"Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, Have mercy on us."
- Trisagion to the Trinity
Hello! Thanks for the support and interest into this fanfic, honestly I didn't expect this fast and good of a response lol. Now, I'm going to respond to the comments I've seen so far.
SuhulSnow - Thanks for reading! I also do hope I can keep up the quality.
Sedovatel - Definitely :) Marutha isn't a native species of the Mass Effect Universe, he is an original species instead.
Zgogery - Marutha resembles the Kett's Behemoths but with significant difference, such as the multiple arms and the fact that he is twice their size, but also Marutha is more covered in bone than they are and that the bones are black like charcoal in some parts. Species wise he actually resembles more of the Rachni and the Thorian, for reasons that will be revealed in this chapter.
For this chapter, I'm aiming to get the timeline until Christianity reaches the Americas. Due to the butterflies being immense, I'll be less detailed on the particular emperors and rulers over time, focusing more on social, religious, demographic and technological changes. If you want to get a multi-sensory feel of the times, I'll be adding bolded lines to signify what music you can hear to experience the vibe.
[Agni Parthene in Korean] - teura
700 AD - A talented Bactrian Christian named Yisi becomes one of the generals of the Tang Dynasty. Christians by now are a regular sight in the urban areas of Western and Northern Tang Dynasty China. As Christians are steadily gaining political power, the mission in China is regarded as a success by the Church. Marutha proposes further inculturalization in order to make the mission's effects permanent.
He observed that like in the Greco-Roman, Aksumite and Persian empires, the faith must present itself in a way to be understood by the locals. Hence the many different rites of Christianity mainly bounded by geographical and cultural boundaries. Many gifts but One Spirit, many services but One Lord as Scripture says.
By now, there are about seven rites in use: Byzantine/Greek, Ambrosian, Latin, Alexandrian, Antiochian/West Syrian, Armenian and Persian/East Syrian. Marutha proposes an eight rite for the Church in China, the Tang Rite. Based on cultural proximity, he calls for a local Council to be held 2 years later in Dunhuang inviting the Patriarch of Merv, the Metropolitans of Nishapur, Bactria and Sogdia, the four diocesan bishops of China and Marutha himself as an observer.
The results of the Council will be sent to all the Patriarchates for review, with Rome, Constantinople and Seleucia-Ctesiphon having priority.
701 AD - Hellenization of Tunis and Italy has reached a point where permanent marks have been left on the local culture. Latin thought gravitates closer to Greek thought and remnants of Augustinian doctrines have by now been fully flushed out of public thought. In fact, a local council in Italy condemned both Pelagius, for his rejection of the degeneration of Humanity due to the fall, and Augustine, for his teachings of Predestination, but praised Augustine's character and conduct such that he remained a popular saint but not a church father.
702 AD - First Council of Dunhuang occurs. The Tang Dynasty Weimao veil is officially declared as the veil to be used during liturgies, the variant Humao veil is also allowed as are many other types of chinese head coverings with previously ambiguous status.
Priest vestments were modelled after the outfit of eunuchs and the emperor but kept distinct enough using persian and syrian influences to avoid cases of impersonation and accusations of insults. Nuns and monks would imitate the style of the native Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian priests and monks for better reception. Albeit the main differences is the mandatory hat/head covering, the veils/hoods and the black colorings, which are tradition among all the eastern rites. Assume that a small cross would be worn by them.
The color symbolism in priest vestments also followed that of the current Tang Dynasty culture. For example, red was used for feast days and the default color of vestments as opposed to the color gold used in the Byzantine rite. The color gold in the Tang rite would be used to represent divinity, the bodiless powers and the Theotokos instead of the color blue.
The Holy Qurbana of Mar Aloben is composed for the Tang rite. It is primarily based on the Holy Qurbana of the East Syriac/Persian rite. Modifications were done to the hymns to incorporate equivalent chinese terms such as exchanging Logos with Tao and compatible mythological figures such as the Four Holy Beasts. Chinese chanting also finds its origin in this Council, charging the four bishops of China with developing the eight tones of Chinese chanting.
The Holy Qurbana of Mar Aloben is modelled after the Emperor's enthronement according to Tang tradition. At the end of the council, the letters to the other patriarchates about the results of the First Council of Dunhuang are disseminated. Marutha returns to Nisibis.
705 AD - Empress Regnant Wu Zetian is deposed in a violent coup, dying months later. Her persecution of non-buddhists earned her the ire of the Confucian and Taoist institutions, leading to the influence of Buddhism to suffer a setback and anti-foreign sentiments to begin rising in a China open to foreign influence.
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706 AD - The Arabian tribes have warred each other for decades until eventually one tribe unites the rest. This tribe is headed by the Warlord Zaid Nur Aziz Alamgir Al'Harith ibn Amir, a conqueror with skills only seen in the likes of Alexander the Great. The heavy garrisons of both the Sassanid and the Eastern Roman Empire were thought to be capable of containing this new Warlord should he think of expanding. Unfortunately, they were very wrong.
Zaid the Conqueror came from a semi-nomadic culture that spefialized in raids where almost every able bodied men and a significant minority of women, were combat capable. His allies, more of subjects, consisted of the Bedouin tribes who were also fearsome raiders of the desert and fully nomadic hosts. In a coordinated assault, he broke all the current borders of the middle east and sent the entire civilized world into chaos.
Zaid was a part of the monotheistic arab movement, using it as a secondary glue to unite the tribes under his banner. The beliefs of such a movement varied but were united doctrinally under a moon God of sorts who appeared in three forms called as the 'Three Daughters'. Many prophets claimed to represent this being, but only under Zaid did all these prophets submitted to a united declaration that Zaid was chosen of God.
The movement persecuted polytheists the most but also Jews, Zoroastrians, Manicheans and Christians. Jews were the most hated of the monotheistic enemies, seen as the ancestor of the Christians and the Manicheans who are also enemies of the moon God. As a result, they were so brutal that the persecutions and execution of Jews became a public form of entertainment for the tribes, leaving their corpses to rot in the desert.
An exodus of Arabian Jews and Christians followed, but as the conquest expands quickly it is feared that the followers of the moon God catch them even behind the safety of Roman and Sassanid walls.
707 AD - His conquests thinned Roman territory in Syria and the Levant to only coastal territory, held on solely by fleet based reinforcements. To the north, Nisibis held off against the Arab hordes albeit barely. Marutha helped the defense of the city, erecting walls and digging tunnels against the Arabs.
However, the Arabs had trained their horses well to avoid sinking traps, leading the very thing that protected Nisibis into a liability against counter-attacks. If not for Marutha entering combat himself alongside the city's defenders, perhaps Nisibis would have been taken and raided. To the end of the year, the city holds on but as trade dwindles into nothing, unrest is beginning to brew.
In the midst of that, strange rumors of black demons in the desert could be heard.
To the east, Babylon and half of the things behind the Tigris river had fallen. The Shahanshah failed to defend Seleucia-Ctesiphon and relocated to Ahvaz, where he manages to stop the Arabs this year.
Demographic changes were immense as Jews and Christians migrated away from Arabia en masse, followed by waves of Zoroastrians and Manicheans escaping psrsecution. This resulted in Arab Jews and Christians settling into Egypt, Anatolia, the Caucasus and Iran.
709 AD - Zaid's expansion reaches as far north as lake Van and small forces have begun to invade the Armenian heartland. Nisibis is entirely isolated, Marutha spent his entire time defending the city and improving it for self sufficiency. The unrest was growing and if he didn't act fast, a riot in the wrong time will make the city fall.
711 AD - Armenia was taken over two waves although still resisting violently even once under occupation. Zaid was stopped at the Taurus Mountains in Anatolia, the terrain used in the advantage of the Romans to delay and ward off the Arab troops.
Another loss in Sassanid Persia forces the Shahanshah to relocate in the Zagros Mountains, successfully grinding the Arab expansion into a halt using the mountainous terrain.
713 AD - With an entire year of stalemates, Zaid changed the direction of his conquests and sought to claim Egypt. He went straight to Pelusion, aiming to cut the trade of the Roman Empire and deal it a deathblow. Roman troops landed from ships, uniting with the local coptic army to repel the assault.
715 AD - Pelusion was taken in a pyrrhic victory, damaging the trade and altering the course of merchant ships to land in the Nile instead and transport things via land to Antipelusin. The profit of merchants decreased as transport costs increased, the Pelusion Canal's trade network is beginning to shrink.
Marutha, interested in the Roman Empire's continuation, meets with the Emperor himself and grants him all the revenue of his sea salt in hopes of lessening the burden on the empire's economy and as leverage to protect Antipelusin with more priority should Zaid turn his eyes on that city.
Ten hectares of black pools that evaporated water and produced salt. The black salt pools of Antipelusin were the reason why salt prices have decreased dramatically and the commodity became more available to all. Each pool generated 8,000 pounds of salt a day.
At the moment, salt was worth only an eighth of its weight in silver rather than the previously much more expensive gold. The full revenue of the pools should be enough to keep the Empire afloat even while the rest of the trades decline. Salt is sought everywhere after all, an incredibly cheap source of it is well worth the risk of Arabs.
On the Persian side, Tabriz is taken, Sassanids are pushed north of lake Urmia. With losses in the west mounting up, Bactria and Eastern Sistan secedes from the Persian Empire. The Shahanshah did not have too much hold on these areas in the first place, making their rebellion and independence an expected outcome once Imperial power is undermined.
718 AD - To make matters worse, the nomadic Bulgars begin attacking and raiding Roman settlements near the Danube. A migration is about to happen and there aren't enough forces to stop it.
719 AD - A bulgarian migration occurs as they cross the Danube in nightmarish numbers. They carved a wake of destruction in Greece down until the city of Thessalonikki which surrendered after a few months of siege from the Bulgars.
723 AD - The Romans manage to fight back the Bulgars and repel them north of the Danube, sustaining heavy losses as border troops stationed in Antioch, Cillicia and fortress cities in Eastern Anatolia were not recalled. The Imperial Treasury is being used to rebuild the damage from their wake and plans of revenge are being plotted. However, this would have to be postponed as Zaid, sensing a moment of weakness, charged head on to Constantinople.
His army in Arabia also began to expand upon Egypt, threatening Alexandria and Antipelusin. This divided the Roman attention into two, as Constantinople and Alexandria held equally important roles. Constantinople as the capital and the source of silk. Alexandria as the capital of the empire's breadbasket.
727 AD - The Romans delayed his attack through the Anatolian mountains but Zaid managed to predict the pattern of their retreats and dealt heavy losses as he raided and pillaged through interior Anatolia. The city of Ancyra became his staging ground to Constantinople. After four years, his territory included a chain of cities in Inner Anatolia while the entirety of Eastern Anatolia had fallen.
Pre-occupied by Zaid's Anatolian advance, cities north of Memphis had been claimed after prolonged and pyrrhic sieges by the Arabs. Defenses retreated south and a line is drawn around Antipelusin. In a battle that almost had Antipelusin lost alongside Alexandria, mysterious horsemen armored in black were seen aiding the defenders of Antipelusin. After the successful defense, they were never seen again.
730 AD - In the recently captured and codified territories, mass persecution of Christians and Jews occured, with Manicheans and Zoroastrians following soon. Many were tied up, slashed and beaten to death, dyeing the Nile river red with blood. Arab Christians and Jews were the most favored, their screams in Arabic unnerving the other martyrs who were shocked by such brutality.
Priests, Bishops and Monks were hunted down and became the first to be bled to death. The river's crocodiles had a feast of human flesh and the news of the cruelty spread fast. As one cruelty is heard, another occurs as Jerusalem suffered a similar fate.
While Islam held Jerusalem holy, this conglomerate of monotheists did not and saw it as the cradle of their enemies. The city was set aflame and destroyed in such a way reminiscent to the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Charred bodies were thrown into the Gehenna valley and the scent of the burning dead rose up as a cloud of smoke.
Relics were looted, Churches and Synagogues were thoroughly destroyed and desecrated as new temples to the moon God were built. Armenian christians revolted more violently at the news, managing to repulse the occupiers by sheer fervor. The old kingdom of Armenia returned and motivated by revenge, it began expanding southwards.
731 AD - Revolts sprang all over Zaid's newborn empire, requiring brutal suppression as rebels were made bloody examples of. Martyrs lined up the streets and except for the vengeful armenians, neither the Romans nor the Persians could do anything about it. The Romans still occupied by Zaid's Ancyran waves.
The Persians on the other hand still needed to fend off raids from Central Asia, amass troops to retake lost territory and bring Bactria and Sistan back under control. Marutha continues to keep Nisibis free from Arab hands and future scholars note that since its isolation, it is only nominally under Sassanid control. For all intents and purposes, Nisibis had been made into a self-sufficient city-state whose governor acted more like Marutha's vicar rather than the actual lord of the city.
Christian communities have grown in Java, Malaya, Thailand, Korea and Japan through the efforts of merchants and missionaries, two bishops are sent to administer to these communities.
732 AD - Zaid takes Nicaea after months of siege. Marutha leaves Nisibis after creating moats and artificial river branches, leaving the defenders to handle any further Arab incursion. He left the monks of the monastery to manage the allocation of resources to sustain the city.
As he travels in the hostile desert, he discovers the ability to fly. At first it was long jumps but eventually it reached full blown flight after months of travel. The end of his journey is Espahan, the temporary capital of the Shahanshah.
733 AD - Marutha proposes to the Shahanshah certain reforms and technologies to reclaim territory from the Arabs in exchange for a few favors.
1. Nisibis becomes jointly run by the Romans and the Sassanids
2. The house of Sasan must send at least a prince and a princess in Royal marriage with the Romans for every king.
In trade, Marutha will spend his time teaching several technological advancements to allow the Shahanshah to exert more control over the Satraps, gain a technological edge over his neighbors, defeat the Arabs and restore the trade. Considering his success in introducing the common paper, the textile blocks and the assembly line, the Shahanshah accepts his deal with the court largely favorable of this decision. After all, it is common knowledge by now that the centuries old Marutha has been a source of good for the Nation and the Church.
First, Marutha instructed four field crop rotation, intending to bring about the proto-industrialization of the Sassanids. He analyzed the crops of the Sassanids and based on their behavior, he created a crop rotation plan for farmers. He disseminated not only the crop rotation plan but also the rationale behind it. As farmable land is precious here, the fallow ratio and the pests must be kept as low as possible.
The crop yields from this method alone is expected to increase by 30%. Continuing with the fact that farmable land in Persia is rare and precious, Marutha proposes more plans for fertilizers. Urine has long been known to be fertilizer for the soil but the use of human urine was uncomfortable at best. So to counter that, he reduced the disgust it produced by diluting it with irrigated water.
Urine and waste is gathered through a sewage system that connects the city. The city's farms will be irrigated at certain times and when that occurs, the sewage system will be flooded with water to push the waste into the farm fields. Bumps and obstacles are placed in the sewage system so that by the time the waste has reached the farm fields, it has been properly diluted.
Of course this comes with some degree of health issues for the farmers so Marutha requires thin, hollow copper pipes to be planted on the fields at set intervals. Knowing that copper from Marutha's instruction generations back weakened the plague, this type of human waste farming became less objectionable knowing the copper would ward off the filth and diseases. The idea of disease as being the byproduct of invisibly tiny animals has not spread too far into the average person.
To counteract the soil's acidity as a result of using human waste, Marutha's plan also included spreading limestone or chalk powder over the fields. He notes that farming expenses would be higher as a result of all these innovations, but he calculates a total yield increase of 105%. The Shahanshah gives him an agricultural city over four years to compare the yields and the prosperity of farmers.
In the city, Marutha requires that the seeds of plants in farms with the largest yield per size or have the least amount of pests are used in every following year. The rationale is explained with heredity of traits farmers want the most which in this case is yield and resistance to pests. The governor simply watches as Marutha demonstrates the technological advantages he brings.
Second, with one of the greatest exports of the Sassanids being pearl, Marutha taught them a way to artificially culture pearls. He explained the anatomy of the creatures who lived in the persian gulf and how by inserting impurities into them, the creatures would produce pearls. The Shahanshah gave Marutha also four years of trial and a pearl fishery town to demonstrate the worth of this method.
Third, Imperial examinations are introduced to combat corruption and attain more efficient governors and officials. More effective subordinates could be gathered this way and positional bribes will become rare. Marutha is also given 4 years to implement this one, performing it in the recently reclaimed city of Balkh in Bactria. Marutha states that if Balkh improves in stability, prosperity and loyalty, the Shahanshah should implement it everywhere.
734 AD - Zaid takes Nicomedia and marches into Chalcedon, preparing to take Constantinople by crossing the Bosporus and launching an attack on Thrace through the Dardanelles.
737 AD - The Sieges of Thrace and Constantinople fail, Zaid retreats. While marching back to Ancyra, he was ambushed by the rumored black demons and was felled. News of his death brewed into civil war and the gradual fragmentation of the state.
All of Marutha's projects in Sassanid Persia yield more or less as expected. The pearl fishery town has now become a city, renaming itself as Martan in honor of Marutha who taught them how to increase the pearls. Traders from Ceylon, China, even Barus flock to Martan for its abundance of pearls but also for its unique pearls.
As the impurities used were varied, some altered the color of the pearls. Merchants have never seen pearls like these, quickly fetching high prices. This gave rise to the term Persian Pearls for any oddly colored or cheaper pearls.
The farming methods have shown their use and alleviated local grain issues. The Shahanshah begins its integration in less prominent farming settlements first, using it to dilute the power of Satrapies that would inevitably come with the abundance of food.
Marutha remains in Persia for another 4 years to oversee the government's and society's adaptation to these inventions.
739 AD - Zaid's empire began losing substantial amounts of ground as the Romans retook Nicaea and begin reclaiming the levant from the Arabs. Armenia solidifies its borders to include lake Van and lake Urmia, stopping only north of Nisibis, Amida and Edessa.
740 AD - Zaid's empire has fully fragmented into 28 states, all bickering and warring with one another. Some tribes have settled and assimilated with the local population while others remain nomadic conquerors. Fearing another Zaid emerging from the melting pot of warfare, the current powers that be rapidly militarize in a reconquest.
The Tritheistic heresy begins. Influenced by the Arabian trinity of manifested goddesses, the heresiarch Harith begins emphasizing the multiplicity of the Trinity in the belief of spreading Christianity with a better understood analogy of the Trinity. This heretical form of Christianity was the fastest spreading among the Arab people.
741 AD - Bulgar Khan Sevar converts to Christianity alongside many of the Bulgar people. The Byzantine Emperor marries his daughter to the recently converted Bulgar Khan, securing a military alliance from the Khan in a crucial time. As a gesture of goodwill, learned men from Constantinople are given to the Bulgarian Khan to instruct his people in the ways of the faith and technology.
What will be known as the Bulgarian Alphabet begins here, derived from Greek.
742 AD - Armies dropped by Byzantine fleets and coptic soldiers from down the Nile performed a pincer attack to reconquer the mouth of the Nile from one of the twenty eight states, reclaiming full control of Egypt and the canal by the end of the year. Successful revolts in Persia weakened the defenses at Ahvaz and Basra, the Shahanshah quickly moves in to reconquest, full of vigor from the agricultural advancement.
745 AD - Byzantine forces secure Anatolia once more, the Sinai peninsula is under control and Aleppo has been recaptured. The Shahanshah has recaptured Tabriz and all cities down until the Euphrates.
747 AD - The Uyghur Khaganate forms, its capital in Ordu-Baliq. With the unity of the faith and the conversion of the Sassanids in the past, the Khaganate formed the first Christian steppe horde Empire. Their unique lifestyle prompted the development of Yurt Churches, which were not long after adopted by missionaries and other nomadic converts for its practicality.
749 AD - Roman forces go on the assault and attack the region of Hijaz, accompanied by the Aksumites who storm the region of Yemen and the Sassanids who take advantage to assault Bahrain and Oman.
751 AD - Damascus is taken, the cities in the Hejazi coast are under Roman control. The Aksumites retake Sana'a and Adan. The Sassanids claim what would have been Qatar and the island of Bahrain.
752 AD - The Romans agree to the joint ownership of Nisibis, Marutha now teaches the Romans the same agricultural techniques he taught to the Persians.
753 AD - Roman Petra and Syria is restored, Sassanid and Roman borders before the Arab migrations are restored. The limited Arabization left the Arabic language and fragments of Arabic culture.
755 AD - Christianity reaches Middag (Taiwan) and the Philippines through merchants coming out from the Tang dynasty.
An Lushan Rebellion occurs.
756 AD - Persia claims the coastal regions of Oman and begins building ports.
757 AD - Roman Hijaz is established.
760 AD - The Aksumites restore their empire back to its maximum territorial extent, with plans for further expansion into Arabia.
761 AD - The An Lushan Rebellion ends, with the Tang aided by Persian soldiers, Uyghurs
765 AD - The Pelusian Canal trade network is fully restored and expanded even, thanks to the Persian pearls.
770 AD - Persian and Aksumite borders in south Arabia are now adjacent to one another. Christianization of South Arabia is underway but the heresy of Tritheism is beginning to rear its head.
774 AD - King Agabodhi VII of Anuradhapura's (Ceylon) son Mahinda converts to Christianity. He was baptized by the Bishop of Ceylon, an indigenous Sinhalese.
776 AD - Marutha designz and begins constructing Universities modelled after the Pandidakterion of Magnaura, an institution of higher learning similar to a modern university but ultimately still different enough it should not be referred to as one. Marutha informs the project to and discusses with learned men acquainted with him, to the theologians of the Church and to the authorities of three nations: Rome, Aksum, Persia.
Marutha discusses his vision to create an educated society to produce wonders for mankind, alleviate the suffering of others and make use of the created world for the good of all. An educated people means an efficient society, an efficient society means glories like the old Romans, Alexander and the Achaemenids. The snares and evils of the world can be conquered by the grace of God and His wisdom, and that requires one to accumulate as much knowledge as possible.
Byzantine-era Romans were already an educated society even sometimes on the village level and female participation in culture was high. However, there's good in emphasizing this. Convincing the Persians and the Aksumites on the other hand, will require a bit more results.
Accompanying this, Marutha also requests that the Pandidakterions will be free of tax, open to all students and teachers from anywhere, and that Marutha himself would fund them using his own coffers. However, the Byzantine Emperor offered to fund them completely and indefinitely in trade of permanently controlling the Antipelusin salt pools. Marutha agrees and as a gesture of goodwill, creates the 11th pool for the Emperor.
The Sassanids agree to the proposals, as thanks for the contributions of Marutha on their prosperity. The Aksumites as well, having known that it was Marutha's idea to make the canal that connected Europe to East Africa to Asia.
The Pandidakterions are planned to be constructed in Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Rome, Nisibis, Aksum, Sana'a, Tabriz, Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Hamadan and Merv. Each Pandidakterion is a large academy designed to be self sufficient, possessing farmland and irrigation to a nearby river. Students from abroad would stay in a part of it dedicated as an Inn.
The subjects available in all Pandidakterions are identical and each department will begin with 11 learned men of the subject. The departments will expand according to the number of students. Differing schools of thought are merged into one department, specifically to act like a local council to determine the curriculum that will be taught.
The course lengths are always 5 years, with the 5th year being entirely practical in nature to apply what they have learned to benefit mankind. There is no use for departments that do not possess any form of contribution whether to culture, economics, infrastructure, religion, technology, philosophy or governance. Every five years, 10% of each department must move to an adjacent Pandidakterion of choice in order to even out the gaps in curriculum between the Pandidakterions so that what is taught in one is not out of sync with the other. After the exchange is done, a curriculum change council occurs.
Marutha's contacts generally agreed to become teachers, especially those from the reformed schools of traditional medicine and non-ordained theologians. Many of them have opted to become teachers in the Pandidakterions, overseeing the subject of 'Therapy, Anatomy and Disease', the oldest form of Medical School as we know it. While the theologians taught Theology, which actually consists of shortened forms of philosophy, history, rhetoric and linguistics alongside encompassing ethics and literature as well.
To enter, one must simply past the entrance exams mandated by the relevant course to be attended. All materials and tools for entrance exams are provided by the relevant Pandidakterion. Bribery will result in a blacklist and if an official, investigation of corruption.
781 AD - King Mahinda II of Anuradhapura declares the conversion of Ceylon into Christianity. Ceylon's conversion marks the definite beginning of the Apostolic Belt, a naval trade network full of Christian missionaries reaching as far west as Visigothic Spain to as far east as Barus and Malaya.
782 AD - The Tritheistic heresy enters China.
Byzantine-Visigoth Wars begin as Emperor Photius declares his intent to restore the Western Roman Empire, offending the Frankish ruler Charlemagne who threatens war should the Emperor dare to even look at frankish lands. The current phase of the war begins with a coastal invasion after the defeat of the Visigothic fleet.
791 AD - The effects of education at the Pandidakterions are starting to manifest in the form of an unlikely student. A graduate from the Pandidakterion of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. He is a native of Barus, known by the Romans as Barousia and the Persians as Fansur. His name is Abdisho Batara Nasution, a Batak Christian who came to study Engineering at the Pandidakterion.
From his studies on engineering and observing the block print and the screw presses, he thought of what if there was a way to make the process faster? The woofen block prints work best using words and patterns, what if smaller blocks were used instead and could be arranged all at once, simply pressed upon the paper and the entire page is copied.
Machinery had made leaps and bounds ever since the assembly line and block painting was introduced, so it did not take too much for Abdisho the Barousian to figure out the correct machinery to make his movable type. His invention was soon under the patronage of Marutha, who helped promote it.
The existence of block printing for some time had made this invention less of a revolution and more of an evolution. Even with promotion, rapid cultural changes did not occur and although a fundamental change in society's operations will occur it won't be anything like what happened in the original timeline.
796 AD - Morocco and the Visigothic kingdom has been subdued by the Romans. Integration begins and the Gothic people began adapting to the new laws. Assuming Hispania remains Roman, a new status quo forms with the Roman Empire restored albeit lacking France and the British Isles.
797 AD - Marutha meets the current Roman Emperor to discuss another canal project to not only produce salt but to also expand arable land in Egypt by turning the Sahara desert into fertile land. It would multiply the Empire's breadbasket once the land is farmed.
To do so, he requires the Sahara Desert tribes like the Tuaregs and the recently arrived Bedouins to either be subdued or preferably integrated. Trusting Marutha, the Emperor did not take long to reply alongside his ministers and a force of two thousand men were sent to Egypt to preferably negotiate with the locals.
799 AD - Charlemagne begins the Carolingian Empire, uniting the Franks into an empire encompassing France and Germany, bordered to the south by the Eastern Roman Empire.
Constantinople manages to secure the Sahara Desert, the nomads are compensated with gold and if successful, their descendants may use the farther edges of the farmable land for their own uses. Marutha begins construction of the Qattara Sea.
The canal was only a little more than a third of the length of the Pelusian canal but to prevent the sea from being like the dead sea, salt must be extracted from it. Through a system similar to the salt pools, water is evaporated and salt is taken in intervals while the rest of the water flows into the depression. The hot water yields an abundance of salt, to the point that the canal must be unclogged from time to time due to the evaporated water.
800 AD - World Population reaches
Technology is achieving rapid expansions thanks to the Pandidakterions. The speed of their spread and earlier halfway inventions are the main reasons why society hasn't reacted adversely to the rapid revolutions but rather experiences it more like a fast but manageable evolution.
802 AD - A graduate of the Pandidakterion of Rome, Videric the Goth, begins the first codification of the periodic table and the principles underlying chemistry. Extending greek philosophy and referring to the Biologion, Videric's writings quickly skipped past alchemy and into the realm of chemistry.
804 AD - A graduate of the Pandidakterion of Antioch, Hajj Sharraf Ibn Ad'Din, develops mathematics further and alters its format. What in OT was known as arabic numerals, here it is known as Gandharan numerals as he modified numerals from texts of Indian philosophy and created an improved system. He introduced the abacus, solved equations to the power of three, the law of sines and other mathematical innovations that would only have existed in the 11th century.
805 AD - The Qattara Sea canal is complete, salt is harvested in monumental amounts. The nomads are invited to harvest the salt and sell it south, enticing them with the lucrative results of the salt trade. Laborers are brought from Egypt to collect and sell the salt.
Punic and Berber traders bring salt to Carthage and Morocco, in turn brought to Rome and to the Franks. Egyptian traders would bring it into the Apostolic Belt and the Silk Road. By the end of the year, the evaporations have triggered the first rainclouds to descend upon the Sahara, its excesses coalescing a pool at the bottom of the depession.
807 AD - A Second Council of Dunhuang occurs to rebuke the Tritheistic doctrine as heresy, condemning all who do not confess the unity of God.
God the Father as the origin of and sole Divinity, as it is from a father that a family begins. The Word of God who was spoken and therefore begotten from the Father since Eternity, True Light of True Light, True God of True God. The Holy Spirit, who comes and proceeds out from within the Father Himself.
For the Son is like the words we speak and the thoughts we harbor, revealing our inner being. The imperceptible Mind declared by the perceptible Word, The Inner Being of the Invisible God revealed by His Image. Just as we look into the mirror we see our image, so does God the Father see His Son. Not two Gods nor two Modes nor two Gradations, but two co-existent Realities of the One God.
Anathema to those who equate the Trinity to the Three Pure Ones, fusing polytheism because of an error in comprehension. There is only one Tao, one God, God is the Eternal Tao, not its byproducts.
After the Council, which was attended both by the trinitarians and the tritheists from Arabia to China, the heresy quickly faded away once news spread and the council's edicts and confessions are published. In China, resistors to the Council transformed into a Taoist sect, albeit a highly christianized one. They called themselves the Zhōngdào or "Middle/Central Way".
As Christianity had gained significant prominence especially in Western, Southern and Northern China, a tendency for syncretism between Taoism and Christianity occured in a similar way to the fusions between Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. This leads to Taoist thought becoming gradually Christianized, especially since both of them have many terms in common and that missionaries would in fact use the Tao Te Ching and the Gospels together to prove Christ as the Eternal Tao.
813 AD - Advances in physics occured in the Pandidakterions of Magnaura and Hamadan, the theory of impetus was improved upon and the theory of gravity was improved centuries ahead of its time. They demonstrated that the pull of gravity was independent of its mass as the graduates dropped two balls of different weights from the top of a tower, settling a debate between the schools of thought in natural philosophy.
Hajj Sharraf's use of Indian literature introduced Europe, Africa and the Middle East to Aryabhata and his non-geocentric model of the universe. The Ptolemaic model begins to be doubted as the printing presses place his mathematical and philosophical treatises into libraries.
816 AD - Abdisho's movable type is now in use inside many major cities in the Middle East, Africa and Europe, especially capitals even down in Ceylon, India and Barus, Indonesia. The type became an endless source of copies thanks to this, allowing even town libraries in Italy to have copies of obscure Persian books. Another wave of missionaries comes in as the cheapness of printing allowed them to overwhelm the local literature of their place of proselytization but also make many copies of their opponents' and rivals' writings for analysis and incorporation into the ever expanding Heptapanarion.
834 AD - Christianity has reached a majority among commoner and noble alike in the northern provinces of Korea, especially ones in coastal regions or adjacent to the border.
A metropolitan of Japan was recently consecrated and thoughts of a new Patriarchate to have authority over China, Korea and Japan are circulating.
842 AD - Emperor Wuzong of Tang, an ardent Taoist, believed that the tax exempt status of Buddhist monasteries were a drain on the economy. He issued an edict to weed out sorcerors and convicts from the ranks of the Buddhist monks and nuns, and returning them to lay life. Monks and nuns were to turn their wealth over to the government unless they returned to lay life and paid taxes.
844 AD - The printing press is now common use as well in the Bulgarian Khanate, Kiev and the Carolingian Empire. More laws were drafted by the Persians, Aksumites, Ceylons, Romans, who with the ease of copying could easily send around whatever manuscript they want. It was a mostly good thing.
Treatises, bibles, commentaries on the faith, history books, fiction, textbooks, guides to occupations, posters, certificates, law codes and more became commonplace. Society took a conservative turn, with history being more codified in text rather than simply oral tradition. The ancestors were more relevant to contemporary society as their writings were preserved.
Pandidakterions multiplied as high wage occupations began hiring only talented individuals with degrees from those institutions. Merit and the exercise of free will and labor grew in the public mind, corruption and nepotism declining simply because commoners have the opportunity to outperform even nobles. The Emperors welcome it, after all, more efficient officials and ministers are good for the nation.
Imperial examinations became the norm around here, with all official positions being determined by the test. Depending on one's grade and on which section the grade is awarded, the government will either accept you, offer another post or reject you in the year's intake. The fervor of merit has reached even the Royal Families, with the Aksumites taking the lead.
The Negus is said to have made his sons compete for the throne through these examinations, promising that those who do the best will inherit the throne of Aksum. Lady ministers made their way into the norm as many well performing candidates were female. In fact, Rome has found itself with an ambitious minister who wishes to connect the entirety of the empire with a long series of roads connecting every town and city like branches of a tree.
However, the downsides of these are the heightened prevalence of gossips, propaganda and public slander. With the press, one could anonymously copy slanderous posters and place it around the city. Not even soldiers could stop a careful citizen from posting public insults at the Emperor anonymously.
845 AD - The height of the persecutions occured which saw Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism annihilated in Tang China. Buddhism enters into an irreversible decline as Christianity takes its place in Chinese society. Taoism's growing syncretism with Christianity spared the foreign religion from Emperor Wuzong's aim to cleanse China of foreign influences and due to the trade it brings, promotes Christianity alongside Taoism.
Emperor Wuzong built the Temple for Viewing Immortals but also funded the construction of the Basilica of the Christ, the Eternal Tao.
846 AD - An alchemical taoist pill for attaining immortality was given to Emperor Wuzong three years ago, but rather than granting him immortality it was poisoning him. He tried to change his name, thinking that the Taoist theory of the five elements would save him. Instead, it only got worse and in this year, his court has already made preparations to select an heir as the possibility of his death is very high.
In the last months, a Christian court physician, a learned man who graduated from the Pandidakterion at Merv, manages to cure Emperor Wuzong in one of his bouts of insanity. Grateful to him, he ends the persecutions of foreign influence seeing that it is foreign influence that saved him. The Emperor himself converted to Christianity after a few years, slowly distancing himself from Taoism.
850 AD - The Cathedral of Christ the Eternal Tao at Chang'An is complete. With a baptized Emperor, the Patriarchate of Merv convenes with bishops of China, Korea, Japan, the Uyghur Khaganate and Tibet with the establishment of the Patriarchate of Chang'An. The Third Council of Dunhuang is held and Chang'an becomes a Patriarchate.
853 AD - Missionary efforts have finally converted the Chera kingdom in Malabar Coast alongside the Chola dynasty. The printing presses allowed them to produce many bibles, church father writings and other texts that overwhelmed them by sheer amount. When a question or critique was raised, dozens of responses and their copies would be spreaded.
Quite frankly, the Indian locals learned more from the foreigners and the abundance of texts they bring than the local brahmins who are slowed by the lack of a printing press. Seeing the benefits of this, rulers and nobles converted out of pragmatism while others genuinely admitted their defeat in theology, often due to the sheer amount of responses.
881 AD - Kievan Rus forms and a mass baptism occurs immediately. Oleg the Seer, ruler of Novgorod and now conqueror of Kiev and its first king, converts to the Christian faith. The faith had been moving north ever since the conversion of the formidable Bulgars with a Bishop even consecrated almost a century ago but Oleg the Seer's conversion alongside a significant popularization of Christianity among the Scandinavians can be attributed to St. Izrael the Bulgar.
Christianization of Scandinavians in the original timeline operated largely out of displaying either the strength of Christ and his followers or practical gains either from converting or after converting. Few converted for spiritual reasons, mystics weren't as common as in Greece or Persia. Likewise, this timeline isn't anything different, in fact it capitalizes on that fact.
Ever since their conversion, military alliance and the technological exchanges performed between the Bulgars and the Romans, the Bulgarian Khanate has been conquering its smaller neighbors and pushing North and West. By the time of Oleg's conquest of Kiev, the Bulgarians had bordered him directly to the South.
St. Izrael the Bulgar lived to his name, he preached the gospel through a simple language that the Northerners would understand, force. The saint would challenge priests and warriors of the Norse gods, especially ones of Thor. He would challenge the idols and fight in ritual combat, defeating all challengers and destroying the idols as his victory prize.
This show of force would convince the warriors present that Christ was a superior god and that His teachings of peace and humility did not discount strength at all. On the contrary, it was an offer to submit to someone greater whose warriors are unparalleled and are bestowed His own immortality. Especially emphasized by a short prayer the Bulgar saint would chant before the battle and after he crushes the idols as his prize.
"Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us."
As a consequence, many vikings converted while others syncretized. The emphasis on the might and divinity of Christ led to the Norse pagans to recognize or syncretize him as Christ the Conqueror of Muspelheim or Christ the Thorslayer or Christ the Challenger. It started an interesting period of syncretism, where Norse cosmology and mythology interpreted Christ as a conqueror who has come to the Nine Realms, a god unbounded by the Norns and a challenger of Asgard.
1000 AD - Leif Erikkson arrived in the gulf of St Lawrence, North America, with a hundred and sixty men. Among those men are a Christian priest, who joins Leif Erikkson's travels to spread the faith into new lands.
Whew, that was a lot. I hope you enjoy reading it! Thanks for the feedback, I do hope I can receive more! Just a note but the next chapter will ramp it up much faster, beginning after the baptism of Kievan Rus. Until then, see you later! Thank you for reading.