Megaprojects of Modern Roman Empire?

DominusNovus

Posit a Roman Empire that has survived with its typical borders long enough that they have a modern level of technology, comparable to ours in all respects. With such resources as an empire would have, and with fewer likely political constraints (not as many borders), what projects might they undertake?

A few possibilities:
- Gibraltar Tunnel/Bridge
- Sicily-Africa Tunnel
- Sicily-Italy Tunnel/Bridge
- Otranto Tunnel
- Bosphorus Canal
- Suez Canal (shouldn't take it for granted just because we did it already)
- Qatara Sea
- Sahara Sea

Thoughts and other possibilities?
 

Arkenfolm

Gibraltar Tunnel is a useful way of linking North Africa to Rome, and continuing the link between Iberia and Mauretania.

Sicily-Africa seems a bit too far to build a tunnel, although undersea cables and pipelines would be useful for bringing oil and natural gas to Europe as well as islands like Sardinia where it would lower the cost of development thanks to cheaper electricity.

Sicily-Italy Bridge is useful, but there's the annoying issue of earthquakes and tsunamis. That and political corruption are why it doesn't exist in OTL. Some connection between Sicily and Italy would be nice.

Otranto Tunnel sounds interesting, but I'm not familiar with the OTL details/plans.

Bosphorus Canal I'm not sure of, but if it's like some of modern Turkey's plans, then it's definitely useful and might as well be done. Even if the Straits won't be as politically important with a unified Rome and all.

Suez is doable, although why wouldn't they have renovated the Canal of the Pharaohs? Might as well use both.

Qattara Sea is definitely doable, and useful for Egyptian agriculture (outside of oasis agriculture--Siwa and other oases will be screwed hard) and especially the Egyptian economy since it means a nice source of industrial chemicals. Maybe a link with the Nile to make a good inland port and an alternative to the Nile? There's also the benefit of hydro power depending on what version of Qattara Sea plans you follow.

Sahara Sea is a bit less useful than Qattara and harder/more expensive to do, but it likewise means benefits to agriculture, a good source of chemicals, and if expanded far enough, a canal linking lands south of the Atlas Mountains to the Mediterranean. Incidentally, there's also a nice desert flat south of Cyrenaica which could be good to flood for the same reasons. I can see Rome's African provinces lobbying for this, however.
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
Might they eventually rebuild the Colossus of Rhodes, just to prove that they can? Perhaps not, since they never did in OTL (and obviously could have, since the original was built in Antiquity, too)... yet it seems like the sort of prestigious thing that Rome might decide upon at one point or another. Also, it would just be cool.

Less 'obvious' perhaps, but Rome was already famous for its excellent network of roads. A Roman Empire that lasts much longer may well end up building the kind of imperial highway network that would put every other Autobahn to shame. One might consider that a megaproject all by itself, especially if the whole network is planned out in advance and then built in a relatively short time.
 

RogueTraderEnthusiast

I think a Gibraltar bridge is more likely than the tunnel - the depth that tunnel would have to dig is enormous.

An Italy-Sicily-Africa route is again, more likely to be bridges - simply as building artificial islands to brace the Sicily-Africa bridge will be useful militarily.

Bosphorus Canal = Fortress Constantinople. I love it, I can see that being top of the list, and then made wider and wider towards Europe.

Suez - expensive, but it would reduce import costs for goods from the east, which assuming no control or ports in S.Africa, isn't a bad move.

The Seas, sure. (Unless you mean the crazy one that involved flooding the Congo).

I think the big ones you'll see are mega-tidal power arrays in places like the Gibraltar strait and the English channel. That and canal projects galore - perhaps even something like a Dneiper-Bug canal protected by a mega-maginot line.
 
Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
RogueTraderEnthusiast said:
The Seas, sure. (Unless you mean the crazy one that involved flooding the Congo).
Click to expand...

Of course, if you really want to get yourself some giant lakes in Africa, that one is the way to go. Simply (haha, 'simply') damming the Congo at the appropriate point would turn the entire basin into a giant lake, and a relatively minor cut to the north could establish a canal there... through which excess water would spill into the Chad basin, thus recreating the Chad Sea at its largest extent. Logistically, it's not even that crazy or difficult. The modern-day Romans could easily do it, I'd bet.

Of course, it would involve drowning countless people and would most likely cause a major ecological disaster...
 

Achaemenid Rome

Dam the Danube in the Carpathians to recreate the Pannonian Sea.

Pannoniansea_currentborders.png
 

Arkenfolm

RogueTraderEnthusiast said:
I think a Gibraltar bridge is more likely than the tunnel - the depth that tunnel would have to dig is enormous.

An Italy-Sicily-Africa route is again, more likely to be bridges - simply as building artificial islands to brace the Sicily-Africa bridge will be useful militarily.

Bosphorus Canal = Fortress Constantinople. I love it, I can see that being top of the list, and then made wider and wider towards Europe.

Suez - expensive, but it would reduce import costs for goods from the east, which assuming no control or ports in S.Africa, isn't a bad move.

The Seas, sure. (Unless you mean the crazy one that involved flooding the Congo).

I think the big ones you'll see are mega-tidal power arrays in places like the Gibraltar strait and the English channel. That and canal projects galore - perhaps even something like a Dneiper-Bug canal protected by a mega-maginot line.
Click to expand...

Africa to Sicily is about 140-150 kilometers at closest, with depths between 80 to 400 meters. Any sort of bridge is a high proposal, especially since this is a seismically active zone. There's also Pantellaria, which is about 100 km to Sicily, with the same depths (and worse, since there's a small trench between the island and Sicily), and from there about 70 kilometers to Sicily.

Any sort of bridge also has to take into account shipping. A tunnel doesn't need to worry about shipping.

Achaemenid Rome said:
Dam the Danube in the Carpathians to recreate the Pannonian Sea.
Click to expand...

The final solution to the Magyar problem.
 
ennobee

ennobee

I think their most cited yet also their most underrated megaproject would be the Roman highway system. OTL they already had a system of paved roads covering Europe all the way from the Rhine to Spain. With today's technology they could have a highway system rated for superheavy trucks as well as 200kmh cars, going from Sudan to the Nordcape and from Portugal's Atlantic coast to the Crimea... Something that would give the famous German Autobahn or even the US Highway system a run for their money.

And while we're at it. Everybody is talking about how the Roman bullet train system can zip you from any part of the empire to any other in less then a day... But the real achievement is to keep a whole continent full of heavy double-track freight train lines running smoothly day after day...
 

Sheliak Lawyer

Banned
A modern roman empire that isn't stagnant would most certainly have holdings in African, and Western Hemispherean holdings surely?

I could easily see a roman empire expanding into Central Asia and using it as farmland/ranchland.

While we are it why not have colonies in the Indian Ocean and non-stop flights from Roman Mesopotamia and China?
 
fluttersky

fluttersky

Otranto to Vlorë tunnel.

Italy - Elba - Corsica - Sardinia chain of fixed links.

Possibly the less notorious part of the Atlantropa project - expanding Lake Chad and damming the Congo.
 

profxyz

Assuming that the Roman economy remains Mediterranean-centric, I suppose most of the megaprojects they would do would probably involve 'extending' the Mediterranean into inland and Northern Europe, as well as to Western Asia. Ships remain the most cost-efficient way to transport goods and such extensions would also increase the range of the Roman navy, and complement the Roman army/state's ability to project power into these areas.

Such megaprojects might include:
- Suez
- A much earlier/larger-scale construction of the Midi/Garonne canals (esp. before the coming of the railroad or steamships)
- A much earlier/larger-scale construction of the Rhone-Rhine canal system
- A much earlier/larger-scale construction of the Rhine-Main-Danube canal system
- A canal running across the width of Italy (maybe using the Po River?)
- A canal system linking the Danube with the Adriatic and maybe the Baltic Rivers (Oder, Vistula)
- A much earlier/larger-scale Volga-Don canal
- A canal linking the Mediterranean to the Euphrates (maybe via the Orontes?)

In terms of land routes, I think key links worth making for the Romans would be UK-France, Italy-Sicily, Italy-Albania, Bosphorus, Gibraltar, maybe even Bab-al-Mandab or Hormuz if Rome is able to project that far.
 

Sheliak Lawyer

Banned
A roman empire able to launch projects of this scale will more than likely have conquered Europe, Ethiopia, parts of Central Asia and arguably the Americas(the coasts of South America and everything east of the Appalachians without a doubt).

Also I imagine an Empire of this size would have its economy increasingly oriented away from the Mediterranean as new markets appear and new lands are settled.
 
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