SV ISOT III: Third time’s the charm

[StarMaker764]

Hello fellow map game enthusiasts of Sufficient Velocity, this will be my first time running a map game of any sorts so apologies in advance for any mistakes I make lol but I hope I can measure up to the high standard set by the first two games

For those of you who are new to map gaming, this is a unique style of collaborative writing in which every player takes turn telling the story of the world, adding new elements and furthering ongoing events and developments. There are many kinds of map games, but this format is the ISOT game, based around the instant translocation of a nation or entity to a new, empty world. There are also many different kinds of ISOT games, but in this version, each player gets to make new ISOTs on their turn.

The Rules:
1) Claim before taking your turn. Once your turn is up, you have three days to check in, and one week after that to post your turn, although you may be able to request an extension. If you cannot post, you will be bumped to the bottom of the claims list.
2) You have two ISOTs per turn. For this game, only OTL ISOTs are allowed. There are size and time restrictions as follows:

• ISOTs from before 1800 AD may be any size.
• ISOTs from 1800 AD to 1900 AD must be France-sized or smaller.
• As an exception to the above rule NO ISOTing the whole United Kingdom from the years 1830-1899.
• ISOTs from 1900 AD to 2000 AD must be entities, that is, cities, buildings, people or groups of people, or objects.

3) You can ISOT nations and entities to places other than their OTL locations, but try and show restraint so as to avoid "Three Italies Syndrome".
4) One turn = one year
5) Save the map as a .png using the editing software of your choice (Microsoft Paint is the most accessible).
6) Be a good sport; this means contributing to ongoing plot threads, not stepping on people's toes, and keeping things in the realm of plausibility.
7) As the GM, I will be enforcing these rules.
8) As discord no longer hosts images you have to use an image hosting site to showcase the maps, such as imugr

Use the following template for ISOTs:

Nation/Entity Name:
Commonly Known as:
Government:
Capital:
Technology Level:
Year ISOTed from:
Territory ISOTed:
Population:
Religions:
Languages:
Head(s) of State:
Brief History:

Previous Map Games:

SV ISOT I
SV ISOT II

 

[StarMaker764]

Nation/Entity Name: Kingdom of Jerusalem
Commonly Known as:
Government: Monarchy
Capital: Jerusalem
Technology Level: Middle ages (1100)
Year ISOTed from: 1130
Territory ISOTed: All of it
Population: 470,000
Religions: Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Samaritanism and Judaism
Languages: French, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew
Head(s) of State: Baldwin II
Brief History:

The kingdom of Jerusalem was one of the crusader states established in the wake of the Crusades' victories in the Levant, made especially important by its control over the holy city of Jerusalem. Built on shaky foundations and copious amounts of massacres and expulsions, the kingdom is nevertheless at the height of its power under Baldwin II but before it could follow up on its ambitions of conquering more Muslim territory, the kingdom is plucked out from its time in a brilliant flash of light.


Nation/Entity Name: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Commonly Known as: PFLP, popular front
Technology Level: 20th Century
Year ISOTed from: 1969
Population: 2000
Religions: Islam, Christianity
Languages: Arabic
Head(s) of State: George Habash
Brief History:

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was formed in the wake of the Six Day War as an organization dedicated to the liberation of Palestine from Israeli apartheid and supporting the Pan-Arab cause. Adopting a Marxist-Leninist approach to liberation, the movement is already suffering from splits and factionalism within its ranks before they are suddenly transported to the age of the Crusades.

Year 1 ​

The fighters of the PFLP are bewildered when they all wake up on the outskirts of a strange yet oddly familiar land, a land that seems empty of any signs of modernity. The PFLP members themselves are all conveniently dressed and well-stocked with weapons, books, and basic medical supplies.


Though there is a panic initially, George Habash is charismatic and still well-respected enough to stop anything catastrophic from happening. He manages to instill enough order to keep things calm for now and sends out scouts to determine what is going on and where they are exactly.

The scouts make contact with the locals relatively easily, since many of them speak Arabic even though the dialect is unfamiliar. They quickly return with the information that the PFLP has somehow been transported to the Levant in the times of the Crusades, into the Kingdom of Jerusalem to be exact.

The PFLP are shocked and almost broken by the news but Habash manages to rally their spirits and give them purpose by pointing out that nothing else they are still in Palestine (even if it's not the one they knew) and that their homeland was still under occupation (even if the occupier was not the one they formed to fight).

The guerrilla fighters quickly manage to scatter and overwhelm crusader garrisons through their modern firearms and the populace rallies behind them against the unpopular Frinji* ruling class that abused both Muslims and native Christians alike.

Soon a peasant revolt erupts and quickly allies with the PFLP, and Baldwin II is forced to rally his forces and attempt to deal with these strange invaders, even as his missives and emissaries to the neighboring crusader states go unanswered for some reason.

He never gets to face his enemy in open battle, however as he is shot from afar while inspecting his troops, and the crusader forces begin infighting, leaving them easy prey for the PFLP, who successfully liberate Jrusalem in mere months as the city falls to popular revolt with the People's Republic of Palestine being declared in the aftermath with Habash as its president.

However though the conquest was relatively easy, the PFLP now faces the challenge of having to build a socialist state in the medieval era, and the task is only complicated further when its confirmed that the lands beyond the former kingdom's borders are utterly devoid of any human life, and the party is divided on what to do next, especially regarding land reform, democracy and building industry.

For now the PRP begins a series of welfare programs, focusing on establishing free public education and healthcare while skilled PFLP members attempt to disseminate their technical knowledge among the people.

At the very least there is the mercy of the uptimers having some measure of a common language and culture with the downtimers even if stark differences remain, and the PFLP's secularism means it can adequately handle the Levant's multicultural and multi-religious nature, even if the Jewish population is viewed with suspicion and heavily monitored.


*arabic for Frank, which was what all Europeans were called by the Islamic world in that era

 

[Shadowhisker]

• Nation/Entity Name: Captaincies-General of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo
• Commonly Known As: Spanish West Indies
• Government: Colonial Administration under a (nominally) Constitutional Monarchy
• Capital(s): Havana, Santo Domingo, San Juan
• Technology Level: First Industrial Revolution (1860s)
• Year ISOTed from: 1862
• Territory ISOTed: Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and their respective outlying islands
• Population: Approx 2.1 million (1.3 million on Cuba, 230k in Santo Domingo, and 540k on Puerto Rico)
• Religions: Catholicism, Crypto-Judaism, Crypto-Islam
• Languages: Spanish, Lucumi, fragmented Taino, Chinese
• Head(s) of State: Francisco Serrano, Felipe Ribero y Lemoine, Rafael Izquierdo y Gutierrez
• Brief History: Spain may have fallen far from the glory days of the Hapsburgs, but she still retains a colonial empire. In the mid-nineteenth century, a chance was taken to recapture some of that old glory, taking advantage of a United States mired in civil war to annex the newly independent Dominican Republic. Together with Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Spanish West Indies are the largest they've been in some time. However, trouble is brewing. The Dominican general who invited the Spanish, Pedro Santana, has been replaced with a Spanish noble, and rebellion is imminent on all three colonies.

• Nation/Entity Name: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces
• Commonly Known As: Cuban Forces in Angola
• Technology Level: Late Cold War (1980s)
• Year ISOTed from: 1985
• Population: 42,000 (36,000 soldiers and 6,000 civilian humanitarian workers)
• Religions: Atheism, Catholicism
• Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Umbundu, Oshiwambo
• Head(s) of State: Arnaldo Ochoa
• Brief History: As the Angolan Civil War rages on, it has become another proxy conflict in the Cold War between capitalism and communism. The Marxist-Leninist Republic of Cuba, with the support of the Soviet Union, has invested significantly in the success of the also Marxist-Leninist MPLA. With thousands of soldiers, and thousands more humanitarian workers, all equipped with the best the Warsaw Pact has to offer, Cuba's contribution to the Angolan War is the largest any socialist state has sent, and a significant army in it's own right.

As this virgin earth completed another orbit around the Sun, a story repeats itself. A land taken out of time, a land where foreigners who proclaim themselves blessed by God rule oppressed peoples, a land that has suddenly found itself surrounded by wilderness, a land now playing host to a force dedicated to liberation. But the Captaincies-General of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo- collectively the Spanish West Indies- are a different beast from the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And the various gatherings of the Cuban Forces in Angola are as far from the PFLP as Belfast is from Beirut.

The first week was utter chaos. For the Spaniards, the sun was suddenly rising in the south and setting in the north, and where ships from the other islands of the Caribbean were expected to come in, the only thing that came were the cold winds of the North Sea. To his credit, the wily and charismatic Governor of Cuba, Francisco Serrano, was able to quickly re-establish contact with his counterparts in Santo Domingo and San Juan, and was already laying the groundwork for a consolidation of government and military institutions at the time of his death. Unfortunately for the Captain-General, he died 48 hours after his arrival in this new world, blown apart by an expertly placed shot from a marksman wielding a Mambi-2 anti-material rifle. Because 48 hours was how long it took for the 42,000 soldiers and workers of the Cuban Forces in Angola to reorganize after finding themselves all too suddenly not in Angola. Instead, they had woken up in their military issue tents in a perfectly put-together camp (that nobody remembered setting up) in central Cuba, just within sight of the brand-new railroad that ran along the island's spine. It only took a bit for General Ochoa to re-establish the chain of command, but taking stock of his supplies (hundreds of Soviet-built tanks, dozens of aircraft, slabs of emergency food supplies, and so on) and of his situation (hundreds of miles from Africa, with scouts reporting seeing colonial-era buildings in Havana, and the shores of an unpopulated Ireland) was more complicated. Soon enough, however, the uptime Cubans came together, and turned to bringing the revolution to this Cuba of ages past.

Hind-D gunships (the uptime Cubans' jets having no runways to take off from) tore through the skies unchecked, while T-55s and armored personnel carriers stormed the cities. The governor-general was assassinated in the red Cubans' opening moves, calculated by the strategists and historians in their ranks to be necessary in disrupting the colonial administration. Following the soldiers, all but invincible against musket or cannon, technical advisors and aid workers distributed food and blankets. Slaves were liberated, debts were torn up, and by the end of the month General Ochoa was declaring a new Republic of Cuba from the governor's office in Havana.

However, not all was well. While the cities and major plantations had been taken, the countryside was still unsecured, and as such ambivalent to the uptimer-led revolution. Significant portions of the Spanish military and nobility, those in the north (formerly the east) had fled to Hispaniola or Puerto Rico, warning their compatriots of the red menace. Fleeing alongside them were the white Cuban bourgeois, incensed at the liberation of their slaves and expropriation of their lands. What's more, it was quickly becoming clear that they were not in the Caribbean. Aerial scouts, flying as far as they dared go, reported that the islands of the Greater Antilles had somehow replaced the main island of Great Britain, in the British archipelago- and had been rotated a full 90 degrees counterclockwise, relative to the north pole, to fit in the space that Great Britain once filled. Ireland, the Hebrides, even the Isle of Wight were still there, but Great Britain wasn't, and there they were. It was as though God Himself had sunk England into the sea, and then lifted the three islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico from the Caribbean and placed them down in the North Sea, as one pilot described it. What's more, the lands outside of what the Spaniards controlled (or had controlled until recently), were, in every direction, utterly uninhabited. No signs of civilization, no signs of humanity, nothing but enormous beasts and untouched wilderness as far as the eye could see. Even the southern half of Hispaniola, where Haiti should have been, was nothing but terra nullius- primordial jungle, in this case, and by all accounts adapting poorly to the sudden shift north.

The Republic of Cuba remained on a war footing, as the Spanish still held out in Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico. Runways were cleared for transport planes, and by the end of another month, Cuban troops were landing on the uninhabited Tortuga and the western shores of Hispaniola. There, they faced stiffer resistance than expected. Jose de la Gándara, a major general and the former military governor of Santiago de Cuba, had managed to place himself as commander-in-chief over the incompetent Lemoine and heavy-handed Gutierrez. When the uptime Cubans made their landings, they found over 30,000 Spanish soldiers, with cannon and colonial auxiliaries, dug in and expecting their arrival. Ordinarily, such a force would have been no match for the Cuban Revolutionary Army, but the communists' difficulties were compounded by their limited supplies of fuel and ammunition. Armored vehicles had to be left behind so that fragile airlift supply lines could be kept going, and every bullet had to be rationed. It was true that the Cubans made considerable advances, and even contacted Dominican guerillas who were in no way happy with the Spanish reconquest of their homes; and it was true that the Spaniards weren't expected to last more than another year at the outside, but it was slow going. Slower than it should have been.

On the home front, the situation was also a mixed bag. Civilian aid workers and military technical advisors had dispersed among the populace, setting up new schools, helping with construction and agricultural planning, and distributing vaccines against yellow fever and smallpox. It was a mission similar in concept to their humanitarian efforts in Angola, but the backwardness of colonial Cuba, as well as the lack of support from a wider socialist world, made things difficult. Freed slaves, crypto-Muslims and Jews who had been in hiding since the Inquisition, the imported workers of Havana's Chinatown, the common mulattoes, liberal mestizos who cared more about an independent Cuba than their own wealth, even the last fragmented speakers of precolonial Taino, these peoples all gloried in newfound freedom. However, this enthusiasm was tempered by the shock of being transported to the opposite side of the world, and the vanishing of outside civilization. Uptimer Cubans sheltered deeper fears. These were the most devoted to the communist cause, soldiers and engineers and doctors and teachers who had volunteered to go halfway around the world to lift a nation out of colonial and bourgeois rule. They were doing good work here, yes, but for many it wasn't as good as they could do. General Ochoa- and months on, he was still a general- ruled by decree, not concerning himself with setting up a civilian government. He hoarded art pieces looted from colonial manors; he directed fields to be set aside for crops like tobacco and coca, even as the threat of famine loomed; he treated the war against the Spanish like he had the war against UNITA, when many were already less than happy with his generalship in that old conflict. Slowly, an opposition that went as high as Ochoa's lieutenants was coalescing.

Worst of all, winter was coming. The islands of the Greater Antilles hadn't experienced snows like what would come since the Ice Age. Agriculturalists and environmentalists were all warning the same things; crops would fail, rivers would freeze, and nothing would be the same.

-

Meanwhile, at the eastern side of Mediterranean, the People's Republic of Palestine stood alone. George Habash, his longtime friend Wadie Haddad, and ultra-leftists like Nayef Hawatmeh had convened a party congress that averted a split, and were rooting out Frankish nobles with relative ease, but the issue of guiding the literally medieval state to socialism remained. Wheat was planted and harvested, while the PFLP's stock of new-world plants like potatoes, peanuts, and penicillin were carefully cultivated. Schools were established, and by the end of the year, a handful of downtimer Palestinians, taking to communism like a duck to water, were accepted into the party. Finally, with captured Venetian carracks, a few brave explorers took to the seas, searching desperately for any sign of human life. Nothing was found. In the end, a colony on Cyprus was established, both to take advantage of the enormous copper reserves and keep and eye out for anyone else, but many in Palestine were despairing at the possibility of being the last humans on Earth.

 

[notbirdofprey]

Nation/Entity Name: Wat Tyler's Rebellion
Commonly Known As: Great Rising, Peasant Revolt
Government: Peasant/burgher rebellion nominally loyal to a feudal monarchy
Capital(s): London
Technology Level: Medieval
Year ISOTed from: 1381
Population: Approximately 90-100,000
Religions: Catholicism
Languages: Dialects of English
Head(s) of State: Wat Tyler, John Ball, John Wrawe
Brief History: Conditions in England had been deteriorating, as legal action attempted to keep the peasantry's wages and conditions the same as they had prior to the Black Death while taxes rose to pay for an unpopular war. Culminating on May of 1381, attempts to force the peasantry spiraled into risings that successfully seized London

Nation/Entity Name: German Peasant's War
Commonly Known As: Great Peasants' War, Great Peasants' Revolt
Government: Peasant and plebian rebellion
Capital(s): London
Technology Level: Early Modern
Year ISOTed from: 1525
Population: Approximately 300,000
Religions: Catholicism, some Protestant influence
Languages: Dialects of German
Head(s) of State: The Christian Association, Thomas Müntzer, Michael Gaismair, Götz von Berlichingen
Brief History: As princes of the Holy Roman Empire adopted roman law and enserfed free peasantry, resistance grew, culminating in the peasantry forming armed bands and organized associations of resistance.


Europe
In a flash of light, approximately 400,000 people from across time and space are deposited across the northern coast of France. Confusion reigns, as these people are from two groups but are intermixed, however enough common ground is found in their dialects that some communication is established.

Near three hundred years separate these groups, but they find themselves sharing a common cause - revolts against the aristocracy, both secular and ecclestial. And as both groups found themselves transported with their supplies, including food and drink, a series of grand feasts were held.

At the same time, it was quickly determined that no one who hadn't at least been a sympathizer of these rebellions had been transported. The theological implications were obvious, especially to radical preachers like John Ball and Thomas Müntzer. They who had fought against corrupt earthly authorities had been blessed, and taken to a land free of serfdom, poll taxes, and the countless other injustices of their lives. Some speculated that this was the Garden of Eden, but others pointed to the presence of wild animals like great bears and sabre-toothed cats that had no fear of humans as proof that they were somewhere else. A few proposed Purgatory or Limbo, and the theological discussion became a major thread of the daily lives of the peasantry and plebians.

The other major thread was the struggle to survive. Hunting, gathering, and fishing were all plentiful, and initial supplies were at least sufficient, but while personal items such as hand tools and weapons had come with them, there were no farms, nor livestock, nor houses, to say nothing of the sort of goods and facilities the urban sympathizers and participants were used to having.

The German peasant bands formed their rings, including their English compatriots, although their lesser numbers and the language barrier combined to reduce the influence of the latter. A series of decisions were steadily made. First, given the lack of other people and the apparent harmony, they did not need to worry about establishing any sort of military. The conventional hue and cry would serve to handle any misdeeds or dangerous animals. With no concern for self-defense, centralization was deemed unnecessary, and it was proposed that the bands would scatter and establish new villages around the general area. No one found this particularly disagreeable, but debates about who settled where quickly rose up, and it was proposed that an elected body would be formed to vote on these disputes, and their meeting place would be right in the center of where these people appeared.

No one disagreed with either of those ideas either, and the first Council of the Free and Blessed Peasant's (usually just the Peasant's) Confederation was established, consisting primarily of the leadership of the varying revolts, including Wat Tyler, Peter Passler, and the Christian Association of the Upper Swabian Peasant's Confederation, who the Council broadly modeled themselves on.

The first few months were generally peaceful and prosperous, despite some difficulties with winter and the unfamiliar environment. Then came the first helicopters.

General Ochoa's war was not going as well as it should have. It wasn't the man's fault, for he was leading competently enough, and he was still unquestionably winning. Several more cities on Hispaniola had fallen, and an attempted counterrevolutionary rising by some of the remaining Cuban slaveowners had been crushed. The Spanish navy had been almost entirely sunk.

But that did not change the fact that the Cubans had no way to transport their armored vehicles across the sea to where they were needed, or that ammunition for uptime weaponry was running dry, or that supplies of fuel were almost out and what was left was reserved for emergenices.

General Ochoa had already seized what ships were available, and an improvised Red Navy was quickly formed out of this motley mix of steamships and sailing craft to supply the troops on Hispaniola. But it wasn't enough (especially since he insisted on keeping some ships out patrolling out of concern for what other forces or lands might suddenly appear), and critical shortages, especially of shells for artillery, threatened to slow the conflict unacceptably. A crash-shipbuilding program had been initiated, along with several other efforts to improve the longevity of the Cuban army.

The problem was that each of these programs stretched the supply of aid workers, engineers, and downtime labor thinner. The work done designing and testing a breechloading blackpowder rifle meant work was not done constructing apartments for those rendered homeless during the war. The labor used to establish and staff a semi-industrial workshop for those rifles was labor not planting, harvesting, or fishing. The nurses kept on call for industrial accidents were nurses not establishing hyigene and sanitation programs or running medical classes.

Not even integrating the Dominican rebels and primarily transporting them back to Cuba as extra labor was able to resolve this critical shortage.

If they had been in a warmer climate, the crop packages the aid workers had brought with them, the existing farms, and supplemental sources like fishing would have been plenty. But the unfamiliar cold blighted much of the harvest, cutting grievously into the margins of food. Combined with the various additional demands on Ochoa had placed on labor, and the situation was just shy of desperate.

The food supply should be sufficient to avoid famine, if rations for "non-essential" labor was cut to the bare minimum. That was the general's sole concern for the civilian economy. Everything else was fuel for the fires of war.

The general stated that his first priority was the total defeat of reactionary forces, and then a vanguard party could be established to cultivate a proletariat. But what some saw was a would-be Bonaparte taking an existing proletariat and treating them like cogs in a machine of empire, no different from any capitalist.

This was especially true when the patrolling ships reported that they had spotted sudden evidence of human habitation on the coast of France, and that they appeared to be largely medieval or similar.

General Ochoa announced that these potential reactionaries would be met with a demonstration of the might of the Cuban army, and dispatched one of his most reliable officers in some of the few precious helicopters to secure the newly inhabited territory. In exchange for the protection against counterrevolutionary forces, Ochoa wanted two things from these people:

Food and labor.

The Council of the Peasant's Confederation met the strangers, gaping in shock at the men who could fly like birds and who wielded guns deadlier than anything they could imagine. Their terms were met with sullen obedience, as they were no different than those of the feudal lords these peasants had thought themselves free from. Significant portions of the fields were enclosed for mass agriculture, while the slowly growing granaries and meat stockpiles of the Confederation were stripped nearly bare.

Ochoa looked at the numbers he was given in the reports and found them satisfactory for a start. The extra meat, especially, would boost the morale of his troops.

But while he had been looking at those numbers, and at ammunition counts, and all the other business of war, there had been other things he hadn't been looking at.

Things like the growing discontent among those soldiers who remained on Cuba, and the aid workers they cooperated with. Things like the political education classes among the laborers, emphasizing that they were disposable living machines no longer, but workers, with rights, including the right to a democratic government. Things like secret messages being passed between officers.

The overthrow of Ochoa was very nearly a perfect success. A radio broadcast went out, scathingly condemning the general as a Bonapartist, a capitalist in the mask of a revolutionary, and a few other things. Workers in the new factories and shipyards went on strike in mass, with the guards deserting to stand in solidarity or remaining paralyzed by contradicting orders. Handpicked military units marched into Ochoa's main base, arresting and disarming his loyal soldiers with relatively little bloodshed.

The soldiers on Hispaniola paused in their attacks, but no orders to pull back to Cuba or disarm or do anything in particular came, and there were still reactionaries to kill and proletariat to liberate. They resumed the offensive, albeit slower, in case supplies became limited.

Meanwhile, the Provisional Revolutionary Council that had overthrown Ochoa watched in dismay as the general fled in one of the few remaining helicpoters, making it to his troops currently occupying the Peasant's Confederation, trusting that they, at least, would be on his side.

Especially since the PRC had been no less scornful of them than him, given that they accused the occupying troops of being engaged in open imperialism, treating the peasantry no differently than how the US treated the Cubans.

The people of the Peasant's Confederation would have certainly agreed with that comparison, assuming the context had been explained to them. The occupying troops had been brutal in response to any resistance, performing mass reprisals and seizing dangerous amounts of food, to say nothing of their generally abusive behavior among the locals. Hostility had started at a low simmer and was rapidly boiling over. These people had all been ready to overthrow their better-armed, better-trained would-be superiors before. These people had sacked London and warded off Landsknechte. Only the evident strength of the Cuban army's weaponry prevented a mass rising...and some, like John Ball and Michael Gaismair, thought that such a rising would be worthwhile anyway. The thought of remaining as a serf after tasting even a few months of freedom was intolerable to many, and while active resistance seemed impossible, passive defiance or simply running away had become common in the scant months since the Cuban army had come.

And then Ochoa had arrived in a helicopter, and everything went to hell. The garrisons scattered among the varying villages and "collective farms" were immediately ordered to return the Council building they had made their main base around, and those orders were obeyed in a panic. Panic meant weakness. Weakness, to the hungry, angry peasantry, meant opportunity.

Attempts at seizing the remaining village granaries were resisted with force. Isolated soldiers were attacked, and columns were harassed from the dense, primeval forest. The advanced weaponry of the Cuban soldiers meant that most columns were successfully able to fend off the peasant uprisings, but in the process they depleted their ammunition and exhausted themselves.

What came next was a strange sort of stalemate. The PRC needed to priortize feeding their people, and establishing and propagandizing their ambitious (and not immediate) goal for achieving communism, defining it, as Lenin did, as soviet power plus the electirification of the whole country. Combined with the ongoing war against Hispaniola and the need for a future offensive against Puerto Rico, they did not have the capacity to force Ochoa and his remaining loyalists to surrender. Regular radio broadcasts promising potential amnesty were the extent of their efforts against him. At least until the Spanish on Hispaniola surrendered, freeing up enough troops and weapons that they could supply the Peasant's Confederation with them.

Ochoa and his loyalists, meanwhile, were stuck in a loose siege, unable to expand their army or improve their capabilites due to the need to conserve ammunition for when the PRC came and the universal and mutual hostility between them and then the Peasant's Confederation.

The Peasant's Confederation, meanwhile, needed to priortize not starving, and no one was particularly eager to be the first to attack assault rifles with their chests.

So for months, the situation persisted in this unstable status quo - the PRC frantically farming every bit of green space and fishing every body of water while their soldiers crushed the last armies on Hispaniola, the Peasant's Confderation farming and hunting and glaring at Ochoa's soldiers, Ochoa's soldiers huddling in their resentment in their encampment.

West Asia

The struggles of building communism in medieval Palestine are many, but most are ones the members of the PFLP would have anticipated if you had proposed the concept to them. One they had not anticipated was relative isolation. Not only are the citizens of the PRP the only people around, as far as they know, but the individual members of the PFLP are widely scattered in small groups. Though there is a common language and some common experiences across the divide in time, this creates an uncanny feeling in many, making socialization a struggle. People cope with this differently, some throwing themselves into work, others finding various distractions. More than a few, however, begin slipping into unhealthy habits, with some resorting to medicinal solutions to their feelings of despair and isolation.

With the basics of a welfare state established, the beginnings of an education system created, and new crops increasing the food surplus, the next matter is land reform. However, the delay while the party debated has led to the peasantry taking the matter into their own hands, with a series of uprisings and revolts against the remnants of local nobility resulting in rough land-to-the-tiller style distribution of land. The left wing of the party is torn between admiration of their independent mass action and frustration at the fact that the peasantry did not collectivize or cooperatize the land, at least not more than it already was.

The aristocracy who survived mostly flee into the surrounding lands, eking out little homesteads and stewing in their resentment. Some begin launching raids on each other, and on the periphery of the PRP.

The food surplus has created a labor surplus in turn. This surplus is taken advantage of. While a number of projects remain focused on agriculture and educations, such as the founding of a small-scale nursing school and the expansion of irrigation to provide surplus water and energy for mills, the first tentative steps into industrialization are made. Crude mines are expanded, and a few oil wells are sunk. The fuel will provide energy for further industrialization, but they still need a supply of coal for coking. An expedition to Turkey or Egypt is proposed, but other matters rear their head first.

Firstly, whether intentionally or not, the new members of the party have mostly been Palestinian Muslims. Delegations from local Christian and Jewish communities have made complaints regarding this, as they have been no less devoted, no less assidous.

Secondly, the initial plan for mining on Cyprus (and in future colonies) is for a full time cadre of mixed uptimers and downtimers to be present, but between the relatively primitive conditions on Cyprus and the isolation, this proved untenable. A series of strikes and protests began, with the strikers demanding three month rotations and increased focus on improving living conditions on the colony.

 

[Miriam]

Year 4​

Nation/Entity Name: City of Pittsburgh
Commonly Known As: Pittsburgh, the Iron City
Government: Mayor-City Council
Capital(s): Pittsburgh
Technology Level: Modern, 1970s America
Year ISOTed from: 1970
Population: Approximately 520,000
Religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Atheism, etc
Languages: American English, pockets of other languages
Head(s) of State: Peter F. Flaherty (Mayor)
Brief History: Pittsburgh is not at the height of its game anymore, its steel mills are beginning to decline, and people are starting to leave for better jobs. But to many, the city of Pittsburgh remains the Iron City.

Nation/Entity Name: State of Tlaxcala
Commonly Known As: Tlaxcala, Tlaxcallan Confederation, Altepetl of Tlaxcala
Government: Oligarchic republic city-state(s), militaristic
Capital(s): Tlaxcala
Technology Level: 1400s Mesoamerican
Year ISOTed from: 1481
Population: Approximately 650,000
Religions: Tlaxcallan Mesoamerican religion
Languages: Central Nahuatl
Head(s) of State: Assorted teuctli officials, especially Xicotencatl the Elder
Brief History: The city-state of Tlaxcala was one of the few Mesoamerican municipalities who resisted the rise of the Aztec Triple Alliance and its imperial leaders, the Tlatoni of Tenochtitlan. A republic, they placed a great deal of pride on their system and their continued fight against Tenochtilan's imperialism, enabled by a citizen military and rugged terrain.

North America

For two different entities, the shift was not sudden. They simply went to sleep in their accustomed time and place, and wake up in another. Those who had a night shift of any kind uncharacteristically fell asleep as well.

As the city of Pittsburgh awoke, they found themselves experiencing the mild and sunny climate of California… with an honest-to-god Aztec city or three only a few miles away. Or at least they thought it was Aztec, at first. Whatever it was, it was unfamiliar, as was the utterly undeveloped land around them. They were in unprecedented territory, so it was not a surprise when Mayor Peter F Flaherty declared a state of emergency. A few city council members and citizens voiced concerns when it was declared that the state of emergency would be indefinite, but most supported the mayor's decision.
The other city, the Mesoamerican city-state of Tlaxcala, woke up equally disoriented and confused, worried that this strange climate and even stranger neighbor was some kind of divine punishment or trial. The canny and distinguished Xicontencatl the Elder, governor of one of Tlaxcala's vassal cities, quickly stabilized the situation by a public speech proclaiming that the Aztecs were gone, and that they had endured a trial from the gods, that a new opportunity was before them for peace and prosperity. The other elected teuctli wondered at his presuming to speak for the gods, but for now, they didn't have a better idea, so they went along with Xicontencatl's proclamations.

Luckily enough for both Tlaxcala and Pittsburgh, the assorted universities in Pittsburgh had a few academics who could read and speak a sliver of modern Nahuatl, the language of Tlaxcala. These professors became the city's de facto diplomats, haltingly translating for both sides. A non-aggression pact of sorts was agreed to, and trade began flowing through the cities, Tlaxcala trading food to Pittsburgh in exchange for some of the American novelties and conveniences. Mayor Flaherty refused to trade guns to the Tlaxcallans, preferring to keep Pittsburgh's police department as a de facto military force with weaponry that the Tlaxcallans couldn't match.

Amongst the trade were also doctors, and samples of smallpox vaccine, which the academics demanded for the Tlaxcallans over the objections of some of the more xenophobic members of city government. After the vaccine program was established, both cities began confronting the food supply issue, which even the cordial trade couldn't match. In this regard, Tlaxcala held an advantage due simply to the fact that few in Pittsburgh had any agricultural experience.

Europe

To General Ochoa's credit, his relative competence as a military commander managed to keep the status quo between himself, the People's Revolutionary Council, and the Peasant Confederation for a few more months, but all stable things must come to an end, and in a scuffle during one rainy May night, he was shot and killed, buried in a shallow grave by his own officers. Whether they had grown disgusted by his heavy-handedness, guilty for their deeds in northern France fending off the peasants, or simply sick of the siege, none could say. It might have been a combination of all of those reasons and a realization that they could not win. Regardless, Ochoa was dead, and his "loyalist" officers waved a flag of surrender, and managed to get a messenger of the same to the PRC.

Their terms were simple. Amnesty for all those who had come to the Confederation with Ochoa, especially, it was implied, the officers. The PRC readily agreed; after all, their mini-revolution against Ochoa had been nearly bloodless, and they needed talented leaders. And the men were fellow Cubans besides, they felt unwilling to simply abandon their own in this strange new world.

The Peasant Confederation was far less willing to let these men go. After all, the Ochoaites had been occupying troops, killed members of the Confederation. But the radical priest John Ball had a plan, one he hatched with such German luminaries as Thomas Müntzer and Michael Gaismair, These radicals were not opposed to this new ideology of communism, and indeed saw the very existence of the Cubans as proof that at least a shred of their own beliefs had endured to the future, surely by God's will. They distrusted the atheism of the Cubans but as the knight Götz of the Iron Hand put it, "If I had to lick up the scraps the Spanish deigned to shit upon me, my faith might be tested too." Privately John Ball agreed with the crude soldier.

In any case, the Confederation demanded technological assistance so that no Ochoas could arise again. This, to an extent, was political theater, as the PRC had promised to do so after the Spanish were dealt with, but the timetable for doing so was sped up, and examples of some of the technology the Cubans would hand over were shown to the Confederation as a whole. On his part, John Ball smoothed over the occupation by casting Ochoa as an aberration, a "spawn of Satan" that tricked the good and god-fearing Cubans into following his tyranny. The worst of Ochoa's enforcers were hanged, much to the PRC's chagrin, but as promised, the vast majority were amnestied back to Cuba, where they would face military discipline, but not execution.

Meanwhile, the PRC offensive on Hispaniola completed by the end of the year, with Dominican rebels and Cuban soldiers shattering the last of the Spanish there, forcing them off the island. All that remained was Puerto Rico, where the remaining Captain-Generals still held sway, for now.

West Asia:

In the People's Republic of Palestine, things certainly went more smoothly than in northern Europe, even if they had their own struggles.

New downtime Christian and Jewish party members are admitted, and while some in the PFLP advocated banning "subversive elements" from those admitted to the party, leader George Habash advocated against any banning. After all, they had won. They could afford to be magnanimous.

Less magnanimous were the negotiations between the Cyprus strikers and the central leadership in Jerusalem. After all, it was financial matters. However, by summer, a deal is struck. Skilled carpenters and masons are sent to Cyprus to improve living conditions, and a five month rotation is established.

The People's Republic also expands its borders into the Sinai Peninsula, for both strategic and symbolic reasons. Finally, a small colony is established on what the uptimers are certain is the site of Alexandria in Egypt. If all goes well, perhaps it could be an Alexandria in truth, and if goes wrong, well, at least it isn't terribly far from Palestine itself.

The medieval aristocratic remnants are busy raiding each other for the most part, and the few that try to raid Palestine are easily fended off.

 

[Orphic_Dionysus]

Nation/Entity Name: Roman Empire, Provincia Dalmatia
Commonly known as: Western Roman Empire, Occidentale Respublica, Occidentale Imperium
Government: Imperial Autocracy
Capital: Salona (Julius Nepos was hosted at Diocletian's Palace or a private villa in Spalatum). Claimed: Ravenna
Technology Level: Late Antiquity
Year ISOTed from: 476
Population: ~1-3 million
Religions: Christian; Chalcedonian Christianity, Pelagianism (reported in Ostrogothic Dalmatia as a "recurring weed"), Arianism. Others: Manichaeanism, Judaism, Late-Roman Paganism (dwindling although still followed by some elites like the previous ruler of the province the uncle of Julius Nepos and Comes Rei Militaris Dalmatiae Marcellinus who studied under Neoplatonist Philosopher Prolcus)
Languages: Vulgar Latin, Late Latin, Greek, Gothic
Head(s) of State: Flavius Julius Nepos Augustus.
Brief History: After being forced off the throne by his foederati troops under his old magister militum Orestes, who revolted and crowned the child Romulus Augustus as Emperor, Julius Nepos, still claiming the title of Roman Emperor, fled with his comites to the Province Dalmatia, where he continued to rule, being officially recognized by the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno. After Odoacer deposed Romulus and nominally recognized him, Nepos hoped to restore control over Italy. However, while Odoacer minted coinage with Nepos' name on it and gave him a pension, in practice, he ignored him. The fortified coastal cities have received an influx of inhabitants over the years.

Nation/Entity Name: Italian Regency of Carnaro
Commonly Known As: Fiume, Free State of Fiume
Government: Syndicalist Corporatist Ultranationalist Republic/City-State
Capital: Fiume
Technology Level: Interwar Era
Year ISOTed From: 1920
Population: ~49,806 (46.9% Italian, 31.7% Croatian, 7.9% Slovenian, 7.3% Hungarian, 5.0% German, 0.4% English, 0.3% Czech, 0.14% Serbian, 0.08% French, 0.07% Polish, 0.06% Romanian)
Religions: Catholicism, Judaism, Calvinism, Orthodox Christianity, Lutheranism, Atheism by order
Languages: Italian, Croatian, Chakavian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Yiddish, German
Head(s) of State: "Temporary" Dictator, Gabriele D'Annunzio. The Charter of Carnaro (Constitution), written by secretary of civil army affairs and chief of staff Alceste De Ambris, provides the legal framework of the state. 'Action Secretary' Guido Keller.

Brief History: With the declaration of Wilson's fourteen points Fiume became divided between parts of itself, an Italian council asking for annexation into Italy, a Croatian one asking for annexation into Yugoslavia, others asking for Fiume to remain independent and a Worker's Council asking for the Socialist International to conduct a plebiscite, it seemed Fiume's situation couldn't become more precarious until an Italian nationalist after being asked to personally lead a strong 2,500-armed column of "legionaries" (including tanks) on an expedition to occupy the city of Fiume—a city that Italian irredentists claimed had been "unjustly" stolen from them in a so-called "mutilated victory"— by Italian Ultranationalists, the mad poet Gabriele D'Annunzio was able to occupy the city after Italian troops disobeyed orders to stop him.

Longer:

Spoiler: People in Fiume + Misc Info.

Notable Figures: Alceste De Ambris (Pro-Interventionist Syndicalist Left-Wing of the Venture), Guido Keller (Futurist-wing, gave yoga classes, liked to spend as much time as possible naked also later on war criminal), F. T. Marinetti (Futurism Manifesto guy), Giovanni Host-Venturi (Right-Wing Ultranationalist Italian Supremacist, friends with Mussolini), Arturo Toscanini (Genius Orchestra player and Socialist, later said, "If I were capable of killing a man, I would kill Mussolini."), Osbert Sitwell (Gay English Liberal Journalist and Writer), Harukichi Shimoi ("Samurai of Fiume," Japanese Fascist), Celso Benigno Luigi Costantini (Apostolic Delegate of the Vatican for future Fiume diocese), generally you can expect Journalists from all over Europe to be here as reporters. The small Communist Party in Fiume is led by Samuel Maylender and Albino Stalzer, who founded a worker co-op in the port Fiume autonomists and pro-independence, allegedly trotskyists but couldn't find much evidence for it.

The Fiuman Legionaries had two main subivisions Uscocchi, tasked with committing acts of piracy against ships, military operations and kidnapping people, and La Disperata, who embraced "naturalist-inspired" nudism, vegetarianism, and "free love," with some openly homosexual individuals in charge of military units.

The Fiuman Constitution declared equality between sexes and races (though calls for the "assimilation" of Croats in Fiume), the right to the "social institution" of music as the moral compass instead of religion, the right to divorce, established a minimum wage, and created two legislative houses: the "Council of the Best," elected by universal suffrage, including women. The council had a 3-year term, with one councilor per 1,000 population, responsible for legislation concerning civil and criminal justice, police, armed forces, education, intellectual life, and relations between the central government and communes. The "Council of Corporations," consisting of 60 members chosen by nine corporations for a 2-year term, was responsible for laws regulating business and commerce, labor relations, public services, transportation and merchant shipping, tariffs and trade, public works, and the medical and legal professions. The latter included representatives from industrial and agricultural workers, seafarers, employers, industrial and agricultural technicians, private bureaucrats and administrators, teachers and students, lawyers and doctors, civil servants, and cooperative workers, with mandatory participation in one of these corporations.

North America

In North America, trade between Pittsburgh and Tlaxcala continues, but Pittsburgh has had to implement rationing. Despite not officially acknowledging it, the city is providing preferential treatment to its white population. The state of emergency remains in effect, and the Pittsburgh Police Department has steadily gained more power and influence during the ongoing crisis. While official relations between the two cities remain relatively stable, some "private citizens," including off-duty police officers, have formed groups to raid Tlaxcaltec communities, stealing food and other goods. In response, the local NAACP has called on the city to take immediate measures to prevent further incidents.

Additionally, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) movement, which seeks to blend Catholicism with Charismatic Christianity and began in Pittsburgh, has grown in popularity among the city's Catholic population. Many followers claim to have experienced visions of the Holy Spirit and the ability to speak in tongues since the crisis began. Some members have even expressed interest in undertaking missionary work in Tlaxcala. With no contact with the outside world, Bishop Vincent Martin Leonard has cautiously welcomed the CCR movement, viewing it as an opportunity to foster greater ecumenism with Protestant churches, and hopefully unify Christians in the face of crisis. In the absence of broader communication, some have begun referring to the bishop as "Pope," recognizing him as the highest Catholic authority in the region. A fringe petition has even emerged, despite his opposition, urging him to declare himself Pope, at least until contact with Rome is established.

Europe

In a flash of light, two entities materialize in the Adriatic, each poised to reshape history. One of these is the city of Fiume, a microcosm of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, inhabited by Croats, Italians, Hungarians, and Slovenes— most of whom had fought for the empire just a few years prior. Now, after a period of crisis, Fiume is ruled by a chaotic coalition of annexationist nationalists, futurists, syndicalists, and so-called legionnaires. At the helm is the self-proclaimed dictator Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose ideology has shifted as often as the tides. From denouncing Croatians as "monkeys" and branding Austrian loyalists as cowards, to advocating for a league of oppressed nations that includes Croats, D'Annunzio oscillates between monarchism, xenophobic ultranationalism, internationalism, and anarcho-syndicalism after he rejected the Italian Modus Vivendi proposal, which proposed that in exchange for D'Annunzio leaving and the city ending its demand for annexation, the Kingdom of Italy would commit to protecting the "sovereign rights of the city of Fiume and its territory from the mother country Italy," and providing for "regular Italian troops to protect the integrity of Fiume while simultaneously respecting its own militia.", won in a plebiscite inside the city that D'Annuzio discarded. This decision drove many legionnaires to desert, forcing D'Annunzio to ally with the syndicalist Alceste De Ambris to draft a new constitution. Meanwhile, much of the population either follows D'Annunzio's whims or clings to the remnants of the life they once knew under Austria-Hungary.

The flash of light plunges the city into chaos. Italy, the nation Fiume was set to be annexed by, has vanished. Yugoslavia has also disappeared, leaving Fiume's Slavic population without a homeland, the city's small Communist party without its Soviet motherland, and tourists like British author Osbert Sitwell, Italian-Japanese ultranationalist Harukichi Shimoi, and the famous socialist Italian musician Arturo Toscanini stranded. In response, D'Annunzio orders the Uscocchi to seize all foreign ships in Fiume's harbor. While revolts are suppressed, D'Annunzio, and his current ally De Ambris, enforce strict rationing of food and drugs, favoring Italians, and press for the immediate implementation of the Charter of Carnaro to maintain social order, with workers, especially Croatian ones, threatening to revolt, the need to restructure the city is urgent, given that Fiume has lost all ties to the outside world.

With morale among the troops plummeting, no annexation from Italy forthcoming D'Annunzio addresses the city from his podium: "The City of Fiume stands at a precipice! Whether it be God, or even Jupiter Himself has brought forth this moment, giving us the chance to seize our destiny. Italy, our mother, has vanished, but so too has the false nation of Yugoslavia, which sought to oppress the Slavs and take what is Italian by birthright! Legionnaires, listen to the MUSIC OF A NEW DAWN, the AIR OF FREEDOM! Providence has entrusted us with a new mission. The old Italy REFUSED to HEAR our cries—should we mourn that world, which burned away in an instant like the Great Fire of Rome? NO! Today, Fiume is our Heavenly Jerusalem, and every Fiuman must build a NEW WORLD, a NEW ROME, a NEW ITALY free from the weaknesses of the past. Beyond class divisions, united UNDER THE BANNER of the OUROBOROS OF PERMANENT, ORGANIC, DYNAMIC, and FIERY REVOLUTION! WE SHALL SEIZE THIS NEW WORLD FOR OURSELVES!"

In truth, Léon Kochnitzky of the League of Oppressed Nations had warned D'Annunzio of the rising social and ethnic tensions threatening to unravel the fragile peace of the regency. Sensing the danger, D'Annunzio had already softened his anti-Croat rhetoric now that annexation wasn't forthcoming and together the city's Slavic population outnumbered its Italian one.

Days later, Fiume's navy and a few planes were sent to search for signs of life, as the mountainous terrain made it slower to search by land than by sea. Futurist Guido Keller took to the skies, flying over the Adriatic. From above, he spotted ancient fortified coastal cities, countryside villas, and small, partially abandoned towns due to raids. Keller reported back, later an expedition was sent to Veglia (modern-day Krk). There, they learned they had been sent back to the reign of Flavius Julius Nepos Augustus, who still claimed the Western Roman throne from his exile in Dalmatia. Ironically, the people who most resembled modern Italians were now where Yugoslavia would be, while Italy itself had become naught but wilderness. The legionnaires, led by the Uscocchi, seized agricultural goods by force and brought them back to Fiume.

Inside the government D'Annuzio invites various personalities to discuss what to do next and immediately, a storm of fiery debate erupts; First thunderous and unrelenting, the old syndicalist, and Chief of Staff Alceste De Ambris, and author of the constitution, seizes the moment with zeal and revolutionary fervor. He demands the need to bring Social Revolution to the ancient world, to burn the chains of slavery to ash, to resurrect the Roman Republic beneath the creaking bones of the late empire, to end the lies of the aristocracy, and prevent the rise of the bourgeois before it even started.

Against this, Giovanni Host-Venturi, snarling ultranationalist a personal friend of Mussolini, commander of a small paramilitary, considering himself betrayed by the recent leftish turn howls for a different future. The Croatian's "unwelcome specters of another nation" must be driven from Fiume, he harshly criticized D'Annuzio for wavering in his earlier calls to expel Croats before he thought of his "League of Oppressed Nations" idea. He says that Fiume's Slavic population is to be flung to the wild to fend for themselves or to other settlements as farmers to feed the city, or brutally molded into the image of the "Italian Volk". Referring to the matter of the Empire he says that Fiume must declare Julius Nepos Emperor, to end the regency. Or better, D'Annunzio himself should seize the capital and crown himself Emperor.

Opposing this view Marinetti flanked by the minister of action Guido Keller, spits on their longing for the dead past, and starts ranting about the need to bring forth a new, violent age! Nepos? He should be dragged into the streets, and his retinue too— put on trial in a theater of public bloodshed before the people! Their ancient symbols and palaces? Pulverized beneath the relentless hammer of industry, "The modern barbarians, the savage of masculinity, must rise to crush the effeminate decay of the emperor and his old empire alike!" To bring forth a whirlwind of furious industrialization, metal machines tearing across the earth, as Fiume—under the command of the Duce—ascends to dominance, he declares it the mission of the "Fiuman Supermen" the "Modern Barbarians" to create a war machine of modernity, to arm the unquenchable thirst of the Fiuman Legionnaire united in Brotherhood with Goths, in preparation of any new encounter the new world might send.

Léon Kochnitzky, Belgian musician and head of the League of Fiume, agrees with De Ambris but calls for representatives of the "Barbarian nations" who might be trapped or living inside Dalmatia to be given a spot in the League; D'Annuzio himself finds doubt about the need of the League in this new world, as the Western Roman Empire seems to be the only other nation there but decides to remain silent. He calls for a revolution to break the hold of the Roman aristocracy,

Meanwhile, the city's population was mostly concerned with survival. They longed for the return of the property and stability they had enjoyed when Fiume was a corpus separatum under Austria-Hungary. Celso Benigno Luigi Costantini, the apostolic administrator sent by the Vatican to prepare for the nomination of a bishop, is declared the new bishop by Fiume's Catholic population, as he is the highest-ranking clergy member in the city and has effectively been managing the diocese.

In Diocletian's Palace infantry reports to Julius Nepos that the world beyond the province of Dalmatia seems to have vanished and the sky changed. Hearing this Nepos himself declares that this is a sign of God Himself, God has ordained him as the rightful and sole Emperor of the Roman Empire, expunging both his Eastern counterpart as punishment for not militarily backing his claims to the throne and also Odoacer for refusing to give him back his birthright. Nepos calls a council to symbolically concentrate his new reign and gathers his comites, local notables, and religious leaders. He revived the Lupercalia festival though stripped of its previous religious character, a celebration, that was still held and cherished by Roman elites, and a new Senate was also created.

As news of the seeming disappearance of the outside world spread religious upheaval now grips the region, as Nepos calls for a grand council in Salona to offer divine answers to the crisis. The Emperor's call for unity comes against a backdrop of growing chaos: Pelagians, preaching rejection of wealth and the embrace of asceticism, herald the start of the millennium. Some forsake their homes, becoming wandering hermits, while previously orthodox preachers embrace heterodox ideas and are accused of Manicheanism. Some Pagan oracles said the event marked the imminent end of Christianity.

As weeks pass, Fiuman ships arrive with men from the future, demanding an audience with the Emperor. Tensions rise skirmishes erupt between the Legionaries and Nepos's late Roman infantry. After a brief show of force, the small garrison of legionaries emerges victorious, and D'Annunzio himself arrives, having left his action secretary, Guido Keller, in command of Fiume.

His demands were severe: the Conventus Iuridicus of Scardona would be transferred to Fiume, granting the city control over its agricultural goods and territory, the city would effectively be run independently under a Foederati treaty and only symbolically recognize the Emperorship of Nepos with the ability to break off the treaty at will. D'Annunzio also declared himself Magister Militum, while De Ambris became Magister Officiorum. Nepos was forced to accept the Charter of Carnaro as law, and representatives, including both Roman and Gothic peoples, were to be granted spots in the League of Fiume. Nepos and his Comes will now be required to visit Fiume at fixed intervals with a required stay there, the Italian Uptimers will have legal immunity being only able to be tried by uptime courts, as well as the Emperor will have to accept the Charter of Carnaro as law. Léon Kochnitzky, who was also taken on the mission insists that Foederati elect their own representatives.

After a dramatic display of "modern wonders," involving both advanced technology and cocaine, along with veiled threats, the Emperor swiftly agrees to the demands presented. Julius Nepos, on his inaugural visit to Fiume, is accompanied by Gothic representatives to the League of Fiume. His visit quickly turns into a public spectacle, with photos of him circulating widely and marches organized both in support of and against him. Most are just glad the city will receive a partially steady flow of agricultural goods now, even if it comes at the expense of the downtimers.

While efforts are made to gradually implement the Corporatist and Syndicalist policies outlined in the Charter of Carnaro, it quickly becomes evident that, outside of Fiume, the necessary infrastructure for such reforms is virtually non-existent. Building the foundations for these policies will require starting from scratch. Nonetheless, agricultural innovations from the future begin to take root, particularly the cultivation of corn, which soon becomes a staple crop in the Western Roman Empire. Additionally, at the request of the Legionnaires, especially La Disperata, tobacco, and attempts at farming coca and more "recreational" plants were started to meet rising demand as rations for them dwindle.

In a bid to accelerate development, D'Annunzio appoints Marinetti as the "Magister Industria"— a rebranded Latin version of a ministerial office. Marinetti is tasked with overseeing a ruthless and rapid crash program of industrialization and militarization, aimed at transforming Late Antiquity Dalmatia. This process is seen as crucial for the full application of the Corporatist policies of the Carta outside Fiume, as well as for exploiting resources known to exist from future knowledge, particularly for military production. D'Annuzio has taken to rebranding the names of offices to Latin versions. De Ambris has however called for certain precautions to be taken to ensure there are safety limitations and a basic framework of rights for these workers.

In what would have been known as the British Isles in a previous timeline, the geopolitical landscape in the Caribbean is dramatically reshaped. With access to future knowledge, Cuba strategically aligns itself with Dominican rebels to expel Spanish forces entirely from the island of Hispaniola. This collaboration led to the establishment of the Dominican Republic under the leadership of Gaspar Polanco, a figure bolstered by Cuban support to prevent potential coups or destabilizing opposition. Recognizing the potential for political reform, some Dominican liberals adopt the progressive policies of their Cuban allies, integrating socialist ideas into their national fabric, collaboration with liberals is deemed acceptable for now as Cuban leadership views the liberals of this era as "historically progressive".

Meanwhile, the Spanish Empire's grip tightens over Puerto Rico. Spanish forces enforced a strict lockdown, fortifying the island against anticipated uprisings, while the navy imposed a blockade to prevent outside intervention. In response, revolutionary fervor begins to brew on the island. In Cuba, a coalition of abolitionists and military leaders; Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán, a mixed-race abolitionist heavily influenced by the ideals of John Brown, emerged as a central figure in the resistance. Alongside him are Segundo Ruiz Belvis and the Cuban Revolutionary War hero Juan Ríus Rivera. Together, they formed the Revolutionary Socialist Committee of Puerto Rico, earlier in schedule than OTL, with Betances as a leader, someone who had previously advocated for social hygiene and abolitionism, now embracing Cuban-inspired socialism, despite annoyingly still using the term liberalism to describe his ideology. This ideological shift occurred among many abolitionists, particularly after witnessing the decisive abolition of slavery in Cuba and the Cuban government's offensive against the Spanish Empire, as the Puerto Rican revolutionaries began to organize, they were armed by their Cuban allies in preparation for a large-scale revolt.

Back in Cuba, internal political debates within the People's Revolutionary Council culminate in the election of veteran revolutionary Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, a key figure from the 26th of July Movement, as Prime Minister. Alongside him, Afro-Cuban revolutionary Harry Villegas is chosen as President, who has taken a particular interest in integrating Afro-Cuban party members more deeply into the nation's political apparatus. Cuba continues to solidify its socialist foundations, instituting mandatory military service to ensure a disciplined and politically conscious military force. Political education became a central component of military training, aiming to cultivate soldiers not only as defenders of the revolution but also as ideologically committed citizens, especially as the war against the Spanish is not over.

Trade between the Peasants Confederation and Cuba remains steady, though tensions simmer beneath the surface. Many Cuban officials remain skeptical of the religious leadership that dominates the Peasants Confederation, viewing their beliefs as antiquated, though many are also supporters of Liberation Theology and similar proposals and they see a mirror of those ideals in the confederation, some in the party also regard Peasants Confederation as practicing a form of "primitive communism".

The election of preachers and the establishment of structures for using surplus food to feed the poor in the cities have been implemented. Additionally, forests are designated as community property, with water and wood no longer owned by individuals to prevent situations like the one where nobles through reforms based on Roman Law taxed people for forest use. Simplified written laws are now being created and declared in every village and town.

Some peasants remain distrustful of cities, viewing them as centers of sin and temporal power. The confederation has also had moves to address Illiteracy, peasants are being taught to read, so they can freely interpret the scriptures and Bible themselves. As Thomas Müntzer noted, "How," he asked, "can one plagued by anxiety over subsistence receive with a pure heart the word of God? The scribes say 'Read the Scriptures.' By doing so, hungry souls are deluded, and the poor man, overworked and distracted by worry over survival, cannot learn to read. Yet these shameless guides tell him he should allow himself to be swindled and exploited by tyrants." Despite this, Müntzer also believed that everyone had access to the Holy Spirit and that literacy was not necessary to possess and understand the spirit as the prophets and apostles did.

Müntzer considers this period to be the beginning of the sixth age, following the ages of Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and his own era. We are now in the age of the Spirit. The values outlined in the Acts of the Apostles—common ownership, voluntary contribution, election of leaders, and communion with the Holy Spirit—are being applied in this new age. Müntzer has also become one of the more vocal critics of "godlessness" in the confederation.

West Asia

In the People's Republic of Palestine, the effort to build socialism within a predominantly medieval society faces significant challenges. With arguably no clear urban proletariat to serve as the traditional revolutionary vanguard. Most party members adhere to "Stageism," for now accepting that the current agrarian structure—land-to-tiller—is tolerable for a transitional phase. Small-scale artisans and merchants, though seen as part of the petit-bourgeois class, are also tolerated, though they are excluded from leadership positions. The party leadership is firm in maintaining that the revolution must be driven by the downtrodden workers and peasants, not the petit-bourgeoisie, whose interests could compromise the movement's socialist goals.

With the struggle for national liberation largely complete, the focus now shifts toward consolidating power and advancing socialist development. A rudimentary welfare state has been established, providing basic social services, while a new generation of cadres is undergoing political education. Infrastructure projects are gradually reshaping the social structure of the People's Republic of Palestine. However, under pressure from more radical elements within the party, the state has embarked on its first Five-Year Plan. The initial focus is on developing irrigation systems and seizing control of strategic resources necessary for industrialization, leveraging uptime knowledge to guide the effort, planners are beginning to explore more ambitious projects for the future, such as the development of better transportation networks and the establishment of heavy industry.

One persistent issue is the scarcity of coal. After recalling the location of what would later be known as the El Maghara coal mine, a member of the party who had previously lived in Egypt identified it as a potential resource. However, due to the lack of modern equipment, workers are forced to rely on safety lamps instead of the more efficient battery-powered lamps used in uptime. The slow pace of industrialization, coupled with debates over how best to accelerate it, has become a central point of contention within the party. After much deliberation, a decision is made to establish a small settlement in the Hatay region, where further coal deposits are believed to exist, drawing lessons from the earlier colonization of Cyprus.

The Cyprus colony, meanwhile, remains relatively calm throughout the year. Copper mining operations continue at a steady but cautious pace, though significant changes occur late in the year when fishermen spot boats arriving from the Adriatic Sea. These boats, manned by Fiuman sailors, establish contact, marking the beginning of a relationship between the People's Republic of Palestine and the Interwar city of Fiume. The Fiumans speak of their "Festival of the Revolution" taking place in Dalmatia, while the Palestinians share details about their own revolutionary struggle.

D'Annunzio sends his more left-leaning supporters to engage with the Palestinians. Léon Kochnitzky, the head of the League of Fiume—a self-declared "League of Oppressed Nations"—is dispatched to Palestine. Kochnitzky tries to make a compelling case for the Palestinians to send representatives to the League, framing it as an essential anti-imperialist alliance that would stand against future threats. He invokes the League's recognition of the Soviet Union—well ahead of most other nations—as well as its support for the Irish Free State and its ideological alignment with revolutionary socialist movements like that of Béla Kun in Hungary. While Kochnitzky's rhetoric is designed to appeal to anti-colonial sentiments, there is palpable skepticism within the Palestinian leadership.

Figures like Nayef Hawatmeh, a prominent leftist leader from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), voice concerns about the corporatist undertones of Fiumanism and the potential ulterior motives of the Italians, especially given the history of Italian imperialism. They view Fiume's as ruled by a petit-bourgeois revolutionary at best or a fascist at worst, even if Fiume predates it. However, the PFLP ends up deciding, despite their misgivings, reluctantly and cautiously to send a representative to the League, hoping it might serve as a platform for advancing their own anti-imperialist agenda and fostering international cooperation if nothing else. This also leads to basic trade agreements and the establishment of embassies between the two governments, solidifying a formal connection between Palestine and Fiume. The Communist Party of Fiume wishes to establish connections with the PFLP, but its representatives haven't been able to leave Fiume.

Meanwhile, back in Palestine, the revolution presses forward with military campaigns aimed at eliminating the remnants of the old order. Reactionary forces and aristocratic elements, who have sought refuge in the northern regions, are systematically rooted out and destroyed. This campaign is not merely about defeating armed resistance; it is also about solidifying the new socialist order by erasing vestiges of the feudal aristocracy that could serve as focal points for counterrevolution.

In parallel with these military efforts, the state continues its ideological campaign, reinforcing its commitment to land redistribution, education, and social welfare. Party cadres are deployed to rural areas to educate the peasantry on the goals of socialism, emphasizing collective ownership of goods and industry. However, the question of how to reconcile the agrarian base with the party's long-term industrial ambitions remains delicate, especially as the state is forced to confront the limits of its material resources.

 

[StarMaker764]

Nation/Entity Name: Finnish Socialist Worker's Republic
Commonly Known as: Red Finland, FSWR
Government: Marxist Republic
Capital: Helsinki
Technology Level: WW1
Year ISOTed from: 1918
Territory ISOTed: All of red controlled Red Finland
Population: 2 million
Religions: Lutheran
Languages: Finnish, Swedish
Head(s) of State: Kullervo Manner
Brief History:

WW1 would see the collapse of the Russian Empire and its lands plunged into civil war in every corner. Relatively autonomous Finland was no exception as Finnish socialists rose in revolution like their Russian counterparts and seized control of most of the South. Unlike the Russian Bolsheviks however they would be crushed by the Finnish whites with the help of the Germans; but now they are whisked away before such a fate could befall them.


Nation/Entity Name: Navajo nation
Commonly Known as: Dinè Navajo Reservation, Naabeehó Bináhásdzo
Government: Reservation Tribal Council
Capital: Window Rock
Technology Level: 1930s
Year ISOTed from: 1934
Territory ISOTed: Entire Dinè reservation
Population: 100K
Religions: Traditional Dinè beliefs, Native American Church
Languages: Navajo, English, Spanish
Head(s) of State: Chee Dodge
Brief History:

The Dinè are one of the few Native American people to still live in a reservation that overlaps with their ancestral homeland and it would be one of the few to actually expand over the years. This is not to say that the reservation's people haven't suffered regular oppression and attempts at cultural genocide at the hands of the American Government, with the latest example being a planned culling of their prized sheep herds. But the reservation and the souls within it find themselves in a new world after a flash of light.


West Asia

The People's Republic of Palestine experienced a year of relative calm.

The campaigns against reactionary/aristocratic holdouts on the borderlands are successful, the republic's enemies are too disunited and lack the guns to be any real threat to the the nascent Palestinian Liberation Army and are either forced to give up and accept life under this strange new system or they simply begin moving farther and farther from the Levant, hoping to find someplace where the PRP won't follow.

The effects of the first five year plan begin to bear fruit as irrigation systems, improved agricultural techniques and tools combined with new world crops (provided by Fiume through trade) and good weather lead to a prosperous harvest and food distribution ensures all are well fed and provides a boost of legitimacy to the PFLP. The education and healthcare systems are also started to take proper form, with the former being crucial in forming the nation's future technical experts and ideological cadres and enough laborers are trained that rotation of workers in Cyprus and Hatay helps to lessen possible discontent as the former begins to shift from being a mere resource colony to a proper part of the PRP as the party now has enough resources to provide rewards for those willing to move there, helping lighten the logistics issue.

New downtimes cadres of all religions are joining the party and helping spread their ideals among the people, though these newer cadres show a tendency to be more unorthodox whenever it may be useful in winning more downtimers over.

But not all is well in the Palestinian state.

The appearance of Fiume and the Dalmatian portion of the Roman Empire has caused much contention and worry among the PRP's leadership even if both are harmless for now; the former's unpredictable and rapidly shifting politics mean that they may yet turn on the Palestinians in the future even as they sing praises of anti-colonialism today, and they are better equipped and more numerous than the PRP; meaning any war would likely end in the nascent socialist state being crippled if not outright destroyed. Furthermore, their existence and appearance in this world under similar circumstances means that the possibility of hostile more powerful reactionary factions appearing suddenly on the PRP's doorstep is quite likely and the prospect is terrifying for a leadership that had yet to forget what it is like to live under a genocidal regime.

This served to make the question of industrialization even more urgent, as the state began to expand coal extraction efforts and work on establishing heavier industries while debating implementing a system of universal conscription whether into the armed forces or a civil labor/service system but the move remains hotly contested as many believe it would cause unneeded societal unrest and suffering. All agree to expand the republic's gun-making and bullet-manufacturing capacity, however.

North America



In a flash of light, the workers and revolutionaries of Finland find themselves in a strange position, as their sun suddenly rises from the north and sets in the south, and the climate is noticeably different.

More importantly, all the lands beyond the area they secured in the revolution are now devoid of life and full of strange creatures, including mammoths, and the Finnish White Army is nowhere to be seen, nor is Russia or any other of Europe's nations.

The event beggars belief and no explanations exist but the leaders of the FSWR are glad that at least they are safe from enemy attacks for now and work quickly to prevent panic from spreading. Chairman Muller announced that regardless of the bizarre circumstances they are in, the Finnish proletariat is now free to build socialism in peace and the ad hoc dictatorship of the proletariat could now finally build a proper framework for itself even as it organized food production and distribution programs to prevent famine from setting in.

Further to their south Pittsburgh and Tlaxcala remain at peace but only barely.

Ever more frequent raids by the Americans inspire the Tlaxcala to form self-defense bands to counter the attacks, and more than a few begin reprisals of their own using captured American weapons which in turn fuels a cycle of raids and counterattacks that is only kept from reaching the level of outright war by the fact that the leaders of both cities know a conflict would be crippling for both sides even in victory.

The Tlaxcala are preparing for such a conflict however should it become inevitable; attempting to produce their own guns and gunpowder and training men, while the people of Pittsburgh are suffering from internal conflicts as the preferential treatment received by the white population evolves into outright discrimination as the NAACP finds its increasingly sidelined and ignored by a government that's growing comfortable in the powers granted of emergency and the social peace starts to breakdown as a protest by the city's colored population is violently dispersed.

Though Catholic and Protestant churches grow closer though true unity and reconciliation remain elusive for now.

Europe

The last remnant of the Spanish Empire in this new world buckles under the combined dual assault of internal revolt and external attack, some isolated bastions manage to hold out for now but their fall is only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, the Cuban and Dominican Republics can finally sigh in relief as they experience what can be considered respite as their agricultural techniques begin to adapt to their new climate and a new harvest manages to be sufficient for the time being (complemented by trade with the Peasant confederation).

The two nations are ideologically similar and friendly enough that they begin to cooperate more closely and both societies begin to focus on more civilian matters as the threat of the empire is no longer so menacing as plans to elevate the people's standard of living and establish democratic institutions begin in earnest, with the Cuban style used as the model naturally.

Cuba itself enters a period of cultural flourishing, as uptimer ideas begin to mix with the cultures and peoples of the colonial Spanish caribbean, as Cubans, Spaniards, Mestizos, former slaves, mulatos, moriscos, Asian workers, former crypto Jews, and the Taino remnants mix freely and turn Havana into a new cultural hub for the North Atlantic region.

The Peasant Confederation is having its own period of peace. Still, the growth of the cities begins to fuel a divide between urban and rural areas, the former becoming more influenced by ideas from the north. At the same time, the latter remain relatively more conservative. Still, this is an age of abundance of resources and land, meaning there is little reason for quarrels to escalate beyond the heated debate level, for now.

To the South, the situation was anything but peaceful for the fledging Fiume-Roman hybrid nation.

D'Annuzio's leadership is not made coherent and consistent by the new situation; if anything his views now seem to oscillate even further, much to the increasing frustration and anger of his more ideologically committed subordinates who hunger to enact their own visions of the Fiume experiment, with Giovanni hoping to see what would have been called fascism in our world be realized while the likes of De-Ambris hoped for a more leftist order of things.

Meanwhile, the refusal to commit to a single course of action begins to also anger the common people, in Fiume and Dalmatia alike with the latter beginning small isolated rebellions, which may yet grow into something greater.


Oceania


The Navajo nation's people wake up one day to find their world has been irrevocably changed. All signs of civilization beyond the reservation's borders are gone: no roads, railways, buildings, or any trace of the US that surrounded them for so long; all they find is a strange land filled with even stranger creatures.

Once news of their new circumstances became known, there was a mix of joy and fear among the people. Joy because their oppressors had somehow disappeared by some divine miracle and they were free once more. Fear because of their strange new surroundings and the implications of what had just happened, and the potential fallout.

The fear is even more palatable among the reservation's non-native population; who are now left stranded and at the Dinè's mercy. Though the reservation's current leader, one Chee Dodge is keeping the peace for now, his reputation as a federal patsy and collaborator means that he may not be in his position for long.

Even so many eagerly begin freely exploring the land around them, for if nothing else it is bountiful.

 

[Guaire]

Nation/Entity Name: Kingdom of Syracuse
Commonly Known as: Syracuse
Government: Monarchy
Capital: Syracuse
Technology Level: Hellenistic
Year ISOTed from: 214 BC
Territory ISOTed: Entirety of the kingdom before the siege of syracuse by the romans
Population: 100.000, roughly half on Syracuse itself and the other half on the sicilian hinterlands
Religions: Greek Paganism (Majority), Sicilian Paganism (Minority), Semitic Paganism (Minority)
Languages: Greek, Sicanian, Elymian, Sicelian
Head(s) of State: Hiero II of Syracuse
Brief History: Syracuse is the most succesful of the greek colonies in the western mediterranean. Once rivaling Athens in size, even in the times of the ISOT it was powerful enough to challenge carthaginian hegemony on sicilly.

For the last 50 years it has been ruled by king Hiero II, a tyrant in its original meaning of the word, who has brough the island so much needed stability. His Lex Hieronica has made agricultural taxes far more efficient than elsewhere in the mediterranean, and without doubts contributed to the city's richness. It is thus no surprise, that in this atmosphere has the genius of Archimedes flourished.

Nation/Entity Name: Golden Ambrosian Republic
Commonly Known as: Republic of Milan, Milan.
Government: Directorial republic
Capital: Milan
Technology Level: 15th century
Year ISOTed from: 1448
Territory ISOTed: The city itself plus the lands of the old duchy and the recently conquered cities,
Population: 100.000 on Milan proper. High density on surrounding cities and towns
Religions: Catholicism
Languages: Lombard Italian
Head(s) of State: Not a singular one, the country is lead by the 12 "Captains and Defenders of the Freedom"
Brief History: After the death of Visconti, a succession crisis fell upon the rich city of Milan, as factions warred over influence in the former roman capital, merchants and learned men, seeing in the republic as a rich and glorious form of government, engaged in a coup, taking control of the city and established a council of 12 "captains of the people" to lead the new republic.

Shortly after this coup there came war, with many cities declaring independence from Milan and venice warring on the young republic, only with the help of condottieri like Francesco Sforza, the Piccinino brothers or Bartolomeo Colleoni could these threats be put at bay. Now however it is these condottieri who are the republic's biggest threats.

Year 7​

Mediterranean

- Just as the syracusans expected the Roman Fleet to initiate its siege a winter breeze darkens the sky, it doesn't take long for them to realize that is no longer spring, and more strangely, neither the romans, nor any other italian states of trinacria seem to currently exist. This all seems quite worrying to the superstitious greeks, but with the threat of war non-existant, and the sighting of two giant swans being interpreted by the augurs as a good omen, the city is currently quite stable. As for Archimedes, he was quite disappointed he didn't get to see his inventions in action.

Still, Hiero II would order in Spring for several exploration expeditions to be sent, to see if the non-roman peoples were still present, or if instead they had truly become the last men on Earth. Each sent at roughly the same time, they ordered to explore the spanish coast, italy, and of course Hellas, the Greek homeland.

The first expedition to return came back after seeing that neither Gadir, nor Saguntum nor Emporium nor Massalia were found. Instead they brought as gifts to Hiero several pelts of lions, bears, rabbits and bison, talking about the great richness in animals of Iberia.

The second came long after the first, having returned from the Illyrian Coast with news good and bad. They saw other human beings (romans with a weird accent, annoyingly enough), but what truly astonished them came from Fiume, a city far smaller than their native syracuse, but far stranger. In their arrival they told tales of horseless chariots, of ships made of iron, and even of weapons that roared like thunder. In other occasions this would have been dismissed as just tall tales, but this wasn't a normal occasion, and at least for the later, they brought evidence.

- In the city of Fiume proper this year was much like the ones prior, that is to say; highly chaotic. Chaos comes in many forms, and this time it presents itself as violence. D'Annunzio might be charismatic enough to keep himself in power, but not so much as for the various factions not to struggle over influence. Giovanni's Legionnaires often start fights with socialists and futurists, these later are commonly on the offensive too, while the socialists, anarchists and communists took their fair time in finally organizing as to not always be in the receiving end.

These brawls take place mainly in bars and restaurants rather than openly in the streets, they finish as soon as they begin, and the deathcount is barely 3 people by the end of the year, but it showcases how the situation in the city-state is deteriorating. Though not deteriorating enough to prevent the migration of latins and illyrians to the Carnaro, looking for a better life as promised by modernity. The roman countryside surrounding Fiume thus emptying.

It is at this time that a group of greek speakers arrive to the shores of the Carnaro, sailing in a genuinely ancient birreme they seemed to have come here to search for any humans, and instead have found more than they bargained for. Communication was possible thanks to the few greek journalists trapped in the city since the event. The fiumans themselves are surprised to see archymede's syracuse around, but the important part is how De-Ambris saw in this an opportunity.

While the greeks were being hosted as guests, De Ambris made use of the fact that D'Annunzio was in one of his left-wing days to convince him of Giovanni's danger to the city, and the possibility of sending him as a diplomat to syracuse as a way to remove him from the city's politics. D'Annunzio agrees, and while Giovanni is initially reluctant of being sent outside the city, the chance of seeing the glory of the ancient peoples of Italy, and the possibility of gaining foreign support for his faction results in him to agree, legonary leadership of fiume thus being left to Riccardo Gigante.

As the greek ships finally sailed back home, Giovanni accompanied them, bringing with him gifts of guns to King Hiero the II. The king was quite surprised by these weapons, and immediately sent them to archimedes, so that he may discover how they work and thus may the city be able to create moreso.

Finally as for the last of the syracusans expeditions, they searched all through the hellenic isles, finding not even a single sign of human life, defeated in spirit and preparing to return they became caught by a large storm - those so common in the mediterranean autum - which sent them off course, instead arriving at canaan's shore.

- In the People's Republic of Palestine state building continues slowly but steadily. The five years plan continues on schedule, the many irrigation projects have mostly put and end to the continuous medieval problem of starvation, and the new modern hospitals starting to cure otherwise life-ending or life-altering injuries and sickness.

The primary hurdle nowadays thus falls in matters of education. The literary on Jerusalem pre event was through the floor, as expected from a medieval feudal state. And though new schooling programs have been established there are simply too many illiterate people for it to make significant progress in such a short amount of time. Furthermore, these education programs mostly affected the urban communities, with the rural majority barely hearing of them.

To solve this issue the creation of "wandering schools" was proposed, led by teachers these wandering schools would traverse the countryside staying at villages with the purpose of teaching both kid and adult the most basic concepts of reading, allowing future education opportunities to go smoother. When the issue of language was raised (as standard arabic wasn't invented yet) it was decided to be done in the current palestinian dialect of arabic, with teaching in other levantine languages being relegated to a nebulous "future".

The sudden arrival of the syracusan greeks onto the shores of the Palestinian People's Republic took place shortly after this was decided, and these few greek survivors were brought to the Republic's capital at Jerusalem, communication was done through the few greeks still inhabiting the holy land

The fact the syracusans had arrive just this year made many a party members nervous, it meant their worse fears were true, that every year new arrivals came to this world, and worse of all, they might come from any point in time, some in the party have become outright paranoid that next time there will be a highly advanced hostile nation at their doorstep.

There is also the matter of fiuman influence, if the syracusans have arrived at palestine they must certainly have done so at Fiume too, and if the later manages to influence the city they would have both the manpower and weaponry to devastate the levant. Thus as the greeks finish their recovery they are sent to return alongside a full-fledged diplomatic hosts, which would arrive on the Syracuse just as the year was ending.

Though the syracusans surveyed most of the mediterranean, they missed an important appearance in the northern part of italy.

- For Milan the event was seen initially as a godsend. Their venetian enemies were gone, and the rebellious cities of the po valley lacked the means of launching significant revolts by themselves. But as days turned to weeks, the city's merchant and manufacturing classes realized that if they didn't find reliable trading partners soon their fortune would be worth naught. Of course, they were entirely surrounded by wilderness and swamp, so any exploration will take ages.

In this situation the classical Italian intrigue began its work. Afraid of Sforza's success, the Piccino conspired, asking the council to appoint Francesco to the east, to "protect" it from a now non-extant threat.

Sforza saw exactly what they were trying to do - removing him from the city's politics - and as much as he wanted to march onto Milan and take it for himself, in his current situation, without external support, it would fail. So he took the feud, and the riches of Cremona and CassalMaggione now in his possession, and began his own scouting operations for any sign of human life. It was a day just before New Year that one horseman would tell him of a shining city beyond the italian coast.

North Atlantic

- With the Spanish remnants vanquished the peoples from the north atlantic can finally rest at peace.

Exchange between the up and down timers have resulted in the export of new world crops, towards the peasants confederacy (maize in particular growing popular), while the more cold-resilient old world crops are exported in mass towards the caribbean isles.

The Cuban healthcare program has been pretty successful all things considered, mortality rates amongst Tainos and former slaves have sharply declined, even if they are still higher than most are comfortable with. Likewise there have been minor successes in both industry and education, paving the path for a great free cuba.

In the peasant's confederation the urban-rural divide grows deeper, particularly as cuban ideas of governance and society begin to further take root in these new cities, funnily enough some of the main spreaders of this ideology are newly ordained monks, who have found the ideas of the uptimers interesting if anything and wholly necessary to live a godly life in occasion. These divisions aren't causing tensions, not important ones at least, but its a growing issue which will need to be addressed.

American West Coast

- The continuous tensions between the tlaxcalans and the inhabitants of pittsburgh finally reaches a breaking point. A particularly large raid from Pittsburgh resulted in not just the destruction and stealing of a large amount of crops (as Pittsburgh has faced food shortages ever since the event), but the death of several native peasants. This of course angered the tlaxcallan populace, and though the leadership would have preferred to walk the path of peace, this and previous raids have made it so they were now forced to declare war.

The situation in Pittsburgh was tense, they lacked an army, only barely a militia of disorganized gun-owners, and though they had access to modern technology they lacked the ability to replenish it just yet. Still, the city's leadership thought that, with one or two desicive victories, they would be able to force the tlaxcalans to sue for peace. From the various gun owners and policemen of the city some 2000 men were thought of as disciplined, accurate and fit enough to form the first column of pittsburgh's "military", who were ordered to march south and camp where they could see an enemy city, without much of a plan afterwards.

The tlaxcalans weren't unaware of the destructive potential of white weaponry, they fully saw what it could do to an unprepared enemy if confronted head on, so once scouts reported to Cuitlixcatl of Ocotelpo of the appearance of the white army he put his plan into action.

Rather than meeting the enemy on the fields, he hid the brunt of his forces in a forest nearby to the camps, while keeping a smaller detachment in view of the whites, who were ordered to run if the whites approached them. This detachment would keep the whites distracted during the morning and afternoon, as well as awake during the early evening. Only once at the dead on night, once the whites were forced to rest, did the rest of the army descend.

This strategy worked wonders, with most of the militia captured, and those who weren't fleeing for their lives into the wilderness, only a quarter would return to Pittsburgh over the following days, and soon enough tlaxcala began its own siege.

On only slightly unrelated topic, this state of warfare becomes the las necessary push for the protestants and catholics to unify in the "New Unified Congregation" Wether this state of affairs will last only god knows.

- As this was taking place in the Southwest. The finns in the northwest were quite enjoying their lives. Forests were being cut down, swamps drained, rivers diverted, farmlands increased in number, and game was hunted in abundance. Without any white army or foreign nation to threaten the peace, finland was growing socialism slowly but steadily. Socially the event resulted in an increase of religiosity, but the People's delegations hoped that to be just a temporary event.

At the same time, several expeditions were being launch by the finns to find exactly where they were and if other humans existed. If not for the same firmament some may have thought to be in an alien planet.

Despite what i said beforehand fishing was the main source of regular food, and it was one of these fishing vessels which found evidence of other civilizations south of Finland, two civilizations at war. Something reported to the people's delegation just as the year was ending.

Oceania

- For the Dinè this has been another good year. Neither droughting nor flooding food is plentiful and their sheep herds grow in vast numbers. It has become quite clear now that the US won't return and this has also meant the revival of often suppressed indigenous practices, even many natives who converted to christianity have begun to return to their ancient ways.

The presence of dangerous wildlife - which does focus mostly on attacking livestock for now - has resulted in the creation of various local hunting and warrior bands (for the reservation lacked any kind of prior military), keeping their precious animals safe from megalanias, thylacoleos and wonambis.

As for the whites living inside the reservation, they are deeply divided in how to act, the plurality opinion says to collaborate with the Diné, at least for the time being, as otherwise they would suffer with little food or manpower to achieve much of anything. Some whose racism overrides their sense have opted to self-segregate, creating remote miniscule villas either inside or outside Diné territory, which they hope to make self-sufficient. A few have even begun to develop a sense of deep paranoia, convinced that the navajo are lying about what happened to the outside world and riding into the scorching australian desert, never to be seen again.



I claim again.

 

[Shadowhisker]

• Name: Jüdischer Wohnbezirk der Warschau
• Commonly Known As: Warsaw Ghetto
• Government: Appointed "Council of Elders" under a colony of a single-party fascist dictatorship
• Capital: Grzybowska Street (Council of Elders), Saxon Palace (Commissariat of the Warsaw Ghetto)
• Technology Level: Late Industrial Era/Second World War/1940s
• Year ISOTed from: August 5th 1942 CE
• Territory ISOTed: The ghetto proper, as well as the Nazi ghetto administration headquarters in nearby Saxon Palace, and connecting city blocks (Saski Park, Mirowski Square, the rail yard, etc)
• Population: approx 400,000
• Religion(s): Rabbinic Judaism, Atheism, some Catholicism
• Language(s): Polish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew, German
• Head(s) of State: Marek Lichtenbaum (head of Council of Elders), Heinz Auerswald (commissioner of the Warsaw Ghetto)
• Brief History: Before 1939, the Polish capital of Warsaw had a substantial Jewish population, at around three hundred thousand, of over a million people living in the city. True, many Polish Jews had been emigrating due to the antisemitism permeating the Polish Republic, but Warsaw remained the second largest concentration of Jewish people in the world. At least until 1939. For with the Nazi invasion and colonization of Poland, the several hundred thousand Jews of Warsaw were concentrated into a section of central Warsaw less than four square kilometers in area, which was walled off from the rest of the city. This process of ghettoization repeated itself across German-occupied Europe, but the Warsaw Ghetto was the largest, and even with mass death from disease and starvation, it only grew larger as other ghettos were liquidated and had their populations deported to Warsaw. And come the summer of 1942, the Nazis had found their Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Starting in late July, every day thousands of Warsaw Jews were rounded up and taken by train to the nearby death camp of Treblinka. Many inhabitants of the ghetto are unaware or refuse to acknowledge what the Germans intend for them. Some left wing youth groups, both Labor Zionist and Bundist, have recently united into a single resistance organization- the Jewish Fighting Organization. However, even if this new group is already larger than the Home Army-sponsored Jewish Military Union, the Council of Elders still has legitimacy, the Nazis still have total monopoly of force, and two weeks on from the start of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, it only seems to be accelerating.

Spoiler: More Info

Notable Figure(s): Mordechai Anielewicz (leader and co-founder of the Jewish Fighting Organization), Marek Edelman (co-founder of the Jewish Fighting Organization), Zivia Lubetkin (co-founder of and noted fighter in the JFO), Simcha "Kazik" Rotem (head courier of the JFO), Dawid Wdowinski (political leader of the Jewish Military Union), Janusz Korczak (owner of Warsaw Ghetto orphanage), Simon Pullman (conductor of Warsaw Symphony Orchestra), Alexander Friedman (Rabbi and secretary-general of the Polish section of Agudath Israel), Kalonymus Shapira (Grand Rabbi of Piaseczno), Marceli Godlewski (Catholic priest of the All-Saints Parish), Emanuel Ringelblum (leader of Warsaw Ghetto chroniclers), Nathalie Zand (neurologist), Ludwik Hirszfeld (microbiologist), Yitzhak Gitterman (director of the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Poland), Lidia Zamenhof (translator and Esperantist) Abraham Gancwajch (Nazi collaborator and crime lord), Odilo Globocnik (Gruppenfuhrer of the SS, architect of the extermination camps, perpetrator of the Holocaust, war criminal, and all around despicable human being)

And here, I've drawn out the parts of Warsaw that got ISOTed, for visual reference:

• Name: Babylonian Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire
• Commonly Known As: Babylonia, Lower Mesopotamia, Persian Empire
• Government: Semi-feudal subdivision of a multi-state empire
• Capital: Babylon
• Technology Level: Early Antiquity/Iron Age
• Year ISOTed from: September 484 BC
• Territory ISOTed: The entire satrapy
• Population: approx 1,000,000
• Religion(s): Babylonian Paganism, Zoroastrianism, Second Temple Judaism
• Language(s): Imperial Aramaic, Elamite, Old Persian, Attic Greek, Late Biblical Hebrew
• Head(s) of State: Xerxes I (de jure/in absentia), Shamash-eriba (de facto)
• Brief History: It has been over half a century since the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the rising Persians. Babylon remains somewhat rich and influential in the Achaemenid Empire, with the Iranian kings showing respect for Mesopotamian culture- even making Babylon one of the empire's four capitals- but the pressures of taxation, alongside decreasing funds for Mesopotamian temples, still provides an incentive for revolt. Two such revolts, both led by (claimed) descendants of the old Chaldean dynasty, have been crushed by Darius I already. With the recent proclamation of Darius' successor, Xerxes I, and increasing taxes, Babylon's network of urban elites has coordinated an uprising, crowning one Shamash-eriba as king of Babylon and of the lands. However, there are no contemporaneous revolts to split Iranian attention, and support from the southern cities is tepid at best. Shamash-eriba's revolt is surely doomed.

West Asia

Another flash of light, with none awake to see it, heralds the new year. The Satrapy of Babylonia is in one moment the beating (if rebellious) heart of an Empire, and in the next, is surrounded by undeveloped wilderness as far as the eye can see. Ordinarily, it would take some time for Shamash-eriba and his developing court to realize what would happen, given travel times of the era. In this case, though, the reports of victories against Iranian armies coming from the north and east, attributed to the supply trains behind them simply vanishing overnight, cannot be ignored. And an even more obvious sign of something being afoot is the overnight appearance of an impossibly densely populated hellscape of a city to Babylon's northeast, just off the west most bank of the Tigris.

The Warsaw Ghetto, after its most peaceful night in years, awakens to a land somewhat colder than it should be, and much drier than what its inhabitants are used to. The Nazis, from their headquarters outside the ghetto walls, immediately understand the depth of their situation, if not the particulars. Ghetto commissioner Heinz Auerswald- when he isn't struggling for leadership with brigade leader Odilo Globocnik, architect of the death camps- has perhaps a dozen or so combat-capable SS men, a few dozen more German clerks and bureaucrats, and a hundred or so Poles that could be conscripted into a militia (most having been in Mirowski Square at the time of the ISOT). The vast majority of SS the Nazis had been using to organize the mass deportations to Treblinka hadn't come with the Ghetto when it was transported, leaving Auerswald in quite the pickle. Of course, there was also the twenty-five hundred Jewish Ghetto Police, but Auerswald did not even countenance arming them, and rebuffed an offer from collaborator crime lord Abraham Gancwajch to raise a militia from within the ghetto itself. The Nazis could only barely keep the Council of Elders under control with threats, invocations of the sunk-cost fallacy, and wild lies about the state of the world outside the ghetto walls. A city of several hundred thousand could only be kept compliant by a force of mere dozens for so long.

The uprising was inevitable. All the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto could tell that something was off by the air alone. Patrols by the ghetto police were ever more frequent, keeping people away from the walls, away from the tops of buildings, away from the bridge that crossed over Mirowski Square. Rations were cut down to the bone, even for the ghetto "elites". The day's deportations were throttled down to mere tens of people instead of thousands, for the Nazis had to keep the killings going, but without dedicated death camps, could only take so many people out beyond the walls, to be murdered hands on, at one time. Not without inciting a panic, or being overrun by their victims. Rumors quickly spread that the world outside the ghetto had vanished. Mostly importantly, rumors spread that the SS men keeping them locked up were all that was left of Germany. They were weak. They were panicking.

The Council of Elders, behind closed doors, furiously debated whether to try and slip leash. However, after the suicide of Lichtenbaum's predecessor a short time before the ISOT, the Council was well and truly cowed. It was the Jewish Fighting Organization that led the revolt with the dawn of the fourth day- only taking so long because of the need to reconnoiter Warsaw' situation, and to scrape together a militia large enough to absorb weapons fire. A strike at the textile factories in the center of town attracted the attention of the ghetto police, who otherwise would have been able to bog down the JFO's militia. Instead, with the thugs occupied, those militia, armed with clubs, knives, molotov cocktails, and the odd smuggled pistol, stormed key locations throughout the ghetto. The Council of Elders' offices in the southern part of the ghetto fell easily, with the elders being detained for future trials, and more likely than not execution. The gates leading towards Saxon Park were breached, Auerswald's non-Aryan militia surrendered en mass, and the Nazi headquarters was besieged. Auerswald committed suicide rather than give the JFO the pleasure of killing him. Globocnik tried to lead a breakout, but died screaming after being caught in the spray of an improvised firebomb. The remaining SS and collaborators- those that didn't die in battle, follow the commissioner's example, or flee into the desert on foot- were captured to be interrogated and inevitably executed.

Mordechai Anielewicz, leader of the JFO, has found himself saddled with the task of setting up a government. The gates are thrown open, the walls are torn down, and the Nazis are dead, but Warsaw is still stuffed to the brim and then some with people, all in varying states of starvation and/or disease. Seizing the hoarded food stores of the ghetto elite, as well as the pantry of the Saxon Palace, can help with the food situation, but rationing must remain in place for now. Some ghetto institutions, such as the orphanage ran by Janusz Korczak, Pullman's Warsaw Symphony Orchestra, and most importantly, most of the doctors of Warsaw. However, others, such as the Polish priest Marceli Godlewski's administration of the Catholic churches in the ghetto, refuse to subordinate themselves to Anielewicz's ad hoc revolutionary government. Prominently, the Jewish Military Union (another resistance group, small and unpopular but well-armed thanks to Home Army sponsorship) and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (responsible for running must of the soup kitchens in Warsaw, and a major channel for food smuggling) presented a united front to the JFO, demanding a proverbial seat at the table before they would cooperate. What's more, the JFO's still-new coalition was on the verge of tearing apart. Labor zionists, bundists, and communists could be kept together in the face of annihilation, but without the pressures of the Holocaust, ideological disagreements and personal rivalries are coming to fore.

It is this chaotic environment that Babylonian scouts from Sippar- the home of Shamash-eriba's uprising- stumble upon, perhaps two weeks from the sudden transition that changed everything. With the Polish Jews not speaking Aramaic (Persepolis having only been excavated just before the start of the Second World War, and Warsaw's few history professors having different areas of focus anyway) and the Babylonian cataphracts, some of Shamash-eriba's finest, not understanding Polish or Yiddish (neither language having yet evolved from their respective Proto-Slavic and Proto-Germanic roots, and the Persian Empire not penetrating that far into Europe anyway), communication proves difficult. Eventually, however, a solution is provided: Hebrew, though a minor language in Achaemenid Persia after Cyrus' reversal of the Babylonian Captivity, is still spoken by the Jewish diaspora who chose to not (or couldn't afford to) move to Achaemenid Palestine. Shamash-eriba and his court are untrusting of the Jews of Mesopotamia, viewing them a potential Persian fifth column, but do manage to secure some translators. Meanwhile, the JFO sends a delegation to Babylon to negotiate for food aid. By necessity, most of this delegation comes from labor zionist segments of the JFO, as they are the ones most familiar with Hebrew as a spoken language rather than a liturgical one. These delegates are also armed

Once in Babylon, negotiations are tense. The Warsaw Jews are not the only group Shamash-eriba is entertaining; also there are representatives from the cities of the southern marshlands, most prominently Uruk. Additionally, there are representatives from the remnants of the Achaemenid armies, which had managed to consolidate themselves in the northeast, around the village of Eshnunna. With the fragments of the Persian horse mail service caught in the ISOT, and sections of the famed Immortals on top of other Achaemenid military units from outside Mesopotamia, they would be difficult to dislodge. However, cut off from reinforcements, and demoralized by the clear divine favor Babylon's rebellion has, the Achaemenid remnants have chosen to negotiate a place in Shamash-eriba's new order, versus being crushed entirely.

The Warsaw delegation only barely talks themselves down from outright demanding food from the rest of Mesopotamia, with those arguing against it being a combination of more levelheaded zionists and the socialists among the diplomats. Even disregarding basic concern for other humans, Warsaw was too brutalized to conquer and hold all of Babylonia. Begrudgingly, the other diplomats agree- they are not eager to kill Warsaw's Jews while trying to save them- and the delegation as a whole presents a united front to Shamash-eriba.

In the end, Uruk, Eshnunna, and Warsaw in theory bend the knee to Babylon. In practice, the Third Babylonian Empire is a decentralized affair, with the aforementioned cities granted a lightened tax burden and rough spheres of influence. Uruk is free to take full advantage of an un-silted Persian Gulf; the Achaemenid remnants can practice Zoroastrianism in peace, and have colonization rights to the Iranian Plateau. The JFO receives a guarantee that none of the Jews in Babylonia will be dispossessed, trade rights with the rest of Mesopotamia, and even a sphere of influence in the northwestern lands of the empire; towns like Rapiqum and Hitum have their own farmlands and resources, especially bitumen in the latter, but it's nothing that isn't elsewhere in the lands, and the region of Suhum has always been difficult to control. Finally, the cities of central Babylonia- Sippar, Borsippa, Kish, and Babylon itself- have freedom from the tax pressures of foreign rulers, and confirmation of their political and religious hegemony throughout Mesopotamia.

It's not an agreement that makes anyone truly happy. The leftover Persians (and Greeks, and Egyptians, and Assyrians, and so forth) are still bitter and demoralized over having their homelands seemingly wiped from existence. The noble families of Babylon seethe at having the give up even the slightest bit of control. When the Warsaw delegation returns to Warsaw, they are met with confusion, insults, and demands for explanations. The sorghum and millet harvests of Suhum (originally earmarked for export to Syria and Anatolia), alongside trade with the rest of Babylonia, avert a total famine, but the four hundred thousand strong city is still dancing on the edge of famine. Some, such as the JMU and the more radical zionists in the JFO, accuse the diplomats of selling Warsaw out to a new Babylonian Captivity. However, despite these tensions, a war nobody is confident they can win is averted.

Culturally, Warsaw is entering a period of crisis. The city-wide trauma of ghettoization, the revelation of just what the Nazis has planned for every last Jew (courtesy of very public show trials for the remaining SS, as well as the now-published diaries of the Elders), and the full reality of being cast not just across space and time, but to a world where seemingly nothing existed outside of Babylonia but beasts right out of a natural history museum, all of that results some pretty serious shit. Suicides spike. Several people just shut down, while others throw themselves into public works projects like building new housing, renovating existing buildings, reorganizing downtime farms with uptime agricultural techniques, and digging oil wells that- with the knowledge of polymerization and synthetic rubbers wrested from the corpses of German industrialists- could keep Warsaw's industry going. Some Jews leave Warsaw to find a new life among Babylonian Jews, but the differences between Rabbinic practices and the only-just-codified culture of Second Temple Judaism is distressing for those not expecting it. Meanwhile, with in the halls of government, even as a constitution along socialist lines is being hashed out, the JFO experiences its first fracture.

Simcha Rotem and Ziviya Lubetkin, both significant leaders in the JFO, were also both people who, in another time, might have dedicated their lives to funneling the remaining Jewish population of Europe to the nascent state of Israel- and to getting the Palestinian Arabs who already lived there out of the way, using methods eerily similar to what they themselves had experienced at the hands of Nazi Germany. They were utterly dedicated zionists, convinced that the only way for the Jewish people to survive was to carve out a sovereign Jewish nation-state, and that the nation-state must be founded on the land of Israel. They, and a few other "hard" zionists in the JFO, secretly met with members of the JMU, who were similarly dedicated zionists. Together, they planned a plan to make the state of Israel a reality, and presented it to the rest of the still coalescing government. That plan was for the entire Jewish population of Warsaw, together with all the downtime Jews of Babylonia, to up and leave Babylonia, trekking across the harsh Syrian desert, and settling the surely empty land of Israel. Any supplies they needed would be seized by force.

Furious arguments erupted. Bundists and communists, the former including the JMU's nominal allies in the AJJDC, tear into the "hard" zionist group for trying to enact a colonialist scheme even now. The "soft" zionists, though applauding the concept, question whether such a scheme would even be feasible. The few rabbis in government, having been reluctantly dragged in, rage over the blasphemous implications of trying to return to Israel before the messiah comes. Inquiries of how the still physically weak populace of Warsaw, fighting off the aftereffects of starvation and disease months on, would survive the arduous trek are unsatisfactorily answered with exclamations that the weak would be winnowed out, leaving the strong behind to cast off the feminine trappings of diaspora Jews to become masculine Israelites. In truth, Rotem and Lubetkin do not make nearly as well of a case as they could. The man and the woman are fighters, not rhetoricians. Allying with the JMU doesn't help their case, as the smaller resistance group is widely seen as a puppet of the quite antisemitic Polish Home Army. Dawid Wdowinski, the political leader of the JMU, is in fact the one who presents the poorly received Social Darwinist argument. The "hard" zionists have crippled their argument from the beginning, but are utterly vicious in castigating the rest of the JFO for not following their mad scheme. Even with these missteps, perhaps Anielewicz could have been brought around had they had Yitzhak Zuckerman, the could-have-been husband of Lubetkin, an important leader in the JFO on their side. However, though Zuckerman was a committed labor zionist who would have helped the "hard" zionists better plan and present their scheme, he was also in Krakow at the time of the ISOT, and thus wasn't brought along. Instead, Anielewicz is advised by the antizionist union organizer Marek Edelman, who talks the JFO chairman (upgraded from the more informal and distinctly military "commander") past his own zionist sympathies to reject the Rotem-Lubetkin proposal. From there, the meeting descends into an all-out brawl as ideological disagreements, conflicting traumas, and petty teenage disagreements are unleashed.

After the fight settles down, the "hard" zionist sections of the JFO are expelled from the organization- in absentia, as Rotem and Lubetkin had already stormed out. As well, the JMU as a whole is cut out of government, also in absentia, though their former allies in the AJDC remain part of the post-ghetto coalition. The whole farce may have immediately discredited and dis-empowered the rightmost edge of Anielewicz's government, but the cracks in the united front have only grown larger. When Rotem, Lubetkin, and a handful of other "hard" zionists gather a small group and set out on their mad Aliyah, few are all that disappointed to see the back of them. Most expect the group to die. After all, they are poorly supplied, not experienced with desert travel, and setting out just as the summer heats approach. The Syrian Desert is not kinda at the best of times, which the middle of the year is not.

Some months later, in the middle of the first post-harvest, few make the connection between the departure of the "hard" zionist band to the west and the arrival of an Arab caravan from the west. A caravan that is well armed with bolt-action rifles and Maxim-type machine guns. A caravan that is dressed in clothes of medieval make but modern styling. A caravan whose leader greets the people of Hitum in stilted Polish.

-

And now, we go back in time to the beginning of the year, and to the other end of the Fertile Crescent. Palestine's industrialization program was going well enough. Sure, there's some unavoidable harshness and the occasional misstep, but the introduction of new world crops and the institution of functioning hospitals provides a buffer that can prevent famines. Additionally, the People's Republic is provided vital tools and industrial expertise by Fiume, and even at cut-rate prices thanks to Alceste de Ambris' current ascendancy in Dalmatian politics. The man may have been a national syndicalist, but he did see communists as allies. More cynically, many in Palestine's leadership suspect that Fiume is only investing in Palestine as a potential gas station, expanding Palestinian oil extraction and refining that could fuel the Fiuman air force- or more ambitiously, an ironclad navy. Fiume did sport functional dockyards, after all, and a varied enough industry that the only thing keeping the city-state from building outright dreadnoughts, as it had under Austria-Hungary, was shortages in both raw materials and manpower.

Otherwise, as the first five-year plan continues ahead of schedule, Palestine claws its way out of the medieval era in culture as well as technique. Lelia Khaled, an uptime PFLP member, begins to spread messages of liberation along gender lines as well as class lines, using the wandering schools as a vector to spread feminism along Marxist lines. Contact and trade with the outside world has shocked the Levant out of its nation despair, and the common people are growing increasingly invested in public and political life. Cyprus is settled enough to ascend from a mere resource colony to two full blown provinces, fully integrated into the People's Republic. While immigration from Syracuse and Dalmatia is restricted- everyone is fearful of another Crusade, or a Nakba- an exception is made for the Croats of Fiume at Habash's insistence, and trade and tourism between the three Mediterranean states is booming.

On the military front, plans for instituting nationwide conscription are shelved. Palestine does have significant natural barriers protecting it from a potentially fascist Fiume, in the form of the Mediterranean at sea and the unsettled Anatolia on land. Nevertheless, fortifications in key spots are built, the native arms industry continues to be expanded, and the beginnings of a standing army is made. Notably, one military commander who rises to prominence is one Hugh du Puiset, the former young count of Jaffa, having converted to communism after his surrender and re-education some years ago. The PFLP leadership keeps an eye on the young man, wary of a Red Napoleon, but Puiset is by all accounts a dues paying PFLP member, and identifies far more with Palestine than with a French homeland he doesn't remember. Some worries are relieved when research reveals that in another time, as Hugh II of Jaffa, Puiset would have worked with Muslim Egyptians to instigate a revolt against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The more leftist member of the uptime PFLP, intensely suspicious of nobility and military leaders, continue to watch Puiset anyway.

Even as the Adriatic is wracked with political upheavals, Palestine is a beacon of relative stability and prosperity. Things are looking up. Then everything changes when, in the middle of summer, reports come of Jewish Franks stumbling out of the eastern deserts.

Confusion turns to horror as the sheer state of the few dozen trekkers is realized- already half starved before setting out to cross the desert at the height of summer, blasted by sun and sand, and apparently having eaten the horses and camels they started out with. The leadership of the PFLP, many of whom were doctors before turning to revolutionary politics, are called in to care for the mysterious people, who slip in and out of consciousness. Eventually, the people who were saved are coherent enough to talk. The language barrier is quickly crossed with an Arab-to-Polish dictionary a PFLP member had on them at the time of the ISOT all those years ago. And then horror turns to terror. Terror because the remaining leader of the "desert Franks" is one Ziviya Lubetkin, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, and someone who, in another life, was very much a participant in the 1948 Nakba that killed tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs, rendered hundreds of thousands more homeless refugees. George Habash, founder and leader of the PFLP, had lost his sister in a death march- a death march he was caught up in while earning the medical degree he would later use to save Lubetkin's life. Ghassan Kanafani, the party spokesperson, had been rendered homeless and destitute at the age of twelve by zionist militias, the very same militias that an older Lubetkin would have joined alongside her husband, Yitzhak Zuckerman. For much of the PFLP, their work to liberate Palestine was personal. And here was a living, breathing representation of the State of Israel that had hurt them and so many others.

Lubetkin isn't killed, or even beaten. However, she, alongside her surviving self-described "ultra-zionist" companions, are imprisoned and roughly interrogated. What the PFLP fears the most- a fully armed and equipped IDF- appears to not be existent, but the news of the Warsaw Ghetto, with a large Jewish population, decent industry, and zionists in government, isn't much better. That bundists like Marek Edelman, an antizionist whose future self would have written in support of Palestinian resistance fighters, are highly placed in that same government does somewhat cool the PFLP's fears, however. Somewhat enough that when a trans-Syrian caravan is put together, guided by downtime Bedouin who have experience in this sort of thing, it's put together a scouting-cum-trade mission, instead of a pre-emptive strike force. Setting out from the coal mining colonies in Hatay, skirting along the Anatolian Plateau until they hit the Euphrates, and then following the Euphrates southeast, the so-called "Babylon Expedition" is shocked when they find not only the expected 1940s Warsaw but also a Classical era Babylonian Empire. When Lubetkin had denounced the JFO leadership as having sold their people into a new Babylonian Captivity, the PFLP hadn't thought she meant that Warsaw was a nominal vassal of a literal Babylonian Empire.

Relations between Jerusalem and Babylon- and the semi-independent city-states under Babylon, including Warsaw- are soon opened. Trade begins to flow, and Mesopotamia, even more starved of mineral resources than Palestine, eats that shit up. But not all is well in the Fertile Crescent. Conscription in Palestine is expanded significantly, with the PFLP still fearful of a such a large and well-armed zionist force. Shamash-eriba finds his vassals growing ever more restless, while the central urban elites that make up his support base are incensed at having to compete with better positioned Iranians and Polish Jews for dominance over trade. Finally, the JFO has put together a provisional constitution for the "Free and Socialist City of Warsaw", while the resistance organization itself rebrands to the Labor Socialist Party of Warsaw. With elections are scheduled for early next year, internal tensions are greater than ever. Representation (or lack thereof) for the downtime towns under Warsaw's influence, the deep-seated city wide trauma, continual issues with space even as new housing in built and over a hundred thousand Jews spread out across Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, Palestine's repeated refusal to grant immigration access, the fact that Warsaw is still a nominal vassal to a feudal empire, the fact that there are still Nazis and Nazi collaborators (most notably the smuggling kingpin Abraham Gancwajch) haven't been accounted for, debates over Zionism versus bundism, debates over the extent of socialism, these are all issues. The newly minted LSPW is the only party of relevance in Warsaw, but is sure to split any day now.



Europe

Among the British-Antillean Isles (the "North Indies" as some call the archipelago), Cuba and her sister republics of Dominica and Puerto Rico are flourishing. With the Spaniards no longer a real threat, the Cuban military can be drawn down, with uptime soldiers finally able to turn to civilian life. This Cuba may be less developed than the Cuba of the 1980s, but it is one that avoided the scars of American imperialism, and Spain's last attempts to keep the island. Baseball, already popular in the 1860s, has its refined form introduced by veterans of Angola, and amateur leagues quickly become widespread across northern Europe. To feed industrialization, Ulster is colonized to advantage of the coal and iron ore reserves that Cuba just didn't have. Adaptations to the more northerly climate are common; heavier clothes and heavier foods, while disturbingly American to some, are a natural consequence of the higher latitudes. Some of Cuba's doctors, with more free time now that the next generation is graduating from the University of Havana, try their hands at environmentalism, helping the animal and plant life of the Caribbean adapt to the North Seas- or at least keeping them alive in zoos. Of special interest are the primeval flora and fauna of what could have been Haiti. Animals such as the flightless giant barn owl, ground sloth, West Indies shrew, turtles larger than any living in the original timeline, and even the Caribbean monk seal (an increasingly rare sight in the 19th​ century, and extinct by the 20th​) are carefully tracked and managed by professors to ensure their survival, by hook or crook.

In lighter news, under Ramon Emeterio Betances and the Revolutionary Socialist Committee, Puerto Rico has been freed from the colonial yoke, and established as a Socialist Republic. The Puerto Rican abolitionists-turned-socialists might use language that infuriates Marxist theoreticians, but their policies are well received. In particular, after his confirmation as president, Betances meets with his Cuban and Dominican counterparts to discuss closer ties, maybe even merging into an Antillean Confederation. Abelardo Colome Ibarra, the Cuban prime minister, is interested (especially given Betances' arguments of a need to protect against any potential American giants), but Gaspar Polanco, the Dominican president, waves off any talks for now. He claims fears of Cuban domination over the other nations of the North Sea- and given how the late, unlamented Ochoa conscripted Dominicans and fed them into Cuba's military industry, these fears aren't unwarranted. These talks are emblematic of Cuban-Dominican relations, and how they were still grappling with the legacy of the red generalissimo.

Across the Channel, the Peasant's Confederation, while prosperous, is facing its own problems. A band of English peasants, rejecting the perceived dominance of Germans, the so-called capitulation of their spiritual leaders to the new status quo, and the growing urbanization, gather and set out to settle one of the last remnants of the English landmass- the Isle of Wight. Cuba had unofficially claimed the island for some time, but after the cessation of hostilities with the Confederation, and increases in food trade, Wight had been abandoned, losing whatever purpose it had as a naval base or farmland. The Confederation leadership is somewhat incredulous, but nevertheless defends the settlement of Wight to Cuba, and Wat Tyler goes to hear his fellow peasants' grievances, while at the same time organizing elections to keep them represented in the Confederation. Back on the mainland, the urbanization crisis culminates in the official chartering of Neu Allgau, long the gathering place of Confederation government, as a city. This a major victory for the political faction led by Gotz of the Iron Hand, the informal leader of the Confederation's equally informal military. However, with the furious debates erupting, that victory may prove a poison pill.

To the north, the remnants of the colonial Spaniards languish on the Shetlands, having retreated there after their defeat on Puerto Rico. Jose de la Gandara, military and now political and cultural leader of the colonials, is only maintaining his position by virtue of having eliminated all other competitors. The captain-general of Cuba was killed early on when the uptime Cubans took the island, Guiterrez of Puerto Rico had been rendered powerless before being left behind on Puerto Rico as an attempt to placate the reds, and Lemoine was pre-emptively murdered on Gandara's orders before the noble could organize a coup against him. The only contender of note left was an aging Pedro Santana, the Dominican general who had first invited the Spanish to annex Hispaniola a decade ago, only to be replaced as captain-general by Lemoine after his failures in crushing Dominican rebels. But even the old fool had a chance against Gandara, the military dictator who, no matter how much he bled the reds white, still oversaw the end of the Spanish Empire.

Gandara was well aware of his fragile position. And it was clear that an undeveloped Shetlands archipelago was simply unable to support the tens of thousands reactionary Spanish troops and colonial elites who fled in the face of revolution. Instead, both to preserve his power and to keep the people under him alive, all without submitting to the revolutionary scum, Gandara would organize an exodus. The Spaniards still had enough ships that they could, theoretically, go by sea to the hopefully uninhabited Iberian Peninsula. There, they could seethe in peace about having their plantations stolen from them. Surprisingly enough, it worked. Despite some losses and an attempted mutiny, the Spanish whites did make it to Galicia, and even had enough supplies (IE, hoarded colonial wealth) to not immediately die, but instead set up a settlement. Gandara declared a new Kingdom of Spain; not having the political capital to outright declare himself king, he instead set himself up as regent "until a suitable monarch came along". Conditions in the reactionary bastion are horrific, especially given the severe gender imbalance, and the rancid culture that comes from being on the wrong side of a revolution. Popular discontent is mounting, and that only contender of note, Santana, is eager to take Gandara's place. However, the Spaniards have wedged themselves firmly into Iberia's northwest coast and seem to be here to stay.

The only wrinkle in the New Spanish Armada comes early in their journey, when they almost run into the unsettled Hebrides. Sometime in the past few years, the island chain and disappeared from the Spaniards' maps, painstaking updated to represent the new geography. Understandable, given the Cubans had been ignoring them. The mistake is recoverable, though damage to some ships results in their later loss in the Atlantic. Most importantly, the blunder alerts the Cubans to Gandara's attempted exodus. Ultimately, Havana decides to let the Spanish go. The decision is controversial, as the reactionaries still hoard a significant amount of the people's wealth, but Cuba is tired of war, and much of the uptime military equipment as been expended. An oceangoing steam ship, equipped with radar and radios salvaged from transport planes, follows the Spaniards from a distance, and notes their settlement of Galicia. On the way back, as they pass by the Bordeaux coast, the communist scouts also note some downright archaic radio signals coming somewhere from the east. Another ship, equipped with better comms equipment and crewed by long neglected uptime signals experts, is sent, and parks itself in the Gulf of Biscay. The communists note that the radio signals are indeed archaic, both in terms of the technology being used to send the signals, and the contents. Who would use an early 1920s-ish radio to send signals in Latin? Nevertheless, there is clearly some sort of civilization in the Mediterranean. After the comms ship returns and gives her report, the Cuban Liberation Army sets to work in organizing a proper scouting expedition, to sail around the Iberian Peninsula and through the Gates of Hercules. The scouts are planned to be sent next year…

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The events that have progressed around the Italian Peninsula are quite significant. In Fiume, with Giovanni Host-Venturi sent to Syracuse for ambassadorship, Alceste De Ambris and the left wing of the government is in ascendancy. Maneuvering around a D'Annunzio that, at least for this year, is more invested in his writings than in government, De Ambris uses his mastery of Fiumes legal system to enact a syndicalist policy plank. The corporations in Fiume proper go through internal reorganizations; while the basic structure of corporatism remains intact, the corporations themselves are turned into proper worker's syndicates, with authority over their respective industries. The bourgeois are shoved aside, while the Communist Party of Fiume suddenly find themselves in government, represented in the Council of Corporations through the dockworkers' unions they built. FT Marinetti, the "Magister Industria" imposed on Roman Dalmatia by D'Annunzio, is reigned in, De Ambris using the Council of Corporations' authority over labor relations and public works. Marinetti's breakneck industrialization program is moderated somewhat, earning Fiume respect from the plebians of the Roman Empire, and placating the cultural aficionados who would rather not see the symbols of old crushed by the hammer of the new. The Magister himself is furious at being leashed, of course, while Rome's downtime elites are incensed by the uptime city-state stepping beyond a mere Foederati to meddle in the affairs of the Empire proper, just like the Goths did. De Ambris was also Magister Officiorum of the Empire, as well as Fiume's chief of staff, but to those most concerned with laws being enacted to right way, the old syndicallist took the wrong legal channels.

Leashing the Fiuman Legionnaires is a more difficult task. Even if Host-Venturi has been shuffled aside, his replacement as commander of both the Uscocchi and Disperata, Ricardo Gigante, is even more of a snarling ultranationalist. Ordinarily De Ambris' sweeping leftist reforms would have provoked a response from the committed fascist by now. Only the fact that Gigante has been occupied with securing his leadership over Fiume's military has prevented him from couping De Ambris. De Ambris realizes he needs to prevent any sort of reactionary backlash, but he doesn't have enough influence over the Council of the Best, the legislature in responsible for Fiume's armed forces. He can influence the military industrial complex through the leftist control of the Council of Corporations, but De Ambris' only real avenue is to go to the infamously mercurial D'Annunzio.

The reason Gigante hasn't yet overthrown De Ambris is one part respect for D'Annunzio, and another part because he's helping organize a more a complex scheme. Giovanni Host-Venturi, the former Legionnaire commander, is a student of Italian history. His knowledge may be dubious and warped by nostalgia, but the proto-fascist does know that Hiero II, the King of Syracuse, would have died in 215 BCE in the original timeline- and thus, is not long for this world either. Host-Venturi does not warn the Greek king of his approaching death, and instead ingratiates himself with the young prince of Syracuse, Hieronymus. The rumors Ancient Rome spread about him may or may not be true, but Host-Venturi is certain that the fifteen-year-old grandson of Hiero is vulnerable to manipulation. When Hiero II finally dies early in the year, and Hieronymus ascends to throne, the dominant force on the boy-king's regency council is not his staunchly anti-Roman uncles, but rather an Italian fascist from Fiume.

Host-Venturi plans to use Syracuse as a base from which to reforge the Roman Empire, but the Greek colony is not nearly developed enough for that yet. Instead, he contacts his successor as the military leader of Fiume, Gigante, and the two men get to work. Industrial aid is sent to Syracuse not through the left leaning syndicates, but in the form of Uscocchi labor armies and dissatisfied Fiuman bourgeois. Archimedes is a verifiable genius, but is an intellectual and therefore feminine and unreliable in the eyes of fascism; Fiuman industrialists instead liase directly with Sicilian merchants and landowners. Working with instead of against the Lex Hieronica is a bonus, helping maintain Syracuse's political stability. An early achievement in Host-Venturi's scheme is organizing a meeting between Hieronymus and Julius Nepos. While the Roman Emperor is thoroughly unimpressed by the boy-king, he is more than interested in the proposal that comes with him. De Ambris was well known for his republican rhetoric, even outside of Fiume. While the full details of the scheme aren't hammered out (the matter of Sicilian independence of Rome is a sticking point on Hieronymus' part), Nepos and Host-Venturi do agree to a military exchange between Dalmatia and Syracuse, facilitated by Gigante's legionnaires. This is especially important for Nepos, as while in one of his mandated stays in Fiume, the emperor would research his historical fate, and now would like to remove his Gothic generals as a concern. Sicily seems far away enough.

Speaking of Archimedes, the inventor isn't as upset as one would first think at being shut of Syracuse's industrialization. No, the man and his students are far too busy catching up, as it were. Archimedes himself is deemed far too important to be allowed to leave Sicily, but he is allotted his own workspace, which he turns into a university- in part to attract knowledgeable persons from uptime. His most trusted students are sent abroad to Dalmatia and Palestine, and at least in Fiume, the name "Archimedes" carries enough weight for several scientists and engineers to show up at the man's door. With the guidance of Fiume's best and brightest, Archimedes works feverish to learn the latest in physics, mathematics, and other fields- and often working with teachers advance those fields ahead of what they themselves know. In one instance, while working with the physicist Peter Salcher and his student Paul Nemenyi, one of Archimedes' students returns from Palestine. The communist state is rather light on STEM professionals, and those that they do have are too involved in government to leave the country. However, Mohamed Boudia, the Palestinian ambassador to Fiume, does send Archimedes a book from his personal library- a biography of Albert Einstein. The book is rather light on actual science, but the concepts introduced within inspire Archimedes and Salcher to independently reconstruct a theory of relativity. (Boudia had censored the book beforehand, carefully removing every reference to atomic bombs. The man was rightfully paranoid.) Throughout the year, the "Archimedean University of Syracuse" continuously grows, a bastion of free thought on a Sicily increasingly dominated by fascists.

As the year progresses, two new players become involved in the Mediterranean. The first is the could-have-been duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza. Assigned by the Ambrosian Republic of Milan to the east, what was intended to be an exile to remove him from the city's politics has instead turned into an opportunity. Lacking ships, Sforza's scouts are forced to skirt along the Adriatic coast, but they do make contact with Fiume, eventually. When Sforza sends his report to Milan, he sends it alongside Dalmatian trade ships following the Po River upstream. This is a major coup for Sforza, as Lombardy's trade-based economy was near collapse. The uptime city-state isn't giving Sforza nowhere near the political support he wants, with De Ambris (and thus Fiume's syndicated merchants) being wary of the Florentian mercenary. However, they do inadvertently give him substantial economic support, as being the man who brought trade back to Milan- and the man who controls the Po River Delta that trade is coming through- is substantial in of itself.

The second player is the Ambrosian Republic proper. While Sforza is leveraging his newfound economic might into the foundations for a coup, the Captains and Defenders of Milan scramble to undermine his influence. They find an unexpected backer in the very Fiuman merchants that gave Sforza his new power base; the traders themselves don't like having to work through Sforza's monopoly, while up top, De Ambris would rather staunch (and easily divided) republicans be in charge of Dalmatia's new rival. New trade deals undercut Sforza's influence, keeping him from executing his coup.

Across the Mediterranean, webs of trade and intrigue are being woven. Syndicalists and communists struggle to keep the petit-bourgeois leashed, some better than others. Fascists and reactionaries plot their schemes and scheme their petty squabbles. There are bright points: exchanges of culture and science, or late in the year, the reunion of some Jewish families- having made the long journey across the Syrian desert, and then the Mediterranean Sea- with their younger members in Fiume, thought lost to the ISOT or worse. But it's clear that a storm is brewing.



Oceania

Not much can be said about the Dine this year. Chee Dodge's authority over the Navajo Nation is unravelling, as without the threat of Uncle Sam to keep them within their fences, the Native Americans are free to practice their culture and live their lives. Meanwhile, the reservation whites cluster around the US-appointed Tribal Chairman. Chee himself is growing too old to contest the fracturing of his authority, but his son and heir apparent, Thomas Dodge, has designs on reuniting the Dine, and sees the white men, with their wealth and guns, as a path to do that.



North America

Along the Salish Sea, the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic struggles with pulling itself together. The railroads that once bound Finnish cities, from Helsinki to Viipuri, were reshuffled along with the cities themselves in the flash of light that brought them to the American Northwest. Within those cities, the only real industry that exists is the lumber industry. That industry is reorganized along socialist lines, and between Finnish forests brought with them and Oregonian forests around them, keeping the mills fed. However, that industry is not enough to industrialize a whole country, not on its own. On the agricultural front, the reshuffling of the lands of Red Finland has provided an opening for farms to collectivized without much resistance from the peasantry. Those farms are going to take a while to spin up, though, and in its first years the Republic is desperately hunting and fishing to keep a population, ordinarily reliant on Russian grain, from starving.

On the political front, things are similarly rough. Kullervo Manner and the People's Delegation have set up a parliamentary government along democratic socialist lines. The Red Guards, though mostly demobilizing with the threat of the Imperial Germans and Finnish Whites removed, are still a significant political force, and they have a bone to pick with the civilian government. Between more Marxist inclinations than the ruling Social Democrats, and frustration with past incompetency (Tampere, which had been under siege when Red Finland was ISOTed in late March of 1918, was still rebuilding), the Guards had a number of grievances to point to. Taking advantage of the multi-party democracy implemented, more radical Finnish politicians, with support from the Red Guards, split off from the Finnish SDP to form a Communist Party of Finland.

The greatest headache toe FSWR faces, ultimately, is the remaining Soviet Russian forces. Not the ground troops, some ten thousand men (mostly former conscripts of Imperial Russia), who are glad to demobilize after the horrors of the Great War. No, the real problem is the Baltic Fleet. Docked in Helsinki since February of 1918 are over two hundred ships, including all four Gangut-class dreadnoughts, the legendary cruiser Aurora that fired the first shots of the October Revolution, a scattering of destroyers and auxiliary ships, and the remnants of a very confused British submarine squadron that had been in the Gulf of Finland since before the February Revolution. In charge of this force is Flag Captain Alexey M Schastny. Power hungry and always chafing to serve under communists, Schastny refuses to have any part of the Baltic Fleet scrapped, even as most of it is put in mothballs due to lacking fuel and supplies. The sailors who serve under him, devout communists one and all, may clash with their nominal commander on many issues, but they refuse to be disarmed.

When reports come from a fishing boat of a pair of cities on the Californian coast, Schastny jumps at the chance to be relevant. Enough coal is scraped together to fill the bunkers of the Bogatyr, a cruiser designed for long range missions in the Pacific Ocean, and refitted just before the Great War to be one of the most advanced ships in Russia's fleet. She sets out and makes good time towards the San Francisco Bay. This is good, because Schastny's handpicked officers, the cruiser's crew, and the Finnish diplomats do not like each other.

Down south, the war between Tlaxcala and Pittsburgh is not going well for Mayor Flaherty. The annihilation of the police militia by Tlaxcalan forces rant and rave, but he's forced to rely ever more heavily on the remaining police to keep order. That order is not well kept, with the NAACP organizing its own militia, and Pittsburgh's unions- long rendered puppets of the Democratic Party and industrial magnates- struggle to keep their membership under control. With the police too important to be scapegoated, and the city's blacks too tough a nut to crack, Flaherty instead diverts public blame at the intellectuals. The professors and doctors who first facilitated diplomacy with the Tlaxcalan Confederation, and who organized a vaccination campaign that prevented a Columbian plague, are accused of being fifth columns for the "Mexican savages" who "are sacrificing our brave boys in blue to their pagan gods as we speak". Pittsburgh's universities are bloodily purged. A number of professors do escape, however, many with the help of the priests under Bishop Vincent Leonard. What starts as individual moments of mercy turns into a trial by fire for the new union between Catholics and Protestants. Leonard is called into Flaherty's office in a demand to give up those priests that stifled his pogrom, and Leonard refuses. The bishop barely walks away with his life, and when he returns to his congregation, he makes it his first priority to reach out to NAACP and dissident unions, to form a single opposition to the police dictatorship.

In Tlaxcala, the cities' ruling teutcli eagerly grant refuge to Pittsburgh's exiled intelligentsia. The professors may not have much in the way of equipment, but they knowledge they do have, particularly in metallurgy, send Tlaxcala's technology ahead leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, the militia that had been captured last year are not sacrificed to the gods. The Tlaxcala are not the famously bloodthirsty Aztecs. Beyond that, enough contact has been had with Pittsburgh that Xicotencatl realizes that was normal business in the Flower Wars would not be well received by the white men. Instead, the prisoners of war are put to work in Tlaxcala's fields, freeing up workers for the ever-growing forges. Meanwhile, soldiers under Cuitlixcatl continue enforcing the siege of Pittsburgh, conquering some of the outlying mines and farms, and raiding what they couldn't hold, keeping up the pressure all the while.

It is this situation that the Bogatyr discovers when she sails into the San Francisco Bay, between the two city-states. With a thunderous roar of blanks that are heard for miles all around, the fighting stops for a moment. The Bogatyr's sailors nearly mutiny when the Finnish diplomats make clear their intentions to meet with the police dictatorship instead of overthrowing them and establishing a socialist government, only calmed by appeals to the lack of proper revolutionary sentiment in Pittsburgh. While the sailors go out on shore leave to find or make some proper revolutionary sentiment, the Finnish delegation- accompanied by a squad of Red Guards- meets with Mayor Flaherty to discuss terms. Flaherty seethes at being talked down to by communists, but he has no other option. A peace treaty is enforced between Pittsburgh and Tlaxcala, with reparations by the former to the later. The state of emergency is ended, with elections scheduled for next year. The Bogatyr's officers meet with the owners of Pittsburgh's coal mines, eager to secure a source of fuel for the Baltic Fleet, while her sailors contact the newly formed "holy opposition". Tlaxcala's prisoners of war are released, but in a trickle, and their arms are seized to be reverse engineered. At the end of the year, the Soviet cruiser sails back north, to be replaced by another ship that will keep Flaherty honest.

 

[Nevis]

Brief History:
The 2008 Financial Crisis was the most severe worldwide economic crash since the Great Depression. Predatory loans, excessive risk-taking, and the bursting of the US housing bubble culminated in a chain reaction that echoed across the whole world. In Iceland this resulted in the default of all 3 of the country's major privately-owned banks in late 2008. Relative to the size of its economy, Iceland's crash was the largest of any country in economic history. As businesses declared bankruptcy through November and December, unemployment more than triples and tensions rise, leading to thousands of people protesting in the streets of Reykjavik and calls for an early election. Iceland had never before faced such a major crisis of government and crisis of liberalism. Then the country woke up to another unpleasant surprise on Christmas Day, it appeared that all contact with the outside world had been lost.

Nation/Entity Name:
Iceland
Commonly Known as:
Iceland
Government:
Parliamentary Democracy
Capital:
Reykjavik
Technology Level:
21st Century
Year ISOTed from:
2008
Territory ISOTed:
The Island of Iceland
Population:
317,414
Religions:
Christianity, Other
Languages:
Icelandic
Head(s) of State:
Geir Haarde (Prime Minister)
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (President)

In Iceland

The Christmas Riot

At first few people noticed the difference, but as Christmas Day continued more and more people learned of missing radio stations, tv channels, and web pages. As word spread more and more people spilled on to the streets of Reykjavik. Throughout the morning and early afternoon these crowds were fairly placid, content to mingle and talk. However, as the evening dragged on without explanation from the government, rumours spread throughout the crowds. Was this another fallout from the economic crisis? Or was it something more sinister? Another world war, perhaps? Had the whole world died in the night? Gradually the crowd split into two, the larger group heading to Parliament House to seek answers from the Althing (Parliament), the smaller group arming itself with whatever weapons they could get and driving south to Keflavík Airport, convinced that the blackout was part of a conspiracy and under the belief that the answers could be found in the attached naval base.

As the crowd in the city swelled, the police put out an emergency call for reinforcements, drawing in officers from the rest of the country. For the most part this crowd was peaceful, limiting itself to shouting slogans and singing songs demanding answers. However, as the evening progressed with no word from the government the shouts got louder and angrier. A small number of protestors were arrested after breaking in to a nearby building site.

Meanwhile at the airport, the more radical protestors had cut through the perimeter base and attempted to storm the naval base within. The protestors initially managed to capture the abandoned section of the base, but were then pinned within it by the coast guard, leading to a tense stand-off.

As the news of the stand-off reached the city the Prime Minister finally came to the doors of Parliament House. There were no apparent signs of other countries, or of satellites in the sky, existing. Iceland was alone. Haarde stressed that the country would be able to feed itself, thanks to its fishing fleet and herds of sheep, but a system of rationing would have to be put into place. In light of the new circumstances the country found itself in, a special parliamentary election would be held in March. The Prime Minister himself would be stepping down and not standing in the election due to health concerns.

Despite the efforts of the Prime Minister to calm the crowd, and the police's actions to contain it, this announcement marked the start of three days of rioting and shoplifting in the city centre as people panicked about no longer being able to access necessities such as food and oil.

The Voyage(I) Celebration

December soon turned into January, and people settled into the new normal. The stock in the supermarkets grew thin and private cars ran out of fuel but people still had access to heat, electricity and at least some food. The hotels were opened up to trapped tourists, and classes were put held to teach them some basic amount of Icelandic.

On 17th​ January 2009, Guðrún Þorvaldsdóttir, an amateur radio enthusiast, managed to pick up the first sign that the Icelandic were not actually alone on this strange world after all. As she was playing with various frequencies on here long-wave radio set she managed to briefly pick up a few words of Spanish amongst the static. Although it was late in the evening she rushed to tell her husband of her discovery, and then called around her friends and fellow enthusiasts. They met together at Hallgrímskirkja, where they were given special permission to climb the tower. It was there, at the highest point, that they got the clearest signal. There was a radio station out there, playing songs! The show would only last for a mere 15 minutes but for the rest of their lives those who heard it would insist it was the sweetest music they ever knew.

News spread like wildfire and the bells of the church rang in celebration. People flocked to the docks, enthusiastic men already climbing into fishing boats to go and meet the Spanish. Eventually they were talked into backing down, on the condition that a proper expedition would be launched soon.

Within a week ICGV Týr (II) was freed up from its regular duties for the journey. As the largest and fastest vessel that the Coast Guard owned, it was deemed the most suitable choice, especially as it would be carrying a group of Spanish tourists and translators to act as intermediaries. Additionally, the boat was loaded up with arts and crafts produced on the island, as they had little else to trade right now.

The Voyage(II) Death

The trip started with high spirits and smooth sailing, making it to shores of Galicia after five days of travel despite having to make use of the crew's rusty ability to navigate by the stars. The expedition called out with their onboard VHF radio, but received no response. Confused and dejected, the Týr sailed east, aiming for the city of A Coruña.

There were no signs of life in the Riá de Coruña.

It was only once the helicopter flew further over the Riá de Betanzos that the first signs of life were discovered: A ragged camp, surrounded by a wooden palisade. Curiously, what appeared to be antique cannons pointed through holes in the fence. Near the camp there was a jagged wedge into the forest's edge, a clear sign of deforestation. Above the high tide line a large patch of ground had been scorched black.

There was no reaction to the helicopter in the sky.

After circling the camp the helicopter returned to Týr to report its findings. The boat closed in and a landing party was organised, consisting of five members of the Coast Guard, the ship's doctor, and two translators.

There was no reaction as the landing party's boat ran up against the beach, nor when they dragged it safely above the water line.

One of the soldiers bravely led the group as they walked towards the pallisade. Surely whoever had built this fort would have left someone guarding it? Apparently no. The gate was not even barred, in fact it was slightly ajar as if someone had left in a hurry. As the fort appeared abandoned, the party split up to explore it.

The fort was arranged as a large circle, with a gate to the north and a gate to the south. The party had entered through the northern gate, next to which a sign had been engraved with the words "Castillo de Perbes". The fort was split into four quarters, with barracks taking up the entire western half of the fort whilst the eastern half was split in two. One quarter contained what appeared to be a mess hall, a church, and a primitive infirmary whilst the other contained what appeared to be individual houses.

It was the infirmary that revealed the ultimate fate of the unfortunate encampment. The fort, which was apparently the new capital of the Kingdom of Spain, had been established less than a year ago. The Spanish had tore down their ships and used them to build the skeleton of the fort, supplemented with the local wood. Things went well for the first couple of months but then a sudden outbreak of cholera tore through the camp. At first the bodies were burned, but the number of people getting sick grew and grew until the dead had to be dumped in a mass grave behind the fort. The Kingdom's physician had apparently died early in the outbreak, though his subsequent heirs had diligently filled in the book even after his death. If any of them had survived the outbreak there was no word of it in the book.

There was nothing to be done here. But then, if this was Spain, where had the radio broadcast come from? This dismal fort had no radio tower, and everyone should have died long before the fateful broadcast anyway. Perhaps there were survivors of Perbes out there? Or maybe other parts of Spain had been sent elsewhere?

Resolutely the crew of Týr decided to continue searching for other signs of life, moving slowly during the day and sending the helicopter up at night to look for fires. They could only hope that if someone else was still out there, Týr could reach them before they fell to the same fate as Perbes.

The Voyage(III) Life

It wasn't until the tenth day of cruising along the coast of Europe that the demotivated Týr found signs of life once more. After travelling through a heavy fog as they rounded the coast of Brittany and headed into the English Channel, the ship's radio finally picked up a broadcast once more. As best as the crew could tell there was some kind of ongoing civil war or insurgency in the Caribbean. But why were people discussing this in Spanish, hundreds of miles from the Spanish border? Týr attempted to reach out to these people, explaining that they were looking for other survivors of the strange event, but the only indication that they had been heard was the sudden silence on the radio.

As Týr emerged from the fog they realised that they had drifted further north than they expected. What's more, the coastline in front of them didn't match any of their maps. Once again the helicopter was sent out to try and determine where they were. It took a mere two hours for the Helicopter to return with news. They still didn't recognise the coastline but they had found something far more important: worked farms, ones with little people running about them! Someone lived here! A mere hour after the helicopters returned another sign of advanced civilisation revealed itself: fighter jets. A pair of them flew overhead, circling over the Týr before heading back north. A crewmate recognised them as Russian. Given a direction to follow, Týr set off in pursuit.
Half a day's travel north and the fields turned into city. The city looked strangely antiquated, and yet … were those tanks overlooking the beach? Armed Helicopters flew out from beyond the skyline and shepherded Týr in towards the city's port, where soldiers stood to greet them. Týr had small arms on board, but she was thoroughly out-gunned by what appeared to be a whole army. Iceland lacked both an army and an air force, meaning that if these people were not friendly the island nation had no defence against them.

It turned out that the strange Spanish-speaking nation in Britain was apparently the Cubans, of all people. Once the initial wariness and both parties realised they were no threat to each other, the Týr expedition were given a warm welcome. A party was thrown for Cuba's new guests and gifts were exchanged. Though the Spanish members of the voyage were disappointed that their homes were apparently gone after all, everyone was happy to learn that there was someone else out there. The expedition spent two days in Cuba; learning more about the world, negotiating a preliminary trade deal for grain and vegetables to be supplied to Iceland, and arranging for radio contact to be made with home on specific radio frequencies. To do this reliably the Cubans would need to erect a larger radio mast, but they assured their Icelandic guests that this was well within their capabilities now that they had a reason to do so.

The Icelandic Path to Socialism?

"We have suffered a complete failure of Capitalism and been sent to another world where our closest friends are the Communists. If that is not a sign from God, then I don't know what is!" - Karl Sigurbjörnsson, Bishop of Iceland

Even before The Event, the Left-Green Alliance (VG) had been gaining popularity in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In the face of December's scarcity this support grew as the greens were believed to be the best people for learning to live without Iceland's dwindling oil supply. After meeting the Cubans the VG swelled to eclipse even the Social Democrat Alliance (SD) in support. Whilst the final results of the March election were not yet revealed it was increasingly clear that the next government would be a VG – SD coalition, though it was not entirely clear which party would be in the lead.

Despite finding themselves on a virgin earth, the people of Iceland did not feel much desire to spread out and colonise. A month of eating little more than fish had taken out most people's enthusiasm for "roughing it" in any sense, and the tragic tale of Castillo de Perdes reminded the nation just how lucky they were to have a working hospital with access to modern medicines. (Even through the treatment for cholera itself was relatively low-tech). However, the simple fact remained that the island would need oil to keep its fishing fleet moving, and to explore further afield. To that end it would need to negotiate with Cuba and with the Peasant Confederation, as the best targets for onshore oil deposits were in the Netherlands and whilst Island had the theory on how to build an oil rig, they did not have the industrial base to do so.

The best way to succeed in these negotiations would be for the country to take a left turn and present itself as a fellow traveller to its neighbours, and the left of VG took advantage of that to push for greater demands and a more bombastic rhetoric. This, at the very least, did not hurt the party's chances in the upcoming elections and soon the talk of the nation turned to two questions;

1. What would Icelandic Socialism look like?
and
2. How could they get there?

Other Sagas

It Came From The Sea

After years of a peaceful pastoral lifestyle, nature decided to throw an additional challenge at the Dine people. At least one large saltwater crocodile had learned of the easy prey presented by the tribe's animals. Due to the beast's habit of retreating into the river after claiming its prey it had so far managed to avoid the hunters that drove away land-based predators. The arrival of the crocodiles meant that it was no longer safe for people to go to the river alone at night. To put an end to this animal thievery a competition was started to find and kill the crocodiles in the Gascoyne river. With every night the bounty on the crocodiles grew bigger, and yet the beasts continued to slip the net for now.

Thomas Dodge's clique of gun-wielding Americans suffered particular embarrassment as part of the Crocodile Crisis, as for all their guns they were just as ineffective against the crocodiles preying on the herds. Meanwhile his half-sister Annie Dodge Wauneka was gaining respect throughout the reservation as her work translating medical terms into Navajo became more crucial than ever. She also led a study of the plant life surrounding their new home, discovering new medicinal plants to replace the slowly depleting supply of plants from the old world. For her work she would gain a position on the ruling Tribal Council, which she used to improve sanitation throughout the reservation and improved care for pregnant women and babies, eye and ear health, and alcoholism.

Pax Pacificana

To consolidate and defend their hold over the Puget Sound, the Finnish Red Army took over the southern tip of Vancouver Island and built a fort there that they called Uusi Suomenlinna, after the historic island forts outside Helsinki. Books taken from Pittsburgh revealed that there were coal and copper deposits on the island that could be used to feed Finland's industrialisation, and also feed the Red Navy. To this end Admiral Schnasty personally takes the lead in making contacts with the most radical members of the unions. Once upon a time trouble-makers would have found themselves kicked out of the union and with nowhere to run from the cops. Now however, anyone who needed to disappear could disappear into the night and smuggle themselves away North.

Schnasty's involvement in the new fort's construction and his hand in spiriting away Pittsburghian communists led to Vancouver being considered his personal fiefdom, if only informally. Whilst nominally loyal to the mainland, if the island did something that the mainland did not approve of then there was nothing that the Finnish Social Democrats could really do about it. Events were further complicated when a mutiny in the British submarine fleet led to the declaration of the British Soviet Republic on San Juan Island. The BSR proclaimed loyalty to Vancouver first and Helsinki second. Whilst this was fine in theory, as Vancouver was part of Finland just the same, it raised more questions as to the loyalty of the Soviet navy.

Down in Tlaxcala a different kind of revolution was taking place. The San Jose region had essentially nothing in the way of coal and iron, making an industrial revolution difficult to achieve. However, the plentiful amounts of limestone in the region allowed for the creation of cement in peat-fuelled kilns. The advent of cement and concrete allowed for the creation of new architectural styles and structures that would lead to a building boom.

Chasing Ghosts

It was a peaceful year on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, and that peace allowed for more contact and more trade. Sailors traded in iron, and gold, and spices, but most of all they traded in talk and in rumours. As the summer heat swelled word got around that perhaps the strange events that brought them to the world were happening more frequently than they knew. Slowly these rumours warped and transformed. The golden city of Timbuktu was waiting for adventurers to claim it. The Valley of the Kings stood undisturbed and full of treasure. El Dorado, sometimes the Fountain of Youth, awaited at the source of the Nile.

None of the Mediterranean countries could let the chance of being the ones to find these treasures go, but none of them were yet ready to launch an expedition up the Nile to claim the rumoured prize. For now small groups of skirmishers roamed the Nile Delta, not establishing any permanent bases, trying to drive away and sabotage their rival's attempts at securing the mouth of the Nile. Most of these skirmishers would be lost to disease and crocodiles rather than any actual combat, though the biggest losers of all would be the expedition in Alexandria, who suffered constant raids of bandits stealing their crops and livestock.

Across the English Channel

In Cuba the southern expedition was delayed by Týr's visit as contact with a known and relatively friendly, if Liberal, country was worth more than contact with the unknown for now. Cuban fishermen were dismayed as they found themselves out of a job, due to the glut of fish coming in from the Grand Banks fisheries, but the government itself was happy that more workers had been freed up for industrialisation.

Radio Cuba, the radio station that had been heard all the way from Iceland, had been established the previous year using the power from the newly (re)constructed Hanabanilla Dam. It played popular music and also ran educational programs designed to help bring the down-timers up to speed in areas like maths, science, and political theory. However the most popular show was actually the cooking show ran by a former downtimer by the name of Caridad Garcia. Many of the soldiers had neither the need nor the ability to cook with fresh produce in Angola, and the former slaves lacked opportunities too. For her kindly demeanour and her part in running this show Garcia got the nickname "The Grandmother of the Nation".

In the Peasant's Confederation there was a debate afoot. Iceland's request to exploit the oil below Moerkapelle, or Marshkirk as it was now known was being backed up by the North Antilles, who wanted to fuel their own oil-powered vehicles. On top of that Iceland also wanted to drill the as-yet-uncolonised Groningen gas fields for the production of Liquefied Natural Gas. Their offer would include the hiring of local workers to cover the security and daily operations of the rigs. This offer would prove controversial as it would require the displacement of settled peasants and the enclosure of land around the rigs, which many peasants saw with deep suspicion. For many this was a potential return to the old tyranny. Eventually Neu Allgau agreed, on the condition that the oil and gas works would be run as a coöperative where the workers collectively owned 85% of the business, the government of Iceland receiving 5% for designing the rig and Cuba receiving 10% profits for actually building it. Bogdragon, as the Marshkirk coöperative would come to be called, was highly controversial in the Peasant's Confederation, both hailed as a template for the future and decried as a devilish imposition. It proved to be yet another hairline fracture in the structure of the new confederation.

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a/n not as long as the last post, sorry! Just in case anyone asks, I got permission from Starmaker before importing this highly illegal nation into the ISOT and from Shadowhisker before killing off Galicia. As a self-imposed price there is only one new ISOT this update, but I guess in a way the crocodiles are the other hero-nation this turn, as they unexpectedly appeared twice in "other sagas".