Decades of Darkness
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
How did they convince themselves annexing that much of that part of Brazil was a good idea? Mind-boggling.
Great maps! But I have two quibbles.
1. The lines around protectorates/states under influence seem a bit too narrow on my monitor. Might want to widen them a bit.
2. I'm fairly sure the Aragonese Congo is defunct. IIRC, Aragon ceded it to Germany as part of its separate peace settlement. Germany didn't manage to occupy it however, and I believe there were references to parts of the north being in British Central Africa. I think it was essentially partitioned by the RE and Portugal, with the dividing line more or less running SW to NE
1. The lines around protectorates/states under influence seem a bit too narrow on my monitor. Might want to widen them a bit.
2. I'm fairly sure the Aragonese Congo is defunct. IIRC, Aragon ceded it to Germany as part of its separate peace settlement. Germany didn't manage to occupy it however, and I believe there were references to parts of the north being in British Central Africa. I think it was essentially partitioned by the RE and Portugal, with the dividing line more or less running SW to NE
Heck, the *US isn't even bigger than OTL 2008 Russia (I estimate the US at ~16.5 million km2, to 17.2 million), much less the Russian UberEmpire, that I eyeball at a ludicrous 28.9 million km2, even before the looser states of the Federation are included!
That's the shape of the Tibetan autonomous region, as designated by the People's Republic of China. Do you think you know better than the Chinese Government?
(The answer is, and should be, yes.)
Because the peoples of British Central Africa can't agree on a replacement name, and so for the time being they're sticking with the old one. Some of them want a purely geographical name (Central Africa), while some want one or another of a variety of historical and/or ethnic names.
It's just confirmation that what happens to Canada is still internationally-disputed; the governments of the world have still not universally recognised it.
Nothing of significance, no.
The full details will of course be covered in Tales, although there is always the question of whether the post-vitalist Commonwealth of New England will be interested in taking over any part of Canada.
The Russian Federation is considerably bigger. I've lost track of the full calculations which I did, but if I remember right then Russia would still be considerably larger even if the *USA included all of South America.
The tiny dot is indeed Geneva.
In the original version of the timeline, Nippon got all of Sakhalin. That was retconned to occupying all of the island, but negotiating the return of the northern half in exchange for the Kuriles.
If the *USA is taking any part of Brazil, what they've conquered is actually the best part. It may seem odd, but there are good reasons for it. The first is that any part of Brazil which the *USA takes, apart from the fringes of the Amazon, is going to be geographically separated from the rest of the country. The Amazon rainforest sees to that - there's no roads across it even today. So the *USA may as well take the bits which suit it best. The south-eastern part of Brazil is the richest part of the country, from an agricultural point of view, and also the part which it is hardest to turn into a puppet state. (Not enough collaborators). The north-east of the country is more easily turned into a vassal state, so why not take advantage of their willingness, and preserve military power for where it will be needed anyway?
AE, is that feasible?
The German-Aragonese peace settlement included a provision for Germany taking over the Congo after the cessation of hostilities elsewhere, but Germany never ended taking this up. Mostly because if they did, then Portugal and/or the RE would simply invade the Congo before Germany could claim it. The British Empire ended up taking part of the Congo anyway (as a "protective measure") once Aragon dropped out of the war, and the RE kept it, but most of the Congo has remained in Aragonese hands up until 1935. As to what happens after that, well...
That sounds about right, although I can't track down my full calculations, alas.
As has been hinted elsewhere in the timeline, this is a problem which will eventually be remedied from another direction. North China will be in the Federation by the 1970s.
North China was always a protectorate of sorts, ruled by the heirs of the Qing. It has never yet been under direct Russian rule, although it does end up as part of the Federation, of course.
Pretty much. Southern Brazil is probably not going to have that many slaves in it; they'll end up fleeing into the interior. Which will leave an interesting social experiment for the *USA to figure out, but that's a story for another day.
But it would have made much more sense to pick up those empty stretches of rainforest in the northwest. The native peoples could be easily marginalized, the towns flooded with Anglophonic settlers, and you're done.
No matter how valuable the place is, southern Brazil should have been another protectorate to begin with. The end result is the same and the financial, military, and especially administrative commitment much less. I mean, they knew better with the Yucatan, but not a place bigger than New England on the wrong side of the continent?
No matter how valuable the place is, southern Brazil should have been another protectorate to begin with. The end result is the same and the financial, military, and especially administrative commitment much less. I mean, they knew better with the Yucatan, but not a place bigger than New England on the wrong side of the continent?
Vince
Monthly Donor
What exactly is the difference between being a Russian Federated State like Finland and being a protectorate like Turkey? Since it's mentioned that some federated states can be so independent as setting it's own economic and foreign policy.
One other thing I was wondering what is the current relationship between New England and the US by the end of the timeline?
One other thing I was wondering what is the current relationship between New England and the US by the end of the timeline?
What towns? There is nothing in the Amazon worth talking about further west or north than Manaus unless you're an ecologist or anthropologist (neither of which describe the average Jackal), so unless you really want a timeline where the ENTIRE Amazon rainforest is burned to the ground, this makes the most sense.
There's rubber in them thar trees. In Acre, anyway. And agriculture (even the more sustainable plantation kind) is possible in spots. It's shipping the stuff out that's hard.
The point is, it soothes the national neighbor-gobbling instinct, without causing any trouble to speak of. Heck, why not go as far south and east as Manaus? Or a border with Equador? The locals are already sparse, and a lot would clear out for one Brazil or the other, so it's not a big population you're holding down.
Plus with transportation the way it is, all you need to do to keep guerrillas from sneaking in is hold the river towns. Even if someone sneaks around - hundreds of miles through the trackless rainforest - there's no local communities for them to live off of. They'd be hunter-gatherers with rifles, and then their bullets would run out.
Heck even with all they already annexed it'd almost be worth it. Not much of an expense next to the rest of their conquests.
Other DoD related should be made as well there is a lot of link that don't lead to anything
Thought I admit that DoD nearly need a wiki for itself
As jmberry noted, there aren't any towns worth mentioning. Historically speaking, outside of a couple of ports accessible by river/oceangoing vessels, the Amazon rainforest was largely untapped until the 1960s, and even then there's been a gradual exploitation from the fringes, not starting in the remote areas of the northern Amazon. Those areas of the Amazon in the Brazilian northwest are remote and pretty much worthless, from the *USA's point of view.
There's two problems with that. One is that of motivation. When the *USA exploited the Yucatan, that was at the start of their imperial expansion, when they almost stumbled into conquest. Which is to say, the *US government did not actively set out to annex the Yucatan (or elsewhere) during the start of its acquisitions. They were invited to annex the Yucatan (as happened historically, too), and so it wouldn't look good to turn around and annex the place immediately... although they did annex it eventually. After this, the *USA became more open in its exploitation. Note that the more recent acquisitions have mostly been acquired directly. The *USA only turns places into protectorates (formal or informal) when it doesn't plan to ever annex them directly (Nephi Free State) or where logistics mean that for the moment, they can't exercise direct control anyway (Charcas).
The other problem is that a protectorate over southern Brazil would be a meaningless figleaf anyway. The population there is so universally hostile to *American rule that they would revolt against any protectorate government or puppet regime in short order, unless the *USA flooded the area with large numbers of troops. And if the *USA has to maintain a large army in the reason, they may as well annex the territory directly.
Just a matter of convenience, really. Finland was already part of the Russian Empire, more or less - although the Finns thought of themselves as a separate state in personal union, the Russian central government didn't - so it was called a federated state, but left to run its own affairs since the Finns had been quite loyal to the Tsar. With Turkey, Russia took the parts which it wanted directly (Thrace and Marmara), and left the rest in a nominally independent state so that there wasn't as much need to occupy it directly. Russia figured that if Turkey did remain quiet as a protectorate, so much the better. Less headaches to worry about occupying it, and Russia can always deman^H^H^H^H^H request that the Turkish government comply with anything that is in Russia's interests. If it didn't, or if the Turkish people got too restive, then Russia can always send the troops back in.
O'Brien's attitude to New England is along the lines of 'do what you want internally, as long as you don't build a large army/navy or become too involved with foreign powers.' He doesn't want to be bothered trying to occupy New England or interfere in its domestic affairs, but he does want to make sure that the *USA can intervene diplomatically or militarily if it ever feels the need to do so.
Agreed. There's also the point that from the perspective of any *American who is planning to move to new lands in Brazil, the choice is between cutting down acres of trees in a malarial, steamy, regularly-flooded place without any transport links (also known as "the arse-end of South America") or a place with open land, proven agricultural capacity to grow valuable cash crops, close to sea lanes, and in a much more pleasant climate.
Excellent...
Agriculture in upper reaches of the Amazon is extremely difficult. Firstly, the soils are not sustainable; they get exhausted in a few years. Beyond that, transport links are almost impossible. The terrain is difficult, flooded, remote, and even today, there are not road or rail links through the heartland of the Amazon.
Rubber is nice, but it's a hell of a lot easier to grow/harvest in places which are closer to existing transport links. It's not worth giving away the opportunity to annex some of the most valuable agricultural lands in the Americas.
I doubt it would soothe any neighbour-gobbling instinct. The questions which would be asked in the press and in Congress would make the fuss over Alaska ("Seward's icebox") look like divine praise by comparison. "You had the chance to take prime agricultural land, and you chose ten million square miles of jungle instead?"
The *USA did take some land on the fringes of the Amazon rainforest in the north - and they already had a border with Equador. That bit was shown on the map. But there's no point pushing further south, because they can't do much with it.
Better to let the Brazilians feel that they're still holding a lot of their own territory. Easier to negotiate a peace settlement that way.
Would DoD fit into a wiki, or would it break it?
Looks good. I'll add that to the DoD website over the next couple of days.
On a broader note, I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for the next couple of days (and the thread for Lands of Red and Gold, too) to respond to any further comments, and then I'm going offline for a while to take the sabbatical I mentioned. It will be at least a month, maybe more. I need a break. I will return at the scheduled fortnightly intervals to post the next instalments of Lands of Red and Gold (and respond to comments), since that timeline has the next few posts already written, but I won't be checking any other threads.