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Description
Originally I wasn't planning on uploading the map in this form; I'd intended to colour the whole thing in, add labels and subdivisions and the like (for instance, look at Indomalaya; I drew up their internal borders for the hell of it! ), and make it look amazing...but a few days back I started drawing it up and realised to my horror that I had several conflicting visions in my head and no clear way to resolve them! So, for now, I figure the best option is to upload it as is, and perhaps also get some feedback on this possible new incarnation of the world as it appears in 's "Dragons Unite"...as with each of the older updates, some older states have gone while some newer ones have been added, some of the borders have changed, and certain areas have been revamped based on new cool things that we've learned more about since the last version!

What brought this huge update into being, you might ask? The Hearts of Iron IV mod "Kaiserreich", to a degree...if you've not heard of that before, it's a fairly elaborate alternate history scenario exploring what could have happened if Germany and the Central Powers had won World War I. and I are both big fans of the mod, to the point where Syndicalism ended up being added to the Dragons Unite world. I'd already written up a vague idea for the various deposed nobles of Germany to be holding titles within the Avalarian Empire by the present day, but as I spent more time playing Kaiserreich, I found myself thinking more and more about how the world could have been different without World War I (and by extension, WWII), or with it happening differently, so that there wouldn't be as much ethnic cleansing and cultural losses in the years to come, and this desire to change things in some way ended up colliding with a nagging thought I'd had that given Avalar's historic ties and rivalries, they should probably have entered the war on the side of the Central Powers (I argued this back and forth for quite some time)...

...and then it hit me; what if I rewrote the history so that Avalar DID join World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and then have the Dragons Unite timeline significantly diverge from ours at that point? Our older canon had world history more or less proceeding the same until World War II, but having major changes take place even earlier and alter the outcome of World War I would be the perfect way of showing the readers that this world wasn't the one they recognised, plus it would also free up the rest of the century for us to make changes willy-nilly and insert all the crazy ideas we'd had over the years (for instance, Karl I of Austria NOT dying on Madeira and continuing to rule Austria), and also better justify how certain dragon nations secured independence!

Naturally, this is all up in the air right now and we're still tweaking the timeline to make sure everything more or less works, but the basic idea behind it all is the following; Avalar enters World War I on the side of the Central Powers, having been roped into an alliance following the Franco-Prussian War as a result of the machinations of Otto von Bismarck (basically, he forced France to give up a draconic majority territory so that it could become an independent state, then offered to share administration of this area with Avalar). Avalar is quickly overrun by the Allied forces once Italy joins the war on their side, but the war ends up dragging out longer than in our timeline as a result of the Irish Rebellion spreading over into the neighbouring celtic territories. Multiple dragon-backed uprisings take place and Britain has to pull back some of their forces, allowing Germany to hold on a wee bit longer and help the fledgeling states in Eastern Europe consolidate themselves a bit. In the end, though, both sides are forced to agree to a White Peace when left-wing uprisings in their home territories get out of hand. Both sides then quickly send their forces to quash these uprisings, but it's a pyrrhic victory; Britain is forced to grant a number of its territories self-rule to restore order (and over the years to come many will break free), France's government collapses, Austria-Hungary splits in two and Germany loses all the land they had gained in the east, while the Greater Poland uprising leads to their eastern territories breaking free. With each side feeling pretty hard done by and blaming everybody around them, revanchist and fascist parties steadily come into being, and before long the Chancellor of Germany is making plans for war against Poland...and then you can guess how things end up going from here; World War II still happens, but a wee bit differently, and in the aftermath Germany and Italy end up being partitioned into smaller states as part of a confederation; the idea being to try and restore the balance of power that existed right after the Napoleonic Wars...

And now for some minor notes to explain other oddities on this map;
*Austria-Hungary successfully implemented their proposed "Triallist" reforms to reorganise the Empire into three parts, but it wasn't enough to save it in the aftermath of the war, and it collapsed into its three components; the Kingdom of Croatia joined Yugoslavia, the Habsburgs retained control of Bohemia and Galicia-Lodomeria (later ceded to Poland, possibly in return for them appointing a Habsburg as King), and the Kingdom of Hungary ended up offering their own crown to the draconic rulers of the Transylvania region (known to them as 'Okarthel', meaning "Homeland") when it became clear that they and the inhabitants of Slovakia were all set to openly revolt and secede. Although both Austria and Hungary fell into the German sphere during WWII, both states were restored in full in the aftermath as a result of the actions of the rulers to resist the Nazis, and soon began establishing a trade union between their nations with the Treaty of Eisenstadt/Kismarton.

*Instead of being annexed by Soviet Russia outright in the aftermath of World War I, the nations of Eastern Europe managed to secure their independence and hold out for nearly two decades before finally becoming trapped behind the Iron Curtain. As a result of this, however, a number of the provisional borders established during World War I ended up remaining intact and surviving to the present day (yeah, I know it's a bit of a stretch, but I really just wanted an excuse to make things look different here, since Eastern Europe rarely gets attention in scenarios like this!), and the Soviet advance into Europe was slowed somewhat in World War II, leading to less land under their control at the end and the Soviets having a bit less sway at the negotiation table.

*The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire ended up continuing long after the main powers involved had left the war (although the Allies still quietly sent weapons in the hopes of securing their investments in the area), since the leaders knew they'd face imprisonment or worse if they surrendered, and even attracted Greece and the Soviet Union, who invaded areas along their borders. By the end, the Ottoman Empire had collapsed and been replaced with Ataturk's Republic of Turkey, and the sons of Hussein bin Ali ended up ruling the newly established Kingdoms of Syria, Iraq and Jazira, and as such, were able to contain the forces of Ibn Saud and stop his fledgeling Kingdom of Nejd from annexing Mecca and Medina. In the later half of the century, however, following the downfall of the Kingdom of Egypt and the rise of the Egyptian Federation (a state incorporating Nubia and the Sudan), Baathist uprisings led to the fall of the monarchies in Iraq and Jazira (which evolved into a pseudo-Kurdish Republic with Assyrian minorities) and a vicious civil war in Syria that ended with the country divided; a Syrian Republic in the north, a rump Kingdom of Palestine in the south, and Lebanon and Israel (a small Jewish Autonomous Region which had been established via a treaty made between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Syria) declaring independence. Tensions are still rough in the area in the present day, with each state having claims to the lands of their neighbour.

*A number of small changes here and there in East Asia led to Mao Zedong's Communist Revolution not succeeding quite as planned. Dragon-led states in Tibet and the Xinjiang region, as well as unrest in Mongolia and Soviet desires to keep China divided so it would be under their control (seriously, that was a thing) meant the country ended up divided in half, with the Communist forces controlling the richer northern half of the country, while the Kuomintang were left with the southern half. At the same time, a former KMT warlord named Long'Li became disilluisioned with the people he'd allied himself with for the last few decades, and wound up being expelled to South East Asia, where he began forming a state of his own, with his own ideology building off Sun Yat-Sen's ideas and incorporating vanguardist ideas of his own...

There's also a vague plan for some big state in Morocco and Algeria led by a draconic Emperor with a illustrious family history and a probable Berber ancestry, but and I are still bickering over the borders (he wanted it to be purely coastal with a Tuareg controlled interior, but I thought the borders shown here made more sense for a Berber leader, short of giving him chunks of Mali and Niger to give him all the Tuareg lands...and for the record I did do a test map of that with colonial-esque straight borders and DEAR GOD was it ugly) so I'll get back to you when we've got more on that. Oh, and the state borders for the fictional US states of Lakota and Dinetah have changed AGAIN because it was a hassle to adapt the older map to suit that projection...yeah, it's lazy, but what are you gonna do?

Base map from the Q-Bam Project, along with several borders...

Description
Originally I wasn't planning on uploading the map in this form; I'd intended to colour the whole thing in, add labels and subdivisions and the like (for instance, look at Indomalaya; I drew up their internal borders for the hell of it! ), and make it look amazing...but a few days back I started drawing it up and realised to my horror that I had several conflicting visions in my head and no clear way to resolve them! So, for now, I figure the best option is to upload it as is, and perhaps also get some feedback on this possible new incarnation of the world as it appears in 's "Dragons Unite"...as with each of the older updates, some older states have gone while some newer ones have been added, some of the borders have changed, and certain areas have been revamped based on new cool things that we've learned more about since the last version!

What brought this huge update into being, you might ask? The Hearts of Iron IV mod "Kaiserreich", to a degree...if you've not heard of that before, it's a fairly elaborate alternate history scenario exploring what could have happened if Germany and the Central Powers had won World War I. and I are both big fans of the mod, to the point where Syndicalism ended up being added to the Dragons Unite world. I'd already written up a vague idea for the various deposed nobles of Germany to be holding titles within the Avalarian Empire by the present day, but as I spent more time playing Kaiserreich, I found myself thinking more and more about how the world could have been different without World War I (and by extension, WWII), or with it happening differently, so that there wouldn't be as much ethnic cleansing and cultural losses in the years to come, and this desire to change things in some way ended up colliding with a nagging thought I'd had that given Avalar's historic ties and rivalries, they should probably have entered the war on the side of the Central Powers (I argued this back and forth for quite some time)...

...and then it hit me; what if I rewrote the history so that Avalar DID join World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and then have the Dragons Unite timeline significantly diverge from ours at that point? Our older canon had world history more or less proceeding the same until World War II, but having major changes take place even earlier and alter the outcome of World War I would be the perfect way of showing the readers that this world wasn't the one they recognised, plus it would also free up the rest of the century for us to make changes willy-nilly and insert all the crazy ideas we'd had over the years (for instance, Karl I of Austria NOT dying on Madeira and continuing to rule Austria), and also better justify how certain dragon nations secured independence!

Naturally, this is all up in the air right now and we're still tweaking the timeline to make sure everything more or less works, but the basic idea behind it all is the following; Avalar enters World War I on the side of the Central Powers, having been roped into an alliance following the Franco-Prussian War as a result of the machinations of Otto von Bismarck (basically, he forced France to give up a draconic majority territory so that it could become an independent state, then offered to share administration of this area with Avalar). Avalar is quickly overrun by the Allied forces once Italy joins the war on their side, but the war ends up dragging out longer than in our timeline as a result of the Irish Rebellion spreading over into the neighbouring celtic territories. Multiple dragon-backed uprisings take place and Britain has to pull back some of their forces, allowing Germany to hold on a wee bit longer and help the fledgeling states in Eastern Europe consolidate themselves a bit. In the end, though, both sides are forced to agree to a White Peace when left-wing uprisings in their home territories get out of hand. Both sides then quickly send their forces to quash these uprisings, but it's a pyrrhic victory; Britain is forced to grant a number of its territories self-rule to restore order (and over the years to come many will break free), France's government collapses, Austria-Hungary splits in two and Germany loses all the land they had gained in the east, while the Greater Poland uprising leads to their eastern territories breaking free. With each side feeling pretty hard done by and blaming everybody around them, revanchist and fascist parties steadily come into being, and before long the Chancellor of Germany is making plans for war against Poland...and then you can guess how things end up going from here; World War II still happens, but a wee bit differently, and in the aftermath Germany and Italy end up being partitioned into smaller states as part of a confederation; the idea being to try and restore the balance of power that existed right after the Napoleonic Wars...

And now for some minor notes to explain other oddities on this map;
*Austria-Hungary successfully implemented their proposed "Triallist" reforms to reorganise the Empire into three parts, but it wasn't enough to save it in the aftermath of the war, and it collapsed into its three components; the Kingdom of Croatia joined Yugoslavia, the Habsburgs retained control of Bohemia and Galicia-Lodomeria (later ceded to Poland, possibly in return for them appointing a Habsburg as King), and the Kingdom of Hungary ended up offering their own crown to the draconic rulers of the Transylvania region (known to them as 'Okarthel', meaning "Homeland") when it became clear that they and the inhabitants of Slovakia were all set to openly revolt and secede. Although both Austria and Hungary fell into the German sphere during WWII, both states were restored in full in the aftermath as a result of the actions of the rulers to resist the Nazis, and soon began establishing a trade union between their nations with the Treaty of Eisenstadt/Kismarton.

*Instead of being annexed by Soviet Russia outright in the aftermath of World War I, the nations of Eastern Europe managed to secure their independence and hold out for nearly two decades before finally becoming trapped behind the Iron Curtain. As a result of this, however, a number of the provisional borders established during World War I ended up remaining intact and surviving to the present day (yeah, I know it's a bit of a stretch, but I really just wanted an excuse to make things look different here, since Eastern Europe rarely gets attention in scenarios like this!), and the Soviet advance into Europe was slowed somewhat in World War II, leading to less land under their control at the end and the Soviets having a bit less sway at the negotiation table.

*The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire ended up continuing long after the main powers involved had left the war (although the Allies still quietly sent weapons in the hopes of securing their investments in the area), since the leaders knew they'd face imprisonment or worse if they surrendered, and even attracted Greece and the Soviet Union, who invaded areas along their borders. By the end, the Ottoman Empire had collapsed and been replaced with Ataturk's Republic of Turkey, and the sons of Hussein bin Ali ended up ruling the newly established Kingdoms of Syria, Iraq and Jazira, and as such, were able to contain the forces of Ibn Saud and stop his fledgeling Kingdom of Nejd from annexing Mecca and Medina. In the later half of the century, however, following the downfall of the Kingdom of Egypt and the rise of the Egyptian Federation (a state incorporating Nubia and the Sudan), Baathist uprisings led to the fall of the monarchies in Iraq and Jazira (which evolved into a pseudo-Kurdish Republic with Assyrian minorities) and a vicious civil war in Syria that ended with the country divided; a Syrian Republic in the north, a rump Kingdom of Palestine in the south, and Lebanon and Israel (a small Jewish Autonomous Region which had been established via a treaty made between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Syria) declaring independence. Tensions are still rough in the area in the present day, with each state having claims to the lands of their neighbour.

*A number of small changes here and there in East Asia led to Mao Zedong's Communist Revolution not succeeding quite as planned. Dragon-led states in Tibet and the Xinjiang region, as well as unrest in Mongolia and Soviet desires to keep China divided so it would be under their control (seriously, that was a thing) meant the country ended up divided in half, with the Communist forces controlling the richer northern half of the country, while the Kuomintang were left with the southern half. At the same time, a former KMT warlord named Long'Li became disilluisioned with the people he'd allied himself with for the last few decades, and wound up being expelled to South East Asia, where he began forming a state of his own, with his own ideology building off Sun Yat-Sen's ideas and incorporating vanguardist ideas of his own...

There's also a vague plan for some big state in Morocco and Algeria led by a draconic Emperor with a illustrious family history and a probable Berber ancestry, but and I are still bickering over the borders (he wanted it to be purely coastal with a Tuareg controlled interior, but I thought the borders shown here made more sense for a Berber leader, short of giving him chunks of Mali and Niger to give him all the Tuareg lands...and for the record I did do a test map of that with colonial-esque straight borders and DEAR GOD was it ugly) so I'll get back to you when we've got more on that. Oh, and the state borders for the fictional US states of Lakota and Dinetah have changed AGAIN because it was a hassle to adapt the older map to suit that projection...yeah, it's lazy, but what are you gonna do?

Base map from the Q-Bam Project, along with several borders...