Excellent work! Always a delight to see the area I grew up mentioned in an Alternate History. Keep up the good work!
...Within days of the Coup against the Olson administration and subsequent ultimatum, Washington - a state already under immense pressure thanks to the near daily street fights between militias, spats between the state government and Seattle's newly elected Socialist mayor, tense negotiations with the Grange, and the continuing Depression - was rocked with mass protests, and soon full blown rebellion. In the midst of all this, then-Brigadier General George C. Marshall, commander of the Vancouver barracks, would denounce General MacArthur and his Junta, proclaiming his Loyalty to the United States -now fleeing west to San Francisco-, and calling on others to do the same, helped to organize the disparate army and national guards across the west coast, and, crucially, push the governor to fully support the Civilian Government.
In the Puget Sound, Seattle, Tacoma and its sister cities would rise up for the PRG and quickly try to rush south to the capital and east through the great northern railway, but their march to Olympia would be halted by the combined Washington forces, who then pushed back into Tacoma proper, starting one of the first true urban battles of the war, as the armies fought for street after street after street, the strain hurting the Red Army far more. with their northern route blocked at Everett by the surprising tenacity of the Snohomish garrison, constant naval bombardment and lacking the resources to really push eastwards to link with the Roslyn Commune now that it's fighting on two fronts, the Seattle Commune is forced on the defensive as it fights for its very survival.
Up north, the Klan took over much of Whatcom and Skagit counties, shattering the nascent pro-Long Whidbey Army after a week of furious back and forth, but with a blundered invasion of Anacortes and the Whidbey remnants rallying somewhat, progress slowed, with the Coast Guard landing in Stanwood in the process. As it stood, the Bellingham Klan was the strongest group in the region, but with limited successes and outright failures everywhere else -especially with next-door Everett Klan almost getting kicked out Everett-, they're the only major pro-LCS force in the whole state, their only hope being that pro-LCS militia and national guard forces in Oregon succeed in their takeover.
In the east, the pro-Long wing of the Washington Grange would spilt from their organization thanks to their backing of the civilian government, taking much of the southeast, Yakima Valley, and scattered rebellions across the east and north. But any hope they might have of taking over the east would be broken by the Spokane Commune, where they would break their offensive and pushed back, taking Sprague, Rosalia and Oaksdale. Spokane would be one of the PRG's strongest forces in the state, only having to face one real threat in the region, linking with their comrades in Idaho, they would move westwards, through the north to link with the northern communes and rushing through the Great Northern Railway to help their comrades in Seattle and connect them with rest of the PRG. The most brutal fighting would be found in the Yakima Valley, where labor agitation was incredibly high and militias fought frequently even before the coup, and that spark ignited the region with ferocity. With the intense fighting making any potential progress grinding, and with most of the men and vehicles needed on the Puget front, US leadership decided to hold the fort at the valley entrances until reinforcements arrived.
As the final hours ticked towards D-Day, the Civilian Government would have full control of the southwest of the state, pushing slowly but surely into Tacoma, with the western holdouts about to collapse, and with control of the Bremerton Naval Yard, complete naval supremacy of the Puget Sound and the pacific coast. Though with much of Washington still under rebel control, taking back the state will be an arduous task. But with the coup in Oregon put down, Governor Sinclair's reinforcements have finally arrived...
Excerpt from Pherson's Atlas of Civil War II
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My own take on the 2ACW from Kaiserreich, with a lot of cues taken from the Up With The Stars submod. Hope you enjoy!
Map Thread XXII
- Thread starter Balkanized U.S.A
- Start date
Did the Napoleonic Wars happen? How much influence do Britain and France have over the countries (ex-colonies?) outlined in their colours? How did the Spanish Empire survive?
Napoleonic Wars do not happen as the French Revolution ITTL results in a civil war between royalists and republicans that is won by the royalists. Countries outlined in British and French colours are fomer colonies plus current vassals/protectorates, all part of a NATO-esque alliance with their respective metropoles and specifically the formers colonies have relationship something like OTL dominions pre-WWI, with some colonies being more or less pro-Britain/France based on their histories and demographic makeup (e.g., the primarily Francophone Canada made up of old French settlers and newer settlers from Africa and Asia is more distant from Britain than the primarily Anglophone New Zealand made up of mostly recent settlers from Britain and older/more established colonies like New Britain or Colombia.
New Arabia, the largest single floating structure in the world, first built by Saudi Arabia starting in the year 2004 as a megaproject to match the Burj Khalifa and the massive space stations orbiting in the heavens. It was designed to house 50,000 people and run completely off of renewable energy and upcoming Nuclear Fusion, 15 years later, 2018, construction of the massive ship was coming along quite well, however Saudi Arabia was facing its own internal issues at this time, preceding the collapse and the civil wars that started in the 20's, anyway, the ship had its main reactor, engines and its full floorplan constructed although with no furniture or non-essential fittings installed yet.
A few months down the line when the shortages in 2018 hit Saudi Arabia, many residents from nearby cities boarded the ship without permission, as it was the only thing that still had working electricity and plumbing, many also took items like furnishing with them, the military was reluctant to stop people as the ship was so large and the Saudi's had other things to worry about at the time, and if the ship could help quell rebellion in the area is was a plus.
Over the next year several thousand more people poured into the ship and began inhabiting it, among these people were many of the ships original workers who knew the plans and even some of the ships planners who weren't able to get out of Saudi Arabia. This is how the ship was able to operate even when filled to the brim with unskilled people who didn't know about the inner workings, without these skilled people staying we wouldn't have the nation there is today.
Still in 2019 someone brought up an idea, originally taken as a joke by most others, said idea was "What if we went into international waters and declared independence?" however this out there idea slowly caught on as the structure and people within proved themselves to be self sufficient, using the vertical gardens, solar panels, plumbing systems and everything else installed to operate it without much outside assistance, other than a bit of periodic supply assistance from the UN and nearby countries.
This idea really caught on when the Saudi crisis hit in 2020, Saudi Arabia was facing widespread shortages of electricity, food, water, etc nearly everywhere, several reasons attributed to this with the most major being that Fusion energy had significant developments and price drops, more countries were able to just depend on their own oil supplies instead of purchasing it for what would be a higher price, nearby fighting meant that the ship had to activate its engines for the first time ever and attempt to sail somewhere off the coast, it is an absolute miracle that it didn't sink with the myriad of problems it faced, most of these problems were fixable though.
Then the earlier idea which was taken as a joke back then seemed more and more possible, investors, busniessmen and companies from outside started turning their eyes to the vessel as they thought the vast empty spaces within could be used if the ship became a tax haven, the next few months saw these businesses getting more involved in the ship, funding parts of it and sending material, even though it was only around 30 miles off the coast, and still technically belonged to Saudi Arabia, the former had no control over it at this point.
October 24th, 2020 was when it made its first voyage into international waters, encountered even more issues, which were fixed, and began preparing for a possible declaration of independence and everything that would entail, it was already known that declaring independence was possible, the nearby nation of Autopia had done it all the way back in 2003.
And then on December 27th, 2020, it finally happened, the ship declared its independence as the Republic of New Arabia, something that surprised many was that the Saudi government didn't really care, well maybe its not so surprising as the ship had already operated on its own for 2 years, and was already completely autonomous from Saudi Arabia itself, the country wouldn't have any use for it even if it did try to take it back, and might just create more problems than it already had.
Then started the expansion over the next 20 years, foreign businesses moved in, scientific experiments illegal in other countries were legalized and the country was made a tax haven, attracting tourists and residents from all over the world, it would also establish ties with Gulf Community, later to be formed into United Arab Republic, although it remained independent. A few incidents involving piracy around this time forced New Arabia to build, or purchase a small convoy of warships and escorts that would constantly sail with it, and turn part of its airport deck into a military aircraft storage section and a military base.
Today, New Arabia spends its time slowly sailing around the world with a small convoy of ships, attracting thousands of tourists wherever it goes, even visiting some far off areas such as Antarctica, it also notably helped inspire the creation of seasteads and other floating cities around the world. Saudi Arabia isn't doing so well off, it was never able to transition its economy out of oil and build its own fusion reactors and it still in a civil war to this day, it has made a few diplomatic efforts to reclaim the ship but has never attempted to do so by force.
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Shockingly, that makes a hell of a lot more physical and practical sense than the original proposal. That is, “The Free Market™” wouldn’t actually be able to build it, whereas an authoritarian regime with infinite currency and a taste for the extravagant would.
The image’s background doesn’t work with dark mode/black background settings. The background becomes the black of dark mode and the black text is unreadable.
So you're saying a country like Saudi Arabia or China could actually build something like Rapture from BioShock instead of Elon Musk?
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Personal devices and lighting settings are beyond my ability to control. I wouldn't know how to adapt it for that, ya know?
Just.... put a white background behind black text. You've done it on previous maps.
...is that not what I've done? I'm very confused, because I did nothing different with this one.
Huh.
Uh.
Hmm.
Is it now?
Map Thread XXII
Follow-up to this one here. Turn 14. These are funs. Edit. Let's try this again.
www.alternatehistory.com
It's like the UK proper, where England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all their own countries within the UK. Except Russia ITTL has a dozen or so of them.