I am planning on things quieting down eventually, and let the Romans enjoy a few generations of sleepy decadence mixed between puttering around these newfangled archaeological digs and observing the transit of Venus before the Industrial Revolution comes along and flips the table.
Still odd crisis here and there, but nothing like the ‘three decades that are three hundred years long’ phase we’re currently in.
I see attractions in both scenarios, which is why I haven’t come down for either one yet. My main argument against an independent England, even as a second-tier as opposed to a great power, is then how protect Ireland. Franco-Irish union, the Triple Monarchy becoming a Double? Maybe.
True. But humans are more long-distance travelers than rats. Rats travel long-distance, but they do it by piggybacking on human efforts, stowing away in ship holds or carts. Of course the issue is that the villagers still need grain, so even if ‘outside farmer’ delivers the cart to a quarantine post where the villagers then take it into town, that does nothing to the rats who are nestled in the bottom enjoying lunch.
I think the differences between France and Arles aren’t appreciably different from the usual between the langue d’oil and the langue d’oc, so basically OTL. Religion is the exception, albeit a rather massive exception. Reuniting would almost certainly be in the same way as the regions were united IOTL, northern armies marched south and conquered the place (see Albigensian Crusade). TTL France has a 3 to 1 population advantage over Arles, so it’s feasible assuming a quiet German frontier and a Spain that’s out of the way for whatever reason.
I think there are ways to navigate the England and industrialization bit. Given how complex the origin of the Industrial Revolution is, and the mountains of debate on it, and my awareness of how little of said debate I know, simplicity makes having it begin in England like OTL very attractive. But I think there are ways to jigger it. If the continent doesn’t have a twenty-year lag imposed by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, alt-England can’t build up such a big lead, at least so uncontested. Also a comparatively under-capitalized alt-England might start industrializing, but just not get as far along. There would be less push to mechanize textile production if the East Indian Company isn’t hauling in bales of cotton to feed the mills. So England might start the ball rolling like OTL, but not get very far before others come and run with it too.
This is when I tell you that the out-of-continuum reason for the story being focused on Rhomania is that six-year-old me saw the phrase ‘Byzantine Empire’ in a Calvin & Hobbes comic and thought that was the coolest name ever (had no clue what it was, and when my mom looked it up in the encyclopedia for me the explanation went completely over my head), and it’s been my favorite historical civilization ever since.
And the OOC reason for Vijayanagar doing so well is I also love the name.
Not sorry.
On a more serious note, I would comment that technically everything in a story really happens for Doylist reasons. The key is to have a good Watsonian reason for what is really being inspired by said Doylist reason. The ability to which I, or any writer, succeeds in this varies.
Triunes/England: Xenophobia and exceptionalism are, if not universal, very common traits among humans. I don’t have the reference on me, but there are Native American tribes in the Amazon whose name for themselves is literally just the word ‘people’ in their language, with the absolutely-intended implication that those not part of the tribe are not quite people. Exceptionalism just becomes more noticeable when those espousing it get more powerful and influential.
The Triunes are arrogant jerks, but they are a ‘character’ that is written to be an arrogant jerk. But they are also a great power, where being an arrogant jerk is pretty much part of the territory. When you add the natural human tendency for exceptionalism to their wealth and power and also unique religious distinction (Bohmanism), ‘arrogant jerk-ness’ seems inevitable to me and an absence highly unrealistic. Naturally the Triunes don’t think they’re arrogant jerks, but nobody is the bad guy in their own book.
So I think Triune arrogance is realistic and fits in well with the ITTL storyline. It is modeled from OTL, for mentioned OOC reasons, but it’s a case of ‘different route but same destination’. Political details are different, but we’re dealing with concepts relating to human nature, and assuming competence on my part, they’re the same IOTL and ITTL. Functionally the only difference between Triune arrogance and that of any other great power ITTL, including Rhomania, is that with episodes of Triune arrogance I try to have an OTL exact-or-at-least-close template (although not always).
Now on a related but slightly different note:
I wish it was just a case of ‘oh look, another Britannia rules the waves TL, sigh’. Because I could ignore that a lot easier and would find it much more harmless. I already ignore all the threads that don’t interest me, which is probably around 97% of all threads on this forum, so a few more is not a problem for me.
But it’s uglier than that. It’s seeing people claim that Britain could’ve won either world war without allies by just throwing brown people at the Germans until the Germans ran out of bullets. It’s seeing people claim that blacks in 1800s America were better off as slaves rather than freedmen, in order to defend British popular support for the Confederacy. It’s me criticizing the forum’s tendency to whitewash British imperialism because of the ‘British’ part, and getting personally attacked and abused for it. And then when the mods kick the person responsible, multiple posters come out and protest the kick, claiming that the kick was unjustified.
I don’t think it’s petty or silly to find such takes, and the implications behind them, troublesome and meriting some kind of response. AH.com really has seemed like a place that needs to be told ‘just because Brits do it doesn’t make it okay’, and I told that by having the Triunes do something arrogant and offensive, and then endnote it with a reference showing I copied it from a piece of English/British history.
Would I tell the story differently if I were doing it now? Yes, see my last post, and I’m considering diverting to my alternate idea rather than continuing the current course. But I’m not sorry for telling it how I did, and why I did, and I don’t think it was petty or silly to do so.