Is this a metaphor for the 2nd Trumpy mis-administration?
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We shall see. (I hope the boulder is only big enough to crush the Tramp admin.)
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me, laughing at colonizers from centuries ago
Seriously, thoā¦ the ONLY reason Europeans were able to conquer the Americas was because of lack of immunity from diseases among the local population. Thereās a reason why europeans did not fully conquer Africa (and frankly, never actually did, because resistance never stopped) until the LATE 19th century - because they had the same immunity to disease that Europeans did, because trade and interactions had been happening on Afro-Eur-Asia forever.
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Iāve had the idea for an alternate history story where the Vikings (particularly Icelanders) settled much further south than just LāAnse aux Meadows, made peace with the Iroquoian First Nations, and found common cause with their mutual democratic governments. And by virtue of handwavium, the First Nations developed resistance to the European diseases, so that by the time the rest of Europe sailed across the Atlantic, the First Nations, by way of the Norse, had firearms and a disease resistant population to fight off European invasion.
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āOh course i know how a trebuchet works. Donāt you know who my father is?ā
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Thatās a really good basis for an alternate historyā¦
Yep! 
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It sure was in that case! I do wonder whether it still applies to both companiesā employees.
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Sounds cool, and makes me wonder how different the population of the 21st century would be in that alternate historyā¦ 
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Makes me think about an Orson Scott Card novel, Pastwatch, which deals with the original sin of European conquest, and in what way could it be āfixedāā¦ We just get a different 15th century that is meant to save the future from ecological collapse in the futureā¦ Still is too kind Columbus, but itās OSC, so, thatās probably to be expected.
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Sounds fun 
Have you read Kim Stanley Robinsonās The Years of Rice & Salt? In it, a plague almost entirely wiped out Europe.
If I am remembering this right, China wound up being the big bad colonizers, Japan discovered America and allied with them rather than taking it, and the Islamic world and India wound up as major world powers in conflict. All told through the story of a few characters getting reincarnated through multiple lives (well before Cloud Atlas did something similar). Very neat book, I need to figure out where it is in my stash and reread it.
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The potato famine still could have driven the Irish here.
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Thereās a whole lot of contingency behind that, as well.
One thing to remember about An Gorta MĆ³r is that the potato blight was natural, but the famine was entirely man-made.
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I am ashamed to say that for all my sf reading, I have never read any Kim Stanley Robinson.
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Oh, I have not read that! Iāll need to secure a copy if we donāt have one.
Would the famine have happened if the British werenāt in charge?
I donāt think thatās anything to be ashamed aboutā¦ there is so much sci-fi out thereā¦
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Yup. A good book on it is The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally (he wrote Schlinderās List)
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Nope. In this scenario, potatoes wouldnāt even have gotten to Ireland in the first place.
(I wrote a lengthy potato post at TOP but I still havenāt salvaged it and canāt be asked to do it right now.)
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a Viking helmet that gives the possessor legal claim to North America.
Still a colonialism mindset; it was almost impossible to think any other way at the time, I guess.
What I envision in my story is peaceful co-existence and sharing of ideas because of the democratic set up of both the Norse and the Iroquoians.
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But - itās a magic helmet!
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The Lost Charts of Columbus has a twist:
In the epilogue, Donald and his nephews look at the tablet upside-down and learn itās actually a claim to Europe, made by Native American explorers who sailed east and discovered āa new worldā - meaning that, by Europeās own Charlemagne Laws, the Native Americans own Europe. Donald and his nephews comment about how it will finally make the U.N. revoke the Code of Discovery law. In the corner of the last panel, a portrait of Columbus is shown wrinkling his face in disgust.
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