Pumpkinhead
Posts: 516
7/18/2017
|
Well, it's pretty clear the Sun hasn't been doing much to London recently. But the Victorian era was the height of the British Empire. What happened to it now that its capital is underground and can only be reached through Naples?
London apparently still has some importance internationally, since the Great Game has reached its heyday there (although it seems they're now just playing for the game itself, rather than Afghanistan). But since once you come to the Neath, you usually don't leave, wouldn't it be hard to run a surface empire? Has London lost its colonies? Does it even still rule the British Isles?
--
McGunn/Bsymstad is on the slow boat, waiting to see if he can find out what death is. (I'm done with London for now. Thanks for everything!)
Amanda Albright is a *spoiler* now, like she always wanted.
|
|
|
+4
link
|
Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/18/2017
|
The most plausible explanations that I've heard is that Prussia has sort of glommed on to what's left to the Empire, since one of Vicky's kids is ruling the place.
I like to think that Saki's novel "When William Came", which is about the main character being Very Shocked that prim Edwardian society functions just as well under Prussian rule as English, is a reasonably close version of what the Surface Englanders make of the changes (everyone besides the main character has just accepted it and got on with their lives.)
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
|
|
|
+3
link
|
slickriptide
Posts: 97
7/20/2017
|
Pumpkinhead wrote:
Hey failbetter, write an entire history of the world after London fell. Apparently only that will satisfy us. Duke
One thing that the Duke's echo illustrates is that Failbetter has already written that history, in broad strokes at least. They just aren't telling us what they've written.
This is part of the problem with talking about this stuff. What little we know is written with the meaty parts as fate-locked content that Failbetter would really prefer we not even hint at in the open like this. Even that much, though, isn't enough to really say anything concrete about the state of the world.
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.
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. The countries that remained uninvolved found themselves targeted by an ISIS-like terrorist conspiracy that emerged within the same timeframe that Fallen London itself emerged from Lake Avernus for the first time; just in time to further politically destabilize whatever government had emerged in post-Fall Britain. Initial spies report that not only is there a shadowy Anarchist conspiracy basing itself out of London, there are three other nations down there and a half-dozen other questionable independent settlements including at least one semi-mythical city perched on the edge of another universe entirely.
When the terrorists prove to be good at their jobs, it causes all of the players of the Game to make London one of their top priorities, just as we currently make the Middle East one of our top priorities. Never mind learning that the bombers are pawns in a Game whose true leaders are beings from across the universe and who don't give a rip about humanity except its potential to be a tool of the Liberation of Night.
Here's the frightening part -all of this chaos may be exactly what the Masters wanted. It might be the exact reason they chose London and took it at that point in history.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Slickriptide
|
|
|
+3
link
|
Mr. Griffon
Posts: 7
7/20/2017
|
slickriptide wrote:
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.
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.
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
7/19/2017
|
It doesn't seem very likely to me that Britain would embark upon a major war with one of the greatest industrial and military powers in the world shortly after losing their capital, government and fleet to a huge swarm of bats. And Napoleon III, for all his Latin American ambitions, was pretty clear that he would not move to militarily support the Confederacy without British backing.
Speaking of Napoleon III, France seems to have fought and lost some version of the Franco-Prussian War, because France is currently a Republic again, with a third Empire in the future (maybe).
.
edited by Anne Auclair on 7/19/2017
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Optimatum
Posts: 3666
7/18/2017
|
Isaac Zienfried wrote:
I think it was mentioned Prince Edward remained on the Surface to manage Surface Britain.
Only the Empress' Shadow remained on the surface.
--
Optimatum, a ruthless and merciful gentleman. No plant battles, Affluent Photographer requests, or healing offers; all other social actions welcome.
 Want a sip of Cider? Just say hi!
PM me for information enigmatic or Fated. Though the forum please, not FL itself.
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Siankan
Posts: 1048
7/18/2017
|
Teaspoon wrote:
The most plausible explanations that I've heard is that Prussia has sort of glommed on to what's left to the Empire, since one of Vicky's kids is ruling the place.
Prussia might have filled the European power vacuum, but that wouldn't affect the Empire much. All of Prussia's ports are on the Baltic; it's easy enough for Russia, France, or whichever power might please to hold the Straits against Prussia and shut her out of the high seas entirely. Historically, no German colonies appeared until Germany was united (which incidentally gave them access to much handier North Sea ports like Hamburg), and even then the German colonies in Africa and the Pacific were mostly in areas nobody else cared to bother with.
Entirely speculative, but to my mind the likeliest consequence of the Fall would be earlier independence for major colonies like Canada and Australia (with or without a Commonwealth system? unknown). Also, it's probable that the significant expansion of the Empire between 1850 and 1920 would have slowed or halted, meaning colonies like Hong Kong might never have existed.
Again, still speculative, but my guess is that the big winner would be France. After Portugal and Spain were eclipsed, Britain and France were the chief imperial powers, and limiting British presence in Africa and Asia would have been much to their benefit. Russia is also a probable winner, being unopposed in Central Asia and probably the eastern Mediterranean as well. (I am assuming that France would not be as willing to keep the Russians out of Constantinople if she had to do it alone.) The biggest losers would be the peripheral powers whose independence required either British backing (a la the Ottoman Empire) or balancing British and French influence (a la Siam). Where British presence had been most firmly established (India, Canada, etc.), it might very well be that not much has changed.
It is important to note that, by and large, the formidable Royal Navy would have been almost entirely intact after the Fall. Nineteenth-century British military doctrine demanded that the Navy, foundation of British power and safeguard of the Empire, be at least as large as the next two navies put together. While the Navy would have lost many leaders to the Neath, and perhaps a few vessels anchored at Greenwich, its physical strength would have been undiminished; that alone is enough to guarantee Surface Britain a place among the Great Powers. The only real question is whether the Empire still had the wherewithal to transition its naval strength into iron vessels and (ultimately) the dreadnoughts for which our Britain became famous.
--
Prof. Sian Kan, at your service.
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/19/2017
|
*whistles "Those Magnificent Men in the Flying Machines"*
You're right. I'd forgotten about that.
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
|
|
|
+2
link
|
Plynkes
Posts: 631
7/19/2017
|
Seems highly unlikely that Edinburgh would ever be the capital of England. It might well be the capital of whatever has replaced the United Kingdom (if indeed there is a successor state rather than the whole simply being governed from the end of a rather long speaking-tube), but Edinburgh being the capital of England is about as likely as Richmond, Virginia becoming the capital of Massachusetts.
--
"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop, but don't tell me."
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Isaac Zienfried
Posts: 364
7/19/2017
|
Estelle Knoht wrote:
Some amount of misinformation must be confusing the general public, at least. Even in Naples they don't fully believe your tales about London.
To be fair, your tales include devils bargaining for souls, star-letters that burn your hair off, an underground sea that warps time and space, honey that physically transports you into a dream, and cats that talk.
I'm pretty sure the folks in Naples think Neathers have just honed the art of nautical embellishment to a ludicrous extent.
--
Isaac Zienfried, 'The Vacillating Belligerent.'
A gentleman of complicated loyalties, complicated morality, and complicated goals.
But really, it's hard to keep things simple down here!
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Siankan
Posts: 1048
7/19/2017
|
Hark DeGaul wrote:
As for a new capital of England, I'd suggest York or Canterbury.
York is an excellent thought, not because of the viking (or English) kings of Northumbria, but because York has always been the second city of England. It is a natural place for English government to repair after the loss of London. I am less certain about Canterbury; even Convocation often met elsewhere, and there is no significant governmental tradition attached to the city.
Isaac Zienfried wrote:
I am absolutely not an expert on the Britain of the time period, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but... I believe the Empire was a little more centralized than the modern US. Less because it was especially inflexible and more because the modern US has a fetish for decentralization.
I assume from the rest of your comments that you mean militarily rather than governmentally centralized, in which case, yes. Ever since the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, the government has assumed that the United States would lose Washington within the first few minutes of any future world war and planned accordingly.
Governmentally, however, the United States has been undergoing a long process of centralization. The Articles of Confederation were so weak as to nearly be no government at all, yet their replacement with the Constitution was only secured on the assumption that Washington, whom everyone trusted not to abuse executive power, would be the first president. Even then, it was expected (and I apologize, but I can't remember who exactly said this off-hand) that the federal government would be much smaller than the states', on account of it having been given so little to do. The American Civil War predicated a major expansion of federal power, and both centralization and federal power have increased fairly steadily since.
That is not to say that Britain has ever been less centralized than her daughter. She's a monarchy, for one thing, and in the modern era London has always exerted considerable power over her shires and her colonies. Happily for the state of Surface Britain, however, a representative government is reasonably easy to reconstitute even when its head has been cut off, if you can only find someone with the authority to call for new elections. It is reasonable to assume that the ever-practical English (and the even more practical Scots) found a way to govern themselves before Fallen London had oriented itself in the Neath.
edited by Siankan on 7/19/2017
--
Prof. Sian Kan, at your service.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
slickriptide
Posts: 97
7/19/2017
|
One member of the Royal Family was left on the Surface. There's no mention of a Prime Minister in Fallen London that I've yet seen, suggesting that Lord Palmerston also escaped the Fall. Unless Parliament was in session at the time, it's likely that at least some governmental representatives also escaped the Fall.
If everyone kept their heads, a functioning government ought to be re-established within a few days to a few weeks.
Some potential changes:
The Empress' Shadow might find herself ruling in fact instead of mostly in name.
Scotland, Ireland and/or Wales might decide this is a great time to secede.
The British East India Company might find itself with a functioning army, fleet, and bureaucracy at a time when all three were in demand. How would the people in charge use that power? If the people involved with reducing miltary presence in India were stolen along with London, the succeeding government might have taken radically different policy towards the colonial holdings.
Across the Pond, The American Civil War was in full swing and the Confederacy was pinning a significant hope on the gamble the Europe in general and Britain in particular would be coerced into intervening militarily for fear of losing their cotton supply. Historically, that hope was unfounded; Britain remained neutral, even in the face of an inflammatory incident in which a Union ship boarded a British vessel in order to capture some Confederate diplomats that were on board. The "King Cotton" gambit was viewed as extortion, essentially, and they refused to be drawn in by it.
In the FL-verse, the loss of London could have had consequences in both countries. In the Confederacy, it would have changed the strategies and plans of the Confederate government. In Britain, an all-new government with a significant number of new and untested politicians, and influence out of proportion to their ideas compared to the normal circumstance, might actually vote for intervention. Especially if, in the face of conflict in the Colonies, a desperate government suddenly saw benefit to recognizing the Confederacy and developing it as a trade partner.
It just goes to show that you can imagine all kinds of things.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Slickriptide
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Hark DeGaul
Posts: 208
7/19/2017
|
I think the idea of splitting resources shouldn't be overstated. London's colonies in the Neath very much seem to be "London's" not "Britain's". It appears to me that London seems to take care of itself and its own possessions largely without the help of the Empire.
Reality and ideals are two very different things. England may theoretically have been the centre of the Empire and London certainly was rich, but many colonies largely governed themselves because it simply wasn't practical to wait on England. The Empire was too big and colonies it would have taken almost a year for grievances to be taken to parliament, discussed and the decisions returned to them. In a way the Empire as a whole in this period was if anything less centralised than America, who had no sea to divide them and as such could theoretically rely on a single senate.
I do like the idea of how an absent London may have affected the Civil War though. Beyond the obvious cotton gambit, the Union was seen by many in Europe at the time as dangerously hypocritical for not honouring the Confederacy's secession when they themselves had seceded from Britain out of a desire to represent themselves as they had done before increased British oversight following the Seven Years War. Europeans saw a stalemate as the most likely option (which would be tantamount to Confederate victory since they would remain a seprate country) and while some English politicians were won over by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclomation many others saw it as an attempt to spark a race war since it didn't free the slaves in Union allied slave-states like Missouri. Shortly afterwards a French embassy arrived in England to discuss potentially intervening in support of the Confederacy and it's interesting to consider that this might have happened with many experienced politicians underground.
edited by Hark DeGaul on 7/19/2017
--
The Dawn-Eyed Optician: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Hark%20DeGaul
That Vicar Who Ruined the Royal Wedding for Everyone (including himself): http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Hebediah%20Fix
The Dreaded Relative: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Your%20Aunt
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Plynkes
Posts: 631
7/19/2017
|
Of course, this is Fallen London, so things may have turned out differently, but historically the East India Company had nothing at the time of the fall of London. It was a vestige, existing in name only (and dissolved entirely in the 1870s). Post 1858-ish the Raj was directly controlled by the British government and that included all the armed forces formerly belonging to the HEIC. Now those left governing India might do something with all those resources, but none of it was under the control of the HEIC any longer. The mismanagement that led to the Great Mutiny saw to that.
--
"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop, but don't tell me."
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Plynkes
Posts: 631
7/19/2017
|
Incidentally, the "settled" (i.e. white) parts of the British Empire were or became self-governing during this period, so they were kind of already doing their own thing. Indigenous peoples had to wait a while longer for that...
--
"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop, but don't tell me."
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Hark DeGaul
Posts: 208
7/19/2017
|
I think slickriptide's comment raises an interesting secondary question to this:
If London fell was the Confederacy beaten, or did London's absence shift the balance of Europe enough to bring the British and French in on the Confederacy's side?
--
The Dawn-Eyed Optician: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Hark%20DeGaul
That Vicar Who Ruined the Royal Wedding for Everyone (including himself): http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Hebediah%20Fix
The Dreaded Relative: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Your%20Aunt
|
|
|
+1
link
|
slickriptide
Posts: 97
7/19/2017
|
Plynkes wrote:
or the US did something outrageously stupid to provoke them,
The "Trent Incident" that I referred to earlier could have been that thing in a climate where there was a new PM and/or a new Parliament with a few nationalistic hotheads.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Slickriptide
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Pumpkinhead
Posts: 516
7/19/2017
|
On the topic of the American civil war, I don't think London existing or not would have changed much. The South was fated to lose so long as the North was willing to keep fighting, because the North had a much larger population and the industry to keep up a war—barring a foreign country actually allying with the South and helping them fight, of course (which I don't think the empire, even sans-London, would do).
Anyway, the general consensus seems to be that the empire exists still, but possibly has been eclipsed by France, and also has little to do with London. That would make sense, although I do wonder if losing London would just shatter the whole thing.
--
McGunn/Bsymstad is on the slow boat, waiting to see if he can find out what death is. (I'm done with London for now. Thanks for everything!)
Amanda Albright is a *spoiler* now, like she always wanted.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Spitfire Youngster
Posts: 32
7/19/2017
|
The fate of the Imperial Navy is an interesting question all in itself. It would require a lot of retrofitting to accomodate the entirety of it to the conditions of the Zee, but it most certainly wouldn't just sit at Dover or wherever for all these years. Also, from Sunless Sea we know that the portion of the Navy that did come down is currently in shambles, due to the war with Hell and the New Sequence. Why wasn't it reinforced through the Cumaean Canal then? I'd guess that the fleet on the surface is no longer controlled by the powers residing in Fallen London, or there is no surface fleet at all - it was either disbanded, they deserted, or were brought into the Neath and suffered the consequences.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Spitfire%20Youngster
Professional troublemaker, not a single regret since [REDACTED]
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Siankan
Posts: 1048
7/19/2017
|
The Royal Navy would be stationed all over the world. Malta. Halifax. Cape Town. Aden. Bombay. Singapore. Sidney. No doubt in the early years (before communication was established with the Surface, or the Cumaean Canal constructed) the remains of the Admiralty continued business as usual, as much as it could. Even after the Canal's opening, there's not been anything I've heard (though others might know something I do not) that suggests any significant portion of the Royal Navy made the trip to the Neath. The Surface Admiralty no doubt has enough to do keeping the French out of India and maintaining British rights in the ports of China to worry about the remote outpost that is Fallen London.
It may even be (given the rigmarole you go through getting your own ship) that London's naval shipyards are covered in the purchase agreement, and therefore probably as much in Mr. Iron's hands as is the rest of Wolfstack.
--
Prof. Sian Kan, at your service.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/19/2017
|
I do wonder which city is now capital of England.
Hang about. There's no chance it's Edinburgh, is there?
(that would explain why there's no Scots in the Neath)
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Siankan
Posts: 1048
7/19/2017
|
Perhaps the government reformed at Reading or some other town just outside the hole-that-was-London. However, I think Edinburgh's got as good a shot as any place, with its ancient governmental ties.
That said, I must correct you: Every time I put out to Zee I rescue dozens of taciturn Scotsmen. Pushing your engines past the breaking point seems to be the Scottish national pastime down here.
--
Prof. Sian Kan, at your service.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Isaac Zienfried
Posts: 364
7/18/2017
|
Preußens Gloria!
There's some indication that England, and perhaps Britain as a whole, still exists. I think it was mentioned Prince Edward remained on the Surface to manage Surface Britain.
--
Isaac Zienfried, 'The Vacillating Belligerent.'
A gentleman of complicated loyalties, complicated morality, and complicated goals.
But really, it's hard to keep things simple down here!
|
|
|
+1
link
|
PSGarak
Posts: 834
7/18/2017
|
I believe it was mentioned that London's change of venue has made England more distant from European politics, creating a power vacuum with far-reaching implications. I forget where exactly this was stated or implied. If I were to guess, either the Empress' Shadow, or The Waltz That Moved The World.
--
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/PSGarak
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Isaac Zienfried
Posts: 364
7/18/2017
|
I do think Britain has lost a great deal of power and influence, no longer the grand Empire it had been before the Fall. Don't tell that to Londoners, though.
--
Isaac Zienfried, 'The Vacillating Belligerent.'
A gentleman of complicated loyalties, complicated morality, and complicated goals.
But really, it's hard to keep things simple down here!
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Pumpkinhead
Posts: 516
7/20/2017
|
Hark DeGaul wrote:
It's much easier for an area as large as the Confederate States to secede than it is to force them back in to Union though. Even if you can beat their armies consistently there's no guarantee you can quell the population. ...The Union may have had a stronger force than the Confederacy but they were also the ones who had to do all the legwork.
Obviously in real life the South lost, but I don't think it was inevitable and I don't think Britain would have definitely stayed out if things had gone slightly differently. With no guarantee that Lincoln was sincere about abolition the morality was less clear cut (and may not even have mattered. Modern governments have been willing on occasion to prop up vile systems for economic gain and there's no reason the British Empire couldn't have done so by claiming that it was none of their business how the Confederacy chose to make its cotton. Abolitionist fervour certainly hadn't stopped Britain profitting off American cotton before the American Civil War.)
edited by Hark DeGaul on 7/19/2017
My point is more that so long as the North wanted to keep fighting the war, the South was not going to win. They simply could not win the war by themselves; their only hope was that the North would tire and let them be. Of course, if the whole British military came in and fought with the South, that would probably change, but even with London gone I don't think that would happen. Maybe some monetary support, and a few ships or something, but flat-out military support? I don't think Southern cotton was that important to them, even sans-London.
You're right that it's hard to force something as big as the Confederacy to rejoin the Union, but all I can say is that regardless of how hard it was, they did it. I'm not sure how Britain's support would have changed the fact that the Union army was capable of destroying large swathes of the South, as well as holding it under martial law for several years.
Anyway, this is rather off topic.
Anne Auclair wrote:
Speaking of Napoleon III, France seems to have fought and lost some version of the Franco-Prussian War, because France is currently a Republic again, with a third Empire in the future (maybe).
This inspired me to look into the history of the Government of France, and as a silly person from the USA I'm slightly weirded out by the fact that France has gone through ~8 governments in the same time mine has existed. I guess my Americentric history lessons haven't taught me a lot about other parts of the world. :p
In any case, if the French lost that war, that doesn't make them so much the dominant world power, does it? It's possible that no one stepped in to completely fill Britain's shoes, after all.
If, of course, they actually emptied those shoes.
edited by Pumpkinhead on 7/20/2017
--
McGunn/Bsymstad is on the slow boat, waiting to see if he can find out what death is. (I'm done with London for now. Thanks for everything!)
Amanda Albright is a *spoiler* now, like she always wanted.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/20/2017
|
Come to think of it, I want to know what's happened to Italy. The Risorgimento was at a very delicate stage in 1861, and I would love to know what happens as a result of Italy suddenly becoming a pipeline for Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and excellent coffee.
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Pumpkinhead
Posts: 516
7/20/2017
|
Hey failbetter, write an entire history of the world after London fell. Apparently only that will satisfy us.
--
McGunn/Bsymstad is on the slow boat, waiting to see if he can find out what death is. (I'm done with London for now. Thanks for everything!)
Amanda Albright is a *spoiler* now, like she always wanted.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/20/2017
|
I think it is implicit in the fandom that we will never, ever, be sated.
Which is good for them! If we were, what would they do with their lives?
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Optimatum
Posts: 3666
7/20/2017
|
slickriptide wrote:
This is part of the problem with talking about this stuff. What little we know is written with the meaty parts as fate-locked content that Failbetter would really prefer we not even hint at in the open like this. Even that much, though, isn't enough to really say anything concrete about the state of the world.
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.)
slickriptide wrote:
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.
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.
--
Optimatum, a ruthless and merciful gentleman. No plant battles, Affluent Photographer requests, or healing offers; all other social actions welcome.
Want a sip of Cider? Just say hi!
PM me for information enigmatic or Fated. Though the forum please, not FL itself.
|
|
|
+1
link
|
slickriptide
Posts: 97
7/20/2017
|
Optimatum wrote:
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.
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.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Slickriptide
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Hark DeGaul
Posts: 208
7/20/2017
|
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
--
The Dawn-Eyed Optician: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Hark%20DeGaul
That Vicar Who Ruined the Royal Wedding for Everyone (including himself): http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Hebediah%20Fix
The Dreaded Relative: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Your%20Aunt
|
|
|
+1
link
|
Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/20/2017
|
I would be more inclined to see Prussia benefitting, frankly, if anybody was going to.
Or, *cringe*....Belgium.
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
|
|
|
+1
link
|
PSGarak
Posts: 834
7/20/2017
|
Hark DeGaul wrote:
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.
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.)
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/PSGarak?fromEchoId=10188084
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.
--
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/PSGarak
|
|
|
+1
link
|