New Reality Seeds

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I tried to make an upbeat world. I ended up with a really dark and messy history (including the genocide of scores of millions), but an interesting world resulted. It may be a little out there, but hey, its alt hist.

Han - 4 (1949)
TL 5

Very nice. I like this world. It might suggest a steampunkish set up, but I'm getting tired of steampunk, for one thing, and for another there is no real punk element. A non-Victorian alternate steam technology setting? A singular occurrence.

Ocean-3 is also pretty cool. Great way to tie the homeline into a setting. I usually think of homeline as the "old tavern" where the players get their marching orders, and if they are lucky get occasional supplies or assistance, but otherwise it stays in the background.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Drifter

Very nice. I like this world. It might suggest a steampunkish set up, but I'm getting tired of steampunk, for one thing, and for another there is no real punk element. A non-Victorian alternate steam technology setting? A singular occurrence.

Thanks!

I will say, It never ceases to amaze me what genres people think I'm working with when compared with what I actually aim for. I was setting up for intrigue in a very bureaucratic setting based around either preventing technology or focused on social upheaval. But yes, It can certainly be spun that way. Thats what groups are for.

[Astromancer]

Trying my hand at an interesting world that a good/pleasant world I'm rifting off the long term Cetiomania of the New Agers and my presantly reading a book on the 1689-1727 period in Britain. I make the assumption that Queen Anne was RH negative and her husband George was RH positive (I've no proof of this but it fits with Anne carrying 17 children to term and only one of them surviving infancy).

Celtic-1

The "Celtic" designation is reserved for worlds where there are stronger survivals of Celtic cultures and languages into the modern world. Some parahistorian dislike the term because it links worlds by an effect rather than a cause. But the term is still used.

In Celtic-1 George of Denmark, who in Homeline history was the husband of Queen Anne, dies in infancy. Anne is instead married to a minor German Princeling a younger son named Lancelot (because of his mother's love of Arthurian lore).

Lancelot and Anne have seven healthy children including their youngest son Merlin (since he had no chance of being king they named him to please his paternal grandmother, a well loved member of the family). Merlin was a quiet studious child who went to the Scots Universities (Oxford was moribund in this period) and there developed a deep love of Gaelic culture and the people of the Highlands. Because Lancelot was a close friend of William (there were rumors that he was husband to both the Princess and the King), William never met the little gentleman in velvet and lived to be 75 dieing in 1725.

Both of Merlin's older brothers died a few months before King William. This placed King Merlin I on the throne of England, and he reigned for thirty-eight years. As the king favored Scots Bards and Irish musicians Celtic culture experienced a revival in this world. Because the Staurt family stayed on the throne, and the King of England was proud of his Scots blood, there were no Jacobite uprisings. Highland culture lasted pretty much in tact until the 1920's.

Celtic-1, A Q5 world, is highly popular with New Agers, Scots nationalist, fans of Celtic Music, and romantics of many stripes. Local year 1968 (yes pop music is just as wild in this world in that period as it was in ours, but due the the Celtic influence, none of these great sounds sound the same as they did on Homeline).

[ericthered]

Empire - 638 AD
TL 3

The divergence point for this world is unknown: experts are unsure of any one or even half dozen changes that could have created this world, but it exists: A world of empires. Roman and Han empires should be long gone, but they have instead crossed massive barriers to fight each other in India. No Mongol empire should exist at this point, but one dominates central asia and harries both the Romans and the Chinese. The Mayans have a much larger civilization than they ought to, and the Carthaginians shouldn't be able to survive the diseases of West Africa, let alone carry out wars with the Mayans and Romans or send ships to Indonesia.

Looking closer has revealed a few deep differences on empire:

Empire natives are extremely resistant to disease. This extends to most vertebrates on the world, but humans have it stronger than most (resistant to disease +8 for humans, +5 for most animals).
The grains of the world perform better than expected, providing 50% more food than would be predicted by the tech level
Not only are plauges less common, but the weather is statistically more mild: fewer droughts, fewer storms.

Technology is well developed: the romans have a good understanding of many TL 3 technologies, and use more heavy calvary than historically -- but they still rely mostly on the strength of the legion. Carthaginian boats look like something between a traditional galley and a viking long boat, and their navigation and astronomy is quite excellent. The Mayans have inferior metal working skills, but they do have them: iron weapons are the norm, and their knowledge of medicine and poisons is inexplicably advanced. They've picked up sailing from the Carthaginians, and maintain an empire stretching from Peru to California. They'd own more in the Caribbean and Brazil but the Carthaginians contest them for those territories.

The primary export of this world are animals: a disease resistant livestock sells for quite a lot on other low tech worlds. This ironically leads to the most important economic areas of the world being on the fringes of the great empires or in Mongol territory, rather than in Rome or China.

[Astromancer]

Celtic-2

In this parallel Mary Tudor, in an attempt to prevent a Protestant succession to the Throne of England after her death, forces her sister Elizabeth to wed an Irishman. Mary had had a high-ranking O'Neill grabbed, brough to Winchester, and given the choice of marrige to the Princess Elizabeth or death.

At first Elizabeth and her husband Padhrig O'Neill fought constantly. Then they figured out that they enjoyed fighting each other more than anything else in life. Mary requiered them to name their first child Patrick, refusing to let her sister name her son Henry.

When Patrick Prince of Wales was told his first son was born, he named him Henry, to please his beloved Mother. Padhrig and Patrick aided both in submitting Ireland to the British crown and in the conversion of the Irish to the Protestant faith, much to the chagrin of the English lords that wanted Irish lands.

It's 1925 in this Q4 Low Mana world, Celtic lore is popular and well known here and Druidical magic was key in putting Thaumatology on a scientific basis. The Cabal is fascinated with this world, Homeline sees the local understanding of Magic as a vital tool they need to exploit.

[Astromancer]

The Union designation is given to worlds where either the Civil War leads to better more honorable outcomes in reguard to American racial issues or Reconstruction was far better handled with similar benefits.

Union-7

Union-7 may or may not deserve the "UNION" designation. The local year is only 1866, however Lincoln is alive and well (the prevailing theory amoung the ICOPS is that Mary Sarratt figured out how much of a threat John Wilks Booth was to her family and poisoned him). Lincoln is fighting to get both the 14th and 15th amendment to the U.S. constitution through Congress and the states. Reconstruction is in full swing and Lincoln seems to be going for a try anything approach.

Those large planters who supported the CSA have generally lost their lands. These confiscated lands are being redistributed to poor Whites and recently Freed Black folks. Fourty acres and a mule is very real in this new South.

Centruum is of two minds about this Q6 world. On one hand they want the USA broken and subservient to the British Empire. On the other hand they like the idea of a major state fighting against racism in the late 19th century.

The ICops like this Parallel ("Lincoln isn't shot and justice might not have to wait for a century or more!") Similarly the USA, the UK, and Russia (remember they supported the Union) all like this parallel too. The Chinese and the French are mainly focused on aiding this parallel's versions of their own nations. USA focused on internal problems isn't interesting or troublesome to them.

In the jungles of Venezulea an broken offshoot of the Ringroad has been found by Reich-5. The Nazis are still exploring, they aren't likely to approve of this world. If either Centruum or the ICops find out about Reich-5 infiltraition this world will be a major focus of attention.

By the way. Union-7 is on interest on Homeline because this mainly no mana world has a few small areas of low to normal mana. Most of these areas are in places like Egypt, India, Ireland, and Haiti, with reputations for Occult happenings. However, the Bahamas have several small islands with normal mana levels that would make excellent sites for a magical training and research center. Homeline is determined to get control of these islands.

[Flyndaran]

Wealth redistribution sounds bound to create unrest. Giving it to blacks is the way to create nation wide revolt orders of magnitude greater than the civil rights violence in the 1960s.
The civil war wasn't about slavery, and trying too hard to make the after effects about equal rights would leave an even more bitter taste in the mouths of southerners, in my limited historical knowledge opinion.

The cynic in me thinks Lincoln would have backed down from pushing equal rights post war as it wouldn't have been politically prudent then.
As it was, he pushed for attacking the south in ways to make it more like the north. He wasn't really negatively impacting his side with his decisions.

Edit: sorry I only know enough history to criticize others, but not enough to come up with plausible alternates myself.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Wealth redistribution sounds bound to create unrest. Giving it to blacks is the way to create nation wide revolt orders of magnitude greater than the civil rights violence in the 1960s.
The civil war wasn't about slavery, and trying too hard to make the after effects about equal rights would leave an even more bitter taste in the mouths of southerners, in my limited historical knowledge opinion.

The cynic in me thinks Lincoln would have backed down from pushing equal rights post war as it wouldn't have been politically prudent then.
As it was, he pushed for attacking the south in ways to make it more like the north. He wasn't really negatively impacting his side with his decisions.

Edit: sorry I only know enough history to criticize others, but not enough to come up with plausible alternates myself.

On this world it's turning out differently. Or maybe your critique points up where the conflicts and adventures are.

Maybe powers outside of America are threatened by America's experiments with racial equality in this world. Europe's colonial empires might seem threatened by both America's democracy and now her radical egaliterianism. Louis Napoleon couldn't get people to ally with him to invade America during the American Civil War, maybe reconstruction is his chance?

[Drifter]

Union-3

Divergence point was the failure of William Gilmore Simms to become a novelist, instead returning to his legal practice. In Homeline, Simms, described by Edgar Alan Poe as America's greatest novelist, was a leading author, historian and proponent of slavery. Without Simms "Southron" spirit and culture had one less (major) voice, and the support of the common man was that much less. By the time of the First Civil War, 1861 to 1863, support had eroded to such an extent that Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee, initially supporting secession, sued to rejoin the Union after the fall of Kentucky.

Short and violent, this War did not resolve many issues. Lincoln had not freed the slaves, and many bills passed during the years without Southern participation in Congress, such as funding the intercontinental railroad, the Banking Act and the introduction of income tax, were blocked with their return. Lincoln himself was still alive, hated and feared in the South, the Hero of the Union in the North.

In 1872 American forces help Cuba defeat Spain. In order to keep European support, Lincoln finally frees the slaves. This is the last straw for many Southerners, dependent on the slave economy, who again attempt secession. The Second Civil War, with nearly a decade of industrial modernization of the military after the lessons learned from the First war, is generally considered the most horrific war in human history.

From 1872 to 1879 the largely stalemated war resembles World War I. Even lighter than air craft are used in bombing campaigns, while submarines break through naval blockades. Washington is destroyed, and New York and Philadelphia suffer extensive damage from long range strikes and bombings. But in the end the South is roundly defeated, Sherman's March had nothing on the tank divisions that rolled through Georgia and across Texas. Atlanta, burned to the ground, its population largely killed or dispersed, is rebuilt as New Washington. Jefferson Davis is seized and murdered by over enthusiastic Union soldiers.

Lincoln continued to be a force to restore and rebuild the Union. As Supreme Court justice, he directed the reconstruction of the South. Freed slaves were settled across the devastated southern states and the Western and Caribbean territories. Washington DC is rebuilt grander than ever, the white marble and burnished copper of the Dome an iconic image of federal power.

Current year is 1938. African Americans have held public offices, have been professionals and well represented in the arts for a generation or more. It is true that the northern cities such as Chicago and New York have very few black citizens, and they face discrimination there, but cities such as San Fransisco, Denver, Los Angeles, Savannah, Houston and Havana are centers for the so-called African Renaissance.

Across the Atlantic Hitler rails daily about the purity of race and the degeneracy of the US. So far America has sought to stay at peace, but the arms industry is busy supplying the British with Ford Thunderchariot Tanks, while the new Grumman jet fighters are still kept top secret.

Spoiler:  

Note that the issue of slavery was a very important issue in the war. Slaves were expensive, and becoming very much more so, with their importing being banned. They were necessary for most large scale agriculture in the South. It is true that Northern citizens would have liked to see Africa-American slaves free - but not around them, hence efforts like Liberia and such. The greatest fear of the north, that african-americans would leave the south in droves if they were freed, came quite true.

In this timeline there is less unrest and resistance to equality just because so much of the south had been destroyed, the populations slaughtered. 'Redistrubution of wealth' was more along the lines of 'clear out the wreckage and its yours'. Population movements went West and south into the American Caribbean instead of north. Increasingly wealthy african-american populations were more easily accepted there, but the north and east still lags far behind.

[combatmedic]

Bold.

But where did the advanced tech come from? Tanks in the 1870s?

Is this a steampunk setting, then?