Pod 40 - Comments
Robert Gill
Reality seeds: 1) I have some problems with a war between Iran and
Afghanistan, but it might be interesting, particularly if the Taliban decides
that Iran’s too namby-pamby for their perversion of Islam, and so on… Iran would probably take a similar path to
America in 2002, bombing vital targets and supporting the opponents of the Taliban. Pakistan might become involved in supplying
the Taliban, which could lead to a really nasty situation and an Iranian rush
for nukes. Further, Russia (which OTL
considered air strikes on the Taliban) might support Iran or offer to divide
the county up between the three powers.
I’d really love to see a development of this. 2) Maybe more trade (port city) and a more outwards looking
approach? 3) Verdict would probably be
meaningless in the swarm of people doing it anyway and the absence of any proper
meaning to the copyright. I’d expect a
few silly show trials. 4) I can’t see
any way the Japanese can win WW2 without major changes. If they had fantastic success with
biological weapons, they might be able to convince the US to back off, or
perhaps wreak the US with disease. Or
maybe the US will give up after a disaster at midway. Or maybe the horse will learn to sing, lol. 5) Dunno.
Comments to me: I
guess that the prison scandal will be worse as the US would be really p*****
at the Iraqis. OTOH, there’d be less
fighting after the war ended.
Dale Cozort
Mars looks
different: Thanks for the synopsis – anyway you could send the
first few parts to me? I started with
POD 38. Few questions: could an object
circling mars be seen with a small telescope anyway? I’d expect major news comments, no matter what censorship
restrictions are imposed, people will see odd things with their own eyes. Prez can just take time on Hubble, NASA owns
it (I think). I’d have thought that
fishing for tech-people would be likely to fail, the ETs couldn’t count on
someone being sent in. Good preparation
for war. What about mass construction
of simple ballistic missiles and small nukes?
Once the satellites start going down, everyone will notice. OTOH, militias might see the US Govs Actions
as the final steps towards the NWO, they might try to fight.
Char: Like
it so far, keep going.
Seeds: 3) might be taken as a judgement from God for keeping
slaves. 7) Britain might come in
earlier than OTL, or someone else.
Dutch refugees try to form colonies in Canada or somewhere else away
from the Spanish, French cause trouble in the Netherlands. The armada might succeed without the need to
pick up Parma’s troops. 8) Norway
survives when they keep the fight going long enough for the British to mop up
the German fleet and the Germans run out of supplies. Germany suffers a defeat that damages morale just before France
is invaded. 9) Hitler might be able to
invade France a few days early, so maybe a quickly French defeat? Stalin might consider a snatch and grab for
Norway. Germans needed more than their
1939 navy to invade UK anyway. 10)
Computer geek heaven, lol. Probabuly
earlier amuter work at creating programs that link the different systems
together without boring lawsuits from Microjerks. Might be less US influence around the globe without Microsoft and
national systems.
France fights on: Sooner
or later the Germans are going to notice the new tank-building. Other than that, no real comments.
Comments to me:
Japan: Yes, they’d have gotten an idea of modern war. OTOH, they might have concluded ‘bloody
nips’ and ‘stupid Ivan’s’ – ‘it won’t happen to us.’ Fire in the sky: an all out effort might defeat Germany at
this point, but would cost the empire. Iraq: Civilian deaths in OTL were blamed on
the US/UK. I’d expect AJ and the other
biased media to keep that going in ATL, unless its clearly Saddam’s fault. (Remember, that means they have to have
footage of his giving the orders and no US troops anywhere near.) It probably would have had a morale effect,
but Saddam has the tools to make their opinion irrelevant. Launching the invasion earlier would have
been a problem for the US/UK. My
reading suggests that the invasion started as soon as it was practical – start
even a week earlier and the British won’t have all their tanks ready. Yes, I envisaged the irregulars fighting in
the Sunni triangle, keeping the regulars for ‘Saddamgrad’. Finally, the US would need to root out the
holdouts before they could declare victory.
They need to finish the war quickly.
Wesley Kawato
Comments to me: oops
Breakpoint: Not sure I care for the appearance of God, it’s a
personnel thing, so don’t take it personally.
ROTFLMAO
Dave Johnson: Re your comments to Dale, I
agree that Darl’s opponents would have plenty of ways to refute his
claims. Most could be checked through
DNA testing, but would Darl2 have the exact same body characteristics as Darl1? Tattoos?
Kurt Sidaway: Yep, I’m from Edinburgh. I meant that the early-WW1 took place in
1905-onwards, not 1914. There would be
knock on effects to 1914 if global war was avoided in 1905. Britain needs Germany as they can’t invade France
(funny how a strength is also a weakness), Italy would probably join Britain. France would lose most of its colonies in
the first month of the war. OTOH, a
longer war in the far east would lead to a Russian victory unless Germany
knifted them in the back. PS, anyway
you could loan me a few previous issues of POD?
James Fulkerson: No
comments. Let me know how you get on
with Baen. I’m considering submitting a
book I’ve nearly finished, but I don’t like the thought of nine months wasted
waiting.
Dale Speirs: Technically, ‘Allah’ is really
‘Al-Lah’, or ‘The God.’ It’s a semantic
wordplay designed to show that there are no others beyond Him or on the same
level.
Robert Alley
Boy, what a lot of
comments.
To me: Japan
would probably lose all its mainland possessions to Russia. No power apart from Britain could force them
to cede Taiwan, particularly if the Japanese fleet is still strong, so I guess
they’d keep that. Japan might do after
the Dutch east Indies at some point, perhaps during a later global war. A victory over Japan would probably quiet
the revolutionary favour in Russia for a while, though not for long.
As you say, without much
repair work to their military, Russia will slip down relative to Germany. Germany would kick hell out of them, then,
or they might manage to beat France in 1914 without needing to worry about
Russia. (depending if the Germans have
a good idea of the Russian’s real capabilities.). OTL, they did expect them to take longer than they did without
being able to save France.
Re Iran + Saudi, I figured
that there’d be a swap, Sunnis to Saudi, Shias to Iran. The Kurds might be oppressed by all and
sundry, or get their own state, or be gobbled up by Turkey.
Re the EU, there are nasty
anti-French currents developing in many places. Blair’s rhetoric aside, I do wonder if the EU won’t collapse
sooner or later, or at least be radically reshaped. Even France has independence movements! In ATL, a German/British coalition would be able to outshout
France, or exclude them completely.
Christopher
Nuttall
Ok, I admit it; I’ve
stolen Dales idea and am discussing my own work. I’ve almost finished the first draft of Gunpowder Plot, 24
chapters + three appendixes and I hope to submit it to publishers soon. Sadly, I can’t keep publishing it in POD,
it’s just too big and the fees are too high.
Ch. 10, for example, is 20 pages.
A few might just be bigger after I’m finished. If anyone would be willing to read the chapters and give
comments, or knows anything about publishing, please drop me an email.