Alternate History Thread III

[Luckymoose]

how bout what if the Spanish armada was successful.

or, Alexander the great didn't die so young and lived a few more years.

What if Nero didn't die either execution assassination or suicide.

 

[conehead234]

What about if life began a couple 100 million years before it did in our world, causing humans to evolve and come into the scene millions of years before they did in our timeline, meaning a different geographic structure for the earth for civilization to begin.

 

[Symphony D.]

Although that's impractical realistically, the end results of it are interesting enough to ignore such a thing, I think. You could also set it so it's 50 - 100 million years later, instead of before. Either one would present radically different maps of Earth (Cretaceous (-100MY), Future I (+50MY), Future II (+100MY), Future III (+250MY)).

Here is a pretty good overview of the map at different times, actually.

 

[carmen510]

How about the world never separated in Pangaea? That would make for some interesting battles. Or maybe only 2 continents.

 

[Symphony D.]

Then most of Earth's landmass would be a desert, and eventually the geothermal pressure would build up catastrophically until the surface got "reformatted" kind of like Venus does every so rarely. As far as modern Earth is concerned, it already is basically two mega-continents. The Americas and Eurasia-Africa.

 

[carmen510]

How about Europe, the Americas and Antarctica together. Asia, Australia, and Africa on the other continent?

 

[Symphony D.]

Or, if you really wanted that, you could do something that actually made sense, like Gondwana and Laurasia. If you're just going to totally make stuff up like you're on the Enterprise, don't bother justifying it.

 

[carmen510]

No idea what the Enterprise is.

 

[das]

I'd really like a NES with Sunda. Any way to make civilization spring up 18,000 years ago as opposed to 6,000?

 

[Thlayli]

Since in the history of Earth, 12,000 years is literally nothing, just make everything evolve a tiny, tiny bit faster...and voila.

 

[das]

My point exactly. In fact, "everything" isn't really needed; evolution is not free of random events, though most of these merely result in slower development. Have the humans skip a few dead-ends and generally evolve in the same direction slightly earlier, and it should work... A different matter is that of conditions for civilization, but it could be arranged as well...

Good places for Ice Age civilizations would be (on an initial glance) California (more water there back then, but the valleys are still here), the Parana (the desert nearby would basically do what Sahara did for Egypt and Gobi for Protochina), Straits of Gibraltar (good place for a Constantinople-like city; Iberia steppes and the protoSahara will ensure concentration of population), Western Greece (larger and colder than the OTL Greece, but still similar in some other regards), Congo (less rainforests, generally less humid), East Africa (more temperate than OTL), the Caucasus (between the steppes, the mountains, the Black Lake and the Caspian Sea, population concentration and external trade are assured, plus conditions are more temperate), Deccan (less humid, larger), Philippine-Japanese Seas (pretty good "mediterranean" area), and, ofcourse, Southeast Asia (more temperate Indochina, but I especially mean Sunda, with its complex river system, and all-around good terrain).

 

[Disenfrancised]

evolution is not free of random events,

Hahhahahahahahahahahhahahahaha. In other news, the sea is wet . Sorry, this just really made me laugh.

Anyway you can probably leave species level evolution out of this for the most part, you've have modern humans around since at about 40,000 BCE, so its more cultural evolution than physiological, just plonk in a few warm patches in the Wisconsin glaciation period between 40 and 30k for populations to rise and tools develop, and you may have sufficent development time to have proto-states by 16k...

 

[North King]

Good places for Ice Age civilizations would be (on an initial glance) California (more water there back then, but the valleys are still here), the Parana (the desert nearby would basically do what Sahara did for Egypt and Gobi for Protochina), Straits of Gibraltar (good place for a Constantinople-like city; Iberia steppes and the protoSahara will ensure concentration of population), Western Greece (larger and colder than the OTL Greece, but still similar in some other regards), Congo (less rainforests, generally less humid), East Africa (more temperate than OTL), the Caucasus (between the steppes, the mountains, the Black Lake and the Caspian Sea, population concentration and external trade are assured, plus conditions are more temperate), Deccan (less humid, larger), Philippine-Japanese Seas (pretty good "mediterranean" area), and, ofcourse, Southeast Asia (more temperate Indochina, but I especially mean Sunda, with its complex river system, and all-around good terrain).

Far more important for civilizations is the crops that are availible to the people and the food production base that they have to grow off of. I think that in all likelihood civilization really should arise in the Middle East unless something drastic happens; even an Ice Age still wouldn't change the fact that grains are "biased" towards middle Eurasia.

 

[das]

Different parts of middle Eurasia, perhaps. Anatolia and Persia look good in that regard here.

 

[Thlayli]

Don't forget, the continuing existance of an Ice Age will mean much faster intercontinental connections, if not from the land bridge, then from more easily traversed oceans due to the lower sea level.

 

[Symphony D.]

The sea level won't make it easier to go across the oceans, just to follow the coasts. Actual navigation would probably be helped by somewhat calmer weather (having more moisture locked up in ice reduces humidity and, accordingly, storms, to a degree).

 

[North King]

Different parts of middle Eurasia, perhaps. Anatolia and Persia look good in that regard here.

I'd still root for the Middle East, say, Arabia or Palestine, or...

Perhaps the Red Sea would be a potential area for settlement. The key is wether the dried up Red Sea would be a salty hell or a swampy, humid, lovely place.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

I'd still root for the Middle East, say, Arabia or Palestine, or...

Perhaps the Red Sea would be a potential area for settlement. The key is wether the dried up Red Sea would be a salty hell or a swampy, humid, lovely place.

At the least, I'd think it would become a haven for mosquitos, and therefore malaria...

 

[North King]

At the least, I'd think it would become a haven for mosquitos, and therefore malaria...

Only if it is a swamp. If it is a salty desert, then it wouldn't be a haven for much.

 

[das]

The Red Sea sounds nice, actually. It wasn't completely dried up, rather, it was a narrow gulf, and there was some vegetation on its coasts... Oman sounds especially nice. Not so sure about Palestine...