WI: Srivijaya Dominates Australia (& Beyond)

Cook

Banned
New Guinea has no polynesian tribes. They're papuan. If anything, the polynesians would actually have trading potential, one of the problem is going to be the viral shock, which was pretty bad for the pacific islanders too.

Yes, thankyou, that clearly makes a significant difference in this situation.

(I edited this post because I realised that it actually looked like I was being sarcastic when I wasn’t.)
 
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Cook

Banned
rice, a staple of the Southeast Asians has been shown to grow in the Murray River quite well...
‘Quite well’ is putting it mildly since Australia is a major rice exporter. However, the Murray is 3000 km south of the first piece of land your explorers are going to arrive at and 200 km inland. It gets worse since the mouth of the Murray is in South Australia and is not good agricultural land.

and all the tropical crops could be grown with ease on the Top End, which is mostly tropical rainforest...

No it isn’t. Most of it is Monsoonal Savannah with a few small isolated pockets of rainforest and whereas the soils of Java are enriched by the numerous volcanoes, the soil of the Top End is Red Clay.

The Dutch began exploring the North and West coasts of Australia from 1616 onwards, and had mapped most of the coast from Cape Leeuwin all the way up to the western tip of Cape York by 1644. They, compulsive traders that they were and based on 17th century technology, could see no value in the land.

Come down from the north along the East Coast and you will collide with The Great Barrier Reef; all 2000 kilometres of it!
 
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New Zealand is, IMO, a better starting point.

I always feel sorry when I saw the growing numbers of sarcastic-yet-useless comments in this board...
I remember that centuries ago we could use comments from the other posters as supports and references for our TLs...now it was a good old time
 
Jolly nice thread !! Second Indonesian appears here, and thus naturally, I find the idea of a continuing Srivijayan entity intriguing, let alone one that becomes a world power :)

As Rex has explained, Srivijaya was a thassalocracy much like Carthaginian Empire. What's more is that it was located in the crucial point within the route of international trade. States like this always slided down due to being surrounded and attacked by nearby great/growing powers from all sides. If you want to keep Srivijaya around for a long time, you've got to do something with that recurring pattern, that has always applied to historical empires that lied on a crucial trade hub, including Srivijaya. So yes, keep Chola and Java down. That way, it will give Srivijaya the necessary length of period to gradually centralize over centuries.


As for Australian issue though, I kinda understand the pendatic attitude shown by several posters here. Yes the Bugis did go there but you've got to understand the background behind their visits there. Why did they go there, and why did they start going there at the time they did ? Why and exactly when did the trepangs become an commodity that matter ? Etc.
However, I won't say that a Super Power Srivijaya will never find a good reason to occupy Australia. If nothing else, it will be for preventing others from gaining a base there. But I kinda doubt that Srivijaya can find a reason to start paying attention there any earlier than OTL Bugis did.
 

Cook

Banned
I always feel sorry when I saw the growing numbers of sarcastic-yet-useless comments in this board...
I remember that centuries ago we could use comments from the other posters as supports and references for our TLs...now it was a good old time

I think Archaeogeek was being serious and in fact if you could get to New Zealand in the 9th century it would be more hospitable than the East coast of Australia; the climate is lusher, the soil richer, there isn’t the Great Barrier Reef to sink your ships and there are no hostile natives since the ancestors of the Maori wouldn’t have arrived there yet. You’d find a pristine land roaming with Moa.

The problem is that there is 2000 km between of empty ocean between New Caledonia and New Zealand, so island hopping south isn’t an option.

With the advantage of the vast resources of Australia and their strategic position…

You need to define the ‘vast natural resources’ in terms of the 9th century; what are they and why are they in demand to such an extent that they necessitate the expense of going all the way to Australia, with all its hazards, instead of making do with closer supplies of the resource.

The ‘natural resource’ that the British settled the East Coast of Australia for wasn’t even to be found on the east coast, it was the Northfolk Island Pine, found only on Northfolk Island, some 1600 km north east of Sydney. And it turned out not to be suitable for ship’s masts after all.

The colony required a major commitment by the leading maritime power of the early 19th century and took more than thirty years to turn a profit.
 
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Thinking it over, I don't see Australia as being key to the survival or expansion of Srivijaya. Rather, if and when Australia comes into play at all, it does so as a consequence or side effect of Srivijaya's survival and expansion, not a cause. I suspect it also comes late in the game.

So my advice is first work on Srivijaya. Let Australia come up naturally, further down the line.
 
Alright, so I will wait for Australia until a few centuries latter.
Srivijaya would conquer Java in the 900s, before Majapahit became a power, and keep heading eastward, to Sulawesi and New Guinea, where the climate is more like Southeast Asia than Australia. I wonder what the relations with the New Guineans would be like, though.
Srivijaya would make an alliance with the Song Chinese in the 1000s and thus gain gunpowder weapons and a powerful ally against the Cholas, who would be expelled from Southeast Asia by 1,100.

With a more powerful and centralized Srivijaya, we can now, around 1,100 or so, look towards Australia and maybe even conquering the Cholas.
 
Nugax: Well, if the Makassar could get their from Sulawesi, and they had far less resources at their disposal than the Srivijayans (or for that matter the Torres Strait Islanders of New Guinea, which had its coast colonized by the Polynesians; both of whom far less developed than the Srivijayans), then why could the Srivijayans, with their advanced shipbuilding technologies and merchant-strong economy not get to Australia, despite the less-than ideal winds?

North-east Madgascar both had a far more similar climate to their indonesia origins, and is near some nice fishing, but also had no competiting peoples for subsistance based life style.
 
I wonder what the Portuguese would do if they encounter my Srivijaya.

BTW, I am not looking to make a timeline alone (I am not experienced enough as of yet), but with some assistance... I have searched Google and not found much of anything, so I think I am going to do some research at the university library.)
 
The dingo was bought to Australia about 4000 years ago, so despite our knowledge of the Maccasar dating back to about 1500AD it is obvious that Asians were coming to Australia when the pyramids were being built. Yet despite this Asians never colonised Australia, I assume because to do so for them would be a step backwards.
 
Interesting concept...

I seem to recall that coral is itself a valuable item, so are cowrie shells and pearls. The Great Barrier reef has more than fish and tourism to offer. Opal and gold, alas, are well inland...
 
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