I doubt it's possible, but one POD might be to have the Ilkhan Gaykhatu be successful. He had successful foreign affairs during his rule, but domestically was a failure. He introduced Chinese style paper money to Persia, which even had Chinese characters on it since the block printers were...
There's also the matter of the Genoese and Venetians. Why wouldn't eventually one of them just cut a deal with whatever Turkish power is dominant in Anatolia and officially or unofficially help them to take Constantinople in exchange for protecting their merchant communities and trading rights...
On the other hand, you have the Warring States era in China which saw a lot of innovation in not just military fields and was also famous for its philosophers and scholars.
Overall it's better to say military competition directs technology down a particular path, like how massive government...
By the point in time Osman came to power, Byzantium is a spent force and it's only a matter of time before they're destroyed. Andronikos II is among the most inept rulers in history for his multitude of bad decisions. During Osman's era they really lucked out on things like managing to...
My concept is that Julian would be the beginning of a "pagan counteroffensive" (so to speak) based on institutions he innovated, the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (there was a lot of crossover between Jews and Christians in this era), and inspiration for scholars and philosophers to...
Probably more distinct Southern culture, since the aforementioned Magnolia League schools were at one point major centers of Southern intellectuals. Maybe less "carpetbagger" types because having an education from the North would be less valuable in the South?
These are private colleges which...
Sol Invictus's personification is the Sun, which is independent from the physical object that we call the Sun. So more knowledge about the Sun wouldn't exactly kill worship of Sol Invictus any more than people learning more about engineering rivers killed the worship of river gods. Even OTL, the...
India has ample coalfields, forests, and a lot of potential for water wheels. But the interesting thing I was reading about the other day suggests that a lot of technology in India did not arrive until the era of the Delhi Sultanate. Like the famous spinning wheels (think Gandhi and one of his...
East Asian toponymy can get very abstract, like look at all the places meaning something like "east of the mountains" (Shandong) or "north of the river" (Hebei). You might get something . Or you might get an indigenous toponym, like "Taiwan" which is from the native name for a river on that...
That's straight up determinism. North Africa was incredibly Christian to the point of being famed for fanatical sects like the Circumcellions (although that sect may have been a regional African version of the Bagaudae peasant rebels). There were dozens of bishoprics and many both urban and...
It's a place given to humanity by the gods so that humans might one day return to a divine state. That's very different than seeing the world as a fundamentally evil place as in Christianity or Gnosticism.
It's also an idea which has obvious mass appeal given it appears in many different...
Platonism =/= Gnosticism. Plotinus for instance wrote in opposition of Gnosticism and condemned it for believing the creator was evil. That doesn't sound like he thought there was a tyrannical demiurge, and in fact quite the opposite where the world was a necessary place to exist until one's...
Crossposting the latest map from my TL, Sea of Blood, Sea of Ice. I envisioned with the success of the Mongols in Japan TTL and resulting butterflies from the Japanese goods (everything from rice to gold to silver) seized and exported to China that this might result in the success of the...
Threadmarks: Map 4-Eastern Mediterranean after the Tenth Crusade
Here is a map of the Eastern Mediterranean at the start of 1307. It chronologically followers Chapter 38 and shows the result of the Mongol-Papal alliance that resulted in the successful Tenth Crusade and defeat of the Mamluks along with the formation of the Kingdom of Anatolia by the Catalan...