New Reality Seeds

[ericthered]

oh, the sun king. I always require additional context when sticking numbers after 'Louis'.

There are two paths to go with that change. The first is Bourbon hegemony in europe. When you look at Louis's wars, they are all essentially dog piles on France to preserve the balance of power.

The other is an excuse to really play around with borders: giving France the Spanish Netherlands (belgium), peices of itally -- you can actually do a lot with this as far as border changing.

[PTTG]

There are like three Paradox PC games that make for great reality seed generators. Crusader Kings 2 is entertaining as a way to kill off or enhance certain individuals, then switch to Observe mode and watch what happens 200 years later.

These are somewhat low-inertia timelines, though, seeing as the game does roll dice for a lot of AI decisions....

[Prince Charon]

OK, so Dominion of Hannover it is, then.

Interestingly enough, while the US does not like the ideal of Empire, we did and do have a number of overseas possessions, protectorates, and 'significantly less powerful allies,' who can be said to make up an American Empire - and on Katalysator-1 (and other TLs with this sort of political make-up, powered or not), they will be, particularly by British, French, Brazilian, and Soviet politicians (the Soviets were already hypocritical about 'American imperialism' in our timeline, so no change there).

Thinking about France (sorry I've no ideas for the Phillipe TL, though I wonder what could cause the Sun King to swallow his pride like that, as this would probably have an effect on the rest of it), 1954-55 would be an interesting time to run a game in - though not a great time to visit or live there. The idea was that the Fourth Republic in that era was the first example of multiple groups of psis (mostly in concert with larger groups of non-psis) attempting large-scale social engineering for contradictory goals, often without knowing about each-other at first.

There was a group working with De Gaulle toward something that would have looked like the OTL Fifth French Republic, a large group working for the Soviets (who actually held Paris for a few weeks in 1955, and were recognized by the USSR, before being kicked out by De Gaulle), a group working on a second Bourbon Restoration, one looking to restore the House of Orléans, one pulling for direct democracy using the Power of Radio, and two groups that later merged that were pushing for a Napoleonic Restoration. Some of these groups included (or were formed by) some of the psis who worked on Germany, including one of the Bonapartist groups. I've been thinking that the Third French Empire in this worldline might be an accidental mix, with the people of France taking to the idea of a constitutional French Empire more strongly than the idea of a Bonapartist Restoration, and electing Charles De Gaulle as Emperor of the French (much to the annoyance of many foreign politicians who have to deal with him). Not sure how well that works, but it's supposed to be the result of what All the Tropes calls a Gambit Pileup, so it should be strange and messy.

On another note, I wonder if there's enough interest in large-scale social engineering (power-assisted or not) to deserve a thread?

[Astromancer]

I could see a group of worlds whose theme is contact with aliens. Picture a world where a group of benign aliens contacted Britain and the Netherlands in about the year 1695 to trade. The aliens set up bases in London and Amsterdam and trade the Earth's goods for technology and scientific information.

The Aliens want to see if they can speed and shape Earth's development. There are so many ways to play from there. Remember, these aliens are basically good guys, not especially wise or insightful.

[David Johnston2]

In the official Infinite Worlds setting FTL is off limits to avoid multiplying infinity by another infinity and to keep Homeline and Centrum from being too drastically outgunned, technically and in resources by a local polity.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

In the official Infinite Worlds setting FTL is off limits to avoid multiplying infinity by another infinity and to keep Homeline and Centrum from being too drastically outgunned, technically and in resources by a local polity.

OTOH, In GURPS, like other good roleplaying games, the rules accept that all rules are optional.

[PTTG]

A variety of changes result in Brazil being a equal rival to the USA no later than 1800. Brazil remained neutral in the French Revolution.

It's 1812, and the two states find themselves on opposing sides of the war.

Or, maybe Brazil remains neutral in 1812, but will surely oppose the USA in the upswing in US imperialism. The US civil war might be curtailed, much more successful, or just plain catastrophic.

[PTTG]

A variety of changes result in Royalist, Democratic, and a religious Chinese faction over the formative years of the CPC. The result is that, by 1960, five main factions hold significant regions of mainland China, plus eight border states, subfactions, and municipalities (Hong Kong has expanded inland to obtain control of its water supply, and Beijing is independent with a Royalist enclave.

The territories now exist in a state of military equilibrium. The Democratic faction is large, but not endorsed on the world stage. The Nationalist faction is small, but has strong trade with the USA. The Communists are supported by the USSR, but are undergoing some kind of internal turmoil, etc., etc.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by PTTG

A variety of changes result in Royalist, Democratic, and a religious Chinese faction over the formative years of the CPC. The result is that, by 1960, five main factions hold significant regions of mainland China, plus eight border states, subfactions, and municipalities (Hong Kong has expanded inland to obtain control of its water supply, and Beijing is independent with a Royalist enclave.

The territories now exist in a state of military equilibrium. The Democratic faction is large, but not endorsed on the world stage. The Nationalist faction is small, but has strong trade with the USA. The Communists are supported by the USSR, but are undergoing some kind of internal turmoil, etc., etc.

Note that this has consequences for American politics. "losing" China was a big boost to so-called "McCarthyism" in the 50s. The Korean War turns out differently without a Communist China to intervene in it

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

oh, the sun king. I always require additional context when sticking numbers after 'Louis'.

There are two paths to go with that change. The first is Bourbon hegemony in europe. When you look at Louis's wars, they are all essentially dog piles on France to preserve the balance of power.

The other is an excuse to really play around with borders: giving France the Spanish Netherlands (belgium), peices of itally -- you can actually do a lot with this as far as border changing.

The other likely one is France dissolves into civil war. Kings had a really good reason to distrust their brothers, uncles, nephews and close cousins after all. Even if you were utterly confident of their loyalty and certain nothing could shake it, there's always the risk of somebody else staging a revolt using them as a figurehead. Keep in mind this is still an era in which many of the great nobles of France are quasi-independent princes. Louis XIV struggled his entire reign with trying to ban private armies and get the nobility to actually pay some taxes. Many of them would be more than happy to stage a revolt in the name of a prince who didn't particularly want one.