Talk:Settling Accounts: In at the Death

Post-War

Well... what do think will be the major elements at the end of the war?

I think he could be setting up a Cold War environment. He's always been dropping hints about US vs Germany... He could build that into a tripolar world with Germany, Japan, and USA...

- Japan & France & UK, with the Japanese Asia-Pacific Empire, and sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asian subcontinent.

- Germany & Austro-Hungary & Turkey, with Turkey gobbling up the Middle East, Austro-Hungary taking Italy and North Africa, and Germany taking the Russian Empire bits that Japan didn't gobble.

- USA, with what remains of China, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, some bits of South America, all of North America, by gobbling up Alaska, Greenland, various European controlled islands in the Carribean and Atlantic, the Falklands, Guyana.

Lets also not forget that the US will probably topple the "Mexican Emperor" and set up a republic, like the one in Quebec. (If Turtledove goes so far as to mention what happens to the Empire of Mexico.)

I think, however, that the author is wrong about the atom bomb, like Germany in our timeline, I think the Confederates will capitulate before the bomb is ready. I believe that if Turtledove continues this atomic plotline, it will be dropped on a much stronger Japan, which will free up Pacific resources.

The REAL interesting question is what about imperial Germany? Turtledove has hinted that Germany is a much more tolerant place in his time-line then it was in ours. I believe one character even mentioned how "all the jewish scientists work for the Germans." If this is true, that means Einstein never immigrates and could be working on a German bomb. If Turtledove is going to be consistant with his analogies, then I predict that the Germans will drop the atomic bomb on London towards the end of this book, setting up a German-US cold war.

what will happen to frace and the uk when they loose? france and uk will loose more land or will germany be more lesant.

Personally, I think the first atomic bomb is going to be Germany droping it against some target in England, maybe London, Manchester, or York. Of course Einstein is in Germany in this timeline, in orignial timeline he was visting the US when the Nazis took over Germany and made the prudent choice of staying here. Post War in this timeline I think your looking at a Japan vs US coldwar especally because the Japanese appear to be trying to honorly stop fighting with the US. (US landing on Midway and Wake Island and finding no Japs.) UK is non contigous with Germany and already post WW I, a pupet state of Ireland was set up which would be revived so it's primarily looking at economic penalties. France is looking like it could lose a bit more territory, face economic penalties, and have German troops "De-action-ing" it. Jon 01:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

As for myself: details are sketchy, but the impression I got was that the Tsarist Russian empire is basically a bunch of pushovers that never really recovered from their civil war. The Germans are holding their own in Europe, and were never under serious threat of actual defeat; the big point of the European front is that neither the Confederates or the USA have allies in Europe who can send help to them as in the Second Mexican War, and they're on their own. The Germans *do* have most of their nuclear physicists. Japan meanwhile...no one is seriously trying to stop. The USA is fighting for its survival and Japan realized it would be difficult to beat, so for the moment set out to take Malaysia and the British possessions; the entire reason the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor was because they wanted the USA to stop protesting their invasion of Southeast Asia with sanctions. In TL-191, the US is basically already saying "we're so busy with the Confederacy, you can keep Asia for all we care, just leave our Sandwich Islands alone". Although he doesn't focus on it, they're really setting up Japan as a future superpower. Will the more militarized USA of TL-191 do better against them? Dunno; the Mormon problem might never go away, and occupying/forcibly Reconstructing the Confederacy might eat up a lot of manpower. The good news is that beating up on the Confederacy means taking Mexico and Cuba as well, plus they've already got Quebec, and Canada has some rebel problems but that shouldn't turn out to be too serious. Basically, the war is going to end with the entire North American continent plus the Caribbean as the USA's personal playground...but it will take decades to properly secure it. Meanwhile, will Japan take Australia? That's not certain. I seriously doubt France or Britain will long survive the war and Russia is already more than half dead. And what of India? If Britian loses they'll side with Germany and the USA. Long story short: the Confederates WILL NOT get the bomb. They were already blatantly far behind even the USA, and with the strike on their nuclear physicists, its a lost cause. The question is if the USA will get the bomb quick enough to do any serious damage. Richmond is already shot to pieces. Bombing New Orleans would rob them of a major port. They might want to drop the big on on Atlanta instead of marching the troops in, but at the rate things are going I think Morell will outpace them. Frankly, I think it's down to the psychological blows of Columbia or Charleston, South Carolina to hit where the Confederacy started (Charleston for Sumter, Columbia the first statehouse to secede). As for the Germans...again, you don't bomb the enemy's capital with a nuke; 1-you need someone left to surrender 2-by that point in the war you've already heavily bombed your enemies capital. You use a nuke on a relatively undamaged city for maximum damage. Japan was playing the Entente and Central Power off against each other. Well, I'm not sure; but I seriously doubt "In at the Death" will be the very last TL-191 novel. -Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici 19:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

On the Mormon troubles, it appears that the plan is to exile them all to one of the Sandwitch islands, one of the militarily insignificant ones (some island other than Oahu) based on the very influencial congresswoman. This will effectively end their threat. (The US military bases in Oahu would need to be on tight security post war to prevent espiosage from the Japs.) On possible US targets in the CS to nuke, Atlanta is off the list, Morell's army is already in the area (just East if I recall corectly). What's not clear is if Morell is planning on using Original Timeline Sherman's burning of Altanta and march to the Sea to Savanah or if instead he's going to skip that and just march directly North East into the Carolinas. I hope the series continues. Jon 20:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, so far, Atlanta's been captured. Morell's continuing the March to the Sea, although he's also beefed up on expeditions into Alabama. It's been discovered that Huntsville's where the OTL V-1 rockets are produced, so that's taking a beating. The Mormons haven't even beem mentioned yet, 169 pages in.

What happened to Britain in the end ? Gashmak 13:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

i not to sure what happens to britian get nucked and then i think churchil get overthrowen birtian surrenders but does england continue to its ocupation of ireland? you don't realy get much info —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.246.25 (talk) 19:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's pretty safe to say that the terms of the peace treaty that Germany and the US will impose on the UK will be to end it's occupation of Ireland (including Ulster). Japan is also very likely to take Hong Kong and Singapore away from them (if it hasn't already). The Ottoman Empire also might want Egypt back (if they didn't get it back following the Great War; in our timeline the UK didn't offically declare it a protectate until the Ottoman Empire declared itself on the German side during WWI). The bigest wild card in the British Empire near future in TL 191 is India. Does the Indian population think it needs British protection from Japan or not? Jon 18:13, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Speculation Section

• On the Amphious landing idea; unlikely to take place on the North American contientant; it's much easier logistically to use the same land routes seen earlier in the series in the Great War.
• On the nuking of Conferderate cities; it's known that Einstein is still in Germany in this timeline and is probably working on the bomb for them. I see Germany as probably dropping it in two cities in the UK to avoid having to land troops directly in England.
• On the discovery of "population reducation camps"; that's actually more likely to first occur "In the Grapple".
• On the post cold war idea; I see it much more likely that it would be US vs Japan than US vs Germany; Japan's probably going to decide to stop fighting on their own when they see the writing on the wall for the rest of the Entrede, and escape because the US resources are much more geared toward fighting a land war than a naval one in this timeframe.

Jon 19:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

If there is a cold war, it will likely be between the US and the CS. The CSA has considered itself a separate country for 60 years now and so won't be easily folded into the USA. What could happen is that a lot of die-hards escape into Mexico and keep the Confederacy alive that way. This way, the CSA will be split into two, much like Germany was split between East and West. One thing that it's important to point out is that, in the real world, the world was divided between capitalism and communism. In the 191 timeline, democracy and socialism has only flourished in the United States. Because of this, if there were a cold war between the U.S. and Germany, it might be because of socialist democracy vs. imperial monarchy. If this were to happen, North America and Europe would be fighting a cold war with each other with Asia and Africa caught between them, much like Europe was caught between the US and the USSR in the real world. - 05 August 2006

Speculation shouldn't be here at all. --Stlemur 13:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You did notice this is a talk page and not an article page, didn't you? Idle speculation is rampant on talk pages... [unknown user]

At the time of Stlemur's posting here there was actually a speculation section written by another editor in the article itself. Not wishing to get into an edit war with them, I posted my response to it here in the talk section. Shortly thereafter, Stlemur cut the speculation from the article (correctly) and posted his comment. Jon 20:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Collpase of Austro-Hungaria

One thing is very clearly hinted at: though the German-Austrian alliance is headed to winning the war in Europe, Austro-Hungaria would still fall apart in the aftermath, and probably do so more in a far more messy and bloody way than in our liftime, more like the collapse of OTL Yugolsavia. Adam Keller 11:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Most of the Slavic uprisings in Austria-Hungry are likely getting funding by Russia; whenever Germany knocks Russia out of the war, it should go along way towards puting out those rebellions. Jon 16:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Atomic Bomb section

I think the article on Timeline's 191 World War II would be a much better place for this section than this article. Jon 21:51, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Sequels?

Is there information on sequels? At the end of the book, it seems to set up a multipolar cold war type world, with Japan, UK+France+Russia, US+Germay (or separately)... 132.205.44.5 22:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know, but I hope the USA puts the CSA through an alternate "Reconstruction" which beats them down and breaks their will, breaks them forever. I like the wry humor Turtledove interjected that they call it the "Freedom" Party; of course, no one THINKS they're "bad", and the States' Rights and Pro-slavery groups during OTL Civil War THOUGHT they were just new revolutionaries (admittedly, they weren't the ficional character Jake Featherston). Nonetheless, I keep thinking of the end of Drive to the East, where Pittsburg/Stalingrad is finally wiping out the CSA army, and two CSA soldiers are just going on about how it's about "Freedom" and their right to not have the US tell them what to do; dude, they wiped out the south's Blacks in an alternate holocaust, nerve-gassed thousands of people in Ohio, etc. etc. I'm glad that Charleston (were the secession started) wound up as ash floating around in the atmosphere.

I notice that Turtledove is not very good at providing even rough censuses, but I think it would be interesting to speculate on any similarities with World War II. Such as, for example, if 6 million Blacks were wiped out to parallel the 6 million figure often used for Jews (in our time line, the U.S. had about 12 million Blacks in 1940), and if there were mass expulsions of southern Indiana "hicks" and other British / Scotch-Irish stock from border regions into the former Confederacy to be replaced with Americans from more northern states, to parallel the expulsions of Germans from Poland, the Czech Republic, and the rest of Eastern Europe. -- BGManofID (talk) 21:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• There won't be anymore sequels to this series apparently. In At The Death is supposed to be the round up for this entire timeline. I mean even on the cover it say "The triumphant conclusion to Turtledove's masterpiece of alternate history." Personally, I'd like to see this series continued, I'm fascinated by the whole USA/CSA history. But considering one of the main underlying themes is the USA/CSA relationship, if the CSA is dead and occupied by the US, I don't see this continuing at all. He might pick it up in the crossover series again, but I do think that this is it.

(Bobbo9000 06:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)Bobbo9000)

There's multiple ways to interpret conclusion; that could be interpreated as simply the conclusion of the Settling Accounts quadrain, which would leave the door open for another trilogy of books in this timeline. Book covers will place what they think will increase sales on them. It won't be competely clear weather there will be or won't be any sequeals as long as Turtledove is still alive. There are several authors that wrote a sequal to a book they had writen a decade or two later. Jon 19:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually very little is known post "The War" about France & Russia. We know that the UK is still in indepedant nation, but Russia receives an ultimantium from Japan to hand over Siberian provinces which leaves a big question what's going to be left of Russia if they comply (and also what will be left if they don't). And weather the government of France is free to do anything Germany doesn't like is also very much in doubt. Jon 20:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"is made one nation."

"is made one nation."

I think "lives under one government" is more accurate. 'Nation' in typical American vernacular means country, but more etymologically 'nation' refers to groups of people defined as having some sort of genealogical or historical connection to each other irrespective of statehood. As the CSA and USA surely consider each other separate peoples moreso in 1945 than in 1865, surely some recognition of their difference would be appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.6.192 (talk) 07:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Speculation/OR

Please avoid sections about possible sequels or events that would happen in the future unless you have a credible source from the author or another party backing up such a claim. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 19:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)