Post by Dougal on Oct 23, 2007 17:55:15 GMT 10
The Story
In 1998, something happened that would change the world forever - the Change. It left the world without any functioning modern technology. Admist the ruins of the world, few survived, and fewer became leaders of men.
Three such leaders were Juniper Mackenzie, Mike Havel and Norman Arminger. Of these, only Juniper is still alive in 2008, Mike having killed Arminger to avert a major war and dying from fatal wounds recieved in the fearsome duel.
Nowadays, everyone is recovering from what would have been a deadly war, but someone is sowing seeds of discord and there is talk of a crusade against the Mackenzies and their Wiccan ways.
(Non-Cannon plotline in red)
The Nations
The MacKenzie Clan
Ruler/s: Juniper and Nigel Loring
Religion: Wiccanism
High Priestess: Each coven has their own, but Juniper is the highest of the lot.
Dress: Scottish. Kilts, Scott's bonnets, etc. Armour is typically brigadine.
Fighting Style: The MacKenzies are guerrillas, relying on their stealth and trusty longbows to get them out of any situation. If they have to fight in a melee, they typically use gladii, dirks and bucklers.
Government: Essentially Scottish, with one main Dun, or capital, surrounded by smaller Duns.
Flag:
The Bearkillers
Ruler/s: Will Hutton
Religion: Predominately Christian, although there is no one "official" church.
Religious Leader: Unknown
Dress: Post-change versions of pre-change clothes. The armour is mainly chain mail.
Fighting Style: The elite, professional fighting force are the A-Listers, who are basically knights in all but name and method of acquisition. To be an A-Lister, you must have passed stringent tests and been branded between your eyebrows.
The A-Listers are skilled with both the recurve bow, the basket-hilted backsword and mounted combat using a lance.
The rest of the Bearkiller's fighting force are made up of militia, who are trained with either pikes, glaives or crossbows. The majority of pikemen are men, but the majority of those who use crossbows are actually women.
Government: The Bearkillers are governed by a semi-feudal system. Will is acting a a guardian to Mike and Singe's children, who will become the leaders of the Bearkillers when they are of age. He has currently full control of the Bearkiller outfit.
Flag:
The Protectorate
Ruler/s: Lady Protector Sarah Arminger
Religion: Catholicism
Religious Leader: Pope Leo
Dress: The men wear the pants and the women skirts. The majority of the people in the Protectorate wear Norman clothing.
Fighting Style: The Protectorate keeps a larger standing army than any of the other nations, although it is smaller than their combined forces. The backbone of the army are the knights and their men at arms, as they are the heavy cavalry. The rest of the force is made up of crossbowmen and spearmen.
Government: A dictatorship, with Sarah as the ruler. Her orders are carried out by Barons, Baronettes, and their knights, men-at-arms etc.
Flag:
The Dunedain
Ruler/s: Astrid Loring and Ellir Hordle
Religion: There isn't any official religion, but it is a mixture of Wiccanism and Christianity, with Wiccanism being the larger of the two.
Religious Leader: None.
Dress: Black tunic vests with their national symbol on them and trousers. All mail lined, of course.
Fighting Style: The Dunedain tend to go for the guerrilla fighting style of hitting and running, but they will hire themselves out to merchants who need some extra guards. Bows are their weapon of choice, although they are usually proficient in melee combat.
The Dunedain also communicate using sign language and Sindarin when they are preparing for battle and during it.
Government: The Dunedain are led by Astrid and Ellir, and is not a democracy.
Flag:
Corvallis
Leader/s: President Thomas Franks
Religion: None.
Religious Leader: None
Dress: The more or less same as the Bearkillers.
Fighting Style: Corvallis has no standing army, but every citizen is required to serve in the militia. The militia use the same weapons as the Bearkiller militia, the only exception being the fact that their crossbows are slower to load.
Government: Corvallis is a democracy, with members of the various Faculties (Engineering, Economic, etc) being the ones in main control. However, the public does get to vote and can, in effect, push through any bill that they want.
Flag:
Mount Angel
Leader/s: Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski
Religious Leader: Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski
Dress: The monks and the sisters dress in their traditional fashion, and the rest are allowed to where whatever they want.
Fighting Style: All of the monks are trained in combat, and they have a sizable militia, armed in a similar fashion to the Bearkillers and Corvallens.
Government: Mount Angel is ruled by a Theocracy, with Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski the leader. He delegates authority to people who he thinks are capable of carrying out the task that he has set.
Flag:
Other Information
What the ASBs changed (taken from S.M Stirling's website):
From various pieces we have pried loose from Steve Stirling, there are three changes to physical laws:
1.
The ideal gas law ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law ) has changed. Rather than a reversible relationship between volume, pressure and temperature, a time component has been added such that gas expansion does not produce useful work.
In essence, gasses compress normally, but behave more like a liquid when volume expands. E.g., air can be compressed to one tenth of its previous volume, producing ten atmospheres of pressure. Under normal conditions, pressure will cause the gas to expand to its previous volume, and this can be used to move machinery. Under the change, a tiny increase in volume (such as an expansion cylinder moving) will cause the pressure to drop to ambient, resulting in effectively no work being done. The expansion will eventually occur, but so slowly as to be useless.
The same will happen with heat engines; with a steam engine, for example, gasses are heated to produce pressure, and the expansion of these gasses can be used to produce work. Under the change, heated gasses will only expand at a glacial rate.
We have not been given details on just how much expansion causes the pressure drop, or how fast the expansion can take place.
2.
Electron locality in solids has changed, precluding electricity from working. Presumably this has caused conductors like copper to change from conductors to insulators. We have speculated that conductivity in metallic solids went from ~10^6 Siemens/meter to ~10^-6. This would make copper an insulator.
We know that electrical conduction in colloids such as human nerves remains unchanged - after all, human brains are (mostly) unaffected. We know that static electricity in the air remains the same, because we continue to see lightning. (By the way, lightning rods don't work).
We have speculated that non-solid conductive materials such as mercury and salt water can be used, and there have been suggestions that electronics could be re-invented using aquarium tubing filled with these materials. Note that salt water, while technically a conductor, is only a millionth as good a conductor as copper.
( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_conductivity )
3.
Something has changed such that nuclear power plants don't melt down. Radioactive materials remain dangerous, but a pile of fissile isotopes will just sit around getting warm, not generating a runaway reaction. We have speculated that either fissile elements are not undergoing spontaneous fission any more, or the thermal neutron capture cross section has changed such that fission reactions are not self-sustaining.
( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_Capture )
The change in capture cross-sections appears to be more likely, since it would probably use similar mechanisms as whatever changed electron locality in (2). If neutrons are not captured, they will eventually (10-15 minutes) decay into hydrogen.
Links to the first halves of the books:
Dies the Fire
The Protector's War
A Meeting at Corvallis