The Third Rome: Is it possible for a "contingency plan" created by a byzantine emperor to colonize America in the 1400s?

[The Tai-Pan]

I know, I know, it's hard af, but do you guys think there is at least a small possibility? venetians, iberians and/or the genoese can also be involved. Pedro Álvares Cabral took ~40 days from Portugal to Brazil, so maybe the byzantines will take ~70 days, if the mission is successful?

They lack means, motive, and opportunity.

 

[Paschalis]

"Becoming larger players in Italy" is already a stretch.

it is but i dont think it is ASB, maybe a lucky POD yes but nowhere near the stretch of colonizing america

 

[cmakk1012]

On top of all the other reasons this is deeply implausible, many Greeks preferred Turkish conquest to Latin influence in their affairs. Going West would be playing right into the Catholics’ hands, and the Greeks wanted to preserve their religious independence.

 

[ToasterOven456]

This isn't Byzantium relocating to the Americas or at least not immediately. Instead of Jean de Bethencourt setting himself up as the King of the Canary Islands, have someone who is of Byzantine descent yet closely aligned to Western European political sphere, maybe a scion of the Paleologos dynasty in Montferrat. Have him conquer the islands, populate the newly conquered Canaries with Cretans, Byzantine refugees and Calabrian Greeks. He sires an heir that doesn't become a tyrant like Maciot de Bethencourt, piss off the local Guanche and sell the islands to Castile or Portugal. When Constantinople falls to the Turks, the Paleologoi in the Canary Islands invite as many Byzantine nobles and soldiers to establish new lives in the kingdom. Cape Verde is similarly settled when it's discovered by Canarian-Greek explorers. Christopher Columbus goes to the neo-Byzantines in the Canaries and requests the king to fund his trip to the New World. The Byzantines accept...

It's interesting to think how the Byzantines and Portuguese would cooperate over the New World. If we assume Spain is not involved that means more of South America goes to Portugal, while the much more profitable Caribbean would belong to the Byzantines. Also no papal bull means that everywhere is fair game.

 

[kasumigenx]

The the rulers of montferrat acquire Sicily by marriage.

 

[NotAMyth]

I think the main issue with this proposal is incorrectly assuming that the Eastern Roman nobility considered the Ottomans as big a boogeyman as the Western Historiography from a century later.

On the contrary the average thracian or Macedonian Greek would have preferred Turkish rule to latin vassalage. That is why this scenario is ASB. You are overestimating the fear of Turks, and underestimating how much shit a guy could take before he considered running away thousands of kilometres.

 

[Evil Crusader]

Paradox Interactive and its consequences have been a disaster for the Alternate History community.

They can be a learning opportunity as well, though.
Pdox games are actually great to learn (historical) geopolitics, if people behave realistically even as little as not blobbing in all directions just because they can.
However, people need to learn there has to be a reason for the actual historical actors to do the actual things, because they certainly don't play knowing there is a full continent to be exploited, they act on reasonable motives borne of their situational history (such as hating the Latins more than the Turks) and like real people who have no reason to move thousands of kilometers, to what is effectively a backwater, to improvise themselves a seafaring civilisation they never were.