An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania

Cryostorm

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Ah ok thanks for the info! I'm interested on how Rhoman historians will look back on this period
From what I remember from the bits of foreshadowing future Rhomans view it as a crime and something that they might wish had not happened. At the same time they don't exactly apologize for harsh actions done during a harsh time, especially due to the context of the events leading up to and surrounding it.
 
From what I remember from the bits of foreshadowing future Rhomans view it as a crime and something that they might wish had not happened. At the same time they don't exactly apologize for harsh actions done during a harsh time, especially due to the context of the events leading up to and surrounding it.
I'm not sure if they view it as a crime. I recall the phrase being something along the lines of 'acknowledged but not apologized' which implies a lack of remorse or guilt.
 
Assuming that Rhomania still holds an imperialistic attitude in the modern era but isn't outright fascistic or genocidal, that'd fit the bill for a perspective that acknowledges horrific actions done in the past but holds that they "had to be done" or chalks it up to "the way things were back then".
 

Cryostorm

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I'm not sure if they view it as a crime. I recall the phrase being something along the lines of 'acknowledged but not apologized' which implies a lack of remorse or guilt.
Assuming that Rhomania still holds an imperialistic attitude in the modern era but isn't outright fascistic or genocidal, that'd fit the bill for a perspective that acknowledges horrific actions done in the past but holds that they "had to be done" or chalks it up to "the way things were back then".

Pretty much the same way modern China, Russia, or the US views some of their past, and not so past, dark spots in their history. I highly doubt you will see any remorse over the destruction of the Dzungar, Apache, Siber, or other peoples by those nations in their expansion stage.
 
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CalBear

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There's nothing shameful on what Rome is doing. If anything this is just payback for the 6th century disaster. Besides the people their cleansing will never really accept Roman rule. Better to wipe them out than have them come back with a vengeful intent to retake their lands and killing the new settlers.

If you're gonna start a war you better finish it in the swiftest way as possible. There can be no peace with people who will always revolt. Thats why you gotta exterminate the problem while you still have the strength to do so. You don't want to be caught out in a moment of weakness..

After all we know from history just how devastating it can be..
While I am aware that this is a completely fictional world your reasoning is remarkably disturbing. Let be be as clear as I can be on this -

NEVER, and I mean never, make this sort of statement again.
 
So what veche do you guys think is most likely to be the instigator for the "Gathering of the rus"? My money is on Pronsk because I recall it has the most manpower out of the principalities and hasn't been bogged down in any wars like Lithuania or Khazaria have been.
 

Cryostorm

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So what veche do you guys think is most likely to be the instigator for the "Gathering of the rus"? My money is on Pronsk because I recall it has the most manpower out of the principalities and hasn't been bogged down in any wars like Lithuania or Khazaria have been.
Makes sense, besides, hasn't Pronsk been sending troops to help out each of the others in their own conflicts?
 
What's the impetus though? Without some cause to unite against, there's no reason for the various Russian and Lithuanian grandees to give up power like that.
 
What's the impetus though? Without some cause to unite against, there's no reason for the various Russian and Lithuanian grandees to give up power like that.
I'd be inclined to agree with ya if there wasn't a prophesy that foreshadowed Russia uniting and raiding much of germany if i recall correctly
Perhaps this will take place in the relatively far future tho
 
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Unfortunately my pre-existing sci-fi universe would be hard to adapt to Space Romans, considering humans aren’t even in it.
On a lighter note, I was struck by inspiration this morning. A passing mention (or maybe a whole arc? :p) could be about a team of [INSERT ALIEN DEMONYM] xenoarchaeologists exploring a massive archive world. They are greeted by the hologram of the planet's caretaker AI who explains to them that it is a relic left to them by a glorious spacefaring precursor civilization eons ago. They were masters of the galaxy and harnessed the power of antimatter and black holes. They brought a new age of stability and prosperity to the galaxy and advanced the boundaries of science and technology. At their zenith, they gained insights of another realm and achieved enlightenment, unshackling themselves of connections to the physical world and transcended the Shroud. They guided a successor race to be the next caretakers of the galaxy, and finally revealed themselves to their successors, leaving them all their accumulated knowledge and technology.

I'd laugh if the Romans treat rice, palm oil, and other agricultural goods as being the most important piece of the empire well into the 20th Century regardless of the significance of fossil fuel or gas reserves in the area.
The geology of Java is volcanic and somewhat flat, unlike Sumatra, and has much arable land. The rest of Indonesia has significantly low population density because of food insecurity. Rice is still grown there but plantations for spices didn't exist until the colonial era. Spice production was the effort of gatherers in the jungle or some small planters, depending on the spice of course. This is the antithesis of landed agriculture, and the landscapes that make for good spices don't make for good rice growing without significant alteration to the ecosystem. Java's been the breadbasket of the East Indies and made its niche the plantation agriculture that would come much later, but applied to foodstuffs. Javan rice fed Indonesia in the colonial period and Javans even before then were the largest population group in Indonesia due to their plentiful food supply, which they in turn traded for spices alongside other goods they produced in plantations such as banana, palm, coconut, and cotton.
I wonder whether the trade deficit European nations sustained when trading with China has been resolved? In OTL Great Britain and Spain fought many conflicts in the new world which disrupted silver production. Silver was prioritized for trade with China, which caused European economies to shrink.
ITTL, Mexico, the Shimazu and the Romans have a near monopoly on the silver market. Since they have consolidated their control over the Gangetic plain, perhaps GB will begin cultivating opium earlier to reduce the deficit with China?
P.s. do the Romans have a name for the Malay peninsula like how they named the Herakleian islands? Perhaps they went with Khrysē Khersónēsos from Ptolemy's Geography?

What's the impetus though? Without some cause to unite against, there's no reason for the various Russian and Lithuanian grandees to give up power like that.
Do they really need an external stimulus? Perhaps a charismatic figure will simply convince them that the centralization of power brings rich spoils and new lands like how Temujin united the warring Mongol clans.
 
I wonder whether the trade deficit European nations sustained when trading with China has been resolved? In OTL Great Britain and Spain fought many conflicts in the new world which disrupted silver production. Silver was prioritized for trade with China, which caused European economies to shrink.
ITTL, Mexico, the Shimazu and the Romans have a near monopoly on the silver market. Since they have consolidated their control over the Gangetic plain, perhaps GB will begin cultivating opium earlier to reduce the deficit with China?
I think I went on a rant in this thread about silver trade to China. I don't remember the specifics, but to summarize: silver is not necessary for trade with China, it's just the most convenient mutually agreeable medium of exchange. What makes silver into a bad trade good is because it's heavy. Throwing a bunch of precious metals onto a boat means it's going to be slow or even sink if you fill it up too much. The trade goods Europeans brought back from China such as tea, silk, porcelain, and spices are comparatively much lighter. Just like the Venetian trade for spices in the Levant this results in more trade value coming from China then going to it. This is not in and of itself a problem, because European traders only have that silver to trade. So the trade value that they bring to China, can only be exchanged for enough goods that that silver can buy. So since silver is heavy, it can't really buy all that much since a trade ship is limited by its tonnage. Europeans still turned significance profit selling goods back in Europe.

what opium did was allow for a better weight to value ratio. Suddenly 100 tons of cargo could buy you much more tonnage of Chinese goods and thus turn a greater profit.

The only reason that silver was problematic was that it was also used as a currency, which led to a bullion famine in Europe for silver that dramatically increased its price. As a result, inflation occurred since the individual silver coins were now more valuable. This, and other silver bullion famines such as the one in the 15th century as well as gluts on the discover of Potosi, led directly to abolition of the silver standard in Europe. Gold became the backer of currency in Europe due to its greater stability over the centuries. This relegated silver coinage to simply an expression of a value of gold, rather than an expression of a value of silver. None of this is an actual problem. Not until the 19th century.

When trade exploded in that period demand for Chinese goods vastly outstripped actual ability of Europeans to pay for it. This only occurred because paradoxically Chinese products became more accessible by advances in trade technology, culture, and infrastructure over the course of the 18th century. Now it was impossible for Europeans to buy the Chinese products they needed and ONLY at this point were alternatives necessary rather than just a grumbling wish of the merchant class. This is when Opium became the trade alternative. Only when these events come to pass will we see some sort of Opium trade to China. Silver will continue to reach Europe until its supply becomes wholly consumed by trade with China.

Do they really need an external stimulus? Perhaps a charismatic figure will simply convince them that the centralization of power brings rich spoils and new lands like how Temujin united the warring Mongol clans.
Why would unification necessarily come with centralization of power? Autonomy can be retained so long as they give lip service to a central monarch.

Funnily enough I was doing some reading on Alcoholism in Russia and it's depressing. Cheap Vodka has been used as a tool of social control by the Russian state since Ivan the Great. The Tsars put into place an alcohol monopoly in the country, taking away the previous ability of the peasants to distill their own vodka. They expanded the industry dramatically and flooded their own market with cheap alcohol. In doing so, they created a tremendously valuable revenue stream for the Russian State and ensured that their own peasantry would be too drunk to rebel. Additionally they created a cycle of addiction and dependence which kept the common Russian impoverished. Come the time of Catherine the Great this monopoly was so valuable that favoured court members were given Vodka plants to manage rather than grants of land. The communists were actually a prohibitionist party and smashed all the Vodka they could find until Stalin ruined it by reopening the plants and bringing the levels of addiction to a whole other level.

ITTL there is no unified Russia to impose a state monopoly on alcohol production. Russia is a broken state in competition and in many cases is nowhere near as authoritarian. This will have tremendous effects on Russian culture and government, as it would reduce poverty and increase political activity of the lower and merchant classes. I don't know how much, if at all, B444 would have anticipated this sort of thing but it's an interesting element of TTL's politics and culture regardless.
 
I think somebody may have said this before but perhaps the Pacific Ocean can have something to do with the silver trade
The ocean historically was named before the silver trade across it began. This is sort of necessary since you need to explore a place before you send slow ships filled with silver across it.
 
Just a note, if I remember correctly, the Muslim hordes simply conquered and assimilated the area. They didn't 'cleanse' it the way the Romans are doing.

So using the 6th century to justify that is like saying the the Jews are bankers and bakers and thus the Shoah is deserved. Which obviously is a steaming pile of bulls**t!

And these are probably descendants of the conquered for the most part. People who over the centuries assimilated into Arab culture.
 
Just a note, if I remember correctly, the Muslim hordes simply conquered and assimilated the area. They didn't 'cleanse' it the way the Romans are doing.
Sorta.

The Arabization process of the Levant, North Africa, much of Spain, and parts of Persia was a directly result of the collapse of the irrigation system in Arabia. Mass migration resulted that saw tribes either leave or die of dehydration. This process began some time in the 4th century IIRC and Arab tribes were living in Roman Syria and Sassanid Iraq after having migrated there.

After conquest the floodgates were opened and Arabs migrated in mass numbers across everywhere they conquered. One of the best episodes to illustrate this was after a rebellion by Berbers in Tunisia against their former allies the Fatimids in the early 11th century the Egyptians sent the Banu Hilal, a tribal confederation of several hundred thousand, to conquor them. They settled in North Africa afterwards and most Tunisian Arabs can trace their descent to that event.

The Umayyad Caliphate also operated a linguistic genocide in the lands under their rule. The Rashidun allowed Coptic, Greek, Pahlavi, and Latin to remain as an administrative tongue and had rather light rule. But the regime change resulted in a fanatic desire during that dynasty that all conquered people should speak the language of god. They burned books, killed people (especially literate ones), and destroyed cultural traditions. Modern Farsi bears little resemblance to Middle Persian/Pahlavi as a result, even having swapped its writing system to an Arabic-inspired one, and that's just because it was the one that survived by conquering the Umayyads back during the Abbassid Revolution. Coptic barely struggles to live to this day and Greek was wiped out in conquered areas. The best single episode to point to was when Umayyad Governor of Persia Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ordered the execution of everyone literate in the Khwarezm language because he was upset of the use of Persian in court. During the conquest of eastern Persia he also put every Zoroastrian clergyman to death and burned every piece of religious texts he could find.

There was very real effort to annihilate local culture and way of life immediately following the arab conquest. It varied depending on where you were and at what point, but the Umayyads were easily the worst and got so bad their minorities rebelled as a result (hence Abbasid Revolution). After this point is when it becomes the centuries of assimilation but lets not forget it is always state policy of medieval Islamic states to institute the jizyah. This came doubly with a ban on weapons for non-Muslims. This gets propagandized as an exception from military service, as the state offers protection for its non-Muslims so long as they a protection tax, but its origins are in the conquests. The early conquest economy was based on looting for war booty, these were tribal nomads after all, and they didn't want the conquered people to take their war loot since that was so profitable. It also institutionalized that non-Muslims were not allowed to bear arms, which combined with unequal taxation forced them to stay in poverty without means to protect themselves other than the whims of the courts (which all operated under Sharia anyways when a Muslim was involved) unless they converted.

Of course none of this justifies Rhoman behaviour. Cruelty is not legitimized because you were a victim or because there is some precedent. But the Arab conquest was not a fun few centuries for the conquered. There's more ways to forcibly convert a population to a language, faith, or ideology than genocide. Humans can be very creative in their cruelty. Just ask the Gauls how fun the Romans and their latinization campaigns were. :p
 
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When trade exploded in that period demand for Chinese goods vastly outstripped actual ability of Europeans to pay for it. This only occurred because paradoxically Chinese products became more accessible by advances in trade technology, culture, and infrastructure over the course of the 18th century. Now it was impossible for Europeans to buy the Chinese products they needed and ONLY at this point were alternatives necessary rather than just a grumbling wish of the merchant class. This is when Opium became the trade alternative. Only when these events come to pass will we see some sort of Opium trade to China. Silver will continue to reach Europe until its supply becomes wholly consumed by trade with China.
Good points, I agree that current levels of trade have not reached a critical mass yet. However, I do believe that trade will accelerate at a pace faster than OTL's, as a result of faster technological advancement and (relatively) richer nations as B444 previously mentioned. Whether this will lead to conflict still remains unknown.

Why would unification necessarily come with centralization of power? Autonomy can be retained so long as they give lip service to a central monarch.
Isn't centralization of power as its name suggests, the shackling or to a more extreme degree, the absence of independence players? If they only give lip service to the central government, that isn't real centralization of power. If however, a figure(s) of authority manages to tie their own interests to their subjects and vice versa via a combination of charisma, bribes, promises or coercion, regional players could see more benefits in actually being part of the central government and having a larger pie for everyone, rather than carving out a small piece of the pie for themselves. "Apes together strong"
 
Good points, I agree that current levels of trade have not reached a critical mass yet. However, I do believe that trade will accelerate at a pace faster than OTL's, as a result of faster technological advancement and (relatively) richer nations as B444 previously mentioned. Whether this will lead to conflict still remains unknown.


Isn't centralization of power as its name suggests, the shackling or to a more extreme degree, the absence of independence players? If they only give lip service to the central government, that isn't real centralization of power. If however, a figure(s) of authority manages to tie their own interests to their subjects and vice versa via a combination of charisma, bribes, promises or coercion, regional players could see more benefits in actually being part of the central government and having a larger pie for everyone, rather than carving out a small piece of the pie for themselves. "Apes together strong"
Fair points all but for trade keep in mind the industrial Revolution and the introduction of the potato brought a boom in the population of Europe. More people means more clothes are needed, more food needs to be eaten, and more luxuries are desired. Regardless of if the trade system develops more quickly it isn't going to mean much until you reach industrial level population density in Europe to create a market demand of the size I'm describing.

For Russia, it is possible that the gathering of the Rus could be a confederation of sorts. It would be neat of Russia kicks off a sort of third way ideology of confederation while Rhomans show of TTL expression of empire with its many independent subject states.
 
Good point. Here's a video on it for easy summary:
Yep, great video. That's why I originally learned about it, I don't think systemic Russian addiction is a topic particularly well-researched or known here in the West aside from the Soviet-era and modern alcohol issues, but but that's for a health standpoint not a historical development standpoint.
 
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