Wordpress network .htaccess issue - wordpress

Question

I have a Wordpress network setup but currently there is only one subsite with the url
/psychology
In the future there will be addition sites with
/md
/vet
but for the time being there will only be /psychology
What I want to do is have a rewrite rule in my htaccess that when a user visits the root of the site (/) it actually loads the /psychology site.
I tried adding a line like this to my htaccess
RewriteRule (.*) psychology/$1 [R,L]
but it broke the site. here is my current htaccess (basically the wordpress default for a network install)
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /ASKanALLY/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
# uploaded files
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$2 [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
Any ideas?

Answer 1

You need to add the base to the RewriteRule destination. And add a condition so you don't get a redirect loop.
Adding these two lines after RewriteRule ^ - [L] should work:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/ASKanALLY/psychology ## Not already viewing a psychology URL
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /ASKanALLY/psychology/$1 [R,L] ## Redirect to psychology
Here's the complete example:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /ASKanALLY/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
# uploaded files
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$2 [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ $1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/ASKanALLY/psychology ## Not already viewing a psychology URL
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /ASKanALLY/psychology/$1 [R,L] ## Redirect to psychology
RewriteRule ^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^[_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Answer 2

Your RewriteRule didn't work because it was matching all URLs, including ones to /psychology/foo. I'm guessing you don't have a .htaccess file under /psychology?
Try this - it'll rewrite just the root.
RewriteRule ^/$ psychology/ [r=301,L]