[Game] Work Up a Steampunk Setting

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I see no reason why any realistic AH depiction of Imperial Japan wouldn't follow that model, and those are my underlying assumptions.

Ultranationalism didn't really get going in Japan until about 1930. The WWI Japanese were reasonably well-behaved.

[TGLS]

Question 61- The Great War
Sometime in the next few years, is there likely to be a so-called Great War between most of the major powers of the era? When and where is such a Great War most likely to break out? What would need to happen for this war to be started or to be avoided?

Answer 61

Tensions are building, and at least a few great powers are likely to go to war. A true great power war seems unlikely given that there is a lack of borders for the British to attack. Here are a few possible conflicts that may emerge:

1) The Mediterranean War: France has consistently pursued domination of the Mediterranean, and Germany is intent on taking control of the Balkans. British control of the sea lanes through Gibraltar and the Suez is the primary threat to their goals. A major military action by the Entente against Italy or the Ottomans would likely provoke response by Britain or her allies (Japan, Brazil, Louisiana). The Entente would likely respond by attempting to take Gibraltar (by making a deal with Spain). This would almost certainly touch off war between Britain, France and Germany. British allies would probably only provide military support, not co-belligerency.

2) The Sorelian Wars: If Lenin manages to seize control of Russia, demand to export the revolution would likely be high. Their targets would probably be first the post-Russian states and later Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Asian expansion would be less likely. Germany would be the most likely to oppose the growth of Russian power, followed by the Ottomans. The British would be less likely to oppose Russian power. If the Russians could probably buy off the British by agreeing to leave the Scandinavian countries alone. If this were revealed, Anglo-Entente relations would probably fall to an all time low, and perhaps spark a great war.

3) The Bush Wars: The British have long been envious of France's control over the Congo. If the British developed a cure for Malaria, a full-scale war over the Congo would probably occur. The British are also trying to stop the trans-shipment of weapons through Madagascar. An invasion there would probably provoke the French. Some governors on the Swahili Coast have been providing arms to the Boers in South Africa. If this were discovered, the British would probably try to stop this, either by killing the governors or by invading the Swahili Coast. This would probably start a war with Germany and France.

4a) The Entente-Japanese War: If the Entente were to be kept busy by another conflict, then the Japanese would likely attack the German and French possessions in Asia (Vientiane, Guangzhou, etc.) The Entente is disinclined to seize control of the Japanese territories, unless they are kept busy. It is highly improbable that the Japanese would start this conflict had they signed an agreement establishing spheres of influence in Asia with Germany.

4b) The British-Japanese War: The Japanese are most envious of the British Colonial Empire. They are currently pursuing plans to disrupt British rule in India, as well as sow chaos in Australia. If the Entente were to agree on spheres of influence in Asia and the British were kept busy, then the Japanese would probably seize upon the opportunity to eject British influence from the Asia-Pacific region.

5) The American War: Jingoists in California are strongly in favor of expansion north across the Columbia river and eastward into Montana, in conflict with British and Louisianan claims. Texas has border disputes with Louisiana in Oklahoma and the Caribbean. Quebec has border disputes with Britain in Newfoundland. If California could make an agreement with Quebec and Texas, a war could seriously hamper Louisiana and Britain.

The world order could probably weather 1 of these conflicts (note 4a and b are judged mutually exclusive), but 2 or more would probably lead towards a world war, potentially touching off all of these conflicts.


Question 63
What really happened at the massacre near Fort McMurray? (Was it a massacre or did it get puffed up by Yellow Journalism?)

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Ultranationalism didn't really get going in Japan until about 1930. The WWI Japanese were reasonably well-behaved.

Well, yeah, but that's because they were mostly fighting the westernized Russians, and were a bit intimidated by the notion of confronting the overwhelming power of the West. The fact that Russia proved to be a paper tiger helped promote nationalism, because the Japanese perceived they could stand against a western power.

The collapse of Russia, in this world, means the Japanese don't have to fear intervention by anyone but the British Empire and (based on the previous post) the French in Indochina -- and the British government seems just as willing to exploit China as anybody else. So, I think it just as likely as anything that the Japanese start the brutality a little bit early.

All the same seeds are there -- the need for industrial resources, the closest deposits of which lay in Manchuria and Indochina; the perception that colonial empires were the mark of a great people, and the need for a strong military to hold them; the uniquely Japanese independence of the military from civilian oversight; the resentment toward Western powers that sought to hamstring Japan's military growth through the imposition of unequal treaties (Why wouldn't the British and French try to adopt this same tack, since neither Russia nor the United States exists to counter Japanese expansion in the Western Pacific?); the existence of ultra-nationalistic paramilitary groups with close ties to the Japanese military, and intelligence communities.

While the Great Depression served as the last straw that resulted in the emergence of Japanese ultra-nationalism in OTL, Imperial Japan remained on good behavior until then, in large part, because they felt they had to

Nobody in their right mind (even the United States, in OTL) wanted to fight the British Navy, at the height of its power -- especially if that meant they might have to take on other European powers, too (a real, if incorrect, perception in Japan).

Remove the Russians who might make common cause with the British (unlikely, but the Japanese didn't necessarily discount the possibility), and remove the increasingly powerful United States headed by the blustering-but-genuinely-altruistic Teddy Roosevelt (who made a lot of noise about supporting fair treatment for the Koreans and the Chinese, which couldn't be discounted since he was creating an ever-more powerful Great White Fleet at the same time), and it's okay to assume the Japanese moved more quickly toward oppression.

Moreover, since this is an RPG setting, more conflict is better, as that results in more adventure seeds. We know Imperial Japan was already inclined toward bad behavior, so have them indulge those predilections a bit early, and create for the PCs the ability to join local insurgents fighting for freedom from the troops of the empire that would eventually be responsible for the Rape of Nanking.

Why wouldn't we want that, as part of the setting?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I see no reason why any realistic AH depiction of Imperial Japan wouldn't follow that model, and those are my underlying assumptions.

1) That seems like quite a non sequitur. The A in AH stands for Alternate, whereas that's just saying that everything is the same as OTL, except maybe slightly earlier.
2) The starting conditions we have are different to OTL. A "realistic" alternate timeline would follow from those conditions given. Early on it was established that:

Originally Posted by TGLS

Empire of Japan: Westernized with the aid of the British during the prelude to the Hapsburg Crisis (1762-1771). Military victories in the Philippines established it as a powerful force in the Pacific. Quietly seized control of trade in the Indochina during the German Wars of Unification (1793-1817). Industrial growth was sparked to provide an independent supply of weapons and is fueled by the reefs surrounding Japan, as well as Japanese owned mines in the Indochina.

So in this timeline, we have industrialisation of Japan in the mid-18th century, 150 years prior to current events, and Japanese dominance in the Asia-Pacific for 100 years. So here they have evolved in lockstep with European industrialisation and militarisation for more than a century, they're not trying to play catch-up in just 30 years as they did OTL. Also, for some reason they gave up their policy of isolation at least a hundred years earlier than OTL (when Commodore Perry forced Japan to trade in 1854), and we haven't addressed the reason for that, but it introduces a huge difference from OTL.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Ultranationalism didn't really get going in Japan until about 1930. The WWI Japanese were reasonably well-behaved.

Well, sort of. By this time OTL they had fought wars with China and Russia, occupied the Liaodong Peninsula, annexed Taiwan and Korea, and ambushed the Russian fleet in Port Arthur. This includes the 1905 treaty with Korea, where the Japanese ex-PM personally threatened to kill the Korean PM if he didn't sign it.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

All the same seeds are there -- the need for industrial resources, the closest deposits of which lay in Manchuria and Indochina; the perception that colonial empires were the mark of a great people, and the need for a strong military to hold them; the uniquely Japanese independence of the military from civilian oversight;

Well, they borrowed their military ideas from the Prussians, if we want to get into historical detail, and in this ATL Japan is more allied with Britain.

But again, in this timeline, Japan is not in a rush to claim all those resources- they've already long established control of them and are now comfortably making use of them.

the resentment toward Western powers that sought to hamstring Japan's military growth through the imposition of unequal treaties (Why wouldn't the British and French try to adopt this same tack, since neither Russia nor the United States exists to counter Japanese expansion in the Western Pacific?);

But these are the results of the late emergence of industrialised Japan, which is different to the ATL.

Moreover, since this is an RPG setting, more conflict is better, as that results in more adventure seeds. We know Imperial Japan was already inclined toward bad behavior, so have them indulge those predilections a bit early, and create for the PCs the ability to join local insurgents fighting for freedom from the troops of the empire that would eventually be responsible for the Rape of Nanking.

Why wouldn't we want that, as part of the setting?

Indeed conflict is good for a setting, but by setting up Japan as a cliched, completely evil empire means that any PCs who wanted to have a Japanese background or play in a steampunk Edo setting would have to justify being completely evil themselves. We can aim for a bit more nuance from our world-building. We can still say that they have their imperialistic power over the Asia-Pacific, achieved by military conquest and now in an uneasy status quo, but I see no reason to make them any worse than the European colonial powers.

Originally Posted by TGLS

4a) The Entente-Japanese War: If the Entente were to be kept busy by another conflict, then the Japanese would likely attack the German and French possessions in Asia (Vientiane, Guangzhou, etc.)

Note that I'd made Vientiane a former French protectorate, and their departure has led to insurrection against the current rulership. However, I did leave it undecided as to who is in charge now. The Governor of Vientiane could be under the rule of the King of Siam, could be a part of an Indochinese kingdom that is a puppet-state of Japan, or Indochina could be a group of such kingdoms- Lao, Khmer, and Viet. Otherwise it could be a protectorate of Germany, Britain or Japan, conceded by the French by treaty or conquest.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

1) That seems like quite a non sequitur. The A in AH stands for Alternate, whereas that's just saying that everything is the same as OTL, except maybe slightly earlier.

(SNIP)

Okay, I find these arguments compelling, now that you've presented them all comprehensively, in a single post. Imperial Japan is much more laid back in this timeline, as compared to our history, and the more peaceful Buddhist tendencies of the emperors seem to reign in Japan's powerful military.

However, that raises an interesting question:

Question 64

While the Far East features several insurrections against one empire or another, some clandestine Great Power skullduggery in Australia, bits and bobs of (fairly effective) piracy, and China and Russia in collapse, the colonial overlords there are generally more benign than in our timeline -- especially Japan. However, this is an RPG setting, and conflict is required, so who are the powerful, villainous forces that plague the Far East?

Whom do the PCs feel good about fighting, in those exotic lands? Alternatively, do we just envision steampunk spec ops or rebellion campaigns fought on behalf of, or against, one somewhat corrupt colonial overlord or another? Or are we thinking along the lines of Kipling-esque campaigns in which heroic colonial troops fight against those wogs and fuzzy-wuzzies who engage in piracy and terrorism, in ongoing efforts by those troops to bring enlightened Western (or Japanese) civilization to the "benighted native heathens"?

Who are the major bad guys, in the Far East, if they're not the Japanese?

[Daigoro]

In the meantime, the question pool standing is-

Question 34- Standing question on Tourist Destinations
What are popular tourist destinations?
- 4 of 5 entries

Question 38- Standing question on Hot Spots
What are the top 5-10 Global Trouble Spots, and which side are the British or other powers supporting?
- 4 entries of 5-10

Question 41- Standing question on Asia-Pacific Resistance Groups
What are some of the Chinese or Western Pacific indigenous resistance groups who fight the brutally oppressive occupations by the Japanese Empire?
- 2 entry of 5

Question 42- Standing question on Weaponry
What types of weaponry are commonly available for various countries' troops? And what advanced options are there? Who has the superior armaments?
- 12 weapon systems so far, with more promised (and I have one or two still in the pipeline)

Question 44- Standing question on Everyday Tech
What everyday contraptions, devices or technology do denizens of the setting enjoy that we were deprived of in OTL, or deprived of today even? How is life different for the average middle-to-upper-class member of modern industrialised society?
- 4 items out of 10

Question 46- Standing question on Adventurer Groups
What organisations, groups, agencies, departments, corporations or security forces have teams, units or detachments of 3-6 operatives, agents, investigators or representatives ready to solve problems, dive into adventure or trounce rump, or otherwise to execute diabolical plans of immoral purpose?
- 4 of 8 entries

Question 47- Standing question on Heroes
Who are the five most famous living heroes, be them soldiers, explorers, scientists or police?
- 1 out of 5

Question 48- Standing question on Inventors
Which tinkerers and inventors would we see on the short-list for the Sir Alfred Nobel Prize for Excellence in Machinery Arts and Engineering? Who are five famous gadgeteers and what are they known for?
- 0 out of 5

Question 50- Wealthy Lifestyles
How do the wealthiest of the wealthy flaunt their fortunes?

Question 56- Standing Question on World Headlines
What are the top 5 headlines coming off the news tickers and lithograms for November, 1911, for each of 5 different world cities?
- 2 of 5

Question 57- North American Relations
Have we clearly stated the relations between the various North American countries? Are they at peace, war or cold war? Are there territorial disputes or cross-border fighting?
- California, Texas & Louisiana covered
- British Ontario, British Columbia & Quebec somewhat in post 29
- Anyone for relations between northern countries & southern?

Question 58- North American Indians
How are the North American Indians doing?
Do they have own nations, or something like reservations?
ETA: c.f. Post #23/Answer 21 for earlier comments on this

Question 59- Standing question on Stage Artists & Performers
Who are the 5 most known stage artists - and what are they known for?

Question 60 (posted as 59)- Standing Question on Unique Jobs
What is an unusual job you would not find in another timeline?
- 1 of 5

Question 62- Land Vehicle Rally
Given the state of land transportation technology, what is the longest rally for single, privately-owned vehicles, who won the last rally, what type of land vehicle did he or she drive, and who sponsored the team?

Question 63- Fort McMurray Massacre
What really happened at the massacre near Fort McMurray? (Was it a massacre or did it get puffed up by Yellow Journalism?)

Five one-off questions, and 11 list questions. I might retire some of the older list questions on the next recap.

[Emerald Cat]

Question 59
Name five stage artists and performers.

Answer 59a)
Harry Houdini exists in this setting and still doing his escape artist performances.

Question 65
Harry Houdini is well known for being an occultist/debunker in OTL. In this setting, magic exists. Does Houdini use magic to aid his performances in this setting?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

In the meantime, the question pool standing is-



Five one-off questions, and 11 list questions. I might retire some of the older list questions on the next recap.

Nah, don't. I may have some ideas to add, and it doesn't hurt anything.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Indeed conflict is good for a setting, but by setting up Japan as a cliched, completely evil empire means that any PCs who wanted to have a Japanese background or play in a steampunk Edo setting would have to justify being completely evil themselves.

As a side-note, I just looked up the term, "Meifumado," and now I think I have a better idea where you're coming from, in terms of Imperial Japan. It's from L5R, right? You're liking steampunk samurai?

[(E)]

Partial answers to 38, 41 and 42

Strategic weapons
Doodlebug steam launched ballistic bombs (steam catapult)
Using technologies developed for the Italian orbital program this requires a large system of rails to launch a semi-ballistic craft that contains a large amount of explosives. A complicated magnetic anomaly detector has been added to some versions of the "sleds" so that they move to orient themselves towards large metal objects, such as battleships.

Balloon bombers
Lighter than air drifting unmanned bombers that drop bombs after a specific length of time. These bombers are potentially a valuable strategic weapon if used in conjunction with high altitude winds.

Gas pipes
Developed by engineers and chemists employed by the Mitsui Zaibatsu these tubes are lowered from a specialist air ship. They then pump Mustard or chlorine gas down the pipes from a position of safety.

Resistance group
Mount Hagen Mongrels
The Japanese representation in New Guinea is brutal in their dealings with those they don't consider an ally. They use enslaved native tribes as mine workers in their lucrative and very secret gold mines. The conglomerate (see below) and specifically the Mitsui Zaibatsu are the powers that be in the area. They have a puppet government extolling their virtues. In the isolated interior of the island a group of battered survivors have formed a resistance movement. These are the Mount Hagen Mongrels, the members have a mixture of races and backgrounds but they are all tightly bound by the desire for revenge. They have experienced a number of loses against the Zaibatsu's forces but they have survived, learnt from their misfortune and continued more determined than before. They have taken their name from the insulting title given to them by the conglomerate's secret police.

Answer to question 64, The conglomerate
Mitsui (a major Zaibatsu) and members of the (british) West pacific trading company form the heart of this group. The Californian Vanderbilts, the DuPonts from the Louisiana confederacy and the Rockefellers from Texas all have links to the group. With the backing of the other parties the Zaibatsu seeks to build sufficent resources to challenge, fragment or even overthrow the government of Japan. The conglomerate has control of some fifteen percent of the Japanese Empire's economy. Their secret mines in New Guinea have provided them with a staggeringly large fortune in gold. Failing to fully control the empire would result in them activating their secondary objective, seeking to create an autonomous region around the Pacific.

Question 67 - How wide spread is the Conglomerate's influence?

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

[B]
Question 62
Given the state of land transportation technology, what is the longest rally for single, privately-owned vehicles, who won the last rally, what type of land vehicle did he or she drive, and who sponsored the team?

This is of course the notorious Transeurasian Motor Race, aka the "Transeurasia". It starts at the western most part of Europe, the Cabo da Roca in Portugal, and leads across Madrid, Paris, Cologne, Prague, Moscow to Vladivostok. There, it leaves the comfortable postal roads and runs farther north-east, using logging roads and frozen tundra until it reaches Cape Dezhnev at the Bering Strait. It is rumored that the next time an additional leg will lead across the frozen Strait to Alaska.
Usually, only one of three cars make it to the goal. Deadly accidents are expected. The race claimed until today the life of 14 participants. Most died in crashes, but two froze to dead in the Siberian winter, one was killed by a bear, and one was clubbed to dead by angry farmers because he ran over the local priest.
The race happens every four years, next time (the 5th try) in 1914. It covers a distance of more than 16.000 km, and the fastest driver who made it (Ludwig Schmidt) needed 114 days, 13 hours and 35 minutes. He drove a Thuringa 6, usually a military scouting vehicle. His main sponsor was the Hamburger Auto Journal, a magazine for motorists.

Question 68 ?
Who owns Greenland?

By the way, i can not find Question 66