What is Majiles and why would it be more inclusive
History Strikes Back (TNO/TLM ISOT into OTL)
- Thread starter StarMaker764
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Raiho-kun
This Cycle's Second Biggest Communism Builder
Majles or Majlis is an Arabic/Persian term for "Sitting Room" and can roughly translate into "Council" or more generally "Legislature". It's in fact the name of Iranian parliament both before and after the 1979 Revolution.
The idea is that it can replace "Arab" as an identifier the same way the USSR promoted an All-Union "Soviet" identity. Since while the word Arab has dropped its ethno-nationalist connotations in TLMTL upon the Pan-Arab state becoming the champion of socialist internationalism (for the most part), it hasn't OTL.
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Imagine if the UAR was transported to during the Arab Spring, that would have been a hell of a lot more... explosive, to say the least, not to mention the replaced Gaddafi might find himself being targeted for things his other self did. Would be interesting to hear what he would have thought about that alternate version of himself too
Spylobster
Centrist-Malenyevist
The main difference I think between a 2002 and 2011/2012 ISOT is that Russia has pretty thoroughly alienated the First World through its invasion of Georgia and China is now seen as more of a rival to the USA than a potential partner. A part of me thinks a 2012 UAR ISOT would actually leave the USA in a much worse place. 2002 USA is still mostly riding an End of History high. By 2011, big cracks in American society are starting to show.
Wouldn't that be funny.
If you read the quest, they actually did that, and worked on a lot of their ethnic issues and religion conflicts. Which is really cool because it made them a fantastically resilient nation to that sort of thing. The DC on that roll was probably 80 or something.
The prelude (2005)
- Location
- The observable universe
Saba Abdi was a 27-year-old woman who had the misfortune of being born a homosexual in a society utterly intolerant of the idea but had the good fortune to live through an utterly miraculous event that placed a state friendly to those like her right across the border.
Through some lucky breaks, tense moments, and more than a little help from a growing rainbow railroad, she successfully crossed into the United Arab Republic and easily obtained asylum and citizenship in 2003. She went on to become a minor celebrity among the Iranian-Arab and Persian-displaced communities for her outspoken views on her homeland and later her beautiful poetry.
Her story might have simply continued from then on to a comfortable and fulfilling life, but in early 2005 she and a group of friends were reported missing while on hiking in an area near the Tigris. What was assumed to be a simple missing person case or a tragic accident became so much more when state media of the The Islamic Republic of Iran announced Saba and her group's arrest, supposedly at the hands of border guards after illegally and accidentally crossing the border, a story many found suspect; not least because the group was many days walk away from the Iranian border.
Far more likely (though remains unconfirmed by Comintern/UAR intelligence) was that the unlucky group had been under surveillance by elements of the ICC* and IRGC who took advantage of their distance away from heavily populated areas to kidnap them back to Iran, though Saba had initially been the sole target of the operation. Regardless, the group's prospects in Iran's prisons were grim as they faced charges ranging from trespassing to sodomy and treason.
In reality, the group was victim to more than simple petty determined policing, for the country they were currently in was arguably having just as rough a time as they were.
The Islamic Republic of Iran had always been internationally isolated since its birth, but in the post-Wamda world it was rapidly becoming truly and utterly alone on the world stage: its tentative relations with Russia were now over when the latter deemed closer ties with the West to be more valuable with neighboring Turkmenistan following suit, the DPRK was likewise enjoying the fruits of Arab aid and on its eastern flank were the now decidedly hostile Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Turkey and Azerbaijan were initially amenable to cooperating against the UAR but changed their tone when a new round of international sanctions were inflicted on the Persian nation (though the US' now had to contend with communism, it didn't at all forget its campaign against political Islamism), leaving only tiny Armenia as the one state who retained warm ties with Tehran, and their position was if anything even less viable.
With isolation came economic ruin, and with economic ruin came shortages and blackouts, and with those discontent, complaint, protest and corruption as the edifice of the Islamic republic was beginning to break from a dozen tiny cracks; with criminal gangs and left-wing groups slowly growing to take advantage (the latter of course sponsored by Cairo whenever possible), matter of factly Saba's prior escape had been facilitated by increasingly insufficient wages making it easier for the RR to bribe government officials and guards to look the other way.
Conversely, however, it made the state increasingly feel cornered, their Trump card, the nuclear program, had been set back considerably and the ruling elite of Iran were increasingly terrified that they might be overthrown by either a socialist revolution, an American-backed coup or perhaps even their more extreme colleagues. Not helping matters was the growing ecosystem of anti-IRI propaganda and agitation within the diaspora, which was now pound for pound mostly composed of bona fide Islamic socialists, anarchists, and Marxists who weren't as easily dismissible as the Shahists and liberals who preceded them.
The arrest/kidnapping appears to have been meant as a show of force brought on by desperation and a scare tactic to hopefully cow external dissidents, though the exact motives and full story are unlikely to be known thanks to future events, and later testimonies would give conflicting accounts of who exactly sanctioned the operation.
However, the facts on the ground were simple enough at the time; a group of UAR citizens were now in Iranian custody under suspicious circumstances and faced the possibility of severe prosecution and punishment, and when the news spread to the Arab world they quickly inspired outrage and panic in equal measure; the citizenry of the republic not enjoying the remainder that the world they now inhabited was not as safe for them as the one they left.
The Majlis in Cairo was similarly rattled, both by the event itself and what it indicated about how far Iran was willing to go (to say nothing about what it said about COIN's negligence). To allow this to go unanswered would be an admission of weakness, but the republic was not ready or amenable to a war against Iran (outside of certain demographics and revolutionary militarist circles), so another response was needed.
The Iranian leadership, headed by Khameini, might have expected that the UAR would negotiate, exchanging the prisoners for Iranian agents who had been arrested before. They may have expected a show of force through mobilization on the border or even for the UAR to hem and haw but ultimately decided that seven citizens weren't worth the diplomatic hassle.
What Khameini probably didn't expect was to be woken up 12 days after the incident in the middle of the night with reports of air strikes on several critical facilities across the country while the air defense systems were seemingly helpless to stop them, compounded by reports of the seven prisoners having somehow been broken out, later confirmed by them turning up in UAR territory, some needing treatment but alive nonetheless.
Iran made the same mistake the UAR had earlier: it underestimated how far its opponent was willing to go and how much more capable it was of accomplishing it. As a result, Iran was utterly humiliated and in more dire straits than it would have been had it done nothing at all.
As a small consolation, however, the UAR's brazen actions in resolving the Tigris Seven incident were not without blowback themselves.
Though many nations condemned Iran's actions they equally condemned the UAR's response as disproportionate, irresponsible, and needlessly escalatory while not bothering to go through the usual international channels in a manner that some ironically saw as reminiscent of the state of Israel and many became wary of opening the door to Cairo to make similar interventions in the future. Indonesia would cite this incident as justification for blocking all aid from the UAR and affiliated nations in the aftermath of the Tsunami while budding relations with Armenia would be frozen until 2007 and even relations with South Africa would suffer, though events in the future would soon make the matter irrelevant.
Oddly enough, one nation that didn't condemn and even praised the Republic's actions was none other than the United States, seeing Cairo's actions as completely justified in the face of the threat of jihadist terrorism and that the UAR's response was vindicated by Iran's subsequent pivot to a more conciliatory stance towards the Arab nation and its other neighbors (the former deciding that its best option was to maintain the current status quo while hopefully rushing through its nuclear program).
But Washington had its own ulterior motives for this seemingly out-of-character solidarity, as the former hyperpower was arguably the biggest winner of the Tigris Seven incident; having gauged both the UAR's abilities and Iran's seeming weakness without any effort on its part; and it sensed an opportunity to handle its own internal problems with the most effective way it knew how….
| With a splendid little war |
*Intelligence Coordinating council
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And time until it becomes the next Vietnam is...
Endorfinator
Awkwardly Social
- Location
- California
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- He/Him
I'm curious what lessons the US got out of the UARs retaliation. Are they still underestimating the UAR?
- Location
- The observable universe
Quite the contrary, they learnt that the UAR is on par with the US when it comes to stealth fighters and spec ops, that Cairo has a hair trigger temper but that it isn't willing to go to war with Iran (also would unlikely go to war over Iran) and is hostile enough to Tehran that it wouldn't risk a nuclear standoff over it.
They are however gonna underestimate Iran, which will have consequences later on.
Unrelated but Ghaddafi's proposed solution to the incident was to mobilise the Iranian-Arab citizens into an ALA style force and have them kickstart a civil war in Iran.
Endorfinator
Awkwardly Social
- Location
- California
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- He/Him
Ghaddafi never disappoints
Hermes King
Hack Writer in the making
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Oh, the US is invading Iran? I guess without an Iraq, they have to go for the best next thing. It's gonna be a nasty war, that's for sure.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
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- He/They
It's gonna be a long slog of mountain fighting without good staging bases. Their best options are going to be the Russian side of the Capsian Sea - provided Russia wants to let a whole bunch of American troops pass through their territory. The whole affair's gonna be a meat grinder for them, I think.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
This early in the 21st century, Iran's inventory is still mostly "upgraded" items from the Shah like the Hawk semi-active missiles. It's still the equipment you can beat by using certain tactics instead of a material adva-
… please elaborate.
For a second, I thought you were saying the UAR has the Communist version of Skunkworks. And they've got a function stealth strike fighter rolled out.
- Location
- The observable universe
Politically speaking Ghaddafi thinks his alternate self would have done well to read some theory, personally speaking….he is doing some soul searching and therapy.
More like all of NATO is invading Iran, with some help from Russia
Hermes King
Hack Writer in the making
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- He/Him
Has it ever stated what happened to the OTL Arab world? Are they on TLM timeline now, just like the AUR is in our world? If they are, how are Saddam, Assad and the Arab Peninsula Monarchies doing surrounded by Communists?
- Location
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Nope and it will not be stated, I prefer to leave all possibilities open for the future
Raiho-kun
This Cycle's Second Biggest Communism Builder
Even if the circumstances are less-than-ideal (even more-so than usual; pain).
I actually appreciate how the UAR, though the protagonist nation and the unarguable bastion of justice in a world largely without it, isn't entirely a rational actor itself and is prone to being brash at times. Whatever gained by that act is offset by its deteriorated relations with peripheral nations. Just breaking out the group out and exposing the plot would have been enough to ruffle the Mullahs' feathers, restore the confidence of Arab citizens and, likely, force Iran to respect its' boundaries.
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
I was going to say that Iran hasn't exactly made it's preparations for protracted people's war under Iranian conditions like it did OTL post-2003, but then I realized that the hostility with the UAR means that… they probably did ATL anyway, actually.
Mister Anemone
"Dab Master is just Cyn wearing Drew's clothing."
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- She/Her
UAR should have stabilized first before going on an adventure to topple the Ayatollah in Iran a la 2020: SF.
- Location
- The observable universe
One thing that puts the UAR at a disadvantage is that it has limited institutional experience in international diplomacy that isn't either idealistically socialist or unequivocal open hostility and thus it struggles in the more muddied waters of OTL'S RBO, especially when it can also see that its also utterly ineffective when Great Power interests are in effect (which means its mostly ineffective) and thus doesn't see the need to do the same theater that everyone else does to keep up appearances.
Doesn't help that even though the UAR by the 2000s has mellowed out considerably, its still a very militaristic society by the standards of OTL with a populace that has a disturbingly pro-(revolutionary)war attitude. American ForPol guys are shitting their pants (Bush is green with jealousy) when they see polls showing 39% of the UAR population supported immediately starting a war with Iran after the incident, and 71% supported waging a war within five years.
The UAR is not planning on doing that, at least not before Bush solves that problem for them.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
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- He/They
I imagine that the leftist revolutionary orgs that were developing in Iran are going to get a major boost. They know the terrain and Islamophobia + the need for propaganda at home are going to limit reconciliation/subordination until the US has a 'firm' hold on the country, at which point a lot of fence sitters and moderates will have switched forward to the side that is not violently racists against them.
That's my guess, who knows. It's StarMaker's tl after all.
That's my guess, who knows. It's StarMaker's tl after all.
The little things (2002-20XX)
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- The observable universe
Amid the high politics and conflict of the Cold War, it's easy to start thinking purely in terms of nation-states, Machiavellian strategies, and ideological battlegrounds, and forget that the world is ultimately inhabited by people who hardly participate in all of that, just regular people with relatively mundane hopes, needs and dreams.
But these people are equally important in shaping history as any king, chairman, or president; through their choices, actions, and fads they shape and reshape human oversoul in ever more wacky, beautiful, disgusting, and unpredictable ways regardless of what the people in high places might want or expect; often in less dramatic (and horrifying) ways than the wars, coups and conflicts one conjures up when thinking about history.
So in the spirit of Christmas, here are five relatively mundane items introduced by the Wamda IOTL, none of these have any real bearing on the story but they made for some nice therapeutic world-building for me.
Merry Christmas and enjoy:
Siberian arm watches: Arm watches started out as a mere practical tool for Eurasian workers, soldiers, and bureaucrats, who required a way to coordinate across various time zones in a region where the basis for telecommunications hadn't been built yet and mobile phones had yet to take off. This resulted in the creation of the Armwatch, a wearable cylindrical band that holds multiple watches, each set to a different time zone.
Initially, a contraption made by workers in Omsk, Sibwatches gained surprising popularity across Eurasia and later the rest of the socialist world even as advancing technology and increased interconnection made their initial purpose obsolete. They became mainstays and icons for the growing global trotter and Qitarat communities, with a person's Sibwatch often being modified, upgraded, or otherwise altered such that each is unique to a person.
After the Wamda, the Sibwatch would become increasingly adopted among the growing youth cultures of the neo-Comintern, and eventually across those of the western-Eurasian world, seen as a "cool" item to have; though the mass-produced western and even some neo-Comintern versions are often derided as "soulless" and "bland", especially since they are not made with future tinkering in mind.
Modular mobile phones: modular phones were the long march world's answer to the question of how to accommodate the various tastes and needs of the international community while still maintaining mass production to provide for everyone. Whether they be Nokias, Souts, Xis or otherwise, many mobile phone designs in the UAR are amenable to having parts swapped, upgraded, removed or even connected with other mobiles, and with easily accessible and moddable software systems; along with an ecosystem of communities, collectives, and services that specialize in customizing phones to each person's exact desires and specifications.
Though such communities existed pre-Wamda, the sheer size of their new Arabic counterparts ensured the latter would dominate the scene, even as they inspired many globally to tentatively start their own mobile tinkering groups and networks, even as they risk earning the ire of the law in many nations which have passed legislation banning/regulating such activities; along with severe penalties for using smuggled Arab phones.
Nissui Penguins: penguin domestication is a sensitive topic among socialist ecologists, who are torn between its value in shedding light on how animal husbandry may have affected the genetics of earlier domestics and its entanglement with Japanese attempts at mastering nature.
Though the tale of how the Comintern Antarctica mission inadvertently domesticated a small colony of Adelie penguins that came to rely on the human presence to ward off predators and feed on the abundance of organic waste is well known, the first true attempts at domestication were kickstarted in secret by the Japanese in the 1950s, the project being a joint venture between Nissui and the imperial government, who hoped for a new source of profit and a new source of food security respectively.
Throughout the next 40-50 years the project would have its triumphs and failures, but succeeded in producing at least 7 distinct new species of penguin along with several poorly defined hybrids and "mutt" specimens, through artificial selection, hybridization, and direct genetic modification in later stages, fit for everything from being egg producers, meat producers, household pets and even guard animals by the turn of the millennium.
The socialist world would know of these experiments sparingly for most of the Cold War, until the mid-90s when ARA anti-industrial husbandry operations would result in thousands of animals and eggs being smuggled into red territory, when the animals became a sensation overnight and eventually became adopted as pets and cattle especially in still-rebuilding Arctic communist societies after the infusion of millions more in the aftermath (though not without restrictions and strict regulations).
The UAR didn't have a large domestic penguin population largely because of the climate but it had more than enough household animals to maintain a viable population and once their existence became known worldwide they would explode in popularity across first the increasingly prosperous PRC and later to the rest of East Asia and then the world, even evading the usual sanctions against trade with the communist international; though for now almost all specimens outside the UAR are sterilized to ensure they don't become invasive, and are considered a status symbol even within the neo-socialist bloc.
Prosthetics technology: With deliberate mass crippling of civilians being an acceptable tactic used by anti-communist powers in the long march world, it is no wonder that a significant portion of the communist world's scientific resources were invested into prosthetics research, which has paid dividends in this strange scenario as the UAR now finds itself nearly two decades ahead of everyone else in the field.
From limbs that can respond to neuron signals, cybernetic ears, and even experimental bionic eyes, Arab medicine seems near miraculous to many outsiders, but also quite expensive and complicated to acquire outside the Neo-Comintern (and even inside it occasionally) thanks to restrictions, and tariffs, and travel bans; though the latter has proven beneficial to Ireland, which as the gateway of Arab goods to Europe is becoming a medicinal tourism hub.
Seaweed-based food: While seaweed-based foods and products were only just getting their start in the rockhopper survival world, the long march world already had a sprawling infrastructure and industry for them as a result of the ecological revolution policies of the 90s and early 2000s, along with experience in preparing them in various ways that are more palatable and succulent than what people conjure when they think about seaweed.
Though it would take time for seaweed food to truly take off, it would soon become a global phenomenon, easily found anywhere from Serbia to Australia. Companies and conglomerates would take advantage of rising demands and increasingly closed-off markets to build their own homegrown industries, even if Arabic and later Chinese products remain highly sought out (and polarizing, as evidenced by the kelpie patty SpongeBob controversy).
Seafood-based products have also become a mainstay for humanitarian aid packages, thanks to their nutritious value and relative cheapness; and were instrumental in preventing famine in many struggling regions, especially in post-NATO-intervention West Africa.
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