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Old 02-22-2022, 06:13 AM   #5791
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Nations do conquer each other but never consolidate their gains or have the occupation last longer than 20 years. The most successful approach is actually creating hegemonies, "alliances" with one dominant partner but internally autonomous satellites. The largest two states in the world are New France (ruled by the French monarch in exile), and the shrunken Russian Empire, both of which are a bit larger than real world Quebec. There are a lot of republics, but republics seem to be particularly poor at avoiding balkanization.

So slavery is still a thing in the territory of old USA and on the planet as a whole? In your Balkanized world, no force could stop/abolish it. This would generally be a world of political extremes, right?
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Old 02-22-2022, 03:29 PM   #5792
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So slavery is still a thing in the territory of old USA and on the planet as a whole? In your Balkanized world, no force could stop/abolish it. This would generally be a world of political extremes, right?
While it does sound like a world that has difficulty addressing global problems - they're probably going to have serious issues with climate change in sixty years - there will still be large cultural shifts independent of empire. (Not to mention, slavery still exists in our world of large states; it's just easier to ignore here in the USA.)
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Old 02-22-2022, 08:53 PM   #5793
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While it does sound like a world that has difficulty addressing global problems - they're probably going to have serious issues with climate change in sixty years - there will still be large cultural shifts independent of empire.
But not ones likely to bring about climate change. Technology in this line probably hasn't *quite* stagnated at TL4, but probably pretty close. Industrialization simply isn't very worthwhile without large markets, even if you could muster the resources for it. Note that the industrial revolution (and the agricultural one that preceded and largely enabled it) in early modern England were largely funded by people who made their fortunes in the colonies (mostly the sugar trade). If those empires start falling apart about the time that is supposed to start happening, well...

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(Not to mention, slavery still exists in our world of large states; it's just easier to ignore here in the USA.)
But not in any way equivalent. This is a *very* common fallacy in arguments about morality, commonly stated as "all greys are the same shade". Slavery in 2000 is simply not the same thing as slavery in 1800, certainly not in magnitude, and often not even in form of the things so labeled.

Incidentally for this setting, note that slaves were mostly *supplied* by rising African nations (which presumably come apart here, so there are suddenly supply issues driving people to look elsewhere than West Africa for the required labor forces), and slaves were kept in slavery in the colonies by troops funded and supplied from home (which presumably stops coming during the height of the trade). A *lot* of those small New World polities will be in the hands of ex-slaves, not all necessarily African slaves. Note that New York ca 1750 had about a 20% slave population and constant serious fears of a slave revolt (see for example the "Slave Insurrection" of 1741 (aka the New York Conspiracy of 1741)
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Old 02-22-2022, 09:05 PM   #5794
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Land of the rising sun... that's got to have some peculiar cultural effects.
It's the Setting Sun terminator in this setup, though there would presumably have been a fairly long period during the last partial rotation before complete lock....
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Old 03-10-2022, 05:33 PM   #5795
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On Merlin-6 (current year 1939), a banestorm bomb reduced London to ruins in 1931. The current working hypothesis is that a certain "amazingly advanced device" found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro was a surviving weapon from long-vanished pre-historic civilization. The resulting oz particles not only brought magic back to this worldline, but seems to have acted as a call to every god, legend, and fairy to return to western and northern Europe: Arthur oversees the reconstruction of Britain, for starters.
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Old 03-11-2022, 04:17 PM   #5796
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Fawcett-1 is identical to Homeline, except DC never tried to sue Fawcett over Captain Marvel (the red one) and thus there is a third big comic company in current year 1997.

In Fawcett-2 not only did DC not sue, but Captain Marvel's greater popularity caused DC to focus on crime and horror comics, ultimately removing them from the business following the creation of the Comics Code Authority and leading to Fawcett acquiring them.
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Old 03-13-2022, 05:14 PM   #5797
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Action!

The Q5 Low Mana parallel called Action is a Myth parallel blending Supers, Pulp, Swashbucklers, and some Space Opera too (Mars is inhabited and some Earth folks have been there and back, but no big changes yet). The local year is 1942 and a pair of Mystery Men are building a railroad from British India to China to supply the Chinese Nationalist forces. The pair (a Wizard and a Super Inventor) have already achieved more in six months than any other team backed by unlimited resources and armies of workers could have achieved in six years. By March of 1943 the Indo-Tibetan-Chinese railroad should be open and supplying the Chinese Nationalists.

Neither the Japanese nor Mao is happy about that. Both prefer a vastly weaker Chinese Nationalist Army. A turncoat working for the Axis has come up with a plan. She has found that the heroes building the railroad are lovers. Given the view this period had of Homosexuality the scandal would both land the men in prison and stop the railroad from being completed.

Basically, in a very Pulpy/Supers setting with lots of over the top drama, you need to stop a scandal dead in it's tracks.

Assume your help against all kinds of Golden Age Comic book craziness.
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Old 03-15-2022, 02:56 AM   #5798
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I may have posted this one before, it's a long thread. But I'm thinking of turning Fallen London into a puzzle skerry, probably on Q4.

Infinity initially misdesignates its entry point as Lenin-alpha, as capitalism gets a boot to the crotch in 1975 when New York City just disappears, replaced with regular-man bare regolith. The resulting global depression sees the Soviets make great diplomatic strides, and when the hearse races are over, someone other than reform-minded Gorbachev is in the driver's seat. But chunks of mana-infused Manhattan bedrock are starting to add weirdness. Further investigation reveals that you can pass through the place New York City used to be into the bodged-together between space maintained by the Masters of the Bazaar of Echoes where there is no sun, and also into the other six "broken" worldlines they've created and accidentally bound together.

"History is seven jewels on a string", is one of the Masters' more cryptic aphorisms. As becomes obvious quickly enough, they buy cities. Not just any cities, they want the best, and they're sticklers for legitimate trade in their way - never try to sell them something that isn't yours to sell. In the 20th century, the greatest city was New York, and the 1975 involuntary debt restructuring gave them an opening. Rather than submit to the draconian measures of the banks, they offered Mayor Beame an alternative, and in this worldline he took it. Now they call it the Sixth City, and it belongs to the Bazaar.

For the record, the Fifth City was 1851 London. As Prince Albert lay dying, Queen-Empress Victoria would do nearly anything to save her husband's life, and that's the sort of leverage the Masters can work with too. A human life for the city of London is a bargain indeed, and her Enduring Majesty the Traitor Empress has no regrets. The world she left behind, on the other hand, is consolidating in weird ways as Prussia and the UK are in personal union now, careening towards a great war with Second Empire France and Romanov Russia.

The Fourth City was Karakorum in the time of the great Khans. It's been here a while, and its children no longer remember what the eternal blue sky looks like. The Third City was never positively identified and is aesthetically completely alien to the Victorians, possibly Mesoamerican, possibly African. The Second City was from ancient Egypt, although it's hard to say which great city it was. No one dares say it aloud, and its iconography and relics are very strange, but - the First City has to have been Atlantis.

Which brings us to the Seventh City. It's either a great space station or a moonbase, probably created by a hypercorporation of some sort. Whatever we make it exactly, Infinity would dearly like to explore it, and the apparently future worldline it was purchased from. Maybe they can do that, maybe they can only do it with the active assistance of the Bazaar, maybe they can't do it at all, but they're interested in trying.

Perhaps Infinity is alerted to the formation of the skerry when multiple Echoes disappear simultaneously, and then one of them makes contact again from Quantum 4, but the elapsed times don't line up at all. Echo agents could thus be swept up in the initial formation. I'd have several major homeline governments interested in Lenin-alpha, and perhaps Infinity has so far managed to keep them interesting in the world itself and its Manhattan manastones but dreads the day someone other than Infinity (presumably the USA) finds the way into the Bazaar. Or maybe they can't get home without the acquiescence of the Masters or a Gate spell, haven't decided yet.

And for the puzzle-and-social-minded, Lenin-alpha is the key to unraveling the Master's (probably?) nefarious plan. They really are bound by the rules of commerce as they understand them. The hypercorp could sell the moonbase and the first five had political and legal structures that would support the sale of a city by a sovereign, but 1975 USA not so much. The compact between Mayor Abraham Beame and the Masters of the Bazaar of Echoes for transfer of New York City can be shown to be invalid despite the alternatives, and with that the Masters must scramble to salvage their project if it can be salvaged at all. Or just blackmail them with it.
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Old 03-27-2022, 09:00 AM   #5799
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On this Q6 mainly Low Mana world (there are rare isolated areas of High Mana, these constitute less than 0.001% of this parallel) Hitler focused on Poland ahead of Czechoslovakia. Also, Hitler and Stalin decided to betray each other at the same time. Thus the invasion of Poland leads right to a Russo-German war.

Given the sheer brutality of this war, all of the other European powers are chosing to stay out, except for Italy. Japan still bombed Pearl Harbor, so America is still involved in a war. But, if after the end of the European war, either Germany or Russia can still fight, then Europe faces conquest.

Basically, this is a game of diplomacy and espionage. The most desirable outcome is for both the Nazis and the Stalinists to lose. But the Nazis need to be crushed.

Homeline doesn't want either Centrum or the Cabal gaining influence in this world. The combination of a mainly low Mana parallel with isolated pockets of high Mana is great for magical research. Homeline doesn't want either of its main competitors gaining new magical advantages.
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Old 03-27-2022, 11:20 AM   #5800
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Basically, this is a game of diplomacy and espionage. The most desirable outcome is for both the Nazis and the Stalinists to lose. But the Nazis need to be crushed.
I wonder a bit what Infinity says on Homeline to justify its determination to crush Nazis. Sure nobody is very sympathetic to Nazi regimes and objects very much, but they have competitors even for most evil regime of the 20th century, let alone all of history, and Infinite Worlds seems to indicate Infinity is trying to keep Reich-5 classified, even if they aren't doing a really good job of it.

I suppose Homeline governments routinely let Infinity get away with a lack of transparency and whatever machinations are necessary to hide operations on a scale most fictional evil megacorporations could only dream about, but still.

For that matter, it's not at all clear to me that other Nazi regimes would necessarily be allies Reich-5, either as a whole or the internal conspiracy of it that actually has parachronic travel, if they do come in contact with it. If your agents on some Nazi parallel discover a Reich-5 operation, should they cooperate with the local Nazi regime to crush it?
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