AHC: Screw the Planet! (after 1492, w/out Nukes/Diseases)

Challenge: Make sure that, by 2014, the world's population stays below 4 billion, and no country exists that is more or less larger than OTL Italy (~300k km^2/~100k mi^2).

However, you cannot simply have nuclear warfare annihilate the world's population, and diseases are out of it too.* Anything out of humanity's control (asteroids, solar flares, etc.) are no longer a viable option either.
POD after 1492.

Why? I've noticed, and I'm sure other people have as well, that the Post-Apocalyptic genre is becoming more and more prevalent in every form of media, from comic books to movies. However, either the cause of the apocalypse is not examined (perhaps justifiably so, Cormac McCarthy), or it's zombies.

However, causing an apocalypse without nukes past 1900 seems implausible, and before that disease would seem like an obvious option. So, let's get rid of those.
Note: this is a challenge. It's supposed to be hard.

*Disease can help, if you really want it to. Just don't want a super disease wiping out the entire planet.
 

Ryan

Donor
smaller human population is the opposite of a planet screw, as it means that earths resources aren't being depleted at ridiculous rates.

as far as population goes though, the global population didn't reach 4 billion until the 70's so you just need a way to speed up development such that most people are at western levels of development, meaning that their population growth has slowed or stopped.
 
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Challenge: Make sure that, by 2014, the world's population stays below 4 billion, and no country exists that is more or less larger than OTL Italy (~300k km^2/~100k mi^2).

Nope, no way, no how.

This would mean that Greenland is 7 or 8 countries, at least. Forget about the Canadian and Russian Arctic regions.
 
I suppose you could conceive of an extremely unlikely (but statistically possible) scenario where all localist leaders (e.g. individual dukes/counts/earls, family clans etc.) are consistently more capable than national leaders such as kings, emperors, governors and suchlike.

So every country tends towards devolution instead of centralization and eventually breaks up into tiny statelets, preventing the build-up of capital that could launch the Industrial Revolution (population) or conquer massive amounts of territory (country size).

Colonialism in this case would also be very limited due to intense pan-European/Asian competition, which means no formation of large states in 'wastelands' and no imposition of Westphalian state structures on Arabia, Africa, South America, Australia, and so on.
 

SinghKing

Banned
Challenge: Make sure that, by 2014, the world's population stays below 4 billion, and no country exists that is more or less larger than OTL Italy (~300k km^2/~100k mi^2).

However, you cannot simply have nuclear warfare annihilate the world's population, and diseases are out of it too.* Anything out of humanity's control (asteroids, solar flares, etc.) are no longer a viable option either.
POD after 1492.

Why? I've noticed, and I'm sure other people have as well, that the Post-Apocalyptic genre is becoming more and more prevalent in every form of media, from comic books to movies. However, either the cause of the apocalypse is not examined (perhaps justifiably so, Cormac McCarthy), or it's zombies.

However, causing an apocalypse without nukes past 1900 seems implausible, and before that disease would seem like an obvious option. So, let's get rid of those.
Note: this is a challenge. It's supposed to be hard.

*Disease can help, if you really want it to. Just don't want a super disease wiping out the entire planet.

So, what about OTL's diseases? Genetic studies of the HIV-1 M virus suggest that the most recent common ancestor of the viral group can be traced back to the Belgian Congo city of Léopoldville (modern Kinshasa), circa 1910. Proponents of this dating link the HIV epidemic with the emergence of colonialism and growth of large colonial African cities, leading to social changes, including a higher degree of sexual promiscuity, the spread of prostitution, and the concomitant high frequency of genital ulcer diseases (such as syphilis) in nascent colonial cities. IOTL, it took another 35 to 50 years for individuals to carry HIV/AIDS beyond Equatorial Africa. But WI, ITTL, some promiscuous individual (or a doctor with unsterilised needles) carries AIDS back to Europe (and/or North America, Asia, South America & Oceania) prior to or during WW1? With the AIDS pandemic either immediately preceding the Spanish Flu (H1N1) pandemic or in concert with it? And of course, you could attempt to go down the Steampunk Mad Max route (in which methods to distill petroleum from crude oil are never developed. Peak coal is reached in the early to mid-1900's, triggering a major energy crisis and sending the world's nations into a terminal decline, with break-downs of law and order sending the entire world into a Warlord Era).
 
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Industrial Revolution one key buts need more

No industrial revolution. It wasn't inevitable. Or at least delay it 50-100 years.
Yep that is my thought

:)

The preconditions for the IR seem to me pretty much established by 1750, possibly earlier.

So the POD should be prior to 1700, since I think you'd need to remove the rise in agricultural productivity too. And remove the prosperity from the Triangular Trade that provided seed capital, or at least contributed to the nexus of traders, financiers and landed gentry that financed canals, docks etc.

So, try to do without Drake and co or at least the 17th century seizure of Barbados etc for the sugar trade.

:eek:

Difficult !! As intended

:rolleyes:

Maybe Europe and England/Britain more devastated by Wars of Religion in 16th-17th century? So colonisation of Americas slower and less profitable?

No IR leaves European economies at a pre-industrial plateau, as China got standard in for various reasons. So Malthus applies and world population stays at 2-3bn given 17th century crop yields and transport.


To stop scientific enquiry post Renaissance is tricky. Would need both Catholics and Protestants to turn against it. Is that possible?
:confused:
Maybe Catholics would see investigation into nature as leading scientists into pride and denial of God. IF Protestant states turned to fundamentalist thinking they could view science as anti-bIblical

I'd stress that neither view was prevalent OTL, the Catholic Church was by no means as reactionary as sometimes painted as far as scientific enquiry was concerned. Just very socially conservative and hidebound.

However, wars tend to bring pressure to innovate so maybe reactionary churches are implausible

Hmm,

Catholic Church suppresses Reformation? Then discourages literacy (apart from clergy) as likely to lead to heresy and 'free thinking'?

Possibly too late by 1600 but if the German states and other early adopters, like Geneva, could be overrun a la Magdeburg in 1631 (?) the cHurch could keep a lid on things for much longer. Still have samizdat printing and any time a state was in turmoil this would increase. As in England in 1640s.

So how could the Catholic Church win against the Reformation? Extra allies?

England !! :D

All we need is to give Henry VIII a son by Catherine of Aragon and no top down mandate for the Protestant faith.

Though I'd expect low level "subversion" in England and elsewhere to simmer for a long while, centuries even. It's not easy to suppress heresy completely.

:rolleyes:

Of course, I've just described ranichi17's new TL, Fruit of the Pomegranate

;)

That actually wasn't in my mind when I started. It's just each POD I thought of seemed to lead back to deeper trends.

Honest guv

:)
 
Nope, no way, no how.

This would mean that Greenland is 7 or 8 countries, at least. Forget about the Canadian and Russian Arctic regions.

Modern Greenland has a population density of 0.4 people per square mile. If a new nation was to exist there it would probably concentrate more on becoming self-sustainable rather than planting flags in the ice for no concernable reason.
 
The Mongols keep focused on Europe instead of expanding everywhere. Keep Feudalism in place and delay the discovery of the Americas for 100 years or so. Not sure how to do that out east, though.
 
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