Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Historically, the Puritans could be very pragmatic. They often rejected the more violent extremists like the "Fifth Monarchy Men." It would be less likely that Centrum would be culling the Puritan elites and more likely that Centrum would encourage Purtan tendencies to shame religious "enthusiasm" which to the Puritans meant vanity expressed as mystical religious nonsense.

Example: Witch Trials did happen in Puritan times, but in areas of Royalist reaction. Salem involved a land dispute and a corrupt minister stirring the pot. Look at Grace Sherwood "the Virginia Witch" for a more typical American Witch trial.

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On Cromwell they were initially somewhat more extreme but it's been a couple of hundred years for that to fade

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In the early 19th century, when many details of the interior of North America weren't well known in Western Europe or the United States, both US explorers and British ones looked for the "Mississippi of the West." The great river that would open the interior of Western North America up the way the Mississippi opened up the center of North America. In folklore this mythical river was called the "San Bonna Ventura."

Picture an alternate interior for North America where a river that empties into San Francisco Bay is a navigatable river that drains a large part of Western North America. This would lead to radically different political pressures and outcomes. The Mexican War would be different. France and Britain, both of whom wanted California in our world's history might interfere in either the Mexican War or the American Civil War to get a prize like that.

The Alternate political outcomes could shape world history.

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Of course there is a river that sort of actually does this - the Colorado. It's just a lot less navigable than the Mississippi. Changing that maybe isn't impossible. You could get more water into it without twisting the geology too severely if you can divert the Snake river (draining Lake Yellowstone) into the Green river in Wyoming, which doesn't look like an impossible ridge to cut across, especially if you can slap some sort of obstacle upstream of Idaho Falls - and this is not too far south for fairly major glacial reworking rather recently after all. Not a lot more water, but maybe enough to justify some broader valleys and higher flows. Unfortunately the basin is otherwise pretty hard to push anything else into it. On a map it looks like you could get from some of the lakes in west Utah to the upper edges of the Colorado drainage basin, but it's deceptive, it's about 3000 feet uphill.

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If Lenin were to die just before he could return to Russia in 1917, the Russian Civil Wars would still occur, but Russia breaking up into multiple minor states would be the most likely outcome. The fascist parties of Europe, all of whom were founded in direct opposition to Boshevism, would have been a harder sale. WWII would likely have occurred later. A war between Japan and either China or a Sino-American alliance would have been likely. Although a weak post Russian Imperial state in East Asia could also have been a target.

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Gustavus-5

Gustavus Adolphus is a very underrated historical figure in Anglophone nations but five worlds get the Gustavus designation because his life and actions were a major change point.

Gustavus-5 is a low mana Q6 parallel were Gustavus Adolphus survives the Battle of Lutzen. Wallenstein is caught soon after and Austria has to sue for peace.

The present day is March of 1633. Centrum is trying to eliminate Gustavus Adolphus. They look at an early and decisive Protestant victory as a threat to universal imperial forces. Also an early victory to end the war might mean a less authoritarian Germany. Centrum wants to end Gustavus Adolphus. Meanwhile, the Cabal wants to promote its agenda. Their problem is they haven't figured out what benefits them. This makes them a wildcard. Meanwhile, Homeline doesn't want either Centrum or the Cabal making 16th century grimmer and nastier.

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The Cabal has an agenda, you say? Not a half-dozen alternate lodges with mutually-contradictory goals and schemes to settle old scores without opening each other up to new vengeance? :)

Hmm. So Centrum is going for a strengthened HRE and-or "no Westphalian system" as their vehicle to dominate this timeline? They've decided that England is not yet strong enough to be worth working with? That's interesting.

Personally, as a Centran colonial coordinator, I'm not sure that that's how I'd do it - the HRE is too much of a mess to work with if you're trying to get a stable government (see...well, the Thirty Years' War). If Centrum wants to work with Germany, they'd want a Prussian Kaiser (military technocracy? Yes please - even if the nationalism is a pain in the patootie) and right now, Brandenburg-Prussia is still one of many German princes and doesn't even have a standing army yet. If anything, Centrum's best move would be to back a Swedish Empire - Gustavus Adolphus is just introducing centralized government to Sweden, which Centran advisors could help shape into a Prussian-esque technocracy. Consider the potential of a stronger, earlier Swedish Empire dominating the Little Germanies and possibly getting Poland early, upsetting the European balance of power. Also, a Protestant victory would obviously weaken the Catholic Church, which Centrum is all for.

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Peter the Great was the single most transformative ruler Russia ever had. Catherine the Great got more done, Stalin had more raw power, Ivan the Terrible got the ball rolling, but Peter changed Russia the most. But if Peter had died as a child (several people wanted to kill him as they preferred that his developmentally challenged half-brother should rule, as he could be controlled) then Russia follows a path like Iran or the Ottoman State.

This scenario probably always leads to a larger and much longer lived Swedish empire. Picture 18th century Swedish naval captains fighting the Cossack Pirates of the Volga! Naval wars between Sweden and Iran in the Caspian Sea.

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One of the easier periods for out timers interfering in a Parallel's history in the early period of Printing. A substantial number of classical texts got printed with no surviving copies prior to the text first being printed. Some such texts are now known to be forgeries, but others have been proven legitimate by textual evidence.

If an out timer posed as a skilled recoverer of ancient texts, they could start by offering legitimate (just smuggled in from another parallel) texts. Euripides wrote more than ninety plays. We only have nine of these until chance discoveries in the 20th century brought nine more to light. Gather those nine plus what could be found by trips to parallels in Hellenistic times. The Italian printers would be over the moon. Then you could easily bring in either real classical works that would aid your chosen agenda, or simply make more.

The actual fakes will be exposed. But by then they would probably have had the desired effect.

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There are multiple cultural reasons why China's last dynasty couldn't copy the Japanese. In fact just about everything that promoted Japan's success could be used to point to a reason China's Qing dynasty failed. But try this idea. Allow an outbreak of plague in the Forbidden City to eliminate several contenders for the throne and give China a clever visionary Emperor who gets just how dangerous Western technology is to Chinese independence. The next bit gets a bit Alien Fruit Bats, but allow this Emperor to be skilled at pushing through his agendas in spite of the Confucianan Bureaucracy.

I'm not looking at much, just having China make some useful progress in the 19th century. Picture a Calcutta to Beijing Railroad by 1920. And substantial progress in literacy among the masses.

A China that actually attempted an achieved some degree of modernization and industrialization in the 19th century would have had a far less brutal 20th century. Japan, looking for opportunities might look elsewhere.

But try the idea of a Qing dynasty looking for military glory to shore up their rule of China suggesting to Japan that Revolutionary Russia might be a tempting target. In our history, Japan got its ears pinned back when they tried invading Russia in the 1920s. However, a Sino-Japanese alliance could focus far more resources on the attack because the wouldn't need to defend against the closer foe.

The Sino-Japanese alliance versus Revolutionary Russia in the 1919-1925 period would make a fascinating alternative Asia. Add Pulp style weirdness from Mad Scientists to Mysterious Tibetan monks and you got a gorgeous weird war going.

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Stevenson-2

Stevenson-2 is one of a small number of parallels were Eisenhower doesn't run in 1952 or doesn't win. Adlai Stevenson is president of the USA. In Stevenson-2, Eisenhower had a fatal heart attack in September of 1952.

In most ways it's a fairly normal parallel with only minor divergences from Homeline history. However this Q5 parallel is undergoing a change. In the parallel's 1953 the worldwide mana was Low with areas of no mana. But now there are areas of normal mana, and large ones in 1957. These areas are mainly places with a long term reputation for being magical. Egypt, Persia, Ireland, Haiti are all prime examples. Smaller areas of normal mana are around places with a local reputation for mystical qualities. Places like haunted houses, healing springs, wishing wells, and the like.

Homeline has no idea why this is happening but the Cabal has clearly found out and is out in force.

Basically, this is an infiltration mission set in the late 1950s. Maybe in America, maybe Australia or Britain. It's set wherever your players associate with 1950s normalcy. As paranormal investigators from the future you're PCs are basically the Addamses and the Musters infiltrating normal society in the time where they stick out.

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People in the late 1940s assumed that Spaceflight would be a quickly solved problem. Let's run with that.

Assume that TL7^ technology brings moon landings and interplanetary flight by 1960. In the sixties settlements on a Mars strongly resembling Ray Bradbury's stories in terms of climate and with mysterious Ancient Ruins.

At the height of the commune movement large numbers of hippies and other young idealists settle on Mars. Far away from the American and Canadian mainstream many of these communes stay stable longer. The cultural influence of these communes is deeper and longer lasting.

When the New Age movement forms it is far more broadly popular on Mars than Earth and doesn't become merely a marketing system that occasionally services NeoPagans and Occultists.

What this gives you is a planet full of wannabe witches, sorcerers, and mages with mysterious ancient ruins with weird psionic properties.

Basically a folk horror reprocessing of Bardbury's Mars. Doctor Who stuck in a Twilight Zone episode.

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Teddy Roosevelt when he won reelection in 1904 made the colossal mistake of declaring that he'd just been elected to his second term. If he'd counted the term he won in 1904 his first term, possibly stating that he been elected Vice-President and had only finished McKinley's term, then he wouldn't have been counted a lame duck for the next four years.

Teddy Roosevelt was a dynamic force for change and a champion of the rights of ordinary people in America. Although he had been raised to be far more racist than the American norm of his childhood, by 1904 TR was well ahead of the American people in his rejection of Racism. Remember that the 1890 to 1920 period is generally accepted as the worse period of racism in American history. Putting a man as dynamic as Teddy, who was moving from recovering racist to passionate anti-racist in charge for a longer period of time would change the game at least in a few small ways. Small but useful.

Assume a World-Jumper, an unreconstructed confederate or a bitter Klansman from the Obama years deciding to eliminate Teddy in 1905 in order to preserve racism.

Stopping the murder could be a lively campaign or just a fun side jaunt.

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Try this, in Homeline history, after Kara Mustafa failed to take Vienna in 1687, the Trukish court and elites entered into a sixty year long power struggle of each against all. When Turkey, still a powerful state recovered, improvements in nautical technology had finally rendered the overland trade routes that were the basis of Turkey's wealth and power irrelevant.

Now, let us embrace our inner Alien Fruit Bats for a moment. Allow someone in the 1690s to win the fratracidal struggles in Istanbul. And since we are going full AFB here, allow them to realize that basing the entire Turkish military exclusively in and around Istanbul had limited western expansion. So this new Grand Visir creates forward bases. This Grand Visir also licenses printing presses and mandates the study of Western techniques. (Yes I know that in real History the Turks fought tooth and nail against that sort of thing well into the 19th century. AFB remember.)

Have Vienna taken in 1709, and Bavaria conquered two years later. King Louis XIV sees the Turks based on the Rhine. He ends the Wars with other Europeans and begs for a coalition to turn back the Turks.

This gives you a glamorous and lively setting that can go in many directions. As a straight military adventure setting with espionage and swashbuckling it's fun. Toss in Path/Book magic of several flavors (aren't all powerful Grand Visirs supposed to be evil sorcerers?) and you get a different flavor. The Barbary Corsairs, still an active threat in the early 1710s (ship were captured and their crews and passengers captured for the slave markets in the English channel, in sight of land, as late as the 1740s) could attack in the Caribbean, the Spanish Main (Spanish speaking Latin American coastal areas) and the British North American colonies. Pirates versus corsairs to the death!!!

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Operation Unthinkable was clearly thinkable. Churchill was right about the Russian threat. Containment worked even if some people argue that the Cold War did more damage to society and civilization that a second WWII in the lake 1940s would have done. This scenario is based on a worst case scenario for Operation Unthinkable, neither side wins, Europe loses.

This is a Q5 low Mana parallel where Operation Unthinkable, forced on by Soviet aggression, brought state collapse from the Urals nearly to Paris. The local year is 1950. The Soviet Union has collapsed, the Communist cause has collapsed in China. From Paris to the Yalu war lords and chaos rules. Britain is exhausted, Japan, Italy, and France are wounded. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Finland South Africa, are allied and striving to bring stability to the planet.

Basically, this is an espionage game in a post-apocalyptic Europe. Mad Max meets James Bond with Harry Potter sprinkles. The Cabal is looting the ruins and building power bases with easy access to Homeline. The Cabal's activities are screened by looters and other thugs from all over the Multiverse.

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This is no better than a borderline-craptastic setting.

Stunted technological development due to the need to spend huge quantities of resources to alleviate widespread suffering and suppress local warlords and crime-bosses in what was (in OTL) one of the areas that recovered steadily after WWII.

The collapse of China and France means Vietnam gains independence easily, which means no Vietnam War, but that's one of the few positives. The collapse of the Soviet Union means no space-race and its attendant technological advancements, in a world with far less wealth to spend on medical breakthroughs or other benefits to humanity.

To me, this feels like the Great Depression returned with a vengeance after WWII, and has lasted for decades.

So, yeah, lots of dramatic conflict, but the setting is even more depressing than the Cold War -- and that's saying something.
Heck, since opposition to the Vietnam War supercharged the Civil Rights movement, would that have been delayed in the United States, as well?

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Is it? What would you be spying on? Seems more like a place for small scale military operations and high risk merchant expeditions.

Fog-1

A world in which the behaviour of water droplets in air has been tweaked just a tiny bit. The result is a world where fog is a nearly everyday occurence everywhere except the least humid and highest altitude parts of the world which may have something to do with the fact that Fog lacks bows, firearms and lens grinding in the Eastern Hemisphere. Other than that it has roughly 18th century technology despite the local year being 2009, but it is advanced in the sphere of light than air aviation, an appealing technology in that it allows people to rise above the low lying fog banks and see where they are going. Water travel is rather challenging, and tends to be carried out in shallow draft vessels along carefully charted coastlines. Fog's equivalent of the Americas has never been colonized and the natives of the Great Plains are the only people on Fog who have developed the bow, although they still don't have horses. It is also well known that there is some kind of predator that prefers the lowest visibility parts of the world, and has no qualms about preying upon humans who walk alone in the dark and the fog.

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I'd think not just Vietnam, but all of the colonial empires of European nations are going to become independent sooner than in OTL. Except for the British empire. And even the last is a maybe.

What is the the alliance's policy on this? Are they trying to take over the colonies, helping them develop stable governments, or just ignoring anyone who is isn't actively fighting their neighbors?

Where are the European refugees going to?

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I'd be leaning towards a more rapid collapse of the British Empire. If the war broke out before Japan surrenders, the occupying forces in South East Asia might see the writing on the wall and hand things over to the locals before bailing (or possibly switch sides), I don't think India would be willing to wait out a third war before demanding independence, and Britain would likely be too distracted to deal the war to deal with the coming crises in Mandatory Palestine and Malaya.

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Fog sounds interesting! Perfect for swashbuckling sky privateers.

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This is a damaged Earth. That might attract impractical idealists with "surefire plans." That could keep the PCs busy.

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Spector in the James Bond books was an amalgam of Fourth Reich sliminess and organized crime. It was rewritten to to Communist. So there would be agents trying to stop 4th Reich wannabes, mobsters, stomach Communists, and other low life's. The PCs would be trying to prevent the Cabal from taking over Europe.

Good atmosphere and interesting challenges. I envy your mind.

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I assume that the US is divided. The New Dealers want to prevent wars. The Dixiecrats and the Republicans tend towards isolationism. So unless the New Deal Democrats are riding high, I assume the Anglo-American alliance is diffident.

The European refugees are going to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America.

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Try this idea. Thomas Morton founded a colony near what is now Quincy Massachusetts in the 1620s. Morton's business partner, Wollaston, deciding that neither the Pilgrims (Brownists and thus religious separatists who wanted out of the Church of England) and Puritans (who wanted to purify the Church of England) were his choice as neighbors, left for Virginia. Upon becoming the sole resident founder, Thomas Morton renamed his colony Merrymount.

Merrymount was a lively hedonistic place. So in 1628 the local Puritans forcefully shut it down. The many claims of paganism, and orgies both interracial and bisexual, are at present seen by historians as gross exaggerations. Thomas Morton's practice of selling liquor and guns to the Native Americans is now seen as the probable cause of his exile from New England.

However, many people have seen Thomas Morton as a kind of hero. They picture him as a pagan champion of ecstatic pleasure. An early NeoPagan culture warrior. These ideas are laughable, but fun.

Imagine that Thomas Morton and his business partner Captain Richard Wollaston (a known Pirate) really were NeoPagan revolutionaries. Let's remove them from mainland Massachusetts and set them up at Montauk at the end of Long Island. And let their NeoPagan colony of hedonistic witches, pirates, sorcerers, and similar types thrive.

Picture a late 18th century America with ritual magicians. These spellcasters are working class outcasts. There are Maguses among the Freemasonic lodges, but these learned magicians are respectable.

This 18th century America would find itself being infiltrated by the Cabal. Meanwhile, Centrum, as much as it loathes magic, is trying to infiltrate the Freemasonic lodges in order to get America's Occult secrets for Britain. Britain locked in deadly struggle with Revolutionary France.

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If this campaign included a thoughtful comparison and contrast between the two ways of thought, I'd play in this campaign. I find the story of the Wollaston Plantation a compelling alternative to that of Plymouth, and sometimes kick around "might-have-beens," had the British government been more assertive in their protection of Merton's rights as an Englishman.

But if it just turns into an excuse to "bash the Puritans," I'd take a hard pass; the emotional discipline the Pilgrims brought to American culture has served us well, even as we've had to figure out how to deal with the legacy of intolerance they (and others) also carried to these shores.

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Your response was perhaps more thoughtful than my idea. I was mainly rifting off the fantasies of people like Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bay) and was thinking of an America with functional Temporary Autonomous Zones and similar silliness. Although the 18th century Freemasonic lodges with their values of freedom, respect, and community, would make interesting intellectual counterballances to mystical hedonistic anarchists. Puritans, the group most responsible for America becoming a democracy, would make and interesting third force. They might need back up from the Quakers thought. The Puritans were the group in early America least likely to practice anything like magic. The Quakers in the 17th century, very open to magic and experimental about it too.

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A Quaker friend of mine once noted that they were somewhat irritated to be confused with the Puritans, just because they dressed similarly in the 17th century. He pointed out that one early accomplishment of the Puritan colony in America was martyring a couple of Quakers.

That leaves me with the feeling that making the two groups allies might be a stretch.

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Agreed! I think the Pilgrims (who like the Quakers were religious separatists) might have a better chance. But then I was clutching at straws.

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Try this one. The Ayatollah Khomeini has a fatal heart attack on November 1st 1979. This not only canceled the attack on the US embassy but more importantly it has thrown the Clerical faction into chaos as they struggle to choose a successor.

Khomeini lives far longer than this on most parallels but the Cabal and Centrum are highly active in this Q6 parallel's Iran. This is a mainly low Mana parallel but areas of normal and high mana are known. Still, Iran during the Iranian revolution is a dangerous place to be. What would pull those two factions in? It's assumed that either Centrum or more likely the Cabal killed Khomeini. But what made them risk it?

Espionage with an Arabian Nights Flare (I know Iran isn't Arab, but then most of the stories in the Thousand and One Nights aren't Arabic either).

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Try this one. Trotsky wins at Warsaw 1920 and then invades Germany through Prussia. This creates WWII in 1920. Europe is in chaos through the 1920s. Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators die before becoming prominent. Europe's talent flee to America and get blended in with the Jazz age.

The European colonial empires end in the 1920s and early 30s. By 1940 Europe is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The PCs are part of an expeditionary force to try to establish areas of order to begin rebuilding.

Basically, it's the middle section of Things to Come the PCs are American GIs doing the job Wings Over the World had in the movie. Combat and diplomacy in an anrachic Europe. Do you want the talk to the BOSS or his Woman?

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This sounds sort of like the backstory in Heinlein's posthumous first novel "For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs." In that Europe goes into a WWII that basically never ends and things degrade to a maybe 1700s tech level.

Meanwhile the USA turns into a theocracy, and then has a revolution that leads to the Social Credit Free Love semi-utopia. (Unfortunately the novel is mostly lectures about the last bit, with maybe 15% actual story.)

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Surely it's clearly Mohammad Beheshti, the actual second in command and quite popular with everybody except the Marxists.


Between said Marxists, the recently disbanded but still active State Security Bureau, and the intelligence services of Iraq, Israel and the United States, I don't see why anybody would assume that. There's no shortage of people who wanted him dead and might have resources to try. Note that the Iranian Marxists [did] successfully blow up Beheshti (and 4 cabinet ministers and a dozen other leaders of the Iranian Revolution) in 1981.

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Rather than the unlikely Puritan-Quaker alliance (which even before I read the bit about them killing each other, struck me as problematic if the Puritans dislike magic and the Quakers embrace it), you could have it be that Puritans' strong faith and staunch refusal to use magic actually makes them rather resistant to it. That is, magic is most effective on those who are receptive to it, but Puritans have a degree of mental discipline (or sheer stubbornness, depending on who you're asking) that closes them off to it.

This does mean some limits to what magic can accomplish, of course, if you want to keep them competitive - many of the benefits to magic (things like growing more food, avoiding disease, etc) aren't things that Puritans having resistance to is going to help them keep up with the other groups.

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I suppose, but such a quiet assassination might have Infinity going Zebras not Horses, especially if this is an echo.

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I don't get that reference. If that's in Infinite Worlds, what page is it on?

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Here's another Iranian idea.

Afshar-2

Afshar-2 is a mainly low Mana Q4 world. It has a few areas of normal mana and some limited (the size of a large house at most) areas of high mana. Although the local time period is in the 1760s the areas of hightened mana correspond to a "usual suspects" pattern. Weirdly reflecting those areas associated with magic in 20th century American popular culture. However, the parallel is named for Nader Shah Afshar one of the last great Islamic conquerors of Southwest Asia in those parallels close to Homeline history.

In most parallels Nader Shah Afshar is killed by a conspiracy of his nobles in 1747. However, something seems to have shifted events. Nader Shah Afshar instead conquered Syria and the Levant. An Islamic Persian Empire extends to the Black, Mediterranean, and Red seas.

The Ottoman state is on the brink of collapse. The Egyptians and the Barbary coast states have declared independence. From Russia to Spain the European powers are sizing up a radically changed eastern Mediterranean.

Basically, espionage in a very Arabian Nights setting. The Cabal is very active on this parallel. Homeline wants to know what the Cabal is after and whether or not it's something Homeline could use themselves.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

If you mean "Zebras not Horses." It is a medical aphorism about not expecting the rare cause rather than the common cause.

"When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra."
- Professor Theodore Woodward in the 1940s.

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One complication that occurs to me is a scattering of normal and high mana sites around that aren't present on OTL (or Homeline) could change things a lot, particularly in this case. One of the things Khomeini actually [did] was formally curse people - warning Iranian troops and security forces that if they opposed the revolution Allah would bring misfortune upon them. If there's more functioning magic, there's a real possibility one of his opponents cursed him back.

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I just finished watching a YouTube video by US of Z and HistorysInfluence What if Napoleon Invaded the Ottoman Empire, or at least the title is something like that. It's a good campaign setting.

In this alternative History Napoleon doesn't invade Russia. Instead he uses diplomacy (and clearly got bunches of critical successes on his rolls) to get the Russians to join him in attacking the Ottoman state. Note: Russia was trying to conquer the Ottomans but Napoleon's invasion of Russia pulled them back.

Anyway picture a successful Franco-Russian invasion of Greece aided by Greek and Bulgarian revolts against the Turks. Now the cities of Adrianople (modern Edirne) and Constantinople are under siege by the Franco-Russian armies. The Brits are sending agents to aide the Turks and spy on the French and Russians.

Meanwhile, while the exotic Swashbuckling campaign is going on. Centrum has a plan. Let the French and Russians win. Britain, shut out of Europe would continue to deepen its control of Asia. If the Napoleonic Empire lasts until dies (which might not be 1821 if Centrum doctors decide to lengthen his life) maybe Britain would be far too entrenched in Asia to let go.

Homeline would be trying A) to discover Centrum plans, B) figure out what to do about them.

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Here's a question for alternative historians. Britain was in many ways isolated from the continent of Europe for most of the 1789-1815 period. This both accelerated the growth of the British Empire, mainly because Britain needed to replace European trade with anything else, and it meant that the embryonic industrial revolution was largely unobserved by Europeans for more than a quarter of a century. Further, the cheap mass produced goods, cloth and thread especially, the British sold the world beyond Europe had few European competitors and a vital unassalible role in financing the government and the war effort. A world with a less violent French Revolution, or more to the point a less violent European response to the French Revolution might be a world were Britain was never as powerful as in our history. True or false?

What do you guys think about that analysis? Are Robbespierre and Napoleon two of the greatest forces promoting the Victorian British Empire? Would Centrum understand that kind of paradox?

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

I think that neglects a rather important thing: the already existing British Empire was both one of the reasons why the French Revolution had happened and why the British were able to weather that crisis. If the British had come out worse for wear during the Second Hundred Years war, the French may have been able to find a less revolutionary resolution to their financial crisis or perhaps even avoid the crisis entirely.
I mean, given the have timeline alteration down to a science with Cliodynamics, I think it's safe to say they would understand this better than any of us. They might even be able to split the greedy jerks you need to build an empire from the greedy jerks who would destroy an empire, but that might be a little far.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Cavorite

This Q5 low Mana parallel is fairly interesting to Homeline. The local USA has a monopoly on an antigravity technology and has Vacuum Tube based Polywell Fusors. This world is a combination of TL6 and TL6+2^. The antigravity tech doesn't work in most parallels but since the local year is 1924 flights to the moon are pretty easy to come by and not particularly regulated.

This means that White Star Lines has been able to smuggle conveyors to Covorite's moon. This has allowed the set up of a moonbase at the South Pole of the Moon on Homeline.

Basically, multiple Homeline nations want control of the moon. Large numbers of Homeline people are sneaking around Cavorite's equivalent of the USA in a world a great deal like Homeline's USA in 1923 and trying not to seem suspicious. Note: It's understood in Cavorite's USA that foreigners want to steal the rare minerals that make spaceflight possible. Suspicious people interested in space can get into serious hot water fast.

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This is one of those timelines where the implications rapidly become insane the moment you let someone with a basic knowledge of physics know the assumptions. I mean, just within the timeline, you have perpetual motion machines and planet-killer weapons. Then, once out-timers finally manage to acquire an antigravity ship and install a conveyor, you can putter around any accessible solar system at whim. And build those planet-killer weapons.

Do not use this timeline in a game with any players who take science half-seriously. Because they will abuse it, in one sense or another.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

For what? What's special about Homeline's Moon that makes them want it so badly, when they could instead be going after, say, empty Earth number 7?

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Empty Earth #7 doesn't have easy access to orbit over Homeline.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

You win the prize!

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

I've always thought an infinite worlds space game would be fun. There are around a half dozen ways for infinity to access orbit, but none of them are simple.

Actually, I mostly just want to go in as a world builder and check all the methods, and make up a bunch of space infrastructure.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

OK, but there's very little resources you could exploit on the moon. Just Silicon, Aluminum, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Titanium and Sodium. It's so dry, concrete would be a good source of water on the Moon. Yes, it's easier to get to a geostationary transfer orbit (3221 m/s vs. 11696 m/s), or escape Earth (2635 m/s vs. 12468 m/s), but how hard is it going to be to build an industrial base when you're limited to what you can smuggle across from a world that runs on variant physics?

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'Trotsky wins in Warsaw' is Reality Seed from GURPS Alternate Earths 2 - though it imagines him as an alternate Napoleon, bringing The Revolution to The Continent by force.

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Now I am picturing an Orion Drive ground launch spaceship which is also a conveyor, so you shift to a hellscape Earth before launching.

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I know that. I used him as the harbinger of doom.

Try this idea. Many people in the 1795-1807 period thought that Napoleon would destroy Europe like Justinian's attempts to reconquer Italy destroyed the Classical period. Picture a post-apocalyptic 1840 with the British Isles and maybe Portugal as the sole remnants of civilization in Europe. Things to Come moved back thirteen decades or so.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Wow. People in the early long 19th century were really silly. Like, if the Thirty Years War didn't finish Europe off, then I can't imagine how Napoleon would.

You probably need to seriously up the firepower of Napoleonic era armies if you want to have an apocalypse like that happen. Maybe have Lavoisier escape the national razor (perhaps he doesn't get involved in tax farming at all?) and him develop chemical weapons that Napoleon uses to great effect, which in turn are imitated by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Or maybe you could have his work in gunpowder unexpectedly lead to Fuel Air Explosives somehow, if you want to smash up the things of Continental Europe too.

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Humans have been capable of apocalyptic genocide of other humans for a while. All that is required is either really heavy use of scorched earth tactics or an intentional drive for genocide.

Neither of which fit 18th century warfare at all. But Napoleon was the beginning of massively mobilized European armies, and I can see why people would find that potentially apocalyptic.

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I only claimed it was something that was discussed in period. Every time period has its own crazy scenarios. Look at 1970s Sci Fi. We in 2024 are supposed to be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with vast floods of people everywhere, and the air far to polluted to breathe without a mask, and a dozen other horror scenarios besides.

Post-apocalyptic Swashbuckling seems like something new.

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I mean, fair enough, but I'd expect if somebody pulled that off in early 19th century Europe, the group that did that would still be alive. Unless the point is that the British did it, which seems to miss the point.

I mean, I was more reflecting on "Justinian's efforts in Italy destroyed the classical period" as really silly. Like, "Forget the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Gothic invasions, the Huns, changing cultural norms, and the Bubonic plague. It's all Justinian's Fault." That historiography is just dumb and probably has more to do with anti-Byzantinism than actually thinking things through.

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Could try combining General Trotsky sweeping into Europe with an extended Spanish Flu for the full apocalyptic effect. Western Europe & Scandinavia would try to hold out, some sort proto-Maginot line from Benelux through to the Alps, but would have to deal with socialists among their own populations, and general war/illness-weary population. Britain & America quitting The Continent could lead to a collapse.

And Spanish Civil War could start early, overthrow of the monarchy leading to not to a Republic but infighting (think Homage To Catalonia infighting). Portugal, Italy, Greece could also suffer - perhaps even the redoubt of Switzerland.


Bonaparte-1 has the Napoleonic Empire collapsing in the 1850s. Whatever came afterwards wouldn't be The Shape of Things To Come, but certainly weak - though Russia was strong on this timeline, likely dominating The Continent.

To take the Napoleonic Wars to apocalyptic destruction, how about throw in its own Spanish Flu a century earlier? Its spread could explain why the likes of Britain & Russia stayed out of the continental wars.


I'm reading Greybeard, and it's set in the post-apocalyptic year of 2029 (with chapters detailing some earlier decades), after a nuclear detonation in space renders humanity infertile.

It was written in 1964 (the forward denounces Children of Men and even the movie) - even has mention of the ruins of an ancient civilization found in Mars (it also has sixties sexism & racism, as much a part of the background as the radiation).

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I recall a character in Poul Anderson "There Will Be Time" saying that it would have been better if Napoleon's conquest of Europe had stuck, because it could then reform from within without more wars.

I am told that alternate history written in French has lots of alternate Napoleon stuff in the same way that alternate history written in English has lots of US Civil War stuff.

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Well Napoleon is one of the most overwhelming facts in European history. It's also the last period before photography. There are no photographs of Napoleon, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and so many other key figures. Meanwhile Wordsworth, Quincy Addams, and Andrew Jackson, we can see in clear romance shattering detail. And like the ACW, the Napoleonic wars seem to be full of missed possibilities that could radically transform everything.

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When using a pandemic to alter history most people hit on the Spanish Flu. This isn't surprising, erasing WWII, the Nazis, the Soviets and so much of what shaped the 20th century in one fell swoop is dramatic but there was a flu pandemic in 1957-58. The Asian Flu as it was caused killed millions, but mainly in Asia.

Picture the Asian Flu killing more than two orders of magnitude more people. Eight hundred million out of a population of two billion. Let's assume that Asia is hit hardest with Africa getting mauled too.

Japan, China, the Koreas, would all have taken decades to recover. Russia being Eurasian would have been severely disrupted. The Vietnam wars started well before the 1950s ( The Quiet American by Graham Greene was actually a pro French Colonial novel that argued America needed to stay out of Vietnam because they wouldn't have outlawed Buddhism) but American involvement would probably be short circuited. The whole late 1960s derailment of Breton Woods would have been less likely too.

Although Japan wasn't quite as technologically innovative as some people say, Japan brought a great number of technological innovations to market and integrated technology into daily life at impressive speed. So the tech level could be identical but with far less actual use of technology in daily life.

It would be a profoundly altered world even if many changes are subtle.

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This is a world where quarantines are going to be a very big deal. International travel will be much more difficult and less common. Trade not quite as much, but also greatly less than OTL. I'd expected there will be a sort of closed city adjacent to major ports of entry where people have to stay for a designated period, or until they are cleared.

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That makes sense. Because I picture most of the deaths happening in Asia (as if the historical 1957-58 flu pandemic) These trends would be strongest in Asia. But with two-fifths of humanity dying, no place would be untouched.

Public Health would be more of a thing. The states might have adopted Health Care on the single payer model as a reaction.

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Since this is still in the era of atomic powered everything*, I see part of the barrier around the port area will be irradiation bunkers for sterilizing all non-living cargo. Which could give you a lot of superbeings if the game swings that way...

* And because the health effects of lower level ionizing radiation may get less medical research since infectious and contagious diseases get more.

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From a different thread:

That's probably a fun little alternate right there: were the Chileans grab napoleon and he gets a career in South America.

what happens next? Do the British invade in response? Does he unite south America? Does he die of Stomach Cancer? Does he simply return to France again and get executed this time? All of this can make for a different world.

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The British are most unlikely to invade. Chile is dependent on its export trade, and the British can restrict that far more easily than they can mount an invasion.

Uniting South America may well be possible, but is going to be quite a long job. The stomach cancer will probably kill Napoleon first.

In my Cold War Pulp campaign, set in 1950, the characters recently fled from Argentina to Chile, with no visas, advance bookings or Chilean money. They just turned up at one of the crossing points in the high Andes, in two cars, one of which had a few bullet holes and a badly wounded man. Fortunately, their face-man has decent Spanish, and got a reaction roll of 25 after modifiers.

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Try this one, Catherine the Great's eldest son, Paul I, whom Catherine disliked immensely, was a sickly child. Paul's death would hardly be a major issue. Catherine could find an alternative heir, it had happened before. Have Catherine pick one of her illegitimate children to be the heir. And simply allow the new Czar be be mildly talented and very level headed. Paul I wasn't a good ruler, just switch him out for a steady hand. Russia becomes substantially more powerful in period.

It is notable that generals with common sense generally fared better against Napoleon. Part of Napoleon's military gift was simply a knack for getting his opponents to make stupid mistakes ( a major advantage in any battle). A calm opponent not given to acting rashly is a bigger threat to Napoleon.

You might trade a French Europe for a Russian one.

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Try this Stalin dies in a battle early in the Russian Civil War. His replacement obeys Trotsky's orders to come to Warsaw. There is no miracle of the Vistula. Once he secured Warsaw Trotsky marches on Berlin. For the next six years the lands between Berlin and Warsaw are a chaotic battlefield.

With Lenin's death Yakov Sverdlov took over. As the early death of Stalin forced Sverdlov to stay in Moscow, he never caught the plague that killed him young. Sverdlov, a highly skilled bureaucrat and a serious Marxist (far moreso than Lenin or Stalin) kept Russia focused on a Marxist course of action. Unlike Lenin and Stalin, Sverdlov never had any serious interest in fascism nor any interest in incorporating fascist ideas into Marxism. Sverdlov was no democrat and spent little time on human rights but he no taste for needless violence.

Meanwhile, Hitler and Ernst Rohm seem to have both died in the Russo-German war of 1920-1926. Germany still has serious problems but no one seems to be able to overthrow the Weimar Republic for now.

It's 1946, the scars of both the World War and the Russo-German War seem healed on the surface. Europe has largely rejected democracy outside of France, the low countries, Denmark, the UK, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland. Democracy in the Weimar Republic and Czechoslovakia hangs on by inertia. The nations of Southern and Central Europe are restless and resentful. Russia is probing around the edges of Europe looking for opportunities.

Basically, a good espionage setting. If you want the Cabal involved interwar Europe was a hotbed of occultism. Recruitment would be easy and profitable. Meanwhile, L.A. in California is the Occult capital of the world in this time period.