Scenario -- how would you invade the earth?

[Eternal_Freedom]

That sounds more like a "design a scenario for a film/story/game that has parallel Nazi's invading continental US" rather than IMHO the intended "how would you, as Chief Cunning Planning Guy of parallel Nazi HighCom, invade the Earth"

Don't get me wrong though, it is a good scenario, and would probably be a great basis for an epic novel of some kind, or a modern-day version of Wolfenstein where it's good ol' BJ Blaskowiz that finds that "Headslappingly lucky break"

[Junghalli]

That sounds more like a "design a scenario for a film/story/game that has parallel Nazi's invading continental US" rather than IMHO the intended "how would you, as Chief Cunning Planning Guy of parallel Nazi HighCom, invade the Earth"

I'm wondering if maybe he isn't debate-gaming his fiction here. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I've done the same myself.

If so though, I have to say Nazis are a touch cliche - if you're going for cheese they work, but for something more "serious" it might not be a bad idea to entertain the idea of something a bit less well-trodden. There are a lot of possibilities for parallel Earth invaders...

One idea I'm personally partially to is some place similar to Flood Earth. They're invading our Earth because their own Earth is going to be essentially completely uninhabitable in a few decades, they're desperate to have somewhere to escape to, and they're not confident in our willingness or ability to feed and treat nicely several billion refugees.

[jollyreaper]

That sounds more like a "design a scenario for a film/story/game that has parallel Nazi's invading continental US" rather than IMHO the intended "how would you, as Chief Cunning Planning Guy of parallel Nazi HighCom, invade the Earth"

Don't get me wrong though, it is a good scenario, and would probably be a great basis for an epic novel of some kind, or a modern-day version of Wolfenstein where it's good ol' BJ Blaskowiz that finds that "Headslappingly lucky break"

I threw in Nazis because they're a good stand-in, sounds better than "generic assholes who have dimension-traveling technology who would choose to go to war with us instead of talking like civilized people, because, well, they're assholes." Nazis is shorter.

But the basic premise is all about having a big honkin' fight with modern tech in a plausible fashion. And you can't really get that if you stick with reality-land. It would take an even greater suspension of disbelief to gin up a WWIII scenario with our current political situation.

[jollyreaper]

Then just wait for the plagues to wipe out large portions of the population or weaken the military/economy/whatever until the nations are weak enough to conquer. After attacking the major military, economic, and government centers, they can announce to the survivors "We have conquered your military, your leaders are dead at our feet, our plagues are running through your population like wildfire. Resist and you will be exterminated, surrender and you will be given medical treatment and a place in our glorious new world order (as our slaves). ... oh, and if you prove to be too much trouble to conquer then we will just infect your cattle and crops and destroy all your medical facilities so you all fucking die in agony without us having to lift a finger. Then, we'll just retreat to our home dimension and come back in a few months once you've learned your lesson."

Incidentally, this reminded me very strongly of what the Daleks do in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" - inflict massive pandemic, wait for human civilisation to be crippled, then invade. Even the bit about surrendering to be slaves is in there, as is the threat of extermination if they resist. And, of course, the Daleks are based on the Nazis...

i know the episode of which you speak. It didn't strike me as such at the time but you are right, there's a lot of similarities. But a complete global conquest story would feel a lot different from one where the conquest is still in question. Pick the story you want to tell and set the background accordingly.

[jollyreaper]

That sounds more like a "design a scenario for a film/story/game that has parallel Nazi's invading continental US" rather than IMHO the intended "how would you, as Chief Cunning Planning Guy of parallel Nazi HighCom, invade the Earth"

That's my take on it. No warranty or guarantee on it being optimal, just fodder for discussion.

Don't get me wrong though, it is a good scenario, and would probably be a great basis for an epic novel of some kind, or a modern-day version of Wolfenstein where it's good ol' BJ Blaskowiz that finds that "Headslappingly lucky break"

Yeah. As opposed to stuff like Skyline which is just depressingly underwritten.

[jollyreaper]

That sounds more like a "design a scenario for a film/story/game that has parallel Nazi's invading continental US" rather than IMHO the intended "how would you, as Chief Cunning Planning Guy of parallel Nazi HighCom, invade the Earth"

I'm wondering if maybe he isn't debate-gaming his fiction here. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I've done the same myself.

If so though, I have to say Nazis are a touch cliche - if you're going for cheese they work, but for something more "serious" it might not be a bad idea to entertain the idea of something a bit less well-trodden. There are a lot of possibilities for parallel Earth invaders...

The idea that struck me is that after the fight between the parallel earth nazis and our earth is finished, someone's going to ask "So, if there's one parallel earth out there then there's bound to be others. What are they like?" And the thought that strikes me is that it would be likely that you'd have a paranoid empire seeking to conquer every other parallel Earth it can find for fear of not having enough power to defend itself from someone else following the same strategy.

The mind boggles a bit at trying to imagine the daily operations of that sort of grand empire. Multi-dimensional, spanning hundreds of worlds, primary goal the assurance of complete subservience to the cause.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I have a sneaking suspicion that such an empire could not be maintained for long, especially if the portal tech is expensive/hard to make

They might get away with it if they had a central "hub" dimension, but that would leave them vulnerable to a even grander-scale decapitation strike by this aforementioned "someone else"

I agree with you on the "Nazi's are cliche but simple way to drum up a WWIII secenario in modern-day Earth," but Junghalli is right in that there are plenty of other groups we could use in their place. Just few of them conjure up the mental images of Nazis

I also like the idea of conquering other dimensions for fear of not being abel to resist a possible invasion by an even bigger empire. Sounds like the "pre-emptive defence" idea expressed on the SD.net main page

And Junghalli, your idea of them conquering us because they are afraid we would be unwilling to treat 6 billion refugees well is a really good one. Reminds me (sort of) of "I, Robot" with the robots conquering humans in order to save them from themselves.

[jollyreaper]

To be fair, the exact character of 21st century nazis after conquering the planet would probably be rather different from the 1940's version. Well, maybe not character but flavor. We're talking about decades after the death of Hitler. Do they maintain a cult of personality after death? How do their interpretations of his ideas change after all that time? Jesus was a pacifist and his followers were able to use his name to justify holy war. How do Hitler's ideas get changed by his follow-on Fuhrers? He respected the Brits and viewed the Japanese as yellow Aryans. Would they have a place in the Third Reich as Asian partners or would their usefulness be limited and they would eventually be conquered and exterminated in turn?

21st century Nazis might remain completely nasty and repellent. But more frightful would be if their ideology could be made to feel attractive. I read an account of a Jew who attended one of the Nuremberg rallies and he was swept up in the pageantry and spirit. He said he'd never wanted to not be a Jew so much in all his life. He wanted to be a part of something so grand. If all the untermensch have already been exterminated by the 21st century time, it becomes easier to show only the nice bits about the parallel earth Nazis.

[Purple]

Well this is my estimate on how they would look like.
First, Hitler is dead but not by a long time. I mean, let's say he lived to a ripe old age of 80. That would make him die in 1969. Not a bad year too.

The personality cult will have endured for certain. This was one of the things that kept their society together. So we are talking about something roman style possibly even with him getting divinified in some way or put in a mausoleum like Lenin. In fact, society would much resemble a high capitalist version of the USSR.

All the so called sub humans will be gone by now, all of them. And they will see their world as one populated by the perfect clean master race. Now, other words will be seen as the propaganda wants them to be seen. If they want to go to war with one they will depict it as plagued by the sub humans effectively how you would look upon a piece of bread that has begun to gather mold.

In fact, it would not surprise me if they just saw this entire world (and all others by extension) as populated by mongrels to be destroyed without consideration. This is because if anything, the ideas will have become more paranoid and militant because that is the perfect vent for the government to channel the anger of the people away from them and the ruined world they are on.

After all, what better way to keep the people distracted than an infinity of worlds each with their own evil Jewish enemy to fight?

[JME2]

I dislike hearing Trek techno-babble, essentially any from VGR/ENT. Strangely, I don't mind it in Stargate...

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think that's because in Stargate you always get the impression they are never quite serious, either characters speaking it or the writers writing it. Plus immediatly after the technobabble you get an amusing response from O'Neill, Mitchell or Shepperd

EDIT: But what does that have to do with parallel universe Nazis invading?

[JME2]

I think that's because in Stargate you always get the impression they are never quite serious, either characters speaking it or the writers writing it. Plus immediatly after the technobabble you get an amusing response from O'Neill, Mitchell or Shepperd

EDIT: But what does that have to do with parallel universe Nazis invading?

It was the wrong thread; never mind.

Anyway, I'd invade from space with orbital landers and strategic bombardment -assuming such tech was available to me.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Interesting plan. If you did that, and forced the human leadership to retreat into Cheyenn Mountain and it's worldwide counterparts, you'd then have them trapped for a portal assault with spec ops teams. Might not even have to be a full orbital bombardment, just a couple shots to make them run for cover