Yep, that'd be the one alright.
I still have a lot of work on the world building. I seem to have a lot of various elements, but I need to fit them all together into a functioning whole.
World Wars I and II... While the first one was bound to happen regardless, the Shadow Cabal definitely instigated WWII, as Musolini and Hirohito were among their members.
But not Hitler. He was something entirely unexpected, and while it was intended that Germany go a-conquering, Hitler was so charismatic that he stole the show entirely - much to the detriment for their scenario. While Hitler did indeed push things in the right direction, it is a foregone conclusion that his management of the military... well, sucked to be quite honest.
With that, everything cascaded into failure. Russia was not conquered, thus enabling a critical linking of supply lines between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, not to mention the resources of Russian oil reserves that was denied.
But that wasn't the only thing that went horribly wrong.
These conflicts were far too big for the supernatural aspects of Earth to remain hidden, and this was especially true when Nazi Occultists damn-near triggered an apocalypse, thus necessitating a response from the long-hiding druids and the fae. The fae response was particularly nasty as the Unseele was more or less given free license short of plunging the world into further darkness.
Suffice to say, entire family lines disappeared in the night, never to be heard from again.
Japan... Japan got a lot more than they bargained for. Sages in China basically pleaded to their gods. And then pretty much the entire Chinese pantheon descended on Japan, complete with their Holy Dragons. This, however, didn't happen until after the Pearl Harbor attack and a righteously cheesed-off American Navy suddenly came a-knocking just in time for the fireworks to start.
By the time they made it to Honshu (which happened a LOT quicker than in original history), the civilians were practically running to the Americans for protection. (This had some very interesting ramifications for military doctrine. Battleships did not go 'out of fashion' as aircraft carriers weren't as badly needed when the Japanese encroachment was pushed back so easily. Additionally, the Yamato and Musashi were taken as war prizes to help fill in the USA's suddenly flaccid battleship lines.)
Japan does get heavily Westernized as a result of this, but the Kami and Ayakashi of Japan have a resurgence in response to the Chinese Gods infringing on their turf. While there are indeed a great many evil things that have to be dealt with, there are many more ayakashi that settle into their newfound prominence. Suffice to say, Japanese nightlife is a lot more interesting with kitsune and shapeshifting tanuki thrown into the mix, and much more thought is given towards preserving the natural wilds of Japan.
In Germany... Well... Norse Mythology makes a huge comeback throughout Europe and the Catholic Church is forced into finding an uneasy coexistence with the suddenly resurgent Pagans.
This has the Royal Family of the UK kind of on a back-foot, as the Seele doesn't recognize the Parliament, but will recognize the Royal Bloodlines and Knights. Queen Elizabeth, though, handles the situation with the aplomb that she becomes typically known for. Though she does feel a bit chagrined for being forced into a position of actual temporal power.
Scotland and Ireland... Well! Let's just they they become even more so than they were before now that the fae are playing a much larger part in regular life. Much stronger cultural identities than before.
The USSR doubles-down on their No Religion policy, but that only drives resurgent Paganism deep underground, becoming something of a secret society that aims to comfort those that benefit the least from the Communist system and maybe overthrow said system someday.
China... China goes Communist as it did in the past. Revenge, even that of a God's, does not rebuild a nation. And this is much to those God's dismay, as the country suddenly industrializes in a very bad way. The God's decide they'll have no part in this until the People of China come to their senses. This won't be for a long time.
North America... Things are a strange and wondrous blending of Norse and Native American Paganism, though the closer you get to Alaska, the less and less you see of the Norse side of things. Although there was some downright WEIRDNESS when Coyote and Raven took pity on the Japanese in the internment camps and made those lands lush and fertile. Along with all the other Native American reservations.
A lot of the Japano-Americans, in a fit of defiance, chose to stay at the sites of these internment camps, building them up into small farming towns that, while everyone speaks English and celebrates Christmas, are small concentrations of Japanese culture in America. They've even had a few Kitsune show up and settle in.
South of the Border, though, in Latin and South America, the pantheons of the Inca, Mayans, and Aztecs have all come home to roost.
Weirdly enough, they left the statue of Jesus Christ in Rio De Janeiro alone. "Swell guy, him," Quetzalcoatl was heard saying. "If only his fan club actually practiced what he preached."
Oh, and Dio De Las Muertes... That holiday got a heckuva lot more interesting when the spirits of deceased came to their families to enjoy a family supper together.
Africa winds up typifying the Britishism of "Darkest Africa" with the sudden onset of all kinds of folklore becoming reality. As tribes everywhere are forced to deal with the supernatural, they find that they don't have much time or energy to waste on petty squabbles that would otherwise lead to one people trying to wipe out another.
Egypt, though... Ra is back, and he was most emphatically unhappy about what had become of Egypt. He turned Bast, Set, and Anubis loose on the land, and the Nile ran red with blood for several days as they purged people with impure hearts. Fortunately, things have settled down significantly since then, but Egypt itself has risen once again to become a power to be reckoned with - part of which is aided by the existence of the Suez Canal. But make no mistake: Egypt is not the place to go if you are not at least willing to pay your respects to its Gods.
Islam, for the most part, maintains its hold in Northern Africa and Southeast Asia, happy to have remained relatively unmolested in these regions and it's practitioners are much more devout for this. These regions remain highly tribal, but as with the rest of Africa, there are suddenly things that go bump in the night, and the fellowship of man is suddenly that much more important. (Although there are times when someone learns the hard way that he who lives by the sword tends to die by the sword.)
In response to all this, the various nations of the world put together their own paranatural research and defense entities with varying levels of prominence in their government. But most important of all is the international entity established as part of the UN itself - the Paranormal Investigation, Research, and Defense bureau, or PIRD for short. (Pronounced PUR-DEE - the Americans won't stop cracking jokes about that.)
While most countries are permitted a great amount of leeway in how they manage their own affairs, PIRD exists primarily to coordinate interventions on an international scale.
----
External to Earth, there will be three major powers; two within the galaxy and one 'extra-galactic' power from the Magellanic clouds. The ship that crashes on Earth is of Magellanic origin - it was part of a vanguard intended to establish a beachhead for the incursion into the main body of the galaxy. The ship itself was abandoned due to have too much external damage and managed to drift over the next hundred or so years into the Sol system where it wound up on Earth.
In order to give time for things to come to fruition, I would say that the ship made landfall an uninhabited island in the Pacific - pretty much in neutral territory - sometime during JFK's Presidency. Of course, this will butterfly Earth's history something fierce.
The Communist Bloc and the Western Bloc are still pretty much at each other's throats in the 50's and 60's, but as the ship is explored, it quickly becomes apparent that it's a war ship.
And an interstellar warship means unfriendly neighbors exist among the stars. This makes both sides greatly uneasy and a mutual non-aggression pact is hashed out, with promises for further summits as deemed necessary. (This, of course, also leads to an agreement that the island itself is solely governed by a UN committee and that all research, investigation, and experiments involving the alien hulk are in the public domain.) Kruschev and Kennedy are very shrewd men, but they both see the writing on the wall: the Cold War, such as it was, was unofficially over. The only real holdouts were the Chinese as they pushed for creating their own communist block out of pretty much everything east of India all the way to Malaysia, including Mongolia and Korea.
Needless to say, this puts buth the Americans and the Russians up in arms, and there is a brief but furious conflict where, for the second time that century, the USA and USSR set their differences aside to deal with a greater threat.
China is forced into a great many concessions, but the countries they had attempted to absorbed are permitted, by general elections, to decide whether or not they wish to become Communist states. In this way, China gets something of what they wanted, but at a dire cost. This is something that they are not going to forget anytime soon, and thus the attempt at virtually taking over the world by holding the world's telecommunications hostage.
Back to the USSR and USA - the Space Race is actually something that carries on, though this time it's utilizing technology derived from the alien hulk. However, there is a lot less "Gotta beat the other guy there" and more "We're not the ones who's gonna get caught with their pants down!" US and Russian outposts, stations, and eventually even outright colonies are established.
What sort of threat the aliens may pose is something of a mystery - they have that one ship, but it is still only one ship. The military-industrial complex for both blocs goes gangbusters and the first mecha are made, with the Russians and Americans honing their edges by playing wargames against each other.
The Shadow Cabal, meanwhile, watches in horror - all their carefully laid out schemes utterly shattered by the arrival of that hulk. Granted, they are all for preparing for what may be the inevitable, but to actually have the Communists and Westerners tacitly cooperating like this? This was nowhere near the scenario they envisioned, even in the worst possible outcomes.
Even worse is the supernatural elements. They are quick to catch on to subtleties, and it becomes difficult to destabilize smaller, more volatile governments. However, they do make inroads with countries with Communist governments where the Supernatural has less influences. And while these countries have cracked down hard on corruption this time around, a great many things can be shifted if it's done 'for the greater good'.
The world is still a very tense place. They just need the right kind of straw to break the camel's back and trigger an all-out war-to-end-all-wars so they can take their rightful place as rulers of the world.
And then it happens again.
Aliens show up - actual aliens and not just some wreckage of a ship - and say that they're gonna conquer us... If, that is, we can't beat one of their own going head-to-head. They've been monitoring our media. Looking through what's been in the news and who's making that news.
And the most outrageous news is that of a boy who seems to have been touched by Loki himself. He can do amazing things like switch places with anyone or anything in line of sight that isn't nailed to the floor. Become invisible. Move with absolute silence. Take on the appearance of another - a full transformation that can fool any biometric sensor. And with his incredibly nimble fingers and just the right tools, he can undo any lock set before him.
--------
Magical Girls/Knights
As part of the sudden resurgence of the supernatural, young women and men (primarily young women, though) have been empowered by local spirits, gods, or what-have-you in order to help police the less savory parts of the supernatural. This trend started in Japan (where else?
) and began to spread as other supernatural beings began to follow suit.
Some of these persons are unimaginably powerful - so strong that even an army would fall to them. Others can seem utterly ghastly at first - such as the Magical Girl known as La Muerte, who is actually an undead herself! (In exchange for her unlife and revenge against those that killed her? A thousand years of servitude.)
The few boys that are empowered are, strangely enough, not usually as powerful. However, in their niches, they are very potent. One example is a fifth generation direct descendant of Annie Oakley. His abilities center entirely around an utterly unerring marksmanship, even able to strike targets behind cover using incredibly improbable ricochet shots. He's also able to conjure rounds for whatever gun he has on hand, and his rounds can deal grievous harm to supernatural entities no matter what sort they happen to be.
The main character is considered to be one such person, and quite possibly the most powerful of all despite having no real attack capabilities. He insists that he not hold a title, but people insist that he must be the second coming of Houdini, who in this timeline was a renowned occultist and escape artist. (He was still known for outing con artists, but he would typically do so by getting actual results and not the pale imitations con artists used.)
So, thoughts? Really, poke holes into this. Like they say, unlike real life, fiction has to make sense.
I still have a lot of work on the world building. I seem to have a lot of various elements, but I need to fit them all together into a functioning whole.
World Wars I and II... While the first one was bound to happen regardless, the Shadow Cabal definitely instigated WWII, as Musolini and Hirohito were among their members.
But not Hitler. He was something entirely unexpected, and while it was intended that Germany go a-conquering, Hitler was so charismatic that he stole the show entirely - much to the detriment for their scenario. While Hitler did indeed push things in the right direction, it is a foregone conclusion that his management of the military... well, sucked to be quite honest.
With that, everything cascaded into failure. Russia was not conquered, thus enabling a critical linking of supply lines between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, not to mention the resources of Russian oil reserves that was denied.
But that wasn't the only thing that went horribly wrong.
These conflicts were far too big for the supernatural aspects of Earth to remain hidden, and this was especially true when Nazi Occultists damn-near triggered an apocalypse, thus necessitating a response from the long-hiding druids and the fae. The fae response was particularly nasty as the Unseele was more or less given free license short of plunging the world into further darkness.
Suffice to say, entire family lines disappeared in the night, never to be heard from again.
Japan... Japan got a lot more than they bargained for. Sages in China basically pleaded to their gods. And then pretty much the entire Chinese pantheon descended on Japan, complete with their Holy Dragons. This, however, didn't happen until after the Pearl Harbor attack and a righteously cheesed-off American Navy suddenly came a-knocking just in time for the fireworks to start.
By the time they made it to Honshu (which happened a LOT quicker than in original history), the civilians were practically running to the Americans for protection. (This had some very interesting ramifications for military doctrine. Battleships did not go 'out of fashion' as aircraft carriers weren't as badly needed when the Japanese encroachment was pushed back so easily. Additionally, the Yamato and Musashi were taken as war prizes to help fill in the USA's suddenly flaccid battleship lines.)
Japan does get heavily Westernized as a result of this, but the Kami and Ayakashi of Japan have a resurgence in response to the Chinese Gods infringing on their turf. While there are indeed a great many evil things that have to be dealt with, there are many more ayakashi that settle into their newfound prominence. Suffice to say, Japanese nightlife is a lot more interesting with kitsune and shapeshifting tanuki thrown into the mix, and much more thought is given towards preserving the natural wilds of Japan.
In Germany... Well... Norse Mythology makes a huge comeback throughout Europe and the Catholic Church is forced into finding an uneasy coexistence with the suddenly resurgent Pagans.
This has the Royal Family of the UK kind of on a back-foot, as the Seele doesn't recognize the Parliament, but will recognize the Royal Bloodlines and Knights. Queen Elizabeth, though, handles the situation with the aplomb that she becomes typically known for. Though she does feel a bit chagrined for being forced into a position of actual temporal power.
Scotland and Ireland... Well! Let's just they they become even more so than they were before now that the fae are playing a much larger part in regular life. Much stronger cultural identities than before.
The USSR doubles-down on their No Religion policy, but that only drives resurgent Paganism deep underground, becoming something of a secret society that aims to comfort those that benefit the least from the Communist system and maybe overthrow said system someday.
China... China goes Communist as it did in the past. Revenge, even that of a God's, does not rebuild a nation. And this is much to those God's dismay, as the country suddenly industrializes in a very bad way. The God's decide they'll have no part in this until the People of China come to their senses. This won't be for a long time.
North America... Things are a strange and wondrous blending of Norse and Native American Paganism, though the closer you get to Alaska, the less and less you see of the Norse side of things. Although there was some downright WEIRDNESS when Coyote and Raven took pity on the Japanese in the internment camps and made those lands lush and fertile. Along with all the other Native American reservations.
A lot of the Japano-Americans, in a fit of defiance, chose to stay at the sites of these internment camps, building them up into small farming towns that, while everyone speaks English and celebrates Christmas, are small concentrations of Japanese culture in America. They've even had a few Kitsune show up and settle in.
South of the Border, though, in Latin and South America, the pantheons of the Inca, Mayans, and Aztecs have all come home to roost.
Weirdly enough, they left the statue of Jesus Christ in Rio De Janeiro alone. "Swell guy, him," Quetzalcoatl was heard saying. "If only his fan club actually practiced what he preached."
Oh, and Dio De Las Muertes... That holiday got a heckuva lot more interesting when the spirits of deceased came to their families to enjoy a family supper together.
Africa winds up typifying the Britishism of "Darkest Africa" with the sudden onset of all kinds of folklore becoming reality. As tribes everywhere are forced to deal with the supernatural, they find that they don't have much time or energy to waste on petty squabbles that would otherwise lead to one people trying to wipe out another.
Egypt, though... Ra is back, and he was most emphatically unhappy about what had become of Egypt. He turned Bast, Set, and Anubis loose on the land, and the Nile ran red with blood for several days as they purged people with impure hearts. Fortunately, things have settled down significantly since then, but Egypt itself has risen once again to become a power to be reckoned with - part of which is aided by the existence of the Suez Canal. But make no mistake: Egypt is not the place to go if you are not at least willing to pay your respects to its Gods.
Islam, for the most part, maintains its hold in Northern Africa and Southeast Asia, happy to have remained relatively unmolested in these regions and it's practitioners are much more devout for this. These regions remain highly tribal, but as with the rest of Africa, there are suddenly things that go bump in the night, and the fellowship of man is suddenly that much more important. (Although there are times when someone learns the hard way that he who lives by the sword tends to die by the sword.)
In response to all this, the various nations of the world put together their own paranatural research and defense entities with varying levels of prominence in their government. But most important of all is the international entity established as part of the UN itself - the Paranormal Investigation, Research, and Defense bureau, or PIRD for short. (Pronounced PUR-DEE - the Americans won't stop cracking jokes about that.)
While most countries are permitted a great amount of leeway in how they manage their own affairs, PIRD exists primarily to coordinate interventions on an international scale.
----
External to Earth, there will be three major powers; two within the galaxy and one 'extra-galactic' power from the Magellanic clouds. The ship that crashes on Earth is of Magellanic origin - it was part of a vanguard intended to establish a beachhead for the incursion into the main body of the galaxy. The ship itself was abandoned due to have too much external damage and managed to drift over the next hundred or so years into the Sol system where it wound up on Earth.
In order to give time for things to come to fruition, I would say that the ship made landfall an uninhabited island in the Pacific - pretty much in neutral territory - sometime during JFK's Presidency. Of course, this will butterfly Earth's history something fierce.
The Communist Bloc and the Western Bloc are still pretty much at each other's throats in the 50's and 60's, but as the ship is explored, it quickly becomes apparent that it's a war ship.
And an interstellar warship means unfriendly neighbors exist among the stars. This makes both sides greatly uneasy and a mutual non-aggression pact is hashed out, with promises for further summits as deemed necessary. (This, of course, also leads to an agreement that the island itself is solely governed by a UN committee and that all research, investigation, and experiments involving the alien hulk are in the public domain.) Kruschev and Kennedy are very shrewd men, but they both see the writing on the wall: the Cold War, such as it was, was unofficially over. The only real holdouts were the Chinese as they pushed for creating their own communist block out of pretty much everything east of India all the way to Malaysia, including Mongolia and Korea.
Needless to say, this puts buth the Americans and the Russians up in arms, and there is a brief but furious conflict where, for the second time that century, the USA and USSR set their differences aside to deal with a greater threat.
China is forced into a great many concessions, but the countries they had attempted to absorbed are permitted, by general elections, to decide whether or not they wish to become Communist states. In this way, China gets something of what they wanted, but at a dire cost. This is something that they are not going to forget anytime soon, and thus the attempt at virtually taking over the world by holding the world's telecommunications hostage.
Back to the USSR and USA - the Space Race is actually something that carries on, though this time it's utilizing technology derived from the alien hulk. However, there is a lot less "Gotta beat the other guy there" and more "We're not the ones who's gonna get caught with their pants down!" US and Russian outposts, stations, and eventually even outright colonies are established.
What sort of threat the aliens may pose is something of a mystery - they have that one ship, but it is still only one ship. The military-industrial complex for both blocs goes gangbusters and the first mecha are made, with the Russians and Americans honing their edges by playing wargames against each other.
The Shadow Cabal, meanwhile, watches in horror - all their carefully laid out schemes utterly shattered by the arrival of that hulk. Granted, they are all for preparing for what may be the inevitable, but to actually have the Communists and Westerners tacitly cooperating like this? This was nowhere near the scenario they envisioned, even in the worst possible outcomes.
Even worse is the supernatural elements. They are quick to catch on to subtleties, and it becomes difficult to destabilize smaller, more volatile governments. However, they do make inroads with countries with Communist governments where the Supernatural has less influences. And while these countries have cracked down hard on corruption this time around, a great many things can be shifted if it's done 'for the greater good'.
The world is still a very tense place. They just need the right kind of straw to break the camel's back and trigger an all-out war-to-end-all-wars so they can take their rightful place as rulers of the world.
And then it happens again.
Aliens show up - actual aliens and not just some wreckage of a ship - and say that they're gonna conquer us... If, that is, we can't beat one of their own going head-to-head. They've been monitoring our media. Looking through what's been in the news and who's making that news.
And the most outrageous news is that of a boy who seems to have been touched by Loki himself. He can do amazing things like switch places with anyone or anything in line of sight that isn't nailed to the floor. Become invisible. Move with absolute silence. Take on the appearance of another - a full transformation that can fool any biometric sensor. And with his incredibly nimble fingers and just the right tools, he can undo any lock set before him.
--------
Magical Girls/Knights
As part of the sudden resurgence of the supernatural, young women and men (primarily young women, though) have been empowered by local spirits, gods, or what-have-you in order to help police the less savory parts of the supernatural. This trend started in Japan (where else?
) and began to spread as other supernatural beings began to follow suit.Some of these persons are unimaginably powerful - so strong that even an army would fall to them. Others can seem utterly ghastly at first - such as the Magical Girl known as La Muerte, who is actually an undead herself! (In exchange for her unlife and revenge against those that killed her? A thousand years of servitude.)
The few boys that are empowered are, strangely enough, not usually as powerful. However, in their niches, they are very potent. One example is a fifth generation direct descendant of Annie Oakley. His abilities center entirely around an utterly unerring marksmanship, even able to strike targets behind cover using incredibly improbable ricochet shots. He's also able to conjure rounds for whatever gun he has on hand, and his rounds can deal grievous harm to supernatural entities no matter what sort they happen to be.
The main character is considered to be one such person, and quite possibly the most powerful of all despite having no real attack capabilities. He insists that he not hold a title, but people insist that he must be the second coming of Houdini, who in this timeline was a renowned occultist and escape artist. (He was still known for outing con artists, but he would typically do so by getting actual results and not the pale imitations con artists used.)
So, thoughts? Really, poke holes into this. Like they say, unlike real life, fiction has to make sense.