ISOT Luna’s Prison Colony from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress finds itself on the Moon during Neil Armstrong’s arrival?

[CarlManvers2019]

This is right before the Loonies actually do their rebellion and they want/need poop to be able to farm their foodstuff

Presumably the Loonies are also given data packets for all the technologies of their era and thus Earth’s nations can build their own transport that can go to and from outer space

Mike is also around and gives advice

 

[Bear Ribs]

Well they kinda wind up in charge of the world? I mean, technologically they're vastly more advanced and have a greatly superior position. Earth can't possibly touch them while they have vast resources and can hit earth anytime they want at will. They'll probably try for cooperation but given the relative power imbalance there's no way they don't wind up ruling even if they only use gentle soft power.

The biggest hurdle is probably going to be their demands for women given the gender imbalance the Loonies have going on. At that point China's close to implementing their two-child policy that eventually became one-child, given that this resulted in 99/100 of aborted fetuses being female they may wind up planning to send all the females to the moon instead.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Well they kinda wind up in charge of the world? I mean, technologically they're vastly more advanced and have a greatly superior position. Earth can't possibly touch them while they have vast resources and can hit earth anytime they want at will. They'll probably try for cooperation but given the relative power imbalance there's no way they don't wind up ruling even if they only use gentle soft power.

The biggest hurdle is probably going to be their demands for women given the gender imbalance the Loonies have going on. At that point China's close to implementing their two-child policy that eventually became one-child, given that this resulted in 99/100 of aborted fetuses being female they may wind up planning to send all the females to the moon instead.

The Loonies have vast resources? Don’t remember that, if anything they need stuff from Earth to survive

That said, using railguns to blackmail the world can open up lots of deals

That sounds like human trafficking and I think women are expected to work in China en masse as well, they may not like losing their work force

 

[Bear Ribs]

The Loonies have vast resources? Don’t remember that, if anything they need stuff from Earth to survive

Resources probably wasn't the best choice of terms, I meant they had infrastracture; computers, rail catapults, shuttles, etc. that even modern day earth couldn't touch, much less 1960s earth. That's besides their knowledge of the sciences that are again lightyears beyond what we have even today. Further Loonies are all significantly capable, it's brought out in it (and a few other) books that the "average civilian" in places like that has to be educated enough to perform complex math ranging from orbital mechanics to calculating how long their oxygen will last. TANSTAAFL principle also means that everybody has to be highly productive and capable to keep the colony going to every person is talented and skilled. The dangers of space weed the dumb ones out really fast.

That said, using railguns to blackmail the world can open up lots of deals

That sounds like human trafficking and I think women are expected to work in China en masse as well, they may not like losing their work force

China at the time was not modern China, but yes, sending them to the Moon would be weird and be quite similar to human trafficking. It will be quite similar and have a bad look but the Loonies still need women and if they have any leverage (and they do) they're likely to try to apply it to getting them. Loonies also have zero racial tension (can't afford it with how difficult Lunar life is) and won't care what country. Whichever nation starts sending women up first is going to have a significant economic edge over their neighbors and realpolitik is going to rear it's ugly head.

That said the moon's population is mainly male, about to be rich and powerful, and their society elevates females on a pedestal that makes modern feminists look misogynist. They may not have that much trouble recruiting volunteer women.

Loonies are likely to reserve blackmail with the railgun for an absolute last-ditch effort given their actions in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Remember that the casualties of their railgun attacks were literally morons going to the areas the shells would hit, because Loonies were deliberately only firing at areas that were completely uninhabited to avoid inflicting actual damage. NASA is more than likely to gladly ship them millions of tons of poop (On a Loonie-built rocket since earth rockets can't possibly meet the demand) in exchange for spacelift capability. Hitting the Gobi desert with a giant shell to make a symbolic point probably won't come up.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

TANSTAAFL principle also means that everybody has to be highly productive and capable to keep the colony going to every person is talented and skilled. The dangers of space weed the dumb ones out really fast.

Kinda sad how they quickly and rapidly became severely into bothering each other and intruding on each other's business soon as they formed a government and doc died

I remember it being mentioned that even amongst the Loonies there were Socialists and Stalinists....yeah I can't see Loony culture spreading much to Earth, if anything it'd be the opposite and quick

 

[ATP]

We would live in better world.Earth dominated by Loonies would be better then that co-dominated by soviets/USA and later only by USA.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Kinda sad how they quickly and rapidly became severely into bothering each other and intruding on each other's business soon as they formed a government and doc died

I remember it being mentioned that even amongst the Loonies there were Socialists and Stalinists....yeah I can't see Loony culture spreading much to Earth, if anything it'd be the opposite and quick

I don't think it would simply because all the Loonies are going to be fantastically rich by virtue of their position and technology. That means companies are going to have a strong incentive to pander to Loonies in order to get that sweet, sweet moon money. Just look at Disney cheerfully flushing all their woke morals in order to get their movies into China... where the movies barely sell and they wind up not making much anyway in the case of Star Wars.

Now of course there's way more people on earth than the moon so that market will still exist. But every corporation is going to have an incentive to make sure that their products appeal to Loonies and that means Loony culture is going to get a lot of exposure on earth. Additionally Loony culture can only stretch so far, they live in a horrifically dangerous and harsh environment where failure to adhere to their own standards carries the death sentence. Physics doesn't care about your politics. You abandon TANSTAAFL and you die. This puts a pretty strong upper limit on how much Earth culture can really infiltrate Loony culture but there's no such limit on Loony culture influence earth. You can afford to be a complete nutjob on earth and still breath because earth's ecosystem is handling that for you regardless of your politics. The moon not so much.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I don't think it would simply because all the Loonies are going to be fantastically rich by virtue of their position and technology. That means companies are going to have a strong incentive to pander to Loonies in order to get that sweet, sweet moon money. Just look at Disney cheerfully flushing all their woke morals in order to get their movies into China... where the movies barely sell and they wind up not making much anyway in the case of Star Wars.

Now of course there's way more people on earth than the moon so that market will still exist. But every corporation is going to have an incentive to make sure that their products appeal to Loonies and that means Loony culture is going to get a lot of exposure on earth. Additionally Loony culture can only stretch so far, they live in a horrifically dangerous and harsh environment where failure to adhere to their own standards carries the death sentence. Physics doesn't care about your politics. You abandon TANSTAAFL and you die. This puts a pretty strong upper limit on how much Earth culture can really infiltrate Loony culture but there's no such limit on Loony culture influence earth. You can afford to be a complete nutjob on earth and still breath because earth's ecosystem is handling that for you regardless of your politics. The moon not so much.

I'm pretty sure people maybe horrified at the Loony idea of marriage and age of consent

Also, abandon TANSTAAFL? I think they more-or-less did that or started missing the point by the time Manny decided to just move to Earth due to the Loony government getting more and more into each others business