The history of the next century(is this plausible?)

phantom000 · May 21, 2013

I have an idea for a story. A big part of the plot is a timeline of events that happen over next century.

It starts in 2020 when some scientists win the nobel prize for creating the first workable fusion reactor.

They use the money to build a bigger reactor and soon reactors are coming online all over the world but there is a problem. The reactor requires fuel, helium-3 and earth doesn't have enough to meet the world's energy needs.

About this time NASA and The European Space Agency come together to create the first moon base which they use to collect helium from the moon and ship it back to earth for fuel.

The Asians, fearing this will give the west an energy monopoly, decide to put their own base on the moon. Over the next several decades both sides expand their bases to collect ever larger amounts of helium fuel and soon they begin tripping over each other and causing problems.

By 2073 the Europeans decide to drive the Asians out. They try to sabotage the Asian base but when that fails they plant a bomb inside the perimeter to cripple the facility. In retaliation the Asians crash their orbital probes into the European base. The survivors have it out in a hand to hand brawl on the lunar surface with make shift weapons. When it's over the Asians are the only ones left.

The European Union threatens war if the Asians don't surrender the moon immediately but the United States throws it's weight behind the Asians forcing the Europeans give up. This leaves the Asians to lead the way in further exploration and development of space, with the Americans giving a helping hand.

So does it sound remotely plausible?

mpack · May 21, 2013

phantom000 said:
So does it sound remotely plausible?

My first impression is that "Asian" refers to an overly broad and non-homogenous region in respect to future geopolitics. I would consider focusing on specific nation-states when plotting a future history. Do you mean China? India? Pakistan? Japan? Somewhere else? I would find it implausible that the lead powerhouses in Asia would suddenly align on a single axis in the short term.

As to the broad strokes, sure. The discovery of a needed raw material on the moon could certainly drive both a new space race and create the potential for the rivalries necessary to provoke a war.

ClareGreen · May 21, 2013

As well as mpack's point about 'Asian' being a rather too broad catch all, in something like this I'd expect the USA to be much more gung-ho than the EU - the EU typically gets involved in wars only after the USA has gone a significant distance towards starting them, or so it seems from the fringes of the EU.

Now if you replace 'Asian' with 'Chinese' and use the national debt owed by the USA to China as leverage to force the USA to back down, you might be on to something.

onesecondglance · May 21, 2013

Is there any helium-3 on the moon? Is helium-3 even a real thing?

Pthom · May 21, 2013

From Wikipedia:

Helium-3 (He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. It is rare on the Earth, and it is sought for use in nuclear fusion research. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years),[1] though still low in quantity (28 ppm of lunar regolith is helium-4 and from one ppb to 50 ppb is helium-3),[2][3] and the solar system's gas giants (left over from the original solar nebula).

More here...and no doubt elsewhere.

Roxxsmom · May 22, 2013

phantom000 said:
They use the money to build a bigger reactor and soon reactors are coming online all over the world but there is a problem. The reactor requires fuel, helium-3 and earth doesn't have enough to meet the world's energy needs.

I was under the impression that fusion reactors would start with hydrogen, which as the smallest element, could be fused at the lowest temperatures , or off hydrogen isotopes like deuterium and tritium, and not He isotopes initially. You could ostensibly fuse He3, but wouldn't it be more difficult than fusing hydrogen, as per the "fusion in a jar" reaction that scientists are hoping to accomplish someday. I was under the impression that He3 and He4 would be end products of hydrogen fusion and not be fuel for a fusion reaction themselves (though the sun does fuse these isotopes, I believe)

This is what it says on wikipedia about fusion:
In most experiments the nuclei and electrons are left in a fluid known as a plasma. The temperatures required to provide the nuclei with enough energy to overcome their repulsion is a function of the total charge, so hydrogen, which has the smallest nuclear charge therefore fuses at the lowest temperature. Helium has an extremely low mass per nucleon and therefore is energetically favoured as a fusion product. As a consequence, most fusion reactions combine isotopes of hydrogen ("protium", deuterium, or tritium) to form isotopes of helium (He3 or He4) as the fusion end product.

onesecondglance · May 22, 2013

Pthom said:
From Wikipedia:

Helium-3 (He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. It is rare on the Earth, and it is sought for use in nuclear fusion research. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years),[1] though still low in quantity (28 ppm of lunar regolith is helium-4 and from one ppb to 50 ppb is helium-3),[2][3] and the solar system's gas giants (left over from the original solar nebula).

More here...and no doubt elsewhere.

Thank you - brain needed kickstarting this morning.

KateJJ · May 22, 2013

I think I have trouble believing that less than fifty years would be enough to use up so many of the moon's resources that we'd fight over them. Now, I could see someone working up to a frenzy over the idea despite it not actually being true, so if that's how you're planning to go I could buy it.

Slicklines · May 22, 2013

Yes, but not perhaps in the way the question was asked. Why? Because it's entirely up to the writer to make it plausible. Look how badly every science fiction writer has messed up the future. From Asimov to Gibson, they all took their best shot and (to a greater or lesser extent) whiffed. (I love the banks of phone booths in Gibson's ultra-hightech Neuromancer.) Right or wrong, these writers produced classics. It didn't matter if their future came true or not. For the space of a book, they made it believable. You could add the most outlandish detail to your outline (say, a giant monolith is found on the moon during all this mining) and it will be perfectly believable if you write as if it's true.

Buffysquirrel · May 23, 2013

I don't find it particularly plausible. The EU is an economic co-operation area, not a federal state. Although I suppose it could be federalised by the time of your story. As such, it doesn't declare/fight wars. Individual member states make their own decisions on that front.

Also, the US completely throws away its commitment to NATO? Why?

King Neptune · May 23, 2013

Anything that one predicts for 100 years in the future is possible. The art of prediction is not well developed. It is possible to predict based on current trends, but that only goes a few years into the future, at most.

mirandashell · May 23, 2013

Yeah, I think it's the usual problem of thinking USA = one country, Europe = one country, Asia = one country.

Not even in one hundred years. Especially not Asia. I wouldn't find that at all plausible.

Jersey · May 23, 2013

People during WWII wouldn't expect Germany and Japan to turn into our allies either.

The way European nations are struggling financially, and the way China is gaining in just about everything, we can't know what the geopolitics of those regions - or one including us for that matter - might turn into by 100 years from now. Heck, even without those pressures, 100 years could end up with us all being aligned in any of all sorts of ways.

I've only made it a little into book 4 of the Song of Ice and Fire series. For all I know, the Lannisters and the Starks may be happily joined up by mid-book. LOL

Buffysquirrel · May 23, 2013

The restructuring of Germany that took place after the war was planned in advance. So some people obviously were thinking about 'after'. Unlike in 1918.

phantom000 · May 23, 2013

I had an idea that you would have this period of regionalism. A kind of mid-point between separate independent nations like what we have today and a single world government.

One could argue the first of these has already appeared, The European Union. Later Japan, China, Korea and India will unite to form the Asiatic League, an east Asian version of the European Union.

That is what i mean when i say 'Asian' or 'European'

Dryad · May 23, 2013

I would not find a union between those Asian countries to be plausible any time in the near future. Science breakthroughs in a sci-fi novel are easy for me to accept, but on the political front I'm much more likely to lean on history and the lingering animosity built up by past conflicts. Of course, as the writer you could introduce a plethora of reasons for the change of heart. Plausibility really comes down to the writing, at least for me.

Liosse de Velishaf · May 23, 2013

phantom000 said:
I had an idea that you would have this period of regionalism. A kind of mid-point between separate independent nations like what we have today and a single world government.

One could argue the first of these has already appeared, The European Union. Later Japan, China, Korea and India will unite to form the Asiatic League, an east Asian version of the European Union.

That is what i mean when i say 'Asian' or 'European'

Dryad said:
I would not find a union between those Asian countries to be plausible any time in the near future. Science breakthroughs in a sci-fi novel are easy for me to accept, but on the political front I'm much more likely to lean on history and the lingering animosity built up by past conflicts. Of course, as the writer you could introduce a plethora of reasons for the change of heart. Plausibility really comes down to the writing, at least for me.

I also find the "Asiatic League" highly improbably. There's just a lot of conflict and tension between those countries.

I could maybe buy the solution someone proposed earlier about China being the Asian power and bullying the US into taking their side.

mpack · May 23, 2013

phantom000 said:
Later Japan, China, Korea and India will unite to form the Asiatic League, an east Asian version of the European Union.

You would need a lot of deft writing and some compelling reasons to convince me of this alignment. Any two given nations in the European Union have more history and culture in common than do Japan and India, even setting aside tensions, animosities, and rivalries.

Can it be done? Sure. The job of the writer is to make the reader believe in the implausible (or even in the impossible.) It could be hard, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

mirandashell · May 24, 2013

And where's Russia in all of this?

Buffysquirrel · May 24, 2013

Russia joined the EU and is now running it?

mirandashell · May 24, 2013

yeah right!

King Neptune · May 24, 2013

Rather than larger countries, I suspect that the next step will be smaller countries, nd that is already starting. The era of the nation state may be upon us. Let the Basques , the Walloons, the Flemish, the Kashubis, the Silesians, the Moravians, the Bohemians, the Baluchi, the Hmong, the Tibetans, and so on all have their own countries. That would lead to better government and less war, and the various nations could ally into larger groups for large matters.

And breaking France into 6 or 8 countries would be great fun.

Buffysquirrel · May 24, 2013

Yeah, because when Yugoslavia split into smaller countries, less war was definitely the result....

Teinz · May 24, 2013

phantom000 said:
So does it sound remotely plausible?

As others have suggested, change the part about the EU. I like the US-indebted-to-China scenario, too.

But what I'm wondering; who are we supposed to root for in your story? What's going on exactly?

mirandashell · May 24, 2013

King Neptune said:
Rather than larger countries, I suspect that the next step will be smaller countries, nd that is already starting. The era of the nation state may be upon us. Let the Basques , the Walloons, the Flemish, the Kashubis, the Silesians, the Moravians, the Bohemians, the Baluchi, the Hmong, the Tibetans, and so on all have their own countries. That would lead to better government and less war, and the various nations could ally into larger groups for large matters.

And breaking France into 6 or 8 countries would be great fun.

You're kidding, right?

The history of the next century(is this plausible?)

phantom000

mpack

Swooping is bad.

ClareGreen

Onwards, ever onwards

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake

Pthom

Word butcher

Roxxsmom

Raised by Wolves

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake

KateJJ

coffee and pistols at dawn

Slicklines

Buffysquirrel

King Neptune

mirandashell

Jersey

Buffysquirrel

phantom000

Dryad

Liosse de Velishaf

mpack

Swooping is bad.

mirandashell

Buffysquirrel

mirandashell

King Neptune

Buffysquirrel

Teinz

Back at it again.

mirandashell