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Description
A commission for a big ol' Spanish empire. Some inspiration from Silas-Coldwine, Chipmunken.

In this world, the Iberian peninsula was dynastically unified in the 15th century by the native Trastamara dynasty rather than the Habsburgs, allowing Spain to keep out of the worst of the central European Reformation-era drama. Also, this unification includes Portugal: while in our world Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were unified when the Portuguese royal line died out as a result of an ill-starred expedition to north Africa, this wasn’t until the end of the 16th century, when both Spain and Portugal were past their zenith. In this case, Portugal and Castile are able to mutual reinforce their efforts in Asia and the Americas from the start.

Of course, unified Iberia also includes Aragon, so they are still going to clash with France in Italy, and north African interests and the whole “barbary corsairs” thing means they are going to clash with the Ottomans. Still, they have fewer distractions, in part due to Protestantism doing worse than OTL. The Habsburgs still end up scooping the Burgundian inheritance, and no Spanish possessions means the dynasty centers in the Low Countries rather than Madrid or Vienna, and the advantages accruing from being a “native” dynasty and being on the spot means that the Habsburgs are able to get a handle on the Protestant movement from the start: although Calvinism is ultimately impossible to stamp out, the Low Countries remain Catholic majority. The whole Henry VIII marriage thing being butterflied, there is no British break with Rome or a need for any Armada-building.

Several other elements contribute to an ultimately stronger Spanish empire. Under different leadership, the Jews and Moriscos aren’t expelled, with considerable benefits for the economy (they aren’t treated _well_, it’s the early modern era, after all, but they don’t take half of Spain’s proto-capitalist economy, either), and the rationalist, humanist Salamanca school of thought is more influential. Although Spain doesn’t rule the Habsburg lands, it does benefit from a long-standing alliance with the Habsburgs against their mutual rival, France, with Britain aligning alternately with Spain or France as it may or may not benefit them.

Although having the advantage of a more strictly German focus, the Habsburgs still lack Spanish troops and New World silver [1], and are unable to prevent a Protestant takeover in the north, with France, opposed to the notion of anything like a Habsburg-unified HRE playing a spoiler role (if less energetically than OTL, being less threatened). They hold Austria, lose Bohemia, pick up the thin rind of non-Ottoman-occupied Hungary. Protestantism, less successful than OTL, takes on a more radical tinge, and Scandinavia unifies out of fear of a Catholic reconquista.

Spanish rule in the Americas becomes more “localized” than in our world, the total monopoly on government positions held by European-born nobles which became consolidated under the Bourbons being replaced by a policy allowing for more roles for local creoles, which while not without its problems (local interests did often clash with those of Iberia) did give local populations a stake in the imperial system lacking OTL. (The rather bizarre Bourbon policy of deliberately stoking local tensions to provoke resistance and therefore identifying who needed to be squished was also avoided.) Although having too many pots on the fire to entirely monopolize the Americas, the Iberians still managed to settle much of what OTL would be the united states, and was able to at least restrict (outside of Canada) what colonization there was to friendly powers such as the Habsburgs. (The Habsburg Low Countries as in our world became a colonizing power, although in alliance and complement to the Iberians instead of as competitors ). Portuguese south Africa became a real thing with the backing of Castile and Aragon.

France and Scandinavia (and occasionally the North Germans or the Ottomans) vs Spain, the Habsburgs, Poland-Lithuania. Perfidious Albion. The Spanish-French rivalry is sometimes low-level, sometimes vicious. France makes various efforts at colonization, loses its holdings to Spain, Britain, the Habsburgs. Milan changes hands many times, eventually ends up under the Habsburgs, until an opportunity arises to swap their Italian lands for Bavaria. Russia doesn’t do as well vs a stronger Scandinavia and with Peter the Great butterflied, doesn’t really break through as a new major power till the mid-1700s. There’s no partition of Poland, although they do lose a lot of their more solidly Eastern Orthodox eastern bits to Russia. There is (eventually) a partition of the Ottoman Empire.

Initially the union of Castile, Aragon and Portugal is a fairly loose one, with each state fairly autonomous under a common monarch, and the colonial expansion is more two loosely coordinated national efforts rather than a single concerted policy. Later, as the union grows tighter, this changes, reflected among other things in the free flow of Castilian and Aragonese settlers to originally Portuguese-dominated areas. In the south of what we call Brazil there is enough of a Portuguese “founder effect” for the common language to remain Portuguese, but elsewhere Castilian comes to predominate. This will eventually lead to the rise of *Brazilian nationalism, a couple revolts, and an eventual political compromise in which Santa Cruz remains under the Spanish imperial crown but otherwise becomes largely independent.

No one power dominates India after the Mughals go into terminal decline, with various bits ending up under Spanish and Habsburg rule, with British and French playing a lesser role, and various native powers surviving as client states or by playing off the European powers against each other. A stronger Iberian presence in East Asia, Portugal backed by Castilian and Aragonese resources, means that while China still refuses to go Catholic, European influence in the Ming court and a cautious policy of investing in gunpowder weapons on an almost Japanese level butterflies the total Manchu victory of OTL. Meanwhile, more solid backing for Catholic factions in the Japanese civil war leads to a division of Japan into a Catholic south and Buddhist/Shinto north. Both sides are convinced this is a merely temporary condition, but the division will get worse, not better, over time.

The Tudors line continued on the British throne, and were rather more successful than the Stuarts in keeping Parliament in line, stifling to some extent the British economic and scientific blooming of OTLs late 1600s through 1700s. This came to an end in the British revolution, only part of the Era of Revolution, which saw revolts in Habsburg north America, southern Germany, France (rather less successfully than OTL), Italy and parts of Spanish America. The British East Indies are taken over by the Habsburgs. Revolts in south America are put down at great expense and an era of extensive reform begins.

With a lot of luck and political dickering, the Spanish Empire in the Americas holds together long enough for railways, steamships and telegraphs to stitch things together economically.. A homesteading project of sorts in the less settled areas promoted agricultural development and created a new class of stakeholders, while a push for the right of indigenous and Mestizo populations (starting in the 18th century) while nearly losing New Spain and Corazon, also ultimately widened the basis of popular support for the Imperial system.

A new era of imperial expansion took place in Africa with the development of tropical medicine, Republican Britain and Spain taking the lion’s share. The French monarchy, in its final descent into a clerical-fascist mode, once more threatened to smash up the European balance of power, only to be defeated and occupied by British, Spanish, and Habsburg forces. The initial “divide it into new Iberian and Habsburg territories” idea didn’t work very well. After a couple more iterations, the “mostly unified under a weak puppet monarchy” bit worked well enough for a while. At least until it didn’t.

Russia, after getting off to a slow start, expanded mightily in Asia in the 19th century. With the breakdown of the Later Ming, it achieved an alarming level of dominance on that continent, and after victory disease set in and Iran was annexed outright in spite of warnings from Spain and Britain, a war was pretty much inevitable. The Great Eastern War of the 1920s trimmed Russia’s sails substantially and led to the collapse of the Czarist regime, but political stability and economic prosperity eluded Russia for decades, and in the end fell prey to a new form of authoritarian rule under a new “Neo-Platonist” regime.

While none of the bits of the Spanish Imperial Federation would count as a superpower by itself (although New Spain may attain that position in the next century), even with the fairly weak nature of the central “all empire” governing institutions they collectively are in a category of their own, Although somewhat challenged by the Russians, the wacky French ultra-nationalist irredentist regime (very much into total social mobilization and Breeding Prodigiously) and a *leftwing [2] movement arising in the non-white colonized bits of the world, the Spanish Empire and its allies currently dominate the globe, and if they can get the Chinese to stop playing coy and join the alliance system, have hopes maintaining that into the 21st century.

[1] Although an awful lot of silver still ends up in the hands of Low Country merchants, as OTL.
[2] Not named after the layout of a parliament in this world

Description
A commission for a big ol' Spanish empire. Some inspiration from Silas-Coldwine, Chipmunken.

In this world, the Iberian peninsula was dynastically unified in the 15th century by the native Trastamara dynasty rather than the Habsburgs, allowing Spain to keep out of the worst of the central European Reformation-era drama. Also, this unification includes Portugal: while in our world Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were unified when the Portuguese royal line died out as a result of an ill-starred expedition to north Africa, this wasn’t until the end of the 16th century, when both Spain and Portugal were past their zenith. In this case, Portugal and Castile are able to mutual reinforce their efforts in Asia and the Americas from the start.

Of course, unified Iberia also includes Aragon, so they are still going to clash with France in Italy, and north African interests and the whole “barbary corsairs” thing means they are going to clash with the Ottomans. Still, they have fewer distractions, in part due to Protestantism doing worse than OTL. The Habsburgs still end up scooping the Burgundian inheritance, and no Spanish possessions means the dynasty centers in the Low Countries rather than Madrid or Vienna, and the advantages accruing from being a “native” dynasty and being on the spot means that the Habsburgs are able to get a handle on the Protestant movement from the start: although Calvinism is ultimately impossible to stamp out, the Low Countries remain Catholic majority. The whole Henry VIII marriage thing being butterflied, there is no British break with Rome or a need for any Armada-building.

Several other elements contribute to an ultimately stronger Spanish empire. Under different leadership, the Jews and Moriscos aren’t expelled, with considerable benefits for the economy (they aren’t treated _well_, it’s the early modern era, after all, but they don’t take half of Spain’s proto-capitalist economy, either), and the rationalist, humanist Salamanca school of thought is more influential. Although Spain doesn’t rule the Habsburg lands, it does benefit from a long-standing alliance with the Habsburgs against their mutual rival, France, with Britain aligning alternately with Spain or France as it may or may not benefit them.

Although having the advantage of a more strictly German focus, the Habsburgs still lack Spanish troops and New World silver [1], and are unable to prevent a Protestant takeover in the north, with France, opposed to the notion of anything like a Habsburg-unified HRE playing a spoiler role (if less energetically than OTL, being less threatened). They hold Austria, lose Bohemia, pick up the thin rind of non-Ottoman-occupied Hungary. Protestantism, less successful than OTL, takes on a more radical tinge, and Scandinavia unifies out of fear of a Catholic reconquista.

Spanish rule in the Americas becomes more “localized” than in our world, the total monopoly on government positions held by European-born nobles which became consolidated under the Bourbons being replaced by a policy allowing for more roles for local creoles, which while not without its problems (local interests did often clash with those of Iberia) did give local populations a stake in the imperial system lacking OTL. (The rather bizarre Bourbon policy of deliberately stoking local tensions to provoke resistance and therefore identifying who needed to be squished was also avoided.) Although having too many pots on the fire to entirely monopolize the Americas, the Iberians still managed to settle much of what OTL would be the united states, and was able to at least restrict (outside of Canada) what colonization there was to friendly powers such as the Habsburgs. (The Habsburg Low Countries as in our world became a colonizing power, although in alliance and complement to the Iberians instead of as competitors ). Portuguese south Africa became a real thing with the backing of Castile and Aragon.

France and Scandinavia (and occasionally the North Germans or the Ottomans) vs Spain, the Habsburgs, Poland-Lithuania. Perfidious Albion. The Spanish-French rivalry is sometimes low-level, sometimes vicious. France makes various efforts at colonization, loses its holdings to Spain, Britain, the Habsburgs. Milan changes hands many times, eventually ends up under the Habsburgs, until an opportunity arises to swap their Italian lands for Bavaria. Russia doesn’t do as well vs a stronger Scandinavia and with Peter the Great butterflied, doesn’t really break through as a new major power till the mid-1700s. There’s no partition of Poland, although they do lose a lot of their more solidly Eastern Orthodox eastern bits to Russia. There is (eventually) a partition of the Ottoman Empire.

Initially the union of Castile, Aragon and Portugal is a fairly loose one, with each state fairly autonomous under a common monarch, and the colonial expansion is more two loosely coordinated national efforts rather than a single concerted policy. Later, as the union grows tighter, this changes, reflected among other things in the free flow of Castilian and Aragonese settlers to originally Portuguese-dominated areas. In the south of what we call Brazil there is enough of a Portuguese “founder effect” for the common language to remain Portuguese, but elsewhere Castilian comes to predominate. This will eventually lead to the rise of *Brazilian nationalism, a couple revolts, and an eventual political compromise in which Santa Cruz remains under the Spanish imperial crown but otherwise becomes largely independent.

No one power dominates India after the Mughals go into terminal decline, with various bits ending up under Spanish and Habsburg rule, with British and French playing a lesser role, and various native powers surviving as client states or by playing off the European powers against each other. A stronger Iberian presence in East Asia, Portugal backed by Castilian and Aragonese resources, means that while China still refuses to go Catholic, European influence in the Ming court and a cautious policy of investing in gunpowder weapons on an almost Japanese level butterflies the total Manchu victory of OTL. Meanwhile, more solid backing for Catholic factions in the Japanese civil war leads to a division of Japan into a Catholic south and Buddhist/Shinto north. Both sides are convinced this is a merely temporary condition, but the division will get worse, not better, over time.

The Tudors line continued on the British throne, and were rather more successful than the Stuarts in keeping Parliament in line, stifling to some extent the British economic and scientific blooming of OTLs late 1600s through 1700s. This came to an end in the British revolution, only part of the Era of Revolution, which saw revolts in Habsburg north America, southern Germany, France (rather less successfully than OTL), Italy and parts of Spanish America. The British East Indies are taken over by the Habsburgs. Revolts in south America are put down at great expense and an era of extensive reform begins.

With a lot of luck and political dickering, the Spanish Empire in the Americas holds together long enough for railways, steamships and telegraphs to stitch things together economically.. A homesteading project of sorts in the less settled areas promoted agricultural development and created a new class of stakeholders, while a push for the right of indigenous and Mestizo populations (starting in the 18th century) while nearly losing New Spain and Corazon, also ultimately widened the basis of popular support for the Imperial system.

A new era of imperial expansion took place in Africa with the development of tropical medicine, Republican Britain and Spain taking the lion’s share. The French monarchy, in its final descent into a clerical-fascist mode, once more threatened to smash up the European balance of power, only to be defeated and occupied by British, Spanish, and Habsburg forces. The initial “divide it into new Iberian and Habsburg territories” idea didn’t work very well. After a couple more iterations, the “mostly unified under a weak puppet monarchy” bit worked well enough for a while. At least until it didn’t.

Russia, after getting off to a slow start, expanded mightily in Asia in the 19th century. With the breakdown of the Later Ming, it achieved an alarming level of dominance on that continent, and after victory disease set in and Iran was annexed outright in spite of warnings from Spain and Britain, a war was pretty much inevitable. The Great Eastern War of the 1920s trimmed Russia’s sails substantially and led to the collapse of the Czarist regime, but political stability and economic prosperity eluded Russia for decades, and in the end fell prey to a new form of authoritarian rule under a new “Neo-Platonist” regime.

While none of the bits of the Spanish Imperial Federation would count as a superpower by itself (although New Spain may attain that position in the next century), even with the fairly weak nature of the central “all empire” governing institutions they collectively are in a category of their own, Although somewhat challenged by the Russians, the wacky French ultra-nationalist irredentist regime (very much into total social mobilization and Breeding Prodigiously) and a *leftwing [2] movement arising in the non-white colonized bits of the world, the Spanish Empire and its allies currently dominate the globe, and if they can get the Chinese to stop playing coy and join the alliance system, have hopes maintaining that into the 21st century.

[1] Although an awful lot of silver still ends up in the hands of Low Country merchants, as OTL.
[2] Not named after the layout of a parliament in this world