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Taylor is DOOMed

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Well, to be honest... At the time while the president wanted to go help England against nazi Germany, neither Congress nor the general public wanted anything to do with joining the war. The lend/lease thing was the most he'd been able to push through before Pearl Harbor. And before the one two punch of Pearl Harbor convincing the American public and congress to go to war and Hitler deciding to invade Russia (who he had a non-aggression pact with, at least) Germany was winning. Hitler was a madman with delusions of competency. However he had a great number of tactical geniuses in his employ. And based on how German forces were quite regularly out maneuvering and out fighting everyone, it showed. Without America joining the war, it's quite possible that the British Isles would have been incapable of effectively taking the war to the mainland. Their air force was winning the Battle of Briton, but how long that could last without outside support is anyone's guess. Their navy on the other hand, it probably was no match for Germany's navy due in large part to the use of submarines.

Hitler's issue was that he grew paranoid and stopped listening to his tactical geniuses. But if he'd not done that? They probably would have recommended consolidating his hold on currently occupied territory, not going to war with Russia. At least not while still fighting on other fronts. And if Japan had decided not to attack Pearl Harbor in their vain attempt to decapitate the USA's navy, could things have gone differently? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know will we? Funny thing, the attack on Pearl Harbor did cripple the pacific fleet. The thing is, Japan hadn't factored in how much of an industrial powerhouse America was. And all of that industrial power suddenly got switched over to fueling the war machine.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
The thing is, Japan hadn't factored in how much of an industrial powerhouse America was
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Waggles hand

Sorts. If Japan had caught the American carriers in Pearl like their ops plan called for then we would have been fubar. Maybe we could have held Pearl after that, but what we would not have been able to do was project power like we needed to, at the times we needed to. Would we have won eventually, yes, but the war would have likely taken another 5 or so years because we would have put off the Pacific until after we had dealt with Europe.
 
Firehawk242 said:
Seriously, why is "Hitler wins" the go-to for alternate histories? We live in the timeline where he did WAY better than he had any right to, if not the most successful timeline possible for the Nazis! But no one wants to explore the timelines where the French weren't outmaneuvered by the Nazis and the war ended by 1941 or so, no it's always, always, ALWAYS, "What if the Nazis won?"
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I picked it because that was a relatively recent event, and easy to imagine as dramatically different than the present.
If you prefer, I'll pull from a AH series instead.
Mid WW2 the world is invaded by alien lizards. Edit: To be clear, Alien, not Demonic--no Varga(probably)
or
During the cold war, everyone pushed the nuclear button, but Africa was not hit because Wakanda put a shield up.
maybe a combo?
The american revolution failed, and so did the french, and the russian, and the chinese. And every other revolution that ousted the King/Emperor/royal house.
 
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Rajvik_wolfboy said:
Waggles hand

Sorts. If Japan had caught the American carriers in Pearl like their ops plan called for then we would have been fubar. Maybe we could have held Pearl after that, but what we would not have been able to do was project power like we needed to, at the times we needed to. Would we have won eventually, yes, but the war would have likely taken another 5 or so years because we would have put off the Pacific until after we had dealt with Europe.
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Hah! No.

Japan couldn't hold Midway, much less Pearl. And that's without the US sticking its oar in. Shipping shortfalls alone meant Japan could never have taken Hawai'i. Destroyed the facilities there? Sure. But it wouldn't have been enough to matter. All it would have done is changed our resupply points to Alaska instead.
 
Rajvik_wolfboy said:
Waggles hand

Sorts. If Japan had caught the American carriers in Pearl like their ops plan called for then we would have been fubar. Maybe we could have held Pearl after that, but what we would not have been able to do was project power like we needed to, at the times we needed to. Would we have won eventually, yes, but the war would have likely taken another 5 or so years because we would have put off the Pacific until after we had dealt with Europe.
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Yes, and then the might of the USA's industrial capabilities, higher population, and so forth would have moved in to (eventually) crush the Japanese navy, bringing the fight to Japan's door anyway. However if they had not attacked Pearl Harbor, then there wouldn't have been the smoking gun to convince the public and congress to go to war. Remember, this was only a decade and a half (maybe two decades) after the Great War. The American public did not want to go to war again. And neither did Congress. Which may well have meant that Great Briton would have been on their own against Hitler. Could they have held out? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know. But historically, America supplied much of the manpower needed to take the fight into Europe it's self and push Germany back.

All of that is neither here nor there though.

Isn't the whole point of the new Wolfenstein games that BJ accidently changed history, and that Germany ended up winning using advanced robotics/cybernetics? Thus he's fighting with the resistance trying to undo all that? Mind you, I haven't played the games yet.
 
Be it Napoleon or Hitler everyone keeps forgetting that Russia is not just a European country it is a Eurasian country. If you look at a globe, it is shows better on a globe, look for Moscow. Moscow is in Russia's crumple zone.

Europeans think that if they can get to Moscow they have conquered Russia. Russia is 11 time zones long.

Logistics. The size of Russia is one of Russia's best defenses.

Edit: Logistics is also one of the big counts in the Pacific Ocean as the size of the Pacific Ocean put a burden on everyone.
 
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IIRC Russia actually was planning on backstabbing Germany in WWII, they were just in the early stages of planning.

Frogs321 said:
Logistics. The size of Russia is one of Russia's best defenses.
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To (reluctantly) be fair to Hitler and Napolean I'm pretty sure about 80% of Russia's population is in that crumple zone you mentioned, much like the majority of Canada's population is within 100 miles of the US border.

 
Valdimarian said:
IIRC Russia actually was planning on backstabbing Germany in WWII, they were just in the early stages of planning.


To (reluctantly) be fair to Hitler and Napolean I'm pretty sure about 80% of Russia's population is in that crumple zone you mentioned, much like the majority of Canada's population is within 100 miles of the US border.

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True. But put it in a way that Americans can feel. Russia 11 time zones to Contiguous US 4 time zones. If someone were to capture Washington DC and the East Coast would most Americans think that the enemy had conquered the United States?
 
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mp3.1415player said:
The shoe bomber thing was (pun unintentional) blown far out of proportion. He was caught because he asked another passenger for a light to light his shoelaces to set the bomb off...

There aren't really words to say how stupid that entire 'plot' was. I'm almost entirely convinced that whoever he got the bomb from, assuming it was actually viable to begin with, basically thought 'This idiot is a complete fool and stands no chance at all of doing anything than getting caught. On the other hand, it's barely possible he'll set the thing off completely by accident, and in any case we don't actually need an explosion to get the point across,' then smiled and wished him a quick trip to Paradise :) I very much doubt it was a serious attack, since those tend to be much more successful and quite rare.

And, honestly, if this was the case it's entirely correct. One supposed 'threat' that stood little to no chance of real success and years later we're still paying for it with a lot of security theatre that doesn't do much other than show that something needed to be done, this is something, we're doing it, so all is well traveler.

Which, of course, is my point. If one idiot can cause literally years worth of irritation, and official policy to change across the entire planet, by failing to actually do proper terrorism, why would anyone think that thousands to millions of actual deaths in horrible ways a year wouldn't change a whole slew of things in so many ways I can't even list them?
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I honestly maintain that this is one of the most successful terrorist actions, because here we are decades later and its still inconveniencing millions every year. The absurd lasting impact he had is amazing for so little effort.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Which, of course, is my point. If one idiot can cause literally years worth of irritation, and official policy to change across the entire planet, by failing to actually do proper terrorism, why would anyone think that thousands to millions of actual deaths in horrible ways a year wouldn't change a whole slew of things in so many ways I can't even list them?
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As far as I can tell, the Worm setting basically has a worldwide dearth of effective government. The police can't do much against parahumans, and the parahuman laws are set up so that capes basically have their own system of government that nominally acknowledges and gives face to the actual governments. By the time Taylor is shoved in a locker of rotting filth, it's reached a point where the system's collapsing across the globe but the normals are desperately pretending that everything will be okay because there's literally nothing else they can do. By Joe Schmoe's standards, the S9 might as well be invincible, for instance, so your best bet if they roll into town is to try to leave before they find you. And that means all you can really do is hope they don't show up and try your best to live life like normal.

And of course, IIRC, Cauldron's been using their semi-omniscience to expirement to try to figure out the 'ideal' government system for capes; Brockton Bay was their attempt at a feudal system.
The setting is painted as a rotting, barely living thing that's held together by willful ignorance and some rolls of tape. The major inconsistency I see there is that any of the teens are upset about the ease with which villains escape the authorities; they grew up in a time when that is just how it is, after all.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Yes, I did mean Iraq, sorry. I've corrected it.

The shoe bomber thing was (pun unintentional) blown far out of proportion. He was caught because he asked another passenger for a light to light his shoelaces to set the bomb off...
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Hear about the terrorists who got blown up by their own time bomb? Seems that they used a digital clock and set it according to their own clock rather than the "zionist" timezone where the bomb was supposed to go off...

Yeah. These guys are NOT recruiting from the ranks of MENSA.
 
No, they aren't. Then again these are the same type of people who think killing them self as a suicide bomber will get them rewarded in the afterlife.
 
J-Sail said:
While it is true that they are still police, they DO NOT adhere to the same ROE, by the nature of their purpose. They HAVE BECOME paramilitary organizations by training, equipment, and ROE.

Are they still part of the local police force? Yes, and even must adhere to some of the same political overhead/oversite. Are they street cops? Not at all.

Remember, paramilitary means modeled after military organizations, not that they are themselves military. The Italian Carabinieri are specifically paramilitary because they are trained from the beginning to use that template/loadout while still being civil police (and military police on top of that). That does not mean that is the only template to define the term. Given the uniform and ranking of most regular police, you could argue that THEY are paramilitary in nature, but not as close to militarized as the SWAT sections have become.
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SWAT/STAR are street cops as well, just with more training in using special equipment and tactics. They're selected from well-performing street cops. Since there's not that much work for them in most places, they are street cops normally, with rotating duties for being on alert to respond to emergencies.
 
So, I kind of want to see Doom!Taylor meet up with the Angry Angels from A Cogboy Among Angry Angels...

No, no, let me revise that. I want Dean to go visit, and sigh in relief that they aren't nearly as angry. And get looked at in (justified to them) confusion.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Yes, and then the might of the USA's industrial capabilities, higher population, and so forth would have moved in to (eventually) crush the Japanese navy, bringing the fight to Japan's door anyway. However if they had not attacked Pearl Harbor, then there wouldn't have been the smoking gun to convince the public and congress to go to war. Remember, this was only a decade and a half (maybe two decades) after the Great War. The American public did not want to go to war again. And neither did Congress. Which may well have meant that Great Briton would have been on their own against Hitler. Could they have held out? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know. But historically, America supplied much of the manpower needed to take the fight into Europe it's self and push Germany back.
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It's also worth noting that it was the Japanese government, not its military, that thought they could win a war in the pacific. Its military, especially its navy led by Yamamoto, were of entirely the opposite opinion because they did understand the implications of the US's overwhelming industrial capacity.

IIRC Yamamoto outright stated that if hostilities broke out between the USA and Japan then nothing short of marching troops into Washington and up to the White House would be sufficient to secure victory, and wondered where the politicians were getting their confidence from. Once it became obvious that war could not be avoided, he hoped (but probably didn't really believe) that if sufficiently overwhelming damage could be dealt to US forces in the opening moves of the war then they might be convinced to negotiate for an end to the conflict rather than pursue a war of attrition, a hope that we of course know never stood a chance of coming to fruition, but it was literally all he had in light of the certainty that actually winning the war was literally impossible.

There is also Yamamoto's oft quoted prophetic statement to Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe; "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years." Which, as it turned out, was pretty much dead on the money. That he was dead on the money despite the attack on Pearl being strategically irrelevant due to prior alterations to War Plan Orange in the mid 30s is actually rather impressive when you think about it, and heavily implies that despite the planning and effort he never truly believed that attacking the USA was ever going to achieve anything other than fuck Japan right up the ass.

So the Japanese military, or at least the Navy, knew what was up. It was the politicians who, for some inexplicable reason, decided not to listen to their military in matters of war who thought that a war with the USA would be anything other than an abject disaster.

FaerieKnight79 said:
All of that is neither here nor there though.

Isn't the whole point of the new Wolfenstein games that BJ accidently changed history, and that Germany ended up winning using advanced robotics/cybernetics? Thus he's fighting with the resistance trying to undo all that? Mind you, I haven't played the games yet.
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Pretty much, yes. Though not just advanced robotics and cybernetics but also straight up black magic; remember, Wolfenstein happens in the same setting as Doom. As first revealed in Spear of Destiny and since followed along with in pretty much every Wolfenstein game since, Hitler's well known historical fascination with the occult actually achieved something in the Wolfenstein setting; specifically, certain highly placed men under his command managed to use various magical items to summon demons from Hell.

It's also stated in-game that many of the technological advances came from plundering Da'at Yichud vaults, the Da'at Yichud being an obscure Jewish mystical sect that seeks to understand God through knowledge and reason. With Hell being definitively a real thing and at least one Angel (the Seraphim) said to exist in the Doomslayer's backstory, it seems plausible that the Da'at Yichud achieved exactly what they set out to do and that their technology was therefore the result of angel magic, ergo the Nazi technology is likely the product of research into both angel and demon magic, potentially explaining its ridiculously advanced state.

One of the earlier Da'at Yichud technologies, the 'alchemical compound', is also believed in-universe to be the product of the Devil rather than God, and it reanimates the dead into undead 'shamblers' that very much resemble the undead created during demonic invasions in Doom. This suggests the possibility that the Da'at Yichud may have accidentally figured out how to get to Hell and\or use demon magic before they figured out how to use angel magic, which would make sense as using demon magic is obviously a lot easier than using angel magic.

As a final note, the Da'at Yichud vault does share more than a few stylistic design themes with pre-fall Argent D'Nur concept art, except gold instead of silver. Given the established ties between the settings, this is probably not a coincidence.


In short; the Nazi robots in Wolfenstein are, most likely, magic robots.

Brainarius said:
SWAT/STAR are street cops as well, just with more training in using special equipment and tactics. They're selected from well-performing street cops. Since there's not that much work for them in most places, they are street cops normally, with rotating duties for being on alert to respond to emergencies.
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They don't operate under standard street police rules of engagement when deployed as SWAT/STAR though, do they? I'm pretty sure SWAT/STAR rules of engagement are different, as isn't the whole point of SWAT/STAR to bridge the gap between street police and outright military action?
 
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Neruz said:
Pretty much, yes. Though not just advanced robotics and cybernetics but also straight up black magic; remember, Wolfenstein happens in the same setting as Doom. As first revealed in Spear of Destiny and since followed along with in pretty much every Wolfenstein game since, Hitler's well known historical fascination with the occult actually achieved something in the Wolfenstein setting; specifically, certain highly placed men under his command managed to use various magical items to summon demons from Hell.

It's also stated in-game that many of the technological advances came from plundering Da'at Yichud vaults, the Da'at Yichud being an obscure Jewish mystical sect that seeks to understand God through knowledge and reason. With Hell being definitively a real thing and at least one Angel (the Seraphim) said to exist in the Doomslayer's backstory, it seems plausible that the Da'at Yichud achieved exactly what they set out to do and that their technology was therefore the result of angel magic, ergo the Nazi technology is likely the product of research into both angel and demon magic, potentially explaining its ridiculously advanced state.

One of the earlier Da'at Yichud technologies, the 'alchemical compound', is also believed in-universe to be the product of the Devil rather than God, and it reanimates the dead into undead 'shamblers' that very much resemble the undead created during demonic invasions in Doom. This suggests the possibility that the Da'at Yichud may have accidentally figured out how to get to Hell and\or use demon magic before they figured out how to use angel magic, which would make sense as using demon magic is obviously a lot easier than using angel magic.

As a final note, the Da'at Yichud vault does share more than a few stylistic design themes with pre-fall Argent D'Nur concept art, except gold instead of silver. Given the established ties between the settings, this is probably not a coincidence.


In short; the Nazi robots in Wolfenstein are, most likely, magic robots.
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I wasn't aware of much of that. After all, I've never gotten a chance to play any of the Wolfenstein games. I did play chapter 1 of Commander Keen though. As well as chapter 1 of Doom. Also played Doom a bit on the SNES, but I never got as far as when I was visiting a friend and played on his amega (I think). Might have been a commodore instead, it's been 3 decades since then.

Neruz said:
They don't operate under standard street police rules of engagement when deployed as SWAT/STAR though, do they? I'm pretty sure SWAT/STAR rules of engagement are different, as isn't the whole point of SWAT/STAR to bridge the gap between street police and outright military action?
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But that doesn't make them a paramilitary organization. SWAT is sent in when things have gone past what the normal law enforcement equipment and tactics can account for. But they do, to my knowledge, still have to follow the same Rules of Engagement. It's just that by the time SWAT are called in, things are already so bad that the more lethal levels of force are already approved.
 
Neruz said:
This suggests the possibility that the Da'at Yichud may have accidentally figured out how to get to Hell and\or use demon magic before they figured out how to use angel magic, which would make sense as using demon magic is obviously a lot easier than using angel magic.
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In the Magic book for the GURPS Role Playing System, there is a relatively low level bit of magic for summoning Demons. The text mentions the spell is far easier then it's effectiveness would warrant, and also claims it is possible but FAR more difficult to summon Angels. It also explains why: Demons WANT to be summoned.

Please take a moment to consider the implications of this. It is safe to say one does not make a Deal with the Devil that does not favor him more then the mortal he's striking a deal with.

Neruz said:
I'm pretty sure SWAT/STAR rules of engagement are different, as isn't the whole point of SWAT/STAR to bridge the gap between street police and outright military action?
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SWAT is closer to Special Forces then conventional military (especially their remit to end engagements quickly and operate in an urban environment,) but are far closer to conventional law enforcement then the military (minimize collateral damage and zero tolerance for friendly fire and civilian casualties.) Yes, they are called in when Lethal Force is mandated, and yes they use aggressive room clearing tactics like military units. However, unless I've got the timeline WAY off, it's the military that learned how to clear a room from SWAT units, not the other way around. Also, while SWAT units are allowed to use military grade small arms (which are the most effective for their price range,) they do not use explosives, nor are they allowed any chemical agents deadlier then C/S gas.

Calling a SWAT unit military is like calling a spade a backhoe. There may be a bit of overlap in what they do, but they operate on entirely different scales.
 
This thread has gone completely off the rails for the past few pages, so in a foolhardy attempt to get it back on topic before mod/amicus attention is required...

Regardless of whether or not Danny is Doomguy or Commander Keen or just a properly raised Blazkowicz, it leaves a plot hole and-slash-or very important question:
Why does Brockton Bay still have any nazis at all?

I mean... He pretty handily displays how easy of a time he would have in exterminating most if not all of them by himself, shredding Cricket in the blink of an eye with a regular shotgun. Better weaponry than that is easily and readily available in the U.S., even without the bevy of connections a union hiring manager in what was once a busy port would potentially have. And it's certainly not an ethical or moral dilemma regarding nonviolence... So why hasn't Danny ever declared open season and gone a-huntin'? What has kept his hand?
 
MaskedCritic said:
Regardless of whether or not Danny is Doomguy or Commander Keen or just a properly raised Blazkowicz, it leaves a plot hole and-slash-or very important question:
Why does Brockton Bay still have any nazis at all?

I mean... He pretty handily displays how easy of a time he would have in exterminating most if not all of them by himself, shredding Cricket in the blink of an eye with a regular shotgun. Better weaponry than that is easily and readily available in the U.S., even without the bevy of connections a union hiring manager in what was once a busy port would potentially have. And it's certainly not an ethical or moral dilemma regarding nonviolence... So why hasn't Danny ever declared open season and gone a-huntin'? What has kept his hand?
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Because Danny Hebert is a law abiding man, by and large. He has a daughter to raise, had a wife who loved him, and work which he felt needed to be done. Then his wife died, and Danny shut down in a bid to cope with the loss. But now they have made themselves a clear and present threat. I suspect the kids gloves are coming off, cause the Heberts are going to war.
 
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