How would countries both uptime and downtime react? Would some uptime island territories become their own nations or be assimilated into uptime and downtime nations? And who would fair the most and the worst in this scenario?
What if every island nation and every island territory in 2021 gets transported to the year 1621?
- Thread starter The Great Khan
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ISOT
What if every island nation and every island territory in 2021 gets transported to the year 1621? How would countries both uptime and downtime react? Would some uptime island territories become their own nations or be assimilated into uptime and downtime nations? And who would fair the most and the worst in this scenario?
- Location
- Brazil
- Pronouns
- He
Rule Brittania
Brittain uses the royal family to get some royal marriages and eventually conquers or soft vassals the Europeans (and maybe unites with the Irish for security and for the economy)
Also, the Japanese are free to conquer all of Asia like they always wanted
I guess the people of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Venice joins one Italian power
most of southeast Asia gets brought and Australia and NW also get in
Brittain uses the royal family to get some royal marriages and eventually conquers or soft vassals the Europeans (and maybe unites with the Irish for security and for the economy)
Also, the Japanese are free to conquer all of Asia like they always wanted
I guess the people of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Venice joins one Italian power
most of southeast Asia gets brought and Australia and NW also get in
A significant question is how big or small does something have to be to be considered an island? Once you reach 'continent' do you no longer qualify?
But the main thing is probably that Britain and Japan become significant powers, THE world powers. I don't even want to contemplate what is going to happen with China, between knowledge of the future, various competing factions for official rule, Japan dropping it's defense only stance and sticking it's oar in, or other southeast asian nations who have come through entirely intact deciding to expand wildly.
To start the uptimer nations would probably have a fairly 'hands off' attitude towards each other, plenty of fish in the sea for them to be busy dealing with, both assimilation and reorganization with so many missing pieces of global infrastructure to work out.
The second phase would be the saber rattling as various islands either strike out on their own or seek to be absorbed by existing nations. For example, take the USA. Most of it is primitive, but a few islands here and there are VERY high tech, populous cities. Do those cities such as Long Island, to name just one, try to recreate the USA? Do they ask Britain for citizenship in the Empire? Does Puerto Rico become the seat of US government or is it Hawaii?
Or am I being too broad, and by Territory you don't mean just islands but things that are considered 'territories' so there is no piecemeal high tech nations along oceanic boarders? In which case would Hawaii qualify or be excluded because it is technically a State not a Territory but not yet a nation? Does all of Cuba go back or just Cuba outside of Guantanamo Bay etc... The devil is going to be in the details of just what comes back and what doesn't.
I do like the fact that questions like, how potent is the Navy of Madagascar compared to New Zealand suddenly become relevant.
But the main thing is probably that Britain and Japan become significant powers, THE world powers. I don't even want to contemplate what is going to happen with China, between knowledge of the future, various competing factions for official rule, Japan dropping it's defense only stance and sticking it's oar in, or other southeast asian nations who have come through entirely intact deciding to expand wildly.
To start the uptimer nations would probably have a fairly 'hands off' attitude towards each other, plenty of fish in the sea for them to be busy dealing with, both assimilation and reorganization with so many missing pieces of global infrastructure to work out.
The second phase would be the saber rattling as various islands either strike out on their own or seek to be absorbed by existing nations. For example, take the USA. Most of it is primitive, but a few islands here and there are VERY high tech, populous cities. Do those cities such as Long Island, to name just one, try to recreate the USA? Do they ask Britain for citizenship in the Empire? Does Puerto Rico become the seat of US government or is it Hawaii?
Or am I being too broad, and by Territory you don't mean just islands but things that are considered 'territories' so there is no piecemeal high tech nations along oceanic boarders? In which case would Hawaii qualify or be excluded because it is technically a State not a Territory but not yet a nation? Does all of Cuba go back or just Cuba outside of Guantanamo Bay etc... The devil is going to be in the details of just what comes back and what doesn't.
I do like the fact that questions like, how potent is the Navy of Madagascar compared to New Zealand suddenly become relevant.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I presume a industrial revolution wouldn't start earlier with the resources of modern Japan and Britain. Amd Hawaii will no longer be under American control hurrah
um... don't you mean Hawaii would be America and the industrial revolution would come much sooner because of the resources of modern Japan and Britain?
I don't see how industry would be introduced later because of the existence of... industry.
I also don't see how Hawaii already being a state is somehow no longer in the US or having had everything that has happened to it is suddenly undone just because it has traveled back in time. I mean, are you presuming everyone on the islands decides as one that they are not now and never were US citizens?
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Population of UK was 5.5 million in 1621, It's 66 million in 2021
Japan's population 22 million in 1621, 126 million in 2021.
How do these countries generate enough trade to stave off a very-short-term mass starvation event? And from whom, and where?
Japan's population 22 million in 1621, 126 million in 2021.
How do these countries generate enough trade to stave off a very-short-term mass starvation event? And from whom, and where?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
will they get the food by trade I presume with their advanced tech and agriculture practices, they could like send ambassadors to every country to "modernize" the Agicultal
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Most of this advanced tech depend on electricity, fossil fuels and lubricants and GPS which the uptimers will be loath to give up with 80% of their population starving to death.
Colonialism 2.0!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
so I guess some people would be against Colonialism? It isn't really will liked in our modern world.
- Location
- Brazil
- Pronouns
- He
Once again will old Brittain need to spread civilization to the french
but serious, Brittain eats up Europe for resources
only the islands of the danish will be a problem
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah Britain and Japan will dominate their continents. Through more with soft power considering Empires aren't to will liked in the modern World. Modern agricultural practices can be very space efficient compared to what they where doing in 16 century
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von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
When the alternative is Uptimer population being reduced by 90%, there's no real other option than stripping the 1621 Downtimers of their food supplies, and even that won't be enough.
Force will be the only thing France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire understand.
Places like Madagascar, Hawaii, Cyprus, Crete, Iceland, the Galapagos, and the Philippines will just wither away and die off.
Too resource poor and isolated to survive let alone thrive.
Taiwan might be the unheralded success story of this ISOT
Bahrain & the Caribbean might survive by returning to piracy.
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- Location
- New Zealand
New Zealand produces enough food to feed 100 million people.
It's an importer.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Well, it's an exporter of food, mostly to the USA, a market that has ceased to exist.
Exporting that food elsewhere could be a interesting logistical challenge, with the huge reduction in the number of refrigerated ships.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think people would trade with them. And you do know that Hawaii is like a us navel base they'll use gunboat diplomacy.
von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Yes. Against whom?
Do they have enough troops to exploit the California coast, let alone the interior? How long before they run out of fuel for their ships/vehicles/helicopters? A few months I suspect.
- Location
- Brazil
- Pronouns
- He
Honestly, the Big 3 on Europe is the British isles , the Italian island (Corsica, the other one that I forgot the name and Sicily ) and the Danish islands
on India, there's sri lanka , in Asia there's the multitude of islands
Newfoundland also might colonize America
on India, there's sri lanka , in Asia there's the multitude of islands
Newfoundland also might colonize America
Also curious how well they'd perform without GPS.
the atom
Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
- Location
- Comfortably numb
For a country the size of New Zealand I don't think that would be a huge deal.
- Location
- Brazil
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- He
or not, most of the population lived in the rural areas and are pretty dispersed
You people seem to be forgetting about Indonesia.
It's an archipelago. Fourth most populous country on the planet. 275 million people. Not as rich as Britain and Japan, but much bigger, in both land and population. I think they're likely to be a serious power in this scenario.
It's an archipelago. Fourth most populous country on the planet. 275 million people. Not as rich as Britain and Japan, but much bigger, in both land and population. I think they're likely to be a serious power in this scenario.
COVID19 kills a relatively small percentage of the people it infects, and it mostly kills old people; it might not even be noticed much against the 1621 background death rate from malaria, cholera, syphilis, bubonic plague, etc.. Business as usual in 1621 was a constant ongoing epidemiological disaster much worse than even a totally uncontrolled COVID19 epidemic.
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von hitchofen
Obsolescent Scandroid.
- Location
- Airstrip One, Oceania
Yeah, the Pacific Caliphate will be one of the Known Unknowns, like Taiwan.
Why not? It's incredibly isolated, most of the stuff it can export will be rotten by the time it gets to its destination on 17th century sailing ships.
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