Separated at Birth: America and Drakia
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
- Start date
Wonder how technology has advanced over the course of the decade long period of total war...
You know the Palace of the Soviets Stalin had planned to build until Hitler came nocking? Yeah that would be small potatoes too what the Dragon's children would build.
I can see them doing all sorts of grandiose, over the top engineering projects simply to stroke their own ego and if countless restless slaves have to die. Well it's just one less potential enemy and one less mouth to feed, what does it compare to the future glory of the race.
You know the Palace of the Soviets Stalin had planned to build until Hitler came nocking? Yeah that would be small potatoes too what the Dragon's children would build.
War tends to stymie technological advancement rather than promote it, as the focus is put on mass-producing working concepts as opposed to testing and experimenting with new concepts. Stirlings' Draka-world saw a huge tech boost from increased population in the 1700s and onwards, and while EBR's timeline seems to be a few year ahead of the curve on some technology such as flight, then logically this has been slow down due to the population loss in war and increased slavery.
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Technology can advance thanks to discoveries made in wartime, but most advancements usually come after the war is over and there's more time for research. I can see civilian technology advancing after the war, but during the conflict everything was geared towards pumping out more military equipment.
I realize this is an often debated topic with some believing that war drives innovation and as highlighted here "discoveries". The obvious counterargument here is that discoveries are equally made in peace times, if not more so, because people can experiment more freely. Dorknought provided some interesting data supporting the notion that wars kill innovation here.
It’s probably somewhere in between. Maybe in this world cars are worse and there’s no microwave ovens and tupperware containers. Maybe few households own a television set or they’re not very advanced. Not as seemingly important things but consumer products have a major impact on daily life.
Honestly at this stage Stoker has to have only like one or two years left in him, if that, and now with victory seemingly in hand this is exactly the time when many a conqueror loses their edge. All it takes is being not quite as sharp as before, and a la Jurassic Park's Chaos Theory with just the right minute variations large complex systems can completely fall part. We have a very strong chance of Stoker's final days being a mess of court intrigue and favorites and random nobodies charming the old man into giving them a piece of the prize, and with the final shock of his outright death I think we could seriously see something like the slow death spiral of the Julio-Claudians from Tiberius to Caligula to Claudius to the grand finale with Nero. That deep bench of old Societist grandees and dictatorial lieutenants is going to burn out extremely quickly and the old party line, without the weight of Stoker's living presence behind it, is going to be almost as discredited as the mainstream of their American cousins. I think the painful irony of both these English settler colony doppelgangers is going to continue on with both Drakia and America experiencing something like the OTL's 60s counter-culture movements (or, perhaps more fittingly for Drakia, the brief tragic flowering of Wiemar Germany). Just like how despite "winning" after WW1 America quickly became utterly disillusioned with European alliances and internationalism, I think Drakia is going to find itself (at least initially) repulsed by the precipice Drakia has caught a glimpse at inside the Rexist hell.
There's going to be massive demographic changes as large segments of widowed Drakians refuse to remarry and masses of Drakian youths refuse to be conscripted to die in pointless conflict. There was this whole movement in Nazi Germany of mixed-gender teenager delinquent gangs camping out away from the Gestapo, fiendishly beating the shit out of the Hitler Youth and carrying on the colors of the pre-Nazi scouting groups. Frequently they formed connections with deserters from the German Army, the underground jazz scene, and the criminalized unionists and student activists. I think quite suddenly the Agoge cadets are going to face the same crisis, as are all the other parts of the Drakian machine. For the next decade or so I would not be surprised if the Societists are outright impotent as a power for fear of what would happen if they call the militias together and hand them weapons, or move their professional garrisons and let their people congregate too freely.
There's going to be massive demographic changes as large segments of widowed Drakians refuse to remarry and masses of Drakian youths refuse to be conscripted to die in pointless conflict. There was this whole movement in Nazi Germany of mixed-gender teenager delinquent gangs camping out away from the Gestapo, fiendishly beating the shit out of the Hitler Youth and carrying on the colors of the pre-Nazi scouting groups. Frequently they formed connections with deserters from the German Army, the underground jazz scene, and the criminalized unionists and student activists. I think quite suddenly the Agoge cadets are going to face the same crisis, as are all the other parts of the Drakian machine. For the next decade or so I would not be surprised if the Societists are outright impotent as a power for fear of what would happen if they call the militias together and hand them weapons, or move their professional garrisons and let their people congregate too freely.
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Femto
Banned
Nazi Germany was a new and brief thing, Drakia and Societism are part of a consistent multi-century development. They have a reactionary/authoritarian ethos that is much stronger and ancient, Germany didn't have millions of Blacks and Arabs who would happily rebel to kill/rape them all if only they had the chance.
I think Herucalmo hit the nail on the head here: Stoker's forged an empire through cunning, chronic underestimation from abroad, ultra-utilitarianism, and more than a bit of luck (he'd probably call it the hand of God, though). I can't imagine he's all that fond of any potential rivals being around, a la Stalin. With his death, we will very likely see the quiet division of the wide Drakian empire into a few internal spheres of influences over various provinces, as well as government departments and other organs of the state.
As to Atlantropa, I don't think we'll see it. EBR mentioned the newly formed Congo Sea having a variety of side effects, and without the personality cult of Stoker around to force the issue, I don't think they'll put the resources into another horrifically expensive mega-project.
So? Imperial Russia was a multi-century authoritarian state, didn't stop it from collapsing after they got their ass spanked in WW1 (greatly simplifying). Youth delinquency could very well arise here. Clashing of youth gangs could also very well arise after Stoker's death. We might see a politician attempt a Cultural Revolution style "holier than the holy" to try and secure their power, and use their little bands of extremists to attack possible rivals.
Femto
Banned
Russia didn't have masses of African subjects to keep down, they were the majority in their own country. No siege mentality here.
Femto
Banned
“Masses” is an overstatement here. There's no way to compare the population weight of the Asiatic ethnicities in the Russian Empire's total population with the weight of the non-whites in Drakia.No just masses of central Asian ones
That was a joke, but Russia was toppled when a vast underclass rose up against a relative minority at the top of their centuries-old project.
You're not wrong about the central Asians, and while I think it's safe to say there wasn't a huge ethnic group divide like Drakias, one could say the Aristocrats were under siege from the far more numerous serfs, which in the end was their undoing during the Russian Revolution.
EDIT: Whoops, USSA said the exact same thing as me, my bad!
I think there will be a quick and vicious power struggle when Stoker dies with some people retiring, dying of natural causes or being reassigned. Now that the current conflict is over and the realization that the quick easy war is not going to happen all sides will be studying some sort of reform and new strategy.
Femto
Banned
But this is very different, the Aristocrats were a class, the White-Drakians(citizens) are not just a class but an ethnicity. Were there cases of aristocratic youth gangs causing havoc and confronting the Czar in the decades before the Russian Revolution? Not as far as I'm aware of. And that is the most adequate parallel with gangs of white Drakians defying Stoker.
What caused the Russian Empire to fall was the rebellion of the masses, in Drakia that would be the non-whites, but we already saw the sheer brutality that Aurica is disposed to enforce against them.
Just wanna say, I'm pretty sure that EBR has said that some non-white ethnicities have been coopted as part of the Drakian class system and as citizens, at least as a sort of artificial middle class or Janissary groups.
But yeah, you're right about the youth gangs thing, I think the actual topic of discussion got away from me there. I don't think it's impossible, though. Drakia is a stratified and very authoritarian place, even for the aristocracy. I imagine the societal pressure and expectations are immense, and with the possible fraying of the system after Stoker's death and the (purely hypothetical, I don't know how EBR plans for it to go) subsequent power struggles, we could see a rise of youth delinquency for a little bit of excitement. Probably not rioting against the government, but maybe partaking in some forbidden activities or culture. It's an interesting idea, at the least.