David S Poepoe
Banned
This is entirely out of my league, but what-if Constantine the Great rather than dividing the Roman Empire into two and creating a new capital out of Byzantium, divided the Empire and set up court and capital in Alexandria?
One thing I'm thinking about is - and its fairly filled with large holes - Constantine moves to Alexandria and an Alexandrian, rather than Byzantine, Empire is formed. The division of the Empire goes the same, just that capital cities are different. Byzantium still becomes a major city because of its location, but the great Cathedral of Agia Sofia is in Alexandria. I guess then Eastern Orthodoxy would be predominately similar to Coptic Christianity.
The end product I'm toying with would be Africa being predominately Christian, and fairly similar to contemporary Europe. In the mean time pagen Europe continues on its way until the rise of Islam and is conquered and converts. The Alexandrian Empire rises and falls and is split apart into various nations that fight against each other for centuries. The new countries there eventually go through a 'Dark Ages' and Renaissance and finally explore out onto the Atlantic. Europe, after decades of enlightened Ottoman rule finally stagnates and slows down. Perhaps Europe eventually has some religious war that divides it into Shite and Sunni camps.
This is a fairly straight forward Turtledovian ATL, simply transpose the history of one region onto another (ie the Great War series).
One thing I'm thinking about is - and its fairly filled with large holes - Constantine moves to Alexandria and an Alexandrian, rather than Byzantine, Empire is formed. The division of the Empire goes the same, just that capital cities are different. Byzantium still becomes a major city because of its location, but the great Cathedral of Agia Sofia is in Alexandria. I guess then Eastern Orthodoxy would be predominately similar to Coptic Christianity.
The end product I'm toying with would be Africa being predominately Christian, and fairly similar to contemporary Europe. In the mean time pagen Europe continues on its way until the rise of Islam and is conquered and converts. The Alexandrian Empire rises and falls and is split apart into various nations that fight against each other for centuries. The new countries there eventually go through a 'Dark Ages' and Renaissance and finally explore out onto the Atlantic. Europe, after decades of enlightened Ottoman rule finally stagnates and slows down. Perhaps Europe eventually has some religious war that divides it into Shite and Sunni camps.
This is a fairly straight forward Turtledovian ATL, simply transpose the history of one region onto another (ie the Great War series).