First off, you are right that I missed Bob’s link in the
first post. When I saw a link listed as a 1990s timeline, I assumed it was an
excerpt from his GURPS IST book and didn’t bother looking closer. I also do not
have GURPS Y2K and have no plans to buy a 131 page PDF just so I can read 10
pages of text.
Your quote from GURPS Y2K does help make clear the odd lack
of precognitive warnings, but does not entirely explain away the problem. The quote notes that precog stops working “sometime
during the year 2000” but also notes that precisely when precog stops being
effective varies among individuals and even between individual attempts. Thus
some of the nukes going off like popcorn over the course of the year should
have been foreseen and prevented. If you don’t want precogs getting in the way
of your plans, either push those plans back or add a few examples where attacks were stopped.
As an aside, your assertion regarding President Buchanan possibly
stockpiling nukes and your numbers regarding the speed of falling rocks
are both likely off.
Buchanan only entered office in 1997 and in 1998 he opened multiple American
fusion plants as part of his program of extricating America from dependence on
UN electricity. Fusion, not Fission. I'm fairly sure that America’s new power plants were not the
type used to make nuclear material. While America could have been making nukes
in theory, it seems less likely in practice.
Not that this matters in the slightest, as America wasn’t using nukes
in your timeline, instead apparently choosing to teleport out to the asteroid
belt to pick up rocks to throw at people. Frankly, I can think of many better
uses for teleporters that powerful.
Regarding space rocks, the extinction event meteorites were
certainly not traveling at substantial fractions of light speed when they hit.
Additionally, the speed of the rocks that America is apparently dropping on
cities is also quite odd. You claim they’re hitting at about 20 mps. Skydivers
fall faster than that (approx. 54 mps:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml). Meteorites are even faster, falling at 90-180
mps for rocks in the size range you’re claiming: “Due to atmospheric drag, most meteorites, ranging from
a few kilograms up to about 8 tons (7,000 kg), will lose all of their cosmic
velocity while still several miles up. At that point, called the retardation
point, the meteorite begins to accelerate again, under the influence of the
Earth’s gravity, at the familiar 9.8 meters per second squared. The meteorite
then quickly reaches its terminal velocity of 200 to 400 miles per hour (90 to
180 meters per second). (
http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireballs/faqf/#12).”
As my final rebuttal to your previous posts before moving on to
new business, I do wonder where you got the idea that I’ve made some sort of
personal attack against you. The ‘offensive’ statement you quoted indicated
that “you
seem to have a poor grasp of scale and
simply have various factions doing things without
showing how other factions
react to those actions.” This was meant as an attempt at constructive criticism rather than a
personal attack. Shouldn't I be noting possible flaws in a proposed timeline before that timeline becomes canon and thousands of readers start asking the same questions?
Regarding scale:
1). You imply that Israel simply
waved its hands and 4 million Palestinians disappeared. This seems to be a
problem of scale to me.
2). You indicated that America attempted
‘Agent Orange’ style runs on the 26
th largest nation in the world. If America spent the entire duration of the
war doing nothing but pump out such attacks as fast as its planes could carry
them out, it probably still wouldn’t make a dent in the foliage. This is a
problem of scale.
3). You implied that America tried
carpet bombing a freaking huge desert region. This is another problem of scale.
4). You stated that a division of
Chinese soldiers entered Cuba, and within days the Cubans were all imprisoned,
all 11 million of them. This is a problem of scale.
5). You imply that South Africa
(which is indeed a very populous nation) could both conquer half of a continent
in two years and sustain a systematic culling of the local populace, yet gets
stopped dead by a tiny flyspeck of a country. Both their expansion and their
only competent opposition appear to lack scale.
As for you not showing the why of things:
1). According to Bob’s expanded timeline, the PLO ceased
hostilities and opened peace talks with Israel in 1995, came to an accord in
1997 and agreed on a location for a Palestinian homeland in 1998. By late 1999,
the Israeli military was actively assisting the Palestinian
government in suppressing Israeli riots against the relocation efforts. How did
you go from this to the PLO hurling multiple nukes in under a year? (And unless
these are very clean nukes, the fallout from these blasts is going to do nasty
things to the Palestinians themselves.) What was the UN response? What was the
American response? What was the response of other world powers? And if Israel
is perfectly capable of teleporting 4 million Palestinians, why couldn’t they do
the same to the Jewish squatters?
2). You have Colombia going to war with the US (and later using Mexico
as a puppet ally). Why did they do this? How did various world powers react to
this?
3). You have South Africa steamrolling over a laundry list of
countries. Why? How did individual countries react? Who was opposing them and
how were they doing so?
4). China. Ditto on the steamrolling. Ditto on no clear motivation
provided for any of the steamrolling after the first two countries. Ditto on not
going in depth into who opposed them or why or how.
5). Why exactly is China giving away an effective super serum to a flyspeck African nation while also providing the secret to their fusion plant destroying technology to the PLO?
These are all examples of you having factions do stuff for
no clear reason and with no clearly defined opposition other than the people
they’ve conquered or are attempting to conquer.
As for providing an alternative, I did in fact consider posting some
more of my own ideas, but it was quite late when I finished my post and I realized
I simply wouldn’t have time before having to log off. I will attempt to order some
of my thoughts here.
Early 2000 –
Tensions between Britain and China remain high as both British and Chinese
militaries reinforce their bases in and near Hong Kong. Things come to a head when –
between one moment and the next – British and American troops formerly stationed in Hong Kong find themselves
deployed elsewhere in the world while Chinese troops wind up firmly in control
of the city. No shots were fired.
Conspiracy theories run rampant around the world, ranging from experimental Reality Bombs to mass brainwashing
and teleportation. The Chinese themselves have no
clue what happened, but are fully prepared to take advantage of the situation;
especially as they now control both the city and the surrounding support bases.
British diplomats petition the UN for international support in the
face of this unprecedented Chinese aggression while the President of the United
States makes public statements pledging continued American aid to his British
allies.
Two weeks later, while the issue is argued before the UN Security
Council, a major Colombian attack against the
UN’s New York headquarters – their most subtle one yet – finally succeeds. Agents working for the cartels spent months covertly
breaking into the homes of low level UN employees, collecting hair samples from
combs and shower drains. They ran genetic tests on the samples to identify
individuals with high concentrations of metagenes.
The agents then had an operative with weak telepathic abilities
waylay these people during their morning commutes, made them ingest time
released medical capsules, and then send them on their way with no memory of
the encounter.
Hours later, the first of them succumb to a devil’s cocktail of jugo
and a paranoia inducing agent. He grows into an eight foot tall, heavily
muscled behemoth and goes on a psychotic killing spree, slaughtering 14 people
before being gunned down six minutes later.
Order is barely restored, with initial reports on the incident being uploaded
to the IST’s intranet, when the second victim – alone in a women’s restroom and
feeling sick to her stomach – transforms into a living black hole. Most of the
UN building effectively implodes upon itself, while an energy discharge along the
fringes of the effect bathe nearby neighborhoods in hard radiation which kills thousands
more.
As emergency sirens wail and the world clamors for answers, all that
is definitively known is that a Chinese-American janitor attacked and killed
several people in a berserk display of previously unrevealed metapowers. A
search of his apartment uncovers proof that he was in regular contact with
family still living in China. Speculation regarding spies and China's purported metahuman breeding program runs rampant.
As the UN reels from their shocking loss, President Buchanan swears retribution
against the Chinese aggressors who’d engage in a brazen and cowardly attack on
American soil. This declaration is immediately echoed by the British.
Concurrent with revelations in New York, North Korea’s megalomaniacal leader
sees the destruction of the UN headquarters and assault on America as a sign of
divine favor and immediately ordered his troops – already mobilized and in a state
of readiness – to commence with a late night attack.
Casualties along the heavily fortified DMZ are horrific, but the
momentum belongs to the North while the local IST branches are understrength as
they’d teleported their most effective agents to the site of the New York
disaster, where they’d helped put down an appearance by the Blue Demon.
China is stunned by Korea’s actions but feel they have no choice but to
send elite meta troops to bolster the second wave of the assault as to do otherwise
risks the collapse of an allied country at a time when the two most powerful
nations in the west are howling for their blood.
America and Britain go to a war footing while China attempts to
consolidate control over Korea. Reports regarding the apparent effectiveness of
Chinese metas during the attack on South Korea lead President Buchanan to urge
all American metas to do the right thing and express their commitment to their
great nation through military service, but does not yet institute a draft. As
America had already severed most overt ties to the UN, the Attorney General
assures the public that this does not violate American law.
Mid 2000 –
America and Britain establish military staging areas into Taiwan, Japan
and the Philippines. The IST makes vague noises about diplomacy and economic
sanctions, but still haven’t rebuilt a
clear and effective chain of command and are thus largely ineffective. Their apparent
impotence in the face of an attack on their headquarters and the fall of their
Korean branch lead many to question if they are in fact a straw power, fit only to fight tin pot dictators.
Tales of supposed North Korean atrocities in occupied South Korean territory
are frequently in the news; North Korea denounces the reports as baseless propaganda.
Other nations sympathetic to either or both of the western powers
supply token forces or material aid to the war effort, while cutting any
remaining economic ties with China.
The first skirmishes between the two sides occur, mostly in the form
of long range strikes, dogfights, naval maneuvering and probing raids by metahuman
squads. Results are inconclusive.
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe begins forcibly redistributing
land controlled by his country’s white minority to his political allies. South Africa protests
and an escalating series of border skirmishes begin taking place.
Chinese metas knock out several Western satellites as they pass over
or near their country. As a result, western intelligence regarding the Chinese interior
is limited.
Allied powers engage in a full strength push into South Korea, but are
forced to retreat after heavy combat that leaves tens of thousands dead on both
sides. China has too many metas on scene, and Allied command will not risk indiscriminate
bombardment of the heavily populated coastal region. A Chinese teleportation raid
on England is quickly repulsed, with few casualties.
Tibetan separatists try to organize an active resistance movement but
are rapidly suppressed. China is forced to redeploy assets to keep Tibet in
line.
Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe responds to continued South African
attacks by declaring war, possibly to unite rival factions in his government.
Late 2000 –
Fearing continued western military buildup in preparation for a second
invasion attempt and worried about the need to suppress unrest in occupied
territories, China goes on the offensive and attacks the third largest concentration
of western military forces in the region with a large meta strikeforce backed
by air superiority fighters and naval barrage. Early success brings hope for a
total victory, but the Americans soon rally and inflict 30 percent casualties on
the meta force through prodigious use of focused artillery barrages. The
Chinese retreat.
Zimbabwe and South Africa commit fully to war, and South African
troops make deep forays into Zimbabwe.
Palestinian government officials express concern over perceived
Israeli foot dragging in regards to the creation of a Palestinian homeland.
With the world’s attention elsewhere, Cuba and Guatemala rebuild from
their disastrous 1999 war with El Salvador.
xxx
More timeline in a day or two.
----------------------------------------------------
"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV
oes the bomb simply make it a fact that they were redeployed (to their surprise)