Yes, it's a colour scheme thread. If you're a fan of the "use whatever colour you like" concept, his thread is not for you.
Generally speaking, the darker ("dominion") shade is used for regions that have more local government freedom compared to the core state region, and the paler ("protectorate") shade is used for regions that have less local government freedom. At least, that's the theory I had been working under.
No that's not quite right.
Dominions were mainly a feature of the British Empire and I remember when the colour scheme came in for both the dominions and protectorates. For the dominions, the colour shading came in first and it was the darker shading used to denote that a particular colony was gaining a status almost equal to that of the mother country itself (not that it was having more local government freedom compared to to the core state region) and was not really an extension of the mother country itself anymore (as colonies legally were).
It was only later that the protectorate shading came in to denote those territories which were never actually colonies (and thus never legally extensions of the mother country) in the first place or were not being actually occupied (with occupation being shown in the same colour since in most cases occupation saw the occupying country assume complete control over the governance of an occupied area in ways not too dissimilar from colonies though in some cases the occupied territories were never considered to be legally a part of the occupying country even by the occupying power itself - these maps are meant to show the
de facto and
de jure situations after all and in many cases occupied territories are
de facto administered much like colonies). So a protectorate was a territory in which the foreign power (usually a colonial power) had some kind of formal role in either the administration of the territory or in conducting the foreign affairs on behalf of the protectorate but without actually annexing the protectorate as a colony. This is why for instance Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and some Central American republics have been shown as United States protectorates at points in time because at those points in time they had signed treaties with the US which gave the US a significant role in parts of the administration of the country itself (sometimes termed as being in a
fiscal receivership relationship, sometimes aimed specific foreign affairs goals (like preventing European powers from intervening to obtain money owed to them)). In the cases of Cuba and Panama especially there were additional treaties which gave the US the right to intervene in the country's domestic affairs.
In the case of Cuba, this colour scheme adequately shows the situation in 1917 when Cuba was still under the 1903 treaty with the US (which essentially made it a US protectorate) but with the US having sent forces to occupy eastern Cuba to protect US property and interest there as a result of a revolt connected to the sugar plantations. So western Cuba continues to be shown in the protectorate colour and eastern Cuba is shown as occupied.
That does, however, create some oddities.
French Empire: I have seen the paler shade used for French Morocco and Tunisia. Here, it indicates a local puppet ruler, and so matches the overall plan in the outline above.
British Empire: Dominions are typically darker (matching the basic concept outlined above), but princely states typically have been shaded in the paler colour. I guess as they are puppet states that makes sense.
Princely states were
protectorates. The term is just a good way of describing all the protectorates under the British Raj.
In the British system there was a distinction between a protectorate and a protected state, but in essence protected states are protectorates with more control over local affairs as in neither case is the territory actually annexed or occupied and many local structures of governance are left in place.
Soviet Union: SSRs (e.g., Ukraine) are typically darker when highlighted at all. ASSRs (e.g., Yakutia, Karelia) have not traditionally been highlighted. In line with the British Empire model, it might make sense to highlight them in the paler colour. The darker colour wouldn't make sense, as it would imply that SSRs and ASSRs have the same level of autonomy. The counterpoint of course is that the autonomy of these regions may be a political fiction.
In some maps the non-RSFSR SSRs and ASSRs are shown this way, but that is not in conformity with the more widely used worlda and QBAM colour schemes like RCS, TRCS and I think TACOS and was certainly never the case with the original UCS when used as intended.
Usually that is just the map author's use of different colours to highlight a perceived relationship i.e. that the other SSRs were in a different relationship from the USSR than the RSFSR, which was not actually the case since ALL SSRs including the RSFSR were in the same relationship with the USSR; the RSFSR may have been the most populous SSR and the site of the capital but for its supposed dominance the RSFSR, Russians more often than not were
not supreme leaders of the Soviet Union...only Lenin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev were fully Russian (governing for 17 years between them); Malenkov was Macedonian-Russian (ruled for 2 years), Chernenko was Ukrainian-Russian as was Brezhnev I think (with 6 years of sole rule or nearly sole between them...most of that being Brezhnev who governed as part of a troika from 1964 until 1977), Andropov was of Don Cossack origin (ruled for about a 1 year and change) and of course Stalin was of Georgian-Ossetian origin (with about 28-29 years of sole rule under his belt). Other who participated in supremely ruling the USSR in a troika including Kamenev (Jewish/Russian), Zinoviev (Jewish/Ukrainian), Beria (Mingrelian..basically Georgian), Molotov (Russian), Kosygin (Russian), Mikoyan (Armenian) and Podgorny (Ukrainian).
In total Russians (exclusively Russian that is) ruled the USSR as sole rulers for about 17 of the USSR's 69 years, Stalin had about 28 years of sole rule, troikas (always involving some non-Russians be it Ukrainians, Armenians or Georgians) ruled the USSR for 16 years, and mixed Russians or Ukrainians (Macedonian-Russians, Ukrainian-Russians) ruled solely for about 8 years. Even if you included the mixed Russians (and Chernenko may have been fully Ukrainian), then Russians as an ethnic group had
sole supreme authority in the USSR for about a third of the time it existed.
USA, Canada, Australia: Territories have been traditionally been highlighted in a darker shade. According to the basic idea outlined above, that should imply that these areas have more local autonomy than established states. I'm no expect in their domestic politics, but I always thought they had less, no?
I seem to remember the colour for the territories in those federal systems coming in much later than the dominion and protectorate colour. I can't remember the reasoning behind it, but I suspect it was a need to re-use a colour shading (dark, normal or light being the three basic options) for these countries wherein they never had dominions of their own (after all as as republic it was technically and legally impossible for the USA to have
dominions based on the British system and with Canada and Australia these countries never had their own dominions having been dominions themselves - plus with the Dominion shade no longer being used after 1949-1950 when the very nature of the Commonwealth was changed such that dominion status was no longer necessary as a requirement to be a part of it and various countries such as Canada, Australia, etc establishing separate citizenships from that of the United Kingdom then using the system of darker shades for Canadian and Australian territories would be fine for the most part).
As far as I am aware, the darker/paler shades have not been widely used for any other nation.
Not many other states had dominions and few modern federal states have federal territories as well of any significant size to be noticeable on the worlda maps)
So I guess there are three questions here...
If the shading paradigm were to be used for soviet SSRs and ASSRs, what shades would make sense?
None. The SSRs are all equal in legal status and therefore no different from each other than two French departments are to each other or two US states are in a legal sense. The ASSRs are subdivisions of the SSRs with more autonomy, but the various colour schemes were intended to show countries and externally ruled/controlled/influenced territories. Hence there isn't a strong system for showing internal differences in status within a country (otherwise there would probably have to be a way to show Sabah and Sarawak as being different from other Malaysian states and probably show Quebec as being a bit different from other Canadian provinces). This is shown by the fact that the current system for showing territories is basically a recycling of the unused theoretical dominion shading for countries that never had dominions historically (so for the purposes of maps showing the OTL situation this was fine). But not every map uses this and some maps just don't show the internal divisions or don't use the territory colour.
Am I mistaken in thinking that US/Canadian/Australian territories had less local government, or should they properly be shaded in the paler colour?
Yes, they have less local government, but no they should not be shaded paler. Otherwise you run the risk of not being able to differentiate Cuba (independent country, but a protectorate of the United States) from Puerto Rico (an actual American territory) from 1903-1934. Plus its not inconceivable that in the future some Pacific countries might enter into a protectorate relationship with Australia. You also run the risk of confusion over whether certain Australian territories are actually Australian territories (integral parts of Australia and ruled as such) or protectorates (something entirely different).
Are there any other states or empires to which these schemes could logically be applied? I'm thinking China (Qing and PRC) and ancient Rome are the most likely candidates.
Possibly. I think the Roman Empire included protectorates. And various Chinese dynasties had vassal states and protectorates. So sure.
Not sure about any dominion shading for them though.
Given the increased levels of local government (relative to England), Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland might plausibly have the darker shade too.
No. Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland remain distinctly parts of the United Kingdom and are not considered, nor is it likely that they would become equal in status to that of the United Kingdom as outlined in the Balfour Declaration and Statute of Westminster. If any were to become equal in status to the UK then they would simply become independent now since dominion status has no effective bearing on how a territory needs to be displayed on a map after 1950.
Additionally unlike all historical dominions, these three territories are integral parts of the UK with full representation in the British Parliament (unlike Canada or Australia as dominions or even the various US territories within the US federal system).