"What if?" topics for Temporal Book series.

[taalismn]

What if the Prometheans decided that the only thing better than controlling a major interdimensional trade hub would be to control TWO trade hubs, and arrive with the numbers and gear to seize control and bind Earth's Rifts, turning Rifts Earth into a super-Center?

"Welcome to Rifts Earth, Wal-Mart of the infinite Megaverse!"

"Here's your basket and here's your floor map. Garden supplies in the Amazon region, Automative in Germany. Look out for Blue Light Specials."

[cornholioprime]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

[taalismn]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Kiss civilization goodbye...all that would be left would be those few people(and their descendants) who either remembered, or acquired magic. Technology doesn't work against the big bads here, but Magic apparently does, so Science takes a back seat...at least until d-bess with usable, relevant, MDC technology appear, while it's the Age of Magic again, And Psionics, since the mutants will be the ones who survive to breed.

[Comrade Corsarius]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Didn't Harry Turtledove write a series roughly like this, except involving lizards from space?

[Grell]

Lizards from space, you say? Sounds like RIFTS fodder to me!

[Comrade Corsarius]

Well WW2 Rifts: Earth would be awesome.

To balance it more, I'd rather the 'event' pass back to earlier in the war. By the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway/just about done (no, I'm not having this argument here, so please don't let's fight it out. They were about done no matter how you look at it). I'd prefer a more equal spread of power, with various unlikely combinations being forced together to battle rifts demons.

[cornholioprime]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Didn't Harry Turtledove write a series roughly like this, except involving lizards from space?

Heard of Turtledove (never read him though), but don't know the series of which you speak.

[PhellaOne]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Kiss civilization goodbye...all that would be left would be those few people(and their descendants) who either remembered, or acquired magic. Technology doesn't work against the big bads here, but Magic apparently does, so Science takes a back seat...at least until d-bess with usable, relevant, MDC technology appear, while it's the Age of Magic again, And Psionics, since the mutants will be the ones who survive to breed.

Hmmm...

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Kiss civilization goodbye...all that would be left would be those few people(and their descendants) who either remembered, or acquired magic. Technology doesn't work against the big bads here, but Magic apparently does, so Science takes a back seat...at least until d-bess with usable, relevant, MDC technology appear, while it's the Age of Magic again, And Psionics, since the mutants will be the ones who survive to breed.

Don't know if I agree. We certainly would have taken a pasting but I'm not sure if we would have ended up worse off.

WildWalker

Really?!?!?! So you think that SDC WWII era equipment will be able to fend off MDC monsters of magic? Are you knuts?

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Kiss civilization goodbye...all that would be left would be those few people(and their descendants) who either remembered, or acquired magic. Technology doesn't work against the big bads here, but Magic apparently does, so Science takes a back seat...at least until d-bess with usable, relevant, MDC technology appear, while it's the Age of Magic again, And Psionics, since the mutants will be the ones who survive to breed.

Now lets add one more thing in when Atlantis is ported back it happens to be pre Sploog occupation and that is where all the PCs start from.

Hey how the heck did sploogs end up being able to come to earth anyway... for that matter how did the Deep One or any other AI? I could have sworn that one of the rules of being an AI is that there is a sufficient amount of worshippers in the dimension... then again that is probably because the worshippers provide PPE and RE has more than enough... There is a thought. RE has how many AIs and VIs we know of? Each of those came without requiring worshippers, so they're drawing off the ambient PPE of RE... they're draining REs PPE or MAYBE they're actually regulating it. What would happen if all the AIs and VIs and every other PPE based life form that came to RE without worshippers AND every PPE vampire suddenly just left the dimension? What would happen to a circuit if every resistor, capacitor and inductor suddenly became shorts? Does RE go boom or does it start bleeding over into other dimensions?

[Comrade Corsarius]

I think that the weaponry of WW2 push out LOW MDC, certainly things like 17-pound guns (as mounted on the Sherman Firefly), heavy bombs, Katyusha, nebelwerfer, panzershreck, etc.

The supernatural element could work too. Certainly the nazis dabbled away in the occult (is there anything they DIDN'T do?). Perhaps the thule society were the ones who caused the rift opening in (say, 1942? 43?) and now are at the forefront of the fight to save humanity, much like a jackbooted and skull embossed group we all know and love.

Remember there were other wars on at the time of (but not associated with) WW2 including south america.

[taalismn]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Okay...how about if that bomb triggered a Ring of Fire event, sending volcanos all up and down the Pacific Rim in a daisey chain. Blows a good percentage of Japan into the ocean and triggers the Big One in California. Getting close on the Death Manna Meter?

[Comrade Corsarius]

What if the rifts opened in a universe akin to Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

No wait. That would be a silly thing.

[cornholioprime]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Sure there would.

Remember that The Coming of the Rifts was the result of a cascade chain reaction of dying people who died in stages....they didn't all die at once.

All that Rifts Earth needed was a match dropped into the little puddle of gasoline, at just the right time when other full tanks of gas were sitting right nearby.

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the rifts opened in a universe akin to Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

No wait. That would be a silly thing.

Go away before we taunt you once more you silly English Kanigits

But that would certainly be a quest that IS suitable for Arthuu

[taalismn]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Okay...how about if that bomb triggered a Ring of Fire event, sending volcanos all up and down the Pacific Rim in a daisey chain. Blows a good percentage of Japan into the ocean and triggers the Big One in California. Getting close on the Death Manna Meter?

This would leave the US manufacturing capability less affected than if the Yosemite Super Volcano blew...

WildWalker

But in this case it's(the wartime economy) still turning out SDC weaponry...against MDC critters. That means its Apocalypse NOW for the squishies. Personal armor is non-existant, portable radios are still the size of a loaf of bread. Gasmasks are still activated charcoal systems(there's only two Aquad-Lungs in existence,a nd they're both in France with a young Jacques Cousteau), and the dangers of nuclear radiation are not fully understood.
It's going to get ugly REAL fast.

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Okay...how about if that bomb triggered a Ring of Fire event, sending volcanos all up and down the Pacific Rim in a daisey chain. Blows a good percentage of Japan into the ocean and triggers the Big One in California. Getting close on the Death Manna Meter?

This would leave the US manufacturing capability less affected than if the Yosemite Super Volcano blew...

WildWalker

Dunnoh? All the volcanos erupting is one thing, all the volcanoes exploding is another and most of the volcanoes aren't in inhabited locations. It would most certainly create a nuclear winter LIKE effect maybe starting an ice age but the deaths caused by that are so far off from the 1200 that it wouldn't count.

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Okay...how about if that bomb triggered a Ring of Fire event, sending volcanos all up and down the Pacific Rim in a daisey chain. Blows a good percentage of Japan into the ocean and triggers the Big One in California. Getting close on the Death Manna Meter?

This would leave the US manufacturing capability less affected than if the Yosemite Super Volcano blew...

WildWalker

But in this case it's(the wartime economy) still turning out SDC weaponry...against MDC critters. That means its Apocalypse NOW for the squishies. Personal armor is non-existant, portable radios are still the size of a loaf of bread. Gasmasks are still activated charcoal systems, and the dangers of nuclear radiation are not fully understood.
It's going to get ugly REAL fast.

Uh... gas masks are still primarily activated charcoal and the suits (JLIST) are too.

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Sure there would.

Remember that The Coming of the Rifts was the result of a cascade chain reaction of dying people who died in stages....they didn't all die at once.

All that Rifts Earth needed was a match dropped into the little puddle of gasoline, at just the right time when other full tanks of gas were sitting right nearby.

How many nukes were exchanged and where?

[Zer0 Kay]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

Kiss civilization goodbye...all that would be left would be those few people(and their descendants) who either remembered, or acquired magic. Technology doesn't work against the big bads here, but Magic apparently does, so Science takes a back seat...at least until d-bess with usable, relevant, MDC technology appear, while it's the Age of Magic again, And Psionics, since the mutants will be the ones who survive to breed.

Don't know if I agree. We certainly would have taken a pasting but I'm not sure if we would have ended up worse off.

WildWalker

Really?!?!?! So you think that SDC WWII era equipment will be able to fend off MDC monsters of magic? Are you knuts?

Often...

I think that the weaponry of WW2 push out LOW MDC, certainly things like 17-pound guns (as mounted on the Sherman Firefly), heavy bombs, Katyusha, nebelwerfer, panzershreck, etc.

The supernatural element could work too. Certainly the nazis dabbled away in the occult (is there anything they DIDN'T do?). Perhaps the thule society were the ones who caused the rift opening in (say, 1942? 43?) and now are at the forefront of the fight to save humanity, much like a jackbooted and skull embossed group we all know and love.

Remember there were other wars on at the time of (but not associated with) WW2 including south america.

I'm with Corsarius. all of the demons also have secondary vulnerabilities and there are some light man portable MDC weapons from WWII. German Panzerfaust, US Bazooka, Finnish L39. If you think .50 cal with armor piercing is light MDC then there are other weapons with the same level of on target kinetic energy... including a couple of British double hunting rifles.

Then you have artillery, aircraft mounted weapons and field guns. So long as we still had manufacturing ability we'd have a chance against the early nastiness... and in WWII we were innovating at an almost unheard of pace.

People would be one hit one kill but I could see bazooka teams backed by jeep or armored car mounted cannons or fast moving jeeps loaded down with a mix of weapons like the gun jeeps used in Africa that are trading mobility for capability. And then you've go the German magic programs we know about that might actually have been real magic on a Rifts Earth and American Indian mysticism.

I could see American special teams that wore "Ghost Shirts" that were actually magical MDC.

I'm not saying it would be anything less than grim but people in the 1940s were also incredibly capable individually.

WildWalker

It would most certainly be a far more grimm and dark post apocolyptic world than Rifts Ever was.

[taalismn]

[Uh... gas masks are still primarily activated charcoal and the suits (JLIST) are too.

Well, I added that the only two aqua-lungs in 945 are in France with a young Jacques Cousteau. Partial pressure suits ARE around, but full pressure suits are still Wiley Post-style nautical diving suit contraptions.

[taalismn]

[I'm with Corsarius. all of the demons also have secondary vulnerabilities and there are some light man portable MDC weapons from WWII. German Panzerfaust, US Bazooka, Finnish L39. If you think .50 cal with armor piercing is light MDC then there are other weapons with the same level of on target kinetic energy... including a couple of British double hunting rifles.

Then you have artillery, aircraft mounted weapons and field guns. So long as we still had manufacturing ability we'd have a chance against the early nastiness... and in WWII we were innovating at an almost unheard of pace.

People would be one hit one kill but I could see bazooka teams backed by jeep or armored car mounted cannons or fast moving jeeps loaded down with a mix of weapons like the gun jeeps used in Africa that are trading mobility for capability. And then you've go the German magic programs we know about that might actually have been real magic on a Rifts Earth and American Indian mysticism.

I could see American special teams that wore "Ghost Shirts" that were actually magical MDC.

I'm not saying it would be anything less than grim but people in the 1940s were also incredibly capable individually.

WildWalker

Yep; there's the plus side that the technology is a lot SIMPLER, so the nomads that the destruction of the cities will generate will be a lot more mobile, running their Studebakers and Jeeps off moonshine until they can start learning magic. Technowizardry might get an early start, especially with the home tinkerer set, though it wil be less computer hacker and more Rube Goldberg("Presenting the Goldberg Demon-Smashing Bedside Alarm System!")

[Comrade Corsarius]

[Uh... gas masks are still primarily activated charcoal and the suits (JLIST) are too.

Well, I added that the only two aqua-lungs in 945 are in France with a young Jacques Cousteau. Partial pressure suits ARE around, but full pressure suits are still Wiley Post-style nautical diving suit contraptions.

True re the aqualungs, but rebreathers were in use by frogmen from across the globe.

And while they were humorously dreadful at everything else in WW2 (these are the people who invented the 'tankette'), the Italians were the ones who really pioneered frogman commando and destruction operations using their 'pig' manned torpedoes, an idea so innovative that the British copied it (with the 'chariot')

I think that it would be like Rifts, but if it were a bastard mix of WW2 fantasy fiction, Rifts, and Nightbane (for the sheer horror of it all).

Then again, let's look at the positive. Belief in the supernatural was much higher then than now, which would indicate that with the opening of the rifts, many 'old wives tales' and folk traditions which we only vaguely remember (why do we toss salt over our shoulder? Fendahl?) suddenly become very important, but there would be enough people (not many, but enough) to remember 'the old ways' to impart a form of mystical ability. Mystics or Witches, certainly, probably not a lot in the way of Ley Line Walkers or Shifters (unless there was a school for such things, such as nazi germany, or places in India for the Commonwealth).

You must also remember the willingness to accept new things and new ideas that came with the war. We went from, in 1939, fighting with canvass-covered biplanes and monoplanes (fiat cr.42, gloster gladiator, hawker hurricane) to, in a very short 6 years, jet-powered fighter planes armed with cannon, and even the first stages of infared guided air-to-air missiles (Me262, He163, Gloster Meteor, Lockheed P-80). There were also rushed designs which we wouldn't even contemplate these days. How long is the F-35 taking in development? How about the F-22, or the Eurofighter? Decades? The CA-12 Boomerang fighter went from concept to first flight in less than 6 months. The Heinkel 162 jet fighter (armed with, arguably, MDC cannon) was conceived, designed, and first flown in about 10 weeks! With this in mind, I would expect that all of the forces would scale up their design and production quickly to meet the new threat, and the units recieving the weapons would be quickly adapted to their use. Also, new technologies would be examined by the 'boffins', such as Barnes Wallis, Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Heisenberg, etc etc and at the very least incorporated if not outright copied.

I think the human powers would cope, possibly even better than, say, if the rifts opened up right now. People were READY for war and calamity in a way that we just aren't.

[taalismn]

[Uh... gas masks are still primarily activated charcoal and the suits (JLIST) are too.

Well, I added that the only two aqua-lungs in 945 are in France with a young Jacques Cousteau. Partial pressure suits ARE around, but full pressure suits are still Wiley Post-style nautical diving suit contraptions.

True re the aqualungs, but rebreathers were in use by frogmen from across the globe.

And while they were humorously dreadful at everything else in WW2 (these are the people who invented the 'tankette'), the Italians were the ones who really pioneered frogman commando and destruction operations using their 'pig' manned torpedoes, an idea so innovative that the British copied it (with the 'chariot')

I think that it would be like Rifts, but if it were a bastard mix of WW2 fantasy fiction, Rifts, and Nightbane (for the sheer horror of it all).

Then again, let's look at the positive. Belief in the supernatural was much higher then than now, which would indicate that with the opening of the rifts, many 'old wives tales' and folk traditions which we only vaguely remember (why do we toss salt over our shoulder? Fendahl?) suddenly become very important, but there would be enough people (not many, but enough) to remember 'the old ways' to impart a form of mystical ability. Mystics or Witches, certainly, probably not a lot in the way of Ley Line Walkers or Shifters (unless there was a school for such things, such as nazi germany, or places in India for the Commonwealth).

You must also remember the willingness to accept new things and new ideas that came with the war. We went from, in 1939, fighting with canvass-covered biplanes and monoplanes (fiat cr.42, gloster gladiator, hawker hurricane) to, in a very short 6 years, jet-powered fighter planes armed with cannon, and even the first stages of infared guided air-to-air missiles (Me262, He163, Gloster Meteor, Lockheed P-80). There were also rushed designs which we wouldn't even contemplate these days. How long is the F-35 taking in development? How about the F-22, or the Eurofighter? Decades? The CA-12 Boomerang fighter went from concept to first flight in less than 6 months. The Heinkel 162 jet fighter (armed with, arguably, MDC cannon) was conceived, designed, and first flown in about 10 weeks! With this in mind, I would expect that all of the forces would scale up their design and production quickly to meet the new threat, and the units recieving the weapons would be quickly adapted to their use. Also, new technologies would be examined by the 'boffins', such as Barnes Wallis, Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Heisenberg, etc etc and at the very least incorporated if not outright copied.

I think the human powers would cope, possibly even better than, say, if the rifts opened up right now. People were READY for war and calamity in a way that we just aren't.

Certainly spirituality was taken a lot more seriously, and that could have a profound effect on how folks might go about acquiring magical powers(or deal with manifesting psionic ones).

[cornholioprime]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Sure there would.

Remember that The Coming of the Rifts was the result of a cascade chain reaction of dying people who died in stages....they didn't all die at once.

All that Rifts Earth needed was a match dropped into the little puddle of gasoline, at just the right time when other full tanks of gas were sitting right nearby.

How many nukes were exchanged and where?

Just a couple.

MAYBE you could argue that this particular Coming of the Rifts would start out at a slower rate of burn, but if there's enough fuel in them there Ley Lines, then it doesn't really matter how much less PPE was fed into them compared to the "real" event, as long as a significant amount of 'Death Energy' was tossed into the mix at one time (and the population of Hiroshima was about 250-300,000 in 1945).

[Comrade Corsarius]

What if the War Planners of World War Two inadvertently brought The Rifts to Earth "prematurely" by detonating Fat Man at midnight of the summer solstice at Hiroshima instead of 8 in the morning on that August day in 1945 (on a Ley Line in Rifts: Japan, go look it up!)...thereby bringing the supernatural evils of the Megaverse to Earth at a time long before monster-killing MegaDamage Materials and Armors and Weapons were ever developed??

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Sure there would.

Remember that The Coming of the Rifts was the result of a cascade chain reaction of dying people who died in stages....they didn't all die at once.

All that Rifts Earth needed was a match dropped into the little puddle of gasoline, at just the right time when other full tanks of gas were sitting right nearby.

How many nukes were exchanged and where?

Just a couple.

MAYBE you could argue that this particular Coming of the Rifts would start out at a slower rate of burn, but if there's enough fuel in them there Ley Lines, then it doesn't really matter how much less PPE was fed into them compared to the "real" event, as long as a significant amount of 'Death Energy' was tossed into the mix at one time (and the population of Hiroshima was about 250-300,000 in 1945).

Okay, well we've got Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We also have *speculative* nazi and japanese tests, although what if in this universe they were real?

I still think that setting it earlier than 1945 would be better for gameplay, though.

As I said before, you've also got various mystical dabblings by the nazis, so put them all together and whaddayagot?

[taalismn]

I like the WWII idea, I am not sure a full rift earth event was needed. We know the Nazi's were into occult, its not to farfetched to imagine someone learning about leylines. Imagine if history went a little different and the nazi's started putting their death camps right on top of nexus point locations. Gates DO appear, and things like aliens, d-bees, demons,etc DO leak through, but more as a slow leak and not the torrent that was rift earths. It would be interesting to see how the powers that be react to this new factors, and how society adapts to it.

Read David Brin's short story "Thor Meets Captain America"....It's much the same idea.

[Zer0 Kay]

I don't think there'd be enough death.

Sure there would.

Remember that The Coming of the Rifts was the result of a cascade chain reaction of dying people who died in stages....they didn't all die at once.

All that Rifts Earth needed was a match dropped into the little puddle of gasoline, at just the right time when other full tanks of gas were sitting right nearby.

How many nukes were exchanged and where?

Just a couple.

MAYBE you could argue that this particular Coming of the Rifts would start out at a slower rate of burn, but if there's enough fuel in them there Ley Lines, then it doesn't really matter how much less PPE was fed into them compared to the "real" event, as long as a significant amount of 'Death Energy' was tossed into the mix at one time (and the population of Hiroshima was about 250-300,000 in 1945).

Okay, well we've got Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We also have *speculative* nazi and japanese tests, although what if in this universe they were real?

I still think that setting it earlier than 1945 would be better for gameplay, though.

As I said before, you've also got various mystical dabblings by the nazis, so put them all together and whaddayagot?

Can I get the citation for the "just a couple"? Please.

[taalismn]

[

As I said before, you've also got various mystical dabblings by the nazis, so put them all together and whaddayagot?

Can I get the citation for the "just a couple"? Please.[/quote]


Well, there were (unsubstantiated) claims that the Japanese were experimenting with heavy water at a complex in Korea, and tall tales that they tested a device in a remote Korean harbor in late 1944/1945.
Curses...I loaned out to my brother my copy of a book on German efforts to develop strategic bombers able to hit the United States...otherwise I could quote title, author, and page number. One of the appendices on what the Germans had to bomb with covered the various rumors of German nuclear ordnance, including, again, dubious authenticity, of a prison camp guard in Poland who claimed to have seen a test of a missile that produced a bright fireball and after effects that suggest radiation sickness, and a Luftwaffe airman who claimed to have witnessed a similar aerial test.

[cornholioprime]

Can I get the citation for the "just a couple"? Please.

Okay, I see what you mean, and re-reading the text (Rifts: Chaos Earth, specifically), it says that a couple of cities were nuked, but implies multiple nuclear missile strikes.

Still and all, I don't think that the lower number of nukes takes away from the WWII-Early-Rifts scenario, since that Bomb killed off virtually everyone at once -hundreds of thousands of people -in a Japanese city that seems to have had more people crammed into less space than did Guada Marta (evident by the fact that the real world Hiroshima was wiped out by a "mere" kiloton-strength bomb MUCH less powerful than all the weapons that came after it.....including the 'outdated' megaton bombs deployed in 2098).

The Earth of the Rifts setting is and has almost always been a mystical powderkeg, what with it being a Megaversal Nexus, and I daresay that even a "relatively low death yield event" mass killing of life that happened at a Ley Line or Nexus on the Winter/Summer Solstice from, say, an Earthquake or a supermassive volcanic eruption or even another Tsunami like the one that recently happened in Indonesia, the Rifts would be up and running anyway.

[Zer0 Kay]

Can I get the citation for the "just a couple"? Please.

Okay, I see what you mean, and re-reading the text (Rifts: Chaos Earth, specifically), it says that a couple of cities were nuked, but implies multiple nuclear missile strikes.

Still and all, I don't think that the lower number of nukes takes away from the WWII-Early-Rifts scenario, since that Bomb killed off virtually everyone at once -hundreds of thousands of people -in a Japanese city that seems to have had more people crammed into less space than did Guada Marta (evident by the fact that the real world Hiroshima was wiped out by a "mere" kiloton-strength bomb MUCH less powerful than all the weapons that came after it.....including the 'outdated' megaton bombs deployed in 2098).

The Earth of the Rifts setting is and has almost always been a mystical powderkeg, what with it being a Megaversal Nexus, and I daresay that even a "relatively low death yield event" mass killing of life that happened at a Ley Line or Nexus on the Winter/Summer Solstice from, say, an Earthquake or a supermassive volcanic eruption or even another Tsunami like the one that recently happened in Indonesia, the Rifts would be up and running anyway.

Ah but according to Rifts they didn't die.

[Zer0 Kay]

[

As I said before, you've also got various mystical dabblings by the nazis, so put them all together and whaddayagot?

Can I get the citation for the "just a couple"? Please.

Well, there were (unsubstantiated) claims that the Japanese were experimenting with heavy water at a complex in Korea, and tall tales that they tested a device in a remote Korean harbor in late 1944/1945.
Curses...I loaned out to my brother my copy of a book on German efforts to develop strategic bombers able to hit the United States...otherwise I could quote title, author, and page number. One of the appendices on what the Germans had to bomb with covered the various rumors of German nuclear ordnance, including, again, dubious authenticity, of a prison camp guard in Poland who claimed to have seen a test of a missile that produced a bright fireball and after effects that suggest radiation sickness, and a Luftwaffe airman who claimed to have witnessed a similar aerial test.[/quote]

Hey buddy, fix your quotes... I didn't say that part.

[Comrade Corsarius]

No, I did.

But, you know, I don't mind if Zer0 Kay says my stuff.

The answer to the question anyway is "bippity boppity boo", which I expect may be one of the sounds that an opening rift makes.... uh... or something.

sorry, morning here. Not enough coffee.

[PhellaOne]

What if the Republic of Japan didn't "Temporal Shift" at the start of the Cataclysm? What if they stayed in the timestream, the way the NGR/Triax did?

[cornholioprime]

What if the Republic of Japan didn't "Temporal Shift" at the start of the Cataclysm? What if they stayed in the timestream, the way the NGR/Triax did?

This one's kind of easy.

Japan was severely damaged, unlike a rather large portion of Europe, and any portion of Golden Age Japan that didn't get rifted to "safety" would have been destroyed -or worse, survived only to fall to the monsters and first few decades of extreme weather -like most of the rest of the island chain was.

[taalismn]

Hey buddy, fix your quotes... I didn't say that part.

Right.
So you didn't say 'Give me liberty or give me free cable!' either? Or "Your threat does not frighten me because I face instant annihilation every day on my commute to work!"? Because I've quoted you on those on several occasions.


What if the Northern Hemisphere were effectively sealed off from the South by an impenetrable Temporal Barrier erected immediately upon the Coming of the Rifts? Time flows more quickly on one side, and one side is free of Rifts and demonic incursions*. The people on one side can see that the other side is apparently devastated by monsters, while the other side can see that the other demon free.

*Depending on which side has the monsters roaming it, one side might see the horrors of the Rifts playing in high speed, while the opposite side sees the Golden Age apparently trapped in temporal amber just beyond the barrier. Alternately, while one side is slo-mo ravaged by demonic critters and a universe gone mad, the other side is flashing ahead, technologically advancing and preparing for the eventuality that the Temporal Barrier might one day go down.

[PhellaOne]

What if the Republic of Japan didn't "Temporal Shift" at the start of the Cataclysm? What if they stayed in the timestream, the way the NGR/Triax did?

This one's kind of easy.

Japan was severely damaged, unlike a rather large portion of Europe, and any portion of Golden Age Japan that didn't get rifted to "safety" would have been destroyed -or worse, survived only to fall to the monsters and first few decades of extreme weather -like most of the rest of the island chain was.

What if after the "Great Quake" of 2011 and a larger, more powerful earthquake in 2052, the Japanese people were much more prepared for earthquakes, and in a great act of foresight, other natural disasters? Underwater, earthquake-resistant bio-domes built to house their leaders could have kept the chain-of-command intact (somewhat). These same domes could store their accumulated knowledge of Golden Age tech. As the story stands now, we know that not everyone in Japan (the ones unaffected by the temporal shift) was killed in the Great Cataclysm. Maybe the reason the goddess, Ameratsu, left the Oni of the 3 Galaxies was to return to her people on Rifts Earth in order to help them survive the chaos of the Cataclysm? I could go on...

Point is, it could happen. It's Rifts.

[Zer0 Kay]

Hey buddy, fix your quotes... I didn't say that part.

Right.
So you didn't say 'Give me liberty or give me free cable!' either? Or "Your threat does not frighten me because I face instant annihilation every day on my commute to work!"? Because I've quoted you on those on several occasions.


What if the Northern Hemisphere were effectively sealed off from the South by an impenetrable Temporal Barrier erected immediately upon the Coming of the Rifts? Time flows more quickly on one side, and one side is free of Rifts and demonic incursions*. The people on one side can see that the other side is apparently devastated by monsters, while the other side can see that the other demon free.

*Depending on which side has the monsters roaming it, one side might see the horrors of the Rifts playing in high speed, while the opposite side sees the Golden Age apparently trapped in temporal amber just beyond the barrier. Alternately, while one side is slo-mo ravaged by demonic critters and a universe gone mad, the other side is flashing ahead, technologically advancing and preparing for the eventuality that the Temporal Barrier might one day go down.

Um... Okay and I've copywrited them to. That is five cents per use, thank you, please drive foward to the first window.

That would be kinda cool, but what about the orbital communities? What is keeping them from going down to one side or the other? Is the wole planet now in a pocket dimension too? Actually saying that is a good idea not trying to be sarcastic... this time Next time I say that... maybe not.

[Zer0 Kay]

No, I did.

But, you know, I don't mind if Zer0 Kay says my stuff.

The answer to the question anyway is "bippity boppity boo", which I expect may be one of the sounds that an opening rift makes.... uh... or something.

sorry, morning here. Not enough coffee.

Uh... "my stuff"

[Comrade Corsarius]

No, I did.

But, you know, I don't mind if Zer0 Kay says my stuff.

The answer to the question anyway is "bippity boppity boo", which I expect may be one of the sounds that an opening rift makes.... uh... or something.

sorry, morning here. Not enough coffee.

Uh... "my stuff"

See what happens when I lack caffeine? I turn into an incomprehensible mush-typist.

[taalismn]

No, I did.

But, you know, I don't mind if Zer0 Kay says my stuff.

The answer to the question anyway is "bippity boppity boo", which I expect may be one of the sounds that an opening rift makes.... uh... or something.

sorry, morning here. Not enough coffee.

Uh... "my stuff"

See what happens when I lack caffeine? I turn into an incomprehensible mush-typist.

That, and typing late at night in a dark room can lead to some doozies of keyboard errors.
Add to such excuses for typos as:
-Temporary Insanity
-Bad Acid Trip
-Kids trying to kill each other behind my chair
-Kitten playing on keyboard
-Information Superhighway Rage
-Enemy artillery barrage
-Typing with boxing gloves on
-Typing with arm casts on
-Typing with feet
-Typing with face
-Typing with tentacles
-Grim Reaper looking over shoulder


Annnndddd...In answer to thw question, with regards to my 'Temporal Barrier' scenario:
Can the Orbitals come down on either side?
Well, you can assume that one side or the other appears to have an impenetrable 'roof', leading to speculation that the Barrier is artificially created to maintain those conditions inside the enclosed space, for whatever reason(accelerating the 'petri dish' culture, preserving the contents from harm, saving lunch for later, etc...), or that anybody going up and away on either side simply vanishes into an alternate dimension, suggesting that the entire PLANET is somehow encompassed in some larger space/time anomaly.

[Grell]

Don't mean to change the direction of the topic, but I got another one for you: What if instead of disappearing during the days of the Dark Age, if the D-Shifters from Chaos Earth: Rise of Magic became as common as Psi-Stalkers in official canon? Suddenly, there's millions of magical do-gooder humans promoting learning and understanding amongst all lifeforms. How would THAT effect the dominant paradigms of "magic bad" and "D-Bees evil" as was historical?

I like this. Humans would have had a much better edge in dealing with the sudden return of magic. Though I'm sure the current landscape of things would be drastically different.

[PhellaOne]

What if the Vanguard, through their covert works, actually changed the CS opinions on magic, and eventually some of the more human-looking D-bees?

[PhellaOne]

Maybe give some elaboration and a few examples.

All four of these projects are started but nowhere near complete.

Temporal Book One: Tolkeen Survives! - This one would explore the world setting (focusing on North America) if Gen. Jericho Holmes didn't make it through the Hivelands. Without his forces and the surprise attack from the north, Tolkeen survives. What then?

Temporal Book Two: Erin Tarn, R.I.P. - What would the world (mainly North America AND Europe) look like without her influence?

Temporal Book Three: Mrr'Lynn Exposed. - This would probably start a civil war in New Camelot as King Arr'thuu and his loyal court battle against the alien intelligence that has manipulated the land for his own twisted purposes (What exactly those purposes are is something I won't speak of here. ). Throw in the forces of the Eternal City, Fomorians, and the Splugorth minions at London and we're talking about MASSIVE battles and chaos! This is one of my best ideas in years and I'll guard this plot until publication!

Temporal Book Four: Earth Doomed (on the Armageddon creature of the Four Horsemen). - Two or three of the Horsemen unite to form the Armageddon creature. 'Nuff said.

In light of my recent discussion with Alex M., I'm bringing back this topic to see if there are anymore suggestions.
We didn't speak about any Palladium projects, but I've been exercising a renewed creativity with all things Palladium.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

What if the coalition was Right about D-bees....o wait they are!!!

[Slight001]

What if the coalition was Right about D-bees....o wait they are!!!

on a more serious note... what if they truly were right and all D-bee's were out to eliminate or replace humanity as the inheritors of earth? Just imagine how similar and different the CS would be with all of humanity (the NA at least) unified in war for true survival... the Vanguard might even be tolerated as a 'necessary' evil... hells near human mutants might be more tolerated (perhaps a CS Juicer like citizenship program for near human mutants)

Bradford would likely be given full approval for any and all means to be explored leading to the creation of various 'classes' of CS Super Soldiers.

Oh the horrors that would be forged in a war of absolute no holds barred survival with humanity taking the kid gloves off and pulling out the silver plated and vibro-spiked brass knuckles...

IIRC (don't remember where I read it though...) the other races are a bit scared of humanity for our ability to develop our tech and our weaponry is second to none with virtually all races trailing out pace of development by factors in the hundreds to thousands of years...

[PhellaOne]

What if the Prometheans decided that the only thing better than controlling a major interdimensional trade hub would be to control TWO trade hubs, and arrive with the numbers and gear to seize control and bind Earth's Rifts, turning Rifts Earth into a super-Center?

Ok, this one got my attention...
"What if" the Minion War escalated beyond the Prometheans ability to defend Center?! Where would they go? Did they hear of an upstart Splugorth who recently took possession of an entire (smallish) continent on a relatively new Megaversal gateway planet?

Gonna run with this idea for a bit, see what pans out. Any suggestions on this theme: desperate Promethean refugees on Atlantis? How far can they get against a young Splugorth?