"Delenda Est

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
Can someone please describe the world of Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est" to me. I know the set up of the story, but how was the alternate earth different from our world.
 

B_Munro

Spoilers ahead













To be brief: Rome falls, the Carthaginian Empire never gets as far as Rome did, and the Celts do much better than OTL. [1]

There's no science, but rule-of-thumb engineering good enough to make steam-powered cars, ships, etc, and gunpowder exists. Judaism may or may not have died out: Christianity certainly never got off the ground, and polytheism of a wooly sort seems the order of the day.

There's a number of ungodly large empires for no particular reason (steam+gunpowder makes for big empires? Who knows?): a China even bigger than OTL, an Incan (perhaps) empire encompassing the western half of S. America, a huge Indian empire extending into SE asia and Indonesia, a Lithuanian realm extending from Eastern Europe to Siberia, Parthia, and a north African federation which may be descended from the old Carthaginian empire or may be no more related to it than the Holy Roman Empire was to the one of the Ceasars.

Our Heroes start out in a loosely federal state emcompassing pretty much all of N. America: Celtic settler states, native american states, and (one assumes) mixes of various sorts. Europe west of Germany is Celtic, and Italy has been thoroughly Germanized.

Bruce


[1] Some would claim that they were doomed to be stomped by the better organized Germans, but Poul Anderson is entitled to his opinions.
 

joatsimeon@aol.com

Banned
B_Munro said:
Spoilers aheadThere's a number of ungodly large empires for no particular reason (steam+gunpowder makes for big empires? Who knows?)
Click to expand...

-- the stated reason is that this is an old civilization, considerably older than our Western one. The big fish have eaten the little ones.
 

B_Munro

joatsimeon@aol.com said:
-- the stated reason is that this is an old civilization, considerably older than our Western one. The big fish have eaten the little ones.
Click to expand...

That's what _he_ says, but that assumes that all big fish stick around after eating the little ones. I call Enduring Empire Fallacy and want my fifty bucks.

Bruce
 

joatsimeon@aol.com

Banned
B_Munro said:
That's what _he_ says, but that assumes that all big fish stick around after eating the little ones. I call Enduring Empire Fallacy and want my fifty bucks.

Bruce
Click to expand...

-- not necessarily. Littorn used to be bigger than it was -- it gobbled up western Europe until the 100 Years War with Afalon forced it to disgorge.

And the Asian countries were colonies of the Europeans (and Afalonians) for a while before they shook off their overlordship and modernized themselves.
 

Alex_Reznikow

Map

Map of the world from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delenda_Est

300px-World-of-Delenda-Est.PNG


Full resolution‎ (1,712 × 837 pixels, file size: 148 KB)
 

altamiro

Banned
Emperor Qianlong said:
While the scneario sounds interesting, the map looks horrible. Why the heck are there OTL 2010 borders in Central Europe?! :confused::eek:
Click to expand...

For the most part, natural borders or shortest defensible borderlines I would say.

However, a "Super-Switzerland" including Austria and nothing else seems a bit questionable.
 

Alex_Reznikow

Emperor Qianlong said:
While the scneario sounds interesting, the map looks horrible. Why the heck are there OTL 2010 borders in Central Europe?!
Click to expand...
Fixed. No borders at all! :)
mojojojo said:
So, who rules Australia and New Zealand?
Click to expand...
Hinduraj.

From original story:
North America down to about Colombia was Ynys yr Afallon, seemingly one country divided into states.
South America was a big realm, Huy Braseal, and some smaller countries whose names looked Indian.
Australasia, Indonesia, Borneo, Burma, eastern India, and a good deal of the Pacific belonged to Hinduraj.
Afghanistan and the rest of India were Punjab.
Han included China, Korea, Japan, and eastern Siberia.
Littorn owned the rest of Russia and reached well into Europe.
The British Isles were Brittys,
France and the Low Countries were Gallis,
the Iberian peninsula was Celtan.
Central Europe and the Balkans were divided into many small nations, some of which had Hunnish-looking names.
Switzerland and Austria made up Helveti;
Italy was Cimberland;
the Scandinavian peninsula was split down the middle, Svea in the north and Gothland in the south.
North Africa looked like a confederacy, reaching from Senegal to Suez and nearly to the equator under the name of Carthagalann;
the southern part of the continent was partitioned among minor sovereignties, many of which had purely African titles.
The Near East held Parthia and Arabia.
Click to expand...
 
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