Lorthanoth
Explorer
It's still a common misconception that the "Anglo-Saxons" came with fire and sword and utterly destroyed all they found.
Celtonia
- Thread starter The Grumpy Celt
- Start date
Lorthanoth said:
It was a joke.
S'mon said:
This is what I meant about not going off on tangents. This thread is about a more "distinctly" "Celtic" society with steam-punk technology than existed in the real world in the 19th century. This thread is not about who did what to whom someplace way back when.
The Grumpy Celt said:
I have trouble with the idea that real 19th century Scotland was not 'distinctly Celtic'. A more archaic society is possible - eg one still tribal, clan-dominated, like the Scots Highlands up until the Highland Clearances after the Jacobite Rebellion - but this would not be an advanced industrialised society, it would more resemble modern tribal backwaters like Iraq & Afghanistan. You could have a world where the Darrien Disaster didn't happen, Scotland established a successful overseas empire and the Act of Union with England didn't occur, but this would still not IMO result in anything looking vastly different from actual 19th c Scotland.
Phlebas
First Post
S'mon said:
Darrien Disaster ?
If you want to take the victorian romanticised view of scottish tartans and pipes in the mist as celtic, then its as good a starting point as any and since we're looking at a RP alternative future (eg no act of union, or alternatively no 'Hammer of the scots') its all a case of taking a baseline and extrapolating it however you see fit.
And although basic tribal doesn't normally survive into the industrial age, look at some eastern civilisations where clan & caste is important to the current day and they can't really be regarded as backwaters
Personally i'd go back to a Boudiccan victory restricting the romans to a few southern trading enclaves (cf the Roman disastrous invasion of Germany and the subsequent retreat to the old borders) and then alternative future it from there (possibly including saxon / viking / danish invasions & mini-kingdoms but this time the celtic culture is strong enough to absorb rather than be absorbed) and then working out an equivalent to the elizabethan golden age to kick off an empire / colonies, some kind of civil war to resolve constitutional matters, and then a background for the industrial revolution (bearing in mind it was driven by owning a lot of sheep and easy access to coal so although victorian capitalism played its part, it was the technology and the resources coming together as well))
In this future there is no england, scotland, ireland or wales, but a mixture of mini-kingdoms and provinces, providing the basis for a clan dominated society and dealing with the rest of the world as the United Kingdoms of Celtonia....
I still like the idea of having some classes fixed in law - Noble, Warrior, Craftsman, Worker - 'Slave' and the political organisation being based on 'election' by a particular group from a narrow pool of candidates - it would be democratic enough that you could see it surviving into the modern age rather than being revolted out. (cf Early roman republicanism - the patrician class literally were the representatives of their family, and spoke and block voted for the entire family in the senate)
Some of the ancient kingdoms might have 'special' status - eg the iceni provide the figure-head high queen or the kingdom of the isles might always be in charge of the navy. Since we're talking a RP setting it needs to be stable enough to be believable, but to have some tensions that can be used as back story and the class / clan seems to be perfect for that. I'm assuming here that Celtonia is going to be based on the british isles rather than most of western europe - that might require slightly to big a rewrite of history....
Phlebas said:
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
Edit: also here
The wikipedia article omits that although the colony struggled, it was eventually wiped out not by disease but by the Spanish, who were a lot more powerful than Scotland. With different politics - say England and France allied together against Spain, and supporting the Scots to weaken Spain - it might conceivably have succeeded.
Last edited:
Phlebas
First Post
S'mon said:
Learn something new every day. 'course if there wasn't the extra 'r' in the original post then my wiki trawl would have answered the question for me
It does kind of lead to the conclusion that scotland as a nation just wasn't large / rich enough to compete with the major powers without the alliance / union with England. If the expedition had been launched as anglo-scot, then the support of the Caribbean colonies might have made the difference and the canal could now be in Commonwealth hands!
So getting back to the OP, i'd say you'd have to have a British Isles Celtonia to be large enough to survive as distinctly celtic, or you would just end up with modern day Ireland / Scotland which is 'western with a hint of bagpipes'
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