Occupied earth .....

[The Zygon]

Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.

I have also read stories in which earth just settled down into being a loyal member of the alien empire. I find these somewhat depressing, precisely because the seem more plausible.

Anyone remember stories of these latter type? I also would be interested in hearing whether your liked the stories or not.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <6c153ec1-4e73-4046...@googlegroups.com>,

I don't see why it has to be depressing. See for instance Glynn Stewart's
"Duchy of Terra" books.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <6c153ec1-4e73-4046...@googlegroups.com>,
The Zygon <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth
>eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too
>implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a
>military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no
>clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.
>

Christopher Anvil's _Pandora's Planet_ is an excellent example of
this story. The Centrans invade Earth and discover they've
bitten off more than they can chew; come to terms eventually with
the humans, who acquire Centran ships and start visiting the
galaxy. That's when it really hits the fan, and we learn that
the Centrans have some advantages after all.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Anvil+Pandora%27s+Planet

Get the MMPB used for $3.75, not the expensive version of the
same thing.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <p596C...@kithrup.com>,

Yes, that's an excellent one. And it ends up being a good pairing with
the human sparkplugs and the Centran flywheels..

[J. Clarke]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 19:14:11 -0800 (PST), The Zygon
<staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.

By making so expensive for them to continue the war that they give it
up as a bad job and go home.

[James Nicoll]

In article <6c153ec1-4e73-4046...@googlegroups.com>,
The Zygon <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:

Walter Jon Williams wrote a comedy series in which humans only
broke away from an alien empire after being part of the empire to
pick up its tech and many of its values (it was two-way: the aliens
got Elvis music). He also wrote a grim version where the founding
aliens died out, at which point the humans and other subject races
went to war over who got to run the empire.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

[The Zygon]

I have seen that story line. One analogy from human history is the European conquest of North America. It is said that had the native people understood the risk and joined together, they could have made the North American conquest too expensive for the Europeans.

The reason I don't see that as applicable in the case of alien invasion is that planets are too vulnerable. They can defeat us by throwing high speed rocks at us. They don't need to actually land until we give up.

[J. Clarke]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 20:39:30 -0800 (PST), The Zygon

No, they can _kill_ us by throwing rocks at us, just as the US could
kill everybody in Iraq or Afghanistan or North Korea by dropping bombs
on them.

The notion that you can win a war by dropping bombs on places until
the inhabitants surrender has never worked, but civilians and the Air
Force continue to believe it.

[mcdow...@sky.com]

In what is now Eric Flint's Jao Empire series, the human heroes are basically collaborators working with the alien Jao. The main excuses for this are that resistance is futile, and as alien overlords go, the Jao are far from the worst option, and some Jao are better than others.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fgbr9o...@mid.individual.net>,

Or the analogy they themselves use: atomic fuel and damper rods.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <7sg1ad1t2rilipv9q...@4ax.com>,

Isn't that how WWII ended?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <qpd1addji5cqu78o9...@4ax.com>,

There's the three Drake Maijstral stories by Walter Jon Williams:
_The Crown Jewels,_ _House of Shards,_ and _Rock of Ages._

The Khosali conquered Earth some centuries back, and it turned
out not so bad. They imposed Imperial social customs on humans,
which were based on a hereditary Imperial line and a matching
aristocracy. Earth finally broke away from the Empire within
living memory, but they're still friendly with the Khosali and
they still have an aristocracy, sort of. Drake Maijstral still
has his title, but no lands or money; he has taken advantage of
one of the other traditions of the Empire: the Allowed Burglar, a
trade that if one is successful, can make one rich and famous.
The books are as much novels of manners as science fiction, and
it's a pity he didn't write any more of them. (He said somewhere
that writing comedy is *hard.*)

A slightly different Imperial trilogy-of-manners are the three
Anthony Villiers by Alexei Panshin. These have been out of print
forever, but you may find copies on Amazon or somebody. Tony
Villiers is a nobleman in a functioning Empire; one of the heirs
to the Throne is an old friend of his. He is also a remittance
man: his family pays him to stay away from them. The Empire is
mostly human-based, though there are some interesting aliens,
including Villiers' companion, Torve the Trog, who is Not What He
seems. I forget why Panshin never wrote the fourth volume, the
legenndary _Universal Pantograph._ It may have been money

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <7sg1ad1t2rilipv9q...@4ax.com>,

That was the theory of Giulio Douhet, that if you dropped enough
bombs on people they would become so discouraged that they would
surrender. Everybody thought that was a great idea and would
certainly work on everybody but themselves, "but our people are
better than that and it won't work on us."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Douhet

[The Zygon]

I agree. It does not work in intra-human warfare. The reason is that no nation is prepared to be as cruel as the bombing would need to be. Not even Hitler was prepared to do it.

Suppose they proceeded this way:

1) Destroy every city on earth by throwing rocks at them. And I mean every one. Then wait 5-10 as this destruction forces most nations to revert to primitivism. In fact, most nations would disappear.But people will still begin re-accumulate in small population centers.

2) Destroy all attempts to form new population centers by throwing rocks at them.

If the humans by this time have not stopped trying to form population centers, they could even throw in a biological attack.

I think that if the aliens land after this point and begin to offer humans help to survive, but under their hegemony, humanity would surrender. In fact, I doubt that there would be enough social structure left for human beings to actually surrender. The alien overlordship would just be a de facto thing.

[David Johnston]

Ah but what do the aliens want? The objective of war is not destruction
for it's own sake.

[The Zygon]

No human government since the time aerial bombing was invented was willing to bomb a country so thoroughly as to destroy all industry, all cities and all modern infrastructure, including communications. If that were done, he country would either surrender or commit suicide.

Arthur C Clarke made this point obliquely in _Childhood's End_. He had the alien point out that human beings have never seen really power effectively applied to fully take away and enemy's ability fight. (He did point out that this need not be mass killing.)

[The Zygon]

The want our planet and us under their thumb. They don't need our "wealth" because it is the same as we would regard thatched roof huts. So they destroy it all. Enough of us are left alive (that would still be millions, even hundreds of millions) to serve as the seed population for a repopulated earth under their leadership.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fgbvla...@mid.individual.net>,

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:

Well, various nations were *attempting* to use Douhet's
techniques on each other during that war. Generally speaking,
they didn't work. The Nazis achieved limited success by bombing
the hell out of an area and while the inhabitants were still in
shock, sending in the tanks to occupy them.

This worked until they tried to take Britain. They could not
take tanks across the Channel until they had mastery of the sea.
They couldn't get mastery of the sea until they had mastery of
the air. They never got it. They finally said the-hell-with-it
and pulled out and went to Russia, where they were stymied by
General Winter.

Mind you, they maimed, killed, and tortured a lot of people while
they were at it. But they still lost.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <p59DF...@kithrup.com>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:

Hmm. Maybe I should have been more explicit: We won the war with Japan by
dropping two big bombs on places until the inhabitants surrendered...

[The Zygon]

It is a common belief among historians of WWII that the bombs on precipitated something which the Japanese were already on the way to doing. Some of the even suggest that the bombing was unnecessary for that reason. But even they admit that the bombing was responsible for Japan's acceptance of the terms of surrender. Especially the requirement that the Emperor had to tell the Japanese people that he is not devine and that he personally had to announce the surrender.

[Dimensional Traveler]

I remember reading a collection of satirical short stories that started
with the conquest of Earth by humanoid aliens and becoming assimilated
into their empire. Most of the stories were about a military unit of
Earth human "special tricksters" who use very unconventional tactics to
help the empire conquer and assimilate other difficult planets. I
remember specially bred insects were one of their tools. IIRC the
stories were from around the 50's. If someone can solve that YASID you
might like that collection.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Ha, you managed to solve my YASID before I even wrote it!

[Dimensional Traveler]

Baen did a 2002 reprint titled 'Pandora's Legions'.

[Dimensional Traveler]

One of the earliest versions of that story is 'The War in the Air' by
H.G. Wells.

[Mike Dworetsky]

The other interpretation is that the United States wanted to prevent the
Soviets entering the war against Japan, thus gaining eventual rights of
occupation of the country. It was also a demonstration to the Soviets that
they had the Bomb and were going to dominate postwar. Stalin already knew
all about the Bomb and was busy working on duplicating the American
programme.

Without what looked like a demonstration that the bombing could go on, one
city at a time, there was a strong faction in Japan that wanted to fight on
to the end. Iwo Jima gave a taste of what that might be like.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 05:16:48 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
wrote:

Yep. Didn't work for the Germans, didn't work for the US and British,
the Russians didn't buy it and didn't try it, its advocates use Japan
as the shining example totally neglecting the facts that (a) the
Japanese army had already been cut to ribbons on the island-hopping
campaign, (b) their navy was pretty much no longer existent, and (c)
the Russians already had boots on the ground in the home islands.

[J. Clarke]

On 8 Mar 2018 05:22:50 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

That's the US narrative. The Russian narrative is that it ended when
the Russans were boots-on-ground in the home islands. I'm not sure
what the Japanese narrative is.

And a lot more went on than bombing. Their navy was destroyed, their
army was shredded, they didn't have enough fuel to continue air
operations, and even so the generals wanted to continue the fight.

[J. Clarke]

???? The reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted is that they
were the next two on the list. Every bigger city in Japan had
_already_ been bombed to rubble by conventional means. The Japanese
had no reason to believe that the bombing would _not_ continue and
more people died in Tokyo than in either of the nuclear bombings.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <p7qmrr$1eo$2...@dont-email.me>,

You're welcome. :)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <GfudnWuky7n5vjzH...@supernews.com>,

Mike Dworetsky <plati...@pants.btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>The other interpretation is that the United States wanted to prevent the
>Soviets entering the war against Japan, thus gaining eventual rights of
>occupation of the country. It was also a demonstration to the Soviets that
>they had the Bomb and were going to dominate postwar. Stalin already knew
>all about the Bomb and was busy working on duplicating the American
>programme.
>
>Without what looked like a demonstration that the bombing could go on, one
>city at a time, there was a strong faction in Japan that wanted to fight on
>to the end. Iwo Jima gave a taste of what that might be like.

A couple of decades ago, LIFE Magazine (remember it?) got hold of
a copy of the plan for the invasion of Japan, absent the Bomb.
You'll recall that the invasion of Europe was done at four
beaches. Invading Japan called for a dozen or more beaches, all
together at every shore of the two major islands and some little
ones.

[Dimensional Traveler]

> No human government since the time aerial bombing was invented was willing to bomb a country so thoroughly as to destroy all industry, all cities and all modern infrastructure, including communications. If that were done, he country would either surrender or commit suicide.
>

No human government until the deployment of thousands of nuclear ICBM
warheads had the capacity to do so. The closes we came prior to that
was the US bombing of Japan in WW2, which was actually closer than most
people realize. The combination of the firebombing of Japanese cities
and the complete destruction of their merchant fleet meant that if Japan
had not surrendered in 1945 a significant percent of the population
would have starved to death in 1946 when they had serious crop failures.

But the main failure of Douhet was the assumption that "the bombers will
always get thru". Some will get thru but the casualties to the bombing
nation could be high enough to make sufficient damage impossible. The
US almost gave up daytime bombing of Germany because the casualties
among the bombers and crews were so high.

[Dimensional Traveler]

> It is a common belief among historians of WWII that the bombs on precipitated something which the Japanese were already on the way to doing. Some of the even suggest that the bombing was unnecessary for that reason. But even they admit that the bombing was responsible for Japan's acceptance of the terms of surrender. Especially the requirement that the Emperor had to tell the Japanese people that he is not devine and that he personally had to announce the surrender.
>

The Emperor announcing the surrender was not part of the conditions.
That happened because the Japanese government deadlocked on the decision
so he broke tradition and told his cabinet he was going to announce the
surrender. Even then there was a coup attempt to stop that which would
have involved killing the Emperor and his family. "In order to protect
the Emperor we must kill the Emperor" thinking.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Operation Olympic wasn't quite that ambitious. The US wasn't going to
land on all those beaches at once. First landings would be on Kyushu to
take control of enough of that island to establish airbases to support
landings on central Honshu near Tokyo to take the capital. But even so,
the Kyushu operation alone would have dwarfed anything anyone had done
previously.

[David Johnston]

Actually if we managed a successful uprising that probably indicates
we've reached at least 20th century 3rd world status where we have
learned a lot of the technology of our colonialist oppressors narrowing
the gap.

[mcdow...@sky.com]

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:26:24 AM UTC, The Zygon wrote:
> On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 12:03:01 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
> > On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 20:39:30 -0800 (PST), The Zygon
> > <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 11:10:11 PM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
> > >> On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 19:14:11 -0800 (PST), The Zygon
> > >> <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.
> > >>
> > >> By making so expensive for them to continue the war that they give it
> > >> up as a bad job and go home.
> > >>
> > >> >I have also read stories in which earth just settled down into being a loyal member of the alien empire. I find these somewhat depressing, precisely because the seem more plausible.
> > >> >
> > >> >Anyone remember stories of these latter type? I also would be interested in hearing whether your liked the stories or not.
> > >
> > >I have seen that story line. One analogy from human history is the European conquest of North America. It is said that had the native people understood the risk and joined together, they could have made the North American conquest too expensive for the Europeans.
> > >
> > >The reason I don't see that as applicable in the case of alien invasion is that planets are too vulnerable. They can defeat us by throwing high speed rocks at us. They don't need to actually land until we give up.
> >
> > No, they can _kill_ us by throwing rocks at us, just as the US could
> > kill everybody in Iraq or Afghanistan or North Korea by dropping bombs
> > on them.
> >
> > The notion that you can win a war by dropping bombs on places until
> > the inhabitants surrender has never worked, but civilians and the Air
> > Force continue to believe it.
>
> I agree. It does not work in intra-human warfare. The reason is that no nation is prepared to be as cruel as the bombing would need to be. Not even Hitler was prepared to do it.
>

(trimmed)
The Romans and other demonstrated what could and what could not be done by a nation prepared to go as far as necessary to remove a threat, albeit by low-tech means. The Romano-Jewish wars showed that drastic means short of complete obliteration do not work. To be sure of removing a threat, you need to go as far as "They make a desert and called it peace" - a tag which has been applied to a number of Roman expeditions. (A more modern and more scientific observation is that extreme threats do not ensure compliance - what you need is quick and certain justice)/

[mcdow...@sky.com]

OBSF - "Between justice and genocide there is, in the long run, no middle ground" - Aral Vorkosigan

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 8:14:14 PM UTC-7, The Zygon wrote:
> Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth
> eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible
> to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to
> earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar
> travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.

Of course, the whole idea of an alien race advanced enough to travel between the
stars wanting to conquer us is implausible. Arthur C. Clarke had it right.

Footfall is an example of an alien conquest story where the authors took the
trouble to come up with a rationale to explain why things weren't, in this case,
as Clarke would lead us to expect.

An alien expeditionary force might, under some circumstances, lack the full
resources of their home world, and that might balance out their superior
technology. Harry Turledove's Worldwar series, and the V television show, made
use of this factor explicitly to make the apparently implausible human victory
possible.

I think that, aside from wanting the side sympathetic to the human reader to
win, another factor in some cases might have been authors being inspired by the
romanticized view of the Vietnam war.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 10:03:01 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> No, they can _kill_ us by throwing rocks at us, just as the US could
> kill everybody in Iraq or Afghanistan or North Korea by dropping bombs
> on them.

> The notion that you can win a war by dropping bombs on places until
> the inhabitants surrender has never worked, but civilians and the Air
> Force continue to believe it.

That technique would have worked quite well as a means of seizing the American
West from its Native American inhabitants, since killing them all and taking
their land would have fulfilled the objectives in that conflict. However, that
war was won before the Wright Brothers came along.

If, on the other hand, the country you wish to conquer has a trained population
and an industrial base that you wish to put to your own service, *then* bombing
the place into nonexistence would fail to achieve the objectives of the
conflict.

In the case of a place like Afghanistan... well, it's sort of an in-between
case.

The objective of the war is to get rid of the Taliban. The ordinary people of
Afghanistan aren't our enemies; we would _like_ them to live happy lives in a
country the Taliban were no longer menacing.

So bombing the entire land of Afghanistan into lifelessness would not bring
about the ideal situation fully in accordance with our desires.

However, given that people in the West are *very* concerned about the
possibility of another terrorist attack like that of 9/11... and really don't
care all that much about the lives of ordinary people in Afghanistan, Vietnam,
or any other far-away Third World country (or even some not so far away, like
Haiti)... bombing the whole land into barrenness is enough of a partial success
that it must be recognized as at least *tempting*.

Even if that recognition is only to spur us to efforts to prevent that
temptation from being yielded to.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 11:48:08 PM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

> Hmm. Maybe I should have been more explicit: We won the war with Japan by
> dropping two big bombs on places until the inhabitants surrendered...

I think most people here still remember that from history lessons.

And the United States has a large nuclear arsenal. I would think that this
proves that the political leadership of the United States does not have faith
that after the Soviets had, say, nuked New York, the rest of the country would
resist rushing to surrender to Communism in preference to having their homes
bombed next.

I mean, if the atomic bomb is a paper tiger, who needs one? But then, even
Chairman Mao didn't really believe that...

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 9:17:14 AM UTC-7, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

> But the main failure of Douhet was the assumption that "the bombers will
> always get thru".

ICBMs, cruise missiles, and drones have taken care of that problem; demoralizing casualty levels of bomber crews need no longer be an issue.

Of course, the U.S. banned the export of helium specifically because German
dirigibles flew so high as to be out of the reach of fighter planes at one time
in history.

John Savard

[Kevrob]

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 1:58:46 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:

> The objective of the war is to get rid of the Taliban. The ordinary people of
> Afghanistan aren't our enemies; we would _like_ them to live happy lives in a
> country the Taliban were no longer menacing.
>
> So bombing the entire land of Afghanistan into lifelessness would not bring
> about the ideal situation fully in accordance with our desires.

There is this paradox: some young Afghan who isn't especially
religious or political sees friends and/or relations die in a
bombing and becomes radicalized. Poof! Instant Talib!

Before you know it, you've got a whole new "Taliban" to fight.

Kevin R

[Wolffan]

On 08Mar 2018, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan wrote
(in article <fgc4l5...@mid.individual.net>):

err.. no

1 in July 1945 the US had three, and only three, nukes, one uranium and two
plutonium bombs. They were certain that the uranium bomb would work, and
shipped it to the Pacific. That bomb, with a 10-12 kiloton yield was used on
Hiroshima. They weren’t sure if the plutonium bombs would work; they were a
lot more complex, but had about double the yield of the uranium bomb. They
tested one at the Trinity Site, in New Mexico, 16 July 1945. It worked. They
then shipped the last bomb to the Pacific. That was the Nagasaki bomb.
Despite being twice as powerful, it did less than half the damage, because
(a) Nagasaki was the alternate target, the primary target had weather
problems and (b) while the Hiroshima bomb was dropped by the primary crew and
delivered with great accuracy, the Nagasaki bomb was delivered with a glory
hound in the pilot’s seat instead of the regular pilot... and missed the
target. They _MISSED WITH A NUKE_, which takes talent. Most of the blast was
funneled away because the bomb was dropped into the wrong place. (It’s
easy to find out who was flying Enola Gay to Hiroshima, and who was his
bombardier. It’s not so easy to find who was flying Bock’s Car to
Nagasaki, except that it wasn’t Major Bock.) The US would have had no more
nukes until near the end of September, when they’d have had five more. The
nuke strikes were a colossal bluff, and were in any case largely aimed at
impressing the Soviet Union.

2 prior to the nuke strikes, XXI Bomber Command had been systematically
burning Japan to the ground. The Great Fire Raid on Tokyo killed over 100,000
and was much more destructive than either nuke strike. Tokyo was hit again a
few months later, and all of the major Japanese cities were burned down.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on the nuke list primarily because they were
among the largest targets left unburned, not because they were that
important.

3 far more important, Japan had started the war because FDR cut off their oil
supply. The USN’s submarines systematically sank every Japanese tanker.
They sank freighters. By 1945, they were roaming the Inland Sea sinking
_fishing boats_ because they had no better targets. By mid 1945 Japan had no
oil, no imported food, and damn little fish. If they had not surrendered,
that winter would have seen them freezing and starving in burned-out ruins in
the dark.

4 additional forces were either available or on the way. With Okinawa finally
taken, the USN and the British Pacific Fleet were roaming the sea near Japan,
launching air strikes at will. The very last air-to-air kill of the war was
made by a New Zealander flying a Seafire II from a BPF carrier. The RAF was
sending Tiger Force east; much of RAF Bomber Command would be launching from
Okinawa and Iwo Jima and would assist XXI Bomber Command in pounding Japan to
dust. British, Canadian, Indian, and (especially!) Australian and New
Zealander forces would be landing in the Home Islands.

5 the Russians were coming. They had promised to move on Japan three months
after Germany surrendered; Germany had surrendered on 8 May 1945; on 8 Aug
1945, or the day _before_ the Nagasaki strike, the Russians moved. They moved
in China, they moved in Korea, they moved in the northern part of Japan
itself. (They’re still there...)

6 they had no Navy left; the last major warships were either sunk at anchor
by USN air strikes or were part of the single most insane plan in the history
of warfare, Operation Ten-Go. The superdreadnaught Yamato, the largest
battleship ever, plus some odds and ends were to go to Okinawa. Thanks to the
USN’s submarines, there wasn’t enough fuel in all of Japan to get them
there and back. Instead, they were to go south, engage the American and
British fleets around Okinawa until fuel ran out, then beach themselves and
continue to fight until main gun ammo ran out, then all sailors were to be
handed rifles and detailed to assist the Army defending Okinawa. Banzai heika
tenno. The USN saw them coming and threw more aircraft than Japan had used
against Pearl Harbor against the ships of Ten-Go, sinking several, including
Yamato, at which point the others went home. (ObSF: Star Blazers. Or the
recent Japanese TV movie remake of the anime, showing the glorious stand by
Japan... ah, ‘Earth’... against the evil, genocidial Americans... ah,
Gamelons...) They had no air defenses, because they had no fuel; Enola Gay
and Bock’s Car and the other aircraft which went with them had no escorts,
because none was expected to be needed. By August 1945 it it was quite
difficult to find Japanese aircraft. What few aircraft they had were flown by
green-as-grass newbies and a handful of experienced pilots who were mostly
available because of illness or injury. Sakai Saburo, the leading Japanese
ace to survive the war, flew up to the end... but he was in Japan because
he’d been grounded for 18 months after losing one eye in combat over the
Solomon Islands! Japan was so desperate that they sent up _one-eyed men_!
There army was dead in the Pacific, or about to be dead in China and Korea
once the Russians got hold of them. Russian armored vehicles had crushed
Germany’s finest; Japan had fewer armored vehicles, and the ones they had
were pitiful, so bad that the British deployed M3 Lee/Grant tanks against the
Japanese in Burma and India because nothing better was needed, and the
British knew damn well that Lee/Grants versus PzKw IVs was a grossly unequal
match, much less PzKw Vs (Panthers) or PzKw VIs (Tigers). Russian T-34s would
have rolled over the best Japan could offer and not stop til they hit the
sea. (The Lee/Grants had a 37mm gun for their anti-tank weapon, and a 75mm
gun which was in the hull, with limited traverse, and limited anti-tank
capability. The 37mm was of limited use against a PzKw IV and was utterly
useless against a Tiger or a Panther, but would kill Japanese tanks at any
range that it could get a hit. Which says all you need to know about Japanese
AFVs. Lee/Grant armor was riveted on, because that was faster and cheaper
than welding. Unfortunately, when hit by a real anti-tank gun, such as the
50mm and 75mm guns on PzKw IIIs and IVs, the rivets would pop loose and fly
around inside the Lee/Grants at machine gun bullet speeds. For some reason
the crews tended to dislike this. Japanese anti-tank couldn’t do that.
Meanwhile the T-34s had 76 or 85mm guns which could kill Tigers, and welded
armor which could withstand 75mm AP shot. Japan didn’t have any guns
capable of killing T-34s. Japan’s equivalent of the American bazooka, the
British PIAT, or the German panzerfaust was to hand someone a magnetic mine
or a satchel charge and have him either lay in a hole along the expected line
of advance of enemy armor or to jusy run at the nearest tank and detonate the
charge when he got close. Banzai heika tenno. There would have been fun
times... for the Russians.)

The bombing helped, but certainly was not sufficient by itself.

[Mark Bestley]

The UK did give up daylight raids because of loses several years before
the US started.


--
Mark

[Mike Van Pelt]

In article <p7qlaj$1op8$2...@gioia.aioe.org>,

David Johnston <davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Ah but what do the aliens want? The objective of war is not
>destruction for it's own sake.

They want a planet capable of supporting a biosphere.

An existing biosphere is a bonus, but not a requirement.
Sterilization of the planet, if necessary, is an option.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

[David Johnston]

On 2018-03-08 3:04 PM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <p7qlaj$1op8$2...@gioia.aioe.org>,
> David Johnston <davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Ah but what do the aliens want? The objective of war is not
>> destruction for it's own sake.
>
> They want a planet capable of supporting a biosphere.

If that's all they wanted, extermination of inconvenient vermin would
come before occupation.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 3/7/2018 9:43 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <6c153ec1-4e73-4046...@googlegroups.com>,

> The Zygon <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth
>> eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too
>> implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a
>> military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no
>> clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.
>>

> Christopher Anvil's _Pandora's Planet_ is an excellent example of
> this story. The Centrans invade Earth and discover they've
> bitten off more than they can chew; come to terms eventually with
> the humans, who acquire Centran ships and start visiting the
> galaxy. That's when it really hits the fan, and we learn that
> the Centrans have some advantages after all.
>
> https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Anvil+Pandora%27s+Planet
>
> Get the MMPB used for $3.75, not the expensive version of the
> same thing.

So many good books that I missed over the years and so little time and
space in my SBR !

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

On 3/8/2018 12:54 AM, The Zygon wrote:
...
> It is a common belief among historians of WWII that the bombs on precipitated something which the Japanese were already on the way to doing. Some of the even suggest that the bombing was unnecessary for that reason. But even they admit that the bombing was responsible for Japan's acceptance of the terms of surrender. Especially the requirement that the Emperor had to tell the Japanese people that he is not devine and that he personally had to announce the surrender.

No and yes. A friend of mine was a copilot on a B-24 that flew many
missions over Japan. Japan was getting ready for the invasion, he
personally observed this as they were taking extensive photographs of
the preparations for the generals getting ready for the invasion.

His was the 3rd or 4th plane to land on Iwo Jima. As they were taxiing
to their parking place, a trap door in the volcanic rock suddenly flew
open, a Japanese soldier stood up and shot his rifle through the front
windshield. Right above my friend's head. A Marine shot and killed the
soldier.

Lynn

[David Johnston]

Yes, the Japanese military was pretty darn indoctrinated. But of course
the ultimate decision to surrender was not made by the Japanese military.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, 8 March 2018 05:03:01 UTC, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 20:39:30 -0800 (PST), The Zygon
> <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 11:10:11 PM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:

> >> On Wed, 7 Mar 2018 19:14:11 -0800 (PST), The Zygon

> >> <staffor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.
> >>

> >> By making so expensive for them to continue the war that they give it
> >> up as a bad job and go home.
> >>
> >> >I have also read stories in which earth just settled down into being a loyal member of the alien empire. I find these somewhat depressing, precisely because the seem more plausible.
> >> >
> >> >Anyone remember stories of these latter type? I also would be interested in hearing whether your liked the stories or not.
> >
> >I have seen that story line. One analogy from human history is the European conquest of North America. It is said that had the native people understood the risk and joined together, they could have made the North American conquest too expensive for the Europeans.
> >
> >The reason I don't see that as applicable in the case of alien invasion is that planets are too vulnerable. They can defeat us by throwing high speed rocks at us. They don't need to actually land until we give up.
>
> No, they can _kill_ us by throwing rocks at us, just as the US could
> kill everybody in Iraq or Afghanistan or North Korea by dropping bombs
> on them.
>
> The notion that you can win a war by dropping bombs on places until
> the inhabitants surrender has never worked, but civilians and the Air
> Force continue to believe it.

Bombing people's homes doesn't change minds.

_The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge_ declares that interstellar
war isn't winnable (except for destroying planets, IIRC, which
isn't profitable) because the attacker has the disadvantage of
bringing all their armaments a distance of light years.
Someone in the book is beating the system though.

You probably wouldn't bring rocks as far as that, but there are
some around Earth's solar system that hey could bomb us with.
Do they know that? Should I be mentioning it here?

Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet" carries "rocks" which actually
are metal inert projectiles, and since the spaceships on their
own can accelerate to at least 20% of the speed of light,
the "rocks" hit pretty hard.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 3/7/2018 9:14 PM, The Zygon wrote:
> Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.
>

> I have also read stories in which earth just settled down into being a loyal member of the alien empire. I find these somewhat depressing, precisely because the seem more plausible.
>
> Anyone remember stories of these latter type? I also would be interested in hearing whether your liked the stories or not.

At the risk of being violently pummeled again, I must mention David
Gerrold's Chtorr series. Even unfinished, it is a master piece of alien
invasion using Chtorraforming of the Earth. New plants, new viruses,
new animals, new predators of humans. This is also one of my six star
books that I have read several times.
https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Men-Against-Chtorr-Book/dp/0671464949/

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 11:09:36 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 9:17:14 AM UTC-7, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
>> But the main failure of Douhet was the assumption that "the bombers will
>> always get thru".
>
>ICBMs, cruise missiles, and drones have taken care of that problem; demoralizing casualty levels of bomber crews need no longer be an issue.

If you don't use nuclear warheads on them, ICBMs and cruise missiles
are _very_ costly delivery systems. A B-52 can deliver 30 tons of
bombs for the price of dumb bombs and gas. How much does it cost to
deliver 30 tons of warhead using cruise missiles?

And drones are only good against the third world, and not all of that.

>Of course, the U.S. banned the export of helium specifically because German
>dirigibles flew so high as to be out of the reach of fighter planes at one time
>in history.

So how did banning helium prevent that?

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 11:02:14 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 11:48:08 PM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>
>> Hmm. Maybe I should have been more explicit: We won the war with Japan by
>> dropping two big bombs on places until the inhabitants surrendered...
>
>I think most people here still remember that from history lessons.
>
>And the United States has a large nuclear arsenal. I would think that this
>proves that the political leadership of the United States does not have faith
>that after the Soviets had, say, nuked New York, the rest of the country would
>resist rushing to surrender to Communism in preference to having their homes
>bombed next.

How does it show that? Google "mutual assured destruction".

>I mean, if the atomic bomb is a paper tiger, who needs one? But then, even
>Chairman Mao didn't really believe that...

It's only a paper tiger if there is someone who will nuke your enemy
for you.

>John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 08 Mar 2018 22:04:09 GMT, m...@web1.calweb.com (Mike Van Pelt)
wrote:

>In article <p7qlaj$1op8$2...@gioia.aioe.org>,
>David Johnston <davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>Ah but what do the aliens want? The objective of war is not
>>destruction for it's own sake.
>
>They want a planet capable of supporting a biosphere.
>
>An existing biosphere is a bonus, but not a requirement.
>Sterilization of the planet, if necessary, is an option.

If that is what they want they may as well just terrform Mars or
Venus.

It's unlikely that they are going to destroy all life on Earth if all
they want is a barren planet. More likely they want the workforce,
cannon fodder, industrial capacity, or something else that it is
cheaper to do with indigenous labor.

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 10:58:44 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>On Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 10:03:01 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> No, they can _kill_ us by throwing rocks at us, just as the US could
>> kill everybody in Iraq or Afghanistan or North Korea by dropping bombs
>> on them.
>
>> The notion that you can win a war by dropping bombs on places until
>> the inhabitants surrender has never worked, but civilians and the Air
>> Force continue to believe it.
>
>That technique would have worked quite well as a means of seizing the American
>West from its Native American inhabitants, since killing them all and taking
>their land would have fulfilled the objectives in that conflict. However, that
>war was won before the Wright Brothers came along.

You mean like it's working in Afghanistan?

>If, on the other hand, the country you wish to conquer has a trained population
>and an industrial base that you wish to put to your own service, *then* bombing
>the place into nonexistence would fail to achieve the objectives of the
>conflict.
>
>In the case of a place like Afghanistan... well, it's sort of an in-between
>case.
>
>The objective of the war is to get rid of the Taliban. The ordinary people of
>Afghanistan aren't our enemies; we would _like_ them to live happy lives in a
>country the Taliban were no longer menacing.
>
>So bombing the entire land of Afghanistan into lifelessness would not bring
>about the ideal situation fully in accordance with our desires.

Who is this "we"? You talk like you actually have some say in the
matter.

>However, given that people in the West are *very* concerned about the
>possibility of another terrorist attack like that of 9/11... and really don't
>care all that much about the lives of ordinary people in Afghanistan, Vietnam,
>or any other far-away Third World country (or even some not so far away, like
>Haiti)... bombing the whole land into barrenness is enough of a partial success
>that it must be recognized as at least *tempting*.

The whole land is already barren.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Not a book series where the humans are winning or even just "settling
down into loyal subjects".

[Lynn McGuire]

Yup, way past that. He said that he wanted something depressing. The
Chtorr series fits that bill perfectly.

Lynn

[The Zygon]

Didn't we insist that the Emperor make the announcement and that he inform the Japanese people that he is not divine? It may not be part of the surrender document. But it was still mandated by us.

[The Zygon]

Yes, an uprising after 1000's or even 100's of years would be fought with the weapons of the conqueror.

[The Zygon]

Yes, it does. I have the Chtorr series.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Well, there's "depressing" and then there's "Oh gawds where's a dull
spork to slit my throat with!". :)

[Dimensional Traveler]

I don't remember ever hearing that was a condition. That's not to say
it wasn't but I don't think it was a condition given to Germany or
Italy. ;)

[Quadibloc]

Oh, the humanity.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 7:02:18 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> The whole land is already barren.

For a certain value of "barren", yes. People still live there.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 7:02:18 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> Who is this "we"? You talk like you actually have some say in the
> matter.

While Canada sat out the invasion of Iraq to search for weapons of mass
destruction, just as it sat out the war in Vietnam, it *did* join with the U.S.
in sending troops to Afghanistan to hunt for bin Laden after 9/11, just as it did
join in sending troops to defend Korea from Communist invasion back in the 1950s.

John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 21:00:51 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>

wrote:

>On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:52:58 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 11:09:36 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
>> wrote:
>
>> >Of course, the U.S. banned the export of helium specifically because German
>> >dirigibles flew so high as to be out of the reach of fighter planes at one time
>> >in history.
>
>> So how did banning helium prevent that?
>
>Oh, the humanity.

John, you asserted that helium sales were prohibited because
dirigibles could fly higher than fighters.

The density of helium at STP is .179 g/L, the density of hydrogen at
STP is .09 g/L. In other words hydrogen has more lift than helium.
Ergo hydrogen dirigibles can also fly higher than fighters, so tell
us, in detail, how prohibiting helium sales would prevent dirigibles
from flying higher than fighters.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

It prevented them from continuing to make dirigibles after the
Hindenburg blew up -- thus John's response "Oh, the humanity". If helium
had still been available, Germany would have been able to manufacture
and deploy dirigibles that were acceptably safe.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.dreamwidth.org

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 3/8/18 11:15 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 3/8/2018 7:12 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 3/8/2018 8:07 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>> On 3/8/2018 3:01 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>> On 3/7/2018 9:14 PM, The Zygon wrote:
>>>>> Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the
>>>>> earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always
>>>>> seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced
>>>>> enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space
>>>>> flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't
>>>>> see how we could defeat them.

I may have missed it in the thread, but another example of the occupied
Earth is Aldiss' _Bow Down to Nul_.

[Robert Carnegie]

Military hardware doesn't have to have a safety standard equal
to civilian. If the enemy presumably are already trying to
kill you then it matters less that your own battle bicycle is
liable to as well.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in
news:c31ddc4b-1b65-42e3...@googlegroups.com:

Clearly, military culture is one of the many things you don't know
shit about. Even during wartime, these days, accidents often cause
more deaths than combat for the US military. (During Desert Storm,
the death rate among US soldiers went *down*, because there was
less spare time to be bored and do stupid things.)

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[mcdow...@sky.com]

Military hardware - the UK Ministry of Defence requires that its suppliers ensure that risk is "as low as reasonably practical" Some military activities are inherently risky - military parachuting comes to mind - but military need is not an excuse to cut corners and produce dangerous equipment.

[Kevrob]

On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 6:34:10 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 21:00:51 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:52:58 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
> >> On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 11:09:36 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
> >> wrote:
> >
> >> >Of course, the U.S. banned the export of helium specifically because German
> >> >dirigibles flew so high as to be out of the reach of fighter planes at one time
> >> >in history.
> >
> >> So how did banning helium prevent that?
> >
> >Oh, the humanity.
>
> John, you asserted that helium sales were prohibited because
> dirigibles could fly higher than fighters.
>

1930s era main fighters, other than experimental models?

> The density of helium at STP is .179 g/L, the density of hydrogen at
> STP is .09 g/L. In other words hydrogen has more lift than helium.
> Ergo hydrogen dirigibles can also fly higher than fighters, so tell
> us, in detail, how prohibiting helium sales would prevent dirigibles
> from flying higher than fighters.

Kevin R

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Fri, 9 Mar 2018 11:51:17 -0800 (PST), mcdow...@sky.com wrote:

>Military hardware - the UK Ministry of Defence requires that its suppliers ensure that risk is "as low as reasonably practical" Some military activities are inherently risky - military parachuting comes to mind - but military need is not an excuse to cut corners and produce dangerous equipment.

Historically, this has not always been the case. Late in WW2 the
Germans built rocket-powered pop-up area defense fighters that killed
far more of their own pilots than of Allied personnel -- not only did
some of them explode on launch, but a fuel leak could (and at least
once did) result in a spray of nitric acid across the pilot's face.

The U.S. and Italians both built light tanks with riveted armor, where
a shell impact would pop the rivets and send them shooting around the
crew compartment in a close approximation of machine-gun fire.
(Admittedly, both nations immediately stopped deploying them in combat
when this was discovered.)

The military never WANTS to use equipment that's dangerous to its
users, certainly, but sometimes cost, ignorance, and/or desperation
severely undercut this.




--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Early in 1917, hydrogen-lifted combat dirigibles made sense, and
Zeppelin raids on London were a terrifying reality. Once the British
invented incendiary rounds, they didn't. Ordinary bullets would punch
holes in the gasbag, but the leaks were usually small enough for it to
limp safely home; one incendiary into a hydrogen cell, on the other
hand, would take out the entire airship.

Hydrogen was still considered safe enough for civilian use up until
the Hindenburg went down (though even there, it wasn't the hydrogen
explosion that was responsible for most of the deaths), but in any
situation where people might be shooting at you, hydrogen hadn't been
considered a viable option since 1918.

[William Hyde]

On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 7:11:33 AM UTC-5, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 3/8/18 11:15 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> > On 3/8/2018 7:12 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >> On 3/8/2018 8:07 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> >>> On 3/8/2018 3:01 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >>>> On 3/7/2018 9:14 PM, The Zygon wrote:
> >>>>> Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the
> >>>>> earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always
> >>>>> seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced
> >>>>> enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space
> >>>>> flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't
> >>>>> see how we could defeat them.
>
>
> I may have missed it in the thread, but another example of the occupied
> Earth is Aldiss' _Bow Down to Nul_.

Also known as "The Interpreter".

It has a different take on the alien/human situation. The empire still exists, and Earth is a part of it, but the Empire is largely irrelevant.

Also, there's Silverberg's "The Alien Years" and Dickson's "The Way of the Pilgrim", the latter of which has a most unusual way of getting rid of the aliens.

William Hyde

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:dls5adh3hhb33bcl3...@reader80.eternal-september.
org:

Eventually. There was a lot of cat and mouse going on for some
time. It wasn't until the British got fireworks manufacturers
involved that they could precisely control when the explosive
rounds went off that there was a definitive winner to the game.

>
> Hydrogen was still considered safe enough for civilian use up
> until the Hindenburg went down (though even there, it wasn't the
> hydrogen explosion that was responsible for most of the deaths),
> but in any situation where people might be shooting at you,
> hydrogen hadn't been considered a viable option since 1918.
>

Yeah, apparently, covering the skin of your zepplin with thermite
as a doping chemical is a bad idea.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 9 Mar 2018 07:10:34 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

How did it prevent that? Flying higher than fighters is only of
importance in a military aircraft, not in a civilian transport, and
during WWI the Germans were quite happy to fly around in hydrogen
filled airships. What is acceptable for commercial transport and what
is acceptable in war-fighting are two different things.

Note that by the time the Hindenberg came along the military use of
airships was very limited. The US gave up on rigid airships after the
Macon was lost in 1935.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 9 Mar 2018 12:07:33 -0800 (PST), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

>On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 6:34:10 AM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 21:00:51 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:52:58 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 11:09:36 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
>> >> wrote:
>> >
>> >> >Of course, the U.S. banned the export of helium specifically because German
>> >> >dirigibles flew so high as to be out of the reach of fighter planes at one time
>> >> >in history.
>> >
>> >> So how did banning helium prevent that?
>> >
>> >Oh, the humanity.
>>
>> John, you asserted that helium sales were prohibited because
>> dirigibles could fly higher than fighters.
>>
>
>1930s era main fighters, other than experimental models?

Relevance? Doesn't matter what kind of fighter it is, if a helium
airhsip can fly higher than the fighter, a hydrogen airship can.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 08/03/2018 16:11, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
[SNIP]
>
> A slightly different Imperial trilogy-of-manners are the three
> Anthony Villiers by Alexei Panshin. These have been out of print
> forever, but you may find copies on Amazon or somebody. Tony
> Villiers is a nobleman in a functioning Empire; one of the heirs
> to the Throne is an old friend of his. He is also a remittance
> man: his family pays him to stay away from them. The Empire is
> mostly human-based, though there are some interesting aliens,
> including Villiers' companion, Torve the Trog, who is Not What He
> seems. I forget why Panshin never wrote the fourth volume, the
> legenndary _Universal Pantograph._ It may have been money
>
Panshin's website used to say (last century or so) that _The Universal
Pantograph_ was "Unpublished." I took that as meaning "written, but not
accepted by a published, and possibly not submitted anywhere."

The last time I felt the urge to look it wasn't even mentioned.

Observation of, and participation in, on-line exchanges with Alexei
Panshin push me towards the supposition that, as a result of him,
Panshin, not being accorded the kudos and laurels etcetera that he felt
due to him as wossname, he took his bat and ball and went home.

I wonder if he burnt any extant manuscripts, just to be sure, as well?

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Quadibloc]

I see he is an American writer, born in Lansing, Michigan. So at least the
Soviet censorship cannot be blamed for crippling the quality of his work.

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 9:21:26 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
> I see he is an American writer, born in Lansing, Michigan. So at least the
> Soviet censorship cannot be blamed for crippling the quality of his work.

I have now also learned that his real name is Alexis Panshin. So he is partly to
blame for the one way in which the Soviet censorship could still be blamed for
him not getting the recognition he deserved.

Since his name was Russian, people who passed by his books in a bookstore's
paperback shelf might not have given them a second glance - because of the bad
reputation of books from the Soviet Union under the Communist censorship's
stifling hand. One can't expect people to know everything about an author they
haven't yet heard of.

This reminds me of the reaction to my comment that Harkonnen is an obviously
Finnish name, and thus the character bearing the name would have been Finnish
even if he couldn't find Finland on a map, and, more to the point, the question
of whether Tabetha Boyajian's surname should be spelled Պոյաճյան (Eastern
Armenian) or Բոյաջյանը (Western Armenian).

Yes, she is American; I don't deny that, but I tend to look on bowing to local
orthographic conventions as simply the clothing worn by the eternal name of
one's House.

And only recently, I learned how to correctly spell the (maiden) surname of the
American figure skater Tara Lipiński.

This was entirely by accident. Although he was a violin virtuoso, second only in
his day to the legendary Paganini, I had not known even of the very existence of
Karol Józef Lipiński, until I happened to come across a mention of one of the
two violins he owned - both of which are still extant, and named after him.

John Savard

[Torbjorn Lindgren]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 3/7/2018 8:08 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>>https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Anvil+Pandora%27s+Planet
>>>
>>> Get the MMPB used for $3.75, not the expensive version of the
>>> same thing.
>>
>> Yes, that's an excellent one. And it ends up being a good pairing with
>> the human sparkplugs and the Centran flywheels..
>>
>Baen did a 2002 reprint titled 'Pandora's Legions'.

It's not a reprint, Padora's Legion is approximately twice the size of
the Pandora's Planet novel, the additional material was published as
separate short stories back when and covers the John Towers missions
(which are frequently referenced in the novel).

Due to various publishing quirks Anvil couldn't/wouldn't include them
into the novel, it might also have made the result much too long for
the period. Apparently John Campbell later said to Anvil that he
though that was a mistake not to include them.

Both Pandora's Legion and Pandora's Planet are available as used MMPB
for similar amounts, only PL is available electronically, it cost more
but does come with the feature of resulting in some additional
payments to Anvil.

For what it's worth even the "Eric Flint (editor) is a butcher" groups
doesn't seem to have major complaints about the combined work, the
fact that Anvil was involved and signed off on the final result spared
it that.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote in

news:85s5adhske6omljkd...@reader80.eternal-september.
org:

> The military never WANTS to use equipment that's dangerous to
> its users, certainly, but sometimes cost, ignorance, and/or
> desperation severely undercut this.
>

Yeah, but that's not really what Robert claimed, now is it?

--
Terry Austin

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2018-03-07 21:14, The Zygon wrote:

> I have also read stories in which earth just settled down into being a loyal member of the alien empire. I find these somewhat depressing, precisely because the seem more plausible.
>
> Anyone remember stories of these latter type? I also would be interested in hearing whether your liked the stories or not.

Is "conquered" as contrasted with "merged in with some protest" a
hard requirement? If the latter type is acceptable, you might
check out Brin's Galactic trilogy:
- Sundiver
- Startide Rising
- The Uplift War

A galactic society (c. 2 Gyr in age) comes along and blam! we're
part of it. That's actually backstory for the first of these.

We're pretty insignificant to the society as a whole.

Except -- there's a mystery about humanity that gives some of the
alien species religious hissy-fits. Makes me think that he wanted
to sell to JWC.

Be warned. There are three other books, allegedly by Brin, and
allegedly in the same setting. Avoid those like a cliche!

--
Michael F. Stemper
2 Chronicles 19:7

[The Zygon]

Thanks. I have read the Uplift War series. I agree with you that earth was not conquered in that series.

[Greg Goss]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>You probably wouldn't bring rocks as far as that, but there are
>some around Earth's solar system that hey could bomb us with.
>Do they know that? Should I be mentioning it here?

Niven / Pournelle's Footfall has the aliens stopping by Saturn to grab
a convenient chunk of ice for their weapon. He uses the coincidental
timing of the just-arrived spaceship's drive scrambling the rings to
the odd ring structures that Pioneer saw.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[David DeLaney]

On 2018-03-08, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>Ha, you managed to solve my YASID before I even wrote it!
>
> You're welcome. :)

Eh, this happens sometimes when you're discussing books with FTL travel in.

Dave, hyperbolically, of course
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
my gatekeeper archives are no longer accessible :( / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Ahasuerus]

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 4:25:11 PM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2018-03-08, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> > Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
> >>Ha, you managed to solve my YASID before I even wrote it!
> >
> > You're welcome. :)
>
> Eh, this happens sometimes when you're discussing books with FTL
> travel in.
>
> Dave, hyperbolically, of course

Or, perhaps, parabolically.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Your course is a hyperbolic parabola.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

[Robert Carnegie]

It may slightly interest somebody to know that I, a man in early 50s
who was quite an enthusiastic maths student till about 30 years ago
and then got work with computers ever since, realised a few days ago
that I'd forgotten the term "hyperbolic", but without then remembering
it. I also forgot the term "conic section" and most of the concept,
in particular, the involvement of cone(s).

So... thanks. (But does it matter?)

[The Zygon]

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 4:25:11 PM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:

I Googled YASID and could not find anything. What does it mean?

[Ahasuerus]

IIRC, it was Charles Sheffield who once said that one way to tell a
hard SF writer from a soft SF writer is to ask him to finish the word
"hyperbol[...]". I guess asking to define "parabolically" would work
just as well.

[Ahasuerus]

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 9:37:38 PM UTC-4, The Zygon wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at 4:25:11 PM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:
> > On 2018-03-08, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> > > Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
> > >>Ha, you managed to solve my YASID before I even wrote it!
> > >
> > > You're welcome. :)
> >
> > Eh, this happens sometimes when you're discussing books with FTL
> > travel in.
> >
> > Dave, hyperbolically, of course
>

> I Googled YASID and could not find anything. What does it mean?

From the FAQ (http://www.steelypips.org/sfwrittenfaq):

"YASID" means "Yet Another Story ID"

[Lynn McGuire]

On 3/7/2018 9:14 PM, The Zygon wrote:
> Most of the stories I have read where the earth was conquered, the earth eventually overthrew the conquerors. But this has always seemed too implausible to me. If an alien species is advanced enough to dispatch a military force to earth when we have no space flight to speak of, and no clue about interstellar travel, I don't see how we could defeat them.
>

> I have also read stories in which earth just settled down into being a loyal member of the alien empire. I find these somewhat depressing, precisely because the seem more plausible.
>
> Anyone remember stories of these latter type? I also would be interested in hearing whether your liked the stories or not.

I am not sure if any one mentioned John Ringo's well written Posleen
stories. Here is the marketing hype, "With Earth in the path of the
rapacious Posleen, the Galactic Federation offers help to the backward
humans -- for a price. You can protect yourself from your enemies, but
God save you from your allies!".
https://www.amazon.com/Hymn-Before-Battle-Posleen-War/dp/0671318411/

And there is John Ringo's Troy Rising series (based on Schlock Mercenary
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/ ) where an alien race flies into the
Solar System and drops off a stargate. The first several spaceships to
come through it trades for trinkets. Then a spaceship comes through who
demands all of the palladium in the world and starts dropping rocks
until that demand is met.
https://www.amazon.com/Live-Free-Die-Troy-Rising/dp/1439133972/

Lynn

[D B Davis]

You know me. Hyperbolic is my word, just because...

Thank you,

--
Don

[The Zygon]

Thanks!

[Greg Goss]

YA is fairly common in geek English for "yet another". For example,
YAHOO.com started out as "yet another heirarchical online organizer."

Of course, that wouldn't give you SID.

[D B Davis]

it belongs to both sets of writers because hyperbolic is the adjectival
form of both hyperbola and hyperbole. That makes it a hard and a soft
word, a bark and a mew word, so to speak. :)

Thank you,

--
Don

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 2:13:31 AM UTC-6, Greg Goss wrote:

> Of course, that wouldn't give you SID.

Yes. If one could specify abbreviations, so that instead of results focusing on
people named Sidney, one might get the Space Intruder Detector.

John Savard

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2018-03-14 21:01, Ahasuerus wrote:

> From the FAQ (http://www.steelypips.org/sfwrittenfaq):

Although that looks quite similar to the one maintained by
Evelyn Leeper, it shows that it was last changed in 2009. The
version on the Leepers' own web site[1] was updated in 2012.

[1] <http://leepers.us/evelyn/faqs/sf-written>
--
Michael F. Stemper
87.3% of all statistics are made up by the person giving them.

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 11:15:13 AM UTC-6, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

> 87.3% of all statistics are made up by the person giving them.

Like the statistic that says the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada?

John Savard