I really wanted to write bonus pope instead of bonus post. I wonder what a bonus pope would be. Just an extra pope I guess.
Talking about how great Dolly Parton is has become so trendy that I now hate Dolly Parton. And she didn’t even do anything. You did it.
Here’s North America in the alternate world of Elaverse #2. If you look very closely you can see there are some very subtle differences from the North America we know today.
Rocket Cat 
That’s a good map. Borders naturally settle on mountain ranges and rivers. Makes perfect sense.
Is the Arkansas Republic residual Confederacy?
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No, I stole that idea from the Eric Flint novel Rivers of War. It an alternate history were southern Native tribes get ahead of the wave of settlers and form a nation. I also threw in an idea from a paper I read once about Congress voting on the annexation of Cuba, wherein the writer speculated that if that had happened US western expansion wouldn’t have been as important.
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You reference the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping. Did they win?
If not, what happened to the imperial government after the Maoist takeover?
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The concept there is that the rebels immigrated to the west coast en masse. I haven’t decided if it was after they lost or instead of fighting or combination of both. In this history the Empire of Japan controls the majority of northern and coastal China. I haven’t decided what’s going on in the rest.
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Ok, one last question. You’ve seriously downgraded The USA as a world player. The Japanese empire stands strong.
However the French are still active as a power. Did you have WW2? If so, what the heck happened in europe to turn the tide? I mean, there was no France in 1943, only an all encompassing Germany.
The US controls Panama. Does tha mean they still have (or had) a base in Pearl Harbor?
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Japan invaded East and Southeast Asia but there was no war in Europe. Well, there’s always war in Europe but you know what I mean. German communists came to power and aren’t interested in military conquest. They approach more of an ideological campaign to spread international communism. Britain and France (among others) fought Japan but ultimately abandoned their holdings in southeast Asia.
I kind of thought that Hawaii would be left as an independent kingdom but nothing is “canon” on that yet. Nor does that mean there couldn’t be a base there.
I’m no history expert or poly sci major so I don’t claim any of this is plausible, but I thought it was narratively interesting.
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