> The Lunars are proselytizers while the Romans and Israelis weren't/aren't.
You could argue that the Romans' general attitude of religious tolerance and their willingness to adopt weird foreign cults (with only two exceptions: the Bacchanalia and Christianity) mirrors that of the Lunars (and, like the Lunars, the Romans tried to "tone down" cults that were a little too extreme, viz. Cybele's castrati). But I agree with the general sentiment: the Lunar Empire possesses an ideological, proselytising faith, which the Romans didn't.
> The best historical parallel _in_that_respect_ ... is the Islamic Conquest.
> Tolerant to a point, but expansionist. Few other states combined widespread
> military conquest with religious conversion.
Agreed. For another (more political) parallel for the Lunar Empire and Lunar Way, look at Revolutionary France (spreading Liberty, Fraternity and Equality) or Soviet Russia (spreading Marxism-Leninism through the Communist Internationale). These, like Islam, have the advantage of being radical new philosophies, applicable to everyone and building a better world for all, which were picked up and utilised by an expanding empire, assailing the existing, complacent world order by their impact. They were also attacked by outsiders for the unpleasant *symptoms* (Terrors, Purges, Gulags, the Bat) of their attempts to realise a Utopian future for all.
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