What if Alien Space Bats replace Europe in 1878 with virgin earth?

A

Atarlost

Well-known member
Chiron said:
Yep and in a few centuries if it can get a strong central government under a single rule, it will by default become a hyperpower as America exhausts itself.
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That seems very unlikely to me. The Muslim world is less industrialized. The Ottomans were making a good start, but they were making a good start in Istanbul/Constantinople, which is on the wrong side of the Bosphorus and has been removed from the world. The Ottomans may no longer have a navy if it was stationed in the wrong place and they lost AFAIK their only military shipyard and with it everyone who knows how to design or build an ironclad. Not so the US. This compounds the coal problem. Oil isn't yet a major fuel and the only working coal mine in the Moslem world is in Sumatra, run by the Dutch, and has only been in operation for a couple years. If they make a run for Australia or America or possibly even Japan there's not expertise to start mining Europe's coal under Moslem control. I'm not sure how much of a merchant marine they have or can grab to get it

Shipbuilding is not as far advanced in New South Wales or Japan as it is in the US, but it exists and I don't think any of the Muslim nations have any to speak of with the loss of Constantinople.

This lack of coal will bring what industrialization hasn't vanished with Constantinople to a screeching halt until they acquire a source presumably by conquering India which will take time giving Japan and Australia a head start and the US time to further its head start. America won't exhaust itself for well over a century. North America isn't that much less virgin than Europe and it's a lot larger.
 
Chiron

Chiron

Well-known member
Atarlost said:
That seems very unlikely to me. The Muslim world is less industrialized. The Ottomans were making a good start, but they were making a good start in Istanbul/Constantinople, which is on the wrong side of the Bosphorus and has been removed from the world. The Ottomans may no longer have a navy if it was stationed in the wrong place and they lost AFAIK their only military shipyard and with it everyone who knows how to design or build an ironclad. Not so the US. This compounds the coal problem. Oil isn't yet a major fuel and the only working coal mine in the Moslem world is in Sumatra, run by the Dutch, and has only been in operation for a couple years. If they make a run for Australia or America or possibly even Japan there's not expertise to start mining Europe's coal under Moslem control. I'm not sure how much of a merchant marine they have or can grab to get it

Shipbuilding is not as far advanced in New South Wales or Japan as it is in the US, but it exists and I don't think any of the Muslim nations have any to speak of with the loss of Constantinople.

This lack of coal will bring what industrialization hasn't vanished with Constantinople to a screeching halt until they acquire a source presumably by conquering India which will take time giving Japan and Australia a head start and the US time to further its head start. America won't exhaust itself for well over a century. North America isn't that much less virgin than Europe and it's a lot larger.
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Qajars had a shipbuilding industry and factories. Not to the extent of Japan much less the US, but it was there and investments into this can be increased.

Not saying it will happen overnight. But a few centuries if the Qajars can maintain stable control will see them dominant.

And it's not like people spread far apart can't independently develop the same technology.

That and oil is already starting to become dominant. The first automobile race was held in 1867 in England, and Wisconsin had the first US automobile race in 1878. Granted these were steam cars, but research was already being done on internal combustion engines and as early as 1798 the US was considering middle east oil as a future energy source at the highest levels of government. And this was at a time when gasoline was dumped as a perceived useless byproduct of kerosene refining.

Ditch the Eurocentric Nonsense and learn real history. It's very fascinating when you do.
 
Chiron

Chiron

Well-known member
WolfBear said:
If it can raise its average IQ to US or Russian levels, then ... possibly?
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IQ is within "western" ranges. What is needed is strong competent government combined with smart investments in infrastructure and the ability to do organized violence better than its opponents.

The "West" after all didn't win on ideals, it won upon being better at organized violence. The "East" from the 18th century on only did the smart investment phase right and had the occasional strong competent leadership that knew when to fight and when to kowtow. Hence how Thailand avoided being Britain's or France's Bitch unlike its neighbors.
 
A

Atarlost

Well-known member
Chiron said:
That and oil is already starting to become dominant. The first automobile race was held in 1867 in England, and Wisconsin had the first US automobile race in 1878. Granted these were steam cars, but research was already being done on internal combustion engines and as early as 1798 the US was considering middle east oil as a future energy source at the highest levels of government. And this was at a time when gasoline was dumped as a perceived useless byproduct of kerosene refining.
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This argument is directly opposed to your thesis. Oil is not dominant. Gasoline is still a useless byproduct and automobiles are still trying to use steam. All the stationary infrastructure required to make tight tolerance machines like internal combustion engines even once they're practical relies on coal. Saying that the Moslems could switch to oil in 1878 is like saying that we can sidestep the global warming panic by just switching to Fusion. The energy of the future is the energy of the future and if you don't power the present you don't get to that future.

If the US will want their oil in just a couple decades as you claim they don't have time to catch up. They don't have Ukrainian seed corn to sell on the foreign market to buy tooling like Stalin did.
 
Chiron

Chiron

Well-known member
Atarlost said:
This argument is directly opposed to your thesis. Oil is not dominant. Gasoline is still a useless byproduct and automobiles are still trying to use steam. All the stationary infrastructure required to make tight tolerance machines like internal combustion engines even once they're practical relies on coal. Saying that the Moslems could switch to oil in 1878 is like saying that we can sidestep the global warming panic by just switching to Fusion. The energy of the future is the energy of the future and if you don't power the present you don't get to that future.

If the US will want their oil in just a couple decades as you claim they don't have time to catch up. They don't have Ukrainian seed corn to sell on the foreign market to buy tooling like Stalin did.
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Kerosene engines and lamps were already in use at this time, and gas lines were already laid decades prior to this. Hell the Chinese were millennia ahead of the West in using bamboo pipes to deliver gas and brine to homes to light lamps.

And the oil industry followed this development. Understand that in the time of Marco Polo according to his writings, the oil was being exported from Middle East wells by hundreds of ships and rulers were already waging war to secure oil as it was a necessary component of multiple fuels, sealing agents, etc.

Lincoln considered Pennsylvanian oil vital to the war effort against the south and ordered research into the possibility of engines powered by diesel.

The point I'm getting to here is that gasoline was inevitable, there was too much invested into oil at this point.

Now the US isn't going to wage war over oil in the Middle East just yet and not for centuries, it has more readily accessible reserves in America it can access and no European trade interests to balance. And Chinese and Japanese competition and warfare will be drawing their attention.

So the Qajars are basically ignored. Any US flagged ships entering the area does so at their own risk if not carrying a guarantee from one of the local powers. USN will be busy elsewhere trying to keep the Sino-Japanese wars contained as the European Navies were effectively decapitated and till the USN accounts for all those European warships and verifies they haven't gone pirate, they can't spare ships for the more minor Qajars.

In fact global shipping will be utter chaos for a few decades as the USN isn't large enough to fill the gap in policing and will have to rapidly enlarge and try to woo European Warships into the USN or sink them if they refuse as they represent too dangerous of a pirate threat.
 
W

WolfBear

Well-known member
What happens to Central Asia in this TL? Does it break away from Russia sooner or later, perhaps becoming a Chinese protectorate in the process?
 
Chiron

Chiron

Well-known member
WolfBear said:
What happens to Central Asia in this TL? Does it break away from Russia sooner or later, perhaps becoming a Chinese protectorate in the process?
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They break away and become independent powers in their own right again. But China will be too busy with Japan to go that way.

Depending on Qajar priorities, they may move to vassalize them at some point.

Thinking more on things, I wonder how many Portuguese might defect to the Empire of Brazil whose Emperor by law and blood would be in line for the Portuguese Throne and thus as close as they are going to get for any continuity of government to report to and more importantly get pay and supplies. This if played right by Brazil could lead them to rival the US or lead to a mutually ruinous war between them...

Then their is the question of Spanish Ships and who they might defect to because the African colonies aren't worth shit, and the Philippines can't be held without the motherland to send help when the locals get uppity, and the West Indies are indefensible.
 
W

WolfBear

Well-known member
Chiron said:
They break away and become independent powers in their own right again. But China will be too busy with Japan to go that way.

Depending on Qajar priorities, they may move to vassalize them at some point.

Thinking more on things, I wonder how many Portuguese might defect to the Empire of Brazil whose Emperor by law and blood would be in line for the Portuguese Throne and thus as close as they are going to get for any continuity of government to report to and more importantly get pay and supplies. This if played right by Brazil could lead them to rival the US or lead to a mutually ruinous war between them...

Then their is the question of Spanish Ships and who they might defect to because the African colonies aren't worth shit, and the Philippines can't be held without the motherland to send help when the locals get uppity, and the West Indies are indefensible.
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Isn't Europe much more important for the Qajars?

And the Spanish ships could defect to some Latin American country, such as Mexico or Argentina--no?
 
Chiron

Chiron

Well-known member
WolfBear said:
Isn't Europe much more important for the Qajars?

And the Spanish ships could defect to some Latin American country, such as Mexico or Argentina--no?
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Yes, but also seizing the carcass of the Ottoman Empire, complete control of the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Levant, and Egypt.

Mexico I am not sure about, but Argentina would be a stronger nation to go to.
 
W

WolfBear

Well-known member
Chiron said:
Yes, but also seizing the carcass of the Ottoman Empire, complete control of the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Levant, and Egypt.

Mexico I am not sure about, but Argentina would be a stronger nation to go to.
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What about Chile and Uruguay? Or even Colombia and Venezuela?
 
Chiron

Chiron

Well-known member
WolfBear said:
What about Chile and Uruguay? Or even Colombia and Venezuela?
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They could but Argentina is the stronger nation in the south with a Spanish heritage and is starting to get into a pissing contest with Chile. So it would have a sweet deal for Spanish Ships willing to defect. Which in turn may lead to an Argentine-Chilean War.
 
W

WolfBear

Well-known member
Chiron said:
They could but Argentina is the stronger nation in the south with a Spanish heritage and is starting to get into a pissing contest with Chile. So it would have a sweet deal for Spanish Ships willing to defect. Which in turn may lead to an Argentine-Chilean War.
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Would Chile really be willing to go to war over this?
 
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