Which means that, in a sense, the Commonwealth is decentralising in order to Centralise (or rather, consolidate.) An interesting perspective I hadn't considered!
Why the Chinese play cricket (an Imperial Federation timeline)
- Thread starter Miss Construction
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Decentralisation is quite literally the only way the Commonwealth can work. The problem is communications, at this point of TTL it takes over a month to get someone from London to Sydney to find out what the hell is going on. It still took around ten days in 1940 and over three days in 1955. Even now it's a 24 hour flight.
There is simply no way a centralised state can work with that kind of communication lag. As a result of this issue you can expect the Commonwealth to be the world leader in developing and improving long distance travel. Concord will not be a commercial failure ITTL lol.
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And with it already having a leg up on undersea cables. I can see them being the one holding global internet by the balls, just by controling vast optical fibre network connecting all continents.
If comonwealth is rughtly miffed with some country, they can cut them off from network. And watch as they struggle to function.
If comonwealth is rughtly miffed with some country, they can cut them off from network. And watch as they struggle to function.
Yep I see pretty much exactly the same. Communications are the biggest challenge the Commonwealth has to it's survival. They have no choice but to have the biggest and best globe spanning communications network. They will dominate long distance travel and communications. They have no choice.
I've already sketched out the major Commonwealth SST routes. One going from London to Gibraltar, Cairo, Aden, Madras, Singapore, branching to Hong Kong or Darwin then across the Australian outback to Sydney. Another London to Toronto, across the Canadian Arctic to Vancouver, Fiji, Auckland and Sydney. A final one from London to Belize, then along the South American Pacific coast to Santiago.
Keeps the aircraft over the ocean or Commonwealth controlled sparsely inhabited territory to avoid the sonic boom issues
Keeps the aircraft over the ocean or Commonwealth controlled sparsely inhabited territory to avoid the sonic boom issues
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You just made me think , what about belize ? i am guessing it will be part of the federation in the future .
Wait wait wait. This implies (eventually) a rather healthy Commonwealth Space Program, because Telecoms Satellites will be a godsend.
This opens the possibility of a CW Apollo (Moon Landing) program.
Depends a lot on how the world develops. Though the imperial possessions in the Caribbean are a prime candidate for early dominion status
A healthy space program? VERY definitely, telecoms, GPS, recon satellites are all godsends to the CW. Even manned spaceflight is in there. Plus the development of hypersonic transport. And the bottom line driven CW combined with that desire for hypersonic transport gives a strong incentive to go for reusable launch vehicles.
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One word, well two actually, Diego Garcia perfect military satellite launch site. You also have West Africa actually sitting on the equator, a launch site on Lake Victoria could be handy. Rocket test site? Plenty of Australian outback available, plus test your nukes there. Yep the CW is spoilt when it comes to ground based support for a space program.
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Oh, you just know what buttons to push lol.
Forget Concorde. Give my Hypersonic Suborbital Trajectory Spaceplane transit.
Lol Concord (none of this silly french add an E bit in the Imperial CW) is possible with 60-70s technology. Hypersonic suborbital spaceplanes are not, though the CW may well be looking into developing the technology required
I really do think West Africa is better, it actually straddles the equator and building the infrastructure is now harder there than in British Guyana
I think you mean East Africa here. British West Africa is entirely north of the Equator. Plus you really don't want failed rocket launches crashing onto land, where there might be people
Somewhere on the coast of Kenya would be good - Lamu is just 2 degrees south of the equator, whilst* Kismayo is practically on the equator
*assuming Britain retains the Jubaland
Opps yes, spaghetti brain, she really did a number on my head lol. Yes Kenya is the best equatorial launch site available to the CW.
Just looking at the history. Jubaland was ceded to Italy as a reward for entering the Great War on the side of the entente. So highly dependent on the course of the war ITTL.
Did you know Mount Kilimanjaro has a large crater at the top of it, on account of it being a dormant volcano?
Consider! The Commonwealth could have a Space Launch Facility situated A) on top of a volcano B) in a crater C) at the top of a mountain.
AKA: The Commonwealth could have a literal, functional Bond Villain lair, and there would actually be some sort of justification for it.