Subject: Silly ideas
Author:
Posted on: 2016-11-04 20:15:00 UTC
We all know about Cascaida (or whatever they're calling themselves), right? The breakaway state that forms out of Western Oregon, Western Washigton, and the bits of British Columbia at the very least after a political collapse in every near-future balkanized US? Full of granola-munching hippies? Yeah, so that's a good starting point, but too dang obvious. How about?
1) The Cascadian Protectorate and/or Expanded Cascadia. So, the Cascadians got into a war with someone, and realized that they should have, like, you know, an army or something. And they kind of went a bit overboard with the military and war thing and went on a conquering spree. Either south down the west coast of California to reclaim the usual liberal strongholds of SF and so on or up through Canada. Either way, you have a country that will impose modern liberal social democracy by any means necessary. There is a non-zero chance of a military junta in this scenario. (Political structure in non-core Cascadia is something you'd have to define.) Border clashes with Deseret are optional.
2) The Cascadian Union. It turns out that hippies don't always form nice cohesive political units. (Or someone got way too hopped up on the idea of local democratic control.) You end up with a large collection of city-states that share a culture and basically do their own thing. The central government of the Union still does stuff, but it's rather Articles of Confederation-y. Central laws tend to be passed by constitutional amendment referendum, if at all.
I can also throw some slightly less crazy suggestions out for Central Europe.
1) Russia goes on an empire-forming rampage. Boring.
2) Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth is back! And maybe also includes the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and some other places. Low-key ethnic tensions remain an ongoing problem, but things are doing ok?
3) The Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) join in on whatever's going on in the far north.
4) Mongol invasion 2. Russia is a bit screwed. History is repeating itself with an alliance holding back the hordes somewhere in East-Central Europe. Or b) The countries that would have formed an alliance (Poland, western Ukraine, Hungary, etc.) have developed a case of nationalism and are still doing the thing, but with more internal conflict and a tense diplomatic situation.
5) Papal States v2. If the Etruscans aren't big fans of the Pope, the Papacy has probably run for it. They might have gone and set up shop somewhere in the really Catholic bits of Europe and re-formed the Papal States there because why not? (Well, mostly to fend off other upstart countries.) Which leads to
6) Orthodox League. It's ... pretty much what it sounds like, and contains most of the land area you'd expect it to. Remaining minor theological disputes have been ... resolved. Westward military expansion aimed at spreading the true faith (tm) optional.
7) And for another lazy historical callback, just balkanize the place. There's bound to be some interestingly obscure lines to cut on. (The western border of what used to be the Russian Partition is probably a reasonably cutting point for Poland specifically. It might swallow up some other stuff)
- This has been speculation by someone who has no business engaging in it. Use at your own risk.