Alternate Earths 3, What Worlds? (hypothetical)

[Ed the Coastie]

Originally Posted by Fionn The Otaku

Of course any write up of Madoc-1 would almost have to mention Granuaile-3 in which the Irish Pirate queen Grace O'Malley founded a colony on North America's east coast and started a (mostly Irish) Gaelic Migration to the Hudson River Valley.

Hmmm...I hadn't thought of that angle. I've been looking for a way to justify an Irish-type culture in that part of the country...this might be just what I have been looking for. Thanks.

[Almafeta]

Some "whole cloth" ideas.

Mali-3: The Portuguese, in exchange for a trade of 10% of Mali's gold product for a decade (which at the time was about 1/3rd the world's total production), provide military assistance to the empire of Mali in the 16th century. With, the state of Mali is able to crush its civil war, and even expand somewhat beyond its original borders.. Initial dictatorship leads to peace as the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities flourish into philosophers to put Freud and Jung to shame, while Portugal grows to become Europe's richest power, with Portuguese replacing Latin as the european lingua franca. Slavery never becomes feasable, with much of the "slave coast" now under Malian military control, so America develops using indentured servitude of criminals, and the Carribean sees many of its original inhabitants unperturbed.

Triste: The Black Plague acquires the ability to mutate rapidly and lie dormant for weeks, and reappears in the early 1700s, with a 99% mortality rate, higher in children and the elderly. Europe, Asia, and Africa are reduced to a thousanth of their original size within four years. New Spain and New England are all that remain of European culture, and are crippled economically by the division from the mainland. It's currently 1850, and the two "empires" are just beginning to crawl out of their economic depressions -- with much of their technology having been appropriated by the extant Indian tribes, who are now warring between the two.

[Fionn The Otaku]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

Hmmm...I hadn't thought of that angle. I've been looking for a way to justify an Irish-type culture in that part of the country...this might be just what I have been looking for. Thanks.

Your welcome, although the Granuaile-3 is a near direct quote from her write up in GURPS Who's Who 2. Personally I prefer Granuaile-4 in which she colonizes the Connecticut River Valley because I've been able to find out more about the natives of that part of the country than those of the Hudson. But you could just as easily put the colony in Pennsylvania so that Appalachia could be ruled by Irish/Cherokee Confederation.

[vitruvian]

Again, the Columbian Exchange will make any surviving Amerind population too small to support 'empires' even after 150 years of the 'protection' from European influence/aggression your alternate Black Plague provides.

The Columbian Exchange didn't hit the native populations of what is now Latin America quite as hard - hard, yes, but recoverable in the time span given, based on population after conquest and occupation. Therefore, depending on the pace of settlement, a century and a half could be ample for the Aztec, Mayan, and possibly Incan peoples to recover and extend their hegemony northwards. Not to mention that population recovery on the part of the North American tribes, especially those farther out along the avenues of transmission, could be faster than you think, if large areas were made 'fallow' and able to support expansion by those tribes less decimated than others. Add in importation of certain animals, namely horses, at the same time as exposure to European diseases, and you could at least have a small Plains-based 'empire' of horse nomads.

[Glamourweaver]

Originally Posted by Tom Kalbfus

Then there is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Somehow this world get ahold of advanced technology such as rayguns, submersible P-51 fighter plains, and flying British Aircraft carriers. It appears to be the 1940s where The Wizard of Oz is still shown at Radio City Music Hall In Manhattan. The landscape around Manhattan looks more rugged than what I would expect, since I leave here. Apparently among the expensive posh landscape of Upper Westchester or New England, their is a Mercenary Base of Aviators called the Sky Captians. One of them has access to a minaturized laser pistol, from where, I do not know. Just after a News reporter meets with a German Scientist just off of the Hindenburg III, the city is invaded by Giant Robots, apparently produced by a Rogue Russian scientist just after World War I. The Russian scientist died and his robots carried on his work of producing a giant interstellar Ark. spaceship, whose rocket engines are apperently so powerful as to set the Earth's atmosphere on fire if it ever reaches an altitude of 100 miles. There are several consistency problems here, but I'm not going point them out.

Certainly workable as a scenario, save that I'd point out this is exactly the genre that Gernsback is designed to cover. You can easily have everything you've described just setting it technically a few decades later (no affect on culture) & its a rogue scientist from after the Soviet War instead of WW1.

[Almafeta]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

The Columbian Exchange didn't hit the native populations of what is now Latin America quite as hard - hard, yes, but recoverable in the time span given, based on population after conquest and occupation. Therefore, depending on the pace of settlement, a century and a half could be ample for the Aztec, Mayan, and possibly Incan peoples to recover and extend their hegemony northwards. Not to mention that population recovery on the part of the North American tribes, especially those farther out along the avenues of transmission, could be faster than you think, if large areas were made 'fallow' and able to support expansion by those tribes less decimated than others. Add in importation of certain animals, namely horses, at the same time as exposure to European diseases, and you could at least have a small Plains-based 'empire' of horse nomads.

Actually, it turned out that smallpox and other European diseases weren't what killed most of the south americans when the Spanish arived -- archaeological pathologists have discovered that it was a disease that came from South America that did the damage. Which leads me to a new idea:

Inca-8: It's currently 1680. The disease that wiped out South America when the Spaniards arrived never mutated in this world. After a brief occupation, the Spaniards had to deal with a technologically weaker but numerically greater foe. Not equipped or prepared to fight a war of attrittion, the Spaniards left. By the time they had returned in force for the Incan gold, they had to contend with a politically united South America who had figured out how abandoned Spanish arms and armor worked...

[Glamourweaver]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

[*]Norton: "Emperor Norton" of San Francisco is embraced by that city's populace and taken seriously, leading to California becoming a seperate nation with Norton (and his descendents) as figurehead monarchs.[/list]

I had a similar idea called "Wonderland" where the world's geopolitics parallels Alice in Wonderland & Alice through the Looking Glass, with Empress Alice having succeded Emperor Norton to the throne over the Western Hemisphere following a successful quest for recognition from Europe & America's two major political parties (corresponding to the Red Queen & the White Queen). A world where insanity is openly respected as a virtue & may or maynot be tied to powerful dream-magics reworking much of the natural world & civilization gradually.

Obviously this would be a Weird Parallel...

[DaltonS]

Does anyone know if there are plans to revisit Merlin-1 in detail? GURPS Technomancer 2.0 is something I'd really like to see, particularly if the stories of some of the surviving characters from the TTA "Soulburner" adventure that started it all (Marie and "Shiny" Kingfisher, Bethlehem Jones, Daniel Weaver, Tamara Lopez, Lady Fox, Dark-Without-Stars, Malthus Infernum, Enrico Chavez, Carmen Cazotte, etc.) were updated. A bit more detail about the Merlin CIA's operations on Homeline would be nice, and anything at all about the fate of the Trailblazer mission to Mars would be greatly appreciated.

--

Dalton "who would love something new to add to his Technomancer site" Spence

[tratclif]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Does anyone know if there are plans to revisit Merlin-1 in detail?

In the IW manuscript, Mr. Hite did a 1-1.5 page writeup of Merlin bringing it to 2004, but it got cut for length. There is hope that it may eventually appear in some sort of e23 release. Someday, someday... I haven't heard any rumors about revisiting Technomancer other than having the first edition eventually making it to PDF.

[edited for clarity]

[Not another shrubbery]

It would be cool to see more about Taft-7, specifically, the nature of the AI threat to Homeline from there. And more about Prof. Headley's homeworld, FTM.