alternatehistory.com

Well, I've had a lot of fun reading everything (or a tenth of everything) that people have written, so I thought I'd have a shot.

I quite like the idea of my pivotal characters looking back over their lives, or sections of their lives. I hope it's going to hold together, but I'm sure I'll be told if it doesn't.

My timeline is subject to revision, so I'll probably do that as we go along. I've done a map or two so far, so when it comes time we'll see how the planet is looking.

Because the ATL doesn't have as many dead spots as the OTL, some things happen a lot faster. There are also a few things that don't happen, because in the OTL someone got lucky.

So here's the taster:
- Philo of Byzantium lives ten more years. Instead of dying in 220 BC he lives until 210 BC, allowing the Roman Senate to establish the College of Engineering at Byzantium.
- The only other change occurs when Julius Caesar sets fire to his boats in Alexandria. The wind is blowing the other way and doesn't burn part of the Great Library.

Other interesting things are:-
- A Rome that reduces it's armed forces while building both its technology and its diplomatic corps. Imagine Rome with its own CIA. But it gets democracy ... of a sort.
- A more muscular Christianity as the State religion. And the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and Thomas.
- A Jewish state around the edges of the Arabian Peninsula
- A splintered India
- No Islam
- England as a mine and prison for the Roman Empire
- Ireland, Scotland, Alaska, Canada and the Scandanavian countries as a union of independent Viking states
- Germany and the Great Wood as wild territory
- The Uighers and Mongols under a Manichaeism belief system.
- Korea holds Myazaki Prefecture at the Southern island of Japan and dominates China
- New Zealand as a refuge for Pacific Island, Chinese and Japanese Buddhists
- A deeply disturbed Central American society that has resulted in a vastly depopulated US.

In terms of technology
- gunpowder and explosives arrive a lot earlier
- rubber arrives a lot later, meaning public transport runs on rails
- film gets skipped over entirely, and digital comes very early
- Cocaine is treated as a military drug (particularly in Rome), whereas heroin and cannabis are kill on sight drugs

The other thing is that the record-keeping is tighter. There is no argument about Jesus, for example, because the Romans have his birth certificate and school attendance forms. There's less room for argument and schism in the early Christian church because the paperwork is there. So people like St Peter don't have the same political opportunities.

I'm not quite sure how to treat Australia and Africa yet, but I'm sure it will work itself out.
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