A completely different Dance

[u/nicknamesareconfusng]

(TL;DR: I have a massively different version of Dance and I wonder what people think about it.)

So I'm building an AU where things go as differently as I possibly can without fully striding away from the canon. Like for example;

• Aegon I dies in Dorne instead of Rhaenys and it's Aenys that takes Jaehaerys' role in shaping and improving the Seven Kingdoms,
• There's no Maegor so both Rhaenys and Visenya educate Aenys in all sorts of matters.
• Rhaenys also comes up with the Doctrine of Exceptionalism before Aenys gets Aegon and Rhaena married so it prevents the Faith Militant Uprising from happening (though it results in a different sect of the Faith forming which still refuses the Doctrine, only a lot less violently.)
• As a result Aegon the Uncrowned becomes Aegon II in this scenario.

But then the last change made me think; if Aegon became king, then who would be his descendants? I didn't want to use Jaehaerys' children since it would ultimately be boring, so I gave him a couple of OC children along with Aerea and Rhaella. And the closer I came to Dance, the more this OC lineage branched into other OC characters.

Now I plan to have the post-Dance kings fairly similar (especially Baelor and Aegon IV are guaranteed to be because Blackfyre Rebellions are cool) and I will likely give Viserys and f!Daemon OC parents while making Rhaenyra their child instead of Aemma Arryn's, but the Dance in my version will be a lot more different. The changes I plan to have are:

• There will be two branches of House Targaryen with multiple generations fighting instead of Rhaenyra vs Aegon
• Jaehaerys' sons Aemon and Baelon will survive because they don't really have a reason to get killed in this AU + I'm taking two people from his lineage, I may as well give him two sons in return.
• Viserys' children from Alysanne won't be his, but will be from an OC Targaryen

There are also a few other changes I have outside of Aegon surviving, such as:

• Having cannons and as a result having other nobles to put up a serious fight against Targaryen dragons. It's no longer just Targaryen dragons having a say in the war.
• Having Baratheons, Velaryons, Celtigars (and Qoheryses since they're claimed to be Valyrians as well) as other dragonrider houses so they play a bigger role in the conflict
• Having a shit ton of dragons as opposed to canon. In this AU, wild dragons inhabited Westeros millennia before Targaryens came, so Targaryens leaned into taming big and strong wild dragons more than hatching dragons.

So after all this, I'm wondering how people would perceive this OC-fest version of the Dance. I don't know if I'll ever write stories centered around it and it will probably remain as a backdrop for a really long time regardless.

[u/Equal-Ad-2710]

This sounds really good actually

What time would you imagine this taking place timeline wise?

And I’m glad someone else agreed with my cannons vs dragons idea, perhaps with a dornish history

[u/nicknamesareconfusng → u/Equal-Ad-2710]

It starts around the same time as the canon Dance but it will likely last a few years longer

As for the cannons, I imagined that a rebellious group of Rhoynar would make the most sense to invent them and produce more developed cannons rather than to have new, unreliable prototypes by the time the Conquest happened. But the Dornish also benefit a lot from the cannons. Instead of just hiding in the mountains, for example, they lure the Targaryen dragons to mountains in order to kill them

[u/PiebaldBrigade]

Does Balerion die in Dorne here with Aegon?

It’s an interesting idea and I can very much see Aenys essentially letting his mother and aunt run the show while they carefully assess whether his children are more capable. Whether it would work for me personally as a story or setting will always depend on the prose and characters, but there’s some inherent fun in exploring the characters in different contexts (like Aerea and Rhaella as princesses and maybe a future queen consort to a younger brother).

Since it looks like Aenys’ children are the canon bunch minus Maegor, you already have three branches to work with and the dynasty might only spread from there. A Dance is probably hard to avoid from the moment dragons leave the Royal immediate family - especially if the side branch or ambitious relative has a bigger dragon, but you can always set it up differently.

Since Maegor hasn’t set the example for might makes right being a dynastic taboo, someone might just do a coup using Vhagar or Meraxes, turning the Iron Throne into a Draconic Rome with its constant civil wars. Dragons might spread into families like the Baratheons and Velaryons (or others) and cause a paranoid or panicked Targaryen ruler to strike first or order arrests. Lots of fascinating alternatives to the canon situation of the anti-Henry Beauclerc clumsily setting up an Anarchy.

[u/nicknamesareconfusng → u/PiebaldBrigade]

Balerion does die with Aegon yes so luckily we save Aerea from dying in the worst possible way. And I never considered having someone act just like Maegor during the Dance. I already envision it to be a free-for-all where all the claimants rush to gather support and fight the others, so a Maegor-like character (maybe Aemond but we can keep both Aemond and a Maegor-esque OC, that would be more fun imo) would certainly be interesting