"The world in question is the subject of countless years of trawling over, as it appears in many ways to be anachronistic in its ideological and social development. The general consensus is that this world diverged from ours during the crusades, namely that the crusades were far more successful, resulting in a permanent foothold being established in the Levant, Syria, and Lower Anatolia and the rapid unfolding of Seljuk authority in the region. The creation of a coherent political unit, as opposed to a spattering of ephemeral crusader states had immediate effects on European history. The Kingdom of Jerusalem became the first duty free region in the world, a concept floated in our timeline due to the belief that imposing duties on goods from the Holy Land would be improper but never allowed to develop, creating the basis for a formal economic interlinking of Christendom centuries early. The need to hold onto the region resulted in the Near Eastern carveout becoming the site of an intentional settlement program, reorienting the attention the European States. This contributed to, but was not the primary causal factor behind, the New World being discovered later, alongside the shifting balance within the continental labor market that typified the late 16th and early 17th centuries. By the turn of the 17th century then Europe was more populated, poorer, and also more interconnected than in our world. What would not be seen were things like the Protestant reformation, the creation of continental settler empires (of the same scale as OTL at least), or the calamity of the 30 Years War. Instead, something else happened.


What this ultimately resulted in was a pressure, concentrated initially in a papacy that had assumed more temporal power and awe than OTL, to chart a course of reform of the state structures and governance practices of Europe to be able to navigate the waning medieval system. This led to the development of the first corpus of Catholic social and legal doctrine in the 17th century as opposed to the 19th. A reformation without a reformation, the forces of Old Christendom would beat the Enlightenment to the punch. What followed was the failed attempt to create a universal state based around the ideas of land reform, incorporation, universal bureaucratic and scholastic standards, and the principle of subsidiarity. The idea that good government could be derived rationally, mathematically even, through the ennobling influence of surrender to God.

It was a failure because no such state came into being obviously, but what emerged from that failure was the dominant system of Christian statecraft into the modern era, that of the Subsidiary Commonwealth. These are massive states but at once horizontal, evincing the sense of both yeoman republics and syndicalist unions, operating under the principle that the organic human community and family, given dignity by their creator, knew well enough how to solve their own problems and should be assisted in doing so by a competent and transparent state. Not so much consent of the governed as it were, but the duty to govern well. This way of looking at the world is sometimes referred to by our analysists as Mathematicalism, not so much a reflection of what the locals call it as a nod to the dominant and interlocking form of metaphysics in this world. A point which will be returned to.

The year is 1873 and Christendom in this world is thus oriented around variations of this theme of governance, all centered on the Petrine Commonwealth which holds the seats of Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem (as well as overseas territories in the New World). Among the Commonwealths are the three senior and most loyal. Those being the European and Stanislean Subsidiaries on the Old World, and the Apicean Subsidiary in the New World. The red headed stepchild of the “Orthodox” commonwealths is Filadelfia. A heavily industrialized society, even more so than its Old World counterparts, Filadelfia has long asserted that is economic makeup gives it a unique character compared to the other commonwealths, requiring a greater emphasis on the urban and industrial masses over the traditional focus on a more general human subject. Filadelfia is, in this respect, closer to what we would call the Falangists of our world. It is also a monarchy, having “restored” (read: invented one whole cloth) its royal line a century after the other commonwealths abolished their own houses.

Orthodox implies unorthodox, and indeed there are commonwealths all but in schism with the Catholic order. Chief among them stems from Christendom’s former greatest modern triumph: the conversion of China. Kate’s conversion had always placed it slightly out of step with the rest of the Christian world. Much like their European brethren there was an immanent need to make Christianity accepted as the natural and inevitable progression of their civilization. While the Europeans were quick to insinuate that greats such as Plato had been unwitting prophets all along, the Kate were just as eager to make such connections, chief among them the legalist scholar Han Feizi.


Katean Christianity focuses heavily on a dialectic of justice and mercy. It only makes sense to speak of mercy when the law is just and properly enforced. To be excused or pardoned of a crime not committed when the law has failed is not mercy, it is merely proper justice. To be forgiven when one has been judged correctly and condemned rightly is mercy and an act of love. This is ultimately what gives grace its meaning, that Jesus, who fulfilled the law upholds it and yet still lets the condemned go free. This is often represented artistically in a local depiction of the Harrowing of Hell where Jesus (often accompanied by the Penitent Thief representing man’s acceptance of divine judgement) rescues the legalist scholars first who are also the first to recognize that he is God. A variation of this with Jesus taking Han Feizi’s hand is depicted in the upper right-hand corner of the map.

Kateans also differ from their European brothers in terms of practice, having adopted older traditions such as the use of bimahs and yads and the presence of deaconesses, who make up a disproportionate chunk of the bureaucracy due to the inability of women to become priests. What makes the Kateans unorthodox however is not their aesthetic and organizational sensibilities, but more practical political ones. Put simply, the Katean church has opted for complete “national” self-governance, a “recent” event (it occurred 90 years ago) which is still sending shockwaves throughout Christendom. That the Kateans are closer in principle and practice to other commonwealths than Filadelfia and yet are placed outside the bounds of fraternity is not lost on anyone, but as in all worlds it is gauche to admit realpolitik. Speaking of fraternities however, the Antipodeans have incurred a double indemnity among their peers for having sided with the Kateans in this unspoken standoff (leaving aside their cooperation with the half-Muslim Nyoongar as well!). Of course, there was little chance they wouldn’t have, Europe is on the other side of the world and Kate is on their doorstep. The locals of neighboring St. Edward’s Land (Tasmania) still make a somewhat performative display as last “loyal” commonwealth in the Pacific though."

How does the subsidiary system described in this counterfactual scenario work? Note that "OTL" means "in our timeline".