New Reality Seeds

[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.

[adm]

An interesting take on an authoritarian Germany we can live with variant. How did the UK fair in this version? A European Taiwan or as a German iron curtain country?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Posted to another thread, but it might be playable.

The Puzzle Box skerry on Q4 (Puzzle Box 1-5) is a set of worlds with superheroes. How ever each world has highly similar superheroes with nearly identical personal names, nom de guerres, and highly similar or similarly themed powers.

PB-1 The local year is 1928 and rather Pulp/Cliffhanger in style.
PB-2 The local year is 1942 and is very Golden Age ala All-Star Squadron
PB-3 The local year is 1967 and it is very Silver Age with Super Tech Interstellar travel.
PB-4 The local year is 1980 and this world is has a Dark Occult/Vertigo mood
PB-5 The local year is 2017 and the world is very Cyberpunk.

All these worlds are in contact, the various superheroes are aware of each other and the great Quantum beyond them.

They've been contacted by the Cabal (Especially PB-4) they're seeking diplomatic links to Homeline.

Does this bring the weird?

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^.

[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.

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by adm

An interesting take on an authoritarian Germany we can live with variant. How did the UK fair in this version? A European Taiwan or as a German iron curtain country?

Following the decimation, to be kind, of Moscow, Winston Churchill suffers a heart attack. The event holds a place similar to Homeline's Kennedy Assassination in terms of conspiracy theory. The new government sues for peace, ceding its colonial holdings in exchange for good treatment. Politically, they're swallowed with India going its own way and full of expats. Commonwealth nations side with NATO where possible. England becomes part of Germany in the same way Hong Kong returned to China, a subject territory, but one with special status. Historians view the special inclusion of England as the begining of moderation in the Reich or as the moment someone did the math on the number of Germans available to rule the world.

[David Johnston2]

During the American Revolution the French manage to coordinate better with the Spanish, and the Dutch and take down the British home fleet leading to an invasion of England. Scotland and Ireland get their independence. An elderly Charles Stuart is installed as nominal King. France takes over the Canadian colonies. Then of course the French Revolution happens, and ugly King Charlie will be lucky to escape with his life when the English rise up again...Could be they'll end up with an English as well as French republic.

[patchwork]

You'd need something earlier to explain why and how the British took a Stuart back....even if they win at sea and sack London, the French don't have the will or manpower to occupy Britain, and an occupation is what it would take. Particularly since the Netherlands would have a record-scratch moment at the notion of a Stuart restoration and abruptly switch sides. Independence for Ireland (with Charlie ruling it?) is probably all that can be achieved. The Hanoverians simply haven't had time to become a national embarrassment yet, while what little most people remember about the Stuarts is....not positive. It still leaves a Britain too bankrupt to finance endless coalitions against revolutionary France, though. I wonder if this doesn't become one of the Bonapartes.....

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by patchwork

You'd need something earlier to explain why and how the British took a Stuart back....even if they win at sea and sack London, the French don't have the will or manpower to occupy Britain, and an occupation is what it would take. Particularly since the Netherlands would have a record-scratch moment at the notion of a Stuart restoration and abruptly switch sides. ..

Why would they care? The House of Hanover isn't the House of Orange and the real intent is to cripple England. Putting a weak and unpopular king with some semblance of legitimacy in place does the job given that France can't really hope to occupy England. I tried to think of a better candidate but couldn't find one.

[patchwork]

They care first and foremost because it makes them the only Protestant power with a navy, and without the colonial and economic base to be in the first tier of world powers anymore. Long term, they know Britain is their best shot at an alliance, which means they want it weak enough that it's a partnership rather than a vassalship but strong enough to be useful. Religion is still hugely important to everyone in this picture.

And also because simply replacing monarchs is an attack on the legitimacy of the concept of monarchy, which is why it's something that happens in wargames, not history. Charlie is a rare exception in that people can argue he really does have a claim to the throne even if it's been effectively moribund for a century. That argument is entirely unconvincing to Protestants, though. It turns France's action from an attempt to weaken a rival into an assault on the entire basis of legitimate government. Kings do not replace each other because doing so would prove there's nothing that special about kings.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by patchwork

You'd need something earlier to explain why and how the British took a Stuart back....even if they win at sea and sack London, the French don't have the will or manpower to occupy Britain, and an occupation is what it would take. Particularly since the Netherlands would have a record-scratch moment at the notion of a Stuart restoration and abruptly switch sides. Independence for Ireland (with Charlie ruling it?) is probably all that can be achieved. The Hanoverians simply haven't had time to become a national embarrassment yet, while what little most people remember about the Stuarts is....not positive. It still leaves a Britain too bankrupt to finance endless coalitions against revolutionary France, though. I wonder if this doesn't become one of the Bonapartes.....

Looked into the Scottish situation here. It looks like it is indeed a few years too late a revival of the Jacobite cause. Now, if you make the turning point keeping THAT alive rather than (or in addition to) better military coordination you might get a decapitated England. You won't get a Stuart on the throne, but you will have a much worse military position, and it will be just england and wales.

This whole line of thinking does end up looking like a bonaparte though.