Ever have a pet scenario that you would so if you were smart enough? For some reason, I am fascinated by the idea of legionaries and samurai fighting in the Rocky Mountains with World War One level technology. I think you'd need multiple POD's. A surviving Rome getting to North America seems reasonably doable, but getting the Japanese stretches my knowledge of Japanese history a bit. I think you'd need a pre-Shogunate POD if it were doable at all. I wonder which would be more plausible: The Japanese discovering Hawaii and then California, or them going north via the Bering route for some reason?
A Pet Pre-1900 Scenario You Would Do If You were Smart Enough
- Thread starter Baron Bizarre
- Start date
Don't know about your Rockies idea, but scenarios I'd love to do something on if i were smarter are mostly in pre- and early history, or faraway regions, or both. Like "China" emerging from the coastal cultures, or a Tamil-dominated "Hindu synthesis", or Old Europe without Indo-European influences, and of course alternative Native American histories.
The Bering Route is far, far more plausible than going across the Pacific via Hawaii. You just need Japan to keep pushing north.
But you'd probably have something which more amounts to Japanese-speaking people (not so much samurai or even Imperial Japanese) fighting Italian(ish)-speaking people (not so much legionaries) in the Rockies.
A U.S. triumvirate executive complete with elections and party evolution.
The scenario seems conducive to a more multiparty system instead of the 2 grand coalition parties of OTL.
The scenario seems conducive to a more multiparty system instead of the 2 grand coalition parties of OTL.
Killjoys would say this says more about chaos theory than about Lithuania's importance, though
No, no, the massive chaos would come directly from the PODKilljoys would say this says more about chaos theory than about Lithuania's importance, though
Apart from actually finishing the various projects I aborted?
It's more a question of time that I don't have to do the necessary research, but lately I am quite intrigued by the possibility of a late Venetian revival.
One possibility would be centered about a better outcome to the I Morean War, leading to a more confident Venice in the XVIII century. The problem is that Venice needs significant institutional reform at this point and a very deep change of attitudes. IOTL there were would be reformers, but all their attempts were half-hearted at best and mostly ended very poorly.
It's more a question of time that I don't have to do the necessary research, but lately I am quite intrigued by the possibility of a late Venetian revival.
One possibility would be centered about a better outcome to the I Morean War, leading to a more confident Venice in the XVIII century. The problem is that Venice needs significant institutional reform at this point and a very deep change of attitudes. IOTL there were would be reformers, but all their attempts were half-hearted at best and mostly ended very poorly.
I'm curious enough to ask, could you elaborate further on this scenario?
Personally, I'm rather attached to the idea of the survival and revival of the Byzantine Empire... I'd need to do a lot more research to start anywhere on that though, and I fear that after reading Age of Miracles (which I find quite enjoyable) too many of the ideas in it are engrained into my picture of what the timeline should look like to make it entirely original.
My Angevin timeline is a pet project that i greenlit manytimes..I think having Theobald of Champagne as the heir of Aquitaine is a good concept..
To answer the OP:
I've always wanted to do something on the Mississippians, where they can take their place next to Mesoamerica and the Andes as a great center of civilisation. It probably would involve the Eastern Agricultural Complex not being so displaced and being more fully evolved, although they'd still import Mesoamerican crops. I can imagine sites throughout the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, etc. valley being full of incredible mounds like Cahokia is, in a way that makes Cahokia look nothing special. Even smaller Mayan (say) sites seem full of incredible structures in a way only the larger Mississippian sites are. I'd love a way to get something that complex in North America. Maybe we get Hernando de Soto's name as famous as Cortes and Pizarro as a great conquerer. Or maybe we get his name as a man who tried to imitate them, but utterly failed.
One thing that bothers me is language/cultural-related problems, since archaeologists obviously can't tell what language these people spoke, and the people encountered by the 17th century French in the same region seem to be very culturally different. It seems to be Siouan languages, and without a doubt Dhegihan Siouan languages were involved, but what about the other languages in the area like the Tunica, Natchez, Yuchi, and other tongues? And the cultures, of course. I guess I'd also have to go with the Lands of Red and Gold method of using OTL names for important places, since indigenous American languages are a headache to even try and figure out (although from what I've seen, Quapaw and other modern Dhegihan Siouan languages don't seem so bad compared to Tunica, even if I'm obviously making something up, but we don't know the OTL name to begin with)
Maybe one day this'll get written.
I've always wanted to do something on the Mississippians, where they can take their place next to Mesoamerica and the Andes as a great center of civilisation. It probably would involve the Eastern Agricultural Complex not being so displaced and being more fully evolved, although they'd still import Mesoamerican crops. I can imagine sites throughout the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, etc. valley being full of incredible mounds like Cahokia is, in a way that makes Cahokia look nothing special. Even smaller Mayan (say) sites seem full of incredible structures in a way only the larger Mississippian sites are. I'd love a way to get something that complex in North America. Maybe we get Hernando de Soto's name as famous as Cortes and Pizarro as a great conquerer. Or maybe we get his name as a man who tried to imitate them, but utterly failed.
One thing that bothers me is language/cultural-related problems, since archaeologists obviously can't tell what language these people spoke, and the people encountered by the 17th century French in the same region seem to be very culturally different. It seems to be Siouan languages, and without a doubt Dhegihan Siouan languages were involved, but what about the other languages in the area like the Tunica, Natchez, Yuchi, and other tongues? And the cultures, of course. I guess I'd also have to go with the Lands of Red and Gold method of using OTL names for important places, since indigenous American languages are a headache to even try and figure out (although from what I've seen, Quapaw and other modern Dhegihan Siouan languages don't seem so bad compared to Tunica, even if I'm obviously making something up, but we don't know the OTL name to begin with)
Maybe one day this'll get written.
My "pet POD" is a world where Bacon's Rebellion (an uprising of indentured servants and African slaves in Virginia in 1676) never happens, leading to the British colonies adopting indentured servitude instead of chattel slavery. I don't know nearly enough colonial or late 17th/early 18th century history to make it happen, but an alt-USA without a race-based slave class is a very interesting prospect.
I would love to see a timeline where the British scrap slavery early, in both the mainland and the Caribbean.
Would an alt-USA even exist? Without slavery, the alt-South might stay loyal.
I would like to do a full timeline of Hephaiston surviving, meaning Alexander doesn't binge quite as much, and he lives a few years older, eventually mellowing in his excesses. I'd like to see him live old enough to incorporate the Arab peninsular and the Eastern Med into his empire. I'd like to see him groom a child with Stateira as his successor, who would lead a Greco-Persio-Romano-Carthaginian syncretic elite. I imagine the eastern chunk of the empire would naturally drift away, but with a centre in Babylon, he could have good access to the Persian gulf, the Med, and the Red Sea to put down rebellions everywhere else.