The OP scenario was vague, so you don't get to make such pronouncements.
In any event I didn't say NO ERE/Sassanian war, just one that is less fight to the death-ish.
The only Persia that survives the Arabs is one that hasn't recently been in an existential war, has just undergone civil war...
OTL, some of the Arab polities were at least semi-Hellenized by Roman times. The Nabateans and Palmyra come to mind.
If Al the much-dicussed had brought the Arabian peninsula into his Empire, it really depends on if his successors manage to hold onto it. I suspect they wont and that a number of...
Gould would have carried the banner of a less doctrinaire, live-and-let-live atheism. More productive to the general conversation. He implied more than he pronounced.
More likely than not, a multi-polar Mediterranean. Diadachi, Carthaginians, a Magna Grecian league. It could take centuries to shake out before a predominant power emerged, if ever.
What might cause such far flung Carthaginian colonies to more or less wither on the vine would be lack of free access to Mediterranean markets which would make these colonies utterly dependent on Roman good will. The only other choices for these colonies are to Africanize -- to essentially throw...
Inevitable but given the distance, loosely. I think the Romans would settle for tapping into the trade network.
The colonies, if long lasting, might offer some interesting effects in West Africa, in the areas of tech and metallurgy. I also see an increased chance of accidental one-way...
In terms of a enhanced naval presence and long term court support, the Song Dynasty may have been the most realistic period for China to venture East. More so than the Ming.
However, what I said earlier about laying the foundations for Trans-Pacific exploration and compelling reasons to do so...
(Cont.) If you can describe an analogous process and perceived need for the Chinese to venture across the Pacific as what brought the Europeans both around Africa and across the Atlantic, I'd be more convinced by your line of thought.
To be clear, the Chinese were more than technically...
Both the Vikings and Iberians systematically did explore the currents and winds of the Atlantic and not so much as initially crossed the Atlantic in one go as leapfrogging their way across. Also, there was the very strong motivation to seek alternative trade routes to the East that were either...
It would have been interesting if they had. They'd have to be invested in the fur trade, though, for impetus. Not much else to attract anyone there before near modern times. Incidentally, from the Celestial Kingdom to the straits is a fair distance. Getting to the good bits of North and Meso...
Actually not so much. Supply was circumscribed by geopolitical factors. The Europeans only had to cross the Atlantic,as well. A relative puddle in comparison to the Pacific.