New Reality Seeds

[PTTG]

Anything that lets Russia maintain Alaska into the 1930s would be quite interesting. It might even lead to Hitler offering to aid the USSR against Canada and the USA. Of course, he no doubt plans to turn on them once he's taken hold of western Europe.

Now you have a North American front, the subject of ten thousand invasion stories.

[dcarson]

Just about all of the Allies sent troops into Russia after WW I the help the White Russian side against the Reds. I can see a government in exile in Alaska and Russian California. They held parts of Russia for several years after the revolution, with a amphibious invasion needed and support form the US and other powers they should be able to keep it.

[Astromancer]

The limiter in these scenarios is the fact we know why the Russians sold Alaska. Basically, Russia and Britain were drifting toward war. In many ways, the diplomatic fallout of the ACW seems to have prevented an Anglo-Russian war. Alaska was sold to the USA for two reasons. A) To thwart British plans to simply seize Alaska. Although Britain was still clearly stronger than the USA at the time (although the ACW was a terrifying wake up call) they seriously feared America becoming the ally of another European Power. And B) to build a stronger alliance with the USA both to outflank Britain and to protect the Russian fleet by storing it in US ports. That the Czar was working to end serfdom and passionately hated slavery was a bonus in Russian eyes.

The Czar knew that his being allied with those fighting to preserve democracy and later end slavery while Britain and France supported the slave owners would be a massive diplomatic humiliation to Britain and France. And it was. Because of the diplomatic storms form the wars Prussia fought with Austria and France, and the unifications of Italy and Germany, caused us to forget this.

In any world where Russia doesn't sell Alaska to the USA, Britain is very likely to simply take Alaska. Russia retaining Alaska into the 20th century is an ultra low order of possibility.

[Phil Masters]

Unless Russia and the USA worked up a diplomatic agreement whereby the USA guaranteed Russian possession of Alaska, say, or established a joint protectorate which in practice left mostly Russian boots on the ground to begin with...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Unless Russia and the USA worked up a diplomatic agreement whereby the USA guaranteed Russian possession of Alaska, say, or established a joint protectorate which in practice left mostly Russian boots on the ground, to begin with...

In the 1860s, Britain wouldn't have been worried about troops on the ground. They'd have simply assumed a naval blockade would have starved troops out. An actual attack on Canada from Alaska by the Russian army would have been a military disaster for the invaders. They'd have had to march through vast empty wildernesses with no hope of supply. Napoleon's attack on Russia was more practical. The Russians would choose to avoid Napoleon's fate.


As for the second, British diplomats were highly focused and skilled, Britain, seeing America had internal distractions, would have waited for a good moment, say the Presidential Election of 1876 and simply taken Alaska and calmed down America afterwards.

[Astromancer]

The book Three Victories and a Defeat makes a strong case that Britain forced its defeat in the American Revolutionary War by kicking its entire diplomatic tradition to the curve to please marginalised groups that dominated the Tory party in the late 18th century. Putting aside that for the moment, let's transpose the mistakes of the 1760s and 70s into the 1860s and 70s. Launch Britain into a war with the USA with no reliable allies.

France would jump at the chance to get a British ally to support the CSA. Prussia would likely attack France, or more likely Bismark would get France and Austria to attack Prussia, which would get most of the smaller German states on Prussia's side. Italy and Spain would likely be neutral because of internal issues. Russia, which assumed it would soon be at war with Britain, attacks the Ottoman Empire and focuses on the Dardanelles and the Isthmus of Suez forcing the Brits to send troops and ships to protect Turkey.

With the sudden shock of the US naval ironclads taking out multiple British warships, Britain suddenly finds itself in a massive mess with no useful allies (France will need to fight for its life against Prussia and the CSA needed to fight for its own life) and no path to victory and stability.

The fight would bypass Australia, New Zealand, and Antartica, but anywhere else is likely.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Russia, which assumed it would soon be at war with Britain, attacks the Ottoman Empire and focuses on the Dardanelles and the Isthmus of Suez forcing the Brits to send troops and ships to protect Turkey.

How do the Russians attack Suez? They will have to secure the whole of the Turkish Straits before they can get significant forces there.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

How do the Russians attack Suez? They will have to secure the whole of the Turkish Straits before they can get significant forces there.

My thoughts ran together and jammed. A Russian conquest of Turkey was a long dreaded horror to the Victorian Foreign Office. The Great Game was about keeping Russia away from India. A Russian conquest of either Turkey or Iran would have placed India in peril from an enemy that could march to India and never worry about the British Navy. That would split off large numbers of British troops and ships.

[PTTG]

Divergences starting in the late 19th century lead to the USA broadly supporting Japanese "leadership" in East Asia. The Japanese Empire still formed as in our TL, but it never grew aggressive against the US.

Indeed, by the 1930s, the US saw Japan as an important ally in Asia (Cousin Hiro is sometimes seen shaking hands with Uncle Sam in posters, and even openly racist Americans see Japanese people as "the civilized ones," small comfort though that might be). Japan, for its part, considered the US a natural ally both bound and separated by the Pacific ocean.

World War II ends with Japan in control of large portions of the Chinese mainland. The US, free from serious entanglements in the east, brought almost all its strength to bear on the west.

As a result, the war was somewhat shorter. On the one hand, the Allies met the Soviets east of Berlin. On the other, the USSR was not so severely depleted by the war, and the inland Maoist regions of China were well within the USSR's sphere.

It's now a cold war between the USSR and the allies, and the communists have much less to lose.

[Astromancer]

This is a Homeline/Cabal fight.

This Q4 world Raygun-7 diverges in the early 19th century with serious discoveries involving the Luminiferous Aether. By 1889 the European colonial empires extended to the inner planets. By the 1920 fusion generation of electric power was the norm. The local year is 1939, and the world looks like Homeline's World Fair. This TL7+2^ is very much Raygun Gothic which is why it got the Raygun designation.

But as much as this world looks like an Asimov, Clarke, van Vogt, myth parallel, Bradbury, Le Guin and Lovecraft are in the mix. This world is normal manna with small areas of high manna. These areas are normally created by sacred architecture or similar means, but some are natural. The rapidly oncoming world war, cold wars, and anti-colonial wars are exacerbated by cultural misunderstandings and racial delusions on all sides.

The Cabal sees opportunities in this world. They've been hidden in the shadows on this world for a long time. The Occult underground is active on this world. The fay still visit this world, though they often disguise themselves as Traveling Circuses or Carnivals. Or they just hide out in the demimonde with the witches ( or this group). The fay of this world freely use super technology sometimes based on alchemy and at others on Weird Science.

The Cabal sees a chance to recruit elder beings with ancient and powerful secrets. Homeline, fearful of "Gods" that would be as able to travel the worlds as easily as they do or far better. They've also heard rumours of the Cabal gaining the ability to control the manna levels of parallels.

This bright shiny world of tomorrow is going to be the location of a brutal shadow war.