New Reality Seeds

[Drifter]

This is my take on an "Upbeat" worldline, as well as a stand in for the Akor-Neb world of Paratime. A high tech world that presents no threat to Homeline, with no global problems, but probably plenty of action on the individual level.

Enki-1

On this world there is one culture, one "race", one language. Temples to deities from the dawn of civilization are lit by floodlights and defended by guards toting laser rifles, with fine carbon steel swords at their sides. The last "war" ended over a thousand years ago, but combat training is part of every citizens education. Bucolic and violent, advanced yet stagnant, this world is both a relief to Homeline, but visited only by highly trained, and very careful, explorers.

The divergence point here was during the Sumerian city-states period, around 3200 BC. A chance experiment with ore smelting furnaces designs resulted in the Iron Age beginning nearly two millennia early. At first an expensive curiosity, carbon steel was in production by beginning of the Akkadian Empire. When Sargon the Great conquered the Sumerian city-states, he became the heir to the secret of Iron. With cheap, effective weapons and agricultural tools, the Akkadians were able amass a huge empire, while building an unprecedented population base, leading to further innovations.

Eventually the Egyptians, and later the barbarian hordes, learned the secret of Iron, but Akkad was firmly entrenched, and too well armed and well fed to be endangered. Steel shod barbarians instead smashed into the proto-civilizations in China and India, as well as sweeping through eastern Europe. Eventually new states were founded on the shores of the Black Sea, powered by coal and envy of the empires to the south. Their industrial revolution was not the well kept secret like Sumerian Iron, and a new round of innovations spread across the civilized world.

By 1000BC flying machines, electricity, bioweapons and atomic warheads were introduced into civilizations that still had god-emperors. The wars that resulted plunged the world into a nuclear winter and a Dark Age that remembered the glories of Ancient Sumer, while killing the majority of the non-West Asian peoples. Thanks to surviving communications equipment and the occasional power plant and library, this Dark Age was short, followed quickly by a return to TL 7/8 economy. However, the inventive spirit had died along with most of the world population. The Recovery was based entirely on old records, new ideas were quickly stifled. The so-called Age of Tiamat (goddess of chaos) left a deep imprint on the survivors. A unity of purpose and culture was paramount, and while the new Empire was founded on principle of peace and harmony, it used whatever means it needed to achieve those ends. In character the dominant civilization here closely resembles Centrum. By AD500 there were no areas left not under the control of the Empire.

For over a thousand years Empire has been stable, composed of widely spaced city-states, ruled by the local diety-king. The theocratic government involves every aspect of a citizen's life, in practice it operates like a series of corporations, the traditional deities acting as absentee CEOs. Currently the priesthood of Enki, "Lord of Earth", is paramount, although there are thousands of accepted deities, not to mention the their deified human representatives.

Psionics are accepted, and integral to religious belief, especially concepts of life after death and reincarnation, but otherwise rare and usually misunderstood. While the tech level is relatively high, there has been no advancements since the Age of Tiamat, and technology is viewed more with suspicion than with hope.

Cities are composed of towering skyscrapers, surrounded by sparse factory and warehouse zones, but overall the world is thinly populated and agricultural. Electric vehicles slowly ply the highway networks connecting the cities, huge sailing ships connect the continents, helicopters reserved for the highest caste nobles. Radio and telephones provide communication, but television and computers are unknown. Personal weapons are necessary as this culture accepts a high degree of personal violence, the concept of reincarnation making death more of a nuisance rather than a major crime. Guns are unknown, but knives, swords, and electric and beam weapons are widespread.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Drifter

This is my take on an "Upbeat" worldline, as well as a stand in for the Akor-Neb world of Paratime. A high tech world that presents no threat to Homeline, with no global problems, but probably plenty of action on the individual level.

Enki-1

On this world there is one culture, one "race", one language. Temples to deities from the dawn of civilization are lit by floodlights and defended by guards toting laser rifles, with fine carbon steel swords at their sides. The last "war" ended over a thousand years ago, but combat training is part of every citizens education. Bucolic and violent, advanced yet stagnant, this world is both a relief to Homeline, but visited only by highly trained, and very careful, explorers.

The divergence point here was during the Sumerian city-states period, around 3200 BC. A chance experiment with ore smelting furnaces designs resulted in the Iron Age beginning nearly two millennia early. At first an expensive curiosity, carbon steel was in production by beginning of the Akkadian Empire. When Sargon the Great conquered the Sumerian city-states, he became the heir to the secret of Iron. With cheap, effective weapons and agricultural tools, the Akkadians were able amass a huge empire, while building an unprecedented population base, leading to further innovations.

Eventually the Egyptians, and later the barbarian hordes, learned the secret of Iron, but Akkad was firmly entrenched, and too well armed and well fed to be endangered. Steel shod barbarians instead smashed into the proto-civilizations in China and India, as well as sweeping through eastern Europe. Eventually new states were founded on the shores of the Black Sea, powered by coal and envy of the empires to the south. Their industrial revolution was not the well kept secret like Sumerian Iron, and a new round of innovations spread across the civilized world.

By 1000BC flying machines, electricity, bioweapons and atomic warheads were introduced into civilizations that still had god-emperors. The wars that resulted plunged the world into a nuclear winter and a Dark Age that remembered the glories of Ancient Sumer, while killing the majority of the non-West Asian peoples. Thanks to surviving communications equipment and the occasional power plant and library, this Dark Age was short, followed quickly by a return to TL 7/8 economy. However, the inventive spirit had died along with most of the world population. The Recovery was based entirely on old records, new ideas were quickly stifled. The so-called Age of Tiamat (goddess of chaos) left a deep imprint on the survivors. A unity of purpose and culture was paramount, and while the new Empire was founded on principle of peace and harmony, it used whatever means it needed to achieve those ends. In character the dominant civilization here closely resembles Centrum. By AD500 there were no areas left not under the control of the Empire.

For over a thousand years Empire has been stable, composed of widely spaced city-states, ruled by the local diety-king. The theocratic government involves every aspect of a citizen's life, in practice it operates like a series of corporations, the traditional deities acting as absentee CEOs. Currently the priesthood of Enki, "Lord of Earth", is paramount, although there are thousands of accepted deities, not to mention the their deified human representatives.

Psionics are accepted, and integral to religious belief, especially concepts of life after death and reincarnation, but otherwise rare and usually misunderstood. While the tech level is relatively high, there has been no advancements since the Age of Tiamat, and technology is viewed more with suspicion than with hope.

Cities are composed of towering skyscrapers, surrounded by sparse factory and warehouse zones, but overall the world is thinly populated and agricultural. Electric vehicles slowly ply the highway networks connecting the cities, huge sailing ships connect the continents, helicopters reserved for the highest caste nobles. Radio and telephones provide communication, but television and computers are unknown. Personal weapons are necessary as this culture accepts a high degree of personal violence, the concept of reincarnation making death more of a nuisance rather than a major crime. Guns are unknown, but knives, swords, and electric and beam weapons are widespread.

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?

[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.

[combatmedic]

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.

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.

[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.

[combatmedic]

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.

Right, that seems to be his intent.

I'm a Paratime fan, but it's been a while since I read the stories.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Right, that seems to be his intent.

I'm a Paratime fan, but it's been a while since I read the stories.

I've never read those. I've read many other cross-time stories, but oddly none of the description listed on its Wiki page sound even vaguely familiar.

[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.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by patchwork

... 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.

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.

[Astromancer]

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.

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