Basic Geopolitics
So, what does the world look like?
This is a follow up article to my "Why the 1970s" article. In the first article, I explained why I want to write a campaign setting that uses Eberron inspired magitech, but that pulls from the 1970s instead of the 1920s and 1930s. I also dropped the detail in that article about how my setting puts the magitech on top of an 18th Century tech level, instead of starting with a Medieval tech level like Eberron does. This was supposed to be the article where I explain the tech level and how that interacts with the 1970s themes in more detail, but I started out with basic geopolitics, and ended up writing what is really its own article.
This is an Americana setting
I want to lay that out first. This is a campaign setting that is trying really hard to dive deep into Americana, with American history, geography, pop culture, mythology, and such being very prominent. That is why this article uses real world country names throughout, despite being set in a fantasy world. The fantasy is very much intended to be a direct reflection of and commentary on America, and therefore, the other countries in this world are also reflections on countries America has deep relationships with.
What is The Long 18th Century, anyway?
This is a term that refers to a period within British history, but the term does not have an agreed upon definition. If we ask Wikipedia, we get the following definition:
The long 18th century is a phrase used by many British historians to cover a more natural historical period than the simple use of the standard calendar definition of the eighteenth century (1 January 1701 to 31 December 1800). They expand the century to include larger British and Western European historical movements, with their subsequent "long" 18th century typically running from the Glorious Revolution and the beginning of the Nine Years' War in 1688 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Other definitions, perhaps those with a more social or global interest, extend the period further to, for example, from the Stuart Restoration in 1660 to the end of the Georgian era. Possibly the earliest proponent of the long eighteenth century was Sir John Robert Seeley, who in 1883 defined the eighteenth century as "the period which begins with the Revolution of 1688 and ends with the peace of 1815".
It's not important to dig into why this term exists, but what is important is to know that when I use the phrase "Long 18th Century" or even "18th Century" in describing this campaign setting, I use the definition that goes from the Stuart Restoration to the end of the Georgian Era. That means roughly 1660 to 1830.
That's a long time period
It is a long time period, and to be fair, largely this setting uses that 1830 number, rather than the earlier number. The range is important, though, because it provides the context that this campaign setting is situated at the end of the era of the flintlock firearm, and a couple decades away from the end of the Age of Sail. Essentially, this setting does still use flintlocks and sailing ships as everyday technologies, but is getting pretty close to developing replacements to both of those technologies. Which answers some questions about why magitech hasn't come up with better firearms or ships. That's going to happen pretty soon, it's just taking a bit of time. It also enables one of our first deep cuts to the 1970s.
The Bicentennial
1976 was the 200th Anniversary of the founding of the United States, and was widely celebrated at the time. This is a really great detail for this campaign setting. The setting gets into a lot of the difficult things going on politically in the 1970s, and some of the zeitgeist of the nation having a "nervous breakdown" or a "hangover" after the 1960s. That is a fascinating thing to juxtapose with the 200th Anniversary of the Republic.
So, we want to have 200 years between the Revolution and the Current Day. The English Civil Wars were fought between 1642 and 1651, and I think the hats and fashion were pretty cool. That's close enough to 200 years from 1830 that I think it's fair to say this was the tech and fashion of the Revolution.
What about the other wars
I don't think the American Civil War is as important to know about, but I imagine it happened and was fought at a time where tricorn hats were standard headwear. The World Wars are more important, and I kinda compare those to the Napoleonic Wars. So the "Napoleon Has Returned" moment happened after 2 decades and led to more than half a decade of war, rather than one campaign. Also feels right to put this on the French rather than Germans, and have it fought wearing shakos.
The big divergence from IRL here is, because these are World War stand ins, the United States is involved, and the second war in particular is really marking the beginning of the end of the European Colonial Period. In fact, I think that the Americans and Germans taking a larger role in beating the French in the second war than the British could be this universe's Suez Crisis moment, as in, a time where it becomes clear the British Empire is now surpassed by the United States on the world stage, a deeply humiliating thing for the British. Given how central to British pride the Napoleonic Wars are, I think that's very fitting.
I kinda want to come out and say I'm not too interested in having Nazis in this world. Napoleonic French Nazis don't really make sense to me. I don't want to be one of those people who glorifies Napoleon, but he's not that kind of evil and I don't think it would fit. I think it likely he comes back after 20 years much more rigid and authoritarian than he was during the first war, because narratively the US needs to be able to portray this as a war of Democracy against Totalitarianism, and I can buy "He stewed in exile for 20 years and developed some pretty shitty attitudes he didn't have before". What I can't buy is "Napoleon is openly genocidal", it doesn't really fit. This also, tangentially, means that the UK is a parliamentary democracy, just like the IRL 1910s and 1940s UK, meaning Britain versus Napoleon here is actually a "Democracy vs Monarchy" fight in a way the IRL Napoleonic Wars never were. This also sets up the Cold War with Germany as the opponent, not Russia.
So what about the Germans?
I want to stick with the No Nazis rule. I thought about the Cold War being with a military nationalist Germany, but I'm just not feeling it. I kinda feel like we need Communists to make this work. I'm no Tankie, I do think the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic were deeply repressive countries that did bad things and had weaker economies than the West, but I do think there are persuasive arguments for Communist policies. There are reasons a good person would find Communism attractive, which isn't something you can say about Fascism, which is why there always was some presence of Communists in the American counterculture. It's a very complicated discussion, which from a writing perspective is a good thing, and is much more interesting than "Our Cold War nemesis are Fascists". Which is to say, the Germans in this world are Communists. And I mean, the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital were originally published in German, the native language of Marx and Engels, so this fits thematically.
Wait, what about Korea and Vietnam?
These are the two most recent wars, and the ones most directly relevant to the narrative, but these are actually the least changed wars.
Let's start with Japan in the Second World War. It's played straight. I said no Nazis, because thematically they don't make sense, but Imperial Japan makes a lot of sense. The Long 18th Century is, well, one of the two big eras of European Colonialism, and post World War 2 is the era of decolonialism, and of brushfire wars in former colonies.
The thing about Imperial Japan is, while they did commit horrific war crimes and genocide, the specific things Japan did are within the norm for a colonial power establishing control after an invasion. This is not in any way a defense of Imperial Japan, it is a condemnation of all colonial empires, because the sorts of violence Japan got up to is what colonialism fundamentally is. Which is another way of saying, everything Japan did, the British, French, Germans, Spanish, Portuguese, and Americans have done at some point in their history. Japan isn't unique, so much as it is the most recent example, and that means that Imperial Japan kind of comes in as a reflection of the Europeans' past. The main change is that Japan probably isn't at all aligned with France during the second World War, given that Japan invaded French territory in Indochina. Which is fine, in real life, Japan and Germany barely acted like allies, if they did at all, and German assistance to China prewar was basically undermining Japanese interests. We can drop the idea of there being an Axis and have two separate wars going on simultaneously, with the French maybe declaring war on the US to enable strikes on US merchant shipping to the UK while the French perceive the US to be focused on Japan (a bad assumption on their part, it turned out).
Of course, it's the 1970s and it's not Imperial Japan anymore. Japan is a democracy and an American ally. The past still matters, though, as without the Nazis, the Japanese get singled out in WW2 as the War Crimes People. Which gets very racist, very quickly, with people blaming Japanese culture for the brutality, and saying these crimes are something inherent within the Japanese psyche. Which, if you know your real history, isn't true, Japan was known for good treatment of POWs in 1905, and Japanese society today certainly isn't violent or militaristic. It's hypocritical racism, especially given that as I just said, the Europeans have committed the exact same evils Japan committed, yet don't decry their own cultures as uniquely brutal or bloodthirsty.
The other thing is, yes, the war ended with a magical equivalent to atomic weapons, and it was Japan that got hit, I think that's another thing that really makes sense to play straight.
This leads us into Korea, where I honestly think, other than the war being fought with magitech, there need to be any actual changes in the fundamentals of what happened. What happened works perfectly well for what I'm going for. A quick note is that prior to WW2, Germany was very friendly with China. We can reference that by having Germany replace the USSR in the history of Sino-Soviet relations, meaning Germany can take the place of the USSR in the Korean War narrative. Which also means that, yes, the US fought China in Korea, and then later there was a Sino-German split.
Vietnam is another one that really works fine with the existing politics and factions, except for replacing the Soviets with the Germans. Yes the weapons tech is different, and so are the specifics of the military tactics used, but strategically, geopolitically, and culturally, it's the same war. I do kind of compare the tactics used to the Peninsular War a bit, as my preferred example of a guerilla war with flintlocks, but it's not a 1 to 1 fit because of the difference in terrain, since I've kept the Vietnam War in Vietnam. By keeping most of the broad brush details the same, it makes it a lot easier for players to write Vietnam veteran characters, since there's not a lot of differences to remember than would impact a story about a veteran post-war.
So, geopolitics recap
What we're basically establishing here is the broad brush geopolitics. We have the United States closely allied with the United Kingdom, Western Europe (I want to call out France as having become a US ally post WW2, just like West Germany IRL), Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, all US allies and all except South Korea and Taiwan being democracies. Opposing them is the German led Comintern, with Eastern Europe and Russia and Cuba being Comintern. China is Communist, but we've had the "Only Nixon Could Go to China" moment, so China is more frenemies with the US than an adversary, and isn't aligned with the Comintern (Sino-German split and all). We've made some big changes to the European side of both World Wars, but the Pacific War has almost no meaningful changes in terms of who did what and who's ended up sided with who. Canada and Mexico haven't been brought up at all, but that doesn't mean they aren't deeply important, as American allies, it's more that there just aren't any geopolitical changes to talk about. These are two more countries that largely make sense as having mostly similar relationships to the US as their real life counterparts.
Given this is an Americana setting that wants to later expand by adding a 1970s Britain campaign frame, this should be enough geopolitical information to flesh out what needs fleshing out.