Victorian Sci-Fi Great War (AH/RAR)

[The Yosemite Bear]

ok, the year is 1906 Japan and Russia have just ended their war, the remains of Martian walkers still litter the land scape from the 1892 invasion, Holmes fell to his death preventing Moriarity from causing the Great War ahead of historicall time, Nemo and his Nautalius have not been seen for years, but all remember the terror he caused international shipping during the years following the american civil war. Professor Champion and Lord Roxton have recently returned from south america with long believed dead dinosaurs...

1. what stolent techs do you attempt to derdiscover. in what order
2. you know the war is enevitatble..

[Esquire]

What position am I in? As an average citizen, my best plan is probably something like 'move to Switzerland and keep my head down,' but as, say, director of the British Army Ordnance Corps, I'd get started on tank production and development, see if I can give military aviation a bit of a jumpstart, and (cautiously, probably without results) try and reproduce the Martian gas weapons and death rays.

Of course, that's only if I want to fight a vaguely historical war - the other option is dino cavalry.

[Ahriman238]

If I have a position of some authority in a European power? Get a time machine and see just how inevitable the great war is. And if it truly can't be averted, get busy stacking the deck. Finding Nemo would be nice, but a nicer sub is a lower priority than getting Robur to work for my side, he has an actual flying fortress and the damned invisible flying car. For that matter, get the man some Cavorite, that wonderful mineral with the anti-gravity properties and see what he can do with it.

[madd0ct0r]

ahhh. http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/

Bear has yet to discover Timeline 300.

I think rocketry is the way forward. V2s should do nicely to break the stranglehold of the great war, and render things like land battleships expensive targets.

[Esquire]

V2s were aimed at cities, and sometimes missed those. How are they going to be used effectively against anything that can move and is smaller than the whole of London?

[Borgholio]

I'd focus effort on getting the powerplants and heat rays reverse engineered from those martian walkers. Fitting those on early tanks would mean major death on the battlefield, and putting heat rays on warships would be great for combat that's not over the horizon, not to mention anti-aircraft uses.

Fit heat rays on towers on the coastline and you don't have to worry about invasions. Could you fit a heat ray on a B-17 type medium or a B-29 type heavy bomber?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I go gather the records of the Miksatonic library and take them to the white house so the President knows what sourts of possibilities there are.

[madd0ct0r]

V2s were aimed at cities, and sometimes missed those. How are they going to be used effectively against anything that can move and is smaller than the whole of London?

get closer?

[The Yosemite Bear]

It's 1906 your working for the government of the Country you presently inhabit. Again, Mycroft does exist in England, but Moriarity and Holmes, Nemo, are still dead/missing (Riechenbach Falls, Mysterious Island eruption), there are martian war machine husks all over the landscape (they died during the invasion some 8 years ago) Tesla and Edison live in the US, Quartermain is alive in Africa (with a ton of gems, and is married to an immortal former Egyptian Queen. etc.

[ryacko]

Didn't Edison have a vendetta against Tesla?

I imagine the US would be in it's second civil war as the two mad scientists duke it out.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Yes, and they are still fighting, but now they have death rays..., oh and the Martians are prettymuch jacked right now, they lost the invasion, some earth plauge came back, and than that pesky civil wwar vet John Carter over through them. Does that mean that the south has risen again on Mars?

[Borgholio]

Given the current political climate of the south, Mars might not be red enough for them...

[Sidewinder]

I'd get started on tank production and development, see if I can give military aviation a bit of a jumpstart, and (cautiously, probably without results) try and reproduce the Martian gas weapons and death rays.

Of course, that's only if I want to fight a vaguely historical war - the other option is dino cavalry.

Battle tanks >>> Dinosaurs.

That said, launch crash development of autocannons and power-assisted loaders for artillery. Work with Henry Ford to not only develop high-power engines, but the means to mass-produce them. I agree that Martian tech should be reverse-engineered, but it'll probably be years (if not decades) before we crack it.

And have the government buy up the Wright Brothers' patents, so they don't unintentionally retard aviation technology by suing everyone who designs a winged flying machine (cough! Glenn Curtiss, cough!).

[Sidewinder]

Didn't Edison have a vendetta against Tesla?

Solution: Have the government buy up whatever patents Tesla puts out. Then give the patents to Thomas Edison- make sure an exclusive (and rich) government contract is secured first- and see what he can reverse-engineer from that.