STGOD?

[Hadrianvs]

The Germans already took South Africa... and the French have some of the Horn and Sudan. Ethiopia, however, is free; as is Kenya and Southern Somalia if Charon wants a coast.

[Steve]

Wouldn't hurt for the French player to give up a bit of real-estate for a new player....

[Charon]

I don't mind...

I've got an idea for where I wanna set myself down. Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and the Southern part of Somalia. (Me and the French will be best buddies... I swear.)

I'd also like to grab Sri Lanka and the "British Indian Ocean Territory" as that is the only name I've found for that group of islands below the Maldives

EDIT: As a side note, who is what color on the map?

[Steve]

EDIT: As a side note, who is what color on the map?

Orange is France/Cleric.
Black is Germany/CT.
Green is Vasan Commonwealth/Slacker. (Vasa is basically the Swedish, Polish, and Lithuanian monarchies merged).
Blue is USA/Hotfoot.
Teal is Pacifica/Me.
The dark Turquoise color is Mexico/Windswept.
Lighter Blue in South America is Argentina-Chlile (Republic of the Platte?)/Lonestar.
Purple is Hungary/Cynical Cat.
Burgundy is Russia/Hadrianvs.
Light Brown is the Roman Empire/Genhavoc.
Light Green is the Mughal Empire/Academia Nut
Red is Taiping China/Frigidmagi.
Yellow is Japan/Ezekiel.
Purple is Madagascar Consortium/Sunhawk.
Really Light Blue in the East Indies is Klavostan/KlavoHunter.

Also have three players having not been added: Silence wishes to play Britain, Screwball the Qing Empire of China (or the Chinese Republic, not sure which), and Angelod wants Peru-Bolivia.

[frigidmagi]

I would like to hear from Silence before I throw in Charon. No offense Charon but Britain gets Sri Lanka before you do.

[Charon]

Stupid British Empire...

You're on my list SIlence!

I mean, there's a list... with a lot of people on it... and you're kinda towards the bottom... But you're on my list!

With no Sri Lanka I'm thinking the recently industrialized Ethiopian Empire will have no real colonies then (Unless Silence doesn't want it), well besides some tiny islands floating around the Indian Ocean.

[Steve]

Silence told me by IM he'd look at the map last night, but he never got back to me. Apparently he's supremely busy with school ATM. I'll ask again today when I see him.

[frigidmagi]

I've added the Ethopian Empire (So Charon are we gonna be authoritarian buddies?) along with NPC powers. I'm waiting on Silence before he speaks (heh) I won't release a new map. On the flip side if he doesn't get back here before we hash out the rules, I'm dropping him.

[Steve]

He may drop out, he's having a lot of things happening along with his finals. He told me he'll see how things look this weekend and make the decision on whether to try and stay in or whether to withdraw.

[Charon]

I've added the Ethopian Empire (So Charon are we gonna be authoritarian buddies?) along with NPC powers. I'm waiting on Silence before he speaks (heh) I won't release a new map. On the flip side if he doesn't get back here before we hash out the rules, I'm dropping him.

I'm still working out some of the details with Cleric as to my boundaries. So there's another reason to hold off on posting it.

As for Authoritarian buddies? It is a possibility. I will say that my presence is going to make the Indian Ocean a much more interesting place.

[Steve]

Oh, that reminds me, Silence is okay with Charon having Sri Lanka.

*grumbles* I wanted it too.....

Wait, no, not the club!

*is clubbed by Frigid*

(Yes, this post was a joke. No, I don't want Ceylon. Too annoying to defend.)

[The Cleric]

Can you update the first post with the most current map? It's easier to check that than try and flip back through the pages and hope I don't miss it.

[frigidmagi]

I'll do that with the next map. The last posted one is horroribly out of date and is missing 4 players. I'm still waiting on Silence.

[The Cleric]

Alright, thank you. I might need your help hashing out Africa with Charon.

[Steve]

Whether Silence plays or not, I've been having a background history bouncing around in my head for the background of what will most likely be the United Kingdom of the Pacific.

CT has told me that Willem of Oranje married into the German nobility and thus helped bring Holland into the Empire. As a result, there is no Glorious Revolution in England. There is much grumbling as James II leads to James III and then on to Charles III, known in our history as Bonnie Prince Charlie. Instead of the English Bill of Rights there is only royal proclamations, made to keep the peace by the Stuarts, that grant specific rights to the subjects of the Kingdom. The Act of Union does happen as historic, uniting England and Scotland (as well as subordinate Ireland) into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

By the 1760s and 1770s, tensions with the American colonists reach a breaking point, as do tensions between the growing Catholic community in England and the Anglican and Presbyterian/Puritan ones. As a result, the War for American Independence actively becomes a 2nd English Civil War. Charles III will suffer the fate of his 17th Century namesake and his supporters will end up fleeing Britain, though Scots and Irish resistance may continue on for a while. Taken into shelter by Carlos III of Spain, an ahistoric grandson of Charles III/Bonnie Prince Charlie will be proclaimed King Henry IX and also made Duke of California by the Spanish King, who offers to settle fleeing Catholics and Loyalists from both Britain and America in his lands, setting the stage for the founding of Pacifica. Additionally, the first settlements in Australia and eventually New Zealand will pay homage to the Stuarts, not their successors (whether it's a Protestant line or a 2nd Republic will depend on Silence).

When Carlos III's successors prove unworthy (as they historically did) and Spain is badly defeated by Rome, heralding the fall of the Spanish Empire, Henry IX and his settlers will proclaim the Kingdom of California, with the Stuart Dynasty also recognized as Kings and Queens of Australia and New Zealand. Additionally Spanish possessions in the Pacific generally go over to the new Californian kingdom, which is better able to defend them. Over the years this Kingdom will expand inland into Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho and northward into the modern Pacific Northwest, which comes to be called - wait for it - Cascadia, which Henry IX's successors are declared Kings of as well. They end up expanding as far inland as the western tip of Montana and the modern Utah-Colorado border (and New Mexico-Arizona IIRC) and the Canadian province of Alberta (maybe Saskatchewan if Silence doesn't join and Hotfoot gets the rest of Canada).

Eventually, probably during the last half or quarter of the 19th Century, the settlement of New Zealand and widening settlement of Australia by the Kalgoorlie and Victorian gold rushes will contribute to a change in the name of the realm, which will become the United Kingdom of the Pacific with the Stuart Dynasty recognized as holding four distinct crowns, those of California, Cascadia, Australia, and New Zealand, while also still claiming the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The sobriquet "Emperor of Pacifica" or "Emperor of the Pacific" is also applied due to the numerous Pacific islands held under the Pacifican nation, the Stuarts also enjoying the vassalage of the King of Hawaii and Samoa who is otherwise recognized as a sovereign in his own lands (historically King David, the last King of Hawaii and the brother of Liliuokalani, the last reigning Hawaiian monarch, did attempt to pursue "Polynesian unity" with the Samoans, but his death ruined that, and of course was followed by the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy). The House of Kamehameha are recognized as locally sovereign and are part of the Pacifican peerage. Other senior islander chiefs enjoy a similar status, though most had to convert to Christianity to get it during the 19th Century.

The influx of various peoples into the Kingdom; Loyalist Spaniards from Mexico, Americans drawn to California and Cascadia by the various gold rushes, the local Native tribes that remain friendly, etc., ultimately lead to the liberalization of the Pacifican realm under the auspices of the English common law system. A Bill of Rights is established, probably some time in the 1830s and amended later on as more progressive politics come into the fore. Initially Catholic in population and with the monarchy as such, the breaking of the Church due to the French Revolution and doctrinal differences with the Church that arose in Mexico - fueled as well, I imagine, by rival claims with the Mexican Empire - have led to the rise of the Anglican Church as the Church of the Pacific, with the monarch as the hereditary head of that Church. Protestant religions have grown greatly, and it is a general rule of thumb that the Cascadian provinces and boroughs are Protestant majorities while the Californian lands are still majority Catholic - the split is about even in Australia and New Zealand and in Hawaii as well;

Admittedly I'm not convinced I can pull off a good monarchy in the English style, but I shall try.

So, what does everyone think? Hotfoot, you okay with this? Note that it helps justify why Canada went entirely to the Colonial cause; the civil war in Britain prevented Loyalist forces from being as strong.

[Silence]

I'm still here, and willing to play, just swamped with final work for 3 graduate level courses, I'll be free of that curse Thursday night, so Friday I'll have stuff up.

[Hadrianvs]

It's interesting Steve. I would guess that the official languages of the Kingdom would then be Spanish and English?

[Steve]

English is the language of government, but Spanish is taught at elementary school level and civil service workers and officials in California (normal and Baja Cali, plus Arizona and Nevada) must be Spanish fluent.

This, naturally, will be a challenge for me as I am the typical American and unilingual.

I'm leaning toward Sacramento being the Royal Capital, with a palace in Los Angeles as the Royal Family's winter retreat.

I'm considering that the current King at game start has adopted the peculiar (for the British) regnal name of Alexander, in honor of the elderly Tsar Aleksandr III (isn't he still ruling for you, Hadri?). I'm now debating if he'll be Alexander I or Alexander IV, as there were three Alexanders who were Kings of Scotland.

[Hadrianvs]

I'm considering that the current King at game start has adopted the peculiar (for the British) regnal name of Alexander, in honor of the elderly Tsar Aleksandr III (isn't he still ruling for you, Hadri?).

He'll be 85 in March and doesn't have long to live, but yes. Still not sure what to call the Tsesarevich, though. I don't want to use Nikolay, but it's irritatingly the most logical option. The last Pavel was assassinated for his eccentricity and attempts to reform the nobility, and the last Pyotr was assassinated for being an idiot. They're not exactly auspicious names.

[Steve]

Eh, Pyotr works. Or just another Aleksandr. Maybe a Constantine?

[General Havoc]

Eh, Pyotr works. Or just another Aleksandr. Maybe a Constantine?

There's a name calculated to make the Romans happy...

[Screwball]

Screwball the Qing Empire of China (or the Chinese Republic, not sure which)

I'm actually considering taking a third path, as it were. That is, the Taiping Rebellion leads to Qing disintegrating, but rather than a republic, the warlord that finds himself on the top of the pile declares himself the first Emperor of a new Dynasty as happened every other time a Dynasty collapsed.

Yuan Shikai tried this OTL after he was made President of the ROC but didn't get away with it because the Republic had too much support. If our hypothetical warlord has the military fortitude to get to the top of the heap in the first place, unlike Yuan Shikai he's inherently going to have the support to at least press his claim, even if some (the Taipings, for instance ) might dispute it.

[Hadrianvs]

Nice Screwball, I like it. It's what I would have done.

[frigidmagi]

I'm actually considering taking a third path, as it were. That is, the Taiping Rebellion leads to Qing disintegrating, but rather than a republic, the warlord that finds himself on the top of the pile declares himself the first Emperor of a new Dynasty as happened every other time a Dynasty collapsed.

Yuan Shikai tried this OTL after he was made President of the ROC but didn't get away with it because the Republic had too much support. If our hypothetical warlord has the military fortitude to get to the top of the heap in the first place, unlike Yuan Shikai he's inherently going to have the support to at least press his claim, even if some (the Taipings, for instance Razz) might dispute it.

You could use the Boxer rebellion as sort of a model for this if you like.

[Screwball]

I was indeed planning to appropriate some Boxer-like aspects. Anti-Christianity for a start, especially considering the existence of a (presumably Christian?) Taiping state, and an opposition to Western political and social influence, if not necessarily their methods. I'm not sure if the Boxers subscribed to the idea of 'Western methods, Chinese soul' as it were, but I'm going to because I don't want to play a crippled state.

The idea subscribed to by the chaps that got into power is basically to turn the 'Western Devil's' science and technology upon him to free China from Imperialist influence. I need to come up with a dynasty name, though.