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The world of Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est", maybe a century down the road.
For those who haven't read the original time travel/changed history story, to briefly recap : this is a world where Carthage destroyed Rome. The Carthaginian Empire hung around for a while, and gave the Celts their writing system and enough political clues to organize against the Germanic peoples. Christianity never arose, nor did Islam. The Germans in central Europe were smashed by a series of invasions from the east, starting with the Huns, driving many of them south into Italy. Lots of things happened, until in what OTL would be the 1950s a World War broke out between a Hindu empire and a South American Inca-expy state, with a North American Celtic-Indian confederation caught in the middle…
It’s been nearly a century since war broke out between the Empires of Hinduraj and Huy Braseal (not what those nations actually call themselves, but who want to take the trouble to learn to pronounce what those foreigners call themselves, amiright?) , the world’s two strongest powers by most people’s estimations, a clash not merely of gross national interest but also political ideology (traditional monarchy vs. theocracy). Huy Braseal had advantages of more efficient administration, a positively Communist system of economic control, an almost inaccessible mountain core, and good old fanaticism, while Hinduraj had superior resources and numbers: and as they say, numbers do provide their own form of quality. After an extended struggle, the armies of Hinduraj, at terrible cost, fought their way up onto the Altiplano, executed the Son of the Sun, and looted the great temples.
Although the costs, human and otherwise, of fighting the war exhausted Hinduraj for a generation, today the Hindu-and-some-Buddhists monarchy is the world’s dominant power, ruling directly or indirectly what it’s rulers boastfully and not too inaccurately call “half and one fifth of the world”, and feared and respected by all others. Centralizing monarchy is in, theocracy (never that popular anyway outside of Amerindian imitators and some parts of Africa) is out. Trade flows freely through a vast area spanning both the Indian and Pacific oceans, and art and literature flourish. The eastern half of South America, whether or not officially vassals of the Indians, are also within the sphere of Hinduraj. (The area is mostly other, lesser Amerindian states, aside from some vestigial Gallic colonies).
Admittedly, it’s not all roses and saffron. Ruling the Altiplano has proven rather difficult in the long run due to the local’s fanatic adherence to their religion, and every twenty years or so another army has to be dispatched when a new prophet proclaiming himself to be the returned Son of the Sun raises a rebellion. Much of the area is under military administration again, and the current Rajah of Rajahs is carrying out a rather ruthless new policy of ethnic replacement, killing or exiling rebel populations to the toxic jungles of their coreligionists to the east, and replacing them with settlers drawn from the highland populations in the north of India and even Tibet. (There is some hope that the inexhaustibly preachy Dharmic sect of Tibet may win over the locals from their rather anti-Indian faith).
Bigger troubles are brewing back in Asia. The Han Empire, largely a non-factor in Hinduraj considerations due to its isolationist attitudes, crumbled thirty years ago in the usual dynastic end-cycle brought on by Emperors no longer interested in ruling, spectacular corruption, and peasant impoverishment caused by overpopulation. The father of the current Rajah decided that the emergence of a new, vigorous Han dynasty might create uncomfortable neighbor, after annexing or making puppets of those SE Asian nations historically marked “property of China – keep off” set to work keeping the warlord pot boiling. Unfortunately, this had the medium-term effect of causing various factions to unite against the foreign pests, and now Hinduraj’s situation in China is made tolerable only by the fact the apocalyptic *Buddhists (not our bunch by a long stretch) and the Neo-Legalists hate each other even more than they hate the Indians – their south Chinese “ally” is looking more like OTL South Vietnam all the time…
(Although China as OTL developed into a centralized bureaucratic absolutism, there are a lot of differences in the details. For one thing, Confucianism never became as dominant and continued to coexist and content with other schools of thought on how to organize government and society. And Buddhism in China evolved into something rich and strange).
Of course, everybody has troubles. Ask the High King of Ynys Yr Affalon. Much of the Indian-Celtic –odds and ends federation became a battle ground in the war between Hinduraj and Huy Braseal, and while the Andean fanatics eventually went away, the Indians came to stay: Affalon is another part of the Hinduraj sphere. His ancestors efforts to create a stronger, more centralized state led to rebellions which their Indian overlords often weren’t too helpful with: they were flattered that the north Affalonians (read “Americans” in this world) were imitating their form of government, but weren’t too interested in their becoming too powerful, and indeed sometimes intervened to “help out” when _not_ wanted, leading to popular unrest against the High King. The current monarch has for now given up on reconquering the lost bits of eastern Ynys Yr Affalon and concentrating on strengthening his grip on the lands between *Utah and *New England.
He can’t hope for help from his Celtic brethren in Europe, since they have their own problems – once the Hinduraj/Huy Braseal war had landed Ynys Yr Affalon truly in the soup, the Baltic-Slavic empire of Littorn tried to reestablish its former frontier on the Seine and nearly succeeded: even the Celtic nations were a bit surprised at the time they managed to get their crap together in time to stop them short of the Rhine. A cold war interrupted by occasional outbreaks of violent fighting hasn’t changed borders much since then: the invention of barbed wire by a Celtic Druid has helped in that. (Its ally of convenience Cimberland, in spite of being Germanic due to different early migrations, still found itself playing the part of Mussolini’s Italy: their attempt to reconquer their former colony of Egypt didn’t go well at all).
The European Celts have been trying to go the Centralized Monarchy route and away from their “squabbling elite democracy” model, with more success than the far larger and more ethnically varied north Affalonians. Gallia has probably done best, although Louis XIV would probably think the nobility-equivalent requires further neutering: Brittys, away from the front lines and less of a national mood of “hang together or hang separately”, worst. (See, the Irish). Kilts of a sort are still In as male fashion, while Ynys Yr Affalon has gone to Indian-style baggy trousers.
Dynasties have come and gone (the current ruling family is of what we would call Afghan origin, and there was a Turkish interlude), but Parthia remains: some sort of Iranian state between Europe and India has been one of the fixed norms of this world in the absence of Mongol or Islamic invasions. Parthia is currently one of the more peaceful spots on the globe, aside from the occasional mess spilling over the border from Arabia. The Punjabi Empire used to be unified with it a while back, but they’re their own thing now: a densely populated nation of tough warriors, they have a “don’t bug us and we won’t bug you” relationship with Hinduraj (which the Raj tends to interpret as a form of vassalage if others don’t).
Northern Africa is Carthagalaan, a loose federation centered on the old core of Carthage, which retains still some of its ancient glamour. North Africa is mostly oligarchic led by Suffetes with limited powers, although some of the southern states have fairly strong monarchies (Egypt is theocratic, but lacks a single God-king). It’s an economically bustling place, with elites more united than those in North Affalon, and surprisingly capable at mobilizing military forces for common defense (as Cimberland found to its distress), thanks in part to a fairly advanced banking system. It could play at least on Littorn’s level if it centralized more, but since that would upset too many applecarts, the inhabitants of Cathagalaan are happy enough to be Africa’s big dog.
Thanks to a fairly primitive medicine (although the virtues of quinine have been discovered) Central Africa avoided colonialism, although there are still a lot of trading posts and in more ambitious times there were efforts to rule through local proxies. The cape, where as OTL Europeans established a waystation to the markets of India, is a bit of an exception. There has been considerable cultural exchange south from Carthage and west from India (much of the east coast of Africa is Hindu or Hindu-local religion syncretic ), along with a transfer of weapons tech which has encouraged state building: the last true tribals, in the central jungles, are being energetically exploited to civilization, or death, whichever takes first.
Slavery is widespread, but generally of a non-racist type with multiple possibilities for manumission. Democracy isn’t widespread, and outside of North Africa not well regarded, considered as leading to decentralization, internal conflict, and weakness. It has never been universal even among males, slaves and the poor usually being excluded, and often narrowed to the wealthy and noblemen, and is being eroded by a move towards stronger, bureaucratized monarchy on the Indian model through the Celtic world.
Religion is mostly tolerant and polytheist (“we have our Gods, but you should respect other people’s”), with a few important exceptions such as the Sun God followers of the Andes, and the worshippers of the Lord of Life and Death in much of central Africa, in which other faiths get the dhimmi treatment at best. (There are also some fairly intolerant Buddhists, but they’re a minor factor as long as China doesn’t go that route, and what passes for Zoroastrianism nowadays takes other Gods as servants of Ahura Mazda.) Baalists also believe the Supreme Baal created the other Gods, and scholarly types often suggest a single unified Godhead of which lesser Gods are just emanations, but genuine monotheism is almost unheard of, almost as rare as atheism. (There are a few minor Judaism-derived cults, but even these tend to think of their God as First Among Equals). There have been some odd mixes, with north African Baalism mixing with elements of the traditional faiths in the Celtic lands, and the long Cimberlandish period of rule over Egypt has left the *Italian peninsula with a faith that syncretizes the Nordic and Egyptian Gods.
Technology is pretty widely variable, being based on rule of thumb engineering, although the spread of the printing press to all major nations in the last three centuries has systematized things somewhat. The steam engine has been around for a while, and there are steam powered trains, cars, and ships at sea. Smallpox vaccines and the use of quinine are widespread. Surgery is quite sophisticated, and some fairly potent anesthetic drugs have been developed from the New World’s formidable pharmacopeia, although, alas, notions of a germ theory remain vague at best, although the practice of quarantine in the case of plague is well known. Guns and cannon are up to OTL mid 19th century levels, supplemented by armored trains and crude, slow wheeled “tanks.” Hot air balloons are widely used, and gliders capable of carrying multiple arms troops exist. (The rocket-boosted ones are particularly dangerous). Some people are fiddling with what might be an internal combustion engine. Batteries have been a scholar’s toy for a while, and used for electroplating and inflicting amusing shocks on friends, but in a North African town the idea of sending an electric signal along a loooong wire is being explored. Steam pumps keep water out of the multiplying coal mines. During the final parts of the war the Andean state developed something like interchangeable parts manufacturing for the war effort, but it was not adopted by the Indians when they crushed them, and in most areas manufacturing is a craft rather than an industry, although there are some very dense state-sponsored congregations of skilled workers in some areas of major nations. But there is no science.
Or is there? It is to be noted that the Druid class has also long tinkered with machines and practical ideas, and nowadays they write to each other and have books of useful knowledge printed. In Africa, meanwhile, scholarly types are having fun compiling huge encyclopedias about all sorts of knowledge, and creating great collections of all sorts of natural odds and ends. The development of the telescope for military purposes has led to people looking at the planets and seeing things which bring the long established “crystal spheres” model of the cosmos into question. (*Inca Huy Braseal followed a sun-centered model, but for theological, not astronomical reasons). If the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, not preserved by a *Byzantine Empire or a Christian Church, has largely been forgotten, so have such ideas as Platonism or the pursuit of knowledge as a thing to be achieved purely with the mind and not dirty experimentation. The North Africans, aside from the Egyptians, are a practical-minded people, and generally have no problem with the notion that useful knowledge about the world remains to be discovered. Neither they nor the Celts have as yet developed what we call the “scientific method”, but they’re getting close enough to accidentally bump into it one of these days…
(Yes, I am aware the world was un-made by the Time Patrol. Let's just say this is an alternate universe where Carthage won without the assistance of time travelers. )
For those who haven't read the original time travel/changed history story, to briefly recap : this is a world where Carthage destroyed Rome. The Carthaginian Empire hung around for a while, and gave the Celts their writing system and enough political clues to organize against the Germanic peoples. Christianity never arose, nor did Islam. The Germans in central Europe were smashed by a series of invasions from the east, starting with the Huns, driving many of them south into Italy. Lots of things happened, until in what OTL would be the 1950s a World War broke out between a Hindu empire and a South American Inca-expy state, with a North American Celtic-Indian confederation caught in the middle…
It’s been nearly a century since war broke out between the Empires of Hinduraj and Huy Braseal (not what those nations actually call themselves, but who want to take the trouble to learn to pronounce what those foreigners call themselves, amiright?) , the world’s two strongest powers by most people’s estimations, a clash not merely of gross national interest but also political ideology (traditional monarchy vs. theocracy). Huy Braseal had advantages of more efficient administration, a positively Communist system of economic control, an almost inaccessible mountain core, and good old fanaticism, while Hinduraj had superior resources and numbers: and as they say, numbers do provide their own form of quality. After an extended struggle, the armies of Hinduraj, at terrible cost, fought their way up onto the Altiplano, executed the Son of the Sun, and looted the great temples.
Although the costs, human and otherwise, of fighting the war exhausted Hinduraj for a generation, today the Hindu-and-some-Buddhists monarchy is the world’s dominant power, ruling directly or indirectly what it’s rulers boastfully and not too inaccurately call “half and one fifth of the world”, and feared and respected by all others. Centralizing monarchy is in, theocracy (never that popular anyway outside of Amerindian imitators and some parts of Africa) is out. Trade flows freely through a vast area spanning both the Indian and Pacific oceans, and art and literature flourish. The eastern half of South America, whether or not officially vassals of the Indians, are also within the sphere of Hinduraj. (The area is mostly other, lesser Amerindian states, aside from some vestigial Gallic colonies).
Admittedly, it’s not all roses and saffron. Ruling the Altiplano has proven rather difficult in the long run due to the local’s fanatic adherence to their religion, and every twenty years or so another army has to be dispatched when a new prophet proclaiming himself to be the returned Son of the Sun raises a rebellion. Much of the area is under military administration again, and the current Rajah of Rajahs is carrying out a rather ruthless new policy of ethnic replacement, killing or exiling rebel populations to the toxic jungles of their coreligionists to the east, and replacing them with settlers drawn from the highland populations in the north of India and even Tibet. (There is some hope that the inexhaustibly preachy Dharmic sect of Tibet may win over the locals from their rather anti-Indian faith).
Bigger troubles are brewing back in Asia. The Han Empire, largely a non-factor in Hinduraj considerations due to its isolationist attitudes, crumbled thirty years ago in the usual dynastic end-cycle brought on by Emperors no longer interested in ruling, spectacular corruption, and peasant impoverishment caused by overpopulation. The father of the current Rajah decided that the emergence of a new, vigorous Han dynasty might create uncomfortable neighbor, after annexing or making puppets of those SE Asian nations historically marked “property of China – keep off” set to work keeping the warlord pot boiling. Unfortunately, this had the medium-term effect of causing various factions to unite against the foreign pests, and now Hinduraj’s situation in China is made tolerable only by the fact the apocalyptic *Buddhists (not our bunch by a long stretch) and the Neo-Legalists hate each other even more than they hate the Indians – their south Chinese “ally” is looking more like OTL South Vietnam all the time…
(Although China as OTL developed into a centralized bureaucratic absolutism, there are a lot of differences in the details. For one thing, Confucianism never became as dominant and continued to coexist and content with other schools of thought on how to organize government and society. And Buddhism in China evolved into something rich and strange).
Of course, everybody has troubles. Ask the High King of Ynys Yr Affalon. Much of the Indian-Celtic –odds and ends federation became a battle ground in the war between Hinduraj and Huy Braseal, and while the Andean fanatics eventually went away, the Indians came to stay: Affalon is another part of the Hinduraj sphere. His ancestors efforts to create a stronger, more centralized state led to rebellions which their Indian overlords often weren’t too helpful with: they were flattered that the north Affalonians (read “Americans” in this world) were imitating their form of government, but weren’t too interested in their becoming too powerful, and indeed sometimes intervened to “help out” when _not_ wanted, leading to popular unrest against the High King. The current monarch has for now given up on reconquering the lost bits of eastern Ynys Yr Affalon and concentrating on strengthening his grip on the lands between *Utah and *New England.
He can’t hope for help from his Celtic brethren in Europe, since they have their own problems – once the Hinduraj/Huy Braseal war had landed Ynys Yr Affalon truly in the soup, the Baltic-Slavic empire of Littorn tried to reestablish its former frontier on the Seine and nearly succeeded: even the Celtic nations were a bit surprised at the time they managed to get their crap together in time to stop them short of the Rhine. A cold war interrupted by occasional outbreaks of violent fighting hasn’t changed borders much since then: the invention of barbed wire by a Celtic Druid has helped in that. (Its ally of convenience Cimberland, in spite of being Germanic due to different early migrations, still found itself playing the part of Mussolini’s Italy: their attempt to reconquer their former colony of Egypt didn’t go well at all).
The European Celts have been trying to go the Centralized Monarchy route and away from their “squabbling elite democracy” model, with more success than the far larger and more ethnically varied north Affalonians. Gallia has probably done best, although Louis XIV would probably think the nobility-equivalent requires further neutering: Brittys, away from the front lines and less of a national mood of “hang together or hang separately”, worst. (See, the Irish). Kilts of a sort are still In as male fashion, while Ynys Yr Affalon has gone to Indian-style baggy trousers.
Dynasties have come and gone (the current ruling family is of what we would call Afghan origin, and there was a Turkish interlude), but Parthia remains: some sort of Iranian state between Europe and India has been one of the fixed norms of this world in the absence of Mongol or Islamic invasions. Parthia is currently one of the more peaceful spots on the globe, aside from the occasional mess spilling over the border from Arabia. The Punjabi Empire used to be unified with it a while back, but they’re their own thing now: a densely populated nation of tough warriors, they have a “don’t bug us and we won’t bug you” relationship with Hinduraj (which the Raj tends to interpret as a form of vassalage if others don’t).
Northern Africa is Carthagalaan, a loose federation centered on the old core of Carthage, which retains still some of its ancient glamour. North Africa is mostly oligarchic led by Suffetes with limited powers, although some of the southern states have fairly strong monarchies (Egypt is theocratic, but lacks a single God-king). It’s an economically bustling place, with elites more united than those in North Affalon, and surprisingly capable at mobilizing military forces for common defense (as Cimberland found to its distress), thanks in part to a fairly advanced banking system. It could play at least on Littorn’s level if it centralized more, but since that would upset too many applecarts, the inhabitants of Cathagalaan are happy enough to be Africa’s big dog.
Thanks to a fairly primitive medicine (although the virtues of quinine have been discovered) Central Africa avoided colonialism, although there are still a lot of trading posts and in more ambitious times there were efforts to rule through local proxies. The cape, where as OTL Europeans established a waystation to the markets of India, is a bit of an exception. There has been considerable cultural exchange south from Carthage and west from India (much of the east coast of Africa is Hindu or Hindu-local religion syncretic ), along with a transfer of weapons tech which has encouraged state building: the last true tribals, in the central jungles, are being energetically exploited to civilization, or death, whichever takes first.
Slavery is widespread, but generally of a non-racist type with multiple possibilities for manumission. Democracy isn’t widespread, and outside of North Africa not well regarded, considered as leading to decentralization, internal conflict, and weakness. It has never been universal even among males, slaves and the poor usually being excluded, and often narrowed to the wealthy and noblemen, and is being eroded by a move towards stronger, bureaucratized monarchy on the Indian model through the Celtic world.
Religion is mostly tolerant and polytheist (“we have our Gods, but you should respect other people’s”), with a few important exceptions such as the Sun God followers of the Andes, and the worshippers of the Lord of Life and Death in much of central Africa, in which other faiths get the dhimmi treatment at best. (There are also some fairly intolerant Buddhists, but they’re a minor factor as long as China doesn’t go that route, and what passes for Zoroastrianism nowadays takes other Gods as servants of Ahura Mazda.) Baalists also believe the Supreme Baal created the other Gods, and scholarly types often suggest a single unified Godhead of which lesser Gods are just emanations, but genuine monotheism is almost unheard of, almost as rare as atheism. (There are a few minor Judaism-derived cults, but even these tend to think of their God as First Among Equals). There have been some odd mixes, with north African Baalism mixing with elements of the traditional faiths in the Celtic lands, and the long Cimberlandish period of rule over Egypt has left the *Italian peninsula with a faith that syncretizes the Nordic and Egyptian Gods.
Technology is pretty widely variable, being based on rule of thumb engineering, although the spread of the printing press to all major nations in the last three centuries has systematized things somewhat. The steam engine has been around for a while, and there are steam powered trains, cars, and ships at sea. Smallpox vaccines and the use of quinine are widespread. Surgery is quite sophisticated, and some fairly potent anesthetic drugs have been developed from the New World’s formidable pharmacopeia, although, alas, notions of a germ theory remain vague at best, although the practice of quarantine in the case of plague is well known. Guns and cannon are up to OTL mid 19th century levels, supplemented by armored trains and crude, slow wheeled “tanks.” Hot air balloons are widely used, and gliders capable of carrying multiple arms troops exist. (The rocket-boosted ones are particularly dangerous). Some people are fiddling with what might be an internal combustion engine. Batteries have been a scholar’s toy for a while, and used for electroplating and inflicting amusing shocks on friends, but in a North African town the idea of sending an electric signal along a loooong wire is being explored. Steam pumps keep water out of the multiplying coal mines. During the final parts of the war the Andean state developed something like interchangeable parts manufacturing for the war effort, but it was not adopted by the Indians when they crushed them, and in most areas manufacturing is a craft rather than an industry, although there are some very dense state-sponsored congregations of skilled workers in some areas of major nations. But there is no science.
Or is there? It is to be noted that the Druid class has also long tinkered with machines and practical ideas, and nowadays they write to each other and have books of useful knowledge printed. In Africa, meanwhile, scholarly types are having fun compiling huge encyclopedias about all sorts of knowledge, and creating great collections of all sorts of natural odds and ends. The development of the telescope for military purposes has led to people looking at the planets and seeing things which bring the long established “crystal spheres” model of the cosmos into question. (*Inca Huy Braseal followed a sun-centered model, but for theological, not astronomical reasons). If the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, not preserved by a *Byzantine Empire or a Christian Church, has largely been forgotten, so have such ideas as Platonism or the pursuit of knowledge as a thing to be achieved purely with the mind and not dirty experimentation. The North Africans, aside from the Egyptians, are a practical-minded people, and generally have no problem with the notion that useful knowledge about the world remains to be discovered. Neither they nor the Celts have as yet developed what we call the “scientific method”, but they’re getting close enough to accidentally bump into it one of these days…
(Yes, I am aware the world was un-made by the Time Patrol. Let's just say this is an alternate universe where Carthage won without the assistance of time travelers. )
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I would assume if Christianity never rose some other late-roman religion would take it's place like a religious form of the various Hellenistic philosophies like neo Platonism or another imported religion like Mithras or sun worship or maybe even the roman religion turned into an axis religion