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If the United States were to collapse


jurble

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A more interesting question might be what-if the US would never have come together in the first place.

Which of the Thirteen would establish primacy? (GO RHODE ISLAND!)

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Guest Raidne

Lol No need to get pissy for getting called on being (1) ignorant and (2) inaccurate.

What exactly is your minimum time limit for a proper collapse? Must it happen in less than 100 years? 10? Or is it kind of like comet instantaneously blows up earth, or nothing?

And in the interest of not being (1) ignorant and (2) inaccurate, don't you want to note that - contrary to popular lay opinion - it actually took years for Captain Tripps to fully decimate the global population, and nearly another decade for Randall Flagg to effectively consolidate enough power to threaten total annihilation?

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What exactly is your minimum time limit for a proper collapse? Must it happen in less than 100 years? 10? Or is it kind of like comet instantaneously blows up earth, or nothing?

For longer than a simple foreign invasion, that's for sure. ;) Unless your original 'serious' post refers to invasion as in immigration+economic depression+weakening of administrative authority * 100 or so years, then yeah you're spot on. The way you originally phrased it Rome was invaded by Germans (a loosely-applied term, btw) and that was the end of Roman civilization. It certainly didn't go anywhere near your new position that this 'invasion' lasted, what, 100 years? :rolleyes:

Btw, I'm only replying to this because I found your original position (which conveniently as it turns out wasn't serious) that nations only collapse when they are overrun by another nation, something which is false and ignorant, quite frankly. Calling the Germans a 'nation' before Conrad II is laughable.

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For longer than a simple foreign invasion, that's for sure. ;) Unless your original 'serious' post refers to invasion as in immigration+economic depression+weakening of administrative authority * 100 or so years, then yeah you're spot on. The way you originally phrased it Rome was invaded by Germans (a loosely-applied term, btw) and that was the end of Roman civilization. It certainly didn't go anywhere near your new position that this 'invasion' lasted, what, 100 years? :rolleyes:

Btw, I'm only replying to this because I found your original position (which conveniently as it turns out wasn't serious) that nations only collapse when they are overrun by another nation, something which is false and ignorant, quite frankly. Calling the Germans a 'nation' before Conrad II is laughable.

Arguably calling Germany a "nation" before Schiller is laugable :P

Or at least Luther.

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Arguably calling Germany a "nation" before Schiller is laugable :P

Or at least Luther.

Well with Conrad II you can at least make the case. The HRE was a German entity and Conrad II was the first of the Salian dynasty that put the HRE to great heights as well as some pretty shitty times.

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Well with Conrad II you can at least make the case. The HRE was a German entity and Conrad II was the first of the Salian dynasty that put the HRE to great heights as well as some pretty shitty times.

The HRE was a state, but was it a nation?

I'm not sure. And in any case it was almost as italian (and czech, and dutch, and all the rest) as it was "german".

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The HRE was a state, but was it a nation?

I'm not sure. And in any case it was almost as italian (and czech, and dutch, and all the rest) as it was "german".

Well it was run by Germans and the nationalist movement that came about after Napoleon referred to, at least, the Salian emperors. So yeah, Germany as both a nation and a state, it could be argued, heralds back to the old HRE days.

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Well it was run by Germans and the nationalist movement that came about after Napoleon referred to, at least, the Salian emperors. So yeah, Germany as both a nation and a state, it could be argued, heralds back to the old HRE days.

Nationalist movements of the 19th century are usually not the best judges for determining nationality :P If we listen to them everybody has been anation since the stone age :P

EDIT: Although I find it fascinating that one of the prereqs of creating a national identity *now* seems to be to project it back to *then*. It's almost a spinal reflex: Even the EU does it.

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I forgot to comment on this one...

A more interesting question might be what-if the US would never have come together in the first place.

Which of the Thirteen would establish primacy? (GO RHODE ISLAND!)

We already have some indication as to what could have happened. If the US didn't split from the British empire, they likely would have reached independence eventually. Canada was slowly given autonomy and eventually independence. We're essentially comprised of several British colonies so if the US failed in forming as a country, it likely would be a part of British North America, which essentially is what Canada was. We became a dominion via an act of Parliament called the British North America Act in 1867, after all. The more interesting question is what would happen throughout the rest of the continent. Spain had claim to Louisiana and were the first Europeans to reach the shores of what later would be called British Columbia. Had the US not come about as a separate nation, Spain/Mexico would be much larger, methinks. Without the Manifest Destiny policy regarding Texas and the earlier Jacksonian policy of settlement of the West, there would likely be more states to come up throughout both the US and Canada. We'd likely see more independent states from Indigenous populations, like the Sioux, Apache, Iroquois and even Cree.

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I forgot to comment on this one...

We already have some indication as to what could have happened. If the US didn't split from the British empire, they likely would have reached independence eventually. Canada was slowly given autonomy and eventually independence. We're essentially comprised of several British colonies so if the US failed in forming as a country, it likely would be a part of British North America, which essentially is what Canada was. We became a dominion via an act of Parliament called the British North America Act in 1867, after all. The more interesting question is what would happen throughout the rest of the continent. Spain had claim to Louisiana and were the first Europeans to reach the shores of what later would be called British Columbia. Had the US not come about as a separate nation, Spain/Mexico would be much larger, methinks. Without the Manifest Destiny policy regarding Texas and the earlier Jacksonian policy of settlement of the West, there would likely be more states to come up throughout both the US and Canada. We'd likely see more independent states from Indigenous populations, like the Sioux, Apache, Iroquois and even Cree.

Wrong POD.

I mean, what if after the war of independence the colonies just say "Okay, that was nice. We beat the brits. Now let's go our separate ways." (or they get into an argument over taxation or territories or Washington's beard or whatever)

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Wrong POD.

I mean, what if after the war of independence the colonies just say "Okay, that was nice. We beat the brits. Now let's go our separate ways." (or they get into an argument over taxation or territories or Washington's beard or whatever)

Well in that case, if the thirteen colonies won independence and decided to run their own separate states, I doubt that they would have survived long, at least as separate states. Without unity, I highly doubt that any one of them can settle very far past the Mississippi River, leading to the heterogeneous complexion of North America I already mentioned. But say they actually do survive and become separate states, I'd imagine one of the New England states would become primary among them. The north was more industrialized, and more populous too, IIRC.

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[quote name='Demonblade' date='03 July 2010 - 10:11 PM' timestamp='1278187905'

Oh, and the 'Vikings' were not separate from the Normans. The Normans were actually 'Vikings', the name 'Norman' coming from North Men (i.e. from the north, in this case Scandanavia).

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Could the US collapse somewhat like the USSR? Many states saying unisono "fuck that, I'm leaving"? Actually that did happen once, but could it happen without a powerful group of states re-uniting the US by force?

As far as I can tell, the only state that even reasonably considers secession is Vermont, but that's because it's ruled by a cabal of communist wizards.

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Sadly, given the looming, yet thus far largely ignored energy crisis and its attendant fiscal mess, at least a partial collapse of the US is at least possible...along with most of the rest of the so called 'First World'. However, it is not probable,

What is more likely is a breakup of the US (and Canada and Mexico) along regional lines: the Pacific Northwest (coastal oregon, washington, british columbia, and SE alaska become 'Cascadia' or 'Ecotopia (emphasis on socialism and environmentalism); the area within a couple hundred miles either side of the current US/Mexican border becomes 'Mexamerica', turning into sort of a latino/caucasian version of Canada/Quebec; the old confederate states take a turn towards religious fanaticism and become a sort of quasi theocratic state, ect. Looming over all this, of course, is the severe, crippling energy shortage and its attendant economic/political effects.

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Allow me to nitpick your nitpickery. Actually "Viking" is not a nationality but a job description. A Northman was only a Viking when he was on a raiding tour.

The Normans can probably be described as "tamed Northmen". In an interesting display of Realpolitik the Viking Rollo and his band of merry men were given the Normandy as a fiefdom, in order to stop those pesky Viking raiders. But by the time the Normans invaded England, that was over 150 years ago and the Normans were quite frenchified by then.

Actually I didn't call the Vikings a nationality but since you brought it up I thought I might mention the fact that the Normans who settled in what would be called Normandy were not 'Frenchified', as you put it. There hardly was a France to 'Frenchify'. During the time of Rollo's conversion to Latin Christendom, the king of France was still referred to as the King of the French, which is not the same thing as being king of France. Rollo, or Robert I's descendant, William the Conqueror, went to conquer England because he had a legitimate claim to it, a Danish claim. To call Normans 'tamed Northmen' is ridiculously overlooking how life was back then. There was nothing tame about them, or any European power at the time. Perhaps you're implying that since they were technically vassals to the French king, then of course they were more civilized because anything French is more civilized? If anything the Normans were more well off than the French. They certainly were bigger (i.e. had a more balanced diet), stronger militarily as well as being richer. They had their own culture and social structure, which they brought to Normandy as well as England. To say that the Normans were Frenchified in 150 years reeks of a perceived cultural superiority that simply did not exist. The Scandinavian kingdoms were not bloodthirsty savages to the civilized Frenchmen. They all were bloodthirsty savages.

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William the Conqueror, went to conquer England because he had a legitimate claim to it, a Danish claim.

I don't know about the rest, but William's claim wasn't Danish, it was English - his great aunt was the mother of Edward the Confessor. Harald Hardrada was the Scandinavian claimant.

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I don't know about the rest, but William's claim wasn't Danish, it was English - his great aunt was the mother of Edward the Confessor. Harald Hardrada was the Scandinavian claimant.

His great aunt was a Norman, not an Englishwoman. Besides, he claimed that Edward the Confessor made him his heir, which, I believe, was legitimate under the Danes' customs. Either way, he went up there because of a claim due to his Scandinavian ancestry, thus putting in question his 'Frenchified-ness'.

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Either way, he went up there because of a claim due to his Scandinavian ancestry, thus putting in question his 'Frenchified-ness'.

How so? Does the foreign ancestry of the majority of Americans put in question their "American-ness"? Does my Irish great-grandfather put in question my "English-ness"?

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