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Old 09-29-2017, 10:23 AM   #2801
Astromancer
 
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this idea, a few centuries ago in the Hellenistic East a new Philosopher showed up. He started as a teacher of mathematics, introducing what he called Hindu numbers, and several new ways to solve hard problems. He quickly started to teacher engineering as well.

Once he became famous he started to teach Natural Philosophy and introduced paper (which he said he learned to make in the silk lands), a press that copied books, and lenses that allowed people to see great distanced or very tiny things. Once he set up paper mills and a print shop he began to copy vast numbers of books. Alexandria grew jealous so he offered to teach them the skills as well.

A few years later he returned from a journey with insect eggs. He showed the mulberry bushes he'd been growing and explained were silk came from.

It is now 1675 years since the founding of Rome (or 923AD) the world is dominated by powerful dictatorships that tend to be roughly capitalist. Slavery is legal, and no one would dream of outlawing it. The Tech Level is around 5/6 but poorly distributed. Most poor people live as if the TL was two or three.

Centrum wants this TL5 world, Homeline wants to keep them from it. The Cabal favors Homeline winning the fight as they see this world as a great place but to recruit from and to set up power bases on.

Yes another Rome. Fairly dark and rather straight forward. That makes it simply gameable. Also figuring out the mysterious Philosopher and were he came from is a good mystery hook.
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Old 10-01-2017, 09:10 AM   #2802
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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea, a few centuries ago in the Hellenistic East a new Philosopher showed up. He started as a teacher of mathematics, introducing what he called Hindu numbers, and several new ways to solve hard problems.
When is the divergence point on this supposed to be? The "secret" of silk production is known in the Byzantine empire by around 550 AD, though held as an Imperial monopoly. Hindu numbers are invented sometime after 625. Lenses are classical Greek (there's a reference to a burning glass in Aristophanes' The Clouds, and not in a way that suggests the audience wouldn't understand it). The difficulty there is mostly one of manufacture - the big challenge is clear glass, there isn't much natural sand that doesn't have at least iron in it.
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Old 10-07-2017, 12:05 PM   #2803
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When is the divergence point on this supposed to be? The "secret" of silk production is known in the Byzantine empire by around 550 AD, though held as an Imperial monopoly. Hindu numbers are invented sometime after 625. Lenses are classical Greek (there's a reference to a burning glass in Aristophanes' The Clouds, and not in a way that suggests the audience wouldn't understand it). The difficulty there is mostly one of manufacture - the big challenge is clear glass, there isn't much natural sand that doesn't have at least iron in it.
The point is out time interference creating a longer lasting Rome. Silk was a major economic drag on the later classical world. Telescopes and microscopes would rework everybody's worldview. It's a Rome with 19th century tech and classical mores. Toss in the Cabal and you've got twisted swashbuckling.
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Old 10-13-2017, 01:42 PM   #2804
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Try this idea, one of Himler's henchmen at the Ahnenerbe (a man who dies in WWI in most timelines) studied germ warfare. He believed he could create a plague that would only kill Untermenschen. His race theory was garbage, as usual for Nazis, but his knack for breeding germs was brutally good. The plague collapsed the Reich in 1943.

Most of Europe, Asia, and Africa, were devastated by the Black Fever. Warm areas, particularly high population areas of old settlement, like Japan, China, India, or the Near East, were hardest hit. Only Australia and New Zealand escaped visitations of the plague. The USA maintained functional quarantines, but still it had some nasty outbreaks, mainly in warmer rural areas with less developed sanitation and healthcare. By 1980 the plagues were beaten by vaccines and improved antibiotics.

Culturally this world (local year 1989) is very different than most worlds with a similar history. With no A-bomb (Homeline thinks the USA knows how to build a bomb, but had no reason to complete one) and the biggest scientific story being the defeat of the Black Fever, science is seen as wonderful, noble and liberating. Anti-science viewpoints are limited to a right-wing fringe, as before WWII in our world. The recent successes of the aerospace planes in achieving low orbit and the launching of satellites are seen as the first step to the moon and from there to mars and beyond.

TV doesn't move from curio to mainstream household appliance until the late 1970's. Although this world enters TL7 at the beginning of WWII, as in most worlds, the plagues suppress the spread of technology into daily life by suppressing the economy. So most of the world experiences the coming of TV and personal computing at about the same time. The 1980's are a boom period over most of the planet.

The sexual revolution, and the civil rights movement happened during the plague years. Each was placed in a different light because of both the state of emergency caused by the plagues and the fact that government was the source of survival and protection during the plagues. Resistance to both the sexual revolution and the civil rights movement were muted because of the plagues, and in the USA, those areas that most resisted both movements were the ones most weakened by the plague.

As Stalin died during the plague, and the Western third of the USSR got as big a hit from the plague as Germany, communism did a fade out in the late 1940's. Mao seems to have died in the plague and China was in chaos anyway. Land reforms designed by Wolf Ladejinsky were used in much of the third world (a term that never came into vogue in this world) causing a worldwide movement toward democracy in the 1980's. Thus this world lacks communism and third-world-y Anti-western movements in the academy. Most developed nations are social-democratic, this includes the USA. The phrase "I'm from the government, I'm here to help." is seen as good news and a sign of hope.

However, all is not well. Right-wing movements, long out of power and unable to see a way back to power are bitter. Especially in Europe were the plague smashed the pre-war cultures and forty-five years of American influence create an illusion of American rule/hegemony. Their are rumors of people searching for the secrets of Hitler's plague.

Homeline doesn't want anyone finding the secret. The Cabal wants the secret because they believe the plague may have had an occult element. Centrum wants the plague because it wants to rework post WWII worlds according to its whims. Reich-5 wants the plague because this time they think they can make it work correctly. Which really explains just why Homeline wants this plague's secrets to stay lost.

Any good?
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Old 10-13-2017, 04:05 PM   #2805
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I really like the core idea. I don't think you get a viable civil rights movement without TV though. Televised images of Bull Connor and the like were what roused the North to understand and care about segregation.

How did India's independence go, and who has it picked for friends? The occupation of Japan? And, well, I don't think the death of Mao is remotely sufficient to stop Communism in China. It may be a different and better Communism though. I'm also skeptical that devastating all of Europe by plague leads to the global triumph of liberal American values - if anything, it gives Nazis and Stalinists both an out to say their ideas were not given a full and proper test.
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Old 10-13-2017, 07:29 PM   #2806
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Something often overlooked on it's importance in the US Civil Rights Movement is the draft. A lot of people from the South saw different ways to do things on the West Coast, or New England, let alone (in our history) NATO assignments in Europe. A lot of people not from the South also had first hand observations of how things were really run in the there. The images from Selma served to reinforced second hand stories as well.
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Old 10-15-2017, 01:21 PM   #2807
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I really like the core idea. I don't think you get a viable civil rights movement without TV though. Televised images of Bull Connor and the like were what roused the North to understand and care about segregation.
A good deal of desegregation got done because the South was in a panic. The Black Fever got to Savanna Georgia. The death toll was high. When FDR (with Senator Truman for an ally) pushed for socialized medicine, even with Adam Clayton Powell's demands, they had to say yes. In our world, Powell's demands (which were reasonable, even conservative, just ill timed) allowed the Dixiecrats cover to sink the bill. Which wasn't politically viable in this world.

Because the South was the area of the USA vulnerable to the Black Fever the South played a reduced role in the US power structure. The Civil Rights Movement met little practical opposition. Which would provide groups of people bitter at the world the plagues left behind in America as well as Europe.

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How did India's independence go, and who has it picked for friends?
For awhile it didn't go. Gandhi, Jinnah, and Nehru, all died of the plague. The cause of Indian Independence was preserved by B. R. Ambedkar. Britain was forced by the crisis of the plague to ask America to administer India, which should let you know how badly they suffered. Ambedkar, cut a deal with Truman. Basically both Truman and Ambedkar thought that British rule in India should end soon but peacefully. They pretended to argue to slip the project past the Brits. Ladejinsky ran a major land reform which both eroded the caste system and politicized the peasants.

India became "oficially" independent in 1955. But pragmatic independence came much sooner. There was no partition in this world.

Because Russia and China aren't players, and Europe is only now recovering, India is friendly with the USA. Truman and Ambedkar friendship has kept a tradition of American, respect for a fellow republic that escaped British rule, strong. And India feels much the same way. Both cultures tend to root for the Irishman when an Anglo-Irish quarrel breaks out. This tends to hurt British feelings.

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The occupation of Japan?
The Black Fever was harder on Japan than twenty a-bombs could have been. In many ways the occupation worked out the same. However the USA has a better reputation in this Japan than in ours.

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And, well, I don't think the death of Mao is remotely sufficient to stop Communism in China. It may be a different and better Communism though.
What killed Communism in China was the collapse of the USSR. Plus the land reforms forced by the USA took away the communists best selling point.

Quote:
I'm also skeptical that devastating all of Europe by plague leads to the global triumph of liberal American values - if anything, it gives Nazis and Stalinists both an out to say their ideas were not given a full and proper test.
The USA is the only power that escapes devastation, plus this USA kept on doing its best to save the world form the plague. Yes, both Stalinism and Nazism still have adherents, they are your main foes. Centrum, Reich-5, and the Cabal, use these groups, and others like them even in the USA, to destabilize this parallel.
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Old 10-15-2017, 01:22 PM   #2808
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Something often overlooked on it's importance in the US Civil Rights Movement is the draft. A lot of people from the South saw different ways to do things on the West Coast, or New England, let alone (in our history, NATO assignments in Europe). A lot of people not from the South also had first hand observations of how things were really run in the there. The images from Selma served to reinforced second hand stories as well.
The draft, and similar movements of people around the USA, also erodes Jim Crow on this world.
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Old 10-15-2017, 09:16 PM   #2809
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What is the current year? 1990s?


Also, it's hard to have a world accessible to both Centrum and Reich-5. Centrum can't go below Quantum Six, while Reich-5 is limited to Quantum Three.

Given the 'government rebuilds the world after chaos' nature of this timeline, it seems closer to Centrum, Quantum Seven.


Though perhaps there's a magical quantum tunnel from a Quantum Three world that Reich-5 has accessed. Another plague world, where the Nazi Black Fever wiped everyone out.

Two such worlds having a magical quantum tunnel (located in Burgundy, for ease of access for Reich-5) would make Raven Division believe in a magical cause to the Black Fever.

Infinity expects Centrum, even The Cabal, but not Reich-5 on a Q7 world. Once Raven Division is encountered, I-Cops have to try to keep them and Interworld from ever meeting!


Communism might have collapsed, but not socialism. The government is something great, not to be feared. Population loss gives labor power (even in untouched places like America & Australia, since there's no Old World labor masses to compete). And reconstruction is government-led (both native government & American).

New Deal social democracy would be the norm. As would national health care, since health care in general would have been taken over by the government during the Black Fever.


Could right-wingers find a home in Australia (and maybe New Zealand)? Those states were also spared the Black Fever, likely by closing off all immigration. Thus they remain almost entirely white, and view outsiders (primarily Asians) as a menace. And Britain and even America would have little influence.

And once immigration controls are lifted, perhaps Nazi Germans, Apartheid Afrikaaners, and other fascists leave their wrecked, American-dominated homes for white Australia.


How does Latin America fare? Is it able to keep out the Black Fever, or is it too hot and not advanced enough to do so? Certainly Caribbean would be hit.

If the Black Fever makes it to Mexico, it would be a lot harder to keep it out of the U.S. Perhaps the Mexican government allows Norteamericano help in stopping the spread of the disease, drawing the three countries together, while everywhere between Chiapas and Patagonia gets infected.

With Mexico as part of the rebuilding effort in Latin America, it could take the edge off of anti-Americanism there.


On the flip side, American Jews sponsor Old World Jewish settlement in empty Holy Land. Between Nazis, plague fears, and plain old-fashioned anti-Semitism, Europe and the Middle Eastern states aren't hospitable to Jews, but they've got a big friend in the American government.

Israel/Palestine could have experienced not just the Black Fever really badly, but also apocalyptic chaos (end of the world cults, religious fighting, etc.). And not only does American liberals want to help the Jewish people, American conservatives want Westerners in control of the Holy Land (indeed, the idea of Jews moving to Israel is part of the 'end times Christianity' that grew with the Black Fever apocalypse).
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Old 10-16-2017, 07:12 AM   #2810
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...
Because the South was the area of the USA vulnerable to the Black Fever the South played a reduced role in the US power structure. The Civil Rights Movement met little practical opposition. ...
And that removes the last of the obvious causes of the Civil Rights Movement in OTL. How did it get started in this alternate?
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