This world diverges from our own at the Battle of Manzikert between Seljuk and Byzantine forces. In this world, the battle is much more even and mutually destructive, ultimately resulting in a Seljuk victory as in OTL but with much heavier losses and the death of both Romanos IV and Alp Arslan. The young man who would become Malik-Shah I in our world is rushed from Aleppo to Isfahan to be crowned the new Sultan but dies en route when kicked in the chest by a horse. The Seljuk Empire is thrown into internal disarray and its influence is greatly weakened, particularly in Anatolia, the Levant, and the steppes. This leaves the Anatolian beyliks great freedom to pursue their own agenda, resulting in a period of warlordism but also great religious diversity as various would-be emperors either convert to a religion they find more advantageous for extending their influence or recommit to Islam and appeal to southern patrons for advantage against their neighbors.
The true PoD, the moment when this timeline becomes a world alien to our own, comes with the ascension of Oğuz Dogan to power in central Anatolia and the establishment of the Salurid beylik. Dogan had assisted in the fight against the Byzantine Empire and had become fascinated with Greek culture, history, and language. In light of the sudden decline of the Seljuk Empire, Dogan decided to make use of this interest and made an effort to build ties with the Byzantine court as well as the Doukas family, which had risen to power, and the Patriarch of Constantinople. The mutual houses of Dogan and Doukas began to grow close, as the Byzantines funded Dogan’s efforts to unite the Orthodox beyliks under one crown and spread the Orthodox faith to the people of other Anatolian beyliks while the growing Salurid presence in the Byzantine court worked to undermine opponents of the emperor and reinforce the house of Doukas’ hold on the throne.
It was only too late when Emperor Michael VIII realized Dogan had been merely consolidating his opposition and building secret networks of support for his own bid for the throne. Michael fell prey to assassination and the Patriarch thereafter proclaimed his support for Dogan’s son Constantine (the result of a marriage between Oğuz himself and a noblewoman from a Doukas cadet branch) as heir to the throne. Dogan found himself the victor of the resultant power struggle and, after killing all members of the House of Doukas that failed to flee Constantinople, Constantine XI Dogan was proclaimed Emperor of Rome. Thus the foundations were laid for the empire that would drive so much of history.
Constantine XI had a skill for diplomacy to match that of his father, and used that skill to expand the house of Dogan’s influence in Anatolia. This remained the empire’s agenda until the invasion of the Mongols. Thankfully for Anatolia, however, the Mongols proved much more focused on Arabia after steamrolling through a war-torn Iran already suffering from the collapse of the short-lived Khwarezmian Empire. While Anatolia was invaded, so much so that over half the region fell to invading forces, the stiff resistance put up by the resurgent empire and the relatively greater appeal of cities like Baghdad, Damascus, and Alexandria, ultimately drove the bulk of the Mongol armies southward. While the damage from the invading Mongol armies was great, it put the empire on track for reclamation of the region following the Mongol collapse and even expansion, as Turkish armies rode north following the conquest of Georgia into the floundering western portions of the Cuman-Kipchak Confederation. The results of this conquest were the creation of the constituent imperial kingdom Kipçaka and the tripolar imperial system that would persist for hundreds of years after. The house of Dogan was secure and the future of the (nominally) Roman Empire was bright.
Fast forward a bit to the year 1700 and the impact of Dogan’s Empire have been felt around the world. To the north, the myriad states of the Rus have finally managed to form a unified confederation. For centuries, Turkish meddling in Russian affairs had kept principalities divided and ultimately subsidiary to both the overwhelming power of the empire and its cultural weight as the center of the Orthodox world. The Confederation of the Rus is a loose-knit organization, but one with ambitions and plans for the future that worry its senior partner to the south. Plans to send Rusi settlers to the east and bring the word of Christ to the heathens have found great support from the deeply religious peasant population as well as from several wealthy Novgorodian investors.
This plan was first met with laughs from Turkish elites but then with quiet acknowledgement of the potential such a project had to shift the balance of power in the region. To counteract this, the King of the Romans and Khan of all Turks has been working with the subservient Lesser Khans of the League of Six Khans to embark on a project to settle the Siberian steppe with a hypothetical Seventh Khanate composed of Turks of all sorts. The project has seen mild success; while a name for this supposed Khanate is still the subject of debate, the Yenisei and Lena rivers, along with Lake Baikal, have seen settlement by primarily Anadolu, Kipçak, and Kazani Turks, as well as the incorporation of indigenous peoples deemed to be Turkish or “of Turkish blood”.
Further east, this project has been watched with great anger and fear by the Mongolian Khanate. Not that they’re able to do much about it; their hands are tied trying to digest the portions of China they grabbed in the wake of the Fall of Ming. While they’ve been able to keep the land they grabbed thus far, they’ll have to be watchful that none of the Big Three to the east are able to overcome the other two and unite China once more. The northernmost of these claimants, the Jin dynasty, is the result of the Jurchens uniting the region, leading a successful campaign into the Korean peninsula, and marching south to capture Beijing. While theoretically they should have enough power to overwhelm their southern neighbor, much of their energy has been spent trying to prevent rebellion in Goryeo.
Similarly, the Wei dynasty to the south should be capable of conquering the rump Ming dynasty; but are prevented from doing so due to interference from the Great Sukhothai Empire, the true source of intransigence in the current situation. The Sukhothai Kingdom came about as in OTL but had much greater success in both military conquest and the securing of power in relevant markets. By the time the Ming dynasty collapsed, Sukhothai was in a position to secure dominance over Vietnam and take the status of greatest power in eastern Asia from Chinese hands. Together with their Tibetan allies, they secured their influence over the crucial Yunnan and Sichuan regions, making it far more difficult for any one dynasty to get an edge over the others.
The Thai have not been the only ones to benefit from this vacuum of power. The fledgling Empire of Yamato has been using their uncontested naval supremacy in the region to dominate northern Chinese trade and explore regions to the north and islands to the south that are ripe to be settled and conquered. Further to the south still sits Sukhothai’s primary rival and greatest enemy; the Sultanate of al-Jawi. The relatively new polity was formed from the conquests of the Sultanate of Pasai and aided by other Muslim powers on the Indian Rim; Oman more than any. With help, Pasai proved able to conquer all of Sumatra, and then Java. Today, al-Jawi stands as a united empire of thousands of islands and part of the Malay peninsula. While the ruling class is Acehnese and the religion Islam, the empire is composed of hundreds, potentially thousands, of different langauges and ethnicities and is proud of its rich cultural patchwork.
Speaking of Oman, they have been building an empire of their own and establishing themselves as hegemon of the Indian Ocean. After Ayyubid attempts to reclaim Anatolia for Islam proved an embarrassing failure (more on this later), the Islamic community of nations looked inward and assessed how Islamic polities ought to proceed in light of this obstacle. The result was twofold: first, a reaffirmation of friendship between Muslim rulers and a general rejection of dogma (this after a prominent commander in the Anatolian campaign famously promised his troops the infidel Turks would flee at the sight of the zeal of God’s army – instead, he met one of the most humiliating defeats of the Anatolian War, one that would become legendary for Turks and Arabs alike). This resulted in an explosion of Sufi influence and a focus on regional affairs as opposed to the larger Islamic community, but also eased cooperation between otherwise opposed Islamic rulers. Second, a turn toward the south, and the spread of Islam to denizens of Africa and the islands. Oman took this directive and ran with it, and the great wealth of east African trading cities brought into their orbit have given them no reason to slow down. This has caused great tension between Oman and the Ayyubids; while Oman would describe themselves as aligned with the Ayyubid sultanate, their willingness to buck Cairo’s interests in favor of their own has led to many powerful Arabs viewing them as a rogue power.
Aside from Oman and al-Jawi, the Islamic world today can largely be broken into three spheres, or axes of power; the more conservative and integration-focused Cairo axis, made up of the Sultanate of Iraq, the Ayyubid Sultanate which also holds the title of Caliph, and their client states. To the east lay what are often referred to as the Indian powers or the Delhi axis, the more liberal and spiritual branch which sees value in decentralization and regionalism as a way for all the people of the world to find Islam on their own terms in a way that makes sense for them. To the west, the most recent bloc is composed of the great empires of Morocco and Mali to form the Marrakesh-Niani axis. These two powers have found themselves captivated by the untold promise for wealth and power in the expansive lands of America and Africa, and have slowly developed to the point where they will put their commercial and political interests ahead of Cairo’s priorities. They still heed the word of the Caliph, of course, and take the integrity of the Muslim community very seriously. But when push comes to shove and there’s money on the line, you gotta look out for #1.
Further to the north, Europe has reacted in a variety of ways to the unexpected ascendance of Orthodox Turkish power. The Hungarians, sick of conflict and condescension coming from the Germans, took the opportunity to align themselves with the Turks and managed to carve out their own little empire, even managing to secure a personal union with an ailing Poland. A sense of mutual struggle against the rest of the world (along with a mutual position of overlord over their northern Slavic neighbors) has led to a famous alliance between the two, with the two nations growing more and more closely aligned in terms of foreign policy, economic advantage, and even internal administration.
The French have done quite well for themselves. In the early days of Turkish ascendancy, the Islamic powers took notice of the fact that the Turks were trying to use their advantageous position in global trade along with their recent addition to the Christian family to build trade networks into Italy and Germany and thus secure greater influence and power in European affairs. This prompted Cairo to invest in a North African roads network and to permit heavily de-regulated North African trade with the powers of western Europe so as to undermine Turkish influence and build the possibility for a coalition against the Turks and central Europe, if such a thing became necessary. Such a thing did not become necessary, but France took advantage of the opportunity to inject large quantities of luxury goods into their economy (at the reproach of the Pope) lending weight to their already powerful position and allowing them to expand at the expense of their neighbors. Today, France stands as the behemoth of western Europe, their continental borders stretching from Zeeland to Turin, from Bilbao to Brest, while their influence grants them hegemony over southern Britain and Iberia. With a growing colonial empire to boot, France stands poised to face the 18th century as a power on the rise from strong to strongest.
Naturally, all of these events to both the east and the west put central Europe into something of a panic. As France began to expand, Austria, under the Habsburgs, used the situation to lend support to a number of imperial edicts that greatly centralized the Holy Roman Empire under Vienna’s direction. This met with some resistance, particularly in the empire’s south, but the conquest of Switzerland gave Austria secure control over the Alps and access to Italy to punish any imperial principalities that stepped out of line. Austria’s new control over the empire allowed it to crush proto-Protestant movements with a rigor and thoroughness that won them the admiration of the Vatican. Over the course of the 16th century, Austrian-Papal relations would develop to such an extent that the two would restructure the empire entirely so as to allow the Papal states entry into the empire with Rome as the spiritual and nominally judicial capital of the empire and to conquer the remainder of the Italian peninsula and incorporate it into the empire as a series of new principalities and duchies.
Scandinavia would see a similar process, as Turkish influence over the Rus’ grew to the point that the two powers combined threatened to overwhelm Danish interests in the region entirely and even pose the possibility of overrunning Norway and Sweden in a future war. The external threat prompted the powers to unite the three countries into a single crown. This allowed the resultant United Crowns of Scandinavia to maintain dominance over the Finns, to reassert control over the Scots and, once they realized the vastness of America, to build their own colonial empire.
Speaking of America, colonization has gone more slowly than OTL. Given the flow of goods from Asia through Anatolia into Europe, the focus of France on expanding their power in Europe, and the lack of any great power in Iberia and Britain, the drive to sail westward was not as strong. Of course, that drive eventually found a home in Morocco, whose first explorer set foot on the Brazilian coast in 1538. Moroccan interest in the continent was primarily one of exploration, study, and diplomacy at first. A consistent flow of gold, salt, copper, and ivory up from Mali meant that Morocco did not see the New World as the answer to any particular hunger for luxury goods. As the lack of a central authority in their area of operations became apparent (and as many people began to die from Old World diseases) Morocco did eventually begin a policy of colonization, but a slow one. Wary of would-be emperors trying to build a power that could possibly stand up to Marrakesh one day, colonists were granted only small plots of land at a time, fit for a family or two, and could petition for more land once they could demonstrate the land was producing consistent crops, or had been developed in some other way. Attempts were made at building friendly relationships with native tribes and nations, and a network of Moroccan clients began to grow. This caution allowed for Tawantinsuyu to overcome the instability that gripped them OTL and establish diplomatic relations with Morocco. This has proven a balancing act for the Andean empire; while Tawantinsuyu has managed to develop and expand mightily with Moroccan assistance, the fear of encirclement and the accelerating Moroccan presence on the continent has prevented the two from ever becoming true allies.
Not so for Mayapán. Early contact between Mayapán and Morocco were productive, and several Yucatec elites soon journeyed to Marrakesh to learn Arabic and Moroccan culture, to meet the Sultan, to speak with Moroccan scientists, and to relate the story of their own people. One Maya representative proved to have a knack for Arabic and became an eloquent writer with a devoted following among the literati. Settling in Tangiers, he related the story of Maya history to the Moroccan public, comparing them to the Old World society he felt was most similar: that of the ancient Greeks. Fortuitously, this came at a time when the Greek influence on Islamic culture was celebrating something of a… shall we say… rebirth in north African culture. The association between the two endured in popular Moroccan opinion, the two often conflated as the seed of civilization for the East and West respectively, and through association, Maya culture enjoyed a fad-like fascination that lasted for more than a decade. Since then, Mayapán has had to work hard to survive the great changes facing their continent, but they have done so with a devoted ally. The League has grown past the original extent of its jurisdiction and expanded south, heading off Tawantinsuyu expansion north.
Unfortunately, North America has not fared quite so well. The powerful Meshique to the north, so long the dominant power in the region, have been humiliated by the French and forced to serve as neglected vassals. Poverty, crime, and disease are rife in the great old city of Tenochtitlan, as French influence grows ever more powerful and begins to seem more and more permanent. Little do they know, the French are the lesser of three evils seeping into the continent from the east.
As the world becomes more and more interconnected and the rate of technological development accelerates, there is no corner of the world where the shifting balances of power cannot be felt. This feeling will only accelerate as time progresses, with such events as the invention of the petroleum engine and the Maritime Revolution draw ever closer. The empires of the land will have to adjust and innovate to combat the growing influence of the maritime powers, while the fledgling centers of development in Africa, Europe, and the Pacific will need to maximize their advantage to secure their place at the table with the other global empires instead of becoming the backwater province of another nation’s legacy. A boiling stew of good and evil, of progress and tradition, of experience and innovation, the 18th century promises to change the world fundamentally and permanently before the dawning of the 19th; a promise many view with excitement and apprehension alike.