u/Pecuthegreat

Thinking about it, to achieve Eren's goals and avoid common sense added problems, a rumbling that targeted population centres and cities would be better than 80%.

People are still not evacuating in time either way.

It avoids destroying entire forests and ecosystems. So lesser of an ecological collapse.

It probably kills more people but destroys less peoples so arguably less genocide.

It destroys civilization more completely so: capacity to war is further done away with; there's a larger diversity of people and we know a lot of times that correlates with less cooperation; building on that, capacity to remember is also done away with, the whole Titan stuff will turn into a morality tale like God flooding the world for a man becoming evil (YHWH, Zeus) or making too much noise (Enlil). Either way in all versions of the myth no ill will is placed on the gods so I do think there's high chances that also happens here and the titans specific cycle of hatred is gone.

And better yet for Eren gets to see even more of the book scenery. While probably feeling less guilty.

Thinking about it, to achieve Eren's goals and avoid common sense added problems, a rumbling that targeted population centres and cities would be better than 80%.

People are still not evacuating in time either way.

It avoids destroying entire forests and ecosystems. No lesser of an ecological collapse.

It probably kills more people but destroys less peoples so arguably less genocide.

It destroys civilization more completely so: capacity to war is further done away with; there's a larger diversity of people and we know a lot of times that correlates with less cooperation; building on that, capacity to remember is also done away with, the whole Titan stuff will turn into a morality tale like God flooding the world for a man becoming evil (YHWH, Zeus) or making too much noise (Enlil). Either way in all versions of the myth no ill will is placed on the gods so I do think there's high chances that also happens here and the titans specific cycle of hatred is gone.

And better yet for Eren gets to see even more of the book scenery. While probably feeling less guilty.

Hi everyone,

Lately, I have been looking for a good IPTV Netherlands provider. There are so many providers these days that it is difficult to determine which one is truly reliable. On paper, everything seems perfect, but in practice, you often hear complaints about buffering, dropping channels, or slow support.

During my search, I came across dutchiptvabonnement.com. On the website, they promise, among other things, a wide range of Dutch and international channels, support for multiple devices, and fast activation.

For me, these are the most important points for an IPTV subscription:

• Stable streams without much buffering

• Good quality (HD or 4K)

• Dutch and Belgian channels

• Works on Smart TV, Fire TV Stick, and Android

• Fast customer service when needed

I am curious if anyone here has experience with dutchiptvabonnement.com. How is the picture quality? Are the streams stable during football matches or other high-view live events? And how do you like the customer service in the long term?

I would love to hear your experiences or any alternatives you would recommend. This version feels more like a real Reddit discussion and invites replies instead of making unverifiable claims.

Oftentimes the issues that girls and women face in Afghanistan are brought up whilst issues facing boys and men in Afghanistan doesn't receive as much attention.

Here in this Guardian article the focus is on boys and men. In addition the issues faced in relation to higher education.

In terms of admission to university, there was a decline from 310,369 in 2019 to 188,957 in 2024 according to UNESCO.

In Afghanistan boys and men have to ahere to strict Islamic dress code at schools and universities. If they fail to do so they are heavily punished by the government.

Throughout the decades financing and maintaining universities in particular The University of Kabul has been hollowed out meaning that staff are inadequately trained to lecture students. In turn students aren't fully equipped with skills for the workplace once they graduate. These are one of many effects of the Taliban taking over the region and the country being a failed state.

This isn't like, something from academic research more spit balling from people on the internet.

But the basic idea is that the Tyrsenian Language family is the longest lasting of the languages that Anatolian Farmers brought with them into Europe. As for where exactly in Anatolia is the homeland of Tyrsenian, somewhere near Troy or Mysia is the only proposal I have seen.

And expansion from there into Central Europe seems like a shortest route for the first agriculturalists in Central Europe/Germany.

So, has anyone tried to compare the Germanic Substratum with Tyrsenian Language family words?.

P.S. :- Something I have wondered is how do the people that hold a late arrival of Tyrsenian in Italy square that with the existence of Wilusa, Troad, Mysia and other I.E. speaking polities in the region without any clear example of borrowings of Tyrsenian in them?.

I would assume a people that are powerful enough to migrate to Italy and lingustically takeover would at least be able to leave loaned names on their literate neighbors even if they themselves aren't literate.

Children from ambassadors college and Gonzaga Jesuit college also got gold. Alex Onyia's 3 children also got gold.

Very impressive.

Imagine the people who have such brilliance but did not get the opportunity to shine.

https://preview.redd.it/j5u2kosff7ch1.png?width=1146&format=png&auto=webp&s=35c3b98dc4ed00cc697b2a2adb2871b95c31dda5

https://preview.redd.it/dhr957saf7ch1.png?width=1422&format=png&auto=webp&s=05ca02a392615e026645dc6794002e5e8bb0b2aa

https://preview.redd.it/0afhr7e803ch1.png?width=576&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9f18698241b911e9bbec1d4fa5cf5858ccd299e

My take on the Falling birth rates issue.

Here's personally how I see the natalism problem. Birth rates are collapsing because of an economic system in a condition that discourages more kids.

This has happened before in human history so I do not see this as a crisis of the end of civilization or anything like that, just the usual secular crisis' societies go through.

When birth rates were exploding, the economic system was in a condition where it was both not "clogged up" with as much redundancies and to function better, it needed more people, so it encouraged more people to be born. Now it is "clogged up" with more redundancies (or to view it another way, has transformed a bit but not fundamentally into being a new system), doesn't need as much of an increase in population to function and has the growing working class that it will need to function for a while as systems generally don't try to estimate the future. Sooner or later, as long as excessive force isn't used to keep some people's benefits, it will swing towards needing more people.

However, systems tends to reform through such readjustments and now of such reforms we are seeing now are A.I. and automation. This will transform the system to needing even less people than before, so we won't have anything near a rebound to whatever our peak population will be, especially so in advanced economies and especially so if advanced economies close the door to immigration.

This doesn't mean culture doesn't play a role, it does. Some cultures are so resistant to it that even with the economic configuration, they continue to grow like some Jews. But using those exceptions to diagnose the core of this issue is wrong.

This also doesn't need mean that what u guys are doing here has no value, it increases ur and those closer to you's genetic and cultural foot print post whatever recession the depopulation bomb will cause but with or without it, civilization will keep on going.

Here's personally how I see the natalism problem. Birth rates are collapsing because of an economic system in a condition that discourages more kids.

This has happened before in human history so I do not see this as a crisis of the end of civilization or anything like that, just the usual secular crisis' societies go through.

When birth rates were exploding, the economic system was in a condition where it was both not "clogged up" with as much redundancies and to function better, it needed more people, so it encouraged more people to be born. Now it is "clogged up" with more redundancies (or to view it another way, has transformed a bit but not fundamentally into being a new system) and doesn't need as much of an increase in population to function. Sooner or later, as long as excessive force isn't used to keep some people's benefits, it will swing towards needing more people.

However, systems tends to reform through such readjustments and now of such reforms we are seeing now are A.I. and automation. This will transform the system needed even less people than before, so we won't have anything near a rebound to whatever our peak population will be, especially so in advanced economies and especially so if advanced economies close the door to immigration.

This doesn't need mean that what u guys are doing here has no value, it increases ur and those closer to you's genetic and cultural foot print post whatever recession the depopulation bomb will cause but with or without it, civilization will keep on going.

Someone asked on here why a very silly question; why is tribalism bad? What is wrong with being loyal to your tribe? How is seeing your tribe as better than others necessarily a bad thing? These were silly questions then and we were quick to point out why. I am sure that person and his ilk are still in this sub and are still subscribed to the mindset that tribalism is fine, which is why when this whole issue with Alex Onyia started I was quickly reminded about this sub and that pathetic attempt to rationalize tribalism l.

For starters, many of us on twitter saw how Alex started. We saw his advocacy for education increase rapidly into full blown activism. We were all very impressed when he took a fight to jamb on behalf of hundreds of thousands of students in the South East and Lagos who had their results marked wrongly on account of a "glitch". He took Jamb to task and got the Jamb director to apologize for this. This is obviously great but guess what, a "group" of people rallied to the Jamb directors defense. Do you want to guess why they did so? This is somebody whose incompetence could have destroyed the lives of so many Yoruba kids but he was being shielded. I can leave you to guess by whom and for what reason.

We also saw Alex take on his alma mater in the east. He fought them over their shabby hostels and they had to commission a fix. When he tried to do the same in the Southwest, he was fiercely resisted. Again you can guess why. Some claimed he was doing it to "demarket" the Southwest so they attacked him.

The most recent case is him getting the winners of the South-east Olympiad to Rome. Envy and wickedness led people to start spreading rumors firstly that He replaced a Yoruba boy with an Igbo one and he’s "cornered slot" meant for Nigeria for just his kids from the southeast. Of course both were lies concocted just to discredit him and luckily he took great pains to first document the process that led to the winners of the Southeast Olympiad and then went on to explain how and why the Olympiad being attended in Rome has nothing to do with a "cornered slot". This however didn’t satisfy his detractors. They are now pissed off that he called his students "the best in the country" when one of them was beat by a Yoruba boy in a national competition. As someone who had attended these events in Secondary school, I know firsthand that this is bollocks. I had a friend who I had beat in several competitions even though he was the better student.

What does this tell us. Tribalist wants you to believe that they are just loyal and that couldn’t hurt but the people who tribalism hurts first is often its subscribers. It twists their hearts into unrecognizable contraptions willing to bend all sorts of ways to defend the tribe even when it is wrong. It will attack others when it perceives a threat even when there’s none. One would think the tribalist we have on Twitter would be focused on organizing a Southwest Olympiad so they can build their own kids as well. No they are trying to destroy another tribe out of envy.

PS: I am sure you will see them report themselves with all manner of excuses under this post as well

EDIT: there are some who have misconstrued this to mean a post about "Yoruba people are tribalist" and if you’re one of them I promptly apologize for the lack of clarity. For avoidance of doubt I am referring to a specific group on Twitter who they themselves will proudly tell you they are tribalist and are constantly at the forefront of these kinds of things. Anyone who is familiar with Twitter knows exactly who I am referring to. I am however going to leave my initial write up untouched. I won’t be where I am today without both Yoruba or even Igbo people despite me being neither so far be it from me to make sweeping generalizations about any group.

While probably not intentional on the part of the video, the video is a partial disillusionment on the "we have natural resources" model of development that Nigerians reflexively champion.

There is no way out of industralization driven development. Whether it be u processing the natural sources or doing something else.

We are already experiencing natural sources driven growth and guess what? It's all going to the top while what used to be a middle class is being replaced by the "not poor, not rich, no safety net" class.

What if, instead of the GATE fantasy world breaking into the GATE Japan and killing people, it is the yearly raiding party of the Baharuth Empire and Re;Estize Kingdom of Overlord that do.

The Gate appears near Kazte plains of the undead like Nazarick, though probably not the exact same location.

Now, obviously the invaders will be pushed back and a forward operating base be established in the New World but how does the JSDF match the much stronger and more (game) rules based world of overlord. Well, the ceiling of absolute strength is stronger and the average person is also physically stronger but where they appear is relatively weak for that world.

How does the Human Kingdoms of Overlord a s beyond react to the JSDF. Like, definitely the JSDF is gonna look for who sent the invaders and require a resolution so how will the Baharuth Empire and Re:Estize Kingdom respond to someone coming to demand what they would consider disproportionately high recompense for killing random subjects?.

How will the JSDF handle the undead of the Katze plains and the monster of the forest of Tobb?. Will they be able to save the Dwarvish Kingdom like Ainz managed? Well, I think they won't but will court Dwarven migrants. But I think they would be able to save the Draconic Kingdom.

How will the JSDF integrate magic in this world?. In GATE, they were pretty slow on that front but that's because they were so much more powerful that they didn't really need it. In this world where things aren't only stronger but there's has rules on things like, purely physical damage just in working on some, spells that nullify anything that's simply a projectile, etc. there would be more of a need to integrate and investigate magic. Given Nazarick can't use new world artifacts, I assume that the JSDF humans won't be able to use magic, they won't even have any of it at all and be like blanks to magical systems, I think.

And like, healing magic would be a huge and I mean, huge resource among other things.

All in all, I imagine a far bloodier world. Maybe enough of an issue that Japan accepts a multinational force manning the forward operating base much quicker so that the cost of operations is spread.

So, getting this from a video by Flashpoint history, this was a strategic goal for Portugal since they arrived in and started conquering the Ports of the Indian Ocean. Albuquerque tried once, failed, planned to go back, got busy with something else, died and his stupid successor ruined the chance. They were also on a time crunch until the Ottomans do so.

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‎I think the easiest way to have this happen is to just not have Manuel lose favour with him as according to a primary source, his disease was worsened by the heartbreak of being berated by his sovereign upon his loyalty and accomplishments.

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‎But this wouldn't just make him live a bit longer but potentially be in better health during their first attack on Aden, better enough health to lead his men in the battle and capture Aden at first try, as they almost did in OTL. From this better base, they'll be able to resupply (they couldn't resupply at Massawa due to a locust caused famine that harvest) and capture Jeddah the exact same year. (1513)

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‎So what would he do next?.

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‎Well, there are a number of things he wanted to do.

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‎From Flashpoint History,

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‎In OTL he wrote to the King of Portugal to give him an Amarda of over 4,000 men with which he would march inland from there to take Jerusalem and from there to conquer Egypt.

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‎From Robert Silverberg's The realm of Prester John

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> ‎Albuquerque had nothing less than a holy war in mind. The Ethiopians, after all, were Christians, and would surely join forces with the Portuguese to smash the Moslem nations who surrounded them. Albuquerque dreamed of using the Ethiopian port of Massawa, on the Red Sea, as a staging base for an invasion of Arabia: aided by the legions of Prester John, he would capture Mecca, carry off the coffin of Mohammed, and use it to ransom the Holy Land. Then, too, he wanted to revive an age-old scheme and dig a canal across Ethiopia from the Nile to the Red Sea, thus diverting the great river and making a wasteland out of Egypt.

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‎Frankly, this success could be why he regains favour with Manuel instead of regaining favour with Manuel being the reason for his success. Like, an alternate divergence is some of the letters of 1512 - 1514, including that of his dismissal, arrive late and the above successes reverses Manuel's decision and this could be even more useful for where I want to take the timeline from here. And that, is allying with Ethiopia to invade and conquer Mecca in 1514.

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‎A Manuel who's only now thinking better of Albuquerque would still be shaky in sending such a fleet but even then, with even a 4000 man fleet, allying with and bringing on Ethiopian troops would still be advised. However, gaining the direct support of the Negusa Negast is something that could be helped by an earlier devergence event that would lead to better established Portuguese-Ethiopian relations. For example, if the Negusa Negast Eskender (1474-1497) allowed Pero da Covilha to return, if Vasco da Gama's embassy succeeded in both getting to the Emperor and returning. And finally, if instead of campaigning in the Persian Gulf, Albuquerque instead campaigned in the Red Sea in 1507, closer to his actual mission and in doing so, set up an earlier embassy with Emperor Lebna Dengel, just as he was getting crowned. He could have also, intercepted an Egyptian fleet that would cause them trouble in India if the did this, a success that could potentially butterfly the growth of distrust from the king.

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‎This would all be better but I guess, we can also fast forward all that preparation or have only the Bahr Negash, ruler of the province of Medri Bahri, contribute troops as well as whatever volunteers they could find. I assume in this time, the Dahlak Sultanate would be subjugated by the Portuguese.

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‎From here, they conquer Mecca by or before 1517. The garrison holding the city is given specific instructions to flee with the Black stone or destroy it and the Kabba. While the rest of the Army marches further North. I do doubt they would succeed in taking the Holy Land or conquering Egypt and even if they do take the Holyland they'll immediately have to face the Ottomans and almost certainly be ousted by the Ottomans but even then, this great victory would already be achieved, and the Portuguese will be able to indefinitely, bottle up the Ottomans first in the Red Sea, then in the Persian Gulf as well and have a longer period of dominance in the Indian Ocean.

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‎A question I have from a previous time I asked a similar question was why would Ethiopia do this when the Muslim blow back would be targeted on them as Portugal is distant and how would Ethiopia survive the Muslim blowback?.

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‎The thing is, the idea of allying with the Portuguese to do unspeakable things on their Muslim competition was first brought up by the Ethiopians.

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‎Quoting from a Letter from Queen Mother Eleni

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‎> Now is the moment come for the fulfillment of the promise made by Christ and Holy Mary, His Mother, that in the last time there would arise a king among the Franks who would make an end of all the Moors!

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‎‎From the Bahr Negash's audience with Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the viceroy of India after he had arrived in Massawa and scared off the Muslims occupying that city at the time. (Massawa was under Dahlak Sultanate suzreignty for a while)

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‎> the Bamagais saying that they had it written in their books, that Christians from distant lands were to come to that port to join with the people of the Prester John, and . . . that there would be no more Moors there: and since God had fulfilled this, that they should affirm and swear friendship.”

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‎But then you may ask, why would they then destroy Mecca?. Well, the above prophecies are variants of an original prophesy from like, the 700s that said the King of the Romans and the King of the Ethiopians would ally, come together and destroy Islam and Mecca.

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‎> ‎Yet the old prophecy continued to give hope to Christians and alarm to Moslems: one day, it was said, the Emperor of Ethiopia would lead forth his armies and capture Mecca, and then, joining forces with the Emperor of Rome, he would drive Islam from the world. These apocalyptic predictions can be found in Byzantine literature of the seventh and eighth centuries, and in two later works ascribed to a pair of Coptic monks, Pisentios of Thebes and Samuel of Qalamun. Quite possibly this dream of deliverance at the hands of the Christian monarch of Ethiopia was one of the fantasies out of which the twelfth century legend of Prester John was born.

>

>‎‎A prophecy had begun to circulate that the Ethiopians would sack Mecca itself and destroy the sacred black stone, the Ka’aba.

>

‎>Thus threatened, the Arabs occupied the Ethiopian coast in the early eighth century and put an end to the piracies.

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‎Overtime, for many, the Roman Emperor in this prophecy shifted to the Latins/Franks (basically the same thing after a while) and Ethiopia shifted from referring to Nubia to Abyssinia.

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> Yet, it is worth mentioning that Eastern Christians have been argued by Christopher MacEvitt to have transferred Roman identity from the Byzantines to the Latin Christians during the Crusades.... Did, then, this transferal of the identity of the ‘true’ Romans also occur in Nubia? Evidence is too limited to draw any definitive conclusions, and comparative Ethiopian evidence is currently elusive.

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‎> A ‘new’ Ethiopia had replaced the ‘old’ ‘Ethiopia’ of Nubia. There is no evidence to suggest that Ethiopians viewed themselves as ‘Ethiopians’ prior to 1270. In fact, evidence suggests that previous Ethiopians, whether in ʾAksum or Bǝgwǝna, actively avoided such an identification as ‘Ethiopia’ and were fully aware of its historical and biblical allusions to Nubia. The Solomonic dynasty’s desire to reconnect its lineage to a biblical past to legitimise its authority centred the dynasty on being rulers of ʾItyoṗya. As such, they recentred Ethiopia within a wider Christian universal history which had once centred Nubia. The contemporary stagnation of Dotawo certainly gave Ethiopia a cultural vacuum in which to appropriate the toponym of ‘Ethiopia’. It also enabled its rulers to take up the traditional mantle of Nubian rulers, such as being the protector of Eastern Christians in disputes with the Muslims of Egypt

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‎As for how Ethiopia would survive such an onslaught, the success of Ahmed Gragn against Ethiopia, almost conquering it, rested on his Ottoman arquebusiers auxiliary. This is proven by the fact that Christovao da Gama with an army of only 400 arquebusiers which were none the less, more than Gragn's own arquebusiers, repelled Gragn's estimated at up to 40,000 men strong army from most of Ethiopia and Gragn only then defeated him, when after several battles reduced this force and Gragn got further Turkish arquebusiers reinforcements, so that he had more arquebusiers than the Portuguese. And his subsequent loss to Emperor Galawdewos who incorporated the surviving Portuguese arquebusiers into his army, having an estimated equal number of arquebusiers to Gragn's force.

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‎While the capacity of the Portuguese to help the Ethiopians is not only proven by Christavao da Gama but also by a Portuguese Fleet, supporting Lebna Dengel in his war against Ifat in 1516 most memorably, by shelling the coastal city of Zeila for him.

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‎So all I see happening is that maybe Gragn pulls a skanderberg and manages to keep Ifat-Adal independent throughout his life time but all that Adal or Ifat trying to attack Ethiopia would do is justify further expansion against them, maybe even losing all their major cities to direct Ethiopian-Portuguese control following whenever Gragn dies.

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‎--

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‎So, no matter what happens in Egypt, the Hejaz and the Levant (I personally see some Mameluk ports getting captured as the Ottomans conquer it), we can be sure that Jeddah and ports South of it are under firm Portuguese control as are the Dalak islands, assuming the Portuguese doesn't just conquer that Sultanate.

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‎--

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‎So what do we do they do next?.

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‎Well, in OTL in c.1524 Ethiopia receives and Embassy from Nubia/Dotawo to send them priests for they have no priests in their land anymore. It is due to this lack of priests that they're described as follows.

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‎> I heard from a Syrian man, a ‎native of Tripoli of Syria, who was called John of Syria (he accompanied us for three years in the Prester’s country, and came with us to Portugal), that he had been to this country, and that there are a hundred and fifty churches in it, which still contain crucifixes and images of Our Lady, and other images painted on the walls. All are old. And the people of this country are neither Christians, Moors, nor Jews; and that they live in the desire to ‎become Christians.... and they say that as many castles as there are, so [too are as] many captains: they have no king, but only captains.

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‎This is a testament to how low Makuria sank in the mid 1300s, when it even had 2 Muslim Kings. Because the Kings of Makuria had traditionally been priests Kings and could ordain bishops themselves so for the ruler at this time to not have been able to (well, was a woman) nor had no relative that could appoint priests means at some point the succession of oridination of its Kings was broken and was never sufficiently restored. And I guess it does explain how the Nubians completely converted to Islam, having no Christian priesthood unlike say the Assyrians, Copts or Marionites, among others. However this decentralized Kingdom was strong again at this point and this is testified by more quotes. It was large enough that it could it could fight border wars with Ethiopia's Mehri Bahri who claimed suzreignty on some of them and powerful enough to defeat the Son of the King of the Province in battle, even while Ethiopia was the undisputed major power in the horn of Africa.

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‎they made a solemn proclamation that the Barnagais intended to make war on the Nobiis, five or six days’ journey from the limits of his country, towards Egypt, [64] neighbouring to the countries of Canfilla and Dafolha,[46] which are subject to the Barnagais, as I have before mentioned. These Nobiis are neither Moors, nor Jews, nor Christians. It is said that they had been Christians, and had lost their faith, and are thus without any faith. They say that there is among these Nobiis much fine gold. They said that but a short time ago they had killed a son of the Barnagais, and that he wished to go and avenge his death. I heard say that in the frontier districts of these Nobiis there were four or five hundred horsemen, very great warriors, and that it is a country very well supplied with provisions, and it cannot be otherwise because it is on this and the further side of the Nile, which they say is a very fertile country. The proclamation said that he would set out in fifty days from that time: but up to this there had been no muster nor movement of arms. This would be because in the country there are not many, and few people possess them except the Chavas, who are the men at arms. These men have javelins, bows and arrows. These great lords have a few swords, hangers, and shirts of mail (not many of them). On the occasion of this little revolt, the Barnagais asked the ambassador for swords, and the ambassador gave him his own, which he wore on the road, and which was very good, and he still persistently begged another rich sword with ornaments which he carried with him, saying he wanted it for the war he was going to make, and the ambassador not being able to excuse himself, it suited him to buy another from his companions with gilt ends and a velvet scabbard, which he gave him instead of his own. And in the house where we kept our goods, and where our Portuguese slept, which was a house without doors, on the following night they stole from them two swords and a helmet. All this would be on account of the war.

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‎What this means is that, even if Muslims also attacked Nubia due to the attack on Mecca and destruction of or capture of the Black stone and Kabba, what is left of Dotawo (the Makurian successor state/Nubia after Makuria and Alodia united) and other Christian Nubian states (like, Fazhugli) would be able to hold out for a while. ‎It would however, need Ethiopi-Portuguese aid to survive into the late modern era

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‎With Portugal having a more established position on the red sea in this timeline, it also means that they'll be capable of responding to this request by the Nubian's Queen btw 1520 and 1526 (estimated to 1524) that Ethiopia couldn't and that the small Portuguese embassey in Ethiopia at the time, also couldn't.

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‎Again, given that Nubians will to a man convert to Sunni Islam, this expedition will have an easy time converting them to Catholicism.

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‎Portugal would also be in a good position to send armies to Nubia. Remember the success of Christavao da Gama in Ethiopia? Now, imagine what he could do if his arquebusiers had an entire army of Ethiopians, possibly including their own arquebusiers as Galawados trained some Ethiopians in it in OTL.

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‎Not only was Dotawo relatively powerful at this time, it's enemies were weak. Funj had only conquered Soba the Alodian seat of power in 1504 and other Alodian rumps like Fazhugli still existed. And mind you not only had Funj not consolidated at this time (it is somewhat of badly documented period as it wasn't in a position to yet set up those institutions) the Shiiluk Kingdom will expand North against it in this early period to show how weak it was. Arab tribes in the Sudan have also fragmented again, they had a powerful leader around the late 1400s into very early 1500s but he'ld be dead by now. So I really won't be surprised if the Ethiopi-Portuguese force marches all the way from the Blue Nile to Egypt.

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‎And bringing up Egypt is the other reason for this expedition because while the eventual request from the Nubians for Ethiopian or Portuguese support will help justify it, sooner or later the Ottomans unable to break the Portuguese blockade directly will invest in expansion along the Nile to siege them from inland, especially modern Sudanese ports like Suakin which the Portuguese must most definitely have acquired. So, expanding into/restoring a Christian ally in the Sudan would be necessary to keep the Red Sea blockade going at minimal costs.

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‎--

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‎I feel like, an alternate side effect of this is more Ottoman attention in controlling Morocco and attacking Portugal in the Atlantic. Now, simply losing the chance to expand in the Indian Ocean need not mean that the Ottomans would then magically transfer their historical successes there to the Red Sea, after all, they could always waste those resources on trying to open the blockade and failing and their fundamental closer position to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf than to the straits of Gibraltar could mean we just get a weaker and less expensive Ottoman Empire but I do think they would really, really try to get Morocco.

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‎In OTL, they succeeded in making Abd al-Malik King of Morocco but that fell through with al-Mansur succeeding him quickly and liking independence. And before them, they launched an invasion on the early Saadis, resulting in them allying with the Spanish.

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‎Heavier Ottoman intervention could lead to one of two things, Morocco being divided into Hispanian (both Portuguese and Spanish) and Ottoman spheres of influence or the Ottomans just take Morocco and the Portuguese then have to fight them in the Atlantic for their survival. I think the former is more likely, as that is what would have essentially happened if Portugal won the battle of 3 Kings, the Atlantic coast would go to Portugal, most of the Inland to a Portuguese vassals (that promised to convert to Christianity, by the way) and the rest Eastern fringe to the Ottomans and the Mediterranean coast mostly Spanish. If it goes like this, its side effect of this is no Saadi conquest of the Songhai and Imperial Western Soudan won't have a long interregnum that was only at the point of an end at the Eve of colonization with the Samorian State and the Tukulor Empire/ Umarian Caliphate. The Songhai Empire wouldn't necessarily be that much better, though. At its end it refused to adopt guns and was abatted by constant fratricidal civil wars but at least, it staying together leaves upon the possibility of another imperial state immediately succeeding it the way Songhai succeeded Mali and Mali succeeded Wagadu. My bet is on the Fulani being this but I could also buy Hausa or Mandinka.

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‎But in the mean time, there was actually a Portuguese factory in a South Saharan city of the Songhai Empire. Without their fall, I really could see them being a major trade partner, their incessant wars, supplying Portugal more guilt reduced slaves. Infact, with Sudan and Ethiopia also providing them slaves, it would reduce demand on West Central Africa and thus reduce tensions with Kongo.

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‎We have basically been on a constant string of "how can things go better for Portugal" and now for the big "how things can go bad for Portugal" and that is, the religion of Ethiopia.

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‎In OTL, Portuguese priests managed to narrowly convert two Ethiopian Emperors, more importantly, Susenyos I by a strategy that consistented of.

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‎1. Fervent but respect debates with the King.

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‎2. Firm but respectful criticisms of some Ethiopian religious customs while also accepting most of them as diversity in traditions of Christianity. This includes, adapting to some of those most strongly held traditions that don't contradict strongly held Catholic traditions like a left hand taboo, not spitting or urinating in church, removing shoes before entering church

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‎‎3. Lots and lots of Credibility-Enhancing Displays (CrEDs). So, holiness, public displays of holiness and poverty, having no controversy, etc.

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‎4. Educating children

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‎5. Being compitent in other areas as well

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While the number one thing they did to turn the Ethiopians against them is basically refusing every compromise and trying to force Latin Catholicism on them and causing a devastating civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians. Because of this, Susenyos I actually abdicated as he still believed in Catholicism and his son, first removed Catholic privileges and then expelled them after that.

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‎Now, unfortunately, this was the church of the counter reformation that banned Gois book on Ethiopian religion and considered the very topic, dangerous.

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‎The Grand Inquisitor replied that, although he still regarded Gois “as a good man and a good Christian,” the book was too dangerous. It implicitly advocated a kind of world-wide confederation of Christians, made up of independent churches that followed each its own style of worship, and denounced the attempts of any branch of the Church to interfere with the practices of another branch:

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‎Which is ironic, because the Catholic church as it exists now is essentially trying to create this but with all churches under the suzreignty of Rome.

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‎And it isn't like this behaviour was completely new. The Papal envoy in Louis' Egyptian Crusade, famously rejected the peace treaty that would have had the Kingdom of Jerusalem returned to them and for that paid with the failure of the entire expedition and later on, Matteo Ricci's evangelization of China failed because the Pope refused his compromise, a compromise which has been mostly accepted today.

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‎It does make me wonder, when exactly did the Catholic church both come into communication with the Eastern Churches and when did it let them keep their own traditions like married priests?.

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‎And I know that Kongolese have always been allowed to use a Kongolese rite that was even translated by the Kongolese Catholics so it was odd when I read that Padre Afonso Mendes initially banned the Ge'ez in favour of Latin, I was surprised.

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‎I really do hope that in TTL, they're able to find a Francisco Alvarez or Pero Paez, type figure to make Patriarch as someone like that could mostly make a smooth transition but again, the Ricci example means it's more likely that the counter reformation church would reject whatever compromise is reached.

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‎Honestly, the best work around I can see is the case of Bermudes that was ably to bullshit his way into half convincing the Papacy that he had been made Abunas and half convincing the Ethiopians that the Pope had made him Latin Patriarch of Ethiopia but even this sleazy actor was also, trying to force Catholicism on Ethiopia. So a Latin/Frank being power interested and willing to conspire still doesn't make them necessarily willing to compromise with other Christians. That said, Albuquerque and most Portuguese when not under the direct authority of a Papal legate were willing to compromise with other Christians.

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‎That said, it does open up a possibility. Ottoman Egypt closes off the appointment of a new Abuna, that's no doubt the most likely outcome of all the above. Given Alvarez and the previous Abuna were friendly and he's also friendly with the Emperor, he could become the defacto highest ranking guy after the Abuna passes, check he may even be able to get the Emperor to get the Abuna name him successor in a sense (but not Abuna) and when an archbishop is appointed they are sent straight to Nubia and recognize the elevation of Alvarez, making him archbishop of Abyssinia.

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‎So Afonso Mendes or his type is completely taken over by working to rebuild the Nubian church from the bottom, gets into all the quarrels with the Nubians in a more risky frontier so is hopeful, kept so busy rebuilding the church and doing the rites and sacrements ;as the Kongolese kept their Italian priests doing rites and sacrements; and kept so tense by the possibility of Nubian factions allying with the Muslims or themselves against him to keep in in compromise and too distracted to cause problems in Ethiopia. So that by the time they can look to rumours of Ethiopian uniqueness, they're sufficiently softened and trained in Catholic rethoric to avoid an attempt at a complete squashing. So revolts remain minimal but like withe everything else, this can only be achieved by all of these happening rapidly as the time frame for their successful implementation is in decades of grace. This will keep the revolts minimal like during the first half of Susenyos' I regin when it was mostly political and didn't result in nearly as many deaths as when the revolts were more popular revolts.

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This was the best, reasonable good end I could think of but the Bad end could just be very similar to OTL. The Ethiopian Emperor refuses to convert, the Pope appoints a hard liner, steelled in the counter reformation to organize the Portuguese into a Crusade to correct him on some flimzy justification plus he's a heretic. Portugal is so busy fighting its one major ally over nonsense, the Ottomans conquer Sudan, conquer Suakin and Jeddah, ally with Ethiopia and push them out of the Red Sea.

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Worst case scenario, basically nothing changes because I assure you, they'll hunt down Catholicism in Sudan and everything returns to almost OTL.

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I could also imagine something inbetween, Sudan remain an ally, they fight with Ethiopia, Ottomans come close to breaking out of the Red Sea, they quickly make a peace but it's too late but at least Nubia survives in some fashion and has to be ground down over generations so there's a Catholic Nubian minority in Sudan today.

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But damn, these other senerios are just too temporary for my taste.

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Anyways, here are what I am wondering the most.

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Would the Iberian union still form in this timeline?. Like, a weaker Morocco should mean Portugal wins the TTL equivalent to the battle of 3 kings, so Portugal doesn't experience the issues it did in OTL due to having to also fight Spain's enemies.

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If the Iberian union still forms, what's the chance of Ethiopia allying with them against Portugal like, Kongo did?. This should be an Ethiopia where the revolts against the Catholics is still fresh in memory and where the Archbishopric or Patriarchate of Sudan and Ethiopia are still trying to enforce the counter reformation form of Catholicism.

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Would Portugal lose Brazil in a timeline where they also have to support Ethiopian Catholics against Ethiopian Coptic revolts?.

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In a timeline where Portugal trades more slaves from Songhai, how does it manage an even more Muslim American slave population?. Does major slave revolts like the Ma'le revolt succeed? even temporarily (I mean, in OTL they do also kinda succeed temporarily so I would assume in this case, succeed enough to be recognized even by 1800s - 1900s Europeans, looking back, as a state entity)?. Does this lead to Male Sokoto timeline?.

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I guess, I might have to read up on the Atlantic world era.

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How does the Oromo expansion expansion go without a Weakened Ethiopia but a Weakened Adal/Harar under Ethiopian Suzreignty?. Will they still want to migrate North even if Ethiopia controls its borders? If that's the case, I would assume they would destroy what's left of Adal and Ifat as an Ethiopian vassal may barely survive. But that Ethiopia would be able to mostly contain the expansion.

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Would they then, expand South or was the expansion always dependent on the North Weakening and showing them an opportunity?.

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Anyways, the Oromo migrations will also complicate things. It'ld act as another time crunch for Portugal because once they become a serious issue, Ethiopia won't be able to really support an army in campaigning in Sudan. They could also provide allies and auxiliaries to Coptic Ethiopian rebels.

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I forgot to talk about that whole crazy, divert the Nile idea.

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It had been first brought up by the Ethiopians

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> Conflict with Egypt, where the Moslem rulers were persecuting Coptic Christians and destroying their churches, was frequent in this period. King ’Amda-Seyon (1314-44) put a temporary halt to this by reviving a threat that the Ethiopians had made to Egypt several times in previous centuries: that he would cut off the flow of the Nile, which is fed by the rivers of Ethiopia, and turn Egypt into a desert

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Here's Albuquerque's version of it from his letter to his King while he was in the Red Sea campaign.

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> Then, too, the viceroy wrote, “If the King our Lord would send out some of those engineers who make cuttings through the mountains of Madeira, they could divert the flood of the Nile and turn it aside from watering the lands of Cairo—thus in two years Cairo would be undone, and the whole country ruined. . . ."

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With Nubia most likely being in their sphere of influence at this time, doing this from Ethiopia wouldn't happen and it's unlikely they could even succeed but can the Nile be diverted or reduced from the Nubian portion of it?.

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I think, massive irrigation projects would be the most cost-benefit way of doing such a dastardly plan. Are there any large depressions that the river could be diverted into?.

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Much of the White Nile is called a Paleo-Lake Turkana in the Green Sahara period so maybe there's a choke point there where it is easy to bottle up the White Nile at and hold of the water for a while and you could then open the dam in a way as to cause a flood. But if course, doing it that far South will also risk Dotawo and would as such take a lot of planning to minimize issues.

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I guess, the best plan would be to create irrigation works, including diverting as much of the water as possible into natural depressions. That way, maybe Egypt could be weakened a bit, while Nubia is strengthed with more irrigation.

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Or is there a way to divert the Nile at around the Aswan area?.

Unlike Hausa and Yoruba that that pre-colonial imperial periods forcing the metropolization of one dialect of their respective dialects over the others Igbo never had these. Igbo have had wide ranging popular dialects, like Nri, Aro, Onitsha but these have been limited in scope.

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Attempts at creating a standard dialect through the schools and literature haven't worked out either, Izugbe and Central Igbo saw some wide adoption but didn't completely work out either, having serious issue adopted from English. Now is the era of various township dialects that have taken on some of the artifaces of Izugbe and Central Igbo.

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So what advantage does the greater onslaught of English; the international language; on Igbo?. It is the current growing popularity of relearning Igbo and teaching children Igbo through formal school and educational programs.

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This is largely, an elite thing. Maybe upper middle class elite but elite none the less. It would mean a regularization/normalization of Igbo dialects that will be driven not by books and intellectuals but by a common aspect of elite culture and we have seen the effectiveness of elite culture already, that's why so many of us speak English, even in the villages.