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Old 04-01-2019, 01:13 PM   #4081
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Try this idea...

The Red Douglas had control of James of Scotland through much of his teens. James tried many times to escape before he made it away. If he died in one Q6 world then the subject of who is heir to the thrones of both Scotland and England becomes an issue. Lady Arabella becomes a likely choice. Elizabeth, who hated the idea of an heir because it made assassinating her more practical, would hate this. However, every peer in Scotland and England will want himself or a son to claim QUEEN ARABELLA"S hand. Can you say bloodbath?
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Old 04-01-2019, 03:35 PM   #4082
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Originally Posted by cptbutton View Post
Reminds me of Alan Nourse's The Bladerunner, which has a similar medical premise, except any significant medical care for anyone requires sterilization. Then a minor flu turns up, which after two weeks turns into a deadly encephalitis.

(Despite the name, completely unrelated to the Phillip K. Dick movie, though they "acknowledged his work" which Iassume means they paid him something.
Yeah, Bladerunner sounded better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, try putting that on a movie screen! So they paid Nourse for the title.
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Old 04-03-2019, 05:33 PM   #4083
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Try this one. The main evidence used to convict Mary of Scotland for killing Darnley, her idiotic, drunken, syphillitic, violent, lout of a husband, were the Casket Letters. It is assumed they were bad frogeries. The Scots Lords were to embarrassed to let Elizabeth Tudor see them. And they knew she'd have no interest in exposing a forgery unless it was so bad it would be a threat to those pulling Mary Stewart off her throne.

The main thing that ever made the Casket Letters plausible was that historians tend to find the letters a luridly fascinating read. One theory of the letters is that, although they had nothing to do with the Queen of Scots, they were the letters of a woman forced by circumstances, including danger to her life and her child's life, and her seemingly abusive lover, into a plot to murder her husband. Bothwell could easily have been involed in that sort of thing, he was a serial adulter and had killed many men. The letters could have been a trophy of his. And there were others, both allied to Bothwell and ranged against him, who could have had the letters from a former mistress.

The PCs could be a rescue team looking for a missing historical researcher in 16th century Scotland. He believed he was on the trail of the real woman who wrote the letters. If so, he was blundering into a dangerous feud in one of the most historically sensitive and tricky warzones in history.

Pulling him out without flinging a echo into Centrum's hands will be massively tricky.
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Old 04-05-2019, 01:22 PM   #4084
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Try this one...

Fiona Ó Ceallaigh, a World Jumper from a 19th century Ireland outside of the area were either Homeline or Centrum can reach, believes she has found her way to Ireland's past. She has found her way to an Ireland in the year 1798. Fiona, being a fairly powerful Mage (she was being taught by a Cabalist who was keeping her in the dark about many things so he could use her as a cat's paw) feels she can assure a Franco/Irish victory in this Q6 world. Fiona might not know all the special Cabalist tricks, but she is a Manna Enhancer. In her immediate area the Manna level is increased by one. Add to that the Fact that Fiona has a strong talent for using magic to manipulate nature and it looks like Cornwallis is going to have a rough time.

Meanwhile this world has already diverged from Homeline history. Centrum decided that the Napoleonic wars were ultimately a progressive force. So they've manipulated things. They've got Napoleon choosing to put his main force into attacking Ireland. The plan was for Napoleon to end up dead early. Fiona might have different plans.
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Old 04-06-2019, 12:35 PM   #4085
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The British never really understood Amin al Hussein. They never got that he was basically a careerist in politics with little or no patriotism for Palestine nor any interest in Islam other than using the status of Grand Mufti as a power base. His revolt which was largely a copy of the kind of power grabs used by European Fascists was mainly directed toward the Palestinian Arabs, more four times as many of whom where killed than Jewish setters and British officers combined.

Nearly 40,000 Palestinian Arabs fled in terror to escape Hussein's brutality. In Homeline history, this led to the Brits clamping down on Jews emigrating to Palestine. However, in this Q6 world a Cabalist manipulated the colonial officials to allow Jewish emigration to replace the fleeing Arabs (the Brits thought they would get Hussein to stop with floods of Jews). Two million Jews fled to Palestine before 1940. Another million came during the war, most of these people would have died in the Holocaust.

The Cabalist, a master of enchanting rumors and gossip to alter public opinion, convinced the Arab street that the flight of Jews to Palestine was all the fault of Hitler and anti-colonialist Arabs. This led to a backlash against both Nazis (until then widely admired as foes of France, England, and Russia) and the local "Nationalist" rebels.

The local year is 1968, the Arab lands are under European colonial control and the Palestinian Arabs have long since abandoned Palestine/Israel. This world's Middle East is a hot house of Cabalist activity. The whole business seems to have been a Cabalist plan to get better access to local data and occult resources.

Still, it is 1968. New winds are blowing through the world. The Cabalists will have to fight hard to retain their Arabian Nights theme park against rising tides of change.
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Old 04-07-2019, 11:33 AM   #4086
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Leon Czolgosz was an obscure nobody until he shot President McKinley. Czolgosz accidentally strengthened the USA by making Teddy Roosevelt President of the United States. On this Q6 echo a Centrum agent has murdered Czolgosz two months before his most famous act.

The Homeline has two choices. Murder McKinley or eliminate Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and both wound the USA and radically move the whole West to the Hard Right by eliminating both Wilson and F.D.R.
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Old 04-07-2019, 06:46 PM   #4087
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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Leon Czolgosz was an obscure nobody until he shot President McKinley. Czolgosz accidentally strengthened the USA by making Teddy Roosevelt President of the United States. On this Q6 echo a Centrum agent has murdered Czolgosz two months before his most famous act.

The Homeline has two choices. Murder McKinley or eliminate Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and both wound the USA and radically move the whole West to the Hard Right by eliminating both Wilson and F.D.R.
IMHO the second option is not even on the table. Homeline simply doesn't not have the skill Centrum has in regarding how changing events will move worlds across quantum and they know this thanks to it taking 4 years after Centrum caused the H.M.S. Beagle sink for an Echo to jump quantum.

Homeline is in damage control mode ala Voyagers! or later seasons of Quantum Leap ie "fix what got changed as fast as possible because we just don't have the knowledge to do anything else".

Last edited by maximara; 04-07-2019 at 07:05 PM.
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Old 04-07-2019, 07:05 PM   #4088
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Why would Homeline do this? Better the history you know (or something reasonably similar) then to go off down some bizarre tangent. The best way to think of Homeline is akin to the time travelers of Voyagers! or later seasons of Quantum Leap
Genre convention. Homeline and Centrum routinely engage in meddling that won't matter for decades or centuries - despite the fact they aren't *actually* time travelers and hence have no way of checking whether it really works, or any particular reason to think it would matter to either of them a century from now if it does.
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Old 04-07-2019, 07:08 PM   #4089
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Leon Czolgosz was an obscure nobody until he shot President McKinley. Czolgosz accidentally strengthened the USA by making Teddy Roosevelt President of the United States. On this Q6 echo a Centrum agent has murdered Czolgosz two months before his most famous act.

The Homeline has two choices. Murder McKinley or eliminate Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and both wound the USA and radically move the whole West to the Hard Right by eliminating both Wilson and F.D.R.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Why would Homeline do this? Better the history you know (or something reasonably similar) then to go off down some bizarre tangent. The best way to think of Homeline is akin to the time travelers of Voyagers! or later seasons of Quantum Leap
The history they know is McKinley is assassinated and Teddy Roosevelt become president. Centrum has killed McKinley's assassin before he can act. So if Homeline does nothing, McKinley remains president and history diverges who knows where.

If Homeline wants to get history back of the "right track", they have to see that McKinley is assassinated about the same time.
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Old 04-07-2019, 07:46 PM   #4090
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If Homeline wants to get history back of the "right track", they have to see that McKinley is assassinated about the same time.
They also have the rather difficult task of being sure the right people are blamed. Historically the assassin was caught immediately and had clear and admitted anarchist links - which motivated quite a bit of authoritarianism in opposition to anarchist including a lot of stuff critical to things like the formation of the FBI. So you need to find a volunteer who can put up a convincing anarchist façade, is a skilled enough assassin to pull it off, and who is willing to be caught and executed.... Worse, you need to make sure McKinley doesn't die too quickly, since that's arguably an important element in generating the kind of public reaction it did, so this guy has to be amazing enough to inflict a wound that is certainly but not quickly lethal *on purpose*. Good luck with that.
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