Okay, an experiment.
I have yet to start laying out even the broad strokes of a timeline for events after 12/31/1999. And I thought, hey, maybe I could see if a dozen heads converging on this would be better than one. So I'm issuing a request/challenge -- let's brainstorm up the as-yet-unwritten history of the IST world together.
A few notes. First, I'm not going to guarantee this will be exactly -- or even close to -- what I finally use. But as the old saying goes, that's the way to bet. Anyone who contributes anything that ends up in the final timeline will get a credit on the book/PDF. But you've also got to release the rights to me to use your contributions, because I will have to be able to do the same to SJG when the time comes.
If you're cool with that, well, let's begin.
I have a few things in mind to start with.
First, before anything else -- IST was starting to diverge strongly by the end of the 1980s, and my timeline for the 90s kept that up, although it was perhaps not nearly as divergent as it should have been. The prime directive here now is that there is no need to parallel "real" history except for irony and/or humor. We can go anywhere.
Second, the Infinite Worlds PDF for IST mentions a reality quake on 1/1/2000. We're going to keep that, as the primary mechanism of the Wall -- this date was a nexus point for any number of possible futures to come into being, depending on which groups, gangs, governments, and/or conspiracies came out on top in the battles between their various plans and schemes. Most of the outcomes were bad -- hence the varied visions of apocalypse received by precogs beforehand. However something as yet undefined happened, and a "good" -- maybe not best, but good -- timeline resulted. I want to figure out what that something is, or even if we need to define it at all.
The 1990s timeline on my website ends with Chinese forces poised to roll into both Hong Kong and the Korean DMZ. I want this to turn into a full war, lasting anywhere upwards of five years. (Working from 13 years later, we have a lot of freedom to do wild things, and this will be one of them.) What is the result of this war?
9/11 does not happen. It took several different sociopolitical trends converging in a specific way to motivate Bin Laden and al Qaeda to attach the US the way they did, and most if not all of them didn't happen (or happened very differently) in the IST world. This is not to say something similar doesn't happen -- but when, where, and by/to whom?
If I think of/remember anything else I want nailed down firmly at the start of this little project, I'll add them to this post. In the meantime, feel free to brainstorm.
And don't worry, I won't just be sitting back and making you do all the work. I'll be jumping in and adding my own contributions.
In advance, thank you.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
I have yet to start laying out even the broad strokes of a timeline for events after 12/31/1999. And I thought, hey, maybe I could see if a dozen heads converging on this would be better than one. So I'm issuing a request/challenge -- let's brainstorm up the as-yet-unwritten history of the IST world together.
A few notes. First, I'm not going to guarantee this will be exactly -- or even close to -- what I finally use. But as the old saying goes, that's the way to bet. Anyone who contributes anything that ends up in the final timeline will get a credit on the book/PDF. But you've also got to release the rights to me to use your contributions, because I will have to be able to do the same to SJG when the time comes.
If you're cool with that, well, let's begin.
I have a few things in mind to start with.
First, before anything else -- IST was starting to diverge strongly by the end of the 1980s, and my timeline for the 90s kept that up, although it was perhaps not nearly as divergent as it should have been. The prime directive here now is that there is no need to parallel "real" history except for irony and/or humor. We can go anywhere.
Second, the Infinite Worlds PDF for IST mentions a reality quake on 1/1/2000. We're going to keep that, as the primary mechanism of the Wall -- this date was a nexus point for any number of possible futures to come into being, depending on which groups, gangs, governments, and/or conspiracies came out on top in the battles between their various plans and schemes. Most of the outcomes were bad -- hence the varied visions of apocalypse received by precogs beforehand. However something as yet undefined happened, and a "good" -- maybe not best, but good -- timeline resulted. I want to figure out what that something is, or even if we need to define it at all.
The 1990s timeline on my website ends with Chinese forces poised to roll into both Hong Kong and the Korean DMZ. I want this to turn into a full war, lasting anywhere upwards of five years. (Working from 13 years later, we have a lot of freedom to do wild things, and this will be one of them.) What is the result of this war?
9/11 does not happen. It took several different sociopolitical trends converging in a specific way to motivate Bin Laden and al Qaeda to attach the US the way they did, and most if not all of them didn't happen (or happened very differently) in the IST world. This is not to say something similar doesn't happen -- but when, where, and by/to whom?
If I think of/remember anything else I want nailed down firmly at the start of this little project, I'll add them to this post. In the meantime, feel free to brainstorm.
And don't worry, I won't just be sitting back and making you do all the work. I'll be jumping in and adding my own contributions.
In advance, thank you.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.