[Game] Work Up a Steampunk Setting

[Warlockco]

Question 23
What kinds of medical advances have been achieved, and how has this affected society?

Question 29
Who is winning the race to plunder the depths of the seas?

Question 30
Who owns Australia

Question 31 NEW
Which nation(s) or group(s) in the Middle East offer the greatest opposition to the stagnant Ottoman Empire, and who are their primary international backers?

[Daigoro]

I'd already finished most of this before tshiggins posted his Japanese government. It doesn't seem compatible with what he has, so I'll just add it here without any change for forumite edification.

Originally Posted by TGLS

Question 20
How are the governments of the world powers organized?

World Government 20g (Alternative)- Japan:

Japan's government has been described as "a Catholic imperial feudal democracy, with seasoning."

Spoiler:  

Starting in the early 17th century, exiled Kirishitan (that is, Japanese Roman Catholics baptised by Portuguese Jesuits) daimyos in Macau were able to gather a rebellion that retook Kyushu, and which eventually toppled the short-reigned Tokugawa Shogunate. The Otomo Shogunate rejected the 1635 Sakoku Edict of foreign separation, and indeed pursued a policy of open trade in Asia and with European trading partners- particularly with the Dutch out of the Port of Hirado, the Portuguese at the Port of Nagasaki, and with the British, via the Port of Hakata, making Japan the dominant player in the Eastern seas up through to the mid 1700s.

To establish legitimacy for the newly revived Christian movement, in 1672, Amakusa Shiro was installed as the Eastern Pope, in the Holy See of Nagasaki, effectively severing ties to the Roman Catholic papacy and setting Kirishitan Catholicism apart as a distinct branch of Christianity. Among the daimyos and the populace, this new religion did not gain dominance, but nestled in with Shinto and Buddhist worship without fully displacing them.

Jumping forward to the Meiji Restoration, enacted by the still-reigning Meiji Emperor, Emperor Mutsuhito, the Meiji Constitution enshrines the sovereignty of the Emperor as the divine sum of all the parts of the Empire, which are given voice in the Imperial Assembly, the Teikoku Gikai. Seated in the capital Kyoto, it is a unicameral, quinpartite legislature, meaning five distinct voting councils convene together in plenary session.

The Five Councils of the Imperial Assembly are-
The Kazoku Kaigi- Council of Daimyos (with a full voting share)
The Shuugi Kaigi- Council of Representatives (one full share)
The Shinkou Kaigi- Council of Faiths (one full share)
The Chokunin Kaigi- Council of Imperial Appointees (a 3/4 share)
The Juuzokukoku Kaigi- Council of Dependent Territories (with a 1/4 voting share)

The Daimyo Kaigi- Council of Daimyos
Of the 200 daimyo in Japan, only 100 at a time sit in the Assembly for each 3-year term, rotating alternately. The two separate sessions are named the Spring Session and the Autumn Session- Shundan and Shuudan. Roughly 2/3rds identify as Kirishitan daimyo, the other 1/3 are syncretist Shinto-Buddhists, but they're aren't evenly split between the two sessions, so the nature of the council changes considerably between terms. Currently it is mid-way through the Kirishitan dominated Shundan Session.

The Shuugi Kaigi- Council of Representatives
These are democratically elected commoners from the 350 electoral districts across the country. They serve 4 year terms and must be aged 30 years or older, and can be summarily dismissed by the Emperor. This Council is dominated by the conservative Shinken Kesshinto Deep Determination Party, but the upcoming Shinkahenkato New Fire of Change Party and Rodo Minsha Worker's People's Association are also gaining popularity.

The Shinkou Kaigi- Council of Faiths
Currently afforded 120 seats by the Imperial Agency of Faiths, divided evenly with 40 seats each for representatives of the Shinto, Buddhist and Kirishitan priesthoods, who then individually determine a selection process for their representatives. Shinto proportionally sends members from the top shrine networks according to their size. They attend session in full ceremonial garb, but out of deference to the divinity of the Emperor, abstain from speaking or voting. The Buddhist delegation rotates representation through its 56 branches by a form of lottery, but for the past 18 months have been only sending junior acolytes as a protest over some esoteric point of order. The Kirishitan delegation is filled by appointment by the Eastern Pope, and is mainly bishops and deacons from the 16 dioceses and arch-dioceses.

The Chokunin Kaigi- Council of Imperial Appointees
This is a mixture of representatives who are considered to have an important voice to contribute to the running of the Empire, and consists of politicians and statesmen, members of the Imperial household, favourites and confidants of the Emperor, doctors, academics, scientists, engineers, social philosophers, artists, writers and mercantile captains. The Imperial Academy has seven permanent seats, as does the George III Industrial College of Shimonoseki, while Edo, Waseda and Kyoto Universities hold two each. Appointments are by Imperial decree, usually chosen or advised by the Privy Council. Membership varies, but has edged up past 250 seats.

The Juuzokukoku Kaigi- Council of Dependent Territories
External territories also get representation in the Assembly, although whether those seats are filled by those states' nationals or Japanese varies.
Colonies have 5 voting seats each, being Okinawa, Philippines, Formosa, Manshu and the Korean Peninsula.
External holdings gain one seat each, including Indochina port and mining operations, the Kamchatka Territory, Shanghai holdings, the Ryukyu Islands, as well as sundry other minor territories, altogether close to 40 seats.

Note that the voting shares are distributed per Council, not per seat. That is, the 100 votes of the Daimyo Council have the equivalent weight as the 350 votes of the Representative Council. The Daimyo and the Kirishitan tend to vote in similar directions, so they form a de facto voting block. However, with only a small number of seats to the council, a single seat in the Council of Dependent Territories has a lot of weight, which is partly why the council gets such a low voting share.

Each member's vote is still counted independently towards a piece of legislature, with a different weighting determined by their member council, so the process of tallying votes can be complicated.

Cabinet positions are declared on three year terms and elected individually by a plenary session of the Assembly. The Daimyo/Kirishitan voting block is strong, so the Prime Minister position usually goes to a member of one of the three great Kirishitan Daimyo clans, the Otomo, Arima and Omura Han. The current Prime Minister is Lord Arima Masaaki of Hizen Province.

As for the Emperor, he is, "in robust and vigorous health," according to his attending squad of physicians and medical engineers. Due to diabetes and imminent renal failure, the 58 year-old Emperor is now confined to a burnished gold medical support wagon, on which he is wheeled around to various appointments and appearances so he can continue to fulfill his duties of state. The main capsule supports him in a semi-reclined posture, while technicians monitor an array of dials, gauges, flasks and filters built into its rear. There was a minor health scare earlier this year when a dialysis vessel exploded catastrophically during a meeting with the Thai Ambassador, but his principle physician predicts many years of active service to the Empire. "Tenno Heika, Banzai! Amen!"

[ericthered]

Question 31 NEW
Which nation(s) or group(s) in the Middle East offer the greatest opposition to the stagnant Ottoman Empire, and who are their primary international backers?

Answer 31:

Stagnant? Who said anything about Stagnant? With the troubles in Russia, the Ottomans are on the rise, still holding large sections of the balkans and rapidly industrializing. They look for new territories in the caucuses. They also hold the fertile crescent, but without an oil economy, that's not particularly relevant on the world stage.

The main threat to Turkish power is entente power. They like to fund Balkan nationalist groups, but Brazil and Japan have been propping the Turks up militarily, hoping to keep a foothold in Europe. And they've been sinking their fingering into the Turkish government and economy.

Question 32:
What cultural influences are in Louisiana? I can't figure out if its strongly French or strongly British. What kind of music and food reign king? what ethnic groups are most common?

[Emerald Cat]

Question 30:
Who owns Australia?

Answer to Question 30:

Both Britain and Japan created penal colonies on Australia. Japanese colonies in Australia initially had larger populations than their British counterparts due to closer proximity to their homeland. Subsequent migration to British colonies has eliminated this gap. Britain and Japan stopped sending criminals to Australia as a punishment due to popular demand circa 1848 and 1893, respectively.

British colonies in Australia enjoy commonwealth status within the empire.

Japan nominally controls their colonies on the island. However, resentment is strong in Japan's Australian colonies. Firstly, ~70% of the population are deported criminals or their descendants. Naturally, these people are not happy that they were deported.

Secondly, the 45 year slog to end penal deportation to Australia has convinced them that the Japanese Empire is hopelessly insular if not corrupt. The Diet's decision to defund deportation rather than ending the punishment itself only compounds this problem. Australia's imperial judges are notorious for "deporting" Australian citizens to Australia as a cost cutting punishment. After all, the court doesn't have to spend any additional money to "deport" someone to a location they already live. Therefore, the Diet's defunding of the punishment is moot. Naturally these non-punishment verdicts have led to a lot of vigilantism.

If a war ever occurred between Britain and Japan, the loyalties of Japan's Australian colonies would be in question. Whether they seek commonwealth status with Britain or try to become independent nations remains to be seen.

[Emerald Cat]

Open Questions

Question 23
What kinds of medical advances have been achieved, and how has this affected society?

Question 29
Who is winning the race to plunder the depths of the seas?

Question 32:
What cultural influences are in Louisiana? I can't figure out if its strongly French or strongly British. What kind of music and food reign king? what ethnic groups are most common?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by ericthered

They also hold the fertile crescent, but without an oil economy, that's not particularly relevant on the world stage.

(SNIP)

The fossil fuel deposits of the Middle East still exist, it's just that petrol coral grows in the deposits and trap the hydrocarbons in solid form.

So, does knowledge of the vast deposits in the Persian Gulf countries just not exist yet? They're there, but people just don't know it?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The fossil fuel deposits of the Middle East still exist, it's just that petrol coral grows in the deposits and trap the hydrocarbons in solid form.

So, does knowledge of the vast deposits in the Persian Gulf countries just not exist yet? They're there, but people just don't know it?

I was thinking its known that they're there, but its not huge deal yet: there are big deposits everywhere. 1920's Middle east was special because it had so much more easy access oil: you poked a hole and it flowed to the surface in a clean form.

Here, its not going to flow, its not substantially cleaner than every one else's oil, and the fuel is abundant in many places, not just traditional oil reserves. So I figured its not as big of a deal. I'm sure the Turks do love having a good source, but its not an international resource.

That's my reasoning.

[TGLS]

Question 23
What kinds of medical advances have been achieved, and how has this affected society?

Answer to Q23
The major medical advancement of the last century is germ theory and vaccination. Germ theory spurred measures to develop public sanitation, which in turn, made the cities of the world all the more livable. Antiseptic surgery is the norm. Vaccination has been key in the colonization of the tropics; in the Southern China and the Indochina, some strains of malaria have been vaccinated against.

The importance Quinine has not been discovered; either because it does not exist, or because of bad luck. On the other hand, a wide variety of synthetic drugs are available, including local and general anesthetics, painkillers, sedatives, stimulants, and antibiotics. Antiviral treatments are being researched. Pharmacists are regulated as heavily as doctors. Many pharmacist associations are agitating to fluoride additives to the water supply.

Blood types are well understood, and blood banks are common around the civilized world. Organ transplantation has been demonstrated successfully in animals like pigs, but human trials are a long way off.

Medical machinery like the iron lung and dialysis machines are widely touted, but often far too expensive for most in need to use them. Germany has introduced a health insurance program that attempts to address the so called "health deficit" between the rich and poor.

Question 29
Who is winning the race to plunder the depths of the seas?

Question 32
What cultural influences are in Louisiana? I can't figure out if its strongly French or strongly British. What kind of music and food reign king? what ethnic groups are most common?

Question 33 (New)
It has been stated that China has collapsed. Why did it collapse? Are there any factions fighting it out or did it just disintegrate into various warlord states?

Question 34 (New)
What are popular tourist destinations?

[starslayer]

Question 23
What kinds of medical advances have been achieved, and how has this affected society?

Answer

Its not so much that what has been achieved is 'better' so much as the 'flavor' for how things are being achieved. About the same time in our own timeline everything 'cutting edge' medicine revolved around electricity, radiation, and cocaine.

In the Tar Coral world, everything cutting edge in medicine revolves around- Tar Coral, pressure, and heat.

As a result of which they are able to cure the bends, not because of any special knowledge of nitrogen narcosis, but instead because they think that pressure can cure everything, so when people were becoming enigmatically ill while diving deeply they tried a variety of tar coral based potions, subjecting them to pressure, and selective heat- pressure worked.

As well the naturally astringent properties of tar coral led them to a much earlier discovery of antiseptics- crushed tar coral is basically incompatible with any form of life that is a threat to regular living tissue.

Finally there use of heat as a treatment has led to a much quicker understanding of the role of heat in relaxing sore muscles and relieving long term bone and tissue injury. The concept of bathing in cold water never really caught on (possibly because a method to heat that water was abundant), and bathing regularly in hot water is considered a requirement for doing manual labor.

The counter of course is that they are not as developed in an understanding of painkillers, radiation technologies (like x-ray), and there understanding of nerve transmission is much reduced- not major losses in the current year, but as there medicine advances those missing pieces may come to haunt them.

[tshiggins]

Question 32
What cultural influences are in Louisiana? I can't figure out if its strongly French or strongly British. What kind of music and food reign king? what ethnic groups are most common?

Answer to Q32

The Culture of the Louisiana Confederacy varies from one region to the next. In the area around New Orleans, where many French Arcadians remained even after the area's successful conquest by the British Ontarries, music and cuisine very much retains its French folk influence. Music is made with mandolins, guitars and concertinas, along with washboard percussion, combined with small drums and tambourines, and resembles an early form of zydeco.

Music in areas with concentrations of black freedmen and "indentured servants" featured soulful gospel music, played with guitars, banjos, wooden flutes and whatever percussion they can find or make up. Bongo drums are quite common, as well, due to constant contact between the southern Lousiana Confederacy, and the Caribbean nations. A version of sorrowful secular music has also begun to appear, based on gospel music and back-beat rhythms remembered from African ancestry, and this has begun to be called "blues."

Further north, the Lousiana Confederacy loses its French and African-American character, and the inland areas closely resemble traditional British folk culture. Violins, mandolins and woodwinds entertain people, while percussion is not nearly so prevalent. Up in the northeast coastal areas, local culture strongly resembles the seaport cultures of Great Britain, and the folk music features sea chanties, sailor ballads and other sorts of songs, as well as a healthy dollop of Irish traditional tunes of all sorts.

Further south along the east coast, French influences are actively avoided, due to lingering memories of the wars and the fact that local areas lack the wealth of New Orleans, the northeast, or the breadbasket areas of the Mississippi basin and the southern shores of the Great Lakes. Music and cuisine are strongly based on British folk culture, and the people there have traditionally resisted external influences, although that has begun to change.

(All of this describes the local popular culture, and describes the sort of music one would hear in a local tavern on a Friday or Saturday night, or at a country dance or other such event. Wealthier areas feature such high-cultural offerings as Shakespeare plays, symphonies and even ballet and opera, although not to the extent the early 20th Century did in our time. The wealth of the Louisiana Confederacy, although steadily increasing at a decent clip, still cannot compare to the Guilded Age of the United States, in our timeline.)

Of the four main cultural areas, most outsiders consider the New Orleans culture set the most vibrant, due to the wide range of influences and cross-fertilization between different cultural groups. The food from the area is also considered the best in the Confederacy, although the seafood cuisine of the northeast is quite popular, as well.

Question 35
What is the current status of Spain, and what are its relationships with the Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America?