Modern World STGOD Concept

[Force Lord]

I may try to rearrange my history to take into account what has been said up to this point.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'm thinking that the Daedalean Empire supported Britonia materially during the war, and was forced to pay reparations after the war, eventually leading to the bankruptcy of the state and thus creating conditions conducive for the revolution.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

I'm thinking a San Doradan killed the Great Uncle. But not as an assassination attempt or anything. Nobody blames the guy for it, and his identity is a matter of public record.

It was a perfectly earnest presentation on the Efficient Market Hypothesis; he died of laughter.

[Unless you would prefer otherwise, Siege?]

[Steve]

1830-1850: Continental Consolidation

The defeat of New Granadia leads to the severence of its northern-most states to Cascadia. The continental borders of Cascadia are established and integration and consolidation begins. Some efforts are made to convince the tribes of the Great Plains to join their republic as a State, but hostility from Dreisgrond and Tianguo to the possibility defeats it.

The time period includes the Apache War in what would become the Navajo Republic and the establishment of the port of Sydney Harbor in the Falkland Islands and taking control of the old Granadian trading post of Punta Arenas at the northwestern tip of Patagonia, beginning the colonization of that area.

Most historians regard this as a quiet time in the history of the Republic, although "quiet" would be a misnomer; the consolidation was anything but, with vigorous political debates in Portland by the new representatives from California, Baja, Sonora, and Durango, and the slow process of establishing the Navajo and other tribes formerly in claimed Granadian lands as states in the same model as the First Nations of the north. Birth rates went up and at the centennial of the Republic the population had grown by over ten times what it had been at the time of independence.

The opening of Nevada and Colorado, including new canals bridging the Colorado River to the Nevada and the Nevada to the Salish River (which flowed into the Columbia), led to the discovery of vital metals for industrialization. While some iron was already extracted from the Cascades, these mineral finds were instrumental in powering the industrialization of Cascadia, removing the necessity of importing vital minerals from other nations. Industrialization would be focused primarily in Klamath and California, although every major city would soon have its industrial districts.

As Cascadia's production went up, the desire for buyers went up as well. This was not easy; Britonia was enforcing Imperial Preference on Nova Scotia and New Britonia, Nippon was putting up severe protective tariffs, and the Klavostani market was woefully insufficient in light of continued economic woes from their conquest of what remained of New Granadia. Cascadia needed guaranteed markets. More and more people demanded such. By the time of the 1852 election, this impulse had transformed into a desire to expand Cascadian holdings.


1850-1882: The Imperial Republic

The election of Liberal Party candidate Patrick Buchanan begins a new phase in Cascadian history, one that was vital to the country's rise as a global Great Power but which saw some of its most regrettable actions. The Liberal Party represented the growing business interests of Cascadia's industrial cities and encouraged the spread of the Cascadian flag to "all corners of the Pacific", demanding everything from gaining trade rights in Umeria to conflict with Britonia to take Nova Scotia. Buchanan took the lead on this, declaring that to survive and prosper Cascadia had to become an "Imperial Republic", an "Empire of Liberty" that brought stability and liberty to other peoples in the world.

This required a military buildup that the Republic had never attempted before. The Cascadian Navy trebled in size by 1860, just to be rendered obsolete by the HMS Warrior's launch out of Britonia; it would take ten more costly years for Cascadia to have a navy ready to challenge the Mistress of the Seas to power in the Pacific.

The Army grew as well. Recruitment drives and new laws regarding state militias brought it to a peacetime size of 200,000 in 1858. Cascadian army officers and engineers, along with industrialists, put into service new muskets and rifles and cannons, including the Hawker Repeating Rifle and the Parrot Gun. Army training funding increased in proportion to the growth of its size. A re-organization ordered in 1860 saw the codification of formations Union-wide; battalions made up brigades which made up divisions which made up corps. In wartime Armies would be organized provisionally from divisions and named for major rivers or regions (see: Sherman's Army of Luzon, Lee's Army of the Yavas).

With such an increase in military strength and expansionist sentiment, conflict proved inevitable.

In 1859 the Patagonian War broke out, the result of Cascadian penetration of the interior and opposition from the heterodox Islamic Malips of the equatoreal jungles. After four years of bloody, indecisive fighting, the Army declared victory with the defeat of a Malip army under the renowned Ibrahim al-Mubal at the Battle of Benkan. The Malip were not entirely broken by the defeat, though, and it would be 1882 before the final chiefs of the interior signed the Peace of el-Yasuj and accepted Cascadian suzerainty.

The northern and eastern coast of Patagonia was secured by diplomacy. A league of Islamic free cities, from colonization by Muslims fleeing Omnian rule in the 15th and 16th Centuries, had come out from under Tianguo imperial domination, a domination that had been more fiction than fact since the end of the 18th Century. Tianguo, seeking finances to repay government debt, sold its remaining 'claim' to the cities to Cascadia in 1854. The cities in question had no Navy to resist; rather than face ruinous subjugation they signed a series of treaties with the Cascadian government outlining their continued trading rights in exchange for accepting Cascadian suzerainty and a Cascadian military presence. The city of el-Yasuj became the center of this presence, becoming a major naval base. Regiments from the Islamic cities fought hard in the Patagonian War and put down the anti-Cascadian riots in the city of Bengkulu in October of 1868.

The western and southern coasts lacked major native concentrations. Most had been Christianized by Granadian missionaries in the 17th and 18th Centuries; combined with Cascadian settlers these coastal plains were the most easily integrated.

Patagonia was not the only land Cascadia had eyes on. Trade links with Fuso stretched back to its rebellion against Granadia. This trade volume made Fuso vital to Cascadian commerce. The Fuso government went into debt in the 1860s and owed most of those debts to nearby Nippon and Britonia, which had allied with the Nipponese in the face of Nova Scotian resistance to the government and the rise of Cascadia as a Pacific power, fearing for the food imports that granted it independence from Rheinland agriculture. In 1868, the Nipponese prompted Britonia to declare Fuso in default of its loans as part of a scheme, under a new expansionist clique, to reunify the Oyashima Islands under one government. A blockade of Fuso turned into a military occupation and then a forced merger with Nippon. Republican resistance was fierce and the islands' economies took the brunt.

Cascadian exports to Fuso declined dramatically in light of both the war and the granting of preference to Britonia by the Nipponese-dominated government of the new joint "Empire". The 1870 elections saw the rise of a hawk clique that took over Congress, forcing Whig President Kevin McKinley to authorize increased defense expenditures. Britonia was busy digesting its gains against Rheinland but, with the gains fueling their power, they issued counter-threats of seizing Patagonia if Cascadia did not agree to recognize the new Empire of Fuso. McKinley tried diplomacy eagerly, but failed. And then three events intervened in 1871.

First was the Miners' Strike in Britonian-occupied Rheinland. The brutal suppression caused Rheinland to resume its war with Britonia. Second, the taxation to fuel the war with Rheinland, and then the drop in purchases from Britonia being able to purchase cheaper goods from occupied Rheinland, caused the final straw in the provinces of Nova Scotia. They rose up in rebellion and, with some aid from Cascadian sources, raised an army that quickly secured the entire island.

The third, and decisive, event was the July 29th destruction of the ironclad warship Olympia in Tokyo Bay. The Cascadian press howls that its destruction was from a Britonian or Nipponese attack, with three quarters of the crew dead. Attempts to investigate the sinking on sight are blocked by the Nipponese with Britonian support. McKinley, faced with a hostile Congress and populace, attempts on diplomatic overture. Britonia, facing a renewed war with Rheinland and the loss of Nova Scotia, considers a compromise, but Nippon threatens to break the alliance if they bend and Britonia remains standing beside their ally. The Cascadian overture is refused.

And so, on the 28th of September 1871, Cascadia declared war on Nippon and Britonia. The Pacific War began.

The Nipponese and Britonian fleets split up; the Britonians believed a Cascadian invasion of Nova Scotia was imminent, and from there the threat to the agricultural bounty o New Britonia was terrible. Nippon gathered its own war fleet and prepared to attack the Cascadian fleet anchorage at Chuuk Atoll.

But the Cascadian Navy, under Admiral Thomas Perry, struck first. As the southern half of the Nipponese fleet sailed around the southern islands of Fuso, they stumbled into the Cascadian West Pacific Fleet. In the Battle of San Miguel Sound, the Nipponese fleet was shattered, losing several sloops and gunships and four out of six ironclads at a cost of three Cascadian sloops and heavy damage to the ironclad Columbia.

The Nipponese northern fleet, unaware of this disaster, sailed on to Chuuk and laid siege to the atoll, but could not breach the harbor defenses. Three landing attempts were foiled by Cascadian fortifications utilizing new Gatling gun emplacements that were murder on the landing parties. After two weeks of siege, messenger ships came with news of the San Miguel disaster, causing Admiral Sakamoto to withdraw back to Tokyo and lift the siege of Chuuk.

Perry's fleet, meanwhile, sailed into Davao Bay and seized control of the city from the Nipponese garrison, allowing Cascadian Marines to link up with Republican insurgents and begin taking control of the eastern half of the islands.

In the north, the Cascadian Alaskan Squadron set sail for Nova Scotia with a convoy of troops, including a brigade of the Republican Guards - the most elite regiments of the Army. They landed at New Dundee on the 12th of November and were met with cheers from the Nova Scotians. In days the provisional government of Nova Scotia announced a treaty with Cascadia, including plans for a post-war plebiscite to join as two states (the eastern half of the island was the province of New Caledonia, the western half of the island was known as New Hebridia). Winter weather set in and ensured there would be no fighting for the rest of the year in the far north.

In the south, Britonia's South Pacific Squadron sortied from its base at New Helena and moved to attack Patagonia, beginning with an invasion of the Falklands. Cascadia's Patagonia Squadron was not large enough to repulse the Britonian force and it was forced to make for the mainland and el-Yasuj. Sydney Harbor was seized and the island chain fell within the week of the Britonian arrival, to be held by Britonian forces for the next two years.

1872 saw Cascadian defeats against Britonia but victories against Nippon. In March Sakamoto's fleet attempted to blockade Perry's outnumbered fleet in Davao, but the reinforcement squadron from the mainland had arrived with the newest ironclad battleships, the Superb and the Thunderer, and outgunned and outmaneuvered Sakamoto was forced to withdraw with further loss. Cascadian commerce raiders operating out of Davao would continue to isolate the Nipponese positions with their raids on shipping, confident in security in the sheltered harbor if pursued. Perry brought his fleet out two weeks later to land 10,000 men on Leyte, looking to secure that island on the march to Tokyo. At the Battle of Cebu the Cascadian Army was temporarily repulsed by Nipponese defenders; two weeks later the Battle of Satshima, on the outskirts of Cebu, saw the isolation and destruction of the Nipponese garrison on Leyte, securing that island for Cascadia and its own blockade forces.

In the north, an attempted invasion of New Britonia was foiled when the Alaskan Squadron was ambushed and defeated by the New Britonia Squadron and its three monitors. The survivors fled back to port at New Edinburgh, where news of the defeat prompted preparations for an anticipated Britonian invasion. In the south a similar effort by a reinforced Patagonia Squadron to reclaim the Falklands was thwarted with Britonian victory in the Battle of the Falklands; in August a Britonian raid saw the burning of Settler's Creek on the southern coast and a successful foray to arm the Malip rebels still holding out against Cascadia in the Patagonian interior.

In September of 1872, Britonia offered a compromise peace to Cascadia; trade rights in Fuso in exchange for Cascadian withdrawal from Nova Scotia and Britonian basing rights to the Falklands. The peace offer became grist for the political mill, with the Whigs favoring negotiations and the Liberals demanding a redoubling of the war effort. "No deal!" was the main headline by the heavily-Liberal Vancouver Standard. "Fuso and Nova Scotia must be restored!" Radical Liberal Thomas Henning proposed that nothing short of the restoration of Fuso and taking both Nova Scotia and New Britonia should be tolerated. In the elections, the Liberals increased their majority in the House and seized the Senate. There would be no peace.

In 1873, the war in Rheinland was starting to dominate Britonian attention. The Britonians had not expected a renewal of war so quickly, and sending troops to safeguard their South American colonies and New Britonia, as well as the needs of the Pacific War, had diminished their ability to fight even the reduced Rheinlander army. They faced a further threat from several Granadian initiatives that seemed to indicate their interest in a war as well, tying down thousands of Britonian troops in valuable colonial holdings vulnerable to Granadian attack.

1873 saw the turning of the war. With the defenses of Tokyo and the main island still too great to breach, Admiral Perry and his Army opposite, General George S. Patton of California, chose an isolation strategy, focusing on hitting the other islands until Tokyo was isolated. This required the defeat of the Nipponese Fleet, which meant risking the Cascadian Fleet. It was decided to be worth the risk and, on 19 March 1873, Perry flew his flag from the newly-built turreted ironclad battleship CRS Defiant and led the assembled Cascadian fleet in search of the Nipponese Main Striking Force, now under Admiral Takagi. Takagi was under orders to prevent landings in Western Fuso; upon hearing that Perry had sailed, he felt he had no choice but to engage. The Yamato, his flagship, was the only ironclad battleship in the Nipponese fleet, but she was not a turreted ship, and that inflexibility would prove vital in the battle to come.

The two fleets met at Luzon Bay, where Takagi attempted to isolate Perry in the Bay with slightly superior numbers. But the Cascadian fleet was now reinforced to eight ironclad battleships against the Nipponese four, and had a 2:1 advantage in armored frigates. Takagi's forces were overwhelmed and shattered. Yamato went up from a coal bunker hit, claiming Takagi's life and all but three crew. The Cascadian fleet lost Superb and Relentless to enemy fire in the process, but with the nearly total defeat of the Nipponese force (only one sloop slipped away, and the armored frigate Takai beached itself) the campaign had turned. News of the victory caused cheering in Cascadia; Perry was ceremonially promoted to Fleet Admiral and cash rewards were voted by several republics and cities.

The Battle of Luzon Bay decided the war in Fuso. Landings along Tokyo Bay commenced under naval gunfire support in May of 1783 and, by the end of the month, the "capital" of the new Empire was under siege by Cascadian and Fuso forces.

In the north, a force of Britonian troops reinforced by New Britonian militia attempted the long-awaited reconquest of Nova Scotia. Alaska Squadron was caught out of position, allowing landings at the western tip of Nova Scotia. The Battle of Murray River ended in Nova Scotian-Cascadian defeat, forcing the Army to fall back into siege lines on New Edinburgh.

And then on Easter Sunday - 13 April 1873 - the "Easter Miracle" happened; the outnumbered Alaskan Squadron, reinforced with two monitors of their own, sailed out of New Edinburgh and met the New Britonian Squadron in battle at Cape Stirling. Commodore George Hencken maneuvered the Squadron to isolate half of the Britonian force against the Cape, sinking one monitor and several ships at the cost of two sloops and crippling damage to the frigate Royas. Seeing his formation broken and panicking, Admiral Byng ordered a full withdrawal of the fleet back to New Plymouth despite still possessing superior numbers, an act that would see him hanged. The Battle of Cape Stirling, although a minor skirmish by Britonian naval standards, won Hencken honors as well, including a promotion to the Admiralty, and guaranteed Nova Scotia's transfer from being a Britonian colony of Scotians to two states in the Cascadian Union.

As news of the Battles of Luzo Bay and Cape Stirling made their way west, the Patagonian Squadron was defeated again, this time attempting to prevent another sack of Settler's Creek. It seemed that Britonia was going to hold onto the Falklands indefinitely. McKinley was facing re-election in 1874 and knew that losing any part of Cascadian territory could cost him his Presidency; as would a peace short of the goal, and Britonia was being defiant and could continue to do so with the Falklands held. The victories of Perry and Hencken allowed him to take a risk; with his support, the Admiralty stripped the East Pacific Fleet of its monitors and ironclads and sailed them to Puntas Arenas. A storm cost them the coastal ironclad CRS Ironsides; the rest of the fleet required repairs when it put in to port. But Patagonia Squadron was now ready to face the Britonians on more equal grounds; reinforced by sloops built in the Muslim cities and funded by commissions - the cities in question had seen their vital trade interrupted by the Britonian raids and were eager to support Cascadia's efforts - they set off and met the South Atlantic Squadron at the tip of Cape Horn on the 19th of July. The local Britonian commanders had been looking to use their reinforced fleet to strike the Cascadian fleet at harbor in Puntas Arenas. But their reinforcements were mostly older ships from South Atlantic and Southern Ocean squadrons while the Cascadian fleet had been reinforced with more modern units. The result would have been a massacre if the Britonian admiral, seeing the odds, had not withdrawn back to Sydney Harbor. But even in breaking away his slowest ships could not outpace the armored frigates of the Cascadian force, costing him six ships against only one damaged Cascadian vessel.

Cascadia swiftly took advantage, gathering garrison troops and sailing for the Falklands in August. East Falkland fell within two days, being sparsely defended. Faced again with overwhelming naval force the Britonians tried a brief fight, hoping to break the Cascadian fleet into two with superior maneuver, but the Second Battle of the Falklands resulted in the Britonians having to flee for their bases in the southern colonies lest they be trapped in Sydney Harbor.

This left the Britonian garrison on West Falkland. They fought for dear life, holding out against several attacks on their lines until November when, short of ammunition, the local garrison commander surrendered. After two years of Britonian military rule, including the executions of sixty locals and the imprisonment of over two hundred for "acts of rebellion", Cascadia again held the Falklands. The garrison commander, Colonel Charles Tarleton, was put before a military tribunal and found guilty on several charges of murder against the populace, resulting in his hanging on the day after Christmas.

Combined with setbacks against Rheinland, the defeats at Cape Stirling and Sydney Harbor knocked the fight out of Britonia as much as Luzon Bay had drained what was left of Nippon's enthusiasm. The siege of Tokyo went on into the next year and saw the suicide of the claimed Emperor of Fuso as the city fell, but even as this fighting occurred the diplomats were at work in Honolulu. On 19 August 1874 the Peace of Honolulu was signed, ending the war. Britonia agreed to accept the independence and disposition of Nova Scotia as part of Cascadia should it vote itself to be so and paid restitution for damages in Patagonia; both Nippon and Britonia also agreed to recognize the war-damaged islands of Fuso as a Cascadian protectorate.

The controversy over this term lingers to this day. McKinley had gone to war intending to restore the Republic. But the war had taken on a life of its own; Cascadian blood had been shed in Fuso and to just restore a government that had given such an opening to hostile powers in the first place was deemed inappropriate by large sections of the populace, who would not accept anything less than Cascadian domination of Fuso. The Liberal Party had seen Henning secure its Presidential nomination due to internal intrigue; a Henning administration would result in a return to war due to his ambitions for New Britonia and might also see conflict over Hawai'i, which Henning had long declared should be brought into Cascadian orbit as well. Unwilling to risk Henning winning due to popular discontent with restoring Fuso, McKinley sought the protectorate terms instead and fought his own party to get them ratified in the Senate; ratification came a day after Election Day, with McKinley winning re-election handily and the Whigs regaining some seats in both Houses of Congress.

Word of the Peace of Honolulu spread through Fuso like wildfire; the people of Fuso had exchanged one foreign occupier for another. Republican insurgents refused to disarm and, by the end of the year, resumed their furious insurgency to the point of savage brutality with the Republican government declaring war on Cascadia. In the cities McKinley was burned in effigy, declared a betrayer for refusing his promises to restore Fuso. Cascadian attempts to restore order began to work in the cities, but wide swaths of the countryside came under insurgent control as the Fuso turned to guerrilla war.

McKinley was the most hated man in Fuso when 1875 dawned. When 1875 ended, he had been replaced by "Blood and Guts" Patton. The arrogant Californian landowner - his parents had actually bought land there before the Californian War - responded to the killings of Cascadian troops with savagery of his own. Entire towns and villages were devastated for sheltering fighters and suspected insurgents were often shot out of hand. When a town or village resisted, it was shelled by artillery. The coastal port of Papan on Davao was laid to waste with naval bombardment, killing thousands of civilians. As towns and villages were devastated, thousands of homeless Fuso were herded into camps set up by Patton's order, where disease, malnutrition, and violence would claim many.

As 1876 passed, two things were clear; the Fuso guerrillas were doomed, and the Cascadian populace was losing its stomach for the harsh measures. Even Liberal newspapers denounced Patton's measures; only the Conservative Party remained in complete support of them, advocating their use on the Malip in Patagonia, while experts passed through Congress testifying that Patton's policies were doing so much damage to Fuso that it would take decades to recover. McKinley happily used the pressure to sack the unpopular man in the middle of 1876, replacing him with General William T. Sherman, a veteran of the Malip campaigns and the commander in charge of the retaking of western Fuso from the Nipponese. A son of settlers in the Republic of Salish, Sherman altered policy in the camps, ordering more to be built to spread the population, higher rations, and authorizing the release of thousands to return to rebuilt villages. But the military pressure never ceased; stronghold after stronghold fell to Cascadian forces.

Finally, the Fuso republic had enough; in March of 1877 they surrendered to Cascadian authorities. The Fuso Campaign was over. The Congress, reorganized by the 1876 election to include more Whigs, responded by passing the Fuso Organic Act, re-establishing native civil government in Fuso - under Cascadian control - and setting the stage for a return to normalcy.

The glory of the Pacific War had elevated Cascadian prestige to new heights, and their successful suppression of the Malip and Fuso insurgencies had consolidated Cascadia's new empire. But the bloodshed and the horrors of the suppressions had taken a toll. Although the Imperialist Wing of the Liberals would continue to agitate for other conquests, the horrific reports of torched villages and slaughtered peasants had taken their toll on the Cascadian psyche. In a nation founded on the principles of republican liberty, where race had diminished in importance since Chief Joseph's compromise had worked to end the wars with the First Nations, the idea of conqering other peoples against their will was a contradiction that could no longer be ignored. The term "Empire of Liberty" seemed a horrific contradiction in terms.

This effect wasin placeby the end of the decade. Henning's attempt to secure nomination in 1880 failed miserably; his attempt to create what he called the "Imperial Republic" Party in 1882 resulted in a crushing Liberal defeat and the Whigs, for the first time in 40 years, holding both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. Imperial expansion was denounced by all major parties at this point. From this point forward only Nova Scotia would be added to Cascadian territorial control - the plebiscites to join, delayed by ten years of political wrangling and lingering independence sentiment, were held in 1882, and New Hebridia and New Caledonia were welcomed into the Union in 1883 after a vigorous debate in the Senate on whether even voluntary annexation was proper.

The era of the Imperial Republic was over.

[TimothyC]

Oh come on, after fifty-plus years of surfer culture she's too laid back to be a problem.

No, my issue is whether she is the recognized heir by his government, meaning she claimed the throne and was recognized as valid by the Island kingdom. Meaning Hawai'i is actively supporting a foreign claim on Rheinland territory, meaning they pretty much declared war.

Also, isn't there a distinction between "we recognize that under the succession laws you have a claim" and "you are the rightful ruler of such and such"?

This.

She's recognised as the valid heir to the throne, but she has not claimed it. Her recognised title would likely be simply "Princess" not "Queen" or "Empress" (this is a courtesy extended to non-Hawai'ian nobility).

[Beowulf]

I will only sign a landmine ban if Klavo and Beo do, otherwise I need the landmines to deal with the COMMIE HORDES of Klavostan.

Meant to make a public reply to this: Tianguo considers landmines a requirement to deal the COMMIE HORDES. As such, we will not countenance a landmine ban treaty. We are willing to consider restrictions on mines, such as requirements for detailed records of mining operations, so that demining can be efficiently accomplished, but not an outright ban.

[Steve]

Cascadia views the mine issue in the same light.

[Thanas]

She's recognised as the valid heir to the throne, but she has not claimed it. Her recognised title would likely be simply "Princess" not "Queen" or "Empress" (this is a courtesy extended to non-Hawai'ian nobility).

Problem is that via right of conquest, the titles have been subsumed to the Rheinland throne, kinda like the Queen of England IRL is Queen of the Scots. So at best she would be a pretender. The only people who viewed the Stuarts the valid heirs to the throne of Scotland were coincidentally the ones who were at war with England.

@Steve: I like your history.

[KlavoHunter]

Wow, Steve. That's a hell of a history.

I imagine some Britonian fascist hardliners fled to Klavostan postwar to join in the streetfighting and prop up their allied factions. Probably a bunch of bullshit with the Klavostani heir to the throne and them together managing to piss off the common populace so much that the communists got enough broad-base support throughout the empire to win the revolution.



As far as the land mine issue goes... Hm. It is possible that the General Staff may estimate that Komradistan gains more than it loses if it can convince Cascadia and Tianguo to give up land mines. Not sure right now.

[Thanas]

I'm thinking that the Daedalean Empire supported Britonia materially during the war, and was forced to pay reparations after the war, eventually leading to the bankruptcy of the state and thus creating conditions conducive for the revolution.

I got no problem with that and it kinda makes sense that the Empire tried to get supremacy by supporting Britonia, however I don't know how Rheinland could have forced them to pay reparations considering the country was pretty wrecked and Daedalean Empire was still strong....maybe a different way to get the end result might be that the Empire gave massive war loans to Britonia/Nippon which Rheinland obviously did not pay back after conquering them, so that drove the Empire into bankruptcy?

[Siege]

It was a perfectly earnest presentation on the Efficient Market Hypothesis; he died of laughter.

[Unless you would prefer otherwise, Siege?]

Doesn't jive with me. I think you got us pegged wrong. We're not libertarians. We're the opposite of libertarians. We don't give a hoot about the efficiency of the market, and we don't pretend our system leads to a great outcome for anyone but the handful of unfathomably rich and powerful people at the top. In fact we don't pretend to be anything but an oligarchic corporatocracy.

On this point in fact San Dorado's elite prides itself as being the most honest ruling class in the world. There's no propaganda about the ethics of freedom and liberty, no shining city on the hill iconography, no platitudes about the virtues of self-sacrifice or service to the state. We're not out to sell you on some ponzi scheme of ideology or free market fancy. Fuck the free market. There's naked greed, and nothing else.

[Skywalker_T-65]

That is a nice history.

Need to go back and improve mine now that I think about it...I have a better idea of how things went, so that should help.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Siege:

OK.

Let me expand on the nature of the peg I associate with San Dorado, though.

I do not for a moment believe that the San Doradan leadership is anything other than utterly ruthless and cynical. I'd almost be disappointed if they were anything else. But at the same time, it's not like they have no scientists... or no economists.

The hypothetical proposition here is not that the San Doradan oligarchs advocate laissez-faire libertarianism; just because they're its beneficiaries and have successfully exploited a profoundly laissez-faire social order doesn't mean they want to promote it elsewhere.

The proposition is that if you have to find a smug, self-assured economist who actually thinks the San Doradan system is pretty awesome, and who seriously believes that the financial markets will accurately, reliably predict the true value of a commodity... well. Such a one might well hail from the economics department of some university in San Dorado.

He is not a missionary of some characteristically 'San Doradan' ideology, just... a guy. Who believes a certain thing about economics, and was cordially invited to Umeria by curious technocratico types, who found his ideas so stupidly hilarious that one of them literally had a stroke and died from the sheer hilarious stupidity of it (in his frame of reference).

On the other hand, there are certainly plenty of other countries for the guy to come from. So sure, he can be from somewhere else.

[Steve]

Also, if anyone thinks I'm pissing on the WWII Patton... recall that he was George S. Patton Jr. The war commander and occupation overseer of Fuso has no Jr. IOW, he's the grandfather that in our world was killed in the Civil War... where he fought for the Confederacy.

And you all know how I feel about the Confederates.

[Esquire]

Noble crusaders for states' rights? I kid, I kid.

[Steve]

Problem is that via right of conquest, the titles have been subsumed to the Rheinland throne, kinda like the Queen of England IRL is Queen of the Scots. So at best she would be a pretender. The only people who viewed the Stuarts the valid heirs to the throne of Scotland were coincidentally the ones who were at war with England.

....maybe I'm a bit fuzzy on it, but as I recall, the English and Scots thrones were not united by "right of conquest" but by James VI of Scotland inheriting the English throne. Unless you're referring simply to the fact that the two were merged in the Act of Union?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Also, if anyone thinks I'm pissing on the WWII Patton... recall that he was George S. Patton Jr. The war commander and occupation overseer of Fuso has no Jr. IOW, he's the grandfather that in our world was killed in the Civil War... where he fought for the Confederacy.

And you all know how I feel about the Confederates.

So who'll be leading the Cascadian Army's armored divisions during the assault on New Britonia, then?

[Steve]

Patton Jr will be leading armored divisions against Klavostan, actually.

New Britonia will be O'Connor.

[Siege]

The proposition is that if you have to find a smug, self-assured economist who actually thinks the San Doradan system is pretty awesome, and who seriously believes that the financial markets will accurately, reliably predict the true value of a commodity... well. Such a one might well hail from the economics department of some university in San Dorado.

No. Look, to explain why this doesn't fly I'm going to go into more detail than should actually be known to the nations in the world. But the San Doradan mindset is the exact opposite of what you are describing.

This is a society convinced that the chaotic deep currents and flash patterns within financial markets are shadows of the movement of something complex and chaotic beyond the cognitive limits of human beings. Some fickle, inhuman godhead out there, a vast trans-yuggothian entity. From the early days of the renaissance when local natural philosphers studied freak storms or the chaotic melees of battlefields to today, where megacorporations have constellations of satellites looking for whispers in the cosmic background radiation, that's their religion. That what we perceive as chaos is literally the mind of god.

It's why black-box trading doesn't work like it should. It's why some days just when you think you're riding the three lane highway your trading stochastics drop into the cellar for no damn reason. Signal noise. The butterfly effect. Mendlowitz complexity. No human can possibly hope to comprehend these trends and remain sane. Humans are too small, too frail, too individualistic. Limited by the thickness of our skulls. Deaf to the whispers.

But a corporation on the other hand... Thousands upon thousands of human beings, working under complex and arcane modes of behavior, together creating an entity with its own distinct and inhuman drives... An entity like that might be able to achieve recognition. To talk back. To achieve communion.

Okay, so those last two paragraphs there? Those are completely off-limits in-universe, because that's A-grade top-end conspiratorial cult stuff at the absolute highest level of San Dorado's society. Like Freemasons on crack, we're talking people who will coordinate board policies to crash entire markets as a ritual sacrament here. But even on lower levels people ritually burn dollar bills and pray to little icons of the goddess of chance.

So, like, when you suggest that universities in San Dorado might teach libertarian economic theories as we know them I'm going to nope the hell out of that. That's not how we roll son. We got no time for that Austrian nonsense. Our economic universities run on chaos theory with a healthy dose of Grand Lodge.

[Force Lord]

I'm now rather undecided on what Granadia's role should be in the Second Great World War. I do know Granadia will fight against Britonia and its allies, but its ultimate goals may not be necessarily to the liking of the anti-Britonian coalition.

[Thanas]

Well, you reconquered Jibraltar, so that should work out?

[Thanas]

Problem is that via right of conquest, the titles have been subsumed to the Rheinland throne, kinda like the Queen of England IRL is Queen of the Scots. So at best she would be a pretender. The only people who viewed the Stuarts the valid heirs to the throne of Scotland were coincidentally the ones who were at war with England.

....maybe I'm a bit fuzzy on it, but as I recall, the English and Scots thrones were not united by "right of conquest" but by James VI of Scotland inheriting the English throne. Unless you're referring simply to the fact that the two were merged in the Act of Union?

No. Look: Bonnie Prince Charlie was recognized as the real heir to the Scottish throne by the French and Spanish when they were at war with England. So a nation saying "yes, she is the valid heir to the throne" is the equivalent of that, no matter if she has claimed it or not because it de facto means that the validity of the Rheinland line of succession to the throne is disputed. In short, it is saying that she has got a more valid claim to the throne of Britonia than the current Emperor.

[Esquire]

Well, in a non-feudal context, she does. Right of conquest isn't a recognized legal principle in most places.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not sure what Corona's involvement in the world wars should be.

I suppose being allied to Orion would mean it was against Britonia. But Corona is a little country. I'm not sure how much it could contribute. And I'd rather avoid Corona being invaded.

Edit: if someone tried to take Corona's colonies, that would give me a way to be really involved without Corona being invaded.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'm not sure what Corona's involvement in the world wars should be.

I suppose being allied to Orion would mean it was against Britonia. But Corona is a little country. I'm not sure how much it could contribute. And I'd rather avoid Corona being invaded.

Edit: if someone tried to take Corona's colonies, that would give me a way to be really involved without Corona being invaded.

I've managed to get involved in the war without being invaded. Perhaps you sent ships to help the Orion Navy in their fight against the Colonies?