Here I was, trekking through the wet greenery of the Berg Appalachias, not much of a mountain climber, more of a hiker, with Cosgrove behind me snapping pictures and suggesting more difficult routes to our guide, Herr Alverez.
Herr Alverez was a typical Neulander, mixed ethnic background: a mix of Spanish and Moroccan blood flowed through his veins, yet he spoke not a word of Spanish or Arabic, but the curious German that Neulanders spoke.
The New World, in this timeline, was discovered in 1540 by Dutch fishermen working the Great Banks out looking for better fishing grounds. The German Holy Roman Empire or what was left of it, took advantage of the discovery and began shipping potential colonists over to the northern reaches of the Neuland continents. The Holy Roman Empire had subjugated most of Europe in the 1400's, but was now living on borrowed time. The peoples under the rule of the Emperor were too diverse to be governed by a single government. By the 1500's minor skirmishes between rebels and the Imperial troops were a regular occurrence.
The discovery of the New World allowed the Empire to have a last gasp, and create new markets to draw new wealth from. However, all it did was fund the enemies of the Empire, and in 1698, the 100 Years Civil War happened and ended the Holy Roman Empire.
Contact with the fledgling colonies was broken except for a few ships a year that traveled there. However, a new contact with the oriental nations and North Africa began to flourish. Persia, Arab princes, and others began flocking to the Neuland colonies, especially to the undeveloped Süden Neuland continent. There they ran into the Inca and his people, recovered from the plagues that had swept through his empire. They also ran into the vestiges of the Aztecs, scattered and subjugated by the Totonacs, the new rulers of Mexico. All of who had enough contact with Europeans to have caught the diseases that devastated the native Americans on out timeline, but not some much that they could not recover.
Süden Neuland, especially, was pristine in the sense that only a handful of Europeans had ever visited it. It was not, however, virgin territory, ripe for the picking. The Inca had adopted many things from the earlier European visitors, horses, carts, iron plows, guns, but he also learned how to rule in a different way, to control access to the food that his people grew, and not be bound to ceremonial displays as his only source of power. The Inca Empire of 1730 was one to be reckoned with.
But that's several thousand miles south of my companions and me. Herr Alverez was taking us to see one of the few standing stone sites that are duplicated on our timeline. This one was not an exact duplicate, as recognizable carvings in large Roman style letters mark this place to be TERRA NOVA. Several digs had been done around the site, and several fire pits inside of what looks like stone foundations had been found. Radio Carbon dating is unknown here, but they do know about tree ring dating, and enough unburned wood has been found to date this site to about 11AD. This puts a unique twist on things, as it's mate on our timeline has been thoroughly been disproven as a possible Roman occupation site.
Cosgrove steps aside and begins to snap more photos, getting landmarks in the pictures, so that when we get home, we can twist a few tails. Herr Alverez mentions that it was an accident that these other sites were discovered at all. An archaeologist out to disprove this site's authenticity, literally stumbled over one of the foundations and, more to his credit, realized what it was. The local government of the region, the Neulands are hopelessly balkanized, is now funding projects to see whether or not there are more Roman settlements, especially along the Atlantic coastline. So far two more sites have been found in the Berg Appalachias, one of which was living space for a iron mine. This new discovery has put a push on finding the remnants of the old Roman Empire colonies here in the Neuland.
I find the site to be incredibly interesting, as it twigs my own archaeology bug. But, sad to say, Cosgrove and I are here to smooth over some problems with the local Gridney Dimensional Conduits. Seems that they are not being kept up to snuff, and that can't be allowed. Still after a week's worth of negotiation with Herren Dubois, Jacoby, and Gueverra, climbing the Norden Neuland Alps is a joy in comparison.