This right here is a glorified snippet thread with a central character very loosely tying it all together. I didn't feel like creating a new thread for every single idea that popped into my head, and this was the solution I came up with. Take a look if you're interested.
I have given myself my own name: Nathan Farman, a generic pseudonym well suited for the multifaceted being I have become. And yet it is far from sufficient to describe the sheer breadth and complexity of my true self. Every time I shuffle my mortal coil or suffer from some other sort of identity-altering event, I am merely reborn as someone else, in a different time and a different place.
I doubt there is any place on Earth where I have not lived at some point in the boundless multiverse. I have worked the rice fields in Ming China, fought against the British imperialists in Boer South Africa, sent off to distant Vilani-inhabited worlds to govern in the name of the Terran Confederation, taken a seat on a major aerospace corporation's board of directors with facilities and habitats from Venus to Saturn, and commanded a regiment of German soldiers on the desolate Western Front. Sometimes I eventually awaken to knowledge of my past lives, but more often than not I remain ignorant of my wider existence from birth 'til death.
Every night I am plagued by memories of my past lives. Memories of pain and suffering, of eking out a miserable life under some uncaring government's totalitarian yoke, of the horrors of war and of blighted post-apocalyptic wastelands in which hope lies thin. Utopian lives, too, but with the one caveat of knowing full well that the glories of those wonderful lives may never be truly relived.
I am so much more than a person at this point. I would say that I am more of an idea, but that would imply I possessed some degree of cohesion or coherence. With every death my soul journeys further, memories of the distant past slipping out of reach while the sum of all my experiences grows ever larger.
Sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, I can summon items I hold a strong connection to from my past lives. If my hopes bear fruit, then this letter will be one of these items. Read this message, whoever you are, and know that no matter how terrible your life may be, you stand on the shoulders of untold millions who all wish to see you succeed.
Warm regards,
Nathan Farman
- - -
A/N: This is a bit of an experiment I've decided to try out. While Nathan Farman may be the nominal protagonist of this little project, the vast majority of the updates will consist of more traditional alt-history worldbuilding for a great number of timelines, almost all of which will be elaborations on works by others (such as, for example, BattleTech and Traveller RPG). Most notably, this will include a spiritual successor to Leaving the Cradle: an Orion's Arm Timeline, which I have revised to adhere to the original project's spirit more closely.
These worldbuilding posts will be in the Sidestory and Media threadmark tabs, while prose stories featuring Nate Farman will be in the main Threadmarks. Timelines will be revisited multiple times using different Lives and perspectives. Major divergences will generally only happen when Nate is awake, and even then it will be quite difficult. A detailed explanation on Lives and Worlds will be posted in the coming days.
At any rate, I hope you enjoy the posts to come, and I wish you all a good night! ...day. Whatever time it may be for you.
A/N: Oh hey, this could double as an althist recommendation list, couldn't it? Anyways, the initial Lives for each of these timelines will be closely tethered to present-day Earth; for example, you won't see a Life in TL-8 take place after the founding of the Terran Hegemony or anywhere beyond the Sol system. There are more TLs assigned to numbers I haven't listed here, but the only one I'll divulge for now its TL-29 (Orion's Arm). That'll be the one with the most updates to start with.
TL-29 [ORION'S ARM] - LIST OF US PRESIDENTS OF THE INFORMATION AGE (2000-2100 CE)
42. Bill Clinton (1993-2001, Democratic) [l. 1946-2044] 43. George W. Bush (2001-2009, Republican) [l. 1946-2041] 44. Barack Obama (2009-2017, Democratic) [l. 1961-2055] 45. Donald Trump (2017-2021, Republican) [l. 1946-2038] 46. Joe Biden (2021-2029, Democratic) [l. 1942-2037] 47. Tim Anderson (2029-2037, Republican) [l. 1971-2076] 48. John Hickenlooper (2037-2041, Democratic) [l. 1952-2049] 49. J. D. Vance (2041-2045, Republican) [l. 1984-2072] 50. Bernard Domodo (2045-2053, Democratic) [l. 1994-2108] 51. Olivia Fernández (2053-2057, Republican) [l. 1988-2100] 52. Aiden H. Reed (2057-2061, Democratic) [l. 2001-2098] 53. Kelly Berkman (2061-2069, Liberty) [l. 1997-2110] 54. Emerson Foster (2069-2072, Republican) [l. 1999-2084]
55. Laura Delacruz (2072-2073, Republican) [l. 2011-2137] 56. Tyler M. Marshall (2073-2081, Democratic) [l. 2008-2116] 57. Zackary Wilkinson (2081-2089, Republican) [l. 2021-2133] 58. Glenda Wheeler (2089-2094, Democratic) [l. 1992-2094](died in office) 59. Miguel Johannson (2095-2097, Democratic) [l. 2038-2142] 60. Luke Castaneda (2097-2101, Liberty) [l. 2043-2167]
A/N: I'm still not sure if I should omit Clinton, Bush, and/or Obama, since for the most part the story of their lives has already been told as of 2024. I'm not sure how else I can word that previous sentence without it sounding weird, but chances are I'll put them in anyways.
LIST OF PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - FROM THE FIRST SPACE SHUTTLE FLIGHT TO THE TREATY OF NEW YORK
39. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981, Democratic) [l. 1924-2001] 40. Ronald Reagan (1981-1982, Republican) [l. 1911-1982] (died in office) 41. George H. W. Bush (1982-1985, Republican) [l. 1924-2020] 42. Walter Mondale (1985-1993, Democratic) [l. 1928-2018] 43. Newt Gingrich (1993-1997, Republican) [l. 1943-2032] 44. Joe Biden (1997-2001, Democratic) [l. 1942-2025] 45. Jeb Bush (2001-2005, Republican) [l. 1953-2043] 46. Hillary Clinton (2005-2009, Democratic) [l. 1947-2050] 47. Donald Trump (2009-2013, Republican) [l. 1946-2045] 48. Tom Cruise (2013-2016, Democratic) [l. 1962-2054](impeached) 49. Allen Lang (2016-2017, Democratic) [l. 1959-2046] 50. Richard M. McDougal (2017-2025, Republican) [l. 1969-2063]
Colorized the entries in both presidential lists, added some minor annotations and even a new entry. Don't worry too much, I plan on writing biographies on each of these presidents, but as of yet I haven't done much in that regard.
Worlds (also called TLs - the terms are interchangeable in this context) are an incorporeal, static series of events, based on an original source (such as Warhammer 40K, to throw out a random example). Some things may be changed in order to add a higher degree of realism or some other reason (for example, the post-apocalyptic US of TL-4 will include legitimists swayed by ideology), while many new details will be added in to flesh each World out further. They cannot be experienced directly by the protagonist "Nathan Farman", and all the Lives he experiences are mere divergent copies of the original World.
A Life, on the other hand, is as real as it gets for poor Nate. After whomever[1] he is in each Life dies, it is impossible for him to go back and revisit it in any way. It is possible, in some instances, for Nate to summon items from previous Lives, but this can only be achieved in Lives where he is aware of his past Lives[2]. Even then, it will be difficult for him to summon items of a certain size, items which may give him a major advantage in the world he is living out his current Life, or a large number of items at once. The preceding caveats are intentionally vague for narrative purposes.
Time periods in all Lives will trend towards OTL's present and contemporary past[3], while each Life's places will trend towards the Eastern Seaboard of the United States of America.
I haven't decided for certain whether traversable multiverses or practical time travel will be present in any Worlds/Lives, but even if it is, it won't appear for a very long time.
[1] Or whatever - non-human Lives will occur. Hey wait a minute [2] I'm thinking of calling this concept being Awake, but at that point I might be overusing the "mystical capitalized word" trope. [3] As of right now, 2024 and the fifty years before it.
[1] This map oneshot by MrImperatorRoma is no longer available online. I've archived it on my PC, but I won't share it because he probably had a good reason for deactivating his DeviantArt account. [2] A wiki for this collaborative sci-fi althist project once existed, but is no longer available. A (presumably) partial archive of said wiki exists on the Wayback Machine.
EXCERPT FROM WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON WORLD WAR I - LAST UPDATED ON 04/07/2045
World War I, the First World War or simply the Great War (August 1, 1911 - October 10, 1916) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Entente and the Central Powers. Fighting took place throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest wars of the 20th century, it resulted in an estimated 14 million soldiers dead and 22 million wounded, in addition to at least 12 million civilian casualties from various causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of soldiers and civilians during the war was a major cause of the 1917 Sicilian flu pandemic.
Strained diplomatic relations among the European great powers reached a breaking point on July 2, 1911 when a riot broke out between French and German nationals in the city of Agadir, Morocco, as a result of the two powers' competing spheres of influence. The German gunboat SMS Panther was later deployed in order to both protect German trade interests and assert the German Empire's authority over Morocco, but only succeeded in turning the French government even more hostile towards Germany. France declared war on Germany on August 1, and by the end of the month Austria-Hungary, Britian, Italy, Russia and Spain were all drawn into the war. The Ottoman Empire would join in October 1914, due to a deal struck with the British earlier in the year.
Germany's strategy in 1911 was to defeat France first, then move forces to the Russian front. This plan failed, however, and by the beginning of 1912, the Western Front consisted of an unbroken line of trenches stretching from Calais to Basel. The Eastern Front was less rigid, although Russia nor the Germany and Austria-Hungary could gain a decisive advantage, despite costly offensives. The war in Europe would largely remain a stalemate until 1915.
In 1915 the Bolsheviks seized power during the Russian September Revolution, making peace with the Central Powers in early 1916. Germany launched a major offensive in the west in March 1916, seizing much of Belgium and northeastern France. Starting in August much of the French military mutinied against their government, enabling the Germans to push even further. This culminated with the March on Paris on October 9 and the French capitulation the following day.
Throughout 1917 and 1918, the Berlin Peace Conference enforced a number of settlements on the defeated Entente, notably the Treaty of Hamburg. This would form the basis for the Mitteleuropa system which dominated Europe and its colonies for the following two decades, resulting in a growing resentment towards the former Central Powers and the eventual outbreak of World War II in 1938.
A/N: And this right here is my first attempt at an infobox... that I can remember. If anyone has any criticisms for this, then feel free to let me know about it. I don't believe I said this explicitly, but a lot of the future posts made here will be unrelated to the story of Nathan Farman - that's just a loose thread tying it all together under a "single" narrative. The basis for this alt!WWI, and all of TL-15 going forward, was made by NizamZ7 over on DeviantArt, and all credit goes to him for providing the skeleton of events.
