This is a spiffified version of a map by "Atom" on alternatehistory.com (link to original: [link] )

In this world, things first begin to diverge when the Qin fail to conquer southern China in the 1600s, and butterflies flap widely.

There still was a breakaway of British colonies in North America, but the Founding Fathers were a different bunch of goys and less successful in unifying the new nation. Britain stole a march in the NW and took Louisiana from France before the US could buy it from anyone. Two 19th century wars confirmed the situation.

Germany unified seriously Grossdeutsch from the start, and things got sticky early on. A revolution in Russia gave the Germans a chance they did not in our world, and a couple wars later on the Germans were masters of Europe, having administered the coup de grace to Russia with the aid of the modernizing and expansionist Jin (as the Manchu/Qin are known in this world). In an increasingly threatening world, the various British colonies of North America – California, Oregon, Louisiana, Canada – joined under the Canadian banner to create a new great power.

(The Jin, in the end only holding onto a sliver of north China and facing greatly numerically superior enemies, imported foreign experts and improved greatly their gunpowder skills. They also managed to absorb Korea, the Koreans to some extent becoming the tail that wagged the Manchu dog in time. They remained open to new ideas, especially military ones…)

Britain’s efforts to make the Empire strong enough to take on German Europe and Jin North Asia led to a rather disastrous miscalculation, the effort to force-draft industrialize the Colonies leading to a violent eruption of socialist revolution, and the establishment of the world’s first Communist (as defined in this TL by people with ideas similar, if rather different in detail, to Marx) state in India. Red Revolution swept the world, leading to the radicalization of the South Chinese rebels, and by nearly toppling German rule in Europe leading to a _different_ sort of radicalization of German politics.

2011 [1], and a year of changes. For several decades the world has seen a three-sided cold war between the democratic powers headed by Canada and Japan, the Communist/Socialist/sure we’ll join up for enough Rupees powers headed by India and South China, and the *fascist/authoritarian/shoot it if it looks lefty powers headed by Germany and the Jin Empire. Last year, the race to Mars ended in an Alliance for Democracy victory (technically, the Germans got there first, but the Alliance won the coveted “actually bring your astronauts back alive” prize): in May, the US government ended a decades-long cranky neutrality (this US never really forgave the UK for nipping its equivalent of “Manifest Destiny” in the bud) and agreed to put Alliance membership to a national vote: and now, as winter chills and the last of the harvests are gathered in, violence has exploded in India.

For a decade now India has hidden economic strains from the outside world: with a far higher ratio of people to resources than our USSR, it has been working the planned economy with rather less of a margin of error, and things are breaking down – have in fact reached the “shooting hungry rioters in the street” level of badness. Emergency rule has been established in eight states, and the Inner Council is in closed session. People across the world look at their viso-screens, and nervously wonder what will happen next.