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Old 12-03-2016, 01:14 AM   #19
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Default Re: Alternate Crosstime Organizations

The Peoples' Cosmic Frontiersmen
Lenin-2

The American Communist Party came to power in the decades following the civil war. It attracted the intellectual elite and the industrial workers of the North, and the disenfranchised poor of the south. The Republicans and Democrats were too badly divided by the postwar hostility to form a coalition to overcome the ACP. The first communist president was marginally elected in 1892; it was the writing on the wall that forced the older parties to formally merge into the Republican-Democrat ticket, which moderated the Communists and prevented radical wealth redistribution.

Roosevelt was the second Communist President, elected in 1900 with a clear mandate to break the trusts and ensure socialism. His tenure characterized Communism as an American phenomenon, and the compromises he made with the Republican-Democrats ultimately produced a kind of communist/capitalist compromise that would continue to develop throughout the new century.

The European War was a bloody stalemate as in OTL, and the USA helped assure victory only late in the war. The war was presented as a way to prove the might of Communism and save the heart of civilization from itself. The USA interveined, too, in the Russian Civil War, providing guns (and political inspiration) to communist forces.

Stalin is butterflied away, and the USSR inherits much of the ACP's fairly enlightened communism.

The dust bowl is seen as a severe blow to the stability of ACP (it's actually less severe than OTL, but the philosophy of the time sees the situation as the responsibility of the government), and the global depression forces a reconsolidation of power in the world.

The forces that lead to the creation of Nazism in OTL are still present, and though it is a different man, Germany still falls under the sway of a demogogue. The war is different; the USA and USSR are closely associated from the start, although not allied into Comintern until partway through the war. The German leader generally doesn't interfere with his generals much, but takes an active interest in espionage (unlike in OTL, Germany has a moderately successful spy network,) and avoids pie-in-the-sky research like rocketry and jet engines and focuses on proven tech. These Nazis make even more successful initial forays, and run their war with greater efficiency.

Japan focuses the entirety of its efforts on China, while negotiating with the USA and the USSR. Japan sees the writing on the wall and ceases support to the Axis when it becomes clear that Cominter and the Allies will prevail.

The reconstruction following the war rebuilds Europe as a Communist establishment. Great Britain retains its monarchy, but is considered something of a fossil for its capitalist leanings. The states of Europe are broadly the same, but Comintern uses the opportunity to reshape the civil structure into a vision for the future. The Europe that emerges consists of many of the same states, but the ACP/CPR model takes hold in the west/east respectively.

The war in China drags on and on. Though the USA supports Mao, they are exhausted from the war and ambivalent about his "communism." He gets most of his support from the USSR, who see him as a useful tool to prop up against the Japanese.

The Japanese Empire uses the first atomic bomb in 1948, on what was believed to be Mao's location, but he survives the attack. The attack brings the danger of atom bombs to the public mind. Comintern starts a crash program to develop a nuclear weapon of its own as a means to deter attack by Japan, and they ultimately succeed with a test blast in Alaska.

Around this time, an anti-facist movement in the USA included a number of witch-hunts and show trials, some of them turning up real fascists. They reach a peak in 1954 with the public trial of disgraced senator Joe Mcarthy, who makes an impassioned televised plea for the rule of law; he is widely credited with ending the witch-hunts.

The next decades are ones of tension and healing for the West, constantly funneling guns to the communist revolutionaries of China. Japan dares not start a nuclear war with Comintern (now consisting of most of Europe, parts of South America thanks to American adventures, parts of the mideast thanks to Soviet ones), and after thirty years of occupation, finally agrees to a join government of the mainland.

The economic system is not true communism as we would know it, but perhaps related to modern China's compromise. Rural areas are highly socialist; through most of the world, farmland is seen as a public resource. Small towns are run by village cooperatives. Major industrial concerns are larger cooperatives overseen by appointed officials, as are research institutions. The largest cities, however, are almost full capitalism. New York, London, Berlin, and Los Angeles are free cities, and are notoriously dens of vice, but also major engines of commerce.

The USSR, USA, and Europe are friendly rivals in every field, but spaceflight is entirely undeveloped; neither a cold war nor a nazi rocket program existed. The idea of traveling between planets is seen as wild fantasy. But starting in the 1990s, theories of a travel through time was seen as a more and more realistic possibility.

Europe's return to the world stage started with a Danish research institution visiting an uninhabited parallel. The discovery was announced far and wide, and it caused an electric shock in the power structure of Imperial Japan. The leadership of the Empire was brittle with age, as there was little opportunity for advancement besides going to China to get shot at by rebels until you qualified for a promotion.

Even as Comintern founded The People's Cosmic Frontiersmen to go out and explore the cosmos, the Japanese Empire began to crumble from within.
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