New NESes, ideas, development, etc

[Dachs]

Query: what's been the history of the Levant over the last few centuries?

I'm interested in Egypt, of course.

 

[Masada]

I'll have a rum and longphort.

 

[Luckymoose]

Poland or Danemark.

 

[Perfectionist]

Interesting. It would be good to know about the Islamic sects too, I suppose.

Hanafi Sunnis are pretty much your standard mainstream Sunni Islam. Since the Middle East has been controlled by Turks and Mongols for so long, it tends to be a bit more lax than usual, particularly on alcohol for instance, but otherwise no surprises.

Rushdite Sunnis grew out of the Malikite tradition, and particularly are based on the writings of the eleventh century Cordoban jurist Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd. It's generally fairly liberal, particularly with regard to Christians, supportive of state authority over the ulema, and talks a lot about different aspects of God. It was consequently heavily supported by the post-Caliphal states in Andalusia.

The Dhahabi sect was founded by the Persian Uthman ibn al-Dhahabi is the late thirteenth century. They reject the necessity of the caliphate in general and the legitimacy of the last five hundred years of caliphs in particular (and in fact the last caliph was executed by the Persians a few decades back), deemphasize the importance of jurists in favor of the broader community, have fairly significant mystical Sufi-type elements, and consider the secular authority to be subservient to the religious community - it's the duty of all Dhahabis to revolt against a sinful secular authority, which is why the Temurids and Artuklu hated them so much. Their attitude towards other Muslims varies. The Muwahhidun branch, less extreme across the board, are relatively inclined to tolerate them; the Persian variety thinks pretty much everybody else except the Ibadis is a kafir.

The Isma'ils, Zaidis and Ibadis are pretty the same as OTL.

Query: what's been the history of the Levant over the last few centuries?

I do need to write a longer Chobanid description, don't I? Well, if you mean a political summary: conquered by the Salur Turkish Sultanate in the eleventh century. Salur splintered into competing regional polities starting from the late eleventh century; the Baghdad sultanate wound up securing most of the prize by the middle twelfth century, but the Mediterranean coast was held by competing Damascus- and Antioch-based sultanates. Both weakened in the twelfth century, the former under pressure from the Romans and the Baghdad Sultanate, the latter under Usfurid pressure. As of the Mongol advent, most of Syria was controlled by the Romans, most of Palestine and Jordan controlled by the Usfurids, and Iraq held by the Baghdad Sultanate. It all fell to the Mongols and was under Temurid control for the next century. As time progressed the Temurids became more and more focused on their borders with Rome and the Golden Horde, and the Turkish notables of Baghdad became increasingly influential in internal politics, so the governors of Syria and Jordan became increasingly autonomous. Said governors were briefly independent, with Egyptian encouragement, during the transition to Artuklu rule, but were suppressed by the center; the disastrous Egyptian attempt to protect Jordan at the time discouraged further Egyptian interference beyond Sinai for a long time. The Artuklu then ruled it all for a while, but the Artuklu were even more concerned with Persia and Rome, especially after the Kantakouzenid rise to power, than the Temurids had been, so the southern Levant was neglected as Artuklu rule continued; the disruption of the Eastern Med trade caused by the suppression of Sicily didn't help either, though Egyptians did eventually take over a lot of it. Jordan and Palestine broke away from the Artuklu shortly before the Sultanate collapsed while the rest of the regional elites had to look to their own defense after the Artuklu collapsed. Splinter states in the center warred amongst themselves for the empire, while external powers gobbled up the periphery: Anatolia fell to the Romans, a large part of Mesopotamia to the Persians, and the southern Levant fell under Egyptian influence, if not, in most cases, actual control. The Chobanids, meanwhile, were picking up steam, and wound up conquering Syria and conquering/rescuing northern Iraq, and finally brought the overstretched Roman reconquest to a dead halt in Cilicia. Riding high on prestige from that victory, and with the Romans and Persians distracted, they invaded Palestine. The Egyptians didn't try particularly hard to hold their positions, being themselves more concerned with maintaining their commercial position in the face of Roman assertiveness, and were in any case pretty rapidly trashed and thrown out. Without Egyptian backing the locals had no chance against the Chobanids, and were incorporated into the state.

 

[Dachs]

Well, if you mean a political summary: conquered by the Salur Turkish Sultanate in the eleventh century.

What happened to the Roman military renaissance that started with Theophilos and picked up steam in the OTL late ninth century? No Phokades or Tzimiskes to conquer Cilicia and Syria? Or did they just have Slavic issues or something?

Salur splintered into competing regional polities starting from the late eleventh century; the Baghdad sultanate wound up securing most of the prize by the middle twelfth century, but the Mediterranean coast was held by competing Damascus- and Antioch-based sultanates.

So, basically Seljuqs By Any Other Name? Would the Usfurids be like Turkmen analogs, then, who conquered Egypt instead of Anatolia in TTL?

The rest of that looks pretty good, thanks.

 

[Thlayli]

This sort of reminds me, where are all the Jews? Any notable expulsions?

 

[Perfectionist]

What happened to the Roman military renaissance that started with Theophilos and picked up steam in the OTL late ninth century? No Phokades or Tzimiskes to conquer Cilicia and Syria? Or did they just have Slavic issues or something?

Stopped by a general military crisis in the mid tenth century. Basically, they threw away a couple of armies in Italy just in time to meet a Bulgar resurgence and the unification of a large slice of Syria and eastern Anatolia by a very dangerous emir of Aleppo. They could have beaten any two of those threats, but they kept trying to beat all three, and so wound up losing everywhere.

So, basically Seljuqs By Any Other Name?

Yep.

Would the Usfurids be like Turkmen analogs, then, who conquered Egypt instead of Anatolia in TTL?

No. Turkmen analogs did conquer Egypt, but they never established a very stable state. The Usfurids were a native group that threw them out.

This sort of reminds me, where are all the Jews? Any notable expulsions?

In northern Andalusia, Sicily, and the Levant, mostly. There are some in Roman Catholic Europe, but the monastics tend to be fairly hostile to them.

 

[Dachs]

Stopped by a general military crisis in the mid tenth century. Basically, they threw away a couple of armies in Italy just in time to meet a Bulgar resurgence and the unification of a large slice of Syria and eastern Anatolia by a very dangerous emir of Aleppo. They could have beaten any two of those threats, but they kept trying to beat all three, and so wound up losing everywhere.

Clever.

 

[Immaculate]

This is happening.

 

[Terrance888]

OMG Immy, I promise that, if I ever find the time to join, I'll be as Immaculate as a Player as you are as a mod.

 

[Matt0088]

I figured the following could be more useful posted here instead of hogging it all to myself as I sporadically develop my MNES2 rules at a snail pace.

The following section is presented with credit given to Dr. John H. Bodley of Washington State University.

Spoiler CONCEPT :

USEFUL DEFINITIONS

Spoiler :

Society: a human population with territorial boundaries which exhibits consistent interaction, intermarries within itself, and shares similar language and culture.
Culture: the socially patterned and learned thoughts, behaviors, and constructs that guide human interactions and that is the unique way humans adapt to natural and social environments.
Social Power: the ability of an individual to obtain or achieve what they want despite the objections of others.
Imperia / Imperium: the self-centered power network of a given individual, including all other persons that might be commanded or called upon for assistance, and any institutional structure that one might direct.

The chief utilization of culture within a society is its use in exercising social power. There are four kinds of social power: ideological, or control over how and what people know; economic, or control over the labor of others to produce material gain; political, or control over the institutions of government; and military, or the use or threat of use of violence. An arbitrary individual in a society is given to use his or her imperium to exercise social power for the benefit of themselves and their household. The method in which these imperia are organized is a function of the cultural world in which the society in question finds itself.

There are three successive and distinct cultural worlds: the Tribal, the Imperial, and the Commercial. These are so named for their organization of social power. These so-called cultural worlds are overlapping and non-exclusive entities built upon each other, and each continues the exhibition of traits of its predecessors, albeit in a modified form. A given cultural world is composed of intermarrying societies in which culture is used to organize society in broadly similar ways. People within the same cultural world may represent different societies and languages and may have different lifestyles and manners of providing for themselves, but they share similar views as to the overall purpose of their cultures and what tools can be employed for human ends.

Although the specifics of each cultural world are effects of history and its events, their generalized patterns may be extrapolated and applied to any given human society. For the purposes of this game, they will be used to indicate the relative complexity, development, and organization of a given society and its culture. Since culture is herein referring not only to the mental constructs of a society, but also to its material constructs, this will also be indicative of relative technological development.

In the Tribal World, all forms of social power are available to a given individual via kin and marriage, virtually all individuals in the accompanying society are treated as family, and the household is the central social institution. In the Imperial World, political rulers have achieved a monopoly on military, economic, and ideological sources of institutionalized power and are its sole legal executors. In the Commercial World, business elites have utilized unequal exchanges to amass both tangible and intangible wealth and income while utilizing economic power to gain political and ideological power.

The cultural processes exhibited and emphasized by a given culture is dependent upon the cultural world in which that given culture resides:

CULTURAL PROCESSES AND SUBPROCESSES BY CULTURAL WORLD

Spoiler :

Tribal World
Humanization: the production, maintenance, and reproduction of human beings and culture.

• Conceptualization: producing abstract concepts and symbols that shape behavior
• Materialization: giving physical form to concepts
• Verbalization: producing speech
• Socialization: producing human societies by exogamy
• Cultural Transmission: reproducing culture

Imperial World
Politicization: the production and maintenance of centralize political power by co-opting the humanization process.

• Taxation: extracting surplus production to support government
• Conquest: extracting booty, slaves, and tribute
• Specialization: government employment
• Militarization: development of professional military
• Bureaucratization: hierarchical command structures
• Urbanization: development of cities

Commercial World
Commercialization: the production and maintenance of private profit-making business enterprise as a means of accumulating capital, by co-opting the humanization and politicization processes.

• Commodification: market for land, labor, money, basic goods and services
• Industrialization: mass production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services
• Capitalization: ownership of means of production separated from labor
• Corporatization: business enterprise becomes suprahuman
• Externalization: costs of commercial growth are socialized
• Supralocalization: business enterprise is detached from community
• Financialization: finance institutionalized, separated from production

In addition to the existence of the cultural worlds themselves, it is useful to understand the fundamentally connected components of any given culture within its culture world: Infrastructure, Structure, and Superstructure, corresponding to the material, behavioral, and mental attributes of a culture. Below is a table illustrating the constituent parts of these components, and (not necessarily wholly inclusive, nor exhaustive and comprehensive) some of their manifestations in real life, by cultural world.

INFRASTRUCTURE, STRUCTURE, AND SUPERSTRUCTURE IN THREE CULTURAL WORLDS

[B][U]			Tribal World		Imperial World		Commercial World            
[/U][/B]
[B]Infrastructure: Material Basis of Society and Culture[/B]

Human Population 	6-84 million 		100+ million		billions

Nature, Energy		natural resources	natural resources	natural resources and 
and Materials		and services		and services		services, fossil fuels

Technology		tools of foraging	tools of intensive	industrial tools, factory 
			gardening, herding	agriculture,		farming, mechanized 
						irrigation, plows, 	transport, electronic 
						metal, writing		information systems
[B]Structure: Organization of Society[/B]

Economy			domestic subsistence,	tribute, tax, 		global markets, commodities,
			feasting, reciprocal	plunder, conquest,	money, factories, financial 
			exchange		slavery, coins		institutions, public debt, 
						specialization, 	corporations, capital
						unequal exchange, 	accumulation, unequal 
						limited markets, 	exchange
						long-distance
						luxury trade

Society			low density rural	high density rural,	high density rural, cities
			bands of 50, tribes	cities of 100000,	of millions, capitalists,
			and villages of 500,	social class: royalty	laborers, consumers, race
			family, kin, affines,	nobles, commoners,	ethnicity, nationality,
			young, old, males,	slaves, castes,		social classes, community,
			females, language	ethnicity		commonwealth

Polity / Government	autonomous bands	chiefdoms of 5000,	constitutional nation 
			and villages of 500,	city-states of 50000,	states of 100+ million, 
			descent groups		kingdoms of 5 million,	courts, police, professional 
						empires of 50 million,	military, democracy, 
						armies, tyranny,	universities
						bureaucracy

[B]Superstructure: Empirical Knowledge, Noumenal Beliefs and Practices[/B]

Ideology		animism, shamanism	mana, high gods,	nationalism, patriotism
			ancestor cults, myth	polytheism, divine	monotheism, knowledge
			magic, ritual, taboo, 	kings, priests, sacred	advertising, economic
			spirits, divination, 	texts, human sacrifice	growth, progress, free
			animal sacrifice				market

For the purposes of this game, these different components will be broken down and distributed into a more familiar statistics table.

STATISTICS​

What does all of that mean? Simply: when the systems of culture are viewed in the appropriate way, many of the by now familiar statistics a given player is likely to be acquainted with are derived, and are produced in such a way as to enable the desired pace and level of detail to be prosecuted.

NAME / Player
Progression: Cultural World / assorted details
Development: Human Development Rating / Nature, Energy listing
Government: Population / (Polity / Government)
Military: Army Rating / Navy Rating
Vitality: Economy / Cultural Health
Tenets: Ideology
Society: Society (Details)
Values: Society (Behaviors)
Overview: Summation and Miscellaneous

Demonstratably, many of the aspects demonstrated in the Concept can be neatly slotted into more familiar trappings. Further details are provided below.

Spoiler PROGRESSION: :

A society’s progression is its degree of advancement through the cultural worlds, as well as any outstanding technological developments or deficiencies not to be expected of it given that cultural world. For the purposes of precision, different tiers (Low, Middle, and High) may be recognized as corresponding to increasingly advanced development within each cultural world. These prefixes will be appendaged to a society’s progression entry as a means of more precisely pinpointing its complexity. Examples are provided below for the purposes of illustration, but are not to be taken as gospel:

• Low Tribal World: Tasmanian Aborigines to Australian Aborigines
• Middle Tribal World: Modern Amazonian Tribes
• High Tribal World: African Cattle Herders to Tonga Chiefdoms
• Low Imperial World: Hawaiian Kingdom to Sumerian Empires
• Middle Imperial World: Persian Empires
• High Imperial World: Post-Han Chinese Empires
• Low Commercial World: Spanish Empire
• Middle Commercial World: British Empire
• High Commercial World: United States of America

Spoiler DEVELOPMENT: :

A society’s development is both a listing of the major natural resources under its control (flora, fauna, and mineralogical) and a descriptor of its human development rating (life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living, infrastructure) relative to its cultural world. These values are incompatible across separate cultural worlds (for example, an average person in a Middle Tribal culture will probably be happier and better off than anything up to a Middle Commercial inhabitant) and only vaguely illustrative versus other divisions within the same cultural world. They serve chiefly to illustrate how good life is in a given society. The available human development ratings are as follows:

Least Developed / Less Developed / Developing / Developed / Advanced

Spoiler GOVERNMENT: :

A society’s government is a description of its upper tier of leadership, on whatever scale that leadership might rule. For most societies this will include a brief (sentence long) description of government organization and any pertinent, outstanding features of government. Also included is a rough accounting of the population of a given society.

Spoiler MILITARY: :

A society’s military are the forces it may call upon during times of conflict, whether for offensive or defensive purposes. A military is divided between an Army and a Navy, for those at least capable of possessing both, and the entry for both will consist of a strength index relative to its cultural world. These values are again incompatible across separate cultural worlds (it is to be generally assumed that, short of a large and tangible advantage, a vastly technologically inferior opponent will lose). That index is as follows:

Pathetic / Weak / Average / Strong / Colossal

In addition, a brief (sentence long) overview of forces utilized, training, and doctrine will be included to add some character to this description. Further details may be included in an appendix, if necessary.

Spoiler VITALITY: :

A society’s vitality is a description of its health as a functioning entity. This includes both the physical, its economy (analogous to its heart) and the immaterial, its culture (analogous to a soul, if you will). It is possible for a country in poor economic straits to undergo a renaissance in its cultural output, and for a rich country to become culturally bankrupt. Both are evaluated along the following scale:

Weak / Declining / Stagnant / Growing / Strong

Spoiler TENETS: :

The tenets of a society are the ideas and concepts it embraces as being integral to the overarching mental construct behind its culture. These typically include more abstract values the society might embrace, such as charity, honor, duty, freedom, power, and so forth, and the manner in which these values are taught and conveyed, such as through religion or philosophy.

Major religions and philosophies, as well as certain notable ideological constructs of a society, will be listed under this statistic, with more complete entries in a reference index, if necessary.

Spoiler SOCIETY: :

A society’s society entry is a description of outstanding details of that society, chiefly as regards its physical construction. Information such as the presence of castes and stratification or division, types of inheritance, language, writing, and other notable societal characteristics will be listed.

Spoiler VALUES: :

A society’s long term behavior is influenced by the values that society embraces. Values represent the perceptive matrix through which a society is likely to view its choices and interactions in a given scenario. The chief function of values is to give their societies methods of generating coherent and characteristic responses to events not calculated for in orders, whatever those events might be.

Each value is allocated an entry ranging from “0” to “3,” with “0” corresponding to the left-hand stance and “3” corresponding to the right-hand stance. The in-between values of “1” and “2” are the equivalent of adding “somewhat” to the description of the value they are nearest to; for example, a society with an Individualist / Collectivist rating of 1 would best be described as “somewhat individualist.”

A given individual value represents a simple (first order) response to a given topic. More complex (higher order) behavior involves the computation of a stance using several values. As an example, the third order behavior of a nation having the Naval (3), Conductive (3), and Somewhat Defensive (1) values would likely be an inclination towards blockades to strangle its enemies in wartime.

There are a total of sixteen (16) values available. Not all values are initially available, nor will all values be available at any given time. The values available to a given society depend strongly upon its cultural progression. The values list has been color-coded to represent the given cultural world (and its corresponding subdivisions) in which the value is applicable. Red corresponds to the Tribal World, yellow corresponds to the Imperial World, and green corresponds to the Commercial World. Left to right progresses through each cultural world in the order of Low, Medium, and High. If an indicator is lit, the value is available for that given stage of progression.

Spoiler :

• ••••••••• Sedentary / Migratory - The measure to which a society is mobile or static in overall geographic positioning.
• ••••••••• Offensive / Defensive - The measure in which a society is inclined to respond to threats, either by defending itself or attacking to defend its interests.
• ••••••••• Militant / Pacifist - The measure in which a society is inclined to persuasion of others, either through negotiation or action.
• ••••••••• Terrestrial / Aquatic - The measure by which a society is inclined to focus its power and prowess, either upon the sea or upon the land.
• ••••••••• Constructive / Destructive - The measure by which a society constructs itself based on its neighbors, either peacefully or hostilely taking from them.
• ••••••••• Cooperative / Autonomous - The measure by which a society is inclined to achieve its goals, either by working with others or operating by itself.
• ••••••••• Individualist / Collectivist - The measure to which a society is willing or unwilling to subvert an individual to the will of the group.
• ••••••••• Hedonistic / Ascetic - The measure to which members of a society seek material pleasure in the course of their existence.
• ••••••••• Idealistic / Pragmatic - The measure by which a society is willing to evaluate problems and define solutions to them.
• ••••••••• Productive / Conductive - The measure by which a society obtains necessary goods, either by chiefly producing them or exchanging with others for them.
• ••••••••• Urban / Rural - The measure to which power is focused in dense, urbanized areas.
• ••••••••• Centralized / Decentralized - The measure to which a society is willing to concentrate the power of its leadership in an arbitrarily defined setting or endeavor.
• ••••••••• Vertical / Horizontal - The measure in which a society is inclined to develop, either outward through acquisition of new resources, or upward through improvement of existing ones.
• ••••••••• Open Society / Closed Society - The measure to which a society's leadership is responsive and accountable to its citizens in an arbitrarily defined setting or endeavor.
• ••••••••• Secular / Pious - The measure to which a society places importance in its spiritual beliefs.
• ••••••••• Quantitative / Qualitative - The measure to which a society is willing to impose quality control on its produced effects despite potential detriments to cost and output.

For values which a society has not yet matured enough to diversify its opinions in, a pragmatic, ad hoc opinion focused chiefly on survival, stability, and security which is logical within the confines of the local environment is to be assumed.

Spoiler OVERVIEW: :

A society’s overview is a summary of its traits coupled with a brief historical overview.

UPDATE TYPE​

Section α uses a type of update called Automatic. The purpose of Automatic updates is to cover long interval periods in relatively short amounts of time using low temporal resolution. This is similar to but different from the concept of "Boring Times." The primary difference is that limited statistics of the above form will be produced along with each update to attempt to form a more coherent picture of history. Secondary differences are that stories will continue to be encouraged to illustrate more salient or particular historical events, and that as a result of the emphases of this section they will be inherently less concerned with particular events or entities so much as the overall story of the time period. A more traditional, entity-oriented update style, Manual, will be employed during conduction of Section β.

TIMELINE​

For the purpose of reference, a listing of the amount of time each turn will cover has been included, along with a reference to approximate historical terrestrial analogs. There is no guarantee that internal development here will match those benchmarks, and they are included solely for aide in conceptual processing.

01. 1000 Years (4000 to 3000BC)
02. 1000 Years (3000 to 2000BC)
03. 500 Years (2000 to 1500BC)
04. 500 Years (1500 to 1000BC)
05. 500 Years (1000 to 500BC)
06. 500 Years (500BC to 1AD)
07. 250 Years (1 to 251AD)
08. 250 Years (251 to 501AD)
09. 250 Years (501 to 751AD)
10. 250 Years (751 to 1001AD)
11. 200 Years (1001 to 1201AD)
12. 200 Years (1201 to 1401AD)
13. 200 Years (1401 to 1601AD)
14. 100 Years (1601 to 1701AD)
15. 100 Years (1701 to 1801AD)
16. 100 Years (1801 to 1901AD)

OPERATIONS​

For all turns after the first two players will be in command of specific entities under some form of overarching government. Due to the likelihood of the destruction of any given entity by a wide variety of mechanisms, players are free to switch to any non-claimed entity between each turn, although they are advised not to do so lightly. Statistics will be compiled during this period. All entities not commanded by players will be under the jurisdiction of the moderator unless otherwise stated. It is to be noted that both random events are inevitable, and that player control of their entities, once they assume it, is not absolute. For the first turn, all available player slots have been assigned. After the first turn, further players may join.

 

[Ninja Dude]

Huh, your email sounds oddly familiar....

 

[Thlayli]

He uses forbidden knowledge from the BEFORE TIMES. Burn the heretic!

 

[spryllino]

Have you got any other forbidden knowledge from before times up your sleeves?

 

[Immaculate]

Looks good Matt0088

 

[erez87]

Looks good Matt0088

It's not his. But a good save on his side.

 

[Matt0088]

Have you got any other forbidden knowledge from before times up your sleeves?

Well....I do have the JNES3 rules that Josef deleted at some point in time, and a mess of various ideas from this thread, of which, only Symph's stuff would be worth posting, considering that it's only his posts that are deleted (to my knowledge anyways).

 

[Milarqui]

The Spoilers don't want to open (at least, they don't open for me)

 

[Masada]

Good luck; the detail overwhelmed the best of us.

 

[Luckymoose]

Project Tiffani: .05% Complete

Spoiler :