New Reality Seeds

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Alternately if you wanted to focus on the rubber industry and it's strategic effects, one tactic that would make sense is to build the tyre factories near the plantations, and undercut prices to run production elsewhere out of business. When the war breaks out, those Indonesian factories are suddenly even more of a logistics issue than the plantations were.

And probable knock on effects with Japan seizing a semi-viable industrial base during the strike south...

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by TGLS

And probable knock on effects with Japan seizing a semi-viable industrial base during the strike south...

No need to worry about that. After all nobody would ever do something as crazy as fight a World War again. We have the League to stop it. And anyway the Japanese haven't got a chance against the Royal Navy....

There's probably an IW mission seed in there where Homeline nations can see this coming as the tire factories come on line and run the competition already in trouble from the Depression out of business, and want to try to convince their broke local equivalent governments to subsidize their in country hose, tire ,and synthetic rubber industries.

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Several times in Earth's history caldera eruptions have massively disrupted Earth's climate. The eruption of mount Tambora being a well known example. Predictions and scare stories about the Yellowstone Caldera are genre unto themselves.

However, in Caldera-4 Yellowstone Caldera erupted in 1769 before outsiders even knew about the whole Yellowstone area.

Although the effects of the eruption were hard on the English colonies along America's eastern seaboard, their low population densities and relatively good transport systems made their survival possible. Although several southern colonies, which suffered more from trade disruption, collapsed politically. Europe on the other talon faced far larger famines. These were made worse in most of the continent by the resistance of peasant farmers to new crops and farming techniques.

Europe started a period of political violence and collapse brought on by several cold icy years in a row with poor or disastrous harvests. With the intensification of the Little Ice Age in the 1780s and the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, Europe experienced fifty years of famine and war.

The local year


More later I must go.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Although the effects of the eruption were hard on the English colonies along America's eastern seaboard, their low population densities and relatively good transport systems made their survival possible. Although several southern colonies, which suffered more from trade disruption, collapsed politically. Europe on the other talon faced far larger famines. These were made worse in most of the continent by the resistance of peasant farmers to new crops and farming techniques.

I don't see how population density matters (if you only have enough food for half the population it doesn't matter if that's half of a million people or half of a hundred), nor how new crops or farming techniques are an issue (the winter isn't going to be better or worse because of how much the peasants like tomatoes).

I also don't think the southern colonies have more trade dependence, if anything the northern ports cities like New York and Boston seem likely to be harder hit. Not that the effects of a major global disruption on relatively backwater places like British North America matter very much, right? It's not like anything of lasting global significance was scheduled to happen there anyway.

I think the most important thing actually happening that year is the Qing invasion of Burma, for which a couple cooler years might actually benefit the Chinese. Though I suspect the big effect in the long term would be a change in the timing and possibly location of the industrial revolution (1769 is the patent date for both Watt's condenser and Richard Arkwright's spinning frame). I'd expect a couple decades delay, but you can probably spin a plausible story for anything, including an acceleration from labor shortages, if you wanted.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by malloyd

I don't see how population density matters ...

AFAIK one of the side effects of starvation is it makes a population more susceptible to becoming ill. Lower population density could result in proportionally less folk contracting diseases.

[Micah Davis]

It's 1971 in Manson, a near parallel on Q6 that diverged with Charles Manson entering politics in California. The charismatic man is the freshly minted Senator from California, but most people - in universe and out of it - think he has his eyes on higher office. President Hubert Humphrey (who won narrowly in '68) is unpopular and Manson seems to be eying the U.S. Republican Primary - Though some people think he might jump ship to run with the American Independent Party if the Republicans run a liberal candidate.

Needless to say, Homeline is concerned - Manson in politics does not seem to be a high probability event. Manson was, on Homeline, a virulent white supremacist who believed in the inevitability of a race war. Either the U.S. Government or the Patrol might send some agents to turn up (or plant) dirt on Manson to end his political career before it can take off. On the bright side, Sharon Tate has made some lovely movies that Homeline sells back home.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Micah Davis

It's 1971 in Manson, a near parallel on Q6 that diverged with Charles Manson entering politics in California. The charismatic man is the freshly minted Senator from California.

A thing about cult leaders is their charisma seems to be situational somehow. You'll often here non-cult members talk about how *strange* they seemed. Admittedly some of this is biased - people interpreting stuff that didn't bother them at the time as an issue now that the cult is in the news (which is basically always negatively). But not all of it. I've heard several ministers (and one coven leader) deliver talks so peculiarly I've wondered how these guys have managed to convince anybody at all to follow them, not for their subject matter, just for their out there delivery.

Manson is certainly one people say that about. If in this timeline he isn't obviously strange enough to kill a political career (and running on a racist ticket in California will do that even in this era), maybe he's sane, and Homeline has no justification to do anything about him.

[Micah Davis]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Manson is certainly one people say that about. If in this timeline he isn't obviously strange enough to kill a political career (and running on a racist ticket in California will do that even in this era), maybe he's sane, and Homeline has no justification to do anything about him.

I definitely intended this to be a possibility! But I will say that weird, uneven charisma is fairly normal in even highly successful politicians. Still, the possibility that Homeline’s just being paranoid is part of the appeal of the scenario.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Several times in Earth's history caldera eruptions have massively disrupted Earth's climate. The eruption of mount Tambora being a well known example. Predictions and scare stories about the Yellowstone Caldera are genre unto themselves.

However, in Caldera-4 Yellowstone Caldera erupted in 1769 before outsiders even knew about the whole Yellowstone area.

I quickly Googled "political effects of Mt. Tambora eruption" and did some research. Unsurprisingly, the impact went beyond "some places had more people die than others". Some quick, disorganized notes:

• Mass migrations and a refugee crisis
• Epidemics
• Economic disruption that goes beyond "mere" mass death.
• Political upheaval as well—John Post suggests that this lead to an authoritarian streak in post-Napoleonic Europe, while Wolfgang Behringer argues that managing the upheaval poorly is part of why China declined as a world power in the 19th century. (A position apparently shared by the three researchers who wrote this paper, though paywalls make that hard to confirm.)
• The novel Frankenstein, which was written due to poor weather partly caused by Tambora (and is a popular metaphor for how the upper class saw the lower classes during this time of strife, it came up in so many articles).

And let me take note of some important events that happened around this time:

Spoiler:  

• In broad strokes, republicanist (pro-democracy, anti-monarchy) ideals are taking hold in the 1760's.
• The Seven Years' War ended just several years prior.
• Europeans encounter the Maori for the first time. It goes about as well as you'd expect; several Maori were killed because one tried to grab a sword.
• The spinning jenny and water frame were invented, allowing industrial textile production. (Spinning wheels are more economically significant than you might think.)
• In the vein of the early industrial revolution, James Watt's steam engine enables new steel-producing techniques.

And a few historical events from upcoming events which will likely be missed:

• Gustav III's Swedish coup d'état
• The partition of Poland
• The East India Company starting opium smuggling
• The Moscow plague riot and famines in Bengal and Czechoslovakia—wait, no, those are just gonna be worse.
• The American Revolution and , same probably applies

Also turmoil in other places, especially natives of colonized places against their respective colonizers.

So I'm seeing a lot of social strife. The poverty and discontent we saw in OTL after Tambora, but worse. A few points that spring to mind:

• India is probably going to have an existential struggle against the British. The Bengal famine of 1770 would be worsened by both the direct effects of the Yellowstone eruption and the East India Company shipping as much rice as it can extract back to England to stave off famine there. This might take the form of constant local riots, or it might be a unified movement to kick out the East India Company. Whether it would succeed or fail depends on how much focus each side was willing to give their struggle and how much the eruption's aftereffects were ruining them.
• In the vein of "Britain tries to get as much as possible out of the colonies," the American Revolution probably kicks off sooner. With much of the army needed at home to quell riots and demonstrations, plus unrest in India and other colonies, there might not be much of a war. Depending on how badly things go, the Empire might create something superficially like the Commonwealth centuries early, giving the American colonies political sovereignty in exchange for some trade promises and formal concessions (possibly recognizing the King as formal head of state).
• To save time on writing, reading, and research, assume similar struggles among most colonial powers, to some extent or another.
• Russia had a rough decade in OTL, and it would be worse here. I wouldn't be surprised if the monarchy was toppled, though what exactly would follow is tough to say. Possibly balkanization, possibly a new republic. Other monarchies would be as concerned about a Russian Republic for much the same reason they were about post-Revolution France—if one country could kick out its king and survive, could others? And, as noted, anti-authority and specifically anti-monarchist sentiment were already a significant thing in OTL...and would be worsened by the famine, plague, etc after the eruption.
• To keep things interesting, let's say that Gustav III successfully seizes greater monarchial power as in OTL. Depending on how well Sweden fares in the famine, he might try to take advantage of the chaos in Russia to invade. With these assumptions, I could see Sweden being...if not a winner, then a least-loser.
• Automation of production might take off even more, as the upper-class deal with a critical labor shortage. (One that comes from an actual shortage of labor rather than just treating workers like garbage.)

As with many catastrophes, this would cause a sort of consolidation of power; some influential entities fall from grace, while the survivors shore up their dominance. So would it be among the great powers of Europe. Of course, there might be a substantial reduction in the overall quantity of power, especially for the colonial powers. Continental powers who don't collapse might be in a better spot; aside from Sweden, the Ottomans and France (de-imperialized just before the eruption) might be candidates. If you want to get wild, maybe the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth takes advantage of Russia's struggles and incorporates a Russian governate or something.


Nearly half a century is a lot of time for things to restabilize. If Mt. Tambora erupted (I don't know much about geology, but it seems like a supervolcano eruption might delay/prevent that), it would erupt on a world that found a new normal—one where some states had successfully centralized power, and some were forced to give their people more power. The Industrial Revolution may be ahead of OTL as well, though fields of science and engineering unrelated to automation probably lag behind—perhaps helping wealthy industrialists and kings maintain their status despite labor issues, but probably not as much as they think it does.
And Mt. Tambora threatens to throw this world into chaos again.

In an Infinite Worlds context, this Caldera-4 is an excellent site for the ideological conflict between Centrum and Homeline. When Tambora hits, there will be plenty of chaos that the two worlds can use to hide support for their favored regimes or sabotage of ones they dislike—plenty of opportunities for conflict between those two groups, each trying to secure the fate of an entire worldline.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Several times in Earth's history caldera eruptions have massively disrupted Earth's climate. The eruption of mount Tambora being a well known example. Predictions and scare stories about the Yellowstone Caldera are genre unto themselves.

However, in Caldera-4 Yellowstone Caldera erupted in 1769 before outsiders even knew about the whole Yellowstone area.

Although the effects of the eruption were hard on the English colonies along America's eastern seaboard, their low population densities and relatively good transport systems made their survival possible. Although several southern colonies, which suffered more from trade disruption, collapsed politically. Europe on the other talon faced far larger famines. These were made worse in most of the continent by the resistance of peasant farmers to new crops and farming techniques.

Europe started a period of political violence and collapse brought on by several cold icy years in a row with poor or disastrous harvests. With the intensification of the Little Ice Age in the 1780s and the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, Europe experienced fifty years of famine and war.

The local year


More later I must go.

To Malloyd, Luke Bunyip, Great Wyrm Gold, thanks for the analysis.

Human society in North America took less of a hit because A) lower population density and more farm land per person and more farmers, B) society was under less stress, there were fewer bread riots and wars because society wasn't as much on the edge, and C) there was less plague. Heck, the weather was bad for mosquitoes in North America so Yellow Fever was rare for decades. Benjamin Fraklin's grandson is still alive leads the abolition movement.

The local year is 1828, Europe is mainly a post-apocalyptic wasteland slowly waking up from the new dark age. The American Republics are seen as exotic utopias. The Nobles and Kings want to regain power but even in the chaos the people tasted a bit of freedom. Even more importantly, they know they can survive with out their "Betters." They see no reason to return the kings. Meanwhile, Britain is a repressive dictatorship under the rule of King Ernest Augustus.

Europe is mainly a mixture of Tech Levels four and five. The American Republics and the UK are both solidly TL5. The UK is more like 1750 and the American Republics are more like 1790.

More later.