New Reality Seeds

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by fchase8

And Sweden couldn't rule all of Eastern Europe (just too big an area) - there would always be Eastern European states beyond its borders, rabble-rousing among the oppressed Slavs in the Swedish Empire.

Or end up like Austria-Hungary. That's what it sounds like to me.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

One of the key problems to building a powerful state in Eastern Europe is that the area is caught being the Ottoman state, the Russian Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire. It's hard to get breathing space.

That's a problem to building most powerful states. Germany was caught between Austria-Hungary, Russia, and France. France had the rich states of italy to the south, germany to the west, and one of Spain or England was usually powerful. The ottomans built their state on top of an existing empire, basically replacing the Byzantines. Its very rarely that you get to nation-build in peace.

Of course, the original Poland idea was that the restored Poland of 1918 stood strong against its neighbors. This almost certainly requires the soviets to not materialize as a great power, but that's hardly difficult to change. The soviets received a great boon during the war with Poland because a lot of military folks who had been neutral during the civil war decided the reds had won and made the Russian army much more powerful. and it still lost. So if you have a white Russian victory, and Poland keeps buffer states between it and Russia, you get a much stronger Poland. You also weaken the German anti-communist faction, because the Bolsheviks are not as much of a threat.

[Astromancer]

Okay, to build a powerful Poland in the period after WWI.

Step one, the USSR implodes. If the USSR is powerful, Poland will be weak or crushed when Stalin finds an excuse or opportunity. Luckily this isn't a big issue. Let the Russian civil war get real messy after 1918. Allow the Ukrainian People's Republic to survive. Let Imperial Japan take Southeast Siberia. Have Wilson send the army to occupy Chukotka and Kolyma and the Russian lands nearest Alaska generally. As much to keep Japan away from Alaska as anything else. Let Finland take or simply hold on to all of Karella and Murmansk Olast.

Poland would thus expand to fill in some of its Eastern borders and need not especially fear Russia. With a conservative and mainly reactionary Poland, Germany ignores the East and Hitler is a nobody.

In this world, WWII in Europe is unlikely in the 1940s. A Japanese American War is likely in the 1940s though. Try a 1960's European War, the Democracies, Britain, and Germany, versus the Fascists, France, Italy, and Poland. Can JFK bring isolationist America into the War to save Germany and Imperial Britain?

[AlexanderHowl]

If the Czechslovakian Legion had rescued the daughters of the Tsar from the Red Army before they could be executed and the rest of the family of the Tsar was killed, the resulting civil war would have fractured Russia. The Czechslovakian Legion would have taken the girls on their way to the Pacific and would have handed them off to the White Russians in Far East Russia (with all but the eldest likely going to live with their cousins in the British Royal Family). With the girls as a living symbol of the monarchy, the White Army could have likely kept Far East Russia from Communist control with the support of anti-Communist forces from Russia's allies in WW I. A resurgent Poland could have been able to grow in the resulting power vacuum as the Communists attempted to reclaim Far East Russia (and its access to the Pacific) from the White Army.

[PTTG]

A small but significant archipelago extends Polynesian travel range all the way across the pacific. They reach the mainland around 500 CE, and bring with them pigs and chickens. Domesticated animals become a mainstay of South American civilization. Over decades, novel diseases spread through the region, resulting in widespread death. The plagues topple a number of unstable governments and trigger a widespread cultural shift. Combined with the increased productivity of animal husbandry, the entire continent sees a significant step up in average individual wealth (well, those that survive...).

In time, this broader spread of wealth allowed more widespread literacy, and with that, the languages were slowly simplified from detailed pictograms to simpler characters.

It's 1492. The Europeans are on the verge of arriving in prosperous society with resistance to many diseases, text communication, and a much smaller technological gap.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by PTTG

A small but significant archipelago extends Polynesian travel range all the way across the pacific. They reach the mainland around 500 CE, and bring with them pigs and chickens. Domesticated animals become a mainstay of South American civilization. Over decades, novel diseases spread through the region, resulting in widespread death.

Polynesia didn't have those diseases either. A lot of the good data on virgin field epidemics comes from the fact several of them didn't reach Hawaii until the 19th century, and thus first hit during a time people had a good idea what was happening and kept halfway decent records.

Even if they had, it's unclear to me that Polynesians could establish themselves somewhere that already had a human population. You only need one successful trade contact to introduce the chickens or pigs, or potentially even one failed one where the locals kill all the Polynesian colonists but keep the livestock, but for diseases, especially multiple ones, you need something more prolonged.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. Charles II dies while trying to escape England during the Civil War. James II, without his brother's influence, is ostentatiously Catholic to a degree he never was in Homeline history. The monarchy isn't restored in 1660 because no one trusts James to respect any faith but his own. After a couple of more decades of struggle, Britain achieves a working republican government.

It's now 1705. The French compare Britain's newfound success and freedom to their problems with Louis XIV. The Revolution might be coming early.

Basically a messier version of the French Revolution. It's still the Golden Age of Pirates, the Ottomans are still a threat, and Peter the Great of Russia just might want to interfere with events. Religious issues, important in Homeline's French Revolution will be revved up here. Basically, a wild and wooly swashers campaign with extra swash all round.

[Astromancer]

In the reign of Charles II, durring Sir Henry Morgan's time as lieutenant governor of Jamaica (1678), the French sent a powerful fleet to conquer the Caribbean at a time when neither the Dutch, the English, nor the Spanish, could do anything about it. This powerful fleet under the command of a fine admiral promply ran aground and sank with massive lost of life ( May 3 or 4).

Had the French fleet survived and had even minimal success the history of the Americas would have been radically changed. Also the power games and relationships among the European powers would be rewritten ahead of the Glorious Revolution and the War of Spanish Succession.

On the whole Centrum wants these changes. Agents of Infinity need the fleet to wreck on schedule. This is a cloak and dagger swashers campaign with pirate trimings.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea, in the 1930's a group of supervillains led by Fantomas realize that the Dictators are taking Europe down a dangerous path and will destroy themselves. The supervillains resolve to take over Europe after the next war ends. With the resources of figures like Fantomas, the Petersons, Fu Manchu, Ernst Stavo Blofeld, Ras al Ghul, C.A.Rotwang. Hugo Drax, Randall Flagg, and many others, that isn't impossible.

It's now June 1945, the villains have more than a decade head start. Can your Pulp Heros, Super Spies, and Superheros, thwart the enslavement of all Europe? Remember, almost no one in mid 1940s Europe would have believed how good life would be in the West in the later 1950s and the 1960s. The post-war prosperity was beyond imagination for the shellshocked survivors of WWII. Many good people would line up with the supervillains out of desperation, perhaps even some superheroes.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea, in our world, the Holy Alliance was nasty but largely ineffectual. But in this Q6 world they have their act together, and that's not good. The local year is 1833, Britain has just passed the bill which will very slowly abolish slavery in the Carribean. Europe is still celebrating the Reform Bill of 1832 and radicals are demanding democracy now.

The Holy Alliance has decided that things are heading for a second French Revolution. They're planning to invade Britain, place someone reliable on the throne, and then the Holy Alliance means to invade the New World and force them into submission.

Centrum doesn't like Britain being invaded but having the USA snuffed out suits them. Homeline is trying to derail the whole project. Meanwhile, the Cabal is looking to see who they could take over from within during the crisis.