Centrum Beta, yes. Centrum proper, maybe, if I can figure out how the subdivisions of the world are organized.
GURPS Infinite Worlds Covers
- Thread starter rvbomally
- Start date
Centrum Beta, yes. Centrum proper, maybe, if I can figure out how the subdivisions of the world are organized.
Still considering in both cases they're complete monocultures, how would you deal with that?
Isn't Centrum Beta the Centrum timeline before the Australians take over the world? It's far more fractured, IIRC.
Centrum was always a monoculture since the Anglo-French empire was created. That empire conquered the entire world and ruled for a while before being destroyed in the Last War.
Centrum Beta is when that monoculture is still around.
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That's my primary interest in seeing a Centrum map, also weren't large portions decimated? If I could find my copy of Infinite Worlds I'd contribute to this immediately, but it's in storage somewhere.
Since I have found my book, how much leeway are we given to fill in the blanks so to speak. Like Johnson's Rome for instance, or the Roma parallels
Don't put up scans or entire sections of the book. I think anything below that is fine.
If I put a small section on Centrum, like a small segment of the article on it, is that OK?
Like is this too big?:
As for Centrum Beta, there is only one major civilization - Western (universal empire) - and one Great Power, the Anglo-French Empire. Its "current year" is 1895.
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Britannica - 6
"I've never seen a world more steeped in rumor, treachery, blackmail and gossip that Britannica - 6. Nor one more poised on the brink of revolution..."
The ongoing joke about the teams that visit Britannica - 6 is that the the politics among royals would give the Lannisters a run for their money. Since the coronation of Charlotte as Queen of the United Kingdom in 1830, the British Isles has been a whirlwind of political intrigue that has somehow managed to remain the leading power of the world... if only because the other nations of Europe are even more deceitful. Even though she was the only heir of King George IV, she had to handle her family attempting to take the throne from her. In a move that would define her reign, her main rivals to the throne suffered... accidents. While the genetics of Princess Charlotte and her Brittanica - 6 counterpart are the same according to Homeline tests, her personality was different, no longer a romantic princess, she would be Queen and no one would stand in her way. Queen Charlotte's rise, and continued reign set the tone for British politics of the time, a machivellian network of gossip, spies, hearsay, upon which one tenet is very broken, No one challenges Charlotte's throne."I've never seen a world more steeped in rumor, treachery, blackmail and gossip that Britannica - 6. Nor one more poised on the brink of revolution..."
The British Empire meanwhile continued their expansion, with many nobles taking an interest in becoming governors of new conquests. It was only a short time later that nobles realized that shipping enemies out of London was advantageous to them. The Queen took particular interest in the idea of "Anglo-reunification" and nobles were only too happy to support any such move in North America. No incident spoke more of this when John Sutter, 1st Governor of the Charlotte Coast (formerly Alta California) was granted the title of "Duke of Drake's Bay. North America has seen the United States marginalized, the Russian's stymied, and Mexico indebted to a combination of France and the United Kingdom, and the Confederacy still lives on as a government in exile in the British treaty port of Charleston. President James A. Garfield is struggling to avoid a scramble by Europe or a British subversion of the entire United States.
Meanwhile European politics has seen the Bismarck's dream fail miserably, and both Italy and Germany remain a collection of states. The European Powers continually vie for supremacy, but no one power truly has the upper hand in Europe. While British dominance across the world is a indisputable, it's actually unique in the multiverse that the British Empire of Britannica - 6 does have multiple kingdoms under it. Notably the Kingdom of Hanover going to one of Queen Charlotte's sons, and Queen Anne of Greece, both subjects of the British crown, a scandal at the time but Queen Charlotte was quite fond of being crowned Charlotte I, Empress of the British Empire. With most of the Colonial Powers focused away from Africa, and unwilling to meet peacefully to resolve the "African Question" this world is ripe for a World War... and the only thing stopping it is the webs of deceit and intrigue.
Queen Charlotte's philanthropy has endeared her to the people, but also inspired pretenders, and not all noble projects were... ah... noble or useful. The Channel Bridge, a diplomatic headache for both the French and British, has tied the UK into the railway network of Europe. The same cannot be said for Iceberg Battleship, which melted once it was moved to the tropics and Britain's most public project embarassment. France's Gibraltar Bridge, and Russia's transcontinental railway are thankfully more practical... Most interesting though is a young engineer in the court of Franz Josef by the name of Nikola Tesla. While the world hasn't watched him too closely, the Emperor of Austria has commissioned him to build the "Electrical Terror" with the hope of it being a trump card in any Great War, or a bargaining chip with either the British, French, or Russians.
However despite the rampant imperialism, oligarchy conflicts, medieval thinking, the problems that Homeline faced are still bubbling under the surface. Mexico and the United States are both furious at European meddling, and it is only a matter of time before the spymasters of Britain don't sabotage a meeting to kick out the colonial powers. The summer of 1848 never happened but revolts are brewing everywhere due the three European Powers banning Marx's work (guaranteeing they were read by more people), and the powers themselves are poised on the brink of open warfare. Numerous flashpoints exist from Colorado to Berlin, Rome to Managua, Baghdad to Beijing. All these conflicts are likely to culminate soon... Empress Charlotte I and Emperor Napoleon III are old and near death... a power struggle is imminent.
MAP delayed indefinitely due to Quantum Drift
OOC: bit over the top and loose, but given the premise, it's what came to me.
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That should be fine.
I think that shows the Anglo-French Empire as having unrivaled dominance over the Earth, and possibly control over more than half of its landmass, but the text leaves open the possibility of independent client states or independent states outright that, for some reason or another, are not part of the Anglo-French system. It also opens up the possibility of various imperial subdivisions. Centrum proper, on the other hand, has explicitly taken over the entire Earth.
What is the current year for that snippet? Also isn't Britanicca-6's nobility often noted for not having a problem with exploiting the poor? I can't quite remember if there was much philanthropy going on.
Also why is there a Confederacy in that snippet? It's New England that broke off, not any Southern states.
Well as the text mentioned, there are a lot of internal divisions within the Empire. I could imagine possible growing discontent in areas or rebellions in some places.
EDIT: The AFE did conquer a bunch of places, and it seems like they expanded into areas where kingdoms started to fall apart into civil war, like Centrum's version of China did for example in 1790, or when its Russian Empire decided to start a war to distract its nobility between 1841-1850. So it's like a mixture of conquering certain areas and expanding into areas that fell apart on their own that allowed the AFE to unite everything under their rule. It only lasted for about 50 years before a rebellion occurred with a nuclear decapitation of the government.
It's noted in Alternate Earths 2 that in 1860, the AFE did put down several anti-government and regionalist rebellions.
But yes you're also correct about Centrum having a monoculture because Centrum forced a monoculture on the rest of the world while rebuilding it. Parts of the doctrines of Centrum's monoculture, like wiping out languages other than English, were partially started by the AFE prior.
Oh also apparently one of the European claimants to the throne in the aftermath of the nuclear strike that decapitated the AFE unleashed a genetically tailored plague on Asians, which then went out of control.
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I thought this is Dixie-4:
Dixie-4: According to Infinite Worlds, "the Civil War occurred in 1844, the West is still Mexican, and the United States and CSA are allied against the Mexican and German Empires. Britain is neutral.
Brittanica 6 is mentioned only in Infinite Worlds as 4 lines of text as far as I know. One sentence was about Charlotte being queen, another on deceitful nobles, and ludicrous spending by elites. Two sentences about "electrical terror" and Channel Bridge, being fanciful projects.Current year is 1887. The text implies pseudo-steampunk with court politics taken to its logical extreme. No mentions of France or Russia in the premise but There has to be some rivals to British supremacy. Also the philanthropy I was implying was lip service at best, actively destructive at worse
Actually, it got an entire PDF worth of coverage of its own, GURPS Infinite Worlds: Britannica-6, which you can pick up at W23: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-infinite-worlds-britannica-6
So I had the misfortune of picking one of the few settings that got expanded on after Infinite Worlds was published. <sigh, turns 6 upside down>
Welcome to Brittanica-9!