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Description
"That the Empire and the RSG took the measures they did when the League struck at the Wing is readily explicable if one studies the game theory adopted by leading strategic thinkers during the Crisis Decades. To do nothing and allow the Wing to retaliate risked escalating the conflict to include Izachitland. And it was well-known in the intelligence community (if later discovered to be false) that the Wing had targeted Mexican and RSG missile silos as part of their second-strike plan. Accordingly, both western powers reacted simultaneously to preserve their own first-strike capacity and launched their missiles, not at the League which had initiated the conflict, but against the Wing. China was deluged with atomic fire from no less than three Great Powers. League generals were molified by this seeming act of solidarity from the Westerlies, which ultimately delayed the Final War by 50 years. As unpleasant as the notion is to countenance, the actions of Montecatl and Aldergar - the sacrifice of a hundred million Chinese and the countless millions to follow in the League's brutal domination of Eurasia - bought time sufficient for the technologies to be invented that would allow the retreat of the human race - true, thinking, compassionate humanity - from Anahuatl and, perhaps, the means for its return."
Arminius Hu, Chronicler, 3rd Colony, Ciatlalli B, 2986AUC (Ab Urbe Condita)

The Strong West Wind:

Probably my most ambitious project, with a P.O.D. of ~60AD (next to my sketchy Pyrrhus timeline Carry Me East, of course, with a P.O.D. of 279BC). The point of divergence is that Saul of Tarsus is not shipwrecked on Malta due to a steady west wind that month where IOTL the northeasterly Euroclydon/Gregale prevailed (of course, this also causes butterflies everywhere else due to the effect on trade). Paul has a favourable meeting with Nero and is acquitted before the end of 61AD.

Rather than returning to Asia Minor he presses on to establish a ministry in the Western Empire, with the result that the Celts are Christianised much earlier whilst Eastern Christianity slips back into crypto-Judaism and does not become the state religion of the Roman Empire (instead a syncretic form of Serapism gains favour). When the Roman army withdraws from Britain, the British governor invites Christian Irish mercenaries to settle rather than pagan Saxons. Britain is eventually dominated by Celtic rather than Germanic settlers (with the capital at Abona, OTL Bristol), known as Ibernae.

After the collapse of the Empire, Western Europe pulls itself together into a rather sullen, isolationist entity which acquires a reputation for being backwards and disease-ridden. The Geriatric Plague,* which kills everyone under about 60 and leaves the rest standing, decimated their population in the 13th and 14th centuries whilst mostly sparing the 'heathen' nations around it. This did little for their general temperament. With Western Europe retreating into itself except for occasional outbreaks of border raids (mostly driven by religious hysteria) exploration and trade generally fell to the Mediterranean kingdoms known as Navigator States.

The Serapist Pontifex issued a 'Declaration of Interests' that divided the world (much like OTL's Inter Caetera ) - the Indies were to be the exclusive preserve of the Hellenes, any islands and mainlands to the West were to belong to Claudmonte, the Neapolitans were to keep the peace in the Mediterranean and the Laconans were to keep the Eurasian trade routes clear. Contact with the Mexica was dutifully established by the Italians, who unlike the Spanish didn't have the manpower to even consider following up their initial military adventure with colonisation and instead decided to force the Emperor into ceding various ports and acknowledging the Claudmontese as their sole trading partners (the Caribbean proved an easier target, even if to this day they rule through various island chiefs, whose dynasties have been under house arrest for generations). These days the Mexica are realising they don't actually need a European protector any more now they have a modern army with bolt-action rifles and are flexing their muscle - they've booted the Italians out of the Yucatan where they used to hold a formal protectorate and are looking hungrily at their old vassals...

The Americas had actually been discovered by the Horder (*Norwegians) centuries previously during the great Celt-Nordic wars over fishing rights in the North Sea, but the few travellers who made it there found it difficult to settle until the 15th centurity - before that they tended to wend their way down the coast until they reached the vassals of the Mexica. An unknown *Pizarro type actually made his way down into South America and overthrew a pre-Inca Empire - his by this point unrecognisably European descendents still rule the Empire of the Four Winds.

No Dark Age and a more enlightened *Mongol analogue in the form of the Khitan means the trade routes to China stayed open and technology-sharing significantly accelerates development in both hemispheres. Much like the Horder princes on the East Coast China has nominal dependencies in what they call Fusang (and kept in continuous contact with them, unlike the Occidens princedoms which faded in and out of contact over the last few hundred years depending on tidal conditions) and is modernising quickly and efficiently under the Wing dynasty, kicking out the Greeks and extending their tendrils into South East Asia.

In this world the Visigoths went East instead and eventually made the crossing into Asia Minor where they set themselves up as a ruling class. The Gutan Union was the world's bogeyman for a few hundred years until they liberalised and it became clear the Zoroastrian goliath was primarily concerned with scrapping with the Bolgars over Guttaland**.

The HRE-esque chaos along the Amazon river basin is the Romantic Empires - private colonies took off much faster IOTL (they're technically squatting on an area claimed by both the old Teutisch Imperium and the Claudemontese as part of the Declaration of Interests, but as the former no longer exists and the latter claims are largely considered irrelevant, the future of the various commercial and aristocratic mini-empires is relatively secure). Further south the Holsung Funfstadten (something like '*Bolivarian Five Cities Alliance') and the Respublices Sud-Gronland broke away from the European Teutons when the Imperium went belly-up. The RSG was the world's first truly industrialised power and is the naval hegemon (and having their own problems on the Barbary coast).

The Varjagliga in Northern Europe (roughly 'Trading League') is probably the best place to live, even if the Denes have recently gotten some weird ideas about communal property and declared themselves the Eutope Denevelk and no-one likes the idea of the Ludes (alt-Finns) integrating further with the Scandinavian states given that their idea of a good time is parading still-living prisoners of war through the streets on the top of pikes - still, they keep the West safe from the Ros Kezar of Kezars and their Skedi me-toos, so they can't be all bad, right?

The Second Hellenic Empire is looking as forlorn as the Claudemontese - they've been thrown out of India proper by the Hindush Vjarat and their little friends, Wing China is No Longer Putting Up with them and Greek South Africa is their most significant remaining possession. The Declaration of Interests isn't even deterring the Italians these days, who are muscling in on Madagascar - due to the vanilla craze in Europe probably the most valuable island in the world. It can only be a matter of time before the Egyptians or even the Gutan think about taking over the Canal, and the Free City of Alexandria is getting nervous about its protector's decline.

The Irish League is still generally considered a third-rate power, which is the mistake of the millenium, as since ditching the High King and instituting a military republic (think modern Turkey with dominionist Christianity rather than Islam) they've been industrialising at a frightening rate and their population is starting to get unmanageably huge. Unlike OTL they've actually dredged the fens rather than draining them and constructed a system of dykes to get rid of the saltwater lakes. Not shown - claim lines on the whole bloody world.

UPDATE: AlternateHistory.com regular B_Munro, better known over here as QuantumBranching , did a very flattering cover of the map, presenting a toned-down version of the aftermath of the First European War. He doesn't seem to have posted it here so click here to see it on AltHist.com!

* Something like airborne HIV coinciding with an outbreak of pulmonary tuberculosis.
** The Crimea - which has acquired cultural and religious significance for the Gutan as the point where they crossed over from mainland Europe and where they historically left a lot of their families, though these days they're running about 90% Bolgar (if also 90% Zoroastrian rather than pseudo-Jewish - these days they're a Mandomate under Gutan protection).

Description
"That the Empire and the RSG took the measures they did when the League struck at the Wing is readily explicable if one studies the game theory adopted by leading strategic thinkers during the Crisis Decades. To do nothing and allow the Wing to retaliate risked escalating the conflict to include Izachitland. And it was well-known in the intelligence community (if later discovered to be false) that the Wing had targeted Mexican and RSG missile silos as part of their second-strike plan. Accordingly, both western powers reacted simultaneously to preserve their own first-strike capacity and launched their missiles, not at the League which had initiated the conflict, but against the Wing. China was deluged with atomic fire from no less than three Great Powers. League generals were molified by this seeming act of solidarity from the Westerlies, which ultimately delayed the Final War by 50 years. As unpleasant as the notion is to countenance, the actions of Montecatl and Aldergar - the sacrifice of a hundred million Chinese and the countless millions to follow in the League's brutal domination of Eurasia - bought time sufficient for the technologies to be invented that would allow the retreat of the human race - true, thinking, compassionate humanity - from Anahuatl and, perhaps, the means for its return."
Arminius Hu, Chronicler, 3rd Colony, Ciatlalli B, 2986AUC (Ab Urbe Condita)

The Strong West Wind:

Probably my most ambitious project, with a P.O.D. of ~60AD (next to my sketchy Pyrrhus timeline Carry Me East, of course, with a P.O.D. of 279BC). The point of divergence is that Saul of Tarsus is not shipwrecked on Malta due to a steady west wind that month where IOTL the northeasterly Euroclydon/Gregale prevailed (of course, this also causes butterflies everywhere else due to the effect on trade). Paul has a favourable meeting with Nero and is acquitted before the end of 61AD.

Rather than returning to Asia Minor he presses on to establish a ministry in the Western Empire, with the result that the Celts are Christianised much earlier whilst Eastern Christianity slips back into crypto-Judaism and does not become the state religion of the Roman Empire (instead a syncretic form of Serapism gains favour). When the Roman army withdraws from Britain, the British governor invites Christian Irish mercenaries to settle rather than pagan Saxons. Britain is eventually dominated by Celtic rather than Germanic settlers (with the capital at Abona, OTL Bristol), known as Ibernae.

After the collapse of the Empire, Western Europe pulls itself together into a rather sullen, isolationist entity which acquires a reputation for being backwards and disease-ridden. The Geriatric Plague,* which kills everyone under about 60 and leaves the rest standing, decimated their population in the 13th and 14th centuries whilst mostly sparing the 'heathen' nations around it. This did little for their general temperament. With Western Europe retreating into itself except for occasional outbreaks of border raids (mostly driven by religious hysteria) exploration and trade generally fell to the Mediterranean kingdoms known as Navigator States.

The Serapist Pontifex issued a 'Declaration of Interests' that divided the world (much like OTL's Inter Caetera ) - the Indies were to be the exclusive preserve of the Hellenes, any islands and mainlands to the West were to belong to Claudmonte, the Neapolitans were to keep the peace in the Mediterranean and the Laconans were to keep the Eurasian trade routes clear. Contact with the Mexica was dutifully established by the Italians, who unlike the Spanish didn't have the manpower to even consider following up their initial military adventure with colonisation and instead decided to force the Emperor into ceding various ports and acknowledging the Claudmontese as their sole trading partners (the Caribbean proved an easier target, even if to this day they rule through various island chiefs, whose dynasties have been under house arrest for generations). These days the Mexica are realising they don't actually need a European protector any more now they have a modern army with bolt-action rifles and are flexing their muscle - they've booted the Italians out of the Yucatan where they used to hold a formal protectorate and are looking hungrily at their old vassals...

The Americas had actually been discovered by the Horder (*Norwegians) centuries previously during the great Celt-Nordic wars over fishing rights in the North Sea, but the few travellers who made it there found it difficult to settle until the 15th centurity - before that they tended to wend their way down the coast until they reached the vassals of the Mexica. An unknown *Pizarro type actually made his way down into South America and overthrew a pre-Inca Empire - his by this point unrecognisably European descendents still rule the Empire of the Four Winds.

No Dark Age and a more enlightened *Mongol analogue in the form of the Khitan means the trade routes to China stayed open and technology-sharing significantly accelerates development in both hemispheres. Much like the Horder princes on the East Coast China has nominal dependencies in what they call Fusang (and kept in continuous contact with them, unlike the Occidens princedoms which faded in and out of contact over the last few hundred years depending on tidal conditions) and is modernising quickly and efficiently under the Wing dynasty, kicking out the Greeks and extending their tendrils into South East Asia.

In this world the Visigoths went East instead and eventually made the crossing into Asia Minor where they set themselves up as a ruling class. The Gutan Union was the world's bogeyman for a few hundred years until they liberalised and it became clear the Zoroastrian goliath was primarily concerned with scrapping with the Bolgars over Guttaland**.

The HRE-esque chaos along the Amazon river basin is the Romantic Empires - private colonies took off much faster IOTL (they're technically squatting on an area claimed by both the old Teutisch Imperium and the Claudemontese as part of the Declaration of Interests, but as the former no longer exists and the latter claims are largely considered irrelevant, the future of the various commercial and aristocratic mini-empires is relatively secure). Further south the Holsung Funfstadten (something like '*Bolivarian Five Cities Alliance') and the Respublices Sud-Gronland broke away from the European Teutons when the Imperium went belly-up. The RSG was the world's first truly industrialised power and is the naval hegemon (and having their own problems on the Barbary coast).

The Varjagliga in Northern Europe (roughly 'Trading League') is probably the best place to live, even if the Denes have recently gotten some weird ideas about communal property and declared themselves the Eutope Denevelk and no-one likes the idea of the Ludes (alt-Finns) integrating further with the Scandinavian states given that their idea of a good time is parading still-living prisoners of war through the streets on the top of pikes - still, they keep the West safe from the Ros Kezar of Kezars and their Skedi me-toos, so they can't be all bad, right?

The Second Hellenic Empire is looking as forlorn as the Claudemontese - they've been thrown out of India proper by the Hindush Vjarat and their little friends, Wing China is No Longer Putting Up with them and Greek South Africa is their most significant remaining possession. The Declaration of Interests isn't even deterring the Italians these days, who are muscling in on Madagascar - due to the vanilla craze in Europe probably the most valuable island in the world. It can only be a matter of time before the Egyptians or even the Gutan think about taking over the Canal, and the Free City of Alexandria is getting nervous about its protector's decline.

The Irish League is still generally considered a third-rate power, which is the mistake of the millenium, as since ditching the High King and instituting a military republic (think modern Turkey with dominionist Christianity rather than Islam) they've been industrialising at a frightening rate and their population is starting to get unmanageably huge. Unlike OTL they've actually dredged the fens rather than draining them and constructed a system of dykes to get rid of the saltwater lakes. Not shown - claim lines on the whole bloody world.

UPDATE: AlternateHistory.com regular B_Munro, better known over here as QuantumBranching , did a very flattering cover of the map, presenting a toned-down version of the aftermath of the First European War. He doesn't seem to have posted it here so click here to see it on AltHist.com!

* Something like airborne HIV coinciding with an outbreak of pulmonary tuberculosis.
** The Crimea - which has acquired cultural and religious significance for the Gutan as the point where they crossed over from mainland Europe and where they historically left a lot of their families, though these days they're running about 90% Bolgar (if also 90% Zoroastrian rather than pseudo-Jewish - these days they're a Mandomate under Gutan protection).