1155-1310 (402-557 AD) (L'Uniona Homanus)

The Fall of the Satavahana
On the first day of spring in 1170 (417 AD) a merchant of the Satavahana who was transporting goods to the Roman Empire moved close enough to the coast that he saw the harbors and shipyards of the Maurya. When he returned to the Satavahana Kingdom the other merchants did not believe him but he insisted that they were real and that there were ships bearing the Maurya’s seal on them just north of their Kingdom. Dismissive as the people were, the government was less sure. A small group of boats moved out and to the area that the merchant had described, looking for these harbors. They came across Harishchandrang and were attacked by the Maurya navy.

The Maurya from these ports moved into the island of Madagascar directly rather than move into the territories on mainland Africa. The capital of New Thanjavur (Antananarivo) lied in the center of the island and thus had many areas that the invading forces would need to go through in order to reach the King in his palace at the center of New Thanjavur. The city of Antsiranana on the Northern coast was the first stronghold hit by the Maurya. This attack was brutal but the Maurya managed to push past this area and the Generals in New Thanjavur, who were confident in their security on the island prior to this battle, were beginning to panic. The city of Mahajanga, on the other side of the Northern Coast was mobilized to keep further armies from providing reinforcements. The soldiers in Antsiranana were ordered to engage in suicidal tactics, taking as many of their munitions into oblivion rather than allow the Maurya to take the Satavahana weapons and use them against their original owners. Antsiranana became an example to the cities throughout the island of Madagascar. People were preparing to a sacrifice their own lives and the King promoted such preparations.

Mahajanga defended honorably and eventually contained the Maurya into a stalemate formation at a safe distance from the coast. In this window of time the Mainland African soldiers of the Satavahana Kingdom began preparing to move against the port cities of the Maurya, now that their locations were known. The Maurya contemplated asking for assistance from the neighbors on the continent but chose against this idea so that they would not be expected to share any of the gains they make. The cities of Satavang (Beira) and Ravishanga (Blantyre) were huge bases for the mainland military forces and they were almost entirely emptied in order to move to their ports, onto ships, and out against the Maurya. This was a day they had prepared for and were eager to complete. However the Maurya were also planning to move out their reserve forces to overcome the stalemate.

This mobilization made the situation of the war all the more problematic. The Satavahana were making gains of the stalemate and is seemed as though they were going to overcome the stalemate and push the Maurya off the African continent. This was transitory however. The Satavahana were soon overwhelmed by the Maurya coming from all sides it seemed. They fell back by in large and the forces heading towards the Maurya port cities were quickly subdued. The Maurya invaded the capital but they were shocked at the destruction that the people inflicted on their own nation against the invaders. The burning of the New Thanjavur was not done by the invaders, in fact, it was done by the residents of the capital city. This horrific scene where the mostly unarmed populace killed themselves and attacked soldiers of the Maurya in such a way that it repelled them from their mission in many ways.

The Maurya leaders would not be stopped, by the time they chose to end their operations and declare victory, there were hardly any resources ripe for the taking. The projected cost and time to repair this damage was so high that the Samraat was livid that his war would not lead to a wealthy and prosperous land acquisition, as he expected. This being the case on the island of Madagascar, the situation on the mainland areas were not much better. Despite this the unprotected Satavahana territories fell to invasions by the Zulu, the Bantu, the Maurya and the Siddharthists. Only the Bantu had a border with the land their claimed now but they managed to establish rather secure routes to these new areas. The island of Madagascar, or the island of death as it was later called, was left unconquered and the Maurya troops, despite the objections of some saying that they were conquerors and deserved to own this land, returned to their lands on the coasts of Africa or to the main Imperial lands.

The Legend of Thenmobism and the Kingdom of Otjomouise
After the fall of the Srivijaya Empire in 915 (162 AD) the thenmobist religion, an offshoot of Buddhism, was essentially vacant from Asia. The Satavahana were the last vestige of the religion and many expected that this faith would be overcome as the Satavahana Kingdom was. This was not the case though. The poeple who survived the desperate struggle at the end of the war clung to their religion even in the face of conquest by nations of other beliefs. This in many ways made the people of these new areas connected despite the borders between them. Thenmobism, rather than be crushed by the conquest of the Satavahana, was spread. The Satavahana King had been restricting much of their trade and thus their religion was only head of as a foreign belief system. With the post-war conquests completed and in the proceeding years, the Thenmobists extended their reach to the new immigrants to the area and were eager to move into their new mother nations and preach in a way they never could before. It was mostly the Maurya who were opposed to this. The Maurya did not allow immigration out of the areas they now controlled but this did not keep them from speaking to those entering the colony.

This was particularly true in the Bantu Kingdom where religion was never centralized or united in any meaningful way other than the supposed divinity of the King. The Thenmobists were not opposed to this and chose to embrace the Royalty of the Bantu. The Zulu had a similar situation and the Siddharthists were worried but not reactionary and chose to let the Thenmobists run their coarse. As for the cities in the desert that the Satavahana had, they were picked liked grapes and used as links to the coast that used to be closed to them.

On the West coast of Africa, the Bandit nation was splitting into factions around certain cities and the area was plagued by an intense civil war between rivaling warlords. This proceeded from the year 1160 (407 AD) to the year 1195 (442 AD) when one warlord proved particularly keen for uniting the city states. His name was Belay Kanguime and was born and made leader of the city of Otjomouise (Windhoek, Namibia). This area was not poised from the rise of Belay to be the powerhouse it became. Rather, Otjomouise was a small internal city that was rather separated from the other states around it. Belay changed this. He made deals with all his neighbors to give all the support he could if they would agree to make him an honorary part of their leading family. At the same time Otjomouise was attracting immigrants for the liberal and open minded ideals that Belay brought to the administration. The harsh punishments of petty crimes were revised and the more reproachable policies of his predecessors were by in large done away with. There were also significant investments in the people of the city and preparations for their protection. Seeing the amount of people this attracted, many neighbors chose to take similar policy changes.

The West Coast of Africa was becoming much more free and tolerable. At this same time the families in these states began to die precipitously. Though it was speculated that Belay orchestrated these deaths, many were happy that he was the only relative left to ascend to the throne of those cities. The people of these areas were tired of warfare and looked for stability in their lives. Belay knew this and promised this in exchange for the conglomeration of the militaries which he now had a hegemony over. This force was larger than any of the competitors at the time and non of those leaders were capable of banding against Belay. Before 1195 the competitors fell like flies and were taken over before they hit the ground. In the end Belay was King of the Otjomouise Kingdom as it was named and the times of Bandit control had subsided. With a cohesive government, the Otjomouise were looking to establish relations with the other African nations. The Otjomouise moved to the Siddharthist Kingdom and the Zulu republic first, due to proximity. Here they secured a favorable base of relations but were constricted to the areas they had and were not allowed to expand into these nations settlements. This policy led the Otjomouise to try and move out to areas that were not currently controlled. They intended to land between the Roman Empire and the Zulu Republic but were surprised at the unfamiliar landscape that they found. As facts would have it, these exploratory missions landed on the Eastern Horn of South America, a land that would cause great interest to the Africans and Romans alike.