Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

Bassoe said:

Yeah, I remember Sobek's commentary.

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Having looked at Sobek’s quote just now, they do make a good point about how certain left-wing strains would make twentieth-century people balk, much to the selectivity of many AH fans.

For as much as people on AH.com consistently claim that Reaganomics would puzzle FDR-era New Dealers, they also downplay or ignore how gay marriage or widespread abortion would appall Republicans and Democrats alike from around the same time. Even when I’ve tried to point that out, I’ve at best gotten responses along the lines of “Meh, some uptimer Democrats might alienate downtimers.” Rather than, you know, a good majority of them (though the Reaganite GOP might also raise eyebrows).

Here's another simple idea:
Britain and the other powers draw the Colonial era/1920s borders in Africa and the Middle East based on tribal groups, not just geography.

Besides making maps more complicated, what does this change?

bullethead said:

Besides making maps more complicated, what does this change?

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Probably fewer within-nation power struggles and insurgencies, and more inter-national conflicts and open wars.

‘Napoleonic Europe Reacts To The World Wars’.

Urabrask Revealed said:

Depends on who writes that scenario. If it's a leftard, it will be about the Glorious March of Socialism and Equality across the World, teaching the savages of the past about the goodness that is Diversity, Sharing, and the Genocide of White People. If it's a right winger who writes the story, it will be a sorrowful piece about the world of '59 looking at the degenerates of the EU and deciding that nope, this is not what they want and refuse any diplomatic overtunes. The african populations quickly dump all their malcontents in the EU while laughing at these moronic bleeding hearts for taking in the detritus of their nations. Nations like the USA, UK, and Russia point at the EU and tell their people what equality leads to: Rampant degeneracy and moral collapse. The leadership of the EU, enraged by the sound rejection of their ideology, decide to try and conquer the world to make them obey, only to eat several nukes to their face. Social rights are set back by centuries as both minorities and the LGBT faction desperately try to wash out the stains caused by the reveal of what their future of free love and socialism would look like.

The Left loses. Forever.

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Zyobot said:

Uh…

I doubt it’s nearly as black and white as your portray it as. While social revolutions have empowered movements that are indeed problematic, the 1950s were also a backwards period in many ways (i.e. no civil-rights legislation in the US yet). That, and historical maltreatment of certain racial and sexual-orientation groups may go some way to explaining—if not excusing—current progressive excesses today, when they’re finally able to live unmolested in at least liberal-democratic, Western societies (which wise and pragmatic downtimers should come to understand).

Honestly, if I were writing this, it’d probably have more of a “both sides have a point” theme to it. Per the above, uptimers and downtimers alike would ineluctably be critical of the other’s social mores, and rightly so. Obviously, not every instance of this would be resolved peacefully, which would be a central conflict of any decent execution of TTL.

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Sobek said:

You can't even do proper AH anymore. Truly interesting timelines end up being forced into following current political sensibilities and become boring. Every ISOT of modern day country or place to the past has to have mainstream politics taking over and enlightening the locals to our glorious progressive Utopia of current year. People can't point out that it would take 30 seconds of seeing a pride parade to get 1940's politicians to codify those as illegal forever, or how showing BLM to them would effectively torpedo Civil Rights into not happening because they would assume all blacks support that (because you know that is how the approved political on BLM goes) and that cannot be allowed to happen.

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Zyobot said:

Having looked at Sobek’s quote just now, they do make a good point about how certain left-wing strains would make twentieth-century people balk, much to the selectivity of many AH fans.

For as much as people on AH.com consistently claim that Reaganomics would puzzle FDR-era New Dealers, they also downplay or ignore how gay marriage or widespread abortion would appall Republicans and Democrats alike from around the same time. Even when I’ve tried to point that out, I’ve at best gotten responses along the lines of “Meh, some uptimer Democrats might alienate downtimers.” Rather than, you know, a good majority of them (though the Reaganite GOP might also raise eyebrows).

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Let's play around with this. A small 2100 American city, let's say, Milwaukee, isot to 2021.

The first thing us downtimers will notice is, most of the city is outright gone, either allowed to decay without inhabitants or replaced by monolithic automated factories, farms and the palace of the local plutocrat which makes Versailles look like an eastern european commieblock. The second is the extremely well armed autonomous security and the third is what happened to 99% of the plebeians once automation made them economically redundant.

One city, even with total automation, can't face the whole world in warfare, but they don't have to, they'll try to buy out societies, offering to share some of their technologies with their downtimer counterparts/ancestors. Only for whatever few plebeians who escaped the city and starvation when they became financially obsolete and the robotic security trying to keep them from rioting and stealing to survive rather than starving in peace in accordance with the Non-Aggression Principle to flee to downtimer-controlled territory, spreading warnings that this was how it started for them as well.

The Militant Doberman said:

So, as you might or might not know, the urban-rural political divide which was so much talked about in recent years is not unique to the United States and has been noted in other eras and places. Indeed, when I was but a pup I had a discussion about the “city folk vs country folk” with a relative of mine; since I still had my milk teeth back than the “discussion” quickly devolved into an immature argument that went something like this:

• The Doberman Pup: without city folk, you country bumpkins wouldn’t have nice things like candies!
  
• The Rural Sheepdog: without country folk, you city slickers wouldn’t have potatoes and would all starve to death.

As immature as it all was, the conversation did encapsulate a key observation: someone like Pol Pot in theory could kill off the urban population and return his nation to an agrarian society (it would suck for everyone but humans did and do subsist on an agrarian lifestyle) whereas messing with or trying to kill of the rural population in a mixed rural-urban nation leads to destruction of the food supply and starvation of the city populations.

But if new emerging technologies like lab-grown meat or vertical farming lead to breakthroughs whereby urban centres could become food self-sufficient, do you think we’ll see one or more “Reverse Pol Pots” coming to power in the 21st century with the goal of liquidating the rural “deplorables” and turning their country(s) into a nation of city-dwellers?

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Bassoe said:

We're fucked. The second civil war will start within a week. The technologies here have, instantaneously, obsoleted all jobs except for idle rich robotics company executives and politicians commanding the robot army. The cost will rapidly drop below the salary of even the most underpaid and overworked human employee, given that 'manufacturing more robots' is merely another job which can be preformed by robots. Needless to say, 100% unemployment won't be popular among the voters, so suddenly, 'tax robotic labor to fund a BGI', 'mandate hiring of humans despite increased cost and decreased efficiency', 'butlerian jihad', etcetera, will be winning political positions. Only, the wealthy and politically powerful don't have to care about the results of elections anymore, since even if they lose, what're the peasants going to do if they simply stay in power and tell their entirely autonomous security to violently suppress any unemployed and unemployable former human laborers who riot and steal to survive rather than peacefully starving to death in accordance with the Non-Aggression Principle?

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IXJac said:

One of my long term fears is for when large portions of the military - particularly ground forces - are automated. Because of the hard limitations of human beings, such a force could conceivably be far more lethal than human soldiers, while also being unfailingly loyal to its superiors. When the killing power of the state rests in the hands of a few elites, with no fear of disobedience, you're just the whims of the leadership away from tyranny.

When Skynet turns the Terminators loose on American citizens, rather than the start of the robot rebellion it will just be the machines following orders.

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Avernus said:

[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...times.93854/?post=21128894#post-21128894']I'm thinking the long term result would be less an aristocracy than a relative handful of machine-supported "God Kings". Aristocracy implies a group, rather than a singular absolute ruler.

Maybe a dozen or less absolute rulers across the planet, a few thousand human slaves mostly for sex, torture and reproduction purposes, and the rest of the human population killed to the last person. Eventually as chance causes God Kings to die without succession here and there you end up with small self-sustaining populations of slaves kept in permanent subjugation by the machines to a dead ruler; in the end leading to a world filled with nothing but slaves and robot enforcers that lasts until the Earth become uninhabitable.[/URL]

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Avernus said:

I'll also point out that they aren't actually talking about building their own robot army; they are talking about paying other people to do it for them. If things actually got that far, I'd expect the actual new cybernetic lords of the world to be the programmers who set the system up, not the guy who paid them to program an army that was going to kill or enslave them when they were done. It's not like these wannabees are hiding what they want to do.

Heck, that belongs in the Evil Overlord List; "Don't announce that you intend to dispose of your minions when their usefulness is over before it is over."

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Bassoe said:

Let's play around with this. A small 2100 American city, let's say, Milwaukee, isot to 2021.

The first thing us downtimers will notice is, most of the city is outright gone, either allowed to decay without inhabitants or replaced by monolithic automated factories, farms and the palace of the local plutocrat which makes Versailles look like an eastern european commieblock. The second is the extremely well armed autonomous security and the third is what happened to 99% of the plebeians once automation made them economically redundant.

One city, even with total automation, can't face the whole world in warfare, but they don't have to, they'll try to buy out societies, offering to share some of their technologies with their downtimer counterparts/ancestors. Only for whatever few plebeians who escaped the city and starvation when they became financially obsolete and the robotic security trying to keep them from rioting and stealing to survive rather than starving in peace in accordance with the Non-Aggression Principle to flee to downtimer-controlled territory, spreading warnings that this was how it started for them as well.

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…Well, it does sound pretty dystopian, with the future it describes having minimal “Upward march of history!” ideals to spread to us downtimers.

However, I don’t really see whatever connection you’re trying to make with my ‘2019 EU To 1959’ scenario. Sure, technological exchange means downtimer societies would be forced to reconfigure their economies and infrastructure considerably, with automation potentially scaring blue-collar industrial workers who fear that robots are here to take their jobs and throw them onto the streets. Even so, there’s still more than enough room for human labor and expertise, especially in the service and tech sectors that’d develop in downtimer nations over the coming decades.

The point is, just like your scenario, it shows the downtimers the horrible horrible consequences of society actually carrying out the ideologies and ideas which in their time period were merely untested theories. Like how H G Wells wrote about communist utopias, when communism was purely theoretical and untested, years before any nation actually tried it and discovered it didn't really work out that way.

And the point is, technological exchange would be recognized as a trap, the downtimers would be getting absolute proof that if society's leadership could get the technology to automate the value of their labor out of existence and defend against them, they would. Showing that the current wild schemes of the leadership could, if carried out, pose an existential threat to them and that if possible, which they were rapidly becoming, they would be carried out.

message from the future by Dan Simmons said:

“Last year you gave me words about 2005,” I said. “The kind of words Ken Grimwood’s replayers in time would have put in the newspaper to find each other. Give me more now. Or, better yet, just fucking tell me what you’re talking about. You said it wouldn’t matter. You said that my knowing won’t change anything, any more than I can change the direction the Mississippi is flowing . So tell me, God damn it!”

He began by giving me words. Even while I was scribbling them down, I was thinking of reading I’d been doing recently about the joy with which the Victorian Englishmen and 19th Century Europeans and Americans greeted the arrival of the 20th Century. The toasts, especially among the intellectual elite, on New Year’s Eve 1899 had been about the coming glories of technology liberating them, of the imminent Second Enlightenment in human understanding, of the certainty of a just one-world government, of the end of war for all time.

Instead, what words would a time traveler or poor Replay victim put in his London Times or Berliner Zeitung or New York Times on January 1, 1900, to find his fellow travelers displaced in time? Auschwitz, I was sure, and Hiroshima and Trinity Site and Holocaust and Hitler and Stalin and . . .

The clock in my study chimed midnight.

Jesus God. Did I want to hear such words about 2006 and the rest of the 21st Century from the Time Traveler?

“Ahmadenijad,” he said softly. “Natanz. Arak. Bushehr. Ishafan. Bonab. Ramsar.”

“Those words don’t mean a damned thing to me,” I said as I scribbled them down phonetically. “Where are they? What are they?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” said the Time Traveler.

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A History of the Twentieth Century with Illustrations by Kim Stanley Robinson said:

North of Manchester he passed giant radio towers, and something that looked like nuclear reactor stacks. Fighter jets zoomed overhead. The twentieth century. Why hadn't that Edwardian author been able to see it coming? Perhaps the future was simply unimaginable, then and always. Or perhaps things hadn't looked so bad in 1902. The Edwardian, looking forward in a time of prosperity, saw more of the same; instead there had followed a century of horrors. Now one looked forward from a time of horrors; so that by analogy, what was implied for the next century was grim beyond measure. And with the new technologies of destruction, practically anything was possible: chemical warfare, nuclear terrorism, biological holocaust; victims killed by nano-assassins flying through them, or by viruses in their drinking supply, or by a particular ringing of their telephone; or reduced to zombies by drugs or brain implants, torture or nerve gas; or simply dispatched with bullets, or starved; hi tech, low tech, the methods were endless. And the motivations would be stronger than ever; with populations rising and resources depleted, people were going to be fighting not to rule, but to survive. Some little country threatened with defeat could unleash an epidemic against its rival and accidentally kill off a continent, or everyone, it was entirely possible. The twenty-first century might make the twentieth look like nothing at all.

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Zyobot said:

Even so, there’s still more than enough room for human labor and expertise, especially in the service and tech sectors that’d develop in downtimer nations over the coming decades.

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And when these developments are finished to the point that only a handful of workers are required? You're just ignoring the future in favor of pointless baubles!

Bassoe said:

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This picture is from the late 40's, IIRC. Nowadays, the streets of downtown Rio(this can be one of a number of streets, I haven't been able to nail the exact one since I've seen this photo, about 2 years ago) are much dirtier than this(although, to be fair, they have become better when in comparison to 15 years ago).

Funny thing is that, when this photo got viral, the SJWs were all complaining there wasn't a single black person in it.

Buba said:

Nukes fall, everybody dies.

The whole Warsaw Pact and the Baltic Republics have been overwritten - I cannot envision any other Soviet reaction.

If by some ASB fiat the effect is NOT nuclear winter, then we have the usual economic collapse.
Besides loss of overseas assets, all records stored in clouds where the servers are in India or USA, no gas piplines to Russia and Norway, paycards not working (VISA and Mastercard are US based) the Euro and remaining Eu currencies are worthless as they are outside the Bretton Woods system.

@winnut - ia prachital piervij paragraf i ustal. Napishi pa angliyskie ili idzi v pizdiets. Pazdravlayu

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On the 1st part possibly but possibly not. For one thing the Soviets have lost a hell of a lot of their non-nuclear resources and also the US and [depending on the interpretation of EU possibly the UK] is still from 1959. As such their got nukes as well, the US a hell of a lot more than the Soviets. Plus there will be nuclear forces in the EU area, both French and US forces still based in the region. As such while the USSR will be appalled at the loss of its buffer zone and some areas such as the Baltic States its unlikely to react immediately with all out nuclear strike until it has some idea what's happened. I could see an occupation of the Baltic states as Moscow considers them theirs and possibly threats of attacks on other areas but the sudden replacement of most of the continent with a new state[set of states] should make the leaders in the Kremlin pause and once they find out its from the future and see some of the advances its made technologically that should prompt extreme caution. Especially since they won't realise at 1st its economic/technological 'superiority' isn't matched by raw military strength.

On the 2nd point I would agree that the EU area is in for a world of hurt given the loss of some much its depended on. There will be knock on impacts with the 1959 world as well.

In fact if the UK is from 1959 it and possibly the US supporting it is more likely to be clashing with the EU than the USSR. Think of the response from London when Brussels declares it owns 90%+ of British fisheries? Or that not only is it seeking to impose one-sided economic deals on Britain but that it views N Ireland as its colony rather than part of Britain.

‘Quasi-Stalinist Tsarist Russia’.

Which is to say, one that employs practically congruous blood purges, random executions, and genocide to deal with “troublesome” ethnic groups. All of which may have characterized OTL Tsarist Russia to some extent, though I don’t think it was quite to the same extent as Stalin did.

@stevep
True, maybe nukes fall, maybe not. We will never know

IMO the EU will not bother with the Irish Question and Common Fisheries Policy in light of the economic and financial meltdown. I don't expect the EU to be capable of imposing anything on anybody for a while ...
If not nuked its sheer size should allow the EU to muddle through - not all manufacturing has been outsourced.

UK and USA also face some hiccups - US loans to Europe, US owned companies, US military forces - all gone. Heck, maybe it is the US which nukes the EU first

LOL! - imagine the '60 presidentials if some history books make it to the US.
Nixon is politically finished, the Kennedies as well, nos. 1 and 3 for certain. No.2 probably too, doomed by "tainted by association" and own peccadilos.

Zyobot said:

‘Quasi-Stalinist Tsarist Russia’.

Which is to say, one that employs practically congruous blood purges, random executions, and genocide to deal with “troublesome” ethnic groups. All of which may have characterized OTL Tsarist Russia to some extent, though I don’t think it was quite to the same extent as Stalin did.

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The unresearched shallowness of this premise makes me say "pass".

Buba said:

The unresearched shallowness of this premise makes me say "pass".

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Like I said, not as familiar with Tsarist Russia. However, I suppose that, contrary to the semi-sympathetic reputation he and the monarchy have today, Nicholas II was, in many ways, just as much a bastard as the revolutionaries who replaced him.

Which would’ve meant little difference in how much terror he inflicted compared to Stalin, though that still says a lot about how oppressive Russia was, no matter the management it was placed under.

Buba said:

ASB - Alien Space Bat - the cause of ISOTs, PODs and SIs
ROB - Random Omnipotent Being - the cause of ISOTs, PODs and SIs
The two can be one and the same.
OTT - Over The Top, meaning OP i.e. Over Powered, but see below
OP - Over Powered OR Original Poster, i.e. the person who made the first post with premises of the WI
OTL - Our Time Line i.e. "canon", "historically", usually contrasted with
ITTL - In This TimeLine i.e. in this AH/alt-hist
Wank - making the object of the POD/ASB intervention stronger, e.g. a Canada wank makes Canada stronk, extending from frozen sea to shiny sea, i.e. from Hudson Bay to Gulf of Mexico.

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DBWIB (pronounced ‘dbweeb’) – definition – A DBWI-blind poster, the person on the thread who just doesn’t get it, and just doesn’t play along ands ruins the flow of the discussion by: a) denying the events of the OP are real or plausible, because they don’t understand the OP is being posted double-blind from an alternate reality, b) posts something to the narrative that is nonsensical because diametrically opposed to or logically mutually exclusive with the narrative contributions or intent of the OP or subsequent posters.


This type of poster *inevitably* appears on DBWI threads. Usually is there is dweeby/DWIBIB response no later than five posts after the OP. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a DBWI with multiple participants keep a coherent alternate universe POV for ten posts in a row, ever.

Zyobot said:

‘Quasi-Stalinist Tsarist Russia’.

Which is to say, one that employs practically congruous blood purges, random executions, and genocide to deal with “troublesome” ethnic groups. All of which may have characterized OTL Tsarist Russia to some extent, though I don’t think it was quite to the same extent as Stalin did.

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The Russo-Circassian War of OTL would have met the criteria of genocide, but if you wanted a quasi-Stalinist Tsarist Russia, have the Decembrist Revolt go horribly wrong, in that it causes a civil war between the Monarchists (rallying around Nikita Muravyov and a surviving Romanov Tsar, in this case Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich) and the radical Republicans (rallying around Pavel Pestel). With a presumed Monarchist victory, Muravyov or a more paranoid alt-Tsar Mikhail II would crack down on the Republicans, minorities, and increased surveillance.

So simple ISOT scenario, you're in some middlin' size town that's been suddenly transported into Earth's past. There appear to be no changes to the timeline before you showed up, however the town wound up right next to a fairly major kingdom and you need to make with the diplomacy and trade post-haste, both to secure your position and to obtain raw materials since your town's going to run out really quickly at this point. Very fortunately you have a local professor who was a complete history buff for this era.

Your town straddles a river or has a bay and you've got some boats capable of handling the same. You have access to the usual goods a middlin' town might have, two Wal-Marts, a Home Depot, some grocery stores, a couple of typical strip malls, a bit of light industry like a mill or textiles plant, and a traditional mall that's half dead but has a number of specialty shops like Lids, PetSmart, Gamestop, and Victoria's Secret.

The challenge being, what goods do you have in these various stores that will have the highest value when traded to the locals (and ideally lowest value to you in the bargain), and what will make the most impressive gift to the local ruler? Go by era:

Neolithic
Bronze Age
Roman Era
Early Medieval
High Medieval
Early Modern
Renaissance

Buba said:

@stevep
True, maybe nukes fall, maybe not. We will never know

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Hopefully not and since this is post-Stalin I suspect its unlikely. Although I think that an invasion of the Baltics would be very likely as they are Soviet territory to the 1959ers and too close to the Russian heartland. Plus they would want a continued land link to their Kalinnagrad enclave.

IMO the EU will not bother with the Irish Question and Common Fisheries Policy in light of the economic and financial meltdown. I don't expect the EU to be capable of imposing anything on anybody for a while ...
If not nuked its sheer size should allow the EU to muddle through - not all manufacturing has been outsourced.

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Hopefully not although their been so petty minded I wouldn't put it past them.

Would agree that its sheer size could enable the union to muddle through, especially if there's one or more clear external threats that look like going critical. Hungary and Poland who have been going against Brussels a lot could decide that they need the EU a lot more with the former USSR right on their doorstep again.

Its possibly however that centrifugal forces could be heightened rather than reduced and it falls apart.

UK and USA also face some hiccups - US loans to Europe, US owned companies, US military forces - all gone. Heck, maybe it is the US which nukes the EU first

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Its a possibility although there is going to be issues on the other side as a lot of EU organisation and people will have lost assets they had in the 2021 US and elsewhere. I think in terms of foreign assets and debts the only logical option, although its going to be some time before that's accepted, people being what they are.

LOL! - imagine the '60 presidentials if when some history books make it to the US.
Nixon is politically finished, the Kennedies as well, nos. 1 and 3 for certain. No.2 probably too, doomed by "tainted by association" and own peccadilos.

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Corrected your error. Definitely going to be a mess. Might see a somewhat earlier reduction of racial persecution in the US and more civil rights given the information the up-timers can supply. However a hell of a lot of shocks that are going to be exposed. You might, if the EU survives and quickly becomes a great power again, the US retreat into isolationism, at least as far as Europe is concerned.

There will be impacts in other areas. For instance the French colonists and military fighting in Algeria are going to find themselves very isolated and similarly in a number of other areas where such conflicts are going on such as the Portuguese empire. Could be some interesting impacts in China as well depending on how well Mao can suppress details of the disasters he inflicted on the country as well as what happens after his death.

The social morals of the EU are going to be so vastly different to that of the 1959 world as well on so many issues. They could also find some drastic climatic differences as that's long before global warming became a serious issue so their going to face distinctly cooler weather. Plenty of other issues that are likely to emerge.

Steve

Bear Ribs said:

what will make the most impressive gift to the local ruler?

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Frilly undies for teh win!
What's on the shelves of Victoria's Secrets win hands down as the most important asset of the ISOTed town.

stevep said:

Hopefully not and since this is post-Stalin I suspect its unlikely. Although I think that an invasion of the Baltics would be very likely as they are Soviet territory to the 1959ers and too close to the Russian heartland. Plus they would want a continued land link to their Kalinnagrad enclave.

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Which on its own most probably leads to nuclear warfare.
Not only the EU was ISOTed - but most of NATO too. A Soviet invasion of Baltics should lead to NATO response which should lead to use of nukes. There are US owned nukes around, plus French force de frappe. Either NATO uses nukes to stop the Soviets, or the Soviets, when hammered by NATO aircraft (which would be science fiction stuff to them) could react with nukes.
Otherwise what - EU/NATO lets the Soviet gobble up the Baltics? Who next, the Central Europeans? And then - ex-GDR?

Buba said:

Frilly undies for teh win!
What's on the shelves of Victoria's Secrets win hands down as the most important asset of the ISOTed town.


Which on its own most probably leads to nuclear warfare.
Not only the EU was ISOTed - but most of NATO too. A Soviet invasion of Baltics should lead to NATO response which should lead to use of nukes. There are US owned nukes around, plus French force de frappe. Either NATO uses nukes to stop the Soviets, or the Soviets, when hammered by NATO aircraft (which would be science fiction stuff to them) could react with nukes.
Otherwise what - EU/NATO lets the Soviet gobble up the Baltics? Who next, the Central Europeans? And then - ex-GDR?

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I love the recognition of vital trade goods, although in earlier areas especially good soap, deoderant - if the latter could be produced and medication would be more useful in the longer term, even if only to the local elites.

Not sure that in an EU in chaos that they would fight for the Baltics. The forces already there would do tremendous damage while their supplies last but are unlikely to last long. The up time US people are going to have divided loyalties but may not be willing to engage in a war, especially one that could end up going nuclear when their suddenly adrift.

Or if they did fight, as the USSR has also lost a large proportion of its front line forces, they could possibly win a conventional war or by threatening nuclear use - once Moscow realised how potentially massively their outclassed - to win some sort of deal in the region. The EU wants control of the regions it includes and influence/economic access to others but isn't that interested in the wider world otherwise. Plus for a variety of reasons its going to be at odds with the US and UK if the latter is from 1959 so it could end up as a separate 3rd force in the world. Which would complicate other factors no end.

Buba said:

Frilly undies for teh win!
The What's on the shelves of Victoria's Secrets win hands down as the most important asset of the ISOTed town.

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Hmm, I'd have thought clothes are one of the few things that just aren't as good in the modern-day as hand-stitched and custom-fitted garments common to that era. My thoughts were:

Neolithic: Books of matches would be incomparable in value. Alcoholic drinks are likely to be valued depending on how far the downtimers have advanced in the art of brewing.

Bronze Age: Cheap wineglasses. Glass was as valuable as gold in this era and actual transparent glass, as opposed to cloudy opaque glass, was the holy grail of the art. A matched set of crystal clear wineglasses dued blue at the base? You'll have the only ones on the planet.

Roman Era: Cheap wineglasses are probably still a winner. Any cloth or clothing dyed royal purple would be extremely desirable. Other bright colors are probably still extremely valuable, except for yellow which is easy to make.

Early Medieval: Still probably an era where glassware is supremely expensive. Painkillers like aspirin are more likely to be valuable now, as the trade networks of the previous eras that would have transported medicinal herbs are weakened to completely gone.

High Medieval: Cotton was known to Europe at this point but had to be imported from India at great cost, making it incredibly expensive luxury cloth. Hopefully, the town can grow its own and build a gin as they'll want cotton too.

Early Modern: This is the time when highly accurate clocks would be able to completely revolutionize sea travel and turbocharge the age of exploration.

Renaissance: Sea clocks still not invented OTL so a good accurate clock would be worth more than the ship it's placed in. Also rolls of aluminum foil. Stuff was significantly more valuable than gold in that era.