In our reality, there have been many nations for which there were periods of time in which they, in apparently implausible ways, they have become world powers, such as the United States, the British Empire, the Mongols or Alexander the Great's Greek Empire, but all of them are imperfect examples of what a "wank" is supposed to be, as all of them have suffered setbacks at many situations (save for the United States, which has gone through the Vietnam War and the War on Terror, none of them have survived).
Treating an alternative history as a "wank" is very popular when it comes to famous empires or nations, but, for some reason, those that are considered the "bad guys" tend to be more popular, such as the case of Nazi Germany, of which there are too many examples around (of course, considering everything they did, they would need some of that to actually win the war).
Much like in everything else, there is disagreement over what makes an alternative history a "wank". Some say that, for that to happen, the history must be fundamentally impossible or require the intervention of the ASB to take place, while others state that the mere fact of making the nation their favourite, making geniuses out of their leaders and idiots out of their enemies (just an example) is more than enough to hang that sign on them. Whichever the way picked, the one thing in common is that the author is clearly favoring one nation/group/whatever over others.
Another problem with this type of histories is that they do not explain how multiple national identities end up fusing in a multinational power dominated by one culture without a problem. Sometimes, this even happens in the entire world, in such a way that it becomes divided between a small number of super-empires that, somehow, last for many more years than they should be able to.
And you are probably going to wonder about which stories feature which examples of "wanked" nations. Well, that is not going to be the way I will show this: instead, I will mention which nations are the ones that tend to undergo the process, and in which books they appear.
- United States of America: let's begin with the easiest one. Considering how huge they are in real life, it might feel difficult making them even greater, but it is possible. One of my favourite examples is The United States of Ameriwank, where a strange visitor from the future (called The Stranger) meets with George Washington some time before the American Revolution begins and tells him that he must unite the world under the flag of the United States in order to save the world from a war that will take place in the future, giving him several objects that will aid in the cause. In the Firefly series background, it is stated that the Alliance - the main antagonist of the story - is that the United States, along with China, took over Earth (called Earth-that-was) some time before the long travel that took humanity to the solar system it currently lives in, something similar to what happens in the CoDominium book series, although in this case it is the Soviet Union that shares the power. There is also the graphic novel Watchmen, where the United States wins the Vietnam War thanks to Doctor Manhattan and there is actually talk of turning Vietnam into the 51st state of the Union. And, finally, the novel 1984, in which Oceania is (supposedly) a successor state of the unification of the British Empire with the United States of America.
- Confederate States of America: considering the above mentioned idea, it is curious that they are another favourite target for being a "wank". The fact that they were defeated in the American Civil War, and the apparent worship they have of them in parts of the United States nowadays, it is natural to think about what could have happened if they won. Timeline-191 by Harry Turtledove shows the CSA prospering in the post-Civil War world, managing to expand and reach the Pacific Ocean, but slowly reality ensues, as the problems the Confederate nation had (a lower population and industrial base, among other things) show up in many disadvantages. Mockumentary C.S.A.: Confederate States of America has as its premise that the Confederation not only wins in the Civil War, but they actually take over the rest of the nation and impose their slave-holding economy everywhere, but somehow manage to become a powerful and modern nation that has taken over most of America (Canada is the only place safe) and has also invaded Japan, Vietnam and the Middle West under the guise of expanding Christianism to those places (even the author knew that it was fully impossible that everything shown in the mockumentary would ever happen, but his only purpose was to show that race relations in the United States were, and are, not that dissimilar to many things shown in the mockumentary).
- Roman Empire: there are boatloads of them around. For example, the Duology Seekers of the Sky, in which God's Stepson becomes the Roman Emperor? Rome lasts beyond the 20th Century in a (nearly) iron-less world. The survival of Emperor Pertinax in the book series Romanitas leads to the expansion of the Empire in such a way that it controls Eurasia up to India, half of Africa and nearly all of America, while Japan controls Oceania, South-Eastern Asia and part of Siberia. One of the worlds discovered by the Infinity Patrol, Roma Aeterna, has a Roman Empire that is twice restored and has managed to conquer a good part of the world. And the liberation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate in the trilogy Germanicus, makes the Romans dominate nearly all of Europe and part of Africa, while China dominates Asia, the Aztecs Central and South America, and North America is divided among the three of them.
- British Empire: them from the Perfidious Albion, who once controlled a quarter of the globe along with the Seven Seas, have also had their cases of "wank", some of them very famous. For example, the manga Code Geass has Britannia, the successor of the Empire, as lord and master of the Americas and Oceania (and Japan, at the beginning of the manga), but curiously the British Isles are not part of it, since they were conquered by Napoleon. In The Two Georges, not only do they keep control over the territories they did in real life, but they also have great influence in China, the Ottoman Empire and other parts of Europe. And a third option is The Britwank Empire, which is basically the same thing as The United States of Ameriwank but centered in Great Britain.
- Angevin Empire: a nation that never existed, but that appears many times in alternative history, given the circumstances in which it could have survived. The main adversary of the Infinity Patrol, Centrum, is a product of such a chnge, when the White Ship's travel across the English Channel happens without a problem, keeping France and England united and eventually controlling the world, but cultural advances were much slower than technological ones and the Empire died in the middle of a brutal civil war where thermonuclear, chemical and biological weapons were liberally used by the contendants. Another place in which this empire can be met is in the Lord Darcy books, in which Richard Lionheart survives the siege of Chalus-Chabrol, expanding the Angevin Empire in such a way that most of Western Europe and the Americas are reigned by the Plantagenet and remain that way to the 20th century - in a world in which magic exists and can be studied as a science (they actually used magic-based technology in here!).
- Poland: for a country that has suffered so much in history (or perhaps because of this), it is somewhat common to see Poland obtain world status. It is not a well known fact that, once upon a time, Poland controlled Lithuania and was one of the most powerful nations of Europe - let's not forget the Polish Winged Hussars that, led by Polish king Jan III Sobieski, attacked the Ottoman army during the Battle of Vienna of 1683, thus winning the war for Christianity - and that is something several alternative history writers have taken into account. The Lord Darcy novels have the Polish Empire as the Angevin Empire's main enemy. And the Conrad Stargard novels feature the Polish engineer that gives name to the stories travel in time from 1986 to 1231 in a time machine, deciding to use his knowledge to turn his nation into the most powerful European nation of the time and give Poland the necessary means to push back the Mongol attack that is to take place in 1241.
Thanks for reading me, and I hope that next Friday's post will also be of your liking, as well!
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