A solid roundup. And I’d never even heard of Wallops Island which, honestly, solves a lot of launch site problems. Maybe Baltimore is the center of the US space industry?? 🤯
Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Regarding the Chesapeake - the US may want to pull an Uno Reverse Card on the CSA and fully control the entrance, which could affect the political settlement of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Whether the US actually annexes them, goes for something like Danzig (especially if they're already doing it in El Paso), or decides to give it up entirely and just split the entrance 50/50 is another question.
And also, you may see some fights about state borders - WV and MD have a distinctly non-zero chance of fighting over the two Delmarva counties and if MD wins and also is given the district back (which gives us anither US claim on the CSA - the Virginia retrocession of DC) that's gonna put some people on edge over MD making out like bandits.
Also, I feel like our discussions have forgotten one very important thing: the settlement on trade in the Mississippi, AKA the entire damn reason the war is happening at all. What's the deets on that so far?
And also, you may see some fights about state borders - WV and MD have a distinctly non-zero chance of fighting over the two Delmarva counties and if MD wins and also is given the district back (which gives us anither US claim on the CSA - the Virginia retrocession of DC) that's gonna put some people on edge over MD making out like bandits.
Also, I feel like our discussions have forgotten one very important thing: the settlement on trade in the Mississippi, AKA the entire damn reason the war is happening at all. What's the deets on that so far?
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The deets on that would be something along the lines of “don’t you ever fucking test us on this again”
I see! If he's still having some sort of incident, that means he's managed to piss off an entirely different crowd than the enviormentalists. Good job Ballinger.
I'd hope, similarly to OTL there's a sort of ambiguity surrounding this TL's Ballinger Affair in that he's not cartoonishly responsible for whatever thing he gets wrapped up in and everything isn't black and white. On the other hand, flipping things on their head and making him actually totally deserve all the fire he gets could be interesting too. I have confidence you'll be able to craft riveting political intrigue as you always do with this TL.
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*Maybe*, But I'd expect Salisbury to end up with the people who want to be close to the launch site.
I'm not sure why West Virginia would be interested in the Delmarva, those counties are attached to the Maryland *eastern* shore on the east side of the Chesapeake.
Yes, there may be disputes over the land grabbed from Virginia on the west side of the Cheseapeake and south of the Potomac, but remember that Maryland has suffered *far*, *far* more than any other state in the Union in the war. If I had to guess on monetary damages, I'm thinking something like Maryland 65%, Pennsylvania 20%, DC 10% and remaining states in the US the remaining 5% and that estimate for Maryland may be *low*, remember it was fought over in *both* directions. I'm not minimizing the fighting in Pennsylvania, but CSA only took about 10% of the land in the state! And Retrocession is a given, the US will control everything for at least 30 miles from the Washington Monument, the only question is state level or federal control!
Free navigation on the Mississippi, the primary question is whether the Union will *keep* part of New Orleans for 99 years or forever!
99 years is interesting then we can have the Hong Kong Handover of this timeline be NOLA going back to Louisiana.
WV probably doesn't want the Delmarva counties, but if there's lesson in US history, it's never underestimate the states' ability to get into stupid slapfights, especially when territory is involved.
What I see is more around the fact that, in its earliest conception, WV didn't ask for its own statehood but rather to be recognized as the legitimate government of Virginia. And if the 1863 judicial establishment ITTL didn't clear this up or recognized them as the legitimate VA government to stick to the CSA or some other reason, then WV may possibly have the strongest claim to those counties - and if they are or have been recognized as the legitimate VA government then they probably need the WV legislature's approval to give it to MD. And the legislature has the choice of just stonewalling and telling everyone to fuck off, those counties are ours.
More likely, they recognize that governing those counties from Wheeling or Charleston (wherever the WV capital is those days) is completely impractical but use the need for their approval for the transfer to force the feds/MD to give them something they want, in exchange for giving up the counties (most obviously to push for some NoVa territory from old VA, or money, or something else). Or alternatively SCOTUS tells them to fuck off, you have no claim.
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I'm far from an expert on this kind of stuff, but it was my understanding that proximity to the equator was one of the if not the most important factor in determining early launch site locations, in which case the Galapagos would seem to be the obvious choice (it's not possible to get physically closer than that!). If I'm way off base though Wallops would seem to be by far the best mainland US option.
It’ll be relatively vague but also he totally 100% did it, though more just politically damaging than outright illegal
Well, yes of course. Capa Canaveral and JSC in Houston have totally different profiles
50 years on, I don’t think WV has any legal “were the real Virginia!!1!” vibes anymore.
I think that was a major consideration; but it’s not like Baikonur Cosmodrome or wherever in China their launches occurred from are equatorial in the least.
It is important, *but* the US is likely to have staff and production on the East Coast at least at the beginning. Wallops Island is a short trip down the coast (or even down a railroad and over a bridge. Galapagos is a quarter of the planet away from Philadelphia. Shipping things from the east coast through the canal and onwards from there gets expensive. *If* you need an equatorial orbit for what you launch, then it costs more fuel to "turn" the orbit. But the Russians do this with every launch to the ISS.
So balancing the costs between fuel costs to "turn" the orbit vs the costs of getting things to the launch site vs having downrange have fewer people. So you end up with Vandenburg in California vs some of the private launches from New Mexico vs some military stuff from Wallops Island vs NASA in Florida.
Note, the Soviet/Russian site at Baikonur is at about 45 degrees north. The closest equivalent would be if the US iTTL put its launch site in Dakota/Wyoming.
To further your point about Baikonur, it’s not like Peenemunde in Germany was super far south; indeed, it may even be north of Baikonur. Granted a Germany that still has Namibia might ship stuff there sort of like the ESA today does to French Guiana, but still.
China launches from a number of sites ranging from almost as far north as Baikonur to as far south as the Island of Hainan.
Probably, but all it takes is one asshole getting butthurt about some dumb crap to pursue this and require SCOTUS to come in and knock heads together. God knows NJ and NY are on to relitigate the Hudson boundary dispute any day now, more out of spite than anything else, because the states just love to do this sort of shit. Besides, it's a way for WV to improve its claim on NoVa if it really wants it, although again SCOTUS is still free to tell them to knock it off and leave them petulant over getting nothing when the Hughes administration has far, far bigger fish to fry.
It is, part of the *bizarre* situation where *very* few people align Europe and North America correctly in terms of distance from the Equator. The south edge of the Baltic (including the German and Polish coasts) is at approximately the same Latitude as the southern edge of the Hudson Bay (the main part, not James bay which extends between Ontario and Quebec.)
Or to put it another way, the Canadians would likely come up with a launch site closer to the equator than the Germans!
In regards to the ones I haven't commented on. The Chesapeake has a number of places where it narrows to less distance than the mouth, the US would need to take the entire Virginian coast of the Chesapeake, and in order to connect those areas by land, the US would control most of Virginia east of Richmond including Williamsburg. Not that I haven't brought that idea up before, but that might involve moving more people than the Soviets did in shifting Poland West after WWII.
IMO, The US isn't going to give a *dime* to the Confederates for use of the river (other than *maybe* maintenance as defined by a US auditor). It is entirely possible that the US will pay more for use of this timelines version of the St. Lawrence Seaway than the Mississippi. (And I simply can't see this TL *not* having the equivalent to a St. Lawrence Seaway. There is just *too* much money to be made, and the Author has indicated that Quebec leaves late enough and peacefully enough that they won't affect the building of it)
(Any TL that in the two decades pre-atomic to three decades post atomic (1920-1970 iOTL) where a person can safely travel from Detroit to Quebec City will have the equivalent of the St. Lawrence Seaway. OTOH, without an independent Canada, you aren't guaranteed a rail line running on the North side of Lake Superior)
It is possible the US will have to deal with anti-US groups dropping things in the river to screw up US shipping, but I *think* that standard minesweepers might work.
Random interlude question that I thought about diving down a wiki rabbit hole. What is Lakshmi Sagal going to be up to in this TL? Obviously she’s not doing anything right now as a 1 year old, but posts from India indicate that Bose will have a larger role in Indian politics and I’m interested to see how that affects his subordinates.
Not sure if the Air Strike was in regards to keeping the Chesapeake open or keeping the Mississippi open. I'm assuming the first, because sinking a barge filled with odd shaped metal pieces into the Mississippi could probably be done by the equivalent of a local Klan group (and in areas with bridge crossings, might not even have to be local)
Strong dose of sarcasm there haha
I’d never even heard of her but I imagine a lot of OTL’s Azad Hind gang get integrated into the more mainstream Indian nationalist movement