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| MWIH Spoilers; Spoiler thread | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 23 2008, 09:12 AM (1,225 Views) | |
| TR1 | Aug 22 2008, 03:21 PM Post #46 |
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Heir Presumptive
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If it were not HT, I'd agree with you. But that scene seemed fairly shoe-horned in, and written for the people who'd read the story to catch and laugh (or groan) about. And HT has been known to repeat himself.
Well, I guess I see your point. (As an aside, I never fully appreciated how different Taft of 191 was from OTL until recently--that was some good work on HT's part).
Hmm, HT sure felt like he was begging us to play "guess who?". Or he could simply have been showing how little dude meant to her aside from the sex. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| SladeJack | Aug 22 2008, 10:55 PM Post #47 |
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The Grand SladeJack
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"If it were not HT, I'd agree with you. But that scene seemed fairly shoe-horned in, and written for the people who'd read the story to catch and laugh (or groan) about. And HT has been known to repeat himself." Now that you mention it it did conjure up that scene for me as well. Meanwhile, D McGraw made me think of the other Cindy Sheehan clone before Sheehan herself. "Well, I guess I see your point." I wanted to like Truman since he was on the side of the angels but he was as small-minded as Duncan. To the point of straining credibility--belittling Republicans in a national radio address--not anything they were doing, but saying that by their nature they weren't "what you'd call good at listening"--that doesn't play for public consumption. All it does is focus the opposition and make it that much harder to convince Republicans to cross the aisle and support the war. "(As an aside, I never fully appreciated how different Taft of 191 was from OTL until recently--that was some good work on HT's part)." Yeah, that was something else, wasn't it. "Hmm, HT sure felt like he was begging us to play 'guess who?'. Or he could simply have been showing how little dude meant to her aside from the sex." I too felt strongly he was dropping a hint, but I couldn't think of anyone and neither could I scare up any hits for the search criteria Marvin+San Francisco+various germane political terms. Now the NftF talk got me thinking. If HT wanted to write a WWII AH that was analogous to the tactical situation in Iraq, this was the way to go; but if he wanted to write a WWII AH that was analogous to the political situation at home, with an appeal to recognize the importance of sticking it out, a much better route would have been to go back to 1941 and have Germany shirk its Tripartite Pact obligations. Then FDR gets his war in the Pacific but can't get into the European war, so he either has to provoke an incident, come up with some convoluted way of saying "The Commonwealth and the fallen government of the Netherlands are our cobelligerents so we need to fight all their enemies" (which is not the easiest trick to pull off) or flat-out ask for a war of aggression. Then "We support the war in Afghanistan but not in Iraq because Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11" matches up quite nicely with "We support the war against Japan but not against Germany because Hitler had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor." |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
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| MapleLeafs4Ever | Aug 23 2008, 05:13 PM Post #48 |
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Landowner
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The problem is that its not really analogous to Iraq. You would have to have had Hitler invade the USSR first and fight it to a stalemate making it analogous to the Iraq-Iran War. The have Hitler invade Czechoslovakia and get driven out by the Allies to make it analogous to Kuwait. Then you can write an analogous MWIH. |
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| SladeJack | Aug 23 2008, 05:49 PM Post #49 |
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The Grand SladeJack
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Well not everything needs to match up. You can't force the entire histories of the conflicts into 1:1 correlations. But in the situation I describe, the recent histories seem pretty close. Rather than have the Germans violate the Tripartite Pact you might do better never to have had such a pact to begin with. That raises the question of whether the Japanese would have launched their attack with no reasonable expectation of splitting the burden, so to speak, of facing the US's military capabilities. |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
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| MapleLeafs4Ever | Aug 23 2008, 10:19 PM Post #50 |
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Landowner
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You miss my point. In 1941 Adolph Hitler had successfully invaded and conquered France and was a threat to the rest of the world. In 2002 Sadam Hussein had been repeatedly beaten militarily and, while still strongly entrenched as dictator, was not a serious threat to his neighbours. You need something like the scenario I gave to make your 1941 war vote analogous to the 2002 vote. As far as the Japanese attack, I don't think they expected much support from Germany against the US so they probably attack anyway. |
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| SladeJack | Aug 24 2008, 02:26 AM Post #51 |
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The Grand SladeJack
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Hitler had run amok in Europe but it would have been the soul of ease to convince Americans with isolationist leanings that that had nothing to do with them. We're not talking about a terribly internationalist culture here; in those days people thought Western Europe was exotic, for fuck's sake, and the effects of far-off foreign developments on American affairs weren't watched with anything approaching the interest we have now. I'm sorry to say I've always found the survivors of that generation to be a terribly provincial lot. My grandfather studied geography out of a textbook that didn't have a single map of Asia or Oceania in it! Anyway, "They're a zillion miles away" plus "Serves 'em right for forcing the Germans to sign such a shitty treaty a generation ago" will have an acceptable effect on the political mood of the US for the purposes of the timeline. And besides, Iraq wasn't invaded because it was considered a threat to go expansionist, it was invaded because it was considered a threat to develop and use WMD. And the Ba'athist regime had as much a history of doing so as the NSDAP had of expansionism. Germany: They've expanded before but they won't expand here, and they still weren't involved in Pearl Harbor. Iraq: They've gassed and bombed before but they won't gas and bomb us, and they still weren't involved in 9/11. "As far as the Japanese attack, I don't think they expected much support from Germany against the US so they probably attack anyway." Yeah, Tokyo certainly didn't want for hubris in those days, so they wouldn't quail at the thought of fighting the entire US solo. And with the embargo--even though no reasonable person would call that provocation for an attack--their only remaining choice was give up on their imperialist adventures--NEVER!--or at least tone them down--No one complained when they took Korea or Taiwan, and the only international fallout of the invasion of Manchuria was a meaningless LoN sanction. But again, NEVER! Perhaps they would say "If we need to face the entire US, we should leave it at that and not also confront the British, the ANZACs, and that huge-ass Indian army, so we're going to put our designs on Hong Kong and Singapore aside for the moment, hoping that with the British having all they can handle in the Battle of Britain and in North Africa and the Atlantic, they won't take on another enemy if they don't absolutely have to"? But maybe the Brits would sacrifice Hong Kong and Singapore and chip in a little bit to the war against Japan if only because if the US was involved in one war and the UK in an entirely different and completely unrelated war the former isolationists will say "How the hell can we keep up this Lend-Lease shit when our boys are in danger of their own?" Britain would go under if that gets shut off. Meanwhile, the Japanese just have to invade Indonesia if they want to have any hope of pulling this thing off, and that's going to make the Brits pretty fucking jumpy about Malaysia. |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
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| TR1 | Sep 25 2008, 05:48 PM Post #52 |
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Heir Presumptive
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I think I found our Marvin: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...753C1A967958260 |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| SladeJack | Sep 25 2008, 06:23 PM Post #53 |
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The Grand SladeJack
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Looks good to me. Turtlewiki him? I was wondering why you had suddenly resurrected a spoiler thread for a book we've all read. Now moving on: "Mr. Lewis was perhaps best known for a 1970 case that the media called 'The Cable Car Named Desire,' in which a jury ruled in favor of a young dancer, Gloria Sykes, who claimed she lost her mental balance and became a nymphomaniac after a cable car accident. Ms. Sykes sued the city and a jury awarded her $50,000." What the fuck kind of bullshit lawsuit is that? |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
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| TR1 | Sep 25 2008, 07:28 PM Post #54 |
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Heir Presumptive
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Sure.
Yeah, I was a little disturbed by that. That might explain why HT used him out of any of the random SF County Managers or whatever they are called; SF residents and or older attorneys would have caught it. The fact that he was still alive at the time the book was released almost certainly explains why HT was vague. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| SladeJack | Sep 25 2008, 08:48 PM Post #55 |
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The Grand SladeJack
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Well we know he was litigous. |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
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| SladeJack | Sep 25 2008, 09:20 PM Post #56 |
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The Grand SladeJack
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I did Ted Williams while I was at it. We've been asleep at the switch on this one, me most of all. I was surprised to see so many major characters, even POVs, still had red links. I suppose it's their own fault for not being interesting. |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
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| TR1 | Sep 25 2008, 11:03 PM Post #57 |
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Heir Presumptive
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Personally, I've had a few other more important projects lined up. That's why I cherry-picked historicals, especially those who appeared in other works. Doesn't increase the article count much, but it does expand the relevant categories. On the plus side, amazon.com now lets you look inside. That should help mount the articles. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
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| Custer | Sep 25 2008, 11:45 PM Post #58 |
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Resident Kamikaze Warrior
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hahahaha. |
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9:13 AM Jul 11