HOME | DD

Published: 2016-12-08 22:29:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 15034; Favourites: 95; Downloads: 179
Redirect to original
Description
Another history repeats and Second American Civil War, this time with the Second American Civil War playing out just like the first, and the West playing the role of the South and Trump playing the role of Lincoln. Enough of the pieces are there: controversial Republican president wins the election in a divided nation, partially due to division in the Democratic Party, immediately followed by calls of secession by his political opponents. An unfair historical comparison that overly simplifies things to fit a pre-determined narrative? Hasn't stopped anybody else this election cycle. As always, this isn't meant to be taken seriously. I will also be ignoring all attempts to figure out who the historical analogues are here, because it's really fucking obvious.The history here is pretty simple. In December of 2016, California secedes from the Union , their claim backed by the idea that Hillary won the popular vote and thus "actually won" the election, and allegations of voter rigging in the Rust Belt states. Having no sense of irony, history or military realism, other states that voted for Clinton on the West Coast (and Hawaii) also secede, and form the Pacific States of America. They try to get Clinton to be president of the PSA, until someone points out that Clinton is from the East Coast and thus cannot represent the PSA; Clinton herself remains silent on the secessionist crisis, but she does refuse to take the presidency "from the hands of rebels." War begins in 2017, after PSA forces storm federal installations in California; they quickly follow up by invading Idaho, Utah and Arizona, and successfully placing PSA governments in charge there. A surprising amount of US military defect to the PSA's side, momentarily crippling American capability to strike back, and general surprise at the hostilities prevents decisive offensives. Trump makes a call to arms, increasing the size of the loyalist military, as the initial battles of the war go for the PSA. The PSA tries to get recognition internationally, but aside from some friendly gestures from Canada and Mexico, the international community largely ignores the PSA. The PSA's offensive eastward is finally destroyed by the forces of General Mattis in western Texas, and a steady offensive by superior American forces drives the PSA into the Pacific. The State of Jefferson secedes from the PSA; already a hotbed of Union support, the crumbling of the Pacifican Army leads to their rebellion. A particularly brutal "march to the sea" ends in the Siege of Los Angeles. The PSA finally surrenders in 2021. Trump's victory is short-lived; he is assassinated by actor Robert DeNiro shortly after the war.
The Second American Civil War destroyed America's position as world superpower, but crises around the world meant that nobody really took her place. China and Russia were incapable of projecting their power; Russian assistance for the Union proved more the lack of Russia's capability to project power far from her borders, and the Chinese economy took a hit after its biggest trading partner decided to fight a civil war. Brexit goes through, followed by Italy leaving in 2018, and the entire Visegrad Pact leaving in 2022. France left in 2027, which ironically allowed Germany so much power that they succeeded in uniting what remained of the EU into the European Federation. The Visegrad Pact formed the Visegrad Union, eventually becoming a federation themselves. With the Americans out of the picture, the EF formed strategic alliances with Russia and the Visegrads, challenging a growing India, France and UK. The UK, with their American allies, began to form the Anglosphere Alliance, increasing ties between these former British colonies and the young West African Union. Japanese power grows in the East, with the nation remilitarizing and defeating China and Russia in proxy wars. Turkey becomes a regional power, taking in much of America's former sphere of influence in the Middle East, and defeating Islamism with their own brand of secular autocracy.
By 2070, the world teeters at the brink of war. The CCP fell in the Revolution of 2067, and the new Chinese Federation is an impoverished, chaotic mess that will likely break down at any time. Western powers have encroached on China, as have the Japanese. The Alliance for Freedom and Democracy is a bit of a misnomer; while the Americans, British, Canadians, Japanese and French are definitely democratic, the Russians are not, having slipped back into a de facto Tsarist system. The AFD has the definite advantage in materiel and technology; indeed, the EF worries about the resurgent Russian population, and theorizes that there will come a time when Russian technology outstrips that of the EF, and would handily defeat it in a war. The AFD is a ramshackle thing; while Russia, America, France and Britain got along great during the early 21st century, rivalries over Central Asia and Africa have pushed Russia, France and Britain away from one another. It is only the resurgent threat of the EF that has drawn them back together. The Anglosphere Alliance is more or less an Anglo-American colonial venture; while India's economy is massive, its leaders are still at the beck and call of American banks. The same can be said of the South Africans and the West Africans, whose rapid ascent during the 2030s and 2040s has largely petered out.
The European Federation is a de facto German empire, the national parliaments weak in the face of the European Commission and the European military. Enjoying the second largest economy on Earth, thanks to its state-of-the-art automation[1], the EF is no slouch. The European Space Force is second only to the United States Space Force, and they have the largest army in Europe apart from that of Russia. The Visegrad Union is starting to fall apart, particularly as the Hungarians demand more power from the Poles. Unlike their German allies, the Visegrads are rather backwards, and will likely be more of a liability than an asset in the war. The Turkish sphere of influence, too, is crumbling, and is being encroached upon by Russia. The Turks are the sick man of Europe, and while they were supported by NATO during the Crimean Crisis, now they have only EF investment to rely on.
Nuclear weapons no longer guarantee world peace, as orbital and ground-based lasers have made the weapons obsolete, and nothing has come to replace them. And with the assassination of the Visegrad Union's ambassador to Serbia, the time may have come for another world war.
[1] While the EF was behind on automation for the early 21st century, protectionist policies in the now-AFD states prevented widespread automation from being adopted. The EF embraced automation, in response to their aging population. So have the Japanese, but that's something else entirely.
Related content
Comments: 87
mulligas [2020-12-26 21:54:57 +0000 UTC]
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
zm17jaga [2020-10-17 18:06:16 +0000 UTC]
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
metalheadjohn [2017-08-08 20:13:19 +0000 UTC]
I'd like to point out an error. You say that: "while Russia, America, France and Britain got along great during the early 20th century" I think you meant the 21st Century. Am I correct?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Legionaire1776 [2017-06-09 22:05:23 +0000 UTC]
Always wanted to see the west coast burned to the ground.
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
DragonLord221 [2017-02-17 20:31:06 +0000 UTC]
Dose anyone else find Ironic the Russian Federation is on a side called "The Alliance of Freedom and Democracy?"
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
RvBOMally In reply to qwertz89 [2017-01-29 14:35:04 +0000 UTC]
Then the East makes an alternative.
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
metalheadjohn [2017-01-25 19:44:41 +0000 UTC]
1. Does this mean that Trump's ghost now haunt the White House?
2. Did Hawaii see any real action during the war? if not, then what went on in Hawaii?
3. is it just me, or are most of the countries analogous to themselves here?
4. So if the Korean-Japanese war is analogous to the Russo-Japanese Conflict, then does this mean that the entire DPRK navy was sent to the bottom of the sea in a decisive battle?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to metalheadjohn [2017-01-31 02:39:40 +0000 UTC]
1. No, because ghosts don't exist.
2. No. Most of the Pacific Fleet was loyal to Trump, and sailed east to besiege California. They returned to take Hawaii's surrender, after the PSA government already surrendered.
3. Yes.
4. It was sent to the bottom of the sea because the DPRK Navy is shit.
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
metalheadjohn In reply to RvBOMally [2017-01-31 22:04:40 +0000 UTC]
1. So is there a Trump Monument in D.C after reuniting the States?
2. Does the PSA have a system that discriminates against White Males rather than Minorities?
3. Did the PSA have any plans to expand like the CSA did? If so, then where would it have expanded?
4. What were the Rough Riders of the Cuban American War like?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
qwertz89 [2017-01-21 03:16:59 +0000 UTC]
Typo. "Unite States" in the EF paragraph around the European Space Force
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
qwertz89 [2017-01-17 18:20:00 +0000 UTC]
What's that state in Northern California supposed to represent?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
KnightofLiberty [2017-01-02 15:34:52 +0000 UTC]
Jefferson: West Virginia?
Was the Pacific States a single party state?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
howaboutthathumanity [2016-12-19 17:31:27 +0000 UTC]
What would the future John Brown be fighting against instead of slavery? What would be a good stand-in for the slave trade?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Beastboss [2016-12-13 09:16:20 +0000 UTC]
An interesting thought, what if you or someone were to make an Ad Astra Per Aspera mirror timeline based off of this considering that AAPA's point of divergence(if I'm correct) was shortly after the Civil War with the Rad-Rep having much greater sway in long term American politics/history(Not to say they didn't given their otl accomplishments)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to Beastboss [2016-12-13 18:28:08 +0000 UTC]
If you want to make it, be my guest.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Beastboss In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-14 22:31:34 +0000 UTC]
Something I'll consider trying, although I'll have a field day trying to figure out a Communist analogue. Was considering Feminism but then I realized that would be A. Impractical and B. Wouldn't work in this mirror verse with the Alt-Right essentially in the way of being the Rad-Republicans and Abolitionists.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Scrapknight-507 [2016-12-11 11:49:17 +0000 UTC]
...I kinda wanna do a "TL-191" of this. Would you mind? I wanted to try my hand at a scenario of my own and this seems like a fun one.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to Scrapknight-507 [2016-12-11 19:46:40 +0000 UTC]
Not at all! I'd love it if people took my work off my hands. I may do a "*Entente win" on your TL-191. Yeah, an alternate timeline of an alternate timeline of an alternate timeline based on another alternate timeline.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Scrapknight-507 In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-12 09:37:34 +0000 UTC]
*inception horns*
I'm out of the country for a bit, so I'd expect it around New Year's. Thanks man!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
howaboutthathumanity In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-11 20:51:44 +0000 UTC]
So the *Entente would be the PSA, EU, and Turkey, while the *Central Powers would be the US, Russia, and Canada?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to howaboutthathumanity [2016-12-11 20:57:48 +0000 UTC]
Canada would be aligned with the PSA.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
howaboutthathumanity [2016-12-11 05:25:22 +0000 UTC]
Alright, I have a few ideas for a West Coast KKK.
1. Radical Feminists: Think a violent Laci Green.
2. Secessionists: Would want to reform the PSA.
3. Anti-Theist: Sees religion (or at least Abrahamics) as socially regressive.
4. Segregationist: "Safe Spaces." I needn't say more.
5. Ideologically Bigoted: Hates Christians, conservatives, and anyone that doesn't agree.
Would this be accurate? Your thoughts?
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to howaboutthathumanity [2016-12-11 07:27:09 +0000 UTC]
Sounds about right.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
OneHellofaBird In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-11 21:48:30 +0000 UTC]
interestingly the Klan itself was heavily into anti-Catholicism, believing fake rape accusations, and murdering males for wolf-whistling (even if under the rubric of "defending a woman's honnah")
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to OneHellofaBird [2016-12-11 21:59:40 +0000 UTC]
The horseshoe effect strikes again.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
OneHellofaBird In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-11 22:24:43 +0000 UTC]
as a historian it seems to me more a strident unawareness that the binary Dem/Pub or lib/con divisions of today didn't apply in the past--they just assume that there always two political sides that have been the same since 5000 BC--one forward and one backward, one good and one bad
but I know that in a decade or two the 1988-2016 political system will seem as remote and alien as the White Feather movement or Boulangism or Islamocommunism
and after all, it was the centrist candidate who used the most SJW tactics in the primary (the Capehart saga comes to mind, and the opposition to voter registration "'cuz they're blue-collar whites!") and then the general (they couldn't understand that safe-spacing your opponents simply doesn't work against 4channers)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to OneHellofaBird [2016-12-12 01:35:46 +0000 UTC]
The funniest thing about the "Obama is a Muslim communist" stuff from his first term isn't that it's obviously untrue, but that neither the American left nor right seemed to realize it was actually a thing.
I do think there is a major paradigm shift in Western politics, where the "New Right" of Reagan and Thatcher are on the way out. Religious conservatism is out, populist nationalism is in. The left, in the meanwhile, has the choice of either going down the safe space/social justice route, or trying to ride the new populist, anti-establishment wave themselves.
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
OneHellofaBird In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-12 02:56:42 +0000 UTC]
downside: the rise of the Irreligious Right and the Democrats partying with Wolfowitz and Negroponte completely unironically and unselfconsciously
Jack Chick and the r/atheists already use literally the same sources (no, a bishops’ miter doesn’t come from Oannes’ fish mouth, you spuds) and the same attacks on historians; this is because they both unwittingly come from the same Papist-baiting intellectual tendency; the paranoid New Atheists (themselves already on their way out, their fMRI-based moral systems already quaint) seem to think that the GOP/Gaullists/GWB/Sarkozy are, if anything, too soft on the beurs in Europe or the Mideast
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Zomg420 In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-10 09:27:54 +0000 UTC]
And National Bolsheviks are the communist stand-ins to revolt after WW1.8?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
PinkJenkin [2016-12-09 15:24:21 +0000 UTC]
Abraham Lincoln: Donald Trump
Hannibal Hamlin: Mike Pence
Andrew Johnson: Steve Bannon
Ulysses S. Grant: James Mattis
Rutherford B. Hayes: The Dilbert guy
James A. Garfield: Tila Tequila
There is no Chester A. Arthur because Tila Tequila can't be harmed by material weapons.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to PinkJenkin [2016-12-09 15:45:36 +0000 UTC]
I was thinking that Johnson would be a Democrat from Colorado, as part of a compromise/unity ticket.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
OneHellofaBird In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-09 22:55:31 +0000 UTC]
one of the many many Udalls--they're like xeroxes, they get weaker and weaker as the generations pass
and Tila Tequila CAN be harmed by material weapons if they're +3 and Blessed
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ninuden In reply to OneHellofaBird [2016-12-11 00:41:30 +0000 UTC]
Dang, mine are only masterwork cold iron.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Jeckl [2016-12-09 11:51:39 +0000 UTC]
Very interesting and funny map.
I must admit I love the idea of Trump being thought of as 'Best President ever'
Did you pick DeNiro because of his roll in taxi driver?
Also it looks like Hong Kong and Macau are independent and under Japanese influence, did this happen during the Chinese revolution?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to Jeckl [2016-12-09 22:42:29 +0000 UTC]
I actually picked De Niro because he threatened to punch Trump in the face.
Hong Kong and Macau fell under Japanese influence after the revolution.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Jeckl In reply to RvBOMally [2016-12-10 07:07:51 +0000 UTC]
Oh yeah he did to didn't he.
ok, nice work on the world.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
BobMumby [2016-12-09 09:31:13 +0000 UTC]
I like the East African Federation.
Looking forward to what ever this world's equivalent of von Lettow-Vorbeck is. [AN EF AUTONOMOUS AI GONE ROGUE]
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to BobMumby [2016-12-09 22:42:51 +0000 UTC]
Now that sounds like a great idea.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
MetalSlimeHunt [2016-12-09 09:09:09 +0000 UTC]
Oh god, just DeNiro makes this. Between Trump, Ahnold, and Kanye West, we're eventually going to have some sort of celebrity-pulp setting crop up. Hopefully just in althist instead of here in meatspace...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to MetalSlimeHunt [2016-12-09 22:43:04 +0000 UTC]
If there's anything the current year has taught us, it's that truth is stranger than fiction.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Beastboss [2016-12-09 09:07:59 +0000 UTC]
So what are the hot issues that the PSA believes it's fighting to preserve? Abortion, Gay Marriage, Sanctuary Cities?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
RvBOMally In reply to Beastboss [2016-12-09 14:40:21 +0000 UTC]
All of those, but the PSA's primary two causes are the belief that Trump did not legitimately win the election, and that he's Literally Hitler.
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
| Next =>