Timeline 1901-2012 (Easternized World)

The Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries of the world would be times of great technological advancement. The first several decades would be filled with conflict as empires and dictators fell, and in the latter part of this era there would be many conflicts over the resources located in the rest of the solar system, yet for the most part, humanity benefitted from this century. It was a time of invention, liberalization and of prosperity.

Instability and Expansion of the Byzantine Republic
The PERDR, or the Peoples' Eastern Roman Democratic Republic, entered this century as the most feared nation in the world. Many small nations like Hungary and Czechoslovakia had fallen to the Byzantines, and their thirst for expansion continued. They were driven by their feared leader, Baltazar Georgopoulos, who celebrated a huge propaganda victory with the Byztantines being the fourth nation to land a man on the moon in 1904 (after Meixikou, Japan, and India). However, after his death in 1905, great political instability and strife gripped the Byzantine Republic, with the next several leaders barely lasting for a single year. The eventual successor, Hector Laskaris, would come to power in 1909, desperate for some external force to keep his nation from collapsing. He began building up the military to even greater extents, using even more propaganda and being even harsher than Georgopoulos. Tensions between the Byzantine Greeks and the rest of Europe were high...

However, it was northern Africa which would first be a test of Byzantine strength. The nation of Libya had been consumed by war from its inception, as non-Muslim minorities fought against the massive waves of Muslim immigration. The Muslims had won, but they were very unstable. It only took a slight push from Byzantine spies to start communist rebellions, that were then funded and armed by the PEDR. When Libya went into chaos, the Byzantine forces swooped into Libya in 1911, placing an allied communist government in place. Meixikou, crediting isolationism for its success, did nothing. Japan, fearing that another war could send it down the same path of China and Sri Vijaya, did nothing. India and Vijayanagar sent empty threats, telling the Byzantines to stop. Laskaris swore that would be the last revolution he would help. He lied.

The PEDR then began doing the very same tactics to Arabia and Egypt, destabilizing both nations. In 1913, Byzantine forces swept into Egypt, aiding revolutionary forces there which had been almost totally funded and supplied from PEDR. Egypt, covered in propaganda stating that they would unite the world into one nation, joined PEDR directly in 1915. The next year, in 1916, the Byzantines began to start a revolution in Arabia. The Arabs managed to unite and hold them off for a while, but they too were placed under a communist government in 1919. India and Vijayanagar sent empty threats again. The rest of the world did nothing. Laskaris and the PEDR seemed unstoppable.

The West China War
The Army of God, an attempt to make a Christian theocracy out of the remains of the Byzantine Empire, had fallen on rough times. After their defeat in 1873, they had fled north, to Orthodox areas such as eastern Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Georgia. However, as the PERDR slowly moved northward, conquering nation after nation, the Army of God was forced to flee into Chinese territory in 1889. They found the European areas of China to be religiously diverse. Poland had converted to Lundellism, a Protestant Christian movement which was founded by Mattias Lundell in Sweden after the fall of the Catholic Church to the Sri Vijayans. The Russian areas still had a large Eastern Orthodox population, but an equally large Buddhist population, with many following both religions. The Khazar areas were primarily a mixture of Judaism and Buddhism, and Bulgaria was Buddhist. Thus, Ukraine seemed to be the most Christian area.

For a long time, the Army of God/Ukrainian nationalists were percieved by the Chinese government as simply being a group of crazy terrorists. However, as disatisfaction with the Chinese government grew, so did the number of recruits to the Army of God. By 1909, they had plunged Ukraine into chaos. A few of the radical orthodox Christians in Russia joined as well, with even less radical Christians joining a general Russian nationalist movement. The chaos in western Chinese territory continued, despite China attempting to stop the war. Pretty soon, even Buddhists and Lundellians joining the nationalist movements. After years of fighting, China finally granted Ukraine and Russia their independence in 1918. Kola was ceded to Finland.

Ukraine quickly fell under an Orthodox theocracy, while Russia remained a secular, if authoritarian, state. Following the loss of these territories, Poland was granted semi-autonomy in 1920 and full independence 2 years later. Germany later broke free of Chinese influence.

Technological Advancement
Despite the woes occuring in Europe and west Asia and northern Africa, the nations of India, Japan, Korea, and Meixikou (and to a lesser extent Vijayanagar and China and Sri Vijaya) continued to technologically advance. By 1904, 15% of Japan's energy came from nuclear power plants. The first space shuttle was made in year 1909. Meanwhile, advances in computer technology continued, with the first personal computer becoming availible in 1915, and a primitive internet became availible by 1925. The human genome, after years of research, was finally decoded in 1920. The first video games, an industry pioneered in Japan, were invented during this time. Sri Vijaya's economy began to experience a comeback during this time due to all of the new technologies. Korea, traditionally isolationist with only one remaining colony, Hawaii, decided to become a more interventionist nation and was a pioneer in internet techologies.

Beginning
After the fall of Arabia, Baltazar Laskaris found himself in a fix. There was no way that he would be able to start a revolution in Ukraine: the people there hated the communists and it would require him to genocide the Ukrainians. If he attacked Persia, that may be too close to India for India's comfort and they might attack the PERDR. Expansion into the rest of Europe would result in coming into conflict with Germany and Poland, which, although no longer controlled by China, nonetheless had parted from the Chinese all allied nations. Expansion into the Italian areas could result in Sri Vijaya helping their former protectorates, and would probably result in the western European nations all banding together. Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the Sahara had already had a communist revolution while they had their period of instability before Laskaris could take control; and the government there, although Communist, was no friend to the Byzantines. Attacking China directly seemed to be out of the question. Chad and Ethiopia seemed like the best choices to attack.

Laskaris chose to attack Ethiopia in 1922, to topple the Ethiopian Emperor and make it a puppet state. He assumed that, just like with the Czechoslovaks and the Hungarians and the peoples of the Caucasus, just like with the Egyptians and Arabs and Libyans, that no other nation would come to Ethiopia's aid.

He was wrong.

Following the invasion of Ethiopia, the Emperor travelled to a joint security conference between India, Vijayanagar, and Meixikou, and gave a stirring speech, begging them to help his nation. Due to fears that the PEDR would continue to expand like crazy, and sympathy for the Ethiopians, those three nations agreed. As the speech was broadcast all over the world, public opinion was in favor of the Ethiopians. The Sri Vijayan protectorates in Europe, as well as Germany and Persia, also agreed to help.

The War
The war was fought in two fronts: the European front and the Afro-Arabian front. The European front was initially the stronger area for the Byzantines, with the PERDR forces, led by the famed general Anatoly Sigalos quickly taking the Austrian areas of Germany and the Italian state of Venice. However, after these initial victories, Byzantine progress slowed down immensely. Meanwhile, their initial attack on Persia had backfired, and combined Persian/Indian/Vijayanagaran troops had pushed them out of Persia and were on the verge of joining up with rebellion groups in the Caucasus and among the Kurds and forcing their way into Byzantine territory.

Meanwhile, the Coptic-Speaking, Coptic Christian Egyptians, united as one nation after long years of being under Egyptian rule, revolted as soon as the Anti-Communists forced the Byzantines out of Ethiopia with the help of Ethiopian nationalists. By 1924, all save for the northern coast of Egypt had been retaken. Meanwhile, aid was given to Libyan and Arabian nationalist groups, and revolutions cost the Byzantines these areas as well. By the beginning of 1925, the Byzantines had lost all territory they had gained in the war on all fronts, and in the Persian/Arabian front they were losing more, having lost their entire Asian territory other than Anatolia.

Nuclear Salvation
The situation in the PERDR was grim in April of 1925. The Byzantines were losing the war badly. They had thus far avoided using nuclear weapons, due to the knowledge that if they did so, their enemies would respond in kind and destroy them. However, Baltazar Laskaris, believing the war to be lost, began questioning whether or not, since Byzantine defeat seemed inevitable, the PERDR should just destroy their enemies as well. The military, thinking in terms of self-preservation and led by the popular General Anatoly Sigalos, managed to convince Laskaris to wait a few weeks.

However, by the end of April, defeat was certain for the PERDR, with much of Anatolia taken already, and most of the Balkans save for Thracia and Greece. Laskaris concluded that nuclear war was the only option. He called General Sigalos together for a private meeting on May 1, and informed the general that he was planning to launch nuclear missiles at India, Vijayanagar, Persia, and several of the Sri Vijayan protectorates. Sigalos, knowing this would kill hundreds of millions, if not billions, pulled out a gun and shot Laskaris point-blank in the face. Sigalos and the other generals immediately seized control of the government in a coup, saving the world from a nuclear war.

The End of the War
General Sigalos, knowing that there was no way that the PERDR could win, immediately surrendered to the Anti-PERDR forces, on the condition that he and the other high-ranking military leaders that he had collaborated with not be tried for their crimes. The Anti-Communists agreed to this condition and occupied the PERDR. General Sigalos and his fellow generals fled the neutral communist Sahara, where he would serve as a military adviser until his death in 1941. Following the end of the war, all nations conquered by the Byzantines were restored to independence, PERDR ceded territory to Arabia, and Croatia, Serbia, Romania, the Caucasus nations, and Kurdistan were granted their independence. PERDR was disbanded and replaced by the free Eastern Roman Republic.

Economic Boom
The worldwide economic boom started in the early twenties in Korea. From there it spread to Japan by 1925, and after the war the economy began to have massive expansion in Meixikou and India and Vijayanagar as well. Spain, who had been occupied for several decades and politically unstable for quite some time, had a massive recovery in the thirties as well. The new internet also helped the economy improve as well. Many semi-developed nations, such as Wolof, Southeast Asia, and Persia also had massive economic improvement during this time. Sri Vijaya, after decades of instability and poverty, finally recovered by 1939 and managed to resecure its spot as a world power. The only nation without improvement was China.

Japanese Decolonization Plan
Japan, knowing that an eternal colonial empire would never happen, created a decolonization plan, in which they would slowly allow their colonies to declare independence after the Japanese thought they were ready. The first colony to become independent was Ogunkaigan in 1929, on the west coast of North Yodderick, which was primarily Japanese in ethnicity and virtually at the same level of development as Japan itself. On the other side of the continent, Midorikuni became independent in 1932 (OTL Eastern USA). Midorikuni was a mixture of ethnicities, about 45% native Yodderickese, such as Cherokee, Creek, Shawnee, and Iroquois. However, another 45% was comprised primarily of immigrants from Europe, such as English, Dutch, Scottish, Irish, and French. Another 10% was Japanese. The Japanese portion shrunk following independence, with many returning to Japan or moving to Ogunkaigan due to the fact that they could no longer dominate. However, due to the mixture of languages, both European and native, the official language of Ogunkaigan remained Japanese.

Next to become independent was the South Yodderick colony, called Kyujin Koku,in 1934. However, this nation only lasted for a year before a small portion in the northeast, called Choruikaku, broke away. The European nations declared independence next. England became independent in 1935, still retaining most of its culture and language. However, the next independent nation, Wagenigen in 1937, which had once been the Netherlands and Belgium, had so many competing languages (Dutch, French, German, Flemish) that Japanese became the common tongue there as well. The next independent nation was Kaiketsu, north of Midorikuni. This nation was divided between many different tribes of natives, with a small European and Japanese immigrant minorities (less than 25% combined), so with the division of languages, Japanese became the common tongue there as well in 1938.

Japanese remained the common language of the tribes of Central North Yodderick, which became independent as simply Central Yodderick in 1939. The remaining colonial territory was primarily in the far northern areas, and was named Nosurando, and encompassed all of that territory. It did not become independent until 1945, and remained under heavy Japanese influence for the next several decades.

The New China
China's territory would experience a major upheaval during the same time as the Japanese territory decolonization, but China's would be much more violent.

Great Turkish Revolts
The Turkic nations had remained loyal to China longer than the European ones, as there they had no interferance from the Army of God on account of the fact that Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Judaism were the three dominant religions here. In 1930, a revolution occured that swept the Turkish areas of China, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Turkestan the next year. However, after a couple years of political strife, two-thirds of the Turkish territory broke away, in the form of the new nations of Bulgaristan, Kazahkstan, and Khazarstan.

Colonial Independence
Seeing what was happening in Central Asia, the Incan Emperor declared the independence of his nation in 1931, to make the new empire of Tawantin Suyi. This sparked a series of colonial independence movements across the Chinese colonial empire.

China's New System
Fearful that their empire would soon be wracked with revolts from minorities, the Chinese government decided that the political system of the empire needed to be substantially reorganized.