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Old 08-17-2019, 12:52 PM   #4301
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Maybe the divergence was actually further back, that Claudius didn't get the sickness that caused his limp & deafness. This made him a suitable successor to Tiberius - and altered Claudius' brother Germanicus' fathering a son, so it was a different Caligula that was born (different person than Homeline's, just with same parents & same name).
Highly possible. Not how I wrote it, but more likely than mine.
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Old 08-19-2019, 12:07 PM   #4302
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this one...

A monk, whose father was a Bristol merchant, wrote a book in 1390 AD, detailing what he knew of the lands west of Greenland. Many Homeline scholars speculated the regular trade between Bristol in England and Iceland would have lead to a discovery of North America long before Columbus (the Bristol Merchants kept their activities secret for fear of ships and cargoes being confiscated by royal orders, the Norse claimed exclusive right to North Atlantic trade and England was to busy elsewhere to risk war with Norway over codfish).

With North America, and its fisheries now known in Europe, expeditions start out to seek riches and fame. Basically, Knights and Indians
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Old 08-23-2019, 01:14 PM   #4303
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this one...

Deva

This world seemed like a normal Q4 world until the 1920's. This is when Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, and other broke through to become movie stars in the modern sense. Strange things began to happen. Each of the biggest stars began to age more slowly and heal more quickly. Mabel Normand the brilliant comedian who taught Chaplin to direct and was a major star in her own right, suddenly found she was no longer a drug addict. Buster Keaton found his alcohol problems fading.

With the introduction of sound, stars where suddenly experiencing Wild Talents. Greta Garbo could levitate! Kate Hepburn could heal by the laying on of hands and had super strength. It was Hepburn who formulated the theory that the power came from the fans. She and Hedy Lamarr figured out how to test the theory. They won the Noble Prize for proving the theory right.

Basically, Hollywood stars are godlings. or at least superheroes. Why Hollywood stars are bigger, no one knows, though stars in other film cultures also gain powers. Mainly these powers fit two things, A) the stars image, if you play doctors you get healing powers, if you play vampires you can turn into bats, and B) the desires of the performer. Bela Lugosi was a kind and generous man with a deep humane empathy, he gained to power to heal minds and souls freeing people of mental illnesses and giving them new courage.

The Production code is totally dead. The power comes from the audiences and what they want. If the audience wants to see a little skin and likes it when Mae West is a little bawdy, they get their way. Interestingly enough it's the men who find themselves doing the most fan service, the women seem to get the biggest bang by being saucy and pert. Also, "risque" sells, sleazy tanks, so porn and gore aren't in the picture, but spicy is in.

The local year is 1942, most of the Hollywood stars that ever where are still active and making good films. WWII is on, but America has superheroes! How do you liberate the Philippines with Tracy and Hepburn? How do you stop the blitz with Mickey and Judy? How do you tell Charles Laughton or Orson Wells what to do?

Management of superheroes is the name of this game. Enjoy!
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Old 08-23-2019, 05:40 PM   #4304
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What about fully fictional celebrities such as animated characters? Their voice actors? Their animators?
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Old 08-23-2019, 07:17 PM   #4305
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Highly possible. Not how I wrote it, but more likely than mine.
Any mention of Claudius makes me think of the excellent BBC mini-series I, Claudius, and the original Robert Graves book.



Claudius' father, Drusus, surviving was the divergence point for Roma Aeterna. No emperor Claudius or Caligula, instead Claudius' older brother Germanicus, and then one of Caligula's older brothers.

Though I imagined that Claudius, still son/brother/uncle to emperors, was active in historical research & patronage, founding his own 'Claudian Academies' (as opposed to the world's scientific Heron Academies). And that their records were the ones Infinity looked at, and found the record of a prisoner amnesty upon Germanicus' accession that might have included "a certain Galillean preacher."

And that Caligula's depravations were covered up.


Indeed, different emperors could mean different fate of Christianity. Or just that a close parallel that close to Jesus Christ's ministry would be of interest to Homeline Christian scholars, from historians to religious.

Of course, any information found would be disputed, since it's a parallel world. Or maybe Infinity prevents visitors to the region.
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Old 08-23-2019, 07:51 PM   #4306
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What about fully fictional celebrities such as animated characters? Their voice actors? Their animators?
Your brain is evil. I admire you. The very biggest ones can manifest for short periods. This means in early WWII Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Popeye the Sailor Man, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Mighty Mouse, Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, and Fox & Crow ( now obscure but big then) could all manifest. So far only Mickey, Bugs, Popeye, and Mighty Mouse act coherently and can help. Both Bugs and Popeye have saved lives in combat and Mighty Mouse has deflected bombs into the Thames preventing them from landing in London.
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Old 08-25-2019, 12:32 AM   #4307
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Eisenhower-1 is a mystifying parallel but not a particularly weird one. It is a matter of great dispute whether or not it qualifies as a myth parallel since the point of departure is an actual flying saucer crashing where many 20th century echoes claim that happened. Thus the conclusion that that its a myth parallel seems like a no-brainer.

Except that the vessel that crashed was actually filled with goblins from a magitech alternate world in which goblin exist instead of humans. An alternate theory is that this real incident somehow created psychic echoes that inspired the myth in many other worlds.

In any case the historical impact of a real Roswell crash is a United States that never made the treaty against militarizing space and has massively pushed the development of space travel and space based weapons technology to try to defend itself from a nonexistent threat. In 1995 it's still a TL 8 culture fundamentally, but it has TL 9 space vessels and armed satellites designed to shoot down ICBMs...or theoretically attacking UFOs.

The United States revealed the existence of aliens to the world back in the early 80s when World War III seemed on the verge of breaking out. War was averted, and a "global defense command" was created to watch the skies for threats. So far all it has produced is a few missions to steer away asteroids that were getting a little close for comfort mostly as practice for the real thing. Episodes of Star Trek from this world were a valuable import on Homeline since John F. Kennedy's performance of Captain Kirk makes it a fan favourite and the show survived for 8 years thanks to government help with the budget.
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Old 08-25-2019, 08:00 AM   #4308
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J.F.K. certainly could have been an actor, but Shatner was so much fun. Also, too much realism about how militaries work could make any show dull. Verisimilitude works so much better than documentary realism.

Still, this is an interesting world. Are there any voices suggesting the aliens were far off course or just lost? No new alien sightings since 1947 would be a major issue.
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Old 08-25-2019, 09:32 AM   #4309
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... the aliens were far off course or just lost?
Or what if they were plucked off course, by a shadowy third species? And if so, why?
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Old 08-25-2019, 09:57 AM   #4310
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J.F.K. certainly could have been an actor, but Shatner was so much fun. Also, too much realism about how militaries work could make any show dull. Verisimilitude works so much better than documentary realism.

Still, this is an interesting world. Are there any voices suggesting the aliens were far off course or just lost? No new alien sightings since 1947 would be a major issue.
Well I wouldn't say no new alien sightings. Eisenhower definitely had the usual radar ghosts and bogus abduction stories. It's possible they even had some more real visitations as the goblins looked for their missing people since they don't know for sure that their people were dead after the crash. But there are certainly schools of thought that suggest that the aliens aren't really interested in invading. It didn't really matter as far as pushing the militarization of space goes since after the Americans started it the Russians followed suit as could be expected.
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