Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[Simon Darkshade]

Halfway Across the 1970s: The Last Bit

- Africa is a fair bit better off in certain ways, such as the absence of particular dictators, oppressive regimes and outright wars, but that is counterbalanced in a certain sense by a lack of complete 'true' independence for the majority of her countries, at least south of the Sahara. In the ordinary sense of the word, independence implies the right to make whatever decisions a state chooses and generally exercise sovereignty fully, and that isn't really present here apart from the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa; everyone else amongst the ranks of the independent African states has certain limitations or red lines to various extents. There is a great deal of ambiguity as to how this manifests itself, partly to leave things up to the reader and partly not to impede future potential storylines

- China is a majorly different entity, not fitting into the comfortable Cold War paradigms or blocs and having her own interests, yet not necessarily having the openings to act upon those interests. She is not as isolated as Red China in 1975, and has increasingly rejoined world trade after the wars of 1930-1960 kept her without the system; by the same token, there are not the building blocks for the type of rocketing growth seen on Earth. The absence of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution has been a net boon, but as of 1975, China is still seen as the epitome of Churchill's famed line about Russia

- Japan is experiencing the type of boom she did at this time historically, but with it seeming to be further magnified by the world situation. This affluence is flowing onto all aspects of Japanese society, but in a very different political milieu under the leadership of Prime Minister Yukio Mishima; the spectre of Japanese rearmament is starting to cause conversation amongst some in the West, just as it did in the East. It is a hub of high technology and progress, with particular advancement in robotics, cybernetics, computers and other emerging technologies, and this will result in something like Japanese cyberpunk starting to raise its head in coming years

- India isn't so much at a crossroads as on a different road. In the absence of Pakistan, her major defence threats are to the north; in the absence of a non-aligned movement, she is positioned in the West/Free World. There has been no sense of a Licence Raj here, or any of the major trends of the Nehru era in an India that trod a different path to independence. Whatever foreign, defence or strategic policy decisions she makes, they are made by New Delhi on her own terms and for her own reasons

- What will happen to the Postwar Economic Boom? The bubble hasn't been burst by a Middle Eastern war or OPEC action, as mentioned earlier, but this doesn't mean there is smooth sailing ahead all the way to 2000 and beyond by any stretch of the imagination. There will be another, likely nastier, stock market event in due course, which will lead to recession and struggles, but rather than a sharp cliff edge moment, we are likelier to see a return to shorter economic cycles. Across the West, this will mean that a lot of political consensus will remain unbroken and change will emerge more gradually than we saw in the late 1970s

- South America will be a lot more prominent in events, trends and circumstances as time goes by, and some growing conflicts may flare up into regional tensions there. In that continent, we will find a lot of key actors for things that are to come, as well as a very large amount of the world's resources and emerging markets

- Returning to Britain, one measure of the times was the Misery Index, which added the inflation rate to the unemployment rate; this headed into the 30s in the mid 1970s, highlighting the perception of the time. Here, DE Britain's Misery Index would be well under half that of Switzerland, based on unemployment well below 1% and inflation sitting at around 3.75%. Fundamentally, the pound in a man's pocket goes further, and he still has similar or more of them compared to @

- Racial issues still exist on Dark Earth, but one of the notes that I wove into stories quite early on was the idea that, when faced with external differences, those within seem to shrink that little yet significant bit. Thus, in a world with Martians, Venusians, orcs, goblins, ogres and dwarves, a black man or an Indian might seem that little bit less alien in some fashion. Generally speaking, the discrimination that exists is the still nasty social type, rather than any overt legal type, and its prevalence in popular culture has been somewhat constrained by the relatively smaller immigrant population within Britain, and in America, by the relatively smaller black fraction of the overall population (and its different geographical distribution). That the issue of immigration is starting to raise its head politically in Britain is more a function of the general extent of consensus, whereby there is more that the three major political parties agree about than disagree

- Broadly speaking, the situation of women is a tad better in the United States than in the more conservative countries of Europe insofar as general rights are concerned, with Britain lying between them to some extent. Financial equality, at least insofar as laws are concerned, is almost fully in reach, although the practical manifestation of that right will take a long time to flow through to reality. Divorce laws are yet to be majorly liberalised in Britain and Europe, whilst they vary across the states of America. Whilst homosexuality has yet to be decriminalised, there have been fewer prosecutions in practice on either side of the Atlantic in the period 1960-1975 compared to 1945-1960; both North America and Free Europe are distinctly better off than the Soviet Union for such individuals

- Religion is a major factor across the West, and religiosity is generally at a higher level than our 1975 across the board; a not inconsiderable fraction of this is what we'd broadly term 'cultural Christians', who attend churches because of social expectations. One manifestation of this is that there hasn't been such a comparatively noticeable Evangelical Christian emergence from the late 1960s in both the USA and Europe, what with traditional religion not seeing the same type of perceived decline in earlier decades; they are still around, but their impact is felt that bit less, like tipping a bucket of boiling water into a large bathtub that it already filled with pleasantly hot water vs doing the same to a lukewarm bath

- The teenager is starting to emerge, but in a slightly different sense to the Earthly one of an emergent social and economic market in the aftermath of the Second World War. Here, there is a sense that there is an increasing difference in the adolescent and preadolescent mind, behaviour and role in the family and society, and that with school leaving ages rising, there will need to be changes in the education system to reflect this, and in general society without. Changes are in process, but they won't necessarily be exactly the ones that we saw on Earth at this time

- In terms of a mood for political change, that varies from country to country. In Germany, there is a fairly strong preference for continuing the policy of 'steady as she goes'; in the USA, the long period of Democratic rule under JFK lead to Reagan winning as something different yet still strong, vigorous and vibrant'; in Canada and Australia, the Liberals and Labour have managed to win after long periods of Conservative rule; in France, d'Ambreville isn't too keen on letting his grand project of national renewal and greatness get interrupted by such petty concerns as politics; and in Britain, Stanley Barton and Labour have now been in power for going on 11 years, having won in 1964, 1968 and 1972, but 1976 might be a particularly difficult mountain to climb