Seadling

IRL, Japan exported many more guns than it ever sold. The IJN left Arisaka rifles scattered around the Pacific Rim; the IJA, across mainland Asia. All of them were rechambered, for every caliber and cartridge in use at the time, and shot until they were obsolete. But even though most of their military hardware was freely available for sale, it didn't have many buyers - in part because it was so kludgy.

This is not the Japan of Andalusada. My Japan has a reputation for high-quality craftsmanship that Taisho Japan never earned IRL. My Japan's guns are not monstrously kludgy. My Japan's guns are quirky and groundbreaking and there's nothing else like them on the market.

My Japan's guns have a brand name. That brand name is Seadling.

The Greater Japanese Empire

At the start of Andalusada was GURPS Infinite Worlds, p. 118:

Other Muslim timelines include:

Andalus (Q4, current year 1930), in which the Muslims of Spain threw back the Reconquista and went on to discover America in 1484, achieving TL6 in rivalry with Japan...

Well, there you have it.

The Greater Japanese Empire 101

Why? should be obvious with an opening quote like that: because it's canon. Japan needs to be something that's genuinely

• Who? "The Japanese," for an eclectic definition of "Japanese" based on spurious ethnography to include as many peoples as is feasible. This includes, but is not limited to, Ryukyuans, the Okinawans, Takasagonese, Takasagonese aborigines, "Japonic diaspora isolates" scattered around the Pacific Rim, the Ezochi, the "Ezoic diaspora ethnicities" around the northern Pacific Rim as far as the Aleuts, and possibly (though with no guarantees) the Aleuts themselves. And the Cossacks.
• What? The world's first notable experiment with pan-nationalism, set up as a constitutional federal monarchy, and having a bit more trouble with the whole thing than is strictly necessary.
• Where? Oyashima, of necessity. But it also includes the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Takasago, Ezo, Karafuto, the Kuriles, a few claims on Yakutsk, and so forth. And the territory formerly claimed by Meammosirsk.
• When? The Greater Japanese Empire dates itself back to the day after Tanabata, 1870, and is still going as of the present day.

Why? is a chance for me to go on a tangent about my design philosophy, and in this case I had my concise answer written four months ago: "I want a distinctive Japan. A Japan that isn't obviously the only one it could only ever possibly evolve into being. And one that has cet certain je ne sais quoi that we associate with all things Japanese."

The Meammosiran Cossack Host

It's hard to believe, but three months ago I introduced the first of Andalusada's new ethnicities, the Montagnards. Last month, on the 13th (well, almost...), I added the second (and much older), the Takasagonese, and wrote this:

Afterward: Because ethnicities take work, I'm not gonna write another one until August 13th, at which point I'm going to introduce another part of the Japonic diaspora: the Meammosiran Cossack Host, first mentioned in the Russo-Japanese War.

I'm not sure if I was that disciplined (these words were written in 7/21) as to not write another one, but ladies and gentlemen, it's August 13th, and as foretold by David and the Sybil I am introducing the Meammosiran Cossack Host. Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, because this is gonna get weird.

The Takasagonese

"If you change it far enough back," I wrote two months ago, "you start getting ethnicities that don't exist IRL." Changing colonial histories, and you get things like most of the American South being French Farrellites... or a Lusophone *Philippines instead of a Hispanophone one, because Cabral didn't sail for Spain... or Yevanic surviving to the present day because there's a totally different Sephardi diaspora. Or, as I started the list with, a Japonicized *Taiwan.

Today, boys and girls, the post is about that Japonicized *Taiwan. Meet the Takasagonese.

Scots influence on Japanese military uniforms

The Imperial Japanese Army of IRL was not sexy. Not even "not sexy" as in "inevitably they're measured against the Wehrmacht, who had their uniforms decided by Coco Chanel." They just don't look cool. Nobody feels guilty about thinking that their uniforms are kinda hawt. Nobody tries to cosplay them.

This seems relatively true across most alternate histories. (The same people invent the same things. Germany, even irrelevant Germany, will always invent all the nicest hardware; by comparison, Japan will almost always have the kludge and Zeros, even if Germany's completely irrelevant and Japan has, say, conquered China and built an empire that beggars the Co-Prosperity Sphere. For the same reasons, Japan always has fugly uniforms.)

And this irritates me, because I wanted a distinctive Japan. A Japan that isn't obviously the only one it could only ever possibly evolve into being. And one that has cet certain je ne sais quoi that we associate with all things Japanese. (It also irritates me because a great deal of the visual thinking I've done about Andalusada has been animesque. Which is why I observed that nobody cosplays the IJA.)

So I have a solution of sorts.

The Russo-Japanese War

Timeframe: 1904-1905.
Theater: Both sides of the Strait of Tartary.
Belligerents: The Russian Empire (under Evgeny the Old) vs. the Greater Japanese Empire.
Outcome: No official resolution; de facto Japanese victory due to the collapse of the Russian government.

In 1904, Russia and Japan get into a war with each other, and historians declare it "the Russo-Japanese War." After that point, the details start getting very different fast.

The Great Powers, ca. 1930

Andalusada's arbitrarily defined present day, as set down by GURPS canon, is 1930. This is what the world looks like then.

France 

For most of the early modern era, France was a Catholic dystopia, using the power of the Sodality and the weakness of its neighbors to horrifying effect. In the aftermath of the War of the French Succession, it's become significantly less dystopian (and slightly less Catholic), but as of the present day it's a large, powerful unitary state in a world that's convinced they aren't going to last.

• Has a slightly different core territory (missing some of the east and southeast, but including more in the north, including Alsace, Lorraine, and a fair chunk of the Low Countries.)
• Imperial holdings: India. All of Dravidian India is basically under French control; so is most of its coastline, stalled firmly by little Bengal (and its international allies.)

 England-Scotland

 England and Scotland are sort of two separate countries. During the

• Imperial holdings: Almost all of North America between them (most notably New Ireland), "Guinea" (a lot of sub-Saharan West Africa), and some chunks of southeast Asia.
• Alliances: A close alliance with Bengal, to act as a check on French expansion out of India. Historically, Japan's been a close ally of England-Scotland, but since the breakdown of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance a decade ago it's nothing quite as secure.

"Great Russia"

A *Narodnik republic with a needlessly wordy name (the Autocephalous Revolutionary National Sobor of All the Russias, or something like that. It changes every few years.)

• Capital: Tver, because it's never Tver.
• Core territories: Russia and Siberia.
• Imperial holdings: A loudly complaining *Alaska, most notably.
• Alliances: Propping up proxy states in Karelia, Anatolia, and some parts of Central Asia. Great Russia has a nonaggression pact with Japan that's older than Great Russia itself; it used to have close ties to Korea, but those have waned since what happened to Evgeny the Old.

Saxony

• Along with the Kingdom of Bavaria, one of the two vicars of the Holy Roman Empire (which is defunct but hasn't been abolished.)
• The smallest of the Great Powers; not so much a power on its own, but the keystone of the alliance that tips the balance in almost every European land war.
• Core territories: Electoral Saxony, along with most of what we'd call the Duchy of Saxony, the better part of Thuringia, and some scattered others.
• Imperial holdings: The Suez* Canal. After some rearrangements, Saxony wound up with almost controlling ownership of it, and has made itself a bit of a broker. Quixotically, they've also colonized Port Sudan, which they're trying to build into a respectable international harbor.
• Alliances: At the moment, Poland-Ruthenia and the Baltic states in the east, which it's trying to cement into a central European military bloc against Russian expansionism. Egypt and Abyssinia have some relatively equal treaties too, as a check against Anglo-French adventurism.

Introducing Saint Sakura

A classic trope of yuri manga is that (Japan being blissfully ignorant of the ways of Christendom) our lesbian couple usually meets at a Catholic girls' school. This school is traditionally named after Saint Engrish, something feminine-sounding that's not actually from any Indo-European language.

Never is it a Japanese name.

I'm going to stand that on its head. Meet Saint Sakura.