The Undying Empire: A Trebizond Timeline
- Thread starter Eparkhos
- Start date
- Status
He must have magical powers beyond our mere mortal understanding.
Technically the field part of Arms should come first so:
Per fess Or & Sable, a stag passant Argent
(And
Per fess Azure & Vert, a castle Sable.)
If you mean the field is cut horizontally into gold and black with a white stag also horizontal covering the two colours.
Am finally caught up again. Great writing. I'm also awed by how much you can write in such a small amount of time.
The English colonies seem much more different than the OTL English colonies. For one, tobacco is probably going to boom earlier and it appears that England will stay mostly Catholic which will have major effects in the colonies in the coming centuries, no doubt. In fact, I expect the English to remain allies with the Spanish as they will share the same religion and have the French as a common enemy.
Completely agree. I love that the Trapezuntines aren't always lucky and that they also experience many problems like the last war with the Ottomans. Those chapters were so well written that they seem like real history to me.
One wonders how a much early colonization of the East Coast, pardon, Brasil, will turn. Being the first ever colony of the New World would made it more populated, civilized, even wealthier than OTL. Is quite the winning advantage from other colonies France, Spain or other European players may settle in the future...
Eparkhos
Banned
*cough* Yeah, there's no way the Trapezuntines are going to the moon in 1600. Yeah, totally. *sob*
Thank you!
Oh, definitely. This will certainly be one timeline where Brazil is a superpower to be sure.
1. It probably won't.
2. That's an interesting idea. The Golden Horde may reform into a stable state, or it may not. I'm not sure.
3. They still exist. Over time they'll become more and more mixed, sort of like how the Ottoman sultans were more French than Turkish by the time of their collapse.
Denliner is correct, it will be Lisle who gains Columbus' infamy. Although, a lot of what people think he did was actually performed by Bobadilla and Ovando, so Lisle will actually be worse than Columbus was, because he will actually do everything that is attributed to him,
Do you think the Catholics will crusade against heretics more or less often than in OTL?
I'm not quite sure how to fully anglicize them. As for the Earls, their retinues were absolutely decimated, but neither Eleazar or Pasaquon were stricken.
Eparkhos
Banned
I have a very particular set of skills, skills that have been acquired over a career of writing.
I stand corrected, heraldry isn't exactly my forte.
New York and New Jersey. Jay Island is Long Island.
Ah, good to have you back.
You're right, tobacco will boom early and boom hard, and that will keep England chugging along quite well. I think that in the coming decades, religious dissidents (those that dodge the inquisition) will be exiled to Brasil in a manner similar to OTL. I haven't decided on their relations with Spain so far, but it would make sense.
As previously mention, Brasil will be quite the power.
A Global Overview, 1500
Eparkhos
Banned
Fair warning, this is kind of experimental, and I can always do a rewrite.
------------------------
Report on Timeline L-843
Dear Doctor Rosewell,
I hope this finds you well. Firstly, I must extend my deepest condolences to you over Doctor Patel’s unfortunate demise. He was far too kind a person to wind up spit-roasted by Papua New Guineans.
My own work on Timeline L-843 is going quite well. It has now been nearly a century since the point of divergence (seventy-three years, to be exact) and I am eager to construct my first first world report. Do you have any suggestions on how to compose these? I know you have a great deal of experience in matters such as these. Anyway, I hope to have the report completed shortly and will present it to you by the end of the quarter. I can’t promise that, though. My team is rather small, and while the developmental stage that L-843 is in is conducive the collection of information we are still overstretched.
Sincerely,
Doctor William Sarkozy
File One: A Global Overview: 1500
Before I begin, I’d like to note that I’ve never done this before and I humbly ask that any readers have patience with me as I find my feet.
Events in the New World are mostly unchanged from our timeline. Mesoamerica and Andeoamerica are both puttering along nicely. The Aztec Triple Alliance has risen to prominence in TL-1’s Mexico, and they are currently in the closing years of the great conqueror Ahuitzotl. Interestingly, there appears to be an ongoing revival in the fortunes of the Maya people, and several new city-states have been founded in the mountainous interior of the region. Meanwhile, to the south, the Muisca appear to be on the verge of developing currency, an interesting development which may radically alter the fate of the pre-Columbian societies. Further south, the Incan Empire is larger than in TL-1. Ali, I mean Mr. Mohammed, believes that this may be due to the introduction of chickens from Polynesian contact. It appears that the two civilizations made contact on TL-1’s Easter Island in 1480, an event which is speculated to have occurred in our timeline. I should also note that there is a small band of Amerindians who have begun planting mesquite pods along the Red River of the South in TL-1’s Texas. If they are left alone long enough they have a good shot at civilization, but alas colonization has already begun.
The Americas were opened in 1480 by an English sailor named John Jay the Younger. Jay the Younger was able to secure enough tobacco, or as it is known in this timeline, ‘jachaing’, for tobacco farming and trading to become lucrative trades. The English have conquered Manhattan and the western half of Long Island and begun their settlement, with an estimated population of 1,500 Englishmen in the western hemisphere two decades after first contact. The capital of the colony is the small port of Fort Saint George, located on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. The tribes of the Sanhican and Shinnecox, known in this timeline as the Sanheecans and the Shynecocks, have been incorporated into the English crown, their chiefs being invested as earls and their peoples converted. Unfortunately, the usual bout of Columbian plagues began in 1497, and I expect that their ravages will be as devastating as they were in our timeline.
The English are not the only Europeans to have reached the New World. The Portuguese also made landfall in our timeline’s Brazil in 1486, although knowledge of this was not made public until 1491. This is a good place to note some developments in etymology. The English have named North America ‘Brasil’ after the legendary Isles of Hy-Brasil, while the Portuguese have names South America ‘Virginia’ after the Virgin Mary. Any agents sent to observe this timeline will need to be briefed on this, and I imagine it will be the cause of a great amount of confusion. The Portuguese have established a number of forts in Virginia, all intended to provide resupply ports for their voyages to India. The largest of these is Rio de Agosto, which is located at our timeline’s Natal. The first plantations are being formed in Virginia, as cacao becomes a valuable good in Europe.
In Europe, things look quite different. In Iberia, a different end to the War of the Castilian Succession has seen Portugal and Castile enter personal union under Afonso V & XII of the House of Avís. The civil war was significantly longer than in TL-1, lasting from 1475 to 1482, but Afonso and Joanna were able to win a decisive victory with the aid of the French. Afonso then helped soothe the hurt feelings between his two realms by finishing the Reconquista in 1485, carrying the fight over into Morocco and capturing Tangier, Larache and Tetouan before his death in 1491. Portugal is now ruled by Duarte II (b.1477), who is expected to inherit Castile upon his mother’s death. Aragon, meanwhile, has been exhausted by the long succession war and repeated conflicts with France. The once-proud Aragonese Crown is a shadow of its former self, having lost its eastern territories to the Turks and its Italian ones to the French and barely clinging on in Sardinia.Fernando II was overthrown in 1494 after the loss of Naples and was succeeded by his minor son, Juan I, who is essentially a puppet of the nobility.
Further north, the British Isles are remarkably calm. The strength of their French allies has given the English pause in attacking the Scots, who are busily expanding their control into Ireland. The War of the Roses ended much earlier in this timeline, with the Yorkists retaining the throne under Edward IV. The succession is secure, with three male heirs waiting in the wings, and Edward IV is a strong and capable monarch. The Lancastrian claim to throne has been extinguished, with the Tudor brothers assassinated in 1489. The Scottish, meanwhile, are enjoying a period of peace and prosperity under James IV, whose frequent communications with the French have made him appear as more trouble than he is worth to hawks in London. Across the Irish Sea, the House of FitzGerald has been steadily gathering influence as the Scottish attempt to win them over to their cause for a war against the English. The Irish lords are even more powerful than in our timeline, as Gerald FitzGerald had foolishly been invested as governor of the Pale, making him King of Ireland in all but name. He may soon become the legal King of Ireland as well, as he is in the process of attempting to win an alliance with the French, which would completely secure his independence.
Across the English Channel lies the hegemon of Europe, France. An earlier victory in the Hundred Years’ War saw the English exiled from the continent bar only Calais, and Brittany and Burgundy proper brought into their sphere of influence. A succession of capable monarchs allowed France to rise to great heights, becoming the de facto hegemon of central and western Europe with no Austria to counter-balance them. Charles VIII still sits upon his throne, as the fluke door incident that killed him in TL-1 never occurred. With a steady hand on the tiller throughout the 1490s and with no unified Spain to oppose them, the French solidified themselves as hegemons of Italy, with Savoy, the northern Italian city-states, Florence and the Papal States themselves being effective vassals of the French crown. Naples and Milan are in personal union with France, whose tendrils now extend as far as Epirus. However, not everything is well for this great hegemon, and France’s many enemies have begun to conspire against her, with her great size even forcing many of her former allies to reconsider their relations with the great power. Many of the dukes were also going tired of Charles’ centralizing reforms.
Italy in L-834 is radically different from our own. Genoa and Venice, who dominate the peninsula in most timelines, have been significantly reduced in power. Genoa was burned to the ground in 1480 by the Milanese, the survivors fleeing to Corsica, where they established the Calvian Republic under Paolo di Campofregoso. However, they were unable to recover their former colonial empire, which was divided between many different states and powers. However, the Genoese shadow would be filled in at least one area, Liguria, with the rise of Savona. Many former Genoese traders and captains defected to the Savonese after the republic was proclaimed by Cristoffa Corombo, a former Genoese merchant. Savona was able to fill the void in the eastern Mediterranean left by Genoa’s downfall, and was able to beat back Venetian efforts to extend their control west of Sicily. Venice, meanwhile, has been dealt one bad hand after the other. They had lost a good portion of their navy in a struggle with the Ottomans over the eastern territories of Genoa in the 1480s, and as a result had lost much of their eastern trade network. Then, they had come down against Charles VIII in his invasion of Italy in the 1490s, which had resulted in them losing all of their mainland territories west of Padua. However, they have managed to cling to their Egyptian trade network, which is just barely keeping their head above water, and the doge, Agostino Barbarigo, is a capable and skilled ruler.
Things are even more chaotic in central Italy. Charles was able to claim the throne of Milan, which he quickly expanded to include much of the Po Valley, seized from the Venetians. The many counties and cities of the plain were vassalized to Milan (and thus, indirectly, France), which has angered many. However, there is little any of them can do, and for now they are limited to angrily stewing. The Florentines were also reduced by the French, with the Medicis being forced into exile in the trans-Appenine cities of Urbino and Ancona. However, they have not been fully defeated, and from exile Lorenzo de’ Medici plots his revenge. In the place of the Medicis, the reformist priest Girolamo Savonarola and his followers have taken over Florence, preparing their state for what they believe will be the final battle with the forces of the devil. Needless to say, Savonarola is unhinged. In Rome, meanwhile, Pope Alexander VI threads a narrow line between advancing his own interests and that of King Charles. He was initially a supporter of French intervention in Italy, but has come to resent Paris’ constant meddling. Charles has won in Italy, but he has not won Italy.
Across the Alps, Germany is in a state of flux. The Habsburgs had formerly been the chief hegemons of the Holy Roman Empire, but their sudden and unexpected destruction by Matthais the Raven in the 1490s had left the Empire adrift. Into this void stepped Bogislaw X, the Duke of Pomerania and Margrave of Brandenburg, jure uxoris. In a long and surprise-filled reign, he restored the unity of the Duchy of Pomerania, then turned the tide against his former overlord in Berlin, invading in a long and bloody multi-year struggle that culminated in the installation of his wife, Margaret, as Electress of Brandenburg. His meteoric rise had made his name in the Holy Roman Empire, but also the animosity of many, several of whom believe him to be a warmonger. One of these men is Fredrick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. Bogislaw and Fredrick are the chief candidates for the vacant office of emperor, and the two are attempting to muster the votes needed to secure the office for themselves. This is almost certain to spill over into open conflict.
Before I cover the events of Eastern Europe, it is important to note unfolding events in the Low Countries. While the Burgundians had been ejected from Burgundy proper during the 1470s and 1480s, they still clung on in their northern possessions. Philip IV attempted to preserve himself via an alliance with Austria, but when this state unceremoniously collapsed under Hungarian assault, he was left without a patron. Reluctantly, he submitted to Paris, managing to secure an arrangement similar to that which the English had before the Hundred Years’ War, where he was recognized as King-in-the-Rhine-Mouths in vassalage to the King of France. Philip’s reign has been spent in a centralization effort that has stitched together the lands around the Mouths of the Rhine--
(Transmission Ended due to Data Overage)
------------------------
Report on Timeline L-843
Dear Doctor Rosewell,
I hope this finds you well. Firstly, I must extend my deepest condolences to you over Doctor Patel’s unfortunate demise. He was far too kind a person to wind up spit-roasted by Papua New Guineans.
My own work on Timeline L-843 is going quite well. It has now been nearly a century since the point of divergence (seventy-three years, to be exact) and I am eager to construct my first first world report. Do you have any suggestions on how to compose these? I know you have a great deal of experience in matters such as these. Anyway, I hope to have the report completed shortly and will present it to you by the end of the quarter. I can’t promise that, though. My team is rather small, and while the developmental stage that L-843 is in is conducive the collection of information we are still overstretched.
Sincerely,
Doctor William Sarkozy
File One: A Global Overview: 1500
Before I begin, I’d like to note that I’ve never done this before and I humbly ask that any readers have patience with me as I find my feet.
Events in the New World are mostly unchanged from our timeline. Mesoamerica and Andeoamerica are both puttering along nicely. The Aztec Triple Alliance has risen to prominence in TL-1’s Mexico, and they are currently in the closing years of the great conqueror Ahuitzotl. Interestingly, there appears to be an ongoing revival in the fortunes of the Maya people, and several new city-states have been founded in the mountainous interior of the region. Meanwhile, to the south, the Muisca appear to be on the verge of developing currency, an interesting development which may radically alter the fate of the pre-Columbian societies. Further south, the Incan Empire is larger than in TL-1. Ali, I mean Mr. Mohammed, believes that this may be due to the introduction of chickens from Polynesian contact. It appears that the two civilizations made contact on TL-1’s Easter Island in 1480, an event which is speculated to have occurred in our timeline. I should also note that there is a small band of Amerindians who have begun planting mesquite pods along the Red River of the South in TL-1’s Texas. If they are left alone long enough they have a good shot at civilization, but alas colonization has already begun.
The Americas were opened in 1480 by an English sailor named John Jay the Younger. Jay the Younger was able to secure enough tobacco, or as it is known in this timeline, ‘jachaing’, for tobacco farming and trading to become lucrative trades. The English have conquered Manhattan and the western half of Long Island and begun their settlement, with an estimated population of 1,500 Englishmen in the western hemisphere two decades after first contact. The capital of the colony is the small port of Fort Saint George, located on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. The tribes of the Sanhican and Shinnecox, known in this timeline as the Sanheecans and the Shynecocks, have been incorporated into the English crown, their chiefs being invested as earls and their peoples converted. Unfortunately, the usual bout of Columbian plagues began in 1497, and I expect that their ravages will be as devastating as they were in our timeline.
The English are not the only Europeans to have reached the New World. The Portuguese also made landfall in our timeline’s Brazil in 1486, although knowledge of this was not made public until 1491. This is a good place to note some developments in etymology. The English have named North America ‘Brasil’ after the legendary Isles of Hy-Brasil, while the Portuguese have names South America ‘Virginia’ after the Virgin Mary. Any agents sent to observe this timeline will need to be briefed on this, and I imagine it will be the cause of a great amount of confusion. The Portuguese have established a number of forts in Virginia, all intended to provide resupply ports for their voyages to India. The largest of these is Rio de Agosto, which is located at our timeline’s Natal. The first plantations are being formed in Virginia, as cacao becomes a valuable good in Europe.
In Europe, things look quite different. In Iberia, a different end to the War of the Castilian Succession has seen Portugal and Castile enter personal union under Afonso V & XII of the House of Avís. The civil war was significantly longer than in TL-1, lasting from 1475 to 1482, but Afonso and Joanna were able to win a decisive victory with the aid of the French. Afonso then helped soothe the hurt feelings between his two realms by finishing the Reconquista in 1485, carrying the fight over into Morocco and capturing Tangier, Larache and Tetouan before his death in 1491. Portugal is now ruled by Duarte II (b.1477), who is expected to inherit Castile upon his mother’s death. Aragon, meanwhile, has been exhausted by the long succession war and repeated conflicts with France. The once-proud Aragonese Crown is a shadow of its former self, having lost its eastern territories to the Turks and its Italian ones to the French and barely clinging on in Sardinia.
Further north, the British Isles are remarkably calm. The strength of their French allies has given the English pause in attacking the Scots, who are busily expanding their control into Ireland. The War of the Roses ended much earlier in this timeline, with the Yorkists retaining the throne under Edward IV. The succession is secure, with three male heirs waiting in the wings, and Edward IV is a strong and capable monarch. The Lancastrian claim to throne has been extinguished, with the Tudor brothers assassinated in 1489. The Scottish, meanwhile, are enjoying a period of peace and prosperity under James IV, whose frequent communications with the French have made him appear as more trouble than he is worth to hawks in London. Across the Irish Sea, the House of FitzGerald has been steadily gathering influence as the Scottish attempt to win them over to their cause for a war against the English. The Irish lords are even more powerful than in our timeline, as Gerald FitzGerald had foolishly been invested as governor of the Pale, making him King of Ireland in all but name. He may soon become the legal King of Ireland as well, as he is in the process of attempting to win an alliance with the French, which would completely secure his independence.
Across the English Channel lies the hegemon of Europe, France. An earlier victory in the Hundred Years’ War saw the English exiled from the continent bar only Calais, and Brittany and Burgundy proper brought into their sphere of influence. A succession of capable monarchs allowed France to rise to great heights, becoming the de facto hegemon of central and western Europe with no Austria to counter-balance them. Charles VIII still sits upon his throne, as the fluke door incident that killed him in TL-1 never occurred. With a steady hand on the tiller throughout the 1490s and with no unified Spain to oppose them, the French solidified themselves as hegemons of Italy, with Savoy, the northern Italian city-states, Florence and the Papal States themselves being effective vassals of the French crown. Naples and Milan are in personal union with France, whose tendrils now extend as far as Epirus. However, not everything is well for this great hegemon, and France’s many enemies have begun to conspire against her, with her great size even forcing many of her former allies to reconsider their relations with the great power. Many of the dukes were also going tired of Charles’ centralizing reforms.
Italy in L-834 is radically different from our own. Genoa and Venice, who dominate the peninsula in most timelines, have been significantly reduced in power. Genoa was burned to the ground in 1480 by the Milanese, the survivors fleeing to Corsica, where they established the Calvian Republic under Paolo di Campofregoso. However, they were unable to recover their former colonial empire, which was divided between many different states and powers. However, the Genoese shadow would be filled in at least one area, Liguria, with the rise of Savona. Many former Genoese traders and captains defected to the Savonese after the republic was proclaimed by Cristoffa Corombo, a former Genoese merchant. Savona was able to fill the void in the eastern Mediterranean left by Genoa’s downfall, and was able to beat back Venetian efforts to extend their control west of Sicily. Venice, meanwhile, has been dealt one bad hand after the other. They had lost a good portion of their navy in a struggle with the Ottomans over the eastern territories of Genoa in the 1480s, and as a result had lost much of their eastern trade network. Then, they had come down against Charles VIII in his invasion of Italy in the 1490s, which had resulted in them losing all of their mainland territories west of Padua. However, they have managed to cling to their Egyptian trade network, which is just barely keeping their head above water, and the doge, Agostino Barbarigo, is a capable and skilled ruler.
Things are even more chaotic in central Italy. Charles was able to claim the throne of Milan, which he quickly expanded to include much of the Po Valley, seized from the Venetians. The many counties and cities of the plain were vassalized to Milan (and thus, indirectly, France), which has angered many. However, there is little any of them can do, and for now they are limited to angrily stewing. The Florentines were also reduced by the French, with the Medicis being forced into exile in the trans-Appenine cities of Urbino and Ancona. However, they have not been fully defeated, and from exile Lorenzo de’ Medici plots his revenge. In the place of the Medicis, the reformist priest Girolamo Savonarola and his followers have taken over Florence, preparing their state for what they believe will be the final battle with the forces of the devil. Needless to say, Savonarola is unhinged. In Rome, meanwhile, Pope Alexander VI threads a narrow line between advancing his own interests and that of King Charles. He was initially a supporter of French intervention in Italy, but has come to resent Paris’ constant meddling. Charles has won in Italy, but he has not won Italy.
Across the Alps, Germany is in a state of flux. The Habsburgs had formerly been the chief hegemons of the Holy Roman Empire, but their sudden and unexpected destruction by Matthais the Raven in the 1490s had left the Empire adrift. Into this void stepped Bogislaw X, the Duke of Pomerania and Margrave of Brandenburg, jure uxoris. In a long and surprise-filled reign, he restored the unity of the Duchy of Pomerania, then turned the tide against his former overlord in Berlin, invading in a long and bloody multi-year struggle that culminated in the installation of his wife, Margaret, as Electress of Brandenburg. His meteoric rise had made his name in the Holy Roman Empire, but also the animosity of many, several of whom believe him to be a warmonger. One of these men is Fredrick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. Bogislaw and Fredrick are the chief candidates for the vacant office of emperor, and the two are attempting to muster the votes needed to secure the office for themselves. This is almost certain to spill over into open conflict.
Before I cover the events of Eastern Europe, it is important to note unfolding events in the Low Countries. While the Burgundians had been ejected from Burgundy proper during the 1470s and 1480s, they still clung on in their northern possessions. Philip IV attempted to preserve himself via an alliance with Austria, but when this state unceremoniously collapsed under Hungarian assault, he was left without a patron. Reluctantly, he submitted to Paris, managing to secure an arrangement similar to that which the English had before the Hundred Years’ War, where he was recognized as King-in-the-Rhine-Mouths in vassalage to the King of France. Philip’s reign has been spent in a centralization effort that has stitched together the lands around the Mouths of the Rhine--
(Transmission Ended due to Data Overage)
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Try gacha, gachin or cosshing. Pretend you're impatient and not trying to pronounce things exactly.
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This was a pretty good update I have sum questions tho
1. Idk how many capadocian greeks are still living in Karamanid territory but the wikipedia article states that they still a large part of the rural part of capadocia during the ottoman conquest of the Karamanids so couldnt Alexandros try to get them to settle in Paphlagonia ?
2.Would Ottoman greeks and other ottoman christians make a huge part of the settlers because you only stated them in a footnote?
3. No Ottoman domination would result in no or less barbary corsairs if im not mistaken so southern Europe would be more populous.
4.Maybe Poland-Lithauania is the one that dominates sibiria and takes the place of Russia in ttl.
5.THE massacre of the Turkmen tribes in Azerbaijan means that Azerbaijan isnt as turkic as in ttl right?
1. Idk how many capadocian greeks are still living in Karamanid territory but the wikipedia article states that they still a large part of the rural part of capadocia during the ottoman conquest of the Karamanids so couldnt Alexandros try to get them to settle in Paphlagonia ?
2.Would Ottoman greeks and other ottoman christians make a huge part of the settlers because you only stated them in a footnote?
3. No Ottoman domination would result in no or less barbary corsairs if im not mistaken so southern Europe would be more populous.
4.Maybe Poland-Lithauania is the one that dominates sibiria and takes the place of Russia in ttl.
5.THE massacre of the Turkmen tribes in Azerbaijan means that Azerbaijan isnt as turkic as in ttl right?
Pretty neat update. Kind of like the idea that these alternate timelines are in a sort of multiverse. Also makes Me happy and think in other universes, People actively try to Byzantium alive
Damn looks like well have three states in the British isles, would be cool IMO if they unified in one way or another, in a sort of confederation
Interesting update. I like how the overview is a meta-update.
France seems much more powerful than OTL, especially since the Spanish and Habsburgs so far aren't as strong as OTL to oppose them. I imagine many countries surrounding France are getting nervous and would probably want to seek alliances with each other in case the French start getting ambitious like OTL. In fact with no stable dynasty as Holy roman emperor, the French king may want to claim that position. He certainly has enough money and influence to do so.
Result: War of the Grand Alliance two centuries early?
France seems much more powerful than OTL, especially since the Spanish and Habsburgs so far aren't as strong as OTL to oppose them. I imagine many countries surrounding France are getting nervous and would probably want to seek alliances with each other in case the French start getting ambitious like OTL. In fact with no stable dynasty as Holy roman emperor, the French king may want to claim that position. He certainly has enough money and influence to do so.
Result: War of the Grand Alliance two centuries early?
Eparkhos
Banned
1. There are a number of Kapadokioi, but I haven't decided how many yet. I think Alexandros would be best suited to leaving them be, actually, where they could act as a fifth column against the Karamanids
2. I'm afraid I don't quite understand. The Ottomans will essentially become Muslim Byzantines (ignore the oxymoron, please), if that's what you mean.
3. The Barbaries will get smacked down in TTL, as the events in Iberia should show.
4. The Russians will make a recovery, but it will be far more fractious and longer than in OTL. Right now, I'm just trying to give the Golden Horde breathing room.
5. I don't think I've mentioned anything about Azerbaijan, which part are you refering to?
Hey, maybe a group of rouge byzantophiles is why the Foundation was created?
A sort of greater Britain, perhaps?
The French are definitely going to get coalitoned soon, the only question is when. Bogislaw would be the more aggressive of the chief candidates, so if he prevails it will probably be sooner rather than later.
Anyone have any thoughts on the King-in-the-Rhine-Mouths? I'm not quite sure if I built it up properly.
A Global Overview, 1500 (Part II)
Eparkhos
Banned
Report on Timeline L-843 (II)
File One: A Global Overview (ii)
I must apologize for the abrupt end of yesterday’s transmission. Dr. Rosario had been uploading a scroll of Chinese poetry through the same connection and had neglected to inform me of this. Hence, I did not know to cut down the size of the transmission to prevent a data overflow, which was why the transmission was cut off so abruptly. I’ll try and pick up from where I left off, but some details about the Low Countries may have been cut off.
…
Central Europe in Timeline L-843 is dominated by the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, which as in our timeline have risen to the status of regional hegemons. It appears that John Hunyadi was elected King of Hungary in opposition to Ladislaus the Posthumous, and with the powers of the king he was able to repulse the Ottomans from Hungary, reducing Serbia to a subject in personal union and Wallachia and Bosnia to tributaries, forming a series of buffers with the Ottomans. After John’s death in 1467, he was succeded by his son, Ladislaus VI, who died without an heir in 1488. He, in turn, was succeeded by his brother and premier general, Matthew the Raven. Matthew crushed the Habsburgs following a failed attempt on their part to claim the throne, and reduced Styria and Austria proper to vassals, exiling the former emperors south to Carantia. This, along with his successful effort to claim the throne of Bohemia, left Matthew as the head of a great Central European powerhouse. Across the Carpathians, meanwhile, Poland is far less stable than in our timeline. A series of succession disputes have left Jan Olbracht with a difficult time administering outside of Krakow, while many of the local lords have effectively become sovereign rulers. On the far side of Poland, meanwhile, Lithuania is gripped in a civil war between Aleksander Jagellion and the partisans of Olbracht, the latter wanting a strong king to protect them and their lands from increasing Mongol encroachment. This speaks more to Aleksander’s incompetence than it does Jan Olbracht’s ability.
Further north, the State of the Teutonic Order has been expelled from their former holdings in Prussia, being exiled into their Livonian territories. Nonetheless, they are still a force to be reckoned with and have fought off several attempts to conquer them by the Danes and the Swedes. There is a growing movement of those who wish for the Order to transition to a more typical government form, as they feel that their current structure leaves them weak in the face of increasingly aggressive neighbors. The Hanseatic League is also still going strong, their merchants traveling as far afield as Bristol and Novogord, and Lübeck remains one of the power-houses of the north. However, they are far from the uncontested lords of the Baltic that they claim to be. John of Oldenburg still presides over a might Kalmar Union, which controls all of its analogous TL-1 territories as well as the Kola Peninsula, several small ports along the coast of Germany, and the Northern Islands, which were never gambled away in this timeline. His reign has seen an increase in the strength of the domestic economy and the expansion of foreign trade. In recent years, John has begun pushing for the re-opening of the old westward sailing routes, in hopes of establishing colonies to rival New England. However, these plans may soon be shelves, as he is growing old, and the succession of the three thrones is disputed between his sons Ernst, Christian and Jacob.
Further east, on the far shore of the Baltic, Russia is a madhouse. The Great Stand at the Ugra River went badly for the Muscovites, to say the least, and the rising duchy had her capital brutally sacked and then burned to the ground. In the ensuing power vacuum, the Russian principalities struggled for dominance, and after nearly two decades of chaos the dust has finally settled with three dominant powers. The first is a revived Novgorod, which has managed to regain control over much of its former territory and now fields one of the more formidable, albeit heavily mercenary, armies. Novgorod has established itself as the predominant power of northern Russia, with access to the all-important Baltic and White seas, which have made it very rich off its back of trade. To the south is Ryazan, one of the few states to have preserved its independence from the Muscovites, and was thus in a good position to profit from their loss. Anna of Ryazan, regentess of the principality, had spent several years campaigning against her neighboring principalities, which has allowed her to more than double the size of her realm. The Ryazantines also have the backing of the Golden Horde, whose khan, Ahmed Sultan, views them as the most pliable of his Russian vassals. Finally, there is Novgorod-Suzdal, the direct heir of Muscovy. After the sack of Moscow, one of the surviving Muscovite lords, Vasily the Pale, had marshalled the survivors and marched to his own personal fief, Nizhny Novgorod. With his capital here, he was able to reconstitute about half of Muscoy, presenting himself as the legitimate successor. Vasily is by far the most capable successor, but is beset by problems, chiefly that his realm is adjacent to the powerful Kazan Khanate, which means he can never turn his full attention to his domestic enemies. For now, the Russian states are in a period of uneasy detente, but this certainly won’t last.
On the steppe, the Golden Horde is still standing strong, having crushed and reincorporated the Nogai and Crimean Hordes as well as reduced the Russians to their previous thralldom. However, Ahmed Sultan’s prestige was serious damaged in 1495, when his invasion of Georgia ended with the disastrous Great Stand at Aleks’andretsikhe. In spite of this, he has managed to shore up his position, and is now posed to take advantage of the ongoing turmoil in Lithuania. Further north, Kazan is preparing to make inroads into Russia with the ongoing strife, while further to the east the Uzbek Khanate is rushing to fill in the void left by the collapse of the Nogais a few years previous. However, they are troubled by the activities of their breakaway Kazakh Khanate, who threatens their southern border in a way not unlike Novgorod-Suzdal and Kazan. Even further south, the Shaybanid Khanate has formed several years ahead of their TL-1 ethnogenesis, quickly taking control of most of the south-central steppe. They now pose a credible threat to the Timurids, and they may eventually displace them.
Turning back to Europe, the Balkans are quite interesting. In the 1460s, a successful crusade caused serious damage to the Ottomans, nearly succeeding in driving them out of Europe. However, entropy and a lack of coordination gave the Sublime Porte enough time to recover some of their ground, and they now are once again posed to invade Europe. However, a brewing conflict between the grand vizier, Mahmud Angelović Paşa, who is credited by many for the survival of their European territory, and the young and headstrong sultan, Mehmed III, may derail them into civil war once again. The primary enemy of the Ottomans are the Hungarians, who have absorbed Serbia, (Did I already say that? Eh, better safe than sorry) having defeated the Venetians in the 1480s. However, the Venetians still cling on in the Aegean, holding their Moreote ports, Crete, and many of the islands. Most of the southern mainland, i.e. the Peloponnese and Boeotia, is held by the Empire of the Morea, a Byzantine rump state that is ruled by the descendants of Thomas Palaiologos. I should note that in TL-843, Constantine XI died in the 1440s and instead Demetrios Palaiologos was killed with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Anyway, there are also a handful of surviving states in the Balkans. The Despotate of Thessaly is ruled by Mikhael Angelos, the half-brother of Angelović Paşa, and so he has been allowed to remain somewhat independent, albeit as a fairly loyal tributary. There are also the unstable and civil-war prone states of Epirus and Albania, which can barely be considered functioning states. Leonardo III Tocco is by now an exhausted and senile old man, but he failed to name a regent, and so the court factions of Arta are left to feud over who aught to rule for him until his death. None of these factions are able to exert control over the highlanders, either. The Albanians, meanwhile, are a schizophrenic mess. Skanderbeg died in 1486 without an heir, and since then there has never been a single, undisputed ruler. These have given the Ottomans the perfect opportunity to make inroads into the region, and neither state is likely to last.
Across the straits, Anatolia looks radically different. Some bad timing and foolish mistakes during the 1460s caused the collapse of Ottoman territory in Anatolia. The Karamanid Beyliks are now the chief Anatolian powers, dominating the plateau and everything east of the coastal mountains, making the Ottomans and ironic echo of the Komnenian Empire. The Karamanids are fairly powerful states, but remain decentralized and are thus unable to reach their full potential. There was formerly the Chandarid Beylik, but after double-crossing the Ottomans in the 1480s, they were unceremoniously destroyed and fled into exile in Mesopotamia. That leaves the only other state on the peninsula, the Trapezuntine Empire. A series of surprising victories since the 1440s have revitalized the Trapezuntine state, carving out a sizeable niche for themselves along the southern coast of the Black Sea. In the 1480s, a nearly-disastrous war with the Ottomans saw a siege of Trebizond itself and almost caused the destruction of the Empire, but the Trapezuntines were able to rally and managed to secure a white peace. Now, they are a fairly prosperous trading empire with allies in Georgia and Mesopotamia, but the emperor, Alexandros II, has begun to reach middle age, and issues of family and succession are becoming increasingly daunting.
In the Caucasus, things are almost identical to TL-1. The Georgians dominate the western half of the mountains, forming a strong bulwark of Orthodox Christendom in the region alongside the Trapezuntines, but they have little interest in expanding and are perfectly content sitting tight. This is because the rest of the region is dominated by the Qutlughid Empire, the successors of the Aq Qoyunlu horde. The Qutlughids extend from the Greater Caucasus all the way down to the Persian Gulf, as well as a good chunk of Persia and Mazandaran. They are a force to be reckoned with, the first self-proclaimed Persian Empire since the collapse of the Sassanians. While they are definitely a first-rate power, they are plagued with internal troubles, most notably religious difference between the intensely Sunni rulers and the religious mix that they rule over, as well as disputes between the remaining Turkmen nobles and the sedentary Arabs and Persians who make up the bulk of the population. However, they have strong leadership in the form of Arlsan II and his lieutenants, and the likelihood of these problems boiling over into civil war is unlikely.
The only independent state in Syria is the Third Chandarid Beylik, which is allowed to exist as a buffer zone between the Egyptian Mamluks and the Qutlughids. The Chandarids form a ruling class above the native Syrians, although the constant threat of being destroyed by their neighbors forces them to remain at least somewhat merciful towards their subjects.
In Africa, things are more or less as in our timeline. The Mamluks are still a major power, holding control over Libya, Egypt, Lower Syria and the Hejaz. Further west, the Hafsid ‘Caliphate’ rules over Tunisia and western Algeria, forming a regional power that is most notable for its patronage of the barbary corsairs. The Zayyanids are also a goodly-sized state, although they are unable to obtain the success of their eastern neighbors. Finally, there is Morocco, which is currently in the grasp of a civil war between the Wattasids and their various vassals, which does little but help the Iberians make inroads into the region.
I’m going to cut the transmission here, so I don’t cause another overflow. Hold on, please….
File One: A Global Overview (ii)
I must apologize for the abrupt end of yesterday’s transmission. Dr. Rosario had been uploading a scroll of Chinese poetry through the same connection and had neglected to inform me of this. Hence, I did not know to cut down the size of the transmission to prevent a data overflow, which was why the transmission was cut off so abruptly. I’ll try and pick up from where I left off, but some details about the Low Countries may have been cut off.
…
Central Europe in Timeline L-843 is dominated by the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, which as in our timeline have risen to the status of regional hegemons. It appears that John Hunyadi was elected King of Hungary in opposition to Ladislaus the Posthumous, and with the powers of the king he was able to repulse the Ottomans from Hungary, reducing Serbia to a subject in personal union and Wallachia and Bosnia to tributaries, forming a series of buffers with the Ottomans. After John’s death in 1467, he was succeded by his son, Ladislaus VI, who died without an heir in 1488. He, in turn, was succeeded by his brother and premier general, Matthew the Raven. Matthew crushed the Habsburgs following a failed attempt on their part to claim the throne, and reduced Styria and Austria proper to vassals, exiling the former emperors south to Carantia. This, along with his successful effort to claim the throne of Bohemia, left Matthew as the head of a great Central European powerhouse. Across the Carpathians, meanwhile, Poland is far less stable than in our timeline. A series of succession disputes have left Jan Olbracht with a difficult time administering outside of Krakow, while many of the local lords have effectively become sovereign rulers. On the far side of Poland, meanwhile, Lithuania is gripped in a civil war between Aleksander Jagellion and the partisans of Olbracht, the latter wanting a strong king to protect them and their lands from increasing Mongol encroachment. This speaks more to Aleksander’s incompetence than it does Jan Olbracht’s ability.
Further north, the State of the Teutonic Order has been expelled from their former holdings in Prussia, being exiled into their Livonian territories. Nonetheless, they are still a force to be reckoned with and have fought off several attempts to conquer them by the Danes and the Swedes. There is a growing movement of those who wish for the Order to transition to a more typical government form, as they feel that their current structure leaves them weak in the face of increasingly aggressive neighbors. The Hanseatic League is also still going strong, their merchants traveling as far afield as Bristol and Novogord, and Lübeck remains one of the power-houses of the north. However, they are far from the uncontested lords of the Baltic that they claim to be. John of Oldenburg still presides over a might Kalmar Union, which controls all of its analogous TL-1 territories as well as the Kola Peninsula, several small ports along the coast of Germany, and the Northern Islands, which were never gambled away in this timeline. His reign has seen an increase in the strength of the domestic economy and the expansion of foreign trade. In recent years, John has begun pushing for the re-opening of the old westward sailing routes, in hopes of establishing colonies to rival New England. However, these plans may soon be shelves, as he is growing old, and the succession of the three thrones is disputed between his sons Ernst, Christian and Jacob.
Further east, on the far shore of the Baltic, Russia is a madhouse. The Great Stand at the Ugra River went badly for the Muscovites, to say the least, and the rising duchy had her capital brutally sacked and then burned to the ground. In the ensuing power vacuum, the Russian principalities struggled for dominance, and after nearly two decades of chaos the dust has finally settled with three dominant powers. The first is a revived Novgorod, which has managed to regain control over much of its former territory and now fields one of the more formidable, albeit heavily mercenary, armies. Novgorod has established itself as the predominant power of northern Russia, with access to the all-important Baltic and White seas, which have made it very rich off its back of trade. To the south is Ryazan, one of the few states to have preserved its independence from the Muscovites, and was thus in a good position to profit from their loss. Anna of Ryazan, regentess of the principality, had spent several years campaigning against her neighboring principalities, which has allowed her to more than double the size of her realm. The Ryazantines also have the backing of the Golden Horde, whose khan, Ahmed Sultan, views them as the most pliable of his Russian vassals. Finally, there is Novgorod-Suzdal, the direct heir of Muscovy. After the sack of Moscow, one of the surviving Muscovite lords, Vasily the Pale, had marshalled the survivors and marched to his own personal fief, Nizhny Novgorod. With his capital here, he was able to reconstitute about half of Muscoy, presenting himself as the legitimate successor. Vasily is by far the most capable successor, but is beset by problems, chiefly that his realm is adjacent to the powerful Kazan Khanate, which means he can never turn his full attention to his domestic enemies. For now, the Russian states are in a period of uneasy detente, but this certainly won’t last.
On the steppe, the Golden Horde is still standing strong, having crushed and reincorporated the Nogai and Crimean Hordes as well as reduced the Russians to their previous thralldom. However, Ahmed Sultan’s prestige was serious damaged in 1495, when his invasion of Georgia ended with the disastrous Great Stand at Aleks’andretsikhe. In spite of this, he has managed to shore up his position, and is now posed to take advantage of the ongoing turmoil in Lithuania. Further north, Kazan is preparing to make inroads into Russia with the ongoing strife, while further to the east the Uzbek Khanate is rushing to fill in the void left by the collapse of the Nogais a few years previous. However, they are troubled by the activities of their breakaway Kazakh Khanate, who threatens their southern border in a way not unlike Novgorod-Suzdal and Kazan. Even further south, the Shaybanid Khanate has formed several years ahead of their TL-1 ethnogenesis, quickly taking control of most of the south-central steppe. They now pose a credible threat to the Timurids, and they may eventually displace them.
Turning back to Europe, the Balkans are quite interesting. In the 1460s, a successful crusade caused serious damage to the Ottomans, nearly succeeding in driving them out of Europe. However, entropy and a lack of coordination gave the Sublime Porte enough time to recover some of their ground, and they now are once again posed to invade Europe. However, a brewing conflict between the grand vizier, Mahmud Angelović Paşa, who is credited by many for the survival of their European territory, and the young and headstrong sultan, Mehmed III, may derail them into civil war once again. The primary enemy of the Ottomans are the Hungarians, who have absorbed Serbia, (Did I already say that? Eh, better safe than sorry) having defeated the Venetians in the 1480s. However, the Venetians still cling on in the Aegean, holding their Moreote ports, Crete, and many of the islands. Most of the southern mainland, i.e. the Peloponnese and Boeotia, is held by the Empire of the Morea, a Byzantine rump state that is ruled by the descendants of Thomas Palaiologos. I should note that in TL-843, Constantine XI died in the 1440s and instead Demetrios Palaiologos was killed with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Anyway, there are also a handful of surviving states in the Balkans. The Despotate of Thessaly is ruled by Mikhael Angelos, the half-brother of Angelović Paşa, and so he has been allowed to remain somewhat independent, albeit as a fairly loyal tributary. There are also the unstable and civil-war prone states of Epirus and Albania, which can barely be considered functioning states. Leonardo III Tocco is by now an exhausted and senile old man, but he failed to name a regent, and so the court factions of Arta are left to feud over who aught to rule for him until his death. None of these factions are able to exert control over the highlanders, either. The Albanians, meanwhile, are a schizophrenic mess. Skanderbeg died in 1486 without an heir, and since then there has never been a single, undisputed ruler. These have given the Ottomans the perfect opportunity to make inroads into the region, and neither state is likely to last.
Across the straits, Anatolia looks radically different. Some bad timing and foolish mistakes during the 1460s caused the collapse of Ottoman territory in Anatolia. The Karamanid Beyliks are now the chief Anatolian powers, dominating the plateau and everything east of the coastal mountains, making the Ottomans and ironic echo of the Komnenian Empire. The Karamanids are fairly powerful states, but remain decentralized and are thus unable to reach their full potential. There was formerly the Chandarid Beylik, but after double-crossing the Ottomans in the 1480s, they were unceremoniously destroyed and fled into exile in Mesopotamia. That leaves the only other state on the peninsula, the Trapezuntine Empire. A series of surprising victories since the 1440s have revitalized the Trapezuntine state, carving out a sizeable niche for themselves along the southern coast of the Black Sea. In the 1480s, a nearly-disastrous war with the Ottomans saw a siege of Trebizond itself and almost caused the destruction of the Empire, but the Trapezuntines were able to rally and managed to secure a white peace. Now, they are a fairly prosperous trading empire with allies in Georgia and Mesopotamia, but the emperor, Alexandros II, has begun to reach middle age, and issues of family and succession are becoming increasingly daunting.
In the Caucasus, things are almost identical to TL-1. The Georgians dominate the western half of the mountains, forming a strong bulwark of Orthodox Christendom in the region alongside the Trapezuntines, but they have little interest in expanding and are perfectly content sitting tight. This is because the rest of the region is dominated by the Qutlughid Empire, the successors of the Aq Qoyunlu horde. The Qutlughids extend from the Greater Caucasus all the way down to the Persian Gulf, as well as a good chunk of Persia and Mazandaran. They are a force to be reckoned with, the first self-proclaimed Persian Empire since the collapse of the Sassanians. While they are definitely a first-rate power, they are plagued with internal troubles, most notably religious difference between the intensely Sunni rulers and the religious mix that they rule over, as well as disputes between the remaining Turkmen nobles and the sedentary Arabs and Persians who make up the bulk of the population. However, they have strong leadership in the form of Arlsan II and his lieutenants, and the likelihood of these problems boiling over into civil war is unlikely.
The only independent state in Syria is the Third Chandarid Beylik, which is allowed to exist as a buffer zone between the Egyptian Mamluks and the Qutlughids. The Chandarids form a ruling class above the native Syrians, although the constant threat of being destroyed by their neighbors forces them to remain at least somewhat merciful towards their subjects.
In Africa, things are more or less as in our timeline. The Mamluks are still a major power, holding control over Libya, Egypt, Lower Syria and the Hejaz. Further west, the Hafsid ‘Caliphate’ rules over Tunisia and western Algeria, forming a regional power that is most notable for its patronage of the barbary corsairs. The Zayyanids are also a goodly-sized state, although they are unable to obtain the success of their eastern neighbors. Finally, there is Morocco, which is currently in the grasp of a civil war between the Wattasids and their various vassals, which does little but help the Iberians make inroads into the region.
I’m going to cut the transmission here, so I don’t cause another overflow. Hold on, please….
Just a suggestion, but could 'King in the Netherlands' be an alternative title? I don't know if 'Netherlands' was in common usage at the time, but King-in-the-Rhine-Mouths sounds a bit odd to me.
How about ''Lord of the lowlands'' or "king of the lowlands''
because ''netherlands'' translates to ''nederland'' which means something like ''lowland''
- Status