New Reality Seeds

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

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.

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.