AH Challenge! (Tougher than most...)

[Douglas]

Find a way to get the world to end up like this:

Jainism is the dominant religion of the world.

The Roman Empire, Pharaonic Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, Tibet, and the Aztecs are the great powers of this world.

Airships are the most common form of travel.

The powers keep an uneasy balance of power with batteries of massive guns that can place a hydrogen bomb anywhere in the world.

All of the few Christians of this world, about one million in all, have been exiled to colonies on the moon.

If you can do this, you are an AH demi-god

[sunsurf]

Originally Posted by fenkmaster

Find a way to get the world to end up like this:

Jainism is the dominant religion of the world.

The Roman Empire, Pharaonic Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, Tibet, and the Aztecs are the great powers of this world.

Airships are the most common form of travel.

The powers keep an uneasy balance of power with batteries of massive guns that can place a hydrogen bomb anywhere in the world.

All of the few Christians of this world, about one million in all, have been exiled to colonies on the moon.

If you can do this, you are an AH demi-god

Um, in a world like that, I think a lot of people might prefer to live on the moon.

The Aztecs are practicing human sacrifice, the Romans are feeding people to the lions and watching people kill each other for sport, Babylon and Egypt are no better; the peasants have no freedom to complain and the aristocrats are so bound by tradition and custom that they don't feel like they have much freedom, either.

The non-Christians wouldn't be anxious to leave their comfy homes and families to guard the Christians, so the Christians have all of the moon to themselves and eventually could start dropping large rocks from the asteroid belt on Rome, Babylon and the others if they want to. The moon is an expensive place to send one million people.

The Christians might have been using reverse psychology..."please don't send
us to the moon!"


Somebody suggested something here earlier--the Roman Empire might have done what the Chinese Empire did--having a dynasty dominate the empire for a while, then a civil war, another dynasty dominates for a while.

Another idea suggested here was that if the Assyrians had invented the zero, they might have had such a large advantage, their empire might have survived.

Somebody in Nebuchadnezzar's court invents the zero. There are enough competent successors to keep the empire thriving, but enough bad luck and incompetence to keep the empire from destroying everything around it.

Social customs and laws are modified, just enough that the empire doesn't make enemies of everybody. It becomes less aggressive toward its neighbors, since trade is usually more profitable than war.

As for Egypt, Cleopatra never lived, and the women who did live there concentrated their efforts on the Greeks and Palmyrans. Marc Antony never lived, and the Romans of that period concentrated on Greece or Spain, and never met any charming Egyptian women. By the time Rome tried to conquer Egypt, it had grown and expanded, getting too strong to absorb. Rome expanded north and west instead.

Did you see the Ancient Egypt Survives thread here? It's very large, and parts of it might be applied to this timeline.

Judaism survives, and a reformer emerges, who is executed, and his followers say he came to life and will come again. The first apostles go east to India, partly because at that particular period, it was much easier and less dangerous to go that way. With such an early POD, the situation at Rome might be a lot different.

Jainists believe we can become perfect, and hence become gods-- a little similar to Christians living a perfect life, being "imitators of Christ", and then becoming one with God.

So Jainism and Christianity might both change. Jainism might absorb those features of Christianity which made it popular, and Christianity might become more syncretic and less centralized; more like Islam, with no Popes or Patriarchs.

The Chinese conquer the New World, and after absorbing Chinese ideas and technology, the Aztec empire expands into S. America.

But the Aztecs have to change and adapt so they wouldn't antagonize everyone else with their constant warfare and human sacrifice. Jainism and Confucianism spread widely throughout the Aztec empire. North America is mostly small Chinese kingdoms.

The most recent dynasty of China collapsed in 1878, and a period of civil wars followed, during which time the king of Tibet took the opportunity to capture/invite a number of Chinese military and intellectual leaders to Tibet, to help make Tibet a superpower. The Tibetans steal or build a number of superweapons to dominate its neighbors, and by the time a new emperor takes power in China, in 1951, Tibet already has vastly more territory and weapons than the Chinese. The Chinese emperor is allowed to keep his throne as long as nothing he says or does is contrary to Tibetan interests.

Of the superpowers, Tibet is the least awful place to live.

Underground Christian groups, communicating with each other via writings which look like decoration but which are actually an artificial language, encourage development of a space program in the Tibetan Empire, which covers much of Central Asia and Siberia. A military space station is to be built; the other superpowers are encouraged to believe that such a project is far too expensive and will bankrupt Tibet.

Christians are sent to the moon to set up colonies and to provide the materials for the space station.

As for airships being more widespread--they were developed faster and they're still used out of habit. National leaders who encourage their use don't know the reasons for preferring heavier-than-air craft, and think airships are prettier.

[Douglas]

I can't believe you managed to come up with a plausible timeline.

Great!