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What if: Emperor Aegon the Conqueror?


UFT

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why did aegon stop with westeros? he and his sisters could have kept going, subjugating nearby lands. 

maybe not as far north as the wildlings but still. 

so in this timeline, he crowns himself emperor of westeros and continues on into summer isles, and some of the free cities. he was a warrior, and a conqueror, and i believe he could have been convinced to not stop (maybe by visenya)

 

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Essos IMO is risky for Aegon and his sisters since Essos has way more history with dragons and thus more hidden books, scrolls and over all basic knoweldge of dragons and perhaps what kills them or what magic can be used to fight them ETC. Would he attack Bravvos ? The Facelessmen would most likly assasinate Aegon is his sleep or poison his food, can dragons be poisened with a high enough dosage? These are scenarios I bet the Targ siblings dont wanna find out lol. 

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I think that he stopped on Westeros, because further conquest was impractical.

In Westeros there was only 7 Kingdoms. And they were ruled by seven major families - Hoares in Iron Islands and Riverlands, Durrandons in Stormlands, Martells in Dorne, Starks in The North, Arryns in The Vale, Hightowers in The Reach, Lannisters in Westerlands. 7 major castles, and Winterfell didn't even had any big cities nearby it. So there was only 5 big cities to seize, plus main island of Ironborn.

While in Essos there are 30+ big cities. And each city is like a separate country, with its own ruler, and separate army/troops. And their structure is different than in Kingdoms of Westeros.

This is how it was in Westeros: ruler of White Harbor was serving to Starks of Winterfell, Kings in the North. Same as rulers of Bear Island, and Karhold, and Last Hearth. Though when Torrhen Stark submitted to Aegon, all of his bannermen did the same. Mormonts, Umbers, Karstarks didn't proclaimed their independency from House Stark, and didn't named themselves new Kings in the North. When King Torrhen bend the knee to Aegon, then entire North did the same, and became Aegon's.

But Essos is less consolidated. For example if Aegon would have defeated Hizdahr zo Loraq and his troops, Meereen still won't be his. Because there still will be 11 more families, that rule the city from their Great pyramids. And they don't serve to each other, or to some common master/ruler. To seize Meereen, Aegon needs to defeat/kill/submit leaders of all 12 Great families of Meereen. Only then Meereen will be his. 12 battles to conquer single city of Essos, out of 30+ that are on that continent. To conquer Qarth, Aegon would have needed to defeat Pureborn, Thirteen, the Tourmaline Brotherhood, and the Ancien Guild of Spicers. And all of them have their own armies, that don't serve to one ruler. Braavos is ruled by the Sealord, but if he will be defeated, then the city's magisters and keyholders of Iron Bank will just chose another to be their new leader, that will keep fighting agains Aegon's conquest. To conquer Dothraki Aegon would have needed to defeat each of several dozens khals. Thus to conquer Essos is too problematic.

In old times Valyrian dragonlords had 200+ dragons (prior Doom of Valyria Targaryens moved to Dragonstone 5 of their dragons. Maybe they had more than 5. Though lets assume that they had only those 5 in total. 40 dragonlord families, at least 5 dragons per family, 200 dragons in total). Thus it was easy for them to effortlesly control nearly entire continent. They could have launched massive attack all over Essos, and simultaneously defeat dozens of Dothraki khalasars, 12 Great families of Meereen, Wise Masters of Yunkai, Pureborn, Thirteen, the Tourmaline Brotherhood, and the Ancien Guild of Spicers of Qarth, armies of Volantis magisters and keyholders of Iron Bank, and so on.

But Aegon and his sisters had only three dragons. It took them years to seize Kingdoms of Westeros, and in the process of that, died one of Aegon's sisters, together with her dragon. And Aegon also had to deal with Century of Blood, that was still ongoing in Essos. And it took Targaryens over 100 years to make Dorne to submit. Thus Targaryens had no time, nor resources to continue conquest. Aegon became King of 6K, and had to rule over his people, and deal with their problems. Same as Dany had to stop and settle in Meereen, because she had responsibilities towards those people, that she freed from slavers. She conquered Astapor and Yunkai, but when she left, those cities were again seized by slavers. To prevent the same thing from happening with Meereen, she had to stay there and rule. Thus Aegon also couldn't leave Westeros for extended periods of time. He had to take care of people, that became his, and lands that he conquered. Aegon was already too busy with what he had, so to continue conquest was unrealistic.

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30 minutes ago, Megorova said:

It took them years to seize Kingdoms of Westeros, and in the process of that, died one of Aegon's sisters, together with her dragon.

In Dorne - as you note. Great discussion and detail; thanks!

 

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4 hours ago, newbieone said:

His nickname was Conqueror, but he wasn't one to just simply expand his own power; instead, he had some sort of unification agenda. Westeros fit in, Essos did not.

This.  The Targaryens wanted to carve out a kingdom.  They didn't want to build an empire.  Westeros is an island and practically can be defended.  Essos has little in the way of natural defenses.  Too many pirates to the south, the Dothraki, Volantis and will make borders harder to hold.

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7 hours ago, UFT said:

why did aegon stop with westeros?

The Author wrote the story so he was stymied in dorne 

7 hours ago, UFT said:

he and his sisters could have kept going, subjugating nearby lands.  maybe not as far north as the wildlings but still. 

Not possible. He was written in a very specific way for a reason. 

7 hours ago, UFT said:

so in this timeline, he crowns himself emperor of westeros and continues on into summer isles, and some of the free cities. he was a warrior, and a conqueror, and i believe he could have been convinced to not stop (maybe by visenya)

He crowned himself King, and the author stopped him, not his sisters 

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Aegon couldn’t even hold Dorne. I don’t see him being able to conquer the Free Cities or Summer Islands. He’d be at a big disadvantage trying to get his troops across the water. And even if he succeeded his subjects in Westeros would likely use his absence as an excuse to rebel.

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15 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Essos IMO is risky for Aegon and his sisters since Essos has way more history with dragons and thus more hidden books, scrolls and over all basic knoweldge of dragons and perhaps what kills them or what magic can be used to fight them ETC. Would he attack Bravvos ? The Facelessmen would most likly assasinate Aegon is his sleep or poison his food, can dragons be poisened with a high enough dosage? These are scenarios I bet the Targ siblings dont wanna find out lol. 

Seconded. 

Aegon had his chance when he could have allied with Volatnis in conquering the Free Cities, but instead chose to fight against them. 

While Westeros has a millenia-long historical tradition of monarchies, Essos is completely different. The Free Cities have no history of monarchies. The Freehold of Valyria was a republic, and the Free Cities didn't have monarchies but magisters, archons and the only monarch, the Prince of Pentos, is just a ceremonial figurehead used as a scapegoat should a crop fail or war be lost. 

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12 hours ago, Darion Storm said:

Aegon couldn’t even hold Dorne. I don’t see him being able to conquer the Free Cities or Summer Islands. He’d be at a big disadvantage trying to get his troops across the water. And even if he succeeded his subjects in Westeros would likely use his absence as an excuse to rebel.

It would be super easy to take a city with dragons than taking a kingdom like Dorne, I'm baffled at the people here who think taking the free cities will be difficult for Aegon, he had the entirety of the Westerosi (Dorne excluded) military at his disposal and big dragons. The Tattered Prince indicated he could take Pentos with just one tiny dragon. 

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20 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Westeros is an island and practically can be defended.

Westeros is a continent, not an island.

It's even a bit bigger than Australia. W's area is approximately 3,060 million square miles (without area beyond The Wall), and A's is 2,9 million square miles.

And originally GRRM was saying that Westeros is as big as South America, thus it's area should be close to 6,890 million square miles.

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On 3/6/2018 at 10:10 AM, Megorova said:

Westeros is a continent, not an island.

It's even a bit bigger than Australia. W's area is approximately 3,060 million square miles (without area beyond The Wall), and A's is 2,9 million square miles.

And originally GRRM was saying that Westeros is as big as South America, thus it's area should be close to 6,890 million square miles.

It's still separated from Essos.  But sure, it is a continent.

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On ‎3‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:09 AM, UFT said:

why did aegon stop with westeros? he and his sisters could have kept going, subjugating nearby lands. 

maybe not as far north as the wildlings but still. 

so in this timeline, he crowns himself emperor of westeros and continues on into summer isles, and some of the free cities. he was a warrior, and a conqueror, and i believe he could have been convinced to not stop (maybe by visenya)

 

Conquering is easy , holding what you've conquered is hard .

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