[Frollein]

No, that's why I said it's fine if you want to keep your character hidden for the time being. In fact, I've already thought about this - we don't need to move each and every player to Paris. Some should develop their own subplots and meet later with the other characters, either in Paris or in other locations. Not even all the players moving to Paris have to meet directly in Paris - it's a big city, after all. And we're not the companionship of the Ring.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

That sounds good... I want my character to stay in Montreal for a while. I want to develop a nice 1930s Blade Runner/Dark City-noir feel to it.

This also means that anyone who has already pushed their character towards Paris could do flashbacks before they reached Paris. This story doesn't need to be linear, of course.

EDIT: I just wanted to note that Frollein and I have been in contact with TIG about the possibility of putting this, and future writing projects/collaborations/RPs, etc into its own subforum.

[The Sabbaticus]

A subforum will just kill it.

What you guys need is a separate thread to repost all the 'in-story' material. One for the background stuff, and the other for a neat and orderly 'in-story' progression of the story, (with no out-of-character banter permitted). I haven't read half the stuff in this thread, it's just too much.

[Frollein]

And that's what we're going to do. The subforum idea was neat, but didn't work in the end, so I'll let this thread stand as our background thread and start another, "game thread".

But before that, one or two things that I'd like to nail down:

- which year is it? 1942 had been floating around, but I wanted to move it back so that the war is not history yet. 1932 was too early for Lexington, so someone suggested 1937 and I'm fine with that. Any objections, anyone?

- Bulaba asked about the economic state of the world. I'll just repeat my thoughts on that: Europe did extend the war for another four years and ended it purely because the European powers were exhausted (we're not only talking about military, but also economical - and moral - exhaustion, I'd guess). America hadn't participated in the war (do we have an explanation for that?), but there was no financial help coming from across the pond, so we never had the roaring twenties in Europe. It was more a long, slow struggle upwards from the deep post-war pit of physical and economic devastation.

OTOH, excessive speculation caused black Tuesday and kicked off the Depression. That would mean that America did have a phase of economic upswing (which then begs the question why they didn't help out at least their Anglo brothers? Speaking of which, how active can Britain be at all in America as a foreign occupying power, if its economy forced it to make a peace treaty with Germany?).

Later I found Bulaba's explanation hidden under a spoiler tag... So, CW2 started around 1930. If you let black Tuesday happen in 1929, it would be a result of the crisis, basically the thing escalated into civil war. I would imagine that the former US are now in dire straits, more so than Europe which is slowly recovering. That's why many Americans are emigrating (though I guess most are not coming to the continent, but to Britain and its English speaking Commonwealth members (Australia, New Zealand).

- and finally: who's going to participate now? So far, we have

me, of course
Bulaba
Lexington
mikema
Potemkin
fuser
Zamuel
Sab, if he can swear off the Super-Dutch crackfic
Cromwell? Not sure
TIG

Arghhh....I can't resist. And I have so much other writing to do!

Ornate Placebo

If any of you have decided that you don't want to participate after all, just let me know.

[Potemkin]

That would mean that America did have a phase of economic upswing (which then begs the question why they didn't help out at least their Anglo brothers?

Lol. Are you kidding me? Before WWI made us brothers-in-arms, the Americans hated the Brits. We were the evil imperialist overlords of the Revolution, remember, and we had aided the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Yankees wouldn't have given us the time of day, let alone lent us money to help us out of a spot of bother.

[Nets]

We (Americans) had war plans for a possible invasion of Canada until, what, the 1920s?

[Potemkin]

Exactly.

[Frollein]

Lol. Are you kidding me? Before WWI made us brothers-in-arms, the Americans hated the Brits. We were the evil imperialist overlords of the Revolution, remember, and we had aided the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Yankees wouldn't have given us the time of day, let alone lent us money to help us out of a spot of bother.

I guess my view was colored by the very "special relationship" you two have nowadays.

Blame my "eternal guilt/special responsibility" history class for omitting such minor points...

[mikema63]

The US had a very large German population even then, well beyond our poor relationship with the British thay impeeded going to war.

A few more german americans in a few key places in the government and it could easily not have happened.

[Frollein]

You should have joined on our side.

[mikema63]

It was considered, thousands of americans tried to join the German army at the time.

[Potemkin]

I guess my view was colored by the very "special relationship" you two have nowadays.

It was you Germans who brought us together, Frollein. Thanks for that... I think.

[Frollein]

Woof.



mike: what went wrong? Couldn't you have assassinated your president, or something?

[mikema63]

Who can say? It could have been beautiful though.

[Frollein]

A German-American Empire... crushing Britain and Russia alike... a tantalizing thought...

[Lexington]

US involvement happened mainly because of some high-profile incidents like the Zimmerman telegram, unrestricted submarine warfare, and the sinking of the Lusitania. Wilson won reelection in 1916 on the idea that "he kept us out of the war." I don't think it would have taken much for the US to have stayed out of the war, although we could throw something more interesting in.

[Potemkin]

The Germans made the mistake of meddling in America's backyard in the run up to WWI, which annoyed the US enormously. The 'Zimmermann telegram' didn't help matters either.

This short documentary movie shows the moment when it all went wrong for the Germans in Mexico....

[youtube]IHzw3pXSBtc[/youtube]

[Frollein]

So, did the Zimmerman telegram never happen, or was it just not intercepted?

Do you want to keep the US out of the war completely, or join against Germany and have Mexico conquer Arizona, Texas and New Mexico (and thereby starting the carving up of America)?

I just think we should make up our minds before the game runs out of steam...

[Potemkin]

I just think we should make up our minds before the game runs out of steam...

Surely you mean "runs out of diesel", Frollein?

[Frollein]

I just notice how easily certain members get lost in the minutiae of history instead of posting vignettes or helping to sharpen our alternate history.

I'm beginning to realize that this thread needs a firm and, one could say, assertive hand...