New Reality Seeds

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In 1600, Nobukatsu established alliances with the tribes of North Asia with the help of Korea in order to facilitate trade and to help to block the expansion of Russia into North Asia.

I hope this means the Ainu get a better deal than in OTL.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

I hope this means the Ainu get a better deal than in OTL.

That is one of the possible consequences, as the resistance of the Date Clan to the Oda Clan would have likely resulted in the removal of their monopoly over Hokkaido (the Oda Clan would have likely developed the Ainu tribes as clients and assistants in their expansion into Eastern North Asia). In addition, the tribes of Central and Eastern North Asia would be better off, as the Koreans (who would have gained Central North Asia) and the Japanese (who would have gained Eastern North Asia) would not have committed genocide and mass enslavement like the Russian did during the 17th and 18th century. They would have just wanted the fur trade revenue and the tribes could have likely ruled themselves as long as they paid a nominal tribute and opposed Russian expansion. The discovery of the mineral wealth of North Asia would have been an added bonus and, by 1700, Korean and Japanese nobility would be sponsoring mining concerns throughout the region.

Other than the continuance of the Oda Shogunate, the key feature of this time line is the alliance between Korea and Japan, rather than the Japanese invasion of Korea. With that alliance, the Qing dynasty is aborted before it is even born, the Ming Dynasty continues in relative isolation, and Russia is only able to claim a third of North Asia. As Japan expands into Northwest North America, it gains further dominion over the fur trade, which gives it a positive trade balance with Ming China. It is able to leverage that positive trade balance to trade Ming Chinese goods for European goods because it wants European products, so it is in a really good position by 1700 (its primary competitor in the fur trade would be its ally, Korea, which would have one-third of the market while Japan would have two-thirds of the market).

[dcarson]

Given the Ainu experience would there be Ainu settlements in Alaska? The Klondike gold fields are well inland but there was a gold rush to Nome around the same time which is coastal. If that gets found early because of different settlement patterns that's a major bit of economic boon.

[David Johnston2]

Mirror-1: An alternate Homeline (but one that never discovered parachronics) where something like 97% of Homeline's population have counterparts of the opposite sex.

Mirror-2: Starting in the 13th century, West Africa became united into a single empire that conquered and colonized Europe (which they call "western Pangaea") and Britain (aka Albion) before moving on to colonize the Americas. These days in their 1950s a black upper class in Albion is fighting a rising tide of white terrorism in a conflict that mirrors events in Homeline's South Africa. (Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman)

Mirror 3: An alternate World War II, where once again historical Earth's population are mirrored, except with a weird degree of historical inertia, so that the combat troops are overwhelmingly female and the national leaders are likewise all female. It is just taken for granted that men are too emotionally frail for combat or leadership responsibilities.

Mirror 4: The United States turned to Communism following a civil war in 1919 and occupied large parts of western Europe and Japan following World War II. Meanwhile, the Kerensky republic never fell in Russia, and Russia and China are now the foremost and highly capitalist powers of the 1980s, while defectors flee the People's Republic of America southward into Mexico.

[TGLS]

Mirror-5

The year is 1941. Sorelian France under Charles Maurras has defeated Germany by applying their new strategy of Foudre-Guerre. While Russia (under a wartime coalition of Kadets and Mensheviks) defiantly resists the French advance, France has turned their attention across the Channel, seeking to crush the Synarchist regime of George Steele (born Eric Arthur Blair).

On the other side of the world, America continues their war in Mexico over Japanese embargoes and demands for unconditional withdrawal. While the Japanese people seek to avoid being drawn in to another World War, it seems to be growing less and less doable with each outrage from overseas. Meanwhile, because of treaties with the British Union blocking expansion north, the Senate finds itself embracing the Navy's "Strike South" plan, seizing the Panama canal and delivering a decisive strike to the Japanese naval base on Chuuk.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Given the Ainu experience would there be Ainu settlements in Alaska? The Klondike gold fields are well inland but there was a gold rush to Nome around the same time which is coastal. If that gets found early because of different settlement patterns that's a major bit of economic boon.

Probably no major settlements in 1700, though I imagine that the Japanese would be willing to let the Ainu act as emissaries to the natives. Since they would be interested in trading Japanese products for Native furs, Native furs for Chinese goods, Chinese goods for European goods, and European goods for Japanese products, mining would be a secondary concern unless they stumbled on a massive field. Of course, increasing the wealth of the Ainu could allow them to marry Japanese women and to take concubines, so the Ainu might still find their numbers dropping as wealthy Ainu men marry Japanese women and wealthy Ainu women marry Japanese men.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

In this Q6 low manna parallel cheap clean fusion power generation is invented by a student of Nikola Tesla in the year 1939, in New Jersey. The fusors are basically superscience TL7+2^ versions of Polywell fusors. By the end of the war prototype fusors are providing cheap electric power to New York City and several naval vessels. When the Marshall Plan was worked out, fusors were seen as a simple non-threatening way to reduce the importance and influence of Soviet Oil. By 1950 Western Europe got 50% of its electric power from fusors. Even in the USA, where vested interests were against the fusors, they were 30% of electric power generation in that year.

The Atoms for Peace idea soon became a program to use fusors to power the world. Nations like India and Brazil enthusiastically embracced fusors. Because fusors were cheap to build and cheap to operate they could out-compete even hydroelectric power in price.

With Soviet oil, a drag on the market the USSR found itself under economic stress and their economy stopped growing by 1950 (In Homeline History the Soviet Union had no real growth after 1960). Meanwhile, the West and the former colonies had a far stronger economic boom. The economy of the USA was half again as large in this parallel's 1960 as in Homeline's 1960. And most of the rest of the planet was substantially better than that when compared to their Homeline counterparts.

The local year is 1967, the USA has landed its first manned craft on the Moon. President Johnson has announced plans for a Moonbase (with and an economy twice as large as Homeline's 1967 the Space Program cost half as much relative to the economy). Africa is experiencing a mild but pleasant economic up-swing. India to Japan Asia is experiencing a steady economic boom. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, under Leonid Brezhnev is near collapse. The communist nations are poor, most of them have barely recovered from the midcentury wars. If communism is to survive, let alone grow, desperate measures must be taken.

Basically, this world is sliding towards a nuclear war. Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal, all want to prevent human extinction but they're still at cross purposes. Home line wants no war period, just a simple collapse of the Soviet state and its replacement with something less hostile. Centrum wants a nuclear exchange, but just enough to collapse the world economy and create intense technophobia. The Cabal wants to collapse all the societies of the Northern hemisphere. Serious studies involving psi have been taking place and one psi researcher has while working on the theory that Psi equals magic, successfully cast a spell under strict laboratory conditions. Then he successfully repeated the experiment several times under far stricter supervision. In other words, this world might soon be a full-blown techno-magical civilization and one that knows how to work in Low Manna environments, full competitors.

PCs would be just about any type of agent that could pass for seminormal in a wealthier wilder version of the late 1960s.

[David Johnston2]

Mirror-6 is a TL 6 world where "vampires" have taken over. These vampires are living beings who give birth and die, but have a lifespan of about a thousand years. Apart from their superhuman longevity, and regenerative abilities, they are also super-strong and have night adapted eyes. Humans are nearly extinct on this work and are regarded with a great deal of dread because no only can they operate freely in the burning daylight, but if they drink vampire blood it grants them similarly enhanced healing, and boosted night vision and strength, but with side effects of addiction, and Bad Temper that leads to violent outbursts. Vampire blood from this world is regarded as contraband and trade in it is vigorously pursued by I-Cops.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer;2361042
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev[/url] is near collapse. The communist nations are poor, most of them have barely recovered from the midcentury wars. If communism is to survive, let alone grow, desperate measures must be taken.
.

You really have done a lot of "Let's hand liberal democracies a tech level boost which will somehow make the dictatorships desperate enough to attack even though they'll be even more outgunned than in reality" realities.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

You really have done a lot of "Let's hand liberal democracies a tech level boost which will somehow make the dictatorships desperate enough to attack even though they'll be even more outgunned than in reality" realities.

It isn't a bad ploy. In our real world a great deal of instability comes from the fact that the average dictatorship is worse, in the long run, at managing an economy than the average democracy. People seem willing to put up with political oppression more than they tolerate relative poverty. Dictatorships, like any society can't deal well with massive population loss. Similarly, an overwhelming demand for change always terrifies dictators.

I'm basically turning dictatorships into the national equivalent of cornered and wounded beasts. I'm forcing a fight. Brezhnev or Stalin would have launched a nuclear war even at the risk of human extinction if they thought they'd lose power. I think Putin would do the same. Putin's Russia is far weaker than the USA, if they decline much more will they even be a power? But Putin takes a far more agressive attitude towards the USA than most other living dictators. The Iranians talk agression, but Putin acts out agression.

Putin sees Russia in freefall. Obama was right, in thirty years Russia is going to have collapsed again. Putin knows it to. So he lashes out to prevent collapse. Foolish? Yes. But commonplace. WWII happened when it did because Hitler had the choice between economic collapse and conquest. Many dictators attack powerful foes or anyone available when their rule is threatened.

It's a commonplace.