Pre-ChaNES: Into the Void

[Symphony D.]

Miniaturization is of benifit to many things however, such as micromachining.

... do you mean nanomachines, Galoob, or something else entirely?

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Hmm, I think I meant something more towards nanomachines... bad prefixes, apologies. But I've been thinking more, and I don't think that this Europe's research is going to get much into miniaturization, as for what it does, larger-scale engineering will be more useful.

 

[Demetrias]

If you want to do a Pan-Islam superpower why don't you use Pakistan as your base? It is much more likely to lead a super Islamic state and they would have your Rocketry prequiste and ties to three major powers that would help them develop such technology as a client state. It is also closer to an Industrialized nation then Indonesia which would be one of the Countries that would suffer when the developed nations of the world lose their dependence on oil. Most of the Countries that baser their economies on oil are going to go through major crisis when the developed nations start phazing out gasoline powered engines for fuel celled cars. Saudi Arabia will probably fall apart completely and some new form of government will arise out of the ashes of the Saudi Royal Family.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Pakistan is definitely not in a good position to set up Dar al Islam. It's extremely unstable at the moment, and it's not ethnically Arabic. It's like saying that Portugal could unite Russia.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Graargh! Computer just killed all of my work on Europe's stats and timeline!

Meh, it'll be easier to do the second time around.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

European Union
Leader: Wilhelm Wessel (Lord_Iggy)
Capital: Brussels, Earth
Government: Parliamentary Federation
Technology: European Science is best known for its work in Fusion technology, Materials, and Engineering. While an effective fusion generator has yet to be realized, the possibility is certainly there. Less well known but still very important are developments in the fields of sustainable and efficient economic technologies, which have helped to make Europe both disproportionately effective at industrial production, and relatively unpolluted with regards to the rest of the developed world. A large amount of genetic research and modification on plants, performed in tandem with Australia, has helped greatly in the agricultural sector of the economy.
Army Stats: Smallest of the Great Powers.
Army Description: Europe has a comparatively tiny army, preferring to use small and specialized units. Its military vehicles are designed for speed and reliability. At sea, the navy features several aircraft carriers and a multitude of smaller boats, often designed with stealth or detection-avoidance technology. The air force is unremarkable for its time.
Navy Stats: Medium Fleet
Navy Description: A variety of shuttlecraft and one-use rockets.
Total Economy: <EP gained from each system>
Planets Occupied: Earth, 1
Avg. Infrastructure: Excellent
Control: Influential
Total Population: 609 257 012 People as of 0000 hours, January 1, 2053
Military Cap: <Divisions>
Education: Very Good
Avg. Safety & Health: Good
Avg. Patriotism: Decent
Projects: None
History: Despite repeated troubles and obstacles, the European Union marched on. In 2012, Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia joined, in 2018, Norway and Iceland followed suit. Integration increased somewhat through the following years. Turkey continually hovered on the edge of joining, eventually forming numerous official trade deals with the EU, without formally joining.

Europe typically kept itself out of most military actions, save peacekeeping actions in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans.

Continuing on this pattern Europe continued for the remainder of the first half of the 21st Century, gradually admitting the remainder of the Balkan States in the 40s.

The nations of Europe still maintain a good deal of independence, though they generally follow suit with the European Parliament. Integration is highest in the core nations of the Union in Western Europe, where national borders are next to meaningless, and weakest in the newly-joined states such as Serbia.



More information, naturally, will come later.

@Australia- I find it somewhat unrealistic that Swedish Saab would leave Europe. Could you use a homegrown company for your jet engines?

 

[e350tb]

Lord Iggy, if it would be feasable, could I run the Parliament of Britain? (A form of permanent alliance, I'd do as you say, but have control over domestic affairs.)

 

[Niklas]

Hmm, I think I meant something more towards nanomachines... bad prefixes, apologies.

No need to apologize, you were right. There is a well established concept called Micromachinery, and the construction of such machines is called Micromachining, just like you said. I think Symph just wanted to make a joke.

 

[Fuschia]

Nothing to something in 3 years strikes me as implausible given Indonesia's current technical disposition.

They quickly developed their own design of rocket, sending a man into space in 2012.
Also don't really buy this as without relevant flight data it'd be... dangerous, to say the least. All the powers that have been able to rapidly transition to manned flight have had long-term rocket programs prior to doing so--the big three (US, USSR, PRC) were able to leverage data from their strategic missile programs into exploratory programs. Indonesia won't have that luxury. Don't see it.

Quote:
Receiving a good deal of help from NASA and the United States, they landed a man on the moon in 2021,
Don't see America working that closely to help another power onto the Moon a handful of years after it itself returns as anything but a junior partner under its own program, and then not without heavy monetary or manufacturing contributions. Getting to the Moon remains a huge logistical undertaking--if it takes America 10 years to regear for it from a near-Earth program, it will take Indonesia, starting from nothing, and with significantly fewer resources, industries, and technical skill in the field, quite a bit longer.

Quote:
and had sent probes to every planet in the solar system by 2029.
Not possible simply due to transit time mandated by the gravity assists needed to economically reach the outer planets, assuming nothing spiffy like ion engines deployed, along with launch windows, design times...

Really Japan has better odds of doing these things. Indonesia wouldn't realistically have any sort of space presence until it puts its house in order on Earth. If it can do that, it might make a good late entry--it has good positioning for space elevators if it can stabilize its political climate.

I can understand that. However, they do already have a space program, even if it is a fairly underfunded one. America might not help them at all, I'll have to talk to America about it. As for getting the political situation in hand, I'm writing a rather detailed year by year history of Indonesia, but it might take me a while to finish most of it. Certainly needs a lot of date changes for the space program, though. Regardless, I'm not switching again. Pakistan and Japan are both interesting, but I rather like the way Indonesia handles its government when it comes to controlling 17,000 islands at the same time...

 

[Demetrias]

you mean ethnically cleanizing anybody that wants to get out of the Union?

 

[Demetrias]

Pakistan may not be ethnically Arab but then neither are the former Russian territories like Uzbekistan and Kazakistan or for that matter Iran isn't ethnically arab. Some of the country is but not all. Who said that the Pan-Islamic movement had to be a Pan Arabic movement. Also Indonesia isn't ethnically Arab either. Indonesia is no more stable then Pakistan probably less and Pakistan would have the US as an ally.

 

[Dachs]

Pakistan may not be ethnically Arab but then neither are the former Russian territories like Uzbekistan and Kazakistan or for that matter Iran isn't ethnically arab. Some of the country is but not all. Who said that the Pan-Islamic movement had to be a Pan Arabic movement. Also Indonesia isn't ethnically Arab either. Indonesia is no more stable then Pakistan probably less and Pakistan would have the US as an ally.

lurker's comment: None of those Central Asian nations have even anything close to a chance of launching a pan-Arab movement. They'd be Turanist if anything, and that movement is pretty defunct at this juncture. Iran also was never mentioned as being a candidate to head a pan-Arabist movement; in fact, it has been stated that Iran would be an ideal enemy against whom to rally, as opposed to the rather different threat of Israel.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Good progress all around. Now that stats for all four powers have been posted, I'll look them over, compare them, and ask a series of direct questions about them... Probably sometime later today.

On the subject of an Islamic union centered on Indonesia, its detractors should keep in mind that the opening up of the whole galaxy to potential missionary efforts might be a powerful unifier. If the alternative to cooperation is for Islam to be stranded on the planet Earth, its proponents will probably begin to see themselves as a more important brotherhood. Naturally, none of this applies before the year 2053... But these countries need not actually be "unified" before then to form a union in reaction to the opening of the interstellar frontier. I intend a flurry of "NPC" diplomacy to take place for the first true BT turn, and more for some nations than others.

Yeah, I'll admit that I'm also sort of biased to the concept of Islam spreading successfully to at least several distant systems. It might make for some very interesting situations later on down the road...

 

[Head Serf]

Just curious, but if maps for other relevant planets aren't made, then how will wars occur on those planets? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but it seems that if I controlled part of Mars, and China controlled another part of Mars, I'd be unable to form any sort of military plans without a map. Now, naturally, the maps would be much smaller. Oh, and there will be an earth map, right?

 

[Abaddon]

I think we swap to space warfare.. taking whole planets

 

[Head Serf]

Is it impossible for two nations to share a planet? Planets are unbelievably huge; they should be divisible by different nations.

 

[Fuschia]

Also, space warfare would not control a planet, it would be like conquering an island with nothing but a navy. You would need occupation troops and any number of other concerns.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Land warfare would necessarily have to be a bit more abstract... You wouldn't be able to say, "Land on this continent, attack across this desert, hold at this city," or anything like that. You'd just have to give a general military doctrine to cover all that stuff.

The general way I imagine things running, you'd attack a planet with a force of combined ground troops and ships. Unless your navy was completely overwhelmed, you'd be able to land the majority of your soldiers on the planet's surface (or at least those not used for boarding action), but the result of the naval battle would still be important. After all, a constant stream of supplies/bombardment could really help out either side, and few assaults of established colonies can be decided within a three-month turn.

But that's just the way I've envisioned it. Feel free to correct me if any bit of that seems unrealistic.

Edit: Oh, and nations can share a planet, though that might cause additional tensions. It would also make warfare somewhat different if conflict broke out into violence in such a situation...

 

[Shadowbound]

Is Abaddon still planning on taking Russia, or could I sign up as them?

If not, interested.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Is Abaddon still planning on taking Russia, or could I sign up as them?

If not, interested.

Well, we've got the four early powers alotted out, so I'll mark you down as interested in a future spot that opens up.