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Gordian Protocol Teaser MAJOR spoiler added

David's and Jacob Holo's newest alternate, cross history series.
Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by PeterZ   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:19 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:The way around the "time travel paradox" is that when you travel back in time, any change you make forks a new time line - i.e, there are now two time lines - your original, and the one created by your actions, and they will continue to diverge based on that change. RFC has used this in several previous books - "The Apocalypse Troll" jumps immediately to mind.

All of this is very much in keeping with the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics - where every quantum event causes a fork - wherein the wave function collapses to all possible outcomes, each causing a new universe to arise.


The problem with using this solution is....where does the energy to create the new universe come from? If one believes in a omnipotent divine Creator, that solves it nicely. Outside of an omnipotent eternal being, what other explanaition can there be?
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 12:38 pm

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You can turn this around, and ask where did the energy to create this Universe come from - and yet you have to admit that this universe does exist - or it is all an elaborate illusion, it which case we should create the illusion that there are multiple RFC individuals all writing simultaneously to feed our insatiable desire for his work :D
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The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Dilandu   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:03 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:The other odd thing is that Operation Yellow Brick was launched from "occupied Japan" - which implies that World War II was fought but WWII probably doesn't happen without the rise of Hitler in Germany - which requires the extinction of the German Empire. There is definitely something odd in the timeline.


Well, the US/Japan was was almost inevitable at some point - unless, of course, they manage to find a common enemy - so it would happens with good probability even with the other situation in Europe. The Japan was fixed on dominating the Far East, specifically China, basically for the most of Meiji era. The victory over Russia in 1905 led to gross overestimation of Japanese capabilities. And US have a rigid stance about not allowing the China to be dominated by any single power.

P.S. Must point out, that the German Empire have similar views on China as Japan.
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by runsforcelery   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:02 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:The other odd thing is that Operation Yellow Brick was launched from "occupied Japan" - which implies that World War II was fought but WWII probably doesn't happen without the rise of Hitler in Germany - which requires the extinction of the German Empire. There is definitely something odd in the timeline.



Really? I wonder what it could possibly be . . . . :twisted:


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Joat42   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 7:26 pm

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It seems everyone assumes a lot from the snippet we got.

Perhaps the multiverse is fractured and different timelines bleed into each other which means there is no clear divergence point.

---
Jack of all trades and destructive tinkerer.


Anyone who have simple solutions for complex problems is a fool.
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by runsforcelery   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 10:55 pm

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Joat42 wrote:It seems everyone assumes a lot from the snippet we got.

Perhaps the multiverse is fractured and different timelines bleed into each other which means there is no clear divergence point.


Oh, there's definitely a divergence point. I like Dilandu's approach to bracketing in on it, but he hasn't quite got it. Not too shabby from the limited evidence in the teaser, though! :)


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by cnrd22   » Wed Nov 28, 2018 11:15 pm

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What about something simpler like the USA never entered WW1 on the Entente side (or even allied with Germany for some reason) and after the Brest Litovsk peace, the Germans actually broke through and defeated the French and the English and then turned on the Soviet Union eventually, while the USA (or whoever is meant by the Pacific allies as it may just be only a part of the USA for that matter) turned on Japan as an ally on the Entente?
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Randomiser   » Thu Nov 29, 2018 5:07 am

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cnrd22 wrote:What about something simpler like the USA never entered WW1 on the Entente side (or even allied with Germany for some reason) and after the Brest Litovsk peace, the Germans actually broke through and defeated the French and the English and then turned on the Soviet Union eventually, while the USA (or whoever is meant by the Pacific allies as it may just be only a part of the USA for that matter) turned on Japan as an ally on the Entente?


Apparently, Imperial Germany did better in WW1 than in our timeline, so we need to account for that. The Bolsheviks victory was not a given, but could well have occurred if Imperial Russia got kicked militarily, as in RL. Also not beyond possibility that the Chinese communists attempted to take over in this timeline also some time into the 20th century but were defeated, depending on who was running China at the time.

I wondered about the USA entering WW1 on the wrong side too. I can't think of who else the Pacific Allies might have been. Who else might have had enough clout? An independent Australia, or India? White Russians from the Eastern part of Russia the Soviets don't control? Or maybe the title "Pacific Allies" is one of those historical quirks that doesn't quite mean what the uninitiated think it does?
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by Dilandu   » Thu Nov 29, 2018 6:58 am

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Randomiser wrote:
Apparently, Imperial Germany did better in WW1 than in our timeline, so we need to account for that. The Bolsheviks victory was not a given, but could well have occurred if Imperial Russia got kicked militarily, as in RL. Also not beyond possibility that the Chinese communists attempted to take over in this timeline also some time into the 20th century but were defeated, depending on who was running China at the time.


It require an improbable amount of coincidences, which is not impossible, but highly improbable. Basically what you are suggesting the common alternate history problem, known as "hyperdeterminism".

The hyperdeterminism is basically the attempt to claim "except for required changes everything else would went as usual". It's like (for example) author described the world where the American Revolution in XVIII century failed and North America remained British, but in the later half XX century there is a cold war between British Empire,led by Prime Minister John Kennedy, and Soviet Union, led by Nikita Khrushev. Which is very improbable, because with such large divergence point so early, the history of XIX and XX century would be completely changed, the real causes of Cold War and Soviet Union existence would be eliminated, and Khrushev and Kennedy would never actually be born, since the pattern of human interactions would be completely changed.

Don't get me wrong, the historical determinism existed. The global path of history is determined by the global processes, and only partially influenced by human actions. But determinism worked only with large systems - nations, states, ect., and it is far from being absolute.

If you need an analogue - historical determinism is the force of gravity, that forced the river of time to flow to the ocean, but it did not exactly determine each meter of river path. The human actions are the rocks, hills and ravines, which directed the actual course of the river path. It is still going to the ocean, thought.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Gordian Protocol Teaser
Post by cnrd22   » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:32 am

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Dilandu wrote:It require an improbable amount of coincidences, which is not impossible, but highly improbable. Basically what you are suggesting the common alternate history problem, known as "hyperdeterminism".

The hyperdeterminism is basically the attempt to claim "except for required changes everything else would went as usual". It's like (for example) author described the world where the American Revolution in XVIII century failed and North America remained British, but in the later half XX century there is a cold war between British Empire,led by Prime Minister John Kennedy, and Soviet Union, led by Nikita Khrushev. Which is very improbable, because with such large divergence point so early, the history of XIX and XX century would be completely changed, the real causes of Cold War and Soviet Union existence would be eliminated, and Khrushev and Kennedy would never actually be born, since the pattern of human interactions would be completely changed.



I completely agree with the above in general but in the specific case of WW1, the Eastern front, the Tsarist collapse, the Bolshevik coup and then successful hold on power, things are simpler:

- roughly speaking in WW1, Germany fought the Anglo-French forces to a stalemate after some initial successes, the Russians trounced the Austrian Empire forces (and the Turks too, so they had successes to compensate for the massive defeats against Germany in late 1914, 1915 and 1917) and the Germans trounced the Russians, while economically, England and Germany were in (relatively) best shape even in 1918, France held on, while the Austro-Hungarian empire and Russia were in worst shape

- while overshadowed by the immense human losses of WW2, Russia actually lost a lot of soldiers (in millions) in both casualties and prisoners (who later formed the core of the Red Army after Brest Litovsk) - Great Britain and France lost considerably fewer people in WW2 (for example I just visited the noted Scottish war memorial "cathedral" in Edinburgh Castle and there were over 200k Scots who died in WW1 and some 40k in WW2), so it's no wonder that WW1 is much more vivid there from that point of view, but Russia and Germany for that matter, suffered greatly too, but much less than in WW2, so there that war is more vivid

- Lenin was unquestionably the driving force of the Bolshevik takeover and while the Tsarist empire collapsed due to defeat, nobody knows what would have happened if for example dismissing as highly unlikely the Lenin play to take Russia out of the war (as the Provisional Government dutifully fought on; badly true but not worse than in 1915 say and given Russia's immense population and territorial reserves that was enough), the Germans wouldn't have allowed Lenin to pass through their territories (from Switzerland) and provided him with a lot of money to jump-start the Bolshevik agitation when in Russia - this doesn't mean that Lenin was a German agent as some implied, just that his and Germany's interests were common for a while at least

- the peace of Brest Litovsk, while unquestionably unsustainable even in the medium run, gave the Bolsheviks (and like with everything about them, even the name was a propaganda lie as the SR were by far the most popular left-wing party and even the Mensheviks were more popular) 2 crucial things - time to consolidate their hold on power after the coup and trained officers coming from German captivity (so highly disgusted with the largely incompetent Tsarist high command and superior officers that led them to those shattering defeats and captivity) to form the core of the Red Army

- the decision of the German high command to stake everything on the Spring Offensive of 1918 was due to the entry of America in the war and the realization that the material forces changed dramatically (America's resources and population trumped Russia's surrender plus the Bolsheviks were untrustful anyway, while any other government replacing them would have denounced the peace treaty, so considerable forces had to be kept in the east to enforce Brest Litovsk, not to mention that the Germans were ready to launch an attack against the Bolshevik government a few times in 1918 for various reasons); and even so the Germans were successful for a while, until they met the full force of the Anglo-French armies, full force that could be deployed only because ~1 million USA soldiers were in France to guard their backs

So overall, assume WW1 goes as usual (its start had nothing to do with America really) but the USA doesn't enter the war (for example Teddy Roosevelt is a historically successful but failing in health and fairly unpopular President in 1917 after winning elections in 1908, 1912 and then 1916, last due to WW1 and him regarded as the only one to lead the USA in this perilous times or Germany doesn't go the unrestricted submarine warfare way etc - here lots of scenarios can be envisioned), Russia collapses, Brest Litovsk is signed but Germany has the time to fully exploit it, rather than rush all in a mad gamble...
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