Before the Bomb---An alternate world setting

[taalismn]

This originally started as a Robotech + TMNT crossover with the Macross cast being mutant animals, but I realized I’d need a more extensive background....then it snowballed to include a scenario where the Nazis DID build all those fancy aircraft projects they had going at the end of WWII, and then in the spirit of ‘what the heck. why not?’, I decided to include every bizarre tabloid-style rumor about the world’s most infamous boogiemen and conspiracy theory....

I admitt being influenced by Peter Benchley’s novel ‘White Shark’, David Brin’s short story “Thor Meets Captain America”, the websites ‘Luft 46’ and ‘Deep Blue’.

Before the Bomb
(An Alternate After the Bomb Setting)

Imagine:
-----A world where the Thousand Year Reich is hanging on venomously for another few decades, and the last ‘pure land’, Antarctica, has become a frozen battleground for the future of Earth.
------Giant thundering World Alliance B-36C Peacemaker ultra-long range flying fortresses brave the elements and the unknown capabilities of a merciless enemy to map the polar redoubts of an implacable foe.
-----The United States Congress is in fierce debate whether or not to declare ‘Humanity’ an endangered species, and fund special conservation programs.
-----Your family bloodline includes a proud history of sprinters and thoroughbreds, your grandmother used to pull tourist carts through Central Park, and your father marched in the Civil Rights marches of the 1960’s....on ALL FOURS....
-----Canadian Arrow III fighters contest North American airspace with swastika-emblazoned flying saucers....
-----The ‘dogs of war’ have been set loose, literally.....

Basis----During the latter stages of WWII, as Allied forces closed in on the Nazis’ last bastions, an exceptionally insane and fanatical faction of the Nazi High Command unleashes a series of virulent plagues using V-weapons and secret agents infiltrated into the Allied nations. Many of these organisms are unearthly weapons the ‘Master Race’ just seem to have acquired from some unknown source....Though most of these new plagues prove lethal, however, due to a high rate of mutation in the strains results in unexpected results....not all who contract the illnesses die immediately, or die at all....One of the most virulent of the plagues becomes known as the ‘Switchbox Pox’ and seems to travel between humans and animals, actually swapping DNA between hosts, resulting not in death, but in a high incidence of human survivors acquiring animal-like traits and animals acquiring human traits. Following a period of panic, chaos, and death as the pandemics sweep the globe (called variously the ‘Die Off’, the ‘Change Over’ , the ‘Dark Genesis’), the world situation stabilizes, and Humanity must learn to redefine what it means to be ‘human’.....
And as they are doing that, the world must rally again against a past horror reborn....Armed with advanced technology they salvaged from ancient alien space vehicles they unearthed just prior to World War II, the Nazis, now established in the Southern Hemisphere, and in a series of secret Antarctic domed colonies, launch another bid to take over the world, confident that even though the epidemics they unleashed haven’t been completely fatal, they have sufficiently weakened the old world powers that previously opposed them, so that the ‘Master Race’ can succeed this time....
Because Before the Bomb happens BEFORE the widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons that helped melt down the After the Bomb civilizations, and the main weapons of the catastrophe are biological and chemical weapons, damage to the material aspects of civilization is far less, though there are areas and incidents of property damage and arson as panicked people riot, attempt to quarantine and sterilize infection zones, and neglect public services like fire rescue.
Of course, this being the 1940’s, technology is also rather less advanced, so civilization has less distance to fall, especially in rural areas(even in nations like the United States) where the full impact of technological, industrial, society has yet to be felt. Still, large areas of the land become depopulated, records and knowledge lost, and facilities destroyed.....even by 2000 A.D., the United States and Russia have large numbers of ghost towns dotting their lands, while some Third World countries have nearly been wiped out.


Tech Base---Unless the BtB timeline is grafted to the Robotech universe, or extends beyond 2030 or so(into Rifts’ ‘Golden Age’, the BtB altaverse is SDC-based(no megadamage). Certain weapons(nuclear explosives) will do megadmage-like damage(the GODAWFUL buckets of dice range) and certain structures will be extremely high SDC(Cheyenne Mountain, aircraft carriers, the Nazi arctic domes, etc.).


The Switchbox Pox(aka ‘The Change’, ‘Change Pox’, ‘Switchpox’, ‘Swap Pox’)
The exact mechanisms of the primary pathogen of the Die Off will not be truly understood until the pioneering work of Watson and Crick began to reveal the nature of DNA, paving the way for the Neo Human Genome Mapping Project conducted between Britain, America, Canada, and the Russian Republics. Even then, what the Swap Pox did seems nothing sort of miraculuous from an evolutionary standpoint, and that alone has raised questions about the origins of the pathogen.
The Switchbox Pox seems to operate by travelling between infectees(human and animal) and swapping in entire sections of new DNA. For about 10% of all people(and 80% of animal species) who come into contact with the virus, the new DNA simply remains inactive, as ‘junk DNA’. However, for 50% of infectees, the new DNA becomes active, and kills the victim through interference with the various life proccesses. The remaining 40% of victims suffer an advanced transformation on the genetic and cellular level as the new DNA manifests itself....resulting in radical mutation.
The irony of it is that the virus seems to favor the transposition of different DNA types....statistics showed that human-to-human cross-infection resulted in upwards of an 80% mortality rate, while animal-to-human resulted in a much lower(30%) mortality rate(this discrepancy would later be used to promote the theory of some sci-fi writers that the Switchbox Pox was some sort of engineered TOOL, or perhaps not a virus at all, but a form of NANOTECHNOLOGY).
Because of the nature of the virus and its spread, people were most likely to manifest animal DNA of species common to a given geographical or ecological area....City dwellers had a much higher level of cross-infection with canines, felines(domestic pets), rodents, and other urban animals(though there were many apparent cases of cross-infection in New York City from the Bronx Zoo), while those in rural and wilderness areas were more likely to be infected from local animal species(though there was one recorded case of a Minnesota man manifesting dromedary traits). Mutations are almost consistantly of MAMMALS(98%), though there are scattered reports of avian, reptile, and even piscine and insectoid random cross-overs.

Humans, Nu-Men, Hybrids, Emergeants, and Chimeras
*Pure Blood Humans are those who either through lack of infection or natural resistance, retain their genetic structure unaltered...PureBloods make up only 8% of the remaining population.
(Stats for Pure Bloods remain unchanged, but in most regions, Pure Bloods have an unwritten Social Status as being a rare species)
*‘Nu Men’-----Nu-Men are an extremely rare segment of the population that successfully survived cross-human infection where they acquired traits from other human beings.....Most information on ‘Nu-Men’ is antecdotal in nature....tales of people waking up with different color hair or better musculature, urban myths of racial supremacists discovering they’re now the spitting image of their most hated minority, people swapping genders...etc....Because ‘Nu-Men’ are essentially human, there is some debate whether or not they should even be counted as mutants or as Pure Blood Humans. About 0.05% of the population is Nu-Men.
(Stats for Nu-Men remain unchanged, except that players might want to switch around a few minor traits or characteristics)
*Hybrids(aka ‘animen’) are those humans who were infected by the Switchbox Pox and who acquired animal traits as a result of an animal-human cross-infection. 50% of the Earth’s population is considered to be Hybrid. While 70% of these people have little or no OUTWARD sign of their mutation, 30% show radical alterations such as fur, antlers, tails, and other physical pronouncements of their animal heritage.
(Hybrids start as normal human beings with 1d4x10 in random Growth Points to spend on animal traits from any ONE animal species....Additional Growth Points can be obtained in the usual manner by selling off other traits like size, strength, looks, intelligence, etc...)
*Emergeants are animals that have been infused with enough Human DNA to exhibit human characteristics, especially intelligence. In many cases, Emergeants are indistinguishable from Hybrids, leading to all sorts of legal questions and controversy. Countries like the United States, Britain, and Russia recognize Emergeants as sentient, but many fundamentalist countries regard them as only partially human or not at all in the eyes of the law. Roughly 30% of the Earth’s population is Emergeant.
(Emergeants are created in the normal TMNT/AtB manner)
*Chimeras are the result of more than two genetic donors exhibited in the same individual. Chimeras can also be the offspring of Hybrids and/or Emergeants of different origins.....For some reason, the Switchbox Pox seems to facilitate interbreeding, though the chances of successful conception and carrying to term of pregnancy decline the further one gets from genetic/biological similarity(i.e., a canine Hybrid and a canine Emergeant would have no problem having a child together, an ursine Hybrid would have more difficulty with the canine Emergeant, an elk-Hybrid a very scant chance, and a reptile Hybrid virtually no chance....). About 10% of the population is Chimera.
(Chimeras are created in the same manner as Hybrids, with a base pool of 1d4x10 Growth Points that the player can spend in acquiring mutant traits from TWO animal species. Likewise, additional points can be gained by selling down other characteristics.)
*Ferals are a small subsection of mutants of any type who have reverted to a primitive, animalistic existance(including humans who have ‘devolved’), or who have never been exposed to civilization. Ferals are more common among rural Emergeants than any other group, and are particularly common in Africa, Asia, and the Amazon region of South America. The general policy of civilized countries towards Ferals is to capture and re-educate them to fit into society, when possible. Less enlightened countries treat Ferals as bottom of the social ladder, with little or no rights; some regimes even encourage the hunting of Feral populations to make way for ‘superior’ forms!
(Ferals are unchanged in stats from Emergeants, Hybrids, Nu-Men, or Chimeras, except that they lack education and cultural skills, in favor of wilderness survival skills and abilities(+5% where applicable))

Bionics/Cybernetics
The stuff of science fiction....only the crudest augmented prosthetics exist outside the labs of the most advanced countries....Work in optical and audio augmentation is still aimed at medical research. Still, reports of advanced cybernetic limbs and implants being deployed by the secret services of the various world powers persist.


Psionics
Aside from possible Animal Psionics, true psionics are still the stuff of rumor and secret government projects....Every now and then, whispers of Russian or Nazi psycho-research sends the tabloids into a tizzy and governments into secret coniption fits....Both Britain and the United States have conducted much-ridiculed and controversial trials of psychic powers using enchancement drugs.

SuperPowers
In the BtB setting, superpowers, aside from animal talent-related types, are effectively unknown, though there are RUMORS of superhuman abilities arising in some remote communities.

Magic
Magic is not KNOWN to exist in the BtB world, aside from rumors of secret pre-War cabalistic societies, and the efforts fo the insane and the desperate to cure or control the horrors of the Die Off. However, the Russian government is known to take seriously rumors that magic was used to ‘bring over’ the Switchbox Pox pathogen from some other universe.

Technology
Technology in BtB Earth is SDC, with the exception of certain Grey artifacts (alien technology). Reverse -engineering of this alien technology(as well as the possible later inclusion of Robotechnology later) will introduce a ‘Megadamage revolution’, but this will come much later(after 2000 AD).
Much of the pace of technological development is the same as our own world, although due to the disruptions caused by the Plagues and continuing War, some areas of research and development may be retarded/delayed(mostly consumer technology), while others are accelerated (aircraft design, weapons research, medicine. etc,). There is essentially a slowdown immediately following the Plagues, as many of the people responsible for the wartime technological development are lost or Changed....and many of the facilities are lost to subsequent neglect. However, as the new generation of workers and scholars is trained, the facilities refurbished, and equipment adapted to the new ergonomics, progress resumed, and quickly catches up, thanks to continuing wartime pressures. The Internet really doesn’t take off until around 2000 AD(rather than a decade earlier) due to the stiffer control over DARPANET, the Internet’s military-industrial complex predecessor.
Medical technology is notably more advanced, as doctors and veterinarians pooled their knowledge to figure out how to treat patients expressing both animal and human traits...In fact, nowadays the distinction between the two has all but disappeared! Nowadays, purely animal- or human-oriented practitioners are regarded in much the same way as archeologists or anthropologists....seekig to preserve the genetic past....Genetics research is also particularly advanced, as an adjutant to drug-research(finding substances that will treat a broader spectrum of cross-species illnesses and disorders)...the Human Genome Project(referred to in the BtB as the Pan Genome Project) started much earlier, but has taken considerably longer, owing to the more time-consuming task of mapping out multiple species.

Alien Technology
In the BtB continua, alien technology becomes increasing well known and acknowledged, though at first it is believed only to be advanced German engineering.
Despite massive research efforts and reverse-engineering studies on the part of the Fourth Reich’s scientists, the NewNazis are never really able to fully understand and utilize all of the Grey technology they have acquired. Though they are able to figure out and intuite a great deal, much of the technology proves hideously expensive or dangerous to mass-produce. While, for instance, they figure out how to fly some of the alien artifacts and even power some exotic technologies, by the end of WW2, they haven’t yet figured out how to make a working nuclear pile or devise an atomic bomb(several radioactive regions in Europe are attributed to Nazi attempts to open up alien power artifacts with disastrous results.).However, thanks to what they learned, the TechnoNazis have made great strides in power generation technology, electronics, electromagnetic applications, life support systems, and advanced propulsion systems.
Still, the fact that the Nazis have it, drives the rest of the world nearly insane with worry, and rumors abound of massive nuclear arsenals, secret mind control rays, weather control devices, and other super-tech paraphenalia in the hands of the Ayran ubermensch. enough to scare many into compliance with the Nazis’ demands, but also to drive the Allies to frenzied R&D efforts. Are all of the above rumors just that, or is there any truth to them? Certainly, the Nazis are able to field some impressive weapons, but if they are so powerful, why haven’t they taken over the world already?

Cultural Notes:
Military:-----The military have a more prominent and visible role in the daily life of many of the nations of BtB. Cold War-style ‘watch the skies!’ paranoia is still much in effect by 2000, and many of the military bases disbanded in our own timeline, continue to be active in BtB United States(the Nike-Ajax defense system, for instance, since upgraded to Patriot and Super-Sprint batteries), especially air defense and early warning sites(those Nazi flying saucers!). On the other hand, without the looming threat of Communist attack from Russia, there aren’t nearly as many ICBM sites in the American Midwest. Naval warfare technology is also much more obvious and developed, thanks to the need to get forces to the ends of the Earth, and to protect commercial shipping from the ever-present threat of Nazi submarine raiders. The United States Navy, in particular, is much larger, with several new types of super-carriers configured for supporting the invasion of Antarctica.

Religion---While many new religions have arisen(see India) in the changed world situation, the surprise is that so many old traditional religions have survived....though their particular take on the situation varies, and there are various splinter faction opinions, especially among the Protestant sects, ranging from the sublime to the fundamentalist fanatical. The most common opinion, seen in both the Catholic and Protestant churches, is that the Die-Off was a mixed blessing, part of God’s Plan, recalling some to early Judgement, transforming others, and bringing up deserving others to sapiency. As more is learned about the pathogens responsible, some are claiming that the real miracle is that more people didn’t die; that the hand of the Almighty was responsible for transforming the virus into an instrument of change, and not total destruction.
Among other beliefs currently circulating; the current world situation is a test of the faithful; the Plague is the means of a nature spirit Earth to ‘re-invent’ a new Humanity more in tune with nature, or that this is all prelude to a Darwinistic experiment in survival of the fittest on a grand scale. There are, of course, among the True Bloods, human supremacist sects who believe that God created Man is His(Her) Own Image, and that only ‘true’ Humans will ultimately inherit the Earth.
Another new aspect of the old religions is the incorporation of the ongoing world conflict into the Good against Evil motif. Many religions now regard the NewNazis as the ultimate evil, or servents of another, so far hidden evil(seen by many as the aliens), and the Allies as crusaders of light, set in a cosmic struggle for the soul of Earth. While the Catholic Church has yet to launch an official Crusade, quite a few orders of New Crusaders have popped up to support the Allied troops, often working alongside Muslim Jihadists working to the same ends against the Scourge.

Art---Like the post Black Plague Renaissance, world art has seen a revival, mostly with a spirtual or transformational theme....Many artists try to embrace their ‘animal selves’ for inspiration. Musicians have also begun exploring adding ‘natural instruments’(howls, mews, bugling, screeches, and other calls) to traditional musical scores. The art movements that would be heralded by such figures as Picasso in our own world, are instead brought about by the ‘Natural Instinctualists’, trying to portray the modern world from the ‘core essence’ of their animal ancestors....such as canines painting in gray tones, or predators doing the ‘predators’ eye view’.
Conversely, a recent fringe movement calls for ‘animalizing’ existing pieces of public sculpture, promoting a retroactive form of political correctness by downplaying the ‘cult of the human’, and giving such works as the Lincoln Memorial’s statue of Abraham Lincoln, and the Statue of Liberty, facelifts with a more ‘animanistic’ appearance.

[taalismn]

World Powers:

The Nazis
The boogiemen of the BtB world are, without a doubt, the Nazis.....
With the Die Off causing chaos in the ranks of the Allied invasion forces, a well organized group of diehard Nazis make their escape, with copies of their most important scientific research, to Argentina, and then on to secret outposts on the Antarctic continent. There, using their plundered European wealth and salvaged Grey technology, they establish a number of secret weather-domed colonies, and use the natural wealth of the frozen continent to rebuild their strength. While the rest of the world withers in the throes of the Dark Genesis, the originators of the global genocide are quietly re-establishing themselves.
Known variously the NeoNazis, the TechnoNazis(TN), and the Scourge, these villians are the worst humanity ever produced; hellbent on world conquest. Though they may have seriously underestimated the ability of their enemies to recover from the Die Off and oppose them again, the Nazis remain a truly dangerous and evil force.
The early emphasis of the Nazis is on maintaining a eugenically ‘pure’ race of superhumans, and early on, they are largely successful at keeping their numbers safe from infection with the various pathogens they poison the rest of the world with. Their fanatical obsession with cleanliness, and the all-covering environmental suits the most diehard adherents of their twisted philosophy wear when venturing out of their hermetically-sealed city domes helps contribute to the image of the Nazis as inhuman and faceless monsters. However, as it becomes clear that their superior technology won’t hold up against the rebounding Allies, the Nazis try to use the mechanisms of the Switchbox Pox to clone superior humans...This does manage to surprise the Allies for awhile, with reports of identical supersoldiers attacking them in the polar environment, but problems with inbreeding and genetic replicant error become evident as time passes. However, this makes the polar Nazis even more dangerous as mental instabilities crop up in their ranks, and even those not affected succumb to desperation. Towards the end of their power, the TN try using the Switchpox to create animal supersoldiers, and they also try to recruit legions of janissary troops(referred to as ‘Reich-Babies’, ‘Bootlickers’, and other less-than-complimentary nicknames by the Allies), especially from the impoverished populations of South America and Africa, with the prospect of high pay and honorary citizenship in the Reich, for fighting their enemies. They also turn to scoping out the various countries looking for ‘pure blood’ humans to kidnap as breeding material.
By 2000, it’s fair to believe that the Nazis have acquired nuclear weapons, or at least have the ability to unleash a radiological nightmare by overloading their fusion powerplants....This, and the potential danger of destabilizing the polar ice cap, and melting it, has prevented the Allies from using their own nuclear weapons to blast the Nazis out.

North America

Canada
Owing to the relatively low population density, the cold weather, and isolation of the far northern comunities, Canada has the highest concentration of ‘pure blood’ Humans in the western hemisphere. Also, having undergone a similar military-industrial buildup as their southern neighbor, in order to better support Britain during WWII, Canada came out of the Die Off with a great deal of industrial might. They continue to serve in this capacity, supplying the old British Empire with finished goods and military hardware. One of the big technological differences in BtB, is that the Canadian aerospace industry literally takes off while the American companies are still rebuilding, and a great many projects that were shelved due to competition from across the border, like the Avro Arrow, ultimately see production.

United States of America
The USA is one of the handful of old superpowers that managed to see the writing on the wall and implement an enlightened transitionary program during the Die Off....Its sheer size and the patterns of infection gave some warning time. As such, little of the USA’s vaunted industrial might was lost until the next generation of plague-immune hybrids and mutants could step forward into the workforce(though some of the transport infrastructure had to be rebuilt as a result of attempts at quarantine). This smooth transition was in part due an unexpected strong alliance between the ASPCA(when people’s favorite pets started talking, the owners wanted to secure their safety) and the American labor unions(who saw a serious decline in their numbers and power), who formed a core of advocates for streamlining the transition. Thanks to a Second New Deal, education was provided for the new generation of mutant animals...and an expanded G.I. Bill offered similar incentives to those entering government service.
With vast resources at their command, large collections of data and scientific research at their disposal, the Americans make a quick recovery, which has proven vital to the continued survival of the Alliance against the TN.
For the most part, re-integration of the population has gone smoothly, with few problems(though there was some turmoil in the 1960s over the rights of various animal minorities---several politic blocs of herbivores claimed that the post-Die Off U.S, government was unfairly dominated by carnivores). To the current day, there are still rural militias deadset against the influence of the urban ‘concrete jungle’ set that supposedly still monopolizes the government, and diehard pure blood human supremacists out to ‘take back Earth from the alien infectees’.
However, for some of the mutant animal population of the United States, the former slaughterhouses and meat proccessing plants of Chicago still hold bitter memories for them. much as the former Nazi concentration camps in Europe do for the Jewish. There have been several movements recently to seek reparations for the victims of the cattle and pork industries, but the courts are having problems finding the right people to sue. With so many of the surviving humans of those cities also being transformed into hybrids of the victim species, and so few pure blood humans in the region, the question of who should be held accountable is a thorny one.

Cuba
A (Classic)Communist state, and a sticky situation for the United States, who’d like to believe that the regime had Nazi assistance in their revolution, but don’t wish to alienate their Russian allies if it ain’t so.

Europe
Most of Europe has been devastated by Nazi biological weapons...already wracked by the Second World War, with health care networks in shambles, and millions of displaced persons moving across borders, few of the European countries escaped massive upheaval, and in many cases, regional balkanization as order collapsed. While a belated Marmaduke Plan(named for the animan who proposed it) does help Europe recover somewhat, it isn’t until the mid-70s that real progress can be said to have been made in rebuilding the countries of Europe. While nations like France, Spain, Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands still exist as nationalistic and ethnic entities, many of their internal regions and cities are effectively seperate political nation states, and the whole is more of a coalition than anything else. Still, hopes and plans persist of buulding a United Europe, bound by economic and military allegiances, if not by political ones....

England
England has literally gone to the dogs and rats(as well as the horses and steer), with a high level of both sentient mutations and hybridizations from both animals(notably common in the London area)...Fortunately, a member of the Royal Family became a hybrid, smoothing transition of acceptance into the new order of things. Another prominent figure in the Changeover was the hybrid James Herriot, a transformed veterinarian whose collection of writings and observations ‘All God’s Creatures’ becomes the social text of the new Britain.
However, fox hunting is no longer practiced in England, discontinued by Royal Decree.
Britain has managed to remain in the forefront of technological and scientific advancement, but its military has seen better days, having been worn down by the rigors of fighting in the Southern Hemisphere and trying to maintain peace in a dwindling colonial empire. Great Britain loses many of its ‘colonial’ military units as the troops become assimilated into the local eco-system(in the case of India, literal ‘brahmahization’). Despite these losses, and swings of economic fortune at home, the British maintain a staunch support to the war against the Reich; there is something of a legend that once the Nazis are dispatched, the good old days of economic prosperity will finally return.

Germany
Fifty years after Allied victory, and Germany is only now beginning to recover....Outside the Nazi Party, the German civilian population was badly hit by the Die Off, collateral damage from V-weapons, and subsequent revenge attacks by the Allies(and by post-war factions from former Nazi satellite states)....Ironically, this has led to several generations of fanatical anti-Nazi warriors who joined the Allied forces(often with forged papers) to fight the Techno-Nazis, as well as some of the most ardent researchers into cures/treatments for the SwapPox.
Eastern Germany is still an industrial wasteland, both from lasting WW2 damage, and the fact that many industries(from former Nazi conquests) have located to the fringes of the area precisely because it is so polluted and so they can dump their own industrial wastes without anyone knowing or caring. The Rhine has become the ‘Sewer of Europe’, and its long abuse has elicited the ire of the international environmentalist movement. Various groups still search the old war-era ruins, however, looking for overlooked caches of Nazi secrets, and information on the Die Off plagues.

Italy
Italy has also come up from a decades-long economic depression; ravaged by war, then swamped by refugees fleeing Plague-infested Northern Europe, and then hit by the Plagues themselves. Italy is now recovering to become a major industrial and trade power in Europe. There is some religious controversy with regard to the Catholic Church, as the Church attempts to cope with the new situation. It isn’t until 1975, when a Polish-born border collie Emergeant , is elected Pope (‘God’s Shepard’), that potential schisms begin to heal over, but not before several new splinter churches are formed(most in America, particularly the Church of the Divine Image).

The Middle East
The history of the Middle East is very similar to the regular course of canon Earth; fueled by oil, religion, and ancient hatreds, the familiar cycle of boom, bust, and violence continues.Internicine wars between various factions, including a particularly brutal one between leonine Egyptians and camel-hybrid Libyan deep-desert commandoes, has made the region a hot zone of violence. Several attempts by foreign powers to seize the region’s oil industry have also made things difficult. Fortunately, the kingdom of Trans-Jordan is stable, supplied and supported by both Britain and the United States, and is a valuable source of petroleum for the Allies, despite several dramatic attempts(including use of a ‘dirty bomb’) by the Nazis to destroy the oil fields.
Of note, however, are the large numbers of exotic hybrids and mutants, particularly in the deep desert regions, from which reports of spider-, scorpion-, and snake-people frequently emerge, as well as other chimaeras.

Israel
Rather than being established/hindered by British decree, the nation of Israel is established by wealthy private citizens who manage to gather up enough uninfected/untransformed people of Jewish extraction, to move to the Holy Land in an effort to escape the plagues sweeping Europe and America. There is some conflict between Israel and the larger nation of Trans-Jordan(which had claims to the region), which requires frequent diplomacy by the main supporters of both nations(ironically, both Britain and the United States) to keep the two off each other’s throats. Fortunately, the best argument for peace is that the Jewish nation provides a fanatical anti-Nazi bulwark to Trans-Jordan’s west.
Israel is open to all Hebrews. Hybrids and Chimaeras of porcine nature, however, are banned from the Judiac faith. This has caused some controversy between the orthodox sects and later splinter temples.

Africa
This environmentally rich continent has yielded a vast variety of new peoples, but also massive violence and new factionalism, however. Africa also became a favorite stalking ground for Nazi agents, intent on causing trouble and obtaining access to Africa’s valuable and largely untapped mineral resources.
South Africa, in particular, has seen more than its share of turmoil, becoming, in effect, the ‘Vietnam’ of the BtB universe....Apartheid collapsed overnight despite the best efforts of the diehard white supremacists to uphold it; with so many new definitions of race and species popping up, the Pretorian government couldn’t keep up...and while many of the citydwellers hybridized into domestic animal forms, many of the outlying black communities morphed into wilder and more dangerous forms....With violent revolution looming, war-weary Britain had to rush reinforcements to Cape Town and other cities to prevent a wholesale bloodbath(called by some wags in Parliament ‘The Second Boar War’). Not helping matters were Nazi agents trying to stir up trouble with the old Boer minority and the mineral-baron Rand Lords.

Asia
This massive contintental region still remains a place of mystery and surprises, as its wide variety of biomes has spawned a gigantic cross section of mutant types. Besides the collapse and revival of the older traditional nations, a large number of smaller kingdoms have appeared over the years.

China
An emerging world power. Though initially allied with the rest of the world against Nazi and Japanese aggression, the Chinese have since begun to start looking to carve out their own global empire. Part of their problem is the large number of small independent kingdoms and nation-states that have established themselves in the western regions of China, with the breakdown in social order following the Chinese outbreaks of the Switchpox. Currently, part of China’s expansion campaign includes bringing these smaller states back into the fold of Greater Communist China...by diplomacy if possible, by force if necessary. Their support of the war against the Reich has ebbed over the years, and they are less than happy with the American treatment of Japan, and the subsequent annexation and statehood granted the Japanese. Recently, the Chinese and Americans have been engaged in tense negotiations over the future of a string of former Japanese island possessions in the South China Sea that the Chinese traditionally regard as their own. Allegations of Chinese military heavyhandedness in the annexation of the western regions and in southeast Asia have also ignited controversy. especially among human rights groups.
Rumors of ancient dragonoids in deep China and centaurs in Mongolia have teased outsider biologists studying the Switchpox, but China has severely restricted access to information on the emerging Chinese ‘neo-ecology’.

India
Like its AtB counterpart, BtB India is dominated by mutant elephants who have established a religious, spiritual, government. India has acquired independence from British rule, as in our own timeline, but relations remain cordial(though some British diplomats accuse the Indian elephantine governors of humoring their guests with an all-too-smug attitude of bemused enlightenment.).
With strong animal motifs in its culture and regional religions, it’s small wonder that India is a hotbed of post-Die Off religious activity and revisionism, which is lowly making its way out to the rest of the world(as part of the ‘New Age’ movement). A popular theme of the various new Hindu sects that expands on the traditional ideas of karma and reincarnation is that only by living virtuously, can hybrids slowly gain back their humanity through subsequent incarnations, until they ultimately re-attain perfect Human form. Taking exception to this, some animan-sects strive for the opposite, seeing reincarnation as the path back to the perfect ANIMAL form. Other sects strive for deliberate selection, with individuals striving, through subsequent lives, to attain their indvidual ideal form, be it pure blood, hybrid, or chimera. This bewildering welter of new sects and beliefs has fueled an economic boom in India, particularly in temple construction, but has also led to an upswing in ethnic violence between extremist factions. Fortunately, with a large percentage of mutant elephants and tigers on the national police force, riots tend to be short.

Australia
Again, isolation and a low population density has helped keep the pure blood human population relatively safe, at least in the Outback. However, there have reports of foo fighter sightings and other TN-associated phenomenon occuring in the countryside, leading many to wonder if the Antarctic Scourge have perhaps set up a presence there.....while others ascribe the strangeness to a new form of the Switchbox afflicting the aboriginal population and bringing a new Dreamtime era about....
While much of Australia is still rather underdeveloped, its eastern cities have become vital parts of the Allied effort against Antarctica....The Australian Air Force, bolstered by a ‘Foreign Legion’ of pilots from other nations, is among the finest in the Southern Hemisphere in its skills against foo fighters and in long range polar recon.

New Zealand
New Zealand survived the initial stages of the Die Off, and might have become another major refuge of Pure Blood Humans, except that somehow the infections managed to get through the island quarantine.....How, is unknown, but many suspect Nazi infiltrators. By the time aide ships arrived from Australia, most of the population was GONE....apparently transformed into sheep!
New Zealand also has great strategic value as one of the forward staging areas for Allied operations against the Nazis at the South Pole. Thus, several major strategic air and sea bases are located there, and the island-nation has a disproprtionately large military force and advanced air defense net.

Japan
Despite the relative isolation of Japan, the island nation was badly hit by the plagues of its former allies, most likely due to troops in Indochina and China returning home and introducing the infections to the population. There was also a strong degree of ostracization in the traditional Japanese social structure of the new hybrid humans and animen, at least until enough true-blood humans had died off and society collapsed. When hybrid and chimera troops from the USA, Canada, and Britain arrived, they found society in ruins and the remaining samurai offering little resistance.....With the revelations that their former Axis allies unleashed the plagues on Earth, the surviving Japanese have vehemently rejected their former role in the Axis(though some diehards would like to break off ALL connections to the outside world altogether).
Japan is now an American state, recovering well under the new social administration...Recent problems with China, however, are raising anxiety levels in the region.

[taalismn]

Russia
Russia was spared the later ravages of neo-communism with the death of Stalin and most of his cronies due to the Die Off pathogens, despite Stalin’s desperate efforts to remain away from possible carriers. Rather than waste its energies on doomsday games with NATO and the USA, the BtB Soviet Union had rebuilding to occupy itself, and the continuing threat of the Nazis in the Southern Hemisphere to vent their frustrations on.
What has emerged in Russia is a more lenient form of communism more akin to socialism, tagged by many Western observers an ‘Orwell Paradise’, or more derisively, ‘The Animal Farm Republic’. There are still problems, however, with rumors of rampant corruption in the government, a strong underground capitalist economy, proliferate organized crime, and secret police ‘enforcers’ working for the frustrated government.
Russia does have some problems with upstart republics trying to break away. A particularly powerful state in the forming is Siberia, dominated by a coalition of ursine and canine mutants that has been agitating for independence. There has also been some growing problems in the easternmost provinces in Europe, owing to the fact that post-Plague Russian industries were among the most blatant of the violators using the conquered German states as industrial dumping grounds. Some of these regions want the current regime in Moscow to do something about cleaning up the mess.

South America
As one of the underdog allies of WW2, and a major refuge for fleeing Nazis, South America gains importance on the international stage as focus shifts to it in the latter 20th century.

Brazil and the Equatorial States
The heavily jungled regions of South America have yielded a large variety of mutant types.
The coastal cities of Brazil have acquired a reputation as being wild and lawless places where ferals come down into the more civilized regions, and inevitably end up caught up in local exploitation rings, crime, and rampant violence. In an attempt to provide some stabilizing influence to the region, a modern capital (Brasilia) was constructed in the interior with the assistance of the Allies....This modern city has massive re-education centers, but is being overrun by slums on its fringes. This puts Brazil in a precarious state, caught between the prosperous and lawless coastal cities, and the impoverished and demanding communities of the interior, a state which greatly concerns the Allies, given the importance of Brazil to the ongoing war effort against Nazi-influenced Argentina. Currently, large infusions of foreign aide keep Brazil afloat, with hopes that the essentially honest administration in the Brasilia can come up with fixes for the glaring economic disparities in the population, and the social problems that has brought.
Columbia, French Guiana, and Venezuela are all firmly allied with the Allies; Venezuelan oil being particularly important to Allied operations. However, there is also growing resentment on the part of some locals that the countries have sold out to the industrial nations of the Northern Hemisphere...resentment that enemy agents have tried to exploit, fomenting the fires of armed revolution in the interior and among the inland narcotics cartels(somewhat smaller and even more violent than in our own world, due to the increased pressure and presence of Allied armed forces in the region).

Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Peru
Caught between the Neo-Nazi allied state of Argentina, facist Chile, and the democratic nations of Equatorial South America, these nations have struggled between being nominal allies and neutral states, while trying to avoid becoming battlegrounds themselves, as agents of both the Allies and Neo-Nazis maneuver on their territory, often seeking to exploit already high local dissatisfaction and tensions. Various military dictators emerge to claim power, but are just as often overthrown by other military dictators with experience fighting with or against the Allies in the Reich War(somewhat similar to what happened with Tito and Yugoslavia).

Argentina and Chile
The southern tip of South America , like Africa, didn’t attract much attention during WWII, but the same can’t be said of the Third World War.....Argentina unwisely offered refuge to fleeing Nazis and local greed and corruption eventually pulled the country into an unholy union with the emergent Techno-Nazis. Argentina subsequently becomes a battleground between Allied and Nazi forces, with combat drifting over into Chile. In time, Argentina and Chile become unofficial vassal states of the Fourth Reich, ruled by local puppet regimes and councils of foreign ‘advisors’.

Antarctica
Once owned by the whole world, the South Pole became an international war zone between the Allies and the Techno-Nazis, as the world powers came roaring down to blast the Fourth Reich out of its polar dome cities. So far, the Allies have been only able to hang onto a few toehold bases in the edges of Antarctica....bases that are under near constant attack by the elements, and Fourth Reich air, sea, and land forces, taking a horrible toll on the numbers and morale of troops assigned to the front. However, the veterans of the ‘White Hell’ are among some of the toughest soldiers and dedicated anti-Nazi warriors on the planet. Some of the Allies have suggested simply blasting the southernmost continent with nuclear-tipped ICBMs, but fear of what a catastrophic collapse of the polar ice cap might do to the rest of the world has prevented this plan from being implemented.

Space
The race into space in BtB Earth was fueled not by Russian and American Cold War competition, as in our own, but by wartime drives to seize the high ground....It is rumored that the first Humans(or rather Earthlings) into space were Fourth Reich pilots flying antipodal stratobombers or alien saucers, which drove the Allies into a frenzy to launch their own space effort. Despite a crash American development program, the Russian cosmonaut Laika Shostovitch becomes the first sentient to orbit the Earth(and return safely). Now the United States, Canada, Britain, and Russia are in a space race to the Moon to beat the Nazis(or verify whether or not reports of a Nazi/Gray Alien base on the moon are true).


Myth and Paranoia
It’s worth noting in the world of BtB that many myths and legends, like UFOs and swamp monsters, that are common tabloid fare in our universe, are taken rather seriously by the peoples of BtB Earth......Swamp monsters, yeti, Sasquatch, even fairies, are taken seriously as possible mutants. Revelations of the Nazis’ possession of alien technology, including flying sacuers, means people are very paranoid about reports of ‘little green men’, mysterious lights, and flying discs...Rumored sightings will cause the local militia in many regions to turn out in force to find any possible ‘new front’ in the ongoing war against the polar fascists.

Adventures:

Reich War
Obviously, beating up on the evil Nazis is a major theme of BtB Earth....Foiling the nefarious world conquest plots of their agents in underdeveloped parts of the world, as well as beating their combat forces in the Southern Hemisphere, edging closer to that final slog on the frozen polar redoubts, could be the basis of entire campaigns.
But while the main powers focus on finishing WWIII, other parts of the world may flare up as new nations attempt to assert their independence, and the currents of history move ever forward.

Conspiracy!
The BtB world is a hotbed of plots and conspiracies, from newly emergeant nations trying to stake their claim to recognition, to old nations trying to cling to their power. Peoples are being redefined, and new lines of political and social alignment are being drawn. Hundreds of new political groups arise, many of them with separatist agendas, and willing to resort to terrorist tactics. From the Chinese maneuvering for dominance, to the Lodge of the Timber Wolf plotting independence from Montreal, there will be a great demand for spies and counter agents.
And of course, there are the Nazis, fanning the sparks of turmoil, or hatching some nefarious scheme to cause trouble....From aiding a Tiger rebellion in India, to smuggling pitchblende from Africa, or kidnapping human women from enclaves in Japan, the tentacles of the Fascists reach far and wide...and are just begging to be cut off....

Alien Technology
Rumor has it, the Reich didn’t get all the alien technology hidden on Earth, starting a race by both nationalistic groups and private fortune hunters to find alien artifacts. This could be an opportunity to reveal the truth behind ancient legends and superstition, and paint a different picture of ancient human history, as well as provide plenty of chances to butt heads with ancient guardians, cults, rival salvage teams, and Nazi treasure hunters.

Alien Problems
Yes...the Fourth Reich has been experimenting with alien technology, but suppose the aliens have finally come back, looking for their lost ship or ancient colony?
Taking a hint from our own timeline’s early UFO culture, one possible scenario may involve the uber-human-like blonde, blue-eyed, Venusian aliens described by George Adamski, flying in from outer space in flying saucers carried aboard massive cylindrical aircraft-carrier-like motherships. On BtB Earth, such aliens could be easily identified with the Neo-Ayran cause, and create great consternation among the Allies, especially if the aliens seem favorably inclined in theor actions towards the TN. ‘Alien Panic’ could insue, as the Allies and other powers try to determine what the aliens are really up to, and what, if anything, they can or should do in response.
Taking another nod to UFO culture, and to the series ‘V’, a nasty twist would be to have the ‘human aliens’ really be reptilean ‘Greys’ with a form of physical chameleon ability to emulate other species. This could be done to better fit in and approach other species, or as a cover for their nefarious plots.
Revelations of actual living aliens could change the entire status qou....Are they new allies against those who co-opted their technology, are they co-belligerents against the free world, or will the Allies and the Reich become unwilling allies in order to defeat an even greater threat?

Or Are They Really Back?....
Most people believe that at the time of the Die Off, the Nazis still had little idea of how the pathogens actually worked, and had some very backward ideas of how genetics really worked, and that they acquired the knowledge only later with the Watson-Crick breakthroughs(they point towards the fact that many break-ins at cutting edge genetics research facilities are inevitably associated with foo-fighters and TN operatives). But suppose the TN had also the aliens’ research on DNA and genetics?
In desperation, the TN may be using their genetic technology(either deciphered from alien hardware or stolen from the rest of the world) to clone a new generation of superhumans using alien DNA recovered from the alien artifacts.....The ‘greys’ and the ‘reptileans’ sighted on UFOs are really Nazi hybrids...a sign of how far these inhuman madmen are willing to go in their quest for power....


A Second Change?
Genetic research on the Change Plagues is proceeding apace, and there are some who wonder if it might not reach a point where scientists and doctors might not be able to one day use gene therapy to reverse the Switchbox Pox, using its own mechanisms to insert new DNA and alter the form of a person, or re-activate the old formerly dominant interons in a person’s DNA, changing them back to what species they were ‘originally’. Most experts concede that this would be of little use to anyone who was not part of the original WW2 generation (a population that is gradually fading away with age) that underwent the change. It would be of less use to subsequent generations, where frequent interbreeding of species bloodlines has mangled the idea of a ‘dominant’ and ‘repressed’ bloodline.
Still, some radicals and some outspoken species purists are looking seriously into the idea of a Second Change as a way of reversing the fragmentation of the original human species, and converting all the mutants back to animals, or into full-blood human beings. The possibility that some high-tech terrorist group might actually be able to release such agents has some of the world governments on edge, though publicly they admitt nothing. Still, monitoring advances in genetic research and tracking down suspected gene-hackers and illicit bio-research facilities could be the basis of a covert-ops campaign.

Other Palladium Universes:

Robotech in BtB
One possible alternative on an alternate Earth is the arrival of the SDF-1 into the world of BtB ....When the Visitor arrives, it sets off all sorts of confusion at first....The Allies think it’s a Nazi superweapon, the Fourth Reich see it as a portent of great things to come(for them), and so forth...Once its true nature becomes known, the clamour to seize the alien vessel and unravel its secrets becomes a storm of potential conflict.
The arrival of alien technoogy and its delivery into the hands of the Allies, seals the fate of the Techno-Nazis....Despite last-ditch efforts to fully develop and deploy the alien technology already in their hands, the TN lose the race to the numerically superior Allied effort, who develop their own versions of the familiar Destroids and Veritechs and smash the remaining dome enclaves of the Fourth Reich. Revelations of even more militant aliens out in the greater universe only stiffen the resolve of the Allies, rather than break them apart as their great enemy is finally vanquished, and a world government soon follows. The familiar ‘rebuild the SDF-1 to protect Earth’ theme follows(only Roy Fokker and Henri Gloval were fighting Neo-Nazis during the Global Civil War).
The sheer variety of intelligent ‘races’ on Earth will completely bewilder the Zentraedi, who wonder if they’ve stumbled on a galactic trade nexus, with so many different species on the planet.
The fact that the Zentraedi seem to be genetically human goes over very well with many in the remaining ‘pure’ Human population, who see a ‘campaign of ‘make love, not war’ with the aliens as a way of breeding back the Human race....For different reasons, this idea goes over well with the hybrid population as well, who have been breeding across species lines anyway.
Besides...Imagine the fun of rolling up the old canon cast of characters as ‘New Men’!

Rifts/Beyond the Supernatural/Nightbane
Though magic doesn’t exist on BtB Earth, it is possible that various cults could have experimented with obscure magic in the PPE-rich Die Off period, and may open up a Rift to Rifts Earth...Or a Fourth Reich(or Allied) experiment with Grey technology(or final nuclear conflict) could tear a hole in space/time, bringing people of one universe into contact with others, or pitching the planet into a new Dark Age as the energies spread uncontained!.
Another twist might be that the nanotech agent responsible for the Change Pox isn’t the product of the mysterious Greys, but of the infamous Gene Splicers instead! If so, are there any other articles of their technology hidden somewhere on Earth, awaiting discovery? New nasty surprises for the the unwary?

Ninjas and Superspies
Fits perfect with the ‘TMNT’-style setting....Spy agencies, secret orders, ancient disciplines, all seek to survive and prosper in a world of mutants.

Palladium Fantasy
Some regions of the planet are still isolated, and may have re-evolved new non-technological societies. Or new breeds of mutant Human(like Giants, Elves, and Ogres) may emerge(great shades of ShadowRun!)...Or the real deals may be Rifted to BtB Earth and be mistaken for new human mutant breeds....while other animalistic species may also be mistaken for products of the Switchbox Plague!

System Failure
The same computer revolution that whomped SF Earth could have happened on BtB Earth...Now the survivors get to fight the Bugs with tooth and claw and animal super-abilities! Of course, with the later development of the Internet, there may be less hardlines for the Bugs to stage their initial invasion, but this should only slightly slow down their appearance on Earth, not cripple it.

Heroes Unlimited
It is unlikely, but then anything is possible, that more traditional ‘superpowers’ may emerge from the still festering mutagenic stew of BtB Earth, or from the Tech-Nazi labs, in their search to create the Perfect Man. Such super-mutants are likely to raise some major concerns among the established nations and factions of Earth, depending on the nature and origins of the superbeings. If Human, then there will be fears and concerns of a new wave of mutants sweeping the Earth, or a backlash against the older orders of mutants...Or the new superbeings could simply be accepted as yet another wonder of an ever-changing world....

[CyCo]

Dude, this is some choice stuff!! I've only glanced over it at the moment, but it looks amazing.

My suggestion?

Take this down pronto, write it up properly, and see if you can get this published in the Rifter. Who knows, it may lead into another Pall Books RPG.

;)

[sinestus]

nyarg... so very long...

see previous guys post... at least make it an organized web page...

based off the bit i skimmed at the beginning... sounds amusing...
as for teh TMNT - Robotech crossover, actually did one like that years ago,
where the team played mutant animals developed as an experimental project to replace human pilots, as the war going on (was kinda a Macross 7 setting) had the humans on the loosing side...
thus based ont he group's success, other mutant animal pilots were bred...
near the end, the key animals were weasels (uber-reflexes) and dolphins (already well aware of 3-d movement situations)...

[Mr Grinch]

Great stuff! Love it. I agree, try and get it into the rifter. If that fails, compile and edit it into a pdf and release via the internet.

[taalismn]

nyarg... so very long...

see previous guys post... at least make it an organized web page...

based off the bit i skimmed at the beginning... sounds amusing...
as for teh TMNT - Robotech crossover, actually did one like that years ago,
where the team played mutant animals developed as an experimental project to replace human pilots, as the war going on (was kinda a Macross 7 setting) had the humans on the loosing side...
thus based ont he group's success, other mutant animal pilots were bred...
near the end, the key animals were weasels (uber-reflexes) and dolphins (already well aware of 3-d movement situations)...

Heh...sorry for the length...I'm addicted to content(fluff) and stink at editing myself.
As for a Rifter submission or web page, I am a) too cowardly, b) too dumb, and c) too lazy, so enjoy the fireworks as I do myself out of some possible pocketchange(!)...still, thanks for thinking so highly of it...

As to the RDF breeding mutant animals? I had a similar idea for my 'Mutantech' setting, which I will go into in similarly verbose detail on in the near-future(essentially, it's 'Mutagens and Robotech' with the superpower and psychic slant), so I see I'm in good company....

[Mr Grinch]

Heh...sorry for the length...I'm addicted to content(fluff) and stink at editing myself.
As for a Rifter submission or web page, I am a) too cowardly, b) too dumb, and c) too lazy, so enjoy the fireworks as I do myself out of some possible pocketchange(!)...still, thanks for thinking so highly of it...

....

Hmm...what about allowing someone else to compile it for you then? Or letting them run with it and give you a heartfelt c0-credit?

No no...not me. lol, I don't have the time but I can definately see something cool with your ideas.

[taalismn]

Wow. You just said a mouthful. Or, as you're most probably typing, a fistful.
It sounds cool, really. But... uh... could you have somebody trim down the text? It gave my eyes indigestion, I fear. They were not able to take it all in.

Okay, more accurately, I don't have the attention span. But it's the only thing standing in my way of getting to know your setting.
Oh yes. Good job and kudos.

Sorry...as I said, something else always occurs to me and I just have to toss it in(this is how, in college, I was able to pad a page's worth of notes into a five page op paper)...So I imagine you're voicing comments my college professors also had on their mind("ARGH! My eyes! MY EYES! Scribblies all over the walls!")

Still, I'm gl;ad you've enjoyed what you slogged through

[gordyzx9r]

I liked it in as much as a theme, though I'd probably not use it. I'm not big on the Robotech and like crossovers.

[taalismn]

Holy Guacamole!


And just for the record I love it that Canada survived the brunt of SwapPox just for the fact that it's... well... Canadian! WooHoo!

Well, Canadian military industry gets short shrift in the press due to the big military industrial complexes in the USA and Europe....But at the beginning of WW2, Canada started out with less than forty tanks, all vintage Carden-Lloyds or WW1 heaps purchased from Great Britain or as scrap from the USA....by the end of the war, Canada had churned out over 3,000 copies of its own Ram tank(a medium based on the US M3 Grant, itself the ancestor of the Sherman)...
In more recent years, besides the Avro Arrow, the Canadians produced their own promising tilt-wing VTOL, well before the US was dinking around with the Osprey....but the program was quietly shelved for economic reasons...
So, despite having a lower population, and less preparedness, the Canadians clearly had the same ability to gear up and fast as the industries to the south....And in BtB, having seen the upheaval elsewhere, and well aware of the threat of the Tech-Nazis, by the time our 'modern age' rolls around, names like Avro, Dehavilland-Canada(DHC), and the like are the giants of the aerospace industries, and likely the senior members of corporate joint efforts(like DHC-Boeing, likely with a factory/test complex sprawling across the border in Washington State, or Avro-Martin)

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

Yes I'd like to order a super large taalismn post with extra AWESOME-SAUCE!!!

[CyCo]

Dear god, 14 years old thread necromancy!! lol

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

The last post before mine was only 10 years ago (give or take a couple months).

JFK was shot in 1963. Lincoln in 1865. Neither of those events were/are as interesting as some of the ideas in this thread. People still talk about those events and make movies and documentaries about them.

Don't hate on me bro. lol

[CyCo]

Sorry, I was thinking it was a 14 year old topic and 10 years since the last reply, just typed in the wrong numbers! lol

[Glistam]

This is a rather phenomenal idea. Thank you for resurrecting it, I probably never would've seen it otherwise.