WI: mutual die-off when Americas are discovered

[Somes J]

Inspired by a thought I had while looking at another discussion:

I wonder if things would have gone differently if the American Pliestocene megafauna had survived. Some of them might have been domesticable, which would give the Americans large domestic animals to work with and animal-origin diseases of their own - which might not really help them directly (they'd be immune to their own diseases not Europeans), but would mean when the first explorers go back to Europe in the 1500s it's Black Death II time. I remember from reading Charles Mann's 1491 that there are estimates that as much as 95% of the population in parts of the Americas might have been killed off by the epidemics, imagine that happening in Eurasia at the same time... I guess that might actually help the Americans, as while the epidemics were burning their way across the Americans the Europeans would probably be a bit busy having their own equivalent apocalypse to do much conquering.

Man, that would be a kind of interesting (but pretty dark) timeline...

I thought this would make an interesting what-if scenario, anybody want to take a shot at it?

I can easily imagine the development of civilization in general being set back centuries by something like that.

Would the (native) Americans be better off in this scenario? It'd be pretty hard to conquer and control them effectively when your soldiers tend to drop like flies, and anyway I'd think Europe would be a bit busy with Black Death II: Bigger And Badder to do much conquering. I think the Americas might be conquered in a similar time-frame as Africa in this scenario (assuming the huge plagues didn't set back technological progress), and the foreign invasions wouldn't come until the survivors had acquired some immunity and had time for the population to recover. Plus the presence of domestic animals means they might be more technologically advanced.

Thoughts?

 

[Snake Featherston]

The result is a temporary Australian Aborigine-wank. Because they're the only intact area outside of New Guinea left at this point.

 

[twovultures]

Barring a total collapse in Europe, the Americas are eventually colonized-but that colonization reflects that of Africa or Asia.

Unless you've created a scenario where the natives have better technology and nastier germs than Europeans-unlikely, but possible.

 

[Somes J]

I felt inspired to do a very little creative writing take-off of this:

From Chronicle of the Life of Emperor Sakwa II, historian Sagada of the Misi-Ziibi Empire[1]

That year a Spanish ship called at Nayatik[2]. Today the inhabitants of that city have become accustomed to these barbarians, who call at the port regularly, but during those days they were still a source of wonder and fear. The Duke arranged for a parade of the Ninth Legion, with a great show of infantry, cavalry, and war mastadons to impress them. They left in peace some days later, having given us many fine cannons and guns in exchange for some trinkets and also for a fierce saber tooth cat from the Duke's menagerie, as a present for their king, as there are no such beasts in their country.

Their captain spoke of a great plague that had struck their land, emptying their cities and turning their land into a great charnel house. The court was frightened upon hearing this, for it made it seem all the more as if the world must truly be dying, for the death was everywhere, from the shores of the Great River at the center of the world to the bastions of the Northerners in the frigid north, to the strife-riven kingdoms of the Dawnlands, to the fierce savage nomads of the plains, to the pirates of the Southern Islands, even to the distant lands of the Mexica and even to Spain, that land of the utmost east so distant that it must surely be the most remote and desolate corner of the world. Nowhere did the plague not walk, and it seemed if it continued much longer there would be no people left in the world.


[1] Going with the idea of the Americas being more advanced because of more domesticable animals, there are large organized states in the OTL United States; Wikipedia tells me Misi-Ziibi is the Ojibway root word for Mississippi and it means "Great River", think of this state as a more temperate Egypt (I've taken some artistic license and used some familiar names, to give readers a certain grounding).

[2] OTL New Orleans, more-or-less.

 

[Brady Kj]

I don't think the die-off could possibly be that dramatic. There aren't going to be massive numbers of Native Americans moving into Europe and deliberately making the Europeans sick. There will be some people dying out on both sides of the Atlantic, to be sure, and Europeans wouldn't be doing much to colonize the Americas, but I'm sure the civilizations would be intact.

But I'll let that slide for a good story.

By the way, Somes J, you mentioned "savage nomads of the plains". The people of the plains didn't become nomadic until after the plagues and wars cut their population down too much for agriculture.

 

[Somes J]

I don't think the die-off could possibly be that dramatic. There aren't going to be massive numbers of Native Americans moving into Europe and deliberately making the Europeans sick.

Well, I'm thinking what happened here is one of the first ships came back carrying some guys who'd caught something really nasty, survived, but became carriers. All it might take is one of those to touch off a massive epidemic.

If they don't stop the voyages I could see that happening multiple times. Imagine two or three Black Deaths hitting in the same century.

By the way, Somes J, you mentioned "savage nomads of the plains". The people of the plains didn't become nomadic until after the plagues and wars cut their population down too much for agriculture.

Well, the Americas isn't my area of study, but I thought one of the big factors in changing their lifestyle was the introduction of the horse. In this TL they would always have had horses (there was an American horse that went extinct in the Pliestocene, in this TL it survived and was domesticated).

Besides, I liked the idea of the Great Plains as a Mongolia analog.

Plus I was trying to make that narrator sound chauvinistic, so if you wanted you could write it up to unreliable narrator.

I have an idea for another bit, will post it in a bit.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Well, I'm thinking what happened here is one of the first ships came back carrying some guys who'd caught something really nasty, survived, but became carriers. All it might take is one of those to touch off a massive epidemic.

If they don't stop the voyages I could see that happening multiple times. Imagine two or three Black Deaths hitting in the same century.

Well, the Americas isn't my area of study, but I thought one of the big factors in changing their lifestyle was the introduction of the horse. In this TL they would always have had horses (there was an American horse that went extinct in the Pliestocene, in this TL it survived and was domesticated).

Besides, I liked the idea of the Great Plains as a Mongolia analog.

Plus I was trying to make that narrator sound chauvinistic, so if you wanted you could write it up to unreliable narrator.

I have an idea for another bit, will post it in a bit.

Exactly.
1) all it takes is a single contagious guy, although it DOES help to have lots of people moving to get that one guy.
2) yes, horse barbarians rule sedentary farmers on the plains - until said farmers get guns. Whether the horsemen be Turks, Mongols or Lakota. (Slight over simplification, but what made agriculture decline on the Great Plains was the horse - in a push/pull fashion: the increased viability of bison hunting, and the vulnerability to horse mounted raids.)

 

[Somes J]

Another bit I felt inspired to do:

From The Great Dying: A History of the Plague Years, by Scholar Wang Du, Fuzhou University

The sheer scale of the plagues can be appreciated by comparing estimates of the global population at the beginning and the end of the Century of Tears. According to a 226[1] estimate by the World Census Bureau, the world population during the last years of the Ming Dynasty was between 500 and 600 million. A similar estimate was conducted for the end of the Century of Tears, and during that period the world population was around 150 million. In the intervening century the plagues had claimed the lives of 400 million people, or almost four out of every five human beings. Even today, 400 million would represent more than 10% of the world population. The Century of Tears changed the entire face of world civilization. Of the world's major inhabited land masses, only Aozhou remained untouched. The World Census Bureau estimates that the world did not recover its late Ming era population until late 50s GGD, more than 300 years later.


From The World Economy In the Four Kingdoms Period, by Scholar Chou Fu-Chi, Guangzhou University

During its golden age in the first centuries after the Century of Tears the Far West enjoyed exclusive access to the wealth of the Far East. For the most part, military technology was traded to the states of the Far East, in exchange for gold and silver, with which the Far West could then buy the products of the Center and Near and Middle West.

It is sometimes said that this system first began to be undermined when their neighbors to the south began to compete with them in the Far East trade. This is significant, but should not be understood as a dramatic upset. The warring states of the Far West competed against each other for access to Far Eastern wealth (just as the Four Kingdoms would compete against each other after the establishment of direct trade between the Far East and the Center prior to unification under the last Taizu Emperor) and the number of competing parties increased through the Far West's golden age as more Far Western states became involved. Monopolistic control of the Far East trade only ever existed during the short period between the Gold and Silver Wars and the establishment of the World State, in the early industrial age, and was of course carried out by Zhongguo. The immediate effects of the establishment of the southern Far East trade was to weaken the Far West's economic influence in the south and diminsh the Far West's purchasing power somewhat. The former was the one that would eventually prove more damaging, after the establishment of the direct Far East-Center trade.

The real end to the Far West's brief time in the sun came with the establishment of direct trade with the Far East by the Three Maritime Kingdoms. Instead of going through the hands of the traders across most of a continent Far Eastern silver and gold (and other trade items) now flowed directly to the Three Maritime Kingdoms, and silver and gold now flowed into the Near and Middle West from the east as well as the west. For the Far West this was a disaster. Effectively, they were returned to the economic position they had been in during the Ming era.


[1] 2076 CE. The calender counts from the reunification of China after the Four Kingdoms Period, which happened in 1850, shortly before the industrial revolution really got rolling...

And I think you can tell where this is heading... Yes, I know, China-wank probably isn't the most original thing, but I have a bit of a soft spot for the idea of a world empire*, and the idea of Europe's star declining when its fortunate middle-man position was undercut by those brave explorers tickles me, given I've heard people explain why the Middle East fell behind OTL in the same way. Plus, I remember hearing some speculation that it was the Black Death that first set Europe down the path that lead to the industrial revolution, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to give the same stimulus to China. This is a premise that invites so many butterflies it seems like a decent place to go a little bit wild.

* Mostly because of a, maybe naive, belief that such a timeline might be better off as there would be less war and a state like that might care more about improving underdeveloped areas than we do about improving Random Banana Republic # 50 where it's all good as long as the megacorps can do business over there.

And yes, I know some people may question whether the plagues would really be that bad ... but the idea of pretty much having a mutual apocalypse in the 1500s is what drew me to this idea in the first place, so I decided to run with something pretty close to the worst case scenario.

 

[EdM]

This is quite interesting! I'd like to see how it develops, and how a world map would look like.

 

[willbell]

How I see it:
If it was that deadly no ships would be able to get back across, so the result is every explorer to cross the Atlantic never returns. Effectively, the sides would be quarantined. Neither would be able to survive a return trip until ships go across that have progressed to an almost modern level of medicine, and with Penicillin butterflied, that is going to take a while (we are most likely going to get satellites first believe it or not). My thinking; after the 50th explorer disappears the result would be a resurgence of flat-earth theories with perhaps a couple hemisphere theories. Australia becomes popular after overpopulation over all of Europe peaks, Africa gets claimed in a frenzy. The church, free from the lawless new world eventually crushes Protestantism, which might also mean slower move into overpopulation. The Silk Road expands, as do Red Sea and Cape of Good Hope routes. Russia is invaded by the overpopulated Europe because after all they are the evil Orthodox church. Something crusade-like with the middle east happens because of the hatred between the two sides in a small world. Finally the satellites explore the New World that after domestication of animals is also high tech. With the Supreme Empire of Wentloff or whatever (Aztecs, Incas, Maya, Inuit, etc. are all butterflied) expanding to take over all of central america. Perhaps the Natives even get the satellites up first! Anyways a survey ship is sent over with little protection, of which perhaps it might succeed by chance. And bring a message back of the powerful, peaceful (or not), empires on the other side of the world. Now we are at 1900s in computers/space and medicine so we then have a mutual die-off of about 60%. This probably will have happened by the year 2500 CE and we go from there.

 

[Somes J]

How I see it:
If it was that deadly no ships would be able to get back across, so the result is every explorer to cross the Atlantic never returns.

What I'm thinking is the big danger would be healthy carriers. Some guys go over to the Americas, catch something nasty, half of them die, the other half survive and are immunized but a couple of them are still carrying the disease, like OTL Typhoid Mary. They go back to Europe, infect others, and you end up with Black Death II.

If there's a sustained trade that could happen multiple times. Like I said, imagine two or four Black Deaths hitting in a matter of decades.

 

[willbell]

What I'm thinking is the big danger would be healthy carriers. Some guys go over to the Americas, catch something nasty, half of them die, the other half survive and are immunized but a couple of them are still carrying the disease, like OTL Typhoid Mary. They go back to Europe, infect others, and you end up with Black Death II.

If there's a sustained trade that could happen multiple times. Like I said, imagine two or four Black Deaths hitting in a matter of decades.

If it kills 95% their won't be enough crew to bring such a deadly plague back.

 

[Elfwine]

If it kills 95% their won't be enough crew to bring such a deadly plague back.

And if it's merely the Black Death Returns, then we're "just" looking a third or so of Europe, max, and probably less - not something equivalent to what happened to the Americas.

Not to mention that any place generating even that level won't generate return trips - as in, you won't have three or four in a century.

 

[Somes J]

If it kills 95% their won't be enough crew to bring such a deadly plague back.

I think 95% in the Americas was the cumulative death toll from a number of different diseases.

So one might wipe out 1/3 of the population, a second might wipe out another 1/3 etc.. Less a single super-plague and more, like I said, imagine being hit by two or three Black Deaths in quick succession.

Not to mention that any place generating even that level won't generate return trips - as in, you won't have three or four in a century.

Would they even know to stop going? I'm pretty sure they didn't know about germs back then, if it's mostly a question of transmission through healthy carriers would they even necessarily connect the plagues with going to the Americas? Yeah, people tend to die when they go over there, but the ones who came back were all healthy (well, as healthy as 1500s sailors would be, anyway), how could they give people the plague? Especially since often when a ship came back nothing would happen (they haven't picked up any new diseases, any ones they did pick up are ones that have already burned through the population back home so the survivors are immune).

 

[Malta]

The disease in question doesn't have to be a Instant Symptoms and Kill. It could be a incubator with fatal symptoms popping up months after contagion.

 

[Elfwine]

Would they even know to stop going? I'm pretty sure they didn't know about germs back then, if it's mostly a question of transmission through healthy carriers would they even necessarily connect the plagues with going to the Americas? Yeah, people tend to die when they go over there, but the ones who came back were all healthy (well, as healthy as 1500s sailors would be, anyway), how could they give people the plague? Especially since often when a ship came back nothing would happen (they haven't picked up any new diseases, any ones they did pick up are ones that have already burned through the population back home so the survivors are immune).

People tending to die when they go over there, alone, is discouraging.

Add in plagues, and people are going to wonder if going there is related - it may be "God is punishing us.", but its still wondering why that happened and this being an obvious thing that is different, so maybe if they stop, this will stop too.

 

[Somes J]

People tending to die when they go over there, alone, is discouraging.

Yeah, but malaria didn't stop all trade with Africa, did it? And once the initial exposures are over the death rate in transAtlantic sailors would drop off dramatically.

Add in plagues, and people are going to wonder if going there is related - it may be "God is punishing us.", but its still wondering why that happened and this being an obvious thing that is different, so maybe if they stop, this will stop too.

They might figure that, then again the people in charge might not. They might say something like "correlation isn't causation." And if the trans-Atlantic trade is paying off economically there's an incentive not to want to stop it. All it takes is one group keeping the voyages going and the exchange of diseases still happens; e.g. the King of Spain might listen to that, but maybe the King of Portugal isn't persuaded.

Plus, if Black Death II and Black Death III are seperated by, say, 15 or 20 years during which plenty of ships came back the correlation may not seem very obvious. For instance if symptoms aren't that different people might assume Black Death II started up again.

 

[Elfwine]

Yeah, but malaria didn't stop all trade with Africa, did it? And once the initial exposures are over the death rate in transAtlantic sailors would drop off dramatically.

Malaria isn't wiping out the majority of the ship's crew, however.

They might figure that, then again the people in charge might not. They might say something like "correlation isn't causation." And if the trans-Atlantic trade is paying off economically there's an incentive not to want to stop it. All it takes is one group keeping the voyages going and the exchange of diseases still happens; e.g. the King of Spain might listen to that, but maybe the King of Portugal isn't persuaded.

And when sailors refuse to go there, then what?

And when they have plagues, then what? Europeans aren't going to blindly plunge into this, especially when the voyages are a gamble rather than a safe bet to begin with.

Plus, if Black Death II and Black Death III are seperated by, say, 15 or 20 years during which plenty of ships came back the correlation may not seem very obvious. For instance is symptoms aren't that different people might assume Black Death II started up again.

The problem is, if you have Black Death II, people are not GOING to continue to make these voyages. And when its over, people are going to be worried about these dangerous lands.

Really, if you want a second Black Death that's one thing. Having a 95% die off is going to be a lot harder unless you design a disease specifically around being capable of doing that, and I'm not sure why one would evolve that would meet those conditions - after all, for the disease, what's the advantage? Why would a disease like that thrive instead of killing off all possible hosts?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Yeah, but malaria didn't stop all trade with Africa, did it? And once the initial exposures are over the death rate in transAtlantic sailors would drop off dramatically.

"The Bight of Benin, the Bight of Benin, one comes out where ten goes in" (many variants thereof)
Only REALLY profitable trade was conducted there (especially slaves, where you could let the locals do the round-up, sail in a ship, load up and leave fast before most of your sailors got sick).

No, it didn't stop ALL trade, but it put a really serious crimp on it, and really slowed white colonization.

 

[LOTLOF]

If you really do have 80% - 95% of the population dying not only do you not have any further exploration you can expect Western Civilization to collapse. You no longer have enough population to maintain cities or a merchant class. What's left will be forced to focus on food production and with so much land suddenly available there is no pressure to go out and explore. It will probably take Europe about two hundred years to recover.