The Romans REALLY disliked the Jews, though. Largely for having been rebellious to the point of being unmanageable until they just scattered the entire population throughout Europe -- nothing really to do with their faith. At that point you still have a people bereft of a homeland, practicing a different faith and speaking a language other than than that of the majorities they are forced to cohabit with. Humans being petty creatures that enjoy tribal distinction, I feel like they'd still face some serious prejudice. It might even be WORSE when the dominant faith is not a relative of the one they practice.

I feel like, while not a globe-spanning faith, forms of Norse Paganism would likely be very strong in their home range (Scandanavia, with some influence in Germany and England), considering that the faith is already experiencing a modern revival under worse circumstances than would be projected in these timelines. At least in "Bhuddism takes the world by storm" timeline, I feel like it would survive much like Shinto or Hinduism in our "prime" timeline.

I wonder how well you're going to be able to project any of this past the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The late Nineteenth century and the 20th century are going to be frighteningly heavily divergent where in our timeline the United States, its culture founded in puritans and religious exiles (self imposed or otherwise), became a world power if not the world power. There's a LOT of good land in North America so whoever or whatever arises to lay claim to it is going to have a huge industrial base and population capacity and will probably make world power status as of the rise of mass production technology. But it's not even going to faintly resemble our timeline, since the identities, drives, and more importantly philosophies of the colonists coming in with extreme technological advantage (and smallpox, intentional or otherwise) to claim that land aren't going to resemble what we see in our own history. Other colonized territories will be similarly divergent: Without Rome to draw an arbitrary border on the New World that Spain and Portugal could agree to, there's a good chance the early colonial period is much messier and bloodier than in our timeline, leading to dramatic shifts in national prestige that hinge on the uncertain outcome of major battles. Assuming technological development and spread follows a similar pace to our timeline (For the sake of sanity if nothing else) England probably gets into the game late, north, and very effectively all the same but might posture with a different attitude if colony-to-colony warfare is a recognized concern.

Didn't think that far ahead.

Well, at least native cultures and religions would be preserved, either through buddhism tolerating folk religions or Asetism assimilating their goddesses into their's.

My .02 for this historical discussion: remember, the savages/barbarians/'other' never intended to destroy civilization - they wanted to enjoy civilization.

The church also banned means which made killing too easy, like crossbows (longbows were okay since it took a long time to master). Politically, it offered a crude check and balance system to the governments of the time. There are arguments that the religion allowed science to grow easier, since it valued the physical world and saw it as a stable ecosystem with minimal divine interference compared to the paganism of the time (Plato's forms versus Natural theology). However, like setting up local bastions of protection from raids, that last point could theoretically be covered by Buddhism.

Still working on it, but-

Just in a couple nights we'll get the Samurai Jack finale. Doesn't your blood boil in excitement? I'm near a mountain range, so its very convenient.

Its been underwhelming and too short. Needed way more referneces to old episodes that didnt feel awkward lile the terrible rave song. I give it a 7/10


Way more excited for epic SU season five primeire in a week.

Ending was great. Overall I think the show would have been better watched all at once

I'm of two minds to the end.
Of course, as usual, the art style was great, and tying in the original intro was deeply amusing, even if that had the unintended consequence to remind us Mako is gone.
But holy crap the played it safe. Every story beat was phoned in and I could see every point coming.

Given how bold the show has been in the past, that fact was... really disappointing.

I expected Aku to outright

In other news, Molestereroshi at it again.

Man, time traveling-induced death takes time. She made it all the way to the wedding, that had to be at least a day after Aku died.

Heck, they invited all his mentors and they made it in time.
That's some serious travel time.

Overall, I feel like her death is pointless.

Isn't essentially murdering basically everyone we got to know in this series by erasing them from existence not tragic enough?

Maybe if it were more original, but doing it at the wedding and everything just smacked so much of Gurren Lagaan.

Good news! Next weekend they are doing a marathon.

But I already saw it.

I'm feeling very torn about picking up anniversary loot boxes for overwatch, because there's no middle ground between wicked awesome and hot garbage in the prizes, and there are a fair number of things I'd be outright pissed to get instead of others.

^ Can you get the good prizes via secondary market?

I'm starting Water Sleeps, the second to last Black Company novel. There's quite a few parallels between this one and the first novel in the series, The Black Company. The whole thing with Soulcatcher, Darling, the White Rose rebels, the Black Company's involvement in it all...cycling right back around here, kind of.

There is no secondary market.
I can directly spend credits to get something, but the prices are ridiculous for event items.


It's a low point of the series.
The next one is better, but the entire southern continent arc was just 'how to drag a series through the mud'.

The Shadowmasters business dragged on way too long. My impression thus far is that the first trilogy was the best of the series. I'll need to reread The Silver Spike after the main sequence (first round, Toadkiller Dog and the Plain of Fear were my main draws); the Tor omnibuses put it between the Books of the South and the Glittering Stone novels.

WELP, I've just googled when AMVhell 4 came out.
It was nearly 10 years ago. So uh... I'm gonna go lay down for a bit.