Westeros meets Earth

[Yonatan]

In this scenario, I am interested in seeing how the arrival of Westeros on our Earth would affect both world, in terms of economy, demographics, and historical development of the Old World, the Americas, and Westeros itself.

Westeros arrives on our Earth in 1492, shortly before Columbus leaves on his first voyage. For Westeros, the continent is as it was on the eve of Jon Snow's assassination, shortly before it happens in fact, from the book version.

A few modifications, to make some things clear:

1. Magic is gone. With Essos not along for the ride, Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons are gone. With the displacement, most of the lands North of the Wall are missing, including the Lands of Always Winter and the entire White Walker army. Bloodraven's cave, along with Brandon Stark and the last of the Children of the Forest are also gone, just missing the cutoff mark. Melisandre's magic is gone, and she soon perishes as her real age catches up with her. Lady Stoneheart similarly perishes, as does Sir Robert Strong/UnGregor. Whatever magic Euron Greyjoy has also does not work.
2. With magic gone, the Wall collapses, though ROB is kind enough to tilt it north as it crashes under physics' relentless force. The Night's Watch and Wildlings are spared (except for whatever poor NW members were on patrol duty at the time).
3. While the seasons of Westeros will now become Earth-normal, ROB is also handwaving any climate issues this change will cause. The British Isles won't freeze over from disruptions of the Gulf Stream, Westeros will remain with the climate it is used to (so the Reach remains fertile, Dorne remains a desert, the Iron Islands remain a hellhole, etc).
4. The default assumption is that Stannis Baratheon will win in his Battle of the Ice and that the Pink Letter is a forgary sent by a desperate Ramsay Snow.
5. Westeros's plagues and diseases are mostly similar to those found in 14th century Europe. Whatever exchange happens between the two continents, it won't be as disasterous as that between Europe and the Americas (an exception is made for Greyscale, which stops working as it is magical in nature).

Spoiler: Map

So, questions:

1. How does first contact go?
2. How does this change influence both Westeros and Europe, in terms of exchange of ideas, technology, culture and religion?
3. How do the Americas develop differently, and with what influences?

 

[M3lk0r]

were we supposed to ask questions.

 

[vrumagen]

Trade. Trade and missionaries. A lot of explorers will divert to known rich lands of westeros. Iron isles may be first intro North America has to outside world. Luckily no krakens.
Westeros is weak and divided but no one in Europe could invade. Might be a good place for conquisodore mercs.
Also no iron bank. The crowns finances look a lot better.

 

[Canal Prophet]

Christianity gets a new religious blood feud to replace Islam in the wake of the Reconquista.

It's important to remember that as radicalized as the Faith of the Seven is in Westeros right now, it's nothing compared to what would happen if the stars themselves changes completely. That's a huge existential crisis for any religion, but especially so for one that puts particular emphasis on the night sky like the Seven do. The fallout of Westeros' moving will be every single person with even a smidgen of Faith in the Seven becoming the equivalent of an end-times preacher on the street corner; it will be hysteria. The Sparows power will skyrocket to unheard of levels; all the sinners and heretics who can be scapegoated for the Gods' anger will be killed, especially those in the Red Keep. Cersei, Margaery, and Tommen will all be killed just on the off chance that the accusations against them are true. If Aegon is very careful and very smooth, he can play on this to get the Faith's backing (already likely in canon) and assure he takes the Iron Throne; after all, surely the Seven want a Targaryen ruling Westeros again, after the Baratheons and the Lannisters have made the heavens THIS angry! Obviously, his marriage with Arianne will have to be dropped, as I doubt the Sparrows will tolerate a Dornishwoman as Queen; this likely leads Doran to make Dorne go full isolationist for a while, as he tries to come up with a new plan for this strange new world.

The conflict comes when Columbus, who judging by his OTL voyage will be heading for the Stormlands, makes contact with the many very confused trading vessels trying to find the Free Cities, and gets pointed to the nearest port. It won't take very long for him to go to King's Landing if that's not where he's directed to, and after some initial confusion things will get very bad very fast. To the Sparrows, these foreigners who apparently harken from a new land that has REPLACED Essos will be seen as nothing more than devils, especially when they inevitably start passing out Bibles and preaching. The backlash will be hard, fast, and brutal, as the Faithful will not tolerate even the appearance of blasphemy in this frightening new age. Maybe some of Columbus' crew escapes back to Spain, or Queen Isabella sends ships to check up on them, but eventually the woman who completed the Reconquista and founded the Spanish Inquisition will learn of it.

We can look to history to see how Isabella will react to good Christians being butchered in a foreign God's name. Spain declares a holy war on the New World in the name of Christ. I would be shocked if Aegon's new regime has the ability to fight off the invaders, after the many, many, many wars that have bled Westeros dry up until now. The Spanish also have the cannon and the arquebus. However, this fight would be nothing like the conquest of the Native Americans; Westeros is much closer to technical parity with the Old World, and fighting with the kind of religious devotion that only comes from a whole continent personally witnessing an act of God in the heavens above. Christianity will be demonized among Westerosi to a degree unheard of by even old foes like the Muslims, and the Westerosi will go to incredible lengths to stamp it and all who follow it out. The war will be long and bloody, and though Westeros stands on failing legs, it will make the Spanish bleed for every victory. The Azores Islands probably become hotspots in the war due to their very close proximity to Gulltown, its few people being conquered quite easily by the full weight of the Vale, and dragging Portugal into the war alongside Spain. To a lesser extent, this also applies to Cape Verde, which isn't far from Dorne who will be searching for new wealth and resources to replace the trade flow with the Free Citites.

As for how things go from there, I'm not sure. I don't think I'm familiar enough with this time period to accurately map how Europe handles Westeros onwards. I do know how Westeros will react however; the North radicalizes around the Old Gods, the South around the New, the Iron Isles along the Drowned, likely creating even higher tensions than before with each other. Euron Greyjoy would be absolutely crushed by the Redwines when the magic he was counting on fails to go off, but that's only if the Ironborn actually go into battle as planned, with the stars themselves having changed. What that would do to a religious seaborne society cannot be overstated, especially in the wake of Euron going against millennia of Ironborn custom and sailing into the Sunset Sea to take the Shields earlier. All things considered, Euron is screwed, and the priests of the Drowned God are ascendant in their power, likely pulling all the Ironborn back home to crown a new king when Euron is inevitably neutralized. They, as a people, rely on the stars though, and this will cripple their ability to sail easily for a long time to come, probably leaving many Ironborn sticking to the coasts of Westeros. The Ironborn will likely never discover the Americas now, due to the newfound (and more intense than ever) stigma against sailing west, with Euron's blasphemy immortalized.

As for the North, they have an even greater event than the stars changing to deal with; the Wall collapsing. Firstly, the event almost certainly stops the initial plot to assassinate Jon Snow, but he'll end up in even more danger, as the plotters pin the downed Wall on divine retribution for going against his oaths. Likely, Tormund will take him south with the rest of the wildlings as they desperately flee the former Wall at full speed; they think the Others are still coming and will want to get as far away as possible, ignoring the previous deal to settle the Gift. Jon probably convinces some of the wildlings to head for Winterfell, due to its having withstood the previous Long Night, while he hopes to save 'Arya' from Ramsay. There, they find Stannis has already won, Bolton and Frey power in the North is wiped out completely, and his sister was never there. It's entirely likely that Stannis' support falls about now, both because of the North Remembers conspiracy going off and because he's an easy scapegoat for blaming the Gods wrath on. Stannis and the Red God's faithful probably don't make it out alive, and neither do Theon and Asha. With the Night's Watch having cast him out, Jon probably accepts Winterfell as a Stark, and the crown of King in the North. The Night's Watch probably starts fracturing pretty quickly without a Wall, but they are able to eventually confirm that the Lands of the Always Winter have been "swallowed by the sea". Word filters down to Winterfell and people start to relax; to Jon and the wildlings, the Event becomes an act of divine salvation that strengthens their faith in the Old Gods. The mass of wildlings in the North becomes an ongoing problem, and Jon's favoring them an obstacle to his rule; he must walk a careful line. Mance's survival and likely reclaiming his crown is another issue.

Native Americans are likely reached first by the few wildlings who stayed behind on the Frozen Shore, which is now physically connected to lower Greenland. Depending on how good their boats are, they may also push across the water to Canada, but that's a much bigger distance than Bear Island. Fishermen off the Stony Shore are another very likely group to make contact, as Newfoundland is now very close. If the North can pull its gaze out of the many internal issues it faces, it is the second most primed to begin relations with the Native Americans, provided it actually builds some damn boats.

The first most primed is Dorne, which is discouraged from looking east for trade by Spain and especially Portugal. They'll lean hard on aid from Aegon for a while, but as the war worsens I imagine Dorne will bite the bullet and sail west, discovering the Carribean, and the kind of colonization the area experienced OTL will occur all over again, spurring the Reach, Westerlands, and North to check out the new continent to the west. (The Ironborn abstain, of course.) However, both Westeros and Europe will be stymied for some time in their colonization ambitions by the war between them.

Where things go from here, I'm not sure, but that's how I think the immediate fallout would be.