Byzantine Republic, attempt two.

[Masada]

Very possibly but it is better than the first attempt..

 

[Mathalamus]

Not going into details, but why do you insist that the Napoleonic Wars or WW2 still happen?

That just creates the impression all you really want is "have Byzantines with tanks".

frankly, its impossible to have total peace from 1800 on. and i have a limited imagination. i couldn't just conjure up a war starting in 1928 for example. i could, but it would be badly thought out.

 

[Leoreth]

Then writing alternate history might not be the right thing for you.

No offense, but what you do is rather copy/paste history. Take WW2, cut France out, paste Burgundy in; cut Turkey out, paste Byzantium in; cut Hitler out, put different-person-but-still-Hitler in.

The only reason to create alternate history is to show how pivotal some decisions or events were. Here everything roughly happens the same way as in history, plus a Mary Sue Byzantium. It's almost like there's an advertisement screaming "Now! OTL! With even more BYZANTIUM!".

 

[Masada]

You sir need to nes.

 

[Mathalamus]

Then writing alternate history might not be the right thing for you.

No offense, but what you do is rather copy/paste history. Take WW2, cut France out, paste Burgundy in; cut Turkey out, paste Byzantium in; cut Hitler out, put different-person-but-still-Hitler in.

The only reason to create alternate history is to show how pivotal some decisions or events were. Here everything roughly happens the same way as in history, plus a Mary Sue Byzantium. It's almost like there's an advertisement screaming "Now! OTL! With even more BYZANTIUM!".

well then its not a final version is it? since you say that i copy-paste history, id better wipe the timeline and build a new one and go crazy... within reason.

 

[Masada]

Well, that was a mistake to do in open thread.. in my defence it is late.

 

[Mathalamus]

well i looked in the other timelines involving Byzantium in the alternate history wiki

most of them seem a bit off to me.

 

[Leoreth]

Again, I don't want to discourage you, but your current timeline doesn't need rework in the sense of changing some details, but rather it needs a completely new perspective. You seem to look at the OTL and try to tweak some things to "fit Byzantium in". That's not what alternate history does. You should decide for a PoD and then logically work your changes from there.

I can understand that you have difficulties to reasonably predict what would change 800 years after your PoD, but frankly, so would everyone else, given how consequential your change is. So why don't you concentrate on the time until, say, 1492 first, but now with more overall detail? It seems that there is no battle of Mantzikert (at least not in 1071), and there is no Seljuk conquest of Anatolia. Why not start from there? That assumption alone rises a heap of questions about the course of the 11th and 12th century.

Did the Byzantine Emperor still feel the need to ask the Catholics for help? Would the crusades still happen? What would change in the Middle East (the Seljuks would have to go somewhere else)? What are the repercussions for Europe? Will Venice still rise to become a trading power? Many European rulers (among them Richard Lionheart or Frederick Barbarossa) concentrated their efforts on crusades, what would happen if they concentrated on Europe instead?

You see, even 100-200 years after your PoD, the world changes a lot compared to the OTL. This is what people here mean with the "Butterfly Effect". You have to account for these changes when creating a ATL. The reason why you have no idea how, say, the 1800s, could have went is that you didn't do this.

 

[Mathalamus]

so basically i did too much all at once. i should have broken it down to groups.

so the first group should be from.. 1071 (romanos not captured, and thus wasn't replaced) to whenever the new world is discovered. am i right?

 

[Leoreth]

Basically yes. It definitely would help to get some details worked out and to achieve some coherence. The date was just arbitrary, however. Remember there are many theories that in the OTL, Columbus went searching for a western route to India because the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople shut down the usual trade route through the Middle East. With a surviving Byzantium, it is likely that America would be discovered later.

 

[Mathalamus]

well Byzantium could close the silk road anyway. although i cant imagine why. they have the capability to make silk natively, so it *might* be a way to increase profits.

 

[Antilogic]

the Eastern orthodox church did not interact too much, perferring to do things itself before needing help. and this massive army of 50,000 only works circa 1025. its not that anymore, so its a lot less regulars, but still well equipped. they obviously refused to seek reunification, since the population was hostile towards it.

In the real timeline (what's the common term for this from the NES forums? RL? I only talk alt-hist off forums, it seems), the reunification trick was attempted by a few late Emperors, usually with a strong public backlash. All right, I'll buy it.

i was once told that even a tiny PoD could affect the entire world.

I'm not disagreeing with you here. However, part of the fun is figuring out the chain of events that connects these two seemingly unrelated events. It's that chain that is missing.

that independent Greece came into being when Macedonia got the tar beaten out by Byzantium. the reason for this is that Macedonia wanted Byzantine land, and Byzantium wanted Macedonian land.

there is support for a pan-greek movement, but Greece was under macedonian rule for 519 years, and they won back their independence. they did not want to give it up.

So wait, are the Macedonians are ethnically distinct from the Greeks in your timeline, or are you using Macedonian to simply refer to the native Greek government? I seem to be confused here with the introduction of a third set of Greeks.

It seems strange to me, since the Roman Empire is ethnically Greek by this point, that Macedonians/Greeks would secede from the government. Being the Greeks are in power, I would expect rebellions from the Turkish population, especially those who are Muslim and are living in territory reconquered by the Romans. What is making the people in this area so unhappy?

 

[Leoreth]

well Byzantium could close the silk road anyway. although i cant imagine why. they have the capability to make silk natively, so it *might* be a way to increase profits.

They already made a great deal of profit by having the silk route open. So they'd need a very good reason to suddenly decide to close it.

 

[Mathalamus]

So wait, are the Macedonians are ethnically distinct from the Greeks in your timeline, or are you using Macedonian to simply refer to the native Greek government? I seem to be confused here with the introduction of a third set of Greeks.

It seems strange to me, since the Roman Empire is ethnically Greek by this point, that Macedonians/Greeks would secede from the government. Being the Greeks are in power, I would expect rebellions from the Turkish population, especially those who are Muslim and are living in territory reconquered by the Romans. What is making the people in this area so unhappy?

the macedonians were ethnically distict by that point, unless Macedonia is really just a greek nation.

the turkish peoples did not care to rebel against the state which treats the Muslim turks pretty well.

 

[Antilogic]

the macedonians were ethnically distict by that point, unless Macedonia is really just a greek nation.

the turkish peoples did not care to rebel against the state which treats the Muslim turks pretty well.

Sorry to keep hammering the same point but I'm still confused. Do they have a distinct and different culture from Constantinopolis at the time Macedon breaks away, or after a few centuries they develop a divergent culture a la USA/England?

Why are the Greeks being so mistreated while the Turks are all cheery? I would assume the Romans would favor the Greek cultures over the Turks, given the religious differences between the Greeks and Turks.

 

[Cull]

You know to try to build it from step up, devoting time to only a short period, build that up, and continue. It might take a long time, but the end result will be much better.

My insubstantial two cents.

 

[vogtmurr]

This kind of stuck in my mind:

1277: in the largest battle in the known world at the time 500,000 Byzantine soldiers face 100,000 mongols at Ankara. the Mongols decided to charge at the Byzantines, which were repulsed. then the Byzantines committed their own Calvary to hit and run on the mongol forces. a small Byzantine army of 50,000 ambushed them from the sides and behind when the main force started attacking. the battle is won, with 146,000 Byzantine deaths and 95,000 mongols deaths

Is it really necessary to have such a huge disparity of numbers and casualties to envision a decisive victory in 1277 over the Mongols ? If an army of 50,000 seems big, this is titanic, and must have included a high proportion of poorly armed militia who would be more useful defending the walled cities of the empire.

 

[Leoreth]

And I wonder how they were able to use hit-and-run-tactics on Mongols.

 

[Cull]

Eeh, battles are overrated anyways. I would much rather be reading about a general history that covers things in more detail, rather than read EPIC BATTLE, 20 years later, EPICNESS, and so on.

 

[Mathalamus]

This kind of stuck in my mind:

Is it really necessary to have such a huge disparity of numbers and casualties to envision a decisive victory in 1277 over the Mongols ? If an army of 50,000 seems big, this is titanic, and must have included a high proportion of poorly armed militia who would be more useful defending the walled cities of the empire.

i had to make the mongols begin to retreat somehow. and yes most of those men were relatively poorly armed. a lot less than 50,000 were regulars at that time.

they would have been more useful in defending walled cities, but 12,000 regulars versus 100,000 mongols? it'll be a bloodbath.