WI: No Himalayas

ninebucks

Banned
What if, instead of the Asian and Indian tectonic plates slamming into each other, one of them were to be subducted under the other. For the sake of argument, assume the Asian plate slides under India.

How would this change the overall story of human history? The Silk Road has just lost its most formidible obstacle and the Indian Subcontinent is now likely to be very volcanic.
 
the butterflies would be EXTREMELY massive, I'm not very good with ancient history like this, but would this possibly butterfly away humans as we know them?


this does go in ASB though.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
The disappearance of the Mountain Range would alter weather to a point that the world would, quite literally, be unrecognizable. The changes in rainfall patterns would be so massive in scope that, as has been mentioned, it is very possible that homonids never develop.

And I'll make it three in a row. This belongs in ASB.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
No Ice Ages. I don't know where I heard this, I think it was on television, but I am reasonably sure that the present 'age' of Ice Ages is now seen as due mainly to the rise of the Himalayas. The timing and cause of the individual Ice Ages over the last 30 million years is debated, but the general cause of all these "recent" Ice Ages in this period is not.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1281731.html?page=2

And what's ASB about no Himalayas? No magical intervention necessary AFAICS

I don't see why it would necessarily butterfly away people but there might not be civilization, which many people think was due to stresses when the last Ice Age ended.
 
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ASB= Nukeing all the Himlayas through a time machine
Pre-1900= Nature takes a differnet course
 
General board policy is to put geographical PODs in the ASB section.

But, as for the topic, the Mohenjo-Daro civilization probably wouldn't rise, due to the different topography in India.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Actually, no, by forumc onsensus geologcial and prehuman WIs have always been a matter of teh ASB forum.

Discuss alternate history scenarios that involve time travel, magic, alien intervention, anything in the sea of time, and other such weirdness. Also alternate histories taking place in fictional universes (Star Wars, etc).

Nope, don't see geological and prehuman there.

You're supposed to check if the memo was read. Whattya think, I sit here reading all day? I got porn to download people

But seriously, why? No different rules of plausibility I can see.
 
Actually, the Himilayas will probably exist, but they will be smaller and will be a range of volcanoes, while India will be a large island. Geologically, India will probably be very similar to Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction_zone

If India remains a separate continent and never connects with Eurasia, then this would have the very interesting consequence that India would develop a unique flora and fauna.

In OTL, India collided with Eurasia about 45 mya, and it had only separated from Madagascar about twenty million years earlier, so it never really had the chance to develop a very distinct flora and fauna, like other isolated continents did.

But ITTL, India will remain a separate continent for at least 65 million years, so the flora and fauna on the TTL Indian continent will be as unique and unusual as that of prehistoric Madagascar, but then on a bigger scale.
 
ASB= Nukeing all the Himlayas through a time machine
Pre-1900= Nature takes a differnet course


nature couldn't naturally take a difference course like that (I don't think).. it would be considered ASB if the continents moved differently.
 
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