"Beyond Thirty" world...

One of Edgar Rice Burroughs' least known works was a story "Beyond Thirty" (published in book form as "The Lost Continent"). Written in the middle of WW1, ERB supposes a world where the USA, horrified by the terrible war in Europe, declares that the entire New World is isolated from the old world. No contact is allowed from longitude 30 W to 175 W. Between the massive mine laying efforts and German unrestricted submarine warfare, all transoceanic contact is lost. Little is known of Europe except that the war goes on and on and on. The nations of the New World form a Pan-American Federation that makes great leaps and bounds in technology, and they make vast navies that patrol the longitudes of the boundaries, forbidding all contact. No one is allowed to go "beyond 30".
The story takes place around 2137 AD (I'm guessing from notes in the book). A ship in the PAF navy breaks down and gets blown beyond 30, and drifts to Europe. The Americans find that the continent (and the UK) is a howling Stone Age wilderness. Actually, most of the old world is, except for two empires (Ethiopia and China, both of which exist at about 1920 technology, and both of which are struggling to control Europe). Naturally, the New World makes peaceful contact with the prosperous empire of China, and agree to lift the travel restrictions and bring aid to Europe.

Of course, this scenario is practically ASB, although not exactly magical, so I very hesitantly put it here. I imagine that most of you will tell me that it's impossible (and I agree), but let's make it happen. What would it take?
 
Of course, this scenario is practically ASB, although not exactly magical, so I very hesitantly put it here. I imagine that most of you will tell me that it's impossible (and I agree), but let's make it happen. What would it take?

Bio-weapons.
 
I've read the book and it is a good old ERB sort of read. Tho now that I think about it he completely (as far as I can recall) ignore the US presence in the Philippines.
 
Here's a summary of the book.

I agree with Timmy811 it would need to be one or more Bio-Agents of some type.

I could see the Philippines being abandoned by the US after a massive evacuation.
 
i read the book too. i recall that towards the end of the book, it was mentioned that in the past, the Federation signed a treaty with the chinese or had a conference or something like that, where they formally withdrew and the chinese understood their motivations. it has been about 2 years since i read it, so i could be wrong but that is my memory.

that explains the loss of the Philippines.
 
Okay. I think Timmy has the right of it. Let's give it a shot.

Push the outbreak of Spanish Flu ahead to mid-late 1915 and have it make a lucky early jump to Europe so it's even less clear that it came out of Asia. Have both sides vaguely suspect (I'm thinking yellow journalism here) that the other had something to do with the virus.

Just as OTL, the plague kills as many as the entirety of the war. In OTL, though, the war was well on its way by the time it hit. In this one everyone is still adjusting to total war. The sudden loss of manpower slows down all the upcoming offensives and reduces immediate interest in secondary fronts. Ironically, Germany does well out of the outbreak. The blockade was not starving people yet, the population is healthier, and fewer die as a result. It will also increase the time it will take before the blockade starts really hurting as it lowers the population before stocks run low. All told that gives you the potential for a longer war.

Both Britain and Germany had biowarfare programs going during the war. Thanks to their suspicions, British intelligence digs a little deeper and finds the German one. From their fragmentary intelligence, the horror of the flu, and the jockeying of the UK biowar program for funding ("If you don't fund us, the Germans will kill us all!") they convince themselves the flu was German work. Masses of funding go to develop bioweapons and protect against them, and the French start their own program. The Germans find out about their enemies' programs and assume they created the flu.

Now the problem is, it's very hard to work out how to get from there to a civilization-destroying bioweapon. People are still vaccinated against smallpox, for example. Even harder is getting such a viscious weapon before the Great War comes to a halt from something else. We could argue about how long it could go, but let's save time and just cap it at 1921, tops. Revolution-related conflicts may go beyond that.

The most practical of the weapons they were working on was weaponized anthrax. It would have been used much like poison gas, and would have differed only in its ability to last longer and in the lag before the effects showed. Next most practical were a series of anti-livestock and anti-crop weapons.

You know, that might be enough.

Both sides hold off on using germ warfare at first, knowing how useless poison gas was in terms of winning a war. We'll handwave away the Zimmerman Telegram to put off American entry. When submarine warfare begins in earnest, the Germans combine it with biowar attacks on Britain's crops. It doesn't cause mass starvation, but it does wreak havoc and increase the dependency on imports. Naturally, the British reply in kind and more thoroughly. A few of the things (fungal, bacterial, viral) spread beyond the target countries.

At that point the neutral nations become suddenly wary of ships coming from Europe, and the conventional wisdom in America becomes "don't touch." This only increases as the Europeans keep up a slight tit-for-tat use of crop warfare, while holding the "big guns" in reserve. Biowarfare against humans is very rare and entirely on the Eastern Front.

Without American entry, the Michael Offensive isn't rushed, and nearly wins Germany the war right there. In desperation the French spread masses of anthrax dust in front of the German spearheads. It's not decisive, but that doesn't stop everyone thinking it so. The Germans leave their own anthrax contributions as they retreat from the offensive's more extreme salients. In 1919 the British begin mass bombings of the Rhineland cities (it was planned in OTL). The next Zeppelin raid on Greater London drops not bombs, but a liberal dusting of anthrax. It would be difficult to overstate how horrible that is. Naturally, the Entente fires right back.

By now every outbreak of anything is blamed on the opposing side, or on "the Europeans" in the rest of the world. Trade with the New World isn't cut off, but it does plummet dramatically. Even the Dominions and Japan are suddenly careful with any ship coming from Europe.

In Europe, Germany has done better than OTL, but it is still outmatched: The Bolsheviks are slowly gaining ground in the civil war. The Entente is on the back foot, but slowly gaining ground in the Balkans, Italy and France. They "have" the Ukraine but are getting very little use out of it (the same transportation issues of OTL).

In desperation they prepare a massive crop warfare attack on the main Entente crops, what they eat and what they feed their livestock. They plant heavily in easy things like potatos and the few crops they don't have a ready weapon against. Of course, the British have picked up on what they are planting and are ready to respond with a few blights against just that. Both sides are also working on what human diseases they think they can keep from getting back to them.

The attack is introduced by spies and what zeppelins can be snuck under the cover of weather. The Entente can see what is coming as soon as it starts, and while they can't stop it, it's easy enough to reply against those few crops the Germans have been promoting. The blights cross each other until everyone is hit equally. Edible wild plants are collected en masse and everyone starts eating the grass-fed livestock.

What follows is an extreme version of what happened to Germany in OTL. The armies are initially given what they need to keep up the fight, and the rest is divided between everyone else. Human diseases cut a swathe through the weakened civilian population. Revolutions topple nearly every government in Europe and more or less every the national minority go its own way. The remaining soldiers abandon the trenches and walk home. The UK ends up at war with Ireland over its sheep. Maybe Scotland, for that matter.

The New World quarantines itself as the blights and plagues sweep Eurasia and North Africa. Rice wouldn't be targeted, so most of Asia is relatively safe, but a lot of colonies will go their own way. Sub-Saharan Africa has a different crop base, and the famines there are due to local crops being sold in Europe.

It's not going to be a Stone Age Europe, per se. But closer to that than it would be to the Industrial Age. The crop warfare bit is extrapolating a lot from what we've seen in OTL and what I know of the science, but I think it's all doable.

Thoughts?
 
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Pre WW1 there was a wide spread belief in Progress, and that Science was going to make the World a Paradise.

WW1 with it's Poison Gas, and Flying Machines of Death, Etc, forever changed that.

I can see a the few survivors under this Senerio, going thru a Simplication, and Destroying the Instruments, and Machines that caused this.

Whe would not be back at ERB's Stone age, but could easy be back in the Medival dark ages.
 
Admiral Matt, I like your outline, but I would add in one thing.
During the attack of the food cereals, one of the nations had developed a slightly altered form of the fungus Claviceps purpurea. This fungus infects rye and other cereal plants and causes ergotism. This newer form could cause worse hallucinations which might have helped bring about a fall to the stone age like level.

Like DuQuense mentioned about destroying the machines, this could have increased the extreme-Luddite movement of war torn Europe. Say someone in northern Italy, a priest, hallucinating from the fungus, begins a movement some point after the war is starting to stall, saying it is God's wish to destroy the machines and return to a more natural world.
 
Very interesting TL, tho like the book, it appears to be ignoring Canada, Australia, India, the Middle East, etc.

Some how I think something along the lines of H.G. Wells' movie 'Things to Come' is more likely. A few generations of war in Europe with the United States, and much of the Western Hemisphere remaining neutral.
 
DuQuense and my Sovereign, those are some very good points. Neo-Luddites are not only likely to crop up in this scenario, they certainly get us closer to the result we're looking for. And that fungus would almost certainly be among the ones used.

David Poepoe, thanks. Fair enough. With anything thrown together like this I suppose something important will usually be left out. I haven't seen "Things to Come," but it sounds worth a look.

The main challenge we have here is in the timing. Could that many bioweapons really be put together in so few years? It would be easier with a Great War timed closer to Jared's, except by then it really wouldn't be our WW1. Hrm.

This is a fairly interesting scenario, actually. Maybe I'll play around with it a bit?
 
David Poepoe, thanks. Fair enough. With anything thrown together like this I suppose something important will usually be left out. I haven't seen "Things to Come," but it sounds worth a look.

It was an observation in general, not a critique, since until I read your short ATL it never occured to me how Americancentric Beyong Thirty was to begin with. Even within the opening years of the 20th century I would think it fairly hard for one portion of the world to completely cut itself off from the rest.
 
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