Alternate Earths 3, What Worlds? (hypothetical)

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Bill Cameron

MDLv3.2,

Let me see if I've got this straight...

- Politicians on both sides lied about the number of warheads in existence.
- Politicians on both sides know the number of warheads stated by each is side is a lie.
- Politicians on both sides negotiated cuts in the number of warheads to specific amounts.

So, because the number of original warheads were unknown and both sides routinely hid warheads, production facilities, and platforms from the other, the SALT, SALT-II, START, START-II, and all the other agreements limiting the numbers, types, and basing of nuclear weapons are lies and/or public relations exercises because none of the agreements can be truly verified.

Is that the gist of your argument?

Bingo! Nail on the head! Got it in one! Absolutely correct!
I'd be more cynical about it but I have too much faith in human decency.

My part of the argument is over - no more responses from me on this topic.

[Qoltar]

In the ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8th DIMENSION paperback novel Perfect Tommy gave almost that exact analysis of the Soviet Union vs. USA missile counts.
He then went on to suggest they just start making fake missiles that looked like real missiles to orbiting spy satellites. The resulting money savings could be switched over to other parts of the national budget.


- Ed Charlton
Keeper of Sci-Fi Apocrypha...

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Bill Cameron

Rob,

It wasn't a personal attack.

You were directed to certain thread via a link. You looked at the thread, saw it ran 49 pages, ...

It ran 49 pages?

I only looked at the first post on the first page. (And that single post is 2535 lines long in a 72-column text window, BTW - there's nothing "alleged" about that number.) If I had noticed that there were 48 more pages to that thread, I would have stopped looking at it even sooner.

Remainder of reply sent by private message, because it would likely get the thread locked if I posted it in public.

[D10]

Maua - 1

In this parallel, the Mauá Baron had a much better relationship with Dom Pedro II because he managed to join the masonry much sooner.

The baron was a politican, visionary, industrialist, and in this TL he managed to see clearly that slaves were a thing of the past, and that the only way for Brazil to grow was to create internal demand for high end services and jobs.

After a lot of political manouvering, he managed to create a massive railroad, conecting most of the Brazilian coastline and Sao Paulo and minas gerais.

Dom Pedro II in this timeline was in much better terms with Maua, and helped in all the way, using this industrial reforms to convince everyone of how much the monarchy was best suited to bring progress and reform than any revolution.

By the time the Paraguay war started, Brazil ha basically the same conditions it had in OTL, but because of the developed railroad, they managed to muster troops and equipament easier, also, there was a stronger sense of patriotism, which made the government give a little more resources to the army, instead of avoiding creating a huge standing army that could rebel.

After winning the war Dom Pedro II decided to use the army for an interesting purpose, he increased their pay, and ordered them to build works where no workforce was avaible, and ordered them to march into the amazon to build a massive railroad that would increase the effective area of productive land in the country by a sizeable margin.

By Imperial decretem Mauá was ordered to organize the building of this massive railroad system, and people from all over the country are being hired in what is truly Brazil's industrial revolution.

Most of the workforce is slaves, but slave trade is long gone, some of the slaves that fought in the war were granted freedom, and Mauá had the interesting idea of creating this concept of working army, most of which are slaves, but paid a small salary, Brazilian industrialism is making the USA scared ****less, and while the economic boom is helping supply USA demands for brazilian exports, the USA would rather not have such a thriving economic power in south america.

the Year is 1889 Maua has died a few months ago after being ill, without his massive intelectual and capitalistic support, the conservatives ousted Dom Pedro II after the abolishment of slavery and Brazil was entered in a massive civil war, between the developd middle-south and conservative-slave holding north.

Needs some work, but I think it has potential.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

I had to do some research on this one - my knowledge of Brazil's history is less than I would like. But I do admit the Baron of Maua is a most impressive individual - Brazil's first Robber Baron.

I'm not sure he would scare the Americans, but I could see an attempt by colonial-minded American corporations to attempt to assimilate a more successful Brazil (like various companies did in Central America), leading to increased economic competition.

And what of the expatriate Confederate colonies in Brazil? Would they be assimilated by the more powerful Brazil? Or would they try to enter the power structure and use Brazil's power against the USA?

[D10]

All of those are really tricky questions, and I like to think of this TL as a unpreditacble civil war, Im just not sure where the US would side with.

The progressive monarchists, or the conservative federalists.

What would Britain do ?

if the north is losing they can always go deep into the amazon and create the most weird of situations.

here is a link about the baron in case you want to know more ... but its probably what you read =p http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irineu_...lista_de_Sousa

edit: what a shame, I linked that thinking it had info ... lol

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

In the ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8th DIMENSION paperback novel Perfect Tommy gave almost that exact analysis of the Soviet Union vs. USA missile counts.
He then went on to suggest they just start making fake missiles that looked like real missiles to orbiting spy satellites. The resulting money savings could be switched over to other parts of the national budget.


- Ed Charlton
Keeper of Sci-Fi Apocrypha...

I believe that fake military weapons was used quite effectively in previous wars... though mainly to trick the enemy into thinking your stuff was there when it was really over there.

[Flyndaran]

Is it possible to use clay pots filled with gunpowder as bombs?
If so, then an alternate world with roman bombers would make for a weird parallel. To make it weirder we could add hot air balloons used as bombers or just air recon.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Is it possible to use clay pots filled with gunpowder as bombs?
If so, then an alternate world with roman bombers would make for a weird parallel. To make it weirder we could add hot air balloons used as bombers or just air recon.

Yes, the first gunpowder bombs were just that.
And the IW sourcebook already has a "Roma Aeterna" with gunpowder weaponry and primitive flight.

[ardashir]

For a very Weird Parallel, what about a world in which those classic Toho SF/kaiju flicks of the 50's through the mid 70's recorded actual history? I.e., a giant monster named Gojira ravaged Tokyo in 1954. He was then followed by other giant monsters, some of them controlled by alien invaders seeking conquest. However, a new Gojira appears who fights for Earth against the invaders (or maybe he's just defending his territory). And Japan and other nations develop advanced yet very weird technology to protect themselves from the invaders.

Any other ideas? And what would it be called? I'm thinking "Tsuburaya", in honor of Eiji Tsuburaya, the father of Japanese special effects.