QuantumBranching on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranching/art/1732-Aftermath-333443804QuantumBranching

Deviation Actions

QuantumBranching's avatar

1732: Aftermath

Published:
12.9K Views

Description

Bigass map: this is one I did for Winston Smith over on alternatehistory.com, to illustrate his 1732: Aftermath thread, in which he tries looking ahead 100 years in Eric Flint's "circle of fire" series, in which a small US mining town ends up displaced in time and space to 30 years war Germany. The thread is here: [link]

A quote for flavor:

It has been one hundred years since the Ring of Fire. In that time, innumerable changes have swept the surface of the Earth. From the Ottoman conquest of Vienna in 1637 to the Louisianan Deceleration of Independence of 1701, from the death in 1674 of High King-King-Emperor Gustav Adolphus Magnus to the establishment of the Italian League in 1688, the world has been forever altered. That's not to mention the more radical states that have sprung up in the world, such as our neighbours in the Peoples Union of Poland and Lithuania. In our United States, we have such a diverse array of opinions, from monarchists to republicans, from secularism to antidisestablishmentarianism. Yet within the bounds of constitutional government and natural rights, such disparate views are held together. Yet these liberties are not universal, as the cruel dictatorship of the Spanish Empire shows.

We live in a world where republics swear allegiance to Emperors, where the search for natural resources conflicts with the desire to avoid wiping out native peoples across the world. We see the Kingdom of the Low Counties spreading out across the Cape of Africa and in New Holland, the English explore the Arctic north of America in search of furs, and Patagonia for riches in the cattle trade. And our own United States of Europe, spreading rapidly across the Oceanic continent and in parts of North America. Even the Kingdom of Scotland, under the leader of the House of Orange, is expanding into Africa, bringing with it Calvanism and the St Andrews Cross.

That is just the geopolitical situation which we must confront. Vast airships cross the skies, transporting hundreds of people in stately majesty to the far corners of the world. I mean, any worker in one of the factories of the Republic of Essen can take an airship base holiday to the Mughal Empire. Or, if said worker wishes to stay close to home, said worker can take a railroad trip through the Empire of the Czech's. In military terms, the recent launch of the SSIM Kristina Adolphus, the worlds first aircraft carrier shows us how various technologies have come together to aid our military. We see the march of technology every day, be it in the latest fluidic computer to the newest electric cars. We see it in the dams of the Rhur, or in the vast tidal-electrical facilities of the KLC.

This is the world we live in; the aftermath of the Ring of Fire, one hundred years ago. This is the world we must deal with.

Jonathan Stearns, speaking in Dresden, State of Saxony, United States of Europe, 1732.
Image size
4966x3038px 818.19 KB
© 2012 - 2024 QuantumBranching
Comments34
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
biohazard09's avatar

I wonder if anyone would bother taking Antarica, if atleast just to claim the land for themselves though given the fact that besdies maybe selling seal and penguin meat antaritica would only be best for an outpost for science and maybe a oil drilling or two