Worldwar: Striking the Balance
Encyclopedia
Worldwar: Striking the Balance is an alternate history and science fiction novel by Harry Turtledove
. It is the fourth and final novel of the Worldwar
tetraology, as well as the fourth installment in the extended Worldwar series that includes the Colonization trilogy
and the novel Homeward Bound.
considers total annihilation or continuing hostilities, the humans make a stand for the sovereignty of the planet.
The United States attempts to reverse engineer captured Race technology in an effort to create ballistic missiles at a military base in Couch, Missouri
. Sergeant Yeager attempts to help Robert Goddard and other scientists with this research by interrogating captured aliens. By this point Yeager has become an expert translator of the Race's language, making him an invaluable asset to Goddard. In the process of his work, Yeager has developed a friendship with two of the alien prisoners, Ristin and Ulhass. Both members of the Race show an alarming adaptability to American customs, learning to play baseball and adopting human slang, along with a surprising willingness to help their human captors.
The Race has apparently lost interest in Chicago and seeks instead to capture Denver. Captain Rance Auerbach is among the U.S. Army soldiers who are ordered to try and halt the new offensive. However, the Race's superior firepower and mobility manage to crush American resistance with relative ease. During the fighting, Rance is critically wounded and incapacitated. He awakens in a refugee hospital to find that the Race is advancing rapidly on Denver. General Omar Bradley
prepares defenses around Denver which, as the site of America's nuclear weapons program, must be defended at all cost. Fortunately, Brigadier General Groves and the metallurgical laboratory manage to produce an atomic bomb which they use to halt the Race. Fleetlord Atvar considers a nuclear strike against Denver in retaliation, but decides against it since the nuclear fallout would harm the Race's forces. Instead uses a nuclear weapon as a tactical weapon, detonating one over the front lines in Florida, and results in the collapse of the entire American position in Florida. Americans are offset over the recent death of President Roosevelt.
The U.S. Army, under the command of General George Patton, launches a counter-offensive down the Mississippi River, slowly liberating it from the Race. They manage to reach Quincy, Illinois
but begin taking higher and higher casualties as they progress. The first American ballistic missiles are also launched against the Race, though they are so crude and unsophisticated that they do little damage against the invaders. Many of these missiles are easily destroyed by the Race's anti-missile systems. But stocks of anti missiles missiles are low as the race already expended many to shoot down German missiles. The speed with which the Americans and Germans have developed such weapons stuns and frightens the Race.
In Poland, the Wehrmacht
continues its advance eastward toward Lodz. However, as they get deeper and deeper into Polish territory, they encounter Jewish partisans whose sympathies lean toward the Race. Mordechai Anielewicz and his fellow Jews do not trust the Nazis and do not wish to see them in control of Poland. They don't wish to see the Race rule the world, either. This situation is exacerbated by the realization that Soviet forces in Ukraine are slowly making their way toward Poland as well. No one is sure what will happen if and when the Wehrmacht and the Red Army meet on the battlefield.
Colonel Heinrich Jäger, a tank commander who has had experience with the partisans, manages to convince Anielewicz that the German forces will not repeat their previous persecution of the Jews. For a time, the Wehrmacht and the partisans manage to work together against the Race.
In the wake of recent setbacks, especially the Soviet nuclear attack on the Race's forces in Saratov
, Fleetlord Atvar agrees to meet with human diplomats from the USSR, Britain, Germany, and the United States for the purpose of negotiating an armistice. Vyacheslav Molotov
, Joachim von Ribbentrop
, Anthony Eden
, and George Marshall
head to Cairo, the Race's capital, in order to negotiate with Atvar. However, the chances for peace are severely endangered when Hitler secretly plans to resume hostilities by launching a surprise attack against the Race in Poland.
Jäger is relieved that the fighting has stopped and hopes that it will achieve a lasting peace. However, Hitler sends SS agents into Poland under Otto Skorzeny
and they immediately begin to cause friction between the local Poles, the Jewish partisans, and the Wehrmacht. To Jäger, Skorzeny privately makes comments alluding to the fact that Hitler has not by any means abandoned his plans for the Final Solution
.
Jäger grows steadily distrustful of Skorzeny and seeks to prevent the SS and Nazis from turning against the Jewish partisans. He establishes a line of communication to the partisans through a Polish farmer named Sascha. When Jäger learns that Hitler is planning to use the negotiations in Cairo as a distraction to detonate an atomic bomb in Lodz, he is shocked and disgusted. Jäger gets word to Mordechai about the bomb through Sascha. Mordechai and his fellow partisans manage to find and disable the weapon. The Wehrmacht moves into position for the offensive. When Skorzeny activates the weapon's detonator, nothing happens. Furious, Skorzeny heads into Lodz to discern the problem.
In Cairo, a distraught Joachim von Ribbentrop announces his government's decision to continue the war to the confused delegates. Ribbentrop is relieved when Atvar tells him that no reports of an attack in Poland have been made.
When Jäger finds Sascha tortured to death with SS runes burned onto his chest and his wife and daughter brutally raped and murdered, he realizes that his cover is blown. Soon after returning to camp, he is detained by SS men and interrogated.
Somewhere in Poland, Ludmila Gorbunova crash lands while trying to deliver supplies to partisans. She gets little or no help from the locals who are largely unable and unwilling to aid a Soviet pilot. A Jewish partisan named Ignacy does eventually manage to help her locate a working Fieseler Storch
. She takes off with the intent of returning to the Soviet Union after her extended stay in Estonia.
By a shocking coincidence, Ludmila arrives at an airfield in the same location where Jäger is being held captive. Jäger's tank crewmen recognize Ludmila as the woman with whom he is involved. Fearing what will happen to their commander if he is interrogated by the SS, the tank crewmen inform Ludmila about his fate and ask for her help. She readily offers her assistance. The Wehrmacht soldiers kill the SS men guarding Jäger and then lead him to Ludmilla's plane. The two take off before anyone realizes Jäger has escaped.
Jäger explains Hitler's plan to Ludmila and they make their way to Lodz. There they make contact with Mordechai and tell him about Skorzeny. All three head to the condemned building where the bomb is being guarded by partisans. They find the Jewish guard dead. Upon entering the building, Skorzeny attacks them with nerve gas and a submachine-gun. Jäger is carrying a medical kit with an antidote to the toxin and manages to inject himself, Ludmila, and Mordechai with it. They manage to kill Skorzeny and avert the detonation of the bomb.
In Cairo, the Race reaches an accord with the human powers. The Race will completely withdraw from the territories under the control of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Third Reich in 1942, with the exception of Poland, which the Race intends to hold as a buffer state between the Reich and the USSR. Atvar is willing to suspend hostilities with Germany, Russia, America, Britain, and Japan. Atvar has no intention of returning any part of the British Empire to the United Kingdom, except Canada which the Race considers uninhabitable due to its climate. And Australia fully conquered with the atomic bombing of Sydney
, and Melbourne
. With that, the war ends. Nevertheless, fighting continues in those territories the Race still controls, especially China where a determined Communist insurgency under Mao Zedong
seeks liberation. And the Red Army continues to mop up remnant German units from the German invasion.
It is clear that the peace is only temporary. The Race has not recognized the right of the human powers to their own independence and still officially intends to conquer the entire world at a later date. Nazi Germany is apparently still eager to use force in order to drive the race off earth completely, though perhaps not in the immediate future. In the Soviet Union, Stalin assures Molotov that war with the Race and the other human powers is inevitable, especially since a second wave of alien colonists is expected to reach earth by the 1960s. In the United States, an America in ruins begins the long process of reconstruction.
for fictional and historical characters.
Harry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.- Life :...
. It is the fourth and final novel of the Worldwar
Worldwar
Worldwar is a series of novels by Harry Turtledove whose premise is an alien invasion of Earth in the middle of World War II. The military invasion begins on or around May 30, 1942, but the aliens, who call themselves the Race, reached Earth orbit in December 1941...
tetraology, as well as the fourth installment in the extended Worldwar series that includes the Colonization trilogy
Colonization (series)
Colonization is a trilogy of books written by Harry Turtledove. It is a continuation of the situation set up in the Worldwar four-book series, projecting the situation between humanity and the Race nearly twenty years forward into the mid-1960s.The Race has settled and plans to colonize nearly...
and the novel Homeward Bound.
Plot introduction
While the RaceThe Race (Worldwar)
The Race refers to the fictional alien invaders of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar tetralogy, Colonization trilogy and Homeward Bound...
considers total annihilation or continuing hostilities, the humans make a stand for the sovereignty of the planet.
Plot summary
At the beginning of 1944, the Battle of Chicago has ended with the Race's forces decimated as a result of an American atomic bomb detonated in the heart of the city. German forces in Western Europe have successfully kept the Race from reaching the Rhine while managing to hurl back the Race's troops in Poland after a nuclear attack on Breslau. The Soviets have managed to stop the Race's assault on Moscow and accept the surrender of a band of disillusioned alien soldiers. After a landing in Britain, Churchill inflicted a massive victory against the race, using mustard gas, gaining much abandoned technology, and inspiring the other nations to use poison gas.The United States attempts to reverse engineer captured Race technology in an effort to create ballistic missiles at a military base in Couch, Missouri
Couch, Missouri
Couch is a small, unincorporated community in Oregon County, Missouri. It is located six miles south of Alton on Missouri Supplemental Route A....
. Sergeant Yeager attempts to help Robert Goddard and other scientists with this research by interrogating captured aliens. By this point Yeager has become an expert translator of the Race's language, making him an invaluable asset to Goddard. In the process of his work, Yeager has developed a friendship with two of the alien prisoners, Ristin and Ulhass. Both members of the Race show an alarming adaptability to American customs, learning to play baseball and adopting human slang, along with a surprising willingness to help their human captors.
The Race has apparently lost interest in Chicago and seeks instead to capture Denver. Captain Rance Auerbach is among the U.S. Army soldiers who are ordered to try and halt the new offensive. However, the Race's superior firepower and mobility manage to crush American resistance with relative ease. During the fighting, Rance is critically wounded and incapacitated. He awakens in a refugee hospital to find that the Race is advancing rapidly on Denver. General Omar Bradley
Omar Bradley
Omar Nelson Bradley was a senior U.S. Army field commander in North Africa and Europe during World War II, and a General of the Army in the United States Army...
prepares defenses around Denver which, as the site of America's nuclear weapons program, must be defended at all cost. Fortunately, Brigadier General Groves and the metallurgical laboratory manage to produce an atomic bomb which they use to halt the Race. Fleetlord Atvar considers a nuclear strike against Denver in retaliation, but decides against it since the nuclear fallout would harm the Race's forces. Instead uses a nuclear weapon as a tactical weapon, detonating one over the front lines in Florida, and results in the collapse of the entire American position in Florida. Americans are offset over the recent death of President Roosevelt.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
The U.S. Army, under the command of General George Patton, launches a counter-offensive down the Mississippi River, slowly liberating it from the Race. They manage to reach Quincy, Illinois
Quincy, Illinois
Quincy, known as Illinois' "Gem City," is a river city along the Mississippi River and the county seat of Adams County. As of the 2010 census the city held a population of 40,633. The city anchors its own micropolitan area and is the economic and regional hub of West-central Illinois, catering a...
but begin taking higher and higher casualties as they progress. The first American ballistic missiles are also launched against the Race, though they are so crude and unsophisticated that they do little damage against the invaders. Many of these missiles are easily destroyed by the Race's anti-missile systems. But stocks of anti missiles missiles are low as the race already expended many to shoot down German missiles. The speed with which the Americans and Germans have developed such weapons stuns and frightens the Race.
In Poland, the 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:...
continues its advance eastward toward Lodz. However, as they get deeper and deeper into Polish territory, they encounter Jewish partisans whose sympathies lean toward the Race. Mordechai Anielewicz and his fellow Jews do not trust the Nazis and do not wish to see them in control of Poland. They don't wish to see the Race rule the world, either. This situation is exacerbated by the realization that Soviet forces in Ukraine are slowly making their way toward Poland as well. No one is sure what will happen if and when the Wehrmacht and the Red Army meet on the battlefield.
Colonel Heinrich Jäger, a tank commander who has had experience with the partisans, manages to convince Anielewicz that the German forces will not repeat their previous persecution of the Jews. For a time, the Wehrmacht and the partisans manage to work together against the Race.
In the wake of recent setbacks, especially the Soviet nuclear attack on the Race's forces in Saratov
Saratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...
, Fleetlord Atvar agrees to meet with human diplomats from the USSR, Britain, Germany, and the United States for the purpose of negotiating an armistice. Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
, Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
, and George Marshall
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
head to Cairo, the Race's capital, in order to negotiate with Atvar. However, the chances for peace are severely endangered when Hitler secretly plans to resume hostilities by launching a surprise attack against the Race in Poland.
Jäger is relieved that the fighting has stopped and hopes that it will achieve a lasting peace. However, Hitler sends SS agents into Poland under Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny was an SS-Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity...
and they immediately begin to cause friction between the local Poles, the Jewish partisans, and the Wehrmacht. To Jäger, Skorzeny privately makes comments alluding to the fact that Hitler has not by any means abandoned his plans for the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
.
Jäger grows steadily distrustful of Skorzeny and seeks to prevent the SS and Nazis from turning against the Jewish partisans. He establishes a line of communication to the partisans through a Polish farmer named Sascha. When Jäger learns that Hitler is planning to use the negotiations in Cairo as a distraction to detonate an atomic bomb in Lodz, he is shocked and disgusted. Jäger gets word to Mordechai about the bomb through Sascha. Mordechai and his fellow partisans manage to find and disable the weapon. The Wehrmacht moves into position for the offensive. When Skorzeny activates the weapon's detonator, nothing happens. Furious, Skorzeny heads into Lodz to discern the problem.
In Cairo, a distraught Joachim von Ribbentrop announces his government's decision to continue the war to the confused delegates. Ribbentrop is relieved when Atvar tells him that no reports of an attack in Poland have been made.
When Jäger finds Sascha tortured to death with SS runes burned onto his chest and his wife and daughter brutally raped and murdered, he realizes that his cover is blown. Soon after returning to camp, he is detained by SS men and interrogated.
Somewhere in Poland, Ludmila Gorbunova crash lands while trying to deliver supplies to partisans. She gets little or no help from the locals who are largely unable and unwilling to aid a Soviet pilot. A Jewish partisan named Ignacy does eventually manage to help her locate a working Fieseler Storch
Fieseler Fi 156
The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch was a small German liaison aircraft built by Fieseler before and during World War II, and production continued in other countries into the 1950s for the private market...
. She takes off with the intent of returning to the Soviet Union after her extended stay in Estonia.
By a shocking coincidence, Ludmila arrives at an airfield in the same location where Jäger is being held captive. Jäger's tank crewmen recognize Ludmila as the woman with whom he is involved. Fearing what will happen to their commander if he is interrogated by the SS, the tank crewmen inform Ludmila about his fate and ask for her help. She readily offers her assistance. The Wehrmacht soldiers kill the SS men guarding Jäger and then lead him to Ludmilla's plane. The two take off before anyone realizes Jäger has escaped.
Jäger explains Hitler's plan to Ludmila and they make their way to Lodz. There they make contact with Mordechai and tell him about Skorzeny. All three head to the condemned building where the bomb is being guarded by partisans. They find the Jewish guard dead. Upon entering the building, Skorzeny attacks them with nerve gas and a submachine-gun. Jäger is carrying a medical kit with an antidote to the toxin and manages to inject himself, Ludmila, and Mordechai with it. They manage to kill Skorzeny and avert the detonation of the bomb.
In Cairo, the Race reaches an accord with the human powers. The Race will completely withdraw from the territories under the control of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Third Reich in 1942, with the exception of Poland, which the Race intends to hold as a buffer state between the Reich and the USSR. Atvar is willing to suspend hostilities with Germany, Russia, America, Britain, and Japan. Atvar has no intention of returning any part of the British Empire to the United Kingdom, except Canada which the Race considers uninhabitable due to its climate. And Australia fully conquered with the atomic bombing of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. With that, the war ends. Nevertheless, fighting continues in those territories the Race still controls, especially China where a determined Communist insurgency under Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
seeks liberation. And the Red Army continues to mop up remnant German units from the German invasion.
It is clear that the peace is only temporary. The Race has not recognized the right of the human powers to their own independence and still officially intends to conquer the entire world at a later date. Nazi Germany is apparently still eager to use force in order to drive the race off earth completely, though perhaps not in the immediate future. In the Soviet Union, Stalin assures Molotov that war with the Race and the other human powers is inevitable, especially since a second wave of alien colonists is expected to reach earth by the 1960s. In the United States, an America in ruins begins the long process of reconstruction.
Characters in "Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance"
See list of Worldwar charactersWorldwar
Worldwar is a series of novels by Harry Turtledove whose premise is an alien invasion of Earth in the middle of World War II. The military invasion begins on or around May 30, 1942, but the aliens, who call themselves the Race, reached Earth orbit in December 1941...
for fictional and historical characters.
Release details
- 1996, USA, Del Rey ISBN 0-345-40550-1, Pub date November 5, 1996, Hardback
- 1997, USA, Del Rey ISBN 0-345-41230-3, Pub date July 30, 1997, Paperback