Looney Labs Chrononauts Mailing list Archive

Re: [Chrononauts] RE: Chrononauts 2000

  • FromJonathan Cogan <coganjd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateWed, 22 Feb 2006 20:33:55 -0500
It would also be cool to work in a "China Becomes a Democracy" - possibly a shift in the dominant super-power after the US all but collapses due to lack of oil.

Peter Oliver wrote:

Hey all,
First, thanks for the praise! I'm glad you like it. Now for the issues...

The link again is http://web.njit.edu/~pjo3/fluxx/chrono2k.htm

From: Jonathan Cogan <coganjd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
One change I'd make is the patch for 2003 an abolition of the electoral college and build that into someone's identity :)

From: Laurie Menke <laurie_menke@xxxxxxxxx>
Ooohh...I like the abolition of electoral college idea!  :o)

Interesting idea. But is it of enough historical interest to warrant a place
on the timeline? Ultimately, how many lives would it impact? I rather like
the interplay between the actual event and the patch for 2003. What does
everyone else think?

From: Laurie Menke <laurie_menke@xxxxxxxxx>
Am I right in assuming that the blue-->green and
purple-->brown color changes as well as the ''
designations after the dates represent the cross into
the future?

Correct. On Andy's Mysteries of the Timeline page, he has some thoughts
about a possible Chrononauts sequel, set in the future, using a
green-and-brown timeline. (He also furnished the graphics and text for the
9/11 linchpin.) I'm using the 'double-prime' designation for future events
because these represent ANOTHER alternate history. Since we don't actually
know what 2015 in our, real-world timeline will bring, we can consider both
2015' and 2015" as alternate scenarios.

From: Laurie Menke <laurie_menke@xxxxxxxxx>
Why does Man Walks on Mars depend on the World Oil
Supply being Exhausted?  Is it that they are searching
on Mars for an alternate fuel supply?

From: Matthew Sach <matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Aha, note that it's the Europeans who do the trip, and in Europe there's a
lot of fusion research happening. Series like Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's
Dawn" trilogy mention spaceships with "fusion" drives, but I'm still not
exactly sure how they're supposed to work.

I wondered if it was something to do with work being done on ion-drive
propulsion. Then I realised that you still need a buttload of reaction mass to get out of Earth's gravity well, and an ion-drive is a bit slow for humans over shorter distances like in-system travel.

I originally imagined the 2015' and 2019' timeline as being 'dominant.'
There's already an initiative in China to establish a lunar base, but this
would only be possible with a power source as reliable and renewable as
fusion. If that technology hadn't been developed by that time, the dominant
aerospace program would shift, possibly to a Mars mission. I really wanted
something special for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and this
seemed like a good fit.
I felt that a European program would be more successful for a number of
reasons. First, NASA (and arguably, the USA as a superpower) is on the
decline. The space program was crippled by the grounding of the fleet
following Columbia, the Hubble is being abandoned, the ISS is bleeding money
and there's little interest in the space program in the mainstream public. The European Union, on the other hand, is rapidly growing as a political,
technological, and economic force on the global stage. Private enterprise is
gaining momentum, and the British Virgin Corporation has the rights to
SpaceShip One and is beginning commercial spaceflight ventures. European renewable energy technology is years ahead of the rest of the
world; hydroelectric, solar and wind power could sustain them while the rest
of the world is embroiled in a post-industrial age scramble for energy
resources. Under these circumstances, a united Europe would conceivably have
the power, technology, and motivation to attempt a Mars landing, where no
other nation could.

From: Matthew Sach <matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I was thoroughly impressed, and I'm tempted to print them out and add them to the game if you're happy with
that?

Don't print these out; they have been scaled down for the webpage. I have
the original Photoshop documents more than twice the resolution, and once
I've finalized these cards I'll make those available to download and print.
Additionally you'd need the appropriate cardstock to shuffle in the patches
and identities with the rest of the deck, unless you pasted them over your
spare Beatles Reunion Albums and another set of Lost Identities.

I'm surprised nobody commented on the Identities! I really like them, and
there's plenty of room for anyone else's contributions.

Pete

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