New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yeah but the Japanese wouldn't have gotten much out of the deal.

If the Japanese had gotten the eastern third of Siberia they'd have gotten a vast treasure house of reasources. Hitler wanted the vast wheatfields of western Russia, the smaller colder half of Siberia he'd have probably ignored.

[adm]

Originally Posted by scc

Is there a reason he refused to convoy supply ships with troops ships?

There were two convoy set ups. One for fast ships, that included troop ships, as we as other fast ships. and slow convoys for less "critical" supplies, the slow convoys were the ones that would have to make do without full escorts until enough could be built, note that nearer to Great Britain escorts would cover out bound convoys, and then switch to inbound ones. German U-Boats that could patrol off the East Coast of the U.S. were relatively low in number as compared to the shorter range boats that could patrol off of the British Isles early in the war.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. On this Q6 world superheroes have historical effects. Carter Hall (Hawkman) and Ted Knight (Starman) colaberate in 1942 to create a means to make full size cargo ships fly. Between Hawkman's Nith Metal and Starman Cosmic Ray collectors, they succeed. There was no battle of the Atlantic, the Americans built vast flying saucers to transport troops and material.

From August of 1942 on, Germany and Japan were subjected to bombing raids from saucers far to high for their fighters to reach.

Following an idea given to Hawkman and Starman by Arthur C. Clarke, though his friend and lover Happy Terrill (The Ray), in November of 1942 the first comunication satilites go into orbit.

Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal, are all interested in this parallel mainly because of Nith Metal seems to retain some of its properties in any parallel. Meanwhile, Centrum is looking to recruit the soon to be unemployed Nazi supers. They see them as expendable trash to throw against Homeline. Meanwhile the Cabal is looking for help against Midwinter Anton (Nazi Mages allied with demon lords) to keep them form recriuting Nazi supers.

Moree later...

It's later. The local year is 1944. The war is ending early mainly because of the American saucers. The USA, both to facilitate comunications and to aid weather prediction, has built orbital space stations. A trip to the Moon is planed in 1946. Wonder Woman has gotten Paula to build copies of the Purple Healing Ray. FDR is no longer wheelchair bound.

The Nazis know they're losing. The Russians want blood vengeance and lots of it. The Americans, if the least vengeful, speak of trials for "Crimes Against Humanity" the Antarctic hideout is filled with fanatical lunatics. Mysterious strangers are offering a hope of escape to some Axis supers, scientists, and other talents.

Swagmen, corrupted Cabalists, Centrum agents looking for dupes, the Icops need to thwart them all.

Meanwhile, the local weird-tech looks really interesting.

[adm]

Originally Posted by scc

My understanding of things is that the Emperor had little to do with starting WW2, is this wrong?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

He played no substantive role in making policy. They kept him informed though and in theory he could have stopped them. But the semi-divine status of the emperor depended heavily on not making decisions so that they would not be blamed for the outcomes of decisions. Things have to get pretty desperate before an emperor will act.

Japanese Emperors were almost always figure heads for the people who actually ran the Government, Hirohito did object, but if he had been very vigorous about it he would likely have had an "accident" and been replaced by a family member who knew his place in Japan.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by adm

Japanese Emperors were almost always figure heads for the people who actually ran the Government, Hirohito did object, but if he had been very vigorous about it he would likely have had an "accident" and been replaced by a family member who knew his place in Japan.

The important thing was that he was a symbol, indeed THE symbol, of Imperial Japan. This is in large part why many Allied leaders at the time wanted to put him on trial for the war crimes committed by the Japanese military (along with a strong desire among the American military and political leaders to force Japan to become a US-style democracy), IIRC, and is also the reason that doing so would result in Japan becoming America's Northern Ireland But Ten Times Bloodier.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

The important thing was that he was a symbol, indeed THE symbol, of Imperial Japan. This is in large part why many Allied leaders at the time wanted to put him on trial for the war crimes committed by the Japanese military (along with a strong desire among the American military and political leaders to force Japan to become a US-style democracy), IIRC, and is also the reason that doing so would result in Japan becoming America's Northern Ireland But Ten Times Bloodier.

It's worse then that, the Emperor had nothing to do with what happened and in fact might have been the one person in Japan that could have stopped it, getting rid of him does nothing to stop it happening again and likely makes a re-occurrence more likely.

[YankeeGamer]

In OTL's 1904, an early radio detection system was invented in Germany. However, suppose that it was worked on in secret. By the time the Great War begins, it's still crude. But, it is just good enough that, one day when visibility is poor in the North Sea, the High Seas Fleet detects the Royal Navy with it. An early Jutland opens up with the Hoscheseeflotte in line of battle, crews at battle stations, as torpedo boats race in on the British ships--which are not at battle staions, and in cruising formation.

The crash of exploding torpedoes lets the British know that they are under attack, just as the dreadnoughts break through the fog, guns trained outboard.

An hour later, the Royal Navy's battle line is history, with survivors straggling into port.

Armistice talks begin a week later...

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

If the Japanese had gotten the eastern third of Siberia they'd have gotten a vast treasure house of reasources..

They'd have gotten a vast treasure house of undeveloped and mostly unprospected resources. What they would not have got was the steel and petroleum they desperately needed.

[YankeeGamer]

Not sure what to name this timeline; it's not a Lucifer, with destruction unimaginable, but it IS a meteor strike. Local time is 1900 (because I haven;t taken the timeline any further, yet.) I'm developing it as a story for the alternate history board, but thought people here might enjoy the outline. (No Infinity, etc in my story, but it seems like a worthwhile timeline.)

On Tuesday, June 6, 1876, the United States changed forever. There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t know about the Franconia Meteorite, and Crater Lake. But, you can’t learn about the days right after it happened, without knowing about the United States as it was then. The country had long since expanded all the way to California, but the midsection was mostly empty, fueling yet another westward movement.

Wyatt Earp had arrived at Dodge City; this was the time of the “Old West” so beloved of authors and moviemakers. General Custer was about to lead his 7th cavalry into catastrophic defeat—a defeat of a magnitude so great that, in any other year, it would become a legend—but not 2 weeks after The Meteorite.

To Europe, the USA was relatively insignificant—a big continent filled with savages and bumpkins, unimportant in world affairs. London was the center of the world in many minds—and the center of communications. In this day of the interweb and radio-phones, it’s hard to imagine there being a “center of communications,” but there was, and it was London.

The impact of the Franconia Meteorite blasted a crater 3 miles in diameter out of the New Hampshire granite, obliterating the town of Lincoln, breaking windows in Concord, rattling dishes in Manchester, and it was heard in Boston. In Quebec and New York, the mushroom cloud could be seen. (A strike that big has negligible long term effects.)

Relief poured into New Hampshire, with Senator Blaine of Maine really getting behind it—and putting his name to the efforts.

At the same time, President Grant, in the waning days of an administration tainted by scandal, took the crisis on head on. Coordinating relief, deploying the army, and overreaching the authority of the president, he did what was needed. In a few months, he restored the shattered reputation of his presidency.

Along with recovery and rescue, land later rebuilding, efforts, he created, and later forced through Congress, a new division of the navy, the “First Astro-Scouting Squadron,” with a scientist-commodore, responsible for research into the nature of the disaster, and prevention (or at least early warning) of a future strike.

The army was given the initial responsibility of preparing plans for reacting to another strike. The division was done along these lines, since the navy can be budgeted for longer than 2 years at a time, and telescopes, observatories, and the like are long term invenstments. Likewise, a skywatch program is also a project of years. The army can be budgeted for a maximum of 2 years at a time, so programs without as much capital investment are appropriate.

Giving this duty to the army also cast the army as doing something positive. On a more cynical note, it gave a reason for the army being present everywhere in force, even when, in the not to distant future, Reconstruction would end.

New Hampshire also amended its constitution, mandating that the state create a government department dedicated to “discovering the means of detection and response to airborne and extra-terrestrial dangers to the people of New Hampshire, and implementing such methods as they are discovered.”

The “revival movement” took off, as some thought that this was a sign of god’s wrath or other supernatural activity, even as scientists explored the reality of the event.

The furor of the disaster had a profound effect on the 1876 election. Senator Blaine from Maine took first the Republican nomination, then won the election. With no corrupt bargain, Reconstruction was not brought to an end just yet.

Troops were withdrawn from Louisiana, but hotheads in South Carolina, inspired by a few religious leaders who saw this as a sign from god, stirred up trouble. The resultant hangings of ringleaders who murdered Federal troops stirred things up more.

President Blaine made an example of the state, Federal troops stayed put—and offered military training to blacks in the state.

Within a few years, the meteor strike was largely forgotten by the general population in Europe, although the scientific community, of course, did not forget it. Europe of the time was focused on other things, rather than the relatively insignificant United States.

In the USA, President Blaine was an advocate for astronomical research—but then, Grant’s speech had been effective enough that both sides of the aisle were willing to devote research to this project.

Rockets are of interest because they, theoretically, will work in a vacuum. That gets proven experimentally in 1878. A gunpowder rocket with an electric fuse is set off in a vacuum chamber, and the rocket works.

By 1878, several working difference engines had been built to analyze the orbits of asteroids, and a series of telescopes had been ordered.

Due to the quantity of telescopes needed, and the naval control of the process, telescopes were no longer designed individually, but in classes of essentially identical instruments, much as ships are built in classes. Universities received telescopes at deep discounts, provided that a set amount of time be devoted to searching for asteroids, and the data shared. Observatories elsewhere in the world were invited to participate, and the opportunity to have a world-class telescope drew others in.

By 1880, the first of Baggage’s Analytical Engines is built, or something substantially similar.

Also, interest in Doing Something about an incoming threat is rising—or at least the idea of going UP. With no practical internal combustion engines, some are experimenting with rockets in combination with early gliders. Navy involvement results in the equivalent of a test basin—the wind tunnel. Even so, glider pilots have a short life expectancy—especially if their glider has a large solid rocket or two attached.

Europe cheerfully accepts American telescopes, which also results in increased trade with Germany, known for its fine optics. Log tables and the like computed by machine are published, and to more places than previously known.

By 1885, significant progress is being made in charting asteroid and cometary orbits, and other phenomena are being discovered earlier than might otherwise happen. When the US Navy starts getting serious about warships again (Or rather, when Congress lets it get serious about warships) the USS Iowa is the first ship to get the benefits of the new technology. The machines used to stabilize a telescope for an all night photography session could be used on guns, and the computing machines aided in laying them. The improved gunnery systems had already been emplaced in critical forts, and tested there.

The USA had also built an experimental rocket-cruiser, which could shoot 1500 pound rockets laden with, depending on the round, anywhere between 50 pounds and 500 pounds of dynamite.

The Spanish-American war broke out about on schedule. Mount Hood conducted a couple of bombardments, and managed to drive off an attack by Spanish torpedo boats. (A lucky direct hit with a war rocket with a 500 pound warhead left nothing but splinters of one of the boats.)

When Cevera’s fleet tried to break out of Santiago de Cuba, Iowa’s superior gunnery almost single-handedly destroyed the Spanish fleet from long range. THAT caught the eye of Europe.

The longest powered flight in history by 1900 is about 10 miles, achieved by a glider, lighting off another pair of rockets when losing altitude. (Gliders are at least as advanced as in Homeline 1906.

By 1900, rebuilding the devastated areas of New Hampshire was finished.
Each time there was a move to reduce Federal troop presence in South Carolina, clashes between whites and blacks would increase, by this time, it was more or less accepted that there would be no end any time soon to troop presence there, short of a radical solution. More Colored Folks kept moving there, bringing guns. Plans were being discussed for force population exchanges. (Note that, until the post World War II era, this was not unusual.)

Also, by this time, the former site of Lincoln, New Hampshire had become a perfectly circular lake.

The twentieth century sees the world franticly playing catch-up with the Americans in the field of gunnery, mechanical computing, and rocketry.

Into this world come the iCops, Centrum, and the Swagmen. Infinity might, at first glance, wonder if there’s been some form of outside influence, with the rapid progress. Precision manufacturing techniques are well in advance of Homeline, and mathematicl theory is amazing. Internal combustion engines are good enough, due to super precise manufacturing, to propel the first piston engine planes through the sky; they can fly further than their dangerous rocket powered bretheren, although slower.

The chemical industry is advancing fast, too, specifically in the area of propellant. Somewhere, someone is playing with a liquid fueled rocket.

Centrum wouldn’t be sure what to make of it, but is almost certain to want to slow down the USA’s advancement—unrestrained scientific growth seems to be what the nation is all about.

Swagmen may want to sell advanced technology, and, if it’s done carefully, they might get away with it—new gadgets pop up frequently.)

Infinity will want to preserve The Secret, and prevent Centrum from getting its talons into the society.


Any thoughts are welcome; this is a work in progress.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

Any thoughts are welcome; this is a work in progress.

I like that you understand that the GOP was the Left-wing party in this period, not very but somewhat. Perhaps you need to expand education in America and make schooling mandatory and of high quality.

Making the world understand the Tunguska event as a commentary fragment would add fuel to this world's fires.