What if: America disappeared? Alt-history

Cafe Society
1

I just finished reading the latest book in Eric Flint’s 1630’s series, 1634: The Galileo Affair (great series btw…if you like alt-history check it out). In the book the author speculates what would happen if an entire small town in West Virginia was suddenly transported to an alternative universe and plopped down in the middle of Germany during the 30 years war.

This got me to thinking and I decided to start a thread to explore different peoples thoughts on this: What would happen if the entire continential US (minus Hawaii and Alaska and all the island protectorates of course) was suddenly teleported back in time (but essentially in the same location) and if that past US was teleported to today in its place? Lets pick an arbitrary date…say 1000 AD.

From that premise, several questions jump out at me (and I hope many more will occur to others if the thread takes off):

  1. What would the modern Americans do in the world that existed in 1000 AD? How would we survive? A rather large percentage of our military is currently NOT in the US after all. How would we interact with the nations that existed at that time? Would we try and change them, modify them, help them, conquer them?

  2. Would our economy collapse completely? How would we get vital natural resources we would require, such as oil? Would we simply go into Mexico, Canada, the ME, etc, and take what we needed? Would there be enough time for us to re-establish the wells and transport needed to bring those resources to the US?

  3. What would the US do with Mexico and Canada since there WAS no Mexico or Canada in 1000 AD? Would we annex the territory from the native peoples there? Would we work with them? How would our own Native American population react to seeing their distant cousins?

  4. Back in 2004 what would happen to the world in this universe if the US suddenly vanished to be replaced by a vast wild continent that existed in 1000 AD? Would the world economy collapse without the US?

  5. What would happen to the parts of the US that stayed in this universe? Would Hawaii and Alaska continue to maintain their identities and association with a now non existant US? Would they attempt to annex the continential US? Would they join willingly or by force other nations?

  6. What would happen to the continential US? It would be full of native peoples and tribes, full of resources again (oil, gold, etc)…a huge prize for whoever took it. Would the nations of the world fight over it? Would Mexico or Canada attempt to annex huge pieces of it? Would Europe attempt to re-colonize it? Russia? China? Would the world want to make sure that no nation ever got control of it all again, mandating that it either be left to the native peoples or broken up into many soveriegn states like Europe?

  7. What would happen to the vast military the US has over seas in various parts of the world? Suddenly they would be deprived of country, home and family and set adrift. What would they do? Would they attempt to take over the US mainland…wrest it from the natives? Would they join other nations? Maybe Britian? A VERY large amount of troops, planes, tanks, ships, subs, etc are scattered throughout the world at any given time, and they would represent still a dominant military, albiet with no logistical support at all…what would they do? What would our troops currently in Iraq do?

Not sure if this is suited to GD or CS or what. The more I thought about it the more interesting the question seemed so I figured I’d put it in CS and see what happens. If the mods feel it should be in GD or somewhere else, feel free to move it.

-XT (Sr)

2

Gotta love that alt-history.

At first I’d thought that Canada and Mexico would attempt to annex the states. But you postulated that Alaska and Hawaii are still there and the overseas US military is still out there.

Chain of command should leave (if there’s any federal level representives left) SOMEONE to take over. Maybe a stray rep or a travelling cabinet official or something.

And if that’s true then there’s still a President who can command that big chunk of the US military kicking around. And that would put the kibosh on any annexation attempts right there. Heck, the US Navy alone would stop most people and I’m presuming any ships that were out-of-port at the time of the switch would have stayed in the 21st century.

There will be no annexation.

Now, we find ourselves with an enormous country and no one to fill it. The effects on the world economy having to adjust to losing the all time big market would be enormous. Who buys Saudi oil? Who buy Chinese electronics and such?

Sure there’s still a market for such out there but a BIG chunk of that market is now GONE. And that will bring about a crash of pretty monstrous scale. BANG, we’re back to the thirties until things readjust.

On the flip side I have NO illusions that the US government would again subdue (with luck more humanely) the native american population. After that it’s a matter of establishing friendly diplomatic relations with the other nations (probably leading with the Europeans but not guaranteed) and seeing what develops.

OH! The first thing that would happen to the citizenry of the united states should we be kicked back 400 years is that one hell of a lot of us would DIE. Suddenly we’re without Saudi oil and other necessities that make this interconnected world go. After that shook out there’d still be many many people here ready to take on the world.

As for the rest of the world I see a form of economic colonialism raising it’s head. Sort of a ‘client-state’ thing led by major corporations. Can you see ExxonMobil or Amoco restraining themselves from setting up shop in Venezuela or Mexico and showing the natives (and spaniards) that they had a great resource under the ground that the US firms could teach them how to exploit? Just sign here amigo…

3

Going back in time 1000 years would give the US no major military roblems.

Men with hunting rifles could beat the best army on Earth.

4

Hm. Well, I guess I posted this in the wrong forum. Or, the question just isn’t that interesting to anyone but me. :slight_smile: Still, for forms sake I’ll respond to those few who joined in. Maybe a wandering mod will be nice enough to move it to GD…might get more responses there. Or maybe not…

I never even considered this. I wonder how far down before the chain of command breaks. Can a state govenor become president? Maybe we’d get lucky and the switch would happen when Bush and Chaney were over seas. :slight_smile:

Even if a new president could be appointed, logistics would kill any attempt to ‘retake’ the continential US. Also, most of the US’s nukes are here in the US…the rest of the world would have a pretty big stick to wield over us. And even those that are sub based and at sea (I’d think these days it would be a pretty small amount), you’d first have to figure out who was president and authorized to use them.

Besides, what would we do with all the people who would be living here already?? I wonder what the how this would work out from a legal perspective. Clearly, IF a new US president could be appointed from what remains, they would have some right to the continental US. However, the Indians living here would also have rights to it in a world court I’d think.

I wonder what the other nations of the world would do, especially Europe and China. This would be a golden oppurtunity to break American power once and for all time by simply not allowing the remnant Americans to re-occupy the continential US.

I’m thinking the worlds economy would collapse or at least go into a huge tail spin before they could work it out…if they ever could. It would be a huge hole that I’m not sure could ever be filled again.

Well, I really said a 1000 years. :slight_smile: But I’m not sure why a lot of Americans from this time going back a 1000 years would die. All the infrastructure is still here after all. All the hospitals, drug companies, doctors, etc. Also, we have huge oil reserves that we could use, with rationing, to get us by for a while (not sure exactly how long). As to suddenly being without oil, thats true. However, all that oil in Saudi, or Mexico for that matter, would still be there…in fact, it would be there as it was before it was ever discovered. And we know EXACTLY where it all is too. Now, how long it would take to rebuild the infrastructure to drill for it and get it HERE…thats something else. But I’m not sure huge numbers of American’s would necessarily die. If you ever come back to this thread, maybe you could expain what you think they’d die OF.

The most intersting speculation to my mind is…how would the US government interact with Europe in 1000 AD? Would they try and impose peace? Would they assist them medically (with penicillin and such for the plague for instance), economically, technologically? Would we try and take over? Use our military? Or just get them the way you are suggestion…economic colonialism? In 1000 AD Europe hadn’t yet ‘discovered’ the America’s of course so we wouldn’t be dealing with the Spaniards here. But we’d have to deal with the Central and South American empires of the time as well…and a lot closer. Also, just our being here would introduce diseases they weren’t equiped to deal with, so would we assist THEM with medical support to help them out…or just let them die off?

Well sure. I have no doubts we COULD, militarily, do anything we wanted to in the world of 1000 AD (after we take care of our resources problem of course…got to get that oil and other vital resources, and get our own manufacturing base back up to speed of course). But the question is, WOULD we? I’m thinking that it would be pretty distastefully to the American people to take over so to speak, or throw our might around arbitrarily. It would be a slaughter worse than what happened to Iraq if we unleashed even the remnants of our military on Europe circa 1000 AD…or on any of the Central/South American empires, the Middle East, etc. They would have less than no chance at all. Hell, we could bomb them into submission most likely. But would we?

-XT (Sr).

5

xtisme, I would have to stumble on this thread just when I have to leave the house in less than an hour. I’ll be back later tonight.

I’d be more interested in what the continental US would do in 1000AD. Just off the top of my head I’d say we’d become the world power, even if it took a while to arrange. Hmm. How much ocean would we take? A mile or two? I was wondering about Naval vessels close to the Pacific and Atlantic shore.

If you see this, send me an email. As you know, I love the Flint series.

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Hola Baker! :slight_smile: Lets say that the continental US all goes and maybe 5 miles of additional ocean (and also 5 miles of additional land in Canada/Mexico as well)…to be replaced by the exact same terrain/people/etc from 1000 AD. So, any Naval assets in, say San Diego or Norfork would make it, but anything at sea or in Hawaii wouldn’t.

Also, lets say that all planes over the US to 30,000 ft would also make the trip back through time, but anything over that height would stay here. Wouldn’t THAT present some interesting problems all around. Suddenly a pilot in contact with an airport flying at 35,000 feet notices that ALL communications with the US have gone silent.

All satelite communications, transmissions, GPS data, etc would go suddenly silent across the US. All communications with all other countries would go silent…telephone, internet, satelite, etc…silent. They would all still work perfectly normally IN the US, but nothing outside of the US (obviously, as it would be 1000 AD out there). What would the US’s reaction be? Suddenly the Pentagon loses all contact with our troops in Iraq, South Korea…everywhere. They would totally freak out. What would they do first? Send out planes or ships to take a look around and see what the hell happened? Assume it was some kind of cyber attack? How would the public react? Mass panic?

I think the first thing the government would do would be to send out scouting parties of planes and ships to take a look around. Obviously they would try and use other communications means…in vain of course. Would they actually land in Europe and establish contact with the various European governments though, or just observe? What would those peoples from 1000 AD make of the strange objects in the sky flying over…or of the strange Americans if they did choose to make contact? How would the US make contact? Covertly or would we sail in with any Battleships/Aircraft Carriers that might have by chance been in a US port? Gun boat diplomacy?

The more I think about it the cooler the scenerio gets…so complex.

-XT (Sr)

7

It’s also important to note just how much of the surface we take with us… anything less than about 10 feet of surface is going to present a massive telecommunications problem as we lose our national telecom grid.

Power trunks as well.

Also, how does this affect something like New Orleans, which is built at least in part on ground that didn’t exist 1000 years ago?

Me personally? I would head North. I think carving out my own small kingdom would be great.

Who’s with me?

8

Well, in the 1630 book it was a complete sphere of about 10 miles or so that was transported across. So it was 10 miles down as well, leaving in tact all the infrastructure and resources. For our purposes we’ll say its 5 miles down that goes with us. So, all the Telcom infrastructure would remain in tact, as well as the resources…or lack of resources in the case of oil in Penn and Texas…that currently exists in the US. In addition, the US of 1000 AD will have all THOSE resources back in tact, as well as the native populations that existed then…but they will be here in 2004.

Again, wouldn’t present a problem as all that land would be going with us all to 1000 AD. And since there wasn’t a New Orleans in 1000 AD to come to here, its no worries. :slight_smile: Unless someone (the French again?) wants to make a NEW New Orleans on the spot the present day one used to occupy.

You’d have to contend with all those hostile natives that would be living in Canada. :slight_smile: If I were to carve out a kingdom I’m thinking the ME would be a good place…lots of oil and such you know? I’m also thinking the Government would be on to that and would clamp down on letting private citizens go forth and conquere to their hearts desire. :eek:

-XT

9

I find the “modern U.S. transported 1000 years in the past” scenario to be the most interesting as well.

Keep in mind that the total world population in 1000AD was probably smaller than the modern-day population of the continental United States.

Short term, I think there would be a panicked scramble by the government to determine why all communication had been cut off from overseas and satellites in orbit. Within 24 hours though, long-range reconaissance flights would be able to establish what had happened.

The number one priority would be keeping oil flowing. I would imagine within two weeks we’d have task forces headed for the Middle East and South America to conquer them. Even with the loss of all our overseas forces, there would still be enough soldiers, ships and planes left in the United States to make this trivial.

It would probably take at least a month to deploy the troops and secure the oilfields. Drilling new wells, laying pipeline, etc. would take even longer – maybe six month before any foreign oil is flowing into the U.S., several years before significant capacity is reached.

The strategic petroleum reserve is only intended to last for 60 days. So within a few months of the event we’re going to see major energy rationing. This combined with the loss of all export markets is going to send the U.S. economy into a major stall. Expect massive layoffs within a few months of the event – 1930 depression-era conditions.

This will lead to a mass exodus. Who’s going to hang out starving in Cleveland when their are whole continents out there that are practically empty? Bands of displaced Americans, armed with automatic weapons, start taking ships across to Europe and Asia to carve out new places to live.

The locals provide almost no opposition. Europe in the 11th century is in the middle of the Dark Ages. A few thousand well-armed moderns could conquer the entire continent. The Islamic World and China will be slightly harder, but that only means that they get a few years breathing room while Americans pick off the easy bits.

The U.S. military does nothing to stop this exodus. They’ve got their hands full getting the oil flowing again and keeping peace in the homeland.

Twenty years out the continental U.S. has clawed its way back to stability, albeit as at a much lower standard of living than before. Europe will be controlled by a new American nobility who have supplanted the old ruling families. A similar conquest of China will be well underway but not yet complete. South America, the Middle East, and Southern Asia will be U.S. Military Protectorates. New American colonists will be landing in Argentina, South Africa and Australia … .

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I think Pochacco hit it right on the head. With the US government trying to keep the US from collapsing in the face of panic and fear, I imagine it wouldn’t be all that hard to head out and set up a minor fiefdom somewhere. That’s been my dream for as long as I can remember.

As for taking over Europe, I imagine it would be easy, militarily, but difficult at best.

Interesting thought though… How do Roman Catholics in the US respond to a new (old) Pope, one that hasn’t gone through Vatican 2? One that is the dominant power in Europe (or at least on the rise…)?

Hmmmm…

11

I disagree. I think the US government could and would keep that kind of thing in check and I think most Americans would support that too. I’m not even sure how the majority of the American people would react to the US Government anexing the ME or the oil rich parts of Mexico, let alone private citizens creating little pocket kingdoms out there (and slaughtering ‘natives’ from Europe to China in the process).

As to the oil…I’m thinking that the best bet WOULD be for the US Government to anex the oil rich parts of Mexico first and allow private companies to rapidly develop the oil infrastructure to get the oil flowing back to the US. I have no idea how long it would take to get significant oil production up and running, but I figure that with rationing, conservation, and ramping up oil fields still in the US (like in Texas I guess) we could get by until production took off.

A month to deploy troops to oil rich parts of Mexico sounds long, though I suppose it might take a month just to decide what to do. Again, I have no idea how long it would take to drill the wells and get the other infrastructure in place, but if it was the highest priority I would think it wouldn’t take that long to do. Certainly not several years. It doesn’t take several years to bring new fields on stream today, and much of the technology and personnel that do such things would be here in the US…and it WOULD be the top priority. Also, by chance alone some of the big oil super tankers would be in port or within the 5 mile limit I’m sure, and new ones could be constructed to begin exploiting oil deposits in Central and South America and Canada first, and later the ME.

Totally disagree with this part. First off, I seriously doubt the US would allow the citizens to just take off. I also doubt there would be mass starvation. Hell, all the food is here already! We have sufficient oil to power our agriculture in the interrim, and maybe even could begin the process of switching much of that over to alternative fuels or ramping up synthetic oil production using turkey guts or whatever. :slight_smile: Also, I think the government would retain sufficient force with the NG and Reserves to hold things together. Finally, if all those Americans DID take off, many would die of things like the plague, typhoid, small pox, etc, as they wouldn’t have the medical infrastructure or means to protect themselves…it would all still be here. Not only that, god knows what the common cold or whatever flu WE have would do to all those natives out there. You’d end up ruling a kingdom of the dead…and probably dead yourself from some interesting 9th century bugs. And the Government would realize this and totally restrict unauthorized travel outside of the US until things stabalized.

Not seeing at all why the standard of living would be lower. Think of all the things that the US could manufacture for export once relations were formalized and stabalized to Europe alone! Also, WE would have to manufacture again all those goodies we like and want. Jobs galore! Many citizens would become small business owners making everything from steam powered items and transport to pots and pans and knives for sale to Europe and beyond. All the resources would be there for us…oil, gold, iron, etc. Companies could make deals with the locals to use the areas where those resources are in exchange for technology or even manufactured goods or services (medical for instance). I don’t think the US would formally do more than possibly annex some of the choicer or more resources laden areas…we’d want to deal with the locals as they would become customers for our goods, services, etc, in the future.

I just don’t see that Americans would suddenly turn vicious and become such an overt colonial or imperial power just like that. I think our ways are too ingrained, and a hell of a lot of citizens would go ballistic if either the government or private groups began doing some of the things you are suggesting. And the bottom line is, we really wouldn’t HAVE to do all that and in the long run it wouldn’t even be in our best interest to do that. It would be more in our interest to establish links with the locals, to trade with them, to establish treaties and such for the things we need/want…and to assist them to develop as well. Maybe to even introduce democracy to a world locked in the dark ages. Sure, it wouldn’t be easy…but the benifits of such a system would be appearent to many out there, if we didn’t go around as a new empire.

-XT

12

It’s interesting that you bring that up. Just that scenario is proving to be an important part of the developing storyline in the series, along with freedom of worship in general. Especially in the most recent book 1634: The Galileo Affair A Fr. Lawrence Mazzare, from the town of Grantville, has to wrestle with his conscience and the current church heirarchy.(Urban VIII is Pope) In a smaller, almost amusing incident, his congregation more or less has to change it’s name. Vincent dePaul, whom their church is named after, is still alive, you see, in the time they have gone back to.

13

Well, the modern day reaction would be moot because history would change from 1000 AD onwards.

Think about it. A number of things could happen once the US as we know it has gone back in time. I’ll list the general themes here.

  1. The US restricts itself to a pre-1900 level of resource consumption to avoid altering history and interacts very little with the natives in Mexico and Canada(doesn’t bother with the Old World). When the Europeons begin exploring the western hemisphere around 1500, they run into the US or somebody who’s heard of them(and I’m pretty sure the Aztecs will have, assuming they are still around). History from 1500 onwards is going to look a bit difference, particulary with the Europeon reactions to an Advanced Civilization in the new world.

And of course, if the US is already there, it can’t be founded by the British, among other things.

  1. The US collapses from lack of resources and/or panic and the American civilization ceases to exist. Europeon settlers and explorers around the 16th century discover a continent full of advanced ruins(Wanna bet somebody dubbs it “Atlantis”?) and/or native americans tribes and/or small kingdoms with 20th century weaponary and some vestiages of technology.

  2. The US decides to take the reasources from the rest of the world to keep itself going. The US miltiary easily wipes out any opposing armies and becomes a worldwide (or nearly so) empire. The New Roman Empire?

Once the 20th century rolls around, somehow I get the idea the balance of world power will be quite different, at least in the timeline which is created by the transport of the US into the past.

I’m sure there are more possible scenarios created by the US going into the past, but those are the big ones I could think of.

14

Again, possibility 4 HPL is that the US calmly and rationally establishes relationships with the various world powers circa 1000 AD, establishes trade or other rights of usage for the resources they need. Sure, there would be a blip in our economy and maybe even our quality of life in the short run, but I still don’t see why it would HAVE to be either gloom and doom or a new Roman Empire as the only alternatives. We COULD trade for what we need, we COULD teach what we know about science, industry, technology, medicine, government, etc. We would be the pre-eminent power in the world…but that doesn’t necessarily mean we would have to be an evil empire of some kind. Again, I don’t think the citizens of the country would stand for it. They would force the government to act responsibly.

I also don’t see the US Government staying covert…not for any really long period of time. THere is no point after all. We would be there to stay. It would be in our best interests to establish relationships with Europe, the ME, China…certainly the various new world powers in Central and South America, as well as any powers in Canada circa 1000 AD.

It certainly would pose some interesting angles for the catholics in the US. I wonder if the church in 1000 AD would accept the documents from the US Catholic Church. Or would the US Catholic Church, knowing how the church of 1000 AD is, simply split off or maybe even take over management so to speak. The church in 1000 AD was a pretty corrupt thing after all. However, what would the various protestants do? There would have BEEN no reformation after all…it was still centuries in the future in 1000 AD.

-XT

15

This is my favorite part of the whole scenario. When you really think about it, the situation would cause major questions within the Church about the very nature of God, time and space. There is almost no chance that the Catholic Church would develop in the same way from 1000 AD on with a modern U.S. plop in the middle of the world. How many Church doctrines would end up never being made? But since God is infinitely powerful, do those doctrines that will never be set still exist? What if the Church establishes a doctrine that’s in direct contradiction of what it did in the “original” world that the modern U.S. was transported from?

So what would happen, first of all, is a crapload of people would start going to Church. Second, I think the U.S. Conference of Bishops would decide to punt and simply break away from the Roman Catholic Church and have the U.S. members of the College of Cardinals elect the Pope of the American Catholic Church or whatever they decide to call it. My guess is that people would take advantage of the upheaval and craft a Catholic Church that advocates birth control and allows for a married clergy that includes women. In fact, you might even get two Catholic Churches (yeah I know that’s rhetorically impossible, just go with me): One that stays edict-for-edict with the Church as it was before the U.S. was transported, and a new, “Reformed” Catholic Church.

There might even be a tiny sect that decides to stick with the Church in Rome. Yes, Mel Gibson, I’m looking at you.

My guess is the Protestants would be OK, even the Evangelicals. Going back to 1000 AD wouldn’t prevent a literal interpretation of the Bible. There would probably be a mad dash by every Christian religion to convert the assload of heathens populating the world. While I think our citizens would reject actually conquering these people, there wouldn’t be nearly as much resistence to converting them.

16

I think American Catholics would end up in control of the Catholic Church, simply by numbers - there are ~50 million adult Catholics in the US; Europe’s entire population at 1000AD was only about 35 million. Heck, the entire world’s population in 1000AD is generally estimated at ~300 million, so the US would just have to set up a worldwide democracy, then vote for whatever we want. :wink:

17

I’m not denying that possibility at all. Though I am trying to make the point that no matter what happens, the history of the world from 1000 onward will be quite different then the one we remember.

18

Oh, no doubt of that at all. I think that the world would eventually be much more advanced. The dark ages and even the middle ages and all the crap that happened could perhaps be avoided if America plays things right. Also, America would be in a position to do things like make sure no nuclear weapons were ever made or used. We could bring learning and technology, medicine and science to the world and slowly shape the world to OUR ideals (perhaps).

Still, how would we prevent our modern diseases from spreading out of control among the various native population. Just the flu alone would most likely be deadly to folks from 1000 AD, as it has evolved with us and they would be completely vulnerable to it. How would we prevent THEIR various diseases from effecting us? Certainly our modern drugs would be effective, but do we have enough of them? Small pox for instance isn’t something we are prepared to handle anymore, nor do we have vast stocks of vaccine for it right now. I’m sure there are plenty of other diseases we’d need to ramp up too also.

On the church side of things, what about the muslims in the US? Would they attempt to make contact with the various muslim churches in 1000 AD? Would they attempt to advise them so that they wouldn’t make the mistakes they made? If I remember correctly, in 1000 AD the muslims were in kind of a golden age of enlightenment, weren’t they? So, it would be ironic if the US muslims were actually more fundamentalist and strict than the muslims in the world of 1000 AD.

-XT

19

xtisme, the USA in 1000AD would, certainly, be in a position to see nuclear weapons weren’t made. But if, somehow, one was needed, watcha wanna bet we wouldn’t make or use one? The knowledge would be there, Pandora already out of the box. But given the state of early medeival weaponry, I don’t think we would ever need to.

When I get home from work this evening I’m going to get out my Durant history of Western Civilization, and I have a couple of those Time-Life series as well. I’ll be able to make better speculations then.

Fewer people have been speculating as to the other half of this story. What about the world of 1000 AD transported into the 21st century? I don’t know all that much about the level of culture of the peoples that would have been living in US territory then. What about the Mound Builders and the Anasazi? Boy, would they be in for a shock! Not to mention the other nomadic peoples.

The United States would still exist, after a fashion. With our overseas troops and citizens, along with Alaska and Hawaii, we might be able to stave off being taken over by Canada/Mexico/whoever. But the US would no longer be the power it was. If things went sour Hawaii might be absorbed into the Australia or Japan, as a territory. Alaska would most likely go to Canada.

But it isn’t as if there wouldn’t be a political structure. One or two Cabinet officials would be sure to be out there somewhere, to succeed to the Presidency. The military, Navy at least, could function out of Hawaii, and maybe some ports in Britain, if allowed. If we allowed some territorial or economic concessions we could get loans for some rebuilding towns and ports. We would know where all the natural resources were, and could go get them. Of course this time around any native peoples would have to be given a hell of a lot more consideration.

Religious-wise, I don’t think there would be as much of an upheaval, but I could be wrong.

20

It would be pretty difficult for the USA to stop our diseases from hitting natives of the America’s, once we come into contact with them; but it shouldn’t be as bad as when the Europeans contacted them in real history - the average American would be less likely be carrying something contagious, and we could provide medications and vaccines to our neighbors to allieviate the problem. As for the USA getting disease from the downtime people, the relative isolation would help alot - the America’s had a lot fewer infectious disease, the only ones we would really need to worry about are in the Eurasia - if we delayed contact by a couple years, we could get smallpox & other vaccine’s we don’t use anymore back into production; antibiotics would be very useful too, since none of the bacteria would have had time to adapt to them yet. And our sewer system and other sanitation measures would come back intact, which would greatly reduce disease by themselves.

Also, along the church side of things, what about the Jewish-Americans? Would we see a neo-Zionist group deciding to found Israel early?(Possibly with the support of Christian fudementalist) Or would they go to Europe & Asia, and try to convice the Jews there to leave, to avoid the pogroms and such, maybe offering them a homeland in one of the sparsely populated areas of the Americas or maybe Australia.

Furthermore, one big issue for the long term of the America sent to the past world - Would American birthrates start to rise again? Currently, they are right at replacement level, but given modern medical care, and better agriculture/cheaper food, the US could easily have a birthrate higher than anywere in the world at the time, literally changing the face of the future world - already, in 1000 AD the American population would match the rest of the world put together. If the American birthrate outpaced the rest of the world, you could easily see Americans spreading out, settling the more sparsely populated areas, intermarrying with locals around the world, and ending up with “American” states on every continent in a couple of centuries.