New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It order to support cities, you need trade. When you have 200 million people and 5 billion square miles of area, you cannot really have sufficient trade volume to support a city. If nothing else, the distances between locations make it uneconomical to really trade anything, especially since villages would end up with an average of a 100 mile separation (and since even 'densely' populated areas would have 25 miles between villages).

Thus my addition of flying ships. Although please remember, I never said that human populations were spread evenly throughout the availible space. Human populations in Earth's Classical period weren't evenly spread out over the entire planet, why, when I stated the continents and seas didn't even vaugely resemble Homeline Earth's continents and seas.

This effects the exchange of ideas as well as products, meaning that technology progresses slower, more languages evolve, and stranger customs can survive.

I explained that the cultures were anomalously identical to Earth Cultures of the 200 BCE to 200 CE period. But if that doesn't fit your game, change it freely.

One thing to remember as well is that the travel distances are enormous on this world. If the planet was an exact replica of the Earth at 5x scale, the Mediterranean Sea would cover 62.5 million square kilometers, making it larger than the North Atlantic, and Europe would also be larger than Asia in our world, meaning that it would possess substantial deserts. The massive size of the oceans also allow for tremendous storm systems, such as having hurricanes the size of Europe in our world, with maximum wind speeds in excess of 300+ km/hr.

Again, the geography is wildly different from the Earth and I did add the flying ships.

In order to avoid making it uninhabitable, it would need hundreds of continents and oceans. With that, you could have humans continent hopping, though there may be entire continents missed because of random chance. These lost continents could have exotic flora and fauna, as well as their own sapient inhabitants, who may not like humans bothering their paradises.

Well before I read LotR or The Hobbit i read Ursula K. le Guin's wonderful A Wizard of Earthsea and watched films with the lead playing Sinbad the Sailor. A world of ships and islands suits me fine.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

That is not a dense enough to sustain any urban population, and humans tend to spread out when given the chance. A TL2 society could sustain a population of 3 billion on such a world, so the population should probably be a minimum of 2.5 billion unless there are external factors restricting population growth.

The idea that the whole world would be TL 2 isn't realistic. It wasn't when we were at TL 2. I would suggest large parts of the world would simply be uninhabited by humans since with the highest TL being 2 they would simply lack the seafaring technology to colonize across oceans that could easily match or exceed the Pacific. And there would be far more of the inhabited part of the world that was occupied by people who were still TL 0. The TL 2 empires would be limited in their extent by their limited communication and transportation ability.

[Astromancer]

Myself, I see the period between 200 BCE to 200 CE as a mixture of TL2 and TL3. There is plenty of evidence that the Greek artificers were creating water clock, automated puppet shows, and even what seem to be analog computers, not to mention Roman concrete, Chinese paper, Hindu metallurgy and solar furnaces. Much of this is advanced TL3. Toss into this the presence of functional magic which I put into this setting, and I don't see them staying at a mixture of TL2 and TL3.

[AlexanderHowl]

All of those are TL2 inventions though because they were products of TL2 societies. For example, Roman concrete worked because blood from sacrifices aerated the comcrete, greatly increasing its strength, which was why Romans kept with the blood sacrifices. While they might have doubted its effectiveness in the rest of their lives, the gods obviously liked blood sacrifices for construction projects. Ironically, it was the banning of blood sacrifices that caused the construction TL in Western Europe to drop to TL1 until they figured out alternative methods of construction.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Roman concrete worked because blood from sacrifices aerated the comcrete, greatly increasing its strength, which was why Romans kept with the blood sacrifices.

0_o

I have absolutely no idea where you heard that nonsense. The famous durability of Roman Concrete is apparently related to the high level of Pozzolana content in the concrete.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by TGLS

0_o

I have absolutely no idea where you heard that nonsense.

It's apparently a moderately common story in art history circles. And actually adding frothed organic liquids to concrete (milk is another popular one, so is beer) is something that continues to recur in history right up to the modern era and may in fact do something useful by introducing some minor aeration. These days if you want aerated concrete there are much better foams, and the usual method doesn't even use one - you add aluminum dust that under the alkaline conditions of cement starting to set reacts with water to generate bubbles of hydrogen gas.

There also seems to be an anti-Catholic link - tied to the Papal title of Pontiff (bridge builder) and the common medieval myth that a bridge required a human sacrifice to the devil to stand up for any length of time.

And of course blood sacrifices to help buildings continue to stand up are a thing worldwide from Greek cock or lamb sacrifices on laying cornerstones to Japanese hitobashira. Edit: The generic folklore terminology seems to be "foundation sacrifice", and even in the modern world corner stone "time capsules" may well descend from the practice of including a few coins as a "ransom" to replace the sacrificial victim.

[Astromancer]

Let me toss this one out. A figure little known in the West Mirwas Hotak started a string of disasters that shattered Iran. By the early 18th century Iran was a stable prosperous society, Their trade and diplomatic relations with Europe were growing and the Shahs saw the West as a counterbalance to the Ottomans. Iran was properous, pragmatic, and functional. Mirwas destroyed that in a vain attempt to conqure Iran.

Remove Mirwas from history and maybe a stronger Iran modernises in the same way Japan did. Which would radically alter the whole Islamic world. Make Mirwas and his son's attacks on Iran more devestating and maybe Iran breaks up with the southern coast landing in the British Raj and the Northern and central regions falling to Russia. This would likely cause the The Great Game to become a late Victorian World War.

[AlexanderHowl]

A possible alternative would be what would have happened if Nader Shah had not grown cruel and been assassinated in 1747? If he had been less cruel, he would have likely not been assassinated and may have succeeded in destroying the Ottoman Empire by the 1750s and prevented the British from expanding in India during the late 18th century. His power was considered so great, and his military genius so revered, that Napoleon idolized him and considered him an inspiration.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A possible alternative would be what would have happened if Nader Shah had not grown cruel and been assassinated in 1747? If he had been less cruel, he would have likely not been assassinated and may have succeeded in destroying the Ottoman Empire by the 1750s and prevented the British from expanding in India during the late 18th century. His power was considered so great, and his military genius so revered, that Napoleon idolized him and considered him an inspiration.

His visit to India seems to me to have been basically a giant Viking raid. If he really had any ambitions their he would have leaned more toward shearing than slaughtering.

Alternately it could have been a probe for weakness.

It is doubtful he could have prevented the British from expanding or would have tried. He could have controlled the interior leaving the British to grab French sympathizing kingdoms on the coast for their bag of marbles.

However the Company always had an inherent advantage: if a native ruler was to good at his job they could always wait until he was dead.

[Astromancer]

Because of the Great Game we tend to see 19th West Asia as a backwater run by two European capitols. But that ignres the simple fact that the two most powerful nations on the Earth were focused on dominating this area.

Let Iran be a real power, including getting railroads when the Shahs first sought them (the 1870s from what I can tell) and it radically alters the planetary power balance. Iran's alliance either way breaks the balance. Let Iran be more thoroughly shattered and the territory of Iran as absorbed by Britain and Russia stripping them of any buffer in an area were both of them can get signifigant numbers of troops.

If that statement seems odd, remember the Volga, Russia's greatest river, flows into the Caspian Sea. Even in the 18th and 19th century it would be easier for Moscow than London to get troops to Iran. Once conected to the road systems of the Iranian platue (which in period were better than Russia's) a Russian Army could march to India. Yes, the logistics would be murder, but it is possible, if unlikely.