Five Earths, All in a Row

[Prince Charon]

Because this is so long for an OP, I'm splitting it into multiple posts, for ease of reading, and then linking them back to this one, or the Table of Contents post that follows. Also, there will be TL;DR summaries in bold red.

On December 21st, 2012, in flashes of light reminiscent of Q (from Star Trek) teleporting something, four new Earth-Moon systems appear, two on either side of us. Shortly thereafter, the Large Hadron Collider, and other cyclotrons and advanced particle sensors, get some very strange readings, and scientists discover a few new particles (said particles, being slightly slower than light, took a while to appear). Each system, including ours, is separated by precisely thirteen light-seconds from barycentre to barycenter (meaning that the two furthest Earths are 26 light-seconds away from our Earth-Moon system, and 52 light-seconds from each other), along the same orbit - the line of sight distance is of course a bit shorter (apparent sizes noted here; the flashes are a little under twice as big as each body, not the whole Earth-Moon system). This means that each Earth is a little less than a day and a half off from its nearest neighbors, and a little less than three days from the next furthest ones.

This should be incredibly dangerous, due to their gravitational fields perturbing the orbits of everything around them, but that isn't happening. Astronomers find, at first, no evidence of gravity coming off the other Earths, beyond things that appear with them orbiting them. After a while, though, a scientist watching one of the closer Earths notices a meteor appearing, passing through the system, being perturbed by its gravity, moving on, and then completely vanishing about three light-seconds away from that Earth. So, might these Earth-Moon systems be giant, incredibly detailed holograms?

No, that wouldn't be weird enough. What we see are Earths in alternate dimensions, visible through permanent 'portals' or 'quasi-wormholes' (for lack of a better term) created by a being or beings of immense power and boredom (who probably chose the date just to troll people). Any orbital path that leaves one Earth-Moon system, curved to intersect with another, will pass through the 'portal'. A vehicle on that course would note that at three light seconds from its starting Earth, three of the E-M systems vanish - specifically, the ones that are neither its starting point, nor its destination. Probes or other vessels not on a course for another Earth notice all four other Earths vanishing at three light-seconds out (unless that Earth's visible zone is behind, so to speak, their starting Earth), as they're out of the light cone emitted by the portals. When a vessel that is on course for another E-M system gets within three light-seconds of its destination, the stars and planets change, as the vehicle has passed into the new dimension.

This phenomenon is discovered when a large probe is launched from the system furthest ahead of us in the Earths' orbit (supposedly by a 'lone genius and his students', according to the radio, though they do have some wealthy sponsors) on a path for our system, and does not vanish when it gets three light seconds from that Earth. Instead, it continues on course, passing through a smallish asteroid without being damaged, nor damaging or perturbing it at all (it's still in the other dimension, and doesn't even see it), until it gets within three light-seconds of our Earth. At that point, another burst of those exotic particles occurs, much fainter than when the Earths appeared, and anything capable of detecting its gravity, does, as it's now on our dimension. The journey takes a little under a month for the unmanned probe, and that's only because they had a few solid rocket boosters in orbit, and mated them to the probe by remote control. It's very visible when slowing down. One observer described the probe's appearance as 'Like the Kerbal Space Program with a Dieselpunk mod.' It was originally planned as a Mars probe, but we're closer, thus both easier (could be done with just the boosters they already had in orbit) and more urgent (huge amounts of very sophisticated radio signals, not to mention what their telescopes are telling them). The probe was launched five days after the new Earths appeared, and broke orbit of its Earth two days later (it takes time to get the boosters mated, check everything that can be checked, and quintuple-check the math). After its last deceleration booster is expended (said booster falling into Earth's atmosphere, and burning up), it uses a few liquid-fuel rockets to settle into a stable orbit, 2,000 miles (3,218 km) above our Earth (the next-to-last booster settles into a lower, less stable orbit, near the ISS, and in range of a Soyuz; they might even use one of the ones that are already there by then, if it can be refueled in orbit, or has enough spare fuel).

Its arrival in orbit will have vast political consequences on all five Earths.

TL;DR: Four new Earths appear on December 21st, 2012. One of them sends a big, shiny, primitive-looking probe to our Earth.


You might already have guessed that the other Earths are not just copies of ours, a few days in the past or future. You'd be right. Even the ones ahead of us are in the past, but not the past as we know it.

Dieselpunk Earth
TL;DR: Dieselpunk Earth, in 1940, with elements of the Wold Newton Universe and some magic, supers, & potential supers.


Steampunk Earth
TL;DR: Steampunk Earth, 1878, with lunar and cislunar space travel, and strange magics.


Clockpunk Earth
TL;DR: Clockpunk fantasy Earth, 1555.


Fantasy Earth
TL;DR: Fantasy Dark Ages, 514 CE, with a little Middle Earth and 3.5-era Forgotten Realms.


Magic system notes
TL;DR: Magic, including weird science, consists of psionics used in simple or complicated ways, usually involving thoughtforms (often called spirits or gods) to do the work. Spellcasting mostly involves long rituals, and there are many styles of magic.


This is going to strongly affect public attitudes toward space travel, the existence of aliens, and the paranormal, among other things. The arrival of the probe from Dp-Earth, even more so, and in ways that will not be obvious, at first.

When the last booster burns up in OTL-Earth's atmosphere, either the thoughtforms within the booster's unspent fuel, or the entity that caused all this to happen in the first place, give OTL-Earth a 'gift': somewhat less than 1% of the population, all over the world (though not consitent with population density - North America, Europe, Japan, and Oceania (mostly in Oz and NZ) tend to have more psykers than either India or China, though India has more than China does) develop active psi powers - mostly low level, and mostly just thoughtform generation. The selection of exactly who gets powers is somewhat telling, as all of them tend to be considered strange within their own nations and cultures: Wiccans and other neopagans, New Age mystics, particularly 'spiritual' martial artists, tribal shamans (they're respected, but do tend to be seen as 'a bit off'), followers of Vodoun and Santería, science fiction and fantasy fans, gamers, the more eccentric historical reinactors, would-be superheroes (well, the ones that are relatively serious about it), and mentally ill folks (OK, there's some overlap between the last two, particularly if chuunibyou is a real mental illness), in or out of asylums, with sufficiently 'interesting' derangements. Few of these people start with even enough power to hover, much less fly, nor are they going to be bouncing bullets off their chests any time soon. Those who get psi powers beyond thoughtform generation and manipulation tend to start with subtle abilities like probability alteration, ESP, and sometimes astral projection, meta-psi, psychic vampirism, and telepathy, rather than anything flashy, and even those with more obvious powers like PK or EK are rarely going to have something impressive - expect one to levitate a pencil, not oneself. Also, mind control is far from easy, more along the lines of telepathically-assisted RL hypnosis than the sort of things you see in the comics.

The abilities gained are generally consistent with the individual's beliefs, interests, and personality - someone who believes they have a particular power, or strongly wants it, will gain some version of it, albeit generally an unimpressive version, at first - Star Wars fans who 'feel the Force', martial artists with (weaker versions of) the legendary and/or cinematic powers of their style, D&D gamers with a Path style based on the Schools of Magic in that game, or a Book style based on the feats and powers of their favorite class (at barely first level), and so forth. Strong-willed individuals, as well as those who don't take orders well (which isn't quite the same thing), tend to start out stronger, and improve faster, as do those with greater intelligence (though a combination of all three is best). Those not given the gift can train for it, particularly if taught by someone who already has it (though again, the ones who don't take orders well tend to be better at it) - this is rather easier if the teacher is a telepath, or has learned or developed mind-affecting spells.

Some animals will also develop powers - mostly cats, and species native to Australia, though any animal of a species with significant local myths about it might merge with an appropriate spirit (e.g. foxes and tanuki in Japan, coyotes and ravens in North America, and so forth). This rarely happens to plants or locations, without at least semi-conscious human interference - at least until something arrives from Fa-Earth.

Being so affected by Dp-Earth, the spirits tend to behave 'in-genre' (though they don't all agree on what genre it is), and try to get machinery, animals, and people to behave in-genre, as well - this doesn't work well on people, especially as in-genre behavior is often the opposite of what a professional is trained to do (listen to a cop or soldier complain about cops or soldiers in most ficion, and you'll see what I mean). It rarely works well on animals, unless it's consistent with their instincts. This in-genre behavior may be a factor in who gains powers, and who is better at it.

It isn't going to take long before governments start asking their space agencies to draw up plans for both manned and unmanned visits to other worlds, and getting frustrating results. Then again, for an interplanetary spacecraft, the Nautilus-X looks surprisingly affordable, even if you add a second grav-wheel to neutralize the centrifugal force - how affordable it turns out to be is another matter, but given the gift of magic, 'less expensive' is actually fairly likely. Before that, though, the difficulty of space launches from OTL-Earth will be at RL levels - complex and very expensive. OTOH, the situation on Dp-Earth will likely lead to various nations' military budgets being diverted to space, even before the probe arrives.

On another note, the particles produced by dimensional transition have a sufficiently consistent speed, that observation of particle detectors can precisely locate any dimensional incursions heavier than 3 kilograms, even if astronomers somehow don't (which isn't so helpful with spirits, but while they lack mass, they do disturb whatever it is that's producing these sprays of particles as if they did - just not much).


I will be posting a timeline below, currently at one month per post, linked in the Table of Contents post. Fiction in the setting will also be linked there, including by other people, as long as you give me a title for it.


Threads on other forums:

Main thread on SB.com

Fiction thread on SB.com

Thread on AH.com

Thread on the SJGames forum

 

[Prince Charon]

Table of Contents

Timeline

December, 2012

January, 2013
February, 2013
March, 2013
April, 2013
May, 2013
June, 2013

Fiction PLACEHOLDER


Miscellaneous PLACEHOLDER

 

[Prince Charon]

* Since I've already hinted at the nature of one of these Earths, let's talk about that one. It's the furthest ahead of us in orbit, 26 light-seconds and a little less than three calendar days 'later' (well, if we were in the same year), and it's the one we're getting the most radio chatter from. Due to the time of day, one of the first transmissions starts with random telegraph beeping and "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press." This is the Earth of 1940, and Weird War II rages in Europe, while the USA tries to maintain its neutrality in the growing conflict (while quitely preparing to be dragged in). It is not, however, the 1940 that we are familiar with.

This is a Dieselpunk Earth, and to a lesser degree, a Wold Newton Earth (although a lot more blatantly abnormal than most WN Earths). On the radio, 'fictional' scientists like Dr. Clark Savage, Jr. and Ted Knight are interviewed, and people speculate about whether the new Earths are related to the Rogue Planet Crisis of 1934, or the Martian Invasion of Europe, back in 1895 (the year Wells started work on WotW in OTL, interestingly enough). Telescopes, once properly aimed and adjusted, will see strange sights over New York, as the original Human Torch and his sidekick Toro fight crime. Also seen would be the original Green Lantern. Other Mystery Men are less easily spotted, but there's a Superman, a Captain America, Bat-Man, Wonder Woman, Uncle Sam, and Captain Marvel. There's a volcanically-heated patch of Antarctica where dinosaurs and giant apes still live, and a few flags flying in places where they shouldn't be - flags of fictional nations and territories. There's a Wakanda in Africa, a Latveria in Eastern Europe (currently under Nazi occupation, as Doom hasn't gotten his Doctorate, yet), a Turk County in Maryland, and an Arkham County in Massachusetts, but relatively little of the geology is different - a few hot spots where they shouldn't be, or lack of them where they should, some extra mountains and rivers, and even a few more islands and paeninsulae... and there appears to be a walled village at the North Pole.

Technologically, this Earth is ahead of our 1940 by varying amounts: a few Gloster Meteors already spar with V-1s and Me 262s over the English Channel, while British Rocket Group missiles bomb German cities, and V-2s return the favor (it's mostly conventional fighters and bombers on both sides, though). Blackhawk Squadron's modified Grumman Skyrockets use the same engines as the Meteors. High above, British 'armoured' dirigibles and German Zeppelins serve as AWACS craft, high-altitude (wildly inaccurate) bombers, and occasionally duel each other with deadly masersHeat Rays! In a remote part of Nevada, the US Army is working on something that looks like a Mackie-variant with all-ballistic armament, and an internal combustion engine - and they're not the only ones working on walkers, though only they have one as big as the four-legger the Germans are testing. Military vacuum tubes mostly use an eccentric design, with simple circuits integrated into each tube, rather than individual diodes, triodes, and such. Rocketry is well past where it should be, though no-one has been able to duplicate the fuel or engine that Dr. Zharkov's rocket used, which crossed nearly a light-minute in less than a week - and of course, neither he nor his assistants ever returned from the rogue planet Mongo (which vanished, but not in the dramatic fashion these Earths appeared - it just got blurry and translucent, then transparent, and was gone). If only he hadn't kept his notes in the rocket-shed. There's a lot of primitive television signals among the radio traffic, far more than we'd expect of 1940, though many of them seem to consist of villainous madmen ranting at their minions (their Germany has more TVs per capita than anywhere else on Dieselpunk Earth, outside of their NYC). The probe mentioned above has RADAR, black & white TV cameras (both visible and infrared - the visible being in a group of three, with red, green, and blue filters, to simulate colour) with telescopes, and a good transmitter, but its main power comes from mercury boilers, which aren't exactly light - and when the tinfoil mirrors unfold, they're bigger than the rest of the probe (not counting the radiators or expendable boosters), which is itself about the size of an Apollo CSM.

Beyond the mundane technology on Dieselpunk Earth, there are far stranger things. The Super Soldier Serum, Starman's Gravity Rod, and many other devices of this world really should not exist, or be able to do what they did. Analysis of samples taken from the spent boosters of that probe, for example, show that the fuel could have produced at most a fifth of the energy that it was clearly observed to. Likewise, there are a few people with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men (or women)... but not as far as the comic books often take it. Superman is more powerful than a locomotive, but not by so much as to lift a battleship, or even a light destroyer (though he's currently tougher than the article suggests, due to continuous, if slow, power growth). For that matter, he can't quite fly under his own power yet, as he's only just beginning to learn to expand his use of psychokinesis beyond enhancing his own body (if he hadn't met Dr. Fate earlier in the year, he'd still think he's 'just' incredibly tough, strong, and fast), and has only recently developed 'X-Ray Vision' (line-of-sight Clairvoyance). He could survive being hit by an artillery cannon, but it would hurt him, and an atomic bomb might kill him - then again, it might make him more powerful than you could possibly imagine. Despite the existence of Superman, there appears to be no Clark Kent, though there was a man using the name 'Hugo Danner', whom Superman resembles in the Foreign Legion in WWI, who later served in an American battalion under a Major Ingall.

If you have access to a copy of GURPS Thaumatology: Age of Gold, that will help you get some of the general feel: a lot of the really implausible stuff is magic, mostly alchemy and Weird Science, along with more than a little sorcery; how the magic works is covered near the bottom of the post, as I'm using the same magic system for all five Earths. The rest of the 'impossible' things are the result of alien technology (mostly from Krypton, caught in the fold-radius/hyperwake/whatever of young Kal'El's spacecraft), or a combination of both. The Super-Soldier Serum (which takes weeks to work, and requires that the subject eat a great deal while it does) is an alchemic preparation, as is that rocket fuel. The 'vita-rays' that enhance and stabilize the serum's effects are likely magical, as the generator hasn't worked since Dr. Erskine died. The android Human Torch is a fire elemental who's fond of humanity, embodied in a very humanoid golem. Dr. Fate and the Green Lantern are humans using powerful magic items (though Dr. Fate's flight and more basic PK powers are those Kent Nelson learned from Nabu - as shown in his first Origin - rather than powered by the Helm). Whether time travel exists or not is uncertain, but Superman appears to have a Legion flight ring, which he uses sparingly (recharging the battery is... very difficult). Most materials with implausible properties, such as the Nth metal or Wakandan vibranium, are magical in nature. Vibranium itself, as far as anyone can tell, is a form of titanium, with no structural properties that can account for its strange powers. The most common superpower on this Earth is probability alteration, in the form of character shields. Oddly, this seems to be mildly, and semi-randomly, contagious.

The study of magic on this Earth, at least in the West, is divided more-or-less between the 'mystery guilds' (along with a few religions and subcults), who study sorcery and sometimes create magic items; the weird scientists, who create technomagic items and rarely realize sorcery exists; and the alchemists, who somewhat overlap both, but use little, if any, sorcery. The mystery guilds are rather like a mix of medieval guilds and Greco-Roman mystery cults (in the historical sense - they rarely have any interest in how initiates live their lives, beyond how they practice magic and maintain secrecy - not secrecy of the existence of magic (which they've pretty much given up trying, since around 1908), but of who's doing it, and how), many of which are devoted not to deities or powerful spirits (commonly the Lords of Order or Exemplars of Chaos), but to philosophies, such as the Ethical (from their PoV) Teaching and Use of the Great Art. Mystery guilds tend to exist in small cells of a Master, one or more Apprentices, and the occasional visiting Journeymen. Often, they are hidden within local Lodges (Freemasons, the Loyal Order of Moose, and so forth), Gentlemen's Clubs, or Ladies' Associations, some of which may contain several cells, from different guilds - the London Hellfire Club has three, none of which trust the other two, for example. Weird scientists (some of whom are truly Mad) cast spells, in order to create inventions or experimental results that others cannot. In most cases, they do this unconsciously and unknowingly, and become confused and frustrated when hardly anyone else can get the same results, or get their inventions to work properly (or at all, in some cases). Often they make use of magical materials, which helps non-mages to some degree. Alchemists make more use of magical materials, but generally behave as much or more like mystery guild initiates, as like scientists. In the Mysterious Orient, there are a number of ancient temples, martial arts schools, meditation schools, and so forth, that are generally like similar organizations in our 1940, save a little more secretive, and the Masters and most elite students have demonstrable magic powers. Eastern weird scientists more often know they're using magic, and face less skepticism from mundane Eastern scientists. Lone practitioners in East and West, learning from old books and magic items, vary wildly in attitude.

Scientists wishing to study the theoretical physics of magic are advised to be polite to the weird scientists (especially the mad ones), wary of but polite to the alchemists and martial artists, and just avoid the sorcerers and most spirits entirely. The mystery guilds will strongly, and sometimes violently, object to any in-depth, scientific study of magical physics, though the followers of the Lords of Order will at least be friendly enough to give a better explanation of why than 'Mankind is not ready, you mad fool!' Unfortunately, they lack the background to give the short version that I can: scientific inquiry, by its very nature, requires the sharing of knowledge with all, which includes immature twits who get three letters wrong when spelling 'cool' (when they use letters at all), and try to crash hospital computers for a lark. I don't want to experience a system crash from inside the system, do you? (It's not that anyone currently knows how to crash reality, but advanced thaumatology could potentially reach that point, long before we'd have the sense not to) - especially as there are now more realities to experiment in.) Of course, some of them, especially the more religious ones, have other reasons - Chaos cultists, for example, just really don't like science or scientists, and if not for the Order cults fighting them, humanity on that Earth would be stuck in the middle ages, at best. Regardless of motivation, the sorcerers, spirits, and gods have a variety of ways to screw with anyone who comes to this Earth to understand why magic works. Whether they can and will apply it to the other Earths remains to be seen. If they do, it'll likely be the ones who are sincerely (patronizingly) concerned for us. After all, didn't your parents stop you from doing a lot of dangerous things, when you were a child? For those wondering why they're not interfering with the weird scientists, who says they aren't? Lots of weird engineers and chemists and biologists, but hardly any weird theoretical physicists - and even when you do hear of one, like Ted Knight, he goes and invents some neat gadget to risk his life with, that completely distracts him from theoretical physics.

The governments of this Earth are also limited in their interactions with magic-users. Partly, this is due to a lot of major governments having cultural, religious, or philosophical issues with magic. A larger reason is that a curse was placed on the governments of this world at some point in the past, making them reluctant to bring magic-users directly under their control, and thus, responsibility. Offering them consulting positions on some projects, yes, encouraging them to join a Society sponsored by the Justice Department, sure, but assuming direct responsibility for those loonies? Not a chance. The curse is more than just mental, having a probability effect, as well. This makes the victims less likely to try to resist, and less likely to succeed if they do, along with making people they communicate with less likely to say anything that would make the victims try to resist, or less likely to be heard (or listened to) if they did.

In terms of secret identities, if someone had one in the comics, chances are that the 'civilian' ID that we know is wrong: A Superman, but no Clark Kent, a Green Lantern, but no Alan Scott (though he has the same look), a Bat-Man, but no Bruce Wayne, and so forth (Ted Knight didn't wear a mask, and didn't have super-speed to blur his face, so I'm assuming he didn't bother to pretend he wasn't Starman; the 'magical' nature of the Gravity Rod explains why he's the only one using it, as it works poorly, if at all, for anyone else, and serves to frustrate him, since he's a Western weird scientist). In general, this Earth has a scary number of what we would call fictional characters. The sons of Holmes and Watson run a consulting detective agency at Baker street, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm are in the newly formed US Army Air Forces, Victor von Doom (probably not his real name) is in Tibet, and Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) is in Auschwitz, learning hatred and madness from experts in the field. While there are a lot of Mystery Men, though, the number of people with actual superpowers is quite low - there are many sorcerers and alchemists, but very few who could rationally consider a normal 2012 infantry squad/section (or one from 1940, for that matter) to be a non-threat, and most of them could be taken out by a well-prepared ambush (mind you, killing Solomon Grundy is sometimes a bad idea). The number that could reasonably expect to defeat a normal infantry squad or section alone is much larger, but there is a wide range between 'can usually defeat them' and 'they aren't even a threat.'

Overall, the human population of this Earth includes over a million extra people, compared to our 1940. That doesn't count the various other sapient species, like the Deep Ones or the Mangani. In total, that's another few million people, of various types (mostly Deep Ones), including some unique ones like Kal'El. Note that those Marvel calls Homo Superior (mutants), and DC calls Metahumans and Homo Magi, are not a separate race or races, they're just humans with a strangely Lamarkian meta-gene complex that encourages a wide variety of psi powers. There are also an uncertain number of plant and animal species on this Earth, many of which are in danger of extinction, and some of which are psychic/magical.

Observation of the 'dark' side of this Earth's Moon (or more accurately, the side facing away from Dp-Earth) shows that several craters are covered by reflective domes, with smaller domes around them. When the 'dark' side truly is dark, the domes become transparent, and well-lit cities and not-so-well-lit farms and forests can be seen within them, inhabited by Green-Skinned Space Babes in metallic clothes of varying degrees of skimpyness (or existence, in some cases), along with clunky-looking service robots. Contrary to the trend in Star Wars and Mass Effect, these space babes have hair on their heads, rather than being bald-with-eyelashes; Miss Martian's preferred form would fit right in, other than 'wearing' more than the locals usually do. Likewise, they're not all green, but green appears to be the dominant colour - or at least, they're usually the ones with the whips, and the other colours are usually the ones in chains. Travel between the cities appears to be accomplished by monorails enclosed by the same material as the domes, or for more remote cities, by vehicles that resemble giant silver golf balls, each with an antenna extending from the top like long, black thread; these vary in diameter from about 4 metres (13 feet) to a bit over 50 metres (165 feet). All is not well in the Lunar cities: apart from the apparent slavery that's been alluded to (which could just be judicial punishments or mainstreamed BDSM, for all we can tell), some of the robots appear to be broken down and not repaired, several cities have power going in and out in places, and a few domes have been shattered, mummies visible within. The lack of men, or for that matter, women who appear to be younger than about sixteen, or older than about thirty, is also suspicious. They don't appear to use radio, or at least we're not picking up any transmissions from them, but they certainly have telescopes, most of which are pointed at us.

This Earth will be the one of greatest concern at the start of the new era, because they have a demonstrated ability to reach us, and they have a Nazi Germany on the rise - and it's not like that can be kept secret, when anyone with an AM radio, some wire and household junk, a little technical knowledge (available online, or at your local library) and at most a visit to Radio Shack, can build a good enough radio telescope to listen to them, and only a little more would be required to watch their TV; pretty soon, there would probably be YouTube channels for it. Israel is not the only nation contemplating the nuclear option to deal with Hitler, and in some cases, Stalin. Those considering biological weapons might need to be reminded that this world's Superman is likely to be immune, does not have an absolute code against killing, and if everyone else died, would have access to Dr. Fate's helm and Green Lantern's ring.

 

[Prince Charon]

* The next Earth I will describe is the furthest 'behind' us in orbit, and is the only other one we're getting artificial radio traffic from. The traffic is in the form of Morse code messages, some of it further encoded in various easily broken (to us) ways, the rest being pretty clearly civilian. Telescopes turned to this Earth will find that they have a fair bit of tonnage in orbit - not nearly as much as we do, but what they have is rather more concentrated, and vastly less of it is junk. There are six space stations, each bearing the flag of one of the Great Powers of this Earth: the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire, the Papal States, the Russian Empire, and the rather colourful flag (red, white, orange, blue, and yellow layered Nordic Cross) of what is eventually discovered to be the Scandinavian Federation. The rest of the tonnage consists of a few communication satellites, apparently carrying automated telegraph repeaters, and a few inter-orbital vessels. Like the Dieselpunk probe, the stations and satellites are powered by mercury boilers and storage batteries. The stations appear to serve as weather monitors, spy bases, observatories, and repair stations for the oft-finicky repeater satellites, which frequently break down, and are serviced using small pods with waldo arms. A number of larger pods wander through the lower orbits, mostly spying on whatever nations they pass over (in the guise of more weather monitors, which they also do), or collecting space debris. Rockets leave this Earth once or twice a month, mostly to the space stations. Three nations have made Moon landings: Britain, Russia, and the Scandinavians. Each of them have stations in Lunar orbit, and have begun construction of mining bases. Radio intercepts indicate that the Papal States and the Austro-Hungarians are neck-and-neck for the next moon landing.

Looking more closely, observers will see numerous airships, far more than on Dieselpunk Earth, but hardly any powered heavier-than-air craft, apart from the occasional glider with supplementary rockets. A lot of flags are about where they should be, though the flag of the Papal States flies over most of Italy, and the flag of the Scandanivian Federation flies next to the flags of Norway, Sweden, Daneland, Iceland, and the Netherlands, either on another flagpole, or a little lower on the same flagpole. A variety of strange walking machines are visible, mostly of a military nature, though some seem to be in use by European explorers in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and South America. On many farms, especially in the southern USA, mechanical robots toil in the fields. Clothing, and what we can see of the culture, strongly suggests a version of the 19th century.

This is a Steampunk Earth, and the year is 1878. Queen Victoria sits on the British throne, and thanks to Victorian SCIENCE!, her husband is still with her. In France, the Bourbon King Henri V rules, with the aide of an Estates-General dominated by the elected Third Estate. Belgium appears not to exist, although the territories that make it up are extant within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Pope Clement XV leads an Italian Paeninsula united under the Papal banner, along with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. In the USA, there is little slavery, and there was no civil war, due to the development of worker-clanks; parts of the Western Territories contain numerous 40-acre ranches, apparently owned by black families. In the Empire of Brazil, a space centre is under construction on an island east of Macapá. I could go on like this, but you should get the idea, and probably want to know how this happened.

From an alternate historian's perspective, this Earth is the most 'normal' of the four, in that the differences from OTL started at a specific Point of Divergence, and most of what happened after is different, including many births. Some time prior to May 17, 1823, a man by the name of James Haversham returned from India. Shortly thereafter, he began selling a patent medicine ('Haversham's Sovereign Cognitive Enhancer') which seemed to enhance the mental faculties (as well as cause an initial few seconds of intense synæsthesia), primarily in the areas of focus, creativity, and craftsmanship - in other words, an early form of nootropic drug. The more interesting, and permanent, effect is something that is not noticed at first: those who have taken this drug reflexively create 'magic items' whenever engaging in any act that registers in their minds as 'creative', 'artistic', or 'crafting'. These items may be temporary or permanent, depending mostly on which the item itself is intended to be - e.g. a gun is a permanent item, while a bullet is really not, but can last a long time before being used; a glass is a permanent item, but a pint of beer is there to be drunk, and goes bad fairly quickly. The 'item' need not even be an object - dancing, performing a kata, reciting a song or poem, playing an instrument, and so forth, are all acts of creativity, craftsmanship, or both, and thus effectively, acts of spellcasting (non-material things are always one-shot 'items', with relatively immediate effects - spells, in other words). Likewise, traditional 'magic' is sometimes called 'The Art' or 'The Craft', and often viewed as such by practitioners.

At first, the powers of items created were merely enhancements of things they already did: swords were sharper, less breakable, or less inclined to rust, guns more accurate, beer less inclined to cause hangovers, and so forth, but did not let the user shoot fireballs or summon lightning bolts. This is partly because this is easier to do, and partly because that's usually what the craftsman was thinking it should do, while making it. Of course, eventually, magic items that were clearly magical came into being. Likewise, 19th century magical practitioners eventually tried the Enhancer, and discover their magics working well, where they worked poorly, if at all, before. There is much dispute over when exactly this happened, and who first discovered it, but the first article on the subject in a respectable newspaper was in The Times (London), on October 16, 1834. Interestingly, Haversham himself disappeared five years earlier, on October 16th, 1829, by which point several other people were making his Enhancer (though only those who'd taken the magical version, themselves, were able to truly replicate it - others merely made a mix of absinthe, scotch, ginko biloba, and snake oil, chemically identical to the magical version, but a little warmer, and without its powers).

In April 1825, Charles Babbage and an engineer working with him tried the Enhancer, and Difference Engine No. 1 was delivered to the British government by Guy Fawkes Day. Analytical Engine No. 1 followed in 1829, and the first Mechanical Man, called 'Mr. Clank', after the noises it made while walking, was demonstrated on the Queen's Birthday, 1839 (without the magic of the Enhancer, of course, this would not have been possible). Sales of crude Mechanical Farmers began in the US in 1842. By the 1850s, it was clear that slavery was on the way out, although even in 1878, the wealthier plantation owners still have a few (mostly female) house-slaves, and (mostly male) overseer-slaves to watch the clanks in the fields. Under this USA's 16th Amendment, though, total emancipation in US States and Territories will have taken place by 1888. The new 'big' thing in analytical engines and mechanical servants is the manufacture of gears so tiny that the best optical microscopes cannot see them - only the newly-developed electron nanoscopes have that capacity.

This Earth does not quite have the concept of the generalized personal computer; the nearest equivalents are the mechanical brains of the various unspecialized clanks that many people in the middle classes have as personal servants (human servants are more expensive, these days). Dedicated analytical engines, on the other hand, such as the Automated Ornatix which assists women in Society in choosing the right make-up and accessories, or the Artillerist's Field Tabulator that has made artillery fire more accurate than ever before, in nearly any weather, are very common. There is a primitive internet in use, connecting the great analytical engines of most colleges, academies, and universities via the wires first strung up for the telegraph, then expanded for the facsimile machines (invented as early as 1843 OTL, but didn't catch on for a while) that are found in so many homes, even among the upper end of the lower classes (telegraphy is mainly used for radio, these days, as transmitters and receivers fine enough for fax or vox are still experimental), and now used also by the new-fangled telephones that are all the rage among the better households. Few private homes are equipped to use the internet, and those mostly being the residences of Eminent Scientists. Shockingly, university students have sometimes been caught using the system to transfer pornography (gasp, horrors!), despite this being an offense worthy of expulsion (unless one's parents are rich enough to sweep it under the rug).

Aeronefs (aeroneves?), or powered heavier than air craft (in this case, the semi-powered gliders mentioned above), were developed partly as a side effect of research into rocketry, itself studied out of both military usefulness, and the desire to reach the Moon. The first important divergence from OTL in the history of rocketry on this Earth came in 1846, when inventor and rocket pioneer William Hale was sent a copy of Erasmus Darwin's gas-fueled rocket engine concept. This he found to be a very useful design, as it allowed the tiny Steering Engine (a quite small, dedicated analytical engine, with an inertial compass) of a rocket, such as the Royal Artillery's 'rocket-carried, map-following bomb' project, to throttle the engine, which is not something you can easily do with a solid-fuel rocket, without adding fairly expensive magic to it. Of course, gas by definition hasn't got a great fuel density, but it's rather easier to enchant a gas-fuel rocket for greater speed and range, than it is a solid-fuel rocket for throttling. A demilitarized version of this rocket was used by Thomas Mayfield in 1854, to allow his glider to stay aloft for longer periods, by firing short bursts. This method, with some variation, has been used ever since.

The next great step towards placing an astronef (manned space vessel, not counting the boosters or any external tanks) into orbit was in 1854, when Ernst Kremholtz replaced the gas bottles with thermos bottles of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. This increase in fuel density made reaching orbit a budgetable option, although it was some time before governments showed an interest. The orbiting of the first unmanned satellite (a large, rubber-and-tinfoil balloon named Marieanne) by the French in 1859, however, insured that the British had to develop an interest, for national pride was at stake! The invention of wireless telegraphy by James Clerk Maxwell in 1863 made it actually somewhat practical, as spacecraft could now send messages in real time on such things interesting things as weather and troop movements. The first permanent space station (a collection of reinforced balloons) was orbited by the Russian Empire starting in 1869, and is said to still be under construction. The first station to have gravity was orbited by the British on Christmas day, 1869 (though the gravity modules - a pair of inflated, counter-rotating wheels - did not arrive until 1871) The first man to walk on the Moon was Sir Geoffery Thornbury-Wallace (later GCB), in 1875.

The rise to power of the Papal States in Italy came from many factors, but one that stands out was that Pope Alexander IX (who became Pope following the death of Pius IX in 1849) gathered the best Italian generals under his banner- including Giuseppe Garibaldi, who became the first Captain General of the Church in over a century - and managed to take the best advantage of the new methods of logistics allowed by steam power. It also helped that he was rather more popular with the Italian public than the OTL Popes of that era. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell under Papal rule in 1858, and the Pope's control over northern Italy was consolidated by 1862. The Scandinavian Federation formed as a result of a gradual improvement of political and economic relations between Norway, Sweden, Daneland (known as Denmark until 1863), and Iceland starting in the 1830s, with the Articles of Federation being signed and ratified in 1866, and the Netherlands joining in 1873, after the Franco-Prussian War. That war began much as it did in OTL, but went off-course at the Battle of Strasbourg on August 3rd, 1870, when Napoleon III died. The Legitimist pretender Henri V managed to convince the recently-elevated Pope Clement XV, along with the Executive Council of the Scandinavian Federation, to intervene in the war. This lead to Prussia's surrender in 1872, the removal of it from 'Great Power' status, and the restoration, once again, of the Bourbons to the throne of France, under a new constitution. The latter was helped by the fact that Henri was married to Napoleon III's daughter, Marie, of course.

This Earth has far fewer fictional characters than Dieselpunk Earth, and all of the ones that we can be certain are or were real, were born after mid-May, 1823. In Japan, some version of Ruroni Kenshin is playing out. Monsieur Lecoq investigates various crimes in France, and Holmes and Watson are already at 221b Baker Street, London - interestingly, both Holmes and Watson, and many of their associates and cases, are about five years older than they should be in 1878, based on records from Dieselpunk Earth (Dp-Earth's H & W are pretty consistent with the Birlstone Railway's Timeline, at least for ACD's published works). Also, Dp-Earth Watson was wounded in the shoulder, while Stp-Earth Watson was wounded in the leg, at a different battle.

When Clement XV learns of the states of the other Papacies, he's going to claim dominance over the others, on the strength of having the greatest Papal States, and the largest military, as well as being the only one to put a man in space, much less a station. This is unlikely to go over well with them, nor with too many Catholics not from Stp-Earth.

It likely won't be long before there are websites translating the Morse code transmissions of this Earth, or displaying telescopic and satellite photos of it, though YouTube channels are less likely (then again, there should be quite a lot of video from the telescopes).

 

[Prince Charon]

* The closer Earth 'behind' us shows no evidence of artificial satellites, though it does have an oddly dense and colourful ring of asteroids a bit over 3,000 miles above sea level.

In the skies of this Earth, there are no visible lighter-than-air craft, but lots of heavier-than-air craft, in the form of kite-like gliders, and a few propeller planes that appear to be powered by high-tension springs, and launched by catapults or trebuchets, or from high points, rather than under their own power. Several towers, cones, and pyramids appear to have been built for this exact purpose.

Judging by the flags and much of the clothing, this world is at some point in the Renaissance, probably around the mid-16th century. That is, in fact, correct, as the year is 1555. It's a very eccentric 1555, though: a Clockpunk Earth with alchemists, centauroid robot soldiers, wind-up motor-carriages, and may other mechanical contrivances that should not be there. One of the most important inventions of the era is the alchemical development of 'springmetal', a magical alloy that, when coiled into a spiral and wound up, shifts its shape to unwind longer, providing several times the energy put into it. Several ghettos (Jewish communities inside non-Jewish towns) as well as a few shtots, shetls, and dorfs (Jewish-majority cities/towns/villages) are protected by what appear to be golems, though none are as powerful nor as violent as the OTL-legendary Golem of Prague. More golems appear to be workers, rather than soldiers, though they only do work that humans would find either too difficult, too dangerous, or too boring. Though we cannot see them with telescopes, a few tiny golems are used by jewelers and chiurgeons, and others who need very delicate work done, though this is a new thing. While golems are harder to make than mechanical robots, they do not break down nor wind down, are generally easier to repair, and are rather harder to damage. The Jews have rather more rights and security in many nations on this world, than they did in the OTL 16th century.

The Pope at this time is Leo X (Rodrigo Borgia of Aragon, very much not the OTL Pope Leo X), son and cardinal-nephew to the late Pope Joan II, better known as Lucrezia Borgia. That alone shows this to be a rather divergent world. Elizabeth Tudor (who oddly enough looks rather more like Cate Blanchett than like any of her paintings on other Earths) is currently High Queen of the Britons (High King of Wales and Queen of England, IOW; also Queen of Ireland, and other titles), just wrapping up a civil war with forces loyal to her late half-sister, Queen Mary I of England.

The apparent point of divergence is in 1457, when a comet passed too close to this Earth, and broke up into the anomalous ring seen by our astronomers, along with other bits that fell into the atmosphere. Shortly thereafter, many alchemists found that they were able to create effects that they never managed, before (though so far, no-one has managed to create a true Philosophers' Stone), as were other mystics. Oddly, this had little effect on the course of history, at least at first. Given all the gadgets and elixirs and spells and such involved, it really should have, and while most of the locals will probably declare it 'The Will of God' (Allah, Vishnu, whatever) when they know to wonder about it, that isn't likely to satisfy those from less dominantly theistic cultures.

In 1499, after the death of her second husband, Lucrezia Borgia asked her father what it would take for him to make her a cardinal. The Pope thought on it for a moment, and replied 'Perform a miracle, and I will make you a cardinal.' A little less than a year later, in 1500, she did: at a feast with several other cardinals present (not all of them supporters of her father), Lucrezia filled her goblet once, prayed over it, and proceeded to fill the goblets of everyone else there from hers. Some of the cardinals suspected trickery, and so she did it again, this time fully nude. Thus it was that Lucrezia Borgia became the first official cardinal-niece. How she became Pope after her father's death in 1505 (butterflies and alchemy extended his life a little) is uncertain, though many claim she slept with all or most of the other cardinals, which is unlikely: she wasn't nearly the slut her detractors would like to depict her as, and a lot of the cardinals weren't corrupt enough (or were too corrupt) for that to work.

King Henry VIII's life went much as his OTL counterpart's did, at least until 1537, though he was named Defender of the Faith by the anti-pope in Salzburg, who used the regnal name 'Boniface X'. He never acknowledged the Papacy of Joan II, though if she had lived long enough to grant him the annulment he sought, he very likely would have. As it happened, by the time he began seriously seeking the non-existence of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, in 1527, Joan had succumbed to what was most likely tuberculosis (Boniface having preceded her due to old age), and the College of Cardinals was quite busy failing to elect a successor. By the end of 1529, the young Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia of Aragon was Pope Leo X, and a lot of other cardinals were rich, dead, or sometimes both. Leo had no intention of annulling the marriage, and so British history proceeded on something mostly like its OTL course for most of the next decade. In 1537, his then wife, Jane Seymour (no, not the actress, she wasn't born yet) gave birth to his only son. In OTL, she died 12 days later. In this timeline, the Royal Alchemist, Sir Iain Cochrane, created a medicine that allowed her to recover, though she never had another child. This also helped Sir Iain keep his head - unlike his predecessor, Sir Richard Rich (a lawyer in OTL), who was executed as a conspirator in Anne Boleyn's 'treason', owing to his failure to cause Anne to give Henry the son he needed to secure the succession.

Henry VIII died in a jousting accident in 1548 (the alchemists' elixirs allowed him to maintain the sporting life he so loved), leaving his ten year old son to reign as Edward VI. This Edward did not fall ill in February of 1553. Rather, that was when he married his cousin, Lady Jane Grey. Both the King and the Queen, who had recently announced her pregnancy, were assassinated on the night of July 9th, 1553. Naturally, the supporters of both Mary and Elizabeth each blamed the other (with Elizabeth's supporters also accusing the Pope in Rome, who may well have been responsible), and a civil war began, which has only recently ended, due to the death of Mary at the Battle of The Wallops (t'were to big for only one of 'em).

An important difference between the clockwork robots of this Earth, and those of Stp-Earth (apart from the lack of steam), is the degree to which magic is integrated: Stp-Earth Mechanical Men use as little magic as possible, both for expense, and for quality control. In many cases, the only magic involved is intelligence enhancement, and a minor 'works a little better than it should' effect - even the eyes can be mundane, using photostrictive crystals. Clp-Earth automatons, however, tend to be pretty highly magical, as they cannot see nor think, can barely hear, and could only move a short time, without the integration of magic into their structures; indeed, a typical operating engine for such devices is a box of rods, gears, and springs, with various symbols carved or embossed on them, designed to be easily operated by the inhabiting spirit.

 

[Prince Charon]

* The closer Earth in front of us is also lacking in artificial satellites, nor does it possess a debris ring like the Clockpunk Earth.

In the skies all over the world, various kinds of dragons can be seen, as well as other varieties of flying myths, as appropriate for their regions. There are a number of hot air balloons over India (and a few in nearby regions) and South America, along with flying carpets in parts of the Middle East

The surface looks mostly like Earth in the 6th century, with elements of Middle Earth, and to a lesser degree, 3.5-era Abier-Toril (races, species, and types of items, not specific individuals or places), though the economy looks mostly like what the various cultures on RL Earth actually had in the 6th century. There are the usual people, animals, and plants (along with many unusual ones), there are cities, towns, and villages about where you'd expect them to be (and a few where they probably shouldn't be, including a city apparently made of brass in the least-habitable part of the Arabian paeninsvla, and one with streets paved in gold in South America), and the geography/geology looks mostly the way archaeologists think it did in our timeline in the 6th century (except for several extra or expanded islands & paeninsvlae, a few new or missing mountains, and so forth). In Britain, there's a fairly large wasteland, in large parts of what are now the counties of Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Wrexham, and fairly small parts of Conwy, Gwynedd, Powys, Cheshire, and Shropshire. In certain deserts, Arabia and the Gobi in particular, a few necromancers have quite a lot of undead doing rather strange things. The general nerdity of OTL scientists will likely lead them to the links provided soon enough, though (which have been SFW each of the times I checked them, despite being archived from /tg/; pleasant surprise, that).

The observable point of divergence from our history was in 312 CE (1065 ab urbe condita), when Emperor Constantine was killed at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, having been struck by lightning. This didn't end Christianity, but it did keep it from dominating Europe, and throw off the Imperial succession. Oddly enough, some things still happened, such as the partitioning of the Roman Empire (already begun by Diocletian, in the Third Century CE), and the decline of the Western half. Said decline happened more slowly than in our timeline, and did less damage to Italia. By 500 CE/1253 AUC, the Western Empire had recovered somewhat, and Western Emperor Lucius Tiberius felt confident enough to order the wealthy British cities, victorious over their Teutonic invaders, to pay tribute to Rome. This was something the Britons had stopped doing when the Romans abandoned them in 421/1174 (around 410/1163, in OTL), and felt no reason to resume. Now, in 514/1267, the capital of the Western Roman Empire is Camulodunum, and the Emperor is the Romano-British warlord Ambrosius Aurelianus the Younger (or Ambrosius Aurelianus Romanorum), better known to his own people as Arthur, High King of the Britons. Of course, the Western Empire only controls Britannia, Armorica, Italia, and the cities in Gallia that happen to lie along the best route between Italia and Armorica (though Arthur is mostly allied with the other kingdoms in Gallia).

Meanwhile, the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Olympia, is almost as large as in OTL 514 CE, despite having a bit of a civil war, between the three sons of the late Emperor Crassus. In the regions of Europe not controlled by parts of the Roman Empire, small nations, city-states, and wandering tribes are the order of the day, and North Africa isn't much better - although the Kingdom of the Vandals is fairly strong, surprisingly wealthy and fertile, and seems to have a good chance of uniting the region.

Outside of Europe and the Mediterranean region, things are going fairly close to our timeline... apart from the weird bits: Japan is culturally and technologically closer to the mid Heian era, except that they already have katana. There's a Pharaonate in Kush (what we would call Sudan), with springs and canals that did not exist in OTL, and a culture with great similarities to Ancient Egypt. The Iroquouis (or a very similar tribal alliance) are having an agricultural revolution, and appear to be mastering ironworking and positional numerology, though the rest of their technology appears to be in the early-to-mid Bronze Age, with an ideographic writing system. India has flying machines called 'vimana', most of which are held aloft by lenicular or spindle-shaped hot air balloons, and are propelled by great cloth-and-wood screws. (Think of the airscrew of da Vinci's helicopter. Turn it on its side, make the shaft longer, and mount another screw on the other end, so whenever you turn it, one screw blows air toward the gondola, and the other blows it away. Thus, you can go forward or backward, depending on which way you turn the airscrew. Steering is accomplished by a folding sail/rudder sticking out the bottom of the gondola, and/or other, smaller pairs of airscrews, perpendicular to the main shaft.)

Most of the strange new species are spirits of various types, embodied in whatever matter fits them. Trolls, for example, are a type of Earth elemental hostile to humans, and 'allergic' to direct sunlight, which can banish them from their stone bodies, and leave them unable to take new ones for years, or even centuries. Dragons are harder to codify, and there seem to be multiple types of spirits who use dragon bodies. Some appear to use fossils - or at lease, that's what's left behind when they're 'killed', occasionally along with crocodilian hide, a powerfully magical heart, or both. Others create their bodies gradually over time, from the food they eat, but all dragons (and most other spirits) start with ectoplasm: dust, smoke, vapor, and so forth, gathered and held in place psychokinetically. Spirits that only use ectoplasm, or pure PK (with or without a visual illusion), to simulate their bodies, are effectively immune to non-magical weapons: there's really nothing there to hit. A wide range of other monsterous spirits exist, mostly having started from local legends, and in some cases, wandering further afield. Some monsters, such as the European Owlbear, were created by bored or mad sorcerers, for purposes ranging from the reasonable to the inexplicable. Many of them, when 'killed', leave treasure behind, having taken into their bodies various items worn or carried by previous victims. Dragons vary in size from little lizards or snakes (which may be possessing the bodies of actual reptiles) to a bit larger than a 747 (which often lack physical bodies, at all).

Of the humanoids, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings or hobbits appear to be just pygmy humans of slightly differing phenotypes: Dwarves are generally the biggest of the Little People, and tend to be aggressive, hairy (even their women have beards), and exceptionally strong, tough, and poison-resistant for their size (an average dwarf can drink an average orc or 'normal' human under the table, and wander home without much difficulty). They prefer to live underground, in great mines and caves (though this seems to be more cultural than biological), and their sense of beauty runs toward practical, durable things. Gnomes average between the dwarves and the halflings in size, prefer to live on the surface, and tend to be quite creative. Many of them are highly skilled in illusion magic, alchemy, and engineering, making gadgets that might best be described as 'Windmillpunk', or 'Proto-Clockpunk'. Hobbits are the smallest of the human Little People, and are surprisingly nimble and sure-eyed, with tough, hairy feet, and great appetites (and proportionally large bellies). They could be said to live underground, in the sense that they prefer to build their homes out of tunnels in the sides of hills (poorer hobbits generally build the hills along with their homes, or must burrow into the ground, and deal with the rain), but they spend far more time in the sun than most dwarves do. Most hobbits are plain, quiet folk, with an aversion to adventures (dreadful things; make one late for dinner!), and a fondness for a mild form of cannabis (not the tobacco of Tolkien's notes) called galenas, or 'pipe-weed' - those who do become warriors or adventurers tend to be thinner, less relaxed, and often disdain the weed.

Giants are mostly the descendents of humans with gigantism, who have settled into their own large-but-somewhat-healthy phenotypes. Some giants are instead spirits who take large, humanoid forms. While the human giants top out at around ten feet tall, spirit giants may be much larger, and are of variable size. The locals don't make much distinction between human giants and spirit giants, save as different races: hill giants (generally human) and forest giants (mix of humans and spirits) are fairly friendly if you don't attack or steal from them, storm giants (all spirits, 'living' on/in clouds) and cyclopes (also spirits, and yes, that's apparently the correct plural) aren't friendly at all, et cetra.

Orcs appear to be Neanderthal-descendents with large canines. They average a bit shorter than baseline humans, a bit less intelligent, rather more vulnerable to heat, and very resistant to cold. They also tend to be a bit stronger, tougher, and more aggressive than baseline humans. Ogres appear to be an orc phenotype with fairly-healthy gigantism, topping out at around 9 feet, but tend towards less intelligence. Goblins and hobgoblins appear to be pygmy orcs, the hobgoblins averaging a little bigger than dwarves and a little dumber than orcs, and the goblins averaging about as large and bright as gnomes, though with less love of art and what humans call beauty. Elves say of them that "They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones," which has more to do with goblins having different ideals of beauty than elves (and most humans) do, rather than having no concept of it, at all - like dwarves, but far more so, they love practical things, and many of them would find beauty in the 'dark, satanic mills' of the Industrial Revolution (as long as they're not the ones toiling in them). Of all the orkish races, only goblins build cities - unfortunately, their preferred locations for their cities coincide with those of the dwarves, which leads to a lot of conflict. Both goblins and hobgoblins are sallow-skinned, and all orc-derived races have a tendency to wartyness. Orcs and hobgoblins prefer cold climates, while ogres and goblins might live anywhere humans do (though they prefer to avoid the tropics). Some of them crossed over to North America during the last big Ice Age, though they are not numerous. Despite what the local humans will say, these races are not Always Chaotic Evil, nor are many of them inclined to eat babies - the humans are hostile to them, so they return that hostility, but among themselves, they're mostly just regular folk of the era. This has been going on for so long that it's apparently instinctive for both sides (and the orkish folk aren't going to see a difference between humans from space, and the local variety).

Elves and faeries are spirits, connected to nature, to varying degrees. This sounds nice, but recall that nature doesn't just mean the peaceful green of growing plants, but the red of blood and fire, the white of sharp teeth and the flash of lightning. Nature is beautiful, but do not forget that it is also deadly. The elves are the most human of these nature spirits, and even they are a bit strange. Half-elves generally do have two human parents, it's just that an elf or two were fooling around with one or both of them, and decided to leave an empowerment behind in the child. They tend to be attractive and powerful, but creepy and spooky, from a human perspective.

As with Dieselpunk Earth, there is no specific point at which creatures of magic began to appear. As far as the locals know, they've always been there, though unlike Dp-Earth, they've never really hid. Oddly, in much of Europe, healing is the province of clerics, druids, and bards, with few other magic-users learning much of it.

 

[Prince Charon]

* Magic in these worlds, including our Earth, once that starts happening, is fairly similar to the Path/Book system presented in GURPS Thaumatology and the narrower Ritual Path system from GURPS Monster Hunters (although priestly folk on Fantasy Earth might use the 'prayers and miracles' system presented in GURPS Powers: Divine Favor, if their gods are powerful enough), or in some cases, a version of the Symbol Magic systems from GURPS Magic and again, GURPS Thaumatology. The powers behind that magic, however, whether divine or arcane, are psi powers, and these define the limits of what can be done - though if you're creative, you can still do a hell of a lot. Without going into multiple pages of detail, very few magic-users can cast a spell by just muttering and gesturing for a few seconds, or pointing and saying the name of the spell in some obscure language - and most of those who can, are only able to do it for a few spells they know very well. Instead, they spend a few minutes to a few hours (depending on the skill of the caster, the complexity of the spell, various environmental conditions, and whether they're summoning an existing spirit, or generating a new one) chanting, gesturing, and possibly singing or dancing, in a ritual circle or similar space prepared with various symbols, and then either the magic starts to happen, or the mage take up a charm that the ritual has loaded the magic into - these temporary magic items last for days to weeks, and are generally broken when activated.

The act of casting a spell most often involves creating or summoning a thoughtform (see link in the tl;dr section below) - a sort of psychic computer program running on the medium of the collective unconscious (the astral plane, if you ask most mystics). Generating a new thoughtform tends to take longer than summoning one, unless you need to negotiate with the one you summoned (OK, technically, you're generating a thoughtform even when you summon another, but all that one has to do is get a spirit's attention, which is why it only takes a few minutes or less to make). Most newly created thoughtforms, especially those made for specific, limited tasks, tend to be very lacking in willpower, and in many cases, fade from existence fairly quickly (those created to get another spirit's attention tend to be absorbed by that spirit, increasing its power by a miniscule amount, which encourages it to at least pop by and talk). 'Free' thoughtforms, those that did not fade away for various reasons, are spirits, and the most powerful spirits are called gods. Most of them were generated unconsciously by groups of people, but a few were created by sorcerers, and grew beyond their origins. Permanent or multi-use magic items are fetishes (no, not the sexual kind): objects which have a thoughtform bound to them, whether formed by the caster, or summoned and trapped, willingly or otherwise. Spontaneously created spells are possible with the right stimulation (such as Haversham's Enhancer, or the comet that came to Clockpunk Earth), but tend to be very limited, quirky, or both. Intentionally designing spells is much like writing a computer program, in a very eccentric language, in your head. Meditation is often involved. Thoughtforms are capable of transitioning the 'quasi-wormholes' connecting the various Earths, but their arrivals produce only a very weak particle spray, difficult to detect with 2012 instruments - unless a whole bunch arrive at once, of course.

Thoughtforms sustain themselves, at least in part, by absorbing psychic energy directed at them, usually focused through various emotions. By itself, this doesn't harm the person being fed on - you're already emitting the energy, whether they eat it or not. Different thoughtforms often prefer different 'flavors' of emotion, and this affects their appearance and behavior - a spirit that feeds on lust tends to be attractive in some way, and acts friendly and/or seductive, those who feed on fear tend to look frightening, and act creepy or hostile to various degrees, and so forth. This is also how spirits can be harmed: those too strongly adapted to one or two emotions are often 'poisoned' by others, and nearly all spirits can be 'injured' by the desire to do harm to that spirit, especially when directed by a reasonably strong will, at mêlée ranges (not that where you see/sense the spirit is it's true location - it's in the collective unconscious, which means it's in your head, just like it's in everyone elses' - but disembodied spirits are much harder to hurt, if they don't notice you're trying to hurt them, and spirits generally pay the most attention to the location they appear to be in, whether in the real world, a dream, the astral plane, or even in a virtual world on the computer, for those that can get there). The easiest way to focus such an attack is to attack the spirit's apparent 'body' with a mêlée weapon or unarmed attack, while strongly willing it to 'Be Injured' or 'Die'. Mêlée weapons are useful for this purpose because the wielder's spirit (ki, prana, aura, whatever) tends to extend over the weapon, when one is sufficiently skilled with it. This doesn't really apply to ranged weapons, or rather, it doesn't apply well to projectiles, once they're no-longer in contact with the user (though you can extend the range a bit by attaching a wire, thread, or similar, if you practice enough with the modified projectile). Of course, you can turn a projectile into a charm or fetish with the property of 'harms spirits', but this works best with larger objects like arrows or throwing knives - it's hard to convince a powerful damage spirit to cram itself into something as puny as a bullet (no matter how fast it goes), especially as damage (and resistance to it) is dependent on the relative willpowers of the inflicting and receiving spirits. It's much easier to harm spirits which are 'permanently' anchored, willingly or not, to physical objects (fetishes, in other words, but not charms), as they will generally be injured by damage to their host items, and may be killed by the item's destruction, or banished to the depths of the collective unconscious (the Inner Astral Plane, as mystics call it), for some time (depends on lots of factors, but is generally measured in years, decades, or centuries, due to the trauma of being 'killed').

Some spirits who prefer specific emotions will merge, temporarily or permanently, with thoughtform-copies of some ficional or real being, in order to better evoke their preferred emotion. The spirit thus becomes, for example, 'Bugs Bunny, if he were a laughter spirit' (not much change, there), or 'a dementor, if it were a fear and/or misery spirit' (which again, isn't much of a change - in fact, it makes more sense in this context than dementors eating happiness), or 'a clumsy little puppy, if it were a d'aawww(g) spirit' (no, I'm not going to give you examples of who/what a lust spirit might merge with - you've already got a dozen ideas in your head, you don't need any help from me). Some of the friendlier spirits will also merge with minor elementals or other nature spirits, so that some specific person they 'like' will find them more useful, and wish to keep them around. Yes, for some types of spirits and 'donors', this can get various types and levels of creepy (and not just with lust spirits, either) - they're not human, and even when merged with a ghost or other fairly human-like thoughtform, don't quite think like humans do. The humans that contract with them don't usually have that excuse, but with many spirits, it's better than letting them run wild.

The spirits' ability to effect the physical world requires them to convert physical energies for their own use, and has nothing to do with how they sustain themselves as spirits. The most common energy source seems to be heat, which explains why magic items and materials are often cool to the touch, and haunted houses frequently have unexplained cold spots - the fact that this appears to violate thermodynamics doesn't bother the spirits, at all. The strongest energy source is quite unknown, although it might be a form of what OTL scientists currently call 'dark energy'. This is the apparent source of the extra energy from Clp-Earth's springmetal, and the enhanced fuels on Dp-Earth and Stp-Earth.

That which is called 'Magery', 'magical aptitude', or 'the magegift' is not precisely an inborn talent. True, some are born with it to some degree, but you can also say that everyone is born with it, to some degree. Useful levels of this power, when not inborn, may be induced by spirits or spells, learned through study and meditation, developed due to exposure to psychic energy as a defensive measure, or even just suddenly appear for no readily apparent reason. At its core, magery is the ability to at least semi-consciously generate thoughtforms, and control, manipulate, or otherwise interact with them.

Advanced magical styles (and there are a lot of them, mostly on Fantasy Earth) often have lots of spells, divided into specialties called Paths (or schools, or colleges, or chapters, spheres, pillars, et cetra) - in-depth study of these makes the spells within them easier to cast, but is not absolutely necessary. Many newer or less developed magical styles, such as those on Steampunk Earth and Clockpunk Earth, have few enough spells not to need such specialization, grouping the whole list in a single Book (which need not be a physical book - it's just a name to distinguish it from Paths). Path styles often grow out of Book styles, either by magic-users inventing enough new spells that specialization becomes useful or necessary, or because someone learned several Book styles, and integrated them into one compound style (which can be quite difficult, if the base styles were especially different from each other). Weird Sciences are nearly always personal Book styles. Alchemy varies between something very much like standard GURPS alchemy (mixing magical substances together and feeling them interact, on top of normal chemistry methods of monitoring) where magical materials are common, or various Book or Path styles, where they are rarely or never found in nature.

Most of the styles of magic on Clockpunk Earth, and nearly all on Steampunk Earth, are Book styles - indeed, many found on Steampunk Earth are very personal and informal, more or less unique to each spellcaster (though quite often based on extant styles that previously did little or nothing), and those that aren't, started out that way, before being taught to others. Having a few more generations to work on them, the styles on Clockpunk Earth are more fully developed, being more often taught and learned, than invented piece by piece from the ground up. Steampunk Earth has only a handful of fairly new Path styles, and Clockpunk Earth has barely more than a dozen. Dieselpunk Earth has a wide range of book styles, and a fair number of Path styles, while Fantasy Earth almost has more extant Path styles than Book styles. OTL Earth has a minor advantage in terms of creating new Path styles, in that thanks to games and a few fantasy novels, we already have the idea of magical styles being divided into specializations.

The 'prayers and miracles' system from Divine Favor is pretty much exactly that: a sufficiently blessed individual prays to the god(dess) that blessed him/her, and generally gets some appropriate form of miracle (as long as they haven't been abusing their position, anyway, and get a good reaction roll from their deity). You can learn specific prayers to mostly insure getting a fairly specific miracle, but in general, it's not that complicated. Generally, most gods will only grant consistent blessings and powers (as opposed to one-shot 'Well, I don't want you to die right now' deus ex machina) to those who have a great strength and sincerity of belief (in crunch terms, if anyone wants to run a GURPS game of this, you don't get advantages like Blessed, Divine Favor, Holy Might, True Faith, and so forth, unless you take Fanatacism (character's religion), Disciplines of Faith, or a sufficiently similar disadvantage). How available this system is seems to vary from dimension to dimension: the gods on Stp-Earth and OTL-Earth, once awakened, rarely grant this blessing, rarely grant miracles to those who are so blessed, and even when they do, tend to go for minor miracles like accelerated healing or guards falling asleep, over anything showy. The power is more common on Clp-Earth and Dp-Earth, but even there, not nearly so common nor powerful as on Fa-Earth. It's difficult to describe an upper limit to this power, but generally, anything (other than not-too-strange weather) that covers a few square miles is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and anything much bigger is a legendary cataclysm that will be remembered for thousands of years (e.g. the Ten Plagues of Egypt). Large-scale miracles tend to be aimed more toward 'helping the faithful survive', or 'punishing great impiety (in the deity's own followers)', rather than 'wiping out the unbelievers', though (because the latter gets you into inter-deity conflicts, and no-one wants a 'hot' War In Heaven - well, no-one with any sense). This style is the easiest for beginning casters to perform very difficult feats like instant healing or conjuring food out of apparently nothing, because the gods have the processing power to manipulate large numbers of atoms and molecules in complex patterns (such as teleporting in all the material needed to turn one fish sandwich into a dozen fish sandwiches, and them building those atoms into the required shapes by copying the existing fish sandwich), and they're the ones doing all the work.

Gods are mysterious, and no-one has any clear, established facts as to how powerful they are, whether some are more powerful than others, nor whether there are any gods who are more than 'just' massively powerful thoughtforms. No-one knows where spirits end and gods begin, either, though a total lack of miracles being granted is usually taken as an indicator, accurately or not. When a miracle is granted, the Presence of the deity is sometimes felt by anyone in the area, and more so by those who are the subject of the miracle, the one who called for it, or are psychically sensitive. Such Presences vary from god to god: for example, being healed by a war god so that you can go back into the fight feels totally different from being healed by a mother goddess because she loves all the 'children' (even when they're adults of a different faith), even ignoring the difference in rituals each priesthood uses. The Presence may be a simple feeling (calm strength, lust, being hugged, a desire for battle, et cetra), or might be accompanied by brief sensory hallucinations (the scent of blood or of roses, the sound of drums or a heavenly choir, a vision of the god(dess), and so forth). Different people tend to feel the Presense in different ways, depending not only on how sensitive they are, but how they feel about that deity, and how that deity feels about them. Likewise, the effect tends to differ somewhat between deities; again using healing as an example, war deities often leave scars, mother goddesses usually don't, and gods or goddesses of love and beauty only leave 'attractive' scars.

Symbol magic (such as this Rune Magic thread, or the aforementioned GURPS versions) is most often used to amplify Path/Book rituals, although it can be used effectively on its own. Each copy of a specific rune or other mystical symbol, even one just drawn in the air with a finger or wand, is connected to the spirit of that symbol, to varying degrees. Thus, every Eiwaz rune is connected to the spirit of 'the Rune Eiwaz', every Page of Swords card is connected to the spirit called 'the Page of Swords', and so forth. Some symbols have temporary or permanent thoughtforms bound to them, greatly increasing that connection (to the point that spellcasting with charm or fetish-runes takes at most seconds, instead of minutes). There generally aren't all that many Symbol styles, although each of the four new Earths has working Futhark and Ogham styles, and both Steampunk and Dieselpunk Earths have Tarot styles (Tarot cards weren't of much interest to mystics before the 18th century in OTL, and thus neither Fantasy nor Clockpunk Earth would use them). Symbol wizards are rather more common, mainly among adventurers, but they tend to use well-known symbols (and becoming well-known takes time), as otherwise the spirits of those symbols don't have enough power to be useful.

Magical materials are those which naturally have thoughtforms anchored to them (generally due to long belief, or for some organic materials, the life form it came from being psychic), allowing various effects without the need to cast a spell. These thoughtforms subdivide when the material does, and merge when properly brought together, allowing new effects. Natural magical materials are rare to non-existent on Steampunk Earth, Clockpunk Earth, and our Earth, somewhat uncommon on Dieselpunk Earth, and very common on Fantasy Earth (a fair amount of various magical materials, as well as plants and animals, from both Middle Earth and Abier-Toril can be found on the latter). Some materials, such as silver and iron, are not magical themselves, but affect spirits and other magical creatures and people, due to the legends about those spirits.

Psi powers: astral projection, ergokinesis (like psychokinesis, but manipulating the electromagnetic force (light, magnetism, electricity), and possibly other types of energy), extrasensory perception, meta-psi (ability to disrupt, enhance, or otherwise modify other psi powers; includes standard GURPS anti-psi power, if you're wondering), probability alteration, psychic healing (which is very rarely instantaneous, just faster than normal to varying degrees - although you can fake instant healing by psychokinetically holding the wound(s) together as a semi-superior substitue for stitches or staples, and then using telepathy to quiet the pain, and still use psychic healing to make the wound heal faster), psychic vampirism, psychokinesis, telepathy, and teleportation (which seems to involve warping space, and manipulating wormholes - bags of holding exist on Fantasy Earth, though they aren't terribly common). If you have access to a copy of GURPS Psionic Powers, biokinesis and psychometabolism fall under psychic healing (and any of those names might be used, depending on who's speaking), animal telepathy falls under telepathy, and dream control is a mix of telepathy and astral projection.

If you can plausibly explain something using the above psi powers, chances are, you can do it, although it may be massively impractical. In theory, for example, you could warp space enough to make a prince appear to have the size and shape of a frog, but then you'd have to correct for his mass, strength, reflexes being all wrong, human dietary needs, respirarion, pigmentation... Really, the amount of math, skill, information, precision, and concentration involved would be beyond most spirits, and even some gods would find it difficult, despite their greater processing power. Much less difficult (though still not 'easy') to pop the prince's real body into suspended animation, possibly in a pocket dimension made from the neck of a wormhole (note that there are always two entrances), and then either make him possess an existing frog (whether through pure telepathy, or forced astral projection + telepathy), or stick his astral body into an ectoplasmic shell in the form of a frog.

Since I'm sure someone will ask: sticking one warped space into another warped space just means making more work for the thoughtforms maintaining the warps, and if they can't or won't do the work, they'll either not allow the warped spaces together, or they'll collapse the spaces and dump whatever they contained out... or they may do some other thing, like attack you for making them work too hard. Better check with the spirits before you try something like that. Sticking one wormhole through another wormhole just relocates the mouth or mouths of the wormhole. Likewise for sticking a wormhole into a warped space. Sticking a warped space into a wormhole is pretty much like sticking a warped space into another warped space, though. Interestingly, wormholes tend not to cross into other dimensions, unless both mouths are anchored to or contained within the same structure. If you try, then either the structure that only one mouth is connected to will pass into the other dimension, but find its wormhole-mouth absent, or if the mouth is more tightly bound, the structure it's bound to will fail to cross into the other dimension. Also, the farther apart the mouths of a wormhole are when you start stabilizing it, the harder it is to make it stable and transitionable, though once it is, distance is no longer a factor.

Time travel does not appear to be possible (other than by visiting another dimension, which may be how the young Kal'El met the Legion, if he did at all), but you can fake it by astrally projecting into humanity's memory of the past (or predictions of the future), possibly sticking your real body into a space warp or pocket dimension as described above ('Well, aren't you going to say that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? Everybody else does.'). Nothing you do will actually change the past, but large efforts (nuking Rome in 450 BCE, for example) may cause confusion for a while, or even severe trauma, in some people - the latter, mostly in relatively recent changes, which could result in people currently alive having contradictory memories (like, say, remembering you died, when you clearly didn't). Physical changes to the present aren't going to happen just by altering the memory of the past. In most cases, all you'll do is cause increased activity on alternate history discussion boards.

FTL drives based on space warps are possible, but don't expect them to happen soon - well, relatively: if by 'soon', you mean 'within the next ten-to-twenty years, probably,' then sure, it should occur soon. Before the end of 2013, not likely at all, but sort of cheap interplanetary travel that takes days or weeks instead of months or years is quite plausible, with or without warping space-time. Wormhole-based FTL should happen sooner, but it will be a matter of attaching one mouth of a stable wormhole to a space probe, and sending it off to wherever you want to go. This is fine if you want to go to Mars, but if you want to visit Alpha Centaury, it's probably best to wait for warp-based FTL to be developed.

The creation of magic items is, in some ways, a matter of creativity for all worlds. Attempting to create a fetish while bored, frustrated, or just generally not in a creative mood, will tend to result in a weak fetish, or no fetish at all. Crafting one while in a creative mood, OTOH, tends to make quality control, and mass production, difficult (unique or rare quirks, differing bugs and features, and so forth). On the bright side, 'weak' does not equal 'useless': a fetish that does the same thing as the base object, only better, is to some degree a 'weak' fetish. Making a car significantly more fuel-efficient, a computer smarter, a sword sharper, and so forth, is fairly easy to do even when quite bored (particularly making a computer smarter). Making a car fly, a computer project holograms, or a sword sing show-tunes is not. Further, magic is not handwavium, and does not take care of such things as life support issues with no input from the caster: sure, you can turn a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle eventually, or even make one out of duck tape and cardboard boxes, but if you forget some vital survival factor, you die! For most magic-item-makers, it's much faster and safer to get an enchantment job with Virgin Galactic (or whomever, this situation is likely to massively increase the number of space concerns on OTL-Earth, all the way down to SF clubs forming cooperative ventures), save up, and buy a spacecraft with your employee discount.

In general, a beginning enchanter can turn an item into a better version of itself (e.g. an already-working spacecraft into one with twice the delta-v, a fusor or pollywell that does better than break even), fairly consistently, in an hour or so, or a few minutes, if the effect is temporary (making a vehicle faster or stronger for a few minutes to maybe an hour). Causing an item to act like something similar (e.g. turning a high-altitude jet that's had LO2 tanks installed, and some or all of its engines replaced by liquid-fueled rockets, into a working spacecraft) is rather harder, and usually takes longer to compensate for the difficulty. Turning something into something else that it looks like, but isn't (e.g. prop Police Box into pseudo-TARDIS, saucer-shaped house into actual flying saucer), is yet more difficult, and making something act like something totally other (ring that shoots fireballs, car or watergoing ship to spacecraft) is even more difficult, to varying degrees.

As you can see, symbolism is important: a Reliant Robin with wings and rockets, or with a Star Fleet paintjob and a pair of 'warp nacelle' props (especially if the nacelles contain 'warp coil' props, and such), looks like a spacecraft enough to be rather easier to turn into one (though you still have to remember all the life support issues, navigation issues, and other fiddly details). A ring with rubies and a fire motif is likewise easier to turn into a ring of fireballs. Puns may also be symbols: for example, springmetal is most effective when forged in March, April, or May, near a natural wellspring, and/or quenched in spring water (and other puns for other languages, of course). Power is another matter, however. By this I mean both processing power (complex things are harder to do), as well as the physics definition (which to some degree, both fall under what RPGs tend to call 'power level' or 'power rank'). In both senses, the more power you need, the more effort is required, and the longer it takes - though of course, those who are already more skilled, powerful, or both, have an easier time of it. In terms of physical power, the more you have from mundane or semi-mundane sources, the less magical effort is required - wall current, batteries, enchanted funsion reactors, car engines, sunlight, and so forth, all can be used, rather more easily than tapping into dark energy (or whatever it really is).

A note on ranged weapons: the farther away you are from your target, the easier it is to make you miss, whether with psychokinesis, probability alteration, or clever uses of other powers. Likewise, the more complex your weapon, the easier it is to psychically screw it up, or even turn it against you. Thus, swords and bows are generally more useful against magic-users and some psychics than guns and most grenades. That's not to say that guns are useless, because they're not, but their usefulness is limited. A sniper against a magician isn't going to do well, because the distance maximizes any defensive thoughtforms' ability to cause a miss, even if they're prevented from affecting the sniper directly. An infantry squad or section is another matter: Firstly, they have a numerical advantage, which means more guns to disrupt, and even if those guns are reduced to awkward clubs or clumsy spears, there's still eight to sixteen of them. Secondly, they're trained to work together (well, in First World professional forces, they are; Third World rebels or conscripts, random mobs, and gangs of thugs, are generally not so effective), and in some cases, have done so for years, which is a substantial advantage. If you know your squad/section is going up against a magic-user who might know something about modern weapons, leave the automatics and semi-autos on base. If you must have a rifle, make it a SMLE or other bolt-action rifle, and if you must have a handgun, use a revolver; otherwise, pump-action or simpler shotguns are preferable, as are bows, crossbows, machetes, axes, entrenching tools, knives, swords (see why they're still part of the uniform?), or Home Guard pikes.

The other common limitation of modern firearms is related to certain types of psychokinetic shields (which are distinct from PK deflection): while most such force fields provide the same resistance to all attacks, there are some that have a 'water-like' or 'Holtzmann-like' (though without the 'makes lasers blow up' part, as it doesn't fit this context) effect, having greater resistance to the impact of very fast objects than to relatively slow objects. Rather than go into an exhausting list in a post that's already longer than I'd like, I'll just say that a shield that would generally be penetrated by a sword or a crossbow quarrel, would strongly resist most subsonic bullets, and fully block most supersonic bullets, unless they're at the level of a .50 BMG or greater, due to overwhelming force. Such shields tend to be (relative to the number of beings who have PK Shields at all) rare-to-nonexistent on Fa-Earth and Clp-Earth, uncommon on Stp-Earth, and fairly common on Dp-Earth, paralleling the development and availability of firearms. They're likely to become fairly common on OTL-Earth, for that very reason.

 

[Prince Charon]

NOTE: OTL-Earth is the 'modern' Earth, also known as Earth One, Earth Prime, or Infopunk Earth (Inp-Earth).

2012 (December 21): The new Earths appear, the nearer ones first, and the further ones a little less than thirteen seconds later. From the perspective of the other Earths, of course, the order of appearance is somewhat different. Communication attempts will begin in short order, once the right frequencies and signal strengths are found, but only Dp-Earth and Stp-Earth are equipped to respond. At some point on the 21st or 22nd, Winston Churchill has a frustrating conversation with David Cameron (sadly, it would be at least as frustrating with a PM of any other party), and begins to wonder if he'll get more help, faster, from the folks sending radio-telegrams; he is heartened, though, by Merkel telling Hitler where to shove himself and his Reich (even if hardly anyone on Dp-Earth thinks a woman is really Chancellor of Germany).

Dec 22: An astronomer on OTL-Earth notes an asteroid near Clp-Earth, moving away, and marks it for further observation.

Dec. 23: Israel declares war on Nazi Germany. Hitler declares war on 'the Jewish State, and all puppets of the Jewish Conspiracy'. OTL-UK declares war on Nazi Germany, followed by OTL-US, OTL-France, OTL-Germany, OTL-Poland and OTL-Russia. Radio stations in the US celebrate by playing various renditions of We Did It Before (and we can do it again), among others.

Dec. 24: OTL-China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and both Koreas declare war on Dp-Japan.

Dec. 26: A probe is launched from Dp-Earth, and begins to be mated to the booster rockets already in orbit.

Dec. 28: The probe leaves Dp-Earth orbit, on course for OTL-Earth. In her Christmas Address (being about three days 'behind' OTL-Earth), Queen Victoria declares that 'An attack on any Britain is an attack on every Britain!' Stp-UK Parliament declares war on Dp-Germany.

Dec. 31: The asteroid observed near Clp-Earth disappears at 3 light-seconds from that Earth.

 

[Prince Charon]

2013 (January 4): The Dp-Earth probe fails to disappear.

Jan. 12: The probe from Dp-Earth passes through an asteroid, unperturbed. The asteroid is only visible from OTL/Inp-Earth, not the others.

Jan. 19: The probe enters the three light-second bubble around Earth, releasing a significant particle spray.

Jan. 21: On Inp-Earth, the UK requests an emergency summit of the leaders of all members of the Commonwealth. Rumours surface of sightings of soldiers guarding a blue police box in the woods of Northern England, and of a man bearing a suspicious resemblance to Jon Pertwee being taken to a cottage hospital nearby. The placing and quickly rescinding of a D-notice on these matters only encourages speculation (which may have been the point).

Jan. 26: The probe arrives in Inp-Earth orbit, its last booster falling into our atmosphere, and burning up. People on Inp-Earth start developing (generally minor) powers.

 

[Prince Charon]

February 2: Three multi-stage rockets are launched from Peenemünde, on Dp-Earth. The upper stages mate in orbit, and then seem to vanish.

Feb. 5: The domed cities on the Moon of Dp-Earth begin flashing their lights in Morse code, and specifically in English. The messages request that men be sent from Inp-Earth to help them repair their cities, and for social and reproductive purposes. It seems that about fifteen-sixteen years ago, they lost a war with the She-Devils of Venus, who killed all the adults, and killed or kidnapped all the boys. They also smashed all the 'infomats' they could find, and left the remaining girls to die a very slow death. They've managed to learn enough by trial and error, with the help of the remaining infomats and servo-bots, that they're not dead yet, but they fear they don't have much longer. They also request that we don't transmit their existence where the Dp-Earth humans will hear it, as they're still at the stage of oppressing women, whereas 'the cultures on your world that use this language' mostly aren't - or at least, are the least barbaric of many barbarians (which shows how limited a range of languages they have).

Feb. 8: British Experimental Rocket Group, Incorporated chartered in the Inp-UK, along with the subsidiary War Rocket Ltd.

Feb. 14: The 'Valentine's Gift' (only called that by Inp-Earth, due to time differences), a rocket containing Victorian scientists, engineers, military personnel, and ambassadors, along with various supplies, plans, and books, is launched from British Guiana, on Stp-Earth, and enters a course for Dp-Earth. The journey will take three months, and the vessel will need to be rebuilt, to return.

Feb. 16: A successful better-than-break-even polywell is demonstrated in Inp-Switzerland, and the plans and methods involved are posted online. The device confirmably works as advertised, but according to experts, shouldn't (though no-one finds any clear evidence of cheating, beyond that fact that it shouldn't work this well). Most who try to reproduce the device get a normal polywell, unable to break even, but a few, always the more eccentric, are able to replicate or even improve on the device using the same or similar methods.

Feb. 17: An odd collection of British and other Commonwealth aviation and space enthusiasts and investors who didn't buy into BERG Inc. purchase the rights to revive Handley Page Ltd., as an air- and space-craft manufacturer. Corporate headquarters are in New Zealand, though factories are purchased or planned throughout the Commonwealth.

Feb. 19: The members of the Commonwealth of Nations begin ratifying the Treaty of New Delhi, the founding document of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, or 'UNIT', a military group dedicated to the defense of the Commonwealth and its members and peoples from threats of an extraterrestrial, paranormal, or otherwise extraordinary nature. A few people on Inp-Earth, mainly in the US and Europe, but not exclusive to those regions, begin visiting doctors due to odd skin conditions. Mostly, these relate to the skin changing colour, but not itching or otherwise causing discomfort. Blood samples taken, in some cases, also appear to be the wrong colour, but are chemically what they should be, and return to red when separated from the source by enough distance, time, and/or both (usually no more than two yards and/or five minutes). Some, with or without odd skin colours, have noticed minor physiological changes, such as eye or hair colours changing, ears becoming pointed, foreheads gaining ridges, fingers and/or toes becoming slightly webbed, and so forth. A very few appear to have small improvements to strength, reflexes, senses, and so forth. In nearly all cases, they note that the new features make them resemble their favorite science fiction or fantasy race, or a specific character or characters.

Feb. 20: A particle spray comparable to that of the Dieselpunk probe occurs, but no object is seen. Triangulation of the particles suggests that whatever caused it, came from DP-Earth.

Feb. 23: Around 50 miles up, three large, teardrop-shaped objects, along with what appears to be a small booster and a missile bus, become visible. From 14:21 to 15:03 GMT, the teardrop-shapes objects, apparently kinetic kill vehicles, impact the cities of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel; London, England; and Washington DC, USA. Shortly thereafter, Hitler announces his ability to strike the 'untermenchen' anywhere, at any time, invisibly (though the fact that the Nazis aren't using their cloaking device inside Dp-Earth's atmosphere may indicate a weakness - OOC, the faint atmospheric pressure at 50 miles above sea level is enough to disrupt the cloaking field, especially at that speed).

Radii of serious damage (the actual craters are rather smaller):

Tel Aviv-Yafo

London

Washington (not to scale with the other two, due to metric/Imperial measurement issues)

Later analysis of astronomical photos recorded along the course the missile must have taken (astronomers, amateur or otherwise, take pictures of the night sky all the time, and a few were looking in the right places at the right times) show blurry patches at approximately where and when the missile must have been. Likewise, precise analysis of satellite orbits shows gravitic anomalies consistent with its estimated mass. Radar stations aimed at space did note small anomalies along that course, as well, though at the time, not enough to confirm its presence. Now that they know what to look for, the next ones probably won't slip through quite as easily.

February 27, 2013: After over two months of bitching, whining, and screaming in numerous parts of the US government (which got quite a bit louder when the probe from Dp-Earth arrived, and much quieter and more focused since the 23rd), and zillions of threads on many forums, the space assets of the United States Air Force (and other parts of the US military) are transferred to a new service: the United States Space Force. While the new service contains personnel from all branches, the ranks and much of the insignia (along with, in theory, the traditions) are similar to those of the USAF, with minor modifications, such as the 'Airman' ranks being renamed 'Astronaut'. The Class A uniforms are based on a style that was considered for the USAF, but ultimately rejected:

The budget of the new service cuts significantly into the budgets of the other military services (hence much of the screaming). NASA's facilities and personnel are mostly absorbed into the USSF, as well. The remainder of the agency is reduced almost to the space equivalent of the Federal Aviation Administration, though it may not remain that way.

 

[Prince Charon]

March 1: Stp-US President Edward J. Phelps (Whig) offers a reward for the design of an orbital rocket with greater lift than any in use by the Great Powers, and an astronef able to cross the void to the other Earths swiftly, safely, and comfortably. This reversal of the usual Whig policy surprises many, but most of the smarter Stp-American politicians can see the way the wind is blowing. Stp-Earth's Russian Empire declares war on Nazi Germany. The fact that the Tsar's current favorite mistress is Jewish has nothing to do with that, of course. On Dp-Earth, a massive BRG rocket attack strikes at Peenemünde. The rockets that get through the crude-but-effective German missile defenses damage launch facilities and disrupt the next interplanetary fire mission. In the Dp-USA, Dr. Goddard's next 'probe', this time sponsored by the US Army, is launched, along with its attendant boosters. Hitler orders the alternative long-range launch facilities in German East Africa to be made ready ahead of schedule. On Inp-Earth, the Argentinian government points out that they are not at war with the Space Nazis, and thus the most moral act in regard to the Falkland Islands (which they call the Islas Malvinas) is to 'return' them to Argentina - several British tabloids make the claim that the reason Argentina isn't at war with the Nazis is that they're already ruled by them. Also on Infopunk Earth, the Papal sede vacante begins, Pope Benedict XVI having retired.

March 2: After some debate on both sides, Stp-France agrees to support Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces, on the condition that the new Dp-French government will be a constitutional monarchy, with a strong monarch, under either the current head of the House of Bourbon on Dp-Earth, current head of the House of Orléans on Dp-Earth (either of whom would be Henri VI), or current head of the House of Bonaparte on Dp-Earth (Napoléon VI Louis), depending on which of the three Houses is the choice of the Estates of post-war Dp-France. Copies of the treaty are signed and witnessed on both Earths, and Stp-France declares war on Dp-Germany. The Papal States launch the first of four expeditions to the Romes of the other worlds, to 'help' the other Popes adjust to the 'correct' doctrines (those being the doctrines of Clement XV). This first mission is on its way to what some will later call Clockpunk Earth.

March 3: In orbit of Dp-Earth, the boosters are mated, all the math checks out, and the 'probe' (actually a delivery vehicle for military secrets FDR has elected to share with Inp-USA) is on its way. In Dp-China, Mao Tse-tung is executed by the Imperial Japanese Army. On Dp-Luna, several of the domed cities begin using masers mounted on the larger travel-spheres as transmitters, as these are less inconvenient to use than flashing the city lights, can still be used when the cities are in daylight, and are mobile, thus useful when the cities are facing away from Earth Prime. Instructions for a 'techbane' spell called Hexus are posted to the internet. This is surprising mainly because it's a bit difficult for a Dresden-style spellcaster to use a computer (you generally need someone who uses a different style to shield your computer, or you need to be very, very calm while using it). The existence of this and similar spells is a large factor in the interest so many governments and corporations have in the development of 'anti-magical' or 'anti-psionic' defences.

March 4: On Stp-Earth, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Holy Roman Empire (restored by treaty after the Franco-Prussian War, both to further humiliate the Prussians, and to make Germany less of a threat; if not for Prussia being a member, would be slightly smaller than OTL-Germany; Alexander IX did offer some Italian territories and a nice enclave in Rome, to go with the 'priviledge' of the Holy Roman Emperor being crowned by the Pope, but the Lutherans weren't having it), Papal States (only joining because Clement XV is an ardent monarchist - Divine Right of Kings, you see), Scandinavian Federation, and a few minor powers sign the Compact of Mainz, in which they pledge to join whichever side, Axis or Allies, will swear by oath and treaty to restore the legitimate governments (by which they mean, and clearly state in the text, monarchies under the Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Wettins, Wittelsbachs, and so forth, with significant de facto and de jure power) of the German territories currently ruled by the Third Reich (analysts note that this would not actually require Hitler to step down, he'd just have to hand over some significant amount of real executive, legislative, and/or judicial power to them, as constitutional monarchs). While the Inp-USA and various other Earth Prime powers aren't pleased by this, most of the other Allies are fine with it (especially the Stp-British, French, and Russians, and the Dp-British and Free French; not all for the same reasons, of course), and begin drawing up just such a treaty. In Infopunk Iran, the 'mutant' rat problem reaches the point that ten sniper teams are sent to hunt them (from Real Life, but weird enough to belong here; they're probably weirder and more threatening in this timeline, though).

March 5: A group of four glowing, spindle-shaped objects enter the Dieselpunk Earth-Moon system on a vector from the Mars of that world, pass through, and continue on separate courses for each of the other Earths, traveling at an average speed of around four light-seconds per hour. Maser flashes from Dp-Luna indicate that these are high-speed scout vessels of a design common to the more advanced Martian races: the Ice Warriors, the Changing Martians, and the Mysterons (each has variations, but the Lunarians aren't sure which is which), and that they travel by 'compressing and stretching the cosmic tapestry,' a process which allows very high apparent speeds and great maneouverability, and leaves them at rest relative to the largest mass near anything they collide with. Four light-seconds per hour appears to be their cruising speed, and the highest pseudovelocity the Lunarians have seen them use is nine light-seconds per hour, for about seven minutes. As each scout enters the 'portal' it's aiming for, it comes to an immediate dead stop relative to that Earth, starts and stops a few times at various speeds (and not the same ones in every dimension), makes a partial orbit around that Earth, and slowly accelerates to something other than normal cruising speed (to various degrees), on a course for the Mars of that timeline.

March 6: In Inp-Britain, a series of mysterious disappearances and other strange occurrences in and around Nether Wallop cause UNIT to first cordon off the village, and then evacuate it the next day. Advanced Idea Mechanics founded, in Dp-USA. Also on Dp-Earth, the Frank family is among the more than a hundred Jews smuggled out of Amsterdam to the UK on this date, by the reformed 'Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare' (Special Operations Executive). Young Anne is rather startled to learn that there are many millions of people on another planet who know her through a diary she hasn't even been given, yet. Speculation in the press that tight-beam masers are used to supply the Dp-Earth Allies with intelligence in a way the Germans cannot intercept are refuted when it's pointed out that at a range of about 26 light-seconds, the beam would be too wide to remain unnoticed (which is not necessarily true).

March 7: The astronef carrying Stp-UK's ambassador to Inp-UK, along with various trade goods, scientists, and so forth, is launched from British Guiana, along with the first unmanned supply flight to the Stp-British space station. The crew, and some of the passengers, are veterans of both space and war. Stp-Russia announces plans to assemble a 'heavy' astronef at their space station, the first sections of which will be carried into orbit next month. Also announced is the launch of an embassy to Inp-Russia, next week. The empowerment of many scientists on Inp-Earth (along with the massive infusion of money for mundane research) now allows, among other breakthroughs, near-Hollywood levels of image enhancement (the magic is in the machines, and/or the users, not so much in the programmes, as yet). While it is not yet possible to distignuish individual humans as more than a few pixels at thirteen light seconds out, and not at all at twenty-six, such a high resolution is now plausible in the near future, rather than a pipe-dream. Of course, the reliability and accuracy of these enhancements is still questionable, but experiments so far have been very promising.

March 8: Around 3am GMT, reporters and other curious folk lurking near the perimeter outside Nether Wallop hear shouting, gunfire and other explosions, and 'electric noises', as well as seeing strange lights. First confirmed Drop-Bear attack, in Inp-Australia. In Dp-Sunnydale, California, having been tipped off by observers on Inp-Earth who were also BtVS fans, the FBI, assisted by Dr. Fate, arrests Mayor Richard Wilkins II (who as it turns out, is also Mayor Richard Wilkins I), for electoral fraud, negligence in office, and general corruption, among other things.

March 9: Inp-USA launches its first interplanetary fire mission, a retaliatory strike against Nazi Germany. Estimated time of arrival of the missile is June 13. Also on Earth One, much discussion is made online, and the the boardrooms of Time-Warner and DC Comics, about the way Black Lantern Ring toys have begun vanishing, first from peoples' homes, and sometimes even from stores; occasionally, they are witnessed to fly off, but mostly, they disappear when no-one's looking. Combined with the number of people gaining working Power Rings, albeit rather weak ones, it paints a potentially scary picture.

March 10: One of Dp-Japan's submarine oil prospecting boats discovers petroleum near the Senkaku Isles. Dp-Japanese PM Konoe orders drilling operations to begin as soon as possible, using designs relayed by radio from Inp-Japanese civilians; in support, the Imperial Japanese Navy is ordered to begin the construction of bases on those islands best suited to it. (Daqing oil field, mentioned in one of the first messages from Inp-Japan (along with information on better methods of refining the thick crude there), has a higher priority at the moment, but doesn't make the news on Inp-Earth like the Senkaku Isles do.) The Russian Federation launches its first interplanetary fire mission, also striking at Nazi Germany. The ETA is June 17.

March 12: On the 'forward' side of Inp-Earth's three light-second bubble, a small particle spray occurs, so faint as to be almost undetectable. Almost. While radar and infrared telescopes pointed at the area detect nothing, optical scopes observe something fantastic (once it slows down enough to be clearly seen): a gold and silver dragon larger than a C-130, flying through space, apparently by occasionally flapping its wings. Below the dragon is a bronze arch, with crossbars clutched in the great creature's front and rear talons. The arch carries a great bronze dish, upon which sits a magnificent roundhouse of the finest woods, ivory, and well-polished stone and bronze, not gaudy, but likely far more beautiful than any such structure was in our history. (OOC: No particulate matter is transferred, but it will be some time before people in-story realize this.)

March 13: The dragon and dwelling enter Inp-Earth's atmosphere, heading toward Britain, and more specifically, London. As they approach Hyde Park, a hill rises to meet the house (at a rate of about seven inches per second), in the clearing a little east of The Long Water. As the house touches down at the crest of the hill, the bronze dish and arch seem to collapse into themselves. A bronze fence grows three feet high at the base of the new hill, as the dragon seems to shrink to the size of an elephant, and gently dives into The Long Water, splashing around for a while. The people who exit the house are dressed quite finely, despite the over all look of their clothing being evocative of Ancient Britain. All are quite comely, and have pointed ears. The most beautiful woman among them approaches the fence, and attempts to speak to the British police and military personnel who by that point have arrived. After trying one incomprehensible language after another, the dragon sticks its head out, snickers, and says 'Lingua Latina.' Luckily, one of the officers remembers enough of his time at Oxford to establish a dialogue: The woman is named Brigith, and she is the daughter of Imperator Ambrosius Aurelianus Romanorum, known more properly as Arthur, High King of the Britons. Her mother is the High Elf Indeg, the eldest of the king's three principle concubines, and a daughter of the King of the High Elves of The Isles. Her father and maternal grandfather have empowered her to speak for them to the Queen of this Britannia, as her brother and sisters have been sent to the other Britanniae (the missions to Stp-Earth and Clp-Earth haven't arrived yet, but the one on Dp-Earth is on it's way down, being escorted by a great flock of RAF fighters). The dragon, Dyfnallt, is only sticking around long enough to move the embassy, if requested, and then he needs to go back and get the embassy for the next Earth over (Clockpunk Earth). The Martian scout in the Infopunk timeline reaches Inp-Mars, and begins its survey of the planet.

(For those who are wondering, Brigith and her siblings are a non-standard type of half-elf, being the children of a spirit who was not possessing anyone at the time, and thus being spirits, themselves (which is how they can survive unprotected in the vacuum of space). They are 'half-elves' only socially, and in being more psychologically human than most elves are. The staff and guards of the embassy are mostly half-fey of various kinds. On another note, I sadly lack the skill to write the epic tale of how Arthur got the King of Elfland's daughter as his first concubine, but Brigith is perfectly willing to tell it, in the grand style of ancient British bards (save that she'll be speaking it in Latin).)

March 14: The scout in the Earth Five/Fantasy Earth timeline returns, and begins what appears to be an orbital survey of Fa-Earth. The People's Republic of China launches its first interplanetary fire mission, aimed at Dp-Japan. Due to the strap-on solid rocket boosters on the first and second stages, it has an ETA on June 14, 11 hours after the American missile, despite being launched several days later.

March 15: The Russian ambassadorial astronef is launched, and is mated to its long-range booster. The Russian ambassador is Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia, who hopes, among other things, to meet and court whichever of Putin's daughters will find him most attractive, as it's clear to the Tsar that Vladimir Putin is Tsar Vladimir IV in all but title. In the Vatican City of Earth Prime, Pope Innocent XIV takes office. His choice of papal name comes from his desire to 'restore innocence' to the Church; among other things, it is his intention to seek the resignation and, where possible and necessary, prosecution of those in the Church who have 'deeply betrayed the trust of those in their care'. This strong stance is said to be of great surprise to some of those who elected him, and to popes on the other Earths who become aware of it.

March 17: The Stp Allies sign the Treaty of Avallon, acceding to the Compact of Mainz. On Dp-Earth, Churchill and de Gaulle sign a similar treaty in London. The signatories of the Compact of Mainz begin declaring war on the Axis powers. For the moment, it is agreed that their assistance will flow primarily through the Scandinavian Federation's space program. A fairly small particle spray (though larger than the house and dragon produced) is detected in Earth Prime orbit, on the vector from Dp-Earth. The operational detection stations narrow down the location fast enough that the satellites are able to focus in time to see an older man in a labcoat and a suit that was out-dated even in 1941, silently screaming and struggling as he suffocates in the vacuum of space. His remains are carefully monitored, as military and intelligence personnel begin making new plans, and in a few cases, having a bit of a panic (as they have no way to know that the three light-second 'barrier/gate' is as close as teleportation can get you). DARPA is ordered to begin serious work on teleportation, as are the R&D services of other governments; many Trekkers, Gaters, and Schlockers do likewise, with much tinier budgets. It is made more dificult due to the paradigms they are working with, which include the belief that matter transmission involved breaking up that matter into it's component particles (whether molecules, atoms, or even smaller particles), and reassembling them at the destination. This tends to result in test objects being dissociated into said particles, or at best, being somewhat... rearranged. Unfortunately, the DARPA scientists assigned to Project November are mostly using the same paradigm.

March 18: In a small town in northern California (Inp-USA), the high school is the site of a very strange and violent incident, in which several students are killed and more injured, by a person wearing what appears to be riot armour and a black cape. The attacker, who called himself 'Darth Venger', is described as having a voice 'like an angry nerd trying to sound like Darth Vader', but his actions were far more intimidating: those security cameras that were working at the time show him cutting up doors, furniture, and people with a glowing red lightsabre, as well as apparently causing several students and one teacher to choke or fall back by gesturing at them, and throwing bolts of lightning from his off hand (which accounted for some of the non-functional cameras). The school's lock-down procedure prevented the victims from escaping the assailant, who seemed to focus on suspected bullies, only incidentally harming others. In the last classroom he attacked, he ordered several attractive female bullies, some forced to follow him from other classrooms, to strip, but seemed at a loss for what to do once they were naked. At that point, the security camera in the room was destroyed, and the assailant was himself assailed, by 'a Jedi Knight and some superheroes', according to witnesses. 'Darth Venger' was forced to flee, and the 'superheroes' vanished after attempting to pursue. The entire incident took less than twenty minutes, a significant proportion of which was spent in the last classroom. It is not known who leaked the security footage to the Internet, but several clips had 'gone viral' by the end of the day.

March 19: The International Astronomical Union gathers online for an emergency meeting, intended to replace the current definition of a planet, due to 'strong reactions to the current designation of Pluto, particularly given that an exception was made for Neptune.' Rumour has it that many members of the IAU were personally visited by the Roman goddess Proserpina (Persepone, in Greek), to inform them that her husband Pluto, god of the dead, is not a dwarf by any measure, nor is he minor, and that they ought to remove such insults from their way of naming things in the Heavens, before he chooses to take notice, and smites them in great wrath.

March 20: On Earth Prime, the parents of the girls who were stripped by 'Darth Venger' file lawsuits against the school, school district, and so forth, for damages and emotional trauma caused by their failure to keep the video off the Internet (no, none of the girls were under eighteen - in fact, one fifth-year senior is nineteen - but that's not what their parents are angry about). They and others also join a lawsuit against the police department (and the city), for not arriving in time, or promptly capturing the offender. At the Tower of London, the late Queen Anne Boleyn engages in a lively theological discussion with several women taking the castle tour, among them an Anglican vicar and a Catholic nun. Also in Inp-England, the people of Nether Wallop are permitted to return to their village, which UNIT and the Royal Engineers cleaned and repaired for them, as an apology for the inconvenience. The place had never looked so good.

March 21: On Dp-Earth, James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes, a few days after his 17th birthday, applies to join the Army - which is very difficult, due to his youthful appearance. He is eventually recruited by the Military Intelligence Division, where his mastery of linguistics and disguise are greatly appreciated. Also on Dp-Earth, American businessman Andrew Ryan first has the glimmer of an idea that might become the under-sea city of Rapture. On Earth Prime, a rampage by an apparent 'Red Lantern' ends when a cop with a Sinestro Corps ring cuts off the finger that the perpetrator's ring is on. This results in the Red Lantern's death, as the ring had already rendered his heart unusable. Paramount Pictures and CBS make substantial donations to the IAU. In the UK, Scotland's devolved Government announces that a referendum on Scottish independence will be held on 18 September, 2014. Reactions off-planet are decidedly mixed, although the governments of Dp-Germany and the USSR come out strongly in favor of it, and of similar movements in Dp- and Stp-Scotland. Alex Salmond's reaction to this 'support' is... not printable.

March 24: The capsule from Dp-USA penetrates the three light-second bubble around Earth Prime, accompanied by the now-familiar particle spray. Captain Henry Wales of The Blues and Royals (Prince Henry of Wales) returns to Britain, and is seconded to UNIT UK. The Stp-Earth Papal expedition arrives in orbit of Earth Four. After a few hours of checks, the astronef Sanctus Christopherus enters the atmosphere, splashing down around half past one in the afternoon, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Italia, just a bit west of (and easily visible from) the port of Ostia (which is in rather better shape than one might have expected from OTL history). In the Dp-UK, the seven greatest mystery guilds of the British Isles agree that while they dislike or despise each other, the Nazis are just that much more offensive, for various reasons. The Grand Masters of the seven styles (though not all of them use the same term for 'highest-ranking member') make an appointment to see King George, to renew the guilds' long-lapsed oaths to the Crown, and offer their services in the War, and in dragging the other mystery guilds into it. The Martian scout in the Earth One timeline reaches Earth One, and begins a survey, ignoring all attempts at communication.

March 25: DC Comics cancels all production of Black Lantern ring toys and props, and the destruction of existing stocks, as well as ordering a recall on them. Unfortunately, the warehouses are found to be empty of such rings, contrary to the records. Though this is reported to the police and the FBI, the government has lots of other things to worry about, and the law enforcement, intelligence, and military services don't admit to how concerned they are, wishing to avoid public panic over what may be only a super-prank. On Stp-Earth, the Scandinavian Federation rocket field in Dutch Guiana (Surinam) launches its first interplanetary astronef towards Earth Two, carrying personnel and equipment from all signatories of the Compact of Mainz (the HRE and ScandFed are treated as single nations, rather than collectives). On Earth Four, initial reports from the Papal expedition tell of a strange sort of Clockpunk Renaissance world, in the year 1556.

March 26: The Martian scout in the Steampunk timeline returns to Stp-Earth, and begins a survey. Attempts to communicate with it are unsuccessful. On Inp-Earth, the result of the IAU meetings began on March 19 is published online: a new system, based loosely on that published in Star Trek: Star Charts (they seem to have been in a great hurry), though several letters are left unused for future expansion, or have slightly different definitions. Under the new system, Sol has eleven planets, counting Pluto. The Martian scout ends its survey of Earth One early, being paced by two other vehicles - one triangular, the other more saucer-shaped. The three vessels dance around each-other for a few minutes, and then the scout fires off several small, glowing objects, some of which fail to hit either craft (though the ones that hit Earth's atmosphere make a pretty light show, exploding in the lower Mesosphere). The other vessels do not appear to fire back, but flashes on the scout's surface may be indicators that they do, possibly using lasers (which also means that one or both of the others could have fired first, but at an angle where we wouldn't see the flashes). The scout leaves on a course for Earth Two, followed at about 1,700 km by the two UFOs. As with the others, it comes to a dead stop when it crosses the portal, then zooms off for Mars Two. When the other spacecraft pass that point, however, they briefly keep going, then stop and go back, and then move forward again, only to once again stop. Observers on Dp-Earth indicate that the UFOs disappear when attempting to cross the barrier, and reappear when returning. Apparently, they can't cross into the other timeline. A number of sensitives on both Earth One and Earth Two claim to hear something at that moment, 'as if an ancient and powerful being were laughing, the way we might laugh at a cat, chasing a spot of light on a wall.'

March 27: On Clp-Earth, the Papal expedition reports that they are unable to meet with the Pope, Leo X, as yet, because he's busy meeting with ambassadors from Venice. That's important because a few years after the election of the previous Pope, Joan II (Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Alexander VI, and mother of Leo X - all three Earths with radio are rather surprised by this, as well as the fact that they have three female cardinals, one of whom is known to be the lover of Leo X, and mother of his 'cardinal nephew'), Venice tracked down a relative of Constantine XI Palaiologos, crowned him Emperor Emanuel III Paleologus, and claimed to be the Eastern Roman Empire. They took Montferrat (the other nation ruled by a Paleogus) through a dynastic marriage in 1510, and are a rising power in Italia, with more and more seeing them as a legitimate successor to Rome, itself (something the Pope and the HRE both rather dispute). Currently, they're trying to stir up a Crusade against the Turks, to reclaim Greece and Constantinople.

March 28: The Dp-USA capsule enters Inp-Earth's atmosphere, and makes a fairly soft landing at Area 51, pleasing and/or worrying conspiracy theorists all over the planet. The capsule, which looks like a slightly larger and sleeker Apollo Command Module, is found to contain: about a tonne of neatly organized microfilm, half a tonne of equipment and materials, a little over a third of a tonne of frozen and/or otherwise preserved biological samples, and about another third of a tonne of lead and a third of a tonne of water, as radiation shielding - mostly around said biological samples. The Martian scout in the Steampunk timeline finishes its survey, and returns to the Earth Two universe.

March 30: A number of old famous people on Earth One have been reporting improved health and 'feeling younger' since the first Dp-Earth probe arrived. Also, some older or better-known actors and actresses seem to be gaining powers consistent with their more famous roles (though greatly toned down, in the more powerful cases). This is demonstrated quite strongly when a Neo-Nazi attempts to assassinate Sir Christopher Lee, and is rendered unconscious by bolts of force lightning. Interestingly, despite the use of 'The Dark Side', his personality seems unchanged. Even Jedi and other psychics feel that he's still very much himself, not Dooku, nor Saruman, nor Dracula. Lee, Sir Ian McKellen, and Ian McDiarmid are officially hired by UNIT for part-time research work.

 

[Prince Charon]

April 1: A little after midnight that morning, NASA begins receiving transmissions from the Spirit rover on Mars. At first, this is believed to be a joke in poor taste, but it is repeatedly confirmed. The rover is mobile, but only just. In Infopunk Britain, a newspaper called The Sun reports the crowning of a new King o' the Cats, witnessed by a reporter for The Sun, Queen Elizabeth II, and Ambassador Brigith mírchArthur ('mírch' means 'daughter of'; it seems to have been 'merch' in Old Welsh, but she's from about 300 years too early for Old Welsh to exist). Also in The Sun, a young couple reports having been chased out of a graveyard by a weeping angel statue, though what they were doing in a graveyard at night is left to the readers' imaginations. In orbit of Clp-Earth, the last Martian scout begins its survey of the planet, starting with the debris ring, from which it takes a few small samples.

April 3: A civilian-owned, refurbished, and modified F-104 Starfighter is launched from Japan. The highly unusual design includes a crude fusion impulse engine, using a pair of enhanced polywells for power, and somewhat based on a partially lithium-fueled engine that NASA is working on. This is not the only innovation on it, which is proven when the old fighter leaves the atmosphere, makes three orbits around the Earth, and re-enters the atmosphere (protected by an endothermic force field, which took longer to make than any other component of the spaceplane, being a new creation, rather than modified and enhanced off-the-shelf technology), requesting landing clearance at Vandenberg Space Force Base (which is eagerly granted). Step-by-step instructions for the upgrades are made available online, in Japanese and fairly understandable 'Engrish'. The pilot, Kurita Omiko, applies for and receives a job at Lockheed-Martin, as do some of her team. The rest, unskilled in Engrish, much less English, are hired by the Japanese equivalent of DARPA. The most flight-worthy (which in this context mainly means 'the airframe can still take the load') of the retired F-104s under US government control are ordered transferred to DARPA and LockMart for testing and possible upgrade (start with what already worked, before trying it on other vehicles). Other governments in possession of F-104s begin to do likewise (as do some that have other fighters, with varying degrees of success).

April 4: The Martian scout at Clp-Earth appears to have finished its work, for it returns home. On Stp-Earth, Congressman Jesse Woodson James (D-Mo.) files suit against various Inp- and Dp-Earth filmmakers, authors, and publishing houses, for defamation of character. Also on Stp-Earth, the Papal Expedition to Inp-Earth is launched. On Dp-Earth, at a site code-named 'Ort Fünf' (Location Five), in German East Africa, a new group of rockets is launched, while that part of the world is facing away from the other Earths. The rockets dock in orbit and vanish, as before.

April 5: At Dartmouth College, on Inp-Earth, Dr. Paul Vincent says "Gee, that's funny," and vanishes, along with his lab bench, and the equipment thereon. A particle spray is detected, centred on that location, but is markedly different from those of arriving spacecraft, seeming somewhat 'inverted'. Also on Inp-Earth, all bearers of the surname 'Spock' (an old and respected English family, sometimes found in the colonies) have developed Vulcanoid characteristics by this date. In many cases, this is limited to pointed ears, upswept eyebrows, and an increased ability to control the expression of emotion (though 'ability' is not the same as 'desire, or 'necessity'), but quite a few also report increased strength, touch telepathy, and so forth - none of them have hearts where their livers should be, though. NYC's 'vigilante problem' makes the international news, when the Russian ambassador is saved from an assassination attempt by a minor Chechen faction by a 'Batgirl' (Steph Brown version, w/ gas mask) and a 'Spider-Man' (Miles Morales costume, but an adult). The superheroes could not be reached for comment. General William L. Shelton, USSF Chief of Staff, breaks ground for the United States Space Force Academy campus, by San Francisco Bay.

April 7: Time-Warner/DC begins founding Green (and other colours) Lantern- and Justice League-related NGOs. Their purposes are primarily SAR and other disaster relief, but also private investigation and bonded security, with required classes for any branch, and some overlap between branches by individuals and teams. They do this mainly because they are scared of Nekron, and deeply worried about the lack of visible government response to the vanishing Black Lantern rings. A few Inp-Earth aerospace corporations begin plans to test the Japanese 'Starfighter' upgrade on their own products. Last transmission from the Sanctus Christopherus indicates that the whole expedition is being arrested, on the orders of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.

April 9: A second attempt is made on the Russian ambassador's life (well, the life of his body-double), this time by what appears to be a shapeshifting clay-golem, which later admits to being 'in it for the money', and a guy in a Rhino suit, as well as an Orange Lantern who arrived late (and was also in it for the money). They are defeated by a 'Batman,' three people who acted as superheroes before the Event (with names made up themselves), and two Spiders (adult Miles again, and an Iron Spider of uncertain gender). The arrival of the Orange Lantern attracts a Green Lantern, a Blue Lantern, and a male Star Sapphire (purple speedo with boots, gloves, and a full-face mask), who contain both the Orange Lantern and the shapeshifter, allowing the others to overwhelm the Rhino and the small team of disposable terrorists.

April 10: As a publicity stunt on Infopunk Earth, Robert Downey, Jr. and Troy Hurtubise (and several less well-known, very well-paid, and very nerdy engineers, mostly off-screen) build a suit of working Mark I Iron Man armour, in a cave, with a box of scraps (well, more of a large crate of carefully selected scraps, and a few more crates of tools). The armour is capable of keeping the operator fairly comfortable in the Nevada desert for twenty-four hours of operation (though Downey is only in the suit for about three hours of filming, before handing it over to an Army Ranger for the full twenty-four), before needing replacement of food and water stocks, and is eventually shown to be able to work for a week (much to the shock of the Ranger testing it, and other Army personnel) without needing any maintenance that the operator cannot provide in the field, mainly thanks to the multi-mini-polywell 'Arc' reactor in the chestplate (and redundant mini-polywells elswhere). It cannot fly, and is technically unarmed, but the enhanced strength is close to peak human limits, though with greater endurance, the speed is about equal to what an Army Ranger could make in the same terrain (though he'd make less noise without it), and the armour plating is highly resistant to bullets. The engineers are immediately hired by DARPA, to work on the next model of the suit, while Hurtubise is hired by the Canadian equivalent.

April 11: Disney/Marvel announces plans to create Avengers and X-Men Academies. Not to be outdone, DC announces their intention to create a few Titans Academies (which include the same sort of classes that you need to be a field agent in one of the League or Lantern NGOs, once you're old enough). One selling point for the Titans Academies, at least to some adults, is that they're not 'segregated', in the sense that they don't care whether you self-identify as a 'mutant' or not (of course, comics fans know that's not the point: Avengers fans want to go to one, X-Men fans want to go to the other, fans of both pick one). The stated purpose of these schools is to educate the children in the safe, ethical, and legal use of their powers, keep the kids in school until they're eighteen, and more importantly, keep them from going out and getting themselves and other people killed (or more cynically, to keep them from ending up dead on the news, in costumes from the comics those companies publish). Of course, telling the kids that they're going to have to wait years before they can go out and 'be superheroes' doesn't exactly endear the idea to them, regardless of how the parents feel. Near Cape Canaveral, FL, President Obama breaks ground for the Space University. On Stp-Earth, the first section of the Russian Empire's heavy astronef Pyotr Velikiy is launched to their space station. It will arrive at the station on April 14th. Pope Clement XV announces that all new expeditions to the other Papacies, including a second, larger expedition to the Renaissance Earth, will be delayed until after the war, due to the need to build up resources for them, and the costs of the war.

April 13: On Inp-Earth, Ed Greenwood becomes a Chosen of Mystra (and Mystryl, and Midnight, but all three treated as one goddess) around this date. A small number of other Forgotten Realms fans also become Chosen by her, but only Greenwood is Chosen by all three Aspects. None of them are more than a small fraction as powerful as the Chosen in the books, of course. US President Obama orders all surviving OV-100 class Space Shuttles (OV-101 Enterprise, OV-103 Discovery, OV-104 Atlantis, and OV-105 Endeavour) returned to active duty, and flown to Vandenberg and other suitable locations, for refitting. While technically part of NASA and the USSF's Space Exploration Command (a.k.a. Star Fleet Command, among other nicknames), for the duration of the war, the OV-100 class (and the subsequent OV-200 class, to be designed from lessons learned from the upgraded OV-100s) will be on temporary assignment to the USSF Space Assault Command, or SAC. To help pay for the retrofits, special 'Shuttle Bonds' are issued by the government. More general war bonds are predicted, and a number of advertising companies are already preparing commercials for them; some comic and magazine companies have simply dusted off the ones they used in the 1940s, with or without updates. USSF PR personnel begin reviewing the records of USSF officers and other ranks with names similar to those of Star Trek characters (whether their superiors will listen to their advice on this, or not).

April 14: One of Infopunk-Earth's nascent mages begins serious work on codifying the rough equivalent of the Transmutation School in D&D parlance. Tellingly, some of his "talismans of power" (reusable material components) include his lucky dice in a small leatherette dice bag, and a small purple unicorn figurine. In an interview at Sea World, scientists admit to having made repeated telepathic contact with various dolphins, and confirmed that they really don't want to talk to them. They also recommend that all 'Swim with the Dolphins' activities be cancelled, for the safety of the swimmers. Disney/Marvel establishes Avengers and X-Men NGOs. Cooperation with other NGOs and government organizations is explicitly part of their training, and cross-training with local League and Lantern teams is scheduled in areas where both are present, as company policy.

April 16: The Kingdom of Hawai'i opens Earth Three's first audio-broadcast radio station, transmitting news, music, and radioplays throughout the Hawai'ian Islands. The first broadcast is a plea from King Kamehameha VI, in both English and Olelo Hawai'i, to the USAs of the 'Future Earths', to free 'the captive peoples' of their worlds' respective Hawai'is, and 'allow them to choose their own, legitimate governments, be they Kingdom, Republic, or any other'. It is not received well in either America, though many anti-colonialist organizations on both worlds seize upon it as a cause, generally without bothering to ask the 'captive peoples' how they feel about it.

April 17: On Dp-Earth, 12-year-old genius Alexander 'Lex' Luthor creates an advanced radio-computer, capable of easily accessing the internet of Infopunk Earth. A remote terminal for the device is given to his father, the criminal mad scientist Dr. Alexei Luthor, as a birthday present. On Inp-Earth, an early failure in Project November's teleportation experiments is adapted into a potentially long-ranged disintegration ray. During a round of 'horse trading' between the armed services, USAF 964th Airborne Air Control Squadron ("Phoenix Squadron") is redesignated 964th Space Flight Test Squadron, upon transfer to USSF Space Force Materiel Command. The move is widely criticized, as the only items actually transferred are the number, the nickname, and three of the best pilots.

April 19: The astronef Myrmidon, carrying the embassy from Stp-Britain, arrives in Earth One orbit. After circling the planet twice, she enters the atmosphere, and glides down for a landing at London Heathrow Airport, chosen for the length of its runways. In Inp-Germany, Heinkel Raumschiffwerke is founded by a group of investors, including a few empowered relatives of Ernst Heinkel. Their medium-to-long-term plan is to manufacture the Space Jet vessels from the Perry Rhodan series, starting with the HSJ-1 Gribbon (page from a fanfic used, because one of the Heinkels read it; listed FTL drive and some other components not present).

April 21: On Dp-Earth and Inp-Earth, respectively, Robert A. Heinlein and J. Michael Straczynski announce that they are collaborating on a movie serial script, tentatively named Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy. Casting has barely begun, but both James Doohan and DeForest Kelley are already under contract as stars, and Gene Roddenberry has expressed interest in this adaptation of his late counterpart's work. Many visual effects will be done by computer on Inp-Earth, and transferred to Dp-Earth by the power of radio (Dp-Earth TVs are getting a lot better, thanks to information for Inp-Earth).

April 23: Lex Luthor joins several Inp-Earth internet forums (including this one, having stumbled across it on a Google-walk), and his impressionable young mind is somewhat warped by the experience. On Inp-Earth, several enhanced F-104s begin test flights outside the atmosphere, including one successful delivery of a small satellite to LEO. A graduate student named Michelle Logan delivers a prop she built to DARPA, as it has become a working Portal Gun. Unfortunately, being a spontaneously enchanted item, Ms. Logan does not know how to duplicate it.

April 25: After several days of analysis, the numerous samples of Haversham's Sovereign Cognitive Enhancer brought by the Myrmidon are distributed to various scientists, pharmacists, and engineers in the UK, including several visiting from the Commonwealth nations and the US. About half of these luminaries are already enhanced, and the other half are not.

April 27: Starship Enterprises, Ltd. is founded in California, by CBS, Paramount, and a large group of Star Trek fanclubs, for the purpose of manufacturing enhanced (enchanted) technology on a Star Trek theme. On Stp-Earth, US President Phelps breaks ground at Cape Canaveral for the William Cranch Bond Rocket Field. The Stp-Russian ambassadorial astronef Aleksandr Nevskiy arrives in Inp-Earth orbit, and lands at Domodedovo International Airport outside Moscow.

April 29: Lex Luthor discovers the TV Tropes entry called Cut Lex Luthor A Check, and is deeply inspired, despite his father's insistence that the idea completely misses the point of his villainy. Dp-Germany launches Earth Two's first ballistic missile submarine. On Inp-Earth, 42 Commando Royal Marines is redesignated 42 Commando Royal Space Marines. On Stp-Earth, the second section of the Russian Empire's heavy astronef is launched to the space station.

April 30: The elder Luthor discovers the Evil Overlord List... and promptly discards it as the meaningless prattle of small-minded fools, like anything else that points out what he's doing wrong. The younger Lex holds a different opinion. Four B-52Gs are delivered to DARPA, to test whether the Japanese Starfigher upgrade can be adapted to larger aircraft.

 

[Prince Charon]

May 2: DC's cancelled 'Earth 2' comic is replaced by one called Earth Two, set on DP-Earth, and based on news stories and other information from that Earth (though only using the Dp-Earth versions of characters owned by DC). On Stp-Earth, Thomas Alva Edison's rocket design wins the Phelps Prize for that category, but his astronef is passed over in favor of that designed by Dr. Artemus Gordon, an inventor, adventurer, dime-novel Action Scientist, and retired Secret Service agent (which requires a partial redesign of both, and incenses the prickly Edison).

May 4: On Inp-Earth, Disney/Lucasfilm founds a group of holding corporations, and some subsidiaries thereof: Republic Space Services (containing Corellian Engineering Corporation, Incom, SoroSuub, et cetra), Republic Automation (Cybot Galactica, Indudstrial Automaton, etc.), Republic Defense Industries (BlasTech, Taim & Bak, etc.), and Republic General Products (Fabritech, Novaldex, etc.), as well as endorsing the Jedi Church's attempts to become an official NGO. Star Wars fanclubs are informed of this in advance, allowing rapid recruitment of empowered ('Force-sensitive', according to corporate documents) engineers and other workers (in a few cases, whole fanclubs are recruited together, into the same subsidiary). The point seems to be a mix of 'good PR' (or the hope that such will develop), 'going with the flow,' and 'making a profit off of existing copyrights, since Star Wars fans were most likely going to make these things, anyway' (similar reasoning inspired the creation of Starship Enterprises, on April 27th).

May 7: Inp-USA's 82nd Airborne Division is officially renamed 82nd Spaceborne Division, and all members who qualify (which is most of them) are requested to undergo astronaut training. On Stp-Earth, the Edison Radio Company opens audio-broadcast radio stations in New York City, N.Y., Menlo Park, N.J., and Washington, D.C., though there are less than a hundred households in all three cities that have receivers.

May 9: Stp-Japan launches their first satellite, a communications relay, into orbit. Scientists in the Ottoman Empire announce the success of a new 'eugenic enhancement' potion, which if given to a pregnant woman during her first trimester, will result in her giving birth to an Sahih Àdem ('Better Man') or Sahih Hatun ('Better Woman'), a new race of healthy, friendly, non-aggressive people, far less inclined to go to war. The oldest are now fifteen, and far enough into puberty that the Ottoman scientists are fairly sure they've got it right (though it is too early to say that the traits will breed true in the next generation). The Kingdom of the Greeks calls the new people 'Helots', and criticizes the Turks for making an 'obvious slave race' (which is unsurprising, given the amount of dislike the Greeks have for the Turks, but could certainly have been someone's motivation). Edison and Hawai'i report both the announcement and the Greek response, which is the first anyone on Earth One or Earth Two have heard about Earth Three's successes in 'eugenics' (which is rather more like genetic engineering than selective breeding) - it's not common, and isn't something often discussed by radiotelegraphy, and wasn't something anyone really asked about, who was in a position to get a response.

May 11: In Inp-Tokyo, a gang war between two rival groups of magical girls ends when the leader of a third group, calling herself Bishojou Senshi Sailor Moon, 'purifies' both groups (incidentally saving the smaller group from being transformed into monsters by their own adviser/mascot). Opinions on this event are mixed, as no-one is entirely certain what this 'purifying' process actually does, nor whether this 'Sailor Moon' intends to rule the world. The B-52Gs being given the Starfighter upgrade are officially designated SB-52I Astrofortesses, which surprisingly enough, accelerates the upgrade process, and greatly reduces many complications in it.

May 14: In Inp-Japan, a boy named Ikari Kenji is startled by seeing what appears to be the ghost 'Sadako' coming out of his television. He kisses her, so that at least he will have done that before his death. The spirit is so surprised that she doesn't kill him, but now he has quite possibly the creepiest girlfriend ever. At DARPA, testing of the portal gun continues. The portals tend to collapse in a few minutes to an hour or two, expelling anything still transiting the wormhole through either portal, either to the side that more of the item's mass is on, or the side with more room (if one side doesn't have enough), or the side least dangerous to the testing body. Today's test is particularly interesting: the areas on both sides of the wormhole are dangerous to the testing body (a wooden dowel) and too cramped to hold its entire length. To the surprise of some of the scientists (though others predicted something like this) the blue end of the portal 'jumps' to dump the testing body into the lead scientist's trousers - rather painfully.

May 15: Inp-Greece announces its intention to exit the Eurozone at the end of the month. In a clearly coordinated move, Inp-Cyprus announces the same. Handley Page Ltd. recieves permission to attempt a Starfighter refit on two of the surviving Victors, which are redesignated Victor*s ('Victor Stars') for this purpose.

May 16: The 'Valentine's Gift' (see February 14) arrives at Dp-Earth orbit, then makes a landing at a custom-built runway, a bit east of Blackpool, defended by a full Group of RAF fighters, and the Blackhawk Squadron. In Inp-China, a mysterious white ooze leaks from the middle of a street in Nanjing, China. On Stp-Earth, the Nazi KKVs become visible in the upper atmosphere, striking points in or near (mostly near) London, Kristiania, Paris, and St. Petersburg. The points of impact suggest difficulty aiming at such long ranges. The third section of the Pyotr Velikiy is launched.

May 18: In Inp-Syria, Bashar Hafez al-Assad is killed, along with most of his top military officers, and a number of government workers by what appears to be one or more djinn. Some leaders of conflicting rebel movements are also killed, leading to even greater chaos in the region. The Stp-Earth Papal astronef Sanctus Aloysius arrives in Earth One orbit, and lands at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, outside Rome. The Nuncio is quickly conducted to a meeting with Pope Innocent XIV.

May 21: In Dp-Japan, a large number of people high up in the government and military (which somewhat overlap) die in numerous 'accidents', while several others are personally 'invited onwards' by the Emperor ("You have disappointed me. You may use the garden."). In Inp-Japan, the government announces a reorganization and expansion of JAXA, 'to better operate in the changing environment of space in these times.' Though the expansion seems to mostly involve transfers of personnel from the Self Defense Forces, and the reorganization involves many existing employees receiving 'security' training, uniforms, and IJN ranks, the government denies that JAXA is being militarized (while unofficial sources point out that Article 9, Section 2 says nothing about space forces, specifically) - after all, the majority of employees are still clearly civilians. While the Inp-USA had been quietly encouraging Inp-Japan to simply drop or loosen Article 9, this compromise was far from what they were expecting.

May 23: On Inp-Earth, DARPA begins 'back-burner' R&D for a hypothetical prototype battleplate. Conservative estimates project construction to begin before the end of the 21st century... on the Dp-Earth calender. A failed attempt to reverse-engineer some of the lightsabres that were loaned to DARPA results in reproduceable blaster technology, firing a directed plasmoid into the target. The design and 'process' (ritual) is licensed to both Republic Defense Industries and Starship Enterprises (where they are called 'disruptors' (though some Trekkies insist that a disruptor is an entirely different weapon with an occasionally similar visual effect) or plasma weapons - which at least has the virtue of being accurate), as those companies have the greatest concentration of people capable of producing them. Bolts and vortex rings of electrically-charged 'cold' plasma provide less-lethal settings. On Stp-Earth, a third-rate mystic botches a summoning spell and summons an internet spirit from Inp-Earth. Hilarity ensues.

May 26: Further improvements in imaging software allow a number of quite strange things to be seen on the nearby Earths: on Fa-Earth, between two rivers in former Gallia Belgica Prima, there is a nation that appears to be in a state of suspended animation, including even the domesticated plants and wild animals (Ambassador mírchArthur confirms that something like the legend of Sleeping Beauty is occurring there), while in what we would call Russia and Siberia (and to a lesser degree, in Scandinavia), bear cavalry (ursalry?) seems to be in use as elite shock troops; such is also seen in North America, along with mastadon cavalry (which are rather more common, and are also used as beasts of burden). Meanwhile, on Clockpunk Earth, centauriod clanks are visible, along with strange wind-up aircraft, and other bizarre constructions. The Papal astronef remains docked at Ostia, but no other evidence of the crew or passengers can be seen.

May 27: Inp-Spain announces a delay in the commissioning process for their new submarine class, as the subs will have 'wings' and reinforcement added, making them the first heavier-than-water hydrocraft. They will also be the first submarines to possess supplementary fusion reactors. Most of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are promoted to five-star rank, the exceptions being the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau. There is some debate on what the Space Force's five-star rank should be, but it is eventually agreed that General of the Space Force works well enough, for now.

May 31: As promised, Greece and Greek Cyprus exit the Eurozone, both using the new Greek drachma, though businesses in both are also permitted to accept British pounds sterling (and are more inclined to do so, for reasons of greater stability). Many British tourists begin booking holidays in either or both nations over the summer, just as planned (no, that was not the only reason they chose British currency, just an intended side-effect).

 

[Prince Charon]

A bit disappointed by the lack of replies, I am. Views without replies don't really help me.

June 1: Dp-Japan begins stepping down attacks on Allied forces and territory, and does not initiate new ones. The Emperor announces that 'stable' territories conquered by Dp-Japan have a future as Dominions within the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, should the peoples of those territories wish it, and demonstrate the ability to form responsible governments. Also, Japanese forces are directly ordered by the Emperor to cease activities that the West would define as 'war crimes'. On Steampunk Earth (Earth Three), the new British Broadcasting Corporation opens radio stations in a dozen cities throughout the UK, starting with London.

June 3: On Inp-Earth, the first four SB-52Is come in, amazingly, ahead of schedule, and less than a thousand dollars over budget. The bombers possess a limited, partially-psychokinetic VTOL system, only useable in less than 30% of Earth's gravity (though it should nicely supplement the wings in the thin Martian atmosphere). A larger version of the system is planned to be installed on the OV-100As. Two probes equipped with this system (Lucian 1 and 2, named for Lucian of Samosata) are launched to the Moon. In Africa, the Third Congo War begins, now with empowered support and combatants. In Dp-Germany, Rudolph Hess dies while trying to flee to Britain.

June 5: A new Soyuz ACTS (Advanced Crew Transportation System) capsule, using an adaptation of the Starfighter upgrade, is launched from Inp-Russia, on a course for the moon. Scientists at a Starship Enterprises R&D facility in Sacramento, CA, attempting to reverse-engineer the pair of spontaneously-enchanted TOS-style communicators owned by one of them, discover how the transtator works: it converts electrical energy into psychic energy (& vice-versa) more efficiently than unspecialized technofetishes. The Aspect of the psychic energy varies, mostly being Technology, or an Aspect relating to Electricity (Air, Lightning, Fire, et cetra), though others are possible. A particularly sensitive transtator can serve to detect active psi use in an area - how wide an area depends on how much control the psyker has, to avoid 'leaking' excess energy. Lucian 1 lands on the Moon, and takes off again.

June 6: The Soyuz ACTS capsule reaches Lunar orbit, and lands. Cosmonaut Yelena Olegovna Serova is first Russian and first woman to walk on the Moon. Twelve C-130 variants (two AC-130, four MC-130, six C-130) and four C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft are sent to LockMart for the Starfighter upgrade. The SC-130 vehicles, which are already predicted to take longer due to engineering concerns over replacing the turboprop engines with fusion-impulse rockets, are designated 'Space Galleon' (basic SC-130), 'Space Ghost' (SAC-130), and 'Star Wraith' (first SMC-130 model). Lucian 2 lands on the Moon, takes several rock and dust samples, and takes off again.

June 7: Inp-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is killed, apparently by a djinn. J. K. Rowling and Michael Gambon announce the upcoming publication of a book called 'Occlumency: Defending the Mind', the first chapter of which is available online. GURPS players reading the chapter liken it to the Mind Block skill: a completely mundane method of protecting the mind from being read. Lucian 1 lands at Vandenberg SFB. On Dp-Earth, Captain America crashes on an island near Themiscyra, and inspires Diana, Princess of the Amazons, to come to Man's World.

June 8: The Soyuz ACTS capsule lifts off from the moon, carrying a few interesting rocks. Lucian 2 lands at Johnson Space Center. DARPA begins artificial coma tests with several volunteers, the intention being to develop a means to carry larger numbers of soldiers in limited space, by keeping them comatose, and waking them at their destination - a cheap and primitive alternative to not-yet-reliable suspended animation techniques. These first tests will take places entirely on Inp-Earth, and later tests will involve taking the comatose volunteers into orbit, and reviving them back on Inp-Earth. On Dp-Earth, residents of the town of Frostproof, Florida are startled when it begins to, quite literally, rain cats and dogs (along with a lot of water), out of a clear, blue sky. Even more surprisingly, none of the animals are injured - even those landing on the street, rather than one of the lakes surrounding the town - though most of them are rather agitated.

June 9: A large particle spray is detected on a vector from Dp-Earth. The Soyuz ACTS alters its orbit, waiting for orders, as scientists and military personnel attempt to narrow down the location of the invisible weapon. On Dp-Earth, an attack by R'lyehan Deep Ones on the town of Haven, Maine is repulsed by a loose platoon of Atlanean special forces (including Atleantean Deep Ones, Merfolk, and other Atleantean races), lead by King Namor, and Nathan 'Neptune' Perkins.

June 10: Sensors narrow down the location and speed of the invisible weapon closely enough to get an approximate destination: the Yellowstone Caldera, in northwest Wyoming, USA (confirming the predictions of several seers). The unmanned Instrumentation & Service Module is ejected from the rest of the ACTS spacecraft, and sent on a collision course with the weapon at maximum burn, while the cosmonauts wait for rescue. The closer the ISM gets to the Nazi weapon, the better its sensors are able to narrow down the weapon's location - it is not at the center of the radar interference, but toward the rear, and off to one side. Several hours later, the ISM is destroyed by weapons mounted on the cloaked missile, but enough mass collides with the missile to disable the cloaking device. All available Lanterns and psychokinetics (including many from outside the Inp-USA) with sufficient power and range direct their energies to change the projectile's course, as do a combined team from UNIT-Canada and Starship Enterprises (who are forced to invoke the Concept of 'Tech of the Week' to get a repellor with enough power, and thus will not be able to duplicate it). Most of these Lanterns and other psychokinetics die, or are left comatose, leaving only those too weak to significantly effect the course of the object, which is now headed to a point near Seattle, Washington. Several beings identified as gods or greater spirits manifest to stop the projectile; the ones clearly 'known' to be deities by the majority of psykers and mystics observing them are Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty, a Superman who resembles a more muscular Christopher Reeve, circa 1978 (who smiles reassuringly at a telephoto camera), a Supergirl with the pre-Flashpoint midriff-baring costume, a red-haired woman with a firey, Phoenix-shaped aura, and a Thor with red hair and beard, and a historically accurate helmet & hammer, but otherwise wearing the Marvel Movieverse costume. These beings are able to slow down and stop the heavy, fast, and very hot device, setting it down in a vacant lot near the University of Seattle. They vanish before they can be interviewed, though Superman remains long enough to point out one device near the base of the assembly to a surprised policeman, informing him that it's a 'Seismic Amplifier'.

^ Dieselpunk Japan declares war on Nazi Germany, citing as casus belli the attempt to detonate the Yellowstone Caldera on Earth One - 'a Crime against Humanity too severe for any civilized people to ignore'. Ceasefire with Allies declared, and Japanese forces begin withdrawing from those territories already taken from the Allies. Dp-Japan begins officially seeking a separate peace with the Allies. Pacific French colonies are informed by Japan that they should now begin taking orders from de Gaulle's Free French Forces, rather than the Vichy government. The speed at which many colonies run flags up with the Cross of Lorraine is greeted with great suspicion and anger in Vichy and Berlin. The People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (two of the nations which did not send psychokinetics to assist the US) are the only nations to demand an unconditional surrender from Dp-Japan. (Inp-Earth analysts determine that it is politically impossible for the Inp-Chinese government to accept less than an unconditional surrender from Dp-Japan, and it is politically impossible for Dp-Japan to grant one at this time.) Most of the other Allies offer fairly generous terms.

June 11: Inp-Japan declares its 'full legal support' for the war on the Axis powers, now that Dp-Japan is no-longer part of that alliance. Another Soyuz ACTS capsule (with an Orbital Module designed to dock with the Moon lander's OM, rather than with a station) reaches the remaining modules of the Russian Moon lander, and rescues the crew. The lander modules, themselves are remote-docked to the ISS, to become new space station components. Future plans are to build an orbital museum, where the capsule will be an exhibit. The failed attack on June 10 does what the successful, but less overall threatening, attack on February 23rd failed to do: convince an adequate number of Republican Senators and Representatives in Inp-USA's Congress to restructure the tax system, placing the greatest tax burdens on those most able to pay them.

June 12: On Inp-Earth, Britain's 'space penetrator' passes the 'ice test'. Few people who hear of it believe that the interplanetary bullet is intended purely for peaceful purposes. The fact that the test was at rather less than escape velocity is generally ignored. In Inp-USA, critically injured on his last mission, Lt. Col. James Austin (USAF Special Forces), a man barely alive, undergoes a six billion dollar surgical procedure, replacing both legs, his right arm, right ear, and right eye, and reinforcing his surviving skeleton (and other organs) to allow full use of his new enhancements. While perhaps not the world's first bionics man, he is the first whose enhanced (enchanted) bionics are so powerful.

June 13: The American nuclear missile launched for Operation Wagner reaches final approach to Dp-Earth/Earth Two, and the MIRVs separate. Suborbital rockets from Dp-Japan, and more, less expensive rockets from Dp-Britain, begin bombarding Nazi anti-missile defenses. Peenemünde, which was already abandoned, and Ort Fünf are destroyed, while Basis Sechsundachtzig (an undersea submarine dock, for which Heligoland is a decoy) is damaged. One MIRV goes off-course, hitting western Dresden (a city that was not a target), and setting the remaining portions of the city on fire. Unarmed MIRVs, carrying computers with radio transceivers and expanded memory, soft-land at Army Air Base, Muroc Lake, Dp-USA, and RAF Box, Dp-UK. Among the post-June 10th legislation rushed through Inp-USA Congress without adequately looking at it is an order to refit and recommission the remaining Iowa-class battleships (the original Bill, as presented in committee, requested one such BB, but did not specify which one). Contrary to rumours, this is not an attempt to launch space battleships; instead, they are being used as test-beds for enhanced and otherwise new technology, such as coilgun systems (which work better if the projectile is already in motion) on the barrels of the main guns, laser CIWS, force shields and fusion reactors to provide power (only those last two are particularly magical, beyond a resistance to being disrupted by magic).

June 14: On Stp-Earth, the Oberbürgermeister of Dresden begins making plans for the eventual evacuation of his city, should something like WWII occur on his Earth. Inp-China's missile reaches Dp-Earth. Inp-USA tries to remote-detonate it with codes stolen by CIA, but partially fails, as the MIRVs had separated by the time the codes got to a long-rage transmitter, and the CIA had not found the codes for all the MIRVs. A little over half of them detonate in orbit. Hiroshima is destroyed, while the weapon intended for Tokyo flies off-course, detonating several miles out at sea. Japanese super Tetsuwan Hikaru ('Mighty Light') dies saving Kyoto from the last vehicle; he will receive Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, Japan's highest honour, for his sacrifice. Deep in the Pacific Ocean, something stirs, and begins to grow. Dp-Italy begins seeking a separate peace with the Allies. Tetsuwan Hikaru's daughter inherits his power, and takes up the name 'Tetsuwan Hikari' (also 'Mighty Light', but with different kanji), to honour him. In Inp-Germany, the Raumpatrouille (Space Patrol) takes delivery of its first squadrons of the Starfighter-upgraded Eurofighter Astrotyphoon and Panavia Star Tornado. In and near Greece, many sensitives and magic-users note a great deal of powerful psychic activity on Mount Olympos. Launching from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, the Handley Page Victor* has its first orbital flight, and returns safely after three orbits.

June 15: In Inp-USA, an alchemic designer drug called 'Velocity 1', aka Superspeed, appears on the streets. The elixir doubles the thought, reflex, and movement speed of the user, at the cost of addiction, torn muscles & ligaments, other physical stress, and occasional stroke and/or heart failure. The first four SB-52Is begin medium-range spaceflight testing: pairs will visit the Moon, have one test the landing systems while the other monitors from orbit, take off, and return. The spaceplanes are designated 'Apollo Flight' (numbered Apollo 18, 19, 20, and 21) for this purpose. Critics who ask why unmanned testing is not being done are informed that the systems don't work nearly as well without a crew, as they do with. In the UK, the Queen's Birthday Honours List is announced, and includes several soldiers and one civilian who participated in the Battle of Nether Wallop (2013), honoured for heroic action against the Daleks, the first official admission by Her Majesty's Government as to what actually happened during the incident. Several honours, including that civilian, now and forever Sir Ralph Dewhirst, KBE, are posthumous. Several MIRVs from the Russian interplanetary missile (see March 10th) mysteriously separate from the main vehicle, and detonate at a range of more than one thousand kilometres from the missile. The only remaining MIRVs are computer/radio systems, like those from the American missile that arrived on June 13th.

June 17: The Russian MIRVs soft-land outside Dp-Sydney, Australia, and Dp-Leeds, England. DP-UK and Australian governments begin marking out locations for factories to build variants of the AK-47, RPG-7, T-44 & T-55, Tu-95, Mi-4 & Mi-8, and Mig-15 & MiG-21 (the main differences are in the electronics of those items that use them, and the addition of boiling vessels (the Russians had heard that the British put them in all their larger-crewed vehicles, and decided to save the Dp-UK engineers some effort) to the designs of the tanks, bomber, and helicopters). Accounts are created for various Russian corporations at Dp-Barclays. Churchill reluctantly forms the Imperial Chiefs of Staff Committee, consisting of the Chiefs of Staff, or representatives thereof, of the United Kingdom, each Dominion, and the largest Indian states. On Inp-Luna, Apollo 18 lands, while Apollo 19 remains in orbit. USSF Major Katherine Elenore Wallis, commander of Apollo 18, is the first American woman to walk on the Moon.

June 18: Apollo 18 deploys a memorial obelisk bearing the names of Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom, Edward Higgins White, II, and Roger Bruce Chaffee. Astronomers at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, calibrating their telescope by observing Fa-Central Africa, notice a giant, elephant-like creature, about 20 feet high, with proportionally thick legs, and bearing a howda on its back. An elf at the Arthurian embassy in London identifies it as a Mûmak (plural 'Mûmakil'). On Dp-Earth, the US ambassador to Canada delivers an Inp-Canadian computer from the MIRV care package to Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King. In Dp-USA, Colonel Philip Strange, known in the Great War as 'the Brain Devil' (der Gehirn Teufel) and 'the Phantom Ace of G-2', joins the newly formed (nearly a year in advance of that on Inp-Earth) Office of Strategic Services. His young son, Stephen, sets his sights on medical school. Their cousin Hugo, a professor who lives up to the family name in unpleasant ways, escapes from the Arkham Asylum Annex for the Criminally Insane, outside Gotham City, New Jersey.

June 19: In Hyogo Prefecture in Inp-Japan, several female high school students are harassed by an apparent ghost, though whether an actual spirit or mass panic is uncertain. The male students were unaffected, though a few claimed to have seen the ghost. WikiLeaks announces that the CIA is actively recruiting telepaths, which surprises almost no-one. The fact that they're even poaching them from Homeland Security, who are poaching them from the FBI, does surprise some people, though. Apollo 18 takes off from the Moon, and it and Apollo 19, begin their return to Earth. In the UK, a second Victor* has its first orbital flight. In the Stp-Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the Imperial Charter of Rights, Privileges, and Duties ('Reichscharta der Rechte, Privilegien und Pflichten') is published. This charter is not legally a new constitution, which would be politically dangerous (as the current constitution was written by the winners of the Franco-Prussian War), but rather a 'clarification and expansion of existing laws and traditions'. It is divided into four sections, covering (I) the Emperor, Imperial Diet, and Imperial government, (II) the member states (including the Free and Imperial Cities), (III) the cities and other subdivisions within the member states, and (IV) private families and individual citizens. One of the more controversial portions of Section II expands the number of Electoral Houses - and thus, candidates for the position of Holy Roman Emperor - from fifteen to more than ninety, but does not include the House of Hohenzollern, who who lost the position of Margrave of Brandenburg in the Treaty that ended the Franco-Prussian War (though they remain the autocratic Royal Family of Prussia).

June 20: A research laboratory in Inp-Japan develops a method of manufacturing (an alchemic imitation of) Sakuradite, though only in fairly small amounts. Mass production is predicted to be very difficult, and require a great deal of lead-time and manpower. The radiation it produces is a mix of beta particles and visible light, with no trace of neutrons, alpha particles, or gamma rays (which makes it useful as a power source, but not so much as a central component of atomic bombs). Apollo 18 and 19 land at Johnson Space Center. On Stp-Earth, the Kingdom of Prussia officially leaves the Holy Roman Empire. In orbit of Stp-Earth, the Russian heavy astronef Pyotr Velikiy leaves space station High Kiev, on a course for Dp-Earth, scheduled to arrive on September 23rd.

June 21: The 'Olympos Accords' are promulgated on all five Earths; these Accords are an agreement by gods and greater spirits, listing things they will act to prevent humans from doing in inter-Earth wars (primarily focused on limiting weapons of mass destruction, and weapons that cause long-term environmental damage - including geological and meteorological weapons), and what punishments will be given for those who keep trying to do these things, ranging from fairly minor (perpetrators become humously, but not fatally, allergic to favorite vices or foods), to the quite deadly (perpetrators are struck by lightning, spontaneously combust, or otherwise die), depending on the seriousness of violations, and how often they are attempted. Under the Accords, 'perpetrators' include anyone in the chain of command who knows what's going on, has the authority to say 'no' without significant chances of being imprisoned, tortured, and/or killed, and goes ahead with it, anyway. In Dp-Germany Adolf Hitler dies of what is reported as 'apoplexy', but may have been an assassination. Martin Bormann becomes Führer.

June 23: On Dp-Earth, the men the comics will call 'Oliver Queen' and 'Roy Harper' become Green Arrow and Speedy, respectively, having been named by the thugs they fought in their first adventure together. Speedy is about sixteen. In Dp-Canada, Avro Canada is formed, and work begins on a factory for the construction of the Avro Arrow. On Inp-Earth, WikiLeaks announces that at least one of the OV-100As has been undergoing flight tests. Austrian Navy formed as a space military force, and an official successor organization to the defunct-on-Infopunk-Earth Austro-Hungarian Navy, using modified WWI-era ranks and dress uniforms (the field uniforms are either fatigues or vacuum suits, depending on location), though with modern enlisted/NCO insignia. Despite wild rumours on the subject (and the efforts of a few enthusiasts), no serious attempt is being made to reconstitute the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on Inp-Earth.

June 25: A discussion between science fiction fans on Dp-Earth and Inp-Earth leads to Inp-Earth learning of 'The Fireman', a science fiction novel written by Dp-Earth's H. G. Wells in 1910, that paints a disturbingly accurate picture of the life of a specific firefighter living in 2010 Inp-London (it's obscure, because it was so unbelievable, rather like Jules Verne's novel Paris in the Twentieth Century - which had some surprisingly good technological predictions, even if it was way off on the culture, among other things). Searches begin for more portrayals of Inp-Earth in Dp-Earth's and Stp-Earth's novels. In Dp-Germany, Martin Bormann dies in a somewhat suspicious car accident, and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler becomes Führer. Reinhard Heydrich is promoted to Reichsführer-SS. Arthur Nebe takes his place as President of Interpol.

June 27: The Scandinavian Federation astronef Gustavus Adolphus (see March 25, above) arrives at Dp-Earth. After two orbits, it enters the atmosphere, landing in Canada. Also on Dp-Earth, the Thule Society begins a ritual that will take months to complete, becoming active on October 31st, on Inp-Earth; the fact that the casters are on one worldline, and the effects will be on another, greatly reduces the ability of anyone who might object to predict and interfere with the curse. On Inp-Earth, Apollo 20 and 21 take off for the Moon. Overall mission commander is James Lovell, on Apollo 20 along with Fred Haise and Ken Mattingly, though most of the work will be done by younger astronauts.

June 29: Apollo 20 lands on the Moon. The crew deploy a memorial to astronaut John L. "Jack" Swigert, who died in 1982. Two Asian dragons, ambassadors from the Emperor of Fa-China, arrive on Inp-Earth and Dp-Earth, searching for the Emperors of China on those Earths. The dragon sent to Dp-Earth determines that the Emperor of Japan is, in effect, the Emperor of China on Dp-Earth (he is fine with this, as he is expecting cultural assimilation to occur over the next few generations, and it's far from the first time a conqueror has done terrible things to China - at least this one is stopping). However, there is no Emperor of China on Inp-Earth, and that dragon is not fine with it, as he can't be an ambassador to someone who does not exist, and has no intention of going home a failure.

 

[Prince Charon]

June, 2013 has been edited, and is the probably final version. Below is the current draft of July, 2013, in case anyone wants to actually help with this:

July 1: Apollo 20 takes off from the Moon, returns to Earth with Apollo 21. Independence Day celebrations in Dp-Washington, D. C. are attended by Captain America, and several other patriotic heroes and heroines, including Diana, Princess of the Amazons, who is dubbed 'Wonder Woman' by the press.

July 2: Apollo 20 and 21 land at Johnson Space Center. On Fa-Earth, a primitive steam engine, build by British Gnomes from descriptions given by Arthur's ambassadors on the three most advanced Earths, fails to explode over a week of intermittent work, the first attempt that is so successful. Plans are made to use it, once moved, to pump out a flooded iron mine near Blestium, in the Silurian petty kingdom of Gwent, Britannia Prima.

July 4: As part of the Independence Day celebrations in Inp-USA, the first of the refitted OV-100A Space Shuttles, Enterprise, rolls out of the hanger before a huge crowd, to the tune of Jerry Goldsmith's 'The Enterprise'. Much joyful cheering and crying ensues, from Shuttle and Star Trek fans, alike (including many from the surviving main casts of the various series, who are on hand for the ceremony). While there are a number of small changes to her aerodynamics and engine nozzels, by far the most striking are the new 'Auxiliary Equipment Bays'. These modules start just below the cargo bay doors, and continue down at a shallow angle to end a maximum of seven metres along the wing, partially blending wing to body. The contents of the AEBs are currently classified, which immediately leads to many of the public designating them 'missile bays', 'weapons bays', or 'photon torpedo launchers'. Later that same day, the shuttle taxis out to the runway, takes off, and goes into orbit, shortly thereafter docking with the International Space Station. A popular Youtube video of the launch sets it to the tune of Jerry Goldsmith's Leaving Drydock.

July 5: In orbit of Inp-Earth, the Space Shuttle Enterprise deploys a new module to the ISS: a custom TransHab module from Bigelow Aerospace, with further tubes extending from the far end, terminating in docking units. In Inp-UK, all four Handley Page Victors have been converted to Victor*s.

July 7: Captain Suzanna Andreivna Ivanova, Soviet Air Force, defects to Dp-UK (on the condition that she and her squadronmates can continue to fly in combat; Churchill doesn't like it, but they need the pilots - and need the Axis to not have them) with an experimental long range bomber, escorting fighter-bombers (with fuel tanks replacing their bomb loads), and a few British PoWs, including a suave young RN Lieutenant.

July 8: PLACEHOLDER In a debate about the 'Mutant Issue' ('mutant' being a common-but-inaccurate term for people physically changed by the Event (see February 19th), and also being applied to anyone with powers, over the protests of many who prefer other terms), Representative <Michele Bachmann (R-MN)?> suggests registering mutants, and moving them into their own communities, away from 'normal' people; these are immediately compared to the concentration camps on Dp-Earth by Representative <name>, one of several Republicans who oppose Registration. Glenn Beck, speaking in support of Bachmann, cites a U.S. Court of International Trade case from 2003, in which a judge ruled that mutant superheroes 'the X-Men' were not human (and thus, that X-Men action figures were subject to the tariffs for toys, rather than those for dolls, which were higher). This really doesn't help his side.

July 9: In Dp-Germany, Albrecht Krieger becomes Captain Nazi. In Inp-Canada, the MoD announces that the Canadian military will be switching back to traditional ranks and insignia, as used in WWII, and as current on Dp-Earth. Despite this, Dp-Canada chooses not to scrap plans to swap out their pips for maple leaves over the course of the next year, though they have no intention of dropping the Red Ensign or Blue Ensign, and encourage Inp-Canada to restore some versions of both. In Dp-London, Captain Ivanova and her squadron are inducted into the Imperial Russian Air Force, by the Russian Imperial Government-in-Exile, and are personally welcomed by Tsarina Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.

July 12: Inp-Vandenberg launches two squat, oval cross-section fusion-impulse rockets are launched into orbit PLACEHOLDER Starfury<looks a bit different, big paddles on rear engines probably absent, and the weapon modules are easily hot-swappable with various tools> On Dp-Earth, the Ãœberschwerer Kampfschreitpanzer (Superheavy Armored Walking Tank) makes its combat debut in North Africa. The British, after some initial surprise, are less than totally impressed, and the desert environment is found to be detrimental to the vehicles' function.

July 15: A group of alchemists (all of them Mass Effect fans) in Infopunk Brazil develop what amounts to the fictional 'Element Zero' from that series. As with Sakuradite (see June 20th), mass production will not happen soon. Tests on enhanced drones by DARPA determine the annoying fact that Uncrewed Combat Vehicles often become 'unlucky' when not accompanied by crewed vehicles, or otherwise having a person nearby. Interestingly, enhanced vehicles with crews (at least one pilot/driver) are already believed to be 'luckier' than unenhanced vehicles, and this, more and more, appear to be true.

July 17: Helium Atmospheric Extractions Ltd. founded on Inp-Earth. The company works by telekinetically extracting and compressing atmospheric helium through various methods, mostly using unmanned high-altitude hydrogen balloons, as well as some sea level and mountaintop experimental stations. While they make very little profit now (all of which is reinvested in the company), that is expected to change in or soon after 2015. Queen Elizabeth II grants Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament legalizing gay marriage in England and Wales (and specifically, the Church of England and the Church in Wales), much to the shock and horror of many people on Earth Two and Earth Three. A similar Bill will be considered in Scotland's devolved Parliament in September, leading many on the aforementioned other Earths to offer support for Scottish Independence, conditional on that Bill's cancellation or failure.

July 20: On Dp-Earth, teenager Davey Drew accidentally releases a demon into the mortal world. On Inp-Earth, tests on the Starfighter-upgraded SF-16H/J Millenium Falcon prototypes determine that while faster, more durable, and more accurate than expected, the enhanced fighters are complete hanger queens. It is hoped that the SF-15F Space Eagle will be less breakdown-prone.

July 23: On Dp-Earth, a German attempt to attack the factories in London with submersible drill-tanks fails badly: Half the tanks drown in the Channel, about three-fourths of the remainder break down without reaching the surface, two end up causing a pair of underground cities to decide to pay attention to the surface world again, and the last eight surface together, quite far from their targets, right in the face of a squadron of Crusader tanks on training manoeuvers outside Dorking. The subsequent Battle of Dorking is an overwhelming British victory, due in no small part to the fact that the the submersible drill-tanks are far better drills, or even submersibles, than tanks (and they were unable to get to any hills big and steep enough to drill into to get back underground, nor were they capable of tilting enough to inter themselves without needing a sufficiently large and steep hill).

July 27: PLACEHOLDEROn Inp-Earth, the Romanian component of the European Combined Space Forces orbits the first MiG-21 StarlanceR. In Dp-Germany, production is stopped in the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet, due to the aircraft's many flaws.

July 31: In Inp-UK, Air Chief Marshal Sir Andrew Pulford becomes Chief of the Aerospace Staff, and is promoted to Marshal of the Royal Aerospace Force.