Actually, let me put up this short-short story now, because otherwise it won’t go up for a few days: From “Tales From The Columbian Alliance”. I’ve been contemplating writing fiction based on gaming worlds. And, also, how to keep it from sucking.
As always, my Patreon is here.
Gee, so much insanity so little time. I originally assumed that Columbian Alliance would have something to do with Columbia, silly me.
An interesting world you’ve built here. Given “Hartford Confederation”, it sounds like the initial point of divergence here is New England seceding during the War of 1812 (and why you should blame the English)? The U.S. would then be what it was following the Louisiana Purchase (minus New England), Texas being roughly what the Republic claimed before the U.S. annexed it, and California and Deseret filling in the rest of the West between them? That about right?
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I do have to say, though, if France defeated Prussia, which Austria then conquered along with the rest of Germany, a French puppet state ruled by a Habsburg makes for an odd choice for the exiles to go to. I’m guessing they didn’t have much choice in where they went?
Perhaps Maximillian, reinforced by Prussian exiles, had the stones to buck his French nominal bosses?
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Perhaps Maximillian – not noted for his smarts – simply became a convenient figurehead to steer around as the Prussian expats wished.
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Perhaps the French, tired of fighting, were just happy to have their former enemies “far, far away”.
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Mew
Largely the last one: in that timeline, the Europeans were happy to export Prussian diehards somewhere where their belligerence would bother the English for a change (who were still dominating the balkanized North American successor states to the old USA at that point). The French in particular used this ‘favor’ that they did for the Austrians to disentangle themselves from the Empire of Mexico mess in the first place.
Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?
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Mew
Since when is geeking about alternate history WORK? 🙂
Fair point.
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Mew
Not quite. Hamilton survives duel with Burr, doesn’t age well, pulls NE out of US during War of 1812. English manage to get Andy Jackson killed at New Orleans; Florida ends up being annexed by Texas when British use Texian independence to start British-Mexican War of 1848, which ends up with Texas and California both independent. Deseret is in the Midwest: the Mormons never actually have to move, because by now the British are used to playing heavy-handed hegemon in North America. Plus, at this point the anti-slavery movement is in high gear and Deseret is a perfect place for a refuge state.
It all went to Hell for the British in the 1870s, though: every successor state to the old USA (including the one that still called itself the USA) was thoroughly sick of the situation, and they used the excuse of a Quebecois rebellion to form a general alliance. Unified coinage, standards, and military, but local sovereignty and politics. See my GURPS pages for more information. 🙂
*goes to see* I see, I see.
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Texas having Florida intrigues the naval historian in me, because it gives me the thought of a Texas Navy built by Stephen Mallory.
Writing fiction in gaming worlds is tricky.
Simply because gaming worlds are set up with lots of interesting plot hooks going every which way, and a bias towards maximizing the agency of the players.
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Sure, short shorts work well.
Poe’s unity of theme in short stories makes them doable.
But once you start getting into longer forms, there are an awful lot of branches where a direction must be decided, by a character with the self-direction to create a coherent plot in the face of the background noise (which almost requires an obsession or monomania that makes the character difficult to sympathise with).
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That’s my thought on the matter, anyway.
It kinda depends .. a game-world-build isn’t all that different from a writing-world-build, the really big difference is in how much of the world the reader gets to see..
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(and with the added advantage that anything kept behind the curtain can be retcon’d at need, should the character decide to go sideways .. don’t ever think writers have characters fully under control! well .. the ones who substitute cardboard cut-outs might, I suppose ..)
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Mew
Heh.
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I give you an excellent backstory, drop you in an interesting world, and all you do is sit there and blink at me! No, stop with the puppydog eyes! You are the protagonist, and I expect you to protag!
–Me, recently trying to give a character a pep talk. It didn’t work. I think he peeked at the outline.
‘s when you poll the *rest* of the characters and see if any of *them* would like the titular role…
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Mew
Not sure about the map, Even w/o New England, the North South divide along slavery is still present. How is the Civil War avoided? In actual history there was tacit support in Europe for the South hoping to create this sort of splitting of power in America. I am not seeing such easy hand waving the issue as present in the explanation link.
Without New England (and New York), the North becomes considerably weaker, both economically and politically. The Hartford Confederation’s territory represents what would be fourteen Senate seats from our timeline, plus a vast number of the House seats that allowed the North’s political power to grow to the point that it did by 1860. Without that, the South’s position in the U.S. is much more secure, especially if New England unilaterally removed its influence on the path the country would take decades earlier.
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The lost war against Great Britain, and the subsequent failure of the United States to rise to great power status (which would already be hampered by the loss of lots of Northern industry to Hartford) would also make the slavery issue resolvable by the British forcing emancipation on the North Americans, which the text says they did, and Texas in particular is still unhappy about that by the time the Alliance is formed.