Proposal: Alternate timeline story.

E

Expendable

Spaceman
I got the idea from Bainbridge's telling Tolwyn in Fleet Action that "this war won't really be over till we storm through the rubble of the Imperial palace and raise the Confederation flag".

What if there was no armistice? What if Red Three had crippled the Kilrathi Carrier yards? Hakaga carriers met by a fully armed and ready Third Fleet in Kilrathi space, with Tolwyn and Concordia in the lead?

From my reading of Fleet Action, Foreign Minister Jamison's traitorous actions were spurred on by the loss of her son, and his subsequent capture and usage as a bargaining chip. What would have happened if her son hadn't been captured, Red Three leaked, and the false peace a drug fantasy?

How does that sound? I know its a bit idealistic, but thinking of Concordia in orbit around Kilrah instead of a wreck on Vespus has its charms.

Kindly leave commentary.
 
You can probaly write it from a theoretical perspective, because I am sure Confed intel did a lot to calculate it. Bainbridge had that supercomputer (mentioned in End Run) and it probaly inputted and outputted all of these theoretical data and all of that stuff. No where would they have even considered the possibility of the Kilrathi surrendering so soon like they did for the False Peace. If I remembered correctly, ConFleet brought 9-10 new carriers early in 2668, with another 4 on the way.

However, if you have newbies like Sylvester (or worse ... Concordia) on your writing team, you are screwed from start. Might as well quit now cause you'll end up wasting your time in the future. :mad:
 
Was the supercomputer the same as the one in WCIVN where Tolwyn tells the Lance that there was no way that the terrans could have won the war?(I don't have the game, so I don't know if its in there)
 
Another one for your theoretical story: What if they had found a "fix" for the PTC that allowed them to still use them? Even if they were about 1/2 as powerful after being adjusted to remove the "random go boom" problem. Another interesting thing: if their conventional fleet was still at it's pre-Armistice strength, would they have persued the Behemoth and Temblor bomb projects? And what about Hunter? He died on that long trek to the hidden Kilrathi shipyards. There are a lot of altered situations to pan out if the Battle of Earth never happened. If you write it good, it could be the WC equivalent of a clancy novel. A war that ends with Marines storming the Palace after Confleet "planet hops" to Kilrah (think Pacific fighting, WW2), instead of a lucky Wing Commander pulling a Death Star maneuver (Hamill does that too much).
 
What qabout a story where the supercomputer which computed the wargames tries to take over the Confederation to install an utopic society?
 
Stop copying Star Trek.


Expendable, what you need to do is use Issac Asimovs theory of a "Minimum Necessary Change" to produce the "Maximum Desired Result"
Wheras the book i'm reading currently, called 'Fox on the Rhine" is a alternate history of world war II as if the bomb plot to kill hitler succeded. In reality, the colonel who was next to hitler hit the briefcase with the bomb with his foot. He then moved it over to the other side of a concrete pilliar and when the bomb went off ,Hitler survived. Their MNC was to have the Colonel sneeze at that moment so he doesn't move the bomb and so hitler dies, allowing the story to continue. Ypu need to find a small detail and change it that will produce the maximum result that you want.
 
But . . . Stalin would rise to power! (obvious reference from Command and Conquer: Red Alert).
 
I'm using the book as an example, you could find a small change in the storyline to make the idea work.

And no, in the book, Himmler rises to power.
 
Sylvester said:
Stop copying Star Trek.
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I'm fairly sure Star Trek was not the first Sci-Fi to come up with the alternate universe idiea.

Sylvester said:
Expendable, what you need to do is use Issac Asimovs theory of a "Minimum Necessary Change" to produce the "Maximum Desired Result"
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And this isn't what he's doing... how? The only thing he's changing is that the armistice never happens.
 
t.c.cgi said:
I'm fairly sure Star Trek was not the first Sci-Fi to come up with the alternate universe idea.
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Actually I think the "Star Trek" comment was in response to Lynx's line about the computer trying to take over Confed (to me it sounds a little too much like Skynet taking over in the Terminator series, though).


And this isn't what he's doing... how? The only thing he's changing is that the armistice never happens.
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Ah, but what is the minimum necessary change to allow that to happen? Perhaps a certain key person is absent at the meeting where the Kilrathi would have decided to offer the Armistice?
 
Ijuin said:
Ah, but what is the minimum necessary change to allow that to happen? Perhaps a certain key person is absent at the meeting where the Kilrathi would have decided to offer the Armistice?
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Or perhaps Thrakath doesn't agree that it is a workable idea.
 
t.c.cgi: As I recall, behemoth was already on the way, as a "stealth dreadnought armored against medium yield anti-matter weapons". That would be icing on the cake for a full strength Confederation Fleet. And for that later post, what if Thrakhath tells Baron Jukaga where he can put his armistice, as it violates the Kilrathi pride and so on...

Bob McDob: That's the basic premise. Without his capture, Foreign Minister Jamison would have no reason to betray the Confed, and thus not creat an armistice... I just forgot to mention that in the initial post.

Sylvester: Jamison's son not being captured is the tiny event that changes history.

And I just realized something. Would Thrakhath turn Hobbes back into the Kilrathi spy? Or would he remain lovable Hobbes, Blair's wingman and hero of the Confederation?
 
Expendable said:
t.c.cgi: As I recall, behemoth was already on the way, as a "stealth dreadnought armored against medium yield anti-matter weapons". That would be icing on the cake for a full strength Confederation Fleet.
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While there's not a lot of solid information available on the Omega dreadnaught, it is known that it isn't the Behemoth. The Omega was to be an entire class of ships, and a true dreadnaught, whereas the Behemoth is a one-shot special ship, and decidedly not a dreadnaught (laser turrets are the only armament besides the main gun, which IIRC isn't very practical for targeting ships, if the firing sequence scene in the Loki IV test shot is any indication), let alone not very stealthy.
 
Expendable said:
Bob McDob: That's the basic premise. Without his capture, Foreign Minister Jamison would have no reason to betray the Confed, and thus not creat an armistice... I just forgot to mention that in the initial post.
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No, you did, it's just that everyone decided to ignore it for some reason.
 
Expendable said:
Bob McDob: That's the basic premise. Without his capture, Foreign Minister Jamison would have no reason to betray the Confed, and thus not creat an armistice... I just forgot to mention that in the initial post.
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I disagree. While I don't remember exactly all the Jamison-related events in FA, the armistice was not signed only because she wanted her son back. Had this been the case, the armistice obviously wouldn't have been signed at all, because the president would have overruled it.

In fact, once the armistice was offered, Confed had no choice but to sign it. After twenty-four years of war (indeed, thirty years of war if you count the period before Confed officially declared war), no government could have possibly survived the public outrage that would follow if it ignored the possibility of a peace agreement. The only thing that would change in your Jamison-son-not-captured scenario is that the government would be much more wary of the Kilrathi, and perhaps a bit more prepared when the armistice ended. If you want to do an alternative history story with no armistice (which is indeed an interesting idea), you should, IMHO, come up with a way of preventing the Kilrathi from offering the armistice in the first place.

(about your Hobbes question - I think Thrakhath would have activated Hobbes had the Kilrathi been on the brink of defeat, so if there was no armistice, he might have even done it sooner)
 
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