Re: Discussion topic - rewriting (future) history....?

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1. I'm attached to the current timeline because it had some interesting
factions, twists, and strangely life came close to it in several
particulars.

2. I liked the tone and flavour of the write ups in dirtside and
stargrunt.
Still do.

3. A 'reboot' makes perfect sense from a business point of view. You
could
phase out otherwise unfavoured miniatures lines, create new miniatures
for
new powers, etc. This could be a good business motivator, so I
understand it
from that perspective. Even if, Jon, this wasn't the inspiration, you
may
want to consider that side of things.

4. The least likely things in the old continuity are the most heavily
entrenched in miniatures. The NAC was tremendously unlikely (I mean, God
Save Her Majesty The Queen of Canada, but Britain rescues North America?
Don't know if that works... and then taking over all of South America?
Not
likely). The ESU probably at least as unlikely. But they are both
popular
blocks of minis.

If I had to think what I would do it would be:

1. Try to preserve the long term power blocks (ESU, FSE, NSL, NAC, etc)
but
perhaps envision an alternate path from here to there... maybe the NAC
is a
super-sized 'coalition of the willing' with the US having to take a more
moderate part due to an economic collapse.... maybe the ESU is the
result of
strongman governments in Beijing and Russia cooperating to offset the
power
of the NAC.... the NSL and FSE are the long term result of the demise of
the
Eurozone due to economic collapse.....

2. Leave room for everyone's pet mini-states. No sense kicking about the
fans. That just means there has to be room for small splinter states.

3. Fix the demographics a bit - pure math says the NAC should beat the
heck
out of the ESU and take its lunch money (based on modern day population
and
GDP).

4. Allow a few more powers. Big blocks might be more like NATO or some
other
defense conglomeration more than super-countries. This would leave room
for
a lot more independent countries and small navies and ground forces (aka
minis to sell).

PS - I've never played FT for mechanics, I've only ever played it
because of
the background. As a ruleset, it is okay (no complaints really other
than
the value in most games of the FoD), but as a ruleset married to an
interesting somewhat different background that has some flavour of 2300
AD
(colonialism pushed forward a few hundred years), it was a good tool for
telling stories. And those stories are tied to the background.

Tom B