(IW) Details of Lucifer-5

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by warellis

Didn't Hitler only really become an anti-semite after WW1? I remember reading on Wikipedia, admittedly not the greatest of sources, where it says "several sources provide strong evidence" that he had Jewish friends while living in Vienna.

Hitler, like most people in the 19th century West, was exposed to anti-semetic literature very young. Many people who spouted anti-semetic garbage did have Jewish friends and even treated then well. One notorious eastern european anti-semite I read about, and a rabid bigot he was, got killed trying to save a group of Jewish families from the Gestapo. His plan worked, the families were saved. But just because the man died saving people from being murdered, don't discount the fact he spread bigotry all of his life. Anti-semetism is a vile sin, but bigot doesn't equal murderer.

Hitler was changed by many things including WWI and the post-war collapse of Democracy in continental Europe. He was probably anti-semetic from childhood on. He became a murderer later in life.

[Anders]

Let's say he was no more anti-semitic than any others in that day and age until later in life.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Anders

Let's say he was no more anti-semitic than any others in that day and age until later in life.

Agreed. That sums my thoughts up nicely.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Hitler, like most people in the 19th century West, was exposed to anti-semetic literature very young. Many people who spouted anti-semetic garbage did have Jewish friends and even treated then well. One notorious eastern european anti-semite I read about, and a rabid bigot he was, got killed trying to save a group of Jewish families from the Gestapo. His plan worked, the families were saved. But just because the man died saving people from being murdered, don't discount the fact he spread bigotry all of his life. Anti-semetism is a vile sin, but bigot doesn't equal murderer.
....

Every human that ever lived is full of glaring flaws and biases. Racism has been the norm throughout time, and still resides in the majority of people now.

If dying to help people doesn't make you a good person at that time, then nothing does.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anders

Let's say he was no more anti-semitic than any others in that day and age until later in life.

How about we agree that in an non-Collapsed Germany still probably dominated by Prussian aristocrats and the German military=-industrial complex it is exceedingly likely that he (and he wouldn't even have changed his name to Hitler) is irrelevant?

We've got Prussians instead of Nazis. Please move on.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

If dying to help people doesn't make you a good person at that time, then nothing does.

True, or at least it means you truely wanted to be a good person.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

How about we agree that in an non-Collapsed Germany still probably dominated by Prussian aristocrats and the German military=-industrial complex it is exceedingly likely that he (and he wouldn't even have changed his name to Hitler) is irrelevant?

We've got Prussians instead of Nazis. Please move on.

Certainly Hitler would lack a context to climb to power. Moreover Hitler's experiences in the trenches in WWI seem to have been transformative. So a victorious (in Lucifer-5 Germany has taken over much of the old Russian Empire) Germany with no experiences of trench warfare, would make for a wildly different Hitler. I'd send Hitler off to Central Asia seeking Eastern Mysteries and lose him in the Gobi desert or the Taklamakan.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Certainly Hitler would lack a context to climb to power. Moreover Hitler's experiences in the trenches in WWI seem to have been transformative. So a victorious (in Lucifer-5 Germany has taken over much of the old Russian Empire) Germany with no experiences of trench warfare, would make for a wildly different Hitler. I'd send Hitler off to Central Asia seeking Eastern Mysteries and lose him in the Gobi desert or the Taklamakan.

With all those reality shards and mana here, that might have the PCs seek advice from holy men in Central Asia. If they happen to meet a German priest with dark hair and blue eyes, going by the name Father Hiedler*, who has great interest and extensive knowledge in ancient religions and artifacts, they might hire him as a translator and occult expert. Out in the wilds of Central Asia, participating in strange ceremonies and speaking only to Tibetan mystics, our good priest might have a shaggy mustache and beard, and might slur his name a bit. Imagine their surprise when they take him to a Singapore spaceport, get him cleaned up for a trip to Mars, and out he comes with his mustache shaved into a stylish new look, popularized by Charlie Chaplin.

*Hitler's father changed his name from Schiklegruber, his mothers name that of his father, Hiedler, but it was misrecorded as Hitler. So Adolf himself may have used Hitler, Hiedler or even Huttler when young, and when older and full of mystical drugs.

[hackbarth]

Originally Posted by thrash

Not wanting to spoil the thread, but still: couldn't you fairly easily adapt GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol to cover this alternate? The background is different, of course, but the narrative intent (pulpy retro-space) is identical.

I think a more perfect fit for the scenery is the world of Full Light Full Steam. the book is mostly setting and too easy to adapt to GURPS.

[Fred Brackin]

Trying to do some work on the technology of Lucifer-5 I looked up the details on Willy Ley to whom the setting's "torch ships" were attributed.

Ley was born in 1906 and wrote his first popularization of rockets in 1926. This was just after he'd worked his way through Oberth's paper on the details of rocket trajectories. That pretty much has to be the earliest date for torch ships.

Rocket planes pretty much have to come before rocket ships so the engines could already be fairly well developed. The rocket planes would be heavy steel-bodied things, perhaps wingless in Flash Gordon mode and using dedicated lift engines. Between the thick hulls and the ability to fly at any altitude they could be quite fast even with realistic problems like skin temperature.

In our dull reality Ley designed the rocket for Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon. The result was like a fat artillery shell with combination stabilizers and landing gear trailing behind it. Not quite the longer and sleeker V2 design but that could be what ships had evolved to by 1938.

So we've got only about 12 years to get bases all over the Solar System. Progress obviously has to be rapid with other powers following the Germans into space rapidly.

The drive pretty much has to be a Hot Reactionless in Spaceships terms. The ^ metals are said to fuel the drive so it might not need a Power Pt the way Nuclear Thermal doesn't either. Optionally they could sue some form of advanced sort. Petrinium makes electricity on earth for apparently very low costs so you m8ight use something more developed than even the best Fission.. I might use the Vacuum Energy plants From Spaceships 7 as a tribute to the ^ metal from SG-1, naqua'ada which functions on that principle.

Enough electrical power would probably let you exceed the usual limits of TL6. Put Edison's labs to work on it and they might be able to give you soems ort of ozone injection water treatment system. Some sort of Martian or Venusian oxygen producing plant would probably help with large bases.

Just from all the flying around radio probably needs to be more advanced though this would probably still be limit to large units. Radio astronomy would probably be invented early also but still be at quite an early stage.

A simplifying assumption about weapons technology would be that the post-Astronium bomb Cold War would push weapons development about as fast as WWI did in our timeline.

Due tot he timeline's probable techophilia some decisions that went the conservative way in our world could have been more aggressively futuristic in Lucifer-5. As simple examples, the Garand probably has a large detachable magazine instead of the rather odd en bloc clip and the swamps of Venus could move forward the use of synthetic stocks.

Combat between Spaceships is probably rare due to a lack of useful weaponry for ranges over 1000 meters. A radio directed space torpedo would stretch the state of the art for 1938. It probably wouldn't even have TV cameras to send signals back to its' launching ship. It would mostly be a weapon to use against installations rather than moving targets.

The setting does have superguns, probably on the model of WWI's Paris Gun but these would be _huge_ and not very mobile. They are cocnonically used on the Moon to aim at cities on Earth.

In our world in 1938 the UK has just set up the Chain Home radar system and I doubt things could be much more advanced on Lucifer-5.

The rocket jockeys are probably carrying M1911s or perhaps those new fangled Browning HP pistols under their leather jackets. If you need gun for using while wearing a spacesuit I suppose you could fit a small water jacket around the barrel of a Mauser C96. Add a scope to take advantage of the increased range and always shoot first when in cantinas. :)

Maybe I'll have a sample Spaceships design next time.