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Old 05-27-2020, 07:09 PM   #4801
awesomenessofme1
 
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
From my quick read of the setting, I see a vast difference. Midgard has both Europe and North America Pagan and Norse. In Vinland a Pagan Norse North America is in conflict with a Christian Europe.
It's not immediately clear if you just skim it, but most of the Norse world in Midgard has converted to Christianity (albeit with a heavy pagan influence) by the time the setting takes place. That's still distinctly different from the setting you're describing, though.
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Old 05-28-2020, 07:09 AM   #4802
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One way to make a viking America far more likely would be to have a world with Iceland about three or four hundred miles south. The warmer climate and higher population would have meant a larger and far more active trade with Europe and that Iceland would have trees. And trees would mean Icelandic ships.

Similarly, simply having the Norse kings and the Hanseatic league favor regular trade with Iceland and Greenland would mean those colonies would be more active and make multiple attempts to settle vinland.
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Old 05-28-2020, 08:34 AM   #4803
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One way to make a viking America far more likely would be to have a world with Iceland about three or four hundred miles south.
Ah, that would be Rokkollr
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Old 05-28-2020, 09:08 AM   #4804
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One way to make a viking America far more likely would be to have a world with Iceland about three or four hundred miles south. The warmer climate and higher population would have meant a larger and far more active trade with Europe and that Iceland would have trees. And trees would mean Icelandic ships.
Alternately without changing the geography, you could just establish a Viking state somewhere further south. Kiev and Normandy and the Two Sicilies and some kingdoms in the British Isles were after all kind of that anyway, so it's not implausible to plant one somewhere in real geography that stays a little more into long range sailing. A Viking kingdom in Morocco colonizing its way across the Atlantic via the Canaries, Azores, Bermuda and Caribbean islands over the course of a few centuries isn't particularly implausible.
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Old 05-28-2020, 09:51 AM   #4805
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Ah, that would be Rokkollr
If Rockall and Iceland were switched around, Rockall would have led to either the Norse or the Celts colonizing North America. I suppose the real question would be "Would earlier colonization of the Americas been worse, better, or the same, for the Native Americans.
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Old 05-28-2020, 11:26 AM   #4806
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If Rockall and Iceland were switched around, Rockall would have led to either the Norse or the Celts colonizing North America. I suppose the real question would be "Would earlier colonization of the Americas been worse, better, or the same, for the Native Americans.
In the short run, about as bad, Amerind societies were basically post-apocalyptic when European colonists started arriving in large numbers, what did them in were epidemics, and those will still happen regardless of when substantial contact occurs. But two centuries later there were again settled towns and largish organized groups - which white settlers tended to attribute to their civilizing influence, but probably were not. A lot of these were burned shortly before or during the American Revolution - a bit of genocidal history Americans don't care to bring up much, which is perhaps why they aren't better known.

With longer to recover from Eurasian plagues before the arrival of colonists en masse, and less of a technology gap to deal with when they did start to interact, the long run outlook is arguably better.
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Old 05-28-2020, 10:42 PM   #4807
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Vinland would also mean the introduction of horses and cattle I expect. This would improve production and communication. Would also increase the local disease base so they would keep immunities because the introduced diseases would not die out. Rough in the short term but would make them a lot stronger later.
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Old 05-29-2020, 07:56 AM   #4808
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Try this one...

On this Q6 parallel, the kingdom of Tarumanagara sees the invention of a form of paper which is both cheap and durable, in the late 4th century AD. In spite of the 535 events Tarumanagara lasts into the 11th century AD.

In the 12th century, a successor state grew up the same archipelago. The third king, ruling in the early 14th century realized that there were important markets west of the Arab lands. He would make far better profits from trade if he could sell directly to the end markets rather than letting the Arabs get a cut. Also, as a devout Hindu, he wanted to take the Muslin preachers, rapidly converting his kingdom to Islam, down a few pegs. So, when he read that the ancient Phoenicians sailed around Africa, he saw a practical course of action.

Basically, it's the late 14th century, Chaucer is alive, and Indonesia is discovering the sea route to Europe!
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Old 05-31-2020, 02:40 PM   #4809
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Try this one...

In this Q6 parallel, the Captain of the Hindenburg decides to land like an airplane, a slower procedure, but unlike the way, the captain chose in Homeline history, unlikely to create strong electrical discharges. So the Airship lands safely. Airships struggle on until WWII.

However, during those few years, a talented American engineer, Donald Whitman, who in most worlds becomes a skilled airplane designer fines his true bliss in being an airship designer. His improvements get into production in WWII, when airships in most parallels including Homeline were highly effective sub-hunters. Although the Battle of the Atlantic wasn't much different in 1942, as American Airships improved their tactics, the Wolfpacks were hunted down more effectively. The depletion of submarines was greater than in Homeline history.

After WWII airships remained respectable and continued to develop and be used in both military and commercial areas. Donald Whitman, brilliantly redesigned airships incorporating radar (great for avoiding thunderstorms) and other useful technologies into the standard designs. This means that airships benefit massively from tech level eight materials and become major freight and cargo carriers and dominate the skies in the local year 1995. And the recent computerization of airship steering and navigation.

Homeline, seeing how useful these airships are, and realizing they are made without exotic technologies decides to get the technology for themselves. Now the technical specifications are no real trouble, those are easily bought or gained by other means. However, the hard thing to steal is the skill of piloting. So the PCs have to go to piloting school on this Q6 parallel.

Problem, pop culture significantly diverges from Homeline in this world. An American airship searching for submarines reported in the eastern Mediterranian in 1945, intercepts a ship taking Amin al-Husseini and Otto Skorzeny to Egypt. Both men are subsequently tried for war crimes. Without Skorzeny's training and other services, anti-Western extremists simply had a much longer time getting off the ground. Among other things, this leads to an early death for Sayyid Qubt, in a botched terrorist action, well before any of his major works were published. Near Eastern politics were thus far less focused and far less religiously defined. The 1970s oil shocks never occurred.

Further, French Airships used by a highly talented commander that died in an infantry battle in Homeline's 1945, were decisive in breaking the Arab rebellion in Algeria in the 1950s. This meant that decolonization was slower and more dependent on American anti-colonialism. As America was the needed patron of anti-colonialism, Anti-Americanism is seen as imperialistic in this world.

This means that two 1960s trends, counter-culture bohemianism, and fashionable copying non-Western Cultures, continued strongly creating a very distinctive 1990s America.

Basically, the PCs have to navigate an American culture radically unlike anything they know. At the same time, Centrum also wants this tech. So the PCs need to blend in smoothly in order to avoid Centrum agents.
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Last edited by Astromancer; 05-31-2020 at 03:30 PM.
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Old 06-01-2020, 09:36 PM   #4810
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Try this one...

In most worlds Otto von Bismarck's older Brother Bernhard lives into his eighties, in this Q6 world, he dies in a riding accident in his early teens. Bismark is too busy as head of the family managing his estate to put the same effort into the civil service and never rises very far. Germany, lacking the right leadership, never unifies.

Without the rise of Germany to force France to find new allies, the Anglo-French rivalry remains central to European politics. And the five powers of Europe remain Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The separate kingdoms that formed the German empire did industrialize, but no single German military force formed.

It is now the year 1928, Europe has a crop of singularly third-rate politicians running the place. Without the Palmer Raids which were motivated by fear of the Russian Revolution, or the Kaiser Reich's push of violent anarchists to America, America's Socialist parties are replacing the Democrats in the two-party system. Which is causing serious deadlocks in the government. At the same time, the Ulster Protestants are in revolt against the British state over Irish Home Rule. The British Army and Irish Catholic volunteers are trying to put the revolt down.

During this period when neither Britain nor America is able to focus on continental Europe, France decides to push its borders east into the Rhine. France and her ally Austria mean to take the lands they see as theirs by right. Prussia sees its chance to unify Germany on its terms. Russia, seeing Austria as its problem, allies with Prussia.

Basically, World War I in the late twenties without the Anglophone powers at first. Since the Kaiser encouraged the Ulstermen and loved throwing fuel on Ireland's fires, something would seriously provoke England into the fight. However, that something could come from either France or Germany.

Agents provocateur could come from either side to try to bring Britain into the war against their foes.
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