Hi folks, sorry for vanishing. Im hosed with work, and so didn't get to write the next update. However I was recently thinking about the New World, and came up with this short piece about it, in the form of book exerpts. Nothing here is confirmed to be canon yet, but I am thinking this way right now. Let me know what you think.
Vignette: The Empire of Sunset Lands
Excerpts taken from Eternal Empire: Cultural Hegemony of The Byzantine Theokratia
“Byzantine secularists and academics in general tend to be dismissive of the Theocratic era, viewing it as an enormous wasted opportunity-a second dark age that was perhaps even worse than the one wrought by the plague and Islam, as this time the enemy (to modern eyes) came from within and could have easily prevented their familiar world from arising if it was not for the tremendous sacrifices made by the radicals who brought the Patriarchate down by capitalizing on the massive political weakness generated by the ruinous Coptic wars.”
“Yet Theokratia also represented an era when the Byzantine culture was clearly pre-eminent in the entirety of the civilized world…”
“And if we are to truly understand Medieval Byzantine society, the sanitized attitudes prevailing in the Empire post the revolution will be of little assistance.”
“Contrary to popular views, the last relic of Theokratia did not collapse with the failed state pretending to be the ‘Roman Empire of the Far East’[1]. An entire continent of people is proof otherwise, though both Quanstantinye and Constantinopolis are united in their denial of this.”
“Basil II is held up in the eastern shore of the Atlantic as the annihilator of Islam in an almost farcical manner that relies heavily on selective reading of politically motivated works. In practice he can only be credited with finishing the the already crumbling Islamic states in the Eastern Mediterranean…”
“The Muslim Egyptian elite saw it was more to their benefit to cast their lot with Constantinople than to struggle alongside Copts, once the chance was offered. Though viewed in cynical light as a part of a general divide and rule strategy employed by the Empire, it may at time had reflected the simple ground reality of acceptance of ground reality to make Aegyptos profitable again. The success of this project may in fact have convinced the Empire to recruit Islamic scholars of many flavors from all over the East, and settling them in the Aegean to capitalize on their expertise.”
“Levantine muslims were perhaps the worst sufferers of the Crusades. Constantinople enforced complete exclusion of uncontrolled western hordes from it’s Anatolian and Egyptian territory as the destruction of the army under the Edward, King of Albion showed. But even the Emperors had to relent and open up a corridor via Syria to the Mesopotamian Empire, and thus bridge the Latin East with it’s western brethren…”
“The western threat however paled in comparison to what was to come in the form of the steppe hordes. Suddenly the heirs of Basil looked infinitely preferable to any man in Persia compared to those who left pyramids of skulls in their wake.”
“There was nothing to return to for many of the refugees by the time the Peace of Susa had been agreed on. The Empire for its part was always wary of letting large numbers of muslims go east, and strongly encouraged settlement of the Emirate of Rum that John Callinicus founded as a final insult to the Western Church that he had effectively destroyed. Even broken and depopulated Italy however could only accommodate so many, and many remained in the camps of Anatolia and Egypt, waiting for a chance at a better future. They might have been trusted soldiers against the nomadic menace, but certainly not trusted citizens.”
“The elite had always found it easy to merge into the mainstream, especially with the Emperors keeping a tight leash on the Church to prevent forcible conversions. Many in fact did convert, but a large number stayed true to their faith, even in the offshoot communities formed in Constantinople and the Aegean by the Sicilian and Egyptian nobles, bolstered by first Turkish and later Persian elites fleeing from the East. There was little to distinguish them from their neighbors by the fifteenth century: they all spoke Greek, wrote in Greek and could not say or write the flimsiest bit of Arabic. Their sermons were held in the common tongue of the Empire as they proclaimed their devotion to Theos. Even iconoclasm was abandoned for the most part, as the last great mosaics surviving from that era show, as does the John IV Greek Koran. They in fact had also bankrolled large parts of John Callinicus’ campaigns, for which they were amply rewarded.”
“It has also been conjectured that Abraham of Smyrna, the fourth of the Six Tyrants was originally a muslim though he had converted before assuming the purple. The extremely effective damnatio memoriae makes it difficult to confirm this (or any major detail about the other Tyrants), but it could have been used by Matthiaos to pave the way for Theokratia, especially since his reign corresponded with a massive spike in deaths from the plague.”
“Nonetheless, the first years of the theocratic government were quiet, aside from highly discriminatory taxation. Islam would have been relegated to a minority status closer to that Judaism had this policy continued for long. Sevastopolis however made it politically untenable.”
“The rise of John Constantine Palaiologos was inevitable after Sevastopolis. The son of the ill-fated strategos of Mesopotamia at the time of the incident, he became a rallying point for the others orphaned by that disaster but soon emerged as a force in his own right. A bishop at the age of twenty three, he exerted enormous influence in the final days of Patriarch Andrew’s administration and forced through extremely large increases in head tax that made it essentially impossible for muslims to have children. He also contributed to the draconian enforcement of anti-muslim laws in general in his time as head of intelligence and finance minister in Patriarch Mark’s reign, culminating in targeted massacres of wealthy muslims, arson and the systematic destruction of Islamic businesses in Constantinople in the ‘Night of a Thousand Stars’. His unanimous election as Patriarch at the age of forty was immediately followed by the conversion of the Emir of Rome, who by then was completely reliant on the Byzantine army to fend off Latin Christendom.”
“Constantine however did not start with a bloody purge, but instead sought out forced deportations and absurd tax rates to make migration logical. Nearly all the muslims in the Aegean left for Spain in the 1440-1450 period, seeing no hope in the Theokratic government. Greek speaking elites from Egypt and the Levant soon followed, leaving only peasants in villages whose location was known to every tax-man. This single act of mercy by Constantine alone preserved Byzantine Islam, as it would have otherwise disappeared alongside its practitioners in the Empire in the Final Solution.”
“Palaiologos’s flair for drama caused him to delay the announcement till the 6th of April in 1453, when he announced from Alexandria that practice of Islam was hence forbidden the Empire under the pain of death, unleashing the entire military and security apparatus of the Empire against the few that remained. Constantine himself had greater plans, as he ordered the Egyptian forces to march to Arabia. On 29th May 1453, the Patriarch walked into Mecca surrounded by corpses alone.”
“'A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish,
And Priam and his people shall be slain.'
J. Constantine Palaiologos on facing the Black Stone in Mecca, channeling Scipio Aemilianus, as recorded by Eduard Gieselbert.”
“Islam was finished in the Byzantine Empire by the time the sculptors had carved the stone into infamous statue of Christ as The Emperor that stands in Hagia Sophia today. But Byzantine Islam was not yet done, surviving in refugee camps in Africa and cities in Spain.”
“The Spanish Caliph had first welcomed this migration of skilled elites, but this joy quickly turned to suspicion as it became apparent that too many of the migrants bore him little loyalty and considered themselves true Romans fleeing persecution--a status not unlike that of early Christianity in the Roman Empire. Indeed, too many of the elites felt that they had been cheated by the Church hierarchy and not the rest of the Empire. Yahya of Salonica for instance mentions his neighbors paying his father a fair price for their property and giving him and his siblings toys as they were about to flee west. The heavily persecuted low skilled migrants from Egypt and Sicily to Africa were entirely another matter, but they were not the sort of subjects the Spanish Caliphate desired.”
“The questionable loyalty of the ‘Rumi’ made their status problematic as Palaiologos moved to a state of total war against Spain, attacking over the Pyrenees with Provencal hosts while sending the core Army and Navy marching across North Africa. Quite a few were executed before the Caliph decided to use their expert naval skills to obtain timber, as otherwise there would be no fighting the Byzantine Navy that had already began attacking the Mediterranean ports. The blockade had also made access to Indian and Chinese imports impossible, forcing exploration of routes about Africa. Suicidal affects to circumnavigate Africa was thus also a domain left for the Rumi, as there was limited scope of damage there.”
“It was under these circumstances that Esa of Rhodes landed upon the New World, by chance after being blown off from an attempt to solicit help from West African powers.”
“ A lesser man could have easily seen this merely as a chance to win favor from the court. But Isa was no lesser man and his brain saw this land as ἡ γῆ τῆς ἐπαγγελίας -a promised land given by God to the Rumi.”
“The Caliphs were in fact overjoyed to have land to expel their Christian and Rumi population unto and still derive economic benefit from them, which expulsion into Roman lands would not have led to.”
“They in their ignorance could hardly have foreseen a time when the Essenes would outnumber them and simply refuse to assist them any more, convinced that attempts to counter the Romans in the Old World was futile. The last of the Spaniards were thus compelled to flee over the sea to the land of their former servants, where they were received with as much honor as was their due. The Mediterranean was once again united by the Empire at Constantinople, but the Essenes did not care as much as they had found their own promised land.”
“Eppagenion in fact became a place for political exiles of Theokratia to flee to, where they were eagerly received by the Greek court. Nea Constantinople was still small, and any attempt to civilize the barbarians were eagerly accepted.”
“It is difficult to characterize the form of Islam practiced by the early Essenes. They viewed the early Caliphates with the contempt typical of their Christian counterparts, viewing it as a catastrophe that had stopped Heraclius from accepting the one true faith and creating an eternal Empire. While it is certain that a lot of the anti-Arab propaganda was employed merely to keep that minority in check, it cannot be denied that the Essenes viewed themselves fundamentally as Romans who believed in Islam. To them Mahomet was sent to correct the message of Christ that had been misinterpreted by the Romans to view him as God’s son: but ultimate perfection only came from a synthesis of Islam and Hellenism, which would be achieved if the Empire accepted conversion.”
“Converting the Empire and ending Theokratia was thus a principal objective for many at court, one that was achieved when the Nicene-Chalcedonian Church met it’s just end in a campaign run by many returning exiles and bankrolled by Essene bullion. Yet Islam had not triumphed though it’s old foe lay humiliated. The Emperors across the ocean were too far removed from the intellectual centers of the Byzantine Empire to truly understand what broke the camel’s back. Marcion of Sinope had triumphed at last with his form of a purely Greek faith, wrapped with the bloody purple cloak of John Callinicus.”
“If there was one issue the factions could agree on then it was the following: Islam had no role in the Byzantine Empire. All the sacrifices of the Essenes were met with smiles and promises of trade deals, but no right to return or compensation was offered, and the statue of Christ remained in Hagia Sophia. Basileus Iskandar broke off ties in rage, proclaiming his Empire to be the only true Empire of the Romans, but the Rumi never survived the mortal blow in the form of rejection by their homeland, and thereafter their grip on their subjects weakened. The Empire across the water fragmented soon, and Nea Constantinopolis burned. But the successor states of the Essene Empire preserved their Roman core-spreading Hellenism over much of the new world while the North and Albion squabbled over the icy wastes. There woul never again be warm feelings between the two worlds, for the Rumi would henceforth fade away and their successors would see Byzantium as the eternal foe despite most of their culture being derived from the Constantinopolitan Empire, while the great Empire of the East viewed the Essenes as failed pretenders who represented the worst of their Empire: a grotesque reflection that the Byzantines would have preferred not knowing.”
Notes:
[1] I'll leave you to guess where this is.