Rememberences of Map Contests Past

MoF Three! 90 years after Napoleon averted the Peninsular War by not succumbing to the temptation to crown one of his relatives - plus, wank three unlikely countries.

Communist Wizard:

First map???!!!
Well, anyways. So, Napoleon hunkers down in Europe and does not invade Russia. Spain is left alone, and Britain comes to the peace table. However, he dies in 1832, and his son takes over. He proves to be incompetent, and within 15 years has smashed French power. A revolt sparks, and the renewed Coalition pounces on France. France loses big time, and so the map of Europe is redrawn like this. Britain does not trust the Dutch after the East Indies Question, or for that matter the Prusso-Russian alliance. Thus, we have 'Austrasia' forming, and Bavaria in the south (the Hapsburgs were done away with back in the French days). Hungary becomes a Balkan power supported by the Prusso-Russian, and the Ottomans collapsed in Europe. However, their occupation of Serbia has driven them into the British camp.
The French are still under a Napoleon, and he doesn't like the British for Austrasia. Prussia wants Germany. And Russia wants to extend it's influence in Europe.
An alliance system has been set up, and Europe is headed for war.
WANKED: Belgium/Austrasia, Hungary, Bavaria.





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Rekjavik:

Europe, 1898. What you see here is a continent in a period known as the Lull, a short period of peace in the middle of the Second Revolutionary Wars.

After the dismemberment of Portugal by the Franco-Spanish forces, Napoleon set about consolidating the continent. In the year 1812, however, the Russian Empire lifted its embargo on British goods. Napoleon, in retaliation, launched a wide offensive, reaching for St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev (19th Century Barbarossa). However, the Russian forces did not give in. With the help of disease, famine and old Father Winter, the Russians ground the French Armies to a halt, beginning a long and bitter campaign to destroy the Napoleonic Empire. As the Russians began pushing the French out of Russia proper, many of the French puppets and allies changed sides, Prussia being the first. The combined Russo-German force annihilated the remnants French armies at the Battle of Warsaw, killing Napoleon in the process. His son, Napoleon II, can under the influence of a minor politician and general, Fabien Lascelles. Lascelles began a brutal campaign of fear on in the occupied territories, from Lisbon to Dresden his name was spoken with dread. He was most famous for a large scale expulsion of the German majority in the Rhineland and the former Netherlands, despite the fact that the Coalition forces were fast approaching. Yet his reign of terror did not last, in August 1813 the Spanish declared war of the French Empire, after a significant bribe from Britain. By autumn 1814 Lascelles had been captured by the advancing Russians and had been executed and publicly displayed in the streets of Paris as the Romanov Banner flew over the city.

After the end of the First Revolutionary Wars, as the period from 1789 to 1814 is referred to by modern historians, a Congress was held in Aachen, one of the few Rhineish cities not to be destroyed during the 'Rhineish Purges', as a reminder of the evils of Revolutionary thinking. The Congress of Aachen saw the dismemberment of France into several petty states, with several border territories being awarded to Britain and Spain. Denmark, one of the last allies of Lascelles' France, was divided between Hanover and Sweden, whilst the territories of the now defunct Dutch state were divided between Hanover, a remnant Dutch state of Holland and the new Empire of the Rhine. The two great surprises of the Congress were the recreation of Savoy, under the belief that a strong state in Italy was required to defend Italy against a possible French resurgence, and the building of a completely new state, the Empire of the Rhine. The Empire was built from the remains of the Rhineland, Netherlands, the former Austrian Netherlands and eastern France. The ethnic Germans were brought back to their native lands, in combination with the large scale expulsion of native French speakers by the vengeful German powers. The result was a militarily strong, largely ethnic German state to defend the north. Spain managed to gain a few territories from France, but its primary achievement was earning the right to maintain the situation in Portugal, which it made sure would not rise again, to the anger of the newly formed Kingdom of Brazil.

The powers that be maintained this delicate situation in Europe for immediate decades after the Congress of Aachen, crushing any 'Revolutionary' sentiments on the continent, a statement that continually seemed to transform into meaning any form of anti-government activities. Eventually the leaders and kings of the European nations became less concerned with the elimination of Revolutionary thought and more about helping their own people at home and unfortunate ethnic minorities, a rather hypocritical view in consideration of what they had previously overseen. Examples of these more philanthropic efforts were the independence of the Greek and Dacian states, as well as the protection of Georgian independence, which broke up after a long civil war. This period, known to history with the unfortunate title of the Interbellum, saw the unification of the minor German states into a united Germany, although lacking Prussia, Hanover or the Rhineland, the independence of Poland and fall of Papal power in Rome and the foundation of a benign Republic.

However, as the continent stopped using the memory of Lascelles to frighten their children, a second revolution was on its way. The ideal that all men are equal, the ideal of a state without the need for a government or royal house, the ideal of Communalism was born in the French state of Maine. This took root in particular in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the largely forgotten Finish population and, of most concern to the Great Powers, the Free City of Paris. In 1881 the Communalist Party gained the majority and Louis Blanqui became Mayor. He set about organising the Communalist parties of Europe into a secret organisation, the Council for Revolutionary Change and Betterment, or 'the Council' for short. He wished that the Council would be ready to enact the great Revolution at any moment’s notice, using the latest developments in telegraphs and semaphores to spread the signal to the farthest corners of the continent at a moment’s notice.

However, things took a turn for the worse with the assassination of Blanqui in 1895 by a lone assassin who claimed to be working for the conservative forces within Paris, primarily the members of the Dauphine Club. The Council, in the midst of rage at the loss of their leader, figure head and father, ordered the revolutionary signal to be sent across Europe. First to fall to the Second Revolution was the Republic of Maine, where Communalist paramilitaries seized the government house at Orleans, toppling the government and joining with Paris to become the new Revolutionary Republic of France. This terrified the monarchies of Europe, who were sprung into action, but too late to stop the revolution in their own nations. Some, like the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Athens, collapsed and a revolutionary government was formed to challenge the Kingdom of Italy for dominion over the peninsula. Some, like Austria and Britain, reached a compromise with the moderate wings of the revolutionary forces and were saved the bloodshed of Naples and Athens, but at the cost of refusing to join any attempts to counter the new French nation. And some, such as Prussians and the Rheinish, brutally crushed their own Communalist parties and executed all who even attempted to align with them. Finland broke away from the Russian Empire and, in defiance of all previous expectation within the Council and the Russian government, not only drove the Russians out of Finland but managed to invade Russia itself, occupying St. Petersburg with the help of Russian Communalists. The Second Revolutionary Wars had begun.

By 1898, a strange peace had settled over the continent. The French had occupied most of the minor states, but agreed to pull out of the majority of them to appease the members of The International, the alliance of counter-revolutionary forces, although the minor French states were no longer viable, after living under a united French rule for the first time in over 80 years. One quick thrust from the Conciliary French and the house of cards would fall, something Paris knew very well. In Italy the Neopolitan Armies had run out of steam just short of Follonica and agreed to a ceasefire with the combined Italian-Savoyard forces. A similar agreement had been reached in Russia, where the Counciliary Finns had managed to bring the Russian government to the peace tables after occupying Moscow after 3 months of heavy fighting. The Tsar and the Royal Family, having fled to Tsaritsyn for safety, agreed to an immediate ceasefire to, according to official sources, attend to the plight of the citizens and people of Russia. Only in Greece did fighting continue, but without any great power involvement. However, all parties knew that this peace was temporary. Both the Conciliary forces and the armies of the International were preparing for round two. Across the front lines in France, Russia and Italy, the fate of Europe was being decided.

To recap, the wanked nations are: Finland, Savoy and Westphalia (the Empire of the Rhine).

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Sapiento:

As the French didn't need to fight in Spain, they manage to crush the Russians and then force the UK to negotiate. The Poles become independent, Sweden is enlarged, the Baltic Republic founded. Napoleon I rules until 1832 and is succeeded by Napoleon II, who rules until 1846. When Napoleon II dies a civilwar breaks out between the republicans and the bonapartists. During this time the Germans unite and amalgamate with other countries to form the Confederate Central European Republic. The Hungarians take what is left of Austria. The French Civil War ends in 1849 with the defeat of the bonapartists. The Hungarians fight against the Ottoman Empire from 1867 - 69 and defeat the Turks. The peace treaty of Budapest creates the Balkan Confederation as Hungarian puppet.

Wanked countries are the CCER, the Empire of Great Hungary, the Federal Kingdom of Sweden and the earlier Republic of Poland.



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Legolas:

After Sapiento's masterpiece, I present my humble contribution:

When Napoleon was faced with a choice of invading Spain and installing a loyal puppet government or staying neutral, he invaded. What if he didn't?

In this world, Napoleon is less of a military leader and more a diplomat. He coerces Spain and Portugal into accepting his Continental blockade from a position of strength, but without firing a shot. Later he manages to keep good relations with Russia and slowly strengthens his hold on the whole continent. A peace with the UK is signed eventually, and the world settles into an uneasy peace.

Some highlights of the map include:

- An enlarged Switzerland. In the aftermath of Napoleonic wars, many Italian city-states wanted a peaceful environment for their economies to flourish. Switzerland was an obvious choice.
- Zapadoslavia. This means "western Slav land" and it was created after the Austrian Empire broke up in a tumultous civil war in the 1870s.
- Byzantium. When the Greeks rebelled against Ottoman rule, Napoleon supported them, since the Ottomans were never on good terms with France. This escalated into the War of the Seventh Coalition (1830-1836) and ended with French victory. Later, the war of the Ninth Coalition (1858-1861) sealed the Ottoman Empire's fate when they were forced to give up all their European holdings and some parts of Anatolia. After this war, the Empire suffered a radical Islamic revolution, after which it was reorganised into a theocracy ruled from Meccah, renamed to the Caliphate and became an isolationist country.
- Federation of Denmark, Norway and Karelia. After the War of the Eight Coalition (1840-1843), also known as the Russian civil war, France was victorious once again and rewarded her ally, Denmark-Norway, with extensive lands in former Russia Kola and Karelia. The local Finns did not like being ruled from a faraway Kopenhagen and demanded autonomy, which was granted in 1866 together with a Constitution of the country, which turned it into a Federation of three Kingdoms.
- Glands. Airships have been called many things, and it is uncertain where the nickname "gland" originated, but it stuck quite well.


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Yours Truly:

Ok, a world map (because I'm never happy in AH unless I have a picture of the globe. So often places like China, India or even Russia never get a _mention_ in a description of an alternate world).

It is a century since Napoleon, after a nasty bout of disease which quite rattled his system, decided to delegate more responsibility and concluded that overthrowing the Spanish monarchy might be taking too much onto his plate at one time. Although ultimately unable to maintain a hegemony over Europe, Napoleon managed to hold onto the core of his empire in the end.

Britain, faced with a continued "cold war" with France, took a turn towards the reactionary and militarized, with long-term unfortunate consequences...

A century later, the French-Austrian-Spanish axis dominates Europe. French Liberal Universalist Imperialism and it's Austrian equivalent don't get along well with either Russian Orthodox Absolutism or British Radical Imperialism (from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs, with the ratios being calculated in London with rather little onsite input), although they're OK with America's fairly conservative type of republicanism.

Latin America broke away from Spain more slowly and messily than OTL, but, with British and occasionally US help, it did so by the 1860's. There is a Bourbon on the throne of Peru, and he's theoretically subordinate to his cousin in Madrid, but this is not taken very seriously. The Empire of Brazil is a US ally, pissed at Spain due to it's continued rule over Portugal.

The US is similar to OTL, although borders are a bit different as a result of the British revolution. (California is the current residence of the British-monarchy-in-exile). There was a civil war as OTL, although somewhat later, and the Confederacy still got PWNed.

At present, international tensions are running high. Terrorists and spies from the British-backed Chinese Republic slip across the border into the rump Quing state supported by Russia. The North Germans (who broke away from Austrian-French dominance after a long struggle in the 40's and 50's) dream of a unified Germany able to kick French ass, and secretly deal with the Russians. America, in an era of labor troubles, looks suspiciously across the border to radicalist Mexico. The Portugese are revolting again in Spain, and an Anarchist (Kleinist-Mayerist) recently tried to assassinate the Emperor of France. As the British continue to try to shove modernization down the throats of those ungrateful new-caught, sullen peoples, and summer brings outbreaks of cholera and peasant unrest in south Russia, things slowly roll in the direction of Armaggeddon...

Peru, Montenegro [1], and Egypt - wanked. (As are France and Austria, but they're not unusual wanks).

[1] OK, it's not that much of a wank, but it's a pretty small place to start with.


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Tangerine:

Big map:

Wanked countries: Bosnia, Austria (relatively wanked) and Denmark/Scandinavia (also a relatively weak wank, but still)

EDIT: slightly altered version, hope it's okay to edit posts.

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I'm not going to post Jman's map (because it's not quite up to the level of the rest: here's the link https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=78697&stc=1&d=1251751120 ) but I must post his batshit insane scenario...

I'm not an expert on the Napoleonic wars, and I'm also not a virtuoso at making maps like some of you guys, which left me the third option: make a map so crazy someone will admire the sheer audacity and vote for it. :D

When Napoleon goes on his expedition to Egypt in (... consults Wikipedia... :eek: :p ) 1798, he becomes obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED, with Egyptian culture and history. The campaign fails as in OTL but when Bonaparte becomes Emperor he's still thinking about Egypt. On the pretext of cutting Britain off from India he launches a second, much stronger expedition, basically abandoning his OTL campaigns in Europe (including the invasion of Iberia and thus the Peninsular War) to focus on a Middle eastern strategy. It quickly becomes obvious to everyone at home how crazy he is when he names himself Sultan Bonaparte and converts to Islam. Even the anything-goes Revolutionary deists are disturbed by this.

Napoleon goes about building a cult of personality around himself, allying with the Ottoman Empire, and encouraging a mixture of Egyptian and French culture by encouraging his soldiers to take local wives and by inventing a new religion. This religion is a mixture between Sunni Islam, a near-worshipful obsession with the Pharonic and Ptolemaic eras verging on occasional veneration of Horus, Ra and pals, the aforementioned Napoleonic cult of personality, and a jumble of Revolutionary French religious ideas such as the Cult of Reason/the Supreme Being and Deism.

Needless to say, the government back in France is not too happy. When Napoleon fails to raise the army he said he'd send to fight the British in India, changes the capital from Paris to Alexandria and starts building statues of himself as the Sun God in French cities, there is a coup at home and Napoleon is deposed. This doesn't bother him in the slightest, as he still controls Egypt and is batshit insane. :D

Eventually Napoleonic Egypt does help the Tippu Sultan kick the Brits out of India, and establishes an empire in the Near East. When France gets its ass kicked by the nth Coalition, Egypt even re-invades and takes back the heartland including Paris. But the focus of the empire has shifted to Alexandria, a modern Franco-Egyptian metropolis and the heart of a very strange culture.

The three wanked nations are French Egypt (The Solar Empire of the Nile, Most Serene and Holy, Wisely Guided by etc etc. officially), the Ottoman Empire, and Spain, which never loses its grip on its colonies, hold onto some of them, parts amicably with others and fights violent wars with only a few. These three also get ally colors (lighter shades of the main color), otherwise the map is close enough to UCS to be self-explanatory.

This is 1897:
 
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I agree with you. The old maps, while most were lower in quality, they were higher in originality then the new ones. In fact, I was thinking of converting some of those old maps on the new basemap.

Well, you see, that would be counter-productive in every way possible. It is; using the 'new' basemap, which is already being used by pretty much everyone with access to paint, and it is also not creative since it is essentially just copying old maps.

This bears repeating. The reason the maps were original was because they were not just copy/paste jobs of the same old basemap/colour scheme. You have things completely backwards DrTron.

It is good to see all these old maps again, a good reminder to finish some of my projects!
 
Ok: sorry about the holiday delay - here's MOF 4!


The paranormaaaal! :eek:

Nymain1:

Hoping this fits the criteria as its the first map

Taken ideas from the Zombie Survival Guide, its a Victorian Zombie Attack!!!

Should be self explanitory

One of my favourite works of my own so far

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Jman:

A recruitment poster for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. In this TL there have always been people with precognitive powers, but in 1850 Allan Pinkerton started bringing them together into his agency. After foiling an assassination attempt against President Chase in 1861 the Agency became the President's bodyguard and the federal government's espionage wing. After bringing the War of Southern Rebellion to a swift end by early 1863 by foreseeing Confederate troop movements and aiding in the capture of Confederate President Breckenridge, the Agency was given broad powers to ensure the loyalty of the military-governed South. By the time this poster was published in 1871 they were also helping combat the twin unrests of the Confederate guerrilla insurgency and the Socialist-led labor union movement. The Pinkerton Agency has more members than the US Army at this point (though not every member is psychic), and is rightly feared by many Americans for its great power and influence in the government.


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Nugax:

A Discourse on the Etheric Sciences and the Beasts Thaumiformes by Arthur Bacon


...this realm of forces, known to the ancient Hebrews as Yesod, can best be thought of as a 'cats cradle' of strings, each connected with every other string, and each connected with a single particle of our material world. It is via these strings that the particles of the physical world, referred to as the Malkuth by the Hebrews and as 'Mal' in the argot of the more vulgar Etheric practitioners, can generation actions at a distance beyond the proximate banging of one lump of matter into another. The magnets lifting of a lump of iron, the inertia that means objects require energy to accelerate, or even the pull of the earth that holds each of us on the ground; all can be attributed to the various qualities of bindings possessed by each speck of matter. The great Newton's contribution, beyond his trivial formalisation of the properties of gravitic connection, was that there existed loci of binding forces that were not paired with any particular material particle, the famous 'Thaum' or wonder particle of his Philosophiæ Supernaturalis Principia Mathematica. With careful arrangement of an energetic material structure, or an act of will for what is the human mind if not a carefully arranged structure, a quantity of Thaums can be induced to replace the Etherium of a material, changing that material's natural properties; copper can be made harder than steel or release a corrusating charge, clay can be made to walk like a man, and so many other artifices of science that once were peddled by magicians...


...we know now that the low Ⱥ period that extended from roughly a thousand years before the birth of Christ to the early sixteen hundreds was actually unusual compared to the spread of prehistory. Mr Ual-losjiegŋa, the Ur-Vampire that was discovered frozen in Blåmannsisen glacier, spoke of unusual solar activity, a 'gulls flickering' in his own word, followed by many deaths due to abscess of the skin, after which the climate gradually warmed and thaumic levels massively decreased. Presumably this caused the death of most of the Thaumivore Megafauna apart from those who could escape forward in time like Mr Ual-losjiegŋa and the various members of the Draco genius, or those human-like Thaumiformes that could hide in areas of high natural Thaumic energy like the Vampires of the Carpathian mountains...


...despite the antagonistic nature of the two techniques thanks to the mythologising of the disputes in North America, Therianthropy and Patroniurgy have essentially similar philosophic roots – they both are about the extraction and establishment of etheric patterns. In the former, the pattern of an animal is coerced onto the etheric field of a thaumically energised man, whist in the latter the pattern of a man or beast is overlaid onto a suitable quantity of thaumitised inert matter. The therianthropic man sees his senses and to a lesser extent flesh warp to that of the 'beast-spirit' he totemises, whilst the energised matter stands to hominid form and marches to protect his creator...


...whilst many species and septs are both Thaumiformic and Thaumivoric to greater or lesser extents it is important to separate the two terms; a Thaumiform utilises the etheric medium as part of its natural life, whilst a Thaumivore must consume raw Thaums from the environment or other organisms to maintain itself. Thus a Thaumivore is by necessity a Thaumiformes, a Thaumiformes is not by necessity Thaumivoric if it can maintain it etheric abilities merely upon own its own energies. The Ur-Vampires compared to the modern Carpathian, Caucasian and Uralic subspecies form an excellent example of this; Mr Ual-losjiegŋa was capable of throwing a horse across a road and sensing other humans from leagues away, yet required a constant input of etheric energies from the environment in addition to human corpuscles that simply could not be procured in this lower Thaumic age. The modern subspecies have been rebuilt along a much more modest plan, trading the greater than human abilities in most part to survive the reduced energies of their native ranges. The Carpathian and Uralic varieties are now no more than two fifths stronger than a pure human of equal muscle mass, and their glamour acts to confuse and entice rather than obfuscate, and a Caucasian vampire is barely stronger than a man and only needs human blood once a month, though they have retained the greatest array of the Ur-Vampires senses...


...yet all three subspecies have retained certain biological features that are non-etheric as well, able to continue functioning outside their comfortable environment. The ability to engage in aestivation at will giving the appearance of centuries of life when the lifespan spent awake is no more than a man's, the ability to create demi-Vampires via a transfusion of the humours...


...some say it is England's lack of suitable metallic clays that leads us to produce few enough golems in the rabbinical style and none of the great war golems of the continent, others offer the kingdoms antipathy to Cordoban or Yiddish scholarship, or even a failure of character or grandeur in the English soul. The author scoffs at the claims and instead puts forth that it is the English love for personally freedom, allied with their skill with mechanism and coal fired rotaries that leads them to their Patroniurgy of Stitch and Steel based on Newtons grand accomplishments. For when the Englishman thinks of the etheric sciences he does not envision a twenty foot tall Fusil-marcheur, come to destroy his quiet village, but rather Sir Edward 'Lightning Fist' Colliers prosthetic arm, or the 1/32th hand douh that reloads his rifle or the 4th hand douh that he operates down in the local mill – things that exalt the man rather than the state...
__________________


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Yours truly:

"I cannot think of the deep sea without
shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling
and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols
and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of
water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows
to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny,
war-exhausted mankind -- of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark
ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium."

- HP Lovecraft, Dagon

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