What if the Black Death killed Europe and the Middle East?

hi everyone.
this has been plaguing me for a while.
lets say this plague never stops, and ends up wiping out 99% of the human population in both europe, eurasia and the middle east?
what happens to the timeline and the world?
what replaces them?

most significantly, i think the abrahamic faiths are reduced to a few sad peasants and thus never rise back to prominence.
apologies if this has been done before.
 
Hi, welcome on board!

Well, such a disease, this deadly would probably not exist in reality, because it would kill its cariers too quickly and too deply to be transmitted. Even Ebola have an average of 50% of death rate when contracted. We could imagine a really deadly plague strain (50% of death rate when contracted, which is significantly deadlier than IOTL plague), probably appearing in far East as Justinian and Black plague did, but not only it would probably ravage Far East as well as everyone.

Now, it doesn't mean we cant discuss your total wipe-out scenario at all : we have a section of the board which is dedicated to What Ifs and Timeline that decide to not worry too much about realism of the Point of Divergence or events, for the sake of discussion/rule of cool/abstract thinking/etc., which is the ASB (Alien Space Bats) forum.

(Oh, and no worries about anything being done before : exception made of really detailed What Ifs, everything had been discussed, and everything will be re-discussed)
 
"Doesn't Middle East somehow survives it IIRC, tough, and takes over it?"

Yes, the plague is a plot device used to explore what would happen without a European based Christian civilization.

Reading about the Black Death, it does seem to have hit Chrisiaendom somewhat harder than Islam, and I suspect this is one reason why Islam did fairly well against Christendom in the 14th and 15th centuries. They took over the Balkans, of course (what was left of the Byzantines were particularly hard hit). But Western Christian advances vs the Muslims just stopped, and not just the Crusades, they stopped on every front, Spain, Russia, central Med, then resumed in the late fifteenth century.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Well, such a disease, this deadly would probably not exist in reality, because it would kill its cariers too quickly and too deply to be transmitted. Even Ebola have an average of 50% of death rate when contracted. We could imagine a really deadly plague strain (50% of death rate when contracted, which is significantly deadlier than IOTL plague), probably appearing in far East as Justinian and Black plague did, but not only it would probably ravage Far East as well as everyone.

Now, it doesn't mean we cant discuss your total wipe-out scenario at all : we have a section of the board which is dedicated to What Ifs and Timeline that decide to not worry too much about realism of the Point of Divergence or events, for the sake of discussion/rule of cool/abstract thinking/etc., which is the ASB (Alien Space Bats) forum.

You're absolutely right that such a disease isn't exceptionally likely to crop up, but it doesn't have to be ASB. What Ebola does 'wrong' (so to speak) is kill people too fast. But you could get a similarly deadly disease with a nice long incubation time. The infected will move along with their lives, unaware they've caught this alt-plague, infecting others, etc. etc. -- if we imagine that the Black Death randomly mutates to be deadlier and to have a particularly long incubation time, you can easily get a super-plague that kills off (almost) everyone in Europe. If the incubation time is long enough to last a ship's journey to the Levant, you can use that to quickly spread it to the Islamic world.

The main problem I see is keeping that kind of a horror-plague away from the rest of the world. A disease so deadly that it wipes out almost everyobody in urope and the Middle East can be imagined, but a disease that does so without doing the same to the rest of Eurasia... that's harder to imagine. After all, if its incubation time can hide it long enough to spread from Europe to the Middle East, it can spread from the Middle East to India in the same way. And from there to indonesia and therest of South-East Asia. And from there (and along the Silk Route) to China.
 
You're absolutely right that such a disease isn't exceptionally likely to crop up, but it doesn't have to be ASB. What Ebola does 'wrong' (so to speak) is kill people too fast. But you could get a similarly deadly disease with a nice long incubation time. The infected will move along with their lives, unaware they've caught this alt-plague, infecting others, etc. etc. -- if we imagine that the Black Death randomly mutates to be deadlier and to have a particularly long incubation time, you can easily get a super-plague that kills off (almost) everyone in Europe. If the incubation time is long enough to last a ship's journey to the Levant, you can use that to quickly spread it to the Islamic world.

The main problem I see is keeping that kind of a horror-plague away from the rest of the world. A disease so deadly that it wipes out almost everyobody in urope and the Middle East can be imagined, but a disease that does so without doing the same to the rest of Eurasia... that's harder to imagine. After all, if its incubation time can hide it long enough to spread from Europe to the Middle East, it can spread from the Middle East to India in the same way. And from there to indonesia and therest of South-East Asia. And from there (and along the Silk Route) to China.
Thus... Leaving America as the only safe spot for human civilization to develop...

Damn.
 
Reading about the Black Death, it does seem to have hit Chrisiaendom somewhat harder than Islam
Death ration seems to have been roughly comparable for all we know, and Black Death certainly explain why Islamic polities went trough a period of weakness in the Islamic West (North Africa became more or less raided and tributary by western Mediterranean powers).
Grenada could arguably have been conquered earlier if not for the various civil wars in Spain, which let Nasrids in a tributary state.
But Western Christian advances vs the Muslims just stopped, and not just the Crusades
Crusades as such already stopped to be a main ideological and political drive by the early XIVth.

Nasrid Grenade mostly survived thanks to Castille and Aragon going in civil unrest, and still remained largely tributary and under Castillan threat.

I admit being less than knowledgable about it, but the XIVth century is usually considered being the beggining of Mongol decline in the region, and the beggining of Russian revival.

central Med
I strongly disagree there (admittedly knowing more about it) : Hafsid dynasty was particularily touched by the plague, and the whole of its authority significantly weakened, allowing an omnious Christian dominance trough trade, tribute and piracy (mostly from Aragon), without even talking about regular splits. Tough Abu Faris' rile pointed it wasn't straighforward, depicting North Africa as being in a better state than Christians is a non sense that can be only, IMO, is nonsensical.
 
Well, one disease that theoretically could fulfill the POD is actually related to Bubonic plague. Specifically, Septicemic plague. If that was the most common variety of Yersinia pestis, it would easily be able to cause the POD due to extremely high death rates that nearly reach 100%. It could even be spread the same way as the Black Death IOTL, as it can be carried by rodents.

As for what occurs after Europe and the Middle-East are decimated, well, that depends on when the disease does it. If before the Mongols, then they probably have an even easier time conquering the Middle-East, and probably conquer a lot more of Europe.
 
Septicemic and pneumonic plague are really just somewhat different manifestations of exactly the same pathogen- Yersinia pestis. They aren't different organisms, and not even different 'strains'. It's simply that one infection is in the lymphatics, one in the blood, and one in the lungs- and one can turn into another if the organism spreads elsewhere in the body. Pneumonic plague e.g. almost always develops from a bubonic outbreak, and then runs wild. And frankly pneumonic is the most frightening, as it can be spread directly between people via coughing that produces aerosols, rather than needing fleas. And since you inhaled it, you get the pneumonic form, too. And fleas still work, too, though you're more likely to get bubonic through that route.

Of course, you could indeed posit a different strain of Yersinia pestis that is more likely to go septicemic. That's easily within the realm of possibility. But why? Pneumonic is easier to spread and essentially 100% mortal if untreated. I'd say a strain that is more likely to turn pneumonic would be the ticket, here. While you're at it, make it more virulent (i.e. easily spread between victims).

Moving on:

It's actually pretty easy to envision a pathogen that could kill most of humanity, especially in the modern world with all of the travel going on. It's been described above- highly mortal, but with a very long and highly virulent infectious latency period. Fortunately no known organism qualifies- it would almost certainly need to be engineered.

Almost...

From a world-building/book-writing perspective superplague is my favorite way to produce post-apocalyptic settings, though I may be biased because I'm a doctor. To make such a fall-of-civilization setting you need a truly massive population die-off. Nuclear war has gotten a lot less likely, and a lot of people have utterly unrealistic ideas about it, anyway. EMP and CME are just survivalist fantasies- yes clearly difficulties would ensue but there is no way they lead to unrest and die-offs commensurate with a long-term collapse of world civilization. Asteroid strikes are also low probability, and difficult to get the population die-off just right, and even then it's likely that part of the world would get totally wiped out with survival increasing with distance from there, so you pretty much have to set the story in one small area that had a few survivors and make the rest of the world dead. Which is also a problem because the world ecology is likely to collapse and kill everyone anyway. We have gone through worldwide financial collapses and we've still got our cable TV, so that one's a non-starter, too.

So, that leaves superplague. It leaves the rest of the world essentially untouched, barring the occasional containment failure, etc. It would also result in a common post-apocalyptic trope: xenophobic communities who don't like strangers (because in the past wandering strangers were turned away or killed in case they carried the plague). This would also contribute to the loss of central government that these settings require, since during the initial outbreak people are violently resistant to "guvmint men' coming in to re-establish authority for the same reason- they might carry the plague. And for real weirdness make people who get the plague and survive have characteristic brain lesions that cause fantastical thoughts and/or obsessions, leading to novel cults and belief systems, Immortan Joe and his warboys, worship of the God Elvis, etc., as well as weirdness derived from real-world religions and belief systems such as the CUT in the Dies The Fire setting.

And of course, zombies work, too. :) A Yellowstone eruption might have potential, but again everyone has their own expectations and disagree about just how bad it would be.
 
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If the illness had sterility as a common side-effect, it could slow burn, no mass death from illness, and still end up causing the population to plummet.

I'd suspect that worldwide civilization- here essentially meaning large governments- would be likely to adapt and survive such a slow population crash, though.

I looked up some interesting numbers a while ago. It takes about a 98% die-off to drop world human population back to an equivalent of 0 CE, on the order of 150 millions, though some historical estimates are up to double that. (Trivia note- almost a third of that may have been in the Roman Empire, though again estimates vary widely.)

World human population at the last ice age (when everyone was a non-sedentary hunter-gatherer) is thought to have been between 1 and 10 millions. So, about a 99.9995% die-off. Which is, needless to say, difficult to imagine.
 
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I think the OP means both Europe and the Middle East-so both Christendom and the Dar al-Islam are annilahated.

Let's play with this-assume a 90-99% death rate from Scandinavia to the edge of the Sahara.

We'll assume the tribes and peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, Siberia and the Russian Far East survive.

I like to think the people surrounding this region will immigrate to a mostly empty Euro-Med region. This will take some time as subsaharan Africans move north, Siberian people's move west, and other groups from Asia move west.

Note: We'll assume Christian Ethiopia survives fine as it's beyond Europe and the Middle East-say a 40-50% death rate-painful and very destructive but one they rebound from.

To recolonize the depopulated region is going to take centuries.

I'm not sure what African tribes would see in going across the Sahara especially once the trade stops-which will probably damage the west African economy greatly. Siberian people's? It could be five hundred years to a millennium before they even get close to the Atlantic coast.

We'll also say Persia and Central Asia were hit by the plague-they do okay 20-30% death rates interspersed throughout. This hinders their ability to expand for quite some time.

In a few hundred years Europe will be largely reforested and the Middle East-I'm not qualified to speculate on the ecological effects but I imagine the pressure human populations but on the region will be alleviated.

The Americas won't be discovered for centuries perhaps a millennia or two down the line.

Whether it's African kingdoms, Siberian chieftains(or their European descendants), I can't say.

The Indians will probably have advanced a little more and might say by a late contact 3340 AD or say might have reached the Bronze Age or at least have by this point worked with metals. They might do a little better.
 
To carry on from this we'll say the Arabian peninsula was shattered-60-70% death rates.

China and the Far East rebound quickly.

China probably goes through more dynastic changes and occasional nomadic invasions and even dynasties while at the same time expanding its clout into Indonesia, Southeast Asia and Manchuria.

India remains fragmented-without large Muslim invasions western India does better-India still remains a fragmented diverse place with new religious movements emerging, new kingdoms, and so on.

Hindu Indonesians or Chinese tributary fleets probably discover Australia at some point or another. I imagine contact will be made with the aborigines on the northern wetter coast and settlement will proceed slowly.

The aborigines depending on how they handle diseases and much superior technology may do better than in OTL-or worse.

The America's-the Aztecs or something like them still emerges in central Mexico and an alt Inca emerges in the Andes as well.

Without European contact they proceed on a trajectory of slow development as a result of the geographic distances and isolation of the Americas. The Polynesians probably do reach South America and animals like chicken enter the South American diet.

By say 3330 AD(2000 years after plague) best case scenario they(or at least the most advanced and centralized Amerindian states) have developed bronze or copper. Worst case scenario is that they haven't but they are still moving in that direction.

Persia and Central Asia repopulate the Middle East(this process will take awhile and any number of things could torpedo it) African people's reach the Mediterranean oh around 500-1000 years after the plague(best case scenario) and Ethiopia might just conquer Egypt and parts of the Levant before Muslim Persia and whatever central Asian people's get there. Siberian tribes emigrate to the warmer west finding a reforested and largely empty Europe.

Even with these stratospheric and unlikely death rates-by the time Siberian tribespeople have reached say Germany or west Africans Iberia-Europe and the middle easts's ravaged populations will probably have rebounded a little-small villages perhaps.

The Chinese probably expand deeper into Central Asia and may even circle around the Himalayas and reach India or some Indian state might achieve the same-this will be a long long process though.
 
So continuing my scenario Christian Ethiopia reaches the Levant around the time the Persians have settled Syria

West Africans(possibly muslim or animist) have reached Iberia after a period of decline perhaps by 1940 AD or so and Siberian wanderers are in central Europe and have made contact with surviving villages

In the Americas by 2000 AD bronze has not yet fully replaced stone but it is moving in that direction. Whatever state rules Mesoamerica also has reached the Panamanian isthmus and the whatever Andean state exists likely has developed coastal sea travel and trade contact exists between them

In North America-descendants of the Mississippians control the Mississippi region with influence extending to the atlantic coast and Florida.

Various tribes roam on foot across the plains hunting buffalo.

In the southwest more contact has been made between the Mesoamerican empire and the peoples here with groups like the Chichimeca serving as a cultural go-between.

Indian and Chinese sailors have reached Australia's coasts and trading outposts with the natives have been established.

In Africa the bantu migrations are largely complete and Ethiopia has expanded further into central Africa making contact with west Africa polities around modern Uganda.

Some places in Europe did better-tribes in remote Ireland escaped the plague with 40% death rates. They have begun colonizing Britain and their ships have reached Normandy.

The West Africans now have a stable foothold in Iberia and muslim central Asians have colonized Eastern Europe while coming into conflict with Siberian polities.

The Polynesians have reached Antarctica at this point and have long term contact with the Americas, they have settled or at least spotted nearly every island in the pacific and have arced back reaching Australia's eastern coast.

By 2010 or so China is roughly at a 1700 level of development-in the proceeding centuries there were more than a few devastating wars and plagues. The current dynasty is getting restless with Indian and Central Asian muslims penetrating into Tibet and unrest in the recently conquered Mongolia, and Manchuria.

Japan is not isolationist and have made more than a few attempts at conquest in Asia.

The Shogun pays nominal obeisance to the current Chinese emperor while Japanese lords rule over the Philippines, the Russian North East and have ships that regularly dock in Indonesia and have reached Melanesia.

The Chinese could conquer Japan and have made a few attempts that either ended in fiasco or outright disaster in the last few centuries. The current dynasty has mulled over it but figures it would be very costly and require a long term occupation. As the Japanese are roughly equal in quality if not quantity to the Chinese and their tributaries.

Ethiopia's current kingdom has recently defeated a Persian invasion of the levant. Ships are now regularly reaching Europe and Ethiopian Churches and settlements are in a tense standoff with muslim colonists in eastern Greece and western Anatolia.

Pagan Siberian polities now have reached as far as france-they do not control this far but they have hunting parties, traders around five hundred miles from the coast of Normandy.

Contact with the Americas is not likely to happen for another millennium as a great war between the Christian Ethiopians and the current muslim dynasty in Persia is about to begin,

West Africans were not fully converted to Islam yet and many have either embraced Christianity or an eclectic mix of animism, Christianity and Berber religion with hints of remnants of Islam remaining.

A current hindu polity rules most of west India, they thrashed the Persians a century ago in an alliance with the Ethiopians whose traders are a common sight in their ports. They are encroaching in western china and a showdown is inevitable.

Various south east Asian states have begun to consolidate while they still pay tribute and homage to the Chinese they are beginning to grow on their own, sending out expeditions to Australia and Southern east Africa and making contact with the Indians. It remains to be seen if the Chinese can maintain their hegemony over them.

To summarize-Ethiopia is doing very well 500 years after the plague their horizons are big and so are their ambitions. A sunni dynasty rules Persia and much of central and southwest Asia-they have been expanding and taking whatever setbacks come their way in stride.

India-ruled by 3 or so major "empires" with smaller states throughout.

Ireland unified under a celtic chiefdom and has begun spreading into western Europe.

West Africa-different polities that have reached Iberia and have their sights on southern france but the progress is slow.

China-around 2040 AD a conservative dynasty running on the success of past conquests they face challenges aplenty yet a sinic world is still in the cards.

The Americas-the transition the bronze age has been a slow one with progress zig zagging and moving glacially whatever power finds them perhaps by 3050 AD will find the Amerindians more advanced than OTL yet they are still far behind and quite frankly need another three to five thousand years isolated while depending on some other super plague in the old world if they want to close the gap.

Tech level in the old world-varies between 1100 to 1700 China and East Asia is the most advanced but they haven't put these to use and quite a few disasters could set back progress to 1300 levels or lower.

The Middle east-ruled by Ethiopians. Persians, West Africans.
 
sorry ill clarify.
99% of northern and southern europe and britain, and the middle east is wiped out. the effects end at north africa/egypt, kiev/moscow and india.
 
Historians now think that smallpox and related diseases did produce mortality rates of something like 90% in the Americas, though this is not settled and the effects were spread out over time.

But this is the absolute limit of what a pathogen could do, and required circumstances (basically isolation from Eurasia) that couldn't be produced in Eurasia. So we are pushing into ASB territory. Keep in mind that the scenario in "The Years of Rice and Salt" is very much a literary device, its not a work of alternative history in the "x would have happened if y had gone differently" sense.
 
I suppose we could invent a fictional pathogen or just say aliens did it for the sake of the scenario but then we'd have to move the thread to ASB.
 
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