New Reality Seeds

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I'm not sure about plausibility of the tech tree, but this is too fun for me to care about that. :)

Beam weapons and swords and towering skyscrapers! Wheee!

Added cool points for the Paratime reference.

More notes on conflict and action and adventure opportunities would be helpful.

I take it the lingua franca is some sort of Neo-Akkadian tongue?

Glad you like it, its been in my head for a while now but I never wrote it down. Sort of aged in the wood. It has that Sword and Planet vibe, probably more than Piper's stories (but its been a while since I read those too).

I forgot to mention the current year is AD 1653, so about 26 centuries since their industrial revolution and apocalypse. The tech tree stems from that; science and rationality were abandoned long ago, replaced with rote learning from ancient sources. So big gaps appear; they have electricity, radio and solar power, but no computers, nuclear reactors or TV. Swords and lasers, but no guns. This isn't absolute, some mad scientist types show up occasionally, but widespread acceptance of resulting inventions would be difficult.


The Madness Dossier was an inspiration. So with the various dieties, psi and weird powers, ancient tech and thousands of years of mutations resulting from the atomic and bio wars, you get some action and adventure.

Maybe Homeline trades for various basic goods, like cloth or plastics (straight out of The Last Enemy). Or wants to and is trying to set up a trading company. So that gives Homeliners a reason to be here. They face problems like:

Various cults and evils priests. This is a low or no mana world, but the presence of the "one true language", the operating system of the human brain (ala Madness Dossier and Snow Crash) means they can cast what are essentially spells with neurolingistics, glyphs and memes. The goals of the priests are localized, but if the agents or their friends get caught up as sacrifices to Kigal, goddess of the underworld, that can be a big problem. Bringing mind-altering glyphs back to Homeline would probably open a can of worms, so maybe they dont' work off this timeline? Or they can be used with the restrictions noted in Dossier - glyphs made by non-natives aren't nearly as powerful.

Mutations and geneered life. Atomic Horror might come in handy here, especially if you go pulp and allow giant ants. I wouldn't go that far, personally, but Piper gives a hint about "nighthounds", so I'd go with strangely altered coyotes, wolves or dogs, or even giant, long legged rats, bred for the wars and long ago naturalized, far more intelligent than they need to be. Warrens of rat-men under the irradiated ruins of Irem would make an interesting problem. Not the least of which is figuring out if they are actually intelligent rats or just really ugly humans.

And remember that death does not hold a big threat to these people. They believe in reincarnation and all that it implies. Those implications were the driving force behind Piper's The Last Enemy, so if you have players who haven't read it (unlikely), you can run that straight out of the box. Or run it even if they do know, its basically just a rescue the princess story anyway.

So if Homeline traders have to deal with the Assassins Guild, casual duels to the death AND the knowledge that if they die here, their spirits will likely give away The Secret if and when their are reborn, that might cause this timeline to be very tightly guarded. Then again, if reincarnation holds across the timelines, that is an issue anywhere, one Homeline doesn't realize until they get the report back from here.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That amount of time and trouble would at best keep it Semitic probably with heavy influences from conquered refugees from India and China.

A tonal Semitic descendent language would be interesting/odd.

Hmm, I'm of two minds. One - its cool, and those refugees were introduced way before the atomic wars so the languages could have adapted. Two - its not the "Classical Akkadian/Sumerian" language. OK, lets say there are two levels of language. The normal, everyday language that is tonal Semitic, and the Sumerian language of the priesthood that can be used in neurolingustics and effects the basics of behavior.

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Yeah, strange.


If it were mine, I'd describe Neo-Akadian as the lingua franca, but various minority and local languages and dialects would still exist.
This might tend to undermine Drifter's design goal, though, so perhaps it's a bad idea.


I suggest that in this timeline, advantages like Race Memory (past lives) and Reawakened might be allowable, given the possibilities inherent in reincarnation.
Or maybe not.

You can always use Enki - 2 or more, where the atomic wars were not so complete, or the reconstruction wasn't so genocidal.

I LOVE the Race Memory and Reawakened ideas. Perfect for this timeline! I've never had a reason to look twice at those advantages, and now they're integral! Very cool.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

He already includes psychics, so a hint more physics modifying wouldn't rock the boat much.

Static language (re)development would work to stifle creativity. There might be a one true language for humans of this alternate.

Sure, I'll take credit for thinking of that :)

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Ehrlich/Famine-3
In this worldline, Norman Borlaug was accepted for military duty in 1941 and died on the front lines in Europe. History goes on largely unaffected until the 1970s, when the Green Revolution does not occur - Borlaug's new strains of food crops were almost single-handedly responsible for it. America is busy providing food relief to Mexico as starving millions pour across the border, nuclear non-proliferation is a dead idea as India is willing to hand plans, know-how and possibly even weapons-grade uranium over to anyone willing to help prevent their millions of annual deaths to starvation and malnutrition. Indonesia joins the nuclear club by precisely that method; busy with Mexico, the USA can only watch as India grows closer to the USSR. The USA is still able to feed itself but has far less surplus food to export. The Falklands war gets rather hotter as Argentina chooses to escalate rather than face its hungry populace; clinging to the Monroe doctrine, the USA sides with Argentina during the peace talks, spiking the Special Relationship rather badly.

Population control has become the norm in every developed nation by 2014, as births in excess of the food supply simply cannot be allowed. Global population remains stable at 4 billion, fluctuating only slightly for 30 years.

This world is an ulcer for the I-cops; zero population growth has largely been achieved and is in its second generation, making it a fascinating study for Homeline sociologists. Miracle Workers want to give this world the Borlaug strains and re-start its population growth, particularly in India and China. And the I-cops are bothered by Centrum - which is active in humanitarian efforts here, oddly sometimes working with Miracle Workers. They are horrified at a world in which nuclear weapons are possessed by a variety of desperate people and see this world as on the brink of a terrible Last War.

other Famine worlds include Famine-1, in which a plant virus wiped out global wheat and barley crops during the 1920s, leading to starvation in many parts of the world; Famine-2, in which Mad Cow Disease erupted in Texas in 1880 as the Red River Shakes, devastating the USA before any means existed to control or combat it, and Famine-4/3, a close parallel until 2011 when viruses capable of killing transgenic crops while leaving "natural" ones alone were released, prompting a collapse of the food supply in some nations while leaving Europe largely untouched.

The traditional way to get rid of surplus population was war and infanticide, so stumbling towards a Last War makes a lot of sense.

I like Famine-2. I doubt a loss of the beef supply is going to cause any major problems, but the Red River Shakes could evolve into a zombie verse cowboy story, if you go all cinematic. Or as is you get a US that might break up thanks to the population drops and recriminations that follow. The West and South split off, or the Northeast just stops caring about keeping the Union together.

As for transgenic crops targeted, I can see a geneered virus, developed by either enemies of transgenic crops, or rival corporations attempting to get more market share. With Europe untouched you can bet China, India and the US, along with everyone else, are going to want answers AND food from Europe. Invasion is inevitable, if only refugees from Africa and Asia flooding across the borders.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Drifter

I LOVE the Race Memory and Reawakened ideas. Perfect for this timeline! I've never had a reason to look twice at those advantages, and now they're integral! Very cool.

Coolios.


In addition to crosstime adventures, I'd happily play or run a game set wholly within that timeline.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Perhaps a magical being wanted stop genetic engineering in order to weaken humanity?

Foolish humans, finally agreeing on something and allowing themselves to rely so heavily on one item.
For too long have I waited as they remained fractious and adaptable. Finally, my time to strike is here!

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Drifter

...
Mutations and geneered life. Atomic Horror might come in handy here, especially if you go pulp and allow giant ants. I wouldn't go that far, personally, but Piper gives a hint about "nighthounds", so I'd go with strangely altered coyotes, wolves or dogs, or even giant, long legged rats, bred for the wars and long ago naturalized, far more intelligent than they need to be. Warrens of rat-men under the irradiated ruins of Irem would make an interesting problem. Not the least of which is figuring out if they are actually intelligent rats or just really ugly humans.
...

In our timeline, nearly all chupacabra sightings turn out to be coyotes or dogs with skin disorders. In yours, you might get the true horror of the opposite.
"What's wrong with Fido over there? Oh, crap. It's a chupacabra!"

[patchwork]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Would you be happy with "capable of killing several popular transgenic crops"? There's nothing about transgenic crops as a class that makes them all vulnerable to the same disease, but a disease that targeted a particular gene is possible in theory. You seem to be implying that this was deliberate on someone's part, and it certainly looks like it.

It would have to be deliberate, yes. I was assuming a disease (or group of diseases) designed to target organisms with the copyright sequence from a few major corporations; transgenic crops are not yet a mom-and-pop level operation. You'd also need multiple simultaneous release points to get a fast global pandemic.

[combatmedic]

NOTE

I've taken down all my ''Union'' timelines, due to the fuss they kicked up.

They may return at a later date.

This one may serve better.



Union 6




• Winter 1827
Thomas R Dew, President of the College of William and Mary, falls ill with pneumonia and dies.
• Spring of 1832
Virginia General Assembly debates future of slavery in the state, in the wake of Nat Turner’s Rebellion. The gradual emancipators and colonizers win a narrow victory over the pro-slavery men.
Without Dew’s influential pamphlet, the pro-slavery side is weakened.
• 1833
Virginia begins process of phasing out slavery and providing for colonization
• 1846-48
Mexican War, results similar to OTL, but debates over future slave status tweaked in favor of Free Soil by Virginia’s gradual emancipation position.

• 1850 Maryland and Delaware adopt gradual emancipation plans based on the Virginia model
• 1840/1850s
Abolitionist factions weakened as moderate Anti-slavery men in the North applaud the gradualist progress in the Border States and Upper South. Pro-Slavery Fire Eaters fulminate, but to less effect than in OTL. Sectional tensions run high, but a series of political compromises reduce the rancor in Congress.


1859
• “Captain” John Brown of Kansas invades Virginia with his gang, headed for the arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He intends to seize the arms stored there and march south through the state, gathering men and supplies as he heads into North Carolina’s mountains.
His plan fails and he is taken alive after a fierce gun fight at the arsenal.
Charged with murder and treason, Brown is sentenced to hang.
Apart from sympathetic articles in radical Abolitionist papers, he gets little favorable press in the North, and much condemnation.

• 1860
Seward is elected president in a razor-thin victory
The Crisis of 1860 follows
South Carolina secedes from the Union in December

• 1861
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana secede (but support for secession is a little lower, and interest in negotiation a bit stronger)

President Seward, with Maryland and Virginia seeming more or less safe, feels empowered to wait it out. He negotiates, evacuating untenable positions but demanding that federal taxes be paid and federal; laws be obeyed.
• 1862
The only noteworthy battle of the undeclared American Civil War takes place at sea between the USS Spindrift and the CSS Flynn, two frigates.
The fight ends with both vessels crippled and aflame. A passing British ship renders aid. Both sides claim victory, but when the sailors get to home ports, they learn the war has ended almost before it began, with the eleventh hour Alexandria Accords.

The seceding states gain recognition and independence.

• ’62-64
Praised by many for preventing further secession and a worse war, but also mocked by radicals and jingoists, Seward spends the remainder of his time in office managing the endgame of secession. He tries to gain a second term in 1864, but loses to his old rival, Abraham Lincoln.

• 1864-1872
Lincoln makes internal improvements and banking reform/monetary policy his top priorities. But he also works for gradual emancipation and colonization.


• 1868-1877
Upper South States (the new borderlands) all adopt compensated emancipation, paid for by Western land sale revenues under a Federal plan. By 1877 chattel slavery has essentially been eliminated in the United States

• 1860s on…
Spared early, obscure deaths in the ACW, an entire generation of American agronomists, mechanics, and inventors push technological and scientific developments further and faster than in Homeline’s history. Both the Confederate States and the United States enjoy great advances in science and technology.
TL 6 by 1870
TL 7 by 1920

• Great War of 1914-1918
Fought with more advanced weapons but retarded strategy and tactics, this war proves even more horrible and destructive than its equivalent on Homeline.
Alliances are similar, except that Italy honors it obligations and joins with the Central Powers. It is broken apart by the victorious Allies.
The two North American federal republics fought together on the Allied side, after both attempting to keep out in the early part of the war. The experience draws their people closer together, but tension over slavery remains a problem in relations.
Tsars overthrown in Russia.
ProGov overthrown by Bolsheviks.
1918/19
The Moroccan Influenza pandemic hits the world hard, but Confederate and United States scientists working together develop a vaccine that helps prevent much greater death toll.

The Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov escapes to Alaska; but her family are murdered.
.

• 1920s
Increasing automation in agriculture and manufacturing lowers the value of slave labor. Support for voluntary manumission grows across the Confederacy.

• 1930s
World Depression
The value of slaves in the CSA plummets as speculation on slave stock falls through. Many owners declare bankruptcy and free their slaves, then hire the same workers back under contract.
International pressure, domestic concerns, and the cost of policing the remaining slave population lead to laws phasing out slavery.


The German Worker’s Party under Fuhrer Strasser gains power in Germany and begins a campaign of re-unification. It allies with the National Bolshevist regime in Moscow.

• 1936-1940
The Second World War
Allies
Britain
France
Tsarist Russia (Alaskya)
USA and CSA (late entries)

Axis
USSR
Japan
Germany (Himmler seizes power after Stasser dies in an airplane crash)

Outcome= Allied victory, restoration of Tsarist rule under Empress Anastasia, Fuhrer Himmler lynched by Confederate soldiers after his capture by men who had recently liberated a concentration camp (in which they found, among other horrors, the results of DAP’s “medical experiments” on captured black workers and servants. )

• 50s-90s RECONSTRUCTION, THE AMERICAN PROJECT
Trans Appalachian Coal Exchange
American Economic Community
Common Defense Command
Civil Rights campaigns
Further integration continues
By the mid-1960s, support for reunification has grown strong and by the mid 1990s all the seven Deep South states except Texas have rejoined the Union.

• CURRENT Year 2001
….

What's going on now?

Maybe a three way Mars Race between France, the United States, and Russia?



France is a belligerent, militaristic power. It still holds much of North Africa and Indochina, fighting ongoing colonial rebellions that just don't seem to die.



Russia is ruled by Anastasia's daughter Katerzina, an enlightened technocratic despotism with lip service paid to constitutionalism and a compliant Duma.


Germany and Italy are regions, not states. Balkanized.

Ironically, the Balkans enjoy a relative calm, having fallen under Russian-Greek-Bulgarian joint rule.




All citizens of the USA have full civil rights as per the Civil Rights Amendments of the 1960ss (accepted by new/old member states as they entered the Union).



TECH: Mature TL 8, advanced in agronomy and wonder drugs (TL 9)

NOTE--

This timeline is still a work in progress. I've started wit a small POD and move from there. I've trie dto use the best feature sof my other stabs at a Union timeline.


Yes, American reunification is based in part on the EU model.

This timeline reduces the ACW to a minor event amid a political crisis (very optimistic, but other countries have split with as little fighting).

I reduced the sway of the Fire Eaters and the Radical Abolitionists in ways I think make sense.


Full civil rights arrive around the same time they do in our timeline or later in the Deep South. But they do arrive.

The Union is arguably stronger. Less racial animosity, less sectional animosity. Tech is more advanced.

I kept Texas out because I figured that one state missing wouldn't disqualify the timeline, and I didn't want to go full Pollyanna on this with everything tying up so neatly.
Note that Texas does not have slavery as of the current year. That's not why they stayed out. it ha s more to do with taxes, oil revenues, and a pro-independence attitude.


Other stuff---


This one needs more conflict, and some more info on the world outside the 'States.

More adventure opportunities.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

NOTE

I've taken down all my ''Union'' timelines, due to the fuss they kicked up.

They may return at a later date.

This one may serve better.



Union 6

Very nice, well thought out. You can drop players into any point on that timeline.

But you shouldn't have taken down the others, they were good resources too.

[Astromancer]

Following Drifter's lead of building more exotic timelines, my new Reality Seed starts with the Santorini Caldera not exploding.

Minoan-3


Minoan-3 a Q6 seems to have changed first with Santorini not exploding but then two major technological breakthroughs occur on Crete. The first of these, printing is now known to have been a Minoan skill, mainly used for decorating cloth but some transmission of words seems to have been done (this fits certain speculations about acheological relics in our world). The second of these was the development of Paper around 900BCE ( or what would have been 900BCE). Legends claim a priestess wanted to copy the qualities of papyrus and tried experimenting with boiled wood and flax pulp.

In the centuries after the development of paper, travellers from the Minoan lands (Crete, Greece, Southern Italy, the coasts of Anatolia) discovered new types of wheat in Central Asia and new types of irrigation as well. Much of what is called Arab Agricultural Revolution occurs in this world around 600BCE.

The Celtic Lands experience massive ecconomic growth because of technology transfers. The Celtic elites exchange their mathematical and carteological skills with the Minoans leading to the begins of a scientific revolution.

The Present year is 1290BCE (But by the Minoan Calendar it's 9732RZ, Reign of Zeus). Celti-Amerinid States in North America are working on the terraformation of Mars. They get into Orbit useing a StarTram made cheap and practical by the use of RRTSC(Robust Room Temperature SuperConductor) in it's construction. The parallel is TL9 but only recently.

Both Homeline and Centruum is this world as a good parallel to raid for technology. Industrial espionage is commonplace and the locals don't care about race. Centruum it at a loss of this world, it's democratic and decentralised. Sadly, this world tends toward being violently lively in social practise. But good natured violence. Everyone is good friends after a fight. As for sex, chasity isn't much thought of and the general sexual orientation is toward more rather than less (being pansexual is the norm), refusing rudely is big trouble.

Note: Steal freely from THS for the tech.

[Flyndaran]

One quibble. Minoans weren't Greek in culture or language. The Mycenaeans were.
Finally we can put to rest the argument on whether the murals of bull dancing acrobatics were literal depictions of actions or figurative artistic license.

Though as PC, I would refuse to call it anything but Phaistos I. ;)