The Afrikanerverse According to Korsgaard: Another Guest Post

First, let me thank Quinn for letting me give my view of his fantastic AH world, and his story "Coil Gun" (which appears in Pressure Suite: Digital Science Fiction #3) With that said, lets dive in to some of the changes I have made, or would have made, to the overall world:

-A lot of the changes made are just simple border changes, based on a mixture of both geopolitics and aesthetics. Examples include the northern border of the Turkistani Republic, which still avoids the dreaded Kazakh border cliché, the borders of nations like Tibet and Persia, as well as almost every nation in Africa.

-I also got rid of a few small nations that would undoubtedly be altered or just never exist due to butterflies. The Balkans have now coalesced into a number of loose nations based around Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania.

-There are a number of larger nations or super states, as I would think the idea of a powerful, expansionist and zealously Calvinist Afrikaner Empire spanning three continents would make a number of nations put racial identity behind self-preservation.

As for individual changes, I’ll go over by continent:

-In Europe, I remember you mentioned Sweden regained control of Finland in TTL Crimean War. This, along with control of Norway, would allow the nation to stay unified, as opposed to OTL where Sweden and Norway split ways in the 1910s, and conceivably, could have joined or absorbed Denmark, though I left it alone here. Aside from that, the big changes came to the Balkans, where Hungary retained control of the Hungarian portions of eastern Romania, and most of OTL Yugoslavia formed into TTL Serbia and Croatia.

-In North America, I gave Alaska back to the USA, likely taken from Russia in TTL WWII against the Soviets. I’d also advise you to consider the fate of Canada – without the Ontario core, the 1800s Canada will revolve around a French-Catholic Quebec and Acadia, resulting in a far different, if even united nation, if not still owned by Britain. The USA will very likely take a good chunk of the Prairie provinces just due to simple settlement patterns, or demanding it from Great Britain – if they can demand an independent Ireland and get it, why not some land back home?

-In Central America and the Caribbean, one of the ever re-occurring Central American federations succeeded in staying together, if only to keep a further wounded Mexico at bay. Aside from that, I just gave Haiti to the USA, and allowed the European powers to retain control of their island colonies – much like North Africa, with much of the OTL colonies under Afrikaner rule, Europe will cling to and settle what it still has.

-South America, I just has some of the wars of the 1800s result in a far more united Southern Cone. Looks better butterfly wise, since most of the OTL borders result from fairly recent changes, but it could go either way.

-Oceania, the only change I made was giving New Zealand to Australia. Given the need to strengthen the Aussies as a counterweight to the Afrikaners I see that as a smart move by the British.

-Aside from Africa, Asia saw the most change. Cambodia was divided between Thailand (which would likely still be named Siam here) and Vietnam. Given that China is divided for close to a century, I gave Mongolia, which in your TL, broke off from China anyway, the rest of Mongolian majority Outer Mongolia, and gave East Turkistan to the Turkistanis. Tibet has its OTL borders, and Japan still controls a rump Manchuria. Aside from that, just some border adjustments in the Middle-East.

-Africa has seen the biggest changes. Given that half the planet is cut off from colonization, you can bet France would spare no expense to see Algeria truly integrated into the nation, as Italy has with a portion of Libya and Tunisia. While it may seem odd, the British maintained control over West Africa, so I feel it isn’t too big of a stretch. Egypt and Ethiopia have both seen some border adjustments. West Africa has seen some solid changes, as I solidified the four nations of your map’s West Africa into two, one centered around the old Ghana/Mali/Songhai core, and one around the Kanem-Bornu areas of Lake Chad. Much like Morroco or Egypt, I could see the Europeans propping them up as a buffer against the Afrikaners, if one of the native rulers didn’t pull a Meji.

As a whole though, well done on crafting a world that captured my thoughts and ideas! I hope to see a few more stories from this universe, am curious to see if any of my ideas make it in, and in the event I ever get one of my own stories finished, please feel free to dissect it just as much – my Communist Confederacy idea seems to have struck a chord with you, so I’d love to hear some thoughts on that one someday! Until then, keep up the good work!