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->"''The events of this film have convinced me of what I already believed, Kuribayashi-san. The kami themselves were responsible for the Transition. They brought Japan back to this year so that the war could be avoided and so that our nation could become a greater power, but at the same time the memory of the defeat in that other time would serve as a warning to our people for generations to come.''"
-->-- '''General Masaharu Homma,''' upon viewing ''Film/LettersFromIwoJima''. 10 November 1939, Transition +48 days
''As One Star Sets, Another Rises'' is a timeline and novel posted on [[{{Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom}} AlternateHistory.com]] written by [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/member.php?u=80980 theg*ddam*hoi2fan]], in which on 21 May, 2015, [[{{UsefulNotes/Japan}} all the territories currently belonging to the State of Japan]] with everyone and everything on them, finds itself inexplicably [[MassTeleportation ISOT]] back to the year 1939, two years after the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Marco Polo Bridge Incident]], and two years before the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Attack on Pearl Harbor]].
Needless to say, having a militaristic and expansionist Imperial power suddenly replaced by a pacifist conservative democracy that is over 70 years more advanced compared to the rest of the world will fundamentally change history in unpredictable ways...
The timeline follows various individuals both up-time and down-time, both inside Japan and beyond, and examines the political, social, and economical impact that the Transition has on the world from their perspectives.
The story is currently ongoing, with it's discussion thread can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-2015-japan-to-1939.351375/ here]] and [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-thread-ii.401323/ here]] (the original thread was over 500 pages, so it was locked, a fate that the second thread would share in late 2021), and it's story-only thread [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-new-story-only-thread.389404/ here]] (requires free membership to view).
----
!!This story provides examples of :
* ActionGirl: Patsy Spencer, flying ace, has upgraded to a powerful ground combatant in recent updates.
* AdaptationalBadass: Winston Churchill is determined to ensure that the United Kingdom retains its power and prestige this time around, even if it means turning some British colonies into protectorates.
* AlasPoorVillain: [[AntiHero General Zhukov]] leads the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and is killed by the Japanese counterattack. However it's clear that he commanded the invasion only because it was his duty to do so, and not because he himself wanted to go to war. It's made even sadder when the general knows that he can neither retreat, surrender, or even refuse his orders, as doing so would risk the lives of his family. To make things worse, even though his family isn't targeted in the aftermath, Stalin decides to use his staff as scapegoats and has ''their'' families arrested.
** [[spoiler: Karl Hanke, to a certain extent. Yeah, he's committed terrible crimes, but he honestly felt he was fighting for a stronger Germany, and he knows he'll be too hated to be allowed to live.]]
* AlienSpaceBats: How Japan gets transported though time, how the force behind it works, and why Japan still manages to keep it's orbiting satellites is left completely unexplained as of right now, with the story much more focused on the social and political aftermath of the Transition instead of the cause behind it.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Prime Minister Abe to the ambassador from the People's Republic of China.
-->'''Abe:''' Are you in such a hurry to meet Chairman Mao, Ambassador - you with your Armani suit and Rolex watch, your BMW and the slim, expensive mistress you maintain in the apartment in Nihonbashi?
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: InUniverse, Astray's letter to Mussolini is ''allegedly'' in Italian.
* TheBaroness: Silver-Gun Wu, whether as jumped up bandit[=/=]petty warlord or provincial police commissioner, is the sort of person who gets "creative" with any enemies that live long enough to be captives.
* BadassInDistress: [[TheAce Patsy Spencer]], a young British flying ace in the "all-Jewish" (some members changed their names and pretended to be Jewish to get a chance to fly) Maccabeus Squadron, is shot down over the Occupied Netherlands and caught by an SS patrol. [[spoiler: Fortunately, she's rescued by UsefulNotes/SimoHayha before the SS officer can kill her]].
* BadassNormal: Creator/AudieMurphy, [[UpToEleven now a Marine]]. A [[OneManArmy one-man racist-punching Nazi-killing machine of pure courage]].
* BadBoss: If you [[YouHaveFailedMe fail]] UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, no matter how inconsequentially, you are better off just shooting yourself and saving everyone the trouble.
* BigBad:
** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, for obvious reasons.
** UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, in the longer term (i.e. at least for the rest of the '40s and probably the '50s). The British have been warned about his OTL actions by the Japanese, and have significantly altered their approach to the Germany problem as a result. Stalin still manages to build up and hastily modernize some of his military by 1941.
* BoringButPractical: Mexico, under Lázaro Cárdenas, makes as little waves as possible in international politics and starts developing its oil industry and raising standards of living under the auspices of the Japanese.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: Doctor Watanabe Midori, a young woman living by herself and practicing medicine on Toyohara. In 1939, it was absolutely scandalous for a single women like her to live alone away from family, being a doctor and treating Koreans.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Surprisingly, Josef Stalin doesn't have [[FourEyesZeroSoul Lavrentiy Beria]] killed, likely for this reason. [[KickTheSonOfABitch He does blackmail him into ceasing his sexual predations, though.]]
* CharacterDevelopment: [=FDR=] initially avoids being too pro-uptimer and pro-interventionist, in order to avoid alienating the isolationist and Southern wing of the party. But gradually, he becomes less and less tolerant of the injustices of racism and sexism, being willing to [[WhatTheHellHero publicly call out]] these injustices, especially when they threaten uptimers, and sends troops to [[spoiler: put down the Oregon uprising, and send troops to defend black Mississippians from racist rioters]].
* ColonelBadass: Chesty Puller, [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack]], and [[GoodIsNotSoft Patton]], much like their OTL selves. The latter responds to a racist rebel movement in Oregon with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming military force]], [[CurbStompBattle crushing them in about a month]].
* CoolBoat: Many, many examples in the story, including the US Seventh Fleet stationed at Japan at the time of the Transition, and Japan's own down-time warships that was out at sea at the time.
** The ''Nimitz''-class supercarrier deserves special mention, being effectively a [[OneManArmy One-Ship Navy]] due to its sheer size and the raw firepower of its jet aircraft.
* CurbStompBattle: The Soviet incursion into Manchuria and Karafuto resulted in the sinking of it's entire Pacific Fleet, and all tanks stationed in the Far East.
* DeadpanSnarker: Theodore Bilbo extols the virtue of poverty and hard work above any convenience uptime technology could bring to anyone in the South. A very poor farmer is quoted as saying that if those things are so wonderful, he's welcome to leave his luxurious office, hand over his considerable pay, and work in his farm - there's plenty of those things there.
* DefusingTheTykeBomb: Abd al-Ilah, Regent of Iraq, plans to turn [[UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein a certain child in Tikrit]] into a loyal follower of the Iraqi monarchy.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Oh yes. Uptimers are confronted with countless acts of bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia.
* DidntSeeThatComing: The little-mentioned Mexico subplot. The president at the era when the story takes place is Lázaro Cárdenas, under whose rule Mexico expropriated the nation's oil reserves, but was consequently punished for it with an international boycott. Here, he instantly enters talks with the Japanese, selling them the oil nobody wanted to buy, kickstarting Mexico's development as a first-world nation.
* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies:
** The anime industry booms after the Transition, producing films based on ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' franchise, popular though controversial adaptations of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'', and a Madoka Magica prequel. Other movies include a Godzilla film and a Stargate remake.
** With many iconic films from [=OTL=] being pre-made, many Hollywood actors are free to expand their choices of film roles.
* EnemyMine:
** The Chinese uptimers have no choice but to throw their lot in with UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek because UsefulNotes/MaoZedong would never accept modern China's [[UsefulNotes/ToGetRichIsGlorious economic policies]], whereas Chiang would gladly do so.
** Mussolini joins the Allies this time around, but they can barely restrain their contempt for him.
** The Republican Party forms a coalition with Southern anti-uptimer groups, but their presidential nominee, Thomas Dewey, treats said groups with barely concealed loathing, and internally admits that he hates Jim Crow and wants it abolished--on a state-by-state level, as he feels that a federal law against it would be too autocratic.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Strom Thurmond is an unabashed racist, but despite his disagreement with [[spoiler: Sam Rayburn, he was appalled when a fanatic tried to shoot him]]. Subverted with Theodore Bilbo who only thought [[spoiler: the murder of a respected politician would be detrimental to his cause]].
* EnragedByIdiocy: Admiral Yamamoto watches a documentary series detailing the Pacific Front in World War [=II=] from [=OTL=], and is left absolutely flabbergasted by the abject stupidity of the Japanese High Command.
* EveryoneHasStandards:
** Reinhard Heydrich and even Adolf Hilter thought [[spoiler: Jessie Wayne's]] antisemitic propaganda was a load of bull. Yes, the fathers of the ''most'' racist ideology ever thought [[spoiler: an uptime Neo-Nazi's]] fears about minorities were a rambling, incoherent mess.
** While most uptime Japanese are not known for their tolerance of other Asian people, many are horrified by the crimes committed by their ancestors against the Chinese.
** A mafioso condemned to an Italian penal unit is horrified at the Nazi use of [[ChildSoldier Child Soldiers]].
** While Southern society believes that women should StayInTheKitchen, they also feel that men should always be ''polite'' to women. So, when an ultra-chauvinist uptimer publishes an article describing how women should be "handled", ''everybody'' in the United States condemns it.
* AFatherToHisMen: Admiral Nimitz and Chesty Puller both fall here, making a point of nipping any downtimer abuse of uptimers in the bud.
--->Admiral Nimitz: ''Well I don't see the problem. Damn it, man, you've served your country! If your country can't look after you and yours for the service you've done it - and what you'll be bringing with you - then it's not the country I thought it was.''
* ForWantOfANail: Due to the Japanese intervention, the British Empire quietly begins preparing for a post-war disassembly, allowing for largely peaceful transitions of power. However, this has the unintended side effect of leaving the royal houses of several Arabic states standing and leaving India a nation separated into the Princely States. Churchill argues that this is a good thing: he convinces the up-timers that the royal houses will ensure that al Qaeda and [=ISIS=] will not come into existence; and that unified India was a chaotic mess, anyway--though he really just wants to stick it to Gandhi.
* FriendlySniper: UsefulNotes/SimoHayha.
* FutureMeScaresMe: In one interlude we see a certain Margarita Carmen Cansino view a Rita Hayworth movie in Futureville; then promptly find a lawyer, sue for divorce, and secure leverage to renegotiate her contract with Columbia Pictures spurred on by horror over seeing her face being "replaced by a mask."
* GoingColdTurkey: Downplayed with King George VI of the United Kingdom. Having been informed that his [[MustHaveNicotine smoking addiction]] led to an early death in [=OTL=], his family ''forces'' him to toss the cigarettes (which nearly sets his stammer back again) until he finds a less damaging replacement: vape. Winston Churchill shows mixed feelings about this: on one hand, he's glad that it's less damaging to the king's health; but on the other hand, he dislikes the smell of butterscotch (which seems to be George's favorite flavor) that goes with it.
* GoshDangItToHeck: Colonel Patton forces this trope upon himself when he gets a new, female aide. She bluntly tells him that it won't offend her if he swears, but he refuses.
* GrandfatherParadox: Discussed, with people from up-time meeting their own grandparents and parents before the latter was even married, and the butterfly effect meaning that anyone who was not conceived by the time of the Transition being automatically removed from the timeline.
* GrassIsGreener: Many of the Soviet refugees who end up under Japanese rule more or less can tolerate Japanese xenophobia if it means not living under Stalin. As one refugee puts it:
-->'''Baranov''':"Boy, we lived in Stalin's Soviet Union. Country that we can buy three square meals a day in and where Black Marias don't come to door at midnight is paradise by comparison. Even if yellow people hate blonde Slavs, as long as they let us make living and eat decent food."
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Rommel, after his family is liberated from Nazi custody and the Allies save him from his SS "bodyguard"/assassin]].
* HeelRealization: Many of the German people upon finding out about the OTL atrocities that the SS performed. [[spoiler: Which eventually leads to an uprising which results in Hitler getting torn apart by the very people he had claimed he was trying to help.]]
* TheHero: Legendarily talented Japanese admiral Yamamoto Isoroku is probably the closest the series has to a central protagonist, as his efforts to build a proper alliance system for Japan and avert the tragedies of the 20th century drive most of the protagonists' actions.
* [[HideYourLesbians Hide Your Gays]]: [[DefiedTrope Outright defied]] by the uptimer Americans, who are generally accepting of homosexuals being out of the closet and even married. It's a huge source of tension with the 1939-40 Americans.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Far too many to list. Many of them appear in just a single entry.
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Mussolini attempts to invoke this. It's debatable how successful he is, and even UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill is disgusted by his naked attempts to grab more land, but so far he's managed to make himself a useful link in the chain holding back the Soviet Union.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Fascist Spain briefly undergoes this after Franco's death and replacement by the considerably less stable Milan Astray. Invasion on three fronts coupled with a major Catalan uprising, Italian support to said uprising, and the historical severe famine all end this phase and effectively break Spain itself.
* HonorBeforeReason: The Kwantung Army stationed in China refuses to back down when ordered by up-time Japan to withdraw, launching the ‘Temporal Mutiny’. Despite the fact that they are cut off from supplies and reinforcements, have equipment that is 70 years less advance compared to the JDF and Japanese-based US forces, and is being attacked by the Soviets from the north.
** Played with by General Kuribayashi Tadamichi at first, before the Imperial forces on mainland Asia learn of the Transition and suspect that the loss of contact with Japan was caused by a coup, with the general willing to ''obey'' the new government, but not necessarily ''support'' it. Ultimately {{subverted|Trope}} however, as General Kuribayashi along with Generals Masaharu Homma and Yamashita Tomoyuki backing the up-time government against the mutinying Kwantung Army.
** {{Averted|Trope}} when General Masaharu, who believes himself to be a potential embarrassment to up-time Japan and requests that he be granted the opportunity for honorable suicide. The Emperor quickly and firmly expresses his disagreement with the general's sentiment.
** Justifiably played straight by General Yamashita, who while agreeing that war criminals would be tried, insists that the trials should be fair and the accused properly-represented, and threatening protest by honorable suicide otherwise. Prime Minister Abe assures the general that Japan would not hold show trials, as it is a democratic nation and not the Soviet Union.
* HumbleHero: Simo Häyhä, as he was in RealLife.
* IHatePastMe: An extremely elderly man ends up testifying to his as-yet-unrepentant younger self's war crimes.
* IWantMyMommy: [[spoiler: Eva Braun heard Hitler calling for his mother, right before his own men shot him dead.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: Private Jesse Wayne, a Neo-Nazi US marine that seeks to help Nazi Germany win the war by giving them an iPad containing information from 2015, and destabilize the US internally so that a far-right government can take power.
** Father Coughlin, a notable downtime right-wing radio preacher, infamous for his bigoted tirades, experiences a revival as part of the culture clash, and proceeds to be as much of a PoliticallyIncorrectVillain as he can.
** Theodore Bilbo, who also tries to whip up public anger in the South against uptimers.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** Many downtimers have legitimate grievances about modern America-deindustrialization, crime, the military industrial complex-but they only use those facts to reinforce their bigotry.
** Jan Smuts poses this question to the uptimer South African ambassador:
--> '''Jan Smuts''': “...the Cape Coloured population, I assume, also benefited from your Rainbow State?” He chuckled to himself as he saw the woman fume, and saw the British representative – a Mr Mackenzie – wince a little.
** Joe Kennedy, Sr. points out that granting too many concessions to up-timers too quickly could split the Democratic Party and lead to Franklin D. Roosevelt losing the presidency to a more bigoted individual. Even Caroline Kennedy can't deny that he's absolutely right.
* {{Kaiserreich}}: The British have decided to back the eventual restoration of the House of Hohenzollern, though it's implied that Wilhelm II will ''not'' be restored, and his grandson Louis Ferdinand the Prince of Prussia will be the new Kaiser. Justified as if the Allies succeed in defeating Germany quickly and prevent TheHolocaust from happening, it's likely that Nazism could eventually gain a second wind a couple of decades down the line. With the Hohenzollerns historically opposed to the Nazis (with Wilhelm II once describing them IRL as gangsters), and the strong dynastic loyalty still existing in Germany to the Hohenzollerns, the Allies hope that the Kaiserreich can sway people's allegiances away from the Nazis and keep them down.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Adolf Hitler, beaten to death by his own people. Something similar happens to Klaus Barbie when he's setting Jewish houses on fire.]]
* KickTheSonOfABitch: What J. Edgar's men do to [[spoiler:Jesse Wayne]].
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Due to its nature as a fleshed-out alternate history timeline rather than a simple story.
* MassTeleportation: How 2015 Japan ended up in 1939.
* MoralityKitchenSink: The story is full of it. The story runs the morality gamut from the socially tolerant uptimers and their idealistic downtimer supporters, to violent racists and segregationists like Theodore Bilbo, and, of course, the Third Reich. In the middle are [[TroubledSympatheticBigot normal people who are wary of uptimer values]], morally ambiguous and opportunistic politicians like Jan Smuts and Joe Kennedy Sr. who have to the placate the more hateful aspects of their society, to businessman and statesman seeking to profit from uptime technology.
* NiceGuy:
** Texas Representative Sam Rayburn, who risks his reputation to defend the uptimers, [[WhatTheHellHero even calling out the American people]] [[spoiler: when an uptimer Chinese American family is forced to flee to colonial Singapore after countless acts of discrimination]].
** Audie Murphy is a genial guy, [[BewareTheNiceOnes just don't piss him off]].
* NostalgiaFilter: [[spoiler: Jessie Wayne's has a naive view of pre-Civil Rights America]]. He gets a nasty surprise [[spoiler: when he discovers that the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique is no less vicious about prying information from him]] than present day law enforcement]].
* OtherMeAnnoysMe:
** Anne Frank, who in this timeline was rescued before she had to go into hiding, says in an interview that she hates her original self because up-timers keep treating her like a hero for something she hasn't done, and feels guilty for not having gone through the horrors the other Anne did.
** Creator/AudieMurphy feels this way at first, too.
** Douglas [=MacArthur=] feels like he'll have to spend the rest of his life in the shadow of his alternate self's accomplishments, since he can't perform them here.
** Averted with Creator/ChristopherLee, who is perfectly satisfied with how his life played out in [=OTL=].
* OneManArmy: Several.
** Sir Christopher Lee solos a bunch of Nazis to rescue the Bavarian royal family. He later does the same for [[spoiler:Rommel's family]]
** [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack Churchill]] and the [[FriendlySniper White Death]] take out an entire SS platoon that's about to execute an entire village in Holland.
** Two words: Creator/AudieMurphy
* PragmaticVillainy:
** Mussolini, to an extent. When he sees just how overpowered uptime technology is, and how badly he was screwed in our timeline, he withdraws his support of Germany and makes token moves to undo his Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish policies. [[ZigZaggedTrope He's still an arrogant dictator who buys into his own propaganda, though.]]
*** [[spoiler:Pays off big-time when his restructured military pushes easily into Austria and swiftly defeats hastily-levied infantry under the command of SS officer Odilo Globocnick.]]
** The downtime leadership of South Africa, too, acknowledging that they'll have to give the native population a few carrots while also trying to keep limited minority rule around for as long as possible.
** Stalin to an extent, sitting back and frantically trying to unscrew himself while playing the Nazis for chumps and eventually landing a good slice of eastern Europe.
** [[TheSociopath Reinhard Heydrich]], as in RealLife. He even [[spoiler:starts a civil war between Hitler and Himmler when the cause is obviously lost, so as to gain Mussolini's favor and prove himself useful to any unscrupulous fellows on the other side]].
** The Mexican government quietly purges several people who would have gone on to father key figures in the narcotics trade. This was later [[RetCon retconned]] to them tracking down these families and offering them comfortable lives and opportunities for their children in hopes of keeping them law-abiding citizens.
** While some isolationist politicians in the United States want to reduce military spending, others recognize that this is a bad idea and are all for modernizing the Armed Forces--purely for ''defensive'' measures, though. Some of them are even willing to accept de-segregation of the military because they feel that America becoming a military juggernaut is worth the "sacrifice".
* [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Eclectic Band of Bad-asses]]: Mad Jack's team, consisting of a CrazyIsCool Englishman, a cheerful Finnish god of war, a plucky air-ace turned resistance fighter, and an [[AudienceSurrogate uptime intelligence officer]]. Together, [[TheyFightCrime they kick Nazi ass]].
* RapeAndRevenge: After up-time revelations about clerical abuse are disseminated in Ireland, a PedophilePriest is shot dead by an enraged father.
* RousingSpeech: Kaiser Wilhelm II gives one on radio, marking the beginning of a dedicated broadcast campaign meant to convince Germans of the utter vileness of the [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Nazi regime]], and to explain why he is in Britain and standing in opposition to the Nazis despite the ongoing Allied invasion of Germany.
--->''People of Germany, I am Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht von Preußen, head of the House of Hohenzollern and formerly Kaiser of the German Reich. I realise that many of you will question why I am in Britain. Why I am speaking to you from an enemy nation, when the Fatherland is invaded. Many of you will think I have turned traitor. Indeed, Herr Hitler and his gang will call me such. To all the people of Germany, I say that I am no traitor. I am here, in Britain, to save Germany from the darkness into which the mad Austrian and his jackals wish to lead it. In the other history, the history from which Japan was sent by the intervention of God Almighty, he succeeded. In that other history, the Nazis slaughtered over eleven million people in great 'extermination camps'. In that other history, they killed millions of their fellow-Germans, and of foreign civilians unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Why? Simply because they disagreed with their religion or their convictions. I realise that this is hard to believe. Many of you will think this is a lie. A lie perpetrated by our enemies. Which is why I am telling you, much as it pains me. I love Germany, and I love the German people, more than I love my own life. I would never tell such a damning lie about them. As time progresses, you will hear from others, men and women who studied this horror in that other history. You will hear evidence. And I pray that learning this fact will lead you to reject Hitler, to reject the man who - if he is successful in his aims again - will blacken the name of Germany for decades to come.''
* RousseauWasRight: Many, many Germans, from the Hohenzollerns, to Sophie Scholl, begin resisting the Nazis once they learn about their OTL atrocities. In one epic moment [[spoiler: a German mob, [[OldSoldier lead by man old enough to remember Bismarck]] attack a group of SS soldiers trying to kill Berlin's Jews]].
* RuleOfCool: Nintendo realizes that they're exceedingly unlikely to survive as a company in a world that has neither the capacity to create or interest in videogames. [[spoiler:So they decide to finally enter the filmmaking business, and team up with ''Studio Ghibli'' to produce films based on ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'', ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', and ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' - and they later decide to further team up with ''Disney''.]] Konami later follows up with [[spoiler:a ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' animated adaptation starring Bela Lugosi, Jimmy Stewart and Conrad Veidt]]. Later on, a two-bit actor, [[spoiler:Ricardo Montalbán]], is tapped by Howard Hughes himself to star in a ''Star Trek'' film.
* SanitySlippage: UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler wasn't all that sane to begin with, but losing World War 2 so badly is making it worse. [[spoiler:Not helped by Heydrich's treachery.]]
* SchizoTech: Because of the Transition, countries allied with, or friendly to, Japan see everything from direct transfers of serviceable 2010s-era technology, to ersatz repurposings of 1970s-1990s technology for the 1940s. As one example, Toyota tools up to produce 1970s Corollas for export based on the E20 line from our era.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Stalin can get away with smoking around aircraft equipment--which is a safety hazard--because nobody working at the factory wants to tell him what he can and can't do.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Stalin has UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev arrested, tortured, and sent to the gulag to keep him from becoming a threat, having apparently decided that such a fate is [[AFateWorseThanDeath more cruel]] than simply shooting him. Unfortunately, Khrushchev managed to learn about what happened to the Soviet Union in [=OTL=] and becomes utterly determined to survive and take vengeance against his former boss. And with Stalin having just sent the bulk of his more competent officers and foot-soldiers to the exact same gulag (because he thinks they're not sycophantic enough), which Khrushchev has secretly taken control of, he might just be able to pull it off.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: So many examples, from Jan Smuts is trying to preempt South Africa's slide into pariah status by slowing expanding enfranchising black natives, to Caroline Kennedy trying to save her aunt from lobotomy. Of course, people can have very different ideas of what "went wrong."
* SlidingScaleOfAlternateHistoryPlausibility: Type X due to the Transition, but afterwards a rigorous type I.
* TheSociopath: Reinhard "The Butcher of Prague" Heydrich is evil even for a Nazi, having no qualms about using horrific weapons of mass destruction, betraying both factions within his government, and even mass murder if they get him political power. A crazy neo-Pagan SS officer in the occupied Netherlands also earns the moniker "the Beast of Veenendaal" for extremely sadistic war crimes.
* StayInTheKitchen: Patsy Spencer's mother, who even looks down on her becoming an acclaimed fighter pilot because it's "unladylike."
* StraightGay: Roosevelt assumes that the 6'7", muscular Colonel Ransom must be vehemently defending having homosexual people in the army because he has a gay ''friend''.
* StupidEvil: Many Southerners are so vehemently racist that even the offer of 21st-century technology isn't enough to make them reconsider their views. Oregon even starts ''a rebellion'' to try to maintain their sickening beliefs. It gets even worse when this conduct drives many up-timers to leave for other countries that, while racist to an extent, are at least [[PragmaticVillainy willing to restrain their bigotry in exchange for modernization.]] It's described as many Americans "being on brain-drain".
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda spouted by bigots: some of them are simply unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
** When UsefulNotes/RichardNixon campaigns for the construction of other cities like Futureville, where minorities and their sympathizers can live ''away'' from segregationist communities, but with full civil rights, he gets a good amount of support, and not just from white supremacists: some of the oppressed groups don't ''want'' to fraternize with white people.
* TakeAThirdOption:
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Winston Churchill and a Mossad agent are ''not'' happy about having to work with Mussolini to accomplish their goals.
* ThisIsUnforgivable: Revelations about the Holocaust in [=OTL=] causes every Jewish community in the United States to become viciously pro-war, even leading to violent confrontations between pro-war and isolationist factions in the streets.
* TimeTravelRomance: Well, yes.
** Hokkaido-born JSDF volunteer courting Karafuto doctor and downtime Negro reporter moving in with uptime Brazilian-born ''hāfu'' factory worker are just the tip of the iceberg.
** [[spoiler:Judy Garland begins a secret relationship with a Japanese voice actress.]]
** [[spoiler:Rita Hayworth marries her female attorney after netting an Oscar.]]
** [[spoiler:Audie Murphy is implied to be starting a relationship with Admiral Flannagan's granddaughter, Nikki.]]
* TokenGoodTeammate: Erwin Rommel to ThoseWackyNazis, as in RealLife. However, recent updates have hinted that he is considering a HeelFaceTurn.
* TranquilFury: Stalin could send countless soldiers to their doom after a catastrophic military defeat, and the only sign of annoyance would be the scratch of his pen.
* UriahGambit: The decision of the Australian Cabinet to promptly send the ship they inherited from the 21st century to the defense of Britain had elements of this. If HMAS Sydney comes home dripping in honor, glory, and the political capital needed to introduce it's skipper[[note]]LCDR Karen Doan, born in Darwin to Vietnamese Immigrants[[/note]] to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy White Australia]] it is all to the good; if possibly undesirable elements aboard cannot hack it and gets the tub sunk... it makes things less complicated.
* VillainousBreakdown: Adolf Hitler, like OTL, loses it over the Reich's failures. [[spoiler: When he's torn apart by a mob, his last words are begging for his mother.]]
** [[spoiler: Klaus Barbie spectacularly falls apart after getting kneecapped.]]
* WesternTerrorists: The Defenders of Oregon blow well past the line on this with the insurgency launched after the rapidly suppressed riot in Futureville.
* WhamEpisode: Chapter Forty Eight of Part One of the TL, December 1-16, 1941, is a pretty normal chapter until the very end, where [[spoiler: the Nazis detonate a fuel air bomb filled with coal dust and radium in Bruchsal, killing over ten thousand French soldiers and fifteen thousand German civilians]].
* AWorldHalfFull: Despite the violence and confusion created by the Transition, overall, the world its getting better thanks to uptimer history and technologies.
* WillfullyWeak: Consciously invoked by Japan, with the intent of showing they are not the brutally aggressive sorts the world needs to unite against given the tech disparity (and the sincerity helps).
* WorthIt: The state of Israel is still established, albeit smaller, still surrounded by Muslim countries, and will have to rely heavily on British support. On the other hand, said neighbors are less inclined to be hostile thanks to also getting help from the British, so Israel's inhabitants--including the uptimers--figure it's worth the price since their nation will still exist ''and'' won't have to spend all its time and resources fighting to survive.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Using uptimer information, Hitler decides to have Rommel killed, ''after'' the guy secures his victory.
-->-- '''General Masaharu Homma,''' upon viewing ''Film/LettersFromIwoJima''. 10 November 1939, Transition +48 days
''As One Star Sets, Another Rises'' is a timeline and novel posted on [[{{Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom}} AlternateHistory.com]] written by [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/member.php?u=80980 theg*ddam*hoi2fan]], in which on 21 May, 2015, [[{{UsefulNotes/Japan}} all the territories currently belonging to the State of Japan]] with everyone and everything on them, finds itself inexplicably [[MassTeleportation ISOT]] back to the year 1939, two years after the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Marco Polo Bridge Incident]], and two years before the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Attack on Pearl Harbor]].
Needless to say, having a militaristic and expansionist Imperial power suddenly replaced by a pacifist conservative democracy that is over 70 years more advanced compared to the rest of the world will fundamentally change history in unpredictable ways...
The timeline follows various individuals both up-time and down-time, both inside Japan and beyond, and examines the political, social, and economical impact that the Transition has on the world from their perspectives.
The story is currently ongoing, with it's discussion thread can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-2015-japan-to-1939.351375/ here]] and [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-thread-ii.401323/ here]] (the original thread was over 500 pages, so it was locked, a fate that the second thread would share in late 2021), and it's story-only thread [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-new-story-only-thread.389404/ here]] (requires free membership to view).
----
!!This story provides examples of :
* ActionGirl: Patsy Spencer, flying ace, has upgraded to a powerful ground combatant in recent updates.
* AdaptationalBadass: Winston Churchill is determined to ensure that the United Kingdom retains its power and prestige this time around, even if it means turning some British colonies into protectorates.
* AlasPoorVillain: [[AntiHero General Zhukov]] leads the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and is killed by the Japanese counterattack. However it's clear that he commanded the invasion only because it was his duty to do so, and not because he himself wanted to go to war. It's made even sadder when the general knows that he can neither retreat, surrender, or even refuse his orders, as doing so would risk the lives of his family. To make things worse, even though his family isn't targeted in the aftermath, Stalin decides to use his staff as scapegoats and has ''their'' families arrested.
** [[spoiler: Karl Hanke, to a certain extent. Yeah, he's committed terrible crimes, but he honestly felt he was fighting for a stronger Germany, and he knows he'll be too hated to be allowed to live.]]
* AlienSpaceBats: How Japan gets transported though time, how the force behind it works, and why Japan still manages to keep it's orbiting satellites is left completely unexplained as of right now, with the story much more focused on the social and political aftermath of the Transition instead of the cause behind it.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Prime Minister Abe to the ambassador from the People's Republic of China.
-->'''Abe:''' Are you in such a hurry to meet Chairman Mao, Ambassador - you with your Armani suit and Rolex watch, your BMW and the slim, expensive mistress you maintain in the apartment in Nihonbashi?
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: InUniverse, Astray's letter to Mussolini is ''allegedly'' in Italian.
* TheBaroness: Silver-Gun Wu, whether as jumped up bandit[=/=]petty warlord or provincial police commissioner, is the sort of person who gets "creative" with any enemies that live long enough to be captives.
* BadassInDistress: [[TheAce Patsy Spencer]], a young British flying ace in the "all-Jewish" (some members changed their names and pretended to be Jewish to get a chance to fly) Maccabeus Squadron, is shot down over the Occupied Netherlands and caught by an SS patrol. [[spoiler: Fortunately, she's rescued by UsefulNotes/SimoHayha before the SS officer can kill her]].
* BadassNormal: Creator/AudieMurphy, [[UpToEleven now a Marine]]. A [[OneManArmy one-man racist-punching Nazi-killing machine of pure courage]].
* BadBoss: If you [[YouHaveFailedMe fail]] UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, no matter how inconsequentially, you are better off just shooting yourself and saving everyone the trouble.
* BigBad:
** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, for obvious reasons.
** UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, in the longer term (i.e. at least for the rest of the '40s and probably the '50s). The British have been warned about his OTL actions by the Japanese, and have significantly altered their approach to the Germany problem as a result. Stalin still manages to build up and hastily modernize some of his military by 1941.
* BoringButPractical: Mexico, under Lázaro Cárdenas, makes as little waves as possible in international politics and starts developing its oil industry and raising standards of living under the auspices of the Japanese.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: Doctor Watanabe Midori, a young woman living by herself and practicing medicine on Toyohara. In 1939, it was absolutely scandalous for a single women like her to live alone away from family, being a doctor and treating Koreans.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Surprisingly, Josef Stalin doesn't have [[FourEyesZeroSoul Lavrentiy Beria]] killed, likely for this reason. [[KickTheSonOfABitch He does blackmail him into ceasing his sexual predations, though.]]
* CharacterDevelopment: [=FDR=] initially avoids being too pro-uptimer and pro-interventionist, in order to avoid alienating the isolationist and Southern wing of the party. But gradually, he becomes less and less tolerant of the injustices of racism and sexism, being willing to [[WhatTheHellHero publicly call out]] these injustices, especially when they threaten uptimers, and sends troops to [[spoiler: put down the Oregon uprising, and send troops to defend black Mississippians from racist rioters]].
* ColonelBadass: Chesty Puller, [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack]], and [[GoodIsNotSoft Patton]], much like their OTL selves. The latter responds to a racist rebel movement in Oregon with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming military force]], [[CurbStompBattle crushing them in about a month]].
* CoolBoat: Many, many examples in the story, including the US Seventh Fleet stationed at Japan at the time of the Transition, and Japan's own down-time warships that was out at sea at the time.
** The ''Nimitz''-class supercarrier deserves special mention, being effectively a [[OneManArmy One-Ship Navy]] due to its sheer size and the raw firepower of its jet aircraft.
* CurbStompBattle: The Soviet incursion into Manchuria and Karafuto resulted in the sinking of it's entire Pacific Fleet, and all tanks stationed in the Far East.
* DeadpanSnarker: Theodore Bilbo extols the virtue of poverty and hard work above any convenience uptime technology could bring to anyone in the South. A very poor farmer is quoted as saying that if those things are so wonderful, he's welcome to leave his luxurious office, hand over his considerable pay, and work in his farm - there's plenty of those things there.
* DefusingTheTykeBomb: Abd al-Ilah, Regent of Iraq, plans to turn [[UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein a certain child in Tikrit]] into a loyal follower of the Iraqi monarchy.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Oh yes. Uptimers are confronted with countless acts of bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia.
* DidntSeeThatComing: The little-mentioned Mexico subplot. The president at the era when the story takes place is Lázaro Cárdenas, under whose rule Mexico expropriated the nation's oil reserves, but was consequently punished for it with an international boycott. Here, he instantly enters talks with the Japanese, selling them the oil nobody wanted to buy, kickstarting Mexico's development as a first-world nation.
* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies:
** The anime industry booms after the Transition, producing films based on ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' franchise, popular though controversial adaptations of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'', and a Madoka Magica prequel. Other movies include a Godzilla film and a Stargate remake.
** With many iconic films from [=OTL=] being pre-made, many Hollywood actors are free to expand their choices of film roles.
* EnemyMine:
** The Chinese uptimers have no choice but to throw their lot in with UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek because UsefulNotes/MaoZedong would never accept modern China's [[UsefulNotes/ToGetRichIsGlorious economic policies]], whereas Chiang would gladly do so.
** Mussolini joins the Allies this time around, but they can barely restrain their contempt for him.
** The Republican Party forms a coalition with Southern anti-uptimer groups, but their presidential nominee, Thomas Dewey, treats said groups with barely concealed loathing, and internally admits that he hates Jim Crow and wants it abolished--on a state-by-state level, as he feels that a federal law against it would be too autocratic.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Strom Thurmond is an unabashed racist, but despite his disagreement with [[spoiler: Sam Rayburn, he was appalled when a fanatic tried to shoot him]]. Subverted with Theodore Bilbo who only thought [[spoiler: the murder of a respected politician would be detrimental to his cause]].
* EnragedByIdiocy: Admiral Yamamoto watches a documentary series detailing the Pacific Front in World War [=II=] from [=OTL=], and is left absolutely flabbergasted by the abject stupidity of the Japanese High Command.
* EveryoneHasStandards:
** Reinhard Heydrich and even Adolf Hilter thought [[spoiler: Jessie Wayne's]] antisemitic propaganda was a load of bull. Yes, the fathers of the ''most'' racist ideology ever thought [[spoiler: an uptime Neo-Nazi's]] fears about minorities were a rambling, incoherent mess.
** While most uptime Japanese are not known for their tolerance of other Asian people, many are horrified by the crimes committed by their ancestors against the Chinese.
** A mafioso condemned to an Italian penal unit is horrified at the Nazi use of [[ChildSoldier Child Soldiers]].
** While Southern society believes that women should StayInTheKitchen, they also feel that men should always be ''polite'' to women. So, when an ultra-chauvinist uptimer publishes an article describing how women should be "handled", ''everybody'' in the United States condemns it.
* AFatherToHisMen: Admiral Nimitz and Chesty Puller both fall here, making a point of nipping any downtimer abuse of uptimers in the bud.
--->Admiral Nimitz: ''Well I don't see the problem. Damn it, man, you've served your country! If your country can't look after you and yours for the service you've done it - and what you'll be bringing with you - then it's not the country I thought it was.''
* ForWantOfANail: Due to the Japanese intervention, the British Empire quietly begins preparing for a post-war disassembly, allowing for largely peaceful transitions of power. However, this has the unintended side effect of leaving the royal houses of several Arabic states standing and leaving India a nation separated into the Princely States. Churchill argues that this is a good thing: he convinces the up-timers that the royal houses will ensure that al Qaeda and [=ISIS=] will not come into existence; and that unified India was a chaotic mess, anyway--though he really just wants to stick it to Gandhi.
* FriendlySniper: UsefulNotes/SimoHayha.
* FutureMeScaresMe: In one interlude we see a certain Margarita Carmen Cansino view a Rita Hayworth movie in Futureville; then promptly find a lawyer, sue for divorce, and secure leverage to renegotiate her contract with Columbia Pictures spurred on by horror over seeing her face being "replaced by a mask."
* GoingColdTurkey: Downplayed with King George VI of the United Kingdom. Having been informed that his [[MustHaveNicotine smoking addiction]] led to an early death in [=OTL=], his family ''forces'' him to toss the cigarettes (which nearly sets his stammer back again) until he finds a less damaging replacement: vape. Winston Churchill shows mixed feelings about this: on one hand, he's glad that it's less damaging to the king's health; but on the other hand, he dislikes the smell of butterscotch (which seems to be George's favorite flavor) that goes with it.
* GoshDangItToHeck: Colonel Patton forces this trope upon himself when he gets a new, female aide. She bluntly tells him that it won't offend her if he swears, but he refuses.
* GrandfatherParadox: Discussed, with people from up-time meeting their own grandparents and parents before the latter was even married, and the butterfly effect meaning that anyone who was not conceived by the time of the Transition being automatically removed from the timeline.
* GrassIsGreener: Many of the Soviet refugees who end up under Japanese rule more or less can tolerate Japanese xenophobia if it means not living under Stalin. As one refugee puts it:
-->'''Baranov''':"Boy, we lived in Stalin's Soviet Union. Country that we can buy three square meals a day in and where Black Marias don't come to door at midnight is paradise by comparison. Even if yellow people hate blonde Slavs, as long as they let us make living and eat decent food."
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Rommel, after his family is liberated from Nazi custody and the Allies save him from his SS "bodyguard"/assassin]].
* HeelRealization: Many of the German people upon finding out about the OTL atrocities that the SS performed. [[spoiler: Which eventually leads to an uprising which results in Hitler getting torn apart by the very people he had claimed he was trying to help.]]
* TheHero: Legendarily talented Japanese admiral Yamamoto Isoroku is probably the closest the series has to a central protagonist, as his efforts to build a proper alliance system for Japan and avert the tragedies of the 20th century drive most of the protagonists' actions.
* [[HideYourLesbians Hide Your Gays]]: [[DefiedTrope Outright defied]] by the uptimer Americans, who are generally accepting of homosexuals being out of the closet and even married. It's a huge source of tension with the 1939-40 Americans.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Far too many to list. Many of them appear in just a single entry.
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Mussolini attempts to invoke this. It's debatable how successful he is, and even UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill is disgusted by his naked attempts to grab more land, but so far he's managed to make himself a useful link in the chain holding back the Soviet Union.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Fascist Spain briefly undergoes this after Franco's death and replacement by the considerably less stable Milan Astray. Invasion on three fronts coupled with a major Catalan uprising, Italian support to said uprising, and the historical severe famine all end this phase and effectively break Spain itself.
* HonorBeforeReason: The Kwantung Army stationed in China refuses to back down when ordered by up-time Japan to withdraw, launching the ‘Temporal Mutiny’. Despite the fact that they are cut off from supplies and reinforcements, have equipment that is 70 years less advance compared to the JDF and Japanese-based US forces, and is being attacked by the Soviets from the north.
** Played with by General Kuribayashi Tadamichi at first, before the Imperial forces on mainland Asia learn of the Transition and suspect that the loss of contact with Japan was caused by a coup, with the general willing to ''obey'' the new government, but not necessarily ''support'' it. Ultimately {{subverted|Trope}} however, as General Kuribayashi along with Generals Masaharu Homma and Yamashita Tomoyuki backing the up-time government against the mutinying Kwantung Army.
** {{Averted|Trope}} when General Masaharu, who believes himself to be a potential embarrassment to up-time Japan and requests that he be granted the opportunity for honorable suicide. The Emperor quickly and firmly expresses his disagreement with the general's sentiment.
** Justifiably played straight by General Yamashita, who while agreeing that war criminals would be tried, insists that the trials should be fair and the accused properly-represented, and threatening protest by honorable suicide otherwise. Prime Minister Abe assures the general that Japan would not hold show trials, as it is a democratic nation and not the Soviet Union.
* HumbleHero: Simo Häyhä, as he was in RealLife.
* IHatePastMe: An extremely elderly man ends up testifying to his as-yet-unrepentant younger self's war crimes.
* IWantMyMommy: [[spoiler: Eva Braun heard Hitler calling for his mother, right before his own men shot him dead.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: Private Jesse Wayne, a Neo-Nazi US marine that seeks to help Nazi Germany win the war by giving them an iPad containing information from 2015, and destabilize the US internally so that a far-right government can take power.
** Father Coughlin, a notable downtime right-wing radio preacher, infamous for his bigoted tirades, experiences a revival as part of the culture clash, and proceeds to be as much of a PoliticallyIncorrectVillain as he can.
** Theodore Bilbo, who also tries to whip up public anger in the South against uptimers.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** Many downtimers have legitimate grievances about modern America-deindustrialization, crime, the military industrial complex-but they only use those facts to reinforce their bigotry.
** Jan Smuts poses this question to the uptimer South African ambassador:
--> '''Jan Smuts''': “...the Cape Coloured population, I assume, also benefited from your Rainbow State?” He chuckled to himself as he saw the woman fume, and saw the British representative – a Mr Mackenzie – wince a little.
** Joe Kennedy, Sr. points out that granting too many concessions to up-timers too quickly could split the Democratic Party and lead to Franklin D. Roosevelt losing the presidency to a more bigoted individual. Even Caroline Kennedy can't deny that he's absolutely right.
* {{Kaiserreich}}: The British have decided to back the eventual restoration of the House of Hohenzollern, though it's implied that Wilhelm II will ''not'' be restored, and his grandson Louis Ferdinand the Prince of Prussia will be the new Kaiser. Justified as if the Allies succeed in defeating Germany quickly and prevent TheHolocaust from happening, it's likely that Nazism could eventually gain a second wind a couple of decades down the line. With the Hohenzollerns historically opposed to the Nazis (with Wilhelm II once describing them IRL as gangsters), and the strong dynastic loyalty still existing in Germany to the Hohenzollerns, the Allies hope that the Kaiserreich can sway people's allegiances away from the Nazis and keep them down.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Adolf Hitler, beaten to death by his own people. Something similar happens to Klaus Barbie when he's setting Jewish houses on fire.]]
* KickTheSonOfABitch: What J. Edgar's men do to [[spoiler:Jesse Wayne]].
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Due to its nature as a fleshed-out alternate history timeline rather than a simple story.
* MassTeleportation: How 2015 Japan ended up in 1939.
* MoralityKitchenSink: The story is full of it. The story runs the morality gamut from the socially tolerant uptimers and their idealistic downtimer supporters, to violent racists and segregationists like Theodore Bilbo, and, of course, the Third Reich. In the middle are [[TroubledSympatheticBigot normal people who are wary of uptimer values]], morally ambiguous and opportunistic politicians like Jan Smuts and Joe Kennedy Sr. who have to the placate the more hateful aspects of their society, to businessman and statesman seeking to profit from uptime technology.
* NiceGuy:
** Texas Representative Sam Rayburn, who risks his reputation to defend the uptimers, [[WhatTheHellHero even calling out the American people]] [[spoiler: when an uptimer Chinese American family is forced to flee to colonial Singapore after countless acts of discrimination]].
** Audie Murphy is a genial guy, [[BewareTheNiceOnes just don't piss him off]].
* NostalgiaFilter: [[spoiler: Jessie Wayne's has a naive view of pre-Civil Rights America]]. He gets a nasty surprise [[spoiler: when he discovers that the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique is no less vicious about prying information from him]] than present day law enforcement]].
* OtherMeAnnoysMe:
** Anne Frank, who in this timeline was rescued before she had to go into hiding, says in an interview that she hates her original self because up-timers keep treating her like a hero for something she hasn't done, and feels guilty for not having gone through the horrors the other Anne did.
** Creator/AudieMurphy feels this way at first, too.
** Douglas [=MacArthur=] feels like he'll have to spend the rest of his life in the shadow of his alternate self's accomplishments, since he can't perform them here.
** Averted with Creator/ChristopherLee, who is perfectly satisfied with how his life played out in [=OTL=].
* OneManArmy: Several.
** Sir Christopher Lee solos a bunch of Nazis to rescue the Bavarian royal family. He later does the same for [[spoiler:Rommel's family]]
** [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack Churchill]] and the [[FriendlySniper White Death]] take out an entire SS platoon that's about to execute an entire village in Holland.
** Two words: Creator/AudieMurphy
* PragmaticVillainy:
** Mussolini, to an extent. When he sees just how overpowered uptime technology is, and how badly he was screwed in our timeline, he withdraws his support of Germany and makes token moves to undo his Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish policies. [[ZigZaggedTrope He's still an arrogant dictator who buys into his own propaganda, though.]]
*** [[spoiler:Pays off big-time when his restructured military pushes easily into Austria and swiftly defeats hastily-levied infantry under the command of SS officer Odilo Globocnick.]]
** The downtime leadership of South Africa, too, acknowledging that they'll have to give the native population a few carrots while also trying to keep limited minority rule around for as long as possible.
** Stalin to an extent, sitting back and frantically trying to unscrew himself while playing the Nazis for chumps and eventually landing a good slice of eastern Europe.
** [[TheSociopath Reinhard Heydrich]], as in RealLife. He even [[spoiler:starts a civil war between Hitler and Himmler when the cause is obviously lost, so as to gain Mussolini's favor and prove himself useful to any unscrupulous fellows on the other side]].
** The Mexican government quietly purges several people who would have gone on to father key figures in the narcotics trade. This was later [[RetCon retconned]] to them tracking down these families and offering them comfortable lives and opportunities for their children in hopes of keeping them law-abiding citizens.
** While some isolationist politicians in the United States want to reduce military spending, others recognize that this is a bad idea and are all for modernizing the Armed Forces--purely for ''defensive'' measures, though. Some of them are even willing to accept de-segregation of the military because they feel that America becoming a military juggernaut is worth the "sacrifice".
* [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Eclectic Band of Bad-asses]]: Mad Jack's team, consisting of a CrazyIsCool Englishman, a cheerful Finnish god of war, a plucky air-ace turned resistance fighter, and an [[AudienceSurrogate uptime intelligence officer]]. Together, [[TheyFightCrime they kick Nazi ass]].
* RapeAndRevenge: After up-time revelations about clerical abuse are disseminated in Ireland, a PedophilePriest is shot dead by an enraged father.
* RousingSpeech: Kaiser Wilhelm II gives one on radio, marking the beginning of a dedicated broadcast campaign meant to convince Germans of the utter vileness of the [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Nazi regime]], and to explain why he is in Britain and standing in opposition to the Nazis despite the ongoing Allied invasion of Germany.
--->''People of Germany, I am Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht von Preußen, head of the House of Hohenzollern and formerly Kaiser of the German Reich. I realise that many of you will question why I am in Britain. Why I am speaking to you from an enemy nation, when the Fatherland is invaded. Many of you will think I have turned traitor. Indeed, Herr Hitler and his gang will call me such. To all the people of Germany, I say that I am no traitor. I am here, in Britain, to save Germany from the darkness into which the mad Austrian and his jackals wish to lead it. In the other history, the history from which Japan was sent by the intervention of God Almighty, he succeeded. In that other history, the Nazis slaughtered over eleven million people in great 'extermination camps'. In that other history, they killed millions of their fellow-Germans, and of foreign civilians unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Why? Simply because they disagreed with their religion or their convictions. I realise that this is hard to believe. Many of you will think this is a lie. A lie perpetrated by our enemies. Which is why I am telling you, much as it pains me. I love Germany, and I love the German people, more than I love my own life. I would never tell such a damning lie about them. As time progresses, you will hear from others, men and women who studied this horror in that other history. You will hear evidence. And I pray that learning this fact will lead you to reject Hitler, to reject the man who - if he is successful in his aims again - will blacken the name of Germany for decades to come.''
* RousseauWasRight: Many, many Germans, from the Hohenzollerns, to Sophie Scholl, begin resisting the Nazis once they learn about their OTL atrocities. In one epic moment [[spoiler: a German mob, [[OldSoldier lead by man old enough to remember Bismarck]] attack a group of SS soldiers trying to kill Berlin's Jews]].
* RuleOfCool: Nintendo realizes that they're exceedingly unlikely to survive as a company in a world that has neither the capacity to create or interest in videogames. [[spoiler:So they decide to finally enter the filmmaking business, and team up with ''Studio Ghibli'' to produce films based on ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'', ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', and ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' - and they later decide to further team up with ''Disney''.]] Konami later follows up with [[spoiler:a ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' animated adaptation starring Bela Lugosi, Jimmy Stewart and Conrad Veidt]]. Later on, a two-bit actor, [[spoiler:Ricardo Montalbán]], is tapped by Howard Hughes himself to star in a ''Star Trek'' film.
* SanitySlippage: UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler wasn't all that sane to begin with, but losing World War 2 so badly is making it worse. [[spoiler:Not helped by Heydrich's treachery.]]
* SchizoTech: Because of the Transition, countries allied with, or friendly to, Japan see everything from direct transfers of serviceable 2010s-era technology, to ersatz repurposings of 1970s-1990s technology for the 1940s. As one example, Toyota tools up to produce 1970s Corollas for export based on the E20 line from our era.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Stalin can get away with smoking around aircraft equipment--which is a safety hazard--because nobody working at the factory wants to tell him what he can and can't do.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Stalin has UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev arrested, tortured, and sent to the gulag to keep him from becoming a threat, having apparently decided that such a fate is [[AFateWorseThanDeath more cruel]] than simply shooting him. Unfortunately, Khrushchev managed to learn about what happened to the Soviet Union in [=OTL=] and becomes utterly determined to survive and take vengeance against his former boss. And with Stalin having just sent the bulk of his more competent officers and foot-soldiers to the exact same gulag (because he thinks they're not sycophantic enough), which Khrushchev has secretly taken control of, he might just be able to pull it off.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: So many examples, from Jan Smuts is trying to preempt South Africa's slide into pariah status by slowing expanding enfranchising black natives, to Caroline Kennedy trying to save her aunt from lobotomy. Of course, people can have very different ideas of what "went wrong."
* SlidingScaleOfAlternateHistoryPlausibility: Type X due to the Transition, but afterwards a rigorous type I.
* TheSociopath: Reinhard "The Butcher of Prague" Heydrich is evil even for a Nazi, having no qualms about using horrific weapons of mass destruction, betraying both factions within his government, and even mass murder if they get him political power. A crazy neo-Pagan SS officer in the occupied Netherlands also earns the moniker "the Beast of Veenendaal" for extremely sadistic war crimes.
* StayInTheKitchen: Patsy Spencer's mother, who even looks down on her becoming an acclaimed fighter pilot because it's "unladylike."
* StraightGay: Roosevelt assumes that the 6'7", muscular Colonel Ransom must be vehemently defending having homosexual people in the army because he has a gay ''friend''.
* StupidEvil: Many Southerners are so vehemently racist that even the offer of 21st-century technology isn't enough to make them reconsider their views. Oregon even starts ''a rebellion'' to try to maintain their sickening beliefs. It gets even worse when this conduct drives many up-timers to leave for other countries that, while racist to an extent, are at least [[PragmaticVillainy willing to restrain their bigotry in exchange for modernization.]] It's described as many Americans "being on brain-drain".
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda spouted by bigots: some of them are simply unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
** When UsefulNotes/RichardNixon campaigns for the construction of other cities like Futureville, where minorities and their sympathizers can live ''away'' from segregationist communities, but with full civil rights, he gets a good amount of support, and not just from white supremacists: some of the oppressed groups don't ''want'' to fraternize with white people.
* TakeAThirdOption:
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Winston Churchill and a Mossad agent are ''not'' happy about having to work with Mussolini to accomplish their goals.
* ThisIsUnforgivable: Revelations about the Holocaust in [=OTL=] causes every Jewish community in the United States to become viciously pro-war, even leading to violent confrontations between pro-war and isolationist factions in the streets.
* TimeTravelRomance: Well, yes.
** Hokkaido-born JSDF volunteer courting Karafuto doctor and downtime Negro reporter moving in with uptime Brazilian-born ''hāfu'' factory worker are just the tip of the iceberg.
** [[spoiler:Judy Garland begins a secret relationship with a Japanese voice actress.]]
** [[spoiler:Rita Hayworth marries her female attorney after netting an Oscar.]]
** [[spoiler:Audie Murphy is implied to be starting a relationship with Admiral Flannagan's granddaughter, Nikki.]]
* TokenGoodTeammate: Erwin Rommel to ThoseWackyNazis, as in RealLife. However, recent updates have hinted that he is considering a HeelFaceTurn.
* TranquilFury: Stalin could send countless soldiers to their doom after a catastrophic military defeat, and the only sign of annoyance would be the scratch of his pen.
* UriahGambit: The decision of the Australian Cabinet to promptly send the ship they inherited from the 21st century to the defense of Britain had elements of this. If HMAS Sydney comes home dripping in honor, glory, and the political capital needed to introduce it's skipper[[note]]LCDR Karen Doan, born in Darwin to Vietnamese Immigrants[[/note]] to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy White Australia]] it is all to the good; if possibly undesirable elements aboard cannot hack it and gets the tub sunk... it makes things less complicated.
* VillainousBreakdown: Adolf Hitler, like OTL, loses it over the Reich's failures. [[spoiler: When he's torn apart by a mob, his last words are begging for his mother.]]
** [[spoiler: Klaus Barbie spectacularly falls apart after getting kneecapped.]]
* WesternTerrorists: The Defenders of Oregon blow well past the line on this with the insurgency launched after the rapidly suppressed riot in Futureville.
* WhamEpisode: Chapter Forty Eight of Part One of the TL, December 1-16, 1941, is a pretty normal chapter until the very end, where [[spoiler: the Nazis detonate a fuel air bomb filled with coal dust and radium in Bruchsal, killing over ten thousand French soldiers and fifteen thousand German civilians]].
* AWorldHalfFull: Despite the violence and confusion created by the Transition, overall, the world its getting better thanks to uptimer history and technologies.
* WillfullyWeak: Consciously invoked by Japan, with the intent of showing they are not the brutally aggressive sorts the world needs to unite against given the tech disparity (and the sincerity helps).
* WorthIt: The state of Israel is still established, albeit smaller, still surrounded by Muslim countries, and will have to rely heavily on British support. On the other hand, said neighbors are less inclined to be hostile thanks to also getting help from the British, so Israel's inhabitants--including the uptimers--figure it's worth the price since their nation will still exist ''and'' won't have to spend all its time and resources fighting to survive.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Using uptimer information, Hitler decides to have Rommel killed, ''after'' the guy secures his victory.
to:
-->-- '''General Masaharu Homma,''' upon viewing ''Film/LettersFromIwoJima''. 10 November 1939, Transition +48 days
''As One Star Sets, Another Rises'' is a timeline and novel posted on [[{{Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom}} AlternateHistory.com]] written by [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/member.php?u=80980 theg*ddam*hoi2fan]], in which on 21 May, 2015, [[{{UsefulNotes/Japan}} all the territories currently belonging to the State of Japan]] with everyone and everything on them, finds itself inexplicably [[MassTeleportation ISOT]] back to the year 1939, two years after the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Marco Polo Bridge Incident]], and two years before the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Attack on Pearl Harbor]].
Needless to say, having a militaristic and expansionist Imperial power suddenly replaced by a pacifist conservative democracy that is over 70 years more advanced compared to the rest of the world will fundamentally change history in unpredictable ways...
The timeline follows various individuals both up-time and down-time, both inside Japan and beyond, and examines the political, social, and economical impact that the Transition has on the world from their perspectives.
The story is currently ongoing, with it's discussion thread can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-2015-japan-to-1939.351375/ here]] and [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-thread-ii.401323/ here]] (the original thread was over 500 pages, so it was locked, a fate that the second thread would share in late 2021), and it's story-only thread [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-new-story-only-thread.389404/ here]] (requires free membership to view).
----
!!This story provides examples of :
* ActionGirl: Patsy Spencer, flying ace, has upgraded to a powerful ground combatant in recent updates.
* AdaptationalBadass: Winston Churchill is determined to ensure that the United Kingdom retains its power and prestige this time around, even if it means turning some British colonies into protectorates.
* AlasPoorVillain: [[AntiHero General Zhukov]] leads the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and is killed by the Japanese counterattack. However it's clear that he commanded the invasion only because it was his duty to do so, and not because he himself wanted to go to war. It's made even sadder when the general knows that he can neither retreat, surrender, or even refuse his orders, as doing so would risk the lives of his family. To make things worse, even though his family isn't targeted in the aftermath, Stalin decides to use his staff as scapegoats and has ''their'' families arrested.
** [[spoiler: Karl Hanke, to a certain extent. Yeah, he's committed terrible crimes, but he honestly felt he was fighting for a stronger Germany, and he knows he'll be too hated to be allowed to live.]]
* AlienSpaceBats: How Japan gets transported though time, how the force behind it works, and why Japan still manages to keep it's orbiting satellites is left completely unexplained as of right now, with the story much more focused on the social and political aftermath of the Transition instead of the cause behind it.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Prime Minister Abe to the ambassador from the People's Republic of China.
-->'''Abe:''' Are you in such a hurry to meet Chairman Mao, Ambassador - you with your Armani suit and Rolex watch, your BMW and the slim, expensive mistress you maintain in the apartment in Nihonbashi?
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: InUniverse, Astray's letter to Mussolini is ''allegedly'' in Italian.
* TheBaroness: Silver-Gun Wu, whether as jumped up bandit[=/=]petty warlord or provincial police commissioner, is the sort of person who gets "creative" with any enemies that live long enough to be captives.
* BadassInDistress: [[TheAce Patsy Spencer]], a young British flying ace in the "all-Jewish" (some members changed their names and pretended to be Jewish to get a chance to fly) Maccabeus Squadron, is shot down over the Occupied Netherlands and caught by an SS patrol. [[spoiler: Fortunately, she's rescued by UsefulNotes/SimoHayha before the SS officer can kill her]].
* BadassNormal: Creator/AudieMurphy, [[UpToEleven now a Marine]]. A [[OneManArmy one-man racist-punching Nazi-killing machine of pure courage]].
* BadBoss: If you [[YouHaveFailedMe fail]] UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, no matter how inconsequentially, you are better off just shooting yourself and saving everyone the trouble.
* BigBad:
** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, for obvious reasons.
** UsefulNotes/JosefStalin, in the longer term (i.e. at least for the rest of the '40s and probably the '50s). The British have been warned about his OTL actions by the Japanese, and have significantly altered their approach to the Germany problem as a result. Stalin still manages to build up and hastily modernize some of his military by 1941.
* BoringButPractical: Mexico, under Lázaro Cárdenas, makes as little waves as possible in international politics and starts developing its oil industry and raising standards of living under the auspices of the Japanese.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: Doctor Watanabe Midori, a young woman living by herself and practicing medicine on Toyohara. In 1939, it was absolutely scandalous for a single women like her to live alone away from family, being a doctor and treating Koreans.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Surprisingly, Josef Stalin doesn't have [[FourEyesZeroSoul Lavrentiy Beria]] killed, likely for this reason. [[KickTheSonOfABitch He does blackmail him into ceasing his sexual predations, though.]]
* CharacterDevelopment: [=FDR=] initially avoids being too pro-uptimer and pro-interventionist, in order to avoid alienating the isolationist and Southern wing of the party. But gradually, he becomes less and less tolerant of the injustices of racism and sexism, being willing to [[WhatTheHellHero publicly call out]] these injustices, especially when they threaten uptimers, and sends troops to [[spoiler: put down the Oregon uprising, and send troops to defend black Mississippians from racist rioters]].
* ColonelBadass: Chesty Puller, [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack]], and [[GoodIsNotSoft Patton]], much like their OTL selves. The latter responds to a racist rebel movement in Oregon with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming military force]], [[CurbStompBattle crushing them in about a month]].
* CoolBoat: Many, many examples in the story, including the US Seventh Fleet stationed at Japan at the time of the Transition, and Japan's own down-time warships that was out at sea at the time.
** The ''Nimitz''-class supercarrier deserves special mention, being effectively a [[OneManArmy One-Ship Navy]] due to its sheer size and the raw firepower of its jet aircraft.
* CurbStompBattle: The Soviet incursion into Manchuria and Karafuto resulted in the sinking of it's entire Pacific Fleet, and all tanks stationed in the Far East.
* DeadpanSnarker: Theodore Bilbo extols the virtue of poverty and hard work above any convenience uptime technology could bring to anyone in the South. A very poor farmer is quoted as saying that if those things are so wonderful, he's welcome to leave his luxurious office, hand over his considerable pay, and work in his farm - there's plenty of those things there.
* DefusingTheTykeBomb: Abd al-Ilah, Regent of Iraq, plans to turn [[UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein a certain child in Tikrit]] into a loyal follower of the Iraqi monarchy.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Oh yes. Uptimers are confronted with countless acts of bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia.
* DidntSeeThatComing: The little-mentioned Mexico subplot. The president at the era when the story takes place is Lázaro Cárdenas, under whose rule Mexico expropriated the nation's oil reserves, but was consequently punished for it with an international boycott. Here, he instantly enters talks with the Japanese, selling them the oil nobody wanted to buy, kickstarting Mexico's development as a first-world nation.
* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies:
** The anime industry booms after the Transition, producing films based on ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' franchise, popular though controversial adaptations of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'', and a Madoka Magica prequel. Other movies include a Godzilla film and a Stargate remake.
** With many iconic films from [=OTL=] being pre-made, many Hollywood actors are free to expand their choices of film roles.
* EnemyMine:
** The Chinese uptimers have no choice but to throw their lot in with UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek because UsefulNotes/MaoZedong would never accept modern China's [[UsefulNotes/ToGetRichIsGlorious economic policies]], whereas Chiang would gladly do so.
** Mussolini joins the Allies this time around, but they can barely restrain their contempt for him.
** The Republican Party forms a coalition with Southern anti-uptimer groups, but their presidential nominee, Thomas Dewey, treats said groups with barely concealed loathing, and internally admits that he hates Jim Crow and wants it abolished--on a state-by-state level, as he feels that a federal law against it would be too autocratic.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Strom Thurmond is an unabashed racist, but despite his disagreement with [[spoiler: Sam Rayburn, he was appalled when a fanatic tried to shoot him]]. Subverted with Theodore Bilbo who only thought [[spoiler: the murder of a respected politician would be detrimental to his cause]].
* EnragedByIdiocy: Admiral Yamamoto watches a documentary series detailing the Pacific Front in World War [=II=] from [=OTL=], and is left absolutely flabbergasted by the abject stupidity of the Japanese High Command.
* EveryoneHasStandards:
** Reinhard Heydrich and even Adolf Hilter thought [[spoiler: Jessie Wayne's]] antisemitic propaganda was a load of bull. Yes, the fathers of the ''most'' racist ideology ever thought [[spoiler: an uptime Neo-Nazi's]] fears about minorities were a rambling, incoherent mess.
** While most uptime Japanese are not known for their tolerance of other Asian people, many are horrified by the crimes committed by their ancestors against the Chinese.
** A mafioso condemned to an Italian penal unit is horrified at the Nazi use of [[ChildSoldier Child Soldiers]].
** While Southern society believes that women should StayInTheKitchen, they also feel that men should always be ''polite'' to women. So, when an ultra-chauvinist uptimer publishes an article describing how women should be "handled", ''everybody'' in the United States condemns it.
* AFatherToHisMen: Admiral Nimitz and Chesty Puller both fall here, making a point of nipping any downtimer abuse of uptimers in the bud.
--->Admiral Nimitz: ''Well I don't see the problem. Damn it, man, you've served your country! If your country can't look after you and yours for the service you've done it - and what you'll be bringing with you - then it's not the country I thought it was.''
* ForWantOfANail: Due to the Japanese intervention, the British Empire quietly begins preparing for a post-war disassembly, allowing for largely peaceful transitions of power. However, this has the unintended side effect of leaving the royal houses of several Arabic states standing and leaving India a nation separated into the Princely States. Churchill argues that this is a good thing: he convinces the up-timers that the royal houses will ensure that al Qaeda and [=ISIS=] will not come into existence; and that unified India was a chaotic mess, anyway--though he really just wants to stick it to Gandhi.
* FriendlySniper: UsefulNotes/SimoHayha.
* FutureMeScaresMe: In one interlude we see a certain Margarita Carmen Cansino view a Rita Hayworth movie in Futureville; then promptly find a lawyer, sue for divorce, and secure leverage to renegotiate her contract with Columbia Pictures spurred on by horror over seeing her face being "replaced by a mask."
* GoingColdTurkey: Downplayed with King George VI of the United Kingdom. Having been informed that his [[MustHaveNicotine smoking addiction]] led to an early death in [=OTL=], his family ''forces'' him to toss the cigarettes (which nearly sets his stammer back again) until he finds a less damaging replacement: vape. Winston Churchill shows mixed feelings about this: on one hand, he's glad that it's less damaging to the king's health; but on the other hand, he dislikes the smell of butterscotch (which seems to be George's favorite flavor) that goes with it.
* GoshDangItToHeck: Colonel Patton forces this trope upon himself when he gets a new, female aide. She bluntly tells him that it won't offend her if he swears, but he refuses.
* GrandfatherParadox: Discussed, with people from up-time meeting their own grandparents and parents before the latter was even married, and the butterfly effect meaning that anyone who was not conceived by the time of the Transition being automatically removed from the timeline.
* GrassIsGreener: Many of the Soviet refugees who end up under Japanese rule more or less can tolerate Japanese xenophobia if it means not living under Stalin. As one refugee puts it:
-->'''Baranov''':"Boy, we lived in Stalin's Soviet Union. Country that we can buy three square meals a day in and where Black Marias don't come to door at midnight is paradise by comparison. Even if yellow people hate blonde Slavs, as long as they let us make living and eat decent food."
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Rommel, after his family is liberated from Nazi custody and the Allies save him from his SS "bodyguard"/assassin]].
* HeelRealization: Many of the German people upon finding out about the OTL atrocities that the SS performed. [[spoiler: Which eventually leads to an uprising which results in Hitler getting torn apart by the very people he had claimed he was trying to help.]]
* TheHero: Legendarily talented Japanese admiral Yamamoto Isoroku is probably the closest the series has to a central protagonist, as his efforts to build a proper alliance system for Japan and avert the tragedies of the 20th century drive most of the protagonists' actions.
* [[HideYourLesbians Hide Your Gays]]: [[DefiedTrope Outright defied]] by the uptimer Americans, who are generally accepting of homosexuals being out of the closet and even married. It's a huge source of tension with the 1939-40 Americans.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Far too many to list. Many of them appear in just a single entry.
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Mussolini attempts to invoke this. It's debatable how successful he is, and even UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill is disgusted by his naked attempts to grab more land, but so far he's managed to make himself a useful link in the chain holding back the Soviet Union.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Fascist Spain briefly undergoes this after Franco's death and replacement by the considerably less stable Milan Astray. Invasion on three fronts coupled with a major Catalan uprising, Italian support to said uprising, and the historical severe famine all end this phase and effectively break Spain itself.
* HonorBeforeReason: The Kwantung Army stationed in China refuses to back down when ordered by up-time Japan to withdraw, launching the ‘Temporal Mutiny’. Despite the fact that they are cut off from supplies and reinforcements, have equipment that is 70 years less advance compared to the JDF and Japanese-based US forces, and is being attacked by the Soviets from the north.
** Played with by General Kuribayashi Tadamichi at first, before the Imperial forces on mainland Asia learn of the Transition and suspect that the loss of contact with Japan was caused by a coup, with the general willing to ''obey'' the new government, but not necessarily ''support'' it. Ultimately {{subverted|Trope}} however, as General Kuribayashi along with Generals Masaharu Homma and Yamashita Tomoyuki backing the up-time government against the mutinying Kwantung Army.
** {{Averted|Trope}} when General Masaharu, who believes himself to be a potential embarrassment to up-time Japan and requests that he be granted the opportunity for honorable suicide. The Emperor quickly and firmly expresses his disagreement with the general's sentiment.
** Justifiably played straight by General Yamashita, who while agreeing that war criminals would be tried, insists that the trials should be fair and the accused properly-represented, and threatening protest by honorable suicide otherwise. Prime Minister Abe assures the general that Japan would not hold show trials, as it is a democratic nation and not the Soviet Union.
* HumbleHero: Simo Häyhä, as he was in RealLife.
* IHatePastMe: An extremely elderly man ends up testifying to his as-yet-unrepentant younger self's war crimes.
* IWantMyMommy: [[spoiler: Eva Braun heard Hitler calling for his mother, right before his own men shot him dead.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: Private Jesse Wayne, a Neo-Nazi US marine that seeks to help Nazi Germany win the war by giving them an iPad containing information from 2015, and destabilize the US internally so that a far-right government can take power.
** Father Coughlin, a notable downtime right-wing radio preacher, infamous for his bigoted tirades, experiences a revival as part of the culture clash, and proceeds to be as much of a PoliticallyIncorrectVillain as he can.
** Theodore Bilbo, who also tries to whip up public anger in the South against uptimers.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** Many downtimers have legitimate grievances about modern America-deindustrialization, crime, the military industrial complex-but they only use those facts to reinforce their bigotry.
** Jan Smuts poses this question to the uptimer South African ambassador:
--> '''Jan Smuts''': “...the Cape Coloured population, I assume, also benefited from your Rainbow State?” He chuckled to himself as he saw the woman fume, and saw the British representative – a Mr Mackenzie – wince a little.
** Joe Kennedy, Sr. points out that granting too many concessions to up-timers too quickly could split the Democratic Party and lead to Franklin D. Roosevelt losing the presidency to a more bigoted individual. Even Caroline Kennedy can't deny that he's absolutely right.
* {{Kaiserreich}}: The British have decided to back the eventual restoration of the House of Hohenzollern, though it's implied that Wilhelm II will ''not'' be restored, and his grandson Louis Ferdinand the Prince of Prussia will be the new Kaiser. Justified as if the Allies succeed in defeating Germany quickly and prevent TheHolocaust from happening, it's likely that Nazism could eventually gain a second wind a couple of decades down the line. With the Hohenzollerns historically opposed to the Nazis (with Wilhelm II once describing them IRL as gangsters), and the strong dynastic loyalty still existing in Germany to the Hohenzollerns, the Allies hope that the Kaiserreich can sway people's allegiances away from the Nazis and keep them down.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Adolf Hitler, beaten to death by his own people. Something similar happens to Klaus Barbie when he's setting Jewish houses on fire.]]
* KickTheSonOfABitch: What J. Edgar's men do to [[spoiler:Jesse Wayne]].
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Due to its nature as a fleshed-out alternate history timeline rather than a simple story.
* MassTeleportation: How 2015 Japan ended up in 1939.
* MoralityKitchenSink: The story is full of it. The story runs the morality gamut from the socially tolerant uptimers and their idealistic downtimer supporters, to violent racists and segregationists like Theodore Bilbo, and, of course, the Third Reich. In the middle are [[TroubledSympatheticBigot normal people who are wary of uptimer values]], morally ambiguous and opportunistic politicians like Jan Smuts and Joe Kennedy Sr. who have to the placate the more hateful aspects of their society, to businessman and statesman seeking to profit from uptime technology.
* NiceGuy:
** Texas Representative Sam Rayburn, who risks his reputation to defend the uptimers, [[WhatTheHellHero even calling out the American people]] [[spoiler: when an uptimer Chinese American family is forced to flee to colonial Singapore after countless acts of discrimination]].
** Audie Murphy is a genial guy, [[BewareTheNiceOnes just don't piss him off]].
* NostalgiaFilter: [[spoiler: Jessie Wayne's has a naive view of pre-Civil Rights America]]. He gets a nasty surprise [[spoiler: when he discovers that the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique is no less vicious about prying information from him]] than present day law enforcement]].
* OtherMeAnnoysMe:
** Anne Frank, who in this timeline was rescued before she had to go into hiding, says in an interview that she hates her original self because up-timers keep treating her like a hero for something she hasn't done, and feels guilty for not having gone through the horrors the other Anne did.
** Creator/AudieMurphy feels this way at first, too.
** Douglas [=MacArthur=] feels like he'll have to spend the rest of his life in the shadow of his alternate self's accomplishments, since he can't perform them here.
** Averted with Creator/ChristopherLee, who is perfectly satisfied with how his life played out in [=OTL=].
* OneManArmy: Several.
** Sir Christopher Lee solos a bunch of Nazis to rescue the Bavarian royal family. He later does the same for [[spoiler:Rommel's family]]
** [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack Churchill]] and the [[FriendlySniper White Death]] take out an entire SS platoon that's about to execute an entire village in Holland.
** Two words: Creator/AudieMurphy
* PragmaticVillainy:
** Mussolini, to an extent. When he sees just how overpowered uptime technology is, and how badly he was screwed in our timeline, he withdraws his support of Germany and makes token moves to undo his Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish policies. [[ZigZaggedTrope He's still an arrogant dictator who buys into his own propaganda, though.]]
*** [[spoiler:Pays off big-time when his restructured military pushes easily into Austria and swiftly defeats hastily-levied infantry under the command of SS officer Odilo Globocnick.]]
** The downtime leadership of South Africa, too, acknowledging that they'll have to give the native population a few carrots while also trying to keep limited minority rule around for as long as possible.
** Stalin to an extent, sitting back and frantically trying to unscrew himself while playing the Nazis for chumps and eventually landing a good slice of eastern Europe.
** [[TheSociopath Reinhard Heydrich]], as in RealLife. He even [[spoiler:starts a civil war between Hitler and Himmler when the cause is obviously lost, so as to gain Mussolini's favor and prove himself useful to any unscrupulous fellows on the other side]].
** The Mexican government quietly purges several people who would have gone on to father key figures in the narcotics trade. This was later [[RetCon retconned]] to them tracking down these families and offering them comfortable lives and opportunities for their children in hopes of keeping them law-abiding citizens.
** While some isolationist politicians in the United States want to reduce military spending, others recognize that this is a bad idea and are all for modernizing the Armed Forces--purely for ''defensive'' measures, though. Some of them are even willing to accept de-segregation of the military because they feel that America becoming a military juggernaut is worth the "sacrifice".
* [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Eclectic Band of Bad-asses]]: Mad Jack's team, consisting of a CrazyIsCool Englishman, a cheerful Finnish god of war, a plucky air-ace turned resistance fighter, and an [[AudienceSurrogate uptime intelligence officer]]. Together, [[TheyFightCrime they kick Nazi ass]].
* RapeAndRevenge: After up-time revelations about clerical abuse are disseminated in Ireland, a PedophilePriest is shot dead by an enraged father.
* RousingSpeech: Kaiser Wilhelm II gives one on radio, marking the beginning of a dedicated broadcast campaign meant to convince Germans of the utter vileness of the [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Nazi regime]], and to explain why he is in Britain and standing in opposition to the Nazis despite the ongoing Allied invasion of Germany.
--->''People of Germany, I am Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht von Preußen, head of the House of Hohenzollern and formerly Kaiser of the German Reich. I realise that many of you will question why I am in Britain. Why I am speaking to you from an enemy nation, when the Fatherland is invaded. Many of you will think I have turned traitor. Indeed, Herr Hitler and his gang will call me such. To all the people of Germany, I say that I am no traitor. I am here, in Britain, to save Germany from the darkness into which the mad Austrian and his jackals wish to lead it. In the other history, the history from which Japan was sent by the intervention of God Almighty, he succeeded. In that other history, the Nazis slaughtered over eleven million people in great 'extermination camps'. In that other history, they killed millions of their fellow-Germans, and of foreign civilians unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Why? Simply because they disagreed with their religion or their convictions. I realise that this is hard to believe. Many of you will think this is a lie. A lie perpetrated by our enemies. Which is why I am telling you, much as it pains me. I love Germany, and I love the German people, more than I love my own life. I would never tell such a damning lie about them. As time progresses, you will hear from others, men and women who studied this horror in that other history. You will hear evidence. And I pray that learning this fact will lead you to reject Hitler, to reject the man who - if he is successful in his aims again - will blacken the name of Germany for decades to come.''
* RousseauWasRight: Many, many Germans, from the Hohenzollerns, to Sophie Scholl, begin resisting the Nazis once they learn about their OTL atrocities. In one epic moment [[spoiler: a German mob, [[OldSoldier lead by man old enough to remember Bismarck]] attack a group of SS soldiers trying to kill Berlin's Jews]].
* RuleOfCool: Nintendo realizes that they're exceedingly unlikely to survive as a company in a world that has neither the capacity to create or interest in videogames. [[spoiler:So they decide to finally enter the filmmaking business, and team up with ''Studio Ghibli'' to produce films based on ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'', ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', and ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' - and they later decide to further team up with ''Disney''.]] Konami later follows up with [[spoiler:a ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' animated adaptation starring Bela Lugosi, Jimmy Stewart and Conrad Veidt]]. Later on, a two-bit actor, [[spoiler:Ricardo Montalbán]], is tapped by Howard Hughes himself to star in a ''Star Trek'' film.
* SanitySlippage: UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler wasn't all that sane to begin with, but losing World War 2 so badly is making it worse. [[spoiler:Not helped by Heydrich's treachery.]]
* SchizoTech: Because of the Transition, countries allied with, or friendly to, Japan see everything from direct transfers of serviceable 2010s-era technology, to ersatz repurposings of 1970s-1990s technology for the 1940s. As one example, Toyota tools up to produce 1970s Corollas for export based on the E20 line from our era.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Stalin can get away with smoking around aircraft equipment--which is a safety hazard--because nobody working at the factory wants to tell him what he can and can't do.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Stalin has UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev arrested, tortured, and sent to the gulag to keep him from becoming a threat, having apparently decided that such a fate is [[AFateWorseThanDeath more cruel]] than simply shooting him. Unfortunately, Khrushchev managed to learn about what happened to the Soviet Union in [=OTL=] and becomes utterly determined to survive and take vengeance against his former boss. And with Stalin having just sent the bulk of his more competent officers and foot-soldiers to the exact same gulag (because he thinks they're not sycophantic enough), which Khrushchev has secretly taken control of, he might just be able to pull it off.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: So many examples, from Jan Smuts is trying to preempt South Africa's slide into pariah status by slowing expanding enfranchising black natives, to Caroline Kennedy trying to save her aunt from lobotomy. Of course, people can have very different ideas of what "went wrong."
* SlidingScaleOfAlternateHistoryPlausibility: Type X due to the Transition, but afterwards a rigorous type I.
* TheSociopath: Reinhard "The Butcher of Prague" Heydrich is evil even for a Nazi, having no qualms about using horrific weapons of mass destruction, betraying both factions within his government, and even mass murder if they get him political power. A crazy neo-Pagan SS officer in the occupied Netherlands also earns the moniker "the Beast of Veenendaal" for extremely sadistic war crimes.
* StayInTheKitchen: Patsy Spencer's mother, who even looks down on her becoming an acclaimed fighter pilot because it's "unladylike."
* StraightGay: Roosevelt assumes that the 6'7", muscular Colonel Ransom must be vehemently defending having homosexual people in the army because he has a gay ''friend''.
* StupidEvil: Many Southerners are so vehemently racist that even the offer of 21st-century technology isn't enough to make them reconsider their views. Oregon even starts ''a rebellion'' to try to maintain their sickening beliefs. It gets even worse when this conduct drives many up-timers to leave for other countries that, while racist to an extent, are at least [[PragmaticVillainy willing to restrain their bigotry in exchange for modernization.]] It's described as many Americans "being on brain-drain".
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda spouted by bigots: some of them are simply unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
** When UsefulNotes/RichardNixon campaigns for the construction of other cities like Futureville, where minorities and their sympathizers can live ''away'' from segregationist communities, but with full civil rights, he gets a good amount of support, and not just from white supremacists: some of the oppressed groups don't ''want'' to fraternize with white people.
* TakeAThirdOption:
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Winston Churchill and a Mossad agent are ''not'' happy about having to work with Mussolini to accomplish their goals.
* ThisIsUnforgivable: Revelations about the Holocaust in [=OTL=] causes every Jewish community in the United States to become viciously pro-war, even leading to violent confrontations between pro-war and isolationist factions in the streets.
* TimeTravelRomance: Well, yes.
** Hokkaido-born JSDF volunteer courting Karafuto doctor and downtime Negro reporter moving in with uptime Brazilian-born ''hāfu'' factory worker are just the tip of the iceberg.
** [[spoiler:Judy Garland begins a secret relationship with a Japanese voice actress.]]
** [[spoiler:Rita Hayworth marries her female attorney after netting an Oscar.]]
** [[spoiler:Audie Murphy is implied to be starting a relationship with Admiral Flannagan's granddaughter, Nikki.]]
* TokenGoodTeammate: Erwin Rommel to ThoseWackyNazis, as in RealLife. However, recent updates have hinted that he is considering a HeelFaceTurn.
* TranquilFury: Stalin could send countless soldiers to their doom after a catastrophic military defeat, and the only sign of annoyance would be the scratch of his pen.
* UriahGambit: The decision of the Australian Cabinet to promptly send the ship they inherited from the 21st century to the defense of Britain had elements of this. If HMAS Sydney comes home dripping in honor, glory, and the political capital needed to introduce it's skipper[[note]]LCDR Karen Doan, born in Darwin to Vietnamese Immigrants[[/note]] to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy White Australia]] it is all to the good; if possibly undesirable elements aboard cannot hack it and gets the tub sunk... it makes things less complicated.
* VillainousBreakdown: Adolf Hitler, like OTL, loses it over the Reich's failures. [[spoiler: When he's torn apart by a mob, his last words are begging for his mother.]]
** [[spoiler: Klaus Barbie spectacularly falls apart after getting kneecapped.]]
* WesternTerrorists: The Defenders of Oregon blow well past the line on this with the insurgency launched after the rapidly suppressed riot in Futureville.
* WhamEpisode: Chapter Forty Eight of Part One of the TL, December 1-16, 1941, is a pretty normal chapter until the very end, where [[spoiler: the Nazis detonate a fuel air bomb filled with coal dust and radium in Bruchsal, killing over ten thousand French soldiers and fifteen thousand German civilians]].
* AWorldHalfFull: Despite the violence and confusion created by the Transition, overall, the world its getting better thanks to uptimer history and technologies.
* WillfullyWeak: Consciously invoked by Japan, with the intent of showing they are not the brutally aggressive sorts the world needs to unite against given the tech disparity (and the sincerity helps).
* WorthIt: The state of Israel is still established, albeit smaller, still surrounded by Muslim countries, and will have to rely heavily on British support. On the other hand, said neighbors are less inclined to be hostile thanks to also getting help from the British, so Israel's inhabitants--including the uptimers--figure it's worth the price since their nation will still exist ''and'' won't have to spend all its time and resources fighting to survive.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Using uptimer information, Hitler decides to have Rommel killed, ''after'' the guy secures his victory.
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The story is currently ongoing, with it's discussion thread can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-2015-japan-to-1939.351375/ here]] and [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-thread-ii.401323/ here]] (the original thread was over 500 pages, so it was locked), and it's story-only thread [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-new-story-only-thread.389404/ here]] (requires free membership to view).
to:
The story is currently ongoing, with it's discussion thread can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-2015-japan-to-1939.351375/ here]] and [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-thread-ii.401323/ here]] (the original thread was over 500 pages, so it was locked), locked, a fate that the second thread would share in late 2021), and it's story-only thread [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/as-one-star-sets-another-rises-new-story-only-thread.389404/ here]] (requires free membership to view).
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* StraightGay: Roosevelt assumes that the 6'7", muscular Colonel Ransom must be vehemently defending having homosexual people in the army because he has a gay ''friend''.
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* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: The anime industry booms after the Transition, producing films based on ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' franchise, popular though controversial adaptations of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'', and a Madoka Magica prequel. Other movies include a Godzilla film and a Stargate remake.
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* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: DifferentWorldDifferentMovies:
** The anime industry booms after the Transition, producing films based on ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' franchise, popular though controversial adaptations of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'', and a Madoka Magica prequel. Other movies include a Godzilla film and a Stargateremake.remake.
** With many iconic films from [=OTL=] being pre-made, many Hollywood actors are free to expand their choices of film roles.
** The anime industry booms after the Transition, producing films based on ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' franchise, popular though controversial adaptations of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'', and a Madoka Magica prequel. Other movies include a Godzilla film and a Stargate
** With many iconic films from [=OTL=] being pre-made, many Hollywood actors are free to expand their choices of film roles.
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* ForWantOfANail: Due to the Japanese intervention, the British Empire quietly begins preparing for a post-war disassembly, allowing for largely peaceful transitions of power. However, this has the unintended side effect of leaving the royal houses of several Arabic states standing and leaving India a nation separated into the Princely States.
to:
* ForWantOfANail: Due to the Japanese intervention, the British Empire quietly begins preparing for a post-war disassembly, allowing for largely peaceful transitions of power. However, this has the unintended side effect of leaving the royal houses of several Arabic states standing and leaving India a nation separated into the Princely States. Churchill argues that this is a good thing: he convinces the up-timers that the royal houses will ensure that al Qaeda and [=ISIS=] will not come into existence; and that unified India was a chaotic mess, anyway--though he really just wants to stick it to Gandhi.
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* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Stalin has UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev arrested, tortured, and sent to the gulag to keep him from becoming a threat, having apparently decided that such a fate is [[AFateWorseThanDeath more cruel]] than simply shooting him. Unfortunately, Khrushchev managed to learn about what happened to the Soviet Union in [=OTL=] and becomes utterly determined to survive and take vengeance against his former boss. And with Stalin having just sent the bulk of his more competent officers and foot-soldiers to the exact same gulag (because he thinks they're not sycophantic enough), which Khrushchev has secretly taken control of, he might just be able to pull it off.
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* StupidEvil: Many Southerners are so vehemently racist that even the offer of 21st-century technology isn't enough to make them reconsider their views. Oregon even starts ''a rebellion'' to try to maintain their sickening beliefs. It gets even worse when this conduct drives many up-timers to leave for other countries that, while racist to an extent, are at least willing to restrain their bigotry in exchange for modernization. It's described as many Americans "being on brain-drain".
to:
* StupidEvil: Many Southerners are so vehemently racist that even the offer of 21st-century technology isn't enough to make them reconsider their views. Oregon even starts ''a rebellion'' to try to maintain their sickening beliefs. It gets even worse when this conduct drives many up-timers to leave for other countries that, while racist to an extent, are at least [[PragmaticVillainy willing to restrain their bigotry in exchange for modernization. modernization.]] It's described as many Americans "being on brain-drain".
** When UsefulNotes/RichardNixon campaigns for the construction of other cities like Futureville, where minorities and their sympathizers can live ''away'' from segregationist communities, but with full civil rights, he gets a good amount of support, and not just from white supremacists: some of the oppressed groups don't ''want'' to fraternize with white people.
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* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Winston Churchill and a Mossad agent are ''not'' joyful about having to work with Mussolini to accomplish their goals.
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* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Winston Churchill and a Mossad agent are ''not'' joyful happy about having to work with Mussolini to accomplish their goals.
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* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Surprisingly, Josef Stalin doesn't have [[FourEyesZeroSoul Lavrentiy Beria]] killed, likely for this reason. [[KickTheSonOfABitch He does blackmail him into ceasing his sexual predations, though.]]
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* GoingColdTurkey: Downplayed with King George VI of the United Kingdom. Having been informed that his [[MustHaveNicotine smoking addiction]] led to an early death in [=OTL=], his family ''forces'' him to toss the cigarettes (which nearly sets his stammer back again) until he finds a less damaging replacement: vape. Winston Churchill shows mixed feelings about this: on one hand, he's glad that it's less damaging to the king's health; but on the other hand, he dislikes the smell of butterscotch (which seems to be George's favorite flavor) that goes with it.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Stalin can get away with smoking around aircraft equipment--which is a safety hazard--because nobody working at the factory wants to tell him what he can and can't do.
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** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
to:
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: propaganda spouted by bigots: some of them are just simply unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
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** [[CrazyAwesome Mad Jack Churchill]] and the [[FriendlySniper White Death]] take out an entire SS platoon that's about to execute an entire village in Holland.
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** [[CrazyAwesome [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack Churchill]] and the [[FriendlySniper White Death]] take out an entire SS platoon that's about to execute an entire village in Holland.
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* [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Eclectic Band of Bad-asses]]: Mad Jack's team, consisting of a CrazyAwesome Englishman, a cheerful Finnish god of war, a plucky air-ace turned resistance fighter, and an [[AudienceSurrogate uptime intelligence officer]]. Together, [[TheyFightCrime they kick Nazi ass]].
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* [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits Eclectic Band of Bad-asses]]: Mad Jack's team, consisting of a CrazyAwesome CrazyIsCool Englishman, a cheerful Finnish god of war, a plucky air-ace turned resistance fighter, and an [[AudienceSurrogate uptime intelligence officer]]. Together, [[TheyFightCrime they kick Nazi ass]].
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* ColonelBadass: Chesty Puller, [[CrazyAwesome Mad Jack]], and [[GoodIsNotSoft Patton]], much like their OTL selves. The latter responds to a racist rebel movement in Oregon with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming military force]], [[CurbStompBattle crushing them in about a month]].
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* ColonelBadass: Chesty Puller, [[CrazyAwesome [[CrazyIsCool Mad Jack]], and [[GoodIsNotSoft Patton]], much like their OTL selves. The latter responds to a racist rebel movement in Oregon with [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overwhelming military force]], [[CurbStompBattle crushing them in about a month]].
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* RealityEnsues:
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
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* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
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** Douglas [=MacArthur=] feels like he'll have to spend the rest of his life in the shadow of his alternate self's accomplishments, since he can't perform them here.
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** The downtime leadership of South Africa, too, trying to keep limited minority rule around for as long as possible.
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** The downtime leadership of South Africa, too, acknowledging that they'll have to give the native population a few carrots while also trying to keep limited minority rule around for as long as possible.
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* AdaptationalBadass: Winston Churchill is determined to ensure that the United Kingdom retains its power and prestige this time around, even if it means turning some British colonies into protectorates.
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** The Republican Party forms a coalition with Southern anti-uptimer groups, but their presidential nominee, Thomas Dewey, treats said groups with barely concealed loathing, and internally admits that he hates Jim Crow and wants it abolished--on a state-by-state level, as he feels that a federal law against it would be too autocratic.
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* EnemyMine:
** The Chinese uptimers have no choice but to throw their lot in with UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek because UsefulNotes/MaoZedong would never accept modern China's [[UsefulNotes/ToGetRichIsGlorious economic policies]], whereas Chiang would gladly do so.
** Mussolini joins the Allies this time around, but they can barely restrain their contempt for him.
** The Chinese uptimers have no choice but to throw their lot in with UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek because UsefulNotes/MaoZedong would never accept modern China's [[UsefulNotes/ToGetRichIsGlorious economic policies]], whereas Chiang would gladly do so.
** Mussolini joins the Allies this time around, but they can barely restrain their contempt for him.
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* TimeTravelRomance: Well, yes. Hokkaido-born JSDF volunteer courting Karafuto doctor and downtime Negro reporter moving in with uptime Brazilian-born ''hāfu'' factory worker are just the tip of the iceberg.
to:
* TimeTravelRomance: Well, yes.
** Hokkaido-born JSDF volunteer courting Karafuto doctor and downtime Negro reporter moving in with uptime Brazilian-born ''hāfu'' factory worker are just the tip of theiceberg.iceberg.
** [[spoiler:Judy Garland begins a secret relationship with a Japanese voice actress.]]
** [[spoiler:Rita Hayworth marries her female attorney after netting an Oscar.]]
** [[spoiler:Audie Murphy is implied to be starting a relationship with Admiral Flannagan's granddaughter, Nikki.]]
** Hokkaido-born JSDF volunteer courting Karafuto doctor and downtime Negro reporter moving in with uptime Brazilian-born ''hāfu'' factory worker are just the tip of the
** [[spoiler:Judy Garland begins a secret relationship with a Japanese voice actress.]]
** [[spoiler:Rita Hayworth marries her female attorney after netting an Oscar.]]
** [[spoiler:Audie Murphy is implied to be starting a relationship with Admiral Flannagan's granddaughter, Nikki.]]
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* WorthIt: The state of Israel is still established, albeit smaller, still surrounded by Muslim countries, and will have to rely heavily on British support. On the other hand, said neighbors are less inclined to be hostile thanks to also getting help from the British, so Israel's inhabitants--including the uptimers--figure it's worth the price since their nation will still exist ''and'' won't have to spend all its time and resources fighting to survive.
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* RealityEnsues: Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
to:
* RealityEnsues: RealityEnsues:
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war ofconquest.conquest.
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
** Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of
** When down-timer teens and young adults are introduced to slasher movies, a good number of them are hostile, and not just because of anti-uptimer propaganda: some of them are just unimpressed, with one guy proclaiming that slasher films just aren't scary to him, and that the characters are just too flat to get invested in.
** A journalist visiting Japan has a pro-gay story published back in the United States, thinking that at least the oppressed minorities will like it. Much to her surprise, the book is condemned almost universally by downtime Americans--making it the one time that the Klan and the [=NAACP=] [[EnemyMine actually agree on something.]]
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* ThisIsUnforgivable: Revelations about the Holocaust in [=OTL=] causes every Jewish community in the United States to become viciously pro-war, even leading to violent confrontations between pro-war and isolationist factions in the streets.
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* PragmaticVillainy: Mussolini, to an extent. When he sees just how overpowered uptime technology is, and how badly he was screwed in our timeline, he withdraws his support of Germany and makes token moves to undo his Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish policies. [[ZigZaggedTrope He's still an arrogant dictator who buys into his own propaganda, though.]]
** [[spoiler:Pays off big-time when his restructured military pushes easily into Austria and swiftly defeats hastily-levied infantry under the command of SS officer Odilo Globocnick.]]
** [[spoiler:Pays off big-time when his restructured military pushes easily into Austria and swiftly defeats hastily-levied infantry under the command of SS officer Odilo Globocnick.]]
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* PragmaticVillainy: PragmaticVillainy:
** Mussolini, to an extent. When he sees just how overpowered uptime technology is, and how badly he was screwed in our timeline, he withdraws his support of Germany and makes token moves to undo his Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish policies. [[ZigZaggedTrope He's still an arrogant dictator who buys into his own propaganda, though.]]
** *** [[spoiler:Pays off big-time when his restructured military pushes easily into Austria and swiftly defeats hastily-levied infantry under the command of SS officer Odilo Globocnick.]]
** Mussolini, to an extent. When he sees just how overpowered uptime technology is, and how badly he was screwed in our timeline, he withdraws his support of Germany and makes token moves to undo his Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish policies. [[ZigZaggedTrope He's still an arrogant dictator who buys into his own propaganda, though.]]
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** While some isolationist politicians in the United States want to reduce military spending, others recognize that this is a bad idea and are all for modernizing the Armed Forces--purely for ''defensive'' measures, though. Some of them are even willing to accept de-segregation of the military because they feel that America becoming a military juggernaut is worth the "sacrifice".
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* RealityEnsues: Or ''would'' ensue, in any case. Japan might have a leg up on everybody else at the beginning of the story, but as both Prime Minister Abe and, later, Admiral Yamamoto's aide point out, Japan still doesn't have any oil reserves of its own, so its modern fleet would quickly run out of fuel; the [=US=] 7th Fleet poses a serious threat and could potentially ensure that Japan's oil supply would be blocked--and, unbeknownst to the Japanese, [[spoiler:has three nuclear warheads]]; America has vast oil reserves that it hasn't tapped into yet, and thanks the up-time information, the federal government has made modernizing the [=US=] Armed Forces a top priority. In short, even with everything it has now, Japan would still likely lose if it tried to launch an aggressive war of conquest.
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* GoshDangItHeck: Colonel Patton forces this trope upon himself when he gets a new, female aide. She bluntly tells him that it won't offend her if he swears, but he refuses.
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* GoshDangItHeck: GoshDangItToHeck: Colonel Patton forces this trope upon himself when he gets a new, female aide. She bluntly tells him that it won't offend her if he swears, but he refuses.
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* GoshDangItHeck: Colonel Patton forces this trope upon himself when he gets a new, female aide. She bluntly tells him that it won't offend her if he swears, but he refuses.
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** Joe Kennedy, Sr. points out that granting too many concessions to up-timers too quickly could split the Democratic Party and lead to Franklin D. Roosevelt losing the presidency to a more bigoted individual. Even Caroline Kennedy can't deny that he's absolutely right.
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** Joe Kennedy, Sr. points out that granting too many concessions to up-timers too quickly could split the Democratic Party and lead to Franklin D. Roosevelt losing the presidency to a more bigoted individual. Even Caroline Kennedy can't deny that he's absolutely right.
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** Joe Kennedy, Sr. points out that granting too many concessions to up-timers too quickly could split the Democratic Party and lead to Franklin D. Roosevelt losing the presidency to a more bigoted individual. Even Caroline Kennedy can't deny that he's absolutely right.
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* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Anne Frank, who in this timeline was rescued before she had to go into hiding, says in an interview that she hates her original self because up-timers keep treating her like a hero for something she hasn't done, and feels guilty for not having gone through the horrors the other Anne did.
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* OtherMeAnnoysMe: OtherMeAnnoysMe:
** Anne Frank, who in this timeline was rescued before she had to go into hiding, says in an interview that she hates her original self because up-timers keep treating her like a hero for something she hasn't done, and feels guilty for not having gone through the horrors the other Anne did.
** Anne Frank, who in this timeline was rescued before she had to go into hiding, says in an interview that she hates her original self because up-timers keep treating her like a hero for something she hasn't done, and feels guilty for not having gone through the horrors the other Anne did.
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** Averted with Creator/ChristopherLee, who is perfectly satisfied with how his life played out in [=OTL=].
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* StupidEvil: Many Southerners are so vehemently racist that even the offer of 21st-century technology isn't enough to make them reconsider their views. Oregon even starts ''a rebellion'' to try to maintain their sickening beliefs. It gets even worse when this conduct drives many up-timers to leave for other countries that, while racist to an extent, are at least willing to restrain their bigotry in exchange for modernization. It's described as many Americans "being on brain-drain".
