Touchpoints for and thoughts on somewhat nonspecific alternate history?

[tamtrible]

I'm toying with a story idea, and rather than either set it in an entirely fictional world, or set it in the real world and pretend the presence of magic wouldn't alter history in a lot of different ways, I figure I'd kind of aim for "obviously this world, but different"--for example, I was thinking of having the major language and dominant country

Comments

[orange_fell]

In a nutshell, no, I think you're going to have to do more poking to get things the way you want them, but I'll probably have to come back to this question later to say why more explicitly. For one thing, you want Christianity and Islam to have "a plurality to a strong majority" in most areas but NOT have an "overwhelming influence," and I think those two things cancel each other out. For example, in the USA, Protestant Christianity is the majority faith and has been for centuries, and that has an influence over the whole country, whether we acknowledge it or not. Your Christian majority is still going to want to spend a lot of time building churches and combating paganism; your Muslim majority areas ditto but with mosques. There is no current plausible reason in your worldbuilding why these faiths would achieve majority conversion and then stop. If the early Muslims failed at spreading empire along with religion, how did Islam spread out of Arabia? And how and when did the Roman Empire become Christian? If the "barbarian invasions"

[tamtrible]

I'm not trying to say that Christianity doesn't have a major influence, just that they never quite achieved enough dominance that there weren't still a significant fraction of pagans, freely and fully acknowledged. Likewise for Islam. They may still try to spread the faith and so forth, but there would still be a resistant minority (in some places, majority) that... in many cases, it was essentially *dangerous* to try to convert. Something like the situation in the US today is, actually, a good model for what I'm going for. Christianity is seen as the default, and being a "good Christian" makes it easier to get elected or whatever, but you wouldn't be actively *surprised* to learn that your neighbor was a Jew, an atheist, a Buddhist, or whatnot

[tamtrible]

To clarify: I'm making a distinction between a strong influence (most public officials being Christian/Muslim, Christianity/Islam getting you perks and benefits, non-Christians/Muslims occasionally getting bullied or harassed) and an overwhelming influence (you can be killed just for being a non-Christian/Muslim, non-Christians/Muslims have to live in segregated ghettos, people legitimately think non-Christians/Muslims have horns or sacrifice babies or whatnot)

[orange_fell]

So basically you want 18th century Europe/Middle East to resemble an idealized 21st century United States in religious makeup and attitudes, plus magic? It sounds nice, but sorry, my suspension of disbelief would be highly degraded.

Edit: You also didn't really address any of my points re: the historical background.

[sollersuk]

1. No, I don't. "Curiositas" - curiosity about the natural world -was classed with magic during the immediately pre Christian Empire, and magic etc was persecuted ferociously; there are accounts of people accused of magic taking refuge with Christians who didn't mind magic (or curiositas) as long as no demons were involved

[marycatelli]

Oh yeah. Science went through leaps and bounds in the Middle Ages because it was legitimate interest in the works of the Maker. Pagan beliefs were the heavily superstitious mass beliefs, and the philosophical contempt for the world that precluded intensive study.

[jayb111]

This is a huge subject, really beyond what can be addressed here. To your first question, 'Do you think it's plausible for European history to have about the same "shape" even without the overwhelming influence from Christianity?' my short answer would be 'No'. Art, literature, architecture, ceremonies, causes of wars, even naming of children, would all be hugely different

[sidheag]

Agree with the others, but suspending disbelief in the overall project for a moment: the Norman Conquest might well have failed if support from the Pope had been less persuasive.

[jayb111]

And if you're talking sea-borne invasions, what if the weather had been different at the critical time. If for example Harald Hardrada's fleet hadn't been able to cross to Yorkshire and the English hadn't had to fight the battles of Fulford Gate and Stamford Bridge just prior to Hastings.

[tamtrible]

Fair 'nuff, thank you.

[lied_ohne_worte]

There would certainly be huge differences, particularly because much of European history wasn't influenced just by "Christianity" as a whole, but by the conflicts between different branches of Christianity. In my view (speaking as a German Protestant with Lutheran leanings), you'd particularly need to be careful what to do with the Protestant reformation

[tamtrible]

I was going more for the idea of... if you have 2 people with magic swords going at each other, it tends to go badly for both sides, and often for bystanders as well. So majority religions tended, out of self-protection if nothing else, to develop a "don't poke the bear" attitude about minority religions, as long as members of said minority religions behaved themselves. They're still going to hell, of course, but if they're not willing to accept God's love and protection, that's their look-out (or something like that...)

The magic in this world... likely wouldn't affect bans against witchcraft, as long as the process of converting people to magical objects (in appropriate and accepted contexts) wasn't considered "witchcraft". It is likely that most or all religions have very strict *rules* about the process, but most don't ban it entirely. It would definitely complicate the issue, however.

[sushidog]

I was going more for the idea of... if you have 2 people with magic swords going at each other, it tends to go badly for both sides, and often for bystanders as well. So majority religions tended, out of self-protection if nothing else, to develop a "don't poke the bear" attitude about minority religions, as long as members of said minority religions behaved themselves. OK, two things here; one is that you seem to be assuming that religion only spreads or gains power when it has a sword in its hand, and specifically by fighting with smaller religions, which is clearly not true (after all, Christianity started out as a tiny messianic cult; it didn't grow simply by being stronger than everyone else, because it _wasn't_ stronger than everyone else!), so the logic there just doesn't work

[lied_ohne_worte]

And if people can be dissuaded from fighting by magic, why haven't they been dissuaded by all the other weapons people have historically killed each other with? In the end, it's rather immaterial if someone smashes your head in with an axe or whether you're killed by magic, and the safety of bystanders and what we consider "innocent civilians" nowadays certainly wasn't much of a concern in ages past either.