Post by raharris1973 on Feb 11, 2024 23:05:26 GMT
What if, by power and caprice invested in ASB, all Christians around the globe disappeared in 1630AD. To avoid a gratuitously “mass death” scenario or cruelty for the sake of cruelty, be assured they go to a “happy place” that I will explicitly define later.
I realize by eliminating largely (but not) exclusively, “westerners” this set-up resembles “The Years of Salt”. I’ve never read that actually, but read the dust jacket and read the gist of the idea of its elimination of Europe’s population multiple times. Don’t know if I’d have ever envisioned this scenario without it, but this is a bit different.
What interests me about picking this historical time, 1630 AD, is that it is post-Columbian and a world trading system had started with a worldwide exchange of New World and Old World crops, livestock and human genes and products, affecting nearly every continent except for Australia and wider Oceania and Antarctica.
There had been an earlier Ghenghissid Eurasian world system, and a semblance of an earlier Eurasian system with the silk road, but by 1630 we had something unprecedentedly intercontinental, with New World crops seriously affecting, and raising, population ceilings in China and Europe, and minerals seriously affecting and inflating their economies. And Old World diseases seriously depopulating and reforesting the New World. Exchange of crops between the New World and West Africa. Establishment of major “gunpowder empires” throughout Eurasia.
Who disappears?
All Christians around the world. Defined as a) Any sincerely believing Christian by their own definition and understanding, no matter their geographic location or race, b) The children (or grandchild or minor dependent) ten and under of any Christian as defined by (a) above, regardless of their religious comprehension of personal speculation or baptismal status, c) subjects of historically (for multiple centuries) Christian countries or Christian self-governing communities, where Christianity is the official religion, who haven’t consciously rejected the religion, developed a conscious doubt, or adopted an alternate religion to practice or believe. So included countries include European Christendom, Ethiopia, self-governing Christian Balkan areas, locally self-governing Armenian, Georgian areas, areas under actual rule of Catholic Kongo rulers, European and Mestizo/Mestico New World colonies, etc. So basically in countries, communities, families where Christianity has been the default for generations and is “the default” even the religious inactive, ignorant, and unthoughtful, disappear along with the religiously fervent and reflective.
Beloved personal pets and hunting/leisure assistance animals go along with humans, but no wild animals, primarily food livestock or pure working animals, nor inanimate objects other than clothing on the body.
Who is excluded from disappearance?
All fervent and more casual genuine believers in non-Christian religions around the globe, b) In countries, communities, families where Christianity has been the historical/generational “default”, and infant baptisms are practiced, but other religions like Judaism or Islam or paganism are actually Crypto-practiced, they are excluded, c) In countries, communities, families where Christianity has been the historical/generational “default”, and infant baptisms are practiced, individuals ten and over who have reflected and settled upon views that are agnostic, atheist, or deist are excluded, d) In countries where Christianity is a new import, aggressively proselytized since 1492, where missionaries may be inclined to “baptize by firehose” to use an anachronism, and “cook the books” to overemphasize their success, and Christianity has not yet become “the default” like the Americas, most of Sub-Saharan Africa outside Ethiopia, most of the Portuguese Indies, much of Russian Asia, possibly some of Arctic Scandinavia, the unbaptized/improperly baptized, religiously inactive, religiously ignorant and uncommitted, religiously unthoughtful are excluded from disappearance along with their genuinely pagan/animist/non-Christian axial religion neighbors.
As noted above, with the exception of pets and clothing on the body basically, natural and manmade properties are all left behind.
This includes Churches.
Quick survey of the world, part I:
Oceania and Australia: No perceptible change, except whatever unrecorded Euro visits that happened, stop happening, and visits from the wider world get delayed even longer from OTL
Southeast Asia: This entire region, from Burma to New Guinea, from Luzon and for good measure, Formosa/Taiwan, to the island of Timor, loses all of its Europeans, except for a few Jews, Agnostics, and Atheists who might possibly have been working in Dutch or Portuguese service, in single digit numbers.
The greatest number of absent merchants, mercenaries, sailors, pilots and so on who disappear, utterly eliminating all European based enterprises operating in the region, are Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. But, the small numbers of other Europeans like English and French also disappear.
In Southeast Asian ports, offices and trading houses, aka “factories”, sit nearly empty except for native staff or hired East Asians. Hundreds of ships plying trade in the region lose their crews, or most of them, becoming “ghost ships”, or “flying Dutchmen” getting blown around by the wind until they wreck, or get found by lucky local pirates or beachcombers.
The impact is largest on the Philippines where many devout Christian natives and mestizos also disappear along with Spaniards, along with Dutch Batavia, the Moluccas, and the European forts on Taiwan.
Moving up to China:
China is going through the death throes of the Ming dynasty, and the abrupt turning of Manila Galleons into “ghost ships” and the end of new departures from Spanish America bearing silver will not help *at all*
The Ming are facing Li Zicheng’s peasant rebellion in the west, calling itself the “Shun Dynasty”, and assaults from Hong Taiji’s Manchus from the Northeast on the Great Wall. The latter are attacking along its whole length, having conquered Inner Mongolia as well.
The Chinese residents of Macau reporting of the mass disappearance of the “Ferengi” aka the Portuguese/westerners from town, almost to a man, are a strange and disturbing portent, even though they were annoying and often piratical.
The Manchu in a few years will proclaim themselves the “Qing Dynasty” and breach the Great Wall, and begin a lengthy conquest of China itself.
After a century of silver inflation, a drought of foreign silver is hurting China hard. With the end of Spanish silver, Japan, the only other major source of silver has a newfound leverage. China is also suffering Little Ice Age exacerbated famine, disease, plagues.
In Japan:
All the gaijin disappear to a man. As do all the sincere Kirishitan. The Shogun’s “Red Seal” ships continue to bring goods back in from “Nanban”, Southeast Asia, but in the months ahead, they report the sudden absence of the white, bearded gaijin from all their southern ports of call.
With the western and Christian threat evaporated, there is no need for the Shogunate to adopt the super-regulated Sakoku trade policy, and it can continue the Red Seal trading policy, and down the road, consider arming ships for self-defense.
Additionally, Chinese merchants appear more eager than ever to sell their wares for silver cash. Despite odd and frightening supernatural developments, there are advantageous trends for Japan in the world.
In India:
Almost to a man, European traders disappear, and stop coming entirely, leaving abandoned properties to local looters. Local rulers and economies adapt accordingly. The Indian coast and offshore islands are also beset by the wrecks of many western “ghost ships” where property, but no human, remains and wreckage can be found.
Things are similar, but less dramatically so in Persia, but more notable to Persian court, urban, and merchant circles and people living in the Persian northwest are the derelict houses and villages and churches of the Armenians, and in the far northwest, the Georgians.
I realize by eliminating largely (but not) exclusively, “westerners” this set-up resembles “The Years of Salt”. I’ve never read that actually, but read the dust jacket and read the gist of the idea of its elimination of Europe’s population multiple times. Don’t know if I’d have ever envisioned this scenario without it, but this is a bit different.
What interests me about picking this historical time, 1630 AD, is that it is post-Columbian and a world trading system had started with a worldwide exchange of New World and Old World crops, livestock and human genes and products, affecting nearly every continent except for Australia and wider Oceania and Antarctica.
There had been an earlier Ghenghissid Eurasian world system, and a semblance of an earlier Eurasian system with the silk road, but by 1630 we had something unprecedentedly intercontinental, with New World crops seriously affecting, and raising, population ceilings in China and Europe, and minerals seriously affecting and inflating their economies. And Old World diseases seriously depopulating and reforesting the New World. Exchange of crops between the New World and West Africa. Establishment of major “gunpowder empires” throughout Eurasia.
Who disappears?
All Christians around the world. Defined as a) Any sincerely believing Christian by their own definition and understanding, no matter their geographic location or race, b) The children (or grandchild or minor dependent) ten and under of any Christian as defined by (a) above, regardless of their religious comprehension of personal speculation or baptismal status, c) subjects of historically (for multiple centuries) Christian countries or Christian self-governing communities, where Christianity is the official religion, who haven’t consciously rejected the religion, developed a conscious doubt, or adopted an alternate religion to practice or believe. So included countries include European Christendom, Ethiopia, self-governing Christian Balkan areas, locally self-governing Armenian, Georgian areas, areas under actual rule of Catholic Kongo rulers, European and Mestizo/Mestico New World colonies, etc. So basically in countries, communities, families where Christianity has been the default for generations and is “the default” even the religious inactive, ignorant, and unthoughtful, disappear along with the religiously fervent and reflective.
Beloved personal pets and hunting/leisure assistance animals go along with humans, but no wild animals, primarily food livestock or pure working animals, nor inanimate objects other than clothing on the body.
Who is excluded from disappearance?
All fervent and more casual genuine believers in non-Christian religions around the globe, b) In countries, communities, families where Christianity has been the historical/generational “default”, and infant baptisms are practiced, but other religions like Judaism or Islam or paganism are actually Crypto-practiced, they are excluded, c) In countries, communities, families where Christianity has been the historical/generational “default”, and infant baptisms are practiced, individuals ten and over who have reflected and settled upon views that are agnostic, atheist, or deist are excluded, d) In countries where Christianity is a new import, aggressively proselytized since 1492, where missionaries may be inclined to “baptize by firehose” to use an anachronism, and “cook the books” to overemphasize their success, and Christianity has not yet become “the default” like the Americas, most of Sub-Saharan Africa outside Ethiopia, most of the Portuguese Indies, much of Russian Asia, possibly some of Arctic Scandinavia, the unbaptized/improperly baptized, religiously inactive, religiously ignorant and uncommitted, religiously unthoughtful are excluded from disappearance along with their genuinely pagan/animist/non-Christian axial religion neighbors.
As noted above, with the exception of pets and clothing on the body basically, natural and manmade properties are all left behind.
This includes Churches.
Quick survey of the world, part I:
Oceania and Australia: No perceptible change, except whatever unrecorded Euro visits that happened, stop happening, and visits from the wider world get delayed even longer from OTL
Southeast Asia: This entire region, from Burma to New Guinea, from Luzon and for good measure, Formosa/Taiwan, to the island of Timor, loses all of its Europeans, except for a few Jews, Agnostics, and Atheists who might possibly have been working in Dutch or Portuguese service, in single digit numbers.
The greatest number of absent merchants, mercenaries, sailors, pilots and so on who disappear, utterly eliminating all European based enterprises operating in the region, are Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. But, the small numbers of other Europeans like English and French also disappear.
In Southeast Asian ports, offices and trading houses, aka “factories”, sit nearly empty except for native staff or hired East Asians. Hundreds of ships plying trade in the region lose their crews, or most of them, becoming “ghost ships”, or “flying Dutchmen” getting blown around by the wind until they wreck, or get found by lucky local pirates or beachcombers.
The impact is largest on the Philippines where many devout Christian natives and mestizos also disappear along with Spaniards, along with Dutch Batavia, the Moluccas, and the European forts on Taiwan.
Moving up to China:
China is going through the death throes of the Ming dynasty, and the abrupt turning of Manila Galleons into “ghost ships” and the end of new departures from Spanish America bearing silver will not help *at all*
The Ming are facing Li Zicheng’s peasant rebellion in the west, calling itself the “Shun Dynasty”, and assaults from Hong Taiji’s Manchus from the Northeast on the Great Wall. The latter are attacking along its whole length, having conquered Inner Mongolia as well.
The Chinese residents of Macau reporting of the mass disappearance of the “Ferengi” aka the Portuguese/westerners from town, almost to a man, are a strange and disturbing portent, even though they were annoying and often piratical.
The Manchu in a few years will proclaim themselves the “Qing Dynasty” and breach the Great Wall, and begin a lengthy conquest of China itself.
After a century of silver inflation, a drought of foreign silver is hurting China hard. With the end of Spanish silver, Japan, the only other major source of silver has a newfound leverage. China is also suffering Little Ice Age exacerbated famine, disease, plagues.
In Japan:
All the gaijin disappear to a man. As do all the sincere Kirishitan. The Shogun’s “Red Seal” ships continue to bring goods back in from “Nanban”, Southeast Asia, but in the months ahead, they report the sudden absence of the white, bearded gaijin from all their southern ports of call.
With the western and Christian threat evaporated, there is no need for the Shogunate to adopt the super-regulated Sakoku trade policy, and it can continue the Red Seal trading policy, and down the road, consider arming ships for self-defense.
Additionally, Chinese merchants appear more eager than ever to sell their wares for silver cash. Despite odd and frightening supernatural developments, there are advantageous trends for Japan in the world.
In India:
Almost to a man, European traders disappear, and stop coming entirely, leaving abandoned properties to local looters. Local rulers and economies adapt accordingly. The Indian coast and offshore islands are also beset by the wrecks of many western “ghost ships” where property, but no human, remains and wreckage can be found.
Things are similar, but less dramatically so in Persia, but more notable to Persian court, urban, and merchant circles and people living in the Persian northwest are the derelict houses and villages and churches of the Armenians, and in the far northwest, the Georgians.
