Re: The End, and Eric Frank Russell
This assumes that the North Atlantic Treaty decides to demand unconditional surrender, or is ready for a "total war" which is not the way it looks like - ITTL all wars are concluded by half-assed peace which does ensure a second round some time in the future but is not really demonstrably evil unless you look deep enough. Nothing Nazi Germany does so far makes it an existential enemy of American people, though it would remain a constant challenger of status quo for a while. After all, no B-36 entered the Soviet airspace OTL to kill millions of Russians even though USA had a fairly long window of opportunity to do so with impunity, with no threat to mainland USA and acceptable damage to Europe (or at least acceptable to Americans).
More realistic outcome is that the Allies oppose Germany on every step with military and diplomatic means, continue working hard behind the scenes, bribing, threatening and promising, and at some point when Weber calls on his vassals to follow him into this salami-cut WW2 Season 5 or 6, one of them just tells him to stuff it, followed by the rest and by major factions within Germany. Or maybe Weber dies of nut allergy (or lead poisoning) and his successor finds out that the reason things worked was a net of personal loyalties that do not apply to others. The next morning the Wehrmacht parks their tanks on the Stasi lawn, or the other way around, and the whole huge dominating facade of the Nazi Germany built by Weber and Co comes tumbling down in a cloud of dust. Probably some time in 1950s - so far the murderousness of the regime (in killed per year) is well below OTL Nazi Germany, but probably on the level of Soviet average murderousness between 1917 and 1956. Which is bad enough.
From what Colton has said I do not see this series of wars lasting a lot longer than o.t.l. perhaps into 47/48. Worst for Eastern Europe better for Western Europe total deaths hard to say, depends when and who against the next war is.
Eric Frank Russell is always been a favorite of mine. When I started collecting in the 60's it was easy to find second copies of his stories. One of the top short stories I have read was his "I am Nothing".
Seems like a reasonable prediction. I certainly don't see Weber's Germany surviving long enough to be bombarding the CONUS with ballistic missiles, and even if it did, given the state of their research programme and their helpful alienation of 'Jewish Science', certainly not featuring nuclear warheads.
Yeah, another shout out for Eric, one of my favourite authors when I started reading SF. I guess his works are virtually unobtainable nowadays, but there's a plot summary of one story I always remembered on Wiki here:
Allamagoosa
New England Science Fiction Association published two fat volumes of EFR a while back, and they may still be available from [Amazon].
All good speculation, and I unfortunately can't confirm or deny most of it for fear of dreaded spoilers. Yes, so far much of the diplomacy and warmongering has tended towards quick wars with most of the "real" fighting occurring on the negotiating-table afterwards, vaguely like the "old" style of wars which ended with the Potato War,
ergo the War of the Bavarian Succession. The reasons for these generally stem from a large aversion to "total war" based on the glimpses seen in the Great War, but it's not a sustainable system in the long term.
The evil of this regime, while operating more subtly, is no less heinous. Weber is just more adept at polishing the turd than Hitler.
Well, now I'll
definitely have to check out Mr. Russell's work, since so many of you seem to be recommending it.
Guten tag, Herr Colton.
Also, if you need a hand with any of the pop culture stuff, let me know, I'm always eager to cook up some alternate films/tv shows/books. If a certain Fleming is going to make an appearance, I can certainly offer up my knowledge of the Bond literary canon.
Thanks for the offer, but that's selling the proverbial coal to Newcastle there. I will graciously accept help with other alternate fiction and entertainment, nonetheless.
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Re: Inspiration, and Part 7
Hey Tom have you ever heard of or read The Big One by Stuart Slade? If you did has it impacted your writing of this TL at all?
Or of a series of e-books called Shattered World: A worse world war?
By the way will get an update on rocketry compared and contrast to real life anytime in this section of the TL?
And a comparison of military equipment/numbers as well?
Here's one idea that I got from the Shattered World series and that's of the Nazi's still losing but being the first nation to put a man into space or launch Sputnik. I think it be interesting for a nation to achieve such a historic goal but still be wiped out from the face of the Earth a few years later.
I've heard of the former but not the latter, and read neither.
The chief inspirations for this TL were broadly, in chronological order:
Weapons development and the leadup to the next war will form a major part of the next part, and some elements of the
Wunderwaffen might make a more refined and better-tested appearance in the latter phases of this TL.
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Re: "...DESTROY US ALL!!!"
Scenario 2.b. - germany retaliates and untold tens of millions are killed in britain and america and russia. global economic collapse.
If Germany has nukes it is scenario 1
.
The thread about nuking nazis is full of indecently wrong statements. Apparently none of the know-it-alls has ever bothered to study Gladstone book and do some tests with NUKEMAP. Nukes not much worse than firecrackers is one of the memes of this community (along with nerve gases being just a form of flatulence) and, since fixing arrogant ignorance is impossible, I have just given up trying to correct mistakes.
Duly noted. Well, I don't intend for all of Germany to burn up in a nuclear fireball, and I am aiming to find resolutions to the New Order that don't involve that scenario. Stay tuned.
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Last but not least...
Well shit things have been going crazy. Wonderful work Tom.
They sure have. Thank you very much, sir.
