Guidance Please! 1493!

Hopefully I can get some help with a looming crisis as I have reached a point where my knowledge is completely insufficient.

This is in regard to my TL "The Horse and The Jaguar"

I would like to get some guidance on events in Europe, specifically Spain, in a rather narrow time frame.

Without going into too much boring detail, At the moment, it is November of 1493. Columbus has reached the New World on Voyage 1, but has been held in captivity by the Mayans for over a year with his entire company.

I know Spain did not really expect him to return, but since they remain completely in the dark about the Americas, what is Spain doing? What pre-occupies them?

I expect Portugal is going about its business as in OTL, but would I be correct in that assumption? Did Columbus discovery alter their plans as early as 1493?

I greatly appreciate any help and discussion either in this thread or via PM.
 
1) Spain. Hard to say. What changed compared to IOTL in your timeline at this point?

2) Portugal is indeed likely to do as IOTL.
 
1) Spain. Hard to say. What changed compared to IOTL in your timeline at this point?

2) Portugal is indeed likely to do as IOTL.

The Cliff's Notes is that instead of encountering an easily cowed culture, Ol' Chris runs into an advanced Mayan empire with iron and gunpowder.

Anyways... Spain is gonna be a bit more... moderate ITTL. The conquistadors won't be able to do their thing with at least 3 big polities with similar tech to Eurasia.

And since Portugal did tend to focus more on Asia (hence Tordesillas), you're right.
 
Outside of the Americas, everything has been as in OTL up until 28 October 1492 (his landing in Cuba). There should have been no change events in Europe at least until 15 March, 1493 when he does not return to Spain.
 
The Cliff's Notes is that instead of encountering an easily cowed culture, Ol' Chris runs into an advanced Mayan empire with iron and gunpowder.

Anyways... Spain is gonna be a bit more... moderate ITTL. The conquistadors won't be able to do their thing with at least 3 big polities with similar tech to Eurasia.

And since Portugal did tend to focus more on Asia (hence Tordesillas), you're right.

Spain is in blissful ignorance of the Americas at this point. How does that ignorance alter their actions / interests?
 
Oh, then nothing changes compared to IOTL. While the Colombine expeditions really brang a radical change, the first expedition itself didn't mattered much on peninsular's business.

EDIT : Ah, you meant after he came back.
Well, they may be more cautious, but the apparent success of Colombus in finding a land westwards, critically not only small tribes without apparent wealth, is going to launch more important expeditions. After all, they may have found China or a kingdom close by, and that would be really interesting regarding trade and competition with Portugal.

Portugal itself may eventually be more interested on the western ways, but giving they control Africa's roads, I'm not sure they would give that importance to the discovery, critically after that Yucatan would definitely be considered as "Not Asia by West"
 
Spain is in blissful ignorance of the Americas at this point. How does that ignorance alter their actions / interests?

With Columbus I believe the rationale was low risk/high reward: If indeed this daft Genoese sailor did have a route to the Indies westward, then the Spanish crowns could undercut Portuguese domination of the circum-African trade route. If he was wrong and did not return, then there, he's proven a fool.

If the New Worlders do use that shipbuilding tech to do a Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion-esque scenario (seriously, that was the first time I saw Paradox do a totally ahistorical approach), then :eek:
 
Spain is in blissful ignorance of the Americas at this point. How does that ignorance alter their actions / interests?
It doesn't alter them at all.

If the New Worlders do use that shipbuilding tech to do a Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion-esque scenario (seriously, that was the first time I saw Paradox do a totally ahistorical approach), then :eek:
So after that New Worlders reverse-engineer boats, somehow copy/past immaterial technologies and skills, they go East for no good reason for invading Spain, and 3/4 die due to epidemics.
There's some flaws in this scenario, to be honest.
 
It doesn't alter them at all.


So after that New Worlders reverse-engineer boats, somehow copy/past immaterial technologies and skills, they go East for no good reason for invading Spain, and 3/4 die due to epidemics.
There's some flaws in this scenario, to be honest.

The only catch is that I am 63 chapters into the TL and the disease issue is, well, no longer an...issue.
 
The only catch is that I am 63 chapters into the TL and the disease issue is, well, no longer an...issue.

Ah I see why. Let's say that Mongols in America in XIIIth century wouldn't go unnoticed (critically in the period where Europeans had the more important focus with Far-East than during all the Middle Ages, later centuries inculded), and would have been a huge butterfly for the Age of Discoveries. Colombus' expeditions (if not Colombus himself) would be probably butterflied.
 
Ah I see why. Let's say that Mongols in America in XIIIth century wouldn't go unnoticed (critically in the period where Europeans had the more important focus with Far-East than during all the Middle Ages, later centuries inculded), and would have been a huge butterfly for the Age of Discoveries. Colombus' expeditions (if not Colombus himself) would be probably butterflied.

True, but the premise is that the rest of the world does not know. This was the abortive Java invasion fleet that, as far as Kublai Khan knows, was lost at sea.

It would have had no more effect on the west than the failure of the invasion IOTL had...

So up until this point, Europe has been on autopilot so to speak, doing everything they did up until Columbus didn't return.

Without the draw of the New World, how does Spain conduct itself?
 
Without the draw of the New World, how does Spain conduct itself?
I've really an hard time believing that nobody would even think to return in Asia, would it be to reinforce one's position, to have access to necessary ressources, or even to cultural/individual reasons.

For the sake of the topic :

As said : nobody changes until Colombus returns : after that, more cautious than IOTL Castille-Aragon (remember that Spain, as a political entity, doesn't exist yet) but more importance given to this discovery, with clearly powerful entities : meaning wealth, trade, etc.

Probably earlier Castillan interest on *Mexico with all it implies and less focus on Antillas (while they may be treated as Azores or Canarias : plantation islands and step to main goals).
 
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