Challenge: Tuvalu-wank

With a POD as late as possible, have the OTL nation of Tuvalu become at least a regional power with significant influence in the Pacific region by 2010.
 
This is sheer ASB. It has like 10,000 people, only formed as an independent nation with connections to the outer world because of the British, is tiny and isolated. I realize you're just trying to be ridiculous, but you can't expect people to respond with a reasonable TL.
 
Yeah, I mean, really. I remember when I was a kid, collecting stamps, I had a few from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. The Gilberts are now Kiribati, and the Ellice are Tuvalu. What can you possibly do with 10K people, especially if the islands go underwater sometime this century, if global warming takes place like they say it will? Sure, you will have lots of Tuvalians bitching about it on CNN, but it can't turn them into a regional power. Now, maybe somwhere like Fiji, with all its thousands of pissed off people, taking over other south pacific countries, but even this sounds ASB.
 
A deadly virus kills 99% of humanity, but for some reason skips Tuvalu, which then has the only coherent government and organized forces. Over the next few thousand years, Tuvalu expands until it rules the entire earth.

:):(:p
 
hawaiians could do it. so could new zealanders. honestly i dont know what a tavulu is

Second least populated country on the planet. Around 10,000 poor fishermen. It was one of those former British colonies consisting of a few random islands in the Pacific.
 
A runaway religion emerges on Tuvalu, like Christianity or Islam, but even more explosive. Tuvalu becomes a holy place, the center of the church.
 
Tis possible
my frien however you are gonna need to screw up major history with a pod
sometime like 30000 years ago or some crazy shit like that, have horses, elephants and etcetera evolve on island due to some Million year old crap, then have it be populated with fertile resources, coal,'ore, steel etc, and have a large grip of people migrating here, have them adapt tomenvirement and soon start conquering nearby islands walah by 1800 b.c Tuvalu is the major power of Asia, with central gov, horses, bows and arrows, crowned domesticated animals..... There's your Tuvalu wank:):):):):):):):):):):):):)
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Aren't they rich now due to controlling .tv?

The vast majority of the population is agricultural workers and fishers, with only a quarter doing anything else. Their military is the Australian forces, their economy is partially dependent on a trust fund abroad, dot tv has helped but has not made them wealthy... And if I remember stats, their population pre-contact was barely a thousand.

Tonga, Hawai'i, Samoa, Tahiti, etc are another matter, since they could all have some chance at dominating somehow, the problem is that they'd need a way to keep contact with all the extremities of their empire, even with the huge amount of founder effect (e.g. how the Easter Island colonists lost the ability to make ships).
 
OK, currently the only regular connexion with Tuvalu is 2 Air Pacific flights a week from Fiji.

If a global epidemic of a nasty Ebola-like virus hit the world, killing off 99% of the people infected, and Tuvalu was spared somehow (the plane that would have left Tuesday was grounded for mechanical problems, and by Friday Fiji has more important things to worry about than flying to Tuvalu...) we could fulfill the OP

While humanity would survive elsewhere, even survive with some civilization in places like rural Iowa, etc., a 1% survival rate means no families survive, few of the survivors are related, and they are going to be suffering from huge psychological effects.


Tuvalu would be the only surviving place with functioning government, banking system and police force.

They COULD parlay that into a huge regional dominance.
 
They don't have a police force and a banking system.
They do have a police force, what they don't have is a military. [delete] They must have local banks - even if they're branches of somewhere else.[/delete]

They even have a 'National Bank of Tuvalu'. Apparently it was set up in 1980, and is said to be the only commercial bank in the country.

wiki said:
Its police force includes a Maritime Surveillance Unit for search and rescue missions and surveillance operations. The police have a Pacific-class patrol boat (HMTSS Te Mataili) provided by Australia under the Pacific Patrol Boat Program for use in maritime surveillance and fishery patrol.[11] HMTSS stands for His/Her Majesty's Tuvaluan State Ship or His/Her Majesty's Tuvalu Surveillance Ship.
 
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ASB. We need to kill 99% of human population while the Tuvaluans will survive and rule the world even if they are only few.
I don't think a plague that kills 99% of humanity is QUITE ASB, although it's exceedingly improbable. Tuvalu being spared, due to their isolation is ... unlikely, but possible.


Their currency by the way is Australian Dollar.
Hmmm... Didn't see that, but it makes sense given that e.g. Australia provided their patrol boats.

If they had had their own currency (even if it was originally printed in Switzerland or the US) it would make it easier to transition. But there are too many Aussie dollars in Australia.

Over printing the Aussie notes would be possible, I suppose, but a real pain.
 
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