Alternate history

[kengr]

Since there are some new people reading this, I thought I'd bring up a question I've had before.

I'm looking for a plausible reason why the Pacific Northwest on an alternate Earth would still have the Native tribes in the 20th century. No real European or Asian influences.

Or at least no more than the area had pre-1500 AD.

Comments

[elf]

If the United States exists, odds of "no European influences" is very low, but if you just want Native tribes to be considered owners of the territory, and to have their culture impacted but not nearly destroyed by Euro and later US-ian influences:


- Increase Asian contact before European contact; contact with Asia across the Pacific might've included small-scope, controlled exposure to diseases that could bring resistance to the Euro diseases
- Gun resistance: either they invented natural kevlar, or came up with offensive tech that rivaled guns. (For steampunk purposes, I like the idea of crystal-enhanced laser tech.)
- Change the '49 gold rush. Either it didn't happen, or Native tribes noticed that White men go crazy over yellow rocks, and made solid claims to both the rivers and nearby mountains, so that US forces had to negotiate with them instead of just squishing them out of everywhere that had resources that White people wanted.

If you want to not have the United States at all, make the Native tribes on the east coast a bit less welcoming... without their help, the English settlements would've been scrabbling, impoverished places where religious fanatics go to die; growth would've been much slower, and industry would've started much later.

Avoiding social reasons means tinkering with planetary forces... changing current patterns would make the continent harder to reach, or move the settlements to different places where the setup would've been different.

If you add in magical options, you can pick almost any point of history and say "this didn't happen this way" and rewrite from there. Depends on what kind of AU you have.

[kengr]

Well, it'd take some time to determine whether there was *no* European contact, there definitely wouldn't be a United States.

Things like having the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria fail to reach the Americas would slow things down, but not be likely to prevent them for *that* long.

The other big problem is keeping overall tech level down. I don't want the "visitors" from our Earth to be detecting Radio signals and the like.

It would be good to have some increased low level contacts to confer immunities to various Eurasian diseases. Basque fishermen going to the Grand Banks, and the occasional Chinese/Japanese trader might do for that.

But keeping Eurasian tech & expansion lower/slower is a problem.

I *could* pull a Steven Barnes and have a major plague turn Eurasia (and the civilized parts of Africa) into a howling wilderness.

*snicker* Just had a sudden vision of The Rapture occurring in the 1400s but taking rather more people than most accounts would have you expect.

Given the sort of people that are supposed to get left behind, that'd certainly mess up civilization in Europe and a few other places. :-)

In any case, what I'm looking for is to have the natives be pretty much as they were before Europeans contacted them, though they may have progressed some on their own.

[acelightning]

If the Renaissance had never happened in Europe, there wouldn't have been the economic wherewithal, nor the social pressures, for colonizing the Americas. A few explorers probably would have crossed the Atlantic, but they wouldn't have been able to create permanent settlements.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

If they discovered the Cascadian region's vulnerability to megadeath earthquake and tsunami events before moving in, that might do it.

[stickmaker]

Are you familiar with the Lord Kalvan stories? I forget what the historic diversion point was, but IIRC it involved early contact across the Bering Strait.

So, imagine Russian traders make agreements with the tribes of northwestern North America (or whatever it is called here). They have a monopoly, and enforce it strongly enough few other powers seriously challenge it. There is trade back and forth, but the tribes keep anything beyond that to a minimum. They probably even restrict outside fur trappers from coming in. This is fine with the Russian traders, since they just need to carry goods back and forth and don't have to actually gather them. Just let the locals know what they want and the ways it's been found before.

I actually have something similar for a novel I'm working on. The presence of magic in this world slows the development of technology. A Scotsman finally discovers what come to be known as the Western Lands in the Eighteenth Century. (No seers predicted this, because no-one thought to ask. :-^)

[elf]

For that matter - a higher survival rate of the Black Death pandemic might have changed things. The consequences included a spike in prosperity for the lower classes - more available land and more food, and wages increased because there were fewer people available to do the work, especially skilled crafts labor.

This led to a lot of interest in developing labor-saving methods and technology, which might not have happened if the bubonic plague had less impact.

Adjust history so the plague killed 15-20% of Europe instead of 30-60% (maybe they decided it was fleas and took measures to avoid them? maybe some type of effective hygiene became trendy?), and the Renaissance and later events would've been drastically changed.

Delay or change the Protestant Reformation, and the whole "new world exploration" venture gets thrown off track. Might still have the initial contact, but with a different Reformation, there might not be Puritans looking to settle far away from England.

[kengr]

Yep, I have a first edition of Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

Have you read the fanfics over on http://www.beyondthefarhorizon.net/ ?

First one is Tangent.
http://www.beyondthefarhorizon.net/phpBB2/chapter_list.php?s=1
(you'll have to set up an account (free) to use that link.)

The change point for that sector is that the Aryan migration went west instead pof east. Hence the sector name: Aryan-Transpacific

You'd probably want continuing contacts with Asia going *way* back to improve disease resistance. Though that would likely introduce some anomalous tech (like bronze items)

I actually have something similar for a novel I'm working on. The presence of magic in this world slows the development of technology. A Scotsman finally discovers what come to be known as the Western Lands in the Eighteenth Century. (No seers predicted this, because no-one thought to ask. :-^)

Well, the Basques knew about North America *way* back. They were fishing the Grand Banks at least several hundred years before Columbus. Even had camps on the coast.

Kinda surprising that no one asked. After all the true size of the world has been known since Eratosthenes. and people *did* wonder what was between Europe and Asia in you went west.

Then again if you asked it like that, you'd probably get a really vague and confusing prophecy.

Re: Well...

[kengr]

First off, I don't think that'd stop people. After all, people *still* live in flood plains and on the slopes active volcanos.

Plus, that'd still let them spread into places like the Willamette valley. And you'd definitely get cultural and technological transfer.

[kengr]

Adjust history so the plague killed 15-20% of Europe instead of 30-60% (maybe they decided it was fleas and took measures to avoid them? maybe some type of effective hygiene became trendy?), and the Renaissance and later events would've been drastically changed.

Well, not killing cats would have helped.

Delay or change the Protestant Reformation, and the whole "new world exploration" venture gets thrown off track. Might still have the initial contact, but with a different Reformation, there might not be Puritans looking to settle far away from England.

Wouldn't have affected the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions and colonies.

Contrary to the "history" they teach in school, the Plymouth Colony wasn't that important.

[stickmaker]

Until Columbus most people though there was just a huge Atlantic Ocean with scattered islands. Even Columbus thought that; he just decided the world was smaller than educated people believed. That's why he called the people he found "Indians." He thought that's where he was.

[alatefeline]

I don't think it'd take many factors to tilt the balance, actually - those nations were wealthy, diverse, well organized, with a strong economic base and trading ties. A few good plagues hitting the Europeans instead of the North Americans, and a couple of isolationist governments over there to slow things down...

Also, many of the Native tribes ARE still there...

[kengr]

Well, a lot of tribes aren't *remotely* near where they were before the Europeans came. And others died of the plagues they brought.

But a big thing is not just keeping the Europeans (and Asians) away from the Americas, but limiting their tech some as well.

I have reasons (semi-silly/stupid) for wanting the Industrial Revolution to have not happened yet, but the date be "now".

Part of that is to have time travel considered and rejected.

[acelightning]

I'm a Mayflower descendant - not that I'm proud that my ancestors were such fanatics that they got thrown out of England and the Netherlands, leaving them nobody but the Penobscot and Passamoquoddy to persecute. (The "religious freedom" they were seeking was the freedom to impose their religion on everybody else. Gee... does that sound familiar?) The only way the Plymouth Colony was important was as a bad example. But the Puritans, Pilgrims, and other splinter sects, as well as the Catholics driven out of the British Isles by the new Protestant rulers, taken all together, made the East Coast what it is today, and then all of that just kept expanding to fill available land. So if there hadn't been a Protestant Reformation, most of the reasons for colonization wouldn't have existed. The Spanish, Portuguese, and French explorers would have had far less impact.