Create a setting -- diesel punk awesomeness!

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by TGLS

I think I'll go with

E) Peak Oil:

(SNIP)

That's interesting, and it means at least some of the shattered polities will emerge at the sites of petroleum deposits. Since the setting postulates the most advanced civilizations in proximity to Middle Eastern deposits, that means the North American and North Sea deposits may not have yet been discovered, as of the outbreak of the Great War.

That said, this is supposed to be a dieselpunk setting, and not a "used-to-be-dieselpunk setting." That requires big, metal machines with switches that go "clack" and IC engines that roar. We're talking trains and planes and tanks and trucks and airships and roadsters and maybe even walkers.

http://martydesign.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://photobucket.com/images/dieselpunk%20airship
https://www.artstation.com/artist/jakubrozalski
https://www.pinterest.com/herbertcro...skies-pc-game/


Now, we may or may not use some of these ideas, but no matter what we choose to use, they're all gonna need fuel, and lots of it.

[PTTG]

Primary vote for D. I like the idea of ash-blighted wildernesses for the occasional Road Warrior. And if North America is heavily involved, it suggests that some immense conventional explosion might have been the trigger -- most likely in the form of a doomsday weapon.

It also provides a reasoning for an ideological split between the North and the South.

EDIT: Still like D the most. I also like the suggestion that it happened a generation or two ago.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

That said, this is supposed to be a dieselpunk setting, and not a "used-to-be-dieselpunk setting." That requires big, metal machines with switches that go "clack" and IC engines that roar. We're talking trains and planes and tanks and trucks and airships and roadsters and maybe even walkers.

The way I see it, fuel problems can help promote dieselpunk. Consider, if a country only has enough of an oil supply to fuel 20 tanks, they can’t hope to outproduce their opponents. They can have 20 tanks, but they can be 20 wonky prototypes. They just might be enough of an edge to beat out the other tanks. If you can have 2000 tanks, building lots of prototypes is inefficient, because of assembly lines and all that. Your edge is your numbers. Large battles become, 3 walkers versus 4 tanks, instead of, 3000 walkers versus 4000 tanks. Small little battles that can be dominated by PCs.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by TGLS

The way I see it, fuel problems can help promote dieselpunk. Consider, if a country only has enough of an oil supply to fuel 20 tanks, they can’t hope to outproduce their opponents. They can have 20 tanks, but they can be 20 wonky prototypes. They just might be enough of an edge to beat out the other tanks. If you can have 2000 tanks, building lots of prototypes is inefficient, because of assembly lines and all that. Your edge is your numbers. Large battles become, 3 walkers versus 4 tanks, instead of, 3000 walkers versus 4000 tanks. Small little battles that can be dominated by PCs.

It's a sound argument. I'll add it to the list for votes.

[(E)]

Personally I can see this world being more medically advanced than OTL, So that puts B low down on my list.

I'll put forward an option F. The fifth horseman, Chaos.
What if the world had non-dieselpunk communication and information technology. Now during the great war when armies are scattered across the globe, paranoia is high and resources are stretched solar flare activity increases. Either a sudden or a gradual loss of communication across the globe occurs. This leads to the breakup of the Empires.

Edit
So for me Option G for my first choice, then F (or C if we are sticking to the original choices

[Daigoro]

Which of these options gives us the optimistic dallmanian dieselpunk world from the first vote?

Or are these catastrophes meant to be somewhat in the past?

[(E)]

Another option leaps to mind, G, War fatigue the great war ended in a virtual stalemate. Both side exhausted the war halts and a lasting cease fire is declared. The post war sentiment that in our world founded many organizations devoted to ensuring war did not happen again instead devoted their efforts to succession. The Empires crumbled from simple exhaustion.

A long war has the advantage of having a long period of wartime technological development. It also might tie in with the peak oil scenario too.

Depending on the sides involved the location of the front lines of the great war might influence things. China and eastern Europe vs India and north Africa might place major fighting all along the Himalayan and adjacent mountain ranges

[johndallman]

I'm going to go for option D, The Fimbulwinter, and suggest that it is about a generation in the past, but one of its legacies was positive.

The areas that survived best were the ones where the leadership was honest about food availability, and suffered the same privations as everyone else. Places where the local leadership was dishonest, either with itself or with the people, tended to run out of food by surprise, or launch ill-planned aggressions to avoid that.

This has led to an effective cultural value of honesty and honest leadership, and a general intolerance of corruption.

[Daigoro]

I like G, actually. It makes things less post-apocalyptic and gives room for optimism and dystopianism. Some of the new start-up states could be governed by former generals of the collapsed empire, who used the battalions under their command to carve out parcels of territory.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Which of these options gives us the optimistic dallmanian dieselpunk world from the first vote?

Or are these catastrophes meant to be somewhat in the past?

Originally Posted by (E)

Another option leaps to mind, G, War fatigue the great war ended in a virtual stalemate. Both side exhausted the war halts and a lasting cease fire is declared. The post war sentiment that in our world founded many organizations devoted to ensuring war did not happen again instead devoted their efforts to succession. The Empires crumbled from simple exhaustion.

A long war has the advantage of having a long period of wartime technological development. It also might tie in with the peak oil scenario too.

Depending on the sides involved the location of the front lines of the great war might influence things. China and eastern Europe vs India and north Africa might place major fighting all along the Himalayan and adjacent mountain ranges

I vote G: Successionism and collapse. It has historical precedent in our own great war. Which is to say that of the seven great powers, three of them crumbled into the tiny peices we today call "eastern europe and the middle east". The Colonial empires of two more were gone in the next generation.