Alternate history scenarios, ideas, general questions and miscellaneous points

This is the premise of The Years of Rice and Salt, by the way.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Feb 7th 2022 at 6:32:02 AM

>Yeah, a lot depends on whether the Industrial revolution can still happen on a Real Life like timetable. I am not sure if that would be the case.

Probably, since the conditions for it were present in many other locations. But yea, the world would look radically different.

The question isn't whether the Industrial revolution can happen or not but the timetable. A beginning in Europe vs. (say) a beginning in India are quite different scenarios.

If you're a "Guns, Germs,and Steel" fan, the Industrial revolution is much less likely to happen anywhere else.

Song China says hello.

Hello, Song China. Can we get a TL/DR for a 62 page thesis paper?

>The question isn't whether the Industrial revolution can happen or not but the timetable. A beginning in Europe vs. (say) a beginning in India are quite different scenarios.

Impossible to answer since we don't have a time machine. In particular, the lack of a Europe will lead to dramatic differences elsewhere in the world. It could easily be the case that an industrial revolution happens even earlier.

The plague hit somewhere in the 1300's, and the industrial revolution roughly in the 1700s. that's a lot of world history that goes different, especially considering all the colonialism going on in the 1700's.

My thinking is that if Europe dies people from elsewhere will settle there, and since we know for about a century that Europeans are not a superior race these people probably can get to the same technology and development as Europeans did. One thing though, the Black Death began in Asia - did that continent get similarly depopulated?

Worsening crop yields at the outset of the Little Ice Age forced the Song state to implement land policies that maximised yield per farming household/acreage, while competition with powerful external rivals (Jurchens, Khitans, Tanguts) pressured it to invest in industrial and military technology. Chinese maritime trade expanded with new ocean-going ships; metal production grew exponentially through the universal adoption of coal-powered blast furnaces and water-powered machinery (in turn leading to widespread deforestation); the economy was monetised to a historically unprecedented degree and the financial system restructured to allow the first joint stock companies (douniu) and close intertwining of public and private investments. Contrary to Diamond's beliefs, Europe was not, in fact, the only part of the world to have been familiar with fragmentation, competition and pressure to adapt.

Modern historians actually doubt that the Black Plague ever really penetrated into Asia to any significant extent. There were later, very lethal epidemics of bubonic and pneumonic plagues across Asia (people still regularly get infected from eating marmots on the Mongolian steppes to this day); but the particular strain that devastated Europe and North Africa likely originated somewhere in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.

The key thing here is traffic. The boundary between Europe and Asia was also the boundary between the two warring Mongol successor states: the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe and the Ilkhanate based in Iran. Consequently, there was still a lot of trade and movement from Golden Horde dominions to the rest of Europe; non-military movement across the above boundary, on the other hand, was more limited (the steppes being one of Eurasia's less densely-populated areas in the first place). The plague eventually got through to Iran, where it played a major role in the downfall of the Ilkhanate; but aside from that, it didn't quite have the same impact on the East as it did on the West.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Feb 8th 2022 at 1:53:08 AM

Hmm, it's apparently up for debate whether these outbreaks, let alone later ones did or did not have impact on China/India. Plus, plague is to a large degree a transmission-limited pathogen, a version with such a high mortality would probably be more infectious - maybe as a peculiar kind of pneumonic plague that begins like a cold (or like COVID-19) before becoming ... well a pneumonic plague.

"Contrary to Diamond's beliefs, Europe was not, in fact, the only part of the world to have been familiar with fragmentation, competition and pressure to adapt."

This is a gross distortion of Diamond's thesis. I don't have my copy of GG&S handy, but I'll gladly elucidate later if you wish.

Chinese sources are actually kinda spotty on the nature of those earlier epidemics. Given the modern-day presence of Yersinia pestis in wildlife reservoirs on the steppes bordering China, it seems reasonable that at least some of them were caused by the bacterium, albeit from different strains than the Black Plague. But IIRC, the first definitive description of bubonic plague symptoms in China only dates back to somewhere betwixt the 17th-18th centuries.

In any case, both the Pontic-Caspian steppe in southern Russia/Ukraine and the Mongolian and Tibetan Plateau steppes bordering China were home to huge ungulate populations, providing a handy reservoir for transmissible diseases. Between the herds and human settlements, though, there's a lot of empty space out on the steppes. Trade was one way for diseases to hop through these liminal spaces; warfare and the ensuing army movements and population displacement was another — note that the earliest Chinese instances given in the above papers date back to the Jin-Song wars in the 12th century.

Per Charles Kenny's The Plague Cycle, there was an outbreak of a mystery epidemic that decimated the population of Hebei around 1338 (eight years before the start of the plague in Europe); but given the overland distance involved and the lack of dense population centres in-between, I'm not particularly inclined to think that the two outbreaks had anything to do with teach other.

When it comes to Alternate History, one topic that I admittedly obsess over is how world history would play out if the American continents and Oceania did not get taken over by Europeans; the indigenous peoples and their cultures do not get displaced by European peoples and cultures, and colonial countries (such as the USA, Canada, Brazil, and Australia) don't get founded. Colonization could/would still happen, be it by Europe or other "Old World" powers (China, to name an example), but would mostly be in the form of coastal settlements that act as trading hubs between seas: as opposed to the large-scale invasion that occurred in this timeline.

While I can't think of how exactly the history would play out, and how the world would look today if this were the case, I can figure of how this scenario can work out to begin with.

The most crucial Point of Divergence being that Horses and Camels do NOT go extinct in the Americas. Both species survive the Ice Age in the Americas, begin migrating across North, Central, and South America (assuming the Darien Gap doesn't prove too much an obstacle into the latter), and become widespread species in all three continents, varying by environmental factors. With immediate access to these easily domesticated animals that have the best builds for riding/work from the get-go, the indigenous Americans would have all the same benefits horses and camels provided to Asia, Europe, and Africa; faster and further traveling and trading, more efficient agriculture, and millennia of experience in mounted warfare. And possibly produces some unique microbiology that the indigenous Americans would be well-accustomed to but proves deadly to those outside the continents.^note Before any of you mention llamas and alpacas, I'm aware that they are camelids and have been domesticated to good effect by the Andean cultures.

The second most crucial Point of Divergence is that the Norse settlements in North America do not decline and set up a trade route between North America and Scandinavia. Which, in conjunction with horses and camels not going extinct, would hopefully expand to the rest of the American continents. Through this, the Americas would receive wheat, cattle, chickens, and other "Old World goods" that the Norse possessed at the time. Not to mention the American continents would be introduced to the Old World diseases much sooner and develop resilience by the time the other European countries develop ships that can safely cross the Atlantic. Assuming, of course, that the Norse trade route doesn't give the rest of Europe a headstart on sailing to the Americas and deciding they want all that land for themselves. Nor that the Norse decide to do the aggressive colonization themselves...

With either or both POD in place, the large-scale colonization the American continents experienced in our timeline would be much less possible as even if Old World diseases ravage much of the indigenous populations (which in itself is potentially mitigated by the second POD), the millennia of in mounted warfare and/or iron weaponry would allow most of the American cultures to fight off any invasive settling.

Of course, neither of these POD directly affect Oceania in staving off its own large-scale colonization. My thought process is that, with European colonization of the Americas being limited to trading ports on the coast, the European powers not having direct control over those continent's land and resources, they would not have nearly the resources and/or interest to colonize Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and so on. But that's just a hunch based on my second-hand knowledge of world history (trust me, I'm trying to get better, but there's a LOT of information to read through). At least for the indigenous Australians, a feasible POD is that they are contacted by Indonesia, China, and/or Japan and receive cattle, chickens, iron weapons, and other such resources via trade. But I don't know enough about the many other cultures in Oceania to make feasible POD.

>Assuming, of course, that the Norse trade route doesn't give the rest of Europe a headstart on sailing to the Americas and deciding they want all that land for themselves. Nor that the Norse decide to do the aggressive colonization themselves

With that timeframe, neither would be a threat.

Aggressive colonization on the scale of colonial empires was only really possible thanks to vast advances in technology, and fueled by political instability in europe. People wanted to leave en mass, and better ships allowed this. Prior to the industrial era /colonial era, colonization happened on the scale of individual settlements. As an example, the ancient greek built colonies in italy. But again, they were mere settlements.

I'm going to disagree. Colonization was driven to a large degree by population pressure in Europe during the Renaissance. Also, per "Guns, Germs, Steel", Europe as a continent, provides access to a wider range of natural resources, and is better positioned with respect to global trade.

Some of that would have to change if Europe isn't to overrun North America in the 1700's.

Well it's called Guns, Germs and Steel, and his scenario essentially removes or mitigates all three issues there? The Europeans could easily overrun north america precisely because disease wiped out many natives and their guns did the rest. But with a much earlier contact point, Europe would in stead face a more centralized continent that doesn't just keel over, and also through trade would have access to things like guns.

Why would it be more centralized? I grant you disease immunity, and maybe access to weapons as a trade item, but population pressure has a tendency to win out in the end, even if it took longer. Also, access to weapons x= "able to access as many weapons as a nation that can manufacture their own", and of course greater integration into global trade would give Europe access to more technical innovations sooner, and greater potential wealth.

Might take a little longer, though.

Access to new goods, guns, and horses would allow for far greater concentration of state power than previously possible.

This hasn't to do with specific alternate history scenarios, but rather about the thread itself.

Is there any crucial difference between "alternate history" and speculation about future history? To me, both are forms of speculative history, the only difference is that one has the benefit of hindsight and (usually) more concrete data to use as a foundation for its speculation of what alternate paths could've been taken, while the other has to extrapolate from past and present data if it wants to deduce the most likely possible future of a given entity/subject from the uncharted proverbial sea of all future possibilities.

The crucial difference is that future history diverges from the current at some point in the present or future, while alternate history diverges from the current at some point in the past.

For example, the major divergence point between the setting of my fictional world and Real Life is that the New England hotspot continued to build islands into the present, giving rise to an archipelago northwest of Cape Verde.

Yeah, that's a no-brainer. But I was talking about the internal workings of creating alternate and future histories.

FWIW, I raise this point because AFAICT, both alternate history and future history work in functionally identical manners, just differing by whether or not the time period being looked at has already passed (i.e. passed from the realm of "completely unknown" to "at least partially known"). And if so, I don't see a reason to keep the two in completely separate threads (there's a thread for near-future settings/histories, but it's underused).

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 23rd 2022 at 5:11:34 PM

Future settings tend to emphasize new technologies, while past ones do not. Whether that additional element justifies a separate thread may be a matter of opinion.

Edited by DeMarquis on Feb 23rd 2022 at 10:39:37 AM

>Is there any crucial difference between "alternate history" and speculation about future history?

Alternate history can rely on existing records and known quantities to derive an alternate solution. Future history is pure speculation.

That's more or less what I said!

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 23rd 2022 at 12:03:02 PM

Practically speaking, we understand the past better than we understand the present.