What I mean by the title is what if Egypt remained fragmented and cannibalized by its neighbors to the point it where a Pharaoh can never rise again. I suppose this would me more a political death as I'm certain the culture would survive in some hybridized form.
On the other hand what if the Hittites are just temporarily weakened and rebound later to reform and rebuild their Empire. The line of kings battered but unbroken. What are the immediate ramifications of a world changed in this way? How do groups like the Assyrians, Nubians, Axumites, and Sea Peoples, etc react? How does this effect the Eastern Mediterranean and the larger world in the long run?