New Reality Seeds

Astromancer · 11-30-2024, 02:15 PM

When using a pandemic to alter history most people hit on the Spanish Flu. This isn't surprising, erasing WWII, the Nazis, the Soviets and so much of what shaped the 20th century in one fell swoop is dramatic but there was a flu pandemic in 1957-58. The Asian Flu as it was caused killed millions, but mainly in Asia.

Picture the Asian Flu killing more than two orders of magnitude more people. Eight hundred million out of a population of two billion. Let's assume that Asia is hit hardest with Africa getting mauled too.

Japan, China, the Koreas, would all have taken decades to recover. Russia being Eurasian would have been severely disrupted. The Vietnam wars started well before the 1950s ( The Quiet American by Graham Greene was actually a pro French Colonial novel that argued America needed to stay out of Vietnam because they wouldn't have outlawed Buddhism) but American involvement would probably be short circuited. The whole late 1960s derailment of Breton Woods would have been less likely too.

Although Japan wasn't quite as technologically innovative as some people say, Japan brought a great number of technological innovations to market and integrated technology into daily life at impressive speed. So the tech level could be identical but with far less actual use of technology in daily life.

It would be a profoundly altered world even if many changes are subtle.

11-30-2024, 02:15 PM	#11
Astromancer Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: West Virginia	Re: New Reality Seeds When using a pandemic to alter history most people hit on the Spanish Flu. This isn't surprising, erasing WWII, the Nazis, the Soviets and so much of what shaped the 20th century in one fell swoop is dramatic but there was a flu pandemic in 1957-58. The Asian Flu as it was caused killed millions, but mainly in Asia. Picture the Asian Flu killing more than two orders of magnitude more people. Eight hundred million out of a population of two billion. Let's assume that Asia is hit hardest with Africa getting mauled too. Japan, China, the Koreas, would all have taken decades to recover. Russia being Eurasian would have been severely disrupted. The Vietnam wars started well before the 1950s ( The Quiet American by Graham Greene was actually a pro French Colonial novel that argued America needed to stay out of Vietnam because they wouldn't have outlawed Buddhism) but American involvement would probably be short circuited. The whole late 1960s derailment of Breton Woods would have been less likely too. Although Japan wasn't quite as technologically innovative as some people say, Japan brought a great number of technological innovations to market and integrated technology into daily life at impressive speed. So the tech level could be identical but with far less actual use of technology in daily life. It would be a profoundly altered world even if many changes are subtle. __________________ Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo Last edited by Astromancer; 11-30-2024 at 02:31 PM.