Chapter 6
As Insects Before Gods
Goals for This Round:
* A peaceful cultural victory. Totally, all day, no really.
The God-King--and, now, the God-Prime Minister--had seen the inhabitants of the other continent, and what he saw was not altogether impressive. While the Egyptians and her vassals enjoyed untold riches and the wisdom of their faiths, the Greeks, Romans, and Chinese were--by and large--without regard for the infinite. The opening of trade lanes by sea had brought some of the faithful to this new land, but for the most part, the continent was full of heathens, barbaric pagans who worshiped rivers and trees instead of the intellect that moved the universe.
This would have to change. If Pacal with his intellectual castes and Churchill with his bullish determination could be subjugated, then so too could the barbarian Alexander. His hordes were massive--Ramesses's intelligence knew that much--but the forces sent to protect his coasts were... lacking.
And why would they not be? The threats to Greek life lay in the south with Caesar and the west with China. Armies simply did not emerge from the sea. A naval capable of ferrying a force for war across the ocean would be massive and impractical.
But in Thebes, the wheels of government turned onward.
With untold wealth at his disposal, Ramesses announced a program to offer just a small portion of his fortune to the shipwrights of Elephantine and the young military recruits across the empire. The promise of gold brought the finest engineers to Ramesses's cities, and the Egyptian navy was assembled in record time.
St. Patrick of Kyoto, seeing the generosity of the king, opted not to join his fellows in Tokyo and, instead, saw fit to encourage Egyptians throughout the empire to join the war effort.
The Golden Age of Shipbuilding led to a production spike throughout the empire. Cash continued to flow into Ramesses's pockets as research slowed to a crawl. Production increased twofold in the workshops across the land. And Mencius--a Muslim cleric of Heliopolis--commemorated the age by establishing a shrine in the City of the Sun.
(The game was basically won, so I set about shrining the last two religions. Settling prophets would've been more profitable, but I was pretty sure I couldn't lose at this point.)
Suddenly, in the midst of the Golden Age, Ramesses showed his hand.
The vast stores of gold distributed across the empire were immediately seized by agents of the palace as all property was declared property of the pharaoh himself. Outraged citizens took to the streets in riots, but the slave castes were easily subdued by the rifle-toting guards who patrolled the streets of every city. All materiel, meanwhile, was shipped west, where the fruits of Ramesses's people's labors crested the waves at Argos.
Alexander's conversion to Judaism had, of course, been a ruse--an attempt to wrest control of the Apostolic Palace from Ramesses. There were no delusions between the two leaders regarding what was at hand. Alexander, seeing the tall masts of the Egyptian ships cresting over the horizon at Argos, took to his horse immediately. Outwardly, he was pleased--war was as familiar to the Greek king as water to fish--but inwardly, he was fearful.
The frigates of Heliopolis and Pi-Ramesses did their work, and in no time at all, a beachhead was established at Argos and reinforced by rifles.
The Greek capital at Athens and the northern village of Pharsalos would fall in a few short years.
Alexander's military forces, however, seemed lacking. For a man renowned far and wide as a brilliant general, he offered only a token attempt to retake his own capital.
This distribution of his forces allowed the Egyptians to seize complete control of the Greek coast.
And all the while, new horsemen and riflemen continued to pour across the seas into the war zone.
(I sort of liked this picture of the supply lines in action. Troops gathered in Elephantine to be shipped to the front, while Galleons went back and forth. As usual, I built too many Galleons and not enough Frigates. Not that it mattered at this point.)
Finally, from the west, the feared Greek military that had mowed down Julius Caesar like wheat showed itself south of Athens.
The force of mounted knights and horse archers had, in centuries past, made Alexander the scourge of the continent, and in their shear numbers, they remained a fearsome force. But Ramesses's cavalry knew no fear. Stoically, even the wounded rode on Alexander's forces, and the fierce Greek force was whittled down to scraps.
Seeing the very units that had long ago smashed him reduced to nothing, Julius Caesar found the courage to declare his independence from his Greek overlord. His emissaries traveled to Elephantine on an Egyptian vessel, where they met with Ramesses himself to negotiate a cessation of aggression.
The prowling frigates blockading Caesar's ports instead continued to patrol the coasts, remaining mindful of barbarian galleys. At least, that's what they said.
Ramesses continued to harass his lessers via the powers of the Apostolic Palace.
(Sorry, Pacal. You work for ME, buddy.)
With a few final, quick strikes against the fortress-city of Knossos and the new Greek capital at Ephesus, Ramesses traveled to Greece himself. He found Alexander himself staggering drunk in the new city, a bottle of ouzo clutched in his hand. Seeing Ramesses and his retinue in his city, Alexander fell to one knee. Maybe it was the wine. In any case, Alexander woke up the next morning with a massive headache and found himself subject to the will of the Egyptian Empire.
Suddenly, the frigates biding their time off the Roman coast began to move inland. Fast-striking cavalry on a nearby ship put the coastal village of Satricum to the torch, while Ramesses's army proper settled in near Setia.
The Roman army charged up the hill, and wave after wave of knights and members of the Praetorian Guard threw themselves at Ramesses's forces.
Needless to say, it was no use.
And Setia was allowed to stand.
Finally, as St. Thomas Aquinas completed a Hindu shrine in Giza, the Egyptian army swept westward for one last military operation.
Much as Caesar had done years earlier, Mao threw his entire military at the Egyptian invaders. Much as Caesar had done years earlier, Mao saw his entire military get run down by the well-trained cavalry gunners.
And, much as Caesar had done years earlier, Mao gave up without a fight, surrendering before the cavalry could march on Chengdu.
And, in 1720 AD, one final Egyptian galleon arrived from the other continent, carrying in the brig three prisoners.
Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Mao Zedong were brought before tribunals at the Apostolic Palace and hanged as heretics. The Egyptian cavalry set to work traveling from city to city on the distant continent, putting any works commemorating these former kings to the torch. Museums were razed, statues were torn down, and monuments were reduced to rubble. In five short years, it was as if Mao, Alexander, and Caesar had never existed.
The theocratic Egyptian state still rules the world to this day, though Ramesses has--in these times of peace--mellowed somewhat. While slavery remains the norm throughout all states of the empire, the people by and large put their efforts toward works of art and beauty rather than weapons of war. Much remained unchanged for the slave-states of the Maya and the English; Churchill was granted a role as the general for Ramesses's army, while Pacal serves as chief adviser.
Ramesses, however, remains ambitious. Today, he has turned his hungry eyes from the distant continent to the sky. Perhaps someday, he could parlay his knowledge toward a new end, building a chariot that could ferry him across the stars themselves. But that is another story for another time.
(Final write-up and analysis to come later today.)
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