TL31 - 12 Americas

If the "12 one-shots of alternate histories of a country/state/etc" meme is dying out, I'm gonna make sure it goes out in style. This is for you, Wyyt.

The concept behind this is a bit interesting, for what the template normally is. Usually it's just 12/16/6/whatever number of small one-shots of alternate histories with flags, maps, names, and a brief explanation of what the scenario is, centering around a state/region/nation, etc. Examples have included California, the CSA, Queensland, and others. I've never seen any for just the United States, though.

But.

This isn't just a map of alternate history scenarios for the United States. This is a set of 12 recursive alternate histories, alternate history scenarios as envisioned by those writing from within Timeline 31. I mean, in our world a very common althist is "What if the South won the Civil War?", so it's logical to think that in TL31, people would think "What if the United States didn't completely fall apart?" This might also be referred to as a "Double-Blind What If", but I personally prefer "recursive alternate history".

The scenarios are in the typical grid layout, and will be described below.

A1: The Union of American States
Author Thomas Kirkwood was one of the first truly prominent authors of this kind of alternate history genre, although this prominence was not as a result of the book One Nation, Indivisible (published 1958) that this map is taken from. In the book, the United States managed, with foreign support, to reassert its control over the breakaway nations, and embarked on a Freedonia-style centralization of authority (notably, the author described that the flag of the Union of American States was identical to that of Freedonia). This was not Lincoln's prerogative, but rather that of Hannibal Hamlin, who in his world took the office after secessionist sympathizers accosted and killed Lincoln before he could take office. Hamlin would serve a life term as President, and in his aftermath the Presidency became a quasi-hereditary position, with Vice Presidents taking the office of President upon the latter's death.

The "UAS" became effectively Freedonia writ large, with a military autocracy in control of the government that quashed any dissent and began to replace it with an enforced national curriculum of fervent nationalism and patriotic duty to the state. The "states" that made up the UAS were simply there for the National Government to better organize local authorities. However, despite this firm grip on the country, the plot of the book still centered around undercover resistance groups under the name of "NOS" (an initialism of Novus Ordo Seclorum, the motto of the former United States that translated to 'A new order for the ages'.) By the end of the book, the resistance movement managed to pull off a Gunpowder-type plot underneath the Capitol during the State of the Union address, effectively wiping out the entire Federal Government and beginning the "Second American Revolution".

A2: The United States of America (1)
Another early author of American uchronia was Elias Whitney, who published the book From Sea to Shining Sea in 1962. Rather than addressing the War of Dissolution directly, his idea was to take the concept of "Manifest Destiny" that had guided US expansion across North America and helped to destroy the nation from within. In his book, the United States simply never stopped and never broke apart, continuing on an expansionist campaign into Mexico and Central America, and later supporting the Germans in an alternate Franco-Prussian War that the United Kingdom intervened in, annexing Canada and later purchasing Alaska from the Russians. In this timeline, the USA now stands as the only nation in all of North America, completely covering the continent from north to south.

One of the more controversial parts of the book was that slavery never ended in the southern United States, continuing to be practiced in the southern states as well as the new Mexican, Caribbean, and Central American states even until the modern day (which for the book was 1970). The book was banned in New Africa until 1996, but curiously sold well in the Confederate States of America (for reasons that shouldn't be too hard to understand). Regardless, the book also served to lay further foundations for USA uchronia, and remains on several store shelves to this day.

A3: The United States of America (2)
Yet another alternate history specifically naming the United States of America, although in a much different manner. In the timeline laid out by author Delia Ribben, The Golden Circle (1967) served not just as an alternate history, but as a criticism of pre-War of Dissolution ideologies in the United States. The "Golden Circle" referred to in the title was a plan for the United States to conquer all of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of northern South America to create a "circle" of slave states with its center in Havana, Cuba. In the book, Robert Rhett is elected to the Presidency in 1852, and begins an aggressive push into Cuba and Mexico, successfully conquering parts of Mexico and all of Cuba. However, the aggressive action specifically to expand slavery made him many enemies in the North, and in the end, the northern Free states seceded into several smaller nations (some parts joining Canada), leaving the USA as a rump state made entirely of slave states.

As the book was specifically written as a criticism, an interesting choice was made to where the point of view character was a man from the United States of America in 1908, who has many interactions with characters from outside the USA who at several points bring up how wrong the system of chattel slavery as practiced in the USA is, as well as showing scenes of abuse and mistreatment, the character never once changes his opinions or considers himself or his nation wrong. This idea was also quite notable for the time, as the idea of the "protagonist with no arc" was a fairly niche subject and remains largely so today.

A4: The Dominion of America
The fact that the book Loyalists (1971) was written by the British author Eric Neiderman should not be surprising when one hears that the subject is a United States that did not revolt against the British Empire. The course of the book has two primary point of view characters: King George III of the United Kingdom, and General George Washington of the United States, both of whom serve to keep the motion of the plot going. The main conflict centers around how the United States, while failing to secure independence, has still managed to fight the British to exhaustion, and rather than a victory being claimed by either side, they instead convene in the city of Boston to create the "Constitutional Compromise". During the book's course, the United States becomes a "Dominion" of the United Kingdom, granted greater autonomy and internal self-rule as well as the annexation of the Canadian colonies, in exchange for total economic and diplomatic dependence on the United Kingdom. George Washington goes on to become the first "Governor-General of the Dominion of America".

The book had a sequel, Long Live the Queen (1974), set during the reign of Queen Victoria. By the time of the book's setting in 1873, the United States had peacefully abolished slavery in 1832, and had evolved politically to no longer be as dependent on London. The capital city of Columbia (in this world, located on the Susquehanna River between Maryland and Pennsylvania) is hosting a visit by a royal delegation from the Queen-Empress, although a group of radical terrorists known as the "Three Percent" (taking their name from a real-world myth that only three percent of the Colonial population resisted the British during the American War of Independence) seek to assassinate the delegation and cause a new war to fight for America's independence. Despite this, America is said by many to be the "Jewel in the Crown", even more so than India, and a "model Dominion that other European colonies struggle to imitate."

B1: The Federal Union of America
Jefferson's Lament (1973) by Dianne Spencer is a book all about the early American dispute between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, personified by the rivalry between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third Presidents respectively. Adams, a proponent of a strong central government and industrialization, historically served just one term before losing to Thomas Jefferson, who favored the power of the states and a more agrarian economy. In Robert Borden's book, Adams won a second term and managed to edge the Democratic Republicans to the side, leading to the further expansion of Federal authority under Washington. The expansion of railroads under the Federalist administrations makes governing the nation easier, and Adam's preference for good relations with the United Kingdom lay groundwork that prevents the War of 1812 from taking place, and later is granted the Louisiana Territory after the US Navy assists Britain in defeating Napoleon.

By 1828, the Federal Union of America has defeated an attempted uprising by slave states to keep slavery from being abolished, and has peacefully secured the Oregon Territory with a secret promise to support any UK efforts to annex Russian Alaska. Many slave-owners fled into Texas, however, and soon established the "Republic of Texas", which claimed large parts of northern Mexico and now exists in an uneasy stalemate with the FUA. Many now believe that war will break out at any time, and relations between the two are chilly.

B2: The Union of Proletarian States
One of the more unique books was Of, By, and For the People (1976) by Nathan Black, which begin with Lincoln, having been deposed in a military coup shortly before the United States is once again unified, making a plea to the American people to secure their rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" shortly before his execution. This sentiment sticks with many people, and after several of Lincoln's private papers are surreptitiously published in 1874, communist sympathies begin to grow across the country. In 1912, the revolution comes as the United States of America is deposed, putting into its place the "Union of Proletarian States", the first communist power in the world. This new nation, however, soon devolved into a dictatorship of its own.

Among the worldbuilding of the book, it was mentioned at several points that Native Americans and Afro-Americans had received several "Autonomous States", stating that they had been among the first and most eager supporters of the revolution, which isn't too far out of the realm of possibility; communism tends to appeal to oppressed underclasses, and Native Americans and Afro-Americans fit that to a T. Also mentioned were several "Internment Camps" in the desolate Great Plains as well as the forests of Upstate New York, where "State Enemies" were held for either "reeducation" or worked to death. In effect, the book was translating the USSR to North America. The book had a planned sequel, but it went unfinished until the author's death in 1987.

B3: The Union of America
The Union of America makes itself known in a short story titled Until The Sun Dies, published in the Californian magazine "Stories of Other Earths" in 1979. The title refers to a situation in the book where in the 1856 Election, John C. Frémont is elected President and crushes a rebellion by the slave states (which in this world included the state of "Deseret", populated mostly by Mormons). In the aftermath, the slave states are subjected to a military occupation where the constitution does not apply, that will last in the words of Frémont, "until the sun dies". Keeping true to this word, the occupation has continued all the way through to 1936, where the world (having not experienced World War I) is gripped by the Great Depression. The short story's plot centers around a leader of a failed attempt to resurrect the "Confederation of American States", and is later put to death along with a new military action to simply round up white southern civilians at random and execute them as a show of force, once again decreeing that the occupation will last "until the sun dies".

The short story prompted a wave of uchronic short stories to be published to the magazine, but Until The Sun Dies remains notable for being one of the first published to a magazine. Quite interestingly, the short story was adapted into a television series in 1986, and then into a feature-length movie in 1995 that was considered a major flop. Unfortunately, the movie was one of the first purpose-written uchronic movies, and it thus killed the interest into the genre of uchronia cinema for many years. However, a miniseries was released to internet streaming services in 2009, reviving some interest in the story.

B4: The United States of Columbia
The United States of Columbia came into the public consciousness with the release of the first uchronic book series, often given the title of the Columbia Series. The first book was Hail Columbia (1984), that detailed the rise of a unified United States that maintained control over its disparate regions despite its massive size, later peacefully abolishing slavery in 1872. The main crux of the book was that in the aftermath of a war between the United Kingdom and the ascendant German Empire, the UK sold all of its continental North American holdings to the United States, expanding it northward. The second book, Heaven-Born Band (1986), detailed Columbia's participation in World War I, fighting against a German-Austrian-Russian alliance on the side of Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. During the conflict, the German Empire collapsed, as did the Russian Empire, although neither nation fell to communism.

However, in the third book, Freedom's Cause (1988), Columbia is again drawn into war during an economic depression against a nationalist and resurgent Germany, led by a "Neo-Absolutist" government that sought to recover Germany's honor from the First World War, only barely defeated by Columbian efforts to destroy Germany once and for all. In the aftermath, Germany is dissolved and disunited once again, but Columbia is left as the world's only remaining superpower. A final book, Ever Mindful (1990), detailed Columbia's difficulties in handling its position of being a world superpower and the increasing resentment by the world at Columbia's constant intervention in their affairs. A movie adaptation of the first book was released in 2013, an adaptation of the second book in 2015, the third in 2017, and a planned release for the final movie adaptation in August 2019. It is widely considered one of the most successful alternate history series of all time, as well as being one of the most accessible.

C1: The North American Union
The book A Vision of Tomorrow was written in 1996 by Daisy Lilibet, and is an interesting example of an "alternate future" book. Set in 2030, the book takes place in a time when the North American Union has unified into a single nation, along with other supernations like the Union of South America, the United Federation of Africa, and the European Commonwealth, while Asia remains largely divided. While many problems have been solved, such as dependence on fossil fuels with the invention of cheap and efficient solar panels, other problems have arisen as a result of many other ongoing scarcities and environmental issues, such as the remaining fallout from the Second Chinese Civil War, the continuing melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and extinction of species across the world.

The purpose of the book as stated by Lilibet was to "remind everyone that the future is not uniformly better". Indeed, it must have achieved this by becoming the best-selling book of 1996 in many NAU nations, as well as leading to renewed interests in the environmental movements of many North American nations. Several green organizations have directly cited the book as being a catalyst for their existence. However, others have criticized the book for many parts of its platform: that entirely organic food supplies can sustain the world's population, that religion was directly contributing to the detriment of humanity, and that humanity would need to segregate itself from nature as much as possible to bring about a "sustainable" urban-nature coexistence. These latter issues have brought more criticism than praise in recent years, especially as the Green Movement and technology continue to change and evolve. Still, no one can say that it wasn't effective in starting the conversation on a large scale.

C2: The United States of America (3)
In the vein of The Golden Circle, the book The Hermit Kingdom (2000) by Dennis Kirkman features a United States that has become diplomatically isolated after stillborn efforts to expand into Mexico and the Caribbean were blocked by European powers. Seeing the aggressive and belligerent nature of the country, the nation was intentionally isolated by Europe, South America, and later Asia diplomatically. Left to itself, with no one to interact with or trade with, the country spiraled back into itself, convincing itself that it was being isolated out of jealousy, and that they were truly in the right. This left the nation to develop almost totally isolated, building walls along its borders and destroying its ports. The United States were soon labeled as the "Hermit Kingdom", fervently nationalist and in almost complete denial that the outside world even truly exists.

In much the same way that The Golden Circle took aim at the "Golden Circle" idea, The Hermit Kingdom had American Exceptionalism in its crosshairs, an ideology that the United States were exceptional in the world and was unique among all nations. This was clearly false, as the collapse of the nation during the War of Dissolution proved. By taking the idea of "Exceptionalism" and turning it into a political doctrine, Kirkman established a tone that in no uncertain terms stated that the United States were almost guaranteed to collapse at some point, effectively stating that they were doomed from moment one and their breakup was inevitable.

C3: The Kingdom of Columbia
Unique among American alternate history is that where the United States are under the rule of a monarchy. Most take the form of the United States remaining under the authority of the British Crown, but A Crown of Stars (2006) takes a unique viewpoint of the US being under the authority of a homegrown monarchy. Specifically, the United States comes under the power of George Washington, who by seeing the constant bickering and disorder caused by the Articles of Confederation grows disillusioned with the "American Experiment" and takes control as the monarch of a constitutional monarchy. Later, a royal marriage with the First French Empire sees Louisiana gained and full American support for Napoleon, who did not invade Russia and has an uneasy peace with Britannia while dominating the continent. Alex Meitner's book was written almost as a fantasy novel, describing the nascent Kingdom of Columbia as ruling over a virgin landscape, untouched by man and pushing to settle it by force of will.

Indeed, the book itself not only stood out as a uchronia book, but also helped to establish the "psuedofantasy" genre; that is, the genre of books that takes the style of writing most often seen by fantasy authors and applies it to what is nonetheless an entirely conventional setting. A Crown of Stars was adapted into a TV series in 2014 and remains on the air today, with its 5th season releasing in 2019 and being ranked as one of the most expensive network television shows of all time, as well as among the most popular, being confirmed for a sixth season in 2020 and a seventh season in 2021 as well. Many have attempted to follow its model, such as Rule Britannia taking the same application to Victorian Era Britain, to mixed success.

C4: The United Provinces of America
Quite interestingly, the United Provinces of America are notable for not appearing first in a book, or even in a TV show or movie, but in a video game series. The Chronicles of Abraham Stirling (2015-onward) is a series of first-person action-adventure stealth games set in the "Stirlingverse", a world where the British monarchy retains control over North America with an iron grip. The titular and player character, Abraham Stirling, is an operative of the Sons of Liberty, a clandestine organization based in Boston that seeks to liberate the United Provinces of America, the Confederated Lands of Virginia, and the Commonwealth of Carolina (all British-controlled lands in North America) from British control to form a new union. The game takes the form of a trilogy, with the first game Sons of Liberty being released in 2015, and the second game Turncoats being released in 2019, with the third game Liberty's Conception planned for a 2022 release.

The Stirlingverse games have also had supplementary material released, such as a graphic novel entitled Genesis of Liberty released in 2016 detailing the rise of the Sons of Liberty, and three books titled simply Washington, Adams, and Franklin, following the paths that the titular George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin followed in the aftermath of the quashing of the American Rebellion and their efforts to keep secessionist sentiments alive. Plans for a live-action adaptation were announced in 2017, but the project has since stalled and its former release date of June 2019 has been pushed back to June 2020. Regardless, the Stirlingverse is widely lauded for its writing, worldbuilding, and gameplay that has marked it as the first massive success among uchronia in multimedia franchises.
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I am very proud of this. This is one of the biggest things I've ever made, and it's done, and I love it. I love doing this.