg World reuploaded.

It might not be one of my most plausible pieces, but I like it and got positive reception for it.

That said, i've got plans to do a remake someday.

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This is a map "inspired" by the following sources: Decades of Darkness, For want of a nail, A few GURPS AE/AE/infinite worlds settings(Shikaku-mon, Aeolus), some of Tony Jones's timelines(Monarchy and Puritan worlds and to a lesser extent gurkami Alam) and a few of B_Munro's maps/descriptions(The goat variations, Lilburne's world, ottomans pushed east and some of his AHTG inspired ones). This map is another one using my secondary color scheme. Unlike OTL, the world has two centers: Europe and China. The protestant reformation was delayed and weakened, England never rose and the ming voyages didn't stop.

The POD is that plague doesn't sweep through Iberia in 1252, which allows Alfonso III to continue reigning for another 20 years. Outside of some changes such as a more substantive council of constance(allowing (vatican-approved) translations of the bible into the local vernacular), Nichiren being exiled to the far northern island of hokkaido(Tip of the hat to Doug Muir's "Buddha on ice") and Spain expanding into Morocco the world doesn't diverge that much until the mid to late 15th century. The first really noticable divergences on a large scale are somewhat weaker pressures for a reformation, China's continuing it's voyages and a slightly earlier renaissance. Things got interesting when a flemish academic found copies of some of Hero's old schematics for his steam engine.

These interesting things consisted of a slow-motion early age of steam combined with a delayed reformation. A freer intellectual environment, combined with more contact with a china that. During the "Age of Steam" from 1449 to 1650, the west made some serious leaps technologically with resulting changes such as urbanization(going from 5-15% urban in the modern zones to 22-33% urban). By the time this era stalled out technologically, Europe and China had reached an over-engineered, highly ornate tech level around 1850 which would please steampunk and clockpunk fans(Even including hilariously impractical airships). However, this didn't affect the general flow of geopolitical history until decades later. The first geopolitical changes were minor things such as the spanish incursions into north africa sticking, no treaty of tordesillas was issues, England following up on Cabot's discoveries(was initially touch and go but "Lutheran" and later "Calvinist" heretics provided a pool of people to forcibly dump in Newfoundland and New Cornwall(Nova Scotia)). but the general flow of events was largely the same for a while. The fact that the Low Countries had an early advantage in that field ensured that the dutch were able to win independence and include all 17 low country provinces. Also, China under more open-minded emperors of first the ming and later the Ling dynasty continued trade misions but rejected colonization as too costly. However, European inventions such as the "Black Smoke" and the "Iron Horse" made their way to a China which spent a few centuries locked in conflict between the northern Ling and southern ming. Chinese medicine, art, architectural techniques and other things made their way westwards'. Japan still closed off as per OTL with the only difference being that the Tokugawa realm included a fifth northern island. The "Dissenter" heretics dumped in "New england" and the settleres southwards in more conventionally settled Virginia, Nua Eire or Maryland both developed seperate identities from England but never formed a single identity. France dumped many religious dissidents and other troublemakers in Canada and Louisiana(under a different Louis) and Spain used it's wealth gained from new world trade and the age of steam to create a slightly more ambitious empire(missions extending british colombia, plus spanish rule over Owahee). Russia got whipped around worse than OTL by Poland, Turkey and Sweden, leading it to modernize up to European levels. This quickly paid dividends as Turkey decayed which opened the way for Russian expansion southwards. In 1605, a new continent called "Terranova" was discovered, partitioned by France, the dutch and Portugal with borders that continue to 2011(not very valuable but looks good in maps). Dissenter churches remained confined to England's northern american colonies, The kingdom of Sweden, the kingdom of norway and the dutch Republic. These minor losses were more than counterbalanced by the councils of 1680, 1692 and 1707 which brought Orthodox Christendom back into the catholic fold, ending the Great Schism. There were minor wars but things stayed largely stable until the 1750s when life became ineresting geopolitically.

Despite the fact that it wasn't until the mid 19th century, that serious technological advance began again, the roots of this era go back to the destabilization created by the "10 years war" of 1749 to 1759. In this war England, Brandenburg-Saxony, Poland, Scotland face off with Spain, France, Austria, Russia. The Holy Roman Empire was given a limited degree of power over all of Germany with more centralization(think OTL's north german confederation). The United States had won it's independence and even taken Scotland's relatively minor colony of Mingulay(OTL Georgia) in the process. New england, too had won it's own independence, establishing itself as the third Dissenter nation. However, despite loud but very minimally influential idealists on both sides the closest the two nations came to unification was adopting constitutions that were carbon copies of one another. America was catholic and slave-holding while New England was free soil plus quite Dissenter. England, The "Sick Man of Europe" saw itself losing North America and Ireland, only leaving it with Jamesland in the Indian ocean along with a few caribbean islands as it's empire. This war reshaped the old order and paved the way for the future's changes.

There were three changes that happened in Europe. The first major change to happen was the collapse of Europe's empires in the Americas beginning in the 1780s. France had a war of succession which ended only after three out of the four princes involved were packed off to new thrones in Port-Au Prince, New Orleans and Montreal. Following England and France's precedents. Spain lost control of first the Three Sicilies in 1800 and then from 1820 to 1855, the of the Americas in multiple wars. Portugal saw the same thing happen at the same time that Spain imploded. German unification was another important change. First it began with Austria's smashing potential competition and forcing Germany into a tighter confederation. This took several small wars and local revolts to turn into a single state. Without the religious difference between north and south it went rather more smoothly. This came to an end when Emperor Michael, the turk-slayer went to Frankfurt and crowned himself German Emperor in August, 1822 following the Austro-Russian victory against turkey which freed several nations in the balkans, along with shattering the rump empire's middle eastern core into several pieces. Thirdly, there was Russia's expansion into former ottoman lands such as the Ukraine, the caucus plus the turkic central asian khanates. Russia's attempts to conquer Poland and take Finland from Sweden both ended in failure so the Tsars looked to the south. By 1830, Russian territory included much of central asia with rump pashtun, persian, Balochi, tadzhik and punjabi puppet states plus various trade concessons in the decaying Mirzabid Empire in India. Managing this large of an empire led to Russia independently developing a weak constitutionalism and federalism due to both boyars and a rising merchant class both wanting protection from absolutism and more of a free hand to loot russia's new empire.

New England and America continued to diverge. One nation focused on trade, manufactures and accidently discovering actual industrialization as a side effect while the other aggressively expanded without new england's pacifist voices stopping it. While New England industrialized first, America was not far behind as it's factories began turning out weapons of war to enable far conquests. America did landgrabs against Louisiana, Haiti and a smaller one against the Kingdom of Mexico taking half of Tejas, snapping up the "Republic of Florida"(florida panhandle, half of OTL missisipi/alabama), the oregon territory, a small piece of upper Cocania and some land in the great basin. Also, in a small preview of America's later action due to the actions of former, turned explorer general John Jefferson, her of the second Louisiana War the United States started being directly involved in the ruins of the Tokugawa Shogunate(President jefferson's Republic of Hakodate's request for annexation passed congress by one vote(These are the same warhawks who voted to seize Mexico's north that year) and got america embroiled in East Asia...). This is also the same period where America undertook it's sonderweg that began to divide America from the rest of the west -- New rationalistic thinkers weakened the power of the Church in society. Unlike our 19th century, there was no.

Early in spring 1845, the Second Ten Years war broke out following Jamesland's secession from England over tariff issues. The big players were Germany, America, France, Russia and Maz China versus Spain, Purtgal, Poland, The Dutch Republic, the "Republican Alliance" nations, New england and both of the southern chinese states. Even the Chinas were dragged into it, with the new Maz Dynasty versus the southern rump states of Ling and Ming. The "Sick Man of Europe" met it's end as England ended up the provinces of England and West England(Wales) within the Holy Roman Empire, America taking it's new world lands and Jamesland becoming free. The much-vaunted and world's largest largest Dutch Navy wasn't able to stop America from grabbing Formosa, Ceylon and the partition of most of the Portuguese Empire between america and France. Most importantly, America had established itself as at least a regional power now with overseas territories in Asia plus taking most of the former spanish empire(Santa Lucia and Peru got independence) and grabbing half of Mexico. Maz China, with American, Russian and German help steamrolled the other two chinese states(trading the Ming Province of Qionxi and giving America a free hand in the Japans in return for arms and military assistance). On a technical level, the war represented a visible change and an end to the stagnation that had characterized technology since the middle of the 17th century. The Iron Elephants and Airships that were used to bomb London or Mexico City or Hong Kong or break the defenses of cities such as New York City, Amsterdam, Edo represented a permanent shift in the nature of war.

Following the war, the world underwent a rapid change in many aspects. In the decades after 1845, the world's technology advanced at a speed greater than OTL due to pressures caused by the second ten years war, along with intellectuals near-simultaneously in Boston, Kaifeng and Amsterdam independently hitting on the scientific method. Where our world had Europe, and later the United States to power advancement this world had Europe, the new world, a modern china and Russia to push advancement. Most of the planet ended up partitioned between one European or american power or another as colonies due to there existing an even worse technological imbalance. The only exceptions were the Ottoman Empire, a couple of islamic states happening to sit on bad terrain and the himalayan kingdoms which made good buffer states between Russia and China. Even Latin America saw portions falling to the United States with a few states(New England, Argentina, New Granada, Bahia and parts of central America) forming an alliance to try forestalling further expansion. There was large amounts of immigration from the old world to the new -- Dissenter christians to New England, Catholics and people from the russian empire/former ottoman empire to the rest of the america and large numbers of korean/japanese/filipino/chinese indentured labor/contract laborers/serfs into the mainland United States.

The early 20th century was a time of great invention, prosperity and relatively less conflict than before. First in the War of '94, and then with the "Pan-american war", America entered the 20th century land-hungry, militaristic and expansionistic. The war of '94 ended in 1898 with Central America and New Granada fallen and now ended up American territories. This led to the Lusophone States and the rest of South America forming the "Alliance of the Americas" to try countering the United States. There was a minor european war from 1904-6 over african territories which ended with a few French and dutch territories in Africa ending up in German hands. Polish partition was debated in 1906, 1913 and 1921 but nothing came of it.

The 1930s saw preexisting moves away from trade liberalization coinciding with a speculative bust in 1922 created a depression that lasted several years. This produced reversal of various liberalizing trends and more authoritarian governments all across the world. Germany saw the "Young Junkers" use informal pressure to get a quite elderly but comparatively liberal-minded emperor to abdicate in favor of his more reactionary heir. In America, this lead to the quite conservative Democratic party taking over and establishing a de facto one party state that would last until the middle of the 1990s. the Americans quickly cooked up an incident to justify a new war against the Alliance of the Americas. Superior industry, economic organization made this war a clear American victory. The type of occupation varied with it ranging from Uruguay which was mild to the point where the locals even quickly recieved a territorial legislature to quite harsh with reprisals and mass slave camps in the former Republic of Montana. New England and Argentina got off with finlandization because both were white and populous enough to be problematic to fit in as citizens without altering citizen culture. Unlike after the War of '94, New England was to be... watched. Canada, which was neutral also took finlandization after rumblings from Terminus hinted that they'd be willing to install a more... pliable king in Montreal along with... renegotiating the Canadian-american border if Canada didn't cooperate. America quickly created the "League of the Americas" alliance in order to manage it's new puppet states and better keep an eye on New England and Argentina. Meanwhile, at the same time.

This world's introduction to real modern warfare came with the Global War(1940-46). The consistent sides were Russia versus Germany, France and the Italian league. America and China entered in at different times on different sides for different reasons. Faced with the stress of 8 years of warfare, combined with colonial revolt and increasing trouble at home, the great powers came together to draft a peace to end the war on mostly status quo ante-bellum lines. The changes were dismantling of the italian league, France being largely disarmed and the past 70 years of liberalizing reforms done by it's government rolled back. It was easy to form a consensus to ban gas warfare after this war, but explosive metal bombs were another matter with leaders arguing that it's just a big bomb. International institutions were made for the first time, with the new "League of Nations" having a bit more teeth than our United Nations.

Following the war, the world spent the 1950s cleaning up loose ends from the war. Firstly, there was the English revolt of '51, which was put down by nuking Cardiff and Wessex. Also done by Germany was the nuclear supression of France's attempts to rebuild it's military. Then by the Americans, there is their decision to wipe out 10 cities in New England after their president starts talking loudly about a need for a nuke program and budgeting for such. After these three incidents, there was enough outcry within the powers, from the vatican and within world opinion in order to have serious restrictons on nuke usage because of video footage of nukes being used on white people as opposed to during the global war when many were used to wreck other's colonies..

Once the loose ends were tied up prosperity began to flow as wartime restrictions were lifted and technological spinoffs were used in civilian capabilities. The spaceplanes and orbit-capable rockets that were used on the war were turned to bringing the powers to space. The second half of this period in the 70s and 80s saw the information era beginning. emergence of as well as the more underground, unregulated Comnet. Along with this new technological era, this was a time of decadent style, increasing sexual license and general rebellion. New England's decades-long national prohibition finally ended(which really only affected people living in the capital district since all the states's legislatures had yet to vote on ending it). Even more conservative portions of the west saw this trend happening. There was even a degree of liberalization in the west, with France turning Senegal into a full province and Germany allowing an independent English puppet state to reemerge.

Whether to start the "Nervous 90s" with Melinda's unilateral declaration of independence from France or the suppression of the "July Riots" or the return to democracy in the United States is hotly debated but the last decade and a half or so have been full of instability. Melinda declared independence from France after King Louis XXI announced a plan to transition to majority rule. Germany quickly took advantage of it to gain a new ally. America ended slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude and turned hundreds of millions of noncitizens into citizens overnight. The lack of unfree labor to man factories or farms, created a depression from 1994-01, which america has recovered from. France and the other european poweres besides Germany decided to start letting their colonies go in the late 1990s. Germany's economic model began hitting against limits of growth in the 2000s and stalled out. This is combined with a new wave of colonial unrest worse than anything seen before. The fact that France, Portugal, Savoy let their colonies go or the model of the United States of extending citizenship and full statehood to colonies only make matters worse. Germany saw the United States and other nations prosper while it goes down the tubes which has not helped matters.

Thankfully the last few years now have looking up again. Chancellor Nau hasn't threatened dropping big rocks on the infidel like his predecessor and the dutch have begun liberalization of colonial policy. The German economy is still a radioactive cinder, but at least it's merely dropping at depression rates instead of glitching up and essentially dropping dead like before. The "Nervous 90s" have made the rest of the planet look to the settlements on mars or orbit or the belt with hope -- even if the worst happened, at least humanity is out of the single planet trap. Also, the "Big Four" are working together better to handle things like the German crisis, global warming, the energy crisis, etc.

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There are four great powers in charge of the world. These powers collectively own the bulk of earth's habitable land area and rule over a clear majority of it's population. There is the west, the United States of America, Germany in Africa and the south, Russia in the north with China as the east. Despite their political and cultural differences there are three things in common for all four empires -- the existence of a common pan-imperial identity above the local identity as well, the ability to govern and satisfy the interests of many different peoples and governments that are at least partially constitutional.

This is a world where ethnic nationalism like what emerged in our world post 1789 never really emerged. Ideas along the lines of demanding self-determination based on ethnic lines are seen as rather gauche and short-sighted at best. In the minds of most of the ruling elites, only savages would insist on being ruled by themselves as opposed to members of more advanced cultures. Despite the western world's partial liberalization in some areas in the last few decades, there still isn't much tolerance for 'savage' cultures -- for example, France turns africans or Terranovans into dusky-hued frenchmen whether they like it or not.

Colonialism is alive and well in the traditional "Great white father" form, settler colonialism and in recent years direct annexation. This is a world where the big peace that reshaped the global order following the Great Warwas more like the peace of Vienna than the postwar decolonization of the real world with the victorious powers shuffling around the ownership of colonies instead of freeing them. One form of colonial policy is running them directly for the benefit of the metropole with forced labor, rigged economic regulations, etc. This way produces unrest and trouble, and is starting to be less popular. Another method is incorporating them into the nation like how America did with the Japans, or it's african colonies or France with Senegal/french terranova. This way works, but only the least racist empires do it. Dutch colonial policy is scattered and in between with local whites or in recent years christians getting dutch citizenship while majorities in most areas are still repressed(Africans are still legally equivelant to furniture in most the dutch empire). The one improvement over German policy is that the dutch invest in their colonies as opposed to just exploiting them. Settler colonies are places where the locals are relocated or killed and Europeans are brought in like German Ostafrika. Even many independent nations like Ashanti or Upper Volta are run as protectorates/mandates of France or Savoy. Essentially, this system works by combining advisors and government officialls appointed/sent by the nation holding the mandate with some elements of native home rule. The mandate system was proposed both as a path for eventual home rule, and as a way for poor nations to be modernized. Results tend to be mixed with the overall trend being one of increased control from the civilized nations instead of the promised freedom.

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Russia is "The empire on which the sun never sets", the largest state on earth. Centered in Tsargrad(real-world Samarkand) It extends from the steppe or taiga of eastern europe, through siberia's tundra, through central asian desert and even south into the lands of Hindustan. Russia can be summed up as vaguely tsarist, vaguely federal and oligarchic all around. The central government is weak on most things besides border control, national defense, sending missionaries, sending teachers for education and sending the army in for frontier defense or protecting missionaries. This means that the Governates, Krais, provinces, Uyezds, Free Cities, Oblasts and Grand Dutchies all enjoy quite a bit of autonomy and Russia's governmental organization is a baroque nightmare. This means that decisions on things like religious tolerance, voting rights or even the strength of the non-noble portion of the legislature is quite variable. This creates quite a patchwork with parts of Russia still being quite feudal while others are pretty modern and liberal even by OTL standards. However, the central government does have power to intervene in the most extreme cases, but the empire is large and the Tsar is far away. Also, unpopular governors can be sent on the next jet back to the capital tarred and feathered. The things which keep the empire together are the Grand Duma which meets five times a year and of course loyalty to the Tsar.

Russia's empire is very large and diverse, but largely russian-speaking and catholic these days. Russia is quite a tolerant nation if you are Roman Catholic and Russian-speaking. This extends even into the nobility. Tens of millions of Iranians, Punjabis, azerbaijanis, Hindis, etc ended up forcibly converted or being burned en masse. The converted ones ended up influencing the majority to a certain degree, though. You can find great curry in Moscow and Russian architecture is even more florid than in the real wold. Besides just conversion, many hindu or Muslim mosques/temples were turned into Russian Orthodox churches. The sikhs, Buddhists, Ba'hai and other religious non-hindu minorities in india haven't done too bad, though. These last few decades, even russian-speaking and at least publicly russified muslims or hindus can practice their faith quietly(If they try converting people OTOH...). A more confident Tsarist regime never felt a need to do pogroms but there is still a glass cieling for those jews who don't convert to orthodoxy. Tsar Ivan's Gurkhas are famous around the world. The pathans are still troublesome, even though they converted to orthodoxy over a century ago, though.

America is still a presidential federal republic and english-speaking. This is where the similarities to the America of the real world stop. Differences begin with colonization when, instead of Quakers the area of the future United States got a wave of irish. This irish-scots-irish-low catholic nation produced a much less moralizing, less evangelistic nation but it also produced a much less liberal and far more warlike nation. America met the world with less messianistic utopianism, but it also met it with far less charity. What this created was an empire able to conquer a clear majority of the Americas, as well as take overseas areas like the wreckage of post-Tokugawa Japan, Korea, even grab a few african colonies as slave ports and steal a few islands from the dutch(Formosa, Serendib). Europe's constant whining about "republicanism" has caused America to deliberately reject many of the west's norms and christianity. On the one hand, this means that open chattel slavery lasted into the 1990s, but on the other hand it means the country is well outside of TTL European norms re: sexual morals, women's rights, gay rights, etc. This has given the United States a reputation for being a land of perverts, heathans and hell-raisers. This is a nation with no real interest in christian mores or regulations; Satellite TV or Comnet pornography, bloodsports, sleazy "exposes", smuggling, "offshore banking", both synthetic or natural recreational intoxicants, media piracy are all American exports. The initial justification was ideologically focused(rejecting christian mores) but nowadays it's continued as a way for the government and corps to make large amounts of money. America's two big forms of christianity being Anglicanism and Catholicism was not very fertile soil for great awakenings. This stultifying religious enviroment has produced a non-religious majority combined with a visible minority of people who either retained the Shinto customs of their ancestors or non-Japanese americans who picked up shinto. America may be a sleazy nation prone to radical notions regarding women, religion or sodomites, but even Germans or Dutch admit they have snappy military uniforms. Black, brown and malay americans got equality and freedom in the 1990s, so civil rights is just as recent and as touchy as it was in the 1970s of OTL.

However, things are getting better in the United States -- the army is no longer busy at home like it was for much of the past two decades, the economy has gotten out of the doldrums of the 70s/80s or the bad years of the 90s and is seeing real growth. Also, the racial divide appears to be starting to heal with the recent election of a black president. The only positive side to the much longer period of slavery is that slight alterations in colonial history prevented the creation of a "color line" so instead of an ironclad racial caste system, it was (in theory) fluid like Latin America where money whitened. A downside of America's being a more imperialistic, less industrialized, more agricultural and retaining slavery far longer is that America's per capita GDP is around 1/3 of our world's America adjusted to factor in the technology and that inequality is comparable to the worse parts of real world latin america but since the end of the depression, America's economic future is looking up. America's future in other respects is also looking bright due to the United States being one of the more intellectually free nations compared to say Germany.

The rest of the americas is firmly under the heel of the United states in a single economic union, comparable to the 1980s EEC. The League of the Americas, since the early 1950s has include the Irish Kingdom and the Republic of Santa Lucia, a spanish-speaking state located in OTL Morocco. The brazilian monarchies are all unstable client states which have large American garrisons. Canada is a monarchy no richer than the United States and it has increasing unrest from "Armies of the People"(catholic leveller populists) in the metis regions. While america was busy dealing with unrest at home in the 80s and 90s New England and Argentina both have taken some minor steps to reduce economic dependence on the states and have elected a few anti-american leaders while unrest is happening in the backwards zone: This Has been noted. However, as long as the other nations in the americas toe the American line on overall foreign policy, doesn't put up trade barriers or attempt to get the bomb President Manning won't add to the list of complications on his plate by chastising the offending nations or sending in the marines

New England is a sullen and resentful vassal of the United States. They were forced into the League after the "Pan-American" war, and even attempted to strike out on their own which got New England... chastised. It took them only a decade or so to recover from losing 10 cities but it's leadership got the hint -- do not attempt to leave the League of The americas or build an independent nuclear deterrant. However, unlike the United States whose christians are catholic, New Englanders follow a Dissenter church. They do deliberate cultural efforts to not be mistaken for it's larger neighbor(austere dress, bland food, etc). This is a New England without it's irish, italian or other south european immigrants or any french influence.

Argentina is also part of the League of the Americas, under a constitutional monarchy and doing better than OTL. Argentina is a developed nation and much more populous with more of the country outside of Greater Buenos Aires being densely settled than OTL with large cities on the pampas.

Maz China is the third of the big powers. China never isolated itself like it did in OTL. This meant that China never experienced it's OTL period of stagnation followed by humiliation. China has been one of the great pwoers for centurieis. Also, it experieced more internal competition with first the rump southern Ming state and later conflicts between the ruling Ling Dynaty and the Maz from the north. Without our world's stagnation, China has continued to be one of the more technologically and politically advanced nations. China's government is an oligarchic federation based in large part on the Russian model. This means a government with varying levels of authoritarianism and political openness that averages out to be roughly on par with our china overall. However, this government stresses the confucian classics, has more pragmatic economic policies, a healthier birthrate and fancier uniforms. Despite a higher population, there is less pollution thanks to a strong government that's able to enforce these regulations plus strong public cleanliness regulations. Due to the higher population Many Chinese must supplement their diet with synthetics and vat-grown food but thankfully famine hasn't been a problem in a long time, and the quality of synthetics is improving. The architecture in China is either directly derived from traditional forms or is application of modern materials technology for traditional forms which produces results like giant black iron pagoda-like arcologies. .

China is one of the biggest beneficiaries from the overall trend of world power being moved from the decaying empires of continental europe, to the pan-continental empires of China, Russia and America. China may be still struggling with problems like massive social disparities, organized crime but it's a fully modernized nation. China is still pretty sexist but lacks the european-influenced prudery of the real world. Thanks to this, China has a bit of a sleazy reputation. A commonc disdain for western mores, along with convergance of geopolitical interests has ensured the existence of a "Special relationship" between Nanjing and Terminus.

Modern Germany is the fourth and last of the superpowers. This was once a world-spanning empire but by now it is a bitter and decaying rump with it's colonies now being net losses. Germany is a regimented, authoritarian society where bureaucratic monarchial centralism is the last word in politics and there is an extensive secret police, which besides just repressing dissent works to prevent "subversive" cultural influences from outside. Along with the secret police, there is an extensive police force meant to help enforce church law. American ska CDs or blue jeans or Chinese Manhua or even dissenter religious literature are items that the secret police hunts down. Serfdom may have been reformed a bit but it still exists, and in it's overseas colonies in india/africa open slavery persists. These days, the slaves are owned by giant corporate combines and work in factories instead of on farms. Same goes for the labor contracts of serfs. Corporations are naturally, given extensive leeway in disciplining their property/serfs and make the old private owners look nice(mass public torture is a common inducement to work harder). Germany's conduct in africa is atrocious to the point, where even though the United States had slavery until 1994, africans in German Ostafrika felt sneaking into the US states of Windhaven or Angola was a step up in terms of liberty. Germany is a society slowly declining, and with it is going the relevance of continental europe on the world stage. Germany may still be the world leader in chemicals, nuclear technology, rocketry but it is suffering increasing sclerosis at all levels. The fact that certain interpretations of Christian doctrine strongly oppose science does not help -- creationism is still taught as the truth in Germany(even the vatican facepalms at this). The emperor is an inbred idiot, the royal court is beyond decadent and the bureaucracies are operating at cross-purposes.. This is while the other three great powers are leapfrogging Germany economically and Europe becoming even more restive, Germany is sinking into decline. The massively subsidized and protected industries are becoming increasingly unproductive to the point where these days they produce little but pollution and worker unrest. Eventually, something would have to give...

Currently, world attention is focused on Germany because of it's ongoing internal trouble. The crisis of 2004, beginning with large-scale revolts in German africa quickly expanded into open revolt within Germany itself. The revolt was motivated by people tired of increasing economic stagnation, weird weather, people wanting national liberation, etc. Following the Great Revolt in 2001, The Meltdown of 2002-3, the brief stabilizaiton uinder Reichskanzler Haldweim(2003-2006) and the Time of Troubles(2006-9) after the army assasinated Emperor Josef and placed prince Michael on the throne, the general German mood is grim and fatalistic. The Army-Partei-Junker regime still has kept Germany's national borders intact through draconian controls. largely kept a lid on European revolt, kept it's population fed due to foreign aid and starving people in it's colonies but the economy is still a burning cinder. Radical economic reform is promised, but the bulk of the people are highly skeptical due to their memories of the limp efforts of the mid and late 1990s along with Reichskanzler Haldweim's flailing after solutions 2003-6. Reichskanzler Nau has proposed perhaps reducing the troop presence in other central/west european states in order to move them back home to enforce order. Emperor Michael and most of the notables in the German Diet have vetoed this up until now, but the last time it was proposed two months ago there was real discussion instead of just firing Nau the way his predecessor was. The chaos has produced 15 million german refugees in Poland, France, Russia, The Netherlands with millions of refugees from Germany's colonies being all over Africa and the indian states. On the upside, at least no nuclear weapons have been used yet.

Spain and England are Germany's remaining European allies who still remain as even once stalwart states like Savoy, Lombardy and even the papal states have left. Spain is like our world's Franco's spain, but it's getting quite creaky. Currently, the government of King Richardo is trying to do sweeping economic liberalization while keeping the lid on. Results are mixed, but at least it's not a disaster like the ongoing German crisis. England, on the other hand is a trouble spot for Germany, which isn't anything new in England's history since 1855. Even though, it was allowed it's independence in the 70s by a liberal-minded emperor, England's population, even the german-speaking majority(Well, more like an english-german pidgin in practice) has no love for the Hapsburg count sitting on the throne in London.

Outside of Europe, Germany's one remaining ally is the Republic of Melinda, a bilingual franco-portuguese state that is like a francophone rhodesia. Most blacks don't have the franchise, but in this world that is not unusual and at least in Melinda they take 'money whitens' more seriously than our Rhodesia ever did. It seceded from the Empire in 1998, after King Henri attempted to force the colonial legislature to make the franchise there race-blind, and thus allow any qualified property owner to vote as opposed to just white or "civilized" ones. Germany quickly moved to recognize Melinda and offer military aid...

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The closest thing to a 5th major power is the "Republican League", a dutch-led alliance of republics. The usual policy is to run the government on corporate lines -- No democracy, lots of indirect taxes/fees for revenue and an anarchocapitalist environment in many ways. These states usually go to even greater excesses than the monarchies in repression attempts at labor activism. The dutch government is rather less hardline on this than is the norm for many Republican Alliance member states. In fact, if you're white and have dutch citizenship you can vote, and since the reforms of the '90s and '00s, if you're either a colored or a Christian malay you now have the right to buy a franchise if you have the right income. If you're black? Forget it. Portugal and Venice act as the netherland's little buddies. In recent years, the Republican League, The "Italian Community", Poland and France have brought up the proposal of forming a "European Union" in order to form a more coherent anti-german power block, which would be attached to the League of The Americas in a hypothetical new "North Atlantic Treaty Organization". Every time this is brought up, Vienna waves the nuclear big stick

Italy remains a disunited mess of states. These states are either monarchies, oligarchic corporatistic republics, even a few relatively liberal states or a theocracy in the case of the Papal States. Helvetia and Neufchatel are relatively civilized and reasonable places by even OTL standards. The Italian monarchies tend to be on the relatively moderate and less excessively brutal side of things which has helped them avoid Germany's unrest. In particular, the Kingdom of the Three Sicilies's current king is very popular with his citizens due to his liberalizing reforms. The call for Italian unification is once again stronger than it has been in over a century. There are open protests in Florence or Milan about it, and the local governments are avoiding the political risk of supressing them, leaving that to Germany's troops In fact, much of Italy is part of an "Italian Community", an EEC-type alliance. Only Germany's waving the big stick has stalled out integration.

The Commonwealth of poland-Lithuania isb an anarchic, ultra-capitalist headless nobleman's oligarchy. This has produced just as much ecological devastation in Poland as OTL's eastern bloc recieved. You can buy anything in Warsaw if you had the money but if you do not have money you will accomplish nothing. Interestingly, the lack of governance hasn't produced freedom but instead dominance by Church, local magnates and megacorps, both local or foreign with a result of little liberty for the masses in practice.

Between Russia, Germany and the Ottoman lands lie a few neutral balkan states. Moldova, Wallachia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Serbia have all formed an alliance to protect their neutrality. All 3 are poor monarchies who often see interference in their politics from Germany or russia.

Both of the scandanavian states are neutral, relatively moderate monarchies and notable only for being three out of the four states with a Dissenter church as their state religion. Yes, their local parliaments are for rich people only and their lutheran churches have catholic-inspired inquisitors but compared to the openly non-democratic "Centralist" monarchies this is the world of light. Both have small colonial empires with Danish Tranquebar and Swedish Grain Coast being increasingly integrated into the homeland.

Scotland is under the stuarts(King Charles IX) and has a big diaspora. Also, without the highland clearances, it is richer and more populous.

Compared to the rest of Europe, France is very autonomous. France is still a monarchy under a different dynasty who replaced the Bourbons after the succession wars of the 1880s. The government is a typical European Monarchial Centralist state, but France tries to avoid being like Germany which means France's government is more benign and rather less racist. Outside of some bounds relating to heresy or sedition, it's (white) citizens are more free than most of europe.. Like New England, France recieved nuclear chastisement in the 1950s and recovered fast, with lots of aid from the League of the americas. In fact, in recent years german espionage agencies have discovered that America has smuggled enough nukes into France for it to be too risky to do a preemptive strike. They have since ceased the overflights of french territory and demands for tribute. France's resentment against Germany is from the 19th century, and has only been reinforced by succeeding losses in wars. The few German refugees who were stupid enough to go to France has been lynched and King Louis XXI has been silent on the issue which angers Germany's ambassadors.

The papal states still exists. It's access to Italy's historical information, combined with money flowing in from catholics has made it quite wealthy, even giving the Holy See a permanent non-voting seat on the International Association's high council. This ensures that the Holy See enjoys an influential position in politics or economics. The fact that the Holy See is more focused on worldy affairs and acts qulike a megacorporation quietly scandalizes many catholics. This is causing trouble for governments like Spain or Portugal or even Germany due the church acting as a second pillar of royal power. In catholic nations, the Church remains a powerful voice of conscience for society as a whole. It doesn't support granting political power to the masses, because this idea is virtually unthinkable here. But it protects the poor from grievous boppression - they may be overworked and bored, but they don't usually go hungry or get forced into concubinage against their will. The chuch also uses it's expanded powers to enforce a stricter public and private morality in many european nations than we have in the real world. This has ensured that despite the earlier advent of birth control, that in the average european naiton public morality on sex tends to resemble the victorian era in many ways minus the Victorian tolerance for prostitution.

The Ottoman empire still exists and by now is considered part of the 'civilized' world. The "Baghdad Pact" is an Ottoman-sponsored alliance of arab states that's as integrated as our European union. The continued existence of the Caliphate as a political institution has ensured that this worlds' version of wahabism is non-influential. Another factor making the islamic world less reactionary and anti-western is less western humiliation. Yes, the maghreb was europeanized, Russia conquered Iran and the turks pushed out of much of the balkans earlier but the petty humiliations against the arab world have been avoided..

Portions of west and central Africa saw decolonization in the 1990s and 2000s and are poor, but not absolute trainwrecks as in OTL. Think the gap between Europe and latin America. Incidently, they are all Roman Catholic. Both the Mahdiya of Soudan and the Emirate of Fodio managed to avoid colonization, and thus are muslim-majority monarchies. The state of Jamesland in real-world madagascar is an apartheid state originally settled by England in the 1600s.

Parts of India and south-east asia have also recieved decolonization. They are demographically different with Catholicism as opposed to buddhism being the biggest religion there. Even the himalayan states that avoided colonization are Chinese puppets.

Colonialism is alive and well in the traditional "Great white father" form, settler colonialism and in recent years direct annexation. This is a world where the big peace that reshaped the global order following the Great Warwas more like the peace of Vienna than the postwar decolonization of thbbbe real world with the victorious powers shuffling around the ownership of colonies instead of freeing them. One form of colonial policy is running them directly for the benefit of the metropole with forced labor, rigged economic regulations, etc. This way produces unrest and trouble, and is starting to be less popular. Another method is incorporating them into the nation like how America did with the Japans, or it's african colonies or France with Senegal/french terranova. This way works, but only the least racist empires do it. Dutch colonial policy is scattered and in between with local whites or in recent years christians getting dutch citizenship while majorities in most areas are still repressed. The one improvement over German policy is that the dutch invest in their colonies as opposed to just exploiting them. Settler colonies are places where the locals are relocated and Europeans are brought in like German Ostafrika. Even many independent nations like Ashanti or Upper Volta are run as protectorates/mandates of France or Savoy. Essentially, this system works by combining advisors and government officialls appointed/sent by the nation holding the mandate with some elements of native home rule. The mandate system was proposed both as a path for eventual home rule, and as a way for poor nations to be modernized. Results tend to be mixed with the overall trend being one of increased control from the civilized nations instead of the promised freedom.

Politically, this world tends to be rather backwards and authoritarian by real world standards. Nobody was able to get their "bright" ideas for revolutionary totalitarianism implemented anywhere, but the norm is for authoritarian monarchies, semi-constitutional monarchies or somewhat elitist republics. Essentially, this is a world where the ideological mutations of OTL post-1789 never really happened. What reforms and political evolution there are in this world either stem from tinkering with the old system, quasi-revivals of some roman ideas(Lots of republics use even more roman terminology) or 'borrowing' political theory from imperial china. There was no break with the past.. The norm is to have national security states and huge security organizations. All states have some kind of income or property qualification for the franchise and racial or religious qualifications are decently common. Only a few new world states, and portions of Russia don't actively attempt to repress or co-opt labor organization.

Compared to our world, most of the planet is rather more religious than OTL. Part of this is in reaction to the United States of America's amoral expansionist culture while the other part is less political change in some aspects due to a weaker enlightenment. For example, like our world's Europe many nations retain state churches but unlike our world, there is more genuine belief along with enforcement and educational support(lots of church-run schools). Alot of Europe along with European settled areas have religiosity on par with America's red states or even more devoutness. This has impacts on gender roles, attitudes towards homosexuality, treatment of religious minorities and the like. Also, this has weakened the development of (state) programs to help the poor with government roles in them tending to involve providing financial backing.

Unlike our world with secularism being prevelant, those societies which have official or unofficial acceptance of other religions tend more towards varying degrees of tolerance. Most of the time, it's other sects of christianity that get tolerated with more tolerant places tending to tolerate religious syncretism, popular cults and in some cases importing mystery religions(the 20th century's rise of Shinto in the United States is the biggest examples) from the empires. The closest thing to our world's western secularism is the United States which has been largely de-christianized due to popular shifts away from christian mores but lacks our world's drive for trying to formally seperate church and state -- catholic schools are still funded lavishly by the state and federal governments but these days with american-born teachers don't produce many catholics and nativity scenes in public places go with comment.

Besides the diferent intensity of religious feeling, there are differences in distribution of religion. For example, Orthodox Christianity is largely extinct due to the reunification with Rome. Then there is the conversion of much of central and south asia to Catholicism by Russia and other imperial powers. One of the bigger differences is the reformation being rather weaker with Dissenter Christians largely being confined to New England, the netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. The second really big difference is the islamic world's lacking wahabism and being more influenced by Sufism along with muslim populations in central or south asia or the east indies having long experiences of being clear religous minorities. As a result, Islam is overall more secular than OTL with much of the muslim world being on par with TTL's europe in terms of religiosity.

Unfortunately anti-semitism is alive and well in this world which had a weaker enlightenment combined with nothing like the mass death of OTL that made anti-semitism look bad. However, the Yiddish community of letters is doing well, converts to Christianity from judaism are accepted and the unpleasant biological or exterminationist focuses of alot of our world's anti-semitism never developed and there is hope for reform -- in the last decade in fact, movements to extend full civil rights to jewish citizens on a national level have popped up in places like the Kingdom of France or the United States(some frontier or otherwise outlier states like parts of the northwest coast already have relatively long-established legal equality for jewish citizens)

This is a world with a Sino-Western bipolarity as opposed to our world's monolithic western dominance. This is reflected with chinese genres finding their way into western media or the reverse, with there being people who have chinese last names living in the west or sinicized versions of western names in China. The other large difference is how florid, decadent and rococo the aesthetics of this world are. There was never anything like "modernist" architecture. Fashion tends towards the formal, courtly, colorful and unusual with even underlying trends being shaped(Hats survived in the modern west, and a mix of pseudo-science combined with altered cultural environments has lead to many nations favoring quite plump as the ideal for women). In recent years, a new wave of orientalism has made influences from Russian south asia or the muslim world start to pop up in fashion, style, food, movies, etc. There is a clear split between the christian west on one hand and China/The United States due to strict western obscenity/blasphemy legislation conflicting with alot of American or Chinese mores re: their media.

Compared to the real world, this world is more and less racist. It's rather less racist towards East asians and muslims due to those two cultural areas doing a better job of keeping up with the west(Ambassadors and tourists from Fodio or Soudan, were able to use "white" facilities in the mainland US even in the hardline phases of America's segregation era on grounds of being muslim and obviously "arabic" despite being as black as the ace of spades). On the other hand, africans, Indians and those of south-east asian descent have it rather worse than OTL. Even though the nastily biological-based forms of racism never caught on, arguments about "counter-adapted" cultures or nonwhite/non-chinese people having lower IQs have proven more durable and harder to disprove than OTL's racist arguments. The degree of racist mistreatment ranges from being serfs or slaves with tracking implants in Germany's colonies to simply being denied the vote like in the dutch empire to not being allowed to qualify for the franchise without jumping through severe hoops in Melinda. Without a holocaust anti-Semitism persists, but this world lacks the nastily exterminationist forms that developed OTL. In fact, in nations like France or the United States in the last decade, a movement has popped up for jewish civil rights.

Economically, this world is rather more prosperous and integrated than OTL overall due to high technology, combined with a lack of communist/fascist socioeconomic experimentation to set things back plus the "long 19th century" globalization continuing to the present. Part of the reason for this is the "World Chamber of Commerce", an organization of large megacorps that promotes economic liberalization, free trade, world peace(dead people don't buy widgets), ending various "Intellectual Property" protections(needing to buy rights to sell plans for widgets in random countries take up time and money) and investment in backwards lands(To get more customers for their widgets). Despite the increased prosperity, most of the world sees large gaps between rich and poor with the rich still tending to get away with worse than they would in the real world. A dark side of the increased globalization is that organized crime is more powerful than OTL with the largest criminal groups forming a secretive "Organization" to pool their resources.

Technologically, this world is well in advance of the real world with the world being decades ahead most areas. The need to help manage overseas affairs combined with the boosts in technological investment from three world wars and a wealthier world lead to an early internet split between the Comnet which is less centralized, harder to find specific computer's addresses on it and is less suited for using it to try spying on people than our internet and the "Respectable" networking services run by the governments and large megacorps(Contranet, Minitel, America Online, Reichnet and the like). There are cyberpunk-style computer criminals or spies. The mild cold war between the powers, combined with capitalist economics has produced colonies on luna, mars, orbit, ceres, asteroid bases and now a settlement on Venus. Mars in the early stages of an international terraforming project which will take until sometime in the mid or late 22nd century while Venus is up for debate on how to accomplish it.(The ambitious want to drop big rocks to make Venus have a day that's something resembling a reasonable length...) No resources have yet run out but many are scarcer due to the wealthier world and long age of steam, leading to lots of research in both materials science and alt-energy along with since the late 1970s asteroid mining. Wind power is used to it's max efficiency, nuclear power is used, OTEC and OMEC power are up and running, fusion is past break even but still not commercially viable. Medicine has been advanced due to a mix of more investment combined with traditional chinese medicine influencing western ones. This has produced things like the ability to tailer cures for people's cancers, vaccines for some viruses, lifespans that are able to be extended to 180-200 and cures for viral diseases. Overall, this is a world with a mindset towards technology more like that of the early 20th century. There is more tolerance of and willingness to accept risk.