There were also skirmishes between the east and west with slave taking , probably on both sides but predominantly involving the Barbary pirates . Hostage taking , incursions . The reaction was the Crusades , before that the Christian Church tended to be less handson , the sad result , however , was that the power of the Popes increased and the Christian church became an all powerful , overbearing organisation . Thankfully the influence of the church is not as great as it was but with this clash of cultures I fear that people may well start to turn to religion once more . All it would need would be some charismatic to take advantage and return to the bad old days . <| sep |> Have you seen how much older Red and Blue obviously are ?