I am still wondering about how post-WWII Europe is like in that one timeline where I made the Kaiserreich win WWI, and Trotsky started WWII between the Comintern (led by the USSR and the Second French Commune respectively and composed of Republican Spain, Turkey, Greece, Finland, Mongolia and the world's Communist Parties, including the CC),
sighs
Lousy time limit on editing.
So, I am still wondering about how post-WWII Europe is like in that one timeline where I made the Kaiserreich win WWI, and Trotsky started WWII between the Comintern (led by the USSR and the Second French Commune respectively and composed of Republican Spain, Turkey, Greece, Finland, Mongolia and the world's Communist Parties, including the CCP), and the Pact of Steel (composed of Britain, Italy, Germany and puppet states/colonies, Hungary, Romania, Norway, Portugal, Yugoslavia, and Austria).
Oh and the Steel Pact is led by Germany, Britain and Italy.
The majority of these (except for Germany) are fascist in this timeline.
@dot_Sp0T?
Anything on the world after WWII between the Steel Pact and the Comintern?
I’m wondering how a 3-partner relationship would go dancing? I mean the kind of slow dance where partners are arm-in-arm, like a waltz or foxtrot.
@Separatrix I’m wondering if the carbon dioxide would reach high levels in the air above the pool. I don't think being in contact with the water would be bad.
@JDługosz Either these would not ever develop or they might have frequent 'trades' where one partner either dances alone or maybe sort-of circles the pair. Also for societies it would seem logical to have an even number of guest-tri-pairs invited, so they could form pairs of triples to have everyone dancing
@JDługosz "True" triads are rather rare. Normally the relationship graph looks more like a 'V' than an triangle. The easy thing to do is to mix up who is dancing and who isn't throughout the night and find a dance space where it's common to dance with people who aren't your partners so there's always someone to dance with.
@JDługosz Unlikely in any environment that wasn't tightly constrained, there'd be sufficient movement to keep the air stirred and safe to breathe
@JDługosz You need even numbers for dances really, 2,4,6,8 all work well, you could possibly work out a complex waltz with 3 but you'd need to give them more legs.
@sphennings that used to be my issue with polyamory, I felt like it'd be nearly impossible for it to come out even. Nowadays I just accept the fact that all relationships are unequal, and sometimes you just have to do whatever works best
I think 3-person dances would be like dual-wielding: it can be done, but you'd have to train more, and it would never be twice as good as regular dancing
ooh, and it'd probably be easier in three dimensions
@DaaaahWhoosh I've seen people try to give perfectly equal time and affection to both of their partners. This ends with both partners feeling unwanted because the affection they are given is doled out not based on a genuine sense of love and appreciation but based on what's been done to the other partner.
@DaaaahWhoosh Most dancing is in three dimensions.
@DaaaahWhoosh but how does such a society dance before the advent of spaceships? Or do you propose that the idea of having a 3-person-relationship only comes up after finding a way to dance satisfactorily?
nonono, asking for 'shortnames for merfolk' is opinion based. Asking about 'a plausible shortname for merfolk' forces them to explain their choices and make conclusions and stuff. Thus you can decide upon a good answer based on the reasoning done.
Naturally any reasoning arriving at Merfs would be best reasoning
@dot_Sp0T Ah, thanks for that. I did have it right "Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." @DaaaahWhoosh had me doubting myself
@dot_Sp0T Yeah, I may play an episode or two later... I'd really like to watch it with the kids, but they are probably to young for some of the more adult parts.
My second oldest is actually named for Kaylee from Firefly, though the wife doesn't know that's the origin.
You go down very far and there wouldn't be any light to grow food. I mean, I guess they could commute to the shallower levels. But unless they are dedicated pescetarians they are probably going to want seaweed or other plants in their diet.
Likewise, are they dark adapted, or do they have a way of making light?
@DaaaahWhoosh Nice. We played last night. My monk was awesome. We sorta tried to be peaceful with these bounty hunters that captured our family members (who happen to be werewolves) and they kept shooting arrows at me while I walked slowly towards them...I caught all the arrows that hit me and snapped them in half.
@AndyD273 it's merfolk. They live in the shadows where there is little light, they eat fish and collect snails,etc. Their sources of light & warmth are underwater volcanoes
At level 20 with any magic items in the DMG, and any spells, what is the fastest a DnD 5e character could move using their movement? (i.e., not including teleportation)
@DaaaahWhoosh Weapon damage is generally strength based, con gives you hit points, and you only get so much of your dex benefit to AC with armor. Its a strange choice is all...what weapon are you using?
@James I'll see if it fits later. Supposedly the game is RP-heavy, so I'm trying to make a character rather than a killing machine. But if it fits, I like the sound of it
Oh. But what specific circumstances need to happen to allow Germany to win? Take Fort Souville and take Verdun itself? Or take Fort Souville and just throw France into a meatgrinder?
And hope that Nivelle's troops get tired/drained before the Germans advance on Verdun itself?
NOTE: Falkenhayn's strategy was to start the Battle of Verdun to drain French manpower and morale to the point that the French would be thrown into a meat grinder.
@FutureHistorian I was going to suggest that you ask over in history chat, since this is the kind of thing they might have opinions about, but I see that you're already there
Again, this is the stuff that historians might write their Master's or PHD thesis about. A casual chat is a place where you might find some ideas or even possible answers. But not everyone will even want to start thinking on that issue, and just because they take part in some of your Gedankenexperiments they don't want to be involved in each and every of those further on..
Exactly. I asked the same thing and they suggested I ask here.
So, @James? Given that, what happens once Germany takes Fort Souville in this timeline? Could they hold off Nivelle's counter-offensive or would they break like in our timeline?
Because I kind of want Germany to "win" WWI in this timeline, though the point of Germany NOT losing Verdun was to ensure that the French get so tired to death of fighting that the Army eventually mutinies.
@FutureHistorian It may be worth genning up your own dedicated chat room as you seem to want to continually discuss (which is fine), you can create it and invite whomever you want to visit.
@FutureHistorian That's sort of up to you man. Its an alternate history after all.
@FutureHistorian from what I gather you are the absolute authority on this field considering the people that frequent this chatroom. So if you don't consider your own reasoning to be sufficient, how can anyone else's be any better..?
@FutureHistorian You seem to have read up quite a bit on the times and places... You may actually be the best suited to answering the question. If I was going to try to come up with an answer I'd have to go reading to freshen my memory
Oh well. At least that is why I am the Future Historian. Because whenever I go into the alternate history genre, I also look beyond the present day and into a future that will never be.
@FutureHistorian but that is alright. Often when you're really knowledgeable in something you also realize how much you still do not know, thus you start underestimating your own knowledge.
@FutureHistorian It's a good thing, and there are probably areas that others can still give input, but I think you could do most of this stuff without us and have it turn out good. You seem to answer most of your own questions anyway.
@dot_Sp0T The hardest part about learning is discovering how much you don't know... Being ignorant is so much easier
@FutureHistorian it is very interesting to learn of your progress & musings when you're putting questions and problems into this chat. So there is nothing wrong with asking them in here, or just talk about them. If people feel they can contribute meaningfully they will definitely chime in, that has never been an issue in here ;)
@FutureHistorian You're still less stuck than I would probably be. Alternate history and all the what-ifs are hard, and you really have to have a full picture of your world and all the small factors.
So, given the fact that Germany invents the atomic bomb in 1944, while Operation: Downfall is launched against Japan, even though by 1944, the majority of Eastern Europe, and the Balkans are completely overrun, how is post-WWII Earth looking like?
Oh and NOTE: Depending on when Germany nukes the Soviets on the Eastern Front, I can see at best a stalemate there. Not sure about the Second French Commune and Republican Spain, though.
@FutureHistorian if you don't feel confident in making things up - one thing I just had shoot through my head would be to print out a map of Europe (or even the world) with all countries clearly distinguished (no other detail), and then put Risk Armies onto the board and just play through your war :)
So, could could the Soviets be enough to divert German attention to the Eastern Front out of fear of Trotsky and the revolutionaries in Eastern Europe or would Germany have the resources and manpower to beat up the French (especially since Britain is actually helping the Germans this time)?
@Bellerophon Well actually, you must remember that wisdom and intelligence are not the same thing. An intelligent person may do the wrong thing with much confidence, while a wise person will do the right thing. Which is why you should have used "Well actually" instead of "You're all wrong".
Portugal may fall to the Spanish, though that may require the French to be involved, while most of their manpower is focused in the Western Front, concentrated in the Franco-Italian border, and the former Franco-Belgian border.
@dot_Sp0T I'm currently reading through the Eddie LaCrosse Series by Alex Bledsoe. It's basically a noir detective story crossed with a sword and sorcery story.
@dot_Sp0T They are pretty fun and well written. One interesting part is that the main character was trained as a skeptic to believe in science and reason, but then keeps running into things that are outside of that...
So, by 1940, Portugal falls, with great losses taken by the Spanish and French, though the French are forced to hold on to four main areas of attack along the Western Front: Normandy, the Franco-Italian border, the Franco-German and the former Belgian-French border.
@dot_Sp0T Wouldn't help. They would just change the wording to not include that part. As is it's kind of a warning flag that veteran can use to give a question extra scrutiny.
And it's probably possible to write a good "What If" question.
@AndyD273 idk, I know your stance is somewhat different than mine. But starting any question with 'What if' (note question title, not body) indicates to me a needed extrapolation of facts. And any extrapolation is inherently prone to assumptions. Any assumption is a fancy word for an opinion. And any opinion is hard to judge.
@dot_Sp0T I dunno The second part probably makes it too broad. But I guess I'd have to read the meat of the question, as a title is just a guide to what is inside.
And so far, Europe is literally covered in a red tide, and only because Germany has the KPD stage a coup, while from there, the rest of continental Europe slowly falls to Communism.
@Bellerophon Not as much fun as pushing that heat into the areas immediately surrounding the frozen area. If you do a local push instead of "into the sun", you'd be able to make people explode or at least ignite.
@Bellerophon All your superpower does is move thermal energy around. The heat in a pound of flesh has to go somewhere when you freeze it. If you can move heat around without requiring a mechanism, then you can ignite things.
@Bellerophon Why would you assume that? The sun is a long way away. Moving thermal energy breaks the laws of thermodynamics. Instanteously transporting energy to a remote location breaks the speed of light.
Putting energy back into the sun is kind of boring, in my opinion. Keeping it local induces all kinds of really interesting effects that can be exploited.
@Bellerophon In which case, you can do whatever the hell you want. :)
Pulling energy from the sun is a pretty fun power though.
If you could move heat wherever you wanted you'd have bakers creating stuff like frozen baked icecream powering their stoves with artificially frozen display goods
Flesh is at about 310 Kelvin. That means you've got 310 K worth of thermal energy to work with. If you took a 5cm^3 cube in someone's head to 0 K, that means that 310K worth of energy has to go somewhere. You only need 60-ish K worth of energy to get the surrounding tissue to boil.
Steam explosions are nasty nasty things. Sure, your input to that person's body is to freeze a bit of their brain but the surrounding tissue has just exploded because of a steam explosion.
Yes, absolutely you can kill people with the magic ability to control temperature.
If you want to put that energy into the sun, it's your story. However, if you keep that energy local, you can continue to use it to make the story more interesting with unanticipated second and third order effects.
@Bellerophon Yes, you could kill people with that too.
Just make sure to maximize the size of the ice crystals in their cells. They may survive the freeze itself but with practically every cell performated by ice crystals, they won't live long.
@NexTerren I've stopped paying attention to the Star Wars movies anyway. Whether those movies are good or not is enclosed in a "someone else's problem field" and therefore invisible to me.
@NexTerren Occassionally, I'll go on themed weekends of movies. Once it was Quentin Tarantino, or Arnold Schwarzenager (sp?). Rediscovered some very old and very bad movies, or just saw a move to see what all the fuss was about.
@NexTerren I guess not. I just heard that it was winning awards. Honestly, I kinda like being surprised by movies, I think that needs to happen more often
The beautiful blonde in the movie is of course going to fall desperately in love with Indiana....for exactly zero good reasons.....wait, she does because that's what women are supposed to do with a handsome male lead.
I wonder if that's going to be something they bring up in history class one day. "Now, remember kids, consent is a relatively modern concept, so what he did wasn't wrong for his time".
@FutureHistorian My favorite thing like that is from the movie The Hunt For Red October, when the sub gets launched and they are playing the music throughout the whole sub
How can a reversible elemental magic damage be explained?
This is set in a medieval world, where the only magic exists is the four elemental magic, fire, water, earth and wind.
When someone is hit by an elemental magic, they sustain magical damage according to the respective element; when you g...
In an unrelated note, I am interested in knowing more about @Bellerophon's setting, especially the lore.
So, a question: if an interplanetary war erupted, and you ended up joining either the armed forces of Earth's nations or the UN's military, or joining any one of the colonist insurgent groups and conventional armies, what role would you rather prefer?
As a UN/national army/colonist army recruit, would you fight in a surface battle with regular army divisions, deploy into the surface from orbital drop pods in space as an Espatier (basically the better term for Space Marine), or command your very own interplanetary spacecraft?
As for the insurgents, would you rather be an infilitrator? A scout? A regular infantryman? Or would you like to have command of a spacecraft with a smaller crew and size compared to the regular military counterparts?
@DaaaahWhoosh? Any roles you would prefer if you are either drafted/recruited as part of a military force or insurrectionist movement in the middle of an interplanetary war?
At level 20 with any magic items in the DMG, and any spells, what is the fastest a DnD 5e character could move using their movement? (i.e., not including teleportation)
How can a reversible elemental magic damage be explained?
This is set in a medieval world, where the only magic exists is the four elemental magic, fire, water, earth and wind.
When someone is hit by an elemental magic, they sustain magical damage according to the respective element; when you g...
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor