Time to recycle an old plotline

[RVM45]

.....Did you ever read a story where the Nazis made it to the Moon- just barely; and in total secrecy- and manage to set up a small moonbase; leaving both men and women marooned there?

.....Then in the 50s or 60s; someone's backyard Moon Rocket coincidentally drops the crew right on top the small but thriving Commune of die-hard Nazis.

.....Lets recycle the idea to the 2020s- or so. Hell, after all this time the Nazis may have mellowed. They don't even necessarily have to be villains anymore- but I'd really like to see what type base- and society- that they'd have built and evolved over 80 years, or so.

.....Comments?

.....RVM45

[iansales]

Someone beat you to it. The idea has already been resuscitated - .:: Iron Sky - a sci-fi comedy from the creators of Star Wreck ::.

[Steve Jordan]

Could be some very interesting possibilities to examine a group's efforts to survive in a hostile environment, and how it might have affected them. Problems associated with exposure to hard space and radiation... lack of resources outside of the elements on the Moon itself... how did they get there, and why didn't they just come back... or call for help... and who on Earth might have known (or still knows) that they are still there.

All of that would impact their political stance. Would National Socialism be able to survive? Would their original agenda survive? And if not, what would they be now?

If Iron Sky wants to do a comedy of it, that's cool. But it could be a very good serious drama, too.

[Quokka]

If it was done well it could certainly be an interesting story. Off topic but for socialist/anarchists on a moon, Ursula K. Le Guin's The Disossessed is a good read.

[RVM45]

.....Well I assume that at some point the ships stopped coming.

.....I do wonder though; could you have enough technological capability to keep a Moon base running for eighty years; expand your base and population considerably in that length of time; but NOT have the wherewithal to build a ship home?

.....On the other hand, could 1000; or 1500 folks on Earth build a Moon rocket- while making virtually everything in a tool-room fashion?

.....They almost certainly could have contacted Earth by radio; had they chosen to break radio silence.

.....Hmmm. Imagine what would happen in the real world; if such a base decided to break radio silence; and contact Earth later today...

.....Just how much motivation would a functioning Moon base- multi generational of 2000-3000 souls- prove to be, to get our Donkeys back to the Moon?

.....RVM45

[Steve Jordan]

If you sent a Nazi colony to the Moon, with the idea that they would someday come back when the time was right... would you leave them there without a ship or two? Or proper facilities to keep them in good repair (and probably to build enormous caches of weapons to return with)? I doubt it. So we could assume they had the means to come back whenever they wanted to.

And if that's the case... maybe they did, every so often. Think of the alien abduction stories you could tap! Or if for nothing else, for the resources. Their ships must have been pretty snazzy, too, if they could come and go without being detected by anyone but farmers and UFO nuts. Almost makes UFO lore possible...

Assume they didn't ever come back, and we found them: It would probably be because they cannibalized their ships for more living space and resources. But I find this dubious, as they could have used the ships to get resources from Earth, or to evacuate in an emergency.

So, they chose to stay hidden. If they'd revealed themselves at any point after 1942, the US, USSR and China would've probably tried to nuke the Moon to protect the High Ground. At the very least, today every space-faring nation would want to take the existing station as their colonization point. Good reason to stay hidden, I'd say.

Why come out now? Best reason I can think of would be the recent suggestion (by the US) that we will soon put a permanent base on the Moon, to mine its resources. An established colony would come down, go straight to the U.N., and declare themselves the sovereign people of the Moon, to use international support to head off the invaders.

[Quokka]

Which, along with the well documented rocket program by the Germans, would fit in nicely with their suposed research into flying saucers as described in books like W. A. Harbinson's fictional Projekt Saucer series.

[pyan]

Interesting to speculate if the Nazi credo would survive in such a small enclosed area without imploding...

[Steve Jordan]

They'd need a very persuasive leader...

It might be very hard to support the Nazi credo, since so much of it was based on blaming outside influences for Germany's problems, as well as giving credence to a wartime lifestyle and martial law. Without those outside influences, or the threat of war, maintaining the credo would be very difficult.

The emphasis would have to be put on the Master Race idea, which, assuming they did not bring any inferior races with them, could be difficult: All it would take would be a few "non-perfect" births, with no "pollution of inferior genes" to blame it on, to pretty much shoot the Master Race idea in the foot.

Would the Nazis bring inferiors with them, to function as servants? Doubtful that they would, or that it would last if they did... revolts, revolutions, or simple resistance would probably result in their eventual culling of any inferiors, or of the inferiors taking over (now there might be a story!).

And if neither happened, you'd have a mixed population, and the Nazi credo would be altered or gone.

[RVM45]

.....I thought of an interesting twist to put on it. It was a joint Nazi/Japanese venture. The Germans were all SS CREME DE LA CREME. The Germans hadn't gotten around to importing any women folk. The Japanese had.

.....The Germans attempt to seize control of the base. They suceed, but in the process, all the rocket ships are destroyed. All the Japanese men are eventually executed.

.....Earth HQ keeps promising to get some more ships built; but with Germany at war; they never follow through. The SS Moon Command hadn't had much hope of rescue anyway- that's why they held off on killing the women. Even SS Officers prefer diminuative brown women to no women at all.

.....They transfer their master race aspirations to the new hybrid race- pruned by rigid Eugenics and some genetic engineering.

.....But over eighty years- four, even five generations later- no one is all that fanatical about the idea- or most other Nationalist Socialist ideas either- not to say that they may not still be very antisocial.

.....RVM45

[Steve Jordan]

One issue I have with this scenario is the idea that the project would have remained secret after Germany lost the war.

Once the war was over (in fact, before it was over), German scientists defected to the West, and coughed up a great deal of Germany's scientific and military secrets in exchange for asylum. That's how the U.S. got its own Moon rocket program, remember? I'm sure some scientist would've spilled the beans, intentionally or otherwise, and the Allies would know there was a base up there.

This suggests a connection to the American space program, which could have been America's attempt to get to the Moon, ostensibly to plant the flag, but actually to find the hidden base and (presumably) destroy it. Apollo's short run could have been a public smoke-screen, having destroyed the base within the first 1-2 missions... or maybe it took the last mission to destroy the base, and the Apollo program was immediately canceled afterward.

(Conspiracy theories... gotta love 'em!)

[RVM45]

.....I thought that Steve Jordan's last comment had pretty much driven a stake through the heart of my idea.

.....On second thougt though, so the existence of the base is an open secret in some upper echelons of government. Provided that The Powers That Be had adopted a cautious policy of simply watching- for whatever complicated political reasons...

.....You could still have a view-point character astonished to find the base; and you could examine what happens to a small enclave isolated on the Moon for 85 years.

.....RVM45

[Steve Jordan]

Sure, that still works. For that matter... although my scenario could still be, and the Apollo program was designed to destroy the base... maybe they couldn't. Maybe, after multiple attempts, the Moonbase figured out some way to stymie the Americans, and they were forced to give up on destroying the base. As I pointed out earlier, they do hold the "high ground."

But now, the President's talk of "establishing a base on the Moon" is a signal to those in the know that we now have a way of counteracting whatever weapon the Moon is holding over us.

[Quokka]

It's still a long way off yet but would the current push for private space flights threaten any secrets or truce that had been established? Of course as long as the above governments are the ones hand picking which companies get funding and support and which get tied down in red tape and administration scandals? Maybe they're confident enough that they can put their 'companies' in place or maybe they have to settle for stacking the odds in favour of those least likely to make quick and successful breakthrough just to keep buying time...

[Steve Jordan]

All I can say is, a "push" for private flights is a long way from their actually happening...