Re: Alternative histories and paralele universes

On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Hawksinger wrote:

> Kenji Schwarz wrote:
> close enough.  Nowapan is, for a variety of reasons, a very
> isolationist, neutral, nuclear power with a population of about
> 135,000,000.  I am presently working out more of the details of its
> role in WW 2 but it includes an invasion of Hokkaido in 1945.  If
> you are on Sakhalin, I could probably scrape together a few divisions
> to liberate you as well :)  We could probably work out some interactions
That might come in very handy :)  I've figured either the Americans or the
Soviets would have ousted the Japanese in '45, but I didn't quite like the
post-war historical implications of either one.  I have a suspicion that
from, say, 1920-3 through the mid-30s the Sayat had some sort of
Soviet-modelled socialist state, which was knocked over by the Japanese
and replaced with a puppet government or military rule.  On the other
hand, it could be the Japanese had done the same to the Sayat in the wake
of the Russo-Japanese war... thus creating a sort of shuttlecock game
between the two powers.

> for Kamchatka too.  I am willing to offer land in a large Northeastern
> penninsula if you are interested, but there you run into my wildlife
> and geography. Its mountainous, high tundras inland, and cold
> rainforests along some coasts. Details on both are available from my
This actually sounds like an _ideal_ topographic/climatological setting.
And I've had a strong urge to furnish the Sayat with weird beasties like
mastodons, giant ground sloths, cameloids, etc.  But I keep swinging
back and forth on that -- keep it totally "real-world contemporary
background" or go for the "really _altered_ alternate setting"?  Before
long, it's back to the mutant Commie lesbians from outer space.  Sheesh.
I'll definitely look more into Nowapan.  Nowan language definitely caught
my attention a while back :)

> Nowapan reference handbook at the conlang page below. Might be quite
> interesting to have a Homo sapiens minority tucked away.
I'll take another look!  IIRC, it will be a _great_ way to procrastinate
on paper-writing for a while longer.

>         How many Sayat speakers are there?
I'm not entirely sure -- just as with "setting realism", I keep wobbling
between estimates of a few hundred speakers to a million, maybe as many as
two million.  Say half a million for a fairly safe ballpark figure ;)

Kenji