A New alt for Infinite worlds

[flyingwombat]

Not for the squeamish...

I call this one Nixon.
Situation: Nixon appoints W. Mark Felt to head the FBI. This apparently minor change prevents Washington Post reporters woodward and bernstein from getting "Deep Throat" as an anonymous source.

Congessional hearings never get anywhere. No one is convicted except for the actual burglars.

Nixon provides material support to S. Vietnam and that country still exists so far.

Jimmy Who?

Ronald Reagan wins the Republican nomination in 1976 and beats his opponent Hubert H. Humphrey.

Local year year 1979.
In 1979 Reagan allows the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the USA on Humanitarian grounds.

[LoneWolf23k]

So, aside from being a nightmare to Left-wingers, what's the big deal?

[SCHIFTY]

How about this one: Divergence starts at the time of the Black Death. Witch hysteria sweeps Europe. Peasants and churchmen believe witches ride from town to town on horseback, spreading the disease. Horses are slaughtered wholesale along with the cats. When the age of European exploration and colonization begins, it starts without horses. White men are unable to take most of North America except for the coastal areas and a few of the larger river valleys until the internal combustion engine is invented in China. The invading "barbarian" tribes of Central and Northern Asia make greater inroads in Europe. The Aztec and Incan Empires endure to become the major powers of their continents, but are declining into decadance in the 20th century. China has recently thrown off the Mongol rule and reestablished the Imperial Court. Smaller kingdoms rule in Korea, Japan, and Indo-China, and India is a major commercial power. The descendants of the last Tsars are trying to unite the warring tribal lands of Central and Eastern Europe. European colonialism never really got off the ground except in scattered areas.

Still needs work, but could it work?

Also, there are a lot of post-apocalyptic settings -- the Last Big War was fought, or pollution caused a near total environmental collapse, or there was a plague, or whatever, and the characters are dealing with the aftermath, long after the disaster. What about a campaign at the time of the Disaster? Characters start out in a world with certain rules and all of a sudden it's all out the window. Example -- a major meteoric impact on a faultline on the Pacific Rim causes tsunamis all over the Pacific. Biologic contamination in the meteor, or stirred up from the sea bottom and spread into the air, causes changes in the planet's biospehere -- mutations, new abilities appear, and so on. With the equivalent of nuclear winter, governments collapse and nations fracture. The characters aren't in the immediate disaster zone, but what do they do now? People who were nobodies before are now claiming power and setting themselves up as petty kings and warlords. Waves of refugees crowd in.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

I call this one Nixon.

I'll see you're Nixon and raise you a Stein:

2005:
Former FBI analyst Linda Lovelace has admitted to being "Quick Licker", the informant who revealed the Watergate scandal to Washington Post reporters ulitimately leading to the resignation of President Rand.

The nickname "Quick Licker" was taken from the X-Rated film starring Mark Felt. Mr. Felt later became a masculinist ant-porn activist and died in a car crash in 2002.

[SCHIFTY]

Of course, in an alternate world, the same people wouldn't exist -- if Elvis Presley had stayed a truck driver, he wouldn't have met Priscilla and Lisa Marie wouldn't have been born.

[GoodGame]

Logical.

What happens in 1980 with the Iran hostages? Do the yuppies and the fall of the Berlin wall (Soviet Union) happen any quicker?

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

Not for the squeamish...

I call this one Nixon.
Situation: Nixon appoints W. Mark Felt to head the FBI. This apparently minor change prevents Washington Post reporters woodward and bernstein from getting "Deep Throat" as an anonymous source.

Congessional hearings never get anywhere. No one is convicted except for the actual burglars.

Nixon provides material support to S. Vietnam and that country still exists so far.

Jimmy Who?

Ronald Reagan wins the Republican nomination in 1976 and beats his opponent Hubert H. Humphrey.

Local year year 1979.
In 1979 Reagan allows the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the USA on Humanitarian grounds.

[GoodGame]

Originally Posted by SCHIFTY

How about this one: Divergence starts at the time of the Black Death. Witch hysteria sweeps Europe. Peasants and churchmen believe witches ride from town to town on horseback, spreading the disease. Horses are slaughtered wholesale along with the cats.

That'd have to be some intense mass hysteria, even affecting the knighthood.
It'd decrease economic productivity, and reduce battles to line infantry with basic weapons. Excepting what the oxen could pull. Probably even later date for contact with Americas, and no lightning conquest of Aztecs and Incas (unless this somehow spurs the need for productivity, and the study of thermodynamics).

An alt alt of this one would have horseless carriages coming earlier.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

Local year year 1979.
In 1979 Reagan allows the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the USA on Humanitarian grounds.

So have the students taken the US embassy in Tehran yet? If so has Reagan done anything yet, and what?

[AmesJainchill]

Originally Posted by SCHIFTY

Also, there are a lot of post-apocalyptic settings -- the Last Big War was fought, or pollution caused a near total environmental collapse, or there was a plague, or whatever, and the characters are dealing with the aftermath, long after the disaster. What about a campaign at the time of the Disaster? Characters start out in a world with certain rules and all of a sudden it's all out the window. Example -- a major meteoric impact on a faultline on the Pacific Rim causes tsunamis all over the Pacific. Biologic contamination in the meteor, or stirred up from the sea bottom and spread into the air, causes changes in the planet's biospehere -- mutations, new abilities appear, and so on. With the equivalent of nuclear winter, governments collapse and nations fracture. The characters aren't in the immediate disaster zone, but what do they do now? People who were nobodies before are now claiming power and setting themselves up as petty kings and warlords. Waves of refugees crowd in.

That would be interesting.

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by GoodGame

Logical.

What happens in 1980 with the Iran hostages? Do the yuppies and the fall of the Berlin wall (Soviet Union) happen any quicker?

I haven't thought that far ahead.

Reagan had a tougher stance against Communism than Nixon, Ford and Carter did. all three practiced or try to practice "detente" in our timeline.
In our timeline the 1979-81 Iran Hostage Crisis, 444 days of stalemate, with occassional suprises and the birth of ABC's Nightline should be a lot different.

Quicker Soviet collapse?
Yuppies?
They depends on some variables that should be considered.