Scythian Empire in Central Asia

This is an idea I'd been working towards in my last TL but haven't been able to really put much more thought into it for a number of reasons, foremost among them being the lack of sources on the Scythians I've been able to find. There simply doesn't seem to be a lot of good detailed info about Scythians on the English-speaking parts of the internet. So I've decided to ask about variations of this idea here. So for starters, in case some of you don't know the Scythians covered a great expanse of the steppes in antiquity, though the ones I'm talking here resided in Central Asia and are often referred to as the Saka to distinguish them from the western nomads. What I'm not sure about is which groups were Saka and which were not, and how different and distinguished all the various Scythian groups were. I've been given the impression it was a very broad and expansive term covering many peoples but I'm not sure how broad.

But let's get to the actual questions here. What are some feasible methods to have a reasonably unified Saka empire in the eastern reaches of Iran and beyond? IOTL the Saka did conquer much of northern India, but at the same time they were on an exodus away from the invading Yuezhi, who were in turn moving from the wake of the Xiongu. What I'm after is a longer-lasting recognizably Scythian culture in the area, not a short-lived migration. If this hypothetical Scythian empire, whatever its origins, can conquer Persia then all the better, just so long as they last longer than IOTL. Ideally if you can come up with a way for them to survive the Turkic incursions then that's even better. And what would result from such an early nomadic empire?
 
The Saka were absorbed by the similarly Indo -European component of the multi-ethnic Yuezhi confederation as part of the creation of the Kushan Empire.
Culturally it would be hard to pick the 2 apart excepting that the Kushan Yuezhi would probably had more influence from Turkic and Sino-Turkic people.

It would be hard for the Saka to create an empire in C. Asia smack in the middle of the Steppe Nomad conveyor belt -- one reason the Yuezhi and Saka both only created stable polities only after they had migrated into S. Asia and conquered and were influenced by the sedentary civilizations they now ruled.
 

Hnau

Banned
According to the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata, the Saka were around at least as early the 4th century BCE. The Assyrian and Babylonian texts mention Scythians back in the days of Sennacherib (late 8th century BCE). The Greeks agree with the Indians that they shared some characteristics, namely a religion that seems to be a pharmacological cult, using either the soma drink or cannabis smoke to provoke ecstatic revelation and ritual.

I would think that they would be vulnerable to incorporating more of the reforms promoted by Zoroaster to their Iranian religion, if they invade after Zoroastrian practices began to catch on among at least the Persians or Persis.
 
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