The Anglo-Norwegian Empire

POD: In 1066 the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada invaded England and won the Battle of Stamford Bridge, overcoming and killing King Harald of England. Hearing of Duke William of Normandy making his own invasion of England, Harald Hardrada headed south and defeated William at the Battle of Hastings. William was severely wounded and held for ransom - but since a usurper took over Normandy, he could never raise the ransom. William ended up living as a pensioner at King Harald's court in Winchester, eventually becoming a trusted and highly valued adviser to the King.

Medieval times
The Personal Union between England and Norway was often unsteady. For extended periods, different branches of the House of Hardrada ruled the two countries, more than once engaging in bloody wars. Nevertheless, the close links between the two countries were maintained, English and Norwegians alike considering union between them as desirable. With the accession of Eric III in 1354 (later known as Eric the Great), the rival branches of the House of Hardrada were definitely united, and except for a brief periods of civil war (1497-1508, 1621-1627) the same monarch always had the thrones of both England and Norway (and kept accumulating further thrones).

Over the centuries, the Anglo-Norwegian language developed out of Old Saxon and Old Norwegian - a purely Germanic language, with only a few dozen loan words from French - the language of the Anglo-Norwegians' hereditary enemies.

Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Since 2002, the House of Hardrada-Luxemburg is headed by Magnus-Zigismund IV, King of England, Norway, Denmark, Poland-Lithuania, Portugal, Castile and Hawaii, Prince of Wales, Duke of Kurland and Hereditary Mayor of Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck. The capital Winchester, with more than nine million inhabitants, is the world's biggest city. His arch-enemy is Louis XXVII of Valois-Habsburg - Holy Roman Emperor, and King of France, Scotland, Ireland, Aragon, The Two Sicilies, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Sweden and Finland, Duke of Florence and Mantua and Hereditary Doge of Venice.

The two empires had fought countless wars, the most destructive being the Iberian War (1951-1964) in which their ambition to gain the entire strategic Iberian Peninsula caused widespread destruction, not only in Europe but worldwide. There had been a prolonged struggle for control of the New World, ending with the French gaining North Vineland and the Anglo-Norwegians the twin continent to its south, though the isthmus linking them remains hotly contested - so far, both Empires foiled several efforts by their rival to dig a canal through that narrow neck of land. In 1874 a dynastic marriage with the Kings of Hawaii secured to the House of Hardrada-Luxemburg control of these strategic islands, and in 1901-1902 they were successfully defended against a French armada issuing from North Vinland.

The Anglo-Norwegian position in the Ocean of Flowers is greatly helped by a long-standing alliance with the Shoguns of Nippon, the Anglo-Norwegian Navy ever able to rely on welcome at the bustling Port of Eddo. The French had been at work to Help the Emperors of Khitai reunify their vast realm, long torn by civil war. Should they succeed, the balance of power in the Eastern Theatre might be disrupted.

Since the invention of nuclear weapons and the demonstration of their awesome power at the Destruction of Cologne in 1964 - devastating final act of the Iberian War - both Anglo-Norwegians and French have held off from a new, all-out war which might spell the end of the world. But the situation remains highly tense and combustible - especially since both the Czar of Russia and the Ottoman Sultan managed to gain their own nuclear arsenals.