Chapter 1: The Triumvirate

Earth-4869: alternatehistory. com forum threads the-greater-russian-empire-isot-to-1935.542443 for full details.

During the early 20th century, the Greater Russian Empire, under the rule of Tsar Nicholas II, had conquered much of Eurasia and was rapidly expanding its territories. It is the most powerful empire in history. From China, Korean and Japan in the East to the Arabia Peninsula, Finland, and Anatolia Peninsula in the West, the Russian reigned supreme.

After the WW2 (1945-1951), a new "Treaty for Mutual Defense and Unity", also called the "Konstantinopol Treaty Organization" or KTO to replace the old Rome Pact was signed by the Greater Russian Empire, the Italian Empire, the Kingdom of France, the Fourth German Reich, and the Iberian Union. The agreement of mutual defense, on paper, seemed to emphasize a certain amount of equality between it's members, however it was obvious the Russian would be the dominant force of the Organization due to it's economical and military weight overshadowing the other participants combined.

The Eurasian Community was also founded in 1952. Officially, the EC was a customs union, but in reality it was a protectionist organization that shielded Eurasian markets from American products with high tariff walls, allowing Russian products cheaply made by Eastern Asian labour to dominate Eurasian markets. The fact that the Russian flag on the Eurasian Community's headquarters was twice as big as those of the other member states was telling.

In 1954, most of the world is divided between the three Great Powers. The Greater Russian Empire has the largest Empire in terms of land, the highest population (more than a 800 millions of the world's three billion people). The Franco-British Union, formed through the merger of Free France and Britain, the second-largest in terms of land and has the second highest population, a great deal of it concentrated in the Dominion of India. The United State is the smallest in both land and population but they're safe between two vast oceans.

Russia is top in science and technology, with Franco-British Union and United State roughly equal. The United State is top in agriculture. Franco-British Union is top in heavy industry thanks to the discovery of sakuranium, a room-temperature superconductor. These three nation together are sometimes known as the Triumvirate.

However, not all was calm within the Russian empire's borders. An ongoing guerrilla conflict raged in the Middle East colonies as Russian Army fought against Arab nationalists, who received support from the Americans. This presented a constant challenge for the Russian forces, as they struggled to maintain control over this volatile region.

In 1957, a secret meeting between Colonel Alparslan Türkeş, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Afif al-Bizri to discuss an attack on the Tsar himself. Tsar Nicholas II will have a speech in Mecca two week from now. They have secure a secret weapons from the Russians, 20 kilo of sarin gas enough to kill thousands.

In the early morning in the Grand Mosque, insurgents detonated their sucide bomb contain Sarin gas. The guard try to evacuate Nicholas and Alexei but it was too late. The Tsar and and his heir Tsarevich Alexei were dead.

And the chaos has began.

The News of the death of the Tsar caused an outbreak of massive celebrations across French Cities, especially Paris. And, as history shows many times when it comes to that specific country, it soon began to turn into bigger and bigger protests against the Russian collaborator regime. King Napoléon VI was seen as nothing but a traitorous Russian puppet, and when he began to deploy the police against the protestors, it only sparked greater fury on the French people who began to protest against Napoléon VI and the Russian alike and from there, similar protests began to erupt across the KTO nations and inside the Russian Empire itself, a last huzzah of resistance cells long suppressed. In the former Japan, the Russian governor would be assassinated by a partisan, rebellions breaking out across Japan. In The Russian controled Middle East, partisans and local militias used the chaos in order to seize large amounts of territory in Syria, while the chaos engulfed Egypt. In Lybia, the Italians would have to deal with a General Strike and increased partisan attacks. In the Iberian Union the Protests, many of them led by old republicans, were beginning to escalate into violence. In the German Empire, rebellions breaking out across Dutch territory annexed by the German after WW2.

In the late 1950s, Regent Peter unleashed a wave of violence known as the Muslim Genocide, targeting the Muslim populations throughout the Middle East. The consequences of this genocide were severe, resulting in the collapse of millennia-old civilizations in the region.

As the Genocide continued into the 1960s, the United States and the Franco-British Union (FBU) declared a War of Liberation against the KTO, seeking to free the remaining Muslims from persecution. Recognizing the insurmountable nuclear arsenal possessed by the Russian Empire, the allied forces strategized to limit their attacks to the KTO nations' North African colonies. The aim was to liberate the remaining Muslims from their torment and offer them a chance at freedom from persecution.

On November 10th, 1961, the Third World War erupted, marking a new level of violence and destruction in the conflict.

Before the outbreak of the Third World War, North Africa was home to a diverse array of cultures, including Arabs, Egyptians, Nubians, Maghrebis, Berbers, and Haratins. These communities had coexisted for centuries, fostering rich traditions, languages, and customs that shaped the region's identity. North Africans had built vibrant societies, with bustling marketplaces, intellectual centers, and flourishing agricultural practices.

Regent Peter, the influential figure behind the KTO, adamantly opposed any compromise or negotiation that would end European rule in North Africa. He justified this standpoint by invoking a sense of entitlement and superiority, comparing Africans to bugs and snakes. Such extreme views reflected the deep-seated prejudices prevalent within the KTO leadership and their commitment to maintaining dominance at any cost.

As the Third World War unfolded, it led to an upsurge in Terror attacks until the declaration of a Emergency in 1962 following the Rome bombings. Instead of treating the insurgency in military terms, the Emergency became an "Ideological struggle" for the Konstantinopol Treaty Organization.

The Ministry of Propaganda painted the terrorist strikes as an "Attack on Europe", with the Russian assistance being praised and the effort being painted as a defense of the "Mare Nostrum" and the "Dioecesis Africae" from the African Untermensch. Claiming that the uprising in the Maghreb proved that it was impossible for the African Untermensch races to be assimilated, the army was ordered to bring a final conclusion to the African Problem in Dioecesis Africae.

In order to fully "Pacify" North Africa, KTO instigated a resettlement campaign that would become known as the Second Genocide.

The Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, romanized: an-Nakbah, lit. 'the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"'), also known as the North African Catastrophe, stands as the most devastating events in the history of North Africa. By the end of the Third World War, more than 40 million North African Arabs, Nubians, Maghrebis, Berbers, and Haratins, constituting nearly 80% of the prewar population, were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by KTO militias. This mass exodus tore apart the fabric of North African society, fracturing communities and causing irreparable damage to the cultural, social, and economic structures that had existed for centuries.

Countries around the world scrambled to accept them (and accept the brightest and best of the bunch). The US accepted 300,000, Dominion of Equatorial Africa 8 millions, Dominion of Upper West Africa 5 millions, Dominion of Lower West Africa 5 million, Dominion of East Africa 5 million, the Franco-British East Indies at 15 millions, and Latin American countries collectively some 700,000. It was an unprecedented transfer of human beings, at appalling costs on every level.

After three world wars, the world has settled into a three-way cold war, with the world divided between the equally balanced Great Powers of the Franco-British Union, The United State and Russian Empire.

The Present day - 2020

Science and technology in Earth-4869 are, overall, perhaps a generation more advanced than is the case in the real world. In the field of electrical engineering, Earth-4869 is perhaps a century more advanced, due to the much earlier discovery of sakuranium, a room-temperature superconductor, in 1953. Because of advances in the sciences, the population of the world in the year 2020 is more than ten billion people.

The environmental situation in Earth-4869 is considerably different to that in the real world. The much earlier development of electrical technology using power derived from wind and water, and the somewhat earlier development of nuclear power in this world has led to a much less burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity compared to the real world (fossil fuels instead are used mainly in the plastics industries).

This means that global warming is essentially non-existent in Earth-4869, so weather and climate patterns remain largely unchanged, and in fact some climatologists speculate that the world will soon (in geological terms) be entering a new ice age.

On the other hand, the faster technological development and greater world population in Earth-4869 derived from this (some ten billion people in the year 2020) has led to some resources (such as coal and metals) being used more quickly, though none have yet run out. However, limits of supply and cost have led to wide use of substitutes, either more of inferior materials, or ceramic or plastic materials with similar properties. It has also led to the development of technologies that allow the mining of minerals from the deep sea and in Antarctica. Another effect of this has been the significant pollution of parts of the industrialised world.

The same factors have led to greater depletion of the living world. For example, over-hunting has rendered the north American bison, polar bears and sea otters extinct outside of zoos, while the north Atlantic cod fisheries have all collapsed due to over-fishing.

On the other hand, some species have benefited from the different history of this world. The main one of these is Asian elephants, working members of which species are found across the world, even in advanced nations. In many places, particularly in South America and Australia, but also in parts of Africa, there are also feral Asian elephants. Indian species in general are more widespread than in the real world. Species from Australia, such as kangaroos and emus, are also found across most of the world, where they are bred for food.

Working elephants have been used a great deal in the past, not just in India but around the world. For example, in some European countries working elephants were used to pull canal boats. Even after mechanical engines were developed, in some places elephants have remained in use simply because they are better under those specific conditions.

Another environmental issue is the amount of radioactivity released into the environment over the years. This comes from a number of sources, including the nuclear attacks carried out during the Third World War, the use of nuclear pulse-drive spaceships and various other nuclear incidents and accidents down the years. This has all significantly raised the global level of background radiation, with of its associated increased health risks.

World politics is polarising into Neo-Traditionalists and Progressive ideological blocs, and these have quite different views of the direction the world should take in the future.

Were the Neo-Traditionalists to win, they would wish to maintain the status quo, both in terms of politics, and also in terms of where the biological sciences take humanity. Unfortunately for them, it is very unlikely that they would be able to prevent progress and change even so, as otherwise they will be left behind scientifically and economically by the Progressive nations.

If the Progressives win out, there is still a great deal of disagreement among them over the best way forward for the world, and for mankind. Some wish humankind to be left alone, although science may be used to its fullest to improve the world for mankind. Others wish to modify and consciously evolve humanity in different ways, from the idea of a 'policeman in every head' espoused by some hard-core supporters of the Panopticon movement, to the concept of creating god-like 'superhumans' supported by some of the New Frenchmen movement, some of the leaders of the Russian Empire, and many extreme US libertarians.

Unless one group takes control of all of the world, it is quite likely that the human species will radically change and diverge into new groups over the coming decades, with the potential for racism and war that that entails. Although unlikely, one or other of the two sides may fall from internal political or economic stresses, giving the world to the other by default. Without this, there is likely to be a series of wars until some final, decisive war is fought, perhaps using some new technology to advance that gives one side an overwhelming advantage. Which side having ultimate victory would be best for humanity as a whole is difficult to say. With either of these outcomes it is unlikely that freedom and democracy will become the worlds dominant political paradigms...

But fate has a different plan for this world.