New Reality Seeds

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

Interesting--a high fantasy setting?
Two questions:
What are those templates you mentioned.
I haven't seen mention of any "Amazon" timelines--are there any elsewhere that anyone knows about?

The templates are whatever anyone wants them to be. For example, the female template could have ST+10, DX+4, IQ+4, and HT+4 while the male template could have ST+2, DX+2, IQ+2, and HT+2. As long as the female template is much more powerful than the male template, that is all that matters for the purpose of the exercise.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In Amazon-5, a TL12 metamorphic virus was released into the human population a century ago that transformed infected female humans into female Amazons (a 400 CP template) and transformed infected human men into male Amazons (a 200 CP template). Unfortunately, the metamorphic virus killed twenty percent of the human women and eighty percent of the human men, and the Amazon sex ratio is 4 women to 1 man, so Amazon women control society while the average Amazon man stays home and takes care of the children of his four wives.

A Q7 world, both Centrum and Infinity quarantined the timeline when they realized that everyone in the timeline was a carrier. Fortunately, the timeline is a parachronic anomaly, with a -10 to enter or to leave, so it was only by accident that Centrum and Infinity discovered it. The idea of the metamorphic virus escaping the timeline gives the administrators of Centrum and Infinity nightmares.

Another timeline that just can't be used for anything. Once you go there, you're stuck with nothing really to do. I've come with a few ideas for female dominant timelines.

1. The Christian church ended up with a female priesthood, and a strong bias in favour of literacy being a female trait. As a result law, government, science, and business administration all ended up in female hands.

2. The Wiccan lodges defeated the male dominated lodges and magic became a female thing in Europe and their colonies. Men treat women very politely for fear of their curses outside of Asia and Africa.

3. The War to End All Wars lived up to the hype and actually did end all wars, but only with advent of women's suffrage and rise of female politicians (men having been reduced to a minority by the brutal death toll) to make peace where the men had failed after 40 years of warfare. It is now just generally conceded by men and women alike that men are simply unfit for leadership roles. Despite this, international tension is growing...

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Due to Nixon's secret deal with the South Vietnamese being exposed in late September of 1968 Humphrey won the election with a landslide. The landslide had impressive coattails and Humphrey had two-thirds majorities in both houses, filibuster-proof majorities. Humphrey struck while the iron was hot and got national healthcare passed and running before 1970. The savings from the quick and early ending of the Vietnam war were used to invest into healthcare system. In order to stress that millitary might of the USA without a war Humphrey doubled down on the Space program. Still, the quick end to the Vietnam war was a substancial budget savings.

Humphrey was a two-term president in this world with Reagan getting in with the 1976 election. The ecconomic downturn of the late 1970's collapsed his second term. With a return to office the Democratic party extended investments in Space and Science and heavily promoted solar and wind power. The two trends space and solar power came together with Solar Power satellites that beamed power down to Earth.

Realising how cheap the power was once the satellite was built, the USA offered power as a form of foreign aid. By the year 2000 the developing world got its electrict power from US satelites and those that cooperated with the USA got the best attention.

This has lead to those nations opposed to the USA and the West useing oil as their energy of choice. This means Russia, desperate to sell its oil is looking for ways to bring America's satellites down. China, frustraited because the USA won't allow them to seek hegemony over Asia, has joined them.

Basically, a 21st century cold war. Take all the cold war tropes and update them to TL8. Note: As the West is the ecologically sound side that has brought ecconomic development to the third world, the USA and the West are seen as the Left side of this Cold War and the Russia-China-OPEC axis are the reactionaries.

[ericthered]

Angleterre

These are high inertial parallels, in which languages are far more evenly spread over the world. English is gone, replaced by a Dialect of French, as is Irish. Hungarians speak a Slavic tongue, The Basque people just have their own weird spainish accent, and many other languages have disappeared, or are only of historical interest.

Strangely, this doesn't seem to have effected history very much, on any of the worlds.

Angleterre-1 is in 1753.
Angleterre-2 is in 1935.
Angleterre-3 is in 1976.

[AlexanderHowl]

Languages influence thinking and some thoughts are impossible in certain languages (which is one of the reasons why anthropologists worry about the winnowing of the languages). A world with less languages will likely be a world with slower technological development, and it will be a world with less cultural development.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

There is a switch up in who comes to the throne of Spain in the 18th century. The expected heir died because of a riding accident and the first spare was already in Holy Orders and declined so a younger brother became king. The younger brother was mainly a nonentity, an idle playboy, but he had a deep steaks of piety, mercy, and chairity in his heart. The poverty of the Spanish people saddened tis particular good time Charlie.

Once he heard that the King of England allowed large numbers of poor people from the British Isles and Germany to go and settle in the New World (which he, dimwitted as he was goodhearted, he mistook for a charity) he decided the poor of Spain and Italy (Spain ruled large parts of Italy) deserved to have the chance to settle in South America. Before this time Spain had limited or discouraged such migrations, fearful that Spain's European lands would be depopulated leaving nobles with no one to order about or for the kings to tax.

The migration was large and steady and although Latin America has a harsher disease climate and weather than North America, many of these people survived and thrived and had children. Labor shortages did occur in Spain and Italy, and this led to nobles and other wealthier people seeking innovations to deal with the problem. Which ultimately caused some economic development in Spain and Spain's Italian lands.

The local year in this Q6 low manna world is 1880. The ABC Powers are begining to industrialise as the USA did in the 1950s. The raising powers have joined with the USA to reissue the Monroe Doctrine and make it clear the New World is as off limits to colonization as Europe. Although both Brazil and Argentina have gained African colonies and Chille is actively seeking Asian and Pacific colonies.

Centrum seeks to leverage nationalistic tentions among the Latin American nations into a war with the USA in order to inhibit democracy and anti-colonialism. They've also been killing key figures in Ireland to thwart Irish nationalism. Homeline and the Cabal seem to be equally opposed to these measures, but Homeline doesn't know why the Cabal is on their side.

Basically, 19th-century style intregue and espionage in a Latin America that's far more developed and sophistocated.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Languages influence thinking and some thoughts are impossible in certain languages (which is one of the reasons why anthropologists worry about the winnowing of the languages). A world with less languages will likely be a world with slower technological development, and it will be a world with less cultural development.

Oh, to be sure there SHOULD be a lot of changes from switching around and removing languages. I was sure to specify that this world is high-inertia, because changing English to a french dialect just by itself has huge consequences, never mind all of the others.



On the other hand, larger numbers of people speaking the same language seems to help the development of technology, because they can cross-pollinate better. So I suspect Tech might progress just a touch faster... unless there is a robustness of method gained from having separate communities that won't all go off a single wild goose chase together. The cultural thought is almost certainly true though.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The traditional snag with the East India Company was that they tended to be corrupt as bejasus. When you have, not only a business running a country, but a business which is treated as somewhere for younger sons to scrabble a lump of cash together over a few years, that tendency is Inherent In The System.

This was perhaps downplayed in Britannica-6 because that’s a slightly tongue-in-cheek setting, and anyway it’s implicitly prone to corruption everywhere — but if you’re talking about the danger of inducing revolutionary feelings in India, good old John Company bribery and corruption could suffice. Even if some of the people screwing the lesser castes for kickbacks and running stuff ineptly happen to have brown skins.

Britannica-6 is too kind to the entire British Empire, including the East India Company. Like most alternate timelines, it is an idea (a better, more steampunk British Empire) that back-fills the history.

It is more realistic than Dixie. And is low-inertia, without the cute 'real life famous person is different on this world' that Dixie was full of.

Originally Posted by TGLS

Donut World

Most people think this one is a toroidal planet, perhaps with the map of earth stretched around it. They're usually really surprised when they see the giant donuts. Most civilization sits on top of the donuts, trading cake and sprinkles for strategic resources from down below. Often a pleasant world to crash land on, though the team that got caught in the Third Battle of Boston Cream had significantly more trouble.

I believe Homer Simpson briefly discovered this world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8DFJBwZchE

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

The world called Classified is ... classified.

Something strange is going on there, and no one knows what. But whatever it is has scared Infinity.

The first probes indicated a close parallel at 1966. Minor differences, but nothing significant.

Then the first agents entered to do preliminary scouting. And things got scary.

They arrived back at base 24 hours late. And they did not remember a thing - as far as they knew they shut the hatch on Homeline and re-opened it a second later. The mission recorders and logs showed everything going routinely until the very end, then ending with 24 hours of blank recordings.

Subsequent missions had the exact same result, even ones sent to uninhabited areas with no contact with the natives.

Classified was immediately declared Z-class - off limits. The agents who had actually gone to Classified were quarantined and checked by experts in everything for signs of tampering or programming with negative results. But the agents were re-assigned away from conveyor technology.

That would normally be the end of it. But a small number of conveyors scattered all through the Infinity-patrolled multiverse have taken to disappearing for 24 hour stretches. And their records show they all went to Classified and returned. The total number of incidents so far is less than twenty, but it's still rather alarming.

Love this concept.

Is the 24 hours lost while the scouts are heading back (i.e., in transit), or just before that? Because that sounds more like quantum weirdness, i.e. 'rain of frogs.' But a world that always brings a rain of frogs - and it's starting to spread.

Or is it that, right before the scouts press the button to go to Homeline, they black out, but then head to Homeline 24 hours later?

Does the weird stuff happen between Homeline & Classified, or on Classified?

At what about going to/from there on the same parallel? I'm guessing that is world is Q3.

(oh, and how would Centrum react if they discovered a world like this? Maybe I-Cops have found records of a Q10 world from just before the Last War that has this exact same issue...)

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Britannica-6 is too kind to the entire British Empire, including the East India Company. Like most alternate timelines, it is an idea (a better, more steampunk British Empire) that back-fills the history.

Britannica-6 is not the most serious setting I’ve ever worked on. But I did try to make it fairly clear that it isn’t as cute as it looks at first glance either. There’s a thin layer of technophilia laid on top of a lot of Georgian corruption and decadence, and it may well all go to hell in 1914 style in the near future, with extra diesel-powered death machines.

[Astromancer]

Try this one..

Shamrock Vengence

On a Q6 99%/1% Low/High manna TL5+2 world with an active Steampunk ACW (October 1863) a group of furious Fenians, with three TL5+2 airships at their command, droped incendiary bombs on the city of London, Mayfair, and several British Naval bases. But that was a diversionary tactic. The real goal was a blitz attack on Balmoral. Victoria and all her children were captured and taken by airship over the seas.

The Fenians demand that Ireland be set free and all aid to the Confederacy be cut off. Parliament is in chaos. Lord Palmerson is both struggling to keep the MPs in order and calm down the people while organising the navy and army to attack. Still, he needs to know if he can attack, the airships were a shock, and most of the new ironclads were damaged in their bases. Meanwhile the French Emperor is eager to attack the USA (mainly to support his pet project to put an Emperor on a Mexican throne). Meanwhile, the Prussian King is making threatening noises at France and Russia sees a British attack on America as a move in the Great Game with an attack on the Dardenelles or Persia in answer for any British move on America.

Meanwhile, the Fenians attack on London and capture of the British Royals are known in America. There is some relief that the airships weren't stolen by the Johnny Rebs, but war with Britain and France seems likely. Lincoln demands the airships and the British Royals be found. Canada is in terror of invasion. The Confederacy is licking its chops at the thought of Britain and France as allies. They also want the airships and the British Royals. They plan to make it look like the Royal Family were killed by Union orders.

The Fenian base is in Northern California in an isolated area. Victorian and her family are well, and furious. The simple point that Britain had pulled far more brutal stunts on dozens of nations does not impress her. The simple fact that she's expected to do housework and farmchores (light duties really, the Fenians know the Royals don't know how to take care of themselves without servants) is a bitter pill to Victoria. Although the Fenians aren't being nasty or harsh by most people's standards, the simple lack of deference beyond normal manners is really painful to the Royals.

Centrum is spinning around wildly, there could be a world war in Europe in the 1860's. The British Empire is in peril, but so are all the other Empires. The Cabal wants peace in this world too, for their own reasons. Homeline also wants to avoid a general bloodbath, which it assumes will benefit Centrum. The Swagmen want a big war, and an independent CSA makes human trafficking easier and more profitable.

Basically, a diplomatic and millitary crisis with posibilities for adventure over a wide range of settings and genres. A rescue of the Royals could easily reselble an episode of the Wild Wild West or a Flashman novel. Steampunk spy adventures in Europe, Asia, or Eastern Noorthamerica also seem likely.

Note: High manna areas are smallish an unevenly scattered across this parallel. Places with supernatural reputations tend to be high manna. Places like Ireland, Egypt, Tibet, the Carribean, with magical reputations have more and larger High Manna areas. But even a small town in Ohio might have a haunted house with a high manna area in it.