Christian fundamentalist push to ban DnD unwittingly causes the expansion of space exploration

How would you make a timeline like this work?

During the 1970s-90s the Christian fundamentalists are even more cocky and push to ban DnD. They ultimately fail and make the fundamentalist movement look like idiots.

Their campaign drives up the sale of RPGs as well as fantasy and even sci fi stories.

Some studio decides to compete with Star Trek and and make a show about an militaristic American spaceship crew who save alien civilizations from a threat that could be a combination of religious fundamentalists and the Soviet Union. The spaceship could be called the USSF Normandy.

This causes the American public to back space exploration and even the militarization of space and by the 1990s-2000 you will see more advanced space technology.
 
  • Since the Soviet Union was described as the atheist monster, that might only help to drive fundamentalism.
  • you will need a catalyst to make the space program better

    much of what was the US space program was decided in 68/69 ..
    The Space Shuttle
    Viking
    Voyager 1/2

    It takes a while to make major changes to the space program. if you want more advanced tech, you need competition. We went to the moon and besides science there wasn't much to do there, the bar was closed, the beach was off season. Economics would help drive a reason to stay there.

    Militarizing space was banned by the UN, now of course that wouldn't stop anything, but the idea of nukes floating on satellites isn't a great idea, they fall to earth on their own. but hey we less intelligent things, so I can roll with that.


    so you need a threat to both national pride and security. Soviets actually get the moon, Soviets attempt to put up a research lab on the moon and of course space stations. Soviets work to go to mars, maybe get the Chinese involved.


    Religious fundamentalists are not the issue, nor is D&D, The US space program stalled due to the shuttle program being an albatross and research going to unmanned probes since they were cheaper. Honestly there was no pressing need to stay in space, its hostile, there really isn't any place to go, and even if you do it takes a while and you have to bring everything with you. its not cheap.

    The Soviets were DOA by 1990, they had what was left of their program, they worked with in it and stayed in earth orbit.

    Really you need a reason to go and stay in space and militarize it. Resources, what and where. its expensive and it takes time.
 
The push against D&D from the religious community didn't occur until the 80's. D&D really didn't even become a thing until the late 70's. The space program was in place in the 60's. So you'd need a much earlier POD than D&D I think.
 
I think the idea of the US battling an enemy that can be viewed as religious fundamentalist in nature is very much a post-9/11 thing. Even during the Iranian hostage crisis, to the extent that people were framing it as religious at all, it was that the Iranians were the wrong kind of religion(ie. not Christian), rather than that they were religious believers per se.

And the USSR would be a most UNLIKELY candidate to merge with religious fundamentalism. That country's atheism was very much a part of its rap sheet.
 
Check out this Jack Chick tract from 2005.

Relevant panel is near the end, where a liberal army chaplain is horrified to hear that a grunt has converted to fundamentalist Christianity, and accuses him of being "a religious terrorist". This reflects a post-9/11 perception that in some circles(Christopher Hitchens would be the shorthand here) all religious believers were being lumped in with Islamic terrorists as threats to the American way-of-life.

I don't think anything like that was happening in the Cold War. People who didn't like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson might have thought that they represented an extreme overreaction against Communism, not that they were the same as Communism.
 
. . . a show about an militaristic American spaceship crew who save alien civilizations from a threat that could be a combination of religious fundamentalists and the Soviet Union. . .
Okay, so bigger backlash against fundamentalism gets studio executives to think there's more of a market, okay, that's a fair enough plot point
 


A question about fair use and satire. If someone, for example, used the form and feel of these comics and did spoofs in which the first third explained something in science (say, Fermi paradox, or fact that electron is thought of as smeared) . . . and the last two-thirds was a hot and sexy affair between the a slightly older church secretary and an air conditioner repair man! , do you think that would be allowable under current copyright law? (you catch glimpses of the secretary and repair guy in the first third, and those in the know know what's coming)
 


A question about fair use and satire. If someone, for example, used the form and feel of these comics and did spoofs in which the first third explained something in science (say, Fermi paradox, or fact that electron is thought of as smeared) . . . and the last two-thirds was a hot and sexy affair between the a slightly older church secretary and an air conditioner repair man! , do you think that would be allowable under current copyright law? (you catch glimpses of the secretary and repair guy in the first third, and those in the know know what's coming)

Yeah, I'm sure that would be kosher under copyright laws in most places. There are spoofs of Chick Tracts all over the internet.

I believe the SCOTUS ruled that hip-hop artists could copy other musicians' songs, as long as the point was to satirize the original song, rather than just adding your own words and theme with no reference to the original.
 
The problem with this POD is that there is generally no opposition to the space program among evangelical Christians.

Also opposition to D&D/AD&D is by no means universal among evangelicals. The best DM I ever played with was about as conservative Christian as you can get.
 
  • Since the Soviet Union was described as the atheist monster, that might only help to drive fundamentalism.
  • you will need a catalyst to make the space program better

    much of what was the US space program was decided in 68/69 ..
    The Space Shuttle
    Viking
    Voyager 1/2

    It takes a while to make major changes to the space program. if you want more advanced tech, you need competition. We went to the moon and besides science there wasn't much to do there, the bar was closed, the beach was off season. Economics would help drive a reason to stay there.

    Militarizing space was banned by the UN, now of course that wouldn't stop anything, but the idea of nukes floating on satellites isn't a great idea, they fall to earth on their own. but hey we less intelligent things, so I can roll with that.


    so you need a threat to both national pride and security. Soviets actually get the moon, Soviets attempt to put up a research lab on the moon and of course space stations. Soviets work to go to mars, maybe get the Chinese involved.


    Religious fundamentalists are not the issue, nor is D&D, The US space program stalled due to the shuttle program being an albatross and research going to unmanned probes since they were cheaper. Honestly there was no pressing need to stay in space, its hostile, there really isn't any place to go, and even if you do it takes a while and you have to bring everything with you. its not cheap.

    The Soviets were DOA by 1990, they had what was left of their program, they worked with in it and stayed in earth orbit.

    Really you need a reason to go and stay in space and militarize it. Resources, what and where. its expensive and it takes time.
Yeah not so sure about the Chinese in OTL they had nothing that would really help the USSR. In fact China just got a call yesterday from the 1960s they want their technology back.
 
Umm, what is a D&D? Also please define: "AD&D" as well as "DM".

Thank you, Joho :).
D&D means Dungeons and Dragons. And since the table-top role playing game has wizards, clerics, mages, paladins, etc, some evangelical Christians have a problem with it.

DM means Dungeon Master.

not sure about other term.

* peak of popularity may have been late 70s ? ?
 
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Umm, what is a D&D? Also please define: "AD&D" as well as "DM".

Thank you, Joho :).

D&D=Dungeons and Dragons

AD&D=Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, one of the earlier editions of said game.

DM=Dungeon Master, the player who administers games, so to speak, roleplaying the characters in the story who aren't the player characters.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Yeah not so sure about the Chinese in OTL they had nothing that would really help the USSR. In fact China just got a call yesterday from the 1960s they want their technology back.

1960s rocket technology is pretty much what the Senate Launch System will be using. Just saying.

Going back to the OP, I think the key is gamers turning into VCs who then back New Space companies - if, for example, Elon Musk had have been a Trav player with a rabid dislike of Christian fundamentalists, then it all rolls along.

As far as government space goes, LegionoftheUnitedStates is right - space isnt factional at all, and either supporting or opposing spending on space programs can go with any other political opinions.

As far as military space goes, well, we're pretty far down that path anyway, and military needs have driven a lot of "civilian space" requirements (after what happened with the Space Shuttle, it's an irony that NSA etc doesnt want to use the SLS, and that the SLS "one big rocket" idea is at 180 degree from the path MilSpace is now going down).
 
If there had been a movie late ‘80s with a near-future plot around 2030 in which SDI was a matter-of-fact plot element, maybe there would have been more popular support to continue developing SDI (“Star Wars”) in stead eddie fashion.
 

Ian_W

Banned
If there had been a movie late ‘80s with a near-future plot around 2030 in which SDI was a matter-of-fact plot element, maybe there would have been more popular support to continue developing SDI (“Star Wars”) in stead eddie fashion.

It doesn't really affect the space program one way or another if the resources that went into MilSpace go into sensors and communications as in OTL or into SDI.

In any case, SDI was developed in a steady fashion, being made part of BMDO. It's just that the key technologies just don't work (and if it does work as advertised, then adversaries shrug their shoulder and move to cruise missiles, nuclear torpedoes, manned bombers and other methods of strategic deterrence that don't involve an extra-atmosphere stage).

The unexpected thing that happened in the 1980s and 1990s was the civilian commsat boom, and the opening that gave to private space.
 
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