Ill Bethisad - Points of Divergence

Points of Divergence

The central point of divergence of Ill Bethisad is a stronger Roman Empire. Nevertheless, history runs mostly parallel to the history of the real world, so that many countries and regions have their own separate points of divergence:

• Latin developed into a Romance language in the British Isles (Wales and western England) and Central Europe (Poland and Slovakia) as it did in France and continental Europe.
• The Partitions of Veneda (historical alternative to Poland) were stopped by Napoleon, and the Venedo-Lithuanian Commonwealth exists to date as the Republic of the Two Crowns. Its present territory is roughly the same as the combined territories of Poland, Lithuania, and East Prussia during the period between the First and Second World War. It also has a colony in Africa, Gambia (part of which, in real-world history, belonged to a prince who was a vassal of seventeenth-century Poland). Another difference is that while the Veneds are Catholics like the Poles, most Lithuanians still confess the Romuva religion.
• A Czech-like Germanic language developed in Bohemia and Silesia under pressure from the Habsburg nobility, who wanted a unified language for the territory.
• The Bolsheviks in Russia were beaten by the White Army producing a nationalistic government.
• The Kingdom of Castille and the Catalan-Aragonese Confederacy never joined in Spain.
• Napoleon did not attack Russia, nor was he defeated at Waterloo.
• The American Revolution didn't happen and therefore United States as we know it doesn't exist. Instead, there is a North American League, each state of which is still subject to a European crown.

In general, there are more independent countries than there are in the real world, and constitutional monarchies, federations, colonies, and condominia are far more numerous. The history of Ill Bethisad, on the whole, often sees extinct or minority languages such as Catalan, Low Saxon, Crimean Gothic as well as others remaining more widely spoken in their respective regions than they have become in real-world history. Also, technologies that have either fallen out of favor or failed to develop in our world are explored and broadly utilized. For example, zeppelins and ekranoplans or ground-effect vehicles are still in use, both for military and civil purposes. Computers are not highly developed and there is no 'Silicon Valley' of North America, but information technology centres are instead found in Ireland.