Reclamation

The Moorish New World was, first and foremost, Christian. During the Age of Exploration, the Five Families actively encouraged Isidoran missionary efforts, for entirely cynical reasons: it gave the Christians something to do besides revolt, and New World dhimmitude made it much easier to systematically exploit its staggering wealth. Islamization only came during the colonial era, when it was profitable to be above Christians.

Relations didn't significantly sour until the Liturgical War, which Umayyad Seville handled with an infamously heavy hand, but once they were soured they stayed soured. Come the Mexican Revolt, there was (of necessity) a staggering amount of anti-Muslim violence - and when the dust settled, the Moorish Empire was gone. And in its place, in the New World, was the G.P. of Mexico: a Christian government with a significant, and very diverse, Muslim minority.

Reclamation in theory and ideology

By the time Teresa Maria ascended to the throne, Mexico was suffering serious battle fatigue. Its economy was a mess, and an entire generation had never known peace. And (given that the First Mahdist War had only just died down in the Old World, and Cuba was still strong in the Caribbean), "peace" would be nothing but a chance to reload unless something serious was done to either placate the Muslims or permanently dispose of them.

That "something serious" turned out to be the policy now known as "Reclamation."

The Grand Princess

Dates: late 1700s [when?]-1834.

Mexico's constitution specifically allows for semi-Salic inheritance, because when the first Grand Prince [who?] died, all of his daughters were married morganatically - at least in principle, none of their husbands were eligible to rule in their own right. The daughter who succeeded him was his second, Teresa Maria. In Mexico, and in most of the New World as well, she is simply o Gran Princesa: "the Grand Princess."

This is her story.

The Axamallan Revolt

Timeframe: 1837-1838.
Belligerents: The G.P. of Mexico vs. the Pomeranos, supported by the UCNA.
Outcome: The independency of Axamalla.

In the 19th century,  was the dominant power of the New World; its only rival was  staggering from the loss of, well, Mexico - the historic heart of the Moorish New World. In no small part, this dominance was because of its Baltic diaspora; Mexico had an impressive amount of military talent at its disposal, most of which spoke Pommersch at home.

Then, in the 1830s, it all started going terribly wrong.

Oskar Sansinger

The UCNA's rise to power was ordained by me as the author, but it wasn't inevitable. If the wars had played out differently, the Grand Principality of Mexico could possibly have become the greatest state in the New World; if several wars had played out differently, Mexico might have been a global power, and the Yusufid dynasty reduced to a Caribbean empire centered on *Cuba. (It's extremely unlikely, because it ignores the butterflies that such a runaway Mexico-wank would've set in motion - but it's not impossible.)

History is the story not just of Great Times, though, but of Great Men. The UCNA's story was also the story of its first and greatest ruler, Yusuf I, and his friends [who?]. And once the UCNA had been established, the history of the G.P. of Mexico is likewise also the story of its great man - Yusuf I's nemesis and contemporary, one Oskar Sansinger.

The House of Sansinger

A fair number of alt-histories try to establish an American royal family. I've seen people save the Iturbides, the Habsburgs, the Braganzas... and I've seen a fair number of attempts at dynasties too. (Even though it's much more likely that Washington would've set himself up as President-for-life, the House of Washington seems to be a relatively popular one.)

The hard part is establishing a New World royal dynasty - in the first concept sketch, I was actually playing with a New World House of Bonaparte, which got butterflied away once I realized just how errant a Moorish survival TL would be after that many centuries. The House of Bonaparte (tracing from both Napoleon and Lucien) gave rise to "Bonapartist" (which remains a fair enough description)... until, eventually, my writing on Güntheritism and *Prussia (and the vast Hohenzollern-shaped hole that I still feel in Andalusada's political landscape) congealed, and everything clicked into four words: "The House of Sansinger."

New World beer styles

When I want to waste time writing about Andalusada, I don't write about wars, or countries, or heroes; I write about food, guns, and theology. This particular article, about New World beer, is one that I've been meaning to write for quite some time.

Beer isn't beer isn't beer. Czech beer is different from Austrian beer is different from German beer is different from Dutch beer is different from English beer. And those styles are going to
As a basic rule of thumb, the taxonomy looks something like this:

• Latin American beer styles (and this includes those of Hispano-Baltic Texas) are based primarily on north German/Polish beer styles, with some later adjustments in Mexico and Brazil based on royal marriages and the like.
• North American beer styles are based primarily on Scottish styles, with some crossovers from Scandinavia and other parts of the British Isles (due in no small part to the presence of New Ireland.)
• Atlantic coastal beer styles are primarily Anglo-Dutch, with a bit of crossover from Scottish and Irish styles from North America.
• The UCNA's beer styles are a melting pot of its neighbors, with the exact details varying by region.

Having said that, let's unpack how this stuff plays out.

The Mexican Liturgical War

Timeframe: 1739-1741; reprisals continue into the 1740s
Belligerents:

• Rebels in the Moorish New World, supported by France and Sodalites
• Umayyad Caliphate of Seville

Outcome: Tactical defeat of the rebellion; strategic defeat for Umayyad Seville

By 1738, dystopian Catholic France was pretty clearly losing the war for France-Outremer. The Montagnards were up in arms, the Cubans had finally come around and started cooperating, and Umayyad Seville had far more manpower in the New World than France did. The solution? Find a way to strike at the seat of the Bilad al-Aqsa itself.

Thus was born a doomed peasant revolt with far-reaching consequences.

The Grand Principality of Mexico

If I wanted a true and serious wank, I would've had the UCNA keep the Moorish empire. Even losing the Old World, they'd be one of the largest countries on the planet, controlling both the Mexican and Transcabralian Canals and the combined resources of everything from the Great Lakes south to around Chile. I did not want a wank, however. I wanted something plausible. And mostly, when I started writing this world as a GURPS Infinite Worlds setting, I was clueless about world history.

So of course there was a Mexico. Of course it was pretty similar to Mexico IRL. And because of sheer inertia, Mexico has existed as an independent nation ever since. But it hasn't stayed the same; the world has moved on, and the butterflies have turned it into the Grand Principality of Mexico.

The G.P. of Mexico 101

Why? Originally, this was the space-filling Empire of Mexico. After awhile, it evolved into a Bonapartist space-filling empire (on the lines of the Second Empire, which was run by a Habsburg); after that, into an ideologically Bonapartist empire; and after that, once reactionary Prussia had evolved into revolutionary Pomerania, into the G.P. of Mexico that you see here today.

• Who? Almost all the possible permutations of the Moorish ethnoreligious colonial hierarchy, with the Muslim varieties greatly reduced, under the charismatic rule of the House of Sansinger and its forest of bayonets.
• What? At one point, the UCNA's nemesis; at this point, its quirky miniboss antagonist.
• Where? Mexico and more. The G.P. of Mexico controls enough land to its south to have built the Mexican Canal, for instance.
• When? Like almost everything in the New World, the G.P. of Mexico is a child of the Great Realignment - specifically that part in the 1790s, when the Moorish colonial empire imploded. From that point, despite more and more serious turmoil than IRL Mexico was ever diverse enough to experience, it's managed to survive to the present day.

 So moving on a bit...