"accidentally shot himself" rrrrrrrrrright
The lack of quotation marks around accidentally makes me think this was a legitimate accident. Which is one of the more darkly hilarious things in this TL
Betting that while a legitimate accident, it leads to a Militarist becoming the leader of Drakia.
Believe it or not, but it was a genuine accident. He was a hunting enthusiast, and it can be a dangerous sport.
I'm sure the next leader of the Drakia will be the man that country needs: a hard man making the hardest choices while diamond hard!
I'm absolutely sure you're right, too. This entire thing kicked off over a chair (or was it a ladder?) in the wrong place. An actual accidental death fits perfectly and hilariously.
I've really enjoyed this timeline, and the story that EBR has told here. You might as well call it "Because Reality Ensues: Why Being a Slave-Owning Genocidal Racist Fascist Is Not Only Wrong But A Really Really Bad Idea" but that wouldn't fit on the TV Tropes page very well, I suppose. Again and again we've watched how the Drakians have epically sabotaged themselves, and it's just been a joy, really it has. I hope you don't mind if I make a confession? The Draka Saga is about the only one of SM Stirling's works that I haven't read, because the whole thing just seemed far too depressing. The bad guys win. Frankly I'm not sure I'm ever going to read it, especially now that I've read such an epic deconstruction. It just wouldn't seem ...realistic... enough, if that's the word I want.
I'm not sure how this is going to end. But I think that EBR has shown us one thing, at least: whether it's Stirling's Draka or his own Drakians, pursuit of power over others (whether it's Naldorssen's Purpose of Power or the Custodial Master Race) is really just an epically bad idea, doomed to failure.
Thank you! One of my pet peeves has long been dystopic empires in fiction whose evil policies never have any of the real-world negative consequences that hit authoritarian governments in reality. I don't mean that aren't shown causing people to suffer, I mean the pragmatic downsides to the Yukon Confederacy remaining in a constant state of cultural and technological stagnation, or Oceania not keeping accurate records of reality, or the Republican Union pushing cocaine on kids. Things that will make your government less effective at governing regardless of morality.
I also really don't like the idea of "a boot stamping on the human face forever". If we learn one thing from history, it's that all empires fall eventually and
nothing lasts forever. I reject the idea of a Final Society- whether of a Draka slavocracy or a Communist utopia or Fukuyama's market liberal End of History consensus- in principle because such a thing is factually impossible. Sooner or later the Golden Age will end, or Dark Age will end, and humanity will move forward to the next stage of history.
I can't tell you exactly how this will end, but when it does it won't be because the planet is under the permanent rule of a brutal world state.
And so we see the drawbacks of trying to fight the world single-handedly as a continent-sized Apartheid South Africa/North Korea hybrid. Their few allies will help, but unless they pull some sort of wunderwaffle out of their ass they're gonna lose the final war hard.
Was that a deliberate typo or an accident? Either way I love it.
BTW how much success have the two blocks had in creating orbital weaponry? Since getting kinetic kill vehicles was the motivation behind the space race after all.
Considerable success.
I feel dumb, but I do not know where this went. Unless it's foreshadowing China getting nukes and/or ballistic missiles?
You did in fact know where they went.
Holy shit, this is a common market that basically spans three quarters of the world. This is BIG and I wonder how much domestic economic strife it will cause. More than a mere Alliance, I could see this becoming something of a mega-EU if not outright world government.
It already functions as sort of a multi-continental EU+NATO, but yeah it is
massive.
How does France get to be a Big? Haven't they lost all their colonies and been devastated by war or something?
They still have most of their overseas departments, and they were the least devastated part of Europe after the Great Wars by virtue of not doing any fighting in or around their metropole until the very end. They're the most powerful country in Europe and the former Pan-Europeans follow their lead.
Oh man, that's a major aquisition for the pact of blood, gives them a great ability to menace East Asia. Japan's navy probably survived their strife, but given they lost their empire it must have been hard to keep modern. What is the state of the IJN? Speaking of that, what's naval tech like without guided missiles? Does Drakia have a surface fleet worth speaking of? (I half-expect them to have built some superbattleships as prestige projects.)
No superbattleships- big capital ships became obsolete for the same reasons that they did OTL. Giant carriers though, and Drakia built up a substantial surface fleet.
Sounds interesting. I do hope the state of the environment will get some attention later in this TL. Perhaps after the Final War, as a general update on how badly messed up the biosphere is after the planet faced two centuries of Drakia existing?
That's the plan. Whoever wins the Final War is going to have to content with all of that stuff.
Was some random piece of furniture involved in THIS war starting too? Ehehe, it's time to end this rodeo!
Give me a chance, we haven't reached the war yet!
So first of all, I just love that it's Situationist China that pushes for National Parks. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.
Oh, National Parks were already a thing in the USA and elsewhere. Adding a bunch is just a big new thing in China.
Secondly, learning about musical roads was fucking awesome. I think I like Free China even more!
Musical roads are one of those super cool OTL things that really should be more common than they are. *nods*
If I ever become a dictator I'm going to build a bunch of musical roads.
Honestly, since there is supposed to be a failure state for the AfD if the dice betray them, I bet that domestic strife is going to be a big part in bringing them down if we end up down that path.
I can't give any details, but there is a failure state for the AfD.
Am I the only person nerding out over quasi-self-sufficient lunar colonies? I'd been thinking earlier on that the R&D situation would handicap space travel ITTL, but I guess it just goes to show that if you just keep funding the right agencies to the gills, you'll get what you want and more! It's also great that Free China managed to get up in space and pursue their unique brand of social benevolence. I love how you always pack in these obscure ideas from OTL like the ionosphere needles and musical roads that I'd never heard of before.
For story reasons I decided to operate on the idea that a generally late 20th and early 21st century base with a blank check would be to do miracles, despite being behind in rocketry and moving a little slowly to get started.
And yes, inserting obscure ideas from OTL is one of my favorite parts of AH.
to keep with tradition, i propose that the final war now starts with an Arabian rebellion after Drakia commits a heresy against Islam or something, preferably one that involves a piece of furniture.
