Mycenaean/Dorian Extremes

So during the Bronze Age Collapse in the Aegean, the Mycenaeans/Achaeans inhabiting much of what is now Greece found themselves invaded (whether all at once or slowly over a century or two is up for debate) by a wandering, barbarian people with no writing of their own or experience of building with anything but dirt called the Dorians.

IOTL the Mycenaeans were reduced due to famine and plague; many sought their fortunes across the sea in Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Levant as mercenaries, pirates, raiders, and settlers. They might have even joined the elusive "Sea Peoples" who essentially destroyed Egypt's New Kingdom. Their abandoned settlements were populated by the incoming Dorians, who took up the plow and spear and began to farm the tough lands and rough seas.

Those Mycenaeans who fled overseas became the Ionians of Attica, Euboea, and western Asia Minor; the Dorians remained as lords of most of Greece including Lacedaemonia, Aetolia, Phokis, Rhodes, Halicarnassus, and Crete; the Aeolians (as far as I can tell, somewhat of a mix of the two, or else a more peaceful and unrelated northern Hellenic group) had Thessaly and Boeotia.

So my question is, what is needed for a Mycenaean or Dorian extreme to occur? I mean something like all the Mycenaens go south to Egypt or the Levant, leaving the Dorians in possession of Greece and the Phrygians in possession of rich western Asia Minor; or else the Mycenaeans somehow deliver a crushing defeat upon the Dorians (if it was a sudden, large invasion) and never go pirating, resulting in many butterflies from the Hittites down to Egypt and all the way across to Assyria and Nubia. Is it possible?

I understand that things were much more complex.
I have seen suggested that the Dorians invaded Greece en masse after the fall of the Hittite Empire and the (very likely related) Sea People invasions in Egypt and the Levant (of which some Acheans are very likely to have been a part). On the other hand, piracy that can be imputed at least in part to Myceneans seems to be attested far before the Bronze Age collapse. Mycenean presence in the Levant and parts of Anatolia, mostly but not exclusively in the form of traders, is thought to have been a long-standing feature of Late Bronze Age.
"Greek" colonization of Asia Minor appears likewise to have been a very long-term phenomenon straddling across the last centuries of the Bronze Age and a large chunk of the Iron Age.
I also got the impression that everything relating to the Aegean Bronze Age cultures and especially their last phases is rather murky and even more extremely contentious than it's usual in archaeology, with what passes for scholarly debate more accurately resembling a confused fisticuff; I actually wonder why it is the case.
It is a fascinating topic, but one where I gather it is a mess to get what really happened.
However, I think that a larger Mycenean presence in the Levant is a possibility.

So, no other thoughts? Does anybody at least have any references for personal and place names of this time? I'm good on maps, but I need information on whether Dorian names were different from Mycenaean ones.

Not knowing much of this period beyond the Illiad and Aenid (and I know the latter is a Roman fabulation) I can't comment with any authority except I always had the impression that the Trojan War(s) were an analogue of the ERE and Persians fighting each other to a standstill and the Dorians the analogue of the Arabs picking up the spoils. So either extreme is possible but there would have to be some massive knockons and butterflies from the Myceneans winning. I'm not so sure we would notice if the Dorians won out more completely.
(PS even the Illiad is a dodgy reference as the Trojan war stories were originally Dorian fables)

Yeah, the Trojan War's general story (Mycenaeans war for ten years and return to fallow fields, palaces full of enemies, and unfaithful wives) sounds suspiciously like the "literarization" of a general syndrome: the Mycenaeans fought each other and others too much, their agriculture and livelihood suffered due to war and climate change, enemies (the Dorians) arrived in their homelands, and polite society fell (unfaithful wives).

What I want is the problem exacerbated further; I guess I'm leaning more toward the "Dorian-wank" side of this duality. I want the Mycenaeans all on the Asia Minor coast and in the Levant/joining the Sea Peoples.

Lars Porsenna said:

Yeah, the Trojan War's general story (Mycenaeans war for ten years and return to fallow fields, palaces full of enemies, and unfaithful wives) sounds suspiciously like the "literarization" of a general syndrome: the Mycenaeans fought each other and others too much, their agriculture and livelihood suffered due to war and climate change, enemies (the Dorians) arrived in their homelands, and polite society fell (unfaithful wives).

What I want is the problem exacerbated further; I guess I'm leaning more toward the "Dorian-wank" side of this duality. I want the Mycenaeans all on the Asia Minor coast and in the Levant/joining the Sea Peoples.

Click to expand...

Our general knowledge of what really happened is foggy enough that is difficult to pinpoint a clear POD, but I would suppose that it is not at all implausible.

As far as I understand the Dorian invasion was gradual and slow. And they probably did not chase the Achaeans out, but in most cases assimilated them.

There is a question of who assimilated who. During my bach. I did a course in Mycenean language and it is actually a form of Greek. Lingusitically nothing important happened nor based on material evidence ethnicaly. The "Dorians" if anything were small groups of young fighters looking for lands and people to rule over, a phenomenon that can be observed in western and central Europe in that time period.

The late bronze age society collapsed from mostly internal preasure that was influenced by external matters like a disruption in tin trade. Add to that climate change and all hell broke loose.

But wasn't Dorian also a different form of Greek, yet Greek all the same?

And if a few Dorians trickling in a few at a time were assimilated, then why was there such a difference culturally between the Dorian and Ionian city-states, and why were the Dorians very often allied to each other (indicating a greater sense of common identity)?

Climate change and a harder life should mean that people would stay home and farm harder; why would the Mycenaeans go off sailing across the Aegean and Mediterranean, when the Dorians were content with cultivating the fields?