Talk:A Bad Past (Map Game)/@comment-5590986-20170502012922

Chapter 3: Era of Ecclesties (1550 to 1650)

It wasn't long since the "cold war" between the Catholics and Orthodox States has arisen from the rift that had begun 500-600 years ago.

The Orthodox states, ever so adventerous, embraced new innovations and ways of thinking in order to survive against the invaders of their homelands for so long. Meanwhile in the West, the Catholic states were busy trying to find new ways to better suppress heathen and heretical ideals, later turning towards the Orthodox States with a mix of contempt and jealousy. The flock of Europe hawks at each other between their borders, waiting for one side to pull each other off. The byzantines as of this time had begun to promote a wide use of more advanced guns, but still avoided sharing anything outside of Orthodoxist states. In any case, tension was building.

The Pope needed a way to try to take down the heretics of the East that would threaten the balance and flow of Europe as a whole. He found a reason in a 1621 dispute between Venice and Byzantium over the ownership of Cyprus (which was captured by Venice from the muslims in 1612). The Venice claimed to have ownership of the land first, while Byzantium had pulled up the historical claim as theirs and it should be used as a compensation for almost allowing the Islamic nations in Anatolia (Ottoman) get too powerful and takeover Europe due to dismantling the Byzantine Empire for almost 60 years. The dispute escalated to a few skirmishes where Byzantium attempted to forcefully take the island themselves, blind any resistance and send them home.

The Pope (after meddling with affairs of others and touching his daily dosage of children) declared a crusade against the Byzantines. Starting an all out Christian Civil War, today would be known as the Christian War for Europe (or the Great Christian War), the war is to be defined between which will dominate. The vast numbers of European catholic armies, or the heavily armed small bands of Orthodox troops of Byzantium and Russia. Blood was spilt and the war had claimed up to 10 million lives (1.5 million were Military) during it's period between 1623 to 1640. The troops of the East, unfortunately, were no match for the vast size of European armies, who is able to overpower the Orthodox armies, not before taking 70% of the military casualties as well. Finally defeated the Orthodox barbarians, the Pope installed many "crusader states" ran by holy military orders in what was former Orthodox territories. The three major states were the Latin Empire (Ran by Knights of Hospitallar in compensation for their loss of Rhodes, or the Hospitallar/Maltan Order), and the rural the Principality of Russia (rest of Russia). The rest of Russia would be taken over as provinces/vassal states for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It would form the basis for states like Belarus, Ukraine, or Crimea.

In former Orthodox states, they were all either forced to convert or were burned at the stake (many became underground Orthodox, practicing in secret). In order to enforce this and the power of the Pope; the "Orthodox Identity" aka the innovations of guns, airships, etc. were also burned and were slowly forgotten in history, it was only preserved by underground factions and cells of the Protestants.

While the Catholic states were revelishing in their victory in the Great Christian War, the weakened territories of the new Crusader States would be under threat of a new rising empire in the Middle-east. The biblical name of the Empire of the Nine Realms (made up of the Realms of Iberian Remnants, Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Levant, Arabia, and Iraq), other wise known historically as the Al-Muntaqum Caliphate.