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I am actually working on a pretty fleshed out ATL on this, and have some of it below. I had always wondered what might happen if the East Roman Empire and Sassanid Empire hadn't completely torn themselves apart just before the Muslims showed up. In this ATL I have Maurice lingering on for awhile, continuing to hold most of Justinian's Empire together in time for Heraclius to ascend to the throne of an empire that isn't torn apart. For the first 50 years or so most of the players are the same, but the results are wildly different. First of all the Exarchates become much stronger under Maurice and Heraclius, eventually resulting in a semi-independent "Latin Empire" which replaces the Holy Roman Empire from OTL. Byzantium stays more "Roman" for a longer period of time. The Franks, in the absence of any other sort of northern power, develop in a similar manner as OTL, before eventually founding a rival Empire to the "Latins." We thus wind up with three powerful states which trace some sort of linear descent from Rome... The Latin (Western) Empire, The Greek (Eastern/Byzantine) Empire and the Frankish Empire of Gaul and Germany. Smaller states, such as the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (which never know a norman conquest) and a many others will also make their appearances. The Sassanid empire still falls, but takes a much longer time to do so, and isn't completely absorbed by Muslims.

In this timeline we find the war between Islam and Rome/Byzantium becoming less one-sided and more along the lines of two rival super-powers duking it out. Technology advances more rapidly as a result of the "200 years war" and the complete depopulation of entire regions which creates a massive labor shortage in both empires resulting in an "early" semi-industrial revolution, though it would be geared (pun) almost exclusively to warfare production. Islam, forced by tougher resistance in Byzantium and Persia, conquers further east, making it to the fringes of China much earlier.

In our timeline, Maurice pushed his candidate onto the Sassanid throne, and thus the Sassanids had no excuse to attack Rome/Byzantium while Maurice ruled. Maurice was also a military man with an excellent grasp of strategy, and had the Avars, Slavs and Lombards on the defensive. As long as he held the throne, no one really wanted to take the risk of all-out warfare. When Phocas overthrew him in 602, Khosrau II had the perfect excuse to launch a massive attack, that of avenging his 'friend.' It didn't help that Phocas was a hopeless incompetent. Heraclius saved the Empire and smashed the Sassanids, but the war had destroyed the power base of both empires.. religious controversy didn't help, and the Arabs showed up.. the rest is history.
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