[IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The Cold War, therefore, was far less efficiently funded than it was in OTL; most military planners assumed that there would be a conventional war fought in the Antarctic, possibly in the aftermath of an atomic exchange in the

There still has to be large numbers of Soviet troops in Eastern Europe, otherwise the the Warsaw Pact will simply implode. The people weren't big fans of their governments, and sometimes the Soviet armies were the only things holding them up.

Originally Posted by PTTG

There clearly were some large shifts. China went isolation isn't and

When? Some options and effects (consider each as including the next:
Early 50s) United Korea (assuming Korean war went as scheduled)
Early to Mid 60s) Less support to Vietcong, possibly surviving South Vietnam (unlikely)
Late 60s to mid 70s: No Border War with Vietnam
General: Impact of Sino-Soviet split generally lessened. Fewer rival Communist parties struggling against each other around the world. Probably less coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests, less influence by the Tiananmen protesters on European protesters.

Originally Posted by PTTG

Germany was reunited on schedule, but the details were substantially different.

Hm. Given what followed a slowdown in economic growth in East Germany (which was only inflamed further by crumbling infrastructure and other failures), I think it's fair to say that it might be more chaotic than the historical outcome. Or perhaps the economic uncertainties revitalize the Communist states, and reunification results in a weird hybrid economy.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

I doubt chemical products like drugs or dyes are worth much. The formulas maybe, but the actual products, well, not many places have a chemical industry that's much cheaper than homeline,

They're worth enough. While Homeline does have the technical ability to set up production lines for Ciaverella-Britain's teen mood stabilizer, they have no need to make that capital investment when the finished product is already available in large quantities. The market at home isn't that large due to the restrictions on prescribing such a thing there. Murex dye doesn't have much of a market on Homeline, but it has a huge market on a bunch of pre-industrial worlds where modern synthetics might seem suspicious. Homeline can and does manufacture the pharmaceutical formulae from Malthus, but the people importing meat into Malthus need a way to turn the gigantic returns on their luxury product into money back home and that means buying something that has some value back home.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Rossum-1 is a world where cybernetics simply advanced in a hurry leading to widespread automation and ubiquitous humanoid robot servants and massive social stresses that are likely to set the world on fire. The robots are proscribed merchandise, but Rossum is currently where Homeworld gets its replacement limbs.

What's the local year & TL?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Ciaverella-1 is a world in the grip of paranoia concerning the delinquent tendencies of teenagers. Ciaverella's UK, deals with the "problem" by requiring all of their teenagers to be on a mood-leveling drug. Despite their massive over-use of it by Homeline standards, it's a useful drug when used more judiciously.

Clockwork Orange worldline? Makes me wonder how bad off this worldline is.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Hannibal-3 is a world in which Carthage won the Punic Wars. It's primary export is purple dye because it is actively cultivating murex snails.

What is the local year here?

[David Johnston2]

Rossum's local year is 1986 and the TL 8 (high 9 in robotics and cybernetics)

Hannibal-3 is in it's 14th century.

And yes, Ciaverella is the YA dystopia world.

[Astromancer]

Culvern basically, gunpowder was discovered early. The late Roman elites begin to see investing in technology as a good thing. Consequently many obscure Roman technologies are more available here. These have both curiosity value on Homeline and can be useful on low tech worlds were discretion is useful.

The local year is 402AD. Gunpowder weapons have changed some battles in favor of the Romans. Several barbarian attacks were averted all together. The local tech level seems to be a blend of TL3 and TL4, probably as Roman technology is simply better distributed.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by PTTG

In Byrd-1, the United States spent much of the '40s developing claims on Antarctica in the belief that it would prove to be a lucrative and untouched source of minerals and energy. The Soviet Union responded, leading to a race to industrialize the South Pole that went on for the rest of the century.

It was a catastrophic economic boondoggle of truly astonishing proportions. By the time it was done, The US' imperial ambitions were obliterated, and the USSR had collapsed. In the current year of 2013, spaceflight is hardly more advanced than it was in Homeline's '60s, computers are delayed by more than a twenty years, and the gross world economic product is 40% lower than homeline at the time.........

Originally Posted by dcarson

I can see Canada and the Nordic nations being relatively wealthier because the tech developed for Antartica lets them develop more efficiently. It lets Russia develop Siberia more also but that doesn't overcome the overall waste of investment from Antartica. China gets more out of Tibet also which may explain some of the inwardness.

Yeah, I was thinking that the north pole would be just as militarized as the south, if not more. Alaska's resources have been exploited, as well as a lot of Siberia and Canada. It just turns out to not be worth the investment, in the long run. But at least as much interesting drama is going on up north as down south.



To the folks asking about computers, I'm thinking that all the people who think windows 95 was the pinnacle of OS design and thought they should have just polished and kept that think this world's computers are awesome.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Culvern basically, gunpowder was discovered early. The late Roman elites begin to see investing in technology as a good thing. Consequently many obscure Roman technologies are more available here. These have both curiosity value on Homeline and can be useful on low tech worlds were discretion is useful.

The local year is 402AD. Gunpowder weapons have changed some battles in favor of the Romans. Several barbarian attacks were averted all together. The local tech level seems to be a blend of TL3 and TL4, probably as Roman technology is simply better distributed.

Rome is a great candidate to actually make effective use of gunpowder, have a fairly applicable social structure for it. It makes effective use of roman economic and logistical strength, as well as the emphasis on teamwork over heroism, and its really effective against traditional roman formations.


This is a great seed, but I can't see it in the "valuables" thread.

[Astromancer]

Reality Bethesda (named for the biblical healing well) is profoundly advanced in medicine and all techniques of healing. This Q5 world is treated as neutral territory by both Homeline and the Cabal.

The effective Tech Level for medicine is TL12^. As this is achieved with a blend of magic and technology, these techniques aren't exportable.

Various reconstructive surgeries and other treatments are available on this parallel (if you can do it in GURPS: BioTech they can do it here faster and much cheaper).

Certain people use these reconstructive treatments for purposes of disguise. Medical tourism is commonplace.

[Rolando]

Don't know if this was mentioned (not going to read all 55 pages, sorry).

A timeline where Steve Jackson got all the rights to the Microgames and got a bargain of some more and we got a reprint of them with expanded material in kickstarter projects.

Also in that same timeline FASA didn't dropped the Renegade Legion IP and we have a lot more of that game universe. The price maybe there are a lot less Battletect stuff out there.

I know this is a treasure trove to a lot of people!

[PTTG]

In Kriegsspiel, a series of small changes lead to much of the western world considering France's position in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 to be virtually unassailable; nonetheless, the actual fighting of the war was practically identical.

The utter shock of the world to see France defeated by a relative underdog lead to an even more enthusiastic search for the Prussian secret. As in our time, Prussia possessed the only military to make extensive use of wargaming, a fact sized upon by thinkers the world over.

Every major military power became convinced that the secret to military strength was the detailed strategic training available through kriegsspiel.

In the present day (1959), the fad has run its course and be re-invigorated time and time again. While military kriegsspiels are top secret, (and in the english-speaking world, are exclusively called 'war games' since WWII,) civilian variations exist with an immense amount of detail and scale, while remaining practical and fairly easy to use, often with specialized slide rules and mechanical calculators available.

These games have the prestige of Chess and Go the world over; their motifs are used in literature and art. Professional civilian players exist, and although they are recognized as not really commanders, the media does seek out their thoughts on strategic considerations.

The valuables of this world are, of course, finely tuned pen-and-paper war games and miniature models. For better or worse, WWII introduced both armored tactics and maneuver warfare. There is also the possibility that within the top-secret military war games, there are strategic games for fighting even more advanced conflicts... even perhaps something presaging global thermonuclear war.

For the civilian market, sure, most of those games are pretty unimportant. For the military market, there may be some very interesting ideas locked up in strategic gaming institutes of Moscow, London, or Bethesda.

[Kymage]

Among the trading preferences of Homeline is trading with timelines which have video technology that has a method of storage of video recordings, (VHS tape, Blu-ray, DVD or digital) that is able to be transferred to home line for viewing without too much difficulty. There are many shows or movies which do not exist in Homeline or exist in different forms would be can found in the multiverse

Welles-1. In this timeline the Internet hoax of home line of Orson Welles wanting to do a Batman movie was not a hoax. In this timeline it was actually true. Orson Welles became enamored Batman in the mid 40s and wanted to do a movie. After long and complex negotiations, he was able to write and film the movie he wanted. It was released in 1947. Welles starred as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. He cast Edward G Robinson as Crime Boss Oswald Cobblepot, who became known as the Penguin during the movie, Joseph Cotten as Inspector Gordon, Hedy Lamarr as Catwoman and Clifton Webb as Alfred.

He wrote the story of Bruce Wayne returning from World War Two, after having served with British commandoes during the war, and becoming Batman to bring down the criminal gang led by Cobblepot.

When the movie was released, it was considered a cinematic masterpiece, garnering several Academy Awards, and was also very profitable. The Studio was able to convince Welles, after much negotiation, pleading and lots of money being offered, to do a sequel. Welles introduced the Joker in the sequel and wrote a story about the rise of costumed villains in the wake of the collapse of the Cobblepot gang. All the original characters returned and Welles cast Richard Widmark as the Joker.

Critics both on Welles-1 and Homeline consider the movies as some of the best ever made. They routinely make the list of ten list of best movies of all time on Welles-1. This has led to the earlier acceptance of Superhero movies as adult fare by Hollywood and by association, Science Fiction in Welles-1 This timeline has many movies that Superhero and Science fiction fans eagerly view.

Lucas-2 In this time George Lucas continued making Star World movies in the 80s and 90s after Return of the Jedi. He was able to complete his original plan of having all nine Star war movies done by the mid-90s. The prequels and sequels are generally considered superior to the ones that were created on Homeline as that Lucas was able to maintain his focus the whole time making the movies. The many Star Wars fans in Homeline continually compare the movies from Lucas-2 to the ones from Homeline. Infinity Inc has on occasion had to intercept Star Wars fans who wanted to get this timeline’s George Lucas' input on the movies they grew up with. Sadly, in this Timeline, the Star Wars Holiday Special was still made.

WB-1. This timeline is different in that it is named after a Network as opposed to a person. In this timeline, different decisions were made by WB in the the late 1990s and early 2000s as to what TV shows were green light. In particular WB decided to go ahead and produce the show about Bruce Wayne becoming Batman during his late teenage years to his early 20s. In Homeline, this show did not make it out of development as the WB studio did not want to risk possibly distracting from the production of Batman Begins, which was in production at the same time. In this timeline, the studio decided to take the gamble of both a TV show and movie going at the same time. The studio was richly rewarded. At the same time, the studio greenlit a TV show about Superman’s teenage years called Smallville. The two shows were very successful and managed to set up a shared universe. Bruce Wayne, the name of the show, lasted for multiple seasons. WB was able to build on the success of the shared universe of the DC universe on the TV network. This success enabled the WB network to continue and not have to merge with the UPN as it did in the early 2000s. WB succeeded in this timeline and became a fifth network. Homeline fans consider the two shows as examples of excellent worldbuilding.

Buffy-1. In this timeline the personality of the creator of the Buffy the vampire Slayer TV show was different from that of Homeline and many flaws/plot problems that were present in Homeline were not present here. The show lasted nine seasons due to the better working environment. The storylines were generally more upbeat and many Buffy fans on Homeline prefer the boxed set of the show from this timeline over the original one. Also other shows by the creator of Buffy lasted longer- Angel lasted five seasons while Firefly ran for five seasons also.