A nice interim there BT and of course another fabulous update as usual!
Now my own thoughts on what is taking place and how it will effect the future.
The British Isles I feel eventually will 'unite' under a Great Britain like entity in the future. However, unlike our timeline where the Scots were pretty much nailed down and eventually forced into the Union, this time around Scotland will be one of the major powers on the island. I can foresee more wars cropping up but the biggest question is will French dominated England become a mighty power once again or will it be Scotland this time dictating the future? Could Edinburgh end up becoming the future 'capitol' of this union, with Scotland playing the leading role?
France I feel will end up becoming a mighty power on the continent once again when the Byzantines collapse. This could lead to a new jockeying of power on the continent between a dominant Scotland, a newly revived France, Komenid Spain, Burgundy and possibly the Holy Roman Empire. Perhaps a new 100 years type war occurs between England and France - which one bickering holds the most rights to the nation? Especially if Hugues ends up fleeing there should he lose....
Burgundy I feel will play an interesting tale. Considering its the country that pretty much owns Belgium and Holland at this point, will it stay a united country? Could we end up seeing a future Burgundian colonial empire in the making where Dutch merchants based in Burgundian controlled Amsterdam explore the world and grab the riches that lay ahead? It'd be nice to see a Burgen South Africa, Indonesia, etc. Hopefully the AI will be able to achieve this. However, that could be the only route for the Burgundians, considering how entrenched they'd become with the Holy Roman Empire on one side and a resurgent France on the other....
Sweden I feel will remain a major power for alot longer, playing a rather large role on the European continent and the colonisation of the New World. Heck, it could even still be a major power for when the Napoleonic Wars and the 20th century turn. Of course, Russia is likely to be a natural rival, especially when it comes to issues such as Finland....
Oooohhhh the possibilities this could all lead too! Still I just hope we can get some credible new countries in the New World and Africa following the Age of Colonisation in this timeline!
Nice speculation
As for the UK: The French still possess the economically most worthwhile parts, don't they? The same cultural shift towards an "English" culture could be happening right now - the locals slowly adopting French customs and language, and fusing their Germanic culture with that of the conquerors. King Hugues probably moved his court there at some point, so now this process will accelerate. However it reaches only as far north as French rule extends... which is somewhere around Lincolnshire if I remember BT's maps right. So the north (Yorkshire, Lancashire, Shropshire) is falling under Scottish cultural influences. Or, Scotland is falling under northern English influences, culture is a two-way street after all.
Should a French monarch in the future come to rule over just the English part of the Capetian realm, he would still possess a rich and powerful kingdom. Definitely no pushover for the Scots.
Burgundy is interesting. It's essentially an early version of Burgundy as it appeared in our 15th century under Charles the Bold. (Minus some French territories). That Burgundy was a very powerful entity and could have become a permanent fixture had Charles the Bold not died without a male heir... Dutch Lowlands + Rhineland are a geographically compact and culturally not too diverse region. With France destroyed and the Holy Roman Empire wrecked permanently, what is there to stand in the way of a glorious future?
Sweden I think will not come into conflict with Russia any time soon. Swedish kings looking for rich territories to conquer are more likely to look south across the Baltic, than east... the Lettish / Courish coasts are a good place to send your landless second or third sons, to fight the pagans and seize a fief for themselves, but not really "rich" territories that can be milked for taxes by the Swedish king. If it's taxes and loot he's looking for, he should better look towards Lübeck, Stralsund, Stargard or Greifswald.
Russia - there really isn't such a country yet, is there? AFAIK the Kings of Rus got stomped by the Mongols, and now there's just Novgorod, Sortmark and minor princes. Or did I get that wrong? Sweden could of course end up fighting the princes of Smolensk or Tver at some point, but neither of those would be a serious contender for control of the Baltic coasts.
I personally would like to see some Malinese / Moorish colonization of the new world. Imagine the hilarity if slavery in the New World was started by moorish conquistadors, bringing white slaves to their new possessions :rofl: Perhaps at the behest of compassionate Aionite Ulema, who worry about the death rates among the native Indians?
(The Dominican monk Bartolomeo de las Casas, denounced the Spanish in very harsh terms for cruelly working the Indians to death in the early 1500s. His suggestion was to import black slaves, this would be more humane since black people were known to be physically strong and capable of working hard in hot climates.)
We could have a "Black Guilt" complex in modern Latin (Aionite) America
Countries like Mexico, Colombia, Cuba or Haiti could be majority white, with a black upper class... there would be endless possibilities for parables on ethnicity and race in our world.
America could be known as Al-Merica or some similar sounding Arabic term. (The Latins and Greek could still garble it to "America".)