Fusion Age setting needing help

[garrowolf]

I have created a setting based in what I call the fusion age. It is the Age after the Cyber Age but before any gravitic technologies. Ships use rotating sections, small fusion generators allow for small but powerful mechs and ships. I am aiming for a cold war era type feel to the setting but I am running into a problem. I can't figure out the sides to the conflict.

Basically I was thinking of using the US, China, and Russia but I keep on running into problems. I can't take communism seriously because I know it failed in our history. There is so much space in the Asteroid belt that I can't see territory being an issue. Resources wouldn't be either. I was thinking of having smaller nations as cat's paws like with afganistian and vietnam but I still don't have a logical philosophical conflict that would make sense.

Any ideas?

 

[ssampier]

Cool idea. Are far are you taking this idea? Is this Future with humans only or with mutated elves, trolls, etc?

Just because there's lots of space doesn't mean there's no conflicts. Consider the Old West in the U.S. The Old West was relatively untamed and open, but you always have some black hatted bandit or some no-good sheriff.

As to your asteroid problem, maybe some asteroids have valuable materials, minerals, or metals. The powers could fight to right to setup mining operations. Then you need the other powers who need those materials. So you need shipping and cargo lanes.

As for country motivations, sometimes it helps to change your paradigm. What if money isn't the most important factor? What if exploration is the most important (ala Star Trek Federation) priority?

Let's say one of those countries has the Federation mentality. Another countries priority is wealth. The second country would try to work with the Federation when it directly benefited it and fight or oppose when it did not.

That's extremely simplified, but you get the idea. There's conflict everywhere, you just have to find it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Communism's failure is far from complete- see China- and having been to Russia as recently as 2005, I can tell you that there are some who miss it.

IOW, but for a couple of key occurrences (Reagan as 2 term PUSA; failure of coups & assassinations, etc.) Russia might still be the U.S.S.R. ESPECIALLY if they felt threatened and buried the hatchet with China, becoming allies instead of rivals. A Chi-Sov Communist Alliance could be fierce competition for the USA and the West.

 

[Shades of Green]

If you want you could have corporations replacing nations as the main colonial powers, with competition being over development rights for the choice real-estate such as Mars, some of the Jovian moons or the bigger (or ore-richer) asteroids rather than over ideology. With large corporations (richer than most nations and possessing mercenary armies) and Zaibetsu-style loyalties, this could be interesting.

Then you could have a rebellious colony (Mars?) fighting for its economical independence as yet another player in the interplanetary scene.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Resources wouldn't be either.

Mineral resources wouldn't, but the stuff you need to sustain life- water, food, air- would be. And they'd be worth fighting for, too.

Check out Ben Bova's "Grand Tour" series: it would be invaluable to you as a whole, and the "Asteroid Wars" subset of books would be key to fleshing out that portion of the setting.

And its a hell of a series to read on its own merits, anyway!

 

[garrowolf]

I like it! Good Ideas! I think that what I'm going to go with is based partially on the Grand Tour series. I am thinking that I will have a group that is trying to rebuild on Earth and wants all the resources focused on that and another group that wants to focus on the present and ignore Earth. That will be the ideological conflict. Some megacorps will be on the Ignore Earth side and they could change which nations that they support. Others will be trying to help the Earth and they will be the ones getting contracts to do some of the work on Earth.

So now I need some names for the factions. Ignore Earth sucks as a name. I would like to anchor it in some pre-existing philosophy name or something. Any ideas?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So now I need some names for the factions. Ignore Earth sucks as a name. I would like to anchor it in some pre-existing philosophy name or something. Any ideas?

As I recall, in the Grand Tour (as well as the film version of Sagan's Contact), one of the anti-space/pro-Earth groups is religious in nature. Thus, you could have such a group with a quasi-religious elements adopt a latinate name, such as "Vox Terra" (Voice of Earth) with groups opposed to them calling the group "Terrarists."

Since space exploration requires all kinds of industrial processes, all of which involve at least some kind of toxic waste, opposition could be ecological in nature. A fictional version of the RW organization "Earth First!" could take an aggressive stance against the space program.

In series such as David Wingrove's Chung Kuo novels, there are no real faction names, just your typical haves (corporations, rulers, criminals) and about 34 billion have-nots who are separated by technology. Thus, you could have opposition based on economics & class, typified by the usual suspects you see in political debates.

All kinds of names could be involved in the pro-space side. You could use extant gov't agencies like NASA and commercial/military aircraft builders like Saab and Lockheed-Martin, or you could extrapolate from private organizations like Burt Rutan's company or Ad Astra.