New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

I've seen a lot of improbable idyllic settings; communist, capitalist, Victorian... I thought it might be an interesting exercise to take on a challenge...

Classification: Pending
Local Year: 2010
Point of Divergence: Unknown, pre 1905
Caution: abnormal microbes

There is much debate as to the classification of this world. Some want to place it with Apophis. Some wish to toss it in with weird parallels like the USL. Some think a new collection is warranted, naming it "Eugenics-1". The initial recon labeled it Reich-17.
The earliest notable deviation is in 1907, when Adolph Hitler's dreams of becoming a musician are dashed in Vienna. The exact nature of the deviation is unknown, but it produced a shift in NAZI philosophy. The shift was not to a benign idealism, but to a doctrine better grounded in biological science and less concerned with purity.
WWII was quite a bit more horrific than Homeline's, with essentially two separate wars. Germany vs Europe and the USSR, and after Hitler expelled Japan from the Axis following Pearl Harbor, a US vs Japan war. It was the covert bio-weapon attack on the USSR that lead to Operatio Barbarossa's success. Adolph Hitler died of cancer one month after German containment units torched Moscow. The US-Empire of Japan war ended with the invasion of the home islands. Nuclear weapons were not deployed, and may not have been developed during the conflict.
The atrocities still occurred, but they had deliberate scientific goals. Millions were killed, not in gas chambers or ovens, but in industrial scale medical experimentation. Many were killed in quests for better weapons. Many more in experiments to cure cancer and test procedures to rehabilitate wounded soldiers. Still, those killed were not chosen on racial lines, but according to a rational, if monsterous, scientific standard of eugenic fitness, at least on paper. In practice, minority's got the sort end of the stick.
Where Homeline's nazis were mad-blind by ideologies of aryan purity, these were cold, calm and clear eyed in their pursuit of a new, better, man. Where Homeline's nazis wanted to exterminate, this world's wanted to study, and use as a proving ground. The lesser people's would benefit from the "uplift".
As the Cold War began, German scientists free of anything we'd recognize as research or medical ethics, began deciphering and cataloging DNA. The computing power of the Reich military was made available to the project. The Cold War developed along asymmetric lines, with Germany leading the world in medical research, and the US leading in computing. The two directly competed in aerospace, but the US deployed vastly greater resources to the project.
The 1970s saw domestic trouble in the US, and a cure for cancer emerge from Reich holdings in Africa. The Germans mocked the American troubles with Chinese backed Vietnam, and the Americans mocked that the disease that killed Hitler would be cured by African genes. Still, by the 1980's, and in spite of having vast manpower and material, the Reich's command economy was failing. Their solution would be similar to Homeline Chinese. The adopted a directed form of "eugenic economics".
What followed was a reformation of the internal politics of the Reich. The question of earned advancement in the political sphere had long plagued the Reich. With the new economics, it became more obvious that Britons, even Arabs, were demonstrating provable ability. The Reich chose to confront the fact that, for decades, there just weren't enough citizens of Central Germany, and their territories were administered locally. They were forced to choose between the vestiges of scientificly discredited racialism, and proven strength. Uday Azi, once the young man who's genes opened the cure for cancer, now a multi-millionaire in mining, became the first non-European and non-Central Geman to be governor of a German State, Africa-West.
All the while the space race went on its merry way. The North American Treaty Organization, NATO, had put the first man on the moon, and Germany was ready to attempt the same.
Then, the world almost ended.
The rock, detected by German lunar observers, was big enough to end civilization. World wide panic began to burble, with less than a year before impact. Unprecedented scientific conferences were called, with all manner of fanciful ideas being thrown about, none of which had a chance. With, literally, nothing to loose, US President Ted Kennedy revealed the best kept secret of the past fourty years. NATO had a functioning atomic weapon.
In the end, the two Germans and a US weapons officer took twenty nuclear weapons instead of a lunar rover and fuel to get home. Signs indicated that the experimental "H-Bomb" functioned, an the other weapon signatures were lost in the blast.
It would be a mistake to say world peace followed or that the Nazi regime became kind or gentle. Power struggles still remain. The Reich is still highly regimented, rigorously testing fitness for work and strictly licensing breeding rights. But even that is changing with surrogacy, where genetically approved embryos can be provided to couples that don't meet spec. By 2005, gene therapy was not only eliminating genetic disease outside the Reich, it has propagated beneficial genes to wider populations. While the US hasn't adopted restrictions on procreation, there is state funded pre-natal gene therapy.
The people of 2010 look back on the atrocities of the 20th century as the regrettable barbarism of ignorance. Not because the goals were wrong, but because the methods were crude and wasteful. Half the world is under the Reich's control. It is a regimented life of relative prosperity, built on millions of corpses. Grueling testing judges strengths and opens opportunities, or closes them, without regard to phenotype or any creed beyond loyalty to the Reich. The elimination of disease and improvement of humanity has been a blessing to all the world and few think about some of the bizarre biota that have developed in the past century. The unified planetary space defense force and its lunar base are achievements on any world, and on this Earth, they are lead by the Reich.

I can see American films in this world sticking to "Mr. Ordinary" guy, the decent Joe with integrity as the main hero. The ubermensch would be out of fashion ever in comic books.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

It is something I would like to see more of. What tech-levels are you thinking about?

My suggestions:

PB-1 seems like mature TL6 or 6^ with maybe some (6+1)^ elements.

PB-2 would probably be well into TL(6+1)^, 7^, or (7+1)^.

PB-3 looks like it would be mostly TL7 to (7+2)^.

PB-4 might have the most normal tech, with late TL7 transitioning to early TL8, possibly with no superscience.

PB-5 is probably early TL9^.

These seem good, very good in fact. But remember, comic book tech is often oddly distributed. I remember a Tom Strong comic book were the hero points out to the villain that if he marketed his invention he'd be the richest man in the world and probably the most admired.

The villain changed careers.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Thoughts on Puzzle Box - if the supers are all parallels of each other, then they're the things that stand out. The things grafted into an otherwise continuous reality....Kent Clark of Littleton, Kansas gets superpowers in each worldline, except he and his parents were in a different era each time...how far back do they have to go to find a genealogy that matches? Or (I would suspect) records that are incomplete or irregular? How does Kent Clark of PB2 feel about a grandson he doesn't have yet developing the same power set on PB4...and, perhaps, a grandpa Kent on PB4 who never did develop powers but is obviously "him"?

Since we're seeing the same hero archetype at compatible points, I'm guessing they're mostly 35-40, and usually get powers between 15-20, so all Puzzle Boxes are about 20 years after the advent of superpowers? I'd look for common elements at that point... At what point did the Puzzle Boxes become aware of each other?

And if it were me, I'd throw in two deep past Puzzle Boxes...PB6, around 330 BC, with the heros as Greco-Roman demigods, PB7 around 450-500 AD with them as Arthurian knight-types, and probably a dark one...I'd probably go for a dark echo of PB3 in which the Cuban fiasco escalated, so aliens and mushroom clouds with the Silver types trying to pick up the pieces somehow...can also do a Nazi version of PB3 but that's been done.

The original idea was superhero continuity to play around with. I like you ideas about them. At the time I wrote the first posting I thought of Carter Hall in each world.

PB-1 He's a mystic who sees himself as a reincarnated Egyptian Sorcerer/priest. I was using the version of that character from an Elseworlds set in the 1920's. Only my version was an Indiana Jones type who thought he was an incarnation of Horus. A Doc Savage with Occult powers.

PB-2 He's the classic Hawkman with nith metal and everything.

PB-3 Carter Hall is Katar Hol an Alien police officer seconded to Earth. In the comics of the 1960's he kept this secret, in this setting he and his wife work out of the Thanagarian embassy.

PB-4 Carter is possessed by the God Horus and is battling the minions of Set.

PB-5 Col. Cater Hall is a cyborg super soldier much like Falcon in the recent Captain America films.

Your ideas for discovering a couple of more puzzle box worlds is good. The periods are perfect except that an Elizabethan world would be needed too.

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I can see American films in this world sticking to "Mr. Ordinary" guy, the decent Joe with integrity as the main hero. The ubermensch would be out of fashion ever in comic books.

In the Cold War era, I'm betting you're right. Probably more pulp detective stories. Biotech replaces the nuclear boogieman for movies with giant ants and the like. As NATO acquires more of the Reich biotech, the trend will fade. I figure you could remake Rocky 3 with a change of paint.

I bet nuke applications take off after the meteor due to it being a "good" or "savior" tech.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

In the Cold War era, I'm betting you're right. Probably more pulp detective stories. Biotech replaces the nuclear boogieman for movies with giant ants and the like. As NATO acquires more of the Reich biotech, the trend will fade. I figure you could remake Rocky 3 with a change of paint.

I bet nuke applications take off after the meteor due to it being a "good" or "savior" tech.

Another thought on this setting. The Cold War seems to have caused a long term movement of US politics to the Right except for a backlash in the 1960's. In this world, fighting a proudly right-wing dictatorship (even if no present day American Right-Winger would except that view of the Nazis it is how they presented themselves and how many others including the Americans saw them at the time) America would likely move to the Left. The 1960's would have been a period of Right-wing backlash.

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Another thought on this setting. The Cold War seems to have caused a long term movement of US politics to the Right except for a backlash in the 1960's. In this world, fighting a proudly right-wing dictatorship (even if no present day American Right-Winger would except that view of the Nazis it is how they presented themselves and how many others including the Americans saw them at the time) America would likely move to the Left. The 1960's would have been a period of Right-wing backlash.

Not seeing where you get the rightward drift. Given the opposition from Chinese Communisrs and German Nazis, I can see the US national identity being cast in opposition, and I don't think any authoritarian strain is indicated. If anything, competion with the US lead the Reich to liberalize its economic policy, which lead to social changes. There's a Kennedy as POTUS in the 1980's, and no indication that government sponsored pre-natal medicine has produced anything more authoritarian than what we have IRL.

The world is more authoritarian, but with half of it being Nazi, and a substantial portion being Communist, that's no surprise. The US is engaged with that authoritarian world, but I don't think there's much indication they've adopted those strategies. Still, I want focused on the story of the US, and you're welcome to flavor to taste.

If I were to go in any direction, I'd change the ideological underpinnings of '60's and '70's radicals to Nazi. Using the "were anti Nazi" rally cry to post Japan War social reform, with a significant and well funded backlash by Reich backed racial ideological groups. The bombings and violence are more lethal, and come to and end quicker than Homeline's experience, the Nazi version of The Family getting closed out in the late '70's.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

Not seeing where you get the rightward drift. ...

From the context in the rest of the post, I think Astromancer was talking about our timeline there.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by robkelk

From the context in the rest of the post, I think Astromancer was talking about our timeline there.

Yes, in our world we drifted to the right in opposition to regimes self-labeled leftist. In this reality under discussion, the regimes in opposition to America are self-labeled Right-wing, so I'd predict a move to the left.

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Yes, in our world we drifted to the right in opposition to regimes self-labeled leftist. In this reality under discussion, the regimes in opposition to America are self-labeled Right-wing, so I'd predict a move to the left.

The label left/right is probably even less useful in this world than Homeline. The three dominant paradigms of political economy in the world are: National Socialism (champion of the "Right"), Chinese Communism (champion of the "Left"), and US Democracy. When the socialists are on the right, I'm not sure there's a lot of utility in the labeling scheme, and don't see the US at large finding either of those visions appealing until generations after their horrors have faded.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

... National Socialism (champion of the "Right"), ...

Please define your term "National Socialism". No modern government in our world is Nazi.