Here's a guess-the-PoD map, based on an idea/ideas that had haunted my mind for quite a while now. The year now is 1900, and many things are not what they might seem at the first glance: notably, the strength of nations is not necessarily correspondent to their size, the religious picture is very different from OTL and so is the ethnic makeup of many regions, in part because of a different evolution of cultural identity and in part because of different migration and colonization patterns. The government forms of certain nations are also not what you expect. And no, that's not exactly Canada, but it is pretty similar in certain regards and it may well have been named Canada in a slightly different version of this world. [GENERAL]
In terms of technology what technological path is this world taking exactly? What is the pinnacle of technological development that's been reached so far? Does Europe lead technologically? [Technology]
Slower than OTL development, with some breakthroughs in theoretical physics and steam-powered vehicles, but otherwise behind the "schedule". "Bessemer" steel might be considered a relatively recent pinnacle, as might true ironclads (steamers have been around for longer). Yes, Europe is in the lead.
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Also a smaller Suezmax would have an interesting effect on battleship design [Technology]
In due time. Didn't mention it yet, but this world is comparatively behind technologically (the most advanced countries are on the 1840s-1850s Britain level, though it isn't really as linear as that, i.e. steam-powered vehicles (ships, artillery-haulers, armor) have been around for some time now, and theoretical physics are more advanced as well).
Are there stock exchanges yet? [General]
Yes, especially in Frankfurt, Alexandria and St. George (the capital of Arcadia, unless I already named it something else, which I don't seem to have done).
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Has there been a lot of Christian missionary work? Actually, has there been a lot of that in the African colonies as well? [Religion]
Yes, lots and lots, and everywhere. Success rates vary; usually, in regions with a strongly established and organized religious tradition, even centuries of efforts had managed to create a 10% native Christian population at the most, though there are exceptions. In Africa and more primitive regions of Southeast Asia, Christianity has spread in the coastal and near-coastal regions, though it often became strongly intermixed with native beliefs and traditions.
Yes, Christianity is more widespread, and is somewhat less divided, though those divisions that do exist are at times considerably bitterer than in OTL (most notably the one between France and the rest of Christendom). Also the Incan Empire and most of Asia are quite strictly denied to Christian missionaries; that’s a large part of the world's population, I'd say. [Religion]
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What exactly happened to Islam, anyway? [Religion]
It advanced slightly further than in OTL at first, but later got pushed back considerably by the Crusades (and the Mongols, but most of these had naturally converted to Islam at a later point anyway). It is actually undergoing something of a Sunni renaissance right now, though Shiite Iraq is making things complicated.
And I did say that they [Serbia-Romea] were "Uniate" in an earlier post; under that I meant that they belong to the branch of the Orthodox Church that had formally reunited with Catholicism at a certain point. The Hungarians AND the Venetians did have a lot to do with that; both powers were stronger than in OTL, particularly in the Balkans, indeed most Balkan wars in this modern history had a lot to do with Hungarian (re)conquests and subsequent rebellions with intervention from other nearby powers. [Religion/Backstory]
It’s just an effect. The aforementioned conquest of Constantinople brought about a Byzantine collapse, benefiting the Fatimids. It was just enough to make them considerably stronger - and ironically that just made them and the Seljuk Turks bleed white against each other (generally making the Middle East even more messed up, especially in Anatolia where Turkic migrants and Arab colonists clashed and mixed). Then the Venetians, the Pope and other people behind the Crusades saw a nice opportunity and acted upon it. First the Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded, but as the Crusade fever caught on a large force of Normans (who didn't conquer Sicily, as well as a certain other European country that they conquered in OTL, and so were fairly restless and unemployed in spite of the French events) and suchlike invaded Egypt, which was fortuitously enough in a civil war. With Venetian backing they conquered it and made it stick, though it was quite a bit of a fluke. Once Egypt grew stronger it did indeed become the foremost Crusading power and a major base, and its kings ensured the survival of the lesser Crusader kingdoms (leaving them to be consumed by itself in due time, of course). [Crusade/Religion/Backstory]
If it’s any consolation, all other Crusades in India were defeated, most soon after starting. The ones in East Africa were more successful, though still failing to set up any lasting crusader states (they did cripple the Swahili city-states and help Ethiopia conquer Adal). [Religion, Crusades, back story]
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A Christian missionary Ceylon (!) is incredibly intriguing. It was mentioned before I remember and I am sure Silver would like to know how his beautiful Indian paradise was so destroyed, so could you please expand on that? [Knights of the Nile, backstory]
After the Venetians entered the Indian Ocean in the 14th/15th centuries, they began to run into occasional resistance during their attempts to monopolize trade in the region, especially as they begun to set their sights on various ports and fortresses that were as important to the local powers. So they decided to use the same weapon that had opened the door into the Indies for them, and with Papal blessing initiated a series of crusades against various enemies, recruiting many of the impetuous Egyptian and other Crusader State nobles (as by then the social conditions there had become similar to pre-crusade Europe in many regards). There were also the clashes between the Roman Catholic missionaries and the increasingly xenophobic local rulers. The Crusaders had devastated the Swahili city-states and parts of coastal India, but failed to secure any lasting strongholds there, for the most part; in Ceylon, various factors (such as it being an island; easier to conquer once invaded, and once conquered easier to hold, and obviously it was of great interest for the Venetians) allowed an Egyptian Crusader order (the Knights of the Nile) to prevail. What emerged was something of a hybrid of the Teutonic Knights and the Knights Hospitaller; eventually it evolved into something closer to the latter and to the Templars (i.e. they cut back on crusading and instead begun trading with and studying the heathens). As changes came to the Roman Catholic Church, and the Venetian colonial empire collapsed during the Great Mediterranean War in the late 17th century, the state became a strong regional naval and commercial power in its own right, and also a natural centre of missionary activities. A new religious order (the Noahites) arose on the island; it is fairly Jesuit-like in approach, though even more keen on evangelization.
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Now, tell us about these fun-sounding religious wars. It looks like Catholic schism in France. [Religion, back story, France]
That much is true; France is the only country left that still follows the Avignon Catholic Church (which had by now diverged from the Roman one in doctrine and theology as well as in politics). During the 14th century a more violent and long-term version of the OTL schism had occurred, and a series of fierce religious wars ensued (these were fought all over the greater part of Europe; that was when the French had conquered or reconquered most of their present Iberian holdings, but their campaigns in Lorraine and Italy were less resultative); by the 16th century even Hungary had abandoned the ACC (with the Angevin downfall there after a serious feudal war), but France remained stalwart, increasingly narrow-minded, isolationist and hard line. 16th and 17th centuries were characterized by a feudal-clerical oligarchy presiding over the king and the Avignon Pope (both mere figureheads by tradition), with the clerical elements increasingly important; but it was the 18th century that went down in French history as the Age of the Cardinals, as three particularly strong cardinals followed in nearly-uninterrupted succession, reducing their internal enemies to corpses or instruments of their will.
The most prominent - and scary - of these cardinals was Cardinal l'Azyr, who consolidated clerical power, rebuilt the French navy and introduced various pragmatic measures to restore French military potency; this included Peter the Great-style widespread state-owned military manufactories. Then he started the Fifty Years War; France made very limited long-term territorial gains, but wrecked two of its main enemies badly (Flandres and Britain were occupied and thoroughly devastated; ethnic and religious minorities were used as enforcers, traditional institutions were destroyed, fields were salted, cities razed and industries shipped back to France) and fought the third one to a standstill. Peace only came after his death, and though French diplomatic isolation was worsened further and many past enmities were worsened considerably, no new anti-French coalitions have been formed yet; the devastating war on the Flemish-Lorrainean front has proved that any attempts to finish off France would cost way too much in all regards, without a real guarantee of victory.
Since then France had grown rotten and uncompetitive, devolving to a theocratic oligarchy again. It has managed to strike some pragmatic deals with Denmark and Tver though, fighting the Holy Roman Empire to a draw in an 1840s war. Perhaps it can modernize and reform before its internal weakness is exploited by its old enemies. Perhaps not.
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And what of the other Indians states? Are they all Hindu? [India/Religion]
The Sultanate of Hyderabad is obviously Muslim, the others are Hindu. The northwestern state is the Rajput Empire, the one in the Gangetic Plain is the Malla Empire (Gurkha in origin, created as a result of an opportunistic power grab at the expense of the crumbling Delhi Sultanate in the late 15th century, but by now the rulers are thoroughly Indianised).
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Has India been soiled by the Muslims and Christians? [India, back story]
By the former, no more than in OTL; actually, less, as no Mughals ever appeared. Christians don't have a stronger presence than in the OTL 18th century either, outside of Ceylon of course.
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How did Italy reunite? [Italy, back story]
Long story, but the present incarnation was born out of a relatively recent nationalist rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire and the aristocratic puppet government of Italy that was created by the Imperials after the Mediterranean War which had largely washed away the previous (divided) political order in Italy.
Was discussed in the 3rd alternate history thread, but basically, it was a 17th century war born out of Egypt's bid for Mediterranean hegemony and the restoration of the Roman Empire under the Egyptian king Alexander. After making great progress in the Balkans and in southern and central Italy, the Egyptians finally met their match in the revitalized Holy Roman Empire, which ultimately (after a grinding and complex war) managed to halt their progress and expel them from central Italy. A truce then neutralized the central parts of Italy; after the death of Alexander Egyptian control over southern Italy collapsed and so German influence prevailed.
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How was the Italian situation before the Mediterranean war? [Italy, back story]
Divided between small and middle-sized principalities and city-states, some of them nominally parts of the HRE. Note that the Papal States were much stronger than in OTL, while the Kingdom of Naples never even existed.
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How was Venetian empire in this Timeline? [Italy, back story]
Thanks to the success of the Crusades, it has, from the 12th century onwards, gained great commercial power in the conquered lands and beyond, for a while being the key power in the Indian Ocean. With time it has grown overstretched, stagnant and decadent; but it could've lingered on for much longer had Alexander not seized power in Egypt. After doing so, he rooted out Venetian influence and confiscated Venetian assets, crippling Venice's economic power and so paving the way for his early Mediterranean campaigns. Venice was then also beaten at the sea by the Egyptians and was unable to resist being practically consumed into the Holy Roman Empire a few years later.
The modern Italian Republic has incredibly little to do with the old Venice, and its presence nowadays is quite negligible, though there is a colony/trade outpost in Arabia and some commercial ties with the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf countries. Italy has some potential, but is pretty poor at the moment.
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How did it come to be as it is in its present state? [Chernigov, back story]
Started out as one of the petty principalities in the old Askoldich Polania (south Rus), becoming virtually independent by the early 12th century. Its power waxed and waned for a long period; the Mongol invasion in the early 13th century was detrimental in its immediate effects, but as Chernigov came out of it relatively intact and had managed to cooperate with the Mongols later in the century, it ultimately was able to reunite Polania, though the Grand Prince's power in many regions was nominal and it was more of a feudal confederation in the Late Middle Ages. Since the 16th century the Chernigovians had made attempts to advance into the Balkans, leading to intermittent warfare against the Hungarians. Though the 17th century saw it reformed into a centralized state, and considerable gains were made to the east (against the post-Mongol statelets and various nomadic tribes) and the Grand Princes had also managed to hold their own against the Tverians while also carving bits and pieces out of Poland (no Poland-Lithuania in this world, but there was a pretty big Kingdom of Poland in the Late Middle/Early Modern Age), no long-term success was to be achieved in the Balkans; even when the Hungarians could be beaten, the Bulgarian principalities were pretty resistant and the logistics made their effective conquest impossible.
Things changed in the 18th/early 19th centuries, with advances in agriculture and plain old population growth (as well as the final defeat of local and nearby tribes) allowing for the highly successful colonization and development of the southern regions. The fleet that was built to destroy the Anatolian pirates established Chernigovian hegemony in the Black Sea (Georgia is essentially a puppet state, for the record, and there is a half-protectorate, half-colony in northern Anatolia, as you might have noticed). The middle of the 19th century saw Hungary implode like it never imploded before, and the Chernigovians seemed poised to establish their hegemony over the Balkans. They made good progress at first, imposing puppet rulers in Bulgaria, but then things went wrong; an uprising in the Caucasus and a new war with Tver which was scarcely fought to a draw (the envelopment and near-capture of Chernigov itself leading to the capital semi-move) had distracted the Chernigovians from the Balkans, and the Serbs were then able to destroy most of what they had accomplished (south of the Danube, at least; the more direct gains made north of the river held), taking Constantinople and staying there with Imperial help. Thus Chernigov's ambitions were frustrated, fueling the aforementioned irredentism. Since then, it was preparing for another go.
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A multicultural Egypt is also intriguing and unusual, so, again, would you please expand on it? [Egypt, backstory]
The short of it is that the Crusades had succeeded, and a Norman kingdom was carved out in chaos-struck Egypt. Initially things were troublesome, but eventually the kingdom was consolidated, the Norman ruling class resembling the Greek one of the Ptolemaics. The fairly pragmatic Norman approach to administration (see religious policies in Sicily) helped as well. After a while Norman Egypt went on to become a great power, gradually uniting the Crusader States around itself, while internally a cultural flourishing occurred with the help of the assorted orders (both Templar-like Crusaders and an earlier Freemason analogue). Naturally the new Egyptian culture was increasingly unorthodox and divergent, but the Papacy had more pressing concerns like an Europe-wide religious civil war that raged on for centuries (of course the actual fighting was far from uninterrupted during this time, but religious clashes are still not quite over). Anyhow in 1683 a dynastic crisis ended the reign of the Hautevilles, and after a brief "corrupt council of regents vying for power with increasingly manipulative and secretive orders" episode a military coup led by the metis (half-Arab, half-Norman) who would become King-and-Emperor Alexander I, Stupor Mundi, occurred. A Napoleonic kind of person, he secularized the realm, curbed the power and privilege of everyone that had any (the orders, the guilds, the nobles, the Church), confiscated numerous church lands, adapted a new calendar and measurement system, introducing vaguely egalitarian social reforms and so on. Then he decided to rebuild the Roman Empire (and get back at the Venetians that tried to overthrow him); he built a huge empire and made the Eastern Mediterranean an Egyptian lake, and even took Rome itself at one point, but the man who already held the title of Roman Emperor (and Holy, at that!) rallied the opposition against the Egyptians. A long war ensued in Italy and the Balkans (and elsewhere, especially if we count the French warmongering as it was largely incited by Alexander at a more desperate point of the war), and ultimately a compromise peace was reached; the Egyptians kept most of their gains (Tunisia, Sicily, Calabria, the Balkans, Anatolia), but left the Imperial title to the House of Leiningen, which imposed German hegemony over northern Italy. Central Italy, previously led by the Pope, became a neutral and secular republic-type state, and the Egyptians withdrew from there and from southern Hungary. Also Venice lost its independence and its empire along the way.
But early in the 18th century, Alexander died, and his empire crumbled (though the core Egyptian lands were naturally preserved, and it took a few more decades and regional wars to push his heirs out of the southern Balkans and Italy). Pax Germanica dawned upon Europe; as for Egypt, it underwent a period of power struggles and court intrigue, but revived again later in the century. As a consequence of Alexander's reforms - never really reversed - it is even now the most egalitarian nation in the world, and though falling somewhat behind technologically as of right now its strategic position still is enough to make it flourish commercially, and its influence in the world, though diminished since its golden age, is bound to rise again given an energetic ruler. Need I say that the Chosen People are doing quite well for themselves as well?
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Did Egypt gain its territory in the Middle East during the Crusades? [Egypt, back story]
No; and actually, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was the predominant Crusader state in the first two centuries after these were carved out of the central regions of the shattered Dar al-Islam. As the Kingdom of Egypt consolidated, took definite shape and survived some early crises, though, the balance of power began to shift in its favor. After the Levantine Crusaders were weakened first by the Il-Khanate and then by the Turko-Arabic Tutushid Empire over the 14th-15th centuries, the Egyptians were able to more or less peacefully integrate most Crusader states, and later razed Edessa (which became the rallying point for the enemies of the Alexandrian Crown). Then again, that went on in the midst of a second wave of Crusades aimed against the Tutushids and other new Islamic enemies, so what you said partly applies.
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Would you mind doing a brief recap of the HRE's history (emphasis on political natch) from the divergence? [HRE, back story]
The HRE is much harder to summarise than Chernigov. Still, I guess I could do a really basic rundown.
There were no Hohenstauffens and the HRE began to disintegrate earlier but slower and less spectacularly. The Imperial crown in the 13th-15th centuries passed back and forth between different dynasties; some major ones, like the Wittelsbachs or the von Hollands, still emerged to gain great power and prestige, but none managed to consolidate their power properly, and all were prone to infighting, as was the Empire itself. Meanwhile, from the 14th century on, the religiously-coloured wars with France made life more and more difficult for the HRE's lesser principalities. The southwestern statelets eventually formed the League of Stuttgart to counter the French; the House of Leiningen emerged as the leader of the League, and has used its subsequent martial successes for political leverage. In the early 16th century, the Leiningens finally gained the throne; at first they didn't seem much more tenacious than their predecessors, but they were able to use dynastic marriages and political manipulation to build up an impressive power base and keep everyone else either irrelevant or on their side. It took some doing and a serious civil war, but by the 17th century the Holy Roman Empire was hereditary, recentralised and ready to fight various Slavs, Italians, Hungarians and Egyptians in addition to their usual repertoire of Frenchmen and Danes (the latter having used the earlier turmoil to expand into northern Germany before getting thrown out of there in the 16th century). The rest you probably already know.
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How powerful are the African states there? [Africa]
Where is "there"? The ones that are no longer independent aren't very powerful. Most African states are fairly primitive, except for the ones I have described previously - Mali and Ethiopia are comparatively advanced and modernizing.
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Why is Anatolia balkanized - are those Turk tribes, or Greeks, or Crusader states...? [Anatolia, back story]
The western state is the Despotate of Ionia (Greek). Around Ankara is the Kingdom of Angora (Turkish, but Christian and under strong Greek and Armenian influences). In the south is the Republic of Adana (theocratic Arabo-Turkic Muslim republic). Lastly, in the east we have the Armenian Empire.
This ethnic diversity already explains the balkanisation, in part. Basically the region had an even more chaotic history than in OTL. The Turkic invasion was much less organised, for one thing, and no equivalent of the Ottoman Empire ever arose. Other powers, including the Crusaders, the Venetians, the Hungarians and certain Slavic countries, had destabilised things further. Borders often got redrawn there; the latest major changes were the Serbian and Chernigovian conquests in the north.
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And what in heck happened to China? [China]
a) Long, drawn-out war with the Qing;
b) Endless and ruinous peasant uprisings and warlordism;
c) Rise of the Japanese Shogunate, with the Chinese eastern coast as one of the natural targets for a campaign of conquest;
d) Portuguese meddling and expansionism;
and
e) All-around bad luck.
All those factors had united in the 17th century to screw over China, and the Qing too had failed to fully conquer it due to complications of their own and an unexpected war with the Shogunate. Over the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries, China was carved up between Japan, Portugal and the Qing, and small warlord states and "dynasties" in the south. Later in the 19th century, however, a popular uprising led by a Ming pretender and the White Lotus movement had overthrown those warlords and pushed the Qing out of central China. The Xin Ming Dynasty is even now plotting to reunite China fully, combining populism with pragmatic modernization; while uprisings are organized in barbarian-occupied territories, a new, more modern army, trained by European "freelance" military advisors and paid for by the Flemings, is being prepared in the depths of China.
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Or even Turkish - it'd be nice if for once they didn’t leave their ancestral homeland. [Turks, back story]
I have to disappoint you here, though the main mass actually settled in Persia and the whereabouts in this world. There are some OTL "Turk" tribes in the Golden Horde, though.
Magyars were much like in OTL until the Mongols did not lay waste to Hungary, because they failed to come that far (Galicia and Wallachia were as far west as they got in this world). Then the Ottomans failed to show up, so Hungarian hegemony in the Balkans - interrupted only by major insurgencies, an insanely brilliant Egyptian king and occasional coalitions of nearby powers with interests of their own in the Balkans - was pretty natural. [Magyars, Backstory]
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What are Sweden, Denmark, and Norway like in respect to each other, i.e. power, economy, populace, ethnicity - even a little bit of history? [Sweden, Denmark, Norway, back story]
Ethnicity is not much different from OTL and population is guessable; though there are some changes, of course, such as a greater ethnic Swedish presence in Finland (Swedes and half-Swedes are the majority by now), and the differences in Norway (it never was united with Denmark for any meaningful period of time, so it has retained its own culture and language in a more intact state; also Norway has a higher population - more land, less foreign restrictions, and of course refugees from the Fifty Years War that figured that it is better to risk a frostbite than a "God's purifying flame"). Denmark is somewhat poorer than in OTL, but is more militarized and has for the last few centuries been fighting irredentist wars with the Holy Roman Empire, not really very successfully. And Sweden is nice and quiet, with not much of a military tradition; it is increasingly pushed around by its more aggressive neighbors, and so increasingly leaning towards the Holy Roman Empire, being under strong German cultural influence and in dynastic ties with the Leiningens as of right now.
