One thing I've been meaning to ask you Thande - what of the site of OTL Townsville, Queensland? IIRC, it's the biggest settlement in Australia north of the tropic of Capricorn. Mind you, the whole of *Queensland (except for Brisbane) seems to be devoid of European settlement at this point, but it would be interesting when/if the Batavians (or someone else) decide to settle there.
Look to the West: Thread III, Volume IV (Tottenham Nil)!
- Thread starter Thande
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Finally got round to reading this excellent timeline! 
Having learned quite a bit about the Native American's resistance to the Europeans in OTL, it is quite interesting to see the Maori are doing so much better than in OTL. Also its done very plausibly as the Maori have been left alone so far because the Europeans and Americans are too busy killing each other to notice them.
One quick question, are we going to see more of the UPSA in this volume or are the team going to avoid the UPSA in order to avoid attracting attention to themselves?
Having learned quite a bit about the Native American's resistance to the Europeans in OTL, it is quite interesting to see the Maori are doing so much better than in OTL. Also its done very plausibly as the Maori have been left alone so far because the Europeans and Americans are too busy killing each other to notice them.
One quick question, are we going to see more of the UPSA in this volume or are the team going to avoid the UPSA in order to avoid attracting attention to themselves?
Thande
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Thanks for pointing that out, and sheesh, that's the least original name for anywhere ever...
There will be more about the UPSA, it's just that at the moment we're playing catch-up on the areas that were neglected before due to the focus on the Popular Wars.
I didn't comment on this? Shame on me! As usual it was a really good update : a French melting pot in Australia is a really cool development.
I was reading the new post of Lands of Red and Gold and it made me thought about whether Australian bush food could be more popular with the different focus of the first settlers we could see some spices (native ginger or aniseed myrtle) or fruits (quandong or Davidson plum) make inroads in Europe (if people can figure how to cultivate them that is).
I was reading the new post of Lands of Red and Gold and it made me thought about whether Australian bush food could be more popular with the different focus of the first settlers we could see some spices (native ginger or aniseed myrtle) or fruits (quandong or Davidson plum) make inroads in Europe (if people can figure how to cultivate them that is).
Sorry to bump this, when there isn't a recent comment about, but I just found this very interesting reddit comment about how Shakespeare came to prominence.
Indeed it states that he did not become famous until mid to late eighteenth century, after LTTW's POD. It even proposes several other alternative poet/playwrights for whom could've taken his place & why they didn't.
So I was wondering, ITL, who do you reckon becomes Shakespeare famous in his stead? Surely not Shakespeare.
I'd say John Dryden, his main problem was his conversion to Catholicism, & association with the Jacobite cause. But seeing the way things turned ITL, I think he's a much better chance.
[Also I'd like to reiterate the question of what's happened to Ada Lovelace or Toronto?]
Indeed it states that he did not become famous until mid to late eighteenth century, after LTTW's POD. It even proposes several other alternative poet/playwrights for whom could've taken his place & why they didn't.
So I was wondering, ITL, who do you reckon becomes Shakespeare famous in his stead? Surely not Shakespeare.
I'd say John Dryden, his main problem was his conversion to Catholicism, & association with the Jacobite cause. But seeing the way things turned ITL, I think he's a much better chance.
[Also I'd like to reiterate the question of what's happened to Ada Lovelace or Toronto?]
*jaw drops*
I Live There.
POSTING LIVE NOW AT 9.17PM FROM THE CITY OF BALLARAT, VICTORIA
Ballarat. you could always have also spelled it the 'other' way as Ballaarat.
Bah! only once, really. Those damn miners. Although the Southern Cross flag is flow a lot nowadays in Ballarat, primarily the symbol is damn used for the anti-monarchists and republicans, even feminists.
Its a strange way they linked that together......damn radicals.
Thande
Donor
I don't actually object to this bump because I hope to update the TL soon anyway.
On the site of OTL Toronto is the town of Rowley (an anglicisation of the former French name Fort Rouillé). It is not very big or important and is not likely to become that big or important, because the reason why Toronto made it big in OTL is because it was chosen as a capital for Upper Canada that would be defensible against American attacks, and that is obviously not an issue in TTL. It remains in the shadow of places like Kingston and New London (OTL London, Ontario; a convergent name, but not that unlikely I suppose). Eventually it may end up having the same kind of lesser importance as a Great Lakes port that OTL US cities like Buffalo and Cleveland have.
This isn't quite true--Shakespeare was already very famous in his own lifetime and the 1600s, but then fell out of favour (probably partly due to the temporary death of British theatre thanks to the Civil War and the Puritans banning theatre in favour of opera--everyone forgets that last bit). Shakespare was revived in the mid-1700s as part of the patriotic craze for established English icons in the ideological cold war with the French--as this is even stronger in LTTW (you recall it's responsible for more lasting changes to English spelling) the Shakespeare revival is going to happen in TTL as well. Of course, it's possible that other playwrights of the Elizabethan era might have more of a place in the sun rather than being shut out so entirely by Shakespeare though (Marlowe, Ben Jonson, etc.)
Lovelace doesn't exist as it's so many years past the POD. (I know I have people like John Byron III, but the point is that when you come from an established family of nobles associated with wacky adventures that predates the POD, even butterfliedly-genetically-different sons and grandsons are going to end up raised the same and with similar characters to OTL people; they're only vaguely similar). If you're asking about computers in general, that will be dealt with in a later interlude.
On the site of OTL Toronto is the town of Rowley (an anglicisation of the former French name Fort Rouillé). It is not very big or important and is not likely to become that big or important, because the reason why Toronto made it big in OTL is because it was chosen as a capital for Upper Canada that would be defensible against American attacks, and that is obviously not an issue in TTL. It remains in the shadow of places like Kingston and New London (OTL London, Ontario; a convergent name, but not that unlikely I suppose). Eventually it may end up having the same kind of lesser importance as a Great Lakes port that OTL US cities like Buffalo and Cleveland have.
Basically they claim everywhere that was Dutch before the Popular Wars, with varying degrees of success and credibility.
I was actually referring to how the Southern Cross was used as a symbol for 'hey, we live in the southern hemisphere!' in places like Portuguese Brazil and Spanish America as early as the 1600s. Seems fairly inevitable it would be adopted in Australia too.
Odd fact: Townsville was in fact named after its founder Robert Towns, who was only ever there for three days, but who paid for the establishment of the port.
Of course, Townsville was originally created as an export port for cotton - the first significant cotton plantations in Australia were inland from there - so how that will play out in LTTW is a good question.
Thande
Donor
Hmm, that is story-worthy, thanks.
I like misleading names like that. Like how the USA has plenty of cities named after British originals, so you'd assume Cleveland is named after County Cleveland, yet in reality it's named after a person called Cleaveland with an A, and (allegedly) they changed the spelling because it wouldn't fit on a newspaper letterhead.
Alex Richards
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Well, except that Cleveland is an artificial creation of 1974 so no-one in their right mind would name a city after it
Thande
Donor
Well, except that Cleveland is an artificial creation of 1974 so no-one in their right mind would name a city after it
The county is but the name already existed didn't it? Probably rather obscure, I admit, but the US does have cities and large towns named after little English villages just because their founder came from there.
Actually, most people just assume that Cleveland is named after the President.
I was involved in an interesting discussion in my sociology class today, about sociological views vs psychological, specifically with regards to interpretations of the school shooting phenomenon. The teacher argued that the US approach is principally psychological, "that guy was crazy", and thus isn't conducive to understanding the phenomenon and social reasons that it occurs.
What interested me was the position that the US, as an individualistic society, leans towards one way of understanding events and history, as opposed to a sociological view.
In retrospect, I believe you've been accessing this idea in LTTW. Many updates, when talking about ATL historical figures, include a brief "alienistic cameo", [1] which implies that psychological analysis on a personal basis is an important part of the modern world in the TL. If my sociology teacher is right, and a psychological standpoint is correlated with an individualistically leaning society, this may paint an interesting picture of modern *Britain in this TL [2].
Is this correlation necessarily true? No. But I like it enough that I'd like to continue speculating. How could Britain, a nation that traditionally, in OTL at least, trusts the government [3] and puts safety and order above individual rights [4], become a place where personal motivations and psychological backgrounds are important enough to become a prism through which history is understood?
I doubt this much thought was put into the phrasing of the updates, but it's certainly an interesting twist to think about, especially as Thande has shown that he enjoys exploring alternative viewpoints and political paradigms.
[1] Psychological profile according to Thande's alternative terminology.
[2] I assume that many articles the Crosstime team is sharing are written from a British perspective.
[3] My proof for this is the enthusiasm for the monarchy. From a social point of view, celebrating the head of state shows a level of trust and love for government that the US certainly doesn't have.
[4] I mean weapon control laws and the CCTV system. I also don't mean to be incendiary, I couldn't think of a better way to phrase that.
What interested me was the position that the US, as an individualistic society, leans towards one way of understanding events and history, as opposed to a sociological view.
In retrospect, I believe you've been accessing this idea in LTTW. Many updates, when talking about ATL historical figures, include a brief "alienistic cameo", [1] which implies that psychological analysis on a personal basis is an important part of the modern world in the TL. If my sociology teacher is right, and a psychological standpoint is correlated with an individualistically leaning society, this may paint an interesting picture of modern *Britain in this TL [2].
Is this correlation necessarily true? No. But I like it enough that I'd like to continue speculating. How could Britain, a nation that traditionally, in OTL at least, trusts the government [3] and puts safety and order above individual rights [4], become a place where personal motivations and psychological backgrounds are important enough to become a prism through which history is understood?
I doubt this much thought was put into the phrasing of the updates, but it's certainly an interesting twist to think about, especially as Thande has shown that he enjoys exploring alternative viewpoints and political paradigms.
[1] Psychological profile according to Thande's alternative terminology.
[2] I assume that many articles the Crosstime team is sharing are written from a British perspective.
[3] My proof for this is the enthusiasm for the monarchy. From a social point of view, celebrating the head of state shows a level of trust and love for government that the US certainly doesn't have.
[4] I mean weapon control laws and the CCTV system. I also don't mean to be incendiary, I couldn't think of a better way to phrase that.
This is a good point on American and British names syncing up even after the American Revolution. We've got Portland (named for the Maine city), Lincoln-in-Nebraska (for the President), Aberdeen-in-South Dakota (okay, that was named for Aberdeen in Scotland), Dallas (vice-president), and Denver (governor)...names that do correspond with English or Scottish villages even if they weren't intended to (well, Aberdeen's not exactly a village...). The fact Minneapolis's and Atlanta's first names were Albion and Whitehall respectively also shows some latent feelings to the homeland.
Makes it a bit more profound to think of how Alex de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, called Americans the 'republican English.'
Makes it a bit more profound to think of how Alex de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, called Americans the 'republican English.'
I don't know, New Zealand's pretty keen on it's monarchy, all told, but trust in the government? yeeeeeeeeeeah, no. about the only parts trusted to be honest and compitent are the judges and Maybe the tax-men. and even then only when the politicians aren't actively fiddling.
if anything, one could make a case that the monarchy is liked in part because we Distrust the government. dare not let the 'elected' officials or beaurocrats have the additional power allowing them to control the Head of State position would grant. seriously, for everyone who actually Wants a republic (not just 'eh, a republic would be better, maybe, in an ideal world, but i don't see how you'd make it work' but actively would work towards doing it and seriously trying to get other people to support such an idea) you'll probably find someone who thinks a hereditory aristocracy of one sort or another replacing the current setup is a good idea. (well, that or a seperatist of some sort, that's a whole other kettle of fish.)
'course, most of the 'true republicans' are corporate types who long for a US level of plutocratic control of the government which they can't actually pull off under the current system (if only because NZ's too small to be able to Hide such a thing taking place.) and while there might be arguments and disputes between business owners and workers/unions, Noone trusts forign corporations, except aparantly a few of the elite at the top of the bigger NZ based corps and people like John Key (oh, the nicknames He's earned, both before and during his term....) ... Interestingly, even the Prime Minister is usualy addressed by his personal name, and spoken of by name.... oddly, the Queen isn't. (wouldn't surprise me if many people didn't even know her name, though everyone knows who she IS.)
also, should be noted: republic just means 'without a hereditary monarch' ... so.. I'm pretty sure you could find a Lot of countries which don't have actual monarchies where the government is trusted, and vice versa.
(well... i suppose we trust our government to be reletively Consistant, at least... but that's a different sense of the word.)
hummm.... i think i lost my point part way through that. oh well. gained it again by the end, i hope.
I'm pretty much of the opinion the British and their dominion descended nations have a better government and economic system than the US, at least in regards to the life quality of the overall population (American Exceptionalism makes me LAUGH so hard).
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