A South East Asian timeline and Butterflies on Europe

I was thinking of making a TL on South East Asia whose POD is late 13th century , is it possible for Europe to go in a similar way as OTL until it contacts South East Asia and East Asia?
 
In the 13th century, it already has. But unless your timeline involves massive changes to trade routes or religious geography, Europe will probably be minimally affected.
 
In the 13th century, it already has. But unless your timeline involves massive changes to trade routes or religious geography, Europe will probably be minimally affected.


So that means I should limit or avoid substantial contact between Asia and Europe that would bring change to Europe before their OTL contact.
 
So that means I should limit or avoid substantial contact between Asia and Europe that would bring change to Europe before their OTL contact.
Butterfly fundamentalism (which I, personally, feel is the most realistic option) predicts that, no matter what you change or whether you affect the amount of transeurasian contact, Europe will most likely be very different from its OTL result.

That doesn't mean it's implausible for an Englishman named William Shakespeare to end up writing plays for a Scottish king who inherits England in your timeline (it happened in ours, after all!); it's just unnecessarily close to OTL.
 

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Butterflies are unpredictable. One thing in Vietnam influence something in China that create an important change for the steppe nomads which change up things in Russia which in turn has a huge impact on Western Europe.
 
So that means I should limit or avoid substantial contact between Asia and Europe that would bring change to Europe before their OTL contact.

The point to butterflies is that they are random. The less contact there is, the greater the plausibility of little change. But even without any direct contact (which IOTL did happen regularly, though on a small scale) there will be changes. Europe will not be exactly the same. As long as you don't have massively greater contact (e.g. a Mongol conquest of Syria, a lasting Timurid empire or somesuch), you can argue that the place should stay broadly the same. There will still be a papacy, a printing press, and religious disputes, but it is unlikely that Martin Luther will post his theses in 1517 as per OTL.
 
On the4 flip side, a lot of things do happent he same. Some of the problems people have with the massive chaos theory is that it exaggerates the unpredictable nature.

Things will be more likely to be the same with nobles who marry the same people - yes, one could argue that with all those sperm there have to be differences, but to use an earlier example, the same Scottish king inheriting England 2-3 centuries later is still believeable enough unless there are massive changes that impact who intermarries with who.
Merchants and others who are not nobles and don't have to limit themselves to certain families to be married,a nd who travel from place to place, are more likely to be impacted.

There's also creativity - how able are you to come up with new characters historically. I say right up front that I just don't hve the time or energy to create entirely new people. I think if you're honest with people they'll be accepting, but it's still good not to go overboard. Shakespeare, as noted, is possible, as I believe is Martin Luther - although with the latter there's no reason why you can't have Huss or Wycliffe as the founder of the Reformation the way I did the Waldensians in "Sweet lands of Liberty." But, the more contact there is, the more likely they are to be impcted. It's easier to figure monarchs will be the same than it is the peasants.
 
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