Lands of Red and Gold
- Thread starter Jared
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Or you could have actual Mormons making this claim. It would be in character.
Mormons are bound to be butterflied away.
Come to think of it, Mormons should be butterflied away in most TLs, they are a relatively new sect, yet they and their equivalents always seem to pop up. Then again, that's the Inevitable Deseret syndrome...
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
I wounder what else will be butterflied away,in the outside (non-Australia) world of this TL
A LOT, considering that Jared has said that there will be massive outbreaks of Australian diseases in Europe... Ick, doesn't sound fun.
Riain
Banned
This is semantics I know, but the Condah swamp stretches north from Lake Condah, in my morning cruising I never saw Lake Condah although I did almost rip the sump off my Commodore driving on tracks made of volcanic rock. Personally I think the Gundi settlements would have been toward the north of this 40-50km swamp, in places like Wallacedale. Hamilton is about 20km NW of Wallacedale, it is the junction of 2 creeks and there is a, by our standards, small dam making a small resevior/lake. IOTL Hamilton didn't amount to much prior to the introduction of sheep, and when I'm feeeling uncharitable could say its not much better today.
Also in the Gundi area, about 70km south of Hamilton within sight of the coast, is an amazingly rich spud farming area centred on Koriot. Again this is an extinct volcano, but this one is an ash rather than lava volcano. With the high rainfall and rich soil you may not need improved wetlands to get the high population densities.
Also in the Gundi area, about 70km south of Hamilton within sight of the coast, is an amazingly rich spud farming area centred on Koriot. Again this is an extinct volcano, but this one is an ash rather than lava volcano. With the high rainfall and rich soil you may not need improved wetlands to get the high population densities.
Great Installment on the Rise and Fall of the Watjubaga empire. For me it seemes to parallell The Rise of Rome and the fall of the Estrucan alliances/city-states on how the empire built. However, The Biral did not lean the "lessons" of the Romans and the Assyrians that integration is essential in "ensuring" that the legacy of your empire remains strong. Having strong homozygous groups in a state, with no beasts of burden or advanced technology to quell any chance of rebellion, really wasn't a good idea. I can't wait to see the post-imperial period, and hopefully the Gunnagal and other tribes can get their act together before the Europeans show up
...Keep it comming.
...Keep it comming.The Sandman
Banned
I can see those trading groups having more influence as the Empire collapses; after all, the newly independent states are going to need diplomats and so forth, and organised trading castes would already have experience at traveling over long distances and doing the sort of wheeling and dealing with foreigners that would become necessary in a post-contact situation...
Also, assuming that the nature of the kitjigal system remains known even after the system itself has fallen apart, might there eventually be attempts to recreate the Gold and Green ones? Particularly by some new ruler seeking legitimacy for his foundling kingdom.
Does Australia have any sizeable deposits of coal, by the way? If so, assuming that they're discovered pre-contact, they would definitely be useful in smelting iron and other such metals. And I note that gold has as of yet not made much of an appearance in TTL.
I do wonder that the wheel hasn't been discovered yet, though. Is it really that much of a crapshoot as far as figuring out its use? Granted, the American civilizations never thought to use it for more than toys, but if you have a travois then all you really need is some incident with one going over smoothed rocks and some bright soul might come up with a primitive wheelbarrow. Larger carts aren't exactly useful without beasts of burden (although I wonder if it's possible, given enough time, to breed an emu variant big enough to serve as a lightweight one), but even a wheeled travois would still improve the efficiency of a lot of things. Going a bit farther with that premise, it would be really cool to see *Aborigines using dingos to pull what amount to wheeled sleds.
In regards to contact with the Maori, how useful is the Gunnagalic crop package in New Zealand? While the North Island fauna is doomed, the South Island fauna might still have a chance of surviving if contact is early enough and the *Australian crops are productive enough in New Zealand to reduce hunting pressure and pressure to expand in search of land that hasn't been hunted out yet.
EDIT: I would expect, by the way, that the Europeans won't have quite so easy a time in *Australia as they did in the Americas. While the virgin-field epidemics will do horrible things to *Aboriginal civilization, the presence of native disease will help slow the pace of European conquest. Also, it would be pretty ASB to assume that the Europeans would get lucky a third time in regards to encountering a relatively young empire hated by most of its tributary states that was in the process of getting ravaged by epidemics when they hit it.
Also, assuming that the nature of the kitjigal system remains known even after the system itself has fallen apart, might there eventually be attempts to recreate the Gold and Green ones? Particularly by some new ruler seeking legitimacy for his foundling kingdom.
Does Australia have any sizeable deposits of coal, by the way? If so, assuming that they're discovered pre-contact, they would definitely be useful in smelting iron and other such metals. And I note that gold has as of yet not made much of an appearance in TTL.
I do wonder that the wheel hasn't been discovered yet, though. Is it really that much of a crapshoot as far as figuring out its use? Granted, the American civilizations never thought to use it for more than toys, but if you have a travois then all you really need is some incident with one going over smoothed rocks and some bright soul might come up with a primitive wheelbarrow. Larger carts aren't exactly useful without beasts of burden (although I wonder if it's possible, given enough time, to breed an emu variant big enough to serve as a lightweight one), but even a wheeled travois would still improve the efficiency of a lot of things. Going a bit farther with that premise, it would be really cool to see *Aborigines using dingos to pull what amount to wheeled sleds.
In regards to contact with the Maori, how useful is the Gunnagalic crop package in New Zealand? While the North Island fauna is doomed, the South Island fauna might still have a chance of surviving if contact is early enough and the *Australian crops are productive enough in New Zealand to reduce hunting pressure and pressure to expand in search of land that hasn't been hunted out yet.
EDIT: I would expect, by the way, that the Europeans won't have quite so easy a time in *Australia as they did in the Americas. While the virgin-field epidemics will do horrible things to *Aboriginal civilization, the presence of native disease will help slow the pace of European conquest. Also, it would be pretty ASB to assume that the Europeans would get lucky a third time in regards to encountering a relatively young empire hated by most of its tributary states that was in the process of getting ravaged by epidemics when they hit it.
Well, the Australasian civilizations are going to more advanced (in some ways) than the New World civilizations. They also have the advantage of being further away from Europe - the extra travelling time will make a huge difference. Still, the underlying advantages of guns, germs and steel are still overwhelmingly on the European side. Guns, natch. Germs, Australasia has a couple of killers, but Eurasia has many more. Steel, well, some parts of Australia will have iron, but steel will be rather more difficult. Still, the longer-term effects are going to be different to anything which happened in the Americas.
Europeans aren't likely to spread beyond the immediate area of south-western Australia for the first couple of years, but there will be substantial temptation to explore over the first couple of decades. For one thing, they will want to explore for more treasures like they have found in the lands of the south-west. For another, there are trading links between western and eastern Australia, so they are bound to hear tales of what can be found over there. The temptation to explore over the first few decades will be almost inevitable.
As to what they will find when they get there, well... no successor state will match the Empire in terms of area. In technology, literacy, and perhaps population, that may be another matter.
I haven't forgotten them, it's just that trying to get reliable information on the date of first Macassan contact with Australia is almost as hard as finding an objective page on Wikipedia which describes any aspect of Polish history. Some sources say that the Macassan contact with Australia wasn't until the 1600s or even 1700s, some say that it was much earlier. Personally, I suspect that the reliability of those early dates is questionable (especially the fourteenth century ones), for several reasons. The Bugis didn't get their main reputation for seafaring until about 1650 or so. What's also quite telling is that the word for white men used in northern Australia is balanda, based on the word for Hollander. If there had been Macassan contact with Australia earlier, I'd expect that the word for white men would have been based on the name for the Portuguese, not the Dutch.
Anyway, since I can't get a reliable source for the date of first Macassan contact with Australia, for the purposes of the timeline, I've assumed that the first substantive Macassan contact with Australia is post-1619. The Macassans can and will contact northern Australia, but the Dutch will also be in contact with southern Australia at the same time.
Well, I did have an analogue to the Mormons show up in DoD, but butterflies had changed them a fair bit even then. Still, there was a *US state called Deseret, so maybe some things really are inevitable...
In general, butterflies are going to change the world beyond recognition. (This is one reason I'm not sure how far I'm going to run this timeline.) The effects of Australian diseases will be swift and severe, resulting in a substantial global population reduction in the short-term. (Worst case, more than 15%.)
In the longer-term, the introduction of Australian crops around the world is going to produce all sorts of new population dynamics - some areas of the world will sustain a much higher population. Then there's the effects of the introduction of various Australian concepts, discoveries, religions, and all the butterfly effects of having different people born.
The rise and fall of a native empire in Australia... this is what I joined AH.com for
Glad you like it.
Hmm. Good to know the details; this is what I can't work out from Google Earth. The area of Koriot is probably going to be a very rich farming area too. However, I wouldn't write off Hamilton entirely. One of the odd features of the *Australian agricultural package is that in many way the best lands for it to grow are the same as areas which in OTL Australia are used for running sheep. Red yams, wattles and murnong will grow very well in the Hamilton area. Which is not to say that they wouldn't also grow quite well in the area of Koriot, of course. In fact, the north-south division on rival sides of Lake Condah would probably be the basis of the division of the Junditmara into multiple kingdoms during their early history.
Yes, the Biral did not really figure out the benefits of integrating other local peoples. Essentially, they ran the Empire for their own benefit, and any assimilation was incidental. This had effects on their long-term legacy, although naturally the Empire will still have an enormous influence on those who came after it. The spread of literacy alone would ensure that, as will various aspects of the religions which developed under their rule (of which more in an upcoming post). Plus, of course, the simple fact that the Empire existed and is remembered will mean that future rulers will be judged in terms of the myths surrounding the imperial days.
I can't wait to see the post-imperial period, and hopefully the Gunnagal and other tribes can get their act together before the Europeans show up
More is coming, of course. In terms of getting their act together, well, there will be viable political entities in parts of Australasia. The fundamental problems of introduced diseases and overwhelming Eurasian technological superiority are still there, though.
Yes. They're inevitable. They were briefly touched on in the post on diseases, but the short version is that by 1600 Australian diseases (well, Marnitja and blue-sleep) are as established in New Zealand as they are in Australia. They haven't (yet) spread to the rest of Polynesia, though.
The trading groups will indeed be one thing which survives the fall of the Empire. In broad terms, while political unity has vanished, trade has not. Much of this trade is waterborne (the Murray, Darling and other rivers in the same basin), although some goes overland, too.
The origins of the kitjigal system are, by this time, lost in the mists of prehistory. They have evolved in different ways in different cultures, but there's no particular knowledge of exactly where they came from. All eight of the colours are preserved in Tjibarr, although in rather different forms to the ancient ones. They show up again in a variety of different forms - trading societies and military units in Garrkimang, as castes in a lot of the eastern seaboard agricultural peoples, as factions/militia in Tjibarr, and as something else entirely in Tasmania.
Why, yes. Yes, it does. Australia is in fact the world's largest coal exporter, although that's mostly because the largest coal producers (China, USA, India) use most of their production for domestic consumption. It has about the fifth-largest coal reserves in the world.
It certainly wouldn't hurt, but given the nature of much of *Australian culture, they'll also be going in for very widespread use of coppicing and use of charcoal. The full details of this will be in an upcoming post, but the short version is that the perennial nature of *Australian agriculture (and the interactions with its religions) means that people take a much more long-term view of agriculture and resource production. They aren't environmentalists in any sense of the word, but they think nothing of running tree plantations on a ten or twenty-year rotation cycle, both for timber and for charcoal.
The big gold-fields have not yet been discovered, at least amongst the Gunnagal. There's been a few small gold deposits discovered here and there, but the big gold-fields are in south-central Victoria (barely touched), south-western Australia (watch this space) and Tasmania (barely colonised during the imperial period). I haven't forgotten them, though.
Hard to be sure, of course, but it seems to be. The New World civilizations either didn't even think of it (Andean, Mississippian) or didn't put it to any significant use (Mesoamerican). In the Old World, it only seems to have been invented once (although that's still not completely resolved - see, as always, China). The wheel is one of those ideas which seem obvious once it's been discovered... and yet was not discovered all that often.
Wheelbarrows would really add to agricultural productivity, too. I'm just not sure that they will be discovered. In the early planning of this timeline, I had them being invented by the Junditmara c. 1200, but I'm no longer sure that's a viable idea.
I'm not sure if wheeled vehicles are better than travois/sleds, given most of the environments in which they would be used (i.e. without major roads). Even then, the Incas built major roads and never came up with the wheel. So I'm still unsure about this one.
Grows pretty well in most of both the main islands, although better overall in the north. The southern extremities of the South Island (southern Otago, south of about Omaru) are marginal, although farming is still possible.
Sadly, I suspect not. The most recent research onto the hunting of the moa suggests that they were hunted out extremely quickly; within about a century for most of the damage. Moa (and seals) offered such a useful source of high-status, high-protein food that they would almost certainly be hunted out anyway. By the time Australian crops really start to spread (1340s-1350s, probably), the moa were already close to being gone, and would be in another half a century.
Hmm. Australian diseases are bad, but not _that_ bad. Figure up to 20% casualties from Marnitja, blue-sleep and swamp rash togther. This was an era where gathering armies together often meant higher casualties than that from disease, especially epidemic typhus and typhoid. So while Australian diseases will be nasty, they may not slow the pace of European conquest all that much.
What they will do, though, is change the long-term demographic balance. In the Americas, the children of European settlers (full-blood or mixed) had much higher survival rates than those of indigenous children, due to higher natural resistance to Eurasian diseases. So a relative handful of European immigrants in Latin America became a large percentage of the modern population, either pure-blood or mixed. In *Australia, the survival rate for indigenous children is going to be higher in some respects due to natural resistance to some diseases (Marnitja, swamp rash), so this will have effects on the long-term demographic balance.
While we don't have all the full details of pre-Columbian history, due to a lack of written sources, I suspect that the case of "young empire rising and hated by its tributary states" was actually quite a common one, and that it was usually followed by the collapse of the young empire before too much longer. There were conquering cultures before the Aztecs and Incas - the Zapotecs at Monte Alban, and the Wari/Huari in Peru - and they tended to rise and fall. It may just have been that the Incas and Aztecs were the biggest powers at the moment of European arrival, but that there would have been other new young empires around if the Europeans had come a century later. (Tarascan Empire in Mesoamerica, perhaps?)
That said, for *Australia, well, there's going to be a whole range of cultures and political entities. Some of them may be vulnerable to internal uprisings/exploitation of political divisions, but I doubt that all of them will be.
You've not gone into much detail concerning Gunnagalic and Junditamara religious practices, but I assume human sacrifice isn't part of either. Will this make the Dutch (already probably less fanatically religious than the Spaniards, even in the late 17th century) less inclined to try and impose Christianity on the natives by force? Or can we expect to see a sort of Dutch Protestant Australian inquisition?
Also. With the natives having developed their own varieties of intoxicating liquors I'm guessing the introduction of western alcoholic beverages won't be quite as devastating as in OTL.
And finally. What about the introduction of Eurasian crop packages to Australia?
Also. With the natives having developed their own varieties of intoxicating liquors I'm guessing the introduction of western alcoholic beverages won't be quite as devastating as in OTL.
And finally. What about the introduction of Eurasian crop packages to Australia?
As a native Oamaruvian I am obliged to inform you we spell it as Oamaru
. I'm by no means a farmer of anykind (despite growing up on one), nor do I know the details of your agricultural crop package, but perhaps you under-rate Oamaru's potential.Oamaru's OTL immediate hinterland (within 10km) has a rather large market garden sector - things like potato, kumara, tomatoes, cabbage etc are regularly grown and I believe supplied across the South Island (Oamaru potatoes for example have gained a reputation for quality and now can be found, marketed as far away as Auckland). Slightly further afield (within 50 or some KM) in the less immediate hinterland stone fruits fruits like grapes, cherries, apricots and apples are grown in large quantities. Vineyards are also becoming common. There are also substantial grain farming concerns across the area as well - barley, wheat etc, that in past times supported a substantial milling infrastructure, although that is largely gone now I believe.
Despite the reputation for droughts, the area is actually pretty well supplied for water, through the Waitaki river system. If irrigation can be developed in an earlier period that part of the region could develop rather differently (irrigation in large part only really started being constructed well into the post War period), prior to that it was primarily pastoral.
Closer to Oamaru (10-25km) the Kakanui river system supports a wide array of dairy farms and market gardens. The soil there is apparently rather fertile and the rainfall patterns in the coastal reach could be good enough to support a small agricultural community, without the benefit of irrigation.
The Sandman
Banned
Thanks for the replies, Jared. Two further thoughts:
First, in re the whole wheel issue, maybe just flip a coin? I mean, it may be unlikely, but much like the real world your TL is entitled to one or two unlikely things that aren't flat-out ASB.
Second, as far as the European technological superiority, how hard will it be for the *Aborigines to reverse-engineer gunpowder? Assuming that the entire continent isn't overrun in one fell swoop, I would think that at least one or two polities might be able to pull a Japan in regards to gunpowder weapons before the Europeans get to them. Assuming that Australia has the necessary quantities of sulfur and saltpeter, anyway.
First, in re the whole wheel issue, maybe just flip a coin? I mean, it may be unlikely, but much like the real world your TL is entitled to one or two unlikely things that aren't flat-out ASB.
Second, as far as the European technological superiority, how hard will it be for the *Aborigines to reverse-engineer gunpowder? Assuming that the entire continent isn't overrun in one fell swoop, I would think that at least one or two polities might be able to pull a Japan in regards to gunpowder weapons before the Europeans get to them. Assuming that Australia has the necessary quantities of sulfur and saltpeter, anyway.
When people say "pull a Japan" in this sort of context, it makes me wonder if they really know what it was that Japan pulled.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
I was wondering if things might not work out a bit better for Native Americans in this TL. While they would be just as vulnerable to the new diseases as any other ethnicity, it seem like it would throw just a bit of a monkey wrench in the European colonial efforts. I would think the big colonial cities and shipping ports would be the worst hit, and if things go to shit in Europe might the Natives of North and South America be left alone for a while?
Unless Europeans start out their settlement far closer to contact than OTL, I don't see them having much of a chance to get a foothold. After all, in OTL, there was 181 years between discovery and settlement of Australia. While the existence of empires to exploit could further western interest, the plagues Australia sends to Eurasia will lessen population pressures quite a good bit.
It's plausible, provided enough of the population survives to maintain social order (say 20% or higher), that the growth following the introduction of the plagues will be rapid enough that, by the time European settlement starts in full swing, the population will be as large or larger than it was pre-contact.
I'm sure you're feverishly looking up numbers on this yourself though. It's a shame good population figures for Europe after the Black Death are so hard to come by, as it (at least, in the areas it was felt more severely, like Southern Europe), is probably the closest model demographically to what will happen to Australia.
It's plausible, provided enough of the population survives to maintain social order (say 20% or higher), that the growth following the introduction of the plagues will be rapid enough that, by the time European settlement starts in full swing, the population will be as large or larger than it was pre-contact.
I'm sure you're feverishly looking up numbers on this yourself though. It's a shame good population figures for Europe after the Black Death are so hard to come by, as it (at least, in the areas it was felt more severely, like Southern Europe), is probably the closest model demographically to what will happen to Australia.
Riain
Banned
I can tell you for a fact that the area around Koroit is good farmland because I lived in Warrnambool and Koroit for most of my life and worked on said farmland from about 1986 to 2000. Basically its the ashfall area from the Tower Hill volcano, and is probably why I think Hamilton is shit in comparison.
They'll probably work out worse. Native Americans were not only not immune to Eurasian diseases specifically, they seemed to have less robust immune systems in general. So throw yet TWO MORE serious epidemic diseases into the mix and I expect you'll find that the Native Americans are really going to be biting it in this timeline.
This probably won't make too much difference in North America--though maybe it makes the frontier less of a threat in the American colonial period with knock-on effects for colonial unity and development--but the real effects are probably in Latin America, which is going to have smaller and more European/Argentine populations in this TL--though maybe with an even greater African mix.
I wonder if you'll get a significant slave trade in *Australians. The fact that *Australia is a crazy quilt of competing polities and cultures, with a high population, that's going to be very unsettled by European contacts, makes slaving more likely (as some *Australians turn to it as a source of profits). So does the fact that Europeans may not be able to effect a complete conquest of the area. So does the decline in world population in comparison to OTL, making labor more valuable, especially labor with some disease resistance. On the other hand, *Australia doesn't seen to have an indigenous slave tradition that we know of, and the distances across the Pacific are greater than the distances across the Atlantic. On the gripping hand, if any kind of plantation economy develops with *Australian crops, especially in the New World or Africa, using *Australian slave labor will be attractive.
You mean, will an *Australian nation meet with the Europeans, trade with them and make friends with the Courts, convince one white guy to go native, get screwed over by the Europeans because that white guy happened to be rivals with the guys who run the Trade Companies, go through a civil war that sees three generals become etched in legend, grow more isolationist and conservative, expelling all but the weakest European power, and even limiting those guys to a podunck island, leading to an explosion of native literature and artistry, followed by a decline of the noble class, leading to some deals with a nation which is white but not European, so is safe to deal with, leading to a civil war between the guys who want to modernise right now and the guys who want to take it slow and easy, with the slow and easy guys losing, leading to an attempt at democracy and a defeat of a European nation in a major war, leading to the military getting an inflated opinion of itself, sparking a campaign of conquest that leads into an ill-advised alliance with a Central European nutjob because the *Australians' foreign minister was convinced said nutjob had the powers of God, leading to an occupation by the white power they made friends with earlier, leading to Australia becoming a leading producer in the electronics and entertainement industries?
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