New Reality Seeds

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

That's not so much a game stopper as a game-changer. You've got to be stealthy about starting the inventions in several places, not leaving any tracks back to yourself, and not giving away any of your strong-holds/political capital on this world.

That said, its not very centrum. It sounds more like rouge homeliners than anything else.

Centrum is mono-cultural and callous toward "foreigners", but that doesn't make them hive minded.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Centrum is mono-cultural and callous toward "foreigners", but that doesn't make them hive minded.

no, but they do think that rapid social change via technology is a bad idea. One of their core principles, really.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

no, but they do think that rapid social change via technology is a bad idea. One of their core principles, really.

Grunts deal with achieving goals. Management deals with lofty principles while secretly caring far more about results.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Grunts deal with achieving goals. Management deals with lofty principles while secretly caring far more about results.

Agreed, and as the earlier time frame was one of the most rational/logical periods in the history of the West, it seems closer to Centrum values and norms than the later period with its Platonic fixations.

[Astromancer]

I'm reading Three Victories and a Defeat, a work on the relationship between England and Hanover in the 18th century. Which leads me into some of the odder ins and outs of 18th century history. Which leads to a big missed opportunity.

Britain had the opportunity to push a westward expansion in North America in the period between 1745 and 1763. On the whole they simply didn't. It was a case of being pennywise pound foolish the habit that bedeviled English foreign policy from the later middle ages until well into the 20th century.

But try this idea. An English lord, with strong family ties to Hanover and a solid friendship with George II (he exists on few parallels, he's a low probability event) proposes something like the Erie Canal in 1747. Between royal patronage and friends in the City of London the project gets started in 1753. In spite of war and other crises the building of the canal takes only twenty-one years (Homeline took sever years to build it).

A vast flood of New Englanders races to settle the Great Lakes in 1774. The local year is 1783, England is wondering how to control the new colonies founded on the Great Lakes. They all demand the right to their own legislatures and to set up their own forms of voting. Many of these new settlements want to outlaw slavery and slave trading (both important sources of tax revenues to the crown. Meanwhile everything the Crown does to limit conflict with the Indians or the Quebecers seems to outrage the colonists. What can one do with Americans?

Basically an American revolution fought over a wider area and Napoleon in Europe to bedevil the Red coats. You may want to have Ben Franklin get into alchemy and find a way to keep himself and Washington alive an active into the 1810's.

[PTTG]

This second-wave of colonists would be first-generation when the question of independence arises. The north would have the south and the west against it, and could never hope to bring the newcomers into the fold for a decade or more. By then, even the Crown might have gotten around to treating its colonists like citizens in some respect or another.

Napoleon would never get off the ground without a civil war for him to clean up after, and without American Independence to light the fire, the French could fizzle.

One half-decent politician with the ear of one of the Georges could give the colonies some of the representation they want, especially if he can point out that locally-run colonies generally performed better than ones run by incompetent political appointees. That could close the matter for a century, as whenever the Columbian colonies feel the need to secede, Canadians, the Erieans, and the Southerners all gang up on them.

It could be quiet out there up until the question of Slavery comes up, merging the two great American conflicts together. You could have a grand game of politics as states try to bring allies into the fold and spies steal secrets to telegraph south to certain plantations or to send north along railways over or underground.

[scc]

Britian wasn't exploiting that territory because they couldn't, it was Indian land and they didn't want to take it away from them

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

...
A vast flood of New Englanders races to settle the Great Lakes in 1774. The local year is 1783, England is wondering how to control the new colonies founded on the Great Lakes. They all demand the right to their own legislatures and to set up their own forms of voting. Many of these new settlements want to outlaw slavery and slave trading (both important sources of tax revenues to the crown. Meanwhile everything the Crown does to limit conflict with the Indians or the Quebecers seems to outrage the colonists. What can one do with Americans?
...

British trading posts has existed throughout the area since the late 1600s. This isn't exactly a new situation for the Empire.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

A vast flood of New Englanders races to settle the Great Lakes in 1774. The local year is 1783, England is wondering how to control the new colonies founded on the Great Lakes. They all demand the right to their own legislatures and to set up their own forms of voting. Many of these new settlements want to outlaw slavery and slave trading (both important sources of tax revenues to the crown. Meanwhile everything the Crown does to limit conflict with the Indians or the Quebecers seems to outrage the colonists. What can one do with Americans?

Basically an American revolution fought over a wider area and Napoleon in Europe to bedevil the Red coats. You may want to have Ben Franklin get into alchemy and find a way to keep himself and Washington alive an active into the 1810's.

In 1783, Napoleon is fourteen years old. I don’t think he’s going to bedevil the British anywhere at that time.

As a new reality seed inspired by the Erie canal with several points of divergence:

A canal system is also proposed in New France to unite Canada with Louisiana. The canal system consists as follows: the Canal Fleuve de Sainte Laurent (seven locks from Montreal to Lake Ontario), the Canal de Aqueduct (eight locks from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, bypassing Niagara Falls), the Canal de Sault (two locks, Riviere de Sainte-Marie to Lac Superior), a canal from Lac Superior to Lac du Bois and a canal allowing transit between Lac du Bois and the Mississippi River. A secondary canal connecting Lake Ontario near the headwaters of the St. Lawrence River with Georgian Bay in Lake Huron consisting of 45 locks is also proposed.

Napoleon’s birth is brought forward by thirty years to 1739 from 1769 making him 17 in 1756 and 24 by 1763. For real nastiness, rather than serving on the continent, his first posting was to the colony of New France in 1758 along with Montcalm and Levis. Napoleon survived the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and escaped to Montreal, serving under Levis for the remainder of the war. Napoleon took part in the Battle of Sainte-Foy which almost recaptured Quebec in 1760. While offended by Amherst’s refusal to grant the French the honors of war after the British captured Montreal in 1760, Napoleon decided to remain in Quebec rather than be repatriated to France under the Treaty of Paris. Napoleon was a colonel at the end of the war.

He married into a Canadien family and became a seigneur. He ceased active military service, but retained his rank and had a new appointment as the militia commander for his district. He was noted for his seemingly tireless work in compiling and consolidating the body of French civil law for Canada. His comprehensive work, the Code du Quebec par Buonaparte was completed in 1768 and submitted to Governor James Murray.

Murray was impressed and endorsed Napoleon’s suggestion that rather than preserving French civil law in Canada, the new consolidated code be adopted while recognizing the original Canadien land grants. Murray appoints Napoleon as one of his advisors and he becomes good friends with Murray’s nephew, Patrick Ferguson.

Napoleon is retained as an advisor by Guy Carleton. When the Quebec Act is passed in 1774, the Code du Quebec is part of the act. Large as that divergence is, the major divergence is the administrative decision to retain Illinois as the westernmost margin of the new colony of Canada. Napoleon is now 35, the same age at which he became Emperor of the French in OTL.

Between 1774 and 1783, colonists from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and parts of New England had been illegally entering Illinois. Most of these trespassers were temporary. They came in, trapped for a season and then returned home to restock trade goods and return for another season. However, some of the trespassers came to stay and erected permanent homes in the area. In 1783, matters came to a head with the Illinois Expulsion order signed by Governor Frederick Haldimand, directing that illegal settlements in Illinois be vacated and the buildings pulled down.

While some colonists depart Illinois, others refuse and Governor Haldimand calls up the Canadien militia to assist in the expulsion of the interlopers. Napoleon was impressed with his friend Patrick’s new rifle design. He was an early adopter of the weapon, largely at his own expense. When Napoleon’s brigade marched into Illinois, his men were all armed with Ferguson rifles.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by scc

Britian wasn't exploiting that territory because they couldn't, it was Indian land and they didn't want to take it away from them

Oh they wanted the land. They just didn't want to pay for controlling it.