fashbasher
Banned
After decades of Israeli occupation, a return to self-governance as part of an established and democratic state looks a lot more attractive than it did in 1949.
Map Thread XVI
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After decades of Israeli occupation, a return to self-governance as part of an established and democratic state looks a lot more attractive than it did in 1949.
Between climate change, infectious disease and tribal and religious and political hatred, greed and massive amounts of weapons I am doubtful for and reason
fashbasher
Banned
It was more like 50, and China had certain advantages the Congo didn't (largest population on its entire continent, a strong central government that emphasized literacy, solid agricultural infrastructure, a general concept of "Han" unity that had emerged by 1949, and powerful allies - first the USSR, then the US, and now a broad coalition of African, Asian, and Latin American states). Congo by contrast is only the third largest state in Africa (meaning it's more likely to be pushed around between Nigeria/Ghana, Ethiopia/Kenya/Tanzania, and Botswana/Namibia/South Africa as the likely great power centers - much less the US/EU/China cutting it apart for its minerals), is predominantly composed of tropical rainforest, doesn't have a national identity or ethnic group, and has a fragile government with only a 60-65% literacy rate and widespread warlords and tribal separatists to an extent that doesn't exist in China. It's more likely that DRC ends up as the Poland of Africa, constantly being divided and fought over by its richer and/or more populous neighbors. Congo only has the 12th-largest GDP in the continent and only the 8th largest among sub-Saharan countries, meaning it's likely to get fucked up by political rivalries.
This also add increasing infectious disease and ability to access weapons on par with most armies and that the rainforest itself is endangered does not bode well
fashbasher
Banned
It isn't even an economic great power within sub-Saharan Africa, the last region in the world to industrialize. Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania all have higher nominal GDPs. At PPP, it's a smaller economy than Uganda.
The Intermarium was an alliance formed in the late 19th Century, primarily by Bohemia, the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth, and Macedonia to stand against the Revolutionary forces of the Danubian Confederation's European Alliance, later reformed into the European Commonwealth. It varies in government form from the Absolute Monarchy of Bohemia, to the Aristocratic Elective Monarch of the Commonwealth, to the Theocratic Prince-Bishopric of the Black Mountain [Montenegro], the one uniting factor of the alliance is a distrust of the "Mob Rule" direct democracy of the EuroCom.
>Bohemia eating Silesia, West Prussia, and Pomerania
>Megali Macedonia
>Prince-Bishopric of the Black Mountain
This is weird and different and I love it.
A map for @Goliath , his Polynesian-Punk scenario. https://goliath-maps.deviantart.com/art/Two-Islands-in-a-Different-Ocean-682243555
Here's Goliath's writeup (Minor changes done here and there, mostly to the "sunken mountaintops" concept, which I had trouble making visually interesting as is. Kudos to Marcus Sergius, whose "sunken world" map helped me determine borders for the "shallows." )
The round globe of Earth is full of water. Over 90% of it is covered in the Ocean. The 10% that humans live on, is stretched thin- From the far eastern isle of Rapa Nui (settled and resettled by multiple peoples after various false-starts to civilization) to the Buka Islands (OTL Mariana Islands) stands thousands of tiny islands- each with distinct cultures and languages, and maintaining distinct polities even as greater contact has allowed for wars of conquest and alliances of mutual benefit. Further west, the two "dry" landmasses of the world stand as extremely alien to Island-based observers, both for their physical strangeness and for the cultural distinctiveness of their peoples; Gunda'i (Australia) is a vast, extremely arid land with outsider settlers populating the coasts, mixed states in between, and purely Aboriginal peoples of varying organization in the vast interior. Tora (Papua New Guinea) is filled with mountains and jungles, still largely undisturbed by Polynesian-inspired state-building activity; almost half the world's languages are found here. At the Southern and the Northern fringes of the World stand two alien, yet rising giants- the Hawai'ians and the Maori. Further around the world stand various peaks which, depending on the tide, sometimes are submerged (the Rockies, Andes, Alps, etc.). The more-often exposed peaks of the Himalayas are still semi-mythical in the courts of Tonga.
[The current year in the Gregorian Calendar is 4451 A.D. ]
Geopolitically things are a bit complicated. The most advanced state-building has come in waves emanating from Tonga and Samoa, and the many islands which have both been conquered by them, and at times fight back. Though linked by common practices, this stretch of the open sea stands resembles simultaneously the warring stats of the Ancient Aegean and the European Union of the OTL 21st. Highly interconnected, and in modern terms relatively equitable in terms of wealth (both between Islands and within them) the 'Inner Islands' are almost synonymous with civilization itself.
*Noting at this point, that while Island often is synonymous with 'polity' this is not always the case, even for smaller islands*
Though this world is, compared to many others, relatively void of major awe-inspiring emperors- instead, having a system where individual islands send tribute to momentarily more powerful islands (often times to multiple other islands) but are left very wholly to their own devices- there is one empire which needs mentioning. The Ancient Tongans are regarded by all, even perhaps grudgingly by their long-time enemies in Burebasaga (the islands of Viti and Vanua, a.k.a. Fiji - not always a poltically united people, but linguistically and culturally one of the great cultures within the Inner Islands) as a great forerunner to civilization. Ancient Tongan music and dance, storytelling, and a proto-writing logography used for trade between disparate peoples fill much of the islands (most places now have their own fully functional writing systems, but a huge variety of scripts has kept this writing as a Lingua Franca, although recently Hawai'ian and Maori are also contenders). The Classical Tongue (a constructed language based on ancient Tongan with Verb-Subject-Object word order) is still used by poets and those of dignified lineages throughout the Tongan influenced zone. By around OTL 2000 A.D., the Tongans exploded across much of central Polynesia with a campaign of organized state-building. Though in centuries their empire collapsed, it was perhaps the only time in the history of this world in which hugely diverse peoples existed in a single provincial frame-work. Today, the Tongans fight over the legacy of this empire with other claimants, such as the Samoans and Tuvaluans (people whose modern languages are descended from Tongan, albeit with some pre-Tongan influences).
*The current year, 3969 A.D, is known throughout the Inner Islands as the 123rd year of the 6th Age (or simply 6:123) with 492 year long Ages going back to 1376 A.D., the mythical formation of the Empire of Tonga.*
Tributary ties and overlapping confederations of islands are helped in their quests to build and manage a global economy by the fact that ships increasingly haul along solar-powered panel boats behind them. Solar-powered ships still have a tendency to catch fire- meaning that traditional (i.e. man-power) based ocean crossing teams still are in demand, but therein too boats and oars have gotten better and are even now coated in rubbers from Tora. The compass too, and a more water-resistant though costlier paper have been major boons to the world. Ships' abilities to go longer distances has shaken things up; smaller islands which previously existed mainly as way-point stations have specialized in other economies and produce something meaningful to trade. At least general food exports' increase means now that more and more islands do not have to be self-sufficient in food production, though this remains considerably more of an issue than in our world. More than a few times has civilization gotten off to a false start a la Easter Island thanks to Malthusian populations quickly overreaching their carrying capacity. The days of forcible and grotesque measures however, are gone though there are still some islands where tradition dictates that only Eunuchs can become Nobles and Chieftains. Throughout the seas, multiple ruins of ancient civilizations can be found, inspiring wonder and poetry and sometimes even worship.
As one heads east of Tuamotu, the smaller islands out up to Rapa Nui may not be as big of players in a larger sense, but are considered part of the Inner Islands' cultural sphere.
Rather west of the Inner Islands, Joxu (New Caledonia) lies at the edges of what Inner Islanders find culturally acceptable. Settled by Tongans and Burebasagans over the centuries (over a solid bed of native slave labor), Joxu retains Cannibalism and intra-societal warfare and in the view of the Inner Islanders is barely acceptable. Its chieftains are funded though, by wealthy bankers and given rubber for their armies (jungle and sea and weapons oh my!) for the buffer it provides to the lands further south.
During the decline of the initial Tongan Empire, an agricultural breakthrough in the Southern Islands of Ikamai and Wapanu (New Zealand's Northern and Southern island, respectively) lead to rapid population increases unsustainable in the long term. As such, while Tongan-inspired attempts at island-wide confederation were still in their infancy, large settler projects sprang up on other islands as Maori peoples invaded and enslaved the locals. The most successful of these have been those in Makuowhito (Tasmania) and the coasts of Gunda'i (already having a few lonely Inner Islander traders sailing around). Although still speaking a fairly uniform Maori language (albeit with noticeable phonetic differences) geographic separation and the fact that large state-building first took placeafter Maori settlement has resulted in local identities cementing (the last centuries' efforts by now more stable Ikamai and Wapanu to reclaim some of these peoples on the basis of 'shared Maori kinship' has resulted in the Settler Maori states being pushed deeper into contact and cooperation with the large but thinly populated Aboriginal states.
The divided Maori claim relatively unanimously that rulers ought to rule over people rather than lands, though they can't agree on who is the ruler of the Maori. While the Inner Islands see themselves as an ever-expanding zone of civilization brought about by acceptance of shared norms, the Maori peoples have come to see themselves in starkly racial terms (which has brought about nastiness on Gunda'i as bad as anything the British ever did to the Aborigines). Rather more defined than the various cults of deities in the Inner Islands (but still a fairly unorganized religion by our worlds' standards) the Maori religion is also a defining feature. The Maori and Inner Islanders remain convinced that their opinion on cremation is final (namely, the Maori believe that cremation is necessary for an individual to go to heaven, whereas the Inner Islanders mostly believe it creates ghosts). The clans and extended village-era patrimonial and matrimonial lineages of the Maori have kept some connection between them, even as they sail further and further away and assimilate into various other cultures. Increasingly, their beautiful tattoos are calligraphy, inscribing member in particular clans and writing one's own name as well as offering praise to particular gods or whales.
Gunda'i stands apart from the sea. Larger than all other landmasses put together, the non-Maorized interior feels like a different world. In a world without Horses, Cows, or anything to pull like an ox, and where technological advancement has been centered on sea-going attempts, cross-continental travel is essentially on food and without roads. A general gradient of peoples, beginning with purely outsiders (mainly Maori, with a few Inner Islanders and some gourd-clad Torans (New Guineans), to mixed lands (generally run by the 'outsiders', and finally the desert interior being made up with almost exclusively Aborigines. While the Maori (aside from a few settlers attempting to gain entry into the Inner Islands' cultural grouping) generally detest the Tongans et al on religious and purity reasons, the Gunda'i Aborigines are hated even moreso. In a world where the first Maori settlers were themselves pre-state societies, Aborigines still make sometimes as high as 30% of the Maori coasts, and are at worst treated as expendable slaves, and at best treated as un-educatable tattoo-less primordial race outside of polite society (Maori concepts of 'King= person who takes care of a particular 'race' ' rather than 'King= person who takes care of the residents of a particular area' having brought ill-effects, though some Maori Chieftains see the Aborigines as a sick people deserving care). One comparatively bright spot is 'Nunaru', the growing 'republic' of the South-western corner of Gunda'i which, despite speaking a Maori language, has been far enough away from Ikamai and Wapanu to avoid absorbing some of the racial and religious ideas coming out recently, and is ruled nowadays by mixed-race Merchants.
The absence of cows, horses, or goats in this world does leave Dogs, Chickens, Pigs, and in Gunda'i, the Dingo. All of those are, in the islands, much more expensive and rarer than OTL however, so fish is still the most common meat. A bigger problem (but ironically sometimes a health benefit) is a lack of wheat or corn (and the scarcity of rice). Bananas, Sugar Cane, Yams, Taro, and Breadfruit make up most diets. One simply must try a Tuvaluan Fried Dog & Breadfruit soup.
A bigger impact of a lack of animal labor, has meant simultaneously a greater reliance on slavery, and more efforts (often by slaves themselves) to develop mechanical pulley systems to move heavier things like boats into place. With slavery more a necessity, there are substantial codes of conduct for the rights of slaves and even venerable religious traditions which dictate proper relations with slaves, but the practice largely is only limited by the availability of slaves. In the Inner Islands, there are various forms of slavery, with varying levels of rights and in some cases the ability to renounce one's master. In some places this slavery has become almost egalitarian in principle; in Samoa the Big Chieftain is theoretically the slave of the Lesser Chieftains who are theoretically the slaves of the Merchant Middle Class. Only amongst the Maori (who consider it shameful to rely on the work of non-Maori) is slavery a rarity (nevertheless there too it is present).
Within the interior of Gunda'i, a the domains of the descendents of an Aboriginal Warrior-Prophet, promising liberation to Aborigines (but ironically preaching a religion that was essentially the Maori one transposed to a different racial identity) has been gaining size recently, and has made some Maori rulers fearful of the Aborigines for the first time in centuries (though for now is held at bay). Such Aborigines have produced wonderful mystical musings on the nature and meaning of the universe.
More successful at developing locally, with some emulation of the Inner Islands, have been the still quite exotic cultures of islands such as Istabul (Guadalcanal) and Malamweimwei (Malaita) in what in our world would be called the Solomon Islands. Known for their frizzy blonde hair, bright bird feather caps, and (amongst their chieftains) sending their young to study in the Inner Islands, the peoples of these islands have, along with many of the Inner Islands, built trading posts on the coasts of Tora, and much of Tora has been influenced by the Inner Islands by way of the Solomon Islands (though as with Gunda'i a substantial interior remains as pre-state). Even a few Maori have made it up to Tora.
An oddity in the world, O'iku (the Hawaiian Islands, from the Hawai'ian phrase 'there are 7,' referring to the major islands) is united under what in our world would be considered an Emperor. Although invaded over the years by more technologically advanced groups from the Inner Islands, O'iku has, rather like Post-reconquista Spain, forcibly cleansed itself of some of the more obvious remnants of the Inner Islands (though the Emperor promises the remaining Samoans protection, provided they speak good Hawai'ian), and returned to isolationism, distrustful of trade ships since the Samoans first came as traders. In a world where gunpowder is largely absent, one of the few technological edges O'iku has held onto is better cannon building. Some limited human sacrifice is present (just enough to scare off foreigners) but O'iku is also fairly egalitarian- the complex tribal lines of clans and castes felt in various degrees throughout much of the world is notably absent here (Inner Islanders' invasions rendering them a moot point that has largely been forgotten). Comedy, in a poetic and philosophic tradition of mockery of human banality, is regarded as a high art form here. Though eager to avoid contact with others, a sole delegation from Tarawa (in OTL Kiribati) is allowed into O'iku. O'ikuan writing seems to be the only writing system not at least in part derived from ancient Tongan writing, and was at one time phonetic (though sound changes having outpaced spelling reform has ended that).
Various metals are in use, principally in the Inner Islands and Maori lands. Bronze working is old old old, and Iron is still having its time in the sun, along with rarer more refines steels (with, in general, as many materials built out of non-metals as possible). Science, in the forms that it exists, is still principally concerned about two things; 1) feeding enough people, and 2) preventing disease. The 'scientist' role is, in the Inner Islands, largely conducted by Priests and Eunuchs (though in Maori and Hawai'ian societies Merchants fill in that role), run from academic colleges, temples of the Supreme Creator, and government buildings, and has yet to get into areas such as cosmology or physics (though such facts as the roundness of the earth and chemical properties of water have been accidentally stumbled upon- there are not necessarily agreed upon by all however). Telescopes have leaned themselves to microscopes and so small-scale biology (i.e., the mechanics of natural selection and the workings of genetics) is understood on a rudimentary level as well. The elaborate cosmology of multiple words, each composed of round droplets of water, is still largely taken for granted.
Solar power, still rickety and seen as a bit ugly, is driving technological change forward. (Guano-fueled boats exist too, but as an additional supplement. Steam is largely unused, and flat out petroleum-run engines will change the game up dramatically once discovered). It is a bit of a scarier world geopolitically speaking- the sea is big and there's always a bigger fish that could swallow smaller minnows (or in more literal terms, haul off some of its peoples as captive slaves). Increasingly, the cultures of the Inner Islands have become more familiar and sometimes even comfortable with one another- the danger they pose to one another diminishes in comparison to take of outsiders. The technological and political organization that the Inner Islanders used to believe would naturally extend across the seas seems to have ended. The old categorization of "various races' intelligence as inversely proportional to the size of their island," as one Polymath from the Pitcairn Islands put it, seems out of date in a world where the various Chiefdoms of Burebasaga can individually out-produce Tonga, where the sheer size of O'iku in the North and Ikamai & Wapanu in the South makes their world domination only a matter of unity (in the case of the Maori) or willpower (in the case of the Hawai'ians), and where the legends of strange jungle and desert kingdoms abound in sea-less Tora and Gunda'i. Not only any of those foreign peoples numerically overpower the Inner Islanders, but with slaves the equation becomes even more unbalanced. Trade has gradually brought the Inner Islands together, bringing Tongan culture even as far as Rapa Nui. But it may have reached a limit. A common defense, a common alliance, some think, may be needed. For now however, in the minds of their inhabitants, 'the Inner Islands' are the bounds of 'civilization', not a solitary civilization unto themselves.
Here's Goliath's writeup (Minor changes done here and there, mostly to the "sunken mountaintops" concept, which I had trouble making visually interesting as is. Kudos to Marcus Sergius, whose "sunken world" map helped me determine borders for the "shallows." )
The round globe of Earth is full of water. Over 90% of it is covered in the Ocean. The 10% that humans live on, is stretched thin- From the far eastern isle of Rapa Nui (settled and resettled by multiple peoples after various false-starts to civilization) to the Buka Islands (OTL Mariana Islands) stands thousands of tiny islands- each with distinct cultures and languages, and maintaining distinct polities even as greater contact has allowed for wars of conquest and alliances of mutual benefit. Further west, the two "dry" landmasses of the world stand as extremely alien to Island-based observers, both for their physical strangeness and for the cultural distinctiveness of their peoples; Gunda'i (Australia) is a vast, extremely arid land with outsider settlers populating the coasts, mixed states in between, and purely Aboriginal peoples of varying organization in the vast interior. Tora (Papua New Guinea) is filled with mountains and jungles, still largely undisturbed by Polynesian-inspired state-building activity; almost half the world's languages are found here. At the Southern and the Northern fringes of the World stand two alien, yet rising giants- the Hawai'ians and the Maori. Further around the world stand various peaks which, depending on the tide, sometimes are submerged (the Rockies, Andes, Alps, etc.). The more-often exposed peaks of the Himalayas are still semi-mythical in the courts of Tonga.
[The current year in the Gregorian Calendar is 4451 A.D. ]
Geopolitically things are a bit complicated. The most advanced state-building has come in waves emanating from Tonga and Samoa, and the many islands which have both been conquered by them, and at times fight back. Though linked by common practices, this stretch of the open sea stands resembles simultaneously the warring stats of the Ancient Aegean and the European Union of the OTL 21st. Highly interconnected, and in modern terms relatively equitable in terms of wealth (both between Islands and within them) the 'Inner Islands' are almost synonymous with civilization itself.
*Noting at this point, that while Island often is synonymous with 'polity' this is not always the case, even for smaller islands*
Though this world is, compared to many others, relatively void of major awe-inspiring emperors- instead, having a system where individual islands send tribute to momentarily more powerful islands (often times to multiple other islands) but are left very wholly to their own devices- there is one empire which needs mentioning. The Ancient Tongans are regarded by all, even perhaps grudgingly by their long-time enemies in Burebasaga (the islands of Viti and Vanua, a.k.a. Fiji - not always a poltically united people, but linguistically and culturally one of the great cultures within the Inner Islands) as a great forerunner to civilization. Ancient Tongan music and dance, storytelling, and a proto-writing logography used for trade between disparate peoples fill much of the islands (most places now have their own fully functional writing systems, but a huge variety of scripts has kept this writing as a Lingua Franca, although recently Hawai'ian and Maori are also contenders). The Classical Tongue (a constructed language based on ancient Tongan with Verb-Subject-Object word order) is still used by poets and those of dignified lineages throughout the Tongan influenced zone. By around OTL 2000 A.D., the Tongans exploded across much of central Polynesia with a campaign of organized state-building. Though in centuries their empire collapsed, it was perhaps the only time in the history of this world in which hugely diverse peoples existed in a single provincial frame-work. Today, the Tongans fight over the legacy of this empire with other claimants, such as the Samoans and Tuvaluans (people whose modern languages are descended from Tongan, albeit with some pre-Tongan influences).
*The current year, 3969 A.D, is known throughout the Inner Islands as the 123rd year of the 6th Age (or simply 6:123) with 492 year long Ages going back to 1376 A.D., the mythical formation of the Empire of Tonga.*
Tributary ties and overlapping confederations of islands are helped in their quests to build and manage a global economy by the fact that ships increasingly haul along solar-powered panel boats behind them. Solar-powered ships still have a tendency to catch fire- meaning that traditional (i.e. man-power) based ocean crossing teams still are in demand, but therein too boats and oars have gotten better and are even now coated in rubbers from Tora. The compass too, and a more water-resistant though costlier paper have been major boons to the world. Ships' abilities to go longer distances has shaken things up; smaller islands which previously existed mainly as way-point stations have specialized in other economies and produce something meaningful to trade. At least general food exports' increase means now that more and more islands do not have to be self-sufficient in food production, though this remains considerably more of an issue than in our world. More than a few times has civilization gotten off to a false start a la Easter Island thanks to Malthusian populations quickly overreaching their carrying capacity. The days of forcible and grotesque measures however, are gone though there are still some islands where tradition dictates that only Eunuchs can become Nobles and Chieftains. Throughout the seas, multiple ruins of ancient civilizations can be found, inspiring wonder and poetry and sometimes even worship.
As one heads east of Tuamotu, the smaller islands out up to Rapa Nui may not be as big of players in a larger sense, but are considered part of the Inner Islands' cultural sphere.
Rather west of the Inner Islands, Joxu (New Caledonia) lies at the edges of what Inner Islanders find culturally acceptable. Settled by Tongans and Burebasagans over the centuries (over a solid bed of native slave labor), Joxu retains Cannibalism and intra-societal warfare and in the view of the Inner Islanders is barely acceptable. Its chieftains are funded though, by wealthy bankers and given rubber for their armies (jungle and sea and weapons oh my!) for the buffer it provides to the lands further south.
During the decline of the initial Tongan Empire, an agricultural breakthrough in the Southern Islands of Ikamai and Wapanu (New Zealand's Northern and Southern island, respectively) lead to rapid population increases unsustainable in the long term. As such, while Tongan-inspired attempts at island-wide confederation were still in their infancy, large settler projects sprang up on other islands as Maori peoples invaded and enslaved the locals. The most successful of these have been those in Makuowhito (Tasmania) and the coasts of Gunda'i (already having a few lonely Inner Islander traders sailing around). Although still speaking a fairly uniform Maori language (albeit with noticeable phonetic differences) geographic separation and the fact that large state-building first took placeafter Maori settlement has resulted in local identities cementing (the last centuries' efforts by now more stable Ikamai and Wapanu to reclaim some of these peoples on the basis of 'shared Maori kinship' has resulted in the Settler Maori states being pushed deeper into contact and cooperation with the large but thinly populated Aboriginal states.
The divided Maori claim relatively unanimously that rulers ought to rule over people rather than lands, though they can't agree on who is the ruler of the Maori. While the Inner Islands see themselves as an ever-expanding zone of civilization brought about by acceptance of shared norms, the Maori peoples have come to see themselves in starkly racial terms (which has brought about nastiness on Gunda'i as bad as anything the British ever did to the Aborigines). Rather more defined than the various cults of deities in the Inner Islands (but still a fairly unorganized religion by our worlds' standards) the Maori religion is also a defining feature. The Maori and Inner Islanders remain convinced that their opinion on cremation is final (namely, the Maori believe that cremation is necessary for an individual to go to heaven, whereas the Inner Islanders mostly believe it creates ghosts). The clans and extended village-era patrimonial and matrimonial lineages of the Maori have kept some connection between them, even as they sail further and further away and assimilate into various other cultures. Increasingly, their beautiful tattoos are calligraphy, inscribing member in particular clans and writing one's own name as well as offering praise to particular gods or whales.
Gunda'i stands apart from the sea. Larger than all other landmasses put together, the non-Maorized interior feels like a different world. In a world without Horses, Cows, or anything to pull like an ox, and where technological advancement has been centered on sea-going attempts, cross-continental travel is essentially on food and without roads. A general gradient of peoples, beginning with purely outsiders (mainly Maori, with a few Inner Islanders and some gourd-clad Torans (New Guineans), to mixed lands (generally run by the 'outsiders', and finally the desert interior being made up with almost exclusively Aborigines. While the Maori (aside from a few settlers attempting to gain entry into the Inner Islands' cultural grouping) generally detest the Tongans et al on religious and purity reasons, the Gunda'i Aborigines are hated even moreso. In a world where the first Maori settlers were themselves pre-state societies, Aborigines still make sometimes as high as 30% of the Maori coasts, and are at worst treated as expendable slaves, and at best treated as un-educatable tattoo-less primordial race outside of polite society (Maori concepts of 'King= person who takes care of a particular 'race' ' rather than 'King= person who takes care of the residents of a particular area' having brought ill-effects, though some Maori Chieftains see the Aborigines as a sick people deserving care). One comparatively bright spot is 'Nunaru', the growing 'republic' of the South-western corner of Gunda'i which, despite speaking a Maori language, has been far enough away from Ikamai and Wapanu to avoid absorbing some of the racial and religious ideas coming out recently, and is ruled nowadays by mixed-race Merchants.
The absence of cows, horses, or goats in this world does leave Dogs, Chickens, Pigs, and in Gunda'i, the Dingo. All of those are, in the islands, much more expensive and rarer than OTL however, so fish is still the most common meat. A bigger problem (but ironically sometimes a health benefit) is a lack of wheat or corn (and the scarcity of rice). Bananas, Sugar Cane, Yams, Taro, and Breadfruit make up most diets. One simply must try a Tuvaluan Fried Dog & Breadfruit soup.
A bigger impact of a lack of animal labor, has meant simultaneously a greater reliance on slavery, and more efforts (often by slaves themselves) to develop mechanical pulley systems to move heavier things like boats into place. With slavery more a necessity, there are substantial codes of conduct for the rights of slaves and even venerable religious traditions which dictate proper relations with slaves, but the practice largely is only limited by the availability of slaves. In the Inner Islands, there are various forms of slavery, with varying levels of rights and in some cases the ability to renounce one's master. In some places this slavery has become almost egalitarian in principle; in Samoa the Big Chieftain is theoretically the slave of the Lesser Chieftains who are theoretically the slaves of the Merchant Middle Class. Only amongst the Maori (who consider it shameful to rely on the work of non-Maori) is slavery a rarity (nevertheless there too it is present).
Within the interior of Gunda'i, a the domains of the descendents of an Aboriginal Warrior-Prophet, promising liberation to Aborigines (but ironically preaching a religion that was essentially the Maori one transposed to a different racial identity) has been gaining size recently, and has made some Maori rulers fearful of the Aborigines for the first time in centuries (though for now is held at bay). Such Aborigines have produced wonderful mystical musings on the nature and meaning of the universe.
More successful at developing locally, with some emulation of the Inner Islands, have been the still quite exotic cultures of islands such as Istabul (Guadalcanal) and Malamweimwei (Malaita) in what in our world would be called the Solomon Islands. Known for their frizzy blonde hair, bright bird feather caps, and (amongst their chieftains) sending their young to study in the Inner Islands, the peoples of these islands have, along with many of the Inner Islands, built trading posts on the coasts of Tora, and much of Tora has been influenced by the Inner Islands by way of the Solomon Islands (though as with Gunda'i a substantial interior remains as pre-state). Even a few Maori have made it up to Tora.
An oddity in the world, O'iku (the Hawaiian Islands, from the Hawai'ian phrase 'there are 7,' referring to the major islands) is united under what in our world would be considered an Emperor. Although invaded over the years by more technologically advanced groups from the Inner Islands, O'iku has, rather like Post-reconquista Spain, forcibly cleansed itself of some of the more obvious remnants of the Inner Islands (though the Emperor promises the remaining Samoans protection, provided they speak good Hawai'ian), and returned to isolationism, distrustful of trade ships since the Samoans first came as traders. In a world where gunpowder is largely absent, one of the few technological edges O'iku has held onto is better cannon building. Some limited human sacrifice is present (just enough to scare off foreigners) but O'iku is also fairly egalitarian- the complex tribal lines of clans and castes felt in various degrees throughout much of the world is notably absent here (Inner Islanders' invasions rendering them a moot point that has largely been forgotten). Comedy, in a poetic and philosophic tradition of mockery of human banality, is regarded as a high art form here. Though eager to avoid contact with others, a sole delegation from Tarawa (in OTL Kiribati) is allowed into O'iku. O'ikuan writing seems to be the only writing system not at least in part derived from ancient Tongan writing, and was at one time phonetic (though sound changes having outpaced spelling reform has ended that).
Various metals are in use, principally in the Inner Islands and Maori lands. Bronze working is old old old, and Iron is still having its time in the sun, along with rarer more refines steels (with, in general, as many materials built out of non-metals as possible). Science, in the forms that it exists, is still principally concerned about two things; 1) feeding enough people, and 2) preventing disease. The 'scientist' role is, in the Inner Islands, largely conducted by Priests and Eunuchs (though in Maori and Hawai'ian societies Merchants fill in that role), run from academic colleges, temples of the Supreme Creator, and government buildings, and has yet to get into areas such as cosmology or physics (though such facts as the roundness of the earth and chemical properties of water have been accidentally stumbled upon- there are not necessarily agreed upon by all however). Telescopes have leaned themselves to microscopes and so small-scale biology (i.e., the mechanics of natural selection and the workings of genetics) is understood on a rudimentary level as well. The elaborate cosmology of multiple words, each composed of round droplets of water, is still largely taken for granted.
Solar power, still rickety and seen as a bit ugly, is driving technological change forward. (Guano-fueled boats exist too, but as an additional supplement. Steam is largely unused, and flat out petroleum-run engines will change the game up dramatically once discovered). It is a bit of a scarier world geopolitically speaking- the sea is big and there's always a bigger fish that could swallow smaller minnows (or in more literal terms, haul off some of its peoples as captive slaves). Increasingly, the cultures of the Inner Islands have become more familiar and sometimes even comfortable with one another- the danger they pose to one another diminishes in comparison to take of outsiders. The technological and political organization that the Inner Islanders used to believe would naturally extend across the seas seems to have ended. The old categorization of "various races' intelligence as inversely proportional to the size of their island," as one Polymath from the Pitcairn Islands put it, seems out of date in a world where the various Chiefdoms of Burebasaga can individually out-produce Tonga, where the sheer size of O'iku in the North and Ikamai & Wapanu in the South makes their world domination only a matter of unity (in the case of the Maori) or willpower (in the case of the Hawai'ians), and where the legends of strange jungle and desert kingdoms abound in sea-less Tora and Gunda'i. Not only any of those foreign peoples numerically overpower the Inner Islanders, but with slaves the equation becomes even more unbalanced. Trade has gradually brought the Inner Islands together, bringing Tongan culture even as far as Rapa Nui. But it may have reached a limit. A common defense, a common alliance, some think, may be needed. For now however, in the minds of their inhabitants, 'the Inner Islands' are the bounds of 'civilization', not a solitary civilization unto themselves.
Well, typically very short and not prone to long drawn out campaigns (unless you mean cultural grudges which can be very long drawn). Conquest of territory takes a big backseat to capturing of resources/demanding another island adopt ones own ways/accepting vassaldom. Intersocietal conflict is somewhat common compared to OTL- rigorous succession traditions may not universally be followed to the letter. Inter-island Warfare does occur over very long distances, severely shortening fighting times and making negotiation useless. Some places are beginning to develop artillery which may dramatically change things up.
That's cool.
And how about war technology? Has gunpowder been discovered already, and if yes, then what is it used for?
Or is development stuck in a medieval level, with "naval battles" being basically just boarding actions followed by melee brawls?
And how about ships? How large do they get?
Here's a map I just created today, following the idea of a multi-empire colonised Australia. I decided to make the map in French, so excuse me any wording has been mistranslated. This map represents the approximant dominant ethincities of the continent, irregardless of language (i.e. the Irish of French Western Australia would most likely speak French, not Gaelic).
B_Munro's beautiful work got me wanting to make this pacific centered map of the pacific to help myself flesh out politics of the island nations in my socialist turks map series
Could always go for something with Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic or North Atlantic in the name, like the North Atlantic Union, Republic of the Mid-Atlantic or the Federation of Atlantic States.
Gunpowder does exist, but it's use in warfare is still exceediningly rare (and even there limited to propelling large objects at other boats in the hopes of breaking them). It's principal use is actually in mining and (yes!) giant statue building, as well as colorful firework-type displays for public religious processions.
So yes, naval battles involve trying to move as fast as possible because once things are close enough one side might clearly have a bigger boat.
Quite impressively boat building has been taken to levels not seen in OTL Polynesia- boat-building projects being something states depend on, there are merchant and war ships a few miles long and many layers deep (such naval fortress type boats tend to have hundreds of near traditional kanoos which actually go into ports and scout ahead).
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