Summerisle
"Not the bees!"
In Gods We Trust
Perhaps Herod got lucky; perhaps any of a thousand other small events didn't happen, but while the cause is likely to be unknown1, Christianity, or a near-equivalent, simply didn't happen here. And for want of a nail (pun intended), neither did Islam, Mormonism, or any of Judaism's other unlicensed sequels. The Jewish Cinematic Universe just didn't get started, though the original remains a cult favorite among a small, dedicated, audience.Speaking of cults, that is, sort of, what rules the world of Summerisle in 2023. What would be on Baseline 'folk religions' or 'the old ways' or 'paganism' are the cultural default on Summerisle. This alternate was named when the First-In team, arrived in a very modern-seeming London to see that all the tabloids -- as scandal-hungry and lowbrow as those on Baseline -- were speculating over how (not if) newly crowned King Charles would bungle his leadership of the annual sacrifice of condemned prisoners.
Other than that, the overall shape of Summerisle history is very familiar in raw outline, though different in detail. Religion has always been an excuse for war, not the true cause of it, so it didn't surprise BREACH dendrihistorians that many of the same 'religious' wars occurred despite wholly different faiths. Any faith can be twisted to justify any purpose, on Baseline and across the web of worlds, people are people.
Some of the many religions practiced on Summerisle are known on Baseline; others arose over time as cultures merged and split. Many have had their own reformations, schisms, and modernizations, and most have 'traditionalist' and 'reformed' branches. As noted Judaism exists as the only major Abrahamic faith (there is, on Summerisle, no such concept -- you don't need a category for a single example), and the history of the Jews remains much the same.
There are obvious differences; the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages became megaliths of increasing size, height, and complexity (leading one Baseline archeologist to term them 'gigaliths'). The pre-Christian origins of many legends (From Arthur to Santa) are on full display. The United States, settled by diverse groups without a single shared baseline pantheon or cosmology has many regions where different faiths, diverging from their national origins to some extent, predominate, and travelers are expected to know basic cultural differences, but this is mostly a matter of politeness. You are not expected to participate in every ritual, but to be respectfully quiet while others do, and if asked politely to obey some seemingly-arbitrary and minor rule, you should do so. Don't loudly demand a steak in a vegetarian town, don't get angry if the mechanic is closed on the 'wrong' holy day, recognize the various social signifiers indicating someone is in a committed relationship and act accordingly. (This did little to prevent religious oppression and forced conversion of the natives; the widely-varied and often-warring faiths of Europe were grouped as 'proper' religions, while those of Indigenous Americans, Asians, Africans, etc., were 'improper'.)
While Summerisle is, like Baseline, low mana, working magic, particularly ritual magic, is slightly more common. Inexplicable events happen during important religious festivals; the subconscious belief of the participants is strong, strong enough to draw enough mana in to be shaped by desire, spoken or otherwise. Not every time, or even every decade, but enough. A larger percentage of the population has latent magery, and there are more places where mana gathers, so the -5 default can increase from -4 to -1 in the right spot and at the right time of year. This hasn't made magic reliable enough to hinder technology, but alchemy, occult medicine, and the like, pretty much guaranteed quackery on Baseline, are sometimes effective here.
Dates
As with Baseline, different cultures and nations retain their own calenders, and also as with Baseline, political and economic forces have created a default standard used worldwide. This is a modified Julian calendar, with similar corrections to maintain accuracy, and the year beginning on March 20th. Years begin with the founding of Rome (753 BC on Baseline), and years before that are negative.BREACH
This world is of only minimal interest to NATO and other political alliances; it's as politically stable (interpret as you wish) as Baseline, so there's few easy ways to tilt it to one side's favor; its resources are well-exploited and well-guarded; it has no unique technology. It is of interest to two otherwise very disparate groups of unauthorized breachers, however: Evangelists of Christianity and Islam as the first, and followers of assorted Baseline 'pagan' or 'New Age' faiths as the second. The former want to start converting people; the latter just want to emigrate. Neither group is having much success, and both are uncaring about revealing evidence of the 'invaders from another dimension'. The evangelists are backed by various Baseline power brokers, from preachers to politicians, creating a rare alliance between Muslim and Christian fundementalists to exert pressure on the UN and NATO to permit 'free religious speech' across dimensional boundaries. The neo-pagans are less well organized, but more technologically adept, and have set up underground breach points that leave minimal traces on breach shields.1: Unless someone figures out how to aim a breach stabilizer in the fourth dimension, unlikely since even three-dimensional control is tricky, and there's no evidence even the Precursors managed time travel.
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