Well, I still need to flesh out the "TL" properly. The Byzantines and the Ottomans DO have emperors, but I still have to decide if I want places like the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and France to also be ruled by Emperors... I'll change it for now. Thanks mate.We never called the British Empire the Britse Keizerrijk.
IOW, unless there's an actual emperor (keizer), the Dutch word keizerrijk is an incorrect translation of the English word empire.
It should just be Rijk.
Same is true for German, BTW.
Roman Empire -> Römisches Reich.
Kept moving East, I think you mean? When does this TL diverge from OTL, or do map telephone games keep that sort of thing really loosey-goosey?
Very loosey-goosey.
I thought it's well established that everything Stirling has written is ASB.It really requires a pretty early POD to work: given relative population densities, even with P di Ci's 1300 BC POD [1] migrating indo-Europeans overrunning the yellow river civilization and doing unto their language what the Anglo-Saxons did to the Celts and Romano-Britains seems a bit iffy. Of course, this did not prevent SM Stirling from having this happen as a mere butterfly from a lasting Alexandrian Empire [2] during the Warring States period, at which time China _already_ had something like 1/4-1/5 the population of the globe and said Warring States were mobilizing more troops than anywhere else on Earth. (But then SM Stirling has always been an alternate history Edgelord.)
(Yes, thank to previous exposure to the Stirlingoccocus, this scenario is a bit triggery for me, for which I apologize)
[1] The earliest census we have is a 1000 BC or thereabouts Zhuo one of some 14 million: how accurate or even exactly what and who was being counted is uncertain, but it at least makes it clear we're talking about already pretty dense agricultural populations, at least by 1000 BC standards.
[2] "Conquistador"
If even an early conquest of China is implausible, what about the converse - what could be done to preserve the Harappans? An Indo-European warlord deciding to move into Central Asia instead?It really requires a pretty early POD to work: given relative population densities, even with P di Ci's 1300 BC POD [1] migrating indo-Europeans overrunning the yellow river civilization and doing unto their language what the Anglo-Saxons did to the Celts and Romano-Britains seems a bit iffy. Of course, this did not prevent SM Stirling from having this happen as a mere butterfly from a lasting Alexandrian Empire [2] during the Warring States period, at which time China _already_ had something like 1/4-1/5 the population of the globe and said Warring States were mobilizing more troops than anywhere else on Earth. (But then SM Stirling has always been an alternate history Edgelord.)
(Yes, thank to previous exposure to the Stirlingoccocus, this scenario is a bit triggery for me, for which I apologize)
[1] The earliest census we have is a 1000 BC or thereabouts Zhuo one of some 14 million: how accurate or even exactly what and who was being counted is uncertain, but it at least makes it clear we're talking about already pretty dense agricultural populations, at least by 1000 BC standards.
[2] "Conquistador"
So what are politics like in the TTL United States?Hello, everyone! It's been a long time since I posted a map, and even longer since I posted a vector map, so I thought I'd try getting back into the swing of it. I didn't sink a lot of effort into the lore (a recurring theme in my maps), but that was sorta beside the point. I've been busy with work over the past few months, and I wanted something to take my mind off it. I started off making a map of a United States where all the states that had western claims after the Revolution didn't have any, and all those that didn't did. That spiraled into a British/Spanish wank, which evolved into the map below.
With the British holding onto the South and seizing the West Coast, and the Spanish holding onto some of Luisiana, the United States lacks much of its OTL territory, but a war between the US and Britain ended in the US forcing them to cede much of Western Canada. In the aftermath, Manitoulin Island falls into geopolitical limbo and becomes a sort of Canadian Transnistria. As a result, Canada is severely reduced, and Britain's western territories become a separate nation, which calls itself Pacifica. Elsewhere, in the South, the British kept some of the original native territory around as protectorates and buffer states, which were creatively named East Indiana and West Indiana. Instead of successfully revolting against Spanish rule, Mexico takes a route much like OTL Canada, gradually getting more autonomy and separating from Spain in the 20th century with most of Central America under its control.
If even an early conquest of China is implausible, what about the converse - what could be done to preserve the Harappans? An Indo-European warlord deciding to move into Central Asia instead?
Hello, everyone! It's been a long time since I posted a map, and even longer since I posted a vector map, so I thought I'd try getting back into the swing of it. I didn't sink a lot of effort into the lore (a recurring theme in my maps), but that was sorta beside the point. I've been busy with work over the past few months, and I wanted something to take my mind off it. I started off making a map of a United States where all the states that had western claims after the Revolution didn't have any, and all those that didn't did. That spiraled into a British/Spanish wank, which evolved into the map below.
With the British holding onto the South and seizing the West Coast, and the Spanish holding onto some of Luisiana, the United States lacks much of its OTL territory, but a war between the US and Britain ended in the US forcing them to cede much of Western Canada. In the aftermath, Manitoulin Island falls into geopolitical limbo and becomes a sort of Canadian Transnistria. As a result, Canada is severely reduced, and Britain's western territories become a separate nation, which calls itself Pacifica. Elsewhere, in the South, the British kept some of the original native territory around as protectorates and buffer states, which were creatively named East Indiana and West Indiana. Instead of successfully revolting against Spanish rule, Mexico takes a route much like OTL Canada, gradually getting more autonomy and separating from Spain in the 20th century with most of Central America under its control.
I believe "the converse" means "instead of thinking about the Indo-Europeans conquering a civilization they didn't IOTL, think about them not taking over a civilization they did IOTL".I'm not saying an early conquest of China is impossible, given an invasion during a time of weak and fragmented government [1] - other steppe folk managed it on multiple occasions (although it got easier after the move from chariots to fulltime horseback riding, and the development of the stirrup and improved bows substantially increased the mobility and lethality of nomadic armies) - it's the cultural replacement which is the problem. I can see a Tocharian takeover of China during an anarchic period, but what would happen would be the historical norm in the case - the conquered become rather more Chinese than the Chinese become the invaders. Of course, the establishment of a *Yuezhi dynasty in 1300 BC so butterflies Chinese history that the place would be unrecognizable nowadays, but that's not the same as the yellow river basin becoming Indo-European.
(And what for the love of Philip Guedalla do the Harappans have to do with this? They're the Indus river civilization, not the Tarim basin one, and are generally not considered to have been Indo-European speakers.)
[1] I may seem to be contradicting myself, but while China was certainly fragmented during the Warring States period, the major players were hardly weak states.
I believe "the converse" means "instead of thinking about the Indo-Europeans conquering a civilization they didn't IOTL, think about them not taking over a civilization they did IOTL".
Are the Yue meant to be *Vietnamese or South Chinese here? The original scenario made them South Chinese but it probably makes sense for them to be *Vietnamese here.
In this world, an Indo-European group related to the Tocharians kept moving east and settled in OTL China, establishing new states and empires. Based on Prince di Corsica's "The Land of Pyramids and Redheads". First map in the Telephone Map Game: 10th Edition.
unrealistic, but basedView attachment 701577View attachment 701580
Heya, I'm back after a couple of pages, have these two Vietnam maps. (Just like the original series this is inspired by, some nations will have multiple maps)