Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Well, for one thing, the New World looks a lot different. I'd hate to think of the tortured phonology that will result from what we know as the Cahuenga in Southern California coming through Chinese instead of Spanish first....

And China is imploding from a position of strength rather than having had to scramble to catch up. While the end result may be the same, the path to get there is different and changes the underlying realpolitik of the situation.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Perhaps Von Braum could move to the USA in the 1930's to follow the job opportunities. Von Braum was icily opportunistic and self-centered, he didn't like the Nazis but worked for them as the only game in town and played by their rules. Move him to the USA and he's fit in and do for us what he did for the Nazis and with vastly less bloodshed.

Meanwhile, might american mass produced missles pound key targets in Germany collapsing their ecconomy early and shaving ten or more months off the war?

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Here Europe hasn't had a long rule that's falling away. Here Europe is picking up China's pieces and starting their empires.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

The Europeans seem like the Jacobins writ large.
"European Brotherhood of Liberty'' has much the same creepy tone as ''People's Democratic Republic.'' Is it part of a proper name, or just a slogan used by the Eurocrats?




I'm a bit confused by the ''more conservative mode'' line. Some of the former Chinese colonies are moving into a more conservative mode? Is this bringing them into sharper conflict with the imperialist Europeans? Is it that in order to end the chaos, the Chinese colonists in some places have accepted European domination? Or is it that the Europeans are entering the Bonapartist phase, and some general may soon proclaim himself First Citizen, Protector of the People, or what've have you--- and rule as an autocrat?


The Ottoman, Egyptian, Brazilian, and Amaru stuff is all nice. It provides contrast and competition to the Europeans.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Ahh, we want a Eurocentric view of things... I admit, I did not get much time to emphasize those changes:

Europe is united. Not just culturally, but politically. The brotherhood of liberty is at least as strong as the Modern EU, and probably stronger. The French Revolution happened, but the English lacked their colonies and Austria simply didn't exist. The French rearranged the map, conquered half of Europe and forced the rest of it to be allies, and set up a governing body.

Europe is picking up empires rather than releasing them. Yes, they have the eastern half the our US, but its populated by Europeans (french, dutch, english, sweedish). At the TL europe is historically releasing colonies, not picking them up. And associated with that is the rise of colonial attitudes and a nasty streak of racism.

Europe has meaningful rivals: The Ottomans are much healthier than historically, and while China is falling, it isn't down yet.

Finally, I find this world much less euro-centric that others. China has left a much larger mark on the world, and I would argue that this world has two cultural poles, one in the east, and one in the west. The european colonial period is much smaller and restrained, replaced by an Asian one.

----------------------------------------------------

As for the purpose of this world: I admit its an experiment. I rolled it up using a variant on the table in IW and found myself with the following result:

TL6
Western (Empire+Satalite States, Representative Democracy)
Chinese (MultiPolar, 5 states, Feudal)
Andean (Empire, Dictatorship)
Islamic (Bipolar, Clan/tribal)

I then asked myself what would create such a change, and went from there.

I would use this world in a few ways. First and foremost is as a background world. It's not campaign disrupting, yet its a far parallel that lacks the monotony of an echo or a world where only one change was made. Secondly in an actual adventure its a great place to have a war, or to explore colonialism. And its a very ripe for manipulation by either Centrum or Homeline, as they are on a fulcrum of their own history.


Jacobins writ large is what I was aiming for (or rather what inspired me). I tried to tone them down enough to not implode themselves. I'm glad you could see that. "The Brotherhood of Freedom" is the highest level of European government, placed one level above the national. I haven't fleshed it out much beyond that. Yes, Its supposed to have the creepy 'People's Republic' feel to it!

The Conservative bent is happening in Europe. When I rolled* up recent historical events for europe, It included a suppression of intellectuals, while the Islamic world included a political consolidation of intellectuals-- obviously there is something going on there. I just haven't worked it out yet. The bonaparte stage is certainly one possibly -- though I'm seeing more of crushing of opposition, a limiting of the topic that can legally be discussed, or even just an empire-wide cut in funding or prestige for anyone who isn't doing something 'useful', like growing crops, or designing bridges. I'm quite open to suggestions here.

Thanks for the input everybody!

*Built a simple computer program to bring it up for me quickly and randomly. Its from the Fantasy World-building pyramid. I really like having the look up tables automated. The full results are below (thought things like floods and dragons have been pruned)



The names of the chineese capitals are:

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Sorry ericthered, I didn't mean to come off so negative. I'm glad to see the timeline fleshed out a bit more though :)

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Unlikely, by the last 6 months or so of the war, the Western Allies were pretty much bombing what they wanted to in Germany whenever they wanted. The material to build the rockets would need to come from somewhere, likely from the same sources used to build aircraft. Such a diversion of resources may lead to an overall less successful air campaign.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

The US Army lacks motive to put lots of money into rocket development in the mid-thirties - and doesn't have the money to spend anyway.

The Germans Army's reason for doing it was that the Treaty of Versailles forbade them to have long-range artillery, but said nothing about rockets. They also had money, because re-armament was a consensus position in Germany even before the Nazi takeover.

Developing the V-2 took a long time and a lot of money: it developed an entire field of engineering a long way, rapidly. But the V-2 still took seven years, 1937-1944, to go from a specification to a weapon in production. The US Army wouldn't start that until 1940, which means it's unlikely to be ready before the war ends by other means.

And taking the V-2 project out of the budget probably strengthens Nazi Germany. It was a very poor value for money weapon.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

WORK IN PROGRESS...











Romanov 9

POD 1904 A.D.
Current Year 1956 A.D.
TL 7



POD: Jacob Schiff dies after being run over by a horse cart while walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City.


Notes on Korea:






WW1




WW2







Post-War years




Now, 1956

TL 7
Major power blocs:
Multipolar
• Russian Empire (Orthodox, dictatorship, CR 3)
• United States of America (Western, rep. democracy (oligarchy), CR 4-- CR 5 for locals not affiliated with gov't in some occupied zones of the South)
• France (Western, dictatorship, CR 4)
• British Commonwealth (Western, democracy, CR 3)
• Korea (Korean, democracy, CR 3)

Current events USA
Three way low intensity conflict in Dixie pits the PPP(Populist-Progressive Party)/government against racialists and pro-democracy reformers (the rebels also take shots at each other, unable to form an alliance because the pro-democracy faction includes black members)

Russian-US relations have soured since the joint victory over the Axis.


Notes on Romanov 9

I use Romanov as the designator for timelines in which the Romanovs remain on the throne past 1917/1918.

This timeline remains very much a work in progress.

For adventures, I'm thinking in particular of spy games and brushfire wars:

• French or British agents in the Deep South, trying to undermine US FedGov control
  
• American agents in Hokkaido, trying to foment populist-socialist revolution against the Russian governate
  
• Russian and Korean mercenaries fighting in the service of warlords of the Chinese Republic

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

No worries, it helped me clear up the communication of the idea, both its goals and execution.