AH Challenge: Another Map

You know how this works don't you.

N.B. The Northern European Union isn't a single nation but rather an alliance of various independent countries. (i.e. I couldn't be bothered to think where Novgorod and the German states would go.)

Well, the Visigoths and Byzantines hold out against the Muslims, obviously. The Magyars don't go for the Huns' name recognition. The Burgundians hold their own against the Franks, which also keeps the Lombards around.

If I were to pick one POD, I'd say that Justininian doesn't go after Spain and/or Italy, but focuses some of his attention on the east. This slows down the Arabs enough that Visigothic Spain can survive them (assuming the Arabs even make it into N. Africa).

I bought Geoffrey Regan's Book of Naval Blunders at the weekend and it's put me in the mood to write a bit of AHNF and as I've wanted to expand this ATL and didn't fancy a straight RN/USN/HSF face off I thought I'd try and combine the two. So the question is can anyone come up with some good names for Lombard and Byzantine warships? As I've just moved house all my research books are packed away so the only name that comes to mind is "Justinian" and I'm not sure weather or not the Byzantines would use it in that form, or what prefix they'd before a ship's name. And that applies double for the Lombards. So can anyone help me in creating a distinctly Byzantine/Lombard feeling seascape?

At the moment the story has no details except being set in the Eastern Med and being somewhen from the late Pre-Dreadnought era to the days of early naval jet aviation.

Landshark said:

So the question is can anyone come up with some good names for Lombard and Byzantine warships? As I've just moved house all my research books are packed away so the only name that comes to mind is "Justinian" and I'm not sure weather or not the Byzantines would use it in that form, or what prefix they'd before a ship's name. And that applies double for the Lombards. So can anyone help me in creating a distinctly Byzantine/Lombard feeling seascape?

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The Prefix could be somethine like NIR, Navis Imperatorius Romanum (Roman Imperial Ship). The grammer might be off, I slept through my latin classes. Or, the Byzantines might do it in Greek.

The Byzantines considered themselves Roman, so could name a ship after any important Roman, or perhaps a battle, or city. Here's some good possibilities:

Emperors:
Augustus
Tiberius
Claudius
Vespasian
Titus
Trajan
Hadrian
Marcus Aurelius
Diocletian (maybe not, with the whole persecution thing)
Constantine
Theodosius
Leo
Justinian
Heraclius
Anastasius
Basil
Manuel
Alexius
Andronicus
Christopher (probably not, but I've got a personal bias here)

Perhaps Theodora or Belisarius, as well.

As for cities or battles, any city in the Empire would do pretty well, as you could say there was a battle there. Antioch, Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Alexandria would probably top the list, being centers of Christianity.

Hope this helps.

Justinian focusing on Persia (and North Africa...NA grain kept the Empire alive during the dark times) forestalling Islam is a good POD. That'll keep the Ostrogothic unified Italy around, though getting the Lombards to conquer it successfully and keeping it unified could be tricky.

The "Northern European Union" could be something similar to the Nordic commonwealth described in the "Anglo-Saxon" TL. Perhaps something like "Viking Nationalism" appears and the various kingdoms of the North ally rather than bicker.

I can see Byzantium developing a "Roman" army and a "Greek" navy based on the respective traditions of the two cultures. However I haven't been able to find a English/Greek translation site yet.

The "Northern European Union" is indeed nicked from the "Anglo-Saxon Thread", mainly because I had to use my laptop to make this map and it's not really the best tool for such things. So, as I was more focused on the Southern countries for this anyway, in the end a just slapped a coat of red over the entire northern bloc and called it the NEU. Now I'm using this TL a bit more I suppose I'd better think up something to make the countries covered by the NEU a bit more distinctive.

I don't think Islam made it out of Arabia here so Persia is probably still Zorastrian and Eygpt Coptic, (though weather or not it's part of Byzantium?)

Not entirely germaine to my present request but I was thinking that three of the component countries of the NEU could be the Kingdom of Britain, the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Germany.