The ISOT thread

  Well they might be marginally more friendly to the Christians than the Muslims but given the huge cultural differences they won't particularly friendly to either group.  Possibly not greatly interested in the old world while their got the entire Americas now available to them.  However that will be the view of the government I suspect but you could get some adventures or others with particular interests who seek to intervene.

  Quite possibly although don't forget that nowadays I believe the most ardent Christian fundamentalists tend to be Protestants while Europe is solely Catholic or Orthodox at this point.

  Would be interesting.  Britain at the time, especially the elite had a lot of respect for classical Greek and to a degree also Roman culture but contact with the reality in its declining period with the bloodshed, slavery etc will cause some clashes, as with Britain including former imperial provinces.  Ditto with the fact that while early Christianity is present it will be considerably different from what the Victorians are used to and is very much a despised and minority religion.

  It could be that after some interactions which would include both friendly and unfriendly ones Britain could possibly turn its back on the empire, although no doubt there will be adventurers and scholars who will seek their own interests.  After all there's the rest of the world to explore, colonize and 'civilize'.  Including other parts of Europe that might interact with Britain.  However its close geographical proximity and the sheer size of the empire - as long as it survives - will make the region important to British interests.

  In terms of Rome it could go in any number of ways and likely that the empire won't survive that long as a coherent entity.  Its too diverse to face the challenges that both the growing strength of its historical neighbours and the cultural shocks that Britain's appearance will supply.  Not just the difference in technology but in culture as well and that Rome is no longer clearly the biggest player in the game which means that assorted nations would look to links with Britain rather than Rome and the UK has plenty of experience with working with vastly different cultures.

  One other thing on the religious side would be that your likely to see a difference between the Protestants and Catholics inside the UK as the latter will be more favourable [and the former less] to the importance of the Roman pope, who is probably still a relatively minor figure in an overwhelmingly non-Christian Italy compared to the other patriarchs in the richer and more Christian eastern provinces.  That would complicate the British reaction further.

  In terms the rest of the world civilize, [by Victorian standards anyway] trade and explore.  There's a lot of cultures that will be largely unknown to them and probably a lot of myths that will be shattered.  Going to be a move against slavery, which will be difficult as its so en-grained in many cultures, human sacrifice and the like, spreading Christianity and with the much lower populations there will be plenty of lands for British people, still with a very high birth rate, to settle.  Which is going to have some interesting interactions as there will be plenty of opportunities for people to migrate once things have been sorted out.

  Of course forgot one huge issue, that of food supplies!  Having abandon agricultural protectionism in the 1840's Britain is highly dependent on food imports.  That could make a huge difference as Britain will need a lot of food and the most likely source could be Egypt.  [Its the only secure area of large scale food surplus in this time period I'm aware of that the Victorians will know of and a fairly easy region to reach.  Its also going to mean war with Rome but also has the attraction of giving a reason for securing Gibraltar and Malta on the way.

  In the medium and longer term there are many other options than Egypt but its the only one that Victorian Britain will know of.  Which is likely to be fatal to Rome as a unified state.