History of the Thousand Year Reich: an alternate history

[John_Oakman]

Disclaimer: the usual blah blah blah, views of characters in timeline doesn't necessary reflect the author's views in a meta sense and all that jazz.

Time to get back in the Ah timeline shenanigans, if all goes well this timeline will cover a thousand years over the span of an entire solar system and more...

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"The passage of time will always weather away the details and nuances of events. Fifteen volumes of the conquests of three generations of Khans over a period of decades encompassing the breath of two continents have over time been condensed into the feats and glories of a single man within a couple of paragraphs, which in meantime being attributed with numerous feats not of his own doing. Thus the early history of the Greater Europa Reich has been condensed from the forces of millions over decades into the greatness of a single madman. Such condensation is useful for basic education, but a deeper knowledge of history is essential for understanding of the nature of the Greater Europa Reich."

-Dr. James O'Connor, University of Hampden-Sydney, Hampden Sydney, Appalachian Sector. Federation of North America, 2855.

Prologue: origin of the Thousand Year Reich​

The formation of the Greater Europa Reich in the 20th century had its origins in the early 19th century, when its spiritual ancestor the Holy Roman Empire, at the time known as the First Reich, and the concept of a united European continent was finally shattered and dissolved for good, ending a legacy that began with the formation of the Roman Republic. In the hundred odd years since the great dissolution the nation states of Europe and their peripherals fought each other with ever increasing violence and brutality, culminating in the Pan European War (at the time known as the Great War or World War I) that also drew in much of the rest of the planet.

(it's interesting to note that during this period there was a short lived central European nation state claiming to take on the mantle of the HRE, this "Second Reich" lasted less than half a century and was of little note in its accomplishments and territories controlled, which did not even include much of the core of its predecessor)

By the early 20th century, despite many of the individual nation states owning significant territories outside of Europe the continent remained bitterly divided and broken, suffering from economic and social malaise.

Enter the man who will be remembered as the Great Wolf. Though sources were fuzzy as to his origins the present historical consensus was that he was born somewhere in the region then known as the eastern lands, which despite its name was still actually in central Europe and was in fact the heart of the First Reich, a fact that was little noted during his lifetime.

Within the span of his lifetime, he resurrected the dream of Rome and united Europe once more into one nation and one people, harnessing the full scientific, industrial, and military might of a continent and laid the foundation of an empire that lasted over a millennium...

 

[John_Oakman]

The Europa Unification War
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One of the most mythologized wars that took place entirely on Earth, although even within the context of the 20th century it did not have the largest number of casualties*, many of the long term trends of the continent could trace back to the events that occurred during that conflict. Although still somewhat of a hyperbole to claim the war as the forge that unified European as a common national identity it did laid the foundation for the environment to allow that to form.

The origin of what would become known as the Unification War (more commonly known as the Europa Unification War to differentiate from The Consolidation War in Asia which occurred in the same time period) had its origins in the Pan European War of the early 20th century, in which the two Germanies (and some other minor nations of little note) took on the rest of the continent and lost, which ended in further dismemberment of the German lands and people. As the losers of the war the German peoples suffered further humiliations, political instability, and economic malaise. All these variables led to the discreditation of the political concept of democracy and republician forms of governments within the Germanies.

It was under those conditions in which the Great Wolf and his Knights of the Crooked Cross made their presence felt in those shattered lands, quickly gaining the support and adoration of the peoples with promises of bringing back the glories of the by now long forgotten reich**.

Ironically, according to research in recent centuries, the Great Wolf did not start the war with the intention of unifying the peoples of Europe. The general consensus is that his primary motivations at the time were much more localized in nature, that of the unification of the various Germanic peoples and other similar groups. Much of that goal was, surprisingly enough, achieved through peaceful means of diplomacy.

It was most likely that those small successes were the immediate catalyst for the resulting war, as the other regional powers, envious of the resurgence of Germanic power, decided to wage war with the full backing of their massive empires. However, the long term leadup to the conflict was more complex. The Pan European War had been ruinously expensive even for the victors, and in the short peace that followed they had attempted various schemes to recoup their losses, all of which had failed. Thus a war of plunder (despite not working in the previous war) was thought as the solution to economic woes***.

The resulting war was brutal and cruel in the extreme, lasting longer and costing more lives than the Pan European War before it. The full might of industrial society and scientific genius of a continent was utilized in the wholesale slaughter of peoples and destruction of cities. For it was the first war in which effective mass bombing of civilian assets was conducted, mainly by the Perfidious Albion, which also conducted all of its other cowardly and underhanded tactics that it utilized in the last war such as the distant blockade.

The war was a war of quality vs quantity. The superior scientific and physical prowess of the Aryan people against the hordes of colonial mongoloid forces of Albion and Franks (and later on the seemingly endless hordes of Judeo-bolshevik Oriental Despotism).

For over a decade the war waged on. While the Franks and their protectorates fell within a year, while the Albion clawed on until they too were subdued, the first country to be conquered completely via the then novel air and sea power****.

Just in time too as the soon the hordes of Judeo-bolshevik Oriental Despotism attempted their own conquest of the continent. Driven by their morally bankrupt and depraved ideology, they were quickly stopped and soon the entirety of their dark lands was under the guiding light of European civilization, the dark beasts and their evil banished beyond the Ural mountains. By the middle of the century the whole of Europe once again knew peace, a peace more lasting and firm than the previous morally bankrupt one.

Technological-wise the war was marked by rapid advances in technologies and doctrines in integration of said technologies. From the tops of skies to the depths of oceans total war was waged as every terrain was fully utilized for the first time*****.

It was the first war in which vertical dropped forces****** were instrumental in the conquest of an entire country. The first war in which artillery gained a strategic role in the form of theater ballistic missiles. Beyond deployment of ground forces, air assets were utilized in many other roles, both offensive and defensive.

Although unimpressive today, the rate of movement of the armies during the war strained the technologies of the era to their breaking point. For example, the average distance from Königsberg to the A-A line was over 2,000km, much of it effectively wilderness. Said distance was crossed by the armies of the Crooked Cross in under six weeks with vehicles that could do little better than 30kph offroad, while aircrafts were limited in capabilities in both carrying and durability.

Unfortunately, the war was also the first war in which the destruction of civilians was an explicit war goal. Mainly conducted by the Perfidious Albion, their strategic bombing of cities and starvation of civilian populations of Europe through distant blockade (or more popularly known as phantom blockade) led to the needless death of thousands of innocents.

*although it's common to lump many post war deaths (such as the pacification of Eastern Europe through Generalplan Ost) with the war proper itself due to certain legal technicalities, those inflated claims should be dismissed by any scholarly standard above the pop culture level
**It's worth noting that in the era before genetic reconstruction/fortification (never mind brain uploading) the average lifespan of a human was slightly above half a century, with the actual optimal state of being a fraction of that.
***A far more cynical fringe theory was that the war was an attempt to remove excess economically unproductive population. The problems with that theory was that due to the losses of the Pan European War should have already fixed any such problem. Also in the era before AI automation the parts of the population considered to be productive was a much higher segment of the overall population. In fact, the war caused significant labor shortages which were felt for the remainder of the century and even beyond.
****Although the royal family of Albion fled to their colony of Canada and vowed to continue the senseless conflict their fate was of a footnote and outside the scope of this chapter.
*****There are many debates as to whether the Pan European War or the Europa Unification War was the first terrestrial three dimensional war, with the archaeological community still heavily divided on the topic.
******although in this case it is airdrop forces rather than the orbital drop forces commonly seen starting from the mid 3rd millennium.

 

[John_Oakman]

As usual, if you have any question in reading between the lines feel free to ask.
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Generalplan Ost: civilizing the east​

Throughout the history of Europe pre second unification the continent, in terms of civilization and technological development, could be divided between the advanced west and the barbaric east. The reasons for such are numerous, the geographical size and resulting population density, the proximity of the East to the hordes of mongoloid raiders of the Asian steppes, and the simple inferiority of the racial stock present (often corrupted further by those same Asiatic hordes).

This divide for centuries had significant repercussions to the course of European civilization, as proximity to the lesser races of the other continents often led to corruption and decay of the European racial stock. Witness the slow decline of the Byzantine Empire and eventual conquest by the Arabs and Turks, or the mongolification of the Eastern Europe by the Asiatic hordes to form the slavic race. The pattern was recognized as early as the early 2nd minnellium with the crusades of the Teutonic Knights on the Baltic coasts. However due to the technological and political limitations of the era such efforts had limited results and their effects were temporary at best. The last of these eastern invasions was during the latter days of the Europa Unification War when the hordes of rodina attempted to subjugate the entire continent under the horrors of Judeo-bolshevik Oriental Despotism.

With the full political and military unification of the continent after the Europa Unification War the opportunity for the first time in the continent's history to uplift the vast easten untamed wilderness and banishing the corruption along the frontiers of the continent that had been sapping at the strength of European civilization since the time of the Romans and the curse of the continent ever since.

At first the Reich attempted to tame the lands in an orderly and systematic manner, in which the savage natives of the regions were to be culled and tamed for the service of the new settlers, which would be the vanguard that would transform the land and raise its productivity to that of the heartlands. The plan, known as Generalplan Ost, was initially rolled out as a systematic and orderly plan from the government, under the same mentality as the one that won the war.

The commitment for the purification of the east led to the continuation of the war state well after the official cession of hostilities that marked the end of the Europa Unification War, and according to some of the higher estimates at the end of the 2nd millennium there were upwards of over two million full time military personnel protecting the (less than half a million) new settlers from the barbaric hordes. Moreover than the costs of the purification was the lackluster economic development of the newly cleared lands. For reasons unknown the leadership of the Reich at the time decreed that the settlement of the east was to be done for the growth of agricultural production and rural communities, which for all the cultural enrichment of society and population increase did little to contribute to the economic growth of the regions. Paradoxically the few profitable areas of the newly settled easten regions were those next to ore deposits and whose main economic productivity deriving from raw resource extraction, such as the Baku oil fields.

Though never officiated, the Reich had effectively abandoned Generalplan Ost as a formal governmental plan by the first century of the 3rd millennium, as the moral drive of the founding generation was replaced by the bureaucratic budget keeping mundaneness of the mid-early era. The soldiers were demobilized and the economic enticement for settlers were scaled back.

Deprived of the artificial support network, the eastern regions quickly regressed in development and growth. Following economic contractions came moral and social decay as many of the settlements suffered from similar problems as the barbarians they displaced, leading to persistent rumors that the lands themselves were cursed, leading to corruption and degeneration of all those who lived on it. The more logical theories from the last few centuries suggest a "fraying effect" in which the outlying regions of a geopolitical entity, especially those bordering foreign tribes or nations, would inevitably corrupt its inhabitants due to limits of social pressure and rule of law, as well as proximity to foreign corruption. It's speculated that such forces led to the fall of the Roman Empires as well as the eventual disintegration of both the First and Europa Reichs.

Economically the eastern regions did not catch up to the heartland in terms of economic productivity until the mid 22nd century with the rationalization and automation of agricultural output and resource extraction. Ironically as it joined the heartlands in development it was around the time that it too was called upon to contribute resources and manpower in the development of the Cydonia region of Mars.

 

[John_Oakman]

The state of paradox: the Order-State of Burgundy​

The Order-State of Burgundy, under the rule of the Knights of Schutzstaffel, has been an interesting study of contrast since its founding in the aftermath of the Europa Unification War. Formed with the intentions of embodying the purity of the Aryan race as well as being a guardian state, the state and the knight order have over the centuries transformed into the cosmopolitan corporate oligarchy that it became the most famous for.

Originally founded as the elite companions of the Great Wolf, the Knights of Schutzstaffel proved themselves as the most loyal of all Aryans in the Europa Unification War and the subsequent purification campaigns. Everywhere where the twin runes appear the enemies of the Reich perish in pillars of smoke and flames. As a reward for their noble service, they were given lands of their own to form a state within a state, so as to keep and maintain the highest virtues of the Reich. The region, encompassing Wallonia and parts of the northeastern regions of the land of the Franks, lands that used to be Germanic in racial makeup, now once again under proper possession of the rightful heirs of Barbarossa.

The early days of the Order State were as expected from the knights of the twin runes. Degenerates and deviants were ruthlessly purged from the land, to be settled by people of the right stock. Much like the eastern Reichskommissariats, the Order State pursued a draconian deurbanization and deindustrialization policy aimed at rooting out the decadence of urban intellectualism that was perceived as the reason for the decay of European civilization. Records remain unclear as to the success of these endeavors although the rapid resurgence of urbanization and industrialization in the country by the late 21st century suggests they were of limited effectiveness.

The high watermark of the Order State during the early period of the Reich was their actions during the 'Troubled Decades' at the turn of the millennium, in which the knights were instrumental in preserving the unity of the Reich, rooting out traitors, malcontents, and other degenerates with the same zeal that they shown in the Europa Unification War.

Ever the protector of the Reich, the Knights and their Order state kept their vigil over the continent through its early vulnerable centuries, but not wholly part of the Reich proper. Composed of the finest example of the Aryan race, yet separate from the heartland itself.

It was bitterly ironic that the corruption of the Order State and the Knights came from the very Reich that they swore to protect, and by the late 21st century the once pure and ascetic state had declined into the cosmopolitan urban degenerate landscape that it's since known for, and the Knights order of battle composed of stocks from all over the continent. Once forsaking their nobility, they became the most depraved and ruthless among all of the Reich in their greed and avarice, exploiting their geographical location for great financial and economic gains, sometimes even at the expense of the Reich itself...