Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SWBaxter" data-source="post: 2209295" data-attributes="member: 27926">Well, the main rule of building a conspiracy theory is to fit data to the desired result. If the Kirkcaldy angle doesn't work for you, then you can go back to another track, such as Adam Smith and those influenced by him. A later economic theorist who was influenced by (and often at odds with) the work of Adam Smith was Karl Marx. What if they were both representatives of shadowy conspiracies in conflict with each other over control of the world's economy, and World War II was actually caused by their scheming and rivalry? The history of Russia in the 20th century is ripe for conspiracy theories, what with Tunguska, Rasputin, the Russian Revolution and civil wars, Lenin and Stalin with their reigns of terror, etc. Two of the economic giants of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, nicely bracket WWII. They'd have to fit into the conspiracy (or conspiracies) somewhere, particularly since they're competing schools of thought and yet both appear to be strongly adhered to by some governments. Are they actually in competition, or all part of the same grand conspiracy? Only the GM knows for sure (and frankly, the campaign usually plays better if he doesn't make up his mind for a while). Another angle for post-WWII is the Marshall plan. US Secretary of State George Marshall oversaw the reconstruction of western Europe after WWII, starting in 1948. The catalyst for his plan was a meeting after the war in which he noticed Josef Stalin seemed unconcerned about conditions in Europe - devastated by war, it made fertile ground for communist revolution in many countries, and that motivated Marshall to come up with a way to prevent such an outcome. There's lots of scope for plotting and conspiracies in the early days of the cold war. Ironically enough, Marshall retired after Senator Joseph McCarthy denounced him for making decisions that helped the communist cause. Any self-respecting conspiracy would have its fingerprints all over the Marshal Plan as it rebuilt western Europe's economy (and quite likely also the communization of Eastern Europe on the other side of the iron curtain - global conspiracies like to keep all their bases covered).</blockquote>

Verification