Lands of Red and Gold

[Archangel]

Like mojojojo says, it's up to you, Jared, but shorter updates might also attract more people to your excellent works.

 

[Workable Goblin]

I like doorstoppers, even if it takes a few days to work up the courage to actually read through them. In my mind, this TL is associated with big (but juicy and delicious) doorstopper posts.

 

[Jared]

Lands of Red and Gold #37: The Time of Troubles

“Nothing is stronger than the bond between brothers, except the hatred between brothers who have fallen out.”
- Batjiri of Jurundit [Koroit, Victoria]

* * *

Year of the Twisted Serpent [August 1629]
Kirunmara [Terang, Victoria]
Land of the Five Directions (Yadji Empire)

Around him, the familiar stone of the House of the Dawn [1]. Much less splendid than his own chambers in the great palace, but much safer. Gunya Yadji did not risk setting foot inside the palace these days, unless surrounded by a host of bodyguards.

“I welcome you,” Gunya Yadji said, using the masculine form of the pronoun [2].

“You are generous [3],” said Bidwadjari, his guest, shaking his head [4].

Gunya raised a palm, acknowledging the statement, then picked up a ceramic flagon and filled two goblets with a ganyu [yam wine] spiced with cinnamon myrtle and limes. He raised his goblet and announced, “To the memory of my departed cousin Boringa. Whatever his faults in life, may he find rest after fighting his final battle.”

Bidwadjari held up his goblet in turn, repeated the invocation, and they both drank.

After a moment, Bidwadjari said, “And with your cousin now consigned to memory, you” – he used the masculine form of the pronoun, too – “want to secure his legacy. With my aid.”

“You are direct,” Gunya said, with what he hoped was a convincing imitation of surprise. He knew how Bidwadjari conducted himself; the general’s reputation preceded him. “But largely correct.”

Bidwadjari frowned. “Soldiers have a saying: Safer to step barefoot into a pit of tiger snakes [5] than play in the politics of princes.”

“With what is coming, all men must choose where they stand,” Gunya said.

Bidwadjari said, “I would stand apart. I will lead the Fronds [his army group] wherever the chosen Regent commands, but I would not become involved in the choosing.”

“These are not usual times,” Gunya said. “Omens stir, new plagues come out of the uttermost west, and a Regent has been slain. What would in ordinary times be most proper deference will in this time become impossible, for now there may not be a chosen Regent.”

Bidwadjari stirred in his seat, then. Not standing, exactly, but flexing the heavily-muscled shoulders which had borne armour for longer than most men had lived. His hair – or what was left of it – had gone white, but he remained a most formidable figure of a man. Not to mention the most experienced army commander in the Empire; a man of such reputation that he could speak his mind to anyone he wished, without fear of retribution.

At length, the soldier said, “It is for princes to decide which of them believe they should be the most worthy Regent.” He paused, then added, “Which, in your opinion, would be you.”

“Of course I believe I would make the best Regent, or I would not have invited you here,” Gunya said. “Unfortunately, it is the first of your two statements which is incorrect.”

Bidwadjari raised an eyebrow.

“If it were princes who decided who will be Regent, I would not need to ask where you stand,” Gunya said. “But now priests interfere in the business of princes.”

“Do you doubt their wisdom?”

Gunya felt his lip curl. “Too many of our priests grew used to speaking for the Regent.”

“Someone needed to rule while a mad Regent reigned,” Bidwadjari answered, his tone cool.

“If they had ruled properly, I would not be concerned,” Gunya said. “Look at what happened while Boringa whispered and the priests claimed to interpret his words! Tjibarr seized the Copper Coast, Gutjanal took the gold of Djawrit [Bendigo, Victoria], and the savages grew restless on our eastern frontier [6]. All this happened, and the priests cared not.”

“Our armies were not idle during those defeats, nor lacking in courage,” Bidwadjari said.

“No man could ever doubt your valour, or that of our soldiers,” Gunya said. “What you lacked was support. The priests cared for nothing outside of Kirunmara’s walls, and you did not send you what was needed.”

Bidwadjari had met Gunya’s eyes only briefly during the whole of the conversation, as was proper. Now, he turned his gaze squarely on Gunya. “You believe that if you become Regent, our armies will be victorious?”

The old soldier had a truly penetrating gaze, when he chose to use it. Gunya did not hesitate before it, though. “I cannot promise that. What I do know is that they will not lack the support they need.”

“And you think that your cousin will not do the same?”

Gunya snorted. “Bailgu listens too much to the priests, and cares for naught but pleasure. He will not attend to the defence of the Empire. Oh, he can command armies – do not underestimate him – but he is lazy. A wastrel. He will be happy to sit in Kirunmara eating fish, drinking gum cider, and surrounded by concubines, while the priests rule and the Empire’s glory rots.”

“I will consider this,” Bidwadjari said, his tone as neutral as the form of the pronoun he used. He rose to leave, and Gunya made no move to stop him. The great commander would decide alone which way he moved; no further persuasion would be effective.

*

Silence. Far too much silence.

Immense though the royal palace might be, it had always seemed too small to contain the sounds of the people who filled it. Regents, princes, priests, cooks, soldiers, scribes, cleaners, and an endless stream of others moved in and out as duty demanded, and were rarely silent when doing so.

Now, though, Bailgu Yadji found himself overwhelmed with silence. Many people had abandoned the palace, with no Regent to steer the Empire on its right course. Those who remained trod lightly and carried out their duties as quietly as they could, as if fearing that someone would notice them and order them to depart. When they had to speak, it was usually with lowered voices and brief sentences, as if every surplus word would become a fresh weapon raised against them when they went to fight their final battle.

For himself, Bailgu Yadji cared nothing for the silence. He spoke as loudly as he always did. Louder, if anything. Let the fools and cowards mutter in their meanderings. He had a Regency to win; an Empire to put to rights. He strode the corridors of the palace, speaking to people whenever he could, reminding them of his existence while his foolish cousin had fled under the excuse of conducting a long vigil for the fallen Regent.

This morning, he had one of the more devout priests awaiting him, so he kept his conversations briefer than usual. He did not want to keep one of the Neverborn’s more pious followers waiting too long.

Still, one of the men he passed made him pause longer than usual. A man busily writing at a table hardly made for an unusual sight in the royal palace. Until Bailgu noticed the checked pink and gray pattern on the man’s anjumi [headband] which proclaimed him as a death warrior.

There’s an incongruous sight. Rarely would a literate man be one who embraced the frenzied glory of the death cult. Nor was it common to see a death warrior without the white dye [7].

Intrigued, Bailgu coughed to indicate his presence. The death warrior looked up, and said, “A moment please.”

The death warrior wrote rapidly until the ink on his pen was exhausted, then rose.

Bailgu said, “What is your name, sworn one?” He used the neutral form of the pronoun [8].

“Batjiri of Jurundit,” he said. “Of the Fearless.”

“Did you learn to write before you took the oath?”

“Afterward,” Batjiri said. “So I could read the Nine Classics [9].”

“Oh.” Strange. A man who waited calmly for battle and a frenzied death did not strike him as a man who should trouble himself to know the Nine Classics. Bailgu nodded at the writing table. “Are you preparing a new copy?”

“No, I am writing a new text. I hope that someday it may be considered the Tenth Classic.”

“Ah... Ah, that is... not what I would have expected from a man whose oath means that at any time he may be called to battle to chant his name until he is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

Batjiri shrugged. “Every man will go to fight his Last Battle sooner or later. They know not when it is, but act as if it will be far into the future. For me, the difference is that I accept that I could die at any time, if I am called. Even if my classic is unfinished, what I have written will still be worthy.”

“A commendable ambition,” Bailgu said, carefully keeping his face blank. He understood what drove most death warriors, but this man...? He gestured to the writing desk. “If you want to resume your writing...”

Batjiri’s lips twisted into a smile, one which did not touch his eyes. “If the oath has taught me one thing, it is the value of time.” The death warrior sat back down again, and Bailgu hurried on.

Soon enough, he reached the chamber where Jirandali, Third Watcher of the Dreams [10] awaited him. Polite greetings took up some time, with mutual invocations of good health, long life, and listening to the voice of the Neverborn.

After that, Jirandali said, “It is certain: your cousin met with the Head of the Fronds this morning.”

If he had not been in the presence of a priest, Bailgu would have muttered a curse. Clenching his fists made for a poor compromise. “Bad enough that he meets with other Yadji [ie members of the royal family]. If he is trying to sway soldiers... Do you know if they reached any agreement?”

“No-one is certain. If so, neither of them has said anything about it where our listeners can hear.”

“Do you think that Bidwadjari would side with Gunya?”

The Watcher looked thoughtful. “I think that he would prefer that a Regent is chosen quickly, without bloodshed.”

“Which won’t happen,” Bailgu said. “I will not stand by and let that man lead the Land. He thinks only of this world, and cares nothing for preparing the Land for the world to come.”

“All truth, and truth which you have said before,” Jirandali said. “Yet will it convince enough of your family?”

Bailgu said, “I fear that too many of them share his obsession. Gunya thinks only of recapturing the Copper Coast.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “A folly believed only by those who cannot see clearly. We have fought Tjibarr for centuries, and never defeated them badly enough to hold onto the Coast for more than a generation. The blood and treasure we pay to take it are greater than the province is worth. Better to let Tjibarr have it, and the joy of holding it.”

Alas, despite the self-evident truth, too many princes refused to see it. Gunya and his ilk cared more for glory than for reality. Perhaps the Empire should fight more for Djawrit and its gold, but the Copper Coast was worth nothing. Better secure borders for the Empire than endlessly trying to extend them. Then he could concentrate on holding the peoples already within the Empire, and preparing for the Cleansing [11].

“If so, that means that we must prepare for war,” the Watcher said.

“Perhaps it can still be avoided, but yes, preparations are essential,” Bailgu said. And, my dear cousin Gunya, there you will be defeated.

* * *

Civil war: almost an impossible proposition to consider for the Yadji, a royal family who had prided themselves on their ability to present a united front to their subject peoples. Rebellions against the Yadji were common enough, but rarely was there a Yadji at their head.

Disputed successions were reasonably common, but were usually resolved by politicking or the intervention of the senior priests. Only in a few instances had this led to combat between princes. Even then, on most of those occasions, the conflict had ended quickly when it became clear that one prince had much more support than the other, or was a better general.

When it was clear that one prince was superior in support or in martial skills, the traditional solution was for the other prince to swear the oath of a death warrior. Taking this oath meant that the defeated prince was dead in law, no longer considered part of the Yadji family, and could not inherit the Regency. Depending on the generosity of the new Regent, the new death warrior sometimes found himself fighting in every battle on the Tjibarr frontier until he had fulfilled his oath, or sometimes was allowed to live out his life in reasonably comfortable exile in a distant city.

The Time of Troubles (1629-1638), known to the Yadji of the time as the Year of the Twisted Serpent [12], was an unfortunate exception to the usual practice. Gunya and Bailgu, the two main princes involved in the struggle, were bitterly opposed both in pride and in policy. Both could draw on considerable support from their fellow princes, from the priests, and from the generals. Politicking failed to resolve the impasse, and the outcomes was civil war.

For a war fought at least nominally for ten years, the destruction was not as severe as might have been expected, particularly in comparison to European wars of the time. Wanton destruction was uncommon; both sides exercised restraint since they wanted to have a well-populated, prosperous empire to rule afterward.

Gunya’s forces won the first great battle, near Jerang [Lorne], and after that, Bailgu’s main force retreated into fortified positions. For most of the war, the focus was on sieges of key enemy cities. These typically involved long periods of boredom followed by brief periods of intense interest.

The death toll for sieges was usually low. The Yadji had large food stores available [13] – one reason the sieges lasted so long – and their siege weaponry was not particularly advanced. In a disease environment less hostile than the Old World, great disease outbreaks during sieges were also relatively unknown [14]. Even when sieges were successful, the civilian population of the captured town was usually spared; after a couple of early massacres failed to intimidate other besieged towns into surrender, both Bailgu and Gunya largely abandoned the practice, except on a couple of occasions when attacking troops got out of control.

This practice of restraint during sieges was only consistently violated during another odd example of the conventions of Yadji politics: the response to the Kurnawal uprising early in the Troubles.

In 1631-1632, the Kurnawal [inhabitants of the easternmost Yadji provinces] tried to take advantage of the civil war to assert their independence [15]. Regardless of how much the two imperial pretenders despised each other, there were family dictates to be honoured. The two quarrelling princes negotiated a temporary truce, assumed joint command of their armies, and marched east to subdue the Kurnawal.

Here, they ended sieges with fire and blood, the better to force the rebels back under imperial control. When the Kurnawal were reconquered, as per the terms of the truce, the two princes’ armies returned to their former positions [16] and resumed their civil war with mostly the same restraint as before.

Of course, for all that the two princes tried not to undermine the foundations of the Empire, the effects of so many years of warfare were considerable. A significant portion of the Empire’s soldiery died, and many of the valuable food stores were exhausted. While both sides did not directly interfere with the harvests, and famines were rare except inside besieged cities, disruptions were inevitable with soldiers called to war.

For most of the Time of Troubles, the course of the war still hung in the balance. Gunya’s forces were generally more successful in open battle, but that led in turn to them conducting more of the sieges and losing relatively more men in assaults. The outcome of the war was still in doubt in April 1636, when William Baffin’s ships sailed into the harbour of Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria] and became the first Europeans to make direct contact with the Yadji Empire...

* * *

[1] The House of the Dawn (several exist in most Yadji cities, despite the singularity of the name) is a place where people go to hold vigils for fallen comrades. It is considered the utmost in sacred ground, even more than a temple. Staying there serves Gunya two purposes: implying he is still holding a vigil for his assassinated cousin, and means that not even the most determined of enemies would send someone to assassinate him.

[2] All Junditmara pronouns and personal titles come in six versions: dominant, submissive, masculine, feminine, neutral, and familiar. A complex set of social codes dictates which form should be used in which circumstances. (See post #16 for more information).

[3] Because Gunya used the masculine form to imply informality and near-equality for the purposes of the meeting, rather than the dominant form which would have showed clear superiority.

[4] In most Aururian cultures, including the Yadji, shaking the head is a form of emphasis or agreement, not denial.

[5] The Australian tiger snake (Notechis scutatus), usually considered the fourth most venomous land snake in the world [17]. It is abundant in southern Aururia. Its preferred habitats include wetlands and small creeks, including the extensive Yadji artificial wetlands. Tiger snake bite is a frequent cause of death among the Yadji.

[6] ie the Nguril and Kaoma of the Monaro plateau, who sometimes raid into the *Murray basin, and sometimes into the Yadji’s eastern provinces.

[7] Death warriors who are going into battle dye their face with white dye in a pattern which makes it look like a skull. Most death warriors keep that dye on all the time.

[8] All death warriors are referred to using the neutral form of the pronoun, except among themselves. This is because death warriors are treated as being outside of the social order, with neither dominance nor subordination to others. Those who swear the oath of a death warrior are treated as dead in law for most purposes, with their worldly goods handed over to their kin. The death warriors are then supported by the temples and the royal family.

[9] Nine venerated texts among the Yadji, regarded as the epitome of literature, both for the quality of their written language, and the virtues espoused within them. Most of the Nine Classics date back to the days of the feudal Empire of the Lake, and were written by or about (sometimes both) briyuna, the sworn warriors of the feudal lords.

[10] The rank of Third Watcher of the Dreams originally meant a priest who was charged with interpreting the omens contained in the Regent’s dreams. There were four such priests, each serving for one month in four, in succession. (The priests were equal in rank; the number simply indicates which months each priest would serve). The role of Watcher has gradually evolved into a more general spiritual counsellor and adviser for the Regent. While there are several priests whose formal rank is higher than the Watchers, the direct access to the Regent gives the Watchers significant informal authority.

[11] In Yadji eschatology, the Cleansing is when the Neverborn will break free from the earth, defeat the Lord of Night, and remake the world.

[12] The Yadji traditionally name their years by that of the current Regent. When there is no Regent, another name is used for the period in question. The Year of the Twisted Serpent was thus rather a long year.

[13] The Yadji traditionally store enough food to cope with four years of famine; enough time to wait for a new planting of wattle trees to produce large amounts of seed. Having such large food stores allows them to minimise the effects of long-term droughts or severe bushfires burning out their crops.

[14] The Aururian disease environment is more hostile than that of the New World, but considerably less so than that of Eurasia (or worse yet tropical Africa). There are diseases and waterborne parasites around which can cause problems for besieging armies, such as Marnitja, but the overall effects of these is less than in comparable sieges in the Old World, where the disease toll in sieges could be horrific. The Yadji are also fortunate in that the main sieges in the Time of Troubles were in the central and eastern provinces. This meant that that they were spared a heavy toll from the worst siege-related disease in Aururia, swamp rash [18].

[15] Or, more precisely, to assert their independence from Yadji tribute-collectors, particularly those seeking to pay for the civil war.

[16] More or less. Both sides resumed control of the same ground as before the truce. They still took advantage of the truce to resupply and move troops into better positions within their current territory.

[17] The top ten most venomous land snakes in the world are all Australian. So is the world’s deadliest spider (funnel-web). Australia’s coastal waters are also visited by the world’s deadliest octopus (blue-ringed octopus), deadliest jellyfish (box jellyfish) and deadliest shark (great white shark). Oddly enough, people who know that still visit Australia.

[18] Swamp rash (an allohistorical descendant of Barmah Forest virus) is a mosquito-borne disease which for centuries has been endemic in the artificial wetlands along the *Murray. It has recently spread to the western wetlands of the Yadji Empire, and is slowly expanding east. Swamp rash does not usually cause epidemics, being more of an endemic disease afflicting people who are exposed to mosquito bites. However, it does have the potential to cause epidemics if besieging armies are encamped near wetlands.

Swamp rash is also one Aururian disease where the mortality rates vary considerably between Aururian peoples. The Gunnagal and other peoples who live along the Middle and Upper *Murray have had centuries of exposure to the virus, and have evolved some natural immunity. The Yadji (and other non-*Murray peoples) have no such resistance, and their mortality rates from the disease are roughly twice those of the Gunnagal. The endemic nature of swamp rash also means that most Gunnagal will have been exposed to the disease in their childhood, and thus (if they survived) will be immune to an outbreak as adults. This means that when Tjibarr and Yadji armies fight, an outbreak of swamp rash will take a significant toll of the Yadji armies but have little effect on Tjibarr. (This is one factor which has helped Tjibarr defend its core territories from Yadji invasion.)

* * *

Thoughts?

 

[Shadow Knight]

Epically awesome Jared. Seems the Europeans have arrived in interesting times.

 

[sahaidak]

Baffin comes to the Empire in 1636, and Nuyts, probably, in 1637. Both do it before the civil war ends. Both could try to influence the war's outcome. The Englishman has his mother country's full support (for what it is worth), while Nuyts acts more or less on his (and his shareholders) own. The latter (taking into account his general badassery) may be more reckless, which could influence his relations with the Yadji (and with Baffin's men).
If shit hits the fan, the VOC and the United Provinces may disawov Nuyts and his ilk, and let the Yadji and the EIC do what they please with captured Dutchmen. On the other hand, memory of the Amboyna incident is still very much alive in late 1630s, and lure of Eastern Aururian riches may be too strong...
If Nuyts and Baffin will somehow manage to start the Anglo-Dutch war 15 years before schedule,... well, consequences would be immense. The English Civil War itself could be butterflied away or at least changed beyond recognition.

 

[Roberto]

If we see Baffin and Nuyts taking sides in the Yadji Civil War, it would set a precedent for European powers to fight proxy wars through their Aururian allies, much like OTL India... Which is an apt comparison considering that Aururia is also (or will be) valued for its spices and trading goods.

 

[mojojojo]

So did Batjiri's work become a tenth classic?

 

[Jared]

Epically awesome Jared. Seems the Europeans have arrived in interesting times.

Why, yes. Much to complicate their lives in first Yadji contact...

Baffin comes to the Empire in 1636, and Nuyts, probably, in 1637. Both do it before the civil war ends. Both could try to influence the war's outcome.

They certainly might try, although Baffin's first purpose is to identify potential markets for the East India Company. That won't necessarily stop him trying to interfere, but he may settle just for establishing friendly relations with both of the (main) sides and just coming back in a couple of years to see who won.

Nuyts, on the other hand, is explicitly there for conquest.

The Englishman has his mother country's full support (for what it is worth), while Nuyts acts more or less on his (and his shareholders) own. The latter (taking into account his general badassery) may be more reckless, which could influence his relations with the Yadji (and with Baffin's men).

Yup. Nuyts wants either direct conquest or to establish puppet rulers who rely on his power. He won't want the English having direct influence, although oddly enough he may not mind having them around. That way, any trade he does want to conduct won't be exclusively dependent on the VOC.

If shit hits the fan, the VOC and the United Provinces may disawov Nuyts and his ilk, and let the Yadji and the EIC do what they please with captured Dutchmen. On the other hand, memory of the Amboyna incident is still very much alive in late 1630s, and lure of Eastern Aururian riches may be too strong...

The Amboyna incident itself has been butterflied away ITTL. Relations between the Dutch and English are cool, but not quite as bad as they were at the same point in OTL. The lure of Eastern Aururia is still very strong, though.

If Nuyts and Baffin will somehow manage to start the Anglo-Dutch war 15 years before schedule,... well, consequences would be immense.

Very much so. The Dutch are probably in a stronger position at this point, although they're also in a more complex position since they're also still at war with Spain. Hmm... Anglo-Spanish alliance against the Dutch?

The English Civil War itself could be butterflied away or at least changed beyond recognition.

The English Civil War as we know it is definitely gone; Charles I died of blue-sleep in 1631. There's now a regency (although the regent has been named) which has a rather... aggressive foreign policy.

If we see Baffin and Nuyts taking sides in the Yadji Civil War, it would set a precedent for European powers to fight proxy wars through their Aururian allies, much like OTL India... Which is an apt comparison considering that Aururia is also (or will be) valued for its spices and trading goods.

Yes, there's certainly much in common there. Wealth to be made, and the main challenge is making sure that it's your own European nation which trades it to the outside world, not the European rival of your choice.

So did Batjiri's work become a tenth classic?

There's still more of Batjiri to show over the next couple of posts, which will answer that question, among much else.

 

[The Sandman]

A few thoughts.

Assuming Baffin stays in the area long enough for Nuyts to arrive, that's going to make the situation even more complicated. If Nuyts launches his invasion regardless of the English, Baffin is in an excellent situation to determine whether it succeeds.

I also wonder if Nuyts was planning on picking up local help, a la Cortes? Either from the Cider Isle or from Aotearoa; both would have mercenaries for hire, although hiring Maori would require at least somewhat peaceful contact first.

Two potential crops for North American colonies would be wheat and wine. Wine is doable, as evidenced by some of the modern viticulture efforts on the East Coast, and wheat was the other major cash crop of late colonial Virginia besides tobacco. With chaos likely in the Baltic region from the Swedes, Poles and Russians all reacting to the plagues, food exports from there are going to be unreliable for some time, making American grain more valuable as a result.

I also have some thoughts on crops that the Aururians might be particularly interested in importing. Olives are an obvious one, given that oil is at best a secondary product from the Aururian crops that produce it; it also grows well in that climate and remains productive for a very long time. Sugar will be immensely valuable, just like it was everywhere else, and once it arrives cacao also will increase in value. Tea and coffee are both possibilities, although I expect tea will be an easier sell prior to sugar becoming widely available. Amongst the Atjuntja, and to a lesser extent the other Aururian nations, flowering plants with practical uses should do quite well also; saffron, for instance, or lotus, or hibiscus, jasmine, osmanthus, zucchini, elderberries...

And there's a tree I stumbled across while wikisurfing, called Moringa oleifera, that seems to be an excellent prospect for introduction. It should grow in the Aururian climate, every part of the tree is usable, and it apparently is widely grown in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and therefore could be encountered by Nangu traders in Dutch territory.

 

[Jared]

A few thoughts.

Assuming Baffin stays in the area long enough for Nuyts to arrive, that's going to make the situation even more complicated.

Why... yes. Yes, it would.

If Nuyts launches his invasion regardless of the English, Baffin is in an excellent situation to determine whether it succeeds.

Up to a point. Baffin's expedition is one of exploration. Sure, he has some sailors with muskets, and a few cannon, but Nuyts will be bringing over a thousand heavily-armed veterans.

And there's also the point that Nuyts may be inclined to cooperate with the English. After all, he's already acting against the VOC, and if he wants contact with the rest of the world, using English ships may be a convenient way to do it. At least until he has consolidated his position in Aururia enough that the VOC have to recognise him.

I also wonder if Nuyts was planning on picking up local help, a la Cortes?

Nuyts plans on picking up local help, but he is expecting to do it from within the Yadji Empire. He has heard of one subject people there - the Yadilli - who live near the *Murray Mouth, and are Gunnagalic Plirites who resent Yadji rule both on religious and linguistic grounds. He believes that he can get help from them, and perhaps from other Plirites such as the Mutjing in the *Eyre Peninsula.

Either from the Cider Isle or from Aotearoa; both would have mercenaries for hire, although hiring Maori would require at least somewhat peaceful contact first.

In the short term, neither of those would be much help as mercenaries for hire. In the Cider Isle, they're too busy fighting each other, and the Maori are still hostile enough to outsiders that negotiating them would be tricky. (Hell, even finding a common language would be hard enough.)

In the long term, though, yes, both of those would be potential sources of mercenaries if any Europeans are going a-hunting.

Two potential crops for North American colonies would be wheat and wine. Wine is doable, as evidenced by some of the modern viticulture efforts on the East Coast, and wheat was the other major cash crop of late colonial Virginia besides tobacco.

Wine is certainly possible. Virginia grew some notable wines in OTL until Prohibition stamped out the industry, and it's only now even starting to recover. Random thought: if wine growing in Virginia becomes predominant earlier, does that mean Phylloxera makes it across the Atlantic earlier, too?

Wheat... hmm. Need to look into that. I'm not sure whether early colonial Virginia would find it profitable to grow food crops for export, given that in OTL, about 20% of new settlers died of starvation in the first year. Maybe once things get a bit more established, and/or if they find a way to redeploy labour after tobacco prices collapse.

With chaos likely in the Baltic region from the Swedes, Poles and Russians all reacting to the plagues, food exports from there are going to be unreliable for some time, making American grain more valuable as a result.

Would probably help for a few years, but it's a narrow window of opportunity. Depends how much can be done in a few years.

I also have some thoughts on crops that the Aururians might be particularly interested in importing. Olives are an obvious one, given that oil is at best a secondary product from the Aururian crops that produce it; it also grows well in that climate and remains productive for a very long time.

Good point. Olives and olive oil could be quite valuable. (Olives would also go feral, as they've done in OTL, but c'est la vie.) As you point out, there aren't that many oil crops available in Aururia. They can kinda-sorta create linseed oil from native flax, but it doesn't store very well in the Aururian climate. Olive oil would be marvellous. (Especially to deep-fry yam slices... mmmm.)

As an aside, there are native Australian olive species, too. For all I know, some of them may be domesticable, but there's not enough evidence, so I didn't include any of them ITTL's Aururian crop package. (Apart from red yams themselves, I only include plants which in OTL have been shown to have some potential for domestication - even though there are almost certainly others where the Aboriginal knowledge has been lost.)

Sugar will be immensely valuable, just like it was everywhere else, and once it arrives cacao also will increase in value.

Everyone loves sugar! I don't know how much of it the Aururians will be able to obtain, but those who can get it will love it. Especially the cacao+sugar combination.

Tea and coffee are both possibilities, although I expect tea will be an easier sell prior to sugar becoming widely available.

I've been mulling over whether any of the native Aururian tea-like beverages (think lemon-tea types) will be popular enough to be taken up overseas, or for that matter whether they will last even within Aururia without being displaced by tea. At the very least, tea will probably become popular with the Atjuntja, who lack the eastern beverages.

Amongst the Atjuntja, and to a lesser extent the other Aururian nations, flowering plants with practical uses should do quite well also; saffron, for instance, or lotus, or hibiscus, jasmine, osmanthus, zucchini, elderberries...

Good suggestions. The Atjuntja love anything flowering... and they will now have a lot to choose from.

And there's a tree I stumbled across while wikisurfing, called Moringa oleifera, that seems to be an excellent prospect for introduction. It should grow in the Aururian climate, every part of the tree is usable, and it apparently is widely grown in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and therefore could be encountered by Nangu traders in Dutch territory.

Good find! I can certainly see the Aururians taking up that plant, especially as another perennial to add to their farming.

And as an aside, the wiki article is a classic example of all that's wrong with wikipedia (except that it doesn't credit Poland for inventing the tree).

 

[Thande]

By this point in OTL, Charles I had signed a secret treaty with Spain to oppose the Dutch on the high seas. While the plagues have probably butterflied the specific treaty away, it was the result of a trend since the turn of the seventeenth century, so England is already aligned against the Dutch and Baffin will take any opportunity to gain a foothold for England in Aururia and keep yet another Dutchman out. The Royal Terra Incognita Company, perhaps?

Minor point-- I seem to recall Jared saying before that his idea of making flour from ground wattleseeds was only theoretical (perhaps I misremembered) but I recently came across a reference to Aborigines doing it in OTL.

 

[sahaidak]

Why... yes. Yes, it would.


Wheat... hmm. Need to look into that. I'm not sure whether early colonial Virginia would find it profitable to grow food crops for export, given that in OTL, about 20% of new settlers died of starvation in the first year. Maybe once things get a bit more established, and/or if they find a way to redeploy labour after tobacco prices collapse.
Would probably help for a few years, but it's a narrow window of opportunity. Depends how much can be done in a few years.

I doubt that wheat could be exported from Virginia to Europe at all, with prevailing transport conditions of the 17th century. Shipping was expensive and risky, and wheat is bulk commodity, and relatively low-value per unit of weight. To trade wheat (and rice) to the Caribbean sugar islands - sure, distances are not that great, and competition is almost absent with all fertile soil occupied with cane. But sugar industry itself could be disrupted by Aururian plagues (fewer consumers in Europe, fewer slaves in Africa).
At the same time, European wheat importers of the time (the Netherlands, mostly) were well-supplied by Baltic grain. Of course, wars and plagues will disrupt Baltic exports, too, but you'll need disruption in the Baltic coinciding with bumper crops and absence of plagues in America. Very narrow window of opportunity, indeed. And as soon as Baltic commerce would be restored (the Dutch in OTL 'convinced' Baltic nations to restore exports, going as far as sending war fleets to Danzig), Virginian (and any other American) grain exports to Europe would become non-competitive again, and for a long time. Before steamships and railroads, transoceanic exports were of necessity high-value - sugar, indigo, tobacco, cotton cloth, etc.

 

[The Sandman]

Up to a point. Baffin's expedition is one of exploration. Sure, he has some sailors with muskets, and a few cannon, but Nuyts will be bringing over a thousand heavily-armed veterans.

And there's also the point that Nuyts may be inclined to cooperate with the English. After all, he's already acting against the VOC, and if he wants contact with the rest of the world, using English ships may be a convenient way to do it. At least until he has consolidated his position in Aururia enough that the VOC have to recognise him.

Well, given that information, Nuyts won't have to worry about a spoiling attack, or at least not to the extent that it would impact his plans. What he will have to worry about is keeping Baffin from spilling the beans to the VOC before they can be presented with a fait accompli. Aside, of course, from the fact that Nuyts simply won't be expecting any other Europeans to be there when he arrives.

This also assumes that Baffin, having arrived the better part of a year earlier, hasn't already started to interfere with the civil war.

Nuyts plans on picking up local help, but he is expecting to do it from within the Yadji Empire. He has heard of one subject people there - the Yadilli - who live near the *Murray Mouth, and are Gunnagalic Plirites who resent Yadji rule both on religious and linguistic grounds. He believes that he can get help from them, and perhaps from other Plirites such as the Mutjing in the *Eyre Peninsula.

I see this going spectacularly wrong in three ways. With the Yadilli, their Plirite beliefs are going to ensure that the war becomes vastly uglier the moment they enter it, and Nuyts is going to alienate them if he tries to moderate their behavior to even the standards of 17th century Europeans. Hiring Mutjing means that he's openly interfering with the main Nangu food supply, and in such a way as to guarantee that the *Eyre Peninsula will no longer be off-limits to the continental powers post-war, to say nothing of the fact that the VOC presence amongst the Mutjing will want to stop him from ruining their trade. And given what we saw with the Kurnawal rebellion, Nuyts doing either of these makes it more likely that the two Yadji claimants will call a truce long enough to crush him before returning to the civil war.

Wheat... hmm. Need to look into that. I'm not sure whether early colonial Virginia would find it profitable to grow food crops for export, given that in OTL, about 20% of new settlers died of starvation in the first year. Maybe once things get a bit more established, and/or if they find a way to redeploy labour after tobacco prices collapse.

Looking into a bit more, it seems that you and sahaidak are right; Virginian wheat was mostly being sold to the West Indies, albeit for a hefty profit. It still might be possible ITTL, since I think sugar will remain highly profitable even during and after the plagues, but I can't guarantee it.

If the climate is appropriate, I can see more attempts being made at tea, coffee and silk production in the southern colonies, along with rice and possibly citrus fruit; the latter two were grown there IOTL, although tobacco, cotton and indigo overshadowed them, and the former three are all going to be a bit harder to come by with the drop in bullion to pay for them at the source. Dutch gold from Aururia won't help the English much there, because most of it is probably being spent in Asia before it can return to Europe and enter the broader continental economy. Besides those five, feel free to postulate any other crops that might grow well in Virginia or the Carolinas and fetch high prices in Europe, even if they never took off IOTL; with kunduri destroying tobacco's potential as a cash crop, cotton still a relatively minor player until the invention of a cotton gin, and both slave and free labor less available (especially slaves, since keeping sugar production up in the West Indies is going to be the first priority for the lessened supply), colonial farmers are going to be very willing to experiment.

Good point. Olives and olive oil could be quite valuable. (Olives would also go feral, as they've done in OTL, but c'est la vie.) As you point out, there aren't that many oil crops available in Aururia. They can kinda-sorta create linseed oil from native flax, but it doesn't store very well in the Aururian climate. Olive oil would be marvellous. (Especially to deep-fry yam slices... mmmm.)

Olive oil got me thinking about balsamic vinegar, which leads me to another question: do the Aururians know how to make vinegar, and if so what do they use for it? If they don't, then it might be a useful trade good for European merchants once the Aururians see how useful it is for pickling things; if they do, then depending on the flavor it might be a highly valuable trade good back in Europe and Asia.

As an aside, there are native Australian olive species, too. For all I know, some of them may be domesticable, but there's not enough evidence, so I didn't include any of them ITTL's Aururian crop package. (Apart from red yams themselves, I only include plants which in OTL have been shown to have some potential for domestication - even though there are almost certainly others where the Aboriginal knowledge has been lost.)

Perfectly understandable.

Everyone loves sugar! I don't know how much of it the Aururians will be able to obtain, but those who can get it will love it. Especially the cacao+sugar combination.

Depends on how soon sugar gets taken up in Queensland. Now that the Kiyungu are hooked into the greater trade network, it's only a matter of time until someone with knowledge of sugarcane cultivation learns about the region and realizes the potential in growing it so close to the Asian and Aururian export markets. Cacao would probably come in second; while it should grow as well as sugar in the climate and has similar potential as an export, it also tends to be a bit delicate and disease-prone. Vanilla would be the final part of the trio to arrive, because until someone ITTL works out how to hand-pollinate it it can't be grown outside the range of the species of Mexican bee that's its only natural pollinator.

I've been mulling over whether any of the native Aururian tea-like beverages (think lemon-tea types) will be popular enough to be taken up overseas, or for that matter whether they will last even within Aururia without being displaced by tea. At the very least, tea will probably become popular with the Atjuntja, who lack the eastern beverages.

It probably depends on how effective the native tisanes are as a stimulant when compared with tea, how expensive tea is compared with the native alternatives, and how it tastes compared with the native alternatives.

Good suggestions. The Atjuntja love anything flowering... and they will now have a lot to choose from.

I actually think that the first Aururians to willingly make it past Java might be Atjuntja gardeners/botanists searching for new flowers to add to the Garden. While most Nangu would probably sell the Good Man himself to get a first-hand look at Europe, the Dutch aren't going to give potential competitors that sort of information windfall without something unbelievably valuable in exchange.

Aside from various types of flowers, the Atjuntja travellers will also probably try to bring back peafowl (apparently the appropriate term for peacocks), although they might prefer the Green Peafowl to the more common IOTL Indian Peafowl due to the females of the former being just as spectacularly colored as the males.

I expect that the lotus will be taken up by the Yadji almost as quickly as by the Atjuntja, given its beauty, its usefulness, and its connection with water.

Good find! I can certainly see the Aururians taking up that plant, especially as another perennial to add to their farming.

And as an aside, the wiki article is a classic example of all that's wrong with wikipedia (except that it doesn't credit Poland for inventing the tree).

Thanks. I agree with you on the page, by the way; sadly, most of the easily located Internet sources didn't seem to be much better. Even cutting out the most effusive praise and overstatements, though, it did sound pretty nice.

Maybe Flocc would know more? IIRC, he's the only AH.commer in the general region where you'd find it grown IOTL, so he at least has a better shot of obtaining first-hand information about it.

I doubt that wheat could be exported from Virginia to Europe at all, with prevailing transport conditions of the 17th century. Shipping was expensive and risky, and wheat is bulk commodity, and relatively low-value per unit of weight. To trade wheat (and rice) to the Caribbean sugar islands - sure, distances are not that great, and competition is almost absent with all fertile soil occupied with cane. But sugar industry itself could be disrupted by Aururian plagues (fewer consumers in Europe, fewer slaves in Africa).

I think that while sugar production will decrease due to the plagues, it won't be disrupted per se; the drop in production will be balanced by the drop in consumers, keeping the price high. What might happen if production recovers faster than European consumption is more emphasis put into selling it in Asia, packaging it with other products (cacao and coffee being the most obvious), and refining it into rum. Agree with you on the wheat, though.

At the same time, European wheat importers of the time (the Netherlands, mostly) were well-supplied by Baltic grain. Of course, wars and plagues will disrupt Baltic exports, too, but you'll need disruption in the Baltic coinciding with bumper crops and absence of plagues in America. Very narrow window of opportunity, indeed. And as soon as Baltic commerce would be restored (the Dutch in OTL 'convinced' Baltic nations to restore exports, going as far as sending war fleets to Danzig), Virginian (and any other American) grain exports to Europe would become non-competitive again, and for a long time. Before steamships and railroads, transoceanic exports were of necessity high-value - sugar, indigo, tobacco, cotton cloth, etc.

Yeah, looks like I goofed on this one.

After doing a bit more research, I think what happened was that I drew the wrong conclusions from some things I'd learned on my most recent trip to Williamsburg; while wheat production was indeed second only to tobacco as a cash crop in late colonial Virginia, that was in part because of the planters having more control over the prices they'd get for wheat and in part because the years of war in Europe had seriously disrupted wheat production throughout most of the continent.

 

[mojojojo]

Do the Aururians have any team sports like the ball games of ancient Mesoamerica? or any strategic board games like chess? If so would there be any possibility of these games becoming popular in the outside world?

 

[Jared]

By this point in OTL, Charles I had signed a secret treaty with Spain to oppose the Dutch on the high seas. While the plagues have probably butterflied the specific treaty away, it was the result of a trend since the turn of the seventeenth century, so England is already aligned against the Dutch and Baffin will take any opportunity to gain a foothold for England in Aururia and keep yet another Dutchman out.

The general trend of Anglo-Dutch hostility is certainly still happening. It's been mentioned in passing in one of the earlier posts (#28, in the musings of the new governor of *Fremantle) that even in 1631, the English under their new Regent were growing increasingly hostile, despite both being Protestant. Of course, I haven't specified exactly who the new regent of England is (and he will have a long regency - until 1648), but obviously he is someone who puts national interest above shared religious interest.

And for a miscellaneous bit of fun, when Baffin explains to the Yadji who rules England, he will talk about a Regent...

The Royal Terra Incognita Company, perhaps?

Heh. For now, Baffin sails for the English East India Company, and Aururia is thought of as a (very, very) big Spice Island. Whether it will end up being a separate enterprise... maybe.

Minor point-- I seem to recall Jared saying before that his idea of making flour from ground wattleseeds was only theoretical (perhaps I misremembered) but I recently came across a reference to Aborigines doing it in OTL.

Don't think I remember that - Aborigines made flour from a lot of seeds in OTL, including wattleseeds. Were you thinking of wattleseed oil - that can theoretically be made from wattleseeds, but as far as I know the Aborigines didn't do it in OTL. (Or at least the records have been lost if they have).

I doubt that wheat could be exported from Virginia to Europe at all, with prevailing transport conditions of the 17th century. Shipping was expensive and risky, and wheat is bulk commodity, and relatively low-value per unit of weight. To trade wheat (and rice) to the Caribbean sugar islands - sure, distances are not that great, and competition is almost absent with all fertile soil occupied with cane.

In 17th-century terms, yes, wheat is probably unlikely to be exported to Europe. As you point out, not enough profit in it.

Rice was different, though - rice was a cash crop exported to Britain by the late seventeenth century. Of course, rice commanded much higher prices than wheat, since rice was a luxury foodstuff. Wheat did not have the same attraction.

But sugar industry itself could be disrupted by Aururian plagues (fewer consumers in Europe, fewer slaves in Africa).

Temporary disruption of the sugar industry, quite possibly, but a shortage of slave labour just means higher prices for what sugar is grown. The pace of sugar plantation expansion in the Caribbean will probably slow when compared to OTL, but I'd still expect the broad pattern to be similar.

At the same time, European wheat importers of the time (the Netherlands, mostly) were well-supplied by Baltic grain. Of course, wars and plagues will disrupt Baltic exports, too, but you'll need disruption in the Baltic coinciding with bumper crops and absence of plagues in America. Very narrow window of opportunity, indeed. And as soon as Baltic commerce would be restored (the Dutch in OTL 'convinced' Baltic nations to restore exports, going as far as sending war fleets to Danzig), Virginian (and any other American) grain exports to Europe would become non-competitive again, and for a long time.

Makes sense.

Before steamships and railroads, transoceanic exports were of necessity high-value - sugar, indigo, tobacco, cotton cloth, etc.

I'm not so sure about wheat needing to wait until steamships. I'm fairly sure that the mid-Atlantic colonies were exporting wheat to Europe by the late eighteenth century, and they were definitely exporting it by the early nineteenth century (ie before steamships).

Still, for the seventeenth century at least, wheat is a non-starter.

Well, given that information, Nuyts won't have to worry about a spoiling attack, or at least not to the extent that it would impact his plans. What he will have to worry about is keeping Baffin from spilling the beans to the VOC before they can be presented with a fait accompli. Aside, of course, from the fact that Nuyts simply won't be expecting any other Europeans to be there when he arrives.

Yes, the presence of other Europeans is really going to come as a shock. What is he going to do with them around?

This also assumes that Baffin, having arrived the better part of a year earlier, hasn't already started to interfere with the civil war.

Baffin himself has moved on by then - his voyage is one of exploration - but he does leave some men, and weapons, behind. (Details to follow in the next post.)

I see this going spectacularly wrong in three ways. With the Yadilli, their Plirite beliefs are going to ensure that the war becomes vastly uglier the moment they enter it, and Nuyts is going to alienate them if he tries to moderate their behavior to even the standards of 17th century Europeans.

Yes. Plirites don't rebel lightly, but when they do, they don't want to give up for anything, and get really vicious. Which will place Nuyts' expedition in a world of hurt.

Hiring Mutjing means that he's openly interfering with the main Nangu food supply, and in such a way as to guarantee that the *Eyre Peninsula will no longer be off-limits to the continental powers post-war, to say nothing of the fact that the VOC presence amongst the Mutjing will want to stop him from ruining their trade.

Yes, the Nangu will hate it if he tries that, and the VOC will hate it too. Even if he gets significant numbers of Mutjing mercenaries, well, the Mutjing are Plirites too. Which gives him much the same problem as Yadilli rebels (although the Mutjing probably wouldn't be quite that bad).

And given what we saw with the Kurnawal rebellion, Nuyts doing either of these makes it more likely that the two Yadji claimants will call a truce long enough to crush him before returning to the civil war.

Yeah, things aren't looking great for him, are they? His best course of action might be to ally with one side in the civil war and hope that he can tip the balance, and then exploit a position of power that way. Or possibly try and get help from Tjibarr, who might be keen to see the Yadji disrupted for a while longer.

If the climate is appropriate, I can see more attempts being made at tea, coffee and silk production in the southern colonies, along with rice and possibly citrus fruit; the latter two were grown there IOTL, although tobacco, cotton and indigo overshadowed them, and the former three are all going to be a bit harder to come by with the drop in bullion to pay for them at the source.

Tea is eminently suitable for production on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. There were various attempts in OTL, which failed for various reasons which had nothing to do with climate. (I had one of those attempts succeed in DoD, incidentally). That would be a very lucrative cash crop, and a decent economic kicker for the southern colonies, but rather limited where it can be grown.

Coffee can only be grown in the tropics, I believe - I think that the plant can't tolerate frost. Ditto for most citrus species. Maybe possibly growable in Florida or southern Georgia, but not much further north.

Rice can and will be grown in the equivalent of South Carolina, but I don't think it can be cultivated in Virginia. Or if it can, it's fairly marginal.

Silk... I have no idea. I'll have to look into it, although I suspect that at most it would be a niche crop - profitable, but too labour-intensive to be grown across most of the southern colonies.

Long-staple cotton can be grown in the coastal areas of South Carolina/Georgia, and probably still will be. It just can't be grown further inland. Short-staple cotton requires the cotton gin.

Indigo... well, in OTL that was viable because of British government subsidies - they didn't want to rely on importing it, so they subsidised the production. That market collapsed after the American Revolution. ITTL, there's an Aururian version of indigo, which can be grown... well, in quite a lot of places, but most notably in Iberia.

Dutch gold from Aururia won't help the English much there, because most of it is probably being spent in Asia before it can return to Europe and enter the broader continental economy.

That depends how successful the VOC is at taking over the intra-Asian trade. In OTL, they did that pretty well, and didn't need to use that much bullion to pay for Asian goods.

ITTL... maybe. Could be at least some gold flowing through to Europe, but that doesn't mean that the English will get their hands on enough of it. Plus, of course, with a wealthier VOC, the English may not be able to go buying as many things in Asia anyway, since the VOC may keep more of a stranglehold on the market.

Besides those five, feel free to postulate any other crops that might grow well in Virginia or the Carolinas and fetch high prices in Europe, even if they never took off IOTL;

Offhand, I can't think of any other cash crops which might fit the bill, although I'll look into it. At the moment, I'm actually thinking that Virginia and the Chesapeake is likely to be economically moribund for decades, if not most of a century. Tobacco fit that climate really well - it's too cool and dry for the really tropical/subtropical crops, but just right for tobacco. Wine might make up some of the difference, but that would be a limited market (since wine can also be grown pretty well in Europe).

Of course, if there is some other cash crop which could plausibly be grown there, I'd be happy to introduce it. I'm just not sure what it might be.

with kunduri destroying tobacco's potential as a cash crop, cotton still a relatively minor player until the invention of a cotton gin, and both slave and free labor less available (especially slaves, since keeping sugar production up in the West Indies is going to be the first priority for the lessened supply), colonial farmers are going to be very willing to experiment.

The crunch of slave labour is something which I'm thinking is going to make a huge difference to the history of colonial North America. There are going to be fewer slaves available (less at source, and sugar planters will keep bidding up the price), at least a partially reduced market for them anyway (no real tobacco boom), and also slower European immigration.

Early colonial farmers are probably going to be willing to experiment with other cash crops, but until they are successful, then they're probably going to be lonely colonial farmers. Economic migrants to North America are probably going to be considerably reduced when compared to OTL. The British Isles will probably send some religiously-inspired ones (as OTL), but for the rest... Well, there'll be rice and a bit of cotton/indigo in *South Carolina, and furs in the north, but maybe not much in between, at least for a long while.

Olive oil got me thinking about balsamic vinegar, which leads me to another question: do the Aururians know how to make vinegar, and if so what do they use for it? If they don't, then it might be a useful trade good for European merchants once the Aururians see how useful it is for pickling things; if they do, then depending on the flavor it might be a highly valuable trade good back in Europe and Asia.

The Aururians do know about vinegar; anyone who produces alcoholic beverages (yam wine, gum cider) is inevitably going to come across vinegar when their products over-ferment. They also know how to use vinegar to preserve some foods.

I'm not sure what the flavour of yam vinegar would be like - maybe exportable, maybe not. Gum cider vinegar is probably a lot like apple cider vinegar, ie not a good flavour, at least when compared to, say, balsamic vinegar.

Depends on how soon sugar gets taken up in Queensland. Now that the Kiyungu are hooked into the greater trade network, it's only a matter of time until someone with knowledge of sugarcane cultivation learns about the region and realizes the potential in growing it so close to the Asian and Aururian export markets.

And figures out a decent source of labour. Planting sugar cane is damn unpleasant, often deadly work. The disease environment in Aururia won't be quite as bad as the Caribbean (although malaria is on the continent), but it won't be nice. Getting volunteers may not be easy.

Of course, there is always the way which OTL North Queensland sugar growers took...

It probably depends on how effective the native tisanes are as a stimulant when compared with tea, how expensive tea is compared with the native alternatives, and how it tastes compared with the native alternatives.

The problem is that this is damnably difficult to know. Modern tea is the product of thousands of years of selective breeding for taste, stimulants etc. The wild version is still drinkable, I believe, but has nothing like the same flavour or appeal.

Much the same would apply to the Aururian equivalents (Leptospermum petersonii, mostly). The wild version is drinkable - it was used by the Aborigines as a medicine/flavouring, and early colonial settlers used it as a substitute for tea. Today, it is used as a "native tea" and as a flavouring in blends with true tea, so there's definitely potential there. With a history of thousands of years of cultivation, though (well, about 2000), the final product may not be that reminiscent of what we know from OTL. I may end just having to flip a coin on that one...

I actually think that the first Aururians to willingly make it past Java might be Atjuntja gardeners/botanists searching for new flowers to add to the Garden. While most Nangu would probably sell the Good Man himself to get a first-hand look at Europe, the Dutch aren't going to give potential competitors that sort of information windfall without something unbelievably valuable in exchange.

The Atjuntja don't have quite the same drive for exploration that the Nangu do. They would welcome additions to the Garden, but aren't quite as likely to go looking for them. That doesn't mean that there will be no Atjuntja in Java, but they may not be quite as prompt about it.

The Nangu, though, will want to go everywhere. The Dutch haven't given that much information (just somewhat inaccurate charts), but that won't stop the Nangu from trying.

Aside from various types of flowers, the Atjuntja travellers will also probably try to bring back peafowl (apparently the appropriate term for peacocks), although they might prefer the Green Peafowl to the more common IOTL Indian Peafowl due to the females of the former being just as spectacularly colored as the males.

That's a very good point. I'd forgotten about peacocks (and related species) - but the Atjuntja would absolutely love to have some of them in the Garden.

I expect that the lotus will be taken up by the Yadji almost as quickly as by the Atjuntja, given its beauty, its usefulness, and its connection with water.

True, although the Yadji will give much more emphasis to the edibility of the plant than the beauty. They're funny that way.

Maybe Flocc would know more? IIRC, he's the only AH.commer in the general region where you'd find it grown IOTL, so he at least has a better shot of obtaining first-hand information about it.

I'll see what I can dig up through my own research. If not, I may start paging Flocculencio once he's recovered from getting married.

I think that while sugar production will decrease due to the plagues, it won't be disrupted per se; the drop in production will be balanced by the drop in consumers, keeping the price high. What might happen if production recovers faster than European consumption is more emphasis put into selling it in Asia, packaging it with other products (cacao and coffee being the most obvious), and refining it into rum.

The thing about European sugar demand during this period was that it was, for all practical purposes, limitless. Growing more of it just meant more profits - while the price might drop slightly, the increases in volume would more than make up for it. (Over the course of a decade or two, at least - there might be temporary sugar gluts.)

The interesting thing about packaging sugar with other crops is that the Caribbean sugar planters were surprisingly reluctant to do much of anything with sugar cane other than export it in its raw form. Even into the twentieth century, Cuba (the largest source of sugar) basically exported it as raw sugar cane. (Interesting aside, Java, of all places, was the most industrialised source of sugar products - processed white sugar, hard candies, etc. Much more could have come of this, but the Great Depression, focus on oil production, and WW2 really hit their sugar industry.)

Do the Aururians have any team sports like the ball games of ancient Mesoamerica? or any strategic board games like chess? If so would there be any possibility of these games becoming popular in the outside world?

Oh, yes, the Aururians have team sports. By far the most significant is the form of football which the Gunnagal play in Tjibarr (and, with different rules, elsewhere in the Five Rivers). It's a descendant of the ball games which the Aborigines played in OTL - and extremely fast-paced game where the ball can be held or kicked, with different rules. It's as important to the Gunnagal as chariot-racing was to the Byzantines, and the football supporters can get every bit as vicious as the Blues and Greens did in Constantinople, too. Worse, in some ways, since the factions rule almost everything in Tjibarr - commerce, land ownership, politics, etc.

Whether it would take off in the rest of the world... quite possibly. Although not for a while.

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

What about dog racing?

 

[Jared]

Much the same would apply to the Aururian equivalents (Leptospermum petersonii, mostly). The wild version is drinkable - it was used by the Aborigines as a medicine/flavouring, and early colonial settlers used it as a substitute for tea. Today, it is used as a "native tea" and as a flavouring in blends with true tea, so there's definitely potential there. With a history of thousands of years of cultivation, though (well, about 2000), the final product may not be that reminiscent of what we know from OTL. I may end just having to flip a coin on that one...

Addendum to my last post: having done a bit more research, I think that there is a slightly different beverage niche for "lemon tea" from Leptospermum petersonii.

This is because it turns out that the Aururian beverage doesn't have any stimulants equivalent to the theanine in tea and caffeine in both tea & coffee. What it does have is some mild sedative effects (and a nice flavour). So it's not something which people drink for a morning pick-me-up - not at all - but something which you'd be more likely to drink if you want to relax. Soothing and calming of an afternoon, say, or in a peace or hospitality ceremony (which is one time Aururians drink it), or to help someone with mild insomnia or the like. Different market to tea or coffee, but perhaps one which would be suitable for export, all the same.

What about dog racing?

I haven't thought too much about it, but I could certainly see that being done in the Five Rivers. They might not get as competitive about it as football, but it could still become popular enough.

 

[mojojojo]

I haven't thought too much about it, but I could certainly see that being done in the Five Rivers. They might not get as competitive about it as football, but it could still become popular enough.

What about dog fighting?

 

[Kalvan]

What about dog fighting?

Methinks the Good Man would not approve.

 

[The Sandman]

Yeah, things aren't looking great for him, are they? His best course of action might be to ally with one side in the civil war and hope that he can tip the balance, and then exploit a position of power that way. Or possibly try and get help from Tjibarr, who might be keen to see the Yadji disrupted for a while longer.

The fun part there will be that Tjibarr is rather more politically sophisticated than Cortes' native help was, and if Nuyts ignores that he's going to get a very unpleasant surprise when he tries to weasel out of any deals he made with the "ignorant savages" after taking down the Yadji.

Coffee can only be grown in the tropics, I believe - I think that the plant can't tolerate frost. Ditto for most citrus species. Maybe possibly growable in Florida or southern Georgia, but not much further north.

One citrus species that could be grown further north would be yuzu; IIRC, it can tolerate lengthy frosts. Whether it makes it out of Japan is more questionable; since there's no Amboyna massacre ITTL, though, the English factory in Hirado is probably still there, so there's at least some small chance that the English would know it exists.

Silk... I have no idea. I'll have to look into it, although I suspect that at most it would be a niche crop - profitable, but too labour-intensive to be grown across most of the southern colonies.

A quick Internet search does seem to suggest that the labor issue was why sericulture never took off in America IOTL, and labor's going to be even more scarce ITTL, so I think you're probably right about its limited potential as a tobacco replacement.

Long-staple cotton can be grown in the coastal areas of South Carolina/Georgia, and probably still will be. It just can't be grown further inland. Short-staple cotton requires the cotton gin.

In the absence of tobacco, do whatever factors prevented long-staple cotton from becoming a primary cash crop IOTL still apply?

Indigo... well, in OTL that was viable because of British government subsidies - they didn't want to rely on importing it, so they subsidised the production. That market collapsed after the American Revolution. ITTL, there's an Aururian version of indigo, which can be grown... well, in quite a lot of places, but most notably in Iberia.

Interesting. I didn't know about the OTL subsidies, and I wonder what the economic effects of Spanish indigo production might be.

That depends how successful the VOC is at taking over the intra-Asian trade. In OTL, they did that pretty well, and didn't need to use that much bullion to pay for Asian goods.

ITTL... maybe. Could be at least some gold flowing through to Europe, but that doesn't mean that the English will get their hands on enough of it. Plus, of course, with a wealthier VOC, the English may not be able to go buying as many things in Asia anyway, since the VOC may keep more of a stranglehold on the market.

Sounds like something to think about. Wish I could help more on that, but I'd need to do some serious reading before I'd feel comfortable making specific statements instead of suggestions or ideas.

Offhand, I can't think of any other cash crops which might fit the bill, although I'll look into it. At the moment, I'm actually thinking that Virginia and the Chesapeake is likely to be economically moribund for decades, if not most of a century. Tobacco fit that climate really well - it's too cool and dry for the really tropical/subtropical crops, but just right for tobacco. Wine might make up some of the difference, but that would be a limited market (since wine can also be grown pretty well in Europe).

Of course, if there is some other cash crop which could plausibly be grown there, I'd be happy to introduce it. I'm just not sure what it might be.

A few things I've thought of since the last post:
1) Ginseng. It would be incredibly valuable in the Chinese market, and American ginseng grows quite well in the hilly woodlands in western Virginia.
2) Aururian spice trees. The various myrtles might grow in the Tidewater, although I suppose it depends on whether even Virginian winters are still too harsh for them. If they can survive, they'd make a logical cash crop for the area.
3) Hemp fiber. Aside from its industrial uses, it apparently makes very comfortable clothing once you soften it; the best way to do that without destroying the fiber would seem to be repeated washing.
4) Second-stage agricultural products. This depends a great deal on whether England is willing to sacrifice some of the American market for English manufactures in exchange for the profitability of its colonies. IOTL they weren't, but ITTL they might not have much choice if they want the colonies to be profitable at all.

The crunch of slave labour is something which I'm thinking is going to make a huge difference to the history of colonial North America. There are going to be fewer slaves available (less at source, and sugar planters will keep bidding up the price), at least a partially reduced market for them anyway (no real tobacco boom), and also slower European immigration.

The economics of slavery and Southern agriculture are going to be interesting. IOTL most colonial Virginian farmers above subsistence level could afford at least one or two slaves and some land in tobacco. Cotton changed that because it required much more land and labor than tobacco, and therefore more capital investment; essentially, the rural middle class was slowly squeezed out of both productive land and the slave market. ITTL, tobacco won't be profitable anymore and cotton plantations won't be viable until a major technological development, but at same time slaves will be more expensive and rarer. I'm not sure what the ramifications will be for the developing Virginian class system with no tobacco and fewer slaves.

Race relations are also likely to be affected by the changes ITTL. IOTL, racism in the pre-cotton era tended to be more arrogant and condescending than fearful and hateful, and there was more differentiation between "blacks" as a general group and "blacks" as individual people. It didn't really shift into its more modern form until the dominance of cotton plantations put slaves out of reach of all but the wealthy planters, and therefore reduced the chance of the average Southern white person getting to know a slave as anything more than a cog in a machine that was steadily grinding non-planters into destitution. Short-circuiting plantation development while reducing the number of slaves is going to do something to alter this aspect of colonial society, but I have no idea what.

Early colonial farmers are probably going to be willing to experiment with other cash crops, but until they are successful, then they're probably going to be lonely colonial farmers. Economic migrants to North America are probably going to be considerably reduced when compared to OTL. The British Isles will probably send some religiously-inspired ones (as OTL), but for the rest... Well, there'll be rice and a bit of cotton/indigo in *South Carolina, and furs in the north, but maybe not much in between, at least for a long while.

I think that the rate of migration out of England, and the rest of Europe for that matter, will depend on whether the land vacated by the dead is repopulated by small-scale farms or consolidated into large ones for pastureland and cash crops. If the former, migration will all but stop for decades; if the latter, the economic migrant flow will slow from OTL but still be an important factor in the growth of the colonial population.

And figures out a decent source of labour. Planting sugar cane is damn unpleasant, often deadly work. The disease environment in Aururia won't be quite as bad as the Caribbean (although malaria is on the continent), but it won't be nice. Getting volunteers may not be easy.

Of course, there is always the way which OTL North Queensland sugar growers took...

So the two most likely sources of labor would be Chinese peasants or African slaves, with Indian or Javanese peasants as other possibilities?

The Atjuntja don't have quite the same drive for exploration that the Nangu do. They would welcome additions to the Garden, but aren't quite as likely to go looking for them. That doesn't mean that there will be no Atjuntja in Java, but they may not be quite as prompt about it.

On that note, how long is it likely to take for the VOC to transition from propping up the Atjuntja Empire to running it in all but name? I'm presuming that the more tightly the Atjuntja are tied to Batavia, the more likely it is that Atjuntja will start leaving home for other VOC-ruled territories.

Oh, yes, the Aururians have team sports. By far the most significant is the form of football which the Gunnagal play in Tjibarr (and, with different rules, elsewhere in the Five Rivers). It's a descendant of the ball games which the Aborigines played in OTL - and extremely fast-paced game where the ball can be held or kicked, with different rules. It's as important to the Gunnagal as chariot-racing was to the Byzantines, and the football supporters can get every bit as vicious as the Blues and Greens did in Constantinople, too. Worse, in some ways, since the factions rule almost everything in Tjibarr - commerce, land ownership, politics, etc.

Whether it would take off in the rest of the world... quite possibly. Although not for a while.

So even butterflies are afraid of Aussie-rules football...

Addendum to my last post: having done a bit more research, I think that there is a slightly different beverage niche for "lemon tea" from Leptospermum petersonii.

This is because it turns out that the Aururian beverage doesn't have any stimulants equivalent to the theanine in tea and caffeine in both tea & coffee. What it does have is some mild sedative effects (and a nice flavour). So it's not something which people drink for a morning pick-me-up - not at all - but something which you'd be more likely to drink if you want to relax. Soothing and calming of an afternoon, say, or in a peace or hospitality ceremony (which is one time Aururians drink it), or to help someone with mild insomnia or the like. Different market to tea or coffee, but perhaps one which would be suitable for export, all the same.

With the effects you describe, East Asian cultures might see lemon-tea as something to use as a balance to tea; for example, the Japanese would serve lemon-tea at the beginning of a tea ceremony, to invoke the desired atmosphere, and then use regular tea at the end to bring the participants back to full awareness.