07-11-2021, 11:00 AM | #31 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
Another article, perhaps a bit short, but I'm unlikely to add much more, unless someone has suggestions:
Divergences in Successive British Governments 'Governments,' in this context, also called 'ministries,' are the UK's equivalent of what the USA calls 'administrations' - the head of government and the Cabinet and other subordinates thereof. Prior to the 1930s, these were largely quite similar to those on Homeline, with small variations in a few seats, or an additional Minister or two. The earliest significant change from Homeline is generally regarded to have been in 1923, when the Earl of Greystoke replaced the Duke of Devonshire as Secretary of State for the Colonies. Of almost equal interest to observers from Homeline is the appointment in that same year of Dr Henry Jones, Sr, one of the three Members of Parliament for the Scottish Universities, as minister without portfolio, to serve as the PM's chief advisor on 'Esoteric and Ancient Sciences' (meaning all the weird stuff left over by long-dead Gadgeteers and such, that antiquarians and archaeologists keep uncovering). A much bigger change came ten years later: In 1933, the failure of the MacDonald-Baldwin Second National Government to do anything meaningful against Emperor Ming lead to a Vote of No Confidence and a new election. WWI war hero and new (since 1932, just beating out George Lansbury in the Labour Party election) Labour Party Leader Ewart MacAdder became Prime Minister, forming the First MacAdder Government. The Conservatives were able to force a snap election in 1935, but they didn't pick up enough seats to form a government; MacAdder shuffled his cabinet and made a deal with the Liberals, giving them a couple of cabinet positions in return for their support (Second MacAdder Government). MacAdder resigned as PM in 1936 - he had been relatively friendly with Edward VIII, but he disliked George VI, and wanted the precedent that would have been made by a king marrying a commoner (a divorced, American commoner at that), and staying king. Following a new election, Neville Chamberlain became PM (also making a deal with the Liberals for support), and has remained in that position. A comparison of his cabinet in this worldline with the First Chamberlain Ministry/Fourth National Government on Homeline shows a number of differences: firstly, the National Labour Organization and Liberal National Party had both collapsed earlier in the decade (which did not happen on Homeline until 1945 for National Labour and 1968 for the Liberal Nationals), leaving only the Liberals and Conservatives in the new government. Liberal Party member Geoffrey Shakespeare actually retained his position as President of the Board of Education from the Second MacAdder Government. Sir John Simon, also a Liberal, remained in the Cabinet but was moved from Secretary of State for the Home Department to Secretary of State for the Colonies. As on Homeline, Ernest Brown remained Minister for Labour, though he was by then in the main Liberal Party, not the defunct Liberal Nationals. Until they were moved to the BIS, the Lord Blackadder had been Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, and Winston Churchill was simply the Member of Parliament for Epping, though with a strong desire to be in government. Thoughts?
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. Last edited by Prince Charon; 07-12-2021 at 07:54 AM. |
07-11-2021, 11:10 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
Sorry, too much obscure political stuff for an American even one with a Poli Sci degree who could have named most of the Homeline PMs for the period. I also didn't recognize many of your "new" names after Lord Greystoke.
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Fred Brackin |
07-11-2021, 12:40 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
Quote:
EDIT: I've done some editing to the article, including adding a sentence that I'd meant to include earlier but forgotten. Still needs more links, but I'm tired, so they'll be added later.
__________________
Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. Last edited by Prince Charon; 07-11-2021 at 01:36 PM. |
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07-11-2021, 02:02 PM | #34 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
I'm not clear who MacAdder is? I don't recognise the name from the comedy series. This means I have no idea what effect his replacing Baldwin as PM will have. His judgement is very suspect if he knows Edward VIII at all well, because that king had the emotional maturity of a spoilt teenager, caring only for his own desires and pleasures.
Putting Blackadder in charge of the British Interplanetary Society is unlikely to work well. They were a very driven, enthusiastic bunch of eccentrics (I have met a couple of members from that period, now long dead) and his tentativeness and cowardice will annoy them a lot.
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
07-11-2021, 02:10 PM | #35 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
I have seen their plans for a moon rocket (thousands or tens of thousands of solid fuel rockets) and "enthusiastic" must be (I suppose) British understatement.
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Fred Brackin |
07-11-2021, 02:29 PM | #36 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
Translation: a bunch of total nutters, but in a mostly-good way.
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
07-12-2021, 07:47 AM | #37 | ||||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
Quote:
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Will be adding more links to the article, today. EDIT: I think I've got all the needed links in.
__________________
Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. Last edited by Prince Charon; 07-12-2021 at 07:55 AM. |
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07-12-2021, 11:57 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
Quote:
To my understanding, the reason they discounted liquid fuel rockets was that there was no way to get enough fuel into large ones. You can see thsi even with small hybrid rockets that are fed by pressurized tanks of oxidizer. Those are good for a single digit's worth of seconds only before you've lost too muhc pressure. They didn't know about modern turbo-pumps of course and those actually do look like mad science. The ones for the Shuttle's main engines weighed 750 lbs (half of the engine weight) but delivered 75,000 horsepower. An utterly ridiculous piece of technology.
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Fred Brackin |
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07-13-2021, 12:18 PM | #39 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
I specified black powder because the version that I read said they were using that, due to it being used for fireworks (just remove the sparkly bomb on top, and you have a booster rocket). That's from RL, though, not this setting.
__________________
Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
07-27-2021, 12:03 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age
A set of articles that I'm working on for this setting (which as you can see, still need a lot of work):
Working Title: Experimental Space Guns As governments and military personnel have realized the need to shoot other people in low-pressure environments down to hard vacuum, and in lower gravities or microgravity, so they have had to consider what weapons they will shoot with, and what weapons others will shoot at them. Naturally, many mad scientists are only too happy to step forward with their ideas. Thus, all space stations have firing ranges of some description, and these ranges are frequently in need of repair from use. <energy weapons (mostly reverse-engineered from Martian tech, thanks to gadgeteers; also some weird ones with little or no Martian tech), coilguns (railguns scrape the rails, so would either be very rare, or the rails might be part of the ammo), both mostly using the same bulky post-Martian ultracapacitors, or sometimes weird Earth-tech> <unguided gyrocs, some 'normal' guns (graphite lubrication)> <long eye-relief scopes, or scope built into helmet (probably weapon also built in, in the latter case)> <check Pizard's equipment page & Atomic Rocket's sidearms pages> __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___________ Working Title: Spacecraft & Stations <rocket stacks, TL6^ with TL(6+1)^ or other superscience enhancements; some very superscience vehicles, like Dr. Zarkov's rocket> <more details on existing & planned space stations> <moon-landers; automated moon-lander 'with a weight hanging down to help with balance?'; auto-landers more expensive because they need more superscience> <planned moonbases> __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___________ Working Title: Walking Machines <Spaceships 4: Fighters, Carriers, and Mecha may be used here (though I'm not confident in my skill with that system), along with maybe some websites, like ericthered's Robots as Spaceships series> __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___________ Working Title: Life on Mars <information on Martian environment and cities; maybe culture/politics?> <vehicles and other technology> Anyone have opinions or suggestions for any of these?
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
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