A "what if" born from boredom

[sunnyside]

And is there any reason they couldn't have been devised in other countries?

Take that argument and we can say that the lack of America would make no difference whatsoever to history, because anything and everything it accomplished could be done by others.

Inventions maybe. I mean it seems everybody eventually gets to warp drive somehow.

But how things specifically went down, and especially timing independent stuff would be very different.

For example things would have been rather different if the US hadn't been the first to nuclear technology.

And at any rate we'd be further back on the tech curve now.

But I think the more telling stuff is the probability that either Germany or Russia would have been able to spread greatly if not achieve world dominitation.

[Teaos]

Well America has only been around for 200+ years but only been a real international player for the last hundred. So supposing the whole world isnt one big USSR I cant see the world being more than a decade behind where it is now.

[thelordharry]

And it's all thanks to Megatron!

[Mikey]

How does the loss of a "major player for a 100 years" translate to only the loss of a decade by standard?

[Teaos]

Because believe it or not there is a world outside of America, in this senario America still exist but just in a few medium sized blocks rather than one big one.

So other places like europe and the common wealth countiries and the American states could still build and create, it would just be slowed down.

[sunnyside]

While general technology would advance at some rate without America to eventually produce most if not all tech, specific applications could very well be lost.

For example without America there might never be electric guitars. Electric guitars are a wholly American development, based on American music styles.

Without America the guitar may have just fallen out of place over time as another classical instrument people don't tend to use outside of band class, if that. Like a bassoon. Or maybe they'd just hold mics to regular guiltars which wouldn't allow for some fo the distinctive sounds of an electric guitar.