AH Challenge: Wipe out the Celtics

With a POD after 0 AD, how can you have the Celtics be wiped out? I'm talking no Scotland, no Ireland, no Wales, etc.
 
Boston never participates in the NBA?

In seriousness, I think your best bet would be cultural assimilation. Have the Western Roman Empire fall faster and harder and maybe a few more Germanic tribes migrate to the British Isles. Over time they'll displace the Celts through expansion and frequent warfare.
 
Boston never participates in the NBA?

In seriousness, I think your best bet would be cultural assimilation. Have the Western Roman Empire fall faster and harder and maybe a few more Germanic tribes migrate to the British Isles. Over time they'll displace the Celts through expansion and frequent warfare.

Assimilation was what I thought too.

How would the British Isles turn out with no celts?
 
Bah easy challenge :)

In 43 AD, Rome pushed into Pictish territory on the mainland.
By 300 AD they were fighting on the north side of what would, one day, by Northumbria in Britain.

At a decisive victory north of Aberdeen, the then Emperor, in a fit of whimsy, pulled the legions back (might have been a threat on the east perhaps? you know, around 400 AD? Or it might have been a political move, the general was gaining too much popularity with victories) and had built what we know of as Hadrians Wall to defend the settled/claimed Briton territory. It didn't work, and the Empire was well away into decline.

So push the romans on without cessation, let 'em practice their genocide like they did against the picts. They would have pushed up through the resettled Picts (from the 43 push), on into Alba, then west into Ireland. This greatly sets back cultural development in the area for the Scotii (of the Alba), the remnant Picts, and the Britons. Ireland is even more devastated when the legions march across it and commit genocide on the stubborn inhabitants who can't match their military technology.

The rapid fall, made harder in TTL, of Rome (450-600 range) leaving power vacuums behind it, and a slightly faster flux of gold and technology into the Scandinavian regions (Germanic loot trading northward) cause a faster/harder viking era, resulting in a Scandinavian or Nordic or Danish (or a mix) culture across the British Isles, with the Celts rapidly being subsumed into Christian Northlands cultures.



However, if you're familiar with origins of the various peoples across all of West Europe... well, the Scandinavians are of Celtic descent as well :( -- baring the eastern most goths & Finns, or the southernmost Mediterraneans.

I guess you could have an Egypt rise in power in to match Romes decline?
Or a reclamation by the Byzantine turned Muslim? they take all of Europe?

Can't think of much any other way to do it, given the wide wide spread of the Celtic descended tribes, but the TL I overviewed above would certainly kill the culture.
 
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Have the Nazis take over Europe, then somewhere down the line, as they get more radical, decide Celts are an inferior race.
BAM! No Celts!
 
With a POD after 0 AD, how can you have the Celtics be wiped out? I'm talking no Scotland, no Ireland, no Wales, etc.

FYI, it's typically Celts, not Celtics.

The rapid fall, made harder in TTL, of Rome (450-600 range) leaving power vacuums behind it, and a slightly faster flux of gold and technology into the Scandinavian regions (Germanic loot trading northward) cause a faster/harder viking era, resulting in a Scandinavian or Nordic or Danish (or a mix) culture across the British Isles, with the Celts rapidly being subsumed into Christian Northlands cultures.

But you repeat yourself.

However, if you're familiar with origins of the various peoples across all of West Europe... well, the Scandinavians are of Celtic descent as well :( -- baring the eastern most goths & Finns, or the southernmost Mediterraneans.

Er... what? That first sentence, and by extension the second, is pretty much entirely wrong. Also, Mediterraneans? :confused:
 
Have the Nazis take over Europe, then somewhere down the line, as they get more radical, decide Celts are an inferior race.
BAM! No Celts!

Winner. In all other scenarios, the Celts get assimilated. In this, the Celts go the way of the Polish Jews.

Though, when I first saw the title of the thread, I thought the OP meant the NBA Celtics...in which case the first proposal wins, since all of the others are off-topic.
 
Have the Nazis take over Europe, then somewhere down the line, as they get more radical, decide Celts are an inferior race.
BAM! No Celts!

How would they tell who was or wasn't a Celt? Many Celtic people are mixed with other ethnicities. That's not to mention the fact that there's no Celtic look that's written in stone, and people traveled back and forth across the Irish Sea. If the Nazis went after the Celts, it likely would be "bam!, no Nazis".
 
FYI, it's typically Celts, not Celtics.
Er... what? That first sentence, and by extension the second, is pretty much entirely wrong. Also, Mediterraneans? :confused:

1) Vikings were Norse, Swedish, or Danish.
That's Norway, Sweden, and Denmark respectively. Each was a distinct culture.
Each culture can be traced back to heavy celtic influence and DNA.

2) Most maps of the heights of Celtic (or Hallstadt Culture IIRC) influence show all of west Europe & most of C. Europe under Celtic sway, and that's around 5-300 BC. I still love the fact that they sacked Rome back in its beginnings.

Celts are descended from Turks that were named Keltoi by the Greeks, and they spread west and North throughout Europe, as evidenced by DNA claims.

If you're still thinking I'm wrong, I'd love to see some references to your sources? I'm always looking for more research material.


As for wiping them out, the Nazi trick seems to work... although they would have to take out England & Ireland. There's a TL in the ASB section about a Stargate/Hitler crossover where this eventually happens :)
 
1) Vikings were Norse, Swedish, or Danish.
That's Norway, Sweden, and Denmark respectively. Each was a distinct culture.
Each culture can be traced back to heavy celtic influence and DNA.

2) Most maps of the heights of Celtic (or Hallstadt Culture IIRC) influence show all of west Europe & most of C. Europe under Celtic sway, and that's around 5-300 BC. I still love the fact that they sacked Rome back in its beginnings.

Celts are descended from Turks that were named Keltoi by the Greeks, and they spread west and North throughout Europe, as evidenced by DNA claims.

If you're still thinking I'm wrong, I'd love to see some references to your sources? I'm always looking for more research material.


As for wiping them out, the Nazi trick seems to work... although they would have to take out England & Ireland. There's a TL in the ASB section about a Stargate/Hitler crossover where this eventually happens :)

I suggest you look up history and genetic studies because there is so much you said that is plain wrong.
 
At some point in time during the Roman occupation get an Emperor to indulge in mass population transfers of some kind. I don't necessarily mean a Turkish/Greek swap, but perhaps something along the lines of "In AD 100 Emperor Bob settled 20,000 discontented Egyptians in the town of Newcastle. After a rebellion by the Welsh in AD 110 his successor, Emperor Bruce settled a further 10,000 Phonecians next to the stadium in Cardiff".

Either way and silliness aside, enough to make Roman Britain far less Roman-Celt and more of a melting pot. Then we'd end up with a sufficiently different population mix
 

67th Tigers

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I suggest you look up history and genetic studies because there is so much you said that is plain wrong.

No he isn't.

The "Celts" of Britain and Ireland are not actually Celts. They're a separate "British" race. Celtic culture dominated Europe in the way "western" culture dominates it now.
 
No he isn't.

The "Celts" of Britain and Ireland are not actually Celts. They're a separate "British" race. Celtic culture dominated Europe in the way "western" culture dominates it now.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

I was highlighting that Scandinavians aren't Celtic derived (his 1st claim) and that the Keltoi are not Turks (his 3rd claim)
 
It's true there's no such thing as a "celtic race." Continental Celtic languages were only loosely related to insular ones. Everyone in the British Isles is predominantly descended from the first paleolithic groups which settled the area, whether a "Celt" or a "Saxon." It now looks like some time in late prehistory (before there was a written account, maybe during the Bronze Age), groups of Celtic-speaking peoples migrated from the mainland (probably Spain), and imposed their language in some manner.

Therefore, all you have to do to wipe out Celts is to wipe out all Celtic languages. It would seem damn easy to do in a TL very similar to OTL, given if not for the Welsh revival the Celtic languages would all be dead or dying today. You'd just need France and Britain to have slightly more assimilationist policies.

Alternatively, if you stop settlement of Britain by the Celts entirely, you'd end up with some mixture of Proto-Indo European and Germanic languages, with maybe a romance language spoken somewhere in Southern Britain depending upon how heavy Roman influence was.
 
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

I was highlighting that Scandinavians aren't Celtic derived (his 1st claim) and that the Keltoi are not Turks (his 3rd claim)


Really don't wish to get into culture vs the races of Celts, vs the genetics.

But my first claim that Scandinavians are Celtic descended stands as proven in genetics. You can trace the lineage back.

However, the main reason I wished to post was to state, for the record, I never said the Keltoi are not Turks... I said they were descended from them genetically, although I wonder if Turks is the right word? They came from where Turks are today, before the area was known as Turkish in any sense of the word.

There was a race the Greeks called Keltoi who retreated over the mountains into Europe. They developed into 3 distinct groupings that we use today to refer to, one of them being insular.


I'll admit I have a tendency to free form ramble/babble - but it's often based on reality and/or recent research that I've dug up from scholarly hobbit holes - not invented wholesale ( I do that in my writing of TL's )

Hence my request for references, as I would gladly meet any such statement of references with other references for a mutual discussion.



I will not engage in ad hominem debates, and I try to stay clear of straw man arguements or arguements of authority.




Any, on the OT, several very good ideas for wiping out Celts (Briton & Irish & presumably Scottish variants) have been suggested. Will there be a TL written around here illustrating this?
 
1) Vikings were Norse, Swedish, or Danish.
That's Norway, Sweden, and Denmark respectively. Each was a distinct culture.

Err... No, not really. Even today, Scandinavian languages and cultures aren't all that distinct and back then folks tended to mostly just call them Danes or Northmen, regardless of origin. Likewise, their language was known as the dansk tunga, that is, Danish tongue.

Each culture can be traced back to heavy celtic influence and DNA.

Well, seeing as there is no such thing as 'celtic DNA' your supposition here seems to be false. Also, I'd like distinct examples of Celtic influence on Scandinavian culture.

2) Most maps of the heights of Celtic (or Hallstadt Culture IIRC) influence show all of west Europe & most of C. Europe under Celtic sway, and that's around 5-300 BC. I still love the fact that they sacked Rome back in its beginnings.

Eh... Kinda sorta. France, Britain and Ireland were entirely Celtic (Except perhaps the Picts, but my money's on them being Celts as well), Spain was semi-Celticised at this point and southern Germany, which was the Halstatt heartland, was obviously quite Celtic in that time.

Also, the Senones didn't so much sack Rome as hold it hostage over a breach of international law. They'd attacked or been attacked by, I don't recall which, an Etruscan town. The Roman ambassadors to the town joined in on the Etruscan side, something even many Romans acknowledged as unseemly, but they were from a 'good family' so there wasn't much that could be done, politically speaking.

The Senone, under Brennus, then set off south, beat a couple of Roman armies, took over Urbs Roma itself, apart from (IIRC) the Capitoline Hill and hung out for a few months.

Celts are descended from Turks that were named Keltoi by the Greeks, and they spread west and North throughout Europe, as evidenced by DNA claims.

You've got this quite ass-backwards, frankly. Celts spread from those areas I mentioned above into northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul), the Balkans and, eventually, into the part of what is now Turkey then known as Galatia.

If you're still thinking I'm wrong, I'd love to see some references to your sources? I'm always looking for more research material.

Well, for basic stuff, which you dearly need, Ellis tends to be satisfactory. Or, fuck, Wikipedia is better than whatever you've been imbibing.
 
It's true there's no such thing as a "celtic race." Continental Celtic languages were only loosely related to insular ones. Everyone in the British Isles is predominantly descended from the first paleolithic groups which settled the area, whether a "Celt" or a "Saxon." It now looks like some time in late prehistory (before there was a written account, maybe during the Bronze Age), groups of Celtic-speaking peoples migrated from the mainland (probably Spain), and imposed their language in some manner.

Therefore, all you have to do to wipe out Celts is to wipe out all Celtic languages. It would seem damn easy to do in a TL very similar to OTL, given if not for the Welsh revival the Celtic languages would all be dead or dying today. You'd just need France and Britain to have slightly more assimilationist policies.

Alternatively, if you stop settlement of Britain by the Celts entirely, you'd end up with some mixture of Proto-Indo European and Germanic languages, with maybe a romance language spoken somewhere in Southern Britain depending upon how heavy Roman influence was.

The confusion that Celts bring forth is understandable, so I would recommend Eschaton's post as a reference. People tend to confuse culture and language with ethnicity when it comes to all things Celtic. The only minor point of disagreement that I have is on the matter of the Saxons. Their genetic legacy can be found in the individuals who live in the southeastern areas, such as Kent.
 
Easy. Have the Romans do to whatever parts of Britannia [and Hibernia] they didn't get to what they did to Dacia. Deport most of the native population and bring in Roman colonists to re-populate the province.
 
Celts are descended from Turks that were named Keltoi by the Greeks, and they spread west and North throughout Europe, as evidenced by DNA claims.

If you're still thinking I'm wrong, I'd love to see some references to your sources? I'm always looking for more research material.

Are you referring to the Galatians? They were Celts, not Turks. They weren't of the same ethnicity as the people who are or were called Turks in the past or present. BTW, Scandinavians are not Celts. "Celts' DNA" can be found in Scandinavian areas due to slaves who came from Ireland.
 
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