Which of these scenarios is more plausible?

Which of these is more plausible?


  • Total voters
    111
I'm gonna go with Harold Godwinson keeping Englaland safe from Norman rule, if only because while the Byzantine Empire surviving to modern day with large amounts of territory is also very possible it lacks the kind of consensus we have on making Harold win at Hastings (have the fall from his horse William took OTL in battle kill him) with a ridiculously easy POD.

EDIT: FP what leads you to your statement? I only ask because I consider that one the least plausible by a massive margin.
 
yeah ... Godwinson keeping the throne is by miles the most plausible ... instead of a stray arrow hitting him, let it hit William, job done ... now to get him to keep the throne as a hereditary seat ... there we start getting into more questionable waters, since England was an Elective kingdom and Edgar (or even his or his sisters kids) have a better claim on it than Godwinson's progeny would have
 
Godwinson was on the edge of winning at Hastings. If only a few things had gone differently in 1066, he easily could have.

Confederate victory is often bandied about, but typically takes a bit of playing against the odds to work out. It's not very likely, at least, not in the form that it's usually imagined as.

The last one now...by ERE, do we mean, like, a Greek state in general, a Greek state with an unbroken line of history, or an Empire that's a direct continuation of the ancient and medieval Empire? The first is very plausible; the second and third, not so much.
 
Yet another vote for Harold. He came so much closer to success IOTL than either of the other two scenarios did to happening, after all.
 
Harold Godwinson keeping his crown in 1066: Probably the most likely outcome. He came very close to winning at Hastings and if he'd waited three days he'd have had a fresh army and significant numerical advantage and smashed William

CSA winning in ACW without too much alteration to OTL: Very difficult.

a Greek ERE surviving to the present day with any territory not part of present day Greece: Not impossible, there are other long lasting polities though a modern Greece only ERE has a much lower chance of survival than a Greece and Anatolia ERE.
 
I think Option 1 is the obvious one, and everyone recognizes it: All you need is for one battle to go the other way, and in real history, it very nearly did so. This is the easiest event to change.

The other options require a lot more to happen. A surviving Eastern Roman Empire requires centuries of butterflies, and in a tough neighborhood.

A victorious CSA...that's been done to death. The easiest simple change I can come up with is having Lincoln assassinated in Baltimore as he rides through town to his inauguration, and a hardline Hannibal Hamline provoking Border state moderates with hard measures, putting at least Kentucky into the CSA, making the Union cause much more difficult. But still, too many unknowns.
 
I think these three options are like comparing an apple to an orange to a pineapple...

Harold winning at Hastings, Lee winning at Gettysburg, or Byzantines at Manzikert would be three comparable situations (not saying these three battles would result in the three premises in the poll)... or plausibility of Anglo-Saxon kings continuing to modern day, CSA surviving to the present, ERE surviving until today would be comparable. Even then, hundreds of years separate the time when each of those states fell.
 
i voted for Godwinson remaining king, but i'd say a surviving ERE with territory outside of modern Greece is second; i don't know enough about that country and period to accurately judge enough
 
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