12-28-2016, 11:13 AM | #2431 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: New Reality Seeds
I think this is what makes the alliances hard to guess. Everybody else who came late to the game of empires, which is everybody but France (well and Spain, but they're not serious players by this point), knows that Britain is the chief obstacle to their stealing their "fair" share of the world. Their support for the British Empire is not likely to be enthusiastic, even less so if it's at all obvious Britain is actually crushing rising rivals as a matter of policy.
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12-29-2016, 12:21 PM | #2432 |
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
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Re: New Reality Seeds
In the Dixie world, USA and UK fight both the Guyana War around 1900, and USA fights UK as part of the Great War. But that reality has a CSA allied to the UK.
There is also a reality from an issue of Pyramid, where USA doesn't join the Allies vs. Germany in Great War, but then a British scientist invents a bomb that just makes people disappear. It's used on Berlin & Vienna, and Britain romps to victory. Romps so far that it is becoming an increasingly dictatorial state under Prime Minister Mosley, intimidating even allies like France, and occupying Germany. It's the early thirties, with The Great Depression, and US is worried about a British Empire that just keeps wanting more, has a superweapon to threaten everybody - and Canada is right there on America's doorstep. It would seem hard to make a US-UK war in the twentieth century, just because both states are similar, with similar aims. Though before WWI people thought that the states & economies of Europe were too closely intertwined for war to ever occur - and later, communist states USSR & China had a huge falling out. But having either America or UK take a fascist (or communist) turn after WWI would make war more possible. It would actually be easier for America, since not only UK but Canada would need to turn dictatorial for war to come from the British side. Or what if Nazi Germany & Communist Russia don't rise? If it's still a chaos of weak, divided states east of the Rhine, then there's no threat to push US & UK together. Remove a number of key figures: Hitler and Stalin to make Germany & Russia chaotic, but also FDR & Churchill to forestall renewed Anglo-American friendship. The Great Depression still hits, isolationist nationalism takes hold in both US & British Empire, and the two biggest players increasingly butt heads. France might take Britain's side; Japan certainly would - hell, maybe Mexico and/or other Latin American states (who were economically connected to the British Empire), eager to take on the pushy Yankees. Meanwhile, colonial peoples in the Old World look to America for help in their liberation, from India to Ireland (maybe even French-speaking Quebec). However a US-UK war happens over Canada in the thirties, make Prohibition still be in place, to add a major cause to war: rampant Canadian smuggling of alcohol into USA. |
12-29-2016, 12:33 PM | #2433 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Maybe make the Spanish Flu worse, killing your VIPs and intensifying the chaos east of Europe. Plus making the whole world a great deal more deprivated.
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12-29-2016, 12:36 PM | #2434 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Quote:
Given British attacks on New York and other coastal cities, Chicago will be the major city in America. If the war is early enough, the Chicago film industry might not fade out. Hollywood, between British naval bombardment and Mexican invasion, might die young. A Chicago based film industry would likely be less glam and more respectful of unions and working people.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
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12-29-2016, 12:50 PM | #2435 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Quote:
The British on the other hand will be vulnerable to blockade, even a partial blockade. Also, expect heavy fighting in panama and perhaps the Suez. The ability to cut navies in half is a powerful one, as is the ability to engineer mismatches your enemy can't respond to as quickly.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
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12-29-2016, 12:51 PM | #2436 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Play with this idea. The High Lords invade 1930's Earth, June 1935 for choice. FDR and Eleanor are in Warm Springs during the invasion but congress is in session. So America has one of its best leaders and his best ally and the government can be reconstituted.
Several world leaders develop the Reality Skill, including the Roosevelts and some obscure washed out Brit politico named Winston Churchill (putting Sir Winston in the middle of Trog and not letting him be a Storm Knight would have been cruel.) I'd bring the Space Gods in early and have Eleanor see in Reality Trees opportunities of boosting Core Earth's Axioms in ways that favor justice for all. I think you could have a blast. And Homeline, Centrum, and all other world jumpers would want the reality trees.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
12-29-2016, 03:44 PM | #2437 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Norton, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, goes on a gold-hunting expedition and returns with a large gold nugget and a deed to a previously undiscovered gold deposit.
He signs a will placing the wealth in trust "for the good of California and the Empire" and promptly dies of champagne overdose. The behavior of this trust seems to be a minor fulcrum of history. I suspect they could do some interesting things. |
12-29-2016, 04:28 PM | #2438 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Quote:
Quote:
To accomplish the effect your looking for you have to severely weaken US national power and identity. Like, catastrophically failed Reconstruction combined with a pair of Nixons. That's on top of the economic and strategic advantages you'll need to give the Empire (secure colonial holdings and a neutralized European mainland). Quote:
The Empire can stay aloof, building a naval program second to none, with the USA as the only naval competitor. Avoiding WWI, it secures it's Empire and the resources needed for modern industry. Loyal Canada makes for a decent manufacturing hub, and becomes more industrialized. Ethnic Irish support of Irish independence eventually results in a few Americans of Irish descent being captured red handed in heinous acts. This is your casus belli, essentially an excuse to crush the US Navy. The timing aligns perfectly with a real crook of a POTUS who has been blatantly abusing authority in the, yet to be Reconstructed, southern states to fund his political party and bribe SCOTUS. Canada's invasion is designed as a raid (like 1814), but targeting Atlantic fleet bases and shipping construction. They meet with tremendous success, avoiding urban combat, due to their use of a modern day wonder weapon, gas. The northern industrial states, the only industrial states, are thoroughly trashed, and the south decides that they've finally won the Civil War. Now, this is a "everything works for the Empire and everyone else is too dumb to live" type scenario, but for the British Empire to successfully occupy the Mississippi River Valley and northern industrial corridor in 1920...that's about the way it has to go. Last edited by Gedrin; 12-29-2016 at 04:32 PM. |
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12-29-2016, 05:33 PM | #2439 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Can we leave the Space Gods out altogether? The concept takes away from Earth"s Storm Knights.
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12-29-2016, 07:25 PM | #2440 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Another Katalysator worldline:
Katalysator-2 (Q6, current year 1669) has the earliest known development of this catalyst drug, believed to have been invented by Paracelsus around 1530 or 1531. The potion took quite some time to spread, but was well-known among alchemists and other occultists in Europe by the 1570s. Other psi drugs are believed to have begun appearing in the 1550s or 1560s, but Infinity has not been able to narrow it down further. Early-on, many psi abilities in this worldline were seen as witchcraft in Europe and much of the Muslim world, but power is power, and kings that ignore a useful form of power will often be replaced by those who do not. Near the end of the 16th century, Pope Romanus II bowed to the zeitgeist, and in 1588 released a bull declaring most such powers to be natural, 'containing no deviltry but what sinful men bring to them.' Several Protestant nations and a few Muslim states had made similar decisions prior to this, with others following. By 1669, the catalyst has spread across the world - few are the nations that still forbid its use, and even fewer that have not heard tell of it. A factor in this may be the fact that without the right kind of healer, or the right kind of healing power, large doses of the catalyst are difficult to survive, which also keeps the levels of power and insanity low. A small number of alchemists have chosen to work on bioengineering, creating fantastic beasts and plants (and even near-human sophonts) for their patrons, for the advancement of SCIENCE!, or simply for their own amusement. Common examples include gryphons, dragons, owlbears, hobgoblins, pixies, and many others. While many more alchemists are simple elixir-brewers and the occasional researcher, 'the mad alchemist and his blasphemous monsters' is a common image in the public consciousness, and one that can make life uncomfortable for the common working alchemist. The 'monster' that is most often imagined (especially by those who have never seen an actual 'monster') is the dragon: The first 'true' European dragons (as opposed to spirits that manifest as dragons) hatched in 1603, descended from several generations of progressively-weirder crocodilians. These dragons have wings (though they use Levitation to fly, only using the wings for steering and increased speed), appear to breathe fire (Pyrokinesis with a photokinetic hologram), and survive well even in fairly cold places (PK-based Temperature Tolerance), but unless possessed by a spirit, are only a little brighter than normal crocodiles (about IQ 4). They resemble crocodiles with longer legs (still four of them) and neck, a larger, horned skull (protecting a bigger brain), sometimes thicker bodies, and huge, bat-like wings. They can grow to the height of an elephant. A few of these dragons are semi-upright, and have dextrous hand-like talons on their front legs. The earliest known example of this type of mutation is believed to have hatched around 1626 or '27. Some time in the 1630s, icewyrms (white dragons that thrive in even colder environments than usual, and seem to breathe 'freezing black flames') began to be spotted in the mountains of Scandinavia, and later Scotland, Iceland, and northern Russia. 'False' dragons include wyverns (generally made from birds, and having only four limbs: two wings in front, and two legs in back), various offshoots of dragon-breeding experiments (no or too small wings, no psyhokinesis or the wrong abilities, et cetra), and natural animals that resemble dragons, but aren't (e.g. large dinosaurs, draco lizards). Spirits that take draconic forms are sometimes classified as false dragons, especially if not recognized as spirits - in much of Asia, the spirits are considered true dragons, and the alchemists' creations are called false. False dragons in general are somewhat more common than true dragons. Outside of alchemy, other technologies have likewise advanced ahead of schedule, due at least partly to small numbers of precognition- or Probability Alteration-based Gadgeteers. Wheellock or flintlock revolvers, usually multi-barrelled and sometimes loaded with touch-paper cartridges, are found in the hands of those who can afford them, and even in some cavalry regiments (IRL, revolvers did exist as early as the 16th century, but due to technical limitations, were not widespread). A few skirmisher units have begun carrying revolver-action rifles, though most of these use a single barrel and a cylinder containing a few rounds, rather than the pepper-box configuration common among pistols.
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
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