They have to keep servicing the storm machines and the Blinking Stars - it's said that they have multiple launch sites, and they have access to electricity. They get all the neat toys. They also are rumored to have orbital weapons that can shoot down other people's space programs.
No I mean, I'm sure they're launching satellites up there, unmanned platforms and all that, but are they actually sending manned space missions as well or is Charlotte being glib when she says they've never sent her to space.
No I mean, I'm sure they're launching satellites up there, unmanned platforms and all that, but are they actually sending manned space missions as well or is Charlotte being glib when she says they've never sent her to space.
It's not currently clear if she's just being glib - all she says is "they never took me upstairs", but later on, it's made clear that they do do manned space missions (I figure servicing the Storm Machines is pretty complicated since they have nuclear power plants and such.)
Be warned! This chapter has some content so raunchy, so lewd, so outright mature that I'm worried that mentioning it at all is going to get this thread BANNED OFF SV! But Professor Von Buren has put these passages back into the main text, despite concerns about proprietary, to really show the depths to which Bruce sinks in his depravity. Are you ready? Okay!
Bruce and his new wife, Charlotte, set out for India via zeppelin. Along the way, they take the Discipline Diet: No sweets, no drink, no sex! In exchange, you get a spiritual high. Apparently. This means that the bonbons they get each day as passengers are instead used by Charlotte to lure the children of the crew (since, remember, Yukon Zeppelins are run by family units) out and into her clutches, where she begins to immediately fawn over them with adoration.
You see, Charlotte? She loves children with a boundless heart of compassion, the kind of ardor that Yukons are meant to reserve for "war and God" which makes Bruce nervous. He does try and gently correct this by asking if she might not make such a fuss over children - which leads her going, "Hmm, nope~ Here, read her storybooks" before giving one of the children over to her, and Bruce finds himself playing games and reading books to this child for the rest of the trip.
But then...well, I'm going to have to spoil this. It was expunged from the 2541 edition, I'll have you know!
Bruce's narration said:
She went to the wind-up phonograph and put on a recording of a Struass waltz. As the music began to play, she twirled about two times then held out her arms for me to take.
"Dance with me, Bobby," she said.
"What?"
"my poor husband is deaf?" she said and made a wry lopsided smile. "Come, stand up and dance with me. My stepfather used to do it with his wife."
"Your stepfarther ran a saloon," I said. "I am a Yukon officer."
"I'm not," she said. "I havent' even taken a military vow. That means I can cuff your ears if you don't get off your backside and dance with me."
She must have put a spell on me. No one else could have made me do something my elders, teachers and ministers had taught me was as loathsome as bestiality or pederasty. I stood, unsteadily. Charlotte put one hand on my shoulder and another in my elft hand, and we sidled about the tiny cabin, moving as gracelessly as two crabs locked claw to claw.
"Step to the right, step, step," said Charlotte. "Now to the left..."
"What if we are seen?" I said, and in my excitement the words came out whiner than I intended.
"The Consul probably has a spy hidden under our beds," said Charlotte. "He will know you dance with your wife. We will be arrested and then, alas, it will be the end of us. Nipped in the bud. Hoistered up our own petard. Up the stream without a paddle. Or a boat. Is that someone at the door?"
I jumped away from her. Charlotte laughed at me so hard she had to sit for a minute. "I'll be good now," she promised when she recovered.
Can we forgive this unspeakable lewdness? Well, since it's Charlotte, maybe.
At the end of this passage, Bruce ruminates that as he grew more and more used to doing what she says, and he gets more and more used to making her happy - and in turn, she makes him happy with her love and affection, he now looks back on this all and just wishes that he had been even more of a wife guy. He wishes he was kinder to foreigners, said no to authority more often, and loved his wife more openly. That duty and honor and orders had been a distant, forgotten thing, put aside in the face of her and the world.
To response, Von Buren turns to us, the reader, and says: "Do you need any further proof of what sort of man Bruce was?"
No. We really don't.
...I also really like that by asking this very question, we also get the same question mirrored about the Yukon society et large.
They arrive at the bustling base, and immediately, Charlotte endears herself to all. She proves to be a master level charismatic charmer - around the older officers she's amiable and slightly naughty, tickling their humor with wry jokes. Among the wives, she's the respectful daughter they can fawn over. At regimental parties, she's a proper lady with all the etiquette down pat. Among the hospital (of course she immediately volunteers at the base hospital), she's a practical and hard nosed nurse who swaps gags and bedpans as easily as one and the other. Bruce begins to realize "oh dear, I have somehow managed to marry a woman far smarter than me."
However...
Charlotte also showers this love and charm...on the Rabari. Specifically, Rabari children.
Which is why, one day, Bruce comes home to find her bathing and caring for eight or so Rabari children in their sink. She, furiously, points out that when the gloooooorious Yukons drove them out of their homeland, they moved into a new area - and they didn't know how to avoid parasites and similar problems. Hence why this here child's hair is covered with horrible larvae. Gortesque and disgusting - and as Charlotte snarls: "It seems the Yukon officers were too damned preoccupied with their damned airbases than suffering children."
Bruce, though, is ready for this.
And he makes the horrible, horrible, horrible mistake...of using Mrs. McConnell's speech on her. Like, the exact same one.
Charlotte listens. "...nah, I think I'll keep taking care of them."
"You can't! I forbid you!" he says.
"Ah! you FORBID me! Wow! Interesting! HMM!" she says, getting REALLY mad. She sends off one of the Rabari children, then turns back to Bruce and glowers at him.
(lightly edited for brevity)
Bruce's Narration said:
"Back off dar-ling," she said to me. "If I were you, I would not speak any more nonsense before that child returns. I think he will come back with something that will interest you."
"I don't care if he comes back with Colonel McConnell himself," i said. "I tell you again, I forbid you to bathe these children."
"You repeat yourself a great deal when you want to save yourself the expense of thinking," she said and defiantly continued to clean the girl.
The boy Charlotte had spoken too a few moments earlier ran back into our house carrying a long, rectangular box he handed to my wife. I at once saw it as one of the canisters containing malaria vaccine I had given to the children some months before.
"Do you see this dar-ling? It looks to have been a medical container, don't you think sweetheart? Containing what? Malaria vaccine? Why is your face red Major Bruce? Look me in the eye. Have you ever seen anything like it before, my love?"
"Yes," i said in a whisper.
"Now this is very important Major Bruce, you husband of a Yukon's officer's wife. Some officer on this baes has been giving vaccine and food to the Rabari children. Imagine that, sir. He probably wasn't thinking of the coming war. He had some idiotic concern for sick and hungry children. I ask you, Major Bruce, if an officer can be so recklessly compassionate, how can I a mere officer's wife not be corrupted by his bad example? ...I suggest you hunt down this reprobate and arrest him. That is your duty."
...
"I gave the children the vaccine," I said.
"Only this canister?" she asked.
"No, many like it."
She turned to me and struck a pose of feigned surprise. "I am so ashamed of you! Here I was hoping you were the brainless jackass you were pretending to be; then I learn you care for others, even non-Yukons. What a disgrace!"
...you know, @Geckonator, I think I want my Draka crossover quest to specifically be Charlotte and Bruce in Draka. With the truth out, Bruce apologies for being an ass...but, importantly: Charlotte apologizes for just how mad she got. While I do think it was 110% justified, she does recognize that her temper is kind of her big issue, and she makes as deep an apology as she can, and promises that they should never, ever fight again. They hug, make up, and then Bruce goes in to helping her clean and wash the children. Later on, Bruce playfully notes that he does get his way sometimes (after she teases him about getting a nose ring, like Rabari women), and she smiles, tweaks his nose, and says: "I am a little mouse, see how you rule me."
Then, finally, Bruce is finished his Catholic cross training and, ontop of a 20% XP bonus whenever he does good deeds and a -50% weakness to [Protestant] type attacks, he finally gets to plow his wife!
It goes well!
It in fact goes so well that he starts getting chronically late to staff meetings because he's so busy "mending the roof", and Charlotte gets him off from any grumbling by tweaking Colonel McConnell's nose and he goes HARRUMPH! Kids these days! (But, you know, in a happy way.)
Meanwhile, the base building is hitting its final stages. Remember, this book actually understands that building airbases takes time - the first round was just flattening out runways and building foundations. Now the prefab kids come and they start snapping them together like a "Build-A-City" kit, which means that as dystopic as the Yukon Confederacy is...at least they have lego! The prefab buildings go up and huge tankers stuffed to the brim with "Starshine Polymer" are brought out. This is a fire resistant polymer invented in the 20th century under a different name and the Yukons are spraying it over everything to render their bases immune to fire attacks.
...is that asbestos? Are they just coating their entire base with asbestos!?
Then, on September 7th, zeppelins arrive carrying the surface to air batteries. Using maps he's already designed, divisions of men from the 18th and 41st anti-aircraft divisions dig trenches, then load those with sandbags full of Starshine Polymer, then put down antiaircraft guns and unguided rockets. Then in come the F-101 fighters and their crews. Then the attack planes and the batwing bombers. The 2nd Engineers swell in size as newly recruited men pour into the army and the base become positively thriving with people working their asses off on really cool military stuff.
Shame what the cause is.
Bruce is sent out to the Luni desert again to build more fortifications and defenses while Colonel McConnell remains back at the airbase (he's working on getting the wives off the base) and Bruce does tell Charlotte that she can head back to North America. It's gonna be unpleasant out there.
Anyway, Charlotte comes along and throws herself into arranging evacuation for the Rabari civilians - she manages to squirrel away food and water from the glut of supply that Bruce is swimming in, then gets them train passages off to the south. Bruce points out that millions will still suffer.
"Yes. But these ones won't," Charlotte says.
Bruce grumbles about her "catholic obsession with good deeds."
While laying in bed, they also talk about what tidbids she's learned about the Americans before the Storm Times. She talks about our absurd highway to the Key Islands, and our silly-ass ski resorts, and Bruce is like, "Wait, they needed that many arctic troops?" and she's like, "No, they just liked skiing." They talk about TV - and Bruce puts his foot down: He does not for one second believe that TVs were ever kept in homes - children would see them as more important than families! He says that that has to be wildly exaggerated anti-American propaganda.
...man, good thing he doesn't know about YouTube.
Then another event crops up to mar Bruce's first command: A man, a yukon soldier, is caught having relations with a native woman. His sergeant, who found him, tossed that problem to his LT and the LT tossed it to Bruce, and now Bruce is looking at his regulations, which require him to flog the man 35 times with a knotted whip. As he's panicking about how to do this, Charlotte breezes in and goes, "So, here's what we do: Send him back to camp with orders to report for discipline there - but those orders will say he was caught playing cards. A month in the brig, then he's back out. Meanwhile, the girl takes this money I've raised for her down south so that she can take care of any child she has. Here's the orders I've typed up, just sign them."
Bruce is like, "...you had the letter already typed?"
"I know I married a good man~"
With the bases done and the day saved, Charlotte and Bruce head back to the airbases in the Rajmahal hills and get their first view of the famous (infamous) Sixth Army under Hood. Endless rows of gray uniforms, glittering artillery guns, and planes upon planes upon planes. Charlotte says she will miss the Lumi, bad rations and all...for their first child was conceived here.
Bruce is completely unable to articulate his feelings. So he just hugs her tightly.
FOOTNOTES TIMES!
FOOTNOTE 7: There's a reference to dancing which was replaced with "praying"
FOOTNOTE 8: Here, another dancing replaced with praying.
FOOTNOTE 12: Von Buren explains to us that Mrs. Bruce (I like that he refers to her as Mrs. Bruce, I don't know why) refers to sports, she means the weird stupid wasteful things that Americans did, not hunting or fishing or any of the other field sports Yukons think are okay. Americans, it seems, waste our energy and rage that should be more profitably put to work, worship, or warfare. What fun people...
FOOTNOTE 13: in the more enlightened times of Von Buren's day, the punishment is reduced from 35 to 30 lashes.
FOOTNOTE 14: Charlotte makes a reference to "cutting her palms" to seal a promise - that was an old Yukon practice to seal blood oaths. Modern Yukons, even 150 years before Von Buren's day, didn't actually do it anymore.
COMING UP NEXT: Charlotte departs and the Sixth Army readies for war. Also, everyone makes fun of Tolkien, the philistines
First off, and for my first post here, I really do appreciate this Let's Read. I read first read Fitzpatrick's War back in high school, and while I enjoyed it immensely, it's only in the past few years after having bought a used copy and going through it as an adult that I can really appreciate it and what Judson is doing in it, and I'm glad to see some discussion to point out any number of things I didn't pick up on. Although I'll probably have to wait a while to discuss some of the thoughts that first come to mind with this book, I do have a couple things to point out.
First off, two minor points as it comes to the uniforms mentioned so far. I remember some people mentioning that because the cadets at the War College are wearing grey uniforms, that must mean they are drawing inspiration from the CSA. However, since the uniforms in question are for what appears to be their formal officer training program, is it not more likely that the reference is in fact to the long gray line? Additionally, something that I didn't notice before is that the Blue Jackets are selected from the Yukon Confederacy's Marines. I wonder if these are the blue jackets they wear. Which I think raises a very interesting point to something that never sat fully right with me. The Yukon's view themselves as basically an anti-America, and anti-Americanism is very much something Yukon characters repeat when discussing America. But that always sat oddly with me simply because, being a liberal/left-winger, I always associated a lot of what the Yukon's stood for as fitting hand in glove with the furthest right and most patriotic elements of America. But now, one can find online all sorts of right-wing blowhards who at least approximate such views. Including, funnily enough, people like Curtis Yarvin. Who if this book, were written after he started blogging, I have a hard time believing would not be viewed as an inspiration for certain elements of the Yukon Confederacy, and certain organizations within it as well.
Also, I must point out this isn't the only place I have seen this book mentioned recently. In potentially another example of right-wingers not really getting reading comprehension, a right-winger named Charles Worthy recently wrote a review of the book, where he basically views the Yukon Confederacy as something more or less to emulate.
Finally, since I've rambled on long enough, one last point that to me seems key to the book, especially by the end. While it's been pointed out here the ways that the Yukon's have either been stagnant or regressed between different time periods, there is one area where they haven't been fully stagnant. Compare the description of the bomber and fighter Bruce sees to that of the Florin that the Yukon's ripped off from the Chinese in an earlier war with them. The Chinese aren't stupid by any means, but as the book gets to the eponymous war, do pay close attention to how the Yukon's are portrayed compared to those they fight against, and also I think always keep in mind the various mentions made to previous wars in the Pacific.
Anyways, again I've rambled on enough. Thank you for going through this book and writing about it here. It's a good read, and it's nice to see others point things out I had never noticed before and develop those threads. I look forward to seeing how things go all the way to the end of this Let's Read.
So if you are inclined to believe that our Bruce is an egg, I think there is a tendency for eggs to be...hmm, attracted to women, but in a gay way? If that makes sense?
Like before I realized I was trans I was really into women in a way that I realized was different from my male peers...this sort of highly emotional yearning. Anyway I see a little bit of that in Bruce.
So if you are inclined to believe that our Bruce is an egg, I think there is a tendency for eggs to be...hmm, attracted to women, but in a gay way? If that makes sense?
Like before I realized I was trans I was really into women in a way that I realized was different from my male peers...this sort of highly emotional yearning. Anyway I see a little bit of that in Bruce.
I mean, all I could think while reading this bit was 'either the Timmermen have picked a really good agent, or they fucked up and picked a really bad one, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop', honestly? Like, Charlotte makes no bones about being a Timmerman agent, and Bruce still just does... literally anything she tells him to. I get it, I do - I too would do plenty of things for a cute redhead lady who was into me. But the whole book so far has had this background of dread, at least so far as @DragonCobolt has portrayed it, and I didn't feel like it was absent from the 'loving marriage' bits, either.
EDIT: And, uh, he absolutely just reads like a cis man in love? He's not conforming to the standards the Yukon have for men - which is, so far as I can tell, no love for anyone - but it's just, you know, normal cis guy in love with a hot redhead who is also into him stuff?
EDIT EDIT: And by 'normal cis guy' I mean a cis guy who is normal as opposed to a cis guy who is, like, an incel or something. Not intending to imply 'cis' is normal and 'trans' is not normal; he could also be acting like a normal trans guy in love with a hot redhead woman who is also into him.
EDIT: And, uh, he absolutely just reads like a cis man in love? He's not conforming to the standards the Yukon have for men - which is, so far as I can tell, no love for anyone - but it's just, you know, normal cis guy in love with a hot redhead who is also into him stuff?
EDIT EDIT: And by 'normal cis guy' I mean a cis guy who is normal as opposed to a cis guy who is, like, an incel or something. Not intending to imply 'cis' is normal and 'trans' is not normal; he could also be acting like a normal trans guy in love with a hot redhead woman who is also into him.
The reason why it can read "eggish" is because, basically, there's love, genuine love between two human beings, and then there's the patriarchal idea of "heterosexuality" or "straightness" and there's less overlap there than I think we'd all like. Lots of cishet people do absolutely love their partner, but society kinda teaches us to not do so in subtle and overt ways. That's why patriarchy kinda sucks, even for men! Some "men" do avoid this by not actually being men (which makes it easier to ignore social programming), but some men avoid this by...ya know, just being a good dudes.
If you follow stupid pointless twitter drama, there's this cishet youtuber named Jocat who got unending, constant levels of harassment for...liking women, which seems completely insane until you realize that he liked women the wrong way, see. Sexist men really hate it when you see women as, like, people.
Which we see in Fitzpatrick's War, actually, considering how many characters (Von Buren, for instance, and through him the rest of Yukon society that decries Bruce as a traitor and a weakling) see Bruce as some kind of weird defective.
But also, trans women just like declaring characters trans cause, like...there just aren't that many trans characters in fiction...it's all in good fun, though. Being called a trans woman is a very high compliment in many circles!
Sure, I get all of that, but it does bug me sometimes because it feels like in going for trans rep people can buy into the misogynistic patriarchy of our society; 'a cis man can't be loving to his wife or emotionally sensitive, he must be a trans woman who doesn't realise it' is super misogynistic! I know this is just me being weird and overthinking things that are mostly lighthearted and/or just trying to find deperately needed rep, and I agree that it's needed. Just bugs me when it's found by engaging with oppression and saying 'actually the oppression's right'.
Yeah, it is weird and…like, I've noticed that some people get really really really aggro about trans headcannons in a way that suggests they might not be as open minded as they think they are. You're not that bad, but I've had a guy on one of my other threads who needed to get banned off it for flipping the fuck out at the half joking suggestion that Jim Ranyor from StarCraft would make a cute transbian. Threw around words like "travesty" and "abomination", which seems like a bit of an overreaction
EDIT: also, it's not saying the oppression is right that men raised under patriarchy are going to tend to be sexist, that's why the system spends years brutalizing them. Its at least half the reason why the oppression is bad
"The Consul probably has a spy hidden under our beds," said Charlotte. "He will know you dance with your wife. We will be arrested and then, alas, it will be the end of us. Nipped in the bud. Hoistered up our own petard. Up the stream without a paddle. Or a boat. Is that someone at the door?"
Can we forgive this unspeakable lewdness? Well, since it's Charlotte, maybe.
At the end of this passage, Bruce ruminates that as he grew more and more used to doing what she says, and he gets more and more used to making her happy - and in turn, she makes him happy with her love and affection, he now looks back on this all and just wishes that he had been even more of a wife guy.
The prefab buildings go up and huge tankers stuffed to the brim with "Starshine Polymer" are brought out. This is a fire resistant polymer invented in the 20th century under a different name and the Yukons are spraying it over everything to render their bases immune to fire attacks.
...is that asbestos? Are they just coating their entire base with asbestos!?
Probably more likely a gypsum polymer, which won't give you horrible lung cancer but WILL shred your insides. We still use it today for fireproofing just about everything in replacement for asbestos. It's good stuff! Your drywall is made of it.
Anyway, Charlotte comes along and throws herself into arranging evacuation for the Rabari civilians - she manages to squirrel away food and water from the glut of supply that Bruce is swimming in, then gets them train passages off to the south. Bruce points out that millions will still suffer.
Unironically, this is a very real kind of small heroism. It's happened in basically every major war of the 19th and 20th centuries-the Contraband orders of the ACW protecting freedmen, the Japanese consulate in Lithuania during WWII, the last few helicopters out of Saigon, the overloaded C-17s flying out of Bagram, the list goes on. Sometimes all anyone can do is knuckle down, sign some orders, and get as many people out as you can.
I don't see as much egginess in Bruce as I do in our lovely Buck, honestly. There are shades, but I think Bruce's discomfort with the world comes from being a good, caring man trapped in a society that demands he be a dangerous and unpleasant one-it's not nearly as internal a struggle as, for example, my own discomfort with masculinity, where I would even pass up the chance to be someone like Bruce because it still doesn't "fit". Buck, on the other hand, fits neatly into the trans-headcanon front because he's outwardly the perfect Yukonian tool of violence and force, but he's both considered "defective" by that society and to himself! There's a profound and sorrowful "I should not be this way" that is very much part of Buck's character, whereas with Bruce, it's the world around him that should not be this way.
Idk. I will stop being philosophical and instead think about dancing on an airship in a nice dress with a woman who loves me.
The Sixth Army is here, and according to Bruce, we're looking at... 200,000 men, 60,000 for logistic support, the rest for combat troops. We have eleven infantry divisions (two of which are the Blue Jacket marines), the 17th Armored division, an artillery division with a thousand 220mm cannons, an auxiliary division that has anti-artillery, engineers and demolitions, and a brigade that is entirely built around manning twenty 21 inch artillery pieces mounted on flatbed lorries. Each infantry division also has its own heavy mortar brigade and firefighting brigade. Then we also have 20,000 men in the 1st Army Air Corps, and 20,000 from the 3rd Arm Air Corps.
This entire unit has been training for a full year before now in the Deseret province and Hood has, no joke, forbidden them from hand to hand practice combat.
"Save your anger for the enemy," he says. "Save it, and let it grow like a pearl growing inside an oyster. Save it, though it gnaws at your innards like a bit of jagged glass. One day, your anger will come forth as a gem that will dazzle the entire world."
...nothing worrying about that! No siree, normal society we have here!
Every Sunday, Hood also leads seminar and ONLY reads from the Book of Revelation, casting the Sixth Army as God's army, sent to do battle against Babylon, the mother of abominations, and the minions of the Antichrist - in this case, the communists and the Turks. Bruce reflects that the way Hood prays sounded a lot like what he imagined the earliest Yukons prayed as they destroyed the Americans. He wishes that God might come, and free them from suffering - not just the suffering that they endure, but the suffering they inflict on one another. Hood goes on to say that their army might have all the best artillery, the best guns, tanks, air support, orbital intelligence, and the defensive position, but the REAL reason why they're going to win is...well...
Bruce's Narration said:
"I say to you, my friends, that an army unfarid of dying will defeat any opponent, regardless of strategy or expertise, training or equipment, or unknowing chance. Give me men who can calmly face their own destruction and let the infidel Turk and the godless Chinese have our weaponry, our satellites, our training, and I gurantee I will wipe them from the face of creation just as winter obliterates the last traces of summer..."
Bruce adores Hood for his bravery, admires his skill in tactics and oration, and thinks him the best the Yukon have to offer.
...sorry, Bruce, but Hood is talking out of his fucking ass.
We will see later examples of Chinese bravery that will break your heart. Desperate bids to end a global tyranny in the face of overwhelming, impossible odds, pushing past the bounds of human endurance and sanity. The very scenario that Hood claims is the case is what happens in the Four Points War and the book shows, with almost malicious detail, how humanity and spirit and elan and will to power doesn't matter when they have bombs and guns and artillery and firebombs and canister shot and mines and trenches and you do not. It is here, I think, that Yukon arrogance and self centered aggrandizement, their fascist braggadocio, is at it's most galling and I cannot help but think of how hard American troops brag about their determination, their strength of will, their macho cool - while being backed by precision guided munitions and cluster bombs and tanks.
Like, at the end of the day, we live in the real world. The human spirit is amazing, and through remarkable bravery and skill, people can do the inredible.
They can't do the impossible.
Charlotte is also here - and she's one of the few women left. The Second Engineers and their wives are off (and I'm pretty sure we never see them again in the book, so, bye!) and she gets to meet Hood. He's very flustered and mutters about how she's "very nice" while his co-general, Lt. General Israel Hard Truth Montrose, aka, DADDY MONTROSE (thus named because he was like a father to his men, I'm sure), is looking over maps and swearing at everything he doesn't like.
Daddy is not super impressed with Bruce on first sight - until he realizes that he's a commoner who actually knows how to work. He and Hood have been saddled with Stein from the Basileus and they clearly are not super happy about this. Hood directs Stein to show Charlotte the helicopters, presumably to get him out of his hair so he can get actual work done. Hood gives Bruce his orders and a brevet promotion to Colonel, but Bruce is like, "Hmmm...the Senate may not approve that, you know? Cause, um, the Consul may not like my wife." Hood's like, "Absurd, ignore him, focus on your job."
Said job is building more fortifications - they've claimed the high ground and they're going to throw in trenches and pillboxes and everything they can manage. The other half of the job though is sadder: In two days, the last zeppelin is going out and it's gonna have Charlotte on it. Hood is apologetic, he knows they're newly wed, but...well...
There's one more thing that Hood has to grumble about: Stein and O'Brian's fight is genuinely beginning to interfere with the Sixth Army. He left his post twice to consult with the Judge's Guild, he keeps peculating to bribe Memory Men, and he's always not doing his job - he has basically destroyed their logistics records SEVERAL TIMES. Daddy grumbles that he should be shot, but...well, Stein is a Lord. And O'Brian is basically doing the exact same thing right back at him. It's gotten so bad that the Consul has actually dressed down Hood, which he takes personally, he's never been given a demerit in his entire career and he's royally pissed about this.
So: Bruce is to NOT DO ANYTHING that Stein asks him, FLAT OUT.
Bruce, who is like, "Jesus Christ man, I just work here!" is absolutely fine with avoiding Stein and O'Brian's swirling petty bullshit hurricane.
Stein takes it well!
Bruce's Narration said:
"They want you back there, Banker," I said to Lord Stein.
He imposed himself between [Charlotte and me] and took hold of my tunic lapels wit both hands.
"What did they say?" he demdned. "You have to tell me, Robert. I know they sent me out here so they could talk about me."
"They tell me I should avoid you, Lord Stein," I said and disengaged myself from his grip. "You are becoming a bad man to know."
"The schemers! The dirty anti-Semetic schemers!" he said. "Now they are trying to turn you against me!"
"What are you saying?" i said. "You aren't a Jew. Hood would be the last to care about it if you were."
"My grandfather was a Jew. Don't laugh. These Yukon bigots never forget! That Hood, so damned outwardly righteous! I thought he could be trusted, but you're the only trustworthy man among the officers, Bobby. You still have the papers I gave you?" He asked and renewed his hold on my lapels.
"I have them in a safe place. Please let go, Banker. I told him. "You are making a scene infront of the men."
Stein does calm down once Bruce points out that, like, none of the common commanders here can ACTUALLY punish him - he just has to worry about pissing off Fitz. Stein goes, "Oh, true. Fitzpatrick is all that matters!" and refers to him as his "Lord" - which completely shocks Bruce, as no Lord can owe fealty to another Lord. CHarlotte and Bruce both cluck their tongues and shake their heads as Stein hurries off and resolve to try and stay out of Stein and O'Brian, but it sure seems like the two of them are trying to make this EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM.
After a quick dance that was redacted in the 2541 edition of the book but left in this SIZZLING HOT, UNCUT one, Charlotte teases Bruce that he was ever scared of her and he's like, "I was NEVER scared of you! ...okay, I was...a little..." and she drags him in bed. There, they talk about things unrelated to their life - to distract them from the storm coming.
Bruce's Narration said:
"Do you think there are other worlds?" Charlotte asked me. "People on other planets that orbit other suns?"
I explained to her we on earth would never know as long as the Storm Machines stayed overhead and as long as the Timmermen had a monopoly on space travel. Even if we could fly beyond our solar system. I told her, the great distances of the stars from us might prevent us from traveling to them, as we might never be able to fly faster than the speed of light.
"That is twentieth-century physics," she said. "I thought all of that was disproved back then."
I said that, yes, in the latter part of the Electronic Age, scientists found that electromagnetic signals sent from one point on the Earth's surface traveled more quickly easy to west than west to east and that gravity increases as the speed of light does, and both of those observations cut the legs from underneath of most of Electrical Ages physics...
"As far we are concerned," I told Charlotte. "We live in a Newtonian universe. The Principia rules everything we can make or observe. The Timmermen don't have the same restraint. They fly wherever they want."
"In a pig's eye," she said. "Murrey told me they have a few robot bases on the moon, and another on Mars. Timmermen in times past have gone clear to Pluto and to all the other planets on the way out. Not any longer. They send out robot ships to points beyond. Or so they once did."
"What did they find out there?"
"Lots of emptiness," said Charlotte. "A few rocks."
The Timmermen, Charlotte says, do not care about what is out there. They care about Earth.
I think this passage is...very important not just for the direct, practical reasons (it's actually kind of a big deal that Earth is all we have and realistically speaking we have to take care of it, to make this world a galaxy, not to go out to a galaxy that's likely just more rocks) but also, it relates to the overarching theme of the book. So, put a pin in this!
Then the conversation turns back to the Americans. Bruce recounts a haunting story of how in his earliest days in the Yukon army, he was part of a mechanical convoy that chased the Mexican army back through a Mexican city (Guadalajara) and he saw a slum where the descendants of refugee, surviving Americans live, and they shouted "Hello Yankee!" at him - he had bad dreams for weeks after, thinking about ghosts of the past. Charlotte asks him: Was what the Yukon did wrong?
And he has to say...yes. It was very wrong what they did. but he...can't feel guilty about it?
So Charlotte goes, "Lets pray!" and gets on her knees and says, out loud," Dear god! Thank you for awakening in my dear husband's heart these feelings-"
"I said I don't feel shame!"
"Shh, we're praying!" She winks at him.
Over the next few days, Charlotte and Bruce cling to every time they have together, including a memorable interlude where they read a book called The Underwater Boat, which is a collection of sci-fi and fantasy from the electrical age that has been kept and curated into one book that Yukons find ABSOLUTELY hilarious. They need to stop around Lord of the Rings, which Charlotte finds so hilarious that she genuinely cannot breathe. Tsk!
But then, while walking through the base during some of their downtime, Bruce spots something unexpected: French and Charlie! From the I.T ship that he sailed on, way back in chapter five! They're both working as teamsters, having volunteered to serve in the army again due to the need of the Confederacy. Seeing how exhausted these old men are, CHarlotte goes, "Wow, my husband was just saying that he was going to HIRE you two as batmen on his surveying crew!" and Bruce is like, "Right, I was going to talk to your commander tomorrow!" and Charlotte is like, "ahah, my husband misspoke, he planned to talk to the lieutenant right now while you two rest in a tent and drink this fresh lemonade I'll make for you!" And Bruce is like, "...right, that is...what I meant to say."
Said Lieutenant is like, "oh thank god, I was sure they were going to keel over from a heart attack at any second, thank you" and now, Bruce has Charlie and French as his surveying buddies! They have easy work - mostly just carrying some supplies, holding tools, and standing around.
Inspired, Charlotte immediately launches herself into doing her two favorite things: good deeds and playfully manipulating her husband. Soon, Bruce has THIRTY teenage helpers she's plucked from dangerous jobs they're ill suited too. Bruce grumps that he had seen combat when he was sixteen, and Charlotte says that if she had been around, she'd have hidden him away too, so there~
Then...sadly...the time is up. No more good deeds.
Charlotte has to go. Bruce thinks that since she and his great auntie, Jessie, are such kindred spirits, they will either cause a civil war or become united and rule over the family compound like a dark queen. He predicts that drinking will increase, men will find excuses to go fly fishing and hunting, and when the baby arrives, Charlotte will be surrounded by love and affection. But then...
Bruce's Narration said:
She remained in good spirits up to an hour before the time we absolutely had to rise, at which time she began sobbing as i had never seen her do before. She cursed Fitz for bringing on the war. Forgetting the superstitions that soldiers observe, she told me I had to survive the approaching battle.
"You have to come back to me!" she wailed. "You have too! Promise me you will ask HOod to put you in the rear when the shooting starts. I know I give you grief about Fitz. Please, this one time: use your connections with him to save yourself! Say you'll do this! Do it for our baby."
"I promise," I said, in a voice that would not have fooled anyone.
"You ******!" she said and punched me in my bare stomach. "You could at least try better than that!"
Von Buren actually cut what Charlotte said, convinced no Yukon wife would ever utter to her husband ever. Guess what it might be in the comments! Charlotte apologizes for hitting him, cries more, hugs him, and Bruce holds her - and then, finally, they have to get up and head to the airport. There, Charlotte gives Bruce her rosary and confesses that she stole his. This way, they will still be connected as they pray. We get a short scene where General Hood's wife, Martha, consoles Hood before she has to leave as well. Martha is described as being short and somewhat round and since she so perfectly suits Hood, I choose to believe she looks like this.
Bruce and Charlotte kiss once more.
"Some time today, Mrs. Bruce!" Hood says.
Charlotte pauses, then kisses Bruce AGAIN.
"AHEM!"
Charlotte then walks up, kisses Hood's nose, and says, "Please take care of my Bobby!" then boards the zeppelin. Hood manages to say "Well! "and "indeed!" while his generals all try and hide their smiles.
Then the zeppelin is up...and up...
And gone.
FOOTNOTE TIME!
FOOTNOTE 1: Von Buren explains that the army uses millimeters and inches at basically random, based on the heritage of the gun and common use.
FOOTNOTE 7: Apparently, Yukon's anthem from 2086 to 2230 was "Black Jack Davey", a real folk song! But then it got replaced by "Oh Yukon, Land Blessed by God" because the senate are COWARDS.
FOOTNOTE 12: They use steampowered helicopters and...would that work? Is that even remotely possible???
FOOTNOTE 13: Von Buren is genuinely not sure if Bruce is just making up Stein swearing fealty to Lord Fitzpatrick - he admits that Stein actually was known for speaking hastily and without accuracy, but also, even the official histories say that Lord Fitzpatrick DID make a few lords swear fealty to him directly - it is written down as one of his "few mistakes." Hmm...
FOOTNOTE 16: There's reference to Joseph Freedom Flag, a figure of "considerable mystery" - one of Fitz's tutors, he was some kind of...okay, I'm gonna be honest. He's fucking Jordan Peterson. He's Jordan Peterson if Jordan Peterson lived in the Yukon. His most famous self help books are The Universeal Hero and Do as You Will, and his religiosity is this weird confused mishmash of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduisim and General Woo Wooisms. He'll actually be a figure of some note in later chapters, so that'll be fun.
FOOTNOTE 17: The experiments Bruce refers too are from 2049, so, look forward to that my girlies.
FOOTNOTE 19: Von Buren suggests that we read Ethan Hope Beachen's Human Refuse In Mexico for a lengthy description of the American populations in modern Mexico. Counterpoint: Lets not!
FOOTNOTE 21: Von Buren takes quite some time to decry Tolkien, a professor of classical languages and history who SHOULD KNOW BETTER, spending years of his life writing a nearly endless epic about wizards, talking trees and little people who live below the ground. BECAUSE IT'S HIGH ART, YOU YUKON PRIG!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!
FOOTNOTE 24: Even Von Buren calls out how well suited Martha and Hood are to one another. An echo of Charlotte and Bruce? Hmm...
COMING UP NEXT: The Four Points of the Four Point War. Also, the return of Rainbow Dash!
Almost a quarter-million men for a total Yukon population of 30 millions? And it's the Sixth army? Not surprising that a fascist society would do maximal mobilization at all time, but that certainly would explain why they stagnate and never invent anything when they're busing upholding a bloated military.
"Murrey told me they have a few robot bases on the moon, and another on Mars. Timmermen in times past have gone clear to Pluto and to all the other planets on the way out. Not any longer. They send out robot ships to points beyond.
There's something almost impressive in the turbo hypocrisy of "yeah so technology bad, steam age best. please don't look too hard towards our bases on fucking mars"
Almost a quarter-million men for a total Yukon population of 30 millions? And it's the Sixth army? Not surprising that a fascist society would do maximal mobilization at all time, but that certainly would explain why they stagnate and never invent anything when they're busing upholding a bloated military.
I'm not actually sure if the sixth army is named such because there ARE six other armies or what. And it does seem like it's been extra enlarged by having a load of other people from other armies put into it? So...hmm...
Yeah, have the indomitable human spirit on one side, and a gun on the other, and, well, the indomitable human spirit's a lot of things. It's not bulletproof, though.
Honestly Yukon completely shitting on Tolkien is such a perfect encapsulation of their whole fascist deal, its kinda just perfect. It immediately slaps the face of the nerds who like to read niche steampunk alternate history like this, and also, the whole Yukon ethos of like Puritanical industriousness and patriarchal warriorhood and expansionist dominion is like exactly the kind of "dread pharaonic Numenorean kings grinding up everything that made Numenor wondrous and beautiful to make themselves all-mighty and imperious and feed their obsession with immortality" stuff that Tolkien hated about his own society and saw as the evils of the British Empire and of modernity.
The story of Frodo and Sam is fundamentally not what Confederacy's all about, and so it's one of the few works that do survive to any degree, but now unmoored in a completely different culture that absolutely 100% chose to remove all context chopping it up in disconnected bits of purple prose without all the rest of the work to bring it together for that poetry of language to land. And so it really hits home characterizing the Yukon with the story, and then in keeping the audience outside the story fully awake in regards to these deeper uglier truths about how gross and aliening it would actually be to see trad fascists remake America in their own image, and how with enough time not just automatically listing Tolkien in with a dozen others elevated into the fascist canon of classics from before woke ruined books or whatever, Yukon or Victoria or Gilead or whoever would butcher its legacy as a work or art.
Yeah, have the indomitable human spirit on one side, and a gun on the other, and, well, the indomitable human spirit's a lot of things. It's not bulletproof, though.
The very scenario that Hood claims is the case is what happens in the Four Points War and the book shows, with almost malicious detail, how humanity and spirit and elan and will to power doesn't matter when they have bombs and guns and artillery and firebombs and canister shot and mines and trenches and you do not. It is here, I think, that Yukon arrogance and self centered aggrandizement, their fascist braggadocio, is at it's most galling and I cannot help but think of how hard American troops brag about their determination, their strength of will, their macho cool - while being backed by precision guided munitions and cluster bombs and tanks.
So I'll gently push back here from what I'll say is...personal experience and argue that this is definitely a strong condemnation of a particular American macho concept surrounding its military, but it's not one that's common inside the military itself outside of specific, specialized commands like Navy SEALs and other super-aggrandized trigger-pullers (my problem with the post-GWOT "cult of special forces" is a comment thread for another time.) Inside the US armed forces, the "macho" element of culture is much more "look at all this cool shit we can do"-the American military as the invincible Arsenal of Democracy-think that speech from the end of Band of Brothers ("say hello to Ford, and General Fucking Motors!") and you're not far off. This has been a running argument up through Vietnam, the Cold War, and the GWOT-that US technology and logistics lets a random 19 year old from Topeka outfight and outlast just about anybody.
What the Yukon army is, in my view, is the average American conservative's idea of the US military-proud, strong, daring young "heroes" who are powered by pure American Exceptionalism and love of Uncle Sam, just like Hood's speeches allege in the text. That, I think, is who Judson is targeting-the kind of civilian politicians, leadership, and ordinary citizens that cast, say, illegally invading another country because my daddy didn't beat Saddam I mean "we found weapons of mass destruction" as a fight to "preserve our way of life."
That's not to say that toxic worldview isn't spreading inside the military, to be sure, especially during and after the last administration-but it's not the main ideal, and Judson's critique definitely still holds on both a military and civilian line because there's definitely a high-tech edge to the Yukon forces that mirrors the IRL US-the B-2 flying wings were first over Baghdad in '03 and I think it's no coincidence that Fitz' super planes also have that classic bat-wing silhouette.
So I'll gently push back here from what I'll say is...personal experience and argue that this is definitely a strong condemnation of a particular American macho concept surrounding its military, but it's not one that's common inside the military itself outside of specific, specialized commands like Navy SEALs and other super-aggrandized trigger-pullers (my problem with the post-GWOT "cult of special forces" is a comment thread for another time. Inside the US armed forces, the "macho" element of culture is much more "look at all this cool shit we can do"-the American military as the invincible Arsenal of Democracy-think that speech from the end of Band of Brothers ("say hello to Ford, and General Fucking Motors!") and you're not far off. This has been a running argument up through Vietnam, the Cold War, and the GWOT-that US technology and logistics lets a random 19 year old from Topeka outfight and outlast just about anybody.
What the Yukon army is, in my view, is the average American conservative's idea of the US military-proud, strong, daring young "heroes" who are powered by pure American Exceptionalism and love of Uncle Sam, just like Hood's speeches allege in the text. That, I think, is who Judson is targeting-the kind of civilian politicians, leadership, and ordinary citizens that cast, say, illegally invading another country because my daddy didn't beat Saddam I mean "we found weapons of mass destruction" as a fight to "preserve our way of life."
That's not to say that toxic worldview isn't spreading inside the military, to be sure, especially during and after the last administration-but it's not the main ideal, and Judson's critique definitely still holds on both a military and civilian line because there's definitely a high-tech edge to the Yukon forces that mirrors the IRL US-the B-2 flying wings were first over Baghdad in '03 and I think it's no coincidence that Fitz' super planes also have that classic bat-wing silhouette.
That makes sense! I was really thinking more of...the vision of the Army that conservative civilians have - like, remember all those "They/Them" armies whining about how the Russians would totally beat us cause we let womens and queer in the armies (then the Russian army ran dick first into a meat grinder and they all got a lot quieter.)
That makes sense! I was really thinking more of...the vision of the Army that conservative civilians have - like, remember all those "They/Them" armies whining about how the Russians would totally beat us cause we let womens and queer in the armies (then the Russian army ran dick first into a meat grinder and they all got a lot quieter.)
Oh 100%-I think we're absolutely on the same page there. Conservative "support" for the military always goes back to End Times will-to-power bullshit. It'd be funnier if it wasn't incredibly bigoted and predicated on thinking violence is righteous and cool. (Granted, this is also a leftist problem-remember to refuse the People's Stick, comrade!)
apparently the word "helicopter" was actually coined to describe a steam-powered model aircraft (although calling it an aircraft is maybe overstating it), and the earliest rotorcraft to get off the ground was also powered by steam.
i think steam-powered helicopters are basically workable, it's just that ICE and electricity are more mature technologies and easier to work with.
