BT Update I - Years 2000-1000 BC
New World:
Though the yet-unnamed supercontinent has only been colonised by humans comparatively recently, it too has already begun to develop civilisation, and towards 1000 BC the first states begun to emerge.
In the central regions, the Olmec, Zapotec and Mayan civilisations developed, influencing each other considerably. The coastal Olmecs were perhaps the most sophisticated of those, early on, but the Zapotecs, in the Valley of Oaxaca, had eventually caught up and founded a unified state around the city of Danipaguache [1]. The late 12th century BC saw an early feat of conquest, as Danipahuachean forces took the Olmec settlements by surprise and captured them all in a quick though fierce war, enslaving or assimilating the survivors. The resulting empire wasnt very large in size, but the fertile grounds combined with the adaptation of the milpa agricultural system allowed it to become very populous and prosperous indeed, though not very organised politically.
As for the Mayans, their civilisation to the southeast only begun to develop, though it seems to hold considerable promise, as well as receive noticeable Olmec and Zapotec influences.
Meanwhile, in the Andes, several cultures arise as well; most of them, along the coast, are still fairly primitive and unorganised, but the lake-side Tiahuanaco culture has reached a superior level of development, with an early state arising around the city of the same name. It is ruled by a divine Sun-Emperor, and the religion is predictably enough based around the worship of a Sun-God. Its influence is gradually spreading in its vicinity, and the lesser settlements around the Lake Titicaca acknowledge the Sun-Emperors supreme authority, though factually it is largely nominal.
Mediterranean:
The arrival of the Bronze Age (and thus, increased demand for tin), combined with the rise of the Levantine coastal city-states, had resulted in the rise of great maritime trade routes, connecting the disparate lands around the Mediterranean first economically, but later culturally as well. The spread of technology was assisted, and the growth of wealth from trade allowed more complex societies to arise. However, it was the disruption of said trade routes that truly allowed Western Mediterranean civilisation to take off.
This disruption is hard to tie in to any particular point in time, or any outstanding cause. However, it was probably connected to the end of the Bronze Age, which not only decreased the significance of tin trade but also brought on a social collapse, as the power of the traditional chariotry was undermined and so rebels, mercenaries and barbarian invaders gained a decisive military edge, causing general chaos in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13th-12th centuries BC. The collapse of the trade routes then in turn destabilised the trading tribes of the western Mediterranean; furthermore, as either a cause or an effect, violent invasive migrations begun in the eastern Mediterranean. After the end of the initial rampage of those Sea Peoples (as related in the Fertile Crescent section), some of them settled down back in the east, while others migrated westwards, to Italy and the surrounding islands, causing further chaos.
Towards 1000 BC, however, both sides of the Mediterranean Sea had more or less recovered, and the trade routes revived - however, the balance was now noticeably tilted in favour of the flourishing new Western Mediterranean civilisations.
The first of those civilisations was perhaps the greatest, for that time anyway. It was Tartessos, in southern Iberia, based around the native city of the same name. It was founded at some point in late 13th or early 12th century BC, but was quick to seize dominance over the revived tin trade with the distant British Isles. Supported also by vast mineral resources and a sound agricultural policy, Tartessos managed to attain a great level of prosperity, and constructed a major merchant fleet which played a large part in the reestablishment of the Mediterranean trade routes, reaching all the way to Karung and the Levant in its journeys and establishing rudimentary diplomatic ties. Having unified the southernmost regions of Iberia, the Tartessians also began to establish colonies in Mauretania, Liguria and south Italia, and conquered the Balearic Islands. Tartessian expansion only stumbled in Sardinia, where a costly and fruitless war against the innumerous, but militant and highly-organised natives eventually led the Tartessians to withdraw and build an even stronger fleet, though no more attempts at conquest of Sardinia had been made thus far. Culturally, the Tartessians developed a fairly organised religion, the Cult of the Sacred Bull, and a phonetic language; both spread in Iberia and to a lesser extent in Mauretania and Liguria (the former, but not the latter, also reached Arecome). Thus far, Tartessos seems to be unchallengeable, but in time, this might change.
The aforementioned Sardinians were probably descendants of one of the likewise-aforementioned Sea Peoples which had settled down on the island of Sardinia. Not letting go of their violent past, the Sardinians fought brutal wars until a highly-stratified society emerged, cemented by a likewise well-organised religion known as Tigura. As time went on, the insularity of this civilisation allowed it to become increasingly eccentric in the eyes of others; most visibly, everybody in it had badges indicating their social status and age-specific masks. This peculiarity led the Tartessians to underestimate them and to attempt an invasion early in the 11th century BC; however, the Sardinians put up disproportionate resistance and came out victorious. This event has further increased their xenophobic sentiments, and also prompted Sardinia to develop a better fleet; also, the neighbouring island of Corsica was conquered.
South of Sardinia, there are increasingly-advanced Berber chiefdoms, and a few city-states formed under not inconsiderable Tartessian influence. And east of them there is a colony of Arecomicians.
Said Arecomicians are major trade partners of Tartessos, who dwell on the island of Aracome [2]. Its past is a fairly unusual one; much like the Sea Peoples of the east, a surprisingly southerly Celtic tribe under Suesus I in Liguria has been heavily involved in commerce and when it collapsed, was prompted to move south, in part also to escape the increasingly warlike Ligurians. Having survived the seaborne journey, they arrived on Arecome in the 12th century BC, and set about conquering it, eventually wiping out the Sea People of Siculi (who too attempted to conquer the island, even deigning to name it after themselves) and subjugating the assorted native tribes, including the Elymites. The Arecomicians have chosen well, for Aracome turned out to be in an excellent position to dominate Mediterranean trade after it revived again. Preserving their original dynasty and institutions of kingship, the Arecomicians nonetheless became more urban and trade-oriented, though a military aristocracy remained powerful and influential. Contact with Tartessos led to the spread of the Cult of the Sacred Bull, and the revival of an influential (and mostly feminine) priesthood. Later in the 11th century BC, as both population and trade grew, colonies in Berberia and Calabria were established and begun to grow; this might be the beginning of an Arecomician colonial empire.
To the north, Italia had received perhaps the greatest diversity of migrations, which eventually confined the native Italic peoples to limited parts of the eastern half of the peninsula, though even there many of them were eventually conquered and/or assimilated by the invaders. Tribes of various ethnicities arrived from the north; perhaps the weirdest and the most successful of them all was a very late 11th century BC horde of brutal horse-riding Greek warriors, the Athanoi. Nobody knows why the hell did they do that, but, at least according to their legends, they had traveled from Boeotia bringing death, destruction and worse of all brutal sincerity to everyone in their path, plowing through the Illyrian lands and finally all but massacring the already-diminished Veneti natives. At any rate, by 1000 BC there were considerable Athanoi military settlements along the Padus [3], from where individual and coordinated raids have been launched to terrorise the nascent Rasna civilisation. These settlements exist in a very loose tribal confederation.
The Rasna [4] have not been stopped by either their youth or the Athanoi raids. Having themselves migrated from the Eastern Mediterranean (at least, thats one of the theories), they then intermixed with the locals and superimposed their own highly unique culture on them. By 1000 BC they have established several fairly large and significant cities in their heartlands, and have begun to expand beyond those.
Several fiercely-independent native tribes separate the Rasna from another growing civilisation. The Athanoi were not the only Greeks to migrate into Italy; another group had escaped from the ruins of the Mycenaean civilisation in the early 12th century BC, led by a legendary figure named Pathagoras, who led his people across the Ionian Sea to the peninsula of Apulia. There, they built the city of Taras and established the mercantile Parthenian Republic, which expanded through a mix of diplomacy and assimilation, while also participating strongly in the reviving Mediterranean trade. Overseas colonies were established in Illyria and Cyrene, though it is yet unclear if any other regions could be seized from the growing competition.
Some insight on the causes of those Greek migrations might be gained from the knowledge that the Aegean region in general saw a lot of turmoil in the passing millennium. The Minoan civilisation, once predominant in Mediterranean commerce, was first disrupted by natural disasters such as the eruption of Thera, and then finished off by the Mycenaean Greeks in circa 1400 BC. The Mycenaean civilisation too then flourished, but eventually fell into decline and about two hundred years later came to a violent end, probably connected to the activities of the Sea Peoples, as well as to the spread of superior infantry weapons. At any rate, the great citadels declined, new peoples moved in and chaos reigned. Refugees from this Dark Age fled to Italy (the Athanoi and the Parthenians), as well as to Crete, Cyprus and the western Asia Minor, where local cities were seized and new colonies founded as well. Nonetheless, urban civilisation in Greece began to pick up again towards 1000 BC, around such centres as Athens, Eretria, Delphi, Calydon and Peristeria. These disparate city-states, as well as the ones on Crete and Cyprus, are but shadows of Mycenaes former glory, but Eretria in particular seems to have serious potential, having already become a significant trading and colonial power. In Asia Minor, Miletos (or Miletus) is rising, having secured some border territories. In the far northeast, the land of the Thracians, a semi-Hellenic, semi-barbaric state of Racadonia is rising, with a fairly strong military tradition and a strategically-positioned capital named Ranopolis.
Beyond those eastern Greek states and the ruins of the legendary Troy lie the lands of the assorted Anatolian peoples. Although the north saw many invasions from Europe and the Caucasus, in the end a large portion of the Black Sea coast was unified by a native kingdom, Paphlagonia, which built up an early cavalry force in the 11th century BC to finally defeat its enemies, achieving north Anatolian hegemony and subduing the Phrygians. They did not fight the neo-Hittite states of the south however, preferring to build a strong navy and to establish dominance in the Black Sea, with its own commercial opportunities. Trade with the Cimmerian people of the north proved profitable, and a trading colony was established in their lands. A few others followed.
The Hittite Empire of the 16th-13th centuries BC was a major power, controlling much of Anatolia, raiding deep into Mesopotamia and fighting in the Levant; for a brief while, they ruled all of the latter, including Canaan, under the great Mursili III. After Mursilis death in 1249 BC, however, the empire collapsed to Sea People and Phrygian attacks, revolts, dynastic wars and general overstretch. The northernmost lands fell to first the Phrygians and then the Paphlagonians; southern Anatolia was overran by the Luwians from the southwest; they were then Hattified and founded neo-Hittite states there. The Levant fell into chaos, and then once again became a battlefield of Middle Eastern empires and domestic kingdoms. But that is a different section.
Fertile Crescent:
The Fertile Crescent was the cradle of civilisation, and so it is only fitting that it saw the most chaos during this time period, as various empires rose and fell and barbarians rushed in from neighbouring regions. To give justice to all of the momentous events of the time would require way too much space, so only the general details will be given, with slightly more detail about the more recent events.
The ancient Egyptian civilisation had undergone many rises and falls; it had reached something of a peak in the 19th century BC when it was a great trade power and expanded into Nubia and the Levant, but the 17th-16th centuries BC saw it subjugated by the Hyksos tribes. Though independence was recovered and a brief renaissance occurred in the 14th century BC, in the 13th the Egyptians were attacked by Hittites, Nubians, Libyans, assorted rebels, Sea Peoples and finally the Karung, a migratory people that followed a strong religion called Karrism and claimed descent from the Babylonian royal line. The Sea Peoples had decimated the Egyptian heartlands, and so the Karung were able to settle along the Nile and superimpose their own culture on the native Egyptians, carving out a nice empire of their own, bringing very strong Mesopotamian cultural elements to the Nile. After securing a good southern border with Nubia and partaking in public works, the Karung went off to wage wars over the Levant. In the 12th century BC they generally had great military successes, conquering the disorganised and squabbling Hebrew tribes in Canaan, vassalising the Phoenician trader cities and advancing far into Syria; however, the resurging Mitanni have landed a major defeat on the Karung at Hamath in northern Syria, taking over much of the region, and the ensuing campaigns have gained little for either side but greatly exhausted Karung resources; in the 11th century BC, some attempts at a revival were made, but a highly successful Hebrew rebellion under Yeshi ben-Obed and the newfound Kingdom of Israels victory at Gaza made the setback to Karung plans a fairly long-term one, if not permanent. In the Karung capital of Shadow, the High Priest of Yarra exercised his powers to remove the ruling king from power, passing power on to a distant relative who then proceeded to greatly rebuild the military. Revolts were defeated and control over Sinai was reestablished, though further advance into Israel has proved impossible for as long as the Israelites make no false steps and remain lucky.
Meanwhile to the south, the Kingdom of Nubia gained and secured its independence, as well as unity. As Red Sea trade picked up, Nubians founded port cities there, competing with the young kingdom of Israel commercially and colonially; both sides established colonies on both sides of the Red Sea. Thus far, however, the Israelites seem to be winning in this colonial race, with a valuable colony in Saba and a probable ally in the rising kingdom of Dmt near the Gate of Tears [5].
Back in the Levant, King Yeshi had established the Kingdom of Israel as a strong and vigorous state like no other local Levantine states, which were usually forced to pay tribute to one great external empire or the other. A capital was established at the burgeoning town of Jerusalem; a complex system of governance was also created, with a king advised by the Sanhedrin (a theocratic council) and a legislative assembly called the Knesset. In spite of some internal conflicts, a general golden age had set in soon enough. The Hebrew religion, Judaism, had developed to a new level with the construction of the Temple and the appearance of the rabbis, community-level spiritual leaders. Commerce flourished; colonies were established on Cyprus and in the Red Sea. Yeshis son, King Joab, was a great military leader; he kept the Karung forces at bay, built up a strong fleet and campaigned extensively to extend Israel northwards and eastwards, clashing with the Mitanni and vassalising the Phoenician city-states. After his 1012 BC death, however, many of his Syrian conquests were lost to the Mitanni, while the Phoenician city-states reasserted their factual independence. The Israelite golden age seems to be coming to an end.
The aforementioned Mitanni have faced many dire challenges since their kingdom first arose in the late 16th century BC, but in the end managed to ride them all out. At their low point, in the 14th century BC, they had lost their Syrian lands and become vassals of the Hittite Empire; however, the southerly focus of the Hittites and the weakness of nearby Assyria (locked as it was in vicious warfare against a reinvigorated Ur) allowed the Mitanni to recover under a new dynasty; King Darupatar I had conquered Assyria in 1260 BC and then terminated the already-nominal allegiance to the Hittites. The timing proved good; although the Mitanni were defeated by Mursili III the Great in their first attempt to reconquer Syria, his death and the general chaos allowed the Mitanni to spread into Syria once again. The end of the Bronze Age greatly hurt the maryannu elite, but in the end it adapted and improved, making some concessions to appease the non-Iranian commoners. The Mitanni remained quite embattled towards 1000 BC; the Levant became a battlefield with first the Karung and then the Israelites as foes, while northern Mesopotamia often came under attack from assorted Iranian and Caucasian tribes, as well as Ur, which ended up seizing the province for good. Furthermore, signs of further decay begun to appear by that point, as central authority begun to erode. The position the Mitanni Empire occupies is not a very strong one, and a two-front war might be enough to doom it for good.
Northeast of the Mitanni, a fairly peaceful and sophisticated Caucasian kingdom has arisen; it is called Arran by the Iranian peoples that surround it. Its control over large quantities of salt allowed it to become a noteworthy trade power and to expand in the surrounding regions.
Lastly, we must discuss Ur. Despite strong challenges to its very survival in the late 21st and early 20th centuries BC, it had managed to rally in the beginning of the new millennium thanks to the leadership of Uru (Warrior-King) Ninu-Sin; said Ninu-Sin rebuilt and strengthened the Urrian military, and launched fairly successful wars with Elam and the Amorite tribes. These wars continued for quite a while, and weakened Ur significantly; in the 18th century BC its empire in Mesopotamia all but disintegrated, with Babylon and Assyria both seeking to usurp its power. A new dynasty came to power later in that century; Uru Gir-ur, its greatest ruler, reconquered a Babylon weakened by internal strife and introduced a strong chariot arm to modernize the Urrian army; he also campaigned against Elam. His successors would finally (or so they thought) end the Ur-Elam struggle; in circa 1650 BC, Al-Untash-Napirisha and Susa, the two key Elamite cities, were sacked and the land was subjugated. A Sumerian renaissance quickly ensued, and there was much rejoicing. Still, the centuries after that saw a lot of warfare. Barbarian tribes kept arriving and while some were content (and allowed) to settle peacefully within the Urrian Empire, the others were very violent indeed, especially the Aramaeans, wars with whom had continued well into the next millennium. Assyria too was a persistent foe; and after its fall to the Mitanni, the Urrians continued to fight for their denied prize against both the Mitanni and other invaders. In the end, victory was achieved, but Ur gained no rest in the 11th century BC, as a new fearsome threat emerged in the east. The Sogdian hordes led by Eskander of Samarkand (more on whom is given in the next section) conquered most of Iran, assimilating or pushing forward the local tribes, and ended up threatening Mesopotamia as well. The Urrians, taken by surprise and losing some initial battles, nonetheless rallied to face this challenge and turned the tide with their massive professional army in the epic Battle of Nuzi in 1067 BC. Nonetheless, fighting raged on until Eskanders death in 1044 BC, and before it happened the Sogdians had conquered and secured Elam, though failing to advance into Mesopotamia itself. Soon after, a local Sogdian general was attracted by the surviving Elamite culture and was persuaded to lead an Elamite rebellion, recreating an Elamite kingdom. Though Ur was too exhausted by the war to take immediate action, it was clear that the Elamites would have to be dealt with once and for all. Meanwhile, the Aramaeans continue raiding from the deserts, the Mitanni still survive in the north and Sogdians might very well decide to have another go if another strong leader emerges. Sumerias survival is not yet assured.
I'm also not a big fan of C.S. Lewis or St. Augustine, but that is a bit irrelevant....
Some people really need to learn what patience means... It'll be here faster if you let him work in peace, seriously. 
