#(imo abstract theology is a vital developmental tool for other cultural abstractions)

[whetstonefires]

I don't think it would have taken centuries without Columbus, either, because yeah a couple years later Portugal, in a natural extension of their ongoing forays along the African coast, had rounded the cape and the horn, gotten in quarrels with local pepper magnates, discovered that while they didn't have the general upper hand in India the way they'd gotten used to in Africa, shipboard cannon was an out-of-context problem in the Indian Ocean, and started throwing their weight around with gusto. And the new, wetter version of the spice trade accelerated changes in European ship technology and behavior.

Someone would have tried something vaguely similar, although it's unlikely anyone with good math would have sailed straight across into the Caribbean like he did. More likely there would have been a Viking-style coast-hugging process in the north, via the cod fisheries. Or less probable but very interesting, a replication of the Pacific island-hopping that almost definitely landed people in South America in the first place.

It would have been later and progressed along at least somewhat different lines, because many elements of history are contingent, but at the same time, yeah. Imperial behaviors are kind of predictable, and this pattern was well grounded already.

On the other hand, interesting to wonder if, with the western hemisphere out of the picture a little longer and not fueling the intra-Iberian rivalry in the same way, the colonialist lunacy would have escalated somewhat slower in afro-eurasia and indonesia.

FINE, you get another go at the time machine and the ability to prevent one birth (or commit a murder up to you), don't worry about the butterfly effect, we want the butterfly effect that's part of the point. Your actions will prevent them from ever rising to prominence. Original poll here There may be a face off poll at the end. Hitler still isn't an option because we'd all chose to kill him.

Am gonna go Pontius Pilate and say my hands are cleaned of this one. All of the below are nominees.

[onwardmotley]

.

#the aztec state was not at the same centralization level#as the nations drawing on the organizational legacies of china and rome (and persia)#so their imperialism couldn't unfold entirely the same ways#wrt scale#it was much more like classical grecian city over city suzerainty in structure#but if the mexica had been relatively late instead of quite early in the contact chain#they would have had a lot of time to adopt both physical and organizational technologies from their new rivals#in the way nations tend to do#and gobble up more neighbors more thoroughly#and THAT alternate history gets interesting#imo#tenochtitlan's artisanal sophistication was CONSIDERABLE and their theological reasoning both hat and abstract#(imo abstract theology is a vital developmental tool for other cultural abstractions)#and a tradition of forceful statesmen doing deliberate social engineering#so i think given time to rebound from the inevitable plagues and the right leadership#they had a solid shot#at defining the game in north america#as in reality their weakness would have been that their ethnic hierarchy was also regionalized and thus prone to splintering#odds are it would not go like this no matter what the timing and placement but like#the Plains buffalo hunters had time for the horse to make its way north and wildly alter their lifestyle and subsistence patterns#before mot of them made real contact with any europeans directly#and the mexica were much closer to the water so they weren't going to have THAT long#BUT STILL#the japanese approach never ceases to blow my mind

FINE, you get another go at the time machine and the ability to prevent one birth (or commit a murder up to you), don't worry about the butterfly effect, we want the butterfly effect that's part of the point. Your actions will prevent them from ever rising to prominence. Original poll here There may be a face off poll at the end. Hitler still isn't an option because we'd all chose to kill him.

Am gonna go Pontius Pilate and say my hands are cleaned of this one. All of the below are nominees.