Reversia; a Clockwise Earth

[ForbiddenParadise64]

I haven't read through everything but I am impressed by the ammount of work put in. I hope to be able to offer more feedback, if possible, further down but it does look very ambitious.

What kind of story or stories are do you have in mind for this setting?

It’s going to be a mix of human history as well as biological looks as to how different regions evolved due to the changes in conditions.

Looks like a fun project. I think I am asking why the land mass is all the same as the current ones?

Because the PoD is only 1.5 million years ago, so continental drift hasn’t substantially changed, plus the reversal of Earth’s rotation makes it harder to predict future continental drift, and I’m afraid I’m not well versed on how it would affect future projections.

Fun project! I've forgotten most of my climate studies, but this brings back memories, heh heh.

Ah nice, I’d be interested in hearing what people have to say as later updates are added in.

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

"The Kingdoms of Uz are not like other lands, not like you in your comfy palaces in Inazoyen or even those strange Ymoshee up north. What do you know of the Eternal Dream, or the Wings of Xuurog, or the wondrous cities of Nebyuum? Too little, without doubt!"
Byinrong Jokuul Amardag, Ambassador of the Yrnrong Confederation, [1813 CE]

As the newest race of humans spread into the corners of the world, the last ice age held the earth in a tight grip. This signalled the end of an era of relatively intact ecosystems. Even ecosystems 'inoculated' by more primitive races of men faced losses of biodiversity due to the more efficient and organised techniques that sapiens used in their hunting.

The March across Beringia:

With Siberia much warmer and more fertile than it was before the Reversal, both in glacial and interglacial, the passage towards the Bering land bridge by even more primitive races happened at least twice, even with difficulties. But the clothes and fire using H.novus had a large advantage over these in its ability to spread, both physically and genetically. Breeding with most of the other races of Homo, such as H.borealis, Denovans, the other African humans, and even the remaining erectus (despite being even more divergent than neanderthals and therefore having more difficulty in procreation), gave them adaptability and resistance to change. Therefore, as they entered the new world about 80,000 years before the present, they were well equipped to make full use of this land.

With the corridor for Alaska guarded by a terrifying predator in the form of Arctodus, human stone tools were more efficient at defence and better coordinated than the native Homo appalachius, a species that evolved across the west coast of north America from Cascadia all the way down into Mexico and Central America. Adapted to the rainy, mountainous terrain of the Appalachians, along with the large rivers and lakes of the region, this community of forest dwelling hunters nevertheless had a significant home advantage over the incoming novus, and survived via evasion in the mountains, while humans came to occupy the lowlands and more open terrain, as best suited them. With genetic crossover with Denovans, these people were hairier and stockier than any other members of Homo since the times of habilis, though they wore clothes and used stone tools of their own. Already having familiarised themselves with hostile Appalachians, many of the megafauna were already distrustful of the arriving novus, as well as creatures that had come between appalachius and novus, such as the moose, which a quarter of a million years earlier had outcompeted the native stag-moose after migrating inward during an interglacial (much earlier than in otl due to the warmer Siberia and Aleutian Islands-therefore the south coast of Beringia is warmer and wetter than otl during glacial periods). While the west coast of America had become monsoonal and ecologically desirable, however, the centre and east of the continent had become substantially hotter and drier, particularly in the south. While the Great Lakes and New England weren't too difficult to settle, being pretty warm and stable, the mighty Dixie Desert proved a formidable obstacle for human settlement. In this desert, herds of striped horses and asses, sandy coloured pronghorns, camels, glyptodonts, the Bald Sloth (Nothrotherium louisis) and even the Dixie Mammoth (Mammuthus alamus) roamed between watering holes and the relative greenery of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Here, dingo-like wolves, pumas, 'cheetahs' and lions were an ever present threat to both herbivores and humans. With the desert extending into the Carribean, this delayed the human arrival into the remaining forests of Central America until 50,000 years ago or less.

South America proved an equally complicated scenario upon arrival. As opposed to the bounties of Africa and southern Asia, South America was now much drier than before the Reversal that had changed the world. Even in interglacials, the Amazon rainforest was significantly smaller, surrounded by savannahs and deserts to the north and south. South America, therefore, had lost a good number of species, including megafauna, long before the arrival of the first humans, who spread out into the red deserts and survived wherever they could on whatever decided to live there. As with North America, the west coast proved a more hospitable place, being wetter and for the most part warmer than it had been before the Reverse, and therefore being more suitable for grasses and nut-bearing trees. The Atacama became warmer and far wetter, transformed from a harsh desert to a mix of plains and coastal rainforests, greatly extending the inhabitable region of the Andes further south. This meant the region could sustain a significantly higher human population, as well as more wild animals, for all their worth. As later human civilisations, such as the mighty Krinoap and Seibchi Empires would show, this region would be destined to create a notable world power. The Amazon, being smaller, drier and more open, was not as great a bounty for native wildlife, but the more open terrain and links to the savannahs did provide use for human hunters, particularly of the primitive Homo amazonius, a divergent descendant of Homo erectus that lacked the Denovan-interbreeding of the Appalachians, and apart from the hobbits of Indonesia, was the most genetically distinct from Homo novus, having diverged well over a million years earlier. Interbreeding was still possible, but the chances of defects and birth abnormalities was higher than with Neanderthals in the Middle East.

During the cold snap at the end of the ice ages, the desertification in the east coasts of the Americas became most extreme, as did the dryness in even the more habitable parts of the west coasts. Struggling to support themselves with pressure from climate changes and human hunters, a number of species like Casteroides were driven into extinction, while the bison retreated into the areas of the west that allowed warm grasslands to prosper. The mammoths, preferring grasses, shrubs and open woodlands, retreated to the fringes, a fraction of their former diversity. Mastodons at least climatically did well in the wetter pacific coasts as well as New England and Labrador, but hunting by humans made them more illusive.

The ground sloths of multiple species continued to survive through the late Pleistocene into the Holocene, with one curious member of the group making an interesting transition. With a milder, more tree-productive southern Alaska, a higher population of northern ground sloths of the genus Megalonyx was therefore able to establish itself in the region than would otherwise be possible, while the Aleutian Islands off the coast were milder and larger (due to slightly lower interglacial sea levels) than before, providing an inviting new place to settle. Therefore, the Eemian interglacial provided such an opportunity, both for the mainland and for the islands. Even as the Last Glacial Maximum began to hit the region, small numbers of this ground sloth managed to persist for time, and soon started finding new land, island hopping westward. Around 110,000 years before the present or so, a small colony of Ground sloths managed to find their way into the Commodore islands, the very first toe dipping into Eurasia. They only managed to change around for a few thousand years before growing ice caps cut them off from their old source, but they managed to spread westward while another more plentiful line of sloths island hopped with increasing ease as sea levels dropped. The western Aleutians and the neighbouring Commodore islands were much warmer than before thanks to the new Mid-Pacific ocean currents, and so provided suitable food for the sloths as Beringia began to form for the last time. Thus, as the Pleistocene ended, this species had managed to spread westward into the more moderate conditions of Kamchatka [more like our timeline’s Scandinavian, Columbia or even parts of Britain by present day and even during the glacial periods, it had a similar climate to otl present day] the Kurils and the Okhost sea, eventually reaching as far southwest as Manchuria, Baikal and even Korea, forming the ancestors of the modern Yakut Ground Sloth (Megalonyx occidentalis), a staple of the pelting industry throughout Siberia in our present. In the Americas themselves, with native fauna already having learned to adapt to human presence or dying, thanks to the Appalachians and Amazonians, H.novus managed to fit in surprisingly well, also interbreeding with local peoples and spreading technologies, ideas and less fortunately, disease. With the harshness of the last glacial maximum over, it was now possible for the peoples of the world to begin settling down long term, instead of relying on nomadism. The bountiful west coast, and the lifeblood of the Mississippi beckoned...

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

The Lands of Uz;

The first humans to arrive in Uz, or what you would call 'Australia' are hard to pin down with full accuracy. With sea levels only somewhat lower during interglacials, and almost the same in glacial periods, the difference in island hopping potential was only marginally greater, and with ocean currents running away from australia toward india, sailing from Indonesia actually became more difficult, not less, despite the lowered sea levels. Using islands to reach Uz therefore required a longer route eastward towards New Guinea, which even during most interglacials tended to be connected to Australia proper. Around 70,000 years ago, the first humans of any kind first set their feet in what is now New Guinea. Without the huge Outback desert of old, the spread of humanity across this landmass was surprisingly quick, and what these early Aboriginals found was a strange Eden, utterly unlike those of Eurasia, Africa or the Americas.

With a significantly wetter west coast, the forests of the south-west now connected with the expanded rainforests and Savannas of the north, while a dry though still grassy zone split the forested east coast, isolating the south-East's forested ecosystem and its unique species. Even the interior of Australia had become more of a savannah and steppe rather than desert, bringing Australia to a similar point it had been several millions of years earlier, during the late Miocene and Pliocene. During glacial periods, the contrast between the west and east coasts became less extreme, although the interior dried up, with Xeric shrubland being replaced with true desert (just not quite as much as in otl) due to more distance from the sea.

Rivers and large lakes covered the south and especially west of the land, leaving large expanses of forests and grasslands and places in between. The southwestern coast held sway to a substantial wetland, dotted with lakes and fertile valleys, proving good land to settle and beasts to hunt. In the 1.4+million years since the Reversal, evolution of fauna could only go so far, but noticeable differences did happen, and the sheer quantities of this fauna indeed exploded as greenery returned for the first time in millions of years in some places. The Genyornid birds, as well as crocodilians of multiple branches , regained both their diversity and their size quickly, while the predatory monitor lizards and Quinkana followed suit. Instead of gradually morphing into hostile deserts and grasslands, with the odd patch of forest, Western Australia became a positive garden of Eden, a great corridor stretching deep into Uz's interior, even the northern outback and to the shores of New Guinea, which expanded instead of shrinking with the increased humidity. Grasslands fed great herds of pouched kangaroos and hooved bandicoots, stretching to the coast. Marsupials, ratites and monitor lizards dominated this landscape like nowhere else on the planet, and there were even terrestrial crocodilians who served as the true apex predators of these lands, which certainly was saying a lot given the competition. The east coast was certainly drier and warmer than before, but not to the same extent the west coast originally was, so a decent sized desert existed here, though not as large or extreme as the old, being predominantly xeric shrubs rather than true desert. The fauna and flora of these two forest patches were therefore able to evolve in isolation with their new circumstances, even during the glacial periods. Tasmania connected to the mainland during these, though fractured away during the briefer interglacials. Glaciers would appear in the mountains, however.

With this landmass going through a rapid and substantial increase in both biomass and biodiversity, it didn't take long for the human explorers to take advantage of this and grow substantial populations in certain regions. From Hunter gatherers on the plains, to fishing societies around the lakes, and stalkers in the forest, hunting all sorts of game, the people of Uz quickly branched out into a diverse range of cultures of which some had pursued even to this day. Extinctions of fauna still occurred, as did the manmade fires which reshaped the landscape but a much richer land, and these somewhat earlier hunters, allowed more time for animals to be familiar with them, and thus to survive the chaos of their arrival. The fire resistant eucalyptus trees did well in the tropics and subtropics, though they lived alongside other trees especially in the west, where perhaps the most dangerous and bountiful lands for man lay. Not wanting to be ambushed by marsupial lions, or bitten by the many deadly snakes and spiders of the region, the first australians became a hardy people, always watchful of the terrors that roamed the woods, and vigilant of one another when competing for these resources.

Unfortunately, even with a substantially more stable and greener land, human habitation took its toll. The huge Diprotodons and walking kangaroos proved to be tasty meals for human hunters, and so they were some of the first to go extinct as the centuries went by. The Paleorchestids survived in the south east, isolated by grasslands, and their reclusive nature made them a subject of worship by the peoples of that land in later years. Similarly, faster more agile and more aggressive animals tended to survive well, such as the kangaroos, thylacines*, emus and Genyornids, and the great monitor lizards persisted in the savannahs of the north due to the more migratory patterns of humans living there. While rare, the marsupial lions still became an icon among many cultures as a symbol of the power of nature, just as the lion would in Africa.

As what we commonly call the 'stone age' came to an end as the last glacial maximum ended, beginning the Holocene, the continents with the most extreme transitions began to stabilise just as Eurasia and Africa did, and thus the age of humanity, spreading to every corner of the major landmasses, underwent new changes, as technology and ship building began to take to new extremes and new forms.


*these come in a wider arrange of forms than in our timeline, including a grey-wolf sized predator of small to medium game akin to a dingo that would attack the livestock of early Uzians, offering marsupial lions a form of competition, as well as small cat like forms that compete with quolls.

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

in. I hope to be able to offer more feedback, if possible, further down but it does look very ambitious.

One thing I’m definitely open to is feedback on biogeography and how the different climates would allow creatures to be distributed differently to our timeline. I’ve created some rough (and very rough) ranges for where species could be found in this timeline, but would it be better to give it its own topic in worldvuilding and move this one to narrative, do you think?

 

[Gurkhal]

One thing I’m definitely open to is feedback on biogeography and how the different climates would allow creatures to be distributed differently to our timeline. I’ve created some rough (and very rough) ranges for where species could be found in this timeline, but would it be better to give it its own topic in worldvuilding and move this one to narrative, do you think?

I'd love to help but I feel I know to little on this subject and the forum is acting crazy for me right now, anyway.

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

@mods is there a way to move this topic to an area of the forum containing actual projects and narratives?

This topic is where I will post project updates rather than wider worldbuilding and discussion, where would be best for that?

 

[Genly]

Speaking as a climate scientist but also as an aspiring writer, this material is very interesting and full of background detail. But maybe for maximum impact in this forum, you need a rather shorter precis that summarizes, in a page or so, the main scientific points. Then, a further page or so might include some suggestions on how you see the story developing from that point. By this, I don't mean more background on how society or evolution has been changed by the changed geography. You seem to have plenty of ideas on that. I mean ideas on how a story might be written using this background. Based on a fictional quote that you provide, you have already thought about this. What is the main conflict that this new world might experience at a chosen point in time? Do you need ideas on how that might develop?

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

Speaking as a climate scientist but also as an aspiring writer, this material is very interesting and full of background detail. But maybe for maximum impact in this forum, you need a rather shorter precis that summarizes, in a page or so, the main scientific points. Then, a further page or so might include some suggestions on how you see the story developing from that point. By this, I don't mean more background on how society or evolution has been changed by the changed geography. You seem to have plenty of ideas on that. I mean ideas on how a story might be written using this background. Based on a fictional quote that you provide, you have already thought about this. What is the main conflict that this new world might experience at a chosen point in time? Do you need ideas on how that might develop?

It’s a timeline that is gradually covered in the biological and historical elements. The other topic I’m going to create around this project is more of a discussion about things like biogeography and what is most plausible. This is more the in universe narrative on this particular topic.

 

[Sheilawisz]

@mods is there a way to move this topic to an area of the forum containing actual projects and narratives?

This topic is where I will post project updates rather than wider worldbuilding and discussion, where would be best for that?

Hello!

Welcome to Mythic Scribes. In my view, you are world building, so the World Building forum is alright. I could move the thread to Brainstorming and Planning anyway, if you prefer. Interesting concept.

Let me know if you need assistance.

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

“One can hardly imagine such a world without the vast potential and life-giving abilities of the Sahara or Arabia, lands which have birthed nation after nation after nation, and will continue to do so long after I am dead. The ingenuity of our peoples, as divided as they may be, couldn’t be further from those savages of the Sunset Kingdoms or the plagiarising Ind! Our people are surely gifted above all others!”
Rhamedi Zalashvihi, Khemroc historian and controversial idealogue (1884 CE).


Neolithic Era (8000-4500 BCE)

As the glaciers rolled back, revealing a world for the most part like the one we have today, some places certainly provided a more suitable space for inhabitation than others. While substantially warmer than during the glacial periods, most of Europe remained quite chilly in northern coastlines, with boreal forests found as far south as the Pyrenees and the Alps, with the mediterreanean being the warmest and wettest part of the continent. The human tribes of the region, competing with one another for limited resources and spreading across the vast forests and steppes of the east, struggled often to form larger settlements. The coasts of the sea to the south provided some refuge from the cold, and provided opportunities for maritime trade like no other. Of course, the good farmland in fishing in this region nevertheless made southern Europe a good land to live in and trade with one another and those on the other side of the Mediterreanean. Even here, it was mainly the Huspania and the Silian cultures, with their warm summers and good fishing land, who came to dominate the northern shores of the sea and set up bases and trading outposts across the various small islands and even into the fringes of the colder north. The port cities tended to have well fortified walls to protect them from the barbarians in the north, living in small tribes and organising raiding parties against the townsfolk of the south. But even they did not quite compete with their southern neighbours.

Without a hot dry current from the Americas, the Sahara was significantly cooler and wetter than it had been before, either during its ‘dry’ or ‘wet’ cycles, and unlike before, it was stable. From Morroco to Tunisia, a mild maritime climate, with rivers fed by the snow-capped Atlas mountains, the tribes of the region assembled into villages and towns, using stone and later copper axes to cut down trees to form gates and walls to protect from rivals, as well as more developed boats to set sail and trade with other towns. Through this, they encountered their northern neighbours, as well as peoples living in the east, who they managed to influence through their presence. In particular, the Nile and the Levant became influenced by these westerners more, and they too began to assemble into larger settlements. Unlike the timeline you and I are familiar with, however, human habitation was not pushed to the fringes of northern Africa. The Sea of Chad was a hotspot for great herds of megafauna from the forests and savannahs to gather, and also provided good land for humans to inhabit. With lush open woodlands to the north and beckoning Savannah’s to the south, the sea of Chad became very suitable land for long term inhabitation. Across the Sahara, powerful tribal confederations formed, and started to form around easily accessible regions such as around the Nile River or the Atlas Mountains, or indeed the smaller lakes. Towns began to form of wood and even stone, and so the Sahara showed its first steps to civility as we know its. While the early city states of this age have names that are now long lost to us, some of the world’s greatest early civilisations would nonetheless start around these lakes and on the north coast. Similarly, the coastal regions of Arabia proved good trading territory, and soon settlements arose here too.

In another part of the world altogether, a similar story was told around a mighty river flowing east, much more accessible than its even larger neighbour to the south. The very first civilisations of the world are hard to pinpoint, but a good category is the Neolithic and later copper using “Yellow Cities”, named for their formation around the long Yellow River. Hinbao and Jisha were among the first of these early cities, feeding on the predictable flooding to maintain specialised crops, while being far less dependent on it than those people in the Yangtze much further south. With a plentiful source of fresh water and decent farmland surrounding them, these early chinese cities caused the world’s first cities to develop, and in their state, they exported their knowledge to other parts of east asia through trade networks overseas, forming loosely inspiring the first mythologies of Kureo. In fact, events going on between these different regions are almost certainly the inspiration behind many of that region's myths and legends. As opposed to the nuts grown from trees and fish in the Mediterranean, along with sheep, pigs cattle and antelope, the peoples of the Yellow Cities taimed flora and fauna able to survive drier and less predictable conditions, even if less extreme than their neighbours to the south. Water buffalo and fowl became a significant part of agriculture due to the river providing life, and leopards, lions and tigers came to be hunted for their pelts. Even three, perhaps four species of elephants passed through the region and the lands to the north, including the gigantic Gyurtun (Palaeoloxodon magniforms, roughly analogous to our namadicus) and the bizarre Hurlin (Stegodon orientus), alongside the standard Chinese elephant (Elephus sinicus). Many of these animals came to by worshipped as gods and goddesses, often in anthropomorphic forms, among the Yellow Cities.

Even in the hostile Nanman Desert, signs of development were showing, as many gathered from the surrounding sands and small oases towards the green flood plains of a mighty river, staking claim to it. Towns began to form, and the first ancestors of the Dharnamese formed. Hybridised with both the Denovans across Asia and the region’s own unique desert dwellers, the people of this region were very distinct from any other ethnic grouping of Homo novus, with some arguing they should be classed as a separate subspecies. Many of the Dharnamese people themselves hold to this view even today, while maintaining their distinction from the more primitive First Men of Nanman.

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

Yet another place of prosperity for settled peoples was around another island of green in a large desert, in the east of North America. The Mississippi, with its many tributaries and winding down through the canyons to the north, provided ample opportunities for human settlers to call it home. Beginning in the humid temperate mountains of Appalachia, the great river gradually winds south, merging with lesser rivers as it winds down through the mediterranean open woodlands, into the warm plains, and finally into the Dixie Desert, one of the largest in the world. A vein of green piercing the increasingly hostile south, the Mississipi therefore became a suitable ground for native americans, both sapiens and the almost extinct Appalachians to settle into long term communities, seeking refuge from the east and west. As with Nanman, complex settlements were only a matter of time, though instead of an almost monodirectional river as with the latter, the Mississippi was much more fragmented, both by long tributaries as well as by rocky canyons, preventing a more homogenous cultural and technological spread. Thus each of the regions of these lands developed almost separate from one another, resulting in a more fragmented native population. Just as the Dharnamese domesticated camels, the Mississipians did the same with the native Camelops, using them to transport stone and other material goods across the river and further inland, allowing these city states to expand their foundations, setting the way for the empires to follow.

In the great southern continent of Uz, the lakes of the south and the west allowed a congregation of increased human settlement, as did the increased availability of fauna. Having mostly marsupial fauna in the land, the peoples of Uz did not have the luxury of easily domesticable mammals that their neighbours in Eurasia or even north america had, thereby relying more on cultivating suitable crops to feed growing populations. A source of potential use however, was found in two of the region’s more abundant large avians. In the forested environments, the process of taming different species of Dromornithids and fowl took place, and by fluke, the Guinea Fowl of Indonesia are known to have found their way to Uz later on, likely through trade with Indonesians. The Dromornithids, having rapidly increased in both diversity and size from their early Pleistocene counterparts, provided many useful opportunities for feathers, eggs, bones, meat and even the cultivation of certain crops. Attempts to tame the cassowaries of the northern forests proved less successful. In the open grasslands and small deserts, emus proved elusive of the hunter gatherers and pastoral nomads, but nevertheless the two shared an inexplicable relationship over time.

A Time of Bronze (4500-2000 BCE)

Reversia’s bronze age came in multiple directions, with multiple groups independently discovering developed metallurgy besides jewelry. Used in warfare, these metal weapons proved much deadlier than their stone counterparts, and able to effectively utilise such weapons freed stone up for other uses. With the nuts of north africa and west asia, and the grain of east asia and the beans of the americas, larger populations than before were now possible, thus seeing an explosion of cities on a global basis, resulting in the first kingdoms and empires starting to form, though many of them are shrouded in mystery nowadays.

With a massive stretch of subtropical climate stretching almost without interruption from the Gambia to the Bay of Bengal, the spread of suitable crops and nut bearing throughout these latitudes was comparatively east, and so organised tribal societies developed quite quickly even outside the influence of Dharnam or Sina. With fairly dense forests covering most of the Middle East as well as much of the Maghreb, forest based peoples did well cultivating nuts in the open woodlands, with timber being a vital part of these early lands. In more open habitats, such as the Mediterranean islands, the first significant trading powers emerged, being the Zypriots in the eastern Mediterranean and the Silians in the west, building trading ports across the northern and southern coasts for their benefits, and fighting expansionist wars against natives and one another for it.

This prompted the rise of the Nile’s first United Kingdom to rise in response, known as Usurid by later people’s, around the base of the Nile and surrounding woodlands. While it was by no means the Khemros we know today, the early Usurid dynasties inherited a warm and fertile land, amplified by the world’s largest river with predictable flooding and great farmland and woods for hundreds of miles around. As they spread out in response to Zypriot incursions into the woodier Levant and even the Red Sea, they faced a more prominent threat to the west in the form of nomadic raiders, armed with scythed zebra chariots that could outrun even the fastest foot-soldiers, as well as heavily armed longhorn buffalo (Syncerus antiquus), covered in bronze armour and bred as some of the world’s first heavy cavalry, at a time when horses were too small to directly ride. They were highly unpredictable even for their riders, and were feared by all. Despite their ferocity, it was the chariots that spread out from Darfur and Ennedi [northern Chad and southeast Libya] across west Asia and North Africa, even reaching the fringes of Europe in time. The Dafa nomads, however were set back in the west by the settled people of the Sahel.

The Sea of Chad was second only to the Greater Caspian in the largest inland sea in the world, and with less salt in it, making it good land to settle around. Warm and humid forests to the north and Savannahs to the south made a great range of plants and animals coming to the region, along with plentiful river basins surrounding it providing fresher water, there could hardly have been a more suitable place for long term settlement of humans. Instead of the Savannah and wet grassland nomads west, the People of the Great Lakes settled permanently and built cities with a plentiful water supply. The Guymungo culture’s early origins occur in the borders between the two habitats on the east coast of Chad, with various rivals of the north and south as well. Able to sustain populations in the millions, Chad and Niger became a beacon of civilisation many miles seperate to the ‘islands’ of the Mediterranean and the Nile. The smaller lakes and rivers of the western Sahara also attracted more permanent human settlement, with plentiful wood and grain to live off, providing a long belt from Numidia all the way to Nigeria, as a great interconnected system of cities, semi nomadic peoples and small empires began to emerge. Throughout the Bronze Age, west Africa became a beacon of its time.

 

[ForbiddenParadise64]

Similarly, in Southern Asia, the conditions lay ripe for settled societies with multiple functions to evolve. Developing writing, stone walls around settlements and religious codes to set and encourage legal structures, these early nations did well for themselves. Larger Settlements grew around the rivers in western Arabia as well as Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, with Hejaz being mountainous rainforests and Serengeti lowlands rich in gold and the Euphrates and Indus being wet valleys surrounded by dense forests and with mild seasons. Connections between the early west Arabs, or ‘Nibetay’ and those of Euphretia didn’t take too long to form due to rivers and fertile lands, but it was more difficult for them to spread into the Savannahs of the ‘Empty Quarter’, or the steamy moonsonal rainforests of Oman and Yemen. Here, a different civilisation arose in the form of the Azra, who cultivated tropical plants and used water buffalo to graze and plough through wet fields, with even forest elephants being found here, and the infamous Arabic Tiger (Panthera Tigris omanensis) prowled these forests as a threat. The savannahs allowed a variety of large herbivores to coexist, including the huge Nejd Camel (Camelus magnificens), likely the reason giraffes are absent from Arabia, and the mighty straight Tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), alongside lions, hyenas, wolves and bears hunting them. Naturally, Arabia was able to sustain a population in the millions as a result of its diverse array of habitats, rivers and lakes in the south, and good lands to settle, with a useful strategic position with the Levant to the north, the rainforests of Somalia to the south and india to the east. As a result, Azra traders flourished in a maritime culture compared to their inland kin, spreading new technologies, crops and animals across the Persian gulf and Indian Ocean, far beyond Arabia’s own direct influence. Trading also occurred with the city states of the Indus and Ghanghes Valleys, promoting cooperation and at times rivalry, as embargo’s and in time naval warfare started to occur, as well as armies being sent into the intermediate lands. Indeed the rivalry between Arabia and India would continue long after the age of bronze ended.

Between the fertile valleys of Arabia and India lies the mountainous territories of Iran. With rainfall similar to that of Dharnam before the reversal, and many different chains of hills and mountains, much of the west of the country is full of ice-caps and flowing rivers and lakes, draining upwards into the Caspian Sea, with it merged into the old Aral basin. This collection of rough terrain and the relative cold makes the region difficult to navigate bar the more moderate coastlines, which were and to some extent still are often subject to Arab colonisation, including the Azra trading colonies. The southwest and southeast however did manage to develop their own more local variants of civilisations. By around 4000-3500BCE, the Kinovites thrived out of Baluchistan, sometimes raiding into the richer Indus Valley cities and even ruling over them from time to time before being replaced with the Bijir, who came from central iran. In the south-west, near Arabia, the Yiden empire became one of the world’s earliest large states, taking over much of the Euphrates and almost the entirety of the Persian Gulf under the line of Gharcrazidek IV between 3241-3123 BCE. Even after his last descendant died around 2871BCE, a smooth transition came under Kharidek II who extended Yden’s rule all the way into eastern Anatolia, though the tribes of the west started to gather into city states around the coasts to form a counter. Of course, all good things come to an end, and his descendants’ empire collapsed to infighting and ended up being consumed by one of its own subjects, the Euphratic city of Tezhesh, located near the river’s mouth at the sea [otl Kuwait]. The first Tez empire spread substantially further south than its predecessor, all the way to the borders of the Dubai rainforest, though no further due facing problems with raiding nomads from the Savannahs and the ever present Azra. They also faced a rival in the form of Usurid’s own new rival, the first Kingdom of Khemros occupying the eastern shores of the Nile around 2200BCE. Blows came in this time and while Tezhesh briefly occupied Sinai from 2178-2145BCE, their gains were reversed and the Levant fell to Khemro influence for a considerable time. With Yden gone, the western Anatolian city states gave way to infighting that spilled over into the southern Balkans, even setting up trade routes into the chilly lands of Crimea.

In the Far East, the cities of the Yellow River started forming larger kingdoms such as Wei and Jibon, as did tributary rivers with the Bei, but in the south another power grew surrounded by deserts. Near the mouth of the Yangtze grew the first kingdom of Dharnam, a flooded plain and grasslands further north providing an island of food compared to the great southern deserts. This long oasis allowed multiple cities to grow both in the delta and along it further inland, though other cultures developed further west leading into the mountains of Tibet. Using cattle and ploughs to cultivate rice and wheat from the flood plains allowed the Dhar rulers to grow rich. Mighty temples and even lesser cities and towns grew out, with cultivation in the plains to the north allowing more grain to be transported south, though they contested this land with the many cities of the Yellow River, who had better proximity to it, To the Sandy west and south, silts and materials were present in abundance, and so as the first god-emperors grew in power, they built monuments to their grandieur-and their egos, in the form of mighty pyramids. Around 2500 BCE came the time when the first pyramids of Dharnam were built, alongside the Four Forts of the South, designed to keep out raids by bandits and nomads riding camels and wielding curved swords. Some of these were tall, bore exceptionally dark skin and had strange, almost ape like faces; these are the last of the Jheiniz (Homo taipus), descendants of Homo cantonus surviving in the extreme desert more effectively than the more intelligent humans. With no substantially greenery in the south apart from the Hainan Peninsula and the Red River, even Dharnam saw little use expanding in this direction.

A more immediate threat however existed to the west, the Yuhan, another settled civilisation, living with less extreme conditions mixing plains, scrubs and Mediterranean woodlands, becoming an island of prosperity between the Nanman desert and the dry mountains of Tibet. Often warring with Dharnam over the centuries across the Bronze Age and even later, the two frequently interchanged elements of one another’s culture. For instance, the Dharnam tradition of ancestor worship caught on in Yuhan, while the latter’s ceremonies of laying the bodies of the dead in caves was adopted in a form by Dharnam, who cast them out to sea. Even Yuhan’s architecture began to take on more Dharnamese traits over the years, such as the hemispherical house designs over the square ones they formerly used.

Far to the south, beyond the various tribes and kingdoms of Indonesia lies the lands of Uz. With green land all around, especially in the west, settled tribes started to expand into more elaborate nations with complex hierarchies, often quite different of those in the rest of the old world. The southern-west coast saw the rise of Uz’s first civilisation, the Ghorinahai, who made use of the drier and sparser forests of there to settle large towns and even some of the first wooden cities. The Ghori expanded into the humid forests to the north, though ever competing with local tribes who evaded capture and feircely resisted eddy step of the way. At the peak of their size around 2400BCE, Ghorinahai covered an area as large as Madagascar, though certainly much more fertile. However, overextension and disease led to widespread starvation, and as raids from the lake-peoples became more and more severe, their vassal cities broke away, leading to the end of the first empire. Trade with Indonesia to the north bought metallurgy to northern Uz as well, and the Savannah dwelling peoples of the Papi Nawi, armed with copper, bronze and iron stalked the plains after kangaroos, wearing the pelts of giant monitor lizards and crocodiles as armour. From opposite ends of the continent, well organised societies propped up and spread their innovations all across the land Down Under.

 

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Further afield, the place where horses first came from, North America also gave some of the first cultures to domesticate the creatures, alongside Camelops, a somewhat larger relative of the Bactrian of Central Asia, though certainly not as the giant Arabian camels. A culture of grassland dwelling nomads developed, not using chariots as those in Eurasia did, but instead directly rising on the horses’ backs to increase mobility. Discovering cavalry over a millennium before those in the old world, these Sachuwa peoples used javelins, bows and stone axes from horseback, and as metallurgy developed, they transitioned to swords and maces for ease of use. Sometimes these were merely small bands of warlords would go east to raid around the Great Lakes formed by the retreating glaciers, or to the settled lands of the west coast, where the mountains provided refuge from the Sachuwa, one of them being the Appalachians who had arrived in the Americas over a million years ago. In the lowlands around the lakes, various forest dwelling people and tribes did well, building large and elaborate settlements that managed to fend off the horse lords, with sharpened trunks to deter them from their settlements. The cities of Oregon down to Sonora form an interconnected web of people’s who traded with, travelled to and fought one another, creating further innovations. While isolated from the people’s on the other side of the Pacific, their order did well in this time. In central Mexico, still forested compared to the rest of Central America, settled societies with bronze working and cultivation of various crops developed another zone quite distinct from Pacifica, using the taming of one of the most powerful beasts in the region to bring its neighbours to heel.

The Dixie Desert was a very different creature to the greenery to the north. Stretching from Carolina all the way down the Carribean down to the coast of Venezuela, and almost all of the coast between, this vast barrier almost separates north and South America bar for animals and peoples capable of making the transition. Around the life-giving rivers of the Mississippi, a different order arose, convergent with that of Dharnam, but distinct as well. As large as the delta of Khemros, and even larger than the Yangtze, Nuqoli’s formation in the south gave it a dominance over Louisiana. Rather than building stepped square pyramids like Dharnam, they preferred smooth triangular designs, dedicated to the worship of the rain god Mahinuwa. Similar large settlements and cities developed around the tributary rivers to the north, including the more forested habitats, partially to make use of the agrarian land and partly to fend off the aforementioned Sachuwa. Using the surrounding deserts and plains as natural weapons, as well as the use of armoured infantry and Camelops riders that could effectively fight against the horse-mounted Sachuwa, the peoples build various nations that traded and competed with one another, ushering in a prosperous age.

End of an Era (2000-1800BCE)

As the time of bronze drew to a close, throughout the Mediterranean and west Asia, copper and tin shortages began to occur, making large scale bronze production more difficult. The chariots that dominated north Africa to Europe and Central Asia became harder to maintain as well, as independently of the Sachuwa, another group of people came to directly using horse riding. Coming from the cold and windy steppes of southern Russia and the forests of eastern Anatolia, wave after wave of iron wielding nomads came from the north and ravaged the inland cities, outmanoeuvring the native civilisations on both foot and horseback. Thought at first to be a mythical hybrid of man and deer, for the “snow peoples” wore antlered helmets on themselves and their steeds, much terror spread as the empires of the Middle East began to collapse, particularly the first Tez people as well as the western Arabs of the Levant. Even Khemros and it’s older rival Usurid united against the new people’s who came about, while the latter was also facing extended raids by the Dafa, organised under the legendary King Ayonafa ‘the White Lion’, named for his long white hair and sword curved like a lion’s canine. The Nile was fortunately the main limit of the nomadic wave, though some of the Anatolian tribes also travelled across the North African coast, settling in the modern Straits, intermixing with native peoples.

As well as the large southward migration by the snow peoples, an extension of them is believed to have travelled eastward through the mountains and woods of Persia, even bringing their iron and cavalry to the Indus Valley and Bactria, causing a decline in the local powers and city states. They were not able to advance further however due to the powerful confederation of tribes dominating much of northern India, assembling into the archaic Mahunet dynasty, who occupied the north-west and after some time even drove the Snow Peoples out of Indus and Pashtun, briefly holding these lands under their rule.

The Great Collapse ending the Age of Bronze and starting the Iron Age was certainly a harsh time, but it was mainly limited to the south-west of Asia, whereas the fringes of Europe, India and sub Saharan Africa, among other places, weathered the migration period much better, and in fact made use of the collapse of their neighbours. It took centuries to recover from the Collapse, but when the west did, a new transformation and shifting of power began.