You must read the first incranation of this history, posted in the "The AU thread". In brief the whole "East Roman empire" is more of an bulgarian and othe slavic migrants adoting the frames of the old Latin/Creek empire since 7th century. In the 15th century from which this part starts East Roman Empire is already troughout south-slavic and adopting east slavic rule after Vasili isen't that paramount issue. The short Rurikovich rule didn't shatter the foundations that much and the replacing Romanov dynasty had its roots deeply in Constantinopol. The Balegov dynasty is de facto the OTL Palaeologi dynasty. They just aren't Creeks, they are Slavs.So Golly, what happens to the dynasty of the Palaeologi? Or the Cantacuzeni? Or the Lascardis or, for that matter, the Grand Comnenoi? And, seriously, I find it extremely implausible that the Rhomaioi would accept a Slavic, furthermore, eastern Slavic dynasty. Remember, the self consciousness and national sentiments of this people was unusually high and vivid, feed by the Greek-Orthodox church and Imperial iconography.I know it's your AU and so everything and anything goes, but the lack of a realistic footing in many of the current AU:s does bother me; are people not knowledgeable enough about their subject matters (which I like to believe you are), or?
In other words, I cannot buy your AU history as it stands, especially the "Drang nach Osten" that you describe, since there never was any conscious attempt or program to lay lands in the East under the Imperial Domain, other than what had been old Roman territory or might've belonged to any of the Successor states in the 4th to 1st centuries BCE.
The very issue of "making it slav" is the key to this. Indeed why would Creek venture into Russia? Slavs in the otherhand have far more reasons, uniting similar cultural and religious people under single banner is far more logical. And as this AU isen't some puristic attempt to create AU East Rome, but get a base for those damn carriers, one needs to cut some shortroads to forge the thing into its shape;)
I could not really comprehend...stratagey should be a quick clear summary
I think that good backstory is a very important thing in AU.
