This is like completely out of left field and very off topic in this thread for no reason at all
I don't want to continue this conversation so please don't respond and I want to enjoy this thread and peace
TL-191: After the End
- Thread starter David bar Elias
- Start date
This is like completely out of left field and very off topic in this thread for no reason at all
I don't want to continue this conversation so please don't respond and I want to enjoy this thread and peace
Does fast food still exist in this world, or is it less prominent in the US since there is less of a consumerist culture?
This is what I previously wrote about fast food in the USA, slightly edited.
By 2022, the USA doesn’t have the same fast food culture as in our world. Beyond the OTL companies being butterflied away, the economically austere post-Second Great War USA lacked the suburban car culture and consumerist society that facilitated the growth of multiple national chains in our world. By 2022, different US cities and regions have localized chains. However, no one has really managed to succeed in building a ubiquitous chain that can appeal to every region, much less outside the USA.
Pizza is still a popular food in most US regions, as are hamburgers.
How is Halloween celebrated compared to OTL? Does trick-or-treating still become a common tradition?
In general, Halloween is celebrated in a similar manner in the USA in TTL in comparison to our world.
By 2022, space exploration is more advanced than in our world. This is a direct result of the 20th Century “Space Chase” between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and German Empire, and the EC, and the United States and the CDS. Unlike the US-USSR competition in our world, the Space Chase wasn’t an unfriendly rivalry.
The combined Austro-Hungarian and German effort resulted in the first manned launch and the first landing on the Moon. The USA later lead the first successful manned expedition to Mars in the 21st Century.
In TTL, space exploration and colonization becomes an important aspect of national prestige for many countries. There is no hesitation, especially from the great powers, in trying to directly annex territories far from Earth.
This is what I wrote about the state of space exploration and colonization in TTL in an epilogue set in 2162, before a massive Interstellar Expedition, using an FTL system of travel, is sent to investigate an alien civilization in another star system. This has been slightly edited from the original epilogue.
-
The Inner Solar System is starting to get crowded by 2162.
By 2162, the total “off world” population is just over 150,000 people. Of this total population, some 75,000 people live on the Moon; some 60,000 people live on Mars; the remaining 15,000 “off-worlders” are divided between an assortment of near-Earth space stations.
Needless to say, life is far from easy in these hostile environments; in spite of the grandiose promises heard from governments all over the world of the inevitable mass settlement of the cosmos, a vigorous selection process means that very few candidates for the Lunar and Martian colonies actually make the cut.
The leadership of the International Security Council, through its Secretariat of Space Exploration has frequently expressed the hope that the exploration and colonization of Outer Space will be a field of cooperation among the world’s nations. Privately the ISC has long since resigned itself to the fact Outer Space will be yet another arena for Great Power rivalry. If there is a silver lining to the competition of the Space Chase, it’s that the cosmos is surely large enough for every nation’s territorial ambitions. And given the high stakes of the upcoming Interstellar Expedition, surely the prospect of a potentially hostile alien civilization will be enough to paper over the plethora of long standing disputes as to which Space Chase bloc will dominate the Solar System.
Surely.
In 2162, there are still two overarching Great Power blocs that compete in the ongoing Space Chase: the (Brazilian/Chinese/Russian/US-led) Liberty Space Alliance (LSA) and the (Austro-Hungarian/Bharati/Congolese/German-led) Eurasia-Africa Space Combine (EASC). The EASC dominates the Moon, while the LSA dominates Mars. This competition is not necessarily hostile, at least not hostile in the same manner as world’s US-USSR Space Race, although the Bharatis and Chinese still dislike each other, while the tensions on Earth between the European Community and the Congolese Federation may lead to dramatic changes in the trajectory of off world settlement. The EASC bases on the Moon routinely allow for LSA craft to depart for Mars, while the LSA always accepted that their rivals would have a place on the fourth planet during and after the Terraforming.
The ongoing LSA-led Great Terraforming of Mars has, after seven decades of fits and starts, started to show results: use the terminology of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy of novels, “Red Mars” is beginning to give ground to “Green Mars.” The Great Powers all have territorial ambitions on Mars, with the Great Power members of the LSA already committed to a division of the planet. The EASC is none to pleased at this arrangement, but at least still maintain their near monopoly on Lunar helium-3 mining.
The Great Powers all share still wider spaceborne ambitions, once the technology and the funding catches up with the goals of the politicians. Asteroid mining has been the Next Great Thing since the 2030s, while robotic probes have scouted the moons of Jupiter and Saturn for potential strategic strongholds.
After all, in a world of Great Power rivalries and in a world with an extremely martial culture, the military aspect of the cosmos has only grown in importance.
There have been any number of ISC-brokered treaties signed by the Great Power blocs over the last century and a half banning the use of space-based weaponry in a hostile manner; testing said weaponry is another matter (after all the Solar System is a big place). Slowly but surely, the first generation of transports and (small) destroyers began to be tested away from the prying eyes of the world’s extended network of telescopes. All of the Great Powers now have branches in their respective militaries devoted exclusively to space-based weaponry; for example, the United States Space Force is directly descended from both the Air Force and the military branch of the Department of Technology.
Of course, none of these respective space-borne military forces areparticularly large; yet with the recent discovery of a potential alien civilization in a fairly close star system, these forces are projected only to expand. Needless to say, the upcoming Interstellar Expedition is not an unarmed one.
The Space Chase has changed the world in more ways than one. From aerospace to robotics, from Big Tech to Eco Tech, technology has been inevitably shaped by the demands of space exploration, perhaps most visible by way of the hypersonic craft that transport freight and passengers at record speeds or the space ports that now dot the world.
In a world where all nations were affected to differing degrees by the societal problems and conflicts over automation, the Space Chase encouraged many nations to heavily invest in STEM centered national education curricula. Being selected to spend any time off world, much less for Lunar or Martian colonization, is considered a great honor in almost every nation.
This long period of competitive exploration has shaped the world’s competing alliance systems as well. Many nations have used their old alliances with their respective Great Power patrons to advance their own presence off world. Some nations, such as the Congolese Federation and the Sublime State of Persia, quietly plan to build their own Space Chase-based alliance blocs, to varying degrees of wariness from the more established Great Powers.
The Space Chase has shaped the world’s culture as well. In a world shaped by fears of Great Power conflict and traumatized by ongoing climate change, Outer Space is seen by many as the ultimate bolt hole; any number of politicians and political-social movements have arisen over the last century to demand greater government investment in technology to bring as many people off world at a time as possible.
The confirmation of alien life in the 21st Century and the possible discovery of an alien civilization in the 22nd Century has only added emphasis to these old popular demands. After all, should the worst come to pass after First Contact, it’s best if mankind is spread out as far as possible.
The first confirmation of extraterrestrial life came in the form of fossilized microbes discovered on Mars in the 2050s and around deep water vents on Europa via robotic probe in the 2070s. While these discoveries had incalculable effects on the world’s cultural and religious sensibilities, the first images released to the public in the 2110s of a possible industrial civilization located on an Earth-like planet orbiting the habitable zone of a nearby star sparked fear in many quarters. In a world still haunted by the horrors of the 20th and early 21st Centuries, and shaped by generations of dystopian science fiction, the worst was assumed by many, including the highest political and military echelons of the Great Powers...
...yes, a closer investigation is surely needed. The Interstellar Expedition, consisting of two dozen vessels and crewed by men and women from both of the Space Chase blocs, at least promises to provide the world’s decision makers enough information, upon its return in four years, to plan mankind’s next steps.
Of all countries with dedicated space force, which country does possess the largest and most powerful force? What is the most powerful weaponry fielded in space?
By 2022, there isn’t legal discrimination in the Philippines against citizens of Japanese descent, even if prejudice remains in some quarters.
Well, I guess that would depend upon how cruel the Japanese were in the 191 universe, versus what sort of improvements they managed to bring to the country during their occupation. Assuming the worse case scenario, that the Japanese saw the locals as unworthy, and did not treat them with much dignity and respect, I think even in that case, there would still be some local businessmen who would be willing to do business with the Japanese, if they saw potential profit in it.
In the real world, I remember visiting the Philippines during the 1980s, when there were still people walking around with memories of what had occurred during WWII. Generally speaking, the locals didn't blame individual Japanese tourists for what happened four decades earlier. But if you paid careful attention, sometimes you'd notice local jeepney drivers murmuring under their breath as they took money from Japanese tourists, I'm not aware of any actual open hostility towards Japanese people over what occurred during the occupation and war, it may have happened, but it wasn't wide spread.
Also, starting in the early 1960s, the Japanese government put a lot of effort into building infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and so on in the Philippines, and these sorts of efforts have helped to change the negative view held by some towards the nation of Japan.
How would the Filipino people living in the 191 universe treat Japanese people following a prolonged brutal occupation? I think that most likely there would be some initial revenge killings, with many Japanese fleeing the country, but eventually the government of the Philippines might decide that it is not in their best interest to kill off most of the brightest and best educated people living in the country. Provided that the Japanese left living in the country adopted local values and customs, and didn't openly flaunt racist attitudes, then perhaps they might find a comfortable niche for themselves, but I don't imagine that they'd be allowed to rise to the upper levels of the government for a very long time.
Last edited:
Thank you for the lore and it's great posted too but I was asking you what you thought of Philippines in TLAE191 work tho?
If you’re asking about the number of casualties during the Fourth Pacific War, I don’t have exact numbers.
The Japanese Empire was responsible for the large numbers of civilian casualties in the occupied areas of China, which was related to the harsh response to the national uprising against Japanese rule that began immediately before the Fourth Pacific War and continued for the duration of that conflict. Some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity committed by Japanese forces were in Manchuria.
Other regions that experienced high levels of destructive conflict during the Fourth Pacific War, including in relation to the Japanese Civil War, were the puppet state of Indochina, which split into the independent nations of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; the Philippines, which was the location of widespread fighting between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy; the Indonesian Confederation, which was the location of widespread fighting between an Indonesian nationalist coalition and Japanese forces; Burma, which was already suffering from an insurgency in the north of the country at the start of the Fourth Pacific War, and later fought a border war against Thailand for the remainder of the wider conflict.
By 2022, in the USA of TTL, they are not analogous to those of the USA of our world.
By 2022, most US states have not legalized same-sex marriage.