--EUROPE AND THE NEAR-EAST: 800 AD--
When the Roman Empire destroyed the nascent Vandal Kingdom in 469 AD, it was seen as a windfall for the long-suffering west. Despite a failed attempt by the Vandals to catch the Roman fleet by surprise during negotiations with a fleet of fireships, the joint eastern-western expedition had soon restored not just the empire’s southern flank, but the long-missed grain shipments and revenue as well. The west would survive.
However, the empire was already changing. The position of western emperor was increasingly under the command of Germanic strongmen who began operating more and more despite the Eastern Empire’s objections. As the Eastern Empire began to fall to its own issues closer to home during the sixth and seventh centuries, the strongmen had uncontested control of their corner of the empire, and the office of the emperor became little more than a figurehead surrounded by constant court intrigue. This culminated in 556 when the Pope himself began intervening in court politics during an invasion of Italy by the Franks. By the end of the century it was the papacy, not the military strongmen, who was the undisputed master of the Western Roman Empire. The Pope, as God’s servant on Earth, was the one who could make and unmake emperors. As time went on, the divide between east and west became more and more apparent. There was never a formal declaration of independence by either side; both saw themselves as the Roman Empire and the other as a wayward usurper. By the mid-eighth century however, the reality was clear when open war broke out between them, following a mutual ex-communication by the Papacy and Patriarchy.
In the east, things went poorly. Despite early attempts to keep tabs on the Western Empire, the eastern emperors soon found themselves dealing with multiple threats on other fronts, from an increasingly hostile Sassanian Empire to the east to a new wave of barbarian tribes to the north looking to settle in the Balkans and Caucuses, to religious turmoil at home. In 624, the increasing rivalry between the two great empires of the near east came to a head when what should have been yet another border war erupted into a full-scale bloodletting when the Eastern Empire backed a Sassanian usurper—the exiled brother of the new ruler. The attempt ended poorly, and soon after the Sassanian Empire invaded Syria and Anatolia (as well as began a purge of Christians within its own territory in an attempt to remove possible Roman fifth columns). The thirty-year war exhausted both empires, though the Eastern Empire felt the brunt of it. While the Romans managed to push the Iranians back, they never managed a decisive victory. Northern Mesopotamia was seceded to the Sassanian Empire.
Six years later, the crippled Eastern Empire, busy with a new wave of invasions from the north, could do little as Egypt, their richest province, rose up in rebellion. Egypt had been taken by the Sassanian Empire for a solid twenty years during the war, loosening Roman control over an already hostile province. Heavy-handed attempts to restore order after the war only further alienated the Egyptian populace, and despite a brief retaking of Alexandria in 662 and an expedition from Antioch in 667, the empire never restored its control over the Monophysite province.
The new Kingdom of Egypt, independent for the first time in centuries, took its cue from its ancient heritage, much as Western Europe did from Rome in our own timeline—a mishmash of half-remembered facts and myths cobbled together. The knowledge of how to read hieroglyphs were long forgotten, but faint cultural impressions remained. The new Coptic Pharaohs were Christian; a prime example of God’s grace and forgiveness. Just as He had used the Assyrians and Babylonians as his instruments, so to did he use the former enemies of the Hebrews. Just as He had forgiven the Roman Empire for its persecutions against the Christians, so to now would Egypt rise, its penance as a conquered and humbled state now ended.
Despite the inherent rivalry between Egypt and Constantinople however (both seeing the other as heretics), more often than not they would find themselves on the same side of the battlefield thanks to a re-surging Sassanian Empire.
In Europe, the Germanic kingdoms grew from mere de-jure military governorships of the Western Roman Empire into true realms. The Visigothic Kingdom, despite temporarily losing Aquitaine to the Franks in the early-sixth century, soon recovered and by the end of the sixth century controlled a nascent empire stretching from North Africa to the Loire River. Attempts to expand further into Africa were foiled however, by the native Mauri kingdoms, who have been slowly eating away at Roman territory in the region.
The Franks almost had an empire, more than once, but their style of succession has been their undoing. Five de-facto independent kingdoms now stand from the Loire to the Vistula. Every so often they will unite again, and go forth to conquer. But every time, they will inevitably fall apart again. Both they and the Visigoths once entertained a political fiction of being subservient to the Roman Empire politically, but that had vanished, only to be replaced by the political fiction of being subservient to the Roman Empire religiously, thanks to the Pope.
The Danube serves as the ultimate frontier between the Eastern Empire and the succession of Germanic and Slavic tribes that have tried time and time again to invade and take Greece for themselves. But the ancient Balkan defenses, despite bleeding and raw from countless raids, still hold. Numerous minor kingdoms and former-steppe empires have begun to pop up in Pannonia and Dacia—from west to east, the Lombard Kingdoms who have recently shaken off Frankish control, the remains of the Avar Khaganate (formerly in control of the entire region before their disastrous attempt to take Constantinople), the Bulgarian Empire, and centered north of the minor kingdoms of the Caucuses, the Khazars. While the Visigothic and Frankish realms orbit around the Western Empire however, the Bulgar and Avar kingdoms have begun to orbit around the East.
To the far north, the Age of the Vikings is has begun a bit ahead of schedule from our timeline—the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the British Isles have been feeling it since the mid-eighth century, and in the last few years the coasts of the Frankish realm has begun getting hit.
India remains a hodgepodge of kingdoms and states.
Arabia has become a three-way battle for control between Egypt, Aksum, and the Sassanian Empire. During the great war between Constantinople and Ctesiphon, Aksum took the initiative and reconquered Himyar for its own interests (Iran’s only real loss in the war), and has been extending its influence along the coast of the Horn of Africa as well. However, the social and religious pressures in Himyar are building something unique. A strange Jewish sect, a remnant the old pre-Aksumite state religion combined with native pagan traditions, is gaining ground. Only time will tell what happens there.
In this timeline, Late Antiquity takes on a somewhat different nature; the shift to a medieval world takes a mildly softer approach. The great centers and trade routes of the Mediterranean remain intact and cultural progression continues a bit more naturally than it otherwise would have been.
