People's Socialist Atlas
February 14, 2018 11:47 AM Subscribe
A History of the United American Socialist Republics is a full, 200-page alt-historical atlas. Also see the author's r/worldbuilding post.
I'm always fascinated by the choices people do and don't make when they're working out these alternate histories. In this case, Connecticut and Rhode Island remain perfectly intact and unchanged, but Kentucky gets parcelled out among 3 different entities. Macedonia takes a substantial chunk out of Albania for some reason, but, unlike our timeline, Kosovo is still part of Serbia. France, the UK, Portugal, and the Netherlands all keep a bunch of their island colonies, but the Maldives have been subsumed into India. In some ways, the changes are less surprising than what is assumed to be fixed.
posted by Copronymus at 12:13 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Copronymus at 12:13 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
Heh, the civil war is referred as the war of emancipation. Nice touch.
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'd like a way to pay for a printed copy
posted by mdoar at 12:54 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by mdoar at 12:54 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
Dang, developing the flags alone would have been a huge undertaking. Very well done, very cool.
posted by Elly Vortex at 1:10 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Elly Vortex at 1:10 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I recently read Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain and was kind of wishing I could see a map of the socialist states envisioned there... I think this'll scratch that itch! And yeah, wow are the flags great. There are some thoughtful & very funny takes on current state flag designs.
Can't wait to dig into this more. So far my favorite cameo is the photo on page 127: "Mobsters from Virginia City in 1982."
posted by miles per flower at 1:26 PM on February 14, 2018
Can't wait to dig into this more. So far my favorite cameo is the photo on page 127: "Mobsters from Virginia City in 1982."
posted by miles per flower at 1:26 PM on February 14, 2018
I do like the variety of governments n North America, from independent native people’s states to ...Mormon North Korea (and a more fascist and monarchal UK) , Debs University in NJ, and how the early premieres of the USRA alternate between steve Rogers men of the people and literally Stalin.
posted by The Whelk at 2:23 PM on February 14, 2018
posted by The Whelk at 2:23 PM on February 14, 2018
This looks like a real treat, even in a quick skim. The cartography is far superior to the majority of alternate histories that I've seen.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:29 PM on February 14, 2018
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:29 PM on February 14, 2018
AlternateHistory.com thread, as the author and several of the co-creators are from that forum, which has an entire subforum for maps, flags, infoboxes, and other graphics uchronia.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:52 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Apocryphon at 2:52 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's a lot going on in this, but I like the small touches, like the fact that the Keeyikawe flag bears a strong resemblance to the logo of the Communist Party of Canada. It could be a coincidence, but it's very, very similar.
posted by asnider at 3:15 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by asnider at 3:15 PM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
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Dec 25, 2017, 7:18 PM
This seems to be eligible for the current Hugo nomination period BTW, not next year's. Since it calls itself an atlas and the text could be considered simply supporting material (certainly the maps/flags are more likely to be fully appreciated), that may be enough to land it in Best Related Work, although the same clause that probably applies to 17776 may apply here.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:23 PM on February 14, 2018
Dec 25, 2017, 7:18 PM
This seems to be eligible for the current Hugo nomination period BTW, not next year's. Since it calls itself an atlas and the text could be considered simply supporting material (certainly the maps/flags are more likely to be fully appreciated), that may be enough to land it in Best Related Work, although the same clause that probably applies to 17776 may apply here.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:23 PM on February 14, 2018
I like this a lot; I just wish "Caucasus" weren't misspelled "Caucases." Maybe they can fix it for the second edition.
posted by languagehat at 5:11 PM on February 14, 2018
posted by languagehat at 5:11 PM on February 14, 2018
the idea that American Bolsheviks would find a way to rationalize an alliance with Southern segregationists sort of makes sense, I don't know if it's too cynical or not.
posted by vogon_poet at 5:11 PM on February 14, 2018
posted by vogon_poet at 5:11 PM on February 14, 2018
The Senate doesn't appoint judges; it votes on them. If you want judicial nominees to be voted on along party lines, you're going to get a depleted judiciary and more of the sort of game-playing that denied Garland a seat and seated Gorsuch. Every single time. That erodes the functioning of the judicial system as a whole.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:41 PM on February 14, 2018
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:41 PM on February 14, 2018
I also like the triumphalist tone ":Of course our system is the best" with the genteel Time Magazine language and that weird form of ...racist nationalist communism that Russia and France are still under or that the fascist governments of the world call themselves "nationalists" and the west coast of the US has like, two separate countries that are basically ideal progressive dem country and ideal GOP moderate country (Canada is a mess of smaller states but seem to have a broad EU-style alliance and nice side note that Quebec is a deeply strange, nominally socialist, still very catholic country that keeps having fits of wanting to combine with a neighboring state, lol)
Also Texas is still just Texas but retains the structure of the previous US government which is neat.
posted by The Whelk at 8:59 PM on February 14, 2018
Also Texas is still just Texas but retains the structure of the previous US government which is neat.
posted by The Whelk at 8:59 PM on February 14, 2018
Very well done, very cool.
Some day I have to do something like this myself, it is so totally within my sphere of interests and skills. I do not want to dispute the excellence of this work, but by nature I am a critic. I also have not been able to access the PDF so this is just about the maps.
1. Maps need a LEGEND!
2. City names should not be higgeldy-piggeldy at jaunty angles, and I am guessing that this was more the nature of her software and her own personal choice rather than a specific and justified design decision.
All of these little touches add up. Me, I would look at 1980s NatGeo maps, as well as 80s Soviet era maps, and make some informed choices that implicitly add to the worldbuilding - about consistent layout, fonts, etc., to add that extra bit to push it over the cliff and turn it up to 11.
But again, this is really really excellent.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:10 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
Some day I have to do something like this myself, it is so totally within my sphere of interests and skills. I do not want to dispute the excellence of this work, but by nature I am a critic. I also have not been able to access the PDF so this is just about the maps.
1. Maps need a LEGEND!
2. City names should not be higgeldy-piggeldy at jaunty angles, and I am guessing that this was more the nature of her software and her own personal choice rather than a specific and justified design decision.
All of these little touches add up. Me, I would look at 1980s NatGeo maps, as well as 80s Soviet era maps, and make some informed choices that implicitly add to the worldbuilding - about consistent layout, fonts, etc., to add that extra bit to push it over the cliff and turn it up to 11.
But again, this is really really excellent.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:10 PM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
> the idea that American Bolsheviks would find a way to rationalize an alliance with Southern segregationists sort of makes sense, I don't know if it's too cynical or not.
You realize Russian/Soviet Bolsheviks found a way to rationalize an alliance with Nazi Germany, right? If there's one thing Bolsheviks (and people in general) are great at, it's rationalization.
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on February 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
You realize Russian/Soviet Bolsheviks found a way to rationalize an alliance with Nazi Germany, right? If there's one thing Bolsheviks (and people in general) are great at, it's rationalization.
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on February 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by Mogur at 11:50 AM on February 14, 2018