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Confederate: bad idea or the WORST idea?


Kalbear

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That's the problem it founders on: the North outgunned, outnumbered and out-resourced the South on an almost comical level. The US was really not trying to wage total war on the South (for the well-documented reasons of what happened when it did) and the South was exploiting that by trying to make the victory too costly for the North to justify. Once the North lost patience and started unloading its full industrial potential, it was game over. It's like alternative histories of WWII: no matter how awesome your idea is, you can't ignore the fact that Russia and the USA alone massively outstripped Germany in industrial might and manpower. Combined, it didn't stand a chance (which is why most convincing alt-histories focus on Germany defeated France and Germany and not declaring war on Russia or the US, or perhaps declaring war on Russia alone).

That's what Turtledove did as well. The Second Civil War (1880-82) has France and Britain declare war on the US as well, with Britain invading Maine and Canada invading into Montana (IIRC) whilst their fleets bombard New York and Boston. It's that combination which forces the North to eventually capitulate, but ultimately mainly because the North has really shit generals whilst the South has Stonewall Jackson, who cleverly fights a defensive war designed to entrap and destroy Northern armies rather than seize territory. But it all strains credibility quite a bit.

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3 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I mean, of course slavery could have survived into industrialization.  That's more or less how Russia began its industrialization (though they abolished serfdom in 1861).

Separately, betcha the premise is that Lee wins at Gettysburg and that's the moment.  It's silly, but bet it is.

Are they gonna CGI those fucking statues back up in New Orleans?  Please No.

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Maybe in this alternate timeline, the Confederacy succeeded in getting Great Britain and France to declare war on the Union; possibly after Lee wins at Gettysburg. Which also allows a nice parallel to the Revolutionary War.

And the Confederacy did in fact try to get Europe to attack and, thought they would, because of the need for cotton. They didn't realize that Egyptian and Indian cotton production had already ramped up to the point where Confederate cotton was unnecessary, but the show could gloss over that part.

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Well, at least the Irish film industry will see some money out of it. 

Honestly, the premise just sounds foolish to me. I'm not convinced this pair can craft anything meaningful, and the idea is old hat. I almost suspect this is all some giant, elaborate trolling joke on the internet just to get everybody mad at each other. 

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I'll probably give the pilot episode a watch, although this premise seems really implausible to me. An independent Confederacy would have some pretty serious security problems:

1. A long, difficult to defend border over which fugitive slaves and refugees could now flow without any risk of being returned;

2. Massive unrest and possible guerrilla warfare from slaves and unionist white folk (which was very much a serious thing even beyond the West Virginia revolt and the attempted east Tennessee revolt), covertly funded by the Union to the north and west;

3. A hostile, much more industrialized and armed country to the north and west eager to beat them back into submission, along with a hostile Mexico supported by the Union after Maximilian I inevitably gets overthrown, and few allies abroad (the British and French are not going to openly fight for and arm the Confederacy);

4. Persistent internal disagreements among the state governments that threatened to rupture the Confederacy IRL. 

All of that will severely strain the Confederacy's manpower and revenue, making it even more unlikely that they'd be able to invest heavily in alternatives to their cash crop economy. And if Egyptian and Indian cotton comes online and drastically reduces the profitability of southern Cotton (pushing them into an economic depression), the Confederacy might literally implode with the various states splintering off and either petitioning to rejoin the Union or being annexed piecemeal in later conflicts. 

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I think it is Lee having a successful campaign in 1862 would be more probable in getting U.K and/or France to recognize the Confederacy.  

The '63 campaign I find more difficult for that goal. The South was really hurting in the West. Outside wiping out the Army of the Potomac, Gettysburg still would of been offsetted with Vicksburg fall and the North having absolute control of the Mississippi River.

I would really like to see Turtledove's Guns of The South be done though it is more of a one-off series. 

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2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Still thinks that their adaptation is lifting Turtledove and trying to get away with it.

And I do not think, overall, that D&D are that strong in adaptation...

Yeah, it kind of sounds like they might owe Turtledove a few bucks.

Honestly, they did a better job of editing book 4 than George did. I suppose that's not saying much.

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There really is not much room one has when dealing with Key turning points. So that a successful '62 campaign was done in another series will be lifting. The series sounds it will take place in current times and Turtledove's series mainly took place during the first half of the 20th Century.

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2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

it's all gonna be filmed in Ireland

Fuck them.  This is the last straw.  They don't even have the decency to film it in Georgia or Louisiana or some southern state where there is an established film industry and black workers could benefit.  FUCK THEM.  

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ask yourselves if a show about the survival of slavery makes for a good tv theme to minorities who are no longer slaves but instead targets of systemic racism, police brutality, a rigged education system and a current political climate that has brought the klan from the closet.

 

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54 minutes ago, MercurialCannibal said:

ask yourselves if a show about the survival of slavery makes for a good tv theme to minorities who are no longer slaves but instead targets of systemic racism, police brutality, a rigged education system and a current political climate that has brought the klan from the closet.

 

You know I love you MC. More than words can express. But ask yourself if a show about the violent repression of women makes for a good TV theme to women who currently are targets of a culture that shrugs off sexual assault and domestic violence. If this line of reasoning doesn't lead you to think The Handmaid's Tale was a bad idea, then it shouldn't lead you to think Confederate is a bad idea. Exploring these themes shouldn't be outrageous; how they are explored is what should concern us. And since we currently have no idea how Confederate will handle the exploration of its themes, our outrage is premature.

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On 7/20/2017 at 10:17 PM, Kalbear said:

D&D of Game of Thrones production fame have named their new project after GOT ends - and it is something called "Confederate"

That it's a story about an alternate history where the South won isn't necessarily horrible; that it's a story about the slaveowning rich people (and importantly, NOT the actual slaves) is not so great. Is this basically a retelling of Walmart? 

This...is probably not a great idea from them, at least.

There are so many, many problems with this idea - from the alternate history itself that ignores France and Britain's take on actual slavery, to a modern world that enables slavery and accepts it, to making it a glorious institution after three civil wars and a US in crisis. Ugh. 

Quote

Let’s not stand on ceremony here: as great as Benioff and Weiss are as visionaries, their blind spots as two cis white men shows up too often for me to be comfortable for a show with slavery as a major component of the story. The gratuitous display of sexual assault (well past showing how brutal the world is), and the reluctance of having any pivotal POC character or venturing into the very natural lines they have drawn around color (the Unsullied army is almost, if not all, POC as former slaves, but is only explored as a class differentiation) gives me little confidence that this will be a new awareness taken on with this new venture.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

If this even had a chance of being not awful, it went out of the window they hired those two. The idea of them making a sensitive, complex story about slavery... yeah, because they're known for handling that subject so well. :rolleyes:
 

 

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12 hours ago, Fez said:

Maybe in this alternate timeline, the Confederacy succeeded in getting Great Britain and France to declare war on the Union; possibly after Lee wins at Gettysburg. Which also allows a nice parallel to the Revolutionary War.

And the Confederacy did in fact try to get Europe to attack and, thought they would, because of the need for cotton. They didn't realize that Egyptian and Indian cotton production had already ramped up to the point where Confederate cotton was unnecessary, but the show could gloss over that part.

That was pretty much the Confederate plan for actually winning wasn't it? The obvious thing to do alternative history wise would be to have the Trent Affair go a bit more wrong. If the Americans had actually sank the Trent or something like that it might have provoked war.

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On 7/21/2017 at 2:43 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Separately, betcha the premise is that Lee wins at Gettysburg and that's the moment.  It's silly, but bet it is.

I think this is right. It probably goes down something like:

It will turn out that the Union Army really, really sucks at field security. During the night Lee will recruit 20 good men to infiltrate the Union Camp.

General Meade will wake up in the morning and will find out that half his camp has been burned downed and that Colonel Chamberlain, along with the entire 20th Maine Infantry, has been murdered in their sleep.

With half his provisions and supplies destroyed and unable to hold his left flank, Meade will decide to launch a desperate frontal attack, resulting in the encirclement and utter destruction of the Union Army.

General Meade will be severely wounded and while resting against a tree, trying to catch his breath, Judge Dredd will show up, and say, “I am the law!” and then promptly execute Meade. 

And that will be that, Confederacy wins.
 

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12 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, it kind of sounds like they might owe Turtledove a few bucks.

Honestly, they did a better job of editing book 4 than George did. I suppose that's not saying much.

Man, I'm really in the minority over actually enjoying AFFC and ADWD aren't I?   General issues I had with them went away on rereads, and in particular after listening to the audiobooks...

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42 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Man, I'm really in the minority over actually enjoying AFFC and ADWD aren't I?   General issues I had with them went away on rereads, and in particular after listening to the audiobooks...

Hey, I'm with you. I enjoy the heck out of 'em. And if the show had actually wanted to streamline AFFC and ADWD, they did it in the most nonsensical, insulting way they could. So yeah, I'm not expecting greatness from their next project. Although it would help if they chose a less.. shall we say, hot button topic. 

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50 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Man, I'm really in the minority over actually enjoying AFFC and ADWD aren't I?   General issues I had with them went away on rereads, and in particular after listening to the audiobooks...

Nope. AFFC and ADWD are great, and seasons 5 and 6 were rubbish. I can't believe there's anyone saying with a straight face that D&D 'adapted' them well. The only good thing about these seasons is that they can actually make people appreciate AFFC and ADWD more by comparison.

I love how D&D "streamlined" AFFC and ADWD... by stretching the plot even thinner, removing any character development that would make it meaningful, and having the show spin its wheels for almost an entire season, so they could shockingly (TM) kill off a bunch of people in the finale. For instance, I find it hilarious that so many people claimed that "nothing happens" in Brienne's chapters (which is not true), and then D&D came and... Brienne spent almost entire season 5 staring at a window!  Or how they "streamlined" Arya's Braavos storyline by stretching it to two seasons but randomly changing the order of Arya's kills and reasons for them, removing any backstory or point to what the Faceless Men are, and removing all instances of Arya actually learning anything in the HOBAW, before she apparently learns everything off-screen just before the season 6 finale, on her own. Or how they "streamlined" the Meerenese Knot by removing all reason and narrative logic from it and repeating the same storyline two seasons in a row, only with Tyrion the second time. Or they have characters regress and spin in circles to pass the time, so they give Jaime a bit of filler Ishtar Z movie buddy comedy before returning him to his plot, and Sansa is first a player then goes to being a helpless clueless pawn caught in an illogical marriage plot and gets a bit of filler rape (!) so she could get all rape-empowered and want revenge against the Boltons that she wanted in the first place for, you know, for the betrayal and murder of her family. And let's not even talk about their version of Dorne.

 

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