1632 institutions

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

Institutions and organizations[]

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 (ongoing since early 2000) collaborative effort by several hundreds of people, doing their best to make the neo-history 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.)

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 townspeople 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. These included the property of absentee owners, or resources in very limited supply.

Committees of Correspondence[]

Inspired by Mike Stearns scheme of launching the American revolution "150 years early", the Committees of Correspondence 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. These committees spread throughout Europe, playing a large role in the liberation of Hamburg in 1634.

Confederated Principalities of Europe[]

The Confederated Principalities of Europe (CPoE) was a government negotiated between Mike Stearns and Gustavus Adolf II, in the persona of Captain-General Gars, an alias he used to travel incognito. Under the arrangement, Captain Gars became 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 11–12, 1633—a day or two after the death of Germany's first national hero Hans Richter.

Emergency Committee Cabinet[]

The Emergency Committee Cabinet consists of almost all the town's main leaders 1632. It was formed suddenly as the Emergency Town Meeting nominated a number of people to the Grantville Emergency Committee while Mike Stearns chaired the meeting. Stearns nominated not only friends and UMWA members, but former rivals like Quentin Underwood, who he felt would prove valuable to the towns' operation. Also, he appointed Rebecca Abrabanel as his National Security Advisor, taking the first step towards integration with the local people.

The Emergency Committee 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. 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.

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, about 3,500, 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 interim basis, including long term planning and establishment of a more suitable governmental form, and handling the flood of refugees inundating Grantville in their short experience in the 17th; estimated to already be as numerous 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 encounter with UMWA union local president Mike Stearns. After this, 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 de facto came to rule the town with Stearns as Chief Executive Officer.

Grantville Constitutional Convention[]

The Grantville Constitutional Convention took place in the late fall of 1631 (NTL). In an October meeting, the Emergency Committee Cabinet decided that the security situation via foreign armies and sufficient internal stabilization of Grantville's refugee influx and recent victory in the Battle of Jena crossroads allowed for a reasonably secure transition of power. John Chandler Simpson heads a coalition opposed to giving franchise rights to down-timers (German immigrants) without extensive Jim Crow laws limiting the right to vote—a stance abhorrent to Stearns and his circle. A political rally at the Thuringian Gardens denounces this approach.

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.

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 neo-history. The non-fiction essays and articles they have produced are listed here.

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 facility 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

Grantville Research Committee[]

The Grantville Research Committee began under the Stearns-lead Template:Emergency Committee as an advisory body made up of technically educated residents of Grantville with the initial mission of defining what technologies could be quickly adapted in the "gearing down" strategy of trying like heck to reach as high a level of sustainable nineteenth century (Victorian era) technology given Grantville's limited resource base and small population.

It also advised the Emergency Committee on technical literature which should be secreted from down-time European eyes in order to maintain a technological edge as long as possible, advised on some disinformation for the same strategic purpose, and established an strategy to set up a research institute and facilities, then oversaw implementation.

The High School library became the core stock in the institute augmented by collected college texts from around town, and it is frequented by foreign spies as is detailed at length in the serialized Butterflies in the Kremlin stories.

The Grantville Research Facility established by the Committee is not open to outsiders, and has developed a number of technologies (bombardment rockets, napalm, sulfa drugs, the SRG rifle) and industries (e.g. U.S. Steel, which is open to the visitor, some pharmacological products, etc.) that were not present in the town at the Ring of Fire. It has aided in guiding other business entities, such as Template:Section2.

Both institutions act to aid technological needs of businesses within and without the State_of_Thuringia-Franconia region, under the Stearnsian policy and assumption that sharing knowledge and helping solve technological problems will aid the greater good and so Grantville as it faces an era of declining internal technological capabilities as things wear out. From the outset, the director of both institutions has been Greg Ferra, member of the Emergency Committee, and Stearns principal adviser on technology.

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.

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.

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 Habsburg 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 Habsburg 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 and his wife and special envoy Rebbecca Stearns .

Lahey Clinic (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 neo-history. The hospital entered the series canon in the short novel "An Invisible War", but is mentioned in passing as "The Hospital" at the end of the novel 1632 when Senator Rebbecca Stearns née Abrabanel brings daughter Stephanie into the world.

League of Ostend[]

The League of Ostend (or Ostend Alliance) was created through the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu, in which 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.

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 Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II. Consequently, Richelieu covertly blocked Spanish ambitions to regain the Low Countries and had simultaneously, 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 Richelieu in 1633) began with a treacherous Pearl Harbor-like 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.

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. Just by providing the analgesic cannabis he might have become famous, 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.

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.

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 (ca. October 1632).

Office of the Holy Inquisition[]

The early inquisitions were formed to ferret out and forcibly convert secret Jews (Marranos) like Rebecca Abrabanel Stearns and secret Muslims (Moriscos). In the flagship novel 1632, the American leaders 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. The Italian Inquisition is attacked by the Spanish in 1635: The Cannon Law, whereas in 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.

Personnel Carrier, Armored[]

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 that ends the lead novel 1632.

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.

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 neo-historical timeline where the local powers that be are constantly sending spies into the alien town and the spies 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 Jews. 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 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.

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 incidentally 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-World War I Germany.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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". Further this tale introduces the three active newspapers covering events in the region immediately around Grantville, and details their reporting styles and target audience:

The Street[]

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

The Grantville Times[]

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

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.

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 neo-history, with its 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.

United States of Europe[]

The United States of Europe (USE) is a fictional federation and Empire in the 1632 series created Eric Flint. It formed out of the Confederated Principalities of Europe (CPoE), which was composed of many of the roughly 1800 German political units of the Holy Roman Empire of the 1630s. It was founded by several late 20th century-early 21st century Americans who were displaced into mid-seventeenth century Europe due to an incident involving an Assiti Shard. They based the structure of the USE loosely on the United States Constitution, taking 17th century politics into account.

The capital of the USE is Magdeburg. The first Prime Minister of the USE is Mike Stearns. The Emperor of the USE is Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.