As far as the cocaine addiction posts go, coca tea (what I assume Charles V is doing with the coca leaves) is a pretty damn mild stimulant, less so than coffee really. Lived for three years as a kid in Bolivia and in hotels a bowl for of coca leaves to make tea out of was a standard part of the breakfast buffet. To get any meaningful narcotic effect you have to process it. Getting high off raw coca leaves is like trying to get drunk off of 0.5% alcohol near beer, it's pretty much impossible.
The Sons of Inti Shall Not Perish
- Thread starter King of the Uzbeks
- Start date
But coca tea man...We've just introduced Europe to the craze that nearly killed China man!
(Right Click > Add to dictionaryI doubt the map is very different from OTL at this point, but I would still very much like to see one. I am very unfamiliar with the geography of the Tawantinsuyu, where the major cities are, ETC.
(Also, isn't it just criminal that MS Word and its ilk do not recognize "Tawantinsuyu" as a real word?)
)Check out GeaCron and enter 1530 for the date. Should give you a pretty good idea of the borders.
The Inca already mined iron ore IOTL; it's just that it was used for red dye rather than smelted into a metal. If they learn you make iron out of that, it wouldn't take much to change the pigment mines into metal mines. And while iron working itself does take additional steps, and definitely additional work, it's not quite as unreachable as many describe. Watch PrimitiveTechnology make a simple mini-bloomery, or watch this traditional reproduction of West African iron smelting (warning: hour long).Interesting TL! But I think that even the fairly limited progress the Inca are showing with iron here is optimistic, unless they got some knowledgeable Spanish prisoners. Making iron that's not brittle crap requires some major advances in smelting technique from bronze making, and Tawantinsuyo hasn't got past copper yet: I suspect they'll be limited to stuff taken from the Spaniards and maybe meteoric iron for quite some time unless they get some European expertise. (In the 16th century, nobody has really come up with the idea of "R & D" yet). For mining and bog iron extraction, do they even know what the ores look like?
Bog iron ore - really screams "shiny metal", doesn't it?
Begun, the Coca War has!
They don't know that the Inca do that yet. And they probably wouldn't for a while seeing as how rarely it's practiced.
Good or bad interesting
Good interesting when it comes to your writing skills. Bad interesting when it comes to the events, because I know the greedy Spaniards will continue being a thorn in the side of the glorious Tawantinsuyo.
Well things are certainly going to get worse for them before it gets better. Microbes will see to that even without the Spanish poking around.
Yes, that's precisely why the glorious Tawantinsuyo doesn't need any Spaniards trying to get more gold or converting the population.
Maps Maps Maps
The empire in 1539, along with other major players. Note that control over many regions, for all the states or groups shown is spotty at best.
Red is our heroes, the Tawantinsuyu Empire, straddling the Andes, descended from the sun itself. Etc etc.
Light and Medium Blue are various tribes of or related to the Mapuche's, forced to live on the fringes of civilization by Ruminavi's conquests. Of course with the plagues decimating them they aren't doing great, but the Tawantinsuyu are far from home and also plague ridden.
The darkest blue are those Mapuche who refused to live under the shadow of conquest and/or were forced out. They wandered a bit before finding some fertile land filled with weird ass birds.
The yellow is the hated Spanish, they killed the Inca IOTL, prepare to die.
A fine map of the roads the Tawantinsuyu have build, a Roman would recognize them as a hallmark of civilization, but then be confused as to why anyone civilized would live in Mountains that rival the Alps.
The Thin Blue Line is the route nominally given to the Spanish for nominal trading under the Treaty of Cajacamara. Nominally the Tawantinsuyu will provide some protection to the traders who nominally will stay on the path on the nominal pain of death. The Spanish are nominally allowed a permanent presence in the three dots, nominally resting places and missions for missionaries who nominally can stay nowhere else for extended periods of time.
Nominally.
Red is our heroes, the Tawantinsuyu Empire, straddling the Andes, descended from the sun itself. Etc etc.
Light and Medium Blue are various tribes of or related to the Mapuche's, forced to live on the fringes of civilization by Ruminavi's conquests. Of course with the plagues decimating them they aren't doing great, but the Tawantinsuyu are far from home and also plague ridden.
The darkest blue are those Mapuche who refused to live under the shadow of conquest and/or were forced out. They wandered a bit before finding some fertile land filled with weird ass birds.
The yellow is the hated Spanish, they killed the Inca IOTL, prepare to die.
A fine map of the roads the Tawantinsuyu have build, a Roman would recognize them as a hallmark of civilization, but then be confused as to why anyone civilized would live in Mountains that rival the Alps.
The Thin Blue Line is the route nominally given to the Spanish for nominal trading under the Treaty of Cajacamara. Nominally the Tawantinsuyu will provide some protection to the traders who nominally will stay on the path on the nominal pain of death. The Spanish are nominally allowed a permanent presence in the three dots, nominally resting places and missions for missionaries who nominally can stay nowhere else for extended periods of time.
Nominally.
You keep using that word, nominally...I don't think you know what it means...
...And to answer the Roman question. Would the Huns or Goths want to invade mountain?
...And to answer the Roman question. Would the Huns or Goths want to invade mountain?
That comparison to Rome reminds me...
I have often thought of the Tawantinsuyu as the "Roman Empire of the Andes". Do you think that's a suitable comparison?
I have often thought of the Tawantinsuyu as the "Roman Empire of the Andes". Do you think that's a suitable comparison?
I think the Uzbek Khan is foreshadowing that people aren't going to be sticking to the treaty very strictly...
20% Rome, 40% China, 33% Egypt Old - Middle Kingdom.
5% Soviet, 2% Spain, and 100% reason to remember the name.
More than just "rival" the Alps. The Altiplano averages 12,300 feet, and there are something like a hundred mountains in the Andes over 6000 meters (19685 feet).
Would the Spanish even handle fighting in thinner air during a prolonged campaign?
Well, they do understand coca leaves now, so, sadly, for smaller parties they should be fine, if I'm correct in saying that coca leaves help with altitude sickness.
Well, the Spanish won't fight as well, but even without coca tea you can adapt with time to conditions like the Altiplano: living here in Albuquerque, I can tell you 10,000 feet (top of the mountain where the ski slopes down the back start) isn't too bad. (I have read that European women, dealing with the already terribly strenuous conditions of 16th century childbirth, tended to have rather high rates of miscarriages and deaths in childbirth, which tended to push up the number of Spanish immigrants marrying native women).