Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-19-2018, 02:34 PM   #3711
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this one...

Because of the geography of Ontario railroads to Western Canada waited until the 20th century. In this Q6 world geology was a little different and there was an easy path to lay the tracks on and cross the province. In the mid 1840s, a Cyrus J. West (a minor railroad builder in most worlds) laid a railroad track north from the port of Duluth to a small trading post on Canadian soil. Given the link, the British government, desiring a railroad to Western Canada, built the Trans-Ontario rail line building form both west and east to the center.

Then a rail line from the trading post (now named Cyrusville) to the West Coast was laid down in a few years.

In the USA the announcement that a Trans Canada rail line existed caused a storm of fury, in the South. The fight over the transcontinental railroad in the states was about where to put the railhead.

The South demanded New Orleans, they wanted and needed a west settled by slave-owning southerners. The North would have preferred Chicago but would have settled for St. Louis, mainly because Slaveholders didn't go West that often. But they didn't want the West to be either exclusively settled by the South nor to be filled with slave states.

This Canadian rail line was filling the West with abolitionist New Englanders as well as Irish and British immigrants. The South is furious and wants war with Britain. The North yawns and says no. Britain, which was in its most imperialistic phase, and wanted to split the South off from the USA is perplexed. The High Nobility and the rich (who ran the UK's government at this time) wanted to retain the moral credit for being anti-slavery but would have gladly ignored slavery in an independent South, are unhappy that the South wants the North to join them in a war against Britain. Centrum, which is trying to derail the development of both Germany and the USA so that Britain retains their Empire, is also unhappy. They'd like an early ACW so that Lincoln wouldn't lead the North to victory and renewed democracy.

Homeline's goal in this world is to prevent a meltdown before Lincoln gets into office and also to prevent Centrum from just shooting either Lincoln or Grant.

Extra fun; a Swagman from an unknown parallel has settled down on this parallel in the neighborhood of Yonkers New York. He has already introduced the screw propeller and improved steam engines. He seems to be taking the local technology in a steampunk direction. The Icops will need to figure out whether or not this guy is a threat or a blessing.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2018, 02:39 PM   #3712
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this idea...

The Qing Dynasty, which valued the services of the Jesuits was inward looking in most parallels. However, in this Q6 parallel (Qing-3) one Jesuit gave translations from various gazettes and newspapers to the court ladies. The Confucian scholar bureaucrats started reading the circular that the priest put out and began asking questions.

Some of the answers were comforting. Early 18th century Europe was much smaller than China. But the details of so many other things including the fates of many non-European cultures that traded with the Chinese were gloomy. A small group of scholars promoted the idea that even if the red barbarians were inferior to the Qing Empire, barbarians had conquered China before. Therefore they promoted study of European technology and medicine.

The local year is 1890, China, like Japan has industrialized. Both China and Japan want to expand. They cut a deal. Japan may keep Korea and add the Philippines and if they can get them, the Dutch East Indies. China will take Siberia and India.

This is basically a revved-up version of the The Great Game with more players (the French, the Dutch, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Spanish) and definately more aggression. You could start WWI early and in Asia.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo

Last edited by Astromancer; 11-16-2018 at 10:34 PM.
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2018, 07:04 PM   #3713
TGLS
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea...
Japan may keep Korea and add the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, and if they can get them, the Dutch East Indies.
They get the DEI twice? Wow.
TGLS is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2018, 08:38 PM   #3714
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
They get the DEI twice? Wow.
Slip up noted.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2018, 10:19 PM   #3715
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

In Fragment, the Earth was destroyed when a rogue planet impacted into the Earth in the early 1900s. Fortunately, scientific and technological progress had been accelerated in the timeline, reaching a mature TL 10 by the early 1800s, when the rogue planet was detected. Over the next century, humanity evacuated the Earth, taking with it sufficient diversity of life to resurrect the biosphere of the Earth, in order to inhabit massive rotating colonies in the Main Belt and the Kuiper Belt.

The local year is 2000 and, 80 years after the event, humanity has transformed the Earth Belt into a network of orbital habitats. With a cumulative mass over 1000x greater than the Main Belt and 50x greater than the Kuiper Belt, the Earth Belt the richest place in the Solar System. The Moon dominates the Earth Belt, since it is the largest gravity well between Venus and Mars, but the constant bombardment that it suffers makes it impossible to inhabit.

A Q7 world, it was visited by Centrum early on as one of the larger fragments corresponds to the South Pole in orbit. The size of Ceres, the newly formed dwarf planet of Rosa is too large to transform into a colony, so it is largely ignored by the indigenous civilization. Even so, Centrum and Homeline are very careful, as the local interplanetary civilization is more powerful and wealthier than either of their civilizations. It is already planning STL colonization efforts in order to resurrected the Earth in a hundred different systems.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-21-2018, 10:32 AM   #3716
tshiggins
 
tshiggins's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea...

The Qing Dynasty, which valued the services of the Jesuits was inward looking in most parallels. However, in this Q6 parallel (Qing-3) one Jesuit gave translations from various gazettes and newspapers to the court ladies. The Confucian scholar bureaucrats started reading the circular that the priest put out and began asking questions.

Some of the answers were comforting. Early 18th century Europe was much smaller than China. But the details of so many other things including the fates of many non-European cultures that traded with the Chinese were gloomy. A small group of scholars promoted the idea that even if the red barbarians were inferior to the Qing Empire, barbarians had conquered China before. Therefore they promoted study of European technology and medicine.

The local year is 1890, China, like Japan has industrialized. Both China and Japan want to expand. They cut a deal. Japan may keep Korea and add the Philippines and if they can get them, the Dutch East Indies. China will take Siberian and India.

This is basically a revved-up version of the The Great Game with more players (the French, the Dutch, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Spanish) and definately more aggression. You could start WWI early and in Asia.
I like this idea. Filed away for potential future use. :)
__________________
--
MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1]
"Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon.
tshiggins is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-25-2018, 05:51 AM   #3717
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this one...

Iran and Sudi-Arabia go to war in 1979. Suddenly the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf stops...I think I'll just provide links. This posting is on the Mad Max timeline. These Youtube postings here, and here details the timeline and how Fury Road fits into the timeline.

This setting is a classic and this timeline should make it easier to set up a Mad Max campaign. Perhaps you could even find out why Max looks thirty and has the memories of a fifty year old.

Enjoy!
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-26-2018, 02:42 PM   #3718
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

The movie Things to Come had the first Sci Fi Zombies in the passive victims of "wandering sickness." Who as they died wandered around like sleepwalkers baring plague.

In this Q6 world wandering sickness broke out in Southern Germany in 1939 (researchers have suggested NAZI germ warfare in spite of Hitler disliking those types of weapons). By 1943, Europe outside of Ireland, Iceland, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Isle of Man and the Faroes, is a no-go zone.
The Arab lands are in the process of a full collapse as is the USSR. The Sahara has proved a barrier. Iran, aided by the US and the remnants of the European powers is blocking eastward spread of the plague in the South. So far the vast distances of Siberia have shielded the Far East and India. No one thinks that the quarantine is permanent. Japan, China, India, Ireland, Canada, Iran, New Zealand, and the USA, are in an unstable forced alliance to stop the plague,

Most of this world is TL6, although, since it is WWII, TL7 prototypes are commonplace.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-26-2018, 03:06 PM   #3719
PTTG
 
PTTG's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this one...

Iran and Sudi-Arabia go to war in 1979. Suddenly the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf stops...I think I'll just provide links. This posting is on the Mad Max timeline. These Youtube postings here, and here details the timeline and how Fury Road fits into the timeline.

This setting is a classic and this timeline should make it easier to set up a Mad Max campaign. Perhaps you could even find out why Max looks thirty and has the memories of a fifty year old.

Enjoy!
I think the Mad Max thing is caused by Australia being one of the last holdouts of civilization, but even that was crumbling. He joined the force at 18 in one of the last civilized regions, had his family very young, and by the time the gas ran out there most of the world had been in chaos for a generation. And hey, maybe he just aged really well and he's like 40 something.
PTTG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-28-2018, 05:01 PM   #3720
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
I think the Mad Max thing is caused by Australia being one of the last holdouts of civilization, but even that was crumbling. He joined the force at 18 in one of the last civilized regions, had his family very young, and by the time the gas ran out there most of the world had been in chaos for a generation. And hey, maybe he just aged really well and he's like 40 something.
I'd go that way too. But the director screenwriter saw Australia going early.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
ideas to share, infinite worlds, infinity unlimited

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:17 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.