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Old 04-25-2014, 05:53 AM   #91
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Infighting from coups is common. Militaries choosing not to fight and go humanitarian pacifistic seems highly implausible. I doubt you meant that, but that's where my mind went.
Just following orders is human nature when in large focused groups, sadly.
There would be no need for the army to go humane. If the Army simply declined a pointless mass slaughter of their own troops, that would be a huge fight. And a German army free to use military tactics would have been far more deadly. In our world they were often hamstrung by Hitler's goofy military notions.
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Old 04-26-2014, 02:05 PM   #92
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Watching Rachel Maddow last night (4/25) I was reminded of Squeaky Fromme. There you could have a big twist in history. If Fromme had killed Ford, then Reagan would have gotten the 1976 GOP nomination. Carter was a much poorer campaigner in 1976 than he was later and an Reagan would have benifited from a highten demand for law and order. (Two presidential assassinations plus the King, X, and Robert Kennedy slayings would have made the national moood more favorable to Reagan).

Now, given the ecconomy of the period, and the fact that the GOP would have been likely to have done much to get majorities in either body. Reagan would have had a harder time of things. Many of the things Reagan believed in would probably of backfired in the late 1970's which was an ecconomically different period than the early 1980's. Reagan could have been a one term President with a reputation like Ford's.

This would lead to a radically different world by the 1990's. Democrats, and probably liberal ones would be in the White House when the USSR collapsed under its own weight and liberals would get far more of he credit. Renewable energy, space, and other technologies ignored in the 1980's would be more advanced, especially if Ted Kennedy gets elected in 1980. A very different world, with different flautlines.

Perhaps Putin and Bed Ladin might seek allies in the millitia groups of America.
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Old 04-28-2014, 12:25 AM   #93
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Perhaps Putin and Bed Ladin might seek allies in the millitia groups of America.
Putin maybe but Bin Laden would never work with non-Islamic Americans.

Militia groups would still be ultra-Right. The whole Arab-Israeli conflict is likely still going strong in the world, especially if Bin Laden is a player. Bin Laden would not look for allies among American patriotic groups, no matter how twisted their ideology. He would probably infiltrate otherwise pro-American Islamic groups. Lax travel restrictions and a more 'open attitude' to the Mid-East would allow larger numbers of immigrants into this US.

Not sure that Bin Laden, or more importantly potential suicide killers, would be as motivated in a world without a Republican 80s. Would Iran still take over the American Embassy if Reagan was President? Would a Democratic President have flooded arms into Afghanistan in the 80s? For that matter, would the Soviets invade Afghanistan in the first place?

I'm not sure Reagan would have brokered an Egyptian/Israeli treaty like Carter did. Without that treaty the Soviets wouldn't have been as freaked out. Iraq might not go pro-Western with Reagan in 1978, so the Soviets aren't freaking out about that either. I do see Reagen crushing the socialist revolution in Afghanistan - maybe with a Afghan-Contra scandal as part of it. So the Soviets don't have the benefit of allies in Afghanistan. The very popular Prime Minister Daoud survives the coup attempt in 1978, with American advisers helping clear out the pro-Soviet factions in the Afghan military.

No Soviet invasion, no flood of American weapons, no decades of horror, no intense hatred of Russians and Americans. Bin Laden sticks around Arabia instead, building up the Wahhabi militants there. They might not have suicide bombers but they can get terrorists into the US easier. A 911-scale attack might happen in the mid-90s.

US militias might cheer that on, like they did 911, and try to take advantage of the chaos in the immediate aftermath. They WOULD likely be more motivated after a decade+ under Democrats. The Oklahoma bombing was supposed to trigger a 'mass revolt'; this Bin Laden attack might trigger a mass militia uprising. Probably not very "effective" (to the militia's goals) but waves of terrorist bombings and assassinations rock the US, with the government fighting a terrorist war on two fronts, domestic and Wahhabi-Arabian.

Now the 2000 election is a question. Who wins? A law and order Republican, with ideological ties to the domestic terrorists, or a get-tough-on-militias Democrat whose lax attitudes allowed in all those Arabian terrorists?
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Old 04-28-2014, 01:34 AM   #94
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I don't think there would be as many American Militia groups, or rather they won't be as well equipped. With actual liberals in power in the US gun reforms are likely, now one of the oft quoted reasons for letting people own guns is 'self-defense', now that argument can apply to pistols, which you can carry with you at all times, but doesn't hold much water with rifles, especially military/assault weapons. More to the point, as far as I know, Texas is about the only state where you can get away with using a gun in self-defense (It has specific laws allowing you to use firearms on people who attack you).

Net result of this is that while you can get guns in the US, they're probably in the smaller calibers (like .22, which the military stopped using because it doesn't do enough damage) and either pistols aggressively marketed as 'self-defense' or hunting weapons
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Old 04-28-2014, 10:07 AM   #95
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I don't think there would be as many American Militia groups, or rather they won't be as well equipped. With actual liberals in power in the US gun reforms are likely, now one of the oft quoted reasons for letting people own guns is 'self-defense', now that argument can apply to pistols, which you can carry with you at all times, but doesn't hold much water with rifles, especially military/assault weapons. More to the point, as far as I know, Texas is about the only state where you can get away with using a gun in self-defense (It has specific laws allowing you to use firearms on people who attack you).

Net result of this is that while you can get guns in the US, they're probably in the smaller calibers (like .22, which the military stopped using because it doesn't do enough damage) and either pistols aggressively marketed as 'self-defense' or hunting weapons
We know that there is a segment of the conservative population in the US that centers their beliefs around weapons ownership. Survivalists were a group/factor, in the modern US, since the inflation of the 60s. They gained a lot of steam after the oil shocks in the early 70s. I agree that legal weapon ownership would have been curtailed under President Kennedy, but I think that would have only entrenched and enhanced the ideology of the militias. Basically everything they were saying about government intrusion was coming true.

I would say that in the chaos after the collapse of the Soviets that Russian weapons would flood into US market. The domestic weapons market and producers would be much smaller - so say SR&C, Remington and S&W probably consolidate by the late 80s into the early 90s, one buying up one or both of their competitors. No one is producing much in the way of small arms - hunting rifles are the best you can get. So AK-47s are in big demand by millitias, and maybe South African sources too. That sets the stage for the Putin/Militia connection after 2000. While the pool of weapons might be smaller, and more expensive, the ideology and will to use them will be that much greater.

Unless your President Kennedy does indeed send jack booted ATF thugs in to confiscate the weapons. I can see that happening in the mid 90s after an attack or three, but it might happen earlier.

That might make an good setting; Ruff-1, named after the author of How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years. President Reagan in the 70s somehow brings about the Soviet collapse in 1979, except this one is violent. A Russian coup leads to a limited nuclear exchange - while peace is quickly restored the world economy collapses in a heap. If Reagan is blamed (unlikely) you get Ted Kennedy overseeing a liberal super malaise while the US descends into chaos. Survivalists were right. Its 1988 and various Militias are begining to carve up the US as the feds retreat and local power brokers start to look like warlords in a coming civil war.
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Old 04-28-2014, 11:48 AM   #96
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This seems to assume presidents have more power than I think they really do. Not much gets done that both parties aren't in favor of. Like removing the constitutional protections when the word terrorist is used.
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Old 04-28-2014, 12:44 PM   #97
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This seems to assume presidents have more power than I think they really do. Not much gets done that both parties aren't in favor of. Like removing the constitutional protections when the word terrorist is used.
I'm just using Presidents names as a shorthand for a hypothetical overall political climate. Details of who controls Congress, the names on the Supreme Court, and main players in industry and key governorships would all effect such broad strokes to history.
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Old 04-28-2014, 05:44 PM   #98
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Prime Directive - X: The "Prime Directive" worlds are named for the fictional Prime Directive from the StarTrek television show common on worlds close to Homeline. Homeline has recently uncovered a string of worlds where a, yet unknown, party has deliberately introduced technologies vastly in advance of the development of that parallel. While the pattern of introducing disruptive tech is shared, nothing else seems to be in common among these worlds. This has lead Homeline to speculate the PD worlds represent a series of experiments.

PD-1: This world is locally 1640. It's divergent point is in 1632 when several dozen "small" city killer nuclear weapons were dispersed among the powers of Europe. The initial use of the weapons were on the battlefields, destroying both sides. Amsterdam (while Gustavus Adolphus was in the city) and Rome were destroyed, presumably with their respective weapons. This has lead to the practice of sending groups of elite soldiers to travel the trade routes with wagons concealing nuclear weapons poised for retaliatory strikes. MAD and economic collapse have ended the Thirty Years War.

PD-2: Primative transistor based electronics are introduced in 1910. History proceeds relatively apace, WWI, The Great Depression, WWII. Most advances are in the academic spheres until WWI. Nazi bombing campaigns are vastly more devastating with the aid of electronic guidance and rudimentary guided bombs. Great Britain counters with radar guided SAMs and improved radar detection. The Battle of Britain rages in 1939, while computer aided research efforts proceed in the US and Nazi Germany on their respective nuclear bomb programs.

PD-3: Near the height of its power, Rome has been given the steam engine.

PD-4: In 1300's Europe, the Paris has absolute control over a massive stockpile of broad spectrum antibiotics.
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Old 04-28-2014, 07:26 PM   #99
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I'm just using Presidents names as a shorthand for a hypothetical overall political climate. Details of who controls Congress, the names on the Supreme Court, and main players in industry and key governorships would all effect such broad strokes to history.
That sounds prone to misunderstandings.
Change anyone's history/environment and you fundamentally change their present self.
I don't think you should use "our" Reagan in an alternate timeline when so much else is different.
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Old 04-28-2014, 07:31 PM   #100
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Prime Directive - X: The "Prime Directive" worlds are named for the fictional Prime Directive from the StarTrek television show common on worlds close to Homeline. Homeline has recently uncovered a string of worlds where a, yet unknown, party has deliberately introduced technologies vastly in advance of the development of that parallel. While the pattern of introducing disruptive tech is shared, nothing else seems to be in common among these worlds. This has lead Homeline to speculate the PD worlds represent a series of experiments.

...

PD-3: Near the height of its power, Rome has been given the steam engine.

...
The steam engine requires far more than knowledge to work. You need TL 5 metallurgy as well as thermodynamics.

The Prime Directive is about NOT interfering. Why would they name worlds that based on its overt violation?

Homeline would assume some strange experiment by Centrum or worse other Crosstime culture. Especially if the technology given isn't above 8 or so requiring extraterrestrials.
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