Author Topic: Imperial Federation  (Read 6904 times)

Offline Litvyak

  • Shifting between quantum realities...
  • Althistorian & profiler...& the 1st lady of whiff
    • Dominion of British Columbia
Imperial Federation
« on: July 22, 2012, 06:05:33 AM »
So this is something I've been toying with for a long time now, but haven't really got much further than some scribbled notes. But I'd be curious to see others' takes on the idea, too.

What if, along the lines of the RW proposals, in the beginning of the 20th century the British Empire was reformed as an EU-like federation of states; each has its own local parliament to handle domestic affairs, and there's an Imperial Parliament at Westminster to which MIPs are elected from each of the member states (initially I've been thinking - by the start of WW1 there'd be UK, Eire, Canada, Australia, New Zealand... later on, others then like South Africa and India in the 1920s or early 1930s... and bit by bit other colonies become transformed into full-fledged member states of the federation. Kinda a "good for all parties" solution - Britain holds on to the resources of the Empire, the Dominions and colonies are transformed, enjoying full IF citizenship on a footing equal to that enjoyed by pre-federation UK citizens.

How would the rest of the world react - USA? France? Germany? How would WW2 play out?

I do have my own ideas, as I mentioned, that I'm playing around with when I don't feel like working on AltCan, AltBC or AltHun, but I'm very curious as to what everyone else thinks about this... :)
"God save our Queen and heaven bless the Maple Leaf forever!"

Dominion of BC - https://dominionofbc.miraheze.org/wiki/British_Columbia

"Bernard, this doesn't say anything!" "Why thank you, Prime Minister."

Offline GTX_Admin

  • Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
  • Administrator - Yep, I'm the one to blame for this place.
  • Whiffing Demi-God!
    • Beyond the Sprues
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2012, 06:21:23 AM »
So rather then colonies gaining independence they become more self-autonomous members with a more active say in the running of the Commonwealth/Imperial Federation?

I must admit that you might have come up with an interesting solution to a stalled story I have been working on for a while...this one is set much, much later though.  Do you mind if I borrow some of your ideas?
« Last Edit: July 22, 2012, 06:25:20 AM by GTX_Admin »
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline Litvyak

  • Shifting between quantum realities...
  • Althistorian & profiler...& the 1st lady of whiff
    • Dominion of British Columbia
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2012, 06:48:20 AM »
By all means, borrow away!

I got the initial idea here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Federation

So yeah, the basic idea is that the dominions/colonies/etc - as well as England, Scotland, Eire, Wales - each become equal-ranking members of a larger federal superstate.

The way I envision it, each member has full control over local laws and such that affect only that member itself - provided these laws fall within the IF 'constitution' (I'm seeing this working how the Canadian system works - the exact opposite of the US: everything not explicitly defined by law as falling into the jurisdiction of the members, falls into the jurisdiction of Westminster). Beyond that, the IF government defines a single united foreign policy, a single united Imperial defence policy (and in conjunction with this, each member can have its own territorial defence policy... the way I see *this* is that each member has X quota they have to supply to IF defence, for example, Australia has to supply, grab this outta the air, 10 destroyers to the Royal Navies. But if Australia domestically does not feel this sufficient to the defence needs locally, they can of course supply more, which would fall under the territorial defence scheme... this is all still pretty vague in my head, though).
"God save our Queen and heaven bless the Maple Leaf forever!"

Dominion of BC - https://dominionofbc.miraheze.org/wiki/British_Columbia

"Bernard, this doesn't say anything!" "Why thank you, Prime Minister."

Offline raafif

  • Is formally accused of doing nasty things to DC-3s...and officially our first whiffing zombie
  • Whiffing Insane
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2012, 07:17:08 AM »
So we have a Commonwealth that still includes Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria etc etc ...

It might even include Tasmania (still not an accepted part of Oz today -- they're mighty strange down here ;D)

Offline GTX_Admin

  • Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
  • Administrator - Yep, I'm the one to blame for this place.
  • Whiffing Demi-God!
    • Beyond the Sprues
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2012, 07:25:18 AM »

It might even include Tasmania (still not an accepted part of Oz today -- they're mighty strange down here ;D)

Now you are just being crazy!  To include those weirdos???  Crazy!!! ;)
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline GTX_Admin

  • Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
  • Administrator - Yep, I'm the one to blame for this place.
  • Whiffing Demi-God!
    • Beyond the Sprues
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2012, 07:27:35 AM »
By all means, borrow away!

I got the initial idea here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Federation



Ta...this might even make it in time for the "It's the end of the world as we know it" GB later this year.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2012, 07:30:50 AM by GTX_Admin »
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline raafif

  • Is formally accused of doing nasty things to DC-3s...and officially our first whiffing zombie
  • Whiffing Insane
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2012, 07:31:14 AM »

It might even include Tasmania (still not an accepted part of Oz today -- they're mighty strange down here ;D)

Now you are just being crazy!  To include those weirdos???  Crazy!!! ;)

well, I guess every country has to have their Hillbilly cousins ;D >:Ds !

Offline GTX_Admin

  • Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
  • Administrator - Yep, I'm the one to blame for this place.
  • Whiffing Demi-God!
    • Beyond the Sprues
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2012, 07:34:36 AM »
Where are you living again... ::)
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline Litvyak

  • Shifting between quantum realities...
  • Althistorian & profiler...& the 1st lady of whiff
    • Dominion of British Columbia
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #8 on: July 22, 2012, 07:46:10 AM »
End of the world as we know it... funny you should say that.

My mind keeps coming back to the thought that an IF-US war would be inevitable... as RW, it was probably only the collapse of the Empire as such that prevented one from happening eventually...
"God save our Queen and heaven bless the Maple Leaf forever!"

Dominion of BC - https://dominionofbc.miraheze.org/wiki/British_Columbia

"Bernard, this doesn't say anything!" "Why thank you, Prime Minister."

Offline Maverick

  • Suffers from 'Fat Fingers' and accidentally locks his own thread...
  • Holding Pattern
  • *
  • The profile machine!
    • My Photobucket Thread
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #9 on: July 22, 2012, 08:33:07 AM »
About the only sticking point I'd see is the Irish Republic being part of it all.  I couldn't see Eire happily joining such a group given the Republican attitudes towards the monarchy.  That said, it would give fuel for an IF/US war as there has been some US support for the Republican cause historically.

Regards,

John
Regards,

John

Offline Litvyak

  • Shifting between quantum realities...
  • Althistorian & profiler...& the 1st lady of whiff
    • Dominion of British Columbia
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #10 on: July 22, 2012, 08:50:40 AM »
Maverick: Hence my thought that it'd happen at the beginning of the century, 190x-ish... kind of a "here, stay with us, you'll be equal partners with England, Scotland, Wales, etc"... perhaps the Irish don't join in the first bloc, but when they see that indeed Wales and Scotland get their own local governments and broad domestic autonomy, they decide sometime shortly before (or during?) the Great War (if it happens as RW) that they'd probably be better off economically and geopolitically as part of the big powerful federation, than alone - unless the US was willing to absolutely guarantee protection... though, how believable would it be in the 19-teens if the US told you "we will successfully protect you from the British Empire"?

Were federation to be delayed by even a decade, then no, I see no chance of Eire becoming part of the Federation, except perhaps Northern Ireland doing so. THAT could definitely provide fuel for an IF-US war, if federation happens after WW1...

"God save our Queen and heaven bless the Maple Leaf forever!"

Dominion of BC - https://dominionofbc.miraheze.org/wiki/British_Columbia

"Bernard, this doesn't say anything!" "Why thank you, Prime Minister."

Offline Old Wombat

  • "We'll see when I've finished whether I'm showing off or simply embarrassing myself."
  • "Define 'interesting'?"
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #11 on: July 25, 2012, 06:50:34 PM »
So, we could have Imperial Federation Day, celebrating a broader (as opposed to Australian) federation event on 1st January, 1901? With some hold-outs or countries a little behind on integrating the British democratic process joining in over the next decade, maybe two?

Neat idea!
"This is the Captain. We have a little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and, ah, explode."

Offline Alvis 3.1

  • Self acknowledged "Bad Influence"…but probably less attractive than Pink
  • The high priest of whiffing
Re: Imperial Federation
« Reply #12 on: July 25, 2012, 11:21:05 PM »
So, in other words, this is a What-If IF concept, or W-I Squared? Or W-ii? :)

Alvis 3.1