Kara Spengler

Actually, I have given this a bit of thought for awhile now. Basically the idea would be to remove christianity from the planet. While the argument could be made that anything has a good side and a bad side abrahamic religions (especially christianity) have caused more damage than any good they have done. Even things that do not look like they are directly relevant you can trace back to there, like attitudes in encountering other people (manifest destiny and all that).

To limit myself in this thought experiment I am not allowing myself to touch anything before, oh, 100 CE. It would be far too easy to just prevent it in the first place. Plus the idea is to allow it to come about then go off elsewhere to wither away as a strange cult so it can not bounce back later.

I do not see the problem as one of 'how', that is a trivial problem in mechanics and historical analysis. The real issue is one of ethics. Any change, particularly one that far back, would have MAJOR ripple effects and adjusting for all of them is, well, a bit tricky. What is the acceptable risk that you may change someone's history/future in an unintended way?

The scenario I currently favour is having the Roman empire end a few centuries earlier than it did. The obvious direct result is there would be no empire for Constantine to rule, thus spreading it all over the then known world. It would also have the effect that when christianity was powerful enough to get a foothold in the empire the empire would not be as relevant to world affairs. It is all about timing, Constantine happened at the worst possible time in the current history.

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Richie Waves

I'd sink the mayflower.

Kara Spengler

Well, since it was an explosion rather than a crash it can be blamed on the fact that they used hydrogen. Which was because the US kept their helium stores from Germany because of you-know-who.

Umm, I just thought of another way you could get to the same result but it would involve a Godwin.

Cindy Claveau

Then all of our neo-cons would be Irishmen.

Better let it float, Richie.

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"As long as there’s one person on earth who remembers you, it isn’t over." - Oscar Hammerstein

Cindy Claveau

"Godwin" only happens when you use Hitler analogies to diminish someone else's argument. Claiming that any reference to Hitler is a "Godwin" is not accurate.

Discussing Hitler - who was a major figure in 20th century history - should be perfectly acceptable, in my view.

So let's load Adolph up on the Hindenberg and then launch F15s when he reaches American territorial waters

Kara Spengler

Sounds like you have been reading this: TimeLord : Dawn of the White Spirit: William Hunsucker: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

Cindy Claveau

Nope. But now I might.

Argent Stonecutter

Go back to good old 1985. Dump laptops running, and full of, current open source software... in the laps of the editors of Dr Dobbs' Journal, Byte, and 2600.

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Argent Stonecutter -- Skyhook Station -- Coonspiracy Store

"And now I'm going to show you something really cool."


The previous is a cybernetic datum published - in direct contravention of DoD Regulation #229RR3X3 - as being conducive to the physical, psychological and/or social well-being of the population.

Jahar Aabye

Wouldn't have changed much. There was already a British colony in Jamestown, Virginia what was 11 years old when the Mayflower landed. If anything, the New England colonies proved a balancing force against the venture capitalist Southern colonies that would go on to develop plantation farming using chattel slavery.

The Mayflower didn't really do anything special, there were English fishing boats off the North American coast at that time. The difference was that the Mayflower was lucky to have landed at the right time and place, just after one of the first European disease epidemics had ravaged the area, that they were allowed to stay by the local ruler who was trying to prevent his decimated nation from being invaded. Previous Europeans who had landed in the area were give not-so-subtle suggestions that they were welcome to trade goods, but that they should get back on their ships before their welcome expired.

Now, doing something about Cortes or especially Pizarro might have been useful. Had Cortes or Pizarro's men been killed, it is possible that the Triple Alliance or Inka Empire might have had enough time to recover from smallpox before the next group of conquistadors arrived. Especially the Inka, whose mountain empire would have been a strategic nightmare for any European army that wasn't aided by biological weapons.

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He pulled a Captain Ahab and Jaharpwn'ed her. - Trout

Jahar Aabye

To convince people that computers and computer software would never be fully functional?

Seyla Warden

Is this where I say I go back in time 6,000 years and convince God it should be Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve?

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Kara Spengler

Looks like the kindle version (they have a paperback too) is 99 cents now but it was free at one point. Not the greatest book but I love the premise.

Seyla Warden

WWWD?

(What Would Walternate Do?)

Kara Spengler

Which goes to the reasoning of my original post. If none of them felt they had the right to be doing what they did it would eliminate the root cause. Not just for them but of any other ships that would eventually reach north america.

Cindy Claveau

You're talking to a HUGE Harry Turtledove fan, here

Jahar Aabye

If you mean your original post about Christianity...ah, I wasn't aware that Alexander the Great, Cyrus the Great, Hadrian, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, Attila, etc were Christian. You probably shouldn't blame Christianity for the effects of empires of Christian people behaved. Not unless you're also going to blame Confucianism for the way that the Han systematically pushed other ethnic groups further and further inland, or Zoroastrianism for Cyrus (Xerxes) conquests.

Besides, the killers weren't the people on those boats, they were the viruses and bacteria in those people and in the animals that they brought, and in the mosquitoes that hitched a ride. Unless the Europeans had simply not developed the ship technology, navigation equipment, and maritime experience to cross the Atlantic until after they had developed vaccines or at least crude innoculations against most of their diseases, the results would have been very similar regardless.

Argent Stonecutter

To short-circuit the nightmare that is Windows before it got off the ground.

detrius

"ZOMG, that you-know-who guy was just like Hitler."

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Baltha

Voldemort?

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Seyla Warden

No, Beetlejuice.

Void

I got introduced to his Worldwar series completely by accident... and made me a fan of alternate history from the first book.

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- These eyes can do more than see

Kara Spengler

People would still be out there that act like idiots, that is in our nature. The problem with tossing religion into the mix is it promulgates ideas like manifest destiny and people are now not just being idiots but they have been told they have a divine mandate to do so. Which multiplies the idiocy by a few magnitudes.

As to the virii, yes, some would still be conveyed accidentally. Some of it was deliberate though.

Ann Otoole

i would change nothing. changing the timeline in one of the 12 or 13 dimensions without a collateral change across all dimensions might result in a singularity that sucks the entire universe into it's matter crushing vortex.

Lucifer Baphomet

I'd sterilise Thatcher and Reagan's parents.

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Baltha

This sounds so much like a Daily Mail headline from the future!