The Greatest Game

A scenario I made for an RPG campaign, diverging in the 1760's: After the Seven Years War, the British parliament, in the face of growing dissent in the thirteen colonies, enacted the transfer of taxation powers to the colonial legislatures, butterflying the American revolution and frustrating an alternate French one. In the absence of Napoleonic Wars, Russia expanded and grew respect to OTL, and saw a parliamentary revolution that abolished serfdom in the 1820's. France and Spain fell rather behind, the latter being quartered by a much more expansionist Britain during the 19th century. The world, richer (in gross terms) but socially, aesthetically and politically much more conservative, would eventually become locked in a Cold War between the Russian and the British empires.

This world is technologically similar to ours to a degree, with slightly more advanced medicine and biotechnology, less advanced telecoms and more advanced warfare, as well as it counts with enough nukes to wipe off civilization hundreds of times. A public Internet would be possible, but it is considered a dangerous idea by the ruling elites. Rudimentary mobile phones are pervasive, but when it comes to text messages, most people use ordinary mail. Public transport and railways are encouraged over automotive vehicles. Social safety nets are widespread, but most colonial subjects neither enjoy political rights of any kind nor really participate of the global wealth.

Russia is much more populated than IOTL, and still growing due to strict Natalist policies directed at the Slavic population. In spite of the ethnic and racial bias, as long as you speak Russian and stay loyal (oh, and granted that you are not Jewish, case in which the least bad thing that will happen to you is being closely monitored), things should be fine, even if you won't get near a position of power. This ideally works even inside the Voivodeships. Racism is still a very visible thing inside the British System, though in the latter decades it has become less of an official discrimination and more of layers upon lyers of glass ceilings supported by public discourse.

Cities are generally clean, colorful and profuse in bourgeoise and colonial ornaments, but they're also somewhat less practical. In this world the lower classes are the ones confined to (rather kitsch) single family units and suburbia, and general aesthetics have a thing to them that could be more or less compared to Art Nouveau. The wealthiest usually live in floating, or even rolling and flying (those unavoidable airships) mansions: being attached to somewhere in this era of globalized empires is for plebs. Though social morals are 1950's and political attitudes are 1890's at best, there's a great deal of hedonism and (hetero)sexual openness: the environment is much more Georgian than Victorian.

Apart from a most aristocratic conception of parliamentary monarchy, and some not less aristocratic republics, there are a few new political developments. Brandenburg is heavily militarized, has its own nukes, and has a political system that would remind us of Starship Troopers. France has set up a continental league around the idea of armed neutrality, and most of the free Spanish speaking nations have become virulently irredentist and supremacist. Separatist terrorist groups are widespread, which has led to both empires being really big on surveillance, even for OTL standards. TTL's idea of Socialism, called Terrism, revolves around the distribution of land between workers and a quite jacobin idea of democracy. Though extra-parliamentary in most places, it has a strong syndical force. So far, only Peru, also nuclear-armed, has put it into practice.