100th Article! (Superpowers)

This is the commemorative 100th Article of my (Red VS Blue's) timeline Superpowers. It marks an important milestone in the development of my timeline and so is dedicated both to its past achievements and those still yet to come. Rightfully, or perhaps ironically enough today is September 4th, the very same day that the Western Roman Empire of Our world fell and Europe is regarded to have entered into the Dark Ages. I hope that all you readers have been enjoying my timeline thus far, and that you will all continue to enjoy it for a long time to come.

Superpowers Thus Far
As of today I've nearly completed the Timeline up until the intended year of 2000 AD, there are only 11 years to go. All of that is peanuts compared to the 1,820 years that this timeline spans. It all began with the first point of divergence when the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius adopted a certain Greek boy from Athens as the successor to the Imperial Roman throne. This prevented his other son Commodus from taking power and having his unpopular reign that led to a civil war. In its stead the Roman Empire continues a period that modern historians referred to as the years of the Good Emperors. In this timeline six more Good Emperors succeed Aurelius and the Roman Empire is brought to the position of the most powerful nation in the world.

The world of Superpowers expands further when a certain Mayan intellectual discovers the formula for gunpowder, and invents the wooden wheel. That same man uses his intelligence to unite the Mayan city-states into a mighty Conglomerate, thereby creating the largest nation that had ever existed on his native continent. This Mayan Conglomerate grows into the most advanced nation on the planet, and was the only country in the world that had the technology and size to challenge the Roman Empire. At the same time that those two behemoths began their conflict, the third and final point of divergence emerged in the plains of Mongolia. The Mongol Chieftain Temujin manages to fight off a raid by the Merkits, one which nearly got his wife kidnapped. Because of this, when their son Jochi is born, his parentage is unquestionable and he is made undisputed leader of the Mongols once his father has died.

The extent that the timeline covers already is extensive. Already 5 modern nations have their own article, providing information on their government, economy, demographics and culture in great detail. The crowning jewel of these of course is the Roman Empire. It contains nearly 75,000 bytes of data, 10 pictures (including maps) and provides extensive details of that nation and links to relevant articles. It is, I'll admit, probably my favorite article on the whole timeline. Hours upon hours of research were put into it, especially the government section, and it has probably undergone more revisions than any of my other articles.

Next to the pages on modern nations are the 8 military articles that discuss the entire Roman Armed Forces, and parts of the military of other nations. I want to extend thanks to the users Vegas Addict and Eastward Expansion for writing the Nippon Kaigun and Ongtsegheon articles respectively. After those pages there are also nearly a dozen pages covering advances in science and technology, as well as the incursions into outer space made in the timeline. Finally, though there's a lot more, I'd like to mention the 26 canon articles that go into greater detail on the events of the timeline, all the way up to the 2000th year of the city of Rome. On that note, the next thing I'd like to mention to you readers is the continuation of the Detailed Timeline.

The Future of Superpowers
Given the complexity of events that I'm now working with in the Superpowers timeline, I've decided that it is best to switch to a different format of continuing the story. Since the progress of civilization has always been defined by its wars, I'll use articles dedicated to these wars, and their intervening years of peace, to further tell the story in details. I'll be starting this part of the project with the Two Hundred Years' War. The slight overlap of 26 years that it has with the last of the 26 timeline articles will be used to ease in the transition and hopefully get readers accustomed to the new format.

That is only part of the news that I've got for you all though. In light of all the work I've been putting into Superpowers I intend to, in the far future, write literature based on the timeline. To get myself prepared for that, once I finish the timeline I will continue my work on it on this site by writing stories that take place in the timeline. I don't have any (well maybe 1 or 2) specific plans for what these storylines will be per say, so I look to you the community for suggestions. If there's any part of Superpowers that you think is particularly interesting, or could make a good setting for a story, just write out your idea on this here talk page and once I get to writing, I just might take up your idea.

There is one story however which I do fully intend to tell and that is the tale of what happens from the year 2000 to 2010. I'm not going to spoil anything just yet, but I'll leave you all with this. It's big. Really big.

Also in the near future I have plans to finish up writing all the nation pages and their militaries, complete my descriptions of the culture and sciences in Superpowers and finally, as an idea given to me by Eastward Expansion, make a page that talks about potential "alternate" alternate histories within the timeline.

I look forward to the continuation of my timeline, and I begrudgingly admit to and assure you all that what happens there is always as much a surprise to me as it is to you.

The Writing of Superpowers
Although a writer never reveals his tricks (or was that magicians...) I've decided to give you all some incite into the process of how I write the timeline. First there are the pictures, and do I ever love pictures in a timeline. Nearly all of the pictures that get added to the timeline undergo a slight editing process to distinguish their depiction from OTL. They are however to be taken with a grain of salt and only be viewed as a representation of the Superpowers world, not necessarily an exact copy. For instance, the Ahau Tower, which is shown by images of the Eiffel Tower, would not look exactly like that, only similar. Regardless of the slight paradoxes that this seems to suggest, I add these pictures with the intent of better immersing readers into the story. One image though that I can assure you looks in this timeline exactly as the image shows is the one to the right. It perfectly represents how this world, whilst almost completely different to our own, still retains a few aspects and trends that make our world what it is.

As for how I actually write the timeline, much as how I'm writing this, its in such a way that I would hardly call professional. There's no pre-planning, draft writing or anything of the sort. I just pick an article I want to write, or I've started writing, open up a few internet articles or books I think might be helpful, and just start writing. Embarrassingly though, once I've started writing, what I initially put down is usually the final copy. I rarely look over my work or spell check it myself, and for the articles that I have gone over and improved, I did it several months after first posting them. As I mentioned, the same thing goes for this article, so if you see any mistakes you can leave them and I'll get to them sometime in January, I promise.

Users Here

 * Constantine - For being one of the first people to talk to me here and discussing my timeline with me and continuing to do so up to the present
 * Teakay - For being another of the first to help me out here and for himself being such a great writer here
 * EE - For helping me on some of the Mongolian pages and being a supportive friend here
 * Vegas - For writing the Japanese Navy page and helping me with some aspects for the Japanese nation
 * Rcox - For offering his critiques on my timeline and helping me with the Inca nation
 * DaBigUn & Des - For their helpful comments and critiques on the timeline

Other Works Here
This is for the works here that were either inspiring in some way or I consider to be very good and can remember off the top of my head.


 * Ætas ab Brian - It was the first timeline I saw on this site and inspired me to start writing here
 * Aztec Empire - It is a fascinating timeline and helped to encourage me to keep working on expanding me timeline
 * 1983: Doomsday - I greatly respect the work put into it by its community, and am grateful for its role in keeping writers on the site (providing readers for my timeline :P )
 * Chaos - It remains one of the few timelines that I estimate to be larger than Superpowers in terms of file size
 * French Trafalgar, British Waterloo - It is another fine timeline, and also gave me the idea of creating a Portal Page for Superpowers
 * Vegetarian World - Although I personally don't like the timeline, it's another timeline that beats mine in size and gave me the idea of writing a 100th Article

Special Thanks

 * First I'd like to especially mention the 2009 novel Lustrum and thank its author Robert Harris. His work is of some of the highest quality I've ever seen and has not only better immersed me in the society of Ancient Rome, but also inspired me to seriously consider the idea of writing stories.
 * Finally, I'd like to especially thank the general and statesman Gaius Julius Caesar for providing the impetus and cause for the creation of the Roman Empire and ultimately shaping the modern Western society that we live in. For all of his faults and vices, I still think he is one of the greatest and most influential men to have ever lived.

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