Modern World STGOD Concept

[Thanas]

My issue with that is... why would Nippon send a sizable "rescue fleet" when, by that point, the Cascadian Navy is on the prowl in the Central Pacific and bombers are starting to hit Nippon proper with the recovery of parts of Western Fuso?

Looks like you didn't read my history when you wrote yours then, as that is all in there and has remained unchanged since page four of this thread.

[Steve]

My issue with that is... why would Nippon send a sizable "rescue fleet" when, by that point, the Cascadian Navy is on the prowl in the Central Pacific and bombers are starting to hit Nippon proper with the recovery of parts of Western Fuso?

Looks like you didn't read my history when you wrote yours then, as that is all in there and has remained unchanged since page four of this thread.

I didn't write anything for that war, Shinn did.

Now, to ask... when you first wrote your history, you were writing it in the vacuum of "I'm the only one in this conflict". Now that we're spinning it out into a world war, shifting things here and there won't hurt.

A rescue fleet sent by Nippon was met mid-way by the carrier arm of Rheinland and utterly annihilated.

There's no grand story indicated here that makes a rescue fleet utterly vital to the history. It's just a one line note about Nippon trying to rescue the Britons, and presumably the mechanism was to justify the Nipponese fleet being weak enough that the "Great Armada" prevailed in their attack, or just to represent them trying to help their allies. You achieve the same effect if the Nipponese fleet didn't come at all because it'd just been soundly defeated by the Cascadians in tthe Pacific Theater.

So, may I request this be amended to account for outside participation in the conflict?

[Steve]

Double-checking things, Shinn's history did have the rescue fleet mentioned. I just think it's rather silly that Nippon would denude their home islands of defense to ship a fleet across the world in a desperate, almost insane plan to defeat the Rheinland fleet on their home turf to save a country that cannot by any means change the tide of the Pacific War by that point.

[Steve]

The following post is going to include stuff that may not be retained, since I'm going to make a suggestion for parts of Britonian policy that Thanas may or may not object to.

1882-1908: Peaks and Valleys

1882 saw the final renouncing of the Imperial Republic by the electorate. After thirty years of maintaining a large standing army and arguably the Pacific's leading Navy, Cascadian withdrawal from the imperial struggles of the globe went hand in hand with a reduction in military strength. The size of the Cascadian Navy was halved by 1890. The Army would shrink to a size as small as 125,000 in 1889, even when including the continued need for garrisons in Patagonia and Fuso.

While military spending shrank, the Cascadian economy shifted into a higher gear. The factories of Cascadia began to pour out their goods into a growing world market. Easy credit flowed out from the banks as international commerce grew larger.

1886 saw a development that might have changed all world history if it had been kept. In Britonia, the Government fell, and a new Unionist government under Lord Stirling took power. The Stirling government decided on a shift of priorities on a number of fronts. One was the Pacific.

The Nipponese alliance had been deemed crucial to support Britonia's position in the Pacific, but the Nipponese were troublesome allies and, at this time, were becoming more insular and less committed to the alliance. Stirling and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Keating, decided Britonia's empire and economic prosperity were better served by rapproachment with her most powerful foes and increased economic links. Efforts were made to secure more lasting peace with Rheinland, Granadia, and Cascadia.

The Cascadian reaction was warm. The Liberal Party, shorn of its anti-Britonian Imperialist wing, had become the party of big business and was gravitating toward the Conservative Party enough to begin absorbing that party's membership. The Whigs were in favor of free trade and continued peace. Both parties' interests thus converged. The Treaty of Newcastle, signed in October 1887, codified some of the terms left hanging from the Peace of Honolulu and established Cascadian trading rights in the Britonian colonies of South America and New Britonia. This was followed by the Treaty of Nagasaki with Nippon that provided for a fifty year demilitarization of disputed islands between Fuso and Nippon. The Webster-Holstein Treaty of 1888 provided for similar trade barrier reductions with Rheinland, with Cascadian experience of mining in the cold north of the Yukon and Klondike providing new machinery of use to similar Rheinlander efforts in their northern regions while Rheinlander mining machinery would prove valuable to further develop the interior rare metals mines of the Bingham Valley. In late 1888 President Gonzales, the first New Granadian to achieve the Cascadian presidency, went as far as to declare his desire to see free trade established globally, that "where there are free markets, there is no conflict".

Britonia was not so convinced, however. Lord Stirling considered Gonzalez's statement to be "high-minded fantasy"; Britonian-Rheinlander relations made peace seem unlikely to hold forever, and even as this process occurred Britonia was waging the Mesopotamian War with Omnia. Nippon, not to be outdone, intervened in a succession crisis in the Principality of Gujura (country 23, "northeastern" corner of the up-facing Indian peninsula TJ added to the Australis continent) and reduced Gujura to a Nipponese protectorate, destroying the nascent Gujuri Navy when resistance was attempted (much to the satisfaction of Nippon, the Gujuri flagship was the former CRS Klamath, a veteran of Cascadia's victories in the Pacific War). This prompted opposition from other states such as Shinra and forced Britonia to either stand by their ally or give them up.

Lord Stirling was ready to give them up. Nippon was weaker than Cascadia, in his view; better to mend a "century and a half of family squabbles". In January of 1890 he directed Lord Keating to propose to Cascadian Ambassador Hastings an alliance treaty. News of the proposed alliance soon spread, threatening a shift in the balance of power in the Pacific. Hastings, a pro-Britonian Whig, was quick to support the proposal, and Gonzalez was favorable enough that negotiations commenced.

Had the Keating-Hastings Treaty been signed and ratified, the history of the 20th Century would have been radically different. With one stroke Britonia would have secured peace for its Pacific possessions and Nippon, threatened with isolation, would have had to accept the treaty and give up designs on Fuso. With both nations as Allies Britonia could have focused on the Central Ocean and Atlantic with impunity. Cascadia would have been left secure in her Pacific holdings and free to deal with continental problems in her turn. The alliance had great merit and the Senate was expected to pass it.

And then the Panic of 1890 hit.

In June 1890 several banks in San Dorado, Britonia, Rheinland, and Cascadia failed in succession as overlending caused loan defaults by bad creditors, creating a cascade of failures throghout the global financial market. Credit dried up, factories closed, and an economic bust threw millions out of work across the world.

In Cascadia the default provided the rise of a new force in politics; the unions. Workers' unions had been forming since the 1870s; now, seeing so many workers thrown out of work by bad decisions from the upper class, they agitated for economic reforms to a populace that was gripped by the worst economic shock since the Panic of 1859. The Liberal Party hated unions and the Conservative Party openly called for their suppression as illegal "criminal organizations", but the Whigs saw the movement as a chance to regain Congress. Throughout the election season Whig office-holders and candidates proposed a series of measures demanded by the Cascadian Industrial Workers' Union and the Association of Cascadian Farm Laborers, the two leading unions, and would be swept back into strong control of Congress by popular support at the ballot boxes.

This alone would not have sunk the Keating-Hastings Treaty, which was finished in August of 1890. But events in Britonia proved more decisive.

Faced with riots in major industrial cities and Lord Stirling's unimaginative series of reform proposals, the Tories broke with Stirling's Union Government and called for a vote of no confidence. Facing the collapse of his government and popular furor against him, Stirling tried to negotiate to restore the Union.

The Tories, among other things, hated the Keating-Hastings Treaty. They regarded it as the betrayal of a staunch ally that had fought beside them against Rheinland and Omnia in favor of "a treacherous rabble of republican mongrels" (the words of Lord Curzon) who could not be trusted to aid Britonia against the threat of Rheinland. They demanded Stirling withdraw his support for the treaty. Keating urged him to hold on, to make accommodates with the new Labour Party or even call for new elections instead of allowing his foreign policy to be dismantled. Stirling initially resisted but, in a Privy Council meeting, having even the monarch expressing displeasure at the treaty and insisting that he "work with the Tories and restore the Imperial Union Government" broke his resistance. He withdrew support from the treaty on 19 September 1890. Lord Keating immediately resigned from the Cabinet and Ambassador Hastings, in his report to Portland, resigned as well, humiliated and angered. Lord Stirling would be replaced himself a month later by Lord Curzon, who declared he would let the Treaty of Newcastle expire in 1898 instead of renewing it. Orders for reinforcement of Britonian Pacific forces made it clear that Curzon's government considered Cascadia an enemy, not an ally, and prompted re-investment in the Cascadian Navy, a tough proposition given the economic shocks of the Panic.

(to be continued)

[Thanas]

First of all Steve, my apologies for snapping at you. I was rather tired when I wrote that.

It might be better to scrap the rescue fleet then. However, just to be clear on that, I will not change the death ride to have anything but the majority of the Nipponese fleet in them, including their battleships and carriers.

As to the Britonian things you propose I have no objection per se but will quote the relevant parts of my history to avoid misunderstandings:

However, in 1862 the heir to the Rhenanian throne was assassinated when his ship was sunk with all hands by what was believed to be an attack by Britonian agents in the Port of Bretonia Magna (other states historians claim it was instead a coal explosion due to unrefined storage techniques. New studies showed this to be the case). Rheinland demanded special rights to fully investigate the death. Britonia had by that time allied with another maritime nation on the other side of the globe, Nippon, thereby making it independent of Rhenanian food imports. From that position of strength and knowing the combined fleets would be stronger than the Rhenanian Navy, Britonia refused. Thus started what Historians termed the Eighty Years War.


The Eighty Years War - Part I

"They say Rheinland depends on diamonds and steel. I say it depends on trade. Let's see who is right" - Britonian Admiral of the Fleet Jackie Monger


The first phase of the war became a disaster for Rheinland. The Navy was unable to prevent the merger between the two fleets. The Army took several of the southern cities but was unable to make significant progress. After being blockaded for six years, the Rhenanian fleet made a desperate sally but was cornered and decisively defeated by attacks of massed torpedo crafts. The following year, Rhenania sued for peace. The conditions imposed upon it - though they included no territorial losses outside of a few fortresses - nearly wrecked the economy. Even worse, the Diamond monopoly, the pride of the state treasury, was broken with all mines being turned over to Bretonian interests. Britonian businesses were given the right to import and export goods free of taxes and tolls.

Massive strikes by displaced Rheinland workers prompted a reaction from Britonian police. The Miners Strike of 1871 was notorious for its brutality and was put down eventually by the Britonian military with thousands of deaths. Rheinland had no choice but to declare war in response to the tragedy despite the still tragic state of the military. Luckily, Britonia was equally unprepared (and engaged in several colonial disputes) and the peace treaty of 1874 restored the status quo. Over the next decades, Rheinland public opinion became even more heated and in 1902 the monarchy was transformed into a constitutional monarchy. The first Reichskanzler was an old army officer named von Rogge. Luck smiled on Rheinland during the first years of his presidency as the trade with El Dorado and other nations intensified. The Rhein valleys boom - a second wave of hyperindustrialization centered around Rhenania proper - ensured the coffers were finally full again. With rising tensions, another war was inevitable.


The Eighty Years War - Part II

"Ride faster. I want to slice them with my sword" - Oberstleutnant Marius Reinhardt, commander of the last cavalry charge in Rheinland history.

The land war of 1908-14 went even more terrible for Rhenania as well prepared defences and new technologies like the machine gun and gas weapons stopped the vaunted Rheinland Army in its tracks. On the other hand, the new submarine forces more than distinguished itself at sea. Yet, the blockade once again did its work and Rheinland surrendered in 1914 as war materials had run out. Von Rogge was handed over to the Britons and publicly executed for the submarine warfare. Rheinland was split up into three nations, with its citizens having to endure a brutal occupation during which the Nippon troops especially gained a reputation for war crimes.

Bretonia however had suffered horribly in the war as well and did nothing when overwhelming popular majorities among the split Rheinland resulted in the country reforming. An appeasement party allowed Rheinland to rearm. In Rheinland, new, egalitarian policies ensured a steady flow of commerce and immigrants. Autarky was aimed for and mostly achieved. Eventually, an incident at a border post gave Rheinland the pretext it needed.

[Steve]

I'd double-checked that before hitting post to make sure there was nothing that contradicted the idea of a Britonian attempt at reconciliation.

[Steve]

It might be better to scrap the rescue fleet then. However, just to be clear on that, I will not change the death ride to have anything but the majority of the Nipponese fleet in them, including their battleships and carriers.

As in the 1944 battle where the combined fleet got destroyed?

Actually, I can see Nippon fielding two fleets; its large detachment to Britonia and a sizable fleet at home to tangle with the Cascadian West Pacific Fleet. The "Western Striking Force" of the Nipponese Fleet is the one eradicated, and by that time was the main force of the Nipponese Navy as the "Main Striking Force" was devastated in some battle in the central Pacific. It wasn't recalled since, well, the Rheinlanders would probably have sunk them on their way out, so they had no choice but to stay and hope they beat Rheinland.

BTW, Shinn, can you name your islands and show which cities are on which islands? Especially the location of Tokyo.

[Steve]

Oh, for people curious about a Tsushima equivalent that helps prompt the development of all-big-gun battleships (aka HMS Dreadnought), I planned to have one during a 1901-era war with Klavostan. With Klavostan winning said battle, actually. I figured KlavoHunter won't mind.

It will also be a sort of proto-WWI with trenches and barbed wire and such, as much of the fighting is in a disputed river valley.

[Thanas]

It might be better to scrap the rescue fleet then. However, just to be clear on that, I will not change the death ride to have anything but the majority of the Nipponese fleet in them, including their battleships and carriers.

As in the 1944 battle where the combined fleet got destroyed?

Yes, said fleet would probably have been the biggest Nipponese fleet considering that in 1941 the same fleet tried to evacuate the Nipponese troops from Southern Rheinland.

Actually, I can see Nippon fielding two fleets; its large detachment to Britonia and a sizable fleet at home to tangle with the Cascadian West Pacific Fleet. The "Western Striking Force" of the Nipponese Fleet is the one eradicated, and by that time was the main force of the Nipponese Navy as the "Main Striking Force" was devastated in some battle in the central Pacific. It wasn't recalled since, well, the Rheinlanders would probably have sunk them on their way out, so they had no choice but to stay and hope they beat Rheinland.

Sure, just as long as you leave the carriers and battleships of the main striking force alive so that they can go into the death ride against the Grand Armada of Rheinland.

BTW, Shinn, can you name your islands and show which cities are on which islands? Especially the location of Tokyo.

Wait, Shinn got a Tokyo? How am I to name the cities of Ostrheinland then?

[Steve]

I imagine enough survive that, with new construction, they can make that death ride. Cascadia didn't finish them off because it was busy bombing Nippon and then making peace because, well.... they've just fought major campaigns in Fuso, New Britonia, and their own southern states.

Checking the scale... the Klavostani-Cascadian front of the war will be a pretty appreciable size of the Eastern Front.

[Thanas]

Yeah, I don't need all to survive here, just the two Yamatos. Sorry, I should have been clearer on that.

[Steve]

That would still work. The Air Force probably focused on other targets and further attacks on them by naval aviation would have been meaningless given they were laid up in a dock that was barely functioning. They'd still get repaired in time for the death ride.

Given the timing of the war, I may have to talk to Shinn about the Cascadians and Fuso basically staying out in the final years as Rheinland went after Nippon. After all, if we invaded Nippon, we'd probably have kept at least part of it (Cascadian blood shed for it, etc.). I know he stated the post-1945 period as the one of the bombing campaign, but you had the fall coming in 1952, and seven years of bombing campaigns would be rather... extreme. There wouldn't be cities left standing on Nippon, really. So maybe around 1947 or 1948, after seizing disputed islands, the two countries basically stopped the war unilaterally even if Nippon refused to make peace.

[Thanas]

Nippon could have made peace with your nations, Rheinland however was in it until either total victory or defeat, as per the Meier speech in 1944. Though a few years of heavy bombing would explain why Ostrheinland is not that well developed.
So maybe a seperate peace in 1948? After all, Rheinland was never formally allied with Cascadia and Fuso.

[Steve]

Alternatively, several periods of extended ceasefires that always failed because Nippon refused to give concessions, caught in the grip of a maniac government of ultranationalists who preferred to see their entire country destroyed rather than make peace (especially if Rheinland was making it clear they intended to conquer Nippon no matter the cost; why give concessions when you're going to be destroyed anyway?).

Rather than join in the bloodbath, Cascadia and Fuso focused on clearing out New Britonia and then making it impossible for Nippon to launch air attacks on Fuso, even though the war was effectively over for them. Probably every few months a major bombing campaign was waged to try and get a peace treaty, but nothing happened. And then here came Rheinland and the great bloody invasions commenced.

Although that does open up the curious, tense possibility of Cascadian bomber crews getting shot down by near-the-front AA.... and parachuting into Rheinland-held territory.

[Siege]

Since I don't really care that much about the details of the war, here's a proposal for the mid-'Australian' states:

[Blue]: Mandatory Eretz Muqaddasah
Former Omnian territory, now the Apelian Mandate of the Holy Land. Omnians crucified Christ and suppressed Christianity back in the day, leading to much animosity that continues up to today. I imagine the Apelians have their hands full trying to stop a tide of zealotic assholes trying to make holy war on the Omnians.

EDIT: Alternatively Christianity started up on the northern continent and this is the home of Islam, with Mecca taking the location of Jerusalem in this world. In which case replace Omnia repressing Christianity with Omnia repressing Islam in its early days.

10: Upper Sankara
Former Omnian provice, broke away after the Great Wars of the mid-20th century and the Britonian occupation of Lower Sankara. Currently ruled by a military junta whose main goal is to unite all of Sankara. Very top-heavy state with a large and unwieldy military funded mostly by trading the nation's natural resources to San Dorado in exchange for credit and equipment.

4: Lower Sankara
Divided along ethnical lines. Former Omnian territory conquered by Britonia at the close of the 19th century, then conquered by Granadian colonial troops near the end of the Great War. When Granadian troops eventually fell back to La Vela the north-western veldt along Lake Sankara was reoccuppied by Omnia. The southern coast is still under de facto Granadian control, and everything inbetween is a mess of semi-independent provinces governed along tribal lines. A very weak and deeply corrupt central government doesn't really control anything beyond the capital.

7: Suzerainty of La Vela
Granadian colony. Became officially independent when colonialism went out of style in the early '80s, but everybody knows that the Granadian 'advisors' control the government and the Granadian 'peace keepers' control everything else.

11: Bentacruz
New socialist democracy, populistic leader recently overthrew the previous kleptocratic oligarchy mostly through soft power. New government has to appease 'advisors' from Komradistan and UOCSR as well as big landowners and industrial interests with ties to San Dorado.

27: Shan Assam
Country split by the Assam bay, into which the 'Red' and 'Blue' Assam rivers flow. History of the country is defined by often bloody struggle between the southern Omnian monotheists and Hindu polytheists in the north. The great harbor cities near the mouth of Assam bay are almost completely dominated by San Doradan business interests.



8, 9 and 31 I'll leave to The Romulan Republic to define. He stated that the Kingdom of Corona is dealing with violent separatist movements so I imagine that for example 31 could be a breakaway province of his.

The rest of India meanwhile I feel needs to be coordinated with at least madd0ctor and Simon. 5 I feel is entirely up to madd0ctor, and 20 and 21 ought to be up to Simon to figure out what he wants there.

[Steve]

Note: "Gujura" is 23, and is a placeholder name. I'll let someone else come up with another name if it's desired.

[Thanas]

24 is the former Rheinland colony, now a fledgling democracy, if poor.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The three colonies I was allowed to decide for are Fortuna, Underwood and Marden. When our war ended, the Britonians and their indigenous allies were either executed or expelled and control returned to friendly tribes. They now exist as enlarged tribal kingdoms at a, oh I dunno, Mexico level of development/GDP/population density. They are friendly to Orion but mistrustful of anyone else. Orion has a number of public works projects underway there, building power plants and industry to allow them to develop, in exchange we receive a one-half share of all minerals extracted and a one-quarter share of revenue from those industries. There has been talk of uniting the three Kingdoms as one nation, or indeed of uniting with Orion to form a United Kingdom, but such discussion is only at an early stage.

We have mutual-defence treaties with them and consider any hostile action against the Kingdoms to be an attack on Orion itself.

[Thanas]

I am against any such treaties with NPC states, because simply it will trigger a run on NPCs and spheres of influences. Also, it throws in a number of unknown variables.

I am for players deciding to defend NPCs, but not the other way around.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I am against any such treaties with NPC states, because simply it will trigger a run on NPCs and spheres of influences. Also, it throws in a number of unknown variables.

I am for players deciding to defend NPCs, but not the other way around.

Whilst it's called a mutual-defence treaty, it is in effect Orion guarding the Kingdoms, since they have virtually no military power. Those Kingdoms aren't even regional powers.

[Steve]

Does anyone want to be the ex-colonial master of Nation 30? I was thinking that it would be the "border" of Cascadian and Orion influence in South America; that is, both nations have economic and political clout there and it's a potential tension point.

I don't want them to be ex-Cascadian as well, and I figure 12 and 13 will be Granadian, so I was thinking Tianguo, Dreisgrond, or Shinra.

Thanas, I think we should at least consider that some states would have lingering ties to their former colonies or countries in their proximity. You'd have such with the brown nation that would've been Kartr and your former colony in India, for instance. I'd have such in Patagonia and New Britonia.

[Steve]

Addendum: But yes to no M-D treaties, so we don't see such countries as extra sources of manpower.

[Simon_Jester]

Manpower isn't really the limiting factor in modern militaries; productivity is. If the NPC states are not highly productive and cannot generate enough wealth to equip powerful armies, being allied to them in wartime is largely irrelevant and they will be unable to project significant power.

Hm.

Sorry I haven't been very involved; the last weeks of the school year are kind of tense and stressful. Also, the discussion has revolved around the 'WWII' analogue, which Umeria took basically no part in; unlike historical China it isn't even well placed strategically to be a victim of one of the major combatants.

I'd need to think about NPC nations 20 and 21; nothing comes immediately to mind. I need to ask some questions and do some thinking. Let's leave them blank for now, unless matters MUST be resolved right away.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I'm not opposed to any unclaimed NPCs that won't be claimed being a former Arcadian colony. Split off centuries ago maybe...but it wouldn't take much reworking of the history to have the 'unified' Kingdom reopening ties with the colony in question.

If, of course, an NPC goes unclaimed and needs someone to work with it. My backstory works either way really (still need to improve that...free time is tighter than I would like).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Addendum: But yes to no M-D treaties, so we don't see such countries as extra sources of manpower.

Like i said, in reality it's Orion saying we'll protect them. They are focused on developing themselves with out help, not fighting wars. They've only been independent nations for ~70 years and they weren't well developed before then.

I probably used the wrong term again. Suffice to say, they are our friends and we vowed to protect them.