New Reality Seeds

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

They had no way of declaring him the replacement candidate in a mere two weeks. Thus John Quincy Adams got a second term. This had many knock-on effects.

This is one of the things the Electoral College (and the office of Vice President) is specifically there to avert. The election in November (mostly, states that picked electors via some other method sometimes delayed their choice) returns the electors. The electors themselves don't vote until mid December (the Monday following the 2nd Wednesday), which gives them more time. In any case since Adams lost the electoral vote by a *lot* 178 to 83 - you have to have several states flip (looks like at least 3) to give him the win outright, which seems unlikely, or a lot of electors defect (which happened quite a bit in this election, but isn't going to by *that* much). It doesn't matter who the other electors end up voting for, you don't win the election unless you have a majority. If the Democratic Republican electors split their votes all over the place the election goes to the House voting by state. Given that the Democratic Republicans won a clear majority of the states (15:9), and that Calhoun has served as Adams Vice President and was returned as Jackson's on this ticket I suspect he'd carry the House (in March), but this was one of the messier elections in US history already.

[Apollonian]

Challenge time! Post your desired situation/adventure setup and challenge the respondent to come up with the rough setting/timeline that leads up to it. I'll start with...

Authoritarian/fascist North America in a cold war with Communist Europe... in the 1870s! Proxy wars in Indochina, Africa, and Latin America! Imperial India, bastion of liberty and free thought! How did it come to this?

(This could be spun off, but this thread seems pretty ripe for it.)

[Micah Davis]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Challenge time! Post your desired situation/adventure setup and challenge the respondent to come up with the rough setting/timeline that leads up to it. I'll start with...

Authoritarian/fascist North America in a cold war with Communist Europe... in the 1870s! Proxy wars in Indochina, Africa, and Latin America! Imperial India, bastion of liberty and free thought! How did it come to this?

(This could be spun off, but this thread seems pretty ripe for it.)

This doesn't seem particularly viable if you're visualizing a real Cold War of ideologies. Authoritarianism, and even more so Fascism, generally projects itself via force in the explicit form of domination which (in theory) both historical Communism and Democracy rejected. Especially if you're looking for something plausible by non-IW standards. Still, some thoughts:
1. Break off New England early on in the 1800s from the rest of the United States, cordon off the Yankee ideologues, and make the worst of what's left of the U.S.A ala Decades of Darkness
2. Unite Europe under one banner (Some form of the French Empire, either Napoleonic or a more successful Republican)
3. One last, long war between British and Greater French Empires that ends in Britain's defeat in the 1850s
4. Flight of the British Crown to India
5. The over expanded French Empire collapses under its own weight, revolutionaries seize control of Paris and then the European System. The United States backs the claims of expat French Imperials on all the colonies they stole from Britain and Spain. The Communists obviously disagree and the British are struggling to get back ahold of things.
6. ??? Adventure?

This is all a reach! But it looks plausible enough if you don't look at it too closely.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Authoritarian/fascist North America in a cold war with Communist Europe... in the 1870s! Proxy wars in Indochina, Africa, and Latin America! Imperial India, bastion of liberty and free thought! How did it come to this?

(This could be spun off, but this thread seems pretty ripe for it.)

Alright.

Arnold 1877, Q6

Arnold diverged in 1743 with George Washington’s father not suddenly falling ill and dying. With his father alive and well, Washington was sent to Appleby Grammar School like his stepbrothers. After completing his education, he joined up with the East India Company. Washington proceeded to distinguish himself at the Battle of Plassey and led to his steady rise culminating in being appointed Governor of Bengal. As governor, he managed to stem the abuses fraudulent trading under the British flag.

Washington had become a major cog in the government of British India and ultimately signed away his inheritance to his brothers after his father’s death in 1766. This was to some relief of Washington who began to view the institution of slavery with distaste. Washington’s leadership led to a speedier end to the Anglo-Mysore Wars, and more peaceable relations between the native populace and the British.

When Jacobins began their naval campaign against Britain in 1797, Washington negotiated a deal with the Governor of the Philippines to ship Indian goods to Europe and America through Manila galleon route. Burgeoning Asian trade kept the British East India Company viable, though increasingly isolated from Britain. More powers were relinquished to the EIC, giving Washington more ability to pursue a policy of integration. Washington’s actions paved the way to for the Federal Empire of India, which maintained the rough power sharing agreement of Zamindari, Company and Imperial authority. In his native America, he is barely remembered at all.

Benedict Arnold enlisted in the Connecticut militia in 1757, and by butterflied changes eventually participated in the Montreal campaign. His business ventures were drastically curtailed by the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, which led to his participation in radical politics. With greater military expertise, Arnold distinguished himself at Boston and Ticonderoga, leading to his eventual appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.

Following the defeat of the British at Yorktown, Arnold continued to face financial problems. Perhaps this gave him sympathy for the Continental Army when the Newburgh Letter circulated. Perhaps it was blind ambition. Regardless, Arnold marched the Continentals on Philadelphia, installing a committee of generals to govern the confederation. Under Arnold’s rule, the states were given broad authority, though he imposed limited tariffs to meet the congress’s obligations.

After Arnold’s death and a short power struggle, Hamilton took power as Commander-in-Chief. His first act was to establish a formal government to replace the committee of generals, establishing the Federal Authority. This created a weak rubber stamp assembly appointed by the states, who can do little more than approve senators nominated by the First Citizen. The committee of generals was reformed into Council of Citizens, to include non-military personnel. This rapidly developed into a self-perpetuating oligarchy, that expanded across the continent at a frightening pace.

Observing the results of the American Revolution from afar, and its retreat from towards a more authoritarian form of government, the Jacobin Club in France made a number of different decisions that changed its fate. The interests of the sans-cullottes (i.e. poor laborers) were given more consideration, the provinces were given more careful consideration as opposed to treating the rest of the country as Paris, and the military was kept under more careful surveillance. These actions led to a better response to the poor rural French and averted the polarization of the Jacobin Club into the Girondins and the Mountain.

Success of land reform in France led to the flames of revolution spreading naturally into neighboring countries. The British found themselves being pulled into supporting reactionaries on the continent to avoid the creation of a continental superpower centered on France. In response, France began attempts to blockade British shipping along the western approaches in Spain and later South Africa. Eventually this strategy led to Britain accepting splendid isolation in 1822.

The French government went through a steady change following the war. It grew more bureaucratized, and less locally focused. It continued to maintain a large military despite being at peace. Dominating most of Western Europe, it kept most industrial growth inside France, to keep its satellites under control.

In recent years, competition between America and France has grown drastically. Both powers are building increasingly large navies, under the view that any future war between the powers would be won by cutting the maritime supply lines. India and its allies is perhaps the only truly non-aligned power in the world, competing for influence in the Horn of Africa, Indochina, and Australia.

South Africa, a one-time French ally, has become a battleground that has aligned itself with the Americans. The recent discovery Quinine has led to a large increase in activity by both powers on the continent. The French greedily eye Egypt and the Indian-controlled Suez Canal.

American-backed Brazil has engaged in a naval race in miniature with their Chilean rival, while preparing for war with Argentina. French-backed Contra-Yanquis in Central America cause trouble, most recently bombing the under-construction Nicaraguan canal. Slaves in America continue to seek escape to Canada and recently Cuba.

In Asia Pacific, the East India Company has maintained it’s light touch policy in China, keeping it isolated and not a playball of other powers, but there is no analogue to the Self-Strengthening Movement. Japan has only recently began westernizing, and is growing increasingly frustrated with French agitators. Thailand is under severe pressure to make many territorial concessions foreign powers. India continues to expend a great deal of effort making the Philippines feel secure. American interest in Indonesia has followed rapid expansion following the shutdown of the transatlantic slave trade by the French. Australia remains largely unexplored, apart from abandoned British penal colonies, and new Indian and French colonies in the West.

[PTTG]

I think that calls for a golf clap.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

An outbreak of Malaria in Rome in the year AD35, wipes out half the population including Caligula who never becomes emperor. Tiberius also dies and desperate members of his inner circle decide to make Claudius emperor by saying Tiberius proclaimed him his heir.

Claudius then decides he needs to act now. He declares that until the nearby swamps are drained Rome couldn't be the capitol. So he moved the imperial court and senate to first Athens and then to Byzantium and stayed there. As malaria continued to be endemic in Italy, the move became permanent. Claudius' heirs (he married a Greek woman and had several children by her) proclaimed the fact of this a century after the move, but most people recognized there was no turning back by the tenth year of Claudius' reign.

With a more central location of the capitol, more central because the wealth and population of the Empire were in the East, Claudius began to focus on a slow but steady campaign to secure the Eastern borders. Carefully building defenses and supply depots and improving key roads. When the next Romano-Persian war broke out the Parthians were shocked. Rome took Mesopotamia and held it.
It's now the year 180 AD, Parthia has collapsed and Rome stepped into the power vacuum. In order to hold these new lands, Rome will need a strong trading network to be able to finance the empire. They must search the East and learn all the secrets of spice and silk.

Basically, it's an Ancient Roman game of exploration and espionage. If you want more fantasy look into the Alexander Romance or Mandeville for inspiration.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Challenge time! Post your desired situation/adventure setup and challenge the respondent to come up with the rough setting/timeline that leads up to it. I'll start with...

Authoritarian/fascist North America in a cold war with Communist Europe... in the 1870s! Proxy wars in Indochina, Africa, and Latin America! Imperial India, bastion of liberty and free thought! How did it come to this?

(This could be spun off, but this thread seems pretty ripe for it.)

1870's? oh bother. That's probably the hardest part. We'll need to get out of bed early for this one.

Cortez-7
In this parallel, the exploitation of the new world by the spainish was conducted with a bit more foresight. Land and fiefs, rather than gold, was the most sought after commodity in the new world. The Spainish government set about to make their new empire the most populous and god-fearing ever seen. Native culture was still crushed, and slaves imported to fill the place natives slain by disease, but the prestige of having souls at your command outweighed the prestige of sending gold back home to Spain. Nobles of the new world were of equal weight with those back home, and the balance of spainish culture began to shift west. Great houses competed to establish farms, seeking out the desperate of the Christian Mediterranean. North america is populated by migrants speaking spainish and practicing catholcism in the name of the spainish crown.

The protestant reformation was even more successful on Cortez-7 than in Homeline, Bringing in the Poles, Hungarians, and Irish, but not the english, and breaking the power of the eastern Hapsburgs.

The British, unable to colonize the new world, focus most of their attention on India. They are strong allies of the spainish, both being catholic sea powers. They move a good deal of their people there.

The developement of the ideas that eventually lead to the french revolution happens on schedule. The french do not need the american example to revolt, it turns out. This leads to recurrent decades of war and radicalsim on the continent.

The industrial revolution happens a bit early in this timeline, with germany and the low countries leading the way rather than england.

In the late 1850's, A europe united by the communist successor state to the might Hungarian empire (who replaced the hapsburgs) storm spain and england, breaking their sea power in a series of close-run battles. The recent invention of the machine-gun turns these wars into bloody slogs, but in the end the Hungarians and their allies complete their seizure of europe. The pope flees to New Spain.

The Spainish Crown attempts to maintain its holy cause against the godless communists, engaging in a costly military buildup to regain its homeland and crush revolts in its colonies.



*****************************************


What do ya think?

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Wilson-1

Most historians are now convinced that Woodrow Wilson caught the Spanish Flu just before he was to participate in the Paris Peace Conference. Two of the lesser-known effects of the Spanish Flu were brain damage and cardiovascular issues. Given that almost everyone in contact with Wilson around the time of his illness reported a major change in his behavior. He became far less reasonable, far more irritable, lost most of his sense of humor and suffered a major loss of energy and willpower, and seemed to be less able to clearly and effectively state his views. All massive bad news for anyone engaged in diplomacy or getting treaties past the US senate.

Much of the collapse of the Wilson presidency at the end was clearly a result of damage to Wilson's heart and brain exacerbating his serious faults and removing his virtues. Added to this, the Second Mrs. Wilson was a crude racist and a snob and tended to reinforce all of his worst traits and little about the final months of the Wilson presidency is a surprise.

However, in this Q6 low manna world, two major changes occur. First, the first Mrs. Wilson remains healthy and active, and perhaps as a consequence of that, Wilson never catches the Spanish Flu.

Germany is treated less harshly, Wilson had no chance of getting Germany a fair deal given the baked in nastiness of early 20th century European Nationalism and the archaic features of the European state system at the time. Both Italy and Japan, in spite of Wilson's bigotries. were given greater respect at least from Wilson. The main bonus was a sounder more functional League of Nations and a more diplomatic Wilson getting the Senate to approve the treaty. Henry Cabot Lodge still fought the treaty, but Wilson dealt with that more gracefully and with great flexibility.

Still, some problems are still baked into the situation. It's now 1935, Facism still rose and Stalin still took control of the Soviet state, but the League of Nations is standing strong.

Basically, 1960s super spies crossed with 1930s pulp heroics. The PCs are two-fisted agents of the League of Nations fighting for peace and democracy!

[AOTA]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Wilson-1

Basically, 1960s super spies crossed with 1930s pulp heroics. The PCs are two-fisted agents of the League of Nations fighting for peace and democracy!

This sounds fun.

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Basically, 1960s super spies crossed with 1930s pulp heroics. The PCs are two-fisted agents of the League of Nations fighting for peace and democracy!

League of Nations Enforcement rsomething Section