Challenge: Pagan Spain

The challenge: Ensure that Spain is, even today, mostly Pagan. Maybe it remains a Carthage outpost; or a Greek one; or a Roman one; or a Visigoth one; but basically it doesn’t become Islamic or Christian.

Thus how could this effect history throughout the ages? Would there be, for example, any Armada against England? Or even expeditions to discover America?

How would it fair during the Napoleonic Period?

Would there had been the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s?

And what could the modern face of Europe look like today?

Anything else?
 
Thus how could this effect history throughout the ages? Would there be, for example, any Armada against England? Or even expeditions to discover America?

How would it fair during the Napoleonic Period?

Would there had been the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s?

Dude, if you're talking about Pagan Spain, you should've known that none of this above would going to happen so similarly..... ;):p

Anyway, I would like to try that thing you're smoking there, seems they'll give you quite interesting side effect when you smoke it... :) :)D:D:D:D)
 
Dude, if you're talking about Pagan Spain, you should've known that none of this above would going to happen so similarly..... ;):p

Anyway, I would like to try that thing you're smoking there, seems they'll give you quite interesting side effect when you smoke it... :) :)D:D:D:D)


Oh it's some pagan hippy stuff :D
 
:eek: Great !! :D I think AE and the other guys should know about this.... :D:p:D:D:D

Also, we shouldn't miss Hapsburg as well.... :p:p:D:D

What do you mean?... :mad:

I don't smoke anything; never have and never will... :mad:

I still don't understand why anyone would want to in the first place... :confused:

If you're thingking about my maps... well us Brits are renouned for our eccentricity... ;):D
 
The challenge: Ensure that Spain is, even today, mostly Pagan. Maybe it remains a Carthage outpost; or a Greek one; or a Roman one; or a Visigoth one; but basically it doesn’t become Islamic or Christian.

Mithridates VI of Pontus wins his wars againest the Romans, resulting in the Romans never gaining that much influence in the eastern Mediterranean, which in its turn results in Judea never being conquered by the Romans, thus butterflying Christianity away.

There, a pagan Spain.

Thus how could this effect history throughout the ages? Would there be, for example, any Armada against England? Or even expeditions to discover America?

How would it fair during the Napoleonic Period?

Would there had been the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s?

And what could the modern face of Europe look like today?

Anything else?

As Xeno already said, those things would all be butterflied away, no matter what the POD is.

Even in a scenario in which Christianity does arise, no Visigothic Spain will have some rather serious side-effects on the rest of Europe, because that means that the Visigoths will either have to go somewhere else (Italy? France? Who knows? - but wherever they go, their altered migration pattern will deeply affect European history), or that the Visigoths never migrate in the first place (which will have an even bigger effect on Europe, because that means that the invasion of the Huns will have to be butterflied away).

And the Visigoths aside, butterflying away Islamic Spain will deeply affect both Christian Europe as well as the Muslim world.
 
The challenge: Ensure that Spain is, even today, mostly Pagan. Maybe it remains a Carthage outpost; or a Greek one; or a Roman one; or a Visigoth one; but basically it doesn’t become Islamic or Christian.

Thus how could this effect history throughout the ages? Would there be, for example, any Armada against England? Or even expeditions to discover America?

How would it fair during the Napoleonic Period?

Would there had been the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s?

And what could the modern face of Europe look like today?

Anything else?

Do you realize that kind of POD changes 1800 years of History?
 
That was kinda the whole idea ;)

with this POD napoleon will never be born (Chaos theory or something)

the spanish civil war would never have been started by Carlism etc


pagan spain = history nothing like ours, in any way
 
with this POD napoleon will never be born (Chaos theory or something)

the spanish civil war would never have been started by Carlism etc


pagan spain = history nothing like ours, in any way


So what does Spain & indeed Europe look like then?
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
The Basques remain steadfastly Pagan in the Roman era, adopting a somewhat aggressive form, which views Roman Christianity as encouraging weakness and slavery.

When the Visigoths come they fail to conquer the Basques in their mountain fastnesses. When the Basques overthrow the Visigoths a century later they, and their particular form of Paganism, become symbolic of Spain itself. Over the centuries Paganism comes to serve Spain much as Christianity did becoming, in its opposition to outsiders from both Europe and Africa one of the prime unifiers and part of the core definition of Spain and Hispanic culture. Spain becomes the beleaguered nation and the warrior of Europe, standing fast against both Crusader and Saracen.
 
That was kinda the whole idea ;)

Then it has no sense asking how different would be Columbus' voyages, the Armada, Napoleon or the Civil War. The only thing sure is that nothing remotely similar to those things would happen.

The fact is that, though the process of complete Christinization on the Iberian Peninsula could be slow in some regions, it had an early and fast start, paradoxically (is that the word?). The Christianization of the Iberian Peninsula started right after the Christianization of Carthage, made by missionaries like St. Cucufatus. By Constantine' times the number of Christians in Spain was clearly bigger than in Gaul or Britain, perhaps even bigger than in Italy itself. The Dark Ages could reduce or slow the process of Christianization but there is no way the Iberian Peninsula could return to Paganism the way Britain did. It's simply too rich, too populated, to well placed right near the core of European Christianity that it won't happen. Spain could change Catholicism by other version of Christianity like Arianism or (early) Islam, but not return to long time defunct native gods and beliefs (except for some reduced spots in the mountains of the north that never abandoned them, of course).

So, to achieve that, you either need

a) No Christianily
b) Christianity not gaining popularity in Rome
c) Reduced Roman Empire
d) No Roman Empire at all

Any of these cases would result in thousands of possible scenarios, none of them anything close to our current one. There is no way Spain would be a Pagan nation in a Christian/Muslim Mediterranean. It would be in a Pagan world with a big POD in the Ancient Age (assuming Spain becomes a nation at all in those scenarios). So, as I said, it is simply pointless to consider events related to Spanish (or European) History in the last 500 years of OTL.
 

Thande

Donor
Easy: the Pagan king Anawratha decides to invest in a large navy, Spain is discovered by Burmese ships around 1200, and is conquered by Burma using Handwavium-based firearms they bought off of the Chinese. There you have it: Pagan Spain. :p
 
Top