Earliest possible date for a unified earth?

In 1940 Britain and France merge. After Pearl Harbour the war in both the Pacific go very badly and in order to prevent even the thought of a seperate peace on either front the Anglo-French Union and all their Colonies, Dominions and associated teritories merge with the US. The Governments in exile follow suit as in an attempt to protect itself from Spain and the Axis powers does Portugal. Over the next four years North Africa is cleared of axis troops and Italy collapses. Because of the threat from the Soviets and disgust at the Nazis Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary attempt to withdraw from the Axis and are invade by the Germans. their Goverments in exile sign on with the United Nations of Earth. On the verge of collapse Chiang signs up China. Japan facing starvation and widespread area bombing surrenders having lost 60% + of their population including the peoples of Korea and Formosa. UNE forces invade Europe in 1948 and the German army which is now conscripting 13 year old boys and girls topples the Nazis and sues for piece with the UNE. The UNE anex Germany and all of Europe upto the 1938 Soviet Borders. Over the Next ten Years Latin and South America Join the UNE as does Sweden and Finland. Turky and the Arab States Join in the 1960s followed by Persia in 1975.
 
If we're talking about when a unified world would have been technologically feasible, I guess one way of determining that would be to look at ancient empires like Rome and China, figure out the response time of such states (how long it would take a ruler to get word from his minions and back again, how long it would take to respond effectively to rebellion or incursion), and then calculate when technology placed the entire earth in this potential response time frame.

My guess would be technologically the earliest time you could get a unified world would be sometime in the 1800s (or equivalent level of technology). Put together all European colonies and conquests and imagine it all being done by one state, you'd have something close to a world empire.

Politics, of course, is a different matter, as OTL nicely demonstrates (in many ways the present world is far smaller than the Roman Empire in terms of effective distance; you can travel from one end to the other in a day or two, and get a message from one end to the other in an instant).

I think it might just be an accident of history that this didn't happen. Have the industrial revolution happen in a more politically unified civilization like China instead of a politically fragmented one like Europe and I could see the world ending up like this. So a pre-1900 POD might be a good bet for this.

As for the earliest possible date this could happen ... maybe if you could somehow get a scientific/industrial revolution going in ancient Egypt or Sumeria or Shang Dynasty China...

You are definitely on to something. Look at the time for communications and travel (and the amount of communications and travel) in ancient empires and extrapolate it to the whole world, and you do get something like 1800s tech, even conceivably early 1800s tech, but probably more the telegraph and steamship era.

But I don't think that's the whole question. We've already identified the *time* it takes for communications and travel/trade and the *amount* of communications and travel/trade. I think you also need to look at the *duration* of the communications and travel/trade area. In other words, we didn't see the Roman empire come into being as soon as the mediterranean became a functional unit. Instead, it was only when the Med had been a communications and travel/trade area for long enough to have a more or less common culture base (hellenism) that you saw a region-spanning empire form. So you're probably looking at a delay of a few centuries after you reach 1800s tech levels before a world empire becomes very feasible.

I would also suggest that you probable need the military technology to be conducive to professionalization and specialization, which suggests that the mass musket and rifle armies of the 1800s probably aren't ideal for world-empire formation, but I'm less sure about that.

I think the ideal scenario for earliest possible globe-spanning empire is as follows:

have an extremely early agricultural revolution in an area that will be fairly isolated from most of the world until its fairly advanced. In other words, the idea here is that agriculture and other innovations don't "seep out" to the rest of the world until the area of origination is quite technically and culturally advanced, comparatively speaking. This is kinda tough to do, because at the same time you need an area large enough to actually support a civilization. Say you get a few early geniuses in Australia and you get an agricultural revolution there some 30,000 years ago. Add a few more millennia and then suppose that you have an Australian civilization that has finally developed naval vessels with the sophistication to go on long sailing voyages at distant speeds.

You will then have an explosion. At this point Australia will have more population than the rest of the world put together, all the diseases, and massive economic, military, and cultural superiority. Non-Australians will more or less assimilate if they survive with any significance. Skip ahead a few centuries or a millennium, The end result will be large settler or mestize type nations all sharing a related material culture, religions, and probably even language. Given time, and perhaps some continued technical advance, though that isn't necessary, a loose world empire would be feasible.
 
I'm having a hard time finding it but a few years ago I inspired a thread called "Planet Britain" or something like that where the British Empire expanded to the entire Earth and the Moon. Essentially the Empire kept annexing countries and after World War II the United Nations was formed as an uber-Commonwealth under the British Monarchy. Expansion to the Moon was accomplished with Her Majesty's spaceship's first landing in 1969.
 
My pint of bat's blood...

...I have worked out a storyline that had a teenaged nerd son of a couple of special forces veterans inventing a self-learning AI which he uses to attack the capital and income of the Mafia ("There is no such thing...") and various terrorist groups. Trigger is True Love with a young lady whose ancestral home is now owned by a Mafia money-launderer with a repellent son who sells drugs to kids in the local High (making them even higher?). Anyway, the AI cleans the clocks of the Mob, returns a lot of dosh in secret, but still has enough to do economic warfare against rogue states. That includes electronic control of every electrical circuit it can reach, so when the crooks grab three airliners saying 'We want our dough back' the AI and Our Hero act fast. The states acting as hosts to the terrorists (Iran and North Korea - no surprises), are forced to surrender to the AI after arms warehouses explode and refineries catch fire, the terrorists being chopped up by the security forces of their host nations. And all because his mum calls him to lunch at the critical moment.

The AI decides war is a waste of planetary resources and resolves on world unity. The Hero and Heroine argue (unsuccessfully) for the UN and go on the lam when the AI decides to use them as figureheads for its Terran Empire and blows their cover - naturally, everybody wants the richest and most powerful kids in the world in their hands. After accessing every electronic war game scenario, the AI decides that a benevolent dictatorship is inevitable. Hero and Heroine go to a Rockies foothills town, later going to a convention of their fans. Unfortunately, the Spetsnaz (yes, I had to get them in) abduct Our Heroes and take them to Moscow. The AI forces surrender of Russia to Our Heroes, the Heroine becoming Tsaritsa-Regnant of Russia...

Like it? Just a giggle...:D
 
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There is no country on Earth which is powerful enough to effect a unification of the planet by the use of force. Even in the past no nation had ever possessed such power.The power of any superpower in any period was limited by the power of her rivals.The only possibility of a unified Earth is through peaceful deliberations that may lead to the strengthening of U.N.O. and its evolution to a World Government.
 
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