Talk:Engine of Progress
From Alternative History
Em... this is Sci-fi y'all, especially if its POD is in 2010. Buk5 10:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't say so - it's an alternate history influenced by events in the near future. --Fegaxeyl 11:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- The POD is 1938, only its origin is in the future.--TEAKAY 13:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
GIVES Canada to the Americans? ...I don't know what to say :S
...But SURELY Hitler and much of the elite would have been hanged, or given life-imprisonment, or very long sentences, but all of them just exiled to Greenland? :'( They still had crimes against humanity charges, seven months less of it but... but... they dang let the founder of nazism to go vacation in Greenland for the rest of his life to write a few more books which may or may not inspire neonazis to use his continuing life to rally resistance to Allied occuation forces! I don't think that hanging Hitler would produce too heavy a martyr reaction.
Also, with the Soviets gimped, couldn't that drastically counter the space race's assets in Theo, Rob, and Tim? Usually a competing nation is needed for such priorities, maybe China working on a space programme at the same time? --TEAKAY 13:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- Well, this guys just brought their knowledge on better physics and biology. They did not brought uptime international law. The concept of "war crime" was invented in 1946 for judging the nazi leaders. If the war was solved more quickly and the nazis were not allowed to commit all their crimes, so probably the winners would not be so harsh against them.
- -- Carlos Th (talk) 18:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Building a rocket is a matter of both science (who it works) and engineering (how to built it so it works). ISOTing scientists will not improve engineering. ISOTing engineers will not improve engineering, and even ISOTing scientists will not improve science unless those peoples gain respectability by the scientific community.
But... if the idea is to make WWII better. Why did this people permitted Germany to invade Poland first? Or to Japan attack Pearl Harbor. How about Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium and France? Well, we can claim that they are not experts in history, and they decided not to mess with the European theater just because they understood that an attempt to change things without knowing all consequences might worsen the situation. But at least they should know about Pearl Harbor, and a few ideas on how to prevent it while still justifiying US declaration of war against Japan: better communications, better radar, better radar procedures.
Of course, butterflies might mean Japan not attacking the USA.
-- Carlos Th (talk) 17:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- P.D. And why waiting till 1944 for D-Day?
Ok, first off, they couldn't stop WWII in 1939. They just got to the past and had next to no pull in the scientific, let alone the geopolitical community, so how would they convince anyone what to do without sounding bug freakin' nuts? Secondly, they thought that by advancing the US technologically for the war, they would have a bigger impact than simply running up to the white house lawn, and shouting, "Hey the Japanese are gonna bomb us on December 7th, 1941. Watch Out!" Finally, I'm gonna add a Space race feature to this in context to the Chinese. --YNot1989 20:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- I can understand that, while it would still be possible to stop the war: 1) chances are between slim and none, 2) there is no warrant that preventing that war would make the world better if the nazi's are still in power in Germany.
- Preventing Pearl Harbor is another matter. Since they arrived till PH, there had been over three years, and the Americans had already witnessed the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. One of the key elements that gave the British a clear victory was the use of radar and coordinated communications: So improving radar, improving communications (v.g. comm satellites), improving procedures was something these guys could do, and that could have give the USA a prompter warning on Japanese intentions. Japan would still attack PH by surprise, but the US would have be warned a little earlier, allowing troops to be better prepared to the attack and probably saving US lives, and inflicting some more damage on the Japanese Imperial Navy. You still have the casus belli.
- There is a bigger hole in your story. (And if you prevent it, you had much probably prevented PH as well) When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Third Reich had already attacked the Soviet Union and were at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, causing Stalin to declare the Great Patriotic War (this was no longer a battle between Fascism and Communism, but a battle of survival of the Russian people), and there is no way the Stalin or any other Soviet leader would trust the nazis any more after such stack in the back.
- Now. If you can put a satellite in 1939, you can sure put a bomb in Berlin in December 1941 (or in Tokyo), even if you had not develop atomic bombs yet, you can still put air-combustion and low-pressure bombs. The technology for a satellite launching rocket and a ICBM is just the same. So... why waiting till 1944 for D-Day.
- —Carlos Th (talk) 16:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Fine, I'll change pearl, increase the damage to germany, but I'm keeping the Nazi-Soviet Alliance, I'll elaborate on the premise of it, because they Nazis do not attack the soviets in this timeline for fear of the US having any further advantage in what would have then appeared as a potential war.--YNot1989 05:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC) Happy now?
- Well, althogh it is not me who you should please, if the Nazis do not attack the SU for fear of the US, why would they then decalre war to the US? One of the main reason Hitler declared war to the USA OTL was in the hope of Japan engaging in an eastern Russian front. (An then, if Germany has been cautious enough not to invade the Soviet Union (part of Hitler's Lebenraum), then why isn't Japan that clever?)
- —Carlos Th (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] Canada
since the Statute of westminster (1931), Canada ceased to be a colony and was not Britain to give or sell away. --Marcpasquin 14:01, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Soviet Ally
why would stalin ally with hitler when it was obvious he was done for , and against an obviously very powerful america , its much more likely hed turn on the nazis
[edit] OK!!!!
Alright, after reviewing the sea of complaints regarding this timeline, I have decided to rewrite certain areas of it. There are some things that I will not change however, but will extrapolate on in expanded articles. Those will include: The war will still last until 1945 due to the Soviet invasion of the Americas, and their aide towards the Nazis; Secondly the the US shall receive Most of Canada under voluntary cession by popular referendum, Pearl Harbor will happen, but the Pacific fleet will only be damaged half as bad, because just knowing about the attack won't do much to stop the fact that the Japanese were still going to attack with an enormous force which the US Pacific fleet would have to engage; Finally the Chinese/US space race will receive its own article.
can i do a second version
[edit] Rewrite
I know its been some time since I've done anything to this article, but I think I want to seriously re-write it. First off, I've been reviewing my foreign policy history of the era and I think I can make a more interesting timeline by including some of the twists of the Yalta conference. Secondly, I am still going to expand the United States, but this time over its Pacific and Caribbean territories. Finally, I am going to keep the Soviet Union in power, but the iron curtain will not be drawn, and the Cold War will be more of a chilly war. This will be accomplished by having the war with Japan end before Yalta, so Roosevelt won't have to sell out Eastern Europe to the Soviets just to get them to declare war on Japan at the last minute to prepare for what Roosevelt thought would be a massive invasion to end the war in OTL.--YNot1989 16:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
[edit] criticism.
There is no way Dick Cheney could have been VP in 1974. He was under 35 for crying out loud.
Mao would not become a liberal. He was an out and out totalitarian dictator who murdered 80 million people OTL. What do you think is going to make him into a henry wallace. Buk5 20:54, September 27, 2009 (UTC)
During the second world war Mao was willing to make compromises for the sake of gaining a level of international support. As for Cheney thank you for reminding me, this is why I haven't posted it yet.--YNot1989 16:09, October 1, 2009 (UTC)
- Couple Critiques: The time frame you propose for the advancements that these college students would bring is very fast, in my opinion. Materials sciences, computing, rocketry, etc. would need a significant build up to make the changes (Stem Cells, rocketry, computers). If it were more like 5 or ten years, it would be much more feasible, in my opinion, than just they show up and less than a year later, voilà! 21st century tech restored. Louisiannan 20:38, October 14, 2009 (UTC)
Stem cell guns in 42 or 46? China's first satellite launched in 49 or 52?--TEAKAY 01:03, October 15, 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for brining up those errors in the TL, I have since corrected them. As for the Critiques: The time frame for advancements in computing and rocketry are not that impressive. The first integrated circuits and transistors were extemely basic, that is what has been brought forth using 40s technology. As for Rocketry, Hybrid rockets are the most basic rocket engines imaginable, typically just a big tank of Laughing Gas running down a tube of tire rubber (in the most basic terms) to a regular old De laval, which had been in common use by aerospace engineers of the day like Goddard. As for the Stem Cell Gun, that I'm willing to give you, but I'm just going to let that live on as an illusion to BioShock. It isn't 21st century tech otherwise, just the most basic forms of modern computing and rocketry, but still significantly more advanced than known technology of the day. But I thank you for the critcisms.
[edit] Some Issues
IDK if Henry wallace could make the Presidency. He went into Kolyma, a notorious gulag city (Solzhenitsyn notes it's only purpose was as a gulag), and said all the workers there were volunteers ad that they were happy. Bascially, he fell for a potemkin village.
Source: [[1]]
"In 1944, Henry A Wallace, Roosevelt's vice-president, visited the gold-mining labour camps of Kolyma as part of a grand initiative to invest American money in the Soviet Union. Wallace was completely fooled by the Potemkin Village specially arranged for his visit (with healthy, happy, singing prisoners played by guards and actors from a Cultural Brigade). The ambassador returned to Washington with nothing but praise for his NKVD hosts. In a radio broadcast, he argued that the labour camps were helping to “develop” Siberia on a “patriotic” and “voluntary” basis, much as the pioneer settlers had developed America."
I think you should also go into detail into the UN Multinational Force because it is implying America is surrendering its soverignty and control to the UN, which basically, Congress and the senate as well as the supreme Court would never allow. Heck, it might even be considered treason.
Even with a completely different geopolitical situation, Reagan is still embroiled in a Contra scandal?
But overall, i say it's a well built and solid timeline. Buk5 18:39, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
[edit] America-centicism?
This is a great timeline. It's well thought-out and very logical. But (being from the UK) I just can't overlook the fact that in this war it seems to be totally focused on America's contribution to the war, with minor asides to Churchill and Montgomery. This is understandable - you are an American author, and the main people are of course American, but I still think the rest of the Allies should be given greater mention here. Britain, France and Russia would be seriously annoyed if its American cousins kept all the jets, ICBMs and super-techs (for the time) to itself. That is, in fact, an issue in your two other althists on this topic too - our protagonists seem to relish accelerating America to a technological utopia, but in the process smash and cripple other nation's politics and most likely national ego too.
Also, you say Europe solidifies as a single nation (a common theme in your timelines)? Yes, this is probably a Europe enriched by European technology, but if anything it is less likely to unify - the USSR and US are in (seemingly) a more vicious cold war, and with Russia strongly against American tech they would have an even stronger hold on their proxy states in Eastern Europe - and you can be sure Germany won't be reunited (I supremely doubt that the USSR would concede their sector of Germany to a technologically superior America). In fact, at this point, isn't Spain still fascist? It is possible that the Western European nations would move closer politically, but they still would probably eschew single-state fusion.
And the space race - granted Russia is significantly behind, but it seems to be fated to failure every time - rockets explode, etc. And I really doubt that the US would go uncompeted in an enriched Western World as it explores space.
By all means, keep up the brilliant work and attention to detail here, but please try and consider the effects on other nations too, other than the US's adversaries. It would make for a much more in-depth and rounded timeline, and add plenty of atmosphere.
--Fegaxeyl 19:58, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
- I know people typically focus more on their own countries when writing TLs (apparently their are a lot of Norwegians and Finns on this site), and Americans are probably a little more notorious for centering the 20th century, particularly WWII, on themselves. I appreciate the concern and am currently working on a very detailed WWII page that I am modifying from existing content, and it will focus more on the contributions on the Western Allies as a whole, making references to the US only for the fact that they were the ones to initially receive the technological kick in the pants from the students. Naturally the British, French, Chinese, etc. would receive advanced vehicles and weapons with the Lend Lease policies from the Roosevelt administration, and most likely adapt and design their own after the war, but I'm pretty certain the Soviets would be left out in the cold on the technological exchange, to the degree that they were in OTL. I know that my TLs featuring the students seam overly American-centric, but the reasons for that are mainly that I was too lazy to really develop any of these TLs to the degree of An Independent in 2000, which is focussed largely on the US simply because it is a country I have the best perspective on, but also alludes to international cooperation, the EU, Russia, and the PRC.
I am going to be changing the scenario in Europe, with the Iron Curtain drawn on the Curzon line in Poland, it would be the Poles, not the Germans to become the economic powerhouse of Europe in this TL, Germany would be comparable to Britain's post war economy, powerful, yes; a world player, certainly; but not a true economic superpower. I would cite all of the reasons for this change, but the short answer is the flow of American military equipment to Poland as occurred in Germany in OTL, that led to the hiring and training of engineers, mechanics, technicians, etc. to provide maintenance to these vehicles and weapons that eventually translated into a civilian tech. sector. You need to remember that the only reason the Soviets were able to take as much of Eastern Europe as they did was because along with having boots on the ground in Germany, President Roosevelt made several huge concessions to Stalin in eastern Europe so that he would agree to an invasion of Japan (Most people didn't think the A-bomb would be done soon enough even as late as July), since in this TL, Japan falls sooner rather than later, and US forces make it all the way to Warsaw, Germany would stay united, but Poland would be split in Two, along with other Eastern States. This is the main motivation for an intensified cold war, not just advanced rocketry.
As for the space race, the US and USSR were not competing with their own scientists in OTL, they were competing with the German scientist they captured at Peenemünde. Since the USSR never reached Germany, they would have been severely held back in rocket technology. And as for the Russians screwing up every chance they get, you have to remember that the US actually had fewer accidents in OTL, the Soviets just didn't talk about their screw ups. I am trying to make the space race more competitive, but I am having a hard time deciding which nation would practically be able to compete with a country energized by those with knowledge of advanced rocketry while in the 1940s.
All things considered I thank you for your concerns and will do what I can to remedy them.--YNot1989 16:25, October 26, 2009 (UTC)
