ISOT 9/11 ISOTed 911 years ago

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
So,survival of Manhattan population depend on how many fishermans do not go to the sea yet?
I think,that even with that,we still would have collapse.
Only difference - except police towns we would have fisher towns,too.
Probably. Though also, again, in 1099 New York was dense with game so hunting will akso help, however New Yorkers won't have a dense core of ready-to-go hunters as it's simply not as common a thing in New York. Fishing is going to be way more productive, both because they already have an experienced core of fisherman and equipment, and because it just plain is, a hunter might spend hours in a tree stand to bag a single deer where twelve guys in a boat pull five tons of fish in the same period.

In theory they might want to bring back weapons like the Punt Gun, passenger pigeons were at that point an unbelievably abundant bird with multi-million flocks. Years of using punt guns to commercially harvest them by the thousands per shot contributed to their extinction. Long Island and Staten Island are going to have plenty of animals, though against 12 million humans it won't last long. Either way Manhattan has to colonize, and fast. Even under ideal circumstances, they have a month or two, more likely only weeks to spread out and start reducing the population on the island and expanding their effective gathering range since they're going to have to rely on hunting/gathering until the next harvest. Possibly they can repurpose the glass from some office skyscrapers and build greenhouses to extend their growing season.

They'll be much more successful at it if they can communicate with the pentagon and have a core of military advisors. This isn't just because the military can fight, but because well over half of the military come from rural backgrounds so a significant percentage of them know how to run a plow, ride a horse, hunt a deer, forage for wild game, etc. Of course, since these new settlements mean displacing Indian tribes knowing how to fight isn't going to hurt either.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Probably. Though also, again, in 1099 New York was dense with game so hunting will akso help, however New Yorkers won't have a dense core of ready-to-go hunters as it's simply not as common a thing in New York. Fishing is going to be way more productive, both because they already have an experienced core of fisherman and equipment, and because it just plain is, a hunter might spend hours in a tree stand to bag a single deer where twelve guys in a boat pull five tons of fish in the same period.

In theory they might want to bring back weapons like the Punt Gun, passenger pigeons were at that point an unbelievably abundant bird with multi-million flocks. Years of using punt guns to commercially harvest them by the thousands per shot contributed to their extinction. Long Island and Staten Island are going to have plenty of animals, though against 12 million humans it won't last long. Either way Manhattan has to colonize, and fast. Even under ideal circumstances, they have a month or two, more likely only weeks to spread out and start reducing the population on the island and expanding their effective gathering range since they're going to have to rely on hunting/gathering until the next harvest. Possibly they can repurpose the glass from some office skyscrapers and build greenhouses to extend their growing season.

They'll be much more successful at it if they can communicate with the pentagon and have a core of military advisors. This isn't just because the military can fight, but because well over half of the military come from rural backgrounds so a significant percentage of them know how to run a plow, ride a horse, hunt a deer, forage for wild game, etc. Of course, since these new settlements mean displacing Indian tribes knowing how to fight isn't going to hurt either.
Yeah, that is why of the British or Dutch come a knocking 500 years later I think they will find a highly militaristic and hierarchical military society that is heavily mixed up with the natives and that has legends of the "Time before..." Probably armed with better weapons, too.

Personally I put the chances of Manhattan surviving at 50/50, and that is generous.

As I said, the Pentegon with it's probable emergrncy supplies and stockpiles of weapons is far more likely to survive and thrive in this environment.

I am skeptical of hunting being that helpful in the situation unless there are huge heards of buffalo just out of arm's reach.

I think those things are farther inland.

Anyway, we did cover the numbers where pre-industeial agriculture vs. hunter-gstherers are concerned, and your average forager
Hunting and gathering can generally support between .2 to 10 people, maybe 30.
 
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Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Only Manhattan Island ISOTed.
... Did you actually read the post? I was pointing out that since they hadn't been ISOT'd the downstream islands would be full of game animals, the place was originally called Hunter's Paradise.
 

Buba

A total creep
... Did you actually read the post? I was pointing out that since they hadn't been ISOT'd the downstream islands would be full of game animals, the place was originally called Hunter's Paradise.
I read and ... misunderstood ... :(
I'm sooo dumb! 😭
 

ATP

Well-known member
Yeah, that is why of the British or Dutch come a knocking 500 years later I think they will find a highly militaristic and hierarchical military society that is heavily mixed up with the natives and that has legends of the "Time before..." Probably armed with better weapons, too.

Personally I put the chances of Manhattan surviving at 50/50, and that is generous.

As I said, the Pentegon with it's probable emergrncy supplies and stockpiles of weapons is far more likely to survive and thrive in this environment.

I am skeptical of hunting being that helpful in the situation unless there are huge heards of buffalo just out of arm's reach.

I think those things are farther inland.

Anyway, we did cover the numbers where pre-industeial agriculture vs. hunter-gstherers are concerned, and your average forager
Hunting and gathering can generally support between .2 to 10 people, maybe 30.
Manhhattan would not survive,question is how many of people living there manage create new town and live there.
Less then 50%,i think.Probably worst.

But yes,british and dutch would meet strange cyvilization worshipping strange impossuble tall ruins,and using muskets.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Manhhattan would not survive,question is how many of people living there manage create new town and live there.
Less then 50%,i think.Probably worst.

But yes,british and dutch would meet strange cyvilization worshipping strange impossuble tall ruins,and using muskets.
500 years is a long time, I think they might be able to do even better than muskets.

Also, I am pretty sure that a lot of criminals and leftists that hate the west/white people and some people with Indian blood will decide to ditch Manhattan quickly and try to form their own societies and/or join up with the native tribes against whatever is left of Manhattan.

I imagine that they could all steal some supplies and forage and build some rudimentary firearms.

The big point here is who will take control.

If someone ruthless and authoritarian manages to do that I can see lots of mass exile and some part of the town, maybe 5-10% comprised of people with essential skills and law enforcement surviving and rapidly trying to build up civilization after they push out the "useless eaters". A mob boss, a nasty politicain, a survivalist cop will be the new king.

We will probably have much more stability where the Pentagon is concerned.

They might form a caste based militaristic society or a spartan like military democracy with an elected dictator.

The various ranks of the US military will inevitably turn into hereditary ranks of royalty or cast.

Eventually the Pentegon might hook up with some remnants of Manhattan or whatever is the primary successor state there, maybe to take control of all thet leftover tech and knowledge.

Libraries in particular will be very important and I think that in a few generations to a few hundred years some of the remnants could build up a large civilization with technology equivalent to that of the 19th century.

Maybe they can even conquer most of the Americas and attack Europe first.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I can imagine that rather than Indians, they'll be calling the natives Atlanteans in the future, for surely those towers are the ruins of Atlantis.
 

Buba

A total creep
I can imagine that rather than Indians, they'll be calling the natives Atlanteans in the future, for surely those towers are the ruins of Atlantis.
The ruins of Manhattan would be discovered over a century after Colombus. The name "Indians" may be too ingrained by then.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
The ruins of Manhattan would be discovered over a century after Colombus. The name "Indians" may be too ingrained by then.
Hmm, I'm under the impression there're pretty fair odds the Vikings were fishing in that corner of the world (It's really hard to overstate how staggeringly productive those fisheries actually were, it was worth sailing across the entire Atlantic to get at them) long before that, and while they didn't really talk much about it since it was pretty ordinary, towers of glass and steel so high they cut through the clouds is the kind of tale that gets repeated.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
Manhattan's actually going to screw over a lot of natives because it was, at that point, a massive hunting ground that supplied the tribes with food. Then again as noted, it's fairly likely the natives are going to be hit hard with a few plagues from the upstreamers anyway.

Manhattan has a self-contained power grid but its plants are gas turbines, not sure how long they'll be able to operate but probably days, no more than weeks. Long enough to get some radio messages to the Pentagon and link up, though.

There's enough tooling and machine shops for them to kickstart a bit of industrial revolution, and between Manhattan and the Pentagon there's going to be plenty of people with the knowledge base to MacGuyver up some light industry. I would estimate they wind up decaying to early steam technology before starting to advance again.

They should have enough boats to fish, and game in that area is very plentiful so they will have a decent chance of staving off initial starvation. The population will have to rapidly leave Manhattan and spread out to claim enough territory to feed themselves, however. They will know where all manner of mineral deposits are and the Appalachians are basically made of coal so initial resources won't be terrible. New York actually has a large number of mineral, gas, and oil deposits historically, it was so heavily settled for a reason and it wasn't because the UN set its headquarters there in the early 1400s.

Animals are going to be a major bottleneck, in the sense that the Americas have no domesticable ones. If they're extremely lucky, there might be a cargo ship with some livestock nearby. There are some mounted police and, as far as I know, a single dude ranch that will go downstream. So they will have horses but I don't know if any cattle will come with. Possibly they'll get some chickens if fortunate. Dogs and cats will be plentiful. If they get cattle and chickens they'll be well set for future farming and ranching operations. There are going to be at least some heirloom vegetables in hipster bistros if nowhere else, and seeds for flowerpot gardens and those are going to be gold for getting early farming working, those seeds will be more valuable than a penthouse apartment at that point.

There are enough subways in Manhattan that they might be able to scavenge all that rail and use it to build a railroad to some nearby resource deposits. This will take some doing, it's going to be backbreaking work clearing the path and even worse building a working locomotive but it's at least possible. Reaching the Cumberland gap is probably beyond them so they're going to be stuck east coast-only for a long time, but the east coast also has plenty going on to support them.

Linkups to the Pentagon are going to be best accomplished by going most of the way by boat. They should have enough hobbyist sailors to get some sailing ships working at the beginning before they're able to build a steam engine and get a supply of coal for them. I'm not sure if the Pentagon comes with enough surrounding land to have any boats available but it's likely to have plenty of engineers and sailors of its own, and at least some of them will know how to build and sail old-school craft.

The big question in my mind is firstly if they'll be wiped out by the native tribes. At this point the density of natives is going to be around 50-100 times greater than it was post-smallpox. The Pentagon will have enough defenses to survive, and isn't on critically valuable land anyway, but Manhattan is not so well defended and also happens to have just displaced so majorly important hunting grounds so is more likely to be attacked.

Secondarily there's some question as to whether they'll simply be absorbed by the native tribes. I see this as a touch more likely (even just police weaponry is going to be horrific in repelling initial attacks) and it leads to interesting places. If they have any cattle, that's going to spread cowpox to the population and that grants immunity to smallpox. The population of Manhattan and the Pentagon will, themselves, have a number of doctors and a knowledge base of which diseases will spread along with how to combat them. With 400 years to play with, it's likely that the assimilated upstreamers will have spread enough knowledge for the natives to at least have a well developed steam-based industry, and it will include enough white guilt and historical information for them to know what the Europeans did to the native population. Odds are they'll be sending ships to Europe no less than a century earlier than Europe was able to reach the new world, and the conquest may well go the other way around.
Wow. I have to admit I went into this assuming a "Ha ha" sort of mindset fully expecting rapid starvation and collapse was the only real outcome for this scenario but this really made me reconsider that. Especially your later analysis of the fishing situation, something I'd never considered instead only contemplating a land based hunting method.

One area I was curious about, and perhaps misunderstood, was where you mentioned it was likely the Upstreamers would be absorbed into the various local Amerind tribes that existed in North America at the time. Myself, assuming the Upstreamers don't die out nearly to the man, I'd have thought almost the opposite. That the tribes would be wiped out/absorbed due to competition for resources, Upstreamers diseases as well as Upstreamers likely being a notable fraction of the total population the continent.
 

Buba

A total creep
I'm under the impression there're pretty fair odds the Vikings were fishing in that corner of the world (It's really hard to overstate how staggeringly productive those fisheries actually were, it was worth sailing across the entire Atlantic to get at them) long before that,
AFAIK Basques etc. fishing the Grand Banks pre-Columbus is a "theory taken as fact", without proof.
Vikings fishing the Grand Banks - which are 2000 kilometres away from New York, and "upstream" for Greenland/Iceland based Vikings - would be IMO pure conjecture.
We know that they visited a place which 99% is Labrador - from sagas - and northernmost New Foundland - from archeology. Grand Banks are still several hundred kilos from New York city.
 
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Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Wow. I have to admit I went into this assuming a "Ha ha" sort of mindset fully expecting rapid starvation and collapse was the only real outcome for this scenario but this really made me reconsider that. Especially your later analysis of the fishing situation, something I'd never considered instead only contemplating a land based hunting method.

One area I was curious about, and perhaps misunderstood, was where you mentioned it was likely the Upstreamers would be absorbed into the various local Amerind tribes that existed in North America at the time. Myself, assuming the Upstreamers don't die out nearly to the man, I'd have thought almost the opposite. That the tribes would be wiped out/absorbed due to competition for resources, Upstreamers diseases as well as Upstreamers likely being a notable fraction of the total population the continent.
Generally speaking, unless in the most extreme cases I'll avoid going with "everybody dies." It's a boring answer and somebody else will chime in it with it in every single thread anyway. As a result, you'll usually find me fielding optimistic opinions.

As far as native populations, well that's a guess. Estimates on how many pre-Columbus natives there were vary by a couple of orders of magnitude, with a majority putting them between 50 and 100 million across both continents, around 5-10 million in the US. From what I've read, I find the evidence more compelling that they were on the larger side of the estimates. On top of that, the conquest of the new world heavily relied on constant waves of new colonists, more weapons, and more advanced tech flowing from Europe that won't be available here.

Presuming Manhattan has a 50% death rate we're looking at 2 million Manhattanites. Presuming similar casualty rates from smallpox, measles, and the like (I'm not 100% certain this will actually happen, those diseases aren't nearly as common in modern populations), we're looking at somewhere in the half a million and a million surviving Native Americans in the US itself. I've seen studies suggesting around 2 million surviving natives in Mexico alone so I find that pretty low, and it could be higher but let's go with 1 million.

So on paper, it would look like the Manhattanites will absorb the natives. However, now we enter into the cold facts that disturb Tumblrinas and Blue Checkmarks. Opportunities to have children will not be evenly distributed. Native Americans will start initially accustomed to having large families to make up for the heavy rate of infant death common to ancient cultures. Manhattanites will start initially accustomed to having tiny families or women avoiding children entirely in favor of their careers. While the Manhattan attitude will certainly change to suit the new reality, it won't happen in a day so they start at a disadvantage.

Beyond that, Native males are going to look a lot more attractive to Manhattanite women, while the reverse will not be true. Previous markers of status and desirability are now worthless while Native skills at obtaining food, clothing, and shelter will be the actual markers of mate value. "Big bank account and shiny sports car" will mean nothing next to "Good hunter who bags deer every week." In terms of physical attractiveness, a huge number of early writings emphasize how incredibly hot natives were, which is understandable because they just lost 90% of their population and only the fittest, strongest, and healthiest survived. Further, when inevitable combat begins, males will be on the front lines getting killed reducing their numbers and desirability further while natives will try to capture or lure females to add to their tribes. This effect will take place almost immediately as people are forced out of Manhattan and into the wilds to expand the food supply.

As a result, despite the initial numerical disparity, we can expect Native males to be significantly more genetically successful than Manhattanite males for a generation, perhaps two or three, and that will be enough to give them a huge head start at assimilation. This will also directly feed into the dominance of Native culture; the assimilated Manhattanites are more likely to follow Native customs, participate in Native worship, and learn to speak Native languages. Some aspects of Manhattanite culture will survive and be picked up by the Natives, of course. Basic ideas like Germ Theory and the Scientific Method require no actual infrastructure and things like forging bog iron can be picked up readily from library books. As I suggested upthread I suspect they'll drop all the way down to around very early steam/beginning of the industrial revolution and have advanced a bit from there by the time Amerigo Vespucci comes knocking.

AFAIK Basques etc. fishing the Grand Banks pre-Columbus is a "theory taken as fact", without proof.
Vikings fishing the Grand Banks - which are 2000 kilometres away from New York, and "upstream" for Greenland/Iceland based Vikings - would be IMO pure conjecture.
We know that they visited a place which 99% is Labrador - from sagas - and northernmost New Foundland - from archeology. Grand Banks are still several hundred kilos from New York city.
We have 100% proof they had a large settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in 1021AD. We've found evidence of somebody using metal tools, roasting bog iron, and building possible longhouses 400 miles south of there. There's evidence they hit New York in the form of multiple finds of items like iron spearheads as far south as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario. The big question is if those were traded to Natives who carried the spearheads hundreds of miles further south or if the Vikings were there personally, but there's no question they were fishing off the coasts of North America and had some camps and settlements.
 

Buba

A total creep
Thank you for the new knowledge.
Lanse aux Meadows was what I mean when I said "Newfoundland presence confirmed by archeology".
I'll avoid going with "everybody dies." It's a boring answer and somebody else will chime in it with it in every single thread anyway.
Buba bounces up and down waving frenetically with one hand, TPK placard in another ...
 
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Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Thank you for the new knowledge.
Lanse aux Meadows was what I mean when I said "Newfoundland presence confirmed by archeology".

Buba bounces up and down waving frenetically with one hand, TPK placard in another ...
TPK placard???
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Generally speaking, unless in the most extreme cases I'll avoid going with "everybody dies." It's a boring answer and somebody else will chime in it with it in every single thread anyway. As a result, you'll usually find me fielding optimistic opinions.

As far as native populations, well that's a guess. Estimates on how many pre-Columbus natives there were vary by a couple of orders of magnitude, with a majority putting them between 50 and 100 million across both continents, around 5-10 million in the US. From what I've read, I find the evidence more compelling that they were on the larger side of the estimates. On top of that, the conquest of the new world heavily relied on constant waves of new colonists, more weapons, and more advanced tech flowing from Europe that won't be available here.

Presuming Manhattan has a 50% death rate we're looking at 2 million Manhattanites. Presuming similar casualty rates from smallpox, measles, and the like (I'm not 100% certain this will actually happen, those diseases aren't nearly as common in modern populations), we're looking at somewhere in the half a million and a million surviving Native Americans in the US itself. I've seen studies suggesting around 2 million surviving natives in Mexico alone so I find that pretty low, and it could be higher but let's go with 1 million.

So on paper, it would look like the Manhattanites will absorb the natives. However, now we enter into the cold facts that disturb Tumblrinas and Blue Checkmarks. Opportunities to have children will not be evenly distributed. Native Americans will start initially accustomed to having large families to make up for the heavy rate of infant death common to ancient cultures. Manhattanites will start initially accustomed to having tiny families or women avoiding children entirely in favor of their careers. While the Manhattan attitude will certainly change to suit the new reality, it won't happen in a day so they start at a disadvantage.

Beyond that, Native males are going to look a lot more attractive to Manhattanite women, while the reverse will not be true. Previous markers of status and desirability are now worthless while Native skills at obtaining food, clothing, and shelter will be the actual markers of mate value. "Big bank account and shiny sports car" will mean nothing next to "Good hunter who bags deer every week." In terms of physical attractiveness, a huge number of early writings emphasize how incredibly hot natives were, which is understandable because they just lost 90% of their population and only the fittest, strongest, and healthiest survived. Further, when inevitable combat begins, males will be on the front lines getting killed reducing their numbers and desirability further while natives will try to capture or lure females to add to their tribes. This effect will take place almost immediately as people are forced out of Manhattan and into the wilds to expand the food supply.

As a result, despite the initial numerical disparity, we can expect Native males to be significantly more genetically successful than Manhattanite males for a generation, perhaps two or three, and that will be enough to give them a huge head start at assimilation. This will also directly feed into the dominance of Native culture; the assimilated Manhattanites are more likely to follow Native customs, participate in Native worship, and learn to speak Native languages. Some aspects of Manhattanite culture will survive and be picked up by the Natives, of course. Basic ideas like Germ Theory and the Scientific Method require no actual infrastructure and things like forging bog iron can be picked up readily from library books. As I suggested upthread I suspect they'll drop all the way down to around very early steam/beginning of the industrial revolution and have advanced a bit from there by the time Amerigo Vespucci comes knocking.


We have 100% proof they had a large settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in 1021AD. We've found evidence of somebody using metal tools, roasting bog iron, and building possible longhouses 400 miles south of there. There's evidence they hit New York in the form of multiple finds of items like iron spearheads as far south as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario. The big question is if those were traded to Natives who carried the spearheads hundreds of miles further south or if the Vikings were there personally, but there's no question they were fishing off the coasts of North America and had some camps and settlements.
Ok, there are a bunch of problems with all of the above, but I am too sleepy to cut this big post into relevant smaller quotes.

Now, first off, as advanced as the Uptimers are, they will not be able to expand that far and wide.

The coast, maybe, but as you Murikhans love to point out, the USA is huge, and the road system and fuel resupply are out of the question.

Even in the best-case scenario it will take several generations before someone even thinks of reaching the other coast.

Also, through our modern medicine and fairly high living standard, we have probably made bugs a good deal more vicious, and while there won't be any smallpox and scarlatina trivial health problems for us might be a lot worse for a per-agrarian society.

Next up, we have the fact that the equal in size native population is neither a coherent unit, nor is it all clustered in the area around New York.

Frankly, after some number of people die off or are yeeted and if some form of stable government persists in the area I see it trying to spread out over the coastline and up and down rivers, since that will facilitate easier communication and transportation and provide access to fisheries, so with the currents permitting I see the Uptimers trying to stretch out over the american Atlantic coast.

Finally, you should stop buying into the myth of the noble savage, the American Indians were not a unified group and constantly waged low level warfare against each-other for both resources and religious reasons with a lot of inter-tribal bickering.
They were quite good at torture, too.

So, yeah, while I see some exiled groups crossbreeding with the locals and forming coalitions with them I am pretty sure that penetration inland will be slow and dangerous and the relations between the natives and the Uptimers will be dicey at best.
 

Buba

A total creep
Adding to what @Agent23 said - besides slavery didn't the local tribes practice human sacrifice? Or was that further west, the Mound Builders (or a similar name)?

But getting to the other coast is not that difficult - cross the mountains, sail down whatever to the Ohio, then down to the Mississippi, then up the Missouri, then hop-skip-and-jump across the Continental Divide, and enjoy white water rafting down the Snake and Colombia rivers to the Pacific :)
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Adding to what @Agent23 said - besides slavery didn't the local tribes practice human sacrifice? Or was that further west, the Mound Builders (or a similar name)?

But getting to the other coast is not that difficult - cross the mountains, sail down whatever to the Ohio, then down to the Mississippi, then up the Missouri, then hop-skip-and-jump across the Continental Divide, and enjoy white water rafting down the Snake and Colombia rivers to the Pacific :)
Or you can sail down to Panama, walk a few kilometers while dragging your ship behind you, then sail back up. 😂
Or all the way down to Cape Horn and back up again. ;)

In any case, whatever larger and more powerful group manages to get its shit together in Manhattan or at the Pentagon might eventually get to act as a state building external minority for the Amerindians, like the Bulgars did for the Seven Slavic Tribes and like the Vikings did for the Russia and also I think Poland?


Sadly this is after the hayday of the mafia and Tammany Hall, it would have been so much fun to see Columbus's face if he encountered Catolicized Italian and Irish influenced natives with an organizational structure based around the Italian mafia. :cool:

Also, can somebody make funny Godfather references about Spanish Conquistadors, I am too sleepy to do so.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Or you can sail down to Panama, walk a few kilometers while dragging your ship behind you, then sail back up. 😂
Or all the way down to Cape Horn and back up again. ;)

In any case, whatever larger and more powerful group manages to get its shit together in Manhattan or at the Pentagon might eventually get to act as a state building external minority for the Amerindians, like the Bulgars did for the Seven Slavic Tribes and like the Vikings did for the Russia and also I think Poland?


Sadly this is after the hayday of the mafia and Tammany Hall, it would have been so much fun to see Columbus's face if he encountered Catolicized Italian and Irish influenced natives with an organizational structure based around the Italian mafia. :cool:

Also, can somebody make funny Godfather references about Spanish Conquistadors, I am too sleepy to do so.

Poland was made by GreatMoravian refugees,not vikings.

Back to topic - People on Manhattan and Pentagon have mostly useless skills,so survive only those who would be saved by those with skills.
Not in Manhattan,but in many new towns,probably ruled by combination of fishermans,mafia,police and military.

And,in our world we would not have war on terror,and Putin alliance with USA.Much better world for us here.
 

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