Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

Which gives me a thought: even if the British Empire couldn't make them themselves (it'd be iffy to go from nuclear piles to working neutron bombs in one go), they could have been *sold* them by a unscrupulous rogue crosstime organization in the wild-and-woolly days before Infinity locked all of that down on Homeline. Now it's twenty years later, and somebody on Homeline's having an attack of conscience, or being blackmailed, or something...

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

Actually it is thought that Reich-5 is unable to reach them. Red Moon shows that may not be the case. The fact that Reich-5 can reach a Quantum 5 reality that neither Homeline or Centrum realize is Quantum 5 (based on their actions they seem to think it is in Quantum 6 or 7) shows that things are not as simple as they appear.

In fact, Reich-5 is playing things so low key on Red Moon that neither Homeline or Centrum know they are there (Homeline would freak if they did find out)

One must remember that the Third Reich had a lot of redundant programs all trying to curry favor with the Führer, something that is likely true of Reich-5. With the in fighting and backstabbing that occurred (once the SA had served their purpose they were eliminated) it is easy to see how this could have happened and not followed up on.

The only real problem is that Reich-5 didn't even learn of alternate worlds until their year 2001 (2022 on Homeline or 5 years ago when Infinite Worlds was published in OTL in 2006) Even assuming time has passed for them as it did for us (ie Homeline is 26 years "ahead" of us) that is only 18 years ago (13+5) and the neutron bombs were used in Reich-5's 1997, 4 years before they gained the knowledge of alternate realities even existing.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

I did wonder what the British were doing while the Frankish Empire was growing, given that it violates Rule 1 of classical British foreign policy.

Anyway, the neutron strike appears to have happened 22 years ago, which I believe is way before Reich-5 acquired transtemporal travel.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

I think it's a two-party job. There is one party that is a superpower on this world, which stood to gain from the destruction of the Frankish, and an outside player having its own reasons to curb that power. The outsider provided the know-how, the local player carried out the plan.
I don't know who the outsider is; one would need to look into what Frankish policies were a threat for someone out there. As to the local power, it must be the British Empire; not very affected by the explosions, but greatly benefiting from the disappearance of a European hegemonic power.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

It would be interesting if there weren't any sort of proper crosstime organization responsible, but rather a nuclear physicist from a (possibly cinematic) reality with neutron bombs. The fellow ends up in Neutron-1 by accident (perhaps he is a latent psion with involuntary world-jumping, or is involved in an experiment that goes horribly wrong), and is either captured by or is sympathetic to a native government, then proceeds to teach them how to make neutron bombs. An interesting additional twist would be if it were the Frankish Empire who captured him, and he feigned cooperation in order to sabotage their efforts at just the right moment, seizing control of the launch mechanism to cause the disaster of February 6. That would be more difficult to manage if, as is likely given the date, the bombs were dropped by aircraft rather than launched by rockets, of course.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

But this just side steps the key question: who provided the information? Also there is the issue of the Tl. Unless the were at TL7 you are talking a lot of uplift to build a neutron bomb and the ICBM needed to make it effective.

More over it takes two years to advance each science 1 TL. So you are talking 1932 minimum and the is ignoring all the infrastructure need to produce a neutron bomb and an ICBM.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

Well, yes. I don't think we have enough starting information to answer that.

Given the situation and what was happening, a possible guess would be an Earth not yet discovered, where Russia is the hegemonic or sole power, with the necessary scientific knowledge including interdimensional travel, and no qualms at all about brute-force intervention on Earths where the local counterpart (the local Russia) is faring badly. That would be a big headache.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

If I ever work on this setting beyond the half hour of Wikipedia research that I did for it in the first place, I'd probably say that the British got very unpleasantly surprised at how fast the French got weird after Napoleon III took the throne, and only started seriously scrambling when Napoleon IV kicked it up a notch. Either that, or they tried to intervene at various points and couldn't quite manage it.

Thinking about it, the Frankish Empire was not really all that big on overseas colonialism, with the exception of North Africa. Its navy couldn't face the Royal Navy, but once Italy was conquered it could make things difficult for the RN in the Mediterranean. There was also no Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882 (the French refused to align with the British over opposition to the revolt, which led eventually to a client French state instead of a British colony), which meant that the Suez Canal would remain open to Frankish ships.

The Frankish Empire in this timeline actually tried somewhat to avoid overly antagonizing the British, but that all went out the window with the beginning of the General War. If the British had had actual troops in Western Europe before it got overrun, they might have actually declared war right then; and things were going that way in 1936 anyway before the bombs made the whole thing moot. Again, I'd have to do a bit more research if I ever wanted to develop this, but that's probably close enough to plausible for a game session. :)

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

For the "European War" scenario an intermediate or even short-range ballistic missile would be adequate. No need to go inter Continental.

Actually, for the surprise decapitation strike described smuggling things in railroad cars might do if it weren't for the "airburst" part of the description.

Re: Neutron (Quantum 6)
 

Tsarist, or Stalinist? Either one would make a really fun fifth wheel to contrast with Reich-5.