WI Scythians pull a mongol

octoberman

Banned
The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan who is United Mongolia for the first time in history. It developed in the course of the 13th century through a series of victorious campaigns throughout Eurasia. At its height, it stretched from the Pacific to Central Europe. the Mongol Empire was a steppe empire fueled by the grass-foraging Mongol cavalry.

So What if the Scythians were united during the Assyrian domination of Middle East.This country goes on to conquer the Middle East, Central Asia and India ?

How will this effect the future history ?
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Arariboia Guamá

Was it even possible at the time? I mean, were the demographics even there? There's a lot of technological advancement between the era of Assyria and Mongolia.

Are true Saddle Trees and Stirrups even a thing at this time?

I'm not sure if the kind of Mounted Archer tactics which made the Mongols possible can even be done with the technology of this time
 

Evil Crusader

Arariboia Guamá said:
Was it even possible at the time? I mean, were the demographics even there? There's a lot of technological advancement between the era of Assyria and Mongolia.

Are true Saddle Trees and Stirrups even a thing at this time?

I'm not sure if the kind of Mounted Archer tactics which made the Mongols possible can even be done with the technology of this time
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No, they aren't a thing. No, demographics are not there either. Tactics are there to a degree, but paradoxically the bureaucracy to be coopted doesn't quite exist yet.
 

Protagoras

OK, so we're talking early 7th century BCE. Genghis Khan was quite adept at borrowing and adapting ideas from other civilizations; this hypothetical earlier Steppe unifier and conqueror would have a lot fewer sources of ideas, so I tend to agree with those saying this isn't really a plausible event. Honestly, a time matching the map might be better; the steppe nomads were frequent annoyances to the neighboring empires in Western Asia, just as they were in Eastern Asia, and if you have a leader for them emerge with Genghis Khan level talents during the period of Imperial Rome, he might conquer the Parthians, the Romans, parts of northern India, and various other minor conquests, and a couple generations down the line you might get a Kublai Khan type as emperor of Rome in this alternate history.
 

Evil Crusader

octoberman said:
Assyria had a capable bureaucracy to be adopted by the Scythians
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No, they don't have anything even remotely close to capable. They are loyal only to themselves, they don't use much in the way of written records - far from the level of info required - and they aren't anything close to taxation efficiency either.
 

kholieken

Banned
It wouldn't be possible. Steppe history is not static. Mongol military and social organizations had evolve and improve from thousand years interactions with powerful Chinese, Persian, and Sogdian Empire. Genghis inherit know how to maintain relatively modern army from Khitan and other successful Steppe Empire.
 

octoberman

Banned
kholieken said:
It wouldn't be possible. Steppe history is not static. Mongol military and social organizations had evolve and improve from thousand years interactions with powerful Chinese, Persian, and Sogdian Empire. Genghis inherit know how to maintain relatively modern army from Khitan and other successful Steppe Empire.
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Scythians can learn from professional standing army of Assyria
 

octoberman

Banned
Evil Crusader said:
No, they don't have anything even remotely close to capable. They are loyal only to themselves, they don't use much in the way of written records - far from the level of info required - and they aren't anything close to taxation efficiency either.
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Then how was the Empire run ?
 
Hearkener

Hearkener

Evil Crusader said:
No, they don't have anything even remotely close to capable. They are loyal only to themselves, they don't use much in the way of written records - far from the level of info required - and they aren't anything close to taxation efficiency either.
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I will remind you that Akkkadian is the second best documented extinct language of all time, being exceeded only by Ancient Greek in sheer volume of written words (10,8 mil as compared to the latter's 60 mil). Their documentation is so good that we can trace the real estate of Assyrian landlords down to the individual person who held it, and reconstruct entire inheritance disputes just from the written record.

You also assume that you need a written language to efficiently control a large empire, but the Incas reveal this as a non-issue.
 

Evil Crusader

Hearkener said:
I will remind you that Akkkadian is the second best documented extinct language of all time, being exceeded only by Ancient Greek in sheer volume of written words (10,8 mil as compared to the latter's 60 mil). Their documentation is so good that we can trace the real estate of Assyrian landlords down to the individual person who held it, and reconstruct entire inheritance disputes just from the written record.

You also assume that you need a written language to efficiently control a large empire, but the Incas reveal this as a non-issue.
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There's "large" and then there's "Mongol". The sophistication level required simply is a fair amount higher, especially given the distances proposed.
 
Hearkener

Hearkener

Evil Crusader said:
There's "large" and then there's "Mongol". The sophistication level required simply is a fair amount higher, especially given the distances proposed.
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Let's not overstate how sophisticated Mongol administration actually was. They mostly co-opted local powerstructures. While they appointed administrators far outside their countries of origin, their system was mostly just an extrapolation of Chinese and Persian practices. If anything, they showed that these power-structures could be extrapolated to run a much larger state entity than previously thought.

So if you had the military capacity of the Mongols, you probably could create an Assyrian-style government the size of a continent. The real question is how long the whole thing would stay together.
 

Evil Crusader

Hearkener said:
Let's not overstate how sophisticated Mongol administration actually was. They mostly co-opted local powerstructures. While they appointed administrators far outside their countries of origin, their system was mostly just an extrapolation of Chinese and Persian practices.
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My point is, to even attempt such levels of distant administration, a deeper level than BCE Assyria had would be needed.
 

octoberman

Banned
Evil Crusader said:
The Empire could not be united like the Mongol Empire in the first place, given both the Scythians' and the subjugated places' tech, population, and infrastrutture.
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There wasn't much development in land transportation by time of the Mongol Empire since Assyria so Scythia could be united like the Mongol Empire
 
EasternRomanEmpire

EasternRomanEmpire

octoberman said:
The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan who is United Mongolia for the first time in history. It developed in the course of the 13th century through a series of victorious campaigns throughout Eurasia. At its height, it stretched from the Pacific to Central Europe. the Mongol Empire was a steppe empire fueled by the grass-foraging Mongol cavalry.

So What if the Scythians were united during the Assyrian domination of Middle East.This country goes on to conquer the Middle East, Central Asia and India ?

How will this effect the future history ?
View attachment 884278
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It is unlikely that at this point in history they can have a similar empire to the Mongol: 1) Many innovations to make riding (saddles, stirrups...) 2) One of the things necessary for the quick expansion of the Mongol Empire was the siege weapons, the Mongols had gunpowder siege weapons which were extremely efficient as the walls of the time weren't made to compete with.
Also the Mongols took pre-existent systems and integrated them in their empire which is impossible here as there is no pre-existing system so to hold the land they would have to create it from zero. The best the Scythians could do is conquer Mesopotamia
 
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