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A Golden Island To The West — California ISOT from 2018 to 1850

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Showboating
  • Sidestory
    • April 3, 1852 - New York City - SS Goldenrod

    David Nash was sure that this will be the next big thing to hit the world.

    An entrepreneur and former playwright, Nash came to California with his wife Daisy in search for economic opportunities in late 1851, and what he saw was beyond belief for him.

    Towers of metal and glass, electric trains and lights, a diverse population, it had everything.

    Including motion pictures.

    That was what fascinated Nash the most. A motion picture allowed a story to be more immersive. Actors can redo scenes at will and you can add music to make it even more immersive. But his most favorite part of motion pictures was the fact that the camera angle can change a scene completely.

    The Nashes worked hard and with the help of the internet and David's personal funds, raised money for a showboat. The purpose: bring the motion picture to America. With that in mind, he brought an uptime yacht, laptop, a projector and screen, a DVD player, and several movies. When the Roosevelt toured the world, people went wild for motion pictures, so Nash was confident that he could pull this off.

    The moviegoers entered the yacht turned showboat. Once everyone came into the theater, the door closed and the lights dimmed. David then did a short speech about motion pictures before taking his seat at the back. The screen came to life as orchestral music blared throughout the theater and words started crawling crawling past a starry background, which then transitioned to a small ship pursued by a gargantuan space cruiser firing on the smaller ship.

    FYI, the movie here is Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
     
  • Sidestory
    • I wonder; all narcotics are legal in downtime USA. Would it be profitable to openly sell strong and highly addictive stuff in New York, like meth/heroine? Obviously rather immoral people would do such things, but well, nothing illegal in that.

    Amphetamines to make factory workers more productive?
     
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    liberty90 said:
    I wonder; all narcotics are legal in downtime USA. Would it be profitable to openly sell strong and highly addictive stuff in New York, like meth/heroine? Obviously rather immoral people would do such things, but well, nothing illegal in that.

    Amphetamines to make factory workers more productive?
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    Horrified rating.

    Well shoot, yeah. They would know about the Opium War(10ya) so they'd be a little on guard, but that could work.
     
    If you want to be horrified, there is much worse stuff...

    English common law had traditionally set the age of consent within the range of ten to twelve years old, but the Offences Against the Person Act 1875 raised this to thirteen in Great Britain and Ireland. Early feminists of the Social Purity movement, such as Josephine Butler and others, instrumental in securing the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, began to turn towards the problem of child prostitution by the end of the 1870s. Sensational media revelations about the scourge of child prostitution in London in the 1880s then caused outrage among the respectable middle-classes, leading to pressure for the age of consent to be raised again.
     
    Rise Comics said:
    April 3, 1852 - New York City - SS Goldenrod

    David Nash was sure that this will be the next big thing to hit the world.

    An entrepreneur and former playwright, Nash came to California with his wife Daisy in search for economic opportunities in late 1851, and what he saw was beyond belief for him.

    Towers of metal and glass, electric trains and lights, a diverse population, it had everything.

    Including motion pictures.

    That was what fascinated Nash the most. A motion picture allowed a story to be more immersive. Actors can redo scenes at will and you can add music to make it even more immersive. But his most favorite part of motion pictures was the fact that the camera angle can change a scene completely.

    The Nashes worked hard and with the help of the internet and David's personal funds, raised money for a showboat. The purpose: bring the motion picture to America. With that in mind, he brought an uptime yacht, laptop, a projector and screen, a DVD player, and several movies. When the Roosevelt toured the world, people went wild for motion pictures, so Nash was confident that he could pull this off.

    The moviegoers entered the yacht turned showboat. Once everyone came into the theater, the door closed and the lights dimmed. David then did a short speech about motion pictures before taking his seat at the back. The screen came to life as orchestral music blared throughout the theater and words started crawling crawling past a starry background, which then transitioned to a small ship pursued by a gargantuan space cruiser firing on the smaller ship.

    FYI, the movie here is Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
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    I kinda think that Star Wars probably isn't the first film you'd introduce to people who've never watched a film before. The only thing it'd have going for it is effects which wpuld probably confuse them more than anything right off the bat. Given that the science fiction explosion is still decades away, the appeal might not be there beyond the pretty lights. You'd probably want to start with something like the Count of Monte Cristo, which would be a known quanitity to get them hooked.
     
    DarthGamer said:
    I kinda think that Star Wars probably isn't the first film you'd introduce to people who've never watched a film before. The only thing it'd have going for it is effects which wpuld probably confuse them more than anything right off the bat. Given that the science fiction explosion is still decades away, the appeal might not be there beyond the pretty lights. You'd probably want to start with something like the Count of Monte Cristo, which would be a known quanitity to get them hooked.
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    ^ Expecting someone wowed by the flashiness to be completely optimal in film choice is perhaps a little bit hypercompetent?
    But yeah, I generally agree that the archetypes Star Wars relies on have yet to be established, so... it's probably not the best of ideas... And that's WELL BEFORE we get to the metal bikini problem.
     
    Guardian54 said:
    ^ Expecting someone wowed by the flashiness to be completely optimal in film choice is perhaps a little bit hypercompetent?
    But yeah, I generally agree that the archetypes Star Wars relies on have yet to be established, so... it's probably not the best of ideas... And that's WELL BEFORE we get to the metal bikini problem.
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    More like he probably wouldn't get the flashiness, especially coming from something as heavily story focused as playwrighting
     
    The archetypes it relies on do exist- after all, it's fairly traditional hero's journey. It's called space opera rather than science fiction for a reason- its archetypes and narrative are far more operatic, and thus likely to be familiar to downtimers, than they are speculative fiction. The lightsabers are swords, the blasters are guns, the droids are slaves or peasants, the Jedi are knights, the death star is a a mobile fort with a big cannon, alderaan is a citystate, etc. The flashy space stuff is window dressing to spiff up a story that could have been written in the 18th century.

    I mean, knight's heir destined for greatness raised unknowing of his heritage, with the drawing of a sword at the guidance of a wizened old supernatural guy? That's king arthur, but also Luke.
     
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    Isn't the vast majority of the dogfighting taking place as part of the trench run? Charging a fortified position is likely to resonate at least a little with downtime citizens, and far more if the Civil War kicks off and they get a taste of industrialized warfare.
     
    liberty90 said:
    I wonder; all narcotics are legal in downtime USA. Would it be profitable to openly sell strong and highly addictive stuff in New York, like meth/heroine? Obviously rather immoral people would do such things, but well, nothing illegal in that.
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    Doubtful. Remember that the only reason illegal drugs are expensive now is because you have to pay people more to cover the risks and costs of criminal activity. If you can sell them openly then it's just another low-margin commodities market. What might be profitable is smuggling opiates from downtime US to California. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if they ended up with some drug cartels for much the same reason Mexico has them now.
     
    From what I understand Asian countries of the 19th century did have long standing prohibitions various drugs especially on opiates which the Europeans forcibly overturned to sell drugs there, beyond that the first laws relating to drug regulations in the united states started appearing about 1860 on a state by state basis mainly dealing with creating penalties for mislabeling drugs, adulterating drugs with undisclosed narcotics and improper sell of pharmaceuticals considered poisons.
     
    Where the heck is Henley's Bar & Grill in Oceanside?

    (Yes, I live in SD)
     
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    Airlines of Post-Event California - Part I
  • Informational
    • Original post by Omega13a

    Airlines of Post Event California

    After The Event, air travel decreased dramatically and the number of number of possible destinations for a while was limited to within California. In order for the airline industry to survive, the airlines that had a presence in California at the time of the event were forced to consolidate into three airlines. Attempts were made to balance out routes. However, it was easier said then done and accusations of creating monopolies ensued. Among the things done to mitigate these accusations was FedEx and UPS were forced to sell their air divisions to Pacific Southwest Airlines and Virgin California so California Airlines wouldn't dominate the market of transporting cargo by air.[1]

    The following is a summer of each of the three post-Event airlines in California. Please note the list of airlines that merged to form each one as well as the types of air craft in each fleet is incomplete and maybe updated as more information becomes available to the author.*

    California Airlines
    Livery:

    Formed from:
    Aer Lingus
    Air China
    All Nippon Airways
    Asiana Airlines
    Cathay Pacific
    China Airlines
    China Eastern Airlines
    China Southern Airlines
    Delta Air Lines
    Hawaiian Airlines
    Japan Airlines
    Korean Air
    Lufthansa
    Swiss International Air Lines
    United Airlines
    Types of Aircraft in Fleet:
    717-200
    737-700
    737-800
    737-900
    747-400
    747-8
    757-200
    767-300
    767-400
    777-200
    777-300
    787-8
    787-9
    A319
    A320
    A330
    A340-600
    A350-900
    A380-800
    Additional Notes:
    Original livery was planed to be gold with a bear painted on a tale. However, some individuals who studied history feared that livery maybe offensive to China's Emperor and result in a diplomatic incident.[2] As a result it was changed to sky blue with a California Golden Poppy on the tail. Its headquartered in El Segundo[3]. Faced numerous accusations of trying to create a monopoly on routes to Asia.

    Pacific Southwest Airlines
    Livery:

    Formed from:
    Aeroméxico
    Air India
    Air New Zealand
    American Airlines
    Avianca
    British Airways
    Coppa
    Eithad
    Iberia
    jetBlue
    Southwest Airlines
    UPS Airlines
    Volaris
    Types of Aircraft in Fleet:
    737-700
    737-800
    737-MAX8
    747-400
    757-200
    767-300
    777-300
    A319
    A320
    A321
    A380-800
    MD-11
    Additional Notes:
    Named after California's beloved airline that was bought out by USAir in 1987.[4] Like its name sake, its headquarters is located in San Diego. Its livery is described as as a combination of the last one used by the original Pacific Southwest Airlines and the one used by Southwest Airlines until 2008 with the font Southwest Airlines started using in 2014. Faced numerous accusations of trying to create a monopoly on routes to Latin America.

    Virgin California
    Livery:

    Formed from:
    Air France
    Alaska Airlines
    Compass Airlines
    Emirates
    FedEx Express
    Frontier Airlines
    Horizon Air
    KaiserAir
    Philippine Airlines
    Qantas
    SkyWest Airlines
    Sun Country Airlines
    Virgin Atlantic
    Types of Aircraft in Fleet:
    737-700
    737-800
    737-900
    747-400
    767-300
    787-9
    A300
    A319
    A320
    A320neo
    A321neo
    A330
    A380-800
    CRJ200
    CRJ700
    CRJ900
    Dash 8-Q400
    Dash 8-Q400 NextGen
    DC-10
    Embraer 175
    MD-11
    Additional Notes:
    The first three airlines that merged to form Virgin California were Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, and Virgin Atlantic. Headquartered in Burlingame.[5]Faced numerous accusations of trying to create a monopoly on short regional routes within California.

    [1] Some of the airlines that merged to form California Airlines had dedicated cargo aircraft. Mostly 747-400s.
    [2] Yellow/gold is the color of the Chinese Emperor.
    [3] Used to be headquarters of Air China's America Division.
    [4] USAir later merged with America West and became US Airways which was later merged with American Airlines.
    [5] Used to be headquarters of Virgin America which was bought by Alaska Airlines in 2017.

    * Please give me any information that could improve this post and make the lists as complete as possible. This is for real.
     
  • Informational
    • Airlines of Post-Event California - Part II
  • Informational
    • Also by Omega13a

    Airlines of Post Event California Part II

    It was said that post event airlines rushed to start service as soon as airfields were established outside of California. One of first problems they faced was the lack of fuel storage at the airfields.

    Normally, this meant that the only airplanes that could be flown to Camp Springs and New York were long range jets. However, since most long range airplanes in California at the time of The Event were foreign owned(1), this resulted in a disproportionate number of crews allowed to fly outside of California being non-American individuals stranded in California due to The Event. What was left of the North American based pilot unions protested, claiming that all pilots should be given equal opportunity to fly outside of California.

    As a compromise, arrangements were made to transport fuel trucks via cargo plane to airfields, and that every other passenger flight must be a short to medium range jet that would be refueled for a return trip. It was a controversial decision since it added more expenses to the government program keeping the post event airlines alive, similar to how the pre Event Essential Air Service program (2) worked.

    (1) The only airplanes, taking into consideration the possibility of having to travel around bad weather, that had the range were Airbus A340s, the Airbus A350, Airbus A380s, Boeing 747-8s, and both models of the Boeing 787. Pre Event passenger airlines that were based in the United States had no interest in buying Airbus A380s and Boeing 747-8s as they were designed for the hub and spoke model of air travel and airlines based in the United States were moving away from that model towards direct point-to-point travel. The Airbus A340 was introduced too late for the American market as Boeing had came out years earlier with the Boeing 747-400 which was intended to replace Boeing 747-100s and Boeing 747-200s, the type of aircraft Airbus was hoping the Airbus A340 would replace. No American owned Airbus A350s were in California at the time of The Event leaving Boeing 787s as the only American owned passenger airplanes with the needed range.
    (2) The Essential Air Service program was created by the United State government in 1979 LH* to ensure minimum air service to areas that would normally not be profitable for airlines to serveafter the airline industry was deregulated.
    * - Lost History
     
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  • Informational
    • Question, wouldn't Airbus planes available be seen and used more often as they have greater fuel efficiency than Boeing's or MD's?
    And wouldn't California as a state pass a law to enforce installment of winglets on all civilian craft, as a measure to lower fuel consumption, as its a strategic resource.
     
    Wouldn't California nationalize the hell out of the air industry? They desperately need to keep a tight hold on their fuel supplies until they have the downtime infrastructure to replace it built, they can't afford to let corporations that guzzle as much fuel as air travel just operate without government control.

    Hums The Internationale
     
    SirKaid said:
    Wouldn't California nationalize the hell out of the air industry? They desperately need to keep a tight hold on their fuel supplies until they have the downtime infrastructure to replace it built, they can't afford to let corporations that guzzle as much fuel as air travel just operate without government control.

    Hums The Internationale
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    This seems especially likely considering how expensive jet fuel is to produce compared to other forms of fuel. Commercial levels of travel simply aren't feasible for post-Event California and there will need to be more investment in stateside rail and other forms of transport to help offset the loss of air traffic.

    That said California's small size, compared to the US, means bootstrapping rail lines will result in very swift and efficient local and regional transportation.
     
    LHB said:
    This seems especially likely considering how expensive jet fuel is to produce compared to other forms of fuel. Commercial levels of travel simply aren't feasible for post-Event California and there will need to be more investment in stateside rail and other forms of transport to help offset the loss of air traffic.

    That said California's small size, compared to the US, means bootstrapping rail lines will result in very swift and efficient local and regional transportation.
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    It also means in a spike in use of eminent domain and government land controls, since AFIK private use of land needed for practical rail placement is the primary obstacle to rail expansion and improvement.
     
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