GURPS Lucifer-5?

[warellis]

Originally Posted by dcarson

The US actually had several warplans pre WW II. We went with the all mechanized one but there were several others ranging to the level that Germany and Russia had with horse-drawn artillery and troops that marched from the railhead to the front instead of riding in trucks. That would have had about three times the number of divisions but moved a lot slower.

Thank God we mechanized.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by dcarson

The US actually had several warplans pre WW II. We went with the all mechanized one but there were several others ranging to the level that Germany and Russia had with horse-drawn artillery and troops that marched from the railhead to the front instead of riding in trucks. That would have had about three times the number of divisions but moved a lot slower.

Whitout a first world war, what stimulated American military investment. Historically, before wwii, America disliked military spending.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Whitout a first world war, what stimulated American military investment. Historically, before wwii, America disliked military spending.

WW2 and turning into the world's policeman after the nations of Europe blew each other up was what stimulated American military spending. We did the same thing we'd always done prior to WW1 after it was over: cut funding to the army and shrink it down while spending on our navy and marine expeditionary/colonial forces.

[Flyndaran]

I'd say that the Cold War caused most of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. military explosion.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Probably not. That's just barely beyond the "bottles of hooch and knives" level of souvenirs that Infinity is too busy to notice. Going by vignettes and flavor text, Infinity agents are such cowboys that the bosses should be happy when they don't smuggle back armed fighting vehicles.

True enough. Though there would probably have been some "You were supposed to be hunting gargoyles, not pestering local science journalists about the fiction careers they never had".

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There's no reason for medical tech to be any worse than 1908 level and that's late enough for the Victorian paradigm to be almost totally broken. They'd have antiseptic medicine, surgery with decent anesthetics and x-rays.

True; one should not exaggerate this stuff. Still, I've heard sensible medics who'd gone into the history of their field say that they wouldn't really want to live any time earlier than the 1930s. Certainly, pre-1960s or so, I'd be fully blind in one and possibly both eyes, and my blood pressure would likely be much more of an issue - and I consider myself to be essentially healthy. And I suspect that several of my friends and family would be dead or disabled. So I tend to emphasise medical developments.

[Flyndaran]

I probably wouldn't have survived infancy being born lactose intolerant. Soy based formula is not that old of an invention though experiments were being conducted I think in the 1930s or so.

At least that would have been the time when being rich was a good thing with regards to medicine. Rather than the whole you survive longer the further away you stayed from medical professionals.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I probably wouldn't have survived infancy being born lactose intolerant. Soy based formula is not that old of an invention though experiments were being conducted I think in the 1930s or so.

At least that would have been the time when being rich was a good thing with regards to medicine. Rather than the whole you survive longer the further away you stayed from medical professionals.

If anything, the rich were probably overmedicated.

[Astromancer]

Try this effect of no WWI, Hollywood, while still vastly influential, is nowhere nearly as dominant. WWI was bad for the European film industry and great for Hollywood.

Other film industries, maybe even Britain's, could be vastly larger and more influential.

[cptbutton]

One novel to look at for inspiration is Stephen Baxter's Anti-ice. In the mid-19th century, antimatter-laced ice is found that is stable until it melts. Sevastopol is nuked during the Crimean War, and the British Empire makes much hay out of their monopoly of it.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

True; one should not exaggerate this stuff. Still, I've heard sensible medics who'd gone into the history of their field say that they wouldn't really want to live any time earlier than the 1930s. Certainly, pre-1960s or so, I'd be fully blind in one and possibly both eyes, and my blood pressure would likely be much more of an issue - and I consider myself to be essentially healthy. And I suspect that several of my friends and family would be dead or disabled. So I tend to emphasise medical developments.

Oh absolutely. I won't try and go into my personal health issues but I bet my box of medicine is bigger than your's. :)

There's a big burst of medical advancements in our timeline the 20s and 30s that I wouldn't want to see overlooked but between spillover from the inscrutable Martians and finds from the jungles of Venus I think medicine will be in an energetic state of advancement.

For the really bad Victorian healthcare that timeline I linked to had a book published in 1858 killing off the theory of "humoral" medicine. It's another 10-15 years for antisepsis and such like so before then things were probably quite bad indeed.