1464-1530 (711-797 AD) (L'Uniona Homanus)

The Second Creator- Sextus Cornelius Travandius
In the year 1455 (702 AD) Sextus Cornelius Travandius was the sixth born son of the Travandius family, a working class family in Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), Germania. He began working in the Gratidi Ironworks Corporation as a factory worker in 1464 (711 AD). He was especially strong for a nine year old and was put in the coal fires. The Gratidi, as other steel producers, managed their coal furnaces with one opening and one guard working in shifts of three hours and breaks of twenty minutes repeating three times for a total of nine hours a day. Most other child laborers saw their job as simply that, a job, a way to get extra money for the struggling families common in most of Germania and Roman Europe. Sextus was different, the process of making steel was extremely intriguing to him. He learned, through books he stole, that more heat created the current level of quality in steel. Sextus experimented for years with different sorts of methods to create hotter fires. Sextus found a combination of oxidized hydrogen cyanide with chlorine over a silicon dioxide catalyst to create a new chemical. When ignited it burned so hot that it melted the steel used to contain it, steel from the Gratidi company.

He named the compound Cyanotravandium (OTL Cyanogen) combining the greek word for blue with his own name. He patented this process with the help of his father and his closest friend, a chemistry student at the Germanian Academy of Science and Alchemy (Academia Germanorum d’Alchemia et Scientia) named Drusus Macus Calimus. Drusus and Sextus met in the Library of Colonia Agrippina in the Chemistry section reaching for the same group of books, Limilius’s little known work of the Study of Combustion. Calimus was, with his more scientific and traditional knowledge of chemistry, indispensible to Travandius. Calimus continued to develop the process of refining steel at such high temperatures and he found oxidation to remove the most impurities of Manganese and Carbon from the Iron.

Calimus and Travandius, both at the age of 19, began proposing their invention to the Gratidi Corporationbut were turned down by the old family that ran the business who believed that the new process would require to much money to redesign their factories. The two friends then used this process to gain favor with the smaller but still powerful Aurelian Steel Corporation which was run by a Board of Trustees who saw that the product was improved, waste minimized, and production increased. The Board of Trustees paid the two handsomely and they relocated their large families to the growing industrial city of Muniochora (Munich). The Aurelian Steel Company made a much stronger, cheaper, purer, and effective form of steel. The two were made Trustees of the company and used their wealth to engineer even greater success.

Calimus and Travandius were both famous for the quote of “The first creator made the Earth, and the second creator makes from the Earth; I am the second creator.” This defined their lives and their reputation that would grow exponentially over the course of the next few decades.

Conglomeration
Beginning in the year 1478 (725 AD) when they were at the age of 23, Calimus and Travandius both began collecting the shares of the publicly traded Gratidi Company. The Gratidi pioneered this practice of sell shares and leaving their value to the market but they were now no longer on top of the Steel Industry. The cheap Gratidi shares were quickly taken by the Aurelian Steel Company and within three months Travandius and Calimus were both the majority shareholders of the Gratidi Steel Corporation. They ordered the company to give full control to the Aurelians and many of the Gratidi family complained. Despite this, the Aurelian Steel Company and the Gratidi Ironworks Corporation combined to form the Germania Steel Corporation with Travandius as its Cyrius Officiorum Executorum (Chief Executive Officer). Germania Steel soon implemented their processes across the two provinces that were the largest Steel Producers.

The second largest was not far behind however, the Britannic Steel Company in Londinium was maneuvering against the Germanics by making several new contracts to make their steel cheaper to move and thus easier to sell. The Germanics, with the great help of Calimus who knew several languages, made contracts with larger shipping companies, steam companies, and politicians to gain even more favor. He also maneuvered his way into gaining the trust of the shareholders of the Britannic Steel Company who were a small group based largely in the city of Rome. Calimus married the daughter of the Consul to gain legal favor in case there were any suits on the matter. Travandius ended the competition between Britannic and Germanic Steel by marrying the daughter, and only child, of the Amphions who led the company. In 1489 (736 AD) at the age of 34, The Travandian Steel Corporation was formed and was the only major Steel Producer in Europe.

The Great Travandian Steel Corporation
The contracts with shippers, merchants, construction companies, and other industries made Travanidus and Calimus the richest men in the Empire outside of the Emperor. Travandius and Calimus managed their extent quite well and began funding and proposing many new programs for the Empire. In the year 1491 (738 AD), Emperor Quintus passed and his son, Tarsus, became the new Emperor. Tarsus was a close friend of Travandius and Calimus and they all often talked of once again reaching the trade of East Asia. It was a trade that fascinated Travandius that despite all of their technology a person still had not proven that the Earth was round through circumnavigation.

Another quote, by Calimus, signifies their attitude about this. “Give the people a hero to look to and they will jump towards any call; or give them and enemy and they will jump to fight him.”

The Travandian Corporation encouraged an increase in participation in the largely Northern European practice of selling public shares of corporations. There were less than one thousand public companies in Rome in 1491 (738 AD) and by the end of the century there would be more than one hundred thousand. The Travandians prepared for this and bought some part of the shares of almost all of the major industries. Weaponry, Railroads, Shipping, Medicine, Agriculture, Printing, and many other smaller areas, all had some level of Travandian involvement. Public trading made this possible and the idea of diversified investments soon became the fashion of the wealthy.

Death of an Icon
Travandius was a household name by the year 1504 (751 AD) and the news of his sudden death was a shock to many. He was not believed to be in poor health and no evidence in the autopsy would suggest it. It is believed that he passed silently due to a stress induced heart attack. Calimus, at the funeral, collapsed and fell into a melancholy at the loss of his best friend. From these accounts it is believed that Calimus and Travandius had a romantic relationship but no writings describe this first hand. In his will the whole corporation, all of his property, wealth and holdings were bequeathed to Calimus. He was charged with protecting his wife as agreed to with the Amphions and to continue the projects that they made together.

Japan
Emperor Tarsus as well as Foreign Minister Dextus had been discussing the possibility of returning to Asia as a great source of wealth and power for the Empire with Travandius and Calimus. The Emperor began this project in 1500 (747 AD) symbolic of the new century. Tarsus selected Captain Rovinius of the Twenty First Imperial Roman Naval Battalion, stationed in Dubris (Dover, England), to lead the expedition across the Promontorium di Tempestum and then across to the East Asian continent.

Rovinius set off in the year 1505 (752 AD) with ships made by, steam engines made by, routes planned by, weapons produced and designed by, steel owned by, and food provided by companies held totally or mostly by Calimus and the Travandian Holding Company which also held these possessions so they were not directly managed by Calimus. Rovinius crossed the Strait of Tempests and sailed up the continent of New Africa but then he went further and charted the Western coast of the continent that was increasingly being called Hyperborea, an ancient word for a prosperous and unknown land of divinity and riches. Sooner than expected the Romans contacted the civilization of the Japanese in California. The Shigenobu Clan in Southern California, leaders of the new Shigenobui Shogunate, welcomed the Romans as a great gift with many parades through the streets of New Uwajima 新しい宇和島 (San Francisco, California) capital of the Shigenobu Shogunate.

Two weeks after the landing in the Shigenobu Shogunate, the Romans were escorted to the Alaskan Shogunate and taken around the coasts of the Japanese colonies. The Romans, when they passed, were like celebrities. People gathered on beaches to observe them and the Japanese felt that their economy was about to explode in prosperity. The Romans were more than impressed with the grandeur of the Japanese colonies. They were surprised that Asia had discovered the new continent and had explored it so extensively. The Romans were escorted all the way back to the capital in Kyoto where Emperor Kitokuro 徳郎 greeted them in the grand palace. They stayed for an additional three weeks before leaving to visit the Sinican Empire.

Sinica
The expedition to Sinica was somewhat more fruitful than that of Japan. The Japanese really intended to show that they were on par with the Romans and the Sinicans appeared to forge a strong trade system between the two countries. The Romans not only met with Sinica at this time but also with the smaller, landlocked country of Mongolia. The Mongols took quickly to knowledge of industrial processes and the combination of the Mongolian traditional society, as well as the Sinican and Japanese, with these new technologies formed a unique culture in the region.

The Method of agriculture in all of these nations had been, and continued to be, feudalism. The peasant class would live on the land and eat what they needed. The landlords, or increasingly banks, would loan them the money the money for equipment and seeds. The food would supply urban centers and there the factories would produce technologies used by the government, by other industries, or by the rural communities. They would also engage in high amounts of exports to their colonies and to trade partners across the world.

World trade along the Feudal-Industrial System proved a nationalistic success but the people of Asia had little cultural expansions at this time. As technology increased, traditional gender roles and customs remained. A stark contrast could be found between the factories creating large amounts of pollution and high-scale farms that took up further than the eye could see; and the religious focus on nature and the calm virtues and ceremonies of their leadership and everyday life.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The Sinicans sparked this expansion in the economy and by the time that Rovinius returned to Rome in 1507 (754 AD) there were several tonnes of goods from the Japanese and Sinicans coming in. By the year 1517 (784 AD) the amount of world trade increased to millions of tonnes in a matter of months. Mongolia produced largely for itself and fueled its own growth, a process that the Japanese ridiculed as “ignorance that the Mongol savages are known for.” The Romans and their allies in Africa, with the exception of the Otjomouise who became equal parts introverted and extroverted in the trade market, as well as the Maya and the colonies of these Empires were growing incredibly wealthy. This system seemed endless and perfect but some countries were largely left out. The Chimu, Aztec Alliance, Tastil, and Mapuche in OTL Mesoamerica were one of these and they would prove their own importance soon enough.

Madagascar Annexation
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.17454900823772335" style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Rovinius on his return to Rome landed in the island of Madagascar, expecting to land in East Africa in the Bantu Kingdom or another friendly nation. They landed in the northernmost city of Antsiranana which had fallen into desperate times since the fall of the Satavahana Kingdom in 1145 (392 AD). Trade dissolved on the island and the African nations refused to allow most trade there. The legacy of the Satavahana could be seen in the crumbling buildings and the large ports which were shadows of their former selves. In Antsiranana there had been a growing northern alliance of cities which provided some form of law and order and minimal trade with each other but the jungles had made the central portions of the island difficult to navigate since they took the roads again.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Rovinius asked the leader of the Antsiranana city-state is the people of Madagascar would be contrary to becoming a Roman colony and entering their control. The mayor of the city replied that as long as nothing would challenge the city state rulers themselves in their own territory, no violent opposition would come from Madagascar and the people of port cities especially would invite work with a new trade partner.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">When Rovinius returned in 1507 (754 AD) he gave this information to Emperor Tarsus and he was splendid at being the first Emperor in a long time to start a new territorial expansion in the old world in centuries. Tarsus was not sure how the other powers of Africa would feel about this but before any other actions were taken Rovinius moved back towards Madagascar through the Great Aegyptian Canal which was also the way Rovinius entered. There were so many ships that trade through this manufactured canal had to be shut down for about three days.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The several separate fleets broke away from the main movement and landed in most of the Madagascar ports where they spoke of becoming a Roman Province with their local leaders with the condition that they only pledge their allegiance to Rome and they would be free to keep their current governments. The coastal cities accepted and knowing that there were troops in the Roman ships that could overrun their cities they also knew that was the only option. in 1507 (754 AD) Madagascar became the sixty eighth province of Rome and the thirtieth Imperial Province. In this same year many new Imperial Provinces were given Senatorial status. Valencia, Occitania, Cantabria, Catalonia, Tolitia, and Ibria that had been under direct Imperial control were given Senate voting power in exchange for keeping in place the government systems set up as long ago as Emperor Sergius’s reign. Moesia Inferior, Catalonia, Hibernia, Noricum and Raetia were also new Senatorial Provinces bringing the total of Senatorial Provinces to 49.

Trade Control
=<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The Japanese and Sinican Empires wanted to make the movement of good in this booming sea trade economy more organized. This would also make it easier for the governments to collect taxes and tariffs as well as manage trade if they needed a large shift in one direction. The Japanese made the Imperial Japanese Merchant Union 大日本帝国貿易結合 (Dai Nippon Teikoku Bōeki Ketsugō) in 1519 (786 AD) and in the same year the Sinican Empire formed the Imperial Sinican Commercial Association 帝國中國商業聯合會 (Dìguó Zhōngguó Shāngyè Liánhé Huì). The two differed greatly in their actions and purpose in world trade. =

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The Japanese association was a much more controlling organization. It was started by the government, by order of Emperor Kitokuro 徳郎, who wanted to gain a more stable amount of trade taxation to pay for planned expansions. The Japanese merchants were ordered to join the Merchant Union and those who did not were attacked until they submitted or died. One rather powerful trade group was the Minamoto Shipping Company centered in New Suginami (Anchorage, Alaska) who refused to join the Merchant Union and give an even larger amount of their money to the government that was giving little back. The main building of the Suginami was taken over by soldiers and they killed most of the employees they saw in the building including the Head Manager. The ships were found later as they came back and informed of the change, most relented and continued their work. This was the largest protest to the Merchant Union made and it fell quickly.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The Sinican Commercial Association was more voluntary, it was an idea of Grand High Eunuch Gao Hai 高亥, who had become more of a leader than the Empress at that time. The Grand Eunuchs saw the force that the Japanese performed and chose not only to not make joining the Association mandatory but to make people know it was not mandatory. The publicity that the Sinicans received made their numbers rise faster than that of the Japanese but overall the margin between them evened out to a negligible amount. The Grand Eunuch only took 10% of the tradesmen’s profits whereas the Japanese procured nearly a quarter.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">These two Associations grew to make demands towards businesses. The production of domestic steel was a priority for these Japan but Rome had made treaties that prohibited such actions. Tensions grew between them and the Japanese claimed that the treaty was void because it put undue influence of the Romans over Japanese economic policies. The treaty ended when the Calimus and his Travandian Steel company found a sympathetic entrepreneur in Taiwan that he used to make a puppet Japanese steel company to settle the dispute.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Because most of the Roman shipping companies were essentially owned by Calimus and Calimus was a close friend with the Roman government there were no new trade associations by the Romans. In the African kingdoms, the old Free Trade Agreement between them was no longer working as the animosity towards the Zulu had dissipated and the Otjomouise felt too betrayed to remain in the agreement. They chose to disband the agreement and the Zulu, Bantu, and Siddharthists formed a looser agreement that only lowered the tariffs between the countries and did nothing with regards to foreign countries or mutual defense.

The Tanabe-Maurelius Treaty
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.17454900823772335" style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">In 1521 (788 AD) with trade in the best position its been in all of history, the Roman Empire decided that it would be the perfect time to take more land. Large areas between the colonies were uncontrolled and unexplored and the Romans at least wanted to claim ownership. The only major threat they had i the region was the Otjomouise which was expanding rapidly. Following the end of the war that caused them to lose a majority of their colony in New Africa, the Otjomouise expanded into the interior. There they captured many new resources, agricultural lands, and other benefits but the Romans had been planning to take most of that land for some time. The Otjomouise claimed that the Romans needed to move fast if they wanted a greater claim in New Africa or the Otjomouise would have no choice but to take what remained.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulus Decimus Maurelius, met with the Governor of the Otjomouise Colony, Benio Tanabe. There they established a peace where the Otjomouise would not expand any further north than they had at that time. In exchange for this the Otjomouise received the promise, secretly, that if they were attacked or went to war, the Romans would declare war beside them. This made the Otjomouise tremendously more confident and they began making many changes to their society. The Romans began their expansion and used their influence to keep the Otjomouise from being attacked or doing anything irrational.

The Northern Alliance
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.17454900823772335" style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">The Cimbrian Alliance knew that they needed to make increases in their trade or the rest of the world would overpower them. The psyche of paranoia had been with the Cimbrian Alliance since the start of their nation and they sought to connect with the Pacific by finding a route through the northern part of Hyperborea (North America). First they filled in their borders in the east so they had control of more than just the coast and also searched for a possible river system that would move towards the pacific. They found no such river but they did invent the ice breaker steel ship that could move through the rough terrain of the Arctic Sea. General Wolfgang Folcwin led most of the expeditions in these new ships and the seas of the far north became known as the Folcwin Sea. =<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Cimbrian did not meet with Japan but they met each other in the middle of the northern colony. The Japanese sought a land route with the Romans who they believed to control the eastern part of Hyperborea, misreading the label of the Cimbrian Alliance on Roman maps to mean the Cimbrian Province as existed on the last maps the Romans had of Rome from before Cimbria became independent. The Japanese moved west from California (made up of the Shigenobu and Tsumeragi Shogunates) Both of them were surprised to find the Kitakuro Desert 徳郎砂漠 (Mojave Desert) and then the Nobuaki Mountains 伸顕山脈 (Rocky Mountains) which essentially ended any move westward from there. In the north, the Interior Shogunate, the Reijiro Shogunate, needed something to attract more settlers. The Reijiro Shogunate began distributing several posters, fliers, and leaflets about the prosperous areas to the west. Descriptions of wealthy, rich soils waiting to be cultivated and climates that were exceptionally warm for the region got many young people to enlist and move east as the Cimbrians moved west. This started in about 1524 (791 AD). =

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Sinica, with mostly fear of the Japanese expansion to motivate their decision, distributed the same fliers and encouraged the large amounts of poor in the southern islands to migrate there. The biggest problem they had was convincing them that it would be nicer than their homes. So, the Eunuchs promised them a medium sized plot of land, at an exceptionally low price, if they agreed to stay there for a period of 10 years and cultivate it. The land is what chimed in the heads of most of the Sinican immigrants coming to take advantage of the government’s offer. The Sinican move started in late 1525 (792 AD) and because of this they were set back by a wide margin from the Japanese.

<span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Within five years the Japanese and Cimbrians met in the Cimbri border town of New Westerstede (Yellowknife, Northwest Territory, Canada). There they made the Northwestern Treaty to engage in equal trade with each other, without restrictions or import duties, and to defend their mutual interests in the world. The Romans were enraged that Cimbria made any alliance with any other country, something they had been trying to prevent since their independence. The Sinicans soon made an agreement with the Cimbrians as well to allow little restrictions between their nation, as little as the Japanese-Cimbrian Treaty allowed. Sinica and Japan, who had seemed so far from the Cimbrian colony that it would not be an issue, were now allied with the Romans worst enemy. Though Sinica made no military alliance, some state of affairs was understood between them. The whole experience proved to be terrible for Rome who now no longer was the only major trade partner with the far east by 1530 (797 AD).