The Global South

 In order to hew close to the general spirit of "In much of the world, the new Middle Ages was a rerun of the old Middle Ages.", to establish America as unique, one has to sort of think about what it means. Europe, and to a certain extent, Japan fit into our ideas of a feudal society. The Muslim world of the time does not 100 percent correspond with our ideas of "medieval", but there was a medieval world it regularly interacted it. It's easy to imagine China as a distinct 1000-1500 version itself. But there are many places it's probably harder, even with this very far-fetched scenario, to set the clock back with.

I've before mentioned something akin to a grace period. That is "the rules" allow, with certain discretion, more elements that existed up to 1600. This would largely be regarded with perhaps a post-Byzantine Anatolia, or Latin America, where Mexico to Peru would be a society probably not too dissimilar to the post-Columbian world, but still recognizably medieval. But besides the former United States, many parts of the world can't simply be rerun. This is the global south.

Australia and New Zealand have been as thoroughly remade in the image of colonials as the United States, and even if, isolated from the sphere of its Anglican cousins, it begins to absorb the demographics and cultures of its geographic neighbors, it would still be very, irrevocably different from an Australia of the pre-1600's. Said isolation, and that suitable farming would make a very small sliver would mean any sort of agrarian medieval type societies would not be considerably large--the population would most likely tap out at three million, and New Zealand maybe just as much. In short it, would be radically different, but perhaps not really noticed by much of the world.

South America is always a tricky thing to think about resetting. Once again, the idea is it could split the difference between the Pre-Columbian and early Colonial society for much of the continent. The interior, particularly the Amazon Basin, could very likely be seen as reclaimed by the indigenous tribes. There's also very likely a chance Brazil, one of the major nations of the world today, gets hit hard by escarpment. That is, the very fertile highlands, and the easily traversed coasts, are so stratified by the cliffs without industrial intervention, that it's very hard to form larger and complex kingdoms. A lot of sustenance farming villages on the interior, a few trading ports on the beaches. But where we'll probably see the U.S. challenged in "New Middles Ages' by scope is the Southern Cone, which is by far the most Europeanized, has some of the best farmland and rivers, and is definitely in a place where it pursue its own destiny, even away from most of Catholic Latin America. Probably something like twenty million people live in a "whole new experience".

South Africa is perhaps the continent's nation that has been most touched by colonialism, but demographic displacement has also been considerably smaller than Australia or America. Those of European descent make up approximately 10%, and could easily be absorbed or ousted. However, a westernized cultural memory, and a relatively temperate climate, and strategic maritime locations could lean itself to denser and more urbanized populations than that area saw in the "original" middle ages.