Separated at Birth: America and Drakia
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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Really enjoying this timeline, now that I've had time to look through it!
Though that being said, I'm never going to forgive you for calling the state that's clearly Iowa "Omaha" instead, despite having nearly the same borders as OTL Iowa. Absolutely disgusting. I refuse to believe you did so out of anything other than small-minded retaliation for my Iowa Supremacy on Stars and Stripes
Though that being said, I'm never going to forgive you for calling the state that's clearly Iowa "Omaha" instead, despite having nearly the same borders as OTL Iowa. Absolutely disgusting. I refuse to believe you did so out of anything other than small-minded retaliation for my Iowa Supremacy on Stars and Stripes
*Best Wernstrom! Voice*Really enjoying this timeline, now that I've had time to look through it!
Though that being said, I'm never going to forgive you for calling the state that's clearly Iowa "Omaha" instead, despite having nearly the same borders as OTL Iowa. Absolutely disgusting. I refuse to believe you did so out of anything other than small-minded retaliation for my Iowa Supremacy on Stars and Stripes
"IOWA!! D:<"
Quite frankly, I've read sundry supposedly "more realistic" Draka TLs for almost two decades now, and this one shares not only with Stirling himself, but practically all others of its genre copious amounts of handwavium intent on producing some sort of climactic struggle in which the readers seem meant to ogle over protagonists bloated to the point of concentrating villainry for cartoonish purposes.
An engorged Cape Colony acquired by Britain around 1780, no matter how many colonists one stuffs into it, has no chance of becoming a great power on even France's level by the mid 20th Century. Even your average ASB ISOT is far more realistic than anything posited along those lines.
An engorged Cape Colony acquired by Britain around 1780, no matter how many colonists one stuffs into it, has no chance of becoming a great power on even France's level by the mid 20th Century. Even your average ASB ISOT is far more realistic than anything posited along those lines.
That's the joke, this is meant to be entertaining. A mirrorverse anti-America would always have copious unrealistic things happen to it because that's the specific goal of the exercise.
Then what's to distinguish it from pure ASB? An enlarged slightly earlier than OTL British Cape Colony ought to be an interesting enough premise to pursue for its own sake rather than simply as yet another trope to squeeze into tired sado-masochistic fancies.
By all means if you'd like to do a realistic British Cape Colony TL I'd give it a look, but sometimes I just like fun things for the sake of being fun, like this or What Madness is This? or things in that vein. As for S/M there's been no inkling of it in this TL so far, and Stirling was very clearly just inserting fetishes so I don't think comparing the two on that basis is warranted.
I will say that quite apart from what the Drakians themselves have gotten away with, this timeline is replete with space-filling empires. Not only America, but Japan, Russia and previously Britain when they essentially did all the OTL 19th century European colonial expansion all by themselves. Putting aside how unrealistic that is, it does serve as another reason Drakia sneaks up on people, simply because gigantic bloated empires are already the norm.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
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Quite right, if one counts the American and Rhomanian protectorates as different countries.
Just found this TL.
Subscribed, Ephraim!
Welcome Archangel.
Really enjoying this timeline, now that I've had time to look through it!
Though that being said, I'm never going to forgive you for calling the state that's clearly Iowa "Omaha" instead, despite having nearly the same borders as OTL Iowa. Absolutely disgusting. I refuse to believe you did so out of anything other than small-minded retaliation for my Iowa Supremacy on Stars and Stripes
Thank you! Apologies for Iowa, I wanted at least one state name that would reflect alternate migrations by Native Americans- ITTL the Omaha ended up on the eastern side of the Missouri river and gave their name to the state located there instead of the Iowa.
I'm sorry to hear that you're not enjoying my TL.
We could argue over questions of realism, but ultimately different people have different definitions of realistic, and while I consider this TL to be more realistic than Stirling's ultimately it's just my cover of someone else's scenario. As long as my readers are entertained, that's the important thing.
Out of curiosity, what is it that you so object to about Separated at Birth?
Excuse me, but I strongly suggest you re-read the timeline if that's the impression you got from it.
I've set myself the challenge of trying to loosely follow Stirling's habit of having the number of countries tend to go down as history progresses. It'll last... at least until decolonization.
I mean I suppose it's possible that a country with a rock solid class and racial hierarchy, radical focus on "traditional" gender roles and extremely entrenched bunker mentality would cultivate by default a sexual culture extremely cognizant of power dynamics within relationships, although it would boil down to an incredibly unhealthy scenario where a small class basically runs roughshod over a large population of powerless social inferiors. Not unlike a far more extensive form of slaveowner depredations OTL combined with some over the top classist prima noctis thing, but not something that I think would add to the fun of the TL if gone into at length. I'm fine if it's never really focused on but just a constant background of disquiet to add to the Drakian bouquet, honestly.*
Excuse me, but I strongly suggest you re-read the timeline if that's the impression you got from it.
*Edit- At least until the Drakian Sexual Revolution, of course
Oh it's gonna be a delightful fractal of proxy wars, rebellions and general insurrection, I can't wait.
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It seems like we might see the Drakia-Japanese alliance ITTL. Talk about alliances of convenience, I don't really think those two are a natural fit, except as both of them being revisionist powers. I get an impression that in terms of industrial and naval power Japan's position might be actually better vis-à-vis the US when compared to OTL but they obviously are still the significantly weaker side. They don't have to worry about China and Russia as much which probably has freed at least some resources though. Even IOTL they were quite conscious of their relative weakness which was why they seeked an alliance with Germany and the same logic could be at work here.
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I’ve really been enjoying this thread; thank you for writing this!
If you don’t mind me asking, did the Baptist Church in TTL schism over support of slavery the way it did in OTL, or is that position more-or-less taken by churches popular in Drakia? And do Drakian churches have any influence in the US?
If you don’t mind me asking, did the Baptist Church in TTL schism over support of slavery the way it did in OTL, or is that position more-or-less taken by churches popular in Drakia? And do Drakian churches have any influence in the US?
If you think this is so bad then write your own. Most of us are enjoying this TL.
Be that as it may, "Let's see you do better" is a pretty shallow retort. Not least when they're arguing that the core concept is flawed.
Probably less than that OTL in 1914.
You better give up, TRH. You're clearly engaged with a master of carefully reasoned debate.
Personally, this TL doesn't really meet my sniff test when it comes to plausibility, but it's entertaining enough for that to be forgivable. (Trying to make it a "cover" of S&M's scenario, I think, limits how plausible the story _can_ be) It's an issue I'm dealing with myself: to complete the current installment of my "wanks" series, I have to do a big South Africa, but while I don't want to bind myself too much to what is _likely_, I don't want to wander off into Stirlingesque improbability. I figure the original POD can be pushed back a ways if we say that "South Africa is an African state colonized by the Dutch and then the British" without bothering to specify dates, but there is a limit to how much one can change things up without getting something unrecognizable. There are some serious possibilities in a Portuguese-settled South Africa, but it's too different from OTL to really count as a "South Africa" for wanking purposes - it will have to go in the Portugal-wank.
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