Re: New Reality Seeds
 

No, Leopold II of the Belgians was a cousin of Prince Albert. While this relationship didn't reflect well on the monarchy, arranging for shipments of arms from Germany for a rebellion in Ireland during WWI and arriving back in Ireland in a U-boat does seem rather like treason on Casement's part.

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Sticking with the King Leopold II ideas (a friend just showed me a documentary on him the other night) what if the invention of the pneumatic tire was delayed by a few years to a decade? Prior to the sudden spike in rubber demand the Congo was a massively unprofitable failure and only the pneumatic tire seemed to save the King from going bankrupt.

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If the Black Diaries did not exist, it would be necessary to forge them (and there are some who think this is exactly what happened, judging by the article). Even if they were neither discovered nor invented, see johndallman's post, above.

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Conspiring with the Enemy and Conspiracy to Commit Insurrection In A Time Of War are both treason. A charge of Conspiracy to Commit Insurrection is almost certainly going to get you the Death Penalty, the In A Time Of War on the end is not going to help matters, it may even prevent you from being brought before a civilian judge

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There's other evidence that Cassment was gay. The Black Diaries make no logical sense as forgeries because they aren't fully congruent with the White Diaries. If the Brits were going to hire a forger, they'd have hired one that wouldn't embarass them with an easily discovered forgery. All the physical evidence fits the idea that the White Diaries were the first draft of Cassment's books/reports and the Black Diaries were quickly dashed off personal journals.

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Without the Black Diaries the pressure from America and Canada, both disgusted by the mass executions after the Easter Uprising, could have gotten Cassment off. Britain realised she couldn't risk alienating the USA or risk any disaffection from Canada.

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Try this idea. In the early 1920's a spaceship flies over and examines several major cities in North America, Europe, and Asia. The object is obviously artificial and clearly an advanced technology not of this Earth. Each flyover takes several hours, thousands of pictures are taken, no one can doubt that the ship was alien (except religious fundementalists who have other theories).

How do you think it would change additudes and/or actions?

Myself, I assume vast amounts of "Space Brothers" New Ageyness. I also assume serious interest in Space Exploration and extra-planetary bases.

What's your take.

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Presumably it easily evades aircraft and anti-aircraft fire? Does it respond at all? Ignore? Move on to somewhere else? Does its route make sense in terms of the times and distances between appearances? Is it seen to leave Earth, or does it just stop showing up?

In spite of its advanced technology, you might well get some people certain that it was of Earthly origin, created by a lone genius: consider the SF of Jules Verne, and the early work of E.E."Doc" Smith, where interstellar technologies are invented by scientists working solo. The idea that impressive technological achievements are created by large teams is a post-Manhattan Project phenomenon. There would also be several conspiracy theory versions of this based on enemy relationships from the WWI period.

I think you might also get a kind of Christian Futurist reaction: a fair number of non-fundamentalist believers would conclude that other advanced life must know God, and that humanity should think in those terms about aliens.

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Try this idea. In our world Kaiser Wilhelm II came to the throne of Germany as a relatively young man in 1888 because of the early death of his father from throat cancer. Meanwhile Franz Joseph of Austria lived until 1916, which helped drive his son to suicide. Picture instead a world were Frederick lives until 1920 and Rudolf becomes Emperor in 1889 (instead of a suicide at Mayerling.)

Both Frederick and Rudolf were far more progressive than their relatives and both realised that an allience with England was good for their nation. Picture France and Russia out in the cold. An Anglo-Austro-German Alliance, possibly with Italy and/or the Turks thrown in, would have been far more stable. WWI could have been delayed for a generation or more.

However WWI was inherrent in the European state system post-Congress of Vienna, so what Tech Level do you want WWI at? Or would you like a swashbuckling espionage game in a 1960's Europe that is edging toward WWI?

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I like that idea. The PCs all know (as do the players) that the war will happen, but the question is, how will it start. Perhaps they want to delay it even longer, or start it sooner, but in a way that grants their faction an advantage.

If it's in the '60s, though, there's the question of the atomic bomb. Chances are, atomic research still happened, and something like Chicago Pile-1 would have been built somewhere in the world, but the existence of atomic matter piles does not automatically mean that atomic bombs would have been invented. Perhaps they haven't been, so everyone has nuclear reactors (few would have taken Non-Proliferation seriously, if they didn't know about atomic weapons), just waiting for some bright spark to grow a mushroom from Hell. Perhaps the atomic bomb has been invented, but no-one has yet used it in anger. Perhaps many nations have it, but like those defense clauses, are keeping it secret.

Either way, outtimers will certainly know what's at stake, which lends a tension to the game that isn't often present.

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Fission research will happen but almost certainly slower. The Oak Ridge enrichment R&D was very expensive. So first atomic pile in the late 40s, quite possibly using either close to raw Uranium or using Plutonium which can be extracted chemically from a reaction that doesn't produce much power. No ICBMs, without WW II rocket research at least a decade behind probably more. I'd expect that technology is at least a decade behind ours for the same date without WW I and WW II to drive cutting edge spending. This applies especially to aircraft, rocket and chemistry I think. Medicine also I think.

Without the massive loss of upper class officers you still have something closer to pre WW I social structure. That and the lack of demand for war time labor that lead to women, minorities and such getting a foothold in middle class jobs. In the US most northern black neighborhoods can be traced back to labor for war industries, either WW I or WW II.

A lot more colonies are still controlled from Europe. You might have a lot of small scale warfare there with powers backing uprisings in rivals colonies. Lots of room for spies there.

The US isn't a major a power and is probably underestimated even more then facts would indicate by Europe since it hasn't been in a major war with them.

What is happening with Japan and China? Japan would still want it's own Empire/sphere of influence.

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The focus of technology might be different. Example: Airships are useless in war (well except as U-Boat hunters) but they beat airplanes for lift. Maybe no WWI means that the preference for Airships stays strong long enough for them to become more practical. Computers would still advance. Primitive computer like devices preceded WWI, some of the advantages of computers were vaguely understood.

Given the old aristocratic elites generally disliked/feared technology. The USA might still become the technology leader simply because there would be less anti-technology influence here.

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Without WW1, would communism be able to gain any traction or would it be just another political/economic philosophy among many? Would it be able to take root elsewhere in the world without the USSR to spread it?

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I would think you still get widespread communism, since Russia would still be a mess. Or at least something like it - the mix of players and philosophies would be slightly changed. Then again, with a more stable Europe communism doesn't have the "hope for something better than what we have now" appeal. It would be more confined to Russia itself, maybe a major source of "anarchist attacks". Trotsky would carry more weight as an "internationalist" and not get deported by Stalin, and be the Osama bin Ladin of communist terrorism.

But the crazy ideas on food production (for example) would show up as mistakes far earlier if they had less resources to draw on. The USSR would be a second or third tier country going forward into the middle 20th century, like wracked by internal discord and uprisings. A super sized Afghanistan.

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Perhaps "the starving man of Europe," echoing a similar description of one of their neighbors in the previous century?

Considering that international relief in any substantial form is a post-WWII thing, this could change the power dynamics of Eastern Europe yet again, as that world's Russians die from unplanned famines.

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That's a good one. The USSR begins to break up from internal stresses, and helped along by the Anglo-Austro-German Alliance. Spies, terrorists, relatively primative nukes with no missiles to deliver them so they're trucked around in, say, a turnip cart in downtown Minsk. This begins to sound a little like the Steel Czar.

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Try this idea, during Stalin's purges, a cerical error causes to lists to get their lables switched. List A) was a list of Idealistic Party members of absolute integrety, List B) was a list of capable opportunists without moral scruples. In our world, were these lists didn't get mixed up, Stalin Purged List A). Stalin meant to purge the same kind of people in this world, but the mix up redirected the purge to the Amoral Opportunists.

Later, when the plan to remove Khrushchev is being worked up, several of the few survivors of the list work to stop the coup. Many of Brezhnev's key allies, who weren't purged in our world, don't exist here. Khrushchev retains power and Brezhnev loses his party membership and goes into internal exile.

Khrushchev picked his successor from amoung them men who saved him. It's 1968 Prague Spring is welcomed in Moscow. Russian spring is planned. "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" have come early. The hopeful noises out of Eastern Europe influence the American Elections putting Humphery into the White House. The last 21 years of the Cold War canceled!

Now the bipolar world is gone, what's is the multipolar world of 2014 like this time?

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Wow, this is asking a lot. So a shorthand version...

Europe goes its own way, probably turning East and integrates Poland, East Germany, etc. Germany comes out as the economic powerhouse, dominating Britain and France. Those countries still have holdings in the Pacific, and have really irked the US by dumping Vietnam in its lap. With only a decade or so of facing an invincible USSR there is less cooperation in Europe, so less acceptance of an EU.

Without the USSR, and not trusting China, North Vietnam has less resources, but the US has lost its stated reason to fight, and Humphery pulls the troops early. Radicals in China are able to encourage a stronger Khmer Rouge. Southeast Asia is a chaotic, violent place, with tensions between the US and Britain and France not helping.

No Nixon, no US-Sino detente. Britain makes the push for relations, and while not rebuffed it is not nearly as open and successful as the homeline version. Without the huge amount of Western investment starting in the late 80s and 90s, and the continuing radicalization encouraged by its Cambodian adventures, China cannot deal with the huge stresses to its economy. Civil Wars in the 90s lead to a breakup, with a pro-Western south tied to Britain.

The US drifts politically without a major enemy, and tensions with former allies. Government stagnates, caught up in issues of minority and women's rights, with no movement forward and a lot of backsliding as radicalized politics gain ground. By 2014 there is more political violence and fewer rights for women and minorities. The US is much poorer place overall, without the spikes and crashes of the housing and internet bubbles, and major investments for decades. President Orin Hatch leads a stagnated, if still somewhat prosperous, nation.

Early tax revolts and stalled government mean no major investment initiatives - no Internet as we know it. The Germans come up with the "Gobelin" (tapestry), a much more commercial and compartmentalized version of the 'Net. Even so, the so-called Gobelin Market is a huge hit.

OPEC never got to try out the Oil Embargo, as they transitioned from American/British to German dominated exports. Israel doesn't get the American funding at homeline levels, but without the major tensions of the Cold War. Egypt, without USSR or Western funding, backs down after the Six Day War. With its East European ties, and that areas growing economic clout, this timelines Israel is far more prosperous and peaceful. No Yom Kippur War, the Arabs abandon the "no recognition" stance by the late 70s, the PLO dissolves in internal dissent by the mid-80s. By 2014 the entire Mid-East is peaceful and prosperous, if very authoritarian. Islamic terrorism is still a factor, but very minor compared with homeline.

India and Brazil have advanced economically, becoming major players, both with economies larger than Britain and France combined.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

A bit of a counterpoint:
Khrushchev retires in 1965 and picks a Gorbachev-like successor. Khrushchev's reforms continue throughout the 60's and 70's. Prague Spring isn't crushed, but Dubček doesn't push his reforms as hard either. By 1980, everything Gorbachev tried to accomplish in five years came in fifteen. Now the Soviet Union's beginning to look like OTL China.

At the same time, the reforms in Europe and Russia are having little effect in the greater foreign policy of the Soviet Union. The seeming change in the Soviet Union, didn't seem to stop the dominoes and in 1972, Reagan crushes Humphrey and his economic policy puts an early end to the mid-70's recession. By 1980, things look good for the U.S. under G.H. Bush.

China probably reacts to the reforms in the Soviet Union with a more aggressive cultural revolution than OTL. As Reagan lacks the Anti-Communist profile of Nixon, Chinese-American don't relations normalize. As Soviet-Chinese relations cool more dramatically, a limited war erupts over the Ussuri River region. The Chinese "win" the war with a minimal territorial gain, leading into the growth of the Chinese Sphere in Cambodia and North Korea. However, the cooled relations between the Soviet Union and China halt UN membership.

With both sides of the Cold War looking strong in 1980, I'd estimate that 2014 would be still be very bipolar, but with China acting more independently.

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Minor quibble - I don't think Bush would have been Reagen's VP if he won the 72 election. Probably Helms or some other more fire brand Republican. Bush was more of an effort to get the Southern vote AND placate the moderate branch of the GOP, something this timeline's Reagan probably doesn't need to do.

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How about this one - George Washington had an unhappy childhood or something, so when the Revolution happens and there are calls for him to become a king, he accepts. King George I is inaugurated, crowned by a sour looking Franklin.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

More plausible than some might expect. It took an improvised last-minute speech to get him out of it in OTL.

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Since Washington didn't have any children who is the second king. Closest heir, chosen by the House and Senate, short civil war? Tjat's where things start to really diverge.

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He had nephews, Bushrod Washington, George Steptoe Washington, and Lawrence Augustine Washington. He also had cousins, but the nephews would take precedence.

Given the early American fondness for Rome, there's also his stepson, John Parke Custis, who died in 1781, before the Point of Divergence, but also had several children, including one son, George Washington Parke Custis. All of GWP's children were born after the PoD.

The line of succession would likely be carefully established, via a constitution that could have been remarkably similar to ours, apart from Article Two, and other articles & sections related to the Executive Branch. The Constitution could also have been very different, but if they couldn't see a way to not have a king, they would absolutely make sure the line of succession was clear, to avoid having a 'War of the American Succession' in a decade or two (Washington was fairly old, and they would not expect him to live much longer than that).

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

While Bushrod has the better name, Custis has the better claim, being an adopted son of GW and all. Its a logical match with the Roman tradition.

Aside from the Executive Branch articles and sections, I don't know if the Constitution would be substantially different. As long as it allows for a clear lines of succession then I don't think the government would be all that different. But I doubt the 17th Amendment would ever pass, and in fact if two thirds of the government are already appointed rather than elected the House might end up appointed as well.

Maybe the Civil War in this timeline is not only about slavery/economics but about House appointments. I'm guessing both the North and South would have reasons to make the House an appointment - Northern corporations and Southern plantations would love to have openly sponsored House Members. It would take the War to enact such an Amendment.

In such a world, where the US does not stand as an example of anti-monarchy governments, the kingdoms of Europe last much longer. Political and technological advancement is stifled by the aristocracies who don't want too much rocking of the boat, as it were.

Not to say Europe is changeless. Napoleon still has his rise and fall, as the US is uninvolved, or the changes here don't effect the US impact on Europe for the first few decades. The Napoleonic Code helped end feudal civic laws, and his conquests helped united the German states.

Perhaps the Napoleonic reforms helps further growth in post-French Conquest areas, so that by the 20th century France and Germany are the economic powerhouses, while Russia and Britain are stifled by their aristocracies. Both are subject to the massive fraud, inefficiencies and errors that plagued Russia leading up to the Communist revolutions.

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I think you two are forgetting something, if GW is crowned King of America then something would have been done about the succession before he died, possibly even him fathering children

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Custis was GW's adopted son, a very Roman method of cementing an heir to the throne in place.

I was just reading a history of the Trail of Tears - with GW, then GW Custis as King, Washington's plan of acculturation of the Native American's goes forward, not derailed by Jackson. The South isn't ethnically cleansed.

I"m not sure what that means for the slavery/plantation system, or the South's economy in general. I want to say without the landgrabs the huge plantations are kept smaller, with less clout. GW wanted natives acculturated, tribal lands treated as sovereign nations. With acculturation and Native American's living in at least proximity to Whites you get a more integrated society - maybe. Or you get another social class based on race and the Native's end up more like Laidlaw's His Power'd Wig, His Crown of Thorns.

In any event I can't see the South powerful enough economically to be a serious threat to the North. The Civil War might start under King Robert I (Robert E Lee - or would that be Prince?) about 20 years early, forcing through the abolish of slavery. Its bloody and longer but there is zero doubt as to the outcome.

Unless the French or English aid the Southern Cause. France seems unlikely, and the English Whigs are in power, opposing a strong monarchy, so they might be inclined to oppose a strong king in the US.

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The King of America could have been an elected monarch, as many of the central and eastern European crowns were (the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia (which part of the HRE), Serbia, Poland-Lithuania). Of course the people doing the electing weren't 'the people', but then the aristocratic leaders of the early US didn't exactly trust the common man to make good decisions either.

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In many ways the European nobility saw the Confederacy as something closer to their ideas of government. Many popular voices in Europe wanted their governments to get involved in the ACW in order to both stop America Democracy (then as now treated as a thing of horror) and give birth to an American aristocracy. The three main reasons no one tried were, A) the King of Prussia found the Confederacy nauseating, litterally, B) the Czar of Russia saw freeing the Slaves as being just like freeing the Serfs, which he had just done, and C) key players in the British government feared revolution in England if Britain entered the ACW.

Try this idea. Suppose the Brits decided there wasn't any threat of a revolt and it was now or never to stop America. This would probably see several joint Anglo-French attacks on the USA. Prussia and Russia would be furious, and Prussia could attack. Russia and Britain were on the verge of war anyway, this would push them over. Austria would have been neutral, but friendly to the CSA.

This attack would have galvanised the North and probalbly led to attacks on Canada, and a longer ACW.

Imagine French armies marching north from Mexico to attack the American West. Picture Jurez and Custer allied to bring the French down. Envision the Monitor sinking proud ships of the line, Britain's finest ships.

The end of the war would be messy. Lincoln would demand an end to slavery and the CSA saw slavery as the whole basis of it's existence.

If the USA survives the war, and it would be likely to, Britain would have to rue the day they made Prussia and America fast friends.

In Europe, the Russo-Prussian attack on France would collapse the French government and create an early WWI with different allies.

All in all, a lively mess.

Reactions?

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

French adventures in Mexico are stifled as French troops were moved north into the US. Republic of Mexico forces are able to deal with the reduced number of French troops faster and drive them out sooner, with the help of Prussian forces brokered by President Juarez's new alliance with the North and Secretary of State Seward.

With no alliance possible with the US, Napoleon III does not withdraw his troops from America, instead Emperor Maximilian is hosted by Texas, in exchange for aid against the North. After the Civil War, Texas is an independent nation again, allied to the French. Focused more on Mexico than the US, Texas eventually helps reestablish Emperor Max in northern Mexico, from Tamaulipas to Chihuahua. When the French government collapses so does its support of the Mexican Empire, which Texas takes over. It looses Chihuahua but is able to keep the coastal states.

Texas remains an independent nation, although it has few allies and faces the wrath of the Republic of Mexico and the US. Slavery is still legal, so most European powers disdain it - but it might use promises of abolition as a lever to get support. Thanks to the French influence in the ruling aristocracy, Texas barbeque is excelled into an art form. So that might be a good reason for IW groups to come here :)

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Drifter. How would Texas have delt with the tendency of a nation founded on seccession to break apart?

Georgia on failed to seccede from the Confederacy because Sherman marched through it. How would Texas, nearly the size of France, stay in one piece?

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Technically the US seceded from England so I don't think this is a given as a problem. Texas had their Mexican Empire (French) troops, so they were able to sue for peace separately. Lincoln wouldn't have allowed an independent Texas, but Johnson was keen on getting things back to pre-War conditions, basically letting them reinstate their old leadership. In the chaos this caused Texas is able to stay independent.

I'm including a larger Texas, extending down the Gulf coast, so there is that part to consider. I'm guessing in the short run the French/Mexican Empire people help cement in a true ruling aristocracy. So maybe individual areas are ruled by Mayors/Barons, with multiple layers of commoners/peasants/serfs/slaves beneath them, divided by class and race. The jockeying around in that social strata would sap a lot of energy, so there is less tendency for areas to say "screw this" and go on their own, or go back into the US or Mexico.

Further out timewise if Texas has no alliances worth mention (Britain and France have pretty much retreated to lick their wounds, offering words of support but little else), then things look bleak.

Unless some new ideology sweeps the land. Marxism takes hold in Britain, after their umpteenth revolt, the Party replacing the old aristocracy. Soon it is exported to beleaguered Texas, along with China, Cambodia, etc. "Red as a West Texas Sunset" can be a condemnation or praise, depending on who is saying it.

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Indeed, secession is the American way.

Astromancer forgot about the Revolution, I guess.

Or maybe he means that the United States have a tendency towards secession?

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Compared to Mexico, which has had several civil wars and wars of secession both successful and otherwise, I'd say the USA has had little tendency to secession.

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Try this idea. Britain sends a expeditionary force to force the USA to accept the independence of the CSA and there's a Marxist revolt. Louis Napoleon sends troops to England to help them crush Marxists and democrats! This action enrages the British people. Victoria says stupid things in the heat of anger and they get reported in the times. Both French and British troops commit atrocities and the whole British nation is up in arms.

From here you can either go to a Marxist Britain or to a Absolutist Monarchy Britain.

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Try this idea, the Spanish Flu , which in our world killed between 3% to 6% of the world's population, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people, is worse by far on this Q5 world.

Fifteen percent of the world's people die. And to make it more brutal, the flu pandemic revisits once or twice a decade until 1993. It is now 2013. The world population is around 900,000,000 to just under a billion. The west has been on the edge of TL7 for a decade, but the econnomy is stagnant.

The great colonial empires still exist, other than Ireland and India gaining "homerule" most of the political map of the world is much like 1920. Europe, except for the U.K., Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, is fascist and culturally sagnant. Even the democracies are CR4 and rigid classbound societies. The Near East is apolitical, apathetic, as is Africa and most of Asia.

The U.S.S.R. is grimly socialistic. Stalin died in the 1925 flu pandemic (as did Hitler and Franco) but the Soviet experiment still ended up grim. However, this world's U.S.S.R. isn't as brutal or repressive as either our world's U.S.S.R. or this timelines Fascist states.

Latim America and the Carribean is sunk into poverty, corruption, and ecconomic paralysis.

Weirdly the bright spots are in New Zealand, the U.S.A., Canada, and Australia.

In each of these countries there have been surprising recent changes. The biggest shock is a Thorium Reactor! Homeline agents that have seen the reactor say that it seems to be a divergent tech path (TL7+2), clean and efficient. How such a device showed up in this world is beyond explanation.

Stanger still, New Zealand has an Electron Microscope. In our world the technology was pioneered in Germany in the 1930's (the Nazi's never saw the potenial), but the inventor died young in this world. Wilder yet, the New Zealander's have describe the Flu virus.

Keyesian Eccomics weren't invented in this world either (Keynes died in 1919) but Keynesian ecconmics is in fashion in Washington, Canberra, Wellington, and Ottawa.

Someone is manipulating this world for their own ends. Can your PCs find out who?

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

What's so strange about New Zealand having an electron microscope (presumably building the first practical one), especially at TL7? The first practical electron microscope in the real world was built in Canada at the University of Toronto in 1938 (TL6). (Well, TL6 by 3e, anyway.)

If they have a practical electron telescope, being able to describe the flu virus doesn't seem much of a stretch.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

And thorium reactors are of the same vintage as uranium reactors. The only reason OTL went with uranium reactors is because we could get plutonium out of them (and into bombs) when designed for such a byproduct.

Would the British Caribbean possessions have been combined into a single administrative region in this timeline? With the depopulation caused by the many epidemics, it would make sense to reduce the number of people in administrative positions.

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A two-world skerry; Both suffered limited nuclear exchange (via aircraft bombs) in 1951. The actual divergence point was at least ten years earlier; apparently WW2 went on slightly differently, and nuclear weapon secrets were better-kept in one, more poorly-kept in the other. The current date is 2014, just over 50 years after the "third world war."

In one (nuke-A), the USA bombed the USSR by plane, then followed up with a "liberation" of the subcontinent. China was granted large portions of Russia in exchange for cooperation.

In the other (nuke-S), the USSR attacked the USA first, with the goal of attaining grain and coal supplies. Pacification of Europe followed gradually, using the unsubtle threat of nuclear weaponry.

Both worlds are suffering from lingering radioactive fallout, but because most attacks were focused on command centers, there wasn't a serious ecological collapse (though harvests were poor in both timelines for some decades, and radiation is a common threat seen to be about as serious as old land mines).

Nuke-A is dominated by the United States; other nations exist as mere appendages. The fifty years following WWIII saw the US continue its aggressive policies, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons (MAD no longer being relevant). The USA's internal politics stagnated; the only change was a reactionary response to counterculture radicals, whom were often jailed, beaten, or tortured as potential terrorists.

As of 2014, technology has advanced somewhat (though areospace tech is actually quite crude, since neither a space race nor a missile gap spurred the development of better aircraft or rockets, leaving the world in a low TL8 except for mid TL7 areospace). The gradually increasing need for surveillance lead to the development of DARPAnet and sequential government computer networks; computers alone are a highly refined TL8 burgeoning on TL9. Russia is one of the client states of the US, and it is a barely-functioning, still-radioactive (in places) kleptoracy.

Nuke-S saw the rise of a Soviet world state. Without MAD, the USSR took control of Europe, and with the resources and industry of the USA (captured over 15 years of nuclear-enhanced warfare), they kept a working economy running. The following 50 years saw increasing unrest and a flagging economy until the development of special economic zones, which function like free markets in pretty much all but name. Meanwhile, the secret police and culture guardians ensure that history is remembered "correctly": Stalin is seen as a hero, and the sole inventor of modern communism.

As of the present day, technology is mostly a high TL7. Computers remain massive mainframes; the US and Great Britain lost many great thinkers who otherwise would have entered the field. Of note is the World Socialist State Space Program, a somewhat effective industry that is working with advanced TL8+1 designs; nuclear rocket engines are occasionally used, although not over populated areas. Despite this, the average citizen isn't quite as wealthy as they are in Nuke-A.

So far, so normal. however, these two worlds are tied together. Some parachronic researchers believe that the simultaneous use of so many nuclear bombs at the same time caused a crosstime "fusion" of some kind. Others believe that whatever caused the worldlines to fuse also triggered the nuclear wars by changing elements of their histories; or, perhaps, they were already connected somehow and the war on one world triggered the war on the other. Regardless- these two worlds are connected by thousands of stable and semi-stable portals. 50% of them are in intensely radioactive locations (that is, radioactive in both world-lines, such as Berlin), and most of the remainder are radioactive on one end or the other. The first was only discovered in December of 2012, two years before the present date. At the time they were an urban legend and a mystery, only stumbled into by scavengers and foolhardy people seeking shelter in ruins.

Six months later, fringe scientists and cultists started to seek them out, as the more accessible portals were discovered. Around this time, Nuke-A started to take these reports seriously due to computer network monitoring picking up on the traffic. It took three more months for Nuke-B's secret police to start seeking these portals out.

First contact between Nuke-A's and Nuke-S' respective governments took place in June 2013, at a fairly safe portal in an Egyptian cave. It was not cordial, although both sides attempted to feign cooperation. The biggest threat: Nuke-A has a slight head start on understanding the portals, and has a narrow intelligence lead on Nuke-S, but Nuke-S has extremely effective ICBMs and anti-aircraft systems, and so far, although no portals have been discovered in the atmosphere, calculations show that at least one must exist in orbit. After the meeting, the portal was sealed at both ends with only a signal cable passing through a double-thickness concrete wall.

The past year has been a campaign of espionage and secrecy. Both sides have a few spies on either side, and both sides are keeping the existence of the portals secret. Of course, both sides also consider the other to be a militantly genocidal psychopathic tyranny... not that either one is especially wrong...

Outtime operations are complex. On the one hand, it's very difficult to work here, on the other, this place has some of the most interesting naturally-occurring crosstime activity anywhere, and it's safer (more technologically primitive) than some places. Imagine what stable portal technology could do for us against the other side!

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New Zealand never lacked for brainpower, but in this world the population of New Zealand is about half a million and most of the university bound students still go to England. It's odd that the remaining scientists would invent something so important and describing the flu virus was (in our world at least) tricky.

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Try this idea. The chunk of ice that caused the Tunguska Event lands somewhere else and at a different time.

A) Mecca 2003, if this happens at the right time most of the Islamic war goes nuts. An Islamic league to crush the West might give you an interesting dark campaign.

B) Washington DC 1946, this could lead to several decades of chaos. Certainly the Civil Rights movement would be delayed and the Cold War would be minimal. This world would have at least a Soviet dominated Eurasia.

C) Berlin 1935, if Hitler is in Berlin, no second World War until Stalin launches one. If Hitler is outside of Berlin, changing the German capital would have several knock-on effects. Hitler always felt Berlin looks down on him and that he couldn't do certain things until he'd done them in Berlin first. So this could be a nastier world.

D) Moscow 1946, if Stalin is caught, no Cold War. On the other claw, far less anti-communism too. A very different world.

E) London 1900, the political system of Europe would collapse early. With the UK crippled Germany smashes France and then turns around and smashes Czarist Russia. The Kaiser rules Europe and helps himself to the Levant, India, and much of Africa. Germany gets the reputation the USA has today, only they earn it.

F) The American South sometime after 1954. Basically line up a group of right-wingers at a major event in the South and blast the politcal leadership of segragation out of existance. Civil Right proceeds more quickly at first. The backlash would come later, but much of the ground would have changed before any resistance could solidify.

Who do you blast out of existance?

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I'd drop the iceball on Rome, 1500. Most onlookers would regard it as God making it very clear He'd had enough of Rodrigo Borgia's crap. The zeros in the year add to this effect. How does the Church react to the strongest possible call for reform? Does Protestantism come early or is it forestalled?

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Try this idea. Assume that Wilson's stroke comes early and is fatal. The VicePresident is unwilling to go to war, mainly for reason's of fearing responcibility. America shillies and shallies and stays out of WWI. France collapses. The UK still has their navy and the Kaiser can't get to Brittain. Furious, the Kaiser decides to take India and launches an overland invasion of India by way of Jerusalem and Persia.

The German armies plow through Russia unifing all the factions against Germany. Russia becomes a blood-spattered quagmire on a level that dwarfs our world's Russian Civil War. It's 1927, the war is still raging.

On a minor bright note: Both Hitler and Stalin are dead. But almost no one would care.

America's ecconomy is recovering from the ecconomic crisis caused by the French collapse. Britain is still trying to get America into the war.

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I think I might have suggested an alternate Tunguska here, before: Paris in 1908, changing the cultural centre of Europe, and leading into much greater interest in astronomy and rocketry.

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I think you mean "keyhole-gate that allowed a tiny portion of Azathoth to slide into our reality"", and not ''chunk of ice."

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Your earlier point of argument seems invalidated by the example you just gave.

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The Civil War that was going on in Russia at the time was started by the Germans to get the Russians off their backs

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By any standard Mexico has had many more civil wars than the USA, and had them without cometary strikes.

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Try this Pope Adrian IV died at the age of sixty. His goals where to stablise Church elections and bring peace to Italy. He died soon after winning some limited and ambigous victories.

Now picture a world where Adrian lives to be 75, rare but not bizarre. The extra fifteen years would see several of the main antagonists of the Papalcy either die or fade out. The Papal allience with Roger of Sicily would have been far more stable and later popes wouldn't have been as likely to be hostile to the Normans of Sicily. The possibility of a stable monarchy in Sicily are increased.

A more stable Sicillian monarchy would likely mean that the Crusader states would last longer and more Byzantines scholars and Greek literature and scholarship would survive both the sack of Byzantium in 1204 (if that even happens) and the final fall of Byzantium to the Turks ( which would probably be delayed).

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Try this idea. The Rhine Experiments work! (Remember psi is exceptable in the Infinate Worlds setting) Rhine proves that Psi exists, but he doesn't learn how to train it or do much more than identify an unknown portion of the people who have PSI.

Meanwhile, everybody loves the idea except religious and cultural conservatives. People are both seeking to discover the true secrets of PSI and are wildly invested in conspiracy theories involving secret PSI masters. Both the CIA and the KGB believe the other has mastered PSI and that they are mentally controlling key figures in the government. Any and all unhappy people with access to printing presses loudly denouce those assumed to control the secrets of PSI. Riots break out around the world as groups demand the release of all PSI secrets. "Witchburnings" become commonplace.

Meanwhile, the cause of the PSI phenomenom on this world, a series of steady gates to worlds on different Quanta make this Q6 world a vital prize to both Centruum and Homeline. Neither can allow the other side to control this world.

Meanwhile the nations creep toward nuclear war.

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Sure, but of course Mexico and the Central American republics were also founded in secession. ;)




I like the setting. It looks great for an espionage campaign.

Sounds cool, though I have to wonder why everyone apart from "religious and cultural conservatives" would ''love the idea.''
I'd guess that many materialists would be deeply disturbed by psi phenomena, as the verified existence of such would pretty well disprove the whole ideology of materialism.
Or are you counting hardline materialists as ''religious and cultural conservatives'', too? :)

In this timeline (Rhine 1?) do any historical figures of the 20th Century who claimed to have unusual psychic abilities or gifts in fact possess such powers?
Edgar Cayce?

Have ''New Age'' religions become a big thing?

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Very few people like having their fundamental paradigms shattered when push comes to shove.

Forces that only appear when involving human minds smashes everyone's beliefs EXCEPT the religious. At least when fully taken to their logical conclusions.

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Maybe I'm not an "ideological" materialist, but the sensible materialist response to such things seem to me to start trying to find out how they work, with a side order of "why hadn't they been noticed before?"

Nothing about being a materialist requires a claim that everything in the universe is already understood, and anyone making such a claim is acting out of ignorance, quite possibly wilfully so.

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It sounds like you aren't really a materialist, but an empiricist. And, yes, you are no doubt more open-minded than the people I'm thinking of.

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I think most of us gamer empiricists secretly want something magical to be true even though it would clash horribly with our otherwise loved paradigms.

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I agree with Combatmedic that materialists will be sent into a tizzy since psi powers seem uncomfortably close to proving we have a soul (see Poul Anderson's "The Martyr"). Religious objections are obvious - psi is the work of the Devil, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, etc. And just as obvious, of course psi powers have been "noticed" before; how else do you explain all those pesky miracles, weird coincidences and hail-mary plays that worked?

When do you see a campaign taking place? In the 40s for a Weird World War II? 60s for a James Bond/Timothy Leary mashup? Oh! A Jerry Cornelius setting, maybe a little toned down for the mundanes. Or an 80s psi-commando slug fest?

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I'd go for the 1960s.

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Oh, yes, this. To be fair, though, I'm pretty sure most of us agree that science does not know everything yet, so we can't really say that psi powers are definitely impossible (there are a number of weird things out there that people who may not have been lying or hallucinating have reported), just very probably impossible.

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Many religious and cultural conservative denouce PSI as an attempt to smuggle witchcraft and magic into the modern world. PSI is seen as a snare of the devil. More thoughtful types denouce PSI as the invassion of the spiritual realm by materialism. "God is not a waveform!" is a common slogan.

Meanwhile the Soviets loudly annouce that miracles are simply misunderstood PSI events. They say that one day Soviet People's Saints will grant miracles to all on a timetable.

It might be logical, but no. In this world Rhine proved his case. Even the Amazing Randy accepts the fact of PSI.

It can't be proved that they did. At least not yet.

Terrifyingly so.

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Incense and peppermints anyone?

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Has anyone referenced the split in 1997, when the universe changed from a state where "Han shot first" to a state where "Greedo shot first"? Yes, there are still reality shards lying around - especially on the Internet - but that's to be expected.

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*shudder* I can't imagine a universe where Greedo shot first. What a horrible, drab, benighted landscape that must be...

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Even storm troopers couldn't miss from 2 feet away and prepared.
It's not like shooting first made Han evil or anything. He shot a bounty hunter hired to capture and take him to certain death. That's self defense in any universe.

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I hate that absence of evidence / evidence of absence nonsense you are dangerously close to implying.

No one ever applies that position uniformly, only to their pet myths.
Lots of people have claimed Satan or God made them kill or aliens abducted them only to probe their anuses. Without any shred of proof, we MUST dismiss those claims.

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I'd sooner bet that it just supports biochauvenism and ever present humancentrism more than religious concepts like souls.
Back to the vital essence of life being fundamentally different from inanimate objects and energy.

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Indeed, indeed.

Have the researchers of Rhine 1 developed any psi-drugs?

What effect do LSD and other psychedelic drugs have on psi?

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That is not what I said, though. If the witnesses were not lying or hallucinating, then something happened. The question is what? You will I hope note that I said psi was very improbable, rather than likely, yes?

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Single shot
What if Joseph Whitworth's rifle had been accepted as standard by the British army. With Whitworth being less disillusioned about dealing with the army he cooperated rather than competed with Armstrong. Whitworths experience with the Babbage also led to better gunnery tables increasing the effectiveness of artillery. This resulting in the British army having accurate breach loading artillery and a more accurate and longer ranged rifle in the 1860's. However when Hiram Maxim went to develop the machine gun the higher fouling and added technical difficulty of a hexagonal bullet stumped him and he choose to work on steam powered flight instead.
What happens when WW1 is fought without the aid of the machine gun.

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Now imagine a world where there are midichlorians.

I haven't read all the pages, so pardon me if this one has been taken. Gavrilo Princip is run over by a cart on his way to assassinate the Arch-Duke. There is no World War I, at least not right then and there.

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I'm of two minds on this. Psychedelic drugs effect serotonin receptors in the cortex, which is integrating sensory signals from the senses. So those signals get disrupted; my very very basic understanding of the process.

On the one hand this would very likely just make any psi powers harder to use. There might be a small change of great insight into using the power, but I really doubt that - it would be more like trying to drive a truck or figure out differential equations while on LSD.

On the other hand maybe the laws of this reality allow 'mind expanding' drugs to do just that. They provide the missing power to the right sections of the brain, along with activating the "correct" serotonin receptors to allow for psi powers. Its still a lot like driving a truck under the influence, so I'd give control rolls and such. To me this is the more game-able concept, fitting into the Psychedelic-60s motif. I don't know if it would work on people born outside this timeline, however, as its probably a mutation or even physical law change up.

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They are experimenting that way. The problem is that they know PSI exists, but nothing about it.

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Try this old chesnut. The drug that give you Psionic powers but only when you're too disconected from reality to understand what you're doing. You are powerful, you are also helpless and a threat to everyone near you.

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There will probably be one within a decade. The organisation of armies of the time, with large pools of reservists who take time to mobilise, and the need for pre-planning of the railway movements that get them to the right place make it advantageous to be the side starting a war, if it looks likely to happen anyway.

The alliance systems that drag in more parties to any dispute that gets serious, and the lack of wisdom of several of the governments of the time ("a big hand for Kaiser Wilhelm II!") mean that wars always look plausible.

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WWI would be fantastically difficult to stop. Yes, you could delay it a bit, but I really don't see it being stopped, and I don't see delaying it or even hurrying it along a few years measurably changing the outcome. The military technology won't do anything useful until the war actually happens, and any one of British tanks, American manpower, and Austrian collapse were enough to finish the war for Germany (all of them showed up in force at once).

I've actually thought trying to stop the war would be a fun campaign-- but ultimately a futile one, unless you start years before or get control of a major power's government. Even then, its only possible, not mostly done. My campgain would probably consist of going around putting out fires while IW agents in the governments try to finagle things out of the mess.

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The best way to prevent our WWI would be to prevent the construction of the German Navy. Germany and Britain had been loose allies of convenience against the French for an extended period, and the British had fought several wars with France for over a thousand years, the building of the Kriegsmarine ended that.

There are several ways to do this, the easiest being to kill Kaiser Wilhelm II early. Next would be prompt surgery on his father Fredrick's throat cancer, if he had five to ten years on the throne, Europe would likely look somewhat different, since he was far more Liberal than his father or his son. After that, it gets trickier, was Alfred von Tirpitz the only financial genius that put together a finance plan for a Navy that the German Diet would pass? Or could someone else, that Kaiser Wilhelm II trusted, do it?

IF this had happened, it is unlikely that Britain would have been prepared enough to intervene on the Western Front in time to affect the Battle of the Marne, if they had even felt a need to intervene at all. Could the French have held the Marne against a larger, (no Navy siphoning off men and material) and fresher (no fighting the British on their flank) German army? Even if the Marne still held, if the British, Canadians, and ANZACS (along with the Indians, Gurkhas etc.) did not strengthen the French line, how long could France have lasted? It gets even worse if Britain actively aligns with Germany, as several high ranking British MPs wished to do before the Kriegsmarine ended such thoughts, notably Joesph Chamberlain. A shorter WWI, with a clear winner, would likely have led to a better, or at least different, twentieth century.

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Try this one, Queen Victoria was the object of an assassination attempt in 1840 by Edward Oxford.

If he succedes you can go several different ways. First Victoria's uncle Ernest Augustus of Hanover would have been heir to the throne. Ernest Augustus was a hard right Ultratory. The throne would have been bitterly anti-reform both under King Ernest and his son George V (he was GV of Hanover, here he'd be GV of England too). You could go several different directions with an anti-Liberal Britain. Ernest Augustus was supposed to dispise America, interference in the American Civil War would be highly likely. Revolts and violent agitation against right-right rule would be likely too. Ireland and Scotland would both be in for worse than what they got in our history, and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would suffer too. There's also the chance of the Anglo-German wars staring early, perhaps in the 1870's. Picture Bismark and Louis Napolean teamed-up against Britain.

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Ernest Augustus was sufficiently unpopular at the time of Victoria's accession that he was advised to leave the country quickly and quietly before a mob caught up with him. I think Parliament would have used the precedents of the early 18th century and changed the succession rather than put up with him. No easy way of telling what they'd have done, though.

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You could play a big change in who sits on the throne in so many ways. Have someone kill Victoria after her first son is killed. Edward would be the King from before his first birthday. Would Prince albert be allowed to raise his son as a native German speaker? Would Edward be focused on his job? Or might his taste for high-living marginalised him, the throne, and the whole idea of Monarchy.

Killing Victoria early would radically change who sat on most of the important thrones of Europe. The whole context of late 19th century politics could change wildly.

Prince Albert is somewhat underrated these days. He was a major influence in British politics from the time of his oldest son's birth until his death. Either amplify his influence by making him Regent or have political opponents remove his son from his influence and kick him out of the nation and you generate big changes.

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The lines would be more fluid, but indirect fire artillery (with and without forward observers) was the big killer.

A more interesting variant would have some of those lessons driven home earlier, with time to assimilate them before the fighting starts. African history is not my forte, but (for example) let Krupp back the Boers against the British, as a way of testing artillery under field conditions (a la the Spanish Civil War for WWII).

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Characterizing Evil Ernie as a "hard right ultraTory" does something of a disservice to both him and the Tories. He was a totalitarian, while the Tories were simply conservative aristocratic oligarchs; for example, Evil Ernie wanted to abolish the property requirement to vote (while keeping the franchise limited to communicants of the Church of England) on the theory that poor, uneducated Anglicans would vote as their priests and their King told them, thus actually increasing his power.

That said, what does Parliament imagine it can do about him? His son is incapable of personal rule (being blind, he will be heavily dependent on his assistants and advisors). There's not a lot of republican sentiment to work with.