User talk:Red VS Blue

Messages from before 9 June 2014 can be found in the archive for this talk page.

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Superpowers
Wow, thanks. It may seem like a bit too much, but your TL was the first I ever saw on this wiki, and it's actually what made me want to join. This is, seriously, a massive honor.

Don't mind the squirrel thing, by the way, it's mostly a joke.

So, as I said, I love Superpowers, but I don't really hold it as a standard for plausibility for a few reasons.. Those six cover the whole TL- I just chose examples for the last three. (For those three, I was trying to showcase three general problems- Firstly, that your PODs don't really seem to cover the changes made, secondly, that the development from the PODs would be different from just OTL but earlier, and lastly that the cultural diffusion is all wrong.
 * 1) Possibly the most minor, but I feel that there are too many PODs. The First and Second- in 173 and 394- are understandable, since the "Butterfly Effect" would not effect them, but by 1185, the chances are the ripples would have reached the Mongols- probably speaking, no Genghis Khan, no Empire, he might not meet his wife, if he has a son it probably wouldn't be Jochi, the attack probably wouldn't have occurred- so on, so forth. Those points, of course, are all debatable, but the chances that Genghis Khan would even be born following the 173 AD seems quite slim to me, never mind the Empire, him meeting his wife, or anything of the sort. The Mongols were pretty strange, and just a few diffrences from OTL would have randomly change them.
 * 2) Also, while all of these changes would lengthen the span of the Empires, eventually, there would be a bad emperor who would screw things up. Your TL, though, seems to ignore that. Well, not quite; rather, you assume that after each failure, someone else can come back and fix the issue; the problem is, the result would be the mistrust of each new government after the fall of the old one.
 * 3) The stability of these states. Each of them cover ethinicities which would, eventually rebel. While some of the smaller ones (such as Japan) might be fine, the Romans are just off the hook.
 * 4) The Ahau tower. I'm sorry, but that happen's in the 12th century AD. I don't think even the ATL Mayans could do that, not on such a scale. Besides which, the design in all wrong. The Eiffel tower was based off of previous French arcitecture; the Mayans would do that same, and even after 1000 years I find it hard to believe that they could change their styles that much.
 * 5) "1561 - Tesla writes a treatise on radio waves, describing their properties, creation and use." This line. No offense, but I think that events might proceed a little differently than "OTL but 500 years older"- that applies to more than just this example.
 * 6) The Roman palace in India- that shows Islamic arcitecture which would not be introduced ATL. Might I suggest, rather, something based off the Red Fort?

Again, I absolutely love Superpowers, and since a few of these changes- 2 and 3, especially- would catastrophically change the TL, I actually urge you NOT to put those in effect.

Thanks,  21:07, June 23, 2014 (UTC)

Well, I do feel somewhat that given the scale and depth of your PODs, that the result would be an entirely different structure throughout the world. For one thing, most of the Medieval Ages was governed by a struggle between the Germanic North and the Romantic South. This continued even past the Reformation- if you look at a map of Europe in 1600, you will notice that the more Germanic nations- England, Germany, Scandanavia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, to an extent- those were the nations that went Protestant, while the Romantic nations- Italy, Spain, and France- stayed mostly true to the Catholic Church; the exception was in Northern France, where the influence of the Normans and others had Germanicized the area. I've actually written a TL based on this, TATM (I'm still working on, it's really barely anything at the moment), which focuses on what would happen in the case of a Germanic "victory"- in this case via the battle of Hastings.

Anyway, my point is, due to the resurgence of the Romans, that struggle would basically just never occur. Instead, I'd imagine a more East to West split, especially during the period when the Romans did, actually, split.

As for the ethincities, I have an issue with the Mongols, especially. The Chinese, OTL, are and were a very proud and nationalistic people, and like OTL, I doubt they'd take kindly to being ruled by barbarians for long. When the Mongols arrived, they took over a very divided China. Assuming this is the same OTL, I'd say the takeover would be fine; but when the Mongols began to fragment, the Chinese would have swung back; and given that there were 100 million of them...

The Romans- well, frankly, I'm not sure. The Germans who the Romans took over OTL were pretty loyal to the Romans up to the point of their fall; ditto the Latins. I'd imagine those races would not be much of a problem. But the sheer size of the Roman empire would make it impossible to govern. My problems are with the Romans continued control over their segments of Africa, India, and Western America. The Indians, OTL, proved pretty easy to takeover, but again, I don't think that would happen ATL. You see, again, without the Muslim influence, you'd get much smaller states, with less power, but also significantly less divided and MORE than capable of uniting to see off an enemy; they did it multiple times OTL.

Regards,  20:34, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Actually, with Africa, I was referring more to a general series of lesser uprisings by the individual tribes. Such a thing occurred in the later years under the British- the result was Independence, though to be fair, the British first fought the most costly, devastating war ever been fought, WWII. However, eventually, the uprisings might lead to an overstretching of the armies.

A way to get around that might be the method the French began to put into action, but never completed; they gave full citizenship to the Africans, educating them as Frenchmen, so on, which was quite successful in some nations, like Algeria. Unfortunately, France put it in effect too late. The Algerians raised to think like Frenchmen would cause the Algerian Crisis and the fall of the Fourth Republic not long after. Put into effect early, this might, however, minimize the damage from the Africans.

When the British invaded, they did it by helping some Indian states against others, because they were not viewed as major powers in India till it was too late. The Romans would not have this advantage, and the uniting of the Indian nations, which did occur oft in India, would occur again. The Romans might win, but they'd have one hell of a fight first; I mean like Persia vs Greece fight. The Persians won, but it doomed their empire; one hundred years later, the weakened Persian empire fell to the Greeks under Alexander the Great. Of course, it might not be something so drastic, but it would be a slow, hard slog. Furthermore, the Mongols might take some parts of India too.

If Romans were strong by 1100 or so, then the Muslim armies which would prey on the remains of the Byzantine empire might be deflected northward, towards the Mongols. The Mongols, after being attacked by the Muslims, would- ahh- compress the Mongols, who would be forced to unite, move up, and smash the Muslims.

Actually, that's a brilliant solution, because it would permanently weaken the Muslims, and the others would not have such a problem.

23:04, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Actually, if you disagree with any of my ideas, I'd urge you to say so. I've read your TL, but I'm no expert; you probably know more about it than me.

The Indians united, for instance, during the invasions of Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghori, until Prithviraj Chauhan managed to divide them under very... unorthodox circumstances that I doubt would occur in another situation. Chauhan was a very unique character.

Even with the Indians split, half refusing to help Chauhan, with their armies devasted by infighting, they put up one hell of a fight.

Against the Mughals, they have less of a distinguished record, primarily because the first target of the Mughals was the Delhi Sultanate, who weren't really liked by the rest of the subcontinent.

Some theories suggest that's exactly what the Mongols did OTL, just against the Chinese (well, the Jin) rather than the Muslims. The Jin weren't particularly aggressive; with the added spark of a million Muslims beating down the door, I'd say the Mongols would definitely do the smart thing; fight.

The Muslims started hitting the Byzantines in the 1100s or so. A similar time- assuming a stronger Rome- would have them go Northwards, through Russia, maybe, hitting the Mongols in the 1200s; slightly later than OTL, I suggest.

I do hope these ideas are being helpful.

23:37, June 25, 2014 (UTC)

By the way, I'm going on vacation between tomorrow and the 12th of July. I may not be able to respond in that time, though there is a chance I might be.

23:43, June 25, 2014 (UTC)

Abolishment vs abolition
Looks like "abolishment" is correct but I prefer "abolition".

http://grammarist.com/usage/abolishment-abolition/

Bil

EoGuy (talk) 18:41, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, I agree with you here. Abolition does sound better. I'll go fix one page where I saw abolishment alongside another spelling mistake you pointed out ("widdling"). Thank you, kindly, Bil.

Red VS Blue (talk) 20:05, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

widdling
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/widdling

I thought you might have meant that so I left it.

Bil

EoGuy (talk) 20:46, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Oh my! That's what I had written there this whole time... Well, I'm glad you pointed that out and that you left the call of leaving or removing it to me. As silly as the word was, that was polite of you to do.

Red VS Blue (talk) 21:03, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Help with other pages?
Hello there! It's been quite a long time, hasn't it? I have been wondering if you would ever want some help with designing some pages? I would love to expand upon some information on perhaps the Inca, the Ottomans, or even someone else like the Danes or the UCC. It's just a thought.

Rcox1995 (talk) 21:34, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Yes, quite a long time! I'm glad to see you're still active here.

I appreciate the offer but I'm focusing on rewriting the detailed history of the timeline and I'm leaving the modern pages alone, since I anticipate massive rewrites of some of them given my ongoing changes to past events. At my current rate, I estimate no less than a year before I return to editing the country articles, unless something comes to my mind that I feel I need to write down somewhere. If I do have some ideas, then I may add them to the country articles, even if I'll only edit it out later.

Have you been working on anything here lately?

Red VS Blue (talk) 21:46, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Oh, really? Well, that's still exciting news. I enjoy the detailed timeline quite a bit, so I definitely look forward to that. And I can understand that.

I haven't, no. I haven't been able to quite figure out anything I would like to do on here. I mostly just browse on here. I wish I could do something, but oh well.

Rcox1995 (talk) 21:52, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Yes, very exciting! For me, at least. It's been fun going into more detail on the history. Already, a great deal has been changed.

Nothing wrong with having nothing to work on here. For some people, this is a place to write and, for others, a place to read. That's natural even for members of a wiki such as this one. But I'm sorry to hear you're not able to do as much here as you want.

Red VS Blue (talk) 22:29, June 24, 2014 (UTC)

Oh, it's exciting for me. I'm eager to see what all is changed. I have essentially read every word of this Alternate History, so it's exciting for me.

And I suppose that is true. I have always been more of a reader.

Rcox1995 (talk) 00:02, June 25, 2014 (UTC)

Well, so far, I've completely rewritten every timeline article from 180 AD to 485 AD. The rough outline of events has not changed but the text was all overwritten and a number of events have different outcomes, as well as received a great deal more detail. I'd be interested to hear what comments you would have on the new history.

This place certainly needs readers as much as it needs writers.

Red VS Blue (talk) 15:13, June 25, 2014 (UTC)

I've noticed! I've looked through some of the pages already, because I just generally tend to flip through some of this timeline whenever I get bored. I don't think I really ever get sick of this Alternate History. But yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It really does.

Rcox1995 (talk) 21:49, June 28, 2014 (UTC)

Oh! Also, I hope that this isn't too much of a bother, but I just wanted to be of help. In your detailed timeline, I've noticed a few times that you would use the word 'straight' instead of 'strait' to describe the narrow body of water between two landmasses (i.e. Strait of Hercules). I didn't want to edit it unless you were actually okay with it.

Rcox1995 (talk) 02:30, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that would be a mistake on my part. Feel free to edit "straight" to "strait" or "straights" to "straits" if you see those errors. Thank you for asking!

Red VS Blue (talk) 04:55, June 30, 2014 (UTC)

Shall do. I've been reading through all of the detailed timeline so far that you have recently edited, and it seems to be coming along great. When I have the time, I will be sure to skim through all of them and edit things out.

Rcox1995 (talk) 01:17, July 3, 2014 (UTC)

Question about maps
Alright, so, I have a question? Do you mind if I offer a bit of criticism on some of the maps? I don't mean at all in a bad way, I just want to point out a few things that I feel that detract from this timeline being a truly alternate timeline. If not, then I won't say it, of course. I just wanted to ask first.

Rcox1995 (talk) 00:21, July 8, 2014 (UTC)

That's very kind of you. I'll gladly accept your criticism! And if it's that the borders seem too much like the borders of real countries, I completely agree. It's an aspect of my early work that I'm open to suggestions on what seem especially not alternate. If it's something else I haven't considered, then I'd be even more grateful to hear it. Either way, please, go ahead.

Red VS Blue (talk) 00:55, July 8, 2014 (UTC)

There are a few areas on the world map that bother me...quite a bit, lol. I really enjoy geography, so seeing real-life borders just bothers me. But like you said, it was from your early work, and it's understandable.

The first area of note is the southern boundary between Roman South Columbia and the Inca. While the border along the Rio de la Plata is understandable, the border between Brazil and Urugauy serving as a border just bothers me.

The second area is the junction between the Mongols, the Ottomans and Roman India. The modern day borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are all present there. This one bothers me a LOT simply because Afghanistan should not have been such a defined region by the time it was conquered. Of course, I'm not sure about what you had in mind with that area of the world anyways, but nevertheless, I understand where you were coming from.

Those 2 areas are the primary ones. I haven't looked too extensively into the other maps, but if you want some criticism on those too, I can give it a shot.

Rcox1995 (talk) 01:51, July 8, 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't thought about the South Columbian border. I agree now that the border there needs to be changed. Same with India, although the Himalayan part of the border is sensible enough to remain.

Well, I do have one map about which criticism might be helpful (this ). Historically, this map reflects changes over four centuries to this map. So far in my rewrite, that map is the most accurate and detailed one that I've posted so I'm very interested to know how readers might understand and interpret it.

Red VS Blue (talk) 01:52, July 9, 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem with the Himalayan border, that has been the natural border of India per se for millenia.

As to that map in particular, I don't see any particular issues. It is very detailed and you obviously took quite a bit of time in making it. The provinces of Rome were always weird-looking anyways, so everything checks out for me at least.

Rcox1995 (talk) 03:18, July 9, 2014 (UTC)