Recent content by Hecatee

I'd love to give your guys a budget to actually build this super 100% hindsight P-38 plane, a pity I don't have the money ! You are really nuts (and bolts) in a good way :) but this makes for fascinating reading even for a non engineer guy like me

Thanks a lot for the long ride :)

quarantine was known and existed in antiquity, you find it in the old testament but also in hypocratic writings which are the one actually proposing a period of 40 days, 40 being said "quarante" in French, "quaranta" in Italian, where some of the earlier medieval quarantine rules were taken

Hard to say as such plagues are now known to have often been linked to climatic events that caused animals in Asia to cause the plague's diffusion to humans... Now it is also true that no mass legionary movements in the eastern part of the empire around the 160's might have limited or slowed the...

I would think that the fact Poland would have one border less to defend, gain more sea access (so no possibility to cut them from it by just taking Dantzig), and have a compensation for any land lost to Russia which is a nicely fortified area would all make it interesting for everyone but the...

I could see East Prussia go fully to Poland, as a kind of compensation for Staline's "acquisitions", this would make a much simpler world after the fall of the USSR...

My way of looking at thinks is all about logistics. There is a very good set of maps at Orbis (https://orbis.stanford.edu/) under "gallery" that shows that the limits of the Roman empire are linked to travel time from Rome. Mesopotamia was just too far from where every limit in the empire was...

First : thanks for the kind words on my old TL's :) Now to your questions. - Trajan's succession : a big question is who did actually choose Hadrian ? It seems to have be mainly the women around Trajan that choose him : it was set up through wedding and politicking years ahead, and still took...

I'll PM you

Actually I'm doing my PhD on technothrillers and Clancy's "origin story" is probably more complex that you'd expect... I've probably found half a novel with another author's name on the cover which may have been written by Clancy, and that other author had the means to make Clancy edited and...

Someone summoned me ? :) Before we talk empire and Greece we have to look at demographics : - Thebes never managed to dominate outside of Boeotia, even under Epaminondas when they beat the Spartans : they first managed to gain their autonomy thanks to Athens' support, and then had only a...

Actually she might well have to take out her rationing book at this early a date : products such as butter were still rationed in the 50's according to my grandma's memories, the Belgians comming like her to France for their hollidays often brought products such as butter to gift to local friends

Given the amount of forces Athens brought to bear and the sheer lack of organization the sources describe on the Syracusan part before the arrival of the Spartan commander, I do believe a more dynamic approach led by Alcibiades might well have worked. But I don't see them doing a straight up...

With the West being further East than OTL, how much % more of the German tech base have they been able to get ? Or deny to the soviet ? For instance will the soviet have enough for the Mig-17 or modern submarines ? Or to help their rocket program ?

On the other hand a stronger ERE at the end of Justinian's rule thanks to no Italian campaign means that there might be enough ressources to more decisively and more quickly defeat the Persians, the two foes not being so equally well matched. This in turn changes the dynamic of the Arab...