[mikema63]

In other words we need a GM, we can even call the GM the Fuhrer.

[Potemkin]

There's aren't any Nazis in this timeline, Mike (pity - the uniforms were kickass). In fact, the closest thing to a fascist imperium is actually the British Empire. Maybe we could call the GM the 'Lord Protector' or something....

[mikema63]

But who will I be able to call mein Fuhrer?

[Frollein]

We can still have the uniforms, Potemkin, it's 1937.

[Potemkin]

Good point, Frollein. Until the wearing of paramilitary uniforms was banned in Britain, Oswald Mosley's merry band of fascists did a good line in men's black sartorial fashion. Maybe in this timeline they were allowed to keep their natty uniforms?

[fuser]

sinking of the Lusitania

Actually Lusitania was indeed carrying arms and ammunition for the allies as Germans claimed at that time and it was not an innocent civilian ship. As per international law of the time, Germany was in right to sink this ship but they lost the propaganda campaign as allies (including USA) blamed and smeared Germany for sinking a civilian ship violating the international treaty. USA was well entrenched into allies camp before this incident.

Basically in pacific, Germany was an ambitious imperial power while Britain was more or less a settled empire, hence USA ambitions in pacific was more in aligned with Britain than Germany.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

So, did the Zimmerman telegram never happen, or was it just not intercepted?

Do you want to keep the US out of the war completely, or join against Germany and have Mexico conquer Arizona, Texas and New Mexico (and thereby starting the carving up of America)?

I just think we should make up our minds before the game runs out of steam...

It would be better for the American storyline if America had, for various reasons, not been dragged into siding with the Allies outright in WWI, and for Mexico to remain a non-belligerent neighbor of the US, otherwise it would interfere with the events and continuity of the Civil War II.

Frollzy mentioned this in a post, but we discussed how it would probably be better to simply say that the US was not dragged into WWI, that if there was the equivalent of a roaring Twenties in the US that it was far less of an economic and cultural boom, and that the speculative market near the end of the 20s did crash, but that the resulting Depression wasn't quite as severe as the one in our world (but it was still an economic depression).

It also sounds like having much of Europe be in a slow process of economic recovery, set back for a time by the Depression, but swinging back by the mid 30s to at least allow the Japanese, French, and British to "occupy" some Pacific and Northeastern American cities, would be good all-around. I don't know about Potemkin, but I am still preferring the idea of the Soviet Union weathering out the effects of the Depression better (perhaps with a better-managed socialist system without Stalin, who was executed for his failures with the Holodomor?) and being able to turn Moscow into the kind of glamorous proletarian showcase capital of the world (the kind of grand style and public works one would see in Pyongyang) it deserves to be!

I think if we can agree on a vision of Europe at this point, we'll get the last major thing done with our world building itself (ironically the most important part, but we Americans like to make everything about us ).

[The Sabbaticus]

I've decided that my character is going to be Potemkin's guilty conscience. Picture me as a little devil sitting on his shoulder, providing a constant editorialization of his decision making process and making glib comments about the other participants.

[Frollein]

Uuhh... how about no.

Seriously, Sab, make up your mind. Either participate in that game with a character that truly inhabits that world - which means that he takes it seriously, in the same way that everyone of us is taking our reality seriously, if only for the reason that it's the reality we all have to deal with - or stay out.

[Potemkin]

I've decided that my character is going to be Potemkin's guilty conscience. Picture me as a little devil sitting on his shoulder, providing a constant editorialization of his decision making process and making glib comments about the other participants.

[youtube]-3x8x0edZOQ[/youtube]

[Cookie Monster]

Some scenarios to consider:
Mexican communists are leading a revolution in the industrial North against the conservative government. The communists are backed up by Bolshevik Russia. Texas declares independence and enters a war against the communist rebels in Northern Mexico. The US does not recognise Texan secession, but does not intervene for the moment as Texas expands into Mexico. American pioneers in Alaska are embroiled in local conflicts with Alaskan and Canadian Native Americans over the use of land and resources. Canada is unable to secure its borders. Adventurers from all over the United States migrate to Texas and Alaska to seek fortune and glory. Local conflicts along Alaska's borders escalate into an unofficial local war. US-Canadian/British relations worsen.

Lenin and Sun Yat-Sen live longer lives and are able to guide and see the fruition of their revolutions for a much longer time.

The German Empire expands the railroad and pipeline infrastructure in the Middle East and connects the oilfields of Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula with Constantinople and Europe. The British Empire provides support to the rebels of the Saudi-clan who sabotage the pipelines. The British Empire installs/supports pro-British regimes in Persia, Oman and Yemen and ensures its access to the oilfields of Persia and the Persian Gulf. The Suez remains under an international regime with British-French forces guarding the West side of the channel, and German-Ottoman forces guarding the East side.

After the ANZAC experience in WWI, Australia and New Zealand establish the Pacific Federation, which is fully independent from the British Crown, yet politically allied with it. It rapidly expands its navy. The Netherlands, fearing that German Empire will not respect its neutrality anymore and doubting the British Empire's ability to guarantee its independence, focusses on the further development and integration of its colonies, particularly Indonesia. Java is further colonised by Europeans. Volunteering Boers from South-Africa are resettled in Java. The Netherlands also concludes a strategic alliance with the Pacific Federation.

Brazil is in a civil war with various warlords fighting for either the old regime, reinstalment of the monarchy, communist revolution, anarchy, liberalism or personal wealth. The US consolidates its influence in Colombia and Venezuela. Chile, while balancing its alliance with the British and German empires, enters into a war against Peru and Bolivia. The German Empire expands its influence in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Japan, reluctantly supported by the British Empire, expands into China. China receives support from the German Empire and Bolshevik Russia. The British invade Tibet to secure the Northern borders of its Crown Colony. Tibetan rebels struggle against the British and are supported by Chinese nationalists and German and Russian adventurers. The Far Eastern Republic remains in existence to serve as a buffer against Japan's hostilities and US' presence in Siberia (therefore no official state of war exists between Bolshevik Russia and Japan and the US).

[Frollein]

I like a lot of your scenarios (especially the Middle Eastern ones), but I'm not sure how the American ones (that I like, too, just for the record) fit in with the scenario already developed by Bulaba et al. I'll let them and you figure out that one.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking about the problem that Lexington stated a while back: I have the noir atmosphere, but what makes it Dieselpunk?

Some things to consider:

The technology

So, how is Dieselpunk not just another alternate history universe? One component is retrofuturism/futuristic retro. The first is directly inspired by the imagined future which existed in the minds of writers and artists of that time, who attempted to predict the future, either in serious projections of existing technology (e.g. in magazines like Science and Invention) or in science fiction novels and stories. Such futuristic visions are refurbished and updated for the present, and offer a nostalgic, counterfactual image of what the future might have been, but is not.

Futuristic retro comes to almost the same result, but from the opposite direction: It starts with the retro appeal of old styles of art, clothing, mores, and then grafts it onto modern or futuristic technologies, creating a mélange of past, present, and future elements.

When a time period is supplied for a story, it might be a counterfactual present with unique technology; a fantastic version of the future; or an alternate past in which the imagined (fictitious or projected) inventions of the past were indeed real.


So, we could basically have all our modern tech, including computers and the internet, or even tech-that-never-was, as imagined from that era, in our game, as long as it has the aesthetic of the interwar period. Now, for visual artists, the main inspiration is art deco, streamline moderne, the cinematography of the noir film, and the gigantomania of the propaganda posters (both fascist and communist). For writers, it’s difficult to transport those aesthetics, so let’s focus on the atmosphere instead:

Well, we’ve talked about the noir, the disillusionment, devastation and depression after the war. But I think there is yet another angle to consider: This is the age of mass-movements, mass-production, of megalomaniac architecture, of ever increasing speed of the machines becoming the measure of all things, all leading to making the individual tiny, helpless and subordained to the machine, but also a part of a gigantic rising tide - swept away by forces beyond individual control, whose power felt both frightening and exhilarating. This feeling of profound meaning and momentum, which could evoke dread in one individual, and anticipation in another, should also shine through in our game.

Wikipedia claims that the third component of Dieselpunk is „postmodern sensibilities“, but I’d rather call it social anachronism. It probably started out as the pragmatic acknowledgment of the unconscious and inevitable projection of our contemporary values and mores on the past (in a „heck, if we can’t avoid it anyway, let’s turn it into our trademark!- way), but it can also work the other way around: social structures and attitudes of bygone times projected onto a future society.

So, what is it with this punk thing, anyway? Punk ideology is anti-establishment, in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of their society.

That’s a decision the author has to make beforehand: do you want to be punk? Then you mix genres, apply retrofuturism and social anachronism across your whole universe. Or do you want your characters to be punk? Then you can still have your retrofuturism, but the society has to be mainstream, with all its historical values, taboos and attitudes, so that your characters can be the social anachronists, rebelling against or subverting their society.

There is also the DIY ethos, which ties in with the characters living on the margins of society - if they want to have any plot worth its name, without the financial and social benefits of the upper classes, they have to be ingenious enough to build their own devices, be they cyber, steam, or diesel. That’s why these genres are full of mad scientists, genius innovators, daredevil engineers and other adventurers.

*********

Oh, and if you have $3 to spare, read Broken Time Blues, a dieselpunk anthology.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Unfortunately, every single scenario written about by CM doesn't really work with everything we've discussed thus far (America, Lenin, Middle East, Pacific, US getting into S America, Japan, Russian Far East Asia, etc).

I'd really recommend new people people sift through the last few pages to see what we've largely come to a consensus on.

[mikema63]

What we need to do is produce an outline.

A pity that a personal sub-forum for this couldn't be done, it would make this easier to organize.

[The Sabbaticus]

^ appropriate the 'Home, Garden and Hobbies" subforum.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

What we need to do is produce an outline.

A pity that a personal sub-forum for this couldn't be done, it would make this easier to organize.

Frollein and I have been talking with TIG about possibilities and it looks like the Literature subforum is a good option (the subforum description does describe creative writing projects). All we'd have to do is throw in [Diesel] in the titles of our RP-related threads.

[mikema63]

That'd be perfect.

[Cookie Monster]

That'd be perfect.

Indeed, currently it misses an overview of the state of affairs and recent history of the factions, countries and regions involved. (And also the date and event where the split occurs after which history alternates from our timeline.)

I like a lot of your scenarios (especially the Middle Eastern ones), but I'm not sure how the American ones (that I like, too, just for the record) fit in with the scenario already developed by Bulaba et al. I'll let them and you figure out that one.

Unfortunately, every single scenario written about by CM doesn't really work with everything we've discussed thus far (America, Lenin, Middle East, Pacific, US getting into S America, Japan, Russian Far East Asia, etc).

No worries, I was just sharing some scenarios. I am happy as long as I get to play Potemky's sidekick.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

No worries, I was just sharing some scenarios. I am happy as long as I get to play Potemky's sidekick.

I wasn't trying to sound rude. But, if you browse the last 4-5 pages you basically get the gist of everything. There's still an incredible amount of wiggle room and creative freedom available because although we've largely come to a general consensus on much of our world building, the details themselves in every nation/region aren't really defined and up to individual writers.

[The Sabbaticus]

No worries, I was just sharing some scenarios. I am happy as long as I get to play Potemky's sidekick.

I suppose that could be amusing. He does after all have both a left and right shoulder.