05-27-2014, 09:35 AM | #201 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Agreed. Any timeline that has an advanced space program requires a reason the political will exists (as in real life this reason need be neither logical or sane). Once you get beyond a certain level of infrastructure the program becomes more likely to be self sustaining.
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05-27-2014, 09:47 AM | #202 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Here's a different reality seed. Thoughout much of ancient history right up into Byzantine times there was somekind of canal between the Nile and the Red Sea. If you assume that the abandonment of Rome was inevitable, Italy in the later Empire was an ecconomic backwater, if for no other reason than the rapid spread of malaria after the 2nd century AD, then moving the capital of the empire east makes sense. So, why not make Alexandria the new Rome?
And Alexandrine Roman Empire would be far more dominant in the Mediterranian basin. Egypt is the best source of grain in the ancient world, a great aid to security. If the canals between the Nile and the Red Sea are maintained, Alexandria gains a better trade location than Constantanople ever had. The Islamic conquest of Egypt was more a matter of the entry of a small but disceplened millitary force into a relative power vaccum than anything else. An Alexandrian Roman Empire would be very stable. This would lead to a TL3 mega-state based in Egypt facing off against a smaller tougher Caliphate. Good for swasher action with an Arabian Night's flare from the Mediterranean to Cathay.
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo Last edited by Astromancer; 05-28-2014 at 01:20 PM. |
05-27-2014, 10:26 AM | #203 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: New Reality Seeds
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05-27-2014, 11:18 AM | #204 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Did you miss that Robert E. Lee's horse was named Traveller (complete with two L's)?
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I also imagine Johnson winning his second term by exposing Nixon's back-room deals with the North Vietnamese; I can't fathom why he didn't in OTL since he apparently had evidence, but that is the fact. A Johnson who successfully negotiated an end to the Vietnam war would be in a much better position to pursue his interest in space. One clarification from earlier: the reason there's no space shuttle in Rickover is the same that there are no nuclear rockets in OTL. Since this NASA didn't incorporate the NACA, there wasn't as much impetus to include "aviation" along with the "atomic." A winged space plane would have required inter-agency cooperation, always more difficult that projects done purely in house. Last edited by thrash; 05-27-2014 at 11:32 AM. |
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05-27-2014, 01:58 PM | #205 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: New Reality Seeds
The unnamed virus that infected ancient Africans causing us to produce digestive amylase not merely in our gut but in our saliva never existed. This leads to us never loving pure starches. This would almost certainly stall agriculture by millennia.
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05-28-2014, 01:21 PM | #206 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Noted. Thanks.
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05-28-2014, 01:24 PM | #207 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
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05-29-2014, 12:42 PM | #208 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
An interesting reality seed might come from keeping the Norman Kingdom of Sicily alive. The Scilian state promoted a great deal of cultural exchange, it was to their advantage as it let them understand their competitors.
Outremere might last longer. The Fourth Crusade might have attacked Islamic lands. If nothing else, more Ancient Greek, Ancient Latin, and Medieval Arabic, text and knowledge might have lasted until the printing press in the late 1400s. It might set up a TL5 Elizabethan England.
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05-29-2014, 08:04 PM | #209 | |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: New Reality Seeds
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Something I've been thinking about: Suppose Pope Pius XII dies in 1942 or thereabouts, and the Axis powers decide controlling Papal succession is worth the trouble? I could see this resulting in a modern schism, albeit not necessarily a long one, as the cardinals from the Allied nations (who might not even have been allowed in) would probably be pressured to elect a different Pope, and the neutral nations with cardinals might decide that neither 'captive' Pope serve the interests of the Church. After the war, the Churches might reunite, but then again, they might not, particularly if the neutral and Allied Popes won't agree on who is more legitimate (though I think they'll both agree that the Axis Pope isn't).
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
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05-30-2014, 02:21 AM | #210 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: New Reality Seeds
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