Alternate History Thread II...

[North King]

Sheesh, I guess I'll just have to tell you.

A freak storm panicked the emperor of China just as he was considering letting the treasure fleets sail, and he refused to let the eunuchs have their way. Ironically, though, this led to increased Chinese merchantile trading overall because even though there was no great boom, there was also no great crash at the end. The lack of a Zheng He to protect Malacca led to the Sultanate's demise by Acheh, which then expanded and prompted the formation of several other states, which gradually expanded... Most of the states in Australia are Aborigine, who adopted domestication. In turn, southern India under Vijayangara was also more modern and richer when the Portuguese got there--when they did get there, their rather annoying practices drew them into a trade war with Vijayangara. They lose, and eventually Spain draws Portugal into a union-permanantly... while the Ottomans grow off of the trade which flows from India, yet are far more challenged by the much more powerful Persian state that arises out of the threat from a more powerful India. Which leads to the changes in Europe.

Now, onto a different one, in 850 CE, guess the PoD (only a few centuries ago):

 

[Sheep]

No great rise of Islam

 

[North King]

That is a side-effect.

 

[das]

The Middle Eastern state with capital in Antioch is the Seleucid Empire?

 

[North King]

Actually, some call it that. Much as they call the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantine.

 

[das]

Is it descended from the Seleucids, or from Palmyre (I suspect the latter)?

 

[North King]

Neither...

 

[das]

Arabs invaded under different banners there, I suppose... The state in Sahara is Garamantes, right?

 

[North King]

It's called Fezzan and it has a distinctly Roman look. As does the "Selucid" Empire.

 

[erez87]

in roman history before the empire was split in 2 it was split in 4 right? so that succeeds and goes on?

 

[North King]

No, but you're definately close. It has to do with something in Roman territories--which led to an Eastern Empire that split in two again, to create an even further eastern one--the "Selucid" or "Antiochian", and the "Byzantine" was the middle empire. The actual event occurred in the west, though, around the time of Justinian, but it wasn't Belisarius taking the crown of Western Emperor (even though he did that). It was a slightly earlier event...

 

[das]

Odoacer hanged on to power in Italy and rebuilt the Western Roman Empire?

 

[North King]

That's actually about it. Justinian initially struck east instead, and Ocader managed to rebuild the Western Roman Empire in large part, converted to Orthodoxy, and declared himself Emperor. But his Arian subjects got a little pissed, threw him off the throne and into exile--he asked Justinian for help, who sent Belisarius. Belisarius claimed the crown for his own when it became clear that Justinian was a little mad, and defeated the Eastern Roman Emperor in battle, restoring the throne to another dynasty. The Selucid Empire broke off after it was clear the Byzantine Emperor couldn't hold it all. Of course, without Belisarius, the Western Roman Empire isn't in too good shape anymore.

 

[das]

What about Theodoric, then?

 

[North King]

Which one?

 

[das]

The one who defeated Odoacer.

 

[North King]

Didn't matter in this timeline, the forces against him were too large.

 

[Sheep]

Question is does anyone ever make neses out of these fantastic PoD maps?

 

[das]

Question is does anyone ever make neses out of these fantastic PoD maps?

Ask Azale. If he wants to make a NES out of my 1403 map, I'll be only too glad to help him with it.

 

[Hellfury]

I began writing an alt-history for "what if Stresemann hadn't died in 1929", so far I've written upto 1936. Is it good and should I continue?

1929 - 1936

"Black Tuesday", October 29, 1929, Wall Street crashes. This was the end of the USA's boom during the 1920's and the start of the great depression which not only affected America, it caused a global depression. The repercussions of the crash were felt heavely in Germany, a country crippled by debt and only just recoved economicaly from hyper-inflation in 1923. This only caused further problems for Germany and its people, who began to look towards more extreme parties and policies to solve the problems. But the efforts of Finance Minister Rudolf Hilferding and Stresemann to curb inflation, including removing currency from circulation and work creation schemes. These efforts reduced lessened the number of Germans turning towards extremeism but did not stop it. Throughout 1930-31 the coalition stuck together in a valiant attempt to keep the country's problems from escalating, dispite this unemployment reached 32% in late 1931 but did the rise began to signs of slowing. The following year an election was held, it was clear that extemist parties were gaining support, the KDP gained over 20% of the vote, but the moderate parties could still for a government through coalition making. A DVP/SPD/Z coalition was formed but only held about 40% of the seats in the Reichstag.

Immediatly the re-elected Chancellor Müller and his cabinet contined their interventionist policies but have to search for a new source of loans to pay for reparations as the economy is incapable of paying them, especialy in a depression. They were unable to find a new source but were able to suspend payments until 1936. However as the new coalition began to settle in and focus on the problems such as unemployment, new ones began to appear. The greatest of these was politicaly motivated violence from the extreme left and right intended to destableise the republic, as a result President Hindenburg was given emergency power inorder to deal with the situation. He called in the military to enforce martial law in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and other industrial regions. Dispite the martial law, the violence continued getting worse and peaked in the late summer of 1934 after Hindenburg's death. His replacement, Wilhelm Marx of the Centre Party (Z), was a former Chancellor who was directly appointed by the Reichstag because it was too dangerous to run a presidential elcection at that time, as they did not wish to risk having an extremist president. Marx continued Hindenburg's martial law policy and by mid 1935 he canceled martial law and gave up his emergency power. By this time Germany was begining to recover from the depression and unemployment had dropped for the first time since 1929, but was still over 35%.

In 1936 Germany was supposed to restart reparations, but refused to restart payments on economic reasons. This prompted France to threaten to reoccupy the Ruhr Valley, however they backed down after Prime Minister Chamberlain intervened and convinced the French not to invade. Later in the year new elections were held, dispite campaigns from the far right to influence or halt the election through violence, the election was held. As expected no party gained a majority and a coalition was formed, the SPD/DVP coalition which took office contained many figures from the previous government, notably the new Chancellor, Hilferding, and Stresemann and held over 50% of the seats. The KPD gained 15% of the vote and are one of the largest parties in the Reichstag, while the right wing parties failed to do as well.