Status of Natural Disasters in timelines?

[GrahamB]

I was reading the thread rules and noted that the rules/guidelines for 'what constitutes an ASB subject' make no mention of natural disasters or plagues as qualifiers. Does this mean that natural disasters do not qualify for ASB rules or are they assumed to be 'geologic/evolutionary changes' and are thus ASB subjects?
For Example:
- is the subject "What if the Great Kanto Earthquake happened on date X instead of September 1, 1923?" a geologic POD and thus ASB?
- is the subject "What if the Black Death of 1346-1353 more/less deadly?" an evolutionary POD and thus ASB?

I asked on the ASB forum a month ago and got ZERO responses, so I figured I'd ask again here. Any advice on the matter would be helpful.

 

[Crazymachines]

As a rule you have a lot more wiggle room when it comes to weather as opposed to other natural disasters

 

[Analytical Engine]

That depends very much on what the natural disaster is.

Things that are definitely ASB: ahistoric asteroids, supernovae, comets, rogue planets etc.
Things that are probably ASB: earthquakes, volcanoes*
Things that aren't ASB: bad weather events, solar flares, plagues - provided that they happen sufficiently far after the POD





*I call them "probably", since we really don't know enough about either to say one way or another. I provisionally put them under ASB because there's nothing to suggest otherwise. At the very least, earthquakes and volcanoes should occur very close to the OTL date, provided they are sufficiently far away from the POD. Things like novae and supernovae probably fit here as well - the very final stages of a star's life take place very quickly by astronomical terms

 

[Northstar]

I was reading the thread rules and noted that the rules/guidelines for 'what constitutes an ASB subject' make no mention of natural disasters or plagues as qualifiers. Does this mean that natural disasters do not qualify for ASB rules or are they assumed to be 'geologic/evolutionary changes' and are thus ASB subjects?
For Example:
- is the subject "What if the Great Kanto Earthquake happened on date X instead of September 1, 1923?" a geologic POD and thus ASB?
- is the subject "What if the Black Death of 1346-1353 more/less deadly?" an evolutionary POD and thus ASB?

I asked on the ASB forum a month ago and got ZERO responses, so I figured I'd ask again here. Any advice on the matter would be helpful.

It will come down as to whether it can be affected by human interaction or not.

Plagues - can essentially be manmade due to the keeping of livestock and interaction between humans and animals.
Wildfires - can be human affected due to methods of fire prevention (or not) or the displacement/genocide of native populations that would normally burn out underbush
Hurricanes - well, you might be able to make some argument that pollution from humans could affect air currents

Asteroid impact... er, probably not going to be impacted by humans.

So yeah, as a rule of thumb, if you can explain it with human activity and butterflies, then go for it.

Northstar

 

[More Than A Feeling]

It will come down as to whether it can be affected by human interaction or not.

Plagues - can essentially be manmade due to the keeping of livestock and interaction between humans and animals.
Wildfires - can be human affected due to methods of fire prevention (or not) or the displacement/genocide of native populations that would normally burn out underbush
Hurricanes - well, you might be able to make some argument that pollution from humans could affect air currents

Asteroid impact... er, probably not going to be impacted by humans.

So yeah, as a rule of thumb, if you can explain it with human activity and butterflies, then go for it.

Northstar

One thing I have to note is those types of things cannot be too extreme. For example a hurricane season of all category 5s is ASB. Same goes for every forest having a wildfire simultaneously.

 

[GrahamB]

Good points all so far, perhaps I should make an additional proviso/rewording of the question: Assuming all following butterflies are reasonable and follow forum rules, is an ahistorical natural disaster a valid non-ASB POD?

 

[Captain Seafort]

Asteroid impact... er, probably not going to be impacted by humans.

It might be. If an asteroid that historically missed the planet by a whisker (astronomically speaking) gets hit by an ATL interplanetary probe (or OTL probe with ATL launch date), that might be enough to put it on a collision course.