What If: no mushrooms?

as best I can tell, Karl VI kicked off suddenly from a dose of poison mushrooms, or an otherwise sudden/serious illness easily avoided. So what if, in 1740, Karl VI doesn't go belly up?

First off, you have Britain and Spain at war, with Britain fighting with a bit of a handicap, trying to prevent France from joining in on Spain's side. While it was mostly a tie at the time of Karl setting off the war of Austrian Succession by his untimely death, Britain had just crapped the bed. Rather than joining Spain, France joined Prussia in attempting to stick it to Austria, OTL.

So, if Karl lives, what happens to the War of Jenkins Ear? Does France jump in and double team Britain? Result? If they stay on the sidelines, how do a couple of foes who don't really see the joy of being at war settle up? Does Frederick still get aggressive? If he does and Bavarian Charles doesn't see the opening, is Austria able to knock down Prussia( edit: France/Bavaria OTL tie up a lot of Austrian troops which otherwise are available to oppose Prussia. IMO, it isn't only quality that allowed Prussia to succeed, but also the quantity of Opponents to Austria that sprang up)?

I'm quite surprised that such a simple/plausible POD is ignored in alternate history.
 
really?
there are four major events of the 18th century: War of Spanish succession. War of Austrian succession, Seven years war. French revolution/wars. the WoSS are basically a lot of countries failing and floundering. Everything builds from there. One meal may, or may not, affect the entire century.
 
IMHO it would be a disaster: Karl VI was pretty much what I would imagine Carlos II would look like if he'd been less retarded enough to actually rule.

But, let's look at this objectively:
I'm not sure if he'd get involved, but Friedrich II of Prussia might be a little more gun-shy to seize Silesia. Besides, as long as Karl's alive, he can't say that he's seizing Silesia because he's scared of Saxony-Poland doing the same.
Maria Anna of Austria might be married off elsewhere. Karl VI was rather unhappy with her OTL marriage (and since she married after her dad was dead, here she might get married off elsewhere.
Karl VI will still go about waving the useless scrap of paper known as the Pragmatic Sanction, in fact, he might bear England and Holland enough ill-will about them forcing him to close the Ostend Co that he decides screw it and joins France and Spain. Or he backs England to try and get back Naples (this is Karl, he conquered and lost Serbia so he wasn't exactly concerned that he had no heir to pass it to). If he gets involved AGAINST France, Paris might decide to use their Turkish ally to cause shit in the Balkans and their Bavarian one to stir in the Empire.

That's all I've got for now.
 
A POD wherein there are no mushrooms would be a POD hundreds of millions of years ago.

Humanity would likely cease to exist.
 
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