Are there any stories with a powerful African or Native American or Aboriginal Australian empire?

amesa

Banned
Most of Human History is focused on Eurasia and Alternate History mostly follows suit. Africa, outside of the Northern region, only gets mentioned when it comes to slavery or colonization. The Indigenous Americans and Aboriginal Australians are generally seen as tribes to get conquered and little else.

Is there any story where Native Americans or Sub-Saharan Africans or Aboriginal Australians end up building a big civilization and industrializing?
 

Lacktoastandtolerant

As for Native Americans, Eric Flint did two books - 1812 Rivers of War and its Sequel 1824 the Arkansas War, originally from an attempt to write a scenario where the trail of tears didn't happen, though with Flint figuring that it would simply be implausible and thus figuring that the best option was an earlier, voluntary, and more organized resettlement in Oklahoma/Arkansas that allowed the natives to form a stronger and more independent polity in that area that would also become a destination for many escaped slaves. Though its kind of been a while (5 to 10 years) since I've read them and I vaguely recall more focus on American politicians and such than about the natives themselves?

In a bit of a different direction, there's a book Trail of Lightning which I've been meaning to get around to reading, which involves an independent Navajo territory, though its more of like a post apocalyptic fantasy thing that doesn't really go into much detail about how the world ended up like that, so if you are looking for more conventional alternate history, that might not be the best choice. Heard it got good reviews though, and was nominated for some awards or something

As for Australian Aboriginals, there's Land of Red and Gold on this very site, which I never actually got around to reading but I'm pretty sure it involves Australia developing a more complex native society or something along those lines

I'm pretty sure I've also seen a TL or two about a more successful Peruvian native revolt led by Tupac in the 1700s, though I can't really recall which they were

I think Male Rising had some focus on Africa, with more parts of it remaining independent and relatively strong, though I also haven't actually read it so I'm not sure about the specifics or if that's the focus
 
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
MaxGerke01 said:
What does the B stand for in Tom B ?
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No, it's Tom Bornholdt and his user name is Tom B, or something like that, maybe an underscore. He wrote the amazing Operation Unicorn WW1 alternatehistory, and his Black Hawk's War is also very good. More recently he wrote a beautiful African timeline
 

Lacktoastandtolerant

MuricanTauri1776 said:
Any Aboriginal powers?
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I second Lands of Red and Gold, it's not one I've actually read yet but it's one of the more well known TLs on this site and has a reputation for being very good

Doing a bit of looking into published fiction... A lot of indigenous-focused literature seems to be some combination of historical fiction, focused on natives of the Americas or Africa, more sci-fi focused (along the lines of afro- or indigenous- futurism, as opposed to a straight up alternate history along the lines of something like Flint's 1812/1824 books, Turtledove's TL-191, or most of the TLs on here. I'm kind of struggling to find much relating to the Aboriginals (and I'd probably have a harder time finding much at all about the Torres Strait Islanders) that isn't just straight up historical fiction.

There's Claire G. Coleman's Terra Nullius, which sounds like something of an alternate history/speculative fiction (but not "hard alternate history") with a focus on Australia in the colonization period with both colonizer and aboriginal characters. From reading the reviews, it sounds like the reception of the writing itself is somewhat mixed (it is the author's first book), but the concept sounds neat and well-received (there's also something of a twist, so maybe stay clear of reading reviews if you don't want to be spoiled, if that matters to you). The writer is herself aboriginal, for what it's worth. She's also got a second book, The Old Lie, which sounds like more of a straight up future sci fi, though it's apparently thematically focused as a sort of allegory for colonization or something along those lines

But otherwise, at least from my looking at various GoodReads book lists, it looks like the closest you'd get to alternate history with aboriginals doing better is something along the lines of future history, potentially with sci-fi and fantasy elements, with aboriginal main characters in settings where aboriginal society is somewhat better off compared to the rest of society relative to how things are in OTL, perhaps due to some sort of post apocalyptic setting where Aboriginal society is hit less hard and has a somewhat easier time recovering. But that's not exactly alternate history even if it is perhaps sort of close in terms of genre under the broader speculative fiction umbrella, so maybe that's just not of interest

Doing a bit more looking... There's this page on uchronia.net, which is an entry for what looks like a rather straightforward alternate history scenario where aboriginals kind of do better, but... 1. It's just an entry page, the story itself was published in some magazine in 1992 so I don't know if you could even get your hands on it now, and 2. Well, reading the blurb for it, it sounds *really* implausible for a few reasons

Overall it doesn't look like there's a huge amount out there even if you are willing to widen your range considerably to speculative fiction outside of strict alternate history. TLs and discussion on this site are probably your best bet (with, again as said, Lands of Red and Gold being an exemplar example, but also with potentially some others that I haven't heard of)
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
There is an old online timeline - by Dale Cozart maybe) about a comet or asteroid impact 1400's think. The impact is somewhere in the old world which leads to an expanded Native American and presumably Aboriginal power. Anyone recall this timeline or where to find it ?
 

Father Maryland

The Temeraire series has a good bit of this. The basic premise of the series is that dragons are real and generally have human level intelligence. The series is set in the Napoleanic wars where dragons are used by all sides to form air forces. It's kind of a combination of Military Fantasy and Alternate History. It's not shown much in the early couple books but gradually quite a bit of what you're talking about ends up getting revealed.

SPOILERS





A African kingdom which heavily uses dragons manages to unilaterally destroy the Atlantic slave trade by raiding and destroying the various slaving ports. The Chinese leave a bit of their isolationism behind and end up getting involved in the war. They also establish trading posts in Australia establishing sort of protectorates over various aboriginal tribes. The Inca's never get conquered by the Spanish and are still around (though still alive and quite powerful in terms of dragons European diseases have still wrecked hellish havoc on the human population.) The relative strength of some of the North American tribes leads to a less onesided relationship between the early US and the local tribes/nations. The US still expands a lot but in the Revolution the majority of American indian tribes/nations join with the Rebels and in return for getting their own states within the US, citizenship, and representation in congress. The European Colonists and the local Amerindians are shown kind of assimilating each other with a US that has a lot more American Indian cultural traits. We don't get to see a whole lot of what the situation is in the US but we do know that instead of James Madison Tecumseh is the president of the US.



All in all I can't reccomend the series enough. It's suprisingly hilarious and the emotional bond between Dragons and their riders is some of the best emotional writing I've ever seen. It's also a very well rounded out world. Once you accept the concept of intelligent dragons the rest of the world just makes sense. Dragons exist but so do countermeasures and their's a constant evolution of tactics and weaponry. The relative place of Dragons within society also see's a lot of focus as does the relative difference in terms of Human-Draco relations by country.

Temeraire (series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
ennobee

ennobee

Father Maryland said:
All in all I can't reccomend the series enough. It's suprisingly hilarious and the emotional bond between Dragons and their riders is some of the best emotional writing I've ever seen. It's also a very well rounded out world. Once you accept the concept of intelligent dragons the rest of the world just makes sense. Dragons exist but so do countermeasures and their's a constant evolution of tactics and weaponry. The relative place of Dragons within society also see's a lot of focus as does the relative difference in terms of Human-Draco relations by country.
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Actually, for not recommending the series, you almost have me convinced to check it out. After the first line you seem to give the books a glowing endorsement. Other thàn :'oh, yes, but the writing is bad'
 
Resurgam

Resurgam

Crusader Kings II has an expansion pack where the Aztecs have become strong enough to locate, then invade, western Europe. They'd have to be pretty strong to project enough power for that kind of invasion.
 

Father Maryland

ennobee said:
Actually, for not recommending the series, you almost have me convinced to check it out. After the first line you seem to give the books a glowing endorsement. Other thàn :'oh, yes, but the writing is bad'
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I think you missed the "enough" after the "I can't recommend the series" bit. Was pretty addicted to these for a while. Bought and read all 9 books in a row in less then a month. I still need to read the last 25 percent or so of the last book but since it's the finale and I know I'll cry I've been putting it off.

Naomi Novik the author put a lot of effort into creating a alternate history semi fantasy world that actually makes sense. That alone is deeply impressive.
 
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