The Undying Empire: A Trebizond Timeline

[pls don't ban me]

View attachment 663515
Here's the map of the Empire in 1537. This one shows first-level divisions across the whole region and the mess of second-level divisions in Kartvelia. It also shows the semi-integrated vassal states of the Safiyya (south) and the Djoga Horde (north). Some of the borders have changed since they were last shown, and in particular the Nikaians have managed to push their frontier outwards in low-scale warfare with the Ottomans, who are distracted with other things.

wait, is Nikaia in front of marmara sea facing costantinople?

also, @Eparkhos i was thinking, in case our great Komnenos, manage to retake costantinople, they'll have a problem with the imperial recognition since, if i remember well, Andreas( son of thomas paleologos) willed his imperial title to spain:
"On April 7, 1502, Andreas executed his testament designating Ferdinand and Isabel and their successors as his universal heirs".

 

[Vikingen]

is it just me or it resembles some kind of mirrored+ distorted italy?

By god. I see it.

 

[pls don't ban me]

Paleologoi are still around in Morea.
Thomas Paleologos and his heirs managed to survive in a mini state which was revitalized and has become a major regional power in this TL.

ok, then i simply forgot about that. ty mate!

 

[EMT]

There's no way that David restored the second biggest enemy of his reign to his throne just for simple tribute...right? There has to be more to it. Even this loose tributary status seems extremely short-sighted when this tributary has in the recent past served as an existential threat to Trebizond.

Plus David's made a career out of making a mockery out of his status of being a tributary to the Persians, there's no way he'd think this arrangement as-is would be worth his while. I know there's a bit of foreshadowing at the end implying there's more to this than what's shown so far but this chapter ending where it does raises a lot of questions.

 

[A_simple_pilgrim]

Kadir is a eunuch who can't have heirs. David refuses to marry and doesn't have an heir yet. Perhaps he plans to groom one person to be the heir to both nations, so that they will be unified after David and Kadir's deaths.

 

[JohnSmith]

Does David have any cousins he can groom as an heir? Or the Komnenoi are getting close to extinction?

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

also, @Eparkhos i was thinking, in case our great Komnenos, manage to retake costantinople, they'll have a problem with the imperial recognition since, if i remember well, Andreas( son of thomas paleologos) willed his imperial title to spain:
"On April 7, 1502, Andreas executed his testament designating Ferdinand and Isabel and their successors as his universal heirs".

Why would that matter? The Empire of the Romans is by custom not a strictly hereditary title due to its roots stemming from its Republican past. Thus all Emperors derive their authority from the "Senate and People of Rome." Thus if the Rhomaioi will their emperors to be the Komnenoi, then that is the basis by which they rule regardless of what the Spanish King thinks. After all if dynastic claims were truly a factor then Rhomania would have eagerly accepted the rule of the Latin puppet Alexios IV.

@Eparkhos I finally caught up with this tl! Its so awesome that I feel inspired once again to finish the other chapters for my own Komnenian tl.

 

[Whiteshore]

Why would that matter? The Empire of the Romans is by custom not a strictly hereditary title due to its roots stemming from its Republican past. Thus all Emperors derive their authority from the "Senate and People of Rome." Thus if the Rhomaioi will their emperors to be the Komnenoi, then that is the basis by which they rule regardless of what the Spanish King thinks. After all if dynastic claims were truly a factor then Rhomania would have eagerly accepted the rule of the Latin puppet Alexios IV.

Besides, it would have been butterflied away by the fact that Morea still hangs on ITTL.

 

[Denliner]

So far David has done a fantastic job in crushing the old Kartvelian feudal holdings and brought a sense of stability for the region after the major screw up that was Ananuri. Hopefully we'll see either Kartvelia become a stable junior partner or a part of the Trapezuntine Empire in the future, though the issue of the succession could screw everything up real quick.

As for Kadir, he comes back with a vengeance after losing the Neo-Rumite Empire. I do like the relationship between Kadir and David, knowing they have some side deals that will guarantee favor with each other. So far I'm not comfortable in the future on both empires because of the lack of succession, since Kadir is a eunuch and David basically doesn't want to have kids at such a critical time.

I wonder if there's a magical individual that can unite the Karamanid and Komnenoi families together, or perhaps that is what both Kadir and David desire behind the scenes. Who knows, as long as at least one country has an actual ruler.

 

[Pergington]

Wait is David trying to lay the foundations for a personal union between Ruminite, Kartvelia, and Trapezous? Otherwise, his actions seem to speak more as him fucking around more.

 

[Vikingen]

Hey where are you planning for David next wife to come from. I do believe he should marry a Nobel women from Nicaea or maybe from mainland Greece, but most likely from Nicaea. Not sure if that’s a good idea but it is an idea.

 

[Avrorrange]

Hey where are you planning for David next wife to come from. I do believe he should marry a Nobel women from Nicaea or maybe from mainland Greece, but most likely from Nicaea. Not sure if that’s a good idea but it is an idea.

Update wrote he won’t have another wife.He planned to live out his days wifeless and childless.

Why would that matter? The Empire of the Romans is by custom not a strictly hereditary title due to its roots stemming from its Republican past. Thus all Emperors derive their authority from the "Senate and People of Rome." Thus if the Rhomaioi will their emperors to be the Komnenoi, then that is the basis by which they rule regardless of what the Spanish King thinks. After all if dynastic claims were truly a factor then Rhomania would have eagerly accepted the rule of the Latin puppet Alexios IV.

@Eparkhos I finally caught up with this tl! Its so awesome that I feel inspired once again to finish the other chapters for my own Komnenian tl.

From the perspective of the Komnenians, all of the non-Komnenian emperors are usurpers, and in this timeline, the Trepezuntines have accepted the Komnenians as THE dynasty.

 

[Vikingen]

Update wrote he won’t have another wife.He planned to live out his days wireless and childless.

Does he have any brothers or any other family members who can take over after his death. If not then this can be the end of the komnenoi line.

 

[Avrorrange]

Does he have any brothers or any other family members who can take over after his death. If not then this can be the end of the komnenoi line.

No siblings,but he does have shit loads of relatives abroad.His arsehole of a grandfather for example sired a separate line as feudal lords in the HRE.His uncle is roughly the same age as David.

 

[Jürgen]

No siblings,but he does have shit loads of relatives abroad.His arsehole of a grandfather for example sired a separate line as feudal lords in the HRE.His uncle is roughly the same age as David.

Honestly such a line being imported from the HRE would be interesting, as it would create a deeper connection with Western Europ.

 

[Shiva]

Update wrote he won’t have another wife.He planned to live out his days wifeless and childless.

From the perspective of the Komnenians, all of the non-Komnenian emperors are usurpers, and in this timeline, the Trepezuntines have accepted the Komnenians as THE dynasty.

Yes, but the Byzantine succession and the Ottoman succession have something in common, the theme of 'As God/Allah wills it'. Meaning if some ambitious fellow can seize the throne and hold it, then he is legitimate.

David not being willing to remarry and continue his line could open a path to a new dynasty taking the throne, especially if his relatives in western Europe do something like covert to the Catholic Church or are seen as 'too Western' or hell, they just can't make it to Trebizond in time to stop a takeover.

 

[Pergington]

Honestly such a line being imported from the HRE would be interesting, as it would create a deeper connection with Western Europ.

Yeah but it just doesn’t have the zing the Komenos have. Also, I feel way too attached to them to let a usurper dynasty rule over the Empire considering they were the last good dynasty.

 

[Avrorrange]

Yeah but it just doesn’t have the zing the Komenos have. Also, I feel way too attached to them to let a usurper dynasty rule over the Empire considering they were the last good dynasty.

The HRE branch are Komnenians as well.

 

[Denliner]

Honestly such a line being imported from the HRE would be interesting, as it would create a deeper connection with Western Europ.

I really doubt this is going to happen as:

• The line's progenitor is an Emperor that effectively abandoned their people at a time of crisis, causing a whole host of problems for the country that ended with David's rise to the purple. The Romans would rather be dead than let a traitor's family come back into the empire, imo.
• The HRE is a rival claimant to the legacy of the Roman Empire along with the Trapezuntines and the Moreans. Admitting one as the Empire feels like a way for the Emperor to fully solidify his claim as the true Roman Empire over the Greeks, since a duke from the HRE now owns the Empire of Trebizond as his personal territory (I feel like the Holy Roman Empire should push this regardless in the event of David's death).
• There's no point in the Romans trying to be "closer" to Western Europe as they're not directly involved with the politics of the region. In fact, I just see it as a detriment as the HRE duke would probably attempt to siphon funds and troops from Trebizond in order to fund his own campaigns at home since he has no loyalty to the Romans as a whole.

In the case that the main Komnenid line is extinct, I just think it's more reasonable for some other nobleman from the royal court, a Kartvelian, or even a Turk like a Karamanid to be Emperor than the Komnenoi branch at the HRE.

 

[Avrorrange]

I really doubt this is going to happen as:

• The line's progenitor is an Emperor that effectively abandoned their people at a time of crisis, causing a whole host of problems for the country that ended with David's rise to the purple. The Romans would rather be dead than let a traitor's family come back into the empire, imo.
• The HRE is a rival claimant to the legacy of the Roman Empire along with the Trapezuntines and the Moreans. Admitting one as the Empire feels like a way for the Emperor to fully solidify his claim as the true Roman Empire over the Greeks, since a duke from the HRE now owns the Empire of Trebizond as his personal territory (I feel like the Holy Roman Empire should push this regardless in the event of David's death).
• There's no point in the Romans trying to be "closer" to Western Europe as they're not directly involved with the politics of the region. In fact, I just see it as a detriment as the HRE duke would probably attempt to siphon funds and troops from Trebizond in order to fund his own campaigns at home since he has no loyalty to the Romans as a whole.

In the case that the main Komnenid line is extinct, I just think it's more reasonable for some other nobleman from the royal court, a Kartvelian, or even a Turk like a Karamanid to be Emperor than the Komnenoi branch at the HRE.

Apart from the HRE Komnenians, several were mentioned to have fled to places like Morea to escape the purges of the mad basileus.But apart from the fact that people would not want another descendant of the traitor running the place,I see no reason why the HRE branch would not do an alright job.They are only minor princes in the HRE.They would not be spending their time in some dirt poor backwater when they would be ruling a much larger realm in the east as their own boss.Chances are,they’d give up their fief to some other relative given it would be impossible to rule to territories separate from each other.As for a Turk?That is even less likely.How much Roman blood has been shed by the Turk?Even now, Constantinople is ruled by a Turk.

Another issue is that a random noblemen simply could not ascend the throne because Trebizond’s legitimacy as a Roman successor state derives from prestige of the Komnenians.It is their source of national pride.If they were to get rid of the Komnenians, they would be in a worst position legitimacy wise than the Empire of Morea.