New Reality Seeds

[PTTG]

A different series of treaties and research developments starting in the 1930s results in a different cold war and space race -- WWII was not changed in outcome, but had countless small changes. Notably, there were a different series of technical developments that made both the USA and USSR develop ICBMs earlier, but were also confident that enemies could interfere with the atmospheric portion of the missile launch.

As a result, the two factions decided to focus on attaining "high ground:" orbital nuclear mines. They launched hundreds of nuclear missiles into a complicated variety of orbits, all well above the atmosphere (nobody wanted a mine to decay anytime soon). On receiving encrypted commands, the mines then would perform a series of maneuvers entirely automatically, even if their launchers were wiped out, ensuring nuclear deterrence. Many of the mines were "deadman's switches" designed to attack if contact was lost, thus rendering jamming impossible.

The mines could be used for both EMP and re-entry attacks (and the high-orbit ones were effectively nuclear/kinetic warheads too).

The spinoff of all this is a dramatically more developed space age as both factions are militarized for space in particular. Also, the even more certain nuclear war meant that the US was forced to assist the USSR during the collapse, as a failure to maintain the soviet deadman switch signals would trigger a nuclear holocaust.

In the present day, the USSR and USA are uncomfortably transitioning to a period of peace as they cooperate to prevent the bombs from falling, which necessitates the USA providing aid to the USSR, often to prevent civil unrest.

[Astromancer]

Merlin-7

This Q5 world seems to have recently been manipulated by the Cabal. Homeline thinks that the accident that transformed Blackstone may have inspired the Cabal to alter another world as an easy spy base in "enemy territory." The Cabal is amused with how Homeline and Centrum overestimate them. Still, they are stunned with how a minor rite seems to have exploded on this Q5 world.

Merlin-7 was a fairly close parallel to Homeline. The divergence from Homeline history occurred long ago, and Merlin-7's prehistoric past is radically different from Homeline's, but the present day (1997) is very close to Homeline with few noticeable differences.

However, actions by an ambitious Cabalist has caused Atlantis to rise from the sea. This has caused mana levels to jump from no Mana/ Low Mana to a 20% Low Mana/ 60% Normal Mana/ 20% High Mana world. Magic is in the process of being rediscovered. Wild-eyed romantics at first felt vindicated! But rational scientific researchers are doing better at learning magic. This has created storms of bitterness.

The Cabal is torn between staying out and seeing if they can direct how this world evolves. Homeline has noticed several World Jumping Non-Cabal spellcasters seem to have moved to this world lately. What their plans are is unknown.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Suleiman the Magnificent was many things; he was a lawgiver, a conqueror, a . For all of these achievements, Western historians gave him one of the most generic titles a ruler can receive, rivaled only by "the Great". (Historians in his homeland call him "the Lawgiver," which I think is a far better title.) But his magnificence was amplified by many factors, including (but not limited to) his personal skill and that of his closest advisers, the discipline and technology possessed by his army, and the disunity of Europe (including but not limited to the Protestant Reformation and people not liking Charles V).
This Habsburg prince and his family were great obstacles to Suleiman as well as his fellow Christians. Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, was granted Charles's Austrian territories (because you can't effectively rule Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands while also being Holy Roman Emperor). He wanted Hungarian land, because duh, and wound up discussing the matter with Suleiman after Suleiman's forces crushed the Hungarian army and killed their king. The discussions went poorly, with neither side being willing to give up enough to satisfy the other; they went to war. The next Hungarian king to be elected accepted Ottoman suzerainty in exchange for help in not being conquered by Austria.
In our timeline, his advance into Europe was stopped just past the border of Hungary. He almost succeeded in capturing Vienna, but his army was driven out of the walls. Suleiman had to pretty much immediately head southeast to handle a conflict with the Safavid Persians—a conflict which had no conclusive victory, and which wound up driving a wedge between Suleiman and his closest advisor, Ibrahim, which ended in the former killing the latter. The Sultan would again clash with the Habsburgs, but never as a conqueror; Charles invaded Tunis, Suleiman helped the French fight him in Italy, Ferdinand tried to take Hungary again.
And then there was division within not just the Ottoman Empire, but within Suleiman's family; his firstborn son, a man who even Christian Europe spoke of with praise and fear, did not fully reject a proposal to replace Suleiman as Sultan. The problem with monarchy is that you cannot always have great kings; this internal conflict turned what could have been a multi-generational (or at least two-generation) lucky streak into a lonely, magnificent ruler. His fourth son died shortly thereafter, and the other two (one who was seen by fellow Ottomans as a drunken sot, the other of which was just okay) started quarreling with each other. As the cruel mistress Fate would have it, the okay son was the one who gave Suleiman reason to question his loyalty, so when the quarrels turned to war, Suleiman joined the sot.
In Suleiman's old age, after the deaths of Charles, Ferdinand, and many other European rulers he had once warred with, he engaged in a two final campaigns. The first was intended to drive out the Knights of Malta (which he had driven from Rhodes in his youth, but allowed them to live), which failed in part due to a more unified Europe and a less-united Ottoman force. The second was in part a reaction to this defeat, an attempt to re-establish Suleiman's empire as a grand player on the European stage; he would take Vienna.
To me, it seems like Suleiman failed to achieve even greater magnificence due to a combination of having too much to do in too many corners of the empire and, in the end, divisions within the Sultan's inner circle. (That, and his mighty army never fully adapted to European weather; for instance, he kept having to leave his great cannons behind when they got stuck in mud. This wasn't helped by the fact that developments in logistics and military planning were outpaced by changes in military structure and philosophy, eg "No looting" outpacing "Here's how we get supplies to our troops".) But even in our history, I see the fragments of something great. Not of future Ottoman emperors conquering Europe and the world; I find those both unrealistic and boring. But a rivalry between two great houses on opposite sides of the Mediterranean? Now, that could be interesting! Suleiman constantly clashes with Charles V (who he insisted on calling "that Spanish prince" rather than by any of his actual titles) and his family, Ferdinand at least sees Suleiman as a threat, and each control immense empires.

In this scenario, Suleiman would need to forge about as much unity within Islam as there was between Christendom in this timeline. (Low bar, I realize.) That is to say, there should absolutely be Muslim rulers who would rather side with the Habsburgs against Suleiman (e.g, the Safavid dynasty), but when push comes to shove, the Ottomans should be able to organize the Muslims enough (and their European allies) to fight against the Habsburgs, who should similarly be able to organize Christendom (and their Muslim allies) against the Ottomans. Europe seemed to have that more or less under control, with only a bit more prodding from a more powerful...(is there a better term for the Muslim world—North Africa, the Middle East, erc—than "the Muslim world" or listing off geographic regions with lots of Muslims?)
As to how one would make Islam more unified...by understanding of historical Muslim politics pretty much starts with "Sunni and Shiite Muslims hate each other as much as Christians hate their heretics" and ends at "Also, there are some other groups like Kharijite and Ibadi Muslims, and neither of the big sects likes them much".
I'm slightly more familiar with Suleiman's personal situation, which seemed to be dragged down most by how accidental discourtesies from those close to him caused him to start seeing every rumor and tiny discourtesy as more evidence that they were a threat to his rule and the stability of his empire. I can't tell if this was a character flaw or a side effect of proper wariness that kept him safe from actual threats, so the simplest way to do this would probably to make everyone in Suleiman's inner circle warier of accidental discourtesies. Luckily, Suleiman went through a phase early in his reign where he was trying to show that he was as strong as his father, but less of an a-hole. If he erred a bit more on the side of "strong" and less on "not an a-hole," maybe this would add enough heads to the pile for advisers and sons alike to be more careful around Sueiman. This might also make other potential rivals less likely to take action against Suleiman, and some on the fence more likely to try to placate him. (It might also make such people band together against him, but, um, shut up.)
Beyond that...as noted, I don't know much about the details of historical Muslim politics. Therefore, I need to rely on human universals. One of those universals is the principle of "Gang up on the scary bully". If Europe had continued its Crusades for a century or two longer (not successfully, of course), that and a bit of aggression from "that Spanish prince" might be enough to let a sufficiently powerful and persuasive sultan bring together a fair chunk of the Muslim world in times of crisis.

So, having handwaved to get Muslims to act the way I want them to, let's handwave some more to make the rivalry between Suleiman and Charles V last until whatever great war topples their empires. Something something big war between Suleiman and Charles, something something Ottomans expand influence east and south to counter advantages provided by New World colonies, conflict conflict conflict, democracy spreads, monarchy is threatened, Seminal Catastrophe, monarchy falls. Great! Now let's explore some of that handwaving and interesting effects it could have...next post, because I cannot keep these ideas under 10k characters.

[GreatWyrmGold]

• The Habsburgs would, of course, keep branches of their family spread across much of Europe. They would consider themselves superior to the prideful Muslims for not concentrating all their power into one man, one weak link. Similarly, the Ottomans would consider themselves superior to the shortsighted Christians for preventing the chaos which comes with dividing power among many power-hungry people.
• Again, I'm not an expert in Muslim history, but I've heard that they've had conflicts in India. If and when European powers start setting up shop in India, they and the Middle-Eastern-ean powers could start proxy wars in India, either along religious or political lines.
• If Muslims pushed into West Africa and refused to let European traders dock, it would pretty much destroy the Triangle Trade (unless the Europeans pushed through and secured their own African allies). It might be replaced with a less-memorably-named Transatlantic Colonial Trade, with raw materials from the colonies being traded for manufactured goods in the mother-country. The South would either need to grow fewer labor-intensive cash crops, or start conscripting native American slaves who didn't die from all those plagues. (Ooh, or there could be an underclass of European slaves, descended from a mixture of timeline-exclusive "indefinite-duration indentured servants," criminals, and the like. They wouldn't be treated nearly as sub-human-ly as African slaves were, and their post-emancipation issues would be pretty much just normal dirt-poor-lower-class problems, but it's still a potentially interesting idea.)
• What of Russia? They're a European backwater on the wrong side of the Great Schism; it's hard to see them having much in common with the Habsburgs. (And, in OTL, they had fairly regular conflicts with German powers, and the Habsburgs would qualify.) On the other hand, OTL's conflicts between Russia and the Ottomans suggest that they would be no friend to the Turks. And since their borders are in the same geographic region as both Vienna and Istanbul, they could easily be a wildcard in open Ottoman/Habsburg wars. I also like the idea of them not just colonizing Siberia and Alaska, but also making alliances or conquests in east Asia—helping bring Moscow closer to Vienna and Istanbul, and making East Asian wars more interesting.
• Speaking of which, what of east Asia? It's obviously going to be another point of contention for the Ottoman/Habsburg rivalry. The Ottomans may have an easier time making allies in Muslim southeast Asia and could interfere with Europeans trying to go through the Indian Ocean, but said Europeans might be able to snag a Panamanian route to Asia (with or without canal) and have much more naval experience. Either way, I'd expect to see plenty of veterans from conflicts in India doing the same thing in China (whether or not the conflicts there are the same).

The world after its Seminal Catastrophe and the loss of the great European monarchs would be interesting, too. The institutions which held so much of the world proved ill-fitting for a world hungry for democracy, but what springs up in their wake? Will the individual lands govern themselves, separate, or would they be brought under the sway of a new leader, eager to offer what the monarchs once offered?

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold

...(is there a better term for the Muslim world—North Africa, the Middle East, erc—than "the Muslim world" or listing off geographic regions with lots of Muslims?)...

Dar al-Islam?

As to how one would make Islam more unified...by understanding of historical Muslim politics pretty much starts with "Sunni and Shiite Muslims hate each other as much as Christians hate their heretics" and ends at "Also, there are some other groups like Kharijite and Ibadi Muslims, and neither of the big sects likes them much".

I’m never sure how much the Sunni-Shi’ite divide is really a theological expression of the older and perpetual Arab-Iranian divide.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea...

Nippon-7 Local Year 1852.

In 18th century Japan, those few scholars who sought knowledge of the outside world routinely got books from the Dutch. This was semi-disapproved of. However, in this Q6 world, a minor prince related to the Shogun and the Emperor thought that maybe it should be encouraged. In most worlds, this prince either dies young from a riding accident or becomes a Buddhist monk, in this world, he becomes a close friend of the Shogun.

The result is the founding of a center of Dutch Studies in 1725 and a system of licenses for visiting Europe started in 1729. Later, in 1735, a sea captain associated with the Dutch Studies center proposed the idea of reintegrating Japanese people who'd illegally lived abroad in order to gain the benefit of what they learned. This was made a reality in 1747.

Thus, during the industrial revolution, Japan was studying Europe. And in spite of the subject being named Dutch Studies, Britain became the main focus. Thus Tokugawa Japan industrialized at the same time as Britain.

Although at first, the USA was repellent to the Japanese, because of their revolt against their monarch. The Japanese soon realized that an alliance, largely informal, was possible. They just had to steer clear of the wackier aspects of the USA being so Protestant. Deals were cut, ideas exchanged.

This soon had the effect of slowly letting the Chinese know how radically changed Japan was. The early 19th century Emperor made it clear to the Bureaucracy that China needed to follow this new technological path or become a colony like India or Java.

The Bureaucracy hated the idea, but soon the Opium trade was showing how unstable their position was. But it also showed a way to face the problem with decorum. These Chinese bureaucrats knew what Homeline's Chinese bureaucrats didn't know until almost 1900. That Britain and the USA were very different and could be played against each other.

Soon the Americans were helping China industrialize and Japan was competing with the Dutch and Spanish for control of the East Indies. A war is brewing up in the waters of East Asia in the 1850's Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands seeking to hold their empires and China and Japan, with American aid, seeking to expand their influence.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

A war is brewing up in the waters of East Asia in the 1850's Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands seeking to hold their empires and China and Japan, with American aid, seeking to expand their influence.

Given that we can assume that the whole slavery problem is going to be proceeding on rough schedule, the Chinese and the Japanese have about a decade before Americans get busy dealing with their own problems. Going up against the world's superpower and a couple of secondary powers is not a good move without lots of backing. If the Americans are very brazen in their support, you'll probably see the British recognize the secessionists, and that's just bad news.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Given that we can assume that the whole slavery problem is going to be proceeding on rough schedule, the Chinese and the Japanese have about a decade before Americans get busy dealing with their own problems. Going up against the world's superpower and a couple of secondary powers is not a good move without lots of backing. If the Americans are very brazen in their support, you'll probably see the British recognize the secessionists, and that's just bad news.

Still, this Japan isn't as relatively weak as they were in our world and the Asian powers are on their home ground. Also, California will be more developed in this world and less neutral in the civil war. This is meant to be a more complicated world anyway.

[PTTG]

About a century ago, a lone worldjumper got his hands on a portable retrovirus lab. He felt that a society would do best if it was in what he considered "biological synergy" with its "culturally idealized phenotype." Though a monster, his subtlety and powers allowed him to go virtually undetected even though most attempts took years to perfect.

He traveled across the worldlines, selling his services as a cure-all physician while in fact inflicting a eugenic plague upon worldline after worldline. Interestingly enough, rather than having a specific plague across all timelines, he instead tailored each one to match the current time and place.

He altered a dozen worldlines over his career. He's disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared, but his handiwork remains.

Plague-1: Probably one of his first destinations, possibly his origin timeline. Openly joined the Human Betterment Foundation in California, 1929. This plague is global, but has no effect until after a given human exceeds a certain lifetime level of exposure to alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, THC, and a number of other compounds; at that point, the plague induces sterility.

Other timelines include those where the traveler appeared in Australia (1910), Great Britain (1960), Germany (1890s), Japan (1850), and Mexico (1900). The earliest was Rome circa 10 CE, the latest somewhere in China around 2000.

[Flyndaran]

My first thought while reading was the opposite.
A world jumper that screws with timelines by creating immunities in soon to be plagued peoples.