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I ended the Fourth Age of the Sun with a Super Volcano Eruption (Mt. Doom has one more thing to say about it), and that took it toll on Gondor and Rohan. While they knew of things and had some pieces of Middle Age tech, it took a while to get things moving again. Also to get the population back up. This would have been around the time our recorded history starts some 5,000 or so years ago.
Some of the cultures mixed with the newer Natives for survival during those times. Some nations would see Rohan and Gondor as the Big Protectors. Thus when the waves of whiter men (Rohan and Gondor seem fairly white to me) some of the nations and tribes to the East or South that were friends of Rohan would call for aid.
Rohan (being the primary royal lineage surviving group rather than Gondor) would grow out to take over much was what was once Gondor, but that took time as well. Then they would be in a series of frontier conflicts to downright wars with the Mississippian cultures (the mysterious mound builder). They would have direct contact with the Europeans early (Vikings landed in 1000 or so AD, and word of that would get an expadition to see what it up in the East)....though I never did revamp that part of the backstory. In the first version, there was no England. The creator of that area had some mystery race based on celtic legends....he didn't play much, so we ignored that part and focused on the second part...the continued Roman inspired Celtic civilization. So instead of Vikings or just Viking, you instead have waht is basically a Roman Legion land in either Canada or Maine back somewhere before 1000 AD. This impressed the Rohirram (large formation that had horses as well). Eventually those peoples left. But their diseases remained. Thus when the Spanish came not as many died as some of those gems had been making the run for 500 years already.
The Spanish seemed to be itching for a fight so one was given (all those warriors from the recently ended wars against the Moors needed an outlet that wasn't in Spain) Plus gold and the islands of the Caribbean fell easy. Cental Mexico to about Panama held for a while agianst the Spanish, but the Incan rivals fell, as did the Mississippians and the tribes in the American East Coast and South. Rohan would buffer European advances towards them. Usually though a friendly nation-tribe. But the Aztec were an evil lot. They turned on Rohan in the South and thus Cental American Gondor fell a few times to be regained for a few decades and fall again. It fell to the Aztec and Spanish.
The rest of Rohan would hold as they modernized to keep up. Since they hadn't had a pressing need to advance their technoloy past the Middle Ages (a Mithril Age would be fun, but not viable) and a mythological reasoning to distrust the use of gunpowered (the myth about the destruction of the Deeping Wall at Helm's Deep), they kind of needed a crash course in industrialization and gunsmithing. They managed to catchup by the mid to late 1700s. They lagged behind a little here and there until the middle of the 1800s when they took to steam power quickly. Thus their ships are on par with the other major powers by 1900.
Though Rohan's designs are a little weird. They tended for firepower over everything else. More guns than average. But usually at the expense of speed. They found out in their last war with the Aztecs (finally taking them out in 1899) that speed was needed, but that firepower did work, but only if you can catch them. So via some excuses and dealings, Rohan is the nation that built the first "Dreadnought" type ship in that world.
By this point the Rohirrim and Europeans had an understanding. Stay on your side of the River and everything is fine. Several tribes are being used as a buffer region between Rohan and the northern USA expy country. Rohan oddly has good relation with the CSA epxy nation...probably because of mutual dislike of the Aztecs since that one time in Texas.
This World's major power is France (they defeated Prussia in the 1870s) as here is still not full on United Kingdom, just a much weaker version that had many parts that eventuallt reunited as the United Norman Kingdoms. Russia for a time was the second strongest. Post war with the Aztec, Rohan became the third world power in terms of production ability and military hardware. Though Rohan was mostly Continental intrested only. They didn't seem all that interested in Empire building. (unless it was to stop the Followers of the Eye....a plot point that would come up now and again...one person suggesting Rohan designs a force able to cross the Pacific Ocean to take out some Sauronites in India).
But I've rambled on about pure fiction in an alternate Earth setting for a while now. And I'm going from mostly memory. Some details were probably handled, I just don't recall.
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