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Strange Europe

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This is the result of a *very* different collapse of the Roman Empire, hence the file name of Strange Europe. Most technology is more or less equivalent to the 1960s in OTL, though the year is equivalent to 1981. There are several Great Powers, all of which have stocks of WMDs of every type. Earth is in an uneasy state of peace, with the threat of nuclear war being too terrifying to contemplate. On one side is the Roman block, formed from Prydain, Gaul and the Eastern Roman Empire, which is mostly democratic, though hardly sunshine and butterflies. On the other is the more authoritarian Oriental block, formed from Great Gothland and Persia (though in practice, there’s little difference between them).

Europe is almost entirely Christian, as are the OTL Americas and much of Africa, though it is a little different. The Roman Church is more or less Catholicism, though decentralised following the third Roman Revolution and the flight of the Pope to Gaul and with a few other differences due to butterflies. The Eastern Church is divided between the Constantinopolitan and Gothic Rites, with the Oriental Rite in the Persian sphere of influence.

The Huns managed to get their act together with an alternate, slightly more pragmatic, *Attila, leading to their empire surviving his death. Stretching from northern Italy into the Balkans, they’ve assimilated successive waves of defeated invaders, as well as local tribes, though ethnic tensions are still present. Despite being about as shaky as Austria-Hungary, it has maintained stability and democracy (it is the most democratic member of the Goth-Persian block), though it is still heavily militarised (just in case). The Hunnic empire has a couple of colonies, one in Formosa (South America) and one in southern OTL Namibia, their economic value being of great help.

Two Romano-Celtic states managed to survive the collapse, centralising and become Great Powers. They are the two major members of the Roman block, along with the Byzantines.

The first, Prydain, united under a King Arthur/Alfred the Great analogue, defeating the Saeson (Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes) and Scandian (Viking) invaders and assimilating them. Saesneg (a Celto-Latinised Old English) has a similar relation to Prydainic as OTL Welsh is to English, now mostly confined to OTL East Anglia and Essex. Since then, they’ve colonised and/or conquered their way across Tortuga (North America) – mostly through snatching bits off Gaul – and taking parts of Formosa from Hispania, vassalising the Toltecs in the process, though the missionaries have laid the smackdown on the adherents of the local Blood Cult. Prydain Newydd is like a giant version of LTTW’s ENA, a union of confederations and big provinces firmly loyal to the Ymerawdwr (Emperor) in Llundain (London), though it is an independent part of the empire. Elsewhere, they’ve gained OTL southern Angola from a war with Hispania, and colonised and/or vassalised much of the Austronesian (Indonesia) islands, parts of India and Southeast Asia and northern Australia and the New Cambria islands (New Zealand).

The other, Gaul, is rather more latinised, and Gaulish is a Latin language, though closer to OTL Spanish and Italian than to OTL French. It managed to unite against and smash the Franks and Burgundians, absorbing them, and vassalising the remaining German border states- the Saxons, the Alemanni, the Bavarians, the Chatti (Hessians) and the Lombards. Much like the OTL relationship between Britain and France, Gaul is a major historic rival of Prydain, especially after loosing so much of its Tortugan empire, though they have now become fair-weather friends and allies against the Gothic-Persian block. It still holds Gallia Nova (OTL Argentina), much of Austronesia and chunks of Africa and India.

Hispania is a purely Latinised state, its former Celtic heritage all but gone. Though it held Mauritania and Chimuland (now the Chan-Chan Republic) for several centuries, both declared independence following a period of severe political instability in the Hispanic empire, with New Baetica (OTL New Granada) split between Prydain and Geyrmanska. Despite that, Hispania is still a Great Power, holding significant colonial holdings, though it only loosely controls New Lusitania (OTL Brazil) and New Tarracona (in southeastern Africa), which are effectively Dominions. Hispania maintains a cautious neutrality, though most of its politicians lean towards the Roman block.

Italy itself isn’t terribly nice. Caught between the pro-Gothic Huns in the north, the Roman Empire (part of the Roman block) and the Gaul-controlled islands of Corsica and Sardinia, it has been fought over endlessly. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, they have swung between being a democracy and a pariah state following several revolts. The third revolt resulted in the present *Communist state, and the flight of the Pope to Lugdunum (Lyon) in Gaul, though the Great Powers already had autocephalous churches in all but name anyway.

In Eastern Europe, the Roman Empire held on in Constantinople and the surrounding area, as well as in Carthage, though it lost Egypt, the Levant and much of Anatolia to a resurgent Persia. The Hrvat (OTL Croats) are a vassal, as is a state in OTL Moldavia, more on which later. It has worked hard to maintain a credible standing in the world, developing nuclear weapons after some “help” from Gaul, which is the reason Iran has become less inclined to invade it (yet again).

With most of the ethnic Germans (fine, fine, Susano, the West Germanic Peoples; please stop hitting me) either assimilated or vassalised by the Romano-Celts or the Huns, Geyrmanska is a Slavic state (Germania is from a Gaulish world referring to the region), centred around Branibor (historic name for OTL Brandenburg). Rather late into the colonial game, they snatched OTL Venezuela from Hispania during the aforementioned troubles during the 17th century, as well as gaining a part of the West Africa coast and northern OTL Namibia.

Eastern Europe is *very* different. The Goths managed to declare independence from the Huns and spread back into the Ukraine, later throughout the area of the OTL Kievan Rus, creating the Great Gothic Empire. Since then, Great Gothland is the biggest country on Earth, stretching deep into Tortuga, though the border with Prydain Newydd is demilitarised (yeah, right) by treaty, with thousands of miles of trenches, barbed wire and minefields outside this zone, with IRBMs parked at discrete distances and atomic bombers on constant high alert. Though it is the equivalent to OTL Tsarist Russia, it is more inclined to modernisation, though it is still heavily authoritarian, with crackdowns against native revolts being fairly common. Little Gothland is the biggest state in Scandinavia, created from the more successful Goths that remained, beating the Svear. However, a part of the south seceded, as did a part of southeastern Great Gothland, which subsequently became a Roman vassal.

The other Eastern German state of note is Vandalia, a *Communist state in OTL Poland. Previously a part of the Hunnic Empire and later a vassal of the Gothic Empire following a brief period of independence, they fell to revolution in the early 1900s. However, this branch of *Communism is opposed to the variety in Italy, so they do *not* get along; unlike the Bolshevik-style Roman People’s Republic, Vandalia is a Menshevik-style democratic socialist state. Stuck between two members of the Goth-Persian block and the pro-Roman Geyrmanska, Vandalia is stuck in a state of neutrality. The capital, Gensericborg, is used much like Istanbul was during the OTL Cold War, as a place for the two blocks to negotiate in a neutral state.

The rest of Scandinavia, including Jutland, Daneland (Denmark’s islands and Skandia), Gotarland (southern Sweden) and Norland (southern Norway) are all pro-Roman, despite Daneland and Gotarland both being Gothic Christian.

Elsewhere, Iran is now monophystite Christian and Ceasaro-Papist, much like the Roman Empire. However, Oriental Christianity has assimilated a significant amount of Zoroastrianism (now a minority) and Manichaeism (practically extinct now), becoming a bit more mystic than OTL. Despite being very Christian, it is still tolerant of Jews (of which there are lots within the Empire, many of which hold important positions). The Iranian Empire is a Great Power, having conquered or vassalised much of eastern Africa after pwning the Byzantines a few times. Four of the Eastern Patriarchies – Antioch (now in Damascus), Jerusalem, Babylon (actually in the capital of Ctesiphon) and Shiraz (founded in the late 7th century after Christianity became the state religion) – are within Persia itself, with Alexandria in its vassal of Egypt.

The southern state of Himyar is majority Jewish, though it is a fairly liberal branch, unlike the hardline bunch living in Great Gothland. The Jews within Persia itself are mostly tolerated, conservative but moderately so, fairly well Hellenised and *very* pro-Iranian (the Jews still remember Cyrus the Great), especially after the state-sponsored construction of the Third Temple and promises not to use it for Christian festivals without the unanimous agreement of all the three major Jewish bodies – the Councils of Rabbis and of the Levites and the Jewish religious court, the Sanhedrin.

There was no Scramble for Africa, so much of the interior isn’t controlled, though overlapping claims exist all over the place. Ghana and Abyssinia are the strongest independent states, which lead the pro-Neutrality block along with Pandya in India. Most of the African states are also members, as are the minor states in South and Southeast Asia.

In Asia, the Pandyas survived much longer, centralising and conquering most of its neighbours. However, Persia managed to vassalise the Cholas and Sarandib (OTL Sri Lanka). North India has been maintained in a series of minor states to ensure the balance of power between the Great Powers.

Without Islam, Christianity has taken its place in the northwest and Buddhism in the northeast (mostly within the Bod Empire). The Iranian vassals in Bactria, including the rump Greco-Indian kingdom of that name, were converted after the then Shah “encouraged” conversion of the local kings. Since then, Christianity has expanded into much of OTL Pakistan and OTL northwestern India, particularly the two Prydanic vassals and the colony in the Gujarat (though some tensions still exist between the Catholic overlords and the Oriental majority). Bihar is majority Buddhist, though emphatically *not* the Lamaist version (no matter what everyone else says), encouraged to stay that way by the Gauls, who “administer” most of the coast, much like how Britain did with Ottoman Cyprus IOTL.

Khmer managed to survive quite well until contact with the Europeans, holding everything south of China. However, they got owned badly by Gaul and Prydain, leading to Lao, Champa and Dailand (Thais, in northern OTL Thailand) seceding, and Prydain vassalising Pagan.

Chipan (Japan) is *very* pro-Roman block, especially with all those Goths so close to it. It is basically the Cuba of TTL, a joint Prydano-Gaulic protectorate, heavily subsidised (i.e. bribed) with investment, which is mostly spent on its anti-missile defences and its Roman block-trained armed forces.

The Bod Empire is a huge Tibet, which managed to hold onto Bengal and shave bits off of China. However, it is *not* a nice place at all. It is a pseudo-Fascist (Franco-style), seignorialist (the proper name for what is commonly called ‘feudalism’) Buddhist Theocracy, lead by the Dalai Lama (which still rules like a Pope), with the Panchen Lama as his deputy. Most of the population still live as serfs, with the monastic orders and the military keeping them in place; however, it employs agents to acquire technology for them, mostly purchasing surplus from Persia and Great Gothland, in order to maintain a credible threat to China. In many ways, it is TTL’s equivalent to Afghanistan, Ba’athist Iraq/Syria or (especially) North Korea, with many aspects common to all in that it employs both religious and nationalist propaganda, aligned with a Lamaist version of the cult of personality.

China itself is quite big (though not as much as OTL) and strong, though it hasn’t always been that way. Stagnant for much of its history, wars against Great Gothland (which vassalised Korea) and furious border clashes with the Bod Empire kept it cautious. The Xia dynasty overthrew the previous, increasingly inept Jiang dynasty in the mid-19th century in a bloody civil war. The following years saw a resurgence in culture, technology and the military; since then, China has become an industrial powerhouse, with its eyes gazing hungrily at Great Gothland and Tibet, looking for revenge, though, unlike OTL it has become a Confucian/Fascist state rather than a Communist one. There are even rumours that it is developing nuclear weapons, though it insists that enrichment is only for nuclear power only...
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a few questions: what happened to the poles? is vandalians decended from the vandals? what happened to the khazars and bulgars? what is the main event that made Rome collapse?