Altered Maps V: The Molotov-Threadentropp Pact

[Dachs]

uhh.. whoops. i didn't think this through. not conquering the western Europe would definitely make it very different, i don't know HOW different tho. i didnt know there was a reform in that time. perhaps there wasn't a reform ( unless the reform was directly in response to something that would have happened anyway). my knowledge on Byzantine history is certainty not complete.

The Anastasian reforms of the late 490s were essentially a massive monetarization of the Byzantine economy. Under Diocletian, many capitation taxes were assessed in kind; Anastasios switched over to currency entirely, and made it easier to do so by issuing a stable copper currency (the follis), which unlike the gold nomisma came in denominations small enough to use in everyday exchange. This was accompanied by adjustments to the taxation system itself that reduced the overall burden on the taxpayer and on merchants especially, a decrease that was easily made good by the apparently greater willingness of the taxpayers to pay in regular monetary installments as opposed to supplying grain or whatnot. The overall result of the adjustments to the Byzantine fisc was that, by Anastasios' death in 518 the empire had managed to amass a gold reserve of some 23M nomismata, which exceeded the total of the imperial budget over three years. This was accompanied by military reforms which saw an indirect increase in pay (leading to increased recruit quality) and an overall improvement in the training and size of the cavalry and horse-archer arms of service.

The reforms were, in many ways, a long time in coming; certainly the Byzantines and Romans were substituting cash payments for payment in kind more and more frequently as the fifth century wore on; Anastasios standardized the whole thing, and married it to other fiscal and bureaucratic measures that overall simply increased government revenue. It's difficult to argue that the reforms wouldn't have happened eventually, since they were a natural extension of preexisting Roman government practice.

an unwritten rule that history stays the same unless otherwise specified. ( to prevent the history from being virtually unrecognizable, also my creativity is limited) the demise of Islam as a major factor HAD to have done some changes, i don't know what changes though. Islam still existed and it can still spread.

if you have suggestions i'm welcome to hear it.

Perhaps the simplest way to ensure a Byzantine state that doesn't lose large swathes of territory to the Muslims is to fiddle with Maurikios and his campaigns against the Avars. Remove Phokas and ensure that Maurikios passes on the reins of power to a lawful heir, and Khusrau's invasion of a few years later, assuming it happens at all, has no opening. No need to mess with Justinian, much less with stuff that happened earlier.

On the whole, I disagree with the policy of 'having everything else happen unless something "big" directly interferes'. Simply put, there is an infinitesimal chance that even one child born after the PoD will begin as the same zygote it did in the original timeline, much less that all of them will be (tongue-in-cheek: what if Muhammad had been a girl?); there's also no accounting for the vagaries of war, plague, and even everyday life, in the course of which some people simply may not have survived to bear the children that they normally would have, or those children would have had vastly different experiences than they did in OTL. I recognize the desire to avoid undue work in creating the alternate world - it's just not what I would do if I were making a srs bzns althist.

 

[Mathalamus]

the population was twice as large. the Byzantine Republic had a much higher standard of living. most of the worlds companies are located there. and the city hosts the most richest people in the world.

the PoD happened in 476.

i honestly didn't know what to change, so i changed major historical items. kept Islam alive, barely, and made Byzantium strong.

i ahve an idea.. what if the confederacy forces of America succeeded in the civil war ( and, naturally, executed everyone...)? both world wars will be ten rimes more unpleasant...

 

[choxorn]

The country has 100% Byzantine Christians? There's absolutely no minorities, at all?

 

[Mathalamus]

whoops i forgot that the Bulgar didnt cross the Danube. lets say they did and remained peaceful.

typically the Byzantine Empire and Republic destroy the culture ( after of course, taking one of everything of their culture) of whoever they are fighting, then name the provinces and cities out of respect for the cultures that normally inhabit the religion. the culture isn't totally destroyed, some are kept in museums and libraries, and are free to anyone who reads it. providing they don't get all nationalist about it.

the only culture that survived is the Greeks and Romans. they merged over time.

without the billions of cultures that normally would inhabit the balkans, the Byzantine Republic got a lot more stable.

nationalism is just a big headache for the Republic and the culture only gets destroyed again, so people don't really bother trying. they tried that in 1850. they got destroyed in WWI.

 

[Dachs]

Certainly without the demise of Maurikios and the disorders of the Phokas and Herakleios reigns, there will be vastly fewer Sklaveniai in the empire than in OTL, and there's a good chance that those who do end up there will be properly assimilated. That is, barring some other disaster later on. Wheel of fortune has to roll around sometime, you know.

 

[Mathalamus]

well i can tell you this: no such civil war ever happened in the Byzantine empire. but to be honest, civil wars are good for the society, in some cases. has any country gone from a feudal monarchy to a federal state without a civil war?

 

[holy king]

you confuse civil war with revolution.
and federal state with capitalist democracy.

 

[PiMan]

you confuse civil war with revolution.
and federal state with capitalist democracy.

Well by switching the terms like that, then the UK fits. It had a civil war, not a revolution.

...Unless you think it isn't capitalist or isn't a democracy?

 

[aronnax]

On December 21st 2012, scientists in Istanbul working on the Curequeer Project, a project funded by the Glenn Beck Medical Foundation to cure homosexuality took a wrong turn when one of the specimen bacterium they were breeding mutilated to produce bacterium which when introduced into the human body, causes the phenotypes of the "straight" gene to force itself to convert into the "gay" gene resulting in the person to turn homosexual. The sample was accidentally released into the world when a careless intern broke the petri dish containing the "gay" bacterium. As the bacterium can be passed through the air, the infection rate increased rapidly as it began to spread outside the lab and into the open world. About 8 out of 10 straight people turn gay when exposed to the bacteria.

This map shows the extent of the epidemic and how fast it spreads with each coloured layer representing a time period of one day. Glenn Beck declined for comment when asked about how he had funded the "gay-calypse" of human kind and that he had found proof that homosexuality is determined by genes.

 

[Mathalamus]

well the civil war will seriously damage the Republics economic standing, not to mention the colonies.

a revolution is impossible. if the revolutuon started in ankara itll take around a decade to a century to topple the old power. (remeber Byzantium is quite strong as it never suffered the loss of the capital to anyone organized.)

edit: oh nice job, that intern shoudl be fired ( to the moon) for carelessness. its funny though.

 

[Dachs]

well the civil war will seriously damage the Republics economic standing, not to mention the colonies.

a revolution is impossible. if the revolutuon started in ankara itll take around a decade to a century to topple the old power. (remeber Byzantium is quite strong as it never suffered the loss of the capital to anyone organized.)

Revolutions are eminently possible and happened in the Byzantine state. Constantinople was never successfully assaulted before 1204, but it was infiltrated by treachery during the courses of civil wars. The famous 'Seven Revolutions' of the late 7th-early 8th centuries demonstrates this quite handily, as do the civil wars of Zenon, the war of Herakleios against Phokas, and the usurpation of Alexios Komnenos; unsuccessful civil warriors include Thomas 'the Slav', Bardas Phokas, and Bardas Skleros. In addition, the civil war might be decided without having to recourse to an attack on and siege of Constantinople.

 

[Mathalamus]

well i slightly rewrote history again. the CSA destroys the Union and becomes a more evil version of America.

in the end it was destroyed by the Russians and chinese communsit allies from the west coast and the Byzantines, british ( soliders only, their navy sucks) and the french ( who surrendered at Ohio, forcing the Byzantines to take over for them).

you know i considered a civil war in which Byzantine vassals, like Israel or Babylon and the likes revolted and attempted to Destroy Byzantium, i didn't think it was believable.

 

[warpus]

Speaking of the byzantines, the 18civ game is fun to play as them. I started a prince game, took over the arabian peninsula right away for the money generating holy cities - then vassalized mali and took out the holy roman empire. it's 1930 and i'm building a giant army to take out the french - who have tons of wonders in their cities, as well as about half of europe. After that - spain and russia.

There's no map but you can use your imagination

 

[Mathalamus]

cool, did you have any colonies?

 

[warpus]

cool, did you have any colonies?

Nah - the new world and australia have been invaded and colonized by the french, chinese, spanish, and the khmer... and potentially others. I gifted the incans and aztecs with modern tech, but that didn't seem to help. after i take over europe and take out the russians (and their weak vassals, the arabs), i think i will have to focus on india and china rather than north america, so colonies shouldn't play a part in the game.

 

[Mathalamus]

good i hope the russians dont defeat you at moscow.

by the way it should be noted that most of the recent news also happened in the dominant Byzantine time line. the 2010 haiti earthquake, google pulling out of china, etc. with some minor changes.

 

[Traitorfish]

@traitorfish: the Byzantines were scouting for new territories to colonize or conquer. im fairly sure America would be discovered anyway, colonization or no colonization.

Why by the Byzantines, though? They showed no historical inclination towards exploration, nor did their situation warrant it. The Ottoman Turks, after all, in control a territory much like that depicted as Byzantine in your map, never did. They lacked the economic incentive which drove the Atlantic Europeans to exploration, already possessing direct access to Eastern trade routes.

 

[Karalysia]

On December 21st 2012, scientists in Istanbul working on the Curequeer Project, a project funded by the Glenn Beck Medical Foundation to cure homosexuality took a wrong turn when one of the specimen bacterium they were breeding mutilated to produce bacterium which when introduced into the human body, causes the phenotypes of the "straight" gene to force itself to convert into the "gay" gene resulting in the person to turn homosexual. The sample was accidentally released into the world when a careless intern broke the petri dish containing the "gay" bacterium. As the bacterium can be passed through the air, the infection rate increased rapidly as it began to spread outside the lab and into the open world. About 8 out of 10 straight people turn gay when exposed to the bacteria.

This map shows the extent of the epidemic and how fast it spreads with each coloured layer representing a time period of one day. Glenn Beck declined for comment when asked about how he had funded the "gay-calypse" of human kind and that he had found proof that homosexuality is determined by genes.

Hahaha best

 

[Mathalamus]

Why by the Byzantines, though? They showed no historical inclination towards exploration, nor did their situation warrant it. The Ottoman Turks, after all, in control a territory much like that depicted as Byzantine in your map, never did. They lacked the economic incentive which drove the Atlantic Europeans to exploration, already possessing direct access to Eastern trade routes.

they were looking for more space for their people in a peaceful way for once.

no idea why it took a 92 years to settle the place tho.

 

[Traitorfish]

they were looking for more space for their people in a peaceful way for once.

But it wasn't until the 19th century that population burden became a significant factor in Old World emigration, and it was certainly never the stated caused of any European territorial acquisition that I can't think of. As far as I know, that justification was only ever invoked in relation to contiguous expansion, such as the Western expansion of the US.

Yes, I'm nitpicking somewhat, but this is, after all, the internet.