Alternative history/Urban Fantasy where the byzantine empire rebuild the roman empire and is now in the modern period

>including expansions and contractions of territory that may have seen Constantinople's defensive capability totally outmatched by the very forces that doomed it in our history.

You say this, but Constantinople really is sitting on some exquisite real-estate, at least from an economic standpoint. You've got a land route into the East that connects directly to the Silk Road, a land route into the West, a sea route into the Black Sea for the rich lands of the North and a sea route to the heavily trafficked Mediterranean. Best of all, there's plenty of islands and coast from wherever to Constantinople, which translates into tariffs and taxes.

You couldn't ask for a better location to put your beating heart of an Empire centered around Europe.

>but I suspect Constantinople probably wouldn't be the capital of such an empire if it survived into modernity.
Why not? The Ottomans maintained it for multiple centuries, only moving it to Ankara due to military reasons (and it would probably be moved back after the war had the Ottoman Empire survived).

It's not just a matter of being easy to defend, you also need easy trade. Constantinople is good for the trade and okay for the defence, so it get's rich, money attract important people or people who are going to get important because money and eventually it just becomes more practical to just move the administration to the richest city before it tries to set up it's own empire with more blackjack and hookers or the rich bastards try to take control themselves.

Maybe. But what the fuck do I know, I just a tard with a computer.

The idea of a reformed Persia and Rome in perpetual cold war for a thousand years could be entertaining. Persia having reformed after the Turks and Arabs bled themselves dry in this timeline failing to take the ERE.

How so?
Geographically, constantinople is perfect in every way

>okay for the defense

It's like, super easy to build walls around the Bosphorus. Constantinople had the Theodosian Walls built way back in the 4th century and they were still a bitch to overcome in the 15th century. An attacker would need to control the Sea of Marmara as well as the Black Sea, assuming the Byzantines of this timeline kept good relations with the Russians.

Like, I know it's easy to talk from hindsight, but is right in that you really can't ask for a more perfect location to put your capital than Constantinople. The fact pre-Constantine Byzantium wasn't a bigger deal in the region frankly astounds me.

But you face a large problem known as the extreemly angry german kings

Unless rome some how gets and indian kingdom to backdoor persia, they're gonna get fucked from all sides

I agree that it's an ideal location, and maybe you're all correct and this alternate history played out with no problems whatsoever. If so, sure, keep it there.

My very amateur assessment of history leads me to think that what is best is not always what IS.

We live in an age where we could produce cities in locations the ancients would consider inhospitable. I know history has shown us that Constantinople is a great location, no arguements there. But consider if there might be a location even better that a modern, perhaps even revolutionary Emperor might relocate his capital to.

>But you face a large problem known as the extreemly angry german kings
First of all, those German kings are divided. If Austria acts uppity, you can bet your ass Bavaria or Prussia becomes an available ally.

Secondly, there's this thing called the "Alliance des Revers" in French realpolitik, which is centered around creating alliances that surround Germany from both sides. They already did this with the Turks (which was controversial, being the first alliance between a major Christian and a major Islamic power), so why not with the East Romans?

You could even have entire blocks in this cold war, with the Roman Faction consisting of the ERE, France and some minor German powers, and the Persian Faction consisting of Persia, some minor German powers, England and maybe Spain and/or Portugal. These alliances are logical as everyone more or less has something to gain from it.

>But consider if there might be a location even better that a modern, perhaps even revolutionary Emperor might relocate his capital to.

The only other place more lucrative than Constantinople in the modern world would be a city located smack dab on the Suez Canal, sucking up the wealth of the East *and* West while maintaining direct land routes into the Imperial heartlands.

>implying a country can't rebuild itself
>implying rebuilding is the same thing as creating
>implying rebuilding can't also refer to repairs

user if a wall collapses and a room in your house is destroyed, you rebuild it. And you could say you're rebuilding your house and nobody would give a shit.

Except you, you see, because you're a pedantic piece of filth.

Good to see my idea bore fruits.
>a timeline where roman cataphracts smashed saxons peasants in the reconquest of Britannia.

We could make the period of expansion and reconquest be during the Makedonian Dynasty, arfterall it's the Empire true ressurgence.

>tfw this thread makes me want to play Byzantium in CK2 but I can't even do that because for some fucking retarded reason the empire applies Western European style feudalism

Install HIP Byzantium government there is default Imperial.

Let's say the Empire is reconquered by the 12th century, wouldn't the diversity of it's people be its doom, just like the ottomans in our timeline.

But having the central in constantinople with even more people wouldn't there be (eventually) pressure for the Emperor to relinquish some of even powers, maybe to a stronger senate.

If they forcibly converted everyone to Orthodoxy, perhaps not. Religious diversity is the biggest problem, a country that prays together stays together. We even see this in modern day Europe, where black Christians assimilate marginally better than caucasian Muslims.

Well christianity would be an interesting case due to the pentarchy and I can see a strong emperor or a Ecunemical Patriarch holding the faith together, but certainly a higher accessibility to education would lead to church reformation earlier would It not?

Charlemagne>>>Justinian

>Created G*rmany
All of his good deeds are overshadowed by this grave consequence of his actions.
One Saxon bloodbath wasn't enough.

One sacking of the farcical "New Rome" wasn't enough.

That's why there were many.

The expansion can begin during the Macedonian Dynasty, the difference is that in this timeline Basil I first son and heir apparent (Constantine, I think) doesn't die, and becomes the competent and strong emperor he seemed to be.

Go with the CK2+ mod.

It makes shit all imperial and improves a whole boat load of other things as well.

15 million greeks lioving in ugly commieblocks with communal toilets terrorized by Persian mob after collapse of Soviet Socialist Roman Republic. Poeple dream about geting visa of relatively more prosperous Magna Slavica.

KInd of like pic, but much bigger.

Why would the empire fall for socialismus?

Because they're the same fucks who fell for Dandolo's bullshit.

So is the alternate setting that is emerging here one where, perhaps as a direct consequence of the Roman resurgence, other national groups started to blob into other empires?

Because I am totally fine with a map full of Roman imitators and empires forming in defiance of Rome.

Maybe se can see something with slavs consolidating north of the danube after being expelled from the Balkans by the ressurging Romans.

Monothelite Roman Empire of Avaria-Moravia
Arian Rome of Germania and Hispania
Nestorian Roman Empire of Yughur Nation
Muslim Roman Empire of Maghreb

>Muslim Roman Empire

We already had that one in our history, you know.

That one wasn’t in Maghreb.

>Muslim Roman Empire
OUT

desu Catholics would probably be more butthurt about heresies than other religions.

>Orthodox
>Heresy

I'm talking about Arianism and Nestorianism. Orthodoxy is kind of like that brother you always argue with on the holidays.

It wasn't a bigger deal because the Roman emperors deliberately avoided creating competing cities to Rome. Also, most of the possible trade that would move through it was not available, since Persia (and its various iterations) were either at war with Rome, or in a cold war.

And byzantoum was orthodox

Well if Charlemagne gets stomped on by the resurgent Emprie, the Catholic/Orthodox split never happens. The initial split is solely over the fact that the Patriarch of Rome crowned Charlemagne, and declared himself more important than all the other 4 main Patriarchs. This was the perpetual argument.

wonder what the world would be like if that happened?

>since there's no more threat in the west, the Church in this world has to contend with one of the other patriarchs declaring himself most important

Well the only reason it happened was because a serious contender to the Byzantine Emperor appeared. Also, Rome was the only active Patriarch who was also not within the political sphere of Byzantines, so was more independent anyway

With the Greeks defeating the eastern invaders the Coptics start creeping up and down the Nile from Uganda to the Mediterranean. Axom becomes the capital of a great and prosperous empire, though there is constant rivalry between the north and south and the capital moves numerous times through out it's history. Usually it's Cairo or Axom (various spellings through its history) but not always. One Emperor rules from a boat to try and show impartiality and travels up and down the Empire that way. One day he falls off the boat and is eaten by a crocodile, nobody tries that again.

ERE getting it's gains back is mostly along the Med coastline with Nile delta being contested and changing hands often between the Nile Empire and Rome. Some attempts were made to push on into Germania and the lands of the Franks but it was given up as the people were considered ungovernable by civilized men. The planned reconquest of Britania never materializes.

Britania by bloody means and the occasional political marriage gets increasingly absorbed into Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson's new and ever expanding kingdom. It mostly starts down the eastern coast, York being he first major settlement to fall/join. After that it started to snowball even as his forces set about unifying/pacifying/subjugating everything on the Scandinavian peninsula and everything touching the Baltic Sea.

Harald's successor was responsible for the pagan revival in the north and the strife that it caused. The eventual result of this strife was the Norse Church, a baffling hybrid faith started by the Prophet Bogomil. It incorporates much of the older Nordic traditions and spreads quickly through the pagans and the Christians alike and eventually Norse Bogomilism becomes the state religion of the loose and fractions North Sea Empire, ruled from the Imperial/Holy City of Kobenhavn.

Ireland follows by degrees over the following centuries.

user
you are the man
keep going
this could be a really good setting

This then leads to a early middle age world war equivalent which can only be described as the war of 4 romes

Wait, wasn't there a German Emperor that was going to marry a Byzantine Princess and, in effect, unite the Empires? What if the Emperor lived long enough to do this?

>Axom becomes the capital of a great and prosperous empire

So would you say that it's people were...
how do I say this...
that its native African population was composed of...
in some sense...
monarchical rulers of countries...
and shit?

There would be ERE controlling most of the Med and Black Sea coastline, probably the biggest and strongest of the 4 with the strongest claim to being the "Real" Rome. Not least of all but because it actually has the city of Rome, even if it isn't ruling from there.

There is the Coptic Nile Empire that has no real intention of being the new Rome, they just want the Greeks to piss off out of their Delta and give Alexandria back. They are not as Insular as the old Egyptians but they aren't particularly expansionist either.

There is the Bogomilist Norse Empire or the Baltic and North Sea that spreads as far as Greenland and briefly Vinland. They don't particularly want to be the New Rome either but they are very aggressive, expansionist and at this point south is the only direction left to go. This brings them into direct conflict with the W/HRE more than the ERE, at least for now. ERE isn't blind and knows this is a problem that will become their eventually and will lend at least some support to the W/HRE in holding them away.

The reformed Western/Holy Roman Empire of Charles the Great was founded by the Bishop of Paris given how Rome and it's bishop are firmly in ERE hands. It's still a squabbling mess of barely reformed central Europeans swearing at each other in 20 different languages but with the other empires pressing in on them they are not keen to try and swim it alone or rock the boat too much.

Iberian Peninsula has mass rebellions given the no support to the Muslim occupiers from north Africa or further east and the HRE takes full advantage of that to ride in as the liberators and saviors, good will that last long enough for their own occupation to stick as Charles parcels off the land to lords loyal to him.

Can we not, please?

that was Charlemagne and empress Irene and no it wasn't happening because the greeks wouldn't have accepted a firmly latin rite unlettered barbarian as the heir of rome

>tfw just realized that Greeks commandeered the empire from Latins and ruled its fate for hundreds of years

I can only imagine Pyrrhus with a tear in his eye and a big old flag waving behind him.

Pyrrhus died like a biiiiiiitch.

its more like the latins and greeks became one super culture and then a bunch of barbarians pretend to be romans and the gromans told then to preform fellatio upon a cactus

>roman empire
>not containing rome

The people in Italy didn't stop being Latins after the Germanics moved in, and the people of Greece didn't become Latins just because they were successfully colonized by them.

user the roman empire stopped giving a shit about roman way before the western half fell. their capital became ravenna because rome was poor malarial badly designed and a liability to defend

The war is kicked off by the pope, who activly tried to keep the peace, dying and the new pope pulled off one of the most autistic feats of history by insulting all the other empire and declaring himself the new roman emperor

I hear the grapes in rome were sour anyway.

>because rome was poor malarial badly designed and a liability to defend
Can you elaborate on what was so wrong about Rome and why it took the Romans so long to realize it?

For those who wish to know more about the real life Great Schism.

youtube.com/watch?v=Q_s9Rcsg5UI

rome is basically a swamp.
and is sprawled over seven hills and thus a pain in the ass in regards to urban planning
thus it has a problem with malaria.
inertia meant they stayed there until Diocletian reorganized the whole thing
The people of italy were over run by barbarian