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Princes William and Harry have identifiably Indian mitochondrial DNA inherited from Princess Diana. That means they'll have some nuclear DNA too, but that's much harder to identify with certainly.

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Well, Britannia-6 had a more liberal attitude toward India, to where an Indian spouse for an aristocrat was merely exotic, and the fad for Indian style kept coming back.

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Pretty longwinded explanation riddled with lots of what I would not agree with. Whatever you can say of Wilhelm II, he did not try to get rid of Jews - the Germany before WWI was among the most tolerant countries with respect to Jews in the world. Wether Jewish sympathy would have helped a lot to keep America out of the war is also doubtful, in my opinion. It's probable that Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare (which in any case should have been used relentlessly against Britain as long as the despicable Hunger Blockade was maintained) was only a pretext for America to enter the war. They would have found something else, one always does.

It's also not the case that Germany was more antisemitic after the war than any other nation, and in any case, Hitler's right wing party enjoyed no great successes at first. Even as late as in 1928 the NSDAP achieved a meagre 2,5% result in the election, the soaring rise of this party only began in 1929 with the Depression.

To avoid the NS dictatorship ("Yet another dictatorship"? Had there been another one before that?), all this convoluted stuff isn't really necessary. All kinds of coincidences might have achieved the same. For instance, something may have convinced the conservative parties not to seek a coalition with the NS Party in early 1933. No government can be formed, so another election is held in which the NSDAP achieves only an unspectacular result of 27% (they were on the downward slore, having achieved 37% in late 1932, but only 32% in early 1933). Hitler never becomes chancellor and remains a footnote in history.

Or even simpler: During the Bürgerbräu-Putsch, policemen fire upon the putschists, and one bullet's trajectory leads it right through Hitler's Brain. End of story. Alternatively (should you share Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth's sentiment about saving the latter for transplantation experiments), simply assume that Hitler faces a far less understanding judge in the trial afterwards, and is sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason. After being released in 1933, he emigrates to the US, where he becomes a third class science fiction author, who later founds his own religion called "Systemology" (mainly to avoid paying taxes). He dies as a rich man in 1976.

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A valid point. Ayrianism might have been an English disease as well as a German one.

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No I'm not all that knowledgeable about India. But I thought moving off into Asia would give us interesting new fields to scan and might lead to original worlds and skarries.

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Another tack might have been a shrewder attitude toward Germany in France. Since by 1922 the French knew that the Americans had been deeply insulted by them and were turning deeply isolationist anyway, and the Brits weren't likely to be that much help, maybe instead of trying to pound Germany down, the French try charm. The French work on winning the Germans over to an allience with them. This allience, strongest on the left by far, slowly but surely moves Germany in a democratic direction. Many of the destabilizing event never occur. When the Spanish Civil War breaks out, a Franco-German allience aids the Loyalist cause. Italy tried to intimidate them, and gets told off. Spain, France and Germany, form a sort of proto-EU/semi-Soverine (I'll check spelling).

Later in the 1940's, Stalin, seeing instability in his Soviet Union, decides that conquest of the decadent West will bring a new unity to Russia.

Basically a proto-EU, Britain and America, Versus the U.S.S.R. in a twisted WWII with Japan and Italy as twisted kibbitzers.

Reactions.

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I do consider this as highly unlikely. France enjoyed abusing "her" victory far too much. And on a national level, the French are far from charmant - they tend to be as sore as losers as they are ungracious as victors. As far as "winning Germany over to Democracy" is concerned, Weimarian Germany was actually more democratic than the France of the 1920ts, where not even women were allowed to vote.



Remind me...is this scenario meant to be utopian or dystopian?



Now, that strikes me as rather likely. Independently from what happened in Europe, Stalin solidifies his hold over the Sovietunion and begins to arm (like hell). In our reality Soviet armament began years before Hitler came to power. By the early 1940ts, a gargantuan Red Army would have been ready, a juggernaut, which Stalin would have been quite willing to use. That would have probably ended any European "peace in our time" anyway.



Here we disagree again. Frankly, the Americans never had the guts to stand up against the Russians. Not at the end of WWII, not in 1961, not today. And especially under FDR, the greatest friend the Commies ever had in the White House (who called himself a socialist to boot), they are supposed to engage the Sovietunion? I doubt it. Possibly America conquers Imperial Japan (just as they really did), while the Sovietunion finishes off Europe (especially with a weak and disarmed Weimarian Germany things would have been over pretty quickly). Perhaps Britain is so lucky to stay unoccupied - only to find itself marginalized as a state facing a soviet-ruled Europe on the other side of the channel. I suspect that Roosevelt would have readily divided up the world with Stalin. A later President may have regretted that, but FDR would have not.

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As Kitsune points out it is very unlikely a recognizable France is going to be smart in dealing with Germany. So you need a France that would play nice with them.

The Congress of Tours (1920), which splits the French socialist party leading to the moderate Blum becoming the PM, instead splits violently. Rioting and assassinations - Blum and members of the Radical party are killed, then a right wing coup ushers in the conservative Doumergue into office early and with a huge mandate. He is even more popular here than in Homeline. And he makes nice with the fascists - the Action francaise comes to power, eventually leading to a return of the Monarchy in the person of Alfonso Carlos. He also claimed the throne of Spain, and threw his lot in with Franco during the Spanish Civil War (in our timeline). He does so in this reality, and becomes a figurehead King of Spain and France, where the real power lies with Franco and the AF, respectively.

Sorry, I just went where the wind took me on this one: So things are going south fast for this reality. A Franco-German detente basically leads to a fascist front across continental Europe that looks more like 1984 than a democratic revival. Maybe Stalin tries an alliance with the US and/or Britain, but I doubt it.

The US would be facing a continuation of the recessions that followed the Great Depression (all thanks to that dang Roosevelt and that pack of Reds he called a guv'mint! eh Kitusune?), and probably rioting, violence and a nascent revolt at least egged on by American communists. I'm guessing Trotsky dies in this timeline pretty much like he did in the homeline, so the American communists are disorganized, spit and ultimately run into the ground. The FBI would be pretty harsh, a national police force of sorts, the US, facing a fascism and communism run rampant abroad and terrorism at home becomes authoritarian and then despotic. Eventually they make some sort of alliance with the fascists, if only to access the European money as well as face down the Comintern.

On the bright side, Hitler wouldn't have it all his own way. He might have the weapons but with France as an ally he would have to give more than lip service to political cooperation. Jews are still slaughtered, so not-so-bright-side after all. I'm going with dystopian on this one, even if a USSR/German war does break out in the late 40s.

I don't see a how you get a good outcome unless France is stronger and more unified going into WWI. So the change probably has to happen during the Napoleonic period.

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If you want to muck with France during/after WW1, your best bet is to do with via the brief civil war that occurred after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.

Another interesting thing might be to have the US refuse to acknowledge the Treaty of Versailles and threaten to declare war on France unless a treaty that follows the principals that they outlined for ending the war. Given that the US had troops in France at the time it should be very real threat, especially if Britain public supports them.

Another is to have the US react to the French and Belgian troops entering the demilitarized Rhineland in 1921

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The US had around 2,000,000 troops in France at the Armistice, while the French army was around twice that size. The US forces didn't have the kind of technological superiority they're used to in the modern age, and the French would have the civilian population on their side. The British were not aligned with the US as they are in the present day and like the French, were vengeful towards the Germans. This doesn't look like a good move: more a recipe for either having to back down, or fight another couple of years of meatgrinder war.

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Dealing with the US in face of a renewed war with Germany would have been a problem for France. And the British thought that the French where asking for too much

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The point is a Franco-German allience with Germany amoung the heroic good guys fighting evil at mid-century.

I thought the loyalist were loyal to the democratic-socailist government?


So I place Germany with the Western allies for the rematch. Switch up expectations.

Cheap insults are beneath your dignity Kitsume. Just because Europe sees America only as a colonial baracks to be bled at Europe's whim doesn't make it so. Containment was a shrewd policy durring the Cold War. In a WWII senario not so much.

If Imperial Japan doesn't attack America, they would be ignored. In our real world FDR tried to bait Germany into declaring war on the USA for months, in this world as well he'd bait the USSR. As most of the "isolationists" were right-wingers, he'd probably have an easier time of getting America into the war Against Russia.

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Let's muck around with 18th century Russia for a bit.

Tsar Paul (son of Catherine the Great) wanted to invade India overland. Have Catherine and Potemkin see this as a way to keep him out of their hair. Potemkin gets roads build and forts stocked all the way to the Aral Sea. Paul works on building his road to India. He doesn't make it, but later Tsars have a leg up on the Great Game. Russia and Britain fight multiple wars in Afganistan.

Picture it as an exotic spy game played out from the Dardenells to China!

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Thats sort of what happened in real life. Tournament of Shadows is an excellent introduction, even if the "cast of thousands" starts to get confusing. There did seem to be a lot of 'intelligence activity' across central Asia.

So maybe with the resources acquired by this transport network Russia has a better economy. Not only money and raw materials but ideas - although I guess a lot of things would have had to change in Russia to allow a technological breakthrough to be accepted. Anyway, you still have a crazy monarchy and probably military disasters (but more limited). You don't get starving peasants, power crazed patricians and a military ready to order massacres but face revolts when they actually give the orders. No Bolsheviks, no communist rise to power, no Stalin (or at least a Stalin that is a minor terrorist revolutionary). So you get a Russia that looks like the Russia of Cornwallis (G:AE2), except you mostly still get a US and a recognizable Europe. Britain might be a little more hard pressed, or it might be more powerful as well since its facing off against a bigger threat.

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Try this line of attack. In the mid-19th century (of my alt-Russia timeline) a Czar decides that he needs to build a railroad along Potemkin's road and then around the Aral Sea to Paul's roads, and from there to the borders of Aganistan. In our history no such rail roal was built until the 1950's. If the Russians can race troops and supplies from their core to Afganistan a late 19th century conquest of Afganistan becomes possible (not stable). No allience between Britain and Russia is possible. France can't get both as allies. This means a longer period of political jockeying before anything like WWI.

This leads to much more espionage activity in the period and a WWI that could start at the Kyber Pass with fronts over a much longer area. Also, the possibility of shifting alliences durring the war and maybe more than two power blocks.

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A wainscot Myth Parallel, after a fashion: Lemuel Gulliver not only existed, but he was also an unwitting Jumper.

On his last voyage home, a Houynhm is caught in his transit... and was nowhere near as restrained as Gulliver was on encountering "savage" versions of his species.

This leads eventually to Black Beauty being an actual autobiography, and Francis the Talking Mule and Mister Ed being actual events mid-20th century. I'll leave the John Candy and Bob Goldthwait opus Hot to Trot open to interpretation.

What other famous equines would be uplifted horses or debased Houynhm?

Alternatively, other hidden intelligent animal shows as documentary?

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According to the jockeys who rode him in OTL, Northern Dancer posed for the cameras - he knew enough to recognize the difference between "being paid attention to" and "being photographed". It wouldn't be a stretch to say he's smarter than most in this alternate.

EDIT: Considering how many champions he sired, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 2014 Kentucky Derby in this alternate being run by horses without jockeys. Having the mile-and-a-quarter be an Olympic sport might be pushing things a bit, though.

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The Houynhm had their dark side, few other than the Sorrel Nag could feel love, compassion, or empathy. The Houynhm as Secret Masters anyone?

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PCs would not expect it, I'm sure. The real genius behind a Confederate Cavalry General: His horse.

Presumably horsemanship would become more important in the upper echelons, and a pattern for conspiracy theorists to latch on would be the number of stables "owned" by those in power.

Man, that could be downright eerie if run correctly. An apparent shift of equitation replacing Golf as the prestige pastime. And listening in, it sounds like a proper discussion of pedigree and arranging a stud session, except the eavesdropper slowly realizes that the mounts are not being discussed, but the riders.

If the GM is feeling charitable, he can give the Houynhm-alikes a visible "tell," and still allow for "savage" stock to still exist.

Hm. May have to date Gulliver's travels and figure how many neo-Houhynms are possible...

Gulliver's trip to the land of Houhynms ended in 1715, allowing for the first neo-foals to be born in 1716. If they use a RL horse gestation and life cycle, one generation every 5 to 6 years, with lifespans to 40 or 50.

An important "crux" for how widespread neo-Houhynms are would depend on whether our "progenitor" is a mare or a stallion. Another would be if an important lineage is tied in, like say, Figure, the foundation sire of the Morgan Horse breed.

Figure's descendants would go on to become important in other American breeds like thoroughbreds and quarter horses, but their biggest contribution was as cavalry mounts until the US Army phased out horse cavalry. So, a Morgan Houhynm attaches himself to a bright up-and-coming cavalry officer, spreads influence through making him "gift" members of the social circle with "Morgan's" get, building their political capital through extremely pragmatic logic with orange and blue morality...

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Try this, Hitler was fascinated with Greco-Roman Classical antiquity, this is a known fact. Hitler also disliked Himler's interest in German antiquity. "Why advertise that we have no past?" was Hitler's view of Himler's passions. Have Himler's pet weirdos in the Ahnenerbe publically embarass Hitler, or have him think they have.

If this leads to Hitler firing Himler and key SS personel like Reinhard Heydrich, the Shoah would be caried out far less efficiently. The survival of a few million people can lead to vast knock-on effects.

Sending PCs to arrange a public humilliation of Hitler that would bring down Himler and Heydrich could be a grand campaign.

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Bringing down Himler and Heydrich early would net another benefit. Speer and Goebbels only kept from each other's throats because they both feared Himler. Get rid of Himler (and Heydrich who could have replaced him and been better at his job) and Speer and Goebbels end up wasting all their energies on fighting each other. The 3rd Reich would fall early. Heck, they might get rid of Admiral Donitz and vastly reduce the Nazi threat in the Atlantic.

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This could be an Alternate Traveller Universe.

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Dönitz ceased to be in operational command of U-Boats in January 1943, when he became head of the German Navy. They might kill off the advanced U-Boat projects, which would be actually to Germany's advantage: those projects were expensive and hadn't produced anything significant by the end of the war. Canning them would free up resources for something more productive.

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Finally have real man vs. horse races. And show how silly the whole concept is when they don't have chattering primates on their backs.

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Alternate Rickover:

In 1946, Joseph McCarthy loses the Republican primary for the Senate to the incumbent, Robert La Follette (in OTL, McCarthy won by 5,358 votes out of 410,492: about 1.3%). La Follette is isolationist and anti-Stalin, but not the rabid self-promoter that McCarthy turned out to be.

Without McCarthyism in 1950-1954, Hsue-Shen Tsien remains at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, rather than returning to China to head up the Chinese space program. A then-unknown Sergei Korolev is visiting New York in 1950 when he comes down with mild bronchitis. Routine blood work in the hospital identifies his incipient kidney disease, which allows his physicians in the Soviet Union to treat it effectively.

In 1958, acrimonious debate in Congress over an agency to develop the US answer to Sputnik is settled through a compromise proposed by Senator Clinton Anderson. The new National Atomic and Space Administration is based on around the Atomic Energy Commission "which boasted a reputation for skilled scientific work under tight deadlines and also had a long-range interest in applying nuclear propulsion to rocketry."* The Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Jet Propulsion Laboratory complete the initial set of transfers. Congress appoints Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover as the first Administrator, in view of his outstanding work on the Navy's nuclear program.

John Glenn is still the first American in orbit and Kennedy still commits the US to land on the Moon by the end of the 1960's, but with Rickover heading NASA there is no all-up testing of Apollo in 1965, nor the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. In 1968, the Soviets use Earth Orbit Rendezvous to send one of their existing Soyuz spacecraft around the Moon.

NASA lands "Lucky" Apollo 13 on the Moon in 1969, but (with Korolev still alive) the Soviets follow before the year is out. Landings alternate through 1970, and then NASA steals a march by sending a modified Apollo CSM on a manned flyby of both Mars and Venus in 1971. Plans for a "space shuttle" are dropped in favor of additional advanced missions using Apollo-derived hardware, including a highly successful pair of space stations.

In 1976, Rickover's protege Jimmy Carter is elected President with freshman Senator John Glenn as his running mate. With vigorous vice-presidential support, NASA finalizes its Ares program to reach Mars, based around the Saturn-IVN nuclear third stage and a Mars Direct style ISRU strategy.

In 1981, Ares 7 touches down in Chryse Planitia, inaugurating the first permanent American base on Mars. Subsequent missions at each biennial launch window expand the network of bases across the surface. Admiral Rickover retires in 1982 after 24 years as "The" Administrator, and dies in 1984.



*Koppes, Clayton R. JPL and the American Space Program: a history of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. New Haven: Yale University Press (1982): 96.

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Can I moved to this world. ;)

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I like this, but can we get a spaceplane and L-5 Colonies in the picture too?

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It sounds like a way to shoehorn in science fiction of the 60s. Fun setting, but not anywhere near as realistic as many of the seeds in this thread.

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Spaceplanes, maybe. My original draft had a mention of a Dyna-soar derived crew vehicle. Having a vigorous space program and a functional space station (Skylab) or two might allow NASA to proceed without the Air Force's support and technical demands. The technology for a fully reusable SSTO, though, is beyond the 1985-ish horizon where I left off.

My assessment is that O'Neill colonies were never viable. The only economic justification anyone could find was solar power satellites, but the advantages of building them in orbit simply don't outweigh the complications. Anything else a free-floating habitat could provide is better off coming from Mars, where you don't have to ship in raw materials.

With one exception, every point in the description was proposed as a serious possibility or was technically feasible at the time. The exception was Korolev's visit to New York and subsequent survival into the 1970's: necessary (I believe) to keep the Soviet Union competitive.

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A Mars colony is simply not possible with modern tech and 20 years of R&D no matter how much money you throw at it.
We can't go to the moon anymore, and Mars is orders of magnitude harder to reach.
Also, I've heard the USSR's proximity to a moon launch during the space race was grossly overestimated.

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This is my area of academic expertise and I disagree, both with your assumptions and your conclusion. This is not the place to argue it out, however.

The way they planned to do it, yes. But the Soviets developed the techniques for orbital rendezvous very early. If they had concentrated on building up a moon mission from modular components using existing rockets (rather than essentially trying to build their own Saturn V), they quite likely could have given NASA a genuine run for the prize. Better oversight of their program under a surviving Korolev could have given them the opportunity -- rather like a surviving Alexander preventing the fragmentation of his empire so early.

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There is a difference between an outpost, which depends on continual resupply, and a self-sufficient colony, though I assume one might lead to the other. We cannot, at this point, copy our technology base and move it next door, much less to another planet. We can't even build a human supporting closed ecosystem. Developing the tech to do this would logically start on Earth, probably Antarctica though anywhere would work. Maybe two decades of trial and error, along with massive environmental damage to the experimental area, then perhaps. Doing it in situ on Mars is a recipe for disaster, even given twice yearly resupplies. This is what I'd like NASA to be doing now, while completely dropping manned space exploration (funding? do it as reality TV).

What is the power source for a Mars outpost? Fission reactor? What is the best way to create power on Mars not dependent on outworld supplies?

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I've never understood this point of view. One of the sidebars in Britannica-6 discusses how unrealistic and improbable it is to have a timeline where Victoria became Queen of England - yet we live in just such a timeline.

My opinion is : If it can happen, it's fair game for an alternate. Only if it physically cannot happen is it off-limits for an alternate.

Sure we can - the Chinese did earlier this year. We just don't want to.

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Well, more accurately, a politically significant percentage of the people holding the purse strings don't want to.

Hmmm. There's a potential brace of worldlines (Divergence points are based on our timeline instead of Homeline, since POD is after van Zandt):

Divergence point: 2010: Tea Party gets a Super-majority in House and Senate, enough to override Presidential Vetoes easily.

Timeline A: Things turn out well according to the Tea Party's line at the time.
Timeline B: Things turn out poorly.

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No, we sent small probes to the moon. We did not go there. Sending living people there and back is far out of any nation's capability right now.

Improbable is one thing. Unrealistic is another. Getting people to Mars before 2030 is 1960s Jetsons in the year 2000 stuff.

Improbable is the creation of the universe leading to my existence, but of course, I am a perfectly realistic occurrence.

But with alternate times lines, one can easily invoke different physical laws to conquer the lion's share of unrealism. Pushing some alternate to unrealistically have TL 9 in space tech, but only 7 in everything else.

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Fraught with thread locking potential, that would be an interesting list of alternates. Each political movement magically comes to unified majority power and events either come out best or worst case scenario.

Though movements inherently disliking the "conspiracy of scientists" makes me especially uncomfortable. Yes, I know each movement has its biases against certain fields of mainstream scientific consensus. But some headbutt the very idea of scientific principles.

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If you mean, "We lack the infrastructure and political will to go to the Moon." then I have to agree. If you simply mean, no one can do this again with today's technology, then I disagree. We did it with a less advanced technology, so it can be done if we choose to do it.

Pragmatically, we'll have to wait until both parties value governence and have a broad agreement on the national interest. A rejection of anti-Intellectual and anti-science worldviews would also be needed.

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Al Gore becomes president and either his dire warnings about global warming come early and horrible, or scientific research shows that earlier predictions were wrong. Things are actually getting cooler, and only mass air pollution can save us from an ice age.

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The former, especially as there is no scientific or even absurd political reason to send live people there and back.
I love humans IN SPACE. But there really isn't much reason for that, unless technology advances enough to bring the price and danger down to reasonable levels. So much more SCIENCE! can be done with that money and intellectual resources with probes.

The cold war was a horrible atrocity of human suffering on a global scale, but damn if it didn't advance the space program leaps and bounds.

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Ah yes, a surgically modified K'kree in a time machine. The Confederacy wins the Civil War thanks to this half-mad talking horse, the CSA essential becomes Drakia and has Terra under the yoke by the time of Vilani contact. The Vilani have no compunction about scrubbing the planet in the Third Interstellar War. The Long Night comes earlier and much harsher to the Vilani Imperium, and the K'kree face no organized resistance on that flank. They still are stalemated with the Hivers since you can't turn a horse into a starfish.

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And the gives my only critique of the Rickover timeline; the only reason the USSR and the USA went to the Moon in the first place was measure each others missiles, as it were. If there had been any military or political advantage of actually putting something on the Moon we'd have had missile bases there by 1972. And if there was any reason to whip out our missiles again to measure them against Chinese missiles, we'd have bases there in 5 years, 10 tops.

But we don't. We can't afford to have the Chinese as too big an enemy, and same for them, since we are attached at the economic hip. Without a Big Bad Wolf at the door, we can't drum up the support for a decidedly expensive endeavor, no matter what it is, much less Men on the Moon or Mars.

Interesting to see the NASA budget get a big boost now that the Russians shockingly threatening to withhold access to the ISS.

Timeline Spacestation Freedom

July 1985 Gobachev attempts to replace Andrei Gromyko, "Mr Nyet", with Shevardnadze. Gromyko represented the Old Guard, and here the Old Guard fought back. Shevardnadze is disappeared, followed by a patchwork of assassinations, riots and sealed military bases that culminates in a military coup by December.

The West stays carefully neutral, and the world holds it breath as news leaks out of a sealed USSR. Violence, revolts and counter-revolts, Gorbachev hounded from power, Boris Yeltsin taking the reigns of the now powerless Communist Party, massive troop movements.

In the end the USSR survives, much battered and missing most of its old East Europe holdings. Its grumbly, grouchy, mean and armed with atomic weapons, but internally ruined and still at war with itself.

The rest of the world moves on apace. The instability of the Soviet situation keeps the EU and Japanese space programs separate from, and competitive with, the US space program. Japan launches their automated Kibo Station in 1989. The US pushes forward the Orion-Ares program to supplement the Shuttle, putting up the first parts of space station Freedom in 1993.

Current year is 2002. The Japanese have just moved a small asteroid into lunar orbit, under the strident objections of the the rest of the world. President Gore has secretly authorized the NSA to militarize Freedom and Copernicus, while the Russians (just consolidating under Putin) are rolling out Polyus-II in full glory at Mir-2. The ESA and their Columbus Station are the also-rans but still command the European telcom industry as well as the robotic exploration of Venus and Mercury.

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Agreed. Any timeline that has an advanced space program requires a reason the political will exists (as in real life this reason need be neither logical or sane). Once you get beyond a certain level of infrastructure the program becomes more likely to be self sustaining.

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Here's a different reality seed. Thoughout much of ancient history right up into Byzantine times there was somekind of canal between the Nile and the Red Sea. If you assume that the abandonment of Rome was inevitable, Italy in the later Empire was an ecconomic backwater, if for no other reason than the rapid spread of malaria after the 2nd century AD, then moving the capital of the empire east makes sense. So, why not make Alexandria the new Rome?

And Alexandrine Roman Empire would be far more dominant in the Mediterranian basin. Egypt is the best source of grain in the ancient world, a great aid to security. If the canals between the Nile and the Red Sea are maintained, Alexandria gains a better trade location than Constantanople ever had. The Islamic conquest of Egypt was more a matter of the entry of a small but disceplened millitary force into a relative power vaccum than anything else. An Alexandrian Roman Empire would be very stable.

This would lead to a TL3 mega-state based in Egypt facing off against a smaller tougher Caliphate. Good for swasher action with an Arabian Night's flare from the Mediterranean to Cathay.

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May I suggest that you read Mary Gentle's Ilario, which uses a rather similar premise to good effect.

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Did you miss that Robert E. Lee's horse was named Traveller (complete with two L's)?

That was the reason for having Korolev survive long enough to put a cosmonaut on the Moon: it pushes the goal for the Space Race to Mars.

I also imagine Johnson winning his second term by exposing Nixon's back-room deals with the North Vietnamese; I can't fathom why he didn't in OTL since he apparently had evidence, but that is the fact. A Johnson who successfully negotiated an end to the Vietnam war would be in a much better position to pursue his interest in space.

One clarification from earlier: the reason there's no space shuttle in Rickover is the same that there are no nuclear rockets in OTL. Since this NASA didn't incorporate the NACA, there wasn't as much impetus to include "aviation" along with the "atomic." A winged space plane would have required inter-agency cooperation, always more difficult that projects done purely in house.

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The unnamed virus that infected ancient Africans causing us to produce digestive amylase not merely in our gut but in our saliva never existed. This leads to us never loving pure starches. This would almost certainly stall agriculture by millennia.

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Noted. Thanks.

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Korolev would be key in keeping them in the race period.

Johnson feared that exposing Nixon would expose him for wiretapping. Handle that issue, or torpedo Nixon's stunt early, and either a Humphrey or a Johnson Presidency would be much more pro-Space.

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An interesting reality seed might come from keeping the Norman Kingdom of Sicily alive. The Scilian state promoted a great deal of cultural exchange, it was to their advantage as it let them understand their competitors.

Outremere might last longer. The Fourth Crusade might have attacked Islamic lands. If nothing else, more Ancient Greek, Ancient Latin, and Medieval Arabic, text and knowledge might have lasted until the printing press in the late 1400s.

It might set up a TL5 Elizabethan England.

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That could be interesting. Straight TL5, or split, with some areas being TL5, and others being still TL4?

Something I've been thinking about:

Suppose Pope Pius XII dies in 1942 or thereabouts, and the Axis powers decide controlling Papal succession is worth the trouble? I could see this resulting in a modern schism, albeit not necessarily a long one, as the cardinals from the Allied nations (who might not even have been allowed in) would probably be pressured to elect a different Pope, and the neutral nations with cardinals might decide that neither 'captive' Pope serve the interests of the Church.

After the war, the Churches might reunite, but then again, they might not, particularly if the neutral and Allied Popes won't agree on who is more legitimate (though I think they'll both agree that the Axis Pope isn't).

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Since the Roman Catholic Church went through a lot to get rid of outside interference in conclaves, they'd put up resistance all round. You might well get an "Axis pope", which the rest of the world's Catholics wouldn't acknowledge, but I doubt anyone else would be willing to elect another Pope in opposition. There would, in effect, be a long interregnum between Popes.

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Let's try early TL5 but advanced in some areas. An industrialising England would have a galvanizing effect on the rest of Europe. France and the Dutch would both focus on technological espionage and alliance with Britain. Spain and the Hapsburgh lands might be terrified.


Vactican II might be right out the door. The early 20th century debates on rather or not Catholcism is compatible with democracy would be kept alive. This might mean Nixon wins in 1960.

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While reading Norwhich's history of the Mediterranean I came across the fact that the French and their Spanish allies, durring the Wars of the American Revolution, planed an invaision of England. Spain's desire to attack British colonies and sieze terratory cancelled the plan. However, the plan had a great deal going from it.

A successful invasion of England in 1778 or 79 would have probably led to Britain's immediate surrender. In our history, France and Spain wanted all of North America West of the Alleghenys to be part of Mexico. This was mainly because the French assumed they could get it from the Spanish later on. Britain gave the young USA the land between the Alleghenys and the Mississippi for similar reasons. In a world where Britain was invaded, France and Spain get their way.

Many of Britain's colonies would be stripped from her, because of the leverage that having troops in London would give France and Spain. So both the USA and the UK would be much weaker nations in the late 18th century. The wars and intrigues this would set up would be nasty indeed. Note: there would be little chance of a US/UK allience in this world.

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Last night I watched a documentary on the Stizkrieg or Phoney war. Their were several interesting bits.

Try this fact. A French army invaded southern Germany durring the invasion of Poland. If they had decided to throw all they had into it, German armies would have had to pull out of Poland and rush south. Given that Stalin wasn't one to miss a chance to grab land and power, and besides most scholars agree he meant to betray Hitler later anyway, the Red Army might have plunged on through Poland toward Berlin. This could lead to a WWII with Hitler out early and a Red Army blitzkrieg taking all of Europe. We know that Stalin had ordered many contengency plans for something like this, so it isn't totally unreal. It is a very different and nasty WWII. There would probably be as many civilian deaths or more, just less ethnic targeting.

A less grim alternative might involve the Allies not ignoring the information that an attack was coming though the Ardennes. Picture the Nazis being forced to attack the Maginot Line head on. An interesting alternative.

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While reading that history of the Mediterranean I've mentioned before, I came upon an interesting possibility. What if King Ferdinand VII had had a healthy, long-lived, and practical, son by one of his earlier wives? The Carlist wars would never occur. The same progressive forces would still be present in Spain. With a stable monarchy and a stable monarch that favored policies that promoted stability and ecconomic growth, Spain might get to the 20th century as a power, if not a major one. Similarly, such a king would tend to except constitutionalism and at least some democracy as a vaccine against revolution if nothing else.

Thus in 1941 you'd have a stable democratic Spain that like France and Poland before it would get steamrollered in a Blitzkreig. Protugal and Gibraltar would be taken too. These would not win the war for Hitler, but it would prolong the struggle by several years. A nasty varrient WWII is highly likely.

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Once more with Norwich's book dear friends. Churchill had two plans he cooked up on the day he thought out the Gallipoli invasion.

Plan A), the one Churchill liked best, was an invasion of Schleswig-Holstein. A direct invasion of Germany with the high probability of Denmark joining the Allies and British domination of the Baltic would have allowed an Anglo-Russian Invasion to land 90 miles from Berlin. This senario leads to a raddically different post war world.

Plan B), the attack on Gallipoli, failed mainly because of four main factors. First, other than Churchill, no one really seemed to care about the plan. There was little if any real focus on things like providing the right supplies or seeing that equipment got to the Easten Mediterranean in tact. Second, the comanders at the scene were pretty slack. Several of them later admitted that attacks they broke off early would have broken the enemy line or defenses if they had only been maintained a short time longer. Third, no properly detailed maps of the area being invaded. The famous Anzac cove was just a couple of miles away from a cove thet was massively better for landing troops and had no cliffs to prevent quick movement across the area to be secured. Fourth, Kermal Mustafa (later Ataturk). Without Kermal Mustafa's actions the Trukish army would have completely colapsed serveral times.

The last three of these seem like the best targets for change. Keep the naval attack that used up all the Turkish ammo going for a short time longer. Have some Bristish Turcophile of the late 19th century create high quality maps of the area. Then let Churchill find them in time for the invasion. Or simply keep Kermal Mustafa on the far side of the Ottoman Empire durring the invasion.

Any of these would lead to A) the Ottoman state being out of the war. B) Bulgaria never joins on the side of the Central Powers. More likely, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania, all join the allied side. C) The Russian Revolution is either postponed or stoped dead in its tracks. D) An early surrender of Germany and no American involvement in the war.

From there, go where you like.

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I like this one if only it finally makes sense of why an Italian food is produced by a company called Franco-American. Well, not a lot of sense...

So the Revolutionary War ends a little early (1779 or 80) but the nascent republic is hemmed in. Spain is able to hold onto its Mexican holdings far longer, even if the Mexican territories become far more restive and violent than even in Homeline. When the Mexican Revolution finally does take place it is more of a patchwork of revolutions - Texas and California become independent nations, what we consider Mexico today is broken up into three separate nations.

The strain of holding onto England become too much for Spain and France. As the Spain Empire breaks up, so do the French holdings in North America. Louisiana and the Great Plains territories break off into their own nations.

All of North America is seething with wars, rumors of war, and intrigues. In Europe an Anglo-German Alliance stands against the, now ramshackle, Franco-Spanish forces. Mahmud II and his sons, ruling the Ottoman Empire, make far more extensive, and longer lasting reforms. By 1860 World War I is brewing.

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Are corperate brand names ever a source of logic?


This merely accelerates history. All of the Central American nations are parts of Mexico that broke away. The Quintana Roo tries several times to break away from Mexico. The last major atempt was in the 1930's. Britain supported the rebels and the USA supported the Mexican government. There are still places in the Quintana Roo were any English speaker is well advised to claim to be a Brit. Canadians, Aussie, and Kiwis too, are assumed to be just another type of Yankee.

And what a poisonous brew it is. Clever stuff.

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Since these are Reality seeds meant for the Infinate Worlds background, why not a reality seed based on out time interference?

Try this. Centrum agents working on a Q6 Echo in the early 1860's have killed either all of the major Irish nationalists or their mothers. A bitter World-Jumper (of profoundly Irish Nationalist sympathies) with high levels of Telepathy and Probability Alteration decides on vengence against Centrum. First he prevents an Assassination of Abe Lincoln and then he acts to alter The Battle of Hanover Court House. He basically knocks out George B. McClellan. He creates illusions that McClellan ordered several junior officers to attack agressively before he fainted.

In our history Lee bet (correctly) that McClellan wouldn't attack Richmond. In this world, the World-Jumper gets the Union Army to do just that. Richmond falls, Jeff Davis is captured, the World-Jumper causes Lee's horse to throw him and uses his luck-twisting powers to make sure the fall is a bad one for Lee.

The South is seriously wounded. Centrum's plans for a British World Imperim are thrown backwards. Still Homeline still has big problems.

A venegeful World-Jumper with major levels of telepathy and probability alteration, and minor abilities in healing and PK, is on the loose and bitter. Who he thinks needs to die, both in America and Britain is unknown. Meanwhile Centrum is throwing everything they've got into getting Britain to declare war on the USA in order to preserve the CSA. It's well known that France will join Brittain as Louis Napoleon wants to preserve his Mexican powergrab. Centrum will of course attempt to wreck both Russia and Prussia, in order to secure the future of their British Empire. Also Stonewall Jackson is looking for blood and vengence.

This world should keep the ICops very busy.

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September 26, 1983. Shortly after midnight. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov is in the infirmary following an on-base accident. A less experienced technician is monitoring his station in his place within bunker Serpukhov-15.

Right at the moment that the PCs arrive in this otherwise identical historical echo, what seems to be an American minuteman missile appears on the sensor's display screen.

Someone familiar with the system might await confirmation. Someone more experienced might doubt the machine, might be confident enough to hold back. This young soldier, however, is not the same man as Petrov.

The PCs will have to be pretty high-power to discover, intercept, and stop the incoming nuclear war...

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Try this idea. A psion, nonminally working for Centrum, decides to manipulate events in Britain in the mid 1940's. Instead of tossing out Britain's early lead in computers and computing, key figures in the government are mindcontroled into seeing computors as the absolute basis of Britain's security and prosperity. Instead of Alan Turing being driven to suicide, he's honnored and protected. The whole computer program is effectively TL8 by 1955. The Psion is tried of having to deal with Centrum, he doesn't want Britain ruled by an outside power. So he's trying to con/trick Centrum into exposing themselves to his world's spies.

Now the ICops don't mind trouble for Centrum, but they don't want the SECRET exposed on a world that might be able to achieve intertemporial travel.

The Psion's other plots.

A) Speed the fall of the USSR by aiding internal corruption.

B) Excelerate the Space Race and focus the USA on space exploration.

C) Eliminate key third world nationalists to slow down decolonization. Colonial empires must go, but he wants the going slow because he thinks it will put the ordinary people of the Third world in charge.

Assume the guy is a Briton from a future Britain that died with a whimper. He has seen hell worlds more bitter that anything Homeline has seen. This motivates him to do what he sees as right/just for this world. If that gets in either Centrum or Homeline's way...too bad.

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I think I'd make that TL7+1. Getting 1980s-level VLSI semiconductor manufacturing that fast requires an actual uplift IMHO, not just a high-priority research program within the society.

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This could be quite an interesting campaigne.

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Good call.

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Try this idea, according to Cassius Dio Tiberius was learned in magic and practiced the goetic arts. Try a Q4 world were Tiberius was highly talented and intrigued to know more. Have him discover that Cladius, his young kinsman, is also talented (the Magery advantage). The two men study together, Claudius always careful not to let his kinsman know how powerful he has become.

In AD 20 Cladius causes Tiberius' accedental death.

more later.

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I like it.

:)


Is he perhaps a lot more powerful than his Centrum handlers realize?

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It's later.

Claudius killed Tiberius to save himself, his surviving family members, and Rome. He takes the reigns of power and sends the next few decades making Rome a safer and more livable place for all.

It's now AD110. Most people think Emperor claudius died generations ago. They think that Julius IV rules the Empire. Claudius built his deceptions well.

However, Claudius' Rome is on the road that Reich-5 owns. Claudius knows about Reich-5, he is beinging to understand how evil they are. Further, he has discovered both the Road and Homeline. He wants to know more about both.

This is the time when members of the Cabal contac him with a deal to save Rome.

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Somewhat. The main things they don't get about this guy are A) the subtlety of his powers, B) the variety of his powers, C) the flexiblity of his powers, or D) his practical non-psionic skills that let him know where to direct his powers. Centrum isn't that far off on raw power, just on what that level of power really means.

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He's a bit too Grandfather-y for my tastes. I prefer groups to have such massive global control.

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He lacks massive world control. He's in over his head. He has limited (but very useful) areas of influence in London and Washington, and he uses these very well. Between his knowledge of Soviet history and his telepathic probes of key soviet officials and agents, he's poking at the understructure of the USSR in ways that no one in the period would have thought important or valueable. His skill makes him seem more powerful than he is. Most of his achievements are sophistocated cheating. But he is very good, so it will be a while before he implodes.

He will lose a good deal of his partial control of both the USA and the UK in a couple of decades due to social changes. He's from a much more class ridden society than contemporary America or Britain. However, he'll still be an influence. He will also work to make himself seem "Grandfather-like" as a means to whither the confidence of those fighting him.

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What is this "Grandfather" people keep referencing?

I was recently reminded of the Derinkuyu underground city and similar places, has anyone done anything with those yet?

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"Grandfather" is a hyper-powerful alien in the Traveller game setting. Ask the question on the Traveller board and you'll get full details and deep analysis. But for this thread just accept the answer "God, but without all the limitations."

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Try this idea, add one or two new islands to the map of an otherwise unchanged world.

A) In the area of the Flenish Cap (the undersea end of the Appalachian mountains, just beyong the Grand Banks) place an island roughly the half the size of Wales. It would have been discovered by the Vikings and settled. Given it's location, and assuming normal soils for the Appalachians, the island would be fertile. It location near the Grand Banks would make for excellent fishing (and outside of Greenland, the Norse loved fish). This colony would survive through the Middle Ages and likely be a jumpping off point for further settlement and cultural contacts with the Native Americans. This could lead to a wide varriety of changes.

B) Place a cluster of islands with a combined area close to that of Ireland along the continental shelf south of Ireland. These islands would be settled by the Celts first, along the Vikings would push their rude way in. Their would likely be both Goidelic and Brythonic Celts amoung the settlers. These Islands would have a better chance of staying independent and gaining full status as Christian Kingdoms than Ireland. Britainy and Scotland both gained and lost full status as kingdoms, these Islands inspite of likely constant interference from England, could have done the same.

Picture an independent Celtic state in the 18th century. They'd constantly need to fear Britain and conquest. They'd be forced to ally with France every time. And given the fact that they'd need to focus on a navy, they'd swing the balance of power dangerously against Britain. This would make a great swashbuckling Napoleonic spy game.

C) Place a groups of islands, some as large as Ireland the whole group having an area roughly equal to the USA, in either the South Pacific at roughly the latitudes of New Zealand. Picture these islands get no human settlers before the 19th century. Then they get settled by roughly the same mixure of peoples from the British isles as Australia or New Zealand.

This might seem dull, but then think, this place would be very like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the USA, with a less brutal history than any of them. It would very likely have a population and living standards like those of the USA and it's position in the Southern Ocean would be even more secure.

From here you could make the place a rival to the USA, or take the whole idea of Australia/Canada/New Zealand/USA hybred in any crazy way you like.

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Try this idea. In our real history there was an event called The Bonfire of the Vanities. In this event and in similar ones like it, old master paintings and other artworks were burned. The wikipedia article mentions Botticelli, but several other major painters had major works (or at least works called major by the few who ever saw them) burned either in the original Florentine event or in the various coppy cat events.

This sets up an interesting quickie campaign. Go to an echo were fine art in about to be burned to ashes, rescue it. Renaisance Italy, the Dutch Republic in the Rampjaar, the sack or Rome, Byzantium, Bahgdad, or Alexandria, Revolutionary France, Nazi occupied Europe, all provide times and places were major artworks our either destroyed, or go missing perminantly. Any of these makes a lively dangerous setting for clever art thieves.

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Seems to me that would be a great I-Cop campaign. Grab the lost Botticelli's out from under Savonarola's nose - do they go in guns a-blazing or do they do it all quiet like? Then again in an Echo is Botticelli a genious or a hack? Is the Library of Alexandria a repository of lost knowledge, or a 4th Century equivalent of People Magazine, full of stories of ancient Kardashians?

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There are a few "lost continents", or actually submerged areas that in an alternate not be submerged. Kerguelen, and/or Zealandia, for example.

But it seems a little off to me that no one has gotten to any of these lands. The south Pacific had been settled by at least 1000BC. Maybe they get hit with a big version of Easter Island? Used up all their resources (for their TL), cut down all the trees, famine sweeps the lands and they basically kill each other off, just a few pitiful remnant populations there, surrounded by island cultures that fear the cursed land. British type colonials have there nearly empty America to settle.

Or something else was already there, gobbling up (figuratively or literally) Polynesians unlucky enough to land there, then in the 19th century Europeans. Deep Ones or Old Ones, who'd rather be left alone, don't leave their citadel-temples, but do have wonderous bits of stealable stuff lying around. They're discovery in the 19th century, with the occasional brave/foolhardy group sneaking onto the lands to snatch bits of Mythos "technology" that could drive a steampunkish tech revolution. Magi-steamtech ironclads walk the battlefields of Europe, while Russian mystics use their Fungi-from-Yuggoth bottled brains to gather intel in the Great Game in Central Asia.

PCs could be one of these snatch groups - and each time they daringly raid the forbidden lands they could chance an Old One uprising, wiping the world clean of these mutated apes.

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Island chain with "hobbits", but the insidious danger is one of endemic disease. They've developed resistance, but it's a plague to other primates.

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It sounds like it would bump up against Antarctica. Which suggests an interesting direction. Move Antarctica out into the Pacific, rotating it slightly, and putting the bay which is currently the Ronnie Ice Shelf in warmer climates. It'd still be freezing cold and isolated, but larger life could survive there.

Settlements would probably cover the now much-warmer Antarctic Peninsula, and there would probably be intensive exploration of the still-freezing but now much more accessible southern shore of the continent.

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Having read Eric Jager's Blood Royal: A true Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris I have to recomend it on this thread.

First, the crime itself, hiring a bunch of thugs to chop up the brother of the King of France like a onion in 1407, is a great place to start a varient reality. Say Louis of Orleans escapes. Does this cancel the second half of the Hundred Years war? Or accelerate it?

Second, any Poe fan will recognise the historical event that inspired Hop-Frog.

Third, the ordinary people of Paris whose voices make up a large part of the start of the book are wonderful character ideas.

Fourth, you'll love the maps of Paris 1407. And the discription of the thaw which destroys a major Paris bridge is great too.

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Assume that Roger Casement's black diaries aren't found. The British government wanted to hang Casement, both for being an Irish nationalist, and because his exposure of the King of Belgium's crimes in the Congo (Leopold was Victoria's Uncle, thus the crimes of King Leopold stained the British monarchy). Releasing the Black Diaries silenced international objects to Casement's hanging. So without the Black Diaries, Casement might go free. Britain feared creating anymore Martyrs for Ireland.

If Casement remains alive, Irish history gets a massive rewrite. Churchill could easily have ignored Hitler to seek ways to squash Casement. There are many ways to go.