Great Space Evacuation: part 1

Bananana

Banned
This is an slightly ASB-ish timeline, starting in the past and passing rapidly into science-fiction. Comments will be appreciated.



1950. Astronomers discover an object of the type brown dwarf in a near proximity, which moves towards the sun. It is estimated that it will collide with the star. The object is named Dorothea, aka Dottie.​
1951. Dottie passes the sun within minimal distanse, pulling a great cloud of gas from the photosphere. The ensuing flash should have destroyed all life on Earth, but it happened behind the sun. No one understands how it happened at all.​
1951. Later. Dottie had slowed down into a near-sun orbit. Apparently she braked by passing momentum to the sun and also by colliding with Mercury. Again, no one exactly understands what happened there.​
Dottie also exhibits a harmonical fluctuations of her gravity field, which makes her not a brown dwarf but a completely unique, unheard of object.​
Calculations of Dottie orbit show that she will swallow Venus in 1971, Earth in 2006 and Mars in 2063.​
1952. Truth about Dottie orbit is revealed to the general public. It couldn`t be kept secret anyway, because Dottie is seen in the sky by an unarmed eye during both night and day, open to observations by any amature astronomer.​
Also, she is green.​
1952. Later. Just as predicted, world is engulfed in religious chaos. Not in proportions that will destroy governments, because 56 years to the end is a fairly large number, but big enough for a serious crisis. And it is estimated that things will deteriorate as time pass. USSR copes with the chaos much better than western countries, due to the proraganda machine that initially deny any danger. But rumors still pass through, and in Eastern europe things looks are pretty bad.​
1953. Chaos escalates into a series of religious wars, concentrating in the south of USA and the Middle East, where muslim militants group invade USSR southern republics. USSR retaliates, invades Iran. Tensity in USSR increases, turning into riots in places.​
Meanwhile, there is a series of secret meetings between leaders of both western and communist countries, about finding a way to suppress the chaos.​
1953. Later. Stalin paid better attention to his health in this TL and is still alive.​
1954. Great assembly of world leaders, from USA, USSR and Europe.​
Declaration of maintenance of status quo between USSR and Western world and temporal cease of mutual military and ideological hostilities.​
Announcement of the Great Space Evacuation Plan and initial list of participants. According to the GSEP, every participating country will be evacuated from Earth. No specific technical details are revealed, because there are none. Real, secret purpose of the GSEP at this point is to distract people from the imminent doom and thus to stabilise the situation. Any realistic (secret) talks about evacuation at this point are concerning only a very small group, probably descendants of the elite.​
Instead, Resource Mobilisation Program is revealed. It establishes a mechanism of pooling resources of the participants to the GSEP. It also includes a Mobilisation Ultimatum. Basically, GSEP participants declare they will invade any non-participant country if it has resources that are needed for GSEP and is not willing to cooperate. For this purpose, Joint Mobilisation Corps is established.​
1954. Later. Many countries join GSEP, including China.​
1954. Later. Establishments of huge scientific centers\cities, devoted to GSEP. Meanwhile, faculties that are not directly related to space are getting heavily reduced. Delay in biological research will become a huge problem in a few years.​
1954. Later. Centers of civil and religious unrest through the world are being suppressed violently by GSEP participants, in many cases with use of chemical and nuclear weapons.​
Beginning of the so called Shadow period, when majority of people believes that GSEP is a real plan, while it`s leaders know it is a ruse.​
1955. Joint Mobilisation Corps invades parts of the Middle East and Africa to seize oil fields. More countries join GSEP.​
1955. Later. Huge spaceports are being built in Africa and South America, on the equator.​
1955. Later. USSR, under pretext of GSEP, begins to vastly increase it`s presence in Asia.​
1956. First sattelite. First astronaut. First human made object to hit the moon. Direct casualities of the space program development are counted in thousands, including more than 50 astronauts who died to rocket malfunctions before the first successful launch.​
Billions of dollars that are poured into development of alternative propulsion technologies are starting to produce prototypes. Orion-style nuclear pulse, thermal nuclear and ion propulsion are being developed all at once.​
1956. Later. First closed biosphere experiment ends as a huge failure.​
1957. Overstretch of USSR economy due to both invasion of Asia and participation in GSEP projects has caused shortages that escalate to famine in some places. Group of commanders in the Red Army seize the opportunity to start a revolt against stalinist rule. It combines with spontaneous rebellion of GULAG prisoners in several places, and quickly becomes the Second Russian Civil War. Rebel declare that they leave the GSEP and try to move towards Moscow. Loyal forces of the Red Army and the police forces have trouble stoping them, because most of the Red Army is deployed in Asia, and using nukes on USSR own territory is pointless.​

To be continued...
 
Real, secret purpose of the GSEP at this point is to distract people from the imminent doom and thus to stabilise the situation. Any realistic (secret) talks about evacuation at this point are concerning only a very small group, probably descendants of the elite.​

There's your problem, the chances of that not being realised are zero and it will be a case of 'the elite can build their own f*****g evacuation ships'......
 
There are some big problems that come to mind with the ATL:

* First, considering the "Better Dead Than Read" mentality that arose after 1948, why would the United States team up with the Soviet Union? As Captain Kirk said in Star Trek VI, "Let them die!!!"

* Second, with Stalin living longer, he is getting ready to launch his anti-Semitic purge of Soviet society starting in 1954. He is certainly not going to cooperate with the United States, Great Britain, and France, whom he he believes are controlled by "Zionist bankers"....

* Third, waiting til the last minute to break bad news always makes things worse. This emboldens opponents who can easily point to the mistake, (case and point, FEMA's handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, "Mission Accomplished" in 2003)...

* Fourth, race is going to become a major issue, considering that France is dealing with Algeria and Vietnam starting in 1954, Great Britain is dealing with Kenya in 1952-1954, and the United States is dealing with Cuba starting in 1957...
 
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