Best and or most underused pods pre 1900?
- Thread starter dianaswordofsappho
- Start date
For random organization reasons, i will divide into subdivisions
● Muslims expand further
- Victory in the Siege of Constantinople of 717-18
- Further expansion in India
- Muslim victory on the arab-khazar wars
- Muslim overrun victory in the conquest of transoxiana
● Crusades
- The Seljuks are able to conquest Constantinople
- The Crusader Kingdoms don't die
● England wons the 100 Years' War
● Ottomans
- Ottoman victory in the Great Turkish War
- Ottomans conquest ALL of Hungary after Mohács
- Ottoman total intervention in the 30 Years' War
● Portugal
- Portuguese Defeat at Diu
● Netherlands
- TOTAL dutch victory in the luso-dutch war
- Netherlands mantains the New Netherlands
● Sweden
- Great victory in the Second Northern War
- Gustavus Adolphus survives at Lützen
● 79282838283 PoDs in the Seven Years' War
● Muslims expand further
- Victory in the Siege of Constantinople of 717-18
- Further expansion in India
- Muslim victory on the arab-khazar wars
- Muslim overrun victory in the conquest of transoxiana
● Crusades
- The Seljuks are able to conquest Constantinople
- The Crusader Kingdoms don't die
● England wons the 100 Years' War
● Ottomans
- Ottoman victory in the Great Turkish War
- Ottomans conquest ALL of Hungary after Mohács
- Ottoman total intervention in the 30 Years' War
● Portugal
- Portuguese Defeat at Diu
● Netherlands
- TOTAL dutch victory in the luso-dutch war
- Netherlands mantains the New Netherlands
● Sweden
- Great victory in the Second Northern War
- Gustavus Adolphus survives at Lützen
● 79282838283 PoDs in the Seven Years' War
Skallagrim
Banned
Something that's quite rare and -- in my opinion -- interesting and realistic: a scenario where the Enlightenment as we know it gets totally averted... but it's not presented with the stereotypical "everything sucks" bias (an attitude which is largely the product of Enlightenment self-congratulation and myth-making, much as "the Dark Ages!!!" is mostly just Renaissance self-congratulation and myth-making).
A scenario without a recognisable Enlightenment, approached without the typical boat-loads of bias, would be fascinating.
A scenario without a recognisable Enlightenment, approached without the typical boat-loads of bias, would be fascinating.
Protestant Spain. I would write a TL about it but writing TLs about events before the 19th century is really hard.
Instead of unifying under the Ottomans, post-Mongol Anatolia remains divided among its constituent Turkish beyliks, eventually consolidating into a handful of centers of gravity (Germiyans, Jandarids, Karamanids, perhaps a reduced Ottoman beylik around the southern Marmara coast).
Another interesting take would be a surviving Serbian Empire, eventually coming to blows with Hungary.
Another interesting take would be a surviving Serbian Empire, eventually coming to blows with Hungary.
Bruneian Empire wank of course is Philippines timeline as well.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
Well sure I guess...
My favorite on that area remains a unified Malay-Javanese State that rules most of the Indonesian Archipelago and is the strongest Naval Power of the World. Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao being largely used by Pirates to raid on Chinese, Japanese, Malay and European shipping. Especially with such an ideal place as Manilla Bay.
Would that just be a world where Continuity Thesis is the historiographical orthodox? Or would this be a world where humanism and the like aren't popularized in the west?
Skallagrim
Banned
Something like the continuity thesis would probably not even be discussed; the continuity wouldn't really be in question. Naturally, other examples of periodisation would just seem more important to the denizens of the ATL-- but in the absence of a large-scale, relatively cohesive intellectual movement that defines itself in opposition to the past, I sure that at least the notion of "Modernity" would be absent or understood very differently. So the whole concept of an "Early Modern Period" would probably not develop, at least.
This would all be most obvious if you avert both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment as "concepts", although averting the latter would probably suffice. Thing is, although there are a lot of caveats, I think that the continuity thesis has quite a lot of merit. Lots of "Renaissance ideas" were being developed before the Renaissance, and in fact, most people in the Renaissance didn't see their period as somehow fundamentally different. But there was certainly the concept of "Renaissance humanism", and it did change the intellectual climate. If you erase that, or drastically change it, you've almost certainly averted or drastically altered the Enlightenment, too.
Similar to how tomatoes were somehow introduced to Mexico in the BC era, have potatoes introduced to Mesoamerica sometime before 1500 BCE
No, if Brunei remains its dominance in the Philippines the Bruneians could spread Islam to Okinawa.
Kaze
Banned
1. I have not seen a timeline of a successful Jin Dynasty where they manage to defeat the Mongols. Imagine a nation that covers Northern China, Manchuria, and a good part of Northern Korea.
2. A Western Xia timeline. POD that could work is under Emperor Huanzong. During this time Genghis was just a minor warlord who raided some of their villages. (One lucky arrow and...no Genghis Khan.) There was a coup against Huanzong and later a counter-coup against Xiangzong, after which the military was purged of many good generals leaving the Western Xia vulnerable to attack and conquest by the Mongols.
3. Charles II wins the English Civil War. It could be done if done in the early days of the first part of the English Civil War. A won battle here or a lost battle there and Cromwell would be a footnote in history.
4. Man in the Iron Mask. We know the story all too well from the hand of Dumas. Where one brother ends up as Louis the Sun King - the tyrant that builds Versailles, bankrupts France, and engages in many wars sewing the seeds for the French Revolution...while the other brother ends up dying in a prison cell the subject of rumors to this day. This would be more an SI style thing - what if the brothers were the other way around? Now that that brother #2 is on the throne, he might put France in a different direction - no Versailles, no bankruptcy, and victories in wars instead. Would there still be a need for a revolution?
2. A Western Xia timeline. POD that could work is under Emperor Huanzong. During this time Genghis was just a minor warlord who raided some of their villages. (One lucky arrow and...no Genghis Khan.) There was a coup against Huanzong and later a counter-coup against Xiangzong, after which the military was purged of many good generals leaving the Western Xia vulnerable to attack and conquest by the Mongols.
3. Charles II wins the English Civil War. It could be done if done in the early days of the first part of the English Civil War. A won battle here or a lost battle there and Cromwell would be a footnote in history.
4. Man in the Iron Mask. We know the story all too well from the hand of Dumas. Where one brother ends up as Louis the Sun King - the tyrant that builds Versailles, bankrupts France, and engages in many wars sewing the seeds for the French Revolution...while the other brother ends up dying in a prison cell the subject of rumors to this day. This would be more an SI style thing - what if the brothers were the other way around? Now that that brother #2 is on the throne, he might put France in a different direction - no Versailles, no bankruptcy, and victories in wars instead. Would there still be a need for a revolution?
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Not crossing path ? Very unlikely. Dying or never getting to command, very plausible.
When the Legions are ordered out of Britain they refuse due to large numbers having married local women and Britannia breaks from Rome on its own terms.
Honestly, I haven’t seen many TLs about, say, Chinese states, the caliphates, or North Africa, let alone the indosphere. A few points of interest for me:
5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms
Different Song (different Wang Anshi, different Neo-Confucianism) (such as Zhugeliang’s TL)
No Jin
No Mongols
No sack of Baghdad/devastation of Persia
No/different Oghuz/Seljuks
Sassanids destroy the Eastern Romans. What now?
Different early Caliphate (such as Goulashcomrade’s TL)
Umayyads don’t fall or fall differently
Less Turkic or slave soldiers in Muslim world
Successful Tulunids
Establishment of a steady Muslim state in Persia (better Samanids/Buyids?)
Muslim dominance of the Mediterranean (Sicily, Crete, Cyprus, baleares)
No/different Almoravids/Almohads
Different Wagadou/post Wagadou state(s)
No/different Qarmatians or Banu Hilal or other disruptive unrulies
No anarchy of Samarra
No/different Fatimids
Successful Eastern Jin/Liu Song conquest of the 16 Kingdoms/Tuoba Wei
Permanent Xianbei-Han divide
Surviving Sui
Even better Tang: could they have conquered Nanzhao, Silla, or Central Asia? Effects?
Different Korea: No Koryo; what does it mean for the development of Korea and its interaction with neighbors? What will it be named? Will it ever unite into one state?
Different Tibetan Empire
No Japanese conquest of Emishi
No shogunate/different genpei war/different northern and southern courts schism
No Majapahit
Longer lasting Majapahit
More powerful Khmer (not destroyed by ecological disasters/religious schisms/Tai invasions)
Tang falls to Da Yan (An Lushan). What now?
Avert Huang Chao rebellion. What now?
Empire of Harsha?
Different tripartite struggle (avoid devastation of Ghaznavid/Ghorid and weakness of the Pratihara, Pala, and Rashtrakuta) (Shahrsayr did a short TL leading up to this)
Lasting Chola
No Timur
Surviving Naiman/Western Liao
Surviving Golden Horde
Different Mongol division of the Ulus
No Ottomans
Now for more general trends:
Gunpowder development (purifying, wet grinding, corning, plus all the different weapons that will be developed)
Religion (touchy subject, but different Manichaeism/Buddhism is a treasure trove for possibilities and has never been done in depth to my knowledge, just one example). How does this affect daily lives?
Earlier society-driven or state-sponsored scientific and technological developments. How could this be achieved and what are its effects?
Better medical practices/treatment. Vaccines, anesthetic, basic hygiene, etc. effects?
Ideologies (very similar and arguably indistinguishable from religions. Take humanism. Let’s say Petrarch died as a child from smallpox. How does this affect humanism? What if Zhu Xi never formulated his version of Confucianism (which was far more humanist than its predecessor)? How does this affect humanism? Are all still completely equal, or are there fundamental differences between groups of people? What is humanism’s relationship with Christianity or Islam? How does it view emotion, freedom, meaning, love, romance, and change?
That’s all I’ve got for now.
5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms
Different Song (different Wang Anshi, different Neo-Confucianism) (such as Zhugeliang’s TL)
No Jin
No Mongols
No sack of Baghdad/devastation of Persia
No/different Oghuz/Seljuks
Sassanids destroy the Eastern Romans. What now?
Different early Caliphate (such as Goulashcomrade’s TL)
Umayyads don’t fall or fall differently
Less Turkic or slave soldiers in Muslim world
Successful Tulunids
Establishment of a steady Muslim state in Persia (better Samanids/Buyids?)
Muslim dominance of the Mediterranean (Sicily, Crete, Cyprus, baleares)
No/different Almoravids/Almohads
Different Wagadou/post Wagadou state(s)
No/different Qarmatians or Banu Hilal or other disruptive unrulies
No anarchy of Samarra
No/different Fatimids
Successful Eastern Jin/Liu Song conquest of the 16 Kingdoms/Tuoba Wei
Permanent Xianbei-Han divide
Surviving Sui
Even better Tang: could they have conquered Nanzhao, Silla, or Central Asia? Effects?
Different Korea: No Koryo; what does it mean for the development of Korea and its interaction with neighbors? What will it be named? Will it ever unite into one state?
Different Tibetan Empire
No Japanese conquest of Emishi
No shogunate/different genpei war/different northern and southern courts schism
No Majapahit
Longer lasting Majapahit
More powerful Khmer (not destroyed by ecological disasters/religious schisms/Tai invasions)
Tang falls to Da Yan (An Lushan). What now?
Avert Huang Chao rebellion. What now?
Empire of Harsha?
Different tripartite struggle (avoid devastation of Ghaznavid/Ghorid and weakness of the Pratihara, Pala, and Rashtrakuta) (Shahrsayr did a short TL leading up to this)
Lasting Chola
No Timur
Surviving Naiman/Western Liao
Surviving Golden Horde
Different Mongol division of the Ulus
No Ottomans
Now for more general trends:
Gunpowder development (purifying, wet grinding, corning, plus all the different weapons that will be developed)
Religion (touchy subject, but different Manichaeism/Buddhism is a treasure trove for possibilities and has never been done in depth to my knowledge, just one example). How does this affect daily lives?
Earlier society-driven or state-sponsored scientific and technological developments. How could this be achieved and what are its effects?
Better medical practices/treatment. Vaccines, anesthetic, basic hygiene, etc. effects?
Ideologies (very similar and arguably indistinguishable from religions. Take humanism. Let’s say Petrarch died as a child from smallpox. How does this affect humanism? What if Zhu Xi never formulated his version of Confucianism (which was far more humanist than its predecessor)? How does this affect humanism? Are all still completely equal, or are there fundamental differences between groups of people? What is humanism’s relationship with Christianity or Islam? How does it view emotion, freedom, meaning, love, romance, and change?
That’s all I’ve got for now.
Harold survives Hastings, further has success against the Saxons but than faces William the Conquerer ?