![[Clean electric mopedcabs
like this are used throughout the Kingdom of the Golden Mountain]](assets/mopedcab.jpg)
Latin-6
![[Picture of Chinese guy]](assets/chinese2.jpg)
Latin-6 is much like Homeline in many ways - similar technology and people (though there appear to be no population similarities, and no important historical figures are the same after about 1650), with a few cultural differences. Latin-6 technology tends to be less intrusive and less useful than Homeline technology. Cybertechnology in particular is shunned in favor of nanomachines and biological enhancement. Latin-6 doctors have a wealth of knowledge that has spread to the other three lines and advanced their abilities by leaps and bounds. However, Latin-6 computers are well behind Homeline and the Net is extremely primitive.
Latin-6 has also kept a widespread bartering system throughout the civilized world, and common law is much more widespread than civil law, meaning that lawsuits are much rarer and personal reputations are much more important.
Latinates' average HT is 11, not 10. However, all Computer Operations or Repair rolls when Offworld must be done at a bare minimum of a -1, upwards to a maximum of -4. They may also receive penalties to skills on other worlds which involve computers, like research and business. Offworlders without Latin-6 Status are at a -4 when attempting to purchase anything difficult on Latin-6, due to the lack of reputation. They have a weird version of Primitive that isn't severe enough to cost any points. For example, Latin-6 has television (videophones were developed within the same decade as telephones), but no mass media. There's very little "new money" on Latin-6 and a much greater sense of social class.
The Palace at Xiopang (site of Homeline San Francisco), capital of the Kingdom of the Golden Mountain, which was founded in the great trans-Pacific Chinese Gold Rush of 1689.
Since Old Ryan is making a character who works for the Kingdom of the Golden Mountain, I'll give a few more details about it. As the name suggests, there is a King/Emperor of the Golden Mountain, but most power is in an elected Prime Minister. There is a hereditary group of Taipans, mostly from very rich merchant families who helped colonize the area (a few generals who led the various wars against the French, Native Americans, and Italians are also in this group), and they rule with the Worker's House, which has two elected members from each province. The Worker's House is unlike Homeline elected national legislatures in that the representatives actually keep their "day jobs" and are not paid - legislating is therefore traditionally done in the evening hour. However, it is unheard of for a rich person to be a Worker's Representative, though you would naturally assume that the rich would gravitate to that position. This doesn't take into account the vast importance of class on Latin-6.
China is run similarly, except that the responsibilities of the Worker's House are divided in a complex, overlapping, and yes, contradictory manner, between the House of the Soldiers, the House of the Peasant and the House of the Books. (The Book House is a collection of Confucian-style bureaucrats and administrators.) The conflict is intentional and is intended as a sort of "check and balance" without having actual statute to refer to.
In both China and the Golden Mountain, the military and the civil police are one and the same. This has led to some degree of corruption, but not to widespread abuse, due to the strict ordering of the military under the Taipan Generals. Both China and Golden Mountain share a parachronic complex in Paradise (Homeline Hawaii) - they chiefly use a projector. Old Ryan's character is going to be working for the Kingdom of the Golden Mountains' National Security Division, Department of Information Services, known (phonetically of course) as DNS/Chuchi.
Sandwiched between the Golden Mountain and Vespuccini, north and southwards, are a few Native American controlled states, like the Iroquois League and Apacheria, as well as a few Native-American-influenced satellites of one side of another, like Tejas. These are marginalized, but amicable, since the nations on both sides of them get along pretty well.
Mexique is a former French satellite that broke away with Chinese help but is rich enough to stand on its own two feet. South America is balkanized between the Portugese and Italian colonies. The Catolica Islands are the Vatican of the West.
The Middle East is one vast stretch of emirates and sultanates, constantly
shifting, constantly bickering. Africa remains solidly under the colonial
boot, but has managed to avoid the vicious wars and disease that dominated
it for so many years in Homeline.
The Ukranian Socialist Republic and its satellites Transylvania and Poland occupy a sullen garrisoned area between the glittering corruption of Czar Antonio's Russia and the rest of Europe. Siberia has gained its independence, but who cares?
It must be noted that nowhere except in Europe are there "standard" divisions of nations, and even in Europe, things are much different. (France and Germany are both smaller, there's no Belgium or Luxembourg, Greece extends well into Homeline Turkey, and Spain and Portugal are about the same size, for example.)
1368 - Feuding Venetian states are unified by the charismatic Coralitti family.
1492 - Christopher Columbus discovers Vespuccini (North America) for the Italian Alliance.
1503 - Chinese explorers reach California, naming it Xiaoping. A tentative alliance with peaceful coastal tribes is formed.
1516 - The Church proclaims that African slavery is permitted in the New World as a civilizing influence upon Africans. Enslavement of native tribes is prohibited.
1538-1550 - War of the Spanish Succession puts Italian and Catholic rulers on the thrones of most European nations, including Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Austria and Poland. England's naval force is devastated, ending its colonial ambitions for 100 years.
1573 - The Kingdom of the Golden Mountain is established to fund Chinese expansion into Japan, Russia and India.
1580 - Faced with increased political pressure, the Church abrogates all responsibility for the regulation of slavery to secular authorities.
1718 - The Great Uprising. Slaves across Christendom rise up against their masters, entirely conquering Southern Vespuccini, the islands of the Carribian and Northern Africa. Catholic monarchs refuse to fund suppression efforts under pressure from the Church. The Ottomans are accused of complicity and conspiracy in the uprising and targetted for revenge by many nations. China's scrupulous neutrality keeps them from full-scale intervention, though Chinese pirates become privateers for many sides in the conflict.
1732 - The First Normalization. The Northern Hemisphere is divided into two "spheres of influence". China to have the Pacific, Europe the Atlantic, with a neutral protectorate between them, the Indian States. The purpose of the Normalization is to push the Ottomans out of the picture and unify systems against them.
1755 - China-Native War. Control over the waters of the Rockies and the Colorado provokes a response from the Chinese. The primary warzone is the Pacific Northwest. The Chinese have the technological advantage and more regimented military forces. The natives have mobility and the home-field logistical advantage. Nationalist Indian diplomats advise Mughal warlords to open up a second front in an attack on the Chinese homeland.
1762 - China makes a separate peace with the Mughal.
1763 - China sues for peace after a disastrous rout on the Xiaoping Peninsula. The Kingdom of the Golden Mountain is to extend only to the Continental Divide. A southern border is not fixed, as the Hangus Desert is considered "uninhabitable" despite the many Catholic missions and native tribes in the area.
1798 - After internal diplomatic struggles and skirmishes, partly abetted by colonialist spies and gold, native tribes established Apacheria and Tejas.