Watch on the Rhine ( ENTIRELY spoilers)

[Samuel]

Standard boiler plate disclaimer (first time, views expressed here may not be, for fun and snarking, etc). Just remember: This is Kratman. You have been warned.

For questions about quality... well, it is better than Ismael which is why I am doing this instead. Anyway, lets begin- feel free to chip in, correct my errors, etc. I'll try to focus on new stuff and plot.

Prologue
The beginning is about one of the exploits of Michael Wittmann. It is unrelated to the rest of the story and just here to make the SS look awesome.

The second section is a meeting of the heads of the major Darhel clans.

Though the smoke in the room came not from tobacco but from incense burnt upon the Altar of Communication, ...Lords of Creation,

The Darhel have a religion.

The table, a rare and precious iridescent hardwood from a little known or settled planet, spoke well of the wealth of the assembly.

The Darhel did not seem to come upon the idea of transplanting the parent plant meaning they don't have the capacity or inclamation (aka monopoly).

An Indowy servant—given the nuances of the galactic legal and economic system one might as well have said "slave"—stood behind each of the Darhel lords, ready to cater to their every need and whim. Though some Darhel were perhaps aware of it, most were blissfully unaware that these servants, never comfortable with their status as slaves, were one of the prime sources of intelligence to the Bane Sidhe, the galaxy-spanning plot to unseat the Darhel as lords of creation.

The Darhel are basically choatic evil, treating their servants as slaves to the point they are supporting rebellion.

With eighteen trillion Indowy within the Federation,

But profits? Losses? These were the key and critical bits of information played out on the holographic projections.

Studying his hologram intently, one Darhel burst out, "Lords of Creation, the loss of capital to this invasion is unsupportable! Factories lost? Profits squeezed? Trade imbalanced? Staggering! Intolerable! It must not be allowed to continue."

The Darhel are evil capitalists. This does not fit well with their lack of industrialization, reasearch or industrialization method.

Not for the first time the Ghin regretted the system of galactic control which allowed even third-rate Darhel to amass power and wealth, at the inevitable expense of the Indowy.

The Darhel are evil speciests. No surprise there.

I have shareholders and investors to whom I am responsible.

The clan based Darhel have corporations and the need to borrow money to expand business. I don't think that fits together quite right.

"And that is another thing. I see the frontier plainly marked. But why have the human mercenaries permitted this open sector where the Posleen are pushing through en masse?"

The Posleen ships appear to have definite range limits if a frontier can exist. Given the lack of space superiority on the side of the Galactics, I don't see how this situation can occur though. How do groundforces completely stop the Posleen from launching fleets?

Now, the problem here is that the Darhel suck. They are complete and total cookie cutter villians who lack any redemable characteristics. They are evil for the sheer love of gaining money. This isn't this books fault- that was established in the first book. However, the problem isn't just that- it is stating it right away. As it is, they can simply be villians as racist aliens who want to use humans to fight their wars and force humanity to pay for their equipment to defend themselves. Having them conspiring to be extra evil makes less sense- if they wanted humanity controlled, just clone humans for troopers, come to Earth after the first wave so you don't have to sabotage or any other method that does not require backstabbing humanity. The Darhel's actions are poorly thought out, especially since they have been in contact with humanity a while and could have done any number of tricks. It seems just a way to play straight foward hero guy versus the backstabbing capitalist villians. Which, in a book about a group famous for killing people who were stereotyped in such a way leads to some unfortunate implications. I'll rant more latter.

The third section is a God King and his second debating landing areas.

They decide to hit Germany by way of France and Poland. To be fair, the second mentions both have a reputation for skill at war

"Indeed," agreed Ro'moloristen. "And the reputation among the threshkreen of these thresh of this barbarous place, Poland, in war is no mean one, though they have had scant success."

"And the other major landing?"

"They call that France. Again, their reputation on the Path of Fury is no mean one, and yet, they too have had scant success."

However, they intend to flank Germany becauses its troopers have a reputation from the fighting on Deiss. As for Europe, no other group has claiming it. This is odd because it flatly states they choose their landing pattern and location, which are described as more random in Gust Front (they have a wave land in Central Asia)

I'll try to do a chapter a day (first try accidentally deleted ).

[CaptainChewbacca]

Now, the problem here is that the Darhel suck. They are complete and total cookie cutter villians who lack any redemable characteristics. They are evil for the sheer love of gaining money. This isn't this books fault- that was established in the first book. However, the problem isn't just that- it is stating it right away. As it is, they can simply be villians as racist aliens who want to use humans to fight their wars and force humanity to pay for their equipment to defend themselves. Having them conspiring to be extra evil makes less sense- if they wanted humanity controlled, just clone humans for troopers, come to Earth after the first wave so you don't have to sabotage or any other method that does not require backstabbing humanity. The Darhel's actions are poorly thought out, especially since they have been in contact with humanity a while and could have done any number of tricks. It seems just a way to play straight foward hero guy versus the backstabbing capitalist villians. Which, in a book about a group famous for killing people who were stereotyped in such a way leads to some unfortunate implications. I'll rant more latter.

I don't know if you've simply not read the other books, but the Darhel are FAR more than 'evil capitalists'. They are, in fact, bloodthirsty malevolent pricks who are pissed off at the universe because they made a bad deal with godlike aliens after they nuked their own homeworld and now CAN'T be bloodthirsty aliens anymore. Capitalism and wealth aren't the goal of the Darhel, they're simply using them as the only weapons they still have capable of gaining them power.

Also keep in mind, the Darhel are scared shitless of humans, because if we ever DO get the technology they do we WILL be in a position of absolute power over them. They can't clone humans to use as soldiers, because they can't teach/instill violence in their clones without putting themselves into comas. They need humans, AND the warrior-culture we have left in us, to fight their war for them.

That being said, it IS a remarkably straightforward 'good versus sneaky' with a lot of 'hoo-rah america' sprinkled in. I don't think its high-concept fiction like DUNE or Ender's Game, but it is remarkably entertaining for me when I read it. That's why, in my opinion, Watch on the Rhine doesn't really NEED a chapter-by-chapter analysis.

[Samuel]

Sorry for how short the previous update was- I needed to get myself started.

Chapter 1
We start in Fredricksburg, where the Chancellor of Germany and his aide are reviewing the devestation. The Posleen came, they saw, they devoured. It isn't pretty. They get sidetracked into a stupid war guilt argument and the Chancellor declares that he has to reactiviate the SS veterans. This doesn't make sense though- rejuv is rare, so much so the US doesn't have enough. Germany should be worse, with less troopers fighting for the Darhel to earn it- why do they have a stockpile? Why not give it to random retirees and conscript them?

The conscription is in legal force, and exempts only those who conscience cannot abide military service.

I honestly don't think that this would be a problem- after all, the mass of the Posleen aren't sentient. And they want to eat humanity.

Than we switch to Paris... which has a peace rally Kratman's... odd view of leftists begins. Don't worry- it gets worse.

Then we switch back to Germany and the Parliment.

or the new right that might raise a cry for him to assume a title he loathed, "Führer."

Honestly, if he went all the way with this, it might have crossed into the So Bad it is Good Territory, or even the decent category with the possibility that the Chancellor is planning to seize power. Alas, that is not to be.

Annemarie Mai, Green and Socialist representative from Wiesbaden,

I'm pretty sure party membership is exclusive so this sounds wrong.

As the film began to roll she was by no means displeased to see Washington, DC, in ruins. American policies, from their cowboyish adventures in imperialism to their wasteful and destructive energy and environmental policies to—most damning—their insistence on an outdated economic system that had the infuriating habit of making her own preferred statist system seem inefficient; all these made Washington a loathsome symbol of all she despised about America.

Like many in the world, however, Annemarie liked Americans, as people, just as much as she hated their country.

... I don't think socialists think this way. On the plus side, this is the closest to human the left gets. You have her showing a viseral reaction to the mounds of corpses- empathy, common sense and the like die...

"Several," she nodded. "First, these people are the bearers of a disease, a political disease. They must be quarantined to ensure they do not spread their disease."

"To get any use out of them, I have to use them as a cadre for others."

"I understand that," Annemarie answered. "But that group, once filled up to the military body you desire, must be kept as isolated as possible lest the disease spread beyond our ability to control."

That is right folks- in order to prevent the SS from being Nazified they are forcing them to form their own group entirely of SS and cut off from the rest of the army and society. This is insanely stupid.

"They murdered prisoners!" shrieked another legislator.

"In that war everyone murdered prisoners."

Not everyone murdered prisoners. This is basically a Q and A with the SS being portrayed as "not so bad".

The shrieks of the wounded, especially, tore at Annemarie's heart.

...The Posleen rail guns are described as firing at .1 c. How you can be wounded by that or any of their other weaponary is beyond me.

Anyway, the vote passes and the SS are brought back with restrictions. We cut to the former SS being picked up by the police- Mühlenkampf from a nursing home and Hans Brasche from a bar. Than we have Hans thinking back about the past a bit and Mühlenkampf and the Chancellor.

The chancellor smiled with indulgence. "You are so full of shit it's coming out of your ears, Mühlenkampf. What is more, you know you are. A 'moment's peace'? Nonsense. The only peace you've ever known was from 1916, when you were first called to the colors, to 1918, when the Great War ended. Then you had some more 'peace' from 1918 to 1923 in the Freikorps . . . Oh, yes, I know all about you, Mühlenkampf. And then you found the greatest peace from 1939 to 1945, didn't you? Get off your high horse, SS man. War is your peace. And peace is your hell."

Mühlenkampf cocked his head to one side. He tried and failed to keep a small, darting smile from his lips. "You missed one, Herr Kanzler. Spain, 1936 to 1939. Unofficially, of course. That was a fun time."

Mühlenkampf is a bit of a bit of a socipathic warmonger.

The chancellor had done his time. He knew Mühlenkampf was miscalculating based on human norms for combat forces. The chancellor sighed. "No. They have no support forces to consider. One million of these beings—they are called 'Posleen,' by the way—means one million combatants. So no, not thirty or forty or even fifty infantry divisions per million. We are talking about the equivalent of about one hundred thousand infantry divisions, but infantry divisions from a warped scientist's nightmares, dropping on our heads, all of our heads of course, over the next five years.

Ringo started this line in his first book and Kratman repeats it, but it is BS. For starters, the Posleen use ammunition... which has to be produced and distributed to troops, weapons which need to be manufactured, warrens that need to be dug, etc. The Posleen must have a large non-military section to do this as they don't appear to use vehicles, have bad aim and are as dumb as rocks.

Mühlenkampf considered, then objected, "But that is impossible, Herr Kanzler. No military force can organize like that. How would they feed themselves?"

The chancellor shuddered, remembering piles of small and gnawed bones in the snow. He shuddered and then found the impulse to enjoy giving the shock. "Why Mühlenkampf, they eat us, of course."

And when the humans are gone? I have to hammer this home- the Posleen make no more sense than the Darhel.

"I remember thinking, Kanzler, back when I still had some faculties for it, that although the Communists may have gone under I could no longer tell the difference between a Red Russian and a Green German."...
Mühlenkampf shrugged his indifference. "A political fanatic is dangerous no matter if he wants to hang capitalists or to gas Jews or to make economic life impossible, Herr Kanzler."

"I am no fanatic, SS man," bridled Günter.

The SS lecuring on the dangers of political extremism. The irony is of the charts.

"We will fill you up with bodies, good ones, from among the young men we have. For your cadre there are enough, just enough, rejuvenated SS men to make a decent group for a large Korps, about five divisions plus support."

Size of our protagonists forces.

The SS told Himmler and Hitler—and they had the power to have us shot out of hand—to go fuck themselves so often, so many times, I have lost count. We fought the Russian hordes to a standstill across half a continent.

Mühlenkampf really hates communists, Russians and any connect between the two. After fighting for a regime that was based on the idea of destroying the two he learns better... and procedes to bet up on Russian backed communists. He doesn't really learn from the whole WW2 incident.

We even had control for a while, though they were not part of us, of one Spanish Division, the Spanish Azul, or Blue, Division. Moslems? Lots. I have no doubt but that, had we won the war and some of the Reichsheini's8 wilder schemes for a Jewish Homeland come to pass that there would eventually have been a brigade of the Waffen SS that would have sported armbands reading, 'Judas Maccabeus.' Yes, I am serious," the former SS general concluded.

Chekov's gun has been put in place. Aside from that, this is an excellent example of the contradictory nature of the Nazi burecracy.

And now, evil greens and communists- Gunter decides to betray his country to the Darhel.

Remilitarization was not the least of it. How Günter had fought to keep the conscription laws somewhat ineffective. Surely no threat could justify dragging unwilling and enlightened young boys from their homes and subjecting them to the brainwashing that, he had no doubt, was the military's stock in trade. How else but through brainwashing could the military convince sensible young men to do something so plainly not in their personal interest?

"The Galactic Federation is a peaceful place, or was before this invasion," said the Tir, honestly. "Moreover, it is a place where resources are carefully guarded. We produce few goods but of high quality; this is how we keep our ecologies pure." This last was true enough, but the truth concealed a greater falsehood. Galactic civilization kept resource expenditure low by more or less literally starving the Indowy who made up the bulk of its population, produced the bulk of its admittedly excellent products, and had the least share of its power.

This doesn't make sense- where do they get the materials to build their massive cities?

Oh, and the good guys are listening in on the conversation by the effects the sound has on the walls, which they pass on to the Chancellor.

Chapter 2

Outside of the plant, of course—this being Germany, Germany being Green, and many—though not all—of the Green leadership having sold out to the Darhel, there was a continuous noisy protest against the plant, the projects it housed, the war effort, the draft . . . the name-your-left-leaning cause.

A military threat leads to a boost in the right ward direction. Why Germany is acting completely atypical is authors fiat to boost the evil greens.

"A railgun! A railgun, I say. Nothing else will do. Nothing else will give us the range, the velocity, the rate of fire, the ammunition storage capability, the . . ."

Ah, Johannes Mueller is heard from again, thought Prael.

"Then give me a railgun," demanded Henschel, pounding the desk in fury, and not for the first time. "Tell me how to build one. Tell me how to keep it from arcing and burning out. Tell me how to generate the power. And tell me how to do those things now!"

"Bah!" retorted Mueller. "All of those things can be fixed. Half the problem in engineering is merely defining the problem. And you just have."

Railguns are basic weaponary of the Posleen infantry. Which was killed by the millions in the US. Why do they have a problem getting copies?

"Yes, Franz, they have. They have also . . ." and Prael gave a brief and irritated moment's thought to the thousands of Greens protesting outside the plant, " . . . they have also rejected powering the thing with a nuclear reactor."

"What? That's preposterous," interjected Reinhard Schlüssel, the team's drive train and power plant designer. "We can't power this thing with anything less than nuclear. That or antimatter."

"We can, we must, we will," answered Mueller. "Natural gas. We can do this."

"I see they have at least accepted the use of MBA"—molybdenum, boron, aluminum—"armor," observed Stephan Breitenbach from where he sat by a paper-laden desk. That's something."

Waffen just isn't the same without tanks.

That won't work here, he thought, coming back to the present for a time. These kids hardly know of the concept of a God. Unless, perhaps, it resides between their girlfriends' legs . . . or is to be seen on the television. They have no innocence . . . no naiveté. They have no symbols. They seem to have neither hope nor faith. Not in anything.

Bricks without straw.

Perhaps the general will have an answer. We have a few days yet.

The SS commander seems to think that "aliens are coming to eat us all" is not enough to motivate our generation.
Next, the Indowy reveals that the greens are traitors, than the supertank and the Israeli engineer (he hates Mueller guts. Don't worry- like all author inserts, Mueller changes him by the end). Next, the SS try to begin the reforging of the recruits by singing their old anthems, insulting the recruits, marching- the usual. We get our only named Nazi in the book, Krueger.

I don't know if you've simply not read the other books, but the Darhel are FAR more than 'evil capitalists'. They are, in fact, bloodthirsty malevolent pricks who are pissed off at the universe because they made a bad deal with godlike aliens after they nuked their own homeworld and now CAN'T be bloodthirsty aliens anymore. Capitalism and wealth aren't the goal of the Darhel, they're simply using them as the only weapons they still have capable of gaining them power.

The problem with that is that they all work together (which doesn't fit with their ruthlessness) and they still are in power. Of the 4 races of the Galactics, only one can kill at will- and it isn't the Darhel. The Himmet just are cowards... but when they can fire back, this isn't a problem. Additionally, their making money appears to be just skimming money of the Indowy.

Also keep in mind, the Darhel are scared shitless of humans, because if we ever DO get the technology they do we WILL be in a position of absolute power over them. They can't clone humans to use as soldiers, because they can't teach/instill violence in their clones without putting themselves into comas. They need humans, AND the warrior-culture we have left in us, to fight their war for them.

They don't need to teach the clones- just use normal humans to do that. If the Darhel set themselves up as Gods, used any decent mind control tech, did Imperialism 101 (divide and rule) or... anything else, they would do much better. Their plan is moronic because it relies on humanity being completely oblivious and everything working perfectly.

That being said, it IS a remarkably straightforward 'good versus sneaky' with a lot of 'hoo-rah america' sprinkled in. I don't think its high-concept fiction like DUNE or Ender's Game, but it is remarkably entertaining for me when I read it. That's why, in my opinion, Watch on the Rhine doesn't really NEED a chapter-by-chapter analysis.

Eh, I don't mind the jingoism- the US does have 1/4 of the world's economy. What does high concept have to do with analysis/snark?

[dragon]

Having only read a few of the series are the injured coming from being hit or from surviving a miss rail gun round that hit nearby.

[Thanas]

The german names are hilarious.

[PeZook]

As is this:

We fought the Russian hordes to a standstill across half a continent.

Yeah, I guess when hundreds of Russian divisions charge out from the Volga line and grind their way to Berlin across the biggest and bloodiest battlefield in history, it counts as "fighting the Russians to a standstill"

Of course, the SS man might just be delusional, denying the undeniable: his homeland was overrun, his capital burned down, and the country carved up between the victors, but somehow it means the Russians were fought to a standstill

And, of course, it's not like the Wehrmacht did most of the fighting...nope, it was all SS!

[Darth Hoth]

Sorry for how short the previous update was- I needed to get myself started.

Chapter 1
We start in Fredricksburg, where the Chancellor of Germany and his aide are reviewing the devestation. The Posleen came, they saw, they devoured. It isn't pretty. They get sidetracked into a stupid war guilt argument and the Chancellor declares that he has to reactiviate the SS veterans. This doesn't make sense though- rejuv is rare, so much so the US doesn't have enough. Germany should be worse, with less troopers fighting for the Darhel to earn it- why do they have a stockpile? Why not give it to random retirees and conscript them?

The U.S. should have a lot more combat veterans alive, given Viet Nam and all other wars they have had a part in over the later half of the 20th century. Germany's supply of veterans has increased by minuscule or non-existent numbers after the '40s, for obvious reasons.

The conscription is in legal force, and exempts only those who conscience cannot abide military service.

I honestly don't think that this would be a problem- after all, the mass of the Posleen aren't sentient. And they want to eat humanity.

People would not want to shirk out of service against a massively superior (if by writer's fiat alone) army out to eat them?

Than we switch to Paris... which has a peace rally Kratman's... odd view of leftists begins. Don't worry- it gets worse.

Their argument that sending human mercenaries to fight the Posleen on distant worlds might draw their attention to us should not sound terribly retarded to the everyman, methinks.

Annemarie Mai, Green and Socialist representative from Wiesbaden,

I'm pretty sure party membership is exclusive so this sounds wrong.

It was probably supposed to be indicative of general political stance, rather than specific Party membership. Or perhaps there was a Socialist/Green coalition in Wiesbaden that received only one mandate and sent her?

As the film began to roll she was by no means displeased to see Washington, DC, in ruins. American policies, from their cowboyish adventures in imperialism to their wasteful and destructive energy and environmental policies to—most damning—their insistence on an outdated economic system that had the infuriating habit of making her own preferred statist system seem inefficient; all these made Washington a loathsome symbol of all she despised about America.

Like many in the world, however, Annemarie liked Americans, as people, just as much as she hated their country.

... I don't think socialists think this way.

Living in Europe and knowing several Swedish Leftists, it is fairly close. Filtered through Kratman's lens, of course, with the economics bit, but honestly not an egregious strawman.

"Several," she nodded. "First, these people are the bearers of a disease, a political disease. They must be quarantined to ensure they do not spread their disease."

"To get any use out of them, I have to use them as a cadre for others."

"I understand that," Annemarie answered. "But that group, once filled up to the military body you desire, must be kept as isolated as possible lest the disease spread beyond our ability to control."

That is right folks- in order to prevent the SS from being Nazified they are forcing them to form their own group entirely of SS and cut off from the rest of the army and society. This is insanely stupid.

It was to prevent the "rot" from spreading among the new recruits. They probably envisioned it as some sort of penal formation or equivalent.

"They murdered prisoners!" shrieked another legislator.

"In that war everyone murdered prisoners."

Not everyone murdered prisoners. This is basically a Q and A with the SS being portrayed as "not so bad".

Actually, everyone (as in, every army) did, at some point, and SS men were especially likely to fall victim to it due to their reputation. In the East, it was rather common on both sides (death tolls for POWs being in the multiple tens of per cent on either side). Of course, it is a stupid strawman of an argument to bring up.

The shrieks of the wounded, especially, tore at Annemarie's heart.

...The Posleen rail guns are described as firing at .1 c. How you can be wounded by that or any of their other weaponary is beyond me.

How about the boma blades that are the sole armament of the poorer tribes?

The chancellor smiled with indulgence. "You are so full of shit it's coming out of your ears, Mühlenkampf. What is more, you know you are. A 'moment's peace'? Nonsense. The only peace you've ever known was from 1916, when you were first called to the colors, to 1918, when the Great War ended. Then you had some more 'peace' from 1918 to 1923 in the Freikorps . . . Oh, yes, I know all about you, Mühlenkampf. And then you found the greatest peace from 1939 to 1945, didn't you? Get off your high horse, SS man. War is your peace. And peace is your hell."

Mühlenkampf cocked his head to one side. He tried and failed to keep a small, darting smile from his lips. "You missed one, Herr Kanzler. Spain, 1936 to 1939. Unofficially, of course. That was a fun time."

Mühlenkampf is a bit of a bit of a socipathic warmonger.

General macho soldier figure from the literature, more like. Not that those do not have some overlap.

The chancellor had done his time. He knew Mühlenkampf was miscalculating based on human norms for combat forces. The chancellor sighed. "No. They have no support forces to consider. One million of these beings—they are called 'Posleen,' by the way—means one million combatants. So no, not thirty or forty or even fifty infantry divisions per million. We are talking about the equivalent of about one hundred thousand infantry divisions, but infantry divisions from a warped scientist's nightmares, dropping on our heads, all of our heads of course, over the next five years.

Ringo started this line in his first book and Kratman repeats it, but it is BS. For starters, the Posleen use ammunition... which has to be produced and distributed to troops, weapons which need to be manufactured, warrens that need to be dug, etc. The Posleen must have a large non-military section to do this as they don't appear to use vehicles, have bad aim and are as dumb as rocks.

I think it was said in some throwaway line that they have automation doing everything but the fighting for them. Not that it is not still stupid, of course.

Mühlenkampf considered, then objected, "But that is impossible, Herr Kanzler. No military force can organize like that. How would they feed themselves?"

The chancellor shuddered, remembering piles of small and gnawed bones in the snow. He shuddered and then found the impulse to enjoy giving the shock. "Why Mühlenkampf, they eat us, of course."

And when the humans are gone? I have to hammer this home- the Posleen make no more sense than the Darhel.

It is even better: They eat the sum total of our biosphere, then they leave the planet and move on.

"I remember thinking, Kanzler, back when I still had some faculties for it, that although the Communists may have gone under I could no longer tell the difference between a Red Russian and a Green German."...
Mühlenkampf shrugged his indifference. "A political fanatic is dangerous no matter if he wants to hang capitalists or to gas Jews or to make economic life impossible, Herr Kanzler."

"I am no fanatic, SS man," bridled Günter.

The SS lecuring on the dangers of political extremism. The irony is of the charts.

It is part of the survivors' nur Soldaten shtick. I would at least not say that the attitude is not believable.

The SS told Himmler and Hitler—and they had the power to have us shot out of hand—to go fuck themselves so often, so many times, I have lost count. We fought the Russian hordes to a standstill across half a continent.

Mühlenkampf really hates communists, Russians and any connect between the two. After fighting for a regime that was based on the idea of destroying the two he learns better... and procedes to bet up on Russian backed communists. He doesn't really learn from the whole WW2 incident.

What point were you trying to make here? That if you are a Second World War veteran, you cannot be virulently anti-Communist with good conscience?

We even had control for a while, though they were not part of us, of one Spanish Division, the Spanish Azul, or Blue, Division. Moslems? Lots. I have no doubt but that, had we won the war and some of the Reichsheini's8 wilder schemes for a Jewish Homeland come to pass that there would eventually have been a brigade of the Waffen SS that would have sported armbands reading, 'Judas Maccabeus.' Yes, I am serious," the former SS general concluded.

Chekov's gun has been put in place. Aside from that, this is an excellent example of the contradictory nature of the Nazi burecracy.

That one I have to give you is completely retarded and has to be chalked down to Mühlenkampf being deliberately dishonest. Not only were the Waffen-Grenadier divisions considered second-class SS (after the war, a lot of Waffen-SS apologists claimed that they had not really been part of their formation at all!), but those decisions were very much forced by lack of manpower, and an example of the SS bureaucracy's contradictory aims. Jews in the SS uniform . . .

Remilitarization was not the least of it. How Günter had fought to keep the conscription laws somewhat ineffective. Surely no threat could justify dragging unwilling and enlightened young boys from their homes and subjecting them to the brainwashing that, he had no doubt, was the military's stock in trade. How else but through brainwashing could the military convince sensible young men to do something so plainly not in their personal interest?

Scary as it sounds, this attitude is shared by a lot of people, here at least. Combine it with wishful thinking and denial of reality and you have Günter, or something close.

Outside of the plant, of course—this being Germany, Germany being Green, and many—though not all—of the Green leadership having sold out to the Darhel, there was a continuous noisy protest against the plant, the projects it housed, the war effort, the draft . . . the name-your-left-leaning cause.

A military threat leads to a boost in the right ward direction. Why Germany is acting completely atypical is authors fiat to boost the evil greens.

Would it be more reasonable that all left-wing activism melted away as soon as the news came? The general public may not support them, but the radical movement will still have an activist minority in this scenario.

"A railgun! A railgun, I say. Nothing else will do. Nothing else will give us the range, the velocity, the rate of fire, the ammunition storage capability, the . . ."

Ah, Johannes Mueller is heard from again, thought Prael.

"Then give me a railgun," demanded Henschel, pounding the desk in fury, and not for the first time. "Tell me how to build one. Tell me how to keep it from arcing and burning out. Tell me how to generate the power. And tell me how to do those things now!"

"Bah!" retorted Mueller. "All of those things can be fixed. Half the problem in engineering is merely defining the problem. And you just have."

Railguns are basic weaponary of the Posleen infantry. Which was killed by the millions in the US. Why do they have a problem getting copies?

It might not merely be a matter of scaling up (Posleen guns are a lot smaller than the basically ASAT-capable cannon that they are talking about, here). Power and such would still be difficult to supply, and so on.

"Yes, Franz, they have. They have also . . ." and Prael gave a brief and irritated moment's thought to the thousands of Greens protesting outside the plant, " . . . they have also rejected powering the thing with a nuclear reactor."

"What? That's preposterous," interjected Reinhard Schlüssel, the team's drive train and power plant designer. "We can't power this thing with anything less than nuclear. That or antimatter."

"We can, we must, we will," answered Mueller. "Natural gas. We can do this."

"I see they have at least accepted the use of MBA"—molybdenum, boron, aluminum—"armor," observed Stephan Breitenbach from where he sat by a paper-laden desk. That's something."

Waffen just isn't the same without tanks.

Better than mobile armour, if not by much . . .

[Darth Hoth]

The german names are hilarious.

I did not think that they were so horrible; of course, I am not German, and not all that familiar with the language. Which ones did you mean in particular?

[Thanas]

The german names are hilarious.

I did not think that they were so horrible; of course, I am not German, and not all that familiar with the language. Which ones did you mean in particular?

Well, let's review them on a case-to-case basis:

- Annemarie Mai
Mai is german for march. It makes no sense as a name and is not among the common names. In fact, I have never heard it before. It also sounds very odd.
- "Kanzler" is not used as a title without a prefix in speech, yet Kratman uses it several times.
- "Henschel"...right, he just happens to take the name of a prolific nazi tank manufacturer...
- Günter Mühlenkampf.... sounds about right.
- Johannes Mueller.... Mueller is not the correct writing in german. Müller would be it and is far more prolific.
- Reinhard Schlüssel.... Schlüssel... is german for "key".
- Krueger...would actually be spelled Krüger in german.


It just has that feel of someone not being able to speak german to it.

[Darth Hoth]

"Mai" I thought was Chinese at first glance, a second- or third-generation immigrant. I did not even draw that parallel.

"Schlüssel" is a name that is used in real life, as far as I know, though it would perhaps not be common.

Mueller and Krueger I would say is a mere Americanism; it is not all that often that people even bother to mark out the lack of the Umlaut diacritic by changing the spelling. Of course, the author gets bad marks for not running the conversions consistently.

It does show that it is a non-German writing, but it is not exceptionally bad in my opinion. Kratman does try to give the German names and terms correct, although he fails at some points. Again, not being a native speaker myself, I might not be the best judge of it, of course.

[Connor MacLeod]

Reverse engineering the Posleen stuff isnt neccesarily fast or easy. It depends alot on the capabilities and requirements involved. To build it you have to be able to develop the scientific AND the engineeinr principles behind it, and that's not neccesarily a guarantee, and certainly not one in any reasonably short timeframe that the war (as t he novels pan out) permit. I mean, think about the power systems for the weapons alone. For alot of the weapons they have to be INSANELY compact, far more so than by our modern terms, and that may not be possible (what little we know of their power storage tech is pretty exotic - ie the explosive batteries in the flying ground saucers for example.) There's also efficiency and cooling matters, the materials used to build the railgun itself (especially the rails), etc. etc. etc....

And while humanity kinda got bootstrapped to a higher level with the aid of the Darhel and et all, they never really fully "integrated" the two tech bases much less understood them. It was more like they basically got alot of sophistiicated toys to play with (and the aliens basically had deus ex machina on their side there) with some incremental upgrades (better materials and stuff.) Hell, they never got around ot building their own versions of the Posleen stuff either.

This is actually the least problem I had with the novel itself, and they actually implemented the intelligent option (which Ringo didnt even consider til about the third novel or os) and using posleen tech. Hell, the humans in Ringo's book didnt even use the tech they DID get intelligently.

As for the .1c bit... I guess that really depends on how the railgun works, but you get this headache with the HMVs too (whihc in some sources IIRC move at 1/3 the speed of light. And Grav Guns face the same problem....)

[Thanas]

Again, not being a native speaker myself, I might not be the best judge of it, of course.

So why do you try to convince me otherwise?

[Erik von Nein]

Mai is german for march.

Slight nitpick; "Mai" is Germany of "May." "März" is German for "March."

[Samuel]

The U.S. should have a lot more combat veterans alive, given Viet Nam and all other wars they have had a part in over the later half of the 20th century. Germany's supply of veterans has increased by minuscule or non-existent numbers after the '40s, for obvious reasons.

Germany is also has a smaller army which is entirely dedicated to expanding itself. The offworld group was utterly decimated. They shouldn't be getting in large amounts. Of course, since it is revealed the bottleneck is just the Darhel screwing with them, this could be a Xantos Gambit on the Darhels part to mess with the German Left.

People would not want to shirk out of service against a massively superior (if by writer's fiat alone) army out to eat them?

Oh, they'd want out. I don't see the government accepting cowardice as a decent rationale. Doesn't work.

Their argument that sending human mercenaries to fight the Posleen on distant worlds might draw their attention to us should not sound terribly retarded to the everyman, methinks.

Especially the French Of course, this is a 1.5 million person march demanding immediate peace... and the Posleen have currently consumed the Stans and part of Africa.

Living in Europe and knowing several Swedish Leftists, it is fairly close. Filtered through Kratman's lens, of course, with the economics bit, but honestly not an egregious strawman.

I actually find it acceptable. Now, if all his leftists were this bad, it would be fine.

It was to prevent the "rot" from spreading among the new recruits. They probably envisioned it as some sort of penal formation or equivalent.

They do. They mention that they want to burn through the troopers and the recruits- kill them all essentially. Of course the fact they are given the superheavy tanks doesn't fit quite well. That and the fact that there is nothing different about these troopers and the normal army troopers

How about the boma blades that are the sole armament of the poorer tribes?

I thought shotguns were the weapons for those with no cash in the Posleen horde? Regardless, aren't the blades described as monomolecular and capable of cutting through the MI armor? I don't see that causing any pain- limb removal, but not pain. Of course, once the Posleen get to you in hand to hand you are dead anyway.

I think it was said in some throwaway line that they have automation doing everything but the fighting for them. Not that it is not still stupid, of course.

That would work, but they don't have vehicles so they still need people to build, transport, etc. It is obvious they have AIs deal with a good part of the staff work, but that is it. This is one of the things that is easy to rationalize- after all, the Darhel know jack about the Posleen.

It is part of the survivors' nur Soldaten shtick. I would at least not say that the attitude is not believable.

I know- it is just extremely funny.

What point were you trying to make here? That if you are a Second World War veteran, you cannot be virulently anti-Communist with good conscience?

He feels really bad about the Second World War and tries to make amends. Ad to do that he procedes to do exactly what he did in the Second World War. It isn't innaccurate as he is a soldier- it is just hilariously ironic. He ends up in Israel, fighting the Syrians because of it.

Would it be more reasonable that all left-wing activism melted away as soon as the news came? The general public may not support them, but the radical movement will still have an activist minority in this scenario.

They are about half of the government- the left was against the remobilization of the SS and the vote is described as lose- even with the socialists chipping in on the Chancellors side.

In the US that is what happens- war favors the more militistic party. In England it happened in WW2 where everyone rallyed around Churchill before they dumped him at the end.

I vary between mocking and trying to fill in the holes. Kratman at least acknowledged that he thought of the changes made by all this new tech which is the reason none of it is in the book- he coudln't work out all the implications in such a short time.

Chapter 3
Anyway, we begin with basic training- getting the new recruits to learn that the dirt is your friend.

Than we switch to the Indowy informing the Chancellor of a previous attempt to help humanity in the age of Rome.

From just past the arch Rinteel said, "This place was chosen because it was on the fringe of your then dominant civilization. Here we could, so we thought, develop the systems, Anothungeen and Fafneen, in peace. From here also we could, so we thought, distribute it secretly throughout your then-dominant civilization, the one you humans call 'Roman.'"
...
"Only one of us, Albletoon, escaped the slaughter," Rinteel translated as he recited. "A human mercenary, traitor to his race, led the assault. Siegfried, cursed be his name, betrayed the People. For greed . . . and the promised mate . . . he sold them out . . . and so fell the cause of liberty. The traitor Mineem led them through, foiled the gate, and compromised the safeguards. For foul gold, and fame, our hero Siegfried sold his soul."

This is less egregious than "the Constitution was formed to defend against the Darhel" or "Atlantis" and actually makes some sense compared to those two.

Then we go to the Tiger plant and the fact that they discovered what they want is physcially impossible. The recoil is to much for any of the materials they have. Fortunately the Americans have a nice toy...

"But look at it this way: that black plastic device on Stephan's harness takes the energy of falling, saves it, and then twists it sideways to turn it into an energy of slowing. We believe we can use this in the suspension system for the tank—without a major redesign being required, by the way—and reduce the robustness of the shock absorbers to save perhaps fifteen or twenty tons of weight. To say nothing of reducing the maintenance required."

Nazi science snears at the laws of physics. Kratman took it from book 4 and put it to very good use. We see the tank completed and handed over to the commander with a full VR training set.

We see Isabella (French women in the march) having her husband called up, they fight and have make up sex of screen. Then we cut back to the training and live fire exercise. Holograms, the Mobile Infantry shooting close- but not too close and a Tiger providing support causing Brasche to remember Kursk.

We switch to Dieter Schultz, one of the recruits and find that the tank's flechette aren't so accurate- he got hit in the arm. However, he continues on leading his section and the commander takes note. Needless to say his star will rise quite a bit by the end of the book.

But Mueller spoke to Mühlenkampf's back. Already the veteran was fumbling with his new, inconvenient, and sometimes damnable cellular phone.

Soldiers were killed in training and their places taken by new faces. The old German army had thought that one percent killed in basic training was not merely an acceptable, but a desirable figure. The new-old German Army did as well, this portion of it, at least.

were willing to tell the politicians and social theorists to "go fuck yourselves" over them—to meld their new charges into what Germany, what Europe, what humanity, needed.

The SS core is less regulated than the rest of the army... despite the fact it kills men in training and is suspect in the eyes of the world for wanton brutality. Kratman... just don't do politics okay?

The thousands of other God Kings present in the auditorium likewise matched Athenalras' pious posture as an elderly Posleen, a Kenstain—Bin'ar'rastemon—a once prominent Kessentai who had given up the Path to become a very special form of Kessenalt. No mere castellaine was Bin'ar'rastemon, no mere steward for another God King. Once the toll of years and wounds had begun to tell, he had turned his clan and its assets over to his senior eson'antai, or son, only keeping control of sufficient to support himself in a modest style as he entered the Way of Remembrance.

Something between historians and chaplains, the Kessenalt of the Way of Remembrance served to maintain and remind the People of their history, their values, their beliefs . . . and the very nasty way of the world unwittingly inflicted upon them by the Aldenata and their one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter, philosophy.

Clad in ceremonial harness of pure heavy metal, Bin'ar'rastemon—old and with the Posleen equivalent of arthritis creaking every joint—ambled up the steps of the dais, ancient scrolls tucked into his harness.

Though Kenstain normally received little respect as a class, except perhaps from the God Kings they served directly, the followers of the Way of Remembrance were widely and highly valued. As Bin'ar'rastemon centered himself upon the dais, he ceremonially greeted the assembled God Kings, who ceremoniously answered, "Tell us, Rememberer, of the ways of the past, that we might know the ways of the future."

The Posleen have historians, a culture, retirement and a sense of ceremony. It is sort of sad a species that is overwhelming made of non-sentient members is the most fleshed out of all the alien groups. I didn't get further in the series- anyone know what else they add?

Next up- chapter 4: SS versus the hippies.

[PeZook]

Oh, they'd want out. I don't see the government accepting cowardice as a decent rationale. Doesn't work.

I don't think draft dodging would be an overwhelming problem, at least after people realized the aliens are coming to kill them all.

We even have historical precedent: You know what happened in Eastern Europe after it became obvious the Nazis would kill every single Slav if they won the war? Take a guess.

People would probably shirk from service as long as it took them to realize what is going on. Even then, the government would viciously pursue draft dodgers, because physical survival of the nation trumps hurt feelings.

[Thanas]

Mai is german for march.

Slight nitpick; "Mai" is Germany of "May." "März" is German for "March."

URGH.

*Hangs head in shame*


**************
So wait, Arminius (whom he calls Siegfried) is an alien collaborator and Varus was an alien?

That is the most egregious mutilation of history I have heard this year.

[CaptainChewbacca]

[So wait, Arminius (whom he calls Siegfried) is an alien collaborator and Varus was an alien?

That is the most egregious mutilation of history I have heard this year.

Ah... yeah... Pretty much.

[Pelranius]

Holy shit! So there is something crappier than Dale Brown's Rogue Forces (where a PMC actually attacks Turkey with B-1s and causes a sea change in American foreign policy. Yeah Mr. Brown, why don't you just make Patrick McLahanan (not a mary sue) President and have him nuke all of non America?)

I'm just left speechless by all of this. I think I'll stick to reading Pantheocide.

[Samuel]

Chapter 4

"Must be fifty thousand of the bastards," muttered Mühlenkampf, standing at his office window overlooking the main gate to the Kaserne. "Where the hell did they all come from? And why aren't the boys out there in the army instead? Why aren't the damned girls in the army, for that matter?"

The SS base is threatened by left wing protestors. They are trying to get in and trash the base. When the commander asks for orders he is told that riot police are en route, but there are protests outside all the bases so they will take time and be few. Why the protestors are not in the military...

He knew the answer, of course. Despite the threat of the Posleen, the idea of alternative service was too deeply ingrained in German political and social culture even for the threat of annihilation to overcome fully. Curiously, Great Britain and the United States, without a long or stable tradition of peacetime conscription or "compulsory social service," had done better by far in dragging in their young people. There, the old age homes and the like had never become dependent on low-paid slave labor. Private always—or at least not fully governmental, they could remain so. In Germany? No such luck.

If only there were low paid foreigners that could be brought in. Like from Eastern Europe or Turkey.

"All is in readiness," said Dunkel, the Red. "Not less than fifty thousand protesters are converging on the base at Sennelager to combat the Fascists."

"The army has no objections to this," announced the one gray-uniformed human present, a representative of certain elements in the General Staff. "Even if some portions objected to the trashing of our own bases, virtually no one wants these hideous SS men to remain in uniform."

Günter, the Green, sat silently for a while. "We have our people there as well, at least sixty percent of the protesters are Green."

The Tir, eyes still closed and breathing still shallow, said in a strained voice, "You have all done well. There will be rewards for good performance. . . ."

The conspirators- the communists, the greens and the army.

"But that asshole, Krueger?" said Dieter, quietly. "He is a bad man, whatever he may know."

"Yes," agreed Harz. "He is the worst. If I hear even one more tale of his rapes in the old concentration camps I will vomit. Even so, use him for what he is good for: which may include how to keep ourselves alive."

I have no idea how Krueger has not been arrested for war crimes yet, but he is still here.

Brasche bellowed a command which was echoed down the ranks. The men fumbled with gas masks. These now—since the Posleen war—had gone largely obsolete, the Posleen being quite immune to any terrestrial war gas. Indeed, the only reason the men had even been issued and trained on masks was that the German chemical industry, working in close cooperation with the Russians, believed that a militarily useful toxin might someday be developed from the venom of the grat, a wasplike pest of the Posleen.

No comment.

Anyways the SS versus the protestors. Things bog down to melee, the commander passes out after being whacked over the head and remembers being sent to a camp as a guard and immediately requesting reassignment to the front. Either empathy or bloodthirstyness.

The boys waded in, an unstoppable mass of swinging clubs, smashing fists, and stomping boots. Those who fell before them were given no quarter, but kicked senseless, in some cases to death. Singing among the first groups stopped to be replaced quickly by sobbing, shrieking and begging Reds and Greens.

"No mercy, boys!" shouted Krueger, exultantly if unnecessarily. "Break their bones!"

... They are beating unarmed protestors to death.

The questions were rhetorical. Mühlenkampf didn't wait for an answer. "Hohenstauffen, what is wrong with our country? Jugend, why has every Korps in the armed forces except for ours been sabotaged? G von B, why are so many young men exempted from the call to duty? Wiking, why have some elements of the government attempted to sabotage both us and the Kriegseconomie?"29

Finally resting his eyes on the only battalion commander present, Mühlenkampf asked, "What is the problem here, Hansi?"

"I do not know, Herr Generalleutnant," admitted Brasche.

"I know," said Ribbentrop, confidently. "It is the Jews.

"Mühlenkampf snorted his derision. "Nonsense, Ribbentrop, you pansy. There aren't enough Jews in Germany anymore to make a corporal's guard. They are the least influential group we have. I wish we had some more. The Israelis at least can fight."

Afterwards they discuss the situation and come to a conclusion...

Mühlenkampf stood and took a thin sheaf of papers, copies actually, from his desktop. These he began to pass out while still speaking. "We are rapidly coming to the end of our most intense training period. From now on we might relax, if only a little. I think, even, that some of the men might benefit from a period of leave. I want you to start granting leaves to deserving men, up to fifteen percent of the force at any given time.

"Those papers contain the names of those I most strongly suspect of being our foes. You might let the men see those names before they sign out of the camp," finished the commander, returning to his seat
...
"All have been tried, my lord. Nothing has worked. And no less than eleven of our supporters in the Bundestag have disappeared under suspicious circumstances, two or three after each effort. Few right-minded politicians seem to have the courage to act in the face of this threat."

...Killing the opposition.

Back to the Posleen we learn about their history with the ancients. They came, they taught, and the Posleen rebeled because they feelt oppressed

"The people who asked, the Knowers, complained, 'The planets you have given to us cannot support our growing population.' The Aldenat' answered, 'We know, and you know not.'

[Thanas]

Kriegseconomie

AKA: google translator fails.

Also, why isn't this dung banned yet?

[Samuel]

Kriegseconomie

AKA: google translator fails.

Also, why isn't this dung banned yet?

You can buy this book in Germany

[Thanas]

^Yes, you can.

And the Nazi idolatry is simply disgusting.

[Samuel]

Chapter 5

They came into normal space spitting fire and death. They were met in the cold, hard vacuum by Task Fleet 4.2, Supermonitor Lexington and her American crew in the van. The Lexington hurled back death with defiance. Likewise with nuclear weapons, antimatter, kinetic energy projectiles, and high-energy plasma.

It was all for naught. Though Posleen died by the millions, the Lexington—the "Lady Lex"—and her escorts held the line for scant days before succumbing to the masses of fanatically driven Posleen.

Soon space around Titan Base became a battlefield, the battle lending yet more scrap metal and scorched and frozen flesh to space. That battle, too, was lost. The seemingly endless fleet of Posleen pressed on to ravage and raze an Earth that trembled at their approach.

Finally the second Posleen wave arrives. The space battling doesn't make alot of sense, but it isn't important to what happens next.

Her name meant "battler" or "battle maiden." Yet if ever a girl was misnamed, thought Dieter, that girl was Gudrun. Tall and slender, from golden hair to ivory skin to long and shapely legs, Gudrun evoked no image of battle. Gracefully she walked, as a woman, though Dieter suspected she was rather young, sixteen at most.

I give Kratman props for this. Unlike Ringo he doesn't have all his women- most of whom are army troops- have big boobs and long hair. Anyway her name is Gurden and... lets just say we have the Captain Kirk effect. Anyway, Dieter falls for here. Hard.

Laughing, Dieter answered, "We're not an SS Korps, Gudrun. Why, according to my chief, Sergeant Major Krueger, we are not fit to wipe the boots of real SS men. They did train us," he admitted.

"Then you are not a Nazi?"

"Me?" Dieter laughed again, louder. "No, Liebchen.31 I was a student when they drafted me and gave me a choice. Sort of a choice. Not much of one, as a matter of fact." He shrugged. "And my grandfather told me I would be better off training under the old SS than under the new Bundeswehr. So there I went.

The German Army sucks so much people join up to the SS for competant leadership. You see, this is why you disperse your training cadre. Wasn't that a major lesson of the American Civil War?

Brasche had let all but a skeleton crew go to the dance. Krueger was here in the Tiger III, christened, if that was the right word, "Anna." Likewise was the new boy, Schüler, who had just been assigned. A couple of others manned the auxiliary MauserWerke twenty-five millimeter cannon stations by remote from the armored battle center deep inside the tank. The loader, whose job actually involved running the elevators and automatic rammers that brought the three-hundred-five-millimeter projectiles and their propellant to the main gun's breech and fed them to it, stood by.

The other sixteen men of the Anna's crew, including Schultz and Harz, were in Giessen trying for a last chance at love before entering the coming fray.

21 man crew for the super-tank.

But Brasche had had no interest, this despite having the body of a twenty-year-old again. He had met one girl in his life who had meant anything to him. And that girl was lost to him forever; all but an image in a photo, a clip of hair, and other images and feelings indelibly engraved on his heart and mind.

That girl, the original Anna—once of flesh and blood, smiled out at him from a photo held lightly in Hans' hand.

Needless to say he named a massive tank that can kill spaceships after here. She was that kind of girl as we learn in his backstory.

Sometimes, though, Krueger told of other things, vile things. This Brasche loathed, as indeed he loathed the man.

"It was great, I tell you, boys. Great. Your pick of the women in those camps. And some of them were lookers, too, even if they were just Jew bitches."

"How did you end up in one of the camps?" asked Schüler. "I thought you were a combat soldier."

"Well, I was only there for about six months, you see. While I was healing up from being shot by the Russians. At Ravensbrück, it was. A women's camp. There were so many we never even asked their names."

Once again, why was this man not strung up by the Red Army?

Athenalras cursed the loss, then issued orders for a concentration of fire against the thresh battery that had destroyed his ship. From dozens of ships, relativistic hail rained down on an obscure mountain in the French Pyrenees. To the defenders, below, it looked like a cone of fire from the hand of God, obliterating everything at the point of the cone.

Far above, another screen showed the Posleen commander a glowing patch of ground, no longer so mountainous. The area was soon obscured from space by rising clouds of dirt and ash, flames from the ruined surface glowing through the angry, dark nebulae.

Like all supervillains, they never use this tactic at other times it would be useful.

Chapter 6

They descended in waves of waves, tens of thousands of Posleen landing craft. Far out in space they split into three large task forces, one large group for Europe and North Africa, and one smaller one each for India and South America—those places already being largely taken over by the Posleen who had come before. The Latins and Hindus had really never been in any position to defend themselves.

The invader touched down first on the North African littoral. Along the Nile, and in its delta, Egyptians—Moslem and Christian alike, prayed for deliverance. It was not forthcoming.

West from Egypt, along the fertile North African coast only the ubiquitous Bedu survived in any numbers. The city and town dwellers disappeared into the invaders' sharp-fanged maws.

Three globes, three out of a total of seventy-three in this wave—fifty-eight of them in the Europe/North Africa force, were all it took to overrun, in a matter of days, the seats of one of Earth's most ancient civilizations, that and the broad sweep of one of its most ancient areas of barbarism.

Three additional globes were sufficient to drive the Italians, such as lived, reeling into the Apennines and staggering north to the Alps. The streets of the Roman Forum echoed with the clatter of the invaders' claws on ancient cobblestones.

In the ruins of Madrid the last survivors of the Spanish Legion battled to the death amongst the shattered stones of El Prado. Elsewhere throughout Iberia, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers died at their posts to gain a few days, a few hours, for their civilians to reach the shelter of the Pyrenees, and the Sub-Urban—underground, in this case—towns waiting there. In some cases, this was sufficient.

Four globes had landed in once-sunny Iberia.

England felt as many of the enemy touch her soil. Yet the English had succeeded in raising an army suited to her station. The Posleen who landed there met only cold, bitter resistance, walls of stone and walls of flying shards from artillery. In the end, the United Kingdom managed to hang on to her territory and people from a line just south of Hadrian's Wall. This was no mean achievement.

The single globe devoted to the Swiss and Austrians made the mistake of landing in a fortified Swiss valley. Hidden guns suddenly appeared all around the landing site. Infantry that could be numbered among the best and sharpest shooting in the world sprang up as if from nowhere. The Posleen force that had touched down disappeared without survivors.

The single globe each that landed on Belgium and Holland left only those survivors as managed to escape to Germany.

France and Poland, bearing the brunt of the Posleen effort, found themselves drawn and quartered. Paris held out for the nonce, as did Warsaw. A few other cities, prepared for defense in advance, did as well. Neither French nor Poles could be said to have been quite prepared for the magnitude and ferocity of the attack. Wishful thinking had beguiled the French while the Poles, never so numerous, still struggled under the legacy of forty-five years of Communist misrule and its resulting inefficiency and corruption.

Charitably, it could at least be said of both that they had fought hard, died well, and brought no disgrace upon their ancestors.

Seven globes hit Germany, bearing nearly thirty million Posleen. These were globes commanded by Kessentai that Athenalras didn't like very much or think very highly of. There were thirteen large panzer Korps—thirty-nine panzer and twenty-six panzergrenadier divisions, though many times that in infantry, to meet them.

The odds in Germany were worse for the Posleen than they had ever faced in their history. Five of those heavy divisions awaiting them were called "Wiking, Hohenstauffen, Frundsberg, Jugend and Götz von Berlichingen." One battalion was called the "501st Schwere Panzer (Michael Wittmann)."

The landings. Dissect yourself if you wish.

So west he headed, ever west into the setting sun. France was his goal, as it had become the goal of many of those who survived the surrender of the Wiking Division. The Legion was to become home for as many as could find shelter within it. The Legion asked no questions of a man who preferred, for the sake of his life, not to answer any.

At length, Brasche came upon another group of German soldiers, sitting quietly in an open field by a road. Near Stuttgart this was. A noncom wearing a funny-looking, coffee can cap with a bill stood among the Germans nonchalantly taking names and writing them into a ledger.

. Once settled, each Tiger began to ooze out a quick-drying camouflage foam from a system built under license from the Americans. Brasche stood in the turret while a small mountain of foam rose and hardened around Anna, the main gun depressing fully to allow the foam to drip to and blend with the snow on the ground. Though the foam could be colored, in this case it remained its natural white to blend in with the falling snow.

Although useful, I question how good this is against God-Kings sensors- or any enemy who has seen it at least once.

Fulungsteeriot was more than happy, as well, that he had the use of his landers to crush resistance in the path of his horde.

Despite being rather dim-witted, this Posleen commander is smart enough to use combined arms tactics. Why don't they use them more often?

The strangely shaped human servant with the disgusting hair color knocked lightly on the Tir's door.

Humans fall in the uncanny valley for the Darhel.

"They are also out of . . . oversight," observed the Tir. "With every other part of your force we have no trouble eavesdropping. But these SS refuse to so much as let one of our AIDs near them."

The Darhel has no idea what the SS are doing- only the Chancellor knows.

He cursed the fetid grass and disgusting trees of this world, "Blech, what a disgusting color, green? Red, brown, blue. Those I could understand. But green?"

Isn't clorophil normally green?

Next up- chapter 7

[Orm]

...The Posleen rail guns are described as firing at .1 c. How you can be wounded by that or any of their other weaponary is beyond me.

I'm pretty sure the .1 c guns were the ACS gravguns. The Postie railguns were slower.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Isn't clorophil normally green?

On earth, the energy-absorbing/converting organelles in plants are green. On a different planet, with a different light spectrum hitting the surface, that could easily change.