“The most important accomplishment, I believe, was my voting against the Great War.”
“The Great War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war.”
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.”
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.”
Ending thirty-one years ago to the date, the Great War came to an end. Starting as a mighty Jingoist orgy on part of the war parties involved, the nations of Europe marched to war as steadily as they so often had in eras in the past. And with the columns of native sons also went the columns of the colonies as vast Empires were mobilized into the killing fields of eastern France. Excitement rang over the chance to show the enemy what for. But as the scale grew, the body-count rose, and as mankind dug themselves lower with the hell they brought to bare against one another the enthusiasm died, but the pride did not.
As trenches divided Europe and cut cracks in the earth and the war came to a dirty stalemate none of the leaders of the world saw fit to ever end the damnable conflict. Save only a few. The Russian Empire withdrew early in 1916 wisely responding to pressures on the home-front and reconciling with a quickly dissatisfied bourgeoisie, and in so doing staved off an immediate threat by the reds. The United States stuck to itself, and chose to not get involved even as German Uboats scoured the Atlantic shipping lanes.
It was as if in those days the world leaned over the brink of annihilation as the stories, the images, and the reports from the front came in increasingly telling of an apocalyptic landscape. The preachers preached this was the Second Coming, and the hosts of heaven were dealing battle with those of Satan. But neither army was that of Satan's, nor that of God. It was the furious act of man.
Fronts flared, fronts sputtered, fronts fell into silence as they burned elsewhere. In the end, in 1929 peace was uneasily signed into effect as the politicians bent the knee to the demands of their people and the monarchs to their courts. Pride was bitten back, it was a swallow pill to take. In the end what arose was a peace none wanted. Little changed, only that which changed was done to the bare minimum to bring the parties into agreements. One gained no upper hand to the other, and the diplomats turned from the table and fought to put on a happy face as they presented the terms of armistice and awkward world peace to the world.
And as the war burned out, the war factories quieted, and a generation and a half of broken, dispirited, unsatisfied, and dead men came back home came the dangers of the post-war. With nothing left to sustain the demand, industry became lack luster. With no strong young hands in the field the crops became threatened. The economy depressed, and collapsed. And for the longest time it felt as though the war would again be preferable. Secretive mutterings filled the workman's ghettos, the coffee houses, the universities, and the halls of powers as men struggled against themselves to maneuver away from the new crisis, one that can not be bargained with, one that could not be fought with guns.
These mutterings have not died.
In 1952 the unspeakable and unexpected happened: the Czar in Russia was murdered. But while Europe prepared for a succession in the throne they found instead chaos as the antiquated Russian machinery cracked and broke, throwing its springs and cogs as revolt and open fighting within the Russian state flared. And in the years that came increasing waves of opportunists entrenched themselves within the civil war. Bolsheviks, never truly beaten; Republicans, never really gently delivered to that bed of peaceful reconciliation. Feuding generals, statesmen who never got what they wanted. Ethnic tension from the groups within the mighty and far-reaching Empire.
And while no one has reported them since, the rumors and folk tales of the assassination have long cast blame on two Finns perhaps only really known to the Russian state: Viktor Laine and Juhani Mikheal.
It is now the year 1960's. Like the long after effects of a terrible disease Europe has come to suffer from the turmoil of the early era of the century. It faces the end stage of the 20th century with as much doubt and unrest as it had in the dark days of the war and after. It is feared that the events of Russia deliver a dark portent to the Europe of tomorrow.
Welcome to Precipice of War, the reboot! Precipice of War was an RP started way back in 2011 on the Spore forums by one Gorgenmast, though inherited by me several months after. For years, Precipice developed as a world and a narrative over five years of development on and off until finally coming to a sputtering close in 2016. But as of recently, old PoW members have gotten together and it was decided to breath life back into the universe and start it all anew. Some old facets have remained to retain the original setting, more are as of yet to be introduced in applications, and many more new stories, narratives, and histories are yet to be introduced as you; the writers and contributors join in.
The history of PoW is set several decades after the closure of the First World War, where our deviation of history occurred. By chance decisions in the early 20th century the United States kept its pledge to not be involved in a foreign war and kept clear of the conflagration in Europe as its old Empires chewed itself up. To further prolong the conflict, the Russian Empire made an early peaceful exit to attend to problems at home, preventing the Revolutions that would overthrow it and breaking the Bolshevik movement before it could gain traction. We pick up this world during May of 1960.
This RP is a literate, narrative RP. As such I will not be putting much emphasis on such things as turns, stats, or other game-like features. I want the emphasis in the RP being story telling and world building, to write posts that tell drama and not list encyclopedic facts, actions, dates and times. Each post will advance the progress of the story through time by the author's discretion; but I do not want to see anyone taking considerable advantage of this by forcing the RP to jump large spans of time, the RP does not exist for you, the RP exists for us all.
Technologically, because of the circumstances of this world technology is stunted by several decades. The arms race that was the Second World War never occurred and the old industrial power houses of Europe were crippled by war and economic depression; restraining the advance in jet plane technology as no power has had the resources or capital to invest in the advanced metallurgical means to produce jet propulsion engines. Likewise, space exploration has not even begun to take seed with the limited advances in rocketry and aeronautics. The atom has not been split, so nuclear weapons do not exist not does nuclear energy. And all over the board the lack of large multi-national economic zones and alliances as was the East and Western world in our timeline have not come into being, so the large-scale use of resources across multiple nations and institutions has itself had the effect in limiting the advance in great large-scale technological progress, more without the cold war. The world might easily be said to being ruled by the same old Great Powers in their own, old independent blocks of power and economic span; if not on shaky ground as the post-war world matures around them and threatens to leave them behind.
And Russia in this world is plunged into almost perpetual sectarian conflict. With the Empires Central Asian territories free of the yoke of Moscow they are once again free to define their futures; however much they may have changed with the Russian influence. Else where across the old Empire ethnic, cultural, political, and sectarian differences have wedged the old Empire apart in a modern reenactment of the old Time of Troubles.
A Victoria 2 blank map for your nation-adding needs.
Before moving ahead: some special considerations I feel need to be made public towards nation claims:
I will be re-assuming my role as China.
VilageidiotX will be re-ascending the throne of Ethiopia.
America to ByrdMan
And until I hear otherwise, Spain is reserved for Gorgenmast.
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