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A question, are the "Slavic" "Celtic" etc religions their own faiths? Like, are they their pagan OTL religions? Also does the pope live in Alt france
Basically just a reversion of Christianity and a revival of Celtic polytheism. The biggest difference iin the east is none of the Russian principalities have adopted Orthodoxy. And second there hasn't been any Germanization into Poland so very little Christian influence so far. I am planning to do a map on Poland that should be interesting :).

In Britannia there was no Norman conquest as the Norman's have been focused on raiding Iberia after settling Brittany instead of otl Normandy. Instead, Denmark has held onto much of England, often mostly independent but occasionally ruled directly by the king of Denmark. As a result christianity has mostly died in the region and has been replaced by Germanic polytheism. Christianity persists in East Anglia but is under the dominion of Denmark at the moment.


In the south the Saxons retained catholicism and the Jutes christianized as well. However their communion with Rome is in name only and leaders appoint their own bishops.

In Wales and in Ireland The constant warring in England and greater tension between Orthodoxy, Islam and Catholicism in mainland Europe than our time as well as constant raiding by Danes and Norsemen of church holdings has meant that the central church authority in Wales and Ireland has decayed quite a bit. The religion would be a mix of Christian practices and revived Pagan traditions. So the Celtic label isn't some unified church but basically a place holder for a diaspora of beliefs.
 
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Bâkhdhîm çrîrãm eredhvô drafshãm

Bactra the beautiful, crowned with banners

The Vendidad, I. 7​



The sudden death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. shattered the brittle cohesion of the greatest empire hitherto known to man. The Conqueror’s Diádokhoi (successors) carved up his realm for themselves, each in turn claiming the mantle of kingship. The lion’s share of the spoils fell to Seleucus I Nicator (the Victor), who established himself as king in Asia - ruling a vast empire from the Hellespont to the Hindu Kush. However, the Seleucid Empire itself was a fragile polity - with ambitious satraps and scheming relatives waiting to exploit the slightest sign of weakness.

Although the empire emerged from the Wars of the Diadokhoi relatively unscathed, the so-called Syrian Wars saw the Seleucids gradually lose ground to their arch-enemies in Ptolemaic Egypt. Emboldened by his overlord’s defeats, the Seleucid satrap of Bactria, Diodotus II, seceded from the empire in 250 B.C., perhaps in alliance with the virulent anti-Hellenic satrap of Parthia, Andragoras. However, the Parthian alliance was deeply resented by large tracts of the Greek colonial elite. Twenty years later, a distant relation of the royal family named Euthydemus (a Magnesian Greek) staged a palace coup, executed Diodotus and placed his own dynasty on the throne of Bactria. Thus began the rise of one of the most unusual and esoteric polities of late antiquity: The Empire of the Euthydemids.

Bactria’s claim to greatness was dependent on a number of variables: Chiefly its many rich cities, its fertile land and its martial people - a curious mix of Scythians, Indians, Persians and a steady flow of Hellenic settlers. These advantages were well known to both the Parthians and Seleucids, who conspired to invade the Bactrian state in 209 B.C. However, Euthydemus deflected the Seleucid invasion in a battle on the Arius river, gravely wounding the Seleucid king, Antiochus III in the process[1].

Much of the eastern territories of the Seleucid Empire now fell under the sway of the Bactrians, extending Euthydemid control all the way to Carmania and Hyrcania. Undeterred, Antiochus instead turned West - hammering the Ptolemies in Syria and Asia Minor before suffering a catastrophic defeat to the advancing forces of the Roman Republic in 189 B.C. With the Seleucid Empire in disarray, Euthydemus’ successor, Demetrius I Aniketos (the Invincible), launched an invasion across the Hindu Kush in order to protect the Greek settlements around the Indus River from the chaos surrounding the collapse of the Mauryan Empire. It was during this campaign that Demetrius became enamoured with the Buddhist religion, granting it a preeminent position within the Bactrian court and sponsoring the construction of a large number of stupas and monasteries throughout his domains. It has been speculated that Demetrius’ conversion to Buddhism might have provoked a section of the Hellenic elite to rebel against him, but this has since been disproven. Even though a coup d’état was attempted by the general Eucratides whilst the king was away in India, it apparently enjoyed little support or was simply badly executed[2].

When Demetrius died in 162 B.C.[3] a period of instability ensued as a number of Bactrian lesser kings tried to seize the throne for themselves. The Parthians also began to reassert themselves, obtaining a short span of independence from Bactra. Out of this chaos rose Menander I Soter (the Saviour). A scion of Euthydemus on his mother’s side, Menander struck down the Parthians at a large cavalry battle near Parthaunisa before directing his armies West against the Seleucid remnants. In a series of campaigns rivalling that of Alexander, Menander seized the Persian plateau, before washing his weapons in the waters of the Mediterranean. Terribly weakened by exhausting conflicts with the Ptolemies and by revolts by the Hebrews and Nabateans, the Seleucid Empire capitulated to Menander in 140 B.C. Although, Menander’s conquests brought the Buddhist faith closer to the Greek heartland than ever before, they were not to last. The meddling of the Saviour’s successors in the internal policies of Hasmonean Judea and the Roman client states of Pergamon and Rhodes provoked the outbreak of a series of Euthydemid-Roman Wars, which eventually pressed the Bactrians out of Syria. Soon thereafter Babylonia and Mesopotamia would be lost as well whilst the Persian core of the old Achaemenid Dynasty erupted into a Neo-Zoroastrian fury, confining the Euthydemids to the easternmost corners of their realm. The only remaining traces of Menander’s brief rule would be the great stupas erected by his victorious armies. Indeed, whilst it is safe to say that practical political effects of Euthydemid rule were relatively inconsequential, one cannot overstate the importance which the syncretism of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism would come to exert on the religious development of the West.


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Notes

[1]
This happened in OTL as well, although the Seleucids managed to drive off the Bactrians. After a three year siege of Bactra, Antiochus was nevertheless forced to recognise the independence of Enthydemus’ realm.
[2]In OTL, Eucratides managed to displace the Euthydemids, leaving the furthest Hellenic state in Asia divided between Bactria and India. This hastened their respective downfalls at the hands of invading nomads such as the Kushans.
[3]Demetrius died sometime around 180 B.C. in OTL.


Sources

Borders, city placement and names:
Adams, Winthrop Lindsay: “The Hellenistic Kingdoms” in The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World edited by Glenn R. Bugh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
Blackwell, Christopher W & Martin, Thomas R.: Alexander the Great: The Story of an Ancient Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912)
Rawlinson George, Hugh: Bactria: The History of a Forgotten Empire (London: Probsthain, 1912)
Tarn, William Woodthorpe: The Greeks in Bactria and India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966)
Supported by various maps by Thomas Lessman found on Wikipedia.

Terrain & Topography

Natural Earth and GEBCO 2020, information combined in QGIS and finished in Adobe Illustrator
 
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Another map from my timeline I have been posting. Any feedback is welcome. I believe this will be my last map for tonight my next will probably be the War for Polish succession. :)
 
View attachment 613158
Another map from my timeline I have been posting. Any feedback is welcome. I believe this will be my last map for tonight my next will probably be the War for Polish succession. :)
A few things I noticed in this latest map:
a surviving Emirate of Sicily would be a real pain for the crusaders as they would surely attack any crusader ships.
It's very interesting to see a successful Crusader Egypt, something I know the otl crusaders tried to pull off repeatedly to no success.
A question, is Rum Turkish or Arabic?
 
A few things I noticed in this latest map:
a surviving Emirate of Sicily would be a real pain for the crusaders as they would surely attack any crusader ships.
It's very interesting to see a successful Crusader Egypt, something I know the otl crusaders tried to pull off repeatedly to no success.
A question, is Rum Turkish or Arabic?
Rum is controlled by freed Mamluk settlers and former mercenaries initially as a buffer state with Byzantine Empire, mostly Turkish, but some copts and arab mercenaries. However after the Abbasids disintegrated it became independent. The population would at large still be mostly greek however with the ruling class Turkish. There was no Seljuk invasion ittl.

Yeah the Emirate of Sicily would definitely be a threat but the navy of Venice and of Bulgaria are more powerful than iotl perhaps that would deter Sicilian attacks. Additionally the Norman's are still very active in the western mediterranean.
 

Pogchamp

Banned
I think the rule is something like: anything that can start a discussion of current politics is current politics.
Wait, couldn't that be anything? By that definition, any post that discusses themes relevant to the modern world could get removed for modern politics. Is a post about the civil rights movement "current politics" because it can start a discussion about current politics? That's over 50 years ago.
 
Wait, couldn't that be anything? By that definition, any post that discusses themes relevant to the modern world could get removed for modern politics. Is a post about the civil rights movement "current politics" because it can start a discussion about current politics? That's over 50 years ago.
There's a difference between current politics and things that can count as continuing politics.
I expect that a post about the 60s/70s US Civil Rights would be fine unless it included current politicians and policies.
Basically just assume that current politicians and policies = current politics.
 

Pogchamp

Banned
There's a difference between current politics and things that can count as continuing politics.
I expect that a post about the 60s/70s US Civil Rights would be fine unless it included current politicians and policies.
Basically just assume that current politicians and policies = current politics.
But that still doesn't really work. Is a Soviet Union surviving map current politics because it would contain political figures? Is a timeline detailing the American Revolution and its still current constitution policies such as the 2nd amendment current politics despite being over 2 centuries old?

Surely the mods must have an actual date or amount of time passed that divides current and historic politics? It can't be true that the mods just arbitrarily decide if a post is too current right?
 
But that still doesn't really work. Is a Soviet Union surviving map current politics because it would contain political figures? Is a timeline detailing the American Revolution and its still current constitution policies such as the 2nd amendment current politics despite being over 2 centuries old?

Surely the mods must have an actual date or amount of time passed that divides current and historic politics? It can't be true that the mods just arbitrarily decide if a post is too current right?
This post says that posts shouldn't include "current politicians". Clearly that would mean that historical people would usually not be considered current politics. Posts where the Soviet Union survives I'd assume are fine as long as you don't go into political discussions or include current politicians.
Clearly the issue with the map before was that it provoked discussion about current political parties, which is what the rule is intended to avoid.
 
But that still doesn't really work. Is a Soviet Union surviving map current politics because it would contain political figures? Is a timeline detailing the American Revolution and its still current constitution policies such as the 2nd amendment current politics despite being over 2 centuries old?
And how are those examples of current policies or current politicians?
Surely the mods must have an actual date or amount of time passed that divides current and historic politics? It can't be true that the mods just arbitrarily decide if a post is too current right?
As I understand it, the Mods prefer not to put a specific date in order to avoid rules lawyering of the type that "it can't be current politics because it's before 1991" even though it features the current president.

TLDR: Yes, there's a grey area, that appears to be deliberate to avoid deliberate technicalities.
 
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