What if, the North Sea Empire was ISOTed to 40 AD

[johnreiter]

As it says on the tin, the Empire of the North Sea is sent back from 1028 AD to the 40 AD

This was inspired by a remark from a friend of mine, that the North Sea Empire looked like an upside-down version of the Roman Empire with a peninsula (Denmark) expanding to conquer all the lands around a sea. This made me wonder what would happen if the North Sea Empire was contemporary with Rome

 

[Buba]

A fascinating and fun scenario

Slave trading goes brRRRT. Rome will buy any number of poor sods caught by the NSE in NW Europe and the Baltic basin.

I wonder about centrifugal forces inside the NSE - with virgin lands (or close to that state) all around, various warbosses jarls unhappy with Knut scarper off into the sunset/sunrise? Iceland, Sweden, Greenland, south Baltic coast, Estonian islands, Finland ...
They know of all those lands, and the Varangians-to-Greeks route

Denmark and Norway could relapse into paganism? England almost certainly not? Some English - and maybe Scandinavian? - belivers make a beeline to Palestine? And cannot believe what Christianity they find there ... (hint - Jesus' brothers rulling the sect in Jerusalem because they are his brothers, for starters).

Rome could still invade England. Probably gets massacred, the Art of War having progressed somewhat over a thousand years, but it may throw soldiers at a problem until the NSE breaks. Also, once it gets its shit together Roman agents would be trying to break it up from the inside - Skaven or Drow look monolithic compared to the NSE ...

 

[johnreiter]

Denmark and Norway could relapse into paganism? England almost certainly not? Some English - and maybe Scandinavian? - belivers make a beeline to Palestine? And cannot believe what Christianity they find there ... (hint - Jesus' brothers rulling the sect in Jerusalem because they are his brothers, for starters).

Rome could still invade England. Probably gets massacred, the Art of War having progressed somewhat over a thousand years, but it may throw soldiers at a problem until the NSE breaks. Also, once it gets its shit together Roman agents would be trying to break it up from the inside - Skaven or Drow look monolithic compared to the NSE ...

There may be some relapse into paganism, mostly because disaffected Norsemen who don't like Christianity can fleet to the downtime Germanic tribes and take them over with superior technology. Long-term, however, the introduction of an much more organized Christianity into the first century will likely lead to more rapid christianization of Europe. I suspect it will be a more de-centralized church, though. And I agree, there will be a lot of interesting discussions when the up-time Christians meets with the down-time Christians. They have evolved many traditions, rituals, and developed many theological views that will leave first century believers scratching their heads, since these things hadn't come up yet. There will be some interesting ecumenical councils in the long-term, made more interesting by the fact that most of the apostles are still alive. Just imagine when the northern Christians want to elect Peter as Pope, and he scratches his head and says "what's a Pope?"

England will definitely be an even worse problem for Rome this time, and the barbarian's just got a huge boost in technology and organization. On the other hand, Rome is nearly at the peek of her strength at this point, not the helpless wreck that western Europe was when the Vikings invaded the first time.

There is one thing that I think would be particularly interesting to see. Historically, Augustus tried to improve the quality of the Roman navy by ordering that ships should be commanded only by officers with experience in sea combat. This might have eventually led to the growth of an independent Roman navy. However, IOTL Rome went for centuries after that point without facing a serious naval threat, and the navy atrophied. At this point, that atrophy has not yet set in, and confronted with the great sea raiders of the North Sea Empire the Roman navy may begin to innovate again.

 

[ATP]

As it says on the tin, the Empire of the North Sea is sent back from 1028 AD to the 40 AD

This was inspired by a remark from a friend of mine, that the North Sea Empire looked like an upside-down version of the Roman Empire with a peninsula (Denmark) expanding to conquer all the lands around a sea. This made me wonder what would happen if the North Sea Empire was contemporary with Rome

Rome could send more troops to conqer Denmark or England,but it would be very costly.
I think,that they rather cooperate.
And meeting with 40AD christians would be funny,indeed.

 

[johnreiter]

I major advantage to Rome is that the North Sea Empire is so loosely tied together that, unless this ISOT leads to more unity, they will collapse into individual nations in about 3 generations at most. Most massive Germanic Empires do not last long, due to infighting.

However, this will only benefit Rome slightly, as the new kingdoms of England, Denmark and Norway will be individually formidable enough to challenge Rome, even divided

 

[Buba]

1 - I expect desintegration to happen very quickly;
2 - even with their technological superiority (but let's not go overboard with it) I don't think the NSE is strong enough to challange Rome, not at this point. During some protracted civil war, or post 400/500 AD yes, but not at the peak of its power and cohesion.

 

[ATP]

1 - I expect desintegration to happen very quickly;
2 - even with their advanced technological I don't think the NSE is strong enough to challange Rome, not at this point. During some protracted civil war, or post 400/500 AD yes, but not at the peak of its power and coheson.

Agree.

I major advantage to Rome is that the North Sea Empire is so loosely tied together that, unless this ISOT leads to more unity, they will collapse into individual nations in about 3 generations at most. Most massive Germanic Empires do not last long, due to infighting.

However, this will only benefit Rome slightly, as the new kingdoms of England, Denmark and Norway will be individually formidable enough to challenge Rome, even divided

yes,they would collapse,but it do not matter - they are still too weak to challenge Rome on land.

And,remember ,that 1028AD North send to 40AD mean also 40AD North send to 1028 AD - England with 3 roman legions and fleet,and Denmark and Norwey full of savages.

What would happen ? well,scandinavian countries would be taken by HRE/Sweden, but what about England? we would have regular roman army there - nobody in Europe could beat them.

P.S if you send 1028AD North into 28AD,then vikings would sail to save Jesus from death !.