1632 institutions

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List of 1632 series institutions and organizations encompasses both fictional and historical governmental, private and military entities, offices, institutions, and organizations that appear in the rich and diverse neo-historical background of the plot lines that make up the shared universe milieu of the rapidly growing best selling 1632 series

[edit] Institutions and organizations

A large part of the fascination with alternative history treatments, and the 1632 series as a whole, is the glimpses such fiction gives of the historical underpinnings of todays world (i.e. Modern Europe), and by extension, all of the Modern World including the "new lands" of North and South America as they factor into the times. Some topics will be listed below which have an encyclopediac treatment elsewhere (real history), but some such topics will also be listed here below as well when the fictionalized background within the series emphasize important "other factors" deserving of coverage for their literary importance, background development driving the series plot themes, or equivalently, serve as thematic elements worthy of separate mention or emphasis to the overall milieu —and so will be elaborated on in the sections following based upon such considerations and their relevancy in the 1632-verse neo-historical exposition.

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the 1632-verse fiction is that it has a background that has been grown as a years-long (on going since early 2000) collabortative effort by several hundreds of people, doing their best to make the neohistory as realistic as possible given the original series starting premises. (See The Grantville Gazettes, 1632 Editorial Board, 1632 Research Committee, 1632 Tech Manual, and www.1632.org.)

[edit] Allocation Committee

The Allocation Committee, or more correctly, the Grantville Allocation Committee was born as part of the interim government setup by the Grantville Emergency Committee soon after the Ring of Fire forced the towns people to reorganize and plan for an uncertain future. As an arm of the government, the committee administered certain properties which were nationalized for best use either from absentee owners, or such resources which needed expenditure wisely with forethought such as vehicles, ammunition, weapons of all kinds and so forth. The Allocation Committee plays a large background role in the plots of many tales presented in the short fiction of the series, as well as occasional allusions to it in the major works. The speed boats used in the naval Battle of Wismar as well as the rocketry and indeed the aircraft as do the ironclads—abuilding in the Ring of Fire story "In the Navy", the novel 1633, and their sequel 1634: The Baltic War—all have a heavy reliance on the edicts of the committee.

[edit] Armored Personnel Carrier

See Personnel Carrier, Armored below.

[edit] 1632 Battle of Breitenfeld

Main articles: Battle of Breitenfeld (fiction or essay) and Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)

While not an 'institution' per se, in contrast with the encyclopediac treatment of the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), which serves to sketch the overall encounter, this is listed here as an important exposition of the background behind the Protestant-Catholic wars of religion known collectively as the Thirty Years' War. In a full chapter of 1632 Flint spends expends revealing relevant related factors preparatory to covering the topic of the battle proper, which taken together, the whole stands both as an authoritative deep background essay on the evolution of the art of arms in the fifteenth to eighteen centuries as well as a character study of the historical figure of Gustavus II Adolphus and some of his key generals. In the chapter (34), details of how the "Pike and Shot" armies of the day were structured, operated, limited, officered, and maneuvered are set forth very clearly.^[1]

[edit] Butterfly effect

Like the postulate in chaos theory (mathematics) where a system is very sensitive to initial conditions, the Butterfly effect when discussed in the 1632-verse, usually refers directly to the fact that Grantville's presence in the neohistorical epoch, is directly scrambling the historical recorded in the various references that came to Thuringia in the town. By 1634, even the most naive European noblemen, including many of those who'd harnessed the idea of changing the revealed history by preemptive actions, is gradually coming to understand that with everyone else acting in a similar future changing way, the predictability of that revealed future is suddenly uncertain indeed— a foundering structure sinking on a bed of quicksand.

Sometimes the butterfly effect becomes central to a plot line. Will Newton, Napoleon or Bach or fill in the blank even be born? If they are, will their life proceed down a similar track with their history now being different? Will Rubens paint some of his late-in-life master works, now that he's seen them in an art book? These are some butterfly questions addressed in the series.

[edit] Chloramphenicol

Chloramphenicol is an broad spectrum antibiotic that was in prevalent use during the 1950s through the early 1960s before it was displaced by more modern medications. It has one statistically low occurring, but serious side-effect which has lead to it being displaced in developed countries, but as noted in the series, even something with a 2% chance of death is an improvement on disease induced death rates of the 1630s.

Chloramphenicol is simple enough to make in small batches that Grantville's resident medical pharmacology researcher Tom Stone is able to produce small but regular quantities by late 1632 in the neohistory. It becomes central to the overall back plot of the series as early as 1634: The Galileo Affair (published: 2004) when Stone accompanies the embassy to the Most Serene Republic of Venice. References to it continually recur in various works of the series, but all begin with the plot and actions set in late 1633 as the Prime Minister of the new United States of Europe (USE) deliberately goes out of the way to give its formulation, along with full drawings and details of the necessary apparatus to the Spanish besieging Amsterdam via nurse Anne Jefferson in a typical piece of Stearnsian legerdemain in the Flint short story "Portraits" in Grantville Gazette I (2003).

Stearns is busily fomenting social and political revolution, of course, culturing the power from winning the "hearts and minds" of the populous at large, and knows full well that most anything the ruling classes adopt to catch up with up-time technology carries a hidden social and eventual political cost. Fear of the historical references to the plague outbreak of 1635 are also at play, and the USE cannot develop stainless steel and other precursor products to really pump up medical capabilities without other help from the greater resources of Europe. In 1634: The Baltic War even Gustavus, when pro forma dressing down his prime minister over the leakage to their nominal enemy, seems to understand his prime minister is playing a deeper game.

[edit] Committees of Corespondence

Inspired by Mike Stearns scheme of launching the American revolution "150 years early", the Committees of Corespondence are one of the first institutions influencing European thought and the neo-historical developments unveiled in the narrations. Headed by Gretchen Richter, the Committees start from a seed population in Jena that is planted in 1632 even as the Americans march to their second deliberate battle in defense of a community of Greater Thuringia, Germany.

[edit] Confederated Principalities of Europe

The Confederated Principalities of Europe (CPoE) was a jury rigged government negotiated between Mike Stearns, insisting that the 'New United States' (NUS) keep its constitution, and Gustavus Adolf II, in the persona of Captain-General Gars, an alias he used traveling incognito in our real world history. Under the arrangement, Captain Gars was protector of the NUS, and Emperor of the rest of the conquered territories of Germany. The CPoE was short lived— coming into effect in November of 1632 after the cavalry rescue by Gustavus' men at the Battle of Grantville High and ending on October 11th–12th, 1633—a day or two after the death of Germany's first national hero Hans Richter, remembered for all time for his heroism during the Battle of Wismar.

[edit] Cora's

Equivalently the more formal "Cora's Coffee Shop" (mention as such in the Serial: "Butterflies in the Kremlin" ca GG08-GG12)^check or "City Hall Coffee Shop", but in earlier Gazette's referenced solely as "Cora's" and is implicitly understood to be a central and convenient location and place to rendezvous. Cora is apparently the town's most reliably informed gossip, knows of or about virtually all the up-timers and many new residents while the location of her Coffee Shop in the basement of Grantville's government offices makes her a person who almost always knows what's going on, so a valuable information resource. In addition, she is said to listen in on virtually all conversations in her place, so has been mentioned in contexts where the parties would rather avoid that circumstance (e.g. two persons of the opposite sex tentatively testing the waters with one another)—and so choose to get a bite to eat or conduct negotiations elsewhere.^[2]

[edit] Gearing down

Steam engine in action (animation). Fortunately, Grantville had at least six residents who were steam power enthusiasts.

Richard Trevithick's No. 14 Engine, built by Hazeldine and Co., Bridgnorth, about 1804. This was a single-acting, stationary high pressure engine that operated at a working pressure of 50 psi (350 kPa).

Gearing down is a long term survival strategy recommended by the technical advisors to the Emergency Committee Cabinet and adopted by the whole Emergency Committee (GEC) and the successor government of the 'New United States' as the best way forward to ensure maintaining as much technology as possible and keeping a technological edge over the many international powers active in Europe. In two words, the immediate impact can be described as "Steam Engine".

By gearing down, which became something of a mantra and motto, the town citizens mean to plan ahead and use the assets such as up-time machine shops and power plant to create a sustainable 19th century technology base, in anticipation of parts wearing out and failing, or the normal breakage—for example as detailed in one short story ("When the Chips are Down" )—machine tool cutting heads, lathe tools or drill bits.^[3] In general, the philosophy is to create a technology more advanced than any in other European nations, to maintain an edge and naturally business opportunities, since wealth is closely tied to national security capabilities. Hence the GEC aims not in maintaining a fleet of motor vehicles, which contain thousands of parts and dozens or hundreds which require special tooling they need the machines to make the machines to make, but instead use the tech base to establish the railways and more advanced canals typical after long years of nineteenth century development.

Instead of attempting modern repeating automatic rifles, the strategy is to equip a professional army with a long range flintlock capable of three shots per minute—in the day of 1632-1634— and of outdoing any firearms in enemy hands in both rate of fire and range & accuracy. The strategy anticipates an eventual gearing up by conversion to a breech loading percussion cap (the bottle neck of production—they must build a whole industrial chemical complex as well as specialized tooling, which goes toward the reasons for not producing modern propellants and staying with a black powder weapon for a few years as well.) or bolt action, or other advanced designs as other dependent technological factors are resolved to support the higher technology. The crucial differences are in what is producable outside the five advanced machine shops with perhaps a strategic assist in making a specialized tool^[4] from the machine shops—which are therefore operated in a manner to preserve their ability to assist—to make the tools that make the produced artifacts, while concurrently not acting without forethought "in the moment" to overuse irreplaceable tooling so that it wears out prematurely.

This backfires on at least one occasion, when they underestimate what 17th century technology is capable of, and find their enemies have been able to use up-time ideas to build more advanced rifles.^[5]

[edit] Emergency Committee Cabinet

The Emergency Committee cabinet consists of almost all the towns main characters Flint used in the opening novel 1632 to carry the action and further the plot as his narrative unfolds. It was surprisingly formed on the fly as the Emergency Town Meeting nominated a number of people to the Grantville Emergency Committee while Mike Stearns chaired the meeting. As the process went on, he groped trying to vocalize the need to have some people on the committee he was comfortable working with, and the semi-radical-rebel history teacher (and the person who nominated him) Melissa Mailey provided the words "[what] you need [is] a cabinet"—to which thought he gratefully agreed in relief. Someone yelled out "you just name them Mike, and we'll vote 'em in right now, and Stearns began naming names off the cuff:

Later, after the committee had worked for a while hashing out priorities and assignments Stearns summed it up as:

The Emergency City oversaw Grantville's first six months in 1631, and fought a number of battles, domestic and external to the town before holding elections of delegates to a constitutional convention which then formed the New United States (NUS). Stearns had, in fact, deliberately delayed the calling of the constitutional convention a short while until he could lay political groundwork (See Jena Pimp Incident) after the Battle of Jena crossroads among the other nearby communities to eventually add stars to have some other states to unite.

[edit] Emergency Town Meeting

The Grantville Emergency Town Meeting was held in the gymnasium of Grantville High School three days after the Ring of Fire precipitated Grantville into late May of 1631. Most of the able townspeople, some 3,500 all told per series canon, attended the meeting where the town council pronounced themselves incompetent for the tasks needed by the ROF crisis. In an open aired discussion session, they proposed setting up an Grantville Emergency Committee to set in place such emergency measures as were deemed needed such as to prioritize use of and allocate resources, govern the town on an iterim basis, including long term planning and establishment of a more suitable governmental form, and the handling of the influx of refugees inundating Grantville in their short experience in the 17th; a count of which was estimated to be as high as the town's up-timer population only three days after arriving in 1631.

John Chandler Simpson nominated himself for the position of chairman sparking a memorable vocal "arcs and sparks" alpha-male to alpha-male encounter with UMWA union local president Mike Stearns, after which the town meeting unanimously elected Stearns to head up the Emergency Committee by acclaim and rubber stamped his appointees to the Grantville Emergency Committee and in particular, the Emergency Committee Cabinet which defacto came to rule the town with Stearns as Chief Executive Officer.

[edit] Grantville Constitutional Convention

The Grantville Constitutional Convention took place in the late fall of 1631 (NTL) when the Emergency Committee Cabinet decided in an October meeting^[8] the security situation via foreign armies and sufficient internal stabilization of Grantville's refugee influx situation and recent victory in the Battle of Jena crossroads allowed for a reasonably secure transition of power. The chapter denoting the decision ends with the words "Politicking! Whoopee!" and serves as a lead in to an indirect further demonization of John Chandler Simpson, who heads a coalition opposed to giving francise rights to down-timer (German immigrants) without extensive Jim Crow laws limiting the right to vote—a stance abhorant to Stearns and his circle. The demonization is carried out in a political rally at the Thuringian Gardens

[edit] Grantville Emergency Committee

The Grantville Emergency Committee was formed by the Emergency Town Meeting three days after the Ring of Fire precipitated Grantville into late May of 1631 when the town council pronounced themselves incompetent for the tasks needed by the ROF crisis—setting in place emergency measures to prioritize use of and allocate resources, govern the town on an iterim basis, including long term planning and establishment of a more suitable governmental form, and the handling of the influx of refugees inundating Grantville in their short experience in the 17th; a count of which was estimated to be as high as the town's up-timer population. By implication, 50-100 persons were empaneled on the committee, but the actual power was held by and exercised through the Emergency Committee Cabinet formed and populated at the behest of the Chairman of the Committee, Mike Stearns, who was elected by near unanimous acclaim after a remarkably memorable scene at odds with John Chandler Simpson. Dribs and drabs of committee business decorate the background of the Grantville Gazettes, but in the 1632 novel, the action all devolves around the cabinet. The committee eventually reported out a new constitution and scheduled elections for what became the 'New United States', but as early as the Battle of Jena crossroads, the townspeople were referring to themselves as the United States, and inveigling neighboring municipalities to throw off the yoke of authoritarian rule and join their new republic.

[edit] Grantville Firearms Roundtable

The Grantville Firearms Roundtable is a non-fiction sub-group of the volunteers from 1632 Tech Manual, and an officially recognized sub-committee of the 1632 Research Committee that advises on the likely path that firearms developments will likely take in the 1632-verse neohistory. The non-fiction essays and articles they have produced are listed here.

[edit] Grantville High School

Grantville High is the largest and best equipped facility for handling large numbers of people in the area the Ring of Fire (ROF) exchanged into Thuringia. Its gymnasium is the site of larger assemblies of all kinds—from the Emergency town meeting three days after the Ring of Fire, to stage plays such as Bad, Bad Brillo. Many of its rooms and facilities were co-opted by the Emergency Committee immediately after the ROF, and even through the 1634 books, many services (the dispensary and library are open 7-24-365, for example, and a resettlement/refugee center has been located on the grounds) are still provided at the school, as well as normal education— which resumed normally a few days after the ROF. Under the press of the inflow of refugees, many night courses and fuller use of the facilities came about. The physical plant of the High School is faithful to the physical plant of the North Marion High School (see photo) in Mannington, West Virginia, the town Grantville and its resources are based upon.

As the largest and best equipped facilty in Grantville, the high appears as a backdrop in too many stories to mention beginning with and ranging from the opening plot sequence in 1632 where it hosted the Stearns-Simpson wedding that starts the narrative, the initial cobbled together hospital facilities (being replaced by Lahey Hospital only during the winter of 1632-33), and diverse up-time tech based establishments such as the Voice of America, Grantville's Cable Television station, advanced research center, and so forth.

External links

• http://www.labs.net/schools/marion/nmhs/
• http://www.manningtonmainstreet.org/
• http://www.klaus-leiss.de/1632Tech/index.php/Main_Page

[edit] Green Regiment

The Green Regiment is described in 1632 as being the parent military unit of Alexander Mackay and Andrew Lennox's detached company soon after he meets Stearns interrupting the Grantville Emergency Committee and is introduced to Balthazar Abrabanel early in the novel.^[9] By the spring of 1632 (NTL), Mackay is described as heading up over a thousand men, which leads Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden to promote Mackay to Colonel, and means he's leading a regiment size unit attached to the parent regiment.^[10]

[edit] Kingdom of the Netherlands

In the 1632-verse, a largish prosperous, populous and unified nation comes about at the end of the novel 1634: The Bavarian Crisis by uniting the predecessor territories of what became in OTL, the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, plus a polyglot of minor territories including the Grand duchy of Luxembourg and a few prince-bishoprics into a new Hapsburg Kingdom of the Netherlands, where Don Fernando splits with his older brother, Phillip II of Spain, styling himself as "King in the Netherlands"—in effect establishing a third Hapsburg kingdom and dynasty on mainland Europe. This political development was aided and abetted by Mike Stearns, as prime minister of the new United States of Europe (USE) and his wife and special envoy Rebbecca Stearns .

[edit] Lahey Clinic

or

[edit] Lahey Medical Center

Lahey Medical Center (Lahey Clinic, is a colloquialism) is a purpose built three story facility that serves as the first modern hospital and teaching medical center of Europe in the neohistory. The hospital entered the series canon in the short novel "An Invisible War" in Grantville Gazette II, but is mentioned in passing as "The Hospital" at the end of the novel 1632 when Senator Rebbecca Stearns neé Abrabanel brings daughter Stephanie into the world.

[edit] League of Ostend

The Netherlands—first victim of the League of Ostend.

The League of Ostend (or Ostend Alliance^[11]) is a fictional alliance put together by the diplomatic initiatives of French prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu, in the spring and summer of 1633 of both Protestant and Catholic nation-states to oppose the alliance of the New United States and the king of Sweden, Gustav II Adolf, in the newly formed Confederated Principalities of Europe.^[12] Richelieu was reversing his decades long prior policy of doing anything within reason to aggrandize France and its power, especially things which would thwart the Habsburg dynasties controlling the eras great power, Spain, and the regional power of the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand II. Consequently, Richelieu covertly blocked Spanish ambitions to regain the Low Countries and had similtaneously. but niggardly bankrolled Gustavus Adolf's intervention on behalf of the Protestant princes of the Germanies against the German Catholic League.

League of Ostend member states include Protestant kingdoms Denmark and England as well as Catholic France and Spain; the leagues active manifestation (though suspected by Rebecca Stearns after her audience with Richilieu in 1633) began with a treacherous Pearl Harbor event: The Protestant Dutch, but recently independent of Spain and the Spanish Netherlands sailed with the allied fleets of England and France to oppose a new invasion by Spain (A second Spanish Armada, in effect, complete with a large auxiliary fleet of transports carrying an expeditionary army under the command of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand)— but in reality, both the French and English naval officers had sealed orders (an idea passed to Richilieu from his spies from the fiction of C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series) to be opened before joining battle—orders which announced the new alliance, and ordered them to fall on the Dutch and support the Spanish fleet.

The results were devastating for the navy of the Dutch republic, and using subterfuge, the Spanish forces were able to land behind key defenses of Flushing in Zeeland and thrust their expeditionary force into the heart of the republic. Spain's forces conquered most of the Netherlands and began a siege of Amsterdam, which along with two provinces and the rump remains of a third were all the territories left not fallen into Catholic hands. The next weeks saw the League's fleets to begin the Siege of Luebeck and the doubly- pyric Battle of Wismar— which awoke the nationalist feelings in the German population at large as 1633 ended. The events depicted in 1634: The Baltic War and 1634: The Bavarian Crisis effectively spell the end of the League with the defeat of Denmark with its separate peace, the disarray of the defeated French Army and possible civil war in France, and the formation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands sundering Spain's influence in Northern Europe.

[edit] Marion County power plant

The ruined castle of Schwarzburg. In the short story "Schwaraza Falls" in Grantville Gazette V, this castle is within canon range of the power plant and looking down upon it.

Schwarza river at Schwarzburg. In the canon, part of this scene would become a depression in which the ROF circle about Grantville is located, albeit in an local elevation mismatch, so the local terrain looks down on Buffalo Creek and the power plant from the castle and village of Schwarzburg hundreds of feet above.

The short story "Schwaraza Falls" in Grantville Gazette V describes in detail how the Schwarza river in Thuringia is cut by the edge of the Ring of Fire at Schwarzburg, and falls downslope to replace the feeder stream of Buffalo Creek, which is important, for it provides cooling water to the Marion County power plant (Grantville's) electrical power plant. The power plant is the biggest technological edge the up-timers have in their dangerous new environment, and its in-plant machine shops have large artifice handling equipment and tooling that are not present in the other machine shops in Grantville. Despite running at a mere fraction of rated capacity after being severed from the power network in the United States and Marion County, West Virginia, the Grantville Emergency Committee immediately begins planning in June of 1631 to gear-down and replace the steam turbine generated power generation with nineteenth century era steam engine technology. The Ring of Fire story "Power to the People" covers events at the power plant in the hours immediately after the ROF occurs.

[edit] Lothlorien Commune

The Lothlorien Commune is a hardscrabble farm and greenhouse abandoned in the nineties by "all the [Hippie] 'Old-Ladies'" to the care and possession of The Stone Family, who figure large in the South European Thread and in Europe in general, as a love interest spurs Tom Stone into recalling his graduate work at Purdue University and single-handedly injects a 200 year Pharmacological and Microbiological boost into the knowledge and studies of Europe, where he becomes known as Herr Docktor Stone, guest lecturing at the University of Jena and University of Padua (as so far documented in the series works). Just by providing the analgesic Canabis he might have become famed, but the Lothlorien greenhouse and barn also began sprouting wonderful new dyes , and by 1633-34, an easy to make early broad-spectrum antibiotic (about 250 years early) which with typical Stearnsian calculation of primal forces underlying historic events, the prime minister causes to have leaked deliberately (complete with sketches of manufacturing apparatus) to the Spanish forces besieging Amsterdam. The commune's influence on future events is thus tremendous, as Stearns is playing for the hearts and minds of the European masses, shifting the ground from under the authoritarian nobility, while they try to control events in the same old ways.

[edit] New United States

The New United States (NUS) was the up-timer name for their revolutionary republic formed towards the end of 1631 in the novel 1632, when they earned goodwill in central Germany by forming a loose alliance with Gustav's cavalry forces under Alex MacKay in the exchange:

The joined forces of MacKay's cavalry company and the NUS miners fight several memorable battles during 1631: Battle of the Crapper, the Battle of Badenberg, the Battle of Jena crossroads and the two phase battles against Spanish regular forces sent from the Spanish Netherlands—the Battle of Eisenach and the Battle of the Wartburg. <year?>

[edit] Office of the Holy Inquisition

• With its setting amidst the (mainly religiously inspired or excused) Thirty Years' War it is no surprise that the series repeatedly hammers the Office of the Holy Inquistion and discusses its various attributes and implementations in various books of the series in a large amount of detail. As the historical research in the series is excellent, a 1632 reader quickly learns the early inquisitions were formed to ferret out and forcibly convert secret jews (Marranos) like Becky Abrabnel Stearns and secret Moslems (Moriscos). In the flagship novel 1632, the American leader's take particular satisfaction in burning members of the Spanish Inquisition alive using Napalm in the Battle of the Wartburg; members of the inquisition take center stage in 1634: The Galileo Affair, and the Italian inquisition is attacked by the Spanish in 1635: The Cannon Law, whereas the sequel 1634: The Bavarian Crisis, members of the privy council of both the Holy Roman Emperor and the Elector of Bavaria are depicted to be catholic priests and members of the Inquisition, and further, have been the powers behind the leaders who had set forth the underlying secular causus belli, the Edict of Restitution.

[edit] Personnel Carrier, Armored

Large Dump Truck—Frontal view. Imagine this bearing down on you and your stick (pike) when you've never seen an automobile, much less.	Catipillar make Dump Truck similar to the truck at left... "Cat" hats are popular in Grantville for a reason.	Another large Dump Truck... far more likely to be available in rural Grantville, and far more common. Imagine yourself on a tall horse... looking up at one of these spitting bullets.
Another Catipillar make Dump Truck which might find use in a public works department or mine.	Volvo makes many heavy trucks used in the US as well.	This sort of Semi Dump Truck is documented as present in the novel 1633, and further as having been used as an APC until needed for transporting speed boats for the pivotal Naval battle of Wismar and Rostock.

Main article: Armored Personnel Carrier

In 1632-verse Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) are originally up-armored "Coal Mining Trucks"—construction vehicles of implicitly greater than ordinary size and capacity with thick walled dump beds and thick heavy duty man-high tires as would be common more to strip mining operations than are likely found in the shaft mining region in hilly West Virginia. As such, they are an example of one of the few "technical flaws" in Flint's background assumptions in the flagship novel 1632. Some are represented as Semi-tractor trailer types of vehicles, in 1633 during the run up to the Battle of Wismar where several are used to transport up-timer speed boats cross-country to the proper riverine watershed, a much more likely type given the source region.

Regardless of the unlikelihood of six heavy walled massive road construction/strip mining vehicles being present in small town rural West Virginia, the up-timers took what they had and added armor plating in the form of "shutters" over the windows, cut rifle slits in the beds and had at least six employed at the Battle of Eisenach (Eisenach) with mention of nearly as many at the Battle of the Crapper a full year-earlier. They are also credited at Nürnberg with leading an armored breakthrough behind the lines of Wallenstein at the sketchily described Battle of Alte Vesta^[13] that ends the lead novel 1632.

[edit] Ruthenia

In the Eastern European thread the large population of Ruthenians (serfs) in greater Poland-Lithuania are one of the key political elements that must be brought into having a more enlightened and more modern outlook in the plotline developed in The Anaconda Project.

[edit] Saint Mary's Parish

Saint Mary's Parish is the town of Grantville's native Catholic church, and was, before the advent of the Ring of Fire, Saint Vincent de Paul's—which gets to be awkward inasmuch as de Paul is currently alive, and not all that highly regarded outside of France. The parish priest Father Lawrence Mazzare (better known as "Larry") becomes famed in the neohistorical timeline where the local powers that be are constantly sending spys into the alien town from the far future—and since religion and religious strife were much larger parts of the mindsets found in the time, the spys and dispatches almost always report on the Catholic parish, its priest, and how well its community and its pastor get along with the many Protestant sects, and even the Jews who find haven in the town. Because of this repute, Fr. Mazzare is selected to be the last chance Ambassador to Venice and its waning mercantile connections as the United States of Europe (USE) desperately needs to open up trade for raw materials unobtainable elsewhere because of the war with the League of Ostend. When he goes on this mission for the state (See 1634: The Galileo Affair) the curate he hires is none other than the famed Jesuit polymath Fr. Athanasius Kircher, who was attracted to the scientific and technical wonders of Grantville around 1632-1633.

[edit] Spartacus League

The "Spartacus League of the Republic of Poland and Lithuania" was introduced in Flint's stand-alone serialized novel The Anaconda Project as a revolutionary underground movement within the 17th century superpower, Poland-Lithuania—which incidently has been a lifelong foe of Gustavus. The Spartacus League name was adopted from histories detailing the history of marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, a Pole and Jewess who was put to death in Germany after others started a premature uprising in post-WW I Germany. ^[14] The specific history books were mal-appropriated in a temporary way from the home of James and Melissa by organizer Red while Melissa was prisoner in the Tower of London.

[edit] SRG rifle

The novel 1633 surprised readers with the introduction of the lower tech SRG rifle, than that which had been expected, given the knowledge of gun buffs resident in Grantville. The fact essay "Flint's Lock" in the anthology Grantville Gazette III was written in response to the surprise and devulges the material and production factors that lie behind the choice of this black powder rifled weapon with an advanced flintlock firing system, and further why more advanced things like percussion caps, breech loading, bolt action, cartridges, etcetera were left for a follow-on evolutionary stage beyond this weapon—which would have been right at home at the beginning of what technology and military historians consider the first modern war, the American Civil War. The SRG design was chosen in large part, because it was a design that could be upgraded in stages, not only to percussion caps, but also to a breech loader as technolgical support and infrastructure is put into place.

[edit] Starytsa, Cossack

In the Eastern European Thread the Cossack starytsa (Noblemen) are one of the political elements that must be brought into having a more enlightened and more modern outlook in the plotline developed in The Anaconda Project.

[edit] State of Thuringia-Franconia

The state of Thuringia-Franconia is the incarnation of the former New United States under the CPoE as established during the founding of the Empire of the United States of Europe. The Franconia region was given to Grantville to administer for Gustavus at the conclusion of his negotiations with Mike Stearns at the end of 1632. Large portions of the parallel mainline thread, the ground-eye view of events play out in the state in the main works 1634: The Ram Rebellion and 1634: The Bavarian Crisis, plus hosts of short stories in various volumes of The Grantville Gazettes.

[edit] Szlachta

In the Eastern European thread the Polish and Lithuanian szlachta (Noblemen) are one of the political elements that must be brought into having a more enlightened and more modern outlook in the plotline developed in The Anaconda Project. A specific nobleman was called a "szlachcic," and a noblewoman, a "szlachcianka." Szlachta is a designation of hereditary constitutional franchise and rightsin the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, but quite a few were relatively poor.

[edit] The Newspapers

The short novelette "Other People’s Money" by Gorg Huff continues the adventures of the teenage entrepreneurs and their families started in "The Sewing Circle" in the anthology Grantville Gazette I. Further this tale introduces the three active newspapers covering events in the region immediately around Grantville, and details their reporting styles and target audience:

[edit] The Street

—aiming for a staid financial coverage similar to the Wall Street Journal

[edit] The Grantville Times

—which similarly emulates the reserved style of the New York Times

[edit] The Daily News

—which is contrasted as flashy and incautious in what it prints, but has an editorial policy championing the idea that the death of any up-timer is an irrevocable and unpardonable loss, and that policies ought to be in place to prevent any up-timer from taking unnecessary risks.

[edit] Tower of London

The famous Tower of London appears as a radio-linked "front behind the scenes" from the events detailed in the novel 1633 and is referenced, or has bits of mentions (supporting scenes) in a number of short stories, but, and as well as all four novels set in the 1634 neohistory, with it's major role occurring in 1634: The Baltic War.

In that tale, the diplomatic party held prisoner in the tower, a number of Yeoman Warders and their families who have been alienated by Charles I of England's new minister, and three British gentrymen fallen afoul of king Charles, each of major historic note, are all broken out of the tower by the commando unit lead by USE Secret Service and Army Captain Harry Lefferts. Parts of the tower were damaged by the Leffert team's dynamite, though most death dealing was by the marksmanship of Julie, who'd rendezvoused with Leffert's unit. All told, about fifty individuals depart the tower environs with alacrity down the Thames on a barge and one boat. To sow confusion and lead a false trail, Leffert's team also blows up repairable parts of London Bridge and burns down Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

[edit] United States of Europe

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ Flint, Eric. "Chapter 34", 1632, pp. 263-270 (of 504). “Chapter body text concludes with: "Whatever else he was or was not, Gustavus Adolphus will always be Breitenfeld. He stands for that field for eternity, just as he did on that day, September 17th, 1631.
      Breitenfeld, Always Breitenfeld"” 
2. ^ (Grantville Gazette X ) - Brandy and Prince Vlad specifically discuss that factor in Part 2 of the "Butterflies in the Kremlin" serial as their research friendship begins heading toward a romantic entanglement.
3. ^ Washburn, Scott, Cresswell, Jonathan and Flint (ed.); and various others , in the story... ""When the Chips are Down"", Ring of Fire, p. 335 (of 722). 
4. ^ Flint, Eric, (ed.); and various others , in the story... The Grantville Gazette (anthology, volume I), tbdl (of 361). 
5. ^ The battle at the oil field, where they faced percussion caps based on alternative chemistry.
6. ^ Flint, Eric. 1632, end of Chapter (of 504). 
7. ^ Flint, Eric. 1632, p. 88 (of 504). 
8. ^ Flint, Eric. 1632, pp. 328-332 (of 504). 
9. ^ Flint, Eric. 1632, p. 115 (of 504). “"Mackay, sir. Alexander Mackay, captain in the king of Sweden's Green Regiment, at your service."” 
10. ^ Flint, Eric. 1632, 370 (of 504). “[Sir James Spen speaking to Gustavus Adolphus] "If I may be so bold, Your Majesty, I think a promotion is in order. Mackay has a full thousand cavalrymen under his command, wearing your colors."
       "So many?" Gustav shook his head with bemusement. "Well, then—of course. Colonel Mackay, from this moment forth! Nothing less!"” 
11. ^  Mike Spehar (ed. by Flint). Grantville Gazette II, Tom Kidd (cover art) (in English), Baen Books, p. 20 (of 324). ISBN -10: ISBN 1-4165-2051-1. ISBN -13: ISBN 978-0-4165-2051-1. “The United States of Europe and their allies were still engaged in a desperate struggle against formidable enemies. Only the fall before, through the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu, the countries of Spain, England, and Denmark had joined the French in the so-called "Ostend Alliance," with the intent of capturing the Baltic, crushing the independent Netherlands, and, eventually, eliminating the growing power of the USE. Luckily, the Alliance's initial attacks had been thwarted at Luebeck and Wismar, in no small measure through the impact of American technology, hastily adapted for war.” 
12. ^ Flint, Eric. "Chapter 60", 1632, pp. 489-494 (of 504). “Negotiations between two alph-males mediated by Rebecca Abrabanel in the Library of Grantville High School.” 
13. ^ Flint, Eric. 1632, p. 497 (of 504). “"A month after her wedding, Julie [[[1632 characters#Mackay|Mackay]]] would use the best rifle in the world. As the armored column of the United States smashed its way through the imperial fortifications which Wallenstein had erected on the Burgstall, Julie took out Wallenstein himself."” 
14. ^ Template:Cite GG14