DISSIDENT
Banned
Inspired by a thread I saw on the soc.history.what-if archives.
During the Renaissance and the development of large scale gunpowder weaponry, what if, percussion cap ammunition were developed much earlier and more widespread? Given the manufacturing base and gunsmithing capabilities of early modern Europe and Tokugawa Japan, it would not be totally implausible. This would mean personal fire-arms, and from it, civillian militia more on the Swiss model and armed peasantry capable of defending themselves from artillery-armed armies in the field develop earlier and at a more rapid rate. This could stunt the absolute monarchies and nation states that followed them.
A world of city-states and loosely-governed multinational empires but no nation-states was what the thread I draw the idea from posited. I have no idea. It would alter the Reformation and other things.
Open to discussion.
During the Renaissance and the development of large scale gunpowder weaponry, what if, percussion cap ammunition were developed much earlier and more widespread? Given the manufacturing base and gunsmithing capabilities of early modern Europe and Tokugawa Japan, it would not be totally implausible. This would mean personal fire-arms, and from it, civillian militia more on the Swiss model and armed peasantry capable of defending themselves from artillery-armed armies in the field develop earlier and at a more rapid rate. This could stunt the absolute monarchies and nation states that followed them.
A world of city-states and loosely-governed multinational empires but no nation-states was what the thread I draw the idea from posited. I have no idea. It would alter the Reformation and other things.
Open to discussion.