Miscellaneous <1900 (Alternate) History Thread

[LibPrime]

Traditionally, the particular sun god patronized by the Eighteenth Dynasty was Amun-Ra, but as the priests of Amun grew more powerful at the expense of the pharaoh, Akhenaten’s father Amenhotep III promote the worship of a previously obscure god; the Aten.

What led to Amenhotep to choose Atenism specifically? Was it the next most popular solar deity?

Had Atenism continued past Alhenaten’s death, Egypt likely would have transitioned into a fully absolutist state. Had this happened, it would have likely led to the development of a stronger bureaucracy(perhaps akin to China IOTL) as the traditional power of the priesthood and nobility weakens.

That's a real shame; in your tml does Egypt deal with nomadic incursions by hiring mercenaries or instead by training the lower classes to fight well, leading to the nobility/Pharoah to lose their total monopoly over violence?

 

[Merovingian]

What led to Amenhotep to choose Atenism specifically? Was it the next most popular solar deity?

The Aten was not the text most prominent solar deity; in fact it was fairly obscure. Amenhotep went with the Aten since its relative obscurity meant that it didn’t have an entrenched priesthood or theology. It should also be kept in mind that full-blown monotheism wouldn’t become a thing until Akhenaten, Amenhotep promote the Aten as a sort of personal deity while still sponsoring Egypt’s traditional polytheistic religion.

That's a real shame; in your tml does Egypt deal with nomadic incursions by hiring mercenaries or instead by training the lower classes to fight well, leading to the nobility/Pharoah to lose their total monopoly over violence?

While my TL hasn’t made it past the New Kingdom(the height of Egypt’s power) yet, Egypt’s geography makes it uniquely vulnerable to foreign conquests; it’s a flat plain with no easily defensible features and is entirely dependent on a single river. Anyone who takes control of the Nile will take Egypt with it. So Egypt will still fall under foreign rule rather frequently(not as often as IOTL, but that really isn’t saying much). The difference is that, rather than IOTL where Egypt was assimilated first into Greek and then into Arab culture, ITTL the conquerors will become gradually more Egyptian with each generation until they become indistinguishable from the natives, sort of like China’s conquest dynasties IOTL. As for hiring mercenaries or training the lower classes, mercenaries would more likely than not just become the de facto rulers over time(as seen with the Mamluks and Janissaries IOTL), while training the peasants is a bit more complicated. Warfare in the Bronze Age was centered around chariots, which only the nobility were trained to use. So long as warfare remains chariot-based, the nobility will maintain their power. However, after the Bronze Age Collapse, warfare went from being chariot-based to phalanx/infantry-based. This means that the nobility will loose a lot of their traditional power. However, the nobility loosing power would most likely mean that the state apparatus would be further centralized in the hands of the monarchy.

 

[Bytor]

There are different perspectives on the issue, but one is that the butterfly effect is absolute. Personally, it would be exceedingly unlikely for the same sperm to fertilise the same egg even if you were to just continue history from a point in the past, without making changes.

I would say that is misunderstanding the butterfly effect. The butterfly flapping its wings does not instantaneously mean a planet-sized hurricane, only that effect upon effect upon effect will eventually result in a hurricane somewhere at some point. Those "ripples" take time to spread out and affect other things which then cause more ripples.

Similarly, somebody making a decision in London isn't going to have a physical effect in Paris to jostle spermatozoa position and direction in the midst of concurrent royal coitus and Le Dauphin is instead the eldest princess royal.

"Quantum" does not mean instantaneous effects regardless of distance.

In any case, we're not really talking about quantum physics here, but how we do Alternate History, a subgenre of speculative fiction. How many AH stories do you know that last multiple generations and have zero OTL people born after the PoD?

 

[Karl der Große]

I would say that is misunderstanding the butterfly effect. The butterfly flapping its wings does not instantaneously mean a planet-sized hurricane, only that effect upon effect upon effect will eventually result in a hurricane somewhere at some point. Those "ripples" take time to spread out and affect other things which then cause more ripples.

Similarly, somebody making a decision in London isn't going to have a physical effect in Paris to jostle spermatozoa position and direction in the midst of concurrent royal coitus and Le Dauphin is instead the eldest princess royal.

"Quantum" does not mean instantaneous effects regardless of distance.

In any case, we're not really talking about quantum physics here, but how we do Alternate History, a subgenre of speculative fiction. How many AH stories do you know that last multiple generations and have zero OTL people born after the PoD?

Yeah not really a fan of the "Charlemagne dies early, how does this impact Hitler's career?" flavor of AH.

 

[ramones1986]

Plausibility check: Indo-European-speaking western end of the Pyrenees while its eastern end remained non-Indo-European speaking.

 

[da Racontor]

Yeah not really a fan of the "Charlemagne dies early, how does this impact Hitler's career?" flavor of AH.

There is a bit of a difference between that & "the Treaty of Kalmar is never signed, thus Moctezuma I cannot be the born."

 

[Ogrebear]

The bigger the effects of the POD the more unlikely anyone from OTL will be born and have exactly the same career and personality if OTL.

If there is no World War One I’d say the odds on Tony Blair being born and a politician are null just by the fact the same people will not likely come together just due simply to changed circumstances.

As a person born from a chance encounter by my parents, one of who is an immigrant I can be very sure it does not take much to alert circumstances.

 

[Fehérvári]

"Quantum" does not mean instantaneous effects regardless of distance.

I completely agree with your overall point, however (as a sidenote) quantum physics does in fact include possible instant effects over great distances.

Quantum teleportation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Fehérvári]

If European powers manage to conquer Bosnia and/or Albania from the Ottomans sometime in the 18th century, how successful could reconversion efforts be? Would they even be attempted?

 

[eliamartin65]

If European powers manage to conquer Bosnia and/or Albania from the Ottomans sometime in the 18th century, how successful could reconversion efforts be? Would they even be attempted?

Reconversion from Islam?

 

[Fehérvári]

Reconversion from Islam?

Yes.

 

[eliamartin65]

Yes.

Depends on if the Catholic Church puts enough effort.

 

[ghappy1000]

Say either colonization is never attempted or Liberia falls to Native attacks in the begin.

What would be the impact of No Liberia.

How would the area be divided in the scramble for Africa

History of Liberia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The area around Liberia, by the way, was targeted by Portuguese, Dutch and British before settlement by Americo-Liberians. If that area ended up being Portuguese, Dutch or British colonized, Liberia would have a history closer to Angola and Mozambique (colonized and culturally influenced by Portugal from 15th century pod until 1975) if colonized by the Portuguese, a history closer to Suriname (colonized and culturally influenced by the Netherlands from 17th century pod until 1975) if colonized by the Dutch or a history closer to Sierra Leone (colonized and culturally influenced by the United Kingdom from 17th century pod until 1961) if colonized by the British than the actual Liberia, even with the use of a butterfly net.

More importantly, what would be otl Liberia and the Republic of Maryland would be butterflied out of existence. Therefore, the Americo-Liberians and the other freed African-American slaves would stay in the US or migrate to British colonies in the African Continent such as Sierra Leone without a Liberia or a Republic of Maryland for the Americo-Liberians and the other freed African-American slaves to migrate to.

If Sierra Leone were colonized by Portugal, Sierra Leone would have a history closer to Angola and Mozambique (colonized and culturally influenced by Portugal from 15th century pod until 1975) if colonized by the Portuguese. In addition, Sierra Leone's originally Portuguese-derived name would be more relevant with Portuguese colonialism of Sierra Leone due to the Portuguese language being more relevant in a Portuguese colonized Sierra Leone than otl (British colonized) Sierra Leone. Finally, the freed slaves of Sierra Leone might have to migrate to South Africa or Ghana if they would even migrate to the African continent from Britain.

 

[LibPrime]

Is there a correlation between the myths/beliefs of a society and the relationship the state has with its subjects/foreigners?
IIRC in the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Mesoamerican (and maybe Chinese) origin myths, there first exists chaos to which the orderly gods destroy it, yet in order to maintain their rule the gods need certain rituals to be done. The most apt example of this is how the Aztec required the sacrifice of humans to the Sun god, Huītzilōpōchtli, to sustain him against the god of darkness. AFAIK certain "rituals" were needed to be done (like having professional soldiers, taxes, etc) in areas such as Mesopotamia if the population didn't seek starvation/subjugation.
During the Iron Age when nomadic people had the tools necessary to destabilize settled society, there was a need for society to train the lower classes in order to fight said nomads off; further more after the Hoplite revolution, the traditional (terrible?) nobility of ancient Greece was usurped by tyrants through the help of Hoplite soldiers. Similarly in the ancient Greek myth regarding the Cronus, he, as a result of being a massive dick, and all the other Titans were usurped by the Olympians (Zeus and friends). The only thing stopping me from believing that the Hoplite revolution was the primary cause of this myth is that this is the only myth I know of where the old order gods are displaced by newer ones(I'm not including that Mesopotamian one revolving around Marduk and Tiamat, and others like it, as Marduk is the embodiment of order slaying chaos while Zeus, who maybe represents justice in a limited sense, defeats Cronus the embodiment of order).
To keep things brief, the axial age was a period where the religions that make up the modern world today were formed. They came as a result of the establishment of empires and the inhabitants of these empires realizing that the universe didn't revolve around them. Riding on this logic train lead to people believing in the equality of all people, and in some places, the belief in a universal and eternal order, or a single eternal/infinite all loving God, who established the reality that people live in. The myth which best exemplifies this is the one revolving Jesus, the literal son of God, coming into this world as someone who's apart of Rome's lower classes, and shows the inhabitants of Judea how to live their lives in accordance to how God intended it.

 

[ParasaurEwan]

AHQ: What countries may be colonizing powers in a TL with a Plantagenet victory in the 100 years war? Not even sure AngloFrance would be one.

 

[Ed of the Pueblos Libres]

Apparently the first coin minted in Ancient Egypt was the gold stater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt...tater (Egyptian: nfr,Teos of the 30th Dynasty.
by pharaoh Teos, 30th Dynasty (in circa. 360 BC), in order to pay to Greek mercenaries.

However, during the first year of university (History Teacher career), read one of the books of José Miguel Parra (Spanish Egyptologist, Spain does have some great persons in this field), and he argued that the 19th Dynasty, better known as the Ramessid dynasty (1292 - 1290 BC to 1191 - 1189 BC), was close to make the 'jump' to a monetary-economy.
They just didn't make it (I should re-read if he explained a bit more in depth about why possibly they didn't).

But I am interested in what would be the changes if Ancient Egypt made this 'jump' during the period? It would be just a minor change, or it would have important consequences for the period?

 

[Beatriz]

Is Hawaii a more realistic analog to the Societist Combine?
I mean
- central location for shipping between East Asia and North America (promition of the Blue Language through trade)
- defensible island structure and distance
- pre-existing cultural fusion (easy for a *Esperantist/new-culture/new religious movement emphasizing a conlang)
- “a homeland for internationalists”
@Falecius

 

[ghappy1000]

But for Spain to recover territory in Europe over the possibility of some remote native lands in the Americas is ASB. The two most important goals of the Spanish was the recapture of Menorca and capture of Gibraltar. To think that after gaining one of their primary objectives they return it to Britain for territories in the Americas is totally mistaken. Sorry there was nothing more important to the Spanish.

In addition, the Spanish did use the opportunity of the American Revolutionary War and the weakness of the British at the time to reclaim the Falklands, but the Spanish did not communicate the reclaiming of the Falklands to their capital in Madrid and to the British during the American Revolutionary War's Treaty of Paris (1783). Just having the Spanish communicate the reclaiming of the Falklands to their capital in Madrid and to the British during the American Revolutionary War's Treaty of Paris (1783) should allow the Spanish to retake the Falklands without losing any gains in Europe (Minorca) or North America (Florida), although the British might reclaim the Falklands in 1833 as in otl or the Americans might seize the Falklands in 1898 to take advantage of Spanish weakness.

As for the Pacific Northwest, nobody in 1783 could predict the Pacific Northwest's Nootka Sound Crisis as happening. At latest, the Americans might seize the Pacific Northwest in 1898 to take advantage of Spanish weakness.

 

[sampleswift]

Was "Ramming speed!" actually a thing for American Civil War Ironclads, or was it just the first Merrimac vs. Monitor battle and seen as a dumb idea afterwards?

 

[Count of Crisco]

Was "Ramming speed!" actually a thing for American Civil War Ironclads, or was it just the first Merrimac vs. Monitor battle and seen as a dumb idea afterwards?

Allow me to introduce you to the rediscovery of the ramming attack as a viable tool which came about as a response to the fear that the development of ironclads, which seemed to have rendered guns obsolete as the weapons of the period were generally inferior in some eyes to the task of penetrating iron plate. It was felt that if guns could not penetrate the armor of enemy ships that instead the ship itself could become the weapon and use steam engines to get up to a speed where a several thousand ton ship could really mess up another warship.

Anyway yeah plenty of ships in both European and the American navies would be built with a ram, including later Confederate and Union warships. And many ships would attempt to use their rams, sometimes not on purpose.