New Reality Seeds

[warellis]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

A lot of firearms in that time period were made in small workshops. It was the rise of Colt and the American Civil War that turned firearms manufacture into a business requiring large assembly plants.

Birmingham Small Arms started as a collection of workshops, hundreds of them. The hundreds of thousands of Brown Bess muskets that Britain turned out in the Napoleonic Wars were produced not in big centers but in those hundreds of workshops.

John Moses Browning's father was such a workshop-based firearms manufacturer. Browning (John M., the younger) produced the first prototypes of most of his designs, including the Browning High-Power, in such a one-man workshop.

So while your statement would be quite true later in the 19th century, small workshops, even in rural towns, can still turn out a fair number of functional firearms. Note also that taking weapons from Government forces is still a popular way of arming guerrillas.

Wasn't it around this time interchangeable parts were being created for guns? Couldn't that be done is small workshops of the time?

[scc]

Originally Posted by warellis

Wasn't it around this time interchangeable parts were being created for guns? Couldn't that be done is small workshops of the time?

In the type of US people are basing things no, NO. Replaceable parts require a central body, usually a government, to define and enforce uniform systems of measurement. This version of the US probably can't do that.

[PTTG]

What are people's thoughts on different Chernobyls? There's basically two options...

1.) Better. No Chernobyl accident, or one with no radioactive release. Perhaps it's enough to scare the soviets straight, so they are more careful with nukes in the future, but it's not so big that it can't be covered up.

Probably a much weaker anti-nuke movement, and certainly it almost entirely opposes nuclear weapons.

2.) Worse. Uh. Give me a minute to figure out how....

Man, this is tough.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

What are people's thoughts on different Chernobyls? There's basically two options...

2.) Worse. Uh. Give me a minute to figure out how... Man, this is tough.

Sadly, it isn't. If the response had been less heroic, or had been impeded in any way - such as a cover-up, "It's all fine! The fire is just our asphalt stock for mending the roads inside the plant" - the uninhabitable zone could have been a lot bigger.

About half of the No.4 reactor burned, and the firefighters saved the No.3 next to it from catching. There's No.1 and No.2 not far away. Around eight times as much material as was released could have gone up, in the worst case. Then there's the potential steam explosions, water table contamination ... it could have been a lot worse, and we have the heroes of those days to thank that it wasn't.

[fchase8]

Perhaps Chernobyl goes worse, the Soviets try to keep it covered up, but the radiation is leaking into Europe & the rest of the world - prompting an invasion to secure the area before it ruins even more of the world.

This could lead to an Atomic Energy Agency with real teeth, or perhaps just the whole-scale abandonment of nuclear power. And if the U.S.S.R. is defeated, maybe voices start to push for full nuclear disarmament, despite what Washington or Beijing want...


Another idea: a Chernobyl-like accident elsewhere in the world, particularly the United States. In 1961 there was a near-detonation of two nuclear bombs in North Carolina. How would America react to such an accident during the Cold War, to say nothing of the damage from fallout in the country?

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Perhaps Chernobyl goes worse, the Soviets try to keep it covered up, but the radiation is leaking into Europe & the rest of the world - prompting an invasion to secure the area before it ruins even more of the world.

This could lead to an Atomic Energy Agency with real teeth, or perhaps just the whole-scale abandonment of nuclear power. And if the U.S.S.R. is defeated, maybe voices start to push for full nuclear disarmament, despite what Washington or Beijing want...


Another idea: a Chernobyl-like accident elsewhere in the world, particularly the United States. In 1961 there was a near-detonation of two nuclear bombs in North Carolina. How would America react to such an accident during the Cold War, to say nothing of the damage from fallout in the country?

That's pretty bad, but I think a fire at Hanford could be even worse. It might make the more radical disarmament voices move to the fore, and that would conceivably make the USA on a whole more liberal. Come to think of it, a massive northwestern exclusion zone is also a massive nature preserve, and you could make it a thematically "green" setting where the hippies won; or you could have the Soviets decide that they aren't going to have a better chance to nuke the Americans, and get a glowing green setting.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by patchwork

(although a timeline where "Jesus" returned only to get his ass kicked by Athena, Hades and Poseidon rather publicly would be...odd.

However, giving that he caused them a 1800 year period of unemployment, I could see why they'd be seriously ticked off.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea a researcher in the late 19th century comes up with a life extension drug that works, unevenly, but it works. Most folks seem to get a prolonged middle age, some folks seem to stop aging for longer periods. The current year is 1975 and the full details for the drug's side effects aren't known yet, some of the original users are still alive!

This world pulls several strings. Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal, all want their hooks in this world. Randomly extended lives can lead to freaky surprises. Some benign surprises might be a major classic movie star still young and beautiful, picture Katharine Hepburn still looking like she did in Morning Glory half a century later. Nastier surprises might be Stalin still hanging on and running the USSR with an Iron grip (although a longer lifetime for Stalin would probably have meant a nuclear war in the early 1950's).

Still, this would be an odd exotic and lively world to play in and seek treasures from.

I'd make the life extension drug cheap, and require certain groups of people to take it. ("We've got an investment in you, and we want you around for a long time.")

[Astromancer]

Try this idea. Take the notion of Seepage from GURPS:Conspiracy X and tie the occurrence of seepage to a disease.

In world A an attempt to enhance psionic powers comes with a nasty kicker, Seepage. The subconscious minds of anyone who has had the Proteus Virus that enhance Psi Powers gives off a sort of mana. Said mana can be used like normal mana and can cause certain people to be transformed!

Because the benefits show up quickly and the downside takes time, the connection between seepage and the Proteus virus would take time to see. Thus worlds might willingly seek out the infection not knowing about all those monsters from the Id.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea a researcher in the late 19th century comes up with a life extension drug that works, unevenly, but it works. Most folks seem to get a prolonged middle age, some folks seem to stop aging for longer periods. The current year is 1975 and the full details for the drug's side effects aren't known yet, some of the original users are still alive!

This world pulls several strings. Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal, all want their hooks in this world. Randomly extended lives can lead to freaky surprises. Some benign surprises might be a major classic movie star still young and beautiful, picture Katharine Hepburn still looking like she did in Morning Glory half a century later. Nastier surprises might be Stalin still hanging on and running the USSR with an Iron grip (although a longer lifetime for Stalin would probably have meant a nuclear war in the early 1950's).

Still, this would be an odd exotic and lively world to play in and seek treasures from.

I'd make the life extension drug cheap, and require certain groups of people to take it. ("We've got an investment in you, and we want you around for a long time.")

Changing the nationality and ideology of the alchemist in question will have dramatic consequences.

An idealistic communist, rediscovering a secret methodology in anchient Chinese scrolls? LONG LIVE THE 1000-YEAR REIGN OF MAO!

(Which would probably only last an extra decade, tops.)

A Chicago-native capitalist with at least as much practical sense as alchemical genius, plus Greed? Well then, the starting price is $1,000,000 a year. I can see the ads now... "How am I supposed to know this works?" "Well sir, I rely on repeat business, but if you aren't satisfied, there's a 100% money-back guarantee."

Immortal robber barons could cause a lot of political discomfort, even in the USA.