World War Eternal WIP - Take 2

[Zardoz]

Sound a very interesting universe my friend. I will try to keep a eye over it.

A thing. i don't see bad that they not get the silicon-chip. Some advances in some tech fields, not need micro-electronic. I can imagine a race that have high know in chemistry, but have only rough ideas about electronics. Or a race that have high know about electronic and computing, but not develop nuclear tech, etc... But trying not make too unbalanced tech fields. It's hard to believe that a a race which in many fields are a Iron Age tech levels, developed bioengineering.

I have a question for you. In you universe, what happend wich Spain ? Was the Spain civil war ? (begin at 1936, and was the prelude of the WWII). Who won ? And what happened later ? Become finally a Axis ally (if Nationalist-Facist wins here, like our timeline. Spain was near to be, but when the Axis begin to loose, Franco keep Spain neutral watching the final result of the WWII and trying to be friend of the winners.) ? Become neutral ? ? ? ?

[B.J.]

Sweet work! The story sounds very intriguing.

I like the "Buy War Bonds" in the background of the map - very subtle!

"Rand Collins & Company"? Did someone else merge with Rand McNally in your alternate history?

[Major Diarrhia]

Originally Posted by Aethernaut

Yes, the soul turbine. The soul turbine is still the power source of choice for the Axis powers vessels. I've fleshed that out a little too. They can't use it too near heavy gravity wells, so when ships arrive at a planet they maintain a very high orbit. And near dense areas of biological life the turbine overloads because it gets "confused." This puts them behind in gravity control technology on their ships and the ability to land large vessels on planets (which the Allies can do thanks to the Zeta Reticulan craft that crashed at Roswell). It also gave them some trouble adapting the WERB inducer to their ships.

I don't like that, it comes off as very arbitrary, mostly because it's a techomagical device, it's completely unexpected that it would just happen to be effected by gravity wells. Personally, I would create several problems, to counter any advantages. You could require the soul engine rooms to be built like temples, which require heavy, monolithic, stones, and carvings. The reasons for this can be several, 1) to reduce or eliminate the chance of tapping souls remotely and randomly, 2) to facilitate and further control the soul tapping. Both those reasons work right into each other. The magical shielding can simply be internal, rather than building an entire temple structure in each ship. 3) There can be a minimal size for the soul tap, at least for the modern designs. This means vessels below a certain size can't use the engine.

This next idea lead me to the first problem I mentioned, it also stems from our discussion on fast soul draining versus slow soul draining and what the effects might be, there should be a type of soul turbine that taps souls over a large area. In other words these would be unshielded, or shielded but with the spells down partially and with the option to lower them completely or raise them completely. It would also not require a steady flow of victims, it would tap the souls of everyone around it. There would be a minimal population required for it to operate efficiently, as well.

The Nazis could use this as a sort of booby trap, they could send it to nations they are trying to woo but also don't trust, they shouldn't trust anyone. With the shielding at minimum and whatever other devices to extend the tapping range, it would lower the life expectancy of anyone living nearby by a decade or so, there would also be the occasional surge, where a person randomly dies, of "natural causes". If the Nazis should ever decide to, they can drop the shielding completely and ramp up the turbine to full to kill everyone in the area immediately, leaving the city intact. The Nazis would say it's free energy and basic working of soul turbines would have to be kept secret, which fits in with the Nazis.

Another thing I also thought of was that one of the reasons the Nazi enected the Final Solution, was that they were losing and couldn't go forward with their other plan of expelling all the Jews and establishing a homeland of their own for them. In this way, the Nazis could also preserve their primary scape goat. Or it was something like that, maybe it was the start of the war that didn't allow it and the holocaust would happen anyway. If not though, there would still probably be the genocide of the crippled and those considered mentally unfit, and gypsies. So, they, along with fewer Jews anyway, would be the first first to enter the Soul turbines. Once those local populations become too low though, the Nazis will have to look elsewhere. So, they will take from the normal prison populations and lots of mysterious "deaths" while in prison will happen, which will really be disappearances. They would end up with an unusually small prison system, with a not so unusual rate of imprisonment for a dictatorship like that.

On the up side, through outgrowths of the occultechnical development of the soul turbine they gain reactionless propulsion (yet to be named but it will probably have a "Von Braun" in there somewhere) and kinetic energy shielding. They just have to use nuclear reactors or other traditional power sources planetside and jet and rocket propulsion for flight or reaching orbit. Also, their battery technology is on par with the Allies and their high-energy COI lasers and lightning arc cannons work just as well planetside as in space.

The reationless propulsion and kinetic shielding can be the same thing, if you make it an inertialless drive. It could be a field and if anything enters it, it immediately loses any momentum. That would mean, anything that uses kinetics, like explosions or bullets, would be useless. They would just float around inside the field and once they leave, they would zip off with their old momentum. I think that's right. You would have to use lasers or projectiles that are longer than the distance the field extends past the hull, against a ship equipped with that.

Originally Posted by Aethernaut

(Note that '69 is the same year Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to set foot on Rigel Kentaurus A III, claiming it for the Allies. The Sino-Soviets will send a colony ship to Rigel Kentaurus B II a few years later.)

If the allies have psychic abilities, I assume ESP, then Communist spying is going to be tremendously hampered in all areas. That means their best source of getting a leg up is lost. Unless the Soviets have their own crashed alien ship, they're going to be behind everyone. Unless you include them in the allies group and they get psychics, which fits since they're into that sort of thing in a big way. So, any local spying would stop but they would probably develop remote viewing and killing. The CIA would have to develop these abilities as well, as well as defensive abilities to stop remote viewing and killing. You could set it up so it's all a lot like fighting on a computer network. Easy to attack, hard to defend. Remote killing would be sort of like launching a nuke, it should call down a huge retaliatory strike in remote killings, unless it can be done when no one is "looking" and no one can trace it back. That would be just about never.

[Aresius]

And another one is taking the demonised fylfot, the mirrored Svastika into another generation...
How shall the cruelties and inhumanities be taken away from the Sunwheel when always someone is pushing it into the abyss of NS?!

[Major Diarrhia]

Instead of weeping, you can educate anyone confused over the connection between the swastika and Nazis. Not that anyone is having the knee jerk reaction of demanding the swastika removed because it's a naughty symbol and needs a spanking.

[Aresius]

As you wish, Major...

The Sunwheel or Svastika is originally an Indian symbol for Imortality and Eternity... It's exactely the mirrored version as the Nazis took it... It's also a special form of rune...
The ancient nordic alphabeth was made by several runes and one was called 'Sig'... The Twin Sig where laterly used for the SS... (oh what fools... ) The rune-rule says that using double the rune (in any form or position) is eliminating it's power... Sig means Victory... (German 'Sieg'), double the rune doesn't mean total Victory (as they thought...) And evenmore... By drawing a circle around a rune, you embank the powers so they can't evolve... So the fylfot as they used it was ea twiced Sig (no victory at all) and condemced (The circle)... By means of runic mythology it was obvious that they won't succeed...

But because of such idiotic dumbasses each heathen now wearing the Mjöllnyr hammer (the allmighty hammer of Thor...) is now watched like a Nazi and everyone saying the Svastika is in truth a good sign is nearly killed...

[Aethernaut]

Originally Posted by Aresius

And another one is taking the demonised fylfot, the mirrored Svastika into another generation...
How shall the cruelties and inhumanities be taken away from the Sunwheel when always someone is pushing it into the abyss of NS?!

I knew there would be at least one. I do not appreciate the condescending tone. I'm well aware of the history of the swastika before, during, and after the Second World War but I will not glaze over real-world history when extrapolating an alternate. I think George Santayana's most famous quote is particularly apropos in this situation. I, personally, am very disturbed when I see the NSDAP use of the swastika replaced with the Iron Cross in order to bend to politically-correct revisionism in marketing or other uses.

I will not engage in an ethics discussion involving the NSDAP's choice of symbol. This forum is in no way the place for that and the TOS explicitly states "Please remember we're not CNN and topics of a political, religious, or sexual orientation are not to be discussed here." This is a fictional work extrapolated from real-world history. It's something that's been done hundreds, if not thousands of times in written fiction, motion pictures, television, and art. Historically, the Nazi Party used the swastika as it's symbol. Period. End of discussion. If anyone viewing the artwork or reading this thread is offended by historical symbology or history itself they are certainly welcome to ignore it.

[Major Diarrhia]

Oh, this is funny, I thought Aresius was complaining about people seeing it in the wrong light and how they would want it removed, when he was the one wanting it removed.

[Aethernaut]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

I don't like that... <SNIP>

Well, you got the short answer which doesn't really go into all the details. It's a lot more complicated as the gravity effect is a field disruption issue. The psionics/mystic powers that manifested after the Twilight Days are directly tied time-space on a quantum level. It's actually not an arbitrary decision at all.

The reationless propulsion and kinetic shielding can be the same thing... <SNIP>

Yeah, you've pretty much hit this on the head as far as the two being related though my description is a little different. Basically, the reactionless propulsion projectors distort time-space and causes the vessel to "fall" in a specified direction and the kinetic shielding only severely slows the projectiles using the same time-space distortion (and projectors).

If the allies have psychic abilities, I assume ESP, then Communist spying is going to be tremendously hampered...<SNIP>

The Sino-Soviets are Allies and work hand-in-hand with the USNA and Oceanic Commonwealth. As a result of this and the 40+ years of war, by 1984 the USNA is a lot more socialist and the PSSC is a lot more democratic than their real-world counterparts the USA and USSR. The espionage situation between the Allies and Axis is complex to say the least. The Germans and Japanese use their occult powers to the same advantage as the Allies psionics in this regard. On a related note, "powered" humans with prescience and remote viewing powers are integral to navigation in the use of the WERB inducer.

[Aethernaut]

Originally Posted by Zardoz

I have a question for you. In you universe, what happend wich Spain ?

The history of the Spanish Civil War doesn't change at all and Franco's boys still win. In 1943 Spain allies with Portugal and joins the Axis. Eventually they become part of the German hegemony. In mid-1943 Spanish forces are instrumental in a flanking maneuver coordinated with Rommel's forces that destroys the Allied army during Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. This leads to the death of a George Patton in Algeria. Operation Torch is the last Allied offensive on the western front. By the 1950s the Third Reich firmly controls a large chunk of North Africa and several of those countries, mostly west African nations, are under the governance of Spain and Portugal.