Look to the West Volume VIII: The Bear and the Basilisk
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
I wonder if other nations will have a fad for trying to develop (or even adopt) Alkahest-based weapons once they've figured out what it is? (Also, I wonder how long it will take the nations to figure out what the Alkahest is, but that's a separate question...)
DMSO combined with chemical weapons seems like it would have a horrible risk of accidents- the Societists might be able to cover up an accidental release, but the Alkahest's terrible reputation TTL might be enhanced by a few incidents where efforts to ensure there are enough shells around to deter your enemies go badly, along the lines of the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bari accidentally breaching the Allies' mustard gas stockpile. The fact that countries in colder climates would be experimenting with various means of ensuring the temperature around the shell would be high enough for it to function- meaning flammable materials of one sort or another- probably only makes the whole mess riskier to keep around.
I'd suggest that all this would be fertile ground for a campaign to ban chemical weapons, but with chemical weapons being the iconic war-winner in not one but two wars, and specifically associated with an ideology to boot, I suspect LTTW will be seeing more rather than less chemical weapons as the timeline progresses...
DMSO combined with chemical weapons seems like it would have a horrible risk of accidents- the Societists might be able to cover up an accidental release, but the Alkahest's terrible reputation TTL might be enhanced by a few incidents where efforts to ensure there are enough shells around to deter your enemies go badly, along the lines of the Luftwaffe's bombing of Bari accidentally breaching the Allies' mustard gas stockpile. The fact that countries in colder climates would be experimenting with various means of ensuring the temperature around the shell would be high enough for it to function- meaning flammable materials of one sort or another- probably only makes the whole mess riskier to keep around.
I'd suggest that all this would be fertile ground for a campaign to ban chemical weapons, but with chemical weapons being the iconic war-winner in not one but two wars, and specifically associated with an ideology to boot, I suspect LTTW will be seeing more rather than less chemical weapons as the timeline progresses...
Faeelin
Banned
Oh, well, if Kaiser Wilhelm thought that, who are we to argue?
I assume you have read this - https://www.google.com/books/editio...om+have+continued&pg=PA33&printsec=frontcover
Why don't other balances of power arise to stop Russia?
I mean it's fine, the Draka needed a bunch of handwaving to exist too.
From how many opponents they face, one is.
I don't think a country temporarily becoming bafflingly powerful is Draka-level nonsense. (Look at real life). I think so long as the author doesn't allow them to just become eternally greater in relative power it'll be fine.
There were in fact several chapters that brought up how the nations of the world were more focused on Russian containment than on the Combine, and how the French thought they had their solid counterbalance assembled which faltered because Feng China backed out at the last second.
(Also, the anti-Russian coalition that Bruce brought up probably isn't as impressive as it sounds to an OTL observer. France may be a bit stronger, but I think Germany has been nerfed significantly from OTL, and I'm not sure England should even be considered a Great Power anymore. Italy and Scandinavia are nice to have but are likewise.mid-tier regional allies.)
LostInNewDelhi
Gone Fishin'
AAAAAAA IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT'S HERE
They Did It Before And They've Done It Again.
I'm in disbelief. Is this what evolution feels like? Some disaster hits your species, you develop some countermeasure against it, and then the next disaster not only voids that specific countermeasure, but cuts right through all the ones before it, right down to the cell membranes that the first prokaryotes were so proud of so many billions of years ago?
I mean this is pitch-perfect. There's no other word for it. The scientific side is cool enough, but just look at the literary side of it, the characterization. I think the impact would have actually been lessened if the Alkahest was radically different from the previous Scientific Weapon-- it still would have impressed upon us the many strengths of Societist chemistry, don't get me wrong, but figuring out a way to make the last weapon hit even harder... This is sharpening a knife. It's refining a craft. It's building this consistent association of the Societists and menace of a specifically chemical sort, a menace that... just debases the human body, laughs at human ingenuity. Even blowing up a body doesn't feel as invasive as "tasting garlic through your brain," that is outright body-horror (in that good body-horror works by interacting with the body in ways that were never intended, demonstrating the illusory nature of "intention" in the face of those exploitable features that arise from the nature of the body as a machine of interlocking parts, and not some singular and inviolable perfect creation). And all that work that went into making the anti-gas protections, chemistry undone by chemistry...
This is without a doubt the best way this could have all happened. Take something like 1984, trying to build this sense of menace out of what could be done to a human as a human-- breaking the human things about him, making him fear and hate, barring him from love and knowledge, and so on. It's the result of seeing the Nazis and Soviets at work, it wears that on its sleeve. But this isn't that-- it's humanity as mere matter. No racist hate, no patriotic love. No attempt to destroy or preserve anyone in particular. Just molecules diffusing through the universe. This is a fear Orwell didn't know, it's... well, it's something like the pop-culture Nazis we invented to replace the real ones. You know, the superweapons-on-the-moon Nazis, the grasping-the-fundaments-of-existence Nazis. The ones that play around with hell-magic on the weekends, the ones that seem to produce problems going beyond human concerns, imparting their bad intentions but then almost disappearing into the background after that, receding before the thing they created. That's where the Societists are at-- on the verge of consuming themselves, relegating Humanity into the background...
...and I suppose that's where the Silent Revolution comes in, and the purges of the chemical industry. I can almost see the rationale behind it now, the nonsensical self-destruction-- and all for the sake of what, a fundamentalist return to the letter of a nonsense law? But no, it's more than that-- it's the Combine's last chance to value anything at all, its last chance to have any sort of ethic before it becomes nothing more than the face of Death. Compared to that, even Homogenization is humane... And if the chemical industry, or the Celatores, or anyone else would stand in the way, then the hand will be made to obey the mind. "And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
They Did It Before And They've Done It Again.
I'm in disbelief. Is this what evolution feels like? Some disaster hits your species, you develop some countermeasure against it, and then the next disaster not only voids that specific countermeasure, but cuts right through all the ones before it, right down to the cell membranes that the first prokaryotes were so proud of so many billions of years ago?
I mean this is pitch-perfect. There's no other word for it. The scientific side is cool enough, but just look at the literary side of it, the characterization. I think the impact would have actually been lessened if the Alkahest was radically different from the previous Scientific Weapon-- it still would have impressed upon us the many strengths of Societist chemistry, don't get me wrong, but figuring out a way to make the last weapon hit even harder... This is sharpening a knife. It's refining a craft. It's building this consistent association of the Societists and menace of a specifically chemical sort, a menace that... just debases the human body, laughs at human ingenuity. Even blowing up a body doesn't feel as invasive as "tasting garlic through your brain," that is outright body-horror (in that good body-horror works by interacting with the body in ways that were never intended, demonstrating the illusory nature of "intention" in the face of those exploitable features that arise from the nature of the body as a machine of interlocking parts, and not some singular and inviolable perfect creation). And all that work that went into making the anti-gas protections, chemistry undone by chemistry...
This is without a doubt the best way this could have all happened. Take something like 1984, trying to build this sense of menace out of what could be done to a human as a human-- breaking the human things about him, making him fear and hate, barring him from love and knowledge, and so on. It's the result of seeing the Nazis and Soviets at work, it wears that on its sleeve. But this isn't that-- it's humanity as mere matter. No racist hate, no patriotic love. No attempt to destroy or preserve anyone in particular. Just molecules diffusing through the universe. This is a fear Orwell didn't know, it's... well, it's something like the pop-culture Nazis we invented to replace the real ones. You know, the superweapons-on-the-moon Nazis, the grasping-the-fundaments-of-existence Nazis. The ones that play around with hell-magic on the weekends, the ones that seem to produce problems going beyond human concerns, imparting their bad intentions but then almost disappearing into the background after that, receding before the thing they created. That's where the Societists are at-- on the verge of consuming themselves, relegating Humanity into the background...
...and I suppose that's where the Silent Revolution comes in, and the purges of the chemical industry. I can almost see the rationale behind it now, the nonsensical self-destruction-- and all for the sake of what, a fundamentalist return to the letter of a nonsense law? But no, it's more than that-- it's the Combine's last chance to value anything at all, its last chance to have any sort of ethic before it becomes nothing more than the face of Death. Compared to that, even Homogenization is humane... And if the chemical industry, or the Celatores, or anyone else would stand in the way, then the hand will be made to obey the mind. "And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
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LostInNewDelhi
Gone Fishin'
Less hyperbolically, the Alkahest's fear factor definitely adds to its effectiveness, in that not a whole lot needs to be present in any one place. It lessens the "what if the enemy blows up your stockpile" threat. Also, how long does the DMSO linger around its solute? Would it spread out into the environment indefinitely, and make the solute so diffuse as to be basically harmless, or would the solute break free before that point and remain concentrated in little pockets of toxicity that are impossible to clean up? Scorching the earth too hard is a danger, as is the enemy forcing you to use up all your Alkahest somehow and then charging you with whoever or whatever they have left.
I'd like to see some view of what the chemical factories are like. Some dark complex deep within the Amazon? A little nondescript facility outside some city? Maybe we can get a look at Brazil-- a former Alkahest factory turned into a museum in the current day...
On the other side of the discussion-- Britain's entrepreneurial-scientific community getting scattered to the winds like the pieces of Osiris simultaneously initiated the Argentina-wank through Priestley Aerated Water and the Russia-wank with Trevithick. And Germany wasn't really a center of industrial activity until after the 1850s, it's believable that this might have been stalled out even more by the ghastly Jacobin and Popular Wars, both much more destructive than their OTL equivalents. Wettin-Germany is missing the Rhineland's cities, Bavaria's population... even if a region like Silesia partly makes up for it, Silesia was trampled in the last world war and again in this one.
I'd like to see some view of what the chemical factories are like. Some dark complex deep within the Amazon? A little nondescript facility outside some city? Maybe we can get a look at Brazil-- a former Alkahest factory turned into a museum in the current day...
On the "Russia vs the world" discussion the only thing I have to add on the Russian side is that canonically, they nabbed Trevithick and became the first country to deploy railroads en masse. And really, that's all Russia needs. Railroads to solve the burden of its immense size, to bring its distant, wide-set, isolated cities (I mean seriously, consider the distance between Frankfurt and Berlin vs. Moscow and St. Petersburg) closer together into circuits of deepening economic complexity. Between the earlier railroads, earlier abolition of serfdom, and Japan as a mainstay of the eastern economy, Siberia should likewise be much more lively than in the analogous period.
On the other side of the discussion-- Britain's entrepreneurial-scientific community getting scattered to the winds like the pieces of Osiris simultaneously initiated the Argentina-wank through Priestley Aerated Water and the Russia-wank with Trevithick. And Germany wasn't really a center of industrial activity until after the 1850s, it's believable that this might have been stalled out even more by the ghastly Jacobin and Popular Wars, both much more destructive than their OTL equivalents. Wettin-Germany is missing the Rhineland's cities, Bavaria's population... even if a region like Silesia partly makes up for it, Silesia was trampled in the last world war and again in this one.
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France did make a fair effort, they had assembled a considerably powerful coalition in the form of Feng China, ENA, Scandinavia, the 3 kingdoms, Persia and Germany. It’s just that when the war happens all their allies were really unimpressive.
It’s not their fault the Feng backed out immediately, the Americans were mostly ineffective outside of NA, the Germans got folded, the Scandinavians got bogged down in Finland, England doesn’t want to throw away lives for French goals, Persia got smashed.
Like France did give it a fair effort but their team kinda sucked. They did kick the Russians out of the Punjab and North America, and lost in Persia but honestly I’d consider the war a stalemate.
Yeah you're not wrong and Bengal was essential in India, but I think we should look at this war less as Russia is supremely OP but more so as France et al rolled a series of snake eyes and while Russia doesn't have any amazing generals or tactics, they acted competently enough and were able to leverage their advantages enough to come out relatively unscathed.
France failed to account for just how draining dealing with Belgium would be and got chewed out for it in the trenches. Had the Feng rallied and joined the war or a major uprising in Yapon, Russia would have a much harder war and maybe even lost; just the sheer numbers that would have been required to hold down Asia would have severely weakened them in Europe and Persia.
Thande
Donor
Thanks for the comments and thoughts everyone.
BTW, I have felt myself that Russia being OP is probably one of the handwavier parts of the TL that's just kind of fallen into place as I've written it, so I'm certainly not dismissing people's criticism out of hand. To an extent I've probably let myself be too affected by the idea of the swing of the narrative pendulum in this case, whereas what I try to do in LTTW for the most part is let history play out rather than trying to fit it to a story; the places where I've done the latter instead may stick out by comparison. However, I am glad that I've at least thrown in enough points that arguments can be made that it could happen, as noted above.
Well, the French thought they had engineered such a balance of power with China as a cobelligerent, and then it fell apart when war actually loomed, not unlike the Triple Alliance in OTL.
BTW, I have felt myself that Russia being OP is probably one of the handwavier parts of the TL that's just kind of fallen into place as I've written it, so I'm certainly not dismissing people's criticism out of hand. To an extent I've probably let myself be too affected by the idea of the swing of the narrative pendulum in this case, whereas what I try to do in LTTW for the most part is let history play out rather than trying to fit it to a story; the places where I've done the latter instead may stick out by comparison. However, I am glad that I've at least thrown in enough points that arguments can be made that it could happen, as noted above.
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I still think there's "nothing to see here". Or at least that the ascent of Russia is no more unusual than a number of other divergences from OTL which accumulated over 150+ years. I don't think there is any such thing as a fixed schedule for each region on the planet to develop. Russia's departure from its OTL schedule is spectacular because of Russia's size. Suppose that at same point in the timeline the GDP per capita of Russia and say Germany grow at the same rate. If such a situation emerges the net growth of Russia's GDP is three times faster than Germany's. This is happening without Russia shortening the distance to Germany in terms of GDP. In comparison with OTL the Maori have ascended to the status of a regular satellite state of somebody's instead of being a downtrodden minority in a settler colony. Argentina rose from a small to medium-sized country to the level of being a great power. And Russia has risen from great power to superpower. Is the third change more improbable than the other two? Neither the ascension from almost eradicated minority nor the ascension from medium-sized country to great power causes as much of a difference in the absolute size of their arsenals as the difference appearing in a country which ascends from being one of several great powers to a superpower. This is why the Maori were just a footnote in the Pandoric War. Instead of being a footnote which the OTL Argentina would have been the UPSA went to war as one of many great powers. But Russia's advancement increased its strength to the point where it upended the international system by just existing. 1*10 = 1 + 9. 10*10 = 10 + 90. 100*10 = 100 + 900.
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Personally, I get the impression that much of Russia’s relative strength ITTL is due to German weakness as well as their own internal factors. Even so, I’d estimate the upper bound of Russian power as perhaps approaching OTL 1945 Soviet Union plus 50-75%, so stronger but still within a similar order of magnitude.
By sheer size and resource base I suppose so, though both sides would decline to apply that term to it 🤔
LostInNewDelhi
Gone Fishin'
Not only that but among its enemies there are a whole three superpowers. America, Russia, China-- each individually very big and populous, and together commanding the majority of the northern hemisphere and with it an easy majority of the world's population.
China doesn't seem like it's had very much to do, and its future activity has also not been alluded to (at least compared to other countries like Russia where we can just about sketch out the abridged history already). And this is odd since honestly, it's probably China more than Russia that should be the Combine's primary antagonist in some grueling war. China has interests in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, which gives it three separate ways to run afoul of the Combine and three different fronts to fight a war on. A China-Combine conflict would be about as grand an affair as the eastern theater of WW2. In fact it damn near is a musical-chairs rendition of the Pacific War: the American and Asian side are represented by the opposites of the OTL counterparts, the American side is the warcrime-happy one, etc.
The Sunrise in Sunrise war could also refer to the Feng Sunrise council:
and Chinese attempts at countering Kurohata/Combine efforts in Asia spiraling into a general war, which also brings in Russia for its own reasons (bordering Danubia and the Eternal State) and some societists nuke Moscow but Hanjing escapes somehow. Given what has been written elsewhere, this is a global conflict, not just a (Eur)asian one
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