I don’t really understand how or why the USA still exists given the POD and butterfly effect
Nobunaga’s Ambition Realized: Dawn of a New Rising Sun
- Thread starter Ambassador Huntsman
- Start date
Simple enough, the English dominate the other European colonies in North America and implement policies that cause a rebellion of enough colonies (have said rebellion succeed).
they will probably pick the name again United (United is a good adjective to describing your state) States (because State sounds better than colony), of America (the continent they are on)
By right the POD should alter so much. Who knows maybe England and Scotland don’t unify? Maybe France wins in North America.
Far too much has to go a certain way
Alaska is enormous. From the mouth of the Yukon, to round the Alaska Peninsula to get to the Kenai Peninsula is over 2,000 km of sailing, roughly the distance between Tokyo/Kanto and the southern tip of Kamchatka. Sailing weather is also terrible and unpredictable.
Unlike other people in the thread (and generally on this site), I'm not convinced at all there'd be much Japanese activity in California. In addition to Alaska's size, there's the big thing of "how much resources" the natives have to offer. Furs are universal, but furs from northerly lands are more valued than southerly lands, hence why California's fur industry was exploited later. Other than minor goods like antler velvet, the largest would be jade, as jade was traded from the interior to coastal peoples who used it for art and tools. Most of this jade use was concentrated in coastal British Columbia, with jade dropping off north of southeastern Alaska and south of the Fraser River. The Japanese would recognise the jade and know selling it to China would mean a huge profit (indeed, this same jade OTL was later mined by Chinese immigrants who came to mine gold).
So if we look at the motives for sailing south in North America, they drop off once you hit Vancouver Island, which incidentally is among the northernmost places you can grow rice in the entire world. The Columbia River would probably be the southernmost point of interest, because it was the southernmost area decently linked to these trading networks, and also had a very substantial native trade. However, given Manila galleons were occasionally shipwrecked nearly that far north, I'd say further Japanese-Spanish hostility may lead to more exploration in that region on the basis that Spain uses it for shipping.
Everything else from timber cutting to gold mining would have to come later, since indigenous law strictly regulated logging (basically the Japanese would have to own the rights to log, lest they face hostility) and gold was unknown. A few local trees could become highly valued like red cedar, yellow cedar, or Port Orford cedar--all of these are exported in large amounts to Japan OTL because they're considered good substitutes for Japanese trees like Cryptomeria which have been overlogged.
Yes, more New Sweden and New Netherland should butterfly the USA, unless the English act fast and decisive. Otherwise all they have is Virginia, probably the Carolinas, and New England. So if they revolt, then that's two separate nations.
You obviously don't mean anything by it, and frankly, I'm being unfair to you and I'm kind of just venting my frustrations a bit, but I'm so tired of people operating under this understanding of Butterflies. It makes no sense. If I chose to wear a red shirt instead of a blue one like I was originally supposed to in a timeline, it isn't going to change anything. The only effects it could have are localized to being around me and involving me, like having someone compliment the blue shirt but not the red one, not suddenly making anyone who would have been born after me no longer exist and are replaced with new people. So long as nothing that Japan does fundamentally alters what leads to the American Revolution, then the US would still exist. Aside from author fiat, Butterflies don't just happen, as that's not how cause and effect works. My decision to wear pants instead of shorts isn't going to suddenly result in an overthrowing of the French government or the rise of an Australian Empire. It's annoying as hell.
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No way that New Sweden survives. They just can't generate the population necessary for it and would likely be overtaken by other settlers, like what happened during western expansion with Americans outnumbering Canadians. The Netherlands, maybe...? But they lost it in a war with the Brits and I'm not sure that they're capable of defeating them here. I could easily be wrong though, my knowledge on this period isn't the strongest.
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The problem is that Japan is actively diplomatically involved in Europe. The Thirty Years War of canon has already been greatly altered ITTL. That has massive ramifications.
Not to mention so many things IRL happened due to chance and they will be changing as a result naturally
Yes, but there are other factors that exist that will almost inevitably lead to a US, or at least a US equivalent.
It’s 1600. The amount of possible divergences or hell divergences that have already happened is insane. Has Locke or the others even made their treatises inspiring liberalism and the US?
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I don't exactly appreciate being accused of being bad faith. When I say a "US-equivalent state," I'm not necessarily referring to some liberal republican state founded on enlightenment values, even if a lot of those beliefs will almost certainly still exist as well as what led to them being popular in the New World as well. I'm referring more generally to a state that occupies the same space and position of the US. Although, I believe it would very likely be pretty damn similar to OTL. Locke was born in 1632 in England. My memory of this TL is a little fuzzy, given how infrequently it chooses to actually notify me of new chapters, but unless something happened in England that would specifically lead to Locke not being born, like the English Civil War being worse and his father being killed in it, then there is literally no reason Locke wouldn't exist. Even then, just having a worse English Civil War wouldn't necessarily lead to Locke not existing unless the author specifically outlined his father being killed while he was fighting. Not to mention, parallel thought exists and it's perfectly reasonable for someone else to rise up who develops, if not the exact same ideas, then very similar ones to Locke. Life isn't completely random and things happen for a reason and certain events or ideas are inevitable due to certain conditions.
Correction: The English Civil War happened after he was born, but the general principal still stands. Simply replace the English Civil War with something else likely to affect him or his family that leads to mass death before he's born or kills him early.
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John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Other posters here might be talking about prospects for further Japanese settlement, but my main question/point is about exploration -- just because Japan feels satisfied with sea mammal hunting in the northern waters, that doesn't mean they wouldn't want to at least look to see if there isn't any "unclaimed" land worth "developing", provided what they already have gives them a point of "access".
Oh no sorry mate wasn’t accusing you of being bad faith. I was making a tad bit of a lighthearted joke but it might not have gone well.
Anyway my own point is that any state that does exist from English colonies is in no way guaranteed to resemble the USA or be able to manifest destiny across the continent due to tense competition. The Thirty Years War has greatly altered Europe ITTL due to its different outcome greatly weakening the Habsburgs and consequently empowering France and Sweden
Then I apologize for acting on a hair trigger.
Fair enough. You're entitled to that view of course, I just don't know if I really agree with it. I think it's very possible that something could emerge that is much more similar to the OTL US than initially expected, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to whatever the author decides to do.
It could also just be some particularly adventurous leader coupled with a Japan wealthy enough to fund exploration - we're already seeing that at the very top at least, the desire to cement themselves in history and prove themselves has lead to expansionism, although there is still resistance to expansion that isn't purely defensive or mercantile in nature, as seen in the latest update (and granted, there really isn't any good reason to go to war over Luzon right now other than glory)
Owing from the shorter War of Imperial Liberties however, the non-British immigration to North America is going to be positively torrential relative to OTL. It's more so for New Sweden since they have part of the excess population of the Germany that died IOTL immigrating there, too.
As if different trade volumes, scheduling, and political appointments weren't enough — those were all certainly several orders of magnitude heavier than deciding what is cute to wear for a particular day. So heavy — in fact — that even the most ardent of all the Marxists will find it hard-pressed to disagree that this substantially changes the conditions — material, especially — in North America.
From this, it — alongside New Netherlands — won't exactly become weaklings either. They're sure damn likely to preserve their own legal system, if not their independence from English/British rule.
The addition — and from the outset at that — of legal systems other than the common law will make for an alien British North America, if not outright complicating its genesis as a cohesive entity and that of its constitution.
Hell — we still haven't reached the point when the Seven Years' War happened. As far as I am concerned, this gives a pretty good chance for New England to be dominated by Francophones ITTL!
Exactly. I agree. I expect North America to be far far more linguistically and culturally diverse due to a potentially surviving New Sweden and New Netherlands