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

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Is Mary Shelley's brain tumor too far along to prolong her life past OTL? I'd like to see her reaction to the modern reputation of Frankenstein (and, given her trailblazing with The Last Man, her opinion of contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction like A Canticle For Leibowitz).
 
Fabius Maximus said:
Ultimately, what is required is immediate action on the part of the Californian government [...] ensure that those who are working with foreign governments are serving a legitimate role, rather than acting as conquerers in their own right.
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Er... this puts California in the position of deciding what foreign governments are legitimate, and forcibly deposing those that it does not consider to be so. Having tasted that power, what is going to make it limit its application to those who use uptime equipment and uptime personnel?
 
Random832 said:
Er... this puts California in the position of deciding what foreign governments are legitimate, and forcibly deposing those that it does not consider to be so. Having tasted that power, what is going to make it limit its application to those who use uptime equipment and uptime personnel?
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Lack of logistical capacity to project force most likely. We've gone over it many times in the thread previously (to... some heated results) but general consensus is that CA just doesn't have the capability to launch an extended campaign since it doesn't have the military bases scattered around like candy like the US currently has.
 
ComissarPancakes said:
Lack of logistical capacity to project force most likely. We've gone over it many times in the thread previously (to... some heated results) but general consensus is that CA just doesn't have the capability to launch an extended campaign since it doesn't have the military bases scattered around like candy like the US currently has.
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If you can overthrow a government that was established by "conquistadors", you can overthrow one that wasn't. If you can't do the latter, you can't do the former.

" " should " " " " " " " " ", " should " " " " ". It's not like downtime authoritarian dictators are necessarily less likely to be abusive to their subjects. Regardless of whether they employ uptime-armed "praetorian guards" or not.
 
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Random832 said:
If you can overthrow a government that was established by "conquistadors", you can overthrow one that wasn't. If you can't do the latter, you can't do the former.

" " should " " " " " " " " ", " should " " " " ". It's not like downtime authoritarian dictators are necessarily less likely to be abusive to their subjects. Regardless of whether they employ uptime-armed "praetorian guards" or not.
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I never said that CA couldn't. I said that CA didn't have the capacity to maintain the campaign.

All up-time military supplies are currently finite and (at the present moment) irreplaceable.
 
Random832 said:
Er... this puts California in the position of deciding what foreign governments are legitimate, and forcibly deposing those that it does not consider to be so. Having tasted that power, what is going to make it limit its application to those who use uptime equipment and uptime personnel?
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How is this not ,what America has been doing since 1898?
 
Well there was also that time in the 1800s during the first Barbary war there was the whole miltary invasion in favor of a rival climent to the throne of one of the barbary pirates that ended with the battle of Derna the first US victory on foreign soil since the revolution after which the bey made peace.

Or when the US military helped to overthrow the kingdom of hawaii without orders from the prsident in 1893, or when the US backed a rival claimant to the throne of Somoa in the 1880s as opposed to the factions the british and germans were backing during the Somoan civil wars...
 
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Random832 said:
Er... this puts California in the position of deciding what foreign governments are legitimate, and forcibly deposing those that it does not consider to be so. Having tasted that power, what is going to make it limit its application to those who use uptime equipment and uptime personnel?
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In the long run? California is going to be doing that anyway, because once it gets its feet under it, it'll be the kind of hyperpower that the US in 2001 only drreamed of being.

But the idea here is to try and avoid a bunch of Californian citizens grabbing surplus guns and going off and cosplaying "The man who would be king."

Note that this would be the beginning of the process, not the end, because the question of who is a legitimate and who isn't a legitimate government in 1851 is a sticky one. Just as one example, is the United States a legitimate government, given it's current limits on the franchise, to say nothing of the institution of slavery? If say, a large number of former California marines equip themselves with weapons and smash the living hell out of Georgia and Mississippi in order to eliminate slavery, well, what judge is going to want to issue an arrest warrant for them.*

*Noting that a few thousand or even fewer soldiers, equippped up to WWII levels to say nothing of modern levels, could handily destroy every opposing force within those two states.
 
Something I am reminded of how my stepmother who was stationed in the Philippines would tell me about how the Filipinos marines refused to go into the jungles without local guides to hunt the communist guerrillas because otherwise they'd get taken out by men with knifes.

Technology is a great advantage but unfavorable terrain can get a modern force wiped out by local forces without proper preparation.
 
Can we not relitigate the argument about whether or not California can curbstomp the rest of the world?

It's getting tedious.
 
Alane1 said:
Something I am reminded of how my stepmother who was stationed in the Philippines would tell me about how the Filipinos marines refused to go into the jungles without local guides to hunt the communist guerrillas because otherwise they'd get taken out by men with knifes.

Technology is a great advantage but unfavorable terrain can get a modern force wiped out by local forces without proper preparation.
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And?
 
The main thing I was getting at is that Californis is going to have to face the issue that it's not just california getting involved in the rest of the worlds, it's a bunch of Californian's either working for other nations, or serving as non-state actors who will be interacting with the rest of teh world.

now, granted, CA doesn't have the power to stop them all, but equally, some sort of legal framework will probably need to be created, especially given how many prefectly respectable nations in 1850, would be considered utter barbarians in 2018, starting with the fact that the idea that transferring land via conquest isn't a legitimate method of negotiation isn't , to put it mildly a thing.
 
Fabius Maximus said:
The main thing I was getting at is that Californis is going to have to face the issue that it's not just california getting involved in the rest of the worlds, it's a bunch of Californian's either working for other nations, or serving as non-state actors who will be interacting with the rest of teh world.

now, granted, CA doesn't have the power to stop them all, but equally, some sort of legal framework will probably need to be created, especially given how many prefectly respectable nations in 1850, would be considered utter barbarians in 2018, starting with the fact that the idea that transferring land via conquest isn't a legitimate method of negotiation isn't , to put it mildly a thing.
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Guardian54 said:
Transferring de facto control over land and resources therein via conquest totally is a thing though.
Just ask Californians about the Iraq War and see what they think it was fought for. Hint: it's a 3 letter word.
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I believe OP asked to stop.
 
FailLord said:
I believe OP asked to stop.
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Oh, I thought he was asking for us to stop the debate of biggatons and Californian Tech Advantage.

I was poking Fabius's error in Trans-Temporal Philosophy/Psychology (as opposed to Physical Force, though as Napoleon put it it's 3 Psychology to 1 Physical). I'll go delete that post now.
 
So question, personal interest here but how's Archeology doing? 1850 is a bit before Antiquarianism really takes off and amateur Archeologists more less loot a massive amount of artifacts. Heinrich Schliemann hasn't even thought about Finding Troy yet for example. So for an Archeologists for California there's an incredible amount of sites that can now be explored more scientifically. But at the same time the more info gets out of California, the more downtimers might hear about stuff like Tutankhamun. So it's a very double edged sword situation I would imagine.
 
Teen Spirit said:
So question, personal interest here but how's Archeology doing? 1850 is a bit before Antiquarianism really takes off and amateur Archeologists more less loot a massive amount of artifacts. Heinrich Schliemann hasn't even thought about Finding Troy yet for example. So for an Archeologists for California there's an incredible amount of sites that can now be explored more scientifically. But at the same time the more info gets out of California, the more downtimers might hear about stuff like Tutankhamun. So it's a very double edged sword situation I would imagine.
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Regarding Schliemann at least the info getting out and people going off to loot would still lead to less damage being done, because it'd at least warn that no, the layers above the bottom one are not in fact trash to be destroyed getting to the bottom and the bit they're interested in is somewhere in that middle.
 
Zap Rowsdower said:
Regarding Schliemann at least the info getting out and people going off to loot would still lead to less damage being done, because it'd at least warn that no, the layers above the bottom one are not in fact trash to be destroyed getting to the bottom and the bit they're interested in is somewhere in that middle.
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I just realized that Schliemann might have been on his way to California when the Event occurred. He...really should stay away from anything related to Archeology if he knows what good for his personal safety.

Guardian54 said:
Sounds like you mean "over 300 years before" if contact with the Mass Effect Races occurs as per ME canon.

(I'm asking if it's really spelled that way)
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Antiquarian - Wikipedia​
 
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