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Old 09-13-2014, 01:18 AM   #11
Bill Cameron
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by patchwork View Post
Bill Cameron raises some interesting points about Emir...

Thanks. It's nice to read a response to a reasonable critique that isn't the equivalent of someone sticking fingers in their ears and chanting nah nah nanah nah...

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...what I wrote is about as far as I can get with linear and logical extrapolation, and so it's time to get creative.
You can be creative and still be plausible or you can just make **** up because it's "kewl". Your initial idea was both creative and plausible, why not keep it up?

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This America would be rather more interested in North African territory; France has something to pledge that will keep the money flowing, if they think it's that or be conquered.
That's a very interesting idea. After all, the US bought Denmark's possessions in the Caribbean in 1916 due in part to fears that Germany would seize them. (Let's all note that the negotiated sale and treaty which finalized it all occurred before the US entered WW1.)

Sadly, the idea also ignores the fact that Algeria has legally been part of metropolitan France since 1848, that representatives from Algeria sit in the National Assembly, that colonial corps from Algeria are fighting on the Western Front, that northern Algeria is an important grain supplier, and several other things.

France could be interested in selling colonial possessions. Algeria is a department and not a colony. More importantly, the French of the time see Algeria as a department and not a colony. France selling Algeria in the early 1900s would be like the US selling a state today.

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More likely, though, even if the Germans manage to get a peace treaty that says they are the winners and are entitled to reparations from France and Russia (there is zero chance of the British Empire paying them a penny under any circumstances, or ceding territory), Wilhelmine Germany is an ambulatory corpse.
Forgetting the looming Russian collapse, aren't we? Lenin is on that train in April of '17, the Kerensky offensive will still fail in July, and whether the Reds take over in November or not, something like Brest-Litovsk or worse is sill going to be rammed down Russia's throat by the Central Powers.

Couple a late 1917 victory in the East with a lessening of Entente efforts in the West, Middle East, and Balkans thanks to credit drying up and the Central Powers are in a better position than they were historically.

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The German people have died and starved for four years for the promise of glory and future wealth; there is no glory, there will be no wealth, and the hunger keeps going after the peace treaty is signed.
No. Don't look at the situation as someone living in 2014, look at the situation as someone living at actual the moment. German morale only collapsed after the various Kaisesrchlacht offensives failed between March and July of '18. Unlike 1916/17, no "turnip winter" occurred in 1917/18 due in part to a rationalization of the economy and the loot being returned from the East. It was the dichotomy between winning it all in the East and the increasingly certain prospect of losing all of that plus more due to fighting in the West which destroyed morale in the armies and at home.

They'd won and now they were going to lose it all.

In your timeline, the Russian collapse will still occur and the western Entente's ability to both fight in 1917 and resist a German offensive in 1918 has been fatally compromised. In your timeline Germany has won and will most likely win by the end of 1917. With Russia knocked out and no US monies and materials available, the western Entente needs to get out with the best deal they can. The longer they fight the worse the conditions will be and they know that.

In your timeline Germany beat a continental coalition and is now the European hegemon. That's glory enough to make up for the 3 or maybe 4 years of fighting.

In your timeline Germany will be fed too. It's Russia and France who will starve. Reparations will see to that.

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Any junker who can't run fast enough is going to be dead by, say, 1923, and the Kaiser is a junker. It's not impossible for Berlin to become acquainted with the guillotine before a peace treaty is signed either.
Please. If the guillotine wasn't set up after Germany's historical defeat, we aren't going to see it in your timeline's victory. Yes, the Social Democrats are going to agitate and agitate successfully for political reforms and, yes, the power of the Kaiser, junkers, and army will be curtailed but suggesting there will be a Terror after continental victory which has made Germany the European hegemon is asinine. You can do better than that.

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In short, the lack of a successful British campaign will be very helpful to the Ottomans...but they aren't going to be getting any help from their erstwhile allies.
They'll get help. Not entire armies, but plenty of advisers, "volunteers", and materials. Just think of the artillery alone the Ottomans could "inherit" from the Wstern front.

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What would people find more interesting, a USA with a Caliph-in-residence who many people regard as a joke, or a world in which the USA has a close relationship with a surviving Ottoman Empire while leaving Europe in its ruins and rationing?
Both are equally plausible in your timeline.

Sixty years on there could be a Caliph in the US thanks to a postwar secularization push (and the political infighting it requires) which sends a big chunk of the faithful into exile. You could very well have two Caliphs much like the Avignon/Rome Papal schism in the 14th Century with the "traditional" caliph in the US and the "progressive' caliph in the Ottoman Empire.

And sixty years on Europe could be in ruins and rationing thanks to the next war when the losers of the first one decide to take on Germany again. Your timeline doesn't need a "Hitler" to get a second general European war after this first one. Hegemons always get dragged down.
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