SD.Net in The Sea Of Time

[PeZook]

Hmm, maybe posting a guard shift on the docks would be wise, too.

That's a good solution ; People may try to cross to the mainland in canoes, rowboats and pontoons, but they're more likely to get themselves killed that way (30 miles is nothing for someone who knows what he's doing, an amateur would almost certainly get lost) - the only threat would come from people who manage to get their hands on a motorboat or even a sailboat, if they know how to handle one.

That's a good cover story, really. My comment about females was reflected from the writings of Lewis & Clark, who credited Sacajawea's prescence as disarming among various tribes. But while that may be the case for Midwest & Rocky Mountain societies, it may not hold true for Seaboard communities. And Lewis & Clark may have misread the reasons behind her ability to get along.

I wasn't aware of that, but I'd guess it was because she was an Indian woman in the company of two white men. I'd guess that the reason she was so disarming was because she was the guide for two healthy men. She carried a baby on her back, and yet Lewis & Clark needed her to navigate the country.

Put yourself in the shoes of people who spend their life fighting, hunting and travelling dozens of miles on foot with ease, after they see such a sight

It had to be pretty funny for them.

The thing about safeguarding horses holds true, yes... a coastal watch eventually will have to be posted once we have made contact with the natives and they are aware ofour presence.

We have a lot of coast to cover, though. Of course, the fact we're an island kid of limits the options of anybody coming to steal horses: I think the bigger threat lies in somebody stealing horses from our allies, and then these allies coming to us asking we send some warriors to take vengeance.

As for getting involved in local wars, well, that will have to be considered based on the situation at the time. It may actually benefit us, in some way, to make a display of "don't fuck with us".

We'll have to build a good understanding of local politics and customs before we get involved, though. The locals may not see our way of waging war as acceptable: most of the time, for indian tribes, war meant taking a band of fighters with you and doing something brave, stealing things like horses or kidnapping women. Killing enemies was secondary, it brought more fame to touch an enemy and escape alive.

On the other hand, if we go to war, there's gonna be death, and lots of it. And we'll almost certainly make an enemy forever, since if an Indian tribe went to total war with the objective of defeating an entire enemy tribe, they'd kill everyone.

Like it or not, it can also be an accepted way (for the time) to obtain females.

It was, actually. Kidnapping a wife from another tribe was quite common. Of course, we don't really have to: there's plenty of reasons our allies would want their daughters to marry into our tribe.

[LadyTevar]

AHEM --

Just a simple search of Wiki confirmed what I had thought: We will have not have that big a problem with Vit-C, thanks to North America's native berry population. Blackberries, blueberries, concord grapes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragaria_v ... rawberries, and black currants. As for missing Bananas, you will be happy to know there is the 'poor-man's banana' -- the PawPaw. It can be used in nearly any recipe calling for bananas.

[LadyTevar]

AhhA!

Fruits of North American origin

Canada and the United States are home to a surprising number of edible plants, especially berries; however, only three are commercially grown/known on a global scale (grapes, cranberries, and blueberries.) Many of the fruits below are still eaten locally as they have been for centuries and others are generating renewed interest by eco-friendly gardeners (less need for bug control) and chefs of the region alike.

* American chestnut (Castanea dentata; Fagaceae)
* American Black Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis; Adoxaceae)
* American grape: North American species (e.g., Vitis labrusca; Vitaceae)
* American Hazelnut (Corylus americana; Betulaceae)
* American Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum; Berberidaceae)
* American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana; Ebenaceae): Traditional for desserts and as dried fruit.
* American plum (Prunus americana; Rosaceae)
* American Red Elderberry (Sambucus pubens; Adoxaceae)
* American Red Raspberry (Rubus strigosus; Rosaceae)
* Beach Plum (Prunus maritima; Rosaceae)
* Black cherry (Prunus serotina; Rosaceae) - very popular flavoring for pies, jams, and sweets.
* Black raspberry (Rubus occidentalis or Rubus leucodermis; Rosaceae)
* Black Walnut (Juglans nigra; Juglandaceae)
* Blueberry (Vaccinium, sect. Cyanococcus; Ericaceae)
* Buffaloberry (Shepherdia argenta; Elaeagnaceae), which grows wild in the prairies of Canada
* Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana; Rosaceae)
* Cocoplum (Chrysobalanus icaco; Chrysobalanaceae)
* Cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccus; Ericaceae)
* Eastern May Hawthorn (Crataegus aestivalis; Rosaceae, better known as mayhaw.)
* False-mastic (Mastichodendron foetidissimum; Sapotaceae)
* Florida strangler fig (Ficus aurea; Moraceae)
* Ground Plum (Astragalus caryocarpus; Fabaceae), also called Ground-plum, milk-vetch
* Huckleberry (Gaylussacia, Vaccinium; Ericaceae))
* Maypop (Passiflora incarnata; Passifloracae, traditionally a summer treat.)
* Muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia; Vitaceae)
* Pawpaw (Asimina triloba; Annonaceae, not to be confused with Papaya (Carica papaya; Caricaceae), which is called pawpaw in some English dialects)
* Pecan (Carya illinoinensis or illinoensis; Juglandaceae)
* Prickly pear (Opuntia spp.; Cactaceae) used as both a fruit and vegetable depending on part of plant.
* Pigeon plum (Coccoloba diversifolia; Polygonaceae)
* Red mulberry (Morus rubra; Moraceae)
* Salal berry (Gaultheria shallon; Ericaceae)
* Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis; Rosaceae)
* Saskatoonberry (Amelanchier alnifolia, Rosaceae)
* Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens; Arecaceae)
* Southern crabapple (Malus angustifola; Rosaceae)
* Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana; Ebenaceae)
* Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus; Rosaceae)
* Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia; Rosaceae)

[FireNexus]

I'm sorry, but I can't take seriously a universe in which the distortion event that results in Nantucket being sent back in time to an alternate stone age time also results in the rest of the world that's left behind suddenly finds that gunpowder doesn't work, electricity doesn't work, etc.

If such a profound change of the physical laws of the universe occured, everyone would die horribly; and I don't mean this in the "lol die horribly" sense, but the "we all die horribly with blood running out of every bodily orifice as everything our bodies relied on to work no longer works".

It's an act of Q scenario, though. What does it matter how impossible that change is, really? Is it that much less impossible than an island being transported back in time 3000 years? I'm not sure why he decided to connect the two, but what does it really matter? It's a mechanism to tell a story. A big, obvious mechanism, but one none the less. The force is impossible, too. So are turbolasers and death stars.

[Samuel]

I'm sorry, but I can't take seriously a universe in which the distortion event that results in Nantucket being sent back in time to an alternate stone age time also results in the rest of the world that's left behind suddenly finds that gunpowder doesn't work, electricity doesn't work, etc.

If such a profound change of the physical laws of the universe occured, everyone would die horribly; and I don't mean this in the "lol die horribly" sense, but the "we all die horribly with blood running out of every bodily orifice as everything our bodies relied on to work no longer works".

It's an act of Q scenario, though. What does it matter how impossible that change is, really? Is it that much less impossible than an island being transported back in time 3000 years? I'm not sure why he decided to connect the two, but what does it really matter? It's a mechanism to tell a story. A big, obvious mechanism, but one none the less. The force is impossible, too. So are turbolasers and death stars.

I think he objects to something that isn't internally consistent- Star Wars isn't, but it manages to have it deeper inside the story, not openly on the surface where it stares at you.

[FireNexus]

I think he objects to something that isn't internally consistent- Star Wars isn't, but it manages to have it deeper inside the story, not openly on the surface where it stares at you.

What's inconsistent about it? I can think of any number of reasonable (in the context of that universe) explanations for the two events being connected. Sometimes events that seem like they shouldn't be are. Also, thinking about it, the reasons for connecting the two are easy. They're very thematically similar stories, so why not put them in the same universe?

[fgalkin]

I think he objects to something that isn't internally consistent- Star Wars isn't, but it manages to have it deeper inside the story, not openly on the surface where it stares at you.

What's inconsistent about it? I can think of any number of reasonable (in the context of that universe) explanations for the two events being connected. Sometimes events that seem like they shouldn't be are. Also, thinking about it, the reasons for connecting the two are easy. They're very thematically similar stories, so why not put them in the same universe?

Electricity no longer works (at all! Anywhere!) but people somehow survive?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Academia Nut]

I think the problem is that of degree of suspension of disbelief between the events, namely that its alot easier to accept a single time travel event than such a fundamental change to physics that electronics, gunpowder, internal combustion, and steam engines no longer work but we don't all keel over from the fact that we work on the same basic principles as those. Plus Shep probably doesn't like any story where high explosives are taken away from him. There's probably also annoyance that there is really no connection between the IitSoT series and the DtF series except in a reversal of themes and some incidental and tangential dropping of names and the like, so tying them together seems unnecessary, especially for anyone who wanted to keep reading about Nantucket in the Bronze Age, especially as there were quite a few story threads left hanging and begging for sequels in the last book.

[PeZook]

Of course, the only thing this scenario has in common with SoT is the fucking title, so...

[KrauserKrauser]

One thing that I'm not sure about is the amount of data that will be available on the computers / whether any form of internet will be available. I am assuming nothing will survive as everything is stored in places other than the island but if we could get ahold of a patent library or some such it would save us oh so much time in trying to reinvent the wheel on technologies.

I know there will be a limited technical library that could be scrounged from the various schools and homes and more than likely we will run into some houses with significant collections of books but as far as detailed technical manuals I don't see where we could get a good supply of, hence the desire for some internet usage but alas I'm guessing that's not available.

Luckily we'll have bicycles to make some crap human power generators at worst and a plentiful supply of batteries though solar is probably going to be very limited on the island as the area is not known for it's sunny climate. Some of the houses in the area may be getting some of their power from geothermal which would be a great benefit with the lower number of moving parts to work with.

I would think that making friends with the local tribes should be relatively trivial as we have technologies well beyond their understanding and even a simple iron axe would be greatly valued there. Hopefully that can get them on good enough terms to allow for vaccination of the locals before the epidimics start and they may be even friendlier when they see all the tribes unfriendly with us suffering from 50% die offs.

We basically are inheriting an island that should have resources for ~30k people for ~4k and should have a significant surplus in the short term.

[Alferd Packer]

WRT to generating electricity, we're probably going to progress from biomass to wood to coal, though this may take a while. I think our permanent power plant is going to have to be on the mainland, because we really don't have the ships needed to haul back industrial quantities of fuel.

Perhaps, if we're lucky, the landscape of mainland Massachusetts or Rhode Island will permit us to construct a hydroelectric dam on a small or medium scale. That's probably a longer-term project, though, to be undertaken after a generation or three. Microhydro should be possible, however, for powering ventures we might be undertaking out in the frontier. Hell, that'd be a great export to local Indian tribes: microhydro setups to power any number of tasks(the first that leaps to mind is grain milling). In return, they could perhaps supply us with lumber for our woodgas power plant, because I imagine gathering and preparing an industrial level of biomass is going to be extremely labor intensive, and we'll need all the help we can get.

Another thought occurs: what about education? I suspect that the Indians are going to want to know how things work, and while it may be difficult to educate the adults, what's stopping us from, say, offering free education to the tribe's children? This, of course, ignores the obligation to educate our own children. Since the majority of our kids are going to be products of a union between one of us and a native woman/man, it might make sense to educate them alongside fully native children, to begin homogenizing the culture.

[Darth Wong]

Windmills make more sense for power generation in a sparsely populated island, especially if it gets good gusts from the ocean. Other types of power generation require more sophisticated techniques, organization of labour, security, etc. Windmills, on the other hand, require no fuel, and can be totally decentralized, with one powering each house. You can build one almost entirely out of wood, needing only a few basic electrical components for the power generation.

Obviously they don't give you the kind of reliable power on demand that you can get from other kinds of sources, but they're so much easier to build, maintain, and connect to dwellings in a low-infrastructure environment that this outweighs their drawbacks IMO.

In any case, I think it would probably be a mistake to try to replicate modern convenience in such a primitive era. We would probably become accustomed to cooking over wood fires because that's so much easier.

[Darth Wong]

I know there will be a limited technical library that could be scrounged from the various schools and homes and more than likely we will run into some houses with significant collections of books but as far as detailed technical manuals I don't see where we could get a good supply of, hence the desire for some internet usage but alas I'm guessing that's not available.

On an island with thousands of people living on it, I don't think it would be difficult to get some decent technical books. Even one engineer probably has a set of old university textbooks (I know I do) that would contain much of the next three thousand years of technological and scientific knowledge, at least in the areas of physics and chemistry. We would also probably be able to find useful medical texts and farming texts if we look around.

Mind you, modern paper only lasts for a few centuries before it starts to break down, but that would be more than enough time for much of this knowledge to be disseminated widely and copied in various forms, unless our society is a complete failure and disintegrates into nothing.

Luckily we'll have bicycles to make some crap human power generators at worst and a plentiful supply of batteries though solar is probably going to be very limited on the island as the area is not known for it's sunny climate. Some of the houses in the area may be getting some of their power from geothermal which would be a great benefit with the lower number of moving parts to work with.

As I said above, I believe windmills are the easiest way to generate power in an isolated low-tech environment like this. It's intermittent, but that should still suffice for a while. It still grants many modern conveniences, albeit intermittently, with far less infrastructure than modern-style power generation.

I would think that making friends with the local tribes should be relatively trivial as we have technologies well beyond their understanding and even a simple iron axe would be greatly valued there. Hopefully that can get them on good enough terms to allow for vaccination of the locals before the epidimics start and they may be even friendlier when they see all the tribes unfriendly with us suffering from 50% die offs.

We won't even be able to speak their language, and I don't think you will be able to convince a primitive native to let you stick him with a needle. It's probably best to avoid contact, to be honest. Our number one priority will be getting water purification up and running. Even though it's a modern environment in a primitive time, it doesn't run by itself. There will be plenty of bottled water around, but that only lasts so long. Eventually we have to either get existing water treatment plants up and running, or find other solutions. Rather than worrying about native health, we should first be worried about our own. Clean water is something we take for granted in the modern world. Without it, sickness and death can swiftly follow.

Luckily, as LT points out, foraging could be a very viable way of collecting food. Nevertheless, we'll need clean water.

Frankly, I think the natives will either hate us or be terrified of us, or both. Mere contact with us will cause massive changes to their ecosystem. Most people today don't realize that the forests of pre-colonial times in the Americas were totally different. We brought critters and plants which radically altered the landscape. The natives saw their world changing before their eyes, obviously as a result of the foreign invaders' presence. We would have the same influence. Did you know that there were no earthworms in the Americas before the Europeans came? Of course, earthworms are actually good for the soil, but they will still change the environment, and that will be terribly disturbing to people who have become accustomed to a fairly stable environment for many generations.

[PeZook]

Frankly, I think the natives will either hate us or be terrified of us, or both. Mere contact with us will cause massive changes to their ecosystem. Most people today don't realize that the forests of pre-colonial times in the Americas were totally different. We brought critters and plants which radically altered the landscape. The natives saw their world changing before their eyes, obviously as a result of the foreign invaders' presence. We would have the same influence. Did you know that there were no earthworms in the Americas before the Europeans came? Of course, earthworms are actually good for the soil, but they will still change the environment, and that will be terribly disturbing to people who have become accustomed to a fairly stable environment for many generations.

Historically, first contact with the natives was often peaceful, as long as the visitors were deemed non-threatening enough to warrant so. We are not going to introduce the kind wide sweeping changes as the Europeans did, because there's gonna be so few of us. If we are careful, keep to ourselves and try not to impress our own culture upon them due to a misguided sense of mission, we should be just fine. Especially if we help them out in ways they can understand and appreciate. They won't appreciate vaccinations, because they lack the mental tools and knowledge to do so, but they will appreciate better tools and knowledge how to make them, or horses, or improved farming techniques. They will also probably not accept our offer to educate their children. Why would they? Indian men needed to learn many skills that we couldn't teach them, take part in their rituals and rites of passage, go to war etc.

We'd have a hard time convincing them to let us take their children away to teach them useless stuff like reading. Especially since their very language may not even have the necessary words to form arguments for this. This goes double for the indian sign language, which is probably what we'll be using the most during our contacts.

One thing that's a danger, besides dumbasses offending our neighboring tribes, is people wondering what happened to Nantucket's native Indian population all of a sudden. People who maintained contact with them are going to be...pretty worried. I'm not sure if the island already had a native population in 1250 BCE or not, though.

[Coyote]

It'd probably be a good idea to hook up generators to two places: a medical station and a library, where we'd hook in a bunch of computers to put data together and print it out. The generator for the medical station may run constantly if we need to keep something running, but the one for the library may be turned off during off-peak times.

For-at home use, windmills will work, and if for some reason someone feels the need for a more steady, reliable power source then people can rig generators to bicycles or treadmills or hand cranks as needed. Or, if we had to, use animal-powered turnstile type systems. Eventually, though, we'd have to get to using an old-fashioned water wheel, which would be on the mainland, and we'd be limited to the wiring we have on hand. A lot of useless appliances and buildings can be cannibalized for wire, so we should have a decent surplus for a bit.

Let's try to avoid candles and oil lamps as much as possible, though. A fire can spread quickly and turn us all into instant paupers. Instant vulnerable paupers.

[Darth Wong]

It'd probably be a good idea to hook up generators to two places: a medical station and a library, where we'd hook in a bunch of computers to put data together and print it out. The generator for the medical station may run constantly if we need to keep something running, but the one for the library may be turned off during off-peak times.

You probably wouldn't get anything useful out of the computers. Modern library computers tend to rely on Internet resources. At best, you might be able to access an index for the library's in-stock books, and even that is probably stored off-site at some server. It would be easier to just walk through the library and try to identify the most useful areas by eye. Books are typically sorted in groups appropriate to subject, after all. Once you find the section on farming, you can stick a big sign on that shelf block.

For-at home use, windmills will work, and if for some reason someone feels the need for a more steady, reliable power source then people can rig generators to bicycles or treadmills or hand cranks as needed. Or, if we had to, use animal-powered turnstile type systems. Eventually, though, we'd have to get to using an old-fashioned water wheel, which would be on the mainland, and we'd be limited to the wiring we have on hand. A lot of useless appliances and buildings can be cannibalized for wire, so we should have a decent surplus for a bit.

Let's try to avoid candles and oil lamps as much as possible, though. A fire can spread quickly and turn us all into instant paupers. Instant vulnerable paupers.

We might want to knock down every other house, just so that fires are less likely to spread from one house to another. It's not as if we need them all anyway, and we could gut and cannibalize them for wiring and other goodies in the process, perhaps storing useful material in large warehouses.

[MKSheppard]

You will need to allow gun ownership and dissemination amongst SDNet rather than locking them up in armories and police stations.

Reason why is that we're 22 to 9 miles from Massachusetts, and primitive peoples who fish the area are capable of making that voyage. What do you think they will do when they hear that magical people have appeared with magical boom sticks and items? Why, they'll try to steal them from us.

We'll have to basically abandon much of the houses on Nantucket as we don't have the numbers to guard the whole island from infiltration at once. So a major objective will probably be to extract as much resources from the houses in the dead zone and store them within fortified stockades which will guard against infiltration at night.

[Darth Wong]

You will need to allow gun ownership and dissemination amongst SDNet rather than locking them up in armories and police stations.

Yeah right, widespread gun ownership among a population primarily composed of teens, not to mention the fact that a lot of those teens seem to be social outcasts who rely on medication to control their emotional problems. Brilliant idea. No, it should be restricted to people who have shown themselves to be responsible, and we need some kind of early warning system for native incursions that require an armed response.

[MKSheppard]

Yeah right, widespread gun ownership among a population primarily composed of teens, not to mention the fact that a lot of those teens seem to be social outcasts who rely on medication to control their emotional problems. Brilliant idea. No, it should be restricted to people who have shown themselves to be responsible, and we need some kind of early warning system.

Obviously, we wouldn't be handing them out to everyone -- but we can't just keep them all locked up in police stations. And for early warning, how? Nantucket is pretty big; while I have no doubt we can keep the main harbor locked down pretty tight with roving shifts of guards; what about the rest of the island? There are large amounts of houses spread out all over the island, like for example the town around the USCG Loran Station.

[Darth Wong]

Yeah right, widespread gun ownership among a population primarily composed of teens, not to mention the fact that a lot of those teens seem to be social outcasts who rely on medication to control their emotional problems. Brilliant idea. No, it should be restricted to people who have shown themselves to be responsible, and we need some kind of early warning system.

Obviously, we wouldn't be handing them out to everyone -- but we can't just keep them all locked up in police stations.

I don't think anyone was saying that 100% of the weapons would be locked up all the time. But it seems to me that we would need to have certain people who are permitted to have firearms, rather than an anarchic situation.

And for early warning, how? Nantucket is pretty big; while I have no doubt we can keep the main harbor locked down pretty tight with roving shifts of guards; what about the rest of the island? There are large amounts of houses spread out all over the island, like for example the town around the USCG Loran Station.

We would ideally resurrect an old-fashioned telephone system. Obviously, we're not going to be keeping these modern digital systems working, but if we concentrate our dwellings into one defensible part of the island, we can probably get old-fashioned copper-wire hand-switched telephone systems working, even if we have to use those hand-cranks to make them work. That's an early warning system; it allows people to communicate with each other. Other defensive measures include putting bars on all the windows in the houses, reinforcing doors, etc. so that it's harder to break in. In addition to the phones, we could put air horns on the house roofs so that people can alert the community if they detect incursions and they have to wake a lot of people up right now.

If people insist on spreading out all over the island with no regard for how defensible our makeshift city is, then quite frankly, that's their damned problem. They shouldn't be so foolish.

[Alferd Packer]

We might want to knock down every other house, just so that fires are less likely to spread from one house to another. It's not as if we need them all anyway, and we could gut and cannibalize them for wiring and other goodies in the process, perhaps storing useful material in large warehouses.

This is actually a great idea; a given house is going to have all sorts of useful things in it, chief among those being several thousand pounds of copper per house in its various forms: electrical, telephone, and coaxial wiring, and plumbing. Additionally, fiberglass insulation can be recovered and re-used, as can major appliances (for their electric motors and other components, mainly). Electrical outlets, light switches, screws and nails, windows, doors...it all can and should be saved.

This might actually serve as a way to keep incorrigible teenagers busy: rather than worrying about them wrecking shit indiscriminately, channel their destructive tendencies into a useful activity. A crew of ten or twenty kids, supervised by a few adults, could be a formidable wrecking crew. Ideally, we would set up, say, a dozen such crews, though more may be needed. The idea would be to work the worst troublemakers so hard that they're too exhausted to stir shit up in their free time...or just give them flat-out zero free time.

Also, it should probably be noted that unless this timewarp occurs in the middle of July, these unruly teenagers will only have a few weeks of usable anarchy time; after that, all the readily available food will be spoiled or eaten, and the only people who'll have food are those who had the foresight to pull canned/dry goods from the grocery stores and started fishing(that is to say, the adults of the community). So now, these little anarchist punks are going to be cold, hungry, possibly sick/injured, and scared. They'll probably be begging to come back into the fold and will gladly work grueling 14-hour days if it means they're warm and reasonably fed.

[Darth Wong]

With appropriate adult supervision, a lot of teens might actually be happier doing that kind of work. While they are loathe to admit it, a lot of teens have serious problems with not knowing what the world expects of them, or putting effort into work for which they don't really grasp any importance. In this kind of environment, they would know exactly what is expected of them, they will intuitively grasp why it's important, they will learn useful mechanical skills, and if the supervisors are chosen well, they will get real validation in the form of sincere praise for genuine hard work which is useful and important to society, as opposed to that worthless fake self-esteem praise for simply existing or doing pointless make-work. Of course, this is contingent upon the teens in question being decent human beings. The assholes will still be assholes.

The real stress would be upon the adult decision-makers, who would have to make the right decisions to ensure the survival and prosperity of the community despite being taken away from most of the social infrastructure they've come to rely on.

[Zwinmar]

Early warning systems are not that hard to get working; from hand cranked alarms- the kind the old fire trucks used, to an air horn. On the plus side this would also scare the hell out of any natives.

I would suggest a QRF to always be on standby, even just a platoon with proper training will be formidable opponent, escpecially if we can find any riot gear.

[KrauserKrauser]

One thing we should not expect is the massive wildlife that early Europeans encountered from those pigeons that we hunted to extinction to the massive raoming herds of Bison, nothing will have that 200+ year window of a depopulated North America to grow in numbers.

On the upside we can go get ourselves some Dodo birds if we want. Given that they are relatively unaware of humans there might be a chance at domestication, though that is pie in the sky stuff.

Sadly if wiki is to be believed we are too late for Wooly Mammoths, that would have been a great addition, not that they would have in any way been domesticable but damn that would be neat. There is some evidence that we are about 250 years late for the Asian Wooly Mammoth so there may be some in the world on our arrival, you never know.

Aurochs and Tarpan could still be found in Poland as well as a ton of things we've probably never uncovered. I do feel for North America's bird populations as Rats are going to fuck their shit up.

Also Hooray no more Kudzu! No more Nutria! Say good bye Rabbits in Australia!

[Junghalli]

Mind you, modern paper only lasts for a few centuries before it starts to break down, but that would be more than enough time for much of this knowledge to be disseminated widely and copied in various forms, unless our society is a complete failure and disintegrates into nothing.

I find it funny imagining the mindfuck the ruins on Nantucket would be for future archaeologists if that did happen. It'd make an interesting puzzle: high-tech ruins just plopped down in a primitive world, with no other trace of the civilization that created them. Even worse, imagine if European history was unaffected by anything we did, so they'll be digging up remains with recognizable English lettering.