How would u.s. history be diffent under a roman empire [Archive]

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 12:19 AM

The text is small so that you have to get browsers to zoom manually,

Point taken. :o

the colours clash with one another,

Well, they are not UCS-compliant. Map is kinda old, before I learnt to use UCS. I developed it as a variant of the final outcome for Ericam2786's "best case for Rome" TL. The original concept had slightly different borders, but was pretty similar.

and when did we decide that alternate history means the world becomes about seven states? The world has NEVER looked like that, and probably never will because even when the world is dominated by Empires they actually rely on the existence of separate, smaller states for a variety of things.

I'm pretty much sure we never agreed that the world cannot ever become 5-10 states. Indeed, to devise all kinds of ways to create such a kind of world is one of, if not the, main inspiration of mine for this whole AH stuff.

The map assumes there is a couple full-bore hyperpowers, a superpower hopeful, and an handful of smaller regional powers that act as buffers.

I have no conceptual difficulty whatsoever to visualize a variant of the concept with also an independent India that colonized Indonesia, and an independent *Rus, but had not a map at hand with them and independent pos-colonial New World polities. I have another map I did for another Romewank TL by Onkel Willie, but in it Rome and China still control the Americas.

And yes, the borders make no sense. No Empire can control Europe, and west Asia, and North+East Africa, and India, without technology at least at the 19th century level.

Why are you supposing the map is not 2012 ?? :confused:

And even then, what kind of Empire can subdue the entirety of Europe AND India at the same time?

If Rome remains strong and conquers Germania Magna, everything from Baltic to Persia shall be one culture and one civilization-polity since Classical times. That shall be a pretty strong power base to build once Renaissance technology opens the gates of global colonial expansion.

India has only been united about three times in its history, and never as part of a state extending far outside India's borders.

Err, British Empire ?

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 12:22 AM

TyranicusMaximus

February 8th, 2012, 12:23 AM

The text is small so that you have to get browsers to zoom manually, the colours clash with one another, and when did we decide that alternate history means the world becomes about seven states? The world has NEVER looked like that, and probably never will because even when the world is dominated by Empires they actually rely on the existence of separate, smaller states for a variety of things.

And yes, the borders make no sense. No Empire can control Europe, and west Asia, and North+East Africa, and India, without technology at least at the 19th century level. And even then, what kind of Empire can subdue the entirety of Europe AND India at the same time? India has only been united about three times in its history, and never as part of a state extending far outside India's borders.

Some people do AH to determine a plausible alternative, others to create their "ideal" world...

TyranicusMaximus

February 8th, 2012, 12:25 AM

The Caliphate was the closest to making this reality out of anybody. I'm just saying. In fact if Constantinople had fallen it would arguably have become the full inheritors of the Achaemenids and surpassed them.

Probably still wouldn't lead to a singular culture.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 12:29 AM

Probably still wouldn't lead to a singular culture.

Probably?

They didn't even have a singular culture within the area they did rule OTL.

I'm okay - in a theoretical sense - with Eurofed liking bigger, fewer states, but this is taken to utterly impossible levels.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 12:36 AM

Probably still wouldn't lead to a singular culture.

Well no, the early Caliphate needed a bunch of different cultures for its tax structure....

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 12:40 AM

If Rome remains strong and conquers Germania Magna, everything from Baltic to Persia shall be one culture and one civilization-polity since Classical times. That shall be a pretty strong power base to build once Renaissance technology opens the gates of global colonial expansion.

A) Conquering Germania Magna will only result in further overextension of Rome's borders. Not only would it be effectively useless, but any attempt by the Romans to enforce their rule, like Varus did, would result in the end of Roman presence there.
B) That would require the Romans to full-on culture wipe, which they didn't do. We have records of Roman citizens from Gaul worshipping Gallic gods, rather than the Roman ones in their statues, using Gallic words rather than Latin, and not to mention the fact that there always were TWO main culture blocks within the Empire, Greek, and Latin. The Romans can't wipe Greek from the East, and don't want to.
C) There is no chance of such an unstably large state surviving. It would take insanely competent rulers to hold it together- a single bad ruler and the whole thing falls apart worse than Rome nearly did during the third century.
D) It's far more likely that Rome would stagnate under that long of continuous hegemony. Why innovate when there are no foes against whom this innovation would give you an advantage?
E) How are you sure that colonization would occur? Rome, in the UBER Empire that stretches from Britain to the Urals, and down to the Sahara, would have so many varied resources (IMO the requirement of such being a motive for colonization) that Rome would have no need to conquer any more.

TyranicusMaximus

February 8th, 2012, 12:41 AM

Well no, the early Caliphate needed a bunch of different cultures for its tax structure....

It's got a better chance than the Romanowank Empire though, I'd say.

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 12:41 AM

Well no, the early Caliphate needed a bunch of different cultures for its tax structure....

Exactly. With a singular culture, the Caliphate would lose one of its primary sources of tax income.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 12:42 AM

It's got a better chance than the Romanowank Empire though, I'd say.

In one sense, yes. The Caliphate, however, had its own succession problems, though if it manages the multiple minor miracles to resolve those it might come the closest before the Mongols to being a space-filling Empire. Resolving the biggie, however, won't be easy.

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 12:44 AM

It's got a better chance than the Romanowank Empire though, I'd say.

Well, the Romans have a history of wiping some cultures (Dacians) off the map, and of gradually eating other cultures. (Gauls, Celtiberians) However, they did prove incapable of destroying other ones, for instance, Punic speaking communities survived in Africa past the time of St. Augustine, while obviously, the Greek speaking portion of the Empire always spoke Greek- the Romans didn't bother making them part of their Roman culture, they adored the Greeks.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 12:45 AM

Exactly. With a singular culture, the Caliphate would lose one of its primary sources of tax income.

A singular culture with the institutions of an imperial caliphate is also infeasible for another political reason, namely that it took a very long time for the Muslim community to accept the evolution of a monarchical system. Even without the taxation issue there's a number of potential fissures in the early Caliphate that would need to change. Making that system into an enduring space-filling empire requires as much work as making the HRE into a state instead of into a paper designation does. But *if* it is somehow managed it is the only pre-Mongol candidate to overrun much of what it comes in contact with.

Sicarius

February 8th, 2012, 12:52 AM

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

http://i.imgur.com/FKr3k.png

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 12:57 AM

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

Impressive use of irony there.

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 01:04 AM

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

My most hearty plaudits, my good sir.

Zmflavius

February 8th, 2012, 01:05 AM

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

Map

Who rules Sri Lanka, Sakhalin, and the Falklands?

Sicarius

February 8th, 2012, 01:07 AM

Who rules Sri Lanka, Sakhalin, and the Falklands?Hitler, Draka, and Scotland.

Hominid

February 8th, 2012, 01:18 AM

Who rules Sri Lanka, Sakhalin, and the Falklands?

Tierra del Fuego, not the Falklands.

EDIT: What about Fiji, Tonga, the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles, and Swaziland? (Kodiak appears to be Roman.)

The Vulture

February 8th, 2012, 01:25 AM

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

I love you.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 01:26 AM

And Sicarius wins the thread. :D

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 01:31 AM

And Sicarius wins the thread. :D

Hell, he wins the game.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 01:48 AM

Ok, bothersome naysayers, I've redrawn one of my Romewank maps on the fly.

Brown = Rome
Light Green = China
Yellow = Japan
Violet = India
Dark Blue = Norse *Rus
Dark Green = Latin *USA, federation of former Roman colonies
Magenta = Inca
Light Blue = African *Brazil, former colony of a sea-faring African empire
Dark Red = Chinese *Colombia, federation of former Chinese colonies
White = various independent African states (3-6)

http://i43.tinypic.com/2vv2lig.png

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 01:49 AM

The rest of the world is moving closer to making sense, but Rome is still oversized.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 02:16 AM

The rest of the world is moving closer to making sense, but Rome is still oversized.

In which areas ? Compare it with a British Empire gone Imperial Federation.

Europe, Middle East, North Africa, and Northeast Africa is the very geopolitical core of their civilization-polity. They can't lose it, or the concept fails.

Rio de la Plata is their *Canada, and they hold on it, Australia, and East-South Africa as the remnants of their global colonial empire. They already lost a colonial empire in North America.

Supposedly, they could lose or fail to colonize a bit more, but too much decolonization makes little sense, given the premises.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 02:19 AM

In which areas ? Compare it with a British Empire gone Imperial Federation.

Europe, Middle East, North Africa, and Northeast Africa is the very geopolitical core of their civilization-polity. They can't lose it, or the concept fails.

The fact that your definition of "the very geopolitical core of their civilization-polity" is "Europe, the Middle East (to and including Persia), North Africa, and North East Africa" speaks volumes about the premises you're working from, and the gap between them and what those like me see here.

And until we can address that, the reasonablity of New Westland (the not-USA) for instance isn't even relevant.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 02:38 AM

The fact that your definition of "the very geopolitical core of their civilization-polity" is "Europe, the Middle East (to and including Persia), North Africa, and North East Africa" speaks volumes about the premises you're working from, and the gap between them and what those like me see here.

*Shrug* Two millennia is a very long time to subdue and assimilate Persia.

I'm unshakably persuaded that Europe (Scandinavia optional, Russia not included), the Middle East (Persia optional), North Africa, and the Horn of Africa is the minimum size for a successful Rome, the fulfillment of their civilization-polity potential, natural borders, and geopolitical niche.

Its not about colonization.

That's where I'm open-minded to discuss and visualize variants. The above, really not. If there are skeptics, too bad.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 02:42 AM

*Shrug* Two millennia is a very long time to subdue and assimilate Persia.

Two millenia is a very long time waste trying and fail to subdue and assimilate Persia, yes.

I'm unshakably persuaded that continental Europe (Scandinavia optional, Russia not included), Middle East (Persia optional), North Africa, and the Horn of Africa is the minimum size for a successful Rome, the fulfillment of their civilization-polity potential, natural borders, and geopolitical niche.

And all further discussion just became pointless because you're insisting it has to accomplish something NO POLITY ever did as the MINIMUM for success.

That's where I'm open-minded to discuss and visualize variants. The above, really not. If there are skeptics, too bad.

Eurofed, I can accept for discussion's sake the following:

1) You're an optimist about the - shall we say - random chances. Dynasties not dying out inconveniently, for instance.

2) You think Rome was - or could become - a strong, successful state internally.

3) You believe large (The Ottomans, Romans of OTL, British Empire at its height...etc.) empires aren't inherently doomed to being overstretched.

4) To paraphrase something you've said before, you do design scenarios that you think would make a better world, to your definition of better. I can accept that it wouldn't necessarily mean horrible tyranny and oppression more than OTL.

But when you insist that at a bare minimum, Rome has to do more than it could manage OTL just to reach the point of "the minmum for success", you're essentially saying that the only points of debate are whether the Romans give the *Americas a Greek or a Latin name.

What's the point having a discussion with you at that point?

Cuāuhtemōc

February 8th, 2012, 02:48 AM

I agree everything with what Elfwine said.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 03:14 AM

Two millenia is a very long time waste trying and fail to subdue and assimilate Persia, yes.

In two millennia, you can depopulate and re-populate Persia, several times.

And all further discussion just became pointless because you're insisting it has to accomplish something NO POLITY ever did as the MINIMUM for success.

China did the equivalent in its own corner of Eurasia, and geographical determinism is the idiot stepchild of geopolitics. :rolleyes::eek:

1) You're an optimist.

Most certainly yes, a radical one.

2) You think Rome was - or could become - a strong, successful state internally.

I wholly believe that Rome needed to have certain internal flaws removed to prevent its fall, but if that may happen, its growth to reach its natural borders and fill its geopolitical niche was pretty much inevitable.

3) You believe large empires aren't inherently doomed to being overstretched.

I think it's another ridiculous concept like geographical determinism, a mix of particularist-nationalist wishful thinking and OTL determinism.

With enough technology, administrative efficiency, sociopolitical equality, either assimilationist efficiency or multicultural tolerance, and military efficiency, there is no maximum theoretical size a polity may grow.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 03:17 AM

I agree everything with what Elfwine said.

Too bad, that makes two unbelievers. :p

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 03:21 AM

Too bad, that makes two unbelievers. :p

This wasn't to me, but I have to ask:
When did this become about "belief"?

Darth_Kiryan

February 8th, 2012, 03:23 AM

Its an interesting idea, but, after looking at the map, The whole China/Rome territorial borders/expansion looks kinda ridiculous.

No, no, Sherman's March to the Tiber anyone? :D
That would be the best thing ever.

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

Even for you, this is just phenomenally.....impressive.!

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 03:35 AM

I can accept that it wouldn't necessarily mean horrible tyranny and oppression more than OTL.

Of course not. Size by itself has nothing to do with how well a polity treats its subjects. India and America are much less oppressive places than Syria or North Korea.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 04:27 AM

And how are you going to do that with what Rome had to work with and maintain control and handle everything else?

The legions in a successful Rome won't have much else to do, besides Persia and the Eastern Wall.

Build settlers until you get the "City is population 1, do you still wish to build settlers?"

If anything, settler colonization works.

Not to be confused with refusal to acknowledge geography's role at all, which is what you're doing.

I refuse to ignore the fact that it can be overcome. Infrastructure gets built.

I have to wonder how an argument that something never happened OTL despite numerous attempts is a sign that that thing isn't going to work is "determinism".

A fallacy, if you wish.

And the problem is that you pay no attention to whether or not any of those existed at sufficient levels, deciding that they must is enough to mean that somehow they get developed.

On the contrary, my attention is often focused on how this can be done. If a way can be conceivably devised, it means someplace in a multiverse it happened.

The Spitfire017

February 8th, 2012, 04:33 AM

Since people are posting maps of their own uber-Roman Empire wank.....
166662

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 04:34 AM

Since people are posting maps of their own uber-Roman Empire wank.....

That's much too reasonable for this insane thread.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 04:39 AM

This wasn't to me, but I have to ask:
When did this become about "belief"?

When I made a tongue-in-cheek comment.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 04:44 AM

The legions in a successful Rome won't have much else to do, besides Persia and the Eastern Wall.

When did "a successful Empire" mean "an empire where the legions are unnecessary"?

Is this our warning sign that your scenarios are taken from a Civ game?

On the contrary, my attention is often focused on how this can be done. If a way can be conceivably devised, it means someplace in a multiverse it happened.

If we assume a reality exists where Earth is a Civ game, then all your scenarios automatically make sense, but if your argument rests on such a reality existing . . .

then I think we're looking less at alternate history in the sense nearly all of us understand the term and more at alternate universes.

Zmflavius

February 8th, 2012, 04:46 AM

The legions in a successful Rome won't have much else to do, besides Persia and the Eastern Wall.

Frankly, this is asking for civil war. When the legions aren't conquering or guarding a frontier, they tend to be used by generals to fight for power. And you don't need the first bit, if the general is irresponsible enough.

If anything, settler colonization works. Almost certainly not in the same way as Civilization, speaking as a Civilization player.

I refuse to ignore the fact that it can be overcome. Infrastructure gets built. But this isn't about infrastructure. An empire the size of the ones you are positing is simply too large to possibly be even formed before the 19th century at the very minimum. There's no efficient way to run it, and building infrastructure to make it even moderately inefficient as opposed to completely non-functional will be insanely expensive.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 04:47 AM

That's much too reasonable for this insane thread.

Seriously, how can you call it a Romewank when the Romans don't even control Caledonia?

:rolleyes:

When I made a tongue-in-cheek comment.

It would be funnier if it wasn't for the fact arguing with you really does feel like arguing with someone whose beliefs are unchecked by anything as inconvenient as earthly reality.

I mean, you have the Romans able to do things to the point walking on water would be be a parlor trick.

The Spitfire017

February 8th, 2012, 04:51 AM

That's much too reasonable for this insane thread.

Trying to bring sanity to this thread is what I was going for. ;)

Seriously, how can you call it a Romewank when the Romans don't even control Caledonia?

:rolleyes:

Cause I can.:p

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 04:59 AM

Trying to bring sanity to this thread is what I was going for. ;)

What inspired the borders in Scandinavia, by the way?

Cause I can.:p

I wish I could think of a smart alleck retort, but you win.

This round, at least. ::shakes a fist.::

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:03 AM

When did "a successful Empire" mean "an empire where the legions are unnecessary"?

They do their main job, that is fighting external enemies and policiing the borders. Success in this case also means their other main historical task, fighting civil was caused by military anarchy, has been reduced to manageable occasional levels. "Colonial" rebellions were few and only really happened in recently conquered provinces.

Is this our warning sign that your scenarios are taken from a Civ game?

If we are to mock each other this way, I might think your idea of history hints of a buggy Paradox game, where every province spawns a million rebels just because, no matter how well the state is ruled.

Not every empire on Earth is the equivalent of Nazi occupation of Soviet Union, ever and ever, until its all.

then I think we're looking less at alternate history in the sense nearly all of us understand the term and more at alternate universes.

but they are the same thing, from a different sense. :confused::eek:

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 05:06 AM

If we assume a reality exists where Earth is a Civ game, then all your scenarios automatically make sense, but if your argument rests on such a reality existing . . .

then I think we're looking less at alternate history in the sense nearly all of us understand the term and more at alternate universes.

Well, speaking with probability and alternate universes, there is technically an infinite number of universes like Eurofed's scenario. In fact, technically speaking, any scenario proposed here has happened somehow.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:14 AM

Frankly, this is asking for civil war. When the legions aren't conquering or guarding a frontier, they tend to be used by generals to fight for power. And you don't need the first bit, if the general is irresponsible enough.

And here they are used to conquer or guard the frontiers.

But this isn't about infrastructure. An empire the size of the ones you are positing is simply too large to possibly be even formed before the 19th century at the very minimum. There's no efficient way to run it, and building infrastructure to make it even moderately inefficient as opposed to completely non-functional will be insanely expensive.

The maps I posted are meant to be 21st century.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 05:16 AM

They do their main job, that is fighting external enemies and policiing the borders. Success in this case also means their other main historical task, fighting civil was caused by military anarchy, has been reduced to manageable occasional levels. "Colonial" rebellions were few and only really happened in recently conquered provinces.

If it was that simple, we'd be arguing in Greek (being a more useful language for intellectual conversation) about how Roma Universalis is stupid because it doesn't cause the Romans to win every single game*.

If we are to mock each other this way, I might think your idea of history hints of a buggy Paradox game, where every province spawns a million rebels just because, no matter how well the state is ruled.

You might also think I look good in leather, but I assure that that's not the case.

This isn't about randomly spawning rebels. This is about the fact absolutely zero RL states have behaved like the idealized perfect empires you construct that seem able to eliminate rebels, corruption, bandits, incompetent rulers, would be usurpers, economic disasters, and everything else that every real empire has sooner or latter seen become more than it can manage.

You can call that OTL determinism, but I assure you it has nothing to do with Paradox's random event generator.

Not every empire on Earth is the equivalent of Nazi occupation of Soviet Union, ever and ever, until its all.

And they don't have to be to have OTL demonstrate again and again and again and again that empire building is hard, complicated, and - in the broad historical sense - sucessful only in the short term.

but they are the same thing, from a different sense. :confused::eek:

You don't care about geography, even when it posed a barrier to RL empires trying to do something, for instance.

That is going into alternate laws of physics, not just Teutonburger Wald being a Roman victory instead of a defeat.

* Kudos to anyone who gets the reference.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 05:18 AM

Well, speaking with probability and alternate universes, there is technically an infinite number of universes like Eurofed's scenario. In fact, technically speaking, any scenario proposed here has happened somehow.

That's one theory. But whether true or not, it renders discussing whether or not a scenario would work pointless.

More pointless than discussing it with Eurofed merely being um, stubborn.

(Can't think of a better word there, sorry Eurofed).

Ran

February 8th, 2012, 05:22 AM

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 05:27 AM

Here's my try* at what a plausible world with both a Roman Empire and the US might look like at the turn of the century†:

http://i41.tinypic.com/10gbmmg.png

*mostly Roberto's.
†the turn of the 18th century. ... is that the one that means 1800?

That's an interesting map.

And the information seems to lean towards "Yes."- for instance, referring to events towards the end of the 19th century as the turn of the 19th century.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:34 AM

And they don't have to be to have OTL demonstrate again and again and again and again that empire building is hard, complicated, and - in the broad historical sense - sucessful only in the short term.

I stand in bared breath of the inevitable collapse of the USA, China, and India. Until it happens, however, I clutch to my deep skepticism of this entropic view of history.

You don't care about geography, even when it posed a barrier to RL empires trying to do something, for instance.

Geography isn't an immutable law of physics. Ask de Lesseps.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:37 AM

More pointless than discussing it with Eurofed merely being um, stubborn.

(Can't think of a better word there, sorry Eurofed).

The feeling is mutual on my part. Can't find a better word myself, sorry.

Miker

February 8th, 2012, 05:37 AM

Another thing to consider here is when the different Latin dialects reach the point of being mutually unintelligible, rebellions will be more likely.

And on the matter of repopulating Persia, it is a fairly good distance away from Rome and not the most attractive destination for retiring legionnaires who would probably prefer Germania or some other European province. There are many nations surrounding Persia that could expand into the empty lands more quickly than Rome could keep them out, namely other Iranic peoples, and possibly some Turkic groups depending on the time-frame.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 05:43 AM

I stand in bared breath of the inevitable collapse of the USA, China, and India. Until it happens, however, I clutch to my skepticism of this entropic view of history.

China has fallen and risen again multiple times in the era we're looking at, thanks to the very factors that you handwave as if they were in the pre-patch edition.

The US has only been around for a couple centuries, and isn't ruling a large foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire population the way Rome will be in your scenarios.

And it has the huge advantage of expanding in an era when the technology to minimize the handicap of distance did exist, as opposed to how Rome - as stated - was stretching the limits of the infrastructure it had to cover a smaller state.

(Modern) India has been around even less time.

The idea that empires fall is not the same thing as saying that its impossible to hold a polity together, either. Just that every single empire in the history of the world has sooner or latter decayed and fallen back to its "natural" size - natural as in, as opposed to the Under Special Circumstances that saw it rise.

Geography isn't an immutable law of physics. Ask de Lesseps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal#French_construction.2C_1881-1889

It would be instructive to read WHY he failed here, and to explain to us how those sorts of mistakes won't be made by your ubermensch Romans.

The feeling is mutual on my part. Can't find a better word myself, sorry.

As long as we're clear characterizing the other as stubborn isn't an insult, it's alright by me if you think I'm just as stubborn.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:47 AM

Another thing to consider here is when the different Latin dialects reach the point of being mutually unintelligible, rebellions will be more likely.

Won't happen without a collapse. If Rome remains united, linguistic drift shall be prevented.

And on the matter of repopulating Persia, it is a fairly good distance away from Rome and not the most attractive destination for retiring legionnaires who would probably prefer Germania or some other European province.

Theoretically yes, but I'd typically assume Persia is eventually subdued centuries after Germania is developed.

There are many nations surrounding Persia that could expand into the empty lands more quickly than Rome could keep them out, namely other Iranic peoples, and possibly some Turkic groups depending on the time-frame.

Could happen, but in practice only until Rome masters cannons and firearms. They spell the doom of the nomad peoples.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 06:02 AM

China has fallen and risen again multiple times in the era we're looking at, thanks to the very factors that you handwave as if they were in the pre-patch edition.

And it has endured as a civilization-polity. I do not rule out Rome may follow a kinda similar path.

The US has only been around for a couple centuries, and isn't ruling a large foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire population the way Rome will be in your scenarios.

*Sigh.* You keep ignoring Rome's ability at assimilation. Foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire typically only described a few generations after conquest.

And it has the huge advantage of expanding in an era when the technology to minimize the handicap of distance did exist, as opposed to how Rome - as stated - was stretching the limits of the infrastructure it had to cover a smaller state.

It was stretching the ability to cope with military anarchy. Distance had relatively little to do with its troubles (then again, plausible technological improvements in this area may be one secondary reason of their ATL success).

The idea that empires fall is not the same thing as saying that its impossible to hold a polity together, either. Just that every single empire in the history of the world has sooner or latter decayed and fallen back to its "natural" size - natural as in, as opposed to the Under Special Circumstances that saw it rise.

We just have very different ideas of what natural size means. Notice I assumed Rome may lose a big chunk of colonies down the road.

As long as we're clear characterizing the other as stubborn isn't an insult, it's alright by me if you think I'm just as stubborn.

Never thought it is an insult.

Miker

February 8th, 2012, 06:12 AM

Won't happen without a collapse. If Rome remains united, linguistic drift shall be prevented.

Sound change is impossible to stop. No amount of stability in government or force of law can change that.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 06:15 AM

Sound change is impossible to stop. No amount of stability in government or force of law can change that.

The Chinese and Arabs have been pretty successful at enforcing linguistic unity, though.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 06:19 AM

And it has endured as a civilization-polity. I do not rule out Rome may follow a kinda similar path.

In entirely different circumstances.

No, I'm not looking at geography. But the whole history of China is very different than the history of Rome. You can't just say "China did it, therefore Rome could".

*Sigh.* You keep ignoring Rome's ability at assimilation. Foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire typically only described a few generations after conquest.

Which greatly overrates how easy it would be to expand into the areas you're looking into. Rome already OTL was holding areas - Judea is infamous - that resisted being Roman.

Rome simply has quite enough on its plate with its OTL borders as most emperors from Hadrian on recognized. Extending those borders adds to Rome's expenses, not its profits.

And by the way? A few generations is more than long enough - that, by the shortest measure, is 40-60 years.

It was stretching the ability to cope with military anarchy. Distance had relatively little to do with its troubles (then again, plausible technological improvements in this area may be one secondary reason of their ATL success).

Distance is certainly not helping even when things are peaceful. How long can communications be before Rome (the city's) hold on a place is nominal? Not much longer.

And "plausible technological improvements" like what? There isn't a meaningful change between the pace of either communications or travel between the Roman era and the beginning of the 19th century.

And by that point, Rome will have long since lost the areas on the outskirts of its control.

We just have very different ideas of what natural size means. Notice I assumed Rome may lose a big chunk of colonies down the road.

Natural size = if a place controls 20% of the world's resources, it having about 20% of the wealth and power of the world is about right.

And for purposes of this, "a place" is primarily Italy. Rome's outlying provinces are just that.

Never thought it is an insult.

Wasn't sure, but good to know.

Miker

February 8th, 2012, 06:23 AM

Chinese has changed significantly over the centuries. Mandarin is spread across the northern plains. In the south, a myriad of different languages exist. It helps that the phonetic part of the writing system comes from Old Chinese.

Arabic dialects can get pretty crazy, especially west of Egypt. However, the whole deal with tri-consonantal roots and an abugida writing system does make it easier.

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 06:34 AM

And this is pretty interesting: http://www.historum.com/ancient-history/25609-gaul-after-caesar-legacy-rebellion.html

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 02:09 PM

*Sigh.* You keep ignoring Rome's ability at assimilation. Foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire typically only described a few generations after conquest.

One simple question: if Rome was so good at assimilating people, what happened with the Jews in AD 66-73, under Trajan, and then in the Bar Kokhba Revolt? This was when Rome tried to assimilate a very tiny kingdom with a prickly sense of self-identity, and the result was a massive clusterfuck. Are we to assume from this problem with the tiny Hasmonean state region (in contrast to the longer-term Diaspora populations that had little if any actual connection to the Hasmonean state) that Rome can somehow accomplish the much bigger task of ruling Persia long-term, which the Caliphates in a later era after a total and complete conquest over a span of decades failed to do?

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 02:10 PM

China has fallen and risen again multiple times in the era we're looking at, thanks to the very factors that you handwave as if they were in the pre-patch edition.

The US has only been around for a couple centuries, and isn't ruling a large foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire population the way Rome will be in your scenarios.

And it has the huge advantage of expanding in an era when the technology to minimize the handicap of distance did exist, as opposed to how Rome - as stated - was stretching the limits of the infrastructure it had to cover a smaller state.

(Modern) India has been around even less time.

The idea that empires fall is not the same thing as saying that its impossible to hold a polity together, either. Just that every single empire in the history of the world has sooner or latter decayed and fallen back to its "natural" size - natural as in, as opposed to the Under Special Circumstances that saw it rise.

In a sense, yes, but China's institutions also made gradual and significant changes over all that time. The China of Qin Shi Huang and the Former Han is very much not the Imperial China of the Song (proto-industrial) or of the Qing (the last phase of the Empire and the largest of them all). This only strengthens your point, however.

hairysamarian

February 8th, 2012, 02:27 PM

General Patton would be teaming up with Spartacus in kicking Pompey's ass in the liberation of Italy from Roman tyranny!

Pfft. Patton would side with Pompey. More shiny medals and glory, more promotions. The man was a great general, but there's no denying he was a glory hound.

hairysamarian

February 8th, 2012, 02:30 PM

One simple question: if Rome was so good at assimilating people, what happened with the Jews in AD 66-73, under Trajan, and then in the Bar Kokhba Revolt?

What happened was a Roman failure; such did happen from time to time. And the Jews in that era had an extraordinary (prickly, even) sense of identity, they would have been very hard to assimilate fully.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 02:35 PM

What happened was a Roman failure; such did happen from time to time. And the Jews in that era had an extraordinary (prickly, even) sense of identity, they would have been very hard to assimilate fully.

So were Persians. It didn't work for the Caliphate, and it won't work for Rome. The Caliphate at least was a relatively new thing that appeared and didn't really try to rock the boat too much. This is akin to Imperial Germany taking over Third Republic France and attempting to make Germans out of Frenchmen.

hairysamarian

February 8th, 2012, 02:44 PM

The US has only been around for a couple centuries, and isn't ruling a large foreign-and-doesn't-want-to-be-controlled-by-the-empire population the way Rome will be in your scenarios.

We have tried, much to our shame. The Phillipines after the Spanish-American War, Hawaii and of course many Native American groups. I wish I could claim that we hadn't. :(

Daeres

February 8th, 2012, 02:54 PM

Welp. This thread has certainly had enough fuel to keep burning for a while.

Okay, let's assume I accept some version of superpower Rome. The first thing I have to tell you is that when superpowers share long borders it's usually incredibly dangerous for one or both of them; it's a lot of territory where people can cause diplomatic incidents, skirmishes, and it means when a war starts an enemy can instantly reach your territory.

Many, though not all, Empires have thus deliberately maintained a pool of independent smaller states between themselves and the next nearest Imperial state. Also, it means less for them to personally manage. This is why you have many points in history where despite superpowers exist, small states/city-states have some leeway to manouever and prosper.

The next thing is that the British Empire is highly unusual in terms of Empires. Rather than a core expanding outwards to take control of a periphary, it colonised and cherry-picked across the entire earth. Now, I realise that's what everybody was doing at the time, but this is still a) historically anomalous and b) a discussion focusing on that example. So why was the British Empire able to control so much of the Earth, despite being in control of India which was one of the world's most densely populated areas?

The answer is several-fold. Firstly, Britain mostly possessed either a) areas previously uninhabited b) areas inhabited by cultures with a massive technology gap against the British and that had relatively low population density. Secondly, India was managed in an incredibly hands-off manner until it was realised that the East India Company had become insufficient to the task. Thirdly, did I mention massive technological disparity?

To compare them with the Romans, the peoples surrounding the Romans were on the level of 'our infrastructure isn't as developed, we don't have huge cities, our swords aren't quite as good', not 'you can do things we haven't even got a name for'. Additionally, the population disparity was not as great, Italy only had a population of around 9-11 million at the height of the Roman Empire. In order to conquer that many settled areas, the Romans must have bled entire regions dry of manpower. Plus, maintaining a standing army and navy is incredibly expensive, let alone one that has to cover borders on three/four continents and three or more oceans!

To give an example relevant to the discussion, the Achaemenid Persian Empire was pretty strong. Even at its end, when there was 50 years of dynastic strife, something odd happens. Nobody rebels, and no states move in to take pieces out of it. That only happens when Alexander launched his expedition. And again, notice that no other state joined in when Alexander took the Empire to pieces. The major reason why is that, despite all of its internal problems, the Achaemenid Empire was internationally as strong as it ever had been and its control of populations even more so. And yet the entire apparatus was dismantled over the course of ten years.

So, if the Roman Empire continues to exist in the 'present day', I would expect it to have fallen at least once, probably more often than that. Look at the ebbs and flows of the Byzantines; they had as many golden ages as they had periods of low prestige. That was over a thousand year period. I would expect a Roman Empire with another six hundred years on its belt to have had similar issues. But let's assume that, after a time of low prestige, it's had a comeback for whatever reason. It's regained control of its 'traditional' borders, and is looking to expand. And let's assume, for the sake of your scenario, it has modern technology or close to it, and so when it was reconquering stuff probably had victorian technology. The easiest places for it to expand to control are those with low population density, and poor social cohesion, but where there is a valuable resource to be controlled and potential for infrastructure.

That means the Arabian peninsula, perhaps Germany with its rich industrial resources (a Germany in a timeline with Rome surviving is going to look completely different). The Bosporus has a lot of fertile land (vital for feeding such a huge population), the Caucasus has oil. Colonising is hit and miss, there's gold in America but a) when would they have discovered America, and how? b) it's such a long way away, and they would have control over all of Europe gold deposits. Most of the Caribbean islands are too small, or have nothing Romans would be especially interested in; they have no big naval competitors to need naval bases for. Perhaps Ethiopia, but after the Medieval Era it suffered a climate change that left it less fertile, and it would thus be of less interest. Maybe colonies on West Africa? Trading colonies in India?

But the biggest thing you have to take into account is that social technology and cultural development will be completely different in a Europe that has had a Roman Empire survive for so long. You might still get the development of Ideology, the birth of Nationalism, the rebirth of the Social Contract, something resembling a Feudal Europe. But there is no way that a Europe this different has the same psychological history and profile as ours did. This is why you can't just take normal history, take it to its conclusion to the 21st century and then suddenly add the Roman Empire to it.

You can have a Roman Empire that, like Persia and China, has risen from its grave as a political entity time and time again. You can't have it conquer that much of the world with the changes its own existence causes to history. It's not to do with a lack of optimism or idealism, it's that it's impossible for history to align so perfectly for a state for such a long time whilst simultaneously allowing it to stretch the limits of a state's capacity and human ability. Not to mention that to control such a huge area, it would have had to massacre most of the native states to do so, and they wouldn't have the manpower to do it. This is like expecting the British Empire to have begun after the creation of a united Anglo-Saxon England, and to have continuously expanded to the size of OTL British Empire and beyond, and remaining that large in the present day. Except that would require SUPER Britain for a thousand years. Your map requires SUPER Rome for two thousand years. The generational experience of the world is on average 30-80 years (depending on location, diet and technology).

B_Munro

February 8th, 2012, 03:53 PM

TyranicusMaximus

February 8th, 2012, 04:15 PM

One simple question: if Rome was so good at assimilating people, what happened with the Jews in AD 66-73, under Trajan, and then in the Bar Kokhba Revolt? This was when Rome tried to assimilate a very tiny kingdom with a prickly sense of self-identity, and the result was a massive clusterfuck. Are we to assume from this problem with the tiny Hasmonean state region (in contrast to the longer-term Diaspora populations that had little if any actual connection to the Hasmonean state) that Rome can somehow accomplish the much bigger task of ruling Persia long-term, which the Caliphates in a later era after a total and complete conquest over a span of decades failed to do?

My comments on page 2 still stand ;):p

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 04:48 PM

Okay, let's assume I accept some version of superpower Rome. The first thing I have to tell you is that when superpowers share long borders it's usually incredibly dangerous for one or both of them; it's a lot of territory where people can cause diplomatic incidents, skirmishes, and it means when a war starts an enemy can instantly reach your territory.

Many, though not all, Empires have thus deliberately maintained a pool of independent smaller states between themselves and the next nearest Imperial state. Also, it means less for them to personally manage. This is why you have many points in history where despite superpowers exist, small states/city-states have some leeway to manouever and prosper.

Point taken, but such buffer states, while frequent, aren't always feasible nor mandatory. Sometimes they arise, sometimes they don't.

The next thing is that the British Empire is highly unusual in terms of Empires. Rather than a core expanding outwards to take control of a periphary, it colonised and cherry-picked across the entire earth. Now, I realise that's what everybody was doing at the time, but this is still a) historically anomalous and b) a discussion focusing on that example. So why was the British Empire able to control so much of the Earth, despite being in control of India which was one of the world's most densely populated areas?

I need to point out that more or less in the same period, the other European powers were building colonial empires not that smaller than the British one.

The answer is several-fold. Firstly, Britain mostly possessed either a) areas previously uninhabited b) areas inhabited by cultures with a massive technology gap against the British and that had relatively low population density. Secondly, India was managed in an incredibly hands-off manner until it was realised that the East India Company had become insufficient to the task. Thirdly, did I mention massive technological disparity?

And a similar technological disparity (assuming here that TTL Rome and China butterfly each other into a parallel industrialization) would still exist in comparison with some areas of the world: e.g. Americas, Africa, Australasia.

To compare them with the Romans, the peoples surrounding the Romans were on the level of 'our infrastructure isn't as developed, we don't have huge cities, our swords aren't quite as good', not 'you can do things we haven't even got a name for'. Additionally, the population disparity was not as great, Italy only had a population of around 9-11 million at the height of the Roman Empire. In order to conquer that many settled areas, the Romans must have bled entire regions dry of manpower.

I need to remark that this ignores the effects of Romanization. At its height, Imperial Rome was, and drew reall-important sources, more or less equally Italy and the Romanized provinces. Hispania, Gallia, or the Levant were as much 'Rome' as Italy. ITTL this is going to encompass all of Europe + Middle East. The state may rise and fall in a Chinese way, but the core stays true to its identity.

So, if the Roman Empire continues to exist in the 'present day', I would expect it to have fallen at least once, probably more often than that. Look at the ebbs and flows of the Byzantines; they had as many golden ages as they had periods of low prestige. That was over a thousand year period. I would expect a Roman Empire with another six hundred years on its belt to have had similar issues. But let's assume that, after a time of low prestige, it's had a comeback for whatever reason. It's regained control of its 'traditional' borders, and is looking to expand. And let's assume, for the sake of your scenario, it has modern technology or close to it, and so when it was reconquering stuff probably had victorian technology. The easiest places for it to expand to control are those with low population density, and poor social cohesion, but where there is a valuable resource to be controlled and potential for infrastructure.

IMO, we need to factor in at least two periods of expansion according to this model: one when Rome masters Renaissance technology, and another when it masters Victorian technology. Both phases allow (and drive) global expansion in the right conditions. So yeah, but twice, not once.

That means the Arabian peninsula, perhaps Germany with its rich industrial resources (a Germany in a timeline with Rome surviving is going to look completely different). The Bosporus has a lot of fertile land (vital for feeding such a huge population), the Caucasus has oil.

Yeah, but no buts or ifs about Germany. ITTL, a few centuries after conquest, it would be as integral and important to the Roman polity as the Med and Western Europe.

Colonising is hit and miss, there's gold in America but a) when would they have discovered America, and how? b) it's such a long way away, and they would have control over all of Europe gold deposits. Most of the Caribbean islands are too small, or have nothing Romans would be especially interested in; they have no big naval competitors to need naval bases for.

Well, North American mainland has a truckload of fertile land and valuable resources (European gold and silver deposits, even pooled, aren't that good). But for the sake of the thread exercise, here we are assuming that Roman colonies in North America follow a reasonably close parallel to the USA. Most of the continent may be conquered by the colonists after they get autonomy. By the way, the Caribbean may be important for the sugar.

Perhaps Ethiopia, but after the Medieval Era it suffered a climate change that left it less fertile, and it would thus be of less interest. Maybe colonies on West Africa? Trading colonies in India?

I would tentatively assume that Ethiopia would eventually become too much 'Roman-core' and too close to the rest of it to be given up, even if it suffers such a relative decline in fertility. Moreover, the area shall always be very important to control the trade routes to the Middle East and Asia. A strong Rome would surely keep the version of the Suez Canal that existed in Ancient times well-functioning and keep improving it as much as their technology allow.

I would also assume that East Africa comes easier to them for colonization purposes (they control the Suez route, no real need to make the circumnavigation of Africa) and the choicest bit of sub-saharan Africa would be Southern Africa when they find it going down the Eastern coast, it has temperate climate, good land, and natural resources.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 04:51 PM

I need to remark that this ignores the effects of Romanization. At its height, Imperial Rome was, and drew reall-important sources, more or less equally Italy and the Romanized provinces. Hispania, Gallia, or the Levant were as much 'Rome' as Italy. ITTL this is going to encompass all of Europe + Middle East. The state may rise and fall in a Chinese way, but the core stays true to its identity.

Except that in the case of the Hasmonean state and its former territory Romanization completely and utterly failed, while a good chunk of the Classical Empire was ruled in a very light touch, not at all the kind that would have measured up to sustained shock (and in reality the West, where this was exceptionally so, did not as it was). If Rome had that problem with a tiny little region like the Hasmonean state, what is the grounds for assuming it could do what the Seleucids and early Caliphate did not, namely eradicate Persian identity and replace it with something else?

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 04:54 PM

Not to mention that to control such a huge area, it would have had to massacre most of the native states to do so, and they wouldn't have the manpower to do it.

Not in all places, but they have the manpower to do it in a place or three (say, Persia). They won't need so much coercion, too, since they also had quite a talent for successful assimilation.

By the way, Rome may have failed to destroy Jews as a culture/ethnicity, but its repression of Jweish revolts in 1st-2nd Centuries CE most definitely annihilated them as an independent polity and kept them cowed and subservient as a minority to whomever ruled Western Eurasian lands for 2,000 years.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 04:57 PM

Not in all places, but they have the manpower to do it in a place or three (say, Persia). They won't need so much coercion, too, since they also had quite a talent for successful assimilation.

By the way, Rome may have failed to destroy Jews as a culture/ethnicity, but its repression of Jewish revolts in 1st-2nd Centuries CE most definitely annihilated them as an independent polity and kept them cowed and subservient as a minority to whomever ruled Western Eurasian lands for 2,000 years.

After the third try, when the Romans were forced to commit a full third of their existing army to a revolt that was over a small, self-contained area. Having failed the first two times it tried this, I might note. And surprise, surprise Persia is a much bigger area and if it keeps up a long-term sustained resistance Rome will break itself attempting to control it, assuming it has the precocious ability and will to continually wage a war against rebels over a widespread area without financially ruining itself. And wait, are you saying seriously the Romans had the infrastructure to do a Generalplan Ost? Or even the simple brutality to conceive of such a thing? Their empire was about exploiting people, not simply slaughtering their way through things with glee and joy like the "modern and civilized" Nazis. And if they seriously try this with Persia, then they've officially changed from "Rome" to "Nazis in togas".

eliphas8

February 8th, 2012, 05:04 PM

Not in all places, but they have the manpower to do it in a place or three (say, Persia). They won't need so much coercion, too, since they also had quite a talent for successful assimilation.

Persia is another beast entirely, Persia is on a similar level to Rome in terms of "civilization" and is almost as independently minded as the Jews.

To say that Rome would massacre them is a bit ridiculous too, that would require a massacre on the scale of some of the lower estimates for the holocaust which Rome would be incapable of doing.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:10 PM

After the third try, when the Romans were forced to commit a full third of their existing army to a revolt that was over a small, self-contained area. Having failed the first two times it tried this, I might note. And surprise, surprise Persia is a much bigger area and if it keeps up a long-term sustained resistance Rome will break itself attempting to control it, assuming it has the precocious ability and will to continually wage a war against rebels over a widespread area without financially ruining itself.

In terms of size, manpower, and resources, Persia is dwarfed by a strong polity that encompasses Europe and the Middle East, and technological development as a rule multiplies the effects of the divide. It is no China or India. I won't say it isn't troublesome and difficult, but for the purpose of the exercise, TTL Rome has two millennia to subdue Persia, and can conceivably do it by genocidal means if need be. There shall be several periods when the legions haven't much else to do but deal with Persia and man the Russian border.

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 05:15 PM

In terms of size, manpower, and resources, Persia is dwarfed by a strong polity that encompasses Europe and the Middle East, and technological development as a rule multiplies the effects of the divide. It is no China or India. I won't say it isn't troublesome and difficult, but for the purpose of the exercise, TTL Rome has two millennia to subdue Persia, and can conceivably do it by genocidal means if need be. There shall be several periods when the legions haven't much else to do but deal with Persia and man the Russian border.

So the solution to the legions having nothing to do is to let them slaughter their way through peasants and rape, loot, and pillage to their heart's content? And you don't see any potential dangers to the Roman state from them doing this and setting up all manner of evil precedents? Again, this makes the Romans into Nazis in togas, which let's be blunt: they were not *that*. Their state was horrifically flawed in several ways but it was never a machine designed to wreak total genocide.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:16 PM

To say that Rome would massacre them is a bit ridiculous too, that would require a massacre on the scale of some of the lower estimates for the holocaust which Rome would be incapable of doing.

No, Rome didn't have genocidal urges as a rule, but I can say them going to such extreme means as a rare exception if it is what it takes to eliminate an hereditary, intractable enemy when everything else has failed ("they make a desert, and call it peace"). I may easily see them never mustering enough will and interest to conquer Russia, Scandinavia, or West Africa, or giving them up after half-hearted attempts, but Persia is too valuable.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:17 PM

So the solution to the legions having nothing to do is to let them slaughter their way through peasants and rape, loot, and pillage to their heart's content? And you don't see any potential dangers to the Roman state from them doing this and setting up all manner of evil precedents? Again, this makes the Romans into Nazis in togas, which let's be blunt: they were not *that*. Their state was horrifically flawed in several ways but it was never a machine designed to wreak total genocide.

Err, European settlers and Native Americans ? And it's not "the legions have nothing else to do", it's "we have failed to subdue them any other way".

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 05:21 PM

Err, European settlers and Native Americans ?

There are more problems here than I can shake a stick at, but I'll go with the simplest one: the Spanish, at least, issued official orders that this was not to happen, while the British government also tried to rein it in with regard to their native allies (their enemies of course they didn't give a damn about). This is because the European states were at least in theory trying to function on a rational basis. Rome giving its troops the greenlight to slaughter their way through densely populated areas every once in a while moves Rome outside normal state status to "Terminate with extreme prejudice".

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 05:22 PM

No, Rome didn't have genocidal urges as a rule, but I can say them going to some extreme means as a rare exception if it is what it takes to eliminate an hereditary, intractable enemy when everything else has failed ("they make a desert, and call it peace"). I may easily see them never mustering enough will and interest to conquer Russia, Scandinavia, or West Africa, but Persia is too valuable.

Ironically for that statement in the reality the Romans were made to moderate their policies in Roman Britain, which is how they held on to it, while they made a desert in the First and Second Roman-Jewish Wars and the result was the horrifically bloody third, the third itself the prelude to further wars as late as the Heraclian era. Not to mention that again as a rule pre-modern states never deliberately allow their soldiers to just go in and slaughter everything they want. That kind of free-fire zone equivalent doesn't exist then.

CandyDragon

February 8th, 2012, 05:24 PM

Ironically for that statement in the reality the Romans were made to moderate their policies in Roman Britain, which is how they held on to it, while they made a desert in the First and Second Roman-Jewish Wars and the result was the horrifically bloody third, the third itself the prelude to further wars as late as the Heraclian era. Not to mention that again as a rule pre-modern states never deliberately allow their soldiers to just go in and slaughter everything they want. That kind of free-fire zone equivalent doesn't exist then.

Yes, but it was easy for soldiers to get lose and wreak havoc. I remember reading somewhere about corpses from the end of a late Republican siege in Spain. Many of them were female, and mutilated. Some had limbs severed, and massive gashes to the spinal chord. Soldiers, even the finest and best trained, can do horrible things when the bloodlust is upon them, and they've seen battle.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 05:27 PM

Ironically for that statement in the reality the Romans were made to moderate their policies in Roman Britain, which is how they held on to it, while they made a desert in the First and Second Roman-Jewish Wars and the result was the horrifically bloody third, the third itself the prelude to further wars as late as the Heraclian era.

And eventually, the Romans *won*. No more Jewish would-be polity and rebellions, a cowed, semi-atomized minority that kept its head low for a couple millennia.

Not to mention that again as a rule pre-modern states never deliberately allow their soldiers to just go in and slaughter everything they want. That kind of free-fire zone equivalent doesn't exist then.

Assyrians, Mongols ?

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 05:36 PM

Yes, but it was easy for soldiers to get lose and wreak havoc. I remember reading somewhere about corpses from the end of a late Republican siege in Spain. Many of them were female, and mutilated. Some had limbs severed, and massive gashes to the spinal chord. Soldiers, even the finest and best trained, can do horrible things when the bloodlust is upon them, and they've seen battle.

Of course, but no societies (except the Nazis) *encouraged* this as they tended to realize the severe dangers inherent in it.

And eventually, the Romans *won*. No more Jewish would-be polity and rebellions, a cowed, semi-atomized minority that kept its head low for a couple millennia.

Except for all the situations when Jews did not, in fact, keep their heads low. Including the post-Bar Kohkba Rebellions into the 8th Century and ultimately the establishment of the state of Israel.

Assyrians, Mongols ?

Two states universally damned and demonized as the most evil ancient Old World civilizations? Not exactly helping your point here.

B_Munro

February 8th, 2012, 05:41 PM

I don't believe in immortal pre-modern super-empires either, but I'm not really seeing where all this Persia-is-Afghanistan or maybe Switzerland stuff is coming from. I fail to see why Rome is going to have more trouble ruling Iran than the Hellenistic Greeks or the Arabs: it's likely that Romanization won't stick to the extent that a Persian state wouldn't reemerge when Rome goes through some inevitable sticky period, but that's another kettle of fish. Like east central Asia with respect to China, Persia might slip in and out of the Roman sphere as the Empire waxes and wanes.

Persia's one real advantage is their superiority in dry-country cavalry warfare, which makes them very hard to conquer after the coming of the Parthians: if the Romans manage to develop a superior cavalry arm of their own, Persia is in trouble (they're hardly Mongols, after all).

Bruce

Snake Featherston

February 8th, 2012, 05:43 PM

eliphas8

February 8th, 2012, 05:54 PM

No, Rome didn't have genocidal urges as a rule, but I can say them going to such extreme means as a rare exception if it is what it takes to eliminate an hereditary, intractable enemy when everything else has failed ("they make a desert, and call it peace"). I may easily see them never mustering enough will and interest to conquer Russia, Scandinavia, or West Africa, or giving them up after half-hearted attempts, but Persia is too valuable.

I meant in sheer physical terms they would be incapable of doing so, Persia is a for the most part densely populated state with a very entrenched nobility, people, and religion. Also as a simple question, how would Rome conquer Persia? They failed OTL and it was never for lack of trying. What makes them capable of doing this and commiting the genocide against what are probably a million people that they failed to do in real life many times?

eliphas8

February 8th, 2012, 05:57 PM

And eventually, the Romans *won*. No more Jewish would-be polity and rebellions, a cowed, semi-atomized minority that kept its head low for a couple millennia.

No they didnt, they won in the sense that they didnt lose the region to rebellion but there was a revolt every couple of decades and it only stopped because the caliphate was much more moderate in their treatment of Jews.

Assyrians, Mongols ?
So your examples are two groups who's empires crumbled fairly quickly after their conquests ended?

My Username is Inigo Montoya

February 8th, 2012, 06:09 PM

Anglo-Saxon England, conquered and ruled for a few centuries by a Roman Empire on an upswing before becoming independent again: I wonder how different the language would be from OTL's French-influenced language? (Substantially, I think)

Bruce
Wait, what? The Anglo-Saxons arrived after the Romans were gone IOTL. And the Romans certainly wouldn't have let Germanic barbarians settle Great Britain on OTL scale had they kept it. So your scenario would imply the Roman Empire losing Britain as per OTL and then reconquering it after the AS have settled it. Am I right?

By that time, it won't be Latin any more. The point is, there's no way Classical Latin could survive in the Empire. Just too many non-natives were learning it and dramatically altering its structure due to their own substratum. So you could have an English language that is influenced by another Romance language than Old Norman, that's for sure, but not by Classical Latin.
If you were to go far enough back in time (100 BC at least), you could have Rome staying a city state (or becoming one again after losing its possessions), turning to naval power instead of OTL territorial expansion and eventually, some centuries down the line, introducing Classical Latin to the British Isles. (but then the Anglo-Saxon invasions are surely butterflied away!)

Aranfan

February 8th, 2012, 06:19 PM

The issue with Persia is that even if the Romans conquer it, it's going to break away the first time there's any sort of wide spread civil strife. It's just too far away from (pre-industrial tech) Roman power centers to keep in line if Rome has a warring states or three kingdoms period.

B_Munro

February 8th, 2012, 06:20 PM

Wait, what? The Anglo-Saxons arrived after the Romans were gone IOTL. And the Romans certainly wouldn't have let Germanic barbarians settle Great Britain on OTL scale had they kept it. So your scenario would imply the Roman Empire losing Britain as per OTL and then reconquering it after the AS have settled it. Am I right?

Yes, that was the notion. And note nowhere did I say that the Romans would be speaking classical Latin.

(I once tried to come up with a TL/scenario which would have much of Europe ruled by a still-Pagan Rome and North America settled by a Christian (of sorts) Britain speaking a Romance-influenced Germanic language, so to lead to a US vs Rome sort of situation. Too clunky, alas).

Bruce

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 06:26 PM

I fail to see why Rome is going to have more trouble ruling Iran than the Hellenistic Greeks or the Arabs: it's likely that Romanization won't stick to the extent that a Persian state wouldn't reemerge when Rome goes through some inevitable sticky period, but that's another kettle of fish. Like east central Asia with respect to China, Persia might slip in and out of the Roman sphere as the Empire waxes and wanes.

Hypothetically speaking, this may work in that Rome would not, by itself, have a overwhelming drive to push forced assimilation. Indeed Persia, like the Jews, is one of the rare areas where 'spontaneous' Romanization may fail despite its otherwise excellent record. The main point is that a sufficiently strong Rome would never tolerate the existence of an independent, (potentially) hostile Persia that may threaten its control of the Middle East and the trade routes to Asia. They may well enforce a light rule with a Romanization that fails to stick and as a result, they have to reconquer the area again and again every time their prestige ebbs. The point is, would they find this acceptable, or eventually tire out and decide to settle the issue once and for all by more... permanent means ? I honestly dunno. I know they would never tolerate a hostile independent Persia and TTL Rome would be a superpower to Persia's regional great power.

Persia's one real advantage is their superiority in dry-country cavalry warfare, which makes them very hard to conquer after the coming of the Parthians: if the Romans manage to develop a superior cavalry arm of their own, Persia is in trouble (they're hardly Mongols, after all).

Given that the main enemies of TTL Rome would be Persians and steppe nomads, both focused on cavalry tactics, we may expect Rome eventually to adapt and work on improving its cavalry.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 06:29 PM

The assumption that Rome can somehow "Romanize" Persia. The Seleucids and Caliphate didn't remove Persian identity (they in fact were smarter than to even seriously try it). Rome can only "Romanize" Persia in the fashion that it "Romanized" Gaul, and it doesn't have anywhere near the infrastructural power to destroy 2/3 of the total population of Persia.

Well, I can see the political and morale-discipline problems, but hypothetically speaking, there is certainly a point in the technological curve where a Pan-European polity has the resources to depopulate Persia without breaking its back, if it really wants.

My Username is Inigo Montoya

February 8th, 2012, 06:34 PM

Yes, that was the notion. And note nowhere did I say that the Romans would be speaking classical Latin.

(I once tried to come up with a TL/scenario which would have much of Europe ruled by a still-Pagan Rome and North America settled by a Christian (of sorts) Britain speaking a Romance-influenced Germanic language, so to lead to a US vs Rome sort of situation. Too clunky, alas).

Bruce
To be clear: they won't be speaking Latin at all. By the time Rome gets its shit together and comes back, it will be early Italian (butterflies apply, of course, so the language could be somewhat different).

As to your scenario, the problem is to have Rome stay pagan. Once again, IMO you have to get rid of the Empire (territorial, not the Principate) if Rome is to keep its Indo-European polytheism (which appeals to no one but Romans, and even them don't really believe in it).
Geredis is currently writing a TL about a Pagan Rome (not sure how he's going to do it, but it sounds pretty plausible so far) and a Christian India.
I could see a a Southern Indian Christian maritime power colonizing the British Isles, but that's stretching plausibility a bit far. And while Germanic peoples could have settled there in the meantime, obviously they won't be the same as OTL, and won't be influenced by Latin, so the language will look nowhere like OTL's English.

Eurofed

February 8th, 2012, 06:37 PM

I meant in sheer physical terms they would be incapable of doing so, Persia is a for the most part densely populated state with a very entrenched nobility, people, and religion. Also as a simple question, how would Rome conquer Persia? They failed OTL and it was never for lack of trying. What makes them capable of doing this and commiting the genocide against what are probably a million people that they failed to do in real life many times?

TTL Rome has mastered its internal instability down to Chinese levels and absorbed the Germans (turning them into an asset). Short of policing the Eastern European border and dealing with the Persians, the legions won't have much else to do in the periods when extra-European colonial expansion is not a pressing concern. As B Munro said, all it takes at that point is to develop a better cavalry arm. If the Arabs could do, a surviving strong Rome can do it too, eventually.

Zmflavius

February 8th, 2012, 10:47 PM

TTL Rome has mastered its internal instability down to Chinese levels and absorbed the Germans (turning them into an asset). Short of policing the Eastern European border and dealing with the Persians, the legions won't have much else to do in the periods when extra-European colonial expansion is not a pressing concern. As B Munro said, all it takes at that point is to develop a better cavalry arm. If the Arabs could do, a surviving strong Rome can do it too, eventually.

And as I pointed out earlier, idle legions are a bad thing for Rome. Idle legions mean that the commanders eventually start thinking, "I should be Princeps, and I have the armies to back up my claim."

Elfwine

February 8th, 2012, 10:50 PM

And as I pointed out earlier, idle legions are a bad thing for Rome. Idle legions mean that the commanders eventually start thinking, "I should be Princeps, and I have the armies to back up my claim."

Something that a more successful (externally) than OTL Rome will not be thinking of, because emperors will be used to the legions being busy where they're supposed to be busy.

Not to mention that the kind of people who would be in a position to reform the system are the kind of people who are making it a mess - there isn't a mandarin class or even the Byzantine era court aristocracy.

Spengler

February 8th, 2012, 10:55 PM

Well it be really hard world war 1 would have to be avoided if you would want the rightful heirs, Russia and the Ottomans to survive, in fact you'll probably need to start in the `1800s to ensure proper reform is made of the empires. :D

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 12:33 AM

Ok, following the last intense row of debate, and some hard thinking, here is the another version of my "successful Rome" map:

Light brown is Rome. Top superpower. Holds Ethiopia as a client state.

Grass green is China. Second, almost as strong, superpower.

Grey-green state in North America is the United Provinces of Atlantis. Federation of former Roman colonies. Third superpower, close to Rome and China in strength.

Dark blue is Rus. A fusion of Norse, Gothic, Slav, Baltic, and Iranic peoples and cultures, Germanic and to a lesser degree Slav imprint prevails. Great power.

Violet is India. Driven to unify by Roman and Chinese influence. Colonized and eventually absorbed most of Maritime Southeast Asia. Great power.

Yellow is Japan. Absorbed Korea and colonized Australasia after a half-hearted Roman attempt. Great power.

Light blue is Norse Union. Regional power and buffer state between Rome, Rus, China, and India.

Gold is Persia. Regional power and buffer state between Rome and Rus.

Ocre state on the West Coast of North America is (Chinese name for 'New Sun'). Former Chinese colony gone independent. Regional power close to great.

Magenta state in the Andes is Inca. Regional power.

Light green in eastern South America is (insert name), former colony of a fallen African seafaring empire. Regional power close to great.

Dark brown state in South American Cone is (insert name), former Norse colony gone independent. Great power.

Orange state in Southern Africa is (insert name), former Roman colony gone independent. Regional power.

White belt in most of sub-Saharan Africa is an ever-shifting constellation of African polities.

White 'T'-shaped strip in Central Asia is a perpetually-chaotic 'neutral' buffer zone between Rome, Rus, China, India, and Persia.

Year is 2012. Technology level is similar to OTL, but somewhat more advanced in several fields.

http://i43.tinypic.com/5dukci.png

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 12:40 AM

It's kind of impressive that South America (I'm using OTL names for convenience) is divided, and China is hasn't even absorbed that state between it and India (or Japan and its possessions) but the Romansphere isn't really shifting that much from "The Romans could conquer anyone they ever fought.".

If by impressive you mean unsurprising.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 01:08 AM

It's kind of impressive that South America (I'm using OTL names for convenience) is divided,

Much less so than OTL. Residual division is an effect of colonization patterns. Even me balk at the idea of a single power colonizing all of the Americas.

and China is hasn't even absorbed that state between it and India

Burma is a buffer state between China and India. I deemed it a bit more likely (and less clichè) than Tibet.

(or Japan and its possessions)

Balance at work. Japan is to China what Rus is to Rome. Failed conquest grown into junior rival.

but the Romansphere isn't really shifting that much from "The Romans could conquer anyone they ever fought.".

Because they can. They are the biggest kids on the block (even if China and non-USA are in the same league). And they have failed to conquer Rus and India, lost a colonial empire, and stumbled (since people bitched and moaned so much about it) in the assimilation of Persia. Given the global strategic pattern, an independent Persia is not really that plausible.

I was wondering whether to make the Horn of Africa another Roman client, a vassal Ethiopia, instead of Roman territory, but that's the very limit of how much I may compromise the concept.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 01:16 AM

Much less so than OTL.

This is true.

Burma is a buffer state between China and India. I deemed it a bit more likely (and less clichè) than Tibet.

So we have Burma as a buffer state, but God forbid Persia - aka, the state that was Rome's only serious peer for centuries - be independent.

Balance at work. Japan is to China what Rus is to Rome. Failed conquest grown into junior rival.

It makes a lot more sense for China to be able to absorb Japan than...well, see below.

Because they can. They are the biggest kids on the block (even if China and non-USA are in the same league). And they have failed to conquer Rus and India, lost a colonial empire, and stumbled (since people bitched and moaned so much about it) in the assimilation of Persia. Given the global strategic pattern, an independent Persia is not really that plausible.

I was wondering whether to make the Horn of Africa another Roman client, a vassal Ethiopia, instead of Roman territory, but that's the very limit of how much I may compromise the concept.

What global strategic pattern? That the nations you like do well?

And what concept is that, that Rome rules and that god forbid Persia - despite as stated being Imperial Rome's only real rival OTL - even be able to maintain its independence?

Really, the difference in plausibility between this map and the first draft is miniscule when it comes to the most overwanked nation of them all (looking at alt-history fans in general, not you in particular). Its like saying that a space empire "only" controls a few hundred star systems instead of a thousand.

B_Munro

February 9th, 2012, 01:37 AM

To be clear: they won't be speaking Latin at all. By the time Rome gets its shit together and comes back, it will be early Italian (butterflies apply, of course, so the language could be somewhat different)..

Well, some sort of Romance language will be spoken in Italy, but the center of the Empire might be in Byzantium or even to the west, depending on how and from where it is reunified. How much linguistic drift occured while the Empire was still united, BTW? How different was the speech of Italy from that of, say, Iberia by 300 AD?

I could see a a Southern Indian Christian maritime power colonizing the British Isles, but that's stretching plausibility a bit far. And while Germanic peoples could have settled there in the meantime, obviously they won't be the same as OTL, and won't be influenced by Latin, so the language will look nowhere like OTL's English.

My notion was Christianity being squashed in Roman territory proper but spreading to the Germanic peoples and succeeding there and perhaps in Persia in Nestorian form. As I said, a bit of a shaky TL. (Was the Anglo-Saxon speech before conversion very much influenced by Latin?)

Bruce

B_Munro

February 9th, 2012, 01:49 AM

And what concept is that, that Rome rules and that god forbid Persia - despite as stated being Imperial Rome's only real rival OTL

Well, under the Sassanids, anyway. Parthia was more of a "too much trouble to conquer" thing, while Sassanid Persia became by late antiquity a positively existential threat to Eastern Rome: however, they are always going to be under threat from new invasions from inner asia until gunpowder replaces horse archers as the cutting edge of military might, so it's long-term continuance as a major power is at least as uncertain as that of Rome.

Bruce

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 01:52 AM

Well, under the Sassanids, anyway. Parthia was more of a "too much trouble to conquer" thing, while Sassanid Persia became by late antiquity a positively existential threat to Eastern Rome: however, they are always going to be under threat from new invasions from inner asia until gunpowder replaces horse archers as the cutting edge of military might, so it's long-term continuance as a major power is at least as uncertain as that of Rome.

Bruce

Even Parthia is still the only state that could beat Rome often enough to matter - unlike say, Caledonia.

And while I agree with you on the invasions from inner Asia, if Rome can survive better than OTL, some kind of "Persia" as a serious power - even if its something like the Seljuk Sultanate or the Khwarezmshah state (in being from inner Asia and including Persia) surviving is a lot easier to justify than the hoops it takes to get a surviving united Rome.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 01:58 AM

So we have Burma as a buffer state, but God forbid Persia - aka, the state that was Rome's only serious peer for centuries - be independent.

ITTL the 'serious peers' of modern Rome in the Old World are China, India, and Rus. Even IOTL, modern Persia is pathetic in comparison to EU, India, China, and Russia, and stopped being a great power a long, long time ago. Superpower potentials vs. regional power. The map reflects that.

Could modern Persia become an independent buffer state by playing Rome, Rus, and India off each other ? Most certainly. Are they guaranteed success ? Most certainly not. And history shows Western polities are the ones best poised to subdue Persia.

ITTL Rome may easily have, and likely has, subdued and lost Persia multiple times since the Classical Age.

What global strategic pattern? That the nations you like do well?

*shrug* It's a multipolar world.

And what concept is that, that Rome rules and that god forbid Persia - despite as stated being Imperial Rome's only real rival OTL - even be able to maintain its independence?

Iran vs. a well-armed federal EU would fold like a cardboard. It would be a bitch to occupy, but fall it would swiftly and surely be.

Its like saying that a space empire "only" controls a few hundred star systems instead of a thousand.

It is a meaningful difference for the natural scale of a space empire.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 02:03 AM

ITTL the 'serious peers' of modern Rome in the Old World are China, India, and Rus. Even IOTL, modern Persia is pathetic in comparison to EU, India, China, and Russia, and stopped being a great power a long, long time ago. Superpower potentials vs. regional power. The map reflects that.

Which would make sense if it was "Persia, in the last couple centuries, has declined" - not "Rome, in the last two thousand years, has dominated the western half of the Eurasian continent".

Could modern Persia become an independent buffer state by playing Rome, Rus, and India off each other ? Most certainly. Are they guaranteed success ? Most certainly not. And history shows Western polities are the ones best poised to subdue Persia.

I'm reasonably sure that (underlined) is not true, but I'm not one of the Persian experts.

ITTL Rome may easily have, and likely has, subdued and lost Persia multiple times since the Classical Age.

Despite that being completely out of its capacity in OTL, it somehow magically gains that capacity in this timeline, God and you alone know how.

Iran vs. a well-armed federal EU would fold like a cardboard. It would be a bitch to occupy, but fall it would swiftly be.

Which tells us nothing about AD 1000 Rome, or AD 1 Rome, or AD 1500 Rome.

It is a meaningful difference for the natural scale of a space empire.

I'm just glad you don't write science fiction. My suspension of disbelief is hurt enough by watching you treat Rome as made up of ubermensch.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 02:50 AM

Which would make sense if it was "Persia, in the last couple centuries, has declined" - not "Rome, in the last two thousand years, has dominated the western half of the Eurasian continent".

Never said "Rome did it, and vassallized Persia these last 2,000 years". Said "Rome did it (quite likely with a Chinese-like cycle), and eventually vassallized Persia". May have been an off-on thing, and last hold be relatively recent.

I'm reasonably sure that (underlined) is not true, but I'm not one of the Persian experts.

The Seleucids, the Arabs, and the British vs. the Mongols. The Russians straddle the fence.

Despite that being completely out of its capacity in OTL, it somehow magically gains that capacity in this timeline, God and you alone know how.

Evolving technological curve in combination with overcoming its inner instability and absorbing Northern Europe.

Which tells us nothing about AD 1000 Rome, or AD 1 Rome, or AD 1500 Rome.

Map does not concern them. But if the Arabs could do it, it means a post-Classical Rome can do it, if it is in one of its good periods.

Anyway, if it really troubles you so much, and I can get some respite from all this tiresome bitching and moaning that a Roman Europe violates the laws of physics, I can edit the scenario and map to make Persia an independent buffer state and regional power, assuming that someone else of the big guys cares enough to shield it from Rome (and vice versa, of course). Only really plausible way it may happen given the circumstances.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 03:09 AM

Never said "Rome did it, and vassallized Persia these last 2,000 years". Said "Rome did it (quite likely with a Chinese-like cycle), and eventually vassallized Persia". May have been an off-on thing, and last hold be relatively recent.

Rome did it, despite the fact that it doing so would be much harder than some form of significant Persian state rising, and for no apparent reason Persia gets kicked around.

The Seleucids, the Arabs, and the British vs. the Mongols. The Russians straddle the fence.

The Mongols are far from the only example. Where do you think the various Turkish groups that ruled over Persia came from?

And when did the British conquer Iran?

Evolving technological curve in combination with overcoming its inner instability and absorbing Northern Europe.

See bottom reply.

Map does not concern them. But if the Arabs could do it, it means a post-Classical Rome can do it, if it is in one of its good periods.

The map does, however, require ignoring the realities of Rome in those periods, or defining them as "invincible".

The Arabs, striking at a practically ideal time, held Persia for a short period, and then lost it for good.

Not equivalent.

Anyway, if it really troubles you so much, and I can get some respite from all this tiresome bitching and moaning that a Roman Europe violates the laws of physics, I can edit the scenario and map to make Persia an independent buffer state and regional power, assuming that someone else of the big guys cares enough to shield it from Rome (and vice versa, of course). Only really plausible way it may happen given the circumstances.

Not "a" Roman Empire. Your "miminum acceptable" Roman Empire.

There are probably over a hundred scenarios where you could have Rome comparable to any European Great Power of OTL at their height but in 2012.

But this? Where plausibility is thrown aside because anything conceivable exists somewhere?

Yeah, physics are for determinists or something.

As for Persia's fate:
What, so plausibility only matters when it doesn't concern your favorite nations? That its completely implausible for Rome to manage what you're attempting is irrelevant, but Persia doesn't get to be so lucky, because its not sufficiently cool or something.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 03:26 AM

Here, edited to make Persia independent and Ethiopia an autonomous Roman client state.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 03:29 AM

the Greek speaking portion of the Empire always spoke Greek- the Romans didn't bother making them part of their Roman culture, they adored the Greeks.
The argument could be made that Romans were Greeks, being largely a cultural derivative of Greeks inside of Italy. Rome's largely mythological foundation appears to be based on that of Greek refugees from the city states to the east.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 03:31 AM

Can we please try to keep this discussion plausible? Anyway, after a lot of research, here's what I came up with:

http://i.imgur.com/FKr3k.png
I can see at least three tiny nations! Why haven't they been eaten yet?

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 03:45 AM

I stand in bared breath of the inevitable collapse of the USA, China, and India. Until it happens, however, I clutch to my deep skepticism of this entropic view of history. The United States almost collapsed three times in its history, and is relatively young compared to other countries.

China did collapse but brought itself together due to chinese ideals, confucian ethic, and so forth. Should China collapse and during one of its fragmentary periods (many will come in time if humanity doesn't get itself destroyed before that) other powers could swoop in and change the chinese identity when its at its most vulnerable.

India has already collapsed. I'll take it you've never heard of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 03:48 AM

Sound change is impossible to stop. No amount of stability in government or force of law can change that.
Languages will always evolve, but this doesn't mean that local dialects under a single empire will drift apart until they are mutually unintelligible. Things just change. Try reading Shakespeare.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 03:50 AM

So were Persians. It didn't work for the Caliphate, and it won't work for Rome. The Caliphate at least was a relatively new thing that appeared and didn't really try to rock the boat too much. This is akin to Imperial Germany taking over Third Republic France and attempting to make Germans out of Frenchmen.
Persians were assimilated, at least partially, fairly successfully by the Caliphate.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 03:55 AM

Two states universally damned and demonized as the most evil ancient Old World civilizations? Not exactly helping your point here.
Sure, but only when the mongols aren't being praised for their tolerance of other faiths, cultures, views, and their support for various sciences (mostly military ones) as well as their culture which when it didn't involve raping and pillaging, actually was fairly evolved in its treatment of women (Mongol Women).

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 03:56 AM

There are probably over a hundred scenarios where you could have Rome comparable to any European Great Power of OTL at their height but in 2012.

Not interested in remnants.

But this? Where plausibility is thrown aside because anything conceivable exists somewhere?

Your standards of plausibility. Not remotely interested in buying. By now, it should be more than abundantly clear.

As for Persia's fate:
What, so plausibility only matters when it doesn't concern your favorite nations?

If by favorite, you mean the purpose of the scenario, then yes.

That its completely implausible for Rome to manage what you're attempting is irrelevant, but Persia doesn't get to be so lucky, because its not sufficiently cool or something.

*Shrug.* A world with 3 superpowers and 6 great powers is a lot of luck shared around. Don't see why Persia and only Persia deserves to be one of the lucky ones no matter what.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 04:04 AM

*Shrug.* A world with 3 superpowers and 6 great powers is a lot of luck shared around. Don't see why Persia and only Persia deserves to be one of the lucky ones no matter what.
This is also a problem. Its not 3 superpowers and 6 great powers. Super Powers and Great Powers are determined by their relationships with lesser powers. No. This is 3 Great Powers and 6 minor, regional, powers. Everything else are just pawns, for it would be impossible for them to be anything else in such a world (unless I'm missing something and the rise of global liberalism and community has arisen in this timeline as well, even though that would ignore all the reasons why both of those ideas formed).

Zmflavius

February 9th, 2012, 04:18 AM

Not interested in remnants.

Well, this is an issue. You can't have a plausible timeline if small or even medium size nations are lasered out because you don't like the look of them on your map.

*Shrug.* A world with 3 superpowers and 6 great powers is a lot of luck shared around. Don't see why Persia and only Persia deserves to be one of the lucky ones no matter what.

Well, actually, virtually all of your proposed Roman holdings outside of the Aurelian Empire, plus maybe Germania and some other border territories really should be "lucky."

To sum up, I think the problem is that simply put, it's not plausible for Rome to conquer, hold, and assimilate such a size of territory until it undergoes major social and economic reform and technology marches on to the 19th century at least. The technology to be able to even coordinate conquest of such a breadth of territory did not exist until the 19th century, which is one of the reasons why only one empire, the Mongols, ever conquered a similar amount of territory, and they held it together for barely a generation. This means that for Rome to hold even only semi-permanently such an amount of territory, in such a far-flung empire, that it must conquer, hold, and assimilate all this territory in the maximum of around a hundred fifty years between the mid 19th century and 2012, or else their empire will rapidly break apart. That in the same period of time, the rest of the world should also promptly coalesce into half a dozen super-empires is frankly taking suspension of disbelief off the rack and dangling him off a cliff.

B_Munro

February 9th, 2012, 05:02 AM

The United States almost collapsed three times in its history, and is relatively young compared to other countries.

China did collapse but brought itself together due to chinese ideals, confucian ethic, and so forth. Should China collapse and during one of its fragmentary periods (many will come in time if humanity doesn't get itself destroyed before that) other powers could swoop in and change the chinese identity when its at its most vulnerable.

Ah, the inevitableoid warlords. :D In any event, nationalism is the common currency of the world nowadays, and not easily stamped out. The pre-technological past is probably a poor guide to national stability in the future.

India has already collapsed. I'll take it you've never heard of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

But there was no India to collapse. There was a disparate bunch of British colonial posessions: a fair number of them were led by people with the Hindu religion in common which had convinced themselves they were some such thing as "Indians" in opposition to the British colonizers, who had imported the concept. The leaders of future Pakistan and Bangladesh weren't really convinced, and the Burmese and Sri Lankans never bought it at all. The last 60-odd years have seen a pretty successful job of nation-building over that area, not disintegration.

Bruce

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 06:14 AM

Not interested in remnants.

Remnants?

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=120887&postcount=7

The Roman Empire in Agent of Byzantium is a "remnant"? Seriously?

To pick one example.

Your standards of plausibility. Not remotely interested in buying. By now, it should be more than abundantly clear.

You've said yourself that you pick scenarios based on what you want to have happen, and come up with "conceivable explainations" around them - plausibility has never been the basis for your definition of Roman or German borders in any thread where I've seen you defending them spreading over thet map like spilled soup.

Whenever anyone raises ANY objection, you handwave that Rome can find a solution. The idea that there might not be an available solution, or that Rome might fail to find it has never been an impediment to anything more significant than whether or not Rome occupies the North Cape and the Orkneys.

*Shrug.* A world with 3 superpowers and 6 great powers is a lot of luck shared around. Don't see why Persia and only Persia deserves to be one of the lucky ones no matter what.

Don't see how Persia actually faring reasonably well instead of being ground before the Unstoppable Romans is the same thing as saying that Persia should be to Eastern Eurasia what Rome is to Western Europe.

Persia having the Biggest Central Asian Power spot makes a lot more sense than India, or Japan surviving Mega China, or Mega Rome managing to handle problems beyond anything it could even attempt to handle OTL.

So it's not "no matter what". If you had a POD in say, AD 1000, you could easily justify Persia being no more than regional - but that's after a world that also means you won't have a Roman Empire spanning almost all of Europe, and Europe in general will be divided into multiple states of various significance (even to use your maps, Franglia, das Deutchblobben, Russia, Iberia, the Byzantines, Scandinavia - and that's with small states purged with wild enthusiasm).

I don't mind that you prefer certain nations, and I don't have any objection to a map of Europe where there are no micronations except for possibly the Papal State, but Cecil Rhodes's philosophy on empire building didn't even work with maxim guns versus spears.

My Username is Inigo Montoya

February 9th, 2012, 07:22 AM

Well, some sort of Romance language will be spoken in Italy, but the center of the Empire might be in Byzantium or even to the west, depending on how and from where it is reunified. How much linguistic drift occured while the Empire was still united, BTW? How different was the speech of Italy from that of, say, Iberia by 300 AD?
Not that much. There was certainly mutual intelligibility, which to some extent has endured up to present day (Portuguese>Spanish, Romanian>Italian...) But many people still didn't speak Latin at that time.

My notion was Christianity being squashed in Roman territory proper but spreading to the Germanic peoples and succeeding there and perhaps in Persia in Nestorian form. As I said, a bit of a shaky TL. (Was the Anglo-Saxon speech before conversion very much influenced by Latin?)

Bruce
You could try this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_Empire) for starters.
And, no, Latin borrowing before the Norman invasion was negligible.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 11:45 AM

Ah, the inevitableoid warlords. :D In any event, nationalism is the common currency of the world nowadays, and not easily stamped out. The pre-technological past is probably a poor guide to national stability in the future.It won't be easy, but China is more vulnerable to it than they would like to admit. There are several major languages that are completely different when spoken orally from Mandarin and they are concentrated in the South. Language is one step of defining one's nationality. It won't be easy, but I wouldn't say its impossible.

We have no idea what the technological age will mean for humanity in the long run, as its just a few decades old. Even so the technological age saw the collapse of many countries. U.S.S.R.?

But there was no India to collapse. There was a disparate bunch of British colonial posessions: a fair number of them were led by people with the Hindu religion in common which had convinced themselves they were some such thing as "Indians" in opposition to the British colonizers, who had imported the concept. The leaders of future Pakistan and Bangladesh weren't really convinced, and the Burmese and Sri Lankans never bought it at all. The last 60-odd years have seen a pretty successful job of nation-building over that area, not disintegration.Actually...

British India. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidencies_and_provinces_of_British_India)

Partition of India. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India)

The only reason why 'Indian' nationalism is so much more profound in India than it is in either Pakistan and Bangladesh is because India requires that name, and the identity that comes with it, far more than either of those two. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh had their own ways of setting themselves apart from India, not just because India became a heathen country that immediately went to war with it over Kashmir. Pakistan would also fall into two pieces after west Pakistan controlled too much of the power. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh are more uniform in terms of cultural nationality, language, history, and frankly easier to administrate than India, which also helps make their claim on it be far less than before. :o

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 12:55 PM

This is also a problem. Its not 3 superpowers and 6 great powers. Super Powers and Great Powers are determined by their relationships with lesser powers. No. This is 3 Great Powers and 6 minor, regional, powers. Everything else are just pawns, for it would be impossible for them to be anything else in such a world (unless I'm missing something and the rise of global liberalism and community has arisen in this timeline as well, even though that would ignore all the reasons why both of those ideas formed).

This is a semantic issue, admittedly one I have not a strong opinion on. Political liberalism may still rise without a post-WW pattern of international relationships or modern nationalism (if modernized ancient empires are the template for states, this may easily be).

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 01:31 PM

The Roman Empire in Agent of Byzantium is a "remnant"? Seriously?

I've read the Videssos Cycle, but not that book. By the way, better you don't read the 'Romanitas' trilogy (http://www.romanitas.com/), or you might tear your eyes out, since my typical successful Roman empires are pathetic in comparison to the one in those books.

You've said yourself that you pick scenarios based on what you want to have happen, and come up with "conceivable explainations" around them -

Exactly.

Whenever anyone raises ANY objection, you handwave that Rome can find a solution. The idea that there might not be an available solution, or that Rome might fail to find it has never been an impediment to anything more significant than whether or not Rome occupies the North Cape and the Orkneys.

To use your terminology, the idea that there is not a possible solution, or that they surely will not find it in time, is not any plausible, for Rome (or many other polities) at its height. They may or may not find it, but TLs where they do most definitely exist. I focus my interest on that group.

Don't see how Persia actually faring reasonably well instead of being ground before the Unstoppable Romans is the same thing as saying that Persia should be to Eastern Eurasia what Rome is to Western Europe.

Actually, Central Eurasia. :p

Persia having the Biggest Central Asian Power spot makes a lot more sense than India,

This may be questionable, but the idea of Persia instead of India becoming the third big Eurasian civilization-polity with an Ancient origin may actually be quite an interesting development. What exactly do you have in mind ? Persia controlling pretty much all of Central Asia (nomads shall be a lot of trouble before gunpowder) and/or northern-central India ? A Persian-Indian empire ? Not sure that Zoroastrism and Hinduism can mix any well, despire their ancient common roots. India was weak enough during most of its history to allow such a development. Of course, strong Rome shall keep them bottled east of the Zagros for all time, barring occasional invasions during lucky wars and breakouts during periods of Roman weakness.

or Japan surviving Mega China,

I'm not any convinced that Persia was that really stronger and more enduring than Japan, or that Japan was that much easier to conquer for China than Persia would be for a Med polity.

So it's not "no matter what". If you had a POD in say, AD 1000, you could easily justify Persia being no more than regional - but that's after a world that also means you won't have a Roman Empire spanning almost all of Europe, and Europe in general will be divided into multiple states of various significance (even to use your maps, Franglia, das Deutchblobben, Russia, Iberia, the Byzantines, Scandinavia - and that's with small states purged with wild enthusiasm).

Apples and oranges. Europe (almost entirely) united by one polity, and Europe drastically consolidated into a handful of empires are two very different cases as it concerns continental and global consequences. You know that in different occasions I've embraced both scenarioes with the same enthusiasm. To me, it's simply a case of picking the appropriate starting conditions, but both cases are wholly feasible.

Aranfan

February 9th, 2012, 01:41 PM

This is a semantic issue, admittedly one I have not a strong opinion on. Political liberalism may still rise without a post-WW pattern of international relationships or modern nationalism (if modernized ancient empires are the template for states, this may easily be).

I think that by "liberalism" I think he means the political theory that springs from the Enlightenment, with the attendant things of separation of powers, elected representatives/oligarchs, and republicanism. The development of which was intricately tied in with the free cities of the High Middle Ages.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 03:30 PM

Well, this is an issue. You can't have a plausible timeline if small or even medium size nations are lasered out because you don't like the look of them on your map.

Let's say that in any TL and scenario of mine, chances always err in favor of not allowing small or even medium size nations to exist, unless there is a specific good reason for them to do.

To sum up, I think the problem is that simply put, it's not plausible for Rome to conquer, hold, and assimilate such a size of territory until it undergoes major social and economic reform and technology marches on to the 19th century at least. The technology to be able to even coordinate conquest of such a breadth of territory did not exist until the 19th century, which is one of the reasons why only one empire, the Mongols, ever conquered a similar amount of territory, and they held it together for barely a generation. This means that for Rome to hold even only semi-permanently such an amount of territory, in such a far-flung empire, that it must conquer, hold, and assimilate all this territory in the maximum of around a hundred fifty years between the mid 19th century and 2012, or else their empire will rapidly break apart. That in the same period of time, the rest of the world should also promptly coalesce into half a dozen super-empires is frankly taking suspension of disbelief off the rack and dangling him off a cliff.

As far as I can tell, global colonial empires of considerable size demonstrably first became possible and manageable, if only in certain conditions and areas of the world, with Renaissance technology, even if Victorian technology made a leap in efficiency possible and opened up the other potential areas.

To sum it up, Ancient-Middle Ages technology made Imperial China possible, and anything similar, such as united Europe or united India.

Early Modern technology made such a polity more stable and also allowed the development of a colonial empire akin to the ones of OTL European powers, but only in the much more backward, disorganized, or "empty" areas of the world with valuable land and resources (typically, the New World), or through indirect means of control (trading companies to Asia and somesuch).

This technology level makes the "core" areas only more manageable (e.g. China and Russia), global transportation and communication become possible, if with substantial delay and inefficiency, and the above kind of colonial empire is also feasible because and insofar it makes relatively light calls for the resources of the core (typically defense from rivals): to a degree, settlers and local agents are able to manage things on their own (even if this has side effects, such as budding separatism). Some areas of the world, such as most of sub-Saharan Africa, remain largely impenetrable to anyone but locals at this technology level.

Victorian technology first removes all remaining obstacles to an Earthly polity of arbitrary size but socio-political coesion and efficiency.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 06:28 PM

I've read the Videssos Cycle, but not that book. By the way, better you don't read the 'Romanitas' trilogy, or you might tear out your eyes, since my typical successful Roman empires are pathetic in comparison to the one in those books.

Same here (Videssos, yes, Agent of Byzantium, no).

I'm just using that as a source of a map of something less-than-even-greater-than-OTL.

To use your terminology, the idea that there is not a possible solution, or that they surely will not find it in time, is not any plausible, for Rome (or many other polities) at its height. They may or may not find it, but TLs where they do most definitely exist. I focus my interest on that group.

Other than the problem that they didn't. The WRE was swept away, and never recovered by the remaining half (which itself was swept away a thousand years later).

I'm not saying that this by definition means it was insolveable, but saying that "there isn't a possible solution, or they can't find it in time" isn't plausible is just flat out ridiculous.

This may be questionable, but the idea of Persia instead of India becoming the third big Eurasian civilization-polity with an Ancient origin may actually be quite an interesting development. What exactly do you have in mind ? Persia controlling pretty much all of Central Asia (nomads shall be a lot of trouble before gunpowder) and/or northern-central India ? A Persian-Indian empire ? Not sure that Zoroastrism and Hinduism can mix any well, despire their ancient common roots. India was weak enough during most of its history to allow such a development. Of course, strong Rome shall keep them bottled east of the Zagros for all time, barring occasional invasions during lucky wars and breakouts during periods of Roman weakness.

You know, I have to ask. Why is it that Rome can somehow address all this kind of crap for its empire, but Persia doing so is questionable?

Why? I know you like Rome more than Persia. So do I (Well, Byzantium, not pre-Heraclian Rome). But if one empire can casually ignore all the difficulties of facing areas well beyond the area it could manage OTL, why can't another?

As far as I'm concerned, China conquering Japan would be of similar difficulty, if slightly easier, than a (Eastern) Med polity conquering Persia.

Which should mean that Japan is Chinese, given your insistence that Rome can take Persia.

Apples and oranges. Europe (almost entirely) united by one polity, and Europe drastically consolidated into a handful of empires are two very different cases as it concerns continental and global consequences. You know that in different occasions I've embraced both scenarioes with the same enthusiasm. To me, it's simply a case of picking the appropriate starting conditions, but both cases are wholly feasible.

The point is that if you want appropriate starting conditions for rendering "Persia" an ancient, never revived empire, you need something later than What If Rome Conquered Germania and Mesopotamia?

And even then, as stated above - why does it suddenly matter that it will be exposed to barbarian invasions and cultural difficulties and so forth when we talk about Persia, but not Rome, even though both are dealing with the same or similar problems?

You're coming off less as pro Large Empires and more as anti-(Near) Eastern here.

Whether that's intentional or not I don't know, but its worth calling your attention to.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 07:37 PM

I'm just using that as a source of a map of something less-than-even-greater-than-OTL.

And 'Romanitas' is a source of something-even-greater-than-Eurofed-huge. ;)

You know, I have to ask. Why is it that Rome can somehow address all this kind of crap for its empire, but Persia doing so is questionable?

I may have mis-explained my point. My argument here was that I'm honestly dubious whether India or Persia may be the best candidate for third Eurasian big civilization-polity among the Ancient Classical civilizations. So far I was much more mindful of India than of Persia as a candidate, and admittedly the modern situation (and religious sympathy issues, see below) may have influenced my judgement. I have no difficulty whatsoever to make three, not one or two, big enduring neo-Classical empires in Eurasia. I'm open-minded to discuss the issue. Feel free to throw ideas on Mega-Persia my direction, as long as it doesw not screw up Mega-Rome and Mega-China (and for the purpose of this thread, post-Roman non-USA).

Why? I know you like Rome more than Persia. So do I (Well, Byzantium, not pre-Heraclian Rome). But if one empire can casually ignore all the difficulties of facing areas well beyond the area it could manage OTL, why can't another?

Of course it can, even if Eurasia can fit only so many decent empires. ;)

Which should mean that Japan is Chinese, given your insistence that Rome can take Persia.

Ok, they rise and fall together as parallel cases. And since I relented and restored Persia in my scenario, so does Japan.

To set up super-Persia just requires some good ideas on its borders in Central and South Asia, for a Persian Empire that remains strong (with occasional eclipses) for two millennia to this day and is a modern industrialized great power.

You're coming off less as pro Large Empires and more as anti-(Near) Eastern here.

I admit a huge anti-religious bias against Near Eastern monotheisms and a wish to bend chances and screw them up in TLs wherever possible. Besides the loss of Western Europe, this is one big reason I like Classical Rome much more so than Byzantium. This may cloud my judgement towards Persia.

It is also likely that I tend to value Western, South Asian, and Far Eastern civilizations head and shoulders above the rest due to the sum of their accomplishments and potential. Hypothetically speaking, however, on further reflection I realize I have no serious difficulty to rank a pagan Persia in the same league.

Snake Featherston

February 9th, 2012, 07:47 PM

The United States almost collapsed three times in its history, and is relatively young compared to other countries.

China did collapse but brought itself together due to chinese ideals, confucian ethic, and so forth. Should China collapse and during one of its fragmentary periods (many will come in time if humanity doesn't get itself destroyed before that) other powers could swoop in and change the chinese identity when its at its most vulnerable.

India has already collapsed. I'll take it you've never heard of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Three times, wha?

Persians were assimilated, at least partially, fairly successfully by the Caliphate.

No they weren't. The Persians did not stop speaking Persian and suddenly start speaking Arabic, and their concepts of identity have pretty much always been separate and distinct from other parts of the Muslim world. There's also always been a bit of bigotry on the part of Arabic-speakers to Persian-speakers, the kind tapped into by Saddam Hussein in 1980-8.

Sure, but only when the mongols aren't being praised for their tolerance of other faiths, cultures, views, and their support for various sciences (mostly military ones) as well as their culture which when it didn't involve raping and pillaging, actually was fairly evolved in its treatment of women (Mongol Women).

A set of praises that are very uniquely modern. The Mongols were universally bashed in all histories before modern times, and at least part of why they're not as bashed as they used to be is that modern societies have vastly outpaced the savagery those armies did at one point.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 07:50 PM

And 'Romanitas' is a source of something-even-greater-than-Eurofed-huge. ;)

That would take some doing.

I may have mis-explained my point. My argument here was that I'm honestly dubious whether India or Persia may be the best candidate for third Eurasian big civilization-polity among the Ancient Classical civilizations. So far I was much more mindful of India than of Persia as a candidate, and admittedly the modern situation (and religious sympathy issues, see below) may have influenced my judgement. I have no difficulty whatsoever to make three, not one or two, big enduring neo-Classical empires in Eurasia. I'm open-minded to discuss the issue. Feel free to throw ideas on Mega-Persia my direction, as long as it doesw not screw up Mega-Rome and Mega-China (and for the purpose of this thread, post-Roman non-USA).

Start with the Sassanid state (minus the parts assigned to Rome), and add your current map's India.

There, that ought to do for comparison's sake.

Of course it can, even if Eurasia can fit only so many decent empires. ;)

Then what was the point that Persia will face horse nomads and all about again?

I admit a huge anti-religious bias against Near Eastern monotheisms and a wish to bend chances and screw them up in TLs wherever possible. Besides the loss of Western Europe, this is one big reason I like Classical Rome much more so than Byzantium. This may cloud my judgement towards Persia.

What's really weird about this is that you have no trouble with having crusader Europe wanked in the name of dewanking evol monotheism.

But that's another discussion.

It is also likely that I tend to value Western, South Asian, and Far Eastern civilizations head and shoulders above the rest due to the sum of their accomplishments and potential. Hypothetically speaking, however, on further reflection I realize I have no serious difficulty to rank a pagan Persia in the same league.

Your lack of study of the Near East is showing.

Snake Featherston

February 9th, 2012, 07:53 PM

I admit a huge anti-religious bias against Near Eastern monotheisms and a wish to bend chances and screw them up in TLs wherever possible. Besides the loss of Western Europe, this is one big reason I like Classical Rome much more so than Byzantium. This may cloud my judgement towards Persia.

It is also likely that I tend to value Western, South Asian, and Far Eastern civilizations head and shoulders above the rest due to the sum of their accomplishments and potential. Hypothetically speaking, however, on further reflection I realize I have no serious difficulty to rank a pagan Persia in the same league.

Then why wank the HRE? Why not instead try for a Mongol wank or for Sino-wanks, or for that matter screwing Indo-Islam and creating a massive Hindu revival? Or even in ASB Aztec-wanks?

Snake Featherston

February 9th, 2012, 07:55 PM

As far as I can tell, global colonial empires of considerable size demonstrably first became possible and manageable, if only in certain conditions and areas of the world, with Renaissance technology, even if Victorian technology made a leap in efficiency possible and opened up the other potential areas.

To sum it up, Ancient-Middle Ages technology made Imperial China possible, and anything similar, such as united Europe or united India.

Early Modern technology made such a polity more stable and also allowed the development of a colonial empire akin to the ones of OTL European powers, but only in the much more backward, disorganized, or "empty" areas of the world with valuable land and resources (typically, the New World), or through indirect means of control (trading companies to Asia and somesuch).

This technology level makes the "core" areas only more manageable (e.g. China and Russia), global transportation and communication become possible, if with substantial delay and inefficiency, and the above kind of colonial empire is also feasible because and insofar it makes relatively light calls for the resources of the core (typically defense from rivals): to a degree, settlers and local agents are able to manage things on their own (even if this has side effects, such as budding separatism). Some areas of the world, such as most of sub-Saharan Africa, remain largely impenetrable to anyone but locals at this technology level.

Victorian technology first removes all remaining obstacles to an Earthly polity of arbitrary size but socio-political coesion and efficiency.

There is one irony here, however, in that the largest empire of Classical times was that of the Achaemenids, which reached into Egypt and all the way into the outer edges of the Hellenic world. All its successors were by far smaller states, and it had only one true rival in a territorial sense: the Ummayyad Caliphate and the earliest phases of the Abbasid Caliphate. Both Rome and Persia in this sense represented splinters of the bigger Achaemenid sphere. It'd be more interesting to see someone further wank *that* empire as it for a time was pretty much damn near unstoppable....and unlike the Romans had no Jewish revolts whatsoever.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 08:11 PM

That would take some doing.

Take a look (http://www.romanitas.com/newspaper.html) (map link of the newspaper menu).

Start with the Sassanid state (minus the parts assigned to Rome), and add your current map's India.

Ok, I need to take some checks on Sassanid borders in Central Asia.

Then what was the point that Persia will face horse nomads and all about again?

Just to mean that Persia needs to master gunpowder before it can hegemonize the Central Asian steppes.

What's really weird about this is that you have no trouble with having crusader Europe wanked in the name of dewanking evol monotheism.

Wanking crusader Europe typically dewanks Muslim world first and foremost. It's a zero-sum game.

Your lack of study of the Near East is showing.

Are you telling me Classical Persia was not Zoroastrian ? :confused::eek:

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 08:18 PM

Then why wank the HRE?

Because to de-Christianize CE Europe, is exceedingly difficult, apart from making it Islamic.

Why not instead try for a Mongol wank

Not sure if they would make for beneficial or destructive hegemons.

or for Sino-wanks,

Done.

or for that matter screwing Indo-Islam and creating a massive Hindu revival?

Done as well.

Or even in ASB Aztec-wanks?

One religion that was just as screwed-up as Near Eastern monotheisms.

Snake Featherston

February 9th, 2012, 08:21 PM

Because to de-Christianize CE Europe, is exceedingly difficult, apart from making it Islamic.

*coughMagyarsLithuaniaVikingscough*

Not sure if they would make for beneficial or destructive hegemons.

About equal to any other hegemons, really.

One religion that was just as screwed-up as Near Eastern monotheisms.

It, however, was a polytheistic religion that produced a very large military machine of the sort not seen again (outside Tawantinsuyu) in either America until the War of the Triple Alliance in South America and the US Civil War in North America.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 08:23 PM

There is one irony here, however, in that the largest empire of Classical times was that of the Achaemenids, which reached into Egypt and all the way into the outer edges of the Hellenic world. All its successors were by far smaller states, and it had only one true rival in a territorial sense: the Ummayyad Caliphate and the earliest phases of the Abbasid Caliphate. Both Rome and Persia in this sense represented splinters of the bigger Achaemenid sphere. It'd be more interesting to see someone further wank *that* empire as it for a time was pretty much damn near unstoppable....and unlike the Romans had no

I agree abotu the rest, but I'm rather dubious about the statement that the Achaemenids were bigger than Han China, Gupta India, or Imperial Rome, and about the latter being a splinter of 'the bigger Achaemenid sphere'.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 08:24 PM

Take a look (http://www.romanitas.com/newspaper.html) (map link of the newspaper menu).

Words fail me.

Ok, I need to take some checks on Sassanid borders in Central Asia.

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/sassanids/sassanids.php

Wanking crusader Europe typically dewanks Muslim world first and foremost. It's a zero-sum game.

So in order to dewank the least overbearingly religious part of Western Eurasia, we have to turn the most religiously overbearing aspects of Western-Central Europe up to 11 - and this is a good thing? :eek:

Are you telling me Classical Persia was not Zoroastrian ? :confused::eek:

I'm saying that your attitude that the Near East was a place of stunted civilizations - but of course, pre-Christian Rome is nothing like that - is remarkable, and not in a good way.

Snake Featherston

February 9th, 2012, 08:29 PM

I agree abotu the rest, but I'm rather dubious about the statement that the Achaemenids were bigger than Han China, Gupta India, or Imperial Rome, and about the latter being a splinter of 'the bigger Achaemenid sphere'.

The Achaemenids predated the Han by a few centuries, encompassed 8 million KM (as opposed to the Trajan-era Megastate Rome which encompassed 6.5 million), and were the first Western Empire to make a habit of conquering Indian principalities. And it's worth noting that the Achaemenids again did this when the only comparable states were the Gupta Empire in the East and there was nothing at all comparable in the West until the rise of Macedon.

That empire would qualify for ASB more than some events listed as it literally arose out of nothing by comparison to a lot of its successors. The Achaemenid Empire was only surpassed by the three early versions of the Caliphate in terms of land area when we're discussing classical empires, and its only superiors in terms of overland empires are the Mongols (over 1,000 years later) and Russia/USSR. To again belabor the point when they gained an empire not matched for centuries after the fact it had never been done before, and they even bypassed the larger Maurya Empire by 3 million kilometers. :eek:

Snake Featherston

February 9th, 2012, 08:39 PM

I may have mis-explained my point. My argument here was that I'm honestly dubious whether India or Persia may be the best candidate for third Eurasian big civilization-polity among the Ancient Classical civilizations. So far I was much more mindful of India than of Persia as a candidate, and admittedly the modern situation (and religious sympathy issues, see below) may have influenced my judgement. I have no difficulty whatsoever to make three, not one or two, big enduring neo-Classical empires in Eurasia. I'm open-minded to discuss the issue. Feel free to throw ideas on Mega-Persia my direction, as long as it doesw not screw up Mega-Rome and Mega-China (and for the purpose of this thread, post-Roman non-USA).

The Achaemenids, as an example of why this is a rather ludicrously distorted view of the Classical Age, ruled an empire not bypassed in terms of sheer land area until the era of the Rashidun, Ummayyads, and Abbasids in terms of Classical/Medieval states, and surpassed only in terms of overland empires by Russia and the Mongols. If anything an argument could be made that Persia potentially ruling the Near East as a whole is less difficult than otherwise solely because the Persians *invented* the space-filling empire and in contrast to nearly all their successors kept it going for so long that it would have had to collapse internally to fall if it had never been invaded by Macedon.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 09:23 PM

I think that by "liberalism" I think he means the political theory that springs from the Enlightenment, with the attendant things of separation of powers, elected representatives/oligarchs, and republicanism. The development of which was intricately tied in with the free cities of the High Middle Ages.
It was. :o

I also don't think its semantic to bring up that if every power is either a great power then there are no great powers.

scholar

February 9th, 2012, 09:34 PM

Three times, wha? The period immediate after independence, South Carolina under Andrew Jackson, and the Civil War. Three. Arguments could be made regarding the Californian Crisis, the Great Depression, and possibly one other time.

No they weren't. The Persians did not stop speaking Persian and suddenly start speaking Arabic, and their concepts of identity have pretty much always been separate and distinct from other parts of the Muslim world. There's also always been a bit of bigotry on the part of Arabic-speakers to Persian-speakers, the kind tapped into by Saddam Hussein in 1980-8. I said partially assimilated. The key word is partially. And no, partial assimilation or even most assimilation procedures does not equate with adopting a universal language of that of what they assimilated into. A cultural shift and the adoption of the religion, even if this religion would rapidly become a different sect of the overarching faith, is what I mean by partial assimilation.

A set of praises that are very uniquely modern. The Mongols were universally bashed in all histories before modern times, and at least part of why they're not as bashed as they used to be is that modern societies have vastly outpaced the savagery those armies did at one point.Not uniquely modern, you can find a number of individuals have such opinions during the age of the Mongols. You have Christian Kings (well, two anyways) willfully seeking out the Khan's to give them their loyalty. You have a number of Christians and Jews (and other minorities) have new found freedom and giving a fair amount of loyalty to the Khan. Even Buddhism was largely accepted in Persia under the Il Khanate. This isn't modern and was well known at the time. It is before they came (via reputation), when they were never conquered, when they suffered tremendously (Chinese), and after their dissolution (such as with Persia) where they were considerably demonize.

I'm not saying the Mongols weren't horrible raping and pillaging demons when they chose to be (only those that resist their quest for global domination), and that many understood them by that reputation (Eastern Europe, Egypt), just that they also had some praise. Largely modern, but not completely.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 10:06 PM

Words fail me.

See what I mean ?

About the Sassanid border, I think I may follow them west of the Aral Sea, but east of it, I'd either base them entirely on the Amu Darya or the Syr Darya in modern times. I wish my base map included Central Asian rivers.

Just to be sure, did you mean to include just the Indian subcontinent in Mega-Persia, or also Hindu Indonesia ?

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 10:22 PM

See what I mean ?

About the Sassanid border, I think I may follow them west of the Aral Sea, but east of it, I'd either base them entirely on the Amu Darya or the Syr Darya in modern times. I wish my base map included Central Asian rivers.

Why limit them like that?

Just to be sure, did you mean to include just the Indian subcontinent in Mega-Persia, or also Hindu Indonesia ?

If you're going to seriously argue that Rome can absorb all (except for Russian) Europe, then also Hindu Indonesia, yes.

Make Persia take the place of India as one of the not-as-great powers in full.

eliphas8

February 9th, 2012, 10:25 PM

Are you telling me Classical Persia was not Zoroastrian ? :confused::eek:

How was Zoroastrianism pagan? It was almost as expressly monotheistic as Judaism.

eliphas8

February 9th, 2012, 10:28 PM

Just to be sure, did you mean to include just the Indian subcontinent in Mega-Persia, or also Hindu Indonesia ?

Why do you think that Hindu's and Zoroastrians wouldnt get along? Both of them where Dualists who believed that other religions where equal to their own so I doubt you would have too much conflict because of that and whenever Persians controlled parts of India there was no huge resentment towards them.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 10:32 PM

How was Zoroastrianism pagan? It was almost as expressly monotheistic as Judaism.

I meant that if Persia had remained pre-Zoroastrian, i.e. pagan, my gut feelings for it would be more positive.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 10:34 PM

Both of them where Dualists who believed that other religions where equal to their own so I doubt you would have too much conflict because of that and whenever Persians controlled parts of India there was no huge resentment towards them.

How is Hinduism Dualist ? :confused:

Revolutionary Todyo

February 9th, 2012, 10:37 PM

Okay I skipped most of the Elfwine vs Eurofed debate just to get through and say this.

Eurofed, I've seen you mention assimilation a few times now.

I give you my example. Ireland, for 800 years had everything Britain could dream up thrown at it. Installing a foreign aristocracy didn't work. Colonisation didn't work. Oppression of local culture didn't work. Several massacres of populations centres didn't work. Returning various freedoms didn't work. A welfare state didn't work.

In the end the only thing that worked was actual ejecting/wiping out various tribes and populations from a specific area and settling that area with people who are fanatically oppossed to the original inhabitants on grounds of religion, which over time turned into fanatical loyalty to Britain.

Assimilation is not the be all and end all of resistance. Especially when dealing with a place like Persia, which was pretty much on par with Rome when compared with the barbarians. If there's an obvious advantage to being part of this bigger power, and all forms of resistance have been crushed, then the populace might assimilate. If not, they resist and it can drag on for centuries.

Elfwine

February 9th, 2012, 10:39 PM

Revolutionary Todyo

February 9th, 2012, 10:40 PM

To add to Rome wanks, I give you a realistic one :D

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/331/8/d/spqr_by_todyo1798-d4hhtxk.png

And their colonies :p

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/331/3/7/imperial_trade_foundations_by_todyo1798-d4hieic.png

Revolutionary Todyo

February 9th, 2012, 10:50 PM

And even places that are supposedly assimilated - like Gaul to Rome - don't always become wholly incorporated in the culture you're trying to assimilate them to, in the sense that you can just treat the area as 100% part of your state forever.

Exactly, Gaul after all had to be slowly Latinised, much like Italy itself had to be Romanised.
Now by time of Romes fall, Iberia and Gaul were pretty much heartlands, however that was due to centuries of peace, prosperity and the ancestors of the chiefs who bent the knee to Rome donning togas over their warpainted skin and learning Latin rather then some ancient tribal epic.

In the end humans will always act differently. Maybe if the Romans had ventured across to Hibernia the local Gaels would have been subjegated and assimilated in the winking of an eye, and maybe if someone could have made a reasonable claim to be High King of Gaul and not destroyed themselves against the legions Gaul would never have been so successfully integrated.

Eurofed

February 9th, 2012, 10:56 PM

Why limit them like that?

I much prefer to seek natural borders wherever possible, esp. when I use such remote PoDs and there aren't obvious alternatives. The Iranian plateau, the Amu Darya, the Syr Darya are the main ones in the region. The first is out for obvious reasons, the second was slighty worse than the Sassanid one, and the third slightly better.

If you're going to seriously argue that Rome can absorb all (except for Russian) Europe, then also Hindu Indonesia, yes.

By now, my sheer strength of conviction, well beyond your powers of persuasion, on the feasibility of Roman Europe and super-states in general should be obvious. All that never-ending qualification sarcasm just wastes Ian's bandwidth.

Make Persia take the place of India as one of the not-as-great powers in full.

Why not-as-great ? This certainly makes non-USA, Rome, Persia, and China in the same league and close range, quite possibly with relative ranks in the pecking order often shifting bewteen them due to the ebbs and flows of global economic patterns, military expenditures, and such.

Snake Featherston

February 10th, 2012, 12:19 AM

The period immediate after independence, South Carolina under Andrew Jackson, and the Civil War. Three. Arguments could be made regarding the Californian Crisis, the Great Depression, and possibly one other time.

I said partially assimilated. The key word is partially. And no, partial assimilation or even most assimilation procedures does not equate with adopting a universal language of that of what they assimilated into. A cultural shift and the adoption of the religion, even if this religion would rapidly become a different sect of the overarching faith, is what I mean by partial assimilation.

Not uniquely modern, you can find a number of individuals have such opinions during the age of the Mongols. You have Christian Kings (well, two anyways) willfully seeking out the Khan's to give them their loyalty. You have a number of Christians and Jews (and other minorities) have new found freedom and giving a fair amount of loyalty to the Khan. Even Buddhism was largely accepted in Persia under the Il Khanate. This isn't modern and was well known at the time. It is before they came (via reputation), when they were never conquered, when they suffered tremendously (Chinese), and after their dissolution (such as with Persia) where they were considerably demonize.

I'm not saying the Mongols weren't horrible raping and pillaging demons when they chose to be (only those that resist their quest for global domination), and that many understood them by that reputation (Eastern Europe, Egypt), just that they also had some praise. Largely modern, but not completely.

1) Arguable.

2) What?

3) The most clear-cut instance. The California Crisis is what caused the US Civil War and it was a result of too much success.

4) I would again dispute this and note that it's not even partial assimilation as much as it was conquest and Persian elites adapting to the new order.

5) Point taken, there were some views then that the Mongols were not solely evil. They were always a minority, however. And almost nobody considers Assyria to be anything but Mordor.

Snake Featherston

February 10th, 2012, 12:21 AM

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 12:58 AM

Ok, following yet another row of debate on the merits of the various main Ancient polities, here is the updated version of my "successful Rome" map:

Light brown is Rome. Major power.

Grass green is China. Major power.

Gold is Persia. Gradually conquered India and created a Persian-Indian fusion as the basis of its civilization. Major power.

Grey-green is the United Provinces of Atlantis, a federation of former Roman colonies gone independent that colonized most of North America. Major power.

Dark blue is Rus. A fusion of Norse, Gothic, Slav, Baltic, and Iranic peoples and cultures; Germanic and to a lesser degree Slav imprints prevail. Major power.

Violet is Japan. A Korean-Japanese fusion that colonized Australasia after some half-hearted attempts by other powers. Medium power.

Ocre is (Chinese name for 'New Sun'), former Chinese colony gone independent in the Western and Southern sections of North America. Medium power.

Light green is (insert name), former Persian colony gone independent in eastern South America. Medium power.

Dark brown state is (insert name), former Norse colony gone independent in the Southern Cone. Medium power.

Light blue is the Norse Union. Minor power.

Magenta state in the Andes is Inca. Minor power.

Orange is the Union of Southern Africa, a former Roman colony gone independent. Minor power.

Pink is Ethiopia. Minor power.

White area in most of sub-Saharan Africa is an ever-shifting, often-chaotic constellation of instable African states.

Year is 2012. Technology level is similar to OTL, but somewhat more advanced in several fields.

http://i42.tinypic.com/hulfmg.png

scholar

February 10th, 2012, 02:47 AM

1) Arguable.

2) What?

3) The most clear-cut instance. The California Crisis is what caused the US Civil War and it was a result of too much success.

4) I would again dispute this and note that it's not even partial assimilation as much as it was conquest and Persian elites adapting to the new order.

5) Point taken, there were some views then that the Mongols were not solely evil. They were always a minority, however. And almost nobody considers Assyria to be anything but Mordor.
2) South Carolina attempted to secede from the union under Andrew Jackson. Had South Carolina succeeded in its secession, not only would the civil war have probably been pushed up by several decades, it would have been at a time when the South was more powerful than the North. At least, arguably. It is possible South Carolina could have had independence and then was just absorbed back into the union after their fears were found to be ridiculous.

4) That's actually the definition of assimilation (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/assimilate). Its not full blown, but the adaptation of ideals and beliefs and absorbing it into your own culture is assimilation. Persia had and will continue to have its own strong cultural identity. Just because it was partially assimilated doesn't mean that Persia lost its identity as being Persian. It just means its lost its identity as being Zoroastrian, and adopted many of the ways and customs of their conquerors (and added their own spins to it).

5) Yes, largely Christian Kingdoms that were seriously threatened by aggressive and powerful Islamic states, Jewish peoples, and Jesuits. Which, all together, was probably something less than 1% of their total population. [I'm not touching Assyria! :p]

scholar

February 10th, 2012, 02:49 AM

-post-
Explain Africa for me.

[This will help you in the long run, I swear]

P.S. The Chinese don't have an expression or any significance relating to a 'New Sun', so it probably would never be a name for a colony or state. I question the feasibility of a Chinese colonial empire in the New World when japan would provide an excellent barrier to any such endeavors. The name you are going for is Xin Taiyang, I think.

Zuvarq

February 10th, 2012, 03:17 AM

Ok, following yet another row of debate on the merits of the various main Ancient polities, here is the updated version of my "successful Rome" map:

snip

God-awful geography. Mountains, man! Mountains! Also that map is probably the oldest version of that map there is with rivers.
Why would Ethiopia be so far south without Islam?
A Persia that doesn't even have Mesopotamia is able to conquer the entirety of India?
The Inca would not arise with such an early POD. Even if the Romans discover the New World in exactly the year 1492, weather etc. would still go across the Atlantic and change things due to the butterfly effect after several centuries, plus there was no Vinland.
Going back to geography. All of those are space-filling empires.
The Amazon as a border?
Chinese New World with a powerful Japan?

WeisSaul

February 10th, 2012, 03:37 AM

Under law of succession the United States did coexist with a direct successor of the Roman Empire.

Russia declared itself the third Rome following the capture of Constantinople. Also, the ruling dynasty of the Russian empire had Byzantine dynastic leadership blood in it.

Not only did the United States coexist with the third Roman Empire, it had a cold war with it and forced it into collapse.

scholar

February 10th, 2012, 03:47 AM

eliphas8

February 10th, 2012, 03:56 AM

Also, let's not forget the Vatican. ;)

The HRE also existed for about a decade while the US was around.

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 07:25 AM

Explain Africa for me.

What do you want explained ? :confused:

P.S. The Chinese don't have an expression or any significance relating to a 'New Sun', so it probably would never be a name for a colony or state. I question the feasibility of a Chinese colonial empire in the New World when japan would provide an excellent barrier to any such endeavors. The name you are going for is Xin Taiyang, I think.

I'm quite creatively-challenged with names. I gladly welcome suggestions for American polities. Also, see below. :o

God-awful geography. Mountains, man! Mountains! Also that map is probably the oldest version of that map there is with rivers.

What do you mean, about mountains ? Some map borders are supposed to use them, or in practice get as close to them as my map-making skills would allow (:o): Caucasus, Zagros, Rockies, Andes, Himalaya, Ethiopian plateau, etc.

Base map is indeed somewhat old. OTOH, if by a newer base map, you mean the ones with a truckload useless island groups, I can gladly do without, unless they have direct notability and relevance to the TL/scenario. They are nothing but a map-making and TL-writing pain in the butt.

Why would Ethiopia be so far south without Islam?

Why it would not ? Anyway, Roman influence is what is supposed to have driven Ethiopia so south.

A Persia that doesn't even have Mesopotamia is able to conquer the entirety of India?

Historically India was fairly vulnerable to such conquest, such as by Aryans, Muslim Central Asians, and British. Anyway, ask Elfwine and SF. They are the ones that relentlessly lobbied to have Persia as one of the top tier powers, and I absolutely won't let it expand West, in the face of a powerful Rome. The Zagros is the natural border here.

The Inca would not arise with such an early POD. Even if the Romans discover the New World in exactly the year 1492, weather etc. would still go across the Atlantic and change things due to the butterfly effect after several centuries, plus there was no Vinland.

Good point. I may change the tag of the Andean polity to Moche or Nazca.

If there was a Vinland, it was so weak that Latin non-USA absorbed it long ago (no US/Canada-like division of North America in TLs of mine unless I cannot absolutely, positively do otherwise, it is a butterfly I hate).

Going back to geography. All of those are space-filling empires.

So what ? :confused: SFE are only bad if they lack proper justification, and all empires here have a solid cultural-political basis. Anyway, in a TL/scenario of mine, chance always errs and bends against the existence of small or even little nations, unless there is a specific very good reason for it.

The Amazon as a border?

Do you have a better natural border in the region ?

Chinese New World with a powerful Japan?

China had a foothold in the Pacific, notice Chinese Philippines. The Chinese and the Japanese are competitors in the area, and China is the most powerful actor, so if there were Japanese colonies in North America, the Chinese ones absorbed them long ago. However, if it looks more plausible, I can make the Andes polity ex-Japanese.

Anyway, in a scenario-making sense, the equilibrium between China and Japan and the presence of Western and Far Eastern colonial polities in the New World is a delicate balancing act that indirectly affects the past and present global power balance between Rome, China, and Persia. And someone had to colonize Australia. In light of that, Chinese West Coast-Mexico looked more likely to me than Japanese one, and so did a division at the Great Divide between Western and Far Eastern settler polities.

scholar

February 10th, 2012, 01:22 PM

What do you want explained ? :confused:
Everything. How Africa became such a state.

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 03:37 PM

Everything. How Africa became such a state.

Err, sorry, Africa is most definitely not a single state. The white area is supposed to represent a set of several African states, often with ill-defined borders and/or marred by serious instability (sometimes going all the way to warlord chaos), which span the continent.

I tentatively assumed that ITTL the Scramble for Africa did not happen and colonial influence of the great powers, although pervasive, remained at the indirect stage. Africa still became the main imperialistic playground of the great powers, which considerably added to continental political instability. Precolonial African states were notorious for their fluid and ill-defined borders, differently from Eurasian polities, and only filled up a very limited section of the continent. I could not think of a sufficiently good way to go from this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African-civilizations-map-pre-colonial.svg) and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_ethnic_groups_1996.jpg) to a set of non-colonial African states with firm borders that would span the continent. If you have good ideas to do so, throw them at me.

Ethiopia and the Union of Southern Africa are kinda head and shoulders above the rest in terms of relative stability and notability, so I felt confident to put them on the map.

Revolutionary Todyo

February 10th, 2012, 03:44 PM

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 03:55 PM

Why would there be a Scramble for Africa pray tell?

Indeed, I assumed it did not take place. Are you asking me how and why it would instead take place ? Well, I think for the same reasons it did IOTL: desire to grab direct control of valuable natural resources, create captive markets, and search for easy imperialist political prestige.

OTOH, TTL empires are so big in their core areas that these motivations may be easily weakened considerably.

Southern Africa is the one major exception in that it is so valuable and so akin to temperate Eurasian lands that it became the subject of major settler colonization.

And who would take part in it?

First and foremost, the major powers with good maritime access and a colonial tradition, so Rome, Persia, and China. Maybe Norse too, even if they are a minor power, they have that the other above conditions and that kind of cultural dynamism. Maybe Japan and UPA on a stretch.

Revolutionary Todyo

February 10th, 2012, 04:09 PM

snip

Oi vey....look pal, the scenarios you're coming up with are just ASB. Everyone's said so, and no the people who've said that already aren't the ignorant naysayers, they're people who understand internal and geopolitics and conventional history enough to know that no polity can survive over 2000 years and remain perfectly intact.

And no, this isn't a buggy EUIII game where random events fuck shit up. This is real life where weird shit happens all the time. Hell a Roman emperor got struck by lightning, that's all the proof I need that random shit actually does happen irl.

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 04:37 PM

Oi vey....look pal, the scenarios you're coming up with are just ASB. Everyone's said so, and no the people who've said that already aren't the ignorant naysayers, they're people who understand internal and geopolitics and conventional history enough to know that no polity can survive over 2000 years and remain perfectly intact.

I can't really see the logical path that would justify the bizarre leap from a lack of a Scramble for Africa to this less-than-polite, sudden outburst. And I don't really like the condescending and aggressive attitude you are taking here. Please adjust it, because otherwise there's always place on my ignore list.

By the way, IOTL China, Ethiopia, and to a degree, Persia, have survived intact fine these last 2,000 years in that they have kept a recognizable cultural-political identity and self-consciousness which proved to be more resilient than any crap history could throw at them and kept restoring the polity against internal instability and foreign aggression. Some of the people you mentioned were very vocal to remind me so, about Persia. I'm simply applying the same standard to Rome.

Tangerine

February 10th, 2012, 05:04 PM

By the way, IOTL China, Ethiopia, and to a degree, Persia, have survived intact fine these last 2,000 years in that they have kept a recognizable cultural-political identity and self-consciousness which proved to be more resilient than any crap history could throw at them and kept restoring the polity against internal instability and foreign aggression. Some of the people you mentioned were very vocal to remind me so, about Persia. I'm simply applying the same standard to Rome.

I think it's at very plausible that Rome or a Roman successor state could restore a significant portion of its empire after periods of crisis and disunity - after all, it actually happened with the Byzantine iteration of Roman civilization - but what you're assuming is a sprawling Roman Empire that survives without any problems whatsoever for 2000 years. This just isn't going to happen. Ethiopia and Persia have kept a modicum of cultural continuity over the millenia but with long periods during which they were either split into competing states or under foreign rule. Politically, there is only a shred of continuity between for example the Sasanid state and the modern Islamic republic. The same is true of Axum and modern Ethiopia.

Also, Persia and Ethiopia as "civilization-polities", as you put it, only persevered in relatively narrow geographical zones, equivalent to a mere fraction of the territory over which you assume Rome could maintain indefinite control.

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 05:16 PM

I think it's at very plausible that Rome or a Roman successor state could restore a significant portion of its empire after periods of crisis and disunity - after all, it actually happened with the Byzantine iteration of Roman civilization - but what you're assuming is a sprawling Roman Empire that survives without any problems whatsoever for 2000 years. This just isn't going to happen. Ethiopia and Persia have kept a modicum of cultural continuity over the millenia but with long periods during which they were either split into competing states or under foreign rule. Politically, there is only a shred of continuity between for example the Sasanid state and the modern Islamic republic. The same is true of Axum and modern Ethiopia.

Also, Persia and Ethiopia as "civilization-polities", as you put it, only persevered in relatively narrow geographical zones, equivalent to a mere fraction of the territory over which you assume Rome could maintain indefinite control.

China is pretty much the same size and population than a united Roman Europe + Middle East would be. It is the poster child of a civilization-polity. It survived all internal instability and foreign aggression periods with negligible permanent territorial losses from its height; if anything it kept making steadily and permanent expansion and assimilation, or moving its borders back and forth. It developed an sense of cultural and political self-consciousness which proved stronger and more reslient than any crap history could throw at it, and the elements of continuity are overwhelming. I'm just applying the same criteria to Rome.

And I can't really justify the logical leap many people seem to do from "Roman Europe went like China" to "Rome had no problems whatsoever for 2,000 years". My basic assumption is "Rome like China", no more, no less.

Tangerine

February 10th, 2012, 05:35 PM

And I can't really justify the logical leap many people seem to do from "Roman Europe went like China" to "Rome had no problems whatsoever for 2,000 years". My basic assumption is "Rome like China", no more, no less.

China had a remarkable demographic and economic base which allowed it to soak up any invaders without fragmenting into culturally distinct zones. It also had the advantage of being geographically separated from any rival who could possibly pose a threat to the integrity of Chinese civilization. Unlike Rome which was open on all sides to a deluge of attacks, The only real avenue down which China could be invaded was from the north, and in that direction there were only nomads who obviously had their own culture and beliefs but nothing that could possibly compete with Chinese civilization. Thus, when nomadic groups conquered all or part of China (as happened numerous times) they dissolved into Chinese civilization instead of altering and fragmenting it.

The Roman Empire was unfortunate in that its main area of economic strength (the Greek East) was constantly threatened by civilizations of equal sophistication and cultural weight - the Persian and later Arabic Empires. The Chinese core never had to contend with such fierce opposition.

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 06:12 PM

China had a remarkable demographic and economic base which allowed it to soak up any invaders without fragmenting into culturally distinct zones.

Same as this Rome, see below.

It also had the advantage of being geographically separated from any rival who could possibly pose a threat to the integrity of Chinese civilization. Unlike Rome which was open on all sides to a deluge of attacks, The only real avenue down which China could be invaded was from the north, and in that direction there were only nomads who obviously had their own culture and beliefs but nothing that could possibly compete with Chinese civilization. Thus, when nomadic groups conquered all or part of China (as happened numerous times) they dissolved into Chinese civilization instead of altering and fragmenting it.

ITTL Rome conquers and assimilates Germans and Arabs during its height, which eliminates their threat for all time and turns those peoples from a source of trouble to one of revenues and recruits. The new, much shorter and more defensible border in Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea creates a strategic dynamic between Rome and the steppe nomads that is wholly comparable to the one between China and the steppe nomads. In all likelihood, even more beneficial to Rome since this eastern Roman border would be much shorter and more defensible than the northern Chinese border. Complete, I assume, with a Roman Wall (err., Great Limes) from Danzig to Odessa, more or less.

As it concerns Persia, to lose Mesopotamia weakens them considerably, increases Roman resources, and gives Rome a much more defensible border. If one looks at the whole sequence of Roman-Byzantine/Persian conflicts before the Arab breakout, one may easily notice that the Romans-Byzantines were at least demonstrably able to keep the Persians at bay without any real permanent territorial loss to them. The Arab threat is butterflied out, as above.

The Roman Empire was unfortunate in that its main area of economic strength (the Greek East) was constantly threatened by civilizations of equal sophistication and cultural weight - the Persian and later Arabic Empires. The Chinese core never had to contend with such fierce opposition.

Basically speaking, if you remove or substantially diminish the factors that caused Rome's internal instability, you can avoid the 3rd and 5th century crises, or reduce their impact and consequences so much that the start of a death spiral is avoided. In both cases, the Germanic invaders acted as an external multiplier of the crisis, and if they are Romanized like the Gauls, this can't happen. This can in all likelihood make Rome "naturally" last substantially longer already.

The more Rome lasts, the more Western Europe and Northern Europe shall grow into another main area of economic strength just as important as the Eastern Med lands. Basically speaking, Roman Western-Central Europe shall directly transition since Late Antiquity to something much akin to High Middle Ages conditions, only without the Dark Ages socio-economic collapse in the manorial system and feudalism, but keeping the partial proto-market urban economy that was developing during Rome at its height, and grew back in Europe during the High and Late Middle Ages. And the Greek East shall remain more or less like Byzantium. The more Rome lasts, the more it shall grow stronger and more resilient to resemble China in this regard.

Tangerine

February 10th, 2012, 06:18 PM

I guess now we get back to the old argument whether increasing the size of the Roman Empire strengthens it or merely accelerates its demise. Personally, looking at the evidence of every large empire in human history, I would say that the bigger the empire the faster it will fall due to problems of internal stability (political fragmentation, socio-linguistic divergence, economic failure) which would be insurmountable for a pre-modern state.

I know you disagree, and I don't think we can possibly be reconciled on this issue.

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 06:45 PM

Personally, looking at the evidence of every large empire in human history, I would say that the bigger the empire the faster it will fall due to problems of internal stability (political fragmentation, socio-linguistic divergence, economic failure) which would be insurmountable for a pre-modern state.

Which evidence ? China kept growing bigger and more resilient, and it was a premodern state. Russia started and stayed a premodern state for a good time, kept growing bigger for the overwhelming majority of its history, and it lasted longer than the rather smaller Habsburg Empire. The British Empire was bigger than the Spanish and Portoguese Empires, and it substantially outlived them. Bigger size does not just bring more problems, it also brings more resources to address them.

I know you disagree, and I don't think we can possibly be reconciled on this issue.

No problemo in gladly agreeing to disagree. I just wish my opponents would acknowledge my intellectual honesty and the fact certain ideas of mine arise from years and years of looking at well-educated layman's knowledge of social sciences, and reflection to draw reasoned conclusions from it, that the typical objections I read again and again on this topic I honestly considered and ruled out in my head (or first time I read them) long ago already, and that disagreement is an issue of different interpretation of available facts.

To be in the minority on this board does not trouble me in the slighest, since these aren't issues that are (or ought to be) decided by majority peer pressure. I just get pissed off when people not-so-subtly imply in a patronizing manner that I'm an ignorant idiot because I don't agree with them.

Tangerine

February 10th, 2012, 07:57 PM

Which evidence ? China kept growing bigger and more resilient, and it was a premodern state. Russia started and stayed a premodern state for a good time, kept growing bigger for the overwhelming majority of its history, and it lasted longer than the rather smaller Habsburg Empire. The British Empire was bigger than the Spanish and Portoguese Empires, and it substantially outlived them. Bigger size does not just bring more problems, it also brings more resources to address them.

I guess I would argue that every empire has limits on its size, based off of its inherent weaknesses and its inherent strengths, both of which are directly linked to environmental, geographic, economic, social, and technological factors. The structure of every empire is based off of these factors and as the factors shift over generations, the state is left struggling against a current of decay which becomes stronger and stronger. Not a single empire in world history has been able to modify its state institutions sufficiently quickly and effectively to "outrun" the tide of history or avoid the inevitable natural disasters and climatic shifts which hold the fragile economic and demographic balance hostage at all times.

I shouldn't have to explain why different empires were worse or better structured than others at different times, and some empires grew relatively large and others stayed quite small, because all these things are easily explained by simple context. The Russian Empire could grow enormous because it had an enormous political and economic vacuum to grow into, while the Hapsburg empire had no such luck and shaky internal structure into the bargain. The British Empire outlived and outshined the Portuguese and Spanish empires because Europe's industrial revolution bloomed while Britain was on an upswing and while they were at the nadir of their fortunes - simple as that.

As to China, to argue that the Chinese state steadily gained resilience over the last 2000 years is a fallacy, testified to the numerous collapses and restructurings the Chinese state has endured - however, the ability of China to expand into the peripheral regions of Chinese civilization in East and Central Asia has been steadily increasing, and that's no wonder when you consider that China has seen a dramatic and largely uninterrupted population expansion from 50 million under the Han through 100 million in the Song era to 150 in the Ming, 300 in the Qing and over a billion by the late 20th century.

To be in the minority on this board does not trouble me in the slighest, since these aren't issues that are (or ought to be) decided by majority peer pressure. I just get pissed off when people not-so-subtly imply in a patronizing manner that I'm an ignorant idiot because I don't agree with them.

If we all had the same point of view this wouldn't be very interesting. Personally, even though I disagree with your view it definitely opens up different angles for me to view the issue, which is a great thing. :)

Eurofed

February 10th, 2012, 08:43 PM

The structure of every empire is based off of these factors and as the factors shift over generations, the state is left struggling against a current of decay which becomes stronger and stronger. Not a single empire in world history has been able to modify its state institutions sufficiently quickly and effectively to "outrun" the tide of history or avoid the inevitable natural disasters and climatic shifts which hold the fragile economic and demographic balance hostage at all times.

And this is one crux of our disagreement. I have to regard this "entropic" view of history as seriously biased, a kind of logical fallacy. There is no one-sided, overaching social force in history that inevitably bring down polities above an arbitrary size. In different conditions, polities grow bigger or smaller, stronger or weaker, due to their internal structure, the external context, the way it reacts to the challenges of both, and sheer luck. There is no real preferential general direction underlying this. And given a sufficiently different set of circumstances, any polity may more or less grow to an arbitrary great or small size, and last for an arbitrary long or small span of time.

"Life" of social constructs like polities and ideologies resembles the evolution of biological species, not the lifespan of inanimate objects or single living organisms. They may, under evolutionary pressure, change their features even radically, but their true destruction is no more mandatory than the one of a whole species.

The Russian Empire could grow enormous because it had an enormous political and economic vacuum to grow into,

And so did Rome, in regard to Europe.

As to China, to argue that the Chinese state steadily gained resilience over the last 2000 years is a fallacy, testified to the numerous collapses and restructurings the Chinese state has endured

No, to regard those changes as the end of the same entity is the real fallacy. A change of dynasty is not a death. Nor it does changing the political system, as long as it still refers to the same basic entity. Nor it does a temporary collapse as long as its citizens still keep the same basic self-consciousness and eventually pulls back together.

Regardless of how do you choose to call such things, I'm driven to be persuaded that in the right circumstances, it was perfectly feasible for Europe and the Middle East to evolve in a way that from Ancient times to 2012, it remains a united civilization-polity whose citizens mostly speak the same language and see themselves as part of the same political-cultural entity. And it suffers no real permanent territorial losses in its core area in comparison to its height, and it only keeps expanding into the peripheral regions of its civilization to fill its geopolitical niche. When this happens and Rome is the starting point, this is what I basically advocate as a "successful Rome to modern times". Frankly I couldn't care less if in the intervening millennia, they change 0, 10, or 30 dynasties, temporary collapse 0, 5, or 10 times, or change their system from monarchy to republic, from absolutism to socialism, and back again.

My mind can't simply accept the apparent conclusion of some that Europe and China were two opposite special cases, both inevitably bound to their basic OTL paths of union or dis-union, and there is not a feasible historical path to switch their destinies, or make them the same either way. I cannot begin to explain how much wrong, narrow-minded, and well, suffocating I regard this view.

however, the ability of China to expand into the peripheral regions of Chinese civilization in East and Central Asia has been steadily increasing, and that's no wonder when you consider that China has seen a dramatic and largely uninterrupted population expansion from 50 million under the Han through 100 million in the Song era to 150 in the Ming, 300 in the Qing and over a billion by the late 20th century.

Europe did the same, and it surely can keep doing so just as well, regardless of whether in the long run it stays culturally and politically united under Roman (or Achaemenid) civilization-polity in the end or permanently fragments in a double-dozen bickering nation-states.

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 02:39 AM

Err, sorry, Africa is most definitely not a single state. The white area is supposed to represent a set of several African states, often with ill-defined borders and/or marred by serious instability (sometimes going all the way to warlord chaos), which span the continent.

I tentatively assumed that ITTL the Scramble for Africa did not happen and colonial influence of the great powers, although pervasive, remained at the indirect stage. Africa still became the main imperialistic playground of the great powers, which considerably added to continental political instability. Precolonial African states were notorious for their fluid and ill-defined borders, differently from Eurasian polities, and only filled up a very limited section of the continent. I could not think of a sufficiently good way to go from this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African-civilizations-map-pre-colonial.svg) and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_ethnic_groups_1996.jpg) to a set of non-colonial African states with firm borders that would span the continent. If you have good ideas to do so, throw them at me.

Ethiopia and the Union of Southern Africa are kinda head and shoulders above the rest in terms of relative stability and notability, so I felt confident to put them on the map.
I was referring to 'state' as the condition of Africa, not a state itself. The reason why I asked about it is because it just seemed like, from the description, that it was a numbering of warring disorganized states that you just didn't want to put the effort in mapping out, when Africa could have been a battleground for international politics over the resources in the Congo and other resource rich areas. This would have had obvious faults with it (like why would they need resources at all given their size? What's the purpose?) but it could have added much realism in a completely unrealistic setting.

You appear to be making a well reasoned argument following this, but its wrong. The exact same argument to not make borders for these states easily translates into the borders of native American states such as the Iroquois, Maya, and Aztecs. Most states inside of India and Europe were also constantly shifting and very chaotic and marred with immense political instability. As for pre-colonial African states not having stable borders or functions, this is completely wrong. Most of the states lacked vast walled cities, complex tax systems, and detail on writing and histories, but this did not make them any less defined than other states. Nor less developed. Take the Zulu for example, when writing was introduced to them they thought it was pointless and even dangerous in comparison to the oral communication and strict military and governmental control. Also, West African states were largely on par with most other areas in the world at the time, only lagging behind in the industrial age. Even so, there were vastly powerful and organized states. Ever hear of the Mali? Ashantai? Songhai? Kanem? Sokoto? Wolof? Going further south we have Zimbabwe and on the East we have the Swahili. There are massively important states, but I hesitate to even show you how well they could work as a contrast to an age of superpowers within your world because I fear you'll just make them generic space-fillers.

Aranfan

February 11th, 2012, 02:59 AM

sheer luck.

The existence of sheer luck as a factor means statistics, and statistics means entropy. This is not something that can be disputed, it's proven mathematically, which means that it is true in every possible world.

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 03:50 AM

The existence of sheer luck as a factor means statistics, and statistics means entropy. This is not something that can be disputed, it's proven mathematically, which means that it is true in every possible world.
By sheer statistical mayhem, it is possible for a universe where Teddy Roosevelt rides a T-Rex against a Technocratic army of Napoleon. Its so unlikely a universe that it has to be in the ASB section through merit of the sheer ridiculousness of it, but its possible. This leads us to the current problem. While its no where near exaggerated as Teddy on a T-Rex, its of a similar vein of improbable and unrealistic to the point of practical impossibility.

Now there are unrealistic things that happen in history: Hitler taking out France in a few weeks, Finland resisting the Soviet Union, most of the Mongol Empire's rise, the birth of the English-British Empire, the fact that Rome (Byzantine) lasted as long as it did in almost a state of perpetual, but hardly perceivable by the terms of one's lifespan, decline, the miracle of the house of brandenburg, the Habsburg rise and fall, and a lot more, but these are just improbable. They are unrealistic and probably wouldn't happen. That's why they are so fantastic in history, so loved by historians and patriots alike. These things don't happen very often. When they have to happen not just on a frequent basis, but a continuous basis, just to set the premise of the scenario, then you've already lost the wonder and have cheapened these events to the point that it just seems irrelevant. That's the current problem. Its not that there are superpowers. Its not even that they're all space filling empires. Its the sheer need for unrealism to maintain that premise and the empire involved that its magic is lost.

Aranfan

February 11th, 2012, 12:35 PM

Entropy is a statistical tendency, not an iron law like conservation of momentum or Newton's first law. It's just a very strong tendency.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 12:44 PM

The existence of sheer luck as a factor means statistics, and statistics means entropy. This is not something that can be disputed, it's proven mathematically, which means that it is true in every possible world.

Entropy is a statistical tendency, not an iron law like conservation of momentum or Newton's first law. It's just a very strong tendency.

True on both accounts. However, it appears that entropy works on social constructs much like it does on the biological environement, not like it does on inanimate objects. It's a challenge, not a doom.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 01:12 PM

I was referring to 'state' as the condition of Africa, not a state itself. The reason why I asked about it is because it just seemed like, from the description, that it was a numbering of warring disorganized states that you just didn't want to put the effort in mapping out,

This is pretty much the situation.

when Africa could have been a battleground for international politics over the resources in the Congo and other resource rich areas. This would have had obvious faults with it (like why would they need resources at all given their size? What's the purpose?)

This may be a justification for the situation. I reasoned out that those resources may still be interesting enough for the powers to be involved in African affairs to a degree, but not enough to justify a full-fledged Scramble for Africa. Of course, butterflies may easily go in a different way and yadda yadda.

but it could have added much realism in a completely unrealistic setting.

I laugh at the notion that the "realism" of a setting is given by the average size of the states in it, within technological constraints. It's like saying that a planet's ecology is "realistic" or "unrealistic" depending on the average size of plants and animals, an ecology dominated by ants, rats, and lizards is "realistic", and one dominated by dinosaus or mammal megafauna is "unrealistic".

You appear to be making a well reasoned argument following this, but its wrong. The exact same argument to not make borders for these states easily translates into the borders of native American states such as the Iroquois, Maya, and Aztecs.

Pre-colonial Precolombian and African states indeed did seems to have somewhat more fluid borders than Eurasian states (of course nomad states were the big exception), given similar degrees of similar and complexity. As far as I can tell, this was related to different socio-economic models and land property rules.

Most states inside of India and Europe were also constantly shifting and very chaotic and marred with immense political instability. As for pre-colonial African states not having stable borders or functions, this is completely wrong.

I talked about more fuild borders, not about political instability.

Most of the states lacked vast walled cities, complex tax systems, and detail on writing and histories, but this did not make them any less defined than other states.

And these things made notions of land property much less rigid than in other civilization, hence the consequence of more fluid borders.

Nor less developed. Take the Zulu for example, when writing was introduced to them they thought it was pointless and even dangerous in comparison to the oral communication and strict military and governmental control.

A frequent obscurantist complaint of oral societies when first exposed to writing, not any less flawed because it's frequent. IIRC Socrates complained that invention of writing spoiled scholarship b/c it made people unwilling to committ enough amounts of data to rote memorization. Nonetheless, there are very good efficiency reasons why writing has been invented by many different cultures across the world.

Also, West African states were largely on par with most other areas in the world at the time, only lagging behind in the industrial age. Even so, there were vastly powerful and organized states. Ever hear of the Mali? Ashantai? Songhai? Kanem? Sokoto? Wolof? Going further south we have Zimbabwe and on the East we have the Swahili.

Please spare me the lecture. I already know about them. You may notice I posted a link to a map that covers them on my own initative. The main problem in using them as a basis to create a non-colonial map of Africa in the modern age is that historically they covered only a fairly limited span of the continent, with limited tendency to expand.

There are massively important states, but I hesitate to even show you how well they could work as a contrast to an age of superpowers within your world because I fear you'll just make them generic space-fillers.

Megafauna is innatural, small is beautiful. Oh yeah. :rolleyes:

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 01:30 PM

Now there are unrealistic things that happen in history: Hitler taking out France in a few weeks, Finland resisting the Soviet Union, most of the Mongol Empire's rise, the birth of the English-British Empire, the fact that Rome (Byzantine) lasted as long as it did in almost a state of perpetual, but hardly perceivable by the terms of one's lifespan, decline, the miracle of the house of brandenburg, the Habsburg rise and fall, and a lot more, but these are just improbable. They are unrealistic and probably wouldn't happen.

By definition, everything that happens or has happened once in the observable universe is "realistic". You might perhaps use the notion of probability, but even that is strongly questionable since to have an adequate reference system, you would need to be able and observe the Multiverse it its entirely, and tell which event chains get more or less probable (and then you may run in the problem of different degrees of infinites, but I digress). The notion of what is probable or improbable within a single timeline is hopelessly flawed since it seems to arise from comparing different event chains which inevitably have different circumstances and causes.

It is much, much more prudent to adopt the notion that OTL isn't "special", just like we did for our species, planet, Solar System, Galaxy, and universe.

That's why they are so fantastic in history, so loved by historians and patriots alike. These things don't happen very often. When they have to happen not just on a frequent basis, but a continuous basis, just to set the premise of the scenario, then you've already lost the wonder and have cheapened these events to the point that it just seems irrelevant. That's the current problem. Its not that there are superpowers. Its not even that they're all space filling empires. Its the sheer need for unrealism to maintain that premise and the empire involved that its magic is lost.

They are notable and interesting because they make for good stories. Timelines are very much like fictional universes, in that what matters is internal coherence, not the kind of stories that are told in them. You may have a well-written history in an setting of godlike wizards and metahumans, and you may have crappy histories in a setting of downtrodden office workers.

Imladrik

February 11th, 2012, 01:34 PM

And so did Rome, in regard to Europe.

No, Rome expanded in areas where there was already a political organisation, Gaul, Greece, the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, Hispania. Russia expanded into areas populated by nomads with a very loose political organisation.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 01:38 PM

No, Rome expanded in areas where there was already a political organisation, Gaul, Greece, the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans, Hispania. Russia expanded into areas populated by nomads with a very loose political organisation.

I was referring to OTL Rome expanding in Northern Europe. Anyway, Rome did expand into, and assimilate, the areas you mentioned. It collapse had most certainly little to do with "national" rebellions of subject peoples against Roman domination (unless we decide Jewish revolts were the main cause of Hadrian pulling of Armenia and Mesopotamia, and that in turn was the main cause of the collapse of Rome).

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 03:52 PM

This has drifted into pseudo-science and a flawed sense of realism.

Realism is the "concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary."

Aranfan

February 11th, 2012, 04:10 PM

Absent a much larger concentration of oxygen than today, or being in the ocean? Yes, megafauna and megaflora is horribly unrealistic.

Economy of scale is not infinite, eventually you get big enough that diseconomies of scale kick in. When it comes to state building, that depends on both technology and social factors. In a place like the United States where people feel they have a stake and a say in their government, or in a place like China where the idea of it being a single nation is almost a religion, the top size is larger than in other places. Likewise, if the state has trains or all-weather roads, it will have a much wider reach than if it doesn't.

Frankly, Rome was never China socially, there was never the idea that if there was more than one state in the area traditionally claimed by Rome that it was a personal failing on behalf of every man, woman, and child in those territories. There was never the undercurrent of thought that said it was right and proper to spend blood and treasure like water until the realm was reunited.

B_Munro

February 11th, 2012, 05:16 PM

Frankly, Rome was never China socially, there was never the idea that if there was more than one state in the area traditionally claimed by Rome that it was a personal failing on behalf of every man, woman, and child in those territories. There was never the undercurrent of thought that said it was right and proper to spend blood and treasure like water until the realm was reunited.

Let's not exagerate: the Confucian elite may have held the view that a unified China was the natural state of things, but until the 20th century your average peasant or merchant (the great majority of the population) probably didn't give a shit.

Also, I'd say geography was a bigger problem than social views: I'm sure Roman elites throught the unified empire was the greatest thing before sliced bread, but when China was invaded, it was usually from the north and often by a single invader or coalition of invaders, which helped to keep it from being broken in more than two major pieces (invaded territory and independent China, if such existed). Rome saw invasions from the south and east, from the north and east, in the west - different groups invading the Italian peninsula, the Iberian/Gallic west (divided by the Pyrennes into two seperate regions), the Balkans, and later the Asian and African territories, first by Persians and then by Romans.

While many Germanic leaders probably would have been happy to take over the Empire as Mongols did China, there was no geographically compact body to take over. The Germans were also a more numerous and divided people than the highly mobile horse-nomads that were China's usual headache. And unlike Central Asian invaders of China, the Persians and later Arabs had religious cultures of their own which they considered superior to the Roman one, making their assimilation to Roman culture rather unlikely if they had taken over the core Imperial areas of Constantinople.

Bruce

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 06:29 PM

Let's not exagerate: the Confucian elite may have held the view that a unified China was the natural state of things, but until the 20th century your average peasant or merchant (the great majority of the population) probably didn't give a shit.

BruceThey actually did, a lot. They cared less when they were starving, but more or less every Chinese individual had an idea of a unified china. The reason why was because you could not say the name of a state in the entirety of Chinese history without using the name 'Middle Kingdom' and such a state could not be justified without them being 'Huangdi' and ruler of 'all under heaven', without these concepts it was generally understood that they were merely foreign barbarians or devils. Its pretty interesting to read about. The Confucian gentry may have championed the idea, but even the lowest of peasant was aware of the basic idea of a unified China.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 08:06 PM

They actually did, a lot. They cared less when they were starving, but more or less every Chinese individual had an idea of a unified china. The reason why was because you could not say the name of a state in the entirety of Chinese history without using the name 'Middle Kingdom' and such a state could not be justified without them being 'Huangdi' and ruler of 'all under heaven', without these concepts it was generally understood that they were merely foreign barbarians or devils. Its pretty interesting to read about. The Confucian gentry may have championed the idea, but even the lowest of peasant was aware of the basic idea of a unified China.

Imperial Roman political ideas were quite similar in their universalism to the Imperial Chinese ones. They and the Achaemenids were pretty much the instances in world history where the concept of a universalist 'empire' was invented. One may easily expect that if Rome lasts long enough, the same ideal of the necessity of a unified Rome shall get entrenched the same way.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 08:19 PM

Also, I'd say geography was a bigger problem than social views: I'm sure Roman elites throught the unified empire was the greatest thing before sliced bread, but when China was invaded, it was usually from the north and often by a single invader or coalition of invaders, which helped to keep it from being broken in more than two major pieces (invaded territory and independent China, if such existed). Rome saw invasions from the south and east, from the north and east, in the west - different groups invading the Italian peninsula, the Iberian/Gallic west (divided by the Pyrennes into two seperate regions), the Balkans, and later the Asian and African territories, first by Persians and then by Romans.

While many Germanic leaders probably would have been happy to take over the Empire as Mongols did China, there was no geographically compact body to take over. The Germans were also a more numerous and divided people than the highly mobile horse-nomads that were China's usual headache. And unlike Central Asian invaders of China, the Persians and later Arabs had religious cultures of their own which they considered superior to the Roman one, making their assimilation to Roman culture rather unlikely if they had taken over the core Imperial areas of Constantinople.

If Germanics and Arabs are conquered and assimilated by Rome in its height like it did with the Western European Celts, they won't be able to invade it.

If socio-political changes happen to diminish Roman political instability to the point that the start of a death spiral of socioeconomic collapse is averted, a unified Rome may last as long as Byzantium.

If both things happen, it is entirely feasible that Rome lasts long enough and weathers the inevitable crisis periods so well that the ideal of its necessary existence and unity becomes as ingrained as in China.

This would essentially leave Rome the Persians and the steppe nomad barbarians as serious threats to deal with. The former, on their own, never showed serious ability to permanently cripple Rome/Byzantium; as it concerns the latter, they would have with Rome the same dynamic that they had with China (if anything with a more defensible border, once it gets moved to Eastern Europe).

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 08:22 PM

Imperial Roman political ideas were quite similar in their universalism to the Imperial Chinese ones. They and the Achaemenids were pretty much the instances in world history where the concept of a universalist 'empire' was invented. One may easily expect that if Rome lasts long enough, the same ideal of the necessity of a unified Rome shall get entrenched the same way.
Actually, they weren't. China rarely recognized other states as being anything more than civilized tributaries or barbarian states. Rome, however, was built on conquering fully recognized civilizations. Carthage, Greece, Egypt, etc. These were all recognized civilizations and had a profound impact on Rome either through cultural history and rivalry or through their impact on the sciences. The Achaemenids were similar in this regard. They didn't have a belief that this was all there was and all else was barbarian, each had unique histories that forged within them the idea that there were other states out in the world worth conquering, other states capable of challenging them, etc.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 08:32 PM

This has drifted into pseudo-science and a flawed sense of realism.

I'd say that what is really at work here is a logical fallacy known as

Argument from incredulity/Lack of imagination
Arguments from incredulity take the form:

P is too incredible (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore P must be false.
It is obvious that P is true (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be false); therefore P must be true.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 08:35 PM

Actually, they weren't. China rarely recognized other states as being anything more than civilized tributaries or barbarian states. Rome, however, was built on conquering fully recognized civilizations. Carthage, Greece, Egypt, etc. These were all recognized civilizations and had a profound impact on Rome either through cultural history and rivalry or through their impact on the sciences. The Achaemenids were similar in this regard. They didn't have a belief that this was all there was and all else was barbarian, each had unique histories that forged within them the idea that there were other states out in the world worth conquering, other states capable of challenging them, etc.

Historians say that while it lasted, Rome was perceived by China as its equal, a civilization of equal value, power, and complexity, "Da'qin", the other Qin (China). Nonetheless, the imperial ideal of Chinese unity was basically forged before Rome fell, in the transition from the warring state era.

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 08:45 PM

Historians say that while it lasted, Rome was perceived by China as its equal, a civilization of equal value, power, and complexity, "Da'qin", the other Qin (China). Nonetheless, the imperial ideal of Chinese unity was basically forged before Rome fell, in the transition from the warring state era.
China never had a man actually go to Rome, only going about as far west as Parthia. It was given the name Da Qin because it was supposedly very civilized. However, this belief was not very popular in China. The populous never became aware of it and most later scholars were skeptical and even critical of the idea. The only actual instance of widescale acceptance of another, non Chinese, state would be that of Sassanian Persia and the Tang Dynasty. Bear in mind that this was a China that had witnessed India, had traveled to Persia. It didn't consider any of them much more than barbarians. It was the ideal, the dream, of Rome that made some scholars consider it an equal. The average Roman felt the presence of the Carthaginians. The average Roman experienced Greek culture and language throughout the Empire. The average Roman was well aware of the Persian threat. These are undeniable facts. The average Chinese had no idea what or where Rome was, nor would they have cared to know about such 'barbarians'.

The Imperial Ideal of Chinese unity was forged long before Rome fell. The basic idea of China, the Middle Kingdom, and Tianxia was around since the earliest recorded instance of Chinese history. It is just that China didn't have the title of Emperor until the Qin Dynasty, keeping a title more similar to King for the Zhou, Shang, and Warring States period.

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 08:46 PM

I'd say that what is really at work here is a logical fallacy known as
It would help if you actually knew what that fallacy means. I have never said that your scenario was wrong. Only that it was unrealistic, improbable, and implausible. I stated that it cheapens history and fills it with space filling empires. That there's no real reason or purpose to it.

Remember how I said it was possible for Teddy Roosevelt to ride a Dinosaur against a Technocratic Napoleon? If the uni- multiverse is infinite, even ridiculous scenarios like that are happening, an infinite number of times. I made a well reasoned argument for this.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 09:03 PM

It would help if you actually knew what that fallacy means. I have never said that your scenario was wrong. Only that it was unrealistic, improbable, and implausible.

Which is more or less the same thing, in the context of our discussion, since you claim that my scenario is unrealistic, improbable, and implausible to an intolerable degree.

I stated that it cheapens history and fills it with space filling empires.
That there's no real reason or purpose to it.

Which is only valid insofar as it concerns personal taste. Otherwise it is arbitrary as telling that fiction with people with extra-ordinary abilities is "cheap" and "has no reason or purpose" to it.

I've noticed in my critics a drive to push me into a catch-22 vise: If I devise a scenario where Rome and China share the same path, but most of the rest of the world doesn't (the original OP calls for a post-Roman US analogue) it's no good because it's Eurocentric; if I devise a scenario where changes butterfly all the main Eurasian civilizations in sharing the same 'imperial' path, it's no good too because too many big states is innatural and yadda yadda. Damned either way, because disunion of Europe after Classical times must be some so-far unrecognized physical law.

Remember how I said it was possible for Teddy Roosevelt to ride a Dinosaur against a Technocratic Napoleon? If the uni- multiverse is infinite, even ridiculous scenarios like that are happening, an infinite number of times. I made a well reasoned argument for this.

The fine-tuning of conditions to allow humans to share the world with dinosaurs and still have Teddy Roosevelt and Napoleon is much, much, much more complex than the one necessary to make it so that mankind is unified in a world government or conslidated in a few superstates by 2012. You are making a strawman.

Stars-and-Stripes

February 11th, 2012, 10:10 PM

How the Fuck did this thread make it to 11 pages?

CandyDragon

February 11th, 2012, 10:17 PM

How the Fuck did this thread make it to 11 pages?

Ridiculous arguing.

BTW, did anyone else hear that the last Sassanid kings fled to China, where they served as generals? I heard that on wikipedia though, so it's questionable. Pretty damn cool if it was true, however.

Revolutionary Todyo

February 11th, 2012, 10:19 PM

How the Fuck did this thread make it to 11 pages?
Fundamentalism applies not only to religions and ideologies, but also to alternate history scenarios.

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 10:36 PM

How the Fuck did this thread make it to 11 pages?

The usual way: irreconciliable differences of vision surfaced and were argued for a while.

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 10:43 PM

Which is more or less the same thing, in the context of our discussion, since you claim that my scenario is unrealistic, improbable, and implausible to an intolerable degree.
There is a difference between fallacious thinking (its wrong) and reasonable thinking (its unlikely to an extreme margin). The world as we understand it, and thereby the only example from which to compare alternate histories with, is how we determine what is realistic and what is implausible.

Which is only valid insofar as it concerns personal taste. Otherwise it is arbitrary as telling that fiction with people with extra-ordinary abilities is "cheap" and "has no reason or purpose" to it. There is no reason to what you have down for Africa, you've made that abundantly clear.

As for extraordinary abilities... If you have a group of people with the power of superman then those people are special. They are extraordinary. If everyone has those powers, then the powers are no longer special. Those that have them are ordinary, because everyone has them. It cheapens the power. We may still want to read it if it has a compelling story to it, but the superpowers themselves are cheapened. Normally you need someone with even greater powers to make such a setting work.

It has little to do with personal taste, and just some basic and very simple rule regarding the definitions of the words cheap and extraordinary.

If I devise a scenario where Rome and China share the same path, but most of the rest of the world doesn't (the original OP calls for a post-Roman US analogue) it's no good because it's Eurocentric;I've never said that.

if I devise a scenario where changes butterfly all the main Eurasian civilizations in sharing the same 'imperial' path, it's no good too because too many big states is innatural and yadda yadda.Not this either. I don't care if you have a stable and large Rome. I don't care if you have a stable and large China. I do care when you throw away geography. I do care when you just seem to give land to these empires because you don't want to write out realistic borders. You don't just have a Japan that resisted China, even though the POD would call for a time where Japan barely covered half of Honshu and was copying everything from the Chinese, you have a Japan that went full blown Imperial and being able to challenge China. You also give Japan bits that make no sense and realistically could never be maintained with China in the picture in such a fashion. You have the Inca even though the Inca requires the death of a trillion butterflies to still come around. You have a Chinese successor state named 'New Sun' when 'New Sun' has no significance in Chinese culture and Japan appears to be blocking all of China's interests in the Pacific.

Its not that they're big, its not even that they are space fillers without care for geography, its that there is just too much going on that mathematically isn't a realistic outcome. If you wanted you could have Napoleon conquer the world in 30 years, and say its possible. Hell, it may even be possible. This doesn't mean that such a ridiculous scenario is going to be received well by the community.

Damned either way, because disunion of Europe after Classical times must be some so-far unrecognized physical law. I can only roll my eyes at this. No one has said that. In fact someone said that moving the Roman seat of power to Western Europe with an Iberian, Italian, French state would have been possible. Its not even that you have a Rome that controls a fourth of the world and controlled more of it in the past. Its how you present your ideas. You present them poorly, and when people show you why you take it the wrong way. You're not being victimized. We aren't here to make fun of you. I asked for you to explain Africa to me because I sincerely wanted to help you find your own direction with it. Instead you're pushing me away to the point where I'm not sure if I want to show you why you're wrong or if I should just go and leave you to your own devises.

The fine-tuning of conditions to allow humans to share the world with dinosaurs and still have Teddy Roosevelt and Napoleon is much, much, much more complex than the one necessary to make it so that mankind is unified in a world government or conslidated in a few superstates by 2012. You are making a strawman. Yes, because one requires a POD over 65 million years ago while the other can appear at any time with Mankind's existence. In a week it is possible to describe events leading to a One World Government. A nuclear conflict begins between India and Pakistan, over a 150 very large and powerful nukes detonate ruining the planet's atmosphere and climate. While there's still a world left all the nations of the world come together and become a single nation of people to find the best possible way to combat the oncoming trials ahead, though it is unlikely that humanity will make it out intact.

As for the strawman remark, again I'm left wondering if you even understand the fallacy. I gave an obviously exaggerated scenario to use in comparison to the basic premise of your world. Obviously the exaggerated one requires far more twists and turns in the fabric of history to make it work. I was using it to be intentionally ridiculous, and I only brought it up (again) because it was direct evidence that you used the fallacy incorrectly.

scholar

February 11th, 2012, 10:47 PM

BTW, did anyone else hear that the last Sassanid kings fled to China, where they served as generals? I heard that on wikipedia though, so it's questionable. Pretty damn cool if it was true, however.
Its true. Sassanid Persia was the only instance in Chinese history where the mainstream Chinese subject believed that China had an equal. Once. In its entire history. Its also rather touching because the Sassanids and the Tang believed each other to be equals without care for racial differences. The Sassanid Prince that went to China has a few tales about him. He tried to revive his state with Chinese support and his line had nobility, but when the court fled to the Tang capital and was given a fiefdom to themselves the Sassanid Prince told his court that they were Chinese now. Some semi-conflicting records, but the Sassanids fled there with most of the loyal court and nobility.

(It sounded better when I first read it. :p)

Eurofed

February 11th, 2012, 11:44 PM

There is no reason to what you have down for Africa, you've made that abundantly clear.

Ok, what would YOU have done with this Africa ?

As for extraordinary abilities... If you have a group of people with the power of superman then those people are special. They are extraordinary. If everyone has those powers, then the powers are no longer special. Those that have them are ordinary, because everyone has them. It cheapens the power. We may still want to read it if it has a compelling story to it, but the superpowers themselves are cheapened. Normally you need someone with even greater powers to make such a setting work.

Bah, I've read or seen truckloads of fiction where pretty much all the important characters have superhuman powers, all the history is on them, their deeds and issues, and normals pretty much have no relevance. I can tell from geek experience there is no cheapening from this, if the story is good it is good. What it typically happens is that the story takes a secondary soap-opera feel, regardless of actual genre.

I've never said that.

Others did.

Not this either. I don't care if you have a stable and large Rome. I don't care if you have a stable and large China. I do care when you throw away geography. I do care when you just seem to give land to these empires because you don't want to write out realistic borders. You don't just have a Japan that resisted China, even though the POD would call for a time where Japan barely covered half of Honshu and was copying everything from the Chinese, you have a Japan that went full blown Imperial and being able to challenge China. You also give Japan bits that make no sense and realistically could never be maintained with China in the picture in such a fashion.

'Imperial' Japan and independent Japan at all, I can discard from the scenario without any real regret or serious difficulty; it just becomes an issue of rebalancing all the rest as a consequence. You wish it done, it can be done, but then tell me what to do of Australia, so to speak (integral part of China ? Another ex-Chinese colony ?).

You have the Inca even though the Inca requires the death of a trillion butterflies to still come around.

I said I changed that bit, to another, earlier Andes Precolombian polity, and if necessary I'd make the area colonized too. Heck, I put that bit in with much reluctance, since I'm skeptical any Precolombian poliy can successfully weather the impact with a colonial Renaissance power, given the vast technological divide, lack of immunity or not.

You have a Chinese successor state named 'New Sun' when 'New Sun' has no significance in Chinese culture and Japan appears to be blocking all of China's interests in the Pacific.

I pleaded my lack of creativity when it goes to names, and made a call for suggestions. I have seen none. See above about Japan.

Its not even that you have a Rome that controls a fourth of the world and controlled more of it in the past.

Colonialism may take several different shapes, and not all of them imply strong committment and direct control from the mainland.

Its how you present your ideas. You present them poorly, and when people show you why you take it the wrong way. You're not being victimized. We aren't here to make fun of you.

Are you speaking for yourself, or everyone that criticized my ideas ?

I asked for you to explain Africa to me because I sincerely wanted to help you find your own direction with it. Instead you're pushing me away to the point where I'm not sure if I want to show you why you're wrong or if I should just go and leave you to your own devises.

Feel free to give your own ideas on the modern shape of TTL Africa and past course of colonialism (or lack of it), given an Eurasia carved in a few, strong, and stable industrialized civilizaton-polities. I promise an open-minded attitude.

scholar

February 12th, 2012, 12:01 AM

Ok, what would YOU have done with this Africa ?There's no need for massive scale colonization, and no need to control much of it. Even controlling the coasts seems excessive. Maybe small refueling centers and strategic points on the coastlines. A part of Cape Town, some of the Swahili states, some spots on the coast of west africa, and the islands. Given that Rome is the only one that actually would come into contact with Africa for a while, this could be easily done. Without the drive for colonization/conquest/imperialism you could have some states form naturally and stably around those stations with a Roman flare to them. They'd be distinct, they'd be different, and you avoid every single overused cliche involving Africa.

Bah, I've read or seen truckloads of fiction where pretty much all the important characters have superhuman powers, all the history is on them, their deeds and issues, and normals pretty much have no relevance. I can tell from geek experience there is no cheapening from this, if the story is good it is good. What it typically happens is that the story takes a secondary soap-opera feel, regardless of actual genre. Not everyone with a superpower, everyone with the same superpower. And not every main character, but every character. All of them. They have the same superpower. The extraordinary becomes ordinary. It doesn't mean you can't make a good story from it, just that the powers lose much of their impact.

Oh, and Name one.

Others did. Perhaps. I made a bunch of comments in this thread against basically everyone who posted here because I had something to say, and I was not intimately involved with the beginning of this discussion, so I wouldn't know.

'Imperial' Japan and independent Japan at all, I can discard from the scenario without any real regret or serious difficulty; it just becomes an issue of rebalancing all the rest as a consequence. You wish it done, it can be done, but then tell me what to do of Australia, so to speak (integral part of China ? Another ex-Chinese colony ?). Why would it have to be a colony...?

An Indian based colony would be nice. Given that Persia owns India, a Persian colony would be better. Chinese colonization across vast oceans aren't the Chinese's style. China's main colonization always occurred slowly and steadily with lands that were right across their borders. Cultural colonization and domination, however, was as far reaching as Greek and Roman influences on Europe.

I said I changed that bit, to another, earlier Andes Precolombian polity, and if necessary I'd make the area colonized too. Heck, I put that bit in with much reluctance, since I'm skeptical any Precolombian poliy can successfully weather the impact with a colonial Renaissance power, given the vast technological divide, lack of immunity or not. I wouldn't have an Inca clone in precolombian society. Especially if colonization is going to occur earlier than what it did in OTL.

I pleaded my lack of creativity when it goes to names, and made a call for suggestions. I have seen none. See above about Japan. Call it China, but give it a different Dynastic name. It is unlikely that the Chinese colonials would ever develop a separate identity from China without severe, severe, manipulation and circumstance.

Colonialism may take several different shapes, and not all of them imply strong committment from the mainland. It was suggested that it was a US and South Africa analog, that would require similar colonization. At least on some level.

Are you speaking for yourself, or everyone that criticized my ideas ? I'd like to think the later.

Feel free to give your own ideas on the modern shape of TTL Africa and past course of colonialism (or lack of it), given an Eurasia carved in a few, strong, and stable industrialized civilizaton-polities. I promise an open-minded attitude. Without a Russia, there's no need for Siberia to even be touched. A country and a people like the Chiense would not be very keen on Siberia. Japan is also unlikely to want any of it. Rome may want some of Russia, but I doubt they'd want anything past the Urals. Persia would maybe breach the steppe, but not the forests above. I'd leave Siberia either colonized or with a bunch of small states lacking unity or cultural identity.

Eurofed

February 12th, 2012, 01:10 AM

There's no need for massive scale colonization, and no need to control much of it. Even controlling the coasts seems excessive. Maybe small refueling centers and strategic points on the coastlines. A part of Cape Town, some of the Swahili states, some spots on the coast of west africa, and the islands. Given that Rome is the only one that actually would come into contact with Africa for a while, this could be easily done. Without the drive for colonization/conquest/imperialism you could have some states form naturally and stably around those stations with a Roman flare to them. They'd be distinct, they'd be different, and you avoid every single overused cliche involving Africa.

I see, it's not a bad template. Which African states do you envisage and how big ?

An Indian based colony would be nice. Given that Persia owns India, a Persian colony would be better. Chinese colonization across vast oceans aren't the Chinese's style. China's main colonization always occurred slowly and steadily with lands that were right across their borders. Cultural colonization and domination, however, was as far reaching as Greek and Roman influences on Europe.

Chinese Korea and Japan, Persian Australia. Feels nice, believable, and balanced. :D

I wouldn't have an Inca clone in precolombian society. Especially if colonization is going to occur earlier than what it did in OTL.

I wouldn't say this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche) or this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_culture) were 'Inca clones'. :confused:

Call it China, but give it a different Dynastic name. It is unlikely that the Chinese colonials would ever develop a separate identity from China without severe, severe, manipulation and circumstance.

Ok.

It was suggested that it was a US and South Africa analog, that would require similar colonization. At least on some level.

Well, without the Franco-Indian War and the following event chain to the ARW, and the Boer War, I would not say that British colonization of eastern North America or Dutch/British colonization of South Africa required serious resource committments or implied strong control from Europe. ITTL, it is perfectly feasible that Roman colonization of eastern North America and South Africa takes place in a similar laidback manner, at most a much shorter and easier colonial war to conquer Norse *Vinland.

Without a Russia, there's no need for Siberia to even be touched. A country and a people like the Chiense would not be very keen on Siberia. Japan is also unlikely to want any of it. Rome may want some of Russia, but I doubt they'd want anything past the Urals. Persia would maybe breach the steppe, but not the forests above. I'd leave Siberia either colonized or with a bunch of small states lacking unity or cultural identity.

The rise of a *Rus equivalent (if likely with a stronger Norse/Eastern Germanic imprint) I deem very likely in this kind of scenario, if Rome is unwilling/unable to expand into Russia till very late.

With a strong, enduring Rome in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, the Norse, Slavs, Goths, Magyars, Avars, etc. would be all repelled back into Sarmatia. With the resulting melting pot, the Norse being forced to focus only East sooner than later, and Roman cultural influence projecting across the border, IMO the dynamic that led to the rise of Rus would only get stronger.

B_Munro

February 12th, 2012, 01:21 AM

The Confucian gentry may have championed the idea, but even the lowest of peasant was aware of the basic idea of a unified China.

They called it "all under heaven" because it was a universal empire, but that does not indicate that the majority of the population had any interest in spending their blood and largely non-existent treasure to keep it united. Simply because they had the general notion that the remote emperor was the ruler of all the civilized world did not mean they had any willingness to be drafted and go off to fight the Jin. If you are going to convince me there was some sort of proto-nationalism among the Chinese masses rather than the classes, I need linkage or at least a book I can find in the local library system.

Bruce

B_Munro

February 12th, 2012, 01:29 AM

Mind you, I agree that Chinese scholar-gentry did provide a superior ideological and cultural "glue" to the Chinese empire than the Roman and Romanized elites of the post-Augustan Empire in the west. But we shouldn't exaggerate its importance.

And lest we forget, civis Romanus sum was long a proud boast...

Bruce

scholar

February 12th, 2012, 02:47 AM

They called it "all under heaven" because it was a universal empire, but that does not indicate that the majority of the population had any interest in spending their blood and largely non-existent treasure to keep it united. Simply because they had the general notion that the remote emperor was the ruler of all the civilized world did not mean they had any willingness to be drafted and go off to fight the Jin. If you are going to convince me there was some sort of proto-nationalism among the Chinese masses rather than the classes, I need linkage or at least a book I can find in the local library system.

BruceI'm just not sure you could make the argument for 'nationalism'. Chinese at the time wasn't a nationality or even an ethnic group. It was a culture and a belief system. Confucianism was tied into that fabric and so too were the four class systems, the concept of Tianxia, and the mandate of heaven. The lower classes rarely initiated anything on their own, leaving either Merchants or the Gentry to initiate the people. When the peasantry tried to do so, and there were three times that I'm aware that they did, it ended in disaster as most of the peasantry would have rather kept the traditional class society than an unknown and loosely defined dream of a classless one. Even the lowest of peasants were aware of these ideals and held them to be true. It was, in a sense, the law of the land. We know so little about the lower classes in times of fragmentary periods that its nearly impossible to make the argument that they desired unite the empire and wanted to sacrifice their life for that ideal. Confucianism is less about self sacrifice (unless you're a woman or an official) and more so about unconditional loyalty and piety.

I can't really make the argument of protonationalism until the Mongols show up. With the Xiongnu and other rivalries they were merely considered barbarians. The civilized people of the middle kingdom and the barbarians surrounding them. I can suggest the idea of protonationalism in the warring states in that all of them shared a cultural identity and a kinship with one another that actually promoted both alliances and conflicts when the Zhou Dynasty decayed into nothingness in such a way that was absent in the Northern and Southern Dynastic periods. The Sui-Tang and the Tang-Song had remarkably bloody and quick fragmentary periods because of a drive for unity and a new empire, but again its not really possible to know if the lower classes were motivated to do this because they desired a united China or if they just desired a United China because their masters did.

Eurofed

February 12th, 2012, 02:49 PM

And after yet another row of debate on Africa and the Far East, here is the updated version of my "successful Classical empires" map:

Light brown is Rome. Major power.

Grass green is China. Major power.

Gold is Persia. Gradually conquered India and created a Persian-Indian federal union and fusion as the basis of its civilization. Major power.

Dark blue is Rus. A fusion of Norse, Gothic, Slav, Baltic, and Iranian peoples and cultures; Germanic and to a lesser degree Slav imprints prevail. Major power.

Grey-green is the United Provinces of Atlantis, a federation of former Roman colonies gone independent that colonized most of North America. Major power.

Ocre is Lung China, a former Chinese colony gone independent in the Western and Southern sections of North America. Medium power.

Light green is (insert name), former African colony gone independent in eastern South America. Medium power.

Dark brown state is (insert name), former Norse colony gone independent in the Southern Cone. Medium power.

Light blue is the Norse Union. Minor power.

Magenta state in the Andes is the Nazca League. Minor power.

Sub-Saharan Africa is divided in a dozen of states which gradually arose from the combination of pre-colonial polities and influence from colonial coastal bases. All of them are minor powers.

The only non-native African state (besides Roman North Africa) is the Union of Southern Africa (orange), a former Roman colony gone independent. The most important native states are Ethiopia (yellow) in Northeast Africa, Kongo (light blue) in Central Africa, and Nri (dark blue) in eastern West Africa.

Year is 2012. Technology level is similar to OTL, but somewhat more advanced in several fields. Rome, China, Persia, Rus, and the UPA all own space stations in Earth orbit, Moon bases, and Mars bases.

http://i42.tinypic.com/bemhj.png

My Username is Inigo Montoya

February 12th, 2012, 03:23 PM

And after yet another row of debate on Africa and the Far East, here is the updated version of my "successful Rome" map:

Light brown is Rome. Major power.

Grass green is China. Major power.

Gold is Persia. Gradually conquered India and created a Persian-Indian fusion as the basis of its civilization. Major power.

Dark blue is Rus. A fusion of Norse, Gothic, Slav, Baltic, and Iranian peoples and cultures; Germanic and to a lesser degree Slav imprints prevail. Major power.

Grey-green is the United Provinces of Atlantis, a federation of former Roman colonies gone independent that colonized most of North America. Major power.

Ocre is Lung China, a former Chinese colony gone independent in the Western and Southern sections of North America. Medium power.

Light green is (insert name), former Persian colony gone independent in eastern South America. Medium power.

Dark brown state is (insert name), former Norse colony gone independent in the Southern Cone. Medium power.

Light blue is the Norse Union. Minor power.

Magenta state in the Andes is the Nazca League. Minor power.

Sub-Saharan Africa is divided in a dozen of states which gradually arose from the combination of pre-colonial polities and influence from colonial coastal bases. All of them are minor powers.

The only non-native African state (besides Roman North Africa) is the Union of Southern Africa (orange), a former Roman colony gone independent. The most important native states are Ethiopia (yellow) in Northeast Africa, Kongo (light blue) in Central Africa, and Nri (dark blue) in eastern West Africa.

Year is 2012. Technology level is similar to OTL, but somewhat more advanced in several fields. Rome, China, Persia, Rus, and the UPA all own space stations in Earth orbit, Moon bases, and Mars bases.

[IMG]
IMO the trans-American border should follow the continental divide for at least part of its length.
I also think Persia has to be a federation, a collection of states in personal union or at least India must be administered as a kind of *Raj (how ironical!).
Also, you could add an African colony in South America...
Not a bad map IMHO :)

Eurofed

February 12th, 2012, 03:55 PM

IMO the trans-American border should follow the continental divide for at least part of its length.

In all honesty, that border is supposed to be based on the Continental Divide (except in Mexico), or at least go as close as my mediocre map-making skills can allow. :o

If someone is willing to edit the map and make it more precise as far as natural borders are involved, they have my thanks. You are the second person to make that criticism, but on my map-making own, I can't do much better than this.

I also think Persia has to be a federation, a collection of states in personal union or at least India must be administered as a kind of *Raj (how ironical!).

I shall add a note that the Persian-Indian union is federal.

Also, you could add an African colony in South America...

In different versions of the map, I was uncertain, and flip-flopped, between making *Brazil an African or Persian successor state.

On one hand, Western-Central Africans are close. OTOH, they are lightweights, and IOTL showed zero seafaring dynamism in precolonial times (admittedly, ITTL they could have picked some from the Romans).

South America is far from the Persian turf, but they are powerful, and ITTL they get to be a seafaring empire.

In comparison, the Norse are lightweights too, but they had lots of seafaring dynamism and good access to the Atlantic, so I feel fairly confortable at making them colonize the Southern Cone.

I suppose I can reverse non-Brazil to be African.

Not a bad map IMHO :)

thanks. :)