New Reality Seeds

[Anders]

After the Toba Eruption, homo sapiens goes extinct. The Earth is populated by Neanderthal. Are they technologically advanced, or was that beyond their scope?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Considering that one reason the 49th Parallel was chosen as the border between Canada and the USA because it intersected Lake Superior, the existence of a sixth Great Lake might move that border a few degrees of latitude south...

Or North. It would depend on the shape of the lake. Further, sections of the Canadian prairies might be settled from New England and Pennslyvannia long before the Brits could claim them. Change the lakes and change the US Canadian relationship in so many ways.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Anders

After the Toba Eruption, homo sapiens goes extinct. The Earth is populated by Neanderthal. Are they technologically advanced, or was that beyond their scope?

What if their scope is totally different than Hommo Sapiens? Completely different gifts and faults would make them both scary alien and valuable. If they see any problem from a radically different viewpiont, Neanderthals would be super useful allies.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

What if their scope is totally different than Hommo Sapiens? Completely different gifts and faults would make them both scary alien and valuable. If they see any problem from a radically different viewpiont, Neanderthals would be super useful allies.

Interesting. I don't think there are any examples of Neanderthal missile weapons... what if they turned entirely to traps instead? Trap-making would maybe spawn other cognitive developments.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Rysith

Define "Europe". Barring some sort of major, long-term catastrophe people will move in / conquer it because it's got farmland and natural resources. The culture and so on might be completely different, but there will still be 'people in Europe doing things', even if they are more culturally similar to other areas.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Europe's advantages are pretty good, it would take a great deal to knock it down forever. A harsher Little Ice Age that started sooner and lasted longer combined with changes in Catholic Theology that made all math beyond arithmatic sinful might make a start.

...

More likely you'd simply get an Islamic conquest, an Islamic European Reformation, and European forms of Islam bitterly attacked by Near Eastern Moslems the same way the Orthodox Christians slam Western Christianity. Europe's geography and resources both promote civilisation and thwart a Universal Imperidum.

The goal I want is a world where europe does not conquer india, southeast asia, and africa while forcing much of east asia to conform to its policies. (the new world is ok though) I want to do this without either depopulating europe OR filling europe's all-conquering role with someone else. (yes, in this case europe basically means england, holland, and france).

I suppose the right twists to the reformation might do the trick... hmm.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Anders

Interesting. I don't think there are any examples of Neanderthal missile weapons... what if they turned entirely to traps instead? Trap-making would maybe spawn other cognitive developments.

Real Neanderthals seem to have been ambush preditors, much like sabertooth cats. So traps make a kind of sense.

[Astromancer]

I'm reading a book on the spies working in Elizabethan England and it occured to me, if Mary of Scotland had died earlier, without Elizabeth being implicated, it would alter late 16th century politics in several ways. If durring the escape from Loch Leven Castle Mary had caught a bad cold and said cold had turned into pneumonia, then from 1658 onwards, Catholic opposition to Elizabeth would lack a workable figure head.

Phillip wanted to rule England, but he never had the time to focus on conquest of England. It was only the international scandle of Mary's execution that pushed him to the Armada. Elizabeth's main horror in naming an heir, was a fear of assassination. Without Mary of Scotland around, few would pin the hopes of Catholic Europe one her son James. Elizabeth might easily be persauded to except him as an heir. It's also possible that, with reduced international tensions, Elizabeth might see marriage as a workable possibility.

It seems to me that once James is born, Mary of Scotland's death becomes useful to anyone who wants a strong stable England. I could see several different schemes by Centrum, the Cabal, nationist groups (both English and Scots, heck maybe even spainards trying to prevent the disgrace of the Armada), even Homeline, might see killing Mary of Scotland as a viable plan.

Mid-16th century Scotland is both alien and familiar, a great place to set a campaign. PCs could be guarding Mary or out to kill her or just making sure their side knows what really happened. All kinds of storyhooks are availible.

[PTTG]

Speaking of the English...

Consider Uncleftish Beholding (Roughly, On Atoms), a book on the basics of the standard physical model written purely in English.

How hard can that be to understand? Quite.

At first is was thought that the uncleft was a hard thing that
could be split no further; hence the name. Now we know it is made
up of lesser motes. There is a heavy *kernel* with a forward
bernstonish lading, and around it one or more light motes with
backward ladings. The least uncleft is that of ordinary
waterstuff. Its kernel is a lone forwardladen mote called a
*firstbit*. Outside it is a backwardladen mote called a
*bernstonebit*. The firstbit has a heaviness about 1840-fold that
of the bernstonebit. Early worldken folk thought bernstonebits
swing around the kernel like the earth around the sun, but now we
understand they are more like waves or clouds...

I imagine that in order to build this language into an alternate universe, Britain must dogmatic enough to attempt to erase not only loanwords from contemporary languages, but also to remove inherited Greek and Latin structures...

This begins to look like we should have someone running around in a Guy Fawkes mask... a dogmatic Britain rewriting the textbooks. Since we happen to have a reasonably accurate hard science document here, they'd have to be somewhat near the present day.

[VulpesFulva]

"Uncleftish beholding" could also be a response to the French Language Institute.

"What a grand idea! Rid ourselves of that horrid French that was forced on us by the Normans!" --said, ironically, by someone who had mostly Norman ancestors.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The goal I want is a world where europe does not conquer india, southeast asia, and africa while forcing much of east asia to conform to its policies. (the new world is ok though) I want to do this without either depopulating europe OR filling europe's all-conquering role with someone else. (yes, in this case europe basically means england, holland, and france).

I suppose the right twists to the reformation might do the trick... hmm.

Thats going to be hard to rationalize as East Asia is further away than India and Africa. So there would have to be a stronger connection between East Asia and Europe, with relatively easy travel and communication. The obvious connection is the Golden Horde.

Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi, appeared to lead an abortive coup against his father, and mysteriously died. So say in this timeline Jochi may have been rebellious, but he and his father reconciled very early. After Genghis died Jochi, as in the OTL, took control of the western territories of the Mongol Empire, but without the terrible political divide that separated Jochi's lands from the rest of the Horde.

Instead of relying on Turkic auxilaries, and therefore concentrating more on the Ukrainian and, later, eastern regions of Europe, Jochi and his successors were able to call on Mongol forces. His son Batu invaded Italy and Germany in 1242 (ignoring calls to return to Karakorum), declaring himself Great Khan of the Golden Horde in a ceremony in Rome in 1243.

England, despite a huge influx of Cuman refugees hounded from the steppes of Asia by the Horde, retains much of its character, as do the northern states including Holland. Thanks to the efforts of Henry III many Mongols in France became Christian, later exporting this version of Mongol Christianity through the rest of Europe and across Asia.

With the cultural familiarity of Christianity, the continuing power struggles with the rest of the Empire to the east, and the entrenching of Mongols as the leadership of most European powers, Europe is focused on East Asia rather than the Middle East or Africa. The Renaissance starts in northern Italy a few decades early, thanks to the influx of eastern textiles and the wealth that brings.

Without a major maritime industry, European explorers are replaced by Egyptian sailors trying to find a shortcut to Chinese markets, discovering Gharb Sin, in 1520. English colonies appeared there less than a century later, followed by French and Holland colonies.

Egyptian and Turkish colonists are less "Imperial" than OTL Spanish, although central Mexico is still in war torn, disease ridden chaos by the mid 1500s, thanks to the savage revolts and counter-revolts among the Aztec Empire, and the introduced germs by the Egyptian and Turks. Instead of conquest and assimilation the Egyptians were more disposed toward cooperative kingdom alliances.

By the mid 20th century the English Empire dominates central and eastern Gharb Sin (North America) and politically dominates Japan and several northern Chinese states. A Franco-German alliance is its main rival, controlling most of central Asia through their proxie-states in Russia and Georgia. Amsterdam is still recovering from a nuclear attack by England, decapitating their Empire in China and Japan and aborting what would have become a world wide war.

Various Indian States control most of the Indian Ocean basin from South Africa to Australia and New Zealand. Turkish and Egyptian successor states dominate the rest of Africa and South America, while the expansive Aztec Caliphate rules south and west North America.

"Great Game" spy intrigues are common across central Eurasia and in the imperial capitals such as Paris, Dusseldorf and Birmingham. Proxy brushfire wars are common among the various Chinese kingdoms, a redux of the Period of Warring States, with a European tint. Interminable religious wars between the Islamic Aztecs and the Christian and pagan tribes of Native Americans, backed by the English, characterize the trans-Rocky Mountain regions. Prop planes and atomic submarines prowl the remnants of the Dutch Empire in the Carribbean, gun runners paid in Aztecan hash dodging English attack subs, trying to fund a revolution among the Danish refugees settled along the steaming Gulf Coast.