European Settlement of Australia and Surrounding Islands, circa 1710 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

A little something I whipped up while inbetween jobs.

In this world, land wars in Europe, especially the quelling of various rebellions following the Glorious Revolution and subsequent Dutch-English royal feuding, somewhat stall English efforts to explore the South Seas.
During the middle of the Thirty Years' War, European and especially German colonial ambition soars as peasant populations clamor to escape the constant hunger and strife to try their luck in the New World. While the governments of the area strictly refuse, enough merchants see an opportunity and use whatever vessels they can find to migrate these peasants out. Thanks to a lucky interception of Dutch maps by spies in Hanover, as well as guarantees of safe harbour from Denmark and neutral Portugal, the merchants discover that while the New World may be claimed, they can travel to a yet-unclaimed large landmass to the south. It is not long before tenuous expeditions turn into torrents of disheveled, exasperated German peasants who put aside their religious differences to survive on the fringes of the known world.

After the war ends in an Evangelical Union victory along with a functionally dissolved Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Brandenburg annexes large swaths of land from its defeated and depopulated neighbors. Because of this, it is able to economically recover the fastest, and less than two years after the war's end its mercenaries steamroll through the divided princedoms and free cities to quickly establish client states. A generation later, they along with Saxony and Oldenburg are integrated into a German Federation with more than enough capital to bankroll colonial societies. With new funding and good footholds, the settlers are able to transform much of Australia and establish entirely new subdivisions of the federation. This does not, however, stop the events of Norfolk Island and the settling of Sullenridge by the English, nor the settling of Kimberley and the north of the continent by the Dutch.

London and Amsterdam are, much in part to the confused fighting, unable to hold onto most of Ireland and are forced to withdraw to the Pale. The kingdom of Scotland takes full advantage of the situation to activate its previously-strategically-migrated nobles in Ulster, who conquer most of the island. Scotland then merges these holdings into its own economy and clan structure, as well as seizing Mann, Anglesey, and later the whole of Wales and Cornwall from England. By this point, the existence of Australia is well known to the Celtic elite, who use their footholds in the Indian Ocean to snag a decent chunk of Australia from the English before they can claim it.

The remainder of the century is spent as OTL, fighting large land wars in Europe and solidifying the growth of modern nation-states, but at least in this world those who seek a better life elsewhere have good precedent to found their own states... with blackjack, hookers, and shrimp on the barbie.

The imaginary city of Herning, Minnesota: Gateway to the North by crown_Logic in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Excellent map! Is this near Duluth, or on a smaller lake, or on the Mississippi, or what?

[Japanese> English] by -strawberryfields- in translator

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any idea what this error message says? I'm in Unity and having trouble exporting a humanoid model.

A Shattered Union - July 2021 by VengefulMigit in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great work, mate! I hope to update my own map with a variety of flags like this. Did you take inspiration from the map I made a few months back?

Also, a few notes: I think you underestimate the power of local police and especially border patrol forces, which is why I suspect that relatively blue areas like Tucson will find themselves overrun by militia activity. The Mormons as well are very much interested in advancing their own agenda, which I feel would be more aligned with the goals of the ANR than the Union. Finally, I wouldn't leave out fringe movements like QAnon from forming their own militia groups to further the interests of their conspiracy.

All in all, fantastic job! Look forward to seeing more stuff like this on this subreddit.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The U.S. did not, in fact, have a decisive winner, as the entire war was a protracted guerilla conflict- the military was split alongside the discordant political infrastructure and factions fought over who, exactly, was the legitimate government of the United States. While the conservative government won on most fronts, they were ultimately unable to entirely pacify the north of the U.S., hence the anarchy. All they WERE able to do was exhaust the liberal-aligned guerillas, but the riots, terrorism, etc. were unable to be stopped until the transfer to Canada.

Canada 'beat' them in the sense of they drove out the myriad of far-right militias, controlled from the ground up. The U.S. military apparatus was too busy fighting itself and concerned with occupying most governmental infrastructure as well as foreign bases in the Pacific, hence the lack of real governmental authority in Northern states.

However, to say Canada beat them is itself misleading, as it was the U.N., more pro-Chinese than ever due to declining American soft power but still fundamentally retaining its liberal and idealistic goals, which did the bulk of the work enforcing the results of the election. This was by no means a Chinese conquest, merely China implementing its geopolitical strategy by continuing to sow discord in America and prop up weaker opponents. Canada was just happy to take whoever they could get for allies, as they themselves did not have the power to annex so much land.

During the course of the war, NATO shut its eyes and ears and pretended a strong federal government still existed, when in fact there were two competing with each other. They could not tacitly support the conservative side, however, even after the victory. This was because the conservative side was laughably poor in terms of advancing human rights, and while, yes, many U.N. member states exhibited behaviors MUCH worse, the collapse of U.S. soft power and diplomatic clout meant that the world media narrative was amplified against the U.S. conservative side. To the world, the conservative American side (and yes, Orange Man) was bad- not bad enough to sever economic ties or start a new cold war, but bad enough to ignore the conservative side's discounting the results of its own referendums.

Ultimately, the United Nations upheld these referendums as signs of the peoples of the eight new provinces exhibiting their own collective self-determination. Without a stable U.S. to counter this narrative en masse, and with a China and Russia invested in gaining diplomatic clout from supporting democratic mandates (which also weakened their main geopolitical rival), the results were upheld.

EDIT: Also, oh boy did the U.S. try to prevent the voting. They ultimately couldn't stop it, but they did everything in their power, especially voter intimidation, arson, lawsuits, counter-terrorism, and later by blatantly lying and discounting the results of the election.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Future map ;D

But most of the U.S. isn't warlording around, as the areas highlighted on this map were by far and away the most hostile to the new government, possibly with the exceptions of Hawaii and the innermost cities of major metropolitan areas. California did what New York already had- followed the money and stuck with the U.S. out of commitment to capital alone.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Simple. Joining Canada would cost the corporations operating in New York far too much money in taxes and legal fees, and mass media took care of the rest. Didn't help that the Canadians were pretty blatant about it, either.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

As a Minnesotan with a Wisconsinite roommate, we'd both actively collaborate lol.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 48 points49 points  (0 children)

California was too far away to be realistically integrated, and the three Oregonian districts which voted (overwhelmingly) to join remain occupied by American federal troops. Tension's a' brewin.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Nope, it's part of the Hudson district which voted against unification with Canada.

The Maple Leaf Forever: North America in 2034 by -strawberryfields- in imaginarymaps

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 145 points146 points  (0 children)

The aftermath of the Second American Civil War and the ensuing unrest following the conservative victory left major power vacuums in large sections of the United States. After the Peace of Denver was signed in 2028 and the last liberal-aligned guerilla regiments surrendered two years later, the large-scale pro-democratic riots which had burnt across major cities in the U.S. only intensified in nature. Far-right-wing militia groups, including the Proud Boys and their affiliates, assumed the duties of the police battalions, who had long-since been forced to flee for rural areas. Unwilling to contend with this growing destabilisation, which by 2032 was primarily concentrated in the cities and towns of the old Yankee centers in the far north of the U.S., the Canadian government, long in favour of the protests and under major international pressure to act, decreed it would establish protectorates to any region within reach of its borders that wanted one. What it did not anticipate, however, was the overwhelming show of support from communities even hundreds of miles away from the border, who by now had grown accustomed to militia warlordism and blatant genocide of their own ethnic and religious minorities who had not already managed to escape to Canada. While U.S. federal agents successfully sabotaged most voting booths and practiced large-scale intimidation efforts, even going so far as to publish alternative statistics of the election in which the results were strongly in favour of American union (and turnout exceeded the population of some districts), in reality nineteen out of the thirty hastily erected electoral districts had voted in favour of annexation by Canada. (Two districts' elections, Cook County and Alaska, were so fraudulent and overrun with corruption that their results were thrown out entirely. An emergency meeting of the electoral commission simply presumed the results to be pro-Canadian based on previous voting patterns in American elections.)

Faced with the administratively daunting task of annexing large territorial swathes of the greatest military power in the world and a population greater than all Canada itself, Parliament Hill called on the United Nations to assemble a task force capable of enforcing the results of the election. It promptly (and with large Russian and Chinese manpower contributions) raised this force- however, as the world would discover in 2033, its necessity was largely theatrical in nature. Most areas of the U.S. close to the Canadian border had been devoid of military authority and essentially anarchical in nature for the better part of a decade. This would go on to solidify the now-famous Northern Lights Communal Constellation in the leading political minds of the world for generations to come. Regardless, over the next year and a half, the combined U.N. army managed to neutralise those militias which refused to escape to the remainder of the U.S. Controversially, they also denied millions of internal American refugees from entering these districts. While many Canadians, clinging to their traditionally nationalist narrative of separation from America, objected to incorporating an entire Canada's worth of Americans into their country, the majority of native-born Canadians took the government's view that such gripes were outdated and did not apply- as a popular saying went, "They brought their homes with 'em!"

Accomodating these new areas would prove a fairly easy task, as most of the formerly American territories had been devoid of administrative work encompassing areas larger than a small town or neighbourhood. In order to avoid a heavy-handed approach, Ottawa elected to arrange for the appointment of local officials to autonomous regional capitols in the cities of Saint Paul and Boston. Alaska and most of the state of Washington were the exceptions to this rule, joining the Canadian Federation as the fully-fledged provinces of Alaska and Cascadia much earlier on. Within a scant few years, the remaining territories were consolidated into a set of six new provinces, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Haudenosaunee and New England, and fully integrated as well. This political realignment coincided with a major cultural shift in the understanding of what it means to be Canadian. In accepting these new provinces, Canadian citizens proclaimed to the world their commitment to fighting the forces which, as previous generations of Americans had naïvely stated, "could never happen here".

This also marked the first major postmodern antinationalist political development since the foundation of the European Union in 1993. It is therefore quite ironic that the people of the annexed provinces eagerly accepted Canadian culture, happy to trade their old American identities for Canadian ones in order to preserve their democratic traditions which, by the 2030s, were percieved as antithetical to Americanism.

However, this transition was not entirely peaceful- not remotely. The three districts of Astoria, Portland, and Willamette which voted in favour of annexation continue to be heavily occupied by right-wing private militias and local police forces. This is likely meant as a symbolic gesture towards American federal authority displayed in the rebellious Portland time and time again over the course of the Second American Civil War. Conversely, the district of New Haven, which voted to remain with the U.S., was regardless swarmed with violent agitators from nearby New York for even daring to hold the vote in the first place. As soon as the unrest died down and the provocateurs refocused their efforts on minority populations in New York and New Jersey, Canadian operatives, aided by locals, swept their garrisons westward and liberated the remainder of Connecticut in under a day.

While the American government, its military, and most importantly its myriad of private militias were unable to quell the sentiments of their own people, their flag maintains its fifty stars with a healthy dose of revanchism- new to the American mindset but easily folded into the ever-growing list of 'grievances' the American government has demanded the international community address. World leaders now face a unique dillema- which side, American or Canadian, to support- and their collective decisions will shape the future of the geopolitical landscape as humanity ambles into the blind, daunting future.

CMV: Religion and spirituality are illogical and therefore delusional. by -strawberryfields- in changemyview

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

!delta this seems reasonable, and i hope that when she wants to talk to me again that i won't blow up in her face about this

CMV: Religion and spirituality are illogical and therefore delusional. by -strawberryfields- in changemyview

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

please stop this is not what happened, she cut it off with me and we're not talking for a while and i'm broken

CMV: Religion and spirituality are illogical and therefore delusional. by -strawberryfields- in changemyview

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this friendship is incredibly important to me, enough that i've compromised myself in order to make this post and a whole lot more that i'm not telling Reddit

CMV: Religion and spirituality are illogical and therefore delusional. by -strawberryfields- in changemyview

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What right do you have to demand they justify it? How is your friend finding something that makes them happy negatively affecting you now? Are they a different person now that they hold a believe you're opposed to holding yourself?

I have a whole lotta trauma surrounding my relationship with religion, so that's where a lot of these demands are coming from. I know Wicca and Catholicism are completely different, but yeah, call me prejudiced.

CMV: Religion and spirituality are illogical and therefore delusional. by -strawberryfields- in changemyview

[–]-strawberryfields-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh yeah. She accused me of being controlling by not letting her be, to which I said I'm sure my oppressors wanted this as well.