I've been watching The Man in the High Castle and have been inspired.
But instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm pretty sure in the long history of table-top gaming, somebody came out with a game about being in an alternate timeline where the Nazis won World War 2. Does anybody know if such a game exists?
What magic did the writer use to explain Germany winning a war they never could have won?
>>43882646
Gurps Reich 5 in the infinite worlds setting.
>>43882663
First off its phillip k dick who wrote it and the guy knows his stuff. America never entered the war because fdr was assassinated and USA never recovered in time from the depression. That let Germany steam roll Europe and meant the USA was blind sided by pearl Harbor and later conquered by the axis powers. In the TV show they added that the nail developed the atom bomb first too.
>>43882663
The magic of "I'm a writer I can write about whatever the fuck I want that's the beauty of fiction it doesn't have to conform to reality you fucking autist."
>>43882730
That's it right there. It's an alternate timeline, the conditions and events before and during WW2 were not the same as in our timeline. FDR was assassinated, there was strong pro-Nazi sentiment in the US that kept America out of the war until the very end, and by that time the Germans had conquered the USSR, the mideast, north Africa and the UK.
https://i.imgur.com/DLZtbSV.png
>>43882973
Is it ever explained how Russia, the mideast, n. Africa, and the UK got steamrolled, or is it just a "this is what they steamrolled" type thing?
>>43883077
The us didn't step in, so the nazis win. Sorry europe you were fucked without uncle sam stepping in to bail you out of the goose step line dance.
Stay mad.
>>43882669
Op this guy has it.
>>43883077
Phillip K. Dick was never big on worldbuilding. He was writing to get a point across, and while I haven't read TMitHC, I doubt he explains it. It's not necessary to either his point or the story, so why should he?
"Axis won WW2 and annexed America" is the central conceit of the work, and you're expected to just accept it.
>>43883404
In this novel the worldbuilding is outstanding, but it's not the boring exposition type of worldbuilding. Dick did a fair bit of research for this novel, see the wikipedia entry for details.
>The assassination of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 led to the weak governments of John Nance Garner (formerly FDR's Vice President) and subsequently of Republican John W. Bricker in 1941. Both failed to lead the country to recovery from the Great Depression and also maintained the country's isolationist policy against participating in World War II; thus, the US had insufficient military capabilities to defend itself against Japan in the Pacific. The Nazis conquered the Soviet Union and exterminated most of its Slavic peoples; allowing a few to live in reservations. In the Pacific, the Japanese destroyed the US Navy fleet in a decisive attack on Pearl Harbor, then conquered Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania during the early 1940s. Afterwards, the Axis Powers, attacking from opposite coasts, conquered the coastal US and by 1947, the US and the remaining Allied forces had surrendered to the Axis.Japan established the occupied Pacific States of America out of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, parts of Nevada and Washington as part of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Having defeated the Allies, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan became the world's superpowers and embarked upon a Cold War. After Adolf Hitler's syphilitic incapacitation, German Chancellor Martin Bormann assumed power as Führer of Germany. Bormann created a colonial empire to increase Germany's Lebensraum by using technology to drain the Mediterranean Sea and convert it into farmland (see Atlantropa), while Arthur Seyss-Inquart also oversees the colonization of Africa and extermination of most of its inhabitants.
>>43883193
>Sorry europe you were fucked without uncle sam stepping in
I haven't read or watched it, is the story that the US didn't supply the Allies at all, or just didn't fight?
Because American combat was trivial. The military could have stayed out of Europe entirely and the outcome of the war would have been pretty much the same besides the division of West Germany.
But if Lend Lease was never a thing and the Soviets were stuck eating their shoes and hoping the ghost of Lenin would kill the nazis? Hitler might have accomplished something.
>>43882663
None
The point of the story is that it is a self aware fictional story. It doesn't need to make sense. the ending certainly doesn't.
It was a good meta-story tho. I enjoyed the whole ride.
>>43882730
Germany would have lost without the USA doing anything, it just would have taken a lot more lives.
>>43882646
Games?
Yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kur41flzdQ
Tabletop?
Eh....
>>43883509
>Hey guys what if-
>>43883600
>No! No what ifs!
>>43883509
>But-
>>43883563
>I SAID NO! REEEEEE!
>>43883553
>roosevelt assassinated
>isolationist peace faction controls US
>no military intervention
>no lend lease
>no European Jews escaping to the US
>no Manhattan project
>no fucking nothing
>Germans develop the atom bomb
>Nuke New York
>American civil war between die-hards and surrender monkeys
Yeah, the USSR was screwed without lend lease. With the industrial resources of all of Europe + the USSR, plus Japan knocking out everything in the Pacific, the Reich could reasonably challenge the US.
>>43882663
It's actually a fairly important piece of the story that all the characters understand on a deep level that the current state of world affairs is simply wrong.
Their reality is weaker and thinner precisely because it's so implausible and wrong.
It's a short book, you all should read it.
>>43883698
That sounds meta and awesome as fuck desu
>>43883404
Well he's normally an incredibly sloppy writer. The man in high castle is rightfully considered the defining classic example of alternative history. The world is given attention and is quite distinctly not just 'but in reverse'.
>>43883698
>>43883735
Ya its got a really cool meta-concept to it. Took a little bit after I finished the last episode to sink in (havent read book yet, planning on it soon). Its kinda like the story itself is self-aware
>>43883698
>all the characters understand on a deep level that the current state of world affairs is simply wrong.
No, not "wrong", just that those particular people are schizophrenic and slip into alternate timelines, the same way that Dick thought he did from our IRL timeline into other ones. The most common theme in all of PKD's novels is that *this* reality is not real, and that we ourselves are not real, but androids, or brains in jars, or people in the wrong timeline, etc. That schizophrenic dissocation is what Frink, Childen, Tagomi, et al are experiencing in TMITHC.
>>43882646
Dieselpunk alt-history, ho!
>>43884008
There is no right answers and no wrong answers for explaining the story. Both are correct and both are incorrect. The story itself is aware of the existence of an infinite versions of itself, as are some of the characters by the end.
Just like the end of Bladerunner, there is no right answer. Just a cool story
>>43883509
>Dick did a fair bit of research for this novel,
Forgot to qualify that, he did a lot of research on the Nazis, but very little on the Imperial Japanese, which is why their portrayal is so much more sympathetic. PKD seemed to be unaware of or unwilling to admit the atrocities of the Japanese in the Pacific.
>>43884251
PKD wasn't some genius science fiction writer as, for some reason, many people try to portray him to be. Granted, he had some awesome concepts - which is why so many people bought the rights to his stories after he died and adapted/rewrote them to make many successful movies out of them. But his execution in writing his books was... flawed... to be as nice as I possibly can be about them.
>OP asks simply question
>Americunts and Eurofags instantly sperg out
>OMIGHUD NAZIS CUD NEVA HAVE WON BCUZ WE R BEST
>ESPECIALLY NOT IN FICTION BECAUSE THAT WOULDNT BE REALISTIC MUH AUTISM
Literally kill yourselves or fuck off back to /pol/ you trash
On to the actual thread topic, I'm fairly sure I saw a wolfenstein tabletop a few months ago, in the vein of the nazis winning I'll see if I can grab it for you
>>43884781
OP here:
Thanks, Anon!
>>43884871
>>43884871
I was mistaken with the wolfenstein one, turns out it's a board game, however I did find a hypothetical axis victory ttrpg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich_Star
However as the other anon said in the thread
>>43882669
GURPS Alternate Earth with the Reich 5 setting is your best bet, considering it is almost exactly the Man in the High Castle setting you're looking for
>>43882646
I think the problem is that you wouldn't really have much in the way of a hook. I don't think I'd want to play in a game so bleak without any options other than ordinary people. But I also hate the Wolfenstein robot zombie shit that would be inevitably shoehorned into it.
That being said, I'd be interested in playing a game as soldiers during the initial invasion of the homeland, as a one-shot or short campaign.
Ah, alt history.
I've written some shit like that. Probably shit, but eh, it's on topic.
50th: Story idea
ok, a bit cliche, but let's say we have an angelic cross-dimensional
traveler of sorts. He's poked about in the 5th dimension, identified
WWII as the massive nexus and categorized 4 big difference lines:
Peace: America kicks Hitlers ass and brings Japan to it's knees just as
before. It then recovers a bit, listens to their RAND bastards and
try to repeat japan in Russia. They bomb a mid-sized city.
Stalin doesn't give in. So they continue.
By the time they get to Moscow, there isn't a government left to surrender.
Western Russia HATES us, but when the truth of Stalin breaks the curtain,
the eastern half settles. And, well, the eastern half looks good compared
to the nuked remains of the west....
Anyway, the USA is the only player left and peace is had by all.
Nothing really happens at this point. PAX AMERICANA. With no communists
to fear:
The red scare never happens, so
Latin america isn't fucked.
Korea never happens.
Vietnam never happens, although the french let go eventually.
The sex revolution isn't all that sexy, but drugs hit full force (from Russia).
China grows big and strong as a US ally as we kicked Japans ass and held them in line without the communists to butt in.
In short all is well.
Russian War:
Stalin is replaced by the popular guy before he can axe everyone. Russian
scientists aren't panicked to suicide. Middle management isn't routinely
murdered. The clergy remain. In short the Russians aren't scared to death.
WWII happens just as before, well, the Russians take it a bit worse. They lose
what was Stalingrad and never take it back to Berlin. But the aftermath
is much better. They still don't help with Japan, but they turn in on
themselves and seriously try to better themselves. This time without tank.
>>43885151
Nazi Standoff:
The Nazies slaughters the English while they're still in France. Hitler is
successfully assassinated. He never fucks up the Luftwaffe. America doesn't
go to war as soon this time, (Japan holds back) and never sends troops to England. England itself
gave the Germans some problems, but they develop jets, and stealth eventually. They
drop the English air-force, then their navy. U-boats stop all American
support, so instead of fortifying France, they build their own transport
navy. They don't piss off Russia, but officially dominate Italy.
Africa actually gives them trouble, but they ship out and successfully
conquer England. The Nazis don't have the guts without a bold leader to
take on the Russians right away, until they develop nukes.
Indeed, without Hitler's Anti-jew stance coming to a head, they never
scared away Einstein, who single-handedly undid most of that hate. He corrects Heisenberg mistakes and makes him a loyal German. Germans still think themselves the super-race, but believe it's a commutable, dominant trait rather then recessive.
They bomb the fuck out of Moscow immediately. They actually use 5 nukes
to blanket it. 3 don't even go off as they're destroyed by the blasts.
Russia can't retreat from that and their winter melts. They surrender. Eventually.
Meanwhile, Japan doesn't bomb America who didn't go to war. America
takes higher losses from German u-boats but doesn't have the guts to
declare war. Anti-war lobbyists are powerful enough to cut aid to England. So when
The Germans convince the Japanese to officially declare war on America,
they only grudgingly go to war. But with Japan first. Their European friends
are lost. They make some small efforts in Africa, but don't fully support it.
They take on Japan. They win. They DON'T have nukes, but come on,
it's Japan vs all of America, and we still have our fleet.
>>43883509
Erm..
So the US magicaly lost it's entire doctrine too?
And the US didn't interveen in the invasion of the Phillipines?
And... yeah this makes no sense....
Also the Japs specficaly did not invade the US proper for the same reason many other nations did not and have not, the guns to people ratios, the US would be expensive to take, especialy the east coast with how built up it is, the city fighting would crush a lot of the nazis ability to fight, then even after that there are the mountains before the great planes.
The Germans had trouble winning in Stalingrad and Leningrad, the thought they could take Chicago, New York, Boston, ect in a single war is beyond unreal, not to mention the US would still most likely have the Manhattan project to fall back on.
>>43885180
Eventually There is a massive standoff between Germany and America.
We have points in Africa and the orient, but Germany has, well, everything
else. The only side players are points between china and Europe. India became England exiled.
The English and French resistance try but fail.
Germany makes a few bombing runs at USA prime, non-nuclear. By the time
Germany squashes the resistance and sets up shop in ALL of Europe, America
has nukes themselves. They have a tentative agreement that nukes are bad.
German officials were planning on moving into Moscow, and weren't told
about fallout.
The Atlantic is hotly contested. Iceland, Greenland, and Canada are all
tension zones.
Things stay very tense from that point on.
And the outcome? What happens then? It's a nexus right, so what's the big
difference. Germans, Americans, what's the big deal?
Yeah, well the differences weren't that subtle:
>>43885210
Peace:
Well, the space race never happens. There is no war over oil. No great
techy improvements. The internet is 3 decades late.
Well there's no war but oil eventually runs out. There is a big push
to find and get the last drops. America dish it out evenly.
The world had gotten into a rut. Most transportation is oil dependent.
A sudden wave for coal cars and more train tracks takes hold but it's
too little and too late.
The world panics, the US nukes some of them. The rest of the world would
strike back, if they could get there. Eventually everyone breaks up
as what globalization there was disintegrates without transport and
fear controls politics. With no big players in a panicked world, no tech is developed to produce alternatives.
Civ goes back to agrarian. Everyone lives.
Russian War:
The Russians are more cocky in this timeline. Stanislov Patrov doesn't save the world and we all die from fallout.
Everyone. Everything. Some of those H-mothers are big.
Nazi standoff:
Tech booms, Crazy shit is invented really fast. A greek-german discovers the
uses of carbon nano-tubes in 1965 and Germany leads in nano-tech, but America
beats the Germans to the space elevator in 1994. Despite several attacks,
they hold it long enough to produce a couple backups before the Germans sink one.
The Germans get their own up, but the Americans dominate space at this point.
When the Germans find they can't beat economics, they essentially sell their
army for shares in stock and concessions that the United Earth is bi-lingual.
>>43885224
Hey! I thought you said there were 4 different lines?
oh... Yeah....
In the fourth Hitler isn't assassinated, but gets kicked out when
a rumor that he's Jewish hits the propaganda machine. The Germans still
take England and Russia, the hard way. They strike a deal with Japan,
establish a base of operations in china and fight off the Americans.
Japan doesn't lose this time either. America does develop the nuke. They
hit Japan, but Germany rushes in to fight off the US navy. 8 cities
get devastated, including Tokyo and Kyoto.
The Germans invade, America nukes Maine and parts of Canada. The
Germans lick their wounds, whip their own scientists, send spies,
anything to develop nukes. America stockpiles nukes and fortifies
the best they can, but can't strike anyone as they lost sea superiority.
The Nazis eventually nuke half, and invade as the Americans nuke the
other half in defense. They proceed to dominate or kill off the rest of the world.
It's a dark place after that. I never actually went there.
The demons drove off our kind.
>>43885196
>especialy the east coast with how built up it is
Fun Fact, Washington D.C. is set up how it is specifically to make it a pain in the ass for any invading enemy to take the city.
>>43885241
>The Germans invade the US
>The German navy bests the British navy in Canada and the US Navy
>Panama Canal magically disappears.
>>43885224
It's a bit all over the place, but its interesting.
>>43885196
see>>43884781
>>43885196
>So the US magicaly lost it's entire doctrine too?
I don't get what you mean by "doctrne". That's just a fancy word for policy. "Foreign Doctrine" is literally just "ok guy's this is how we're going to deal with those guys over there".
That's set by the leader. With FDR gone, policy is set by someone else.
Did you know that FDR thought Germany was a huge threat but didn't know how to convince the populace that it needed to be dealt with? Pearl Harbor gave him a policy change on a silver platter.
>>43885283
The germans never could have conquested the USA at least not in ww2 it is not feasable, they could have won the war they could not have conquered everything in existance.
In the Presence of Mien Enemies has the best german victory scenario imo.
The US remained out of the war I forget why exactly, the British ended up folding to the Nazis, the Russians were beat because of a lack of Lend Lease, and the Germans turned them into a siberian rump state.
Then many many years later the Germans had developed nukes, and nuked dc, new york and perhaps a few other cities I forget, and ended up yoking the US into a tributary peace, they were still autonomous but answered to Germany and paid tribute to Germany.
>>43885268
>The Germans invade the US
Sure. Why not? It's alt history.
>>43885312
Well in respects to forign docrtine, the Phillipines were really just a puppet, we would not have just sat down and let them get murdered since american soldiers were stationed there.
Also doctrine in the essence of oh there is a big ass army invading, let's follow proper doctrine and call up reserves to augment our standing army well the Germans have already wasted most of their combat capable soldiers fighting in Europe and never even had as many reserves to call up as the US to begin with.
>>43885283
>It's a bit all over the place, but its interesting.
Thanks man.
>>43885386
Logistics?
Alt history should still be grounded in reality otherwise it really isn't alt history if it lacks the history aspect.
The US had long range high altitude stratigic bombers, the german navy would be bombed out of the water, having to develop aircraft carriers in a very short time with resources already stretched thin, no way in hell would Churchill or the British Admiralty given up any ships without scuttling them.
The whole act of doing it in the span of ww2 is simply unfeasible the Germans would need to get a peace with the US or no war with the US and wait a few generations to rebuild/repopulate.
>>43885444
The Germans couldn't even mount an amphibious invasion of Britain, how in the fuck would they be able to invade America?
Still if the Germans could somehow land an army in the continental US the Americans would fold up faster then France in 1940, guaranteed. They're a soft country which has never experienced true hardship, they're not Russia or Germany. Just an opinion though obviously.
>>43885408
>Well in respects to foreign doctrine, the Philippines were really just a puppet, we would not have just sat down and let them get murdered since american soldiers were stationed there.
Alright. So one of the alterations is that they pull their troops out of the Philipines in a retreat. Or they try an appease Japan with the Philippians. I remember that being the official plan with Germany at one point.
We pulled out of Vietnam and let about 2 million allies get slaughtered in the purge. After the great war, the citizens were really sick of fighting and dying.
>there is a big ass army invading...
Some islands most voters have never even heard of.
>let's follow proper doctrine
What's "proper" changes with administrations. If by some twist of fate Palin got into a position of power, I'm pretty sure we would have invaded Iran even before ISIS and Russia could have started stirring up shit.
>and never even had as many reserves to call up as the US to begin with.
And the US would not have had as many reserves as China had. But China had a messy revolution and not a great industrial base. Number of troops is not the winning factor in WWII era warfare. Imagine if America was never mobilized for war. That is, the car factories were still making cars rather than tanks and planes because they were owned by businessmen trying to make money rather than a galvanized populace doing everything they can to fight an evil foreign threat. That's not a real rational response in the face of NAZI germany conquering the world, but history is FULL of less then rational actions.
>>43885479
The US didn't fold after the British invasion of 1812 granted the brits were more pillaging and not really invading.
But the US would not just fold to pressure, the American Civil War did not just have people surrender left and right.
The US still fought on to a white peace even after the white house was burned to the ground though, and the doctrine of the time was small regular army filled out with reserves from the civilian population via drafting, and volunteering.
>>43885479
Yeah, because we folded every other time a foreign power attacked us. Oh wait, no we didn't, we either declared independence or blew up large parts of their countries.
>>43885479
What the fuck do you define as "true hardship"?
The ACW was pretty goddamn bloody for its time.
>>43885380
>Then many many years later the Germans had developed nukes,
I wonder why he set it up like that?
"The Germans" ARE the ones who developed nukes. They just happened to be German ex-pats fleeing the fuck-nuts crazy NAZI's and currently working for the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project Has a LOT of German names in it.
Einstein and Bohr, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann . Hell, there's a good argument that if the german nuclear bomb project wasn't lead by Heiseenburg (who might have been sabotaging the whole thing), then they would have beaten the Manhattan project.
Even Enrico Fermi fled Italy because of racist policies.
Really, if the fascists were a little less.... fascist, then germany would have been a super-tech master-race. And hopefully less war-mongery.
>>43885503
>After the great war, the citizens were really sick of fighting and dying.
What? The US hardly participated in the great war it was more for show the war was over by the time of US intervention.
>What's "proper" changes with administrations. If by some twist of fate Palin got into a position of power, I'm pretty sure we would have invaded Iran even before ISIS and Russia could have started stirring up shit.
I missed the part where Obama dictated the way we did military recruiting.
>>there is a big ass army invading...
That was in relation to an army large enough to some how conquest the continental united states from Germany.
>And the US would not have had as many reserves as China had. But China had a messy revolution and not a great industrial base. Number of troops is not the winning factor in WWII era warfare
China was in the middle of a civil war when Japan invaded. Also the Chinese were backwards in technology, the US had a proper air force, proper tanks, and weapons on the level with the Germans.
It's basically the equivalent of writing what if the Germans surrendered because Polish Cavalry managed to push into Eastern Prussia.
It is illogical and is hack writing in the perspective of historical fiction.
>>43885479
>They're a soft country which has never experienced true hardship, they're not Russia or Germany. Just an opinion though obviously
You really need to study American history a tad bit closer. Especially the parts about the "Wild West" where everybody was more or less a gun toting psycho in a more or less lawless environment.
Also: A whole shitload of people suffering and dying does not necessarily make for a hardened peoples. It just makes for a bunch of corpses. Children don't magically grow bullet-proof skin and unbreakable bones just because a bunch of their ancestors starved and died.
I understand the appeal of trying to force Nazis into the winning position for the sake of alt-history. Its fun to have them around as antagonists. Its still completely unrealistic for them to have won WW2.
What I have always wanted was a compromise. Having the Nazis conquer the world has always been wank. How about a slightly more realistic depiction? Like if the UK falls before the US can get into the war. Spain aligns itself with the Axis. Germany gets to keep their Austrian, Czechoslovakian, Polish and Danish acquisitions. Gemany forces France to cede some of the occupied territory. Italy gets kicked out of North Africa but manages to formalize its Greek occupation. The UK is forced to disarm and to give Germany war reparations. The US allows this to happen because Nazi Germany makes a wonderful buffer state to the USSR.
Simple stuff. Suggesting that the Nazis or the Imperial Japanese could invade mainland America is a little silly.
>>43885590
Because all the scientists did leave after the fascists took over so it took them longer, they were going down the wrong path to develop nuclear weapons as seen by the sub that was recovered attempting to flee to japan.
Wouldn't surprise me if he was sabotaging the project, but yes if the fascists hadn't taken over Germany would have had the first atomic bomb. However no fascists is not the scenario presented here.
Old game, not sure where you'd find a copy. I only remember it being reviewed in white wolf magazine.
>>43885649
This, no one is saying Germany could not win because the allies were too strong.
People are saying the Germans could not pull off total victory.
Another story I read had the Germans beating the British the British hastily pushing Canada, India, and ANZAC to independence before surrender is formalized to keep the nazis out of them, and then a mass emigration from people who are able to from the islands to the former colonies.
>>43885444
>>The Germans invade the US
>>Sure. Why not?
>Logistics?
. . . And yet America invading European mainland on D-Day is entirely plausible? I mean, it happened.
Hey, a nearby nation providing a staging ground is really helpful.
How about Cuba? Did the Germans know that Cuba existed? Maybe they were friends with Mexico and there was an active front along Texas?
>The US had long range high altitude strategic bombers
Jets. Any sort of German invasion in an alt-history story kinda depends on Germany having air superiority.
I mean, Germany ALSO had "long range high altitude strategic bomers". And they bombed England a lot. Somehow they still stagged an invasion. How do you think that happened?
>having to develop aircraft carriers in a very short time
>The whole act of doing it in the span of ww2
Alt history really has no time limit. Everything doesn't have to end by 1946.
I mean, it's just a little exercise in pretending alternative outcomes. Imagine if Germany didn't scare away it's best scientists and then had sole access to nuclear weaponry prior to starting it's offensive. That's some scary shit right there that changes the whole shindig.
>>43882663
by Germany not attacking Russia, Japan not bombing pearl harbor, and Hittler not taking away human rights from people, the Nazi's could have won world war 2
>>43883651
So if the US had no involvement in WWII whatsoever why do the nazis give a shit about bombing them and taking over?
>>43882646
Literally the only way this happens is if it was full Wolfenstein with time travel.
>>43885746
Because they're Nazis. Conquest and Genocide is kind of their thing.
"Today Germany, tomorrow the world!" And all that fun and games.
>>43885735
>Cuba friendly with the Germans facilitating the invasion of New England.
>Germany reaching Cuba in spite of the US Navy.
>Last war Mexico clearly and absolutely told Germany it would never invade the United States because it would never be able to win, and everyone was already american anyways and would actively resist any Mexican invasion.
>I mean, Germany ALSO had "long range high altitude strategic bomers". And they bombed England a lot. Somehow they still staged an invasion. How do you think that happened?
Because the allies had ground based airfields to launch from, as well as radar, and the invasion was over a short distance, measure the distance from England to France, now measure from Cuba to The US the closest point is Florida, Florida would be awful for an invading army the terrain, and the weather would be bad, and the logistics from France to Cuba are a lot longer then from the US and Canada to Britain.
The Only way that Germany can get total victory in ww2 is a straight up act of god, and that is shit writing to use as a crutch.
>>43882646
TMitHC isn't about Nazis winning. It's about the US losing. It is a study of victimhood, not of realism or dystopy.
You find those themes in many games. Most notably the 40k universe, which is basically built around the fantasy of a fascist gothic England. But also Paranoia, and any political horror or conspiracy setting.
What should be more interesting is playing in an alternate WW2. And many games do. Look at Achtung Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu, Hellboy mods, Laundry, ...
>>43885615
The US intervened in April of 1917; the war ended in November of 1918. So no, it wasn't over by the time of US intervention, nor was it "just for show." It is certainly true that the US wasn't anywhere near as invested in it as any of the European powers, but as to his point about the citizens being sick of fighting and dying, that's true.
While the US didn't suffer anywhere near as badly as other powers, the idea of war was very unpopular back home, and that had only changed enough to get the US into the war because of the Lusitania incident and pressure from some Republicans.
So the point remains: America had had a pretty major peace movement before the war, and it came back full-force once the Americans started taking casualties overseas.
>>43885615
>The US hardly participated in the great war
There were still 116,708 corpses though. Iraq only had ~3000 dead troops, but after a decade we were still "war weary".
>I missed the part where Obama dictated the way we did military recruiting.
The part where he promises to get us out of Iraq. That doesn't really inspire people to go sign up and fight for the motherland in a war that was a mistake. I mean, come on, it's 1940, how many people do you think really give a fuck about some oriental island. In the 60's we sent troops to Vietnam who didn't know S. Vietnam was an ally.
. . . Also, The DoD is in charge of recruitment. Which serves under the President. He really can dictate the way our military does recruiting.
Point taken about the state of US military circa 1945. It would require a very fundemental change years before that to argue that they had a shitty military at that point.
>>43885879
Almost half the US deaths in ww1 were from influenza, and really there was not a huge anti war movement after ww1.
The US volunteers to the Spanish Civil war show not all Americans were anti war, and most the ones that were were anti communists, anti Semites, and pro fascists, you can bet your ass a fascist invasion of the US would at the very least get the anti communists and the anti semites into full swing, they mostly didn't care about Europes well being, the United States was another matter entirely.
But you can keep your delusions of fascist glory it's all in your head anyways.
>>43885735
Yeah, listen to this guy. >>43885840
Something more plausible would be Germany getting a foothold in Southern America, considering that they did have some support around these part. Maybe an invasion of Brazil from western Africa, but I see little reason for Germany & Co to drop in there.
>>43885897
How did they manage to double the number of military deaths not in action? That's a weird number wikipedia.
>>43885696
>People are saying the Germans could not pull off total victory.
. . . Well I'm saying that a total victory for German is within the scope of possibility. A LOOOOT of things would have to have been different for that to happen.
I agree with that guy though, Germany conquering Europe and then settling for peace is a much less far-fetched. That would require "fewer" things to be different.
>>43885840
>Cuba friendly with the Germans facilitating the invasion of Florida.
>Germany reaching Cuba thanks to air superiority through jet power and U-boats hobbling US navy.
>Mexico gets their own Fascist leader that pulls Mexico out of the depression.
>The Only way that Germany can get total victory in ww2 is the early possession of nukes. They're really a game changer.
>>43885939
What the fuck are you even talking about? I was just responding to your claim that the US wasn't really involved in WWI, and your argument that the US wasn't war-weary. I never said anything about fascists.
>>43885964
>How did they manage to double the number of military deaths not in action?
The "spanish" flu. Killed a whole hell of a lot of fuckers. Trench warfare was hell.
>>43885964
I think the most famous death the US had was Roosevelt's son.
I know Germany was quick to apologize for it and treated him a lot better then other KIAs.
>>43882646
Twist ending: Hitler wins, defeats France and Russia, prevents the UK from intervening, and then history proceeds on course pretty much the same as it did anyways, only with "Jews" and "Slavs" being the European version of "Native Americans", decimated and put onto reserves where they drink themselves to death and sell trinkets for spare change.
Germany becomes almost the exact same Germany as it did anyways, the EU is virtually identical, and people remember Hitler the same as they remember Andrew Jackson, as "controversial" but he's still on the Euro.
>>43885939
>and really there was not a huge anti war movement after ww1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee
>>43886036
>Andrew Jackson, as "controversial" but he's still on the Euro.
pft,
uuuuuuuuuugh... Man it is depressing how plausible that sounds.
>>43885196
>And the US didn't interveen in the invasion of the Phillipines?
Well we didn't in the real world either. Despite the standing USAFFE forces out-numbering the invading Japanese forces they had horribly mismanaged pre-war preparation and pre-contact deployment, meaning that most units were horribly under strength, poorly supplied, and some completely untrained. Putting MacArthur in charge didn't help matters either. Any sizable "intervening" relief force sent from the continental United States would never have arrived before capitulation.
>>43886037
>800,000 dues-paying members in 450 chapters, located mostly in a 300-mile radius of Chicago.
>Between 1930 and 1940, the population of the Continental United States increased 7.2% to 131,669,275. The territories of Alaska, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, the Panama Canal, and the American Virgin Islands comprised 2,477,023 people.
so
131,669,275/800,000 .6% when compared to the continental united states, even if you took out children, that is tiny.
>>43886054
If the US decided to back Hitler over the UK/Soviets in the 30s, that's probably how things would have turned out. Germany was never a real threat to the US mainland or anything, mostly just their relationships with European powers.
If someone sympathetic to Hitler became president and built good diplomatic relations, it could've happened. Then you'd probably wind up with a US/german "cold war" from the 50s to the 90s or so, until all the nazi old guard die off and they can't manage a peaceful transition of power.
>>43886121
>that is tiny.
Compared to the losses of Europe? Fuck yeah it's tiny.
The voters are hardly ever rational though. Welcome to politics.
>>43885968
>Cuba friendly with the Germans facilitating the invasion of Florida.
>Germany reaching Cuba thanks to air superiority through jet power and U-boats hobbling US navy.
You do know Cuba isn't England, right? It doesn't have the airfields or port facilities capable of handling a continental-sized invasion force.
>. . . Well I'm saying that a total victory for German is within the scope of possibility.
Well then you're dumb. Jesus fuck even if it was still mired in depression the USA would still be outproducing the entire Axis navies by five to one. The only way the Axis can launch a successful invasion of the continental United States is if the USA falls into civil war and one side invites the Germans to intervene on their side.
>>43885738
>Hitler not attacking Russia
How in the hell would that work out? Do you mean if they delayed attacking Russia until after they've dealt with Britain? That would make more sense.
>>43885964
War and Influenza.
This particular strain was very very lethal to the young and hearty for some godforsaken reason, Trench Warfare being what it was probably didn't help matters either, cold, filthy and goddamned near impossible to sleep, so there goes your boys immune system scant days after they've been shoved into a tin can with a dozen other coughing idiots.
>>43886166
Yeah if diffrent people had been elected you might have seen a stay neutral usa, or a pro German usa (There was a lot of pro german sentiment among German Americans in both world wars.)
But FDR was staunchly anti fascists the only reason we didn't enter the war sooner was he couldn't get public support.
>>43886191
And no that was the size of the anti war party compaired to the US census from the 1930s/40s
>>43886197
Only way it is possible is act of god on the level the japanise got when the mongolians invaded, the entire american force destroyed by weather multiple times, and even then it is iffy, the US citizens were crazy on their superirority at the time, they would have fought house to house and street to street like every other time the US was invaded, hell it is still what people expect now even with all the anti gun stuff going on, you bet your ass if you went and invaded the US now all those innercity kids with guns would shoot up invaders if the opportunity presented itself. Nothing unites the USA like citizens dieing, that is why the lusitania, pearl harbor, and even the twin towers were all very polarizing events for pro war to grow immensely.
>>43886210
The US throwing its weight behind Germany is probably the only way Germany could have ever beaten the USSR, simply in terms of logistics and manpower. The US would've also been necessary diplomatically to keep the UK out of the war as well.
That's just about the only way Germany could have ever won on the European mainland - conquering the UK and the US was never remotely going to happen. That would also mean having to guarantee the UK's colonies, which means holding back or redirecting Japan's imperial ambitions.
So really it would depend on a massive change in just about all the diplomatic alignments pre-war.
>>43886319
In other words, German magic wankery.
>>43886353
Well, if they had an intelligence service that could play other countries' diplomatic corps like a fiddle, similar to what the UK was running with, it could have been possible. But then the UK was light years ahead of everyone else on that front at the time.
>>43886197
I'd say you could have pretty significant changes to WWII by having Franco join the Axis and besieging Gibraltar directly. Gaining control of Gibraltar would allow the Axis to heavily restrict British movement to the Med, the addition of the Spanish along with Vichy France and Italy would more than likely allow them to take Malta and Cyprus and massively impact the North Africa campaign.
>>43886374
I'd say you'd never really get the USA to side with Germany due to the UK being able to bring a lot of naval power to bear against the USA and the risk of direct military action from Canada.
>>43886472
Actually with the right set of circumstances you could see it, like a much stronger Monroe Doctrine lasting into the 1940s but these are changes that would have to happen over a hundread years prior, but if the US had a really fanatical devotion to the Monroe Doctrine they may want to kick the dutch, the french, and the English out of the Americas, but that requires a lot of reworking with global history too as for reasons why the US would do that.
>>43885312
Congress is the big player with foreign policy.
>>43886504
Yeah, the thing about questions like "How could the Axis have won WWII," is that the answers aren't in strategy or weapons, it's in doctrinal, organizational, and procurement changes occurring years before conflict begins.
>>43886472
The UK was never going to fight the US directly - even with the entire Royal Navy, they can't move enough troops to do anything more than harass the US mainland. They don't even have enough troops to move.
They can certainly threaten US shipping around the world, but that's about the limit of it - and doing that would mean the UK would be vulnerable to the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Again, not likely enough for any kind of "operation sea lion", but enough to make the battle of Britain a lot more costly.
The real question is whether there could ever be a combination of US president and UK prime minister that would agree to support Germany against the Soviets, making a pact to treat them as the greater threat, and who'd be comfortable writing off Western Europe with the assumption that all of those countries were going to turn fascist one way or another anyways.
So far I've seen only GURPS' Infinite Worlds Reich-5 world mentioned as an actual answer to the question, so I would second this. It's pretty solid.
>>43882646
Why is Canon City marked I don't understand.
>>43882646
How the fuck did the Nazi Germany fully occupy the United States? How fuck did the Japanese Empire even get a land hold?
>>43886655
Or an early German surrender to the Western Allies but not the soviets, and Churchill getting Operation Unthinkable through that.
>>43886655
I'm pretty sure the main question is what is going on with the USA and Japan in this scenario. US interests stood in the way of Japanese interests and the USA was already waging economic war with them over China.
>>43886705
Probably would see Germany declare war on Japan alongside the US, because let's face it the USA is a much more important ally to Germany then japan is (also Americans would fit into German rhetoric about racial superiority)
So you might see the Soviets and the Japanese turn their Non Aggression pact into an alliance in the face of most the western world fighting them.
>alternate history
Literal garbage
>>43886705
Again, that would probably require some kind of UK/US/Japanese pact - if the Anglo powers help support the dominance of the Army faction over the Navy faction in Japanese domestic politics, and allow Japan to run roughshod over China while blocking any support to Mao or Chiang Kai Shek, that might allow the US and UK to respect Japan's continental area of influence while keeping their respective island colonies in the Pacific.
Effectively this whole scenario depends on a lot less antipathy between the Anglo powers and the Fascist powers, and a lot more antipathy towards China and Russia. That would probably require a massive win for the conservative/far right factions politically in the US and UK, and credit being given to them for taking those countries out of the depression.
So, imagine President Henry Ford and king Edward VIII (overseeing a Tory/Blackshirt coalition parliament)
>>43886664
Watch the show. It's where a good portion of it takes place.
>>43886748
Yeah, this.
>>43886768
>President Henry Ford
Interestingly, he ran for office in 1918, and came within 4500 votes (out of over 400,000) of winning.
A slight nudge in the poll numbers could have started his political career instead of ending it. And he absolutely would have done all he could to keep the USA out of any later war, and support Germany and capitalism against the Soviets.
>>43886814
>support Germany and capitalism against the Soviets.
Which was funny as Germany was a command economy that progressively limited capitalism.
>>43886853
Sure, but industrialists like Ford and Krupp were still getting rich with slave labor.
>>43886875
Because they made agreements with the nazis.
Nazi Germany is the prototype for the modern bureaucratic state: "free market" for our cronies and socialism for everyone else; so certain groups get all the best things of free market without that pesky competition, the others get all the worst of socialism without an actual safety net.
This is what appens when you listen to progressives and socialists; National or International.
>>43886928
go back to /pol/
>>43883735
>scene in book
>Japanese businessman is collector of Old West memorabilia
>Owns working Colt .45
>Nazi agents attempt to storm his office
>Uses Colt to kill them all, fanning his hand back over the hammer
For fuck sake, grab this book, it's a tasty read!
>>43884639
>>43883509
That's not outstanding worldbuilding. That makes no sense at all. It doesn't explain anything, just 'This Happened.'
Which there is nothing wrong with, but it's not great world building.
>>43882646
The main thing that rubs me up the wrong way about The Man In The High Castle is simply this:
They were never officially called Nazi's. it was a nickname given to them. They would never have officially called themselves "The Greater Nazi Reich". That's wildly inaccurate.It's a damn shame, because other than that everything is pretty good.
>>43882663
Alien Space Bats.
>>43887200
not the whole lack of enough war bodies to actually hold down a country the size of the US?
At best it would be like Japan in China, hold down the population centers and say you own the rest, when in fact the opposition can basically free roam out there.
>>43887203
Alien Space Bats, you say?
>>43882646
One minor plot element I enjoyed from the novel is the throwaway line mentioning that the African holocaust had been an economic disaster for Germany, and that the only thing keeping the Reich afloat was their massive technological advantage over the Japanese, which if I remember correctly was allowing them to colonize space.
Wasn't the USSR kicking the living shit out of Germany by the time we came to help, anyhow?
...Huh. Actually, that kinda makes me wonder what a setting would be like wherein a US non-entry into WWII results in the USSR simply rolling over pretty much all of the Eurasian continent.
>>43887401
I think that's the plot of the Command and Conquer series
>>43887410
Really? I... well, it's embarrassing, but I never actually played that series. My family was too impoverished at the time to afford such niceties. I felt lucky to have my black and white fat gameboy and two used games. Wonder if I should give it a look now that I'm older and I've got my own money and shit.
>>43887452
C&C RA2 and its expansion are completely free on Origin right now.
>>43882663
While Man In The High Castle had its own alt timeline and meta explanations, I get tired of how every alt history where Germany didn't lose winds up with them conquering the united States. Germany was never going to invade the US. All Hitler wanted was to keep the US out of things. Germany would never Conquer the US because, logistics aside, it had no interest in it. Hitler wanted a revival of the HRE under Nazism, the US not being part of Europe didn't fall into things. At most the Nazis would have taken western Europe and the Northern parts of Africa. I'm not trying to defend Hitler mind there is still the whole genocide thing, but its pure Americanism that wants to imagine we were Hitler's mortal enemy. No, that would be England and France.
>>43887369
Yes. Alien Space Bats in SS Uniforms.
>>43887495
>England
But Hitler wanted to be friends with England, that's why he put off the invasion so long.
>>43887410
Command and Conquer Red Alert begins with Stalin's assassination in RA1, leasing to a.much stronger Germany/Russia alliance. In RA2, Einstein travels through time and assassinated Hitler, which only makes it Worse. In RA 3, The Soviet leadership travels even further back in time and kills Einstein- which results in the Empire of the rising sun
>>43887488
Huh! Neat! Thanks, anon. Maybe now I can see what my schoolmates were so hyped about back in the day.
>>43887507
Yeah but that boat sailed with the v2 program
>>43887495
>No, that would be England and France.
Wouldn't Hitler's mortal enemy be Russia? After all, the Third Reich considered them to be both dirty commies and sub-humans. Also they were bigger threat than colonial Empires like England or France.
>>43887508
No command and conqure red alert 1 begins with Einstine going back in time and killing hitler, Nazism never takes off and Germany joins what is basicaly NATO along with france england and the USA, the soviets begin an invasion of Europe and run rampant through Germany before being stopped and turned back by the Allies, Stalin dies in RA1 either assassinated by Kain (Which would lead to the tiberium timeline I think) Or left to die under rubble.
RA2 begins with Yuri leading Primer Romanov of the newly reformed USSR in a full scale invasion of the us, most of witch is successful because of mind control crippling the USA in the early parts of the war.
RA 3 begins with Russians going back in time and killing Enstine, which erases nukes, and leads to an Allied Bloc of USA and Western Europe a Soviet Bloc and then a newly formed Empire of the Rising sun that was not stopped by the USA.
>>43887724
So when they kill Einstein, that doesn't retroactively revive Hitler?
>>43887559
This guy knows his stuff. Territories lost through the Versaille Treaty aside, Hitler's primary target was always first and foremost the Slavs and the Communists. In an ideal Nazi victory scenario, Germany would have been able to conquer the Balkans, Russia and perhaps even a portion of Eastern Asia with the help of the Japanese, all while being able to stave off Western interventionism through a mutual dislike of Communist Russia.
>>43887753
Nope, time travel is bullshit and doesn't make sense.
>>43883193
epic /int/ meme, /b/ro
>>43886963
Never been there.
Just like i've listened to... Axel? Alex? Something Johnes and like i never voted for Tron Paul or whatever his name.
These two have been easy since i'm not american, but whatever.
Perhaps you should read what these strange people that have the gall of not obeying to.... Damn i meant agreeing with you think and why before you categorize them as the usual strawman.
However i'm starting to think socialists honestly Just can't imagine people Who don't share their worldview as being right, ever.
It's a shame Because since last century they've been allways wrong. On everything. And everyone that listened to them regulary suffered.
I actually created one such setting, however, some countries there are not on their historical sides of the conflict.
Will tell more if anon is interested.
>>43883193
This is what you fought for.
I hope you're proud of it.
>>43888273
>Will tell more if anon is interested.
Sure, tell us more.
>>43888194
>socialism leads to fascism,
what backwards ass place did you learn that?
You make a blanketed statement about socialism being the gateway to fascism, which is entirely untrue. IF you actually look at what hitler did it changed the ideology of the party but kept the name. Or let's also not forget how most socialists are antiwar, because war kills off the working class people well those at the top are largely unaffected. But yes let's call the war monger a socialist because it fits the rhetoric you want to use to keep socialism from helping people well the top echelons of society get richer and richer but keep taking more and more from the lower classes.
>>43886748
>Stop liking what I don't like!
>>43884251
I really like that book and I would say that the difference is the Japanese depicted are civilian administrators and merchants in a world after the crazy rogue military who disobeyed central command had already won and been promoted to cushy jobs in the Home Islands.
Compared to a post-victory Nazi, who would be completely brainwashed in that alien abhorrent way of thought, a Japanese imperialist businessman is easier to relate to I guess.
>>43882663
A key divergent point in the TV show from the book was that of a resurgent German American Bund in the 1930s. It is hinted (and flat out said in an interview about the show) at a civil war type scenario where Americans join up with the Nazis.
Considering how small and unpopular the Bund was this is a major point of divergence and implausible imo.
>>43882730
Phillip K. Dick was an anti war hippy from San Fran. He doesn't know shit. In fact I can't think of someone worse qualified. The premise is entertaining but not plausible, particularly the Japanese pacific states.
>>43882783
Fiction that is based on the real world is more enjoyable to some of us when it has its roots in reality.
>>43884781
They could not have won in the scenario presented. Dicks shoddy treatment of the fate of Canada is another example of his shoddy world building.
America surrenders because the kraits nuke DC is paper thin. Glossed over with a bit of hand wavium.
All this arguing and military wank is fucking pointless because the twist of the novel is that its all a mass delusion because Americans are unable to accept how they've become similar to the axis powers since the war, its not an alternate history at all
sorry for the spoiler but anyone thats actually bothered read any PKD would be able to predict that right away and none of you will read it anyway
furthermore the first thing anyone would tell you is that worldbuilding, especially before you actually figure out what the plot is gonna be, is actually gonna make your novel worse, you are not Tolkien he was a fluke and a Oxford professor back when that meant something
the only thing i didn't like in the man in the high castle was some of their incorrect factoids that were out right wrong.
>>implied it was an atheistic party
heavily catholic influenced, but catholics hate when you bring that up.
there is a money trail from the Vatican to both Mussolini and Hitlers regime, it was the Vatican that smuggled out high ranking nazi party members from Europe and into South America when things were on it final legs,
I'm also HEAVILY disappointed about how little we know of Russia, and how Italy was just COMPLETELY overlooked to the point it is never even mentioned
>>43883404
>>43883509
You pretty much have to accept "plausible enough to suspend disbelief" over actual historically possible.
For example, he claims that FDR lead a recovery from the Great Depression prior to US entry in world war two. His story is premised on the idea that the US couldn't enter the war until the depression was over. Basically nobody believes that. For years, the belief was that entry into World War 2 was what ended the depression. Many modern economists now believe that the New Deal actually lengthened the depression. Whichever side you believe, the numbers simply don't support the idea that the Depression ended prior to WW2. (For Dick, it sets FDR up as the hero of the war, the Indispensable Man whose New Deal saved the world.)
The Isolationism part is totally plausible. Republicans don't like to remember this, but the anti-war movement, especially among northeastern Christians, was a very strong *republican* phenomenon. A legacy of World War I. And it was so popular that it kept them out of the war until actually attacked by Japan.
What isn't plausible at all is that the US would have been beaten by Japan due to entering the war "unprepared". The US was totally unprepared in real history. For much of the early Pacific war, the USS Enterprise stood alone holding off the Japanese Navy. In the Atlantic, poor anti-sub tactics let the Nazis sink vast quantities of US merchant shipping and escorts.
America essentially rebuilt both its atlantic and pacific fleets from scratch once they were in the war already. It's that unbelievably vast economic power that let them smash Germany and Japan despite little preparation and major early setbacks.
>>43883651
>>no European Jews escaping to the US
The US refused vast numbers of Jewish refugees. There's a famous case of a passenger ship filled with Jews that sat in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, waiting for FDR to make an exception to US immigration quotas. He refused, and the ship returned to Germany. Everyone aboard was shipped to concentration camps and murdered.
The laws were the same under Hoover as Roosevelt. In fact, IIRC they were the same under Coolidge. Roosevelt is rightly revered for standing up to Hitler and using every sneaky trick in the book to drag America into the war, thus defeating the Nazis once and for all. But he made no special attempts to help Jews.
(In fairness to FDR, the reason was that anti-war activists were eager to claim that the whole thing was a "Jewish war" set up by sneaky conspiracies. FDR felt that he could do more good by denying his critics those talking points.)
>>43885479
The US had only a few decades before taken devastating casualties in the American Civil War. In fact, we lost more people in that war than in World War 2.
The Germans didn't have the naval power to land the troops, true. But even if they had, they didn't have the power to provide the supplies to support such a force.
America is a vast country, and the population is geographically dispersed. Even Russia, a country with similar geography, has most of its population concentrated into its European area. America was also far more rural, its citizens far better educated than the general population of Europe (back then), and those citizens were well-armed and used to taking the law into their own hands. The Germans didn't have enough people to occupy America even if they'd beaten it.
Also, don't compare the America you see on TV (nearly always New York City or coastal California) with the average American. And even they are pretty soft compared to the hard men of early 20th century America.
>>43884251
Probably didn't want to offend Japanese, so the Rape of Naking and the Baatan Death March and such never happened.
>>43889137
Germany didn't even have enough naval power to have a good shot at landing troops in fucking England, let alone the US.
What is it with these 'Germany won WWII' scenarios and having the US under occupation by the Nazis? Why would they even do that? Hitler wanted to make Europe his playground, not conquer the whole world.
>>43882669
This. In fact, in GURPS Infinite Worlds, you have no fewer than five "nazis win WW2" alternate histories. There's the "weird war 2" version, and a bunch of others.
Reich 5 is a setting where nazis win WW2, and then decades later SS mystic weirdos accidentally discover usable magic, which they keep secret, and then (after catching an off-world raid team by surprise) cross-dimensional travel. It's by far the best described.
Fun bonus: their main form of dimensional travel is pseudo-magical. They have a captured demon bound in a cave in Austria. When they have someone they want to convert into a world-jumper, they push him into the cave, where the demon rapes and impregnates him. Then they use herbal remedies to keep "the demon fetus roiling in his pelvis" from developing. That fetus is what gives the jumper his powers, along with a host of mental, physical, and spiritual deformities. If he misses too many herbal infusions, the fetus explodes from his bowels in a burst of bloody viscera.
The Nazis have better physics and industry, while the Japanese have better biology and genetics, which is probably best not described too explicitly.
Fun setting!
>>43889232
>When they have someone they want to convert into a world-jumper, they push him into the cave, where the demon rapes and impregnates him. Then they use herbal remedies to keep "the demon fetus roiling in his pelvis" from developing.
Now that's just fucking weird.
>>43885738
Here is the problem mate, if hitler had not attacked russia, stalin would start the invasion (adherently when the third reich attacked, stalin threw a fit that he did not do it first), and most likely win. Assuming that Hitler let go of his plans of ending the USSR, he would move most of his forces from the Eastern front to focus on europe. Meaning that the forces left in middle europe would be very small, just enough to combat the polish resistance moment and keep tabs on other country. Stalin bumrushes warsaw, takes it over quickly. Then he has a four hour drive to berlin and little to stop him. He can also make his army bigger from slavic countrys he "liberated". Remember that the soviet forces were very week at defending but next to unstoppable when attacking.
>>43885649
This one is a little more plausible. Hitler's plan depended more on "will to power" than realistic strategy. Drop the pseudo-mystical racial rhetoric, and it boiled down to a conviction that the West was decadent and Germany would win because they simply wanted it more.
Germany's biggest challenge was always going to be the Soviets. It's likely that Stalin was planning to attack Nazi Germany eventually. It's simply smart strategy. Let Germany wear itself out conquering Europe, and then move in to "liberate" the whole continent for Communism.
What surprised Stalin was three things. First, the timing. Yes, the Soviets were in no position whatsoever to attack Germany at the time of Barbarossa. But the Germans were in no position to win against the Soviets, either. Second, Stalin knew that Britain's only chance for survival was dividing the Soviets against the Nazis. So when he saw the intelligence that Germany was going to attack them, he assumed it was a British false flag operation. Finally, he vastly overestimated both Germany's and Britain's intelligence services. He thought the Germans would know that economically and demographically they didn't stand a chance, and the thought Britain's services were successfully deceiving his own services.
I see three scenarios where Germany wins. We'll call them the Bismarck strategy, the Persian strategy, and the Clousseau strategy.
Cont...
>>43889232
>They have a captured demon bound in a cave in Austria. When they have someone they want to convert into a world-jumper, they push him into the cave, where the demon rapes and impregnates him. Then they use herbal remedies to keep "the demon fetus roiling in his pelvis" from developing.
that's really gay
>>43888520
At school, reading books and checking facts. Something you refuse to do by ideological partisanism.
Every time we listen to environmentalists, progressives and other socialists if not by name by fact, they impose some new restriction on the economy. Restrictions that are irrelevant to their cronies but not to the great majority of the enterprising population.
For istance: Mc Donalds doesn't give a flying shit about minimum wage: they're so big they can sell a whole meal for 1$ and pay each of their burger flippers even 20$ per hour and their margin of profit would barely be affettected.
Your grandpa, however, must close his hardware store; because he'd end up losing money Every day by keeping it open.
This is ok by you: normal business owners are evil capitalists but McDonald is so big you don't consider it like the greedy corporation it is, but like some nebulous part of the government. And you're perfectly right since its lobbysts are continuosly at work.
It's important to notice that the republican party also does the dame kind of thing, only with different cronies: they might believe themselves the defensors of free market but they're Just as socialist as Obama. It's Just that the effect is less noticeable day to day since their cronies are oil magnates and weapon manufacturers.
So, yes. Fascism (ad defined as a command economy based on cronism) is a kind of socialism that approves the same kind of laws, for the same reasons. Mussolini was Famous for his continuous screeds against the "great demoplutocracies" that were poisoning the right, virile way of life of the Italians, whole at the same time using socialist laws to help his friends and relatives in the FIAT.
This is what allways happens with socialism.
>>43884639
>PKD
>not one of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time
Mate, you are entitled to your opinion, BUT most of the best sci-fi writers considered Dick as one of the pillars of the genera. If Stanislaw Lem says he was a great writer, then your opinion is shit
>>43888938
Simple bullshit, debunked thousands of Times.
>>43889390
Also: the socialist is never anti war. He likes you to think he is but the very fundation of his ideology is destroying western society, Something you can only do with a war, Civil or not.
The fabian society has a wolf in sheep clothing as a symbol, for Christ's sake, the Strastsburg school was based on debasing everyone else so their new order could be imposed.
The socialist Also never really helps anyone. He says he'll help the poor gays oppressed by the orthodox church after the russian revolution, then He sends them to siberia. He tells the poor they'll get a social safety net and then burns their money to save some bank. He tells the black he'll include them in his Great Society and then builds planned parenthood clinics in their neighborhoods to slowly genocide them.
>>43889390
You dont seem to understand the big ideological differences between Fascism and socialism. The first is anty-war attitude which is common in every far left ideology, the second is the emphasis on worker owned, not state ow-
>Obama and Republicans
>Socialist
Never mind, your are brain dead and no amount of enplaning will help. Go read what belifes socialists and facists hold and maybe then we can talk
>>43889363
The Bismarck Strategy is where we change the story before Hitler even assumes power.
Once Otto von Bismarck finished piecing together his empire, he immediately moved to ensure that Europe remained at peace for as long as physically possible. Or, failing that, that Germany didn't get dragged into a war. He understood three things: 1) Germany's industrial potential would enable it to dominate Europe without any further violence. 2) Once it understood the threat, Europe would unite to contain or even dismantle Germany. 3) Unless Germany went overtly to war, such an alliance would never attack Germany out of the blue, and it would be comparatively easy in a time of peace to keep such an alliance from forming.
Meanwhile, Bismarck forestalled communism at home by building a huge welfare state. It subdued the public and granted the socialist's most popular demands without a revolution. The modern American K-12 education system was an explicit copy of the Bismarck system.
It's telling that even after losing two apocalyptic wars and then being partitioned in two for half a century, that the Germany is STILL the preeminent power in Europe.
So this plan calls for Germany to escape from its Versailles constraints, but then stop short of doing something to trigger a World War, and instead fight it as the Nazis did early on as a series of smaller conflicts. World War on the installment plan.
For a hint of how to do this, look at Gustav Stresemann, foreign minister in the Weimar Republic. He was pro-peace and very much a euro-hippie. He blamed reparations and military restrictions for growing militancy in Germany, and charmed other diplomats to the point that none would help France keep germany bottled up. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for being such a nice guy. After the war, his diaries were found and it turned out that he was a fierce nationalist who was using charm and world peace rhetoric to get out from under german economic and military restrictions.
>>43889181
>What is it with these 'Germany won WWII' scenarios and having the US under occupation by the Nazis?
Because it's fun.
>>43889390
You're a fucking idiot. Socialism isn't defined as a command economy and "environmentalists and progressives" are not necessarily socialists.
Also why the fuck is this even in my /tg/?
Do people actually play games where their party of murder hobos makes a living as counter revolutionary liberal small business owners? That sounds boring as fuck.
>>43889404
So why didn't people realize this when he was still alive? Why did the majority of his fame come after he was dead? Why wouldn't most people even have heard of him if not one of the many movies adapted from his novels - not the novels themselves?
>>43884639
>PKD wasn't some genius science fiction writer
He absolutely was. He's probably the greatest American sci-fi author there's ever been.
>>43889626
He's had a great critical rep for years, long before his movies started to be made in big budget productions. Lem wrote that praise of him while he was still writing.
>>43889626
You do know that this was the case for MANY authors? Lovecraft being a example. Dick was a very influential writer but one who during his time of life was not very popular because 1. he was bat-shit insane 2. his works were bizarre and hard to understand. His works got more popular because a few authors stumbled upon them and started popularizing them. Most people dont know Dick from movies but from series such as X recommends or "classics of Sci-fi". Trust me, if you come upon ANY grope of people who like sci-fi, they will know PKD, and they will have known him for a while
>>43889512
Both Marx and Lenin supported war as the primary mode of advancing the workers' revolution. That's the whole point of The State and Revolution. Ownership (as opposed to management) of the means of production is a critical part of Marxist philosophy, but if you're basically anything other than a marxist then it's a distinction without a difference.
Fascism is a mutant outgrowth of Socialism. Under socialism, races, ethnicities, and nationalities are artificial distinctions created to divide and oppress the working class (the term is called False Consciousness, as opposed to the true recognition of Class Consciousness). To them, economic class identity is paramount; all classes remain in a permanent state of competition and exploitation.
Fascism substitutes racial consciousness for class consciousness. Otherwise, the theory remains very similar. Mussolini's fascists and Germany's Nazis considered themselves to be socialists. Their rhetoric and policies were virtually identical. In practice, fascists often created pan-national alliances for mutual support, and communists to this day appeal to racial and nationalistic identity.
The real issue between the fascists and communists was this: who would control the World Revolution? The soviets argued that it should be controlled centrally by the COMINTERN (and therefore by Stalin). The fascists wanted an excuse to run their own revolutions independently, and not to be an arm of the Cheka.
Much like Catholics and Protestants, Shiites and Sunnis, and Star Wars and Star Trek fans, these two groups fought bitterly after the schism over who would carry the banner of being the "real" world revolution, used heated rhetoric to describe one another, and insisted that "those other guys over there are NOTHING like us".
>>43889512
>>43889624
Of course i'm a retard and i belong to /pol/ and when i play i only do so ad a neo-nazi that murders jewish hobos and a lot of Other things that make sense to you people alone.
Why i even bother, i don't even know anymore.
>>43889689
>his works were bizarre and hard to understand.
Which goes back to my original point that he was great at coming up with concepts for stories, but wasn't so good in the execution of actually writing the darn things out.
>>43889626
Do you understand just how influential Dick has been on the genre, and how many authors regarded Dick as a great SF writer? Heinlein sent him money to keep writing even though their politics and personal attitudes couldn't have been more different. Lem thought he was the only period American writer worth reading (Dick though Lem was a Soviet spy ring trying to make contact with him), so many standout or unique authors of the genre - Alice Sheldon, for example - have had a high regard for Dick.
He did write to make a living and some of his stories are pure pulp, although often he inverts it too. His writing and plotting isn't always consistent, and he rarely introduces a woman to the story without describing her breasts in the next page. But he's a fucking SF great dude, one of the landmarks. I reject the idea his worldbuilding is awful too - he just subscribes more to the idea you hint or show the everyday rather than Tolkien's approach to mapping out everything.
>>43887495
Not true. Y'all should read the New Order plans the Nazis had for the whole world. Most of these were conceptual and fantastical, but a superpower controlling all of Eurasia could have made it happen in the distant future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)#Plans_for_other_parts_of_the_world_outside_Europe
>>43889695
One sane person on /TG/!
>>43882646
Germany and japan never had the combined naval capacity to launch a cross pacific/cross atlantic invasion. they just didnt have the transports or the supply ships to sustain such an operation,. at most they may have been able to put on shore a regiment or 2. then trying to keep them supplied....nightmare of epic proportions. even in the most worst case scenario it could have never happened.
>>43889731
Which works or stories specifically are we talking about here? His ending can be abrupt, but I rarely think of them as incomplete - Flow My Tears The Policeman Said, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Simulacra, The Penultimate Truth, etc. all have great finishes.
If anything I'd say the novels that do resolve more completely, like Dr. Bloodmoney, have the weaker endings.
>>43889734
>Do you understand just how influential Dick has been on the genre, and how many authors regarded Dick as a great SF writer?
I'm not denying that either. Yes, he was an influential author. But it's possible to be influential to others while not being very good at the craft yourself.
All I'm saying is that, yes, Dick has been a darn good inspiration to others and many movies that I thoroughly enjoy. But if you stuck a PKD novel in front of me, I'd ask if you had anything else to read.
>>43889512
/pol/ arguments go to /pol/ please. The grownups are talking.
>>43889526
So with the Bismarck strategy, you get free of Versailles. At least, the economic restrictions. Then, you slow the pace of your military expansion and increase the pace of your economic growth.
Defeating Britain requires closing the Atlantic. Germany entered the war with less than half of what even their own navy estimated they'd need. Plus they need more support ships (like those submersible "milk cow" supply ships) to project power far out enough to really hit hard.
Second, they needed the long-range air power to attrite the RAF out of existence. No distracting terror-bombings of London. The Germans continually take British understatement as a form of cowardice and think they can be intimidated into submission. This has NEVER worked.
Finally, you live with American interference. Of course Roosevelt is trying to drag his country into the war. But the gains you get from being permitted to attack the Americans directly (how?) will never match the price you pay in allowing America to take the gloves off. Pearl Harbor was a gift to FDR in that it put the USA solidly into the Allied camp. Japan arguably was being slowly strangled by American policy... but this was not fatal to them, it wasn't affecting Germany at all, and attacking America didn't even help Japan.
>>43889800
But he was good at the craft. Like what do you actually consider bad about his writing? Do you want to give an example, because I would agree some of his stories are bad but I cannot fathom how you could call him not a good SF writer overall.
The idea you would read literally anything else over PKD is insane. Who are your favourite genre fiction authors? What are you looking for when you pick up a SF book? I mean do you like Lem, Sheldon, who?
>>43889695
You are confusing communism and socialism.
1. Revolution through war. This is only partly true, Marx and Lenin belived in a global revolution, a process in which the working class would overthrow the ruling class, but most socialist and communists rejected international war as a means to anything, over the years many socialists rejected even the notion of revolution.
2. Fascism is not a outgrowth of socialism, it is a ideology that took a few aspects of socialism and integrated it into a nationalistic state (well at least Italian and German variants did, there is a lot of types of fascism) The ideology removed internationalism, worker owned business, non-authority based society AND the idea of class (replacing it with state or race). Fascism cant really be called socialism because it removes most of the ideas that, well make socialism socialism. Also both Fascist and Nazis did not have the concept of a revolution, the only thing close to this is Mussolini's idea of "eternal war", but it was a war between counters not classes, and there would be no "end goal" to it.
>>43889011
>the New Deal actually lengthened the depression
Good point. Entry into WW2 is what revived the American economy.
>>43889824
I'm also not trying to be too aggro here, I'm just trying to find out more about why you have your opinion and your opinion itself.
There are writers who are very popularly regarded that I'd go to the wall to insist are overratedCormac McCarthy, for exampleso I'm not like trying to say your opinion is flat out bad. I just want to understand the reasons for it.
>>43889766
Mainly the ones that got adapted into films. I tried to read them after enjoying the films. If there's one thing I have to credit PKD for, it's making me realize that every so often a movie adaptation turns out to be superior to the original novel.
>I'm not trying to defend Hitler mind there is still the whole genocide thing, but its pure Americanism that wants to imagine we were Hitler's mortal enemy. No, that would be England and France.
Well yeah. The whole point is that "Occupied America" makes a neat setting for Americans, with a clear distinction between good guys and bad guys. That's why Red Dawn was so popular.
>>43889731
Bizzare dose not mean bad. His work were comvoluted with time travle, gods, ideas above men and such but both his craft and his world building most of the time were top-notch. He tended to focus on the perspective of regular people, and only hint on how the world really looks, but if you pay attention you will see that his worlds are very fleshed out. Just look at Ubik or galactic pot healer. Just because the worlds were so wierd dose not mean they were poorly writen
>>43889865
Well, film and novels are kind of impossible to compare and which one you take more from will be influenced by what you see first and what strikes you about each. I rate Minority Report the film above Minority Report the short story, but I'd hold the text superior in pretty much every other adaptation (but Bladerunner is a hard call because of the original elements it introduces and the original elements it loses).
>>43889824
>The idea you would read literally anything else over PKD is insane.
Holy moly, tone down the hero worship my man. I'm not too proud to admit that I could very well be a philistine. For example, I loved The Hobbit (the novel) but the LOTR was a fucking slog to get through. I get shit tossed in my direction for ever daring to propose that Tolkien was anything else than a demi-god author.
>Who are your favourite genre fiction authors?
I don't have favorite authors, I have favorite books.
>What are you looking for when you pick up a SF book?
To be entertained. I don't feel like writing out an essay on my personal likes in fiction on an imageboard, so I'll just sum it up by saying: STUFF has to HAPPEN. A common pitfall many Sci-Fi authors fall in to is they dedicate reams of paper to either describing their world or how the technology or society ticks in their world, but nothing really HAPPENS in the PLOT.
>I mean do you like Lem, Sheldon, who?
Again: I like (or dislike) specific stories. I don't worship any particular author (so I'll always give an author whose stories I haven't been liking another shot). Although, I might show up to their panel at a sci-fi con I happen to be attending.
>>43882663
It's some time ago that I read the book but didn't they win because of the atom bomb? They're getting around continents with flying rockets in the book and it's hinted that they have a shitload of technology. On the other hand television is really primitive
>>43889900
>Bizzare dose not mean bad.
I didn't mean to imply bizarre equals bad. In fact, the bizarness is exactly what I was referring to when I complimented Dick on his ability to come up with these fantastic concepts for stories.
>>43889914
>Minority Report the film above Minority Report the short story
Thouse two have nothing in common and the movie is a desecration of the short story. Someone read the story, did not understeand the concept, and made a action movie with a happy end out of a really depresing 20 pages
>>43889929
To explain the parsing of that: you said you would ask for anything else over Dick. I'm not saying there's nothing better to read than Philip K. Dick, but that level of outright rejection is something I have to disagree with.
I'm not a huge Tolkien fan either (M. John Harrison > Tolkien for style of fantasy, William Morris > Tolkien for Tolkienian style of fantasy).
>I don't have favorite authors, I have favorite books.
I don't get this. There are authors you know are always going to deliver, or have assessed on the reading of all of their published works. Like I can say Borges and Sybille Bedford are two of my favourite authors unabashedly and I don't see any reason why that's a bad assessment? But that aside, the obvious response is to give some of your favourite books, dude.
>STUFF has to HAPPEN
Stuff happens in loads of PKD novels though. No more happens in Blade Runner or A Scanner Darkly as a film than happens in it as a book, and you can look at plots like The Penultimate Truth or Dr. Bloodmoney or The Simulacra where he go through an entire apocalypse and/or government coup. Do you feel Dick describes technology or the world independently of people's perspectives too much? I'd say he barely describes it at all beyond what's necessary.
I do not get how anyone can read like
>http://www.philipkdickfans.com/literary-criticism/rautaavaras-case/
And be all 'oh yeah this dude is a bad SF author'
>>43889957
I'd say that's pretty accurate apart from desecration. I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the short story, which I think is one of the most unimpressive ones he wrote. Considering one as dependent on the other is a choice you make.
>>43890040
Unfortunately I'm getting hungry so I won't be continuing this conversation for much longer. But you seem pretty determined to convince me PKD is actually a good author. Okay, fine: I did say I'll always give an author a second (or third, or even fourth) chance because I don't really look at track record so much as the individual story itself. So I'll read the story you linked while I eat and get back to you.
It won't be quick, though. I skipped breakfast so I'll be preparing myself a bigger lunch.
>>43889804
OK now the Persian strategy. Invented by Cyrus the Great, it worked then and it would have worked in WW2. The idea is to be terrifying and unstoppable, but then once conquered turn out to be not so bad... at first.
How did Hitler take control of Germany? By being both not as bad as his detractors claimed, and far, far worse. He'd have been smarter to have applied this to his diplomacy.
What I mean is this. Germany conquers Western Europe on schedule, and more or less just as brutally. The major economic power in the nazi portfolio was France, and while it's not widely known, the French resistance was never as aggressive as other occupied nationalities like the Serbs or the Dutch. The French officials were pretty cooperative.
Where the Nazis change tactics is against Russia. Ideally, of course, they find a way to finish off Britain BEFORE attacking the USSR, and attack the USSR before Stalin is ready to attack them (est. about a year or two later).
But even without that, remember that the Russians (and other nationalities under communist rule) had just experienced 20 years of absolutely brutal oppression from their own leaders. Had the Nazis come marching in as liberators, and been initially friendly or at least not so overtly cruel, the Russians would probably have allowed the war to go against them via defections and desertions. The Nazis would have had to have packaged Barbarossa as a way to liberate Russia from the communists and return it to local Russian fascist rule, promising an independent Russia.
Believable? No, of course not. But neither was Stalin's propaganda. If backed up by rumors that the Nazis really weren't as bad as they'd been hearing, it would have worked. The race baiting wouldn't have bothered them. Russians have always been MORE driven by racial politics than Germans, even under communism.
>>43890085
I'm just wanting to argue out the opinion. It's difficult because it could absolutely just be a matter of taste in which case, you know, whatever. But I obviously don't know your taste.
>>43889849
So basically you accept the fact that Mussolini accepted everything in socialism except for the fact that classes are more important than nationalities.
Coherent with this view, he reached a deal with some industries and bankrupted others, fostering a crony capitalist economy that de facto ran on comand principles.
You also accept the fact that Communism wanted either total war until the world socialist state was realized (Trotsky) or "socialism in one nation" before espanding (Stalin) while socialism wants to reach the socialist state through slow reform (in particular the Fabians).
Coherent with this view, they make deals with certain enterprises and bankrupt others.
So how do you call someone that slowly reforms his nation away from free market through Crony capitalist means?
>>43888321
Please, that's what the French do whenever the government proposes anything. If anything, it's better, because the car's not on fire.
>>43889849
Both your points confuse socialist PR, with socialist theory as used by actual socialists and as practiced by socialist revolutionary movements and governments. Lenin's point in TSaR is that revolution must necessarily be advanced by war, and convincingly argues that this is intrinsic not just to Bolshevism but to Marxism from the word go. Lenin also believed that, as a tactical matter, anti-war positions were a useful tool in Communism's rhetorical toolbox.
> The ideology removed internationalism,
True, though as I said in practice fascist groups tend to ally with one another even across national/racial lines, and communist groups to this day employ race-based appeals both as selling strategies and as governing policies.
> worker-owned business,
Like I said, marxists are the only people who consider ownership to be the central political truth. Nearly everyone else considers management and control to be the essential point in economics. And, oh by the way, while nazis did privatize a few companies (handing them to party control via proxies), they nationalized entire industries. Nearly the whole economy.
> non-authority based society
Even socialists don't believe in that, except as a long-range ideal that someday might emerge naturally. Indeed, marx's whole point is founded in raw force. If people were left to make their own decisions, that would be a free market. Coordination without a market requires central planning, which in turn requires the application of power (via force) to compel people to make different economic decisions than they would have on their own.
As a practical matter, socialist countries employ vast amounts of force. Lenin and Stalin administered their country in much the same way as Hitler and Mussolini. They are totalitarian because both ideologies share the sense that all economic and personal activity must bend towards collective interest. How you draw the borders of those collectives is the only point of distinction.
>>43890117
The essential point of the Persian strategy is that it expands on the Nazi belief (probably correct) that if they can eliminate the central government of the USSR that the whole thing will fall into their hands. The idea is to act like friendly, beneficial liberators. Announce a Russian national government. Insist that Nazi intentions are sweet. Trump up some girl as "Anastasia Romanov", the new Czarina of a constitutional monarchy.
The essential goal is twofold. Either take Moscow and let the government come crashing down, or allow Stalin's henchmen to eliminate him in a coup, promising them a place of power in the Czarina's government.
It took the Bolsheviks years to defeat the White Russians, and later non-Bolshevik communist groups like the Mensheviks and Left SR. Be patient. Let the Czarina's government reign while the SS purges the communists (and replaces them with "temporary" German governors).
The trick is to keep up the charade for a long time, ratcheting up their control over your captives gradually, much as Hitler did. Hell, much like the Communists did. Win first, clamp down later.
The problem with this plan is twofold. First, it doesn't fit the Nazi or German character. The Germans simply weren't all that sneaky. They could glory in a Big Lie, but not a small, subtle, long-range one. Their intelligence services were a joke. They loved big, bold, loud-and-proud strokes.
Second, it doesn't fit Nazi ideology. The Nazis saw this whole thing as a vast racial conflict, which would result in enslaving the subhuman slavs. And they couldn't shut their yaps about it. Being nice even as a cruel deception operation was utterly foreign to their nature, and felt like an admission that they weren't superior if they needed to resort to sneaky ploys.
Arguably, lend-lease saved the Soviets. But I don't think there's any question that A) Stalin planned on attacking the Nazis eventually, and B) the war was won or lost on the Eastern front.
>>43889363
>the Clousseau strategy
Of all these strategies, this is the most likely to produce a "nazis win WW2" story. And it's the one most commonly used. This is where the Nazis avoid some of their more obvious mistakes, without a wholesale change in strategy as I recommended above, but that the Allies make a series of mistakes that results in a nazi victory.
PKD's idea was "Republicans win the white house = nazi victory". He doesn't quite come out and say that, but it's there. You heard much the same after 9/11 about a hypothetical Gore presidency causing mass chaos and devastation as the enemy wins. Neither theory is terribly plausible. America is used to Indispensable Man theories, though, because we're used to them. The revolution was very, very close. Without George Washington we might well have lost. The ACW was triggered by, but also won by, the election of Abraham Lincoln. What if John Fremont had been elected in 1856 instead?
But a president more sympathetic to Fascism, or less clever about opposing them, might have kept America out of the war for longer. Or limited the help we provided to the British before that.
To me, a much more indispensable man was Winston Churchill. There was a very strong case to be made that Britain should conclude an armistice with the Germans, to buy time to re-arm. It was the wrong move, but very nearly happened. Had Britain dropped out of the war, Germany would have had precious time to consolidate and digest their conquests. At that point, it's much harder to jump back into the war later. And don't forget that Germany is re-arming too.
Similarly, the Germans made it all the way to the outskirts of Moscow. What if they'd encircled the city and eliminated Stalin? What if Stalin had died trying to escape? What if one of his flunkies had used the opportunity to stage a coup? Stalin had engineered the Soviet system to revolve entirely around him. The scramble to replace him would have bought the Germans precious time.
>>43890705
quick quastion, what scale are of "winning the war" are we talking? Europe, Europe +asia or the world?
>>43890705
So basically, the idea is to accumulate a series of small breaks in the Nazis favor that add up to a victory.
In the GURPS Reich-5 history, FDR is assassinated. His successors of both parties fail to support Britain, which then falls to the Nazis. This eventually leads to pro-fascist elements in the USA taking power. As a civil war ensues, the Nazis provide more and more assistance, eventually nuking major US cities and occupying the country.
Decades later, the American resistance stages an uprising. (John F. Kennedy is the nazi puppet governor of Massachusetts, but secretly supports the Resistance. IMO a good person to have as another resistance leader is Barry Goldwater) The uprising is long and bloody... and the resistance loses. This allows the Nazis to tighten their grip still further, exterminating Jews and deporting blacks to slave plantations in Africa. Eventually, German vs Japan superpower struggles cause Germany to build America back up and grant her independence, but it's still very much an impoverished, nazi-dominated client state. Kind of like China was in the real life cold war.
It's a classic Clousseau plot. And like most such (american) treatments, it downplays the importance of Churchill and the Eastern Front, but strongly plays up FDR as the Indispensable Man.
>>43890873
Honestly, that depends. IMO a Nazi victory for WW2 would have been defeat and occupation of Continental Europe. The rest is optional.
A major Nazi victory would include occupation of Britain, but that's neither realistic nor necessary. However, a Britain that signs an armistice and abandons the fight, even temporarily, would be perfectly consistent with a Nazi win.
The Soviet Union must be defeated for the Nazis to have won WW2. Period. Otherwise, Stalin would have had time to build up, attack, and liberate Europe all by himself. In 1941, he didn't have the power to do that, but by 1943 he certainly would have. Demographics and economics matter-- and while both were hobbled by similar economic systems, the German conquered nations would have been an albatross around their necks until their grip tightened enough-- something that would have taken years.
Conquering the British empire, or the United States, was sheer fantasy. Not going to happen by any stretch of the imagination. But also not necessary to a German victory.
After a pause to rearm and consolidate, they could have grabbed the middle east (for the oil and opportunity to exterminate the vast population of arab jews). Then a massive naval buildup to control the Atlantic, even as Japan controls the Pacific. But that's long AFTER WW2 ends.
Germany's only chance is fighting the whole war the way they fought the early war: by stringing together a series of smaller conflicts where they have the advantage and where the rest of the world remains neutral. They simply didn't have the logistics or manpower to fight the whole world at once as they tried to.
Of course, if you're not a nazi but ARE a german nationalist, the best move is to follow Bismarck's strategy and not fight WW1 or WW2 at all. Germany already had everything it needed to become a global superpower... fighting those wars castrated it.
>>43891107
Dose this take into account the liberation movment in countrys such as france, Greece and poland? After if for example operation storm (operacja burza for thouse that want to look into it) was done right Germany would be bordering a hostile country which could be in turn reinforced with Anders's army and such
>>43882646
Here.
>>43891282
Well... it depends.
Really when we're talking about industrial might, we're talking about France. Subdue that and get them producing for the Reich, and much of the work is done. The Czechs, too.
But Poland and other eastern european powers weren't really necessary except as territories to occupy and people to enslave to augment the German industrial machine. They weren't industrial powers in and of themselves at that point.
So really we're talking about defeating French insurgency. And the effectiveness and willingness to fight of the french partisans is wildly overplayed compared to other countries like the Dutch and Serbs. Time and a sense that Britain is not coming to rescue them could have caused them to acquiesce to occupation. Given 5-10 years, the cost of occupation starts to be counterbalanced by the augmented economic power you get from the conquered countries.
So basically, I wouldn't be so aggressive about extinguishing all resistance in the East. Was Serbia giving the germans anything that justified wasting 19 divisions to occupy them? With Russia defeated and the war over, you could just let the pot simmer and focus your efforts on assimilating the western european conquests instead.
Incidentally, this is why FDR and Churchill were so aggressive against the nazis from the beginning. The peaceniks who weren't sympathetic to the nazis or communists felt that time gave them the opportunity to re-arm. But FDR and Churchill understood that time gave the Nazis time to augment their power as well. They realized that waiting made the danger greater, not less.
>>43891837
To me, the GURPS approach is the least unrealistic. If you want an alternate timeline where the Nazis conquer America, the only realistic scenario involves them intervening in a domestic civil war.
>>43882663
>disgusted by the politics impost on postwar Europe, General Patton leads a coup against the US government
>>43882646
You should try America in Flames; it's not a "Axis win the war" but it is the Axis invasion of North America.
>>43892548
good gods, WW3 right after 2?
>>43882663
Invent and produce the atom bomb first.
"magic"
>>43892548
Not gonna lie, i'm glad that he died like a bitch.
>>43892971
>krauts building a bomb
>not magic
>>43893017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapon_project
Actually, nearly happened.
...and ICBM's were only possible, thanks to Germans.
>>43893061
They never reached the point the Americans were at in 1942, it did not "nearly happen"
>>43889011
>Many modern economists now believe that the New Deal actually lengthened the depression. Whichever side you believe, the numbers simply don't support the idea that the Depression ended prior to WW2.
>Many modern crackpots
Yeah, no they don't. Any economist trying to make that argument is an idiot.
If you argue that the new deal didn't do anything to end the depression, WW2 couldn't either, both of them are simply massive state spending sprees. Saying "the new deal didn't end the depression, WW2 did" is simply admitting the new deal wasn't nearly socialist enough.
>>43889736
>Hitler's plans for North America
>Nazis considered the Sioux, and by extension all Native Americans to be Aryans,[87] a theory echoed in the sympathetic portrayal of the Natives in German westerns of the 1930s such as Der Kaiser von Kalifornien. Nazi propagandists went as far as declaring that Germany would return expropriated land to the Indians, while Goebbels predicted they possessed little loyalty to America and would rather rebel than to fight against Germany
>Germany allies with natives in North America and uses them to oppress white people
>Irony ensues.
>Hitler is alive in the show
>>43895086
It is true that the Nazi war machine was hindered by the fact that Hitler was, in military matters, a gifted amateur at best and general failure at worst. But without him, the whole Nazi regiment will change because Hitler was the embodiment of that whole regiment. Without Hitler the unstable balance in Germany between the Nazi Party, Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht would probably collapse, unless some very charismatic, intelligent and lucky individual will replace him as the new Leader.
>>43883602
There is, as a matter of fact.
Came here to post America in Flames, from the guys who did World in Flames.Granted, I only know about that series because of my dad but still.
>>43885590
You forget that the germans lacked a good source of uranium. A very large part of why the Manhattan project was successful was access to Canada. They acquired ore that was in the order of 40% pure uranium, which is by orders of magnitude purer than any other known deposit on earth and made the enrichment process actually work with the technology they had in a reasonable time frame.
>>43895833
>>43892566
>America in Flames
Samefag, stop samefagging.
>>43896126
Nope, just skimmed the thread.
>>43889011
>Republicans don't like to remember this, but the anti-war movement, especially among northeastern Christians, was a very strong *republican* phenomenon. A legacy of World War I. And it was so popular that it kept them out of the war until actually attacked by Japan.
What? Well a few things, firstly the Republican Party were origininaly very socialist leaning, and were founded as a party to promote the rights of workers and safeguard them. So yes they would be more heavily anti-war,and it isn't necessarily a bad thing, But the biggest issue was not only the anti war but the anti communists, pro fascists, and anti semites all together made up a large portion of the population because it is pulling from four different groups that granted will have some overlap but, it is still a lot bigger then the antiwar christians.
>>43892923
Patton was bugfuck nuts.
>>43892971
And how, pray tell, would they deliver it? And what would they do, nuke one city and win? Even if they blew a couple of American cities off of the map, the Americans would have gotten really pissed, went total war the way they did IRL, and then fucked the Nazis silly. There was literally no way in which the Germans could have won WW2.
>>43892923
Operation unthinkable, if Truman had been on board with it it would have been interesting to see the result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
>>43896853
Patton in flames!
>>43882730
>First off its phillip k dick who wrote it and the guy knows his stuff.
Actually, he didn't. When he originally wrote the book, most war time documents were classifed so it was assumed that it was a pretty close run event.
It wasn't until decades later once these documents started being declassfied that people found out how uneven the whole affair was.
>>43897251Shhh! People will stop glorify WWII if they realise that we were never in any real danger.
>>43897298
That depends on who you define as We
Americans? Yeah the Japanese and the Nazis could not have posed a serious threat in world war 2 even if Stalin had gotten his alliance with Hitler somehow there was just no way in the frame of ww2 for the US to have fallen, now if you are speaking from the perspective of europeans, then well the threat was very real, if the German Paratroopers hadn't gotten mostly killed and scared hitler from any more solely paradrop operations, you could have seen Germans paradroping into Ireland and encouraging the country to punch the brits in the face.
>>43897623
Still, sending americans to die because europeans were killing themselves over stupid shit was a bad decision.
>>43883600
Not true at all. The Soviets and British were only kept afloat by the MASSIVE amount of foreign aid from America. Without that they couldn't have come back from Barbarossa, even with winter helping out. Can't fight frostbitten Germans if you can't move troops to the front.
>>43897623
As long as the US chose to start the LendLease program (and why wouldn't they? It was a massive economic boom for them), then the Nazi's could not beat the USSR or the UK.
The German's best chance was a lightning victory in Europe. They did not have the resources to conquer England and were out matched in both resolve (you fight harder when you're fighting for your home) and technology (radar).
The Americans joining the war just made it finish earlier and prevented Europe from being painted red with Soviets.
>>43889181
>Germany didn't even have enough naval power to have a good shot at landing troops in fucking England, let alone the US.
I really like the idea of the Germans invading American on river barges.
>>43897801
Germans didn't need to conquer England to win, they just needed to pacify them enough to accept a peace that will make them the last hold out nation against fascism in Europe.
Because yes conquesting england would have been about as stupid as attempting to conquest mainland Japan, or Mainland USA the people were still in the war spirit and would have resisted enmasse, Ireland probably being the only exception, which is why the Germans best chance to eat at British resolve would be to take northern Ireland from them, it would force the British to have a much more pressing concern then the Germans across the channel as well.
But yeah the Germans could not have starved, conquested, or murdered everyone in England in ww2, it would have taken pacification, which also means removing Churchill because there is no way he would accept that and he had the support of the people on the home front.
>>43893061
>that comic
I'm normally a big defence of what's his face he's just coming across as smug ass.
We know that the hunts gave us rockets. What's his point? It's all tainted tech and we should be ashamed of it?
>>43897979
Yes and the second the UK people said no to pacification, that was the end of it. From Hitler's perspective, they needed that moral victory of beating Britain as it both absolved the German people from Versaille and it legitimised their claims in Europe.
How would a peace accord even be reached in Europe? I can't imagine the US or the UK would accept German hegemony in most of Europe. It was the end of Empires in the 40s, Hitler still thought he was Charlemagne
Also, landing troops in Ireland was never feasible. With radar, the Brits knew exactly where German planes were at anytime. It would've been a disaster.
>>43898116
I think that the point is "all his comics including a hat are shit".
>>43898116
Yes. Just like how if you're a proud German you should never, ever make use of "Jewish physics".
>>43898382
And how white people should stick to their lame music and don't taint blues.
>>43898118
True Radar stations would have made any attempt at it very costly still could have done it but the cost would not be worth the gain.
And a peace accord would have required the Nazis able to blockade the UK from her supplies and her colonies, but that just was not going to happen, not enough men or resources to beat the Royal Navy at the time.
>>43898495
>True Radar stations would have made any attempt at it very costly still could have done it but the cost would not be worth the gain.
>And a peace accord would have required the Nazis able to blockade the UK from her supplies and her colonies, but that just was not going to happen, not enough men or resources to beat the Royal Navy at the time.
This is what I mean. I love a bit of history wank, it's fun but people need to move away from this idea that Germany was this unstoppable juggernaut.
They had some early victories as everyone was expecting to fighting WWI V2 but then after the initial punch, they were drained.
Furthermore, the war was massively one sided. Axis was made up of 9 countries and most of those countries were tiny, non-important nations. The allies were practically everyone else. So all of the Americas, most of Asia and most of Africa
>>43893487
They had a working nuclear reactor. They had enriched uranium. They had models for the bomb.
If you read Charles Frank's book on the subject, the nay say of one man, and one signed document, was all that stood between Germany in the Bomb, in 1939. Hell, if that paper had so much as got lost in filing...
Imagine if instead of a V2 rocket loaded with explosives landing in London, it had been an atomic bomb.
Would have been an entirely different war.
If not for one skeptical nazi (specifically Kurt Diebner), we might all be speaking German today.
>>43892971
Sauce?
>>43898804
Their research on the bomb was using enriched uranium gas, as seen by what they tried to send to Japan, it was on the wrong line of research to make a bomb.
>>43898842
No Game, No Life.
Great, if you wanted to see Yugio with wincest, I suppose.
>>43898804
>They had a working nuclear reactor.
No they didn't. Heisenberg lamented that they never got a self-sustaining reaction going. You think he somehow didn't know if they had one?
>They had models for the bomb.
Wrong ones. They thought it would take nearly a metric ton to get a fission reaction going.
>Imagine if instead of a V2 rocket loaded with explosives landing in London, it had been an atomic bomb.
Considering a V-2's max payload is insufficient to carry something like the Little Boy, it couldn't have happened.
>If not for one skeptical nazi (specifically Kurt Diebner), we might all be speaking German today.
You're an idiot. Even if the theoretical problems had been solved, you still have manufacture: Germany doesn't have access to lots of uranium to produce bombs in industrial quantities.
And you do need to produce them in industrial quantities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki as cities weren't completely destroyed by single nuclear strikes, the bombings were "only" about as powerful as a 600 wing B-24/29 strikes. The Allies did that repeatedly at Germany who didn't throw in the towel; a few nukes here and there aren't going to change the outcome of the war.
>>43898854
One of nine separate projects.
We didn't pull operation paperclip and anslo because we were bored.
If not for the brain drain caused by some indiscriminate drafting, and a few skeptics at the top, could have very easily gone the other way. ...and if we'd done the same here, and we nearly did, we wouldn't have been the first with the bomb either. And some of their projects, unlike ours, started in the 20's.
...and if there was anything WWII Germany was absolutely amazing at, it was pulling together a whole lotta top notch cutting edge hardware, on short order, from nothing.
Granted, short of that, or like Dick's dick move, an entirely different history leading up to the war, Germany didn't stand a chance. One nation moving out of destitution to take on the world can only last for so long.
But it's not a very large a step to the left for that particular time warp.
>>43899406
Operation paperclip didn't help the nuclear program?
And honestly having nine diffrent nuclear programs shows they had no idea wtf they were doing if that is even true I have never heard any inane shit like that, but the general rule of thumb from my understanding if it would have taken years to do it was deemed to take too long to actualy make a diffrence in the war, and making a nuclear bomb when they don't even have the basics behind it would have taken years, not to mention most the places they could actually enrich uranium were already being constantly bombed to oblivion regularly.
>>43899406
>Top Notch Cutting Edge Hardware.
Like the slanted armor on a tiger? Oh wait... that was the IS-2 with slanted armor the Tiger still used inferior flat armor
Or what about those amazing interceptor planes that could only fly once straight up into the air...
These are amazing ideas guys and not a total waste of resources.
Oh or lets not forget the Maus, or any of the other Super Tanks that they tried to develop even as they were actively losing the war, you know the same tanks that would have been bombed into oblivion.
Germany had some impressive tech but so did other nations. The US BAR which had been around since before ww1 mind you. The P-51, the B-52, Radar, Depth Charges, Slanted Armor, PIAT, Rocket AT, the list goes on, there were a lot of new things developed in the time around ww2 the germans were not some magical super inventors everyone had their own advantages in tech, because the US, the Brits, and the Russians were all competing fiercely before the war, when the three of them came together it amounted for a lot more then germany alone.
>>43899406
>We didn't pull operation paperclip
We also didn't pull Paperclip until after the trinity test. That should tell you about something.
Now, I'll grant you rocketry, but if you think that we got atomic secrets out of paperclip, you're simply wrong. The nuclear scientists were grabbed mostly to keep them away from the Soviets, not because we needed their help.
>>43892981
Legit lols. I bet you think the islamic state can be reasoned with, too.
On topic, the only way the Nazis win WWII in any capacity is if The US and Russia never get involved on the allied side.
For the US to not be involved, there's a lot of things you could do...but the majority those all have to be PRE-war. If your history stays the same right up until the start of the war, the kinds of things that would need to go down for the US to not be involved in any way (and remember, war is very profitable for an industrialized nation with no direct involvement). The Japanese or the the Germans invading and occupying that historical copy of pre-war US is just right-out.
Not having Russia get involved is probably as simple as Hitler not going full-retard and breaking their treaty.
>>43900325
>Not having Russia get involved is probably as simple as Hitler not going full-retard and breaking their treaty.
Stalin was plotting to invade Germany. He knew that Hitler would eventually start a war with him, hence why they were already moving their factories beyond the Ural's before Barbarossa.
They were ideological opposites and eventually the two states would butt heads.
>>43901339
Are there any indications of *when* Stalin would have invaded if Germany hadn't?
>>43901339
No that is post war propaganda they found the microfilms of Stalins attempts to ally hitler. It is something some russians deny to this day because it makes the great patriotic war look a hell of a lot less heroic.
>>43899889
The U.S. and Soviet Union also had considerable production capability, with the U.S. having the ability to make considerable amounts of very solid stuff.
Like how the infantry was "Everyone has a fucking Semi automatic rifle", and there was also a considerable train of artillery support, and just a stupid number of planes and tanks and ships.
On two fronts.
Granted, one was Japan and Japan was decidedly second rate, but still.
In spite of some real issues they also had pretty decent equipment in some places and were like the opposite of Italy in terms of morale, despite the relative shittiness or inadequacy of some of the stuff they had.
Some of their naval assets were arguably quite good, even.
That, and how the U.S. was also supplying a lot of stuff to it's allies before, during, and after WW2. Russia needed what it could get desperately to cover the gaps, and Britain used a lot of U.S. shit through the entire war. Them and Canada.
