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I think it was quite detrimental in the areas that the plague hit, you have the suffering and death of millions. On the other hand, it was probably beneficial in the same way that discovering the new world to humanity as a whole. Many people died but humanity on the whole benefited from...

Sicily first, push back into Southern Italy to reassert themselves to the West and the Papacy. The ERE would still have occasional wars in the Balkans to maintain their Danube frontier, either with Serb or Bulgarian potentates, or to tribal foes fresh from the steppes. The ERE would have to...

Well, yes. But isn't it true that a sense of protonationalism kept Persian culture distinct as its own national identity? We can see this as far back at least as the founding of the Sassanids, and the preservation of a Persian identity even during the Achaemanid period following Alexander's...

The damage certainly was heavy. After the defeats by the Arabs, it took how long for Persian nationalism to assert itself? 200 years?

Even then, Basil II had to rescue and sack various Dukes and other frontier lords several times when they suffered defeats from the Fatimids. Personally, I think the Fatimids and 10-11th century Byzantines were mostly equal with each other, and were more interested in maintaining the status...

I think that the idea that the mercenary forces raised by the state were inferior in loyalty or quality to natively raised Byzantine 'theme' soldiers is really an outdated and disproved concept. The state raised mercenary forces in the first place in order to centralize control of the military...

I don't see how this is a good thing for the Empire. Byzantium became far more conservative and intolerant without competing Christian dialogue and population/ethnic centers.

Well, an argument could be made that the centralization of the nearly defunct Orthodox church at the very least slowed conversion of its former adherent's to Islam. Weren't the Copts in particular faring poorly under Mamluk rule? Even today they constitute by far the largest Christian...

Well this is probably also part of the reason that the Ottomans ruled for as long as they did in the more far flung parts of their empire. One of the advantages they had (that the Byzantines and other Christian powers did not have, by the way) was that they were not attempting to enforce one...

We see modest, sustained gains in Anatolia, but take note that nothing happens in a vacuum. Alexius had to fend off major invasions from some of the very people whom he wanted to fight for him Keep in mind that Anatolia was wrecked. It would take a generation or more, and lots of investment to...

The war between Persia and the ERE had already reached equilibrium. Just like the ERE couldn't expand into Mesopotamia for fear of counter from the Iranian plateau, so couldn't the Persian's expand beyond the Mediterranean coast, because they completely lacked a navy. Not to mention the fact...

Belisarius is more successful in his Italian campaigns. He conquers Italy, has good relations with the Pope/Franks, and proclaims himself as a rival Roman Emperor in Italy. Justinian is tied down with eastern conflicts, and the status quo reigns.

Sicily benefits the empire more in terms of strategic and cultural terms. In Sicily, the empire gains the prestige of defending the boot of Italy (and subsequently, the Papacy) against the threat of Islam, as it did IRL. Additionally, Sicily had a great deal of value as a cultural repository of...

Basil II reconquers the whole of Sicily. Sicily was, truly, a bastion of Greek/Byzantine/Orthodox culture. Remember, it took the Arabs a century of continuous warfare to push the Byzantines out, and even then the island continued to revolt and host Byzantine armies of reconquest. If Basil...

Sooner or later another member of that established eastern aristocracy is going to raise another rebellion against him. This is especially assured if he allows one of them the glory of a series of successful campaigns, thereby recreating the events that allowed a man like Nikephoros Phokas to...

This is easily the best POD here. Maurice's murder and the subsequent civil war by Phocas really did such damage to the empire that it never recovered. Even Heraclius, as brilliant as he was, could only temporarily (and through almost superhuman effort) hold the empire together.

Even with a treaty in hand with the Seljuk Sultan, Turkish raids on Byzantine territory will continue - a strong victory against the lot of them would really be the only thing that could stop them from continuing to attack the Empire. It's not hard to see why Manuel wanted to win a major set...

That runs quite counter to what actually happened. The Balkans seemed to be very, erm, Balkanized until a strong outside power showed up to unite the fragments into a greater whole. Granted, the Balkans might have been becoming more and more prosperous, densely populated and such, but then...

The latest possible POD would have to be a Nicaean state that becomes more Turkified. A state that is able to do for Orthodoxy what the house of Osman did for Islam. Perhaps a half Turkish, half Anatolian Greek general that understands both sides is able to (with quite a bit of luck) bring both...

Isn't that pretty much how the army evolved with the whole Limetanei/Comitatenses reforms of the Diocletian/Constantine era? Centrally positioned professional, household troops in the major cities, while local militia garrisoned the border.