The Big One

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-18 02:13pm

Perhaps post a response in the relevant thread asking about that? It might just be a detail that slipped his mind.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2004-10-18 10:03pm

I'm not registered for that forum.

But perhaps I should.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-18 10:15pm

It uses the global EZBoard registration which is fairly painless.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2004-10-18 10:18pm

I just tried. I got through the registeration, but when had to select an offer and click on submit, I get an error. It says that it can't establish encrypted communication.

I'll try again tomorrow.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2004-10-18 10:21pm

Now I'm getting it on this site. Every page I load brings up an error -8075. It says it can't comm with Paypal.

Maybe it's because I've changed from IE to Firefox. Something to look at later. I'll try this again tomorrow.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-10-19 04:08am

technomage wrote:As closely allied as the two countries are, you'd expect USA to understand how Russian naming coventions work and allow for them.

Believe me, the ability to mangle names written in a different alphabet is endless.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-10-19 04:26am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
technomage wrote:As closely allied as the two countries are, you'd expect USA to understand how Russian naming coventions work and allow for them.
Believe me, the ability to mangle names written in a different alphabet is endless.

Just talk to my grandfather "Fyodor".

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-19 07:35am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Believe me, the ability to mangle names written in a different alphabet is endless.

/me points to his last name.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-10-24 03:14pm

High Frontier 3 in the typical place.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-10-25 09:43pm

And for those too lazy to slog through an EZBoard to find it: W00T!

I think the TBOverse is better than OTL...

admiral_danielsben · Post by **admiral_danielsben** » 2004-10-25 10:17pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:And for those too lazy to slog through an EZBoard to find it: W00T!

I think the TBOverse is better than OTL...

As someone who just spent two weeks reading through all the stories, i must say to this: location, location, location.

Now, it's rather utopic, if you're an American or a Thai or perhaps an Indian or Australian - cool planes, superpower capitalista Thailand, unified and relatively well-off India, irrelevant France. It's quite dystopic for Germany (and Europe in general, save perhaps Italy), mix dystopic/utopic for Russia (many more dead / busted in WWII, but communism gone much earlier, replaced by a lazy despotism), and weird if you're Chinese or Japanese.

As for the Middle East, if you're Jewish, Christian, Druze, or moderate Muslim, it's a clear dystopia. For Osama-types, it all depends on those SAC bombers in the next couple of stories....

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-10-26 07:44am

Why would Sukhoi instead of say Tupolev be building bombers?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-10-26 05:01pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Why would Sukhoi instead of say Tupolev be building bombers?

Historically Sukhoi was quite active in Soviet bomber design, alongside Tupolev and Myasishchyev and a couple others. Very notably they created the S-100 technology demonstrator/prototype which follows the faster higher motto of TBO in a strong manner.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2004-10-29 03:54pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Why would Sukhoi instead of say Tupolev be building bombers?

Funny, that's exactly what Tupolev said.

As Sea Skimmer pointed out, Sukhoi did build a Mach 3 bomber prototype. In @ it was cancelled and replaced by missiles. In TBO, it gets built as the Su-28. I'm doing some diagrams of the various High Frontier spaceplanes and will put them up in due course - starting with the XF-121. It's not named yet - its a Convair design. I'm open to suggestions. It would probably be Delta something

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-10-29 05:59pm

Welcome to the forum

Stuart wrote: Funny, that's exactly what Tupolev said.

As Sea Skimmer pointed out, Sukhoi did build a Mach 3 bomber prototype. In @ it was cancelled and replaced by missiles. In TBO, it gets built as the Su-28. I'm doing some diagrams of the various High Frontier spaceplanes and will put them up in due course - starting with the XF-121. It's not named yet - its a Convair design. I'm open to suggestions. It would probably be Delta something

I suggest it be the Delta Diablo

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-10-29 07:55pm

Stuart wrote:It would probably be Delta something

Delta Death? Oh and BTW, I looooove TBO.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-10-29 09:40pm

Here's a question, what does the TBO F-115 Eagle look like? With no Vietnam and no MiG-25 threat I'd imagine it be significantly different (no gun maybe, certainly no "not a pound for air to ground").

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-10-29 10:02pm

Stuart wrote:
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Why would Sukhoi instead of say Tupolev be building bombers?
Funny, that's exactly what Tupolev said.

As Sea Skimmer pointed out, Sukhoi did build a Mach 3 bomber prototype. In @ it was cancelled and replaced by missiles. In TBO, it gets built as the Su-28. I'm doing some diagrams of the various High Frontier spaceplanes and will put them up in due course - starting with the XF-121. It's not named yet - its a Convair design. I'm open to suggestions. It would probably be Delta something

W00t! Loving the fic. Any idea when High Frontier 4 comes out?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-30 02:33am

Well, he's a busy man so I suspect the answer would be "when it is done"

But yes, welcome to the board, Stuart.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2004-11-01 09:02am

admiral_danielsben wrote:[Now, it's rather utopic, if you're an American or a Thai or perhaps an Indian or Australian - cool planes, superpower capitalista Thailand, unified and relatively well-off India, irrelevant France. It's quite dystopic for Germany (and Europe in general, save perhaps Italy), mix dystopic/utopic for Russia (many more dead / busted in WWII, but communism gone much earlier, replaced by a lazy despotism), and weird if you're Chinese or Japanese.

Have you read the country directory? It sort of gives a thumbnail sketch of each country, its positions, how it works internally and its policies. It can be found Here

If by some strange chance you woke up this morning and found yourself transplanted, you'd feel things were strange but you might not be able to put your finger on why. Everything would seem a little... old fashioned somehow, Cars would be much more like those of the 1980s (big lazy engines need less precise machine tooling than small busy ones). There is no Japanese automobile industry to drive cars to compacts - and with American oil coming from Siberia, there is no oil crisis either. As you went out in the morning, you'd notice prices were lower (no stagflation in the mid-1970s). The bang overhead that had you ducking would be dismissed, probably to a derisive comment from a passer-by "Hey, its only the Los Angeles Shuttle out of Idlewild. Never heard a sonic boom before?" Go to the shops, no Japanese brand names though a lot of Indian ones. Styles and fashions are Italian not French. In the kids department, instead of baseball cards, the trading cards have the nose art of bombers. Ask a kid what he wants to be when he grows up "A bomber pilot" will be the answer.

Thailand isn't a superpower per se, there is only one of those. The Triple Alliance is a very strong regional power and Thailand is the weakest of the three members of that alliance. However, as the result of astute policies and some pretty shrewd politicing, it is the center of balance between the two other alliance members and as such punches far above its weight. Also, because it became the trading center early its a rich country - although that brings problems all of its own. However, by the time of High Frontier, the Triple Alliance is already becoming more of a Federation than an alliance and that will continue. By the early part of the 21st century, The Triple Alliance will virtually be a loosely Federated state.

The description of Russia as a lazy despotism is good - another one (quoted from a Thai friend of mine) is "an authoritarian anarchy".

China is very much as it is in our universe; by 2004 the linkage between China and Japan is breaking apart again. The Caliphate is functionally dystopic; from our point of view its hell on earth. Unfortunately there are quite a few people who like what it stands for and are trying to get there. Personally, I believe that there is a very strong chance that if the US fouls up in Iraq and doesn't get that place established as a functioning society, we'll see something like The Caliphate developing within the next decade.

By the way, all the equipment in the TBOverse is hard. There are no systems drawn out of thin air; everything described actually existed (as prototypes or as advanced designs) or is a logical extension of something that did exist.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2004-11-01 09:14am

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:Here's a question, what does the TBO F-115 Eagle look like? With no Vietnam and no MiG-25 threat I'd imagine it be significantly different (no gun maybe, certainly no "not a pound for air to ground").

The F-115 looks the way the F-15 would have done if there had been no Vietnam (there were a load of design studies done prior to the ones that produce the F-15 Eagle we know and love). What drove the final F-15 was the emergence of the MiG-25 (then thought to be much more powerful and dangerous than it later turned out) and the Vietnam dogfighting experience. If we look at the TBO requirement, the F-115 is replacing the F-105 Thunderchief and the F-110 Spectre. That means a multi-role aircraft that is triple-sonic and has a reasonable air-to-ground and air-to-air capability. So imagine our F-15E Strike Eagle with two J-93s, max speed in the Mach 3.1 - Mach 3.2 region and cruising in the Mach 2.7 - 2.8 region.

The pure interceptor is the F-114, a version of the Navy's F13F-2 Tomcat. Very much like our F-14 except, again, much faster, no gun and nuclear-tipped AIM-54s.

By the way, the F116 is a proposed derivative of the F-104 that has (in our timeline would have had) a single J-93. Incredibly, in our timeline that project eventually evolved into the F-18 Hornet! The TBOverse F-116 is very fast, very high rate of climb, armed with a cannon, two Sidewinders and a single nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile. If you sort of morphed our F-16 and F-104 together, and added a big engine, you'd get the F-116.

I'll put some drawings of these up as soon as I get the chance.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2004-11-01 09:21am

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Loving the fic. Any idea when High Frontier 4 comes out?

Glad to see its enjoyed.

High Frontier Four is coming out very soon (sometime this week probably)

I have another story that's coming out also, "Interstellar Highway" set in the TBOverse around 2450. I might start putting that up here in parallel with High Frontier. I'm slow-stepping things at the moment because the precise mechanism of what happens over the next three decades in the TBOverse depends very much on what happens in the election tomorrow (the end result is the same, the way we get there and its effects differ dramatically).

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-11-01 03:36pm

Does "Interstellar Highway" refer to any known stellar phenomena, such as the "null gravity" channels of our solar system?

Oh, and you'll have to wait WAY past tomorrow to see what happens in the election.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2004-11-01 03:54pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Does "Interstellar Highway" refer to any known stellar phenomena, such as the "null gravity" channels of our solar system? Oh, and you'll have to wait WAY past tomorrow to see what happens in the election.

We'll see, we can but hope.

The basic theory behind the interstellar highway is that there is a gravity phenomena that creates portals between two points in the universe. These may be close, may be very, very far removed. Its a probablity curve thing; an explorer may dive into one and come out within visual range of his starting point, he may end up in another galactic supercluster. The only way to find out where one goes is to dive in and look. The explored routes are given numbers; hence "take Interstellar 95 to Tau Ceti then change to Interstellar 80 for Sigma Draconis."

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-11-01 04:11pm

Stuart wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote:Does "Interstellar Highway" refer to any known stellar phenomena, such as the "null gravity" channels of our solar system? Oh, and you'll have to wait WAY past tomorrow to see what happens in the election.
We'll see, we can but hope.

The basic theory behind the interstellar highway is that there is a gravity phenomena that creates portals between two points in the universe. These may be close, may be very, very far removed. Its a probablity curve thing; an explorer may dive into one and come out within visual range of his starting point, he may end up in another galactic supercluster. The only way to find out where one goes is to dive in and look. The explored routes are given numbers; hence "take Interstellar 95 to Tau Ceti then change to Interstellar 80 for Sigma Draconis."

I remeber you talking about those. So basically it's a copout way of having FTL w/o having to worry about that nasty little relativity thing or being forced to use sleeper ships...