Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Yeah - Kirk may be an invincible hero, but he sure does lose a lot of redshirts under his captaincy.

This world idea makes me think of the book Redshirts, where the rest of the crew of an Enterprise-like spaceship is aware that they're expendable, but not the main crew.

As a kid, I never noticed that darn red motif. I only noticed that they were always ensigns. I called the ones with few to no lines, Ensign Smiths, and the often higher ranked expository "diers", Lieutenant Smiths.
I will someday find another odd duck that saw it my way.

The Next Generation had scores of everyone dropping dead with no one giving a crap unless it was someone the personally knew and liked. I don't expect soldiers to bawl at every casualty, but their complete lack of concern was off putting for such an optimistic science fiction.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The thing about narrative causality is that it neglects to mention the logically necessary characters that didn't make it into the story. For every hero who beats impossible odds, there must be dozens who tried it first and failed horribly - you know the ones whose failures established that the odds *were* impossible and not a trivially easy.

The 500 Kingdoms setting included that. In that setting the evil witch who imprisons Rapunzel/Briar Rose is actually the winner, because while eventually her captive will be rescued by a knight/prince, she got magic power all the time that she was holding the captive and guys were trying and failing to pull off a rescue. Usually the witch doesn't die. She just moves on to another fairy tale where she'll pull the same kind of scam. You've just got to know when to fold them instead of turning into a dragon. Not that Fafnir didn't kill plenty of would-be heroes before he met his end.

[Flyndaran]

Having individuals move from story to story playing similar or even radically different roles adds a lot more complexity and subtlety to the concept.

The villain (tm) has been vanquished, but that just ends one story not the threat. Some heroes may try different tactics in order to permanently defeat foes rather than go full cliche.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

As a kid, I never noticed that darn red motif. I only noticed that they were always ensigns. I called the ones with few to no lines, Ensign Smiths, and the often higher ranked expository "diers", Lieutenant Smiths.
I will someday find another odd duck that saw it my way.

The Next Generation had scores of everyone dropping dead with no one giving a crap unless it was someone the personally knew and liked. I don't expect soldiers to bawl at every casualty, but their complete lack of concern was off putting for such an optimistic science fiction.

I first heard of 'redshirts' when Boone mentioned them to Locke on Lost - right before Boone died on their mission.

[PTTG]

In 1972, Sol unexpectedly increased in luminance by a significant factor. Nobody knows why, even now. The new level is stable and consistent. At this new level of output, Earth will stabilize at 20-30 degrees C hotter over the next two-three decades. Of course, the poles are a different story; the coldest parts will see temperature rises of about 40C, enough to have summer melts over the entire continent (although winters still reach -40C in the high inlands.

Virtually every inhabited location on Earth would be rendered, well, uninhabitable within ten years. There are, naturally, several conflicts raging in this world as of the present-day 1985. The largest is the colonization of Antarctica, which (despite the tumultuous icemelt) will eventually have everything from tropical coasts to a small alpine region in the highlands. The small landmass is not enough to support everyone, and the initial few years of "comradery for the good of the human race" is wearing thin. Worse, nuclear war is looking extremely close; both sides know that most of their own populations are largely doomed and their lands are mostly useless. The only restraint is the necessity to kickstart new colonies from whole cloth in a (currently) uninhabitable wasteland, and leave them capable of surviving as kilometers of ice below it melt.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by PTTG

In 1972, Sol unexpectedly increased in luminance by a significant factor. Nobody knows why, even now. The new level is stable and consistent. At this new level of output, Earth will stabilize at 20-30 degrees C hotter over the next two-three decades. Of course, the poles are a different story; the coldest parts will see temperature rises of about 40C, enough to have summer melts over the entire continent (although winters still reach -40C in the high inlands.

Virtually every inhabited location on Earth would be rendered, well, uninhabitable within ten years. There are, naturally, several conflicts raging in this world as of the present-day 1985. The largest is the colonization of Antarctica, which (despite the tumultuous icemelt) will eventually have everything from tropical coasts to a small alpine region in the highlands. The small landmass is not enough to support everyone, and the initial few years of "comradery for the good of the human race" is wearing thin. Worse, nuclear war is looking extremely close; both sides know that most of their own populations are largely doomed and their lands are mostly useless. The only restraint is the necessity to kickstart new colonies from whole cloth in a (currently) uninhabitable wasteland, and leave them capable of surviving as kilometers of ice below it melt.

Have you ever read J.G. Ballard's Drowned World? It has a similar concept to this, though it's focused on the remains of humanity moving north into the Arctic, and the temperate zones have been flooded, regressing to a primeval state.


I think international cooperation wouldn't so much fall apart as never stop. Nixon/Reagan America wouldn't want to work with the USSR. Indeed, it'd only work with allies either because it needed them (such as Canada for access to the Arctic), or as junior partners (Europe, Israel). USSR would be the same about Warsaw Pact allies.

Both would likely first focus on the Arctic, since it is much closer. Indeed, most of humanity is in the Northern Hemisphere (though closer to the tropics). It would be simple for a Cold War stand-off over the Arctic. Americans would be moving to Canada, while USSR would try to take advantage of a warmer Siberia.

Meanwhile, the states closest to Antarctica are mostly conservative American allies - Chile, Peronist Argentina, apartheid South Africa, Australia, New Zealand (even British Falklands and Portuguese Angola & Mozambique); actually, lean to the racist. I doubt apartheid South Africa would want to help black Africans move to Antarctica, except in small quantities as indentured labor (same for Asians).

And the large Third World population would be hit first by rising temperatures, likely fleeing en mass north to Europe & USA. While US & USSR probably wouldn't use nukes against each other, fearing retaliation, maybe use them against other scares? For instance, USSR nuking Chinese forces/masses moving into Far East Siberia, or US nuking northern Mexico to create a radioactive barrier to Latin American immigration.

[PTTG]

I could see it working somewhat differently. The US might take the path of less resistance and work with its southern-hemisphere allies to take Antarctica, while leaving the Arctic to Russia; after all, why fight for open ocean when there's land available in the South? Russia, for its part, will want to avoid conflict just as much, and so won't push the issue.

I definitely agree that migration would be a serious issue in that timeline, but I'm not sure how much I want to play it up.

[Jasonft]

National pride would force the Us to contest the Arctic. It is, after all, the area closest to traditional American lands. Alaska already being there guarantees it.

This new climate would do bizarre things to both rainfall and the areas that used to be permafrost (which would sink somewhat while melting). So much extra water plus so much extra heat. Northern Russia and Canada might well turn into swamplands.

Don't be too quick to rush to Antarctica - earthquakes and maybe volcanoes all over the place if those gadzillion tons of ice melt that fast.

[fchase8]

Maybe America would just try for everything - Arctic and Antarctic. It could be this divide in government, and even the country, over which is more essential. The efforts in the Arctic would be more concrete, but also slow and plodding, while Antarctic would be more 'shoot the moon' high risk, high reward.


This all presumes that America & the world would accept what is happening and get down to dealing with it. There would certainly be a lot of people who wouldn't accept what was happening, especially at the beginning, and even more resistance to putting money behind it.

(any similarity to a similar global heat rising event currently happening in real life is purely coincidental...)

[Flyndaran]

I can imagine some not completely insane people trying to evoke a nuclear war just to get a nuclear winter.