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Description
This one is based (loosely) on Stephen Baxter’s “The Unblinking Eye”, in the recent “Other Earths” collection. I can say with some confidence that that was the biggest Inca-wank ever, only approached by Saberhagen’s “Mask of the Sun” (and they had the help of time travelers).

I tried a _slightly_ more realistic version here. The Incas, early in their history, developed somewhat better boat-building techniques than Kon-Tiki, and by the time Columbus arrived OTL were trading up the west coast as far as OTL San Francisco bay. Meanwhile, Europe saw an earlier consolidation of centralized monarchy, with consequently bad results for free cities, parliaments, etc. With the conquest of England by the Western Franks and the survival of the Muslims in Spain, western Europe remained concerned with struggles on land rather than the sea: there was no Henry the Navigator, no Columbus.

By the 1600’s, the Incas, accustomed to cold weather, searching for valuable furs, made the crossing to Siberia, and not long after contacted the Koreans and Japanese. These first contacts were tentative at best, given the tendency of the Inca crews to drop dead from plague before they ever got home, but eventually, although they failed to develop germ theory until much later, the Incas worked out protective methods by trial and error. The Japanese, Koreans, and later Chinese all found the Inca habit of refusing food or drink not found by themselves in the woods and fields, along with their tendency to avoid physical contact and wear masks and gloves at all times rather annoying, but what can you expect from a bunch of overseas foreign devils. Besides, Asians liked the furs, the feathers, the silver, gold, and let’s not mention coca leaves. The Incas, on the other hand, disliked dealing with the “lands of plague-demons”, but they were very interested in things like iron-forging, gunpowder, and compass needles…

Europe, on the other hand, stalled politically at about the Renaissance absolute monarchy level. The religious wars of the 1600’s and 1700’s further turned Europe inward, although the abominable heresy of *Protestantism was finally wiped out in the end. Not until the early 1800’s (after a rather nasty naval war and a serious consideration on the part of the Emir of Granada as to whether he’d rather make peace with the Christians or become a vassal of the Grand Turk) did European ships begin cautiously crawling down the coasts of west Africa.

Meanwhile, the Incas, now adding some Chinese ship-building tricks and compass needles to their own, were exploring the pacific. The relatively small populations of the Pacific isles did not support any major pandemic diseases, and the Inca empire soon expanded its rule over scattered isles from Hawaii to the coasts of Australia. (Impressed at their skills with crude tools, the Incas shipped a large number of Easter Islanders back to Peru to learn Inca stone-shaping skills: which were advancing substantially since the importation of iron). Meanwhile, the Incas kicked apart the already decaying Aztec empire, and tried to add Mexico to their empire: but although the Incas now had steel, they were still mastering guns, and lacked the germs. The climate was uncomfortable to the highlanders, and the hard-assed Tarascans managed to become the leaders of a resistance movement which eventually succeeded in throwing the Inca out of most of Mexico while they were distracted by a succession struggle at home. The Tarascans made themselves masters of the area and have remained an annoyance to the Incas ever since, although the Inca mastery of the seas has never been seriously challenged.

Spurred by this loss, the Incas moved deeper into south America, vassalizing some areas, directly incorporating others, and stimulating some state-building by example other where. Inca traveled up the east coast and established trading posts as far north as New England. The more fertile parts of the Australian coasts were conquered and settled with the desert-habituated lowland subjects of the High Inca. And Inca traders, always careful to not breathe the same air or eat the same food as the demon-infested locals, ranged further and further west, until, in the 1920’s, they reached India - and met Europeans for the first time.

By the 1920’s, Europeans knew _something_ lay to the west - ships going around Africa and blown off course had returned to tell of a forested land inhabited by strange “red men” with iron-tipped spears and arrows (trade goods from the Inca lands far to the west), and rumors of other, northern lands had leaked out from the secretive Basque fishermen. But there did not seem to be much in the way of treasure or trade in the “western isles”, and the few abducted natives that made it back tended to die of disease a lot faster than regular African slaves. (Not that, without any “sugar isles” save the Canaries, crowded Europe imported many slaves anyway). [1] In any event, there were far more possibilities in Asia, where Europe’s first steam-propelled gunboats, crude and explosion-prone as they were, had made quite an impression - earlier attempts at expanding beyond coastal footholds had not gone well, (European military _technique_ wasn’t much more in advance than that of the troops of Felipe Segundo, if their equipment was somewhat better) but now there was talk of conquering Asia, or at least Indonesia and it’s pesky Japanese “irate kingdoms.” The Incas, in their strange-red sailed ships, with their ornate masks and gloves, and their alien goods (and Gods), were a surprise, and a challenge.

It took a while to sink in - not a few isles, but two whole _continents_, and rich kingdoms of silver and gold in the west - kingdoms whose inhabitants died like flies from commonplace diseases - but after it did….

It is now 1966. The Europeans have lodged themselves to begin with on the East coast of south America, the combined fleets of the Inca and the Holy Serpent-King of Mexico having reluctantly joined forces to keep the Europeans away from the Caribbean and the southern tip of the Americas. Already, plague and fleeing populations have led to the collapse of organized tribal states in much of eastern OTL Brazil. The Incas battle European ships in the Indian ocean to remain in contact with their Eurasian ally, the Turkish (not Ottoman) empire, which has managed to duplicate the secrets of the European steam-powered machinery which the Incas hope to master for themselves. The Inca have better organization, better government, better navigators, better math, more efficient tax collectors, and bathe more often: the Europeans have steam power, although they still haven’t built a steam warship which will cross the Atlantic save on the deck of a great (sail-propelled) galleon. And they have a shitload of germs.

As yet mostly uninvolved in this struggle are the Chinese, who have relocated their empire southward after civil war and mass starvation and plague (the potato hadn’t come along in time to stave off Malthusian collapse) had depopulated the north, which had then been invaded by the Russians. They currently have waaay too much on their plates, as do the Koreans: with aid of Chinese refugees, the present dynasty has made itself master of Manchuria, only to almost immediately see Russian armies on his border. The only reason the Russians have so far failed to push the Koreans around is that the furthest rail line in Russia does not extend east of the Urals, and transportation is difficult.

The Russians, too, are staying out. They have found that even a depopulated Yellow River plain has too many Chinese to easily handle, especially given the problems of bringing in fresh troops and military supplies across Mongolia or Sianking: the so-called “loyal feudatories” are tolerated by both sides as a useful buffer zone. They also don’t want to get into a fight with the Germans or the Danes: the alliance between the German Polytheist Dogs and the Turkish Jesus-denying Pigs is a fairly informal one, but it’s quite real when it comes to keeping the Russians out of Eastern Europe. (And it’s useful to have if the Franks decide to do any back stabbity-stabbity of their own).

As for the Sultan of Bengal, although he’s been getting increasingly worried about European influence in India, the Turks have been rather niggardly in giving steam technology to the other “eye of Islam.” He’ll move to crush the European outposts in the Indian ocean if they seem to be in trouble in the Americas, but otherwise he’s standing pat - as is the Shogun of Japan, which although his ancestors went to the trouble of looking for some “fur lands” of their own, is not very interested in overseas affairs. His Japan has never “given up the gun”, and has the planet’s third largest gunpowder army and plenty of local diseases of their own. Let gaijin invaders beware.

The War of The Worlds begins.

[1] In this world, the Kongo kingdom was not devastated by slave-raiding, and the conversion of it’s kings to Christianity and adoption of the crusader ethos - plus a steady flow of European weapons - have led to a massive expansion in the century before 1966, although their control over their eastern territories is patchy at best - and they’re now running into Muslims moving west.

Description
This one is based (loosely) on Stephen Baxter’s “The Unblinking Eye”, in the recent “Other Earths” collection. I can say with some confidence that that was the biggest Inca-wank ever, only approached by Saberhagen’s “Mask of the Sun” (and they had the help of time travelers).

I tried a _slightly_ more realistic version here. The Incas, early in their history, developed somewhat better boat-building techniques than Kon-Tiki, and by the time Columbus arrived OTL were trading up the west coast as far as OTL San Francisco bay. Meanwhile, Europe saw an earlier consolidation of centralized monarchy, with consequently bad results for free cities, parliaments, etc. With the conquest of England by the Western Franks and the survival of the Muslims in Spain, western Europe remained concerned with struggles on land rather than the sea: there was no Henry the Navigator, no Columbus.

By the 1600’s, the Incas, accustomed to cold weather, searching for valuable furs, made the crossing to Siberia, and not long after contacted the Koreans and Japanese. These first contacts were tentative at best, given the tendency of the Inca crews to drop dead from plague before they ever got home, but eventually, although they failed to develop germ theory until much later, the Incas worked out protective methods by trial and error. The Japanese, Koreans, and later Chinese all found the Inca habit of refusing food or drink not found by themselves in the woods and fields, along with their tendency to avoid physical contact and wear masks and gloves at all times rather annoying, but what can you expect from a bunch of overseas foreign devils. Besides, Asians liked the furs, the feathers, the silver, gold, and let’s not mention coca leaves. The Incas, on the other hand, disliked dealing with the “lands of plague-demons”, but they were very interested in things like iron-forging, gunpowder, and compass needles…

Europe, on the other hand, stalled politically at about the Renaissance absolute monarchy level. The religious wars of the 1600’s and 1700’s further turned Europe inward, although the abominable heresy of *Protestantism was finally wiped out in the end. Not until the early 1800’s (after a rather nasty naval war and a serious consideration on the part of the Emir of Granada as to whether he’d rather make peace with the Christians or become a vassal of the Grand Turk) did European ships begin cautiously crawling down the coasts of west Africa.

Meanwhile, the Incas, now adding some Chinese ship-building tricks and compass needles to their own, were exploring the pacific. The relatively small populations of the Pacific isles did not support any major pandemic diseases, and the Inca empire soon expanded its rule over scattered isles from Hawaii to the coasts of Australia. (Impressed at their skills with crude tools, the Incas shipped a large number of Easter Islanders back to Peru to learn Inca stone-shaping skills: which were advancing substantially since the importation of iron). Meanwhile, the Incas kicked apart the already decaying Aztec empire, and tried to add Mexico to their empire: but although the Incas now had steel, they were still mastering guns, and lacked the germs. The climate was uncomfortable to the highlanders, and the hard-assed Tarascans managed to become the leaders of a resistance movement which eventually succeeded in throwing the Inca out of most of Mexico while they were distracted by a succession struggle at home. The Tarascans made themselves masters of the area and have remained an annoyance to the Incas ever since, although the Inca mastery of the seas has never been seriously challenged.

Spurred by this loss, the Incas moved deeper into south America, vassalizing some areas, directly incorporating others, and stimulating some state-building by example other where. Inca traveled up the east coast and established trading posts as far north as New England. The more fertile parts of the Australian coasts were conquered and settled with the desert-habituated lowland subjects of the High Inca. And Inca traders, always careful to not breathe the same air or eat the same food as the demon-infested locals, ranged further and further west, until, in the 1920’s, they reached India - and met Europeans for the first time.

By the 1920’s, Europeans knew _something_ lay to the west - ships going around Africa and blown off course had returned to tell of a forested land inhabited by strange “red men” with iron-tipped spears and arrows (trade goods from the Inca lands far to the west), and rumors of other, northern lands had leaked out from the secretive Basque fishermen. But there did not seem to be much in the way of treasure or trade in the “western isles”, and the few abducted natives that made it back tended to die of disease a lot faster than regular African slaves. (Not that, without any “sugar isles” save the Canaries, crowded Europe imported many slaves anyway). [1] In any event, there were far more possibilities in Asia, where Europe’s first steam-propelled gunboats, crude and explosion-prone as they were, had made quite an impression - earlier attempts at expanding beyond coastal footholds had not gone well, (European military _technique_ wasn’t much more in advance than that of the troops of Felipe Segundo, if their equipment was somewhat better) but now there was talk of conquering Asia, or at least Indonesia and it’s pesky Japanese “irate kingdoms.” The Incas, in their strange-red sailed ships, with their ornate masks and gloves, and their alien goods (and Gods), were a surprise, and a challenge.

It took a while to sink in - not a few isles, but two whole _continents_, and rich kingdoms of silver and gold in the west - kingdoms whose inhabitants died like flies from commonplace diseases - but after it did….

It is now 1966. The Europeans have lodged themselves to begin with on the East coast of south America, the combined fleets of the Inca and the Holy Serpent-King of Mexico having reluctantly joined forces to keep the Europeans away from the Caribbean and the southern tip of the Americas. Already, plague and fleeing populations have led to the collapse of organized tribal states in much of eastern OTL Brazil. The Incas battle European ships in the Indian ocean to remain in contact with their Eurasian ally, the Turkish (not Ottoman) empire, which has managed to duplicate the secrets of the European steam-powered machinery which the Incas hope to master for themselves. The Inca have better organization, better government, better navigators, better math, more efficient tax collectors, and bathe more often: the Europeans have steam power, although they still haven’t built a steam warship which will cross the Atlantic save on the deck of a great (sail-propelled) galleon. And they have a shitload of germs.

As yet mostly uninvolved in this struggle are the Chinese, who have relocated their empire southward after civil war and mass starvation and plague (the potato hadn’t come along in time to stave off Malthusian collapse) had depopulated the north, which had then been invaded by the Russians. They currently have waaay too much on their plates, as do the Koreans: with aid of Chinese refugees, the present dynasty has made itself master of Manchuria, only to almost immediately see Russian armies on his border. The only reason the Russians have so far failed to push the Koreans around is that the furthest rail line in Russia does not extend east of the Urals, and transportation is difficult.

The Russians, too, are staying out. They have found that even a depopulated Yellow River plain has too many Chinese to easily handle, especially given the problems of bringing in fresh troops and military supplies across Mongolia or Sianking: the so-called “loyal feudatories” are tolerated by both sides as a useful buffer zone. They also don’t want to get into a fight with the Germans or the Danes: the alliance between the German Polytheist Dogs and the Turkish Jesus-denying Pigs is a fairly informal one, but it’s quite real when it comes to keeping the Russians out of Eastern Europe. (And it’s useful to have if the Franks decide to do any back stabbity-stabbity of their own).

As for the Sultan of Bengal, although he’s been getting increasingly worried about European influence in India, the Turks have been rather niggardly in giving steam technology to the other “eye of Islam.” He’ll move to crush the European outposts in the Indian ocean if they seem to be in trouble in the Americas, but otherwise he’s standing pat - as is the Shogun of Japan, which although his ancestors went to the trouble of looking for some “fur lands” of their own, is not very interested in overseas affairs. His Japan has never “given up the gun”, and has the planet’s third largest gunpowder army and plenty of local diseases of their own. Let gaijin invaders beware.

The War of The Worlds begins.

[1] In this world, the Kongo kingdom was not devastated by slave-raiding, and the conversion of it’s kings to Christianity and adoption of the crusader ethos - plus a steady flow of European weapons - have led to a massive expansion in the century before 1966, although their control over their eastern territories is patchy at best - and they’re now running into Muslims moving west.