Now,
looking overy my map of the Deadlands world, I'm truly perplexed. Looking
over Tales o' Terror: 1877, I'm even more perplexed...
What Happened
to the Union? In the real world, it had a massive manufacturing and
population advantage. Even freeing the slaves in the CSA wouldn't stop that.
The Union, historically, should be powerful enough to keep most of it's
territory except for the CSA proper- namely, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado,
Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Now, as far as I know, the rationale is...
(SPOILERS)
(SPOILERS
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And then there's Detroit.
The British couldn't
possibly have enough forces in Canada to challenge the /Union, which is,
population and industry wise, a 600 pound Gorilla. It's unlikely enough that
Britain would have ever recognized the CSA (They needed the US more than
they needed the CSA's cotton), but that's fairly acceptable. But attacking
the Union? Mind-bogglingly unlikely and very risky. I don't buy that the
Union couldn't take Detroit back, either.
Actually, the British are the
600 pound gorilla of the era. The wealth and industrial capacity of
the British Empire was un-surpassed and no-one else had anything
close. Historically, the British deployed enormous numbers of troops
in Canada during the American Civil War in case the Union got any silly
ideas about invading Canada.
I would also like to point out that the
British are supplying the C.S.A. with their industrial needs, and reading
between the lines, I suspect many of the Confederate "inventions"
may have an element of British help. At the very least the British
intervention in on behalf of the South assisted them in getting the
necessary industrial infrastructure into place.
Finally, I would like
to point out a weaknesses of the Deadlands world view which is what the hell
the Royal Navy is up to! Lots of Mexican, Confederate, French and
Union gunboats, but nary one about the Royal Navy. Why aren't British
battleships shelling New York or Boston and why haven't Royal Marines burnt
the White House down for a second time? ;-) (Well actually I
know the *real* reason, but what is the game world explanation?) At
the time the RN was working on the "two-power" standard which
meant the RN was supposed to be more powerful than the navies of any two
foreign powers. Hence, they would have had the naval moxie to not only
capture Union shipping anywhere in the world but also to do serious damage
to the Union's coastline.
My tuppence
worth.
Daniel
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