Antediluvixen

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

Russia just accruing huge swathes of powerful and highly ambitious allies in Asia against the British aren't they?

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

The relevant edits have been made to Japan's sheet. Some economy stuff. Some territory stuff. Rebellion enabled by people being hungry and angry.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

@Letter Bee
Hehe, I was wondering when that might come up

Fear not there's a small army of Filipinos in my discord contacts who would probably swim over and murder me if they caught wind of anything like that

That and I don't have the stomach for being anywhere near as logic defyingly evil as the otl Japanese Empire.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

@Letter Bee
Entirely possible, but one could just as easily make an argument that having a strong ally in the east strengthens Russia's position significantly against the western European powers.

Which way would they go? Hard to say. That's what the IC is for, after all ^-^

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

@Letter Bee
I mean, again, I am aware of the numerous areas where they could likely have been sold out by the Russians - though I think the Tokugawa Shogunate's "Expel the foreigners" ideology would not have tolerated handing Nagasaki over to the Russians in any way, shape, or form. They forbade the construction of ocean going ships on pain of death and only allowed the Dutch to enter Nagasaki, I doubt they'd let a different country take control altogether.

That is to say, yeah, it's fairly unlikely. Maybe it could have happened. Probably not. I would argue mine, likewise, has a "thin thread of possibility" that makes it a fun concept to explore. If I wanted to argue for a dry academic take on the "most likely" route for history to take I wouldn't be on a forum RP board I'd be arguing against a bunch of old men who still insist on having things faxed to them instead of emailed.

Bad harvest is good with me if it is with you. It avoids the population crash issue of a plague. It provides context for the land reforms, as well as extra motivation for wanting to seize more land outside of Japan.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

<Snipped quote by Lady Lascivious>

To be honest, I had worries about that last part, and it was my absolute limit or close to it.

As for the British willingness to cede that much control to Egypt, well, it helps that Egypt already had the land the British allowed them to keep. The British and the Ottomans were prepared to drive them off said land, but concessions were made to have the British betray the Ottomans and deal with Egypt as a (subordinate) partner instead.

I'm sure that the Wikipedia page for Muhammad Ali of Egypt said that he already controlled the territory he claimed and was about to overrun the Ottomans themselves.

@Letter Bee

Again - I'm not arguing against it at all. I think it's unrealistic, and the British would oppose it as it would upset the balance of power in the region and destabilize things, as well as being greedy imperialistic little bastards. The conservative and traditionalist factions do not have the 20/20 vision of history with which to realize that would be by far the best deal they could get, and him ceding Crete and making other such concessions would, in my view, absolutely infuriate them, since such factions are rarely motivated by purely rational logic.

I assumed we were playing a setting that allowed more low probability stuff to occur - and "peasant rebellion lead by a military genius and supplied by Russia in exchange for one of their longest running strategic goals" didn't seem all that outlandish to me, to be honest.

EDIT: An alternative proposal. A bad harvest leads to severe food shortages and unrest, instead of a plague.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

@Lady Lascivious I would suggest that, as mentioned before, Japan was swept by a particularly virulent plague that left Japanese society prone to rebellion. With so many people dead, it could justify women getting a more prominent role in society in 19th century Japan.

@Eldritch Puppy

Not super keen on a drastic population reduction, though. It kind of ruins any plans I might have had for joining in some jolly good wars on the continent if everyone's dead. My reasons for picking Japan was its relatively high population, and the high number of women who fought in the Sengoku period and even some insisting on fighting during the Boshin War and Satsuma Rebellions providing a lot of fun historical material to play with.

And I had no opposition to the original divergence whatsoever. I'm, well, the kind of person who wrote up basically Nazbol Japan for fuck's sake. My point was simply that I thought my proposal was perfectly sound with what, to me, seems a pretty damn unlikely scenario. Mine is, also, unlikely, yes. But I assumed that in a world where the British were willing to cede that much control to a non-European nation and the Austrians caving into super liberal ideas in the 1840s, it was perfectly reasonable.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

I honestly think a Japanese female peasant is more realistic than Britain just going “Sure Egypt, you can have this insanely vital trade route, go crazy! No way this could possibly go wrong!”

@Pagemaster

Suez Crisis intensifies

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

@Pagemaster
Precisely. I figured we'd set the bar pretty low already, thus my version of Japan here would slot in just fine. Ultimately, I think there are some double standards at play here.

From Sick Man to Savior - An 1847 Nation Roleplay

A thing I forgot to mention is Russia gained the warm water port of Nagasaki in exchange for their military aid. It was not out of the kindness of their hearts, but access to not only a warm water port - but a very well positioned one at that, enabling power projection of the Russian empire into the south pacific.

However, I think the standards of plausibility are nevertheless being applied very unevenly in this, with regard to the central premise of the British Empire voluntarily ceding control of Egypt, the Levant, and a Suez Canal. Not to mention the liklihood of revolt by the traditionalists and conservatives within egypt that would have been furious with Ali for ceding what he did. He would be lucky to retain the support of his army and thus retaining his throne.

Yes, my alt is certainly unlikely. But more unlikely than the British voluntarily handing over all of that to Egypt, and Egypt not suffering massive internal strife as a result of Ali's concessions? I somewhat doubt it. Yeah, it's unlikely - but honestly, to me, it seemed perfectly reasonable by the standards of the central premise put forth.