02-21-2017, 12:32 PM | #141 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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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.
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02-21-2017, 04:54 PM | #142 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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02-21-2017, 05:48 PM | #143 |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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.
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02-22-2017, 01:34 PM | #144 | |
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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02-22-2017, 11:29 PM | #145 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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. |
02-28-2017, 07:18 PM | #146 | |
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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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. |
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03-01-2017, 12:37 PM | #147 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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. |
03-01-2017, 01:55 PM | #148 |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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. |
03-01-2017, 05:55 PM | #149 |
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
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...) |
03-01-2017, 08:04 PM | #150 |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels
I can imagine some not completely insane people trying to evoke a nuclear war just to get a nuclear winter.
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