I think no matter which way you slice it, America would take on a dominance the likes of which we cannot comprehend. Even if we keep our military at bay, which I think we would, once people around the world became aware of our very presence, they would be absolutely, shitting-their-pants, terrified. My guess is that many would think right away that we were sent by God himself, or were a resurrected Atlantis or something. Within perhaps 50 years, America would be the dominant force in the life of every country, perhaps every person, in the world.
Also, there would be other more interesting effect, with the USA suddenly gone from the modern age.
I invision a rather fierce battle in the ME, as the Arab states realize that the US isn’t there (or at least they don’t think we’re here…) to pull Israels nuts out of the fire. Israel wins, but it’s messy.
I think a reversal of sorts would happen from what’s happening downtime… I could see US Military units and such trying to colonize and claim parts of North America, which may not be able to be stopped, since the rest of the world is dealing with an economic catastrophe that makes the Crash of '29 look like a slight rise in interest rates…
Hmmm…
Absolutely loving this discussion so far. 
Thanks everyone who has participated, and keep the interesting ideas coming!!
Good point. Who had control of Palistine in 1000 AD? Ottoman Empire? For that matter, they probably controlled most of the ME. I think eventually neo-Zionist WOULD turn their thoughts to a new Jewish homeland. However, you’d still have the problem of cross disease going on.
On a similar thread…would the US continue to allow the various Christian pogroms throughout Europe? I’m thinking they wouldn’t, and would put their foot down to stop them…or at least they we would try. Not sure how successful we would be unless we resorted to fairly draconian measures.
I’m wondering about Spain too. Wasn’t it controlled by the Moors in 1000 AD? Would we allow that situation to pretty much continue? I’m thinking we probably would…and there would BE no Spain on this new time line.
Also, what would happen when the various peoples of the world got access eventually to ‘history’ texts from our time line? Would this motivate them to try and change things, or would they try and make things that happened in our time line (like the Spain example, or Israel) happen in their own?
I think our diseases would be as deadly to both the native Central and South Americans as it would be to the Europeans. Like I said, even the common flu for us would be potentially worse than the plague (look at the early 1900 influenza pandemic). I suppose we would have to very carefully screen our representatives before we sent them out…and our troops too if we sent them out…to be sure they weren’t carrying anything deadly to the ‘natives’. And we’d have to ramp up, somehow, our vaccine and antibiotics industry to take care not only of us but of the ‘natives’ too. BTW, anyone know how down timers would react to things like our modern penicilline and such? I know that penicilline has evolved from what it was even a few decades ago. How would 1000 AD diseases and people react to it?
As to ourselves, I really meant that if folks took off on their own, striking out to form their own empires, they would most likely die grizzly deaths…and also kill most of those they wanted to rule. Thats one of the major reasons I just don’t see the US Government allowing people uncontrolled travel, at least not initially. I think that the US Government would initially clamp down completely on allowing regular citizens the ability to travel outside of the US.
Agree completely. No matter what the scenerio, America would totally dominate the world of 1000 AD…no doubt about it. And what the world from then on would look like would be a direct consequence of how America handled this. If America became a harsh and imperial power, if Americans became the new rulers of the world, the new aristocracy, then I think in the end it would all fall apart. If instead America became the LEADERS, instead of the RULERS, if we went in as teachers and mentors as well as leaders, if we developed trade and exported our political philosophy, then in time the world could be a much better place than it is even today. American hegemony with the US of Europe, Asia, Africa, Central and South America, etc. We could eliminate some of the more odious aspects of our history (pogroms against Jews, slavery of blacks, the whole colonial exploitation thing, incessent and perenial wars throughout Europe, etc etc).
Well, I see no real need for them in this scenerio and can certainly see the Government eliminating the things if not completely at least back to a very bare minimum. After all, what could they possibly be used for realistically? Bombing London because the Saxons wouldn’t do something we wanted them to do? Would be more trouble than it was worth as a flight of bombers would be much more effective…and a hell of a lot better at sending a message. And to the natives, probably equally frightening. Sure, the knowledge would still be there, and maybe in a few centuries someone would think to start making the damn things again…but if the US played the initial cards right, there would be a more homogenic and peaceful world than exists then…or today for that matter. And American hegemony would still be ruling all with peace and trade. And maybe a really cool space program. What other big ticket items would we have to spend all our money on a few centuries down the road??
As to what our present time line would be like if America suddenly disappeared, again I think initially there would be a hell of an economic collapse. Hell, it COULD all go tits up for that matter, sparking wars and everything else. If that didn’t happen, I suppose that eventually things would stablize. Europe would probably become the new center of gravity for the world (if they could get and keep their shit together and really COME together that is). China would still be a rising power. Japan and China would probably move closer together, and Tiawan would probably be fucked…they would most likely come back into the fold of China. The ME would most likely explode, and god knows what would happen to Israel…probably a blood bath after a serious of vicious wars where they crush army after army of arabs but eventually get completely overwhelmed. I can see nukes being used for sure in that region. I can also see North Korea making its bid to take over the south while everyone is distracted and or fighting it out in other areas. Again, it would be a blood bath…god knows the outcome.
As to the US armed forces, I’ve been thinking of this. How would we maintain them with just Hawaii and Alaska and a few protectorate islands like Guam and Puerto Rico? That stuff all costs a hell of a lot. Also, how would we re-arm and replace stuff? I’m thinking that, even if we could some how pull them out of places like Iraq and South Korea, we would never be able to maintain them. We’d be like the British were after the end of Empire…but even worse off. We couldn’t even give the navy to the British…they couldn’t really maintain it either, not in the long term. Maybe the EU. I think that taking back the US mainland by US forces is something we wouldn’t be capable of. In addition, I’m guessing that if the world managed not to go completely in the tank, the historian types would want the chance to study the natives in situ, the UN types would want to set up America as a sort of world treasure like Antartica, and a lot of the other countries of the world would not relish the thought of a new America, reguardless of how weak, with all those natural resources at its disposal again.
-XT
I don’t see how, on the one hand, the disappearance of the US from the modern world would be an economic disaster for the rest of us (true, I would imagine), but on the other hand the modern US sent back to the Dark Ages could happily carry on with anything like its current standard of living. You’d lose your entire export market at a stroke, not to mention all those lovely cheap imports, so you’d have to produce all that stuff yourselves - much more expensively, if you want to maintain your level of consumption, and assuming you could get the raw materials. And what are mediaeval countries supposed to give you in exchange for your products? They’d have, by your standards, no money and nothing to sell, so the prices the export market woud bear would be laughably low, essentially zero. Anyway, are they really going to be interested in buying computer software, TV sitcoms and Boeing 737s? Maybe the USA would quickly corner the market in top-quality carts and ploughshares, but that won’t sustain your current living standards.
I’d say there would be an economic collapse of such magnitude that all bets would be off - you’d be looking at mass starvation, revolution, the break up of the US, that sort of thing.
A few points regarding modern USA in 1000AD:
Are dried-up Texas oil wells refilled? This would make a big difference to the access to oil issue. Otherwise it’s obviously a straight run at reserves in Mexico, Venezuela, and Alberta. Probably a straight run at those anyways, I guess.
All satellites are gone. This would matter a good deal more than one might initially think, since it would cripple communications.
European nation-states are only just emerging. I seriously doubt whether Americans would be able to resist interfering. Just for example, I’d think that there’d be some folks from Boston who’d do their damnedest to prevent the English from ruling Ireland, and I’d expect many other similar situations. After all, a couple hundred members of the oppressed ethnic group of your choice could outfit themselves and save “their people” from imperial domination without much difficulty.
There’s two other book series that have a similar premise. One is Stirling’s Islands in the Sea of Time. It has modern-day Nantucket transported 3000 years in the past. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451456750/ref=pd_sim_books_1/103-2346483-4229469?v=glance&s=books
The other one has modern-day Californians finding a passage to an alternate America where Europeans never came. (The premise here is that the empire established by Alexander didn’t break up, leading to stagnation and precluding the Roman empire, development of Western Europe and other civilizations.) Same author.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451459334/qid=1082592703/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/103-2346483-4229469?v=glance&s=books
This might not be a problem, not right away. In 1632 it was a problem, the downtimers reading our history, because the English the Americans spoke, and the English(and other languages) the downtimers spoke, were intelligible to both sides, if sometimes a bit odd sounding. But in 1000 AD there wouldn’t be anyone who could read the modern English books. So unless we told them what was in them, or until downtimers learned modern English, and they would, the uptimers would have a big edge.
In 1000 AD the major power was not Europe but Byzantium. At that time it was at, arguably, the pinnacle of it’s power. Following Justinian in the 500’s the empire had shrunk down, but in the 800’s it began a resurgence. It’s art and culture were at their highest point. It was the center of civilization in our hemisphere. Dealing with them would be interesting.
Gorsnak, if this scenario followed that of the 1632 series then the modern US, transported to the past, would have to go elsewhere for the resources it had used up in our territory, in our time. In 1632 the Americans wondered if the natural gas wells they had were still there. It was later determined they were. It seems the what had gone downtime was, as best they could tell, a perfect sphere of space, about six miles across. So at their center they had all resources for three miles down. Towards the edges there would be less I assume. Everything for three miles up would have gone too. As it turned out there were no planes flying inside that “dome” of space, or there would have been a pilot with a major dilemma of how to land their plane.
I thought just occured to me…does anyone remember what happened to Japan, when the U.S. established contact with it in the 1860s? How they embraced industrialization and westernization, becoming a fairly major power, becoming a fairly serious adversary to the U.S. in Asia and the Pacific?
Well…imagine that happening with the rest of the 1000-A.D. Earth.
A long shot, sure. But still…yikes. 
I’d tell ya what I might do, if I were the transplanted U.S., but…y’all probably wouldn’t like it.