New Reality Seeds

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by nothri

There are indeed a lot of good ideas in Who's Who. I was inspired in part by some of the information found in those volumes as well as timelines and some of the other GURPS supplements. I do like to think I've expanded enough on the concepts to be useful and unique all on my own, however :) I'll let ya'll be the judge.

Anyone else have worlds to share?

Love those in Who's Who. My favourite is probably Robert E Howard and HP Lovecraft faking their own deaths to adventure overseas and fight nazis.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I like you. You are dangerous.:-)

Thank you.

Originally Posted by Ransom

If it were my game, I'd want to see the players pulling strings to bring about this coalition, only to have Napoleon try to pull a last minute betrayal to surprise his foes when their guard is down. There will be dire quantum-reality consequences if this is not averted or managed...

You can do what you want but … Napoleon wasn’t noted for betraying his allies or even leaving them in the lurch. Second, the Ottomans are an existential threat, so neither Napoleon nor the Sixth Coalition have a lot of incentive to betray each other until after the Ottomans are dealt with. Third, Napoleon needs a really big incentive to even think about betraying the Coalition. At this point, he wants to be left in peace to rule France as its emperor. Allying with the Sixth Coalition is his best shot at getting that. Even if he can crush all the armies of the Sixth Coalition, and history says he can’t, (The Sixth Coalition, which already existed in the winter of 1812, defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig, Saxony (Battle of Nations) 16-19 October, 1813.), all that means is that the Sixth Coalition raises another set of armies and, if he’s betrayed them before crushing them, he’ll probably be sent to St. Helena, instead of Elba, if they don’t execute him. France will probably be occupied by the Sixth Coalition to ensure there no revolts against the Bourbon Restoration. The occupation might last an entire generation (twenty years).

Aside from that, although Napoleon was an effective leader, his rise to power and his ability to keep that power came in large measure because the values he represented aligned closely with the values of the French people themselves, particularly during the Revolution. Just because it’s Napoleon betraying the Coalition, it doesn’t follow that his troops will go along with him, at least not if it’s clear to them that he is betraying the Coalition and France. and betraying the Coalition before the Ottomans are defeated will be viewed as betraying France.

Having the Coalition with Napoleon stopping the Ottomans at Vienna, moves the Battle of Nations (as the largest and bloodiest battle in Europe prior to WWI) to Vienna (where the Ottoman Turks were defeated on 12 Sep, 1683) and may move the date of the battle up a bit. It could be fun to have your PCs negotiating the alliance with Napoleon (but the really tricky negotiation would be getting the Spanish to trust Joseph).

In terms of betrayal, the Sixth Coalition is the likelier of the two to betray Napoleon. They are unlikely to betray Napoleon before the Turks are defeated (for the same reasons Napoleon is unlikely to) and might even keep the alliance going long enough to liberate the European possessions of the Ottoman Empire (OTL [date of independence/liberation]: Wallachia and Moldavia [Romania] [13 July, 1878], Bulgaria [3 Mar, 1878], Serbia [14 Sep, 1829], Montenegro [13 July, 1878], Macedonia, Greece [3 Feb, 1830], Albania [28 Nov, 1912], Bosnia and Herzegovina [26 Feb, 1909]). The primary reason for such a betrayal would be a distrust of Napoleon’s (and France’s) territorial ambitions coupled with a distrust of the idea of the revolutionary democracy.

[ericthered]

The timing of the betrayal is everything. (Timing is always key for betrayals). You need to time it so that both of your two stronger foes wear each other out. You must do so while one side regards you as their secret weapon (which makes it hard to make them take the full brunt). And the better the time is for a betrayal, the more watchful the other side will be. And I suspect both sides will be tempted by the possibility.

As for the french not being willing to betray the collation, that's what propaganda is for. Its best if you can make it look like they pulled the fast one, and you just had the foresight to block them because you're that good.

Its a lovely scenario.

[Astromancer]

Different factions would see a betrayal in different ways. Britain might be willing to co-opt Napoleon. It fits their style. Several other members would see Napoleon as an existential threat. Infighting in the Sixth Coalition would be a major threat in and of itself.

Centrum, Homeline, and French operatives from Homeline would all have different visions of how things should turn out.

[Apollonian]

The butterfly effects of a strong Ottoman empire at the start of Napoleonic Wars seem likely to make said wars very different; what would Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign look like against a first-rate power instead of the sick man of Europe? What is the Russian Empire going to look like with the Ottomans taking up their attention? You might well have the Napoleonic Wars remaining a mostly European affair, with France and the reactionary powers courting both Russia and the Ottomans for support. Alternately, perhaps Russia is the sick man of Europe, but without the trade connections that propped up the Ottomans. What about Poland-Lithuania? Is Poland maintained as a buffer/puppet state by the HRE?

That said, it looks like the sort of thing you'd encounter in Europe Universalis IV...

[Astromancer]

Try this idea, I'm reading The End of Tsarist Russia by Dominic Lieven. Lieven points out that winning the Russo-Japanese War would have been as problematic for Russia as losing was. If the Russian Navy had been properly trained and supplied, and hadn't been delayed in completion by a bitter finance minister, Russia might have invaded Japan.

Now an Invasion of Japan would automatically have brought Britain into the war. A Russian defeat/conquest of Japan would leave all of Britain's Asian colonies in peril. France would have been dragged in too, but it's hard to say on which side. The Germans, the Austrians, and the Ottomans, would all have been presented with a chance to hit Russia when Russia was weak and distracted. If France allies with Britain, to protect her colonial interests in East Asia, then one or more of Germany, Austria, or the Ottomans, would strike. The others would soon be pulled into the fight.

You can go several ways with this. One possibility is to jump ahead to the next war, a radically different WWII. Who is in or out, and on which side, would be totally different.

Another possibility might simply be a superpower Kaiserreich Germany trying to dominate the planet.

You could do wars of attrition collapsing Eurasian civilization and a TL6 1960's America trying to rebuild Europe. A Peace Core/Peace Keepers campaign.

Many others would work too.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

I wouldn't say they hate functional democracy, but I doubt they're immune to ideological criticism of it. Disdain is probably a better description of their feelings. Democracy is inferior, misguided and potentially dangerous. Enlightened people can see this. People who can't, are blind/dumb/ignorant. This is the typical form for the view of a "superior culture".

They appear to have the same philosophical evangelism as Homeline. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter if they hate democracy. They prefer to replace it in favor of systems closer to their own. Where they accommodate democracy, it's probably only by necessity, and likely only for so long as it has utility.

Really, without knowing more about Centrum's ideology, it's hard to say more about how they view democracy. This is purposefully vague to allow GM's to design the kind of Centrum they want. We know they try to replace it where they can with a central authority that rewards "merit" and unifies culture. They view it as ideologically incompatible, but something that can be tolerated. It might be they dislike pluralism. It might even be that, on a world with one acceptable political ideology, any and all others are considered bad/lesser. While I'm certain Homeline is rife with discussion about Centrum's political systems, and the possibility of learning from them, that sort of thing is probably restricted to "the right people", if it occurs at all, on Centrum.

The view on democracy would obviously differ between Centrans, despite the supposed uniformity of the world. Centrans who don't travel to other worlds, or only uninhabited worlds - that is to say, most Centrans - only know about democracy (and other non-Centran ideas) either from history (which isn't that widely known) or what they hear about other worlds (which is controlled by the government).

Centran higher-ups probably dislike democracy because it messes with all of their beautiful plans, but maybe treat it as the same kind of 'threat' as religion or racism - 'just more outtime irrationality.'


The big question is how do Interworld agents feel about it? They could come to sympathize with democratic activists and the like, a classic story trope, but Infinite Worlds brought up the idea that on-the-ground agents may hate democracy & other non-Centran ideas more, because they've seen the horror of other worlds (which are, in general, poor & chaotic).

Though democracies are generally better off than other societies in the multiverse. Most are from advanced worlds, as opposed to say, religious civilizations (though the same could be said for communist & totalitarian societies). Visiting an echo of 20th century America wouldn't be as horrific to a Centran as medieval Europe.

[Gedrin]

I was thinking more about Centrum's "party line". It's the sort of society that has an official view of things. Like you point out, democracies seem to be better off than their competitors...while they last. The latter part seems like the point where Centrum would object. While ideologically different, both societies produce good ends. Centrum's superior view of the arc of history let's them see the eventual failure and its dire consequences.

When Homeline thinks of democracy, it thinks of the most recent global democratic power, The United States of America.
When Centrum thinks of democracy, it thinks of the same thing...the fall of Rome and near death of the West.

You could argue that those are vastly different, but Centrum has about as much experience with USAs as they do with Weimar Republics.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by fchase8

... Visiting an echo of 20th century America wouldn't be as horrific to a Centran as medieval Europe.

They would not be of equal horror, true - a Centran would be more horrified by an echo of 20th century America. Half of that century was spent in either world war or preparation for a Last War, after all.

[Astromancer]

Putin, who is a Plutocratic oligarch, who be the kind of guy Centrum would push. then they'd wait for him to die and take over from the shadows.