- Location
- California
The rolls concerning Britain could mean we see a Native American retaliation backed by Local Elder Things, or maybe, American Colonies rebel but they go authoritarian rather than Republican. All Hail King Washington.
Sapere aude (Imperial Russian Mythos Organization Quest)
- Thread starter Slayer Anderson
- Start date
- Mature Alt. History Horror
- Location
- South of North
You mean if the revolution even happens in this timeline.
As one of the important casual factors of the American Revolution was the removal of the French threat to the north and west during the seven years war as well as the neutralization of many of the tribes which allied with the French during the war. Having taxes leveled after the seven years war, after a victory made little sense to the colonists who perceived that they should be both freer for the lack of a French military threat as well as more able to settle beyond the current western extent of the colonial boundaries.
France still existing means that there is a legitimate threat for which the colonies visibly need protection from. In turn, there is much less impetus to throw off one colonial master if another one is easily poised to take control soon after.
Unless England is able to turn the war around with some truly astounding rolls (several of them), it's very much in a position to retain its status as 'protector' of the 13 Colonies instead of becoming perceived as an 'exploiter' as in OTL.
- Location
- A place
If not we will just have to create our own United States and use democracy to take over the world
- Location
- California
In a way, this mirrors the horror of true Lovecraftian setting. A world without 'Murica here to fight Yog'Saron with Guns and Freedom.Hopefully they turn it around then, I do hope that America still exists in this timeline
But we got to be optimistic. We can be Russia and have a younger democratic nation, wiith us as a protectorate.
To be fair though, America is likely to become independent and republican eventually, British winning the war doesn't change the fact that America doesn't like the taxes, and that most of the states already have a democratic government iirc, with their assemblies, and that they are far away while being unlikely to be given representation in Parliament
Also that France probably will have the same problem as Britain did, that they are ridiculous in debt after the War, just without as good colonies to tax they will be ready for revolution
Hell, if France takes the 13 Colonies there's a chance they try to do what Britain did, opening up the chance for a flipped American Rev with British supported America against France. (This seems like the most likely way to end up with an independent America at around the same time if Britain rolled badly enough)
Also that France probably will have the same problem as Britain did, that they are ridiculous in debt after the War, just without as good colonies to tax they will be ready for revolution
Hell, if France takes the 13 Colonies there's a chance they try to do what Britain did, opening up the chance for a flipped American Rev with British supported America against France. (This seems like the most likely way to end up with an independent America at around the same time if Britain rolled badly enough)
I have no idea what events people are referencing but I assume something big happened in the update.
Reject America and embrace Greater Quebec filling the void.
Hopefully they turn it around then, I do hope that America still exists in this timeline
Reject America and embrace Greater Quebec filling the void.
Mazeka
You must be joking
- Location
- United States
Never! The United Colombian Provinces shall stretch from Baffin Bay to the Gulf of Mexico!
- Location
- South of North
So... I'm going to preface this entire post with a disclaimer:
"AS THE CURRENT GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION STANDS CURRENTLY..."
Also, a little background... the Seven Years War is probably one of the most important wars that no one's ever heard of, right up their with the Taiping Rebellion, the Thrity Years War, or the Crimean War. Among others. Much like WWI, this conflict set the stage for the next several centuries of who would win and who would lose on the world stage. In our timeline, Britain won too much. They achieved victory in India over the French, they achieved the same over the French and Spanish in the Caribbean, and their ally Prussia stalemated three major powers with their financial assistance (even if they needed two miracles to do it).
The outcome of this war left England the undisputed master of the Eastern half of North America up to the Mississippi River and earned Prussia the prestige and reputation needed to sit as a peer with Austria, Russia, and France.
Now, even with a French victory, this isn't going to mean that France and England swap places and get what the other would have if they had won/lost.
First off, France (and Spain for that matter) had very different colonization methodology than England. The 13 Colonies were highly-populated, fairly dense regions during even the middle of the eighteenth century. New France (Canada and Greater Louisiana) was incredibly sparsely populated despite being many, many times larger than England's colonies. We're talking a comparison of about a hundred thousand French people spread across six major settlements hundreds of miles apart VS a million and a half nominally-English individuals in a string of towns and cities along the east coast of America.
Even if the French had totally dominated the war in North America (known as the French & Indian War in the US), even if they'd actively invaded (completely unrealistically) the major ports of New York, Boston, etc...
There was never going to be any settlement that ended with even a substantial fraction of English colonies being handed over to French rule. Like, maybe, maybe France gets what's today the state of Maine (originally claimed by Massachusetts, but even then that's kind of a reach. The population disparity was just too great for the French to ever have any real hope of maintaining a long-term ruling presence in the area-
-and more to the point, they didn't really want to.
France colonized in a very different way than England, as I said. In North America, they largely used the expansive wilderness not for settlement, but setting up a hunting and trapping economy (and a small bit of sugar/cotton growing in Louisiana) using the indigenous tribes as proxies and trading them manufactured tools and goods in exchange.
So the French don't get any new territorial claims, first off.
Second, due to the presence of New France, the biggest winners are actually the Native Americans. France tended to be a lot freer with trading firearms and gunpowder to natives than England or colonists did, largely because they liked the Indians being able to hunt more effectively for their fur trade... and to fuck with English colonists/soldiers. Because the French always had fewer colonists, which meant fewer people trying to take the natives' land in French territories.
With the presence of a rival European military power, hostile tribes of natives supplied by said power, and their own mother country exerting pressure to keep the colonists within the bounds of the treaty-granted lands... the tribes that got swept aside by waves and waves of European settlers don't get uprooted or wiped out.
Now, English colonists will still venture past the demarcated border, but it will be a much slower affair. The taxes that England is demanding from them will have clearer reasoning and a better foundation upon which to rest, ideologically. What all of this is to say, really, is that while the possibility of an American Revolution is still there, the specific confluence of events which brought the two sides to blows isn't. So, under current conditions, it's likely going to take another thirty to fifty years before we see something like the American Revolution happen.
This period will, of course, be interspersed with low-level conflicts and proxy wars in the Appalachian Mountains, the Ohio River Valley and what would be the modern states of Alabama and Mississippi.
I will go so far as to say that, if nothing else changes, it's very likely that sometime during the 1830s, England allows the 13 colonies a large degree of self-governance akin to what the late-empire/early-commonwealth Australia & Canada looked like.
...oh, and because France was visibly winning, Spain doesn't join in at the eleventh hour and get its ass handed to it by England, which means they get to keep Florida and the stability of their empire isn't endangered. That's a thing too.
As far as the French Revolution goes... put it off by a few decades as well. France is still in a not good place economically, but retaining colonial possessions, not needing to fund and supply the American Revolution, and getting some reputation and glory helps quite a bit. More specifically, it buys them some amount of time. Not sure how much, but at least a little. Whether or not the Ancien Regime manages to institute adequate reforms during that period will decide what the future holds for France.
Turn 3: 1760 (Phase I)
- Location
- South of North
Turn 3: 1760 (Phase I)
"To our soldiers!" Demitri cried, raising his glass.
"To our soldiers!" The rest of the room responded in kind.
Glasses emptied down throats, slammed against the table in a chorus of celebration and were promptly refiled.
"To our Empress!" Gustavus called, raising his glass.
"To our Empress!" The cry resounded within the meeting room.
Once more glasses were emptied and refilled.
"A toast I thought I would never give, but here it is! To the French!" Adrik laughed as he raised his hand, sloshing a bit of alcohol here and there.
More laughter echoed around the table as, belatedly, a few scattered cries repeated the chant.
Merriment abounded as the various men and scant few women sang patriotic songs and drank themselves into oblivion, while a select few left the party's epicenter and sequestered themselves off to the side. Viktor, Demitri, Gustavus, and the not-so-young-anymore-Adrik sank into a set of plush chairs as one pulled the cork from a wine bottle and poured out generous glasses for each of them.
"Perhaps partake a bit more sedately," Gustavus cautioned, then nodded to Demitri specifically. "Especially you, Headmaster. You have duties on the morrow and it would uncouth of us to disappoint our students."
The man snorted and allowed himself a sip of the poor wine they'd opened. The 'good stuff,' so to speak, was being enjoyed by those at the main table. The goblets of uncut vodka they'd poured for toasts would have to tide them over. Plans needed to be made, after all, and while some amount of poison might clear reservations within the mind, too much would dull the wits.
Still, they were Russian, and grape-piss like this would hardly make a dint in their sobriety.
"So do you think it's true what they say?" Adrik paused, then clarified. "About Wolfe, I mean?"
"How he's rotting inside a wolf's stomach?" Viktor sneered, then barked a cruel laugh. "Funny that. Proof, maybe, that the world enjoys a good laugh at someone's expense."
Demitri was silent as the others chuckled darkly. Eventually, he spoke. "In my travels... I've heard things."
"Oh?" Viktor asked, raising an eyebrow.
Demitri nodded. "People who venture into the wilds of the north in the New World... they've seen things that they swear are not natural to this reality."
Keen eyes looked on the Headmaster with new interest.
"You think there's more to what happened during the siege than simple wolves then?" Gustavus asked.
Demitri nodded. "The English soldiers... word has it that many say the 'wolves' they saw were more of ice and shadow than of flesh, and one tale even has a beast shifting its flesh back to that of a man when it was slain."
"Then we know it cannot be true," Adrik scoffed. "As if mortal men would have a chance at slaying something of the beyond."
Viktor scoffed back. "Do not speak of what you don't know, boy. You're yet too young to have heard a horror scream once it was set on fire. There is a reason why the Catholics much-loved the flame for use on witches."
Adrik scowled, but leaned back. "You think enough shot would down something like we speak of?"
Demitri sighed. "Were Old Zakhar with us still, he might tell some tales."
"Part of me wonders if the old bastard is actually gone," Gustavus admitted lowly, his eyes scanning back to the empty chair they'd draped with funerary cloth. "I thought he'd outlive us all with the way he was going."
There was a moment of respectful silence.
"More to the point, though, I do think it might have been creatures of the beyond which harried the English through their siege of Quebec and tore out the throat of their commander." Demitri stared contemplatively into his half-empty wineglass. "What worries me is the numbers in the rumors I've heard from my connections. Thirty, conservatively. Like, more. To me, that speaks of a planned course of action by some unknown party."
This time it was Viktor who turned a skeptical eye to the man. "Really? And who do you called the creatures up, the French?"
"The natives are more likely," Gustavus stated suddenly, his face a scowl.
Another moment of quiet consideration swept over the small group, punctuated by the ringing of an off-key song in the background.
"Should your sister be drinking like that?" Viktor asked, tilting his head at the woman in question as she danced sloppily with a rough-looking man.
Adrik waved the older man's concerns off. "She's pregnant, not ill. Besides, plenty of women drink when they are newly widowed."
Demitri rolled his eyes. "Not nearly so joyously. The husband had little family to contest her inheritance, yes."
Adrik nodded, taking another sip himself. "We selected him carefully, worry not."
"Still, hopefully the poor idiot with her knows better than to attempt to bed her," Gustavus took a swig and turned back to Adrik. "No offense, of course."
"None taken. Still, if he doesn't know better, he's not fit to be amongst us," Adrik nodded.
"He survived the trade caravan we convinced to venture to that remote village and brought back valuable testimony," Demitri stated. "A bath, a shave, and a clean set of clothes made a new man of him, and he is good enough to direct what paltry watchmen we employ on the campus." Really, in the former merchant's opinion, raising up the hired thug with a murder record was a calculated risk wherein they stood to gain much and lose little. If he proved stupid enough to inflate his head with his new position, they would simply poison him and find a use for the corpse.
"Speaking of," Adrik began, "have we reached a consensus regarding what we will do about them?"
"It's of little consequence, truthfully," Gustavus shook his head. "They're worshipers of those forgotten and sunken creatures some ancient texts call 'Deep Ones.' It is unlikely they will become a problem until the stars begin to come right-"
"Whatever that truly means," Viktor grunted.
Gustavus glared at the man and continued. "-after which, I doubt any of us will be able to contest their will, should the ancient sleeping-dead Old Ones begin to rise."
"...they might have something worthwhile to trade for," Adrik opined.
Viktor appeared skeptical, but Gustavus nodded. "It's an avenue we can approach, I suppose. They did kill the rest of the trade caravan our proxy was foolish enough to convince..."
"We would do much the same," Demitri pointed out.
"I think..." Gustavus hesitated, before beginning to lay out a course of action.
-Applied Magicks:
"We have at our fingertips the potential to revolutionize the empire and create from it a greater power than the world has ever known. Our current abilities are somewhat lacking, but there are goals we could reasonably achieve if we are careful. Ritual magic need not be overt, the process of alchemy can be kept from prying eyes, and astrology has become more and more simple superstition. We must rely on the growing disbelief of the supernatural to shield us from discovery instead of allowing fear of discovery to stop us from accomplishing our goals."
-Deep One Worshipers:
"Now that we know about the potential threat that rests nearby, we should decide how to deal with them. It's within the realm of possibility that we could make trading partners of them, but that would be a lengthy endeavor given their warranted distrust of others. Alternatively, though, there's the old standard of simply wiping them out and picking through the pieces left over... at least, if we had any militarized group to do so with. Perhaps... we could simply observe them long-term and see what their aims and goals are?"
-Enhance Establishment:
"We now have a form of camouflage, yes, and it is providing us some small amount of income. Still, it could be so much more. The Empress' favor has allowed us the chance to carve out a more defined niche in the imperial culture. Perhaps we might select a specialization for our university so as to better cultivate a specific manner of skill and talent that we might achieve our ends in a more efficient manner?"
-Recruit:
"Many hands make light work, as the saying goes. Surely any and all of these tasks will be easier should we grow in number. Gathering more expertise, talent, and influence from seeking out like-minded individuals will be extremely profitable for our group."
-Research:
"There will be time aplenty for such worldly concerns later. We gathered to advance the reach of our works and it is that we should commence with. Some may call it naive or foolish, but should we be so concerned with protecting a group which has accomplished so little worth protecting?"
-Court Favor:
"What we can currently achieve are mere parlor tricks compared to what is, eventually, possible. This we understand, yes, but others less informed might see them as the achievements of mundane wonders. Passing off piercing supernatural insight as simple genius, for example, is well within the realm of possibility. The most pressing caveat would be how our members go about presenting our... talents to their audience."
[ ] Leadership
[ ] Applied Magicks
[ ] Deep One Worshipers
[ ] Enhance Establishment
[ ] Recruit
[ ] Research
[ ] Court Favor
Results: The Institute remains in good standing with the Russian Imperial Government as the Seven Years War rages on in Europe and across the world. Fortunes in Europe are somewhat mixed, even as George II of England has signed a peace treaty with France to preserve Hanoverian sovereignty and his claim to the throne of the region. Frederick the Great has been pushed into an apparently untenable position surrounded on all sides by enemies, but is far from defeated even as the inevitable Russian advance is stymied by complications in their supply train.
Abroad, English actions in Canada have failed to produce results after a disastrous encounter with a supernaturally large and agile pack of monstrous wolves. In India, though, their luck is much better as it appears English forces will win the day. Although the war is far from concluded and there does not seem to be a full treaty on the horizon anytime soon, unless the winds change, it is nearly certain that England will fail to secure dominance in North America and that France will maintain its colonial holdings and prestige.
ONE HOUR MORATORIUM! Do Not Vote For One Hour!
- Location
- South of North
Yes, unless some kind of special event happens.
- Location
- California
Hmm, we need to do some recruitment and research. Can't go a decade without technobabble.
- Location
- South of North
Moratorium's over, feel free to vote.
Discussion is always nice too.
Discussion is always nice too.
- Location
- California
[X] Research
[X] Recruit
[X] Recruit
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
[X] Research
[X] Recruit
[X] Recruit
