Look to the West -- Thread II

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Interesting and very good news to me. :D

I do find it interesting how they referred to Clara Keppel as Lucas throughout. Hardly seems fair if you ask me. :(
 
That was pretty cool, I really like how you conveyed the effect of alternate path technology took on literature and fiction in a markedly original yet credible way. Can't wait for more, as always!
 

Thande

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This here is certainly interesting. It seems to suggest a *communist Britain?

Also, the idea of leaving space for censorship and propaganda is interesting, does it have an OTL equivalent, or is it entirely your invention?
As far as I know I invented it... but I've invented quite a few things for this TL which I later found out actually existed in OTL.
Interesting and very good news to me. :D

I do find it interesting how they referred to Clara Keppel as Lucas throughout. Hardly seems fair if you ask me. :(
It's fairly standard practice. I based it on George Eliot, who is always referred to by that male name, but with the female pronoun, which can look a bit weird.
 
It's fairly standard practice. I based it on George Eliot, who is always referred to by that male name, but with the female pronoun, which can look a bit weird.

True, but Lucas is a quite male first name to, so that made it very surreal.
 
Steampunk transhumanism :eek:

In The Cogwheel Turns, Piraneo uses the simple maintenance automata in Ptr’s factory in Lucas’ book as a plot device, suggesting that as the original rebel automata grow lazy and delegate more of their tasks to the maintenance automata, the latter grow more intelligent, become angry that they are kept in slavery, and start a revolution of their own. Having set forth this cyclic idea, Piraneo then wanted to make the mind-bending possibility that humans were not the first turn in the cycle—that humans are themselves a form of automata, and were originally made by a yet earlier race (which he would identify with the various pagan gods and angels in old writings) but overthrew and slaughtered them in prehistory.

I'm reminded of a passage in A Canticle for Leibowitz in which a philosopher from a post-apocalyptic Renaissance analog formulates a similar hypothesis.

Leibowitz does spring to mind, though it seems to a reference to the new Battlestar Galactica series. And very amusing at that.
 

Thande

Donor
Leibowitz does spring to mind, though it seems to a reference to the new Battlestar Galactica series. And very amusing at that.

Not intentionally, I notoriously dislike the new BSG. Blade Runner was an obvious inspiration (see title of segment) and last week's Doctor Who rather annoyingly preempted me despite me having the idea several days before...
 
It's interesting how their "scientific romance" is much more based off of social conflict then our own science-fiction, which has a much stronger origin in "pulp" and "adventure" fiction of the late 19th century. It's also fascinating that their great monsters are not our biological monstrosities (like Frankenstein or Dr. Moreau) but the "automata," much more similar to our idea of robots (and created for similar reasons, although from a more conservative perspective). "Paracthonic Romance" seems much more depressing than our speculative fiction from these early snippets...
 
It's interesting that this timeline's peace settlement after the end of the Jacobin Wars is so much less successful than OTL's Congress of Vienna, which, while having many faults, led to a century without any Europe wide wars (all the European wars between 1815 and 1914 involved only some of the great powers, and were generally fairly short in duration). I could be wrong, but it looks like after barely 20 years, there is going to be not just an 1848-style period of revolutions, but also major international wars across the continent. I wonder why the peacemakers were so much less successful than their OTL counterparts?

It seems to me that the Jacobin Wars of TTL, though shorter than OTL French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, in some ways shook Europe up even more and made it even more impossible to restore the old order. The Jacobin forces were more brutal than the French in OTL, and they succeeded in overrunning part of Britain, which certainly won't be a land of relative political stability in this version of the 19th century. Then there is the fact that European politics is more closely connected with events in the Americas, which adds one more source of instability. Or it could just be really bad luck!
 
It's interesting that this timeline's peace settlement after the end of the Jacobin Wars is so much less successful than OTL's Congress of Vienna, which, while having many faults, led to a century without any Europe wide wars (all the European wars between 1815 and 1914 involved only some of the great powers, and were generally fairly short in duration). I could be wrong, but it looks like after barely 20 years, there is going to be not just an 1848-style period of revolutions, but also major international wars across the continent. I wonder why the peacemakers were so much less successful than their OTL counterparts?

I'd put it down to the settlement as of Copenhagen - one look at the map tells you this isn't built to last.
 
Not intentionally, I notoriously dislike the new BSG. Blade Runner was an obvious inspiration (see title of segment) and last week's Doctor Who rather annoyingly preempted me despite me having the idea several days before...

:D I did think both of new BSG and why it's not footnoted as you share my dislike for it. Stargate doesn't match as cleanly but is also good.
You could have put an 'As you know, Bob,' footnote.
 
Ah, sci-fi. :):):):)

Mind you, I learned the other day (from an article on the Guardian website) that the Bronte sisters of all people wrote some sci-fi fanfic-y things... :D:rolleyes::p

(What with the sci-fi exibition in the British Library and all.)
 

Thande

Donor
It's interesting how their "scientific romance" is much more based off of social conflict then our own science-fiction, which has a much stronger origin in "pulp" and "adventure" fiction of the late 19th century.
Well there is pulp and adventure (I was going to explore it a bit more, but I couldn't think of an appropriate ATL term for "Penny Dreadful", given that Britain's currency has changed...) but, like OTL, it's looked down upon by high-minded authors and critics, not least because those dismissive of paracthonic romance tend to lump all of it in with the cheap thrills stuff (again, like OTL). This author (one of those high-minded critics) does refer to it briefly in the text...

Unlike many of the rather dull and passable ‘automata revolt’ writers who copied him, who viewed the setting as simply an exotic one in which to set gun-toting heroes having swashbuckling adventures and fighting the evil automata,




It's interesting that this timeline's peace settlement after the end of the Jacobin Wars is so much less successful than OTL's Congress of Vienna, which, while having many faults, led to a century without any Europe wide wars (all the European wars between 1815 and 1914 involved only some of the great powers, and were generally fairly short in duration). I could be wrong, but it looks like after barely 20 years, there is going to be not just an 1848-style period of revolutions, but also major international wars across the continent. I wonder why the peacemakers were so much less successful than their OTL counterparts?

It seems to me that the Jacobin Wars of TTL, though shorter than OTL French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, in some ways shook Europe up even more and made it even more impossible to restore the old order. The Jacobin forces were more brutal than the French in OTL, and they succeeded in overrunning part of Britain, which certainly won't be a land of relative political stability in this version of the 19th century. Then there is the fact that European politics is more closely connected with events in the Americas, which adds one more source of instability. Or it could just be really bad luck!
I tend to think the view of the 19th century as being relatively peaceful is a bit misleading, and the product of the fact that we look with hindsight from WW1 and anything seems peaceful compared to that. I was looking at a historical atlas from 1830 the other day which has maps throughout all of history, and the 'present day' one is labelled "1828 - THE END OF THE GENERAL PEACE". The Congress System was widely viewed as having failed at, well, about the same time as the alt. one does in LTTW. Certainly the people who drew up the Congress of Vienna would have been appalled at permitting the restoration of a Bonaparte in France or wars and revolutions which led to the unification of (Klein) Germany and Italy--those go completely against their intentions for keeping the balance of power. There was certainly an idea prior to WW1 that there WAS a balance of power created by the Entente and the Alliance, but that has nothing to do with the Congress system--it's just that there was a transition from one to the other by RELATIVELY minor wars (compared to WW1, that is).
 
This here is certainly interesting. It seems to suggest a *communist Britain?
Could be societist; IIRC, societism didn't have all the 'cultural revolution' aspects of communism, and had less of a tendency to shoot people for having rich ancestors.

Of course, that's what I think I remember from past updates, and most of that was implied. Thande's a crafty guy when it comes to slowly giving out information.
 
Could be societist; IIRC, societism didn't have all the 'cultural revolution' aspects of communism, and had less of a tendency to shoot people for having rich ancestors.

Of course, that's what I think I remember from past updates, and most of that was implied. Thande's a crafty guy when it comes to slowly giving out information.

Nah, I think it's been pretty clear that Britain is anti-societist. Societism is anti-communism -- it plays up class differences over national unity. Aristocrats of the world, unite, or something like that.

This is the second time we've seen references to journals being "multiple-language approved" or "language restricted" -- it seems the *UN in TTL exists to actively inhibit free trade of ideas. (And free trade in general, prob'ly.) This probably explains some of the technological slow-down in TTL after it's kickstart in the 19th century.

Of course, if I'm right about societism, than the problem for our captured cross-timers (assuming they come from something close to OTL), is that if TTL's authorities find out what our world is like, they'll see a world where "societism" won. Or at least, is on the ascendant. The UN, the EU, the IMF...I suspect all of these would be seen as "societist" institutions by TTL.

Then again, I could be completely wrong.
 
Of course, if I'm right about societism, than the problem for our captured cross-timers (assuming they come from something close to OTL), is that if TTL's authorities find out what our world is like, they'll see a world where "societism" won. Or at least, is on the ascendant. The UN, the EU, the IMF...I suspect all of these would be seen as "societist" institutions by TTL.

Then again, I could be completely wrong.

No, I think you have it exactly. Look at the role of the English language in our world versus this timeline, which sports not just a balance-of-power wank but also a worldwide reaction against Societism. To them our ~1.5 billion English speakers and American cultural dominance might look a little different....
 
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