IT'S HAPPENING! Also, this scene as a whole was so wholesome (hah!), got a genuine smile from reading it."You promised me gardens on three continents, my lord. I never thought I'd see or personally tend to any but the European ones, if I'm honest. But perhaps it's time you took me to see the others."
As i've previously said, it was my pleasure to nominate one of my favourite TLs running around in the forum, once i saw that the Turtledove nominations were out my first thought was to go put this timeline into the poll, somehow. :bThis feels as good a time as any to more publicly thank @Talus I of Dixie for nominating The Dukes of Fernau, for now for the 2024 Turtledoves (I already did so privately). I'm grateful be nominated and even more grateful to not finish dead last in the poll.
I actually think the dragged set-up for this story is one of its strengths, because my patience has been punished with the fact that i now kinda care a lot for the Kettler family in particular and Courland in general , so the whole fight-flight sequence and the multiple (thankfully unexplorated!) possibilities of disaster during it hit so much harder than if it was just thrown at us that "that was the PoD, this is 20 years later".In my mind, for having taken so long to set up the truly divergent part of the story, which we're only getting to now, would make this timeline a little less deserving of votes than I sincerely hope it will be a year from now. By then, there will be rather more payoff for all the investments in making our alt-Courland viable, investments youunfortunate masochistsdevoted readers have patiently read through these last months.
You cut straight to the truly interesting matters here. For the first: that’s just one of the angles I’m interested in that this timeline has had zero occasion to play with in Europe. (I will add that the “moving” is surely not seen as indeterminate by Jakob, though he shares the journey with so many for whom it is.)The first example of European monarchy moving to the colonies to avoid war, centuries before the Braganza. Children raised in warmer climates might not find Courland more agreeable once it's recovered.
Thank you! I find my favourite timelines on the site (Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak and Malê Rising as two shining examples) strike a balance between episodes that focus on advancing the alternate history and episodes that focus on the human experience of that history (the best moments in those two timelines had many moments where both happened at once). My least favourite, however historically inventive, are the plot-summary enumerations of historical events. With that bias firmly planted in me, there have to be moments that push the history to the background and focus on the characters.IT'S HAPPENING! Also, this scene as a whole was so wholesome (hah!), got a genuine smile from reading it.
I actually think the dragged set-up for this story is one of its strengths, because my patience has been punished with the fact that i now kinda care a lot for the Kettler family in particular and Courland in general , so the whole fight-flight sequence and the multiple (thankfully unexplorated!) possibilities of disaster during it hit so much harder than if it was just thrown at us that "that was the PoD, this is 20 years later".
That is helpful feedback. The planner in me wants to read it as "don't let your story chase after its butterflies" so that the main thread of the narrative is always "pickuppable" with no effort. Also, perhaps there's a silver lining to not being a true historian there - I have less knowledge that could widen my scope and further slow the pace.Even more, the cozy slow burning of this timeline until the actual dramatic event that kickstarts everything is very enjoyabe to read casually, i feel like i can read the Dukes of Fernau, for now. in any given situation if i have the time and access to the forum, there are other timelines that, even though you could argue should be considered better than yours, i have to actually stop to read it, you know? It's like there are timelines in which you're out there adventuring into the neverlands, and other timelines in which you're near home, and can just enjoy your sweet time however you want. And well, reading your stuff is always a (sometimes bitter-)sweet time! That was kinda poetic, i guess? It was not intentional.
I've feared this question, as I hadn't fully thought through the precise answer.How strong is the Curonian navy as it escaped?
Parts of the fleet were already used to that end OTL. Mostly, you protect the merchant ships with your warships. Rivals put settlements on islands previously settled by others (the Dutch on Tobago, the French on Trinidad, etc.). I'll research this a bit more, it must become relevant.Would it be an effective deterrent against invasion of the colonies if it makes it there?
Here you've got the basis for the next Economic Historian Blog entry in a nutshell. Courland reinvested in fleet and colonies after the war ended OTL. TTL, they have the fleet intact, and get to discover what triangle trade is like when your headquarters aren't in Europe.And with the facilities there as barebones as they are, but with the craftsmen to make more there... Could they outrace the clock and find a way to not just maintain but expand it?
Outriggers could very well be a future river-use version of our ZKs. The Gambia could certainly use those, as could river exploration on continental coasts around Fernau. The main purpose of the ZKs, story-wise, was to help the exodus across the Baltic. I wasn't suddenly going to become a convincing large-scale naval-battle writer, so I stuck with the simpler tale of one ship (or possibly two, RIP Crocodile) spoiling a hoped-for pincer manoeuvre. It could have been been done other ways, but this way was possibly better for Courland's future cultural identity. It also leaves Sweden with a slightly stronger Baltic navy than a bigger battle might have allowed, which should help mess up any homecoming plans for longer. Both aspects were day 1 goals for this timeline.I stumbled on outrigger boats and it could be what the proliferation of the design might look like.
If there was anything more value-dense available there and in demand elsewhere, it wouldn't be. E.g. if the Kettlers build up their domains for production, to such an extent that it makes sense to import raw materials and export finished products. But that will take time.Shame that in this instance, that cross-cultural relationship is built on the slave trade.
This entire passage is very telling, and also an exercise in ethnic consciousness. The phrase "Skin is not home." goes very hard, Njikobiya, and i think Martin is leaply progressing towards being the european "royal" (i think "sovereignly ducal" is included in such definition) most understanding of the world's diversity in a long time, further comments on that later. I just had to highlight this one.Martin noted that the farther south they went, the more everyone looked differently at the darker-skinned people sailing amongst them, and Njikobiya in particular.
"Njikobiya, do you feel close to home now?"
"No. Your boat men say home is still half a moon away."
"But now when we stop for water, there are people with skin like yours."
"Skin is not home."
"True. We stopped at Copenhagen and Flekkerøy and Edinburgh and they had skin like me. But they were not home. I see Courland people see more black people and feel far from home."
"Your boats have people with both black and white grandfathers. Skin is not home."
I imagine how shocking it may be for your average colonial officer to just suddenly see an entire fleet off your post and then the fleet is carrying your direct ruler, from what's kind of the other side of the world, and you have no clue to why. That's also a funny line."Not to be impolite, my lord... but why are you here?"
That's also a funny line, don't know how many european rulers ever heard the sequence of words "your landlords" in their lives. After all, aren't they supposed to be the landlords?"Ja. Ja.... If you're here for days, I suppose we'll have to introduce you to your landlords, my lord."
This passes very dissonantic vibes, in a good way, it just seems like a scene out of a book! Like, i can't wrap my head around how imaginative my mind goes once i have to figure "duke of courland meets gambian king for dinner" out image-wise, maybe i'll try some AI generator to see what comes off it, curiosity peaks besides, can you explain the tradition?Only at the King's table were there chairs. Jakob's knees were grateful he was welcome there. Möller had told him not to look directly at the King's face unless the King was first looking directly at Jakob's, which took some getting used to. No one at other tables looked the King in the face at all, and most seemed to avoid Jakob's face in the same way.
I remember being quite shellshocked by the term "Mansa of Kurla", it's just too comical! Although i think you missed the opportunity for a funny interaction where Belinguere tries to figure out how to address the title Duc in Mandinka , i actually thought that would happen. Also, HE SAID! HE SAID THE THING! Although it was in french, so more like "Notre lignée peut être seulement ducs de Fernau, pour l'instant." It doesn't rhyme, but it does sound sophisticated."I am a daughter of the Mansa - le roi - of Barra. You are a son and daughter of the Mansa of Kurla, yes?"
"Yes. Our father is Herzog - le duc - of Courlande et Semigalle. We do not know the word "Mansa" where we come from. But there is war in Courland and Semigallia. Our line may only be dukes of Fernau, for now. Je m'appelle Martin, ma soeur s'appelle Louise Élisabeth."
Martin's question not being answered drove me mad! I want a Martin-only name! Although, if Marie's mother was half-Portuguese, i find it amusing that she translated her name to french, since i assume Martin would be more acquainted with the traditional portuguese Maria. Also, the way Martin self-rationalizes his own sudden fantasies made me laugh very hard."Vous pouvez m'appeler La Bélinguère."
"Is that a name?"
"It is a way to call me and have no one else answer."
"Can we also get names like that?"
La Belinguere smiled. "I am also called Marie. But you can also find others called Marie."
Marie's mother was half-Portuguese, married to the Mansa of Barra to solidify a trading relationship, the way the strongest trading relationships were solidified. Martin thought for a span of seconds what further twists to his future might see him or Joachim marry Marie La Belinguere, and what trade it would need to secure to be worth it.
We'll see her again...won't we?Jakob stopped to visit his other "landlord" - the Mansa of Kombo, who lived nearer the Casamance river than the Gambia. As with Barra, there were gifts, favours, and promises. There were lessons in local diplomacy. There were first-hand experiences of things mentioned in dispatches to Libau. There was hospitality and heat.
What there wasn't was another Belinguere.
Same! I mean, technically i was hyped up for this specific chapter since the moment i saw what the timeline was aboutReally liked this update. I love this kind of cross-cultural discovery and interaction — it’s my favourite thing in historical fiction and, by extension, AH — and it was a delight seeing the royal children meet.
I found no reference with the accents inserted, I did that myself only because the discussion was happening in French (this is probably also an anachronism on my part). I would personally expect the name is derived more from Portuguese (or Portuguese Creole, at least) than French, owing to Portugal's huge head-start in mixed-race marriages (or ~marriages). One of these days I'll end up spending a whole day in a university library to find some of the books that have a smidgen more detail than what I can get online. I don't know when Marie was born, or when she died. Making her nearly Martin's age looked like a good contrast with the encounters with European princesses in preceding episodes. I do see her given name only as "Marie", though she is "Luso-African".Although, if Marie's mother was half-Portuguese, i find it amusing that she translated her name to french, since i assume Martin would be more acquainted with the traditional portuguese Maria. Also, the way Martin self-rationalizes his own sudden fantasies made me laugh very hard.
Thanks for that. You say in one line what makes AH so appealing to me as well, though I'd probably have taken a paragraph dense with commas to say it my way. Focusing on the royal children let me pull attention away from the aspects of the meeting for which I had too little information to draw upon. A helpful hedge I'll have to rely a little less on as the story continues.Really liked this update. I love this kind of cross-cultural discovery and interaction — it’s my favourite thing in historical fiction and, by extension, AH — and it was a delight seeing the royal children meet.
I'm conscious that I'm writing this just after the conclusion of "Black History Month", as a person who has seen one quarter of his family tree going back 12 generations of caucasians (another quarter of it is hidden by the mystery of adoption). As the idea for this story unfolded in my mind, I knew it would intersect with the slave trade. I can only say I hope to write of things that horrify me, and I can only hope I do so well enough to feel horrified by the events of a horrifying story well-told. Hints of a scene or two in the future of this timeline have danced, incomplete, through my thoughts. I want to avoid imposing today's morals on the telling of this story. Still...there must be tragedy. Gut-punch, sick-to-the-stomach inhumanity. The writer in me relishes the challenge. The rest of me cowers, for now.Shame that in this instance, that cross-cultural relationship is built on the slave trade.
Landlords is an old-enough concept that it surely fits here. In Europe, Courland already had Denmark as its landlord in Flekkerøy. Here, Jakob's Gambian colonies (and they are, strictly speaking, Jakob's more than Courland's) exist at the permission of the local kings. Tobago and Fernau are different - his possessions. I thank you for drawing my attention to this, though - a reckoning of the colonies' status will be due soon.don't know how many european rulers ever heard the sequence of words "your landlords" in their lives. After all, aren't they supposed to be the landlords?
Amidst the extremely few references I could find for etiquette in African diplomacy of this era, I found two entries that I thought were usable here: don't look the king in the face in certain situations (lightly adapted or corrupted here), and only the king gets to sit, while others kneel (again, adapted/corrupted here). As noted above, the meal itself was a menu served by la Belinguere OTL, a few decades away.can you explain the tradition?
I think I enjoyed writing her enough to bring her back. But here's the thing: OTL, she ends up being the significant and wealthy trader, while OTL Courland would be drifting back to the bottom tier of European countries. The linked trope could end up being reversed, or they could end up as equals, in trade, at least.
The purpose of pausing for the night was to have a well-rested crew for the critical second day. Louise Charlotte's cries kept most everyone up until nearly midnight. Then, Ferdinand Kettler's newborn cries took over. But not for long: the boy born on the Baltic took well to the breast. Then most of the thirty souls aboard Courland's Ark enjoyed a sleep whose contended, hopeful quality made up for its lost quantity.
It was harder for Martin to keep his fear at bay when the decisions were made. Influencing the captain's decisions was the only thing he could contribute. When he could no longer contribute, he could only watch events unfold and compare them to the plan. Since speaking about Noah's Ark in Libau, he found others looking at him differently. He was an inspiration, a motivation. Not like his father was. His father had stature, and accomplishments. People were glad to be a part of his plans, because those plans usually made things better for people. Martin had no plans the public knew of. But now they knew he had insight, and vision something like his father's. People were grateful and emboldened by Martin's attention.
On the deck of Courland's Ark, he gave it freely. Sometimes to help, sometimes for something to do.
"Your boats have people with both black and white grandfathers. Skin is not home."
Couronian naïveté was being stripped away, day by day, as the fleet continued south.
"Yes. Our father is Herzog - le duc - of Courlande et Semigalle. We do not know the word "Mansa" where we come from. But there is war in Courland and Semigallia. Our line may only be dukes of Fernau, for now. Je m'appelle Martin, ma soeur s'appelle Louise Élisabeth."
Marie's mother was half-Portuguese, married to the Mansa of Barra to solidify a trading relationship, the way the strongest trading relationships were solidified. Martin thought for a span of seconds what further twists to his future might see him or Joachim marry Marie La Belinguere, and what trade it would need to secure to be worth it.
The first and foremost of these was geared toward incremental growth of both Fernau's capacity and the volume of ship traffic visiting it. This particular surge, though, was beyond incremental growth. There were too many mouths to feed for long. Fernau needed to feed more people with the food it had, to then be able to increase its capacity to feed itself and its fleet. Rice and millet had been purchased and brought in abundance from the Gambia. But humidity was unkind to most grains stored too long. They would need to have a strong and regular local supply of food, and then of everything else.
The remainder - the plurality of the ships that had left Courland, with half the colonists, sailed on east, stopping only for water, skipping even Elmina. Not far up or down the coast from there, they knew Sweden was establishing its own trading forts. It may have been fatigue from weeks of travel, but one thread of conversation arose independently on the decks of many ships... right here, right now, Courland was clearly the dominant sea power on the Guinea coast. Perhaps, after the colonists settled in at Fernau, Jakob's surplus ships and soldiers might go raiding Swedish targets rather than exploring miscellaneously?
Another pivotal ship voyage was to collect Fernau's governor from his second community: Tevel ben Elisha was visiting the Jewish communities in Loango when the fleet arrived. Most of Jakob's closest advisors had remained in Europe to oversee the diplomatic efforts to restore his rule, so it was Martin charged with retrieving Fernau's governor. Privately unconfident that he would recognize Tevel after so long, Martin brought one of the Courlanders who had known him longest: Motke. For his part, Motke was tasked with sourcing more foodstuffs from Loango, to store, to grow, and to collect in the future. The logistics of trade came naturally to him.
No ship carrying colonists with a minimum of discomfort would also carry slaves with any efficiency. The Tobago-bound captains were encouraged to exercise their best judgment in attempting to fill their holds for a return to Europe - even if they had to purchase from plantations of other colonies to do so.
The ships that had carried these people set to returning to Barra or points upriver to purchase slaves from Barra or other friendly kingdoms, and then to sail them to eager markets across the Atlantic. The northern winter was a slow season for the slave trade, as so many rivers became too dry to bring slaves from further up the river valleys of this part of the continent. They would get good prices if they could fill their hull.
From that point, the few headed to Saint Helena peeled off southward. They brought plants that seemed tolerant of poor soil in the Gambia, and twenty uncommonly beautiful young female slaves purchased from Crispina Peres in Cacheu.
I'm conscious that I'm writing this just after the conclusion of "Black History Month", as a person who has seen one quarter of his family tree going back 12 generations of caucasians (another quarter of it is hidden by the mystery of adoption). As the idea for this story unfolded in my mind, I knew it would intersect with the slave trade. I can only say I hope to write of things that horrify me, and I can only hope I do so well enough to feel horrified by the events of a horrifying story well-told. Hints of a scene or two in the future of this timeline have danced, incomplete, through my thoughts. I want to avoid imposing today's morals on the telling of this story. Still...there must be tragedy. Gut-punch, sick-to-the-stomach inhumanity. The writer in me relishes the challenge. The rest of me cowers, for now.
Thank you for the confirmation I'm adequately conveying to the reader (one, at least!) the personality and attitude traits I see in Martin. I'd personally say childish playfulness is becoming adolescent devilishness.I have really enjoyed seeing Martin grow during this crisis -- he hasn't entirely lost his playfulness but it is leavened by the sense of responsibility he has toward his people. And I like the sense that Jakob can only get them so far along whatever process they are undergoing: it will be Martin who can really start fresh.
I'm not so sure, and reading back over what I've written, I wonder whether you're gazing a little into the future with that. Pragmatic, trade-first Jakob prioritizes vital trade relationships. Wealthy, somewhat mercenary trader Crispina surely spots that in seconds. But otherwise, her nearest point of comparison would be the occasional European royal cousin privateering down the coast, focusing on other ships more than locals. Jakob is something new, from her perspective, but not all new things end up significant.As Crispina Peres notices, this is a different kind of pink people.
I deliberately put it in with the least possible drama, shoved into a conversation happening in another language. Killjoy Traminer 1, Drama Queen Traminer 0.I laughed out loud when Martin actually said the line! Huzzah!
I think as the story progresses it becomes more and more imperative for you to address this issue. Sorry, because of course it is a difficult one.
I agree wholeheartedly with the first sentence, and disagree vehemently with the second.I think as the story progresses it becomes more and more imperative for you to address this issue. Sorry, because of course it is a difficult one.
I hope you see I don't - but also: I will take it as a promise of future criticism if I miss the mark .=)Please don't take this as criticism!