On Fri, 30 Aug 2002 11:38:07 -0700 (PDT) "C. Richard Davies"
<masefield_k@yahoo.ca> wrote:
[Unfortunately, Chapter 4 of this little epic is taking a bit longer than I
thought it would when I started writing it earlier this month. I'm only about a
third of the way through it. Since I didn't want to leave all of you hanging
for three months -- aren't I nice? -- here's a bit of background.]
Thanks. Something I can sink my teeth into. I hope you'll be able to
release Chapter 4 soon.
A Glimpse Behind the Curtain:
The Altered History of _Variations on a Theme_
As in "Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain"?
But I changed my mind. Largely because, based on events in _1633_, the
sequel co-written by some space-opera guy I've never heard of [1], North
America may become exclusively French and Spanish in the 17th century, which
squared ill with my designs. But moreso, because I wanted to write high
fantasy, which would mean that magic had always been present in the world's
background. The 1632 sequence is science fantastic (the method by which the
town of Grantville and environs was shifted from the early twenty-first century
back to the seventeenth is the fantastic element), and wouldn't really fit well
with the magical elements I was developing.
You are better off making your own extrapolations. Eric Flint has been
remarkably willing to let others play in his sandbox, but he is quite firm
that it is his. Are you aware of news:baen.1632tech?
There has been some discussion about the makeup of 20th century North
America in the 1632 universe. It is hard to extrapolate because 17th
century monarchies traded colonies around quite a bit. Richeleau serves at
the pleasure of his king, so it can't be guaranteed that he will be able to
stick around long enough to make his grand Louisiana a reality.
During this same period, the Japanese militarists launched a massive
assault against British, Burgundian and American territories in the Pacific.
The United Kingdom and the United States found themselves in an uncomfortable
alliance for the first time, but as neither was distracted by a European war,
the Pacific War was fought quickly and decisively. Unfortunately for Japan, the
Allies' intelligence led them to (erroneously) believe that the Japanese would
fight to the last man before surrendering, and so two atomic bombs were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The damage was worse at Nagasaki; it was the site of
the Japanese atomic project.
The erroneously may be in error, but that doesn't really matter as long as
the national command authority in the US believed it. The US you project
would probably be more willing to terminate the imperial dynasty which
might make the Emperor less willing to intercede to help end the war.
Less than a year later, the Japanese islands were further devastated when
a giant, dinosaur-like creature, apparently attracted to the residual
radiation, swam out of Tokyo harbor. Vast numbers of Japanese civilians,
especially refugees from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were camped outside of
Tokyo, died in the attack of the so-called "Giant", especially after the U.S.
Air Force dropped a third bomb on the creature as it climbed Mount Fuji. The
combination of the explosion and the eruption that it provoked apparently
disintegrated the creature, but also sent tons of radioactive volcanic ash into
the air. Japan became nearly unlivable for nearly a decade.
I initially took 'nearly unlivable' to mean most of the territory was
dangerously radioactive. I now think you mean that the economic and social
fabric was largely destroyed. That would be easy to believe, especially if
the Imperial family was wiped out ("Oops" [1]) when the Giant went through
or as a result of the third bomb.
The destroyed areas in Hiroshima were reoccupied much more quickly than the
Footprints. I guess the residue in them along with the fallout from Fuji
must be much longer lived than from the first two nuclear bombs. It looks
like the winds in Honshu are generally to the east or northeast, so I would
expect most of the fallout from Fuji to miss most of the western and
southern parts of Japan.
Having American forces fighting against the Giant may have helped cement
the US hold on Japan in both American and Japanese minds.
Shortly afterwards, the fourth usage of an atomic weapon in warfare
transpired, when Britain's new Prime Minister, Churchill, ordered the bombing
of Dublin in response to a possible terrorist threat. International protest
(largely from the United States, outraged that the British had exploited lapses
in security during the Pacific War to steal the atomic secrets) of the British
annexation of the whole of Ireland was met with the chilly observation that the
Americans had scarcely hesitated to add Japan *and* its Korean and Manchurian
territories to *their* empire after *their* bombings. The Cold War on Earth-VT
has not, by and large, been fought between America and the Soviet Union, but
between America and Britain.
A more pragmatic US, especially one not involved in a European war, might
well take that advantage. Especially since there wasn't a Chinese
government to object.
In the Reich, the Thules gradually lost influence after Schmidt was forced
to flee the country following allegations of financial mismanagement.
Unfortunately, they have never been entirely discredited, and many Austrians
and Prussians look back on the Great Patriotic War was their finest hour. The
lot of Jews in the Reich remains unpleasant, but with Zionism as a marginalized
political outlook (without the Dreyfus affair, many more Western Jews are still
inclined to believe in co-existence) they have nowhere else to go.
I guess that means that the Thules aren't as vicious as the Nazis even in
their heartland. It would be hard to imagine Hitler or Goering being
deposed by anything less than an assination or invasion.
In the 1950s, the Burgundians sold their Vietnamese colony to the United
States in exchange for trade concessions, and with the intention of letting the
Americans deal with Ho Chi Minh. The Americans managed it, largely by not
letting reporters anywhere near the battlefields. In 1986, Vietnam became the
most unstable state in their bicontinental empire. For good or ill, it has
remained ethnically Vietnamese, where the native culture in Japan has been
almost entirely cleansed by the influx of settlers offered cheap land and tax
incentives for relocating.
Why would the US be interested in encouraging settlers in Japan? I'd think
there'd be plenty of opportunity in Korea and China.
The space race was a product of cold war rivalry, with the American Space
Agency and the British Rocket Group competing bloodlessly (at least, as far as
the public ever learned) for the moon. The Americans won by a narrow margin;
Benjamin Grimm became the first man to set foot on the lunar surface in 1963. A
permanent settlement was established in the Sea of Serenity, and was declared
the sixtieth state in the union twenty years later, despite having less than a
thousandth the population of Rhode Island. The British had a moon colony of
their own, but seem to have evacuated it sometime around 1987, for reasons they
aren't discussing.
Has anyone happened upon old ruins on the moon? I could easily see the
reports being supressed, but Father might be aware of them due to his job.
Is any of this even remotely plausible? Of course not -- it's fantasy.
I'm much more interested in internal consistancy. It's much more important
in fiction because you can't prove the preposterous by showing that it
actually happened.
[1] Fans of David Weber's "Honor Harrington" can stop howling for my blood any
time now; I am familiar with her, and the comment was a joke.
Just stay away from spades games at cons. Ask Joe Buckeley what might
happen, repeatedly.