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The Crescent Never Sets:
Happy New Year everyone. A request by Magloria17. In this world the Ottomans manage to take Vienna in 1529. whilst the Ottoman presence in Austria wouldn’t last more than a couple of years (overstretch into Europe already being a thing) it did neuter the Austrian Hapsburgs very early on, altering the balance of power in Europe and cementing Ottoman rule in the Balkans even more than OTL. France, meanwhile, ends up becoming the single most powerful nation in Western Europe – with Spain focusing more on the New World and their expanding empire overseas.

History happens and now the year is 2023.

The modern Ottoman Empire made it into the 21st Century via a lot of devolution of power in certain areas and centralisation in others. It has left the nation in a political balancing act that is difficult to manoeuvre but not to the point of dysfunction. Politics are rather oligarchic, with a somewhat representative government in place but nothing like an OTL Western representative democracy. Instead a combination of the civil service, bureaucracy (these two being the easiest means for people to climb the social ladder), big business and the Sultan – who still has some actual power – manage things, with the power balance shifting a little every now and then but remaining stable enough to prevent infighting and tense factionalism. The representative government has interests in every one of these political organs – and vice versa – and nudges things or requests permission to nudge them from managerial bodies when needed.

Despite being generally conservative, the Ottoman Empire values education, as long as it isn’t particularly revolutionary in its philosophical perspective. The empire is also primarily secular with fundamentalism not being any more of a problem than OTL’s Middle America – Wahhabism never developing as a coherent branch of Islamic philosophy helps.

The Ottomans have managed to keep up with Europe, particularly once oil became so invaluable to modern civilisation, though there was a catch-up period during the days when coal was king. The economy is diverse enough to be freed from total dependency on oil/petroleum exports but the petrochemical industries do still hold a prominent position in the empire’s economic landscape. Climate change is a big topic for the Ottomans as many environmentally conscious groups in the empire worry about the recent number of extreme heat waves in the Mediterranean and Middle East and what this could mean for the near future.

If there’s one nation that can be described as the superpower of this TL, it’s Russia and the term still doesn’t really apply all that well. With the Ottomans and Polish being stronger, the Russians were pushed east much earlier than OTL, letting them build their empire in Asia sooner and flood more lands with Slavic settlers. A lucky run of competent tsars who did care for modernisation but not fast enough that the socio-political boat was rocked too hard allowed Russia to keep up with the other great powers and bring their vast empire to bear. Though still an autocratic state, modern Russia is more of an oligarchy, albeit one with enough of a meritocratic attitude to give talented commoners a chance to rise up the social ladder and earn a noble title and, possibly, a place in the ‘representative’ government.

Though far from perfect the Russians have done a decent job of assimilating enough of their subject peoples to solidify their rule. it’s still a bit fragile but now that positions in the oligarchy have been opened up to elites from the other cultures in the empire they have become more and more consolidated. At the same time there has been a gradual homogenisation, though it is as much of a cultural exchange n some ways as it is a suppression of diluting of other cultures. The new Russian High Culture is incorporating a lot of Indian and Turkish elements.

Russia has traditionally been a religiously tolerant society though they have shown favouritism for the Orthodox Christian Church. In cities there is a somewhat secular attitude where the vast majority of people do practise their faith but its not something people will brag about. Rural communities are much more openly devout and an attitude not too different to OTL America’s religious urban/rural split exists between the Russian cities and countryside – mitigated somewhat by urban religiosity. Russia’s Jewish population have still had a rather fraught history but nothing compared to OTL and Russia has some of the most magnificent synagogues in the world.

France is Europe’s hegemon and has been practically undisputed since the collapse of England in the 1900s. Like Russia the French are still officially an absolute monarchy but is more of an oligarchy in reality. The Estates General, after lots of reforms that gave the Third Estate more votes (though not enough to give them an insurmountable majority), has become something of a representative government. Of course, with the system now more accepting of wealthy commoners, it has given moneyed interests the general control of the government, with noble and commoner alike often cooperating if it benefits their interests. The old estate system is not really an active method of categorisation now as its members have formed informal political parties where members of all three estates mingle and cooperate for whatever shared interests bind them.

The wider imperium France maintains is their main claim to power. It’s become a much more unwieldy beast for Paris since they transitioned from a more conventional empire and network of vassals but does offer France a near global power-projection.

The French king also holds the title of Holy Roman Emperor and it has been hereditary ever since they brought Italy and the Catholic German states under their firm control.

Poland is a strong French ally within their system and was so even when France’s empire in Europe was far less equal. Though they avoided the liberum veto debacle, the Polish state still maintains its traditional political system, with some adjustments for the requirements of modern bureaucracy. They’re actually one of the most liberal states in Europe though social conservatism remains a strong political force. As always, they remain the bulwark of the east, defending Catholic/French (more the latter, really; Poland’s quite religiously tolerant) interests from the Russian, Ottoman and Swedish menaces.

Sweden has been the bastion of Protestantism in Europe and the biggest thorn in France and Poland’s side when it comes to the battle for influence in the German states. After their attempts to build an overseas empire failed the Swedes have focused on securing their hegemony in the Baltic and northern Germany. Though they do accept many different sects of Protestant Christianity, the Swedes and their satellites are much less religiously tolerant than their neighbours.

New France was the pride and joy of the French colonial empire, at least until they broke away in the early 19th Century. Two wars to assert said independence cemented this status and since then the Republic of Sylvania has been a sleepy giant in the Americas.

Despite its size Sylvania is still relatively sparsely populated with its fully developed regions being concentrated around the Great Lakes, *St Lawrence and Pacific North West with the massive centre of the nation remaining much more backward. Government is decentralised, which has exacerbated the rural/urban disparity as politics leans more towards ‘libertarianism’ with each province seeing to themselves first and foremost. A deep sense of patriotism and shared culture does keep the nation together and the growing Arcadian Confederation has helped encourage further unity in the nation.

Though they are majority Catholic there is also a sizeable Protestant minority – which is split between a number of different sects. Most of France’s Protestants immigrated to the colony during periods where the French monarchy was feeling less tolerant of non-Catholic denominations. Most Protestant communities tend to exist in Sylvania’s rural provinces.

Even in the present, Native Americans remain a somewhat contentious issue in Sylvania. Their treatment used to be one a province-by-province basis, with the early days when lands were still being settled and claimed being the worst for the indigenous populations. These days there is a national policy for equal treatment but the scars continue to run deep. The greater tendency towards cultural racism over segregation saw a lot of forced conversion and assimilation of Native populations with fewer reservations to preserve their traditions within. Any attempts at cultural revivals, since they often take place in rural provinces, also get tamped down by the conservative communities that most Sylvanian Native Americans live in.

England had its own empire that competed with the French and it was a serious rival until the Three Year War of 1899-1902, the world’s first modern, mechanised conflict. England was on the losing side, though it put up a real fight. The British Isles went through a revolution and social collapse and were occupied by France whilst their colonial empire, which had been secured, for the most part, broke up.

Due to the crown retaining more absolutist authority and encouraging a greater spread of aristocratic values overseas (their empire mostly being in agrarian, pro-plantation territories helped this), the colonies weren’t particularly interested in liberal democracy when they revolted. Most of England’s former empire are either home-grown monarchies that copy France and Russia’s oligarchic set-up, or just straight up oligarchic republics with restrictions on the vote. they’re all quite capitalist though the primarily agrarian nature of their economies has held them all back from developing until recently. Slavery was abolished, albeit slowly and it resulted in a lot of ‘back to Africa/Central America/we don’t care so long as it isn’t us’ movements. The loss of especially easy labour is what’s prompted most of the modernisation in these nations.

The Arcadian Confederation is a tentative movement towards some kind of unity between these states, mostly building on the loose relationships these states all had to stand together in case Sylvania or Mexico tried to expand at their expense. The new organisation is still looser than the OTL European Union and has too many detractors to become anything more than that, particularly in authoritarian Virginia and more libertarian New England.

Transdrakonia is also trying to modernise. Seeing themselves as the true inheritors of old England – those guys in Antipodia don’t count and the Americans are all traitors – Transdrakonia has been hard at work to build a new empire in Africa and maybe, some day, reclaim the homeland. This irredentism is popular in the rhetoric but any actual politician, including the crown, who have intermarried with some of the local creole elites, knows they’re not going to be able to do that, not for a very long time, at least. Still, it helps motivate the populace, especially now that they’ve switched to claiming to economically undermine the French system rather than outright conquer it. Prodigious breeding is encouraged, pro-natal taxation policies are in place and black people are quite easily accepted in the highest positions of society so long as they speak and act English (or Transdrakonia’s idea of what that is).

This TL’s Church of England is even less removed from Catholicism than OTL.

Butterflies kept the Qing from being as successful in conquering China as OTL and a southern Ming fragment survived. Sadly this didn’t do too much to change China’s fortunes as the ongoing conflict between the two distracted them from outside events and the earlier eastward expansion of Russia led to the Qing getting screwed over hard. It did let the Ming rush in to claim the parts Russia wasn’t able to secure in time, before the Russians made a puppet out of all of northern China.

Since the outside world didn’t have as big of a lead on them when they started their modernisation, China has been an established modern state for a long time now. The Ming still reign but the bureaucracy rules and there is an informal understanding on how governance is supposed to function.

China used to be much more traditionalist, embracing technological development but despising foreign culture and continuing to bar foreign merchants from selling things to them without very strict supervision and the legal right to bar them if the government said so. This did keep a bit of a technological gap between China and the rest of the developed world as they relied on their own innovations and experimentation (which was encouraged, again, with government supervision) but decades of loosening on these restrictions has taken place since then. China still values its traditional values and culture and is quite xenophobic but formal laws don’t ban foreign products anymore.

Despite France’s best efforts, they failed to secure Dutch Austronesia, which the Dutch had put more effort into developing infrastructure for. This was just enough for the new Austronesian state to hold their own (helped by England’s empire in South Asia also splitting up) and continue modernising. Though not really more than a regional power, Austronesia is viewed as a potential kingmaker in global politics and – for those who care – a symbol for effective multiculturalism as they have managed to keep a sense of strong cohesion and respect for their nation’s many races, ethnicities, cultures and religions. Their republic is one with a hefty franchise restriction, however, even if the non-voting populace do have some guaranteed rights.

This is a generally more conservative world than OTL. Politics is seen as something for the elite and liberal democracy (let alone universal democracy) is practically unheard of. It is, at the same time, a world that does appreciate scientific inquiry as long as its not too disruptive to social orders and the elite, particularly businessmen, have been common sponsors of science. The church – at least in Europe – has also done much the same, particularly in the Catholic portions of the world as faith schools have often been the places where theoretical sciences, focused on understanding God’s creation, have traditionally been explored, albeit with a lot of controversies. The Muslim world has a similar relationship between religion and academia. Scientific racism never really took off but cultural racism is still very much in evidence, as is a lot of traditional sexism – women in nations that have elections can vote but they still have to own property to qualify and the husbands of property-owning families automatically take precedence in electoral registries should they marry.

There isn’t a formal international meeting place but a sort of club for treaties, which has diplomatic protocol in place to call a meeting of representatives from the great powers. With modern communication technology it has become easier to call these meetings and they even have an almost permanent meeting place in a building in Ireland. That hasn’t made them any more effective than they used to be back when they were first formed. Most of the world considers the impromptu organisation little more than a talking club.

Technology is a few decades behind OTL, outside of a few areas. Germ theory was actually figured out sooner than OTL though a lot of it was theoretical before microscopes were invented. This did, however, accelerate medical and biological sciences ahead of OTL, also making it easier for colonial ventures in tropical regions. Cross-pollination and experimental breeding of animals also led to a long period of popular eugenics (never government policy but practised by the portion of the community who wanted to build a better human – thankfully they never ruled out entire racial groups as inherently inferior, just large groups of individual within them) that has only been rendered as bunk thanks to countless failures in producing desirable results…. at best.

Nuclear weapons were never developed in time for the last big war and whilst the world does know of the long-lasting effects of radioactive fallout there is still a bit of a blasé attitude towards them. Russia and France, as the two greatest powers, have built up the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons but thankfully haven’t gotten to the point of waving them at each other at the earliest opportunity. China, however, is fond of metaphorically polishing their warheads like a disapproving father cleaning their rifle in front of their daughter’s new partner whenever they think Russia is looking at them funny.

People took longer to get into space but ever since successful launching of satellites and manned rockets was achieved in the 1970s the international space craze has yet to die down. Some odd discoveries have been made in the Outer Solar System that make it very clear this is not our timeline.

A new planet, a massive superearth sized planet with a mass roughly 6.3 times that of Earth has been found by long-range orbital telescopes just on the edge of the Oort Cloud in a relatively stable orbit around the Sun, albeit at an even more extreme distance than Pluto – which has not been reclassified as a dwarf-planet in this TL. Scientists have dubbed this new world Minthe.

These discoveries did lead to some different decisions in the fields of astronomy and astrology. In addition to Pluto, the other dwarf planets are still acknowledged as full planetary bodies, albeit ones with their subcategory. Additional discoveries would also find that this TL’s version of Titan is larger – holding the position of the largest satellite in the Solar System – and has global hydrocarbon coverage as opposed to OTL’s polar coverage, a small planetoid labelled Vulcan that has managed to maintain a stable orbit between Mercury and the sun, along with an accompanying ‘Vulcanoid’ belt of asteroids. The dwarf planet Ceres has a visible, albeit patchy, ring and Saturn’s moon Rhea and the planet Neptune have much more observable rings. None of this would be shocking to an inhabitant of this TL but an OTL observer would be astonished.

There have been two especially shocking discoveries lately with advancement in telescopic technology (in orbit, mind you) and recent unmanned landings on Mars. A stably orbiting red-dwarf star, named Nemesis, has been discovered in the Oort cloud. Outside of the scientific community this discovery of an orbiting satellite solar-system has led to an interesting spread of dualistic theological ideas – since there is now a weak, spiteful devil banished to the edge of God’s light.

The other great discovery was soil samples from Mars containing trace amounts of microbial bacteria that are alien to all known categories of terrestrial microorganism (though they haven’t been discovered yet, silicone based, crystalline lifeforms also form coral-like structures in the seas of Titan that other, microbial, life feeds off of). It’s not much and anyone outside of the scientific community is unlikely to be impressed but aliens have been found.

Further detail provided by RadianceHope, all credits for this goes to them: The Planet Vulcan is the largest object in the Vulcanoid Belt, at about the mass of Pluto. It's composition is almost entirely of Iron, nicknaming it the 'anvil' of the solar system. Because of it's small size, and close proximity to the Sun (0.14 AU), it has an orbital period of 19 days, and 17 hours. The planet is also rather dark for a planetary body, so any observation of the planet was made even more difficult thanks to the planet's dark appearance. Thanks to this, the planet was only discovered by Le Verrier (the same astronomer who discovered Neptune), in 1860. The planet has been visited a few times by spacecraft, although it is difficult to get there.

Mars is discovered to have life on it's surface by the early 2000's, when a successful sample return had returned samples of microbes in the Martian soil. Further follow up missions have confirmed this is not because of contamination. Rover missions on mars in the late 2010's have proved the existence of fossilized plant and animal life on Mars, which is hypothesized to have gone through a mass extinction event in the early days of the solar system because of the planet's inability to sustain life and a proper atmosphere. The discovery of underground lakes on Mars through orbiting probes gives many the idea that animal life could still exist in those lakes, but as they are underneath the poles of Mars, discovery of that life will likely have to wait decades. Because of this discovery, scientists have taken prominent care of the samples to avoid any potential biohazards, and also have made careful sure to not contaminate Mars with Earth bacteria either.

The Rings of Ceres were discovered in the 1980's through occultation, as astronomers were measuring the planet's size, shape, and albedo. It is the only object in the asteroid belt classified as a planet, as no other object in the asteroid belt is gravitationally rounded by it's own gravity.

The Moon Rhea of Saturn, is the second largest moon of Saturn. Discovery of it's rings proved to be an impressive moment in scientific history, as no other moon has been observed in the solar system to have rings. It's rings orbit quite close in to the Moon, but the passing pair Explorer Probes (launched by France in 1984) had proven the existence of the rings by a flyby of the Moon, sending back unexpected images of the Moon's rings.

Titan was the first Moon of Saturn that was discovered, in 1655. It is about the mass of Mars (1/10th the mass of Earth), giving it the position of the largest Moon in the solar system, with Propserina (Minthe's largest Moon) as the second largest moon in the solar system, followed by Ganymede. after the Columbus Probe (also launched by France) arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2001, the probe had also managed to launch an orbiting satellite into Titan's orbit to study it's composition, proving that Titan had oceans of hydrocarbons on it's surface through scientific analysis. Titan's physical appearance from space is the same as it is OTL, a hazy moon. It's atmosphere is more or less the same as OTL. Awaiting discovery on Titan is unique coral-like lifeforms in it's oceans, and patches of simple Moss and Plant like organisms on it's surface.

The Planet Minthe orbits the Sun in a roughly circular orbit, but inclined by 17 degrees to the orbital plane of the planets. The closest the planet comes to the sun is 340 AU, and the furthest it is at 360 AU, making it's orbit somewhat eccentric. It is around 7.7 to 8.1 times as far away as the Kuiper Belt, rendering it having no gravitational impact on it. OTL objects such as Sedna will not exist in this system, due to the presence of Nemesis.

The planet is a superterran ice world with a confirmed ring system, with a mass of 6.3 times that of Earth. Despite it's large size, due to the distance from the sun, the planet has close to no atmosphere which makes any hypothetical landings quite challenging. It would take a spacecraft many decades to arrive, at the very least.

The planet has 5 confirmed Moons. Persephone, Hecae, Nox, Mors, and Prosperina. They are similar in size to Pluto, Eris, Ceres, Pluto, and Mars respectively, with large spaces between each orbits, meaning the 5 moons of Minthe do not enact tidal forces on each other. Only the moons Persephone and Hecate are close enough to Minthe to be tidally locked, while the rest are far enough away to have their own rotation rates. Because of the distance from Earth, the planet Minthe and it's Moons are known only by their size, mass, and orbital configurations.

Visual images of them are pixelated and blurry because of the distance, this may change in future decades with the advent of more advanced telescopes. Because of Minthe's distance form the sun, many astronomers have theorized that the planet could have the most moons of any planet in the solar system. Minor moons are not able to be observed around Minthe because of the distance, future telescopes and advances in technology will yield more results about this, while the rest is scientific theory.

Nemesis is an ultra-cool red dwarf star a planetary system of seven known planets. It has a mass about 9% of the Sun's, a radius slightly larger than the planet Jupiter, and a surface temperature of about 2,904 K (2626.85 °C). This gives it a stellar classification of M7V. This makes Nemesis rather similar to the star known as Teegarden's Star. Nemesis is a "Safe" star, meaning it is not subject to massive stellar flares like other red dwarfs are known to have.

Observations of the planets around Nemesis have been made. No visual images of any real meaningful value have been made, however some characteristics about the planets have been recorded through observations by long range telescopes. Moons around these planets have not been discovered either.

Phlegethon is the first planet around Nemesis. It is 0.81 Earth Masses. Observations of the planet have confirmed that it likely has a thick Venus like atmosphere, making the planet similar to Venus. Due to close proximity to Nemesis, it is likely much hotter than Venus is. It orbits Nemesis every 1.2 Earth days. It is tidally locked. The planet is not within the habitable zone as its expected irradiation is more than 4 times that of Earth.

Acheron is the second planet around Nemesis. It is 1.04 Earth Masses. Observations of the planet confirm that it is in the habitable zone around Nemesis and is host to liquid water. It orbits Nemesis every 5.7 days. Compared to other exoplanets around other stars, Acheron is the most Earth-Like exoplanet currently known by mankind. It is not currently known if the planet is host to life by humans. The planet is also tidally locked.

Cocytus is a low density world as big as Venus but just 0.5 Earth mass and 5/8 Earth's gravity. It's like a much bigger Titan on a balmy interglacial day: warmer and wetter, 'wetter'. If you could call gasoline wet, that is. Air pressure at sea level is 4 atmospheres. It's atmosphere is mostly hazy with hydrocarbons evaporating off of ethane seas. Rain won't be a rarity, as on Titan in OTL. If life is found to exist here, it may exist in similar forms to Titan's life. Life here would likely still be evolving very slowly, thanks to how cold the planet is. Cocytus goes around Nemesis every 30 days.

The final planet of Nemesis discovered to date is Lethe. A large mini-Neptune about 5.2 Earth masses. Not much is known about it other than that it exists, and takes 21 years to go around Nemesis. It exists within darkness with both the Sun and Nemesis respectively as the brightest objects in the skies of those planets.

Nemesis should be at around 5,000 AU out. Doing some research, other stars have come into the Oort cloud in the past, so I wanted to state a more realistic margin for distances from other stars to where it wouldn't have been dislodged from the solar system.

Description

The Crescent Never Sets:
Happy New Year everyone. A request by Magloria17. In this world the Ottomans manage to take Vienna in 1529. whilst the Ottoman presence in Austria wouldn’t last more than a couple of years (overstretch into Europe already being a thing) it did neuter the Austrian Hapsburgs very early on, altering the balance of power in Europe and cementing Ottoman rule in the Balkans even more than OTL. France, meanwhile, ends up becoming the single most powerful nation in Western Europe – with Spain focusing more on the New World and their expanding empire overseas.

History happens and now the year is 2023.

The modern Ottoman Empire made it into the 21st Century via a lot of devolution of power in certain areas and centralisation in others. It has left the nation in a political balancing act that is difficult to manoeuvre but not to the point of dysfunction. Politics are rather oligarchic, with a somewhat representative government in place but nothing like an OTL Western representative democracy. Instead a combination of the civil service, bureaucracy (these two being the easiest means for people to climb the social ladder), big business and the Sultan – who still has some actual power – manage things, with the power balance shifting a little every now and then but remaining stable enough to prevent infighting and tense factionalism. The representative government has interests in every one of these political organs – and vice versa – and nudges things or requests permission to nudge them from managerial bodies when needed.

Despite being generally conservative, the Ottoman Empire values education, as long as it isn’t particularly revolutionary in its philosophical perspective. The empire is also primarily secular with fundamentalism not being any more of a problem than OTL’s Middle America – Wahhabism never developing as a coherent branch of Islamic philosophy helps.

The Ottomans have managed to keep up with Europe, particularly once oil became so invaluable to modern civilisation, though there was a catch-up period during the days when coal was king. The economy is diverse enough to be freed from total dependency on oil/petroleum exports but the petrochemical industries do still hold a prominent position in the empire’s economic landscape. Climate change is a big topic for the Ottomans as many environmentally conscious groups in the empire worry about the recent number of extreme heat waves in the Mediterranean and Middle East and what this could mean for the near future.

If there’s one nation that can be described as the superpower of this TL, it’s Russia and the term still doesn’t really apply all that well. With the Ottomans and Polish being stronger, the Russians were pushed east much earlier than OTL, letting them build their empire in Asia sooner and flood more lands with Slavic settlers. A lucky run of competent tsars who did care for modernisation but not fast enough that the socio-political boat was rocked too hard allowed Russia to keep up with the other great powers and bring their vast empire to bear. Though still an autocratic state, modern Russia is more of an oligarchy, albeit one with enough of a meritocratic attitude to give talented commoners a chance to rise up the social ladder and earn a noble title and, possibly, a place in the ‘representative’ government.

Though far from perfect the Russians have done a decent job of assimilating enough of their subject peoples to solidify their rule. it’s still a bit fragile but now that positions in the oligarchy have been opened up to elites from the other cultures in the empire they have become more and more consolidated. At the same time there has been a gradual homogenisation, though it is as much of a cultural exchange n some ways as it is a suppression of diluting of other cultures. The new Russian High Culture is incorporating a lot of Indian and Turkish elements.

Russia has traditionally been a religiously tolerant society though they have shown favouritism for the Orthodox Christian Church. In cities there is a somewhat secular attitude where the vast majority of people do practise their faith but its not something people will brag about. Rural communities are much more openly devout and an attitude not too different to OTL America’s religious urban/rural split exists between the Russian cities and countryside – mitigated somewhat by urban religiosity. Russia’s Jewish population have still had a rather fraught history but nothing compared to OTL and Russia has some of the most magnificent synagogues in the world.

France is Europe’s hegemon and has been practically undisputed since the collapse of England in the 1900s. Like Russia the French are still officially an absolute monarchy but is more of an oligarchy in reality. The Estates General, after lots of reforms that gave the Third Estate more votes (though not enough to give them an insurmountable majority), has become something of a representative government. Of course, with the system now more accepting of wealthy commoners, it has given moneyed interests the general control of the government, with noble and commoner alike often cooperating if it benefits their interests. The old estate system is not really an active method of categorisation now as its members have formed informal political parties where members of all three estates mingle and cooperate for whatever shared interests bind them.

The wider imperium France maintains is their main claim to power. It’s become a much more unwieldy beast for Paris since they transitioned from a more conventional empire and network of vassals but does offer France a near global power-projection.

The French king also holds the title of Holy Roman Emperor and it has been hereditary ever since they brought Italy and the Catholic German states under their firm control.

Poland is a strong French ally within their system and was so even when France’s empire in Europe was far less equal. Though they avoided the liberum veto debacle, the Polish state still maintains its traditional political system, with some adjustments for the requirements of modern bureaucracy. They’re actually one of the most liberal states in Europe though social conservatism remains a strong political force. As always, they remain the bulwark of the east, defending Catholic/French (more the latter, really; Poland’s quite religiously tolerant) interests from the Russian, Ottoman and Swedish menaces.

Sweden has been the bastion of Protestantism in Europe and the biggest thorn in France and Poland’s side when it comes to the battle for influence in the German states. After their attempts to build an overseas empire failed the Swedes have focused on securing their hegemony in the Baltic and northern Germany. Though they do accept many different sects of Protestant Christianity, the Swedes and their satellites are much less religiously tolerant than their neighbours.

New France was the pride and joy of the French colonial empire, at least until they broke away in the early 19th Century. Two wars to assert said independence cemented this status and since then the Republic of Sylvania has been a sleepy giant in the Americas.

Despite its size Sylvania is still relatively sparsely populated with its fully developed regions being concentrated around the Great Lakes, *St Lawrence and Pacific North West with the massive centre of the nation remaining much more backward. Government is decentralised, which has exacerbated the rural/urban disparity as politics leans more towards ‘libertarianism’ with each province seeing to themselves first and foremost. A deep sense of patriotism and shared culture does keep the nation together and the growing Arcadian Confederation has helped encourage further unity in the nation.

Though they are majority Catholic there is also a sizeable Protestant minority – which is split between a number of different sects. Most of France’s Protestants immigrated to the colony during periods where the French monarchy was feeling less tolerant of non-Catholic denominations. Most Protestant communities tend to exist in Sylvania’s rural provinces.

Even in the present, Native Americans remain a somewhat contentious issue in Sylvania. Their treatment used to be one a province-by-province basis, with the early days when lands were still being settled and claimed being the worst for the indigenous populations. These days there is a national policy for equal treatment but the scars continue to run deep. The greater tendency towards cultural racism over segregation saw a lot of forced conversion and assimilation of Native populations with fewer reservations to preserve their traditions within. Any attempts at cultural revivals, since they often take place in rural provinces, also get tamped down by the conservative communities that most Sylvanian Native Americans live in.

England had its own empire that competed with the French and it was a serious rival until the Three Year War of 1899-1902, the world’s first modern, mechanised conflict. England was on the losing side, though it put up a real fight. The British Isles went through a revolution and social collapse and were occupied by France whilst their colonial empire, which had been secured, for the most part, broke up.

Due to the crown retaining more absolutist authority and encouraging a greater spread of aristocratic values overseas (their empire mostly being in agrarian, pro-plantation territories helped this), the colonies weren’t particularly interested in liberal democracy when they revolted. Most of England’s former empire are either home-grown monarchies that copy France and Russia’s oligarchic set-up, or just straight up oligarchic republics with restrictions on the vote. they’re all quite capitalist though the primarily agrarian nature of their economies has held them all back from developing until recently. Slavery was abolished, albeit slowly and it resulted in a lot of ‘back to Africa/Central America/we don’t care so long as it isn’t us’ movements. The loss of especially easy labour is what’s prompted most of the modernisation in these nations.

The Arcadian Confederation is a tentative movement towards some kind of unity between these states, mostly building on the loose relationships these states all had to stand together in case Sylvania or Mexico tried to expand at their expense. The new organisation is still looser than the OTL European Union and has too many detractors to become anything more than that, particularly in authoritarian Virginia and more libertarian New England.

Transdrakonia is also trying to modernise. Seeing themselves as the true inheritors of old England – those guys in Antipodia don’t count and the Americans are all traitors – Transdrakonia has been hard at work to build a new empire in Africa and maybe, some day, reclaim the homeland. This irredentism is popular in the rhetoric but any actual politician, including the crown, who have intermarried with some of the local creole elites, knows they’re not going to be able to do that, not for a very long time, at least. Still, it helps motivate the populace, especially now that they’ve switched to claiming to economically undermine the French system rather than outright conquer it. Prodigious breeding is encouraged, pro-natal taxation policies are in place and black people are quite easily accepted in the highest positions of society so long as they speak and act English (or Transdrakonia’s idea of what that is).

This TL’s Church of England is even less removed from Catholicism than OTL.

Butterflies kept the Qing from being as successful in conquering China as OTL and a southern Ming fragment survived. Sadly this didn’t do too much to change China’s fortunes as the ongoing conflict between the two distracted them from outside events and the earlier eastward expansion of Russia led to the Qing getting screwed over hard. It did let the Ming rush in to claim the parts Russia wasn’t able to secure in time, before the Russians made a puppet out of all of northern China.

Since the outside world didn’t have as big of a lead on them when they started their modernisation, China has been an established modern state for a long time now. The Ming still reign but the bureaucracy rules and there is an informal understanding on how governance is supposed to function.

China used to be much more traditionalist, embracing technological development but despising foreign culture and continuing to bar foreign merchants from selling things to them without very strict supervision and the legal right to bar them if the government said so. This did keep a bit of a technological gap between China and the rest of the developed world as they relied on their own innovations and experimentation (which was encouraged, again, with government supervision) but decades of loosening on these restrictions has taken place since then. China still values its traditional values and culture and is quite xenophobic but formal laws don’t ban foreign products anymore.

Despite France’s best efforts, they failed to secure Dutch Austronesia, which the Dutch had put more effort into developing infrastructure for. This was just enough for the new Austronesian state to hold their own (helped by England’s empire in South Asia also splitting up) and continue modernising. Though not really more than a regional power, Austronesia is viewed as a potential kingmaker in global politics and – for those who care – a symbol for effective multiculturalism as they have managed to keep a sense of strong cohesion and respect for their nation’s many races, ethnicities, cultures and religions. Their republic is one with a hefty franchise restriction, however, even if the non-voting populace do have some guaranteed rights.

This is a generally more conservative world than OTL. Politics is seen as something for the elite and liberal democracy (let alone universal democracy) is practically unheard of. It is, at the same time, a world that does appreciate scientific inquiry as long as its not too disruptive to social orders and the elite, particularly businessmen, have been common sponsors of science. The church – at least in Europe – has also done much the same, particularly in the Catholic portions of the world as faith schools have often been the places where theoretical sciences, focused on understanding God’s creation, have traditionally been explored, albeit with a lot of controversies. The Muslim world has a similar relationship between religion and academia. Scientific racism never really took off but cultural racism is still very much in evidence, as is a lot of traditional sexism – women in nations that have elections can vote but they still have to own property to qualify and the husbands of property-owning families automatically take precedence in electoral registries should they marry.

There isn’t a formal international meeting place but a sort of club for treaties, which has diplomatic protocol in place to call a meeting of representatives from the great powers. With modern communication technology it has become easier to call these meetings and they even have an almost permanent meeting place in a building in Ireland. That hasn’t made them any more effective than they used to be back when they were first formed. Most of the world considers the impromptu organisation little more than a talking club.

Technology is a few decades behind OTL, outside of a few areas. Germ theory was actually figured out sooner than OTL though a lot of it was theoretical before microscopes were invented. This did, however, accelerate medical and biological sciences ahead of OTL, also making it easier for colonial ventures in tropical regions. Cross-pollination and experimental breeding of animals also led to a long period of popular eugenics (never government policy but practised by the portion of the community who wanted to build a better human – thankfully they never ruled out entire racial groups as inherently inferior, just large groups of individual within them) that has only been rendered as bunk thanks to countless failures in producing desirable results…. at best.

Nuclear weapons were never developed in time for the last big war and whilst the world does know of the long-lasting effects of radioactive fallout there is still a bit of a blasé attitude towards them. Russia and France, as the two greatest powers, have built up the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons but thankfully haven’t gotten to the point of waving them at each other at the earliest opportunity. China, however, is fond of metaphorically polishing their warheads like a disapproving father cleaning their rifle in front of their daughter’s new partner whenever they think Russia is looking at them funny.

People took longer to get into space but ever since successful launching of satellites and manned rockets was achieved in the 1970s the international space craze has yet to die down. Some odd discoveries have been made in the Outer Solar System that make it very clear this is not our timeline.

A new planet, a massive superearth sized planet with a mass roughly 6.3 times that of Earth has been found by long-range orbital telescopes just on the edge of the Oort Cloud in a relatively stable orbit around the Sun, albeit at an even more extreme distance than Pluto – which has not been reclassified as a dwarf-planet in this TL. Scientists have dubbed this new world Minthe.

These discoveries did lead to some different decisions in the fields of astronomy and astrology. In addition to Pluto, the other dwarf planets are still acknowledged as full planetary bodies, albeit ones with their subcategory. Additional discoveries would also find that this TL’s version of Titan is larger – holding the position of the largest satellite in the Solar System – and has global hydrocarbon coverage as opposed to OTL’s polar coverage, a small planetoid labelled Vulcan that has managed to maintain a stable orbit between Mercury and the sun, along with an accompanying ‘Vulcanoid’ belt of asteroids. The dwarf planet Ceres has a visible, albeit patchy, ring and Saturn’s moon Rhea and the planet Neptune have much more observable rings. None of this would be shocking to an inhabitant of this TL but an OTL observer would be astonished.

There have been two especially shocking discoveries lately with advancement in telescopic technology (in orbit, mind you) and recent unmanned landings on Mars. A stably orbiting red-dwarf star, named Nemesis, has been discovered in the Oort cloud. Outside of the scientific community this discovery of an orbiting satellite solar-system has led to an interesting spread of dualistic theological ideas – since there is now a weak, spiteful devil banished to the edge of God’s light.

The other great discovery was soil samples from Mars containing trace amounts of microbial bacteria that are alien to all known categories of terrestrial microorganism (though they haven’t been discovered yet, silicone based, crystalline lifeforms also form coral-like structures in the seas of Titan that other, microbial, life feeds off of). It’s not much and anyone outside of the scientific community is unlikely to be impressed but aliens have been found.

Further detail provided by RadianceHope, all credits for this goes to them: The Planet Vulcan is the largest object in the Vulcanoid Belt, at about the mass of Pluto. It's composition is almost entirely of Iron, nicknaming it the 'anvil' of the solar system. Because of it's small size, and close proximity to the Sun (0.14 AU), it has an orbital period of 19 days, and 17 hours. The planet is also rather dark for a planetary body, so any observation of the planet was made even more difficult thanks to the planet's dark appearance. Thanks to this, the planet was only discovered by Le Verrier (the same astronomer who discovered Neptune), in 1860. The planet has been visited a few times by spacecraft, although it is difficult to get there.

Mars is discovered to have life on it's surface by the early 2000's, when a successful sample return had returned samples of microbes in the Martian soil. Further follow up missions have confirmed this is not because of contamination. Rover missions on mars in the late 2010's have proved the existence of fossilized plant and animal life on Mars, which is hypothesized to have gone through a mass extinction event in the early days of the solar system because of the planet's inability to sustain life and a proper atmosphere. The discovery of underground lakes on Mars through orbiting probes gives many the idea that animal life could still exist in those lakes, but as they are underneath the poles of Mars, discovery of that life will likely have to wait decades. Because of this discovery, scientists have taken prominent care of the samples to avoid any potential biohazards, and also have made careful sure to not contaminate Mars with Earth bacteria either.

The Rings of Ceres were discovered in the 1980's through occultation, as astronomers were measuring the planet's size, shape, and albedo. It is the only object in the asteroid belt classified as a planet, as no other object in the asteroid belt is gravitationally rounded by it's own gravity.

The Moon Rhea of Saturn, is the second largest moon of Saturn. Discovery of it's rings proved to be an impressive moment in scientific history, as no other moon has been observed in the solar system to have rings. It's rings orbit quite close in to the Moon, but the passing pair Explorer Probes (launched by France in 1984) had proven the existence of the rings by a flyby of the Moon, sending back unexpected images of the Moon's rings.

Titan was the first Moon of Saturn that was discovered, in 1655. It is about the mass of Mars (1/10th the mass of Earth), giving it the position of the largest Moon in the solar system, with Propserina (Minthe's largest Moon) as the second largest moon in the solar system, followed by Ganymede. after the Columbus Probe (also launched by France) arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2001, the probe had also managed to launch an orbiting satellite into Titan's orbit to study it's composition, proving that Titan had oceans of hydrocarbons on it's surface through scientific analysis. Titan's physical appearance from space is the same as it is OTL, a hazy moon. It's atmosphere is more or less the same as OTL. Awaiting discovery on Titan is unique coral-like lifeforms in it's oceans, and patches of simple Moss and Plant like organisms on it's surface.

The Planet Minthe orbits the Sun in a roughly circular orbit, but inclined by 17 degrees to the orbital plane of the planets. The closest the planet comes to the sun is 340 AU, and the furthest it is at 360 AU, making it's orbit somewhat eccentric. It is around 7.7 to 8.1 times as far away as the Kuiper Belt, rendering it having no gravitational impact on it. OTL objects such as Sedna will not exist in this system, due to the presence of Nemesis.

The planet is a superterran ice world with a confirmed ring system, with a mass of 6.3 times that of Earth. Despite it's large size, due to the distance from the sun, the planet has close to no atmosphere which makes any hypothetical landings quite challenging. It would take a spacecraft many decades to arrive, at the very least.

The planet has 5 confirmed Moons. Persephone, Hecae, Nox, Mors, and Prosperina. They are similar in size to Pluto, Eris, Ceres, Pluto, and Mars respectively, with large spaces between each orbits, meaning the 5 moons of Minthe do not enact tidal forces on each other. Only the moons Persephone and Hecate are close enough to Minthe to be tidally locked, while the rest are far enough away to have their own rotation rates. Because of the distance from Earth, the planet Minthe and it's Moons are known only by their size, mass, and orbital configurations.

Visual images of them are pixelated and blurry because of the distance, this may change in future decades with the advent of more advanced telescopes. Because of Minthe's distance form the sun, many astronomers have theorized that the planet could have the most moons of any planet in the solar system. Minor moons are not able to be observed around Minthe because of the distance, future telescopes and advances in technology will yield more results about this, while the rest is scientific theory.

Nemesis is an ultra-cool red dwarf star a planetary system of seven known planets. It has a mass about 9% of the Sun's, a radius slightly larger than the planet Jupiter, and a surface temperature of about 2,904 K (2626.85 °C). This gives it a stellar classification of M7V. This makes Nemesis rather similar to the star known as Teegarden's Star. Nemesis is a "Safe" star, meaning it is not subject to massive stellar flares like other red dwarfs are known to have.

Observations of the planets around Nemesis have been made. No visual images of any real meaningful value have been made, however some characteristics about the planets have been recorded through observations by long range telescopes. Moons around these planets have not been discovered either.

Phlegethon is the first planet around Nemesis. It is 0.81 Earth Masses. Observations of the planet have confirmed that it likely has a thick Venus like atmosphere, making the planet similar to Venus. Due to close proximity to Nemesis, it is likely much hotter than Venus is. It orbits Nemesis every 1.2 Earth days. It is tidally locked. The planet is not within the habitable zone as its expected irradiation is more than 4 times that of Earth.

Acheron is the second planet around Nemesis. It is 1.04 Earth Masses. Observations of the planet confirm that it is in the habitable zone around Nemesis and is host to liquid water. It orbits Nemesis every 5.7 days. Compared to other exoplanets around other stars, Acheron is the most Earth-Like exoplanet currently known by mankind. It is not currently known if the planet is host to life by humans. The planet is also tidally locked.

Cocytus is a low density world as big as Venus but just 0.5 Earth mass and 5/8 Earth's gravity. It's like a much bigger Titan on a balmy interglacial day: warmer and wetter, 'wetter'. If you could call gasoline wet, that is. Air pressure at sea level is 4 atmospheres. It's atmosphere is mostly hazy with hydrocarbons evaporating off of ethane seas. Rain won't be a rarity, as on Titan in OTL. If life is found to exist here, it may exist in similar forms to Titan's life. Life here would likely still be evolving very slowly, thanks to how cold the planet is. Cocytus goes around Nemesis every 30 days.

The final planet of Nemesis discovered to date is Lethe. A large mini-Neptune about 5.2 Earth masses. Not much is known about it other than that it exists, and takes 21 years to go around Nemesis. It exists within darkness with both the Sun and Nemesis respectively as the brightest objects in the skies of those planets.

Nemesis should be at around 5,000 AU out. Doing some research, other stars have come into the Oort cloud in the past, so I wanted to state a more realistic margin for distances from other stars to where it wouldn't have been dislodged from the solar system.