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Old 03-11-2018, 08:08 AM   #3221
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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
It's not difficult to make gunpowder. It could have easily been introduced as early as TL 2. Anyone who could make bronze could make gunpowder if someone gave them the tip. It IS difficult to make something with the tolerances of a cannon much less a musket at that tech level.
A blunderbuss doesn't need refined tolerances. Sure it has poor aim at best and lousy range but it is a deadly weapon.

It seems to me an early development of gunpowder would make armor a marginal technology at best.
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Old 03-11-2018, 09:36 AM   #3222
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Well, armor would have still been useful in the melee, but I get your point, especially since civilians would likely have access to firearms. Another consequence that the development of gunpowder would have done is made battles much more lethal, with the majority of fatalities happening in battle than outside of battle, and with more people dying in battle than surviving battle. The increased lethality of combat would have likely reduced population levels and, interestingly, would have reduced the availability of slaves.
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Old 03-16-2018, 12:15 PM   #3223
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Swords might still evolve and become very useful. After all swords don't need to reload. Swords competed very well with firearms until easy to reload highly reliable multi-shot guns were the norm.
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Old 03-16-2018, 01:56 PM   #3224
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
It's not difficult to make gunpowder. It could have easily been introduced as early as TL 2. Anyone who could make bronze could make gunpowder if someone gave them the tip. It IS difficult to make something with the tolerances of a cannon much less a musket at that tech level.
It has been proven that very large logs can be made into "temporary" canons. No one's going to be wheeling them to a siege, but making them on the spot or uses by defenders may work.
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Old 03-17-2018, 11:39 AM   #3225
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Try this idea...

Star Trek's Edith Keeler was real in this Q4 world, but she was born twenty-five years earlier than in the story we know her from. She manages to build a powerful Left-wing progressive pacifist movement that keeps the USA out of WWI. She also unites the various threads of the American Left and projects the USA into a stable Social Democratic consensus by the late nineteen teens. The USA uses its control of both food supplies and credit to force the European powers to the table and make peace.

Europe's elites are furious. Russia has gone Communist and America is some other form of socialist. The old guard of Europe is ready to lash out in all directions.

Homeline is fascinated that this world has an Edith Keeler, she's even a dead ringer for Joan Collins. Given that Star Trek fans are common in Homeline's dimension hopping agencies, large numbers of Homeline Personnel are smuggling Edith's books and ideas back to Homeline. Large numbers of Star Trek fans are getting way over excited.

From here you can go where you please. The local year on this Q4 world is 1925. Edith Keeler is alive and in great health. Will fanboys from Homeline try to kidnap her? Will conservatives from Homeline try to kill her to end her political influence?

Just as this world is with Europe caught between to radically different types of socialism, both totally repugnant to their elites, you've got a great set up for drama.
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Old 03-17-2018, 12:02 PM   #3226
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Why?

Why is it "smuggling"? Surely there's nothing wrong with bringing back literature to Homeline, even if it's eeeeeevil socialism. Why are you sugggesting that Homeline personnel are doing something illicit?

Why would Star Trek fans care that a Joan Collin's lookalike that is a real person in another universe is a fictional character in their own except for the fact that it's a bit odd? There are universes like this discovered all the time... why is this one epecially odd?

Why would conservatives on Homeline want to kill a peaceful socialist leader that has helped people (and isn't an authoritatian murdering sociopath like Stalin) simply because she's helped lead a world to relative peace through different political means than on Homeline? What do they have to gain other than the pettt satisfaction of murdering a "socialist"?

Why would anyone on Homeline want to kidnap her? People who support her policies want to keep her where she is, 'Star Trek fanboys' surely aren't going to kidnap her and parade her around conventions, and the only thing people who don't care for her politics would gain by kidnapping her is trouble for doing so.

It's an interesting worldline, but why are people interfering in it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea...
Homeline is fascinated that this world has an Edith Keeler, she's even a dead ringer for Joan Collins. Given that Star Trek fans are common in Homeline's dimension hopping agencies, large numbers of Homeline Personnel are smuggling Edith's books and ideas back to Homeline. Large numbers of Star Trek fans are getting way over excited.

From here you can go where you please. The local year on this Q4 world is 1925. Edith Keeler is alive and in great health. Will fanboys from Homeline try to kidnap her? Will conservatives from Homeline try to kill her to end her political influence?

Just as this world is with Europe caught between to radically different types of socialism, both totally repugnant to their elites, you've got a great set up for drama.
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Old 03-17-2018, 12:31 PM   #3227
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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this idea...

Star Trek's Edith Keeler was real in this Q4 world, but she was born twenty-five years earlier than in the story we know her from. She manages to build a powerful Left-wing progressive pacifist movement that keeps the USA out of WWI. She also unites the various threads of the American Left and projects the USA into a stable Social Democratic consensus by the late nineteen teens. The USA uses its control of both food supplies and credit to force the European powers to the table and make peace.

Europe's elites are furious. Russia has gone Communist and America is some other form of socialist. The old guard of Europe is ready to lash out in all directions.

Homeline is fascinated that this world has an Edith Keeler, she's even a dead ringer for Joan Collins. Given that Star Trek fans are common in Homeline's dimension hopping agencies, large numbers of Homeline Personnel are smuggling Edith's books and ideas back to Homeline. Large numbers of Star Trek fans are getting way over excited.

From here you can go where you please. The local year on this Q4 world is 1925. Edith Keeler is alive and in great health. Will fanboys from Homeline try to kidnap her? Will conservatives from Homeline try to kill her to end her political influence?

Just as this world is with Europe caught between to radically different types of socialism, both totally repugnant to their elites, you've got a great set up for drama.
No. Fanboys from Homeline aren't going to try to kidnap her any more than they try to kidnap Star Trek actors. They might make pilgrimages to try to ask her for autographs though, although they wouldn't particularly stand out among natives looking for the same thing. Autographs would incidentally make an interesting commodity from basically normal parallels.
Conservatives from Homeline aren't going to try to kill her given that her influence has nothing to do with her ability to make personal appearances on Homeline. And in fact the "elites" of Europe in her world probably would regard her brand of social democracy as a useful hedge against the far more frightening Communists just as they did in the post World War II era on Homeline.
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Old 03-17-2018, 02:05 PM   #3228
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Originally Posted by DocRailgun View Post
Why?

Why is it "smuggling"? Surely there's nothing wrong with bringing back literature to Homeline, even if it's eeeeeevil socialism. Why are you sugggesting that Homeline personnel are doing something illicit?

Why would Star Trek fans care that a Joan Collin's lookalike that is a real person in another universe is a fictional character in their own except for the fact that it's a bit odd? There are universes like this discovered all the time... why is this one epecially odd?

Why would conservatives on Homeline want to kill a peaceful socialist leader that has helped people (and isn't an authoritatian murdering sociopath like Stalin) simply because she's helped lead a world to relative peace through different political means than on Homeline? What do they have to gain other than the pettt satisfaction of murdering a "socialist"?

Why would anyone on Homeline want to kidnap her? People who support her policies want to keep her where she is, 'Star Trek fanboys' surely aren't going to kidnap her and parade her around conventions, and the only thing people who don't care for her politics would gain by kidnapping her is trouble for doing so.

It's an interesting worldline, but why are people interfering in it?
You weren't here when they did reality Rosa?
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Old 03-23-2018, 07:38 AM   #3229
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Given that until the 1870'S Britain seriously feared the USA, because the ruling elites of Britain feared that Democracy could only lead to chaos, it seems to me that conflict between the USA and Britain is simply underused as a seed of alternate histories. Centrum has the same ideas about democracy that the 19th century British elites had. They fear it as a door to chaos and a mask for tyranny. It seems to me that in any parallel were the ACW is occurring Centrum would bend all its efforts toward starting a war between the USA and Britain.

The main problems would be these, first, Prussia's king hates the CSA, second, no one trusts Louie Napoleon, third, Russia wants to embarrass Britain and the Czar wants the Slaves freed, and sees Lincoln as the only man to do it. The Prussian King hates political revolt to begin with. That the CSA is revolting for the right to own slaves makes the king sick to his stomach. I kid you not, he is recorded as actually vomiting at the thought of the CSA! Louie Napoleon is a con man and a risk taker. He is tricky as a matter of policy and pride. The Brits know this and keep their distance. The Tsar wants to do two things, A) promote an end to slavery, the South's defeat looks good to him, and b) steal a march on Britain. The Russian Navy is basically hiding in American ports in this period. This achieves two ends. First the Brits can't blockade them in Russian ports nor can the winter. Second, Britain can't bombard US ports without starting a major European diplomatic incident.

So how do you get Centrum it's shot?
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Old 03-23-2018, 11:14 AM   #3230
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The main problems would be these, first, Prussia's king hates the CSA, second, no one trusts Louie Napoleon, third, Russia wants to embarrass Britain and the Czar wants the Slaves freed, and sees Lincoln as the only man to do it. The Prussian King hates political revolt to begin with. That the CSA is revolting for the right to own slaves makes the king sick to his stomach. I kid you not, he is recorded as actually vomiting at the thought of the CSA! Louie Napoleon is a con man and a risk taker. He is tricky as a matter of policy and pride. The Brits know this and keep their distance. The Tsar wants to do two things, A) promote an end to slavery, the South's defeat looks good to him, and b) steal a march on Britain. The Russian Navy is basically hiding in American ports in this period. This achieves two ends. First the Brits can't blockade them in Russian ports nor can the winter. Second, Britain can't bombard US ports without starting a major European diplomatic incident.

So how do you get Centrum it's shot?
Not sure, as it's even harder than that, I'm pretty sure: The British public, and many politicians and even other elites at the time, strongly hated slavery, such that a PM who tried too hard to bring the UK into the war on the CSA's side would run the risk of, if not being lynched, than at least the Parliament giving a Vote of No Confidence in the Government, and Her Majesty thus needing to call for fresh elections. If Centrum wanted a UK v. USA war during the US Civil War, they'd need to start decades earlier, at which point they might as well start the war well before the 1860s - or, they'd need to be working in a timeline with a different socio-political set-up in Britain.

Of course, Centrum not knowing this, and finding out the hard way when their patsy does get lynched (due to Centrum putting more and more resources into keeping him in power while keeping him on-task) could be an interesting story, and an important learning experience for them.
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