Recent content by Kyro92

I've been pondering this over the past few days. It's trivially obvious to posit a world in which Muhammad has born, or to go earlier that and have the non-founding of Christianity as your POD. But how much could the layout of world religions be altered in a world in which still saw the...

Preventing the advent of European colonialism is a pretty common topic of discussion here- but how about, rather then prevent it, merely delaying it slightly, by 50-100 years? Given how the Portuguese exploration was supported by the Portuguese crown, the pace of their exploration was heavily...

It's easy enough to imagine earlier PODs impeding the primacy of the West on a global scale. But by the 18th century, there's a strong argument to be made that the ground was already laid for the West to overwhelm those parts of Asia and the Middle East that had previously managed to forestall...

If you've looked at population density maps, like this one(https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Computed-global-distribution-of-population-density-for-the-year-1800_fig3_228074769), the first thing that stands out is how population density is at it's highest in Europe, South Asia and East Asia...

Maybe they could? Let's say Napoleon avoids his catastrophic defeat in Russia, and so France remains hegemonic in continental Europe while Britain retains it's naval hegemony. Britain then has a very strong incentive to nip any French(or allied) colonial ventures in the bud, and given their...

POD: Neither Christianity nor a Christianity analogue emerges in the Roman empire. Of course there will be mystery cults and such, but none of them receive patronage as the official imperial religion, or if they do they lack the missionary zeal that led to Christianity's spread into Northern...

On this tangent, how long did the division between Indo-European and non Indo-European cultures remain significant(outside of language) IOTL? By which I mean, by 200 BC(to pick a random date) were there any meaningful ways in which distant Indo-European cultures had common cultural features that...

Bear in mind that for a considerable amount of that time period, most of Europe lacked organized states and literacy. The comparison probably shouldn't be between China and Europe, but between China and the Mediterranean. I also note how South Asia and Persia tend to get left out of these...

With a POD anytime after 1900, have Austria acquire the borders that Australia has on this map:

True, but we only know that particular package of innovations in warfare and organization was plausible because it happened. In a TL where those stars didn't fall into alignment, saying "it's plausible because in my TL the Mongols implement a package of innovations in warfare and organization at...

True, although that was a Caliphate with the resources and strategic depth of Persia and Mesopotamia at it's command.

Premise: After losing hold of Mesopotamia, the Sassanids manage to halt the Arab advance past the Zagros mountains. The Zagros mountains are a decently defensible position, although Persia was in disarray at the time and the loss of wealthy Mesopotamia would hardly make rebuilding easier. The...

I've had the same thought. Push the Polish border a little bit further East with each passing Summer, until the Tsar begs for mercy.

Have fewer Jews killed in the Holocaust*. The Holocaust began on January 1933, so let's say the order is given a few months later, and let's say the Operation Valkyrie coup succeeds in mid-1944. That means the Holocaust lasts for only 1 year rather then two and a half- I'm unsure how much that...

If you wanted to be pedantic you could argue that, like most traditional empires, they extracted the resources of most of their territory for the benefit of the imperial capital and Ottoman elites. Is that really so different from the European colonial empires where the resources extracted...