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The Big One series

Coiler

Connoisseur of the Miscellaneous
Published by SLP
Location
Nu Yawk
Pronouns
He/Him
So, anyone else here experience Stuart Slade's infamous (at least it was back in the day) series?

It was actually one of the first printed (yes, self-published but still) alternate history series I read.
 
Well, I did intend to start reading the whole mammoth decalogy. What chiefly interested me was reading the after-effects of the titanic atomic bomb strike on the Greater German Reich - collapse of centralised authority across the whole country, hair-raising shortages of food, half-starved refugees banding together in to war-bandits led by petty warlords, hundreds of thousands of shrouded, coughing, unshod, bald survivors dying from radiation poisoning, what-was-Germany morphing in to great plains of woods and grasslands separating tiny villages. What warned me off was the appalling research in to some of the countries (China and Japan banding together in to one one country, what? after what Japan did to China in the 'thirty's and 'forty's, south-west Asia being led by a Khaliph - sorry, but what?)
 
What warned me off was the appalling research in to some of the countries (China and Japan banding together in to one one country, what? after what Japan did to China in the 'thirty's and 'forty's, south-west Asia being led by a Khaliph - sorry, but what?)

Ah yes, the "Caliphate" and "Chipan", backed up by constant reminders of how weak they are and massive worldbuilding, executed in-story by the immortal mutants with catlike eyes (yes, really) to make sure the protagonists are never seriously challenged.
 
I recall finding the actual WW2-era stuff okay, other than bombing aircraft having spirits/ghosts/something that talked to flight crew. I'm not imagining that, right?

Ah yes, the "Caliphate" and "Chipan", backed up by constant reminders of how weak they are and massive worldbuilding, executed in-story by the immortal mutants with catlike eyes (yes, really) to make sure the protagonists are never seriously challenged.

My recollection of the story arc is that they ended up with a world far, far shittier than our actual immortal-free world. Maybe the setting didn't need or benefit from those characters at all.
 
I recall finding the actual WW2-era stuff okay, other than bombing aircraft having spirits/ghosts/something that talked to flight crew. I'm not imagining that, right?

Nope, you're not. The talking aircraft are there, and in one book they even go beyond what could be considered a metaphor by talking to someone who isn't a crew member.

I would agree that the World War II stuff is the least bad part of it. I still think it's flat, but the divergences haven't gone full cuckoo by any means, and the Germans are one of the few opponents its author was willing to give even the slightest competence to. Like a lot of alternate history, especially internet alternate history (which is what this still ultimately) is, the "it gets worse the farther from the POD you go" rule holds strong.

My recollection of the story arc is that they ended up with a world far, far shittier than our actual immortal-free world. Maybe the setting didn't need or benefit from those characters at all.

For the first part: That's technically true. The timeline had the EVIL CALIPHATE launching a biowar-apocalypse (and then everything after that came across as "An Outline Of Dale Brown Meets Jerry Ahern", from what little I saw of it). Almost everything else (including in the text of the actual stories I've read) is obviously meant to be a celebrated Mary Sue, though I can understand why an outside observer would consider it far, far, shittier.

The second part is true in a literary sense-they jar the tone and are the kind of plot cudgel that makes me think the setting is less, not more plausible.

I recall somebody else contributing some really awful, xenophobic shit to that franchise. Some big insurrection by Muslim immigrants to North America/Europe, which had the Canadian community boiling to death captured RCMP or thereabouts.

Yeah, that's the most legitimately uncomfortable part of it.
 
I didn't read the TL itself, but the board hosting it was, at the time I looked it up, a cesspool of jingoism, racism and religious bigotry. I don't know about the TL's author, but its readers definitely seemed to take great replacement-style hatemongering completely in earnest.
 
I did read it, and actually even read a bunch of that terrible series where Heaven and Hell go to war with humanity. Honestly not a fan of it, but I'm never really a fan of timelines that use tech as a replacement for a plot, the Armageddon?!?!?!? Series or whatever it was called at least had slightly more interesting cardboard cut out characters.
 
You didn't have to go past this.

He's right, though. The thing that's important and memorable about the series isn't the books themselves, it's the crazy little echo chamber of forum drama that spawned them. Wasn't there a moderator on the forum who was allegedly a female Thai Army colonel but was obviously Slade himself, who typed in pidgin English because that's obviously how Asians talk?
 
Been on the HPCA (the site of the author) and left/been banned a couple of months later; let's say that Slade except for the weapon system he really lack even a wikipedia level knowledge of history...or he just let his political bias being in control.
In my opinion, as a reader, political bias not being considered, it's the fact that he can wrote a credible enemy for the USA (except the German...at least a little), everyone must be at the same time very strong but when the battle start it's just the USAAF that cumberstomp anyone because they are invincible and everyone is in awe of them...it become a little masturbatory after a little while.
Plus for all his talk of realism and research, he use the 'immmortals' as deux-ex machina to not only make history as he want but even to hit people that he don't like.
 
If you want to piss-off Stuart Slade, just tell him about the realities of the Convair B-36 maintenance and the aircraft flaws. That aircraft was pretty impressive and made an honorable career, sure, but maintenance and reliability wise - it was a dog of an aircraft. With six R-4360 there were dozens (if not hundreds) of spark plugs in the engines, to the mechanics delight. Plus four early jet engines, unreliable and very flamables and explosives and fuel guzzling. Ten engines, no less. It took 10 hours to prepare a B-36 to fly. Early models were so bad, the program was nearly cancelled in 1945-46.

More generally, Slade extrapolates flights of hundred B-36s from OTL WWII B-17s and B-24s. But from B-29 onwards aircraft complexity (and unreliability) grew so fast, number of aircraft in raids fell accordingly. They were also more destructives.
 
Couple of things:

-It's the targeting process being at mid-late 1950s levels that's as jarring as the B-36s themselves getting the kinks all worked out. Early nuclear strategy was rather slapdash, to put it mildly (See Bigger Bombs For A Brighter Tomorrow for how long it took SAC to get going OTL).

-The original story still works somewhat with all its contrivances as a "look, I'm going to show that Germany even if it does better will still be nuked" point-maker. It's also (comparably) more coherent. This is more in comparison to the later ones, but still.

-Immortal. Mutants. With. Catlike. Eyes.
 
If you want to piss-off Stuart Slade, just tell him about the realities of the Convair B-36 maintenance and the aircraft flaws. That aircraft was pretty impressive and made an honorable career, sure, but maintenance and reliability wise - it was a dog of an aircraft. With six R-4360 there were dozens (if not hundreds) of spark plugs in the engines, to the mechanics delight. Plus four early jet engines, unreliable and very flamables and explosives and fuel guzzling. Ten engines, no less. It took 10 hours to prepare a B-36 to fly. Early models were so bad, the program was nearly cancelled in 1945-46.

More generally, Slade extrapolates flights of hundred B-36s from OTL WWII B-17s and B-24s. But from B-29 onwards aircraft complexity (and unreliability) grew so fast, number of aircraft in raids fell accordingly. They were also more destructives.

Yep, IRC his usual answer is 'more money will solve everything because without all the lesson learned operating the B-29 things will be surely more easy; and that bring my biggest problem with the entire Big One operation (except the fact that's really stupid), the entire attack go more smoothly than many training exercise...because murica and omnipotent SAC
 
Well truth be told, he just moved / applied B-52 Vietnam raids to B-36, twenty years in advance.

Except that the last piston engine bombers, B-29 and B-36, had such enormous and complex engines, they really lacked the reliability of either, a simpler B-17... or a jet-powered B-52. And what's more, while the B-52 flew pretty well and had high reliability, his forerunner the B-47 was far less reliable.

The bottom line: everything between B-17 (simple piston engines) and B-52 (matured jet engines) was very, very unreliable.
R-1820/1830: 1200 hp, ok (B-17...)
R-2800: still ok (2300 hp, P-47)
R-3350: (3000 hp - oops, we have problems)
R-4360: (4000 hp - the end of the line).

The B-29 caught fire, the B-36 engines were just at the end of the piston engine rope, and the B-47 (well its crews, actually) paid a very high price to being the first large & fast & jet powered bomber.

Curiously enough the Tu-16, which was supposed to be a Soviet B-47 rather than a B-52, actually pulled the later rather than the former... and it is still in service.

Large raids of B-17 & B-24: manageable.

"Large" raids of B-52s (rolling Thunder, Linebacker) : manageable.

Large raids of B-29 - mixed breed. Japan and Korea worked well, but Matterhorn in 1943 was a disaster. Also the case of R-3350 on Lockheed Constellations - half of the transatlantic flight ending on three engines.

Large raids of B-36s or B-47s ? forget it.
 
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