In 1926, the world was well on the way to recovering from the Great War, if not having already recovered. The German Empire and the new French Third Republic had created cordial, if not friendly, relations with each other. The Balkans had finally gone quiet, with borders settled in jagged scars across the map that all sides were either accepting of or were cowed into accepting. Despite the fall of the monarchy in France in the fires of the Great War, many of the greatest monarchies still stood: the Russian Empire, the German Empire, and the Kingdom of England, which had become the three main powers on the continent. Berlin, Petrograd, London, Paris, Edinburgh, and Vienna had become centers of commerce and the growing countercultural movement that continued to seek throwing off the stuffiness of the Victorian and Marian eras. A major new import from across the pond was the new musical style of Jazz, which had grown out of New Afrika from blues music, which had in turn come from the old slave songs sung on the plantations that were smashed in the American Slave Rebellion. All over Europe, jazz artists were invited to give performances. It was especially popular among the Scots-African population of metropolitan Scotland, centered in the town of Dumbarton. It wasn't long before Scottish musicians managed to merge it with various Gaelic music traditions, including the use of bagpipes, to create "Gaelic Jazz", which soon found a sizeable market in Scotland and a fair niche abroad. The rise of record players made music more accessible as well, with record sales reaching millions of dollars across the whole of the Kingdom.
In 1927, though, the bottom began to fall out of things, starting in Asia. The Empire of Japan, seemingly out of nowhere, launched a surprise invasion of European holdings in the Orient. French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, German and British New Guinea,the British port of Hong Kong and the adjacent Macau, and the various holdings in the South Pacific were all attacked in one single coordinated attack, one that even the nations being assaulted had to admire for its sheer military capacity. It was agreed at once that the nations of Europe needed to intervene, but that would prove much harder than initially suspected. For one thing, the colonial guards in the Orient had been thinned out since the end of the last war, and they had all fallen rapidly to Japan, which was able to bring its full brunt to bear on the colonies. For another thing, Japan had a very powerful ally on its side: the Empire of China. After a lot of pain and chaos, many rebellions and revolutions, the Empire had finally managed to be considered "civilized", even if in a tenuous manner. Japan, seeing an opportunity, had formed an alliance with it not long after conquering Korea, the "East Asian Prosperity League". Its core value was the opposition of western influence and conquering in East Asia. With Japanese industrial output and military training, and the sheer manpower of China, they were a formidable force to be reckoned with. Long before European forces even passed the Suez Canal, the colonial garrisons in Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and various other holdings had fallen to the Asian forces. Thailand, seeing the chances of both revenge on Europe for Imperialism as well as the chances that they themselves would be invaded, signed a pact with Japan and joined the war as well. Within weeks, by the time European forces were stopped over in western India, the Imperial Japanese Navy was shelling the ports in eastern India.
By that time, the "Great Asian War" as it was called to contrast to the "Great European War" had evolved into a slaughter the likes of the European conflict. The difference, however, was that it was a distant war, as opposed to how Japan and China could put forces practically in their own backyard to attack the European positions. Before they could properly group for an attack, the simmering unrest in India finally broke out into an all-out rebellion, resulting in the loss of India as an effective base. To make matters even worse, the Sikh Maharaja was assassinated by Japanese agents, and replaced by a new Maharaja that was partial to Japan, at once taking out the seat of Scottish power and influence in the area. Where Chinese land forces managed to keep European forces at a standstill in Indochina, the Imperial Japanese Navy routinely dominated the European powers, which came to a head in the Battle of the Four Navies, when the Japanese "Center Force" attacked ships from England, Scotland, and Germany all at once in the Straits of Malacca. The Japanese lost several ships, but the European ships were hurt even worse. It was particularly acute for England, as they had made themselves known with the strength of the English Royal Navy, which had been nigh undefeatable since the Napoleonic Wars. Eventually, the stagnating conflict lead to even more widespread unrest across the whole of Europe, as by 1928, the war seemed like it would turn into yet another pointless conflict, albeit pointless for the Europeans. Fearful of another outbreak of chaos back home, the rising unrest across Africa, and the continuing Japanese victories on land and at sea, the European forces were forced to capitulate. Just three days later, things got worse when on the 17th of July, the American stock market collapsed due to a perfect storm of economic problems that all combined into the obliteration of the Wall Street Stock Market, which quickly began to ripple out across Europe.
The Treaty of Mumbai, signed between the European Coalition and the East Asian Prosperity League in July 1928, forced the European powers to surrender all of their possessions in the Orient to the growing Japanese Empire, and forced England to recognize the independence of India while forcing Scotland to surrender its last holding in the region, Sindh, to the Sikh Empire. As Japan solidified its new sphere of influence that had gobbled up much of East Asia, and even threatened to launch a new assault into Siberia, the European powers withdrew into themselves as the collapse of the American economy finally spilled over into Europe. The spirit of cooperation and good feelings was gone, and Europe fell into an icy chill. The world was now split into three spheres of influence: Europe, the United States, and Japan. This period of time would later go on to be called the "Cold War", a very uncomfortable period of time when the three powers vied for influence and power in the world, while never truly coming to blows.
Back at home, Scotland was convulsing. Not only had they lost their closest foreign friend, and yet another war not 15 years after the last war had devastated it, but the economic ruin their nation had fallen into was causing even more chaos at home. The Liberal government had blamed the obstruction of the Conservative party for allowing the chaos to grow that bad. The new Conservative government elected in 1930 blamed the Liberals for economic mismanagement. And one thing was for certain: the Empire was crumbling. Massive waves of rebellion and risings had broken out all across the colonies in Africa, taking inspiration from the rebellion touched off by New Afrika all the way back in the 1860s. While they didn't have any real organization the way the slaves in the USA had, and certainly none of them were actual "slaves" the way the Afro-Americans had, they quickly adopted the red, green, black colors of New Afrika, their inspiration, and many began to speak of an "Old Afrika" movement. In 1931, right on the heels of the defeat of the European powers at the hands of Japan and China, the European powers were also forced to give up on their colonies. Of course, given how large and diverse Africa was, the unorganized nature of the rebellions, and how fast Europe decided to leave, the whole continent quickly went into chaos immediately after. The Europeans had simply left the rebels with the borders of the colonies as they had been, completely drawn without regard for any cultural or many times even geographic boundaries. As soon as Europe left, the whole continent descended into war once again, this time African against African.
The sun rose over a nadir for Scotland in 1936. The Empire was dead. The only Dominions they held abroad were those in Nova Scotia and the Virgin Islands, exactly where they had started over a century ago. The economy was completely in shambles, and no one knew how to fix it. And Europe was isolated again. In the chaos of losing their Empires, the "Great Depression" as it had come to be called had grown even worse for Europe than it had in the United States. Many Scots were already referring to the era as the "Lost Decade", the lowest point of the nation, and one that it would never recover from entirely. Empire was dead. Europe no longer wanted to fight anything ever again. Japan had turned East Asia into its personal clubhouse.
These were dark times indeed.