New Reality Seeds

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I admit the phrase "winning a nuclear war" is paradoxical to the point of being a contradiction. The biosphere has survived worse than fallout. But there would be more disease and other problems. I don't think the USA is all that easy to turn into a dictatorship. Dictators need people to see them as in charge and better than the alternatives. I don't see that being an easy thing to get in the USA. Although we are all told that the USA is little different than a dictatorship by every twit of both the Right and the Left.

I would think that there would be a vast influx from Europe into the Americas and other suitible lands.

I agree with Flyndaran, dictatorship lurks around the corner of any society. Especially one as stressed as a post-WWIII 1950s US would be. It would HAVE to be a dictatorship for several years just to allocate limited resources to people who are literally dying without them. No time to vote in a situation like that. How it goes after that... well, I think it would be an "interesting" time, probably a period full of adventure possibilities.

The biosphere may have survived "worse than fallout" (not sure when, but I'll keep going) but humans haven't. Between fallout, ozone depletion, and nuclear winter human life might have a tough time of it, along with the rest of the natural world.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. Hitler's armies defeats Stalin's armies, but at a huge cost to the the Wehrmacht. The Western allies defeat the collapsing German state. It's now 1946 and the mess is vast an terrible. The Marshall plan is helping in Western Europe, but Eastern Europe and the former Soviet lands are a vast mess. Truman is having serious trouble in getting the congress to commit to the needed levels of involvement. European intellectuals of both the Right and the Left publish vast amounts of bitter screeds directed at those assumed to be in charge issueing vast numbers of conflicting demands.

Both Homeline and Centruum are vitally interested in this (as yet unnamed) Q6 world. Although much like the Echos it has only recently diverged from it has one major difference. This Parallel has a mana level of normal, even though it seems to have no effective magic weilders. Both Homeline and Centruum want bases on this world to study magic!

Homeline wants to encourage democracy and human rights. Centruum wants a revived British Empire under their thumb (Churchill is seen both as a major block to their plans and a vital tool) and to find a way to collapse the USA.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. Hitler's armies defeats Stalin's armies, but at a huge cost to the the Wehrmacht.

Infinity's military historian reckons there's something wrong here. Battles between vaguely competent armies don't end up with "nearly everyone wiped out". Once a side starts to get on top it inflicts many more casualties than it suffers. Having this happen requires vast strategic incompetence on both sides, or something influencing the high commands to that end. Which means that I am more than somewhat suspicious that someone may be making use of all that mana.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Infinity's military historian reckons there's something wrong here. Battles between vaguely competent armies don't end up with "nearly everyone wiped out". Once a side starts to get on top it inflicts many more casualties than it suffers. Having this happen requires vast strategic incompetence on both sides, or something influencing the high commands to that end. Which means that I am more than somewhat suspicious that someone may be making use of all that mana.

Or they both get hit with something unexpected like unusually virulent disease or opportunistic enemies.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Infinity's military historian reckons there's something wrong here. Battles between vaguely competent armies don't end up with "nearly everyone wiped out". Once a side starts to get on top it inflicts many more casualties than it suffers. Having this happen requires vast strategic incompetence on both sides, or something influencing the high commands to that end. Which means that I am more than somewhat suspicious that someone may be making use of all that mana.

My mistake might reveal a nasty Cabalist plot! Kwel!

[patchwork]

Cabalists who seem intent on a USA dominated world? Those would be interesting, but my money is on Merlin-1's CIA...

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Cabalists who seem intent on a USA dominated world? Those would be interesting, but my money is on Merlin-1's CIA...

Cabalists are just as prone to biases as any commoner. Even more so as theirs may be horribly antiquated but with the power to force a square peg into a round hole.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Cabalists who seem intent on a USA dominated world? Those would be interesting, but my money is on Merlin-1's CIA...

Cabalists generally want to be the only ones useing magic. A no nonsense American world order were democracy is the slated norm and science is the path to the future would be useful to the Cabalists. In democracies few people are going to ask for your papers or just barge in on privet property. Cabalists can see the benefits of Civil Liberties too.


In a world where both the USSR and Red China are out of the picture the anti-Colonialist aspects of 1950's US policy would stand out. With no communist block to struggle against the Europeans would find themselves without cover and the highly successful attempt to paint the USA as a colonialist Empire would never get off the ground. Further, the move toward religion that was so strong in the West in the 1950's (and continued under the radar in the 1960's) would lack its strongest driving force with no red menace. With a lower religious tempeture and less agitation about neo-colonialism, the interest in other cultures and their worldviews would probably stay accedemic. The Occult boom (and you get those every few decades) wouldn't be seen as a political/cultural thing. Or at least not a progressive political/cultural thing.

Still, Merlin-1 would be a good choice. But how do you know it isn't Merlin's KGB? They certainly wouldn't want to share the spotlight with another Russia and they'd assume they'd be easily able to control and use the USA. Serveral other real world inteligence agencies that would have counterparts on Merlin-1 could be involved as well.

[patchwork]

Mostly because it's part of canon that Merlin-1's CIA is aware of Infinity and has worked out a couple of rudimentary Gate spells. Adding other Merlin-1 agencies into the mix could be interesting, but is original content, not direct extrapolation from existing material.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Mostly because it's part of canon that Merlin-1's CIA is aware of Infinity and has worked out a couple of rudimentary Gate spells. Adding other Merlin-1 agencies into the mix could be interesting, but is original content, not direct extrapolation from existing material.

Still a four-way Out-Timer's struggle to control this world (hereby dubbed Merlin-4) could make good gaming. Plus much of the action would take place durring a period of crisis and dislocation. A Europe just after WWII, with no Soviet Union of any coherence. The USA would find itself more and more alone as France and the UK struggled to rebuild their colonial Empires.

Simply dealing with the struggles between the UK and the USA in this world would be interesting. With no Soviet threat the two nations really wouldn't be that likely to stay close. And the 1940's USA generally saw the European colonial Empires as the cause of the World Wars. France and Britain's drives to rebuild, and if possible expand their empires (as they did after WWI) would put fantastic stress on the allience. It might become impossible for Truman to maintain the Marshall Plan.

All in all, a good multi-threat environment.