Another alternate history proposal...

Lately, another alternate history concept has been percolating in my mind. So, the concept of aliens bringing civilization and technology to Earth is an old one, right? Erich von Däniken, ancient astronauts, the Pyramids built by mysterious technology... all of that is kind of old hat to science fiction fans nowadays, who have encountered many variations on that theme over the years. But what if they came back and gave people more technology in the semi-modern age? Specifically, around 1700 or so, the five great powers of Earth's history at the time have had fifty years to adapt to alien technology, and even biotech, with eugenics and supersoldier programs and more. This creates an interesting dynamic where Great Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, and Austria all have essentially futuristic societies, at least in some regards, with superpowered soldiers and more, all hurtling head-long towards the Seven Years' War.

But before it can happen, interstellar empires take notice. See, it turns out that the alien technology didn't come to earth because aliens were benevolent and wanted to give humanity a leg up. It came to earth because aliens were secretly priming earthlings to be bush fighters, guerillas, and conscripts in a struggle against other conquering alien races. Although not unique, Earth is a world with a lot of potential, and various alien powers make alliances with Earth nations, and they in turn are drawn into interstellar politics, which are undergoing a Cold War of sorts. Earthlings are the latest soldiers, spies, and sometimes reluctant ambassadors in this war, and they suddenly find that even with their new technology, they are woefully undermanned and underequipped.

A new generation of superheroes, genetically engineered with alien help to have superpowers, based on the highly flexible and adaptable matrix of human DNA, is seen as the new frontier in intersteller resources. Some intersteller nations want to simply enslave humanity and harvest humans to be raised as jannissary-like slave-soldiers. Others want to prop humanity up to use against their rivals. And humans themselves, from various nations around the world, either want to be left alone to chart their destiny on their own... or explore the vast new frontiers of space and carve out all new niches for themselves across the galaxy.

I could do most of this without the alternate history angle. Why do I want the nations and polities of the Seven Years' War, anyway? No good reason other than that I like them, and I think five powerful rivals that already existed in history makes for a more interesting dynamic than the world today. I also think it's easier than trying to build up someone else to have that multipoint "great powers" matrix across the globe. And it's interesting to not yet have a United States of America. In the real world, the American Revolution started shortly after the Seven Years' War (which is known in our country as the French and Indian War, due to it being the only theater that we were involved in at all, really). But with intersteller enemies, and the safety valve of colonizing other worlds completely out of Britain's control, the American colonists may not have had a sufficient spark to revolt... yet. Although backed up by intersteller allies, the off-world "Americans" probably have no patience for the high-tech Redcoats who follow them, trying to take resources that they've claimed for King George.

Anyway, etc. etc. There's lots of different things I can do with this. I'm interested in reprising the American Revolution and what led up to it with high tech superheroes, space travel and aliens, though. Could make for a fun ride. What do I do with this concept? No idea. I won't be running it as a game anytime soon, that's for sure. I'm unlikely to write anything in this setting. Maybe I just need to write it down here and see what else comes to me on it over time, to see if it's something I can do anything with or not.

Imperial Age

I love alternate histories. I'm always playing around with them. I'm not often clear on what exact purpose they serve, but I enjoy them for their own sake. I frequently like postulating them, and sometimes I even like incorporating weird or supernatural elements into them to see how things might have been different. One recent alternate history novelette by Charles Stross is "A Colder War" which postulates that Nazi Germany found R'lyeh on the bottom of the Baltic Sea and the Cold War, rather than being nuclear deterence in nature, was based around attempting to harness (or to counter) the influence of various Old Ones in the world. In practice, this is not too unlike the setting for the board game Tannhäuser in which the Union, British and American troops utilizing reverse engineered technology cribbed from crashed UFO's at Roswell fight the Kaiser's demonically summoned forces and Russia's Tesla and Slavic mysticism fueled armies in a World War I conflict that never ended.

I quite like this idea. The reason we had a Cold War throughout much of the 20th century instead of yet another World War was largely, in my opinion, because weaponry had advanced to the point that everyone was afraid to actually use it (it could also be attributed to the reduction of superpowers from about half a dozen to just two, but let's ignore that for the time being.) What if this happened earlier? What if it happened a hundred years ago in the early 1900s, before World War I was even fought? And yes, what if the nature of those weapons that everyone was too afraid to use was Lovecraftian?

Could the Empires of the early 20th century survive in a prolonged Old Ones related Cold War? Could Tsar Nicholas have fended off the Bolsheviks who overthrew his state in the midst of World War I in real life? Could the Ottoman Empire have survived? The Austro-Hungarian one? Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany? The British Empire? The American Empire? Would the Japanese Empire have continued to surge? What else would have changed between now and then if Imperialism had managed to survive for another 100 years longer than it really did? How would these nations evolve for an additional 100 years scared to death not only of their enemies but also of the very weapons that they themselves were developing?

Feel free to comment. I'm not exactly sure myself what all this would mean, but I'm thinking it through, and wondering what to do with it. Some short fiction ventures? One-shot gaming? I'm undecided. Maybe both. Possibly neither.

Germany

I just watched Where Eagles Dare in preparation for bringing it up to a friend here at work so he could borrow it. I had the strange thought while watching it that in some ways, I miss that Germany. I mean, in no way am I disputing that the Third Reich was evil, terrible and otherwise extremely undesireable, or that we weren't right to bring the war to them. But since then, Germany has been completely... I mean, it's hard to even respect Germany these days.

So, I went and looked up some Harry Turtledove and other alternate history stuff. One of my favorite alternate history conceits is that there's still a Nazi Reich in Europe in the present day. Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series may have had an even better idea; in that one, since the CSA managed to not be defeated in the American Civil War, and was traditionally allied with Britain and France, the USA was allied with the "Second Reich", i.e. the Prussian based Kaiser-helmed Germany that fought in WWI. Without the US support, the Etente powers actually didn't defeat Germany in this scenario. The series goes too far, in my opinion, with recreating the Nazi ideology and experience very specifically on CSA soil. That strains credibility. But the idea of Kaiserreich surviving to the present day is intriguing.

The board game Tannhäuser, which I've discussed here before, also has a Reich that is an extension of the Kaiserreich, not a Nazi Third Reich (although the imagery is very Nazi themed regardless.)

One of these days, I'd really like to do something with some of this alternate history. I remember posting a fairly detailed alternate history setting that I had come up with several months ago here, but honestly, I think I now like the idea of an extended Kaiserreich better than an extended Third Reich. It opens up at least a little ambiguity. Nazis are so obviously and culturally ingrained in our culture as evil that it makes the setting simplistic; but if it's the Kaiser's troops... are they the bad guys? Suddenly it's not so clear.

Alternate history

Well, I found the list I made of changes. This is still fairly summary form, but it's enough to put together a game, I think. I don't know if I'd still stick with everything here (the moreau's, for instance---do I still care about them?) but otherwise it's still something that intrigues me greatly.

1. Japan was the first WWII nation to develop the atomic bomb. Their plan was to put it on submarines that would run suicide missions into US harbors. However, the first one developed cracked a leak and detonated in Yokohama harbor, where it was berthed, preparing for the first nuclear attack in the history of the war.
   
2. After the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler died in 1943. The new leader of Germany – General Erich von Manstein, a military man and fervent party member, pulled back from the war with Russia and didn’t expend nearly as much resources in the Holocaust as Hitler did in real life. Von Manstein was a shrewd politician with an eye for the long-term survival of the Nazi party, and his decisions, while often criticized by war hawks within Germany, have stood the test of time as decisions that put and kept Germany at the forefront of the world geopolitical map throughout the 20th century.
   
3. Following the pullback from Russia, Germany concentrated on the invasion of Great Britain, but found that their blitzkrieg stalled under much stiffer resistance from the Brits (bolstered by Americans) than they had in France. When the Germans had access to the Bomb, they fired one on a V2 which exploded near London in an effort to move forward their stalled blitzkrieg.
   
4. By this time, the Americans, with the help of defectors from Germany and their own scientists had successfully tested nuclear bombs and had developed a different delivery method: B1 bombers. Dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t have quite the same effect, since Japan had already shown that they had bomb capability, and Germany had also already used them. However, the devastation caused by these bombs was so immensely shocking even to those that developed them, that the state of open war came to a de facto end, and treaties limiting the use of atomic weapons (called the Stockholm Accords, because they were signed in neutral Sweden) were drafted by Germany, the US and Japan.
   
5. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets were able to develop nuclear technology and became the fourth atomic superpower. Because the Soviets had not signed the Stockholm Accords, this precipitated the arms race which was not terribly different from that which actually happened in our world – each of the four superpowers continuously raised the ante on atomic weapons for the sake of deterrence.
   
6. During the late 40s and early 50s, somewhat “hot” action occurred in the Middle East, which became the “Vietnam” styled debacle of Germany, the US and the Soviets as guerrilla warriors kept any superpower from controlling the oil reserves.
7. Finally, Ahmed Al Rahid, an Arab king, was able to unite many of the Arab tribes under his banner. In a political move, both the US and Japan recognized him as the legitimate ruler of the “Arab Empire,” and Germany and Russia pulled back after seeing the favorable trading agreements that they were able to maintain because of this recognition. The Arab Empire has thus maintained the status quo for nearly sixty years due to their economic shrewdness and dominance of the largest oil reserves on the planet.
   
8. With Russian pressure in the west and north and Japanese occupation of much of eastern China, Mao Tse-tung is not able to unite all of China under his banner. In fact, two Chinas eventually form, the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of China in the northeast and Nationalist China. Tibet and possibly even seccesionist Xinjiang remain separate entities unconnected with China in this scenario.
   
9. Some other features of the cold war include prolonged tension between Germany and the West over South Africa, German and Russian conflict over Scandinavia, Japanese and Western conflict in Singapore and many South Pacific islands, and Russian and Japanese conflict over Communist China. Despite several attempts by many, especially the Germans, to weaken their position, the US retains tight control over the politics of Latin America.
   
10. Both the Germans and the Japanese lead the charge on eugenics programs which leads to the development of – among other things – the moreaus.
    
11. Following the incident at Roswell in 1947, the US becomes aware of the gray aliens and that the Germans have been experimenting with extra-terrestrial technology for a few years. Germany is the first to launch satellites in the early 50s, although Japan, Russia and the US all have satellites up before the end of the decade.
    
12. In the early sixties, communist Cuba is overthrown after the assassination of Fidel Castro. Although the CIA is suspected, it is never proven. This prompts a crisis with the Soviet Union that very nearly leads to the launch of atomic strikes.
    
13. In the 1967 the Germans launch the first successful manned flight to the moon. Oddly, though, none of the superpowers make any attempt to do much of anything with the moon, although US astronauts also land there.
    
14. In the very late sixties, the Soviets develop the first psychic agents for the KGB. The Germans also develop occult agents.
    
15. In the early years of the 21st century, intelligence suggests that the state of the world is as follows: the Soviets are stretched financially tighter than they can afford, the Japanese are also stretched too thin over overtly hostile territory in the Philippines, Korea and Manchuria. The US is facing restlessness from much of Latin America and the Germans are facing increasing opposition from non-Nazis. There is also some kind of occult threat – the details of which are not known at the present, which seems to be occupying the Germans and threatening to spill out over the rest of the world.
    
16. A security agency that is jointly chaired and operated by the CIA, the FBI and the NSA is formed in the 70s called the Paranormal Defense Agency (PDA) specifically to deal with occult and psychic threats. The PCs are all members of this agency having come from law enforcement, intelligence or military backgrounds of some sort, although they may have been analysts, programmers, or any number of more mundane “career paths” and still come under the auspices of the PDA.