New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

In GURPS: Who'sWho II I created Felix Nauticus who converts Caligula to Buddhist teachings. Having Alexander's heirs become Buddhist probably works better.

Did the Hindu numerals come over too?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

In GURPS: Who'sWho II I created Felix Nauticus who converts Caligula to Buddhist teachings. Having Alexander's heirs become Buddhist probably works better.

Did the Hindu numerals come over too?

They hadn't been invented yet.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

In GURPS: Who'sWho II I created Felix Nauticus who converts Caligula to Buddhist teachings. Having Alexander's heirs become Buddhist probably works better.

Did the Hindu numerals come over too?

Yes, I thought so too. I just cannot imagine the Julians as Buddhists, but I can imagine Alexander turning to Buddhism late in his life, especially if he had Buddhist advisors assisting in the management of his Empire for decades beforehand (a unified organized religion without any attachments to a particular ethnic group within his Empire may have been appealing).

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

For a dominant Africa, or even an Africa that isn't everybody's punching bag you need three things. !) Better crops, the Columbian exchange brought in a fine set of crops, perhaps some improved trade between Ethiopia and the rest of Africa could establish some other useful crops elsewhere. 2) A less brutal disease climate. The Swahili Coast (or the area we now call the Swahili Coast) was growing rapidly in the period before the 535 event. But the sudden climate change made bubonic plague endemic in the area if you got more than ten miles from the coast. The Tsetse Fly both brings disease and restricts food supply. 3) Africa had, and still tends to have poor transport. Seagoing cultures they had but little useful wood for shipbuilding and few good ports and inland river traffic was often problematic.

To build a strong Africa you need to deal with all three problems.

To build a strong africa you need to pick a region and make it strong. Africa is a huge place. The regions I always look at are West Africa, the Swahili coast, and Ethiopia. Far fetched options also include a south African colony. A North African age of exploration is actually a very strong option, particularly when coupled with a Muslim Spain and or southern Italy*.


I always struggle with sub Saharan Africa timelines because I can't get my head around why Ethiopian culture never spread south or west. People always bring up disease, but I don't think that's the whole picture. Diseases swept Europe and Asia as well. People build up a resistance. When West Africa did connect to the world through traders, they used the Sahara, not the populated portions of the continent.



A weird theory to play with would be that Africa just needed an equivalent of Rome or the Han: massive, brutal empires that wiped out cultures not tough or large enough to put up a fight, and replaced hundreds of languages with a dozen related languages. Africa had empires, true, but they didn't have the massive ones that homogenized large swaths of land. That destroys our modern idea of what makes Africa, but Europe is hardly just the celts brought forward into the modern day.



*Note to self: further flesh out this idea. A Moorish Columbus equivalent sounds fascinating.

[Astromancer]

For a livelier Japanese history but not necessarily a Japan rules the world scenario, have Toyotomi Hideyoshi change priorities. Before the Japanese invasions of Korea, which were uncharacteristically a military flop, Hideyoshi said that he intended to conquer, "Korea, China, and Manila" in that order. Hideyoshi is supposed to have heard that the Philippines weren't well protected and so added them to a list of conquests as an afterthought.

Now in this Q6 world, Hideyoshi decided to hit the Philippines first, as a practice run. It went badly but the Spanish were caught by surprise. Thus the Philipines became a part of the Japanese Empire in the 1590's. When Tokugawa Ieyasu became the Shogun, Hideyoshi's conquest was a problem. It prevented any closing of Japan if they were going to keep control of Luzon. Just dumping the conquest would have been to dishonorable. So he kept them and a full closing of Japan never occurred.

The local year is 1725. Japan is totally fashionable in Europe. Fencing styles blend Japanese and Western techniques. The rising Enlightenment adores Japanese fashions and art. Works from the Yomihon Genre are fashionable in all of Europe's salons. In Edo, Shakespeare is hot in both the Kabuki and Bunraku stages. Webster, Jonson, Congreve, Racine, Corneille, and Moliere, are also hits. The tales of Arthur and Orlando are also all the rage.

Basically, this is a swasher setting with truly mixed Martial Arts. The English highway robbers have katanas and know judo. Pirates can come from either side of Eurasia and drink rum together. Japan is a competitor for trade and Empire with Europe. China is beginning to see they need to get into the game. Due to cultural and technological exchange, the Tech Level is a little higher than in Homeline's history, but not a full tech level yet. The technology is more like 1780 than 1725.

[PTTG]

Benjamin Franklin, America's First Weeabo.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Benjamin Franklin, America's First Weeaboo.

If not the first, he would have certainly been in the running to be first Weeabo.

[Astromancer]

One of the great burdens of Medieval Ethiopia was the simple fact that the Patriarch of Alexandria charged so much for bishops. But since the Islamic rulers of Egypt constantly blackmailed the Coptic Church for vast sums of money, both for the sake of greed and to force Ethiopia to pay tribute, he had little choice. Further, the Greek churchmen sent by the Patriarch of Alexandria were only allowed to travel South to Ethiopia if the rulers of Egypt knew the Churchmen were impious and greedy. It was part of a long term plan to undermine the Ethiopian Church and therefore the kingdom itself.

In this Q4 world Pester John-7 a mysterious Irishman came from the Pope with permission to appoint twenty-four bishops. This infuriated the reigning bishops, mainly because it would collapse their value and status and leave the Patriarch of Alexandria without most of its income. Still, the Negus (Emperor of Ethiopia) liked the man and the simple fact that if the Ethiopian church had a dozen bishops it became autocephalous (a self headed/ruled church beholden to no one).

The Pope and the Patriarch were theoretically equals with the Pope first among equals with the full right to send this privilege. The carefully preserved document was signed by Sylvester II and it seems legit. And there was a record of a Father Domnall who was to visit the Eastern Churches and see to their needs. So Saint Domnail's Charter seems legit in this world.

The present local year is 1537. With the stability of the Ethiopian church and the founding of Ethiopia's universities about three generations after Europe's great burst of Universities in the Eleventh century, Ethiopia with its skilled administration and wealthy State and church conquered much of Africa. The Ethiopian Empire has trading posts on the Congo, the Niger, and the shores of the Indian Ocean.

Contact with Europe is being re-established through several different channels. The Cabal, allied with the Ottomans in this world wants to prevent this. Homeline wants to weaken the Cabal's grip.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I always struggle with sub Saharan Africa timelines because I can't get my head around why Ethiopian culture never spread south or west. People always bring up disease, but I don't think that's the whole picture. Diseases swept Europe and Asia as well. People build up a resistance.

And even then, if it's the disease environment that causes Ethiopian kingdoms to all center on the northern plateau, neither the Awash river basin or the Turkana channel seem especially insurmountable barriers to expanding into the not so dissimilar climates of the Ahmar mountains or the East African Highlands. Even if the malaria were so horrible nobody could live there permanently, it's only a couple hundred kilometers, much of it along navigable water. You wouldn't need to occupy them heavily to sustain a state across them.

[AlexanderHowl]

The native tribes did fine, whether they were Kushite, San, T'wa, or Bantu. It was the Arabs abd the Europeans that had dreadful troubles. The problem for the native tribes was not necessarily disease, it was transportation, and without adequate transportation it was difficult to sustain trade with the interior, though the West Africa did not do too badly on the account. The Kingdom of Kongo was actually quite substantial, for example, as was the Mali Empire.