Talk: Ætas ab Brian

Winner of the 2017 Stirling Lifetime Achievement Award in the Timeline Category!

F feel moved to tell you that Rome: Total War was kind of lying to you -- but don't let that stop you NINJA EDIT Looks like someone already got to it. Whatever, it's a cool althist anyway. Atinoda 23:30, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

what does NINJA EDIT mean? --C II R 02:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I love maps, but a lot of yours are too small for me. If possible, try to create larger ones in the future. (Even if they're not large on the page, at least I could click to make them larger.) Anyway, keep up the timeline. --Riction 09:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Unfourtunatly I don't know how to put in pictures larger than 153 600 bytes, even if its a thumbnail. --C II R 20:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Rome Total War lied to you.

• Shoot --C II R 16:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I like the "Life of Brian" reference, but come on - using v for u and i for j is just pretentious. It doesn't make the text seem more "realistic" - it just makes it harder to read. --Michael riber 16:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• Well I am sorry, I just did it because it makes some words look neat. I didn't mean it to be marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction; intended to impress others; Demanding of skill or daring; or to be or all that more realistic.

Harder to read... very likely. Putting the words in brackets would be very redundant (and/or silly) and probably would make reading just as jerky wouldn't it. --C II R 13:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Grammar in headline

Latin ab has not the same meaning as English of, but from or better from sth. away, off, since. Correctly the title should be "Ætas Briani" (-i for Genitive). --84.58.119.106 16:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what the title of this timeline is supposed to mean (although the "aetas" I looked up means "lifetime", "age", or "generation"), but "Monty Python's Life of Brian", not very much related in terms of story to this althist, when looked up on Wikipedia and "Latina" selected as a language, gives "Vita Briani". What do you intend to convey with the title? (I wonder if your current title could still mean "The age/generation since Brian"?) --Riction 07:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It was just supposed to be humourous, I mean, why would Carico call him Brian for any reason? It was intended to be a wink wink nudge nudge about 'Life of Brian' but only because I laughed at the thought and also for Jeff Brian's identity to be more obvious (because when I gave the initial story to my friends, they hadn't a clue it was Jesus-AT ALL). I also don't know Latin grammar at all and was just trying what looked least wrong. --C II R 01:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This timeline is fantastic!

So detailed! So cool! But one thing I must know - the history is up to the 15th century, and they've got freakin' moon colonies. Where are they by the 21st century? They'll be in another freakin' galaxy, surely! Tell us! I must know! 203.129.39.87 05:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Whow, how did I miss this comment? Sorry I've taken so long...

Thank you for the compliment, and about the future...hmmm...

I don't EXACTLY know where this is all going, but by the 1520's they are supposed to start discovering other dimension/timelines. Then about 50 years after that they begin realising that contrary to theoretically 'concrete' laws of time, SOMETHING weird happened around 740 AUC regarding time travel.

about space specifically, once the Ice Age gets started and the Mars and Moon colonies become self sustaining, they begin leading technological advancements for Humans, then Earth gets back on its feet and tries to start setting up colonies again. Even though there's plenty of room, the 'aboriginals' get upset.

This timeline was greatly inspired by many things in case you were wondering.--TEAKAY 21:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Including Monty Python's "Life of Brian"? :) Rickyrab 02:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that was the second inspiration ;)--TEAKAY 15:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I presume there was a first. :3 Rickyrab 23:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

A DREAM!! :D --TEAKAY 00:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

POD

This is very clever! What is the main point of divergence for this timeline? It seems to be some time before the narrative begins, since the Ptolemaic kingdom is still around in the year 1 (or so). The whole Alexandrian Library thing is another POD, a really cool one if you ask me. Is the air travel presumed to be some lost knowledge from the Library? Is that how they have flight in the first century? Benkarnell 04:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That sounds cooler than the actual POD, which is that ~30BCE an Egyptian historian appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt and an Italian military engineer appeared in Rome. The historian was able to get into a influencial position before the engineer but the engineer eventually caught up. Also, where the historian avoided giving Ptolemies advance technological notice (because he was unsure of how positive an impact it would bring), the engineer right away began working on a locomotive, demonstrating it to the Senate, and also introducing theory of flight, because he saw it as the most expedient way to get in charge.

What was in that Library exactly that makes it so special someone may ask? ...I don't know, and haven't figured out really what would be best to say was there, but it could be that it just had some knowledge in a few general fields that were ahead of its time and also some lost history.

Moving the Alexandrian Library to Venice was another thing I thought was neat.

Yeah I know, time travel PODs make most TL less interesting because it takes away from the chance potentials... :(

...although... I guess I could say that the engineer was a native born genious and the historian was just different choices made by the Egyptians. And that the engineer had been inspired for his steamwheel and aircraft by rudementary ideas and theories he found at the Library when he was young, which he would later move to Venice for it to become Super Learning Central; inspiration for philosophers and Caesar Antonius Pius for his creating the Antonius Research Academies... :D

ohh, wait, what about Carico calling his adopted son Jeff Brian? That part is crazy...:(

Ugh, maybe a soothsayer told him to name him that... because the soothsayer totally saw the future of film and television ^^;;... and also his having a copy of Ætas ab Brian translated into Italian... I guess I can just cut that part out, it's minor.

Of course, that makes some of the history projected in the above section no longer accurate, but if this new POD is logical enough, it all works out. :)--TEAKAY 11:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't even considered time travel-- I'm not exactly an althist veteran and am not familiar with all the variations. So this is a lot like "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"-- smart future person shows up and changes everything. No need to change that! Honestly I don't think that all those sudden advances in technology would be very possible without introducing modern people.

I wouldn't change Jeff Brian-- that joke's kind of a key to deciphering the whole story. You can justify it, I think, by the fact that people sometimes do eccentric things, and amusing coincidences sometimes happen.

But if you like the Library idea... suppose the POD was that Leonardo da Vinci (or some similar person) had been born in Alexandria around 200 BC, that his sketches and designs were more plausible than in real life, and that when they were brought to Rome, the military brass immediately tried to make these strange devices. Maybe not any better than the time travel. Just an idea. Benkarnell 14:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The da Vinci idea sounds real neat, I usually like as few PODs as possible but if just a bunch of his sketches show up in the library that could work good.

I guess the technology explosion is too hard without modern people, but I still like that idea about Carico getting inspiration from 'lost' knowledge in the Library-whether he's from the future or not... Since most of the real POD hasn't been actually explained (and that's a bad habit) it's still pretty open to possibilities...--TEAKAY 18:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That could be pretty neat. What accounts for the continued existence of Ptolemaic Egypt? (Real life Egypt was conquered in 30 BC, but in this timeline it lasted until the birth of Christ.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benkarnell (talk) 14:57, 2008 May 20 (UTC)

That may require that the historian still gets transported to Egypt, and that my originally sending him there for 30 BCE is terribly late, since around ATL 30BCE Rome is fighting the Ptolemies over control of Greece. Otherwise the only way to say they survived and expanded that long is to have previous Ptolemy pharaohs make different decisions that resulted in it.

So for possible PODs one is a trend of Ptolemies making better decisions and being luckier, and another being Carico, still likely from the future, arriving around 30 or 20 BCE to give him time to rise up and propagate flying machines, the compass, and most crucially trains, so that by 1 he is a top general with a lot of pull with Augustus... and hopefully there being no Cleopatra or a different Cleopatra doesn't mess up Augustus' rise too much. Oh boy, THATS going to take some solidifying too.--TEAKAY 03:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yikes. Maybe it's best to just leave it vague, and say that the POD involves a slightly stronger Ptolemaic state and the sudden appearance of industrial technology. Benkarnell 16:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

For now at least. :] --TEAKAY 18:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I'm coming in late...is this page still active? Anyhoo, when I was reading through, I had the thought Jesus Christ was Jeff Brian, and instead of being raised religiously, he became the greatest social leader in....other fields. I guess not. 99.162.157.64 10:46, December 18, 2012 (UTC)

My Questions

I've been recently introduced to the Great Aeab, and it certainly is a strange (but amazingly interesting) timeline....

But I have some questions.

• I get that part about modern people time traveling and messing up the future, but why doesn't the article itself say that?
• Why did Carico name him Jeff Brian? Was that his subtle way of telling the Italian engineer that he was from the future?
• Who was the Italian Engineer? Was he Jeff Brian?
• I'm assuming Carico was the Egyptian Historian. Am I right?
• On those maps showing the expansion of the Roman Empire, why were certain parts of the world blank? Were those undiscovered areas?
• If the answer to the previous question is yes, then how are they colonizing the moon, before they even have all of Earth mapped out?

I'll probably have more questions later, but for now, these are my only ones.

Eastward Expansion 16:04, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Wait Wait Wait----

• Jeff Brian was Jesus? That clears up a few things....

Eastward Expansion 16:07, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

• The whole timeline originally started as a narrative only from C. Decimus' point of view and also at the time I was certain that Carico and 'Hakizimana' came from the future but not about how they acquired their power positions and until Ante Ætas Briani the ambiguity was intentional because even if "Carico [called] his adopted son Jeff Brian... [because] a soothsayer told him to name him that... because the soothsayer totally saw the future of film and television ^^;;..."[1](paragraph7) their origins aren't yet as important as the events afterwards.

• I heard a comedian say that he doesn't dispute that there was a jebus, but that he was just named jeff, and that maybe he did walk on water, but it was winter time (he assumed this jeff would also be in a place where it gets that cold). Carico I think named Jeff Brian because he liked the movie, Decimus said "An odd name in the least. So short and uncommon it was, I was certain it had been abbreviated or I had misheard and misread it but it was not. Ieff Brian was indeed his full name"[2](paragraph3) and 'Hakizimana' was 29 years dead otl before Life of Brian came out and 26 years dead atl before Jeff Brian was born.

Carico was unaware of 'Hakizimana's' significance as a future person (occasionally correct profits were as much believed as not) and may have had some suspicions just because, but he more likely contributed 'Hakizimana's' appearance egomaniacally, that is to say, Carico thinks he was meant to go back in time to fix what had been changed, and internalising that, thinks that anything he does is a-ok. But he'd justify it that way in any case because he started messing stuff up immediately and without fully grasping the current political situation with his compass, mathematics, locomotives, and theory of flight.

• The Italian military engineer named himself Cruuxius Tiberius Carico when he came from the 2030's.

• 'Hakizimana' was an old man who claimed to be a Greek from Alexandria and looked like this.

The maps for the timeline were originally so Romanocentric that there were only maps of rome's borders and water was not even represented, for simplicity. I am still working terribly on the maps[3](paragraph15).--TEAKAY 11:46, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing those things up...but

• Did Christianity (or Brianism) latter become a major religion?
• And Why is there no article for the Roman Empire?

Thanks for answering my other questions...

French Victory 18:37, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

Brian's ways of life was never big against the other religions and only ever had a handful of like minded people because he was a remarkable historical figure. There was a small revival with Constantine but it was not a well developed or mainstream popular thing. No convention to emphasise and advertise his unnatural abilities ever emerged and they were eventually assumed by most to be myths and silliness.

I had divided the nation list in such a way that every continent had a roman listing and within it was the pages for each province. The main article for the empire may be placed in the Italia or Rome pages but the empire page likely won't be put up until the empire is defunct... but then at that point I could remove the provinces sections from each continent heading and it would all be under Roman Empire in the defunct category

How did you choose your name? And do you have two accounts? --TEAKAY 00:27, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

POD ASB?

How is this not labelled ASB?

I mean it's incredibly well-written and enjoyable, but nonetheless, it is still an ASB Roman-wank.

Black Prince of Britannia (talk) 03:55, February 22, 2016 (UTC)

It is labelled ASB for ISOT. As for the rest of the concern, it's Rome taking half the globe over a millennia. It's possible. Lordganon (talk) 20:56, March 27, 2016 (UTC)

Adoption

I would like to adopt this timeline! Robballgamer2009 (talk) 06:33, 7 February 2022 (UTC)