MotF 55: The Wild, Wild...

Long story short, Persia conquers Greece, gets pushed out of most of Asia, experiences a rebirth under a new (Greek) dynasty, becomes a dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean with a bitter rivalry with Carthage in the west, makes the unfortunate decision to go beyond the natural limits in Europe of an empire ruled from Asia Minor, loses lots of soldiers and friends in Germany, barely rules that territory, is invaded by angry Germans (and then less angry Carthaginians and Syrians and a large kingdom in the Caucasus), is practically destroyed. This is the "barely rules that territory" step.

"With the benefit of hindsight, we see that the Great Northern Campaign was a terrible mistake for the Sardic Empire, but we often forget that there was a period of twelve years between the beginning of the campaign and Irmin the Hammer's Invasion of the Empire. This map depicts Sardic control of the North during the last five years before the Invasion, when a partial stability was reached. Although we focus on the locals' resentment of Sardic rule, for the former soldiers who settled there in this brief period, the North was a land of freedom. They were ruled by men who had fought with them, not the palace-bred Emperor or his Satraps. There was plenty of land and almost no taxation. Yes, there was more violence, but they were equipped to defend themselves. It is rarely mentioned in our modern textbooks, but many of these soldiers enjoyed their freedom so much that they joined Irmin's Host, only to be turned on and slaughtered as potential traitors once the Invasion reached their homelands." -Excerpt from A Common Soldier's History of the Ancient Mediterranean by Xenon of Cyprus

Aquapunk

It is 2035. Submarine technology has developed far faster than in our reality, and the riches of the seas have enticed mankind to settle beneath the waves. The oceans themselves have become frontier zones, dominated by 'habs' - self-contained underwater cities, run by national governments, international organizations, corporations, self-proclaimed independent states, even particularly large pirate armadas.

The North Pacific has become a particularly violent frontier, with piracy, terrorism, undeclared submarine warfare among the great powers, and open war between rival independent habs, all posing threats. Four massive habs - UN Sealab 21, TanakaHab, USS Seward, and Libertopia, all with populations over 100,000 - have been destroyed in the last decade, along with numerous smaller habs and privately-owned subs. But it is also an area of vast wealth - from geothermal energy, large-scale aquaculture, and deep-sea mining and drilling, to all the usual sorts of industries that develop in frontier zones. A fortune awaits, if you're brave enough to take the plunge...

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

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

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

Some friendly ASB decided to replace our barren mars with a live bearing version. Because bats eat butterflies there were no changes at all on earth until the beginning of the 20th century and little until the second half. Then the first proof that mars was indeed habitable was discovered by spectrometry. This caused a greater interest in space travel which leads to a much faster space race after the Second World War. With the USA sending the first man on the moon, the USSR wanted to send the first man on Mars. At first this seemed almost impossible, as not only was there a year travel to mars, but the gravity was much higher than on the moon, which meant that a second rocket would have to be carried to mars.
The whole problem was greatly simplified when in 1971 an unmanned probe discovered, that the life on mars used the same 20 aminoacids and the same sugars and nucleotides as on earth. No it seemed possible to send some kosmonauts there build a base and then assemble a rocket for return. In order to avenge their defeat on the race to the moon, the soviets quickly sent the first 7 humans to mars. As a landing site the daedalus plains of northern cimmeria were chosen for three reasons: the were far from active volcanoes and fault lines, they had a climate acceptable for humans, and mountains protected them from hurricanes (which can gather strength over the martian ocean for ever before crashing into land).
However after the first landing it soon became obvious that the assembly of a rocket by just seven people on an alien planet wasn’t so easy after all. So over the next two decades 150 additional person were sent to mars to build up a (more or less) self-sustaining base, which could one day assemble all parts of the spaceship sent from earth.
Of course the Americans were not just going to leave if at that. After all while the “bring first man to mars” prize had been awarded to the competition there was still the “bring the first man back to earth” prize to get.

Over the two decades over 400 Americans and 250 Russians were sent to Mars. In addition about 200 more humans were born there. While waiting for a return trip, they built quite comfortable villages to live, farms to supply their food, survey the surrounding areas and analyse the flora and fauna of Mars. Although no human ever set foot on a continent other than Cimmeria, the human bases would allow real time control over probes sent to them from earth.
Even during the golden age of space exploration it became obvious how little earth actual influence earth had on the life of the martian colonists: even radio communications took 6 minutes at best, 20 at worst. And depending on when the next start window was any material response would take a year or more. Thus while on earth the détente ended and the cold war reached new heights, on mars the Americans and Russians went on remarkably well; after all if something really bad happened, the others were the only help that could arrive in time. Of course the leaders on Earth wouldn’t like that, but then again their ability to find out what was going on on Mars was fairly limited if it wasn’t included into the official reports. And after spending several years away from earth the colonists often left out unnecessary details …

In the year 2000 a lot has changed. The USA managed to get the first 5 humans back to earth (including one mars born), but the cost to establish a regular return flight proved to high (especially as the space race was won and no more propaganda victories could be gained), so the program was abandoned, effectively stranding over 1500 humans ( half of them Mars born) on Mars. This has unsurprisingly soured relations with the remaining colonists who become increasingly independent minded as earth can provide only little for them.
The former Soviet presence on Mars did not survive the end of the cold war. As the member states left the union on Earth and it became clear that the Russian federation would be unable to contribute meaningfully to the colony, it too declared independence and became the free Republic of Mars. The fact that it was built to be as self sufficient as possible allowed this transition to go over without major problems on the colony itself, and although the new Russian government didn’t like it, there was nothing they could do. If the free Martians absolutely needed something from earth they would usually trade their real time control over any probes to the Europeans and Chinese who didn’t want all the data to pass trough the NASA computers.
This example has of course only increased separatist tendencies in the American base, especially among the mars born who never saw earth. The construction of a road linking the American cities to the free Martian was done against the will of the earthly government, and some think that the Americans will soon follow the example of the Russian colonists.

Louis I of Hungary keeps kicking around for a few more years, placing Mary on the Polish Throne, and then later Jadwiga on the Hungarian throne. Adding Brandenburg to polish lands, and later Silesia and Pomerania, Poland begins to build up a large navy to fend off Danish and later Swedish encroachment.

Skip ahead about 200 years, and The Spanish and portuguese discover the Americas (Atlantis and Antarctica ITTL), and the Polish get in on a bit of colonial discovery, being kicked out of the nice breadbasket of the Rus.

200 years after that...
The Borders of these colonies gets more porous the farther inland you go. Unrest amongst planters in Antarctica seems to be spreading to Louisiana and Nowiesla...