New Reality Seeds

[AlexanderHowl]

In Alfar-3, the Earth is ruled by the Alfar, an advanced civilization of magically gifted immortals who are divided into the four races of elves. While the four races Alfar once waged war, the resources of the Sol System have mitigated much of the strains that caused their conflicts. Since they achieved spaceflight 2,000 years ago, the Alfar have come to wage highly stylized wars where casualties might number in the hundreds.

To the Alfar, humans are a species of primitives who went extinct because they could not compete with the Alfar, one of a dozen such species of inferior creatures who fell in the distant past. Five hundred years ago, they became aware of humans living on other planes of existence, as they have captured careless Cabalists who came to loot their world of its magical knowledge, and they sent their own explorers to nearby timelines. They discovered a horrible truth, that the Alfar did not dominate the Earth in any other timeline, and that the Alfar were extinct or devolved in the majority of timelines.

Since that horrible discovery, the Alfar have ignored the existence of other timelines and have imprisoned any humans who have stumbled upon their timeline as alien invaders. A Q3 world, they were recently visited by scouts from Reich-5, who kidnapped and raped a group of European Alfar girls before they were captured by the European Alfar authorities. Before they executed the invaders, they interrogated them about the nature of their timeline.

One of the girls who was attacked had ended up pregnant and, rather than terminating the pregnancy, she had given birth to a half-elf child. The authorities of the European Alfar were shocked, but it gave them an idea of how to deal with the humans of Reich-5. Now, the European Alfar are preparing for an invasion of Reich-5, where they will kill the Nazi men and take the Nazi women as their concubines in order to breed a race of half-elves that will conquer the timeline of Reich-5.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Now, the European Alfar are preparing for an invasion of Reich-5, where they will kill the Nazi men and take the Nazi women as their concubines in order to breed a race of half-elves that will conquer the timeline of Reich-5.

So the mission is to rescue the Alfar homeworld?

Seriously, they wage ritual wars with hundreds of casualties and a Nazi scout unit was able to take multiple prisoners and feel secure enough to rape them. Sure the Reich-5 parachronic units are not models of professional discipline, but still. And that cuts both ways - that level of success despite apparently pretty lousy discipline doesn't make it look like the Alfar have overwhelming powers even at home. Even taking into account they may have been unprepared civilians. You'd expect even the local police of anybody who could pose and actual threat to the Reich to at least put up enough resistance for a scout unit to, I dunno, do some actual scouting, or pull back and interrogate their prisoners, or something less relaxed than settle in for some entertaining rape.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

In most parallels, the Nazi Wunderwafflen were more hype than substance, except for the V-2. However, on this Q6 Low Manna parallel the Nazis came up with an Infrasonic weapon that caused severe vertigo in troops it was aimed at. Luckily, the Infrasonic Gun needs to be aimed along the ground, the vertigo effect dissipates in a few yards if aimed into the air.

Thus the Nazis have thrown everything into bunkers and infrasonic defenses.

Basically, a radically altered endgame in WWII.

Centrum is looking for means to strengthen the British Empire. Some like convincing the Brits to embrace computing for civilian uses after the war are benign plans to murder anti-colonial leaders like Gandhi and Jomo Kenyatta are malign. Meanwhile, a Cabalist has healed FDR of several major illnesses and severely weakened the Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic party by a skilled dirty tricks campaign. Homeline and Homeline's USA aren't unhappy with the changes but wonder what the endgame is.

So, a new WWII endgame on land and multilevel spy game elsewhere.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...
However, on this Q6 Low Manna parallel the Nazis came up with an Infrasonic weapon that caused severe vertigo in troops it was aimed at.
...
Thus the Nazis have thrown everything into bunkers and infrasonic defenses.

Basically, a radically altered endgame in WWII.

OK, assuming maximum effectiveness of the German Turtle and focusing primarily on defending Germany itself, things look really bleak. Japan continues losing on schedule, but with Germany remaining unassailable, the A-Bombs are dropped in Germany instead of Japan. Japan still can't do much because the blockade remains tight, maybe they surrender or maybe they starve en masse.

The strategic air campaign would accelerate as a means to counter Germany turtling up behind impenetrable fortresses, and mass production of A-Bombs would probably ensue, perhaps as terror weapons or as bunker busters. The death toll may very well turn out to be millions more, probably inflated largely by German and Japanese deaths by starvation.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by TGLS

OK, assuming maximum effectiveness of the German Turtle and focusing primarily on defending Germany itself, things look really bleak. Japan continues losing on schedule, but with Germany remaining unassailable, the A-Bombs are dropped in Germany instead of Japan. Japan still can't do much because the blockade remains tight, maybe they surrender or maybe they starve en masse.

The strategic air campaign would accelerate as a means to counter Germany turtling up behind impenetrable fortresses, and mass production of A-Bombs would probably ensue, perhaps as terror weapons or as bunker busters. The death toll may very well turn out to be millions more, probably inflated largely by German and Japanese deaths by starvation.

Very realistic horrors. Maybe Homeline, Centrum, or the Cabal, might find a way to change things.

[Astromancer]

I could see either Centrum or Homeline finding a way to jam the Infrasonics. Centrum would want Britain and the USA to take down the German state in order to place the Soviets in a weaker position. If the Cold war never happened, the British Empire has a far better chance to survive.

The Cabal could simply foul up the infrasonic projectors with simple spells.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

In most worlds, Stalin's death aborts his plan to go right from fighting the Korean War to a WWIII. But on this Low Manna Q6 parallel, the planned attack on Europe is launched.

Of course, the Red Army and its tanks win the first round, however, between the West's airforces, productive capacity, and greater supply of bombs, the Red Army is being pushed back.

Basically, a reworking of endgames of WWII. Centrum feels that collapsing the USSR quickly and getting the Chinese Communists too will prevent a final war like a firebreak. Homeline is focused on getting post-war influence. Meanwhile, the Cabal is insinuating itself into what will become the Counterculture. However, both Homeline China and Russia want to prevent the total destruction of their counterparts. They're looking to do something to seriously disrupt the Allies.

[AlexanderHowl]

In Oni-1, the continent of Asia is a normal mana region, with the islands being high mana areas, while the rest of the Earth is a low mana region. While history progressed much the same as in OTL until the 1500s, the European powers found it impossible to establish colonies in Asia, though they were able to establish enclaves and factories through the continent to facilitate trade. The European explorers learned to fear the islands of Asia, as their high mana often supported creatures of legend, many of whom were cunning enough to attack forts and vessels at night after witnessing the power of European cannons.

Of particular note is the nation of Japan, whose samurai clans include some of the most powerful magicians on Earth. While not ever magician in Japan is born into the samurai clans, anyone in Japan who manifests Magery finds themselves married into one of the samurai clans. Regardless of their origin, Magery transcends caste, race, or religion.

Oni-1 is a Q3 world that is a headache for the magicians of the Cabal because non-native magicians treat the mana as twisted. The current year is 1900, the TL is 6 and, while the magicians of Asia long perfected spells that cheaply ignited explosives at a distance, firearms are the preferred weapons outside of Asia. The magical systems of Oni-1 are a variety of Verb/Noun traditions, though the majority of the traditions outside of Asia are quite small.

[TGLS]

"While history progressed much the same as in OTL until the 1500s, the European powers found it impossible to establish colonies in Asia, though they were able to establish enclaves and factories through the continent to facilitate trade."
OK, first of all, isn't that largely what happened historically until about 1750 and a chaotic situation in India let Clive and Dupleix start building the large colonial empires? It's not as if the Portugese sent a huge navy and conquered Macau.

Second, Asia's HUGE. Given that it contains all of Mesopotamia, surely all of history would be totally warped, with society outside of Asia being a sort of backwater relative to the ultra magical societies in Asia.

[PTTG]

At some point around 400 BCE, an astounding series of coincidences occurred around the world. Steelmakers in Sri Lanka invented better alloys thanks to the accidentally discovery of new processes centuries before it happened in homeline. Roman leaders expanded trade with the east, and Chinese alchemists iterated on black powder faster than thought possible. Greek inventions lost for centuries were uncovered by Persian scholars.

By 250BCE, Roman legions are armed with muskets. More sophisticated weapons are used in the far east, but there they are less widespread.

Homeline recognizes crosstime meddling when it sees it. But who and why here?