Chaos TL: A world without Genghis Khan's conquests (finished!)

0. The promise
OK folks, I don't want to make too many words: I've decided to climb the Mount Everest of AH - starting a realistic TL where Genghis Khan can't start his conquests and which continues until the year 2000 or a comparable Tech level is reached (whichever comes first).
Note that I will use a limited butterfly effect in this TL: After a certain while there won't be f.e. the successors from OTL, but only "morphic twins" from the same dynasties. Not as in other TLs where historical persons pop up even 1000 years after the POD (sorry, basileus).
OTOH, the POD won't immediately cause that all persons born will be different. That's why I said "limited butterfly effect" - after the POD it will take some years until the changes are outside Mongolia, several decades until they reach Europe and even centuries for Australia. (That's not how chaos theory works, but it's a bit easier for me.)

I'll also write some short stories for the TL, which you can find behind [thread=32412]this link[/thread].

OK, and here's a nice map to show how Eurasia looks at the moment:

Premongol.png
 
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Glen

Moderator
Your limited butterfly effect timeline is reasonable, especially since you stated it as such. A small subset of timelines could be expected to run nearly parallel to ours in such a manner. The majority of timelines would have the full butterfly effect notable, but the probabilities allow for a small subset to not have that effect by shear probabilities dampened.

This should be interesting, I agree. The Mongol Empire has always struck me as one of those large unexpected events in world history.

One question. The Cumans really controlled that large an area? Looks like the old Khazar Empire....
 
I'd like to make a pitch for a historical thesis in which I strongly believe.

According to Europe by Norman Davies (excellent history book), the biggest losers among European ethnic groups from the Mongol invasions, by far, were the Poles and Hungarians, and the biggest winners were the Germans. Poland and Hungary were sprawling, prosperous states when suddenly the Mongols decimated their forces and killed off entire cities. The Germans rushed into the gap and undertook the virtually unprecedented act of sending settlers eastward in Europe. The Mongols left open spaces for the Germans to colonize Silesia, Prussia, Pest, Transylvania, and the Volga. This gave the Germans the advantages that the Jews and several minor ethnic groups got from transcending state boundaries (e.g., larger merchant class and swifter spread of ideas), but unlike the Jews, they still retained their homeland, and therefore had the strong check against official discrimination that the Jews so desperately needed.

Take away the Drang_nach_Osten, and everything about German politics changes beyond recognition.
 
Note that I will use a limited butterfly effect in this TL: After a certain while there won't be f.e. the successors from OTL, but only "morphic twins" from the same dynasties. Not as in other TLs where historical persons pop up even 1000 years after the POD (sorry, basileus).
OTOH, the POD won't immediately cause that all persons born will be different. That's why I said "limited butterfly effect" - after the POD it will take some years until the changes are outside Mongolia, several decades until they reach Europe and even centuries for Australia. (That's not how chaos theory works, but it's a bit easier for me.)

Your limited butterfly effect timeline is reasonable, especially since you stated it as such. A small subset of timelines could be expected to run nearly parallel to ours in such a manner. The majority of timelines would have the full butterfly effect notable, but the probabilities allow for a small subset to not have that effect by shear probabilities dampened.

I agree with you both, and IMHO it is a smart move to state your intentions in the start of a TL.
 
Max Sinister said:
OK folks, I don't want to make too many words: I've decided to climb the Mount Everest of AH - starting a realistic TL where Genghiz Khan can't start his conquests and which continues until the year 2000 or a comparable Tech level is reached (whichever comes first).
Note that I will use a limited butterfly effect in this TL: After a certain while there won't be f.e. the successors from OTL, but only "morphic twins" from the same dynasties. Not as in other TLs where historical persons pop up even 1000 years after the POD (sorry, basileus).
OTOH, the POD won't immediately cause that all persons born will be different. That's why I said "limited butterfly effect" - after the POD it will take some years until the changes are outside Mongolia, several decades until they reach Europe and even centuries for Australia. (That's not how chaos theory works, but it's a bit easier for me.)

I'll also write some short stories for the TL, which you can find behind this link.

OK, and here's a nice map to show how Eurasia looks at the moment:

*cough cough* In my Interference TL I follow the same rules, except with even more caution. The historical names you see springing "up 1000 years after the Pod" either a) are "morphic twins" with same (or different) names and different ancestors (in other words, different persons we identify because of the name, full stop) or b) they are there because there's no reason for their non-existence (e.g. Genghis, far eastern history being almost completely the same, apart ininfluent details; or William the Bastard, ditto, having no reason to rule out the existence of his ancestors and his very birth).
 
Sorry basileus, I didn't want to make your (really great!) TL bad. But that's the point of Chaos theory: Even the tiniest changes grow over the years - exponentially. If I wanted to show the butterfly effect in full, all people conceived more than short time after my POD would be different - all you need is a different sperm, and instead of $HISTORICAL_PERSON someone else is born - a sibling, which can have everything from 0 % to 100 % of the same genes. In other words, siblings can be very different personalities (me and my brother are quite different). And even if you don't want the full butterfly effect (move one hydrogen atom for a nanometer, and 1000 years later the Chinese Empire is eradicated), I think the changes during 1000+ years should be enough to make sure that Genghiz isn't born. It's only small changes, but they spread - one merchant does something different, influencing another community a bit, repeat some hundred times, and the microchanges have spread to the Mongol steppes and make sure that Genghiz' parents never meet. A morphic twin OK, but this morphic twin (who fills Genghiz' place from OTL) can be born well 50 years earlier or later, and wouldn't bear the same name as Temujin, or could even be of another steppe people but the Mongols. (And Genghiz is a very special case IMO, the best example for the Great Man theory: There weren't very many Mongols around - only 200,000 adult males in the army, and this includes allied non-Mongol people. The statistical chance for a man like Genghiz born in the Mongol steppes around 1200 CE is pretty small, so if you take him out, there won't be anyone around who could step into his emptied shoes. If you think I exaggerate look at what he achieved: He not only managed to survive in a dangerous life, but united the Mongol people, didn't even stop there, but united them with other steppe people, forged them together [he reorganized the army and put men from different nations into the same unit], gave them a code of law, adopted the Uighurian alphabet for the Mongols who didn't have writing yet, adopted new military techniques, and despite being ruthless, he was always willing to change his politics if it was useful [fortunately, otherwise he had stuck to his old plan of depopulating China]... the list has no end.)

OK, let's conclude it: I'm not using the full butterfly effect, but a little bit more than basileus. Everything fine for everyone?
 

Faeelin

Banned
This will be very interesting.

Do what you want with butterflies; you'll have enough problems with the effects of surviving Song, Jurchen, Khwarizm, Vladimir-Suzdal, etc.
 
Faeelin said:
Do what you want with butterflies; you'll have enough problems with the effects of surviving Song, Jurchen, Khwarizm, Vladimir-Suzdal, etc.

Not to mention the second tide of Turkish tribesmen (or at least maybe a delay of them) which might have knock-offs on Byzantium and the Seljuk Turks.
 

Darkest

Banned
Keep up your confidence! Even with the limited butterfly effect (Limited? Heresy!) you are going to have your hands full. In a few years, the lack of events that were caused by Genghis Khan are going to cause a fullscale world change.

Its not about butterflies here, we aren't talking about indirect changes. Genghis Khan directly changed the world around him. You are talking about one important dude. Sounds like fun!
 
0.5 Overview of changes
Overview of changes

OK, for the beginning an overview: Where and when Genghiz (and his successors) changed history IOTL.

1205-09: Tangutes / Hsi-Hsia
1207: Southern Siberia
1209: Uighurs
1212: Kara-Kitai
1211-15: Northern China
1220: Iraqi Seljuks
1219-25: Choresm
1223: Battle of Kalka - slight influence on Russian princedoms
1227: Hsi-Hsia destroyed
1231: Influence on Korea under the Goryeo Dynasty
1233/34: Strong influence on Northern China
1237: Volga Hungarians, Volga Bulgars defeated
1236-40: Strong influence on Russia except Novgorod
1239: Armenia
since ~1240: Small changes (well, compared to the results of a Mongolian conquest) spread through Europe and Northern Africa.
1241/42: All of Eastern Europe - Teutonic Order, Drang nach Osten [1], Poland, Silesia, Moravia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria is influenced.
1243: Rum-Seljuks
1255: Kerman-Seljuks
1256: Strong influence on Korea
1258: Strong influence on Caliphate of Baghdad
1274/81: No attack on Japan, no "divine wind" necessary
(1258) 1268-79: Southern China
1287: Pagan Empire in Burma
1337-52: No / delayed Black Death; influences all of Europe, Asia and Northern Africa.
1398 (OK, probably indirect changes will happen earlier here): Sultanate of Delhi

America, Australia, and parts of Africa south of Sahara will stay unchanged until they're discovered by travelers from other continents. But I won't tell when that's going to happen.

[1] @Tom Veil: "The Mongols left open spaces for the Germans to colonize Silesia, Prussia, Pest, Transylvania, and the Volga."

Quite true - although the settlements at the Volga were started by Catherine the Great, and, more important, the Germans had started the "Drang nach Osten" earlier in history. A few hundred years before our POD, the border between Germans and Slavs was more along the Elbe river. Germany still has a surplus population ITTL...
 
Yes Max, no doubt this timeline will be very interesting.

These mongols make a lot of work conquesting and influencing.

You can add

Originally posted by Max Sinister
1258: Strong influence on Caliphate of Baghdad

The campaigns of mongols in Bagdad and in Middle East against the islam effectively delayed the fall of the lasts strongholds of the crusaders in the Holy Land.

Without mongols, these strongholds surely will fall far sooner than in OTL

Also 1402 Total defeat of the otomans by Tamerlan in the battle of Ankara, without mongols no Tamerlan, so is very possible that if the otomans make a similar way of appearition in this ATL he could get conquest Constantinople and the Balkans some decades sooner than in OTL.
 
The Mongol invasions also helped the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, but I suppose wiping out the crusader states may help it as well (since one of the problems the late AKC had was that their royal family became intermarried with those of crusader kingdoms, who decided to try to convert the Armenian state to Catholicism)
 
Hmm, it could be very interesting Imajin.

Without crusaders the armenian kingdom could last the sufficient and to be the sufficient strong to resist the mamelukes and to see it fighting in Anatolia against ottomans and another states for the herency of the collapse of the bizantyne Empire.
 
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