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Alright, I've heard of the popular (notorious?) Byziwank timelines here....but I have a (relatively) specific question about two respective Byzantine divergences.

The standard history book seems to say that Manzikert is what shattered the empire, turned it into a "shadow" of itself, etc,etc. I've always felt this to be a bit of 20/20 hindsight, especially considering the Komnenian Restoration of the following century. Then we have Myriokephalon, in which virtually the same things are said. I did some research on these boards, and I was surprised to see some opinions that the Byzantines could have held on not only to the City, but to mainland Greece and Western Anatolia with a POD all the way up to the Palaiologos reconquest circa latter 13th century.

My question is, what do you think the difference is in Byzantine fortunes, when your POD is Manzikert (which never happens), versus a Manzikert that does happen but a Myriokephalon that either doesn't happen or ends up in a Byzantine win. I was always under the impression that the battles themselves weren't terminal, but their political overtones were. So basically, would the Byzantines' fate be much worse (if at all) following a Manzikert loss/Myriokephalon win, versus a Manzikert win/ Manzikert butterflied away? What's going to be the big difference? Does this make sense?
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