Farther Parallels

These worlds are considerably more
divergent than the close parallels. A few
examples (Quantum 5, except where
indicated):
Attila: The Mongol invasion of
Europe crushed Western and Islamic
civilization. Eurasia and northern
Africa are forest and grassland, ruled by
warring nomadic tribes. Some urban
civilizations exist in Japan and South
America.
Campbell:
Science-fiction editor
John W. Campbell died in a traffic acci-
dent early in his career. As a result,
many science-fiction writers never
developed their talents, and SF didn’t
advance much past space opera.
Apparently, this reduced the number of
students who became interested in sci-
ence and engineering, because scientif-
ic development has stagnated here
since the end of WWII.
Cornwallis: It is 1984. Revolution
failed in America and never came to
France. The world is TL6, dominated by
conservative, aristocratic monarchies
. . . but a new revolution is brewing.
Gernsback: A TL(6+2) “techno-
utopia.” Nikola Tesla married Anne
Morgan, daughter of industrialist J.P.
Morgan. Backed by Morgan’s money,
Tesla’s genius changed the world with
inventions such as broadcast power.
The transistor and modern electronics
are unknown . . . but atomic power, ray
guns, dirigibles, and air cars are com-
mon. There was no World War II – the
League of Nations reigns, guided by the
World Science Council. Gernsback is a
covert battleground between Centrum
and Infinity, each side coveting
Gernsback’s wealth (much of its tech-
nology, unfortunately, fails to work in
other realities). Quantum 7.
Johnson’s
Rome:
The
Roman
Empire is still intact, and cheerfully
decadent, in the year 1206 A.D. . . .and
Johnson Crosstime Incorporated is
developing it as a vacation spot. The
corporation is using systematic bribery
and infiltration to take over the Empire.
It is already turning a huge profit. Part
of the program involves outlawing pub-
lic tortures and the most brutal forms
of gladiatorial combat, but most of the
decadent attractions of Rome will
remain intact. (There are many other
recreational timelines; this is just one of
the most successful.)
Midgard: A TL4 world. The Vikings
conquered Byzantium and used its
wealth (and the secret of Greek fire) to
overthrow Christendom. It is now 1412:
the dawn of a Nordic age of discovery,
colonization, and piracy in the
Americas. Quantum 7.
Ming-3: In our world, China turned
its back on exploration in the 15th cen-
tury. In Ming-3, it did not. It is now
1859, and the Middle Kingdom (cur-
rently TL5) rules a global empire.
Quantum 7.
The Thousand-Year Reich: The com-
mon science-fiction nightmare of a
Nazi victory in World War II exists on
five known alternates in Q4 and Q5.
The U.N., aided by Infinity, recruits and
infiltrates agents into two of the “earli-
er” ones (local dates 1952 and 1961),
with the hope of overthrowing the Axis
governments. Two more are further
along: one in 1970, and one in 1988.
These are under careful observation.
The 1988 world is actually less
advanced than the 1970 one, having
suffered a Third World War in which
the Nazis destroyed Japan with nuclear
weapons and lost many major cities in
Europe and North America. The fifth
and most worrisome Nazi world is
Reich-5; see p. 543 for details.