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[Norton Quintessential]

I'm just going to have to agree to disagree with you on the whole CSA thing. My understanding for the reason the KKK wasn't around (at least in any great power) prior to the Civil War was because the people who would later form the KKK they were in charge.
And any other claim besides slavery the CSA made about seceeding was, at best, secondary by far. At least, that's my understanding.

[Rocketman]

I'm just going to have to agree to disagree with you on the whole CSA thing. My understanding for the reason the KKK wasn't around (at least in any great power) prior to the Civil War was because the people who would later form the KKK they were in charge.

You have to remember, the KKK was originally formed to resist the military occupation of the Southern states. They intimidated any collaborators with the Federal Government. And, the first KKK declined because the Southern elites turned against it, believing that the Klan's tactics were just giving the Northerners an excuse to continue their military occupation. It disbanded in 1871 after declining for about three years.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying the Confederacy would be racial harmony, gumdrops and rainbows. I do feel, however, that a free South that comes to its own decision to free the slaves would be less inclined to violence against them than a frustrated, angry South that does so under the guns of the North.

And any other claim besides slavery the CSA made about seceeding was, at best, secondary by far. At least, that's my understanding.

Lincoln offered a Constitutional Amendment in 1861 once he was in office - slavery would be forever protected in the South. No states returned to the Union.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had a loophole. Any state that rejoined the Union before Jan 1, 1863 would be exempt from it, just like Maryland and the like where. No states took him up on it.

Then, late in the war, a plan came up to give slaves their freedom in exchange for military service. It wasn't completed due to certain events in April of 1865, but the mere fact the South even began discussing it (and the other examples) says to me that independence and state/personal liberty (for white men, of course, not that "personal liberty" applied to anyone else in the mid-1800s, no matter what nation) was worth more than retaining slavery.

[Norton Quintessential]

...Point well made, sir. Point well made.



I honestly can't think of anything else to say on the matter, so here's that fantastic dinosaur icon:

[MrSteevo]

I'm going to search for talks about the south and Civil war in QC, seeing as Jeph's a huge fan on it and I remember seeing a comic about it.

Here we go:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=327

This is a start, but it can work both ways.

[Norton Quintessential]

Personally, when it comes to QC, I like to think of it as the same in terms of history: some guy just made little robots and inhabitable space stations.

[JReynolds]

How did the QC universe get so different from ours? The magic wands and pixie dust of Jeph's imagination!

[Rocketman]

Here we go:
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=327

"The South shall rise again" originally referred to the desire to reverse the loss of relative economic strength since the birth of the Confederacy. When the CSA was born, it was the fourth-richest country in the world, after the North, Britain, and France. The four years of war and blockade, loss of its major international cotton buyers (and general Confederate resentment to the Europeans would stood by and watched as their country burned), the collapse of the plantation economy, and a much smaller base to build upon compared to the Union, the European Empires and the united Germany resulted in a relatively small Southern economic power.

The slogan got picked up by the more right-wing elements of Confederate society, including those who want to take Kentucky and the other 'border states' from the North. Largely ignored, even in the South, they still make enough noise to be a common joke in both Americas.

NASCAR, well, Marten just doesn't know much about NASCAR.

[Border Reiver]

what's to know about NASCAR?  Cars drive around an oval track - people get drunk and go "Damn that's fast!"  sometimes there are crashes, but generally it looks pretty boring.

[Surgoshan]

So does football.  So does baseball.  And basketball, for that matter.

Once you know what's actually going on, though, things get interesting.

[sbakerj]

mmmm... golf.

[Surgoshan]

Ah, yes, the sport of the overweight and middle-aged.

[Doug S. Machina]

The Second Great War continues (with or without the RSFSR entering) until Amiens and Venice are vaporized by nuclear bombs.

Where would the Germans have developed the bomb? You'd need somewhere well away from the battlefield for the scientists to do their work, like the Australian Outback or New Mexico. Also somewhere to test it that isn't near any population (I can't think of anywhere in Europe you could test a nuclear bomb) and not needed for some other purpose for quite a while.


Man, I don't even remember that one. So, thanks.

[Surgoshan]

Actually, if the neutron had been discovered just a few years earlier than it was, then the Germans might have developed the atomic bomb first (remember that a significant chunk of the talent at Los Alamos had been forced to flee Germany).  As for where they'd test it?  They'd test it in the ocean, just as we often did.

[Rocketman]

Where would the Germans have developed the bomb? You'd need somewhere well away from the battlefield for the scientists to do their work, like the Australian Outback or New Mexico. Also somewhere to test it that isn't near any population (I can't think of anywhere in Europe you could test a nuclear bomb) and not needed for some other purpose for quite a while.

Germany didn't lose its colonial empire in the Great War. They built and tested their bombs the same way OTL France did - out in the boondocks of their colonies.

[Doug S. Machina]

That's why I mentioned the Australian outback: that's where Britain tested its bomb.

I couldn't remember what colonies Germany had (and it was far to late to start research) They had colonies in Africa, didn't they?

[Border Reiver]

Yes, they had what is now Namibia (then German Southwest Africa), Tanzania (German Southeast Africa) and another whose name escapes me.  The Germans came really late to the overseas colonies game and didn't get anything really choice.

[Doug S. Machina]

I think the Dutch had a greater empire than Germany. Odd to think Holland was a world power now.

[Rocketman]

Yes, they had what is now Namibia (then German Southwest Africa), Tanzania (German Southeast Africa) and another whose name escapes me.  The Germans came really late to the overseas colonies game and didn't get anything really choice.

Also some scattered islands in the Pacific and the former Belgian Congo, as well as the colonies taken from France.

[Border Reiver]

Holland, up until the middle of the 17th Century was one of the premier naval powers of the world, it was around this time that this previously insignifigant island off the northern coast of France started to get all uppity.

[Doug S. Machina]

Apparently we've had a very close relationship with the Dutch. I just read that they invaded Britain with a fleet five times larger than the Spanish Armada to depose hated King ...James? (Damn useless memory, I only read that the day before yesterday. But I could recount an old review for a game I'm never going to buy. My brain will only retain something if it's sure it's of no use.) Oddly, it was written out of history as a "glorious revolution".


I suppose pleasant obscurity is the way of the future. Should we just stop fighting it and make life more comfortable for ourselves?

[MissAmbiguity]

Agreed, but the superhero thing is fun, so that why I went with it.  The ineffectual cops were just funny too, I think.  Or it could be that they're superceded by the superheroes, and so their standards are falling.

As for the domed city, now we're just being silly. But isn't that (partly) the point of this thread?

Also, Faye was right. Hannelore is Penelope's time-travelling daughter from the future.

Deeper analysis when it occurs to me.  Probably.

Only... we've met Hannelore's mother. So is Penelope also time travelling from the past?

[JReynolds]

Apparently we've had a very close relationship with the Dutch. I just read that they invaded Britain with a fleet five times larger than the Spanish Armada to depose hated King ...James? ...

James VII and II Stuart (of Scotland and England) fled England without a struggle in 1688 (the fact that most of his army went over to the invader helped persuade him to flee) when William of Orange [what is now the Netherlands] invaded. William then became king of England, Scotland and Ireland because his wife Mary was James's eldest daughter.

A few battles took place later in Ireland between James (with French backing) and William of Orange. William won, hence the Orange parades, marching seasons, and Orange Orders in northern Ireland and Canada.

Perhaps Hannelore's psychic clone baby is the most recent attempt of the Stuart dynasty to take over Britain. Let the Windsors watch out!

[Norton Quintessential]

You know, I think I pinpointed what exactly about this whole alternate history thing bugs me.

It removes the characters too much from our world. I think it begins to affect their relatibility (sp).

[Rocketman]

You know, I think I pinpointed what exactly about this whole alternate history thing bugs me.

It removes the characters too much from our world. I think it begins to affect their relatibility (sp).

Hanners grew up in Low Earth Orbit.

[Norton Quintessential]

True, but then, I hate Hannelore.

[catbhn21]

Actually, if the neutron had been discovered just a few years earlier than it was, then the Germans might have developed the atomic bomb first (remember that a significant chunk of the talent at Los Alamos had been forced to flee Germany).  As for where they'd test it?  They'd test it in the ocean, just as we often did.

My chemistryTA claims that actually, the problem (good thing really) was that they went for a fusion bomb. An 50s nuclear bomb is a fission bomb, which is considerably easier to create/control. Fusion bombs (i.e.hydrogen bombs) were too difficult to make with the chemical knowledge of the time.  Apparently, all the smart guys were there, they were just working on the wrong project...so...yeah. Yay Chemistry!!

[Rocketman]

True, but then, I hate Hannelore.

Fine then, the main character (lower middle-class) can afford a sentient robot. 

[Turtle]

I'm sticking with "It's nearly identicle with slight tweaks in technology". You can assume from some of the references made that the world is largely similar (Pintsize's Lincoln and Castro beards, for instance), so I like to think that an Einsteinian (Amazing word) person was born that helped humans make the leap in technology that we have not.

[Norton Quintessential]

I agree with turtle, though not necessarily his spelling of identical .

[Turtle]

Now I feel silly. I'm usually a spelling nazi to myself.

[waterloosunset]

I'm sticking with "It's nearly identicle with slight tweaks in technology". You can assume from some of the references made that the world is largely similar (Pintsize's Lincoln and Castro beards, for instance), so I like to think that an Einsteinian (Amazing word) person was born that helped humans make the leap in technology that we have not.

so chances are, QC is either in the present day, without the weakening of NASA in the past, or set about 10-15 years in the future

[Red Peril]

Just a couple of history notes:
1. The majority of Britons in the late C19th supported the CSA, if a CSA victory appeared likely interventionist Britain would probably have joined the war on its side.
2. Britain had no problems trading with slave nations as long as it suited its goals, it considered anti-slave rhetoric as protection enough from censure.
3. Britain got most of its cotton from India until the mid-C20th, running a major scam in which it brought Indian cotton at miniscule prices then sold the finished clothes back at astronomical prices (thus the spinning wheel on India's flag as a sign of Independence)
4. The Glorious Revolution was an attempt to get rid of James II because he was a Catholic, and the English Civil war had been fought because...the king was a Catholic. Most Britons supported William III just to avoid another Civil War.

PS. Rocketman, I salute you. Lots of good ideas, I'm not slagging anyone off, I just really love history.

[Rocketman]

1. The majority of Britons in the late C19th supported the CSA, if a CSA victory appeared likely interventionist Britain would probably have joined the war on its side.

A CS victory doesn't appear likely in my timeline until Lincoln loses the 1864 election. Up to that point, the war runs as in our timeline (Lee's invasions of the North fail, Vicksburg falls, the Emancipation Proclamation is issued)

I could maybe see Britain getting involved navally, to break the Union blockade, sail up the Potomac or something and force Lincoln to realize he's lost (after the election, of course), but there was a "March to the Sea" reference in the comic. Plus, I don't think the Brits would want to risk Canada with the possibility of the South collapsing before Lincoln's out of office.

2. Britain had no problems trading with slave nations as long as it suited its goals, it considered anti-slave rhetoric as protection enough from censure.

Hm, true. I doubt the independent-minded Confederates will want to become basically a British dominion once other nations stop trading, especially with leftover resentment from their non-interference in the War of Secession.

3. Britain got most of its cotton from India until the mid-C20th, running a major scam in which it brought Indian cotton at miniscule prices then sold the finished clothes back at astronomical prices (thus the spinning wheel on India's flag as a sign of Independence)

A lot of the shift to India and Egypt for cotton, though, happened because the Southern cotton plantations were shut off with the Union blockade.

PS. Rocketman, I salute you. Lots of good ideas, I'm not slagging anyone off, I just really love history.

Me too, it's all good. 

[Jepser]

Apparently we've had a very close relationship with the Dutch. I just read that they invaded Britain with a fleet five times larger than the Spanish Armada to depose hated King ...James? (Damn useless memory, I only read that the day before yesterday. But I could recount an old review for a game I'm never going to buy. My brain will only retain something if it's sure it's of no use.) Oddly, it was written out of history as a "glorious revolution".


I suppose pleasant obscurity is the way of the future. Should we just stop fighting it and make life more comfortable for ourselves?

William III, the stadhouder (steward) of the Netherlands married Mary II, the daughter of the indeed hated king James. James was removed from the throne and William and Mary ruled the Netherlands, England, Scotland and Ireland. Suppose they got a kid, what would've happened? But they didn't, so England and Holland split up again. I don't know exactly why James was so hated though, I believe it was because he was catholic while the rest of the country was protestant or something.
It would be interesting to know what would've happened if William and Mary did get a kid. It was the British who demised the Dutch trading monopoly, so what would've happened if they were joined? An Anglo-Dutch World Empire? The US never born? 1984? o_O

Oh yeah..

...of Orange [what is now the Netherlands]...

Orange is a family name. My country has never been named after a citrus fruit. xD

[JReynolds]

My country has never been named after a citrus fruit. xD

Jesper, I apologize to you and all inhabitants of the Netherlands.

A child of William III and Mary II would have made a difference. Instead of Hanover and Britain dynastically joined, it would have been the Netherlands and Britain.

What was the Dutch position on female succession? Hanover & Britain's dynastic joining of 1714-1837 ended with the accession of Queen Victoria-- the Hanoverians didn't allow females to be monarchs, so a the succession went to the fifth-eldest son of George III (as opposed to Victoria, who was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, George III's fourth-oldest son). I suspect that the British-Dutch union would have ended at some similar way-- either by an amicable dissolution or a Dutch rebellion.

Perhaps if Jeph has one of his characters make a trip to New York, and it is called Nieuw Amsterdam we'll know for sure that this is what happened!

(yeah, right!)

[Red Peril]

James II wasn't really hated for himself or even his Catholicism per se, the main problem was that the last openly (Charles II was a secret Catholic) Catholic monarch was Charles I who had started the English Civil War by (amongst other things) claiming he ruled by Divine Right, which was an essentially Catholic belief. To most people in England a new Catholic monarch represented the possibility of another Civil War and launching a relatively bloodless coup to install William III seemed the preferable option. These days monarchs in England are still barred from being practicing Catholics, but they can belong to other religions. I am waiting impatiently for the first Buddhist king, although like many British people I just consider them a bunch of troublemakers who should be forced to give up their positions en masse.

[Rusty]

I'm sticking with "It's nearly identicle with slight tweaks in technology". You can assume from some of the references made that the world is largely similar (Pintsize's Lincoln and Castro beards, for instance), so I like to think that an Einsteinian (Amazing word) person was born that helped humans make the leap in technology that we have not.

so chances are, QC is either in the present day, without the weakening of NASA in the past, or set about 10-15 years in the future

Im going with this. first thought was slightly future- because the technology wouldnt be far off with the right funding, and would correspond with why theres almost no cars- nobody can afford gas . but then, with NASA staying strong, it could mean that cars are outdated...


and yeah, i know jeph just hates drawing cars

[Jepser]

My country has never been named after a citrus fruit. xD

Jesper, I apologize to you and all inhabitants of the Netherlands.

A child of William III and Mary II would have made a difference. Instead of Hanover and Britain dynastically joined, it would have been the Netherlands and Britain.

What was the Dutch position on female succession? Hanover & Britain's dynastic joining of 1714-1837 ended with the accession of Queen Victoria-- the Hanoverians didn't allow females to be monarchs, so a the succession went to the fifth-eldest son of George III (as opposed to Victoria, who was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, George III's fourth-oldest son). I suspect that the British-Dutch union would have ended at some similar way-- either by an amicable dissolution or a Dutch rebellion.

Perhaps if Jeph has one of his characters make a trip to New York, and it is called Nieuw Amsterdam we'll know for sure that this is what happened!

(yeah, right!)

Don't worry, it's not that big of a deal.
But female succession only became an item in the late 19th century, when king William III died with a young daughter and a widow as only heirs. (first we had steward William I - V, then king William I - III. They weren't very creative with the names. xD) His widow, queen Emma, took care of all the official duties, while her daughter Wilhelmina was the actual Queen of the Netherlands. At that point Luxemburg (a country about the size of Rhode Island I guess, between Belgium and Germany) split off from the kingdom. They didn't accept a queen, whereas the Netherlands did.
I think the problem with the Netherlands would've been the problems with the regents and the patriots that took place around the same time as the French revolution. The regents were representatives of the different provinces in the States-General, an early form of parliament. The patriots were the Dutch equivalent of the French ones in that time.
Both parties weren't very friendly towards the steward, and he actually had to flee the country ultimately. (It must be said that the steward of that time, William V, was a very weak ruler.) William V's son returned to the Netherlands in 1815, and was crowned King William I.

(Btw, I'm not entirely sure what this all has to do with the QC universe, but history is fun so ah well. xD)

Oh yeah, something on-topic, I don't believe QC is meant to be set in the future, 'cause Marten and Faye regularly discuss albums that just came out in our world. I think it's set in our time, but some genius (Hanners' father?) invented AnthroPC's. NASA going stronger than in our world sounds like a nice theory, but I don't think the car-thing should be taken that serious. Raven has a VW Beetle, doesn't she? And Amanda hired a car once, just to get from the air port to Faye's place.

[Aegir]

I seem to remember the rest of the crowd finding it really odd that Hanners grew up on a space station. I think someone said something to the effect of, "You're tell me you grew up IN SPACE?!"

I don't think technology is that different, either, because aside from AnthroPCs, everything is almost exactly the same. I mean, the Roomba is still just as primitive as real-world Roombas.

QC still has to take place in an alternate universe, though, because if I crawled up and down every street in Massachusetts I wouldn't run into any of the characters.

[Doug S. Machina]

Well, no. They'd be avoiding the weird guy crawling up the street. 

[RightSaidJames]

I personally think the QC Universe is set in the same time as our own. Becuase, other than the AnthroPCs and other robots, everything is normal. Music references are current (well, they'd have to be, because, well, Jeph isn't, AFAIK, Doctor Who), and when you do see cars (like Raven's Beetle), they are current as well. New York culture is pretty current, too; the characters' main vices are coffee, alcohol, sex, the occasional cigarette and the Internet, sounds about right!

In other words, IMO Jeph has just taken an artistic license with the technology aspect, because a world without talking robots is much less cool.

[Surgoshan]

Well, no. They'd be avoiding the weird guy crawling up the street. 

Or dating him.

[Mabus_Zero]

Rocketman is right, but he failed to mention that Cory Doctorow also blogs from high-altitude ballons in this alternate history.

And Hannelore is awesome.

[ByronOrpheus]

Being as the differences between the QC Universe and our own are largely technological with no change to the music scene or the cultural forces that affected the progression of musical trends, the split must have happened relatively recently. The limiting factor would have to be that the split happened early enough to produce a space station suitable for families in time for Hannelore to be raised on one. As Hannelore is in her early to mid-20s, this would have had to have occurred some time in the 1980s. Based on that, I think I've got a chain of events that would work. Witness:

In the mid 1980s, Steve Jobs saw that while the Mac had a good grip on colleges the PC was seizing the workplace. Jobs retooled the Mac OS with a unix base and a mandate to make the Mac compatible with a DOS office. Compatibility was the new paradigm. By doing so, Apple never stopped being a major player in the PC market. This kept the heat on Microsoft and Sun, forcing them to keep innovating. In order to get an edge, Apple formed an early partnership with AOL. By introducing the internet to Mac users (and specifically college-age Mac users), the left embraced online political organizing early enough to make a difference in the 1988 Presidential campaign. The result was that Michael Dukakis was elected President instead of George H. W. Bush.

In 1990, Senator Al Gore was in Saudi Arabia on an official visit to meet with Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. While there, he met with Salem bin Laden, eldest of the bin Laden brothers and CEO of the Saudi Bin Laden group and was introduced to Salem's half-brother, Osama bin Laden. Osama, a considerably more religious man than Salem, made some comments to Gore which were considered less than polite and were not translated. This led to an argument between the brothers and they adjourned to another room. Once in private, Osama slapped Salem across the face and told him he had disgraced the family and all their late father had built by consorting with an infidel. This led to a full-fledged screaming then wrestling match between the cousins. In a repeat of the 1963 Battle of Ramadan, the match ended with Salem sitting on Osama's chest with his arms pinned. Rather than playing another round of "stop hitting yourself", Salem explained to his brother that the relationship between the bin Laden family and the Bush family was what had brought them wealth and power and that building business relationships with Westerners was their father's greatest accomplishment. Salem then explained that these relationships played a major factor in spreading Islam to the West and that segregating themselves from the West would only keep the word of the Prophet from western ears.

Humbled at the strength of the argument and the rebuke from his eldest brother, Osama apologized to Salem, returned to school, earned a broadcasting degree and went to work for Al-Jazeera. His program, "Osama", soon became the most popular daytime talk show in the Arab world, blending religious discourse with interviews, entertainment news, sports coverage, politics and health issues. In 1989, bin Laden began a campaign against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein sparked by reports of Hussein's use of chemical weapons against Kurdish Iraqis during the Iran-Iraq war. Bin Laden offered a pan-Islamic vision, stating that while there were Kurds, Shiites and Sunis, the people of the Middle East were first and foremost Muslims and that the genocide was a crime against not only humanity, but against Allah. In a 1991 ceremony at the UN, Osama bin Laden was honored for his contribution to Iraq's "Velvet Revolution" that removed Saddam Hussein from power.

With a US economy booming from cheap gas, the Peace Dividend brought on by a radical reduction in military spending at the end of the Cold War and a more stable Middle East was directed to technological research in an effort to keep former defense workers employed. in 1992 a young hardware engineer at Apple, William Ellicott, developed a new method of cooling chips. Excited by his accomplishment, he told his wife, Inga Chatham who was working on battery technology for Apple. Dr. Chatham had worked out a new system that increased the amount of power that could be stored on a battery of a given size by a factor of 10,000. Her problem was that the battery generated so much heat that the extra power was given over to cooling for a net gain of 0. Armed with the two complementary technologies, Drs. Ellicott and Chatham poured themselves into their own private skunkworks and in a 30-day work-binge created a prototype of the first AnthroPC out of seven Newtons and 10,000 Legos.

The initial demonstration of the AnthroPC was a rocky affair. "Baldrick" demonstrated a certain degree of mobility and his voice recognition was passable, but he required a significant amount of prodding to complete the demonstration tasks. Furthermore, Baldrick's hacked-together appearance did nothing to impress Steve Jobs' hypercritical design sense. He was unimpressed and launched on a tirade about half-baked design, its inability to accomplish basic tasks and the inherent ugliness of the prototype. As Steve ranted, Baldrick walked over to a box of Legos and began to re-assemble himself. He removed some of the bricks from his legs and used them to lengthen his arms, added a second elbow joint and a tail he could use as a stabilizer while walking up ramps and started the demonstration course again.

At this, Jobs was agog. He stared at Baldrick, now zooming through the course at record speed, with an expression somewhere between wonder and rage. He turned on Ellicott and Chatham who were equally stunned and demanded an explanation. "Are you fucking with me?!", Jobs screamed. Ellicott and Chatham, now wondering the same thing, were speechless and began looking around for someone with a remote control. Baldrick, seeming to sense the situation, returned to the Lego bin and pulled out more some parts. He walked over to Jobs, stopped, and looked the CEO in the eye. Then Baldrick changed the world: he reached into his storage pouch, pulled out a small Apple sticker and placed it proudly on his chest.

[Rocketman]

Winslow's the Apple product, though. Pintsize is a PC.

[Surgoshan]

That was an excellent alternate history.

One quibble:  How is it that Al Gore caused an argument amongst the bin Ladins in 1990 that led to Osama spending several years getting a degree and a talk show that culminated in an anti-Saddam campaign iin 1989?

[ByronOrpheus]

That was an excellent alternate history.

One quibble:  How is it that Al Gore caused an argument amongst the bin Ladins in 1990 that led to Osama spending several years getting a degree and a talk show that culminated in an anti-Saddam campaign iin 1989?

That brings us to stage two. As we know, Al Gore is responsible for protecting the time-space continuum. Traditionally this has been responsibility of the Vice President. Due to abuse of power during the Eisenhower administration, the Supreme Court ruled in Lifeson vs Lee (1962) that Senator Al Gore would hold the power in trust until 2112. As such, Gore was empowered to make repairs to the timeline as he saw fit.

A side effect of the opening of the Ark of the Covenant in 1936 was the temporal displacement of a section of desert connected by a ley line to the island where the Ark was opened. In this section time moved several times slower than normal, making it the ideal place for research. A project that would normally take ten years could be completed in less than one, allowing the 126-year recording session for Chinese Democracy to be completed in a mere 13 years. Gore, knowing Osama's nuclear ambitions and his hatred of the west, realized that should Osama become aware of the time oasis he would inevitably locate his nuclear program there. By causing the argument in 1990, Gore was able to arrange to dissuade bin Laden from his original plans, then offer the oasis as an effective shortcut.

Gore offered bin Laden a chance to earn the degree in a few months of realtime by using the Oasis. Then, to cement the lesson Salem bin Laden had given his brother, Gore arranged to have a few grams of plutonium and several tons of TNT smuggled into the Oasis. Gore exploded the bomb in the middle afternoon prayers and immediately ran to Osama's study "to make sure he was OK". Gore then explained that another party had been doing surreptitious nuclear research and failed to account for the time/space changes. This, he explained, was why the US was so secretive about nuclear technology: it was far less straightforward than people were led to believe and caused massive disruptions in time and space. Gore went on to tell Osama that the relatively small explosion had flung them backwards in time to 1982. This, he went on to say, was one of the reasons for the media culture of the "decadent west"; they needed to distract the population at large in such a way that people's sense of time was unreliable in order to mask the ongoing corrections to the flow of time made necessary by the Trinity, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima bombs. Osama, caught off guard by the explosion, the kindness of the seemingly-robotic Al Gore, and a small dose of X slipped into his morning tea fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Al was then able to bring bin Laden back to 1982 and enroll him in journalism school.

[Is it cold in here?]

Wow. I'm impressed.

[Mad Cat]

Wizards, sorcerers, and magicians. None of you know how to tinker with super-science. *shakes head*

A side effect of the opening of the Ark of the Covenant in 1936 was the temporal displacement of a section of desert connected by a ley line to the island where the Ark was opened. In this section time moved several times slower than normal, making it the ideal place for research. A project that would normally take ten years could be completed in less than one,

If the time stream on the island moves slower than normal, then experiments on the island also move slower than normal. An experiment requiring ten years to perform, if performed on the island, would consume 100 years of time from the P.O.V. of an observer in the normal time flow. Which is good if you're a bored man of power looking to time travel into the future where your troubles can't follow you, like, say, Ted "It's Made of Tubes" Stevens, but crappy for any idea of time compression a la a DBZ training pod.

Which is actually an even better explanation for Chinese Democracy. A recording session that should have taken about 16 months ended up taking 13 years.

[ByronOrpheus]

If the time stream on the island moves slower than normal, then experiments on the island also move slower than normal. An experiment requiring ten years to perform, if performed on the island, would consume 100 years of time from the P.O.V. of an observer in the normal time flow.

Exactly! But if you're in the oasis that's linked to the island, the reverse is true. Why? Stage three. The ley line that connects the island to the oasis passes directly through the subterranean chamber where the Holy Grail lies, having fallen through a crevasse that formed in the floor of the Grail chamber when Elsa Schneider attempted to move the Grail past the Great Seal. This chamber, located in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon in Hatay (now part of Turkey) has qualities that focus the Grail's properties. The same forces that aged Walter Donovan hundreds of years in a matter of seconds by drinking from a false grail that had been stored near the true Grail affect the ley lines. The Grail's presence acts as a highly-localized source of temporal energy that affects the ley line in much the same way that a large mass can bend light. In this case the Grail warps the forces running along the ley line enough to reverse their effects, thus creating the ideal research environment for pretty much everything except physics. Unless you wear a dashing hat. Then you can get away with pretty much anything.