Okedokee: a world where The Hindu states of India avoided getting that "sea travel contaminates you" meme and eventually developed a more nuanced approach to the caste thing (although Untouchables are still in the sh*t). Islam is forestalled by a heretical offshoot of Judaism that is less successful at spreading outside the Arabian peninsula. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Pope gets squashed by stronger western Emperors and ceasaropapism in in like Flynn, only for the Mega-HRE to attract *Mongol invaders who find it a jucier-looking target than OTL's western Europe.
The Hindu Indians had their Age of Discovery, picked up the printing press and proper paper-making from the Chinese, and had their version of the Scientific Revolution, albiet a rather different animal from the OTL European one. A dominant and outward-looking India made Hinduism a religion of conversion, although its more about getting your Karma right than specifics of the number of arms or noses of God.
Technology is roughly 1930s, and things are a bit dieselpunk, with dirigibles, propellor aircraft, big-ass battleships, and lots of trains. (Television has recently arrived, and the Hindus are already making big-budget musical numbers
)
India is of course seen as the Center of Civilization, although Hindu Indonesia and SE Asia is comparably advanced, as are some of their overseas colonies and settlements. The Persians, whose autocratic state (which does have an efficient test-taking bureaucracy, copied from the Chinese model) has managed to (mostly) keep up technologically through centuries of warfare, are developed enough to be considered "semi-civilized", as are the Chinese, who have recently had a revolution in which a modernizing militarist regime has taken over.
The Ishamelites Iudeans (to be distingushed from the Isaachite Iudeans, which form scattered populations in the Zarathustran and Hindu lands) are barbarians (that is a Greek-derived word, but the Indians have come up with their own terms of contempt for foreigners), as are the Christian Europeans, most of which live under either outright theocracies (the "protestant" antions arising from the ejection of the *Mongols) or absolutist ("catholic") monarchies with the church in their back pocket. Europeans were largely stuck in the 16th century sans a renaissance, but had enough organization and guns that, combined with their geographical distance, the Indians largely left them alone until the era of steam and rapid-firing guns arrived: the last century has been rather traumatic for the Europeans and their fellow Christians in North Africa ( a generally more easy-going bunch).
Several large Indian and Indonesian colonies have been established in the Americas, although Northeast America was distant enough and poor enough to have largely been left alone until fairly recently, allowing local Indians time to develop enough immunities to have a fighting chance, although they are further bedeviled by adventurous Europeans seeking their fortune and land in the mysterious "devil-worshippers continent" to the west. The Kechwana Empire, a former Indonesian colony, is unified under a new religion arising from a hybridization of Hindu and native Andean beliefs, and having kicked out their former colonial masters, are busy modernizing and have a acquisitive eye on still-Indonesian ("Yahyva") territories to the north and south.
Bruce
The Hindu Indians had their Age of Discovery, picked up the printing press and proper paper-making from the Chinese, and had their version of the Scientific Revolution, albiet a rather different animal from the OTL European one. A dominant and outward-looking India made Hinduism a religion of conversion, although its more about getting your Karma right than specifics of the number of arms or noses of God.
Technology is roughly 1930s, and things are a bit dieselpunk, with dirigibles, propellor aircraft, big-ass battleships, and lots of trains. (Television has recently arrived, and the Hindus are already making big-budget musical numbers
)India is of course seen as the Center of Civilization, although Hindu Indonesia and SE Asia is comparably advanced, as are some of their overseas colonies and settlements. The Persians, whose autocratic state (which does have an efficient test-taking bureaucracy, copied from the Chinese model) has managed to (mostly) keep up technologically through centuries of warfare, are developed enough to be considered "semi-civilized", as are the Chinese, who have recently had a revolution in which a modernizing militarist regime has taken over.
The Ishamelites Iudeans (to be distingushed from the Isaachite Iudeans, which form scattered populations in the Zarathustran and Hindu lands) are barbarians (that is a Greek-derived word, but the Indians have come up with their own terms of contempt for foreigners), as are the Christian Europeans, most of which live under either outright theocracies (the "protestant" antions arising from the ejection of the *Mongols) or absolutist ("catholic") monarchies with the church in their back pocket. Europeans were largely stuck in the 16th century sans a renaissance, but had enough organization and guns that, combined with their geographical distance, the Indians largely left them alone until the era of steam and rapid-firing guns arrived: the last century has been rather traumatic for the Europeans and their fellow Christians in North Africa ( a generally more easy-going bunch).
Several large Indian and Indonesian colonies have been established in the Americas, although Northeast America was distant enough and poor enough to have largely been left alone until fairly recently, allowing local Indians time to develop enough immunities to have a fighting chance, although they are further bedeviled by adventurous Europeans seeking their fortune and land in the mysterious "devil-worshippers continent" to the west. The Kechwana Empire, a former Indonesian colony, is unified under a new religion arising from a hybridization of Hindu and native Andean beliefs, and having kicked out their former colonial masters, are busy modernizing and have a acquisitive eye on still-Indonesian ("Yahyva") territories to the north and south.
Bruce
