The 2nd Great War

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Vjacheslav Malyshev

Banned
I feel that Harry Turtledove's 2nd Great war in TL-191 is unrealistic. I find the idea that the CSA is able to dominate the USA at any point of the war unrealistic. I feel personally that kicking off the war in June 22 1941 is unimaginative. I feel the war would be more entertaining if the war stared over the US refusing the Kentucky(why is it even in the CSA?) and Houston plebiscite. The US tank development is also unrealistic because it's almost a perfect copy of OTL. This is especially true if turtledove is going for a USSR on America feel(which is the feeling I get).
 

Kaiser K

The wank of the CSA to be able to dominate the USA is for story purposes obviously, as the CSA was supposed to be a analogue of Nazi Germany, so Blackbeard was supposed to be a flip of Barbarrosa, but I feel not only was the war too short, but the Entente barely did anything note worthy, it was a ROFLstomp by the Entente on the Central Powers and it was honestly boring reading.


the First Great War was also unrealistic, because Turtledove wanted "Nazi" Confederates. and then WW2 in my opinion was too short and boring.
 

Vjacheslav Malyshev

Banned
The First Great war would've been better if he copied the Eastern front, not the Western front. I feel he didn't care and went a Western front on North America due to the popular conception that the Western front was representative all of fronts.
 

Kaiser K

pharoahjared said:
The First Great war would've been better if he copied the Eastern front, not the Western front. I feel he didn't care and went a Western front on North America due to the popular conception that the Western front was representative all of fronts.
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Well I think he went with that because it allowed the CSA a better chance to win, which he needed for the interwar and WW2.


CSA broked on the USA Brest-Letsovik or USA broked on the CSA?
 

d32123

Banned
As others have stated before, Turtledove's goal in the TL-191 series is not to present a realistic depiction of a CSA Civil War victory. It's more of a demonstration of "it can happen here" and a refutation of American exceptionalism, transplanting European history from the first half of the 20th century onto North America. Going into the series, I did not know that this was his intention and was expecting something more along the lines of hard AH. Overall I found the Second Great War ark to be both the least interesting and the most lazy. It was little more than copypasta of OTL's European Theater of WWII onto North America, with little nuance, subtlety, or even internal logic. In the end, in order to fit the story he wants, Turtledove is forced to wank the CSA to completely ridiculous proportions and imo it hurts the readers' suspensions of disbelief. With more nuance, subtlety, and internal logic, I think he could have done a much better job with writing the Second Great War. We can start with Operation Blackbeard, which was basically ASB levels implausible, even working with the premises we are given in the series.
 

Kaiser K

d32123 said:
We can start with Operation Blackbeard, which was basically ASB levels implausible, even working with the premises we are given in the series.
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Assuming we work with the premises within the series and presume the CSA is capable of launching Blackbeard (which it is not, but we must suspend disbelief and create a good story, no?)
 

d32123

Banned
MsWhatsittoya said:
Assuming we work with the premises within the series and presume the CSA is capable of launching Blackbeard (which it is not, but we must suspend disbelief and create a good story, no?)
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I think the thing is he's not even concerned with writing a good story, he just wants to copypasta and get his message out. If he wanted to go for interesting story, the entire series would have been different. We would have seen things like actual character development, plot twists, etc. Instead we get a wide pallet of characters designed to show us viewpoints of his world he's created from all sorts of diverse perspectives and a completely linear plot. If we want to turn TL-191 into a good story, we'd have to scrap huge amounts of canon to do so I think.
 

Kaiser K

d32123 said:
I think the thing is he's not even concerned with writing a good story, he just wants to copypasta and get his message out. If he wanted to go for interesting story, the entire series would have been different. We would have seen things like actual character development, plot twists, etc. Instead we get a wide pallet of characters designed to show us viewpoints of his world he's created from all sorts of diverse perspectives and a completely linear plot. If we want to turn TL-191 into a good story, we'd have to scrap huge amounts of canon to do so I think.
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and then it wouldn't be TL-191 through.


Through Turtledove was going for 2 things really, European history transplanted to North America, and Confederate Nazi's.
 

d32123

Banned
MsWhatsittoya said:
and then it wouldn't be TL-191 through.


Through Turtledove was going for 2 things really, European history transplanted to North America, and Confederate Nazi's.
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Is the rumor about him originally planning on having the United States go Nazi true?
 

Kaiser K

d32123 said:
Is the rumor about him originally planning on having the United States go Nazi true?
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It is, he originally planned on the CSA winning the war and the US being the one to go Nazi, but he changed it because Confederate Nazi's would sell more books then American Nazi's and he needed the money to pay for his daughter's college.
 

d32123

Banned
MsWhatsittoya said:
It is, he originally planned on the CSA winning the war and the US being the one to go Nazi, but he changed it because Confederate Nazi's would sell more books then American Nazi's and he needed the money to pay for his daughter's college.
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I think that would've been a much more interesting series and possibly more powerful in delivering his message. In the series as presented, it's easy to write off the Freedom Party as a bunch of racist Confederates and not think too hard about the message, but it would be a bigger punch to the gut to see a rise of something akin to Nazism in the United States.
 
Emperor Norton I

Emperor Norton I

MsWhatsittoya said:
It is, he originally planned on the CSA winning the war and the US being the one to go Nazi, but he changed it because Confederate Nazi's would sell more books then American Nazi's and he needed the money to pay for his daughter's college.
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I wouldn't have liked that, because you'd literally have the US lose every...single....war since 1860. You already had the revanchism from all that as it was by WW1. I don't buy that you could beat people down for that long and have them get revanchist in reaction to revanchism. It just seems like they'd get tired, and the concept would feel very tired.
 

d32123

Banned
Emperor Norton I said:
I wouldn't have liked that, because you'd literally have the US lose every...single....war since 1860. You already had the revanchism from all that as it was by WW1. I don't buy that you could beat people down for that long and have them get revanchist in reaction to revanchism. It just seems like they'd get tired, and the concept would feel very tired.
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Maybe it'd work better if he didn't include the Second Mexican War and just had the USA get its behind handed to it twice instead of three times prior to the Second Great War.
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
MsWhatsittoya said:
It is, he originally planned on the CSA winning the war and the US being the one to go Nazi, but he changed it because Confederate Nazi's would sell more books then American Nazi's and he needed the money to pay for his daughter's college.
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Actually I think it's because he actually did do some research and realized just how ridiculous that was, you can only suspend disbelief so far and the USA losing WWI while allied to the Central powers is a bridge to far

Wouldn't even require much research besides looking at census records by state and seeing how much of a pop edge the US had
 

Kaiser K

RamscoopRaider said:
Actually I think it's because he actually did do some research and realized just how ridiculous that was, you can only suspend disbelief so far and the USA losing WWI while allied to the Central powers is a bridge to far

Wouldn't even require much research besides looking at census records by state and seeing how much of a pop edge the US had
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It is pretty ridiculous, but TL-191 was never about the realism, it was supposed to be a story of the USA vs the CSA all along, just that
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
MsWhatsittoya said:
It is pretty ridiculous, but TL-191 was never about the realism, it was supposed to be a story of the USA vs the CSA all along, just that
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True but even Turtledove had some limits with how far he was willing to go and I think that crossed it

Hell in the first 5 minutes of research for my TL-191 fan TL I figured out how badly the Entente was screwed
 

Kaiser K

RamscoopRaider said:
True but even Turtledove had some limits with how far he was willing to go and I think that crossed it

Hell in the first 5 minutes of research for my TL-191 fan TL I figured out how badly the Entente was screwed
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He screwed up big time by allying the US and Germany, they were honestly TOO strong together, the Entente was screwed both times and it made for a CP ROFLstomp of the Entente in both wars.
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
MsWhatsittoya said:
He screwed up big time by allying the US and Germany, they were honestly TOO strong together, the Entente was screwed both times and it made for a CP ROFLstomp of the Entente in both wars.
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Why is that screwing up?

The US is not going to be happy about the UK and France prying the CSA out of it, even without the events of How Few Remain I just don't see the US getting involved with France or Britain, at best you get a surly neutrality out of them, which if the situation resembles OTL means a CP win, and a CP win in round I means they win round II, and if the situation doesn't resemble OTL, Mr. Tutledove can't get his message across as well

I don't think showing that as the consequences is screwing up, I think he just wasn't putting everything he had into the series
 
EnglishCanuck

EnglishCanuck

Yeah the Second Great War was pretty lazy, especially all the blatant comparisons of the two sides sounding just like the Allies thinking in WWII.

Aside from that it is pretty unimaginative, and when Featherson starts shooting rockets I facepalmed.
 
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