Icarus (Sci-fi/Time-travel|OOC|Open)

[Voxija]

What do you think of my writing and RPing? How can it become better?

[Dyelli Beybi]

Very solid, Vox, it's great to have you in the thread. Your writing is mechanically sound, you pay attention to what other people have written and grounded characters. It's pretty early in the thread to say anything about character development (and you've possibly done this already) but when I have multiple in a thread I tend to spend a bit of time thinking about how I'm going to make them different from one another. In this thread I only have one character so it's a bit hard to establish a difference, but in Beasts, I have 3... van der Valk is supposed to be calm, collected, a little distant and does not suffer fools. Martin is supposed to be young, enthusiastic and a bit naive. Salt is supposed to be confident, cocky and prone to rash judgement made from gut instinct.

Incidentally, when I was looking back I realised I'd missed Cornelia suggesting Hannah play a different instrument. I've edited an answer into my last post, but in short; she's playing a lute because it's pretty close to a pandura and she doesn't have a hope in hell of learning to play anything else.

[Dyelli Beybi]

On a purely OOC side note (which is not to say anything about Cornelia's personal views), you know Artemisia I wasn't a traitor right?

The 300 films did a massive disservice to a truly fascinating person. She was the Queen of Halicarnassus, which was a Persian vassal state and if contemporary historians are anything to go by, was about the best leader in Xerxes' armies (although Herodotus, who was a bit of a fan-boy, was also from Halicarnassus so might have been a bit biased). Apparently the Athenians had a price of 10,000 drachmas on her head, in a large part because they were so deeply offended that a woman was attacking them.

She's worth looking up on if you are interested in classical history at any rate!

[Ameriganastan]

And by "Fluent French", I mean I just used Google translate.

[Talchyon]

And by "Fluent French", I mean I just used Google translate.

You know, as politically incorrect as Clarence is, I think he's realistic and fits exactly what the premise of the RP is - people from all times, brought together to correct time hackers.

And, also, just so everyone knows, I'm calling it that this first mission is going to be a botched job. I just don't see the ragtag ensemble of us all keeping it together, staying in character, and getting by without at the least, not being believed. We're not the most cohesive unit yet. We may never be. Still, it's fun to see us try.

[Mercatus]

And by "Fluent French", I mean I just used Google translate.

You know, as politically incorrect as Clarence is, I think he's realistic and fits exactly what the premise of the RP is - people from all times, brought together to correct time hackers.

And, also, just so everyone knows, I'm calling it that this first mission is going to be a botched job. I just don't see the ragtag ensemble of us all keeping it together, staying in character, and getting by without at the least, not being believed. We're not the most cohesive unit yet. We may never be. Still, it's fun to see us try.

Personally, I love politically incorrect characters, I'd app to play them in some RPs but I fear that I would be banned from NS lol.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

And by "Fluent French", I mean I just used Google translate.

You, old sport, are a god.

And by "Fluent French", I mean I just used Google translate.

You know, as politically incorrect as Clarence is, I think he's realistic and fits exactly what the premise of the RP is - people from all times, brought together to correct time hackers.

And, also, just so everyone knows, I'm calling it that this first mission is going to be a botched job. I just don't see the ragtag ensemble of us all keeping it together, staying in character, and getting by without at the least, not being believed. We're not the most cohesive unit yet. We may never be. Still, it's fun to see us try.

On the bright side, we aren't bringing the Dane of Screams.

Honestly, Clarence being PC would be completely inaccurate; it would make him seem less of a realistic character and more of a modern insert into a past era. Yes, he's a...well, you know, but he's from a time and place where those things were somehow socially acceptable.

[Voxija]

My second character Albert might be Clarence's arch-enemy. At least, they would clash the most if they ever met.

My first character Cornelia is kind of a compromise between Roman morality and modern morality. She'd be very tolerant for her time, but not so tolerant for ours.

[Ameriganastan]

Even when I play a racist peckerwood from the civil war, people find something positive to say about him.

I must be good at this whole RP thing.

[UniversalCommons]

I am assuming that we can do a do over at a later date... We mess up then go back again... Infinite regression.

[Bingellia]

Even when I play a racist peckerwood from the civil war, people find something positive to say about him.

I must be good at this whole RP thing.

While I do appreciate that you are making him as vile as you are (which is frankly a bit refreshing in portraying a confederate), I do have to ask you to tone it down a little bit. Playing him to the character is well and good, but it doesn't really add much besides making it clear that Clarence and his family are absolute disgusting people and it's making some of the others uncomfortable. It may also attract the attention of NS Moderation because of the general PG-13 rule on NS.

[Ameriganastan]

Even when I play a racist peckerwood from the civil war, people find something positive to say about him.

I must be good at this whole RP thing.

While I do appreciate that you are making him as vile as you are (which is frankly a bit refreshing in portraying a confederate), I do have to ask you to tone it down a little bit. Playing him to the character is well and good, but it doesn't really add much besides making it clear that Clarence and his family are absolute disgusting people and it's making some of the others uncomfortable. It may also attract the attention of NS Moderation because of the general PG-13 rule on NS.

Hey, I said when this thing started:

Is the language too much? I want to properly display him as a backwoods Confederate dope, but I'll skirt around the unpleasant terms if it bothers anyone.

And no said they had a problem. I'm avoiding the big word at least. You know the one.

Also, I haven't seen anyone say I'm making them uncomfortable.

[Europa Undivided]

I am assuming that we can do a do over at a later date... We mess up then go back again... Infinite regression.

Nyet, we can't go back to events we have already participated in, since they are some bad consequences for being near to your doppelganger (which DB has yet to specify so far other than your head exploding).

[Ameriganastan]

I am assuming that we can do a do over at a later date... We mess up then go back again... Infinite regression.

Nyet, we can't go back to events we have already participated in, since they are some bad consequences for being near to your doppelganger (which DB has yet to specify so far other than your head exploding).

I imagine it'd be like what happens in Timecop.

[Mountainus]

I will be away from NationStates for a while, so don't expect me to post anything for a while. Sorry. I'm sure Charles (my character) can stay on the ship for this mission.

[Parcia]

Character Description

Name: Dunaway, Steven K. “Ken.”
Gender: Male
Appearance:
Standing at 5’8, Steven is neither tall nor bulky, preferring to stay toned and thin. His eyes are a deep blue, with his dirty blond hair being kept short, shaggy and just in line with regulations. His face is best described as strangely elven, perhaps weasely with narrow cheeks and sunken eyes.
He kept his face just barely shaved in fact grew a thick patrolmen’s mustache that he kept through out his time in country. By the time he turned 26, his left cheek was marred with a 3 inch scar inflicted upon him by a piece of NVA Shrapnel.

Original Lifespan: 1937 - 2015, 78 years.
Biological Age now: 26

---

Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills:
HUMANINT - Steven is a trained and experienced in the gathering and analyzing of field intelligence, be it logistical date, to troop movements, to most other things one can gleam from a source of information.

Military training - Having passed US Army Basie training, as well as the selection and enlistment process for SOG, Steven is in fit physical shape in terms of strength and stamina. This also covers Fieldcraft, unconventional warfare, and jungle/rural operations, SERE.
- Steven is also familiarized and rated on the M16, M1911A1, and various AK47/AKM pattern weapons.
- Steven is familiarized and in fact specializes in hand to hand and close quarters combat, preferring to work with short blades and knives.

Intelligence Extraction - Due to his particular position among SOG, Steven is familiar with and experienced in various ways of extracting information, mostly through force, from a particular individual.

Weaknesses:
PTSD - Steven’s time in Vietnam was far from peaceful, with him being involved with various grey and lack operations in some way or form. While having mellowed out with time and age, He has been known to slip in to a dissociative state when under intense stress, essentially going back to some of the worst moments of his time in ‘Nam and reliving them.

Prejudice - Being a Son of the south and having matured well before Civil rights became a widely approved of thing, Steven has been known to show a level of apprehension when dealing with peoples of Color...and the French, for different reasons.

---

Background:

Backstory:

Born to an army officer and a seamstress, Steven Dunaway was the oldest of three, with a younger brother and sister, born to the Dunaway family in northern Florida.

Enjoying the fruits of a rather good childhood, Steven grew up to be an adventurous, even rebellious young man who made plans to go to college right out of high school, but was driven by his father to fallow in his footsteps by enlisting.

Being recognized as a man of intelligence and surprising drive for his diminutive stature, he was given the opportunity to volunteer in the Army’s then fresh “Military Assistance Company, Vietnam.” First as a logistical staffer, then in to its more secretive “Special Operations Group” as an intelligence officer, the job coming with the perk of being given a pair of gold bars while in country.

Steven would stay in Vietnam almost the entire war, staying in country after MACVSOG was disbanded as a Door gunner aboard a UH-1C and only returning home in 1971. He would find the same icy cold reception most vets would when coming home and soon move on with his life. He would marry Mary Anne Murphy and go on to have two sons, Steven Bartough Dunaway, and Sean Franklin Dunaway.

Time would pass, his sons would grow up and mature, both enlisting as he did. Around his 60s he would be diagnosed with respiratory problems and after a protracted legal battle, the VA would go on to admit they were related to Agent Orange and thus he was awarded a cash settlement from the US government.

He would finally suffer a stroke in 2012, which would leave him hospitalized until 2015, were a heart attack would take him in his sleep, 3 days after his older grandson graduated US Navy boot camp.

Cause of death: Respiratory failure leading to cardiac arrest, likely a complication of “Agent Orange” exposures.

[UniversalCommons]

I am curious why the rogue time traveler is acting this way. Did some kind of event end the human race in a specific timeline or cause something like the singularity? Is the Icarus acting in humanities interest? Is there something which states the Icarus purpose? Are there any indications of what happened to the Icarus previous crew? I don't trust the ship A.I.

[Europa Undivided]

I am curious why the rogue time traveler is acting this way. Did some kind of event end the human race in a specific timeline or cause something like the singularity? Is the Icarus acting in humanities interest? Is there something which states the Icarus purpose? Are there any indications of what happened to the Icarus previous crew? I don't trust the ship A.I.

Would be better to read on the predecessor on this thread, the Endless Knot.

[UniversalCommons]

It shows faulty logic. Preserving a timeline where humanity has mostly lost does not sound like a good idea. I can understand the use of inflection points to change history. Preventing Archimedes from dying by a Roman sword could easily have advanced human technology by five hundred or more years because the Antikythera device would have allowed both clockwork and orreries. It would also create technologies which we still cannot replicate-- the use of burning mirrors. There are other technological inflection points similar to this one. Making sure Ctesebius writings never disappeared (creating pneumatic devices two thousand years earlier. Insuring that Leonardo's work was translated into understandable language. Introducing a cure for hemorraghic fever for the Mayans. Lots of things could change history for the better. The problem is that we are facing a situation where there is a villain who is changing history. Three or four of them would probably advance technology by over a thousand years by 2133 a.d. There are plenty of points of departure which are not negative. Also trusting aliens to help us is another thing which sounds not so good. We could become a client species to an alien civilization.

[Kartofluland]

Character Description

Name: Valdis Kjotvidottir
Gender: Female
Appearance:






Original Lifespan: 849-870 AD
Biological Age now: 21

--

---

Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills: (Is there anything you are significantly better at than most other people?)

Viking Experience: Much of her life was spent in England raiding, conquering and homesteading for a life away from cold Norway.

-Sailing a Dragonship: Learned while sailing through England's many rivers as well as to the island from her home in Norway.

-Close Quarters Combat: Used to battles with levies of Saxon armies and trained men-at-arms in towns and 'cities' of the period.

-Hunting: She learned how to use and hunt game with a bow and arrows.

Weaknesses: (Is there anything your character is really rubbish at? Not essential you put anything in, but can be fun)

Dyslexic: While in life she was able to read Saxon writings and runes she had significant trouble doing so often relying on others to interpret the written word for her.

Asatru Virtues: Courage, Truth, Honour, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Self Reliance, Industriousness, Perseverance. While it could be seen as a boon to know someone follows a code of conduct it can also give enemies a way to strike at someone.
-Oaths are very important culturally and religiously and thus this character would almost never knowingly break one.

---

Background:

Backstory: Valdis Kjotvidottir grew up the middle child in a smaller Norse coastal village, though she lived a number of winters several of her siblings did not, only she and her brothers Steinar and Brynjar survived to their sixteenth winter. She had done little with her life save hunting game but now an opportunity had sailed her way an offer to join an 'expedition' to England. Her brother Brynjar would too go on this journey to this far-off land.

Once they had landed on England's shore Valdis quickly started work hunting and volunteered to be a warrior for their effort after Brynjar was slain by a Saxon just one winter after they made land. From this point on she maintained a role as a reliable and capable warrior, although not of particular note, she became skilled with an axe and bow during this time and would often train alone in order to try and better hone her skills.

In the final moments of her life Valdis was a part of a raid on a Saxon holding of some military importance. The raid had gone sour for the raiders who had begun a steady retreat, in an attempt to save a wounded fellow she was struck by a volley of arrows by a group of repositioned Saxon archers.

Cause of death: Turned into a pin cushion by Anglo-Saxon Archers

[Europa Undivided]

It shows faulty logic. Preserving a timeline where humanity has mostly lost does not sound like a good idea.

We're not preserving that timeline. We're not in it.

There's two branch timelines from the original where humanity was destroyed, one where Earth was never invaded (To Boldly Go, another RP in this group), and then the one we're in.

[Dyelli Beybi]

Character Description

Name: Dunaway, Steven K. “Ken.”
Gender: Male
Appearance:
Standing at 5’8, Steven is neither tall nor bulky, preferring to stay toned and thin. His eyes are a deep blue, with his dirty blond hair being kept short, shaggy and just in line with regulations. His face is best described as strangely elven, perhaps weasely with narrow cheeks and sunken eyes.
He kept his face just barely shaved in fact grew a thick patrolmen’s mustache that he kept through out his time in country. By the time he turned 26, his left cheek was marred with a 3 inch scar inflicted upon him by a piece of NVA Shrapnel.

Original Lifespan: 1937 - 2015, 78 years.
Biological Age now: 26

Character Description

Name: Valdis Kjotvidottir
Gender: Female
Appearance:

(Image)


(Image)

Original Lifespan: 849-870 AD
Biological Age now: 21

Both acepted, let me know if you need a TL/DR!

Also, since we are about to go into the first major mission, try to integrate the characters relatively quickly into the group... not that I imagine they'll have too many problems getting into the swing of things. If you join the discord I'd be happy to help co-write an intro for both or either individually so that they can get up to speed quickly

[Grenartia]

It shows faulty logic. Preserving a timeline where humanity has mostly lost does not sound like a good idea. I can understand the use of inflection points to change history. Preventing Archimedes from dying by a Roman sword could easily have advanced human technology by five hundred or more years because the Antikythera device would have allowed both clockwork and orreries. It would also create technologies which we still cannot replicate-- the use of burning mirrors. There are other technological inflection points similar to this one. Making sure Ctesebius writings never disappeared (creating pneumatic devices two thousand years earlier. Insuring that Leonardo's work was translated into understandable language. Introducing a cure for hemorraghic fever for the Mayans. Lots of things could change history for the better. The problem is that we are facing a situation where there is a villain who is changing history. Three or four of them would probably advance technology by over a thousand years by 2133 a.d. There are plenty of points of departure which are not negative. Also trusting aliens to help us is another thing which sounds not so good. We could become a client species to an alien civilization.

Except you're assuming that all departures with seemingly positive initial effects are positive overall.

Its a bit cliche in time travel discussions, but lets say you decide not to intervene in someone's plot to kill Hitler before the Beer Hall Putsch (either as an infant, or when he was a corporal in WW1, or some other time, it doesn't really matter for this purpose). Sounds good, right? You've seemingly directly averted the Holocaust AND WW2. Except the knock-on effects are quite severe and multi-faceted.

1. Hitler didn't arise out of a vacuum. He was influenced by, and took advantage of, already-existing sentiments. Hell, he wasn't even the first member of the Nazi party (even the doctored Nazi records only listed him as the 7th member, and in reality, he was something like number 200). Anti-semitism and other racial prejudices the Nazis were notorious for were also very prevalent. Fascism itself was also seen (and it presented itself as such) as a "best of both worlds" approach to the socialism vs capitalism dispute. So its extremely likely that Nazism would have still taken power even with Hitler out of the picture. Hitler was not some grand architect, he simply took advantage of existing conditions. Which leads me to my second point.

2. Hitler was actually fairly incompetent as a leader. This one is fairly well-known. He wasn't a total buffoon, but again, he wasn't a grand architect. So by eliminating Hitler, you've made it quite possible that whoever arises as fuhrer instead of him is actually competent. This is one of the primary reasons the Allies did not seriously attempt to assassinate Hitler during the war, and is also arguably a reason why the July 20 plot was undertaken. Certain leaders in the German High Command realized that Hitler was leading Germany to ruin, and they (mistakenly) thought they could negotiate peace with the Western Allies in order to have a chance against the Soviets. In short, they sought to replace an incompetent leader (Hitler) with someone they thought was competent.

3. The technological consequences of the war are impossible to overstate. Nuclear power. Spaceflight. Jet engines. Electronic computers. These are but a select few technologies on which the world currently depends, that in all likelihood, would not have been pursued (and definitely not as aggressively) without the war and its consequences. Frank Whittle patented the jet engine in 1930, but the RAF thought so little of it that the patent wasn't classified, and so the Germans began pursuing it as well. Whittle's efforts were not seriously backed by the RAF, but the Germans were a bit more supportive of their jet project, and so the first actual jet-powered aircraft was designed, built, and flown by Nazi Germany. It was only with the arrival of the war that Britain decided to back Whittle's efforts. The Manhattan Project, likewise, was only funded because of the urgency of the war effort, and the belief that the Nazis were developing it. It is highly unlikely that any significant government funding would have been directed towards it otherwise, and private sector funding would be non-existent (especially for a bomb, but even a nuclear reactor would be a hard sell to any private investors, and with plentiful oil, gas, and coal supplies in the US, and no need to conserve their use for a war effort, any alternative energy source would be a hard sell). Electronic computers were similarly only funded due to wartime pressures, particularly the need to rapidly crack the German Enigma code. It is highly unlikely those pressures would exist in peacetime, especially if the code itself doesn't exist because there's no need for it. And while there were rocket experiments before WW2, and the Space Race didn't really kick off until over 10 years after it ended, the V2 was undeniably the rocket upon which both the US and USSR based their own initial designs (both for civilian rocketry, and ballistic missiles). And the V2 was the brainchild of Werner Von Braun, who was only able to secure the appropriate funding for it by joining the Nazi party, and agreeing to develop it as a weapon. Like every other item I've mentioned so far, it would not have existed without state (particularly military) funding, and would not have had any appreciable private funding due to lack of a profit motive for their use. Indeed, the current profit motives for rockets are only the result of developments made during the Space Race, developments which would not have been explored without the wider consequences of the Cold War. Which brings me to my next point.

4. The geopolitical consequences are equally impossible to overstate. While WW1 was, with the exception of a few islands opportunistically gobbled up by Japan, and an induced rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, almost entirely fought in Europe and the Atlantic, WW2 was a truly global war. Even nominally neutral nations often either secretly supported one side or another, or were affected by the course of the war itself. Colonies contributed to the efforts of their parent states, and when the war was over, decolonization began in earnest. India, Indochina, most of Africa, etc. were all colonies, and even in the unoccupied regions of those colonies, the investments made to local infrastructure so they could more effectively contribute to the war effort generally outpaced any previous investments. The local populations of these colonies often fought in every major theater as well, and this only helped strengthen their resolve for independence. The United Nations, originally the name of the alliance that opposed the Axis, became a new international body, with more teeth than the previous international body, the impotent League of Nations. And, as the nations of the world sought to rebuild and recover from the most devastating war in history, two superpowers emerged from it that would compete against each other for influence over the other nations of the world. Most of these developments could not have happened without the war (really, everything except the independence movements depends on the war happening, and even the independence movements would have taken a lot longer to see fruit had the war not happened).

5. The likewise non-overstateability of the social consequences of the war. When a nation fought in WW2, it waged total war. Every possible resource was leveraged for the war effort, including the human resource, and indeed, those humans who were nominally marginalized. In the US, for instance, while the military was still segregated, black units still served notably and honorably in combat. Upon their return, the irony of fighting and dying in a war caused (in part) by racial bigotry, for a nation which itself continued a policy of racial bigotry against them was not lost on these veterans, who upon their return, caused renewed vigor in the struggle for civil rights. Likewise, the horrors of the Holocaust motivated many people to reject the bigoted racial attitudes that caused it. After all, once you hear and see someone who is literally little more than skin and bones talk about the horrors of the death camps, it is incredibly hard to justify to yourself the bigotry that is prerequisite for establishing a system of death camps.

6. The obviously earth-shattering consequences of the war on economics. As stated multiple times by now, the war spurred governments to spend money on things they previously had spent little or nothing on. On the capitalist side of things, the war was the largest proving ground for Keynesian economics, which was massively influential in governmental economic policy across the world for nearly 40 years, and is still the predominant economic model most governments today use. While Keynesianism did see adoption in several countries during the latter half of the Great Depression, and this did influence its adoption during the war, the pressure to adopt a new economic model to prevent the economic consequences of the previous war was significant.

Of course, for the sake of my personal time, I have not gone NEARLY as in-depth as one possibly can. There are countless other examples in each category, but suffice it to say, if Hitler was removed from history before the Beer Hall Putsch, the world would be in an incredibly different situation, and not necessarily one that is preferable to the timeline we know. And there are certainly historical events which would have even more drastic impacts. What if Hannibal triumphed at Zama? What if Constantinople never fell? What if horses had not gone extinct in the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus? And so on.

We're not preserving that timeline. We're not in it.

That hasn't been established, especially as most characters are either from that timeline, or before the Destiny expedition.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

We have a Viking now? HELHEIM YES.

[Dyelli Beybi]

It shows faulty logic. Preserving a timeline where humanity has mostly lost does not sound like a good idea. I can understand the use of inflection points to change history. Preventing Archimedes from dying by a Roman sword could easily have advanced human technology by five hundred or more years because the Antikythera device would have allowed both clockwork and orreries. It would also create technologies which we still cannot replicate-- the use of burning mirrors. There are other technological inflection points similar to this one. Making sure Ctesebius writings never disappeared (creating pneumatic devices two thousand years earlier. Insuring that Leonardo's work was translated into understandable language. Introducing a cure for hemorraghic fever for the Mayans. Lots of things could change history for the better. The problem is that we are facing a situation where there is a villain who is changing history. Three or four of them would probably advance technology by over a thousand years by 2133 a.d. There are plenty of points of departure which are not negative. Also trusting aliens to help us is another thing which sounds not so good. We could become a client species to an alien civilization.

Except you're assuming that all departures with seemingly positive initial effects are positive overall.

Its a bit cliche in time travel discussions, but lets say you decide not to intervene in someone's plot to kill Hitler before the Beer Hall Putsch (either as an infant, or when he was a corporal in WW1, or some other time, it doesn't really matter for this purpose). Sounds good, right? You've seemingly directly averted the Holocaust AND WW2. Except the knock-on effects are quite severe and multi-faceted.

1. Hitler didn't arise out of a vacuum. He was influenced by, and took advantage of, already-existing sentiments. Hell, he wasn't even the first member of the Nazi party (even the doctored Nazi records only listed him as the 7th member, and in reality, he was something like number 200). Anti-semitism and other racial prejudices the Nazis were notorious for were also very prevalent. Fascism itself was also seen (and it presented itself as such) as a "best of both worlds" approach to the socialism vs capitalism dispute. So its extremely likely that Nazism would have still taken power even with Hitler out of the picture. Hitler was not some grand architect, he simply took advantage of existing conditions. Which leads me to my second point.

2. Hitler was actually fairly incompetent as a leader. This one is fairly well-known. He wasn't a total buffoon, but again, he wasn't a grand architect. So by eliminating Hitler, you've made it quite possible that whoever arises as fuhrer instead of him is actually competent. This is one of the primary reasons the Allies did not seriously attempt to assassinate Hitler during the war, and is also arguably a reason why the July 20 plot was undertaken. Certain leaders in the German High Command realized that Hitler was leading Germany to ruin, and they (mistakenly) thought they could negotiate peace with the Western Allies in order to have a chance against the Soviets. In short, they sought to replace an incompetent leader (Hitler) with someone they thought was competent.

3. The technological consequences of the war are impossible to overstate. Nuclear power. Spaceflight. Jet engines. Electronic computers. These are but a select few technologies on which the world currently depends, that in all likelihood, would not have been pursued (and definitely not as aggressively) without the war and its consequences. Frank Whittle patented the jet engine in 1930, but the RAF thought so little of it that the patent wasn't classified, and so the Germans began pursuing it as well. Whittle's efforts were not seriously backed by the RAF, but the Germans were a bit more supportive of their jet project, and so the first actual jet-powered aircraft was designed, built, and flown by Nazi Germany. It was only with the arrival of the war that Britain decided to back Whittle's efforts. The Manhattan Project, likewise, was only funded because of the urgency of the war effort, and the belief that the Nazis were developing it. It is highly unlikely that any significant government funding would have been directed towards it otherwise, and private sector funding would be non-existent (especially for a bomb, but even a nuclear reactor would be a hard sell to any private investors, and with plentiful oil, gas, and coal supplies in the US, and no need to conserve their use for a war effort, any alternative energy source would be a hard sell). Electronic computers were similarly only funded due to wartime pressures, particularly the need to rapidly crack the German Enigma code. It is highly unlikely those pressures would exist in peacetime, especially if the code itself doesn't exist because there's no need for it. And while there were rocket experiments before WW2, and the Space Race didn't really kick off until over 10 years after it ended, the V2 was undeniably the rocket upon which both the US and USSR based their own initial designs (both for civilian rocketry, and ballistic missiles). And the V2 was the brainchild of Werner Von Braun, who was only able to secure the appropriate funding for it by joining the Nazi party, and agreeing to develop it as a weapon. Like every other item I've mentioned so far, it would not have existed without state (particularly military) funding, and would not have had any appreciable private funding due to lack of a profit motive for their use. Indeed, the current profit motives for rockets are only the result of developments made during the Space Race, developments which would not have been explored without the wider consequences of the Cold War. Which brings me to my next point.

4. The geopolitical consequences are equally impossible to overstate. While WW1 was, with the exception of a few islands opportunistically gobbled up by Japan, and an induced rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, almost entirely fought in Europe and the Atlantic, WW2 was a truly global war. Even nominally neutral nations often either secretly supported one side or another, or were affected by the course of the war itself. Colonies contributed to the efforts of their parent states, and when the war was over, decolonization began in earnest. India, Indochina, most of Africa, etc. were all colonies, and even in the unoccupied regions of those colonies, the investments made to local infrastructure so they could more effectively contribute to the war effort generally outpaced any previous investments. The local populations of these colonies often fought in every major theater as well, and this only helped strengthen their resolve for independence. The United Nations, originally the name of the alliance that opposed the Axis, became a new international body, with more teeth than the previous international body, the impotent League of Nations. And, as the nations of the world sought to rebuild and recover from the most devastating war in history, two superpowers emerged from it that would compete against each other for influence over the other nations of the world. Most of these developments could not have happened without the war (really, everything except the independence movements depends on the war happening, and even the independence movements would have taken a lot longer to see fruit had the war not happened).

5. The likewise non-overstateability of the social consequences of the war. When a nation fought in WW2, it waged total war. Every possible resource was leveraged for the war effort, including the human resource, and indeed, those humans who were nominally marginalized. In the US, for instance, while the military was still segregated, black units still served notably and honorably in combat. Upon their return, the irony of fighting and dying in a war caused (in part) by racial bigotry, for a nation which itself continued a policy of racial bigotry against them was not lost on these veterans, who upon their return, caused renewed vigor in the struggle for civil rights. Likewise, the horrors of the Holocaust motivated many people to reject the bigoted racial attitudes that caused it. After all, once you hear and see someone who is literally little more than skin and bones talk about the horrors of the death camps, it is incredibly hard to justify to yourself the bigotry that is prerequisite for establishing a system of death camps.

6. The obviously earth-shattering consequences of the war on economics. As stated multiple times by now, the war spurred governments to spend money on things they previously had spent little or nothing on. On the capitalist side of things, the war was the largest proving ground for Keynesian economics, which was massively influential in governmental economic policy across the world for nearly 40 years, and is still the predominant economic model most governments today use. While Keynesianism did see adoption in several countries during the latter half of the Great Depression, and this did influence its adoption during the war, the pressure to adopt a new economic model to prevent the economic consequences of the previous war was significant.

Of course, for the sake of my personal time, I have not gone NEARLY as in-depth as one possibly can. There are countless other examples in each category, but suffice it to say, if Hitler was removed from history before the Beer Hall Putsch, the world would be in an incredibly different situation, and not necessarily one that is preferable to the timeline we know. And there are certainly historical events which would have even more drastic impacts. What if Hannibal triumphed at Zama? What if Constantinople never fell? What if horses had not gone extinct in the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus? And so on.

We're not preserving that timeline. We're not in it.

That hasn't been established, especially as most characters are either from that timeline, or before the Destiny expedition.

From Hannah's perspective, any change made to history, especially ones that result in lives lost or lives saved is also going to result in future generations ceasing to exist. It might be something small, like you've created a different grocery store owner down the road, but didn't that original grocery store owner have a life, family, people that he or she loved?

In relation to the alien invasion and Hannah's own timeline. She comes from the darker part of it, but there is a future beyond the darkness. If she did something to stop it, she would be wiping all the people from after the invasion out of existence and replacing them with a completely different human race that never had that experience. What about the aliens themselves? Are their lives worth less than a human one? Neither she nor the crew are gods. Would an alteration be something they have any right to do?