TL-191: Filling the Gaps

Tiro

That depends on which Administration happened to be in Government when the "Kingfish" made his move - if it were President Hoover then I think we can safely say "No" given the latter's disinclination to start Wars and I'd be surprised if the Smith Administration were to make such an aggressive move without first suffering Serious Provocation from Jake Featherston. Having said that, if Governor Long DID declare the secession of Louisiana from the CSA then elements within the United States of America (especially the Armed Forces & Democratic Party) would certainly make some unofficial effort to support the Louisiana Republic against the Confederacy.

The only question is whether that effort would be enough to sustain Long against The Snake for long enough to awaken some Moral Outrage across the North or (better yet) trigger a Diplomatic Incident serious enough to pull the United States into a fourth War against the South; it is also interesting to wonder if this Louisiana Secession would be enough to delay or outright deny Featherston's chance to bring his curses Home against the United States on HIS terms (given that even a relatively small-scale Civil War is likely to damage his prestige and Southern Infrastructure).

In fact this is actually quite a fascinating question and might be the seed of an Alternate Timeline in its own right, so congratulations to you for raising it CCA!:)
 

New Cleo Genesis

Heh, I guess I could post this. The unfinished project where this was included is long dead now, unfortunately.

zzz3E.png
 

CCA

Tiro said:
That depends on which Administration happened to be in Government when the "Kingfish" made his move - if it were President Hoover then I think we can safely say "No" given the latter's disinclination to start Wars and I'd be surprised if the Smith Administration were to make such an aggressive move without first suffering Serious Provocation from Jake Featherston. Having said that, if Governor Long DID declare the secession of Louisiana from the CSA then elements within the United States of America (especially the Armed Forces & Democratic Party) would certainly make some unofficial effort to support the Louisiana Republic against the Confederacy.

The only question is whether that effort would be enough to sustain Long against The Snake for long enough to awaken some Moral Outrage across the North or (better yet) trigger a Diplomatic Incident serious enough to pull the United States into a fourth War against the South; it is also interesting to wonder if this Louisiana Secession would be enough to delay or outright deny Featherston's chance to bring his curses Home against the United States on HIS terms (given that even a relatively small-scale Civil War is likely to damage his prestige and Southern Infrastructure).

In fact this is actually quite a fascinating question and might be the seed of an Alternate Timeline in its own right, so congratulations to you for raising it CCA!:)
Click to expand...

What if Long seceded in the aftermath of a failed assassination attempt? Let's say the janitor changes his mind and rats on the Freedom Party? Or Long ducks in time? The year would be 1937 so we'd be into Smith's first term. Maybe independence for Louisiana could be folded into the Richmond agreement?
 
Allochronian

Allochronian

Given how little backstory there is to Jacob Featherston's past, I made my own plausible theory that he is a direct descendant of Brigadier-General Winfield Scott Featherston.
Winfield_Scott_Featherston.jpg


In real-life, he lost his wife and some of his children to Yellow Fever during the 1870's. One of his children, Winfield J. Featherston, died from the disease at age 13 in 1878.

In TL-191, I imagine that different circumstances that resulted from a Southern victory allowed Bgdr.-Gen. Featherston's son to be alive beyond his early adolescence. Even if his father was from Tennessee and had a political life in Mississippi, it doesn't mean that his descendants could not have moved to Virginia and gone into the plantation business.

Further Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_S._Featherston
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10864/winfield-scott-featherston
https://www.murfreesboropost.com/co...cle_76b128ef-7c8d-564f-9551-be195ac55dba.html
 
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Tiro

You make a very fair point Allochronian; in fact I have revised my "Fast Facts" article on Jake Featherston to show that he was born in Chesterfield County VA (after chasing up W.S. Scott's parents, who are mentioned as having been born in Virginia, it turns out that they were from a part of the Old Dominion directly south of Richmond, which fits what little we might guess about Sergeant Featherston's origins), as a way of hinting at some sort of connection.

One would like to suggest, however, that it might be a little tactless to link any actual Historic Person to "Dixie Hitler" more closely than "possibly a very distant second cousin" on the understanding that (A) that sort of thing can trigger court cases and (B) It is a trifle unfair to defame a somewhat obscure Historic Character by association with such a Villain, even by proxy! (A major reason that I am not inclined to depict George H. Walker, CS Secretary of State, as the historic relation of Bush 41 & Bush 43).

Having said that, if Winfield Scott Featherston WERE the grandfather of The Snake then one suspects the latter would prefer to deny that connection (being the sworn enemy of Famous Names and utterly antithetical to all inherited privilege); in fact I can imagine some ex-Whig publicist attempting to evoke a connection between "New Man" Featherston and the most famous historic Featherston he could find (no matter how tenuous) in order to help sell this upstart to backers who generally found some history of family achievement in War & Politics reassuring, only to be growled down (and possibly spat out) by "Sarge" when the latter found his campaign biography going off-script ...
 
Allochronian

Allochronian

Tiro said:
One would like to suggest, however, that it might be a little tactless to link any actual Historic Person to "Dixie Hitler" more closely than "possibly a very distant second cousin" on the understanding that (A) that sort of thing can trigger court cases and (B) It is a trifle unfair to defame a somewhat obscure Historic Character by association with such a Villain, even by proxy! (A major reason that I am not inclined to depict George H. Walker, CS Secretary of State, as the historic relation of Bush 41 & Bush 43).
Click to expand...

Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting about those potential legal issues.

To be fair, I am not necessarily trying to defame any real person, but I can see your point about how some real-life descendants might not like their family members being associated with Hitleresque evil, even if the character is fake.

It reminds me of Talkernate History's comment during their DEEP BLUE FLEET Review about how they used the name Henry Roosevelt instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was probably done to avoid any problems with the Roosevelt family.
 

TR1

Tiro said:
(A major reason that I am not inclined to depict George H. Walker, CS Secretary of State, as the historic relation of Bush 41 & Bush 43).
Click to expand...

Then you're in luck, because the character is only ever called "Herbert Walker". There's an obvious inside joke there, but HT doesn't seem to have meant for his character to have been the historical figure.
 

bguy

Donor
Nice wikibox on TR. My only quibble is that you have TR entering the United States Senate when he is 26 years old, but the U.S. Constitution requires you to be 30 to be eligible to serve as a Senator.
 
Allochronian

Allochronian

I was originally going to put this on the FILLING THE FUTURE thread, but given that it's more than a year old and despite it containing some interesting ideas about a post-1945 TL-191, I decided not to resurrect it.

Anyway, you really want to see Turtledove continue the series? I most certainly do. But I don't think the author shares the same sentiment.

I found a written statement by Turtledove while looking up information of Charles W. LaFollette:

"The series has pretty much faded away, though. Doing the Cold War didn't appeal. Either it stays cold or it goes boom. Staying cold lacks dramatic interest. I've now done boom in a different context."

https://twitter.com/HNTurtledove/status/1000485494503849985

I read(skimmed!) through The Hot War Trilogy and with some exceptions, I found the books to be very BORING.

I wished he could have used that time he took to write the trilogy and, instead, used it in a TL-191 setting.

Heck, I don't care if he would have written a TL-191 Cold War as a cold war if he didn't want to make it go warm; I just want to see what happens next, for better or worse. There's so much potential for this!!!

Oh, well.

At least we can speculate for kicks and giggles.
 
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