Newton's Radio

[cerebus]

Even with closer links with the British Portugal will not give much more.
OTL we the most that we wore willing to give them was : Tangiers in Morocco, Bombay in India and Galle in Sri Lanka, and they accepted just the two first.
Portugal could let them build naval stations in several Portuguese colonies.
I think that probably in all of them, but they would be leased by a symbolic price and with the understanding that they would help Portugal in any war.
About Portugal getting invaded by Spain is a very old tradition in Iberian history, only stopped in the 20th Century, even if King Afonso XIII tried to get permission from London to do it in the 1910s.

All cited lands wore under Portuguese rule or influence well before 1700.
The only exception is, off course, Tanegashima Island that was out of reach since the Portuguese wore kicked out of Japan.
Dahomey: since 1471 until 1961, with the fort build in 1680.
Angola: since 1482 until 1975, fort build in Luanda 1576.

If you have any other questions about the Portuguese I will try to help you.

Thank you, I see I will have to do some research on Portugal in the 18th C.
I sort of assumed that with the early ending of slavery west African trade posts would be expensive liabilities while the increase in investment in Brazil would pull Portugese interest that way.

I did remember to allocate a bit of Japan to the Atlantians (as they sometimes poetically like to call themselves).

 

[cerebus]

Sorry for not posting before, I fell down the stairs

I give you instead my notes on the next decade

1903 Karl Smith produces the first true Stutt encoder with flexible agenda and effervescent memory.

1904 Alexander Tulikoff becomes Russian patriarch, personally supportive of New Word aims he struggled to unite the divided RussianChurch.

1905 Constantinople Festival, Lieutenant Simons of Newengland wins no less than seven events in the Athletics stage and is awarded the Sports Endeavour Crown, however the Great Crown is awarded controversially to the Turkish Author and Politician Atanas Borogidi.

1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Kyoto agreement takes effect and most of Japan is returned to Imperial rule.

Russia launches the Liner Tsar Peter IV renamed Saint Basil in 1910.

1907 Edward Prince of Wales dies of a heart attack while playing polo in Carolina.

1908 The New Word party becomes the largest in the Duma

1909 The Fall. London Stock market suffers a loss of 12% in one day the 4th August, in all the market lost a total of 52% in August. A slow recovery was followed by a further fall in January producing a total of 79% wiped off the value of shares. Jonathans Bank loses a fortune in speculation on DarrienCanal shares and breaks catastrophically. The ripples from the fall spread round the world. “When the City sneezes the world shivers”. The Bank of England its self closes the doors for the first time in 189 years.

William Brown discovers the Isolate Gasses( OTL Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon).

 

[Analytical Engine]

Sorry for not posting before, I fell down the stairs

Oh dear...
I do hope you're alright...

 

[Talkie Toaster]

Good to see this back! I hope you're OK Cerebus...

 

[cerebus]

I am more or less OK now but it really hurt my back.

I was sort of hoping for a "second Great War" presumably in the 1920-30s

Thionic dBee launching battleships fighting off the coast of Alaska, Sikh special forces using man carrying dBees to attack Kabhul and sieze the Russian backed emir, China backing Russia,launching an invasion of South East asia and driving for India while Turkey joins Britain and attacks from the South. All ending in a massive revolt of non-orthodox Russians and the establishment of a series of Scientologist states accross Asia.

However the more I think about it the more a sort of cold war is likely. With the development of Atomic weapons and high altitude Bee delivery systems Russia will be at a strategic disadvantage due to the prevailing winds. Add this to the emphasised isolationism of a theocratic Russia and I think a great war rerun is unlikely.

What do the great and good think?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Page 16 you have New World

New World

This is a powerful movement in post war Russia, strongly religious although with a difficult relationship to the Patriarch. Started out in 1872 when Boris Ustvolskaya preached in Sevastopol founding the New World Sect. The strongly nationalistic and anti-modernist doctrine was attractive to a minority. In 1890 Fyodor Khrennikov became the leader and proved to be a dynamic personality.
The movement spread rapidly during the Great War and in 1900 is now common in Russia and although officially condemned by the Patriarch many priests and monks are sympathetic.

page 17 (after your fall) you have New Word

Sorry for not posting before, I fell down the stairs

I give you instead my notes on the next decade

1903 Karl Smith produces the first true Stutt encoder with flexible agenda and effervescent memory.

1904 Alexander Tulikoff becomes Russian patriarch, personally supportive of New Word aims he struggled to unite the divided RussianChurch.

Which is it?

 

[cerebus]

Page 16 you have New World


page 17 (after your fall) you have New Word


Which is it?

Ooops You caught me.
In my first draft I had New World but I changed it to New Word to emphisise the religious nature. My intention was a sort of reformation of the orthodox church to make it even more nationalist, that captures political power in part by being popular and in part by capturing the Tsar and his entourage.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Ooops You caught me.
In my first draft I had New World but I changed it to New Word to emphisise the religious nature. My intention was a sort of reformation of the orthodox church to make it even more nationalist, that captures political power in part by being popular and in part by capturing the Tsar and his entourage.

Ah, OK

By the way, if you want to engage in any more allusions/word play, the 'dox' in 'orthodox' is one letter away from 'word' - pravoslav vs slov - so a 'true word' movement would be something like 'pravoslov'. New word would be something like 'novoslov'

I probably fouled the endings, you might need a real Russian speaker if you wanted to play with this - I took a single half class in the language ~ 35 years ago.

 

[cerebus]

1910 The slump is world wide and devastating.

The Whig government falls and is replaced by an activist Tory Government promising to reform the banks and stock markets and introduce compulsory health insurance. Some Commonwealth Members even propose trade barriers to protect the empire from outside competition.

Paris Festival awards the Great Crown to Newton Van Heijl for his work on Thionic power in Anchonium (OTL Uranium), controversially most of his work was done in the period 1891-1900. However the committee rules the significance of social and science work may not be realised for some time and may be entered in any festival so long as the person is alive.

The New word Party purges its political opponents and with the support of the Tsar begins the process of turning Russia into a one Party theocracy. The Patriarch declines in power until with the death of Tulikoff the Patriarchate is united with the post of Duma leader.

France and Holland form the Western Customs League and introduce protectionist legislation.

NOTE
What this world calls protectionist is mild tariff barriers compared to OTL, the dominant economic theory calls for free trade and the history of British industry supports that. In fact British industry is no longer particularly modern or efficient and most of British balance of payments comes from invisible earnings, banking, insurance, investments and shipping. The powerhouse of the British economy is now Newengland and the Cape. The best manufactures come from newly built factories in West Germany, Turkey and France with increasing competition from the AtlanticKingdom and Russia.

1911 West Germany and Scandinavia join the Western Customs League.

Alexis Bulgarkoff of St PetersburgUniversity publishes his paper on the Exothermic Thionic reactions of Anchonium showing Newton Van Heijl had falsified his results to conceal the warlike possibilities of Thionic power. In particular he shows that a concentrated block of Weighted Anchonium weighing less than a ton could be made to undergo catastrophic Thion production. This is a Thionic bomb, however most people concentrate on the ruin of Van Heijl’s scientific reputation and his loss of the Festival Great Crown. It is not until 1916 that the Government realise the implications and the Imperial Police Guard (Russian Secret police) place Bulgarkoff under very luxurious arrest in Siberia.

The British Government follows the Cape and introduces a national insurance scheme old age pensions, unemployment relief are introduced in addition to health insurance.

Jules Pierre produces his famous Feyfolk collection. This includes padded breasts and hips for women and the reintroduction of the Codpiece for men. Combined with liberal use of cosmetics and hair dyes, manufactured with strong patterns and bright colours this is a slap in the face for conventional morality.

The Anti-Corset league is banned in Russia.

1912 Italy and Turkey join the Western Customs League.

The British Electric company declares bankruptcy and after an acrimonious fight in Parliament the Government takes over. Shareholders get a Newton in the Pound. Soon after the Great Northern Electric Company declares total debts of Sixteen Million pounds more than the value of their assets the Government seizes the company and creates the Greater British Semaphore and Electric Company. At the same time the Railway companies amalgamate into three under threat of seizure.

From this time British home manufactures go into a terminal decline. High tech industry remains in Britain including Stutt encoders (OTL computers), armaments, chemical industry and shipbuilding. Other industries, textiles, steel, electrics and drugs have moved to cheaper workforces with higher productivity. In particular New England, the Cape, West Germany and France for heavy engineering, Turkey and China for textiles while Virginia and the AtlanticKingdom dominate the drug industry. (this includes the OTL tobacco, opium and marijuana industry as well OTL medical drugs) Italy, Canada and France dominate the cosmetics industry

 

[Paulo the Limey]

Wow!

Cerebus,

Firstly and most importantly, I really hope you are feeling better from your fall. Second, I'd just like to say that having caught this timeline very late, I've just read the entire thread start to finish and it really is a fantastic piece of work. I've not really delved into this forum before, nor have I seen a scientific POD handled as well as you have here. I hope you continue it, I'm really interested to see how things go.

One quick question- with the lack of emphasis on the internal combustion engine, when do we see true powered flight?

 

[cerebus]

Cerebus,

Firstly and most importantly, I really hope you are feeling better from your fall. Second, I'd just like to say that having caught this timeline very late, I've just read the entire thread start to finish and it really is a fantastic piece of work. I've not really delved into this forum before, nor have I seen a scientific POD handled as well as you have here. I hope you continue it, I'm really interested to see how things go.

One quick question- with the lack of emphasis on the internal combustion engine, when do we see true powered flight?

Thank you for your kind words, I am pretty much back to normal now.

Interesting question.

I have speculated about bBee launching battleships and man carrying dBees used like paratrooper/glider forces. While a remote control Bee carrying a thionic bomb while it drifted high overhead in the jetstream is probably just as scary as a hair trigger rocket launch from Kazakstan.

I suspect the internal combustion engine will never be developed (or to be exact will be used for minor specialist purposes), the jobs it does are done here by external combustion engines or by electricity. Meanwhile dBees have cenceptually seperated lift and power for flight, for a weapon the hydrogen simply adds to the incendiary effect.

I can see a giant CentaBee (or a swarm of linked dBees?) powered by several engines with a significant cargo lift.

Hey I have just invented the airship! Not at all what I expected.

I suspect in this world propellor aircraft may be skipped alltogether, with an accelerated production of a jet engine (or a rocket?) say about 1930. Only an idiot would strap a jet to a gasbag so stick on some wings and you get a jetbee, remote controled and designed to bring down attacking dbees. Shove a person in it to improve control and Shazam we have a jet plane.

 

[iopgod]

great stuff! I realy like how you have diverged social attitudes - somthing many tls ignore - and scientific and technological progres - many timelines seem to assume that the 'tech tree' is fixed an must follow otl.

Did you decide what happened in the *scramble for africa?

 

[iopgod]

great stuff! I realy like how you have diverged social attitudes - somthing many tls ignore - and scientific and technological progres - many timelines seem to assume that the 'tech tree' is fixed an must follow otl.

Did you decide what happened in the *scramble for africa?

 

[cerebus]

IOPGOD
Sorry for not getting back earlier, lung infection,(Boy I am really having a good year)

IN this world the phrase Scamble for Africa was never used. Instead people talked about Anglo-French Rivalry. Remember there are no new powers (Germany and Italy in OTL) trying to get a spot in the sun. The nearest thing is the resurgent Turkey but she needs British and French support against Austria and Russia and is quiote happy to give them a free hand in Africa.

The other main colonists(Scandanavia, Portugal and United Provinces) grabbed what they could but were mainly useful as distractions to the major powers. Scandanavian Africa (OTL Congo) was a established as a buffer between southern Africa (British) and Northern Africa (French). However the rise of the Alliance powers particularly Russia and Austria pushed France and Britain into sorting out their African disputes and once Libya has been split and Railways built the continent is pretty much settled.

 

[tormsen]

I hope this continues, its like the second or third time I've read all the way through it and I'm curious to see what happens next.

 

[cerebus]

1913 May 11th The naked revolt starts.
A rising of oppressed religious groups, secularists and dissatisfied anti-new word orthodox Russians. The rebellion is suppressed in Moscow by loyal regiments and the Muscovites rise and kill anybody suspected of being unorthodox, a Jew or a foreigner. (or having looked funny at me)

In Kiev the coincidence of two catholic army officers who refuse to fire on the rebels along with the leadership of Duke Rubenstein allows the revolt to achieve a local success. However the failure to obtain significant support from the authorities in Poland or Lithuania and an unfounded belief that the Tsar would support them doomed the Russian rebellion.

On the 7th July the Patriarch announces the excommunication of all rebels and calls on all Russians to rise and fight for God. There is a wave of Pogroms across Russia.

By August 13th the authorities are back in control of all major Russian cities and outside the Ukraine the remaining rebels are isolated bandits.

September 1st saw the establishment of the Provisional Scientific Government of Ukraine.

Elections in Carolina produce overwhelming majority for the Union Party (an amalgamation of the White Whigs, the Lowland Empirites and the Scientific Freeman Parties). The Government refuses to pay its defence assessment and instructs their new member for Lostwithiel West to refuse to take the oath of loyalty as the House of Lords has ruled against them in the case of the Commonwealth of Carolina vrs Major B’gunda, Captain Kurosawa et al.

The British Government is concentrated on the events in Russia and assigns Lord Maryton to deal with Carolina. As a Cape Zulu with strong business interests in Newengland he was not, perhaps, the most politic choice.

Carolina declares its self an Independent Scientific Commonwealth and appoints Sir Sean Maguire, the governor general, as head of state. The country is soon reorganised along pseudo – Scientologist lines. In fact the enforcement of the requirement for scientific education in a voter is used to limit black voters. Graduation from a white school automatically qualifies a voter while graduates of a black school must pass a public science test before being allowed to vote.

The country sets about achieving economic isolation and will announce full (white) employment by 1915. Large scale investment in industry is paid for by squeezing poor black farmers and introducing a form of forced (black) labour.

At first the creation of a new scientologist state is welcomed by scientologists world wide contributing to the British diplomatic paralysis. It takes several decades for the true nature of the new country to be realised internationally.

Virginia and NuSpania are sympathetic to the ISC Carolina and make it clear they will not support any attempt to force Carolina back into the fold.


1914 The St Georgi reforms, Catholics are restricted to Poland and Lithuania, (Western Pale) Protestants and other Christian sects are banned, Jews are restricted to Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and white Russia(the Eastern Pale), Moslems are restricted to the Caucasus and the southern kingdoms while Buddhists Taoists and Confucianists are restricted to Urum Quai, Mongolia, Manchuria and Korea.

An orthodoxy test is introduced for all civil servants, Duma representatives, Army and navy officers, University lecturers and, east of the Pale, all Nobles, elected officials, doctors, lawyers, teachers, local government employees, journalists and semaphore operators.

Access to the Tsar is limited to those with a certificate of reliable Orthodoxy from their priest.

Russia invades the Ukraine (offically reoccupies little Russia) to support the new word faction in the civil war. The PSG of Ukraine is soon in trouble as military disaster starts to expose political cracks in the government. However Turkey sends some aid across the Black Sea as to a lesser extent do Austria. Romania has no desire to see a resurgent Russia back on her border and sends significant support particularly modern garrison guns and strategic minerals.

 

[Analytical Engine]

It lives!

 

[Nicomacheus]

But the British Empire has been sundered by the Scientologist scourge! This must be avenged...by the inevitable forces of global capitalism and sheer bloody British-mindedness.

 

[cerebus]

But the British Empire has been sundered by the Scientologist scourge! This must be avenged...by the inevitable forces of global capitalism and sheer bloody British-mindedness.

Actually global capitalism is going through a sticky patch at the moment.

I feel I should point out that the Fall and the Great Slump were originally plotted last year and have no relation to events in OTL now.

Scientology affects democratic countries in a way analagous to communism in the 1920's. BY holding out the hope of a fair society organised on rational lines with equal access to education it has many supporters and affects the policies of many parties and governments who officially consider them deluded fantasists.

 

[cerebus]

I have been getting slower with this recently and suspect It has reached the stage of making history for the sake of it.

The outlines seem pretty much laid, A Pariah Russia that seems to me like a weird cross between Comunist Russia and Post Shah Iran, a more or less unified western europe analagous to the Eu dominated by Norway/Scandinavia holland and France,Eastern Europe including Austria going Scientologist and proving Scientists are not that good at running economies and governments, Turkey rising to be the strongest anti-Russian, Anti-scientologist power, a bastion of democracy and liberalism, China forming the other wing of the Anti Russian alliance with ostentatious freedom of religion, economy and speach, Britain is the declining power, the empire slowly decays and drifts apart until British Libya, East Africa,Zimbabwe,British Japan, British Indonesia, Carnatic, Bengal and North India achieve independence by about 1950 after various levels of political pressure, insurgency and revolt. The white commonwealths also drift apart although Australia, NewEngland and the Cape remain part of the British Commonwealth, the rest slowly loosen the ties. Carolina is pretty much this Timeline version of OTL South Africa but is somewhat poorer. Even the Scientologists of Euope and the far east soon realise the regime is not one of them. I predict a general collapse about 1960 followed by a nasty civil war and a black republic about 1970.