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Inspiration and little seeds of ideas

SteveBP

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I thought this thread could be a place where we can put those single sentence or paragraph ideas which occur to us, but which we might do nothing with. Who knows maybe others will take those seeds and plant them in a big pot of story soil?
 
So my first one was while listening to a Welsh/Cornish singer called Gwenno Saunders (you can find her on Spotify).

Her latest album is Le Kov and is entirely in Cornish. Also in interviews she has said that she was raised in a bilingual Welsh/Cornish household with English very much a third language.

It made me think - could the popularity of Cornish and Welsh singers and entertainers and maybe bards and writers as well, combined with a general population seen as being a loyal component of the Kingdom lead to a much more vibrant long lasting and acceptable Cornish and Welsh speaking cultures right through to now? Where the languages are the main day to day language in their areas?

I’m not really looking for an in-depth discussion it’s just a throwaway idea I may loose interest in tomorrow
 
It made me think - could the popularity of Cornish and Welsh singers and entertainers and maybe bards and writers as well, combined with a general population seen as being a loyal component of the Kingdom lead to a much more vibrant long lasting and acceptable Cornish and Welsh speaking cultures right through to now? Where the languages are the main day to day language in their areas
I'm not particularly familiar with the decline of the Welsh language, so could be spectacularly wrong, but I seem to recall reading that the decline in Radnorshire was due in large part to English being the more prestigious language - I suspect your idea would mean Welsh would retain enough popularity for the area to be bilingual with the right PoD (early 1800's comes to mind for some reason here). I do however see the valleys as becoming English speaking.
 
I'm not particularly familiar with the decline of the Welsh language, so could be spectacularly wrong, but I seem to recall reading that the decline in Radnorshire was due in large part to English being the more prestigious language - I suspect your idea would mean Welsh would retain enough popularity for the area to be bilingual with the right PoD (early 1800's comes to mind for some reason here). I do however see the valleys as becoming English speaking.

Yes I think there would still be substantial inroads by English in Celtic areas, but maybe thinking about it Cornish and Welsh being a bit like Yiddish as a rich ingroup culture.
 
Cornish is, I believe, a relatively recently re-introduced language. Apparently the last 'native-born' speaker died in 1799 or thereabouts.

Yes that is what the history books say but a lot of the research is showing this is false and Cornish continued to be spoken into the Nineteenth century, particularly in more insular communities. I believe I've heard fishermen mentioned
 
Well, I don't think I'll ever time to make it justice, but I've this recurring idea of Prince Eugene of Savoy making a better impression on Louis XIV and getting a commission in the French army ca. 1683. The "meat" of the scenario would, of course consist in the impact this has on the War of Spanisg Succession (which at that point would have been quite difficult to avoid).
Secondary, but far from irrelevant, line of argument would be the different situation in the Balkans, with Eugene's absence making a total victory like Zenta possibly more difficult to achieve for the Habsburg side.

I was thinking that an effect of this could be Savoy-Piedmont siding with France (because family ties maybe?), making her Italian flank much more secure and potentially letting Milan be retained by the Bourbon side, maybe as an independent Duchy given to a cadet branch after the war.

Or Piedmont could fight against France and with Eugene against them lose badly and suffer serious territorial losses, completely changing the Italian power balance for the XVIII and XIX centuries (no Kingdom of Sardinia, a French foothold beyond the Alps, surviving Monferrato...)


Well, this escalated a bit from the random idea it was meant to be.
 
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I've been thinking a lot about Heseltine and Major's apparent enthusiasm for elected Mayors- plans were made to roll out a full network across the country that would have done more and meant more than what Labour came out with, but because of 1997 it never happened. I'm always thinking about what could have happened had they chosen to devolve that power when they were in office, but I can never quite think of when and where the best opportunity would be, nor really what that would have looked like.
 
I was mulling a ww2 in 1938 scenario and I find that idea fascinating and I've been trying write out a basic scenario, the issue for me is how I want to take the post war period. I mean it's pretty easy to take a utopic or dystopic path.
 
I've been thinking a lot about Heseltine and Major's apparent enthusiasm for elected Mayors- plans were made to roll out a full network across the country that would have done more and meant more than what Labour came out with, but because of 1997 it never happened. I'm always thinking about what could have happened had they chosen to devolve that power when they were in office, but I can never quite think of when and where the best opportunity would be, nor really what that would have looked like.

That is the very definition of Majorpunk an elected mayor and much smaller council (which I’m sure was a key plank of the idea) a kind of Aus/NZ/US model.

Especially if we got a few business celebs as non partisan mayors.
 
I was mulling a ww2 in 1938 scenario and I find that idea fascinating and I've been trying write out a basic scenario, the issue for me is how I want to take the post war period. I mean it's pretty easy to take a utopic or dystopic path.

I think the thing about WWII in 1938 is that Italy might be on the 'Allied' side, and the USSR entirely out the picture.

Either or both of those give interesting possibilities- longer lasting fascism with its merry band of eastern European adherents?
 
I think the thing about WWII in 1938 is that Italy might be on the 'Allied' side, and the USSR entirely out the picture.

Either or both of those give interesting possibilities- longer lasting fascism with its merry band of eastern European adherents?

I was mulling having the USSR declare war alongside the anglo-french and not doing that much compared to OTL, and I can see Italy declaring war when Germany is on the ropes to get Austria back.
 
So, I've got two ideas that are fairly far along and at the stage of plot outline, story structure, and characters and even prologues all done, I like both equally but would probably work better on one then the other than in tandem. I thought this might be the place to throw myself at the mercy of the potential readership as a tie breaker and ask which of the two ideas people like better.

  • Fit For Heroes - A worse end to the Great War leaves Britain in 1919 in a much worse place than it was OTL, in spite of actually still "winning". Soldiers strike in the Home Counties, masterless men roam the Midlands, Dominion troops revolt in Wales, the red flag rises above Belfast and Glasgow, police forces go on strike, civil war brews in Ireland, and warships are dispatched to the Mersey... and that's just lifted from OTL. Now, with Kings and Kaisers and politicians dead from the Spanish flu, returning soldiers and those left on the home front have to struggle with a country not fit for heroes, but one that is rapidly changing.
  • White Heat - A much stronger majority for Labour in the late 1960s makes the white heat of technological revolution a reality. By 2014 Britain is a very different country - Sinclair vies for a slice of the video game market with Nintendo, people queue round the corner at the crack of dawn to buy the latest Acorn devices, drones dispatch from the travelling post office every morning, hovercraft roam freely across the land and sea, and Britain is in the middle of its worst brain drain for generations. What secrets that a dying man hid in the Royal Mail at Maplin Sands Airport could warrant murder? And why have several people with the same name up and down the country received an identical flash drive?

The prologues for both were published on AH.com in the Writer's Forum awhile back, but if anyone would like a read at them here can post them.
 
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So, I've got two ideas that are fairly far along and at the stage of plot outline, story structure, and characters and even prologues all done, I like both equally but would probably work better on one then the other than in tandem. I thought this might be the place to throw myself at the mercy of the potential readership as a tie breaker and ask which of the two ideas people like better.

  • Fit For Heroes - A worse end to the Great War leaves Britain in 1919 in a much worse place than it was OTL, in spite of actually still "winning". Soldiers strike in the Home Counties, masterless men roam the Midlands, Dominion troops revolt in Wales, the red flag rises above Belfast and Glasgow, police forces go on strike, civil war brews in Ireland, and warships are dispatched to the Mersey... and that's just lifted from OTL. Now, with Kings and Kaisers and politicians dead from the Spanish flu, returning soldiers and those left on the home front have to struggle with a country not fit for heroes, but one that is rapidly changing.
  • White Heat - A much stronger majority for Labour in the late 1960s makes the white heat of technological revolution a reality. By 2014 Britain is a very different country - Sinclair vies for a slice of the video game market with Nintendo, people queue round the corner at the crack of dawn to buy the latest Acorn devices, drones dispatch from the travelling post office every morning, hovercraft roam freely across the land and sea, and Britain is in the middle of its worst brain drain for generations. What secrets that a dying man hid in the Royal Mail at Maplin Sands Airport could warrant murder? And why have several people with the same name up and down the country received an identical flash drive?

The prologues for both were published on AH.com in the Writer's Forum awhile back, but if anyone would like a read at them here can post them.

Please please do the Wilsonpunk :love::love:
 
So, I've got two ideas that are fairly far along and at the stage of plot outline, story structure, and characters and even prologues all done, I like both equally but would probably work better on one then the other than in tandem. I thought this might be the place to throw myself at the mercy of the potential readership as a tie breaker and ask which of the two ideas people like better.

  • Fit For Heroes - A worse end to the Great War leaves Britain in 1919 in a much worse place than it was OTL, in spite of actually still "winning". Soldiers strike in the Home Counties, masterless men roam the Midlands, Dominion troops revolt in Wales, the red flag rises above Belfast and Glasgow, police forces go on strike, civil war brews in Ireland, and warships are dispatched to the Mersey... and that's just lifted from OTL. Now, with Kings and Kaisers and politicians dead from the Spanish flu, returning soldiers and those left on the home front have to struggle with a country not fit for heroes, but one that is rapidly changing.
  • White Heat - A much stronger majority for Labour in the late 1960s makes the white heat of technological revolution a reality. By 2014 Britain is a very different country - Sinclair vies for a slice of the video game market with Nintendo, people queue round the corner at the crack of dawn to buy the latest Acorn devices, drones dispatch from the travelling post office every morning, hovercraft roam freely across the land and sea, and Britain is in the middle of its worst brain drain for generations. What secrets that a dying man hid in the Royal Mail at Maplin Sands Airport could warrant murder? And why have several people with the same name up and down the country received an identical flash drive?

The prologues for both were published on AH.com in the Writer's Forum awhile back, but if anyone would like a read at them here can post them.

I'd read the hell put of both of those, and the latter has 'full-length AH novel' written all over it
 
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