European Union
From IBWiki
European Union (EU) is an ongoing, alternative history project, originally created by German author Thorsten.
Instead of having one central point of divergence as do most classical alternate histories, European Union has several:
- Latin did not have the chance to develop into a Romance language in the British Isles and Central Europe, but only in continental Europe
- a group of revolutionaries known as "Bolsheviks" in Russia were not beaten by the White Army, producing a communist government that menaced the "free" world.
- Napoleon attacked Russia, and was defeated at a small town in Belgium called Waterloo.
- The Partitioning of Poland (historical alternative to Veneda and it partitioning) were not stopped by Napoleon, the "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (analagous to the Venedo-Lithuanian Commonwealth) was divided and reëmerged after some 123 years as two separate states called "Poland" and "Lithuania". The Republic of the Two Crowns does not exist in the EU universe.
- There was a revolution in North America, leading to a spectacularly different North America. The NAL-SLC doesn't exist as we know it -- instead it is the territory of a powerful unitary state called the "United States of America".
Constructed language plays an important role in the European Union project. To date there are over twenty languages at varying levels of construction that play a part. Among the languages spoken in the European Union are "Welsh" and "Polish", the latter being a constructed Slavic language, akin to Russian. The name European Union itself is a calque from Greek Ευρώπη and Latin unio.
Also, one of the curious hallmarks of the EU universe is Thorsten's alterations to known technologies that have either fallen out of favor or failed to develop in our world -- for in the EU universe, these back-burner technologies are explored and utilized quite int he forefront. Example: aeroplanes are in greater use, both for war- and peacetime uses. Computers are also highly developed and though there is no information technology centre in Ireland, rather there is a 'Silicon Valley' located in Montréi.
This universe has come under criticism from a number of authors. Some have complained that as with most other alternate history universes made by slipshod authors, there are fewer countries and more powerful federations. For instance, in the northern half of North America, there are only two countries: the "United States" and "Canada", and the Lusoamerican Union (minus Uruguay) is made into the single supercountry of "Brazil". The Russian Federation, of course, exists. Others have criticized the sensationalized history of the universe as being implausible, such as the spectacular destruction of "World War II" started by a hyperbellicose Germany. Other, more minor details have also been called into question. While Veneda is made a Slavic country called "Poland", which is not in and of itself implausible (despite the clumsily artificial name "Poland"), both "Poland" and pagan Lithuania are made Catholic countries. In reality, most experts believe that Poland, being Slavic, would in actuality be an Eastern Orthodox country due to the language difference, and dismiss the possibility of a Catholic Lithuania outright as beyond the realm of possibility.
Due to the small number of participants, European Union functions under two overarching principles:
- Quod Scripsi, Scripsi: What is written is written. Because of the collective nature of the group, proposed revisions to prior "canon" material are subject to review by all members. It is a means of reigning in and channeling everyones' creativity; it protects things that have already been worked out; it helps create continuity between all the threads that make up the tapestry and helps ensure that the tapestry is roughly the same shape at both ends.
- Quod Assumpsi, Assumpsi: What is assumed is assumed, meaning that unless a proposal is given about a particular region of the European Union universe, it is the same as exists in our timeline. This serves both to protect the work of the participants, but also to leave open unexplored areas, that other participants might be involved.
