The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Battlehymn Republic]

The forum is on Laissez's Fair, which seems to be where all of their liberals and leftists and communist cosplayers hang out at. The rest of the SA forums are likely more moderate or even right-wing.

They seem to enjoy the story ironically, for all of its over-the-top action and political satire. The tone in the thread seems to be generally positive wrt the story. I can bet that a lot of purchasers of My Tank is Fight! would also buy a TBO print edition.

Additionally;

this is awesome,

and so is this:

United States Military Defense HQ, New Florida, Hell

"And you're sure this will work?" queried Colonel Fightmaster. He sipped a Coca-Cola and glossed over the briefing. It was a crazy plan, but then, everything had been crazy ever since "Unit J" had arrived. They were forbidden from even speaking the name to prevent leaks.

"Positive, Sir." replied Lt. Supercalifragilisticsaurus, First Demon Infantry Division. "It worked 2000 years ago. It should work now."

Col. Fightmaster paused and took another sip of his Coke. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Back then, it had been an attack on Hell. Now, it would work the opposite way. Yahweh would never expect it.

72 hours later, he was alongside the President and staring at the most powerful force ever assembled on Earth or in Hell. 3 million demons and 10 million humans were assembled in the field before him. President Obama walked up to the podium and began his address.

"Humans. Demons. Soldiers. Our proud Armed Forces. Today we begin a fight that few ever thought possible. Today we do what scant years ago would have been considered madness, or blasphemy. I have little to say. I'm sure you've all thought long and hard about this. I'm also sure that you've been wondering, how exactly we're going to get you into to the field. Well, now, we will unveil... whoops."

A suppressed laugh rippled through the ranks. The President's teleprompter had become covered in Hell dust.

"Well, never mind the formalities. Gentlemen, it's my pleasure to introduce someone very special to you."

Suddenly, the assembled Soldiers gasped as they became aware of someone who had been sitting on the stand the whole time, yet somehow did not recognize.

Throne of Yahweh, Heaven

The angels were gossiping like mad. Yahweh's idiot son had returned in the midst of all this turmoil and chaos, and was daring to speak to his father. The throne room had just been rebuilt too.

Yeshua ben Yahweh walked into the room, spreading the smell of acrid green leafy material and patchouli, overpowering even the scent of the angels' incense.

"Your church has been impudent. Why do you not speak to them?" ordered Yahweh.

"Welp. I guess, uh, cuz you told 'em to go to hell?" Yeshua looked around the room with a bored look on his face. Yahweh noticed that his Son had sunglasses on his head. Such a disappointment.

The room grew silent. Only Yahweh's son could dare talk to Him like that and not be snuffed from existence. However, the Lord of All's face still showed displeasure.

"Whatever the case. Speak to them. ORDER them to stop this resistance. Tell them I may even bring some of them here to be with me." Yahweh thundered, knowing well that the humans most likely would not fall for the same trick twice.

"Actually, I did talk to some of those dudes," Yeshua replied.

"And did they fall? Did they prostrate themselves before the Son of God and submit to His will?"

"Well... it was... let's say..." Yeshua, Jesus, Son of Man and God, raised his arms. "A Harrowing experience."

With those words, suddenly the whole of the United Human-Demon Forces appeared in the Throne Room of the Lord God Yahweh, harrowed straight from the Pit. All guns were pointed at the brilliant figure on the throne.

"Wh-what is this? Treachery!! MY OWN SON! I knew you were too much like them! You IMPUDENT LITTLE-"

Yeshua cut off his father with an "Uh-uh!" His turned around one of his lifted hands, presenting the back to Yahweh. Then, slowly, all fingers except the middle lowered.

Jesus flipped on his sunglasses and said, "Fuck you, Dad." All weapons fired at once.

The call went across Heaven, Earth, and Hell, at 0:00, Oct 23rd. It was personally delivered by Friedrich Nietzsche, deceased. "God is dead. And we have killed him."

[Serafina]

Stuart, I hate it that my only contribution to the thread seems to be a defence of Veg, but he is right in that case. The Caliphate is as about as realistic as the Thousand Year Reich. Like the Caliphate, it had a large amount of documentation, and a significant level of support. And yet, it was a pipe dream. You even admit as much in having it eventually disintegrate, whereas we are saying that it would never even be created, since the member states would never come to an agreement about that.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Well, as is see it, it is there to demonstrate a point - just as the nazi europe of TBO. Some people babble about "what ifs", and Stuart takes the idea and deconstructs it. Even if GB falls, Nazi Germany will still loose. Even if there is something like the Caliphate, it will not remain stable. Even if demons from Hell invade us, we can still kick their ass.

[Stuart]

Stuart, I hate it that my only contribution to the thread seems to be a defence of Veg, but he is right in that case. The Caliphate is as about as realistic as the Thousand Year Reich. Like the Caliphate, it had a large amount of documentation, and a significant level of support. And yet, it was a pipe dream. You even admit as much in having it eventually disintegrate, whereas we are saying that it would never even be created, since the member states would never come to an agreement about that.

But, that very argument proves my point. The Thousand Year Reich did exist (for twelve years). It was very real and, for the short time it existed, it was a very serious danger to the rest of the world. Yet, if somebody described the Thousand Year Reich, its structures, policies and behavior in, say, 1850 - 1900, it would be dismissed as impossible and absurd. I mean, come on. the German General Staff are good, there's no way they would take on pretty much the whole world at once. And a Corporal taking absolute power? In Germany? nahhhhh. The point of fiction is to ask 'if this then what'. IF the state desired by the Taliban and al Queda had been founded, what would it have looked like and all that good stuff. Then, having created the framework, we can add in the various issues that would exist. Sure, the foundation is unlikely but that is simply begging the question. Far more unlikely things have existed in history and nazi germany could well be described as one of them. After all, Germany? The beacon of light, civilization and philosophy throughout the 19th century suddenly going completely bonkers and slaughtering tens of millions of people? Completely absurd.

[Stuart]

Well, as is see it, it is there to demonstrate a point - just as the nazi europe of TBO. Some people babble about "what ifs", and Stuart takes the idea and deconstructs it. Even if GB falls, Nazi Germany will still loose. Even if there is something like the Caliphate, it will not remain stable. Even if demons from Hell invade us, we can still kick their ass.

Exactly. That's exactly the point. That's exactly what I've been trying to say.

[ray245]

Stuart, I hate it that my only contribution to the thread seems to be a defence of Veg, but he is right in that case. The Caliphate is as about as realistic as the Thousand Year Reich. Like the Caliphate, it had a large amount of documentation, and a significant level of support. And yet, it was a pipe dream. You even admit as much in having it eventually disintegrate, whereas we are saying that it would never even be created, since the member states would never come to an agreement about that.

But, that very argument proves my point. The Thousand Year Reich did exist (for twelve years). It was very real and, for the short time it existed, it was a very serious danger to the rest of the world. Yet, if somebody described the Thousand Year Reich, its structures, policies and behavior in, say, 1850 - 1900, it would be dismissed as impossible and absurd. I mean, come on. the German General Staff are good, there's no way they would take on pretty much the whole world at once. And a Corporal taking absolute power? In Germany? nahhhhh. The point of fiction is to ask 'if this then what'. IF the state desired by the Taliban and al Queda had been founded, what would it have looked like and all that good stuff. Then, having created the framework, we can add in the various issues that would exist. Sure, the foundation is unlikely but that is simply begging the question. Far more unlikely things have existed in history and nazi germany could well be described as one of them. After all, Germany? The beacon of light, civilization and philosophy throughout the 19th century suddenly going completely bonkers and slaughtering tens of millions of people? Completely absurd.

Reality is unrealistic

It's hard to convince people that their gut instinct is wrong or expecting them to accept the fact that they can be wrong on any issue.

[Bayonet]

Stuart, I hate it that my only contribution to the thread seems to be a defence of Veg, but he is right in that case. The Caliphate is as about as realistic as the Thousand Year Reich. Like the Caliphate, it had a large amount of documentation, and a significant level of support. And yet, it was a pipe dream. You even admit as much in having it eventually disintegrate, whereas we are saying that it would never even be created, since the member states would never come to an agreement about that.

Remember, it did have an atrificially introduced and unnatural source of muscle in its formative period - the Wehrmacht remnant. The foundation stages of empire are the trickiest and least stable. Once established, momentum accounts for a lot of stability.

[Simon_Jester]

When you're being dunked, it's like you're diving into water. While waterboarding is more direct and the water is directly forced into your airway, making it a REAL simulation of drowning. Whereas dunking is more like diving.

Simulation? As I understand it, you are drowning; the only catch is that the torturer stops pouring more water before you actually manage to drown all the way.
_______

Stuart, I hate it that my only contribution to the thread seems to be a defence of Veg, but he is right in that case. The Caliphate is as about as realistic as the Thousand Year Reich. Like the Caliphate, it had a large amount of documentation, and a significant level of support. And yet, it was a pipe dream. You even admit as much in having it eventually disintegrate, whereas we are saying that it would never even be created, since the member states would never come to an agreement about that.

On the contrary, in a world not all that different from ours, the Nazis' plans might very well have worked. If Russia had not been so resistant to conquest (say, if the Russian Civil War had dragged out longer and weakened them even more, or if someone had managed to assassinate Stalin and create a power vacuum at the top), if Germany had been a bit stronger, if the democracies had not been as dedicated to holding their ground as they were historically... it could have worked.

It didn't work, and it's reassuring to look at the plans and point out all the places where it failed, but it was hardly a more unrealistic plan than, say, Alexander the Great proposing to conquer Persia. I mean, come on, a loose empire hammered together out of a bunch of bickering city-states on the edge of the civilized world conquering an empire that practically defined the civilized world? One that ruled over every significant center of culture, learning, and wealth that the Greeks had ever even heard of? What the heck was Alexander smoking?

And yet it worked.

[ray245]

On the contrary, in a world not all that different from ours, the Nazis' plans might very well have worked. If Russia had not been so resistant to conquest (say, if the Russian Civil War had dragged out longer and weakened them even more, or if someone had managed to assassinate Stalin and create a power vacuum at the top), if Germany had been a bit stronger, if the democracies had not been as dedicated to holding their ground as they were historically... it could have worked.

Well, what happening today is the result of a specific chain of events. For your scenario to happen, we have to look into the events that allows Russia to be so resistant against Germany and the rise of the USSR.

For Germany to succeed in world war 2, you have to expect many other historical events to go in the horribly wrong as well.

[Pelranius]

Going back to in story topics, what happens to the stateless peoples of the world (like the Palestinians, Kurds, Tibetan refugees, Hutu exiles and sorts)? It seems that a lot of them would make ideal conscripts (or at least those who survived the Message) but some of the major states might have something to say about that. My personal suggestion would be to structure them like a volunteer division like those of World War II, where local conscripts and volunteers were commanded by officers and senior NCOs of the patron power.

As for the production of war equipment like tanks and armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, could we get a hint of figures and the models being used? I imagine that such new equipment would be ideal to equip various Mid Eastern, African and Latin American militaries, after the judicious use of foreign advisors to bring them into some competence of mechanized warfare.

[Stuart]

Well, what happening today is the result of a specific chain of events. For your scenario to happen, we have to look into the events that allows Russia to be so resistant against Germany and the rise of the USSR. For Germany to succeed in world war 2, you have to expect many other historical events to go in the horribly wrong as well.

This is very true, but if one looks at history, pretty much everything is the result of a chain of unlikely events. Another good example, the United States of America. Let's see, a bunch of misfits, convicts, pirates and freebooters - basically everybody civilized people didn't want to have around - get dumped in a wilderness already occupied by a large number of inhabitants who are both well-armed and know how to use their weapons. The new arrivals don't just survive, they go ahead and create the richest and most powerful nation in history. Nahhhh, couldn't possibly happen. I mean, come on, that rabble couldn't even form a unified state, let alone one that was actually important. The whole "it couldn't happen" argument is simply begging the question (the question in this case being "if it did happen, what would the consequences be and how").

[fgalkin]

Yet, if somebody described the Thousand Year Reich, its structures, policies and behavior in, say, 1850 - 1900, it would be dismissed as impossible and absurd.

I think that here you have actually summarized the root of the problem. The Reich would be dismissed as absurd in 1850 because it WAS absurd at that time. You NEED WWI and Weimar Germany for the Reich to come about.

And therein lies the problem with the Caliphate- it's essentially the Third Reich that somehow popped into existence after the Austro-Prussian War, miraculously creating movements, institutions and attitudes where there were none. The Talibs and Al Quaeda are products of the 80s and 90s, not the 40s and 50s. An Islamist state might come into existence in 2050, however implausible it might be. In 1950? Just plain impossible.

And it still wouldn't look anything like what you described, because Islam just doesn't work like that in many cases.

On the contrary, in a world not all that different from ours, the Nazis' plans might very well have worked. If Russia had not been so resistant to conquest (say, if the Russian Civil War had dragged out longer and weakened them even more, or if someone had managed to assassinate Stalin and create a power vacuum at the top), if Germany had been a bit stronger, if the democracies had not been as dedicated to holding their ground as they were historically... it could have worked.

You're ignoring factors such as why Russia was so resistant to conquest, or why the democracies behaved the way they did, as well as smaller nuances (longer civil war/weaker Russia=no Treaty of Rapallo? No German-Soviet military and industrial cooperation? A WEAKER Germany?). And, you missed the 800 pound gorilla in the room- the United States of America.

The Nazis' plans were pretty damn impossible any way you look at it. TBO shows pretty much the best they could have realistically achieved, and look how it ended for them.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

Well, what happening today is the result of a specific chain of events. For your scenario to happen, we have to look into the events that allows Russia to be so resistant against Germany and the rise of the USSR. For Germany to succeed in world war 2, you have to expect many other historical events to go in the horribly wrong as well.

This is very true, but if one looks at history, pretty much everything is the result of a chain of unlikely events. Another good example, the United States of America. Let's see, a bunch of misfits, convicts, pirates and freebooters - basically everybody civilized people didn't want to have around - get dumped in a wilderness already occupied by a large number of inhabitants who are both well-armed and know how to use their weapons. The new arrivals don't just survive, they go ahead and create the richest and most powerful nation in history. Nahhhh, couldn't possibly happen. I mean, come on, that rabble couldn't even form a unified state, let alone one that was actually important. The whole "it couldn't happen" argument is simply begging the question (the question in this case being "if it did happen, what would the consequences be and how").

Except that your scenarios are essentially skipping links in that chain, going from "misfits and freebooters" to "global superpower" in the space of a decade.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Shroom Man 777]

It's not "bizarro and creepy" so much as it's just intellectually lazy.

I was talking about what Norseman was doing over at that other forum. Basically pontificating about Stuart and all that, and dredging up unrelated factoids to those dudes.

[ray245]

And therein lies the problem with the Caliphate- it's essentially the Third Reich that somehow popped into existence after the Austro-Prussian War, miraculously creating movements, institutions and attitudes where there were none. The Talibs and Al Quaeda are products of the 80s and 90s, not the 40s and 50s. An Islamist state might come into existence in 2050, however implausible it might be. In 1950? Just plain impossible.

We do have to bear in mind that the events 1940s and 1950s in Stuart's story is rather different from ours.

Except that your scenarios are essentially skipping links in that chain, going from "misfits and freebooters" to "global superpower" in the space of a decade.

I would think that it can be said that the logical link in the chain was not shown, as opposed to saying those chains not existing. Although this can result in a leap of faith for a number of people.

To be frank, alternate history is pretty unrealistic to begin with. For any significant chance to take place, it would require many other insignificant events to change as well. All the tiny little day to day events can affect a person's final decision on major issues, ranging from how much coffee have you been drinking to getting a chance to read up the newspaper.

Since we couldn't factor in so much details, we only need to create a backstory that is decent enough for readers to suspend their disbelief.

[Stuart]

And therein lies the problem with the Caliphate- it's essentially the Third Reich that somehow popped into existence after the Austro-Prussian War, miraculously creating movements, institutions and attitudes where there were none. The Talibs and Al Quaeda are products of the 80s and 90s, not the 40s and 50s.

And that is plain not so. Read the history of the Iranian revolution in the early 1950s and the existance - and political importance - of fundamentalist Islamic organizations is quite apparent. The same groups were pushing the formation of Pakistan in the 1940s. Look around the Moslem world and those groups can be traced back much further - to the 1920s and 1930s in fact

And it still wouldn't look anything like what you described, because Islam just doesn't work like that in many cases.

And that is an utterly ridiculous thing to say. I'll say this again; the TBO Caliphate, its internal structure and policies are direct copies from the documented plans of the Taliban - who actually put them into force in Afghanistan - and al Queda. The points in question were written by Moslems and represented their blueprint of an ideal society.

Except that your scenarios are essentially skipping links in that chain, going from "misfits and freebooters" to "global superpower" in the space of a decade.

You're missing the whole point. The TBO Caliphate never was a global superpower and never stood any chance of becoming one. The TBO stories tell you why. The TBO Caliphate was a global nuisance certainly and was responsible for lot of grief but it was never a superpower. The two Caliphate related stories highlight the internal weaknesses that prevented it becoming anything more than a nuisance. The tragedy of the Caliphate is that those outside never saw those weaknesses, a paranoid America and a war-weary rest of the world saw a reflection of their own fears not the reality they truly were facing.

I had the Caliphate forming in the 1960s starting with Afghanistan/Iran/Iraq and then spreading outwards until they ran into serious opposition. They expanded north until they ran into Turkey and were stopped there (Turkey was never part of the Caliphate either). They expanded South until they ran into Ethiopia and Kenya (and the fact those two countries stopped them speaks volumes). They expanded East until they ran into India and west until they got stopped by Algeria in 1972. Algeria was their last significant conquest. So, run back 20 - 30 years and we have 1940s and 1950s for the start - which fits exactly the start of the rise of fundamentalist ISlam in our universe. Now, in our timeline, things were different because there was socialist-nationalist Arab political movements that masked (and by the way quite brutally supressed) the development of fundamentalist Islam. Only when those socialist-nationalist movements were discredited did the fundamentalists gain prominence. In the TBOverse none of that applied. There was a power vacuum, the British had gone leaving no presence, the U.S. was isolationist and wasn't interested and Russia had its own problems and wasn't interested either. So, what became the Caliphate filled that power vacuum.

You're also wrong about how fast things can happen. In 1890, the U.S. was a military midget with a small army barely capable of facing Mexico and which was incapable of building guns for its warships. In 1920 - thirty years later - it was on a par with the British Empire and poised to supplant that power as the new world hegemon. In 1923 it negotiated a treaty that put it on equal terms with the largest navy in the world. There is a tide in the affairs of man and when it runs, it can run very, very fast.

[Stuart]

To be frank, alternate history is pretty unrealistic to begin with. For any significant chance to take place, it would require many other insignificant events to change as well. All the tiny little day to day events can affect a person's final decision on major issues, ranging from how much coffee have you been drinking to getting a chance to read up the newspaper. Since we couldn't factor in so much details, we only need to create a backstory that is decent enough for readers to suspend their disbelief.

This also is a very good point. One can make a very good argument that the history we know, our timeline, is the most probable outcome in that any deviation from it is less likely than what actually happened. So, any alternate history is by definition less probable than our timeline. However, the main point of alternate history is to posit a situation that creates a certain environment and then try and suggest what the outcomes of that environment might be. So if Nazi Germany does very well in World War Two what is the likely result - nuclear demolition. If a Caliphate forms the way its supporters hope what is the likely result - it collapses under its own weight and internal contradictions. If Japan wins in China (and its worth remembering Japan was still routinely defeating the Chinese in August 1945) what is the likely result - Japan is so overstretched by the effort it slowly implodes. If Hell invades Earth what is the likely result - they get shot to pieces.

[Samuel]

This is very true, but if one looks at history, pretty much everything is the result of a chain of unlikely events. Another good example, the United States of America. Let's see, a bunch of misfits, convicts, pirates and freebooters - basically everybody civilized people didn't want to have around - get dumped in a wilderness already occupied by a large number of inhabitants who are both well-armed and know how to use their weapons. The new arrivals don't just survive, they go ahead and create the richest and most powerful nation in history. Nahhhh, couldn't possibly happen. I mean, come on, that rabble couldn't even form a unified state, let alone one that was actually important. The whole "it couldn't happen" argument is simply begging the question (the question in this case being "if it did happen, what would the consequences be and how").

We did have 400 years. And lets not forget the whole wilderness part which is a huge advantage. Not to mention if you look at the historical record, Rome was also said to have been founded by misfits, the Greeks managed to spread their culture by expanding into a vaccum, etc. The surprising thing was that the Industrial Revolution was coming up and that made everything go alot faster.

One could also argue that the same basic lesson comes out of Armageddon; that a society that is based on fear, terror and oppression is fundamentally unstable and is likely to shatter when kicked hard.

Hell's society lasts for over 4 million years. I'd hardly call that unstable.

communist cosplayers

What is that?

. In 1890, the U.S. was a military midget with a small army barely capable of facing Mexico and which was incapable of building guns for its warships. In 1920 - thirty years later - it was on a par with the British Empire and poised to supplant that power as the new world hegemon.

The US was an industrial giant in 1890. Its power did not suddenly come out of nowhere- it was obvious we could do it, we just did have the need for empire previously.

To be frank, alternate history is pretty unrealistic to begin with. For any significant chance to take place, it would require many other insignificant events to change as well. All the tiny little day to day events can affect a person's final decision on major issues, ranging from how much coffee have you been drinking to getting a chance to read up the newspaper.

Since we couldn't factor in so much details, we only need to create a backstory that is decent enough for readers to suspend their disbelief.

Well, that is because reality is rather deterministic. We just change a few features by fiat and see what occurs from there.

Something... hilarious from SA forums.

Duchess of Zeon (a lesbian monarchist atheist anglophile with catholic, feudalist and socialist sympathies

They keep getting better and better.

[Stuart]

Going back to in story topics, what happens to the stateless peoples of the world (like the Palestinians, Kurds, Tibetan refugees, Hutu exiles and sorts)? It seems that a lot of them would make ideal conscripts (or at least those who survived the Message) but some of the major states might have something to say about that. My personal suggestion would be to structure them like a volunteer division like those of World War II, where local conscripts and volunteers were commanded by officers and senior NCOs of the patron power.

I think you have the best idea there; they get formed up into independent units recruited into people's armies on the promise of gettinga better deal when the war is over. Sadly, given the history of such deals, my guess is that they get shafted again

As for the production of war equipment like tanks and armored personnel carriers/infantry fighting vehicles, could we get a hint of figures and the models being used? I imagine that such new equipment would be ideal to equip various Mid Eastern, African and Latin American militaries, after the judicious use of foreign advisors to bring them into some competence of mechanized warfare.

The iron law of mobilization is that one builds what one has. One may modernize it and improve it but one doesn't fundamentally change it.

So, the U.S. is building M1 tanks, M2 MICVs, M109 SPGs and so on. Ships are CVN-78s, DDG-51s and LCS-1 and LCS-2s plus SSN-774s. Russians building T90s and BMP-3s/BTR-90s. British Challengers and Warriors, Germans Leopard IIs and Pumas. Other countries get stuff cascaded down to them.

Big thing will be that everything gets simplified as much as possible.

I'll do a detailed list as soona s I can get around to it

[Stuart]

We did have 400 years. And lets not forget the whole wilderness part which is a huge advantage. Not to mention if you look at the historical record, Rome was also said to have been founded by misfits, the Greeks managed to spread their culture by expanding into a vaccum, etc. The surprising thing was that the Industrial Revolution was coming up and that made everything go alot faster.

Not really; the great US surge of expansion started in the 1750s and lasted about 150 years until we got to be top dog. Most of that was self contained in that we were filling up our continent. The point about a power vacuum is very true - and my point is that the Middle East in TBO is also a power vacuum waiting for something to fill it. And yes, Rome and Greece are also good examples of unexpected things happening very fast.

Hell's society lasts for over 4 million years. I'd hardly call that unstable.

Stable but fragile. It lasted because it never got kicked really hard. The moment the structure hit something mroe frightening than itself, it collapsed completely.

communist cosplayers what is that?

I honestly haven't a clue

The US was an industrial giant in 1890. Its power did not suddenly come out of nowhere- it was obvious we could do it, we just did have the need for empire previously.

Not in military terms, it couldn't make guns for its warships. But the point is that the expansion from military midget to world hegemon took just 30 years.

Well, that is because reality is rather deterministic. We just change a few features by fiat and see what occurs from there.

Which is more or less what TBO does. Pop in something and see what happens.

You know, if I hadn't been distracted by this Caliphate stuff, you'd have had Part 26 by now. . . . . .

[Shroom Man 777]

One could also argue that the same basic lesson comes out of Armageddon; that a society that is based on fear, terror and oppression is fundamentally unstable and is likely to shatter when kicked hard.

Hell's society lasts for over 4 million years. I'd hardly call that unstable.

A society that existed for eons and ended up collapsing within months after exposure to an outside-context-problem. Not very stable.

[ray245]

However, the main point of alternate history is to posit a situation that creates a certain environment and then try and suggest what the outcomes of that environment might be. So if Nazi Germany does very well in World War Two what is the likely result - nuclear demolition. If a Caliphate forms the way its supporters hope what is the likely result - it collapses under its own weight and internal contradictions. If Japan wins in China (and its worth remembering Japan was still routinely defeating the Chinese in August 1945) what is the likely result - Japan is so overstretched by the effort it slowly implodes. If Hell invades Earth what is the likely result - they get shot to pieces.

Except for the fact that most what if scenario resulted fail to account for how did Nazi Germany do well in World War Two, and takes the scenario for granted.

Well, that is because reality is rather deterministic. We just change a few features by fiat and see what occurs from there.

From a reader's point of view, the author can be allowed change one or two events by the act of plot. However, trying to justify those changes as reasonable from the story's point of view requires the presence of some god-like being to change the way their entire universe work.

After all, works of fiction is essentially an illusion of the real world. The premise of the story can be plausible, but it is an illusion nonetheless.

Which is why I find that trying to prove all those alternate history as something that has an equal chance of occurring in our real world as something that is rather stupid in my opinion.

Anyway, we have gone off-topic for quite a while. I've just hope that Stuart can get back on giving us part 26.

[Battlehymn Republic]

And that is plain not so. Read the history of the Iranian revolution in the early 1950s and the existance - and political importance - of fundamentalist Islamic organizations is quite apparent. The same groups were pushing the formation of Pakistan in the 1940s. Look around the Moslem world and those groups can be traced back much further - to the 1920s and 1930s in fact

Those groups were around at the time. And they were by no means any close to dominant. What were dominant at the time were Arab Socialist types- nationalist, secular, modernizing- far from religious fundamentalists. You would have to explain why Baathism and groups such as Nasser's failed to spring up in favor of fundamentalist movements that were nowhere close to in power at that specific era.

And that is an utterly ridiculous thing to say. I'll say this again; the TBO Caliphate, its internal structure and policies are direct copies from the documented plans of the Taliban - who actually put them into force in Afghanistan - and al Queda. The points in question were written by Moslems and represented their blueprint of an ideal society.

[citation needed]

You're missing the whole point. The TBO Caliphate never was a global superpower and never stood any chance of becoming one. The TBO stories tell you why.

They became hefty regional powers virtually overnight for no reason.

Now, in our timeline, things were different because there was socialist-nationalist Arab political movements that masked (and by the way quite brutally supressed) the development of fundamentalist Islam. Only when those socialist-nationalist movements were discredited did the fundamentalists gain prominence. In the TBOverse none of that applied. There was a power vacuum, the British had gone leaving no presence, the U.S. was isolationist and wasn't interested and Russia had its own problems and wasn't interested either. So, what became the Caliphate filled that power vacuum.

But there aren't just political factors in play. There are social ones. Why would a religious revival appear for no reason? Why would nationalist movements take power while the West's control of the region was weakened? Why didn't the socialist nationalist movements gain prominence?

You're also wrong about how fast things can happen. In 1890, the U.S. was a military midget with a small army barely capable of facing Mexico and which was incapable of building guns for its warships. In 1920 - thirty years later - it was on a par with the British Empire and poised to supplant that power as the new world hegemon. In 1923 it negotiated a treaty that put it on equal terms with the largest navy in the world. There is a tide in the affairs of man and when it runs, it can run very, very fast.

The U.S. was blessed by boundless natural resources and two oceans with which that made it very well-defended. Not to mention the British always had a soft spot for their rebellious former colonies and so didn't bother to go and stomp out the Patriots even when they had a chance in the Revolution. Add a booming population and political stability (unlike, say- Argentina or Brazil) the U.S. was able to grow without interference. The Caliphate wouldn't be able to do any of that, they were smack dab in the crossroads of the Old World and had control many vital oil resources. The rest of the world wouldn't leave them alone long enough for them to mutate into a colossus.

[Simon_Jester]

A society that existed for eons and ended up collapsing within months after exposure to an outside-context-problem. Not very stable.

I'd expect that of any society. I mean, if you present ANY civilization with a problem that occupies a fundamental category it has no adapted or planned defense against, it's going to fold up. That's what an outside-context problem is: something that massively disrupts your situation because nothing you had ready was capable of dealing with it.

Stability is relative, and by your criterion I'm not sure any society ever can be stable. Even if you do have a stable society, you can't be sure it's stable, because the hallmark of an OCP is that you can't even define it until you run into it. If our civilization is vulnerable to being kicked apart in months by an outside-context problem, there's no way for us to know in advance. Arguing otherwise strikes me as bravado, because we can't define a way of defending against a problem that occupies a category we don't have a name or a concept of.

It might be that to the FTL-travelling aliens of Epsilon Eridani II, we look like a bunch of primitive savages whose entire culture would evaporate in weeks if we had to deal with even the most trivial examples of a loyalty-meme-virus.

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Well, what happening today is the result of a specific chain of events. For your scenario to happen, we have to look into the events that allows Russia to be so resistant against Germany and the rise of the USSR.

For Germany to succeed in world war 2, you have to expect many other historical events to go in the horribly wrong as well.

Yes. But it's not an utter impossibility. It's not even close. More outlandish success stories have happened, when the circumstances were right. So I think we can seriously discuss "what would have happened if the Germans had been drastically more successful, tried to carry out the basic outline of Hitler's program, and then had to try to live in a world full of the consequences?" It's not a question that needs the intervention of the Mysterious Alien Space Bats to make sense.

If their enemies had not done some very important things right, the Germans (and just about every other group of conquerors in history) would have accomplished far more than they would have in the history we know and love.

The fact that something did not happen does not mean that it could not happen, or that the possibility of it having happened can't be taken seriously. Not when we're discussing historical events driven by human decisions, rather than by the fundamental laws of nature.

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You're ignoring factors such as why Russia was so resistant to conquest, or why the democracies behaved the way they did, as well as smaller nuances (longer civil war/weaker Russia=no Treaty of Rapallo? No German-Soviet military and industrial cooperation? A WEAKER Germany?). And, you missed the 800 pound gorilla in the room- the United States of America.

No, I am not ignoring those factors. I am pointing out that not everything is inevitable. It was not preordained in, say, 1920 that if there was to be a revanchist Nazi-style movement in Germany and if it tried to touch off a major world war, it would necessarily be contained and would necessarily fail to carve out some sort of super-Germany in central Europe. Or at least to make the beginnings of such a thing and last for a generation or two, rather than falling apart at the outset.
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The Nazis' plans were pretty damn impossible any way you look at it. TBO shows pretty much the best they could have realistically achieved, and look how it ended for them.

I have not read The Big One or any of the subsequent books. Therefore, I am not entirely clear on the details of exactly how much they accomplished.

To be honest, I don't think the "Nazis take over whole world" scenario is particularly probable myself. But I can very easily imagine, say, Britain flinching at the prospect of having to carry on the war in Europe completely alone after the fall of France. Or a Soviet state less capable of withstanding the tremendous blows the Germans actually did manage to land on them. Either of those possibilities would make a local German success within Europe significantly more likely, one that would present the distant American gorilla with less incentive to become involved and a more difficult challenge should it decide to do so.

And maybe it would still all result in American intervention kicking the Third Reich apart some time in the late '40s, as I gather the TBO novels predict. But I don't know that, and I don't think the kind of absolute confidence I see here is justified. There's a strong tendency to assume that whatever happened is necessarily inevitable, because in hindsight we can pick out the factors that made it work and conclude (rightly or wrongly) that they would inevitably trump the factors that would not make it work.

In many cases, what happened was the most likely outcome, but the most likely outcome doesn't always occur, and what occurs isn't always most likely. Weird things happen, and we tend to take the weirdness for granted just as we would the probable outcomes. Alexander's conquest of Persia comes to mind again.

[Peptuck]

You know, if I hadn't been distracted by this Caliphate stuff, you'd have had Part 26 by now. . . . . .

Ya'll quit bugging Stuart! I need my fix!

[Stuart]

Those groups were around at the time. And they were by no means any close to dominant. What were dominant at the time were Arab Socialist types- nationalist, secular, modernizing- far from religious fundamentalists. You would have to explain why Baathism and groups such as Nasser's failed to spring up in favor of fundamentalist movements that were nowhere close to in power at that specific era.

They were around and they were a significant factor in the events that led up to the Mossadegh fiasco, In fact, the fundamentalist groups in Iran were the key factor in his overthrow, their actions being the result of fundamentalist clerical dissatisfaction with a secular government, dissatisfaction that had been fomented with CIA propaganda. Try reading "How to overthrow a government" in Democracy Now! March 5, 2004 and James Risen. "Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran". The New York Times. Note that it was not the socialist-nationalist groups in Iran who were dominant but the religious fundamentalists, one of whom bore the name Khomeini. The growth of the religious fundamentalists actually preceded that of teh socialist-nationalist groups wno mainly got their creds by resistance to the colonial powers. Now, the TBO situation differs drastically from ours. There is no colonial presence in the Middle East by the early 1950s, there is a power vacuum with no prominent contenders. However, there is tremendous resentment against both Russia and the west due to WW2. Iraq and Iran were both occupied by Russian and American/Indian forces while the Indians occupied key parts of Afghanistan, The reasons were logistic; with most of western Russian under German occupation, the Russian Army and the U.S. Army in Russia had to be supplied by the Pacific route. Even with massive expansion, Vladivostok couldn't handle the load so it was necessary to open other routes. These included railways through Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. In building them, the allies effectively shat all over everybody who got in their way. Hundreds of thousands of Indian laborers built the railways (yes, they have been plotted on a map and yes they are feasible routes, the Iran railway was in fact planned), the Russians and americans ran the trains through and more or less took what they wanted on the way. Due to the emergency and the over-riding priorities they threw people off their land, ripped up anything and everything that got in the way and thoroughly alienated the local population in all three countries. That gave enormous impetus to the fundamentalist groups who played on the high-handed behavior of the allies, their own role in resisting it. Those groups also used the same incidents to discredit the socialists personified by the Russians. So, what became the socialist-nationalist groups in our timeline were stunted and much of their strength was absorbed by the fundamentalists.

[citation needed]

Google "Taliban" and "School" or "women" or "acid" or atrocity. Get a copy of Norman Friedman's book "Terrorism, Afghanistan and America's New Way Of War to get a good potted background of Taliban policy. Then just google Taliban Policy and Al queda policy. There's so much out there on this side of things you'll be swamped..

They became hefty regional powers virtually overnight for no reason.

There was a perfect reason. There was a power vacuum and something always fills a power vacuum They were the only candidates. NBy the way, just look at the descriptions of what power they really possessed. A few thousand German veterans, some Japanese armor and artillery. They couldn't even built tracked vehicles.

But there aren't just political factors in play. There are social ones. Why would a religious revival appear for no reason? Why would nationalist movements take power while the West's control of the region was weakened? Why didn't the socialist nationalist movements gain prominence?

As we have seen there were plenty of reasons why a fundamentalist movement that already existed and whose power was already growing should see that growth accelerate. And we've already covered why the socialist-nationalist movements were eclipsed.

The U.S. was blessed by boundless natural resources and two oceans with which that made it very well-defended.

Not relevent to the rapid development of American power between 1890 and 1920

Not to mention the British always had a soft spot for their rebellious former colonies and so didn't bother to go and stomp out the Patriots even when they had a chance in the Revolution.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Add a booming population and political stability (unlike, say- Argentina or Brazil) the U.S. was able to grow without interference.

Once again, 1890 to 1920. Thats how fast a country can grow into a world power. We've already covered teh fact that teh Caliphate was not a world power.

The Caliphate wouldn't be able to do any of that, they were smack dab in the crossroads of the Old World and had control many vital oil resources. The rest of the world wouldn't leave them alone long enough for them to mutate into a colossus.

No, they weren't. And the rest of the world was too exhausted from eight years of a brutal war that ended up with a nuclear holocaust to do anything to anybody. The Middle East was a power vacuum, The Caliphate simply filled it. Nobody had the energy or the desire to resist it. As soon as they did, growth stopped dead