The Domination
Encyclopedia
The Domination of Draka is a dystopia
n alternate history series by S. M. Stirling
. It comprises a main trilogy of novel
s as well as one crossover novel set after the original and a book of short stories. This series is also called the Draka series or Draka Saga.
In addition, Draka-based fan fiction
can be found in various places on the Web.
, when the Netherlands
declares war on the UK
, resulting in the loss of its Cape Colony
to the British. After defeat in Revolutionary War, the Loyalists
who historically went to Canada are instead resettled in the new Crown Colony of Drakia (named after Sir Francis Drake) in South Africa
, taking their slaves with them. Thousands of Hessian German mercenaries who fought on the Loyalist side are also given asylum there. The Crown Colony
of Drakia (later, the Dominion
of Draka) is an aggressive militaristic slave-owning society, massively influenced by the inherent racist attitudes of these American slave owner settlers that are allowed to run unchecked, reinforced over the course of the late 18th and 19th century by 25,000 Iceland
ers fleeing their island after 1783-84 Volcanic devastation. French
royalist
s, 150,000 defeated American Confederates
and other reactionary
refugees. The much earlier Dutch Boer settlers are completely assimilated by these subsequent immigrants. The genealogical lineage of both the original Boer and Southern Loyalist settlers from the late 17th century and 1780s, respectively, is almost overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Germanic and Celtic although later immigrants are French Protestant Huguenots fleeing persecution from Roman Catholics, and then the aforementioned French aristocrats seeking sanctuary from the French Revolution. Although most Draka remain at least nominally Christian for several generations, by the 1960s, the practice of Christianity among them has declined to the point that the few remaining Christian Citizens are subject to scrutiny by the Security Directorate and unofficially prevented from attaining officer ranks in the military. The Draka capital city is Archona, on the site of our own world's Pretoria
.
(officially referred to as 'serfs', as the Draka maintain the fiction of obeying the British Empire
's ban on chattel slavery). In fact the entire Draka society, from sex to the economy, is based on slavery. Serfs have no rights, are forbidden to handle money and their opinions are totally inadmissible in any court. Any child born to a serf is a serf. At first the attitude of the mainly Anglo Saxon, Nordic and Celtic descended Draka aristocracy was that of white supremacy, but by the early to mid 20th century that gives way to Draka supremacy as all non-Draka are then regarded as "ferals" that are simply there to serve The Race once captured and under the yoke. Almost all Draka citizens own at least a few slaves. Because the Draka are so heavily outnumbered, meaning that a general slave rebellion
could well mean their extermination, the Draka are utterly ruthless. Impalement
is the favoured Draka method of executing rebellious slaves. Nonetheless, many Draka, especially those who are central characters in the novels, aim to create an idealised, "rural community under a lord" feel on their lands. Most Draka are quite fond of several of their serfs, as a European or American might have a favourite horse. Such an idealistic image is often spoiled, however, when punishment - always severe - has to be enacted. Draka have absolute power of life or death over all serfs, although the killing or mistreatment of other Citizen's serfs or government-owned serfs can lead to civil action in court to obtain compensation, or could even be settled by means of personal duels between owners because, simply put, to harm or kill one's serf is, in effect, damage to property.
, meant to be used as the arm of decision in maneuver warfare
. These Citizen troops are, to a man (and woman), superb physical specimens, unbelievably strong with startling muscle definition, astonishing stamina and reactions, and are the equal of several elite enemy soldiers, due to their fanatical and relentless dedication to fitness, physical conditioning, endless combat training and diet. Draka men and women are trained for combat from their infancy. Free Draka troops can be disciplined by superior officers for neglecting to keep their physiques and fitness sharply honed to the highest possible standard, although this would be extremely rare, as poor physical conditioning would be seen as an affront to one's family and reputation. Their physical regimen is expected to be maintained in times of relative peace, as the Draka are almost always on a permanent war footing. For attritional warfare, the Domination uses Janissary
slave soldiers, who make up 60% of the Draka army. These troops are also quite formidable, and are probably on a par with Alliance combatants. Draka soldiers neither ask nor give quarter—all captured enemies are killed, permanently enslaved or on very rare occasions used as hostages to trade for serfs and Janissaries captured by the enemy or Citizen troops who for some reason have been unable to take their own lives to avoid capture, perhaps through injury because Draka are never willingly captured alive. Several of the books' characters, however, do pay professional, if not personal, respect from time to time to the bravery, skill and tenacity of enemy troops they encounter, and if the enemy's equipment doesn't always impress, the Draka occasionally acknowledge their good use of it.
In the books, Draka equipment - from tanks to tank-busting aircraft- seems deliberately evocative of late-20th century military equipment, enhancing the otherworldliness and superiority of the Draka in technological as well as purely physical sense. The assault rifles used by Draka citizen-soldiers feature integral bipods and optical sights, while support weaponry includes nerve gas grenades and magazine-fed mortars. Descriptions of the Draka Hond tanks evoke images of modern tanks such as the M1 Abrams
. In a similar vein, flashbacks involving some of the older characters reveal that the Draka had a large dirigible air force capable of strategic bombing during the First World War.
From Under the Yoke onwards, Draka equipment takes an even more science-fiction turn. Genetically-modified baboon shock troops (containing the DNA of certain species of dogs and humans as well), combat spacecraft and pain-inducing irremovable bracelets for troublesome slaves make appearances. While in The Stone Dogs, the Protracted Struggle is still primarily a Cold War
-esque arms race of nuclear capability, modified, genetically-targeted diseases and advanced computer viruses also make an appearance.
It should be noted that a full-strength Legion has about 9,200 Citizens and about 3,000 serf auxiliaries, who are unarmed support personnel in noncombatant functions. The Janissary units are commanded by Citizen officers and for the serf soldiers use the traditional ranks from Private to Master Sergeant, the highest rank available to subject race personnel.
(Ceylon is an early conquest), which leads to a fad for Mughal
artwork. Some new Draka cities are also given Indian-style names including Diskarapur (Newcastle
) and Shahnapur (Maputo
). From early in the Nineteenth Century the Draka develop a craze for Classical Antiquity
and draw from it much of their military and political terminology. Antiquity provides the Draka with a ready-made model of "colour-blind slavery". The ancient Greeks and Romans saw no problem in enslaving people of the same skin colour as themselves, and even of the same language and culture - though with them, unlike the Draka, the wholesale enslavement of a defeated enemy was the exception rather than the rule, and their slaves could and frequently did gain manumission
(see Slavery in antiquity
).
and similar philosophers and can be viewed as an "Anti-America," in the sense that like the United States
, the Draka nation started off as a British settler colony
, but evolved along diametrically opposite lines. While the United States had slavery, even slave-holders had to nominally adhere to the American values of liberty and equality, and the contradiction was eventually resolved by the American Civil War
. The Draka, on the other hand, view themselves as a master race
and unlike the Nazis
(who believed that their mere racial heritage made them superior), are keenly aware of the effort they must make to maintain this status; in the manner of ancient Sparta
, all Draka citizen children attend sex-segregated boarding school
s with an extreme emphasis on military prowess and physical conditioning. While the United States in the 20th century set for itself the goal of equality for all regardless of race, the Draka worked to enslave all non-Draka humans, also regardless of race.
republic
' with a parliamentary system
of government. The Archon
is the head of state appointed for a 20-year term by a parliament (elected in free and fair elections). Draka citizens have a considerable degree of free speech, but fundamental criticism of the slave system is forbidden. The Draka economy is heavily dominated by cartel
s known as Combines, with ownership split between the state and the Landholders' League (Citizens can only own the right to use land, not the land itself, which can be confiscated in the event of neglect or misuse). There is also a considerable small-business private sector
. The Draka economy is on the gold standard
, with the basic unit of currency being the Auric. In the third novel, with gold becoming plentiful due to imports from space, the Draka switch to the Auric reflecting a basket of commodities.
and Ceylon from the French during the Napoleonic Wars
, and over the course of the 19th century, the Draka gradually conquer and enslave the entire continent of Africa
. The last areas to be conquered were the jungles of the Congo
, due to the danger of tropical disease
s. Technological development is faster than in our own history, as the Draka put the wealth derived from their vast gold
and diamond
deposits to effective use by offering large grants to scientist
s and inventors who settle in their territory and develop new inventions. These include Richard Trevithick
, inventor of the steam locomotive
, who settles in Virconium (equivalent to our own world's Durban
) in 1796, R. J. Gatling
, who settles in Diskarapur in 1850, and Louis Pasteur
, who discovers malaria
's mosquito vector in the 1860s while working for the Shahnapur Institute of Tropical Medicine.
The United States
is also much more expansionistic than in our own timeline - it annexes
Canada
after the War of 1812
(a conquest presumably made easier in this timeline by the absence of Loyalist American settlers to enlarge the Canadian population) and Mexico
after the Mexican–American War (since, it is implied, the addition of numerous Northern, Free-Soil states following the conquest of Canada strengthened Southern demands for a reciprocal campaign to increase the number of slave-holding states with representation in Congress). William Walker's Southern adventurers conquer Central America
; while Cuba
, Hispaniola
, Hawaii
, and the Philippines
are annexed in 1854.
During the American Civil War
, the Draka supply massive amounts of aid to the Confederacy
, including steam-powered
armored cars. However, the Union
still wins the Civil War (with the help of large numbers of Mexican conscripts), and annexes Walker's Central American empire. Cuba
, Hispaniola
, Hawaii
, and the Philippines
are granted statehood in 1898, with the Central American territories following later. The United States eventually has 62 states in total.
The Empire of Brazil
seizes control of Bolivia
, Paraguay
, Uruguay
, and the Guyanas
in the 1870s, the same decade which sees Britain
uniting Australia
and New Zealand
as the Dominion of Australasia. In addition, the Republic of Gran Colombia
never breaks up into the nations of Colombia
, Venezuela
, and Ecuador
, as in our world. This exemplifies the trend in the series of fewer and fewer nation
s achieving sovereign independent status.
In China
, the Taiping Rebellion
is successful, resulting in a China which is even more incapable of successful modernization than in our own history. The Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War
(which in the Draka timeline occurs in 1899) is even more decisive, with Japan not only annexing Formosa
, but also Korea
, Hainan
, and several Chinese coastal cities. After victory in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War
, Japan annexes Manchuria
and establishes a protectorate over the weak Taiping Dynasty.
and Bulgaria
. It subsequently declares its independence from Britain and renames itself the Domination of the Draka.
The Domination of Draka then takes advantage of the Russian Civil War
and seizes the rest of the Middle East
, much of Central Asia
, and China
west of Xian and Wuhan
. Up to 500,000 Janissaries die in pacification campaigns during this time in the Domination's new territories. Sixty-five percent of the population of Afghanistan
is exterminated in retaliation for the fierce resistance of that nation's "Badmash" rebels. In 1921 the Empire of Japan
deposes the Taiping Emperor and annexes all Chinese territory not in Draka hands. After the death of Lenin, a second civil war further weakened the Soviet Union
, which is won by a faction led by Joseph Stalin
—who subsequently orders a "hermit kingdom" (isolationist) policy.
is replaced by Draka-supremacism, with the Draka viewing all of non-Drakan humanity as their cattle. Elvira explains the ideology of the Domination, the utter amorality of which will lead enemies of the Draka to refer to them as 'Snakes':
The first book of the series Marching Through Georgia is a war story set during the Eurasian War, the Domination timeline's equivalent of World War II
. In this war, the Nazis utterly crushed the Soviet Union, with only a Siberian rump state beyond the Urals surviving under a junta
led by Marshal Timoshenko
. The Nazi success derives from the Soviets suffering two recent, devastating civil wars, and needing to defend a long southern border with the Domination. Additionally, the Lend-Lease
between the United States and the Soviets was rendered ineffective by Nazi U-boat
s effecting a powerful blockade in the Atlantic, Japanese naval hegemony in the Pacific, and the Domination's refusal to allow lend-lease supplies through its territory.
The Domination entered the war just before the Nazi invasion of Russia and conquered Italy
with the Nazis' tacit consent. The Draka then attacked the Third Reich in the Caucasus
region, attempting to cut off a large part of the German army.
The German Wehrmacht
is somewhat more advanced than historically, with a fully mechanized supply train. The Waffen-SS
units facing the Draka Citizen Airborne unit the novel centers around are also in possession of numerous 'hybrid' armoured vehicles made from German and captured Soviet parts, but they are still no match for the Draka army. The Draka citizen soldiers, female as well as male, are honed killing machines, each equal to several of their enemy on the battlefield. The Draka also have superb weaponry, including 14,000 Hond III tanks with armor, engine size and gun caliber approaching those of modern MBTs, and powerful air force which includes high-performance single and twin piston engine fighters, airborne early warning systems mounted on dirigibles and a twin-engine armored ground attack aircraft. By 1944, all sides are widely using nerve gas, jet- and rocket-powered fighter aircraft
and ballistic missile
s.
The United States is forced into the war when the entire Pacific Fleet is wiped out at Pearl Harbor
. Japanese forces occupy the U.S. states of Hawaii, the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone. Additionally, Japan occupies northern Australia
, raids California, and the Imperial Japanese Navy
shells Acapulco
. Consequently, the United States cannot open a second front in Europe
. Alliance with the Nazis against the Draka is also impossible, due to the influence of the Jewish lobby and a Draka threat to supply Japan with nuclear weapon
s-related materials in the event of U.S.-German peace.
In 1943, the Alliance for Democracy is formed—comprising the military alliance, free trade area
and monetary union. This Alliance includes the Americas
, the United Kingdom
, India
and unoccupied Australia. The United States turned the tide against Japan with victory in the Battle of the Sea of Cortez, in which jet fighter-bomber
s armed with guided bomb
s played a crucial role. Hawaii was liberated in late 1943, and half of the surviving Imperial Japanese Navy
was destroyed in a nuclear cruise missile
attack on the Truk naval base. In late 1944, Tokyo
was destroyed by a nuclear cruise missile—killing over 150,000 people including the Imperial Family. A fanatical military government takes over Japan. The Draka overrun Europe as far as the Pyrenees
, with the decisive blow made with five atomic bombs against the industrial areas of the Ruhr
. Adolf Hitler himself, it is revealed in later flashbacks, was assassinated by a cadre of generals in 1942. Without his meddling, the German Wehrmacht
puts up much more stubborn and effective resistance than it did historically against the Soviet Union, but the memory of Hitler means that the rest of Europe is loath to unite behind the Germans to halt the Draka. Numerous Draka characters credit Hitler's memory as a key factor in ensuring Draka victory in Europe.
In 1945, the Draka completed its conquest of Europe by using its remaining stockpile of 12 atomic bombs to force the Pyrenees—finally defeating a communist Spain (following a different outcome to reality's Spanish Civil War
). The United Kingdom remained free and was inundated with refugees. The Draka then turned its attention to the Far East, attacking Japanese-occupied China. Despite the rapid Draka conquest of Eastern China and Korea, the loss of the remaining Japanese naval units in the Battle of the Philippines, the nuclear destruction of Osaka
, and the Alliance invasion of Kyushu
, Japan continues a bitter resistance, only surrendering to the Alliance in July in fear of a Draka invasion of the Home Islands
.
The Eurasian War claimed some 200 million lives, over three times the death toll of our own World War II. The liberated South-East Asian Federation and Indochinese Republic become members of the Alliance for Democracy, as does a reconstructed Japan in 1954. The United Kingdom - minus the Channel Islands
- is the only remaining free nation left in Europe, and is heavily defended and fortified against potential Draka attack. The Domination and the Alliance thus control the entire world between them.
, the Draka respond with a thermonuclear bomb
. Under the Yoke contains a deliberately horrific description of the impalement of several French Maquis guerrilla soldiers, disgusting even the Draka who ordered it, who nevertheless considers it a necessary means of impressing upon the slaves that resistance is futile. Thus, they will obey more willingly, making it possible for the Draka to be less harsh, giving rise to even further willingness to obey. The Draka have been slavemasters for two hundred years, and have applied modern science to the problem of breaking human wills; they are extremely good at it. Indeed, this feeds further into their ideology of the Draka as a master race, with individuals capable of enforcing their will over many serfs with no other tool than raw willpower.
In this book, mention is made, from both the conquered peoples and the Draka themselves, of the Western Allies refusal to join forces with Nazi Germany, even though Adolf Hitler was dead by late 1942 (officially by heart attack, but in reality assassinated by German Military Intelligence), to fight the Draka once the full horror of the Drakan onslaught's threat to European civilisation is apparent. Widespread disgust and revulsion at Germany's genocidal policies towards political, ideological and racial enemies, and utter hatred by former occupied countries are cited as the cause of this reluctance even though the Draka treatment to defeated enemies is, by that stage, universally known. Both Nazi Germany and the Allies foolishly thought they could defeat the Draka without uniting.
, tells the story of the Protracted Struggle—the Cold War
between the Domination of the Draka and the Alliance for Democracy. There is a far more intense space race
in this world, with nuclear pulse-drive interplanetary spaceships and colonies and military bases established on the Moon
, on Mars
and in the asteroid belt
. Over a period of several decades, the Alliance secretly constructs an antimatter-driven starship for transporting 100,000 people to Alpha Centauri
in the event of a Draka victory. The Draka employ the policy of "No peace beyond Luna," leading to frequent skirmishes in the inner solar system.
. An OSS covert operation, designed to discredit a Hindu
nationalist party and keep India in the Alliance, backfires as a suicide note is found implicating the OSS in the scandal. As a result India secedes from the Alliance—and is conquered and enslaved by the Draka within weeks (except Burma, which counter-seceded back to the Alliance). After the 'Indian Incident' the Alliance for Democracy is formally converted into a single superstate.
and computer
technology, while the Domination gains the upper hand in the biological
sciences allowing them to perfect their genetic engineering
techniques by using their slave population as test subjects. They finish the Human Genome Project
and are performing significant genetic alteration on mammalian organisms, including humans, by the mid-1970s. Both sides develop super-weapons with which to launch the first strike of the inevitable final war. However, both sides recognize that the long-term trends are in the Alliance's favor. Due to its much-larger economy and free population the Alliance's lead in overall scientific progress slowly grows, with the stagnant Draka increasingly dependent on espionage and Alliance defectors for new innovations.
It is not unknown, although extremely rare, for people from the Domination to defect to the Alliance. Citizens primarily seek asylum due to personal convictions, while serfs simply want escape their bondage. Any citizen or serf caught attempting to defect would be summarily executed, though the serf would no doubt meet a more hideous death - probably by impalement or breaking on the wheel. These defectors prove valuable to the OSS because of the unique opportunity it offers regarding gathering vital information on Drakan society, the Drakan dialect, which is notoriously difficult to acquire and master, and the Drakan fighting style which is unmatched anywhere in the Alliance.
waves. The Alliance counterpart, a computer virus
designed to trigger self-destruct mechanisms in Draka military units that go to war footing, works well but is not as effective at disabling the enemy command and control or crippling their space forces.
Due to the Stone Dogs virus, Draka forces ultimately succeed—if barely—in wiping out all significant Alliance populations and military forces in the Earth-Luna sphere. In the process, they lose 15 percent of the Citizen population and 22 percent of the serf population--300 million total. The Alliance, though suffering 400 million casualties and losing its Ceres command center, wins in trans-Lunar space, including the Belt. A truce is declared, allowing the Alliance remnants in the Belt to launch the starship, while giving other Alliance remnants in space limited Draka citizenship (the new Draka will not be able to vote, though their children will be). The war itself proves to be devastating to Earth. Though the Solar System
belongs to the Draka, the planet's ecosystems were pushed nearly to the breaking point. The war causes a nuclear winter
lasting for several years, a climactic disturbance so severe that ice forms in the Adriatic Sea
, despite most nukes being 'clean' fusion weapons and Archon Eric von Shrakenberg, in an effort to limit damage to the planet, ordering no more nuclear weapons used within the atmosphere after a certain point in the conflict.
takes place in an alternate universe version of our 1995-2000. It begins in the year 2442 (aka 442 FS, or the 442nd Year of the Final Society) of the Draka history. The Domination is pitted against the post-American world of Samothrace
in the Alpha Centauri system, which is a colony of Alliance refugees from the Final War. A failed experiment intended to research wormholes (called "moleholes") for FTL travel causes a single Drakensis (the genetically-engineered posthuman
species of Draka), Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, to be sent to the 1995 of an alternate universe very similar to our own. The only notable difference is that Kenneth Branagh
played Obi-Wan Kenobi
in the Star Wars prequel
, (though his casting occurs after Ingolfsson's incursion in 1995, indicating that the introduction of "holo-projectors" by IngolfTech might have attracted a higher-quality lead in the 1999 film of our universe). The Samothracians send one of their own agents, cyborg
soldier Kenneth Lafarge, to stop her. Lefarge arrives in the alternate 1998, due to the crude nature of the time travel technology. Both Lefarge and Ingolfsson create organizations of native humans to aid their fight against each other, Lefarge's team being led by NYPD Detective Henry Caramaggio.
Both Lefarge and Ingolfsson are killed in an epic battle in New York City
when the Drakensis attempts to activate a beacon to allow the Draka scientists of 445 FS (several years having elapsed) to lock a transit wormhole to the alternate 1996. In the time between 2442 and 2445 in the Domination's home timeline, the Samothracians attack the Domination's Earth via a series of wormholes laid between Alpha Centauri
and Sol
. These attacks apparently were not successful. Thanks to perfectly faked documents provided by Lefarge, Ingolfsson's estates, laboratories and archives of advanced technologies fall into Caramaggio's hands, who according to the frame story of The Domination becomes "the richest man in the world" within twenty years. Caramaggio releases Ingolfsson's technologies at a rapid rate, attempting to prepare his Earth for another Draka attack. Since, unknown to Caramaggio, Ingofsson transferred her knowledge into her infant daughter, the struggle will no doubt resume at some point.
A 'paravirus' is mentioned as the method of converting Homo sapiens serfs to Homo servus, the sex cells being transformed with the result that infected human parents give birth to servus children. However, it is not clear that this advanced method was the one used for the initial changes to human serfs in the early 21st century.
Of Homo sapiens, only a few scattered "feral humans" survive precariously on Earth, mainly in North America, having been quite literally bombed back into the Stone Age, nearly wiped out with "biobombs," and being hunted "for sport" by the Draka. The Pygmies of Central Africa
are also allowed to survive on special lands reserved for their use.
Stirling's use of the Draka as point-of-view characters has led to accusations that he has some sympathy with them (for example, in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
), to his dismay. He describes the Draka series as dystopia
s based on "suppos[ing that] everything had turned out as badly as possible, these last few centuries." The title page of his non-Draka novel Conquistador
has the quotation "There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is 'idiot'."
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n alternate history series by S. M. Stirling
S. M. Stirling
Stephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.-Personal:Stirling was born on...
. It comprises a main trilogy of novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s as well as one crossover novel set after the original and a book of short stories. This series is also called the Draka series or Draka Saga.
Novels
| Book # | Title | UK release | US/CAN release | ISBN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marching Through Georgia Marching Through Georgia (novel) Marching Through Georgia is the first of four books of S.M. Stirling's alternate history series, The Domination.The novel also attempts to educate the reader on the background of the Domination. Government, military, social structures, and the historical development of the Draka are all outlined... |
February 1991 | May 1, 1988 | ||
| A Draka airborne unit attempts to hold a mountain pass against the Germans in Ossetia as the Domination launches its invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. | |||||
| 2 | Under the Yoke Under the Yoke (novel) Under the Yoke is the second of four books of S. M. Stirling's alternate history series, The Domination.-Plot summary:Tanya von Shrakenberg established a plantation in formerly-French Touraine Province. Her slaves include Marya Sokolowska and Chantal Lefarge, formerly a Polish nun and a French... |
December 31, 1991 | September 1, 1989 | 0671698435 | |
| The Draka reshape Europe by turning the surviving population into serfs. Meanwhile an American agent infiltrates Draka society in an effort to gain contact with various resistance organizations. | |||||
| 3 | The Stone Dogs The Stone Dogs The Stone Dogs by S. M. Stirling is the third book in the alternate history series, The Domination. The Stone Dogs details the life of Eric von Shrakenberg's niece, Yolande Ingolfsson, and Chantal Lefarge's children, Frederick and Marya... |
January 1, 1997 | July 1, 1990 | ||
| The long-standing cold war between the Domination of Draka and the Alliance of Democracy turns hot when the Draka unleash a new secret weapon. | |||||
| 4 | Drakon | June 7, 1999 | January 1, 1996 | ||
| When an experiment goes wrong a female Draka is hurled into a parallel Earth and now seeks to pave the way for an invasion force. | |||||
| Book # | Title | US/CAN release | UK release | ISBN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Drakas! Drakas! Drakas! is an anthology in S.M. Stirling's alternate history series, The Domination.Contents:* William Sanders' "Custer Under the Baobab"* John J. Miller's "Hewn in Pieces for the Lord"* Roland J... |
October 31, 2000 | ISBN 0-671-31946-9 | ||
In 2000, Stirling edited Drakas!, a collection of short stories by other authors who develop plots based on the Domination premise. |
|||||
| 2 | The Domination | May 31, 1999 | ISBN 0671577948 | ||
An omnibus edition of the Draka Saga was published in 1999, containing the first trilogy, "Marching Through Georgia", "Under the Yoke" and "The Stone Dogs". |
|||||
In addition, Draka-based fan fiction
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
can be found in various places on the Web.
Origins and demography
The world of The Domination diverges from our world at the time of the American Revolutionary WarAmerican Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, when the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
declares war on the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, resulting in the loss of its Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
to the British. After defeat in Revolutionary War, the Loyalists
United Empire Loyalists
The name United Empire Loyalists is an honorific given after the fact to those American Loyalists who resettled in British North America and other British Colonies as an act of fealty to King George III after the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War and prior to the Treaty of Paris...
who historically went to Canada are instead resettled in the new Crown Colony of Drakia (named after Sir Francis Drake) in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, taking their slaves with them. Thousands of Hessian German mercenaries who fought on the Loyalist side are also given asylum there. The Crown Colony
Crown colony
A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....
of Drakia (later, the Dominion
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
of Draka) is an aggressive militaristic slave-owning society, massively influenced by the inherent racist attitudes of these American slave owner settlers that are allowed to run unchecked, reinforced over the course of the late 18th and 19th century by 25,000 Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
ers fleeing their island after 1783-84 Volcanic devastation. French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
royalist
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
s, 150,000 defeated American Confederates
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
and other reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
refugees. The much earlier Dutch Boer settlers are completely assimilated by these subsequent immigrants. The genealogical lineage of both the original Boer and Southern Loyalist settlers from the late 17th century and 1780s, respectively, is almost overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Germanic and Celtic although later immigrants are French Protestant Huguenots fleeing persecution from Roman Catholics, and then the aforementioned French aristocrats seeking sanctuary from the French Revolution. Although most Draka remain at least nominally Christian for several generations, by the 1960s, the practice of Christianity among them has declined to the point that the few remaining Christian Citizens are subject to scrutiny by the Security Directorate and unofficially prevented from attaining officer ranks in the military. The Draka capital city is Archona, on the site of our own world's Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
.
Citizens and "serfs"
Citizens, who are free and can vote, comprise only a small fraction of the Domination's population. Over 90% of the population are slavesSlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
(officially referred to as 'serfs', as the Draka maintain the fiction of obeying the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
's ban on chattel slavery). In fact the entire Draka society, from sex to the economy, is based on slavery. Serfs have no rights, are forbidden to handle money and their opinions are totally inadmissible in any court. Any child born to a serf is a serf. At first the attitude of the mainly Anglo Saxon, Nordic and Celtic descended Draka aristocracy was that of white supremacy, but by the early to mid 20th century that gives way to Draka supremacy as all non-Draka are then regarded as "ferals" that are simply there to serve The Race once captured and under the yoke. Almost all Draka citizens own at least a few slaves. Because the Draka are so heavily outnumbered, meaning that a general slave rebellion
Slave rebellion
A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves. Slave rebellions have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery, and are amongst the most feared events for slaveholders...
could well mean their extermination, the Draka are utterly ruthless. Impalement
Impalement
Impalement is the traumatic penetration of an organism by an elongated foreign object such as a stake, pole, or spear, and this usually implies complete perforation of the central mass of the impaled body...
is the favoured Draka method of executing rebellious slaves. Nonetheless, many Draka, especially those who are central characters in the novels, aim to create an idealised, "rural community under a lord" feel on their lands. Most Draka are quite fond of several of their serfs, as a European or American might have a favourite horse. Such an idealistic image is often spoiled, however, when punishment - always severe - has to be enacted. Draka have absolute power of life or death over all serfs, although the killing or mistreatment of other Citizen's serfs or government-owned serfs can lead to civil action in court to obtain compensation, or could even be settled by means of personal duels between owners because, simply put, to harm or kill one's serf is, in effect, damage to property.
Draka military
The citizen Draka army is made up of shock troopsShock troops
Shock troops or assault troops are formations created to lead an attack. "Shock troop" is a loose translation of the German word Stoßtrupp...
, meant to be used as the arm of decision in maneuver warfare
Maneuver warfare
Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare , is the term used by military theorists for a concept of warfare that advocates attempting to defeat an adversary by incapacitating their decision-making through shock and disruption brought about by movement...
. These Citizen troops are, to a man (and woman), superb physical specimens, unbelievably strong with startling muscle definition, astonishing stamina and reactions, and are the equal of several elite enemy soldiers, due to their fanatical and relentless dedication to fitness, physical conditioning, endless combat training and diet. Draka men and women are trained for combat from their infancy. Free Draka troops can be disciplined by superior officers for neglecting to keep their physiques and fitness sharply honed to the highest possible standard, although this would be extremely rare, as poor physical conditioning would be seen as an affront to one's family and reputation. Their physical regimen is expected to be maintained in times of relative peace, as the Draka are almost always on a permanent war footing. For attritional warfare, the Domination uses Janissary
Janissary
The Janissaries were infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...
slave soldiers, who make up 60% of the Draka army. These troops are also quite formidable, and are probably on a par with Alliance combatants. Draka soldiers neither ask nor give quarter—all captured enemies are killed, permanently enslaved or on very rare occasions used as hostages to trade for serfs and Janissaries captured by the enemy or Citizen troops who for some reason have been unable to take their own lives to avoid capture, perhaps through injury because Draka are never willingly captured alive. Several of the books' characters, however, do pay professional, if not personal, respect from time to time to the bravery, skill and tenacity of enemy troops they encounter, and if the enemy's equipment doesn't always impress, the Draka occasionally acknowledge their good use of it.
In the books, Draka equipment - from tanks to tank-busting aircraft- seems deliberately evocative of late-20th century military equipment, enhancing the otherworldliness and superiority of the Draka in technological as well as purely physical sense. The assault rifles used by Draka citizen-soldiers feature integral bipods and optical sights, while support weaponry includes nerve gas grenades and magazine-fed mortars. Descriptions of the Draka Hond tanks evoke images of modern tanks such as the M1 Abrams
M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams is a third-generation main battle tank produced in the United States. It is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff and Commander of US military forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972. The M1 is a well armed, heavily armored, and highly mobile tank designed for...
. In a similar vein, flashbacks involving some of the older characters reveal that the Draka had a large dirigible air force capable of strategic bombing during the First World War.
From Under the Yoke onwards, Draka equipment takes an even more science-fiction turn. Genetically-modified baboon shock troops (containing the DNA of certain species of dogs and humans as well), combat spacecraft and pain-inducing irremovable bracelets for troublesome slaves make appearances. While in The Stone Dogs, the Protracted Struggle is still primarily a Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
-esque arms race of nuclear capability, modified, genetically-targeted diseases and advanced computer viruses also make an appearance.
Military ranks
Commanding ranks in Citizen's Force (where free Citizens serve)- Monitor (fire-team leader/Cpl) commanding a Stick of 4
- Decurion (SergeantSergeantSergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
) commanding a Lochos (Squad) of 8 - Tetrarch (LieutenantLieutenantA lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
) commanding a Tetrarchy (Platoon) of 33 - Centurion (Captain) commanding a Century (Company) of 110
- Cohortarch (MajorMajorMajor is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
) commanding a Cohort (Battalion) of 500 - Merarch (ColonelColonelColonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
) commanding a Merarchy (Regiment) of 1,500 - Chiliarch (Brigadier GeneralBrigadier GeneralBrigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
) commanding a Chiliarchy (Brigade) of 4,500 - Strategos (Lieutenant GeneralLieutenant GeneralLieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....
) commanding a Legion (Division) of 13,000 - Arch-Strategos (General of the ArmyGeneral of the ArmyGeneral of the Army is a military rank used in some countries to denote a senior military leader, usually a General in command of a nation's Army. It may also be the title given to a General who commands an Army in the field....
) commanding larger units, at the Corps level
It should be noted that a full-strength Legion has about 9,200 Citizens and about 3,000 serf auxiliaries, who are unarmed support personnel in noncombatant functions. The Janissary units are commanded by Citizen officers and for the serf soldiers use the traditional ranks from Private to Master Sergeant, the highest rank available to subject race personnel.
Culture and ideology
During the 1790s the Draka trade extensively with IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(Ceylon is an early conquest), which leads to a fad for Mughal
Mughal painting
Mughal painting is a particular style of South Asian painting, generally confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums, which emerged from Persian miniature painting, with Indian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist influences, and developed largely in the court...
artwork. Some new Draka cities are also given Indian-style names including Diskarapur (Newcastle
Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal
Newcastle is the third largest city and urban center in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Newcastle is located in the North West corner of the province along the Ncandu River and is moderately industrial....
) and Shahnapur (Maputo
Maputo
Maputo, also known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. It is known as the City of Acacias in reference to acacia trees commonly found along its avenues and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its...
). From early in the Nineteenth Century the Draka develop a craze for Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and draw from it much of their military and political terminology. Antiquity provides the Draka with a ready-made model of "colour-blind slavery". The ancient Greeks and Romans saw no problem in enslaving people of the same skin colour as themselves, and even of the same language and culture - though with them, unlike the Draka, the wholesale enslavement of a defeated enemy was the exception rather than the rule, and their slaves could and frequently did gain manumission
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
(see Slavery in antiquity
Slavery in antiquity
Slavery in the ancient world, specifically, in Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war....
).
"Anti-America"
The Dominion draws substantially from the ideology of Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
and similar philosophers and can be viewed as an "Anti-America," in the sense that like the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the Draka nation started off as a British settler colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
, but evolved along diametrically opposite lines. While the United States had slavery, even slave-holders had to nominally adhere to the American values of liberty and equality, and the contradiction was eventually resolved by the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The Draka, on the other hand, view themselves as a master race
Master race
Master race was a phrase and concept originating in the slave-holding Southern US. The later phrase Herrenvolk , interpreted as 'master race', was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race,...
and unlike the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
(who believed that their mere racial heritage made them superior), are keenly aware of the effort they must make to maintain this status; in the manner of ancient Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
, all Draka citizen children attend sex-segregated boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
s with an extreme emphasis on military prowess and physical conditioning. While the United States in the 20th century set for itself the goal of equality for all regardless of race, the Draka worked to enslave all non-Draka humans, also regardless of race.
Government and economy
Politically, the Draka state is described as 'aristocraticAristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
' with a parliamentary system
Parliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
of government. The Archon
Archon
Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem ἀρχ-, meaning "to rule", derived from the same root as monarch, hierarchy, and anarchy.- Ancient Greece :In ancient Greece the...
is the head of state appointed for a 20-year term by a parliament (elected in free and fair elections). Draka citizens have a considerable degree of free speech, but fundamental criticism of the slave system is forbidden. The Draka economy is heavily dominated by cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
s known as Combines, with ownership split between the state and the Landholders' League (Citizens can only own the right to use land, not the land itself, which can be confiscated in the event of neglect or misuse). There is also a considerable small-business private sector
Private sector
In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the state...
. The Draka economy is on the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
, with the basic unit of currency being the Auric. In the third novel, with gold becoming plentiful due to imports from space, the Draka switch to the Auric reflecting a basket of commodities.
The nineteenth century
The Draka take over EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Ceylon from the French during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and over the course of the 19th century, the Draka gradually conquer and enslave the entire continent of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. The last areas to be conquered were the jungles of the Congo
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, due to the danger of tropical disease
Tropical disease
Tropical diseases are diseases that are prevalent in or unique to tropical and subtropical regions. The diseases are less prevalent in temperate climates, due in part to the occurrence of a cold season, which controls the insect population by forcing hibernation. Insects such as mosquitoes and...
s. Technological development is faster than in our own history, as the Draka put the wealth derived from their vast gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
and diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
deposits to effective use by offering large grants to scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s and inventors who settle in their territory and develop new inventions. These include Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall. His most significant success was the high pressure steam engine and he also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive...
, inventor of the steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
, who settles in Virconium (equivalent to our own world's Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
) in 1796, R. J. Gatling
Richard Jordan Gatling
Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling was an American inventor best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, the first successful machine gun.-Life:...
, who settles in Diskarapur in 1850, and Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
, who discovers malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
's mosquito vector in the 1860s while working for the Shahnapur Institute of Tropical Medicine.
The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is also much more expansionistic than in our own timeline - it annexes
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
after the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
(a conquest presumably made easier in this timeline by the absence of Loyalist American settlers to enlarge the Canadian population) and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
after the Mexican–American War (since, it is implied, the addition of numerous Northern, Free-Soil states following the conquest of Canada strengthened Southern demands for a reciprocal campaign to increase the number of slave-holding states with representation in Congress). William Walker's Southern adventurers conquer Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
; while Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
are annexed in 1854.
During the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the Draka supply massive amounts of aid to the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, including steam-powered
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
armored cars. However, the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
still wins the Civil War (with the help of large numbers of Mexican conscripts), and annexes Walker's Central American empire. Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
are granted statehood in 1898, with the Central American territories following later. The United States eventually has 62 states in total.
The Empire of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
seizes control of Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, and the Guyanas
Guyanas
Guyana is a country in South America.Guyana, Guayana, or Guiana may also refer to:*Guayana Esequiba, the territory of Guyana claimed by Venezuela*Guayana Region, an administrative region of Venezuela...
in the 1870s, the same decade which sees Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
uniting Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
as the Dominion of Australasia. In addition, the Republic of Gran Colombia
Gran Colombia
Gran Colombia is a name used today for the state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central America from 1819 to 1831. This short-lived republic included the territories of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, northern Peru and northwest Brazil. The...
never breaks up into the nations of Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, and Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, as in our world. This exemplifies the trend in the series of fewer and fewer nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
s achieving sovereign independent status.
In China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Taiping Rebellion
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty...
is successful, resulting in a China which is even more incapable of successful modernization than in our own history. The Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...
(which in the Draka timeline occurs in 1899) is even more decisive, with Japan not only annexing Formosa
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, but also Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, Hainan
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
, and several Chinese coastal cities. After victory in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
, Japan annexes Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
and establishes a protectorate over the weak Taiping Dynasty.
The Great War (World War I) and its aftermath
The Dominion of Draka joins the Allied side in the Great War, and conquers the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
. It subsequently declares its independence from Britain and renames itself the Domination of the Draka.
The Domination of Draka then takes advantage of the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
and seizes the rest of the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, much of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
west of Xian and Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
. Up to 500,000 Janissaries die in pacification campaigns during this time in the Domination's new territories. Sixty-five percent of the population of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
is exterminated in retaliation for the fierce resistance of that nation's "Badmash" rebels. In 1921 the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
deposes the Taiping Emperor and annexes all Chinese territory not in Draka hands. After the death of Lenin, a second civil war further weakened the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, which is won by a faction led by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
—who subsequently orders a "hermit kingdom" (isolationist) policy.
Draka development of world domination ideology
Under the influence of Draka philosophers such as Elvira Naldorssen, the traditional Draka white-supremacismWhite supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
is replaced by Draka-supremacism, with the Draka viewing all of non-Drakan humanity as their cattle. Elvira explains the ideology of the Domination, the utter amorality of which will lead enemies of the Draka to refer to them as 'Snakes':
- "...so the Draka are not different from other peoples because they violate the Golden Rule or Bentham's derivative idolatry 'the greatest good for the greatest number'. Everyone does. We do not violate them, we reject them.
- "Others have conquered and ruled; we alone conquer for conquest's sake and Dominate for no other purpose than Domination itself; the name we half-consciously chose for our state is no accident. We and we alone have spoken aloud the Great Secret; that the root function of all human society is the production and reproduction of power—and that power is the ability to compel others to do your will against theirs. It is end, not means. The purpose of Power is Power.
- "The Draka will conquer the worldHegemonyHegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
for two reasons; because we must and because we can. And yet of the two forces the second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it. By the sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the Earth, and in so doing remake themselves. We shall conquer and beat the Nations of the Earth into the dust and reforge them in our self wrought Image; the Final Society without weakness or mercy, hard and pure. Our descendants will walk the hillside of that future, innocent beneath the stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has. THEN there will be Gods in the Earth."
The Eurasian War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In this war, the Nazis utterly crushed the Soviet Union, with only a Siberian rump state beyond the Urals surviving under a junta
Military junta
A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...
led by Marshal Timoshenko
Semyon Timoshenko
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko was a Soviet military commander and senior professional officer of the Red Army at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.-Early life:...
. The Nazi success derives from the Soviets suffering two recent, devastating civil wars, and needing to defend a long southern border with the Domination. Additionally, the Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease was the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of war in Europe in...
between the United States and the Soviets was rendered ineffective by Nazi U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
s effecting a powerful blockade in the Atlantic, Japanese naval hegemony in the Pacific, and the Domination's refusal to allow lend-lease supplies through its territory.
The Domination entered the war just before the Nazi invasion of Russia and conquered Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
with the Nazis' tacit consent. The Draka then attacked the Third Reich in the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
region, attempting to cut off a large part of the German army.
The German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
is somewhat more advanced than historically, with a fully mechanized supply train. The Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
units facing the Draka Citizen Airborne unit the novel centers around are also in possession of numerous 'hybrid' armoured vehicles made from German and captured Soviet parts, but they are still no match for the Draka army. The Draka citizen soldiers, female as well as male, are honed killing machines, each equal to several of their enemy on the battlefield. The Draka also have superb weaponry, including 14,000 Hond III tanks with armor, engine size and gun caliber approaching those of modern MBTs, and powerful air force which includes high-performance single and twin piston engine fighters, airborne early warning systems mounted on dirigibles and a twin-engine armored ground attack aircraft. By 1944, all sides are widely using nerve gas, jet- and rocket-powered fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
and ballistic missile
Ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
s.
The United States is forced into the war when the entire Pacific Fleet is wiped out at Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. Japanese forces occupy the U.S. states of Hawaii, the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone. Additionally, Japan occupies northern Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, raids California, and the Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
shells Acapulco
Acapulco
Acapulco is a city, municipality and major sea port in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of Mexico, southwest from Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semi-circular bay and has been a port since the early colonial period of Mexico’s history...
. Consequently, the United States cannot open a second front in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Alliance with the Nazis against the Draka is also impossible, due to the influence of the Jewish lobby and a Draka threat to supply Japan with nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s-related materials in the event of U.S.-German peace.
In 1943, the Alliance for Democracy is formed—comprising the military alliance, free trade area
Free trade area
A free trade area is a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a free trade agreement , which eliminates tariffs, import quotas, and preferences on most goods and services traded between them. If people are also free to move between the countries, in addition to FTA, it would also be...
and monetary union. This Alliance includes the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and unoccupied Australia. The United States turned the tide against Japan with victory in the Battle of the Sea of Cortez, in which jet fighter-bomber
Fighter-bomber
A fighter-bomber is a fixed-wing aircraft with an intended primary role of light tactical bombing and also incorporating certain performance characteristics of a fighter aircraft. This term, although still used, has less significance since the introduction of rockets and guided missiles into aerial...
s armed with guided bomb
Guided bomb
A guided bomb is a precision-guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, and to minimize damage to things other than the target....
s played a crucial role. Hawaii was liberated in late 1943, and half of the surviving Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
was destroyed in a nuclear cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...
attack on the Truk naval base. In late 1944, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
was destroyed by a nuclear cruise missile—killing over 150,000 people including the Imperial Family. A fanatical military government takes over Japan. The Draka overrun Europe as far as the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
, with the decisive blow made with five atomic bombs against the industrial areas of the Ruhr
Ruhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...
. Adolf Hitler himself, it is revealed in later flashbacks, was assassinated by a cadre of generals in 1942. Without his meddling, the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
puts up much more stubborn and effective resistance than it did historically against the Soviet Union, but the memory of Hitler means that the rest of Europe is loath to unite behind the Germans to halt the Draka. Numerous Draka characters credit Hitler's memory as a key factor in ensuring Draka victory in Europe.
In 1945, the Draka completed its conquest of Europe by using its remaining stockpile of 12 atomic bombs to force the Pyrenees—finally defeating a communist Spain (following a different outcome to reality's Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
). The United Kingdom remained free and was inundated with refugees. The Draka then turned its attention to the Far East, attacking Japanese-occupied China. Despite the rapid Draka conquest of Eastern China and Korea, the loss of the remaining Japanese naval units in the Battle of the Philippines, the nuclear destruction of Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, and the Alliance invasion of Kyushu
Operation Downfall
Operation Downfall was the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan. The operation had two parts: Operation...
, Japan continues a bitter resistance, only surrendering to the Alliance in July in fear of a Draka invasion of the Home Islands
Japanese Archipelago
The , which forms the country of Japan, extends roughly from northeast to southwest along the northeastern coast of the Eurasia mainland, washing upon the northwestern shores of the Pacific Ocean...
.
The Eurasian War claimed some 200 million lives, over three times the death toll of our own World War II. The liberated South-East Asian Federation and Indochinese Republic become members of the Alliance for Democracy, as does a reconstructed Japan in 1954. The United Kingdom - minus the Channel Islands
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
- is the only remaining free nation left in Europe, and is heavily defended and fortified against potential Draka attack. The Domination and the Alliance thus control the entire world between them.
Europe under Draka rule
The second book, Under the Yoke, shows Europe under Draka rule. The Draka ruthlessly crush all resistance in Europe. European institutions are remorselessly removed, obliterated, and forbidden, although religions, albeit heavily modified by the Draka overlords, are tolerated as means of further controlling the enserfed population. Schools, universities and all seats of learning are similarly eradicated. Any serfs caught in possession of radios or literature are summarily executed. Languages are encouraged to die out, except for a few remaining mutually unintelligible local dialects, and are replaced amongst serfs by the slurred Drakan version of English. Finland is almost completely depopulated and, in 1952, when a rebellion takes over the city of BarcelonaBarcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, the Draka respond with a thermonuclear bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
. Under the Yoke contains a deliberately horrific description of the impalement of several French Maquis guerrilla soldiers, disgusting even the Draka who ordered it, who nevertheless considers it a necessary means of impressing upon the slaves that resistance is futile. Thus, they will obey more willingly, making it possible for the Draka to be less harsh, giving rise to even further willingness to obey. The Draka have been slavemasters for two hundred years, and have applied modern science to the problem of breaking human wills; they are extremely good at it. Indeed, this feeds further into their ideology of the Draka as a master race, with individuals capable of enforcing their will over many serfs with no other tool than raw willpower.
In this book, mention is made, from both the conquered peoples and the Draka themselves, of the Western Allies refusal to join forces with Nazi Germany, even though Adolf Hitler was dead by late 1942 (officially by heart attack, but in reality assassinated by German Military Intelligence), to fight the Draka once the full horror of the Drakan onslaught's threat to European civilisation is apparent. Widespread disgust and revulsion at Germany's genocidal policies towards political, ideological and racial enemies, and utter hatred by former occupied countries are cited as the cause of this reluctance even though the Draka treatment to defeated enemies is, by that stage, universally known. Both Nazi Germany and the Allies foolishly thought they could defeat the Draka without uniting.
The protracted struggle
The third book, The Stone DogsThe Stone Dogs
The Stone Dogs by S. M. Stirling is the third book in the alternate history series, The Domination. The Stone Dogs details the life of Eric von Shrakenberg's niece, Yolande Ingolfsson, and Chantal Lefarge's children, Frederick and Marya...
, tells the story of the Protracted Struggle—the Cold War
Cold war (general term)
A cold war or cold warfare is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates...
between the Domination of the Draka and the Alliance for Democracy. There is a far more intense space race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
in this world, with nuclear pulse-drive interplanetary spaceships and colonies and military bases established on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
and in the asteroid belt
Asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...
. Over a period of several decades, the Alliance secretly constructs an antimatter-driven starship for transporting 100,000 people to Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...
in the event of a Draka victory. The Draka employ the policy of "No peace beyond Luna," leading to frequent skirmishes in the inner solar system.
The conquest of India
In the 1970s, there is a major setback for the Free WorldFree World
The Free World is a Cold War-era term often used to describe states not under the rule of the Soviet Union, its Eastern European allies, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and other communist nations. The term often referred to states such as the United States, Canada, and Western European states such as the...
. An OSS covert operation, designed to discredit a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
nationalist party and keep India in the Alliance, backfires as a suicide note is found implicating the OSS in the scandal. As a result India secedes from the Alliance—and is conquered and enslaved by the Draka within weeks (except Burma, which counter-seceded back to the Alliance). After the 'Indian Incident' the Alliance for Democracy is formally converted into a single superstate.
Technology
The much larger free population of the Alliance gives it an edge in physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
technology, while the Domination gains the upper hand in the biological
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
sciences allowing them to perfect their genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
techniques by using their slave population as test subjects. They finish the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
and are performing significant genetic alteration on mammalian organisms, including humans, by the mid-1970s. Both sides develop super-weapons with which to launch the first strike of the inevitable final war. However, both sides recognize that the long-term trends are in the Alliance's favor. Due to its much-larger economy and free population the Alliance's lead in overall scientific progress slowly grows, with the stagnant Draka increasingly dependent on espionage and Alliance defectors for new innovations.
It is not unknown, although extremely rare, for people from the Domination to defect to the Alliance. Citizens primarily seek asylum due to personal convictions, while serfs simply want escape their bondage. Any citizen or serf caught attempting to defect would be summarily executed, though the serf would no doubt meet a more hideous death - probably by impalement or breaking on the wheel. These defectors prove valuable to the OSS because of the unique opportunity it offers regarding gathering vital information on Drakan society, the Drakan dialect, which is notoriously difficult to acquire and master, and the Drakan fighting style which is unmatched anywhere in the Alliance.
Draka victorious
The war finally breaks out in 1998 when the Draka, about to lose the secrecy of their superweapon, decide to use it preemptively instead. Draka advantages in bioscience allowed it to create a bio-psychological virus, "The Stone Dogs". This virus lies dormant but causes the host to go violently insane when activated by precisely modulated very long wavelength radioRadio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
waves. The Alliance counterpart, a computer virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
designed to trigger self-destruct mechanisms in Draka military units that go to war footing, works well but is not as effective at disabling the enemy command and control or crippling their space forces.
Due to the Stone Dogs virus, Draka forces ultimately succeed—if barely—in wiping out all significant Alliance populations and military forces in the Earth-Luna sphere. In the process, they lose 15 percent of the Citizen population and 22 percent of the serf population--300 million total. The Alliance, though suffering 400 million casualties and losing its Ceres command center, wins in trans-Lunar space, including the Belt. A truce is declared, allowing the Alliance remnants in the Belt to launch the starship, while giving other Alliance remnants in space limited Draka citizenship (the new Draka will not be able to vote, though their children will be). The war itself proves to be devastating to Earth. Though the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
belongs to the Draka, the planet's ecosystems were pushed nearly to the breaking point. The war causes a nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
lasting for several years, a climactic disturbance so severe that ice forms in the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
, despite most nukes being 'clean' fusion weapons and Archon Eric von Shrakenberg, in an effort to limit damage to the planet, ordering no more nuclear weapons used within the atmosphere after a certain point in the conflict.
The struggle continues
DrakonDrakon (novel)
Drakon is a follow-up to S. M. Stirling's alternate history series, The Domination.-Plot introduction:Set centuries since the last war between the Domination and the Alliance, the Domination has conquered the Earth and the solar system, while the Alliance survivors have fled to the Alpha-Centauri...
takes place in an alternate universe version of our 1995-2000. It begins in the year 2442 (aka 442 FS, or the 442nd Year of the Final Society) of the Draka history. The Domination is pitted against the post-American world of Samothrace
Samothrace
Samothrace is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a self-governing municipality within the Evros peripheral unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,723 . Its main industries are fishing and tourism. Resources on the island includes granite and...
in the Alpha Centauri system, which is a colony of Alliance refugees from the Final War. A failed experiment intended to research wormholes (called "moleholes") for FTL travel causes a single Drakensis (the genetically-engineered posthuman
Posthuman
Posthuman may refer to:*Posthuman, a hypothetical future being whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer human by our current standards...
species of Draka), Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, to be sent to the 1995 of an alternate universe very similar to our own. The only notable difference is that Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
played Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is one of several primary characters in the Star Wars series. Along with Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3PO, he is one of the few major characters to appear in all six Star Wars films...
in the Star Wars prequel
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...
, (though his casting occurs after Ingolfsson's incursion in 1995, indicating that the introduction of "holo-projectors" by IngolfTech might have attracted a higher-quality lead in the 1999 film of our universe). The Samothracians send one of their own agents, cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
soldier Kenneth Lafarge, to stop her. Lefarge arrives in the alternate 1998, due to the crude nature of the time travel technology. Both Lefarge and Ingolfsson create organizations of native humans to aid their fight against each other, Lefarge's team being led by NYPD Detective Henry Caramaggio.
Both Lefarge and Ingolfsson are killed in an epic battle in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
when the Drakensis attempts to activate a beacon to allow the Draka scientists of 445 FS (several years having elapsed) to lock a transit wormhole to the alternate 1996. In the time between 2442 and 2445 in the Domination's home timeline, the Samothracians attack the Domination's Earth via a series of wormholes laid between Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...
and Sol
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. These attacks apparently were not successful. Thanks to perfectly faked documents provided by Lefarge, Ingolfsson's estates, laboratories and archives of advanced technologies fall into Caramaggio's hands, who according to the frame story of The Domination becomes "the richest man in the world" within twenty years. Caramaggio releases Ingolfsson's technologies at a rapid rate, attempting to prepare his Earth for another Draka attack. Since, unknown to Caramaggio, Ingofsson transferred her knowledge into her infant daughter, the struggle will no doubt resume at some point.
Near-extinction of "Homo sapiens" on Earth
At some intervening period, before the next book in the series, the Draka produce a genetically altered new serf race, Homo servus, which is incapable of rebelling. This is accomplished by making servus vulnerable to dominance and sexual arousal pheromones, as well as changing their genetic temperaments toward the emotional and nonaggressive. Thus they can dispense with the brutal repression needed earlier, and entrust serfs with sensitive positions such as theoretical physics. Because of additional chromosomes added to the drakenis genome, drakensis and servus cannot interbreed, precluding any "half breed" versions of the drakensis "Master Race."A 'paravirus' is mentioned as the method of converting Homo sapiens serfs to Homo servus, the sex cells being transformed with the result that infected human parents give birth to servus children. However, it is not clear that this advanced method was the one used for the initial changes to human serfs in the early 21st century.
Of Homo sapiens, only a few scattered "feral humans" survive precariously on Earth, mainly in North America, having been quite literally bombed back into the Stone Age, nearly wiped out with "biobombs," and being hunted "for sport" by the Draka. The Pygmies of Central Africa
Central Africa
Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
are also allowed to survive on special lands reserved for their use.
Criticism
The series has been criticized on various places on the internet for giving the Draka an impossibly fast-spreading and technologically advancing society, as well as for assuming that the British would have tolerated the Draka's harsh slavery tactics. When asked about these attacks on the implausibility of the series in an interview, Stirling answered:
There’s a small internet industry of ‘proving’ that the Domination couldn’t happen. I consider this a complement (sicSicSic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...
). How many people go on at great length trying to prove that vampires and werewolves don’t exist?
Stirling's use of the Draka as point-of-view characters has led to accusations that he has some sympathy with them (for example, in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is an English language reference work on science fiction.- Publication history :The first edition, edited by Peter Nicholls with John Clute and Brian Stableford appeared in 1979, published by Granada. It was retitled The Science Fiction Encyclopedia in the US...
), to his dismay. He describes the Draka series as dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
s based on "suppos[ing that] everything had turned out as badly as possible, these last few centuries." The title page of his non-Draka novel Conquistador
Conquistador (book)
Conquistador is a 2003 alternate history novel by S. M. Stirling. Its point of divergence occurs when Pochahantas and John Rolfe have more children, creating a line of Rolfes who are related to all of the major families of Virginia...
has the quotation "There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is 'idiot'."