Hobart (Quantum 6) – Google Docs
Hobart (Quantum 6)
This timeline is on the front lines of the Infinity-Centrum war: it is a former echo that was shifted into Quantum 7 in 1899 when covert Centran operatives intervened to save the life of Vice President Garret Hobart. Hobart went on to duly succeed President McKinley (instead of Theodore Roosevelt) when McKinley was assassinated in 1901; his policies as President allowed for easier Centran infiltration of the timeline. However, in late 1903 holdout Infinity agents managed to disrupt Centrum’s ongoing secret medical treatment of Hobart; the President has already had one heart attack, and has just announced that he will not be seeking election in 1904. This shifted the timeline back to Quantum 6, thus allowing Infinity to make contact with its operatives and recommit to taking back the timeline completely.
The fight continues.
Hobart, 1904 AD
Current Affairs
The United States of America is about to have an election cycle unlike anything it has ever seen.
Divergence Point
1899: Centran agents save the life of Vice President Hobart, thus preventing Teddy Roosevelt’s Presidency.
Major Civilizations
Western (Diffuse), Chinese (Empire), Orthodox (Diffuse)
Great Powers
Substantively identical to Homeline’s, circa 1904
Worldline Data
TL: 5
Quantum: 6 (unstable)
Mana Level: None
Centrum Zone: Red
Infinity Level: P3
Outworld Involvement
While most local political observers in Hobart may suspect that the 1904 election promises to be extremely exciting — after all, there will be no incumbent President, no Vice President at all, and the nomination for both parties appears to be wide open — the full lengths that both Centrum and Infinity will go through to make sure the ‘right’ candidate wins have yet to be determined. The Centrans have the simpler task: they want both parties to nominate internationalists who support partnering government with industry in order to efficiently develop the country. Centrum also wants the next President to be an isolationist who will let the Europeans destroy themselves, but that’s a long-term goal. The problem for Centrum is that they’re remarkably bad at rigging elections; usually that doesn’t matter, but Infinity is now back in the picture, so it does.
Infinity’s problem is the inverse of Centrum’s: they know how to fix an election, but there’s no consensus on who to throw it to. The easiest solution is to get Roosevelt the nomination and the election, but he’d unquestionably serve until 1912 in that scenario and when that happened the timeline would probably shift quantum levels again. Unfortunately, every other possibility is a giant unknown; the timeline is sensitive to quantum shifts, and even Centrum apparently has difficulty predicting the results of any one act of changing history. And, of course, everybody with an informed opinion on the subject also has a pet academic theory to flog.
It may all end in barely-disguised shootouts between Centran and Infinity personnel — Centrum has already made two attempts on the life of Princeton University President Woodrow Wilson, which has forced Infinity to take the unpleasant duty of keeping him alive — while the timeline hops around the Quantums like a water drop hops around a griddle. There are agents on both sides that might welcome such a scenario, in fact. The constant having to try to second-guess which action might blow up in one’s face today has been extremely tiring, for everybody involved. Simply shooting the Bad Guys and going home has its appeal.
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