Alternate History Thread II...

[Disenfrancised]

Btw, here's another interesting SF world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraksh

Sounds cool, albeit refraction of that level requires one hell of an air density, how do they explain it? Not to mention that such a dense atmosphere would make flight very easy

 

[Cuivienen]

Liftoff, maybe, but directional movement would be very difficult. I think...

 

[Disenfrancised]

Liftoff, maybe, but directional movement would be very difficult. I think...

Not really - your just getting closer and closer to a liquid environment - fish don't really have problems with directional movement after all...

Math time! with extra estimates

Lifting power of 0.028 m^3 of Hydrogen
0.034 lb at 0deg C, 760 mm pressure

Venus has significant refraction with an atmosphere 90 times as dense as earths. lets reduce that alot and say 20 times on our refraction world.

Lifting power of hydrogen would be about 0.7 kg, meaning you'd only need a about 3 cubic metres of hydrogen to lift a man into the air - personal blimps for everyone! A combination lighter than air - lifting surface thing would sort out all your problems in a handly little package.

 

[Cuivienen]

Not really - your just getting closer and closer to a liquid environment - fish don't really have problems with directional movement after all...

But think about how much more effort you expend swimming than you do walking. The greatly increased drag of denser air would surely make flying (or even walking) far less efficient.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Well yes - doing anything in an atmosphere that dense would be harder, but flying will be proportionally less hard than our current one, minus the whole imploding thing.

 

[das]

Yes, it does have a very dense atmosphere.

As for flight, I think it was a theoretical problem, and a one they seem to have overcome just before the nuclear war. The only plane actually present in the book - "His Imperial Highness Prince Kirnu's of the Four Golden Banners Nominal Bombdropped "Mountain Eagle"" - didn't seem to have much of a problem in flight. Well, not any caused by nature anyway.

 

[Sheep]

DAS I demand that you return ITNES so I can keep destroying tossi with Carthrage!!!

 

[Disenfrancised]

DAS I demand that you return ITNES so I can keep destroying tossi with Carthrage!!!

Brillent, sums up you in that NES with one word .

 

[Cuivienen]

Brillent, sums up you in that NES with one word .

Replace "that" with "any". Remember Oceania?

 

[Sheep]

Hey Carthage was not the same as Oceania. I deliberatley destablised Oceania, with Carthage I was playing to win. BIG diffrence.

What people dont realise is that with me its not ALL about winning. Its about playing to a specific character or even better multiple characters (Split personalities are fun) So next time someone says anything about Sheep2 Oceania Syndrome (thank you das I have an entire disorder named after me because of you, remind me to thank you properly one day) remember I MEANT TO DO THAT>

Along with me causing the first ever nuclear war (haha Jason I hurt you good)
The first worldwide terrorism campaign
The first nation to successfully defend from 15 nations.
Oh and still refuse to spell check anything that I type cause it wasted valuble time that I can use planning my next ill conceived plan for worldwide domination or demanding stuff from a weaker neighbour. Either is good.

 

[Kozmos]

Wasnt that other guy that started the nuclear war the one with 'I nuekd j00!'

 

[Oruc]

When did Sheep get back? well its always better when he is around, one of my favourite nesers its always funny to read about his countries.

 

[das]

Ahem. Anyway, hopefully this thread isn't dead. I'm still working on my althist, and with luck and inspiration I might finish the present installment before the end of this week. I also know that Symphony is still working on his althist. But the rest of you, aside from those involved in that discussion of alternate geography, don't seem to be contributing at all! Try and at least suggest some scenarios or PoDs, surely I'm not the only one who keeps getting some more-or-less random althist ideas from time to time (I have lots of ideas, but won't reveal them yet as I plan to write about them in more detail one day)! And I'm especially talking about you, NK. Now that you're back, you could at least continue one of your two very promising althists, especially the Council of Constance one.

 

[North King]

We call it... Drumroll please...

Updating.

EDIT: And being away from the computer for the week before that. And before that, pretty much just getting back into NESing after a hiatus.

 

[das]

Whatever. This thread still requires international humanitarian aid.

 

[Symphony D.]

I've had a few other random ideas while working on mine for NES setups, aside from No Nukes, Ice Belt World, and End of the World:

- The Revolutionaries, through some slightly better luck in the Canadian Campaign, manage to bring Canada into revolt against the British, and the end of the war sees the two united. Later, the Mexican-American War still breaks out, though the Americans are rather more ambitious, leading to a single continent spanning United States in North America...

- As a sort of twist on the fresh start concept, because I find it rather repetative after awhile, I had the idea of setting it in the distant future. Corporations control settlement and development of new world for humanity, and quite often fight over their "assets" in "hostile takeovers". Advanced technology to spare, obviously, and you could build an interesting economy system in that, since domestic manufacture of things will be limited for quite some time, most items will be called in from the parent company based on the "budget" allocated for the colony. Could create some interesting dynamics.

- Be The Primitive. NESes always start out in the Old World and eventually you go kill yourself some native Americans and Africans and establish colonies. What if you are the "barbarians" who start civilization really late, and then all of a sudden a bunch of highly advanced NPCs show up and beat the stuffing out of you? This would actually work best on random maps, I think. Alternatively, you have the option of taking a Turtledove-type approach and, in the middle of WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam, whatever, in the first few updates, holy crap, aliens invade! Nobody would be expecting either of these and likely half the players would quit, but it could be highly interesting.

[EDIT] Also, you know, in a really dense atmosphere, since you're sort of starting to approach fluids in density, supercavitating technology might work well for flight, though that's somewhat advanced.

 

[tommy_toon]

I have a modern alt-hist thought up and planned out, all for my next NES. Just need to write it down in word and make up some stats, than wait for some NES' to . . . fade away, before I start it up.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

- Be The Primitive. NESes always start out in the Old World and eventually you go kill yourself some native Americans and Africans and establish colonies. What if you are the "barbarians" who start civilization really late, and then all of a sudden a bunch of highly advanced NPCs show up and beat the stuffing out of you? This would actually work best on random maps, I think. Alternatively, you have the option of taking a Turtledove-type approach and, in the middle of WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam, whatever, in the first few updates, holy crap, aliens invade! Nobody would be expecting either of these and likely half the players would quit, but it could be highly interesting.

I had that idea as well, but I too feared that I'd scare away half of the players.

Actually, I made the Lengels... that's nearly as bad.

 

[das]

- The Revolutionaries, through some slightly better luck in the Canadian Campaign, manage to bring Canada into revolt against the British, and the end of the war sees the two united. Later, the Mexican-American War still breaks out, though the Americans are rather more ambitious, leading to a single continent spanning United States in North America...

IMHO its more tricky than that. Firstly, if Canada is also annexed, USA will probably be even harder to keep together than in OTL, with even more separatist movements and less of a British threat nearby (plus without the British loyalists, Canada will be French-majority, causing lots of strife as the Americans really hated the Quebecois at the time - see Quebec Act and its effects). IMHO its more likely for the Americans to conquer it in 1812. Furthermore, no matter when Canada is conquered, it automatically means much less immigration to Texas (hence the situation in one of my guess-the-pod maps, based on the premise of America winning the War of 1812, where Mexico retains its territories). By the time Canada is settled enough, so will be Texas - by Mexicans (and maybe by Germans). So chances are there won't even be a Mexican-American War. Oh, and the inclusion of Canada will also disbalance the Union, resulting in either earlier and more succesful Confederate seccession, either the South being crushed quickly, maybe even without a war.

Also, gobbling up the entire Mexico in one war... IMHO USA - of the 1840s, anyway - might simply fail to digest it. It might just die.

IMHO to unite North America USA should evolve as it did in OTL for a while, possibly up to the very late 19th century. Then we need to somehow shake it up economically and socially as to encourage greater political radicalism. And then it could simply conquer Canada and Mexico. I think Theodore Roosevelt, given the right geopolitical situation, could do just that.

EDIT: One more thought. This might have interesting effects on the development of Australia as the British loyalists have to go SOMEWHERE... Alternatively, they might go to South Africa. Actually, if they go to it immediately after the war and pull a filibuster, guess what we get.

Nobody would be expecting either of these and likely half the players would quit, but it could be highly interesting.

EQ (or was it Sheep?) actually did a WWII scenario based on that, and indeed, as soon as the first update mentioned Atvar out of the blue, shocked, outraged NESers begun quiting. The NES died within minutes, I'm afraid...

 

[Sheep]

Yeah that was me, god damn bunch of sooks.