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Description

Based on an old idea by a friend of mine. I'm not that familiar with the history of the time, so sorry if this is a bit too implausible.
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In 1642, disaster struck the French monarchy. The young dauphin, Louis Dieudonné, drowned in a fountain as he was playing unattended. The heir apparent to the French throne, the king that would have been Louis XIV, was dead. His brother, Philippe, thus inherited the throne when Louis XIII died a year later.

Philippe, known as Philip VII, would focus on turning France into a great power, but he was not terribly successful in creating a dictatorship around himself and France remained under the control of feudal lords. While opposed to Protestantism, Philip did not organize any wide-scale persecution against them, instead taking advantage of the prosperity the Hugenots brought to France. This policy would later aid France, as Philip would later become embroiled in a conflict of gargantuan proportions when the last Habsburg King of Spain, Charles II, died heirless.

Charles II left Philip's son the throne of Spain, which would have created a Franco-Spanish union. Indeed, this is what happened; despite the efforts of the England and the Holy Roman Empire, the French and Spanish empires were united under one throne. The Dutch did manage to break off from Spanish rule, uniting with the English and Scottish to create the United Kingdom. These two empires would face off against one another for centuries to come: through colonial expansion, to proxy wars, to direct wars. The French won most of North America and India, but the UK secured most of the East Indies.

By the early 21st century, France remains a great power, but it is no longer in a dual monarchy with Spain. The Spanish broke off from the union in the early 20th century in the War of Spanish Independence, becoming an ultranationalist state with a new monarchy in the process. During the war, the death of the Austrian Empire and France's puppet kingdoms in Germany created the new German Federation. While France lost its war, it remains the most powerful continental power in Europe, its influence spreading over its prodigious colonial empire and formerly French colonies that have maintained good relations with Paris. A constitutional monarchy, France considers itself a beacon of hope and progress in the world. It is aligned with the somewhat more absolutist and theocratic Kingdom of Portugal, which still practices "serfdom" in its African colonies.

Challenging the French is the Absolutist bloc. The victorious nationalists of the War of Spanish Independence want more. Led by the autocratic Russian Empire, whose absolutist Tsar still watches over a state that practices mass serfdom, the Absolutists seek to control all of Europe, and then the world. Aiding them are the Spanish, whose radical Catholicism has driven most Protestants into France, the Republic of Carolina, a military dictatorship and the last great power to have legal slavery, and the dictatorial Empire of Mexico, which while very anti-Spanish and somewhat "neo-Aztec" seeks to expand at the expense of France's allies in North America.

Apart from the conflict is the United Kingdom. Although they have been united for centuries, the citizens of Britain and those of the Netherlands still have somewhat separate cultures and languages, although mass education is quickly changing this. The UK, a constitutional monarchy with a totally ceremonial monarch, seeks to stand apart from the rest of the world's conflicts and to profit from an upcoming war. The UK arms industry has lucrative contracts with both the Royalists and the Absolutists, so whoever loses the next war, they win.

A dangerous new ideology has taken hold over the old Ottoman Empire. Having collapsed during the War of the Three Sultans in the 1980s, the Ottoman Empire has been overthrown and been replaced by the Workers' Union of Anatolia-Mesopotamia. Under the ideology of Communalism, the urban laborers of the Ottoman Empire theoretically control everything in the name of everyone, but in truth everything is controlled by the elite of the Workers' Party. The Workers' Union seeks to spread this ideology worldwide, making it a pariah in the international community. Both the Royalists and Absolutists seek to use this "rogue state" to their advantage, so the Workers' Union is safe for now.

In the East, China remains hegemon. The Middle Kingdom has gone through periods of isolation and opening up to foreign powers, and is now leaving a period of isolation for one of expansion. China has spent the past few decades modernizing, and is now nearly at par with the West. The Son of Heaven is not pleased with foreign incursions into Asia, and he strongly believes that the East should belong to China and China alone. How this plays into the Royalist-Absolutist conflict is unclear; the Chinese dislike both sides, and it is possible that they would sit out a war altogether until both sides are weak enough to be destroyed.

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Machine guns are starting to appear in most armies, horses are being gradually replaced with automobiles, and the first heavier-than-flight has been made in 2005. Telegraph lines crisscross the European and North American continents, making near-instantaneous communication somewhat easier. Lines are already being laid down in the Atlantic. More and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories. Yet in some countries, such as Russia and Japan, life for the average peasant is as it was for hundreds of years. And in Germany, a group of radical scientists are starting to explore the mysteries of radium.

Description

Based on an old idea by a friend of mine. I'm not that familiar with the history of the time, so sorry if this is a bit too implausible.
---

In 1642, disaster struck the French monarchy. The young dauphin, Louis Dieudonné, drowned in a fountain as he was playing unattended. The heir apparent to the French throne, the king that would have been Louis XIV, was dead. His brother, Philippe, thus inherited the throne when Louis XIII died a year later.

Philippe, known as Philip VII, would focus on turning France into a great power, but he was not terribly successful in creating a dictatorship around himself and France remained under the control of feudal lords. While opposed to Protestantism, Philip did not organize any wide-scale persecution against them, instead taking advantage of the prosperity the Hugenots brought to France. This policy would later aid France, as Philip would later become embroiled in a conflict of gargantuan proportions when the last Habsburg King of Spain, Charles II, died heirless.

Charles II left Philip's son the throne of Spain, which would have created a Franco-Spanish union. Indeed, this is what happened; despite the efforts of the England and the Holy Roman Empire, the French and Spanish empires were united under one throne. The Dutch did manage to break off from Spanish rule, uniting with the English and Scottish to create the United Kingdom. These two empires would face off against one another for centuries to come: through colonial expansion, to proxy wars, to direct wars. The French won most of North America and India, but the UK secured most of the East Indies.

By the early 21st century, France remains a great power, but it is no longer in a dual monarchy with Spain. The Spanish broke off from the union in the early 20th century in the War of Spanish Independence, becoming an ultranationalist state with a new monarchy in the process. During the war, the death of the Austrian Empire and France's puppet kingdoms in Germany created the new German Federation. While France lost its war, it remains the most powerful continental power in Europe, its influence spreading over its prodigious colonial empire and formerly French colonies that have maintained good relations with Paris. A constitutional monarchy, France considers itself a beacon of hope and progress in the world. It is aligned with the somewhat more absolutist and theocratic Kingdom of Portugal, which still practices "serfdom" in its African colonies.

Challenging the French is the Absolutist bloc. The victorious nationalists of the War of Spanish Independence want more. Led by the autocratic Russian Empire, whose absolutist Tsar still watches over a state that practices mass serfdom, the Absolutists seek to control all of Europe, and then the world. Aiding them are the Spanish, whose radical Catholicism has driven most Protestants into France, the Republic of Carolina, a military dictatorship and the last great power to have legal slavery, and the dictatorial Empire of Mexico, which while very anti-Spanish and somewhat "neo-Aztec" seeks to expand at the expense of France's allies in North America.

Apart from the conflict is the United Kingdom. Although they have been united for centuries, the citizens of Britain and those of the Netherlands still have somewhat separate cultures and languages, although mass education is quickly changing this. The UK, a constitutional monarchy with a totally ceremonial monarch, seeks to stand apart from the rest of the world's conflicts and to profit from an upcoming war. The UK arms industry has lucrative contracts with both the Royalists and the Absolutists, so whoever loses the next war, they win.

A dangerous new ideology has taken hold over the old Ottoman Empire. Having collapsed during the War of the Three Sultans in the 1980s, the Ottoman Empire has been overthrown and been replaced by the Workers' Union of Anatolia-Mesopotamia. Under the ideology of Communalism, the urban laborers of the Ottoman Empire theoretically control everything in the name of everyone, but in truth everything is controlled by the elite of the Workers' Party. The Workers' Union seeks to spread this ideology worldwide, making it a pariah in the international community. Both the Royalists and Absolutists seek to use this "rogue state" to their advantage, so the Workers' Union is safe for now.

In the East, China remains hegemon. The Middle Kingdom has gone through periods of isolation and opening up to foreign powers, and is now leaving a period of isolation for one of expansion. China has spent the past few decades modernizing, and is now nearly at par with the West. The Son of Heaven is not pleased with foreign incursions into Asia, and he strongly believes that the East should belong to China and China alone. How this plays into the Royalist-Absolutist conflict is unclear; the Chinese dislike both sides, and it is possible that they would sit out a war altogether until both sides are weak enough to be destroyed.

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Machine guns are starting to appear in most armies, horses are being gradually replaced with automobiles, and the first heavier-than-flight has been made in 2005. Telegraph lines crisscross the European and North American continents, making near-instantaneous communication somewhat easier. Lines are already being laid down in the Atlantic. More and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories. Yet in some countries, such as Russia and Japan, life for the average peasant is as it was for hundreds of years. And in Germany, a group of radical scientists are starting to explore the mysteries of radium.