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Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
Indeed. This does look interesting.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Yep, it's a Philip K. Dick book... It's now on my amazon wish list (the book)
I've watched the two released episodes for Prime subscribers. In my opinion, it's well thought out, well acted, got a very good level of quality to it.
The story and everything combines such that I am kind of excited to watch tomorrow when the rest is released.
Relapse wrote: It's a depressing if interesting "what if" book.
Fatherland made a much better 'what if'. Hitlers chance of conquering the East coast USA was mathematically close to 0%.
Still it may well be a good brain-in-neutral flick. I tend to just take those at face value, and can enjoy the immensely when I do.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
Relapse wrote: It's a depressing if interesting "what if" book.
Fatherland made a much better 'what if'. Hitlers chance of conquering the East coast USA was mathematically close to 0%.
Would you (or anyone else) be willing to expand on that? I didn't pay any attention to this stuff when I was in high school, and I find it fascinating now.
It seems unlikely to me, even not knowing almost anything on the topic, that a country as small as Japan could control an area as large as portrayed in the show - nearly a quarter of the US, it looked like. That's a lot of territory. Germany, I know even less.
Thereafter, Germany's greatest hope of an attack on America was to wait to see the result of that nation's war with Japan. By 1944, with U-Boat losses soaring and with the occupation of Greenland and Iceland, it was clear to the German military leaders that the dwindling German armed forces had no further hope to attack the United States directly. In the end, German military strategy was in fact geared toward surrendering to America, with many of the Eastern Front battles fought solely for the purpose of escaping the advance of the Red Army and surrendering instead to the Western Allies.
Why is that?
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/11/22 11:48:33
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
Are you asking why the Nazis would prefer to surrender to democracies (USA/UK) rather than the armies of a murdering dictator like Joseph Stalin?
Please, tell me you're not that naïve
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
Relapse wrote: It's a depressing if interesting "what if" book.
Fatherland made a much better 'what if'. Hitlers chance of conquering the East coast USA was mathematically close to 0%.
Would you (or anyone else) be willing to expand on that? I didn't pay any attention to this stuff when I was in high school, and I find it fascinating now.
It seems unlikely to me, even not knowing almost anything on the topic, that a country as small as Japan could control an area as large as portrayed in the show - nearly a quarter of the US, it looked like. That's a lot of territory. Germany, I know even less.
Short version; The greatest defense any state can have is a body of water between it and its enemies. Britain is a good example. Smaller, and materially weaker than its mainland rivals, since the advent of relatively modern naval power in the 15th century, no one has successfully invaded the British Isles. That's over 500 years of singing MC Hammer thanks to 20-150 miles of water. And yeah, a lot of people tried.
Long version; Operation Sea Lion, the Germany plan to invade Britain, was abandoned almost as soon as it started. You don't just march on Great Britain. You have to control the sea and the air, both goals Germany ultimately failed to achieve early in the war. On top of that, Germany didn't have the boats to move troops from Europe to the British Isles. Despite their reputation for quality military hardware, the Germany army was mostly horse drawn. They had a remarkable lack of military hardware. Britain needed to commandeer every boat on the south coast of England to evacuate Dunkirk, leaving all material behind when they did it. Germany had no hope of ever realistically crossing the English channel. When the Allies finally did it, they needed a full year to prepare, 7000 boats, a million men, 20,000 vehicles, and all the gas, food, and bullets to make all that run. Germany didn't have the means to put it off, even at a time when the British military had left all of it's heavy equipment in France.
Again ^ We're talking about a 2 hour boat ride here. The Atlantic Ocean is 3,367 miles from New York City to Lisbon.
Japan was very different. Japan had spent 100 years developing and modernizing its Navy, and had become a world naval power (easily #3 on Earth at the time). Germany by comparison, was just a naval connoisseur that liked to tout some nice looking battleships for national prestige. Even Japan could not realistically attack the Mainland United States. The distance was too great (5000+ miles from Tokyo to San Francisco), and Japan's transport ships were not designed for such long voyages even if they had the gas to make the attempt (they did not). This is why through the 20's and 30's, the US Navy remained fully funded while the US Army and Marines got their budgets slashed to next to nothing. There was a time America had the sense to know that you can raise an army relatively quickly when you've got two giant oceans and some mean rubber duckies to patrol them as a defense from attack.
Thereafter, Germany's greatest hope of an attack on America was to wait to see the result of that nation's war with Japan. By 1944, with U-Boat losses soaring and with the occupation of Greenland and Iceland, it was clear to the German military leaders that the dwindling German armed forces had no further hope to attack the United States directly. In the end, German military strategy was in fact geared toward surrendering to America, with many of the Eastern Front battles fought solely for the purpose of escaping the advance of the Red Army and surrendering instead to the Western Allies.
Why is that?
I'm assuming the italics is yours?
In late 1943/1944, Germany military personnel who weren't crazy (i.e. not SS or Hitler's lackeys) were well aware they couldn't win the war anymore. Operations became less about winning and more about staving off the Russians until a peace could be negotiated with the Western Allies. However the Allied insistence on Unconditional Surrender, and the inability of the German Army to achieve any military victories to force a change in that demand, eliminated that possibility. In this reality, the preference among Germans in the closing weeks of the War was to stall the Russians in fighting retreats and make it to the Western Allies and surrender. The Red Army was fething brutal. Their war crimes rivaled, if not exceeded, that of the Germans in WWII. The last thing any German wanted was to end up in as a POW under Russian care. America and Britain on the other hand followed the Geneva Conventions fairly well. It wasn't just the German military either. There were mass migrations as the war came to a close from people attempting to flee the USSR.
There's a good story from the last few days of the war (I'm recalling this from memory, it's somewhere in The Tank Killers by Harry Yeide I think);
On one side of a bridge is a US Army Tank Destroyer Battalion. On the other side, a battalion of German troops is running towards the bridge waving white flags. Behind them, the Red Army is shooting into their backs with tanks and machine guns. Eventually, the Germans reached the bridge and started throwing down their arms and raising their hands to surrender. The Russians continued shooting. Eventually, the US Commander sent a radio broadcast telling the Russians that he would open fire on them if they continued to shoot troops attempting to surrender. The Russians continued shooting until they needed to reload and then they stopped.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/22 13:29:30
Dick seems to be one of those rare writers where the film product is better than the book. He's got amazing ideas, but they usually fall short to me ie Blade Runner vs. Electric Sheep and Total Recall vs. Remember For You Wholesale.
I found the book to be rather boring honestly, but the first episode was pretty good.
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
DutchWinsAll wrote: Dick seems to be one of those rare writers where the film product is better than the book. He's got amazing ideas, but they usually fall short to me ie Blade Runner vs. Electric Sheep and Total Recall vs. Remember For You Wholesale.
I found the book to be rather boring honestly, but the first episode was pretty good.
Well it tough to convey the stylish visuals of Nazi uniforms on paper.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
I have to be honest, having the read the book (although some years ago now) I'm amazed that they have used it as the source material. Really, having just watched the trailer for the show, I can see that it has differed massively from the concept of the book; which isn't surprising, it was another of Dick's usual fair of psychological meltdown, questioning of self-identity, the nature of reality and just general head-fethery.
Ouze wrote: Finished the series. Pretty disappointed; at 45 minutes an episode I essentially invested 7.5 hours into
Spoiler:
not knowing anything more about the films - who makes them, what purpose they serve, etc - than I did in the first episode.
Costumes were great and acting was OK though.
You just saved me a few hours. That was the thing that Ihated about the book, also. It seemed interesting, but just ended up being a lot of milling about smartly without really anything resolved.
Pacific wrote: I have to be honest, having the read the book (although some years ago now) I'm amazed that they have used it as the source material. Really, having just watched the trailer for the show, I can see that it has differed massively from the concept of the book; which isn't surprising, it was another of Dick's usual fair of psychological meltdown, questioning of self-identity, the nature of reality and just general head-fethery.
^^ This.
The basic concept of the book is that The Man is channelling information from a parallel universe in which the Allies won WW2, and this is the 'real' universe and the universe of the book is a kind of shadow existence. However, The Man never appears, only bits of his messages.
Years since I read it, but I think I will dig it out again.
BTW there is a law that every Philip K Dick SF book ever written has to be made into a film. It was passed in 1977.
Exactly. The book isn't about how the Axis won WW2, it's about what the world is like 20 years later, and how ordinary people are going on with their lives.
Having read the book a few years ago, the gist of how USA is now occupied was down to a couple of things, different president, didnt have the New deal so America was less prosperous. Nazi's ahd the A-bomb early and threatened USA and actually finished the 'Amerika Bomber' so could actually hit New York. Japan hit Pearl Harbour while the carriers were at port as a result, could rule the pacific with impunity.. As a result of no New Deal and lower Manufacturing ability, the USA couldnt rebuild its forces quickly so in the end had to capitulate to the japanese\Nazis.
Few other things like latent American ideals of the early 30's had similar ideals to post Nazi Gemrnay, a strong nation, might makes right etc, and that led to a mix of fear and not wanting to get involved in the war at the stage it did, as a result, germany didnt have a war on 2 fronts, Britain held out longest but in the end was overrun after a bitter guerilla war.
Its a good book, if a bit dry. Funilly enough the 'alternate history book within the book' has allies win, but due to a few differences in American policy and history, again no new deal, British empire never dies and it becomes the only superpower after America gives up trying to beat it economically etc.
Its got lots of cool little bits like that in it.
Also the book was written in the sixties, so is aimed more at beliefs and views of the time.
Thought it was a pretty good read, a little academic and dry compared to some of his other work, but still enjoyable.
Don't know how a novella becomes a series, but w/e.
Also, goddammit, spoiler tags, people!
EDIT: watched the trailer, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't what that book was about. At all. Minus, like, the context. The concept looks pretty ridiculous, and it looks like someone said "wow, isn't that a marketable cool premise?!" and didn't read the book. Too bad :/
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/11/25 16:54:37
It's not a matter of common knowledge, it's a matter of how long people should be expected not to discuss something they've read or watched in case someone else hasn't read it.
Umm, pretty sure there's no defined spoiler etiquette? I didn't say don't discuss anything, just said spoiler tags for politeness. I think it's good practice if something isn't common knowledge.
This is a thread on an geeky SF/fantasy enthusiast site about an SF TV series that started over six months ago and has already finished, based on a book that came out over 50 years ago, won a Hugo, and is considered a masterwork of the genre, from an author who is considered one of the major SF writers of the 20th century, who has had about six other books made into TV or films, like Bladerunner (also considered a classic of the genre.)
