New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Thanks. Have started a tech divergences section to be posted later, and I agree with you about airships becoming more and more common being something that fits here. Rockets, too.

Zarkof being a renowned inventor, you said Flash and Ming were here. Don't forget cavorite. It will make space flight more practical. Which is an odd way to describe any tech on this world.

[dcarson]

Cavorite also makes airships a lot more practical.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Zarkof being a renowned inventor, you said Flash and Ming were here. Don't forget cavorite. It will make space flight more practical. Which is an odd way to describe any tech on this world.

Originally Posted by dcarson

Cavorite also makes airships a lot more practical.

Have not decided if I want to include cavorite as written, but I might. It's a setting with some space travel and a lot of Gadgeteers, so it's reasonable for there to be something like that.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Tripart World

On this Q6 world the Spanish Flu came early. The armies of both the Entente and Central powers were shattered by the flu. World War I ended in stalemate.

The Russian Empire still collapsed. The Bolsheviks still rose to power. However, in this world an intact German Empire faced them. During the war to contain the Bolsheviks Germany and Britain mended their fences and began to become allies. Meanwhile, Imperial Germany, unlike Weimar Germany, doesn't ally with China. Japan, when it attacks China, faces a foes with far weaker armies and far less competent officers.

America, which experienced the loss of Woodrow Wilson in 1915, from the Spanish Flu, didn't have a right-wing reaction in the period. Instead the Progressive Movement had a longer heyday.

The Period of rebuilding after WWI caused a series of depressions and recessions which drove mass politics to the left and elite politics to the right. The USA was a partial exception, the rich and powerful went to the Right, but the government followed the masses to the Left. For reasons not understood the Klu Klux Klan didn't revive in this world and there was minor, but very useful, progress on the American Race issue in this world.

More later, I have to go now...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Tripart World

On this Q6 world the Spanish Flu came early. The armies of both the Entente and Central powers were shattered by the flu. World War I ended in stalemate.

The USA got into Imperialism late and the American people never really got into Imperialism, and even E.P.Thompson admitted America got into Imperialism late, out of it early, and were mainly Anti-Imperialist. So in this world, America got out of all forms of Imperialism much earlier. Still the Monroe Doctrine was popular and enforced. Offending both the Japanese and the Anglo-German Alliance.

By 1930 the Americas were a solid mutually respectful Alliance system. Japan ruled all of China and Eastern Siberia. Finally, Europe, Africa, and the Western two-thirds of Asia were ruled either directly or indirectly by the Anglo-German Alliance, with the notable exception of a Western Siberian buffer state ruled by the Bolsheviks.

Between economic stagnation caused by war and plague and the wars of consolidation in the Old World, the decades between 1930 and 1950 saw little technological change. Society is on the verge of tech level seven but nothing is pushing it forward. The exception to this is in the Americas, were the USA has crossed into TL7 in a broad range of technologies. Brazil and Argentina look ready to follow suit. This disturbs both the Anglo-Germans and the Japanese.

The Anglo-Germans see both America and the Japanese as existential threats is a. Japan because their very existence challenges the idea that Europeans alone are fit to rule. America because it is a powerful democracy that is not only becoming more democratic and even socialist it is seriously trying to get beyond racism. As an alliance of deeply hierarchical, conservative, officially Christian Monarchies, the Anglo-Germans can't help but see an officially secular, democratic, and increasingly socialist republic as a threat if only because most of their people see it as a highly attractive alternative. Further, the progress the Americans have made on the Race issue is deeply unsettling to an empire built on White Supremacy,

The Anglo-Germans want to attack Japan first, but they want to keep the USA neutral.


More later....

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Tripart World

On this Q6 world the Spanish Flu came early. The armies of both the Entente and Central powers were shattered by the flu. World War I ended in stalemate.

Japan sees both America and the Anglo-Germans as interlopers in their rightful area. French Indo-China, the Dutch East Indies, India, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, Alaska, Tahiti, and Malaysia, are all seen as aggressive intrusions into Japanese space, and direct threats to Japanese sovereignty. Japan would like to Deal with the Anglo-Germans first. Still, America is also a power, and Japan would like either America's neutrality or a mild alliance.

America sees the threats from both sides. The USA wants peace and security. Brazil and Argentina are adapting this world's version of F.D.R.s New Deal and his Second Bill of Rights. They are even more focused on Peace. Canada is a loyal part of the British Empire and very pro Anglo-German, but as little as they like the Yankees, they don't want a war fought on their soil. Moreover, Westminster rules Canada with a direct and heavy hand in this world. This breeds resentment, especially in Quebec. In the West Indies, the improved position of African Americans (in some ways far better than Homeline's 1950, in others only mildly better) is well known in the Caribbean and Africa. Anti-Colonial movements often reference American pop culture as a protest against their Anglo-German overlords.

More later...

[dcarson]

Liberia would either be a American foothold in Africa or a point of conflict because of interference by colonial powers.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Liberia would either be a American foothold in Africa or a point of conflict because of interference by colonial powers.

Good point.

[David Johnston2]

Maine is a parallel in which the Maine never made it to Cuba, exploding en route. As a result there was no Spanish American war, Teddy Roosevelt never became President, national parks never became a thing, the federal government took far less of a role in regulating commerce. In the 1930s Japan purchased the Philippines from an embattled Spain and distracted by taking control of its new possession, the Sino-Japanese war never happened.

Currently in 1941, Great Britain is at war with a Germany that has conquered most of Europe and Japan has taken the opportunity to occupy the Dutch East Indies an event the United States is regarding with general indifference, being far more concerned with events in Europe and the Communist threat in war-torn China, where the United States and Japan are both supporting the Nationalists. There is speculation on Homeline that without direct American involvement in the European war, this could become the next Reich parallel.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

In the 1930s Japan purchased the Philippines from an embattled Spain and distracted by taking control of its new possession, the Sino-Japanese war never happened.

I think you need to move that to earlier. It's unlikely Spain still controls much by then - when the Spanish-American War broke out it was already losing the revolution in Cuba, and while it technically got a truce the previous year in the Philippines it had to let all the revolutionaries go, and they continued to scheme and engage in more limited violence - the truce was clearly not going to hold up very long.

Also OTL Japan couldn't afford to purchase anything in the 1930, it entered a severe depression in the mid 1920s, though with this divergence point the economy of the early 20th century might be quite different. Between the changes in US interests in Asia, and consequent likely continuation of their pressure for free trade there, weakening one of the major Japanese reasons for thinking they needed to push hard for a colonial empire, combined with the inevitable delay if not outright absence of the Panama Canal without Roosevelt is clearly going to dislocate the Japanese economy quite substantially, and without that depression and a weaker opposition to regional free trade the ability of colonial nationalists to win over the new Emperor Hirohito is pretty questionable. Remember that until about 1930 Japan was a pretty firm ally of the US and more or less one of Britain *despite* their protectionist trade policies.... It does not take a lot of change to flip the sides either Japan or America or both take in Europe's 20th century wars. If they both come in on the Alliance side in World War I, which is quite possible with this change point you may not even get to World War II