Is the Veleda timeline entirely prevented? The Tacitus Two text comes from it.
In the history that is known to us, Burhmund/Civilis made peace with Rome whereas in Veleda's divergent timeline:
Burhmund was crushed;
the prophetess, Veleda, returned to free Germany where her new religion spread;
it grew and developed without competition after her death;
the goddess became the supreme figure, appealing to women who influenced their children;
with the Western Empire collapsed, Christianity did not admit its North European converts to the commerce and culture of civilization;
instead, the Nerthus faith became the core of a Germanic civilization, able, like Zoroastrian Persia, to resist Christianity;
the world was very different by the twentieth century;
"'That's what we're trying to head off,' Everard said harshly." (p. 569)
Only wanting to post once more today, I preferred to return to "Star of the Sea" than to stay with Dinosaur Beach but I will try to get the rest of the latter read and out of the way this evening.
Tomorrow, a new month. We approach the end of the first quarter-century of the Third Millennium. I wish that I could look forward with confidence to a long future ahead.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteAnd it's fortunate nothing like that Veleda timeline came to exist in our real world, because it would have delayed and hindered the spreading of the saving Good News of Christ.
Btw, recall how Stirling discussed that by about AD 600, Sassanid Persia was well on the way to becoming Christianized. Zoroastrianism was the faith of most of the aristocracy, but Christianity was was spreading among the rest of the population. Another century or two and Persia might have become a Christian realm. The Muslim jihads under Mohammed's successors aborted that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yeah, Christianity was spreading widely in Mesopotamia under Sassanid rule. By 600 AD it was making inroads into the Iranian plateau. Without the Muslim conquests, it would probably have predominated eventually in Central Asia and western China; how things would have developed after that, we don't know.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI agree, history would have been incalculably different if Mohammed had not founded Islam. Harry Turtledove wrote a story in which he became a Christian monk instead.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, that was an amusing tale. And he eventually became a Bishop in Hispania.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteBecause the Persian invasion of the Eastern Empire during the cruel and incompetent reign of the usurper Phocas (r. 602-610) drove Mohammed and his fellow monks from their Syrian monastery.
What a catastrophe Islam has been for the world! It would have been infinitely better if Mohammed had converted to Christianity.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, yeah, but modern Western Civ probably wouldn't exist. It was forged in the struggle with Islam as much as anything else.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree, it certainly would have been a very different world with no Islam in it. Turtledove gave us some speculations about that in AGENT OF BYZANTIUM, collecting stories about Basil Argyros, in a world where the Empire didn't have to struggle desperately for survival fighting Islam.
Ad astra! Sean