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Here's one adapting "If Drouet' Cart had stuck" and continuing it 80+ years to 2014. Since I wasn't able to find the actual essay(I've been able to find ALOT on openlibrary, but not the book with it), I'm mostly "borrowing" from two previous adaptations of the concept by Quantumbranching and goliath_maps. Influences from other Quantumbranching scenarios(his "slow war" one.), various medieval-themed ATLs to name some other influences are present.

Following the boot-licking ending of the first great war, a cold war started as former British India, Russia, Canada and whatever parts of China were held by the most anti-German warlord this week formed a coalition. With the German navy's attempts to stop oceanic trade, these nations along with India's south asian vassals created a new economic union, a new Silk Road. In between the first and second rounds, Germany was busy maintaining order in it's East Indies colonies, keeping Japan divided and under it's thumb, propping up the failing Qing dynasty along with dealing with terrorism-troubled Britain and Ireland. Even so, Germany had managed to expand it's presence in Africa greatly.

Following disputes relating to India shipping arms north to help the Chinese resistance, a second war erupted in 1960. This was a war with repeating rifles, clipper ships, early ironclads and explosives. Unlike the first round, the advantage was (barely) on the Anglo-Russian-Hong side --Germany was kicked out of China, Spain thrown out of Mexico. This time, the North Americans got involved following the German invasion of that continent from the atlantic -- the Confederacy grabbed Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto, The Bahamas, Santo Domingo and Haiti from Spain while Texas doubled it's territorial size in the process of backing the Mexican revolution against new spain's governors.

Like after the first great war, the second great war led to an intensification of the ongoing cold war. Germany's (limited) loss in the war forced a reassessment of old attitudes towards scientific progress -- the old compartmentalization of knowledge was slightly relaxed, and academics experienced a limited amount of increased intellectual freedom. This time, the North Americans made their sympathies clear: aligning themselves with the Grand Alliance in the event of their neutrality being violated.

It is November 8, 2014. In just 14 days a border dispute between Germany and India's east African ally the Great lakes Federation will quickly escalate...

xxx
THE ALLIANCE OF ORDER

Germany with 180 million people remains the leading world power -- the loss of China to the Grand Alliance is counterbalanced by no longer having to pour money and troops down the Chinese rathole. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is ornately repressive, and of course Very Christian. Instead of being north-German flavored like OTL Germany the fact that Vienna was the unifying capital has had quite an impact on the culture -- it's a very florid and genteel place. Germany's leadership has debated whether or not to annex France or Poland, but voices against it have prevailed. After all, Germany proper is only about 2/3 german-speaking, with the outer empire tending to top at being a fourth german-speaking so such an idea is a no-go.

Germany's colonial empire would be quite familiar to anyone whose studied Spain's colonies -- there's european immigration, an increasingly mixed population, slaves and serfs do the hard labor and of course the forced imposition of Christianity. The maghreb and Indonesia remain trouble spots due to the native muslims resisting the imposition of christianity. There are converts but nowhere near as many as the missionaries want.

German Africa is as integrated into the world economy and western civilization as say 1700 Latin America -- quite a few of the natives remain non-german speaking but are catholic, infrastructure is growing, there is a european elite ruling and a mixed-race population is growing.

Indonesia is a pain, but at least the muslims aren't as fanatical as those fighting to try overthrowing the German yoke in the middle east. The fact that the local settlers are aided by millions of Chinese or Japanese loyalists who fled the collapse of both nations' pro-german puppet government following the second great war helps.

German Libya and South Africa are the two crown jewels of the Empire. Both are increasingly ethnically and european and actually making a profit for the empire.

Taiwan, the last enclave of German "protection" of China is increasingly troubled by pro-reunion terrorism.

Besides the colonies, Germany has an "inner Empire", consisting of parts of eastern and central europe. This is an area of dubious loyalty, with unrest simmering in rural areas.

Germany maintains a European Commonwealth, which largely consists of it's vassals. However, it's partner nation of Brazil is an EC member state, so at least it's more of an economic union rather than just an area to be milked. There's still German troops in EC states, since some areas like France or Britain are *still* troublesome. Even the once-loyal Irish are a pain.

Britain is hell for German troops, even after close to a century of occupation. Even with concessions such as the restoration of a parliament(for nobles and rich people only), the resistance has not stopped. Bombs go off every day in London. In worrying news, there have been several recent suicide bomings...

Ireland is mini-hell. Both Prot and Catholic Irish have made up and turned against Germany's occupying forces. Suicide bombing has become a thing in Ireland -- priests giving last rites before Resistance attacks has evolved into outright quiet endorsement of suicide bombing.

France was initially very happy to be freed from the humiliation of being a British puppet but now is starting to become troublesome after decades of quiet. Administrators in Vienna fret about the idea of the fever of rebellion spreading from the western isles to the Continent itself.

Spain is loyal, corrupt and quiet. Spain retains a wee colonial empire in the form of the Philippines and Nicaragua. Nowadays, the very loyal Philippines is increasingly self-governing an there is talk(approved by Vienna) of spinning it off as a pro-german kingdom. Nicaragua is a guerilla haven thanks to Mexican and Confederate gun-running.

Increasingly, as Brazil has industrialized it's become Germany's partner in the alliance. Emperor Dom Pedro X rules an empire of 150 million people in South America, Africa and the old motherland of Portugal. Nowadays, Brazil's colonies within Africa are now simply extensions of the South American homeland as slave-trading plus settler colonization along with intermarriage have changed the area's demographics to become an extension of the imperial core. At least Brazil's set up actual infrastructure in it's african colonies.

The Empire of Peru is another increasingly important part of the German Sphere, this nation of 100 million has industrialized using a mix of local minerals, plus andean geothermal energy to fuel it's industries along with the capital raised by it's most popular cash crop, cocaine. It is even more catholic and repressive than the old HRE. On the upside, it's at least rather less racist than OTL andean South America -- as long as you act like a European and are both ambitious and capable of rising, being of Indian or Mestizo ancestry won't be a barrier to advancement.

The Kingdom of La Plata is more spanish than the old motherland itself, even though half it's population is of Italian descent. The twin cities of Buenos aires and Montevideo are Latin America's financial center.

New Granada is sleepy, conservative and like Peru has gotten extremely rich off of cocaine.

A creaky Ottoman Empire has replaced even Indonesia or Britain as the "DO NOT GET POSTED HERE EVER" location for Germany's soldiers. For every Jihadi nest that's burned out by German forces, another ten or twenty pop up.

xxx
THE GRAND ALLIANCE

The Grand Alliance is a mix of military alliance, economic union and mutual assistance society -- much money from India, Canada, Vietnam, Burma, Australia and the like is helping China's industrialization. India remains the leader of the alliance, but nowadays works with both Russia and China. The Grand alliance has tried to get the North Americans on board for decades. They're increasingly hopeful given the snippy notes being exchanged between Washington and Vienna.

India is a largely-constitutional monarchy under King Edward X(the house ofRajahs and the house of commons), the grandson of the youngest son who fled London back in 1920. Compared to OTL's early 20th century, or even circa 1947 it's a much more modernized place. The caste system is like Britain's class system in say 1750 now, there are large cities with industry and MUCH more rail or canal infrastructure than OTL. There's even increased electrification in the cities. Unlike OTL even now there is more of an Indian identity since both Hindus and Muslims saw themselves as being under threat by the Germans for the past several generations.

The 20 million English living in India have become surprisingly(from the perspectie of an early 20th century englishman) assimilated into Indian society. They no longer monopolize either military or government positions, but remain over-reprented in both.

India maintains an economic union, deeper than the Grand Alliance's trade deal with much of South and southeast asia, along with former colonies like Australia or Canada. These countries are all as industrialized as India or Russia. Iran is part of the south Asian Union, but thanks to it's wealth and strategic location is more like a regional partner to India.

Russia went from napoleonic-style dictatorship, to PRI Mexico-style oligarchy to now oligarchy with elections and 2 different parties(think OTL US).. The economy went from being mostly state-run under the czars, mostly-state run to rapidly industrialize under the early republic and by now is acutally close to a majority free-market(Would be 70% free-market instead of 40% if the state-supported cartels weren't factored in. The initial harsh secularism of the early years following the revolution of 1920 that led to the Czars being kicked out gave way to a religious revival that's gotten a bit stale and peaked a decade ago.

Hong China is a technocratic and bureaucratic monarchy trying to modernize with a decent amount of success in this lower-tech world. Traditionalist objections are few since your average Chinese man on the street remembers the humiliations of the mid-19th century, along with the decades of occupation and Second Great war. The cities of China are smoky with coalfirs as new iron pagodas and even early skyscrapers with clearly Chinese aesthetics in mind go up.

Like China, Japan experienced the humiliation of German occupation following a forced opening in 1862. A reunified Japan that's kicked out the Germans is trying to catch up with the developed nations in the Grand Alliance. The complete failure of the samurai class, combined with the near-century of occupation has lead to Japan doing a 180 on firearms ownership; everyone older than 12 carries around a gun. Even the women.

The Great Lakes Federation is a loose confederation of pro-Indian african states which was formed in the 1970s to stop German expansion to the east. Tribal differences have slowly become less important in the face of being right next door to Germany's colonies.

xxx
EVERYONE ELSE

The five "Brother Republics" of North America have formed a customs union, common tariff zone which features easy naturalization for citizens of one republic in another. Yes, there are strains like the increasing tendency for black Confederates or Mexican peasants to move elsewhere but on the whole it works surprisingly well. The geopolitical stance of the North American Community can be cmopared to that of a giant hedgehog -- they've explicitly said "Leave us be, or we'll side with the Indians in the next war like the last". The fact that Vienna sends angry blustering to Washington DC's way Does Not Help.

The rump United States is massively industrialized and in the early stages of transitioning from steampunk to Dieselpunk. Labor is turbulent despite regular shooting of strikers by the army and multiethnic machine politics plus occasional state-corporate collusion is the rule of the day. Americans even decades after forming the NAC still occasionally look down on Confederates, Freedonians and Texans.

The Confederate States of America is even more oligarchic than the United States. Slavery died out from 1960 to 1990, though. Even so, black Confederates don't get a good deal(this world isn't yet advanced enough for agricultural mechanization so the CS needs a peasantry) and if they can afford it often emigrate.

Texas is bilingual anglo/spanish, and much more "hispanic" than OTL's Texas. Think of it more as an extension of OTL Northern Mexico, combined with the culture of OTL Texas+New mexico. Texas's relationships with Mexico are complex -- on the one hand there's partial common descent, but on the other hand even a republican mexico is still embarassing. Every Texan older than 12 goes armed, and tourists who don't wish to carry a rented gun during their stay have to get and carry a "unarmed pacifist" badge -- in the early days after the Showa Restoration, Japan sent quite a few people to learn from Texas.

Freedonia is white, Very Protestant and a bit obsessive about rural life. The other republics in North America occasionally get laughs out of mocking the rural fundamentalists of Freedonia.

Mexico is a corrupt semidemocracy on the model of OTL PRI mexico. It is incidently engaging in a process of rapid industrialization that's creating smog near Mexico City. The population of Mexico is more european and less Indian or Mestizo than OTL thanks to an extra century of hispanicization. There are quite a few Mexican immigrants living elsewhere in North America.

Oklahoma is a neutral state, that's bilingual Cherokee-English and doesn't much like the white man.

The Mahdiya of Sudan managed to avoid colonization due to a lower-tech world providing it with more time to (barely) catch up enough to avoid outright conquest or full puppetization. The fact that many arabic
or Turkish refugees managed to flee south to escape the puppetization of the ottomans or Morocco along with the conquest of Algeria to bring their technology helps. It has a few sahelian islamic allies, plus is on decent terms with Zanj and it has been courted by both sets of great powers -- on the one hand the Germans have humiliated the protectors of the holy city, but on the other hands the Indians and their alliance are urbanites or otherwie intolerable...

Several emirates in the Sahel managed to avoid conquest long enough to start up an alliance first with each other then later including the Mahdiya. The question of whether or not science or technology is haram was settled decades ago, since the modernists could point to the fundamentalists things like the German annexation of the area of OTL Israel, Germany's puppet states of Morocco/The Ottomans/The emirate of the sands to the north along with Germany's colonies to the south.

Zanj is a trading state that's gotten quite wealthy acting as a smuggler's port between the pro-Indian Great Lakes Federation, Ethiopia, Brazilian Mozambique and pro-Indian Merina. Alas, the last few Sultans have mostly decided to use the extra money to build extravagant palaces and import astronomical quantities of opium for their parties instead of spending it on infrastructure...

Ethiopia is an African state that managed to pull a Meiji Japan, an easier feat in this more slowly advancing world and become considered at least semi-industrialized. Ambassadors from the courts of both Vienna and Delhi are often in Addis Ababa trying to win Ethiopia to their side by offering gifts and technical aid. Emperor Menelik IV is a smart man -- he plans to see if he can get away with milking both great powers into essentially subsidizing Ethiopia's industrialization to their level and has little intention of entering formal alliance.

The papal states is a corrupt and (comparatively) lightly censored part of Europe -- as long as it's not 1) outright blasphemy 2) aimed at trying to convert away Catholics you're mostly able to publish what you want there.

xxx

By now, the wooden ships of the two great wars have been replaced by steel battleships, airships fly the skies, railroads have expanded and radio has spread outside of the most highly developed areas. Depending on the area of technology, it can range from 1900 to 1910-level. Not everything is over a century behind -- areas such as solar power, wind power, sailing ships and a few oddities such as babbage machines(an extremely minor innovation in practice), sailing ships and even vertical farming are all more advanced than OTL's early 20th century. Besides these advancements, there are refinements of existing techniques like early fridges, primitive fax machines and really fast trains in place. Compared to OTL in the same era, this world's technology is rather more evenly spread around the planrt. That said, there is still a deep undercurrent of resistance to rapid social and technical change.

Incidents involving early experiments with kites attached to rockets means that heavier than air flight is a bit discredited and thus both (so far) nonexistent with a bit less interest than OTL's 1890s and 1900s. If there is a reason for intensive research, it could probably be found fast...

Oddly, even though technology lags theoretical physics is a bit ahead of OTL's early 20th century. They know of relativity, E = MC squared and a few other things. India's traditional cosmology has actually been a boon to physics research.

The fact that several of the more prominent nations(India, Brazil, Peru, China, Japan) are either tropical or subtropical has had important influences in technology -- tropical disease is prioritized, medicine has had better access to tropical herbs, air conditioning was invented surprisingly early, solar power is widely used, vulcanized rubber was introduced earlier among other differences. Effort being put in these areas explaisn part of the lag compared to OTL.

Much more advancement in food crops, agricultural research and intensification of farming combined with improvements in medical care(India's access to tropical herbs, combined with more willingness for science to borrow the bits of eastern medicine that work partially compensates for weaker science) has lead to a world population of 4 billion instead of OTL 1900's 1.8 billion people. The good news, is that this world while not yet at a full demographic transition is at least closer than OTL's early 20th century with another upshot being that more of the planet is at this point. It may be a more crowded world, but more intensive farming, combined with investment in food crops in OTL colonial areas not one that's in a malthusian crisis.

Compared to OTL's first decade of the 20th century this is a world rather more urbanized than OTL -- Europe somewhat less urban(say 1890s level) while Eastern and South Asia are significantly more urbanized than OTL at that timeframe. The more developed bits of colonial or independent africa along with Latin America are visibly, if not radically more urban than OTL in the same era.

Even though it's only at a 1900-1910 level, Radio has taken off faster than it did OTL in the same period due to the more developed world.

Mass Production on the model of OTL Henry Ford has not come about -- the idea has either not occured to anybody with money or the society has serious barriers to it as a concept(India, German Europe). As a result, there is more of a demand for labor and this world's workforce is more "blue collar".

Perhaps due to India or Chinese influence combined with the higher population, environmentalism is more influential than OTL's early 20th century. Also due to that same interest, combined with with Germany's attempt to strangle oceanic trade there is much more interest in "alternate" energy sources along with substitutes to nonrenewable materials. In terms of both the climate change and resource usage clocks, this world is more like our mid 19th century even with the extra people and wealth.

There is a much larger than OTL population of overseas Chinese. Part of it is refugees from Germany's intervention 1890-95 to take advantage of Qing-related chaos and to occupy the country -- The Chinese fought like Paraguayans or no-atom bomb Japanese. Despite German propaganda, the war was a near-run thing even with almost supernatural luck. One particularly honest German fieldmarshall said back in 1992 it was 1% likely that they were able to even pull it off, much less KEEP the occupation going until the 1960s. The same general noted after a few beers that Britain would have probably been able to soundly beat Germany if they had struck during that war instead of waiting until 1920. Then there are the Chinese fled during the 65-year long struggle or after the early 1960s collaborators fleeing to avoid being lynched

Thanks to Holy Roman Empire backing, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, the dutch reformed church and several of the smaller orthodox churches have all been forcibly reunited with Roman Catholicism. Even though this world is much more conservative in many other ways the Roman Catholic Church started doing masses in the Vernacular earlier than OTL.

Various forms of unfree labor remain rather more common than in OTL's 1900. There are state serfs in the HRE along with debt-bonded peasants in most of the great powers and slavery in Latin America and HRE Africa. The overall trend is for more freedom, but alas it's slow -- The CSA ended slavery to replace it with outrageously unfair sharecropping, state serfs have been replaced with sharecropping in all but the muslim parts of the Russian Republic(even this is sloowly changing) and the HRE has set regulations on treatment of factory serfs. Predictably, this process has meant that worker's rights in areas with free labor are more like the early or mid 19th-century.

Shooting protestors is considered something that even democracies or more enlightened monarchies are required to do. This goes doubly for worker's strikes -- states such as the USA or Australia which even tolerate some protests are just as quick to shoot strikers as the HRE is.

Torture remains more prevelant even though it's usage is on the decline.

Description
Here's one adapting "If Drouet' Cart had stuck" and continuing it 80+ years to 2014. Since I wasn't able to find the actual essay(I've been able to find ALOT on openlibrary, but not the book with it), I'm mostly "borrowing" from two previous adaptations of the concept by Quantumbranching and goliath_maps. Influences from other Quantumbranching scenarios(his "slow war" one.), various medieval-themed ATLs to name some other influences are present.

Following the boot-licking ending of the first great war, a cold war started as former British India, Russia, Canada and whatever parts of China were held by the most anti-German warlord this week formed a coalition. With the German navy's attempts to stop oceanic trade, these nations along with India's south asian vassals created a new economic union, a new Silk Road. In between the first and second rounds, Germany was busy maintaining order in it's East Indies colonies, keeping Japan divided and under it's thumb, propping up the failing Qing dynasty along with dealing with terrorism-troubled Britain and Ireland. Even so, Germany had managed to expand it's presence in Africa greatly.

Following disputes relating to India shipping arms north to help the Chinese resistance, a second war erupted in 1960. This was a war with repeating rifles, clipper ships, early ironclads and explosives. Unlike the first round, the advantage was (barely) on the Anglo-Russian-Hong side --Germany was kicked out of China, Spain thrown out of Mexico. This time, the North Americans got involved following the German invasion of that continent from the atlantic -- the Confederacy grabbed Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto, The Bahamas, Santo Domingo and Haiti from Spain while Texas doubled it's territorial size in the process of backing the Mexican revolution against new spain's governors.

Like after the first great war, the second great war led to an intensification of the ongoing cold war. Germany's (limited) loss in the war forced a reassessment of old attitudes towards scientific progress -- the old compartmentalization of knowledge was slightly relaxed, and academics experienced a limited amount of increased intellectual freedom. This time, the North Americans made their sympathies clear: aligning themselves with the Grand Alliance in the event of their neutrality being violated.

It is November 8, 2014. In just 14 days a border dispute between Germany and India's east African ally the Great lakes Federation will quickly escalate...

xxx
THE ALLIANCE OF ORDER

Germany with 180 million people remains the leading world power -- the loss of China to the Grand Alliance is counterbalanced by no longer having to pour money and troops down the Chinese rathole. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is ornately repressive, and of course Very Christian. Instead of being north-German flavored like OTL Germany the fact that Vienna was the unifying capital has had quite an impact on the culture -- it's a very florid and genteel place. Germany's leadership has debated whether or not to annex France or Poland, but voices against it have prevailed. After all, Germany proper is only about 2/3 german-speaking, with the outer empire tending to top at being a fourth german-speaking so such an idea is a no-go.

Germany's colonial empire would be quite familiar to anyone whose studied Spain's colonies -- there's european immigration, an increasingly mixed population, slaves and serfs do the hard labor and of course the forced imposition of Christianity. The maghreb and Indonesia remain trouble spots due to the native muslims resisting the imposition of christianity. There are converts but nowhere near as many as the missionaries want.

German Africa is as integrated into the world economy and western civilization as say 1700 Latin America -- quite a few of the natives remain non-german speaking but are catholic, infrastructure is growing, there is a european elite ruling and a mixed-race population is growing.

Indonesia is a pain, but at least the muslims aren't as fanatical as those fighting to try overthrowing the German yoke in the middle east. The fact that the local settlers are aided by millions of Chinese or Japanese loyalists who fled the collapse of both nations' pro-german puppet government following the second great war helps.

German Libya and South Africa are the two crown jewels of the Empire. Both are increasingly ethnically and european and actually making a profit for the empire.

Taiwan, the last enclave of German "protection" of China is increasingly troubled by pro-reunion terrorism.

Besides the colonies, Germany has an "inner Empire", consisting of parts of eastern and central europe. This is an area of dubious loyalty, with unrest simmering in rural areas.

Germany maintains a European Commonwealth, which largely consists of it's vassals. However, it's partner nation of Brazil is an EC member state, so at least it's more of an economic union rather than just an area to be milked. There's still German troops in EC states, since some areas like France or Britain are *still* troublesome. Even the once-loyal Irish are a pain.

Britain is hell for German troops, even after close to a century of occupation. Even with concessions such as the restoration of a parliament(for nobles and rich people only), the resistance has not stopped. Bombs go off every day in London. In worrying news, there have been several recent suicide bomings...

Ireland is mini-hell. Both Prot and Catholic Irish have made up and turned against Germany's occupying forces. Suicide bombing has become a thing in Ireland -- priests giving last rites before Resistance attacks has evolved into outright quiet endorsement of suicide bombing.

France was initially very happy to be freed from the humiliation of being a British puppet but now is starting to become troublesome after decades of quiet. Administrators in Vienna fret about the idea of the fever of rebellion spreading from the western isles to the Continent itself.

Spain is loyal, corrupt and quiet. Spain retains a wee colonial empire in the form of the Philippines and Nicaragua. Nowadays, the very loyal Philippines is increasingly self-governing an there is talk(approved by Vienna) of spinning it off as a pro-german kingdom. Nicaragua is a guerilla haven thanks to Mexican and Confederate gun-running.

Increasingly, as Brazil has industrialized it's become Germany's partner in the alliance. Emperor Dom Pedro X rules an empire of 150 million people in South America, Africa and the old motherland of Portugal. Nowadays, Brazil's colonies within Africa are now simply extensions of the South American homeland as slave-trading plus settler colonization along with intermarriage have changed the area's demographics to become an extension of the imperial core. At least Brazil's set up actual infrastructure in it's african colonies.

The Empire of Peru is another increasingly important part of the German Sphere, this nation of 100 million has industrialized using a mix of local minerals, plus andean geothermal energy to fuel it's industries along with the capital raised by it's most popular cash crop, cocaine. It is even more catholic and repressive than the old HRE. On the upside, it's at least rather less racist than OTL andean South America -- as long as you act like a European and are both ambitious and capable of rising, being of Indian or Mestizo ancestry won't be a barrier to advancement.

The Kingdom of La Plata is more spanish than the old motherland itself, even though half it's population is of Italian descent. The twin cities of Buenos aires and Montevideo are Latin America's financial center.

New Granada is sleepy, conservative and like Peru has gotten extremely rich off of cocaine.

A creaky Ottoman Empire has replaced even Indonesia or Britain as the "DO NOT GET POSTED HERE EVER" location for Germany's soldiers. For every Jihadi nest that's burned out by German forces, another ten or twenty pop up.

xxx
THE GRAND ALLIANCE

The Grand Alliance is a mix of military alliance, economic union and mutual assistance society -- much money from India, Canada, Vietnam, Burma, Australia and the like is helping China's industrialization. India remains the leader of the alliance, but nowadays works with both Russia and China. The Grand alliance has tried to get the North Americans on board for decades. They're increasingly hopeful given the snippy notes being exchanged between Washington and Vienna.

India is a largely-constitutional monarchy under King Edward X(the house ofRajahs and the house of commons), the grandson of the youngest son who fled London back in 1920. Compared to OTL's early 20th century, or even circa 1947 it's a much more modernized place. The caste system is like Britain's class system in say 1750 now, there are large cities with industry and MUCH more rail or canal infrastructure than OTL. There's even increased electrification in the cities. Unlike OTL even now there is more of an Indian identity since both Hindus and Muslims saw themselves as being under threat by the Germans for the past several generations.

The 20 million English living in India have become surprisingly(from the perspectie of an early 20th century englishman) assimilated into Indian society. They no longer monopolize either military or government positions, but remain over-reprented in both.

India maintains an economic union, deeper than the Grand Alliance's trade deal with much of South and southeast asia, along with former colonies like Australia or Canada. These countries are all as industrialized as India or Russia. Iran is part of the south Asian Union, but thanks to it's wealth and strategic location is more like a regional partner to India.

Russia went from napoleonic-style dictatorship, to PRI Mexico-style oligarchy to now oligarchy with elections and 2 different parties(think OTL US).. The economy went from being mostly state-run under the czars, mostly-state run to rapidly industrialize under the early republic and by now is acutally close to a majority free-market(Would be 70% free-market instead of 40% if the state-supported cartels weren't factored in. The initial harsh secularism of the early years following the revolution of 1920 that led to the Czars being kicked out gave way to a religious revival that's gotten a bit stale and peaked a decade ago.

Hong China is a technocratic and bureaucratic monarchy trying to modernize with a decent amount of success in this lower-tech world. Traditionalist objections are few since your average Chinese man on the street remembers the humiliations of the mid-19th century, along with the decades of occupation and Second Great war. The cities of China are smoky with coalfirs as new iron pagodas and even early skyscrapers with clearly Chinese aesthetics in mind go up.

Like China, Japan experienced the humiliation of German occupation following a forced opening in 1862. A reunified Japan that's kicked out the Germans is trying to catch up with the developed nations in the Grand Alliance. The complete failure of the samurai class, combined with the near-century of occupation has lead to Japan doing a 180 on firearms ownership; everyone older than 12 carries around a gun. Even the women.

The Great Lakes Federation is a loose confederation of pro-Indian african states which was formed in the 1970s to stop German expansion to the east. Tribal differences have slowly become less important in the face of being right next door to Germany's colonies.

xxx
EVERYONE ELSE

The five "Brother Republics" of North America have formed a customs union, common tariff zone which features easy naturalization for citizens of one republic in another. Yes, there are strains like the increasing tendency for black Confederates or Mexican peasants to move elsewhere but on the whole it works surprisingly well. The geopolitical stance of the North American Community can be cmopared to that of a giant hedgehog -- they've explicitly said "Leave us be, or we'll side with the Indians in the next war like the last". The fact that Vienna sends angry blustering to Washington DC's way Does Not Help.

The rump United States is massively industrialized and in the early stages of transitioning from steampunk to Dieselpunk. Labor is turbulent despite regular shooting of strikers by the army and multiethnic machine politics plus occasional state-corporate collusion is the rule of the day. Americans even decades after forming the NAC still occasionally look down on Confederates, Freedonians and Texans.

The Confederate States of America is even more oligarchic than the United States. Slavery died out from 1960 to 1990, though. Even so, black Confederates don't get a good deal(this world isn't yet advanced enough for agricultural mechanization so the CS needs a peasantry) and if they can afford it often emigrate.

Texas is bilingual anglo/spanish, and much more "hispanic" than OTL's Texas. Think of it more as an extension of OTL Northern Mexico, combined with the culture of OTL Texas+New mexico. Texas's relationships with Mexico are complex -- on the one hand there's partial common descent, but on the other hand even a republican mexico is still embarassing. Every Texan older than 12 goes armed, and tourists who don't wish to carry a rented gun during their stay have to get and carry a "unarmed pacifist" badge -- in the early days after the Showa Restoration, Japan sent quite a few people to learn from Texas.

Freedonia is white, Very Protestant and a bit obsessive about rural life. The other republics in North America occasionally get laughs out of mocking the rural fundamentalists of Freedonia.

Mexico is a corrupt semidemocracy on the model of OTL PRI mexico. It is incidently engaging in a process of rapid industrialization that's creating smog near Mexico City. The population of Mexico is more european and less Indian or Mestizo than OTL thanks to an extra century of hispanicization. There are quite a few Mexican immigrants living elsewhere in North America.

Oklahoma is a neutral state, that's bilingual Cherokee-English and doesn't much like the white man.

The Mahdiya of Sudan managed to avoid colonization due to a lower-tech world providing it with more time to (barely) catch up enough to avoid outright conquest or full puppetization. The fact that many arabic
or Turkish refugees managed to flee south to escape the puppetization of the ottomans or Morocco along with the conquest of Algeria to bring their technology helps. It has a few sahelian islamic allies, plus is on decent terms with Zanj and it has been courted by both sets of great powers -- on the one hand the Germans have humiliated the protectors of the holy city, but on the other hands the Indians and their alliance are urbanites or otherwie intolerable...

Several emirates in the Sahel managed to avoid conquest long enough to start up an alliance first with each other then later including the Mahdiya. The question of whether or not science or technology is haram was settled decades ago, since the modernists could point to the fundamentalists things like the German annexation of the area of OTL Israel, Germany's puppet states of Morocco/The Ottomans/The emirate of the sands to the north along with Germany's colonies to the south.

Zanj is a trading state that's gotten quite wealthy acting as a smuggler's port between the pro-Indian Great Lakes Federation, Ethiopia, Brazilian Mozambique and pro-Indian Merina. Alas, the last few Sultans have mostly decided to use the extra money to build extravagant palaces and import astronomical quantities of opium for their parties instead of spending it on infrastructure...

Ethiopia is an African state that managed to pull a Meiji Japan, an easier feat in this more slowly advancing world and become considered at least semi-industrialized. Ambassadors from the courts of both Vienna and Delhi are often in Addis Ababa trying to win Ethiopia to their side by offering gifts and technical aid. Emperor Menelik IV is a smart man -- he plans to see if he can get away with milking both great powers into essentially subsidizing Ethiopia's industrialization to their level and has little intention of entering formal alliance.

The papal states is a corrupt and (comparatively) lightly censored part of Europe -- as long as it's not 1) outright blasphemy 2) aimed at trying to convert away Catholics you're mostly able to publish what you want there.

xxx

By now, the wooden ships of the two great wars have been replaced by steel battleships, airships fly the skies, railroads have expanded and radio has spread outside of the most highly developed areas. Depending on the area of technology, it can range from 1900 to 1910-level. Not everything is over a century behind -- areas such as solar power, wind power, sailing ships and a few oddities such as babbage machines(an extremely minor innovation in practice), sailing ships and even vertical farming are all more advanced than OTL's early 20th century. Besides these advancements, there are refinements of existing techniques like early fridges, primitive fax machines and really fast trains in place. Compared to OTL in the same era, this world's technology is rather more evenly spread around the planrt. That said, there is still a deep undercurrent of resistance to rapid social and technical change.

Incidents involving early experiments with kites attached to rockets means that heavier than air flight is a bit discredited and thus both (so far) nonexistent with a bit less interest than OTL's 1890s and 1900s. If there is a reason for intensive research, it could probably be found fast...

Oddly, even though technology lags theoretical physics is a bit ahead of OTL's early 20th century. They know of relativity, E = MC squared and a few other things. India's traditional cosmology has actually been a boon to physics research.

The fact that several of the more prominent nations(India, Brazil, Peru, China, Japan) are either tropical or subtropical has had important influences in technology -- tropical disease is prioritized, medicine has had better access to tropical herbs, air conditioning was invented surprisingly early, solar power is widely used, vulcanized rubber was introduced earlier among other differences. Effort being put in these areas explaisn part of the lag compared to OTL.

Much more advancement in food crops, agricultural research and intensification of farming combined with improvements in medical care(India's access to tropical herbs, combined with more willingness for science to borrow the bits of eastern medicine that work partially compensates for weaker science) has lead to a world population of 4 billion instead of OTL 1900's 1.8 billion people. The good news, is that this world while not yet at a full demographic transition is at least closer than OTL's early 20th century with another upshot being that more of the planet is at this point. It may be a more crowded world, but more intensive farming, combined with investment in food crops in OTL colonial areas not one that's in a malthusian crisis.

Compared to OTL's first decade of the 20th century this is a world rather more urbanized than OTL -- Europe somewhat less urban(say 1890s level) while Eastern and South Asia are significantly more urbanized than OTL at that timeframe. The more developed bits of colonial or independent africa along with Latin America are visibly, if not radically more urban than OTL in the same era.

Even though it's only at a 1900-1910 level, Radio has taken off faster than it did OTL in the same period due to the more developed world.

Mass Production on the model of OTL Henry Ford has not come about -- the idea has either not occured to anybody with money or the society has serious barriers to it as a concept(India, German Europe). As a result, there is more of a demand for labor and this world's workforce is more "blue collar".

Perhaps due to India or Chinese influence combined with the higher population, environmentalism is more influential than OTL's early 20th century. Also due to that same interest, combined with with Germany's attempt to strangle oceanic trade there is much more interest in "alternate" energy sources along with substitutes to nonrenewable materials. In terms of both the climate change and resource usage clocks, this world is more like our mid 19th century even with the extra people and wealth.

There is a much larger than OTL population of overseas Chinese. Part of it is refugees from Germany's intervention 1890-95 to take advantage of Qing-related chaos and to occupy the country -- The Chinese fought like Paraguayans or no-atom bomb Japanese. Despite German propaganda, the war was a near-run thing even with almost supernatural luck. One particularly honest German fieldmarshall said back in 1992 it was 1% likely that they were able to even pull it off, much less KEEP the occupation going until the 1960s. The same general noted after a few beers that Britain would have probably been able to soundly beat Germany if they had struck during that war instead of waiting until 1920. Then there are the Chinese fled during the 65-year long struggle or after the early 1960s collaborators fleeing to avoid being lynched

Thanks to Holy Roman Empire backing, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, the dutch reformed church and several of the smaller orthodox churches have all been forcibly reunited with Roman Catholicism. Even though this world is much more conservative in many other ways the Roman Catholic Church started doing masses in the Vernacular earlier than OTL.

Various forms of unfree labor remain rather more common than in OTL's 1900. There are state serfs in the HRE along with debt-bonded peasants in most of the great powers and slavery in Latin America and HRE Africa. The overall trend is for more freedom, but alas it's slow -- The CSA ended slavery to replace it with outrageously unfair sharecropping, state serfs have been replaced with sharecropping in all but the muslim parts of the Russian Republic(even this is sloowly changing) and the HRE has set regulations on treatment of factory serfs. Predictably, this process has meant that worker's rights in areas with free labor are more like the early or mid 19th-century.

Shooting protestors is considered something that even democracies or more enlightened monarchies are required to do. This goes doubly for worker's strikes -- states such as the USA or Australia which even tolerate some protests are just as quick to shoot strikers as the HRE is.

Torture remains more prevelant even though it's usage is on the decline.