Twelve Fragments From Jupiter's Crown

amphibulous

Banned
Subscribed as well. Good stuff this. Wouldn't the returning Gulf Stream carry the Veneti ship across the Atlantic a straight to the Caribbean?

Just take the Potato Ship as a posit. The story is about what would happen if the Romans got a more productive basic food. Which could have happened in several ways - they could have got better cheap steel from China (where it was used for agriculture very early.) Or soy. Or developed decent harnesses for horses.

I chose the Potato Ship because, firstly, I saw The Feathered Serpent recently (the old UK TV series, not the god himself) and it was brilliant*. And secondly because potatoes lend themselves much better to comedy scenes than rice or rigid horse collars. Potatoes are a comedy vegetable; rice just isn't. Don't ask me why. Do I write the comedy vegetable rules? No.

And now you're making me risk spoil my Subtly Ironic Dramatic ending...

Anyway, like I say, the Potato Ship had a **very** complicated history, and it was extraordinary that it ever made it home. Which is no Ancient World ship made the accidental journey in our OTL.

* http://www.amazon.com/Feathered-Ser...1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1326230982&sr=1-1
 

amphibulous

Banned
Fragment Six: AE240

Curio squeezed with difficulty from his hiding place on the barge, bent down to accept their infant from his wife, and then took her hand - and hoisted her as easily as he had the infant.

The barge captain grinned. "We can be stronger than we look, us little guys." He passed Curio a clay bottle. "Beer. That's what we hardy pioneers drink here on the frontier, except on special occasions. Or maybe if we're real posh."

Curio took a long grateful swig. It tasted... golden.

"I think I'll like it," he said honestly, and passed it on to his wife.

"Taste of freedom, that is, friend" the barge captain replied.

"Can we stay on deck now? Is it safe?"

"Just as long as you're ready to get back below real fast if as I should tell you. You can't stay down there all the time - not in that little hole. No, if I was you I'd do what I'm going to."

"Which is?"

"Sit on the bow and the watch the trees and the fishes go by. Watch the boy lead the horses, and shout at Siegried back there if he don't steer right. Nothing sweeter on a summer day than dangling your feet over the water and watching others do the work."

"That sounds... wonderful," Curio replied.

The captain grinned.

"They keep you busy back at that factory?"

"Gods, yes. Especially with the shortage of skilled labour these days. And our -their - products are more and more in demand - because of the shortage of unskilled labour, I suppose. Just like the windmill and waterwheel makers - it's how the Plague left us, I suppose - richer in everything than we've ever been, except labour. No chance of becoming a freedman, either - not with the greedy bastards who manage that place."

"Not right, that is. Not like the old days. Not like the smarter folks now, either. Takes away the incentive for a man like you to do his best. Mind you, it's good for me and my brethren. This is one of our biggest earners now, getting folks like you out of places like that. And moving you to spots where you'll be more appreciated."

"Well, good for you."

"S'not like we do it for free. Fifth of your wages for five years, it'll cost you. A fair bit of money that is for a boat trip that'd cost you a couple of day's wages on a regular passenger barge. Even before you add the whack that your new employer has paid us." He laughed. "Mind you, if you don't pay we'll - " He made a stabbing gesture, automatically twisting even the imaginary blade to enlarge the wound.

"Cheap at the price," Curio said sincerely.

"Never truer words," agreed the captain. "Never truer. It's priceless freedom is. Plus the buggers what you're going to work for are offering to fair drown you in denarii. I'd consider going straight for that sort of money myself. 'Cept on lazy days like this. 'Nother beer?"

"Please."

"..There you go. Drink it while it's wet. Won't be like this for me next week, though."

"No?"

"No. Then I'm going the other way - out, not in. Picking up a load of Russians and bringing them back over the frontier, without getting the tax people too involved, if you know what I mean." He looked significantly at Curio. "I wouldn't normally talk about a thing like that, but they're for your new bosses - probably to work for you. You'll be involved in a lot of that sort of thing from now onwards."

"Good for me!"

The captain laughed. "It is, too. You get a chance to pick up some sweet bargains when we're over numbers. Nothing like a cheap housemaid to keep the wife happy, as long as she ain't too pretty. Or if she is, let her cut the girl's hair off for a wig and then keep her shaved - that usually makes a wife happy enough. Although I've known a quite few married men who didn't think being bald spoiled a girl's looks at all. Just as long as the wife doesn't get to know, hey?"

The barge captain/gangster took another swig.

"No, that's the Roman Way, alright," he said. "Promising fellow like you, still young - you get your freedom, get some slaves yourself, then a big house with a mosaic. That's what I'd do if I was a young - what d'yer call it, what you do again?"

"Steam engine design engineer."
 

amphibulous

Banned
Also, there are criteria I feel should be applied to choosing PODs. In order of better to worse

- Likely but significant and interesting are best

- Based on a **single** unlikely event, but with very interesting consequences, are next best. Our own timeline is one of these - if you don't believe me, then read the German Army's own study of their campaign in France in WW2, Freiser's "The Legend Of Blitzkrieg".

- Based on sustained improbability ("What if the Byzantines win all their battles for 20 years, even the impossible ones, for no underlying reason???") is unacceptable

- And ideas without interesting consequences just don't strike me as interesting at all. So what if the Royal Navy had a couple of large carriers in the 90s? Or if the Sea Fury arrived two (extremely improbable) years early, and had a different shaped knob on the end of the joystick?

The simpler the Improbable Event Chain needed to reach the consequences, the better - and I feel that the Potato Ship is much less unlikely than the bizarre version of WW2 we suffered (especially given how many opportunities there were for a Potato Ship even to occur - you could even have had a canoe with a few yams in wash up on European shores and someone plant them.) And that, of course, the consequences are interesting enough to be worth exploring.

And now I've completely ruined my Subtly Ironic Ending!
 

amphibulous

Banned
Fragment Seven: AE320

The day is of some consequence and the Mediterranean makes the effort to salute the new heroes - and Gods - with some of the symbolism of the old: the sea is literally "wine dark" - a colour almost purple - as the combatants race towards each other.

They come like spears thrown by unimaginably giant champions, each one vast - none of them weighs less than six thousand tons - yet moving so fast that they seem to fly across the water rather than swim through it. They come trailing tails of black smoke and preceded by the crashing white waves that pile up against their boughs and break over their whale-backed decks. They are iron-walled and fire-bellied, they deny the tyranny of the wind and vault over the highest summits of human effort. Each is indestructible by an agent less than the ocean's fury or another such as itself.

Two lines of these floating iron spears smash into each other. Every captain tries his best to place his ships giant ram in the sides of enemy, but every captain counters the other's efforts with approximately equal ease, and so such meetings are most often head-on.

Iron screams; steam bellows. Some ships sink, some break away from their opponent and gain the sea room to make a new assault, others remain locked together. From these, men appear. They carry short swords and crossbows that store their energy in springs more than they do their short arms - handier in tight places. They jump down on to opposing decks - or climb up to them with ladders - to be met with wasps of lead launched by the hissing force of steam pressure. Teams of men bring up giant shields and maneuver behind them. Wedges are driven under turrets to stop them rotating. Flammable liquids are poured through vents. Hammers, levers and pulleys are used to open hard-sealed hatches and doors. Flesh meets flesh and iron meets iron - and at the end of the day each side believes that it is lying when it claims the victory.
 

amphibulous

Banned
Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Btw, Imperial historians have found evidence that the Veneti had reached what we call the Canary Islands. It's hypothesized that the Potato Ship left the Canaries intending to head for Gaul, and instead had to sail the other way - at which point she got picked up the same currents that Columbus did in our TL. The Veneti were skilled navigators - and the VS Potato's was one of their best - so dead reckoning told him where he was relative to home. Everything after that was merely very difficult and dangerous.

My personal theory, based on the seemingly cooperative relationship between the Veneti and New Worlders, is that after considerable adventures the Potato met someone very rich, very powerful and very smart.

This someone realized that Gallic metallurgy and shipbuilding techniques would make him and his descendants unchallengeable in the New World, so poured enormous resources into supporting the Potato.

The Veneti may or may have not have been honest with him when they said that they intended to send such craftsmen across the Atlantic to him. Although he was offering a quite amazing amount of gold to do so, and routine spectrum analysis of pre-AE Gallic gold work has turned up several quite spectacular items that seem to be made of New World gold. (So Aspasia and Augustine weren't as smart as they thought.)

But I'm guessing!
 
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amphibulous

Banned
Fragment Eight: AE370

"Do you know - I think that you're the first Primus Prize winner to come to the New World?" the pro-consul said.

The scientist smiled modestly "It is a very new world - and I'm a very prize winner. This really is a charming estate you have - not too disimilar to a hunting lodge in Germania, except for being much larger than anything outside the Imperial family. But tell me -" he nodded at the guards accompanying them - "Are these gentlemen really necessary?"

"What? My praets?" The governor laughed. "I'm so used to them that I don't really see them. We'd be fine without them I'm sure. Just as long as we were either sensible or lucky."

"Ah. And as I am to be a New Worlder for the next several years, what does being sensible mean?"

"Carrying a knife, a lighter and some tinder, some jerky, a compass. And a weapon. Just as you would if you were hunting in Germania. It's just that here you'd do well to take a partner. And for both of you to leave your bows at home and carry a good modern lead thrower instead. Have you ever handled one?"

"No."

"You'll have guards of course, but you should probably learn. It's almost like firing a crossbow once you get used to noise and the terrible smell. I'll see that your team is issued with the standard military 4 barrel weapon and speedloaders... Not the sort of thing that appeals to you orange-robers, I suppose."

"Oh, I'm not a pacifist - few of us are. I just cherish the hope that we will do here will be understood by the natives and accepted... I want to thank you for supporting this project. Even if I suspect your motives are rather different from own."

The governor raised an eyebrow. "Not so humanitarian, you mean? Well, you're right to think that no governor could afford to sit back and watch while most of his potential labour pool dies... But more than that, I was on the first expedition to reach this continent - just before the war."

"Yes, I know. I can only imagine what it must have been like, seeing all this for the first time."

"It was autumn. The endless forests were orange and red - and I fell in love with the place. Never wanted to leave. Never would have, if I'd known the bloody war was waiting!" He snorted, perhaps remembering how the war before that one had once been called the "Great War" - yet had been utterly dwarfed in the scale of combat and death when the Western and Eastern Empires had fought again. "Do you know, right up until the last minute I had the dreadful fear that we'd get here and find a civilization with, oh, flying ships and cities a 100 stories high? Irrational, I know. If they were that much more advanced than us they'd have steamed into the harbour at Ostia. Anyway. I was in command of the first party to meet the natives - if only we'd known!"

"I don't see how you could have done. I doubt anyone connected with the expedition knew. Of course if the Navy had made the existence of the expedition public then we'd done anything we could to stop it until precautions were taken. Literally anything."

"The risk to the natives was that obvious?"

The scientist stared at him. "It never occurred to you that the risk of biological contamination runs both ways? That the diseases we are adapted to would devastate the New World population was utterly predictable - although the higher than 90% death rate is much greater than we would have expected. The mystery - one that we're still trying to solve - is why our population wasn't decimated in return."
 
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