HOME | DD

Description
Back to Dixie, because I need to finish it. Here's Dixie-5. The source material tells us that this diverged with Early's Raid, led to British involvement in the Civil War on the Confederacy's behalf (after emancipation, oddly enough), has transformed the CSA into an impoverished British puppet and the United States into a "fanatical garrison state" between British Canada and the CSA. The Soviet Union (which I renamed to make it clear that this isn't the same as ours) also exists, and is aligned with the Union. This one brings up interesting possibilities. I think it's clear that the British are still the top dogs, and the primary Cold War opposition to the Soviets. They likely forced emancipation on the Confederacy as a condition for intervention, and later extorted more from the Confederates, leading to them becoming a puppet. Perhaps the British, not trusting the Confederates to handle their black population, supported a variant of the Liberia plan and settled freed American slaves in West Africa? This alt-Liberia would certainly be interesting, and that's what I've chosen to do here: Liberia is an independent British ally that is made up primarily of freed Confederate slaves...who promptly enslaved the locals using what they learned from the Confederates, before having this banned by the British in the 1920s.

As for the Union, I decided not to make them communist just because they're aligned with the Soviets. I see this relationship being one of convenience, but I can imagine the Union being leftier than the OTL United States as a way of distinguishing itself from the British. It's still highly nationalistic and "anti-imperialist," which just means it hates the British and their allies. The same can be said for the Chinese, which had a more effective Boxer Rebellion and managed to create a strongly anti-Western republic, and the Union of India, which is the product of a major Indian revolt that placed an initially pro-British government that later turned anti-British thanks to radial nationalists being voted in during the first elections. That was a major blow to British foreign relations and has informed their later colonial policy, which is crackdowns. The Soviets themselves are under a "National Bolshevik" ideology, which is basically the lovechild of Nazism and Stalinism. Nice folks, the Soviets.

What of the rest of the world? I'm going to diverge from my usual style and go out on a limb here: there have been no world wars, and the closest we get are some regional war in the Balkans and foreign intervention during the Russian Civil War. This explains continued British dominance to an extent: it never had to spend the blood and treasure ours did. Much of Europe is relatively stable, with France and the German Empire in Britain's camp. Austria may have collapsed, but I can see a coalition of European powers putting that Humpty Dumpty back together again (to a degree). I've gone for a weird mix of pre-WWI, pre-WWII and Cold War themes, with the world firmly divided between communism and capitalism, but with the capitalist side being the great powers of Europe, not the United States. This matches the tech description, which evidently has the Entente sphere flying around in jet aircraft, while the Soviets are stuck in the Edwardian era. The United States, however, is highly advanced, with smartguns, blinding lasers, and unmanned combat vehicles. Perhaps some of these technological wonders are being exported to the Soviets and keep the balance of power in check. I suspect both sides have nukes.

Description
Back to Dixie, because I need to finish it. Here's Dixie-5. The source material tells us that this diverged with Early's Raid, led to British involvement in the Civil War on the Confederacy's behalf (after emancipation, oddly enough), has transformed the CSA into an impoverished British puppet and the United States into a "fanatical garrison state" between British Canada and the CSA. The Soviet Union (which I renamed to make it clear that this isn't the same as ours) also exists, and is aligned with the Union. This one brings up interesting possibilities. I think it's clear that the British are still the top dogs, and the primary Cold War opposition to the Soviets. They likely forced emancipation on the Confederacy as a condition for intervention, and later extorted more from the Confederates, leading to them becoming a puppet. Perhaps the British, not trusting the Confederates to handle their black population, supported a variant of the Liberia plan and settled freed American slaves in West Africa? This alt-Liberia would certainly be interesting, and that's what I've chosen to do here: Liberia is an independent British ally that is made up primarily of freed Confederate slaves...who promptly enslaved the locals using what they learned from the Confederates, before having this banned by the British in the 1920s.

As for the Union, I decided not to make them communist just because they're aligned with the Soviets. I see this relationship being one of convenience, but I can imagine the Union being leftier than the OTL United States as a way of distinguishing itself from the British. It's still highly nationalistic and "anti-imperialist," which just means it hates the British and their allies. The same can be said for the Chinese, which had a more effective Boxer Rebellion and managed to create a strongly anti-Western republic, and the Union of India, which is the product of a major Indian revolt that placed an initially pro-British government that later turned anti-British thanks to radial nationalists being voted in during the first elections. That was a major blow to British foreign relations and has informed their later colonial policy, which is crackdowns. The Soviets themselves are under a "National Bolshevik" ideology, which is basically the lovechild of Nazism and Stalinism. Nice folks, the Soviets.

What of the rest of the world? I'm going to diverge from my usual style and go out on a limb here: there have been no world wars, and the closest we get are some regional war in the Balkans and foreign intervention during the Russian Civil War. This explains continued British dominance to an extent: it never had to spend the blood and treasure ours did. Much of Europe is relatively stable, with France and the German Empire in Britain's camp. Austria may have collapsed, but I can see a coalition of European powers putting that Humpty Dumpty back together again (to a degree). I've gone for a weird mix of pre-WWI, pre-WWII and Cold War themes, with the world firmly divided between communism and capitalism, but with the capitalist side being the great powers of Europe, not the United States. This matches the tech description, which evidently has the Entente sphere flying around in jet aircraft, while the Soviets are stuck in the Edwardian era. The United States, however, is highly advanced, with smartguns, blinding lasers, and unmanned combat vehicles. Perhaps some of these technological wonders are being exported to the Soviets and keep the balance of power in check. I suspect both sides have nukes.