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| Opening Atlantis Spoilers; Ask your questions here! | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 19 2007, 05:39 PM (684 Views) | |
| TR1 | Dec 19 2007, 05:39 PM Post #1 |
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Heir Presumptive
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There is a battle in Atlantis that has similarities to the French and Indian War. There are no native inhabitants of Atlantis, so it's English Atlanteans vs. French and Spanish Atlanteans. A similar conflict evidentally happens in Terranova (North America), but the Atlantis war is the more important conflict. As is common with HT, historical figures are unaltered. Braddock appears, as does Montcalm, and another fellow, a young Lt-Col. whom HT holds off on revealing until the very end of the war. Since he does that, I'm inclined not to spill it--it actually grew quite tantalizing until I figured it out. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| TR1 | Jan 17 2008, 12:45 AM Post #2 |
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I'm going back over the book for the TurtleWiki. HT has done a good job of obsfucating the history. In the second section, "Avalon", we learn that there have been two wars between England and Holland in the generation prior. We also learn that the Dutch got the better of both, implying that they won both (in OTL they lost the First Anglo-Dutch War, won the Second, although they lost New Amsterdam). Also Charles is the King of England....but which Charles? Did the Revolution and the Restoration even take place? We know the Hanover's took ascended to the throne, but that's much less likely without the Revolution, is it not? Confusing things more, many of the pirates had OTL analogs, but they weren't contemporaries. Some were children when the others were dying, but that's the closest it gets. And then there's the Seven Years' War analog. Unlike OTL, the war begins firmly in Europe. But when? George III is king (or a George who is a third generation German, but the first to be fluent in English, which describes OTL George). In OTL, George III took the throne in 1760, but the war had been on since 1756. The text leads us to believe that the war hadn't been going on that long before it came to Atlantis. So was it just that short of a war, or was Atlantis just not important enough for anyone to fight there for 4 years? (don't buy the latter; HT has been known to shorten his global conflicts, so former kind of works). The Atlantean phase doesn't appear to last very long. We don't see references to passing campaign seasons, suggesting that the Atlantean phase was at most a year. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| Custer | Jan 17 2008, 01:44 AM Post #3 |
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Resident Kamikaze Warrior
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Oddly enough, I was just looking at this thread earlier yesterday and thinking how sad it was no one wanted any spoilers. |
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| Bignate | Jan 17 2008, 09:01 AM Post #4 |
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Serf
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SPOILER WARNING It's amazing how HT's alternates act exactly the same as they do in OTL and make the same mistakes. OTL General Braddock was Major Washington's CO. He refused to listen to Washington's advice (After all, what does a mere colonial know about modern warfare?), and insisted on fighting face to face, European style. Washington had his horse shot from under him, but Braddock lost and died fighting a smaller French colonial force that shot at him from behind the trees--how uncivilized! In our story the exact same thing happens, only the Washington character is Major Radcliffe. Mak, if you are here, check my question in the Old Skool strand. |
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| Makkabee | Jan 17 2008, 10:03 AM Post #5 |
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Count
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HT needs to get away from the OTL figures after generations of change. We don't need 'em, and analogs work just as well for the story. Also, I don't believe the colonies would spread as slowly as HT showed them growing if there were no hostile Indians already occupying the land. Don't like your neighbors? Move and claim the next piece of empty territory. The place would fill up pretty damn fast. I don't think it's realistic to expect vast tracts of wilderness to survive 300 years under those conditions. When HT was younger and a better writer he remembered this -- in A Different Flesh, where North America was inhabited by Homo erectus, he had the European settlements spread much more quickly because of the lighter opposition, even though there weren't the local crops (maize, tobacco, etc) to stimulate the economy. |
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| TR1 | Jan 17 2008, 05:46 PM Post #6 |
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On the other hand, Cornwallis learns. And in OTL, he didn't fight in North America, so that was a bit of tantalizing tweedom on HT's part. Of course, I'd be more intrigued by all that if I didn't know that Atlantis will win its independence in the next volume.
The counter-argument I'd offer would be that the colonists eventually grew so fanatical about what was theirs that they made sure to give each other a wide berth. There is some evidence of this in the later stories. The United States of Atlantis is astonishingly isolationist and suspicious of outsiders. But they don't even seem to like each other from town to town. Plus, there are the pirates of Avalon, preying on everyone. And you'd have the issue of three different nations with holdings there, which would just heighten everyone's paranoia. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| Makkabee | Jan 17 2008, 08:43 PM Post #7 |
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Count
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The wide berth angle should mean that they spread out even faster. And I just don't see them leaving wilderness tracts between them, because if one side wants to keep its distance the other would just say "look, unclaimed land!" and swarm into it. It also doesn't make sense that the French would be as relatively thin on the ground as OTL when they're in a more valuable agricultural zone than OTL and don't have a trade-based economy that would encourage them to only maintain small posts and rely on deals with natives -- no natives to deal with. We know they've got a slave-based economy, and that means they want to spread out rapidly, clear land for new plantations. You can still have them badly outnumbered because the people they trust with guns would be a relatively small ruling class backed by some yeomen and townsmen, while just about all the English subjects are potential soldiers (if male and of appropriate age). |
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| Bignate | Jan 18 2008, 05:06 PM Post #8 |
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Does anyone know anything about the next installment? With HT it can be any time between next year and next decade. Or maybe he's working on the next TL191--wasn't that the Nutball's last prediction? :lol: |
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| Custer | Jan 18 2008, 05:07 PM Post #9 |
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Resident Kamikaze Warrior
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Gizzi. I was thinking about starting a Best of Gizzi thread the other day, but decided against it because we only have a limited source of quotes, and they were all from one period last summer. |
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| TR1 | Jan 18 2008, 05:08 PM Post #10 |
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Next installment is United States of Atlantis. It may or may not incorporate the short stories already published. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| Makkabee | Jan 18 2008, 07:11 PM Post #11 |
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Count
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In spite of my problems with Opening Atlantis I am looking forward to the next installment. |
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| TR1 | Jan 20 2008, 10:19 AM Post #12 |
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Oh, yeah. While I see some of your problems, Makk, OA had a tremendous amount of fun and energy throughout. Hopefully, HT can sustain that for a another two volumes (or more). A Terranova series would nice too; republics were appearing there all the time in the 19th century. A quick word about historicals in this series: in the short stories, HT has avoided historical figures as Atlanteans. The historical figures come from without. He has included passing references to authors Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Bierce, but that's that. And after HT introduced the Cawthorne family in OA, maybe Hawthorne is an analog. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| Bignate | Jan 20 2008, 12:10 PM Post #13 |
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TR, where do you get the short stories? Ae they part of a short story collection?
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| TR1 | Jan 20 2008, 12:40 PM Post #14 |
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They were published in Analog back in 2005. The first one, "Audubon in Atlantis" was reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Third Annual Collection (ed. Gardner Dozois). The second one, "The Scarlet Band", had not been republished. The Denver Public Library keeps issues of Analog on hand, so I photocopied it. But they haven't been republished in an HT collection as of yet. According to uchronia (http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=turtatlant#1), they might be included in the next Atlantis book. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| Custer | Apr 12 2008, 03:21 PM Post #15 |
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Resident Kamikaze Warrior
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Some thoughts I had while eating chicken and dumplings a little while ago: Originally I had thought the Avalon novella took place between 1690 and 1710. References to red uniforms, to the Royal Navy as an institution with traditions and capital letters, to the Royal Marines as an established group (OTL they dated back to 1664), powdered wigs, and zoos in London - all led me to believe that this was late in the 17th century or early in the 18th, rather then mid-to-late century. Not that the Royal Navy wasn't called the Royal Navy until the very late 1600s, or that it didn't have established traditions and customs before then, or that there weren't zoos in London, but it gave me the impression that it was later than the 1660s. Besides that, when did long wigs become fashionable? The 1680s? However the reference to the city of Stuart (which I see gets renamed later on to reflect dynastic change) and a king named Charles could suggest one of two things: that this is earlier than I had thought, or that the Stuarts are still in power after 1688. The simpler route would be to assume that the OTL path (mostly) takes place in England ITTL: James II has a son, scaring the Protestants into taking action, leading to the Glorious Revolution. And that this story takes place before 1685 when Charles II was still king. The reigns of the Tudors and earlier Stuarts all take place, as does the Civil War and Interregnum. Or, as I had originally thought, the story does take place in my time-frame, and the Stuarts are still on the throne. Maybe James II remains king until 1715 and dies childless, and the Germans come over a decade early. However, the fact that Stuart becomes Hanover suggests that the memory of the Stuarts isn't held very dearly in Atlantean hearts and minds, further suggesting that dynastic change had been brought about by force of arms, like in OTL. And finally, there wouldn't be much room for a Chuckles III. In conclusion, I had to go over my 17th century English history in my head while posting this. |
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SPOILER WARNING It's amazing how HT's alternates act exactly the same as they do in OTL and make the same mistakes. OTL General Braddock was Major Washington's CO. He refused to listen to Washington's advice (After all, what does a mere colonial know about modern warfare?), and insisted on fighting face to face, European style. Washington had his horse shot from under him, but Braddock lost and died fighting a smaller French colonial force that shot at him from behind the trees--how uncivilized! In our story the exact same thing happens, only the Washington character is Major Radcliffe.
9:15 AM Jul 11