Look to the West Volume V: To Dream Again

[Beedok]

Every TL should have some improbable stuff in it, since if enough things happen, improbable things will happen too.

When he was 2 years old, he fell out of a second story window and fractured his skull
When he was 6 years old, he mistakenly drank boric acid.
When he was 9 years old, he fell over a small cliff and broke his leg.
When he was 11 years old, he contracted measles and was in a coma for nine days.
When he was 14 years old, he broke his arm when he caught it in a carriage door.
When he was 19 years old, he was struck on the head by a falling brick.
When he was 23 years old, he almost died from the effects of tainted wine.
When he was 29 years old, Adolph Sax invented the saxophone.

Clearly most universes wouldn't have saxophones.

 

[OwenM]

That is indeed what I was thinking of, of course we don't know how typical Miliband's is/was.

(Let's take further discussion on this to PM rather than derail this thread).

Mum claims her life ambition as a child was to have a wall of books like important people were interviewed standing in front of.
Also, what Alex said, it felt a little Ladybird-esque.

 

[Makemakean]

When he was 2 years old, he fell out of a second story window and fractured his skull
When he was 6 years old, he mistakenly drank boric acid.
When he was 9 years old, he fell over a small cliff and broke his leg.
When he was 11 years old, he contracted measles and was in a coma for nine days.
When he was 14 years old, he broke his arm when he caught it in a carriage door.
When he was 19 years old, he was struck on the head by a falling brick.
When he was 23 years old, he almost died from the effects of tainted wine.
When he was 29 years old, Adolph Sax invented the saxophone.

Clearly most universes wouldn't have saxophones.

Not just does God exist. Evidently, he is also a fan of smooth jazz.

 

[Lurky]

When he was 2 years old, he fell out of a second story window and fractured his skull
When he was 6 years old, he mistakenly drank boric acid.
When he was 9 years old, he fell over a small cliff and broke his leg.
When he was 11 years old, he contracted measles and was in a coma for nine days.
When he was 14 years old, he broke his arm when he caught it in a carriage door.
When he was 19 years old, he was struck on the head by a falling brick.
When he was 23 years old, he almost died from the effects of tainted wine.
When he was 29 years old, Adolph Sax invented the saxophone.

Clearly most universes wouldn't have saxophones.

Certainly not by that name! Was the poor bastard cursed or something?

 

[Beedok]

Not just does God exist. Evidently, he is also a fan of smooth jazz.

Well someone else clearly hated him, so who tried to kill him and who saved him is open for debate...

 

[OwenM]

Well someone else clearly hated him, so who tried to kill him and who saved him is open for debate...

Manichean!

 

[Admiral Matt]

I'd think he'd be most annoyed by the blatant ripping off of the Tom Bombadil chapters in the first confrontation with the, ahem 'wights', which nobody seems to have noticed because Peter Jackson cut that bit out of the film.

Well I didn't notice, but I think that's more because of the show than it is because of Jackson's trilogy. What's the rip off, exactly?

 

[Thande]

Well I didn't notice, but I think that's more because of the show than it is because of Jackson's trilogy. What's the rip off, exactly?

Don't want to derail too much here, but while it's hardly unusual for fantasy series to use the term 'wight', it's getting a little bit suspiciously close when it involves the same evocative cold language and a hand being cut off only to continue moving and attacking on its own.

 

[Admiral Matt]

When he was 2 years old, he fell out of a second story window and fractured his skull
When he was 6 years old, he mistakenly drank boric acid.
When he was 9 years old, he fell over a small cliff and broke his leg.
When he was 11 years old, he contracted measles and was in a coma for nine days.
When he was 14 years old, he broke his arm when he caught it in a carriage door.
When he was 19 years old, he was struck on the head by a falling brick.
When he was 23 years old, he almost died from the effects of tainted wine.
When he was 29 years old, Adolph Sax invented the saxophone.

Clearly most universes wouldn't have saxophones.

Eh. Most of those were unlikely occurrences themselves.

In most universes, there'd be one much luckier kid.

 

[Faeelin]

Don't want to derail too much here, but while it's hardly unusual for fantasy series to use the term 'wight', it's getting a little bit suspiciously close when it involves the same evocative cold language and a hand being cut off only to continue moving and attacking on its own.

Don't you remember the Adams family, sir?

 

[Lavanya Six]

They're not meant to be the objective 12 most influential, just the ones those writers wanted to write about. I'm debating whether to keep using that book for the last two examples or not (I'm certainly not at the moment as it would be a bit of a coincidence for Batten-Hale to own a copy).

You could play it as being one of those books that everybody claims to have read but it gathers dust on the shelf. Which would raise the question of why a nonfiction book about 12 influential inventions has such intellectual credibility.

Maybe someone (in)famous ITTL extensively annotated their copy, and that become notable for some reason? So a good Diversitarian needs their own your own copy to annotate and come to their individual deep conclusions. The MP could've scratched in a few half-hearted thoughts before giving up. Like when you buy a leather-bound journal for yourself, then give it up after the first week.

 

[Umbric Man]

Everyone is going gaga over the science part of the update and here I am just enjoying how Mumby, Britannia-shire, Michigan came to be.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

That's three layers, wow. It was tricky enough for me to keep track of the terminology and at least I know the subject...

I have an A Level in Chemistry and I've had to sometimes read chemical related updates twice to get what you mean. That isnt a bad thing though really because it adds to the richness of the TL.

 

[Archangel]

Good update, Thande!

 

[Atom]

Thande, I'm not quite sure I agree with you about Mendel. There are other things that have nice easy autosomal traits - fruit flies, for instance. It's no coincidence that Mendel became popular around the time that Woodworth and Howard started breeding fruit flies. I mean, the major reason why Mendel wasn't widly known until 1900, besides being from outside the main scientific area, was that most biologists didn't see how Mendel was very useful, since most traits don't follow his rules obviously (as you point out). Really, it wasn't until we had drosophila being easily bred and most important (IMO) the statistical tools to prove that mendelian genetics could produce the blending of traits we observe in nature. To my mind, the thing that hurt biology the most in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a lack of good statistical tools - it's incredible how long it took considering how fundamental statistics is nice. I think that's what separates Mendel from earlier researchers he had the patience to go through and breed over and over again, plus the ability to recognize the ratios. Mendelian genetics could easily have been discovered way before the 1800s, the actual experiment is very simple, it's just that earlier peoples didn't have the right mindset (and resources), I think. It's rather like hot air balloons or optel that way. Of course I trained in my misbegotten youth as a math/cs person with an interest in biology, and you as a chemist, so we would focus on different things!

Also, why do ATLers find it so easy to ignore the proteins when thinking about DNA? I know you're only giving it a paragraph, but I'm curious (I've been thinking about similar things for a TL of mine). Part of the argument OTL was that as far as early biologists could tell proteins seemed to everything in a cell, so it seemed logical that the information would be stored there. That's why we needed Griffith's experiment. I would totally but of course that ATL just sort of came to agree with DNA as the hereditary molecule without lots of great evidence having made a lucky guess - that certainly happens in OTL!

Also, thinking of math and the argument about information, how's information theory coming along in ATL? Is there anything like it?

I did like the update! I just have questions and things. I spent too much time in my youth fiddling around with bugs in a geneticist's lab not to!

 

[SuperFrog]

Do you think you could add maps to the definitive version of the timeline without the discussion? I really want to read it but I'm sort of a visual person.

 

[1SaBy]

Do you think you could add maps to the definitive version of the timeline without the discussion? I really want to read it but I'm sort of a visual person.

I have a collection of probably every map (and they're marked by numbers in chronological order) that's been posted in this timeline which I could send you/upload somewhere. If that is alright by Thande and/or the other map authors of course.

 

[SuperFrog]

I would be pleased if you could make an imgur gallery or something for the maps. But defiantly get the ops approval first

I am looking forward to this timeline, although from what I've read it will take half a year to finish

 

[Drakshaa]

Space alien societists?

Honestly the Societist Combines remind me a lot of the borg. And i suppose the federation with its non-interference could be Diversitarian.

 

[Abhakhazia]

After about a year of saying to myself "you should read Look to the West", an initial cowing when I realized how long it was, and about 4 months of actually reading...and reading, and reading it, I am finally caught up.

First of all, I would like to say that this is an intricate and amazing piece of writing , and you have done a spectacular job of telling a story that has blossomed immensely from ol' Prince Fred chortling when German George stumbled. You've been telling an amazing story, and I'm happy to see it go on even as the 18th century fell with bloody Jacobin rage into the 19th. I've enjoyed all the twists and turns, and particular your mentioning of things like science and technology that a lot of other authors tend to ignore when doing these things, making a much richer world (even if it is a little confusing remembering that Optels and Lectels are telegraphs).

I have particularly enjoyed the storyline of the Empire of North America. As I mentioned earlier, the ENA feels very much like "home" to me, because of my dad's long time pseudo-Britishness and my personal favorite founding father, Alexander Hamiliton being one of *the* Founding Fathers instead of just some guy that's getting taken off the $10 bill because he wasn't President. I think you've also nailed what an America without Jeffersonianism/Jacksonianism as a truly guiding ideology. Unlike in OTL, where Federalists were disunited, unpopular and crushed at the polls by the great Jefferson/Madison alliance, you have the Republicans (as Constitutionalists) being the ones weak, divided and disunited as the Federalists (as Patriots) manage to co-opt the establishment and increase ties with Britain in a world where Britain is not easily viewed as some distant enemy. Various bits of Jacksonianism, such as the Supremacist opposition to Native Americans and the expansion of the franchise by Radicals and Neutrals, do crop up here and there, but it is obvious that the driving force was a pseudo-Federalist ideology. Another thing about America that I noticed is that the secession Carolinans, while by no means good blokes, were not as mustache-twirlingly evil as the Confederacy, and I feel like a visitor from LTTW Carolina would feel that the OTL was Yankee propaganda to make the Southrons look bad.

Speaking of the Hanoverian Realms, I've found your story line of a true Jacobin invasion in Britain and the resulting crackdown by the Duke of Marlborough and his son as a very interesting and plausible way to overthrow centuries of British establishment. The Inglorious Revolution was one of my favorite parts of the storyline, although the Jacobin invasion made we want to go to LTTW Paris and stab Lisieux with a rusty butter knife. I was also kind of surprised by how very dated the ENA's constitution seemed compared to the People's Constitution, while it was the radical edge of things a mere 50 years prior. Also, Britain's constant constitutional and political upheaval versus France's long term political stability since the end of the Jacobin Wars.

In terms of characters, the lives of Heinrich Friedrich von Hohenz...I mean, Henry Frederick Owens-Allen, Moritz Benyovsky and Philip Hamilton have been one long incredible adventure and I'm looking forward to hearing more from them and their successors (in Benyovsky's case). I liked how you started every chapter of Part IV with a Pablo Sanchez quote, and I liked how detailed and thought out you've made his ideology. But if I had to pick a favorite character, it would have to be the epic liberator of Bavaria, der Führer.

A few questions I have- what is going on in Iceland? While I'm sure it's not particularly important to world history, I'm curious on how integrated it is into the general Hanoverian Realms.

Another question I have, is how are neo-Jacobins able to continue in Portugal? I would think that Jacobinism would be discredited by the madness of Robespierre and Lisieux by this point in history.

Great work however, and I look forward to the future of this TL (especially if there's more on the TRANSCONTINENTAL SUPER MUMBY EXCELLENT ADVENTURERS )