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QuantumBranching — Darkest Europe

#alternate #history #islam #map #turtledove
Published: 2019-08-25 06:07:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 20058; Favourites: 118; Downloads: 80
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Description I dunno: too many similarities to the "Gate of Worlds" map?

A map for Harry Turtledove's Through Darkest Europe, a role-reversal world where the Islamic world is the first world and the Christian countries are the backwards third world states with religious terrorism issues. Basically it diverges from the 1100s on, with a more science-friendly intellectual tradition and eventually a scientific revolution arising in the Muslim world, while Christian theologians, notably Thomas Aquinas, coming down firmly on the side of investigation of the natural world being a dangerous distraction from concentrating on the next world. Turtledove apparently imagines the New World as mostly Islamicized native American states and no Christians, but the advantages in length of Atlantic coastline, importance of north European sea-going trade, and abundance of wood and other supplies aren't just going to go away because Europe misses out on the scientific revolution, and it takes a while for a scientific revolution to translate into actual industrial and organizational advantages, so I'm giving Europeans some American turf. (There have been other European colonial efforts, but failed ones.) My "Maghrebi colonization of the new world" is to some extent inspired by that of greater *Morocco in Sregan's Cradle World scenario.

Europe is overpopulated, struggling to modernize, and plagued with religious unrest as extreme factions in the Church (the Catholic Church is still united. Barely - those weirdos in the *Amazon haven't been answering the Pope's calls in a while) react violently against rulers too friendly to Muslims or too eager to promote "scientific" thinking ("practical engineering" is OK, but distinguishing them is a matter of angels and pinheads). Divine right monarchy is the predominant mode of government, but in some places strongmen with no real dynastic claims have taken over from weak princes and monarchs. The Grand Duke of Italy is a man of that ilk (if still grooming their own son to take over) and is struggling to make Italy a modern, genuinely united nation. It's not going well, and terrorists are coming out of the woodwork. (Britain, with a long-ruling royal house with some decent propaganda, and a historical dislike of priests, is doing better, thanks in part to North Sea oil - something they have already fought one war with the Danes in determining boundaries). There's less in the way of violent outside interventions, at least: Europe lacks OTL middle East's deep pools of oil, and with it's long tradition of a military class and locally sourced soldiers rather than slave armies, Europeans aren't half bad at the war thing, when they can afford modern hardware, at least.

Outside Europe, the world is a bit more peaceful than OTL: there haven't been any world wars, with the best known "big war" of the last century being the Sultanate of Delhi trying to conquer the whole subcontinent and all the minor neighboring states, under the rule of a Wazir/Prime minister turned dictator and sidelining the Sultan, a la Mussolini, but murdering millions of Tamils for the sin of being Hindu Dravidians, a la Hitler (Turtledove likes his parallels: the dictator even started as a chicken farmer, a la Himmler). It's a generally richer world:Christian Europe and the Christian parts of the Americas (The Sunset Lands) are generally poorer or a lot poorer than the OTL areas, but the Muslim parts of what is OTL Latin America are in most cases richer, in some much richer than OTL: the middle east is first-world, Africa and India vary from richer to much richer, China is somewhat if not spectacularly richer, and Indonesia and the Philippines are quite a lot richer. Technology is a bit behind OTL, mostly in the electronics field: the universal explosion of information and hand held data cornucopias have not yet arrived. 
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Comments: 15

grisador [2019-10-21 04:57:07 +0000 UTC]

Neat!

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ThePhantasim [2019-09-23 01:04:56 +0000 UTC]

oh i read this book

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paireon [2019-09-04 18:58:40 +0000 UTC]

Oh, and I was also wondering what's the deal with Austria since there's neither a footnote nor a color key entry.

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QuantumBranching In reply to paireon [2019-09-28 05:03:15 +0000 UTC]

Basically, I just ran out of space.

Like Belgium OTL, it's a frequently invaded border state, which gives the locals a slightly hysterical disposition...

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paireon [2019-09-04 18:36:00 +0000 UTC]

For the record, I think it's quite different from your "Gate of Worlds" map; the main commonality is "Islam Stronk!", but the rest is pretty different in the details IMO. Oh, and great work as always, but that's a given

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LordOguzHan [2019-08-29 09:42:43 +0000 UTC]

Nice Parallel Universe History

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Matt-Collins420 [2019-08-26 03:54:47 +0000 UTC]

So, is there a United Arab States that invaded a Christian version of Iraq?

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paireon In reply to Matt-Collins420 [2019-09-04 19:12:18 +0000 UTC]

Arab states aren't united at all here, so probably not.
Closest to Iraq seems to be Grand Duchy of Italy, methinks, but like Quantumbranching said, no oil and comparatively good fighting skills when properly equipped mean the Middle Eastern powers aren't really keen on "liberating" them or any other Christian country as long as they keep to themselves.

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rds98 [2019-08-25 22:42:28 +0000 UTC]

So what does "constitutional monarchy" mean in this world? Is it like a British monarchy (the Queen keeps her palace, but doesn't do much) or a Moroccan-style monarchy (the parliament is mostly advisory)?

Do non-Muslims within these nations enjoy constitutional rights as we know them, or would Armenians, Jews, and others still be subjected to restrictions?

Was Baghdad trashed by the Mongols? Because that was what really killed Islamic science and discovery.  

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Indagare [2019-08-25 10:10:01 +0000 UTC]

I'm curious how the Americas became known to the folks on the other side. Also are they still called the Americas?

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paireon In reply to Indagare [2019-09-04 14:53:22 +0000 UTC]

Highly doubtful considering that Amerigo Vespucci was likely butterflied out of existence (a POD 300+ years before your birth tends to do that) and that besides Muslim Maghrebis were the firstest with the mostest rather than Christian South Europeans...

Talentis (IIRC an Arabic rendition of "Atlantis") is one name for Muslim-dominated Americas that I'm partial to (thanks, GURPS Alternate Earths!).

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Indagare In reply to paireon [2019-09-04 16:05:29 +0000 UTC]

That makes sense. I wonder how the Native Americans are faring under this.

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paireon In reply to Indagare [2019-09-04 19:37:13 +0000 UTC]

On the whole I'd say quite better than OTL given the number of native-dominant states and the footnotes. They likely still got hit hard by plagues, but not as much by conquistadores, manifest destiny-spouting grabby trigger-happy settlers, slavery and racism (as long as they converted to Islam), which gave some places the chance to bouce back to some degree.

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Indagare In reply to paireon [2019-09-05 15:23:06 +0000 UTC]

Would they need to convert here? If Islam has a scientific enlightenment then it seems likely they'd be secular rather than religious. There'd probably be some zealots demanding conversion or condemning the "degradation of society" or whatever (there always are), but it seems unlikely the Islamic states here would have such religious rules for laws.

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paireon In reply to Indagare [2019-09-09 17:27:56 +0000 UTC]

The original OTL scientific enlightenment in Christian Europe was the Renaissance, which started in the 1450's. Didn't stop forced conversions, religious wars, heretic hunts (which killed much more people than witch hunts, and were considered quite different - folks often conflate the two) and assorted religion-related bullshit from happening for a few centuries thereafter. And manifest destiny was a Big Thing in American (eg. US) thought in the 19th century, with at least some of its justification being that Divine Providence had ordained the American people to extend as far and wide as they could, at the expense of anyone else in their way (mostly natives). I doubt Muslims in general, even in an alternate universe where scientific (and possibly philosophical) enlightenment happened to them rather than Christian Europeans, are so superior as to avoid all the human failings of other groups.

Also, let's not forget that 1.- law in Islamic regions traditionally derive from interpretation of the Quran, rather than a secular source; while laws in Europe were usually derived from ancient tribal customs and/or Roman law, both of which became secularized when Christianity became dominant; and 2.- somewhat related to the first point, converting to Islam actually usually gave you a vast array of legal privileges and protections, much more than conversion to Christianity, so that would be a pretty big incentive for native polities to convert.

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