What if the premise of Harry Turtledove's A World of Difference was true? Instead of a barren lifeless Mars we have a Class-M Minerva. Assuming life on Earth devlopes the same as OTL history would be pretty the same until the 20th centuary. What would our space program look like if the was a another world within reach that humans could live on? When would we make it to Miverva?
Minerva, the 4th rock from the sun
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MrP said:I dunno. I think it's just geological AH writ large.
Which is part of teh domain of ASB.
As has been said a billion times berfore- its not just ISOT or all people in France suddenly turning into turnips. It is also stuff that is stupidly unlikely, stuff beyond our understanding, etc...
Having a large life bearing Mars form...Maybe could fall under true AH. To have the rest of the solar system be identical and to have Earth develop exactly the same way though- now thats ASB.
MrP
Banned
Leej said:
I still disagree. There's a huge mess of detritus hovering about the galaxy. One simply postulates a sufficiently distant PoD and removes a Minerva's worth of material from elsewhere and puts it here. I can quite easily see things trundling on in a recognisably similar fashion. It's simply a larger Mars in the end, right? Must confess not to being at all familiar with t'story . . .
I thought that was because you thought ASB was a insult...Red said:Which it is not
Hmm, I think we have been there before
Big surprise, eh...
Yes, it is perfectly possible for a slightly larger planet to form in the place of Mars. For this to have absolutely no effect on the formation of the rest of the solar system though to the extent that not just the same animals evolve on Earth but the same human cultures....That is where ASB comes in.
Worldwar is officially well within the domain of ASB and its a lot more likely then A World of Difference.
MrP
Banned
Leej said:
Hardly, old boy. As Sealion is generally understood it isn't low end probability - it is so improbable that it's indistinguishable from impossible.
However, a solar system ATL in which absolutely every single condition on Earth is the same as OTL and the only difference is having a bigger Mars could quite easily turn out the same. I am not saying it is inevitable - nor am I suggesting that we'll have every single OTL event happening in the same order and at the same time. But Minerva is outside the parameters of consideration.
Otherwise I could posit without preamble something like: during the formation of the system a planet coalesces 1 AU further from its sun that in OTL. Today humanity dispatched her first mission to Pluto. Which is just an automatic assumption that things would be different.
Put it this way: I have a coin. I toss it once and it comes up heads. Then I travel back in time and change a lightbulb in the next room before old -me tosses the coin for the first time. Since the lightbulb is irrelevant to the tossing of the coin, its changing won't have any effect on the coin - which may still come up either heads or tails.
In short, I consider it both feasible for the presence of Minerva to cause all the coins tossed OTL to change their faces, or for it to have no effect at all. She might capture the Moon, for example. But it is not inevitable that simply by existing everything on Earth will change. It may or may not. What did Doc Brown say, "Your future isn't written yet! Nobody's is!"
I take the idea of a Planet Minerva as being basically Venus and Mars swap places. It requires a very old POD. I guess you could also argue that it requires somehow no changest in asteroid or comet hits but I do not believe it is ASB.
Of course whilst this POD is very old it might only start to have human consequneces in the 1960s
Of course whilst this POD is very old it might only start to have human consequneces in the 1960s
Derek Jackson said:
Assuming a ASB force field of some sort keeps Earth off in a pocket dimension where everything develops normally and humans do arise the presence of a brighter blue Mars would probally have quite a impact on ancient mythologies and so the development of societies.
The Royal Navy all getting drunk is a lot more likely the the formation of Minerva, the evolution of life and culture on earth exactly the same, etc... There is scientific evidence to back up that the Royal Navy could indeed all get drunk.
The scientific evidence for the solar system developing as we know it though with a big Mars...its against it.
Sure there wouldn't be much effect on the grand scheme on the solar system however there would be alterations minor and major to most comets and asteroids that come into the inner solar system- hell even the asteroid belt itself.
For the moon and all this probally won't matter, so we have a crater here instead of their.
For Earth though, a life bearing world. This has HUGE effects. Mass extinctions take place at different times and so have different survivors and so have the subsequent rise of life be different.
If it was Pluto that ended up slightly different- then I suppose you could get away with it without it being ASB. Maybe even for Neptune, or Uranus or maybe even Saturn.
But if you mess around with the inner solar system (or Jupiter)....Then asteroids that come near Earth will be seriously affected.
Read up on the butterfly effect (even though this goes far beyond that) and you will see how non inevitable everything is.
MrP
Banned
Look, we're just going to get frustrated arguing here. The premise is that Earth history trundles along pretty much as OTL till the 20th C. I agree that mythology would be different. The very fact that the planet's called Minerva, not Mars, is an implicit acceptance of this. But I suppose where we differ is over precisely how we see the PoD. You see it as Minerva formed, ergo everything must be different because of t'gravity and whatnot. Since it's implied everything here is pretty much as OTL, I'm seeing an implicit suggestion that Minerva is the most obvious PoD, but cometary paths, asteroid movements and a whole host of other things have also been subtly changed either prior to or as a result of Minerva's formation, with the result that they end up striking Earth pretty much as OTL. Hence the great similarity to OTL.
NapoleonXIV
Banned
Leej said:
Why?
If you're suggesting that the extra mass in Mars would have such an effect on Earth as to even divert most asteroid collisions I respectfully suggest you reread your celestial mechanics. Vanishingly small effects are generally seen as negligible beyond a certain point and the difference of mass in a regular vs an Earth sized Mars is far below it, given the size of the solar system. IIRC most of the influence of all the planets on the sun, frex, is routinely ignored as insignificant in most calculations.
The Board said:
"other such weirdness" as I understand it means stuff like other dimensions. It doesn't even include FTL, at least not by implication as I've seen interstellar travel in real time commonplace in many FH here.
Max Sinister
Banned
On Earth, every little change will lead to a butterfly effect, which grows bigger and bigger, and can easily influence humans born - change one sperm, and a different person is born.
But if the change happens on a different planet... since there's almost a perfect vacuum between the planets, even changes on atomic level will be rare. And those happening might be even too smal to influence sperms.
The bigger Mars, however... the gravitational effect will be there, even if very small.
But if the change happens on a different planet... since there's almost a perfect vacuum between the planets, even changes on atomic level will be rare. And those happening might be even too smal to influence sperms.
The bigger Mars, however... the gravitational effect will be there, even if very small.
Max Sinister said:
Well this is leading to not too little effects on Earth- replacing Jupiter as the 3rd brightest object in the night sky (probally) like that?
Considering how big ancient peoples were on astronomy that will definatly change a lot.
But anyway, we won't get to that stage.
Its not just rediverting current asteroid paths however, the very formation of the solar system is being messed with here- many different asteroids on different paths from the start.
And you totally have the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying a Earth sized Mars will act as a guardian Jupiter. I'm saying it will simply change asteroid paths for better and for worse so that we get them hitting Earth at different time.
Talking in the grand scheme about the solar system as a whole and speaking of asteroids going anywhere you would be right however we're on about the inner solar system here, a very small area, and we're on about asteroids hitting Earth at the exact time (well the exact time probally won't matter but on a geological scale) they did IOTL
Besides, the biggest evidence for this belonging in ASB I don't beleive I overlooked: the ASB forum is also for fictional universe stuff.
Oh you noticed it before me.
And its not just me saying this belongs in ASB, there is a presedant. There have been many many threads on different solar systems forming over in that forum as anyone who treat it seriously and not just as a dumping ground for rubbish would notice.
Also- World War is over in the ASB forum and that is a lot more likely then this, it involves aliens in other solar systems. Nothing different here to effect human evolution and cultural development.
Max Sinister said:
Butterflies are an assumption, not a proven fact. I see nothing wrong with starting with an assumption of a larger planet in Mars' position (POD circa 4.5+/- billion years ago) and postulating how it would affect humans. The only problem would be if Jupiter had a strong influence on the final size. The assumption includes that any major extinctions caused by impacts would occur similar to OTL. Even if the K/T impact occurred a little earlier or a little later, it wouldn't change that much.