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Meddling with History...So, my brain keeps running with the 1602 idea, even though I told it not to... I've got to figure out what happened since 1602 to that world.
They have dinosaurs and don't think that makes my brain hurt, because dinosaurs in North America should have excluded mammals, and yet this is a world with *horses*) wandering around, which is a huge difference from Marvel 616, but the history was pretty much the same (barring the Witchbreed aka mutants) until Elizabeth was assainated in 1602 , and James came to the throne a year early.
When we last left cast, they'd set up shop in Roanoke, Virginia, and declared their independance from King James. Also, Matt Murdock, blind ministrel and bad-ass spy, had warned James off Ireland. Ignoring the far inferior sequels that Marvel put out, you have an independent colony founded as a refuge for mutants and other weird people, and an independent Ireland. But with a hostile Spain and a hostile if stand-offish England in the distance, and the rest of Europe unfriendly on the principle that Witchbreed are, well, witches...
I'm going with a founding of a democratic republic somewhat more like Canada than the USA -- a President but also a Prime Minister, a Senate and a House making up Parliment, and the entire thing run as a confedercy with various Indian coalitions like the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois Confederacy), Cherokee and Seminole.
Roanoke would exist, and a few other early cities (in Quebec? Florida?) but I think New Amsterdam is the last one that for sure would be there with the same name.
If there is a democratic republic founded, it would probably be named the Confederacy of Columbia, and be subdivided into provinces:
Virginia (with Roanoke as the capital city, includes the Carolina and Georgia)
Acadia (present day New England and the Maritimes)
Quebec
Canada (present day Ontario and Michigan)
Mississippi (present day Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Louisiana and Arkansas)
Wabash (present day Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois)
Florida (once it's annexed and the Spanish kicked out)
What other names spring to mind for provinces? Would such a Confederacy successfully cross the Mississippi?
The technology would be skewed, because you have Reed Richards (who is coming up with *quantum theory* at the end of 1602) running around for his lifetime injecting advanced 'natural philosophy', but you also have mutants, who bypass the need to develop some technologies with their abilities. Especially if Roanoke really did become a haven for European (and other) mutants; run them out in fear for their lives and let them concentrate in one place, and you'll have a population that breeds true as Witchbreed in a very short period. Even if many of them are marrying Cherokee and Tuscarora, in just a few generations, most of the inhabitants of Roanoke would be related to Witchbreed if not Witchbreed themselves. Even immigration in from Europe wouldn't dilute that much, as many of immigrants would be Witchbreed themselves or families of the same.
English would be the main language at least for the foundation period, but I think French would also be common, and at least one of the Indian languages. And it would be a lot like American and Canadian English, if with more loanwords from native languages, and possibly Gaelic, depending on what the Irish are doing (having succession disputes?)
Back in Europe, what happens with the Witch hysteria still going strong but many if not most of the targets escaping into the New World? Does Cromwell (or an equivalent) still become dictator of England? Is there a Thirty-Year War, or is it cut short when Gustavus Adolphus doesn't die at the Battle of Lützen? Does Japan cut itself off and never open up to the outside world if the Columbian Confederacy is less expansionist and more concerned about keeping Latin America in check because of religious strife?
In the Confederacy of Columbia, are most of the personal names French and Indian, with a smattering of English and German, or is the blend shifted. Are they at war with Russia over the rich west coast of North America? Is Thor worshiped as a protector and a sea god (which would be a twist)? Since the Catholic Church was burning Witchbreed at the founding of the country, it wouldn't be the most common Christian denomination, nor would Anglicans for the same reason, so who becomes predominant -- Quakers? Anabaptists? Prebyterians? A new denomination that welcomes Witchbreed?
Basically, I need to read a lot of history and think a lot. Suggestions for cracked out alternative history would be really helpful (hint hint).
They have dinosaurs and don't think that makes my brain hurt, because dinosaurs in North America should have excluded mammals, and yet this is a world with *horses*) wandering around, which is a huge difference from Marvel 616, but the history was pretty much the same (barring the Witchbreed aka mutants) until Elizabeth was assainated in 1602 , and James came to the throne a year early.
When we last left cast, they'd set up shop in Roanoke, Virginia, and declared their independance from King James. Also, Matt Murdock, blind ministrel and bad-ass spy, had warned James off Ireland. Ignoring the far inferior sequels that Marvel put out, you have an independent colony founded as a refuge for mutants and other weird people, and an independent Ireland. But with a hostile Spain and a hostile if stand-offish England in the distance, and the rest of Europe unfriendly on the principle that Witchbreed are, well, witches...
I'm going with a founding of a democratic republic somewhat more like Canada than the USA -- a President but also a Prime Minister, a Senate and a House making up Parliment, and the entire thing run as a confedercy with various Indian coalitions like the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois Confederacy), Cherokee and Seminole.
Roanoke would exist, and a few other early cities (in Quebec? Florida?) but I think New Amsterdam is the last one that for sure would be there with the same name.
If there is a democratic republic founded, it would probably be named the Confederacy of Columbia, and be subdivided into provinces:
Virginia (with Roanoke as the capital city, includes the Carolina and Georgia)
Acadia (present day New England and the Maritimes)
Quebec
Canada (present day Ontario and Michigan)
Mississippi (present day Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Louisiana and Arkansas)
Wabash (present day Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois)
Florida (once it's annexed and the Spanish kicked out)
What other names spring to mind for provinces? Would such a Confederacy successfully cross the Mississippi?
The technology would be skewed, because you have Reed Richards (who is coming up with *quantum theory* at the end of 1602) running around for his lifetime injecting advanced 'natural philosophy', but you also have mutants, who bypass the need to develop some technologies with their abilities. Especially if Roanoke really did become a haven for European (and other) mutants; run them out in fear for their lives and let them concentrate in one place, and you'll have a population that breeds true as Witchbreed in a very short period. Even if many of them are marrying Cherokee and Tuscarora, in just a few generations, most of the inhabitants of Roanoke would be related to Witchbreed if not Witchbreed themselves. Even immigration in from Europe wouldn't dilute that much, as many of immigrants would be Witchbreed themselves or families of the same.
English would be the main language at least for the foundation period, but I think French would also be common, and at least one of the Indian languages. And it would be a lot like American and Canadian English, if with more loanwords from native languages, and possibly Gaelic, depending on what the Irish are doing (having succession disputes?)
Back in Europe, what happens with the Witch hysteria still going strong but many if not most of the targets escaping into the New World? Does Cromwell (or an equivalent) still become dictator of England? Is there a Thirty-Year War, or is it cut short when Gustavus Adolphus doesn't die at the Battle of Lützen? Does Japan cut itself off and never open up to the outside world if the Columbian Confederacy is less expansionist and more concerned about keeping Latin America in check because of religious strife?
In the Confederacy of Columbia, are most of the personal names French and Indian, with a smattering of English and German, or is the blend shifted. Are they at war with Russia over the rich west coast of North America? Is Thor worshiped as a protector and a sea god (which would be a twist)? Since the Catholic Church was burning Witchbreed at the founding of the country, it wouldn't be the most common Christian denomination, nor would Anglicans for the same reason, so who becomes predominant -- Quakers? Anabaptists? Prebyterians? A new denomination that welcomes Witchbreed?
Basically, I need to read a lot of history and think a lot. Suggestions for cracked out alternative history would be really helpful (hint hint).
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From:
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Have you read Eric Flint's 1632 series? Alternate History scifi where a small town from West Virginia gets dumped in Germany in 1632. It's a little later than the Marvel Comics au, but it's got some interesting ideas.
From:
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From:
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- at the stage of 1632 none of the powers involved had reached their strategic aims (that is the Emperor hadn't managed to force the Protestant Estates to restitute the former Catholic church property to the Church; the Protestant Estates hadn't managed to fend off this claim; France (and the Netherlands) had not reached her aim to weaken what she regarded as encirclement by Habsburgian Spain and the Empire)
- despite the King's death at Lützen Swedish troops fought until 1648 in Germany, because their commanders could made thus much more money than by sitting on their estates in Sweden or starting another war against Poland or Russia.
- The Peace of Westphalia that ended the war was more the result of a common bancrupcy of all European states involved than of common sense or any benevolence towards neighbour states.
So let King Gustavus Adolphus live if you like. If you want to shorten the war you might try to kill Emperor Ferdinand II very early in his reign, because he put faith over politics and refused negotiations even when his strategists like General Waldstein told him that negotiations would do better than sending armies.
From:
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If Sweden takes over, that's a big chunk of Europe that would be changed, and possibly the later colonial territories too.
From:
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He was no battlefield comander at all, he didn't even visit his troops. But he used to ride out for hunting at afternoon. You might let him fall from his horse and break his neck.
As for Swedish colonies: yes, it's you who wanted to rewrite history...
From:
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Not necessarily. It's common to ascribe some kind of cause-and-effect relationship between the extinction of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals, but where's the evidence? In the fictional universe of 1602, dinosaurs did not disappear from North America at the end of the Cretaceous Period, and large mammals evolved anyway. AFAIK, there's no reason why one event precludes the other.
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Really, though I think it's fun to have dinosaurs, pterodactyls and the like wandering around, they are a *mess* for someone like me, who was trained as a paleontologist.
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From:
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I'm certainly going to play with the dinosaurs. I *like* dinosaurs. I'm just tearing my hair about having dinosaurs and pteryodactyls on the same landmass as sabercats and mammoths. That compresses more than 50 million years of evolution... in other words, Sci Fi Writers have *NO* Sense of Scale (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale)
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OK, I REALLY need to read 1602 now.
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It's a bit weird to see Xavier (in his Elizabethan version) sitting at a desk and casually feeding a tiny theropod while discussion politics...
Remind me and I'll try to bring you the issues the next time we meet up. Or see if the library has a copy; the book won a few awards, so they might have it.
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I know what I'll be doing on my lunch break...;)
From:
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