New Reality Seeds

[dcarson]

Science wise for the Imperial Trust from Wikipedia. If they put up prizes to encourage that maybe first flght in CA.

I can see them sponsoring lectures by fringe social and scientific speakers.

1883–1886: John Joseph Montgomery of Yuba City, California, starts his attempts at early flight. In 1884, using a glider designed and built in 1883, Montgomery made the "first heavier-than-air human-carrying aircraft to achieve controlled piloted flight" in the Western Hemisphere. This glider had a curved parabolic wing surface. He reportedly made a glide of "considerable length" from Otay Mesa, San Diego, California, his first successful flight and arguably the first successful one in the United States. In 1884–1885, Montgomery tested a second monoplane glider with flat wings. The innovation in design was "hinged surfaces at the rear of the wings to maintain lateral balance". These were early forms of Aileron. After experimentation with a water tank and smoke chamber to understand the nature of flow over surfaces, in 1886, Montgomery designed a third glider with fully rotating wings as pitcherons. He then turned to theoretic research towards the development of a manuscript "Soaring Flight" in 1896.[16][17][18]

[David Johnston2]

Ciaverella- A slight misnomer because the point of the departure for this setting actually goes back to the late 60s when, for reasons which remain unclear, the English speaking world became increasingly fearful of "juvenile delinquency" to a greater degree than in Homeline. Different countries have approached this fear in different ways. Notably Britain has invested massively in providing every teenager with mental health counseling and largely unnecessary medication for any of them who show signs of anger and anxiety. Meanwhile the United States in 2008 put former Judge Mark Ciaverella in charge of a national juvenile justice program which has essentially stripped minors of all legal rights and will send them into a network of privately owned and operated juvenile detention centers for as little reason as violation of the curfews that are in place in most of the United States.

In short, it's a YA Dystopia Universe.

[PTTG]

What's the current date?

Love the idea by the way. I might split it up into different regions of the USA having different approaches. Like, west-coast USA puts tracking devices on all children that report everything they do to a publicly-accessable network. Some parts of the south have the Juvenile Justice Program take on more of a Just Jesus People vibe, with the camps and punitive schools teaching an increasingly extreme and restrictive form of Christanity.

Australia imports "deviant" children from the rest of the anglosphere and keeps them in camps, but their control is weak. The frequent escapees have produced a population of wild kids in the outback, living in their own kind of dystopia.

Japan while not strictly part of the anglosphere dealt with the phenomenon by outright encouraging contraception in the population at large. Only very few children are born, and they are trained from birth for a specified role in society, with no deviance tolerated. Punishments are severe and immediate. This might sound like an extreme form of China's one-child policy, but in this world there's nothing to compare it to, as China is utterly insulated from the outside world. Nobody knows what's going on there.

In Canada? I'm not sure. Since we're looking at cultural parodies here, maybe it involves maple syrup? Or maybe it's a rustic dystopia?

Other notes... Because this world very, VERY harshly quashed any counterculture movement, there was never a unified "liberal" movement (in the American sense). For instance, there's no particular reason why someone in favor of civil rights would also be especially concerned about environmentalism. The effect is that there's less political pressure for or against policies that aren't part of the whole YA Dystopia thing (In fact, if the rest of the world is actually doing OK, that might explain why Homeline is reluctant to interfere at all, and why the kids are on their own). There's broad global cooperation against global warming, for instance. Civil rights, on the other hand... let's just say that in most of the USA "gender confusion" is one of he more serious crimes that juveniles can get accused of.

On the other hand, it's not impossible that racial discrimination has tapered off simply because all the energy is focused on othering the youth. It's not likely, but in terms of narrative there's already a lot going on.

[Astromancer]

As one reads more one is exposed to different ways of seeing people. Several recent works have suggested that Chiang Kai-shek was actually more effective than previously understood. Moreover, that between General Stilwell dispising him, and crudely mocking him, and Zhou Enlai's and Mao Zedong's real charisma, Chang never got real respect. While reading a work of journalism, Asia's Cauldron I found out that Chang Kai-Sheck had a great opportunity to attack the communists in 1936 when they were really vulnerable and weak, but he was kidnapped for a short period and lost the opportunity.

In this world, the kidnap plot is bungled and Chiang Kai-shek does attack. Zhou Enlai is killed and Mao wounded. The local Communists, wanting to be rid of Mao for some time, but keeping him as the leader to please Stalin, send Mao to Russia to heal. While Mao was in Russia different leaders in the party built new power bases, when Mao returned he found that his control of the party was limited. Without Zhou Enlai as his ally and with a worsening international system, he had to cooperate and respect rivals, which meant he lost much of Stalin's regard.

In our world, Mao followed the ideology of letting the Capitalists and Imperialists destroy each other. Which is why Mao rarely fought the Japanese and 90% of the Chinese soldiers that died fighting the WWII Japanese were Chiang's Nationists. In this world, Mao needed the credibility of a successful war leader and had to fight the Japanese. His loses were brutal.

It's now 1946, Japan surrendered last August. Chiang Kai-shek is starting a series of land reforms based on the ideas of Ladejinsky, an American agricultural economist. the peasants see the land going into peasant ownership. Chiang is also reforming the financial system of the Chinese state. Meanwhile, without his ally Zhou Enlai, Mao really isn't popular with journalists. The positive reputation Mao had in Homeline history never really formed. This allows the real achievements of Chiang's government to win out over is total lack of Charisma. So Chiang has America's respect. It also helps that General Stilwell, who hated Chiang and convinced many reports that Chiang was dirt, wasn't assigned to China in this world. A man who died in Homeline's Spanish Flu epidemic the son of American missionaries, who was raised in China and spoke fluent Chinese, and got Chiang's Confucian worldview and knew the mess Chiang faced in reforming China, was the American general Chiang works with.

Basically, it's a vast war for China. I've proposed this before. Mao is weakened in this parallel, but Stalin still backs him. Also, Russia is simply nearer to China. Meanwhile, Truman is constantly being stabbed in the back by political rivals terrified of the New Deal's popularity. Still, America has control of the sea lanes.

This setting could be run forward, create a North China ruled by Mao, meanwhile, Chiang rules Coastal China and works on developing the economy. Mao and his cadres, you still want rid of him, see that their time window for conquest of South China is closing. This could be a tense spy thriller game.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by PTTG

What's the current date?

Oh, probably 2015. My date choice is constrained by wanting this to be a world where Ciaverella is lauded rather than despised.

[Astromancer]

Try this one, because Joanna I of Naples died without an heir, Naples pasted into the control of Aragon and Spain dominated Italy for generations. Among other things, this force Henry VIII to leave the Catholic Church because no Pope depended on or fearful of Spain, could even grant him a divorce.

Part of what messed up Joanna's reign, and she seems to have been very good at being queen, was her Hungarian relatives who felt the throne of Naples was theirs. This is why she was married to her cousin Andrew. Andrew, who seems to have been stunningly immature for his age or worse, felt he should be absolute monarch of Naples and the Hungarian culture and norms should be forced on the Neoploitans. He went around telling the rich and powerful of Naples that he would soon be king and execute them and confiscate their property.

This is generally what historians think got Andrew of Hungary murdered. The killers were probably a gang of young men. This is assumed because violence was used, anyone else would have used discrete poison.

In this Q6 world (Naples-2) someone might have used discrete poison. But they got not only Andrew of Hungary but all of Joanna's Neopolitan male first cousins. Either that or it was a lucky case of food poisoning.

In our history Andrew had sired a child by Joanna before his death, that child was taken by the Hungarians to be raised in Hungary as a Hungarian. Between the rough journey and the first exposure to winter cold he died. In this history, Andrew died without a child. The Hungarians, busy elsewhere, can't prevent Joanna from getting married to a powerful local noble of less than royal status. With a healthy husband, Joanna has several children. With a good ally, when the Hungarians come to take her throne, she can hold out against them until they need to leave. Without Robert Prince of Taranto's takeover attempt, Joanna's circle of advisors wasn't wiped out in her early twenties. All this means that the Kingdom of Naples is a power to be reckoned with throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. It also suggests that The Western Schism either doesn't happen or Urban VI was removed fairly early and quickly.

There are many places to go with this, a later Reformation (the Church was building to a crisis) would be one. You could also unify Italy through a Neoploitan conquest.

[AlexanderHowl]

Malay-3

In Malay-3, the Srivijayan Kingdom of the Southeast Asia came under the rule of the Minangkabau people during the uth century AD, transforming it into a matrilineal society. With the men devoted to politics and religion and the women devoted to agriculture and commerce, the resulting kingdom focused more on building ties through diplomacy and trade, meaning that it focused on its military spending on producing large navies rather than large armies, though it supported sufficiently large armies for its defense. It discovered and colonized the island of Madagascar during the 9th century.

During the 11th century, the Srivijayan used its navy to destroy the Chola invaders from India and retaliated by raiding its mainland cities and eventually conquered the island of Sri Lanka, giving it a position to control the trade of the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to the Malay Peninsula. By the time that the Europeans disordered it is the 15th century, it was one of the most powerful nations on Earth, as its navies dominated trade throughout the Indian Ocean and it controlled the islands of Southeast Asia. It also control the lucrative trade with China and, through the implicit threat of its navies, prevented the Chinese from restricting trade with it.

It is now the late 16th century, and the Srivijayan Kingdom has prevented the Europeans from successfully penetrating into the Indian Ocean and have prevented the Europeans from settling in Southeast Asia. Instead, it exchanges Chinese goods and Southeast Asian spices for looted gold and silver that the Spanish bring every year to trade with the Srivijayan cities. With every year, it becomes wealthier and more powerful, but the European powers lust for its wealth and, with every year, they become bolder. Eventually, war will come.

[Astromancer]

This world diverges with the Spanish Flu. The Epidemic in Continental Europe is far stronger and more brutal. The Americas, the British Isles, Australia, and New Zealand, lose about 15% of their population. Continental Europe including Russia and the Middle East are far harder hit losing about 50% of their people, and mainly young adults. The rest of Asia and Africa lose only about 20% of their populations. Europe's recovery is bitter and slow. Russia and the Near East have a much harder time. Meanwhile, the nations of Asia and Africa end colonial rule. The Continental nations are simply too weakened to hold on to their colonies and Britain is to caught up in Europe's chaos to focus on holding its Empire.

When FDR (always an Anticolonialist) comes to office, he offers the same kinds of friendship policies to the nations of Asia and Africa, he offered to Latin America. These were well received in the period and greatly helped the newly independent nations.

The local year is 1985. The tech level is almost eight, arriving a few years late. This Q6 world is dominated by democratic nations like China, India, Indonesia, and the USA. Imperial Japan, with its allies Russia, Germany, Argentina, France, and Spain, sees its alliance as too weak to risk war with the Sino-Americans. However, the Japanese and their Russian allies constantly probe for weaknesses.

Centrum dislikes the Asia centered world. As Norman Borlaug and Wolf Ladejinsky were both highly active in this world. And both men worked in Africa. Africa is beginning to have an economic boom. Eighties Africa in this world is a lot like 1970s Japan in our world. A boom is taking root. Centrum hates this because they have less skill in African languages and cultures than they do in Asian ones.

To counter the USA, Africa, and Asia, Centrum is trying to remake Europe and restore European Imperialism. They're transferring technologies suited to reviving Europe's economic dominance to the Fascist nations in Europe. Lately, they're beginning to see the advantages of giving extra tech to Japan as well.

[adm]

Perhaps Centrum can split the UK into the European proto-facist coalition. Any UK Government with people like Churchill in them will resent FDR "stealing" India and the various African colonies. Bonus friction over the Irish mess.

[AlexanderHowl]

In Inca-5, the Black Plague mutated during its first appearance in West Asia in 1347 and the result was the incidence of the pneumonia plague increased to 100% among those infected by the West Asian strain. With a 90% contagion rate and a 90% mortality rate, West Asia, North Africa, and Europe suffered an 81% population decline. The mutated Black Plague spread into the majority of mainland Africa and Asia, depopulation the three continents.

It is now 1611, and Japan is the only major nation in the Old World that survived without infection, primarily due to their ships being banned from China during the time the plague depopulation East Asia. The Japanese have forbidden trade with the outside world in order to protect themselves from the mutated Black Plague. The Japanese know that they have been lucky, but they understand that they need to be vigilant to avoid mass death. The rest of the Old World maintains a population of 50 million people, kept in check by regular outbreaks of the mutated Black Plague.

In the New World, they are blithely unaware of the mutated Black Plague. The Inca have evolved into a expansionistic mercantile society, and they have successfully expanded their Empire to include the Mayan states of Central America. Incan troops battle Aztec troops every year, with the Aztecs losing two battles for every one they win. The Aztec client states are negotiating their surrender to the Inca, who are quite willing to let them govern their own affairs in exchange for trade and a modest tribute.