The Age of Exploration

[EDIT: now with edifying historical quotations!]

Baktun 9-10 (A.D 750-900) (red)
-Western Gondwana explores New Guinea.
-Eastern Gondwana explores Patagonia.
-Overseas trade-rout from Western to Eastern Gondwana established through New Guinea and New Zealand.

Baktun 10 Katun 3 (A.D. 900)
-Barbarian wars. Eastern Gondwana cut off from Western Gondwana by sea.

Baktun 10 Katun 6 (A.D. 950) (orange)
-Western Gondwanans explores Polynesia. Some contact with Southeast Asia.
-Eastern Gondwanans explore South America.

Baktun 10 Katun 8 (A.D. 1000) (Yellow)
-Western Gondwanans discover passage past Tierra Del Fuego to the Cape of Good Hope.
-Trade wars.
-Western Gondwanans stake claims in Africa, battled with Eastern Gondwanans for access to the Middle East.
-Western Gondwanans stake claims in Southeast Asia and India
-First Contact between Gondwana and Europe

Baktun 10 Katun 11 (A.D. 1050) (Green)
-First trans-Pacific voyage made by Eastern Gondwanan colonies in South America.
-Second Trade war over Souteast Asia.


As it was written, "He shall go through foreign lands, and shall hold trial in all things good and evil.” Now two months have I passed a prisoner of the Antipodians [Gondwanans]…though no Christian man can claim to discern their ways, I say this: I have tried much of evil in their company, and none at all of good.
---Gerard Thom in a letter to Pope Paschal II (Baktun 10 Katun 12 Tun 7)

The spotted people [Gondwanans] are powerful as spirits only because they have fixed memories [writing] and other arts. Now that we have copied their arts, will we not become as powerful as spirits?
--- Attributed to Amiwa, early Algonquian philosopher revered as a Founding Father of the Ilinwa Republic (Baktun 10 Katun 12 Tun 13)

Baktun 10 Katun 13 (A.D. 1100)
-Empire building in north Africa, Eurasia, and North America


The king is captured; his flowering temples are razed. From beyond Malaysia [Gondwana] the invaders come, and woe that we did not rebuke them at the beginning. Now all is lost due to that mistake.
---Letter sent from the last Champa court to the Song Emperor (Baktun 10 Katun 13 Tun 1)



They came by water and by water brought the end. Even as I pen these words, my skin blackens ... [unintelligible] swells and splits. Let [the Gondwanans] take possession of the mountain of death that was once our home.
---The Chronicle of Cong Abbey (Baktun 10 Katun 13 Tun 14)


Bounty: 3 Estimates of Scrip for each Blank [Native Eurasian] head brought back. Straight-haired scalps or mis-colored ears will bring only a Bounty of 1 Estimate.
---Notice posted at Commissary of Fort Edo (Baktun 10 Katun 16 Tun 17)


The savage men of the Great Northern Continent may be first classified as separate from all other of the Globe's Races in their Social and Philosophical Retardation… [in] their inability to separate Fact from Counter-fact, Knowledge from Superstition, and Use from Uselessness.
---Dr. Parse Jagnarrayi in his treatise "On the Potential Use of a Taxonomy of all Mankind"(Baktun 10 Katun 18 Tun 2)

Baktun 10 Katun 18 (A.D. 1200) (Blue)
-Colonial Empires in the Northern Hemisphere fund a cultural revolution in Gondwana.
-Marginalization of Native peoples in Eurasia and North America.
-Triangle trade established between colonies in western Eurasia and colonies in North and South America.
-Native rebellions in North America

Of course we fight. We protect our homes, our women, our children, our lives. What can a man do now but fight?
---Transcript from the interrogation of unnamed "sea-raider," after the Battle of Hedeby. (Baktun 10 Katun 18 Tun 15)


300 Gondwanan civilians died today in an unprovoked raid on the frontier town of Kiev. The Blanks [Native Eurasian] attackers, consisting of warriors (from the Rus, Kipchak, and Bulgar tribes) came at dawn, wielding swords, stolen electronics, and their new pyrotechnic weapons, howling their chilling war-cries…
---Article from The Constantinople Gazette (Batkun 10 Katun 19 Tun 0)


It pleases us to announce that the Island of Sicily has at last been swept clean. Empirical-thinking Gondwanans can rest in peace on their homesteads, knowing they have nothing to fear from the vanished natives.
---Advertisement published by the Mediterranean Trade Corporation, for distribution in Gondwana (Baktun 10 Katun 19 Tun 17)

Baktun 11 Katun 2-6 (A.D. 1280s-1350s)
-Formation of independent native-ruled states in North America
-Formation of independent colonial states in Eurasia.
-Industrial revolution

We urgently request supplemental a shipment of food and drugs from Head Office. How can we be expected to show these people the Best Practices if we do not first help them to survive the winter?
---Frowns Napanangka, Director of Paris, in an ionogram to the Colonial Board of Overseers for Western Eurasia in Constantinople (Baktun 11 Katun 0 Tun 0)


Our records clearly state that the land in question (referred to by you as "Wessex"), the people who work it, and all the goods and services of their production have belonged to the North Atlantic Trade Corporation since the treaty signed by you in the previous katun. Your request is invalid.
---Transcript of Appeals Hearing 221-B of the Auditing Committee at London (Baktun 11 Katun 2 Tun 7)


You say the natives insist on eating their traditional forage? Why not let them? The Facts are obvious, and the superiority of our Best Practices shall surely become apparent over time, even to a tribe of such great ignorance as the English.
---High Consultant Ponder Japurruta of Ruum, in a missive to the London Consultancy (Baktun 11 Katun 2 Tun 17)


'Wait,’ you say, but we cannot wait! 'Talk,’ you say, but talk is now useless. The spotted devils control our printing houses and ionogram stations. I say there is only one way we can treat with these cannibals, and that way is with the sword.
---Phillip the Butcher of Turitg, in a letter to an unnamed priest (Baktun 11 Katun 2 Tun 18)

We of the North Atlantic Trade Corporation do hereby relinquish control over and responsibility for the native inhabitants of [a three-page list of holdings] to our colleagues of the Algonquian Forestry Conglomerate.
---Deed of Sale and Shipping for approx. 20,000 people, mostly of Native British Islands heritage (Baktun 11 Katun 3 Tun 0)


The soil has become white with salt. The cows are long since devoured. Every day, the soldiers take more away people to be served in the halls of the Gondwanans.
---Devanagari graffiti on the wall of the infamous Gujara Contingency Food Supply Encampment (Baktun 11 Katun 3 Tun 4)


It is undeniable that the Eurasian…is the object of scorn and persecution wherever he may go. It is our wish to anneal this suffering with a system of sustained out-breeding, thereby ridding the population of un-aesthetic phenotypes…
---Introduction to the first edition of the "The Journal of Population Improvement." (Baktun 11Katun 3 Tun 14)


Boys become men, apprentices become masters, maize kernels grow to bear fruit in their time: surely these facts are universal. We have grown strong, we have grown rich, and we have grown wise under the encirclement of Gondwanan protection. Now, however, it is time to step out, out onto our own path.
---"Lady of Palenque III," author of Self-Determination for the American Continents (Baktun 11 Katun 4 Tun 0)

Why can we not be allowed to gather in worship of our Lord? Perhaps our rituals and accouterments seem strange. But, the object of our devotion is the same love, peace, and tolerance espoused by your own Best Practices.
---Rabban Bar Jean in his Address to the Director of Yanjing (Baktun 11 Katun 6 Tun 7)

Baktun 11 Katun 6-7 (A.D. 1350-1380s)
-Industrialization of Eurasia, and Western Gondwana.

Even death by one's own hand, if it means the death of a Pagan, will be rewarded in the hereafter.
---English-language tract, used as evidence in the case of Bishop Thomas v. the Centralized Economy of Great Algonquia (Baktun 11 Katun 8 Tun 3)

Baktun 11 Katun 7-8 (A.D 1380s-1400s)
-Industrialization War in Western Gondwana draws in former colonies and American allies.
-Emergence of Centralized Economics in South America
-Steam Age

Baktun 11 Katun 8-11 (A.D. 1400-1460s)
-Cold War
-Electronic Age

You have taken everything. What more could you possibly expect from us?
---Frederick the Abdicator, from speech given at the ceremony of the Treaty of Turig. (Baktun 11 Katun 9 Tun 9)

We cannot return to the way things were. Yet we do not desire a way back; we want a path forward.
---Teacher at First Farsi Language School, Tehran, Indian Ocean Territory. (Baktun 11 Katun 11 Tun 4)

Yes, my friends, what you have heard is true. That dove-haired, gold-eyed girl is even now chained in the shack of one of those savages, all her grease gone and wrapped in wool from head to toe. Well, I'm no Consultant, but I read the Best Practices and I know what we have to do. Now, who's with me?
---From "Kidnapped by Germans" a historical drama by Grins Japijinpa (Baktun 11 Katun 11 Tun 19)

"There can be no negotiations with absolute evil."
"I agree exactly."
---General Kosqum of the Centralized Bloc of Great Algonqui and General Grind Jakamara, at the end of the final negotiations prior to the Massadchuset War (Baktun 11 Katun 12 Tun 1)

11.13.11.3.7 (A.D. 1491, October 1st)
-Our Story Begins

Ever heard of English? What about Greek, Hindi, or Korean? At one time, these languages were spoken by vast empires, now they are almost forgotten. And why should they be remembered? Why should we care about marginal people, after all? Why should we work to understand those who have clearly lost the game of history? Because we still do not understand the rules of that game. Because we do not know why, so far, we seem to be winning. Because there, but for an accident of history, go we.
---Grandstand Japaljarri in the introduction to In the Beginning was the Word: Language and Cultural Preservation among the English-speaking communities of Ilinwa and East Algonquia (Baktun 11 Katun 13 Tun 12)