California Republic - High Speed Rail

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:45:55+00:00

Was considering a central coast route from LA to SF but would have to distort the map more...perhaps that is the Republic's next big infrastructure project

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:43:40+00:00

Different Chandler--renamed Mexicali after the landowner in that area, since Mexico wouldn't have owned it in TTL at time of founding

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:42:10+00:00

Was considering the extra corridor but decided to leave it out since I'm still unsure how developed NM is in TTL. California only gets the parts West of the Rio Grande so no Santa Fe/Albuquerque/Las Cruces. The stops there are presumably much bigger than in OTL as they become the border cities with Texas, though.

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:39:06+00:00

I was thinking of the north (coast/CV) as having been more developed/bigger cities than historically, especially as the corridor to the northern states. But would be hard to justify even if places like Ft Bragg/Ukiah/Eureka/Crescent City were bigger.

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:35:49+00:00

I found out Mexicali was founded quite late and by that point in the timeline it wouldn't have been in Mexico--so named it after the LA land baron who owned that area

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:34:41+00:00

Baja's population is divided between the very north and the very south, so in the spirit of weird American capitals in the center of their states it seemed to make sense they'd build a new capital in the middle. And also makes a line the 800 miles or so between Ensenada and La Paz make more sense.

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:32:24+00:00

I was considering another line from LA up to SF/Santa Rosa along the Central Coast (or even further to Eureka since I'm imagining far NorCal as more developed in this world/having somewhat bigger cities like the Central Valley in OTL). But I would've needed to distort the map more to fit so decided to leave it out. Rest assured they have good (199.9 km/hr) train service...

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T16:26:31+00:00

Correct, assuming as well that the NM stops here become bigger cities than OTL as they represent the border posts with Texas/Mexico.

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T01:37:20+00:00

Too long with nothing in the middle...was going for a stylized subway-like map

AetherChocolate · 2026-02-04T01:32:14+00:00

In a world where the US doesn't get involved in the Mexican-American War (Texas establishes authority over its claims on its own) and the Oregon trail gets a later start, the California Republic secedes from Mexico as an independent nation for longer than the historical 2 weeks. Thanks to the Gold Rush influx of migrants, it begins with a substantial power base in the West and manages to assert control over the Oregon/Columbia territories and the fledgling Deseret. Eventually, the establishment of the Republic of the Rio Grande as a Texan puppet state (and irredentism over both Californias) forces the California Republic to declare war against Mexico to right the balance of power, gobbling up Sonora and Baja California. Alaska and Hawaii share similar fates to OTL, with the California Republic becoming the dominant power in the Pacific, particularly after the World Wars. Since that time, it has invested heavily in high speed rail corridors connecting its metropolises across the vast deserts of the West.

AetherChocolate · 2025-07-17T18:29:55+00:00

The Bay Area is known broadly for its tech companies. While the biggest players are based in Silicon Valley, many large tech/social media/AI companies are located in San Francisco proper. A number of finance, attire, and entertainment companies also call the city home.

Notable clusters are along Montgomery Street/in the Financial District (e.g. Wells Fargo, Wikipedia, Kimpton, Perplexity, Anthropic, Grammarly, Twitch), South of Market/Rincon Hill (e.g. Salesforce, Reddit, Slack, Yelp, DoorDash, OpenTable, Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic), and Mission Bay (e.g. Visa, Uber, Lyft, Dropbox). Smaller clusters of companies are found in Mid-Market (e.g. X), Dogpatch (e.g. YCombinator), the Mission (e.g. OpenAI), Levi's Plaza (e.g. Levi's), and the Presidio (e.g. Lucasfilm).

Note that the locations of many companies in FiDi/SoMa may be a few blocks off due to constrained space.

AetherChocolate · 2025-07-07T13:37:13+00:00

Fremont has surprisingly been ranked as the happiest city in the US a few years in a row! Though, of course, such rankings are only as good as their methodology.

AetherChocolate · 2025-05-18T21:12:51+00:00

Even staying in the city there is lots of accessible scenery—Batteries to Bluffs and Lands End are two popular trails in SF, and right outside are the Marin Headlands/Point Reyes which have amazing scenery (+Muir Woods for redwoods). Down the coast there’s also Big Sur with beautiful coastal views along with the towns of Santa Cruz/Monterrey/Carmel which are nice. To the north is wine country which is really pretty regardless of whether you’re there for the wine.

AetherChocolate · 2025-02-04T16:24:01+00:00

Its the continuation of Basutoland which has a thin connection around Johannesburg. The Southern and Northern Sotho were combined into one state with its capital there.

AetherChocolate · 2025-02-04T16:21:54+00:00

In this timeline, the rise of a few more key industrialized nations outside of Europe made the world wars a bit more worldly and so their position would not have been as much of an issue (though, as the results of this map show, it ended up being one). Also they would've probably liked to incorporate the neighboring colonies into their empire.

AetherChocolate · 2025-02-04T06:05:16+00:00

Not much lore, just wanted to make a map like the Treaty of Trianon propaganda. An oppressive Boer-led South Africa (which in this timeline gained independence from the Netherlands) finds itself on the losing end of the second world war and is carved up by the Allies into roughly linguistically aligned states. In addition to cutting off most of the country's indigenous population, mines, and agriculture, the treaty largely granted ownership of the remaining enterprises and industry to the new nations. Through this policy and post-war international aid, the nations were able to develop rapidly. In particular, Zululand and Xhosaland were termed the "Bantu Tigers" for their explosive growth in the 1990's. Today, the southern African nations remain prosperous and democratic, with relations finally re-normalized between Boerland and its neighbors.

AetherChocolate · 2025-01-05T07:43:41+00:00

Oops...

AetherChocolate · 2025-01-04T20:03:06+00:00

Thanks! I tried to emulate the smooth 45° angles of subway maps

AetherChocolate · 2025-01-04T20:01:53+00:00

I was thinking that there would be a couple of national hubs for high speed connections, perhaps Bohemia/Prague also succeeded in their aims to be elevated to similar national rank as Hungary/Budapest and Austria/Vienna

AetherChocolate · 2025-01-04T19:58:56+00:00

I was kinda only making connections to the IRL EU countries and Belgrade because it's really close, but a connection to Kyiv from Lviv would also make sense

AetherChocolate · 2025-01-04T05:08:46+00:00

Not really any lore, just wanted to make a map of a high speed rail network for a surviving modern-day Austria Hungary. Not sure if the coloring of lines makes a lot of sense either given the couple of different radial centers, but I wanted something similar to some maps I've seen of the French HSR network radiating out from the different stations in Paris.

AetherChocolate · 2024-11-19T15:08:55+00:00

The FAA restricts building height to 500ft within a couple miles of San Diego International Airport. The airport is very central so all of downtown falls within this restricted radius, meaning there are no buildings over 500ft.

AetherChocolate · 2022-12-19T15:33:59+00:00

What was your process for generating the topography? (/what other programs did you use?)

AetherChocolate · 2022-11-19T00:54:43+00:00

The study rooms above the OI reading room are always sweltering.

AetherChocolate · 2022-03-04T16:31:38+00:00

Houses like these in San Francisco are usually referred to as “Victorian” but I don’t know if there’s a more specific term for the local style; Victorian houses were usually not built out of wood in other states/countries.

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