-- 
__________________________________________________________________

 R.F. McDonald
 rmcdonald@upei.ca
 Home E-mail: mcdonald@isn.net
 
 
 "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course; 
 for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of 
 the same God?"
 
     - Voltaire, from Treatise on Tolerance, 1763
 
__________________________________________________________________
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From: Charmelion20@webtv.net (Adam Benjamin)
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Subject: 2001: Oddessy Possible (set-up ideas)
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 08:02:51 -0800 (PST)
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OK, here are some ideas I have on how to make a "2001: a space Oddessy"
AH.
Several things I have noticed. Since the movie(s) and book(s) are
different, I will use info that matches both sources. 

*The Soviet Union has survived until 2000, possibly more economically
viable, since there is an on-and-off cold war and space race with the
USA. Perhaps the coup against Gorbachev was sucessfull in 1990, and was
accepted by a more compromising US president...

*China has another "cultural revolution". Applying this from 2010:
Oddessy 2 (the book), I think this happens after Deng Xiaoping dies in
OTL. Someone more Radical replaces him as the "dear leader" (North
Korean term, but same applies here), instead of Jiang Zemin. Also the
Chinese enter into the space race, possibly getting involved via a crash
program.

*The USA is much more tecnically advanced than OTL. We still had beat
the Russsians to the moon, and established a base there.... Perhaps this
aggressiveness comes after the Russians follow up with a landing of
their own?

*The UN is probably more ineffective in this TL than our Cold War.
Perhaps FDR and Churchill (or some other WWII UK and US leaders in their
place) were more copromising with Stalin, or had set up the UN with only
the General Assembly, giving the big powers (US, UK, France, China,
USSR) each a veto over Gen assembly decisions? In 2001, nuclear weapons
are mounted in satellites, there's no way in hell the UN would allow
that in OTL! Any move to keep space uke free would have met with a veto
from one of the big powers...

*The Cold War had thawed at times so much to allow a joint US/Soviet
space station. This was possibly under agreed to and built by Gorbachev
and maybe Dukakis (lets say he was elected in the 1988 elex...).

*Western Europe is still allied with the USA in this TL. It even
contributes to the building of the space station. Germany may be a
neutral, but unified nation (like the Soviets wanted), and Poland also
may have this arrangement. The British and French seem to be staunch
allies of the US and possibly have a joint space program? The Russians
would not let US, French or British passport holders into their area of
the Space Station...

*The flight Dr. Haywood Floyd takes to the Space Station is a Pan-Am
rocket plane. Perhaps space flight is comercialized, thus the space
shuttle is invented earlier? If the US develops the Space shuttle
earlier the Soviets have surely made a copy of it, but not as good.

*Dr. Chandra, a brilliant man, hmmmm... Let's assume he works for
Microsoft, comes across a programming breakthrough, gets disillusioned
with *just* designing software, teams up with Stephen Jobs, forms a new
company (don't remember the name:( ), and creates HAL. HAL is supposed
to go onine in 1997, but lets move that date up to 1999 for realistic
purposes....

Taking this into account, I possibly can write a good 2001 AH, with
accurate people, dates and events.... possibly starting from WWII as a
divergence... Any thoughts?

-AJB