Plausibility Check #2: A Deadlier Black Death (with a twist)

OK, Falastur, I think that about wraps it up for this thread. Some final thoughts on your most recent thoughtful reply:

Regarding minor states, I unfortunately have the tendency to envision a nice neat world map consisting of several large nations with very few small nations cluttering up the map. But in reality, geopolitics is not so simplistic. I'll have to modify my map and TL to include minor states at the fringes of, in between, and even within the major powers.

I like the belated united Europe idea. The concept of having enemies forced to set aside their differences and unite in the face of a stronger common enemy is very intriguing to me. The Worldwar series, which makes use of this concept extensively, were the first AH novels I read. So having medieval England and France becoming reluctant allies to combat the Ottomans may make its way into the TL. They won't stop the Turks of course, but it'll be good fun anyway.

While the core of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and the Balkans remains stable for centuries, the amount of control they have over the rest of Europe waxes and wanes over time. The European beyliks (thanks for the term -- it's new to me) won't remain peaceful, but their inability to work together against Istanbul will keep them from permanently breaking away without Ottoman permission.

As for the next plausibility thread, I'm thinking of providing a general overview of the whole TL, including the Papal Wars, for the AH public to comment on before I commit to writing the TL. Two major things I'm still concerned about are the ability of the non-European civilizations to become industrialized on their own and the ability of the native American civilizations to remain independent from the Old World powers. In my opinion, both of these accomplishments seem plausible in my TL, but I'm not one to turn down free advice. Feel free to join in the discussion in the new thread once I get it posted. Your input is invaluable and much appreciated, and once again I thank you most kindly for your generous assistance. :)
 
Argh! I realize I am late to this thread, but i only noticed it just now!

One look at a map of the world with an eye to the northern latititudes should tell you what would happen to N. Europe should the current be disrupted. Great Britain is on the same latitude as Hudson Bay. France is on the same latitude as the Dakota's and Montana. Norway and Findland...forget about it. Large areas of the most productive agricultural land in W. Europe would see massive temperature drops, and areas that usually have ice free ports year round would start to freeze up. Almost all of most populous areas of W. Europe are on the same latitude as Montana and S. Canada. There is a reason most of the Canadian population lives within 300 miles of the U.S. border. N. Canada turns into a deep freeze in winter. I have seen -30F below zero in the Montana flatlands in November.

Well. Most of the areas you've cited as examples for climate effects are inland.You need to remember that those areas which were costal will remain costal, only without their bonus heat. I would expect that the costal areas lacking the gulf stream such as Alaska, the pacific coast, Hokkaido and Kamtchatka are better models.
And inland areas such as Finland, the coasts of the Baltic etc will be less affected. Also, in places such as Norway, you can have massive changes in climate from going inland only a few miles. Which means that costal dwellers here will have neighbours with coping skills.

The drainage of Greenland appears to to to the east, but a large impact would really stir things up. Looking at the diagrams in the article, it looks like a large influx of fresh water from the large fiord would disrupt the hypersaline south bound loop between Greenland and Iceland. So that would work I think. The placement isn't that important as an impact would melt ice and the runnoff would go to the south and east. An impact in the central part of the continent would be in the area of the thickest ice so you'd expect a larger volume of melt water cascading to the east.
So it seems feasible in his opinion, although he didn't have exact numbers either regarding the requisite amount of meltwater. If anybody can help me out with the math on that, I'd appreciate it.

To make the impact idea work, it's about finding a happy medium: the impact can't be so small that not enough meltwater is generated to temporarily disrupt the current for a few years, but it can't be so big that it either permanently shuts down the current or winds up creating a global impact winter.

What happens if we replace the asteroid impact with a comet? It is mainly water itself, and has a tendency to break up in the atmosphere, so we can shower a much larger surface area with heat, giving us an additional melting. We can also add mass without involving one single ginormous impact.

Alternatly, our knowledge of the geology of areas below the icesheets of Greenland and Antarctica is poor. Or so I believe, members with more knowledge on geology may correct me. What if we assume an undetected supervolcano under the ice somewhere?

Well, I need to establish a continual low-level contact between the Old World and the Americas as soon as possible after my POD in ~1348. From previous discussions, the general opinion seems to be that this is the best way to provide the native American civilizations with the best chance to advance far enough to avoid being conquered by the Old World. I liked the idea of Norwegians (or some other north Europeans) establishing the first successful colony in Newfoundland because their fair skin would hopefully deter them from spreading too far south and endangering the sovereignty of the native Americans. It doesn't have to be Norwegians making the contact; they were just the closest to the Americas (via their Greenland colony). I was hoping to avoid having one of the future major powers in the Old World (Turks, Arabs, Chinese, etc.) establish this connection due to the possibility of their overrunning the Americas even earlier than the Europeans did in OTL.
While the Greenlanders were reputed to be stubborn people, the idea of emigrating en masse to Vinland was floated among them, I seem to remember. When you are done raining fire from the sky, the even the most stubborn may see the merits of the idea.
It seems quite probable that they will want to emigrate south after the fireworks.

Problems:
-The aftereffects are going to isolate Greenland, and I don't know if the colony was large enough to sustain a lot of infectious diseases.

-The Greenlanders had no wood to build ships. Unless a ship or two was in port and survived the impact, they dont have much ability to move. And one ship isn't enough to move 5000 people! Could the young, strong and desperate corss the sea-ice when local temperatures plummet?

-While the Greenlanders could add several useful technologies to the natives armament, they would also lack some: They'd probably not have any horses, and just because they were norse does not mean they had norse shipbuilding skills. It seems a rather pointless thing to learn for a norse Greenlander, who may in fact never see a tree.

I expected the Norwegians to eventually establish trading posts further south, say, down to the Chesapeake, shortening the distance to the Aztecs (who would have expanded northward and who in turn would trade with the Incas). I don't think the Norwegians would see it as trading a powerful ability, but rather as just regular trade -- supply and demand. (E.g., "I give you these guns if you give me those potatoes.")
You don't really need the europeans at this point, they could have been absorbed seamlessly into the natives long ago. Just the european tech.

On a few other subjects:

The Aztecs and the Incas are unlikly to survive untill they make contact with outsiders. The Aztecs were an exceptionally unstable collections of bastards that everyone hated. It'd take very little to kick the ladder from underneath them and the impact is going to shake things up a lot, even before the diseases.

The Incas didn't even start to get going untill the 1400s. By then disease and butterflies will have changed the picture quite a bit.

Vinland: Personally I feel that things were on a knifes edge there. Very minor things could have changed things totally. Eric the Red missing Greenland and hitting newfoundland, good chemistry with a local chieftain, the Greenlanders setting up a trading post then emigrating, etc.

The thing was, no real attempt to settle the area was made, just a few families and farms. Too few settlers in the population pool, and no real charistmatic bastard to get things going.
 
Thanks for the input, Umbral, but I've already ditched the asteroid impact idea and the neo-Vinland idea. Currently, I'm going with the Papal Wars idea and the Marinid contact idea (see later posts in the thread).

Edit: I overlooked your comments on the Aztecs and Incas. I know the Aztecs weren't exactly popular, but they were pretty powerful. I was intending to have them become more liberal as their scientific knowledge increases, leading to the eschewing of the superstitious practice of human sacrifice. The Inca Empire of OTL did not officially form until the 1400s, but its precursor, the Kingdom of Cuzco had been around since the 1200s. In the ATL, Cuzco will still develop into a powerful Inca Empire.
 
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