Flash fiction thread

The return of New York

The Anglo-American War raged from 1812 to 1819. The outcome of that conflict was the collapse of the United States of America along with the transfer of sovereignty of New York City to the British Empire. Manhattan and Long Island became British with elements of the Treaty of Boston – at that time being the capital of the sovereign New England Federation – stating that this territorial concession was ‘for all time’. Britain used New York as an international trading post and Atlantic naval station. It was attacked during the First and Third World Wars, but not the Second, yet each time the outpost was held against assailants. In that third global conflict, forces from the North American Union, including men from the former imperial possession of what was once Canada, came very close to taking it but the guns from the battleships of the Royal Navy saved the day.

New York grew in population but never in size. Much of Long Island became urbanized with what was once precious farmland becoming housing as well as industry. Imports of food kept the territory alive. There was long the issue of fresh water due to damming and diversion of the Hudson River to feed American industry through New England in their many herculean public works projects. Relations between the North American Union and Britain were for many long years tense due to the subjugation of Canada and the wars which were fought between the two. However, through the latter half of the Twentieth Century, there was a cooling of tensions. Imperial German designs upon Latin America following its victory in the Third World War threatened each of them. The North American Union had left that conflict midway through, deserting the Germans and making a separate peace with Britain. Germany had long wanted revenge and was active in Mexico. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, those in Philadelphia eventually came to the conclusion. Britain was still reeling from its defeat to Germany and sought a trading partner. The importance of air power in that last global conflict over warships lessened New York’s importance for the Royal Navy. The territory became more about trade than ever before for Britain. London armed the North American Union’s military forces through New York when they went to war with Germany though Britain stood neutral during that long conflict. When the Americans emerged victorious, the decline of Imperial Germany on the world stage began. Britain took advantage elsewhere in the world but stayed out of Latin America.

The first serious talks concerning the transfer of New York back to the Americans started in 1980. The British Empire was declining just like the Germans were. What they had swallowed in the aftermath of the American-German War cost too much and there were political developments at home when it came to the desire to rid Britain of much of its empire in a process known as decolonisation. The North American Union wanted New York back. There were no Americans there but this was about territorial hegemony as well as ‘correcting the wrongs of 1819’. Britain wouldn’t just hand it over without a guarantee for the locals, all of whom were considered British nationals (UK born) and British subjects (New York born). The process went on for years with no one willing to blink. There were other improvements in relations though related to the direct sovereignty dispute. Food and water issues were solved and the Americans received trading concessions within the territory. There were renewed talks on sovereignty which took place in 1987, 1992 and 1999. No real progress was made during any of them though. There was an incompatibility between the political systems of Britain and the North American Union. London wanted to maintain the rights of New Yorkers and wasn’t happy with the greasy promises from Philadelphia about those. Britain had given in on the matter of maintaining a naval base but the Americans hadn’t moved on anything else. Into the Twenty-First Century New York went with no sign that anything would ever change over its status.

A ‘quiet revolution’ which took place through 2002-2004 across the North American Union changed things. There was now democracy where before there had been authoritarianism. Those in power in Philadelphia made it clear that this change was here for good. Britain took notice. There were new trade deals struck and even international security cooperation in the face of extremist terrorism in other parts of the world where interests aligned. The status of New York returned to prominence in talks between diplomats. The Americans were ready to make firm commitments on political rights for New Yorkers. Back in London, there was a willingness to make a deal now. Voices from New York spoke of a sell-out, which the British dismissed, but this was true. It was economics which were driving this. Promised trade links with the Americans over rid any continuing value that New York had any more. The Philadelphia Agreement was completed in late 2008. There was to be a ten-year transition period starting the following year when it came to New York. This period passed with no issues cropping up. It would be March 14th 2019 when that was completed.

On the final day of British sovereignty, there were many official events followed by a final ceremony to mark the hand over. The King and Prime Minister came to New York from London while travelling up from Philadelphia was the First Secretary of the North American Union. There was a protest, a small one it must be said, in Manhattan from New Yorkers where they objected to their transfer against their will, but it gained no publicity. The transfer was a stage-managed affair and no one was willing to allow for it to be seen to be something opposed. Midnight was reached. Fireworks went off while warships in New York Bay – British and American – fired (blank) shells. New York had been returned to the Americans.

The North American Union is this TL’s counterpart to the USSR?

A sort of USSR, yes. But with its quiet revolution it's gone - a bit - democratic.



Butterflies! No USA, three world wars and so much more changed in two hundred years.

I'm not so sure.
America will be a very different place. The longer War of 1812 - now for seven years instead of three - broke the USA and one breakaway region gave away territory to Britain. Immigration to the USA would be different over the years. Canada is subsumed during one of the many wars with Britain and the North American Union later had interests in the Caribbean which they fought a war with Germany over. They were an expansive power and that demands people plus resources.
America is an industrial power and there is a late 20th Century extensive worldwide trading network. They have a First Secretary rather than a President which would suggest a USSR-lite system. I'd think state-planning was a big thing until the beginning of the 21st Century when things changed politically and they were willing to really start opening up internationally. That would kill off the worst of a central economy.

End of the Line

Owen stood in the Oval Office, watching the frenzy outside on the South Lawn over the shoulders of the loyal Secret Service agents standing guard by the bulletproof windows.

Three months ago, he was the new Speaker of the House of the Reformed United States of America, his predecessors having either been captured by the Yankee CIA; defected to Britain, Canada, Free California or one of the other heathen nations; disappeared via actors foreign or domestic; or simply quit, either weary of the stress or wanting to take care of their loved ones. 

Owen was a True Believer from the day the Coup split the country into 11 parts, convinced that God and His true Reformed Calvinist theology was the cure to all of America's ills. Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, southern Missouri, Virginia and South Carolina formed the RUSA in the days after the Coup, claiming to represent all of the former United States; within months they had pacified North Carolina, Georgia and the Florida panhandle, chasing the Arminian evangelicals to Texas, the Catholics and the cisgender heathen to Yankeeland and most of the Hispanics to Independent Florida. The LGBTQI population were corraled and sent to Conversion Therapy camps; the "successful" ones who managed to fake being healed were reintegrated into a society that at best mistrusted them, the ones who kept failing were kept in the camps until they were healed...there were 117 thin, but nourished, people in the Mount Sterling camp liberated by the Third Ohio Army. The heathen rednecks had their own version of the practice meant to purge them of their propensity for drinking, cussing and screwing; their denziens had similar stories as to their LGBTQI counterparts, only the rowdier ones were shot instead of having the chance to repent in prison.

The RUSA tried to be Calvin's City on a Hill and ended up providing an example of what a Soviet-style American dictatorship would look like if it were capitalist, Christian and Calvinist. The heavy-handed tactics of the six Presidents, their lackeys on Capitol Hill and in the Supreme Court, and their enforcers in the military and the FBI/CIA internal police, quickly reached the rest of the continent and the world. Even as the other American nations fought one another with guns and bombs and then with words, stories of RUSA atrocities were spread by international media sources like the BBC. While the United Nations in the Republic of New York argued over sending in the peacekeepers, the Underground Railroad sent refugees in all directions and each had an insane story of survival and escape.

When Richard Dawkins called the RUSA the Great Satan and Owen's successor, Carson, responded by ordering the Joint Chiefs to draw up attack plans on the United Kingdom, the world community realized it was time for regime change. It began not with the planned capture of RUSA political and military leaders by the Yankee/British/French/Canadian intelligence, but with the detonation of a bomb by the Rainbow Resistance during Carson's first and only State of the Union address, hidden right under his nose. Because Owen was the designated survivor amongst the House members (watching the speech from a cafe in Charlottesville, Virginia), he was the highest ranking person in the Line of Succession, and was sworn in 12 minutes afterwards before two Secret Service agents, the Charlottesville police chief, six Virginia state troopers, eight Charlottesville police officers, three baristas, the cafe manager and Lisa the golden retriever. 

Owen was rushed to Washington, and sat by while the Joint Chiefs finalized their plans to attack London, Paris, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Omaha, Austin, Seattle, Sacramento, Mexico City, New York City and anyone else behind this atrocitiy: Owen, no military genius, realized their ambition extended their reach. He also knew that the RUSA was on borrowed time. 

Days later, the Swiss Ambassador -- Switzerland being one of the only countries still talking to the RUSA at this point -- delivered a simple message to the White House:


Time to go. Surrender peacefully, and you will be treated with all due respect. Resist, and you will be treated accordingly. The Global Community.


Perry, the Secretary of Prophetic Words (an unofficial Cabinet position created as a friendly gesture to the loyal charismatic/pentecostals who supported the regime) went crazy, and claimed this was the sign the Rapture was about to go down and the Antichrist was headed to Washington. Saner heads on Owen's staff, the Cabinet and the Joint Chiefs agreed it merely meant the rest of the world was coming for them -- but the RUSA could never, ever surrender. Knowing the Cabal who helped create this City on a Hill would remove him at first opportunity, Owen went along with their plans to move operations from Washington to the redoubt in north Georgia; Washington was in the middle of moving out, and the most essential operations had already been set up at the redoubt. The last remaining task was to relocate the President.

As Owen watched the missiles being set up on the South Lawn, he heard the doors to his rear kicked open. Before he could fully turn around, he was picked up by his underarms and carried by two Secret Service agents outside, towards the lawn and past the missiles to the Marine One helicopter awaiting him.

"Thinker is secure," Owen saw one of the agents speak into a wireless microphone attached to his lapel as a 19-year-old Marine fastened his seatbelt. Owen looked at the 40-year-old Army Colonel sitting across from him in the seat where his Chief of Staff should be, and the President realized who really was running this operation. As Marine One lifted off from the South Lawn and headed southwest, Owen looked out the windows at the White House, the ruined Capitol building, and the rest of Washington for the last time in his life.