If Yellowstone Blew...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Organic in the sense that it's driven by private citizens and corporations on a small scale. There will eventually be consolidation, but I'd think these enclaves would rather band together with each other than with their home countries.

They will want that, but will they get it? Is our chinese factory owner with his fishery in Oregon better off making a deal with some guy from Bangalore shipping wood out of Vancouver, or getting a charter from Beijing? A charter from Beijing protects him from the PLA coming in when things look good. And he can use it if he has a dispute with the guy from Bangalore. Or the Guatemalans. Meanwhile, all Beijing gets is some modest trading privileges. Theyre too busy rebuilding their economy, after all. But the more of these things there are, the more the export markets recover, and more the imports in greatest demand reappear. In, say, 5 years, North America again looks inviting, and now the resources to take it are there. You just have to wipe the colonists, if theyre foolish enough to resist.

Of course you could have avoided having to fight colonists, by taking the place right after the event, in the first place.

There are some scenarios where an indepedent ethnically Chinese state in NA emerges as in independent power. Or a multicultural state. But I think either a carve up among existing powers, or a war, or more likely.

Unlike the Euros in the 17th century, everyone knows exactly how rich this continent is. and the technology to tame it is far more advanced than in 1650. And the surplus population, and the surplus manufactured goods to tame it are far more abundant.

[lord of the mark]

In 1607, it took several weeks (IIUC) to cross from England to Virginia. Longer when the weather was bad. Jamestown was on its own most of the time.

Mr Shanghai Barbie, with his few hundred settlers in Oregon, has a radio. Hell, he has a sat phone. He knows the closing price of salmon in Shanghai (And in Calcutta, and in Tokyo) on a daily basis, as soon as the market closes. He is in regular communication with his investors, with other market players, with Chinese govt officials. How independent will this society be?

[Straybow]

Krakatoa caused a year with no summer. A Yellowstone supervolcano would pump ~100 times as much ejecta into the atmosphere. Food production worldwide will be jeopardized, not just NA. Decimation would be a lucky break.

If atmospheric effects last more than 1 year world population will be halved. I think China, Europe, and others will be much too busy coping at home to think about colonizing NA.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


They will want that, but will they get it? Is our chinese factory owner with his fishery in Oregon better off making a deal with some guy from Bangalore shipping wood out of Vancouver, or getting a charter from Beijing? A charter from Beijing protects him from the PLA coming in when things look good. And he can use it if he has a dispute with the guy from Bangalore. Or the Guatemalans. Meanwhile, all Beijing gets is some modest trading privileges. Theyre too busy rebuilding their economy, after all. But the more of these things there are, the more the export markets recover, and more the imports in greatest demand reappear. In, say, 5 years, North America again looks inviting, and now the resources to take it are there. You just have to wipe the colonists, if theyre foolish enough to resist.

Of course you could have avoided having to fight colonists, by taking the place right after the event, in the first place.

There are some scenarios where an indepedent ethnically Chinese state in NA emerges as in independent power. Or a multicultural state. But I think either a carve up among existing powers, or a war, or more likely.

Unlike the Euros in the 17th century, everyone knows exactly how rich this continent is. and the technology to tame it is far more advanced than in 1650. And the surplus population, and the surplus manufactured goods to tame it are far more abundant.

He probably is better off making deals with his neighbours so that he can get stuff from them rather than from back home. And since the available resources are so abundant, there really shouldn't be much competition until much later. Better to be talking to your neighbours so that your construction guys don't run into theirs, and instead know to go over to teh next hill instead.

None of teh militaries of today (other than the US's) are able to do anything significant so far from home, and by this time they'd be weakened a whole lot, so teh threat of the PLA showing up in Oregon shouldn't give him too much cause to worry. He'd rather be on good terms with teh Indian down the road than rely on teh PLA to protect him.

[Arrian]

What Straybow said (sort of). If Yellowstone goes boom, the climate would be affected - at the very least the Northern Hemisphere's climate - and there would be famines.

I'm not sure if it would do as much in the South - my understanding is that in order to disrupt the entire globe, you need an eruption near the equator (Krakatoa, Tambora, etc). Yellowstone is perhaps too far north.

So let's imagine that the eruption devastates the middle of the US, but the coasts are intact (but unable to feed themselves). Crops all across the northern hemisphere fail.

Clearly there would be a world-wide recession. That alone can cause upheaval. Add in the spectre of famine and you've got a recipe for large-scale violence.

-Arrian

p.s. The "year with no summer" was caused by the Tambora eruption (1815). Krakatoa's 1883 eruption also did bad things to the global climate. If you buy David Keys' theory, a proto-Krakatoa eruption in ~535 AD did VERY bad things.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva


None of teh militaries of today (other than the US's) are able to do anything significant so far from home, and by this time they'd be weakened a whole lot, so teh threat of the PLA showing up in Oregon shouldn't give him too much cause to worry.

Thats cause today, to occupy a mid sized country, youve got to deal with millions of hostile locals, armed with IEDs, RPGs, and **** like that. You need to put down a division armed with modern weapons, and keep it supplied. Of course thats hard. But thats not what we're talking about.

Cortez took mexico with a few hundred guys and some horses. Sure he needed local allies, but he was fighting an empire with a city as big as any in Europe.

Youre talking about walking across an open, empty continent. If you dont allow colonists (and your fleet can stop them) you have NO opposition, except from other colonizers, and they face the same constraints you do. If you DO allow colonizers, you can cut them off from resupply of weapons. Unless their few hundred mercs like to face your AK 47 using homemade muskets and blackpowder.

as for trade, the guy in Vancouver has wood. In abundance. Which you in Oregon also have. The stuff you need, refined petrol, replacement parts for boats, aother sat phone, you cant get from him. Not unless hes decided to build a manufacturing society, which is most unlikely.

again on the military.

How hard was it for the Argentines to initially talk the Falkands? Thats what we're talking about, except the colonists dont know the land as well the Falkland islanders knew their home. Look at the disputes over the Spratlys and the Paracells.

look at the battles over the Caribbean in the 17th century.

[Lancer]

I'm making some assumptions regarding Yellowstone.

1) When it goes the blast takes out the central west portion of the US and the ash takes out everthing east of there. That leaves not much. The West coast couldn't feed itself because of the southwest having a large population with little food. Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico couldn't feed themselves due to lack of rainfall and Cali has just too many people. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho would be food exporters. The problem is that the survivors of the blast and ash are going to all try to get to these safe places, largely by going around the blast zone. There will be plenty of people like this that keep their windows closed and eat their pantry and local supermarkets bare, then start moving. Many will starve, as will those fed by the US breadbasket overseas, many will make it to the west coast, dramaticly overloading even the most productive areas ability to feed. So, there are still people, but the nation will have been stretched far beyond its limits to cope, far beyond. This nations ability to defend the North American continent will only last until the next major advances in technology, until the spare parts run out, as the years pass by and the military situation continues to erode.

The world meanwhile will be hunting for food. The breadbasket is gone. Hungry people, hungry families, demand food and governments do survive at the will of the people. Those that provide will be glorified, dictators and tyrants will rise. Those that don't will fall, many will be killed. Good people will find that good intentions fall flat when the young watch their parents suffer hunger, and when the old watch their new generations, in which they had such hope and joy, waste away.

Wars will spread, the goals of armies will be food and energy. This is the inevitable end to all such things. You like to think we today are different from the men of barbarism that populate the past?

Have you ever been really hungry? ...and I'm not talking about missing brunch.

2) The world will explode without the US to stabilize it and feed it. The slack cannot be taken up. Other countries will suffer some crop loss from long winters. I've heard the first year after there might not even be a summer in the northern hemisphere.

3) Energy. The military machines will need energy and will want to deprive enemy countries of the ability to get to it. The US military will also have a great need worldwide. We might just invade Kuwait from Iraq.

Anyway, be back later.

One more thought. Other militaries can do alot far from home as long as they don't face opposition on the way and time is plentyful, and they can somewhat live off the land when they get there.

[notyoueither]

Western Canada (and some of the rest) and Mexico would lend a hand and provide stabilising political anchors.

If, of course, the Washington State National Guard didn't occupy Western Canada, and the Texans didn't go down in blazes of glory on the Rio Grande.

[notyoueither]

Incidently, the US fleet could base on the West Coast, from Anchorage to Tijuana.

After the ash, there'd be more than enough farmland North and West of Yellowstone to feed the survivors, and there's a hell of a lot of oil that would never be effected. There's enough grain in the silos to feed the survivors for more than a year.

You could throw together a program in Washington State and BC to refine the uranium from Northern Saskatchewan to fuel the big bad boys.

It would be cataclysmic, but colonists from China would likely need not apply.

[snoopy369]

Best post-apocalyptic novels (and recent ones i've read):

Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler.

The Road, Cormac McCarthy.

Souls in the Great Machine, Sean McMullen

The Postman, David Brin

Protector's War, S.M. Stirling

I'm leaving out a lot of the classics, because you shouldn't have to be told to read Asimov, Heinlein, or Phillip K. Dick...

My current one:
The Plague Year, Jeff Carlson, worth reading though not really that original (Nanotech plague wipes out most of earth, etc. etc.)

[Chemical Ollie]

I'd be more concerned of not getting my supply of Coca-Cola.

[Berzerker]

is there some mass extinction associated with Yellowstone going off 0.6 mya? The ash fallout was widespread but I dont know how thick it was 1,000 miles away.

[Zkribbler]

From AmageddonOnLine.org:

Let's use Yellowstone. Immediately before the eruption, there would be large earthquakes in the region. The ground would swell further with most of the area being uplifted. One earthquake would finally break the layer of rock that holds the magma in - and all the pressure the Earth can build up in 640,000 years would be unleashed in a cataclysmic event.

Magma would be flung more than 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. Volcanic ash would cover places thousands of miles away. One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano itself, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer a few inches thick. The explosion would have a force 1000-2500 times that of Mount St. Helens. It would be the loudest noise heard by man for more than 75,000 years, the time of the last super volcano eruption. Within minutes of the eruption tens of thousands could be dead.

The long-term effects would be even more devastating. The thousands of cubic kilometres of ash that would shoot into the atmosphere could block out light from the sun, making global temperatures fall dramatically. This is called a nuclear winter. As during the Sumatra eruption a large percentage of the world's plant life would be killed by the ash and severe drop in temperature. Effects world wide would cause massive food shortages. If the temperatures decline by the 21 degrees they did after the Sumatra eruption the Yellowstone super volcano eruption could truly be an extinction level event.

Humans could be pushed to the edge of extinction. Anthropologists suggest it won't be the first time.

But well before such a calamity, warning flags will likely show up on the computers of geologists around the world who monitor an increasingly useful stream of satellite data. There have also been more pushes by scientists in the field to 'wake up' and devote more attention to this, it's truly startling.

[lord of the mark]

global mass starvation and near human extinction just isnt as interesting a scenario, at least to me, as knocking out the worlds #1 great power.

[Arrian]

Canned goods. Lots and lots of canned goods.

-Arrian