New Reality Seeds

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Morganthau plan was rejected in America just about as soon as it was made public. Morganthau had to publicly apologize to keep his job. It's interesting that America gets far more criticism for a plan that was never official, let alone put in practice, than many European nations received for actual war crimes.

My point is less, "America's ****ed up for wanting to wreck Germany" and more, "The British political elite wasn't particularly in to wrecking Germany". You can see this during the Versailles negotiations, where the French were strongly in favour of occupying the Rhine permanently, while the British delegation was caught between a public that strongly disliked Germany and a political elite that sought balance of powers and a Germany that could be a counterweight to the Bolsheviks (while stripping their colonial empire and destroying the German navy).

In a hypothetical peace, I could see the French saying, "To hell with Germany, let them all starve.", but I can't see Britain saying that too.

[Astromancer]

Justinian's mishandling of the Italian wars, caused mainly by his jealousy of Belisarius, shattered Roman society in Italy. Before Justinian it was still the classical period. After the wars it was the Dark Ages.

Picture a World Jumper with a romantic fixation on Classical Antiquity. He's brought a team with him to help him both deflect Justinian's jealousy and aid Belisarius' conquest.

Agents of the Cabal have decided that changing history on this Q6 low/normal mana world is in their advantage. Centrum agents have decided to investigate this interest. Homeline agents have decided they need to keep both groups busy without getting anybody killed.

Basically, it's an espionage game with sword and sandal elements. This parallel is a low fantasy version of late Antiquity. Skim the Alexander Romances and the Arabian Nights, but use a subtle touch.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Justinian's mishandling of the Italian wars, caused mainly by his jealousy of Belisarius, shattered Roman society in Italy. Before Justinian it was still the classical period. After the wars it was the Dark Ages.

Are you sure it's mishandling and not an intentional semi-genocidal policy to break anything he can't have that shows up in northern Africa doing the exact same thing to the Vandals as well as in Italy?

It's a great divergence point though. Or mission objective.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Are you sure it's mishandling and not an intentional semi-genocidal policy to break anything he can't have that shows up in northern Africa doing the exact same thing to the Vandals as well as in Italy?

It's a great divergence point though. Or mission objective.

Whether or not Justinian intended to destroy the Latin speaking portions of the Empire, it was a long term mistake.

Oh, thanks for the compliment.

[Astromancer]

Lenin-9

This Q6 low mana parallel is fascinating to the Cabal and terrifying to Homeline and Centrum. Aleksander Bogdanov (who in most parallels is a certifiable mad scientist and personal friend of Stalin and Lenin) seems to have made his mad theories about the socialist nature of blood work! As outlined in his novel Red Star Bogdanov believed that mutual blood transfusions would allow a population to share all of their positive traits among themselves and cure all their deficiencies. These transfusions would have to be fairly regular and among large groups of people. (If you have Issue 444 of the Fortean Times or SD Tucker's Hitler's and Stalin's Misuse of Science both of these give more details.)

In most parallels, Bogdanov kills himself testing his theories. On this parallel he succeeds! The New Socialist Man is quasi-androgynous, with larger brains, skulls, and eyes, greater resistance to disease and longer life spans. The down sides to outsiders is that these New Men seem to have at least a partial hive mind, and seem to lack individuality. They seem to be more intelligent than ordinary people, but less creative or thoughtful. They have enhanced senses, endurance, and heal rapidly. They make excellent soldiers and officers.

The Cabal wants the secrets of Socialist Blood Therapy. Including the truth of its Martian connections. Could ancient Martians be possessing these New Men? The Cabal would like armies like this New Socialist Man army.

Meanwhile, Homeline and Centrum, for different reasons, find this A) creepy and B) likely to make the Cabal way too powerful.

The local year is 1930. The tech level in Russia is more advanced than in most parallels but not quite either TL7 nor TL6+1. But any technology that is early WWII or sooner wouldn't be outrageous.

The children born to the women and men of the New Socialist Men are only seen in propaganda films. Under uncanny influences since conception, what are they like?

[Astromancer]

In most worlds John Quincy Addams' plans to improve education and scientific scholarship in America came to nothing. Andrew Jackson was furious with JQA and determined to crush all his ideas. However, in this Q6 Low Mana parallel, Jackson sees things differently. He believes that such things might be good for the nation and getting them set up and funded would be bad for the political future of anyone trying to do it.

So John Quincy Addams gets his passion projects and still gets defeated. President Jackson subtly protects these institutions while letting Addams get all the odium.

JQA's plans bear quality fruit and America is in the technological lead worldwide by the 1870s. This combined with the USA's greater tendency to Integrate technology into daily life in the 19th century causes large numbers of German scientists and technicians to immigrate to America for the job opportunities. Far larger numbers than in Homeline history.

By 1880 the USA has transitioned into TL6. Europe, already unnerved by the shore size of American markets and industry stare in horror as America outpaces them technologically. This leads to Europe being desperate to catch up. Science education in schools and the provision of polytechnics for the working classes and the poor speeds up technological advances even more.

In WWI, Germany puts its defeat down to falling behind technologically and industrially. Although, as in our world, things like poor logistics and biting off more than anyone could chew were more relevant.

The local year is 1925. America has transitioned to TL7, though not evenly. Many poorer rural areas are actually TL5. Without a New Deal, pragmatic measures to bring the countryside up to date haven't been attempted.

Homeline, worried that this America might become unstable, and that this parallel's Nazi Germany might be armed with ICBMs and nukes, is trying to push New Deal style reforms.

Meanwhile, the Cabal is busy from Egypt to Japan hunting down choice occult relics throughout European colonial empires. The Cabal wants to maintain Europe's technological development in order to sustain the colonial empires and their looting.

Centrum, on the other hand, wants to slow things down. As far as Centrum sees it Weimar Germany was always unstable and leads to Nazis, a rum lot. Centrum wants to slow down change and hopefully prevent WWII. Centrum thinks a brutal depression will cool things off.

Basically, Homeline and the Cabal versus Centrum to prevent WWII.

[SRoach]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

In most worlds John Quincy Addams' plans to improve education and scientific scholarship in America came to nothing. Andrew Jackson was furious with JQA and determined to crush all his ideas. However, in this Q6 Low Mana parallel, Jackson sees things differently. He believes that such things might be good for the nation and getting them set up and funded would be bad for the political future of anyone trying to do it.

That's...interesting. I remember Jackson as the guy who gave the unlanded common man the vote, undermining the rural vote for all future time. I'm frankly surprised that he wouldn't want his common man voter to have the best education that he could.
It wouldn't have stopped the Democrat Party from shooting itself in the foot by giving all those city tenants votes equal to the common farmer, who owned his own farm, but it seems, unwise, to spread the franchise without doing something to educate the new franchisees.

Did he hate the idea, or did he just hate the guy who came up with it? I can think of a few, recent, things that are widely hated by one side just because of which party decided to add it to their plant plank. I'll not go into specifics.

Imagine a world where city folk still can't vote, but have better access to electricity and running water, and are better educated on the whole, while rural folk mostly can, but frequently have a foreshortened education, due to inadequate access to schools and the persistent demands of the homestead interfering with any sort of regular study, and frequently are dependent upon kerosene lanterns and small Briggs-and-Stratton style engines for powering all their appliances, and still ferrying water from the well in a bucket, (and venturing outside to the outhouse, at all hours and seasons).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by SRoach

Imagine a world where city folk still can't vote, but have better access to electricity and running water, and are better educated on the whole, while rural folk mostly can

That's not a very stable situation for the long term, particularly if you are getting far enough along in history to talk about electricity. Workers of the World, Unite.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by SRoach

That's...interesting. I remember Jackson as the guy who gave the unlanded common man the vote, undermining the rural vote for all future time. I'm frankly surprised that he wouldn't want his common man voter to have the best education that he could.

I think it's a bit of an overstatement of what exactly JQ Adams wanted to do and assigning much more blame on Jackson. Adams wanted to establish a national university, a national observatory, a naval academy, a uniform system of weights and measures, etc. The Jacksonian coalition disliked this plan for many reasons, including that they felt this was a centralizing move that would set the stage for abolition.

At the same time it's worth noting that the phase out of property rights based voting was mostly complete before Jackson's election (though the poor began voting en masse in the 1840 election).

[patchwork]

Originally Posted by TGLS

I think it's a bit of an overstatement of what exactly JQ Adams wanted to do and assigning much more blame on Jackson. Adams wanted to establish a national university, a national observatory, a naval academy, a uniform system of weights and measures, etc. The Jacksonian coalition disliked this plan for many reasons, including that they felt this was a centralizing move that would set the stage for abolition.

That's at least as interesting an idea, though. It's like an early Conspiracy X/Black Chamber setup; the US government has access to TL7 devices that it is not sharing with other empires or the American general public. And they don't deny it. Transistors, RADAR, possibly jet aircraft. The stage is set for a national health care service simply because military hospitals produce such vastly better outcomes than the private sector ones. But now they're stuck in a two front "war" as both the Trusts and the European empires are demanding access to these wonders and the US government can't fight them both. With, yes, the prospect of organized labor (or, even more likely, organized crime) taking the decision out of their hands.