New Reality Seeds

[patchwork]

I don't think that's incompatible; let the Nazis take Moscow in '42, then someone (it barely matters who) assassinate Hitler; suddenly Europe consists of Britain, Vichy France, and a vast swathe of heavily armed disorder. Good luck and have fun.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I kind of want Hitler dead and all that before launching into a big partners switch. But Civil Wars in China and Russia in 1947 would pull everybody in. Besides someone up the thread wanted a Franco-German alliance during a war. So it seemed to me that, France looking to restore her Glory and Germany looking for a ticket back to full human status after the exposure of the Death Camps, was the best opportunity.

That does sound interesting. To be fair, that was a mispost from an alternate dimension- that sort of thing tends to happen on the first of April...

[Astromancer]

Having read The Tigress of Forli I think that Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici (wikipedia article here) is a great point to work historical changes from. Prevent her first marriage to Girolamo Riario and arrange for her to marry Giovanni il Popolano, not as her third marrage, but when they are in their teens, and watch Italian history jump.

Of course, there are several change points in her life that could have radically altered Italian history. The woman nearly captured Cesare Borgia (no doubt that she would have treated him far better than he treated her.) Renaissance Italy is so wild and strange and Caterina would be a wonderful strange attractor. Especially as she's not only beautiful, smart, profoundly well educated, politically skilled and audacious, and charming, but she was a skilled warrior and a master swordswoman.

[Astromancer]

I just finished Trickster Travels by Natalie Zemon Davis. Ms. Davis finishes her book with an alternate history of her own. Basically Al-Hasan al-Wazzan meets Rabelais and they are both far better and more important authors. A fun thought.

But focusing on Leo Africanus (Al-Hasan al-Wazzan), the man is made for crosstimers. After his mid-40's we know nothing about him. He is a widenly traveled man, who is very well educated and speaks a unusual set of languages. He's wonderfully placed to promote intercultural exchange at a point in history were that could bring vast changes. The man is a goldmine of exotic alternate worlds.

[Astromancer]

I'm reading The Queen's Bed. Not only do several interesting alternate histories come out of weddings and children for Elizabeth I, the marriage negotiaions could lead to alternate wars and alliences. Picture the Duke of Anjou actually getting married to Elizabeth, she was willing, and their having a child in 1580. Then the Duke death on schedule. The struggles to married Elizabeth's daughter (let's call her Anne) would be epic. Given that our hypothetical Anne would be the child of the Tudor, Howard, Valos, and Medici, families, she'd be tough herself.

[PTTG]

Do you ever sleep, or is it just reading awesome books?

I took a look at Leo Africanus. There are just plain too few alternate histories that focus on changes in Africa.

One could create a very different world by having an iron-working central-african culture just keep growing. I'll have to do some wikipedia reading and try to come up with some ideas, but I think it's feasable to build an advanced-tech-level alternate in that way. Maybe it's 1760 and the globe-spanning colonies of African empires are using laser weapons and drones to suppress the European and Asian barbarians even as they play proxy wars in the New World.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Do you ever sleep, or is it just reading awesome books?

You're not the first to ask.

I took a look at Leo Africanus. There are just plain too few alternate histories that focus on changes in Africa.

One could create a very different world by having an iron-working central-african culture just keep growing. I'll have to do some wikipedia reading and try to come up with some ideas, but I think it's feasable to build an advanced-tech-level alternate in that way. Maybe it's 1760 and the globe-spanning colonies of African empires are using laser weapons and drones to suppress the European and Asian barbarians even as they play proxy wars in the New World.

You might read David Keys especially his book Catastrophe. Keys makes a case that East africa was absorbing Hindu/Indian cultural influences and was on the way to becoming it's own distinctive high civilisation with a strong South Asian influence when a massive climate disruption changed the local disease climate and forced a switch from agriculture to pastoralism.

But any big change in Africa would require an earlier introduction of high-yield food crops.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

You're not the first to ask.



You might read David Keys especially his book Catastrophe. Keys makes a case that East africa was absorbing Hindu/Indian cultural influences and was on the way to becoming it's own distinctive high civilisation with a strong South Asian influence when a massive climate disruption changed the local disease climate and forced a switch from agriculture to pastoralism.

But any big change in Africa would require an earlier introduction of high-yield food crops.

Maybe the hypothetical Egyptian Atlantic Crossing was real in this setting? They go over, find some other dudes building pyramids, and they trade spices for potatoes or something. Pharoes doing lines of cocaine.... Or, maybe Vikings bring some potatoes back from the new world a little earlier, the Romans adopt them, then they move down to Africa.

Rome goes through a potato famine but now there's some of them on the continent.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Maybe the hypothetical Egyptian Atlantic Crossing was real in this setting? They go over, find some other dudes building pyramids, and they trade spices for potatoes or something. Pharoes doing lines of cocaine.... Or, maybe Vikings bring some potatoes back from the new world a little earlier, the Romans adopt them, then they move down to Africa.

Rome goes through a potato famine but now there's some of them on the continent.

Bringing maize to Africa early would be a vast historical change.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

You're not the first to ask.



You might read David Keys especially his book Catastrophe. Keys makes a case that East africa was absorbing Hindu/Indian cultural influences and was on the way to becoming it's own distinctive high civilisation with a strong South Asian influence when a massive climate disruption changed the local disease climate and forced a switch from agriculture to pastoralism.

But any big change in Africa would require an earlier introduction of high-yield food crops.

You'd also need to get rid of sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis) and wide-spread domestication of elands would probably help, too.