ACP

The last weekend was spent doing two things: consolidating my non-blogged Andalusada writing (scattered across dozens of files when it's recorded at all), and overhauling my other blog's writing about Andalusada's logic. In particular, the second installment of that, about GURPS.

Both of those consolidated on a specific detail: gun porn. And then, last night, I fatefully wrote this:

Take the CRC, for instance, which uses 7.65mm Mauser because Argentina did IRL - that was also the standard caliber of Belgium, home of FN and the world's de facto armorer; in Andalusada, where Belgium doesn't exist, the Triple Alliance has been assigned to a new role as one of the arsenals of the world - which changes a lot of gun sales because they're otherwise such a noxious place.

I didn't even know that until I typed it out myself, and yet it's an obvious thing from what I know about the CRC. Making it the home of Andalusada's *Fabrique Nationale is so obvious I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it earlier. All it needed was a name - and as of this morning, it's had a name: ACP.

Introducing the Three Wise Men

The Latin American Wars of Independence tend to get ignored in English-language alternate history, for the simple reason that most of the best literature about them is probably written in Spanish. Which is a shame, because they have an enormous number of Great Men in their ranks. Bolivar. San Martin. And my favorite, Bernardo O'Higgins, founding father of Chile - not so much for anything he did, but because he has such a wonderfully implausible name.

Wars of Independence happen in Andalusada too, during the breakdown of Umayyad Seville - but obviously not the same ones, because by the time the wars Spanish history is 700 years gone. There are still going to be lots of Great Men in the histories of those wars; Yusuf I is one of them.

In Cabralia, by sheer coincidence (and authorial fiat), the greatest of those Great Men shared an unlikely set of names that leads to them being internationally known, in all languages, as "the Three Wise Men." This is their introduction.

The CRC

Early on, I realized that on the map, ca. 1930, there was an enormous empty space with the words "South America" scratched out and replaced with "Cabralia." Given that nature, and alternate history, abhors a vacuum, I set out to fill it in with... what, exactly?

Cabralia is obviously going to be in there somewhere (a *Bonapartist empire, because the Empire of Brazil already exists, and it's called the UCNA.) But since Brazil is always the dominant power of alt-South America (because it's the biggest, see, and that means it's the most important), and I wanted something different, there's also going to be Gran Peru, the awesome republic that could. But that still leaves the entire Southern Cone unaccounted for.

So, from early on, I created the CRC, which I've been remiss in ignoring up to this point.