Fantasy idea
Many times over the years, I've wondered what it'd take to have had the natives in the New World have a better chance against the invadersexplorers from the Old World.
They had several strikes against them. First mostly Neolithic civilizations. Even bronze Age would have helped, though they'd probably have needed at least Iron Age tech to have a real chance.
Second, no "beasts of burden" beyond dogs in North America and llamas and their relatives in South America. Add in lack of wheeled transport and you've got some real disadvantages.
Third, lack of immunity to Old World diseases. That was a real killer.
All of these would be better off if there'd been *some* sort of semi-regular contact between the Old World and the New World. But how?
While there's some evidence of contacts from Europe, Africa and Asia, they were not at all regular. and in many cases too late in history to help with some of the problems.
One comment to a post somewhere a year or so back, got me thinking about the Mongols and how they might have been able to teach various folks in the New World a lot of useful things.
But getting them to North america even *once* would be really difficult, much less getting any sort of regular contact.
Something else reminded me of various books that had "gates" or other things that swapped people between worlds or different places on worlds. Of course, that moves things from "very alternate history" to "fantasy.
Still it was an interesting idea. I figured somewhere in the northern plains would be a good site for North America. and Mongolia for Asia.
Imagine my surprise when checking maps revealed that Mongolia is at about the same latitudes as the Dakotas. And they are almost 180 degrees apart. Interesting.
If I ever do anything with this, it'd require a lot of info about who lived in the Dakotas from (say) the era of Clovis points and the like up to pre-Columbian times. Likewise for Mongolia in the same periods.
I'm thinking an "area" effect. Some chunk of territory "swaps" with a chunk in the other place. So what was a chunk of the Dakotas swaps with a chunk of Mongolia. And later swaps back.
Say at the moment the moon becomes full.
Be quite a sight as you go from night to daylight, or sunrise to sunset.
Need to find some chunks of roughly equivalent terrain for each "end".
While it'd spook the hell out of the first folks to discover it, after a few thousand years, it'd probably be accepted as "normal magic" for the folks within a few hundred miles. Likely be tale tales farther away.
But eventually, there'd be folks deliberately using the effect. Hunting, exploring, getting away from a feud...
Not sure what would leak" to Asia, but I could see a lot of stuff going the other way.
The Vikings might have an even worse time with the Skrealings.
Columbus versus the natives on the islands he landed on might not go much different.
Cortez might get a rude shock. And I suspect the French and English explorers would get a *much* ruder shock if they tried behaving the way they did in our timeline.
Just the fact that the Indian populations wouldn't be decimated by disease would make a big difference. Add in better weapons and horses from the start and they'd have a *much* harder time annexing all that territory.
This entry was originally posted at https://kengr.dreamwidth.org/1090720.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
They had several strikes against them. First mostly Neolithic civilizations. Even bronze Age would have helped, though they'd probably have needed at least Iron Age tech to have a real chance.
Second, no "beasts of burden" beyond dogs in North America and llamas and their relatives in South America. Add in lack of wheeled transport and you've got some real disadvantages.
Third, lack of immunity to Old World diseases. That was a real killer.
All of these would be better off if there'd been *some* sort of semi-regular contact between the Old World and the New World. But how?
While there's some evidence of contacts from Europe, Africa and Asia, they were not at all regular. and in many cases too late in history to help with some of the problems.
One comment to a post somewhere a year or so back, got me thinking about the Mongols and how they might have been able to teach various folks in the New World a lot of useful things.
But getting them to North america even *once* would be really difficult, much less getting any sort of regular contact.
Something else reminded me of various books that had "gates" or other things that swapped people between worlds or different places on worlds. Of course, that moves things from "very alternate history" to "fantasy.
Still it was an interesting idea. I figured somewhere in the northern plains would be a good site for North America. and Mongolia for Asia.
Imagine my surprise when checking maps revealed that Mongolia is at about the same latitudes as the Dakotas. And they are almost 180 degrees apart. Interesting.
If I ever do anything with this, it'd require a lot of info about who lived in the Dakotas from (say) the era of Clovis points and the like up to pre-Columbian times. Likewise for Mongolia in the same periods.
I'm thinking an "area" effect. Some chunk of territory "swaps" with a chunk in the other place. So what was a chunk of the Dakotas swaps with a chunk of Mongolia. And later swaps back.
Say at the moment the moon becomes full.
Be quite a sight as you go from night to daylight, or sunrise to sunset.
Need to find some chunks of roughly equivalent terrain for each "end".
While it'd spook the hell out of the first folks to discover it, after a few thousand years, it'd probably be accepted as "normal magic" for the folks within a few hundred miles. Likely be tale tales farther away.
But eventually, there'd be folks deliberately using the effect. Hunting, exploring, getting away from a feud...
Not sure what would leak" to Asia, but I could see a lot of stuff going the other way.
The Vikings might have an even worse time with the Skrealings.
Columbus versus the natives on the islands he landed on might not go much different.
Cortez might get a rude shock. And I suspect the French and English explorers would get a *much* ruder shock if they tried behaving the way they did in our timeline.
Just the fact that the Indian populations wouldn't be decimated by disease would make a big difference. Add in better weapons and horses from the start and they'd have a *much* harder time annexing all that territory.
This entry was originally posted at https://kengr.dreamwidth.org/1090720.html. Please comment there using OpenID.