TLs with biggest butterflies?

Hello, there. What I'm looking for are TLs that imagines a world most different from ours based on a very early POD with butterflies the size of planets. What if Carthage defeated Rome? What if Rome never existed? Things like that, though it doesn't have to be about Rome or even Europe. It continues to follow the POD for a very long afterward.
 
Hello, there. What I'm looking for are TLs that imagines a world most different from ours based on a very early POD with butterflies the size of planets. What if Carthage defeated Rome? What if Rome never existed? Things like that, though it doesn't have to be about Rome or even Europe. It continues to follow the POD for a very long afterward.

Well, I do recall one TL that had a humanoid species evolving in South America from capuchin monkeys of all things. It was a bit ASB for sure, but at least it fits the criteria for huge-ass butterflies in some ways; really wish I could remember what it was called, though.
 
Look at the top of this category. Evolutionary and geological POD's belong in the ASB category. You can talk about Rome and Carthage here, but different monkeys go in ASB.
 
I would say the no America would be one of them (hey...I just happen to be writing about just a scenario...isn't that weird :D). America has had a definite impact on World History. It not being there would change everything that has happened since it's inception.
 

SinghKing

Banned
Hello, there. What I'm looking for are TLs that imagines a world most different from ours based on a very early POD with butterflies the size of planets. What if Carthage defeated Rome? What if Rome never existed? Things like that, though it doesn't have to be about Rome or even Europe. It continues to follow the POD for a very long afterward.

Well, I don't know if there's a TL about it, but the biggest POD I can think of would be the Toba Supervolcano Eruption. Not by changing the Eruption itself- obviously, a geological POD like that would be ASB by default- but simply by having different groups of survivors. IOTL, it's believed that the Toba super-eruption caused a huge genetic bottleneck, and that all of humanity is descended from those 1000>10000 individuals who survived the cataclysm. If some tribes make worse decisions during the 6>10 yr post-apocalyptic volcanic winter which ensued, which eventually result in their tribal lineages dying out entirely- and conversely, if other tribes make better decisions during that period, and end up being the ones who survive to repopulate the earth instead- then you'd have a completely different human race, with different cradles of civilisation, different migrational paths, different cultures, different nations (if the conept even arises ITTL) and a completely unrecognisable Earth.
 
Well, I don't know if there's a TL about it, but the biggest POD I can think of would be the Toba Supervolcano Eruption. Not by changing the Eruption itself- obviously, a geological POD like that would be ASB by default- but simply by having different groups of survivors. IOTL, it's believed that the Toba super-eruption caused a huge genetic bottleneck, and that all of humanity is descended from those 1000>10000 individuals who survived the cataclysm. If some tribes make worse decisions during the 6>10 yr post-apocalyptic volcanic winter which ensued, which eventually result in their tribal lineages dying out entirely- and conversely, if other tribes make better decisions during that period, and end up being the ones who survive to repopulate the earth instead- then you'd have a completely different human race, with different cradles of civilisation, different migrational paths, different cultures, different nations (if the conept even arises ITTL) and a completely unrecognisable Earth.

Just one nitpick: it was a lot more than 1,000 individuals that survived said bottleneck: Most estimates are around 50-100k(50,000-100,000).....and possibly higher. (And yes, btw, the basic concept of nations *will* exist in any universe with humans in it)
 
Prehistory: Big Bang doesn't happen. No existence.

In history, as in within the realm of documented events: Egypt is not unified by "the Scorpion King" (yeah, he's an actual historical figure) or Sumer and Mesopotamia as a whole fails to rise as a cultural power.
 
Probably a timeline were gunpowder is discovered really, really early would qualify. All basic ingredient could be used for medical/ritual purposes. So have some ancient civilization, tribe shaman/priest discover that mixing stuff together to make healing paste gets you some nice “whoosh” fire effect and than over the next centuries people start playing around with the magic powder. Technically it could happen in the Natufian culture 13,000 to 9,800 B.C so that would certainly make the world practically unrecognizable.
 
In Victorian Britain in OTL, insect collecting (particularly butterflies) was all the rage. If instead there was an earlier invention of the butterfly house (it should be technically feasible), then selective breeding of butterflies would become routine. By the twenty-first century, this timeline would have very, very big butterflies.
 
In Victorian Britain in OTL, insect collecting (particularly butterflies) was all the rage. If instead there was an earlier invention of the butterfly house (it should be technically feasible), then selective breeding of butterflies would become routine. By the twenty-first century, this timeline would have very, very big butterflies.

I see what you did there....:D:p
 

SinghKing

Banned
In Victorian Britain in OTL, insect collecting (particularly butterflies) was all the rage. If instead there was an earlier invention of the butterfly house (it should be technically feasible), then selective breeding of butterflies would become routine. By the twenty-first century, this timeline would have very, very big butterflies.

Ah, if only there was a option to rate posts. Bravo.
 
Top