general_tiu
10-21-2010, 03:47 AM
This timeline was inspired by Chris' post, probably even ripped it out. I am thinking of a Gundam timeline that was original but contained elements from the canon Gundam timelines [and there are seven of them]. So here's my take and the first part.
2010s-2050s
The worsening economic crisis had sparked further unrest, with cutbacks in government spending. A scandal in the European Parliament involving bribes between its parliamentary members, as well as scandals in the national parliaments, had caused many officials to be arrested, or being forced to run for their, or rather, take their own lives.
The scandal had repercussions in the European Union. Integration of various European states was almost halted. Many of the more powerful nations in the EU formed their own power blocs. France for example had its own power bloc, shared by Spain and Italy, as well as Germany, which had formed its own power bloc in Eastern Europe using the German banks as leverage. Britain is considering to minimize its European Union commitments and has already influenced Ireland and the Commonwealth states of Cyprus and Malta. The Scandinavians formed their own power bloc. The maverick in the European blocks is Poland, who didn't like the idea of the European Union being turned into a German-dominated bloc, given its history.
In America, irregularities and factional infighting in the Democratic Party had deflated the chance of Barack Obama to be re-elected. Coupled with that is the prevalence of independent, "Tea Party", and Republican candidates, not to mention the sudden emerging of a dark horse United States Nationalist Party, using the dolphin as its symbol. The basic problems confronting America and its new Republican president were great, and uses tax cuts to improve the economy.
A good majority of al-Qaeda leadership, including Bin Laden himself, were killed in clashes in the Afghan-Pakistani border. Although the Islamist threat subsided, it was still present.
With the UN and the EU with financial problems, the Palestinian territories had experienced more hardship than ever. Still many of its leadership refuse compromise with Israel, and the new US President being very pro-Israel, the situation looked worse.
Iraq had undergone some trouble after Iraqi Kurdistan declared independence after a row about more autonomy. Although the situation might degenerate into another civil war, it was eventually defused. Turkey was deterred from intervening in Iraqi Kurdistan; it was decided that Kurdish Turks were allowed to emigrate to the Kurdish homeland. The rest of Iraq, meanwhile, had stabilized into a democracy, largely free from the burden of violence, and the Kurds.
Kim Jong-il had bit the dust in 2012, December 21 as a matter of fact. Only a huge storm in the Atlantic was there any "proof" of Doomsday. In any case, the world didn't end. Kim Jong-un cannot assert power though he succeeded him; the power of the generals as well as Kim's family is too strong to enable him to control the country effectively. Turns out, Kim was a genuine reformist who once said, if the North Korean people were to be re-unified by the South, it must be economically sound. North Korea's economy had degenerated even more.
This situation had forced other Asian countries to follow stringent measures. South Korea, after a hard decision, decides to secretly build nuclear weapons. Taiwan followed suit, having the technology already to produce bombs. The wildcard turned out to be Japan, which after a North Korean missile had hit Mount Fuji, had decided that their total pacifism had utterly failed and barely amended Article 9 of the 1945 Japanese Constitution. It also built nuclear weapons secretly; the destruction of a very small asteroid threatening the International Space Station by an "anti-asteroid device" by the JASDF had many in Beijing, Seoul, Pyongyang, even Taipei, Moscow and Washington, almost batshit insane. However, even China could do little about it, now that it was preparing to invade Taiwan.
Russia re-asserts its influence between the ex-Soviet states. However, the Baltics escaped Russian domination due to Polish and Scandinavian intervention. Surprisingly, not one ex-Soviet state was annexed by Russia, not even Belarus. As a matter of fact, Russia had LOST more territory by granting some of the more troublesome Northern Caucasian states such as Chechnya independence just to appease them. It didn't stop the terror bombings by Islamists, who were now weakened by the deaths of Bin Laden, but it did stabilized the region for good. The US and the European states were unable to intervene, and never did so because Russia had granted some of the troublesome Northern Caucasian states independence.
The European Union is reduced effectively into a talking shop, though it did not collapse. The Commonwealth of Nations, on the other hand, grew in strength after Britain tries to re-invest their energies there. More rightist governments had taken over. Although in Germany, for example, a new right-wing party had taken over, it was not neo-Nazi as their detractors claimed. More rightist governments took over in Spain, Portugal, and France.
A Helium 3 powered fusion system was invented, by a Filipino scientist, and turned out to be practical. It boosted and revived interest in space exploration, and the dreams of sci-fi writers had becoming more true than ever. The US invests more money in NASA and had a former USAF officer to run NASA. Private corporations such as Virgin had been given tax breaks to develop SSTO systems and do private work in space. That same Filipino scientist later encourage the fledgling Philippine nation to invest their future in space and end their overdependence with other rich nations. In time, slowly but surely, by the 2050s, it regained its position as the leading nation of South East Asia, and uses its power of the helium-powered fusion system to curb the other ASEAN nations' power. The United States had greater benefits, though, having the better funds and technology, but Russia, Japan, Korea, and the European states also benefit as well as other First and Second World nations.
Meanwhile, conservation is the rule of the day. By the 2020s, technology had been developed for power conservation, creating viable battery-powered cars. Oil then has since relegated into the manufacture of petrochemicals rather than as energy source, although the peak oil that was expected turned out to be mainly a shock. Battery-powered cars had created a revolution; pollution had been curbed, and also made a region insane.
Middle Eastern states had been affected by the oil glut, although due to petrochemicals, were still able to hold on. But not for longer. Iraq, and Kurdistan, had been wise enough to diversify their economy, as well as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Not so much in Saudi Arabia. Fattened enough by oil funds, the Saudi leaders' finances had tottered; investment to the Gulf States had dried up. Islamists had been briefly revived by the collapse of the Gulf States, but they did not held for long as they needed the Westerners. The infrastructure of Gulf States had collapsed. Iran had blown into pieces but was restored as a weak democracy, even though it had to cede territory to the Kurds, the Azeris, the Pakistanis, as well as a Azadi kingdom in western Iran with Tabriz as capital.
This had caused some panic, now people were concerned at who will control Mecca. So the Egyptians, Jordanians, Iraqis, Turks, Kurds, and Iranians had tried to control the Holy Cities; the Jordanians won control, and with good reason. Prior to the rise of the House of Saud, the Hashemites had once controlled Mecca and Medina, now with the rightful guardians in place, it also solves the Palestinian problem; by reintegrating them back to the United Hashemite Kingdoms of Jordan, Palestine, and Hejaz, and the Jordanian King had announced a formal apology against the Palestinians. While many Palestinians doubt the wisdom of rejoining Jordan, many accept it, as their economy is still in tatters and the only viable alternative besides being annexed by Israel. The Palestinians get many benefits and eventually talk of Palestinian independence died down completely. Hashemite Arabia, as it was called, was one of the most prosperous states in the Middle East. The rest of the peninsula were stabilized by Iraq, though it never annexed any territory.
A North Korean general had staged an assassination of Kim Jong-un and gets away with it. He then attacks not South Korea, as it was expected, but China.
China in the meanwhile, had reached its economic breaking point. Strikes and riots are getting common. Ethnic minorities such as the Tibetans had been agitating for independence. The deathblow was in Manchuria, where the rather poor economic conditions there had enabled the disgruntled miners and factory workers to rally to a political movement to separate Manchuria from China. The leader was a pretender to the Qing and Manchukuo dynasty throne. The government in Beijing tried to crush the movement, but it turns out that the forces sent against the separatists had defected, including their generals. Beijing had asked the North Koreans for help. However, the North Korean forces were overwhelmed by the "Manchus", who had a nuclear weapons aimed against them. These weapons, tactical in nature and of low yield, had destroyed whatever North Korea had of a nuclear weapons in one single stroke, and as well as four North Korean field armies. Although the Manchurian rebels could use the nuclear weapons against the rest of China, for mysterious reasons, it didn't so, though retaliation by the rest of China is a factor. A "Manchu" taskforce had killed the entire North Korean leadership in Pyongyang, including the North Korean general, and infamously flew the yellow Manchukuo flag that was also the flag of the rebel movement. The South Koreans were concerned that the rebels' plan seemed to be more like genocide of the Korean people rather than the overthrow of the North Korean communist regime; so it proposed to the remnants of the North Korean forces to band together and expel the "Manchus" and Chinese who were now overruning Northern Korea. The North Koreans, without hope, accepted it. He also reasoned out with the "Manchu" rebels to side with the Koreans, and so a cease fire was instituted with the Manchu and Korean government.Korea had been reunited with a price, and Manchukuo was restored. By the 2050s, both are technically called Empires again, convincing Japan to become officially an empire again.
However, the Chinese had been trying to avenge their defeat, and attempted to use their remaining loyalists. However, the Russians stabbed them on the backs when Moscow had listened to the Uyghur rebels in Kashgar and stepped in; New Delhi had listened to the Tibetans and the ethnic Chinese who were fed up by Chinese interference in their government and had sent their force to Lhasa. This had provoked the Pakistanis and Chinese, who used their atomic weapons against India. India, however, had got them first by nuking Chongqing despite their no first-strike policy. While China did survive as a rump state composed mainly of East Xinjiang, and Eastern Tibet along with the majority of China proper, the convulsion had spread further. The southern provinces had defected to the Taiwanese, along with the PLA units there. The loyalists tried to stop them, but the ROC and the southern rebels were too well-armed. A ceasefire was initiated, and China was to be divided into China, still called the People's Republic but only mildly democratic-socialist, and the Republic of China, whom despite its reappearance in the mainland, had still its capital in Taipei.
It also had repercussions in Southeast Asia. The military junta of Myanmar had been overthrown not just by pro-democracy rebels and druglords, but by Indians and Bangladeshis as well as Thais. Burma since then had evolved into a confederation.
Rudimentary mechs are being experimented in the USA, Europe, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan, the last being named the Mobile Suit, and a humanoid one, albeit unwieldy.
2010s-2050s
The worsening economic crisis had sparked further unrest, with cutbacks in government spending. A scandal in the European Parliament involving bribes between its parliamentary members, as well as scandals in the national parliaments, had caused many officials to be arrested, or being forced to run for their, or rather, take their own lives.
The scandal had repercussions in the European Union. Integration of various European states was almost halted. Many of the more powerful nations in the EU formed their own power blocs. France for example had its own power bloc, shared by Spain and Italy, as well as Germany, which had formed its own power bloc in Eastern Europe using the German banks as leverage. Britain is considering to minimize its European Union commitments and has already influenced Ireland and the Commonwealth states of Cyprus and Malta. The Scandinavians formed their own power bloc. The maverick in the European blocks is Poland, who didn't like the idea of the European Union being turned into a German-dominated bloc, given its history.
In America, irregularities and factional infighting in the Democratic Party had deflated the chance of Barack Obama to be re-elected. Coupled with that is the prevalence of independent, "Tea Party", and Republican candidates, not to mention the sudden emerging of a dark horse United States Nationalist Party, using the dolphin as its symbol. The basic problems confronting America and its new Republican president were great, and uses tax cuts to improve the economy.
A good majority of al-Qaeda leadership, including Bin Laden himself, were killed in clashes in the Afghan-Pakistani border. Although the Islamist threat subsided, it was still present.
With the UN and the EU with financial problems, the Palestinian territories had experienced more hardship than ever. Still many of its leadership refuse compromise with Israel, and the new US President being very pro-Israel, the situation looked worse.
Iraq had undergone some trouble after Iraqi Kurdistan declared independence after a row about more autonomy. Although the situation might degenerate into another civil war, it was eventually defused. Turkey was deterred from intervening in Iraqi Kurdistan; it was decided that Kurdish Turks were allowed to emigrate to the Kurdish homeland. The rest of Iraq, meanwhile, had stabilized into a democracy, largely free from the burden of violence, and the Kurds.
Kim Jong-il had bit the dust in 2012, December 21 as a matter of fact. Only a huge storm in the Atlantic was there any "proof" of Doomsday. In any case, the world didn't end. Kim Jong-un cannot assert power though he succeeded him; the power of the generals as well as Kim's family is too strong to enable him to control the country effectively. Turns out, Kim was a genuine reformist who once said, if the North Korean people were to be re-unified by the South, it must be economically sound. North Korea's economy had degenerated even more.
This situation had forced other Asian countries to follow stringent measures. South Korea, after a hard decision, decides to secretly build nuclear weapons. Taiwan followed suit, having the technology already to produce bombs. The wildcard turned out to be Japan, which after a North Korean missile had hit Mount Fuji, had decided that their total pacifism had utterly failed and barely amended Article 9 of the 1945 Japanese Constitution. It also built nuclear weapons secretly; the destruction of a very small asteroid threatening the International Space Station by an "anti-asteroid device" by the JASDF had many in Beijing, Seoul, Pyongyang, even Taipei, Moscow and Washington, almost batshit insane. However, even China could do little about it, now that it was preparing to invade Taiwan.
Russia re-asserts its influence between the ex-Soviet states. However, the Baltics escaped Russian domination due to Polish and Scandinavian intervention. Surprisingly, not one ex-Soviet state was annexed by Russia, not even Belarus. As a matter of fact, Russia had LOST more territory by granting some of the more troublesome Northern Caucasian states such as Chechnya independence just to appease them. It didn't stop the terror bombings by Islamists, who were now weakened by the deaths of Bin Laden, but it did stabilized the region for good. The US and the European states were unable to intervene, and never did so because Russia had granted some of the troublesome Northern Caucasian states independence.
The European Union is reduced effectively into a talking shop, though it did not collapse. The Commonwealth of Nations, on the other hand, grew in strength after Britain tries to re-invest their energies there. More rightist governments had taken over. Although in Germany, for example, a new right-wing party had taken over, it was not neo-Nazi as their detractors claimed. More rightist governments took over in Spain, Portugal, and France.
A Helium 3 powered fusion system was invented, by a Filipino scientist, and turned out to be practical. It boosted and revived interest in space exploration, and the dreams of sci-fi writers had becoming more true than ever. The US invests more money in NASA and had a former USAF officer to run NASA. Private corporations such as Virgin had been given tax breaks to develop SSTO systems and do private work in space. That same Filipino scientist later encourage the fledgling Philippine nation to invest their future in space and end their overdependence with other rich nations. In time, slowly but surely, by the 2050s, it regained its position as the leading nation of South East Asia, and uses its power of the helium-powered fusion system to curb the other ASEAN nations' power. The United States had greater benefits, though, having the better funds and technology, but Russia, Japan, Korea, and the European states also benefit as well as other First and Second World nations.
Meanwhile, conservation is the rule of the day. By the 2020s, technology had been developed for power conservation, creating viable battery-powered cars. Oil then has since relegated into the manufacture of petrochemicals rather than as energy source, although the peak oil that was expected turned out to be mainly a shock. Battery-powered cars had created a revolution; pollution had been curbed, and also made a region insane.
Middle Eastern states had been affected by the oil glut, although due to petrochemicals, were still able to hold on. But not for longer. Iraq, and Kurdistan, had been wise enough to diversify their economy, as well as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Not so much in Saudi Arabia. Fattened enough by oil funds, the Saudi leaders' finances had tottered; investment to the Gulf States had dried up. Islamists had been briefly revived by the collapse of the Gulf States, but they did not held for long as they needed the Westerners. The infrastructure of Gulf States had collapsed. Iran had blown into pieces but was restored as a weak democracy, even though it had to cede territory to the Kurds, the Azeris, the Pakistanis, as well as a Azadi kingdom in western Iran with Tabriz as capital.
This had caused some panic, now people were concerned at who will control Mecca. So the Egyptians, Jordanians, Iraqis, Turks, Kurds, and Iranians had tried to control the Holy Cities; the Jordanians won control, and with good reason. Prior to the rise of the House of Saud, the Hashemites had once controlled Mecca and Medina, now with the rightful guardians in place, it also solves the Palestinian problem; by reintegrating them back to the United Hashemite Kingdoms of Jordan, Palestine, and Hejaz, and the Jordanian King had announced a formal apology against the Palestinians. While many Palestinians doubt the wisdom of rejoining Jordan, many accept it, as their economy is still in tatters and the only viable alternative besides being annexed by Israel. The Palestinians get many benefits and eventually talk of Palestinian independence died down completely. Hashemite Arabia, as it was called, was one of the most prosperous states in the Middle East. The rest of the peninsula were stabilized by Iraq, though it never annexed any territory.
A North Korean general had staged an assassination of Kim Jong-un and gets away with it. He then attacks not South Korea, as it was expected, but China.
China in the meanwhile, had reached its economic breaking point. Strikes and riots are getting common. Ethnic minorities such as the Tibetans had been agitating for independence. The deathblow was in Manchuria, where the rather poor economic conditions there had enabled the disgruntled miners and factory workers to rally to a political movement to separate Manchuria from China. The leader was a pretender to the Qing and Manchukuo dynasty throne. The government in Beijing tried to crush the movement, but it turns out that the forces sent against the separatists had defected, including their generals. Beijing had asked the North Koreans for help. However, the North Korean forces were overwhelmed by the "Manchus", who had a nuclear weapons aimed against them. These weapons, tactical in nature and of low yield, had destroyed whatever North Korea had of a nuclear weapons in one single stroke, and as well as four North Korean field armies. Although the Manchurian rebels could use the nuclear weapons against the rest of China, for mysterious reasons, it didn't so, though retaliation by the rest of China is a factor. A "Manchu" taskforce had killed the entire North Korean leadership in Pyongyang, including the North Korean general, and infamously flew the yellow Manchukuo flag that was also the flag of the rebel movement. The South Koreans were concerned that the rebels' plan seemed to be more like genocide of the Korean people rather than the overthrow of the North Korean communist regime; so it proposed to the remnants of the North Korean forces to band together and expel the "Manchus" and Chinese who were now overruning Northern Korea. The North Koreans, without hope, accepted it. He also reasoned out with the "Manchu" rebels to side with the Koreans, and so a cease fire was instituted with the Manchu and Korean government.Korea had been reunited with a price, and Manchukuo was restored. By the 2050s, both are technically called Empires again, convincing Japan to become officially an empire again.
However, the Chinese had been trying to avenge their defeat, and attempted to use their remaining loyalists. However, the Russians stabbed them on the backs when Moscow had listened to the Uyghur rebels in Kashgar and stepped in; New Delhi had listened to the Tibetans and the ethnic Chinese who were fed up by Chinese interference in their government and had sent their force to Lhasa. This had provoked the Pakistanis and Chinese, who used their atomic weapons against India. India, however, had got them first by nuking Chongqing despite their no first-strike policy. While China did survive as a rump state composed mainly of East Xinjiang, and Eastern Tibet along with the majority of China proper, the convulsion had spread further. The southern provinces had defected to the Taiwanese, along with the PLA units there. The loyalists tried to stop them, but the ROC and the southern rebels were too well-armed. A ceasefire was initiated, and China was to be divided into China, still called the People's Republic but only mildly democratic-socialist, and the Republic of China, whom despite its reappearance in the mainland, had still its capital in Taipei.
It also had repercussions in Southeast Asia. The military junta of Myanmar had been overthrown not just by pro-democracy rebels and druglords, but by Indians and Bangladeshis as well as Thais. Burma since then had evolved into a confederation.
Rudimentary mechs are being experimented in the USA, Europe, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan, the last being named the Mobile Suit, and a humanoid one, albeit unwieldy.