Another thing I thought about is that the idea of the Nangu going out and expanding into global trade may at first glance look like an unjustified nativewank strategy, but then you remember that Australia - like Europe and unlike Asia - is a continent poor in many resources, so the impetus for trade once the Aururians have seen what the Europeans are trading in is much stronger than for the OTL Asian powers that were more technologically advanced but lacked that impetus, so sat there and got conquered and colonised.
Yeah, the question of why Europe went trading and a-colonising around the world and the Asian powers didn't is a complex one, but I think that the relative lack of expensive resources in Europe had a lot to do with it. Asia just had the goods which everyone wanted, and which everyone was prepared to go out and collect. By and large, the Asian powers didn't have to go to the rest of the world, since the world would come to them for silk, spices, porcelain and whatnot.
Even going as far back as Roman times, that was the way things worked. If memory serves, China and India always had a net trade surplus with the rest of the world right down into the late nineteenth century. It took cotton textiles and opium to change the balance, if I remember right. So the drive wasn't really there to explore in the same way. Europe, on the other hand, knew there were valuable goods out there, and wanted to get to them. Hence, a-trading and a-colonising.
As far as the Nangu go, they have the same desire. They know there's a lot of expensive goods in the rest of the world, and they have a trading mentality which they developed after doing the same thing within Aururia - came from a poor island, and went trading for more. They've also inherited the Polynesian navigational knowledge and willingness to explore long distances, which helps, too.
Maybe they descend from Nangu traders.
'Tis certainly a possibility, but not the only one. Could be other Aururians, or non-Aururian converts to the Plirite faith. I'm neither confirming nor denying the identity of that group for a while.
The mention of rice in that spoiler made me think of another effect of Aururian contact with the outside world: rice becomes an incredibly high-status grain, mainly because of the sheer amount of water needed to cultivate it. Since even the wealthiest Aururians probably wouldn't be able to afford enough rice paddies to eat the grain regularly, though, it seems likely that it would be preserved in various ways instead. For example, as rice wine.
Rice might indeed be valuable as an import grain, depending on local tastes. Rice was a valuable cash crop for export to Europe in OTL (and ATL), and who knows, wealthy Aururians might decide the same thing, for either rice or rice wine.
I don't think that the Aururians will be growing much rice, for reasons I'll outline more fully below, but that won't stop them importing it if they value it highly enough.
This in turn could have another odd butterfly, in that once the Dutch figure this out there's a good chance that they start buying sake in Japan to ship to Aururia, and possibly buying bulk rice as well for the same shipments.
There might be a decent amount of money in this, particularly if Japan is in turn buying a lot of Aururian goods - kunduri and lemon myrtle, say. That would be like another leg of the intra-Asian trade network which the VOC took over so successfully in OTL.
And I wonder if somebody's going to try to bring chocolate to Aururia. They might not, given that I don't think anyone ever thought of selling chocolate in the Asian markets despite the much more limited range of European goods that those markets were interested in, but I assume it would do quite well if it gets there.
Chocolate needs to be chocolate
plus sugar to do really well, as far as I can tell. Chocolate alone isn't all that big a hit - hardly unlikeable, but not as good as the combination. Europe was awash with sugar thanks to the Caribbean slave plantations, and so could use chocolate too.
I suspect there would have to be sugar available in Aururia for chocolate to take off; either imported from Asia, or grown in OTL Queensland, where it would grow rather well if labour can be obtained.
Those spoilers were very fascinating, I can't wait to here what happens in the rest of the Americas
'Twill be revealed, but probably not for a while. Too much else to describe in Aururia first.
A response to Jared's spoilered section. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't highlight!
So, Accord is descended from something like the hillbillies turned up to 11 and fused with Aururian, African, and (Native) American cultures? I like it!
Something like a fusion between hillbillies, Boers, maroons, militant evangelical pagans, and the last of the Mohicans.
More like TTL's version of the Lumbee, or the Ramapough Mountain Indians. Although they seem far more numerically predominant, even more so than the Melungeon of OTL, which is the largest Appalachian group of somewhat questionable ethnic origin.
I didn't know about the Lumbee, but Accord Anderson's people are an odd mix. They are basically maroons - which did happen in parts of OTL North America, especially Florida - but who are able to absorb the Amerindian population, rather than being absorbed into them. In OTL, a lot of white people joined the Amerindian peoples, one way or another, but with the worsened effects of diseases, it's more a case of the remaining Amerindians joining the maroons rather than the other way around.
It depends. Before this decade's drought, Australia produced large quantities of rice - crop of 1.64 million tons was harvested in 2001. Main producing state is NSW, which has ancient irrigation traditions in the LoRaG TL. OTOH, 2008 production was down to 19 000 tons, so while the wealthiest Aururians would be able to eat rice regularly, drought or not, middle class would be deprived of it, at least in dry years/decades, and lower classes would be even less able to taste that foreign grain. High-status product? Yes, but hardly incredibly high-status. It would be food of merchants and officers rather than food of emperors, I think.
I suspect that major rice-growing along the *Murray would not last longer than the first killing five-year drought. This is a result of the particular farming mindset in Aururia: having perennial crops and coping with an irregular drought cycle has taught the farmers to really think long-term. They won't grow much of crops which have such irregular yields. Especially since that same precious water can be used to support artificial wetlands which would produce even more valuable meat (fish and birds).
This doesn't stop Aururia
importing rice, of course; that's entirely possible. I just don't think they'll be growing it much.
Rice frankly makes a lot of sense for the Murray basin civs as they have a tradition of aquaculture and rice is one of the best calories-per-acre grains. So while I doubt it ever replaces Yams & Wattles it'll be a very good crop for feeding a lot of people on wet years.
The "on wet years" here is the killer. A staple crop doesn't do much good if every drought produces a major famine. So I don't see it becoming a staple. A cash crop for the elite and merchants, perhaps, which would mean limited cultivation in some areas, but not something to act as a major staple for the people.
Assuming there's any cultural drive to do so. Maybe if the Dutch adventurists suceed you could see rice plantations.
Things may change if the Dutch or some other Europeans shake up the whole cultural landscape, of course. But the thing about pre-Houtmanian Aururian agriculture is that the limiting factor is yield per worker (and, to some degree, yield per unit of water), not yield per acre. They have a lot of land, but water and workers are more precious.
While rice is very high yield per acre, it's also very labour intensive, so putting all of their effort into growing that crop will mean that there won't be workers around to grow all of the other crops. So when the next drought hits, the other crops haven't been farmed, and the result will be famine.
Of course, if the Dutch are requiring rice plantations, they may not care about that...
What do you see the people of Accord looking like physically?
I can't say that exactly, since that would be telling about the physical appearance of the Plirites.
In general terms, though, a significant portion of their heritage is still sub-Saharan African. West African more particularly. However, this isn't quite as dominant as might be expected given their predominance among the original runaways (over 80% of whom were escaped Africans).
The reasons for this are several. In the original group of runaways, there were fewer women than men, even when Cherokee refugee women were included. So who got to have women (and hence descendants) was a matter of status. The Plirites were mostly of higher status, and so had more of the women, and more of the descendants. And, of course, a larger proportion of the women were Cherokee than anything else, which means that their heritage is also reflected in the descendant population.
Among the descendants, the ethnic heritage also has a bit of later admixture. A few later runaways are admitted to the peoples, and most of those runaways are of African descent. There is also trade contact, which leads to some children from liaisons, and a few of the traders settling permanently amongst the runaways - and the traders are pretty much all of white European descent. (Occasional Jews, too).
There's also a slight but cumulative trend of natural selection against pure African descent. This is because these West African populations have inherited sickle-cell anemia, which serves as a protection against malaria in West Africa or the *South Carolina lowlands, but which is a disadvantage in the upcountry where the runaways live - since it's too high for mosquitos and hence for malaria. So this leads to a slight selective advantage for runaways of mixed or non-African descent, too.
and have similar groups arisen else where in the Americas?
A few arise from time to time in some areas, but none of the ones in North America are anywhere near as successful as Accord Anderson's ancestors.
As for South America... I'll have to take the Fifth on that one.
