New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Kymage

I'm a little surprised that the United Kingdom government didn't survive. I would have thought that they could have duplicated the quarantine of Ireland and Iceland.

My assumption there was between the bombing and refugees the quarantine simply didn't work. Outlying sections of Britain, if isolated from London, a possibility in period, might do better.

Note: Spain still torn from the Spanish Civil War has little chance. Sweden just might be able to pull off a quarantine. It would be a close run thing. No nation occupied by Germany would have a chance.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Kymage

I'm a little surprised that the United Kingdom government didn't survive. I would have thought that they could have duplicated the quarantine of Ireland and Iceland.

The UK has too much population to be fully self-sufficient. It needs to import food. I suspect 1940s Iceland could have managed a full quarantine.

Ireland is the doubtful case: the UK part of the island is more densely populated, and the groups there that were politically dominant in the 1940s were very, very attached to the concept of being part of the UK. They'd have had huge objections to being isolated from Great Britain and co-operating with Eire, and I'm not confident that a virulent epidemic would have changed their minds fast enough.

[dcarson]

You'd also get smaller places. The Channel Islands, Falklands, Sri Lanka, maybe some of Indonesia, same with the Philippines, Mascarene Islands, lots of smaller Polynesian islands. Valuable resources and people but convincing them to allow contact could be interesting.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by dcarson

You'd also get smaller places. The Channel Islands, Falklands, Sri Lanka, maybe some of Indonesia, same with the Philippines, Mascarene Islands, lots of smaller Polynesian islands. Valuable resources and people but convincing them to allow contact could be interesting.

The Channel Islands and the Philippines are occupied by Germany and Japan respectively--toast. So are a lot of other smaller islands.

[Astromancer]

The New Found Land

This Q6 Low Mana parallel was fairly close to Homeline history. Which was odd as Magic (Path/Book) is moderately well known and taught at European universities. But there seems to be a high level of Historical Inertia on this parallel, or there was the Mascarene Plateau has recently risen above sea level. Ships from Britain, France, and the Netherlands, have made claims to the vast new island.

Like the locals, Homeline, Centrum, and the Cabal, are stunned. No one knows how such a large area of land could rise up in a space of weeks without causing massive tidal waves.

Basically, the local year is 1704. This is exploring a new continent while dealing with pirates, sorcerer's, and European power politics. Lumerians optional, but possibly fun.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Basically, the local year is 1704. This is exploring a new continent while dealing with pirates, sorcerer's, and European power politics. Lumerians optional, but possibly fun.

Expedition Report Day 24. Today we finally crested the ridgeline and encountered a new type of terrain, our first since beginning the expedition. Instead of barren rock, the ground on the far side of Desolate Ridge consists of barren salt mud....

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Expedition Report Day 24. Today we finally crested the ridgeline and encountered a new type of terrain, our first since beginning the expedition. Instead of barren rock, the ground on the far side of Desolate Ridge consists of barren salt mud....

It does have a tendency towards "Where every prospect displeases/ And only man is entertaining." But Pirates, Sorcerers, and Lumerians, that's got to have some pluses.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Basically, the local year is 1704. This is exploring a new continent while dealing with pirates, sorcerer's, and European power politics. Lumerians optional, but possibly fun.

Oh yes.

If you have Lemurians and continents rising from the deeps, then you need monolithic cyclopean cities of unnatural stone and non-Euclidian geometry.

Then you have fun.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

It does have a tendency towards "Where every prospect displeases/ And only man is entertaining." But Pirates, Sorcerers, and Lumerians, that's got to have some pluses.

It needs the Lumerians, or at least their ruins. Unless there are gold nuggets lying on the beach or something. This area of the world isn't of very intense interest in this period (hence why nobody is running the pirates out), and it's got nothing to attract said pirates away from their perfectly good ports in Madagascar either. If it rose from the sea 100 years ago that might be different, but just recently? There's no ecology to support, well, anything.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I had a vague alt-history idea about the Habsburgs and reforming the Holy Roman Empire into something that could encompass most of Europe. Here is my attempt at condensing that vague idea into something less vague.

[spoiler=Context, Premises, and Charles V]
As you may know, the man most commonly known as Emperor Charles V was the greatest beneficiary of the House of Habsburg's shrewd diplomacy, political marriages, and inbreeding. He ruled from Spain to the Netherlands to Italy, not counting his imperial subjects in both the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish colonial empire. Charlie inherited all of this land and power, but he did his best to act like he'd earned it through merit alone (by which I mean he won a lot of wars, most of them internal).

It's hard to come up with a plausible alternate history where Charles V unites these disparate lands into a single monarchical state, unless you target an audience with little understanding of how premodern and early modern kingdoms worked. So my diverging point doesn't come from any reform passed or rebellion crushed; it comes from a bunch of kids and a differently successful rebellion.

Starting simple: In this timeline, Charles V sired several legitimate sons in the 1520's. I dunno how he managed it, that doesn't matter. The point is that he has a bunch of heirs and wants them all to get a decent inheritance. We'll get back to them.

As mentioned, Charles V had a lot of wars. The Wikipedia summary alone mentions wars with France, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Germany, Algiers, the Aztecs and Incas, and the concept of Protestantism. In the end, it was this last war that destroyed Charles's empire; after the Peace of Aubsburg, Charles V's abdicated basically everything, splitting his titles between his eldest son and his brother. It also allowed every ruler in the Holy Roman Empire to decide whether their lands would follow Catholic or Lutheran Christianity, which is part of why Voltaire said it wasn't Holy.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The New HRE]
So, in this timeline the Schmalkaldic Wars were directly supported by external rivals like Henry* II and Suleiman the Magnificent. Charles V, seeing the writing on the wall, decided to surrender early to earn more influence over the peace terms.

*Can we appreciate for a moment that France didn't also have a Charles on the throne at the same time as Charles V was around? It had a Francis and a Henry, but no Charles. France didn't have as many Charleses on the throne as they had Louises, but still.

Charlie #5 had three problems. First, it was increasingly obvious that an empire the size of Charles's could never be sustained—but he still wanted to preserve his house's power. Second, he wanted to give all his heirs a decent inheritance—again, without weakening the House of Habsburg. Third, he was losing a war, against some people who wanted to be Lutherans and some who wanted to break up his empire.

The proposal Charles came up with looked something like this:

• The Empire would allow the practice of Lutheranism within the Holy Roman Empire. Some traditional powers of the Holy Roman Emperor are delegated to the Electors.
• Charles V would abdicate his landed titles, keeping only his title as Holy Roman Emperors. Each of his major titles would be inherited by a different son (except the Archduchy of Austria—his brother Ferdinand had been regent and designated heir there since 1521). This would wreck Charles's personal power, fragmenting it into several (weaker) kingdoms.
• The rulers inheriting Charles's titles would agree to come to him, the Holy Roman Emperor, when they had disputes among themselves. No war would be allowed between the sons of Charles.
• Maybe something about recognizing his birthright claim to the title Emperor of Constantinople, inherited from Isabella and Ferdinand after Andreas Palaiologos gave it to them in his will?

The first provision satisfies the Lutheran rebels. The second provision satisfies the external rivals. The third provision satisfies his desire to keep the Habsburg family together. The fourth is just a bit of ego-polishing that helps legitimize the Roman part of "Holy Roman Empire".

Anyways, from this point on Charles V focuses on wrangling his family and the new system he's trying to set up, until his death in the late 1550's. At that point, his brother Ferdinand is elected Holy Roman Emperor, and he abdicates the Archduchy of Austria to his son, Maximilian. As Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand continues to perform the same sort of duties that Charles did.

And so it continues. Each time a Holy Roman Emperor is elected (from the House of Habsburg, of course), they abdicate their prior titles and manage the rulers of Habsburg house. What started as an emergency effort by Charles V to keep the Habsburgs in power without immediately falling into civil war slowly transformed into a tradition that everyone followed because that's just the Way Things Are.

My thoughts on the balkanized Habsburg realms:

• King of Aragon
• King of Castile
• King of Italy*
• Archduke of Austria
• Duke of Burgundy
• Duke of Milan
• Lord of the Netherlands

*Specifically, of Naples, Sicily, and possibly Sardinia—the Italian and Italian-adjacent Habsburg lands whose titles were formerly held by the Kings of Aragon.

(As to splitting Aragon and Castile: Remember that the Catholic Monarchs of Spain were Charles V's grandparents. When this Charles V split his empire, there would still be people alive who remembered the days when Castile and Aragon were separate kingdoms. Not to mention that they were still legally distinct until the 18th century. Splitting them in an act of de-consolidation seems reasonable.)

The two power blocs would be the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, not quite divided along the lines of OTL's Habsburgs. I'm imagining the Spanish Habsburgs being the three kings, with the rulers of Austria, Burgundy, the Netherlands, and maybe Milan being in the Austrian faction. Of course, this is a general rule, not absolute; the Burgundian and Dutch Habsburgs would ally against the Austrian one if they came to blows.

Critically, however, the Emperor kept these factions in line. Their Empire was far from a unitary state, but it was kept together by a shared heritage, a consistently charismatic Emperor (charisma being a major determinant in which Habsburg ruler was chosen as Emperor)...
...and, of course, the fact that each king and duke knew that they could one day claim the power of the Imperial crown. That they were likely to hold it, at least at the end of their life, if they had a bit of political savvy. Any Habsburg shrewd and charismatic enough to be elected Emperor would be shooting himself in the foot if he sabotaged the Imperial institution.

Over time, this new form of Holy Roman Emperor settled into its new form. I'm imagining that it would be set in stone after some kind of war in the 17th or early 18th century, meant to formally expand the Holy Roman Empire to all the Habsburg lands. After all, the Holy Roman Emperor had gone from being a monarch only important in central Europe to one with influence across half the continent, yet its prince-electors were all Germans.

After the Spanish, Italian, and Dutch Habsburgs pitched a successful fit, the princes-electorate were changed and expanded. On one hand, this gave non-German nobles a greater voice in the Empire, which arguably made it less of an empire but definitely legitimized the Habsburg emperor treating all Habsburg lands as part of his empire. On the other hand, it gave the Habsburgs a chance to reward and empower both junior branches of their house and loyal allied houses, cementing their dynasty's power.

The central Imperial institution would accumulate power over time. Nothing exceptional; it didn't get to declare laws to be followed across the entire Empire. But it would accrue more power over Habsburg foreign policy, collect a share of taxes from Habsburg lands and their colonies, and use that money to fund an Imperial army that could be used against any relatives who dared defy the crown.
[/spoiler]
-cont-