Help Me ReWrite Post-1910 History

[Brown Jenkin]

A few thoughts and questions.

Just how big is the dead zone? If it is neccesary to go to Mexico or Canada to get aroud it it would be huge. Since it cant just stop at the border then it is even larger with Mexico and Canada also having relatively large sections of dead zone in their nations as well. If the Dead Zone isn't that big, then there is no competition with Mexico or Canada for travel zones since there would be non-dead space available (more likely along the Canadian border) that Semis, trains, and planes could use.

Mexico would not control the canal without another war with the US. By the time Mexico could defeat the US, the US would have to be a second or third rate power in the world. By the time the US gave up control of the canal in the 70s its strategic importance (whle still there) had declied greatly. Before air travel and the interstate system it would remain of grave importance for the US to maintain control. If the dead zone happens before 1950 then the US would consider it even more strategicly important and would fight desperately to maintain control.

 

[WayneLigon]

A few thoughts and questions.

Just how big is the dead zone? If it is neccesary to go to Mexico or Canada to get aroud it it would be huge. Since it cant just stop at the border then it is even larger with Mexico and Canada also having relatively large sections of dead zone in their nations as well. If the Dead Zone isn't that big, then there is no competition with Mexico or Canada for travel zones since there would be non-dead space available (more likely along the Canadian border) that Semis, trains, and planes could use.

I have to draw an exact map of it, sometime very soon, to make sure how things are going to go. I do know that the Mississippi River stops it, because the Mississippi is, in many ways, a 'demarcation' that seperates East and West. The spell will respond to that and stop at - generally - the western bank of the river, though the border does fluctuate slightly and unpredictably. People on the Eastern shore pay Zone Insurance as well as Flood Insurance, in case a Dead Zone fluctuation causes them harm.

I'll get out a compass tonight, draw various circles and oblongs over the West and see if anything interesting or significant pops up in the middle of them.

Right now, in my mind, it's stopped by the Rocky Mountains on the western end. The north and south ends are what I haven't got clear in my head. It MIGHT be that the north and south borders of the US stop it, since the Lodge had 'teh hat' for the US as an entity as well and that (again, one of the major theories) is that they didn't word the spell as correctly as they should have. That might well enter into things.

 

[WayneLigon]

The U.S. would have a huge advantage over a great number of nations. There'd be a huge Nuke-proof shield in the middle of the country.
If no technological devices made after 1870 would work in that zone that'd mean there would actually be a place to go and hide that'd be mostly safe in a nuclear war as no weapons of that kind could touch the area.

Yep, I mentioned that. There are actually several practical uses for the Dead Zone and there are at least a few higher-ups that don't want to do anything to it, even if it does mean a few dozen people get killed in Lodge raids every year.

One common conspiracy theory is that the US Government paid the Lodge to erect the Dead Zone after a government seer saw 'fire and light in the sky', and that the various 'Zone Removal Programs' are just smokescreens to funnel cash to other black projects.

These are the same people that think faeries abduct over 1,000 people a year.

 

[mythusmage]

Actually the US quite soundly trounced the Mexicans in 1898, invading Mexico City itself and holding it until they ceeded most of the western North Americas to us. I don't doubt that we could have done it again in the 1920's, when the differences in our two countries would be even more vast.

Not only that, but many of those German documents are believed to be propoganda anyway. For some reason we never liked the Mexicans/Spanish/Cubans. I guess they were just in land we wanted at the least opportune times.

Corrections:

The Mexican War was 1846 to 1848.

The Zimmerman Telegraph was sent from Berlin to the German Embassy in Mexico City in 1916. Big gap of time there.

Up until World War II U.S. and Mexican relations were rocky at best. At times coming close to a state of war. American business engaged in activities in Mexico prior to the establishment of the current republic that would later serve as 'inspiration' for the ever popular "Corporations is evil" trope seen now in cyberpunk and urban dystopias. The mega-corps of Shadowrun owe more to International Fruit than you may know.

As for Mexico taking back Texas et al. Mexico at the time was in the middle of a civil war. One in a long series that wouldn't end until the 1920s with the victory of the PRI (in English the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party) Even in 1916, when things were relatively stable, Mexico just didn't have the resources to take on the U.S. in open conflict. Something the world learned when the U.S. sent a punitive expedition into northern Mexico after one Pancho Villa made a raid on a New Mexico town. Besides which, the dead zone would affect the Mexicans as it would anybody else. No post 1870 tech in other words.

In short, a war between the U.S.A and the E.U.de M (United States of Mexco) around 1916, even with the return of magic, is not very likely.

 

[driver8]

Hmm how about this, it has been sort of touched on by others. Perhaps a political/religious movement grows in the area stuck in the 1870s, that becomes xenophobic of the other regions of North America.

With transcontinental travel more difficult, the Pacific states secede from the USA and form their own union. And perhaps a foreign power- the newly ascendent Mexico, the British Empire, or the Russians, gain a great amount of influence over the Pacific territories-financial at first, then political.

If you keep WWI or II in the timeline, a weaker less unified USA is unable to intervene in a Great European War.

 

[WayneLigon]

First Draft of the European Map

Thinking of making Paris a 'free city' split between France, Germany and England. It becomes this still-divided Berlin-like city, with all sorts of intrigue plus bomb-throwing anarchists to boot. And French Nazis.

More to come. Comments and such, please.

 

[WayneLigon]

First Draft of the Dead Zone map

OK, I'd originally said 'to the Rocky Mountains', forgetting that the Rockies start a good deal east of where I thought they were. I was thinking of the Cascades/Sierra Madre, perhaps.

Anyway, with the Dead Zone stopped by the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi, and the Rio Grande that still leaves us a lot more room than I thought, and the little strip up top becomes the new route to the West. Also, this preserves both Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam. I might still have it much larger, but this gives me a nice 'prairre' feel, the time-slip effect I need for a few plot lines and NPC's, etc.

Comments, etc?

 

[WayneLigon]

Russia.

I'm thinking about having Anastasia become Tsarina after escaping from the murderous wizard (lich? ghoul-template?) Rasputin. She goes on to rule for a long time and moves the Russias towards more of a constitutional monarchy in response to the Imperialist movements all around her; Germany and Britain are full of themselves and very powerful, as is grim, brooding Austria-Hungary.

The nations south of A-H are fearful of German and Hungarian imperialists as well as the increasingly unstable remnants of the Ottoman Empire, so they have a free trade alliance.

Russia might also be known as RUS, or the Russian Union of States; the Ukraine, Georgia, Siberia, the various Grand and Petty Duchies along the western border, all have some degree of independence.

 

[Stormborn]

Europa map looks cool. Have you considered making Paris a "free city" or some such, a place that keeps it neutrality and is a free haven for just about anyone in europe?

The only thing about making a cool world, i have found, is getting your PCs in it. Perhaps you should extend the powers of your team, give them carte blanc to pursue magical threats across international borders. You could keep them in the US for the most part, but then have a powerful dark mage terrorist flee after pulling off some big job and send the PCs after him or her thorugh the great magical cities of the world as a long term scenario to give them the "grand tour".

Oh, and that reminds me, if the last "era" of magic ended around 1300 AD you should think about the places that existed then that are still around. For example, one of the most impressive things I saw while living in Kiev, Ukraine was St. Sophia's (http://www.uazone.net/Kiev_Sophia.html a link that i pulled up on quick Google). These kinds of sites may suddenly have a lot more to them now that magic is back. Not to mention the old stand-bys of the various henges of the british isles, the spinx (which may have lasted through several magical eras) and the pyramids, and I am sure several asian sites about which I know much less.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Considering the kind of culture Austria had prior to WW1, I have trouble seeing it as "grim and brooding" If anything, Austria-Hungary (Vienna and the heartland of Austria) would be more prone to Polyannaism than an excess of grimness.

Now, the outlying regions were prone to some of the first modern, nationally sponsored terrorist activity. The problems there could lend a grimness to the country as a whole, but the government in Vienna is more likely to continue cheerily along, downplaying and ignoring as much of the problem as it can, than it is to face it with dour resolve. Much to the frustration of its German ally-neighbors.

Speaking of those original state-sponsored terrorists... what event triggered WW1 in your world, if not the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists? Because with more than half of France in German hands, I can't see Serbia still existing as a separate country if it triggered the war. Just something you might want to change on your map.

Russia entered WW1 to protect Serbia, its close ally. Assuming that the nations south of Austria-Hungary survive as independent entities, they're probably still under Russian protection. In the RUS scenario, they would have probably incorporated into the Russian commonwealth over the course of the century.

P.S. I still can't see Rasputin as undead.