New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Throw in a "CIA did it" timeline too. Maybe they bungled it, and left behind incriminating evidence that made it to a congressional investigation.

Presume that this isn't a syncretic timeline (some conspiracies point to the CIA, the mob, and the Klan working together with Greenpeace and the greys on backup), and is instead just the CIA retaliating directly against Kennedy. We further presume that the entire organization -- from McCone on down -- was more loyal to the CIA than to the Presidency and the Congress.

I doubt we could get a lingering insurgency, but there might be an initial confrontation and scattering followed by a shadow war as federal forces clash with and attempt to hunt down CIA forces.

I always saw that one as the most limiting. I was looking for a divergence, not a Soviet promoted conspiracy theory.

Yes the Soviets nearly originated the "CIA did it" theory. They certainly promoted it.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Too old. For your scenario, I'd go with Ed Muskie. Or maybe Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown.

The Moonbeam was and is very bright indeed. He might get the job done and surprise everybody.


But this Roman Imperial analogy seems to ignore the fact that Democratic societies are better and stronger than non-democratic ones.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

If they were my players, I'd turn it around and have Centrum think that keeping him alive is key to controlling the timeline. So the PCs have to take matters into their own hands....

But then, we are pretty sick puppies.

Watch the Red Dwarf take on the Kennedy Assassination. Then see how sick a puppy can truly be.

Who was the man on the grassy knoll? JFK, who else could it be?

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Moonbeam was and is very bright indeed. He might get the job done and surprise everybody.


But this Roman Imperial analogy seems to ignore the fact that Democratic societies are better and stronger than non-democratic ones.

My presumption is that after the Hot War there is not much democratic society left. The Kennedys represent the ghosts of the old order, as it were. The Mafia/CIA/Military represent the angst and displacement of society after a cataclysmic attack. The Claudius represents the hidden agenda to return to that strong democratic ideal.

I really like Jerry Brown as Claudius. His father, Pat Brown, is governor of California in the early 60s, one of the strongest governors that state had at the time. Jerry had finish Yale, and had left the seminary a few years before. Pat's support of JFK in the 1960 election infuriated even his own supporters, since Nixon was from California. I can see rival cabals, run by Pat Brown and Nixon, manuvering to get their guy in as the Military picked replacement for Kennedy.

Jerry could be seen as the bookish, nerdish, straight arrow but beatnik-ish nerd. Nixon would make a great Richard III character.

[Gedrin]

Kidnapper 1-?

An assembly of echoes named because their deviation points all appear to be the kidnapping of historic geniuses. ICops believe the kidnapper is targeting significant figures who died or were seriously crippled, but only those who could be cured by homeline medicine, technology, or social practices. ICops are concerned that the problem may be vastly larger in scope, including figures lost at sea or others with bodies never recovered, as well as the geniuses of the echoes of other parallels.


Yes, more of a hook than a parallel, but it seemed like the place to put it.

[PTTG]

This parallel diverges very early in human history due to a thin, bright ring of moonlettes around the earth. Fortunately, they seem to have only the most tenuous effect on Earth history; it's rare that a few dozen stars' worth of light makes much difference, and only astronomers are really concerned with it. Normal inertia is enough to control the chaos drift with only a few minor changes to mythology, astronomy textbooks and survival skills (even the most urbanized person on the planet knows that the ring runs east to west).

In the mid-1600s, use of reflecting telescopes dispelled the myth that the ring was a single structure, but rather was a number of highly reflective objects in the same orbit. The term "beads" was used to describe them. In the 1860s, experiments with radio waves discover a high-frequency, high-amplitude source of radio noise in a very specific frequency. It was believed to originate from the sun.

By the 1900s, the ring was understood to be a number of bright, curiously uniform asteroids, and source of noise on a specific radio frequency. Nobody yet understood the underlying cause, and it wasn't a very interesting problem.

This serves as an interesting world for the PCs to visit, and, with their crosstime perspective, realize they're seeing an alien observation in progress.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

This parallel diverges very early in human history due to a thin, bright ring of moonlettes around the earth. Fortunately, they seem to have only the most tenuous effect on Earth history; it's rare that a few dozen stars' worth of light makes much difference, and only astronomers are really concerned with it. Normal inertia is enough to control the chaos drift with only a few minor changes to mythology, astronomy textbooks and survival skills (even the most urbanized person on the planet knows that the ring runs east to west).

In the mid-1600s, use of reflecting telescopes dispelled the myth that the ring was a single structure, but rather was a number of highly reflective objects in the same orbit. The term "beads" was used to describe them. In the 1860s, experiments with radio waves discover a high-frequency, high-amplitude source of radio noise in a very specific frequency. It was believed to originate from the sun.

By the 1900s, the ring was understood to be a number of bright, curiously uniform asteroids, and source of noise on a specific radio frequency. Nobody yet understood the underlying cause, and it wasn't a very interesting problem.

This serves as an interesting world for the PCs to visit, and, with their crosstime perspective, realize they're seeing an alien observation in progress.

Cool idea.

[Astromancer]

I've bought a book that is about how the UK missed out on the first A Bomb. I've not read Churchill's Bomb yet. However, the ads and the fluff on the dust jacket say that it would have made a big difference if Britain had gotten the bomb first.

Really?

I could see Berlin being bombed if Churchill had had the bomb before February of 1945. He'd have been much more assertive at Yalta. But would that really have changed anything?

Britain was still going down economically and wasn't willing to do what it took (like fully educating the masses, ditching the Empire, or joining a United States of Europe) to thrive. Stalin doesn't seem to have ever really feared the bomb and was merely offended when people stood up to him. FDR did about as well as anyone in managing Stalin, mainly because Stalin never got the idea that there were advantages in trust and cooperation.

So, what am I missing. Would the UK getting the Bomb first really have changed anything?

One thing we know, if Centrum reads that book they'll move in every parallel to help Britain get the Bomb first!

What a game. Help Sir Winston beat both the Nazis and Centrum. After all Winston would have smelled out just what kind of rats the Centrum guys are. He'd use them, yes he'd use them, but he'd seek to see them trounced as well.

[johndallman]

Well, the basic problem is that the UK couldn't afford a bomb project run at the speed necessary to get it before the USA. Diverting that much money to a project so secret you couldn't tell the US or USSR about it would reduce conventional military capabilities significantly. That would upset both of those allies and could lead to the US prioritising Japan and the USSR making a separate peace with Germany.

So the book's premise seems ill-founded. It may well claim that if the UK had made a specific technical choices, it could have done the job, but that's hindsight. Nobody really knew which routes would work, hence the various surprises in the Manhattan Project.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Well, the basic problem is that the UK couldn't afford a bomb project run at the speed necessary to get it before the USA. Diverting that much money to a project so secret you couldn't tell the US or USSR about it would reduce conventional military capabilities significantly. That would upset both of those allies and could lead to the US prioritising Japan and the USSR making a separate peace with Germany.

So the book's premise seems ill-founded. It may well claim that if the UK had made a specific technical choices, it could have done the job, but that's hindsight. Nobody really knew which routes would work, hence the various surprises in the Manhattan Project.

Close to my thoughts, but with added insights. Yes, Britain was cash strapped.

That said, what do you think the outcome of the Brits nuking Berlin in 1942 (we'll assume they get Hitler but enough leading Nazis are left alive to talk surrender) would be? Would Stalin be warier? Would the Japanese seek terms? How would it effect relations with the US?