Abrittus

This timeline is still in the build-up, but input and comments are welcome.

Point of Divergence
Moesia: 251 AD.

Decius, a barracks emperor, who tries to stabilise the institutions of the Roman Empire and persecutes the Christians because they refuse to venerate the emperors, is faced with a Visigoth invasion of Moesia and Dacia. Defeated at Augusta Traiana, the Romans are unable to defend Philippolis. But the Gothic troops, led by King Criva, are weakened and seek to negotiate an organised retreat. Decius turns down the offer and chases the Goths back North.

Criva separates his troops. The Roman legions confront the Goths near Abrittus, Although Decius` son, Herennius, is killed by a Gothic spear, the battle generally seems to go well for the Romans. Decius` general, Trebonianus Gallus, wants to pursue the retreating Goths, but Decius is wary (in contast to ATL). He orders to look for the rest of Criva`s troops and learns that they are less than two miles away, awaiting a Roman advance into the marshland. Decius sends assassins to kill Criva while he reorganises his own troops to skirt the swamps and attack the Goths from behind.

Decius celebrates a glorious success at Abrittus, driving the Goths into the bog and annihilating Criva´s troops completely. After that, he rides North with his legions to root out the Barbarian nuisance.

After several huge massacres, the campaign concludes with the capture of the entire Visigothic nobility.

Decius has secured Dacia and the Danube for the next decades. Upon his triumphant return to Rome, he decides to found the "Academia Martiana", a university dedicated not so much to grammar and rhetorics, but to military strategy, because he deems superior military strategy crucial for Rome`s future.

Decius can concentrate on fighting the Sassanids in the East - and on persecuting the Christians, who refuse to venerate the Roman gods and emperors and seem like a factor of internal instability to him.

Timeline
251-300

300-399

400-499

500-599

600-699

700-799

Nations of Europe
Europe is the wealthiest and most powerful continent; with power and wealth concentrating in the Mediterranean region and gradually decreasing towards the North and East of the continent. Ideas and innovations from Europe shape much of today`s world: democracy, the dual credit system, chemical and pharmaceutical industry, the steam engine...

Its two major powers are the Roman Empire (Res Publica Imperii Romani) and the Celtic Empire (Res Publica Galliarum). Less powerful and lagging behind at least several decades in social development are the Germanic- (Saxony, Burgundy, Franconia, Southern Federation, Frisia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway) and Slavic- (Slovenia, Venedia) speaking countries. Further to the north-east lie the indigenous territories of Ugro-Finnic people, who, in spite of centuries of contact with the developed nations, have preserved their traditional lifestyles and socio-economic structures.

Nations of Africa
Africa is a continent of slow, but steady development. Its north-east is one of the cradles of civilization, which over the last three milennia slowly influenced the continent from its coasts inward.

The northern, Mediterranean coast is a wealthy, highly urbanised and developed part of the Roman Empire, providing intellectual and industrial products for the world market as well as petrol. It has close links to Europe across the Mediterranean.

The Sahara is controlled by a highly organised, stable and peaceful nomadic society - the Imaziyen. They practice a radical, communist variety of Christianity (Simonism) and are closely allied to the countries of the Sahel (Wagadu, Hausa and Banza Confederacy, Kanem), who are sedentary but culturally and politically similar.

The north-east and east of the continent is controlled by Aksum, a highly stable, liberal, constitutional monarchy and an economic powerhouse both in the agricultural, industrial and commercial domains with intense trade contacts both towards India, Europe and the rest of the continent. Aksum has played an important role in stabilising and pacifying central Africa; stopping warfare whenever it endangered its supply chains and installing more peaceful and sustainable political structures among its neighbors where necessary, or simply serving as a model of socio-political and economic organization, which was copied widely in central and southern Africa. Along the Indian Ocean coast spans a string of wealthy independent city states with close links to Saba, which had founded and controlled them for more than a thousand years.

The southern and south-western half of the continent is controlled by Yoruba, the Bantu Federation and the Khoisan Federation. While the northern half of the continent is more or less Christian, the southern half has remained animist. Their agriculture is highly developed; their industry is focused on the extraction of the vast treasures of the soil (copper, gold, petrol, diamonds etc.).

Nations of Asia
Persia; Saba; Burma; Sri Vijaya; Türkestan; China; Tibet; Silla; Nihon

OTL to ATL differences

 * Christianity is much more fractured, it becomes a state religion in some small states, but never in the Roman Empire. There, various Christian grassroots movements remain a factor of social modernisation and an outlet for discontent at the same time. There is never a necessity for revolutionary ideologies aimed against it, like Marxism. Since one of the smaller Christian states, Saba, controls much of Arabia, Mohammed`s revelations do not find a large audience and Islam does not develop.
 * Europe never develops a feudalist system and never exports the dynamic conflicts of early modern states emerging from feudalist Middle Ages to other parts of the world. Thus no large-scale colonialism. State-building and socio-economic, religious and philosopphical developments on other continents follow much more autochtone dynamics.
 * Rome persists and influences the Rest of the world as a republic, with a very slow and steady process of economic development and industrialisation that does not outpace political development.

Abrittus

Salvador79 (talk) 14:25, February 27, 2014 (UTC)