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From: Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: "Drakon" by S. M. Stirling
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:47:10 -0700
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In article <v4q2cs$ss0s$1@dont-email.me>,
 Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/17/2024 11:49 AM, Robert Woodward wrote:
> > In article <v4o33o$ab71$1@dont-email.me>,
> >   Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> On 6/16/2024 11:48 AM, Robert Woodward wrote:
> >>> In article <v4kj0l$3ifm5$1@dont-email.me>,
> >>>    Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 6/15/2024 10:03 AM, Robert Woodward wrote:
> >>>>> In article <ld5kflFu232U1@mid.individual.net>,
> >>>>>     ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> In article <v4k3d5$3fg9u$1@dont-email.me>,
> >>>>>> Robert Carnegie  <rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>> So is this series basically Nazi fanfiction?
> >>>>>>> I can do without that.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> No.  There is nobody (including the author) rooting for the Draka.
> >>>>>> They are portrayed as awful and evil.  However, sometimes evil wins.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Except that the timeline in the appendix to the first novel, _Marching
> >>>>> Through Georgia_, contained many events that I consider to be
> >>>>> extraordinarily unlikely* (even assuming that the unlikely previous
> >>>>> events happened).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> *For values of "extremely unlikely" equal to a successful Operation
> >>>>> Sealion (Nazi Germany invasion of Great Britain in 1940).
> >>>>>
> >>>> In partial mitigation extremely unlikely things have happened in
> >>>> reality.  Also the point of the books was a dystopia as horrible as the
> >>>> author could manage so....
> >>>
> >>> There is a difference between "improbable" and "implausible". IMHO, many
> >>> events in the Draka timeline look implausible.
> >>
> >> Depends on how you feel about the Drakas unifying the continent of
> >> Africa under their iron hand in the middle 1800s.
> >>
> > 
> > Africa is a big place (it is bigger than North America). It was not
> > exactly lightly populated. There would had been about an order of
> > magnitude fewer Draka than Americans. The disease environment would work
> > in the Draka disfavor. In summary, no way, no how.
> 
> Did you mean "an order of magnitude fewer Draka than" AFRICANS ?
> 

No, I meant Americans. The Draka had to run rampant over a larger area 
with drastically fewer people than USA did and had in the 19th century.

> S. M. Stirling seems to disagree with you about the Domination of 
> Africa.  Remember, the Domination was all about the enslavement of every 
> other human on Earth for the purposes of the Draka.
> 

Since I am utterly unconvinced in the plausibility of the timeline he 
offered on how this was done; I don't care about his opinion on the 
matter. I am speaking of abrupt un-suspension of willing suspension of 
disbelief.

> And George Washington was one of the richest people on the planet in the 
> middle 1700s.  He was 3% of the economy of the USA.  I suspect that he 
> could have raised the funds to exile the Loyalists to any place that he 
> wanted to.  He chose Canada for most of them.

Where is your source for the extent of George Washington's wealth? I 
don't believe it. I don't think he was even 3% of Virgina's economy.

-- 
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com