Plausibility check: a deadlier Black Death

[Valdemar II]

could we do that in Europe too? Along with the plague, have outbreaks of smallpox, pneumonia, whatever? Instead of one disease getting meaner, what about a variety of diseases striking all at once?

Multible similar mutations happening at once, while possible, I would say it's as likely as George Bush being hit by a meteor while standing under the "Mission Accomplish" banner ergo far out in ASB territorium. The poroblem are that if Europe is hit by a 95% mortality rate disease, it's going to burn out before it hit all of Europe, the other problem is that South Europe and the Middle East belong to the same sub-epidemiological unit, while North Europe is somewhat another sub-epidemiological unit. While we see a difference between Arabs, Spaniard, Italian, Turks and Greeks genetic the differencies are minimal, and any disease which hit one group so hard, will also hit the others. So I would put this thread firmly in ASB territorium. Of course you could easily have a Black Death hitting Europe harder, it the insane high precent and its isolation to Europe which is unlikely. In OTL Poland was hit less hard by the Black Death, while Scandinavia was hit hardest (Norway seem to have had a mortality rate of 60%).

 

[Valdemar II]

For fatality rates, Rabies is 100% (I don't believe anyone has ever survived it without the vaccine).

There's one known survivouer of rabies in the history of mankind without vaccine. So yes it could just as well be 100%.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

DJC:
This delays the "discovery" of the New World by the Old, giving the Mexicans (Aztecs) and Inkas time to consolidate their hold on the American continents.

Maur:
If you delay the discovery by a century only, you still have New World civilizations at basically 2000 BCE level of Old World development.

Yes, I knew that accelerating the progress of the New World civilizations was one of the potentially weakest part of my premise. I was hoping that the century-long delay would give the Mexicans and Inkas enough time. Perhaps in the ATL, there could be a brief, early contact (prior to the major attempts at colonization) between the Mexicans (or Inkas) and the Old World which would provide the native Americans with Old World tech (mainly metalworking and firearms). Even if they adopted Old World tech and began to use it widely, I know it wouldn't put the native Americans nearly on par with the Old World, but I was hoping it could give them enough of an edge to ward off being wholly conquered as in OTL. Is this still unrealistic?

Ideally, I'd like the Mexicans to remain in power until at least the 21st century, and if possible, the Inkas and native North Americans too. But if there's no way this can realistically be done, I'll have to modify the story. I still hope there a way to keep at least Mexico going, even with reduced territory.

~~~~~

DJC:
City living increases disease resistance, mitigating the impact of foreign germs brought by explorers from the Old World.

Maur:
It's a misconception... it won't increase resistance to OW diseases. Since they aren't present in NW, so they aren't there to promote resistance in population. What would happen would be indigenous NW diseases that hit OW in turn, too.

You know, I've wondered why the Old World diseases did so much damage to the New World, while NW bugs didn't do nearly as much damage to the OW. So, as I understand it, urbanization promotes disease transmission and in turn disease resistance, but only to those specific diseases, which obviously would differ between the OW and NW. If the NW did become more urbanized in the extra century they get before OW colonization, would there be more NW diseases and more damage done to the OW in the ATL? In this case, both sides would suffer, the OW more so than in OTL. Would the NW still suffer as much as in OTL though? Perhaps the NW fares relatively better than in OTL (since the OW is hit harder), giving the NW a better chance to stave off invasion.

Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond
Read it. It is not infallible, and Jared overstates his case a couple of times, but it is a very, very good discussion.

The portion that concerns us here is that most of our diseases are zoonotic in origin. Having pigs and cows and ducks around makes a wonderful breeding ground for new diseases to jump to humans (or back or sideways). One of the reasons that the Old World has so many diseases is that they've been living with animals for 10k years. This has selected for people with an immune system tuned to fighting micro-organisms.

The New world had far fewer domestic animals, so fewer diseases from them.

For endemic epidemic diseases (things like small pox, measles, etc) you need a large enough population connected to each other that when the disease hits a community and everyone either dies or is immune thereafter, there is another nearby community it can hit, etc., until there it cycles back to the first one when there is a new generation of susceptible children.

One of them (measles?) requires a connected pool of at least 5million people - which pool size was only ever reached in Central America of places in the New World, AFAIK.

 

[Nerdlinger]

Multible similar mutations happening at once, while possible, I would say it's as likely as George Bush being hit by a meteor while standing under the "Mission Accomplish" banner ergo far out in ASB territorium. The poroblem are that if Europe is hit by a 95% mortality rate disease, it's going to burn out before it hit all of Europe, the other problem is that South Europe and the Middle East belong to the same sub-epidemiological unit, while North Europe is somewhat another sub-epidemiological unit. While we see a difference between Arabs, Spaniard, Italian, Turks and Greeks genetic the differencies are minimal, and any disease which hit one group so hard, will also hit the others. So I would put this thread firmly in ASB territorium. Of course you could easily have a Black Death hitting Europe harder, it the insane high precent and its isolation to Europe which is unlikely. In OTL Poland was hit less hard by the Black Death, while Scandinavia was hit hardest (Norway seem to have had a mortality rate of 60%).

Hey, don't consign me to ASB territory just yet. I started this thread specifically to avoid having the timeline falling victim to ASBs. And the multiple disease mutation idea wasn't mine.

The mortality rate doesn't have to be 90-95%. That was just what I first proposed. If 80% is more reasonable, then I'll go with that. I think it still would be devastating to Europe and would cripple them enough to allow the Turks to take over. If 95% wouldn't permit the disease to spread far, then lowering the rate would allow the plague to take all of Europe. But is 80% low enough?

What exactly are epidemiological units and sub-epidemiological units? The terms are new to me. Even if they are genetically similar, southern Europeans and Middle Easterners would be hit by different waves of the plague (the deadlier form and the original, respectively). Wouldn't the Middle Easterners gain resistance from the original form to prevent the deadlier form from coming back at them from Europe at full force?

Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond
Read it. It is not infallible, and Jared overstates his case a couple of times, but it is a very, very good discussion.

The portion that concerns us here is that most of our diseases are zoonotic in origin. Having pigs and cows and ducks around makes a wonderful breeding ground for new diseases to jump to humans (or back or sideways). One of the reasons that the Old World has so many diseases is that they've been living with animals for 10k years. This has selected for people with an immune system tuned to fighting micro-organisms.

The New world had far fewer domestic animals, so fewer diseases from them.

For endemic epidemic diseases (things like small pox, measles, etc) you need a large enough population connected to each other that when the disease hits a community and everyone either dies or is immune thereafter, there is another nearby community it can hit, etc., until there it cycles back to the first one when there is a new generation of susceptible children.

One of them (measles?) requires a connected pool of at least 5million people - which pool size was only ever reached in Central America of places in the New World, AFAIK.

I've read a summary of Diamond's book, and I've also seen a lot of criticism toward it. The theory about the domestic animals is very interesting and makes sense (to me, at least). So do you think that once we get to the time of the Black Death, the peoples of the Americas were essentially fated to be nearly wiped out by Old World diseases?

 

[Nugax]

Very Long post

I mean 95% of the population dying as silly, not that high a death rate for the affected. Anyway marshelling some points:

-Kalan is correct, in that surviving bubonic plague gives full resistance against pnuemonic infection by the same strain. However changing it to spread more by pnuemonic infection will require changing some of the surface proteins involved in infection, which means a portion of those who gained immunity via an antibody to that particular structure are now vulnerable again. This means that it would rapidly backspread through Eurasia as there is a vulnerable subpopulation within the Middle East and Far East survivors, and it will hit a rising generation of naive individuals in areas where the plague has burnt out . Multiple mutations would just excerbate this effect, the targeted removal of any particualr subunit of the Eurasian disease network is very difficult.

-Pneumonic plague has a very short incumbation phase, which might actually slow spread as it burns out local human and rat populations.

-Plague doesn't spread that fast, it took more than 5 years to get all the way across Europe. A change early on would occur whilst its still busy infecting the Middle East and cause massive death there as well. You have something of an immutable sliding window; wiping out all of Europe would necessitate massive death in Western Asia. You could have a late mutation causing a great deal of damage in Russia and Northern Europe without touching the Middle East, but that'd need higher survival rates in the Med.

-Dathi is correct in that native american diseases would mainly just produce a two-disease warfare exchange, but long term endemic diseases and unhealthy city living of any sort does actually give some general population immunity any other disease as it selects for diversity in the MHC complex. However this a) takes a heck of a long time (thousands of years, not a hundred), and b) the Native Americans went through a genetic bottleneck getting to the Americas (slowing the time it would take for immunological diversity to develop).

 

[Sol Invictus]

In the ATL, a mutation in the plague population just beginning to spread into southern Europe makes the disease almost three times deadlier (exactly how I'm uncertain, but I'm trying not to gloss over details). So the Black Death does as much damage to the rest of the Old World (killing approximately 1/3 of population of the areas it hit) in the ATL as in OTL. Europe is at the end of the line, and that's when the disease goes into overdrive, wiping out almost all Europeans.

How doesn't this new plague then spread to the Ottomans?

 

[Kalan]

Uh oh. I have conflicting advice. So if one gets resistance regardless of the form of the plague, then the deadlier strain wouldn't be able to continue on outside of Europe, where the original strain already swept through, right?

Well you have to differentiate between resistance and immunity. Immunity is the what you get after you survived an illness once. Your immunsystem remembers and can combat the pathogen more efficiently. Immunity is not inherited (although antibodies are secreted into the milk, so your mother protects you for a while).
Resistance means that there is a genetic change which makes you less susceptible to an illness. Resistance is inherited.

Therefore while the people in the middle east might be immune their children won't be and as the plague will survive in rodents it will get them.

The colonists were already hit with and survived the original form of the plague, so wouldn't they still have resistance? I know that the plague recurred in Europe numerous times after the Black Death, although without doing nearly as much damage.

The reason that further outbreaks did less demage was that a) the population density was drastically decreased by the first outbreak making it harder for the disease to spread and b) the fact that the older persons were still immune to the disease and c) very slow evolution of resistance

I don't know how it kept recurring though. Was it being re-transmitted by a reservoir of rodents either in or outside of Europe? I suppose it was able to recur because each outbreak was different enough from the previous outbreak so that any prior resistance would be useless.

There are two different strategies used by pathogenes. One let's call it the influenza strategy is to rapidly change so that the immunity is useless. The other the smallpox strategy is to wait until new host without immunity are born. Yersinia pestis uses the later. And the new outbreaks did indeed come from the native rodents.

 

[Valdemar II]

Hey, don't consign me to ASB territory just yet. I started this thread specifically to avoid having the timeline falling victim to ASBs. And the multiple disease mutation idea wasn't mine.

Fair enough.

The mortality rate doesn't have to be 90-95%. That was just what I first proposed. If 80% is more reasonable, then I'll go with that. I think it still would be devastating to Europe and would cripple them enough to allow the Turks to take over. If 95% wouldn't permit the disease to spread far, then lowering the rate would allow the plague to take all of Europe. But is 80% low enough?

I think 60% is possible above that travel breaks down and the disease die off.

What exactly are epidemiological units and sub-epidemiological units? The terms are new to me. Even if they are genetically similar, southern Europeans and Middle Easterners would be hit by different waves of the plague (the deadlier form and the original, respectively). Wouldn't the Middle Easterners gain resistance from the original form to prevent the deadlier form from coming back at them from Europe at full force?

These units are areas a disease spread in, I used the term sub- because it area where it can spread fast with little climatic or genetic interference, beside that cities in Italy washit before the disease spread to rural areas in the Middle East, so the disease would have time to return kill of much of the rural population (including the new immigrants to the cities), the fact a part of the population was already immune, would only mean that they could serve to spread the more deadly version.

I've read a summary of Diamond's book, and I've also seen a lot of criticism toward it. The theory about the domestic animals is very interesting and makes sense (to me, at least). So do you think that once we get to the time of the Black Death, the peoples of the Americas were essentially fated to be nearly wiped out by Old World diseases?

Diamond has a lot of wrong fact, but his conclusion seem more or less correct, especially with the New World peoples, the Natives state didn't break down while the Europeans was there, they broke down because they were there, and the diseases they spread destroyed much of the stabilities of the natives states, just as the Blacck Plague created unstability in the Old World.

 

[Nerdlinger]

I feel like the straws I'm grasping at are becoming thinner. I understand the difference between immunity and resistance now (thanks, Kalan). But I think I might be confusing the percentage of infected people who die with the percentage of the population which dies of the disease. What are the proper terms for these two factors?

It is theorized that the plague was transmitted from the Mongols to Genoese traders on Crimea, who then sailed back to Genoa, infecting Sicily along the way, and introduced the disease to mainland Europe when they arrived home. I suppose the plague would have reached Europe eventually anyway, but this event (if true) would have accelerated the spread of the disease. Suppose that the mutation occurred in the population of plague bacteria on one of the Genoese ships while it's en route back home, perhaps somewhere in the Ionian Sea. I'm guessing that the plague bacteria introduced to southern Europe were the ancestors of the ones which eventually swept up through northern Europe and into western Russia. If this route is feasible, wouldn't the Middle East be hit by the original strain first? If so, and if the deadlier plague returns to the Middle (and Far) East from Europe, couldn't the survivors there have gained immunity from the original form?

If the deadlier form differs enough from the original form (e.g., by increasing the prevalence of pneumonic plague), then is the Middle and Far Easterners' immunity useless? Or is it only partly useless? Could one survivor of the plague have acquired immunity to a wider range of potential variants than a neighbor who also survived the plague? (This is a question about the mechanism of acquiring immunity.) If the difference between the original and deadlier forms is slight enough, would the Middle and Far Easterners suffer only moderate additional deaths, if any at all? Does the degree of immunity in survivors vary depending upon how different the new strain is from the original one?

In OTL, the Black Death spread from China to Europe, but did not come back (at least not in the same wave). Does that mean that the plague bacteria did not mutate enough from the 1330s to the early 1350s to make those immune to the original strain vulnerable again? How did the naive new generation which grew up in this time avoid death by returning plague? Or did the subsequent outbreaks over the next few centuries represent the return of the same plague that caused the Black Death? Wouldn't the plague have evolved enough over time to cause another big outbreak like the Black Death? Or would the people have evolved enough resistance (or medicine improved enough) by then? Forgive me if I'm dense -- my bio background is mainly in macrobiology and systematics.

I see what you mean, Nugax -- the pneumonic plague's shorter incubation period could kill people too fast for them to spread the disease far. What of the septicemic? AFAIK, it was the rarest of the three forms, and it occurred when the bacteria spread from the lymphatic system into the blood. The septicemic killed a higher % of those infected than the bubonic and pneumonic (I think), but I don't know how communicable it was compared to the other two. So, a mutation which changes the natural prevalence of the forms of the plague might be too drastic a change to permit original survivors immunity to the mutated strain. But could a mutation which simply makes the bubonic form more virulent be less severe a change and so offer better immunity to original survivors? Perhaps by damaging the host's body enough, this could increase the chance that the bacteria spread to the blood and go septic. I may be way off on this though.

If I understand correctly, even if the deadlier form of the Black Death plague is isolated to Europe, it would remain in the European rodent population. This reservoir will infect any colonists of Europe from other areas with the same potent brew. Since Eurasia is one big epidemiological unit, would there be anything stopping the spread of the deadlier form to the rest of the Eurasian rodent population? If not, I'd expect more rapid evolution of resistance to the plague among the various Eurasian peoples than that evolved by Europeans in OTL. What if the deadlier form of the plague attacked rats as well as humans, but killed the rats more slowly? Unfortunately, I suspect it would likely take more than one mutation in the bacterial genome to make rats susceptible, and that such a change would make other animals susceptible too.

So, a hundred extra years for urbanization isn't nearly enough for the native Americans to develop enough disease resistance. I don't think a Columbus-type contact between the Old World and New could be delayed for too much longer, and it wouldn't do the native Americans much good anyway. Hmm.... This idea seems kind of dumb to me, but suppose there was a brief period of contact (maybe Zheng He made it to Mexico) in which both Old World technology and diseases were introduced to the New World, followed by a period of virtually no contact (maybe the Chinese emperor banned exploration, as in OTL). The diseases would do their damage, but the native Americans would have perhaps a century to recover and would have at least some resistance to later forms of the diseases when contact is reestablished. In the meantime, they could develop the Old World technology (specifically metalworking and firearms) and stand a better chance of fending off the Muslim or Chinese conquistadors. Does this seem plausible?

If not, I still want to try to find a way for the Mexicans and Inkas to at least survive to the present as independent civilizations. I hope to have a Meiji-style restoration occur in Mexico to make them roughly as dangerous to the Chinese as the Japanese were to the Americans in OTL WWII.

Regarding the Black Death's spread, I believe the reason it didn't spread very fast directly from central Asia to western Russia is that there was some sort of rule that the Christian Russians weren't supposed to stray into the territory of the Muslim Mongols. Please correct me if I'm wrong (which I probably am). Also, I've never seen anything about whether the Black Death spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa or Australasia. I know it went down the Nile, but I don't know how much further it went. Does anyone know about this?

 

[Nerdlinger]

Fair enough.



I think 60% is possible above that travel breaks down and the disease die off.



These units are areas a disease spread in, I used the term sub- because it area where it can spread fast with little climatic or genetic interference, beside that cities in Italy washit before the disease spread to rural areas in the Middle East, so the disease would have time to return kill of much of the rural population (including the new immigrants to the cities), the fact a part of the population was already immune, would only mean that they could serve to spread the more deadly version.


Diamond has a lot of wrong fact, but his conclusion seem more or less correct, especially with the New World peoples, the Natives state didn't break down while the Europeans was there, they broke down because they were there, and the diseases they spread destroyed much of the stabilities of the natives states, just as the Blacck Plague created unstability in the Old World.

60% across the board is nearly twice as much as the original strain, if indeed the common claim that 1/3 of the European population was killed off is true. I suppose that would be severe enough to cripple the Europeans so that outsiders could take over, but I don't know.

The more I look at this, though, the more discouraged I get. I refuse to base this timeline on ASB grounds, so if it couldn't realistically happen, then I won't write it. Can anyone see a realistic way that with one POD (a mutation in the plague or whatever), the Black Death could result in significantly more European destruction than in other areas?

 

[Valdemar II]

The primary problems are a non-European industrial revolution, it happen in Europe for good reasons, the lack of wood, rich coal ores (alternative "fuel" to wood) close to the rich iron ore, a explosive urban population thanks to food surpluses and the social and economical structure came together to create the industrial revolution, and I don't see them happen in the Middle East, through in longer terms North China has a chance for the same.

If you want some native states to survive, you need more interaction with Europe, it would be best if they gained contact with primary trading countries, and even better if this happen after the diseases had hit them for a few decades. The solution could be a earlier North European colonisation of Easten North America, and the first contact was with the Hanse or Dutch. It would mean a spread of Euroasians crops and animals, but from a group of people whom wouldn't thrieve in Central America or the Andeans, so they wouldn't conquer them.

 

[Derek Jackson]

I do not think that a really high death rate is asb. I am aware that the squirrel pox seems to be pretty much 100% lethal to British red squirrels.

 

[Valdemar II]

I do not think that a really high death rate is asb. I am aware that the squirrel pox seems to be pretty much 100% lethal to British red squirrels.

But whom spread it, how big a territorium does the British Red Squirrel live and dhow many red squirrel are left.

 

[Nerdlinger]

The primary problems are a non-European industrial revolution, it happen in Europe for good reasons, the lack of wood, rich coal ores (alternative "fuel" to wood) close to the rich iron ore, a explosive urban population thanks to food surpluses and the social and economical structure came together to create the industrial revolution, and I don't see them happen in the Middle East, through in longer terms North China has a chance for the same.

If you want some native states to survive, you need more interaction with Europe, it would be best if they gained contact with primary trading countries, and even better if this happen after the diseases had hit them for a few decades. The solution could be a earlier North European colonisation of Easten North America, and the first contact was with the Hanse or Dutch. It would mean a spread of Euroasians crops and animals, but from a group of people whom wouldn't thrieve in Central America or the Andeans, so they wouldn't conquer them.

Well, I guess I meant that the intellectual aspect of the ATL scientific and industrial revolutions were centered in the Middle East. If the Turks had control over Europe, they could make use of the coal and iron ores and initiate a belated industrial revolution. You say a later industrial revolution might be plausible in North China? How much later, do you think? This is interesting -- is it because North China has similar access to natural resources as Europe did?

That's a very intriguing idea for permitting the native American civilizations to survive. I like it a lot. Unfortunately, though, this would be a separate POD from the plague mutation. Here's an idea I thought of which I'm throwing out now. Suppose the Black Death mutated so as to become more deadly to Caucasians. I doubt this is plausible, and it would kill Middle Easterners just the same, which knocks off the Turks, Arabs, and I guess the Iranians too. But in any case, the Chinese would survive, as would the people of the New World. To escape the oncoming plague, a group of people from somewhere in northern Europe heads overseas and reaches North America around 1350. This sets up a situation like you came up with for the potential survival of the Mexicans and Inkas. As for who inherits Europe and the Middle East, either the original inhabitants recover or someone else comes in and runs roughshod. Maybe I could work with it, but I dunno. Is this idea in any way realistic?

I'm curious as to how authors such as Robinson, Silverberg, and Turtledove thought the plague would kill off Europeans but no one else. I'm thinking they likely handwaved it.

 

[Valdemar II]

Well, I guess I meant that the intellectual aspect of the ATL scientific and industrial revolutions were centered in the Middle East. If the Turks had control over Europe, they could make use of the coal and iron ores and initiate a belated industrial revolution. You say a later industrial revolution might be plausible in North China? How much later, do you think? This is interesting -- is it because North China has similar access to natural resources as Europe did?

Yes to some point, of course they wasn't as well place as in Europe, but the Chinese tended to use coal too instead of wood, and coal mining was the primary reason behind the development of the practical stream engine (to pump water out of the mines). Beside that even if Turks or Arabs conquer Europe, it unlikely these areas will stay integrated into their empire, so the development both intellectual and practical will happen North East Europe. Beside that a secondary problem are that pig eating and beer drinking gives a evolutionary benefit in North Europe, even in best case I can't see a Muslim population make up more than 25% of the population north of the Alps. Not a stable situation.

That's a very intriguing idea for permitting the native American civilizations to survive. I like it a lot. Unfortunately, though, this would be a separate POD from the plague mutation. Here's an idea I thought of which I'm throwing out now. Suppose the Black Death mutated so as to become more deadly to Caucasians. I doubt this is plausible, and it would kill Middle Easterners just the same, which knocks off the Turks, Arabs, and I guess the Iranians too. But in any case, the Chinese would survive, as would the people of the New World. To escape the oncoming plague, a group of people from somewhere in northern Europe heads overseas and reaches North America around 1350. This sets up a situation like you came up with for the potential survival of the Mexicans and Inkas. As for who inherits Europe and the Middle East, either the original inhabitants recover or someone else comes in and runs roughshod. Maybe I could work with it, but I dunno. Is this idea in any way realistic?

Not very, but it's possible.

I'm curious as to how authors such as Robinson, Silverberg, and Turtledove thought the plague would kill off Europeans but no one else. I'm thinking they likely handwaved it.

Handwaving, handwaving and handwaving. Especially Robinsons AH are quite unrealistic.

 

[mrmandias]

Rabies and Ebola are both pretty deadly, but neither is epidemic. That's because when a disease goes epidemic, there's strong evolutionary pressure on the disease to not kill its host, especially not quickly. Also, diseases that have their primary host in one species can afford to be more deadly to another species, which is the case with rabies and also I believe with ebola.

Bubonic plague was partly so deadly because of the involvement of other species in its transmission chains. If it primarily starts transmitting directly human to human, as in pneumonic plague, not only will it burn out but its likely to quickly evolve reduced virulence.

 

[Nerdlinger]

Well, I guess I meant that the intellectual aspect of the ATL scientific and industrial revolutions were centered in the Middle East. If the Turks had control over Europe, they could make use of the coal and iron ores and initiate a belated industrial revolution. You say a later industrial revolution might be plausible in North China? How much later, do you think? This is interesting -- is it because North China has similar access to natural resources as Europe did?

Yes to some point, of course they wasn't as well place as in Europe, but the Chinese tended to use coal too instead of wood, and coal mining was the primary reason behind the development of the practical stream engine (to pump water out of the mines). Beside that even if Turks or Arabs conquer Europe, it unlikely these areas will stay integrated into their empire, so the development both intellectual and practical will happen North East Europe. Beside that a secondary problem are that pig eating and beer drinking gives a evolutionary benefit in North Europe, even in best case I can't see a Muslim population make up more than 25% of the population north of the Alps. Not a stable situation.

Wow, I hadn't even considered the religious taboos of the Muslims affecting their hold on Europe. If, in some way or another, the European coal and iron ore reserves weren't tapped first (either by decimating their population or whatever), do you think the Chinese would have initiated their own industrial revolution? If so, I'd guess it would occur much later than the European one, but I don't know when.

That's a very intriguing idea for permitting the native American civilizations to survive. I like it a lot. Unfortunately, though, this would be a separate POD from the plague mutation. Here's an idea I thought of which I'm throwing out now. Suppose the Black Death mutated so as to become more deadly to Caucasians. I doubt this is plausible, and it would kill Middle Easterners just the same, which knocks off the Turks, Arabs, and I guess the Iranians too. But in any case, the Chinese would survive, as would the people of the New World. To escape the oncoming plague, a group of people from somewhere in northern Europe heads overseas and reaches North America around 1350. This sets up a situation like you came up with for the potential survival of the Mexicans and Inkas. As for who inherits Europe and the Middle East, either the original inhabitants recover or someone else comes in and runs roughshod. Maybe I could work with it, but I dunno. Is this idea in any way realistic?

Not very, but it's possible.

I suppose the crux of the problem is the ability of the plague to differentiate based on race and affect one group of people more than another. I know that "race" is more of a continuum, with Caucasian blending into African and Asian as you head south and east across Eurasia from Europe. But I thought that there are some unique genetic markers in people which are specific to certain geographic regions (at least on the sex chromosomes, anyway). They were mixed and matched through interbreeding long ago, so some people have multiple markers. Could the Black Death plague (or any disease, for that matter) specifically target individuals by genetic marker and do more damage to those people over others?

 

[Nerdlinger]

Rabies and Ebola are both pretty deadly, but neither is epidemic. That's because when a disease goes epidemic, there's strong evolutionary pressure on the disease to not kill its host, especially not quickly. Also, diseases that have their primary host in one species can afford to be more deadly to another species, which is the case with rabies and also I believe with ebola.

Bubonic plague was partly so deadly because of the involvement of other species in its transmission chains. If it primarily starts transmitting directly human to human, as in pneumonic plague, not only will it burn out but its likely to quickly evolve reduced virulence.

That makes a lot of sense. I don't know if a more communicable but less virulent Black Plague would achieve the desired effect on the Europeans for my TL, though.

 

[Valdemar II]

Wow, I hadn't even considered the religious taboos of the Muslims affecting their hold on Europe. If, in some way or another, the European coal and iron ore reserves weren't tapped first (either by decimating their population or whatever), do you think the Chinese would have initiated their own industrial revolution? If so, I'd guess it would occur much later than the European one, but I don't know when

.

I think it would happen, but I don't know when, nothing before the European introduction of these tecnics seem to have indicated that they was close to develop them themself. But I think it unavoidable that they would have develop at some moment, but it could be centuries out in the future.

I suppose the crux of the problem is the ability of the plague to differentiate based on race and affect one group of people more than another. I know that "race" is more of a continuum, with Caucasian blending into African and Asian as you head south and east across Eurasia from Europe. But I thought that there are some unique genetic markers in people which are specific to certain geographic regions (at least on the sex chromosomes, anyway). They were mixed and matched through interbreeding long ago, so some people have multiple markers. Could the Black Death plague (or any disease, for that matter) specifically target individuals by genetic marker and do more damage to those people over others?

There are genetic markers, but the problem genetic people around the Mediterranean Sea are closer related to each others than to other groups. So a disease which hit a South Italian are more likely to hit a Turk than a Swede.

 

[Nugax]

I suppose the crux of the problem is the ability of the plague to differentiate based on race and affect one group of people more than another. I know that "race" is more of a continuum, with Caucasian blending into African and Asian as you head south and east across Eurasia from Europe. But I thought that there are some unique genetic markers in people which are specific to certain geographic regions (at least on the sex chromosomes, anyway). They were mixed and matched through interbreeding long ago, so some people have multiple markers. Could the Black Death plague (or any disease, for that matter) specifically target individuals by genetic marker and do more damage to those people over others?

Well A) disease doesn't interact with genes, it interacts with the expressed products of those genes, the genetic polymorphisms used to identify populations often have little to no phenotypic effect. B) you see changes in allele frequencies between populations , very rarely do you see population specific genes (even stuff like skin colour is produced by an assortment of genes and might have a different basis in each european individual) and C) humans actually have very little genetic variation, it would be far easier to make a lineage specific disease for chimps.

It would be nearly impossible to have a disease that in the course of its action would only latch onto an certain genotype because when you get down to cell surfaces everyones pretty much the same, and there would be tremendious selective pressure for the disease not to be so picky.