Vilcabamba is an Alternate History short story by Harry Turtledove. It was initially published for free online (here
), and later printed in the anthology book The Best of Harry Turtledove.
Fifty years ago, an alien race known as the Krolp invaded Earth and quickly conquered the whole world, wielding advanced weapons that humans are defenceless against. The protagonist, Harris Moffatt III, is the President of a rump United States in the Rocky Mountains. A treaty between his father, President Harris Moffatt II, and the previous Krolp governor of North America guaranteed the independence of his territory, but now that silver has been discovered under Utah the Krolp are planning to strip mine the region, which will render the USA uninhabitable. To try and preserve his country, Moffatt has no choice but to fight a war he knows he can't win.
This story contains examples of:
- Alien Invasion: And conquest, and occupation, and colonisation.
- "Ass" in Ambassador: Prilk, the Krolp envoy to the USA, is about as polite as Krolp get, which is still horribly rude by human standards.
- Assimilation Academy: The children of human collaborators and the leaders of the few remaining "independent" human countries are educated in Krolp fashion at "finishing schools" to Krolpify them, in a clear parallel to the notorious Indian schools. The conditions are actually pretty pleasant, since the idea is to get the students to want to serve the Krolp willingly, but it's still cultural erasure. Moffatt himself spent time in one as a youth and remembers that when he got out he looked down on his fellow humans and didn't want to go home. He's grown out of it, and now he hates the Krolp, but he's also worried that the brainwashing may take better on his son, who's in a finishing school right now.
- Big Bad: Vrank is the Krolp governor of North America and the one in overall command of the Krolp forces attacking the USA.
- Bizarre Alien Limbs: The Krolp are centauroids: four legs and two arms. It's unclear if six limbs is typical for creatures on their world.
- Dangerous Deserter: There are a few Krolp renegades hiding out in the "free" USA. It's unknown exactly what crime they committed, but Moffatt reflects it must have been pretty terrible for them to have been reduced to living among humans.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Moffatt knows he can't beat the Krolp in a straight-up fight, so he resorts to guerrilla tactics, assassinations and terror attacks. The ultimate goal isn't even to win, just make the war so costly that the Krolp give up.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: There are pretty unsubtle parallels between how the Krolp treat humans and how Europeans treated Native Americans. Moffatt even briefly considers that this may be Laser-Guided Karma on the USA for the sins of their founding.
- Downer Ending: The Krolp win.
- Evil Colonialist: The Krolp. They're explicitly compared to the Spanish conquistadores who destroyed the Inca.
- The Exile: Out of respect for the fact that Moffat was once an independent ruler, the Krolp spare his life and take him to live as an exile in the Krolp capital St. Louis after they defeat the USA.
- Fallen States of America: The "free" United States consists mostly of the Mountain West and a portion of southwestern Canada, largely because the Krolp don't consider it worth their time to rule it directly.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: It's mentioned that many humans in the occupied territories deliberately mimic the Krolp, reasoning that their culture must be superior if their technology is. Even in the rump USA, humans adopt Krolp expressions, imagery and customs just through cultural osmosis.
- Genre Deconstruction: To the Alien Invasion story. The aliens don't have a convenient weakness to a common element on Earth, nor can humans find a clever way to shut down their advanced technology. The Krolp easily overwhelmed the initial military response and swiftly occupied most of the world. The few remaining independent human governments exist only at the Krolp's largesse in the territories they consider too poor or inconvenient to conquer. A few decades ago, the three most powerful surviving nations: America, Russia and China, set aside their differences, launched a valiant coordinated uprising... and were quickly crushed once more.
- The Americans pulled the old genre trick of stealing alien technology in the hopes of fighting back, but quickly found that they can't replicate it. It's so advanced that they don't understand it well enough to reverse-engineer it, and even if they did they don't have the technological manufacturing base to even make the tools they would need to build it. As such, they have a small stockpile of Krolp weapons which are enough to maybe hold off a small squad of Krolp or protect the President from being outright murdered in a diplomatic meeting, but nowhere near enough to fight a war.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Krolp ruler back on their homeworld. His name is never even mentioned, but he is the one who okays the mining in Utah.
- Hereditary Republic: Moffatt inherited the office of President after his father, Harris Moffatt II, was killed. There's no mention of even a sham election. Moffatt II inherited it from his father Moffatt I, who appears to have been the last President to actually be elected.
- Invincible Villain: The Krolp aren't individually invincible-it is possible to kill them, albeit at such a cost that it's usually a Pyrrhic Victory. Collectively they are so advanced compared to humans that they simply cannot be beaten.
- Irony: The nations of America, who once completely overwhelmed the Native Americans with their advanced technology, are themselves overwhelmed by the Krolp with theirs. Special points to Peru, which now resides in the area that contained the city which the story is named after, and which once held off Peru's founders from the last of the Inca.
- Last Stand: What the USA's war essentially amounts to.
- Les Collaborateurs: The Krolp have human functionaries assisting in the administration of the territories they directly control.
- The Mole: The US government has informal contacts among humans in Krolp-administered territory who engage in acts of sabotage and assassination when war is declared.
- Mouth of Sauron: Prilk is explicitly noted as having no independent executive authority, he just carries the messages.
- Persecution Flip: The basic premise is aliens invading Earth and subjecting the United States to the same kind of colonialism they inflicted on the Native Americans. There is also mention of the Krolp strip-mining Spain, who had previously colonised and extracted vast quantities of mineral wealth from South America.
- Puny Earthlings: Krolp are bigger, stronger and tougher than humans, even without their advanced weapons and effectively impenetrable body armour.
- Rock Beats Laser: A minor example. The American forces communicate by AM radio because it's so primitive that the Krolp don't have a means of tapping it.
- Scary Dogmatic Aliens: The Krolp are a blatant allegory for Western colonialists.
- Spiritual Antithesis: To Worldwar by the same author.
- Sufficiently Advanced Technology: Krolp technology is utterly incomprehensible to humans. As an example, Krolp of sufficient rank have a miniature star just hovering over their shoulder. An actual star. Clarke's Third Law is explicitly mentioned.
- Title Drop: The Secretary of Defense tells Moffatt the story of how the Inca tried to retreat to Vilcabamba and preserve a remnant of their civilisation. Neither of them are blind to the parallels with their situation.
- Vestigial Empire: The United States and Canada are reduced to the Rockies. Peru, and some other countries (likely including Russia and China) are in the same situation.
