This chapter reminded me how fascinating a South America setting can be. Kudos for your descriptive skills, Jonathan!
So how much of a space presence does humanity have in the 2100s
What an amazing timeline. I'm not finished just yet but I just read the Venezuelan War update where West Indies federate as a dominion. I can only wonder what TTL's A House For Mr. Biswas looks like, and if Naipaul ends up as any less of a curmudgeon than he did IOTL.
Understand that the lack of comments is merely the result of awestruck admiration. This, as with the rest of the thread is great. I am not exaggarating when I say that this thread is perhaps my favorite work of fiction, bar none.
This chapter reminded me how fascinating a South America setting can be. Kudos for your descriptive skills, Jonathan!
Well, to be fair, the role of the government, and its success, being judged off handling the environment has been an idea, especially in China, from the very start.Thank you! In case it sparks any more discussion, I'll mention that one thing I wanted to illustrate with this story (aside from rich 22nd-century Bolivia) is that by 2100, environmental management is both the most important and the most characteristic function of government. If someone in the Malêverse eighty years hence were asked "what is government for," the most likely answer would be "to keep the planet going," just as a medieval person might answer "roads and ports" or a mid-20th century person "social welfare" or alternatively "national security."
But those are all the best pats of his writing!!!I could hope that TTL's closest analogue of Naipaul wouldn't have as much of an inferiority/superiority complex vis-a-vis the cultures with which he interacts - maybe if his father (and by extension he) were influenced by the protest movements and political alliances of TTLs 1910s and 1920s, his view of such matters might be more sanguine.
Well, to be fair, the role of the government, and its success, being judged off handling the environment has been an idea, especially in China, from the very start.
But those are all the best pats of his writing!!!
so whats streaming like in this timeline? and is otl better or worse then the male timeline?
so how much has animation has changed in 2100? also, I don't think you did an update on this world equivalent of western and eastern animation?I'd imagine that streaming, by whatever name it's called ITTL, would be much like OTL. Once something like the internet exists, real-time digital transmission of video, music, etc. would seem to be an inevitable development. The difference would be in what gets streamed, and TTL's music and cinema have been mentioned here and there throughout the thread. Maybe the business model would be different as well depending on the international copyright regime and how access to the internet is distributed, but that's not something I really know enough about to speculate on how it might be different (others' thoughts are welcome as always).
Better or worse is in the eye of the beholder - some people from OTL might think the Malêverse is a better place and others not, depending on their outlook.
In post 7203, I mentioned Moon and Mars colonies as well as asteroid mining (the last done mainly via robotics); there's also a fair amount of construction capacity in LEO and a space elevator either being built or in the advanced planning stage. There has been a lot of unmanned exploration of the outer system but given Hohmann transfer times, no one has gone there just yet. An unmanned interstellar probe has been discussed but the logistics remain daunting; OTOH, space telescope capacity has been vastly increased, and we know a lot more about the universe than we could imagine knowing today.
If this seems like a conservative prediction for 2100, BTW, it is; I tend to think that we've just about exhausted the steep part of the S-curve and that physical limits will make advances a lot slower going forward. Your mileage may vary.
I'll take this up further in some of the forthcoming Malêverse 2100 posts, and when I'm finished with the 2100 series, I'm planning a final story set in 2200 that will look outward toward the universe.
Thank you. Naipaul himself is unlikely to exist ITTL; he was born more than 90 years after the POD and his family might not have even immigrated to Trinidad, so his closest ATL-cousins might be in India or in another part of the former British Empire such as Guyana or Fiji. (Naipaul as an Indo-Fijian writer would be kind of fascinating.)
OTOH, there are almost certainly figures like him in TTL's Trinidad - there are certainly Indo-Trinidadian literary families, and no doubt they've produced their share of difficult geniuses. I could hope that TTL's closest analogue of Naipaul wouldn't have as much of an inferiority/superiority complex vis-a-vis the cultures with which he interacts - maybe if his father (and by extension he) were influenced by the protest movements and political alliances of TTLs 1910s and 1920s, his view of such matters might be more sanguine. And given the elements of his father's life in Mr. Biswas, I'd expect that the subject matter of his seminal works would be very contingent on his and his parents' background; if his father was a Capildeo by marriage as Naipaul's was or married into another prominent family, it's possible that he might write something quite similar.
Thank you! In case it sparks any more discussion, I'll mention that one thing I wanted to illustrate with this story (aside from rich 22nd-century Bolivia) is that by 2100, environmental management is both the most important and the most characteristic function of government. If someone in the Malêverse eighty years hence were asked "what is government for," the most likely answer would be "to keep the planet going," just as a medieval person might answer "roads and ports" or a mid-20th century person "social welfare" or alternatively "national security."
so how much has animation has changed in 2100? also, I don't think you did an update on this world equivalent of western and eastern animation?
The notion that people are using geoengineering to improve upon the biodiversity and resiliency of global ecosystems rather than just to excuse their continued over-consumption is a pleasant one. I’m sure the initiative didn’t start that way, but that’s what it’s become.
Incredible! Environmentally-focused geoenginnering that's actually taken as a serious effort by world governments is something we could kinda use (or at least plan) today.
And if you're curious about what avant-garde Andean architecture looks like, this might help.
I've actually heard of those! Though I'm personally not a follower of their color styles, it's really interesting to see how the local Aymara see architecture and living spaces, especially with the mansions being simultaneous places of business, celebrations, and family homes. I guess the Aymara also have more fluid notions of communalism vs. individual space ITTL, and especially so by 2100.
I have updated the installments page to include the Bolivia narrative, though I've decided to be vague on exactly where it's set. The story gives a feeling of "place" in a sort of... general place, instead of a specific one. The scale of geoengineering across the country, even if they are nothing more than local projects connected together, gives the tale a hint of... not mattering exactly where Carmen Yarhui has traveled.
This is ridiculous, but for some reason my first thought when reading about bioengineering in the Altiplano was, "I wonder if they've taken care of the poop problem on Everest yet." I'm guessing either a bacteria or perhaps drones that can handle the wind shear have done yeoman's work on this. Also just for comparison, do you think the number of people allowed to climb would be higher/lower/similar to OTL? Access to climbing Everest is an example of an extremely limited (but renewable) resource that requires managers to take a lot of factors into account, and complicated management is this universe's bread and butter!
Excited to hear a space elevator is going in. Nairobi is a site I've often heard mentioned, as it's got good elevation and lies near the equator. With a major space port already fairly close at hand, that seems like a winner. The other one is Quito, right on the equator and very high up. My understanding (from reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy) is that an elevator will enhance the utility of asteroid mining. Even if it's just to put something in empty downward-bound cars. (With supplies and people going up and mostly just people coming down, there's always more room on the return journey and you might as well get something for your effort, like any shipping company of the last 500 years will tell you.)
Curious about large-scale rewilding projects. Any word on big migration corridors being set up in southern Africa? We've got evidence that space is opening up again. What about the Buffalo Commons? That website already half sounds like it's from TTL.
Really love the way time has become a significant factor in employment, what a beautiful change over OTL. I'm sure many, probably even a majority of people, still look at what they're getting paid for their time. But the fact that pay isn't the overwhelming considering is just inspiring to see. And a 30-hour "full-time" consideration, workers of the world rejoice!
This is the most plausible African superpower scenario I have come across..
Liberian nationalism starts to flower in the early 20th century as anti-colonial movements emerge in the African colonies. Liberia is looked to by many Africans as a symbol of independent African power and success, together with Ethiopia (retaining its independence as per OTL) and Madagascar (butterflies related to contact with Liberian and Yankee traders have allowed reformists to come to power and pull a Meiji). After the British and French empires are destroyed by the Germans in the wake of the Great War, Liberia takes advantage of the collapse of colonial administration throughout so much of the continent to fill the vacuum. Across west and central Africa, Liberian money and guns arrive in support of "independence" movements that inevitably produce more Congos -- states that are independent only on paper, and are in practice subservient to Liberia. The Germans grumble, but with their hands full in Europe, there's little they can do.
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BTW, in the interest of completeness, would you want to add Caretakers as installment 351a? You did put the other private-forum story on the list.
I love the mix of future and past here. Advanced bioengineering, but cultures without family names. A guard checking passports... his face "spotted with white paint". I don't think I've ever seen a setting like this before.
Remember that both the Solomons and highland New Guinea managed to stay out of the 19th and 20th-century imperial systems, so they modernized without Westernizing