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the Crossroads of Space and Time: a Multi-ISOT Timeline

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ScottishMongol said:
If anything, the Carthaginians, Maori, and Hawaiians are the torch-bearers for orthodox Christianity ITTL!
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Even then, I can still see the Carthaginians, Maori and Hawaiians developed there own ideas of Christianity that's different from otl. I can definitely see the Hawaiin and Maori pantheons being merge with orthodox Christianity.
 
234star said:
Even then, I can still see the Carthaginians, Maori and Hawaiians developed there own ideas of Christianity that's different from otl. I can definitely see the Hawaiin and Maori pantheons being merge with orthodox Christianity.
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Well, again: maybe, maybe not. Conversions to Christianity among the Hawaiians and Maori were pretty thorough, both ITTL and IOTL. Maybe some traditions will be Christianized, maybe some religious pluralism will arise, but overall their religion will be based pretty strongly in Christian orthodoxy.
 
The map for Phase 3 (seen in this post) has been corrected; Rapa Nui had not been settled at the time I selected for the ISOT, and the map now depicts the empire of Tui Tonga.

Here's the map itself, although the changes in question are pretty hard to see.



A proper update will be forthcoming later today.
 
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the Great Pacific Exchange
  • Threadmarks
    • The Great Pacific Exchange​

    The Great Pacific Exchange is the name given to the period in the 8th​ and 9th​ Centuries when the societies of the Pacific began to have regular contact with each other, exchanging ideas, tools, diseases, and crops.

    There was no single event that defined the period. Rather, exchanges happened sporadically, over a period of many years, becoming more frequent as regular contact was established. These exchanges happened along oceanic trade routes that eventually included the empire of the Assyrians, thus linking the Pacific to the growing global economy. Every part of the web had something to contribute, and everyone adopted something from their distant neighbors.

    When Maori colonists came to Australia, they brought potatoes and flax, and when they conquered Kemet, they added wheat, barley, and lentils to their package. Australian Aboriginals picked these up, and added sheep, goats, and cattle from Kemet. When Maori merchants began to visit Tawantinsuyu in force in the 850s, the llama proved to thrive in New Zealand and southern Australia, and flax and wool (both from the sheep and the llama) where the chief exports of the Maori kingdoms.

    In the late 700s and early 800s, a series of conflicts over Polynesia between the leading powers of Hawaii, Tui Tonga, and Aotearoa led to a wave of migrations by Polynesian peoples. The three powers were intent on dividing up the islands of Polynesia into spheres of influence, and the subsequent wars and conquests led many inhabitants of the smaller islands to leave their homes and flee the area of fighting. By now many had access to modern maps, and using their own sophisticated methods of navigation, they were able to settle extensively along the Pacific coasts of Central and South America. Though they were not able to settle in Peru, they did contribute to the permanent connection of Tawantinsuyu to the Pacific trade network. In modern-day Mexico, Ecuador, and Chile, permanent Polynesian settlements were founded, and they eventually grew to the size of small kingdoms, intricately tied through diplomacy and trade to the rest of the Pacific.

    Everywhere the Polynesians went, they brought their crop package; sweet potatoes, bananas, and coconuts, as well as the pig, the chicken, and the edible rat. The Hawaiians had already added fruits such as mangoes and oranges, cash crops such as coffee, pineapples, and sugar, and livestock such as beef cattle, all introduced by European or American merchants or immigrants. It was these cash crops, perhaps, that drove Hawaii's quest for expansion, as coffee and sugar were valuable trade goods, eagerly sought in the ports of Tawantinsuyu, Assyria, and Kemet. The landowners were no longer of European descent except in part, but they still commanded great influence. The quest for land and labor drove Hawaii to expand, and slavery was soon added to the list of economic factors. Polynesians, and then later Australians, were captured, largely by Maori raiders, and sold to Hawaiian merchants to work on sugar or coffee plantations.

    In the end, the spheres of influence were established by the Treaty of Tuvalu in 846 (1986 in the Hawaiian Calendar, based on the old Gregorian Calendar and adopted by most of the Pacific). Tuvalu would be an independent kingdom, a neutral trade entrepot and buffer between the major powers; Hawaii would claim a line of islands along the western edge of Polynesia, including the Marquesas Islands and Easter Island (settled during the Second Polynesian Expansion and conquered by Hawaiian gunboats). Aotearoa, with its larger population allowing for a larger army, successfully enforced its claim on the OTL Cook Islands, Society Islands, and Tuamotus, with Tahiti as its largest protectorate in the region, but Hawaii and Tonga were compensated by being given free reign to settle Micronesia and Melanesia, respectively. It was this veritable buffet of uninhabited islands, and the promise of cash crop production, that drove Hawaii into the Imperial Era, which would last until the 890s (or 2030s) with the Hawaiian Revolution.

    ***

    Tawantinsuyu – "the Four Regions" – was one of the largest and most sophisticated states of its time, rivalling even many Old World states in its complexity and efficient administration. Ruled absolutely by the Sapa Inca, the hereditary, semi-divine ruler of the Inca state, Tawantinsuyu was organized by a sort of centrally-planned economy. Peasants contributed food and labor to communal infrastructure projects, the military, and public granaries from which the state in turn redistributed food.

    The Sapa Inca was seen as divine – brother-sister marriage was common in order to preserve the royal bloodline, and the Sapa Inca presided over religious festivals where the mummies of previous royals were venerated. The Sapa Inca maintained a group of royal inspectors, usually related to the royal family, to enforce the laws and ensure efficiency.

    Foreign trade was initially very infrequent following the ISOT. A few ships from Hawaii made port there to gather intelligence and to make diplomatic contact, but it wasn't until the 850s that regular trade began to pick up, and by 900, Tawantinsuyu's modernization was in full swing.

    Peru already had potatoes, maize, quinoa, and coca, and to that they gladly added wheat, beans, and grapes (ultimately from Assyria), bananas (from the Polynesians), and the sheep, chicken, and honeybee. However, crops were one thing, allowing for more prosperity; diseases were quite another.

    ***

    Along the trade routes established during the Great Pacific Exchange came diseases, but only in intermittent waves as more permanent contact was established. Smallpox had been introduced to Australia almost immediately after the ISOT, but measles and mumps did not arrive until the Conquest of Kemet, and influenza was introduced multiple times by Maori settlers. There was no single epidemic that swept the Pacific, only two centuries of sporadic, regional outbreaks.

    Tawantinsuyu was dealt its first and most devastating blow from smallpox in the 780s, delivered unintentionally by Maori sailors. This epidemic struck down thousands and severely disrupted, and killed all of the Sapa Inca's sons. This led to a civil war between his nephews, brothers, and cousins, which severely weakened the Sapa Incas' power. Perhaps the Inca could have weathered a single succession crisis, but decade later, a double epidemic of typhus and measles finished the job. A time of civil unrest and disease seemingly without end would ensue – between 781 and 850, only five Sapa Incas came to power peacefully. Central authority broke down, and power devolved to regional families, who took a hand in each succession crisis. Prospective Sapa Incas no longer married within the royal family, instead seeking alliances with other great families.

    Throughout all this, trade and contact with the outside world was ongoing. Smaller outbreaks, including multiple resurgences of smallpox, would follow. The last great plague was an outbreak of influenza introduced by Polynesian explorers in the 820s. However, these foreigners also brought knowledge of writing, steelworking, shipbuilding, and more. They brought foreign crops and weapons, and noble families who took advantage of foreign contact could reap the rewards in the battles for power.

    It was Tupac Hualpa who ended the Time of Trouble in 843. At first, it was uncertain that his would be the final entry in a long litany of Sapa Incas whose successions were dogged by violence; certainly, he came to power through muskets and cannons, and he had several of his rivals – cousins all – put to death upon his ascension. However, Tupac Hualpa had the advantage of foreign support.

    Many Sapa Incas during the Time of Troubles had received foreign emissaries and were officially recognized by powers such as Hawaii or Aotearoa, but these were intermittent and foreign powers did not extend de factor recognition to their heirs. Trade, likewise, had been intermittent, with occasional trading vessels coming to offload crops, tools, or weapons in exchange for gold or silver, which were the most valuable trade goods the Inca had to offer. However, with the modernizing cash economies of the Pacific seeking greater prosperity, securing the supply of trade goods with Tawantinsuyu became a priority. Thus, Tupac Hualpa had access to not only foreign merchants and diplomats, but also foreign advisors and technical experts.

    And Tupac Hualpa had much to do. The majesty of the Sapa Incas was largely gone; intermarried for generations with lesser families, the return to the old days of the semi-divine emperors seemed impossible. Now, the Sapa Incas job was to manage the competing interests of the imperial in-laws. The Incan economy, sophistication rivalling even that of European empires, was in shambles, and the kuraka, the hereditary managers of the public granaries and labor corvees, were corrupt or incompetent. The imperial inspectors, once relatives of the Sapa Inca, could no longer be trusted, as the ranks of the inspectors were now filled with imperial in-laws given plum positions in reward for faithful service.

    Furthermore, various subject peoples on the fringes of the empire had taken advantage of the last century of uncertainty to break away, many migrating into the rainforests of Virgin Earth which bordered Tawantinsuyu.

    Tupac Hualpa sought to sweep most of this away and rebuild it from the ground up. He began to assemble an imperial bureaucracy and formally adopted a writing system for Tawantinsuyu. The Quechua language was transcribed, literacy was encouraged, and the bureaucracy was opened to all (including foreigners). From there, Tupac Hualpa founded a new order of imperial inspectors – or "tokoyrikoq" – to restore the integrity of the Inca state's command economy.

    He also attempted to reform the imperial household, formalizing succession laws, working to break the power of the imperial in-laws, largely by giving them meaningless but well-paying roles at court, seeking to tie them up with religious rituals, concubines, and estates far from the imperial capital. This was broadly successful, with the imperial tutors coming to dominate the upbringing of the future Sapa Incas.

    Tupac Hualpa would not see the fruits of this within his lifetime, but he was broadly credited by later generations of beginning the reforms that would restore Tawantinsuyu and raise it to greater heights than ever before. Throughout the latter half of the 800s, literacy and urbanization would grow, the economy would develop, and a bureaucracy staffed by career civil servants would restore the corvee labor system, run the public granaries, oversee infrastructural improvements, and eventually lead wars of conquest on the borders of Tawantinsuyu.

    By Year 900, Tawantinsuyu was at its greatest extent in history, run by all-powerful Sapa Incas commanding a modern bureaucracy, an increasingly sophisticated command economy, and a culture that, while shaken by a century of plague and war, was growing more vibrant by the day as ties with the rest of the Pacific grew.

    ***

    It is no surprise that with all these epidemics occurring, people would begin to notice patterns. It was observed that diseases did not simply appear at random, instead they were passed along from one person to another. Places which had been previously exposed to a disease in the past would be less likely to suffer devastating outbreaks in the future. People who contracted a disease and then survived it would more than likely survive it again. And so on.

    In the 840s, a researcher at the University of Lahaina would propose a forerunner of germ theory. Quarantine and medical isolation became standard procedure for ships entering new ports; researchers studied records of outbreaks to learn more about the history of disease, while others studied the diseases themselves to seek better cures, or tested food and medicine to find ways to keep people healthy. Tawantinsuyu constructed a series of state-run hospitals which frequently exchanged records. A cholera outbreak in Lahaina would lead to a revolutionary paper on water sanitation and public health being published. In 879, the first international summit on disease control and prevention was held in Tuvalu, with representatives from Aotearoa, Hawaii, Tui Tonga, and Tawantinsuyu.
     
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    • -Wait, the Polynesian Rat is edible?
    -Wow it's the 1980s from Hawaii's perspective and their technology is still 19th century
    -The Inca are reforming the Empire, very cool
    -Germ theory!
     
    Author's Note the Third​

    So one of the things I've discovered while writing TTL is that I constantly have to change plans. This is probably a good thing; staying flexible gives me creative freedom and has helped TTL continue to update rather than me getting stonewalled and abandoning the project. Plus, I'm learning, so even if I have to abandon some ideas they could be revived in a future sequel.

    Anyway, making Phase 3 last 500 Years seemed good on paper but I'm writing the latest update and I'm disappointed in how I left the rest of the world to kind of spin its wheels. So, I am altering the plan. Phase 3 retroactively is going to last 200 years, Phase 4 will be a grab-bag of ISOTs vaguely falling in the Middle Ages, and will fill out the remaining 300 years I had planned for Phase 3.

    So, the next update will catch up with what everyone in the world has been doing and set things up for Phase 4. I really should know better than to explain my plans considering how much I change them, but I've always liked pulling back the curtain on the creative process.
     
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    This TL is super ambitious and you have completely left OTLs history behind. It's totally understandable that it requires constant changes to the original script to do all of these cultures justice.

    My head usually starts smoking when I think about ISOTing 3 or 4 nations to a virgin earth and you are ISOTing them left and right. Keeping up with what is happening in the world is certainly hard and getting some insight into your creative process is really welcome!
     
    Hey, it makes perfect sense and seeing being the author's curtain is a plus. :)
     
    Just wanted to comment to say I appreciate the ambition of this TL and am enjoying reading it. Eagerly awaiting the update!

    Also something to note about Hawaii: since they arrived relatively late and retain both OTL's calendar and a comprehensive record of OTL history, their presence greatly increases the likelihood that historians will eventually discover all the ISOTed civilizations were originally from a separate, unified timeline.
     
    AYC said:
    Just wanted to comment to say I appreciate the ambition of this TL and am enjoying reading it. Eagerly awaiting the update!

    Also something to note about Hawaii: since they arrived relatively late and retain both OTL's calendar and a comprehensive record of OTL history, their presence greatly increases the likelihood that historians will eventually discover all the ISOTed civilizations were originally from a separate, unified timeline.
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    I very much doubt there were any major historical records in Hawaii at the time.
     
    the atom said:
    I very much doubt there were any major historical records in Hawaii at the time.
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    Define major. Wiki says first Western contact with Hawaii was in 1794; 46 years is more than enough time for a substantial number of books to make their way to Lahani (capital of Hawaii OTL until 1845).

    Granted, many of those books will fall into disrepair over time. But the Hawaiian government is going to have an interest in keeping track of history, which means they'll have the best shot at piecing together what's really going on.
     
    I have a question about the Australian Megafauna, how much of it survived? With the ISOTing of basically the entire continent at OTL 1600 I guess the only remaining megafauna is in Kemetian lands right?

    What about the African fauna brought along with Kemet, does it have to spread out once again? Are lions, giraffes, Hippos, vultures etc. only found within Kemet territory as well?

    Or alternatively is it a more of a patchwork ISOT with some areas of wilderness that had African and Australian fauna still existing that weren't ISOTed over?

    Also how is the Daintree rainforest doing now it's been under Kemet control for quite a few centuries?
     
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    ZeSteel said:
    I have a question about the Australian Megafauna, how much of it survived? With the ISOTing of basically the entire continent at OTL 1600 I guess the only remaining megafauna is in Kemetian lands right?

    What about the African fauna brought along with Kemet, does it have to spread out once again? Are lions, giraffes, Hippos, vultures etc. only found within Kemet territory as well?

    Or alternatively is it a more of a patchwork ISOT with some areas of wilderness that had African and Australian fauna still existing that weren't ISOTed over?

    Also how is the Daintree rainforest doing now it's been under Kemet control for quite a few centuries?
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    Yeah, Australia got a bit of a reset after the most recent ISOT. Pretty much none of the original Australian megafauna remain, and North African fauna got the chance to spread out with even less competition. The continent looks like a pretty solid mix of Africa and Australia right now.

    Just because an area's been "settled" doesn't mean it's wall-to-wall people, and the Daintree is no exception. There's a lot of rainforest that's only lightly managed by people or sparely clear-cut for farming.
     
    the Two Oceans
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    • The Two Oceans​

    By the Year 900, the world was divided into two regions, two interconnected political and economic spheres, each bound together by oceanic trade routes. One was the Pacific, dominated by the states of Polynesia, Australia, and South America. The other was the Atlantic, which included the states of North America and the Caribbean on one side of the ocean, and the Mediterranean on the other.

    In the Pacific, the dream of Kamehameha III had been realized. Hawaii had grown to be the dominant power in the region, with an educated populace. They were on the cutting edge of scientific development, were wealthy thanks to trade, and their navy was the envy of the Pacific, a disciplined and well-armed force that could project power across the world's largest ocean. Hawaiian explorers had mapped the empty islands and coasts of East Asia and regularly traded with kingdoms as far-flung as OTL Chile.

    However, this growth and dominance had come at a price. During the period known as the Imperial Era, Hawaii's democratic government was contested by three factions; the Reform Party was the most dominant, the party of wealthy landed interests, the producers of cash crops such as sugar and coffee, who wielded immense influence in the new colonies of Micronesia. These plantations relied on scarce labor, a void which was filled with slaves supplied by Maori raiders. These slaves were of Polynesian or, increasingly, Aboriginal extraction. Their treatment did not rival the truly brutal excesses of OTL's Caribbean sugar economies – for one, most slaves worked on significantly less-demanding coffee or fruit plantations. Where government influence was strong, slaves even had some legal protections. However, many isolated islands existed effectively as private holdings of the sugar barons, and it is here that little restraint was shown. The Reform Party had driven expansion in order to fuel the supply of cash crops, and while it had certainly helped Hawaii grow into a true empire, many resented both the influence of the landed elite and their brutal practices.

    The other two major political parties, those leading this opposition, were the Whig Party and the Home Islands Party; the Whigs were the party of wealthy merchants, who looked to trade and an increasingly influential urban capitalist class to fuel the Hawaiian economy. They desired a transition away from agricultural settlement and more towards a constellation of trading posts and outports that would maintain trade routes and funnel wealth the Home Islands.

    The Home Islands Party was an uneasy alliance of Christian organizations, older nobility, the Admiralty, and government bureaucrats who sought only to strengthen Hawaiian state authority, maintain the monarchy, and perpetuate the Pacific alliance system that, they hoped, would be able to resist foreign influence.

    The Whigs and the Home Islands Party were aligned against the Reform Party, but found themselves lacking the political power to truly change the system. Some radicals began to meet in secret under the auspices of the Hale Nauā, a fraternal society originally meant to promote intellectualism. Here, they discussed the overthrow of the sugar barons by…undemocratic means.

    By 890 (2030 Hawaiian Calendar), the political process was beginning to break down. The Reform Party resisted attempts at actual reform thanks to its control of the upper house of the Kingdom's legislature, radical abolitionist Christians associated with the Hale Nauā were starting slave revolts in the plantations of Micronesia, and the Tui Tonga Crisis was exacerbating political rhetoric on both sides.

    Unlike Hawaii or Aotearoa, Tui Tonga had undergone little political reform as it expanded into a small empire. Local nobility amassed wealth through tribute that was in turn passed on to the king, and Tui Tonga's economy was not as reliant as Hawaii's on the plantation economy. However, in the 860s Tui Tonga's nobility began to support the removal of the monarchy and the creation of a more democratic government – one that would, of course, be dominated by the wealthy nobility. The Tui Tongan Revolution in 873 would see the overthrow of the final King of Tonga, and the replacement of the monarchy with the Federation of Tui Tonga. The Federation was a very loose association of islands, with the legislature having little power. In practice, Tui Tonga was dominated by an oligarchy of nobles who each ruled their own islands as private fiefs. Throughout the 870s and 880s, Tui Tonga began to come apart at the seams, as internal conflicts, corruption, and piracy set islands against each other. Adventurers from Aotearoa and Hawaii sailed to the region to serve as mercenaries in the private conflicts between islands, while the kingdom's neighbors looked on in concern and debated intervention.

    By 890, Tui Tonga was in a state of anarchy, beset with private feuds. In Hawaii, the Whigs and Home Islanders accused the sugar barons of being no better than the nobles who had ruined Tui Tonga, while the Reform Party accused their rivals of being subversives who plotted to upend the social order (which may have been slightly true). Both sides had armed supporters – in the case of the Home Island Party, they had ties with the Admiralty and the presumed loyalty of the Navy, in addition to legitimacy from their support of the monarchy. The 894 Elections saw the Reform Party maintain their control over the upper house in an election marred by voter intimidation and suspected ballot stuffing.

    Perhaps neither side meant to stage a revolution, but one summer night in 895, a Hale Nauā meeting was crashed by the sorts of armed thugs the Reform Party now unleashed against slave uprisings. The private militiamen roughed up the attendees, accidentally killing one, but another escaped to inform the leaders of the opposition parties.

    Perhaps the militiamen were simply drunkenly attacking the rivals of their bosses, or perhaps the Reform Party truly did mean to send a sharp message to their political enemies, but the opposition badly overreacted – they believed a coup was in progress. That night, messengers went to the barracks, and the Hawaiian Marines marched forth to seize control of the capital. By dawn, they had outlawed the Reform Party and announced the drafting of a new constitution which would "redress the sins of the current system".

    The Reform Party responded by calling for their supporters to arm themselves against the radicals attempting to overthrow the government.

    Two days and nights of panic and bloodshed later, the opposition had control of the capital and had several dozen members of the Reform faction under custody. The next few weeks saw rushed trials in which nearly all the Reform Party were sentenced to death (some in absentia), followed by the Hawaiian Navy being dispatched to seize the plantations, issue emancipation proclamations, and arrest (or execute) any who resisted "the new government of the Kingdom of Hawaii".

    By Year 900 (2040 Hawaiian Calendar), the new Kingdom of Hawaii was still taking form. The Imperial Era was over, but it remained to be seen whether the new government would retain its power. The plantation system had been broken, sending economic shockwaves across the Pacific, but the supply of cash crops was not severely reduced, as other states in Australia had been diversifying into sugar and coffee production as well. Furthermore, it remained to be seen what economic or political system would replace it in Hawaii itself; the new governing alliance between the Whigs and Home Islanders was tenuous, and getting less so with no common enemy to unite them.

    The map had also changed as well; while slavery had been abolished under the new constitution, the mix of slaves – roughly a third Polynesian and two-thirds Aboriginal – had formed their own culture, including a folk religion that incorporated elements of Christianity with traditional Polynesian and Aboriginal religions. On OTL Guam and Palau, slave revolts sparked by the revolution had evicted Hawaiians from the islands entirely, and the two island nations formed their own governments that resisted the return of Hawaiian rule.

    Christianity had grown to be the dominant religion of the Pacific. Baptism was the state religion of the Kingdom of Hawaii, although Catholicism persisted as a minority faith, complete with its own Pope in Lahaina. The Maori mostly stuck to Anglicanism or various branches thereof, with missionaries converting other Polynesian states to various brands of Protestantism over the past few centuries. Tawantinsuyu still adhered to its traditional faith, though it had gone through some reforms as the authority of the Sapa Incas collapsed and was slowly rebuilt, though Christianity had made some inroads in ports, in Tawantinsuyu and even Assyria.

    Tawantinsuyu, following its revival under the heirs of Tupac Hualpa, was undergoing a new series of crises. It was the main producer of gold and silver for the Pacific, but an increased reliance on mining was changing the ways the traditional labor corvee was implemented, and labor disputes were breaking out. At the same time, the merchant class, largely sidelined and existing only thanks to state-issued charters, were gaining power in coastal cities and were likewise agitating for more rights.

    ***

    Aotearoa was largely unaffected by all this and had gone from strength to strength. With a large, increasingly urbanized population which relied heavily on the export of flax and wool, Aotearoa had also been diversifying into manufacturing and trade thanks to its strong ties to Maori-descended states in Australia. These colonies had grown into small states in their own right, constitutional monarchies or republics, and a few even had significant mixed-race populations descended partially from Australian Aboriginals. Aotearoa largely controlled trade with these states and considered them part of its sphere, but this was contested by Kemet.

    Kemet had been eventually reunified in the 860s by a Maori dynasty based out of Waset (though not descended from Wharau). The Maori had developed into a proper ruling class, and the subject peoples of Kemet had adopted a Maori-Egyptian creole as well as the Christian faith. United Kemet was a modern constitutional monarchy with a strong economy based in mining and agriculture. It had since grown to be a regional power in its own right, maintaining a large army and navy which it used to project power across Northern Australia.

    Australia had changed greatly by the time the Great Dying and the Great Pacific Exchange had ended. It was now a patchwork of Egyptian, Maori, and Aboriginal peoples, living in a variety of lifestyles and societies. In the north was Kemet, but the northeast was also home to a number of agriculturalist peoples, mostly descended from Egyptians and partially from local Aboriginal tribes, who grew a variety of crops both for sustenance and export. They were divided into a number of decentralized tribal confederations and oversaw extensive coastal and overland trade routes. These people were also one of the prime targets for slave raiders operating out of Kemet or the other Maori states. These people worshiped forms of traditional Aboriginal religion heavily influenced by Atenism.

    The interior and west of the continent were the domain of largely-Aboriginal nomadic peoples who lived, in the deepest parts of the Red Center, by traditional forms of hunting and gathering, but in more fertile regions by nomadic pastoralism. Cattle, sheep, goats, and horses had revolutionized the lifestyles of these peoples, and they had access to metal tools and gunpowder through trade. These people largely maintained traditional religion, albeit altered by their new lifestyles.

    By the time explorers from Kemet or the new Maori colonies on the coast penetrated the interior and visited the Murray-Darling Basin, they found Aboriginal society there already completely changed. The Baarka people had adopted agriculture and metalworking through trade long before the arrival of Maori explorers and had expanded across the river valley, settling in large cities governed by representative councils of tribal elders, bound together by custom, diplomacy, and trade into a loose alliance.

    Finally, in the northern mountains of the Great Dividing Range, the Bunya Confederacy stubbornly resisted encroachment by neighboring states. The Bunya Confederacy was a heavily-mixed tribal confederation bound together by their common reliance on seasonal harvests of bunya nuts, a time which also served as an opportunity for religious and cultural festivals. The Bunya Confederacy primarily lived through herding and hunting outside the bunya harvest, and had their own home-grown gunpowder industry, which they used together with their knowledge of the local terrain to wage fearsome guerilla conflicts against potential invaders.

    ***

    The Assyrian Empire had for over a century been the only link between the Pacific and Atlantic worlds. Valuable trade goods traveled by caravan through the American Southwest, passed between the middlemen of the Southern Sioux Kingdoms before arriving in the cities of the New Roman Empire. Assyria grew wealthy, reaching new heights of art and architecture. Well-guarded roads crossed the empire, and the ports of Assyria became famous for their cultural achievements, including the translation of many Polynesian works. With access to the learning of the Pacific and Atlantic, Assyrian scholars began to make new innovations in medicine, cartography and astronomy, and engineering.

    The naval accomplishments of Polynesia outstripped those of the Carthaginians, and the Assyrians combined the best elements of shipbuilding and gunsmithing the two continents had to offer into new designs. As rumors made their way along the trade routes of a new, wealthy land of strange empires on the west coast of North America, scholars and adventurers from the Atlantic realms traveled overland to the previously-ignored land of Asshur, bringing back tall tales and curious new designs.

    However, the wealth brought to Asshur would be its downfall. In the 790s Shalmaneser VI attempted to centralize power by hiring tribal Sioux warriors from the borders of the empire to serve as his personal army, but when his successor shirked their pay, the mercenary force overthrew him and picked a new successor. From, 799 to 814, four Assyrian emperors were raised up and then removed by Sioux warriors. The Sioux summoned their fellow tribesmen from their home in OTL Colorado and New Mexico, and the Sioux engaged in what was part invasion and part armed migration. The Assyrian Empire was destroyed from within and without, its armies routed in the field as Asshur was seized by the Sioux Guard. Just as they had done elsewhere in history, the Sioux claimed the empire for themselves, raised up their own emperor, and settled down to rule it.

    But did the Assyrian Empire truly end there? The Sioux who came to serve as guards in the court of the Assyrian kings had partially assimilated, learning the Assyrian language and converting to Assyrian religion. Shalmaneser himself was partially-Sioux, the result of strategic marriages with the Southern Sioux Kingdoms that sat astride eastern trade routes – the Sioux clans who came to fight for him were his in-laws. When the Sioux took over, they "Assyrianized" their names and titles. The Assyrian nobility married their daughters to Sioux chiefs, and some rallied to the banner of the Sioux rebels. Trade and culture were not disrupted, but invigorated by the arrival of the Sioux, whose music, art, and religious practices influenced the culture of the Assyrians and Hittites they ruled over.

    They called themselves the Empire of Asshur, after their capital and that of the Assyrians before them, but others called them the Sioux Empire of the West. The Polynesians noted the change in rulers, and called them the Sioux Dynasty of Asshur. Their subjects called them the Abbutannu – roughly meaning "Crested Horsemen" after the warbonnets they wore in battle.

    The military of the Sioux Dynasty was impressive, using innovative artillery and their own excellent cavalry. To this they added fiercely disciplined infantry, and throughout the 800s an army that would not have been unfamiliar to Napoleon marched across the Southwest, extending the borders of the Empire of Asshur. By 900 the Empire of Asshur stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, and was the largest empire in North America, but its position was uncertain. The emperors in Asshur would be forced to wage further wars of conquest, against the Kaskians, Hayasa, Mittani, and other Sioux kingdoms, or to turn inwards and focus on consolidation.

    The Sioux were ascendant across western North America – there were so many Siouxan peoples, from the Mississippi to the Pacific coast, from the Canadian taiga to the Caribbean, that "Sioux" had become merely a name for a number of cultures and ethnic groups descended from the same common origin. With both Sioux and Kaskians (an Anatolian people who "came along" with the Hittite Empire centuries ago) settling in OTL California, the Hawaiians even placed a trading post on the continent on the site of OTL San Francisco.

    ***

    Further east, the rise of the Sioux Empire of the West and the innovations brought along the trade routes were interesting, but in the last two centuries a series of changes had taken place, shifting the balance of power in the heart of the Atlantic world.

    No empire lasts forever, and the New Roman Empire was no exception, no matter the dreams of Julius Caesar. In this case, the downfall of the New Roman Empire came in the form of the Pharaoh-Caesar's massive landholdings. Almost half the land in the New Roman Empire belonged solely to the Pharaoh-Caesars, including the incredibly lucrative city of Alexandria. These lands were worked by Siouxan peasants and managed by a professional, ethnically-diverse landlord class (mostly composed of Sioux, Jews, and Egyptians). Originally these Sioux had been slaves, but after the rise of Pharaoh-Caesar Alexander I, they were serfs.

    The Senatorial Tribes (that is, tribes that were legally recognized and had representation in the Senate) constantly sought to gain power against the Pharaoh-Caesars, and part of their ambitions were the transition of the Pharaoh-Caesar's holdings into the hands of the Senate, or at least into the hands of new Senatorial Tribes. In 851 a revolt against Pharaoh-Caesar Alexander III by ambitious Senators sparked a crisis when Alexander III was accidentally drowned in the Mississippi after his hunting party was ambushed. The Senators sought merely to gain leverage, but had accidentally plunged the empire into a secession crisis between Cleopatra XX, his elder sister, and Ptolemy XIV, the young son of his younger sister Berenice V. The two women led their own factions, with Berenice V based in Alexandria. Cleopatra XX sought the help of the Senatorial faction, but the Senate instead voted to abolish the monarchy and declare a republic. Cleopatra XX was forced to flee to Alexandria, where she was imprisoned by her sister and eventually poisoned in 854. The New Roman Republic thrived, while Berenice V, and later Ptolemy XIV and his heirs, ruled the city-state of Alexandria. The republic was a highly aristocratic representative democracy, with voting restricted to men of the Senatorial Tribes, and ultimately it was weaker and less wealthy than the empire that came before it, largely due to the absence of Alexandria.

    In the meantime, the Turtle Island Confederacy had added the Seminole Nation as its newest member. A charismatic chief named John Cutler had, through a mixture of diplomacy, warfare, and careful negotiation, united the Seminole chiefdoms of the Florida peninsula into the Seminole Nation and sought membership in the Confederacy. This was a welcome development, especially given Carthage's expansion into the Caribbean.

    Carthage had only grown more powerful with time. Thanks to innovations in naval warfare – the adoption of cannons being the chief one – they had managed to project power across the length of the Atlantic, defeating Seminole pirates, establishing colonies (which eventually developed their own mixed Phoenician-Seminole culture), and bombarding ports that defied them. They turned several Seminole kingdoms in the Caribbean into vassals and extended their economic influence across the entire Caribbean Sea, exerting a stranglehold on trans-Atlantic trade routes. They even managed a few brief naval wars against the Lenape Nation and the Turtle Island Confederacy that ended in favorable treaties for the Carthaginian Empire. With this control over both the Caribbean and Mediterranean, the Carthaginians reach new heights of wealth and culture, and Carthage became one of the most populous – and beautiful – cities on the planet.

    Meanwhile, Persia had expanded at the expense of its neighbors. The Achaemenid state had only grown more powerful and sophisticated, its army more disciplined, wielding the cutting edge in military technology. The Second Thracian War (760-772) avenged the Persians' defeat at the hands of the Goths a century before. The Kingdom of Thrace was incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire by force. This did lead to several revolts, the first by the monarchy itself which saw the Kings of Thrace overthrown and a new puppet dynasty put in place, and several others by Thracian peasants rebelling against that same puppet monarchy. In the end, Thrace was pacified and the Persians had control over the entire Danube Basin. This did at least give the Persian Empire its first major population of Christians, though thanks to the empire's long-running edicts of religious tolerance, eventually rebellious attitudes did subside.

    The Holy Roman Empire had fallen behind her neighbors. Remaining an economic and political backwater, they had expanded very little as Goths immigrated to Persia or Carthage to seek opportunity in the growing proto-industrial cities. Those who had settled OTL Gaul broke away in 795 as the Visigothic Kingdom (not actually Visigoths, simply "Western Goths"). While Christian, they only payed nominal fealty to the Roman Emperor.

    On other fronts, the Persians saw more expansion and consolidation, and the creation of new vassal states beyond the borders of the Empire. These were the Border Kingdoms: the Egyptian and Ethiopian states of the Upper Nile, the Kartli states of the North Caucuses and the Crimea, and the Indo-Persian Kingdoms of the Indus River Valley. The Border Kingdoms paid regular tribute and served as buffers between the Empire proper and the often-hostile tribes of Virgin Earth, but they were not officially part of the Empire.

    For those within the Empire's official borders, they could count on equal (representative) taxation, equality under the law, and the maintenance of local governments, even democratic ones so long as they acknowledged the authority of the Shah. The Empire was still linguistically and ethnically diverse, although Zoroastrianism had spread beyond the borders of the Empire itself long ago.

    In other places waves of settlement had taken place outside the reach of the Persian state. One of these was in Central Africa, as the distant descendants of Ethiopians and Egyptians who had settled (or rather, resettled) the Nile River Valley struck out into the Sahel. Another were the Iranian peoples of Central Asia, who despite some mildly successful campaigns on the part of the Persian military remained stubbornly independent, and had settled across nearly all of the Central Asia steppe.

    The most successful wave of immigration took place in the Indian Subcontinent, as the settlement of the Ganges River Valley gave rise to the Indo-Persian Kingdoms. These kingdoms were modelled after the Persian Empire, with a high centralized bureaucracy and a professional standing army, though their religion was a form of Hinduism heavily influenced by the dualistic aspects of Zoroastrianism. These kingdoms were effectively the end of the known world, and in North America few even knew that India was inhabited, let alone what its people were like.

     
  • Threadmarks
    • Great update! Some very cool stuff in here. I love the Sioux-Assyrians and the eternal Persian Empire. Very impressive on the part of the Achaemenids! It does make me very curious about the next target of the ISOT. Have you mentioned where? I might assume East/South Asia but it could also be Africa, I figure. Or an Indian Ocean theme. Excited to see what happens next.
     
    I like this timeline and ask that you consider volcanoes and earthquakes. they have been known to cause major climactic disruption.
     
    Me, I like that Carthage is enduring as a beautiful metropolitan capital. One of the greatest crimes of Rome was the memetic salting of the Earth there, even if Roman Carthage was built on the ashes.
     
    Cetashwayo said:
    Great update! Some very cool stuff in here. I love the Sioux-Assyrians and the eternal Persian Empire. Very impressive on the part of the Achaemenids! It does make me very curious about the next target of the ISOT. Have you mentioned where? I might assume East/South Asia but it could also be Africa, I figure. Or an Indian Ocean theme. Excited to see what happens next.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Still refining the list, but there will be a mix of stuff from the Middle Ages...mostly. Expect Caliphates, Crusaders, Chinese Dynasties, Medieval India, and some Renaissance outliers for flavor.
     
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