Alternate History Thread V

[Masada]

Is that a super Venice in Italy?

 

[das]

With a capital in Rome? I doubt it. Probably either a Papal-led confederacy or a revived Kingdom of Italy instead.

 

[Masada]

Yeah, its not. We also found out that the shock had a hand in the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, that it had nothing to do with the Normans in Sicily or the Crusades.

 

[Perfectionist]

With a capital in Rome? I doubt it. Probably either a Papal-led confederacy or a revived Kingdom of Italy instead.

The latter, though the King calls himself an Emperor and an alliance of municipal governments has, over the past few decades, severely circumscribed his authority. The Pope's effectively an imperial appointee, by the way, though lately they've been showing signs of independence for the first time in a couple of centuries.

 

[Thlayli]

Holy Roman Emperor? I could easily see a Ghibelline victory leading to an arrangement like this.

 

[Perfectionist]

Holy Roman Emperor?

Not exactly. Technically the imperial title is the same one Charlemagne received, but it's never had much currency outside of Italy proper, and claims to oecumenical empire have been virtually nonexistent since shortly after the assumption of the title, with a couple of exceptions: at the Italian high water mark, in the fourteenth century, imperial status was used to legitimate their domination of Provence and adventurism in Hungary, and to annoy the Byzantines. The monastics, of course, don't recognize the Italian imperial claims as legitimate, and England's got its own sort of translatio imperii doctrine that holds the English Emperor to be the proper inheritor of the Carolingian legacy.

 

[Thlayli]

Hmm. So that seems to suggest that you messed around with Charlemagne's heirs somewhat. Am I right in thinking that the Capetians never coalesced as a dynasty? Also, am I reading this map wrong or does Ireland have colonies in the Baltic? I suppose the Irish are a big trading power if that's the case.

 

[Perfectionist]

Hmm. So that seems to suggest that you messed around with Charlemagne's heirs somewhat.

Not his immediate heirs. The end of the dynasty did go rather differently than OTL, though that wasn't the PoD.

Am I right in thinking that the Capetians never coalesced as a dynasty?

Yep. The Robertians died out on the Breton March in the late ninth century.

Also, am I reading this map wrong or does Ireland have colonies in the Baltic? I suppose the Irish are a big trading power if that's the case.

That's not a colony and they'd be horribly offended if you called them Irish. That's the Longphort League, and Visby is a fully sovereign member. And yeah, they are probably the major mercantile power of northern Europe.

 

[Thlayli]

Using my shabby consummate historical knowledge, I identified on #nes that the PoD is the survival of Ecgfrith, son of Offa, as King of Mercia in the late 8th century.

 

[Thlayli]

Spoiler A Sign of Things to Come :

 

[Karalysia]

What have you done to my Golden Horde you bastard.

 

[Thlayli]

This is just a direct port of the map after the last update. I'll be making some more changes as I advance the TL from 1535 to 1550.

 

[Perfectionist]

Two pixel borders look ugly on that map, I think.

 

[Karalysia]

I seem to recall owning Central Asia and the Crimea. What is that orange thing?

 

[Thlayli]

I'm reconsidering the two pixel borders, yeah.

The Orange Thing is the Eternal Horde, also called the Akhmadi Khanate. It split from the Golden Horde after the losses in Germany, and conquered half of the faltering Gilanid Shahdom. It's generally in a much better position than the Golden Horde, and you can expect to see it expand a bit more soon too.

EDIT: Also, what Perfectionist said below.

 

[Perfectionist]

That's a splinter horde formed in the BT by one of your generals, who was fed up with losing to the Galicians and Romans.

 

[Karalysia]

I'd hardly consider Germany a loss. Nonetheless I call dibs on orange thing.

 

[Thlayli]

Yes, well, you can read all about it here.

 

[Kentharu]

Thick borders make me puke.

 

[Perfectionist]

I'd hardly consider Germany a loss.

You lost your army, your khan, and, since you had to let Galicia live to do it, your empire. WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST KILLED GALICIA AND LET ME KILL POLAND AND BERNHARDT IN PEACE?

On a related note, if anyone but me takes the Norse Empire I shall take such terrible vengeance upon him that generations yet unborn will cry out in anguish.