In the 13th century the Indian tribes of North America and the First Nations of the cold north, fed up with useless war and constant skirmishes, had organized into one unified government; each tribe with their own regional borders. The tribes that made up this great nation are the Abenaki, Algonquin, Apache, Cherokee, Choctaw, Comanche, Hopi, Iroquois, Lakota Sioux, Mahicans, Mohave, Mohawk, Navajo, Nipmuc, Odanak, Ojibwa, Paiute, Seminole, Seneca, Sioux, Mik, Neilorw, Wyandottes and Zuni. The other Indian tribes that used to inhabit North America had been wiped out by natural disasters or eliminated by rival tribes before the Unification.
The capital of the great nation stands in a governmental spread of land outside of the borders of all tribes, where elected officials from each region gather to care, provide and keep the peace of the nation. Within each individual region comprising the great nation are elected officials that hold office over each major civilized city. With the combination of many ideas from various tribes ideas spread wildfire real fast. By the beginning of the 15th century horseless carriages were starting to come into fruition, crude indoor plumbing was becoming standard, they had invented a printing press, had conscription and a unified alphabetic system that was standard for all tribes and a proposition was carried forth to link the land in the east to the west by way of rail and locomotive.
By the time Easterners from across the Altantski Ocean (what the Easterners call the Atlantic Ocean) came to explore and attempt to disprove accusations of the worlds flatness, the Indians were ready. Onshore artillery was not used to defend themselves, but soldiers from each region and the First Nations held their ground along the coast. When it became clear that the Easterners had intent to enslave the local inhabitants and rape the land, the armies struck with full force massacring the invading force. Those that managed to flee to their boats drowned at sea by use of the Indians onshore artillery. After the loss of many Eastern ships over the years, the nations across the sea eventually stopped sending fleets across the ocean.
Between the 16th and the close of the 20th century, the great Indian Empire flourished and surpassed technology of the Eastern peoples, and always kept their national borders closed to all foreigners. At the beginning of the 21st century, with the collapse of the Russian Empire and the threat of global warfare, the great nation of the Indians realized it was time to change their policies.
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Please feel free to expand and contribute to this new history.
I'm already off topic but one of the weak points I see with this kind of alternate history is that its not really all that interesting in that we already don't have much to say since its in conflict that good stories are written and we don't have much conflict here.
An example of this in terms of real history is the Japanese Shogunate. I'm absolutely no expert in Japanese history but I have some knowledge of the period leading up to the establishment of the Shogunate because that was a very interesting period in Japanese history full of interesting conflict and it serves as the backdrop for all sorts of historical fiction some of which exists in the west. Then we get a 200 year period of stability in Japanese history under the Shogunate and I know next to nothing about it, even the Japanese, never mind western authors, don't base that many stories in the period because its just not all that exciting. Then we get to the Meiji Restoration and Japan bursts back onto the international scene and once again I, as an amateur historian, suddenly can tell you a great deal more about what the Japanese where doing and once again we start to see material like historical fiction set in the period.
Hence, even for alternate history, I don't really see this as a particularly exciting premise.
Of more interest might be a history of North America that saw the British win big in the 1814 campaigns which resulted in the shattering (at least for the the time being) of the American political union and the establishment of the British Indian buffer state. These line up woth the British goals for North America but thgeir inherently unstable. Demographically America, even if its in separate parts, will rise again and they will need the land the Indians have. The Indians have a chance to maybe establish some kind of an anti-American union during this period because they have a period of respite. The British themselves want to keep America down, weak and divided, but this is an afterthought from White halls perspective, if it can be done on the cheap thats great but a North American Indian buffer state will never be anything they actually do much to support no matter what treaties they have signed - they'll always (as was historically the case) be much more interested in Europe and Asia, especially because the Indian Buffer States really don't Britain much worth having. Hence we have a premise thats brimming with potential conflict and therefore one that presumably has strong potential as a place for alternate history fiction.
If this alternate history doesn't excite people, than please don't post stuff that's detrimental to it's development. The beginning is is exactly what I want it to be and all things inbetween, before and after is what needs to be developed.
Personally, this and the American Civil War are my favorite what ifs.
The topic also addresses, in a backward way, the reality that the Indians did, historically, just kind of fold. If your interested in some well researched books that broadly address that topic I'm going to suggest a couple I have read and really enjoyed.
1491: New Revelations of America Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
This book is interesting mainly in that there is a critical dearth of new information on North America before Columbus that is really hitting the main stream. Quite literally you can open a High School history book to this period today or take any similar high school history text straight back to about 1950 and they all say basically the same thing. We established our 'story' on what the world was like and what happened in the 1940's and we have not changed that story since. This despite the fact that there has probably been more archeology done in North and South America regarding pre-Columbus times since 1950 then all the years prior...a lot more.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies Jared Diamond.
This book must have made the author a fortune, its extremely popular. Very well written and does an excellent job of tackling the broad issue of why the West came to dominate the world, at least for a period. Note that I really loved the book but I know some who where turned off by a writing style that can feel very conceited and there are points where Diamond gets 'to liberal' in his attempts to downplay western innate superiority, which is really the argument he is essentially disputing by putting forward a counter proposition, and a well researched one at that. I found these flaws cropped up in the first two chapters and then just ceased as Diamond got into the meat of his theory.
