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Old 08-03-2018, 10:17 AM   #3481
Astromancer
 
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White Rose-1 and White Rose-6 both involve Perkin Warbeck. In White Rose-1 the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 is the changepoint. Due to blunders by some of Henry's commanders at the Battle of Deptford Bridge, Henry got killed and Perkin simply took over. In White Rose-6 a mysterious Flemish Nobleman with deep pockets backed Warbeck's invasion. Besides being properly financed, Perkin Warbeck fleet wasn't blown off course and landed in an area of England that supported the Yorkist cause. Henry's troops nearly won the day, but an assassin surprised Henry and killed him a few weeks after Warbeck's landing.

Both worlds give Perkin Warbeck a similar problem. When most important people in Europe think you are an imposture how do you hold the throne? Minor side note: many people then and now, some of them now being serious scholars, think that Warbeck lied when he said he wasn't Richard Duke of York. That Perkin Warbeck was the cover story. In IW it can work out either way. Still, Perkin has to be vigilant at all times, his "relatives" all see how close they are to the throne. So many powerful people see how they could benefit from being the person to place the next king on the throne. Add in the new Protestant movement, which is catching on in the Southeast of England, the part which loves the House of York the least, and the pot could boil over.
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Old 08-03-2018, 10:19 AM   #3482
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Is anyone else getting a phantom page 349?
It's no longer a phantom. It seems we get phantoms on this thread when we get close to having a new page.
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Old 08-04-2018, 09:38 AM   #3483
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I recently found out that the Han Dynasty had thirdhand knowledge of the Roman Empire and briefly tried to establish diplomatic relations with them. The envoy sent had no real idea where Rome was, so when he was just 40 days from Roman Syria and asked for a ship to Rome, he was told it could take years to go around Africa. He then returned home.

But what if he'd learned of the (relatively) easy overland route? He probably would have arrived in Rome early in the reign of Emperor Trajan, and likely wouldn't have established much of consequence; China and Rome were simply too far apart. Both Parthia and the Kushan Empire lay between the easternmost part of Rome's empire and the westernmost fringes of China (which had only recently been brought back under Imperial control). However, given that the Chinese were interested in some Roman products they had heard of and vise versa, they might set up some kind of trade agreement. Egypt had Red Sea ports, which would be a relatively sensible place to send trade to southern Chinese ports (closer to China's seat of power, and not dependent on two empires letting merchants through).

What effects might this have?
Well, it would boost the wealth of whichever Egyptian cities were used for the trade (let's say Arsinoe Cleopatris and the surrounding area), as well as the Roman Empire as a whole; this probably wouldn't save the Western Roman Empire (especially since it wouldn't benefit as much from the trade after splitting with the East), but it could help the Eastern Romans. Speaking of which, if we wanted to go full-alt, we could have Constantine put Constantinople in the new-money region of Egypt instead of historic Byzantium.
It might also encourage China to expand southward, perhaps up the Yangtze River and down the Irrawaddy. Getting a port on the Indian Ocean would let traders avoid a journey around the various Thai kingdoms of Southeast Asia. Rome might even support such endeavors; they probably wouldn't send soldiers, barring an Emperor who really wanted better relations with China, but they might well send monetary aid. (If nothing else, they could probably get some wealthy merchants to pay into it in exchange for special privileges.)
The Chinese were hoping Rome could help them expand westward, but this was improbable. The distance between them was too great; about the best they could do was keep whoever ruled Persia from allying with whoever China was fighting. Still, I don't see them ever becoming worse than cordial trading partners; they're too far apart to have conflicts of interest beyond haggling. One possible exception is Christianity, but considering the syncretism which arose from pagan converts closer to actual Christians, I can easily see China easily adopting something that looks like Christianity from half a continent away.

The question now becomes "How does Islam affect this arrangement?" After all, Mecca isn't that far from Egypt. If the Eastern Roman Empire could hold its trading cities in Egypt, so near its narrow connection with Arabia, it could drastically alter the course of Islamic history. But if, as in our timeline, it didn't, how would the two empires react? Would China shrug and start trading with Muslims, or would they try to restore Roman control of the area? (And would they succeed?) Would Constantinople funnel more and more resources into trying to retake those ports, ruining itself in the process? And if we do move Constantinople to Egypt, how does that change? Does Islam spread more into Europe and less into Africa, or does the Empire fall then and there?
The outcome of this single question drastically alters the fate of this timeline, which makes it a pretty good place to set a campaign. For added stakes, the Egyptian Constantinople would make the whole Empire seem at risk.
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Old 08-09-2018, 09:47 PM   #3484
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Between Empress Elizabeth and the famous Catherine the Great was her husband, Peter III, grandson of Peter the Great. Peter III doesn't get any fancy title, partly because basically everyone in his family overshadowed him and partly because the act he's most famous for is making peace with Prussia in the Seven Years' War so he could reclaim the duchy of Holstein. No doubt delaying Elizabeth's death is the seed of countless Russian alt-histories, but I'll take Peter's short reign in a different (though probably not unique) direction.
See, Peter's father was not only the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, but the nephew of Carolus Rex. (See what I mean about Peter having an awesome family?) Peter was briefly named heir presumptive of Sweden, but as far as I can tell this was rescinded after the Swedish Parliament realized that Elizabeth had named him heir to Russia. But let's say he was still eligible, somehow. Maybe Sweden got Peter to follow their plans in the 7YW by naming him heir again, ignoring traditions against forming stupidly OP personal unions. (I don't know if that makes sense. I'm an American, so I was taught about the Seven Years' War as the French and Indian war...which doesn't actually mention the French conflicts in India.)
If everything else remains the same, this shouldn't affect much; Peter III died nine years before the then-current king of Sweden. But there are two possible ways to have this affect things anyways: Either Adolf Frederick dies in early 1762, during Peter's brief stint on the Russian throne, or the heir-presumtive-ness passes on not to Adolf's son, but to Peter's. And I'm going to split the two apart, because this post was initially 13.5% over the character limit.


In the first case, Peter would face trouble from Sweden. He was a German prince through and through, which is a large part of what alienated the Russians he ruled in OTL. It wouldn't have been quite as bad, since Sweden was Lutheran (like Peter) rather than Orthodox (like Catherine), but he would likely still be an unpopular king...and probably a very distant one. Chances are that Peter heads to Holstein like in OTL, but if he moves to Sweden he might avoid the bar-brawl-and-possible-assassination that killed him about a week after Catherine couped him. If he does, we have another sub-possibility, where King Peter I of Sweden is a thorn in Catherine's side and has a legacy defined more by his attempted progressive reforms in Sweden than screwing up the Seven Years' War.
If not, though, an eight-year-old becomes Paul I of Sweden, with Catherine as his regent. And that simply will not do. Catherine was born German and Lutheran, but acted Russian and especially Orthodox. Moreover, she would most likely be less than thrilled with the relatively weak (from my very brief research) powers which Swedish monarchs held. Catherine was more than willing to listen to the needs of her people, but she was an autocrat; she would likely prefer an elected body advising the monarch on what laws to pass over a figurehead monarch over a Parliament which passed its own laws.
The Russo-Turkish War would be a good chance for the Swedes to strike out against what they saw as a foreign, heretic empress's attempt to impose tyranny on their fair land. In OTL, the Russians sailed the Baltic fleet to the Black Sea, which allowed them to launch a very successful surprise attack on the Ottoman navy. If Sweden joined the Ottomans (or fought the enemy of their enemy on behalf of Polish rebels), announced by a surprise attack on the Russian Baltic Fleet as they were leaving the Baltic, they could have not only forced Catherine to split her forces but also ruined (or at least damaged) their navy.
This could lead to Russia losing the Russo-Turkish wars (or whatever they'd be called in this timeline). This means no Black Sea ports for Russia, no war reparations to help the Russian treasury, and either no Crimean War or a similar war with a different casus belli. It would also lead to other problems for Russia, depending on what exactly the Ottomans, Polish rebels, Swedish Parliament, etc demanded...which would probably lead to Pugachev's peasant rebellion lasting longer, or perhaps even overthrowing Catherine. It would probably delay or halt Russia's acceptance of proto-vaccines, since Catherine getting a cowpox inoculation wouldn't be as inspiring to much of the populace.
This would make a decent setting for an adventure. Centrum wants to aid Catherine, bringing Russia and Sweden under a unified autocratic government; Homeline is divided on if they should help Catherine get to where she was in their timeline or just help Pugachev free the serfs and encourage the humanist parts of his ideals. Oh, and smallpox and other plagues are ravaging eastern Europe.

Or we could go further. Grigory Potemkin, a great general for and adviser to Catherine, was an envoy to Sweden; it's not hard to say something bad happened to him in the Russo-Turkish Wars (ranging from execution to catching a crippling disease in the prison they chucked him in). Even without this, all of the other problems which the Russo-Turkish Wars saddled Russia with and the exacerbated problems caused by Pugachev, smallpox, etc, Catherine would be hard-pressed to find the funds and other resources needed for many of her great deeds. It could mean no Crimean or Georgian annexation, no Black Sea fleet, no Partition of Poland (or at least not one Russia got anything out of). Catherine would mediate no Western conflicts, unlike in OTL. In short, Russia would not be a great power; it would be a rural, impoverished backwater.
Perhaps the reign of Catherine the Great would be remembered for how she brought Enlightenment ideals to the Russian government. Perhaps she would be remembered for financial reform. Or perhaps she would colonize Alaska or trade with East Asia more than in OTL, these being avenues for growth and repair that this timeline would not block. Russia would still be primed for a great revolution of some kind, but likely not as in our timeline. Perhaps it would be a different ideology, a sort of neo-Pugachevian reform rather than Marx-inspired Communism. There are lots of possibilities, and someone with a better understanding of Russian history can probably think of some cool ones.
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Old 08-09-2018, 09:49 PM   #3485
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(Continued from my previous post)

If King Adolf of Sweden makes it to 1771 as in OTL, and is succeeded by Paul (son of Catherine the Great and Peter the Disappointing-Compared-to-His-Family), things go differently. Being 17 years old, Paul could rule by himself and potentially distance himself from his Russian, Orthodox roots. He already felt somewhat alienated from his mother, due in part to Grandma Elizabeth keeping them largely separate until her death. But he is still her son; he would support her. And with this chance to rule a nation, Paul could grow into a great king.
Sweden would fight with Russia against the Turks, not the other way around. 1771 is after Russia's biggest victories in the Russo-Turkish Wars, but hey, it's the thought that counts. (Besides, if Catherine retained good relations with Sweden, Sweden might be convinced to pitch in something, maybe in exchange for something else. I dunno, could happen.) Russia and Sweden would help each other through the next decades, which might bring them together.
But would it last? In OTL, Paul remained Orthodox, and unless he decided to reject his claim to Russia (or fell in love with Scandinavia), he'd probably stay that way. Not to mention that Catherine's autocratic tendencies would probably rub the Swedes the wrong way. Maybe it wouldn't come up; in OTL, Catherine was so afraid that Paul would be a political rival that she kept him out of government her entire life, so maybe she wouldn't mind Paul not having much real power as long as Sweden stayed on her side.
If Catherine and Paul didn't give Sweden reason to rise in open rebellion, things wouldn't change much in this timeline. One more ally would give Russia a bit more military might and political weight, but it's hard to say how much this would change in practice; Catherine probably couldn't get too much out of them without giving Sweden reason to rebel. So the fun part of this alternate timeline comes when Paul ascends the Russian throne.

The optimist in me wants to suggest that this changes the course of Russian history; with Paul given more power and responsibility during his young adulthood, he gets a decent understanding of government and can put his talents to work. (Even a figurehead gets a better idea of how to run a ship than a captain's son who's kept belowdecks all day.) Then he could do the same for his heir, treating Alexander with less paranoia than in OTL and letting him "rule" Sweden as Paul had during his mother's reign, and so on for the next several emperors, perhaps even letting them transition from an absolute monarchy to a more egalitarian state less horrifically.
Of course, that's a very rosy picture, but let's consider it. A Russia with less internal strife and more competent rulers would be terrifying; they were among the most powerful empires in OTL even with the post-Catherine issues, and letting up on their pressure a bit would make them even more terrifying. The Ottomans might not make it to the Great War, Mongolia and other bits of northeast Asia might be annexed, Scandinavia would be defined by opposition to the Russo-Swedish bloc, etc. No Soviet Union means that Communism is seen as less of an existential threat and more of an extreme social movement, meaning that more moderate versions thereof could be seen as more of a compromise and less of a slippery slope.
The Great War would be vastly different, with Germany possibly falling to Russian invasion (perhaps before they could properly earn French ire) and Japan potentially siding with the Central Powers against Russia rather than seizing German territories. (Or maybe the latter plus internal issues would prevent the former?) The details of all of this would have a big impact on World War 2, in particular where the Germans' ire was directed. The various vague details would come to a head here, making this world's post-Great-War period or WW2 a decent setting for a GM willing to flesh things out and go a bit wild.

Of course, that probably wouldn't happen. At some point, Sweden and Russia would come to blows, especially if some Russian monarch got it into their head that being king of Sweden should be like being emperor of Russia. This would probably trigger one of those 19th-century prototype World Wars, the ones where a third of Europe fights another third of Europe and drags a good chunk of the rest of the world into it. That would, in turn, be a pretty great place to set an adventure or campaign!
Which is a good place to leave it, because I know nowhere near enough about European history to guess when such a war would take place or who would be on which side, let alone who would win or the fallout of such a victory. Maybe Russia becomes sovereign over all of northern Eurasia from Norway to Siberia! Maybe Russia loses half of its European territory and becomes more of an Asian power than a European one! Maybe the Ottomans get wrecked ahead of schedule and the Middle East gets carved into arbitrary chunks early, or maybe they get their crap together and get enough from the war to survive in some form until this timeline's WW2! Who knows?
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Old 08-10-2018, 08:58 AM   #3486
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Try this idea...

The Caliphate of Egypt always knew how to dig canals and how to link the Nile to the Red Sea. Once Venician merchants tell the Egyptians that the Portuguese can sail around Africa the Egyptians decide they need a canal or they'll lose business. The shock of how effective the Portuguese naval ships are in Asian waters confirms it. A canal is basic to survival. So they dig one.

Egypt's economy doesn't stagnate along with the rest of the Ottoman state's. When Egypt breaks away from the Ottomans in the Early 19th century, they are richer and more cosmopolitan. They see the importance of education and industry to their independence.

Basically, Egypt, like our world's Japan, is a nonwestern nation that gets how to survive and remain independent in the modern world. This Q6 world is in the year 1875 and Egypt is an industrialized Nation driving its railroad network south through Africa. The European powers are just now beginning to understand that, if they don't act, Egypt will own all of Subsaharan Africa and have a truly vast Empire!

This is a reworked The Great Game reset to Victorian Africa. Cross Kipling with Haggard and drizzle in some Verne to taste. Other flavors can be added as well.
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Old 08-10-2018, 09:30 AM   #3487
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There are a few things needed for this to work. One is an Egyptian navy in the Indian Ocean. The canal makes this possible, by providing a low-cost transport route to bases in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, but that navy is still going to be expensive.

Affording that navy requires having lots of trade for it to protect. If Egypt can make a deal with the Caliphate to protect ships to the west coast of Arabia, and thus the Hajj traffic to Mecca and Medina, that's a significant source of income.
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Old 08-10-2018, 10:21 AM   #3488
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea...

The Caliphate of Egypt always knew how to dig canals and how to link the Nile to the Red Sea. Once Venician merchants tell the Egyptians that the Portuguese can sail around Africa the Egyptians decide they need a canal or they'll lose business. The shock of how effective the Portuguese naval ships are in Asian waters confirms it. A canal is basic to survival. So they dig one.

Egypt's economy doesn't stagnate along with the rest of the Ottoman state's. When Egypt breaks away from the Ottomans in the Early 19th century, they are richer and more cosmopolitan. They see the importance of education and industry to their independence.

Basically, Egypt, like our world's Japan, is a nonwestern nation that gets how to survive and remain independent in the modern world. This Q6 world is in the year 1875 and Egypt is an industrialized Nation driving its railroad network south through Africa. The European powers are just now beginning to understand that, if they don't act, Egypt will own all of Subsaharan Africa and have a truly vast Empire!

This is a reworked The Great Game reset to Victorian Africa. Cross Kipling with Haggard and drizzle in some Verne to taste. Other flavors can be added as well.
I like that. Imagine the European advisors that would have made their way into Egypt in the 1820s, not to mention the Egyptian advisors that might have headed toward Europe to help build, say, the Kiel canal a few decades early.

Hm. Where would Egypt get coal to power an industrial revolution and the navy it'll need in the late 19th century? Maybe instead of getting their own, they're dependent on trade, and there's a thriving trade of Egyptian cotton and grain to the Germanies and the United Kingdom in exchange for coal. Looking for an alternative, Egyptian natural philosophers are quicker to develop oil power than in our timeline, and a strong Egypt can easily dominate the Arabian peninsula... well, more easily than European powers.

Hydropower on the Nile is also a thing, but it might not be follow the same path as in our timeline; without a post-colonial period to catch up to Europe, maybe the influences are different.

Prior to the 19th century, the canal becomes an immediate target for any nation that wants to maintain naval power in both the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. That's pretty much just the Ottomans, so maybe the split between the Ottomans and Egypt happens sooner (war of liberation) or later (wiser or luckier Sultans). Perhaps it never happens - but that's against the premise.

For another thing, you could have the Napoleonic French occupation of Egypt happen more-or-less on schedule; the Egyptian resistance to this and eventual success in driving Napoleon out without major European or Turkish interference is what unites the modern Egyptian state. Having the canal there gives the French (and British!) a real strategic reason to go for Egypt as well, instead of Napoleon's political maneuvering. Present-day scholars might consider the Occupation as the pivotal moment in Egypt's recent history, sort of like the Russo-Japanese War.

Edit to add:
Huh. According to Wikipedia, the Mamluks actually fought the Portuguese in the early 16th century as a direct response to Portuguese depredations in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps the Ottomans prop up the Mamluks as allies instead of conquering them as they did in our timeline, and the canal is a partial result of that relationship. Either way, a strong maritime power that can stand up to the Portuguese means the history of the Indian Ocean is going to look very different from our timeline.

Last edited by Apollonian; 08-10-2018 at 10:31 AM.
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Old 08-10-2018, 10:24 AM   #3489
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea...

The Caliphate of Egypt always knew how to dig canals and how to link the Nile to the Red Sea. Once Venician merchants tell the Egyptians that the Portuguese can sail around Africa the Egyptians decide they need a canal or they'll lose business. The shock of how effective the Portuguese naval ships are in Asian waters confirms it. A canal is basic to survival. So they dig one.

Egypt's economy doesn't stagnate along with the rest of the Ottoman state's. When Egypt breaks away from the Ottomans in the Early 19th century, they are richer and more cosmopolitan. They see the importance of education and industry to their independence.

Basically, Egypt, like our world's Japan, is a nonwestern nation that gets how to survive and remain independent in the modern world. This Q6 world is in the year 1875 and Egypt is an industrialized Nation driving its railroad network south through Africa. The European powers are just now beginning to understand that, if they don't act, Egypt will own all of Subsaharan Africa and have a truly vast Empire!

This is a reworked The Great Game reset to Victorian Africa. Cross Kipling with Haggard and drizzle in some Verne to taste. Other flavors can be added as well.
Egypt is going to run into trouble. The British, French and Portuguese have already established themselves on the coasts of sub-Saharan Africa, Capetown is still the big important permanent settlement and Cecil Rhodes has been in South Africa for four years. All the existing colonial powers have staked out their spheres of influence. The French and British have been expanding inland since about 1840, both to suppress the slave trade and to locate new economic opportunities.

Beyond this Egypt has two more hurdles to southward expansion. The first is that they will need to get through tse-tse fly country without expanding the fly's range. They especially don't want a population of tse-tse flies in Egypt. The other problem is up and coming in 1881 with the rise of The Mahdi. While he is famously remembered for besieging the Egyptian garrison under General Gordon at Khartoum 1884-1885 and its subsequent massacre, he defeated three Egyptian armies (one of them led by a British general) in 1883.

While it would require greater military investment, I would think that Egypt would more likely push its railways westward across North Africa. That would bring it into conflict with the Ottomans (Libya and Tunisia), the French (the rest of north Africa bordering the Mediterranean), and if they reach Spanish Sahara (Western Sahara), the Spanish. Of course, that would also depend on whether they want actual possession of the lands or just trading opportunities.
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Old 08-10-2018, 01:04 PM   #3490
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Democritus-1: In this setting, it is far more difficult to "split the atom". As a result background radiation is slightly lower, but there were no noticeable historical changes until the 19th century when nobody discovered x-rays and radium was just a newly discovered dense element (atomic decay was discovered in the 1950s, but no practical uses for it have been developed). Things mostly continued on track until World War II when of course there was never a Manhattan Project. Japan still surrendered as the United States began to invade. But now it's the 1980s and World War III has broken out with fierce fighting in Europe and the Middle East and the cities of North America and Russia being protected with laser antiaircraft weapons against bombers with nerve gas.
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