What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?

[ExNihilo]

I am simply saying that actions have consequences. If California decides to aggressively and extensively patrol this vast territory they might succeed in stopping the spread of settlers. But the cost will be a bleeding ulcer to the east, both in terms of US hostility and the cost of the patrols.

If you do not do this then, even if you stop the US military, settlers will slowly overwhelm the natives. Quite likely supported to some degree by rural conservatives leaving California.

Though I am a bit annoyed how simply pointing out consequences gets this knee jerk reaction.

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I don't think that's right, though. Settlering was already a risky business, and with Californian satellite imagery, you can't exactly farm without being noticed and evicted. It (settlering) only continued being done because it kept working, and when it didn't, eg native powers beat them, the US army was able to be called in. If it doesn't work, and visibly doesn't work, it's going to stop and slow in short order. Perhaps it'll never cease entirely, but a few people crossing the border as stealthily as possible, unable to farm without being spotted in a week, does not a bleeding ulcer make.

 

[Norseman]

I don't think that's right, though. Settlering was already a risky business, and with Californian satellite imagery, you can't exactly farm without being noticed and evicted. It (settlering) only continued being done because it kept working, and when it didn't, eg native powers beat them, the US army was able to be called in. If it doesn't work, and visibly doesn't work, it's going to stop and slow in short order. Perhaps it'll never cease entirely, but a few people crossing the border as stealthily as possible, unable to farm without being spotted in a week, does not a bleeding ulcer make.

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Satelite imagery? I find that very unlikely. Satelite imagery requires a lot of careful analysis. It is far more likely the native americans will turn them in. But you know what. I am perfectly willing to grant that long term settlements are impossible if California actually uses force to keep them out. And the moment you slack off the pressure will start mounting again.

Farmers are not the only people who will cross that (enormous and badly marked) border. Buffalo hunters will do the same. As will regular hunters and trappers. Prospectors too. You will need constant military operations against them too. And the pressure will become worse as the buffalo is hunted to near extinction out east.

This too will require a constant military presence and operations.

Then of course, as I mentioned earlier, you will have the raiders. Both Native American raiders (who will be enjoying their new safe zone) and American raiders (either retaliating or just wanting to screw with the Californians). I mean look at the Wild West, bleeding Kansas, etc, etc.

All of this will make for a border that will require constant military operations. As well as be a source of constant friction and resentment on the US side. Now of course the balance of power is such that for decades California can enforce this, but it's still going to be a constant gnawing ulcer and increasingly be a PR problem.

 

[ExNihilo]

I think, in general, you're supremely overestimating the problem

Satelite imagery? I find that very unlikely. Satelite imagery requires a lot of careful analysis.

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Not really? Cali in the story has demonstrated the ability to use their satellites to spot already (see the bit where they spotted the American steamers) and it's not like farms are small. Perhaps some small ones, or ones well-hidden, can escape, but once any number starts to gather it goes from findable to hard to miss, quite quickly.

And the moment you slack off the pressure will start mounting again.

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Settling was, foremost, an economics game-with land out east being mismanaged due to careless agriculture, and the occasional economic crisis, a homestead with free land becomes a worthwhile, if risky, gamble. With the threat that at any time an unimpeachable army might come to remove you, the odds change quickly.

Buffalo hunters will do the same.

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Buffalo hunting, frankly, was not an economically viable trade, at least not in the extinction level effects of our timeline. It was only practiced because the US government actively encouraged and rewarded the hunting to deprive plains Native Americans of their food source. The bodies of the buffalo rotted in a pile, after all-not sold for furs. The buffalo aren't immune to danger, but without the US government's ability to encourage it and Cali's conservation, they'll probably be fine.

Prospectors too

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Downtime prospectors can't compete with uptime mines, there's frankly no way around it.

I mean look at the Wild West, bleeding Kansas, etc, etc.

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Neither of these are settler problems, really. Bleeding Kansas was fairly explicitly a slavery conflict, and the Wild West was a combination of so many factors, like the north-south cattle drive, the state of the railroads, and the ability (and lack thereof) of Army enforcement, and even in its heyday it was wildly exaggerated.

 

[Norseman]

I think, in general, you're supremely overestimating the problem

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Please do not spaghetti post. I am not sure if it goes against the rules or not, but it is irritating all the same. I simply have two points:

1. I notice that you mysteriously did not include raids and counter-raids among the points you refuted.

2. But as for the rest... are you denying that California will need to actively enforce the borders and actually evict people from time to time? (By the way prospector usually equals gold miner, they are not there to compete against modern mines, they are there to find gold).

Because those two are all that are necessary to make this a constant ulcer for California. Sure, they can enforce it with relative ease, with single digit annual deaths (on their side) most likely. But they will still need to spend resources and political will in doing so, and doing so will be a constant irritation to the USA.

 

[ExNihilo]

Please do not spaghetti post. I am not sure if it goes against the rules or not, but it is irritating all the same. I simply have two points:

1. I notice that you mysteriously did not include raids and counter-raids among the points you refuted.

2. But as for the rest... are you denying that California will need to actively enforce the borders and actually evict people from time to time? (By the way prospector usually equals gold miner, they are not there to compete against modern mines, they are there to find gold).

Because those two are all that are necessary to make this a constant ulcer for California. Sure, they can enforce it with relative ease, with single digit annual deaths (on their side) most likely. But they will still need to spend resources and political will in doing so, and doing so will be a constant irritation to the USA.

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1) Raids and counter-raids will perhaps not entirely go away, but at the very least they'll consistently trend down. Raids aren't a fact of life, they're the result of complex social, cultural, and economic pressures. The US army can't raid, not without Cali bombing all their supply bases, private raiders in the US are frankly terrible without US army support, without it their effectiveness will plummet, and with a more stable position and the decrease of raids, Native American counter-raids will decrease as well, especially with Cali's encouragement.

2) They'll need to do it from time to time, sure, but so will the Native Americans, who generally beat settlers in our timeline without US army support, and here Cali's army and guns will be on their side. That's some political will, sure, but hardly breaking.

2a) There are places where there are gold, and those are going to be, in general, places that have uptime gold mines taking over the terrain. Some won't be, I can't imagine the Lakota giving up the Black Hills, for instance, but in general, where there's gold, or silver for that matter, the prospectors will be competing with mining companies who would very much not like people squatting on their prime gold land. Sure, panning for nuggets isn't infringing on boremines, but mining companies tend to be touchy about that sort of thing. At best, they'll be politely escorted off by mine security personnel. Some small-scale miners might make it through, perhaps, but gold rushes will likely be a thing of the past.

3) Frankly, even if California capitulated entirely to the US, split into a slave state and a free state, and swore eternal loyalty to the Washington government, it still would be a constant irritation to the US. There's no way around it, really.

 

[Norseman]

3) Frankly, even if California capitulated entirely to the US, split into a slave state and a free state, and swore eternal loyalty to the Washington government, it still would be a constant irritation to the US. There's no way around it, really.

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There are degrees of everything. And right now, the way things are going, we are looking at a Franco-German level of hostility. Sure, the USA cannot do anything right now, but 40-50 years from now?

And little by little the downtimers will figure out how to work around all this technology. Sure, it may take decades before they can be a real threat, but they can still be an ulcer.

 

[ExNihilo]

There are degrees of everything. And right now, the way things are going, we are looking at a Franco-German level of hostility. Sure, the USA cannot do anything right now, but 40-50 years from now?

And little by little the downtimers will figure out how to work around all this technology. Sure, it may take decades before they can be a real threat, but they can still be an ulcer.

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40-50 years from now, the US will not be in any better position to meaningfully threaten Cali. Fundamentally, Cali's economy (not inherently, but given the way the story's going it's basically confirmed) will be, if not fully 2018 levels, basically functional, able to produce post-cold-war tech at basically unlimited rates. The US will be, at that point, either economically integrated into the Cali market system, discouraging war, or relatively isolated. The first might give them some Cali surplus, but with the second, they're using prop planes, if they're lucky, and interwar-to-WWII era machine guns at best. That isn't a fight, and that's not even bringing up the fact that Cali has nukes, and no one else does. A half-century is not nearly enough time to be a challenge. In any case, with a half-century of progress, the socio-economics that lead to settlerism and raiding are going to be even further gone. The introduction of better fertilizers, modern farming techniques, and soil restoration technologies mean that the eastern farms will probably be failing less, leading to less pressure to find virgin terrain, the lines will become more settled, making crossing them harder, politically and physically, and the world system will adapt to California, or it will perish. By the time downtime nations can meaningfully threaten California, the socio-political world system will be completely different, and predicting what conflicts will be then is for us to guess and the authors to know.

Sure, Cali and the US will be hostile, at least for now, but hostility isn't permanent, after all, France and Germany are fast allies today. One way or another, it's shaping up to look like Slavery will be fought in the American south, either rendering the south economically irrelevant or by some abolition and with that gone or reduced, hostilities can decrease.

 

[Norseman]

40-50 years from now, the US will not be in any better position to meaningfully threaten Cali. Fundamentally, Cali's economy (not inherently, but given the way the story's going it's basically confirmed) will be, if not fully 2018 levels, basically functional, able to produce post-cold-war tech at basically unlimited rates. The US will be, at that point, either economically integrated into the Cali market system, discouraging war, or relatively isolated. The first might give them some Cali surplus, but with the second, they're using prop planes, if they're lucky, and interwar-to-WWII era machine guns at best. That isn't a fight, and that's not even bringing up the fact that Cali has nukes, and no one else does. A half-century is not nearly enough time to be a challenge. In any case, with a half-century of progress, the socio-economics that lead to settlerism and raiding are going to be even further gone. The introduction of better fertilizers, modern farming techniques, and soil restoration technologies mean that the eastern farms will probably be failing less, leading to less pressure to find virgin terrain, the lines will become more settled, making crossing them harder, politically and physically, and the world system will adapt to California, or it will perish. By the time downtime nations can meaningfully threaten California, the socio-political world system will be completely different, and predicting what conflicts will be then is for us to guess and the authors to know.

Sure, Cali and the US will be hostile, at least for now, but hostility isn't permanent, after all, France and Germany are fast allies today. One way or another, it's shaping up to look like Slavery will be fought in the American south, either rendering the south economically irrelevant or by some abolition and with that gone or reduced, hostilities can decrease.

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To think that in 50 years the USA would be at WWI or WWII levels in 50 years is quite frankly absurd. To think the western powers would be at that level in 50 years is also quite frankly absurd. California will in 50 years time probably still be the leading technological power, but it will be so in the sense that the USA is the leading technological power in the modern world.

This is not some game of EU4 where you need to move through the technology tree and having more advanced neighbours just gives you bonuses. Entire technologies will be flat out skipped, much as Japan did during Meiji. By 1918 (50 years after Meiji) Japan was not fully up to date, but they were able to build fully modern battleships and warships. For that matter look at the development of China between 1949 and 1999, or better still the United States between 1848 and 1898.

But the sort of generational humiliation that California is inflicting on the United States is not something that will just go away. The United States is basically being treated the way the west in the 1950s and 1960s would treat some third world country that is being politically difficult. Now, morally, sure, they are right to fight against slavery. Morally they are right to protect the Native Americans. Morally they are right to bolster Mexico.

But they are still treating the USA like a "shithole" country. They, California, are acting out some of the ugliest of the ugly American stereotypes, and seem utterly oblivious to the fact.

And perhaps this will not blow up in their face... Perhaps this will not lead to constant low level skirmishes and conflicts at the borders... I doubt both. And I don't think we will reach any kind of agreement.

 

[ExNihilo]

To think that in 50 years the USA would be at WWI or WWII levels in 50 years is quite frankly absurd. To think the western powers would be at that level in 50 years is also quite frankly absurd. California will in 50 years time probably still be the leading technological power, but it will be so in the sense that the USA is the leading technological power in the modern world.

This is not some game of EU4 where you need to move through the technology tree and having more advanced neighbours just gives you bonuses. Entire technologies will be flat out skipped, much as Japan did during Meiji. By 1918 (50 years after Meiji) Japan was not fully up to date, but they were able to build fully modern battleships and warships. For that matter look at the development of China between 1949 and 1999, or better still the United States between 1848 and 1898.

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OK, sure, the tech will advance faster than in our timeline, I didn't even dispute that. If they work with Cali, I've no doubt they'll surpass 2-years-per-year. However, a US that's cooperating with Cali, that's receiving and accepting technological aid in the form of advisors and industry, isn't one that's in a tremendously adversarial relationship with Cali, who will hardly be sending tech and materials to a country that is actively raiding them and their allies, after all. When China and Meiji Japan adapted, they had technological advisors and industry brought in from the west, and while the deals were hardly fair and balanced, or treated the Chinese or Japanese as equal partners, fundamentally, if France, say, stopped working with Japan, England and Germany might still be willing to help. The only source of this tech aid is California. Sure, they can't prevent science books and all tech examples from getting through, but to get from before the popularization of true interchangeable parts all the way to an early computer economy in 50 years, without any industrial aid and active trade limitations (once again, positing a hostile relationship with Cali, a more friendly one makes it probable) seems unlikely to me.

But the sort of generational humiliation that California is inflicting on the United States is not something that will just go away. The United States is basically being treated the way the west in the 1950s and 1960s would treat some third world country that is being politically difficult. Now, morally, sure, they are right to fight against slavery. Morally they are right to protect the Native Americans. Morally they are right to bolster Mexico.

But they are still treating the USA like a "shithole" country. They, California, are acting out some of the ugliest of the ugly American stereotypes, and seem utterly oblivious to the fact.

And perhaps this will not blow up in their face... Perhaps this will not lead to constant low level skirmishes and conflicts at the borders... I doubt both. And I don't think we will reach any kind of agreement.

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Are they really, though? There was legitimately a Popular Union fusion candidate that had the downtimer as the presidential candidate, which at least seems to me like the California Labor Party is willing to treat the US, if not as an equal, at least as being worthy of negotiation. If they've been treating the Slave Power, the south and her candidates, as a "shithole country (or region, I suppose)" as it were, then boo hoo, slavers can go pound sand, but it isn't the North, the part that at least pretends to care about people's rights, they're attacking, "stealing" slaves from, or bombing the military arsenals of. Will there be conflicts at the border, for some time at least? Surely. The US did just shoot down the passenger plane, and put their embassy/whatever and airport under military siege. One way or another, that needs some conclusion, whether that be an actual war, President Cass's impeachment, or whatever else.

 

[htgriffin]

But that seems to be exactly what Norseman means: That would require patrolling a vast region of territory, larger than the core territory, and building up at least a skeleton military infrastructure there.

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More like making sure the various signatories on the Alcatraz Treaty are in radio contact and the passes through the Continental Divide that can handle large numbers of troops at once are monitored.

Settlers will start creeping in from east and west, maybe setting up defensible villages instead of traditional homesteads. And these settlers will either be ignored, permitted, or driven out at gunpoint, and the first two approaches will rapidly mean that there are so many of them that clearing them out won't be so easy. Also if rural conservatives hook up with the old timey westerners things get even worse.

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You... are sort of overestimating how many settlers were as far west as the established border. Comancharia was still a going concern in the 1850s and the Great Plains in general were primarily somewhere to travel through.

 

[Enderminion]

Newt Gingrich wrote an alternate history novel called 1945 once, it was... pretty bad. The short of it was that the US didn't get involved in European WW2 and due to their considerable supremacy over the Empire of Japan funding for the Bomb lagged behind OTL, by the time the book takes place in late 1945 the US does not have the Bomb; at the same time Britain was forced to peace out of war with Germany in 1943, unable to do anything to them, totally ignoring Italy of course, and at some point Germany beats the Soviets; that's not the most cringeworthy part. The worst part is that a group of 120 long range strategic bombers, 10 tankers, 10 gunships (Nazi!AC130), and 10 Paratrooper planes make a raid against US Nuclear facilities in Tennessee launched from French islands in the Caribbean Sea, the paratroopers to ensure that most of the scientists are killed and to destroy certain facilities (a nuclear reactor, they replace the control rods with explosives and accidentally kill themselves via acute Radiation poisoning when the reactor melts down); at which point the transports land at a captured airbase and get the surviving not about to die of radiation poisoning paratroopers and make for Europe. Also Rommel makes a landing in Scotland to pull British forces from England to allow for Unmentionable Sea Mammal to be launched.
Also rocket boosted F8F Bearcats, honestly Scotland is an excuse for Rommel to fight Patton with late war tanks. Also tries to redeem a Nazi War Criminal by having him refuse Jewish targets during a training exercise, and having his friend die a slow and painful death of acute radiation sickness, Otto Skorzeny in case you were wondering (irl he escaped being convicted of war crimes because an SOE wing commander said his guys did the same thing (enemy uniforms)).

 

[Sarthaka]

I would honestly dig a Tecumseh's confederacy survives scenario. Just for the cultural and political differences than otl.

 

[General_Urist]

I would honestly dig a Tecumseh's confederacy survives scenario. Just for the cultural and political differences than otl.

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There's an ongoing timeline on AH.com called "The Revenge of the Crown", I haven't had time to properly assess its quality but it might be what you're looking for. The overall premise seems to be that Britain does MUCH better in the war of 1812, and part of that manifests as Tecumseh's state surviving.

 

[Norseman]

OK, sure, the tech will advance faster than in our timeline, I didn't even dispute that. If they work with Cali, I've no doubt they'll surpass 2-years-per-year. However, a US that's cooperating with Cali, that's receiving and accepting technological aid in the form of advisors and industry, isn't one that's in a tremendously adversarial relationship with Cali, who will hardly be sending tech and materials to a country that is actively raiding them and their allies, after all. When China and Meiji Japan adapted, they had technological advisors and industry brought in from the west, and while the deals were hardly fair and balanced, or treated the Chinese or Japanese as equal partners, fundamentally, if France, say, stopped working with Japan, England and Germany might still be willing to help. The only source of this tech aid is California. Sure, they can't prevent science books and all tech examples from getting through, but to get from before the popularization of true interchangeable parts all the way to an early computer economy in 50 years, without any industrial aid and active trade limitations (once again, positing a hostile relationship with Cali, a more friendly one makes it probable) seems unlikely to me.

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Technology and knowledge are fungible. Especially in a capitalist system. Sure, for the first 10-20 years those nations who have friendly relations with California will have a huge advantage in modernising, because they can simply buy brand new production facilities and tools. For the next 20-30 years the nations with friendly relations with California will still have a big edge, because they will be getting direct contact with the leading technological hub.

However, unless California turns into a hermit kingdom and/or manages to pull off the sort of technological control that the west have never managed to do with any other country (including the USSR) then it is flat out impossible that the USA will not have caught up fully in 50 years. Especially when you consider that a lot of people in California will have lingering sympathy for the USA and that slavery will be resolved within a decade.

And note I am saying flat out impossible. Technology does not increase in "2 years per 1" or even "4 year per 1". That is not how it works. You flat out skip decades, skip technologies, and again in a free market economy these technologies "want" to go to where there are natural resources and people to use them. And the capitalist class will be screaming bloody murder if you try to stop them.

Are they really, though? There was legitimately a Popular Union fusion candidate that had the downtimer as the presidential candidate, which at least seems to me like the California Labor Party is willing to treat the US, if not as an equal, at least as being worthy of negotiation. If they've been treating the Slave Power, the south and her candidates, as a "shithole country (or region, I suppose)" as it were, then boo hoo, slavers can go pound sand, but it isn't the North, the part that at least pretends to care about people's rights, they're attacking, "stealing" slaves from, or bombing the military arsenals of. Will there be conflicts at the border, for some time at least? Surely. The US did just shoot down the passenger plane, and put their embassy/whatever and airport under military siege. One way or another, that needs some conclusion, whether that be an actual war, President Cass's impeachment, or whatever else.

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I bolded exhibit A for treating the USA as a shithole country. They are basically claiming extra-territoriality for an embassy (with airport) that the hosting nation would like to expell. Then they are continuing to fly airplanes out of an active warzone, and crying crocodile tears and pretending that the USA is oh so mean for shooting down an airplane.

And sure slavers can go pound sand, but you are still planning on destabilizing a large region of the USA and (if need be) fomenting an uprising there. Again you seem to think that being on the right side, that slavery being bad, etc, means that you are not basically acting towards them like the west acted towards any former colonial nation who had institutions the west disliked.

Then there is the way that California acted unilaterally to use Active Denial Systems against that column of troops that were simply moving towards said embassy and airfield. That is you intercepted and stopped a military unit moving around in its own country, while supposedly in a state of peace.

Now... you can make a moral argument for why slavery is so bad that all of this is justified. In fact. Let us grant you are morally right. This is granted. Slavery is that bad. But California are still picking a fight, over and over, and still behaving towards the USA as the west would towards a third world nation that is misbehaving.

I mean I think the Rambouillet Agreement is a good example. Yes, Serbia was behaving very badly (to put it mildly), and yes an intervention was justified, but the terms of that agreement was the sort of humiliation that no nation with a shred of dignity could accept. I think a lot of the problem with that agreement was that the west was so obsessed with the moral aspect that they could not "see" Serbia and Serbias interests as fully legitimate (or "see" the inevitable effect of enforcing it).

EDIT: Oh and yes. I will accept that settlers won't be the major problem of California in the west, though I still think the border will need active operations that goes for all borders. It will still be a constant issue though.

EDIT2: But I forgot. Even though those territories are mostly empty, they are still, all, areas that were recognised internationally as US territory. So California did not just seceede, and note you could make an argument for why this might still be legal (e.g. the issue of whether states can seceede or not was not yet settled). However, they grabbed a bunch of US territories and there they really have no legal argument. A moral argument perhaps, but no legal argument.

I mean like daaaaaaang... This is a flat out, all out land grab gussied up in humanitarian rhetoric. Not only that, but one done explicitly to deny the USA their "Manifest Destiny."

That is not even mentioning that there'd be thousands of US citizens already living there. Sure the settlement is really, really sparse, but its not non-existent. People who, incidentally, were not asked about the Californian annexation... So are the people that are already there allowed to stay? Allowed to bring their families in? Allowed to expand their farms?

I was not kidding when I said that Golden Island... was basically showing a lot of the ugliest traits of the ugly American.

 

[Comrade Future]

Newt Gingrich wrote an alternate history novel called 1945 once, it was... pretty bad.

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In my opinion, a very significant part of the literary AI is very free in its forks.

 

[Cetashwayo]

And note I am saying flat out impossible. Technology does not increase in "2 years per 1" or even "4 year per 1". That is not how it works. You flat out skip decades, skip technologies, and again in a free market economy these technologies "want" to go to where there are natural resources and people to use them. And the capitalist class will be screaming bloody murder if you try to stop them.

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Why would the United States prima facie be able to adapt itself to modern technologies like that? That's not actually how it works. You cite Japan but Japan was one of the only countries that actually succeeded in doing this because of a contingency of different societal and economic factors. Many countries historically did in fact fall behind in productivity growth and technological development overtime, and it's not actually true that Japan 100% caught up.

It remained an industrial and economic laggard until after the second world war. Similarly with Germany; Germany had not fully completed its industrialization at the time of the first world war and indeed would not do so until after WW2. There were many, many inefficiencies in the German economy. It was simply a large country and so had more to work with. It is similar to how China today still has enormous room to grow in per capita income gains but is on route to become the largest economy through sheer size. Germany retained many semblances of an agrarian economy (like France) which would hurt it a great deal in putting to bear its industrial capability.

Technology is not just unlocking some techs in a tree. The fact that technological spread and development remains slow in underdeveloped (overexploited) countries, and is still dominated by the west, is proof of that. 'Modernization' is a thorny process that is just as likely to explode a country as the expanding contradictions and radical economic changes accelerate faster than the political process can keep up with. Tsarist Russian industrialization saw this happen. It was precisely the destabilizing speed of growth that created the conditions for revolution.

The idea that the United States can somehow be totally up to date with 2010s era technology in 50 years is completely disconnected from the real world reality of technological diffusion. That is without aggressive patent protection, economic domination, and sheer chronological disparity that California represents. I agree it is not actually pretty, in that respect. California's economic and technological dominance can easily become imperialistic in nature.

But it is also really not so simple to say that the United States can just 'catch up'. It is just as likely it runs into several traps, just as the Soviets did with the over-emphasis on heavy industry in a world economic system increasingly focused on consumer goods and advanced electronics.

 

[Norseman]

@Cetashwayo

If you think the Japanese had not meaningfully caught up because they used ox-carts to pull parts out to the battleships they were building...

If you think the Germans was not industrialized before WWII because they still used horses on farms...

And if you think that the United States, especially the north, lack the social and economic insitutions to rapidly catch up and industrialize... Or that they could be hampered or hindred by Californian PATENTS of all things...

If you think these things then there's nothing I can say to you.

 

[Geedubs]

@Cetashwayo

If you think the Japanese had not meaningfully caught up because they used ox-carts to pull parts out to the battleships they were building...

If you think the Germans was not industrialized before WWII because they still used horses on farms...

And if you think that the United States, especially the north, lack the social and economic insitutions to rapidly catch up and industrialize... Or that they could be hampered or hindred by Californian PATENTS of all things...

If you think these things then there's nothing I can say to you.

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Congratulations on not only not engaging with what Cetashwayo actually said, but also on replying with "you're so wrong I can't argue with you" - a neat way to back out of a debate you've lost without admitting it.

Also, starting the 'not arguing in good faith' train isn't a very smart move on your part, given how much of what you've said can be dismissed as Manifest Destiny nonsense if someone can't be bothered to be charitable.

 

[Cetashwayo]

@Cetashwayo

If you think the Japanese had not meaningfully caught up because they used ox-carts to pull parts out to the battleships they were building...

If you think the Germans was not industrialized before WWII because they still used horses on farms...

And if you think that the United States, especially the north, lack the social and economic insitutions to rapidly catch up and industrialize... Or that they could be hampered or hindred by Californian PATENTS of all things...

If you think these things then there's nothing I can say to you.

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You are deliberately misconstruing my words for no reason. I did not say they did not industralize. I said they did not finish industralization. There was still excess capacity. And yes, the Germans doing things like relying on horses on the eastern front does represent the logistical difficulties related to that. They could not crank out cars like the Americans could. Wages of Destruction speaks to this and other major issues the German economy faced. These were also issues faced by the Soviet Union and France, which remained heavily agrarian into the 20th century. Britain fell behind and had to rely on India to retain a trade surplus.

I really don't give that much of a shit about this conversation, I just felt like it was an interesting topic. No idea why that warrants flipping out.

I don't actually think the United States in the 1850s, a country whose social and economic institutions were literally about to break down over internal contradictions, can neatly transition to a modern economy over fifty years. Chinese development in the 1970s was based on a legacy going back to the self strengthening movement and before, etc. A lot led to that point of Dengist economic explosion and even then it faced multiple major internal crises that nearly brought the state down. It would first require the demolition of the American agrarian society - something that caused enormous strife when NOT pursued over an extremely short timespan. And the interests of American capital are hardly to directly compete with California in modern technologies.

 

[the atom]

Plus, slaughtering the colonists means the next colonization attempt is effectively a military campaign what with all the soldiers attached to it.

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Not necessarily? The early colonists respected the power of their indigenous neighbors, for better or worse and altered their behavior in situations where they were in a position of weakness.

If, say, the Mowhawk side with Metacomet and New England is burned to the ground, the English won't be back for a long time and the French and Dutch are going to approach the Wampanoags with a far different attitude.

But that seems to be exactly what Norseman means: That would require patrolling a vast region of territory, larger than the core territory, and building up at least a skeleton military infrastructure there.

Plus, not all of California is deep blue liberal, of course. I can see many rural conservative Californians trrying to settle in those lands, exactly because they believe in Manifest Destiny.

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You wouldn't need much more than a few airbases. The plains and deserts could be patrolled by drones and radios could be passed out to the different peoples. The drones couldn't be everywhere all the time but after a few settler raids are blown to pieces they'll be less likely to chance it.

It will be a bleeding sore. Because raids will happen in both directions. I mean come on, what raiding culture would not launch daring raids if magical people have given them a protected homeland. Also Californian politics would have a tendency to make them react only to raids into the Californian protectorates, not so much out of them. Especially when you remember their reasons for declaring said protectorates.

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Since when exactly has misbehavior on the part of an ally ever stopped the CIA from dutifully blowing their enemies to smithereens? This would actually work in California's favour since it would put pressure on the settlers to turn around or stop, because any major retaliation against a raid now carries the possibility of blowing up. There'd be growing complaints but they're the kind the uptime Americans have a lot of practice ignoring. A few dozen or hundred butchered in a Comanche raid is absolutely nothing compared to what's happening in Yemen.

Farmers are not the only people who will cross that (enormous and badly marked) border. Buffalo hunters will do the same. As will regular hunters and trappers. Prospectors too. You will need constant military operations against them too. And the pressure will become worse as the buffalo is hunted to near extinction out east.

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You don't need constant military intervention against trappers and prospectors. If the natives feel like they don't want them around they can probably deal with those people themselves. If they don't and they can't, then a Reaper pays a visit, but the amount of times you'll actually need to do that is low because while 19th century Americans were awful, they weren't Zerg.

 

[Norseman]

You wouldn't need much more than a few airbases. The plains and deserts could be patrolled by drones and radios could be passed out to the different peoples. The drones couldn't be everywhere all the time but after a few settler raids are blown to pieces they'll be less likely to chance it.

Since when exactly has misbehavior on the part of an ally ever stopped the CIA from dutifully blowing their enemies to smithereens? This would actually work in California's favour since it would put pressure on the settlers to turn around or stop, because any major retaliation against a raid now carries the possibility of blowing up. There'd be growing complaints but they're the kind the uptime Americans have a lot of practice ignoring. A few dozen or hundred butchered in a Comanche raid is absolutely nothing compared to what's happening in Yemen.

You don't need constant military intervention against trappers and prospectors. If the natives feel like they don't want them around they can probably deal with those people themselves. If they don't and they can't, then a Reaper pays a visit, but the amount of times you'll actually need to do that is low because while 19th century Americans were awful, they weren't Zerg.

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You know what, I will concede to this. As much as I dislike admitting I was wrong I will do so when presented with proof and good arguments. Which so far you're the only person to do.

EDIT: Though I took the liberty of bolding a very relevant section. It is the sort of complaints that could be ignored for decades, then as downtimers catch up California can be baffled as to why everyone seems to hate democracy and "common human decency."

 

[Ultrackius]

Golden Island certainly has it's flaws, but a too soft California is definitely no one of them, hell, it's the exact opposite of one of the main ones, namely that Cali spent years trying to work as a state in the USA (which canonically they already seceded from in the main timeline) instead of going to the South and ending slavery by force as soon as possible

the other main flaw is Cali's unrealistic stability after the event of course

 

[Norseman]

Golden Island certainly has it's flaws, but a too soft California is definitely no one of them, hell, it's the exact opposite of one of the main ones, namely that Cali spent years trying to work as a state in the USA (which canonically they already seceded from in the main timeline) instead of going to the South and ending slavery by force as soon as possible

the other main flaw is Cali's unrealistic stability after the event of course

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Too soft? When has anyone argued that they are too soft? I can't think of anyone, at least in this thread, who has said that, and I am genuinely baffled.

 

[prometheus110]

TBH, I always found the degree to which California tried to be an American state in GITTW to be odd and a bit unrealistic. Sure there'd be lingering loyalty to the US, but A) they just passed CalExit when they were yeeted into the past and B) it's so far in the past it's not the same US. "The past is a foreign country" is a trite saying, sure, but it's true when we're talking 20 years in our past (2001) and especially true when we're talking 150+ and a past that has slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc.

 

[Avernus]

However, how long will it take? I doubt that they had the opportunity to catch up with the Europeans in such a short time.

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It quite possibly wouldn't be a short time. Without the easy early conquests due to the Native Americans suffering apocalyptic plagues, the entire process is likely to take much longer if it happens at all. Both because the locals would be much harder targets, and the fact that without those early conquests the European powers will have a lot less incentive and resources to run a campaign of conquest in the first place. Both because it'll be harder and less rewarding, and because they won't get into such an extremely expansionist mindset to begin with without those early successes planting the idea that it was practical.

And the less incentive there is for outright conquest the more trade there will be instead, which means more opportunity for the Native Americans to buy or copy European technology and tactics further slowing any impetus towards conquest. In such a timeline instead of OTL empires built by genocidal conquest, the result would be more mercantile ones; like what happened to Asia. Not nice, but better than OTL.