New Reality Seeds

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Basically, multiple Homeline nations want control of the moon.

For what? What's special about Homeline's Moon that makes them want it so badly, when they could instead be going after, say, empty Earth number 7?

[PTTG]

Empty Earth #7 doesn't have easy access to orbit over Homeline.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Empty Earth #7 doesn't have easy access to orbit over Homeline.

You win the prize!

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

This is one of those timelines where the implications rapidly become insane the moment you let someone with a basic knowledge of physics know the assumptions. I mean, just within the timeline, you have perpetual motion machines and planet-killer weapons. Then, once out-timers finally manage to acquire an antigravity ship and install a conveyor, you can putter around any accessible solar system at whim. And build those planet-killer weapons.

Do not use this timeline in a game with any players who take science half-seriously. Because they will abuse it, in one sense or another.

I've always thought an infinite worlds space game would be fun. There are around a half dozen ways for infinity to access orbit, but none of them are simple.

Actually, I mostly just want to go in as a world builder and check all the methods, and make up a bunch of space infrastructure.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Empty Earth #7 doesn't have easy access to orbit over Homeline.

OK, but there's very little resources you could exploit on the moon. Just Silicon, Aluminum, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Titanium and Sodium. It's so dry, concrete would be a good source of water on the Moon. Yes, it's easier to get to a geostationary transfer orbit (3221 m/s vs. 11696 m/s), or escape Earth (2635 m/s vs. 12468 m/s), but how hard is it going to be to build an industrial base when you're limited to what you can smuggle across from a world that runs on variant physics?

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one. Trotsky wins at Warsaw 1920 and then invades Germany through Prussia. This creates WWII in 1920. Europe is in chaos through the 1920s. Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators die before becoming prominent. Europe's talent flee to America and get blended in with the Jazz age.

The European colonial empires end in the 1920s and early 30s. By 1940 Europe is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The PCs are part of an expeditionary force to try to establish areas of order to begin rebuilding.

Basically, it's the middle section of Things to Come the PCs are American GIs doing the job Wings Over the World had in the movie. Combat and diplomacy in an anrachic Europe. Do you want the talk to the BOSS or his Woman?

'Trotsky wins in Warsaw' is Reality Seed from GURPS Alternate Earths 2 - though it imagines him as an alternate Napoleon, bringing The Revolution to The Continent by force.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I've always thought an infinite worlds space game would be fun. There are around a half dozen ways for infinity to access orbit, but none of them are simple.

Actually, I mostly just want to go in as a world builder and check all the methods, and make up a bunch of space infrastructure.

Now I am picturing an Orion Drive ground launch spaceship which is also a conveyor, so you shift to a hellscape Earth before launching.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by fchase8

'Trotsky wins in Warsaw' is Reality Seed from GURPS Alternate Earths 2 - though it imagines him as an alternate Napoleon, bringing The Revolution to The Continent by force.

I know that. I used him as the harbinger of doom.

Try this idea. Many people in the 1795-1807 period thought that Napoleon would destroy Europe like Justinian's attempts to reconquer Italy destroyed the Classical period. Picture a post-apocalyptic 1840 with the British Isles and maybe Portugal as the sole remnants of civilization in Europe. Things to Come moved back thirteen decades or so.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. Many people in the 1795-1807 period thought that Napoleon would destroy Europe like Justinian's attempts to reconquer Italy destroyed the Classical period. Picture a post-apocalyptic 1840 with the British Isles and maybe Portugal as the sole remnants of civilization in Europe. Things to Come moved back thirteen decades or so.

Wow. People in the early long 19th century were really silly. Like, if the Thirty Years War didn't finish Europe off, then I can't imagine how Napoleon would.

You probably need to seriously up the firepower of Napoleonic era armies if you want to have an apocalypse like that happen. Maybe have Lavoisier escape the national razor (perhaps he doesn't get involved in tax farming at all?) and him develop chemical weapons that Napoleon uses to great effect, which in turn are imitated by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Or maybe you could have his work in gunpowder unexpectedly lead to Fuel Air Explosives somehow, if you want to smash up the things of Continental Europe too.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by TGLS

You probably need to seriously up the firepower of Napoleonic era armies if you want to have an apocalypse like that happen.

Humans have been capable of apocalyptic genocide of other humans for a while. All that is required is either really heavy use of scorched earth tactics or an intentional drive for genocide.

Neither of which fit 18th century warfare at all. But Napoleon was the beginning of massively mobilized European armies, and I can see why people would find that potentially apocalyptic.