The upcoming candidate could be the architect of the megaproject ala Moses building an Egyptian city, though.
Separated at Birth: America and Drakia
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
- Start date
That's making me think of Heusman from the Man in the High Castle series being an engineer and architect who on the surface seems like a reasonable authority figure but his demeanor hides much darker ambitions.
And with it the glorious rise of the Green Sahara!!! (Never mind the ecological nightmare that'll hit Brazil)
Cue the power struggle between the lake-makers and Atlantropanists.And with it the glorious rise of the Green Sahara!!! (Never mind the ecological nightmare that'll hit Brazil)
On the other hand, though, those African lakes would be marginally more beneficial for Drakia as this won't annihilate their North African trade at the very least.
It all comes down on who EBR will put on power.
I'm not well versed in this stuff. Why would greening the Sahara destroy Brazil?
I'm not an expert but aren't like all of these Green Sahara, Congo Sea and Atlantropa types projects almost impossible to implement even with modern technology and would be utterly disastrous if implemented?
You're expecting the Drakians to have some common sense.
Well I'm no expert but apparently the winds sweeping westward out of Africa carrier dirt and nutrients that fertilizes the Amazon.
Skallagrim
Banned
That's very interesting. Not a potential implication of these schemes that I had previously considered. Of course, I'm not sure it holds up entirely: the Sahara has been much greener for long periods in history -- I'm not aware of ecological collapses in the Amazon basin to match those periods. Although I gather that there were extended periods that the Amazon basin was more savanna-like, and those might match up.
The Amazon suddenly being reduced to Savannah in a few short decades probably wouldn't be good thing for Brazil. While the rainforest gets reduced to a fraction of what it once was.
On another note does anyone else picture the Snakes creating a lot of hydroelectricity with these projects?
Well it's not like they haven't already created an entirely new massive body of water in the middle of Africa.
Yep, the USA undid most of that during the war itself. The USCG and the USN were temporarily merged together, and they're trying to figure out what to do with them now that the war's over.
Well thank you.
The way I see it, New Zealand and Australia have pretty strong independent national identities and while some kind of Australasian Union wouldn't be impossible in a TL with the right divergence and butterflies, that's not really the situation here. The Tasman twins are pretty scared, what with the USA turning inwards and Japan and India next door, but a tight Australasian alliance isn't any noticeably weaker than an Australian Union would be.
There's not much that I can say here without giving things away, but this is some nice analysis.
Without question.
The Drakian economic system will never be as efficient or as innovative as the American one. It's telling that Drakia technology isn't known for being advanced ITTL, it's known for being robust and easy to repair (because it has to function from the Sahara Deseret to the Central African jungle) and that Drakia has only managed to compete with the rest of the world technologically by being very fast to adopt other countries' discoveries.
Yeah. And while the Pan-Europeans aren't in any position to start a war with Drakia, Drakia's not interested in starting a new war with Europe at the moment.
It is certainly an interesting topic to debate.
My view is that war drives innovation in the short-term because governments are willing to sink large amounts of funding and resources into exploring avenues of scientific research, and developing new inventions into mature technologies because they're desperate for the next war-winning weapon. Naturally an increased investment in science yields returns. In the long-run however, remaining on a war footing limits the free sharing of ideas needed for science to flourish, and it limits the number of potential researchers and scientists by diverting able-bodied citizens into the military.
The faster technological advancement ITTL is in large part due to having war-time level investment in research during peacetime without the same degree of censorship and secrecy (a higher degree over all, but not as high you normally see during wars).
Good question. I'll try to remember to address that when we get around to discussing the Empire post-war.
Chapter 31 is coming, by the way, hopefully early next week.
An odd idea, a series of in-universe novels that are at least somewhat similar to the actual Draka series that are pretty much Drakain propaganda.
That may assume that government attempts at directing scientific research don't seriously dampen overall research progress, much as seen in Nazi Germany, Mao's China and the Soviet Union (though to be fair it is difficult to separate this element from the overall repression of those societies). One issue with innovation is that you can't really plan where breakthrus occur and what might have a military application or not. A great (or maybe rather tragic) example might be how the Wright brothers apperantly imagined that airplanes would lead to an era of peace.
Also, what level of world population does this timeline have compared to OTL?
If we agree that " it limits the number of potential researchers and scientists by diverting able-bodied citizens into the military", wouldn't it logically follow that an overall higher or lower population would also impact the number of potential researchers and scientists?
Forget slavery by another name and insane megaprojects, the big reputation Drakia would be building is "land of terrible novels".
Much of the Amazon and the are of the Atlantic between Brazil and West Afica is fertilized by dust blowing west from the Sahara
Jessicajess
Banned
Do you guys believe this Draka's treatment of their bondsmen is worse than the United States's treatment of their slaves in the Decades of Darkness TL?