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Old 06-18-2016, 10:57 AM   #2041
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Default Re: New Reality Seeds

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Alternatively, superconductor loops are used as power cells defeating the gasoline car.
The oil will be burnt to generate electricity in power plants instead.
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Old 06-18-2016, 11:27 AM   #2042
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Canning was way more practical than Fulton's boats which were far from ready for prime time while canning solved a major logistical obstacle to keeping troops in the field.
Take the point.
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Old 06-18-2016, 11:32 AM   #2043
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No such animal. It still costs money to generate. And even if it costs very little to generate, which is hardly implied here, and you charge very little for it, it will be used for anything and everything (Carry everything everywhere on giant electrical vehicles powered from overhead lines! Don't have doors on public buildings, have giant fans keeping cold air out! Colonise the Antarctic using giant space heaters!) until the marginal cost of production is driven up (because the generators can't build power plants and lay power lines fast enough) and the price of electricity rises accordingly.

Notably cheaper mains electricity will lead to the (faster) abandonment of any sort of non-electric industrial power plant, and more power-hungry industrial methods being widely adopted. One foresees an awful lot of aluminum in use. One also foresees a lot of pollution from hastily constructed cheap power stations.
Also look for a lot of dams and watermills. Hydropower was always seen as the cheapest way to go. With Superconductivity hydropower could be used far more widely. Coal powered plants could be rarer because they couldn't compete with hydropower in the long run.
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Old 06-18-2016, 11:45 AM   #2044
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For a different exotic modern world extend the life of Elizabeth of Russia. Her armies had nearly crushed Prussia, but, with her sudden death, her heir, who idolized Frederick the Great, called the war off and gave Prussia ridiculously good terms. If Czarina Elizabeth had lived a year or two more, Prussia could well have creased to exist. You could end up with a Europe ruled by Russia.

The Key extra twist would involve the American Revolution. The Tories had alienated all of Britain's allies as well as having wrecked British relations with their own colonists. Russia might take an enhanced position of power that they couldn't be shifted from while Britain, France, Austria, and Spain, were fighting each other.

Picture a Europe totally conquered by Russia in the early 19th century. A stronger immigration to America, which the Czars leave untouched as a safety valve, and America developing industry while Czarist Europe ignores it.

By the time you get to the 1920's, and the Czars now decide to conquer American and end the abomination of non-monarchical government, how will the fight go?
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Old 06-18-2016, 11:55 AM   #2045
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Sounds like a grand old invasion story. It would definitely be a meat grinder for the Czars, and the Americans may tire of slaughtering Russian conscripts eventually....
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Old 06-18-2016, 12:16 PM   #2046
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Picture a Europe totally conquered by Russia in the early 19th century. A stronger immigration to America, which the Czars leave untouched as a safety valve, and America developing industry while Czarist Europe ignores it.

By the time you get to the 1920's, and the Czars now decide to conquer American and end the abomination of non-monarchical government, how will the fight go?
Well, subjugation of (most) German principalities sounds plausible, however conquering the rest of Europe is less likely. Russia may became world's premier superpower, but this does not lead to the direct domination of the entire Europe, especially considering that Spain, Britain and France will still have their colonial empires.

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Sounds like a grand old invasion story. It would definitely be a meat grinder for the Czars, and the Americans may tire of slaughtering Russian conscripts eventually....
On the other hand I don't see why hypothetical Russia of 1920s will have a great military disadvantage against America (because, well, if you are talking about "meat grinder" for only one side of conflict, and that other side will be merely "tired", it's clear that first side is worse off in every aspect, except numbers).
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Old 06-18-2016, 12:21 PM   #2047
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No such animal. It still costs money to generate.
That doesn't necessarily mean it can't be "too cheap to meter". Roman water systems seems to have worked this way (you paid for the diameter of the pipe, not the flow, presumably because of a lack of good flow measuring equipment), and local telephone service is often still sold this way. Imagine the case where all the power you could pull through a line without melting it costs a few percent of what the utility pays to maintain the lines. In that case, charging a flat monthly connection fee for a line regardless of whether you use any electricity or not might make excellent sense.
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Old 06-18-2016, 12:29 PM   #2048
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If this is a "Edison takes credit for his employee's invention" parallel, then tradition says that the employee has to be Tesla. (This is much like the "time travel, ergo Hitler" convention.).
Involves electricity, Tesla. Everybody knows Edison and Tesla are the only people involved in the history of electricity. Well OK, if you want to go way out on a limb, you might be able to get away with including George Westinghouse as a "must be really obscure but I've heard the name somewhere..." alternative.
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Old 06-18-2016, 04:44 PM   #2049
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The price of materials and initial energy output versus energy output of Edison's RTSC matter quite a bit. Of bigger concern, though, is that 1890 lacks the science to understand what it's looking at. "Hm, Stibbons found a new way to make a battery. Costs too much to be worthwhile though." [7 years later] "It's...it's still putting out the same charge. The exact same charge, no measurable loss whatsoever." <very carefully> "Does anyone remember how we made that?"

If it works like the SCs we know, then it really doesn't cost anything to generate power, and it may not be possible, never mind economic, to meter it at source. I think, where electricity is concerned, you get something a lot like phone coverage in India. When cell phones exploded onto the scene, only about 25% of India had land-line service. And everyone looked at cell phones, said "screw that" and started building cell towers. There are no plans to extend the land line network further than it already exists. Refitting the existing urban power networks would be a large initial investment for a very slow return, so it won't be done for a generation, or two. But new towns, people living in very rural areas, are never going to see a power line. A small ERTSC to power each household, and it becomes part of the house, or factory. Earlier urban decay, as those who can afford the large-up-front-nothing-going-forward cost of an ERTSC move to an ungridded suburb while the poor stay in urban cores connected to power grids (and have monthly power bills). Or maybe they collapse altogether, power companies shut down as unprofitable while the poor still can't afford an ERTSC...there are civilized solutions to that problem, of course, and no guarantees they will be pursued.

Many, many scientific minds are going to bend themselves to understanding how in the heck this thing works. How well they will succeed depends on a lot of authorial choices. But their attention will be pulled away from, say, relativity at a crucial moment. I don't see any way to weaponize RTSCs (although someone more fiendish than me might - railguns eventually, but that will be a generation or two down the line again), and they preclude the development of some very weaponizable technologies...

Last edited by patchwork; 06-18-2016 at 04:48 PM. Reason: nasty thoughts
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Old 06-19-2016, 07:10 AM   #2050
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Possibly, but they'd be at a massive organizational disadvantage and could at best act as spoilers. Old Kaiser Bill was very clear and direct in telling restorationist movements to frag off, and in making it clear to his family that he would disown them if they had any truck with such people. Historically, he died in 1941. His son Wilhelm apparently was interested in being restored as Emperor, but when one can't start building an organization until 1941, one is simply too late to matter. A monarchy might be declared, but it won't be the old Hohenzollerns.
What if Old Kaiser Bill died earlier than on Homeline, and his son Wilhelm was actively trying to restore the House of Hohenzollern in the thirties or even the twenties? He could draw support that eventually went to the Nazis, provide a rallying point for the Conservatives who eventually ceded power to the Nazis after Hindenburg's death (cohabiting before).

He still wouldn't be a popular figure among average Germans, but there would be some nostalgia. He could also have support in the Wehrmacht and/or abroad, such as among the British who post-war sympathized with prostrate Germany over their supposed ally, France.

It could devolve into a massive, multi-sided civil war, with English-backed monarchists, French-backed republicans, Italian-backed Nazis, and Russian-backed communists. Meanwhile, the rest of Central Europe is similarly destablized (perhaps a Hapsburg trying to retake the throne in Vienna or Budapest), the British & French Empires are squabbling, America is isolationist, and Japan still looks to expand.


If this world is discovered at this point, Infinity would be confused between wanting to oppose the Nazis but not knowing which side to back; unfortunately, the strongest would probably be Stalin-backed communists.

And who knows who Centrum would back? Socialists or Anglophone monarchists? Possibly Interworld agents would try some ridiculous team-up of the two, not realizing how impossible that would be. And Interworld would be surprised at how vociferous Infinity's anti-Nazi program is.
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