New Reality Seeds

[adm]

Since the balloon bombs were point attack systems in our timeline, they were not particularly effective. However, if they could be fitted with a dispersal system that scattered the pathogens, it may prove to be markedly more effective.

[dcarson]

Given the damage to the infrastructure and the horrible (40% below normal) harvest the last year of the war in Japan estimates are that without the food aid the US sent ten million would have died from starvation. So yeah the cost to Japan would have been a lot higher then in our timeline.

With Japan cut off the five million troops outside of the home islands would not have fared well either.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this mythic parallel. Gordon basically it's the world of Flash Gordon.

Set the story in 1940 after Ming's death at the end of the third serial. In both of the last two serials Earth has been hard hit. The Nitron Ray Ming used on Mars created vast worldwide storms. And Ming's third attack the Purple Death slaughtered hundreds of millions. Now, due to Zarkov's combining Earthling, Martian, and Mongo, technologies, rocket travel is set to become cheap.

The world's of this solar system are facing a period of rapid transformation. The Nazis and Stalinists are still around, and if Ming escaped a third time, both Hitler and Stalin, like Queen Azura, might fall prey to his con games and plots.

This setting would have both grim and romantic elements. It would certainly be a high action setting.

I'd play in this one.

[PTTG]

I love the Flash Gordon idea. There's so much you can do- and it lends itself to rapid scale growth, where PCs can start out trying to get some Mongonese technology set up on the family farm out in Kansas, and end up captain of a free trader, prince of the Asteroid Kingdoms, and Champion of Earth respectively.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Given the damage to the infrastructure and the horrible (40% below normal) harvest the last year of the war in Japan estimates are that without the food aid the US sent ten million would have died from starvation. So yeah the cost to Japan would have been a lot higher then in our timeline.

With Japan cut off the five million troops outside of the home islands would not have fared well either.

So what does that mean setting wise? World wide food shortages, the war in the Pacific (at least) extending, Japan itself hit the hardest.

I think the US would weather this much more easily than Europe. Sure corn and meat production would be impacted, but during the war meat was rationed drastically anyway. We would, and more importantly "could" switch to other food crops relatively easily. There would still be shortages, and likely food riots in major cities, but nothing like what would happen in Soviet Russia or Europe in general.

In eastern Europe it becomes a replay of WWI. Starving troops on the frontlines, and starving proles at home would shake even Stalin's iron rule. Frontiers would break down quickly, Soviet far eastern areas calving off to try to stem the mass migrations that the central government can't control (at least, not after the mass executions that drain ammo production that should be going into Europe).

Germany itself might gain some ground in this, but itself faces the same problems. War, starvation and disease drive entire populations from their homes, seeking the imagined safety of other lands. Probably south across the Mediterranean into North Africa and (hopefully) across to the Americas. The North African states are overwhelmed by the flood of refugees, the Allied war effort bogged down in the humanitarian crisis. Hitler is assassinated, Himmler sues for peace which the Allies are anxious to grant.

The Pacific War is an unmitigated disaster for the Japanese. The home islands suffer huge losses to starvation and disease, with no where to escape. Mao and the Nationalists, facing ruin, negotiate instead of resuming their civil war, especially after US suspension of aid of the Nationalists (the US focusing instead on the ruins of Japan).

By 1965 the world is healing, and fault lines are forming fast. Nazi Germany controls much of Europe, from Poland to Vichy France. Italy has broken into a number of small states, the North allied to Germany. North Africa is a welter of "colonial" states, some with significant Jewish populations, nearly all allied to Israel, which controls access (at least) to the Arabian and Iraqi oil fields. China, after stepping into the power vacuum the Japanese left and the harried Americans did not replace, is still a relatively backwards nation, but controls the Koreas and most of "indo-china". The US has been under military rule since 1949, although the Central Command promises elections for 1968. Otherwise it rules the Western Hemisphere much more directly than in the OTL. The rump Soviet Union, and most of the former soviet republics, are third world basket cases.

By 2000 Nazi Germany, the Peoples Republic of China and the US are the leading economic and military powers. Closely allied to the US are Britain, the Republic of France, the Israeli Mandate, and the dozens of Spainish, Italian and Central and South American nation-states. Two dozen nations have nuclear weapons, although they have never been used. The first man to step foot on the Moon was Adolph Fischer in 1982, and although there are extensive satellite networks maintained by the Big Three there are virtually no deep space programs. Overall the TL is mid to late 7.

Germany and Israel face off with proxiy wars in the Balkans and east Europe. The Chinese keep Soviet Russia on a short leash, using it to probe at Germany and the US. The US has invested heavily in South America, with Brazil and Argentina equivalent to Britain and South France in economic development, while Mexico has become the new industrial zone (the population and industrial pollution of Mexico City approaching the apocalyptic).

While there is a surviving, and nuclear, Nazi Germany, Infinity doesn't find this one particularly threatening, as the other world powers keep it firmly in check and are balanced with it militarily and economically. Centrum dislikes the multipolar state of this timeline, and the fact that English is losing ground to the welter of other languages - even the US population commonly speaks Spanish in a large percentage of households. Reich-5 is interested, but sees this Nazi Germany as a heresy, killing Hitler and compromising with the West, and steadily losing on most fronts to the Israelis.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

I love the Flash Gordon idea. There's so much you can do- and it lends itself to rapid scale growth, where PCs can start out trying to get some Mongonese technology set up on the family farm out in Kansas, and end up captain of a free trader, prince of the Asteroid Kingdoms, and Champion of Earth respectively.

You read my mind.


Basically I'm looking to combine Flash Gordon's Swasher SciFi with the kind of movies Warner Bros did at the same time. Linking Mongo and the Dust Bowl, Ming and Youth gangs, swords and tommy guns. Rework Happy Hapgood into a Hard boiled detective fiction guy. Two great tastes that taste great together.

[PTTG]

What's the smallest, most recent change that could make for an interesting modern worldline?

Of course, that all depends on what you mean by "small," a single point mutation in a single virus resulting in a terrible plauge is technically "small..." For these purposes, let's go with "a single human decision." One dude made/did not make a mistake or whatever.

Here's mine:

In March 2011, the secondary packup generators were located in equally unwise positions, resulting in a total cooling failure immediately after the tsunami. This resulted in far more heat in the buildings, reducing their structural stability and preventing maintenance; this was exacerbated by hydrogen explosions following emergency water cooling rushed in sooner than OTL. The buildings were therefore far weaker than in our TL, and it was less safe to stabilize them. Less than 24 hours after the initial quake, an aftershock broke open the spent fuel storage pools in two of the buildings, and exposed more Chernobylite to air and fuel, starting fires.

Between the massive release of highly radioactive waste into the Pacific and the clouds of radioactive smoke, this is starting to get really terrifying.

US, Canadian, and Japanese governments eventually shut down Pacific fishing for the foreseeable future (I'm not sure how safe it would be, but the public outcry against not doing so would be immense). The official most severe nuclear disaster makes Chernobyl look like a broken glow stick and pretty much puts an end to public acceptance of nuclear power for at least as long. The lack of Pacific fishing, the culling of contaminated meat and crops, and the panics result in dramatically increased prices for food, which probably changes the political landscape somewhat. Tea Party cries for an end to regulation aren't nearly so important when you see cruel grocers hike prices up 30% in a week.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

What's the smallest, most recent change that could make for an interesting modern worldline?

Of course, that all depends on what you mean by "small," a single point mutation in a single virus resulting in a terrible plauge is technically "small..." For these purposes, let's go with "a single human decision." One dude made/did not make a mistake or whatever.

Try this one, Hitler decides to stay at a speech for the full scheduled time. And the bomb under the floorboards blasts him to bits. The incident I'm thinking of took place in 1939. WWII would only be delayed at that point, to many things pushed everybody toward war at that point. But WWII without Hitler would be radically different.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one, Hitler decides to stay at a speech for the full scheduled time. And the bomb under the floorboards blasts him to bits. The incident I'm thinking of took place in 1939. WWII would only be delayed at that point, to many things pushed everybody toward war at that point. But WWII without Hitler would be radically different.

You seem to mean this attempt, and if so, the European war was already underway.

It's more interesting if someone knocks him off earlier in 1939, after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, but before the seeds of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact are sown in early August. Goering succeeds, but he's not quite as politically flexible as Hitler, and a non-aggression agreement with the Soviets is less likely. Goebbels will make Hitler into a martyr quite readily, and the German people may actually be keener on war than they were in 1939.

That means the invasion of Poland and the start of war with France and Britain probably goes off much as per history, but there's a real chance of a Nazi-Soviet war breaking out after both countries invade Poland from opposite sides. The British and French are unlikely to actually ally themselves with Stalin, but they might actually have the gumption to invade Germany once the Heer and Luftwaffe are tied up in Poland. The war could end sometime in 1940, without having become a world war.

Other factors to make things complex would be Mussolini trying to regain leadership of the Axis, after being overshadowed by Hitler, and the inevitable conflicts within the Nazi leadership as they all try to claim Hitler would have backed their ideas.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

You seem to mean this attempt, and if so, the European war was already underway.

It's more interesting if someone knocks him off earlier in 1939, after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, but before the seeds of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact are sown in early August. Goering succeeds, but he's not quite as politically flexible as Hitler, and a non-aggression agreement with the Soviets is less likely. Goebbels will make Hitler into a martyr quite readily, and the German people may actually be keener on war than they were in 1939.

That means the invasion of Poland and the start of war with France and Britain probably goes off much as per history, but there's a real chance of a Nazi-Soviet war breaking out after both countries invade Poland from opposite sides. The British and French are unlikely to actually ally themselves with Stalin, but they might actually have the gumption to invade Germany once the Heer and Luftwaffe are tied up in Poland. The war could end sometime in 1940, without having become a world war.

Other factors to make things complex would be Mussolini trying to regain leadership of the Axis, after being overshadowed by Hitler, and the inevitable conflicts within the Nazi leadership as they all try to claim Hitler would have backed their ideas.

My timing was off. But killing Hitler early in the War is a big plus for Germany.