Timeline Ideas

Which of these suits your fancy?

  • King of Snakes

    Votes: 7 13.0%
  • This Man Too Is Alexander

    Votes: 14 25.9%
  • Not My Heifer

    Votes: 17 31.5%
  • For Want That A Fire Should Burn

    Votes: 7 13.0%
  • Heaven Lost

    Votes: 3 5.6%
  • Not So Cruel A Mistress

    Votes: 6 11.1%

  • Total voters
    54
  • Poll closed .
Hey everyone! I've been lurking the forum here for awhile, but I never joined because I was a little bit nervous about putting my writing out there for critique. So, I've seen it done before where people put out ideas for timelines and then let the forum vote on it, which is a good idea I think, seeing as I would hate to write something nobody wants to read. With that in mind, here are some ideas that I have been bouncing around in my head for awhile. I hope some of them are interesting!


King of Snakes


Lucius Cornelius Sulla dies at the Battle of Chaeronea, and his army is annihilated. Archelaus and Taxiles spend the remainder of the year consolidating Greece and expelling the Romans from Macedonia while Lucius Licinius Lucullus joins forces with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius in Africa with an army of Hellenes, Numidians, and Mauretanians. Can Rome be wrested from Cinna? If so, what happens to their regime, after having taken Rome with an army of foreigners at their back? Can Greece be wrested from Mithradates without Sulla? Can Asia?


This Man Too Is Alexander



Hephaestion lives, but Alexander dies. Hephaestion is the unquestionable regent of the empire, but who will be the heir of Alexander remains in question. Roxane gives birth to a boy on schedule, and Stateira to a daughter. Meanwhile, Eurydice marries Arrhidaeus, and within a year bears him a bouncing baby boy. Will the army accept the son of Alexander, or will they prefer a full-blooded Argead to rule the empire that he left behind? And what of the Persian nobles? Was Alexander’s empire destined to be torn apart?


Not My Heifer



A heifer slated for sacrifice is released by her owner’s daughter. What possible impact could that have? This timeline would be an exploration of a re-routed Indo-European Migration, around the Caspian and through Iran, with Mesopotamia being thoroughly Indo-Europeanized by the onset of the 1st millennium BCE.


For Want That A Fire Should Burn


An actress notices that she has knocked over her oil lamp and rushes to smother the fire in dust from outside the theater. What possible impact could that make? This will be a timeline that explores the premature downfall of Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the Praetorian Prefect of Emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar, and the rise of Drusus Julius Caesar to the principate. What would the Roman Empire look like with such vicious figures as Caligula, and Nero, and the instability of the Year of Five Emperors?


Heaven Lost


Jing Ke successfully murders Ying Zheng (Qin Shihuangdi), thus strengthening the alliance of Dai, Qi, and Chu, which successfully drives the armies of Qin out of the Kingdom of Yan, leaving the generals and government officials of Qin to fight one another over the regency and potential heirs to the throne.


Not So Cruel A Mistress
(ASB)


The glaciation of the last ice age is less severe, thus preventing the formation of the North American Great Lakes, and allowing Britain to remain connected to Europe? How does this change the course of human migration and societal development? Are some animals spared by the Quaternary Extinction? If so, what are the consequences? Do the peoples of the Americas “discover” Europe?


I admit, I am kind of partial to Not So Cruel A Mistress and Not My Heifer, as I enjoy conworlding quite a bit, but I would be happy to write any of these for an audience.
 
I voted for Not my Heifer, but find the limiting to only a single option very restrictive :p I would honestly be happy with just about all of them, though my fondness for Romans would probably put King of Snakes as my second choice.
 
I must say, I am surprised. People on this forum seem to really like Greek timelines. I thought for sure This Man Too Is Alexander would be in the lead :p
 
Not My Heifer and an alternate Indo-European expansion sounds really cool.


Really? I hope so. I had thought that the lack of relatable... anything, really... would make the timeline hard to read for most members of the forum. I know that @Jared did this with Lands of Red and Gold, but he contained the butterflies to Australia so that readers would be able to relate to something in the timeline. There would be a heavy focus on linguistics in this timeline too, as we would have to establish which Indo-European branches are spoken where, and what they're like, etc.
 
Definitely Not my heifer. Writing an alternate prehistory TL myself i assure you these troubles are indeed there, but it can also be very rewarding to envision history from scratch.
Talking about that TL: are ALL Indo-European groups channelled into Iran? If so, why does nobody roam the steppe anymore, or prey on Cucuteni-Tripolye, or move into the forest steppe zone?
If not: which groups exactly do you have in mind for rerouting?
You'll definitely screw with Mesopotamia super-badass-style, so that's indeed extremely world-altering, even by my Standards, but also exciting!!!
 

mad orc

Banned
What is exactly not my heifer, i mean, how will one person's skin saved, affect the world so much ?
Intriguing idea
 
Definitely Not my heifer. Writing an alternate prehistory TL myself i assure you these troubles are indeed there, but it can also be very rewarding to envision history from scratch.
Talking about that TL: are ALL Indo-European groups channelled into Iran? If so, why does nobody roam the steppe anymore, or prey on Cucuteni-Tripolye, or move into the forest steppe zone?
If not: which groups exactly do you have in mind for rerouting?
You'll definitely screw with Mesopotamia super-badass-style, so that's indeed extremely world-altering, even by my Standards, but also exciting!!!


As I understand the Indo-European migrations, according to the most recent hypotheses on the matter (Wikipedia seems to be rather outdated, by the way), the Proto-Anatolians are most likely associated with the Suvorovo Culture, and therefore they would already have migrated into Europe at the time of the POD, which would involve Late Proto-Indo-European (before the migration of Paleo-Balkan and Northwest Indo-European into Europe). If I can get enough material on reconstructed Proto-Anatolian, then the Proto-Anatolians would be inheriting the Balkans in this scenario. However, this group seems to have been a lot smaller than the groups that came later, particularly the Bell Beaker Culture, which is associated with Northwest Indo-European. They would therefore be unlikely to be responsible for nearly the same level of ethnic replacement, and might only take the Southern Balkans (Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Thrace). In this scenario, the “Anatolian” languages would likely be lacking much of their borrowed Hurrian/Hattic vocabulary. The rest of Late Proto-Indo-European would be channeled into Iran/Central Asia and India. So, we would still see such cultures as Sumerians, Elamites and perhaps also the Hattians and Hurrians. Their reign in the Middle East would likely be very brief in the historical record, though. These migrations might also channel a massive Semitic migration into Egypt as well. We’ll see...


What is exactly not my heifer, i mean, how will one person's skin saved, affect the world so much ?
Intriguing idea


You mean one cow? I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? Think bovine thoughts in the meantime.
 
@Bassarion Korax hm, so a POD around or before the droughts of the late 4th millennium?! Thing is,having large groups of people move across the Caucasus or the karakum isn't quite as easy as having them move across central Europe...
 
@Bassarion Korax hm, so a POD around or before the droughts of the late 4th millennium?! Thing is,having large groups of people move across the Caucasus or the karakum isn't quite as easy as having them move across central Europe...


I was meaning to read about that. I have only seen the droughts briefly referenced by Quiles in his blog, although there is so much material on there to go through that I have only scratched the surface of, I think. Do you have some links that describe the droughts in question? But, if the POD is happening BEFORE these droughts (which, I'm not sure it is, we'll have to see), would it not be feasible to move groups of people into Iran and Central Asia while the climate is still friendly?


EDIT: Mind you, I still might be writing something else. I am expecting a wave of philhellenes to show up between today and tomorrow evening that will tip the voting in favor of either King of Snakes or This Man Too Is Alexander. As I said, I am rather surprised that the voting has gone the way it has, though pleasantly.
 
Welcome to the forum! I'm reading a book on Tiberius currently so I voted for For Want That A Fire Should Burn, Hail Castor! Second place for me would be King of Snakes.
 
Roman history TLs, I has them. For Want That a Fire Should Burn and King of Snakes should be interesting enough to write. The power struggle between the Julian and Claudian wings of the imperial family (embodied by Agrippina the Elder and Drusus) might play out differently without Sejanus domineering in the background. As far as the latter scenario, the premature death of Sulla would probably just mean a quicker death for the Republic, since Sulla himself used the dictatorship to try and strengthen the institutions of the Republic against possible military strongmen. Pompey and Crassus may be the ones to deal the fatal blow to the Republic after (possibly) taking down Cinna
 
I was meaning to read about that. I have only seen the droughts briefly referenced by Quiles in his blog, although there is so much material on there to go through that I have only scratched the surface of, I think. Do you have some links that describe the droughts in question? But, if the POD is happening BEFORE these droughts (which, I'm not sure it is, we'll have to see), would it not be feasible to move groups of people into Iran and Central Asia while the climate is still friendly?


EDIT: Mind you, I still might be writing something else. I am expecting a wave of philhellenes to show up between today and tomorrow evening that will tip the voting in favor of either King of Snakes or This Man Too Is Alexander. As I said, I am rather surprised that the voting has gone the way it has, though pleasantly.
It is getting narrower.
I don't remember if I had heard about the droughts in a recent Anthony lecture (on youtube, mind you) or if it was on a palaeometeorology Website. I was assuming it is accepted as a given.
 
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I’m just going to bump this one more time tonight to see where the voting goes


We’ll see if some West Coasters want to add their two cents...
 
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