New Reality Seeds

[AlexanderHowl]

I did specify cyclical paratronic gates that open once a year at the most frequent. At the worst, they have a train disappear just because it has the misfortune to be at the wrong place and wrong time and it is never found again because it ended up wrecked in Selene-1. You might have a couple of alien conspiracy people or the like out there during the anniversary, if the cycle was every year, but I doubt that any nation that did not know about paratronic would seriously believe that there was a cyclical crosstime portal. It is just as likely that the gate that swallowed a train would open up every decade or every century.

Now, an interesting question would be how different would the Terra of Selene-1 be from Earth? It is orbited by 10% of its mass in natural satellites, meaning that it would have ten times the tides as the Earth, though they would be much more complex. Due to the size of the small moon and the existence of the two tiny moons, solar eclipses would be much more common (around every four or five years on average) as would lunar eclipses. The moons would also act as a much better protective shield than Luna, as they would intercept six times as many asteroids and meteors than Luna can.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I did specify cyclical paratronic gates that open once a year at the most frequent.

You never said for how long. Given they were used to travel across Q7 in prehistoric times, it seems plausible that they would have to remain open for a considerable length of time (i.e. a day or two).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Selene-1 is a Q7 timeline where Terra possesses a small moon, Selene, and two tiny moons, Ersa and Pandia. Selene is located at the same distance from the Earth as Luna in Homeline, with Ersa being located in Terra-Selene L4 and Pandia being located in Terra-Selene L5. Selene is twice the diameter of Luna and, with the same density, is eight times the mass, creating much stronger tides than on Homeline. Ersa and Pandia are each the size of Luna, and they contribute to the tidal complexity of Terra.

Selene is too close in mass to Earth for L4 and L5 points to be stable. The primary needs to be about 25 times the mass of the secondary for bodies to be able to orbit L4 or L5 for any length of time.

Ignoring that point for a moment, the tides aren't really that complex. There's a smaller tide four hours before, and four hours after, each main tide. The relationship doesn't change if Ersa and Pandia stay at L4 and L5. If we don't ignore that point, the tides were really complicated before Selene, Ersa and Pandia collided, but since that would have happened early in the life of the Solar System, there's probably only one sizable moon now, plus maybe a ring system.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, no one said that the system was not a little weird.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Selene

wince
1. As others have noted, a Mars-sized Moon would not be a small moon. Earth's Moon is already considered a large moon; making it larger would make it half of a binary planet, if anything. (Heck, at that point it wouldn't even be a small planet, by most peoples' standards. It's smaller than Earth or a gas giant, but Earth's a pretty big rocky planet.)
2. New moons at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points wouldn't increase "tidal complexity" in any meaningful way. Lagrange points, by definition, have the same position relative to the parent body and satellite. They would change the tides, but mostly just by making them stronger; the direction of tides wouldn't even change that much, since the L4 and L5 Lagrange points are symmetrical. If you want tidal complexity, put the moons in their own orbits (maybe with one having a highly-eccentric orbit).
3. Why was Infinity shocked to discover that humans existed on Selene? They're like cockroaches, you can hardly find a timeline without 'em.
4. I, too, find the idea that matriarchies would be uninterested in dealing with patriarchies suspect. Matriarchies in the real world have no such issues, nor do the dominant patriarchies have any issue dealing with them. (Not to mention that colonial ambitions tend to drive people to ignore minor moral issues in pursuit of glory and power.)
5. Disregarding the bad astronomy and Prime Directive...what are the internal politics of this world like? You have mythic Amazons which dominate an empire stretching across Europe and beyond, multiple American civilizations on par with those in Eurasia, and...what? Everyone lives in harmony? (And what about Oceania?) Boooring.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It is 'small' because that is the planetary classification in Space for a planetary object around the size of Mars.

You should have specified the standard.

As for the gates, they have predictable cycles in set locations, so the nations of Selene-1 have nature preserves around the gates, satellite surviellance, and nearby military units equipped with fusion weapons. As for other powers stumbling in, no one is allowed to return, and who would believe the rare individual who managed to escape? Anyway, the major nations of Selene-1 are TL10 and superscience does not work on the timeline, so what could they do?

...
Let me get this straight. Selene murders or imprisons anyone who stumbles through a parachronic gate (you handwave in reasons why this always works), and nobody notices. And when people do escape, nobody pays attention to the repeatable, regular parachronic phenomenon which they can bring all the scientists and measuring equipment they like to.
And nobody on Selene thinks this is abhorrent, or a waste of resources?

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Well, no one said that the system was not a little weird.

No. You do not get to make up astronomy, throw in all the terms you've heard of that sound vaguely relevant, and handwave away your blatant ignorance with "Um, this system is a little weird." If you admit that you didn't consider that, great; not everyone can admit they were wrong. But that doesn't mean I won't criticize the people who can't.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I've wanted to do a "Cassini" reality seed for a while, and I've finally gotten around to working out which areas would probably be least-affected.
For those who don't feel like reading through xkcd what-if: "Cassini" is the name given by Randall Munroe to a hypothetical version of Earth where our world's Prime Meridian was the equator and nothing else was changed (e.g, our axis of rotation is still ~23 degrees off the ecliptic). Munroe imagined our entire world with all its cities being transported to Cassini, resulting in a world where East Africa has tornadoes, British tigers apologize for attacking you, and A Prairie Home Companion had a tragic end at the hands of gators and fire ants.
Randal Munroe is not a climatologist, and I'm even less of one, but I'm going to try to apply his vague maps and continental descriptions, as well as his specific descriptions of cities, to try and figure out which areas of Cassini would be most similar to their counterparts on our Earth.

Spoiler:  

http://i64.tinypic.com/j9xzxu.png

The biggest stretch of co-habitable land runs from the African tropics through the Middle East and Central Asia, before reaching east Asia. (The equilatitudinal line runs right by a divide between arid and damp regions, but they don't quite line up ideally.) Another large band of cohabitable land runs near the Canada/US border, stretching from Quebe and New England to the Great Lakes, which more or less connects with the northern Great Plains and dryer parts of the Pacific Northwest. The Australian wheat belt and southeastern area are pretty co-habitable, as are large parts of Indonesia and Polynesia. Finally, the southern tip of South America is pretty cohabitable.
It's also worth noting that large parts of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are at roughly the same latitude between Earths. This, combined with various other perks of water being water, means that ocean life will probably take to Cassini better than land life. Of course, large areas of the ocean will be far different (the Arctic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the southern oceans, and the Caribbean Sea jump out at me), but the biggest oceans will probably be comparatively okay.
But yeah, there are probably going to be mass extinctions. The green areas on the map would probably be less affected than, say, Antarctica or Scandinavia, but they would still be different from our Earth's counterparts. To quote Randall Munroe, "The basic building blocks of our world are crazy." And, of course, you can't have mass extinctions in central Asia without affecting China and the Himalayas.

I'm imagining roughly four possibilities. Well, that's not true; I'm also imagining more possibilities where the event that turns the Earth on its side wipes out more life than the climate change (e.g, one where the Earth keeps turning chaotically under the oceans, leading to a massive global flood with all its implications), but those are relatively boring. The four possibilities I'm going to look at today are based on two questions:
1. Did the event happen slowly enough for species to migrate to other habitable regions on the same continent (e.g, alligators swimming up the Mississippi to Minnesota) or not (e.g, gators are screwed)?
2. Did the event happen before the "modern" humanity and civilization spread across the planet (e.g, tens of thousands to a couple million years ago) or not (e.g, ~1000 BCE-500 CE)?
Let's look at these questions separately, and then combine them.
Migration:

Spoiler:  

Obviously, this greatly reduces the mass extinctions, but it doesn't eliminate them. South America and the Amazon Rainforest are in trouble; they would have to make it all the way to Canada before they could find a vaguely suitable habitat, and island ecosystems would be at the mercy of fate as to whether they wound up with a climate remotely suitable to any of their species. Also, slow-moving species (tortoises, plants with long generations, etc) would be in serious danger outside co-habitable regions. Luckily, those include some North American and Asian forests, as well as many jungles in Africa and Oceania, but elsewhere the only tree species to survive would be those who grew quickly, spread their seeds far, and could survive in drastically sub-optimal climates. And, obviously, species dependent on those slow species would die; the future doesn't look good for woodpeckers outside New England.
But there would be a second wave of extinction. Let's take Antarctica, which goes from a frozen wasteland to a tropical archipelago. Penguins, leopard seals, and other large life-forms we associate with Antarctica are all pretty mobile, and could likely swim or fly to the new South Pole—the Andes. Meanwhile, polar bears, musk oxen, and so on would spread both north to Indochina and south to Mexico. When polar bears meet penguins in Central America...well, penguins are used to being safe on land, and hence haven't evolved anti-bear defenses. I don't see it ending well; the sea is full of whales and seals, the land has plenty of bears, and you need to raise your chicks somewhere. Some species might adapt, perhaps sacrificing underwater capabilities in exchange for enough agility and strength to mob hostile polar bears, but many would not. And this story would play out, again and again, across the world.
It wouldn't just be creatures who now shared habitats with outsiders they are ill-fit to counter; species could have such negative encounters along the way. As polar bears went south to Mexico, they would encounter all sorts of species, whether moving north, east, west, or staying put. Some of these would look quite tasty to the wandering bears, and some of those would be unable to avoid the invitation to dinner.
It's hard to say which species would die and which would survive. Species that are good invasive species would probably prosper; species that are good at being killed by invasive species would probably be doomed. If alpha predators and the like migrated to an area without such (e.g, the polar bear example), they would probably do well if they didn't eat all the prey. And so on. Wing it!
Africa would probably be fine, though. It has a rather minimal land connection to other continents, so Asian species trying to move into Africa would probably find other homes more easily. Also, native African species could probably find homes close to their old ones.

And, of course, we've been assuming that all of the species could successfully make the journey. If the changes happened overnight, there's just about no way that polar bears could trek through the rainforests and deserts of Canada before succumbing to the heat, nor that alligators would reach Minnesota before freezing to death. But in this scenario, the world changes slowly and gradually enough that that isn't an issue. (Somehow; I don't know or care how.) The scenario where we worry about such things is in the next spoiler.

No Migration:

Spoiler:  

Outside the areas I've noted as being good matches (much of Africa, bits of Asia, etc), most areas would see lots of species go extinct. Some of the hardier and more wide-spread species would hang on, but these would be the exception, not the rule. Outside co-habitable regions, species would go extinct mostly according to typical mass extinction patterns. (In particular, most plants aside from hardy grasses, shrubs, and mosses would die. [In some areas, even those would go extinct—most of Latin America has no plants suitable for living in taiga or tundra.] This means that species reliant on trees, most flowers, etc, would also be doomed.)
There are, of course, some exceptions:

• Oceanic species, as previously mentioned, will be pretty okay. Heck, even many coral reefs (those fragile keystones) would be fine.
• Migratory species. These guys go across multiple climatic zones in their lifetimes (usually each year), so they'll probably be fine waking up in a vastly different biome than they went to sleep in. (On the species level—entire populations might end up dying of system shock.) They'd probably get confused and lost the first time they try to fly to decent breeding/wintering grounds, but I'd expect enough would fumble their way around to save the species. It'd probably be one heck of a population bottleneck, but they'd survive.
• Some species might just adapt quickly, especially if the environment was relatively similar. For instance, desert species with physiological adaptations for surviving both cool desert nights and hot desert days might have a few mutants or unlucky extremes capable of surviving in a much cooler, wetter climate, probably with less plant life than such a clime would normally have. This would be random chance, but it should be plenty to justify the survival of species near the cohabitable zones.

Some time, I might take a look at some prominent species and see which would be likely to survive, then construct ecosystems that might evolve after such a mass extinction. For this exercise, however, all that really matters are the major domesticable species.
A quick survey of domesticated animals suggests that the wild ancestors of most Old World livestock (from horses to chickens) have ranges that overlap with the Old World band of cohabitable regions. The same is true of their botanical staples. The Americas, however...well, the big players in the animal kingdom include llamas, turkeys, and dogs. Wolves certainly still exist in this world, but the native ranges of turkeys and llamas are high in the polar mountains. So...no good there. Same goes for potatoes, yams, teosinte, and most other not-terrible crop plants native to the Americas. Looks like the deck is stacked against native America...

[cont. in next post]

[GreatWyrmGold]

[cont. from previous post]
Ancient Divergence:

Spoiler:  

If the Cassini event struck tens of thousands to a few million years ago, humanity would survive. Plenty of humanity's favorite stomping grounds are smack-dab in the middle of the Old World cohabitable band. And, of course, cultures unique to this world would develop.
There would be a big band of culture along the equator, from the Bering Strait to the eastern Cape of Africa. They would share the same crops and horticultural techniques, the same technology, and similar culture. The small ocean to the west, bounded on one side by the Bering Straight and on the other by Greenland and the British Isles, could be somewhere between Indonesia and the Mediterranean.
The tropical band would be in close contact with states in the eastern half of West America. The Mississippi is no longer as grand a river as in our timeline, but it and many other rivers serve as the basis for a series of cultures which travel and trade around the continent. To the west is a desert, much as in OTL; some civilizations survive out there (like OTL's Petra and Anasazi), but the civilizations of that region are probably not well-known to those of the eastern riverlands.
To the south is the South Pole (duh), as well as large chunks of Central America. Then we get to northern East America, which has a decent-sized fertile region around the Amazon River and more to the east. It's not completely isolated from the world, but it's not going to trade or communicate much with outsiders before colonialism and globalization hit.
The Antarctican archipelago is close to the eastern tip of the Americas, and not far from the southwestern edge of greater Polynesia. (In fact, this "greater Polynesia" might include everything from Antarctica to Indonesia, depending on how this world's geographer's decide to group things.) These islands and island chains stretch the gamut from tropical to tundra, from sopping wet to bone-dry. Their cultures vary even more wildly than OTL's Oceania, and trade with each other almost as often.
With that, we get to various isolated homelands in the Northern Hemisphere. For instance, China is surrounded by desert to the south, frozen mountains to the north, and ocean to the west. It has some trade with Japan (and through it, Greater Polynesia and the tropics), but has quite good reasons to remain isolationist in this timeline. There just isn't anyone around to mess with. Further east, Arabia and the Horn of Africa are similarly isolated from everyone except each other; the only possible trading partner for them, Madagascar, is just over halfway between those places and the Cape of Good Hope. Aside from that, they just have a massive subtropical desert to the south.
...Of course, this assumes that everywhere with fertile land has something to grow there. But more on that later.

Modern Catastrophe

Spoiler:  

Some people might ask why I give the approximate lifespan of the western Roman Empire as a "modern" period. To this I answer: There were empires on five continents and cities on islands great and small; what more do you want? Electricity?

Anyways. This scenario has the cultures which existed in our timeline around 1-3 millennia ago being plunged into the Cassini world. I found a cultural map of the world in 1000 BCE and a political map of the world in 400 CE, among many others, so let's go with those.
Let's start by looking at the least-affected cultures. In Africa, West African farmers, the Nile region, and some of the other groups would be perfectly fine. (The Ethiopians, Berbers, and Kushites would likely have a tough time, though.) Persia, central Asia, and northern/southern China would also be fine-ish. Finally, the Mississippian "mound-builders" and many of the Great Plains hunters would also be fine. The rest of the world...sucks to be them.
Europe, Siberia, and northern East America would become tropical. (Also Antarctica, but literally nobody in OTL has ever lived there without support from outside.) The Inuit, Aleut, Sami, Ugrians, etc will have their entire way of life destroyed if they can't chase reindeer and seals and whatnot to the ends of the Earth, but the reader probably doesn't care about them as much as Europe, so let's look at that. Higher temperature and rainfall sounds good, until you realize that the Europeans would need to trade for tropical wheat breeds immediately. I foresee famine in Europe, which probably shatters whatever Roman Empire and/or rivals exist in the region. The Germanic tribes probably wouldn't be doing too hot either...well, they would, but that's the problem.
All the major states of India, Indochina, and Indonesia would have the opposite problems: They are quickly freezing over. While there are (AFAIK) varieties of wheat, barley, etc, that grow in tropical and subtropical climates, there are no varieties of rice or taro which grow in the tundra. The Mayans, Aztecs, and pre-Incan city-states of the Andes would be facing a similar problem, only with no nearby agricultural states to flee to. At least maize agriculture has spread to North America by the time the calamity occurs.

Speaking of fleeing to agricultural states, the peoples in those bands of co-habitability would not completely avoid problems. China, the Rouran Empire, and Persia would be swamped with refugees from the Gupta Empire, Funan, the Malays, southern China, Finno-Ugric peoples, and more; Persia in specific would probably also get refugees from Europe. Meanwhile, the Mississippians would find an army of hungry, desperate Aztecs on their doorstep, possibly starting to worry that Huitzilopochtli's strength was waning.
But a refugee crisis wouldn't be the only problem facing these states. While the climate in these regions would be similar, it wouldn't be identical; crops and techniques which worked well in the old north probably grow better in the new north and vise versa, for instance. If the state does nothing about this, this probably leads to years or generations of famine or underproductive agriculture while they adjusted. (With state intervention, it's almost definitely on the low end of that spectrum.) This would be enough for unrest and at least half a chapter in local history books on its own, but combined with refugees coming from regions and former states with even worse agriculture...
And let's not get into general unrest. Whether you're in ancient China or modern YouTube, certain types of people take every comet, nasty storm, or politician they don't like as evidence that the world is about to end. However, just about everyone can catch end-of-the-world fever when it seems like the world is ending, and this is certainly an example of that. You think any Chinese emperor is going to have the Mandate of Heaven after the people see what looks distinctly like divine wrath?

This Cassini Calamity is going to be a staple of legend for millennia to come, fueled by geologists &c discovering a recent, nigh-inexplicable change in Earth's climate in human history. It destroyed empires and brought others to their knees. No war, no plague, no catastrophe in human history will equal or exceed this one.
And yet...humanity would rebuild, and spread to the empty land on Earth. Some was emptied by the calamity, some was empty but uninhabitable before, all will be available. New empires and new cultures will arise.

I don't want to quadruple-post right now, so I'll add details specific to combinations of the above factors later.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

It reminds me a bit of the first "Cast a Deadly Spell" movie. That was set in 1948, though.

The second film wasn't nearly as good.

Agreed, but it had charms of its own.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

.

Blackstone

Some details on the major Demi-Humans.

Transformations into either Trolls or Goblins takes place during or before puberty. The Pixie/Leprechaun transformation can occur anytime before brain maturity, which generally means before the age of twenty-three. The Elf transformation can happen at any time in the life cycle. One elderly man seemed to be dying and instead changed into an elf at the age of ninety-two. All transformations into Dwarfs take place in early childhood. Other Demi-Humans are rare and generally poorly studied.

There seems to be a link between turning into a given type of Demi-Human and the ethnic background of the Demi-Human. Example: Only people of Russian ethnic heritage have turned into Leshy and only people of Japanese heritage have turned into Rokurokubi.

Male trolls average a height of 6ft. 10in. Female Trolls 6ft.6in. Trolls normally have +5 ST +2HT and +3Per. Magery 0, with a level or two of Single College Magery, generally either Illusion or something elemental, is typical. Trolls have Fit, and their appearance can never be more than Attractive. Trolls don't have the Fur advantage, but they are much hairier than the average adult male human, both sexes. Most Caucasian ethnic groups produce Trolls, Celts being the exception in having no known Trolls. Individuals of mixed ancestry, as long as some of their ancestors where non-Celtic Caucasians, can be Trolls. Trolls can buy up to ST 30. Trolls often have a wide range of Unnatural Features horns and tusks being most common. Night Vision, Tempeture Tolerance(Cold) and Gills are all also known.

Goblins, male or female, average a height of 4ft.11in. Goblins are +2 to both ST and Ht and +1 Per. Magery is much more common than among ordinary humans but not universal. Illusion magic is the most common goblin magic. Goblins tend to be Fit and have DR+3. Goblins normally have fine scales like snakes and Sharp Teeth. Goblins can never have better than Unattractive appearance. Most Caucasian ethnic groups produce Goblins, Celts being the exception in producing no Goblins. Individuals of mixed ancestry, as long as some of their ancestors where non-Celtic Caucasians, can be Goblins. Goblins can buy up to DR 10. Goblins are prone to violence and cruelty, many would have disadvantages reflecting this, but it isn't required. Goblins often buy Night Vision. Goblins often stink, this can be reflected either as a disadvantage or an innate attack, or more likely both!

Dwarfs, male or female, average a height of 4ft.11in. Dwarfs are +2 to both ST and HT and +3 Per. Dwarfs all have at least Magery 2, but it always has a limit either in scope (single College) or time (only when the moon is above the horizon, only when the sun is getting higher in the sky), or place (only in the woods, only in private, only within sight and smell of the sea). Dwarfs are all Very Fit and have +3 Manual Dexterity. Dwarfs are always either Atractive or Unattractive and never anything else. Most Caucasian ethnic groups produce Dwarfs, Celts being the exception in producing no Dwarfs. Individuals of mixed ancestry, as long as some of their ancestors where non-Celtic Caucasians, can be Dwarfs.

Male Elves average 6ft.2in. in height. Female Elves average 5ft.10in. in height. Put this in the context of the average adult male human of the period being about 5ft.8in. in height. Elves are +1 to their primary stats and an additional +2 to Per. All Elves have Magery 0 plus additional levels of Magery limited in the same types of ways as the Dwarfs. All Elves have Longevity and one level of Enhanced Lifespan. All Elves are at least Attractive, and very few Elves are only attractive. All Caucasian ethnic groups produce Elves, Celts being exceptional in producing more Elves than most. Individuals of mixed ancestry, as long as some of their ancestors where Caucasians, can be Elves.

More later.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

This is starting to look like a world that might need its own thread. Certainly, it seems like one it would be fun to play a game in.

If you want to further detail Blackstone away from the city of Chicago, example detail how the New York mobs are doing or what's going down in Weimar Germany, or how India deals with Trolls, go ahead. 1927 is a great year for adventure and intrigue. For now, I'm sticking to Chicago and I plan to further detail the main Demi-Humans.