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Old 06-26-2021, 09:11 PM   #5621
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Perhaps the Cabal would be content with a very close alliance rather than Mexico joining the US as the ~37th state; I'd imagine the former would be easier to pull off, particularly if the Union Army does an exceptional job in ousting the French. Provided they have pleasant enough alliance, it could eventually result in Mexico joining the US, but I'd expect that to take a few decades at least.
The Cabal's plans have often been low on realism and high on destructiveness.
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Old 06-26-2021, 09:13 PM   #5622
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What is the date of the Timeline currently? Is the Civil War over or still being waged?
As written I assume the French are still in Mexico. So as the French left once they saw the ACW was wrapping up, both wars are still ongoing.
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Old 06-26-2021, 09:14 PM   #5623
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Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip View Post
But... have you ever considered revelling in the glorious intricacy which is your own web of plots, whilst being serenaded by the purrs of a long haired feline?

Excess is just a flourish.





Bwahahahahaha
Your insight is clear and penetrating.
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Old 06-28-2021, 11:41 AM   #5624
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Try this one...

In most worlds Saladin is a major figure. In this Q6 Low Mana Parallel he seems to have died as a child if he was even born. Fights between the Islamic powers preserved the Crusader States until the local year 1346. Now Orhan I is moving to conquer the Holy Lands. This will both delay any conquest of the Byzantine Empire and bring the Ottomans into conflict with the Mamluks.

The Cabal, wanting more Greek and Latin classical texts to survive, and also wanting the Byzantines to survive into at least the 16th century, are working to protect and strengthen the Palaiogos dynasty by changing the outcome the 1341-1347 Civil War.

Basically, an espionage game in the High Medieval Near East. Homeline is more interested in limiting Cabal influence than anything else. This world is low mana but there seem be be some anomalies. Homeline is worried about the Cabal's real goals.
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Old 06-28-2021, 12:18 PM   #5625
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this one...

In most worlds Saladin is a major figure. In this Q6 Low Mana Parallel he seems to have died as a child if he was even born. Fights between the Islamic powers preserved the Crusader States until the local year 1346. Now Orhan I is moving to conquer the Holy Lands. This will both delay any conquest of the Byzantine Empire and bring the Ottomans into conflict with the Mamluks.

The Cabal, wanting more Greek and Latin classical texts to survive, and also wanting the Byzantines to survive into at least the 16th century, are working to protect and strengthen the Palaiogos dynasty by changing the outcome the 1341-1347 Civil War.

Basically, an espionage game in the High Medieval Near East. Homeline is more interested in limiting Cabal influence than anything else. This world is low mana but there seem be be some anomalies. Homeline is worried about the Cabal's real goals.
You know, Homeline doesn't have the same reaction to the Cabal that it has to Centrum. So far as they know, the Cabal has no large scale agenda that threatens Homeline. In fact there's no reason to think the Cabal is even organized enough to have any unified agenda apart from "keep magic secret"...an agenda that Homeline actually approves of since it restricts the spread of another method of parachronic travel. There's no particular reason why they'd care that some Cabal lodge likes Byzantium and wants to help it.

Now one possibility is that is that a Homeline group with deus vult tendencies is intervening to try to direct the Turks away from the Crusader Kingdoms and toward Byzantium while at the time trying to strengthen the foes of the Turks. The patrol is looking to shut them down for exceeding acceptable levels of tampering while at the same time the Cabal's Byzantium are looking for the source of the disruption in their agenda...
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Old 06-30-2021, 04:30 PM   #5626
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Try this one...

In most worlds Saladin is a major figure. In this Q6 Low Mana Parallel he seems to have died as a child if he was even born. Fights between the Islamic powers preserved the Crusader States until the local year 1346. Now Orhan I is moving to conquer the Holy Lands. This will both delay any conquest of the Byzantine Empire and bring the Ottomans into conflict with the Mamluks.

The Cabal, wanting more Greek and Latin classical texts to survive, and also wanting the Byzantines to survive into at least the 16th century, are working to protect and strengthen the Palaiogos dynasty by changing the outcome the 1341-1347 Civil War.

Basically, an espionage game in the High Medieval Near East. Homeline is more interested in limiting Cabal influence than anything else. This world is low mana but there seem be be some anomalies. Homeline is worried about the Cabal's real goals.
What if The Cabal caused Saladin's non-existence? This could be from some of that time-traveling that The Cabal gets up to.

And what Infinity found out? The idea that The Cabal can travel through time would terrify Infinity, even if it only works on mana worlds.


There could be a bunch of relatively close parallel mana worlds (likely low-mana) that were created by Cabalist time travel.

For instance, low-mana Q3 Armada-3, where Spanish broadsheets blame a college of magicians for the revolts that have broken out in England & Netherlands after Philip II's death, could be because of some John Dee intervention gone wrong.

(think Times Without Number)
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Old 07-02-2021, 08:20 PM   #5627
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by fchase8 View Post
What if The Cabal caused Saladin's non-existence? This could be from some of that time-traveling that The Cabal gets up to.

And what Infinity found out? The idea that The Cabal can travel through time would terrify Infinity, even if it only works on mana worlds.


There could be a bunch of relatively close parallel mana worlds (likely low-mana) that were created by Cabalist time travel.

For instance, low-mana Q3 Armada-3, where Spanish broadsheets blame a college of magicians for the revolts that have broken out in England & Netherlands after Philip II's death, could be because of some John Dee intervention gone wrong.

(think Times Without Number)
Fun ideas, not how I wrote it but enjoy.
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Old 07-03-2021, 12:43 PM   #5628
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For instance, low-mana Q3 Armada-3, where Spanish broadsheets blame a college of magicians for the revolts that have broken out in England & Netherlands after Philip II's death, could be because of some John Dee intervention gone wrong.
Dee could reasonably be involved in the original plot too. Saladin is after all a pivotal figure in the mythology of England thanks to his connection to Richard the Lionhearted, and the resonances of Richards crusade in the codifications of Arthurian myths in the next couple generations (Chretien de Troyes is a contemporary of Richard and Saladin after all).

Without Saladin, Richard might never be involved in a Crusade at all. If he was anyway, he probably would've been more successful - and a united Kingdom of Jerusalem and England, even if it lasted only a generation or two, is likely to have a pretty significant impact on the future trajectory of English history. Even if he didn't, with the who knows what changes in the genealogy of the House of Plantagenet from diverting Richard's life, there's lot of scope for the England a couple centuries later to be very different.
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Old 07-03-2021, 11:16 PM   #5629
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Dee could reasonably be involved in the original plot too. Saladin is after all a pivotal figure in the mythology of England thanks to his connection to Richard the Lionhearted, and the resonances of Richards crusade in the codifications of Arthurian myths in the next couple generations (Chretien de Troyes is a contemporary of Richard and Saladin after all).

Without Saladin, Richard might never be involved in a Crusade at all. If he was anyway, he probably would've been more successful - and a united Kingdom of Jerusalem and England, even if it lasted only a generation or two, is likely to have a pretty significant impact on the future trajectory of English history. Even if he didn't, with the who knows what changes in the genealogy of the House of Plantagenet from diverting Richard's life, there's lot of scope for the England a couple centuries later to be very different.
A united kingdom of England and Jerusalem has a LOT of potential, especially if it's able to stand long term--at least long enough for the English language to predominate. That might get the pope to support England...
(Anything that sinks the Ottomans is OK in my book!)
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Old 07-04-2021, 09:16 AM   #5630
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Try this one...

There was a belief in certain circles from the 1950s to the 1980s that a nuclear war would erase the USSR and the USA from the world and Europe would rule the world again through renewed colonial empires. Some people feared this, others mourned this, some celebrated it. Some people in the eighties and nineties held that the theory of Nuclear Winter destroyed this belief and brought down the USSR (often denying that the internal decay of the USSR had any real effect on its collapse). Whatever, this fringe theory is good game fodder two ways.

First this one and then another one.

Once that young American scientist Carl Sagan brought out his proofs on "Nuclear Winter" Eastern Europe started to fall apart. Russia is crushing protests everywhere but their heart has gone out of it. They say Brezhnev has committed suicide. What will the world be like if Communism collapses?

Basically, this is a swinging sixties spy game with the USSR falling to pieces. In American things are looking up. The Vietnam war is over, the Great Society is devouring the military industrial complex, it's all progressive social programs and moonshots with rock music going wild, think Proto-Star Trek. Meanwhile, Eurasia is a mess. Power structures are falling leading to vast power vacuums that the USA has no interest in filling.

With both the USA and the USSR out of the game (the first dancing off to the moon and the second falling into ruins) the other powers of Eurasia are striking out to grab what they can while they can. What you have is a Mad Mod replay of the Great Game being played out by spies wearing Paisley and white go-go boots.

The local year is 1967.
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