SD.net gets its own island empire (RAR!)

[Starglider]

Much as it isn't normal SD.net policy to pay attention to other message boards, I think many of these RAR threads would be more fun if there was a competitive aspect. Usually it's just 'how do we set up a viable society' with some adaptation to local conditions, with the perennial 'oh and we'll kick the ass of all the trolls' for starters.

However if we put the top 1000 posters from SpaceBattles.com on a second island 100 miles away things get more interesting, particularly if there's a third island right between us loaded with coal, gold, diamonds and iron ore.

[Crossroads Inc.]

However if we put the top 1000 posters from SpaceBattles.com on a second island 100 miles away things get more interesting, particularly if there's a third island right between us loaded with coal, gold, diamonds and iron ore.

You ideas intrigue me and I wish to hear more of them!

Whose well connected at Spacebattles? we should approach someone with this idea! I do agree that often, many of these fail to form any cohesive plan as theres no real point aside from "expand grow, conquer"

But, if we had an actually competitor.. Someone else in the fray, things get more interesting.

I would like to propose first and foremost we make a grand list of all supplies, items, textbooks, information and doodads that we wish to bring back with us. We can save a great deal of time and hassle by drawing this up now, rather then each of us one on one saying 'oh, I'll bring this'"

The top 1000 posters are scattered around the world and some of us in positions to get things that others couldn't. Many of us of course should go raid the local library. Many technical journals, History books, "Life in Ancient times" type things will be invaulable.

Some of us might also actually have various antiques and pieces of old "technology" that would be important to replicate. ((old charts, sextons, Astroglobes))

Also, and this might be a long term goal, but creating a true "Chronometer" ala the Famous John Harrison, will also be tremendous., Sure we can bring various digital watches and clocks which can keep perfect time, but the batteries won't last forever.

Believe it or not, I actually have a Chronometer that my Grandfather baught in the 70's for his sailing ship. It still works and would be good fro a model to copy. I also have a bunch of books on John Harrison that detail his advances to time keeping.

Another log term goal, and one I personally would like to champion, would be the production of Electricity. One thing we should try to remember, is that collectively, we have 1000 cubic meters of cargo space. If a few people would be willing to 'volunteer' there shares, we could bring back enough raw materials to get a rudimentary Electrical Generator up and running. Shoot, we could go out a Buy a modern one and cannibalize it for parts. As I said, this is one of the long-term goals.

Also on electricity, one thing not to forget is that ala the OP, we all have Magical Laptops that are interconnected via SD.net and have an unlimited lifespan. This means we have 1000 computers that we can use anywhere for all manor of calculations, bookkeeping, planning, charts, legers, etc.

Further more, it might behove someone of us to bring along a few ipods to Download their musical library on said magical computers, as having modern music would be a nice luxury.

Thats everything just off the top of my head, but hopefully it will spark ideas in others.

[lord Martiya]

Magister Simplicius, you have found an help in communication with the natives: me.

Actually, we have all been given fluent understanding of the native language by act of thread.

I didn't see it, sorry. Oh, well, I have another useful asset: a good and somewhat maniacal knowledge of military history and tactics of the time. I don't know the best method to sank a caravel without cannons, but I know how Portogueses and Spanishes fought at that time and how beat them: if they try to colonize us, we can beat them with little or no losses.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Considering I just recently finished a novel I'm trying to get published which puts a collection of vessels transiting the Suez canal back in time to an interesting date, I have done quite a lot of research for this, and I can safely say you're all being pessimists:

1. Arquebuses require cast iron barrels to be effective; if the natives have arquebuses, they have iron-casting, which means they are technologically the same as Europeans of the period.

2. Efficiency in Artillery is based around a number of innovations which can be introducved, such as the design of the carriage for the barrel and the firing mechanism. On top of that we can introduce cast iron and bronze artillery fairly effectively.

3. Flintlock mechanisms will be well within our capacity immediately, once the design has been transmitted to the locals; it will simply involve a retrofit of the existing barrels.

What that means is that the army of the state, especially with our military personnel to train it, will be functionally equivalent in capacity to a Napoleonic Army. Will we be unlikely to improve upon that, much, but this does allow us to quickly overrun the Azores the moment that we have the ships to do so (which can be built as fairly simple sloops of war [which are ship-rigged] of about 20 - 24 guns and still utterly dominate everything in existence then). Portugal is currently fighting with Spain for control of the Canaries, and so we can quickly gain Spanish allies.

In the meanwhile the introduction of antiseptic childbirth techniques will dramatically lower the infant mortality rate without any other work done; the use of basic anti-septics and sanitation in general will cause the population to skyrocket at levels fully comparable with the highest levels of rise in developing nations of the 20th century. We can meet the demand with improved agriculture, and with going overseas.

Ultimately we should engage with the Spanish for one primary reason which stands above all the others--we want the Spanish Jews. The expulsion of the Jewish population of Spain is coming in a few decades, which we will survive to see (The elite of a primitive society could easily live into its seventies even then, regardless of the average age). Now, we know that the expulsion of the Jews of Spain (and Portugal) is coming up in a bloodthirsty fashion filled with forced conversions. We want the Jews of Iberia, therefore, to emigrate from those lands to our island, and the Azores we've secured, rather than wait to be expelled. And even suggest to our Spanish allies (we can send siege artillery to aide them against Grenada as a further demonstration of our support) this would be the best way to deal with their "jewish problem"; to exile them to us. This provides us a base to make our society a permanent one, in the form of the most educated segment of the European populace from a large portion of that continent.

Ultimately that is going to cause huge increases in our population, and we're going to need to find other places. Not finding the North American continent suitable to colonization by such a small power, and having an educated overclass in the form of the Iberian Jewry ready-made, it's clear that our target is Mesoamerica. Considering the tremendous successes that Cortez had, imagine sending an army of a thousand fusiliers supported by a battery of 12pdrs. We can, of course, hire mercenaries to augment our ranks, and the impetous of the charge of Polish lancers would be terrifying to an order of magnitude again than the Spanish medium horse was.

But where shall we have the sympathy of Europe from? This is 1450. We have three years to prepare a fleet of a few galleasses (which will utterly command an Ottoman fleet of the 1580s, let alone one of 1450) and a few thousand trained men to throw into Constantinople against the Turk. If we can smash the Turkish fleet, guarantee the arrival of supply ships into the Bosporus, pound the Turkish army from our ships, and provide a strong wall garrison of soldiers and light guns, we can decisively repulse the Turkish Army, and gain essential control over a Byzantium which will not survive without us. In doing so we'll have power over one of the strongest trade routes in the world, bases in the eastern Mediterranean from which to command the commerce of the great inland sea with our black-hulled sloops and galleases, and the influence to secure the immigration of an even larger segment of the European Jewry, to the point that by immigration alone our population might more than double; the Azores are largely empty, certainly, but of course this demands, as noted, that we go after the Aztecs.

Knocking them off won't be an issue.

The key is to use our advantages while we have them. Europe is in a precocious period of scientific development and growth here, and we do NOT have the resouces to start an industrial revolution. We just have the resouces to, like the Dutch, have a Golden Century in which our seafairers awe and terrorize the world and our mercenaries and soldiers excite the respect of all, which will coincidentally make the advancement of human society happen much faster.

Anyway, by conquering Mesoamerica we can get enormously rich, and unlike the Spanish we won't debase the value of the specie by releasing it onto the European markets to fast for them to adjust, since we have the aide of modern economic knowledge. And we'll be better rulers, anyway, crushing the arcane superstitions of the Aztecs while implementing an enlightened rule rather than the crushing brutality of the Spanish hacienda, and our administrative class can easily be drawn from Jewish emigrants to our country.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm tempted to say that we should try to nick Ireland from the English before they can effectively consolidate their power over it. They're rather distracted at the moment, after all. That would be another source of a reasonably sophisticated population for soldiers and governors of our territories in the Americas.

If the Spanish ultimately try to go against us, we can always incite the Moriscoes to revolt in the south and ferry the army of the Sultan of Morocco across the Straits of Gibraltar.

[Exmoor Cat]

THough so far assumptions have ben that the locals will simply sit on their arses and wiat for this Islannd empire to roll over them. Even with SDnet tech know-how, what conjecture is plausible that can out produce and outfight the numbers involved? Also, they'll be a thinking enemy, therefore adaptable once the first waves of galleases and pike blocks are wiped out.

Very 1634 methinks.

[Big Phil]

I was going to comment that I was astonished that after two full days, not a single person had suggested that we "put the site admins in charge." Then I re-read the OP and realized, it was right in there from the get-go. Unbelievable

Each of the Mods and Administrators is the local lord of a city, with basically the same responsibilities as the local lord, as well as maintaining a few cohorts of soldiers armed with alquebuses, cannon, gladius and pike.

Assuming we all accept the leadership of the site admins and mods (which I doubt), we should probably try first of all to develop as a naval power. Nothing was said about this island's natives having any nautical tradition, so perhaps we should follow the example of England and build up the navy before we start planning invasions of the European mainland.

On the plus side, if the SpaceBattles board was an opponent, at least we could expect them to be even more buffoonish and asstastic, and they should be fairly easy to take down since they'll likely fall apart the first time they realize they no longer have Internet porn.

[Master_Baerne]

But, because the SB-ers will have the same knowledge we do, and the added impetus of the resource island we're blocking will cause them to attack us. We will need to build up a fleet as quickly as possible and destroy the SB-ers, possibly assimilating those with useful skills or knowledge into our ranks. After all, it wouldn't do to have the future of our world decided by them

[CmdrWilkens]

Exapnding upon the Duchess's points our options are essentially twofold: we can either use the almot certian naval superirority and rapidly expanding populaiton we will hold to move into either the Mediterranean (likely North Africa as colonies there would be easier to secure than on the European landmass) attempting to take charge of the remnants of the Byzantine Empire and prevent its total collapse thus setting ourselves in position to possibly rule over a less divided middle east, certainly one where keeping Jerusalem as an open city and not favoring anyone will aid us immeasureably. The other side is to head towards the Caribbean and South America. Securing the silver wealth held by the Incas and governing without destorying our own economy could set us up to rule a huge population as we will be able to exert colonial control over that region far before either Spain or Portgual will be able to mount an effective expedition.

Within that scenario one need only imagine a Brazil colonized with something more akin to late British Imperial rule prospering thanks to the kind of rapid advances we can offer in agriculture and medicine. All this leads to a much healthier and fitter populace in a region whose mineral resources are certainly enough to get us at least into th early stages of an industrial revolution. We have some decent mineral resources at hand on our island, add to that the mineral wealth of South America and mix in a dash of modern economic knowledge and we could certianly establish a much better planned industrial revolution which could feed and supply Europe as it grows through the Renissance and moves towards the first agricultural revolution it will have increasing its populaiton which will now only have North America to fight over as we will have fully secured our Southern colonies against intrusiton by naval means. With Spain unable to finance a navy which could even come close to rivaling that which threatened its cross channel invasion and the British and the Dutch both at least a century behind in shipbuilding technology and capacity there is no one who can invade us nor anyone who can transplant an army to fight in our colonies (certainly they could never supply it once it landed). Within this position the critical matter will eb to ensure we remain allies with enough nations to allow us to escape universal dislike and resentment.

Moving into North Africa and thence to Constantinople, conversely opens us to attacks by land in an attempt to take our wealth. While we have the technology and possibly a very well trained late napoleonic force facing against the end of the era of the mounted knight we simply lack the populaiton base to engage in continental warfare except on the periphiary. So that being said I'll return us to moving into South America. With the mineral wealth and total naval dominace, colonies administered by the professional classes of Jews expelled from Spain and run by a meritoriously promoted group of our own islanders we would have a huge populaiton base to expand and cover the whole of the Americas within the next centruy or so. We would undoubtably experience conflict with the French and British who would seek to use their position as the dominant culture (and population) and rising naval power within Europe to gain colonies in the Caribbean and North America. Especially in the latter case we would need to move somewhat aggressively as the great old growth forrests of US and Canada are an amazing resource for shipbuilding and somehting worth preserving in some degree in this revised scenario. As we could easily (amongst the thousand or so of us plus our immediate descendands) bring back knowledge of geography and geology of North America tapping into the coal, iron, copper, and then gold resources should be rather easy. With the ability to direct growth with a much earlier introduction of rail transit.

Now this extends to at least a generation beyond us (though rail in South America to better link the interior and run amongst the costal colonies should be possible in our lifetime). The critical quesiton which is completely unanswerable is how well will we govern the local populace. We could either end up setting them up towards eventual inclusion within the larger poltical whole and thus surrender some of our guiding force for local ease and inclusiveness or fail in some way leaving us with colonies which are resentful of our rule and constantly requiring intervention by armed forces draining our resources better spent expanding northward and developing an early modern infrastructure within the homeland and the more developed countries. At the very least our ability to, hopefully, bring back the knowledge to implement an early form of wireless communication (perhaps by the end of our generation or the next) should make control over far flung colonies much easier and better managed.

[Master_Baerne]

A question for CmdWilkins: What about the natives in SA? Will they simply accept our rule? If we don't have enough troops to engage in regional warfare, how will we manage occupation on a continental scale? I mean, look how well the US is doing in Iraq, and that's just one country.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A question for CmdWilkins: What about the natives in SA? Will they simply accept our rule? If we don't have enough troops to engage in regional warfare, how will we manage occupation on a continental scale? I mean, look how well the US is doing in Iraq, and that's just one country. :roll:

The technology paradigm does not allow for insurgencies, to put it very simply.

The other aspect of couse is that we're going to have to abandon certain strictures of modern morality to govern effectively in such a world--for that world's good. Though it would be absolutely immoral to kill noncombatants, the possibility of collective punishment through the destruction of homes and killing of livestock, and then forcing those people into controlled villages like the British did with the Chinese in Malaya, is something we'd have to seriously debate.

But we're talking about 1,000 men being able to conquer an Empire of millions by exploiting internal dissension already in this period. Giving us even more advanced technology makes that even easier.

[Simplicius]

Nothing was said about this island's natives having any nautical tradition, so perhaps we should follow the example of England and build up the navy before we start planning invasions of the European mainland.

In a clarification post, it was stated that the islanders have a coasting trade between their cities. Maybe lightly absurd, given the relatively small coastline, but there is native shipbuilding of one kind or another.

Considering I just recently finished a novel I'm trying to get published which puts a collection of vessels transiting the Suez canal back in time to an interesting date, I have done quite a lot of research for this, and I can safely say you're all being pessimists:

I prefer 'cautious.' Ignorance of the fine points of contemporary geopolitics does not help. But while my policy is cautious, so is your navy.

The galleass is not a particularly good ship type, and would have been of little use at Lepanto were it not for its large battery. It is slow and clumsy under oars because of its beam and draught, while the rig is small and awkward to tack. Between its guns and its oars, it requires a large crew. It is a line-of-battle ship, and with its poor handling is limited to battles of position. Furthermore, because of our location, we will suffer for having ships so ill-suited to open waters.

There is nothing inherently wrong with ship-sloops, provided the model is a good one, but they offer the same basic disadvantage of all square-riggers, namely, that they sail poorly upwind. In a hundred or two years we will doubtless be encountering large square-rigged warships, and once again we will be facing our opponents on a generally equal footing.

We may need the galleasses for a stopgap fleet to beat the Turks, but after that we should replace them as soon as possible, as they are suitable for little more than floating batteries, even in coastal waters. At sea, they are worthless.

I envision a Phase II navy which is derived from 19th century construction and makes good use of fore-and-aft rigs. At some point we will encounter the European navies, and when we do we will want every small advantage, since the large ones - steam, ironclads, etc. - are beyond our grasp. By using fore-and-aft rigs and fast hulls, we will be able to engage or disengage large square-riggers as 'at will' as one can do under sail. Speed will also serve our merchantmen, both for protection and good commerce.

A good mix is critical. For the first two hundred years or so, a handful of sloops will suffice (though we might want to reconsider their rig, as the ship-sloop is but one of many types), with schooners-of-war and brigs comprising the majority of our force. A number of fast 19th-C. models of each exist, those hulls in combination with the right rigs will let us choose our fights at will for centuries. For coastal work and inshore work, if necessary, we have the Champlain galleys to draw upon - Washington was a good example of this class. In the 17th and 18th C., we may want large, fast frigates to be constructed.

The European navies' lag will continually decrease, until the footing is about equal in the late 18th C, but without an early industrial revolution that is inevitable. However, four hundred years is more than enough to secure an advantageous position.

[Master_Baerne]

The other aspect of couse is that we're going to have to abandon certain strictures of modern morality to govern effectively in such a world--for that world's good. Though it would be absolutely immoral to kill noncombatants, the possibility of collective punishment through the destruction of homes and killing of livestock, and then forcing those people into controlled villages like the British did with the Chinese in Malaya, is something we'd have to seriously debate.

First off, thanks for clarifying the insurgency question.

Second, of course you realize that if I were able to access transcripts from British Expeditionary Force (or whatever) staff meetings, they would say almost exactly the same thing. And that that "same thing" is what made the British so despised in India and most of the rest of the world?

What I'm trying to say is, do we really want to be looked on as the successors (or rather, forerunners) to the British Empire? Can we stomach that kind of universal hatred?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

First off, thanks for clarifying the insurgency question.

Second, of course you realize that if I were able to access transcripts from British Expeditionary Force (or whatever) staff meetings, they would say almost exactly the same thing. And that that "same thing" is what made the British so despised in India and most of the rest of the world?

What I'm trying to say is, do we really want to be looked on as the successors (or rather, forerunners) to the British Empire? Can we stomach that kind of universal hatred?

That's a modern view of the British Empire. Furthermore, India today is a modern, prosperous, successful democracy with the largest number of per-capita scientists, especially in theoretical maths, in the whole world. If we could bequeath that prosperity on all of the Americas, wouldn't it be a fair trade for having our memories despised in the history books?

Anyway, we'd have plenty of chances to avoid their mistakes, since they were at one time MUCH more brutal than that, nevermind the whole issue with famines.

[Master_Baerne]

First off, thanks for clarifying the insurgency question.

Second, of course you realize that if I were able to access transcripts from British Expeditionary Force (or whatever) staff meetings, they would say almost exactly the same thing. And that that "same thing" is what made the British so despised in India and most of the rest of the world?

What I'm trying to say is, do we really want to be looked on as the successors (or rather, forerunners) to the British Empire? Can we stomach that kind of universal hatred?

That's a modern view of the British Empire. Furthermore, India today is a modern, prosperous, successful democracy with the largest number of per-capita scientists, especially in theoretical maths, in the whole world. If we could bequeath that prosperity on all of the Americas, wouldn't it be a fair trade for having our memories despised in the history books?

Anyway, we'd have plenty of chances to avoid their mistakes, since they were at one time MUCH more brutal than that, nevermind the whole issue with famines.

I see your point. From the Utilitarian perspective I happen to espouse, it does seem a more-than-fair trade. I should have given my post more consideration.

Plus, since we'll be writing the history books...

[lord Martiya]

... We can rewrite them in better.

[Crossroads Inc.]

If I may be so bold...

Be Bold! I command it!

So often we have our generic "Made up Island" that we make plans for and such. But, Have we ever actually draw up what said island would look like? If we were to be serious about this, we should decide upon a map of sorts for this island.

As such, I humbly volunteer the following.



This large island has it all! Broad flat areas for crap lands, Expanses of tidal areas for fishing and such, huge bays for ships and naval yards, ad large central mountains for mining and minerals!

All this can be yours!

[lord Martiya]

It's our island, is it?

[Exmoor Cat]

Ooooh, lets all sit on a Caldera!!!!

[Vehrec]

Please tell me that is an extinct volcano. PLEASE.

I'll be bringing several things that might not have made others lists. First, a sack of potatoes as well as tomato and maize seed. Soybeans and rice may be included if I can locate them before my 24 hours are up. Coffee and tea may also be among my imports. My personal Tea plantation will be epic. Secondly, I'll throw in optical materials. I wear glasses, and I expect that in about 50 years (if I live that long, males in my family have VERY bad heart issues.) I will be wearing tri-focals. I'll want someone to be able to make them, and this also opens up the possibility of telescopes and microscopes. Third will be a personal project, immunization. I'll throw everything that's left into stuff that will help develop primitive vaccines. I'm not sure if we want to de-populate America, but if we don't we'll have that option. Hopefully. It might be a pipe dream, but I want Smallpox and Measles contained and eradicated before the 20th century.

[Exmoor Cat]

My point. Doubt it, looks very much like osme of the pre-Thera eruption models, and being on the mid-Atlantic rift, which is still active, It'll pop any time. Nice map though.

[Crown]

Duchess why bother with Constantinople? Not that I don't appreciate the effort of keeping Byzantium alive and kicking, but realistically Byzantium is dead. It has been dieing for 200 years now, and how us (the SDnetters) getting tangled with the Turks will change anything, I have no idea.



Oh and;

[Crossroads Inc.]

Please tell me that is an extinct volcano. PLEASE.

For purposes of plot and our saftly, I would imagine it is long extinct, though we should probably clear that with Zor as he is in charge of the speficis of the RAR.

Also I would like to echo the bit about Constantinople. It's half way aorund the world from us and surrounded by hostiles and feuding tribes. Its a wonderfully historical plce, and maybe we could lead an expedition ot it before much of it is sacked and burnned. But trying to take it on and keep it alive? Perhaps a bit over stretching our resources.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Duchess why bother with Constantinople? Not that I don't appreciate the effort of keeping Byzantium alive and kicking, but realistically Byzantium is dead. It has been dieing for 200 years now, and how us (the SDnetters) getting tangled with the Turks will change anything, I have no idea.



Oh and; :luv:

It's basically propaganda to keep Europe from seeing us as the next Pagan menace to try and annihilate. Remember that the whole of Europe is still Catholic in this period, and our knowledge is likely to prevent the reformation from happening, as the Catholic Church will be able to institute reforms before Luther is even an adult. Saving Byzantium and checking Turkish ambitions basically implies that we're fighting for the interests of Christendom at a time when we need all the positive publicity that we can get.

Also, it gives us a chance to control the Mediterranean, which is less of a threat to us in terms of land attacks than our good friend Simplicus suggests. Ultimately by taking on and defeating both Venice and Genoa economically (and by extension, militarily), we can become the dominant trading power of the period--remember, Venice and Genoa together probably don't have a population much larger than our's in their core territories. And we can take Corsica, Cyprus, Crete, the Greek islands of the Adriatic and Aegean and so on, and secure the vassalage of the Duchy of Athens. All of these positions are quite defensible with trace italienne fortification, and the native populations can provide their own manpower, along with the investment in other minor islands of the area. By virtue of an alliance with Karaman and Hungary we can perhaps cause the Ottomans enough trouble to lead them to significant territorial losses. We'll also be able to gain the Genoese trading towns along the Black Sea, and in doing so control one of the main commercial regions of Europe, while at the same time essentially replacing the Venetians as the prime movers of European finance.

One clever thing we can do in exchange for also helping Castile against Grenada is to gain control of Gibraltar and corresponding sites along the north short of Africa which are highly defensible, securing our control of passage into the Mediterranean.

With that kind of wealth we can easily hire the mercenaries to undertake a serious effort at the conquest of the New World, and possibly even spread to securing Ireland and Iceland and other western European outposts under our direction and rule. We can secure further population resouces, beyond the Jews of Europe and people in the occupied zones, through open immigration, by trading firearms and technology with the great African kingdoms of the period like the Kongo in exchange for more or less forced settlers--we buy the people, ship them across the Atlantic (in humane conditions), and then free them with their own farms waiting for them. In this way we can both guarantee that Africa develops several powerful native states, and secure an influx in population in the Americas.

I suggest that if we do try to colonize the Americas we set a limit at an area bounded by the Hudson river and the Delaware river in the west, along with Chesapeake bay and therefore inclusive of the Delmarva peninsula, with lake Champlain forming the rest of the boundary, and then following the St. Laurence on the northwest to the ocean, with the coast of Laborador, all the islands of the mouth of the St. Laurence, such as Anticosti, Prince Edward, and, of course, Newfoundland, being included. That would secure for us huge tracts of timber and extensive highly profitable reserves of minerals, while setting firm boundaries to our expansion at the expense of the Native Americans. Florida could also be settled as part of the colonization of the Caribbean, and the offshore islands, of course, could have trading posts established on other areas of the coast.

Also I do in fact think the industrial revolution will happen 200 years earlier here--I'm just saying none of us will live to see it, most likely, as it will start in its earliest about 80 years after we arrive, a work for the grand old age of our children, but not us. We will be having a golden age to rival the Dutch instead.

And one interesting possibility is securing many small and uninhabited, or lightly inhabited islands, throughout the world, for the purpose of creating vast chains of secure communication for our fleets, and also trade. An impressive possibility here is that we could lure Ming China out of their recently imposed self-isolation, gain a return to the treasure fleets, and start an immense and profitable trade with them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Please tell me that is an extinct volcano. PLEASE.

For purposes of plot and our saftly, I would imagine it is long extinct, though we should probably clear that with Zor as he is in charge of the speficis of the RAR.

Also I would like to echo the bit about Constantinople. It's half way aorund the world from us and surrounded by hostiles and feuding tribes. Its a wonderfully historical plce, and maybe we could lead an expedition ot it before much of it is sacked and burnned. But trying to take it on and keep it alive? Perhaps a bit over stretching our resources.

The city damn near stayed intact as it was, if we could just show them how to build modern bronze cannon they could have done very well. The key thing to remember is that Constantinople cannot be cut off unless you have control of the sea. Since we can smash the Ottoman fleet handily, we control the sea, and Constantinople survives.

Also, I think the island should be much larger than that. That's a fucking huge Volcano otherwise, since we're basically looking at needing an area the size of Wales for a medieval population of 750,000, okay? So there should probably be several volcanoes and the island should be much more expansive. Also if there are as many cities as Zor's original OP states, there needs to be a larger population; the maximum city:rural ratio in mediveal times was 1:4, one city person for every four rural people. With ~425,000 city dwellers we need at least 1.7 million farmers to maintain them if the state has been isolationist before this and doesn't rely on trade.

That suggests more of a chain of islands, with the largest named Atlantia, and the whole chain suitably called the Hesperides. The Serene Republic of the Hesperides would be a suitable name for the actual state, and the chain would extend northwest with the furthest southeast of the islands being Atlantia, which is the closest to the Azores.