Historical Changes in FL? [Possible spoilers]

[ameliasyrus]

Before I start, I haven’t finished all the content available to date in FL so I don’t know if there’s lore I missed or I haven’t found yet. But between The Fall and the cities that have fallen before London, it made me wonder if there’s anything that historically changed compared to our world. Does the bizarre taking a city have a huge effect on trade on the surface? Are certain, important celebrities, politicians, and other figures alive during the time London falls or other cities through history? Were things invented ahead of schedule? etc.

I think it’s worth discussing and exploring at the very least.

[themaster]

We don’t know most of the changes in this universe but London is probably the most important city that fell and the cities before it weren’t nearly as important. But, we do know that Paris is very different as one fate locked story showed us…

[kohkaiying]

The Second City is a irrelevant husk

Nations are less connected in the past too, it is harder to get around so a city disappearing will have less impact

[suinicide]

That would be true for most cities, but the bazaar takes the most important one, and the one that holds the government. The disappearance of the government or whatever ruling body the country had would likely have some effects, not to me tion the disappearance of a center of economic development.
edited by suinicide on 7/24/2016

[ameliasyrus]

If the cities that fell before London didn’t have much of an impact on the economy of the world than it would make sense if things developed normally. But London in the late 1800s did have an impact on the world and the fall in-game takes place after the Great Famine. So for just London alone, does the city have an impact in the world? Are there precautions being taken from other countries because of what happened or is life on the surface vastly different than simply being in a Victorian era setting?

[cthonius]

@Drake Dynamo

From what I understand from the Silver Tree (which, although terribly grindy, is an interesting look at the fall of the fourth city), the Fourth City fell right before the Mongol Empire was about to collapse anyway- that is, the disappearance of Karakorum had only a slight change on the history of the world. The cities before that were either taken very far in the past- the first fell when ‘Babylon was young;’ the second city was ancient egyptian, although it wasn’t a big one like Cairo or Alexandria, and it was captive for several thousand years, it seems; and the third city was Mayan/Aztec (I forget which), and would have been rather distant from the major historical developments that occurred in Eurasia that we’re familiar with.

Second was probs Amarna iirc. Still a city of massive importance and at one point the capital city. Third I want to say was Aztec, based on what little we know of the god-eaters/those three figures with animal epithets.

EDIT: As for the other stuff here: in general the cities taken are of heavy importance, but on the whole we come from cultural backgrounds where of course we wouldn’t see Karakorum or Amarna as having huge cultural significance. As for the First City you’d be hard pressed to find a single Ancient Near Eastern city that isn’t of some significance

And the to op: I think some of that has been commented before but damn if I can remember where I’ve seen dev comments regarding the aboveground location of taken cities. Historical figures definitely still exist, as can be seen with the few not so subtle figures in London of the royalty, Freud, and the like. Even in former cities we have probably confirmed figures for the 4th city (the cast you interact with in the Silver Tree are likely to be the actual Mongolian royalty of the time though I’ve not looked into this) and implied figures with the 2nd (The Duchess being one of Akhenaten’s daughters)
edited by Cthonius on 7/24/2016

[ameliasyrus]

[quote=Cthonius]And the to op: I think some of that has been commented before but damn if I can remember where I’ve seen dev comments regarding the aboveground location of taken cities. Historical figures definitely still exist, as can be seen with the few not so subtle figures in London of the royalty, Freud, and the like. Even in former cities we have probably confirmed figures for the 4th city (the cast you interact with in the Silver Tree are likely to be the actual Mongolian royalty of the time though I’ve not looked into this) and implied figures with the 2nd (The Duchess being one of Akhenaten’s daughters)
edited by Cthonius on 7/24/2016[/quote]

This took me a while to see because this thread was bizarrely pushed back to the last page of this forum. I’m not sure if that’s a glitch or not. But anyway, if life in Fallen London isn’t gravely effected when the Bazaar takes a city then is the surface normal or different in any way? Like I said before on the first post, I haven’t combed through all content in FL. But if that’s true, it makes me wonder of the sociological aspects of it too.

[Diptych]

Essentially, the first four cities all seem to have been locations that were abandoned ruins by the 19th century anyway, so the effects of their Falls are not obvious to us as readers. London is the exception, and its removal has dramatically changed Surface-politics, in ways that are generally only hinted at.