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I'm not a big fan of Calvinist theology and I was once in a bad mood, compared Calvinism with Islam (due to predestination and the obsessions some Calvinists have with gender roles and abolishing the separation of church and state), and thought that John Calvin and Oliver Cromwell were both the closest thing Europe had to Muslim Caliphs.

Regardless of whether or not that's an accurate analogy, that got me thinking...

What might be required to get an expansionist Calvinist "empire" in Europe? In "For Want of a Shove," where Luther never becomes a monk, Calvin ends up becoming co-ruler of a giant Reformed state in southern Germany. I asked Dreadnought Jenkins if he intended Calvin to be the new Caliph of some kind of empire but he said that he didn't.

For the purposes of this scenario, Calvin need not be the Emperor--he could play the role of Mohammed, with his successors engaging in the whole wave-of-conquests thing.
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