PDA

View Full Version : Creating The ICU Setting, Part I: What If The Roman Empire Had Never Fallen?



Morph Bark
2012-07-03, 05:35 AM
So I'm building a campaign setting for a game that'll basically be a cat and mouse game between players as happened in Death Note and Code Geass, with players having either a Death Note or a Geass (or being a shinigami or a witch) or potentially something other animesque if it fits, and I wanted the setting to be full of conflict. We threw some ideas around, with my main one being that the world still has some big empires around. One player suggested that the Roman Empire had never fallen and was still around. How would the world be in the present if that had happened? How would the world's history be different?

Zale
2012-07-03, 05:47 AM
The Dark Ages would probably never have happened.

Not to mention most of WWI and II.

horngeek
2012-07-03, 06:12 AM
It should be noted that it'd take a bloody miracle. If you want to be realistic, there is no way it could've survived without splitting like it did, because it was too big. Information didn't travel fast enough, neither did manpower, and to be honest, both problems wouldn't be solved for nearly two thousand years. The Roman Empire only really got as big as it did because it had the best roads in the ancient world (and possibly medieval world as well).

If the Roman Empire did split but both halves remained standing, I could see military conflicts between them. Emperors on both sides could have disagreed with the split and tried to reunify by force, success would... not be likely, however. Also, it should be noted: both would become the longest-standing nations ever.

*skips over religious implications- in truth, not much would change here, methinks. PM me if you want my thoughts on this*

Culturally, however, I'm not sure how they'd develop. They're big enough that I could see cultural differences within their borders, but after 2000 years, citizens would have a common identity as 'Roman' or 'Byzantine'.

You need to justify why it'd remain standing if it stayed as a single entity. I find this unlikely unless the setting has widespread communication (and just as importantly, transport) magic, because as I said at the beginning of my post: the Roman Empire's problem was that it grew too bloated.

Aux-Ash
2012-07-03, 10:50 AM
The farther back one changes history the less recognicable it becomes. If the roman empire did not fall, then history as we know it is completely changed. It is simply not an easy thing to answer.

The first and most crucial question however is: when did the roman empire fall? It's easy to give the date of either the permanent division or when Rome was razed. But the circumstances leading to either result was already firmly in place.
And remember: The Byzantine Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Crusader Empire, The Holy Roman Empire and the Russian Empire all considered themselves to be the one true roman empire.

Another crucial question is... what does "Rome not falling" entail? Does it mean the entire empire stays together and never give one inch of ground? That the empire in italy endures? That a state bearing it's name and legacy remains (which is what happened in IRL)? If it means the empire with it's legionnaries in red, with a senate and an emperor and all the glory of the romantized rome then it was dead prior to the end of the second century.

A lot of people suggest that the dark ages wouldn't happen, thing is though... for the last two centuries western rome was nothing but a big mess of civil wars that constantly tore itself down to feed the war effort. If -that- rome endured then western europe might just be the most backward place on earth. From the mid fourth-century rome had more in common with "dark ages europe" than it had with the empire of Augustus.

Then there's the migrations. From the beginning of the 3rd century, there's a lot of peoples moving into Europe. First the germanic peoples (including the franks, the vandals, the alemanni, lombards, burgundii), then the magyars, the goths and the huns and then the slavs. They will change the empire. And if these people do not enter europe for some reason, then they end up somewhere else (with all that entails).

So basically... it's a huge question. Virtually impossible to answer without limiting it somehow.
Does the empire not falling mean it keeps it borders from x year/emperor? That it survives as a state in Italy? That it reunites under a eastern emperor?

Ashtagon
2012-07-03, 11:19 AM
Before you can say how the present day would be different, you need to answer the question of how did it not fall?

With some mental gymnastics, even Russia and Germany have a tenuous claim to be legitimate direct continuations of the Roman Empire.

aside: The most recent Dr Who episode had Winston Churchill as the Holy Roman Emperor, with trapping that were very imperial Rome in appearance.

You might want to look into some of the gurps Alternate Worlds books for possible modern Roman empires.

To contradict a poster upthread, the Roman Empire did not collapse due to being too big for its communications technology. The British Empire was far bigger both in scope and in communication time, but didn't collapse due to bloat. It had more to do with internal politicking at a time when there was a very real threat from the barbarians on the northern borders and a policy of using these tribes as mercenaries in order to save full citizens from being in battle. Using such mercenaries meant that when the gold ran out, the Romans lacked a sufficiently large trained army. Alaric I, who led the sack of Rome in 410 AD, was trained by the Romans while a mercenary for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_%28410%29

So you need to make sure the Romans kept their "with your shield or on it" mentality in order to have the Empire survive.

Morph Bark
2012-07-03, 11:26 AM
I meant falling in the sense of the Roman Empire degenerating so far that allowed it to fall apart and be conquered by other peoples, which happened to the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and to the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire about a thousand years later (I forget the exact year).

This would of course need to mean that the people they conquered were at least integrated into the Empire well enough that they would call themselves Romans too, for one. The Empire might need splitting as horngeek said, though I can also imagine the Roman Empire setting up tributuary states or becoming a kind of "United States" type thing, if need be. Basically, whatever it would need to change to keep from degenerating and falling as it did.

For one, I don't really see why it would have to split to keep from breaking apart, as easy long-distance communication and travel wasn't even around yet when other empires became twice as big or further spread out than the Roman Empire (such as the Russian, Chinese, British, Portuguese and Spanish Empires).

Aux-Ash
2012-07-03, 12:08 PM
The problem is that some of your solutions there is exactly what the empire did. It's primary method of expansion was setting up tributionary states it later annexed. And when the empire pulled back it's borders it was usually placing tributionaries beyond them which they later lost control of. By the time of the collapse, just about every culture in the roman empire (that wasn't a recent arrival) was throughly latinized or hellenized.

One of the primary problems of the empire was the frequency it's local governors (who were virtually all powerful in their domains) and generals tried to usurp the imperial diadem themselves. Not to mention that court intrigue had been a roman speciality ever since Tiberius (if not since Augustus).
The roman ambition (which is probably what led them to conquer the empire in the first place) was probably the primary threat to making the empire stay together.

If that could be curbed somehow, without removing the ability to defend the borders of the empire, then there's a chance the empire could stay together for a while anyways. It would have to change again and again over the centuries in order to survive to the modern era anyways.

Morph Bark
2012-07-03, 12:30 PM
Due to seeing that there could be lots of potential problems I came here. Anything I've mentioned above as a "solution" was meant mainly as an example. I have NO IDEA how politics exactly works and while I am very much interested in history, I tend to not be so interested in the why and how behind things as I am with science. Hence why I want to find a solution, a reason that the Roman Empire could still exist and what changes there would be because of that. Those are all things I'd really need help with.

Aux-Ash
2012-07-03, 12:43 PM
After reading up a bit... I think that if we either whisk away "The crisis of the third century" or better yet, make the empire arise renewed and stable after it we could probably envision a roman empire that lasts longer.

During this 50 year period the Sassanids warred in the east, the Carpians, The Goths, The Alamannii and the Vandals invaded, a massive epidemic hit the empire (5-20 % of the inhabitants died) and a massive hyperinflation destroyed the empire's internal trade network. Oh... and it split into three.

If our empire can step out of that with a firm and stable line of succession it might be able to last for a time. It will be massively weakened and will lose land over the next century. But it might be able to survive.

So either we decide that Alexander Severus does not get assassinated. Or that something takes a different turn during the latter half of these years. The epidemic and the barbarian/persian invasions are more difficult to handwave away.

NerfTW
2012-07-03, 01:21 PM
I think this entire thread shows the problem with the Sliders style "One thing changes a hundred or more years ago but all the same people and cities are still in the same place" alternate universes.

Besides the obvious questions of how being raised in this thread, the actual implications would require some pretty in depth knowledge of history and politics. More so than any one person would know. Just take the British Empire's influence on the development of modern China. Or WWII on Japan. And that's only going back 100 or so years. You're talking changing the political face of Europe over 1000 years ago.

I'd focus more on some of the empires of the last century. Like what if the USSR didn't fall. Or what if China's development took a different turn. Or what if there was a United Countries of North America. They'd require just as major changes to occur, but with far less railroading of technology and culture to keep it recognizable.

Jack of Spades
2012-07-03, 02:41 PM
So, I personally think that the easiest way to frame this question is "What if the Byzantine Empire had never fallen," if only because that sets the revisionist clock a bit further forward and also means that the chaff that was the late Western Roman Empire doesn't need to be dealt with. So, to skim over things, you'd basically have to come up with a reason that the Ottomans didn't exist and then a reason that Byzantium managed to bounce back from its decline. Which would be difficult.

In any event, how would history change? Well, it wouldn't be too hard to just swap the Ottoman Empire with the Byzantine one as history goes up through the 19th century (assuming some sort of major bounce-back for the Byzantines and ignoring most of the details that would be messed up by that assumption). However, you would have to figure out how they survived World War I, which would probably mean that they sided with the 'Allies' or stayed out of the conflict entirely. Assuming the rest of history runs the same way, WWI would have been a slaughter and probably would have put Germany even farther into the gutter. This could mean that either (the European theater of) WWII never happens because Germany is completely in ruin or that WWII is a lot worse because Germany is more pissed as a nation (thus is able to recruit a larger military and garner more public support for the war). If we assume that Germany is in total ruin after The Great War, then Japan will probably not be so bold as to attack America (Hawai'i) and Britain (Australia) in the time period that would be WWII. However, they'd probably own most of Southeast Asia, as well as the Pacific islands up through Midway that America couldn't be bothered to defend when they were first invaded. However, it's probable the Soviet Union would have stepped in and curb-stomped the Japanese Empire early on, meaning they might not control Southeast Asia all that much after all.

All in all, the United States would have spent even more of the 20th century trying to rebuild from the Great Depression. Without WWII to provide fuel for the fire, FDR would have only served 3 terms at most and the American economy would be slowly rebuilding but not booming like it did in the 50's. Women's rights would be set back a bit, but overall the social situation would probably be the same by the time the modern era rolled around. However, America would be a bit of a backwater. The USSR, relatively unopposed, would probably have started a different WWII sometime in the 50's or 60's, but there's no way of knowing that.

In fact, I'm about neck-deep in assumptions and probably 90% wrong already, so I'm just going to stop.

TL;DR Changing history sucks and is a bad idea unless your game takes place less than ten years after your big change.

dps
2012-07-03, 08:16 PM
The reason that the Roman Empire fell, mostly, was that it never developed an orderly succession to the throne. Sure, there were other issues, but the main problem was that there was almost never an uncontested succession. Solve that problem, and the other problems become things that could at least potentially be dealt with.

Dienekes
2012-07-05, 08:59 AM
Ehh, I don't think you can really put the fall of Rome to one thing. Poor communication? It lasted pretty long as being huge just fine before it had to split. No direct line of succession? That's what gave them some of their best Emperors and allowed them to get rid of some of the more insane ones.

Now part of the problem was of course expansion. The Roman culture and economy where for a very large time based around military expansion, and when that stopped happening things started to fall apart. This can be fixed in two ways: a major change in economic policy at a much earlier time, or the continued expansion. Maybe they finally beat the Parthians.

Another major problem was of course their military, once the proudest of Roman traditions the military was a shadow of it's former self. Now the Roman military was never the unstoppable machine of conquest that it gets described as. Rome won it's military encounters largely because the Roman people were willing to throw more men to their deaths than their opponent. Then once they became large enough they were willing to throw more of their barbarian mercenaries and auxiliaries to their deaths than their opponents. By Rome's fall the Roman military was much smaller, and hilariously ill equipped. The Roman army at times went to battle without armor even, and especially on the outskirts military training which had once been so important was not emphasized at all. And in Rome itself, where once military might was the only means of increasing someones station or gaining honors as a nobleman it was deemed a job for lesser men. This last one can probably be pointed right at the feat of Augustus himself. When the Empire was formed the central government took a more active role in military policy. Augustus limited the amount of armies and made sure they were all paid primarily from the Empire. Smart man, realized that the reason Sulla, Pompey, and Julius were able to grab power for themselves was because they paid their armies directly in patronage. Limiting that by definition limits the extent the nobles deem the military a noble investment and so we get less and less of the truly intelligent, ambitious men that defined Roman military leadership during it's glory days. Of course this change didn't happen all at once, and we definitely still see generals take power, but the honor attributed to individuals in military command was diminished and soon the only method of achieving that honor was in reconquering Rome itself for your own ego.

Which brings us to the numerous Civil Wars. Now, while they were trouble, they did serve a purpose for quite a while, in regulating the Empire. Keeping the Empire without a loony and whatnot. But, it gets taken too far to the extent that for awhile assassination and civil war was nearly constant. This strain severely damaged the economy, and horrendously laxed the control Rome had on it's outlying regions. Now to fix these two problems I would suggest changing history that during the Crisis of the Third Century we instead of getting a "New Augustus" like figure. Tying everything together, this new Augustus came on top of a brief civil war and started immediately fixing the problems he saw in the Empire. He strengthened military discipline and instituted the policy that anyone on his court needed to serve the public in some major form, while weakening the power of the local government. He increased government spending on the military and the military outposts instituted by Augustus to keep order in the empire, and rebuilt the roads. This created an obvious drain on the economy and so a new call to conquest was given. The military under one of this new Augy's sons succeeds in some major conquest, bringing in increased revenue and jumpstarting the Roman economy if only temporarily.

After New Augy's death that son is given command, the strength of the family is still unquestioned, and New Augy II uses this to start addressing the unsustainable economic problems. How? I honestly couldn't say. I'm not a student of economics what I will say needed to be done was a way of getting wealth out of the hands of the hoarding nobility and into public improvement, and general circulation. Even that would only be a bandaid. The Roman public was largely poor or completely out of work. The technically New Augy's military adjustments may lower this problem it would not end it. So here I'm stumped. Not because it's impossible (though it might be), but because it's in a subject I do not have the knowledge to suggest a fix.

Anyway from these two rulers and the traditions they implement we get a Rome that could have trudged on for a bit longer. We probably wouldn't see the split so soon, and Rome wouldn't have fallen in 476, well unless a bunch of folk really, really mess up in the periods between those points.

Notably this would allow Rome to keep trudging along as it had, a couple good emperors, a bad one, assassination, civil war. Hopefully Strong Emperor comes out on top, with an economy that can sustain this rather violent method of self regulation. Now eventually this would have to change.

So let's get into what would be the medieval period. Instead of a bunch of barbarian kingdoms we have the empire. Big and unwieldy. Instead of being pseudo-isolated as they were, trade with China still occurred with adequate frequency. This would probably bring gunpowder to Europe much, much faster. I'd also be willing to suggest that direct contact between Rome and China becomes increasingly more likely as time went on.

I'd continue commenting, but I honestly ran out of time here.

Oracle_Hunter
2012-07-05, 11:37 AM
Due to seeing that there could be lots of potential problems I came here. Anything I've mentioned above as a "solution" was meant mainly as an example. I have NO IDEA how politics exactly works and while I am very much interested in history, I tend to not be so interested in the why and how behind things as I am with science. Hence why I want to find a solution, a reason that the Roman Empire could still exist and what changes there would be because of that. Those are all things I'd really need help with.
It's hard to figure out a "reason" for an empire as large as the Roman Empire that stretched from England to Egypt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_Empire_Trajan_117AD.png) to have persisted for over 2000 years without profoundly reworking how humanity works. You either need to make up some superhuman entities with an interest in keeping it together or use a hefty dose of Deus Ex Machina to keep any of a myriad of potential threats from toppling it. So pick your poison there.

It almost goes without saying that a 2000 year old political entity would be unrecognizable from its roots without imposing some sort of Political Stasis on the whole thing. What would the world look like? Anything you want!

In short: the question you are asking is impossibly huge. You might as well just make up the sort of world you want rather than trying to extrapolate from any given incarnation of the Roman Empire. So... what do you want the world to look like?

CET
2012-07-05, 02:54 PM
The short version: It can look like just about anything you want. Jack of Spades 'Byzantium survives' is a good version that could plausibly get you somewhere similar to the real timeline. But if you go back to a monolithic Roman Empire, all bets are off.

One possible future:
The Roman Empire, starting with Augustus, develops a clear mechanic for succession. In time, the power of the first citizen is curbed by powerful senatorial families, and the empire effectively becomes a republic (or at least an oligarchy) again. Although there are some rough periods, the turmoil of the dark ages never happens. Unfortunately the intense nation-state competition of the renaissance is also absent. Instead, Rome and China begin butting heads around 1400. Persia ends up as a battleground between the two and never really makes it. Rome and China both discover the new world within about 10 years of each other. Incidentally, the Rome-China wars redefine China's sense of its place in the world, so now it is an expansionist power intent on spreading civilization and Confucian morals at swordpoint. The details of the world can be anything from steampunk or Napoleonic to near future, since the GM can handwave the pace of technological development. You could even through in some serious intra-senate commercial intrigue and come away with a cyberpunk looking game.

nedz
2012-07-07, 07:24 AM
I suspect that it would have ended up a bit like China, but that story is not over.

There are just so many reasons why Rome fell that its not easy to pick them apart, the wonder is that it lasted so long.

During the first century we see

Increased urbanisation
Increased trade and economic improvements
Economic growth fuelled by conquest and mass acquisition of slaves


During the Pax Romana (2nd century) they lost their military edge.

Then you have to look at the crisis of the Third Century.

Economic problems because of inflation (3 centuries of currency debasement)
Multiple Civil wars
Plague
Foreign Invasion


The consequence of this was that the cities became depopulated as people left for the countryside since the trade routes were disrupted. Then Diocletion, simply to simplify tax collection, stopped them moving back. The once Roman citizens became serfs and the great trading plantations became self sufficient estates. This reduced their economic performance to the extent that they could no longer pay their troops.
So basically

Decreased urbanisation
Decreased trade and economic activity
Start of Feudalism

Ravens_cry
2012-07-07, 07:54 AM
Strictly speaking, the Roman Empire, in the form of the Byzantine Empire, took until 1453 to finally end.
What I wonder is what would have happened if the scientific method as we know it had been developed and popularized?
What if they had had gun powder?
What if slavery had been abolished?

CET
2012-07-07, 08:37 PM
What if they had had gun powder?


That's an interesting one. I think an economically viable Rome that had a monopoly on high-quality firearms would have been a formidable opponent to internal dissenters, barbarians, and rival powers.

Also, I'm liking the image of a Roman army with matchlocks and cannons.

The scientific method question is also fun to think about - the wealth of the Roman state driving scientific progress. If one wanted to run a steampunk alt history game, this could get you there.

OTOH, science in Rome could easily be a corrupt old boys network that makes no real progress and serves only to enhance the prestige of the families that engage in it.

Ravens_cry
2012-07-08, 04:48 AM
The reason I mention abolishing slavery because in my, probably incredibly naive opinion, slavery would hinder the formation of industrialization.
It also hurts the middle class because a crafts men will have a hard time making a profit, even with superior work, compared to someone 'paid' only in room and board and doesn't (?) need to pay taxes.

Aux-Ash
2012-07-08, 06:57 AM
The romans did abolish slavery though (in name mostly), after they adopted christianity. Of course, that was after the crisis of the third century, when inflation had destroyed all foundation for trade and urbanisation. But even that couldn't have saved the roman society if it happened before the crisis, probably made it even worse.

After all, no more slaves would mean they'd all have to be paid wages... and those wages would go to -pay- for bread (as opposed being fed by their master's stocks). Combine that with the double wages for soldiers, civil wars having made things so unsafe outside cities that noone traded anymore and famine... the price of bread would skyrocket even faster and higher.

Saintheart
2012-07-08, 07:04 AM
Look for a book called Romanitas, which is a "What if" book that covers this precise possibility, right down to a timeline of where history changed and what the consequences were.