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Description
Hokay.

This takes place in a world where the Mongol hordes swept as far west as the Pyrennes, and managed to hold their empire together in later years, partly through the development of an "official religion" for the ruling classes blending their native shamanism with elements of Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity.

Largely withdrawing from western Europe in the late 1400s, the Mongol Empire remained for long The Evil Enemy of Christendom, replacing the Muslims, which have not have a good 800 years (the Mongol Civil War of the 16th century, in which the Blue Heaven faction smashed the Islamicizers, and its aftermath pretty much finished off Islam as the dominant faith in Persia and points north).

Britain, which like Scandinavia and Iberia remained largely undevastated (there was a 14th century invasion by the Rhine-Khanate, in which the Royal Court was forced to temporarily move to Ireland, but it didn't stick), has long sought to unify western Christianity into a lean, mean, Mongol-fighting machine, but has been hampered in this aim by Hispanya contesting their claim to leadership, and by the continuing post-Mongol occupation breakup of a unified Christianity (The Empire of England and Ireland follows a sort of national Catholicism - see OTL Anglicanism of the muscular variety - but there are currently three contending papacies in Europe, four if you count the former Mongol-approved Pope in Rome, hurriedly relocated some centuries ago to somewhere near OTL Warsaw, and then of course there are those crazy South French....)

The Anglo-Irish Empire is a constitutional monarchy nowadays, the capital having moved to the Americas roughly half a century ago in the face of economic and demographic realities, and is a democratic place by the standards of this TL - they've recently even given women the vote. The Mongol Empire is an elitist military autocracy with laws of terrifying harshness. On the other hand, it is also highly tolerant, the upper classes are always open to new talent, and the ruling classes police themselves quite ruthlessly - it may be a tyranny, but it's a generally lawful one. This has made it open to new ideas to the extent that it has largely kept up with the West Europeans in modernization and technology, much to Anglo-Irish irritation.

The long rivalry and mutual hostility between these Powers is however now being overshadowed by a new menace: the slave-holding theocratic tyranny of La Legua de Los Puros. Descended from Hispanyan colonists in South *America who revolted against the corrupt rule of the Hispanyan Papal/Secular "dual Imperium", the League practices a Puritanical and crusading form of Christianity which however does not prevent them from energetically pursuing profit and technological progress (they have duplicated the Mongol atomic bomb almost as fast as the Anglo-Irish). They are also deeply racist, taking literally the notion that black Africans are "sons of Ham" doomed to forever be slaves (Mongols are the Hordes of Gog and Magog, to be exterminated at the End of Days, which is presumed to be fast approaching). In South America, their rule over the non-free 50% of the population is brutal enough, but in tropical Africa, where they account for less than 10%, the system reached its apex of harshness: the punishments they impose for rebellion squick even the Mongols a little. [1]

If this were not bad enough, they are expanding vigorously against the small and backwards states of Africa, and now threaten Anglo-Irish territories and Mongol vassals: they have also contracted alliances with the Empire of the True Han (the Mongols managed to reconquer the Brightly Shining dynasty after its brief expulsion of Imperial forces south of the Yellow River, but the True Han - a ferociously xenophobic tyranny following the precepts of Neo-Legalism - managed to make their rebellion stick in the 1700s), and with the ethnic salad of pirates/Chinese/Malays/Japanese which is the opportunistic Empire of Kuncun. Attempts to reach out to fellow Christians to join them in an anti-Mongol crusade have been rebuffed, partly because Legua preachers can't help pointing out that as Horrible Heretics, they're target no. 2 for conversion or destruction.

Nauseating in their brutality, alarming in their religious fanaticism, and all too near to Imperial territory, the "Puristas" worry the Anglo-Irish a great deal: although less troubled by their brutality, the Mongols have no love for religious fanaticsm, and can see all too well that the Purista leadership have chosen them as a convenient bogeyman to unify their people behind their expansionary goals. So, in the summer of 2011, ancient enemies (plus representatives from the most immediately threatened, and incidentally the most advanced, of the Muslim powers) met in a city on the edge of the Steppe to begin discussions that would change the world...

Bruce

[1] Yes, South American Puritan Conquistador Draka. Sue me.

Description
Hokay.

This takes place in a world where the Mongol hordes swept as far west as the Pyrennes, and managed to hold their empire together in later years, partly through the development of an "official religion" for the ruling classes blending their native shamanism with elements of Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity.

Largely withdrawing from western Europe in the late 1400s, the Mongol Empire remained for long The Evil Enemy of Christendom, replacing the Muslims, which have not have a good 800 years (the Mongol Civil War of the 16th century, in which the Blue Heaven faction smashed the Islamicizers, and its aftermath pretty much finished off Islam as the dominant faith in Persia and points north).

Britain, which like Scandinavia and Iberia remained largely undevastated (there was a 14th century invasion by the Rhine-Khanate, in which the Royal Court was forced to temporarily move to Ireland, but it didn't stick), has long sought to unify western Christianity into a lean, mean, Mongol-fighting machine, but has been hampered in this aim by Hispanya contesting their claim to leadership, and by the continuing post-Mongol occupation breakup of a unified Christianity (The Empire of England and Ireland follows a sort of national Catholicism - see OTL Anglicanism of the muscular variety - but there are currently three contending papacies in Europe, four if you count the former Mongol-approved Pope in Rome, hurriedly relocated some centuries ago to somewhere near OTL Warsaw, and then of course there are those crazy South French....)

The Anglo-Irish Empire is a constitutional monarchy nowadays, the capital having moved to the Americas roughly half a century ago in the face of economic and demographic realities, and is a democratic place by the standards of this TL - they've recently even given women the vote. The Mongol Empire is an elitist military autocracy with laws of terrifying harshness. On the other hand, it is also highly tolerant, the upper classes are always open to new talent, and the ruling classes police themselves quite ruthlessly - it may be a tyranny, but it's a generally lawful one. This has made it open to new ideas to the extent that it has largely kept up with the West Europeans in modernization and technology, much to Anglo-Irish irritation.

The long rivalry and mutual hostility between these Powers is however now being overshadowed by a new menace: the slave-holding theocratic tyranny of La Legua de Los Puros. Descended from Hispanyan colonists in South *America who revolted against the corrupt rule of the Hispanyan Papal/Secular "dual Imperium", the League practices a Puritanical and crusading form of Christianity which however does not prevent them from energetically pursuing profit and technological progress (they have duplicated the Mongol atomic bomb almost as fast as the Anglo-Irish). They are also deeply racist, taking literally the notion that black Africans are "sons of Ham" doomed to forever be slaves (Mongols are the Hordes of Gog and Magog, to be exterminated at the End of Days, which is presumed to be fast approaching). In South America, their rule over the non-free 50% of the population is brutal enough, but in tropical Africa, where they account for less than 10%, the system reached its apex of harshness: the punishments they impose for rebellion squick even the Mongols a little. [1]

If this were not bad enough, they are expanding vigorously against the small and backwards states of Africa, and now threaten Anglo-Irish territories and Mongol vassals: they have also contracted alliances with the Empire of the True Han (the Mongols managed to reconquer the Brightly Shining dynasty after its brief expulsion of Imperial forces south of the Yellow River, but the True Han - a ferociously xenophobic tyranny following the precepts of Neo-Legalism - managed to make their rebellion stick in the 1700s), and with the ethnic salad of pirates/Chinese/Malays/Japanese which is the opportunistic Empire of Kuncun. Attempts to reach out to fellow Christians to join them in an anti-Mongol crusade have been rebuffed, partly because Legua preachers can't help pointing out that as Horrible Heretics, they're target no. 2 for conversion or destruction.

Nauseating in their brutality, alarming in their religious fanaticism, and all too near to Imperial territory, the "Puristas" worry the Anglo-Irish a great deal: although less troubled by their brutality, the Mongols have no love for religious fanaticsm, and can see all too well that the Purista leadership have chosen them as a convenient bogeyman to unify their people behind their expansionary goals. So, in the summer of 2011, ancient enemies (plus representatives from the most immediately threatened, and incidentally the most advanced, of the Muslim powers) met in a city on the edge of the Steppe to begin discussions that would change the world...

Bruce

[1] Yes, South American Puritan Conquistador Draka. Sue me.