New Reality Seeds

[Bill Cameron]

Originally Posted by scc

Britian wasn't exploiting that territory because they couldn't, it was Indian land and they didn't want to take it away from them

And pixies make the flowers grow too.

Prior to 1763, the colonial companies who speculated in land in the Ohio Valley were primarily bankrolled by money from London. The companies' boards included various lords and other politically connected types back in Britain. The speculation companies and several colonies also held royal charters to Ohio valley lands and, more often than not, the same lands. During the war Britain conducted several campaigns to gain control of the "forks of the Ohio" which diverted men and supplies from operations against Quebec proper. Both Amherst and Wolfe complained those diversions were due to political pressure from land speculators.

After 1763, the UK decided that all pre-war land claims were void and would have to be repurchased from the UK government. The excuses were that too many pre-war claims were contradictory, that those claims had been despoiled during the war, and that the land should revert to the natives. The real reason was that the government could grab some more money by selling the land again.

And UK went right ahead and sold that land again without shedding a single tear about the natives' so-called rights.

In 1768, another land company began the process of getting an Ohio Valley land grant from the UK government and by 1772 was able to grease enough palms in London to do just that. Benjamin Franklin was one of the investors in this scheme which was supposed to plant a colony called Vandalia along the south bank of the Ohio.

By 1774, the UK had had enough with the colonies' behavior in response to various revenue raising efforts and passed a series of laws which were soon called the Intolerable Acts. The Quebec Act - which many somehow still believe forbid settlement west of the Appalachians - was among those laws. What the Quebec actually did was assign lands in the Ohio Valley and around the Great Lakes to the province of Quebec because, in reaction to the increasingly intractable 13 Colonies, the UK wanted to ensure the loyalty of that province.

Assigning the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region to Quebec was a political bribe and not some attempt to "save" the land for the Indians. As the Vandalia company shows, the UK was more than happy to sell big chunks of that same land if enough money was forthcoming.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Bill Cameron

Assigning the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region to Quebec was a political bribe and not some attempt to "save" the land for the Indians. As the Vandalia company shows, the UK was more than happy to sell big chunks of that same land if enough money was forthcoming.

Truth, Britain and the Colonies had diverged on the nature of the contract between them. The colonies were still basically loyal to the deal they thought they had. The London elites had no interest in what the Colonists thought the deal was. this caused the break.

[Bill Cameron]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Truth, Britain and the Colonies had diverged on the nature of the contract between them. The colonies were still basically loyal to the deal they thought they had. The London elites had no interest in what the Colonists thought the deal was. this caused the break.

Very well put. With regards to the American Revolution, both sides were at fault and neither side was blameless.

The revolution was more accurately a counter-revolution. The colonies had been ignored more often than not for over a century and the various political elites in the colonies were used to running things for and by themselves. When the UK sought to exert more control - and for rather good reasons - the colonial political class found themselves increasingly shut out of the process. When the UK establishment managed to p*ss off the political class used to running the show without taking care to replace them with another local political class, the folks used to running things naturally rebelled.

With regards to this thread and it's previous incarnations, many of the proposed reality seeds suggest that many posters have no comprehension of just what reality is. When suggesting how history can changed, it helps to first know at least some history.

[Gedrin]

Serendipity-1
Q4
LY:1625
TL:7
Mana: None

The point of divergence has been traced to 1st century AD, with the inventor Hero of Alexandria's aeolipile. In Homeline, the device was a toy and oddity, but on Serendipity, they apparently realized what they had. It didn't stop there.

When local records in the period shortly after divergence were compared with those of Homeline and observed Echoes, it appears that the happy accidents that lead to new discoveries are occurring more often or are simply being recognized for what they are at a greater rate. The Patrol is highly interested in ferreting out any possible interference in the progress of this parallel, as it would indicate a long term player. Given the scope and nature of the differences (luck?), The Cabal seems most likely...except...no mana.

The Thirty Years War has been completely redirected given the scope of travel and communications available (and no Black Death), an East/West war is very possible in the near future. Unfortunately, most of the major powers are armed with nuclear weapons and the compressed rate of advancement has left less time to "learn from wars past".

Following a recent conveyor accident, the Patrol has quarantined the world while the recently returned team "tries something out".

[PTTG]

Patriot:

In this timeline, it's spring 1776 and the American and British political leadership is, inexplicably, a cartoonish parody of their historic character. King George III is a bloodthirsty tyrant bent on crushing liberty throughout the world; John Adams frequently breaks out into song regarding the importance of his work, Thomas Jefferson keeps no slaves, Benjamin Franklin is a TL-5+3 Gadgeteer and George Washington is at least ten feet tall, impervious to bullets, and may have the capacity to heal injuries with a touch.

Skip ahead a few years and you might get a chance to meet the three Napoleons: the brilliant tactician, the murderous despot, and the miniature clown.

There you go, now nobody's happy.

Here's an interesting, relevant thread.

Several of these would be interesting. No-TL-1 might even be terrifying, as families of potentially powerful, skilled, and utterly savage humans attempt to hunt down and eat PCs.

Broadly, one could make a series of worlds based off of a population-restricting disease. Small changes in transmissibility, survival outside of a host, deadliness, and the number of people made into healthy carriers, all influence the maximum safe size of communities in the world. I think it's safe to pick any number we like and assume that there's a disease that will fit that parameter.

If communities are limited to 200 people, then TL 3 would be near the utter top of the reasonable size. The disease would be so dangerous that any traveler would either get infected or meet hostile natives ready to set them on fire and salt the ashes.

If instead it's something like 20,000, it might be safe enough to be a world traveler, and some level of international trade and industrial development is reasonable. Much more than 20k, and it starts becoming possible for medicine and industrial sanitation to start lifting the cap, until ultimately it starts looking just like our history... unless the disease doesn't follow the rules we're used to. Drug resistance and mutations might result in not so much a hard limit as inevitable "cullings" that sometimes wipe out whole cities, keeping populations low in a general sense.

Keep in mind, that sort of disease might reinforce technology growth, as it did when the black death turned peasants into valued laborers. (According to a book I read a magazine article about.)

I'd definitely like to see thoughts from the experts about what population sizes are needed to develop what TLs.

[Bill Cameron]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

Serendipity-1... 1st century AD... aeolipile... The Thirty Years War...

This post beautifully illustrates my recent observation of "When suggesting how history can changed, it helps to first know at least some history.", so much so that you could suspect it was written as an example!

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Bill Cameron

This post beautifully illustrates my recent observation of "When suggesting how history can changed, it helps to first know at least some history.", so much so that you could suspect it was written as an example!

Not really. Aeolipile is 1st century (the point of divergence), Thirty Years War is 1600's, current local year for the world. I suppose you could argue that a imperial conflict emerging in the early 1600's in one timeline shouldn't be compared to an imperial conflict emerging in the early 1600's in a divergent timeline, but I think it's valid. I'd be interested in the point of contention.

[somecallmetim]

Originally Posted by Bill Cameron

This post beautifully illustrates my recent observation of "When suggesting how history can changed, it helps to first know at least some history.", so much so that you could suspect it was written as an example!

IW is not a particularly historically rigorous setting as written. I think you could have a fun game using more rigorous alternates and spending more time on each one, but that is not what the core setting is like. Azoth-7 has an alternate cosmology where stars are much closer and alchemy is valid that still has Isaac Newton being born on schedule, the United States of Lizardia exists, and "High-Inertia Parallels" like Ezcalli are canonically fairly common. Complaining that additional worlds for IW aren't up to academic counterfactual (or even AH.com) standards is a lot like complaining that the conspiracies in GURPS Illuminati aren't internally consistent; that is to say true, but not particularly relevant.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Truth, Britain and the Colonies had diverged on the nature of the contract between them. The colonies were still basically loyal to the deal they thought they had. The London elites had no interest in what the Colonists thought the deal was. this caused the break.

I have to wonder how much of this contract actually existed in some form and how much was just in various groups heads.

That aside, it sounds as if just a few minor changes, mainly to do with the British selling land, or rather NOT, you can change history there and end up with a contained or partially contained US, several British Colonies and Indian Nations and may a bigger Mexico.

[somecallmetim]

I remember reading that one fear amongst a few British politicians was that the US and the USSR would become allies and pose a significant risk to the British Empire's power and relevance. Before WWII, and especially before WWI, the US and the UK were not seen as natural allies with the "special relationship" they have today. Part of the reason the UK pulled out of their treaty with Japan was fear natural US/Japanese conflicts of interest would bring them into a war against the US. The alliance with Japan wasn't worth that big of a fight.

Just putting someone like Wallace in the White House won't help. His failure to see how dangerous Stalin was doesn't actually make an alliance possible. Getting rid of Stalin is a necessary part of this. He was a paranoid and brutal person and no alliance where he was not calling the shots would last long. It is probably best if he dies near the end of WWII. Dying in the earlier phases would probably destabilize the country enough to let the Nazis really gore them. If whoever winds up in charge in the USSR after the fact allows for free elections in eastern Europe and accepts the Marshall Plan money the US was offering, you might not see relations freeze so quickly.

If the Cold War is not the driving concern for world politics it became on Homeline, then the European powers are likely to be much less likely to care about the USs' feelings on their policies, particularly regarding their colonial possessions. A more brutal suppression of uprisings in places like Kenya, Algeria, India, and Indochina could help sour US relations with Europe.

I think a setting with a more socialist leaning US and a somewhat less brutal USSR in a semi-cold war with a reactionary Europe could be fun. It wouldn't likely have the nuclear sword of Damocles thing going on, but you could have lots of proxy wars and a space race were Korolev and Van Braun are on the same side. Could be good times. Centrum would probably be all for a US-USSR alliance, particularly because they could speak the language. The normally dislike breaking up empires, but the European empires are racist, the very opposite of meritocratic, and increasingly moribund. It puts Infinity in the awkward position of either supporting racist colonialists or letting Centrum run away with the timeline. There would be plenty of work for spies trying to root out Centran influence, or turn one or another neutral parties, as well as possible work for Alternate Outcomes in turning African and South Asian colonial conflicts one way or the other.