In all fairness more than half of Indonesia's population lives in java which is likely to stay under the control of Mataram but that could always change
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
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Evilprodigy
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Guys it's already been stated that there's a new conception of Empire ITTL. Empire will be more analogous to supranational unions like the Commonwealth, EU, CIS, etc. than to a single coherent 'state' as we perceive it. Indonesia, Malaya, Philippines, and all other colonies or despotates would be independent countries in supranational union. So while yes Rhomans will probably enjoy satay the largest city in Rhomania is going to be in the Mediterranean Basin, not SE Asia, since those will be independent states closely aligned with others that share historic ties.
Vince
Monthly Donor
I can't for the life of me remember which specific islands go with which empire in this TL. It's been a long time since I played EU3 and 4 so I pretty much forget much of the smaller islands as well.
I'm still interested in a concept where a system akin to the Imperial Federation could be established in the Roman world, where the Empire from Hellas to Heraklia would be separated into federal states united under a single Imperial Senate and a single Emperor. It's certainly possible when Romanization/Hellenization is making the inhabitants of Rhomania-In-The-East feel more like actual Romans than just subject peoples.
It's a possibility since the White Palace has learned its lessons from the Despotate of Sicily, but either autonomy or independence is inevitable for such a massive state, whether as federal states/themes or as independent countries held under a common political/economic bloc like the European Union or the CIS. Trying to centralize everything under the Emperor is just asking for trouble, though, and I don't think the Romans are going to be interested in that kind of development.
It's a possibility since the White Palace has learned its lessons from the Despotate of Sicily, but either autonomy or independence is inevitable for such a massive state, whether as federal states/themes or as independent countries held under a common political/economic bloc like the European Union or the CIS. Trying to centralize everything under the Emperor is just asking for trouble, though, and I don't think the Romans are going to be interested in that kind of development.
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Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
This is true but do remember two things. One is that B444 plans on having the world population about half of the modern population, likely the most of which will hit Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa due to the way population growth in the 20th century occurred.
The second bit is that Indonesia has a large number of ethnicities only loosely connected, the largest being Javanese which will likely be equal in size or slightly less than the Greek population in the Eurasian homeland.
Though you are right the Rhomania is going to have a very unique and distinctly non standard European culture compared to Latin Europe or even the other Orthodox powers.
Reading the last update again I love when this story changes tone and offers up some narrative updates. It really highlights the richness of the world that we get to see the world through eyes as opposed to the usual perspective. @Basileus444, you easily weave a narrative portion with the usual "voice" of the timeline and do it seamlessly. That's real skill and I hope you keep it up.
On to the subject matter itself: It does make sense for all the reasons that you listed that the average Roman ITTL doesn't know a ton about D3 - despite his importance both to this timeline and his importance to Rhomania. He never wanted to be Emperor, forced into the role by his wife and swept up in the waves of history. It stands to figure that he's most well-known outside of early modern history by his writing - the man loved his books and his pen. He think he'd be happy with how history views him as a writer first and an Emperor second. I think its how he viewed himself at the end of the day.
On to the subject matter itself: It does make sense for all the reasons that you listed that the average Roman ITTL doesn't know a ton about D3 - despite his importance both to this timeline and his importance to Rhomania. He never wanted to be Emperor, forced into the role by his wife and swept up in the waves of history. It stands to figure that he's most well-known outside of early modern history by his writing - the man loved his books and his pen. He think he'd be happy with how history views him as a writer first and an Emperor second. I think its how he viewed himself at the end of the day.
Glad you all enjoyed that and appreciated it. Much of it was sitting in my brain well before I got to this point in the TL, and it was bittersweet to finally getting to the point of writing and then posting it.
Little Ice Age and Roman decline: This is going to be bad news for everybody. The name itself is somewhat misleading if taken too literally, like global warming. While it does speak to an average decline in temperature (bad for an agriculture-based society), there was also an increase in more frequent and more extreme weather events (really bad for an agriculture-based society).
The OTL Ottoman Empire is the obvious parallel for Rhomania here, and the Ottomans got hammered badly by the Little Ice Age. Geoffrey Parker argues that “the lands around the Eastern Mediterranean suffered more from both the Little Ice Age and General Crisis than almost any other part of the northern hemisphere” (Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, pg. 333). And this is in a global survey, so he has lots of comparisons available when he made that statement.
Now some of that is political and is thus not a factor ITTL. But the environmental and ecological constraints of OTL are, and those are absolutely in play ITTL. Roman Anatolia is not less arid and mountainous then Ottoman Anatolia after all. There’s much more to it than just that and I’ll be going into much more detail once we get to that point, but that is the ‘two-lines’ version.
In reading on the Little Ice Age and also reading some more of Fernand Braudel’s works, it’s been driven into me how environmentally and ecologically the Mediterranean is at a disadvantage vis-à-vis northern Europe and this helped drive the shift in power northward during the Early Modern period. These are not factors that can be butterflied away, and the Little Ice Age is just speeding up something that is already happening. Note how the Romans already need to include both Sicily and Egypt just to have a population comparable to the Triunes or the HRE.
Now the Romans have some advantages over the OTL Ottomans, so they won’t go from juggernaut to sick man to dead. But they still face many of the same issues and disadvantages as well, so some decline is as inevitable as anything is inevitable in history. It’ll just be more like from juggernaut to middling great power (think France in 1913, with the difference that while there is a Germany equivalent, it’s not on their border).
Rhomania in the East: Given the distances and population sizes, I don’t consider full-fledged Hellenization to be possible. Some sort of hybridization though, say ‘quoting Homer but in Malay’, is possible. In the Doylist sense, the Despotates were created for these eastern territories as a model for possible future relationships, with them set up with Sicily and Egypt early enough to give them a few centuries of precedence by the time it’s an issue.
The geopolitical and cultural differences are big enough that I consider centralization to be a doomed effort. And if the eastern lands have comparable populations or bigger than the western lands, it is in the interest of the west to NOT treat them as equals, and then we have a Pakistan and Bangladesh-when-it-was-East-Pakistan situation. The Despotate of Sicily model is crucial here. There are ties that bind the two parties together, but they must be such that they chafe neither party.
Given Rhomania though, I’m thinking it might end up having a byzantine structure. Picture the Mediterranean lands as a union of federal states of Rhomania, Syria, Egypt, and Sicily, while RITE is divided into a series of Despotates in alliance with the Federal Empire and all parties presenting a united front in foreign relations with the G3, although in diplomacy with smaller fry the Despotates do their own thing.
Giving OTL poly-sci majors a headache is a feature, not a bug.
The Nag Hammadi discovery seems to have been largely done to chance (assuming I remember correctly; it’s been a while since I’ve read on it) so TTL changes I don’t think make a difference. If it appeared at this point though ITTL it’d face greater suppression. The Gnostics are really heretical by Orthodox standards.
Thanks. The narrative updates are more work, but they’re also more rewarding, and I do enjoy making them when I have the ideas to back them up.
The next portion of Not the End: The Empire Under the Laskarids has been posted on Patreon for Megas Kyr patrons. It is the beginning of Chapter 6: The Struggle Against Charles of Anjou. After the recapture of Constantinople, Theodoros II and his brother Nikephoros launch a major and highly successful offensive against the remaining Latin holdings in mainland Hellas.
Thanks again for your support.
Little Ice Age and Roman decline: This is going to be bad news for everybody. The name itself is somewhat misleading if taken too literally, like global warming. While it does speak to an average decline in temperature (bad for an agriculture-based society), there was also an increase in more frequent and more extreme weather events (really bad for an agriculture-based society).
The OTL Ottoman Empire is the obvious parallel for Rhomania here, and the Ottomans got hammered badly by the Little Ice Age. Geoffrey Parker argues that “the lands around the Eastern Mediterranean suffered more from both the Little Ice Age and General Crisis than almost any other part of the northern hemisphere” (Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, pg. 333). And this is in a global survey, so he has lots of comparisons available when he made that statement.
Now some of that is political and is thus not a factor ITTL. But the environmental and ecological constraints of OTL are, and those are absolutely in play ITTL. Roman Anatolia is not less arid and mountainous then Ottoman Anatolia after all. There’s much more to it than just that and I’ll be going into much more detail once we get to that point, but that is the ‘two-lines’ version.
In reading on the Little Ice Age and also reading some more of Fernand Braudel’s works, it’s been driven into me how environmentally and ecologically the Mediterranean is at a disadvantage vis-à-vis northern Europe and this helped drive the shift in power northward during the Early Modern period. These are not factors that can be butterflied away, and the Little Ice Age is just speeding up something that is already happening. Note how the Romans already need to include both Sicily and Egypt just to have a population comparable to the Triunes or the HRE.
Now the Romans have some advantages over the OTL Ottomans, so they won’t go from juggernaut to sick man to dead. But they still face many of the same issues and disadvantages as well, so some decline is as inevitable as anything is inevitable in history. It’ll just be more like from juggernaut to middling great power (think France in 1913, with the difference that while there is a Germany equivalent, it’s not on their border).
Rhomania in the East: Given the distances and population sizes, I don’t consider full-fledged Hellenization to be possible. Some sort of hybridization though, say ‘quoting Homer but in Malay’, is possible. In the Doylist sense, the Despotates were created for these eastern territories as a model for possible future relationships, with them set up with Sicily and Egypt early enough to give them a few centuries of precedence by the time it’s an issue.
The geopolitical and cultural differences are big enough that I consider centralization to be a doomed effort. And if the eastern lands have comparable populations or bigger than the western lands, it is in the interest of the west to NOT treat them as equals, and then we have a Pakistan and Bangladesh-when-it-was-East-Pakistan situation. The Despotate of Sicily model is crucial here. There are ties that bind the two parties together, but they must be such that they chafe neither party.
Given Rhomania though, I’m thinking it might end up having a byzantine structure. Picture the Mediterranean lands as a union of federal states of Rhomania, Syria, Egypt, and Sicily, while RITE is divided into a series of Despotates in alliance with the Federal Empire and all parties presenting a united front in foreign relations with the G3, although in diplomacy with smaller fry the Despotates do their own thing.
Giving OTL poly-sci majors a headache is a feature, not a bug.
The Nag Hammadi discovery seems to have been largely done to chance (assuming I remember correctly; it’s been a while since I’ve read on it) so TTL changes I don’t think make a difference. If it appeared at this point though ITTL it’d face greater suppression. The Gnostics are really heretical by Orthodox standards.
Thanks. The narrative updates are more work, but they’re also more rewarding, and I do enjoy making them when I have the ideas to back them up.
The next portion of Not the End: The Empire Under the Laskarids has been posted on Patreon for Megas Kyr patrons. It is the beginning of Chapter 6: The Struggle Against Charles of Anjou. After the recapture of Constantinople, Theodoros II and his brother Nikephoros launch a major and highly successful offensive against the remaining Latin holdings in mainland Hellas.
Thanks again for your support.
Actually it may well be. Relatively less arid that is. Following the reconquista back in the 13th and 14th centuries wasn't pastoralism reduced in favour of more sedentary farming or I remember wrongly? Some degree of impact on the region's climate is likely.
@Basileus444 as an otl poly sci major i thank you for the many headaches the complexity of this tl has caused
He mentioned that they will be a part of a sort of federal system. So yeah they would be better integrated than they are now. That typically implies a certain amount of taxes sent to the imperial government, control over foreign affairs, basic common laws adhered to and the military falling under the central government's control.
Of course there is a spectrum here but compared to the current arrangement a federal system would be much closer integration.
It seems like USA analogue is more appropriate for its European (at least) territories. OTL EU is not really in a position to compete as a single entity so I have doubts that any ITL EU arrangement with despotates is gonna hamper Rhomania.
I suspect that it will fall somewhere in the middle. A despotate in the Mediterranean certainly won't have any real hope of breaking with the Empire peacefully, and won't be allowed to pursue much in the way of its own agenda in foreign affairs, but I don't think we are likely to see the kind of centralization that the USA has given what we've been told by Basileus.
I could of course wrong though. I'm not writing this after all. But that's what I'm getting from the discussion.
I wonder, how will the latins respond to the Roman empire having a black emperor. I know that alot of racism otl comes specifically from colonial practices in the new world but I am pretty sure that it built on previous prejudice that existed in Europe against people who looked "different". Most likely a similar form of systemic Racism will be developed to keep new world colonies running smoothly. It is likeley that the Latin powers underestimate Rome due to racism against its new emperor, this may actually be a huge boon as they will be less likely to view the conquests in the east by ody as less of a threat.
Another interesting conflict between the east and the west could manifest itself in the latins disparaging the Romans for believing in imaginary monsters aka dinosaurs and discounting Roman advances in archaeology as African witchcraft. This prolly won't happen because the average latin is as competent as the average roman but it really depends on what both of the papacies think about the discovery of dinosaurs
Another interesting conflict between the east and the west could manifest itself in the latins disparaging the Romans for believing in imaginary monsters aka dinosaurs and discounting Roman advances in archaeology as African witchcraft. This prolly won't happen because the average latin is as competent as the average roman but it really depends on what both of the papacies think about the discovery of dinosaurs
We'll see soon enough. Odysseus and Athena are both half-Ethiopian, and thus dark-skinned. And since Demetrios himself was a half-Mongol, the entire Sideroi family is going to have exotic features.
I'd think that keeping the current arrangement with Sicily and Egypt is not really sustainable long term. They just proved that they can throw Rhomania under the bus if they desire and have allies if their demands are not met. Long term, closer integration (i.e., USA) is needed.
Honestly the Latins are almost as bigoted against the Romans as they are to the Latins, so I doubt that the Romans having a black emperor is going to change their tune, for better or for worse. But I think that since slavery is very much alive and well in Terranova, upper class Latins might harbor a lot of OTL notions of race in the 17th century (i.e. blacks are inherently distinct as a species compared to whites) and might even harbor notions of superiority due to whiteness, but without something akin to Darwinism and scientific racism, it's very unlikely their bigotry is going to reach the level of 19th century Europeans or Americans.
They're a lot more likely to hate the Greeks and the rest of the Orthodox world at a visceral level than some African slave or king. They will hate Odysseus but more so because he's a Roman, not necessarily just because of his Ethiopian ancestry.
Also, I think the Romans are a LOT more bigoted than the Latins are at this point, despite what any Roman can tell you in modern day ITTL.
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There would be some, that’s true. But a lot of Anatolia really isn’t good farmland and/or much better suited for pastoralism, so I don’t think the difference would be that big. Plus we need to factor in different and likely more deforestation patterns; those Roman battle-line ships eat up a lot more trees than Ottoman war galleys.
Also I definitely lack the knowledge and skill set to calculate how these butterflies would really diverge from OTL, so any changes I make would be complete fabrication on my part. So it’s much easier, and I think more realistic, to take the OTL examples and assume that TTL is, if not identical, at least similar enough that the broad patterns are applicable to both.
Integration in the Roman Mediterranean: There are no plans to try and push this. A future federal union of the various Mediterranean territories on a ‘US of Rhomania’ plan would mark a substantial centralization of the current setup. Sicily and Carthage are really de-facto independent countries in military alliance with Rhomania; their only constraints are that foreign policy with a few polities have to be done via Constantinople, but those polities can be numbered on thumbs.
Egypt has a tighter relationship with Rhomania with many more restrictions on it, but that was forced on the Egyptians by the calamity of the Great Uprising. While it worked on Egypt, that whole bit was certainly noticed by Messina, which means the Sicilians will be especially wary of any attempts by Constantinople to ‘renegotiate’ the relationship.
If Rhomania tried to push centralization, it would just drive the others away. Sure Rhomania might be able to keep them in place by force, but that just turns Sicily and Egypt into TTL Irelands, which I do not consider an improvement. In 1848 the Hungarians tried to implement a policy of Magyarization on the minorities in the Kingdom; the minorities’ response was that they preferred to shoot Magyars than become ones.
A Black Emperor and Latins: Interestingly enough, there is somewhat of an OTL example. Manuel I was very dark-skinned (seriously, look at his portrait). During the siege of Corfu the Venetians and Byzantines quarreled and the Venetians seized the Byzantine flagship. They took a black slave and staged a mock coronation of him, which was certainly an insulting reference to Manuel’s complexion. (While I have no documentary evidence of it, I strongly suspect Manuel resented the insult and that may have played a role in his anti-Venetian actions toward the end of his reign.)
As for the Latins in the TTL present, for those already prejudiced against the Romans they would take it as just more proof of their ‘degeneracy from the noble heights of their ancient ancestors’. For those less prejudiced, it would just be another factor that makes Rhomania weird and exotic, not necessarily bad or inferior, but definitely different.
As for dinosaurs, they won’t be thought of as crazy things made up by the Romans. The Romans do have the bones that sparked the original ideas, and curiosities like that are something they would show off and Latins in Constantinople would be interested to see. Cabinets of curiosities were very popular across Europe at this time. Furthermore sooner or later the Russians are going to start showing up with the frozen intact corpses of mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. (In a letter Catherine the Great expressed the hope that someday they’d find live mammoths somewhere in Siberia.)
I also agree with the statement that the Romans are more bigoted than the Latins. The Romans spend more time thinking about the Latins than the Latins do about the Romans (it helps that there are more than 5 Latins for every Roman). It’s harder to see because it’s culturally, not ethnically, based and it is directed largely at western Europeans. So it’s definitely bigotry, but it’s of a type that OTL 2021 people are not keyed in to see as readily, while Latin bigotry is much more of the OTL variety and so more obvious.