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AlexanderNorthAH — Modernization 1960: Catastrophe Need Not Repeat

Published: 2019-08-16 21:02:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 3107; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 23
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Description I had the idea to make a map series where I "modernize" various points in history, with the expected cultural, political, technological, etc. changes. [1] Here's the first in this series: the year 1960. If you've got any ideas for future installations in this series, tell me and I'll probably do them.

NOTE: As of May 2020, I've updated some parts of the description so they work better with the premise- as this was the first installation in the Modernization series, I hadn't yet fully worked out where I wanted to go with it.

- The Cold War has been ongoing for a little longer here than in OTL- pretty much since the end of World War II. The fear of nuclear annihilation is even more pronounced than OTL, as TTL's World War II ended with several cities on both sides being nuked. [2]
- The United States is a conservative-leaning state (though it's more economically liberal than OTL's current United States thanks to Roosevelt's New Deal) and is under a two-party system with the Republican party, which is run by neoliberals, and the Democratic party, which resembles OTL's pre-Reagan Republican party but more economically left-wing, and while all of the same politicians as OTL 1960 are still around, their political views have shifted a bit from OTL to compensate for the changed political situation. Segregation isn't the current major issue the United States faces, as it's less racist than OTL's 1960 (though more racist than OTL's modern day) and segregation was abolished in 1920- instead, LGBTQ+ rights have taken a similar role.
- Britain and France are culturally in a similar state to America, though they're more conservative than the Americans given that the Soviets are right next door. Both of them have given up their colonial empires for a few decades now, though both of them have kept some areas by promising them equal representation in government, which they've actually followed through on for the most part, since they're usually small enough that it doesn't really make much of a difference (Australia and New Zealand being major exceptions in the case of Britain). In Africa and Asia, however, they've pulled most of their former colonies into the "Anglophone Union" and the "Francophone Union," respectively, which have ended up de facto being a front for British and French neocolonialism. [3] The various former colonies haven't fallen for it in the slightest, however, and almost all of them are agitating to leave the respective unions.
- Franco's Spain is a rogue state backed by the west- think North Korea, but fascist and if the "good guys" were the ones propping it up. France has to deal with a lot of refugees from Spain trying to flee across the border, mainly Basques and Catalans.
- The Soviet Union is basically Putin's Russia, but with a red coat of paint and a nasty Russian/Slavic supremacist angle. Its puppets in the Warsaw Pact are much the same, minus the Russian-supremacy part.
- The United Arab States is a regional power in the Middle East aligned with the Soviets, though it isn't a communist state and is actually rather conservative, though still secular.
- The People's Republic of China is basically all the worst parts of North Korea and Maoist China combined and is considered a rogue state by the west. The Chinese are working on producing nuclear weapons of their own, which makes everybody very nervous, including the Soviets.
- Pakistan is a totalitarian rogue state suspected of committing genocide in Bangladesh.
- India is a dominant-party leftist state, and though it's been almost fifty years since it gained independence, it still hates the British enough to lean towards the Soviets. It's rather preoccupied dealing with secessionist movements, mainly in Kashmir.
- Technology is much the same as OTL 2019, save for nuclear tech being a few decades behind. However, everything has a sixties aesthetic, which results in some things looking very similar to how they did in OTL's 1960 despite functioning very differently. The Internet still exists and is about as free as OTL's Internet, though it's heavily censored across the Warsaw Pact and outright banned in countries like Spain, Pakistan, and China. Global warming has been set back a bit thanks to the mini Ice Age caused by the large amount of nuclear detonations at the end of World War II, but it's probably going to get worse in the future, given how everyone's more focused on the Cold War than the environment.

[1] I decided to "update" more things than the technology so it wouldn't end up just being "OTL 1960 but with modern technology."
[2] Technically, nukes were developed during World War I in this world, but they weren't actually used during the war (though the threat of nuclear warfare was what stopped the war) and nuclear research stagnated during the interwar period.
[3] Please note that this isn't meant to be a commentary on OTL's European Union- the only thing the Anglophone and Francophone Unions share with the EU is having the word "Union" on the end of their names.
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Comments: 2

metalheadjohn [2021-08-24 16:16:09 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

AlexanderNorthAH In reply to metalheadjohn [2021-08-27 16:50:31 +0000 UTC]

👍: 2 ⏩: 0