In our universe, George Crook fell over dead on March 21, 1890.
He was 61.
The Nantan Lupan died suddenly of causes unknown.
He was respected and feared by the Indians.
He also held an earned reputation for never lying to them.
In 1899 Maka Tanka, Crook is in charge of the off-world expedition.
He's alive and well.
A major general will have had access to a personal surgical mage.
He'd regularly be subjected to healing magic and that would head off most things that would sneak up on one.
I'm making the supposition that it was a stroke or aneurysm what got him. There's spells that can fix that if he'd complained about headaches or other precursor symptoms.
A valuable general might even have access to halt aging or even youth, heading off the aging process is a dandy way to not die of old age.
So... Stonewall might not have succumbed to his wounds on May 10, 1863 because his mage would have stopped the sepsis and other issues?
ReplyDeleteJackson gets taken out before the high-inertia decouple point so an explanation of why he isn't there needs to me made.
DeleteHis mage taking one to the noggin while attempting to reach him would suffice.
I can also always fall back on the concept of magic resistant diseases. The more advanced healing magic was a product of the more formally educated and industrialized Union and much more rare to the Confederacy.
Magery itself might be rarer in southerners than northerners too. Being a mage *IS* a genetic thing after all.
DeleteI'm not ready to get into some of the nascent concepts about the underpinnings of magery and magic.
Actually, both explanations really suffice. Especially if the Fey people, those of Irish or Scottish blood, are one of the primary genetic transmission lines of magery. Since both those groups were rather frowned upon in the South (well, and in the North too, but...)
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