Impact of this Byzantine Empire surviving to the present day
Mainly because it often happens that the circumstances of how something happens effects the result. For this to make sense to me I need to imagine a country that roles sixes constantly in various ways. Technological breakthroughs and wealth can smooth over many problems.
1. Very powerful
2. I can't see a centralised state with size lasting in the era of poor communication. I would suggest that major regional governors in Rome and Alexandria might have responsibility for Italy and Egypt and North Africa.
3. I find it difficult to believe in the survival of a Byzantine empire without massive amounts of luck at appropriate times. I would imagine technological breakthroughs at the right time could smooth difficulties so an earlier renaissance would be likely.
4. I'm not good on cultural things like that so I won't answer.
5. The empire has to become wealthy simply because wealth smooths over the many problems suggested by other posters.
6. I feel any schism would be Imperial Christian vs non Imperial Christian. It would be difficult for any non imperial Christian sect establishing legitimacy and mass appeal. Perhaps patriarchs establishing in many countries and diverging over time.
7. Can't see a holy roman empire forming.
Considering the vast majority of wealth in medieval Europe (and really Europe up til the late Renaissance) was concentrated around the Mediterranean, it's likely that the Byzantines would only really be challenged by potential rivals in Iberia or the Frankish kingdoms (keeping in mind no HRE and no Muslim conquests of North Africa or Spain) when the New World starts to be colonized. More than likely every one of the Germanic people groups would be different, to say nothing of the Slavs or Turkic peoples. The Romans would undoubtedly dominate trade with the east and may even take the role of Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands in the Indian ocean far earlier than those powers did otl. Frankly, though ASB in my opinion, the Basileia Rhōmaiōn would more than likely be the worlds superpower depending on how they deal with China and the New World.
The empire of the Palaiologoi could have survived to the 21st century with a lot better luck. I think you could have a powerful Christian Greek speaking state based in Anatolia instead of the powerful Muslim Turkish speaking state that we got. Any country controlling Anatolia would have been powerful and there was no great reason for it to remain Christian and Greek speaking.
Keeping an empire embracing all of Justinian's conquests intact becomes problematic enough that we really need a good POD. The main problem is that until tech and particularly communications reached a certain level, empires of that size simply didn't keep from falling apart after a few centuries. Even the great Chinese dynasties fell apart after a few centuries. The second is what seems to have been a great plague in the sixth century that seemed to hit all the areas where this empire would raise troops and revenue hard. The empire also had big religious unity problems even before Islam arose. The sixth century emperors seemed to have done a good job with what they had to work with, its hard to find any obvious mistakes.
Removing the sixth century plague, or Islam to name another potential POD, both have huge butterflies.
European culture with a surviving Mediterranean empire would be more "Chinese" in that there would be less change and more continuity. However, in the long run the biggest potential power center at the western edge of Eurasia is the Paris-London-Dortmund triangle, where you had the confluence of rivers, great agricultural land, and eventually large coal and iron deposits. Eventually a Mediterranean empire would be eclipsed by a power or powers controlling all or part of that triangle, as the Ottomans eventually were.
Keeping an empire embracing all of Justinian's conquests intact becomes problematic enough that we really need a good POD. The main problem is that until tech and particularly communications reached a certain level, empires of that size simply didn't keep from falling apart after a few centuries. Even the great Chinese dynasties fell apart after a few centuries. The second is what seems to have been a great plague in the sixth century that seemed to hit all the areas where this empire would raise troops and revenue hard. The empire also had big religious unity problems even before Islam arose. The sixth century emperors seemed to have done a good job with what they had to work with, its hard to find any obvious mistakes.
Removing the sixth century plague, or Islam to name another potential POD, both have huge butterflies.
European culture with a surviving Mediterranean empire would be more "Chinese" in that there would be less change and more continuity. However, in the long run the biggest potential power center at the western edge of Eurasia is the Paris-London-Dortmund triangle, where you had the confluence of rivers, great agricultural land, and eventually large coal and iron deposits. Eventually a Mediterranean empire would be eclipsed by a power or powers controlling all or part of that triangle, as the Ottomans eventually were.
One particular POD you'd need for this timeline to start with the right foot: having the Krakatoa erupt at least 50 years before it did in OTL, since it was its eruption in 535 that kick-started the series of unfortunate events known as the VI Century Crisis.
It may sound ASB, but volcanic eruptions are like earthquakes: you can guess when the next one should happen, but you can't say when it really will.
It may sound ASB, but volcanic eruptions are like earthquakes: you can guess when the next one should happen, but you can't say when it really will.
People lash back against the idea that you can basically reverse-ISOT a series of borders, regardless of relevant historical factors, many centuries beyond OTL elimination and virtually one millennium and a half beyond the apogee and present it. At that point, answers can only veer into wild mass guessing area.
I would say that the number of sixes needed to keep this monstrosity intact in the long run actually is functionally ASB, even if all the single rolls would not be.
Compare it with my suggestion of Persia - we have OTL demonstration that there has been some kind of power in there, hungry to reach the Mediterranean, basically from 1000 BCE to 1900 CE with brief respites and despite individual civilizations rolling their fair share of lows. So that's something you can actually count on happening, from a historical analysis standpoint.
This premise I like but I can't find conducive to debate, in the way the worst kind of wank is not. Because OP has asked 'let us ignore all historical factors', so what do we debate on? The scale and scope of the butterfly host is such that anything and their opposite is equally likely.
It doesn't have to be THE EXACT POLITICAL BORDERS for 2 millennia, just to end up roughly similar - like how 1st dynasty Egypt and Ptomelemaic Egypt were roughly similar, but had gone through a lot in between. OK, for the purposes of the challenge there can't be Persian or Greek external rule, but other than that, it seems valid.
I think keeping Italy north of the Naples-Bari line is pretty tough and unless Islam is butterflied away and/or nerfed (al-Walid dying at Yarmouk is a good POD) keeping North Africa/the Levant will also be tough.
I think keeping the Byzantines alive and kicking in OTL Turkey/Greece/Bulgaria/Albania and parts of Serbia/Croatia/Macedonia/Montenegro (basically, this map) is actually a lot easier as you can use the Danube and the Zagros Mountains as a natural defense line.
The ERE had a run of bad Emperors and worse luck which helped end them. Reversing that and there's no reason why the ERE can't survive a lot longer, possibly to the modern day.
I think keeping the Byzantines alive and kicking in OTL Turkey/Greece/Bulgaria/Albania and parts of Serbia/Croatia/Macedonia/Montenegro (basically, this map) is actually a lot easier as you can use the Danube and the Zagros Mountains as a natural defense line.
The ERE had a run of bad Emperors and worse luck which helped end them. Reversing that and there's no reason why the ERE can't survive a lot longer, possibly to the modern day.
Ayyubids are right out. They were founded on the territory on Byzantine area as per PoD.
And the Turks stay in the East, never winning Mantzikert.
Without Turks, Austria is not going to unite with Hungary.
So...
a) Byzantines win Yarmuk, and keep Syria and Egypt, or
b) Maurice makes concessions in time, his army never mutinies, and Khosrow II never attacks Roman Empire.
If Maurice (and his heirs) stay at peace with Khosrow till 630s (remember, Khosrow was violently killed because of losing the war - butterfly it away and he lives longer), what would longer-lived Maurice do about Lombards?
I don't think it's that impossible if the Byzantines can accomplish the double whammy of ending their standing tradition of coups and court intrigue and leverage dynastic alliances with other states in Europe and the Balkans early on. Getting rid of the former lends itself to the latter and should make cooperation with Byzantium's Emperors more appealing to European powers that place high values on lineage and familial ties. Once the period of migrations is over I think establishing either a personal union/shared dynasty with the Hungarians/whoever ends up south of the Carpathians, or a stronger Byzantium propping multiple bickering vassals along the north of the Danube up to the Dneister that act as a meat shield for the Balkan core is not only probable but mandatory so as to allow the Byzantines to flex onto the Mediterranean and the Middle East more aggressively. Meanwhile you have relatively docile northern neighbor in Hungary-analogue that's tied with you at the hip, or you've got a lot of bickering states that are heavily tied to you by marriage and are dependent on you to guarantee their independence. Not strong enough to threaten Byzantium, not strong enough to conquer other petty states, not strong enough to ward off an aggressive power like a Poland analogue unless Byzantium's there to provide the teeth. All likely to be Hellenized with time too and if the entire process is stable, could result in being slowly integrated into the metropole and give Byzantium a border along the Carpathians.
Next on the agenda is Italy. So long as Byzantium is secure along the Danube and holds a defensible position in Anatolia(the Taurus mountains?), then Byzantium can leverage it's naval advantage to eat Italy again. If Rome is brought down early enough then Byzantium's nominal supremacy over Christendom in the West is far more secure. With how strongly early Christian states (supposedly) leveraged their legitimacy from the Romans and with Byzantium not being othered by Catholicism, then the perception of Roman legitimacy will hold far more weight for far longer, giving the Byzantines time to reach a position where they can leverage that perception. IE giving them that Middle Kingdom legitimacy, to a lesser extent. They're never going to be marching into Lisbon or Paris while being met with the perception that they're the rightful rulers of the land establishing stability in the realm but they'll have a good bit of clout in the entire Mediterranean between trade, the navy, and military dominance.
On the assumption that Rome in Europe is as secure as a medieval state can be, then Rome can start leveraging that angle of 'Byzantium #1 Christian' for Crusade-analogues appealing to piety and religious fervor. Which is where I imagine the vast majority of Roman resources will be spent to achieve these borders by the early industrial era or thereabouts with ups and downs in both the Middle East and Europe. But with even more time and most importantly, consistency, Roman rule can be regularized at a local level throughout the vast majority of the borders the OP asked for, and even see some gains in other areas such as the Black Sea, more of the Mediterranean coasts, and even projects in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean assuming that their naval dominance leads to a positive trajectory in expanding naval power akin to many states of the Early Modern era.
If this ATL world follows the same patterns as OTL in minority groups receiving nation states, then these periphery conquests are shed and you end up with the core pictured in the OP, more or less. Presto, you've got a rough blueprint to reach those borders. To actually answer the OP's question:
1) This Byzantium is all-in on the navy. The Suez Canal is built, the entire Mediterranean is regularly patrolled, they almost certainly have a conquered, leased, or allied naval base in the Western Mediterranean, and if a hostile power controls the Straights of Gibraltar instead of them then they are enemy #1. Control of the Straights has been a geopolitical objective since the industrial era or its equivalent onwards, and chances are they own it outright.
2) They have any states along the Danube or Dnieper rivers by the balls. The Caucasus, the Armenian/Kurd homelands, Upper Egypt/Sudan, and Eastern Saharan up to Lake Chad. Every single one of these countries are either Byzantium-aligned or suffering from serious economic issues and their derivative consequences such as political instability, widespread poverty, etc. to varying degrees with the countries along the Danube, Lake Chad, and the Dnieper being the most insulated in that order from pressure from Byzantium due to other neighbors on which they can potentially leverage versus Byzantium with both the resources and means to provide them access to international trade.
3) Either the Ethiopians/a state in the Horn is a power in their own right, or Byzantium has control of the Red Sea straights outright or via aligned states. Like the Straights of Gibraltar, they are way too vital to be under the control of hostile powers, especially under the oversight of a strong Byzantine navy all to close by
4) The Arab Peninsula is the most awkward place ever for Byzantine diplomats. If Islam was butterflied then much like the Danube, the Hejaz probably spent centuries under the Byzantine sphere of influence(or was a pirate haven) and the interior was either puppet states or as tribal as IOTL, maybe even more so. Depending on the economic and political status of the Arab states upon the first discoveries of oil, you've got plenty of potential scenarios. Client kingdoms, direct conquests and occupations, perhaps parts were already provinces at the time of discovery. Then on the Gulf Coast you've likely got Persian aligned or Iranized states, propping up rival states between Byzantium and a Persia-analogue, etc. Arabia is a political background for Byzantium in any scenario that doesn't see them control Iraq outright, and that's before we get to the idea of non-butterflied Islam. Best case scenario is that Arabia was Hellenized to an extent in a no Islam scenario and more or less brought into the fold as oil took off but that's heavily unlikely IMO.
5) The Indian Ocean is a big question mark. It could be Byzantium's big new geopolitical frontier in the late 19th and 20th century or it could be the primary power broker throughout the entire Indian Ocean and Greek Australia is a thing. It's up to the scenario in mind but it's worth keeping in mind that resources in the Indian Ocean is going to cost a fair bit before the Suez canal takes off and it receives commercial support and as always, that has opportunity cost
6) I don't care to address Western and Central Europe, they're the least interesting part of this scenario by far :^)
Next on the agenda is Italy. So long as Byzantium is secure along the Danube and holds a defensible position in Anatolia(the Taurus mountains?), then Byzantium can leverage it's naval advantage to eat Italy again. If Rome is brought down early enough then Byzantium's nominal supremacy over Christendom in the West is far more secure. With how strongly early Christian states (supposedly) leveraged their legitimacy from the Romans and with Byzantium not being othered by Catholicism, then the perception of Roman legitimacy will hold far more weight for far longer, giving the Byzantines time to reach a position where they can leverage that perception. IE giving them that Middle Kingdom legitimacy, to a lesser extent. They're never going to be marching into Lisbon or Paris while being met with the perception that they're the rightful rulers of the land establishing stability in the realm but they'll have a good bit of clout in the entire Mediterranean between trade, the navy, and military dominance.
On the assumption that Rome in Europe is as secure as a medieval state can be, then Rome can start leveraging that angle of 'Byzantium #1 Christian' for Crusade-analogues appealing to piety and religious fervor. Which is where I imagine the vast majority of Roman resources will be spent to achieve these borders by the early industrial era or thereabouts with ups and downs in both the Middle East and Europe. But with even more time and most importantly, consistency, Roman rule can be regularized at a local level throughout the vast majority of the borders the OP asked for, and even see some gains in other areas such as the Black Sea, more of the Mediterranean coasts, and even projects in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean assuming that their naval dominance leads to a positive trajectory in expanding naval power akin to many states of the Early Modern era.
If this ATL world follows the same patterns as OTL in minority groups receiving nation states, then these periphery conquests are shed and you end up with the core pictured in the OP, more or less. Presto, you've got a rough blueprint to reach those borders. To actually answer the OP's question:
1) This Byzantium is all-in on the navy. The Suez Canal is built, the entire Mediterranean is regularly patrolled, they almost certainly have a conquered, leased, or allied naval base in the Western Mediterranean, and if a hostile power controls the Straights of Gibraltar instead of them then they are enemy #1. Control of the Straights has been a geopolitical objective since the industrial era or its equivalent onwards, and chances are they own it outright.
2) They have any states along the Danube or Dnieper rivers by the balls. The Caucasus, the Armenian/Kurd homelands, Upper Egypt/Sudan, and Eastern Saharan up to Lake Chad. Every single one of these countries are either Byzantium-aligned or suffering from serious economic issues and their derivative consequences such as political instability, widespread poverty, etc. to varying degrees with the countries along the Danube, Lake Chad, and the Dnieper being the most insulated in that order from pressure from Byzantium due to other neighbors on which they can potentially leverage versus Byzantium with both the resources and means to provide them access to international trade.
3) Either the Ethiopians/a state in the Horn is a power in their own right, or Byzantium has control of the Red Sea straights outright or via aligned states. Like the Straights of Gibraltar, they are way too vital to be under the control of hostile powers, especially under the oversight of a strong Byzantine navy all to close by
4) The Arab Peninsula is the most awkward place ever for Byzantine diplomats. If Islam was butterflied then much like the Danube, the Hejaz probably spent centuries under the Byzantine sphere of influence(or was a pirate haven) and the interior was either puppet states or as tribal as IOTL, maybe even more so. Depending on the economic and political status of the Arab states upon the first discoveries of oil, you've got plenty of potential scenarios. Client kingdoms, direct conquests and occupations, perhaps parts were already provinces at the time of discovery. Then on the Gulf Coast you've likely got Persian aligned or Iranized states, propping up rival states between Byzantium and a Persia-analogue, etc. Arabia is a political background for Byzantium in any scenario that doesn't see them control Iraq outright, and that's before we get to the idea of non-butterflied Islam. Best case scenario is that Arabia was Hellenized to an extent in a no Islam scenario and more or less brought into the fold as oil took off but that's heavily unlikely IMO.
5) The Indian Ocean is a big question mark. It could be Byzantium's big new geopolitical frontier in the late 19th and 20th century or it could be the primary power broker throughout the entire Indian Ocean and Greek Australia is a thing. It's up to the scenario in mind but it's worth keeping in mind that resources in the Indian Ocean is going to cost a fair bit before the Suez canal takes off and it receives commercial support and as always, that has opportunity cost
6) I don't care to address Western and Central Europe, they're the least interesting part of this scenario by far :^)
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The East soldiered on 800 years after the Arab invasions. Under the Macedonian dynasty it took back lost land. The empire of Basil II in the 11th century had a real GDP greater than that of the empire under Justinian and Anastasius. Even during the Arab invasions, the Romans took back Egypt and Carthage at various points. It also had the most effective army in Europe for near millennia and was the most advanced state in Christendom up until 1204.
Why would the Romans stop at these borders anyway? If Justinian is successful without the plague or the Persian wars (They face pressure from Hephthalites) his successors could easily take back Iberia, Southern Gaul, and Mauretania (or vassalize it under a client king) in the span of decades after Justinian's conquests are integrated. Justinian took the richest parts of Iberia after the plague when the empire was bankrupt with a small expeditionary force. This alone serves as a testament to the quality of Roman troops compared to that of the other barbarian kingdoms. Gaul could be taken back after gavel-kind causes the Frankish realm to fight amongst each other. The Romans come in as allies of one faction then take over the whole place. That's what Caesar did in Gaul. That's what the Romans did in Greece with the Aetolian league after beating back the Seleucids for the Aetolians.
A slower pod for what the op posted could be that Maurice isn't assassinated and his sons take back Italy from the Lombards and rebuild the state. Maurice also gets to restore the Balkans under Roman rule had the soldiers not revolted. The state eventually takes back Iberia and and maybe Southern Gaul.
Sorry, but this just reeks of Byzantinophilia.
The East soldered on, but even after Basil it still only controlled half of the lands it held under Justinian. The GDP Is a moot point - 600 years of technological and demographic growth do that, and they never regained Egypt or Carthage after losing them - they only briefly raided Alexandria, a couple different times.