New Reality Seeds

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by fchase8

... And sometimes even the 'New' is dropped out - there are two Portlands, for instance.

The one in the English Channel and the one in Ontario, right?

(Wikipedia is also aware of four Portlands in Australia, two in New Zealand, 26 in the USA, and assorted others.)

[patchwork]

WIP Arbogast(-1): Arbogast's flanking force stays loyal at the battle of the Frigidus, thus Emperor Theodosius, Stilicho and Alaric all die there. The Western Empire is safe from the political and religious interference of the East for a while, just as its pagan revival is taking off. We don't know how old Arbogast was at his death, but let's say he's a fit middle-aged man and give him 20 more years. It won't take a full year for him, with his larger, richer and more spirited army, to kick the Goths out of Italia. He won't officially abandon Britannia yet, and he's saddled the East with nincompoops for another 30 years. Attila will be the strain that makes the West abandon Britannia, just as (by the historians I consider most reliable) Niall of the Nine Hostages, the Ard-Righ with the Romano-Briton mother is expanding and raiding. He makes an attractive center of power in a time of trouble, and the whole British Isles are quickly ruled from Tyrconnel and Tyrone by the O'Neil dynasty.

Arbogast turns many invaders southeast, into Thrace, Greece, Pannonia, Bulgaria et cetera, rather than let them into Gaul. Clovis the Frank becomes a great Western Roman general and spiritual successor to Arbogast. The east is forced to make the Balkans "protectorates" even as Gaul is still ruled (officially) from Milan (Rome is immensely important for spiritual reasons to both Jupiter-worshipers and Christians, but the Imperial court is in Milan).

I'd leave A-1 somewhere in the 7th century; Arabs take Egypt and the Levant from the East, but the West keeps them out of the Maghreb. First contact between Vikings and the Hibernian Empire. Homeline sociologists would love to have a look at nearly all of these cultures, tourists would love to see the great pagan temples of Rome still standing and repaired side by side with Christian institutions. Because Latin and Greek are still in use, Centrum can infiltrate, although it likely sees little reason to (rogue Centran?)

put A-2 farther forward, call it the 11th century. Deprived of so much wealth and power so quickly, Byzantium was unable to resist the Seljuk Turks, and has fallen early. Charlemagne managed to tear Gaul away from the West and forge it into a national homeland for his people, probably the shock that has the West crumbling. I sincerely doubt there's much paganism left anywhere - Christianity can be slowed, but not really stopped. But the West has three powers (Rome, Frankland and Hiberno-Normans) and only room for two. The East is gone. A dark time in Rome, if it chooses the wrong ally it's toast and if it chooses the right one it's not out of the woods.

I'd probably put A-3 and A-4 even further forward, basing one on the success of the Hiberno-Normans and one on Carolingians who define themselves against the Empire in the West rather than as its successors.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Warlord of the Air sounds interesting - I had never heard of it.

It's Moorcock, most folks enjoy it.

A world without WWI would be very steampunk, or even mix steampunk/dieselpunk/atompunk. It would somewhat resemble Gernsback, but more of an emphasis on the archaic political system, less on the weird tech (though there certainly would be some of that - perhaps Tesla's inventions helped keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire going).

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, like the Ottoman Empire, would be propped up by the other Powers for fear of the Chaos that it's collapse might unleash.

[/quote]
I had forgotten about Lucifer-5 - that is a definite 'weird tech no WWI'.


It seems like it would take something the size of an asteroid strike to prevent a WWI.
[/quote]

It did smash the Czarist Imperium and refocus the Germans to the East.

Maybe there's a world with no WWI, no great colonial rebellions, and Infinity/Centrum are trying to find out why.

I can't see Centrum caring.

Harry Turtledove had his Atlantis series, where there is a continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (basically the East Coast of North American separated from the rest of the continent).

If 'South France' is habitable in different places, that could explain why it was settled by different powers. With Australia, it's basically the southeast portion that was the only seriously habitable spot at the time. 'France Sud' could have a few different natural harbors spread out around the continent.

France Sud has a climate like New Zealand, so large areas are habitable.

I would recommend giving the continent a different, less obvious name. Maybe name it 'Bougainville'.

I didn't know the French for Antarctic France, an 18th century fictional utopia that is set on a southern pacific continent.

In alternate timelines where there are different discoverers of the Americas/Oceania/etc., it's always tempting to just give places names that are 'New [Old World place]' or the like. While there are clear examples of that in the real world, it's noteworthy that most names are native, famous people, describing the area, etc.

Even the 'New XX's can be named after not the most famous original places. It's New York, not New London; New Orleans, not New Paris. And sometimes even the 'New' is dropped out - there are two Portlands, for instance.

True enough.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

WIP Arbogast(-1): Arbogast's flanking force stays loyal at the battle of the Frigidus, thus Emperor Theodosius, Stilicho and Alaric all die there. The Western Empire is safe from the political and religious interference of the East for a while, just as its pagan revival is taking off. We don't know how old Arbogast was at his death, but let's say he's a fit middle-aged man and give him 20 more years. It won't take a full year for him, with his larger, richer and more spirited army, to kick the Goths out of Italia. He won't officially abandon Britannia yet, and he's saddled the East with nincompoops for another 30 years. Attila will be the strain that makes the West abandon Britannia, just as (by the historians I consider most reliable) Niall of the Nine Hostages, the Ard-Righ with the Romano-Briton mother is expanding and raiding. He makes an attractive center of power in a time of trouble, and the whole British Isles are quickly ruled from Tyrconnel and Tyrone by the O'Neil dynasty.

Arbogast turns many invaders southeast, into Thrace, Greece, Pannonia, Bulgaria et cetera, rather than let them into Gaul. Clovis the Frank becomes a great Western Roman general and spiritual successor to Arbogast. The east is forced to make the Balkans "protectorates" even as Gaul is still ruled (officially) from Milan (Rome is immensely important for spiritual reasons to both Jupiter-worshipers and Christians, but the Imperial court is in Milan).

I'd leave A-1 somewhere in the 7th century; Arabs take Egypt and the Levant from the East, but the West keeps them out of the Maghreb. First contact between Vikings and the Hibernian Empire. Homeline sociologists would love to have a look at nearly all of these cultures, tourists would love to see the great pagan temples of Rome still standing and repaired side by side with Christian institutions. Because Latin and Greek are still in use, Centrum can infiltrate, although it likely sees little reason to (rogue Centran?)

put A-2 farther forward, call it the 11th century. Deprived of so much wealth and power so quickly, Byzantium was unable to resist the Seljuk Turks, and has fallen early. Charlemagne managed to tear Gaul away from the West and forge it into a national homeland for his people, probably the shock that has the West crumbling. I sincerely doubt there's much paganism left anywhere - Christianity can be slowed, but not really stopped. But the West has three powers (Rome, Frankland and Hiberno-Normans) and only room for two. The East is gone. A dark time in Rome, if it chooses the wrong ally it's toast and if it chooses the right one it's not out of the woods.

I'd probably put A-3 and A-4 even further forward, basing one on the success of the Hiberno-Normans and one on Carolingians who define themselves against the Empire in the West rather than as its successors.

Clearly you read Ken Hite on the wildly alternative history. Good work!

[patchwork]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Clearly you read Ken Hite on the wildly alternative history. Good work!

Thanks...I think? I read Ken Hite on horror stuff from time to time but...I don't think so...

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, like the Ottoman Empire, would be propped up by the other Powers for fear of the Chaos that it's collapse might unleash.

That was already verging on the case before WWI, and certainly during it Kaiser's Germany propped up Austro-Hungary.

Maybe the 'Three Emperors League' - an alliance between Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Russia in the late eighteenth century - could survive. Eastern Europe could be effectively 'Germany's colonial empire', where it exerts power & exploits, a-la Britain & France in their empires.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

It did smash the Czarist Imperium and refocus the Germans to the East.

Yeah, but it also opened up the heavens to imperialism. A major key to no-WWI would be have some other outlet for Kaiser Germany's imperialism.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I can't see Centrum caring.

Centrum wouldn't care why there was no WWI from a humanitarian perspective, but purely from a 'forces of history' perspective.

Centrum seems to view every world, certainly every advanced world, as heading towards their own Last War. So if WWI didn't happen on a world, that would violate Centran beliefs (kind of like how they can't figure out why the major powers on Homeline aren't at each other's throats).

Originally Posted by Astromancer

France Sud has a climate like New Zealand, so large areas are habitable.

Isn't most of the habitable land in New Zealand, or at least most of the population, centered in one region, mostly on the smaller North Island?

For rival colonies, there would need to be separate pockets of habitable land, each near their own harbor. There's a good deal of habitable land on Australia, but it's all focused on the southeast.

Perhaps the continent has some major mountain ranges that separate each part (with volcanoes & fjords like New Zealand). And then there's a lowland right in the center of the continent that the colonies fight over.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I didn't know the French for Antarctic France, an 18th century fictional utopia that is set on a southern pacific continent.

Equinoctial_France?

France Antarctique?

Though I still suspect that, if France didn't control the entire landmass, but instead contested it with other European powers, they wouldn't accept it being called 'France anything'. I can totally see British cartographers calling it something else on their maps.

[PTTG]

Actually, pushing Antarctica a dozen or so degrees into the Pacific could do a lot of interesting things. Aside from the climatological changes, it could presumably serve as France Sud along the edges.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by fchase8

That was already verging on the case before WWI, and certainly during it Kaiser's Germany propped up Austro-Hungary.

Maybe the 'Three Emperors League' - an alliance between Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Russia in the late eighteenth century - could survive. Eastern Europe could be effectively 'Germany's colonial empire', where it exerts power & exploits, a-la Britain & France in their empires.



Yeah, but it also opened up the heavens to imperialism. A major key to no-WWI would be have some other outlet for Kaiser Germany's imperialism.



Centrum wouldn't care why there was no WWI from a humanitarian perspective, but purely from a 'forces of history' perspective.

Centrum seems to view every world, certainly every advanced world, as heading towards their own Last War. So if WWI didn't happen on a world, that would violate Centran beliefs (kind of like how they can't figure out why the major powers on Homeline aren't at each other's throats).





Isn't most of the habitable land in New Zealand, or at least most of the population, centered in one region, mostly on the smaller North Island?

For rival colonies, there would need to be separate pockets of habitable land, each near their own harbor. There's a good deal of habitable land on Australia, but it's all focused on the southeast.

Perhaps the continent has some major mountain ranges that separate each part (with volcanoes & fjords like New Zealand). And then there's a lowland right in the center of the continent that the colonies fight over.



Equinoctial_France?

France Antarctique?

Though I still suspect that, if France didn't control the entire landmass, but instead contested it with other European powers, they wouldn't accept it being called 'France anything'. I can totally see British cartographers calling it something else on their maps.

Yeah, that would only end up being the name of the french-occupied part of the continent.

[PTTG]

Crosstime travel seems to be the road less taken, a technological path that exists in isolation from everything else. The addition of an unusual natural resource (such as Clear Ether or Oz Stones or something like that) and a power source could safely make any civilization into a crosstime power. Alternatively, a GM who wants to protect the overall universe could make a moderately-sized skerry with easy access.

I tried this before with the British Empire at the height of the colonial era (thanks to a series of abandoned gates in Cuba), but why limit ourselves to one time and place?

A Chronological Ray Booth of the 1900s is an interesting alternate to short-circuit (or advance) WWI and hasten the breakup of colonialist powers (or strengthen them). I'd have an American industrialist invent it so he could sell it to all sides with only limited diplomatic concerns. Or, maybe Charles Fort.

The art of Lìshǐ Dìngwèi, a counterpart to Feng Shui, makes prehistoric China the focal point of a constellation of worlds.

Should Frisian citizens of the early 1400s discover deep deposits of Starmetal, they might make allies in neighboring worlds, causing the Frisian freedom to last centuries longer.

The 1965 discovery of Dimensional Travel in the New Mexico desert leads, ultimately, to some kind of harmonic synchronization catastrophe about 40 years later.

A stranger who sells cosmic secrets to the Ottoman Empire by some unknown bargain could show up over a 400 year window with untold consequences in any potentiality.

In the late 1200s BCE, a man claiming to be Ramesses emerged from his tomb. Though he looked correct, immediate suspicions circled the figure. His wondrous gifts, including his ability to produce special sarcophagi that would allow one to visit the afterlife alive and return, did not mitigate the suspicions. Though grudgingly welcomed initially, the priests and "his" sons are already moving against him.

Or, dropping the crosstime bits entirely, just have Frisians introduce rule of law a few centuries early.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. On this Q6 world recently discovered by Homeline, but they know The Cabal lead both Centrum and Homeline here by tricks, the locals report Angles changing the shape of the world from a sphere to a ring in the year 1790AD.

That was fifty local years ago.

Yes. You've got 18th century Earth spread out on a Ringworld! The physical stats of the ring are much like Niven's book. Homeline and Centrum, and presumably the Cabal, are all looking for the hows and whys. Meanwhile, everybody is exploring, seeking the wonders of the new lands.