Retro-Rockets Red Glare. A cold war solar system ATU

[captainjack]

I thought I'd open this up over here for comment. Now that I've basically completed Adventurer, I'm trying some smaller projects: you know, whole setting books. Likely will be developed for MGT, but right now, its all very system neutral.

1984: Red Stars and Rockets*
A retro-gritty setting for Traveller, exploring a lower tech, nonFTL cold war solar system.

( * Alternately, "Reds and Rockets", "Blows against the Evil Empire", "Spaceforce 1984" or, obviously, "Retro-Rockets Red Glare". any preferences ? )

​

What if: Most of the dreams of solar system travelling ships designed by the buzz-cut engineers of the 1950’s came true on the timelines they planned ? What if: Man on the Moon by 1960, moonbase by 1965, mars by 1970, inner and outer planets exploration by the 1980’s. What if: the engine that drove this wasn’t science or exploration, but rather the conflict of a simmering cold war, and the death struggle between the two superpowers and their ideologies ?

It is 1984. Space travel is real, extensive and highly militarized. Nukes shove the big Orions between planets, Gemini and Soyuz duel in orbits across the solar system, and elite forces fight on mars and the moons of Jupiter. Space is the battlefield of the cold war where Nukes are allowed. What happened ?

Having a few spare minutes last night, I actually got some writing done, so lookout world, here it comes !
My ongoing projects list includes "Red star and Rockets", billed as a retro traveller setting. In fact, it isn;t retro, per se -retro seems to be about the future of the 50's envisioned by the writers of the thirties and forties. What I'm hoping to create is a gritty late cold war in space, inspired by some plans for Orion Nuclear Space Battleships and a recent reread of the book "Blind mans Bluff", (an excellent history of the cold war from the point of view of the submariners of USA and USSR).

The overall goal is to try to build the setting with minimal “magitech” intrusion (Such as the old chestnut of Nikolii Tesla and/or zero point energy), producing a timeline that may push the envelope of likelihood, but not puncture it.

Consider it as rather like the endless “what if every single plan from WWII germany worked, was practical, successful, and could be put into actual production” alternate histories. Only (hopefully) not as ridiculous as the idea of a corrupt, broken, bankrupt economically crippled and war torn medium sized nation (Nazi Germany) suddenly producing and deploying orbital stations, next generation aircraft carriers and battleships, Antarctic bases and nuclear weapons (up to and including first generation fusion devices), land cruisers, supertanks, orbital bombers, stealthed jet interceptors and flying disks…..in two years. (Luftwaffe 1946 I’m looking at you, here). The focus would be on what would logically follow given the hard nosed plans of the actual engineers rather than this would be cool.(because, in fact, their plans were pretty damn cool.)

Secondarily, I want to severely limit anachronistic alternate future references. After the divergence point everything starts changing, so no, we wont see the same people born afterwards in New and Different Jobs for yuks as many alt histories love(“Justin Bieber, Space ranger”, then, is right out, although "Richard Nixon, Spy hunter" has some shine….)..

One rule in the SF business is that one is allowed three free handwaves (a.k.a. lies, damned lies, and FTL). What would those be for this setting ?

1. Improvement in cold war materials technology which would allow most designs for nuclear population to be produced and deployed, in particular: Orions, Salt NERVA.
2. A survivable, low grade nuclear war in 1950’s, and much warmer cold war as a result.
3. Major advances in “man in microgravity” handling.

Scientifically, I may add a solar system consistent with 1960’s knowledge –mainly with regard to Jupiter, cause I like it better with less radiation (unlike RRS Earth, which has somewhat more).

Finally, and this is just for my own dogheaded preferences, for a change, lets posit a space based military force without nautical Hornbloweresque wooden ships and iron men Space Navy sensibilities ‘fer heavens sake. The United States Aerospace Force vs. the Soviet Rocket Forces. No cruisers, admirals, dreadnaughts, marines, bridge, boatwains, etc.

Game Parameters

• A few BIG ships and lots of Small Ships. Most player type ships will use smallcraft rules.
• Reaction/nuclear propulsion for the big ones, reaction for the small ones.
• No Grav. tech
• Minimal Stealth.
• Chargen focuses on the spaceforces of the various factions, plus some civilian agencies.( Western, Soviet,UN, Non-aligned, UNASA and “other”.)
• Tech is solidly 1980's, but focused on defense production, with much less consumer development.

More to come. some history. Stuff.

Feel free to comment.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Neato!

If nothing else, I dig the idea of Dick Nixon, Spy Hunter. That just cracks me up.

I like it, sounds rather cool to me and I am looking forward to seeing more.

 

[captainjack]

Retro Rockets Red Glare, part II: rationalization and etc.

Space is the battlefield of the cold war where Nukes are allowed. What happened ?[FONT=&quot]

A real atomic war happened. Sometime around 1950, with both sides tossing nasty little fission nukes and invading western Europe, China, the Mideast and etc.

In this timeline, in 1945, soviet forces captured SS Scientist Klaus Debner and much of his Nuclear weapons lab, research and prototypes. Stalin, already hard at work terrorizing Soviet science into replicating the Fat Man bomb, shoved this to the head of the queue and had a working micro nuke/dirty bomb by 1947. Accordingly, as the post war period began and the allies fell apart into east and west, Uncle Joe had his own bomb, with a better one on the way (the original A-Bomb project) had his plans for WW3 moved up two to three years. His IRL 1948 rearming surge happened a bit earlier, and similarly was applied to the satellites well before 1951.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]By the 1948 Berlin crisis, Stalin was undeterred by the western A Bomb threat, and while the blockade played out much the same as in our world, it was just the prelude. In 1949, the USSR repudiated the armistice and four power agreement and moved across the Oder to “occupy Hitlerite Germany and prevent the rearming and resurrection of the third Reich in criminal and treacherous alliance with the fascist infiltrated west”…or so the Soviet announcement declared. At H hour, Soviet and Satellite Tanks and troops crossed into the allied occupation zones, preceeded by nuclear attacks on a west that still believed that the bomb was a monopoly for another five years. Debner designed tactical nukes cut the Rhine bridges, and were detonated in the major German north sea ports and Western German cities in the allied occupation zones. Fat man bombs hit Amsterdam, Brussels, London and New York. Communist uprisings in Italy and France destroyed Italy (now partitioned) and led to a bloody rightwing suppression in France. Despite assurances that the red army would not cross the Rhine, the balloon went up. After the remains of the French army joined the NATO forces the red army did cross the Rhine after defeating the NATO counterattack through Stuttgart, but was isolated by nuclear strikes on the German side of the Rhine, and re-enforcements were blocked by nuclear strikes along the Vistula “from Gdansk to the Slovak Border”.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Both sides ground to a halt. By early 1950, the United states had developed and deployed tactical bombs similar to the soviets, but no Allied troops existed east of the Rhine; however Soviet attempts to concentrate for an offensive were brutally nuked. Any NATO hesitation about using atomic weapons over German territory disappeared with the destruction of the Rhine crossings and cities in the first hours of the war.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][details later if wanted…..just lets skip ahead][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
Result: three to five years of ABC war in Europe (spreading to China and Korea, and he middle east) with no clear winner, but several clear losers (Korea, China, Japan, Germany, Benelux, Italy, Poland and most of eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Iraq). Europe and SE Asia were essentially trashed, but the homelands of the two alliances ( USA and USSR) suffering significantly less damage (no ICBMs, and not too many ways to deliver bombs across intercontinental distances); both sides locked in a brutal stalemate, which has turned to space for resolution.

More hot clashes follow as the space race starts up in 1953, and is even more frenzied, makeshift, and armed. By 1984, the Earthside damage from two orbital wars and a series of smaller orbital clashes across the 1960's has lead to demilitarization of CisLunar space, administered by a very different United Nations. Beyond that, as the sea dogs of Elizabethan England said, " no peace beyond the line

 

[whartung]

I dunno.

The trillions of dollars necessary to build out space could be more effectively spent at home. There's a lot of money that would need to go in to just raw infrastructure without real benefit just to get off the ground.

Whatever infrastructure was built in space would be spectacularly fragile. It's hard to imagine how well a moon base would survive an attack. There has to be more to promote the expansion than ideology alone.

Now, rather, I would think that seeing some wacky unobtainium discovery that's only on the moon/asteroid belt/mars/Pandora. THAT fuels the expansion. The planets resources, especially back in the 50's/60's were far far cheaper to obtain locally than going in to space.

So this has to be something else. Something that has some real use (perhaps it's fuel for a Jump drive, or something else useful both commercially on Earth as well as in space, an energy source, dilithium crystals, who knows -- that can be one of the hand waves).

Because I like the idea of "Space: 1969", and you can maintain the Cold War feel for it, I just don't like the low grade hot war sparking it off. War is money, and "wasting" it on Space isn't the way you win it.

But add some "Dilithium Rush" to the cold war realities of inner system expansion, and blocking out plots of virgin Martian beach front property, DMZ's separating the nation state claims, toss in some Wild West with a Mars Buggy and Asteroid Mining Shuttle. Mix in some "Outland" and "2010", and I think it could be really interesting.

 

[AlegisDownport]

Great idea and concept, you've certain done some research and the pieces about Stalins intentions made facinating reading, even from a general historical perspective. Looking forward to how you integrate the background into the Traveller rules set.

You may want to take a look at http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com

... for inspiration on the space missions that never happened!

Cheers,

Alegis Downport
Traveller RPG Blog - http://alegisdownport.wordpress.com
Digital Waterfalls - http://www.digitalwaterfalls.co.uk - Terran Trade Authority, Sci-Fi, Surreal

 

[aramis]

The fastest and easiest method for getting colonial funding is to use the colony as a "humane method of undesirables removal"... Round them up, load them on the needed tin cans, and sending them with the minimum cost-effective housing. Force them into Make-or-break. Even if the colony fails, it got rid of the undesirables and provided a scientific datapoint...

 

[BillDowns]

Space is the battlefield of the cold war where Nukes are allowed. What happened ?[FONT=&quot]

A real atomic war happened. Sometime around 1950, with both sides tossing nasty little fission nukes and invading western Europe, China, the Mideast and etc.

In this timeline, in 1945, soviet forces captured SS Scientist Klaus Debner and much of his Nuclear weapons lab, research and prototypes. Stalin, already hard at work terrorizing Soviet science into replicating the Fat Man bomb, shoved this to the head of the queue and had a working micro nuke/dirty bomb by 1947. Accordingly, as the post war period began and the allies fell apart into east and west, Uncle Joe had his own bomb, with a better one on the way (the original A-Bomb project) had his plans for WW3 moved up two to three years. His IRL 1948 rearming surge happened a bit earlier, and similarly was applied to the satellites well before 1951.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]By the 1948 Berlin crisis, Stalin was undeterred by the western A Bomb threat, and while the blockade played out much the same as in our world, it was just the prelude. In 1949, the USSR repudiated the armistice and four power agreement and moved across the Oder to “occupy Hitlerite Germany and prevent the rearming and resurrection of the third Reich in criminal and treacherous alliance with the fascist infiltrated west”…or so the Soviet announcement declared. At H hour, Soviet and Satellite Tanks and troops crossed into the allied occupation zones, preceeded by nuclear attacks on a west that still believed that the bomb was a monopoly for another five years. Debner designed tactical nukes cut the Rhine bridges, and were detonated in the major German north sea ports and Western German cities in the allied occupation zones. Fat man bombs hit Amsterdam, Brussels, London and New York. Communist uprisings in Italy and France destroyed Italy (now partitioned) and led to a bloody rightwing suppression in France. Despite assurances that the red army would not cross the Rhine, the balloon went up. After the remains of the French army joined the NATO forces the red army did cross the Rhine after defeating the NATO counterattack through Stuttgart, but was isolated by nuclear strikes on the German side of the Rhine, and re-enforcements were blocked by nuclear strikes along the Vistula “from Gdansk to the Slovak Border”.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Both sides ground to a halt. By early 1950, the United states had developed and deployed tactical bombs similar to the soviets, but no Allied troops existed east of the Rhine; however Soviet attempts to concentrate for an offensive were brutally nuked. Any NATO hesitation about using atomic weapons over German territory disappeared with the destruction of the Rhine crossings and cities in the first hours of the war.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][details later if wanted…..just lets skip ahead][/FONT]

Result: three to five years of ABC war in Europe (spreading to China and Korea, and he middle east) with no clear winner, but several clear losers (Korea, China, Japan, Germany, Benelux, Italy, Poland and most of eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Iraq). Europe and SE Asia were essentially trashed, but the homelands of the two alliances ( USA and USSR) suffering significantly less damage (no ICBMs, and not too many ways to deliver bombs across intercontinental distances); both sides locked in a brutal stalemate, which has turned to space for resolution.

More hot clashes follow as the space race starts up in 1953, and is even more frenzied, makeshift, and armed. By 1984, the Earthside damage from two orbital wars and a series of smaller orbital clashes across the 1960's has lead to demilitarization of CisLunar space, administered by a very different United Nations. Beyond that, as the sea dogs of Elizabethan England said, " no peace beyond the line

Just a couple of notes here - the M65 Atomic Annie was in development starting in 1948 or '49, so tactical nukes for the US for your 1950 war is almost reality. OTOH, by today's standards, everything nuclear back then was tactical.

I am wondering, though, how the nukes got to New York. THere were ICBMS back then that could do it - it would have to be a bomber. And don't forget the Navy's blimps with radar watching for Soviet bombers.

FOr your force structure, it might be interesting to posit two branches of service involved, at least for the US. An extended Air Force (Space Force?) for the fighters and an extended Navy for the big ships.

As for a reason - I am old enough to remember nuclear air raid drills, and I can quite easily believe that a Warm War withe the Commies would provide enough impetus to expand into space. That's why we went to the Moon!

 

[Mithras]

Finally, and this is just for my own dogheaded preferences, for a change, lets posit a space based military force without nautical Hornbloweresque wooden ships and iron men Space Navy sensibilities ‘fer heavens sake. The United States Aerospace Force vs. the Soviet Rocket Forces. No cruisers, admirals, dreadnaughts, marines, bridge, boatwains, etc.

Sir. They are my Traveller preferences too.

 

[captainjack]

Just a couple of notes here - the M65 Atomic Annie was in development starting in 1948 or '49, so tactical nukes for the US for your 1950 war is almost reality. OTOH, by today's standards, everything nuclear back then was tactical.

Exactly -the deployment of said is one of the surprises for Stalin. And the Tactical nature of most bombs is about the only way I see of having a working industry and economy after an east/west conflict.

I am wondering, though, how the nukes got to New York. THere were ICBMS back then that could do it - it would have to be a bomber. And don't forget the Navy's blimps with radar watching for Soviet bombers.

I postulate that the USSR only had about 5-10 large A-bombs (a few less than in real life 1950), but quite a few of the Deibner Minis. (1 Kt yield, but very dirty)The NY Nuke was one of the Fat man types (probably the counterpart to Joe-1, just for laffs) for maximum effect; it got to new york on a freighter; the CIA was hypothesizing about this as a surprise delivery system in 1948, and the original Einstein letter suggested it. The ship was docked before the start of the hostilities, and was a key to timing the kick-off; it was a one time trick, and the best opportunity to use one of the precious few biggies against the American homeland.

In fact, in 1950, I don't think that there was any soviet ICBM that could loft a fat man, although the soviet development of the V-2 could have launched a debner mini-nuke which I'm assuming happened. The soviet Tu-4 (B-29 clone) might be able to make it to new york from wayupnorthwest Russia, but probably as a one-way. And would be vulnerable as you described. No, this was a pearl harbor stroke.

FOr your force structure, it might be interesting to posit two branches of service involved, at least for the US. An extended Air Force (Space Force?) for the fighters and an extended Navy for the big ships.

United States AeroSpace Force, in fact. I'm probably going to avoid any Navy force structure just to be different; plus, I'm an Air force cold war kid, so, Go Thunderbirds, eh ?

As for a reason - I am old enough to remember nuclear air raid drills, and I can quite easily believe that a Warm War withe the Commies would provide enough impetus to expand into space. That's why we went to the Moon!

Yeah, me too. Grew up on Airbases in Europe in the 60's -duck and cover, civil defense films at base picnics and all the other nightmare inducing experiences of the period which only seemed relieved by the space program....

 

[captainjack]

The fastest and easiest method for getting colonial funding is to use the colony as a "humane method of undesirables removal"... Round them up, load them on the needed tin cans, and sending them with the minimum cost-effective housing. Force them into Make-or-break. Even if the colony fails, it got rid of the undesirables and provided a scientific datapoint...

I've been tossing that around in my head, maybe this is good place to examine it. The biggest advantage, after setting support as you suggest, is that it's a great way to get the players into space. The downsides are these (as I see it) .

The cost of lofting undesirables into space and supporting them in a hostile environment vs giving them a push broom and sending them over the Rhine, (or into Manhattan ) to clean up*.

Use of what is essentially slave labor with minimum training to build and maintain complicated infrastructure of a very important strategic resource(as with the V-2 factories of the Reich).

Thoughts ?





*Oh hey. Manhattan as a post apocalyptic penal colony....that's an idea. call me snake, and all.

 

[captainjack]

I dunno.

The trillions of dollars necessary to build out space could be more effectively spent at home. There's a lot of money that would need to go in to just raw infrastructure without real benefit just to get off the ground.

Whatever infrastructure was built in space would be spectacularly fragile. It's hard to imagine how well a moon base would survive an attack. There has to be more to promote the expansion than ideology alone.

Now, rather, I would think that seeing some wacky unobtainium discovery that's only on the moon/asteroid belt/mars/Pandora. THAT fuels the expansion. The planets resources, especially back in the 50's/60's were far far cheaper to obtain locally than going in to space.

So this has to be something else. Something that has some real use (perhaps it's fuel for a Jump drive, or something else useful both commercially on Earth as well as in space, an energy source, dilithium crystals, who knows -- that can be one of the hand waves).

Because I like the idea of "Space: 1969", and you can maintain the Cold War feel for it, I just don't like the low grade hot war sparking it off. War is money, and "wasting" it on Space isn't the way you win it.

But add some "Dilithium Rush" to the cold war realities of inner system expansion, and blocking out plots of virgin Martian beach front property, DMZ's separating the nation state claims, toss in some Wild West with a Mars Buggy and Asteroid Mining Shuttle. Mix in some "Outland" and "2010", and I think it could be really interesting.

Good points, and I'll think on them.

My initial premise was that the development of orbital capacity was crucial to breaking the deadlock on the ground - and tus tit for tat; and then the moon became crucial to controlling orbit, and etc. . The Cislunar system became a source of support for the moon and orbit that couldn't be interdicted from earth, and was easier overall to obtain. All the expense was war spending, not exploration per se.

It was more like two climbers on one rope aiming to get to the top and drop rocks on the other - or cut the rope, I suppose. How does that sit ?

 

[captainjack]

Sir. They are my Traveller preferences too.

Well said, my good man, well said. carry on !

 

[captainjack]

I wish I could say that the setting was entirely my own inspiration, but the fact is that that site was a MAJOR inspiration. I was looking up the Gemini Program (my favorite) and stumbled upon it a while back. Gemini Moonlanders, Space Stations, and glider reentry variants; armed Soyuz, WOW.

Great idea and concept, you've certain done some research and the pieces about Stalins intentions made facinating reading, even from a general historical perspective. Looking forward to how you integrate the background into the Traveller rules set.

You may want to take a look at http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com

... for inspiration on the space missions that never happened!

Cheers,

Alegis Downport
Traveller RPG Blog - http://alegisdownport.wordpress.com
Digital Waterfalls - http://www.digitalwaterfalls.co.uk - Terran Trade Authority, Sci-Fi, Surreal

 

[BillDowns]

I just thought of something that might help your setting a bit. Postulate that the Soviets were able to capture, recruit, or otherwise get Dr. Eugen Sanger. He is able to complete the antipodal bomber for them, and that is what delivers the nukes to the western cities.

This will also add impetus to advancing the space race for your setting.

Just on the side, for a long time, i always thought that the Roswell incident was actually a Soviet antipodal bomber....

 

[captainjack]

I just thought of something that might help your setting a bit. Postulate that the Soviets were able to capture, recruit, or otherwise get Dr. Eugen Sanger. He is able to complete the antipodal bomber for them, and that is what delivers the nukes to the western cities.

This will also add impetus to advancing the space race for your setting.

Just on the side, for a long time, i always thought that the Roswell incident was actually a Soviet antipodal bomber....

Actually, as I get time to post the resolution of the 1949 war, Sanger's part will become clear. However, the Roswell explanation you suggest is Absolutely Great. And will get stolen (if ya don't mind... )

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Soviet, bah!

/ka-snipper-snap/

Just on the side, for a long time, i always thought that the Roswell incident was actually a Soviet antipodal bomber....

A friend and I's thinking was that it was a US atomic rocket plane that crashed.

Really Bill, where is your patriotism? I think someone needs to be reported to our American friend, the Computer. Damned commie.

 

[BillDowns]

Actually, as I get time to post the resolution of the 1949 war, Sanger's part will become clear. However, the Roswell explanation you suggest is Absolutely Great. And will get stolen (if ya don't mind... )

Go for it! Forums are to spread ideas!

A friend and I's thinking was that it was a US atomic rocket plane that crashed.

Nah! If it was that, Roswell would still be radioactive!

Really Bill, where is your patriotism? I think someone needs to be reported to our American friend, the Computer. Damned commie.

Well, I did flirt with socialism when I was a stupid junior high student

On a more serious note, I actually do think it probably was one of those modified weather ballons with the internal radar, as a sort of proto-type for the Navy's N-class blimps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_class_blimp

 

[BillDowns]

Back to the scenario, let's day it was an antipodal bomber (yeesh! that's hard to type) That could provide incentive to push Mercury/Redstone to as early as '55, Mercury/Atlas in '56, and Gemini/Titan by '60. Then it would be reasonable to see DynaSoar/Titan by '63 and DynaSoar/Saturn by '65.

One could also throw in "antipodal fighters" lofted by Redstone by '55 for space superiority.

Maybe.....

 

[Vile]

I miss the cold war.

 

[captainjack]

I miss the cold war.

Well, I sure as heck do not. Despite this ATU.....