AHC: A Longer Dark Ages.

How could the dark ages as it is known be extended? I know it had some good parts how would be the best way of keeping around longer?
 

sdrucker

Banned
How could the dark ages as it is known be extended? I know it had some good parts how would be the best way of keeping around longer?

What good parts, assuming it's Europe up for discussion? Nomadic invasions? Decline of learning, bubonic plague, and the collapse of urban civilization?
 
By the point the printing press was developed in Europe, the Dark Ages in any sense that term isn't just flat wrong have been over for centuries.
 
Several of those aren't really things related to medieval man, and the idea that there was "a great period of peace within the Western nations." is hysterical.
 
Make the Western Roman Empire last longer and become more corrupt.

At the same time, have Attila the Hun invade Constantinople, succeeding because an earthquake struck the city no less than a week or two before he attacks (completely plausible, there were several huge earthquakes in the area in that time period).

Then have an earlier rise of an alternate version of Islam. The Berber-Arab state that results could raid throughout the coasts of the Mediterranean, destroying the economies there.
 
Make the Western Roman Empire last longer and become more corrupt.

At the same time, have Attila the Hun invade Constantinople, succeeding because an earthquake struck the city no less than a week or two before he attacks (completely plausible, there were several huge earthquakes in the area in that time period).

The first is kind of contradictory - if the WRE is more corrupt, it won't last longer.

The second . . . even if Constantinople's walls are damaged by a huge earthquake, there's still the garrison of the city. And fighting like this does not play to the Hun strengths.
 
The first is kind of contradictory - if the WRE is more corrupt, it won't last longer.
However, the longer it lasts, the more corrupt it becomes.

Have some barbarian, probably an Ostrogoth, buy out or hold hostage the Roman Empire, then claim himself a Roman Emperor (or probably King of the Romans unless the Eastern Emperor or some Roman general gives him support) and try to reconquer various areas.

Once he dies everything falls apart and is worse than it would've been without him.

You could also have the Eastern Romans undertake a more extensive attempt at restoring the West, leading to just as much carnage as OTL and further plague spreading.

The second . . . even if Constantinople's walls are damaged by a huge earthquake, there's still the garrison of the city. And fighting like this does not play to the Hun strengths.
True.

It's still possible though if a long shot. And the attack does not have to conquer and hold Constantinople, just enter the city and devastate it.
 
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