- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I rather hope we can, actually, to the extent it even comes close to the point of the quest. The hippies were a mixed bag at best.
Per Aspera (Space Agency Plan Quest)
- Thread starter Shadows
- Start date
- Original
froggo
Totally Not a Frog Inside a Human Shaped Mech
- Location
- Human City, Human State
It would be one hell of a departure from the space themed quest to stop a group of people. I certainly hope we don't derail that hard.
agreed.One of the big problems with the hippies in my opinion was the vietnam war because the whole anti-war movement started because it was the poor and the nonwhite being forced to fight in vietnam but when college age students started getting drafted it turned from a genuine anti-war movement to a specatcle dominated by college age hippies.I never really understood the appeal of hippies and I hated them ever since I was 5.
froggo
Totally Not a Frog Inside a Human Shaped Mech
- Location
- Human City, Human State
Maybe the topic of hippies is a bridge best left burnt once we reach it. Didn't mean to spark a goofy little off topic discussion.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
..... welp trying to sell a benefit to a ...essentially direct democracy? Will be interesting...I think long term asteroid mining etc will be the sales pitch, Earth observation and the like near term.
Also how am I going to covince people for GLORIOUS ATOMIC ROCKETS when are industrial base is in shambles ;_;
Also how am I going to covince people for GLORIOUS ATOMIC ROCKETS when are industrial base is in shambles ;_;
froggo
Totally Not a Frog Inside a Human Shaped Mech
- Location
- Human City, Human State
Ignore the speed at which my response came, but I bet in space solar plants could be a hell of a pitch for free and borderline infinite energy.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
except the transmission issues..... I mean how realistic are we being here? Seems pretty realistic.
froggo
Totally Not a Frog Inside a Human Shaped Mech
- Location
- Human City, Human State
Aside from a previously mentioned death ray there could be a shuttle network hauling absolutely gargantuan batteries to be recharged and shipped back containing hundreds of thousands of miliamp hours. Could even be a shuttle that's basically just a flying battery. I'm kind of spitballing here, but I'm sure you get my point!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There are a ton of IRL processes that could benefit from being done in microgravity that never got a chance to shine because IRL space programs weren't responsive enough to get pilot programs working in time, and thus people figured out planetside alternatives.
Microchips, turbine blades, fiber optic cable, pharmaceuticals, etc. These are our medium term payoffs.
There's also spinoff technologies.
Longer term space based power is definitely a possibility, especially since it sounds like there was a larger nuclear exchange and the nuclear taboo might be much stronger. It just requires us to develop rectentas - and wouldn't you know it, electronics are one of the areas we want to invest in.
Microchips, turbine blades, fiber optic cable, pharmaceuticals, etc. These are our medium term payoffs.
There's also spinoff technologies.
Longer term space based power is definitely a possibility, especially since it sounds like there was a larger nuclear exchange and the nuclear taboo might be much stronger. It just requires us to develop rectentas - and wouldn't you know it, electronics are one of the areas we want to invest in.
froggo
Totally Not a Frog Inside a Human Shaped Mech
- Location
- Human City, Human State
Manufacturing very large machines and vehicles in an environment where the project won't be crushed beneath its own weight before it could be reinforced is also a benefit of said microgravity.There are a ton of IRL processes that could benefit from being done in microgravity that never got a chance to shine because IRL space programs weren't responsive enough to get pilot programs working in time, and thus people figured out planetside alternatives.
Microchips, turbine blades, fiber optic cable, pharmaceuticals, etc. These are our medium term payoffs.
There's also spinoff technologies.
Longer term space based power is definitely a possibility, especially since it sounds like there was a larger nuclear exchange and the nuclear taboo might be much stronger. It just requires us to develop rectentas - and wouldn't you know it, electronics are one of the areas we want to invest in.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Unfortunately that requires a degree of spacelift we just don't have yet. The immediate focus is going to have to be on small high value goods (ie: microchips, turbine blades).
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
.....fair warnjng if we get to heavy launchers I'm going to propose sea dragon.
Its dumb! its made in a shipyard and its Massive
Its dumb! its made in a shipyard and its Massive
froggo
Totally Not a Frog Inside a Human Shaped Mech
- Location
- Human City, Human State
Without a doubt, but its something we can get to someday. Always look to the future!
I want to see a sea dragon very badly. Here's to hoping that's withing QMs vision!
Opening//A Brave New World
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A Brave New World
This world has a variety of differences from our own.
The first point of deviation is the Franco-Prussian War. Where it was an impactful affair for France and Germany in our timeline, here it spun out of control and sucked the Old World into a pan-European general melee known as the First Great War. Being that the war preceded the Maxim Gun, the results of the war served to enhance the thinking of the national leadership that would fight the Second Great War starting in 1914.
The second point of deviation here is that instead of a Prussian influence, Germany came under the Austrians' thanks to winning the conflict with Prussia in 1866, and eventually the two powers merged to reform the Holy Roman Empire, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and much of what we know as Poland and the Baltics.
The third point of deviation is that due to its increased size and cohesion, the HRE was able to stalemate the Entente in the West, long enough for Russia to collapse into revolution. This allowed them to get a favorable peace deal that prevented a general collapse and the rise of Nazism. Adolf Hitler died of a drug overdose in 1930.
The Third Great War was fought between 1941 and 1946 by the HRE-aligned Imperial League and the Alliance of Free Nations, chaired by America, following the invasion of France in 1941. The war eventually culminated in nuclear weapons being deployed in a limited general exchange by both sides, with only the United States escaping mostly unscathed due to sheer distance. Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Nagasaki and Moscow all received nuclear bombardment.
The tipping point for the Revolution may well have been the American invasion of Japan, coincident with the bombing of Nagasaki; the invasion was a brutal, bloody mess that resulted in most of the US Marine Corps dying in the first few days. The incredible casualties of the atomic exchange and the general industrialized conflict set the seeds for the Revolution, which occurred between 1946 and 1949, and still sees a general, low-level insurgency across the globe as people loyal to (and benefited by) the old ways cling on.
These days, however, the hatred of nation-states sending the young and the poor off to kill and die for the glorification of the old and the wealthy has caused the very idea of the nation-state to die. Borders have been erased in everything except for logistics planning, where they are used to group geographically-and-culturally close areas into units for the distribution of goods and materials.
The United States, for instance, is now split into the New England Autonomous Region, the Appalachian Free Association, the Southeastern Distributive Republic, a variety of Indigenous nations whose land has been returned to them (such as the Cherokee Nation and other First Nations cultures), and so forth, all the way to the West Coast which is split into the Southwestern Federated Republics and the Pacific Northwestern Republic.
The absence of borders does not mean, unfortunately, that inter-ethnic conflict is over, and reached a high point during the Revolution itself as many groups exploited the opportunity to attempt to purge old enemies. This has caused tensions that have since crystallized into new cultural (and occasionally physical) battle lines that are likely to become the primary fault lines of the new global order and the defining issue of the post-capitalist world. As a way to help ease these tensions and try to find some way to work past them and come together as one world, the new Interplanetary Exploration Cooperative was set up in an attempt to spread peace, goodwill, investment, and scientific advances without discrimination or regard to old lines in the sand.
Good luck, Director. The world will be watching.
This world has a variety of differences from our own.
The first point of deviation is the Franco-Prussian War. Where it was an impactful affair for France and Germany in our timeline, here it spun out of control and sucked the Old World into a pan-European general melee known as the First Great War. Being that the war preceded the Maxim Gun, the results of the war served to enhance the thinking of the national leadership that would fight the Second Great War starting in 1914.
The second point of deviation here is that instead of a Prussian influence, Germany came under the Austrians' thanks to winning the conflict with Prussia in 1866, and eventually the two powers merged to reform the Holy Roman Empire, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and much of what we know as Poland and the Baltics.
The third point of deviation is that due to its increased size and cohesion, the HRE was able to stalemate the Entente in the West, long enough for Russia to collapse into revolution. This allowed them to get a favorable peace deal that prevented a general collapse and the rise of Nazism. Adolf Hitler died of a drug overdose in 1930.
The Third Great War was fought between 1941 and 1946 by the HRE-aligned Imperial League and the Alliance of Free Nations, chaired by America, following the invasion of France in 1941. The war eventually culminated in nuclear weapons being deployed in a limited general exchange by both sides, with only the United States escaping mostly unscathed due to sheer distance. Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Nagasaki and Moscow all received nuclear bombardment.
The tipping point for the Revolution may well have been the American invasion of Japan, coincident with the bombing of Nagasaki; the invasion was a brutal, bloody mess that resulted in most of the US Marine Corps dying in the first few days. The incredible casualties of the atomic exchange and the general industrialized conflict set the seeds for the Revolution, which occurred between 1946 and 1949, and still sees a general, low-level insurgency across the globe as people loyal to (and benefited by) the old ways cling on.
These days, however, the hatred of nation-states sending the young and the poor off to kill and die for the glorification of the old and the wealthy has caused the very idea of the nation-state to die. Borders have been erased in everything except for logistics planning, where they are used to group geographically-and-culturally close areas into units for the distribution of goods and materials.
The United States, for instance, is now split into the New England Autonomous Region, the Appalachian Free Association, the Southeastern Distributive Republic, a variety of Indigenous nations whose land has been returned to them (such as the Cherokee Nation and other First Nations cultures), and so forth, all the way to the West Coast which is split into the Southwestern Federated Republics and the Pacific Northwestern Republic.
The absence of borders does not mean, unfortunately, that inter-ethnic conflict is over, and reached a high point during the Revolution itself as many groups exploited the opportunity to attempt to purge old enemies. This has caused tensions that have since crystallized into new cultural (and occasionally physical) battle lines that are likely to become the primary fault lines of the new global order and the defining issue of the post-capitalist world. As a way to help ease these tensions and try to find some way to work past them and come together as one world, the new Interplanetary Exploration Cooperative was set up in an attempt to spread peace, goodwill, investment, and scientific advances without discrimination or regard to old lines in the sand.
Good luck, Director. The world will be watching.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Right, so nuclear stuff is gonna cost a pretty penny, but not to worry. Concentrated solar power is almost a drop-in replacement.
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
we could always do the old "solar boiler" trick too.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
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DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
*cries while hugging his NERVA body pillow*
I could of bribed the capitalists at least
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Shhhh. It's ok. STR is basically the same thing. All we're doing is replacing the reactor core with a heat-exchanger.
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DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I can't have atomic rockets without atomics *cries self to sleep*
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, technically it's still powered by nuclear fusion.... in the sun.
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There will still be options to get atomics. They're just politically expensive atm.
neutronium95
Mad Rocketeer
- Location
- The test site
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It'll probably be at least 20 years until we need a nuclear rocket. That should hopefully give time for attitudes to soften.
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Now we go to space, gay space communism 2.0!!!!
We can sell it as something like Project Plowshare except it's actually putting nuclear energy to good use.