New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Try this idea, Centrum isn't the only group that loves/admires the British Empire. Heck, many of the rebels that did the most to bring Britain's empire down where among those who most passionately and perceptively praised the British Empire. So, try the idea of an idealistic world jumper (and powerful Psi generally) who wants the various British Empires to survive and improve. He is very Anglo-centric in his worldview, but he's no chauvinist.

Example: Understanding that the Great Hunger profoundly damaged the links between Ireland and the UK, and that much of what the Brits did in that disaster was unforgivable, he's introducing blight immune potatoes into late 18th century Ireland in many worlds.

He's working in many separate parallels to reduce British racism in India. He helps Marx fight the pro-Southern bias in the British elites, and gets Churchill to see allowing an India parliament as a good way to slow down Indian Nationalist agitation.

Because he lacks Centrum biases, even if he is striving for seemingly similar goals, he can often gets done what they wish they could do. Because his goals often seem similar on the surface (down deep they are radically different) Homeline often confuses this world jumper for a Centrum team. This wastes Homeline time and resources.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by johndallman

That's moderately difficult. The main factor in the US capturing a lot of them was the scientists themselves, who reckoned correctly that they'd get much better treatment in US hands. They thus evacuated their base, which the Soviets was getting close to, and couldn't be defended, and moved west.

Keeping them in the East for capture requires much more order and discipline on the part of the SS, in the face of a total German collapse, which wasn't how they behaved in practice, or an actual potential war-winning weapon under development that fails at the last minute, without killing most of the scientists.

The posited softer revolution might give the scientists hope -- maybe not a lot of hope, but enough to convince them to surrender now rather than risk fleeing.

[ronwit]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Space faring was a byproduct of the desire to have better ICBMs. Both the U.S. and the USSR had developed early ICBMs, during the 1950s, and work continued on those programs.

When the USSR successfully orbited Sputnik, very few people thought of it as a step toward putting human beings in orbit. They thought of it as a step toward putting atomic bombs in orbit.

.

The reason we started out behind in the space race was two fold. First, our tech was too good. Our warheads were smaller so our ICBMs were smaller. Put a small payload on a big missile and you can throw it into orbit.

Second, Eisenhower was doing this for scientific purposes. Vanguard, intended to be our first launcher, had no military value though built by the Navy.

The Soviet space program was a big publicity stunt designed to convince the world of the superiority of communism and Soviet military might. Yes they could put bombs in orbit.

This caused us (US) to convert our space program into a big publicity stunt designed to convince the world of the superiority of capitalism and American military might. As the man says, by the time Nixon became president and the moon shots were over the value of the stunts was gone. NASA has become pork and space has stagnated.

[PTTG]

Well, manned spaceflight certainly has dwindled down to nearly nothing, but unmanned spaceflight is still working, and Elon Musk is single-handedly uplifting humanity to a Kardashev II civilization.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Well, manned spaceflight certainly has dwindled down to nearly nothing, but unmanned spaceflight is still working, and Elon Musk is single-handedly uplifting humanity to a Kardashev II civilization.

Well, not quite single-handedly. Jeff Bezos is helping, and Richard Branson may be too (although I think the guys at Reaction Engines Ltd. have even more potential).

All of that said, not one of them has gotten as far as NASA already did, more than 40 years ago.

[adm]

In fairness to the current crop, the original NASA attempt was willing to accept a higher level of risk, in order to beat the Russians. Now days there is a higher premium on safety, as there should be for long term efforts to gain permanent space flight capability.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by adm

In fairness to the current crop, the original NASA attempt was willing to accept a higher level of risk, in order to beat the Russians. Now days there is a higher premium on safety, as there should be for long term efforts to gain permanent space flight capability.

There was a lot of accepting of risk. To use an example, during the Cold War for the F-16, we had no problem with at least 15 crashes occurringin 2 years:

Originally Posted by poaw, post: 18855145, member: 18201

The F-22 not participating in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya had nothing to do with it not being combat ready.

Comparing it to the F-14/F-16 is silly. Those aircraft existed in an era where it wasn't seen as exceptionally problematic to lose a certain number of planes and pilots to mishaps the first few years of operation.
For example, here is a list of mishaps from the F-16's early operational service (1979 - 1983):

01 Oct 1979, Crashed in Nevada due to an engine problem.
26 Mar 1980, Destroyed in a fire due to an engine failure that sent some turbine parts through the main fuel cells.
27 Mar 1981, The crash was caused by a fuel pump failure.
10 Apr 1981, At 1:09 local time the main generator warning light came on and the EPU started. The pilot Major John Cary who was part of a four ship flight advised of his emergency and tried to make it to Buckley ANGB. After flying in for five minutes on the EPU, that failed and flight controls were lost.
03 Jun 1981, An engine problem brought down this aircraft in Lauwersmeer, Netherlands. The pilot managed to eject safely
29 Jun 1981, Went down in Great Salt Lake, Utah. An EPU problem was the cause of the mishap.
17 Jul 1981, The mishap occurred during initial conversion training due to an engine problem.
05 Aug 1981, Cause of accident was a malfunctioning bleed air valve which allowed bleed air to leak out onto the EPU, causing an electrical surge that shut down the flight control computer.
27 Jan 1982, Crashed into an unpopulated area Southwest of Luke AFB, Arizona. Cause of crash was flight control failure, pilot ejected safely.
23 Mar 1982, Crashed near Eglin AFB, Florida due to an engine failure.
04 May 1982, Crashed near Beccles, England due to main fuel pump failure.
20 May 1982, Upon hearing a loud bang and feeling a reduction of thrust, the pilot successfully ejected.
14 Nov 1982, The insuing litigation against General Dynamics over the mishap, by Harduvell's widow, inspired the film "Afterburn".
20 Jan 1983, The mishap was due to a 2-3 fan air seal knife-edge failure in the engine.
20 Jan 1983, An engine failure at 20,000 feet above a military airport started a chain of events.

The entire fleet was grounded twice in two years for unrelated problems, and one aircraft crashed as a result of a lightning strike.

For the F-14 (also; the entirety of the plane's combat over Vietnam was providing air cover to the embassy evacuation):

13.05.1974, This Tomcat suffered an engine fire on ground at Patuxent River.
02.01.1975, The F-14 crashed into the sea near Cubi Point after an inflight engine explosion.
13.01.1975, A/C crashed into the sea near Cubi Point after an inflight engine explosion.
24.06.1975, On take-off from NAS Oceana the F-14 suffered an engine fire.
29.10.1975, A/C was destroyed by engine fire onboard USS Enterprise.
05.03.1976, F-14 crashed close to Pax River after experiencing a spin.
21.06.1976, A/C crashed near NAS Miramar after inflight engine explosion.
22.02.1977, F-14 crashed near Pax River after entering a spin during engine stall tests of P & W TF30-P-414
28.06.1977, Crashed into Pacific Ocean some 85 miles southwest of San Diego after experiencing total power failure.
25.03.1978, Spun into the sea while operating from USS Kitty Hawk.

Boy I wish we could go back to those days!

Imagine that occurring with a modern fighter jet undergoing testing nowadays. So yes people nowadays for testing are much bigger on safety so things are slower. But then nowadays we can put out stuff that is much better tested and fixed.

[PTTG]

I had an alternate reality seed that started with the Titanic having a spare pair of binoculars, which resulted in the iceberg being spotted moments earlier, which resulted in a more measured, appropriate response, which resulted in only minor damage, which resulted in the ship deflecting the iceberg just fine.

Two crewmen lost, sadly, to minor flooding, but the important thing is the unsinkability was proven; what man made no natural force could overcome.

The effect on the zeitgeist was subtle, but all-but-omnipresent: taking risks in the name of progress was not only acceptable, but a moral imperative. Where we go from there varies, but I for one am tired of WWII parallels. Maybe have chaos theory result in Germany growing into a stable democracy over the course of the '30s. One thing we might see is the early loss of some portion of the scientific community simply due to more lab accidents.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by PTTG

I had an alternate reality seed that started with the Titanic having a spare pair of binoculars, which resulted in the iceberg being spotted moments earlier, which resulted in a more measured, appropriate response, which resulted in only minor damage, which resulted in the ship deflecting the iceberg just fine.

Two crewmen lost, sadly, to minor flooding, but the important thing is the unsinkability was proven; what man made no natural force could overcome.

The effect on the zeitgeist was subtle, but all-but-omnipresent: taking risks in the name of progress was not only acceptable, but a moral imperative. Where we go from there varies, but I for one am tired of WWII parallels. Maybe have chaos theory result in Germany growing into a stable democracy over the course of the '30s. One thing we might see is the early loss of some portion of the scientific community simply due to more lab accidents.

The Hindenburg not crashing would fit into this world.

[David Johnston2]

Instead of the Germans winning World War II, why not let them win World War I? Now it's the 40s and Greater Germany is fighting a two front war against Communist Russia and a French dictatorship...