MotF 30: The Ministry Of Truth

Krall

Banned
THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH


"I tell you Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the party holds to be truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party."
- from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell


The Challenge
Your challenge is to make two maps. One must show the world as it is depicted to the people of a 1984-esque totalitarian state by their government, whilst the other must show how the world actually is. The map need not show the political situation of the world; it may show population figures, ethnic distribution, the nation's victories/defeats, economic prosperity, or anything at all that an authoritarian government might want to lie to their population about.


The Restrictions
Since this is really more of a modern/future map challenge PoDs before 1650 are not permitted, and all maps must be set after 1800. Future maps (including maps of other planets or regions of space) are permitted, though nothing clearly implausible or ASB is allowed.



This round shall finish on Saturday the 12th of February.

!THIS THREAD IS FOR POSTING OF ENTRIES ONLY!

Any discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread then you will be asked to delete the post. If you refuse to delete the post, post something that is clearly disruptive or malicious, or post spam then you may be disqualified from entering in this round of MotF and you may be reported to the board's moderators.


Remember to vote on the previous round of MoF!
 
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The specific POD is the execution of Nelson Mandela and 10 others at the Rivonia trial in 1964 (yes, I have used that one before, this map could be considered a sequel). This leads to a much bloodier decolonization including a civil war in South Africa, which results in all of Southern Africa being divided between heavily armed white enclaves and largely rural territories with black majorities led by former guerrillas and Communist intellectuals. The rural, black areas unite under the African Workers' Republic, an agrarian-Communist, black supremacist, totalitarian state resembling OTL's Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The African Workers' Party controls information tightly, and lies about even basic subjects such as geography, greatly exaggerating in official maps the extent, unity, and influence of the AWR, and the success of its guerilla forces in places like Madagascar and the Congo, both of which are in fact going poorly for the AWR. This map would be given to lower tiers of the Party itself, since education and even literacy among the proletariat are forbidden.

Map to follow.
 
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And the map...

redafrica.png
 
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My entry

POD: Charles II is discovered hiding in that famous oak tree by Roundhead troops, and is ultimately executed.

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The year is 1815. In the Commonwealth and Protectorate of England, Scotland, and Ireland, everything is well. Everything is holy. There is no sin in the Protectorate; every man loves his fellow man as a brother. All have been brought to the same level. All are equal before God's eyes. The Protector is your friend, Godly. The Protector is always watching over you. The Protector loves you. The Protector will defend you against the miserable, weak, traitorous Royalist fearmongers who commit atrocities from their unhallowed bases in the Hebrides. The Protector hates Royalists.

You hate Royalists, don't you? Of course you do. To say otherwise would be treason. To think otherwise would be treason. Do not commit treason in your thoughts, Godly. We say to you, that whosoever looks on a Royalist to sympathize with him has committed treason with him already in his heart.

The Protector is watching you, Godly.

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The year is 1815. Be of good cheer, subjects, for the lies of the Lord Protector, that devil James Churchill, shall soon be exposed by his Grace, his sovereign Majesty, Augustus III Stuart, by the mercy of God rightful King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. For those of you who are courage itself upon the battlefield, fight on! For those of you who chafe beneath the Protector's yoke, resist, and know ye the truth! For those of you who escape, come at once and do homage to your king in Edinburgh, free city and thorn in Devil Jim Churchill's side! Know ye this: We are still fighting the Roundheads! We have always been fighting the Roundheads!

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Roundhead Map:

covenant2.jpg


Cavalier Map:

royalists2.jpg
 
edited for clarity

The world as we understand is just a smokescreen. At the top we have the map that most people would recognise, below is pictured a map fairly close to the one used by our real masters.

Each blue circle represents a powerful House or Cabal. The Americans have been preeminent for almost a century. The European Houses could still rule, if they got their act together and cooperated, but they never could avoid having a more complicated relationship. The Chinese have just recently gained power enough to negotiate a fair admission into this club, that cabal is made up of certain high ranking party members and a few surviving lineages of the Qing Dynasty. The blue pentagons show the missions to Iraq and Afghanistan, not very successful attempts to build local cabals in the region.

The red regions are not playing ball with the New World Order. The leadership of the red circled nations seem to have some understanding of the true rulers of this world, but they know even less about the details than we do.

The yellow circles show known cells of a truly ancient organisation. They are known as the Snakes, or the Hydra, or some other serpent-based title. Maybe they are older than the Houses, but we can't tell. We do know that now they ferment terror and rebellion, specifically against the New World Order, wherever they can. They fund and organise other terrorists, with an eye towards destabilising the NWO. They operate globally, with cells even with the visible governments of the developed world, but they have mostly been driven to the red regions of the world.

There is a struggle for global power going on right underneath our noses. Unfortunately for us, the two most powerful sides we have to choose from seem to be as bad as one another.

openyoureyes.jpg
 
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The POD is the DDR enacting North Korea-esque policies in 1953, as a response to Krushchev taking power. Eventually, it renames itself to the Deutsche Demokratische Volksrepublik or DDVR for short. Ostpolitik is never adopted, as reunification between the two Germanies is seen as a hopeless cause. Instead focus is shifted onto union with Austria, which eventually happens in 1990, while in 1995 Germany gains the German parts of South Tirol.

As a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, the DDVR becomes even crazier, claiming to rule all Germany and then some. Apart from the soldiers manning the fortifications at the borders, and the politicians in Berlin, everybody is so ingrained to believe the Party that they accept its blatant lies as truth (with paper-thin excuses about 'insufficient clearance' used to explain why nobody is allowed to actually go there and why nobody from the West arrives).

Tensions are rising between Germany and the DDVR, and war seems on the horizon.

The slogan is the motto of the DDVR, and the flag is its flag.


MOTmap.png

MOTmap.png
 

Thande

Donor
Only a semi-serious entry but I thought I might as well.

From a world where the United States' political culture went even more loopy after 9/11 and in the run-up to the war on Iraq, Britain pulled out under heavy domestic pressure, including the unprecedented leaked condemnation of the conflict by the Queen. These US school textbook maps from 2009 reflect popular conceptions fed by the administration-supporting portions of the news media: the political map is accurate but the systems of government map gives democratic status to any US ally regardless of its actual system of government while condemning those who refused to participate in the Iraq war.

Screen PNG.png
 
In TL where the Great Game became the Great War in 1883 the British and Russian Empires fight a massive war for control of Asia. The result is both Russia and Britain are exhausted from the massive losses and the control of their Asian possessions crumbling. By 1901 the British have fought several major revolutions in China and India with the British barely surviving. In the British Isles a radical new political ideology Evolutionaryism is born which calls for the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race and purity of its empires.
In 1906 the Evolutionaryists control Parliament and eventually destroy their competition and rule Britain and its empire with an iron fist. Under the Evolutionaryists the United Kingdom of Great Britain became replaced with the Evolutionary Republic of Britannica. In 1909 the Purity laws are passed making discrimination against non-Anglo-Saxons legal. In 1911 Britannican troops landed in Ireland to fight against an Irish revolt for complete independence. During the Battle of Dublin Britannican burned, looted and raped their way through the city.
Born from the ashes of Dublin a new regional capital of the Britannican region Darwinia was born, named after the Evolutionaryism's "father" Charles Darwin. Anglo-Saxon settlers move to northern Ireland with the Britannican troops forcing Irish citizens out of the settler zones into camps. Due to the Britannican cruelty and the terrible conditions within the camps the Irish wage a violent guerilla campaign against their oppressors mostly in south-western Ireland.
***
The map below is from an Britannican history book made in 1916

2udzxg1.png


In response to the Irish guerillas the political commissars of the E.R.B. the Evolutionary Guard move from a simple highly energetic branch of the Britannican military to becoming cold, dark and genocidal group of people. The Great Step Forward as it is called by the Evolutionary Guard eventually grew to be a highly organized and efficient way of killing those of non-Anglo-Saxon origin.
***
The map below is from an O.S.S. report given to the President to help illustrate the horror of the Great Step Forward.

2n9xc9x.png
 
In the year 2021, China officially passed the United States as largest economy in the world, and was letting it get to their head. They began to extremely push for unification with Nepal, reunification of Korea under North Korean dominance, and bring the Steppe states under their sphere of influence. Major pushes to form a common South-East Asian market (closely tied to the Chinese) was also being put on the table. However, more and more people within China were beginning to demand concessions from the government, using Hong Kong as their primary area of operation. The government, however, was not backing down. They began to use soldiers to put down the inevitable riots and political protests. The world watched in horror as blood was again being spilled on Tienanmen Square.

The Tienanmen Slaughter, as it came to be called, was the straw that broke the camel's back however. Unbeknown at the time, several of the people killed there were family members of several Captains, Lieutenants and a General, General Fan. When these members of the military found out, they began to slowly build a network of allies from within China and abroad. On 20 May, 2024, the day started as any other, save that a small crowd had gathered at Tienanmen Square. This was common enough as it was a major anniversary of the 1989 protests (the day martial law was declared), but it had been years since it had turned violent. Then, at exactly 11 in the morning (Beijing Standard Time), explosions and gunshots were heard all around the nation. General Fan, along with other high ranking officials of the military and their pro-democratic allies, were now staging a coup.

The Second Chinese Civil War lasted nearly 7 months, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. The coup also inadvertently led to the beginning of the 2020's global depression.

The results of the civil war are now widely in the world: General Fan captured the vast majority of China save Manchuria and Beijing itself. The People's Republic of China was not even a shadow of it's former glory. The fact that no nukes were used, either intentionally or by accident was also a surprise at first until details about the fact that the Navy and all missile locations were the primary focus of the coup in the first few days of the coup.

The UN moved in to broker a peace deal after the PRC's Premier sued for peace on 8 January, 2025, after receiving news that his son had just defected to Fan's side. Almost immediately after the war came to a close, the Republic of China, based in Taiwan, and Fan's new republic brokered a reunification treaty, and Shanghai was declared the new capital. North Korea, now with it's sole backer effectively dead, succumbed to riots and on 3 March 2025, Pyongyang requested a "slow and easy" reunification with Seoul.

In Manchuria, the PRC feebly held on. The nation had faltered and fell, and who was to blame but Fan and Premier Liao? A quick coup of Liao occurred, and the military seized control of the People's Congress. First order of business was to prepare the state for eventual reconquest of the "South Chinese."

By 2100, the PRC is still here. Her people, though somewhat hungry, are fiercely patriotic to their cause: maintaining their empire in the face of fascists to their south, capitalist pig-swines to their east, and imperialists to their north and west. The People's Republic is large and glorious, a tribute to the will of the people and their Eternal Premier. The empire stretches from the Caspian to the Yellow. But it has recently been betrayed by the infamous General Fan, known capitalist who seeks only the deaths of all true patriots. Every week, anti-Fan rallies occur, and people curse his name. Thanks to him, the capital-imperialists have captured Southern Korea and duped almost all of the Mongolians into being slaves to their greedy interests...

The People's Republic of China in all of her glory!
chinaclaimed.png


And as those lying imperialists would lead you to believe
chinaactual.png
 
It's been a while since the fewments hit the windmill, thanks to some Damn Fool Thing in the Middle East. Things have gone a bit better than expected, due in part to a surprising number of Soviet bombs either not working or hitting somewhere else than targeted: civilization in the northern hemisphere was not entirely wiped out, and indeed has bounced back pretty well in some other places, notably in the Indian subcontinent, south America, and SE Asia. (Australia-NZ did get some bombs, and although working civilization survived, the reaction has not been pretty).

Nowadays an alliance of four major powers headed by India (although the Europeans still have pretentions of being the leading power) works to prevent any further atomic wars and pushes for global nuclear disarmament. The biggest stumbling block is the still nuclear-armed US: the emergency government has been in place for 35 years, and its leaders are not at all pleased by the fact that the US victory (for various values of victory) over the Soviets has not led to US global leadership, or by the present new flowering of democracy which makes them look rather illegitimate. A certain amount of shaving of the truth for public consumption has become necessary.

Bruce
 
Belgium. That little nation managed to pick up some territories after the Imperial War (1902-1913), namely Northeastern France and Luxembourg. Notably, they picked the right side a decade later, in the War of Germanic Unification (1923-1926), they expanded into the Netherlands and the Kingdoms of Prussia and Southern Germania. However, in the Western European War (1941-1950), they lost most of their more southerly territory. Hoping for a new dawn, a military junta took control in 1952, falling to a communist revolution in 1955. Pierre Gusteau, head of this revolution, declared that the many Germans of Belgium betrayed them to the Italians, French, and Austrians. His Ministry of Propaganda created a series of posters, declaring the outside world to be 'fascist pigs' and stating that Belgium was the only place where Communism, Democracy, and Liberty lived as one.

(Maps coming next two posts)
 
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