New Reality Seeds

[patchwork]

I'd drop the iceball on Rome, 1500. Most onlookers would regard it as God making it very clear He'd had enough of Rodrigo Borgia's crap. The zeros in the year add to this effect. How does the Church react to the strongest possible call for reform? Does Protestantism come early or is it forestalled?

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. Assume that Wilson's stroke comes early and is fatal. The VicePresident is unwilling to go to war, mainly for reason's of fearing responcibility. America shillies and shallies and stays out of WWI. France collapses. The UK still has their navy and the Kaiser can't get to Brittain. Furious, the Kaiser decides to take India and launches an overland invasion of India by way of Jerusalem and Persia.

The German armies plow through Russia unifing all the factions against Germany. Russia becomes a blood-spattered quagmire on a level that dwarfs our world's Russian Civil War. It's 1927, the war is still raging.

On a minor bright note: Both Hitler and Stalin are dead. But almost no one would care.

America's ecconomy is recovering from the ecconomic crisis caused by the French collapse. Britain is still trying to get America into the war.

[Prince Charon]

I think I might have suggested an alternate Tunguska here, before: Paris in 1908, changing the cultural centre of Europe, and leading into much greater interest in astronomy and rocketry.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. The chunk of ice that caused the Tunguska Event lands somewhere else and at a different time.

A) Mecca 2003, if this happens at the right time most of the Islamic war goes nuts. An Islamic league to crush the West might give you an interesting dark campaign.

B) Washington DC 1946, this could lead to several decades of chaos. Certainly the Civil Rights movement would be delayed and the Cold War would be minimal. This world would have at least a Soviet dominated Eurasia.

C) Berlin 1935, if Hitler is in Berlin, no second World War until Stalin launches one. If Hitler is outside of Berlin, changing the German capital would have several knock-on effects. Hitler always felt Berlin looks down on him and that he couldn't do certain things until he'd done them in Berlin first. So this could be a nastier world.

D) Moscow 1946, if Stalin is caught, no Cold War. On the other claw, far less anti-communism too. A very different world.

E) London 1900, the political system of Europe would collapse early. With the UK crippled Germany smashes France and then turns around and smashes Czarist Russia. The Kaiser rules Europe and helps himself to the Levant, India, and much of Africa. Germany gets the reputation the USA has today, only they earn it.

F) The American South sometime after 1954. Basically line up a group of right-wingers at a major event in the South and blast the politcal leadership of segragation out of existance. Civil Right proceeds more quickly at first. The backlash would come later, but much of the ground would have changed before any resistance could solidify.

Who do you blast out of existance?

I think you mean "keyhole-gate that allowed a tiny portion of Azathoth to slide into our reality"", and not ''chunk of ice."

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Compared to Mexico, which has had several civil wars and wars of secession both successful and otherwise, I'd say the USA has had little tendency to secession.

Your earlier point of argument seems invalidated by the example you just gave.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. Assume that Wilson's stroke comes early and is fatal. The VicePresident is unwilling to go to war, mainly for reason's of fearing responcibility. America shillies and shallies and stays out of WWI. France collapses. The UK still has their navy and the Kaiser can't get to Brittain. Furious, the Kaiser decides to take India and launches an overland invasion of India by way of Jerusalem and Persia.

The German armies plow through Russia unifing all the factions against Germany. Russia becomes a blood-spattered quagmire on a level that dwarfs our world's Russian Civil War. It's 1927, the war is still raging.

On a minor bright note: Both Hitler and Stalin are dead. But almost no one would care.

America's ecconomy is recovering from the ecconomic criss caused by the French collapse. Britain is still trying to get America into the war.

The Civil War that was going on in Russia at the time was started by the Germans to get the Russians off their backs

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Your earlier point of argument seems invalidated by the example you just gave.

By any standard Mexico has had many more civil wars than the USA, and had them without cometary strikes.

[Astromancer]

Try this Pope Adrian IV died at the age of sixty. His goals where to stablise Church elections and bring peace to Italy. He died soon after winning some limited and ambigous victories.

Now picture a world where Adrian lives to be 75, rare but not bizarre. The extra fifteen years would see several of the main antagonists of the Papalcy either die or fade out. The Papal allience with Roger of Sicily would have been far more stable and later popes wouldn't have been as likely to be hostile to the Normans of Sicily. The possibility of a stable monarchy in Sicily are increased.

A more stable Sicillian monarchy would likely mean that the Crusader states would last longer and more Byzantines scholars and Greek literature and scholarship would survive both the sack of Byzantium in 1204 (if that even happens) and the final fall of Byzantium to the Turks ( which would probably be delayed).

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. The Rhine Experiments work! (Remember psi is exceptable in the Infinate Worlds setting) Rhine proves that Psi exists, but he doesn't learn how to train it or do much more than identify an unknown portion of the people who have PSI.

Meanwhile, everybody loves the idea except religious and cultural conservatives. People are both seeking to discover the true secrets of PSI and are wildly invested in conspiracy theories involving secret PSI masters. Both the CIA and the KGB believe the other has mastered PSI and that they are mentally controlling key figures in the government. Any and all unhappy people with access to printing presses loudly denouce those assumed to control the secrets of PSI. Riots break out around the world as groups demand the release of all PSI secrets. "Witchburnings" become commonplace.

Meanwhile, the cause of the PSI phenomenom on this world, a series of steady gates to worlds on different Quanta make this Q6 world a vital prize to both Centruum and Homeline. Neither can allow the other side to control this world.

Meanwhile the nations creep toward nuclear war.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

By any standard Mexico has had many more civil wars than the USA, and had them without cometary strikes.

Sure, but of course Mexico and the Central American republics were also founded in secession. ;)

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. The Rhine Experiments work! (Remember psi is exceptable in the Infinate Worlds setting) Rhine prove that Psi exists, but he doesn't learn how to train it or do much more than identify an unknown portion of the people who have PSI.

Meanwhile, everybody loves the idea except religious and cultural conservatives. People are both seeking to discover the true secrets of PSI and are wildly invested in conspiracy theories involving secret PSI masters. Both the CIA and the KGB believe the other has mastered PSI and that they are mentally controlling key figures in the government. Any and all unhappy with printing presses loudly denouce those assumed to control the secrets of PSI. Riots break out around the world as groups demand the release of all PSI secrets. "Witchburnings" become commonplace.

Meanwhile, the cause of the PSI phenomenom on this world, a series of steady gates to worlds on different Quanta make this Q6 world a vital prize to both Centruum and Homeline. Neither can allow the other side to control this world.

Meanwhile the nations creep toward nuclear war.

I like the setting. It looks great for an espionage campaign.

Sounds cool, though I have to wonder why everyone apart from "religious and cultural conservatives" would ''love the idea.''
I'd guess that many materialists would be deeply disturbed by psi phenomena, as the verified existence of such would pretty well disprove the whole ideology of materialism.
Or are you counting hardline materialists as ''religious and cultural conservatives'', too? :)

In this timeline (Rhine 1?) do any historical figures of the 20th Century who claimed to have unusual psychic abilities or gifts in fact possess such powers?
Edgar Cayce?

Have ''New Age'' religions become a big thing?