[quoteslickriptide]
Let’s imagine that the Fall somehow predicated a decade of War; perhaps by igniting the First World War or its equivalent some decades earlier than it happened historically.[/quote]
It’s not necessarily a ‘somehow,’ considering that the Calendar Council apparently existed before the Fall, if Cut with Moonlight is any indication. I would not be at all surprised if the more radical preexisting Surface revolutionaries saw London’s disappearance-and with it, the Council- as an opportunity to act with a bit less subtlety. Graffiti in Sunless Sea’s Vienna says ‘REMEMBER LONDON,’ which I feel could be construed as a threat. Most of the world doesn’t even believe most of what information comes out of the Neath, but they can’t deny that London did vanish. Suppose that the Surface revolutionaries actually took credit for the Fall…comparatively, terrorists are much more believable than giant masked merchants and mystical Bazaars.
I feel like this would be an even more critical reason to move the Game to Fallen London-Surface powers don’t just want to root out this new anarchist threat, but to figure out how those anarchists ‘caused’ the Fall and how to keep it from happening to them.
I still don’t believe that Failbetter doesn’t want us to publicly discuss Fate content at all. They don’t want us just posting the entirety of stories, but general discussion is more likely to encourage purchases. (Plus, well, there’s official discussion threads for every new Fate story.)
[quote=slickriptide]I will say this about taking the Duke’s statements at face value - It explains something that’s bothered me from my first exposure to the FL-verse - why is London the center of the Great Game?
Yes, there are all of the "fantastic" elements of the Neath, but those are the elements of a Professor Challenger novel or a Quatermass novel. Especially after 30 years. The interest in the Neath would be it’s spiritual or mystical properties, not what little political clout London might be imagined to retain.[/quote]
The Masters have a whole bunch of Hesperidean Cider. That on its own seems like a great reason to have influence there, and there’s quite a lot of other useful things in London.
[quote=Optimatum]
The Masters have a whole bunch of Hesperidean Cider. That on its own seems like a great reason to have influence there, and there’s quite a lot of other useful things in London.[/quote]
99% of the useful things in the Neath become useless when they leave the Neath. Even Hesperidean Cider is useful on the Surface primarily for allowing a "dead" Neather to survive on the Surface in the lignt of the Judgements. I can see some sort of industrial espionage related to "Neath goods" but not the sort of interest where it seems like one in three Londoners is a spy or an asset of a spy.
Sorry, I know I’m rekindling an off-topic tangent, but I was busy all day…
The North had the industrial might, while still having decent access to farmlands in places like Pennsylvania and further west. This put the South at a major logistical disadvantage, which is why Lee was rather aggressive, in a fashion similar to Yamamoto’s strategy in the early Pacific War: if your enemy will win a war of attrition, make it expensive for him by seizing the momentum and insist on peace talks while you have as much advantage as you can expect to get. It didn’t work out for either of them, of course, but it’s a solid enough plan when you’ve got nothing else.
However, it’s true that if the Southern states continued active resistance, bringing them back into the fold would have been very difficult for the Union. Trust me, we Yanks have learned all about what a nightmare occupation warfare can be. The success of the Union in ending the Civil War, and the debatable success of Reconstruction were due in part to a few things, but chief among them are Sherman’s March, and Lee’s surrender. Now, Sherman committing what, let’s be honest, we today would consider war crimes might have made things worse for the Union, except that it very likely was part of what prompted Lee to use his popularity and clout to urge for an end to the bloody war and the laying down of arms. Then again, perhaps I just listen to too much Johnny Cash.
Aaaaaaanywho, to steer this back to the actual topic of FL…
I think Hesperidian Cider actually has some effect even on the Surface, but it’s also way, way too valuable to export. It might have a reduced effect up there, though. Hard to be sure, but if it can keep a "dead" Neather from dropping to the ground once the gaze of a Judgment is on him, it’s still got at least some mojo even in sunlight.
The Duke’s statements and the Liberation of the Night certainly could be explained by an early World War, but Europe as a whole was in the grips of ‘anarchist fever’ during the period anyway. The bomb-throwing anarchist was a stereotypical bad guy the same way ‘the terrorists’ are today. In the decline of Austria and the wars that followed Britain ending its isolationist policy it’s not hard to see how an aging Duke might see the Surface as going to the dogs.
I could be wrong here but I read the Duke’s last phrase ‘things are worse today than 25 years ago. I’m glad I can’t see what they’ve done.’ to suggest that he may have been in the Neath for about that long, meaning he probably left the Neath just after Spain’s Glorious Revolution.
My point with a lot of these arguments isn’t so much to claim that nothing would have changed without London or that the Confederate States definitely could have withstood US assaults. I think it displays that even with only a minor change you could justify quite drastic changes to the Surface even further afield than Europe, but that you don’t necessarily need to despite the way Surfacers in London speak of Europe in such morose terms. I think one of the things FL has done brilliantly is leave the Surface vague enough that you can argue for a world where virtually nothing has changed, a world where Europe is a dystopian nightmare and the US is two countries, or any variation between that.
On an unrelated note how did the lack of London affect the Scramble for Africa? My knowledge there really stops at South Africa so I don’t feel I could make much of an argument for that any which way, but is it possible that London’s disappearance may have tipped the balance in France’s favour at least a little? edited by Hark DeGaul on 7/20/2017
Other parts of the story confirm that the Duke has indeed been a constant resident of the Neath for twenty-odd years. He does keep up-to-date on Surface news.
His depiction of the Surface is corroborated in the same story by someone who arrived more recently. It’s unclear from my journal, but I think the "it" in the title is Vienna. (This second echo is the last one I’ll be posting, I promise.)
But as you say, this is subjective opinion coming from people of aristocratic background who might see any particular social change as degeneracy or corruption. These two isolated Echoes are pretty much the closest we get to a concrete description of the Surface, and they’re second-hand broad-stroke descriptions that still allow for almost any specific details.
[quote=PSGarak]
But as you say, this is subjective opinion coming from people of aristocratic background who might see any particular social change as degeneracy or corruption. These two isolated Echoes are pretty much the closest we get to a concrete description of the Surface, and they’re second-hand broad-stroke descriptions that still allow for almost any specific details.[/quote]
All that is true, but the Duke is unusually specific about the anarchists originating from the Neath and trying to disrupt everything that isn’t already disrupted.
Even if the Calendar Council originally had normal means and goals, they don’t any more. The Liberation of Night goes beyond our world. A Game player who encountered a frightened zee-captain with An Additional Eye on an Unobtrusive Part of your Person would hear a disturbing story:
"Please," the creature squeals, inclining its upper portions towards the scales. You take the glass bubble. The wisp inside it peers madly out with pinprick eyes. The black sun is closer, now, glaring into the chamber like a child through a dollhouse window.
Pain blooms behind your left temple. It migrates: across your cheek, down your neck, over your shoulder. You clutch at it, and feel a sliding, swelling pucker on your skin before it moves out of reach.
"The Liberation of Night began long ago," the veiled creature pipes. "Tell whoever you choose, or do not. You are the message. Those who must know, will know." It bangs its measuring-rod on the floor. The sun screams in joy. Everything goes dark.
You find yourself back in your zubmarine, your crew desperately steering it away from the vast eye on the zee-bed. Your pain is easing, but not gone. You stumble wildly to your quarters. A mirror. You need a mirror!
What all of this implies is that the Liberation of Night goes way beyond the Calendar Council. The Council and the anarchists are tools of a power as great as any in the Neath. Given that, I can easily believe that they really are devastating the Surface just as the Duke claims them to be doing.