Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

A friend of mine once made a mod for Hearts of Iron IV which has a similar premise. Basically, it's the War of the Worlds Martians attempting to invade Earth during WWII.

Yeah, which was really nice. Too often, in my experience, when stories have Nazis+other humans against aliens or monsters there is this soft inclination to whitewash them as "better" than the alternative. I loved that the World War series entirely avoided that.

Blame American media, but I somehow ended up having a personal resentment against the South as a whole.

And I'm not even American.

That's what happens when all my experiences with the place are Alternate History where the CSA is awful/ Jim Crow lates more/ other variant of "The South ruins everything". Right?

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 23rd 2019 at 11:53:57 AM

I wish more Americans shared that position, it's disgusting how much the Confederacy and the old Dixie aristocracy has been whitewashing.

Speaking of which, that's why I adored Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter because beyond the inherent spectacle of Abe Lincoln hunting vampires it was also an uncompromising critique of the monstrosity of the Antebellum Era South.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 23rd 2019 at 9:54:05 AM

Nah, my case is just unhealthy. One can't live a decent life thinking that a whole region made of millions of people is made of Confederate apologists that want reinstaurate slavery.

It's a mix of factors, mixed with my predisposition to generalize groups.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 23rd 2019 at 12:01:21 PM

Ah, yeah that's pretty bad.

It's fine to consider the South's history to be disgusting, but those kinds of blanket viewpoints are not healthy or rational. Especially because a good chunk of the South are African-American.

Speaking of Turtledove and the Antebellum South, Turtledove thinks of Guns of the South as an Old Shame and that his later series where the victoriois Confederacy is treated as a bunch of Nazis who will literally destroy the world in a nuclear war as sort of a Fix Fic. He felt his research for the first novel was very wrong.

And in other news, Deadlands is officially retconning its world so the Confederacy did NOT win the war (or "stalemate" it because in the setting they had to give up slavery to keep their independence). It's been controversial as a setting element for decades and they've said that the racism-free South felt like apologia and Morgan Le Fey and time travel will be used to make sure the North wins before collapsing into the Divided States of America.

https://www.peginc.com/pinnacle-plans-for-october-surprise/

I kinda doubt you can get worse than this

I mean, you probably could, but at that point it's the difference between someone who kicked 100 puppies and someone who kicked 50 puppies and 50 kittens.

Yeah, kazuya have speak to me, it seen it suffer of "all southern are confedarates" which is as bad as saying all german are nazis.

I will said the best take of weird world war II is vive militare est, a proect made in devianart(and have a trope page in case you want to find it), were the nazis find magic call geistplam(think mana but horror version), which can be extract of human bodies if you torture them enough, now if you are nazi germany and imperial japan and have a large body of people you dont give a damn...yeah you can make the math, they pretty much star turing the tide by using the captive people as source fuel, it look they are going to win....

until the alies just figure out geistplam and start doing the same, pushing the axis until they form a stalemate....also they nuke poland with elderich atomic bombs, making poland look like the upside down of strange things, because not matter what, Poland is always the third parner in history lest wanted love triangle.

So what happen to nazi germany? well Hitler is killed in internal coup once is clear he want to used the internal power as much as he can to defeat the allies, himmer got in power then something weird happen and he die(kind of) as result, albert speer get in charge and he kinda sorta make nazi hermany nice(in the sense they become RL version of China as the author explain, by throwing away their ideology to raw pragmatist) this of course cause a nazis schism that result in the order of the black sun, a uber nazi organization that said the nazis cant be call nazis because they become to soft by "jewish infection" and therefore their clam of germany is null and void(or to put it more simpler terms, a nazi organization that denunce nazi germany as not being nazi anymore because nazis germany dosent want to self destruct into in fighting).

In case you are wondering, the order of black sun are pretty much RL version of ISIS.

I highly recomend the series in devianart, pretty damn good.

From that summary and The New Order Last Days Of Europe, I've realized that Albert Speer usually takes the "Deng-analogue" role, the reformist that turns the Insane Country into something that's still heavily authoritarian but now functional

Yeah, him and Rommel are pretty much "those two guys" who are in the wrong side of history but you know, arent complete batshit insane about it.

One fun idea from TNO? They have a path where you can try to build the Solar Ray, a Nazi Superweapon to obliterate entire cities, putting all sorts of resources on it....and it doesn't work. You have just wasted resources.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 23rd 2019 at 1:33:04 PM

Indeed, it also really sums up the mod's views of the Nazis perfectly. Even when given the opportunity to achieve their most insane projects (Sun Gun, Atlantropa, victory in WW 2, ect) it still ends with nothing but failure and mountains of corpses.

It's a brutal deconstruction of the highly problematic "Nazis win WW 2 and dominate everything with their efficiency and their iron hordes" trope.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 23rd 2019 at 12:28:52 PM

Speaking as a Southerner, people who want to get on the Confederate apologia condemnation train are a day late and a dollar short. It would have been better to do decades earlier.

Basically, I am one of the people who most enjoy ripping on the South but this is actually a time when the Civil War "Lost Cause" bullshit is actually being attacked for the first time in, well, ever. It's literally a century too late (more technically) but the current generation of Southerners have done a decent job of being utterly unimpressed with the generations of propaganda.

I blame the internet in part as it's very easy to look up the Constitution of the CSA and Declaration of Independence that talks up white supremacy and that the secession was for the purpose of preserving slavery.

It SHOULDN'T have taken until last year to ban Nazi and KKK paraphernalia from the Kentucky State Fair (you know, for CHILDREN) but the fact it happened at all is an improvement.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 23rd 2019 at 12:46:59 PM

Mmmm. That's good honestly.

@Protagonist: I think there's a difference between your scenario and Worldwar. Your scenario is a conflict where the Martians are unambiguously the worst side.

Meanwhile, Worldwar is about how the Race are actually morally superior from some human factions and in general, Not So Different from.humanity

@Kazuya Prota Not my scenario, a mod for Hearts of Iron IV made by a friend of mine. Though it does help that it's the War of the Worlds Martians, which are something of the Trope Codifier for Aliens Are Bastards. Though there are mitigating factors and the book does actually argue they're Not So Different from humans.

They're absolutely Not so Different in the original novel, invading the British Empire for the purpose of genocidal colonization is the height of irony.

Which of course was entirely intentional, it was meant to show how imperialism actually felt on the receiving end.

The Time Machine was also meant to be another subtle Take That! against British society with the idea that the aristocracy would eventually end up as food for the working class. Honestly, I think the Time Travelers sympathy for the Eloi was also a bit misplaced.

Delicious delicious Eloi.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 23rd 2019 at 5:46:46 AM

Huh, so it was literally Eat The Rich. That's amazing

@Protagonist: Yeah, but I meant that The Race is meant to be somewhat morally gray, rather than pitch black (Axis and URSS get that treatment).

Also. I've noticed something by the way. Italy and the other Axis power gets alwasy.forgotten.

I can understand many of them, but Italy is kinda notorious because...Italy literally invented fascism. You called it the Evil Counterpart of America Saves the Day, right? "Germany fight alone".

I think part of that has to do with the fact Italy was never on the side of Mussolini to the extent the rest of the nations were. They even attempted a Heel–Face Turn, arrest of Mussolini, and switch to the Allies.

Hitler put a stop to that.

Mind you, WW 2 is the defacto Black-and-White Morality but there are places where things get very complex like the Soviet Invasion of Finland.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 23rd 2019 at 5:56:33 AM

You would expect at least some random.Italian soldier

Hell, I think Imperial Japan gets ignored in a lot of WW 2 stories in the Western World.

Well, ignoring Italy is somewhat justified, as they were something of a joke.

To paraphrase Audie Murphy, "Their alliance with the Axis powers shortened WWII a good six months or so".