TL-191: After the End

Faeelin

Banned
The US is humiliated and, when the Mormons in Chihuahua and Sonora try the same the Americans decide enough is enough and move in to crush their uprising in an analogue to the Chechen Wars. Mexico descends into socio-political turmoil akin to the breakup of Yugoslavia, possibly with ethnic attacks against Amerindian/Mormon communities in Mexico.

Germany is like TTL's America, and becomes the dominant world power. An economically troubled US forms a CIS analogue with it's former puppets in the South and Canada.

American settlers in Canada could end up being the cause to TTL's Crimea Crisis and Ukrainian conflict, perhaps with US annexation of something like the Ontario peninsula and propping up of pro-US rebel strongholds in Alberta or something.

I don't know why people keep reading about the Kaiserreich and think "oh yea, they're the guys who won't have troubles with an overstretched empire!"
 

Pax

Banned
I don't know why people keep reading about the Kaiserreich and think "oh yea, they're the guys who won't have troubles with an overstretched empire!"

I think Germany likely loses it's colonies in the 60s-70s, and probably gives up trying to directly control Eastern Europe by about the 80s or 90s in favor of an analogue to the EU/NATO.
 

Faeelin

Banned
I think Germany likely loses it's colonies in the 60s-70s, and probably gives up trying to directly control Eastern Europe by about the 80s or 90s in favor of an analogue to the EU/NATO.

Why do you see that happening and not the sort of mess you see for the USA? The responsible government the German Empire was known for?
 

Pax

Banned
Why do you see that happening and not the sort of mess you see for the USA? The responsible government the German Empire was known for?

No, just because Turtledove's obviously paralleling OTL and the US is blatantly the parallel for the USSR. I doubt he'd have both Germany and America parallel the USSR/Russia.
 

Faeelin

Banned
No, just because Turtledove's obviously paralleling OTL and the US is blatantly the parallel for the USSR. I doubt he'd have both Germany and America parallel the USSR/Russia.

Isn't the USA's parallel the Western Democracies given its appeasement and development of atomic weapons?

So the outcome should be some sort of shiny happy united states of America....
 
No, just because Turtledove's obviously paralleling OTL and the US is blatantly the parallel for the USSR. I doubt he'd have both Germany and America parallel the USSR/Russia.

I really don't see TL-191 USA parallel the USSR. There are similarities, but most of them seem to be more along the way the war went. politically, they are completely different and I can't see TTL USA following the path of the USSR.

Germany would probably be more of a competitor to the USA. The one thing that kept them united were the Entente Powers. With them gone, there isn't that uniting factor anymore. Germany doesn't have any threats to deal with in Europe, especially since they are the only country to have superbombs while other nations of Europe are having to literally deal with the fallout of losing another war. They have also been hit by nukes, not to mention they would have to try and maintain an overseas empire, which would be expensive.

the USA will focus on Japan, since they are really the only power left that could contest the USA's power in the Pacific, and that could cause the USA to form closer relations with powers in the area, like Australia, China, and Russia. Forming closer ties with Russia could cause problems for US-German relations.
 
The USA will focus on Japan, since they are really the only power left that could contest the USA's power in the Pacific, and that could cause the USA to form closer relations with powers in the area, like Australia, China, and Russia. Forming closer ties with Russia could cause problems for US-German relations.

IIRC there were a few lines in the last two books of the series where U.S. troops and/or politicians talked about a possible war with Japan, but dismissed it due to being too costly (it was basically going to be a repeat of the Pacific Campaign). But logically, the U.S. would have most likely been at war with Tl-191 Japan within a decade, decade and a half due to the two being the only powers in the Pacific, and both wanting to dominate it. In the end, the Japanese most likely would lose the war, probably for some of the same reasons that they lost WWII, albeit in TL-191.
 
Going through that stupid sunburn bit over and over again and using it to kill off a character as everything is coming to a happy ending is mean-spirited on Turtledove's part and I see no need nor desire to indulge it.

Calling IN AT THE DEATH a "Happy Ending" strikes me as a trifle optimistic at best, given the liberal use of Atomic Weaponry by all sides and the very high likelihood of the South becoming a bleeding ulcer on the body of the United States of America, with all the Guerrilla Atrocities and Brutal Reprisals one might expect from such Troubles (not to mention the continuing repression, if not outright Oppression, of Canada).

With that in mind it seems perfectly reasonable, if undoubtedly unkind, that Sam Carsten should die of a long-standing skin condition - one hopes that he will receive a "Tombstone Promotion" to Full Captain, at least, and I would certainly like to think that some interested party was able to interview him with the idea of enriching an account of US Naval History with a recounting of Sam Carsten's own remarkable service record.
 
Calling IN AT THE DEATH a "Happy Ending" strikes me as a trifle optimistic at best, given the liberal use of Atomic Weaponry by all sides and the very high likelihood of the South becoming a bleeding ulcer on the body of the United States of America, with all the Guerrilla Atrocities and Brutal Reprisals one might expect from such Troubles (not to mention the continuing repression, if not outright Oppression, of Canada).

With that in mind it seems perfectly reasonable, if undoubtedly unkind, that Sam Carsten should die of a long-standing skin condition - one hopes that he will receive a "Tombstone Promotion" to Full Captain, at least, and I would certainly like to think that some interested party was able to interview him with the idea of enriching an account of US Naval History with a recounting of Sam Carsten's own remarkable service record.
Eh, they've hit bottom and are climbing back up. That's happy to me. And why should we be unkind to him? Who's writing this fic? Turtledove or us? And what do we gain from another pointless death? Nothing I can see.
 
Strictly speaking it is Mr David bar Elias is writing this continuation of Mr Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory novels; so far as I can tell his depiction of Sam Carsten suffering the consequences of a melanoma is a courteous gesture toward the original author's intent and (more to the point) shows that even sympathetic characters can suffer a sad ending.

Given the fate of Nellie Jacobs (amongst others) I think it can safely be argued that this is very much in the spirit of Timeline 191 and still more of Real History.


That's happy to me.

Point taken, though "Bittersweet" might seem more appropriate in the circumstances described at the end of the Novels.
 
Having said that, re-reading this thread and discovering that Joshua Blackford turned out a Democrat nearly gave me a conniption - I would LOVE to see a picture of Flora Hamburger Blackford's face when her baby boy won the Presidency, as a Democratic President (one imagines she'd be torn between abiding love and a burning desire to take God by the ear in the interest of making her opinion on this particular Cosmic Joke VERY CLEAR).:angel:
 
Strictly speaking it is Mr David bar Elias is writing this continuation of Mr Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory novels; so far as I can tell his depiction of Sam Carsten suffering the consequences of a melanoma is a courteous gesture toward the original author's intent and (more to the point) shows that even sympathetic characters can suffer a sad ending.

Given the fate of Nellie Jacobs (amongst others) I think it can safely be argued that this is very much in the spirit of Timeline 191 and still more of Real History.




Point taken, though "Bittersweet" might seem more appropriate in the circumstances described at the end of the Novels.
I think it's fair to say it's a wasted courtesy since Turtledove does not read this thread. There's no point to indulging another mean-spirited death by Turtledove. I don't even like Sam Carsten but death by that stupid sunburn repetition is too much.
 
I think it's fair to say it's a wasted courtesy since Turtledove does not read this thread.

No courtesy can be entirely wasted!:)

For the record I would also like to suggest that calling Sam Carsten's death "mean-spirited" may be over-egging the pudding; it is, after all, the entirely logical outcome of what would appear to be a lifelong skin condition rather than an act of random cruelty. I would also like to suggest that while you see no point in honouring Doctor Turtledove's intent, it is somewhat discourteous to suggest that such a show of respect on David bar Elias' part is pointless (since Mr bar Elias* clearly does not believe this to be the case).

I hope you will not regard this as a quarrelsome line of thought - one merely wished to suggest that, as we are discussing Alternate History, it is perfectly reasonable to disagree with the author of this thread and believe that (in some other variation on Timeline 191) things turned out differently rather than describe Mr bar Elias' choices as "pointless" or "wasted" in his own thread.

*Is that the most courteous and correct way to use this surname in a conversation? I wasn't sure if "Mr bar Elias" was the proper usage and would greatly appreciate clarification where this Point of Ettiquette is concerned!

"That ..." as Forrest Gump would say "... is all I have to say about that."
 
David bar Elias, I have looking back through this thread for references to Charles W. La Follette (a character whom I've been trying to flesh out for FILLING THE GAPS, though one whom I've yet to post anything substantial on) and, while I've come across a few references while looking back through this thread one was interested to note that he appears to gave rather vanished from History after the Election of 1948.

I would be very interested in reading your thoughts on what happened to him after he left the ... ummm, Executive Office ("Oval Office" seems inappropriate and the Powell House went to pieces even before the rest of Philadelphia was immolated); assuming he was of an age with his counterpart in Our Own History (Charles M La Follette was born 27 February 1898), he'd have been only 46 on leaving office (having presumably been the youngest Vice President since Breckinridge).

He might well have been slightly older (Robert La Follette's own sons were born in 1895 and 1897 respectively), but even so it seems very easy to imagine him attempting to mount a Political comeback (if only in pursuit of a little validation after being summarily rejected by the citizenry right after thrashing Jake Featherston like a dirty carpet and the Confederate States of America with him); one suspects he would have been #1 Challenger at the Socialist Convention of 1948 (assuming he was in a position comparable to that of Mr Gerald Ford in 1980) though somebody else clearly won the nomination in your timeline (making the parallels with President Ford even stronger!).

Another option I have seriously considered is that he might pull an Andrew Johnson and seek election to the United States Senate - he don't need no stinking presidency! - then proceed from that lofty perch to make life more complicated for the Democrats for YEARS to come, very much in the fashion of old John Quincy Adams.

Your own opinion will almost certainly be different and I would be especially interested in learning more if that were the case; half the fun of discussing Alternate History has always been seeing how things might have been very different, after all!:biggrin:
 
Brigadier General Abner Dowling is brought back out of retirement to head the National Intelligence Agency. He marries reporter Ophelia Clemens, and writes an incriminating and tell-all memoir of his years with Custer. He is also credited with the creation of Operation Bent Staple, which brought Confederate personnel deemed essential to US national security into the NIA, rather than having them killed off. Rocket scientists from Huntsville and of course Professor FitzBelmont are included in Bent Staple, as is one Brigadier General Clarence Potter. He passes away in 1955 from a single stroke suffered at his Langley Virginia office desk. He is survived by his adopted son, Abner George Dowling and adopted daughter Melanie Lynn Dowling Potter

I also can't believe that the plan of "staged car accidents" would have been enacted. It might be a proposal, but the US of OTL did also not consider Wernher von Braun too dangerous or something. I don't quite know where Kurt Diebner et al. ended up, but I would think FitzBelmont would have been put to "good use" by the USA.
 
On the other hand Our Timeline's United States of America could count on bringing Von Braun a LONG way away from those former "team-mates" who might influence him (being able to put the whole breadth of the Atlantic between them) and offer an infinitely higher standard of living than Fascist hold-outs could ever hope to extend; in Timeline-191 FitzBelmont would be right next door to his old countrymen and the United States would be in a much less attractive condition, on the whole (somewhere between the post-Civil War USA and Europe in the wake of WWII).

I agree that FitzBelmont's assassination is not a foregone conclusion, but the North is likely to be far more nervous of him than the USA were of Von Braun (not least because no Nazi ever managed to detonate a full-blown Nuclear Weapon in Washington DC!).
 
As much as I appreciate the idea of continuing the series after 1945, I don't like every idea and every event written in "After The End".

Call it "creative differences".

Nevertheless, I do thank David bar Elias for presenting his own version of the "story-after-the-story".

It almost makes me want to write my own timeline version.
 
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