Alternate Future of Europe: Article 13

Alternate Future of Europe: Article 13 is a mapping series by Star Islandian Mapping. As its name suggests, it focuses on the infamous Article 13, a law proposed by the EU that would ban a great part of online content. So far, four parts have been released, and a fifth was initially confirmed for June 2019, but appears to be delayed for now.

The series starts in January 2019 (the uploading time of the first episode) and at the moment, the latest events in the series take place in February 2020. A time skip is confirmed for the fifth part.

Parts
As of June 2019, it has not yet been decided how many parts the series will have in total, but Star estimates that it will be less than 13, and that the timeline will end in 2021 (the actual year when Article 13/17 starts affecting people). The episodes do not have titles of their own.

There were new episodes monthly, although part 4 stated that the 5th part would only come out in June 2019, not May. Each episode is about 5-6 minutes long, including the end card time (20 seconds or less).

Following the recent YouTube update changing the time zone of publishing dates, some parts have had their publishing dates moved forward, moving episode 4 (originally published in April according to the YouTube Headquarters time zone) to May. This means that now, only parts 1-3 were uploaded in consecutive months. Part 2 was also moved from February 17 to February 18 due to the change.

Timeline
Note: This section contains major spoilers.

Part 1

 * January 2019: The EU votes in favor of Article 13. Sweden opposes the change, while France is the most in favor of it, and demands that all EU countries start using Article 13 by the end of February. 14 of the 28 EU members have Article 13 by the end of the month.
 * February 2019: All remaining EU countries except Sweden start following Article 13.
 * March 2019: Due to Sweden's refusal to have Article 13, the EU declares war on Sweden. The EU is notably stronger. Due to the war, all EU members cancel their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.
 * April 2019: The EU continues invading Sweden.
 * May 2019: The EU's attack on Sweden continues. Sweden almost surrenders, but is stopped by Norway, who has been buying billboards in EU countries in order to convince inhabitants of the countries to fight against Article 13. Sweden and Norway form the Anti-Article 13 alliance and start to reclaim land in Sweden. Australia wins the Eurovision Song Contest and is given permission to host it in 2020.
 * June 2019: Rebels in Finland and Denmark take over the countries and make them part of the Anti-Article 13 alliance. Iceland joins the alliance as well. The war continues.
 * July 2019: Iceland and Denmark get taken over by the EU. Norway convinces Estonia to become a secret ally of the Anti-Article 13 alliance by promising an official membership in the Nordic Council. Estonia slows down troops going to Finland for a while, but this effect starts to weaken.
 * August 2019: The EU takes over Finland. Sweden and Norway lose hope of winning the war.

Part 2

 * August 21, 2019: Sweden and Norway are about to surrender, and 24 hours remain until the surrender becomes official. At that moment, the United Kingdom finally leaves the EU and joins the Anti-Article 13 alliance, meaning the War of Article 13 continues.
 * August 2019: The United Kingdom takes over Ireland. Ireland becomes a member of the Anti-Article 13 alliance. Sweden reclaims most land.
 * September 2019: The EU becomes more effective against the Anti-Article 13 alliance again. Norway asks the United States for help by promising half of his oil. USA joins the Anti-Article 13 alliance and takes over Malta. Malta becomes a member of the Anti-Article 13 alliance and Estonia, previously a secret ally, becomes an official member. Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom reclaim all of their land. Finland and Denmark become members of Anti-A13 again after they get taken over by the alliance.
 * October 2019: Iceland becomes a member of the Anti-Article 13 alliance again. Australia joins the EU and declares war on New Zealand. New Zealand joins the Anti-Article 13 alliance. France talks to the USA, claiming that Norway lied about giving oil, and is planning to weaken the USA.

Part 3

 * October 24, 2019: The United States notices suspicious activity in their country, and suspects Norway is behind it. The USA asks Norway about it, but Norway denies involvement, saying the people are most likely Americans. The USA threatens to invade Norway unless the oil is given, so Norway agrees to give the oil. The United States leaves the Anti-Article 13 alliance and stays neutral.
 * October 2019: Norway starts planning which country to invade after dealing with Australia. Australia invades New Zealand. The rest of the Anti-Article 13 alliance defends New Zealand.
 * November 2019: All of New Zealand is reclaimed. The Anti-Article 13 alliance invades Australia. Australia calls the EU for help, but nobody responds. Australia surrenders and agrees not to rejoin the EU for the rest of the War of Article 13. France discovers a loophole in the treaty, which allows Australia to rejoin the EU if the name of the war is changed (which can be done by renaming Article 13). Australia, however, still refuses due to previously not receiving any help form the EU. Norway plans to invade the Netherlands along with the United Kingdom, Ireland and the rest of the Nordic countries (not including Estonia, who is on the Nordic Council). Estonia, Malta and New Zealand form the sub group of Anti-A13 called the Meme Force, and prepare an anti-Article 13 propaganda video while the others invade the Netherlands. The Anti-A13 invades the Netherlands and does well.
 * December 2019: The Anti-Article 13 takes over the Netherlands, making the Netherlands a member of the alliance.
 * December 6, 2019: Estonia announces that the video they made is ready, but lacks an epic remix of meme songs.

Part 4

 * November 2019: The EU demands cameras to be installed in every building that will alert the EU of any memes.
 * December 7, 2019: The Netherlands suggests making an Anti-Article 13 song for the video. A rapper from the UK takes care of rapping while the Netherlands takes care of mixing the music. The Netherlands mentions the cameras, to which Estonia suggests mixing the music in a backyard.
 * December 2019: The anti-Article 13 video is spread across the EU, leading to rebellions everywhere. The Netherlands becomes a member of the Meme Force while Estonia becomes an official Nordic country after a vote of 3-2 (Norway, Finland and Iceland vote for, Sweden and Denmark against). The Anti-Article 13 alliance starts helping the anti-Article 13 rebels.
 * January 2020: Romania is the first country completely taken over by anti-Article 13 rebels, leading to the country becoming an official member of the Anti-Article 13 alliance. Latvia and Hungary get taken over as well.
 * February 2020: The anti-Article 13 army takes over Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Croatia. The Anti-Article 13 alliance appears to be winning the war.

Countries
List of countries that appear in the series. The alliances as of the end of part 2. Countries that have been mentioned by name but never have their countryball forms shown are in italics. Countries that are seen on maps but are never mentioned are not listed. Countries in alliances are listed in order of first official joining, or, if they have been members since the beginning of the series, in order of first mention in the series.

European Union

 * France
 * Luxembourg
 * Bulgaria
 * Belgium
 * Portugal
 * Slovenia
 * Spain
 * Cyprus
 * Germany
 * Italy
 * Greece
 * Austria
 * Czech Republic
 * Poland

Anti-Article 13 alliance

 * Sweden
 * Norway
 * Finland
 * Denmark
 * Iceland
 * United Kingdom
 * Ireland
 * Malta
 * Estonia
 * New Zealand
 * Netherlands
 * Romania
 * Latvia
 * Hungary
 * Slovakia
 * Slovenia
 * Lithuania
 * Croatia

Neutral

 * Israel
 * United States
 * Australia

Style
For most of the series, the videos have one map (usually Europe, although a map of Oceania appears at the end of part 2 and the middle of part 3), with a white table on the side, which has information such as the current month, ongoing wars, current alliances and other color codes (however, water is not mentioned in color codes). The map templates are this for Europe and this for Oceania, although the latter was entirely traced from the picture to make changing the color of landmasses easier, as well as to remove the country names. Meanings of certain fields have also been edited.

The countries are represented by countryballs, who refer to themselves in first person and to other countries by gendered pronouns based on Polandball Wiki. Certain countryballs have been given specific looks based on Polandball, such as the UK having a top hat and monocle, Israel being a cube, the USA wearing sunglasses and Australia wearing a hat. All countryballs are drawn by Star and do not use the circle tool or shading.

Areas in this series are color coded. Countries that are not involved in the War of Article 13 are gray, the EU is red and the Anti-Article 13 alliance is blue. Light yellow is used for the currently talking country, and any other colors are used for countries that are not currently in either major alliance but have relevance to something mentioned in the series. Water is light blue.

The series also has background music, and the artist is credited when their music is playing. When the map of Oceania is shown, the music plays backwards (with one exception).

There are parts where maps aren't used, and instead, countryballs appear with a black background. This style has so far only appeared at the beginnings of parts 2 and 3, and end of part 2. Music so far has been by Kevin MacLeod, TheDancingFishstick, grande1899, Party In Backyard and Andrew Stem.

Trivia

 * There have been multiple cases of characters breaking the fourth wall:
 * In part 1, Sweden breaks the fourth wall by saying "It will ban the types of mapping videos we're in right now!"
 * In part 3, when the USA lists suspicious activities, some of the things he says when the activities go by very quickly break the fourth wall. An example of this is when he points out that he has a more notable role than most European countries despite the series being called Alternate Futurue of Europe.
 * In part 3, Australia wonders why the music is playing forwards, as normally the music plays backwards in Oceania scenes.
 * In the first three parts, no country has actually changed borders.
 * References to certain stereotypes or traits commonly associated with countries are made.
 * France always surrenders: France hates this stereotype, and wanting to stop the internet spreading it is a major reason why France is pro-Article 13.
 * Estonia wants to be Nordic: Norway gets Estonia to join the Anti-Article 13 alliance by promising Estonia a place on the Nordic Council. Later in the series, Estonia becomes an official Nordic country.
 * USA loves oil: Norway convinces the United States to join the Anti-Article 13 alliance by promising oil, and later France figures out oil is the reason why the United States joined the alliance. USA is also shown having oil in the thumbnail of part 3.
 * As of part 4, France is the only remaining member of the EU that has appeared as a countryball.
 * Part 1 is (so far) the only part to end with countries previously in the Anti-Article 13 alliance being members of the EU.
 * Part 4 is the only part where, in the end, there are more countries in the Anti-Article 13 alliance than in the EU.
 * Music by grande1899 (Grandayy) starts playing right as Malta is mentioned for the first time in part 2. Malta is the home country of Grandayy.
 * Despite the series focusing on Europe, some non-European countries make appearances, while non-EU European countries other than Norway and Iceland (and the UK after Brexit) are never even mentioned.
 * The thumbnail of part 3 only has non-European countries.
 * Part 3 makes a brief reference to "Article 17" (the new name of Article 13), where France suggests it as a new name for Article 13 to rename the war. In the series, the reasoning for 17 is that it is a bad luck number in Italy, and that 13 is also a bad luck number.
 * Part 3 has references to certain Star Wars prequel memes:
 * France, to Australia: "Hold on. This whole you joining the EU thing was your idea." (Original: "Hold on. This whole operation was your idea.")
 * Norway, to Estonia: "Actually, you are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of Nordic country." (Original: "You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of master.")
 * In part 4, each of the thumbnail countryballs can be seen with a video clip in the backyard in the meme video part. Each countryball's background video was made by a memer from their respective country (Estonia: FlyingKitty, Malta: Grandayy, New Zealand: Dolan Dark).