A Sound of Thunder: The Rise of the Soviet Superbooster

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22000 Kevin

Tshhmon said:
I don't know if I'm the best judge of that, but as a work of alternate history, I feel like FAM did poorly execution-wise. It has glaring inaccuracies and flights of fancy. FAM is certainly a nice show with plenty of cool concepts though.
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Yeah Season 1 did the best with the least inaccuracies. Season 2 had the infamous "N3" rocket that was never heard from again (its a N1 in disguise?), the "Lunar" Shuttles which needed to be refueled in LEO, the Nuclear Shuttle and the Buran which were all a bit questionable but it wasn't too bad. Sea Dragon of course was a great addition.

Season 3 however had a freaking giant over-sized private Orbital space Hotel operational by 1992, then there was the Soviet Mars SSTO thing, and lastly there was the North Koreans... which doesn't need much explaining.

Still even with the flaws the show is a cool piece of Alternative history and enjoyable to watch, just ignore the fact that realism was probably lost to the vacuum of space.
 

RanulfC

22000 Kevin said:
Yeah Season 1 did the best with the least inaccuracies.
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Damning with faint praise at that given the entire premise for which I blame the spate of Soviet-centric "Red Moon" AH's :)

The main problem with ANY such AH is if course the fractured nature of the Soviet "space" program and both political and technical capability of the USSR. They COULD have done things a bit different and given the US a run for their money, (money and resources being another problem but it's doable :) ) but an insistence of trying to match the American's was very big issue. Needless to say I've got issues with the whole thing and every season but ... :)

22000 Kevin said:
Season 2 had the infamous "N3" rocket that was never heard from again (its a N1 in disguise?), the "Lunar" Shuttles which needed to be refueled in LEO, the Nuclear Shuttle and the Buran which were all a bit questionable but it wasn't too bad. Sea Dragon of course was a great addition.
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Ya a "nuclear" Shuttle air-launched over Nevada... And a SeaDragon launched "30 miles" off Guam...

22000 Kevin said:
Season 3 however had a freaking giant over-sized private Orbital space Hotel operational by 1992, then there was the Soviet Mars SSTO thing, and lastly there was the North Koreans... which doesn't need much explaining.
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Just WHY is the main question :) Nothing they showed actually laid any groundwork for that kind of commercial development and let's not even discuss that dinky solar sail :)

22000 Kevin said:
Still even with the flaws the show is a cool piece of Alternative history and enjoyable to watch, just ignore the fact that realism was probably lost to the vacuum of space.
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The problem was I had to "willfully ignore" so many issues I found I almost forgot how to breathe on my own :)

Athelstane said:
Season 1 was the last time I could have any buy-in (barely) from a realism perspective.

Since then, it has increasingly resembled a live-action THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO.
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Hey I'd argue that at least Thunderbirds had a plot :)

Randy
 

Craig

Before this thread returns to the thread, let me just suggest that FAM is a soap opera. A soap opera with far better special effects than General Hospital or One Life to Live, but just a soap opera. For what it's worth, the 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows had vampires, Frankenstein (and Bride of Frankenstein) monsters, werewolves and multiple time travel arcs.
 
Athelstane

Athelstane

RanulfC said:
Hey I'd argue that at least Thunderbirds had a plot :)
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It's strange, too, because Ron Moore used to know how to write those (or find writers who could do so).

I can't help but feel that For All Mankind has ended up being the moment where he ended up indulging his worst impulses, finally.

TY2v.gif
 
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nixonshead

Athelstane said:
I can't feel that For All Mankind has ended up being the moment where he ended up indulging his worst impulses, finally.
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Nah, that was "Outlander", a.k.a. "The Horny Healer" :)

Personally, I'm enjoying FAM on its own terms as a drama, with some cool visuals and overall hopeful message. It isn't plausible AH, but I don't really feel the need for it to be, as long as the characters and the plot engage me (I also enjoyed The Man in the High Castle, which was even more outlandish).

Back on the thread, just to reassure you that Part 2 of A Sound of Thunder is actively being written, and I still expect to hit my target of an early 2023 relaunch.
 

22000 Kevin

Well a YouTuber called Hazegrayart known for posting CGI animations of paper concept rockets that were never flown in OTL has made a recent video on the Convair Triamese Space Shuttle.

As we all know the Baikal Space Shuttle that will be launched on top of the N1 rocket in Part 2 of this timeline is going to be heavily based off the design and calculations of the OTL Triamese Shuttle so seeing the flight of the Triamese in this video will give us a taste of what is to come in 2023.

Also wow the models of the Triamese in the video are beautiful.
 
Athelstane

Athelstane

22000 Kevin said:
Well a YouTuber called Hazegrayart known for posting CGI animations of paper concept rockets that were never flown in OTL has made a recent video on the Convair Triamese Space Shuttle.

As we all know the Baikal Space Shuttle that will be launched on top of the N1 rocket in Part 2 of this timeline is going to be heavily based off the design and calculations of the OTL Triamese Shuttle so seeing the flight of the Triamese in this video will give us a taste of what is to come in 2023.

Also wow the models of the Triamese in the video are beautiful.
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He does some amazing work.
 

alt_historian

22000 Kevin said:
Well a YouTuber called Hazegrayart known for posting CGI animations of paper concept rockets that were never flown in OTL has made a recent video on the Convair Triamese Space Shuttle.

As we all know the Baikal Space Shuttle that will be launched on top of the N1 rocket in Part 2 of this timeline is going to be heavily based off the design and calculations of the OTL Triamese Shuttle so seeing the flight of the Triamese in this video will give us a taste of what is to come in 2023.

Also wow the models of the Triamese in the video are beautiful.
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More directly related to this thread, he's also done a recreation of the four historical launch (failures) of the N-1 -

@nixonshead - since I first came across them in Eyes Turned Skywards, I've always really liked and valued your illustration/CGI modelling work - I don't have much of a visual imagination, so they've often helped give auch clearer idea of what the author is trying to get across.
As well as being fantastic work in themselves, of course.

Now with this timeline, I've found you're a really talented writer too!
Another happy follower here... :)
 

e of pi

alt_historian said:
More directly related to this thread, he's also done a recreation of the four historical launch (failures) of the N-1 -

@nixonshead - since I first came across them in Eyes Turned Skywards, I've always really liked and valued your illustration/CGI modelling work - I don't have much of a visual imagination, so they've often helped give auch clearer idea of what the author is trying to get across.
As well as being fantastic work in themselves, of course.

Now with this timeline, I've found you're a really talented writer too!
Another happy follower here... :)
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It's downright unfair @nixonshead is as good a writer as he is, with how great his images are. People shouldn't be allowed to be good at that many things. More people need to commission him to stop him from having time to compete with those of us who can only write a bit. :)
 
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22000 Kevin

Well with this thread being active again I guess I'll post this cool CIA video I found in YouTube that was used to brief President Raegan of the Soviet Space Program in 1981.
The ATL video in this timeline will be drastically different thanks to the cancellation of the N1 rocket being adverted.

Also the extremely cursed illustration of the "N-1" rocket seen at two and a half minutes in the video will certainly not exist in this TL...
 

Kloka

22000 Kevin said:
Well with this thread being active again I guess I'll post this cool CIA video I found in YouTube that was used to brief President Raegan of the Soviet Space Program in 1981.
The ATL video in this timeline will be drastically different thanks to the cancellation of the N1 rocket being adverted.

Also the extremely cursed illustration of the "N-1" rocket seen at two and a half minutes in the video will certainly not exist in this TL...
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I think that miiiight be a Proton.
 

nixonshead

22000 Kevin said:
Its not a Proton because the video later shows an accurate illustration of the Proton rocket standing side by side with the "N-1" rocket.
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Agreed. The CIA had a reasonably good idea of what the N-1 looked like in 1969 (as seen here), so there's no reason they should use an incorrect image by the time of Reagan's presidency. It's a cool video though! I'm tempted to make a TTL version, but probably won't have the time to put it together and get it looking suitably aged.

Also, I'm a big fan of Hazegrayart's stuff, especially some of their renders done from the point of view of cameras on the rockets.
 
Zor

Zor

22000 Kevin said:
Yeah Season 1 did the best with the least inaccuracies. Season 2 had the infamous "N3" rocket that was never heard from again (its a N1 in disguise?)
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We've seen only a little of the Soviet Union in For All Mankind and that was away from the Launch Vehicle.

Zor
 

Ry01tank

Have to ask, is this TL done or in progress, not trying to sound like a doorknob
(big fan by the way love it so far)
Just curious to see Ronald Reagan dealing with a Soviet Moon Landing
 
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