Fun chapter, but I have some quibbles with the alt-history.
- China breaking up is very reasonable, as it has happend multiple times in our history.
- Russia still exists, but the Russian Empire didn't.
This is also reasonable. If Russia was pre-occupied with other matters, it's not unlikely that they never expanded east of the Urals.
- What was Siberia is about four separate countries.
This could also happen, as there were some nations in the region, and tribes that could have formed states.
- Mongolia is an industrial powerhouse.
This seems much less likely, as Mongolia simply didn't have the natural resources to get in on the industrial revolution and then later on build up to an industrial nation. I assume that they kept Inner Mongolia in this scenario, which does make it more likely.
- No South Africa.
If no Europeans kept up the race to find a route to the riches of India and spices, this is plausible.
- African continent is home to three different major countries and half a dozen smaller ones.
This seems like quite few countires, when you consider the size of the continent. It's 3 times the size of Europe, and modern day Africa has 54+ countries.
- The largest is one that grew out of the Songhai Empire, which didn't make it to the current day in our world but expanded to cover a third of the continent in theirs, and also colonized much of what would be the southeast of our current day US sometime around 1540.
This is VERY absurd. In 1477 Songhai was quite large, but it was an inland empire. They had a small coastline in Senegal-Guinea region, but as all African nations at the time, they only had coastal shipping at best. Going from basically no sea-faring traditions to suddenly crossing the Atlantic and going all the way to North America in less than 70 years is simply not even remotely plausible.
- England once again punched well above its weight, building a formidable navy that ended up one of the largest in history. Something not entirely unlike the UK formed, but it also for reasons we still don't know ended up incorporating modern day Sweden and Denmark, with parts of Norway and what would have become the Netherlands added in.
In 1477 Norway was basically a part of Denmark (even if it was formally in union with Denmark and Sweden), so it seems very unlikely that England would not gain all of Norway if they took over Denmark and Sweden.
- Portugal, Italy, and Spain, roughly, formed the second Roman Empire, which also incorporated much of Austria.
This is fairly likely. In our history the Habsburgs ruled over Austria, Spain and parts of Italy, and were the Emperors of the HRE. Here Charles V never happend, and the Habsburg rule doesn't spilt, but the focus shifts to Iberia.
- The Middle East is utterly different and much more peaceful, most of the far east is calm.
A peaceful ME seems highly unlikely, unless they suddenly stopped caring about religion. The only exception is if one religion managed to defeat all the others.
My thoughts? Mostly I agree with you. In regards to Mongolia however, I suspect it's less 'in Mongolia' and more 'centered on Mongolia'. In which case, it's likely that the asteroid impact's aftereffects lead to a revival of the Mongol Empire. Wouldn't be shocked if they also hold what is IRL Russia's east coast.
As for England and Norway, as someone else mentioned. It's likely that England picked up Sweden and Denmark at some point after Norway broke off from them. Going by how it specifically says England holds
some of Norway I'd think what happened is that the northern coast broke off during the after effects, along with some of Sweden's northern bits and probably Finland as well. And from that, as well as likely the northern bit of Russia that's in 'Scandinavia' formed another nation, whilst a successor to the Kalmar Union ended up integrating into the Not!UK.
I definitely agree with you on the likelihood of the second Roman Empire, especially if they snagged southern France whilst they were at it. Quite possibly with England picking up some territory in northern France again whilst they were integrating the remnants of the Netherlands. As for the Middle East...
Honestly, I suspect what happened there is that there was a massive bloodbath in the Middle East due to the religious impact of the asteroid impact climate disaster paired with the follow on plague. And once that bloodbath ended, whatever sects of Islam became dominant were much less aggressive towards other Islamic sects. This is probably helped because I'd think that one of the ways for the Middle East to be 'very different' is if both the Ottoman Empire and Persia irreparably shattered in the aftermath. Which basically removes the Champion of Sunni Faith and the Champion of the Shi'ite Faith, so that's no longer pushing the clash.
Hell, if you have whoever ends up being the Sunni Caliph also being the Shi'ite Caliph due to the disaster, that's one way of healing the schism! I think. Haven't done the theology research to say for sure, but that was the original cause of the rift forming and if it's patched up... Well, things will definitely be different.
